Posts Tagged ‘testimonial’
Entrepreneur Andy Willoughby comments on how Social Media provides real results for your small business
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Posted By: Andy Willoughby
Here is an article recently written by Samuel Axon on mashable.com about small businesses using social media to gain results for their company. I found this to be very insightful being a small business owner myself and believe that there are some beneficial examples within the article.
How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media for Real Results
Social media can be a scary prospect for small businesses; unlike traditional marketing methods, it puts part of the message in the hands of the customers. But while it’s easy to be concerned that the message will go the wrong way, the benefits can outweigh the risks if you use the available services wisely.
The most obvious benefits are increased customer loyalty and engagement. Less obvious but just as important: Your business will gain exposure not through your own advertisements, but through folks who’ve already been patrons. We’re more likely to trust a Facebook update or Yelp review from a friend than from the business itself.
We spoke with small business owners and social media managers around the world who have successfully used social media to increase business performance, and we asked them for their stories and their tips. Here’s what we learned.
Entrepreneur Andy Willoughby reviews New York Times article; How to Prepare Your Small Business for Succession
Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Posted By: Andy Willoughby
Here is a New York Times article I want to share written by Ian Mount on how to prepare your business for succession.
SMALL-BUSINESS GUIDE
How to Prepare Your Business for Succession
By IAN MOUNT
Published: March 17, 2010
WHEN his father died in 2006, Allen Frechter thought that his work as executor of the estate would be fairly straightforward.
But then he looked under the hood of his father’s firm, Plexi-Craft Quality Products, a manufacturer in New York City of acrylic furniture. Mr. Frechter’s father, George, had worked until the day before his death, at 86, and like many small-business owners, he had made no plans for what followed.
Purchase orders were still handwritten. There was no list of best customers or products. There was no data and no way to analyze the company’s performance. So Mr. Frechter, 49, wound down his own home-improvement firm in Boston and started commuting to New York to run Plexi-Craft. He moved it to a cheaper location and had an employee spend 250 hours entering six years’ worth of customer data.
Not only did the firm survive, but Mr. Frechter expects it to double its annual revenue to $5 million by 2012. But many are not so lucky. Business owners who do not form a succession plan create a time bomb that can not only destroy their companies but tear apart their families. “A lot of families fight and fight until the business is gone,” said Jim Clay, who heads the trusts and estates department at the law firm of Morrison Fenske & Sund in Minnetonka, Minn. “It eats up everyone’s inheritances.”
Here are some suggestions to avoid a succession disaster:
IDENTIFY YOUR SUCCESSORS Deciding which child or relative will sit in the corner office is often so emotional that it can stop succession planning before it starts. But it is the necessary first step. “You have to make an honest assessment of your children,” said Robert W. O’Hara, owner of O’Hara & Company, a financial planning firm in Chelmsford, Mass., that specializes in exit planning for entrepreneurs. “Don’t assume the next generation has the same skills.”
Andy Willoughby Reviews Small Business and Entrepreneur Resources
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Here is an article about an organization helping small businesses and entrepreneurs.
KC BizCare helps get new businesses on a firm footing
By LYNN HORSLEY The Kansas City Star
When Therese Nash was starting up her Kansas City weatherization business last year, she went from office to office at City Hall, trying to navigate a complicated bureaucracy.
“There are all these different departments,” she recalled. “You go so many different places.”
Finally, someone told her about KC BizCare, in the Oak Street parking garage just west of City Hall. The one-stop shop is designed to help entrepreneurs and small business owners obtain the permits they need and meet other requirements to legally ply their trade in Kansas City.
The small staff at 1118 Oak St. provides guidance on the city’s regulatory, licensing and approval processes; helps people use city computers to look up property, zoning and employment information; and provides suggestions on other small business resources throughout the city.
“They were so helpful,” Nash said. “Everybody needs this. It was so nice to have a place where if I had a question they would always find out for you.”
Entrepreneur Andy Willoughby comments on USA Today article; 4 start-up mistakes you must avoid when starting up a business
Friday, March 5th, 2010
I would like to share an article written by Steve Strauss, a USA Today columnist, about how to avoid early business failure.
4 Start Up Mistakes You Must Avoid
A: It is never fun to make a mistake in business, even if they are inevitable. And worse, mistakes are both more prevalent and more dangerous during the start-up phase of your business because your idea has yet to be fully cooked; the start-up period is, unfortunately, usually the ‘error’ part of a ‘trial and error’ phase for you business.
That said, even though mistakes are to be expected, they need not be crippling, or even negative. Not a few entrepreneurs have stumbled into success when they discover ways to make money in their business that they didn’t know were possible. For instance, Dr. Spencer Silver was trying to create a super sticky glue for his employer, 3M, when he mistakenly came up with an adhesive that was instead sort-of sticky. What to do with somewhat sticky glue? 3M created the Post-it note, that’s what.
So no, not all mistakes are bad mistakes.
But there are some mistakes that can and should be avoided as you start your business:
1. Taking on too much debt: Most entrepreneurs have to take on some debt to fund the dream. That is expected and fine. But you simply must 1) keep that indebtedness to a minimum, and 2) have a plan for paying it back from the get-go.
It will take a while for that new business to begin to generate revenue, and while that happens your debt load will increase due to interest. And the bigger it grows, the more it threatens the lifeblood of your business, your cash flow. Keep your debt low and get out from under as soon as possible.
Entrepreneur Andy Willoughby comments on New York Times article about the recession making small businesses stronger
Friday, February 26th, 2010
I want to share an article from the New York Times, Small Business section written by Jack Stack, Founder, CEO SRC Holdings Inc., about how the recession made him stronger.
How The Recession Made us Stronger
As it did with most companies out there, the recession hit SRC like a brick. But, as I’ve discussed a few times, it was a number of decisions that helped us pull through. Now that the results are in for 2009, it’s clear that those decisions didn’t just help us survive — they made us stronger.
In October 2008, when we began our planning and forecasting for the coming fiscal year, people here were really scared about the coming year. We had customers in panic mode. Some were on the brink of bankruptcy and others didn’t know if they could get financing. Others were going to the mattresses and eliminating inventories. Added together, 2009 promised to be exceptionally bleak for a manufacturing company like ours. The fear was paralyzing.
