Here are six more in the What Works for Business series of new small biz solutions you can digest in 10 seconds or less:

Postage Meter Deals: Postage meter purveyor Pitney Bowes is cutting prices and making some of its best deals ever on postage meters for new small business customers. Their Personal Post machine, which has leased for 2 or 3 times this amount (you can’t buy postage meters) is now $15/month, with 60 days free. And PB throws in $15/month in free postage for two years, to boot!

2009 Tax Help Online: A new 2009 Tax Center available on the legal site Findlaw.com offers authoritative advice and resources on filing your tax return for tax year 2008. It includes info on deductions, deadlines, audits and much more.

0% Tech Financing From HP:  HP just launched a terrific deal for small biz that lets you finance $1,500 to $150,000 worth of tech products form HP’s entire line at zero %, and you can choose to either lease or own. Deal details here — good through April 30, 2009 in the U.S. and Canada. 

New Biz Blogging Platform:  HubSpot — a hot spot of internet marketing ideas and solutions — just launched a new web-based blogging system for business users to help would-be biz bloggers add a blog to their website with easy integration and full analytics.

Salve for Recession — Win an Award:  Entries for the 2009 American Business Awards are now open in dozens of categories, from Executive of the Year, Company of the Year, Best new Product or Service, Best Website, Fastest-Growing Company and more, until March 31.

Shelve Your Suitcase — Videoconference More:  Regus Group, which runs the world’s largest network of videoconference rooms available to business, has seen a 40% spike in bookings over the past 12 months. Check out Regus for this $$-saving solution.

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Biz owners who’ve embraced the iPhone have another reason to rejoice: A new application just out that effortlessly turns your iPhone (and hey, it works on an iPod Touch, too) into a credit card processing device you can take (almost) anywhere.  Use your iPhone to collect real money with ProcessAway, an awesome new app that will sell soon via the iTunes AppStore for $19.99.

You can easily process charges at conventions, trade shows or street fairs. If you operate a mobile biz like car detailing, contracting, consulting or dozens of others, this could change your life. ProcessAway works on any available network connection. Linked with an Authorize.net merchant account, ProcessAway uses real-time card authorizations to put profits in your pocket, fast. And you may already own the hardware.

With a single account, you can download your sales data directly into QuickBooks, either by iPhone, iPod Touch or from your desktop PC using the application’s web-based “virtual terminal.” A fully-functional free version called ProcessLite is identical to ProcessAway, except the charge amount is limited. This is a new mobile solution that really works for small business, startup entrepreneurs and others.

What about receipts, you ask? No problem.  Email the customer a receipt with a few quick steps.  Need to void a charge? Easy too.  Just select the charge on your Transactions Log and hit “void.”  The ProcessAway website has clear instructions on these and other steps under Key Features.

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These days, if your business isn’t offering a discount of some kind, you might not be selling much at all. Pervasive discounting spurred by the sickly economy has caused buyers to demand deals on anything and everything. In the midst of all this, how do small business owners craft a promotional strategy without losing their shirts? Whatever you call it — a sale, clearance, liquidation or special event — here are 10 do’s and don’ts for successful discounting:

10. Do make the discount relevant: Devise an offer that not only will appeal to your clientele, but also one that jibes with how those customers buy from your biz. For example, notes Amy King, vice president of business intelligence at Valpak, a major coupon mailer, a “buy one get one free” offer may appear strong on the surface. “But if your customer wouldn’t typically buy multiples at the same time, it’s not likely to work well.”

9. Do commit to your campaign: Whether you use postcards, coupon packs, email or online ads, frequency and consistency are important. Prospects may see an offer but not respond right away. “Consumers look for an offer that’s appealing and has value, and may respond immediately. But with big ticket, high-commitment items they are likely to take more time to consider the offer and wait until they need to make the purchase,” says John Widmer, Valpak’s audience research manager.

8. Do balance strong discounts against your bottom line: Structure discounts that can get customers in the door, but still make money for your business. “Look at your product mix and look at your margins,” says King. “Because if you don’t, that’s where you’re going to get burned.” Evaluate carefully what you can reasonably offer, and don’t be afraid to exclude specific items that don’t fit the discount model.

7. Do set goals: Balance results with objectives. Was your goal to generate new customers? Drive more phone calls or website visits? Promote a new product or service?

