Faith Between Us

Posts Tagged ‘Business’

It is common for a small business owner to focus on business, production, and other aspects that go into creating their business and making it everything they want it to be without focusing on the finer details such as billing and receiving, or keeping track of how much they are profiting or collecting from their clients. Most do not hire a personal accountant right off the bat, and many believe this is a task they can do on their own, or that they can just sort everything out when tax time comes. The truth is that that this is a task they can do on their own, but efforts should be made year round and not just when it comes to tax time. This can cause business owners to leave out details or not have all the needed information. It can also mean that it took them until the end of an entire year to realize what they have been making is not the same as what they should have been making. Doing so will help you spend more time earning money from your business instead of wondering where your money “disappeared” to.  Read more...

Server colocation is when a small business takes advantage of extra hosting power on a large business or IT firm’s servers to place a relatively small server of their own on the hardware that small businesses would usually not be able to afford or maintain on the strength of small business capital and cash flow. It is usually very difficult for a small firm without specialist IT staff and expertise to host a server of anything but the smallest and most unreliable sort on hardware not specifically designed for hosting that server. Fortunately larger companies have taken advantage of this fact to provide mutually beneficial web space on their servers, where smaller businesses without the required resources can hire sections of a larger company’s already established servers and also benefit from the technical expertise and staff of the big business. This allows larger business to make the most of their extra power and storage space financially. The biggest gain however is for small business.  Read more...

As a business owner, you know more about your business than any one, but there is one thing you are not too sure about – how much it is worth. This is the first in a series of articles designed to help you learn about business valuation and, if you choose, do your own business valuation.

Defining Value

Before we begin discussing business valuation it is important to define what value is. When asked, most people will struggle to define it then end up using an example like a one dollar bill is worth more than a quarter. Value is difficult to define without comparing at least two items. The comparisons must be well defined to have any meaning. For example a rare quarter may be worth more than a common dollar bill. The first step in any valuation is to accurately and completely define the property that is being valued.

Value is also subjective. Someone who needs a quarter to plug a parking meter in order to avoid a parking ticket would gladly pay a dollar or more for a quarter. Similarly, one business may have a number of values. A strategic buyer that can plug the customers of the business into its existing system may perceive more value than a person who is going to run the business day-to-day. The second step in valuation is defining for whom the property is being valued.  Read more...

Have you been emptying your bank account marketing your small business? You are not alone. A lot of small business owners fall prey to the traditional solutions of advertisers implementing high priced, generally unsuccessful, techniques like the telephone book, promotion inserts as well as newspaper ads. If you have got just a little ingenuity and some energy you can get exceptional benefits using a few basically no cost small business advertising suggestions.

• Flyers, Posters and Tear-Offs

Who is your main target market? Exactly where do they really spend most of their precious time? Can you use a simple sheet of paper to publicize to your prospects the benefits your small business provides for them? Small business advertising doesn’t need to be sexy; sometimes it just requires leg work – literally. Determine the advantages prospects get associating with you. Do you offer exceptional products, excellent customer service or simply are you the lower cost provider? Give the notion of benefits a lot of serious contemplation. I’m not taking about features, what’s the additional value your clients get from doing business with you? Now find a way to convey that value easily as well as concisely, not with a ton of words that no one is going to take the time to read. If you can find a photograph which successfully communicates exactly how your pleased buyers feel right after doing business with your company, make use of that to get their attention and then let them know the important points in words. If you don’t have a photograph they can be bought through trustworthy sites like iStockPhoto.com or Shutterstock.com. Next, distribute your flyers, hang your posters and post your tear-off sheets in great visibility places that your target audience usually spends their time. Be sure you offer them several ways to contact you and use the back of the flyer or tear-off as a coupon or additional bonus for doing business with your company.  Read more...

As a small business owner, you have probably considered launching some type of public relations campaign. But like many other small business owners, something may have caused you to give it up—whether you simply were too busy or had no idea where to begin. On the flip side, you aren’t sure whether spending money to hire a PR firm is an investment you can afford right now. So what should you do… simply let your PR campaign fall by the wayside? No… because now, reputable PR firms are beginning to offer another option—PR toolkits for small businesses. Rather than paying for more expensive consulting services, a small business PR toolkit provides you the guidance you need to launch your own public relations campaign.

Many small business owners have limited experience with public relations, and often this lack of knowledge keeps them from pursuing any sort of Public Relations Campaigns. After all, it can be a complicated field—you have to know how (and when) to write a press release, you need to know who to send it to, you need to know how to create a media kit and much more… that’s a lot to learn for a small business owner who typically has his or her hands full with their other responsibilities. That’s why the development of public relations kits for small business has been so successful. A typical kit will have an introduction to the world of public relations as well as specific instructions for a number of tasks—including press releases, social media campaigns, and dealing with a crisis. In addition, they typically include templates for a variety of PR documents—meaning all the business owner needs to do is plug in the appropriate information and move it along. This concept has a great appeal to many business owners because rather than simply outsourcing an individual campaign to a PR firm, working from a kit provides small business owners with the resources and the knowledge to run their own PR campaigns in the future. Working from a small business publicity toolkit empowers owners to run successful campaigns as well as helps them develop an understanding of the often confusing field of public relations.  Read more...