Posted by Biz Central USA Marketing Team on January 28, 2010 under Small Biz Certifications,Small Biz Planning | 
In order to do business with the Federal Government, an interested small business should become certified under the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) program. The SBA’s mission is to maintain and strengthen the Nation’s economy by aiding, counseling, assisting, and protecting the interests of small businesses and by helping businesses and families recover from disasters. The BD (Business Development) assists firms owned and controlled by economically and socially disadvantaged individuals, enter the economic mainstream. The 8a certification process is complex and takes on average three to four months to get completed. Once you have completed the process and received your wonderful letter saying, “congratulations you have been accepted” you still have to complete a SBA form 1010C.
This is a business plan that includes a detailed marketing plan for your business. Additional required topics included within the 1010C form are as follows: executive summary, business history, business environment, products and services, as well as other crucial topics. As soon as you receive your letter of approval from the SBA you will be asked to contact your local office (these specific details will be listed in your letter) and set up an appointment to review your business plan. This meeting will help to evaluate your small business’ potential for success as a certified 8(a) participant. If you are prepared for that meeting by already having a business plan prepared, it will enable you to complete the process immediately and receive your 8a certification. In other words, you enable your small business to begin bidding and contracting.
This is the final step to the SBA’s 8(a) certification process and it can delay the process if you are not prepared with a 1010c plan. Don’t delay your firm’s ability to receive contracts because you don’t have a business plan. In the words of John L. Beckley, “Most people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.”
Posted by Biz Central USA Marketing Team on January 18, 2010 under Small Biz and Entrepreneurship |
Too often you see small business owners and entrepreneurs jump into the
new year with dozens of new goals and strategies to accomplish, but by the end of that year their goals have turned into nothing but a dreadful nightmare. This is not only depressing for the small business owners and entrepreneurs who run these businesses, but also for the thousands of Americans who are counting on small businesses to pull the U.S. out of a slump.
If I could have it my way, I would love to see every new venture taken on by an entrepreneur grow to be successful and profitable. Unfortunately, that is not reality. The reality is however, that those businesses who have failed most likely share many common mistakes. While knowing what these ruinous mistakes are is extremely important, it is even more critical to know how to avoid these endless pitfalls of disaster.
So, your probably asking yourself “How do I avoid my business ending up in the small business graveyard?”. Well, that is exactly what I am going to share with you today! Pay close attention to each point I am about to make, even if some may seem so “typical” or if you think “this is so common, I wouldn’t make that mistake.” Trust me, that is probably what many of the small business owners and entrepreneurs though right before their business went belly-up!
Bad Money Management. Look at the businesses that fail and you’ll find that many of them took on way too much debt. In addition to taking on too much debt many of those small businesses spend their seed money before cash ha begun to flow in at a positive rate. This is just plain irresponsible. As a small business owner you must hone in on your money management skills (if you don’t think you have them, then hire a bookkeeper to help manage financials). If you are gonna go at it alone, here are a few things to remember:
- Prepare for volatile marketing and uncontrollable costs that will sneak up on you.
- Keep strict records of all money going in and out.
- Evaluate your wants vs. needs to avoid over spending. In other words, if you can’t afford it, don’t get it!
Bad Business Location.Yes, it is true. Your location can make or break your small business. Remember, people need to be able to find you and feel welcomed to come on in. Too often you see entrepreneurs who are “raring to go” let a cheap lease tempt them into opening their doors in the wrong location. Keep in mind that common phrase, “if it seems to good to be true it probably is.”
Some simple ways to avoid a failure prone location is to consider your customers, suppliers and competition when deciding on a location. Create a check list for each of those factors to help you weigh all the benefits (demographics, distance to suppliers, financial savings etc.) for each location. Just keep asking yourself, “does this location meet the needs of the business?” Your answer should be yes.
Ineffective Marketing and Self Promotion. Have you ever felt like you were talking to a wall? Well, if you don’t utilize marketing or if it is poorly planned and executed, you may as well have been talking to a wall. You can’t gain customers and clients if they don’t know that you exist. That is why to have to strategically plan to build awareness and conversation about your business. Now, if you have an online business, marketing should truly be a key component of your daily tasks. Rather than a great location, an online business needs marketing to continually promote its site.
