Category Archives: Small Business Communications

Publicity for Small Business

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Publicity is important for any small business and it’s even more important for home based businesses. So how do small businesses go about getting publicity for their business?

Unfortunately some small business owners seem to think that any publicity is good and they will do anything just to get the names of their businesses in front of people.

And, if you ask them, they will tell you that notoriety works … but I wonder if it really does. Would you really expect a business person who uses those techniques to really tell you the truth if their move for more publicity actually bombed?

I think not and to me, anyone who wants to work the notoriety angle is showing signs of laziness and desperation.

So what can a small business or home based business do to generate publicity?

Here is an interesting article written by Abe Cherian. He talks about what every small business needs to know regarding publicity.

Who Buys From Your Small Business

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I read some interesting statistics the other day that made me wonder if small business people actually realise who they are selling to. Are your real clients – as opposed to the people who just come and have a look – men or women?

In America it’s been found that while lots of men look it is actually the females who buy and that includes the big ticket items. If you run an electrical store you might find that there are a lot more men in the store than women but the men are only looking while it is the women who are actually doing the buying.

Of course, once you know who is actually buying your product, you will then be able to better target your marketing and approach the people who have come in to your business.

One of my daughters, a highly skilled single young woman, went to buy a washing machine recently. She went in her lunch hour from work and a male co-worker just happened to accompany her. When a salesman approached them my daughter enquired about a washing machine and the salesman showed her and her co-worker a number of models.

But the salesman could not handle dealing with a female, he addressed all his comments to my daughter’s co-worker who had just come along for the ride. Even when my daughter told him that it was her who was interesting in buying the salesman continued to address the male co-worker.

Needless to say, my daughter did not buy a washing machine in that store.

Are you missing sales because you’re talking to the wrong person?

Instant Messaging and Small Business 2

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I wish I could say that the hectic pace of yesterday has settled down again but I can’t – the pressure of work continues and I’m dashing this off in a few spare moments while I grab a coffee – 4.30pm and it’s only my second of the day.

Yesterday I rambled on about instant messaging systems and small business and today I would just like to add a one or two additional thoughts.

Using an Instant Messaging system to close a business deal is no more dangerous than using email or even the phone. The safest business deal is the one that’s closed with a firm handshake and an opportunity to look the other person in the eye.

Now of course, you can’t do that with ICQ, Messenger or any other IM but nor can you do it with email, the telephone or even mail so to think that doing business via IM is filled with danger is a little silly.

However, any prudent business person will always take precautions when it comes to doing business that way. We never start a text job until we have been paid at least 50% up front. There are simply no exceptions and anyone who wants to see the work before we see the money is politely told to look elsewhere for a writer.

We always ensure that every important business message is backed up. Most IM software have a history option but sometimes it is not enabled by default. If you are going to use an IM system for business make sure that the history option is enabled and even then copy and paste important conversations into a word document for further backup.

I’d like to say that we have never been conned by anyone who wanted to use our services and came to us via IM but I can’t. We have been caught but then others have been caught when work has come to them via email, letter or phone.

The risk is always there but you work to minimise that risk because doing business via IM is just too convenient to ignore.

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Instant Messaging and Small Business

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Wow, a couple of days ago I was looking forward to a few quiet days where I might be able to catch up with my work but it never seems to work out that way. Just as things began to settle down more work came in and I’m back knocking out a bunch of articles and reviews.

In fact I’ve been doing it for over 12 hours so far today (and it’s only 4pm as I write this) so I thought I should semi-escape for a few minutes just to try and regain my sanity. I say semi-escape because all I’ve done is take the laptop out onto the back patio to write this. At least I’ve escaped from the office for a short while.

Yesterday I posted a comment in a thread over on Home Office Voice about using Instant Messaging for business purposes – silly me because Martin immediately asked me to recount our experiences and so here I am.

Martin’s thread was commenting on the growing trend among businesses to conduct important business via one of the various types of Instant Messaging but to us it’s really nothing new.

Most of our clients are online and are a segment of the online industry that has almost always used ICQ to conduct business. We have been using it ever since we started in business and these days nearly every major order we get comes to us via ICQ.

We find that it is invaluable because anyone who relies on email will know just how easy it is for important emails to get culled by the various spam filters that most of us employ these days.

Now that is not to say that there isn’t plenty of ICQ spam because there certainly is but it’s not hard to tell the difference between someone who wants to talk to you about business and a dopey Russian Cam Girl who has been given a bunch of ICQ numbers to cycle through every day of the week.

There is also the problem of friends, and sometimes business associates who just want to chat and Toni frequently has her ICQ turned off for that reason. I’m a little less polite than she is and if someone just wants to chat a terse “Bugger off I’m busy” usually does the trick.

You may wonder about things like record keeping with business done via Instant Messaging but most have a history function and all you have to do is make sure that it’s turned on and then every word that’s exchanged is recorded and stored on your computer.

Of course, if you are worried about the informality of Instant Messaging you can always close the business transaction with a phone call or with an email but once you start using and Instant Messaging system you will soon find that even those final closing formalities are usually not required.

