In an announcement from Governor Chet Culver, we learned today that Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, Iowa  is among 44 Iowa recipients of grants designed to create jobs by helping businesses get started or expand in rural areas.  Governor Culver highlighted these awards from the Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

IWCC Entrepreneurial Center and Economic Development will use these funds for a revolving loan fund.  Low interest loans will be available for small business expansions and start-ups in rural southwest Iowa. Counties covered include Cass, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Page, Shelby and rural Pottawattamie counties. To qualify, the community needs to be under 50,000 population. 

We keep hearing that the best time to start or expand small businesses is during economic downturns. That has been a difficult pill to swallow when financing a new venture or expansion is nearly impossible.  This new revolving loan fund will offer businesses a small boost to help them start or grow. The fund will be only $112,000 to start so we are not talking about huge business loans.  We expect loans to be under $10,000. But with a carefully planned business plan, $10,000 could go a long way. 

The IWCC Entrepreneurial Center and SBDC just found out about this award today so no details have been ironed out.  Keep tuned to this blog and the IWCC E Center website and Facebook Fan Page for details.

Everybody’s talking about branding these days. Marketing consultants want to charge companies to create brands — and sometimes rightfully so. Website consultants want to charge to create an online brand — again, sometimes rightfully so. Image consultants want to charge you to create your personal brand.

But is that money well spent?

At a seminar this morning, Celann LaGreca, principal at the LaGreca Group, offered three basic questions for creating your personal brand. As small business owners, our personal brands and our company brands are tightly intertwined, as you see in the following three questions:

1. What are you passionate about?
2. What are your skills and talents?
3. What does your organization need and value?

Answering these three questions creates a simple personal brand statement. For example, in my bed and breakfast business, my brand statement might be, “I offer comfort and rest to travelers on their journey.”

That simple statement can then be used to create a 30-second elevator pitch, such as: “I am Julie Mierau, and I own Omaha’s only bed and breakfast. We marry the elegance of yesteryear with the conveniences of today. Call me at The Cornerstone Mansion when you need to create a momorable event or celebrate a special moment.”

The pitch statement includes who you are, what you help people with, what sets you apart from others, your company tagline and why someone should contact you. Working through this simple exercise can help you more clearly define the image you want to present to others, whether in social settings or professional ones. It can make those sometimes-awkward networking sessions a bit easier to dive into — which in turn can drive business through your doors.

What’s your personal brand statement?

Remember when your mama told you there was no such thing as a free lunch? Turns out, she was right. Imagine that.

Now, repeat after me: There’s no free grant money out there to start or expand my business. That’s right, boys and girls, there is no free grant money out there. No matter what you’ve heard or seen online or been promised by a company that will find you those grants.

Here it is, in black and white, straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were: “The federal government does not provide grants for starting and expanding a business.” Check it out on www.Business.gov. The site includes information specific to small businesses, including the types of businesses that might qualify for some kind of local or state funding.

Read through the site carefully to see if there are any grant programs that apply to your business. Don’t believe the hype about the government pouring money into small businesses and expecting nothing in return. Honestly, you know better.

Now bundle up, because it’s cold out there, and don’t forget your hat. Mama was right about that, too.

On my drive in to the office this morning, an NPR reporter was quoting a report, due out today, that says most Americans hate their jobs.

The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, found that 45 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted.

Most unhappy of all were workers younger than 25. Which makes sense, given the restricted job market right now and, well, just the unhappiness that many young people have early in their careers.

But what does this mean for business owners? Are your employees happy? Because if they’re not, in all likelihood, your business will suffer. The start of the new year might be the best time to find out how your employees feel about their jobs and about your business.

It might also be the best possible time to be thankful that you own your own business so that, for the most part, you can love what you do. Isn’t that really the American dream?

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I have been on vacation for the last week and a half in Minnesota visiting family and it is amazing how much I relied and used my Blackberry.  Sure, I am pretty addicted as it is, but with no office computer and access to wireless for the laptop I used it for everything from email to shopping after Christmas sales.

