Are these keepers for our virtual business management tool boxes?

Lino - Wondering where to quickly store and retrieve your sticky notes whether you are in your office or at home? Or, in another town, state or country? A few weeks ago I found Lino, which I use for tracking general project tasks and all of those sticky notes that creep into your daily life. Easy of use is one reason I find myself using it more and more. Basically, Lino is a free sticky and canvas service that requires nothing but a web browser. Take a note right away wherever you are. Then, access your sticky notes stored on lino from your home, office, or while traveling.

The canvas is great for quickly keeping track of projects, reminders and deadlines. The interface allows you to set due dates for your stickies; you’ll even receive an email reminder if desired. In addition, you can create groups and share your ideas with business colleagues, friends and family. Additional features are offered including a premium version for heavy users. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Dropbox – Online file sharing is practically required in today’s business world. And, if you are still attaching files to emails you are definitely making your life more complicated then it needs to be. Dropbox is in some ways similar to Google Docs, but I’ve found one key advantage that Dropbox offers. You can store the files locally on your computer and sync them with the online version and across computers. As a result, Dropbox operates like a backup service as well as a file sharing service. Best of all, a 2 GB account is free!

Freshbooks – Another great tool and one you’ll find easy to use for project time tracking and invoicing. It is very easy to use – smooth interface and it helps with project estimates as well.

Any additional suggestions for new tools for small business owners? Drop us a comment – thanks.

Greg Magnus
AIM Custom Media

Follow me on Twitter – @gregmagnus.

“He has the strong support of the business community as well as the school’s faculty and staff.”
Michael Rao, president of VCU, added, “Ed Grier’s leadership and ability in resource development and strategy will advance the VCU School of Business to be one of the best in the nation."

Grier began his professional career with Ernst and Young as a member of the audit staff in Pittsburgh, Pa. He joined Disney in 1981 and rose through the company’s ranks gaining broad cross-functional experience in the finance, marketing and operations divisions. He served in several executive leadership positions with responsibility for multiple lines of business both in the United States and abroad. Highlights include managing marketing development at Disneyland Paris, serving as general manager for operations at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando, Fla., and time in Tokyo as vice president, representative director of Walt Disney Attractions Japan. He was named president of Disneyland Resort in 2006.

Grier is a frequent lecturer on business leadership and has served on the California Travel and Tourism Commission and the California Economic Recovery Task Force. He also served on the boards of the Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California, and Health Central Hospital in Florida. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Duquesne University.

“Ed’s rich professional background fits perfectly with the mission of the VCU School of Business to produce students that are ‘business-ready,’” said Steven A. Markel, vice chairman of the Markel Corporation and chair of the VCU School of Business Foundation. “The entire board of the School of Business Foundation is excited to work with Ed to ensure that the school continues to offer an education that enables students to thrive after graduation." (Full Press Release at VCU School of Business website here)

Think your small business is ready for an e-commerce Web site?

Don’t make the following mistakes, advised SCORE, a national small-business counseling organization, and Web site-designer Greg Magnus, a local counselor for SCORE in Richmond:

Making a hasty decision. Don’t say yes to the first vendor who offers to build or host your site. Contact about five vendors. Ask for referrals through business people you know — or ask SCORE for a recommendation.

Research the basics of starting an e-commerce site. “Try to find examples of sites that you like,” said Magnus, owner of Aim Custom Media (http://www.aimcustom.com), which sets up shopping-cart Web sites. They should be a similar business to the one you’d like to have, he said.

Be ready to tell what you like about the sites — color scheme, design, functionality — and what you’d like to accomplish on your site.

Neglecting customer service. You want to deliver personal service to your customers. Answer their e-mails promptly and address them by name.

Send an e-mail saying their order was received or shipped. Encourage them to contact you if your product doesn’t live up to their expectations. List your company’s physical address and phone number on the site. Read the full story at RTD here.

You can contact Iris Taylor at (804) 649-6349 or at itaylor@timesdispatch.com (RTD email address).

To begin with, website marketing requires a lot more than a website. What’s essential?

