Owner: Small Business CEO URL:http://www.smbceo.com Join Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:16:21 -0500 Rating:1 Site Description: Providing resources and knowledge to help the Small Business CEO.Over 570 Posts and Still Growing!Steve Rucinski - Author Site statistics:Click here
What Do You Stand For? 2006-11-30 22:28:46 Seth Godin's book The Big Moo, Stop Trying to be Perfect & Start Being Remarkable, is a compilation of 33 professionals offering advice on how to stand out from the crowd. If you read the Purple Cow by Seth, you'll...
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Read more:Stand
Online Rival to Quickbooks 2006-11-27 12:56:00
FreshBooks surpassed 100,000 "happy" business users since its initial release in 2004. FreshBooks is a painless online invoicing and time tracking service designed for small businesses and independent professionals that makes them look "Fortune 500" professional. Packages range from free to $39 per month.
FreshBooks changes the way small businesses manage their books, saving them time, improving their cash flow, enhancing client communications and streamlining their business processes. The 100k customer mix includes web designers, graphic artists, consultants, and service and home-based businesses.100k users is an important milestone because it not only signifies the traction that FreshBooks quickly gained, it also spotlights the rapid adoption of online services by the SMB market," said Michael McDerment, FreshBooks CEO. "FreshBooks helps customers better manage their critical business activities such as collecting receivables, tracking time, and managing customer su Read more:Quickbooks
Nick and Jessica Replace God 2006-11-15 17:25:00 I just had to post this.
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBSSunday Morning Commentary.
Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica
are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?
I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And itdoes not bother me even a little bit when people call
Making a New Hire in 30 Days (or less) 2006-11-10 23:55:00 I have worked for and with so many businesses that seem to take forever to move through the hiring process. I believe that once you commit to adding a new employee you should move with expediency. Your business will benefit from the injection of new talent and your candidates will certainly appreciate (and share with others) how effective your company is at the hiring process.
I am making a couple of assumptions here I want to share before I suggest some improved process steps to you.
The assumptions are:
You have a job description, you have competency descriptions for the position and the compensation is defined and you are using a web based job posting service like Monster.com or Careerboard.com and you have a defined process for what you want to do during the interviews.
Ok, on with my process suggestions.
Step 1: place your job listing in the online service of your choosing.
Step 2: after one week gather the resumes you have received and narrow them down to the 6-12 that you want
90 Second Elevator Pitch for Investors 2006-11-10 00:10:00 Ok, you have 90 seconds to pitch an investor, what do you do?This is a good article with some real world, practical advice.Excerpt: You have 90 seconds to explain, starting now.That's the premise of the Elevator Pitch
Olympics, a yearly event at the Wisconsin Early-Stage Symposium. This year, a panel of eight investors dished out advice and a few hard knocks to hopeful entrepreneurs who presented their businesses in front of an audience.Most people speak at between 100 and 200 words per minute. Think about the blurb on a book jacket - that's about how much information the pitches should convey. The better presenters used their time well to persuade the judges that it would be a good idea to take a meeting or read their business plan in more detail.More of 90 Second
Elevator Pitch for Investors
Did You Put The Lid Down? 2006-11-08 17:52:00 Most blogs are about voting today and hopefully you have done your civic duty. I thought I'd change up the conversation and talk about toilets. Not to imply that all the political back-stabbing, muck-rakers should be flushed....unless of course you...Did you put the lid down?
Peer Advisory Groups 2006-11-08 17:32:00 More and more business owners and executives are turning to Peer AdvisoryGroups
to help them build, manage and grow their businesses.I have been a member of Tec which is now called Vistage, probably one of the oldest and largest Peer Advisory organizations.There are are also the new breed of these organizations like PeerSightOnline that provides the same structure but uses new internet tools to do so.The New York Enterprise Report has a very good article on the subject in their newsletter this month. Here is an excerpt:Peer advisory groups are typically geared toward executive-level management and entrepreneurs.Unlike networking groups, their primary purpose is to provide a "safe," non-competitive forum for problem solving, sharing best practices and, ultimately, contributing to the success of members' businesses. Although networking and lead generation may be a side benefit of involvement in these groups, it is not their primary purpose.Typically, these groups involve a members
Sponsored Post: Holding Yourself Accountable 2006-11-03 20:18:00 What is accountability? Who holds you accountable? I recently asked those questions in several small business forums and got some pretty insightful answers. Many responses talked about the people (family, customers, and business partners) in their lives that held them...
