Small Office, Home Office Information

If you have been involved in online affiliate marketing for any length of time you will have heard of Ebates - and it’s quite likely that their name brings forth some very negative thoughts about them and others just like them.

If so then you will find this piece over on 5 Star Affiliate Programs rather interesting - it’s not every day that a major online business gets sued for Environmental Trespass.

If your small business does have female customers - and I really can’t think of any that don’t - then follow the link to Women!!!!!! and ready a true story tha happened to me yesterday

One of my major pet hates when it comes to shopping online is the fact that I have to dig like a gold miner to find out whether or not a small business website ships their goods outside the United States.

I won’t rant about the fact that so many businesses that sell online simply refuse to be part of the global economy - I’m over that … at least I think I am. If you want to open a store in the centre of a major city but only sell to people from just one suburb then that’s up to you. I’m sure you have a valid reason.

But please remember that a lot of your traffic will come from countries outside of the one you might want to sell in. Andit would be really nice to tell those of us from outside your market place that you don’t want to sell to us.

You might even tell us that right on your index page - it wouldn’t be hard - just a few words would save us all the hassle of digging through your site to find out whether or not you ship to 95% of the real world or not.

If you don’t ship to other places and you take the time to tell us - on your front page - you will even save yourself some bandwidth. If we know that you won’t sell to us we won’t go digging through every page to try and find out.

Grrrrrrr.

If you’re running a small business in south east Queensland then this might interest you.

Small Business Minister Chris Cummins is encouraging Brisbane small business owners and operators to attend a one day workshop on Thursday the 11th May to learn about how to raise capital.

Mr Cummins said the Life’s a Pitch - Investee Workshop, presented in partnership with the Achaeus Group, would run from 8:15am to 4:30pm and cost $22.00, including lunch and morning and afternoon tea.

Mr Cummins said participants would learn how to:

* Structure a presentation to financiers and investors;
* Energise their presentation and bring alive their proposal;
* Develop trust: a key element of any successful presentation;
* Address key financier and investor concerns;
* Turn nervous energy into a positive driving force; and
* Employ ‘tricks of the trade’ that professionals use to deliver outstanding presentations.

“Small to medium business owners based in Brisbane who attend this workshop stand to gain a really practical insight into how to negotiate the deal that could make their business a major success,” Mr Cummins said.

“You can have the most amazing business plan and be acting on all the best advice but in the end the most critical part is selling that plan to a financier or investor so you can raise the money to make it happen.

“This workshop is all about presenting the perfect ‘million dollar’ pitch. If you’ve never had to do it before it can be a nerve-racking and draining experience.

“The right business plan will get you in the door but the presentation is what will get you the money.”

The ‘Life’s a Pitch - Investee Workshop’ is being held at the Brisbane State Development Centre, Level 21, 111 George Street, Brisbane.

To book, or for more information, telephone 3225 1915, or go online at www.sd.qld.gov.au/brisbane

… women owners are more concerned about the future well-being of their business and employees than men according to the findings of a new study that has just been released.

This ground breaking study examines how women business owners approach exiting their businesses, their priorities and their challenges. The research for Exit Strategies of Women and Men Business Owners was conducted by the Center for Women’s Business Research and underwritten by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual). The findings were released at the 12th Annual Executive Roundtable of the Center for Women’s Business Research.

“The majority of both women and men (85%) believe that price is the most important factor when selling their businesses,” said Marjorie Alfus, chair, Center for Women’s Business Research. “However, women business owners also take into account a broad range of issues focused on the match between the buyer and the company. Women are more concerned than men owners about the future of their businesses and the well-being of employees.”

Women business owners are considerably more likely than men owners to take into account the buyer’s identity, personality, and background (72% vs. 30%). Additionally, women owners are more concerned than men owners about the buyer’s plans for the business (79% vs. 52%) and plans for current employees (86% vs. 61%).

Women and men owners are just as likely to have had a formal valuation done to determine the price of their business (43%), be familiar with what it entails to hire someone to do a valuation (2.8 out of a scale of 5), and equally likely to say they are prepared to oversee the sale personally (3.8 out of 5).

“Contrary to common belief, women and men owners are equally knowledgeable and confident about managing their exit strategy,” said Elaine Sarsynski, senior vice president and chief administrative officer, MassMutual. “This study demonstrates the maturation of the women business owner segment of the economy.”

Women and men owners are also equally likely to plan to maintain ownership (20%), sell (38%), pass on to family (23%), close (3%) or have no exit plan (16%).

“This study shows that today’s women business owners know how to start, grow and exit their businesses,” said Susan Sweetser, second vice president, MassMutual. “MassMutual is proud to support this research that sheds new light on how women handle the last stage of the business cycle. We are looking forward to future releases that will cover additional analyses of this very rich study.”

While not all small businesses may benefit from pay per click advertising – that’s the advertising that you will see down the right hand side of search engine result pages and on some web sites – many small businesses can benefit greatly from this form of advertising.

If you run a small business or home office type business and are thinking of using this form of advertising then you may find Why Pay Per Click Advertising is better than Print or Radio by Brendon Sinclair to be of great interest.

There was a time when very few people seemed to consider that Google might not have been as “good” as it made itself out to be. These days though hardly a day goes by without a commentator somewhere raising questions about the big G.

Here is another one that has just hit the Net yesterday – Google’s Arrogance – A Sign of Things to Come

For quite some time now Toni and I have been warning people not to be fooled by Google; it’s mantra of “Don’t be Evil” is nothing more than a smokescreen.

Of course that idea won us few friends and lots of people probably thought that we were totally crazy but now even businesses are beginning to wake up to the fact that Google is not the nice warm fuzzy entity that it likes to portray itself as.

You see someone finally took the time to read the fine print in the $90 million dollar settlement Google offered to those who claimed to have been defrauded while participating in Google’s Adwords programme. And what they found in the fine print was rather nasty.

A quick breakdown of the proposed settlement shows that:

The plaintiffs get no cash at all

The plaintiffs only get credits against future advertising

The plaintiffs don’t even get full credits - all they get is a pro rata share of Google’s revenues from online advertising during the class period. There is some suggestion that at the most a plaintiff will only get credits totally 0.45% of its total spending with Google

But wait, the best is yet to come. Google has the final say on whether or not a plaintiff actually gets anything at all.

You can read the full story here

This is definitely something to consider over your morning coffee - does history really repeat itself?

Lots of people think that it does and some go even further. Noted journalist Robert Fisk - an expert on middle-east affairs suggests that history not only repeats itself but it repeats itself in exactly the same places.

But does that have any bearing on small business?

Well if you remember the South Sea Bubble of 1720 (from your history lessons of course) then you might be surprised to find that there may be some similarities between that and the recent technology bubble.

If you are interested then you can find some interesting information here.

The work may be long and difficult for small businesses that turn a dollar by affiliate marketing but for those of us who do it the upside is that we can still be making money even while we sleep.

We can also be making money while others do the work and if that interests you then follow the link to a story over on Problogger.

I wondered how long it would be before someone asked Darren for a link to that particular sponsor and I was surprised to see that six other people posted before someone asked. Maybe the industry is maturing after all.