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Don’t Let Summer Heat Waves Fry Your Small Business! Top 3 Tips For Protecting Your IT Infrastructure 0 Respons

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July 24, 2013 By Carolyn Crummeyavatar

For many of us across the U.S., we've been experiencing weather that is hot, hot hot. Here in the Greater NYC area, it feels like we've been in a perpetual heat wave, with temps hitting well into the upper 90′s, low 100′s for the last couple of weeks.

The heat doesn't just have a physical effect on us, but it has a definite effect on your business.  It's a common occurrence to experience power outages during heat waves, as demand goes through the roof, and this affects your business.

We've asked Larry Lang, CEO of Quorum - a one-click backup, recovery and continuity service provider that helps businesses safeguard their revenue, customers and reputation - to share with us ways that we can protect our businesses during summer heat waves and ensure our IT infrastructures are not compromised. Enjoy his article and tips on keeping your business protected.

Don't Let Summer Heat Waves Fry Your Small Business. Top 3 Tips For Protecting Your IT Infrastructure!


By Larry Lang, CEO of Quorum

Over the past several weeks, many cities across the U.S. have been hit with triple-digit temperatures. And with extreme heat (and humidity) comes extreme risk for small businesses. Blackouts and power outages occur when extensive use of air conditioning puts a strain on the power grids.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration, 93 percent of all businesses that lost their data center for 10 days went bankrupt within one year. So, with the dreaded heatwave and subsequent threat of downtime, how can small businesses protect their IT assets?

While we cannot prevent heat waves or natural disasters, we can stem or even circumvent their damage. How? The answer goes beyond backup generators and having a few battery-operated radios, extra batteries and flashlights on hand. Rather, disaster recovery planning and technology that enables instant recovery of data, application and systems — along with frequent system testing — is the only way to protect small businesses.

Following are some tips you can consider now to prepare in advance for whatever downtime troubles a heatwave may cause:

  1. Always Be Testing: Testing on a regular basis is crucial to business continuity, and it should be done frequently. However, many small and mid-sized business run into barriers that make frequent testing difficult or impossible. Ask yourself these questions: Does your vendor charge extra to test your disaster recovery system? How hard is it to test your recovery system? Some solutions take hours to spin up virtual machines. How long will it take to test yours?
  2. Business Continuity Is the Best Recovery: Any business can implement a backup solution that covers every device and machine used, but being able to recover that data quickly should the system go down is the real test. Building an always-on IT environment in a virtualized computing world isn't rocket science, but it does require the ability to make the right choices. Unlike in fashion, vintage accoutrements like tape don't look very good when it comes to disaster recovery. You also have to do your due diligence to ensure that the tools that are more attractive — cloud and appliance solutions — don't come with a built-in Pandora's Box effect. As Alexander Graham Bell said, "Preparation is the key to success," and nowhere is this more true than in disaster recovery and business continuity.
  3. Devil's in the Detail: Any recovery solution should be effective when faced with a major disaster like a hurricane. But it should be just as effective if a power strip fails. Having a system that cannot handle a minor setback is just as troublesome as one that cannot recover from a major catastrophe. For a small to mid-sized business, it's imperative to know what types of natural disasters can occur in the area and ensure the right backup solution is in place to handle them. Just as important is knowing what errors could occur in technical systems — whether a power outage or hard-drive failure. Do a back-of-napkin calculation on how long your vendor will take to recover your systems. Does your vendor need time to manually rebuild recovery nodes during the recovery process? Can you have an unlimited number of recovery nodes running at one time? If not, you may experience processing delays during the recovery process. Can the recovery nodes run inside the same appliance? Some vendors export recovery nodes from spare servers — and charge you for it. Ask for a recovery scenario demo to clarify everything.

Carolyn Crummey 25 Jul, 2013


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Source: http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2013/07/dont-let-summer-heat-waves-fry-your-small-business-top-3-tips-for-protecting-your-it-infrastructure.html/
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Small-Business Guide: Sell a Business to Cover Retirement? Don’t Count on It 0 Respons

When R. J. Lewis left a corporate job to start his own business in 1999, he knew his bank account would suffer. He gave up a six-figure income and assumed that the first few years of entrepreneurship would be lean.

Still, he did not realize just how much of a toll running a business would take on his personal finances. For four years, Mr. Lewis, the founder of eHealthcare Solutions, an online advertising network that is based in Ewing, N.J., and represents health care Web sites, took home about $20,000 a year and had to deplete his retirement savings account.

