Is your business a fan of creativity? A recent survey shows that majority of US workers suffer from lack of creative stimulation. This is a very fatal blow for many small businesses since creativity is the core of our existence.

In a study of 674 full- and part-time workers, 88 percent said they consider themselves creative, but only 63 percent said they are putting their creative abilities to use on the job, according to an Ipsos Public Affairs survey commissioned by the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority.

Moreover, 39 percent of respondents said they do not think of their company as a creative entity. Nevertheless, the survey found that 75 percent of workers believe their employers value their creativity.

To help you boost your creativity, I have gathered several resources for you to read:

Jpb.com offers numerous creativity tips such as 10 Steps for Boosting Creativity, 10 Creative Myths, and Creative Idea Implementation Plan.

Brain Reactions has gathered 31 tips for improving your creativity and I personally like the idea of spending time with kindergartens and trying new experiences to widen one’s perspectives.

Download this pdf file from Laughterremedy.com to learn how you can use humor to enhance your creativity.

Compass Life Designs guides you on how to unlock your creativity by exercising, brainstorming, and using affirmations.

Ettiengt at Flixya will help you boost your creativity using your 5 senses.

Despite the growing popularity of online advertising, some entrepreneurs still rely heavily on print ads given the nature of their business or target market. Whether you’re advertising on newspapers or magazines, here are some tips you should consider when doing your print ads in general:

1. Ask the publications for a media kit. This contains important info such as rates, sizes, readership, and profile of readers to validate if this is the right medium for you.
2. Use captivating headline. Similar with the Internet, magazines and newspapers are both cluttered with ads from different companies. Use the 10 surefire headlines formula that work as your reference.
3. Highlight you key benefits over competition and prove it. Cite some useful testimonials from your customers or statistics to back up your claims.
4. Motivate readers to take action. Give them a reason to act now such as discounts, bonus, freebies, or limited offers.
5. A pretty face can turn your readers away. GrokDotCom has a very interesting heatmap research about using pretty models in your ads. Although it used an online ad for the test, the lesson is still relevant for print ads.

In this game called business, information is power. The more we know, the better our chance of surviving this competitive venture. We should exert extra effort to know what our competitors are doing. At the same time, we should learn to protect our startup idea.

A good way to handle information is to go on stealth mode or under the radar. This is a popular strategy commonly used many internet developers because of some proprietary technology involved. Still, this is also effective across business sectors as proven in the recent price cut by Wal-Mart. Stealth mode is appropriate for the following situations:

1. If you want to surprise your competitors with a new product or service
2. When you’re first in the market for a particular product or service
3. When you need time to develop a new system or technology to make your product or service work
4. If you want to create a mystery or buzz around your product.

Keeping quiet is just the starting point of stealth mode. You should impose utmost secrecy all the time. Here are the common tactics used by many software developers:

1. Limit media access to employees, particularly those involved in your stealth project.
2. Ask employees, suppliers, customers, and even some VCs to sign a confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to hold them liable in case they share any information to the public or media.
3. Keep all information and materials in a very secure place with only a few people having authorized access.

Having trouble managing your startup capital? You might be spending more than your budget to carry on with your daily operations. If you’re in this situation, you should start using the age-old system called bartering.

In a nutshell, bartering is the exchange of goods or services without using any money. If you’re looking for a clever example of bartering system, just look at our special offer at the top of our site:

Free Logo Service for Popular Bloggers

For a limited time, established blogs will have a logo makeover opportunity worth $197 but we’re giving this away for FREE! What’s the catch? All we need is for you to add us in your blog roll. It’s that simple. Click here for more details.

In the end, it’s a win-win solution for both sides without incurring additional expenses. Interested bloggers will finally have their dream logos while we get free promotion for our excellent services. Here are some additional advantages of bartering:

1. Minimize Inventory. For companies selling seasonal products, they can barter their items during off seasons. This will help move excess or aging inventory quickly.
2. Conserve cash. Instead of spending your cash for new products or services, you can divert it to your daily operations or buy more important things like office furniture and fixture.
3. Get new customers. If the other party is delighted with your services, you can expect free word-of-mouth advertising that might lead to new customers or bigger projects.

Barter is just one of the ways to bootstrap your business.

Some of the best business ideas started from gut feel and luck. In this very competitive period, however, we should go one step further to validate if there’s really a profitable market for our ideas. It’s time to do your market research.

Some of you may be a bit apprehensive about market research because it is commonly perceived as an expensive method. Don’t worry for there are economical ways to collect info without sacrificing quality. Check out the tips below:

1. Use Phonebooks and Online Directories. If you want to know how many businesses are competing in your chosen field, you can easily check phonebooks in your library and surf online directories like YellowPages.com.
2. Get in touch with local associations. These groups offer a great deal of information such as market trends, size of the market, unmet needs, best practices, and industry events. Although some require membership fees, you should not hesitate to invest in this group. This will also be a big help in different stages of your business from finding reliable suppliers to grabbing bigger opportunities.
3. Partner with a business research center in your area. If you have extra money but strongly feel you’re not qualified enough to do the research yourself, there are many facilities, usually connected with libraries, offering comprehensive yet inexpensive research services. Go to your nearest library and borrow this book Internet-Plus Directory of Express Library Services: Research and Document Delivery for Hire to find the nearest center.

Welcome to the seventh edition of the Carnival of Small Business and Startups (CoSBaS #7). If your entry is not here, it may appear in the next edition, unless it is either not relevant to the Carnival theme, promotes your services, or promotes specific affiliate products.

If you did make it in to this edition, please support this carnival by giving a link back to this edition as soon as you can.

Editor’s Picks

Here are this edition’s Editor’s picks.

