The SBAM Power Boost

Constant content creates clients

Update your website for more leads : Small Business Internet Marketing, Website Design, Local SEO | LOCAL Na8ion.

If you’re like most small to medium sized businesses you either don’t update your website at all or you don’t update it frequently enough. This hampers your online marketing results in key areas like search engine optimization and building better customer relationships. In this six-minute video I talk about the two primary benefits of updating your website more frequently and then share a golden tip on how to create content for your website more efficiently and consistently. (photo by kpwerker)

Comment -- I think this is a huge challenge for small business owners, especially if they are don't have communications expertise. But there is are of marketing and communications experts out there and they are hungry for work. Consider outsourcing your Web site content. Michael Rogers

It's never easy for a small biz to hire exactly the right person

Find the Right Person in a Down Economy - Entrepreneur.com.

When you do need to wade through resumes, use a recruiting system with pre-screening questions and candidate rating capabilities. This allows you to focus on the exact capabilities you need and only review the candidates who have passed the initial screening, saving yourself massive amounts of time. (photo by zimri_smith)

In this dour employment environment it may be hard to believe that it can be tough to find good workers, but it's always been a challenge for small employers to craft a perfect fit between a job, what they can afford to offer in pay and benefits and a candidate's skills/experience.Your local Michigan Works agency, or small business employment firm, can help a lot in screening candidates for you. Michael Rogers

Your illness affects the health of your small business

When You’re Sick, What Happens To Your Small Business? » Online Business Blog -- erica.biz -- Erica Douglass teaches you how to start and grow an online business!.

If you’re not feeling well and can only get 30 minutes or an hour of work done each day, make those 30 minutes or an hour working with employees and contractors so they can handle customer issues. Have someone else in your company call or email customers and keep them up to date. That hour of good work time you have in the day shouldn’t be spent putting out fires; the stress caused from that will certainly not make you feel better. Being sick isn’t easy, especially when it is an extended illness or one that doesn’t have a horizon where you know you’ll be “over the hump” and feeling better. If there’s one thing I can impart on you from my experience, it’s this: If you decide to be your own doctor, CEO, personal assistant, and support team, you will fail. None of us succeeds alone. Just as you would with employees, feel free to “fire” doctors who won’t work with you and find the good ones who will go the extra mile to get to the root of the problem. You deserve to feel your best so you can go out and become the next small business success story! (photo by Chealion)

Comment -- Being sick when you're a small business owner can be particularly trying because many entrepreneurs (especially sole proprietors!) have a very thin support staff. You are the business, and if you're out of action, so is the business operation. This post has good suggestions on how to handle your illness to minimize the impact on the business -- to which I would add: do you have short and long term disability coverage? Michael Rogers

Key tactic for inflation management

Don't Be Fooled by Temporary Lull in Inflationary Pressures - The Entrepreneurial Mind.

The recession has made entrepreneurs leary of doing anything but cut prices to keep their businesses afloat during the recession. While that may still be the best course over the short-run, pay very close attention to pricing from your suppliers, decreases in unemployment, increasing interest rates, and pricing moves from the big boys in your industry. These are the elements of your inflationary dashboard. When inflation heats up even a little, be aggressive with frequent small price increases rather than waiting and trying to catch up at some point with one big jump. Don't let yourself get behind, as small businesses can almost never play catch-up with their prices. (photo by zzathras777)

The explosion of federal spending (and deficits) has raised the very real fear that that policymakers will inflate away the debt. Younger small business owners have never lived through a high inflation economy like we had in the 1970s, so they don't have a framework for how to manage double digit inflation rates. It will take a lot of good fortune for the U.S. economy to avoid an inflationary explosion, so it would be prudent to start planning now for a possible round of price hikes. Michael Rogers

Putting the "I" in IT

How to Support Your IT Innovators - Susan Cramm - Harvard Business Review.

...overall, business leaders don't feel very smart about IT. For example, in my recent survey... * Only 11% personally use and fully leverage the capabilities of the technology currently in place * 50% agree with the statement that "business leaders don't understand how to use their systems and technologies" * Only 25% of business leaders consider themselves "IT-smart." (photo by fd)

I've found that small business owners fall on to a bell curve when it comes to using technology: a few are totally clueless, a few could give Steve Jobs a run for his money, and most are still trying to find the time to sort out what's useful and what's not. But I think that entrepreneurs are more willing than most business leaders to at least experiment with personal technology and find practical ways to make it work with their business operation. Competitive pressures in today's economy make that a necessity. Michael Rogers