"It was draining to watch that savings go down," he said.

But as soon as he was able, he started saving again. Unfortunately, many business owners never reach that point. One study found that 40 percent of business owners had no retirement savings. There are a lot of reasons saving for retirement is difficult for owners, but perhaps the biggest mistake many make is assuming that they do not need to save — that one day they will sell their businesses and live off the proceeds.

Many businesses simply cannot be sold, and others end up being sold for far less than expected, said Randy Gerber, founder of Gerber L.L.C., which helps business owners manage their personal finances. And even if a business can be sold, he said, owners often have an unrealistic notion of how much it might be worth. That is why a potential sale should not be an owner's only plan for retirement.

PLAY IT SAFE By definition, business owners take a lot of risk in their professional lives because much of their net worth is tied up in one asset, typically as much as 65 to 85 percent, according to Rob Pettit, a high-net-worth planner at TD Wealth.

For this reason, they are often advised to follow two rules with the money they manage to save: invest conservatively and diversify. Following that advice, however, does not come naturally to all business owners. Many are eager to invest in stocks and do not want to consider fixed-income securities.

When Mr. Lewis started investing in the stock market, he bought mostly health care and pharmaceutical companies, industries he is exposed to through his business — a common mistake.

"It seemed to make sense for me to invest in health care because I know it so well," he said. "Most of my business is tied up in that sector." He eventually realized that it would be wise to change that approach, and he now owns shares in technology, oil and gas and financial companies.

Mr. Gerber, whose financial management firm is based in Columbus, Ohio, said he believed that assets that are liquid, have low volatility and generate income were generally an entrepreneur's best bet. Many of his clients own corporate bonds that can either be sold quickly or held to maturity, and mutual funds that invest in equities and pay dividends. He avoids mutual funds that invest in bonds, he said, because when interest rates rise, they lose value.

CUT YOUR OWN PAY? When times get tough, many owners stop saving for retirement. They either forgo salary altogether or reduce their pay. That can be a mistake, said Ellie Byrd, founder and chief executive of ForumSherpa, a business based in Atlanta that offers executive leadership and training courses.

Ms. Byrd used to run a software training company. In 2000, she stopped taking a salary, and a year later, she found herself $500,000 in debt. With no income, she could not contribute to a savings plan — or pay her bills. When a business struggles, deciding not to pay yourself may seem a natural reaction, but it can obscure larger issues.

In retrospect, Ms. Byrd says she believes she should have laid off staff members and made other adjustments before stopping her own pay.

Mr. Gerber said owners should stop saving only if it is clear the business can be turned around. If not, there probably are bigger problems, and stopping saving isn't going to solve them. "You often have to do some real soul searching to figure out why the business is struggling," he said.

Of course, there are times when it makes sense to hold off on saving personally to invest more in the company. In these instances, Mr. Gerber said, the business should be running smoothly, and the investment should promise a healthy return. He likes to see an investment, like a new piece of equipment, generate a return that is three times greater than can be gained in stocks or bonds. If it cannot do that, he advises putting the cash in a personal account.

BUY THE BUILDING Although Lenny Verkhoglaz invests in an individual retirement account, he thought he should hold more than just stocks and bonds in his overall portfolio. In 2006, Mr. Verkhoglaz, the founder of Executive Care, which is based in Hackensack, N.J., and provides in-home health care to the elderly, bought the building that holds his offices.

When he retires, he plans to sell his company and the building together. He holds the building in a separate company for rent-related purposes but thinks he will get a better price by selling the two assets together. "If I sell the company without the building," he said, "the value of the real estate may go down if the company moves out and another tenant doesn't take its place."

Even so, Mr. Gerber suggests keeping ownership of the company and the building separate. That makes it possible to sell the company and keep the real estate, collecting rent from a new occupant. A separation can also limit liability, Mr. Gerber said.

There is another advantage to owning your own building: you do not have to deal with a landlord who might raise the rent or evict you. And as a real estate investor, you have a dream tenant: yourself.

KNOW YOUR BUSINESS'S WORTH If selling your business is any part of your retirement plan, Mr. Gerber said, it is essential to know what your business is worth. And it is important to start tracking its value long before you plan to sell.

Mr. Gerber suggests hiring a professional who can figure out the current value of your company. Then determine how much money you will need to live the lifestyle you want. Most important, think about whether you will be able to increase the value of your business enough to match that retirement number.