1. Khalid Hajsaleh: Yeah, I’m Gonna Need You to Come in on Saturday. This would be darn funny if it weren’t so scarily true. As a former telecom company employee, I have an intimate understanding of what Khalid so accurately highlights in this article. But maybe you’ll get a good, wistful laugh out of it. Having been an assistant project manager, on the other hand, and knowing what “needs to be done”, I can only wonder what goes through the heads of some managers. Warning: some foul language.
2. SavingWithMe: 6 Small Businesses I Should Have Started In College. If you’re still in college, consider a few of these small businesses before you graduate. But you might want to think twice before running your own pedicab/ rickshaw. They’re a safety hazard on the road, and not to mention a hazard to your health – unless you think inhaling carbon monoxide from hundreds of cars all day is healthy. (You’re not moving as fast as a regular bicycle.) I love Jerry Seinfeld, but he did one bad thing: popularizing rickshaws in N. America for the past 15 or so years.One additional option: If you can cook, expand #5 to include becoming a personal chef to your college mates. Tell them that instead of them spending loads on takeout, you’ll make them a nice meal each day for a few dollars, with leftovers. Get a few students to buy in, and you can make them all the same meal, make some money or at least eat free.

Weekly Picks

Here are this edition’s regular picks.

1. Gavin Ingham: Cold-Calling Tips for Getting Through to the Decision Maker.
2. Edith Yeung: The 5 Rules of Writing Effective Email.
3. Lorraine Cohen: How Are You Networking?
4. Todd Goldfarb: 8 Tactics for Marketing a Small Business.
5. Chris Tackett: 5 Steps To Turn More Leads Into Cash!
6. Erik: Write A Successful Business Plan On Your Own.
7. Michelle Cramer: Implementing a Wellness Program.
8. Chris Russell: Improve Employee Productivity – Put Your Policy and Procedure Manuals Online.

That’s it for this edition. If you have an article that you think fits in, please use the Blog Carnival submission form. A couple of notes to consider before entering:

1. If you submitted your article on or after Sep 22nd, it may appear in the next carnival.
2. Please do not resubmit the same article to the same carnival. Go check out the other three blog carnivals that I am managing, in case there’s a better fit for your article. I am pretty picky about categories.
3. One entry per person per week (Monday through Sunday), please.

To summarize, this carnival targets existing small businesses and startups, or entrepreneurs on the verge. What advice can you give them – business and technical – to help them towards success? There’s a wide spectrum of topics, including branding, identity, marketing, hiring, online efforts, success, productivity and more. This carnival is not about home-based businesses, specifically, although on occasion I’ll accept related articles if they are general in scope.

When pitching to potential investors, customers and employees, a number of entrepreneurs focus more on what they need to say and less on how to say it. But do you know that our tone can boost or bust our business?

Yes, a monotonous voice sometimes denotes lack of passion or even commitment. This will definitely not win you any funding or close any sale. Although not everyone is given the gift of gab, there are still some things you can do to improve your vocal approach:

Pitching is something you should learn even before you start your business or present to VCs. It will take some time and lot of effort before you can get a standing ovation.

Some entrepreneurs say that success is relative. Some small businesses are after market share while others focus more on profitability. Regardless of what your business objectives are, here are 3 helpful tips for succeeding in your endeavors.

Be Water My Friend

You should try to be flexible with your strategies and general direction of your business. If what you’re currently doing doesn’t seem to work, try another way. Learn how to react to new opportunities and adapt to future trends. In the words of the late martial artist, Bruce Lee:

Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it into a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

Love Thy Employees

Don’t be like one of those rotten leaders who treat employees as slaves. There are different ways to instill a sense of ownership to all your employees such as having an employee recognition program or sharing a stake in your company through Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). However, make sure you pay attention to your hiring policies to get those passionate and highly qualified employees.

Choose Your Customers Wisely

Don’t be a one-size-fits-all business to satisfy all people. Instead, take time to find your niche and learn more about your target customers. It’s all about your customers, so offer something they want and not what you want.

If you think project management is intended for engineers and architects only, think again. Although some entrepreneurs don’t have formal training in this area, many of us business owners are constantly juggling several projects, both in our personal lives and business ventures.

A project is defined as an undertaking that encompasses a set of tasks or activities having a definable starting point and well defined objectives. Whether you’re planning a vacation trip or launching a new product, you will need to manage a project. Keith Robinson provides a clear and comprehensive guide on project management.

The first step is planning a project. Here are some of the important questions you need to factor in your planning:

1. What’s the impact to the business? Assess if there is a value for doing this project. It can be reduction in cost, improvement of productivity, or increase in sales.
2. Who are the stakeholders or the group that will be affected by this project? It can be your business partners (if any), suppliers, customers, or employees.
3. What resources are needed? You should know how much money is needed to run this project and see if the benefits outweigh the expenses.
4. Who will be the team members? Usually the stakeholders compose the team because they have the interest, experience, and expertise in the area.
5. What is the timetable? A project has a termination period so you need to set deadlines and milestones.
6. What is your measure of success? Create a report to monitor your progress and document the entire project. This will help you track the problems encountered and see if there is any room for improvement. This might come in handy in your next projects to come.

Having a comprehensive e-mail list is one of the key challenges faced by many startup businesses. This list will help you promote your products or services in a very practical way and kick off your prospecting initiatives. Here are some basic tips you can apply without spending too much money:

Online Tactics

1. Include a sign-up form on every page of your website and place it where online visitors can easily see.

2. Use a call to action to motivate online visitors to sign up. Support it with freebies or coupons.
3. Add an “Email to Friends” option with every interesting article and press release you post on your website.
4. Make the subscription link a part of your email signature and ask all your employees, family members, and friends to add the link to their email signatures as well.
5. Submit articles and press releases to several online article and PR directories and include the subscription link at the footer.

Offline Tactics

6. Put a subscribe link in your invoices and receipts.

7. Gather email addresses during trade shows.
8. If you have the postal address of your existing customers, send a card or catalog and request to join the e-mail list to get more interesting information and big discounts.
9. If you are running tri-media ads (TV, radio, and print), prompt your customers to visit your website and subscribe.
10. If you have extra money, conduct a free enriching seminar and the only entrance fee is an email address.

According to MavenBlog, having a database is just one of the 7 fundamental must-do’s of a small business marketing strategy. Read the other 6 to complete your strategy.

Have you ever felt that your negative thoughts control you? Running our own business is a can, for some, be a rollercoaster ride filled with challenges, fear, and possibly depression. Some have risked all their savings only to end up in total dismay. Survival is an everyday test. If you find yourself filled with these thoughts, here are some tips to restore your courage:

Prepare and Repair

List the worst things that can happen to you once you failed in your venture. Common fears among us are bankruptcy, as well as putting the lives of our employees at risk. Once you have a list, start crafting your contingency plans. Knowing you are well prepared can help regain your courage.

