5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Small Business Cash Flow

Growing a business is a labor of love. Sometimes there’s plenty of cash on hand, and other times … well, there’s just not. And often as you’re growing, there’s trial and error involved as you figure out your cash rhythms. You can’t always control your circumstances, and planning ahead to have extra cash on hand is of course your best bet. 

So for those of us in the “real” world of running a small business with its ups, downs, and sleepless nights, here are five ideas to help increase your small business cash flow ASAP:

1. Have a Sale or Special Promotion

While you may think of sales as something only for big-box or retail stores, consider how you can feature a special promotion for your business. Offering a discount on significant purchases, or a special bonus to incentivize clients to hire you now, can drive more sales than sitting and waiting.

Of course you don’t want to have sales every week, and you have to be careful how you position your promotion, but when done occasionally and done right, running a special offer can be just the boost you need. Email or call your clients or customers to let them know about the special promotion. And remember to add a deadline to your offer, otherwise they have no reason to take action now.

2. Raise Your Prices, but Do This First …

It’s probably time to increase your fees, if it’s not long overdue! But don’t do it quietly. Announce to your current and past clients and customers that prices are going up as of a certain date, and explain why. Then give them the chance now to renew their contracts or stock up and save, before they’ll have to pay more.

Example: A blow-dry bar I frequent here in Scottsdale recently announced their prices were going up by $5 per service. But they gave me the chance to prepay for as many future sessions as I wanted at the current price … if I did so now. While it wasn’t a huge price increase, I love their services, so I stocked up. (And I now have a year’s worth of blow-drys waiting for me!)

3. Borrow for Tomorrow, or Apply for a Grant Today

The biggest barrier to small business growth is funding. Some business owners are dead set on not taking on ANY debt in their business. Hey, if you can do that, good for you. But I advocate debt as a fantastic tool when used smartly. In my early days as a business owner, I built my little enterprise from my kitchen table using many a credit card. Today, even with a multimillion-dollar company, I still use debt as a tool when it makes sense. Whether it’s credit cards or a small business loan, consider if it’s the right time for you to take that on, to help you through a rough spot.

Also, be aware that small business grants are rare, but they do exist! And it’s not only the government that runs these programs. I’m working with Chase on Mission Main Street(SM) Grants, a program which is awarding grants of $250,000 each to 12 small businesses across the country. A small business owner could use the grant to grow the business including hiring new staff, purchasing larger orders of inventory, and more. While the deadline for small business applications was October 31, 2013, anyone can show their support by voting. Businesses must receive at least 250 votes by November 15 to be eligible for the grant. 

4. Move from One-Shot Services to Packages

The owner of a personal training business came to me for coaching one fall season, wanting to increase revenue by end of year. But he insisted that the holidays were a terrible time for him to market. (“No one wants to get in shape when they could be eating pie at holiday parties,” he explained.) After further discussion, I learned he was doing a lot of single sessions with his clients. Together we put together a special package offer of 12 sessions which gave his clients a significant discount for booking multiple sessions in advance.

He promoted it during the holidays, with the spin “Commit to Your Weight Loss Success Now, but Don’t Work Out Until Later!” His clients were delighted to pre-pay now but still enjoy their pie, and know they were going to get back on track after the holidays. Best of all, this business owner got a huge cash windfall during his typical “dry season.”

5. Sell or Lease Unused Assets

Take a close look around your offices, home, and storage units for things you really don’t need access to regularly. Do you have excess materials, inventory or equipment? Don’t discount personal items as well. (Is it time to unload that boat you use just twice a year?) If you have extra office space, consider subletting it to someone who could use the workspace.

Example: Last year my team and I went through our company storage unit and found we had tons of video equipment that we just weren’t using. (We’d purchased it all two years ago when I was convinced we should do our own video shoots. Well, we were terrible at it! I swore from then on to hire pros instead. So now all this equipment was just sitting there.) I had my team sell the equipment online, and after that experience I looked at everything else we weren’t using regularly — trade show equipment, copiers and computers, etc. We were able to get rid of our expensive storage unit, while netting some cash too.

Lightening your financial load (and just clearing your clutter) can net you some cash to get you through a tough spell, and it feels great energetically too. When you sleep better at night, you’ll be able to focus more on growing your business..