At age 43, one of Mr. Gerber's clients decided he wanted to retire at 50. To do so, he determined, he would need to build his business to $20 million in revenue from $10 million. Doing that meant finding new distribution channels to sell his products. It is working, Mr. Gerber said, but if it was not, he would have to think about retiring later. "It's about the math," he said. "It needs to be clear."

Business owners also must be prepared to sell early if their business or their industry starts to head south. Another of Mr. Gerber's clients was in a sector that was consolidating quickly. She received an offer on her business that was far less than she believed it was worth, but she decided to take it, knowing that it would be tough to compete against the big players beginning to dominate the market. "If you think the number will get worse and not better," he said, "then get out when the getting's good."

By BRYAN BORZYKOWSKI 25 Jul, 2013


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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/business/smallbusiness/sell-a-business-to-cover-retirement-dont-count-on-it.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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Keep CRM Simple With W5 Templates 0 Respons

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July 22, 2013 By Stephanie Farisavatar

CRM is an important part of doing business, but solutions like Salesforce have an ongoing subscription price that can cut into a small business's budget. Additionally, these solutions often come with more features than a growing small business needs in its early stages. For a new business, learning and managing a complex CRM can be time-consuming.

"The W5T product is built on a PC application everyone uses and is familiar with: Microsoft Excel," says David Oshlag, founder of W5 Templates. "In fact, according to Gartner Research, there are over one billion users of the Microsoft Office suite product worldwide."

As Oshlag points out, the name W5 Templates is built on the five W's of most projects. He has found these five W's are universal to most work activities:

  • Who does what
  • What needs to be accomplished
  • Where something has to be
  • Why something needs to be done
  • When it needs to be completed

W5T uses color coding to allow workers to easily see, at a glance, when it's time to follow up with a customer. The spreadsheet displays each project, along with contact information, date of last contact, and any notes workers need to include.

The best thing about W5T is that it works with existing software. The downfall is that if a business doesn't have Microsoft Office, W5T won't be usable. The built-in security features are also added through Microsoft's security options.

While W5T is simple and clean, there's no comparison to the interface of a service like Salesforce. Salesforce is a full app, designed to allow for easy flow from one screen to the next. W5T is a series of templates, and CRM templates are available for free. Additionally, W5T isn't the only easy-to-use CRM offered as a one-time licensing fee, rather than a monthly subscription.

For businesses impressed with W5T, Sage ACT! Pro is worth investigating. Available for nearly $100 less than W5T, Sage ACT! Pro provides a single view of contact information, e-mails, activities, and to-do lists. The product also works with a variety of mobile devices, including iOS and Android tablets and phones, as well as Blackberries. Currently, W5T requires Windows XP or 7 or Mac OS X, along with Microsoft Office.

One thing W5T offers that other companies doesn't is customization. The company tailors the product's interface to each individual business's needs. W5T also offers Google mapping to allow for easy access to each customer's information.

CRM is an important part of growing a business. W5T and Sage ACT! Pro are both easy-to-learn alternatives to much more complex CRMs. Both services offer a free trial to allow you to determine which software is best for your business.

Jennifer Peaslee 23 Jul, 2013


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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Smallbiztechnologycom-SmbNewsAndInsight/~3/VNoL1_yYLLc/
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10 Tips,Tools and Strategies To Help You Create An Effective Customer Loyalty Program 0 Respons

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July 24, 2013 By Jennifer Peasleeavatar

Recent Colloquy research found that there are 2.65 million loyalty program memberships in the United States, an increase of 26.7 percent since 2010. This is great, but before you jump on the loyalty program bandwagon, there is much more you need to know.

Gallup research shows that loyalty programs only work when paired with customer engagement – the emotional connection between a customer and a business/brand. Unfortunately, having a loyalty program does not automatically translate into engagement. As proof, the same Colloquy research found that active participation in loyalty programs declined 4.3 percent, indicating that after people sign up, businesses have trouble continuing to engage customers.

To make engagement a top priority, consider these tips when you begin your loyalty program:

  • Make it fun. Think of your loyalty program like a game. How do customers "play" and what do they "win?"  Having a fun program with attractive incentives will excite your customers and even bring out their competitive side.
  • Keep it simple. You don't need an elaborate point system or a million rewards to have a good loyalty program, so if your staff or customers are confused, it's a signal you've gone too far. Make sure the sign-up process is easy and fast, and consider a sign-up bonus as a great way to promote initial engagement.
  • Get the word out. Have your staff promote the program to customers – the conversation itself can be an effective form of engagement for your business. To catch former customers who haven't come in lately, spread the message on your website and your social media.