Relax and See a Movie

Sometimes watching movies is a good courage booster for many entrepreneurs. For starters, try renting the movie 300. Filled with bloody action scenes, this box-office movie exemplifies courage against a seemingly formidable force. Imagine fighting thousands of an opposing force with only 300 well-trained soldiers! Other similar movies include The Gladiator, Braveheart, and The Patriot.

If movie is not your thing, try reading about different courageous personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and the simple act of defiance by Rosa Parks.

Green is the buzzword in the business world today. It is not enough that businesses satisfy customers; it should be done in a clean, sustainable, or environmental way. Big players are aggressively promoting this cause-worthy strategy but it doesn’t mean our small businesses can’t compete in that category.

The recent passing of Anita Roddick, Body Shop founder and prime advocate of environmentalism, should serve as an inspiration to all entrepreneurs. Her business started from a small store with only 15 product lines and grew into what it is today. Here’s a simple guide to start a green business:

Choose a Niche Product

Green business is not limited to cosmetics and foods, although they represent the chunk of the market. Other categories include eco-friendly blankets, baby products, vitamins, or books. Visit some of the credible suppliers in the following sites:

• GreenPeople.org
• Global Sources
• Alibaba.com

Following the advice from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, you should seek first to understand, then to be understood. That’s why it is important that you know well your chosen niche product. Bootstrapper offers a comprehensive green entrepreneur’s toolbox containing 100 networking resources, guides, and links.

Practice What You Preach

It is very hard to convince your employees and customers to support green products if you don’t apply it to yourself. You are your business’ best endorser during the initial stage of this venture. It can be simple “green acts” like using recycled papers and other eco-friendly materials.

Capitalize on Word of Mouth

Eco-friendly products are strongly driven by marketing“>word-of-mouth advertising so you should delight all your customers and motivate them to your very credible and highly active sales force.

Running your business involves different types of planning. The Biz Class mentioned that every growing business encounters 4 types of plans. A bigger question now is HOW do you plan the future of your business? Let me introduce to you the business concept called Gap Analysis.

Don’t be intimidated by this seemingly corporate jargon. In basic terms, it is a comparison of your actual performance versus your goals. It works like your actual-versus-forecast analysis. What you will find after using this tool are your weaknesses and areas for improvement. All you need to do is answer these 3 simple questions below:

1. Where are you now?
2. Where do you want to go?
3. How do you get there?

Looks simple, right? You might be surprised how much insight you can generate by asking these 3 easy questions. Once you get the answers, you should translate these questions to a strategic planning tool called OGSM:

Objectives or what do you want to accomplish or where do you want to go.
Goals are the specific results to meet your objectives.
Strategies are key steps to achieve your goals.
Measures are important to know if your strategies are effective.

Hey, it’s not yet the end of the process. What’s missing? You haven’t looked at the market yet! Try asking yourself this one question:

• How will competitors react to your strategies?

It’s very difficult because you don’t know what the other players are thinking. Try running different scenarios and come up with contingency plans for every reaction.

What you have at the end of the day is a well-formulated plan that will guide you in the years to come.

If you want to focus on your core activities, outsourcing your not-so-confidential tasks like administrative jobs or customer service is a viable option. Recently, we cited the benefits of outsourcing. This time let’s go deeper and find out the important factors to consider before outsourcing:

Choose the Right Partner

Finding the right firm or people is very important because you are, in a way, allowing them to take control of your business operations. Brand Curve cautions entrepreneurs to watch out for subcontractors who can destroy your brand reputation. To avoid this situation, you should first look in your own personal network. Don’t hire people because they are your friends. Be objective and consider their expertise always.

In case your personal network leads to a dead end, the internet offers a large pool of talents across the globe. Pay a visit to business networking sites like LinkedIn, Craigslist, or Indeed. Make sure you thoroughly evaluate the references first and as much as possible, run a test to validate their claims.

Make it Binding

In business, being paranoid is better than being too trusting. Don’t believe people when they say their word is stronger than oak. Make it formal through legal contracts and specify all the responsibilities included in the agreement. This will give both parties protection against fraud.

Inspect Quality

Even if the other party has a proven track record and you’re protected by a legal contract, you should still monitor their performance from time to time. You have a lot to lose if they don’t do their job because the whole company identity might be severely compromised.

Ever dreamed of becoming the next powerful entrepreneur like Richard Branson of Virgin Enterprises or real estate logos mogul Donald Trump but don’t know where to start? Don’t look too far, for some of the great investments might be right under your nose. One place to look for startup ideas is within your own passion or the things you love to do. Here’s how:

Consulting

If you have special skills like computer programming or copywriting, you may want to start a consulting firm. If you’re employed and not yet confident to take the risk, you can test the water first as a freelancer. Start taking part time projects and if you have more than enough clients then it’s time to go full blast.

Sports

Even if you are not the next Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth, there’s still room for you in the world of sports. You can start a small business related to sports, like an online store selling varsity jackets or sports gear. You can also get a license to sell merchandise of your favorite teams in different sports categories.

Special Interests

If you spend your time on some passionate hobbies like photography, pottery making or flower arrangements, why not make money out of it? The upside here is you are already familiar with your chosen field. However, you still have to do a formal market analysis to assess your startup ideas.

Note that not all your hobbies or expertise are profitable. Your passion might blind you from seeing the right business perspective. More importantly, you should avoid chasing mirages or too-good-to-be-true opportunities.

Welcome to the sixth edition of the Carnival of Small Business and Startups (CoSBaS #6). If your entry is not here, it may appear in the next edition, unless it is either not relevant to the Carnival theme, promotes your services, or promotes specific affiliate products.

If you did make it in to this edition, please support this carnival by giving a link back to this edition as soon as you can. If you submit regularly, and get in but don’t link back, then your own readers don’t benefit with the opportunity of being introduced to other blogs – which is part of the reason for a blog carnival: networking. Enjoy.

Weekly Picks

Here are this week’s weekly picks.