The one thing I noticed is that on email, texts or websites, phone numbers that are viewed on a smart phone are automatically  activated by a simple click.  If a number is listed correctly on your smart phone device you can click it and it will automatically make the call.  This is very nice when you want to make a call and don’t have a great memory or a pen nearby.

The problem I kept having is that many websites or individuals emails  list their phone numbers incorrectly.  It needs to be listed with the area code and in a very standard way.

 This is the correct way to have your phone numbers listed: 888-888-8888. 

 I ran across numbers listed without area codes: 888-8888, with extra symbols like ()  or / in them: (888) 888-8888 or 888/888-8888, or worse of all, websites or emails with no phone numbers at all.

More and more of your customers are using their mobile devices to find you.  Make sure that you take a quick second to make sure that your number is listed correctly on your signature for your email and on your website and any other directories that you are listed in on the internet.

photo from Flickr Creative Commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo/

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In a recent blog, MyEntreNet’s Maureen Collins-Williams shares great news for Iowa business owners. She reports that more than 300 Iowa agencies, organizations and economic developers collaborated recently to create a single gateway for small business and entrepreneurs to find grants, loans and other incentives to start or expand a small business in Iowa.

The Iowa Money Map has more than 800 listings, broken down by county. This comprehensive database includes Iowa’s grants, loans, equity investment opportunities and other financial incentives available to small business and entrepreneurs. The map is housed on the MyEntreNet Website, but you can access it easily by creating a quick account. There’s no fee!

In addition to the county listings is a statewide listing, including a grant program from the Iowa Department of Economic Development for creating new technologies and another for businesses owned by women, minorities and persons with disabilities.

If you’re looking for money — and who isn’t? — be sure to check out this incredible resource.

Yesterday the Iowa Western Entrepreneurial Center and Small Business Development Center held the first Business Summit in Council Bluffs, Iowa  featuring our own local Google expert, Chris Russell, Data Center Manager at Google,  Council Bluffs.

Chris Russell opened the summit with a great presentation on Google Apps and how cloud computing options (like Google Docs, Google Calendar) are optimized for small businesses and using these options can give small businesses a true competitive advantage over large corporations.

The moment that really drove home on how the internet, google and other search engines have completly changed the way consumers purchase goods and services came from a question from the audience during Chris’ discussion on Google Maps and Google Local.

“Why are the local listings not in alphabetical order?” Followed by: “if they are not listed alphabetically, how do you get on top?”  Ahh.. the “old school” yellow page directories that list businesses fairly and alphabetically  as well as give businesses  the opportunity to up the visibility in the listing by simply paying more money for bold print, display ads and cover pages. 

Here is how Chris answered the question: They are listed by how google finds results FOR THE SEARCHER during their search, determined by many different parameters that best match the specific search.  You get on top of the listing by having a better business.

So there it is. If people love you, so will Google. Search engines do not optimize for the businesses, unlike “old school” listings like the yellow pages.  Google optimizes for the user and want to help their seacher find the best results to solve their problems. 

So how does simply being a better business  help you get top search results on search engines like Google local and Google search in general?  When you have a good business you have more love.  When you have a good business your website reflects exactly what you offer to your customers. When you have a good business You will have more links to your page (from your loyal customers).  When you have a good business you have more visitors. You have more reviews.  You have better search results. So work on your business and make sure that your website is optimized for how your customer will search for you. here is a previous SEO Blog Post that explains some of the basics of search engine optimization. The Hubspot Marketing Blog also has some great blog posts on SEO.

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The answer is nothing. Facebook and other popular social media tools will not be very helpful to your business unless you have a focused social media objective and facebook and other popular formats are used in unison to accomplish the objective.

Hopefully at this point you have at least a facebook account where you socialize with friends and family. You may also have a Linked In account where you “network” with colleagues in the community and industry. If you don’t have these things I would suggest getting these things going and start building those natural contacts with the friends you already know.

Setting up basic profiles and socially participating is the easy (and fun!) part. Now you want to determine how to use all of the tools of social media marketing and web2.0 to effectively reach and engage your customers.