The above tips are easy to understand, but what is more difficult is the logistical side of how to set your loyalty program up. Major companies have large budgets devoted to analyzing customer behavior and creating sophisticated loyalty programs. With smaller budgets, small businesses can look to technology for an affordable and engaging program. Some options include:

  • Perka – Perka is a loyalty program that works on phones – not just smartphones either, it also works on older phones via text messages. The Perka team connects with you to custom design your loyalty program, and customers receive rewards based on purchases that are verified by your staff, either in a punch card or point system. Plans start at $35 a month.
  • Belly – With Belly, your loyalty program takes the form of an app. When you sign up you'll receive a tablet for your business. Customers then download the app or get a free physical card to join your loyalty program. When customers come into your establishment, they scan their card or phone on the tablet to check in. You choose the rewards and customers redeem when they have accumulated enough points. Plans start at $79 per month.
  • RewardLoop – RewardLoop works with the ability of smartphones to scan QR codes. The business owner connects a printer adapter to their POS and printer, and then receipts print with QR codes on the bottom. Customers scan these codes and accumulate punches or points, redeemable for rewards set by the business owner. Plans start at $40 per month.

This list is just a small sample of loyalty program businesses; others include Swipely, Foursquare, Affinity Solutions, Punchtab, FiveStars, Cardfree, and many, many more.

Once your loyalty program is set up, the work is not done. It is important that you continually focus on customer engagement if you want your program to work. Remember to:

  • Customize your loyalty program. Engagement is about developing an emotional connection to your business or brand. Include your company logo and strive to create rewards and incentives that are uniquely you.
  • Get to know your customers. Some of the programs mentioned above include the ability to see customer-level data or to send individualized rewards (for example, via email). Tailoring your program to your best VIPs will let them know how much you appreciate their loyalty.
  • Promote! Whether it's in store, on your website, or on your social media, you should always be promoting your loyalty program and communicating any news or changes about the program. As an added bonus – some loyalty programs that run on smartphones allow customers to 'check in' on their social media, giving you free online advertising.
  • Track the program. You want to make sure the program is working for you and your customers, so track things such as total members, daily activity, changes in sales, and out of pocket costs. Some loyalty program options come with free analytics to help with this. Also, don't forget that the best way to track your loyalty program is through customer feedback.

Loyalty programs can be a great way to create buzz and gain faithful customers – but no loyalty program can work without engaging your customers. Plan your program carefully with an emphasis on engagement, and your loyalty program is sure to succeed.

Jennifer Peaslee 24 Jul, 2013


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Source: http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2013/07/10-tipstools-and-strategies-to-help-you-create-an-effective-customer-loyalty-program.html/
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The Rise of the Task Economy 0 Respons

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I was at a party on Sunday and the host had hired a contractor from TaskRabbit to man the barbecue. She did this so she could enjoy her party and mix with her guests instead of worrying about the food.  

The TaskRabbit did a great job and before he left he also fixed her broken front door nob.  

Welcome to the task economy.  

There's been lots of buzzwords coined to describe the shift from traditional employment and towards temporary and/or self-employment.  Examples include The Temp Economy, The Gig Economy, Freelance Nation, The Grassroots Economy, The Artisan Economy (a term we use), The Bottom Up Economy (we posted on this one yesterday, etc. etc. etc.  

I'm starting to warm to the task economy because all work - and not just temporary work - has become much more task oriented.

There's also been almost an explosion of firms offering services that provide work on a task basis.  Our friends at Staffing Industry Analysts tell us there are at least 60 online staffing firms that provide task-based workers.  This, by the way, does not include crowdsourcing firms.

The chart below comes from the PC World article Inside e-ployment: Online staffing services put temporary labor within reach of small businesses.  It only covers 6 firms, but it's an interesting mix and the chart highlights major differences.

Online staffing firms

It's clear from our research on independent workers that the role of talent intermediaries like these is going to continue to increase.  There are two primary drivers of this trend:

1. Government crackdowns on employee misclassification is leading more hiring firms to use 3rd party labor providers to help avoid the misclassification risk.  

2. Growing numbers of independent workers needing access to buyers of their services.  

What ever we end up calling it, expect to hear more about the task economy in the future.

Steve 24 Jul, 2013


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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmallBizLabs/~3/ZE4jsTZB05M/the-rise-of-the-task-economy.html
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