1. Ben Yoskovitz: Warning: Do You Know Your Best Customers?
2. Jim Smoot: Difference Between A Manager and A Leader.
3. Warren Wong: Be A Good Manager By Letting People Learn And Grow.
4. Sue Massey: Do You Know How to Delegate Effectively?
5. Michelle Cramer: Inexpensive Ways to Conduct Marketing Research.
6. Chris Russell: Office White Noise.
7. Nenad Ristic: Attribution Theory.
8. Satish Talim: Setting Up An IT Company In India.
9. Jenny How: China 102nd Canton Fair (Chinese Export Commodity Fair) 2007.

That’s it for this edition. If you have an article that you think fits in, please use the Blog Carnival submission form. A couple of notes to consider before entering:

1. If you submitted your article on or after Sep 8th, it may appear in the next carnival.
2. Please do not resubmit the same article to the same carnival. Go check out the other three blog carnivals that I am managing, in case there’s a fit for your article.
3. One entry per person per week (Monday through Sunday), please.

To summarize, this carnival targets existing small businesses and startups, or entrepreneurs on the verge. What advice can you give them – business and technical – to help them towards success? There’s a wide spectrum of topics, including branding, identity, marketing, hiring, online efforts, success, productivity and more. This carnival is not about home-based businesses, specifically, although on occasion I’ll accept related articles if they are general in scope.

While there are multitudes of factors contributing to the success of any startup, it always starts with YOU. In any case, the poem called Invictus says you (and only you) are the captain of your soul and master of your fate. One of the ways to master yourself is to build your self-discipline.

Succession Consciousness defines self-discipline as the ability of an individual to stick to actions, thoughts, and behavior, which lead to improvement and success. Also, it’s the giving up of instant pleasure and satisfaction for a higher goal.

There are different ways to improve self-discipline, depending on your personality. Some entrepreneurs undergo hypnosis while others meditate. It can be as simple as giving up desserts every night. Here are some tips you might want to try:

Engage in Sports

Competition is a good teacher of self-discipline. You’ll appreciate the value of goal setting, teamwork, elaborate planning, and composure under stress. Sports also highlight the need to practice, practice, and practice some more in order to achieve your desired goals. More importantly, it will help develop the winning attitude in you.

Learn from The Last Samurai

You may not like Tom Cruise but his movie The Last Samurai captures the essence of self-discipline:

They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seen such discipline. I am surprised to learn that the word Samurai means, ‘to serve’…

No wonder the Japanese created some of the best business concepts like kaizen or continuous improvement and just-in-time. Dedicate your working hours perfecting your craft by improving your system regularly, communicating with your customers daily, and spying competition all the time.

Having troubles coming up with a good name for your small business or new product? Don’t worry for there are several strategies available at your disposal to ignite your creativity. The latest trend today, according to Entrepreneurs Daily, is using gobbledygook names like Wakoopa, Imeem, Xobni, and Frengo.

Some of you may even be irritated as to why we should give a damn about names if we can offer great customer service and run effective marketing campaign. To borrow the words of Karen Post, a great name is like extra octane in a brand. In some cases, it can make or break your brand.

Here’s a classic example that came from the book entitled Classic Failures in Product Marketing about having a wrong name:

Hunt-Wesson, one of the largest and most successful food companies in the US, decided to enter the French-speaking Quebec market in Canada. Aiming to localize its brands, it directly translated one of its product lines, Big John, to French and it was called Gros Jos. However they failed to dig deeper and evaluate this new brand name. Later on, they discovered that Gros Jos is a slang term for “big breasts” in French Canada!

In general, you should pick a name having emotional appeal, personality, depth, and very sticky to customers’ minds. Moreover, there are at least 10 different ways to name your business or products and you can read them all at The Name Inspector.

Many business experts warn entrepreneurs not to use price as the main competitive advantage. Even if you can offer low prices, once you engage a big player in a price war, your chance of winning is nil.

A good example is the ongoing price war between online video rental sites Netflix and Blockbuster that will result in lower profitability or possible losses for both players. Even big players like Samsung lose money due to price wars. Nevertheless, the biggest winners are the customers.

So what happens when a competitor engages you in a price war? Will you fight? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because you have to do something about this situation or you will suffer. No, because you don’t need to lower your prices to compete. Here are your options:

• Focus on building a powerful brand. Powerful brands like Nike don’t need to lower their prices even if the prices of athletic shoes went down by 50%.
• Build value-added services. Don’t just over promise to your customers but make sure you over deliver as well.
• Talk to your customers. A creative way of handling this situation is to paint a grim picture of this price war over the long haul. Tell them that if you lower your price, you will have to shut down your business. If that happens, there will be lesser options and your competitor can dictate higher prices once again.

Needless to say, branding is essential for your company to stand out from the crowd and differentiate against the competition. However, some entrepreneurs believe branding is as simple as placing an advertisement or buying a logo. Without them knowing, they are signing their own business suicide note. In case you’re wondering about the things to avoid in branding, you can check them out below:

1. Using business jargon. It will impress your colleagues but will confuse your customers. Which do you prefer?
2. Not knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Follow the 5th of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: seek first to understand then to be understood.
3. No specific target market. The old dictum you can’t please everybody remains true even today.
4. No marketing plan. Without a plan there will be no direction. You might end up confusing and annoying your customers due to your inconsistent product claims and promises.
5. Trying hard to be different. Don’t be different for the sake of being different. It must have a rationale and added value to your business.

The mistakes above are appetizers. In fact, you can find another 7 deadly branding mistakes from the blog of Patsi Krakoff.

Welcome to the fifth edition of the Small Business and Startups (CoSBaS #5). If your entry is not here, it may appear in the next edition, unless it is either not relevant to the Carnival theme, promotes your services, or promotes specific affiliate products.

If you did make it in to this edition, please support this carnival by giving a link back to this edition as soon as you can. If you submit regularly, and get in but don’t link back, then your own readers don’t benefit with the opportunity of being introduced to other blogs – which is part of the reason for a blog carnival: networking. Enjoy.

Featured Posts

Here are this week’s featured posts.