6 Marketing Tricks to Boost Your Small Business

If you are the owner of any small business, the most serious problem that you face is to arrange the required finances. This is very important since you require fixed as well as working capital to run your business. Here, it is to be noted that you have a wide variety of financing options too. You can take out a commercial mortgage loan or you can opt for a commercial mortgage refinance. But, anyways, you need to ensure that you can repay the mortgages. Besides this, another thing that you must look into very seriously is the marketing. Through proper and intelligent marketing you can open the various channels to sell your products. This in turn helps you raise your business revenues. Here we discuss about some successful marketing strategies that you must take into consideration.

Use free classifieds

One excellent marketing strategy to promote your small would be to use free classified ad services. You can explore various online classified ads to prop up your business. Apart from these, there are some other free offline classified ads options in your local area. Even options are there for free inclusions of ads in local print media. Through these routes, you can indeed boost your business. In order to know more about these options, you can conduct online searches.

Tread social media routes

In modern times, social media platform has opened up excellent opportunities to promote your business. Various social media websites offer you wonderful and free way to market your products and services. This platform can be gainfully utilized to enhance business connection, gain leads and to bring in more customers. You can also participate in various online forums to enhance your knowledge.

Resort to mutually beneficial advertising

One smart way to market your products and services is to engage in reciprocity advertising. You can look for cross promotion of the products and services with other business owners located in your area. You can easily find out some business owners who are also willing to do this. The aim of this marketing strategy is to raise the customer base of your business.

Marketing through writing or blogging

If you have knack of writing, you can take the help of different article writing and blogging websites and can write articles about the products and services that you sell. This way you can surely bring in some customers for your products and services.

Advertise through press releases

You need to regularly write press releases and need to send those releases to appropriate routes. After going through those press releases, many buyers may become interested to the products and services that you offer.

Explore networking options

You need to keep yourself updated about various networking events that are taking place in your locality. These events and meet ups are like mini-marketing campaign. Moreover, these help you keep yourself updated about different developments related to your business.

These are only few marketing strategies which help you raise your sales volume. Apart from these, there are various other marketing strategies that you can follow for your small business.

Top Tricks To Boost Productivity In Small Business

Because if there's one thing small business owners need more of, it's time.

It’s no secret that small business owners are notoriously time-poor. Trying to manage multiple aspects of a business can be overwhelming, stressful and demanding, and while enjoying the work you do can a big difference, it won’t add any hours to the day.

So instead of letting time get the better of you and your staff, read these four tricks to boost your own and your teams’ productivity levels.

Stop Multitasking

Despite multitasking people seeming busier, more organised and more efficient than others, multitasking is a huge productivity killer. Doing a few tasks at the same time is a sure fire way to see that none of them get done properly and to schedule. So instead, plan tasks and face them one at a time.

There’s no point trying to make a phone call while returning an email or rostering staff while writing a sales report. Not only does it reduce the quality of work, but it will send you frazzled pretty quickly, so focus your complete attention on one big task and get it done.

Eliminate Time Killers

From social media to unnecessary meetings, there are plenty of distractions that can be zapped with a bit of discipline. Social media should be a big part of your business, so it’s OK to spend some time building and maintaining a presence.

But it’s easy to fall into a trap, spending more time than necessary looking at other pages and people. And before you know it, it’s 3pm and you’ve wasted prime productivity time looking at memes on Facebook or cats on YouTube.

So set a timer, stay on track and turn off social media and email notifications so other tasks stay uninterrupted.

As for meetings, make sure they’re essential and only the people that need to attend are invited. Again, set a time limit, outline an agenda (preferably before the meeting so attendees come prepared) and have an outcome. Time is your most valuable resource, so don’t throw it away.

Know Yourself and Your Staff

Everyone has a certain time of day in which they are more productive. Some people might work well in the morning, while others work better in the evening. Find out your prime productivity time and optimise your work schedule accordingly.

If you have staff, know when they work best and allow for flexibility. If someone works well early morning, let them start earlier and finish earlier than others.

And try not to schedule creative meetings or discussions when no one is at their peak productivity times. You want to get the most out of people working with you, so it’s all about being aware of their working habits.

Delegate

There will be a point where doing it all yourself is no longer feasible. This is great news as it means your business is growing and it’s time to get some extra hands on board to take pressure off yourself.

Whether it’s hiring new people or giving existing staff extra responsibilities, delegating is an important part of the productivity process.

While it might seem easier to just do it yourself, think about whether there is someone else who can be given the necessary information, if the task will recur in the future, and if it will help develop them professionally. It’s also important to invest time to delegate and train someone, so ensure it’s not a rushed process.

