From the Small Business Association’s Website:

If your small business is stressed meeting expenses during these economic times, the U.S. Small Business Administration has a new loan program designed just for you. SBA’s America’s Recovery Capital Loan Program can provide up to $35,000 in short-term relief for viable small businesses facing immediate financial hardship to help ride out the current uncertain economic times and return to profitability. Each small business is limited to one ARC loan. ARC loans will be offered by some SBA lenders for as long as funding is available or until September 30, 2010, whichever comes first.

For information, visit www.sba.gov/recovery/arcloanprogram/index.html.

If you would like to speak directly to an SBA customer service representative about the ARC Loan Program, call 866-947-8081 Monday through Friday during the hours of 8am to 9pm (Eastern Time).

Or call the Iowa Small Business Development Center at Iowa Western Community College at 712-256-6552.

Everywhere you turn for marketing advice, you’ll hear how important word-of-mouth marketing is. Start-up business owners even list this as their only approach to marketing a new product or service. Why? Simple: They think it’s free.

In fact, you can manage your word-of-mouth marketing. And it’s effective. But it ain’t free.

There are experts, like BzzAgent (www.BzzAgent.com), who can help you, if you have the money. Or you can sign up to be a BzzAgent, test some products for other companies, and learn a whole lot about word-of-mouth marketing in the process. And that part’s free.

But managing your reputation entails paying attention to every aspect of your business. Do you return phone calls and e-mail messages promptly? How do you handle an unhappy customer? Are your employees always mindful that their behavior and demeanor reflect back onto your reputation? Hiring and keeping stellar employees isn’t cheap (and it certainly isn’t free) but it is one major step in managing your word-of-mouth marketing.

The other is to turn your customers into cheerleaders. Here’s where we can help. For free. (Yes, I said “free.”) Join us on Tuesday, June 9, for a free session led by business coach and entrepreneur Mark Ford. He will help us:

* See the Impact of Customer Service
* Remember the Top 3 Principles of Good Customer Service
* Take Away the Top 10 Customer Loyalty Tips
* Smile and Have a Laugh or Two

Join us at the IWCC Entrepreneurial Center (21915 Cessna Ave.) from 3 until 4:30 for a discussion on increasing customer satisfaction through outstanding service.

RSVP by Monday, June 8, to ctrost@iwcc.edu or jmierau@iwcc.edu. Snacks will be provided. Remember, this session is FREE and may spark your next word-of-mouth marketing campaign.

We all know the old saying about familiarity, but I have been thinking about it differently based on a conversation I had last week. I was canceling a service to which I’ve subscribed for a number of years. The customer service rep kept telling me, “You’re part of our [X-company] family.” She even asked, “Did you know that? That you’re part of our family?”

Okay, here’s the thing. I already have a family — and it doesn’t have anything to do with a subscription service whose utility is outdated and expensive. Telling me that I’m part of your family won’t convince me to keep paying for a service I don’t want and don’t need.

Having said that, I do find that some of my customers become like family to me. They are loyal customers with whom I’ve established a personal connection. Unlike the above-mentioned conversation, they are real people with whom I have real interactions.

Don’t insult your customers by calling them “family” if you don’t interact as a family would. Really, it’s just too familiar. Which brings us back to what that breeds…

Last Friday’s Big O conference created lots of buzz about failure for entrepreneurs. What was most compelling to me was to hear the different versions of what “failure” means. Some defined it as not getting to an IPO in a given amount of time. Others thought an enterprise failed if it didn’t draw a certain amount of venture capital. Still others believed success (and failure) were defined by growth (as defined by sales figures, number of locations, number of employees, etc.).

For me, a company fails if it is forced to close its doors because of bad management decisions or dramatic market shifts. A company fails if it promises to deliver a product or service in a certain way in a given time but then cannot fulfill that promise.

Closing your doors or selling your business doesn’t necessarily mean the business failed. Maybe you’re ready to retire (we can dream, can’t we?). Maybe a buyer offered you a deal you can’t refuse. Maybe you need a change or want to move to a cottage on the beach.

Going out of business might be the smartest business decision you ever make. But does it signify failure?

That’s up to you. How do you define failure?