1. 5 Ways to Act Like an Expert in Online Communities by Scott Allen.
2. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains by Alvaro Fernandez.
3. Do You Have An Abundant Mindset? by Warren Wong.

Weekly Picks

Here are the remaining entries for this edition.

1. 5 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Marketing Overnight by Eric Hudin.
2. 7 Ways to Expand Your Products and Services by Terry Dean.
3. It’s Up To You – Make Customer Service A Positive Experience by Jason Rakowski.
4. Keys to Effective Holiday Marketing in 2007 by Frances Palaschuk.
5. Spending Those Hard Earned Dollars On Advertising by Matt Hanson
6. The Challenge of Providing Choice by Wilson Ng.
7. Top Ten Franchise Opportunities for $20,000 by Tom Stanley.

That’s it for this edition. If you have an article that you think fits in, please use the Blog Carnival submission form. A couple of notes to consider before entering:

1. If you submitted your article on or after Aug 24st, it may appear in the next carnival.
2. Please do not resubmit the same article to the same carnival. Go check out the other three blog carnivals that I am managing, in case there’s a fit for your article.
3. One entry per person per week (Monday through Sunday), please.

To summarize, this carnival targets existing small businesses and startups, or entrepreneurs on the verge. What advice can you give them – business and technical – to help them towards success? There’s a wide spectrum of topics, including branding, identity, marketing, hiring, online efforts, success, productivity and more. This carnival is not about home-based businesses, specifically, although on occasion I’ll accept related articles if they are general in scope.

It’s very thrilling when you first started pursuing your goals as an entrepreneur. At some point, however, your excitement starts to dwindle as you are barraged with so many urgent things to do. If you are experiencing this very same sentiment now, you are not alone.

According to Entrepreneur Daily, the level of optimism has waned among small business owners, from 80.4% in June to 69.5% in Aug 2007. Maybe you’re wondering if it’s still worth it to achieve your goals, even if you don’t feel an ounce of excitement right now. In case this is you, here are some tips on how to battle your inner demons:

Watch Mission: Impossible

An uninspired and negative thinking entrepreneur starts looking for any excuses as soon as a problem crops up. Be Ethan Hunt (the fictional character played by Tom Cruise in the movie Mission: Impossible) and love the challenge of solving seemingly impossible problems. Consider all probable angles to solve your problems and do not give yourself any excuse to bail out.

Take a Time Out and Smell the Roses

Overdriving is a killer. While many of us love the rush of running the day-to-day operations, it will take its toll at some point of our career. Why not take your family for a short vacation and free your mind from worries. If you’re still reluctant, a short coffee break or a walk in the park might help clear up your perspective.

Some entrepreneurs lead by listening while others rule like tyrants. While there are pros and cons regarding each leadership style, Leadership Turn is quick to point out that at the end of the day, leaders are always recognized by their results.

No matter how minor the arena it’s results that count. And don’t expect brilliant rhetoric to make up for mediocre efforts. You can talk all day about who, what, where, when, why and how, but unless your walk matches your talk there will be no results—at least not the ones you predicted!

When it comes to measuring the results of your business, you should look into your financial ratios. These are mathematical computations to help you monitor the overall health of your business, identify possible problems, and plan your future. More importantly, financial institutions always review your financial ratios before they approve your loan applications for your business.

If you want to further understand the different types of financial ratios and how they are computed, you can visit NetMBA Financial Ratios. You can also visit Bankrate Small Business Ratio Calculators for easy computation.

Part of what we, entrepreneurs, are thinking every single day is how to make our startup business stand out from competition. You might feel disappointed and skeptical after months or years of trying, but the game continues.

An article from the Wall Street Journal mentions that the younger entrepreneurs are facing bigger challenges ahead. Standing out from the crowd is cited as one of the 5 important strategies to increase the odds of success when pitching to investors. Here are some practical tips to help you shine above the rest:

Patience

Before you learn any strategies and tactics connected with this area, you should try patience. There are no shortcuts in building your company identity and it will definitely take some time before you can earn the respect of your customers

Establish Contacts with Your Community

You should get in touch with different organizations related to your business to promote your business to your prospects. Business consultants, for instance, should network with the members of local chambers of commerce, business clubs, and professional groups. Be active in looking for speaking opportunities to promote your company.

Pre-Sell Your Business

You should ask your customers to sign up to your newsletters. Then, start offering free articles that do not promote your products or services. (Or at least not a hard-sell.) The objective here is to create an impression that you are an expert in your field and they should trust you. With the right content, you will have higher chances of closing a deal. Don’t imitate other businesses that use newsletters as their advertising billboard.

Via YoungEntrepreneur

After carefully assessing your startup ideas, the next step is effective implementation. However, some entrepreneurs are stuck in the market research and idea-generation stage. This is what we call analysis paralysis or over analyzing a situation without taking any action. If you want to start earning then it’s time to start working. Here are some starter tips:

Write Your Action Plans.

Nothing is too complex once you break it down into small pieces. While micromanaging is strongly discouraged, this is a situation where attention to details is very much needed. Getting a 20 percent market share, for instance, seems like a very easy task. If you work backwards and start outlining the things you need to do, you’ll soon realize how much effort is needed to achieve this goal.

If you are a solo business owner, you might want to identify the tasks you can outsource so you can focus on the essential matters.

Establish Accountabilities

In some cases, you cannot do all the things you’ve included in your action plans. You should start dividing the tasks according to the competence and experience of your staff. Commonly, we are the designated project leader but if you have a more qualified staff, do not hesitate to turn over this task.

Implement and Monitor

Stop procrastinating and start working once all tasks and accountabilities are in place. Identify and celebrate all milestones to easily monitor your progress.

As a guide, you might want to use the Action Method tools recommended by MarketingProfs Daily Fix to make your ideas happen.

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Small Business and Startups (CoSBaS #4). If your entry is not here, it may appear in the next edition, unless it is either not relevant to the Carnival theme, promotes your services, or promotes specific affiliate products.

If you did make it in to this edition, please support this carnival by giving a link back to this edition as soon as you can. If you submit regularly, and get in but don’t link back, then your own readers don’t benefit with the opportunity of being introduced to other blogs – which is part of the reason for a blog carnival: networking. Enjoy.