6. Do monitor and measure the results of a discount strategy: If you sell more but still lose money, it’s not helping your business. Don’t just file away coupons you use to promote your discount. Take a little time to analyze the transactions. Did customers merely buy the discounted items or did they spend more while they were at your store or website? Well-planned discounting typically (though not always) prompts customers to spend more.

5. Don’t cut prices willy-nilly: In the midst of all this, how do small business owners craft a promotional strategy without losing their shirts? The kneejerk reaction is sometimes to cut prices willy-nilly. But King warns businesses not to rush into a discount strategy. “Start with a plan,” she says, “and then stick to it.”

4. Don’t forget to prepare: Some businesses that offer a discount for the first time aren’t properly prepared for the response. If you attract customers to try your product or service, but you’re not able to serve those customers at your best level, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Be sure to inform your staff about your discount strategy, and provide any information they need about coupons or offers. Customers may have questions, and you’ll need the answers.

3. Don’t treat people who buy at a discount as “second rate” customers. “Make them feel wanted, welcomed and appreciated,” says King. “Training your staff to handle promotions is just as important as the offer itself.” Treating people well is the key to repeat business after the discount deal is gone.

2. Don’t target only new customers: Offer extra discounts for repeat business: One way to turn new customers into repeat customers is to establish loyal customer discounts of some type. Loyalty cards (buy 9 get the 10^th one free), birthday discounts and referral rewards are several examples.

1. Don’t get yourself in hot water: Be careful with the wording of your discount and on-sale offers. Clearly label what’s “on sale” and what isn’t. If you advertise discounts of, say, “Up to 50% off” the Better Business Bureau suggests that at least 10 percent of the items be offered at the maximum amount off.

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At What Works for Business, we marvel at the pace of innovation in the online marketing space where growth has slowed a tad, from torrid to tepid. Online ad spend looks to grow “only” 4% in ’09, against a 7% drop for media overall, says Citigroup. What’s stunning is the number of web marketing players, and their eye-popping array of new and evolving solutions for businesses — from small and quick, to large and lumbering.

There’s so much ferment in online marketing that its hard to keep pace. Fortunately — and we doff our hats to these folks — the annual OnMedia 100 list sorts out “the truly great ideas being executed by great teams…” The 2009 list, just out, is a marketing solutions bonanza, especially for small biz. If you aren’t exploring some of the new and rapidly-changing options for upping your online ante, you ought to be.

The OnMedia 100covers 7 categories, such as community platforms, online advertising and service providers, mobile marketing and next-generation search, with a Category Winner in each. The overall ’09 winner is The Rubicon Project, described as “the right solution at the right time for the current market environment.” It’s a service that brings greater efficiency to the notoriously fragmented web advertising space by matching so-called remnant ad space to the businesses willing to fill it. “With more than 1,300 publishers and 350 ad networks,” OnMedia notes, “Rubicon can put the right ad in the right place in front of the right person at the right time.”

The list exudes innovative juices. For example, Adap.tv allows creative display of ads in online video — a much needed solution. Quantcast is taking web analytics to a new level with cool visitor measuring tools and a self-reporting approach. And Zynga gives businesses new ways to reach people via social networks.

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Buyers have cut back, sure. But (with a few exceptions, perhaps) they haven’t gone totally AWOL. “Shoppers are out there — you just have to attract them to your store,” says retail expert Rick Segel, author of newly-published Retail Business Kit for Dummies (2^nd edition). Segel suggests these retail rules that work well in a recession.

1. Soup up your signage: Retail signage is one of the least appreciated but most effective forms of brand building. It sells more goods than any other tool, and it can be a real difference-maker in a recession. “The key is knowing what types of signs to use, when to use them and how many are too many or too few,” says Segel. Survey customers about your signs. Ask if they recall what your signs look like, or if a sign brought them in, and why.

2. Pump vendors for info: If you run a retail biz, chances are you have few chances to get out and about. Let vendors be your eyes and ears. They visit other stores constantly. Ask them what stores like yours are doing; if they’ve seen any unique marketing efforts or hot products you aren’t offering.

3. Tap the “cheap high”: In tough times, we humans crave quick pick-me-ups —usually something that offers instant gratification. For some people that might mean buying a new purse; for others it’s a new CD, DVD or night at the local pub. “Make sure the products in your store that fall into this category are easy to find,” says Segel.