1. Website Marketing Plan
   • Development of a small business website marketing plan requires: industry knowledge (current trends, marketing research), strategic planning, financial management (budget), team management (human resources) and a clear understanding of what it will take to implement your plan (basic, if not advanced, technical skills).
2. Things to consider:
   • MARKETING EVENTS CALENDAR (2010): Prepare a schedule of major industry events such as trade shows (local/national), PR events, seminars, speaking engagements, etc. Determine in order of priority the most important half dozen or so for your business (certain businesses will have a few dozen).
   • LEAD CAPTURE: What online resources do you plan to use to capture leads before and after each event? Do you intend to create specific website content for each event? You said yes, right?
   • MARKETING CAMPAIGNS: Have you planned out the resources required to implement your marketing campaigns for each event? Consider what it really takes to implement email marketing, social networking, press releases and similar tactics such as blogging and article marketing. Website marketing requires IT support, graphic designers, and copy writers for each event as well as post event follow-up marketing.
   • SEGMENTATION – TARGET MARKETING: Have you created a contact and prospect list for each event identified? Known as list segmentation and target marketing, it is key to successful website marketing. List development and management is often neglected by small business owners new to online marketing.
   • LIST MANAGEMENT: Review your customer list as well as your social network connections and determine if the majority are within your target market. If not, grow your list as well as your network by specifically targeting key players that have the ability to drive new business and referrals. Also, determine how you’ll manage your list? Your email client, such as MS Outlook, is probably the wrong answer.
   • CONTENT MANAGEMENT: Over stated but not something you want to forget, “Content is King.” Regular website updates are mandatory for marketing online. And, it almost always requires technical resources that often overwhelm the average small business marketing department.
   • TECHNICAL SUPPORT (IT): Understand the need for IT support and graphic designers as well as the usual marketing copy writers. Also, understand your sales people are not website managers. Asking them to do so is a misuse of their talents so make sure you have the right people doing the right job when it comes to website marketing.
   • SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO): The most important thing to understand about SEO is “you must be persistent.” SEO is an ongoing process, not an event. There are numerous SEO strategies and the costs can range from a few hundred a month (limited expectations for growth) to tens of thousands (shopping cart sites with high ticket items that require lots of website traffic). Search engine optimization is often beyond the technical skills of most small business owners; get help when you need it. Sure, you can “do it yourself” but in most cases the skills require an expert to be truly successful. Think of website traffic like putting gas in your car – stop adding gas and you’ll sit on the side of the road where you’ll watch the traffic go by.
3. Financial Management:
   • BUDGET: Does $3,000 or $5,000 per month sound like a lot to you for website marketing? If so, think about it. That figure is equivalent to $36 – $60,000 per year, which probably isn’t enough to hire the appropriate staff with the skills needed to successfully grow your business online. And remember, everyone it seems is planning to grow their business online in 2010.
   • VENDORS – OUTSOURCE: To rise above the competition, you’ll need to get the appropriate help or spend a lot of your time each day as a “website marketer” instead of as a business owner. Do what you do best with your time. If it isn’t website marketing, then consider outsourcing.
   • Online marketing budgets vary greatly depending on the industry and business revenues. Contact us for assistance with the budgeting process if you don’t already have specific numbers in mind for your plan.

A few quick tips:

1. You can use most any magazine editorial calendar appropriate for your industry as a planning guide. I’ve owned and worked for a few publishing companies. The major publishers put a lot of time and energy into their editorial calendars – no need to recreate the wheel. For local events, check with the chamber of commerce and city magazines as well as last years blog posts; many publishers have maintained blogs for several years now and you can review their archives. Also, ask your mentors, vendors and business colleagues as well as your competitors websites.
2. Learn from others that are already successful. A business colleague and personal friend publishes the “Rich Niche Group” blog. A significant portion of his blog posts are interviews of successful entrepreneurs; learn from their experiences. Here’s an example and a link for you: “We originally had visions of building a little bit of a client base, selling to AOL, and retiring in the Caribbean. Well, we were a little late for that, so we had to opt for Plan B which was to buckle down and build the business.“ Dale Coyner, Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Communicast and Open Road Outfitters.
3. Email marketing software that is hosted online can be used to cost-effectively manage a small business contact list. Use a software program that allows you to add custom fields to the database. Also, you can easily add new prospects to your list just by opening up a website browser and accessing your list and/or your newsletter subscription form.

Are you preparing your 2010 Website Marketing Plan? Share your ideas in the comment section – thanks.

By Greg Magnus
AIM Custom Media
www.aimcustom.com

Workshop Topics

• How to Write an Effective Business Plan
• Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Business
• Website Basics and Strategies
• Choosing the Legal Structure That’s Right For You
• Purchasing the Proper Business Insurance
• Sources of Business Loans
• How to Negotiate a Commercial Lease
• Building Successful Marketing & Sales Plans

My 45 minute presentation covered “Website Basics and Strategies for Small Business  Owners.”

A PDF copy of the my presentation is here: Website Basics for Small Business Owners. Visit the Richmond SCORE website to learn more about the workshops or to sign up for the next monthly small business workshop, which will be held in January 2010.

RESTON, VA, December 2, 2009 – comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 30 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $12.26 billion has been spent online, marking a 3-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5 percent versus year ago, and matching the heaviest online spending day on record, December 9, 2008. Continue reading at comScore >

Have you noticed those focused on cutting corners often cut too deep and bleed as their competition races on by? To lead, you need leaders. 

