Monthly Archive for December, 2009

What is the Most Important Management Skill for Small Business Managers?

December 19, 2009

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When asked what the most important management skill for a small business manager was, Executive Director Gina Maciula’s answer was short and direct: communication. Not only do managers need to be aware of what they are saying, but how to listen as well.

Statistics reveal that a typical audience retains about 5% of what is said. That means that during a one-hour meeting, they might retain three minutes of what you said. Why is this?

  • Staff feels like meetings are a waste of time to begin with
  • Staff members dislike or have personal issues with the speaker
  • The speaker uses emotional arguments instead of facts
  • Audience has different political or cultural views
  • The speaker has poor or dull presentation skills

For example, a manager who begins a meeting with, “I think we should stop usability testing on the new website, what do you think?” has shut down communication with the team by providing their specific recommendations first.

One of our speakers, Gina Maciula, offers a few different communication seminars in San Francisco that covers how to give and receive feedback, called The Dynamic Management Team. This is a key management skill and a subset of listening.

Should I Build my Own Website for my Small Business?

December 14, 2009

Small Business Website Developer Advice

Absolutely not.

Unless you are a web developer by trade, you will inevitably waste your time building an ineffective, confusing web presence. Even worse — having a friend or relative do it for free or trade. (Good luck meeting your launch deadline and working out payment.) The truth is, your website will be the least expensive and most effective part of your marketing (if done correctly), so the answer is a no-brainer: hire a professional.

Today’s web developers have to be highly specialized to remain competitive. They need to be experts with web markup, Javascript, design and color theory, typography, blogs, content management systems, databases, proper search engine optimization techniques, online marketing, usability, accessibility, social media integration, image editing, video compression, hosting and registration, security — the list goes on.

So spend your time making your product or service the best it can be. Determine price points. Study the competition. Find the most effective advertising stream. Meet industry experts. Find Facebook fan clubs and attend local events. Follow industry leaders on Twitter and attend their meet-ups, drink-ups, and other social gatherings. Small business is highly personal, it is about you, so spend your time building you, not a website.

If you would like to learn more about our strategy on how to tackle website redesigns, schedule our ‘web meeting before your next web meeting’ at 800-921-9007.

Choosing a Merchant Account – How and When to Use and Setup Credit Cards for your Business

December 10, 2009

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Make it convenient for your clients to pay you. The more ways you accept money, the more money you will make. If you have a strict payment policy, (i.e., only accept cash, or only use PayPal), your clients may choose a competitor who accepts all credit cards, including American Express. Even though AMEX charges more than Visa and Mastercard (and, of course, you are paying those fees), you are making the sale by accepting it.

Studies have shown that most people do not carry cash, prefer awards programs of credit cards, and are sometimes forced to use credit cards by their companies.

There are many companies that offer this service, and typically there are two methods: purchasing a point-of-sale (POS) machine, or processing transactions through a web interface. For more specific types of situations, there are specialized machines that you can purchase to fit your needs — for example, they sell wireless card swipers for contractors who are on-location (wedding vendors, farmer’s market vendors, Salvation Army workers).

The latest trend is to bypass all of these methods and just use a merchant account application on your iPhone. Intuit is a great solution, and is only $9.95/month (plus a per sale fee) and it is compatible with Quickbooks. Ask your bank for a merchant account (you will have to qualify credit-wise); they go through a third-party. For $85 I got a USB card reader for the laptop so I can swipe the cards, which saves time and increases accuracy as I do not have to  enter client billing information. The online credit card services also keep records and store your sales so you can search for specific customers.

You need a credit card service for your business — even the guy I bought my furnace from swiped my credit card on his handheld in my garage!

Affordable Backup Strategy for Small Businesses on a Mac

December 9, 2009

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“If it isn’t in three places, it doesn’t exist.”

Securing client data is a top priority at T2, and this is why we have successfully avoided losing any data over the last 14 years of business. Because we are asked what we do and how we do it, I have outlined our general approach to backup and archiving. As we migrated to the Mac operating system years ago, this post is mainly targeted towards Mac users, but almost everything can be ported to Windows.

Our backup workflow is optimized for speedy backups, fast recovery, and has been streamlined to be very affordable. The following approach provides secure, redundant backups.

First, start using Backblaze. Backblaze is an encrypted online backup solution that preforms continuous, unlimited backups of all of all your data. They use military-grade encryption, it’s automated, and very affordable ($5/month).

Second, purchase SuperDuper, an affordable backup application that allows you to create quick, easy-to-restore backups as disk images. Configured it to schedule automated backups to any drive, ideally to Network Attached Storage units. Create nightly clones of your system drives and nightly incremental backups of your data drives.