I’ve left the most important benefit of using something like ICQ till last and that is the fact that is usually occurs in real time. When you are discussing business via email there is always a gap on the proceedings while people are reading those emails but with something like ICQ you talk to the person and they respond almost immediately.

If you are a writer or a designer you get to pick your client’s brain in real time, you can ask relevant questions to clarify important points that might be missed via email and it’s easier for you both to understand each other.

Very few of our orders these days come to us by any other form of communication and we would be lost without it. Don’t be afraid of using Instant Messaging in your business transactions. Once you’ve have tried it you will wonder how you ever managed without it.

Small Business and Home Office Skype Users

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If, like me, you use Skype then you should be warned there has been some critical flaws uncovered in a recent version of the programme. They actually came to light yesterday and were quickly fixed.

So perhaps you should pop along to the official website and see if you are one of those that needs to download the security patches.
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Skype Warning for Small Business

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If you’re one of the growing number of online businesses that uses Skype for free phone calls across the road or across the planet I’m sure you will be pleased to know that there is a Skype virus loose on the Net.

It won’t come to you via Skype and and it doesn’t actually infect Skype but it will create havoc on your computer.

It comes in the form of an email that claims to contain version 1.4 of Skype’s voice over Internet Protocol software. Opening the attachment with the email doesn’t install Skype at all but it does install the Trojan.

Skype did release a new version of its software back on October 10 but it does not distribute any of its software via email.

If you have any doubts you should always visit the Skype website at http://www.skype.com/security/.

Telling Stories

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There are times when we sit down at our friend’s computer shop drinking coffee and just listening. Of course we listen to our friend because he has a lot to teach us about computers but we also listen to his customers too.

The one’s I find to be particularly interesting are those who bring their computers in for repair. These are mostly people who have no clue about computers. Some are highly articulate and successful in their own businesses while others are just ordinary people. There are retirees, students, mums and dads … just ordinary people who don’t understand much about computers.

I find that the stories they tell our friend are really interesting. There are times when I get quietly frustrated with them – why don’t they just give our friend the facts? Why do they have to keep waffling on and wasting time when just the facts would get our friend on the job quicker?

These people have a need to resort to stories. They don’t have the technical background and so they don’t have the technical words to use. To them there are no short sharp facts – there is only the story. And our friend understands that.

To these people there is only the story because the story helps them understand what happens and so the clues that our friend needs are embedded in the story.

Do you listen to the stories when the customers and clients of your small business come to you for help?

Or do you miss the clues because you don’t understand that telling you a story is the only way that many of your customers and clients can express their need?

Small Business – Take Control of Your Life

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Maybe that’s a rather strong headline but just lately the fact that so many small businesses let others control their lives has been bothering me.

Actually I thought I was over it but something I was reading about a technical gadget brought it back to me. Some firm has come up with an incredible little gadget that’s a bit like carrying a slideshow in your pocket and further information is available by filling in a form on their website.

Unfortunately the form doesn’t work – probably because whoever designed the site was in too great a rush. So now they have a great product and they’re probably wondering why no one is asking them about it. Problems like that can happen when you let other people from outside your business take control.

What really got me thinking about it was a cup of coffee I had with Toni at our favourite cafe. I was sitting there waiting for Toni to arrive when the owner whose afriend mentioned that the cafe now has it’s own website. He said that it was designed by friends in the web design business and it was pretty obvious that he had just told them to design him a website and left them to do it.

So I was interested to see what it looked like and as soon as I got home and into my office I typed in the URL.

And it was genuinely terrible. The splash page was even less interesting than a wet dish cloth. Someone had decided that the site needed a lot of Javascript but it didn’t work, links that were supposed to point to other pages in the site pointed to nothing and images were being called up from some other site that had nothing to do with the cafe.

If you are going to get someone to do some work for you maintain some control over it. If you don’t understand the work that has to go into job get them to explain it. Call them to account for why they are doing things and if they won’t tell you, or can’t tell you then make them stop till they can or will.

Keep control of your small businesses life and don’t let others destroy what you have worked so hard to achieve.

Our friend the cafe owner did just that – he wanted a website that would advertise the good food, great coffee and fun that people can have when they go to his cafe. Instead what he got was something that will turn people away.

What Message is Your Small Business Sending to the Marketplace

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The message that many of us send out may not really be what we want the marketplace to hear. But then that problem isn’t restricted to small business. Sometimes we do have an excuse – after all we’re small and we can’t employ experts to vet every message we want to send.

But what excuse does big business have?

Take Boeing – the aircraft manufacturer for instance. They have been busy advertising their latest verion of the V22 Osprey (its a combination aircraft and helicopter if those sort of things interest you) and it has many uses. Perhaps showing it in a rescue situation might have been a good marketing ploy but someone at Boeing decided that it was time to flex a little muscle and show just what this mighty fighting machine could really do.

So about a month ago a ad appeared in print in the National Journal showing the Osprey in action. Not just any old battlefield action but something that was topical and put the plane right at the forefront of the fight for freedom. And what better way to do that than to show this hi-tech piece of hardware attacking … a mosque.

Of course you can imagine the response to which Boeing replied that it had no knowledge of how the ad came to be created.

There’s not much plausible deniability in that one – especially when the same ad was printed again this month.

So what message are you sending to all parts of your marketplace?