We hear every day how busy everyone is. We’re busy, our friends our busy, our family members are busy, and on it goes. Guess what? No matter how busy you are, your customers only care about how busy they are. Why not delight them with courtesy that goes beyond what they expect — and respects the demands on their time as well?

Here are a couple of simple reminders about how to do that.

First, promptly return phone calls, even if you don’t recognize the caller’s name. Answer the phone as much as possible without letting it go to voicemail. If you are away from the phone or office, check your voicemail messages frequently, and then return all calls. You just don’t know if the caller might be your next best customer.

Second, same applies to e-mail messages. In my own business, we can’t sit at the computer all day waiting for e-mail messages to come in. But we can check them periodically throughout the day and make sure no message is left unresponded to for more than a few hours. Make sure you’re responding to your potential customers quickly and courteously.

And a couple more tips on interacting with customers: Never tell your potential customer that your services or products are expensive. Let the customer decide if the price is too high, and then be prepared to offer suggestions on how to lower the expense.

Finally, if it’s clear that the individual will not become a customer, still use uncommon courtesy in your interactions. You never know when that person might return – or send others your way.

(My thanks to Phyllis Tilden and Chris Watkins, for sharing their approach to uncommon courtesy with me for the last 15 years.)

This week, my small business records were audited for three years for state sales and use taxes. I learned some important lessons from this experience, some of which might be worth sharing.

Lesson 1: If you run an honest business, do your best to track all of your paperwork and file your taxes on time, your auditors will quickly see that any problems are honest mistakes.

Lesson 2: If you hire an accounting firm, make sure your agreement covers you for any mistakes made by them. Make sure they sign your tax forms on the line marked “prepared by.” And make sure your accountant is with you during the audit to answer questions or provide clarifications.

Lesson 3: Kindness and courtesy always work to your advantage, perhaps especially in a tense situation. Answer all questions honestly and courteously.

One of the most important lessons I learned was that the auditors also make mistakes. In my case, they had no record of sales taxes paid during one month. Fortunately, I could easily pull out that bank statement and provide a copy of the cancelled check. So the first part of the lesson is that they might be mistaken; the second part is to have your paperwork as complete and organized as possible. Mine was all in cardboard boxes, but I knew where everything was.

No one wants to be audited, but if you’re in business for any length of time, you probably will be. Prepare yourself along the way by keeping complete, accurate records. Call your accountant; take a deep breath; and be open, honest and courteous.

Just like you are with your own customers…

Yes.  Times are tough and businesses bottom lines are suffering.   I am seeing even the strongest businesses taking a double take at their financials.

But the first answer to low cashflow problems is not always a bank bailout.  Banks will not even consider giving you working capital to help your business cashflow until the following things in your profit and loss statment have been tended to.

1. Income.  Are you doing everything you can to get your income up to its potential.  Easy for me to say, i know.  But if you don’t have a strong marketing strategy to hand them your don’t have a leg to stand on.  Telling a banker that your business relys on Word Of Mouth and customer referrals is not enough. 

2. Cost of Goods/Services Sold.  How much does it cost you to do business.  Are your prices enough to cover that cost?  Has your suppliers prices risen and your prices have stayed even?  Are you controlling your inventory and not wasting more than you think.  Losing control of your margin can have huge consequences on your bottom line.  For example if you are running your restaurant your Cost of Goods Sold should be right around 40%. In other words you are making .60 cents to every dollar sold.  If you are not controlling waste and .60 cents turns into .80 cents, you won’t have enough to pay your operating costs. 

3. Expenses  – What are your monthly operating expenses.  Is there anything that you can trim off without jeopordizing your income potential?  This is the time call your insurance agent and internet provider and see if their are any ways to subtract a few dollars.

The bottom line is that a bank is not interested in helping you by giving you a quick fix.  Money will eventually run out if these things are not working right. You need to be doing everything you can to earn your potential profit.  Banks are interested in growing businesses.  If everything is fine tuned in your P & L and you are looking at growing by hiring new employees, building a new warehouse or buying more inventory so you can meet current demand, banks will be interested. 

I might have spoken too soon.  Banks will be also interested in your balance sheet.  Work on the P & L and watch for a post in the near future on healthy balance sheets. 

