BizMark Tech: Small Business for Beginners

When you’re looking for ways to cut costs in small business, sometimes you just have to find new ways to do things you are all ready doing. One example is to start a newsletter which always you permission contact with your customers, all while reducing the cost of having to mail letters with stamps. Learning to use modern technology, you have the ability to find new programs, compare prices on items you need, and reach out and have a discussion with your visitors with things like email and blogs.

Another simple solution is purchasing items online where you can often times find things cheaper, rather than going through traditional channels. Let’s look at business cards for an example. If you go through your traditional printer, you may pay a higher price. They are not only charging you for the price of the cards, but they have a building to maintain, pay rent on, probably more employees to pay, along with a landscaper to pay for, snow removal and more. An online business doesn’t have as much overhead and can often times offer you a lower price. One particular company is PsPrint.com. You can buy your business cards and other printed material such as brochures, catalogs, tickets, stickers, banners and more. Their online printing services offer you value, and a wide selection.

One of the things I find appealing is that they offer a free sample pack so you can see the quality of their products. Once you see the quality of their printing and products, you’ll know what a great deal it is! You get online pricing, top quality products and choice. Now that you’ll be saving money on printing needs, where will it go to better use?

I went to a store today to pick up something for a trip I’m taking. It was a clothing store, and every single time I go there, they ask me if I’d like to open a charge with them. Each time I decline. It’s just part of the deal.

Today, as I was browsing not far from the register area, a woman was leaving and telling everyone around her to “push lots of credit cards” and make more money. The problem is that she said it right there in front of customers. Tacky. Nothing more to say…

I never thought much about them asking me about opening a credit card account before. This time it felt different. The words “push credit cards” were stuck in my head. That one woman (supervisor, I’m guessing) should have spoken of this with her employees in a private setting, or in a meeting. It shouldn’t have been broadcast in front of customers.

Are you getting lax and speaking of inappropriate things in front of customers?

How are entrepreneurs made? Will your child become a business owner one day? Let’s face it, there are business owners, and there are lousy business owners. Not everyone is cut from the same cloth when it comes to business, finance and other important managerial type matters.

When it comes to business, you can have passion and drive to want a business to thrive, but not understanding the ins and outs of a business, you’re going to need help. Where does this all start? How does someone learn to be good with money, or good at making decisions?

It starts when parents teach their children about savings, about spending, and about decision making. These things start when we’re kids. You need to learn about things like credit, about spending, and about saving up for that something special. When you learn these things, you then progress to the next level when you start learning to handle credit. Each step can take you closer to business.

Let’s talk about savings. When we’re teaching a child about savings, a great way to do that is to create a savings account for your child. They can learn to put some of their birthday or holiday money away, while spending some. Getting your child into the habit of saving early, makes it an easier pattern to follow as they mature. As your child starts to mature, they’ll be making goals, and one of those important goals is college. Showing your child how money adds up to save for college is showing them how having a safe place for the money to grow.

Let’s look at IceSave for example; you can get up to 6.3% headline interest rate right now. That’s a full percent over another bank called First Trust Bank. While 1% doesn’t sound like a lot to a child learning to save money, showing them what it means in numbers helps it make more sense. For example, if you were to have $100 to deposit, you would see $106 with interest at one back, where you would only see $105 at the other. Now, take those numbers higher, and you’ll see where it will grab your child’s attention. If you deposit $1000, now the difference is more. All ready you’re seeing $1060 versus $1050. In taking the time to show how interest works, it helps them understand why it’s better to go with a bank that offers more interest, such as IceSave. I made those numbers very basic for a point, and at the IceSave bank, you need to open an account with 250 pounds. You can read more details about IceSave Savings here.

A few other requirements you may want to be aware of, is their minimum age for an account is 18. There’s no area restrictions or restricted availability. You also have a choice on interest payment with their savings account. The best part is transactions are handled by the internet, which makes for an easier process. You can also find fixed accounts with different terms, as well as regular individual savings account.

By you starting your children’s savings account and helping them contribute to it, you’re teaching them important lessons they’ll need later in life. Let your child be prepared both financially for important things like college, but also for money lessons. And best of all, if you’re child ends up being a business person, they’ll take those important financial lessons they learned with them, and make better choices for their business finances as well.

I had no plans to travel in August. In fact, I took trips in June and July for vacation, so August was pretty freed up for work. Sometime things change. I ended up going down the shore for a few days 3 weeks in a row! Work suffered in the process, but I sure did enjoy playing in the ocean and sitting on the beaches.

That’s the problem when you work for yourself. It’s easy to get distracted, and harder to get back to work. I used to write pretty regularly, and then it was the summer of travel.

Once I started going, my brain melted into vacation brain pretty much all summer! I hope to have my brain back on track, with school starting. My travel days are almost done. I have one more trip down to Orlando coming up shortly, and then I’m set to be homebound until next spring!

Not everyone can be well liked at the office. Are you one of those people who annoys others? Sometimes it would seem obvious why people don’t like working with you, but for those who are oblivious, I made a list to help them out.

1. You constantly feel the need to “one-up” everyone.
2. You’re a slacker, and don’t carry your weight.
3. You talk on your phone too loudly and annoy everyone.
4. You’re not a team player. You’re only out for yourself.
5. You take food that isn’t yours out of the lunchroom fridge.
6. You borrow money and don’t pay it back.
7. You do sloppy, half-arsed work, and have no desire to improve.
8. You have bad hygiene. Soap, toothpaste, deodorant…simple, inexpensive objects…try using them.
9. You’re the office gossip, or can’t keep a secret.
10. You take advantage of your breaks and always come back late.