4. Overhaul inventory: Inventory is your biggest risk. The flow of merchandise in and out of sets success. Evaluate your inventory at least every other week in good of times – weekly when things are slow. “You need to know what you have that isn’t selling, and you need to know if you’ve overbought a certain item,” says Segel. Look at dollars spent — not just units.

5. Energize sales staff with a units-per-transaction (UPT) contest. UPT shows how many “units” (items) are sold per transaction. A UPT contest helps pinpoint your best salespeople, and also lets you get a little extra out of everyone. “Encourage everyone to sell at least two items per transaction and offer a prize to whoever sells the most items per transaction on average,” says Segel. “When the contest is over, evaluate whether you have some ineffective salespeople who are hurting your business.”

6. Sell “wants” over “needs.” People find a way to buy what they need — gas, pet food, toilet paper. It’s the things they want that they ax. Focus more on pushing non-essentials. If you’re having a sale, don’t discount “need” items. You want people paying full price for those. Instead, put “want” items on sale so customers are tempted to purchase a couple of those when they are headed to your register with their “need” items.

7. Tune into your customers: Be sure you are providing customers with exactly what they want, when they want it. Don’t guess; ask them! Do a survey. Let them tell you what items they’ll make a sacrifice to buy even when they are cutting back.

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Small companies with health plans may soon be seeking help to handle heavier administrative duties under the federal COBRA rules. COBRA, you may know, requires employers with 20 or more employees (less in some states) to continue providing health insurance after an employee leaves, voluntarily or not. But since former employees must pay the entire premium themselves (plus a 2% servicing fee), only about 1 in 5 opt to continue COBRA coverage that averages $388/month for individuals and $1,069 for families.

“As if there weren’t enough administrative duties associated with COBRA already, hold onto your business hats,” says employer services firm Mangrove. The new economic recovery bill unveiled last week in Congress would have Uncle Sam pay a big chunk of the premium for people who’ve become jobless since last September. While the cash would come from Washington, notification and other backoffice chores would likely be yours.

As a result, even more small to mid-size businesses will seek help from outside firms such as Mangrove that already have seen recession-bucking growth from red-tape weary firms. Businesses subject to COBRA must send specified notices to employees about coverage, and there are stiff government penalties for failing to comply. The Guide to COBRA Requirements for Small Business at Business.com can help get you grounded. The non-profit consumer health advocacy group Families USA issued this report recently on unemployment benefits and health costs.

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What does the plant sitting inches from my desk have to do with the world’s biggest business software provider? Well, here at Business.com we use a local “interior landscaping” biz that supplies live plants and maintains them for a fee. Kind of pretties up the place. In contemplating my leafy friend’s corporate existence, I wondered: How does such a business — needing lots of plants, numerous clients like us, billing and reporting systems plus plenty of folks to fuss over the foliage — keep track of it all?

The answer — at least for another plant purveyor I dug into — is SAP, perhaps the planet’s preeminent business applications software provider. SAP, well known to big biz, has been aggressively unfurling its Business One application, an all-in-one package that lets small and medium businesses manage sales, distribution, financials, customer contacts and most other things in a single place.

But SAP lacks buzz when it comes to small biz more familiar with Microsoft, QuickBooks and SalesForce. That now seems to be changing as small companies such as Plant Interscapes of San Antonio adopt SAP’s lower-cost small biz solutions. Plant Interscapes, with about $7 million in revenues and 70 employees, operates in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston. It relies on a SAP-aided state-of-the-art CRM system to help customers instantly reach the companies customer care desk with needs or inquiries.

A family-owned fruit biz has also tapped SAP. The Fruit Co., in Hood River, OR, is an online fruit retailer that’s been in the Webster family for three generations. As a growing business, The Fruit Company wanted to get a more integrated view of its total operations, and lower overhead costs at the same time. The SAP solution fit the bill, says CEO Scott Webster.

As a giant global company SAP and its website are a little hard to navigate. The ideal place to find out more is their dedicated small business site, here.

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Running an auto dealership in Detroit isn’t exactly today’s dream job. So Bassim Robin, who owns AutoSmart America in Detroit, went looking for profit leaks to plug and “sales compensation” stood tall.