So, while everyone has the same amount of hours in the day, it’s clear that some people maximise their time more efficiently than others. For business owners, it’s all about focusing on one task, eliminating time wasters, knowing yourself and delegation.

7 Ways Small Businesses Can Compete With Big Business

I like inbound marketing because it favors the companies with more brains, not more bucks. But the more a company grows, the more brains they bring in-house –so at a point, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs)  are competing on not just marketing budget, but marketing talent, too. It can make gaining headway against a big competitor seem pretty untenable.

So I think it’s hard, but not impossible, for SMBs to hang with the big industry competitors. You just don’t see it that often, because most SMBs are focusing on the wrong things. You have to think about the advantages that big companies lose as they grow that you still retain, and use those assets to throttle the big guys. Here are the opportunities that I see for SMBs to compete with the bigger competitors in their industry.

Start niche and expand later.

You can’t win against the big guys if you don’t have big resources to back you up – but you can win in a niche to which you’ll dedicate all of your attention. Big companies trying to juggle tons of products and services often tend to give them all “some” attention, but never as much as they probably deserve. Win by giving your one niche all the love the big, distracted company can’t. Once you’re the established subject matter expert on that niche, you’ll have the audience and credibility to expand on from there into more product or service offerings that let you compete on a higher level.

Be better than them at service.

Big companies typically have a more cut-and-dry approach to customer service. It isn’t very personal, and usually only memorable because of how bad it is. Have a personality – a likeable, friendly one – and differentiate yourself based on how pleasant you are to work with. If you’re in a recurring revenue business, this will help you keep your churn under control from the onset, too. That’s one less problem to battle a few years down the road, and yields more ROI for your sales and marketing investment.

Think scale now and save time later.

Lots of big companies are bogged down today fixing mistakes they made a few years ago, because they weren’t solving for scale. For example, I’ve seen too many enterprises going through painful, disruptive CRM transitions because they pinched pennies buying a CRM that would only last them a couple years.

Try to solve for scale without locking yourself in for more than you need in the foreseeable future. Taking HubSpot as an example, we sell marketing software for businesses at all levels; so for the little guy without a CRM, there’s still a basic package he can use, and then upgrade to a more mature version when he’s looking to do more complex things with lead intel and nurturing. That small business is buying what’s right for him now, but will leave him room to adapt swiftly in a couple years.

Leverage your agility.

The bigger you get, the more people and processes you’ll have in your way. Some SMBs try to act like a big company, thinking if they act big they’ll be big. But the ability to be agile is worth way more. Act fast while you still can. All those little opportunities only SMBs can jump on add up fast, getting you closer to that “big guns” status at a rapid rate.

Work in iterations.

You don’t need to, nor should you, build anything at a grand scale at your first try. Ship new things—content, site navigations, product improvements—all the time. See how they work by looking at user feedback and data, and make improvements from there. If a few iterations are total busts, it’s alright; you didn’t put too much into it, and your user base isn’t going to dump you over one or two little changes they find disagreeable.

Pull the biggest lever you can pull.

There are a million things you could do to grow your business. You don’t have to do all of them, and you can’t, anyway. Focus on the biggest opportunity in front of you, and do that thing ridiculously well. The more things you do ridiculously well, the more resources you’ll have to do even more things… bigger, better, and faster than before.

Keep tabs on your competitors, but don’t obsess over them.

Keep an eye on your bigger competitors to see what they’re doing, but don’t let that guide your strategy. If you’re in reaction mode, you’re inherently going to be one step behind at all times. Innovate in spite of them, and your business will carve out its own valid reason for existing that naturally attracts customers to you.

The Impact of Fee Changes in Retail Banking

Strapped with a wide range of financial burdens, it is tempting for financial institutions to consider pricing changes in an attempt to improve bottom-line performance. However, any changes must be weighed carefully, and the potential business threats must be clearly understood.

Data from JD Power’s Retail Banking Satisfaction Study finds that Overall satisfaction declines significantly when fee changes are implemented, and more importantly, intended attrition levels are three times higher among customers that experience a fee change, compared to those whose fees remain stable.

Pricing changes can also be costly to banks if not handled effectively, through the allocation of resources required to handle customer complaints related to the change. Nearly one third (32%) of customers that experience a fee change contact their bank with a problem and, on average, problems require 1.9 customer contacts to be resolved. Therefore, for every 100,000 retail banking customers that experience a fee change, bank personnel will receive 60,800 contacts. In comparison, for every 100,000 retail banking customers that do not experience a fee change, bank personnel will receive 19,000 contacts.