Note that we used Retrospect and Memeo extensively — both were problematic. While Retrospect worked intermittently, support is expensive, and Memeo did not work at all. (SuperDuper’s Dave Nanian is known to reply to forums, threads, and even Tweets right away.)

Third, purchase a NAS unit. We use ReadyNAS NV+ units for twice-daily backups of everything. They hold four to six hard disks (depending on the model you get) and if any one of them fails, no data is lost, as they utilize RAID-5 technology. Simply pop in another drive and it figures the rest out. Highly configurable, these units are not cheap, but are much cheaper than hiring a data restoration consultant at $5,000 per drive.

Fourth, create DVDs or external hard drive copies of your data and store them off-site (safe deposit box, home office, etc). This is a requirement if you are not using a web solution like Backblaze.

Fifth, using TimeMachine to archive different versions of files that you are working on. This functionality can be done with Backblaze as well, but restoring files is faster with TimeMachine. Be sure to configure it to not backup large directories, as those will be covered with the NAS and Backblaze.

Sixth, make sure you are separating your data from your system drive. This way, if the system drive fails, you can use your clone and you will not lose any data.

Third-party services vs. full- or part-time employees

December 8, 2009

When applicable, I recommend expert third-party services versus hiring a full- or part-time employee to do the same job. There are many benefits with using services and business consultants: If you are unhappy with the consultant or service, you can cancel it and sign up for another. If you are unhappy with your employee, it’s a lot more work to make a switch. Third-party services and independent consultants are always on time, and they only bill for time spent, never taking vacations. For many small business applications, this is the only way to go. There is no reason to reinvent the wheel when it comes to standard business operations.

In today’s global world, you can outsource just about everything for your business (accounting, web design, database setup, inventory control, e-commerce, marketing). You only need to hire employees where day-to-day needs warrant it, otherwise use contractors. This is the best way to control costs as you can budget for the contractors and use them only when you need the help. Your payroll is usually the largest expense — keep it to a minimum.

With the crash of the economy in the fall of 2008, employers laid off staff and found that the productivity stayed the same as the remaining employees took over the work left by those who left. Even though the economy improved in 2009, employers are not hiring back since production is adequate even with a decrease in staff. Independent contractors fill the gaps left by this unemployment.

Should I use an Online Accounting Service?

December 8, 2009

The biggest challenge for small business owners is to find superior services at the lowest cost, which brings me to recommending freshbooks.com. This online accounting service is great (especially if you travel) because you have access to your financial records from any location. It is tempting for small business owners because it is easy to learn, and your data is backed up. If you lose your time records, you have lost income — time is money! You can record your time through their iPhone app making it easy to keep track of your time contemporaneously. It has been proven that if you record your time every day versus once a week or once a month, you will consistently bill more.

Do Employee Perks Work?

December 6, 2009

Employees love perks.  They are like birthday presents all year long.  They can also be non-taxable to employees and a tax deduction for small businesses.  The best perks promote team building and provide daily reminders about how great it is to work for the company.  For example, allow employees to work from home, bring in fitness trainers for free lunch-hour workshop, or offer free seminars by professional speakers on topics such as “The Dynamic Management Team”.

In this economy, cancel the holiday party and give employees practical perks; a BART card, movie and theatre tickets, or dinner reservations at a local, sustainable restaurant. Promote giving by exchanging the gift cards with a warm coat to give to the One Warm Coat project.  Or, cancel the holiday party entirely and do something socially responsible.  Each year, Nvidia funds a community project and their employees participate in the project.  Last year they built a multimedia studio and a volleyball court at an elementary school in California working directly with the students.

For managers, give them something they cannot get on their own. I once had a boss pay for a reserved parking spot for me. I was a working mother with four sons.  He knew that I would value a reserved parking spot much more than cash because I was not eligible to get one of the coveted parking spots on my own.  He was right, and every day I parked in the spot, I thought of my great boss — the perk worked.

Your Chart of Accounts is the Map of your Business

December 6, 2009

Here is the sure-fire way to set up your Chart of Accounts in Quickbooks:  follow the categories on the federal tax form (Form 1040 Schedule C, Profit & Loss From Business).  This will save time and headaches at year-end as your P&L totals can be quickly entered on Schedule C.

For instance, code auto expenses to “Car Expenses”, cost of business cards goes under “Advertising”, and put telephone costs (and anything else that has a large balance) under “Other Expenses” which are itemized in Part V, so the Quickbooks account is “Other Expenses: Telephone” (a subcategory)

Do you need help with your accounting?  Contact us for a free consultation or call at 800-921-9007 (9 to 6pm PST).