In the mean time, if you need help call on your local Small Business Developement Center or SCORE Office. These organizations provide FREE counseling for small businesses (500 employees and less).  For Southwest Iowa visit www.iwccecenter.com and for Iowa visit www.iowasbdc.com

As a Small Business Development Center Director for Southwest Iowa, I tell ALL of the businesses and start-ups that I work with that they NEED a website because most consumers and businesses are searching for what they want on-line.   This is good and bad news.  The good news is that people are defining what they want on their own. When they find you and click on your website you can bet that they are a very qualified lead. However, Being found on the Internet through search engines (google, Yahoo, Ask.com)  is not easy.  Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your Web site as easy to find as possible for search engines and, through them, your clients and customers.

So how do you rise to the top of Google??    Web pages have to contain the keywords and phrases most likely to be used when a customer enters search requests in an engine.  We are talking about non brand specific searches.  Most people don’t know the exact business they are searching for. They search using keywords. (ie: “house painters in council bluffs, ia”").

The first step in preparing to get your website found is to brainstorm your keywords.  What are the words that your customers would use to find a business like yours.  Keep in mind that people will type in more than one word and that if they are looking for a specific geographic location, they will localize it with the city, county or regional name. Your list of keywords should include single words as well as strings of words that potential customers might use in their search for you. Try using Google Adwords Keyword Tool to help you identify keywords for your business.

The second step is to use those keywords so that the search engines will find you.  Here are a few tips.  Find more tips at Start Up Nation and by searching  SEO tips or Search Engine Optimization tips into google.

1. Use keywords in your page title tags.  These tags are very important to SEO and usually appear as the headline in a Google search.  Use your main keywords in the beginning of the title, even before the name of your business.  (ie:use “ House Painting In Council Bluffs Iowa with Suzie’s Paint Crew” instead of “Suzie’s Paint Crew” or “Homepage”)

2.  Use keywords in your page content.  People are visual creatures and pictures and eye candy are appealing, but search engines look for text and keywords in your content.  Save space near the top of the page  for well written text that includes keywords. 

3. Use keywords for your page links.  Don’t use instructional words for links like “click here” etc.  Keywords, keywords keywords!

4. If your business name is on your web page in the form of an image like a logo, make sure that you also have it in text in the content of your page.  Search engines don’t see images.  They find (you guessed it) keywords.

5. Don’t try to “trick” the search engines by loading your page with keywords and putting hidden keywords in your background.  The main search engine organizations are keen to these practices.

6. Be wary of any company promising you top placement on any of the search engines.  No one can promise this. 

There are many more tips and it takes time to get your site up on top. Do your research and keep tweaking. 

Remember how your mom used to tell you that if something seemed to good to be true, it probably was? In today’s information-overloaded world, truer words were never spoken.

I admit it — I see lots of infomercials. What can I tell you? I am a part-time insomniac who watches TV in the middle of the night. Just this past week, I saw four separte infomercials for business models you could purchase. The one that sent me around the bend had to do with buying foreclosed-on properties for back taxes.

Now, I’m no expert on foreclosed properties — or probably any other specific informercial-based business model. But I have seen people spend their money to become “mystery shoppers,” thinking they’d make some easy money. And I’ve heard about people sending big checks back to someone who sent them a cashier’s check. And we all know people who’ve taken part in pyramid-scheme-type businesses.

And we know these models don’t work (except for the people who originate them). Some are even illegal. Others are just bad ideas, bought into by people who are either desperate or greedy. Or both.

So before you spend your hard-earned money buying a business that promises lots of money for little or no work, harken that still-small voice in your head that warns you to beware.

Do your due diligence. Make sure the business is legit and the model is sound. And then ask for advice from your Small Business Development Center or SCORE counselor or other business expert.

Three times in the past week, I’ve been at meetings where I wanted to hand out my business cards. Three times in the past week, I’ve searched through my bag only to find that I left the office without my cards (although I’m well stocked on tissues, cough drops and cold medicines).

 

If you’re as forgetful as I am, take one minute right now, go to your vehicle, and stash a little pile of cards in your glovebox. I’m walking out to my car right now. I’ll meet you back here…