Estimating that bank representatives can handle 6.5 customer contacts per hour, and that their labor cost is $40 per hour, fee structure changes may result in an incremental labor cost of $257,231 for banks to absorb.

Although data suggests that fee changes have a lagging effect on customer satisfaction (the full impact isn’t recognized until months after the change was made), intended attrition is impacted immediately, as customers tend to ‘overreact’ to a new charge. Therefore, it is particularly critical for financial institutions to minimize the initial bitterness experienced by customers, as this time period represents the greatest risk of attrition.

Lastly, failing to ensure that all customers are fully aware of a fee change in advance can significantly impact customer satisfaction, loyalty and problem metrics. In order to successfully mitigate this problem, banks need to focus on over-communicating the change to ensure the message is fully received by their customer base

Financial institutions should begin the process of communicating fee changes immediately after the decision has been made. The appropriate messaging and delivery methods must be identified, and investing in quantitative or qualitative market research to aid in decisions should be considered. Lastly, the timeframe of the change must kept top-of-mind. Initial communications should begin months before implementation, and because the risk of customer attrition is highest within the first month after a pricing change, banks should place heavy focus on preparing all types of employees on how to handle any immediate backlash from customers.

7 Ways to Increase Foot Traffic to Your Small Business

Here are seven tried and tested steps you might want to consider to increase foot traffic & sales to your small business :

1. Start from the outside and look in

If you are in a pedestrianized area, get to know who passes by your store. Literally, sit outside or close by your window and assess the demographic of who comes and goes. Do they window shop? Have they come from another store close by first?

Next, take an objective look at your signage and window display–does it appeal to your target demographic or buyer? For example, if you run a coffee shop and most of your business is done during the hours of 8 AM to 10 AM, think of ways to optimize your merchandising and window display to attract more buyers during these times. This could be as simple as using this time to hand out coupons outside, offering bakery samples to passersby, or promoting your latest offers using sidewalk signage.

2. Host a community event with a newsworthy tie-in

One of the best ways to increase foot traffic is to host a community or charity event. A great way to do this and get noticed is to tie it to a topical event. Say, for example, your local NFL or high school team is playing a critical game. Consider teaming up with other businesses nearby to offer game-day promotions/offers or a tie-in event. Host the event as a block party or at a central location downtown (even if you have to take your business on the road for a few hours). Don’t forget to be community-oriented—consider donating a portion of your profits to charity.

Feature the event ahead of time on your website and social media. For maximum impact, don’t forget to contact local media outlets—including radio channels—and email and mail out fliers to your contact list. 

3. Host a seminar or workshop

Both retail and service-based businesses can generate a good deal of foot traffic by educating their customers about how to get more out of what they are buying (even if you don’t make a sale that day). Florist shops could host a flower arranging class or realtors could host a house-staging workshop to attract potential sellers. And of course, publicize your event—in-store, online, via press releases and advertising.

4. Use location-based services to attract passersby

You don’t have to be a tech wizard to promote your small business using mobile apps that target consumers in the vicinity of your business. Groupon, Living Social, FourSquare and ThinkNear among others let you post information about your latest offers and limited-time deals to consumers within a certain distance of your business. You can also schedule deals to get delivered during key hours, for example, if you’re looking to boost foot traffic during off-peak times.

5. Engage old customers in new ways

It’s always refreshing when a store or restaurant you’ve frequented for some time starts doing something new. And thanks to the power of social media, doing something new or different and doing it well can quickly go viral.

So think about ways you can get the attention of older or existing customers. It could be as simple as offering a new type of discount (it may sound obvious, but offering something of value at a discount for a limited period of time can be attention-grabbing) or letting customers know about a new product or service you’ve added.

A straight-out sale is always a great way to bring old customers out of the woodwork. Send out an email or e-newsletter to your contact database and post it on social media. You might even host a secret sale first for a hand-selected group of customers.

If your business is service-oriented, consider offering a referral fee to existing customers who bring in new clients for you.

6. Put on your small business customer service hat

There’s a reason why consumers opt to frequent small businesses over larger chains—personal relationships. A smile, great service, product knowledge and enthusiasm will bring customers through your door and keep them coming back. So as you host new events, sales or workshops, use your small business advantage to the max!

7. Stay in touch

Staying top of mind with new and existing customers who you’ve engaged through your new efforts is not just about offering great products and services. It’s also about staying in touch.