Holding Yourself
Accountable
Career Books for Schools - Free 2006-10-31 16:17:00 David Lorenzo author of Career
Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs is giving away 100 of his books to the best entry submitted via email.Here's what you need to do:- Write him (dave-at-careerintesity.com) an e-mail of 750 words or less describing your favorite part of the book - Career Intensity: Business Strategy for Workplace Warriors and Entrepreneurs. The topic of the letter must be specific (mention the concept and why the concept was meaningful to you). - Give him permission to use your e-mail on the web and on his blog. You can do this by including a sentence at the end that says "you have my permission to publish this email as you see fit". - Give him the contact name, address, e-mail and phone number of the person at the school where you want your 100 books shipped. He will send 100 books to the school class submitted by the first ten people who send me the e-mail testimonial.Visit David's website Career Intensity Read more:Books
, Schools
Government Regulation - What Can a Small Business Do? 2006-10-26 15:18:00 Momentum can be good thing if your business is really rocking and clicking on all cylinders. Growth is occurring, customers are happy, employees are happy, life is good.On the other hand momentum can be a negative if things are going the wrong way, it is very hard to change old ways of being as a person and operating as a business.Yesterday I had a chance to interview Andrew Langer of the National Federation of Independent Business
(NFIB.com) about the momentum in government regulation requirements for small business. Trust me the momentum is going in the wrong direction in this regard.Did you know that the cost to a small business to meet government compliance is $7,700 per employee for a firm with less than 20 employees?He highlighted two new websites that small businesses can use to help them manage this challenge. Business.gov and Regulation
.gov, each of which is designed to help the small business owner learn and manage their way through the governement regulation challenge.Listen Read more:Government
, Small
, Small Business
Premium Conference Calling for Skype 2006-10-24 15:35:00 More than 136 million registered Skype
â„¢ users will now be able to purchase premium Internet conference calling services through Highspeedconferencing.com. The service will offer unique features such as recording and downloading, moderated question and answer services, and hand raising for people using conference calling on Skype."Conference calling through Skype has proven to be a very popular feature, especially among our business users," said Michael Jackson, general manager, paid services, Skype. "In fact, a third of our users use it for their business needs. The addition of premium services makes Skype for Business even more robust and allows Skype customers to improve productivity" Premium
services through Highspeedconferencing.com will be available for a fee of $4.99 per month and will include options such as recording and downloading, moderated question and answer services, and hand raising. These functions are unique to the conference calling industry and will offer Read more:Calling
Start a Business After 50 2006-10-23 17:43:00 7 ideas to help you start the right company, without risking your financial security.
I am over 50 and find these tips to be right on the money. If you are considering starting your own company take a minute and read this brief article. There is even a test at the end to determine your readiness for entrepreneurship.
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a Business
After 50
The how's and why's of bootstrapping (Part 1) 2006-10-19 20:22:00 Far from a pep talk for entrepreneurs on how they can accomplish their goals even without big outside investment dollars, Ed Zimmer of The Entrepreneur Network actually recommends avoiding those investments…like the plague! Here, at ZeroMillion.com, are his reasons...
Read Bootstrapping 101
Get Your Business Famous - with JumpUp.com 2006-10-18 17:09:00 Free marketing for your business, you can't beat that.JumpUp.com (owned and operated by Intuit) is one of the latest iterations of Social Networking websites designed exclusively for business.Want to make the front of their website and have your business featured? Then complete the application by November 15th and you may be featured on the home page. Or get this flyer to learn more.The site is great the service is cool and it is a FREE opportunity to give your business incredible exposure on a highly trafficed web site. Don't delay, go today! Read more:Business
, Famous
Is This a Healthy Business Climate? 2006-10-17 19:16:00
I live in Northeast Ohio of the USA. This area of the country is really struggling to remake itself to compete in the economic world of today.
There are many, many efforts underway to support, develop and encourage economic development, including recruiting businesses to move here and working hard to retain the existing businesses.