The best way to start utilizing social media tactics is to take the time to answer the following questions. The example “Green Goo” is a non-existent product that I made up to help illustrate how to answer these questions for your business.

1. My Ideal Customer is: (example: Omaha and Council Bluffs stay at home mothers with children under the age of 4 and household incomes above $50,000+)

2. My product/service solves this problem for my ideal customer: (example: The problem is that there is not a product that can clean without leaving behind dangerous chemicals in the home. Green Goo provides a safe, environmentally friendly and bacterial free atmosphere that frees the home of dangerous germs and is not harmful to the family.)

3. My ideal customer wants: (example: educational information and resources for safety issues involving children)

4. My Ideal Customers is most likely on the internet in the following types of places: (example: local and national mother forums, blogs, environmental forums and blogs targeted to families, etc.)

Now that you have tentatively figured out who you want to engage through social media marketing the next step is to “listen and lurk” and find out what conversations are going on about your product, brand and industry. The next post will cover how and where to “listen and what to listen for. Until then, please feel free to post comments and you are always welcome to contact the Iowa Western SBDC and the Iowa SBDC for free one on one help and advice on social media marketing as well as other topics.

If you think that your business is too small, too local or too Iowan for social media marketing to have an effect on your business, think about this.

How do you buy products and services today? What is the first couple of things that you do to begin the process? I am guessing that some type of internet research was very close to the top of your “to do” list. The fact of the matter is that the evolution of technology has completely changed how we as consumers make purchase decisions.

So if consumers have changed the way that they buy products and services, small businesses need to change the way that they market to their customers. Customers are looking for ways to engage, converse and learn about the things that they need. They are searching on Google, reading blogs, talking on Facebook, following Tweets, participating in forums, viewing product videos and demonstrations on YouTube, etc. Small Businesses need to join the conversation! Small businesses need to enter the social media circus and engage with their customers.

In the next few posts I will go through some steps most digital marketing experts suggest in some form. Before I go onto the steps, a word of caution. Don’t jump in without a little prep work.

At a recent Omaha conference Brian Jennewien, Director of Social Media at Info Group and contributor to the StormDawg Marketing Blog likened social media to a highschool party. You are trying to fit in with the “in” crowd. If you run into the party and start talking too much without knowing anyone you might be looked at as CRAZY. If you start conversations about things that people at the party really don’t care about you might be looked at as annoying. If you go in, listen, lurk, participate and then engage and share you will be “in”.

Here are the steps. Keep in mind that these may be summarized and may be worded differently from other experts, but all in all they are about the same. If I missed something PLEASE leave a comment!

1. Plan! Before you begin you need to decide who you are trying to engage and what you want them to hear from you. What exactly do you hope that social media will do for your business?

2. Listen! What are your customers talking about? Are they talking about you? Are they talking about your customers? What kind of conversations are going on about your industry and the product or service you are offering?

3. Join! Before you start sharing your own information join other conversations. Comment on blogs, answer questions in linkedin groups, etc.

4. Share! This is where you start to engage your customers through blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.

I will be elaborating on each of these steps in the next few posts.

If you have anything to add please feel free to comment. The Iowa Western SBDCwill be happy to assist Council Bluffs and southwest Iowa small businesses with their own social media marketing efforts. The Iowa SBDC’s are a free resource to all Iowa businesses for all of their business needs.

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On NPR’s “Marketplace” this morning, the host asked a simple question: Who has more disposable income — Gen Y’ers or Baby Boomers? The answer surprised me. Studies show that the Gen Y population has more disposable income than their parents, the Baby Boomers.

The Millennial Generation, also known as Generation Y, generally refers to those individuals born between the mid-1970s and the late 1990s.

If you haven’t considered how to market your products and services to Gen Y, start today. If these individuals have the most discretionary income now, their buying patterns will be crucial both for today and as they begin to age.

One other fact of interest from this morning’s report. The question: Who has more social interaction online — teenage boys or teenage girls? The answer: Go for the boys!