Small Office, Home Office Information

by Stuart Livesey

Have you noticed that you’re not as productive in your current office/work room as you were in some other room in the building?

Are your customers not reacting in quite the way you expected or hoped for?

Well the problem faced by you and your small business could be right over your head and about as close as the ceiling height. A recent study seems to suggest that ceiling heights influence the way people think and act and you can read more about it here.

by Stuart Livesey

 There is no doubt that small business is hazardous, your cash flow can dry up overnight, your health can deteriorate, to the point where you can’t work, in the blink of an eye, people outside of your business can try to destroy you simply because they don’t understand what you’re doing and the list just goes on.

But still I love small business because, even though you may be specialising in something quite narrow there are still plenty of challenges and jobs for you to do within that focus. Some tasks can require research, assessment and action that takes you outside your comfort zone while other tasks can be basic and even menial and yet, because you’re the small business, you still have to do them.

I just finished vacuuming our offices and now I’m off to write some killer copy for one of our clients that should make his company a lot of money and at the same time Toni and I are pondering a move into a huge overseas market that is largely untapped.

I wonder why I never get bored with this business

Over the weekend I upgraded this small business blog to the latest version of WordPress. I won’t tell you what the previous version was - it’s too embarrassing - but this version is 2.1.3.

The actual upgrade was done in about five minutes and this version has some handy security features that can make life very easy - especially if you have a pest who keeps on posting irrelevant comments that fall under the Spam Karma radar.

It’s not always achieved in the way most people think

by Stuart Livesey

Everyone knows that the one important way of increasing your profits is to cut your costs. You see that concept at work in big business and small business too. Even sole traders who operate from a home office are aware that cutting their costs is important.

But sometimes the way to increase your profit is to actually spend more money on things that, at first glance, may not seem to matter much.

Seth Godin addresses that idea here and it should give you some great food for thought.

by Stuart Livesey

Ok, perhaps it’s time to pull together the threads in the four posts I made last week about small business advertising.

1. You must engage your readers with a headline that resonates with them and their needs/wants.

2. Your ad needs to tell a story that ultimately offers your reader some hope in finding a solution to their needs/wants. And it needs to tell that story in words that your target audience understands - and in as few words as possible.

3. Using colour is good - but black and white can be just as effective. If you’re going to use colour make sure that the text in your ad is still easily read and doesn’t disappear into the background colour. Don’t be afraid to use white space - white space can be an emphasis - trying to fill ever nook and cranny in your ad with information will be counter-productive

4. Make sure the ad is complete before giving the go ahead to have it published. It’s easy to miss vital information so don’t be rushed at this point.

5. Don’t rely solely on the staff from the newspaper. Take control and responsibility for your own advertising because it will definitely pay off.

Other posts in this series:

Some good small business newspaper advertising - all things considered, this is a very good ad

Not so bad small business newspaper advertising - it could have been better.

Poor small business newspaper advertising - a bad use of colour.

Ugly small business newspaper advertising - oops someone forgot to put the name of the business on the ad.

Just a little test to see if the upgrade really did work

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

by Stuart Livesey

Ok, over the last three days we’ve looked at some small business advertising in the local newspaper here in Hervey Bay that has ranged from not too bad to downright ugly. You’ll find links to those three posts at the bottom of this one.

Now it’s time to show you a small business advertisment that appeared in the local paper that really tells a story, looks good and is going to interest people. But before we come to the ad I should say that this town is full of retirees who have kids spread far and wide across the country so the headline of this ad for this small business is really going to have an impact on lots of people.

It packs a punch because it addresses the needs of a lot of people in this community, it doesn’t hide the message behind a whole lot of unnecessary fluff, it includes a call to action and it’s readable because it uses colour in a way that doesn’t hide important parts of the ad.

Other posts in this series:

Not so bad small business newspaper advertising - it could have been better.

Poor small business newspaper advertising - a bad use of colour.

Ugly small business newspaper advertising - oops someone forgot to put the name of the business on the ad.

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

by Stuart Livesey

Okay so we’ve had the ugly in local newspaper advertising for small business and we’ve had the bad in local newspaper advertising for small business so perhaps now it’s time for the not-so-bad in local newspaper advertising.

As you can see it certainly has a headline that grabs your attention and, if you’re a pain suffer (like I am), it engages you but it fails in one important area and certainly leaves me with a slightly negative impression. It offers no hope for relief from that pain and if there’s no hope then there’s no reason for me to call.

Do you agree?

By the way, I should explain about the lines that are blurred. This lady operates from her home … and happens to be our next-door neighbour - and I wasn’t comfortable about revealing her home address to all and sundry on the Internet.

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

by Stuart Livesey

Yesterday I started this little series about advertising in the local newspaper by showing you an ad that fell right into the downright ugly category. It wasn’t ugly from a visual point of view but it left out one vital detail - the name of the business - and you can see it here.

Today’s example of small business advertising falls into the ‘bad’ category. Once again, you might think that it doesn’t look all that bad (and it doesn’t once it was scanned and enhanced on the computer) but as it appeared in the paper important parts of this ad were unreadable.

You see, the colours in the text blended into the background colours to the point where most people would have had trouble reading the text.

Business cards can be a great marketing tool but not if you use them like this guy did

by Stuart Livesey

Your business card can be a great marketing tool for your small business and I wrote about it back in 2005 when I wrote Marketing Your Small Business with Your Business Card but they can also have the opposite effect if you try and push the limits and be a bit of smart-ass.

Last night we had to duck down to the computer shop to set up a download so that we could grab some very large files from a client. Rick, the guy we share the computer shop with, likes to promote other small businesses in town by allowing them to put a business card holder and a few business cards on his front counter. Included in those on display is one for our text and web design business.

Last night while I was waiting for Toni to set up the download I was looking through those business cards and noticed that none of ours were on display. That seemed a little odd until I noticed that someone had placed several new cards for Wide Bay Connections in front of ours in our card holder.

A phone call to Rick revealed that Jeff from Wide Bay Connections had been into the shop to source some parts through the week but hadn’t asked if he could leave any business cards. Instead it looks as though he spotted our cards and thought it would be a good move to get his cards in front of those of a competitor while Rick wasn’t watching.

Not a cool move Jeff because it not only sends the entirely wrong message about the sort of small business that Wide Bay Connections is but it also means you’re going to have to look for a new source any computer parts you want. Rick doesn’t take kindly to people who pull dirty tricks like that … and nor do we.