Learn how to cost-effectively and time-effectively market your business with tactics that work for you. That statement is important, because many businesses will simply implement too many marketing initiatives; to the point where all their marketing efforts are lackluster and ineffective. It is better to take on only the amount of marketing initiatives that you have time to execute to their fullest potential.
Underestimating the Competition. This statement has probably been beaten down to the ground, but it couldn’t be more true: If you don’t take care of you customers, your competition will. So, how will you keep your customers from straying? There are a few ways to prevent any activity “outside the relationship”:
- Create your unique selling point (USP) and really make it unique and enticing.
- Always remember that you have to earn customer loyalty; it doesn’t just happen. By always reminding yourself of this, you will always play at the top of your game.
- Know everything there is to know about your competition – their special promotions, changes they make to their website, what others are saying about them. It all goes back to keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer.
- Practice outstanding customer service, all day – everyday. Word of mouth can be one of the best and easiest ways to keep current customers and bring in new ones.
Inadequate Business Plan. Your business plan is your blueprint for success. A well-thought-out business plan forces you to think about the future and the challenges you’ll face. It also forces you to consider your financial needs, your marketing and management plans, your competition, and your overall strategy for coming out on top – Basically, it can help to prevent you from making the previous 4 mistakes.
Avoiding this mistake is simple: Get an effective business plan! It can be a simple three-page plan or a huge 40-page plan. The point is that every small business owner needs a business plan to help you to focus on your goals and your vision, as well as setting out plans to accomplish them.
So that is it! These mistakes can lead you to small business failure, but if you paid close attention to the points on how to avoid it, you should be okay!
Have you already made any of these mistakes? If so, what will you do to correct them and how are you going to prevent your small business from failure?
Posted by Biz Central USA Marketing Team on January 5, 2010 under Small Biz and Entrepreneurship |
It’s a new year and new start for small businesses and entrepreneurs! If you already have an established business you probably have made the small business resolution to implement new profitable strategies, to finally launch your website or to engage in additional marketing initiatives to make 2010 a year for the record books! If you haven’t yet started your business, there is no better time than now to jump into the small business startup process by getting your business plan written and legally forming your small business! Which ever category you fall into, there are a few important things to remember: The best success will be achieved through effectively PLANNING and PREPARING for your anticipated initiatives.
Small businesses and entrepreneurs across the U.S. share a similiar goal: to make their dream a success! Those who achieve thier goal have most likely taken the critical steps in properly planning and preparing for their new initiatives or resolutions. Those small businesses who have failed, ask themselves: “where did I go wrong?” or “it was a great idea, why didn’t it work?” The problem here is that they skipped those critical planning and preparation steps.
While there are many things you should be thinking about, we have compiled a list of the Top 5 Things You Should Be Doing to start PLANNING and PREPARING your small business for success in 2010!
The Top 5 Things You Should Be Doing!
- Creating or Re-evaluating you Business Plan – Your business plan is the “game plan” for your small business. It is going to map out previous successes and failures, and guide you through avoiding the same mistakes. Your business plan is your ultimate plan for success!
- Start Preparing for Tax Season - Do you have a bookkeeper? With tax season right around the corner, now is the time to get a professional CPA or Bookkeeper to avoid errors in your tax return, heavy fines, a possible audit and set-back to your goals.
- Create a Quarterly/Monthly Marketing Plan – Many small business owners make the resolution to implement new “cost-effective” marketing strategies in the new year. While this goal is more than possible, it can go extremely wrong and waste a lot of time and energy if a PLANNED marketing strategy is not put in place.
- Cross your T’s and dot your I’s – Make sure you have all the loose ends tied up from 2009, including: customer or employee issues, holiday promotion wrap-ups, reporting, financials and anything else that may insufficiently occupy your time in the new year.
- Keep your Customers Close and your Competitors Closer – i.e. know who your competition is, what moves they make, what promotions they are running and any additional ventures they may be taking on. Knowing what your competitors are up to will help you prepare for a possible “fork in the road” that could cause a change of plans.
I’m not saying that planning and preparation will eliviate every possible problem that may come in the way of your small businesses succeeding. It will tho, significantly add to the effectiveness of each new initiative or goal your small business takes on this year.
Are you a small business owner who has experienced failure due to a lack of planning and prepartion? If so, tell us your story and share a few tips for other small business owners and entrepreneurs!