So for just a minute assume you were in Cleveland for some type of event and you picked up a local paper to get a feel for what is going on in the area. Of course you look at the Business
page and the bolded headlines are:
Steel Lobby Pushes to Keep Tariffs
Kucinich Uges U.S.: Probe Tops Grocery Store Sale
Alcoa Negotiations to Resume Today
Tops Distributor Cuts Management
Mayflower Systems Plans to Layoff 75
Pet Insurer Joins Lloyd's of London
Parker Buys Tecknit Division
AK Steel Workers Weigh "Final" Offer
With those headlines what do they say about the local business climate and this papers orientation to it? Good, bad or hard to say?
My Note: Pers Read more:Climate
Creating Trade Show Press Kits 2006-10-17 01:35:00 I was recently discussing trade show press kits with one of my clients. She was wondering about "extra stuff" to put in the kits -- the press release is covered, but should other documents also be included? My response:You can include other documents, but usually the media is so pressed for time they'll only have time to glance at it. Mostly, they just want to know what's new for this show. So if you have other documents like a corporate history/backgrounder, executive profiles, service/product listing, previous press clippings, fact sheets, or FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) -- post those on your company website in a "Press
Room" section, and direct the media there by including a link in your press release or cover letter.Read CreatingTrade
Show Press Kits
Integrating a Blog with Your Website 2006-10-17 01:24:00 Great article by Mark White.Following up on my post earlier this week which tried to weigh up the relative benefits of having a blog as a separate entity or as part of your website, I thought that I would put a short addendum here to just give an overview of the three main ways (as I see them) of combining a blog and a website.There is no "one right way" to do this and the best method will vary according to the situation of the individual organizations. Read Integrating
a Blog with Your Website
Back to Basics 2006-10-14 19:18:38 Yesterday I read an article about Wendy's International - the square burger that made Dave Thomas famous. They've decided to go back to the basic burger. Over the years Wendy's has purchased other restaurants, expanded their menu and moved away...
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Read more:Basics
Hiring Workers Over Age 50 2006-10-11 22:33:14 Being over 50 years of age I am very sensitive to some of the subtle and not so subtle age discrimination that happens to us 'seniors' even though we are in the prime of our work careers and accumulated knowledge....
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Read more:Hiring
, Workers
Presentation Skills for Entrepreneurs 2006-10-10 21:14:00 Presentation Skills
for Entrepreneurs
is now available at The Great Big Small Business Show. This week is a mashup of 6 different podcasters discussing various aspects of Presentation Skills for Entrepreneurs. (Below is the transcript from my portion of this weeks Great Big Small Business Show)This is one of my favorite topics, I have been giving presentations for just about 25 years and I have learned many lessons along the way. Today I want to share with you what I think are the Top 3 keys to Delivering an Effective Presentation.Key Number 1: Focus on your audience. The purpose of any presentation, (including this podcast) is to serve an audience. Do some research; learn all you can in as much detail as possible about the presentation attendees.Do your best to learn and understand their expectations BEFORE hand so in your content and delivery you can come as close to possible to meeting those expectations. In some situations it may be appropriate to ask the audience what their expect
Social Shopping Websites 2006-10-08 15:44:00 Think Digg meets E-Commerce. Crowdstorm is a new way for consumers to find what to buy by measuring the buzz around products. Users recommend products, and the crowd defines the best products by recommending what they know and like. Good...Read more about SocialShopping
Sites Read more:Websites
Do You Look Through the Windshield or Rearview Mirror of Your Business? 2006-10-08 15:42:00 Have you ever contemplated the mathematical equation of what percentage of vision the rearview mirror is compared to the windshield? Both are important, we need to know what is behind us to help determine how we view the scene in...Read more of Looking Forward or Looking Back Read more:Business
Emails Not Getting Through - Black Lists and White Lists Explained 2006-10-04 22:33:00 Over 40% of all emails within your marketing campaign are not being delivered. You may not even be aware of this, as many ISPs will not send back a bounce message. In fact if you are sending messages to AOL customers, AOL is now blocking over 80% of the messages that come into their servers.One of the main reasons that this is occurring is that your IP or Domain may be Black
Listed.Read more Black Lists
and White
Lists Explained Read more:Emails
Building Client Relationships 2006-10-03 22:50:00 Episode 8 - BuildingClientRelationships
in Small Business is now available at The Great Big Small Business Show. This week is a mashup of 4 different podcasters discussing various aspects of Building Client Relationships. (This is the transcript from my portion of this weeks Great Big Small Business Show)A few years ago before I started my own business a friend and I set out on a research project. We wanted to know why some people could make an effective relationship with someone very rapidly and others would take much more time and sometimes they would never get to the point of having a good relationship.We were doing this study in the context of selling, why would some people get to a trusting relationship quickly and therefore have a higher likelihood of sales success.Of course we felt that trust was the key to a successful sale of anything that is complex and expensive. We felt if trust could be developed quickly we could shorten our sales cycle and achieve success for our busine
How to Fire Someone - The Right Way 2006-09-29 00:59:00
I think the article referenced below is very good. It describes all of the important steps to effective performance management. The first company I managed in believed strongly in a consistent process whose real aime is to CORRECT the performance problem, not to hurt employees. It has worked well for me over the last 25 years.