For many small and medium businesses, sales compensation is one of the largest costs on the books…whether you have 1 salesperson or 100. But sales comp plans are highly individualized to each biz, and designing the right one is like trying to master Rubik’s Cube – possible, but not likely. Your sales comp plan may be totally broken, and you don’t know it. Well-meaning incentives can go horribly haywire.

It may be time to simplify and “webify” your plan. And the best way I know how is one of the new web-based sales compensation management solutions. Makana, for example, offers a “self-service” solution that’s small business-focused and can help guide you step-by-step to building, implementing and managing a money-saving plan. (Makana this week announced a new entry point solution that’s just $19/month.) Robin, of AutoSmart, says that revamping his sales comp approach online had an immediate bottom line impact for his business. “Our sales became more profitable and predictable” than with his old (ugh) manual sales planning process.

The Makana website has lots of helpful info on the challenges you face trying to design a good sales commission and compensation plan. The CEO’s blog is also a good read.

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This is no time to be making boneheaded biz moves. Of course, knowing what’s boneheaded and what’s not is tricky. Luckily, biz owners have a secret weapon many don’t know exists. It’s called SCORE, and it’s a power-packed network of over 10,000 expert business mentors nationwide who offer FREE (yes, as in $0.00) and confidential (as in you don’t have to sign away your privacy) advice and counseling for small business, startup entrepreneurs and home-based biz.

How do you tap this mentoring motherlode? Easy. Just visit their website, call ‘em (800-634-0245) or locate the nearest of SCORE’s 389 local chapters nationwide (plug in your Zip Code). For tough times, this is easily the slam dunk deal of the century.

Meanwhile, SCORE CEO Ken Yancey offers these five recession pitfalls to avoid at all costs:

1. Cutting expenses too slowly. Don’t cut expenses a little bit at a time. Now is the time to look at expenses top to bottom and decide whether your company needs to cut five, 10 or up to 20 percent. Do what it takes early in the year to bring costs down.
2. Maintaining the same product & service mix. Your needs are changing. You can bet your clients needs have changed too. Call existing clients and ask them what they need. Then, design your product service mix around those needs.
3. Reducing marketing instead of focusing on marketing. The company that stands tall, strong and visible in the marketplace has stature and status. Differentiate with strong marketing to drive leads and sales.
4. Lacking systems to free up your time. Streamline your business and become more efficient. Use a handheld organizer to keep track of phone numbers, dates, appointments and meetings. Set a time each week to handle routine tasks, bills and paperwork.
5. Keeping everything to yourself. Your team knows the economy is tough and wants to understand what the company is facing and how, together, you can make it through. Lead toward a brighter future by focusing your efforts on today.

You’ll find other helpful cost-cutting ideas and resources at Business.com.

economy, recession, small business, entrepreneur, business

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Caution: If you can’t handle more grim economic news, don’t read this. WASHINGTON, DC — A leading measure of small business optimism — released this morning — has plunged again, to the second-lowest level in its 35-year history. The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index has proven itself a reliable indicator of what mainstream biz owners are thinking. And what they’re thinking right now would sound something like this: $^%!&**( ! #$#!$%&+)(!.

Business owners were hoping consumers would ride to the rescue as ’08 ended. But, nooooooooooooo! Didn’t happen. So now what? “Unless there’s a solid turnaround in January, we’re in for a longer than usual recession,” says Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB’s chief economist and a professor of economics at Temple University’s School of Business, as well as that B-school’s former dean. Biz owners are cutting everywhere, including capital spending, inventories and jobs. A blood curdling 53 percent of small businesses report falling profits. Overall, profit gains hit a record low.

“Dunk,” as he’s known in DC circles, knows his stuff. We worked together some 15 years ago publishing his commentary on this very same index of business sentiment in a national small business magazine I edited. NFIB’s Small Business Economic Trends is a monthly survey of small business owners’ plans and opinions. But what Dunk and others at NFIB (the nation’s largest small biz association) are seeing now is jaw-dropping.

Price changes at U.S. small businesses are another tally that’s entered uncharted territory. The number of business owners able to raise prices is in full out retreat, showing what NFIB describes as “an unprecedented decline in six months.” You can see more details on the NFIB survey at their research foundation.

economy, recession, small business, entrepreneur, business

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