Recognize yourself? This was your brick over your head wake-up call!

Do you come back from vacation, and then flit off on small tasks, getting nothing important accomplished? What about your employees? After a long break, and then another short break quickly after, I found myself struggling to pull all the pieces together. I jumped from one small task to another, and bigger work sat. I finally got it together and completely a large project I’d been planning. I put long hours in for a couple of days to make up for the flitting a few days before.

I’m about to go away for 4 more days, and when I return, I don’t want to run into that same problem. Here’s what I’m going to do to combat vacation brain when I return.

Before I leave, while I’m still in work mode, I’ll create a list of what needs to be accomplished. I know what my day to day work is, but after an extended break, some things can slip through a crack. I’ll make a list of priorities, and a list of small tasks so that I can better decide which tasks need to be focused on first.

My biggest problem is the lack of a schedule. I make my own, and that’s a challenge when you work for yourself. Creating a schedule once again, and following a list will get me back into a pattern of accomplishing more.

I’ve taken more breaks this summer than usual. My work has suffered, and while having extra time to play is great, if I can’t get back to “payday”, I won’t have this kind of free time in the future.

How do you get back on track?

On that note, once again I’ll be hitting the beaches again for a few days, and will see you on the flip side.

I went on a guided tour at a popular amusement park during my trip. We paid a healthy sum for this special tour, and after reading what was included during the tour- it easily sealed the deal.

Great! I thought this was fabulous; it matched what our agenda was and would save us oodles of time.

What the actual tour consisted of doesn’t matter at this point. What I’d like to point out is how much off course the tour went. We were in a small group of 8, and while we signed up for one thing, others signed up for a small piece of the tour and then altered the course of everyone else!

The tour guide’s responsibility is to keep to what people are paying for, maybe giving a little above and beyond if they’d like to. What happened was a few people shifted the day. There was something VERY specific about this tour, and the reason people sign up for it. That something became an afterthought.

In the course of my day I started to think about how this relates to business. I went in paying for one thing, and got something different. Was I still satisfied? I was mostly satisfied, but I felt like it wasn’t what I paid for.

What if you offered a great sale at your business- the latest trendy shoes for a limited time price of $29.99, which normally run for a price of $129.99. What happens if a customer comes to your business, and you give them a different pair of shoes, something that looked different than the pair you came in for…they could look similar, but they aren’t what you went for. You’d feel a little frustrated. That’s not what was advertised…

Now, during the course of this day, it’s a flexible thing, and the guide works around the clients. I think it was more the other client’s fault for expecting something that they didn’t sign up for. They signed up for one thing, and then manipulated the situation so that it fit their agenda. It was then up to the guide to politely get it back on track and give the other clients what they were looking for.

All in all, we had a good time. It just wasn’t what we anticipated based on the description of the tour. Could I have complained loudly and gotten a refund, maybe demanding to redo it how it was described? Who knows, I guess some people do that…I didn’t feel cheated, I had a good day, and since it was vacation, we decided to just roll with what was going on. In the end, we had a good experience. Was it what we had paid for? Hmmm, I’m just not sure at this point.

Maybe what it comes down to is I’m too flexible of a consumer. I’m willing to bend and shift as needed. In business, it’s not good sense to bend too far from what people expect. Bending somewhat can work at times, but I walked away from the experience knowing that maybe it needs to be better managed.

Just how flexible should you be?

I’m back from our trip, and while I was away, I really took a good look at how things were run at each place we visited. Were attractions marketed well, and were they a fair value for their money.

Even a simple vacation can turn into other things when you allow it. Don’t worry, I didn’t think about work too much, but at times I’d jot a note down, or toss some thoughts around about how places were managed, what could have been done differently, what worked, what didn’t, and also things that impressed me.

I hope to share some of those insights over the next week. I’m still in vacation-brain mode, so hopefully in a day or so, I’ll be back to my old self! As for now, I’m still enjoying this lingering vacation feeling.

When I get involved in a project, I work hard. I’ll sit for hours at a time to get something just right. I’ll bury myself in the fine details to make sure it meets my approval.

I also play hard, and this time it means a 2 week vacation with my son.

All work and no play makes Deb a dull and fidgety girl.

See you on the flip side!

There’s a small boutique I go to sometimes, and one of the things I noticed is that they’ve been following the trend a lot of small places follow. There’s limited space, so they try to find ways to display as much as they can in tight spaces. When you go to pay for something, you literally have to push some of the display aside so you can place your items down and pay.

While one may think, offering variety is a benefit by giving people a lot to choose from; it can actually distract people from buying things.

When you have a large cluttered display, there’s no point of focus. People see a large “grouping” of items, and are then focused on the overall look. You need to have a point of focus, so that your customer’s eye goes directly to the item you’re trying to highlight. If you have a shelf that is overwhelming, people aren’t going to sort through that to find that one specific item they want. If you have a neat grouping, with the highlight on what you’re hoping will sell in that section, people will be drawn to that.

What does your display area look like? Crazy clutter and a jumble of things, or a neat, focused area where it’s a pleasure to shop, and easy to find what you want?