Featured Posts

Here are this week’s featured posts.

1. Simplified Online Marketing by Becky McCray.
2. A Motivation Secret of Top Performing Managers by Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler.
3. The 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires by Susan Velez.

Other Entries

Here are the remaining entries for this edition.

1. Seeking a Dream by Michelle Cramer.
2. The Name Game – Why the Right Name is Important by Jim Smoot.
3. Make People Comfortable By Greeting Them Right by Warren Wong.
4. Planning a Business Trip by Mike Harmon.
5. Are You A Good Facilitator? by Louise Manning.
6. Enhancing Human Performance by Chris Russell.
7. Amazon the Services Operating Ecosystem by Abhishek Tiwari.
8. Want to Waste Some More Time Before You Start Your Business? by Stefan Töpfer.
9. Going to the Top Too Fast by Wilson Ng.

That’s it for this edition. If you have an article that you think fits in, please use the Blog Carnival submission form. A couple of notes to consider before entering:

1. If you submitted your article on or after Aug 19th, it may appear in the next carnival.
2. Please do not resubmit the same article to the same carnival. Go check out the other three blog carnivals that I am managing, in case there’s a fit for your article.
3. One entry per person per week (Monday through Sunday), please. I am now deleting the entries of anyone who submits more than one per week. It’s up to you to choose one good entry, not me.

To summarize, this carnival targets existing small businesses and startups, or entrepreneurs on the verge. What advice can you give them – business and technical – to help them towards success? There’s a wide spectrum of topics, including branding, identity, marketing, hiring, online efforts, success, productivity and more.

A fatal business mistake committed by some entrepreneurs is pretending they know everything there is to know about running their business. Maybe it’s pride that’s keeping them from asking “stupid” questions. Leading your startup means relying both on your expertise and consulting with your employees as well.

I have stumbled upon an interesting management style from Jim Collins, author of the renowned book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t and it’s called “lead with question”:

Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.

This is a good combination with another management style discussed previously, leading by listening. You can call an informal forum with your trusted employees and open the session with a general question like, “what should we be worried about?”

In case you are wondering what specific questions you can discuss about, Write to Right provides 10 questions to answer your business direction.

One of the critical success factors for small business is finding a profitable niche or a narrowly defined group of users. Competing in a broad market segment against big and established companies would result in immediate failure.

In the words of Blog de Groot, entrepreneurs should dig deep for small business ideas before starting the wrong business. Here’s a simple guide about finding your niche market:

Identify the Common Needs

There must be common needs related to your business that are somewhat different from the general market. A good niche example comes from Small Business Trends:

Here is an example of niche marketing: a brand new print magazine, called Magazine Soho. The publication targets not small business — a broad category to be sure. No, it targets a segment of small business: Soho’s — small office, home office workers. And with a particular geographic emphasis on southeastern Wisconsin, USA.

More importantly, you should check if the product you are offering meet the needs of this group and if it is better than the competitors.

Measure Profitability

Before targeting a specific niche market, you should see first if this particular niche has enough paying customers who can avail your products or services. If not, find other niches to conquer. Also, the level of competition has a significant bearing on profitability. Check how many competitors are fighting to win in your chosen niche. Remember, a niche is a relatively small segment. Having fierce competitors will easily erode your profit margins.

Offering incentives is a common practice to motivate employees and increase sales. However, you might have an impression that incentives are for employees only, particularly your sales force. Yes, it is very important to some businesses and you might want to read Young Entrepreneur’s comprehensive discussion on creating a sales incentive program.

But do you know that you have a hidden sales force waiting to be tapped? Yes there is, and they are your beloved customers. Their incentive program comes in different names such as a finder’s fee – which is common in real estate logo designs – and affiliate or referral fee for online marketing.

Powered by word-of-mouth marketing, your existing customers can help you get new customers and encourage trials of your products or services. Even if you do not have extra funds to create an incentive program for customers, you still have alternatives such as:

1. Product discounts
2. Group discounts
3. Free samples or consultation
4. Extended warranties

To make this incentive program effective, you should consult with your customers and brainstorm what rewards will entice them to actively recommend your products or services.

Marketing tactics are specific actions you employ to achieve your planned marketing goals. If you are in need of business inspiration or preparing for a marketing war, here are some useful sites about different marketing tactics:

• Guerilla Marketing Article Archive (free membership required). If you are looking for unconventional marketing activities on a very low budget, visit the expert, Jay Conrad Levinson, and his archives filled with powerful and practical tactics.
• 10 Marketing Tactics Under $10. Your lack of money does not limit you from deploying different creative marketing tactics such as advertising with fliers and hiring students to “picket” your business with a sign protesting something positive.
• Forbes’ 6 Marketing Tactics Worth Paying For. If you have enough money to boost your marketing programs, Forbes suggests tactics like conducting market research, getting a board of advisors, testing new products, and creating a community through blogging.
• Free Psycho Tactics. Unlock the mystery of the business brain with free articles on psychological tactics like how to commit brand suicide and how to get your customers to beg for your business card design.

Finding a balance between aggressive selling and effective cash flow management is very important to sustain your business over the long haul. The reality, however, is that many entrepreneurs are more focused on achieving the top line or sales and very relaxed on collections of unpaid invoices. Aside from cash flow factoring, there are other ways to improve your cash flow and these are:

Set up Your Collection Policies

Even before starting your business operations, you should already have a strict policy on collections and your employees should fully understand this. It can be simple policy like a friendly call to remind your customers one week before the actual payment date. Having a working system helps track all your accounts and alert you of possible bad debts.

Negotiate for Longer Terms with Supplier

When dealing with customers, your negotiation stance is to get shorter payment terms, usually 30 days. However, do the exact opposite when meeting with your suppliers. Try bargaining for 45 to 60 days payment terms to give you enough time to collect your debts first.

Read 5 tips on how to quickly improve cash flow at CEO Consultant for some advice on cash flow.

Can’t think of any good ideas to improve your business? Brainstorming might be of help to you. It is basically a team activity starting with the listing of ideas to unlock your imagination and discover the different solutions to your problems. In some cases it also advisable to have a brainstorming session alone.