When "show me the money" is not enough

5 Myths about Motivating Your Employees in a Recession - Motivating your Employees - Entrepreneur.com.

Of course, if you pay some enough money, they will do almost any job. And when you give bonuses to reward past behavior, the recipients are usually very happy (unless they were expecting a larger bonus). The staff does a better job following the glow that accompanies added money. However, studies find this happiness is short-lived. Within six months, individuals have difficulty recalling that bonus and it does not seem to have the same impact it did within the first few weeks or months of receiving it. That’s because money, in and of itself, will not continuously motivate individuals. (photo by Peter Baer)

After noting that money alone is not enough to motivate workers, the author of this article lists "10 Quick Ways to Motivate." All of the ways depend on the boss (that's you, the small business employer) really paying close attention to what the employee is doing and how the employee is doing it. Some small business owners may balk at this. After all, who has time to "babysit" their workers? But in your small business, you've usually invested more in your employees than in anything else. It's smart to give them your total time and attention. Michael Rogers

Taking away credit that was once taken for granted

A Credit Squeeze for Small-Business Owners - NYTimes.com.

Owning a small business has always been a challenge — half wind up failing within the first few years. But the financial crisis has dealt them a one-two punch, as big banks cut the credit card lines that many entrepreneurs were forced to lean on when a once-abundant supply of loans dried up. As of April, 59 percent of America’s small firms relied on credit cards to help finance their day-to-day operations, up from 44 percent at the end of last year, according to the National Small Business Association. The number of small-business owners who depend on a credit card to buy items as varied as paper clips and heavy equipment has climbed steadily over the years, from just 16 percent in 1993. Today, that group makes up 11 percent of the revenue for Visa and MasterCard, from 3 percent in 1998, according to David Robertson, who publishes The Nilson Report on the credit card industry. (photo by TheTruthAboutMortgage.com)

This article notes that some credit card companies have, without notice, drastically cut credit limits on cards used by small business owners. You can read the National Small Business Association's (NSBA) report on their survey of credit card usage by clicking here. NSBA is SBAM's national affiliate. Michael Rogers

Excellent content crucial for small biz Twitter tweets

OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN | | Three Ways to Earn Followers on Twitter.

People want to follow people who might share insights, resources and great content. It’s a bit hard to do this in 140 characters or less, so that great content and reputation needs to exist or be carefully nurtured in order to gain followers by virtue of your ideas. Building great content, and reputation for consistently creating great content is no easy feat and probably why so many people abandon twitter quickly. (image by Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten)

Creating really good Twitter content may be a big challenge for small businesses that don't have a communications or marketing department. If you can afford it, consider outsourcing to another small firm that specializes in social media. Or, see if you can hire a part-time blogger or intern. Regardless of what you do, make sure you are always seeking to engage with customers and listen to their feedback. Michael Rogers

Just for the health of it

SBAM.

Michigan’s Wellness Resource Web site (www.miwellnessresource.org) was launched today by the Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM) and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA). The purpose of the site is to provide Michigan employers (including hospitals and small businesses) and the public with the knowledge and tools necessary to build and promote employer and family wellness programs in order to improve community health. In addition to serving as a resource guide for businesses looking to their local hospitals for wellness assistance, Michigan's Wellness Resource will feature helpful information for individuals and families striving to build healthier lifestyles, nutritional and activity tools, a wellness program toolkit, and case studies from the business community.

Prior to the launch of this Web site, finding the resources to build and run a wellness program was pretty difficult for a small business. This Web site brings many of those resources into one easy-to-find place. Community health and small businesses go hand-in-hand; a healthy community allows local businesses to employ healthy workforces, resulting in higher productivity, lower absenteeism and lower health care costs. Long term, SBAM is working to encourage insurance companies to establish health insurance rating criteria that give economic incentives to small businesses that implement wellness initiatives and to encourage the Legislature to provide tax credits for employer-based wellness programs. Michael Rogers

A green lean money machine

Is Your Business a Green Business? | Improve My Business.

What classifies a business as green? Could you be certified as a green business? There are a million questions surrounding being green, but it’s not really all that complicated. We all know the obvious things: recycle, reduce paper use, turn off lights, etc. But you can take it a step further by implementing an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for your business. The EPA Small Business Division has produced a workbook to help small businesses develop their very own EMP. The 80 page workbook is free and can be downloaded from the Business.gov website. (photo by Storm Crypt)

If you're hanging on by your fingernails and focusing on sheer business survival, it's tough to think about the future -- surviving past the next week, let alone the next year. But implementing an Environmental Management Plan could be a good investment in your business future, both as a way to reduce operational costs to enhance your "green" image with customers. Michael Rogers