In this vein, Ken Balog has a nice piece on the Rich Niche Group blog. Here’s the intro paragraph and a  link to the full version:

This week we are taking a break from the normal interview of an entrepreneur to answer a question we frequently get at The Rich Niche Group.  While there are several ways to answer this question, we have boiled it down to 5 skills which we have seen lead to a more effective leader and company.  The 5 skills are (Continue reading at Rich Niche Group).

This year, SCORE celebrates 45 years of volunteer service to help small businesses nationwide start, grow and succeed. SCORE reached a new milestone in 2009, helping 8.5 million clients since its inception in 1964. Nationally, SCORE offers free and confidential business mentoring and low-cost workshops to more than 350,000 people each year.

Join us in a VIRTUAL PARTY for SCORE’s 45th Anniversary and if you have not done so yet, honor this great organization by making a 45th Anniversary donation for the 45th ANNIVERSARY VIRTUAL PARTY going on through December 31, 2009. You can make your gift securely online at SCORE Foundation – Online Giving.

We will publish a list of all 45th Anniversary Donors (including those who have already made a gift – on the SCORE Foundation website at the end of the 45th Anniversary VIRTUAL PARTY year in January 2010.
SCORE provides a tremendous value to America’s economy. SCORE helps create more than 25,000 new jobs each year, based on an impact study of SBA Entrepreneurship Education resources. One in seven clients creates a new job. SCORE also helped create 19,732 new small businesses in 2007, according to an SBA report sent to Congress.

SCORE and SCORE Foundation CEO Ken Yancey says, "SCORE helps small business owners start up, stay in business and keep Americans employed. SCORE has a proven track record of both creating and saving jobs by improving small business survival rates and accelerating small business formation." Yancey adds, "SCORE celebrates volunteer service to the small business community. Our 45th anniversary focuses on the valuable contribution that volunteers make to local entrepreneurs with mentoring and advice that meets their business needs."

Thank you for your consideration and support!
Mark J. Dobosz
Executive Director
The SCORE Foundation

If you are interested in becoming a Richmond (VA) SCORE volunteer, visit this website here.

Google offers a wide variety of free tools that help small business owners manage documents, photos, blog subscribers and the list goes on:

1. Google Docs: Share documents on the web with your associates, clients and business partners. Instead of emailing attachments back and forth, creating multiple versions, share your documents online and everyone can edit the same document (one copy, no more hunting for the latest version).
   • Upload from and save documents to your desktop
   • Edit anytime, from anywhere
   • Pick who can access your documents
   • Share changes in real time
   • Files are stored securely online and best of all, it is free.
2. Feedburner: If you own a blog, you probably want to give your site visitors the opportunity to subscribe so they can automatically receive updates when published. Feedburner is an excellent tool for this purpose.
3. Picasa: Fast and easy photo sharing that allows you to organize and edit your digital photos and create online albums to share with business colleagues and clients, as well as your friends and family.
4. Blog Search: Keeping track of blog updates and news specific to your industry can be a real challenge. Using “blog search” helps you find news and info from just blogs.
5. GOOG-411: Google’s 411 service is free and easy to use. It allows you to find and connect with local businesses using the phone. Just dial: 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411).

What online business management tools do you use on a frequent basis?

Here are two articles I enjoyed reading this week published by Inc.com:

Great No-Cost Software: Free is a lovely word; unfortunately, it’s often followed by a disappointing product. We have found 10 great free apps that will help you run your business. Some are so good, you might even be willing to (shudder) spend money on them. – By Mark Spoonauer

Thirty Profiles of Resilience in Business: You just can’t keep an entrepreneur down, as these tales of leadership and overcoming obstacles illustrate. – By Kelly Faircloth

With respect to blogging and websites for small business owners:

15 Unconventional Uses of WordPress in Action: WordPress is known as one of the most powerful open-source blogging platform, but it can be a lot more then just a blogging platform. We already know about using WordPress as a content management system (CMS), but WordPress is much more flexible than that. – By the Editorial Staff at wpbeginner.com

The Entrepreneur’s Handbook – 59 Resources For First Time Entrepreneurs: As a first time entrepreneur you probably have tons of questions. And every time you do a Google search for an answer you are bombarded with too much information and in some cases that information contradicts other things you have heard. Due to this, I have created a list of 54 resources that should help you out.

I also gave a presentation to the Virginia Career Network. The group assists unemployed professionals network and find new career opportunities. For those interested, I posted the presentation here.

What did you find interesting this week? Let us know by leaving your comments – thanks!