If you host an event that brings in new customers, encourage them to sign up for your emails. A little incentive, such as a free giveaway in exchange for an email address, is always effective. Then stay in touch, set-up an e-newsletter program, send out regular updates about new product lines, company news, and events and start to engage with your customers via social media.

10 Tips For Organizing Your Small Business This Year

An organized business is a productive business. You may not consider yourself blessed with natural organizational skills, but now is the perfect time to get your business and work space organized.

Below are 10 tips to help you do that and get on track in the new year.

How to Organize Your Small Business

Purge Your Office

Even if you don’t mind a little mess and dust, too much clutter can add to daily stress and chaos. Clutter exists because we think that everything is important. With the new year, toss out whatever is outdated, no longer relevant or a duplicate.

For example:

• Recycle the broken electronics you may have stashed in a closet.
• Delete all those old voice messages.
• Donate anything you don’t need or use.
• Keep the basics and anything you’ve used in the past year; all else can go.

When your workspace is clean and uncluttered, you’ll enjoy spending time at your desk and won’t waste time searching through junk or moving piles around.

Organize Your Paper Files

One study found that the average person wastes over 4 hours per week searching for papers. Go through your filing cabinets and shred anything that’s out of date or no longer relevant to your business.

If you’re worried you might one day need four-year old notes from a client project, then scan the originals and throw out the paper files to make more room.

Ditch Paper Receipts

Considering the IRS accepts electronic copies of receipts, there’s really no reason for you to continue hanging on to all those tiny paper slips from restaurants, taxis, office supply stores, etc.

Find a receipt management scanner or app for your smartphone (such as Neat Receipts) and make sure your solution lets you export data to whatever expense reporting/accounting app you use.

Use the Cloud for Storage and Sharing

If you haven’t done so already, start using cloud-based tools to share and save documents. For example, Google Drive lets you store up to 15GB for free, while giving clients or colleagues access to collaborate. Other tools include Dropbox and Box.

By housing files in the cloud, you can help clean up your personal storage, as well as save valuable time spent emailing documents back and forth when collaborating with others.

Tame Your Inbox

If your email inbox has become a catchall for every email you’ve received over the past years, it’s time to clean house. It is possible to manage your email inbox so you only see the messages you still need to deal with and everything else is neatly archived for safe keeping. Start with a clean slate by filing away everything you no longer need to respond to.

Next, tame the level of new emails you get each day by unsubscribing to newsletters or other subscriptions you no longer read. Create specific folders where non-essential emails go automatically, so they don’t interrupt your daily flow.

Get the Right Note-Taking Tool

One key to staying organized and effective as a small business owner is having the right solution for jotting down any tasks or inspirations when they strike.

Whether you prefer to use pen and paper, voice recording on your smartphone or an app like Evernote, the most important thing is that the solution fits into your lifestyle so you’ll use it consistently.

Tidy Up Your Social Media Profiles

It’s not just your email inbox and desktop that fall prey to clutter. Your social media profiles can also become clogged and out of date.

First, take stock of where your business has a social presence and drop any accounts that are no longer in use. There’s no point in having multiple Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Instagram profiles if you’re not actively posting and monitoring each account.

You can also use a tool like JustUnfollow to weed out any followers who are inactive or aren’t following you back.

Meet with a Tax Advisor

Don’t wait until it’s time to file your returns to start thinking about taxes. Make an appointment with a CPA or tax advisor early in the year.

If your business is still structured as a sole proprietor, now’s the time to think about protecting your personal assets and gaining other benefits through a formal business structure like an LLC or corporation.

Take Charge of Your Books

If you run a small business, you already have some kind of process in place for invoicing, processing payments, recording expenses and tracking projects. But if you haven’t updated your process lately, chances are there’s an app out there to help make these administrative tasks easier and more efficient.

Take a look at your tablet/smartphone app store for a new tool that could help you get organized and take charge of your books in the new year.  For example, there’s FreshBooks, Mint, Kashoo, and InDinero to name a few.

Tie Up Any Legal Loose Ends

This is a perfect opportunity to tie up any loose ends you’ve been putting off in prior years. For example, did you file a DBA (Doing Business As) for your business name? Did you get a Tax ID number? Are all your licenses and local permits in order? Did you make any changes to your corporation and LLC and still need to file an Articles of Amendment to record those changes with the state?

What other tips can you offer to get your business organized this year?