All you need is a poster-size paper, pen, and coffee to boost your minds. Invite your reliable and outspoken employees to participate. You can either facilitate the session or assign one of the members to do it for the team. There are two ways to kick off your brainstorming session:

Pinpoint the Problems

A traditional trigger is listing down all recurring problems encountered by your company. This may come from your friendly customer service, sales, and marketing group. You may want to divide the problems according to process or department. For instance, late deliveries are categorized under distribution while annoyed customers are strongly connected to customer service team.

Word Association

If you are brainstorming specifically to write an advertising tag line, using word association is a more effective approach. This will help you link several keywords you can use that will strongly appeal to your market. You can visit the website WordAssociation.org to practice word associations and learn the most popular associations to common words.

You might also be interested to download a PowerPoint presentation on how to run a successful brainstorming session at Scribd.

Every entrepreneur should advertise to increase awareness and encourage customers to try your products or services. However, a poorly executed advertising will backfire and hurt your business venture. That’s why it is important to avoid the common advertising mistakes such as:

Advertising in All Media

Some entrepreneurs believe that the best way to advertise is to go all out and target all channels like Internet, television, billboards, radio, and newspapers. Even if you have enough money to finance this campaign, you must learn to focus on channels with most readership or exposure to your customers. It requires you to know your target market first so you can tailor-fit all your ads.

Inconsistent Ads

Advertising seeks to create a personality that customers can relate to your company and brands. That is why it is very important that you remain consistent in all your communications. If you advertise about your low price in newspapers for instance, make sure you communicate the same message to other channels like the internet. If not, this will create confusion among your customers.

OA (Overdoing Ads)

Focusing more on the artistic aspect of your ad instead of creating quality content is a very grave mistake. While aesthetic appeal is also important, you should put more emphasis on finding the right content that will surely capture your customers’ interests.

After learning these mistakes, you might want to visit Business Advice Daily to know the 9 ways to improve your ads.

For startups there are many ways to inform your target market about the opening of your business. You options include press releases, paid ads in newspapers, on radio, television, and the Internet. It may take some time before these initiatives yield any results. In the meantime, you are faced with a tough challenge – where to get your first 10 customers.

A good starting point is tapping your personal and professional networks. It is a three-step method that is very easy and practical:

Step 1. Build Your Database

If you are a people person this will be very easy to build. List the names of people you know that will benefit from your products or services. Start with your business connections like former officemates and managers, neighbors, former classmates, civic group members (if you are a member), your spouse or partner’s friends, and other professionals you are dealing with like doctors, lawyers, insurance agents, and even your dentist.

Although some business experts recommend you start with your close friends and family, you should learn to approach them very carefully. There are many broken relationships because of poorly handled money issues.

Step 2. Initiate Contact

Once you have the list, it’s time to start talking to them. You can start with personalized e-mails then follow-up phone calls to check if they are interested with your products. Sweeten your offer by giving away some freebies and discounts.

Step 3. Get Referrals

Do not assume that your friendship will easily translate to sales. A number of potential customers will decline and there is nothing you can do about it. Learn to maximize your effort by asking your friends to refer you to some of their contacts.

When the time comes when you already have many customers, head over to Great Sales and Marketing Ideas blog to download a pdf ebook about turning your customers into your friends.

Want to know what factors lead to success? Biz Plan Hacks has an interesting summary about a seven-year study on 500 successful people. As expected, “strong focus” is one of the key success factors.

If you are a starting entrepreneur, you might find it hard to focus considering that there are so many things to do with so little time. You might be confused where to allocate most of your time and resources. As a guide, you can start by doing one thing better than your competitors by focusing on the following:

1. Concentrate on customer service. It is not enough to sell product to every customer; you must delight them always so they will crave more. One way to create this addiction is providing superb customer service.
2. Focus on getting your hands dirty. Know every detail of your business from marketing, selling, accounting logos, and even some IT-related stuff. This will help you craft more practical strategies and set realistic goals.
3. Concentrate on what you are doing wrong. By keenly evaluating your business mistakes, you can easily arrest these problems and make any much-needed adjustments.
4. Focus on best practices. By copying what the competitors are doing, it will be very difficult to overtake them. Instead, you can study the best practices across industries and apply it to your business.

Here’s something that will uplift your spirits. A new study (PDF, 26 pgs) conducted by the Small Business Administration (SBA) has revealed that the survival rate of small businesses has improved.

Survival rates over the five-year period were similar for the different size classes, except the smallest. The survival rate for establishments with 4–7 employees was 75.3 percent; this rate slowly rose to 84.2 percent for the 512–1,023 size class. Even small size classes had relatively high five year survival rates, 61.4 percent for one-person establishments and 70.1 percent establishments with two to three persons.

Isn’t that wonderful? Of course, but the big challenge now is how to survive the first five years. To supplement our initial post about survival tips, check out these new weapons against failure:

1. Stay focused on your goals and objectives. Exercise scenario planning to anticipate possible reaction of your competitors and develop contingency plans for potential problems.
2. Be patient. Do not obsess with the idea of overnight success because it does happen to all of us. Slow and steady is the way to go.
3. Increase repeat purchase. Get your customers hooked with your products by developing effective marketing campaigns and promotional gimmicks. Find ways to win back lost customers.

Via The Small Business Blog

A common way to fund a startup is to use your personal savings. Driven by passion and blinded by ambition, a common mistake made by many entrepreneurs is to go all in or use all of their personal savings to start a business.

It is alright to always make some conservative assumptions and take into consideration the possibility of business failure. Every business is a gamble – few winners and more losers. This perspective helps you control your personal savings and consider other options.

A good way to finance your startup is to use only 50% of your personal savings to support you in case the business folds up. For the balance, you can do the following:

• Work part time. During the startup stage, you can still find work during your free time to generate extra cash and network with other people. Once the business starts picking up then it is time to quit.
• Know your other options like 401k loans, using credit cards to defer payments, or low-interest loans from family and friends.
• Garage sale. It is time to clean out your closet, look for old personal belongings, and hold a garage sale. This may not amount to big money but it will certainly help add some cash in your pocket.

The important thing here is not to rely solely on your personal savings to jumpstart your business and to be more resourceful in finding alternatives. Please note you need to talk to your auditor logos about any financial advice that you may need.