Firing an employee--looking someone straight in the eye and telling them they no longer have a source of income--is one of the toughest things you'll ever have to do as a business owner. It's often as hard on the person giving the bad news as it is on the person receiving it. And yet it still needs to be done, especially if you have someone who's "poisoning the well" and bringing the entire business down with them.
Assuming this person is an "at will" employee--someone who doesn't have an employment contract that guarantees employment for a specified time period--here are ten tips to help you remove the bad apple cancer from your business with a " Read more:Right
Improve Your Sales Effectiveness 2006-09-27 01:30:00 I think individual sales rep performance is the single biggest opportunity area for major productivity improvements. Productivity has been addresseed aggressively in every other area of business except sales. (IMHO, having managed hundreds of sales professionals)So of course tools are a major source of help but they need to have the right orientation, I think the blurb and link below to Sales
QB is right on track by targeting the sales individual themselves.SalesQBâ„¢ develops sales effectiveness solutions that improve the deal-closing stats for aspiring sales MVPs. SalesQB has spent nearly five years of research and development creating the world's first sales effectiveness community.By utilizing cutting-edge industry research and next generation Web-based applications and services, SalesQB has transformed the way sales reps can do their jobs.The founders of SalesQB realized that sales reps spend too much time preparing for sales opportunities, when their time is best spent on sellin Read more:Improve
Gain Insight at PeerSight 2006-09-27 00:54:00 Small business owners often have to wear many hats to make it in today's competitive environment. Unlike large corporations, they don't have teams of top-level executives on call to provide sound business advice or help during a crisis. Or, do...Read more Read more:Insight
Weird but Marketable 2006-09-26 02:04:00 This is a great article for all of us business creative types who can't stop thinking up ideas for new products and services.Your business idea is so bad that it's good. Very good. Sure, getting it from your brain to store shelves might be tough, but well...what if? For Paul Stremple, inventor of the Banana Bunker, that "what if" has become a reality. Fruit lovers are clamoring for his plastic prophylactic that expands or contracts to fit a banana of any size, protecting the delicate fruit from nicks and bruises. The idea came to him by chance, after his sister complained that her midday snack kept getting smooshed in her briefcase. Granted, eyeing the banana-shaped container may bring a blush to your cheek. But that hasn't stopped the bunker (retail price: $4.99) from becoming a popular item at the Museum of Modern Art's gift store. "It's a little suggestive, and that's probably helped in my marketing," Stremple concedes. Check out these weird but great ideas:Paul Stremple — B Read more:Weird
50+ Ways a CEO can get Employees to Quit 2006-09-23 17:50:00 A month ago I shared some specific ways to get ahead at work. For me it worked, I got promoted within my IT group and was actually bumped up 2 spots. As I mentioned in that post, I was promoted directly by a VP (my boss' boss), which was unusual. Since then my boss was let go basically because anarchy broke out in the group and people were quitting daily. However, it got me thinking. What if I didn't have a VP that recognized my efforts?Read more 50+ Ways a CEO can get Employees to Quit
Worst Home Business Myth Busted 2006-09-23 17:46:00 One of the worst fallacies is that "Having a Home Business
is Easy." No way Jose. Even without a family or kids around, when one decides to put up a home business, his or her time management skills will...Read more Read more:Busted
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