Welcome to the third edition of the Small Business and Startups (CoSBaS #3). As many entries as possible have been including, based on my time to read through each. If your entry is not here, it may appear in the next edition, unless it is either not relevant to the Carnival theme, promotes your services, or promotes specific affiliate products.

If you did make it in to this edition, please give a link back as soon as you can. If you submit regularly, and get in but don’t link back, then your own readers don’t benefit with the opportunity of being introduced to other blogs – which is part of the reason for a blog carnival: networking. Enjoy.

Featured Posts

Here are this week’s featured posts.

1. How to React to Criticism by Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler of The Road to CEO. “I am human and I need to be loved/ just like everybody else does,” said Morrissey in his The Smiths song How Soon is Now? No wonder most of us react badly when we’re criticized. Who can blame us? But criticism can help us, say the good Doctors, and they present a strategy for how to benefit from it.
2. What Happens if Your Clients Don’t Pay? by James Mitchell of FocusMinded.com. Just yesterday, a blogger friend told me that one client isn’t responding to his messages and hasn’t paid their invoice. I suggested he publish their name on his blog, if they didn’t make any effort to pay within 30 days. James lists some other options that are available to you if you have a non-paying client.

Other Entries

Here are the remaining entries for this edition.

1. Finding The Right Information About Franchise Opportunities by Tom Stanley of Tom’s Franchise Information Blog.
2. How to Create Your Own Online Store in an Hour Or Less by Matthew Paulson of Finance Is Personal.
3. The Balance of a Leader by Michelle Cramer of GreatFX Small Business Tips.
4. How I Became a Millionaire While Working In My Pajamas by Millionaire Mommy of Millionaire Mommy Next Door.
5. Top Ten Tips for Women Who Lead Men by Alvaro Fernandez of Brain Fitness Blog.
6. Startup Required Reading: Top 100 VC Bloggers by Sagar Satapathy of Bootstrapper.
7. The Business Blogging Toolset: 100 Resources for Entrepreneur-Writers by Sunny of Bootstrapper.
8. How to Write a Short Bio or “About Me” Page by Barbra Sundquist of Become a Certified Coach.
9. My Partner’s Not Doing Enough Work! by Warren Wong of Personal Development for INTJs.

That’s it for this edition. If you have an article that you think fits in, please use the Blog Carnival submission form. A couple of notes to consider before entering:

1. If you submitted your article on or after Aug 5th, it may appear in the next carnival.
2. Please do not resubmit the same article to the same carnival. Go check out the other three blog carnivals that I am managing, in case there’s a fit for your article.
3. One entry per person per week (Monday through Sunday), please. I am now deleting the entries of anyone who submits more than one per week. It’s up to you to choose one good entry, not me.

To summarize, this carnival targets existing small businesses and startups, or entrepreneurs on the verge. What advice can you give them – business and technical – to help them towards success? There’s a wide spectrum of topics, including branding, identity, marketing, hiring, online efforts, success, productivity and more.

We all talk about different kinds of strategies in running our small business. But do you have a single, unifying strategy that captures the essence of your business? With so much business jargon now, it confuses many entrepreneurs.

Believe it or not, almost all strategies you learned from reading and listening from business experts belong only to 3 categories. These are called the generic strategies by Michael Porter:

Cost Leadership Strategy

It’s all about providing the best price in the market given its leverage on manufacturing, competitive suppliers, or very efficient distribution channel. When Wal-Mart promises “Always low prices. Always,” it is very clear that they play with this strategy. It is very difficult for a starting small business to succeed in this strategy, but it does not mean you cannot beat low-priced competitors.

Differentiation Strategy

This is the playground of small businesses striving to make a mark in the industry. It is basically focusing on doing one thing better than competition. It can be your superior customer service or innovative products and technology.

Focus Strategy

This is commonly called niche marketing or specializing on a very small segment and dominating it. Your strong focus becomes your core advantage against mass marketing. You can also set higher prices here because of limited competition and your expertise in this area.

Strategy is just one the 13 functions you must act and take action on, according to know EdithYeung.com

After evaluating numerous startup ideas, you are finally down to just one product or service. Your exciting challenge now is where to look for reliable suppliers to support your strategy. In case you are wondering how to do this, you can start with the following:

Trade Shows

A trade show is the gathering place of your future competitors and suppliers. Aside from networking opportunities, you can also gain insights on upcoming trends and learn from many experts sharing their experiences.

Associations

Every industry has its own organizations or associations where you can join and find the right supplier. If you are not sure what association to deal with, just visit the “association search” section of Business Know-How. You can also check the Encyclopedia of Associations available in many public libraries.

Internet

This amazing technology has made supplier search both easy and risky. A quick browse on Google will generate thousands of suppliers around the globe. With outsourcing becoming a trend, you can easily contact overseas suppliers with a simple e-mail or VoIP call.

Conversely, the net is filled with expert scammers waiting for us to make a mistake. Given this situation, you must be extra careful when dealing online. Yahoo! Business to Business directory is a good starting point for entrepreneurs. You can also search for forums related to your industry.

Even though there are many single person businesses today, a time will come for some smart and hardworking entrepreneurs to expand the business and delegate work to other people. Is it time to hire your first batch of employees?

Unknown to many, the process of hiring employees is a very stressful activity, prompting some small businesses to outsource it to employment agencies. If you have to do it, make sure you have all the important tasks included:

Job Interview

Be careful with job interviews for there are some guidelines you must follow. AllBusiness.com has identified some of the questions you should not ask in an interview.

Verify References

“Everybody lies.” This is a very relevant quote from the TV series House M.D. It is very important not to rely on resume content alone. About half of the resumes you will read contain exaggerated or even fictitious accomplishments. Do not forget to partner with a third-party company to handle background checks and fish out accurate info about the candidates.

Medical Exams

Aside from business skills, all employees should be physically fit to perform their duties. The only way to do this may be to institute a physical exam, drug tests, and depending on the nature of the job, psychological tests. Keep in mind that you should follow the labor laws of your country/ district. Some of these tests may require candidates agreement. That is, ensure that making a certain test mandatory is allowed in your area.