Small Business Trends |
- President Obama Elevates SBA Head to Cabinet, Sends Mixed Signals
- What to Do When You Underbid on a Project
- Users Not Customers Will Wake You Up to the Future of Doing Business
| President Obama Elevates SBA Head to Cabinet, Sends Mixed Signals Posted: 15 Jan 2012 02:30 PM PST
Or at least, that is the way it initially sounded. However, that announcement was made at the same time as another announcement: the President proposes combining fives agencies, including the Small Business Administration, into one. He proposes merging the SBA with the Commerce Department, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade and Development Agency. The President said: "We'd have one department where entrepreneurs can go from the day they come up with an idea and need a patent, to the day they start building a product and need financing for a warehouse, to the day they're ready to export and need help breaking into new markets overseas." The concern with that idea is that the mission of the SBA would undoubtedly get diluted. Up to now the mission of the SBA has been clear: ensure a lending source for small businesses. By combining it with other Federal agencies, that mission would have less visibility. It would be buried in a larger agency. A lot of small businesses aren’t buying this proposal. We’ve been fortunate that we’ve had an independent Federal agency focused primarily on small businesses and particularly small business lending. The SBA was founded by President Eisenhower in 1953. Its intended function? ”Aid, counsel, assist and protect, insofar as is possible, the interests of small business concerns.” Over the years some people (most recently, under President Bush’s administration) have complained that the SBA doesn’t contribute enough, and that we don’t even need the SBA. But that is an equally short-sighted view. We need one agency with the words “Small Business” in the title to remind everyone of the commitment to small businesses. We need it focused not on the so-called high-growth startups that so many policy-makers are so enamored with, but on the mainstream small businesses that keep body and soul together in the United States. It’s not the Startup Administration — it’s the Small Business Administration. And we don’t need it diluted and distracted with Commerce Department concerns. Just take a look at this statement on the Commerce Department website, to see what the Commerce Department is responsible for. That department is responsible for ALL industry, here and abroad. It’s responsible for such things as conducting the Census and monitoring the weather. Small business would soon be a mere footnote. The SBA has been a role model the world over for how to support small businesses. Let’s not change that now. Big cheers for raising the SBA head to a Cabinet position. That is a great move. But small businesses would be much better off by ditching the idea of merging it in with other Federal agencies. Let’s keep a separate SBA. From Small Business Trends      |
| What to Do When You Underbid on a Project Posted: 15 Jan 2012 10:30 AM PST For many of us who work as consultants, writers, contractors or other project-based entrepreneurs, having the ability to estimate what a project will cost is a necessary skill to have, but a difficult one to master. While some projects are cut and dry (i.e. “I’ll write 8 600-word articles for you”) others can be harder to bid on (i.e. “We’ll create an online presence for your brand using social media.”) What do you do when you inadvertently bid less than a project ends up costing you? Why Underbidding Happens First let’s look at how you could end up in this situation. Scenario 1: You didn’t really understand the scope of the project. We all know those clients. They say, “I want more sales” then give you no clear-cut plan on how to get there. Or they change what they want. It’s extremely important to pin the client down on scope up front so that everyone’s on the same page about what you are expected to do. The more measurable the scope, the easier it will be for you and your client to assess whether you achieved your goals. Outline what the client expects and how much you will charge for these specific goals. Scenario 2: Your client keeps piling on the work. These are my favorite (not) kind of clients. The ones who say they want one thing, then slip in just a little extra, and a little extra, and a little extra, until you realize a project you estimated would take you 5 hours took 10. Your rate of $100 per hour is cut to $50. Be polite but firm that, for the price you bid, you will only do what is outlined in the scope. Any additional work will come at an additional charge, by the hour or by the additional projects. Your client should respect this. If they don’t, stick to what was agreed upon and don’t do extra work. Scenario 3: You have no prior projects to base your bidding on. If this is the first project of this kind that you have worked on, it may be hard for you to know exactly how much time it will take. If you have colleagues in your industry that you feel comfortable asking, get some input from them if they’ve done similar projects. Otherwise, structure your pricing so that you don’t get shorted if the project goes on longer than you anticipated. For example, you could bill hourly, or you could start with a flat rate that includes a set number of hours of work, with any additional time billed hourly. Once this project is complete, you’ll have a better sense for what similar projects should be billed at. Eat the Cost or Ask for it? When a project goes over budget, you have two choices: eat the cost yourself or ask your client to cover it. Which solution you choose will be based on several factors, including your relationship with the client, whether the overage is due to the client giving you more work, and what the likelihood is that this client will bring you more business in the future. Sometimes eating the cost yourself is best if you underestimated the time it would take you or if you think doing so will improve your chances for a long-term relationship with the client. On the other hand, if the client wasn’t clear or went beyond the scope and you’re comfortable asking, you should bring up the subject professionally and feel them out for covering your overages.
From Small Business Trends     |
| Users Not Customers Will Wake You Up to the Future of Doing Business Posted: 15 Jan 2012 05:30 AM PST
You Are Probably Embarrassing Yourself Online Shapiro is on a passionate crusade to give companies a whack on the side of the head when it comes to recognizing that users and not customers are the predictor of profitability. Let me explain. Users are all the people who interact with your brand online and offline – but mostly online. And the companies who make it easy for users to become customers through their online interactions with them will be successful. The ones who don't – will bear the consequences. Shapiro doesn't mince words. He tells it how he sees and you may disagree, but the millions of people who depend on their digital impressions of your business will spend their money with the companies that have put their focus on the user experience. The best example of this is on the very first page of the book. Shapiro tells the story of his experience inside of a Williams Sonoma store. He was looking to purchase a product and winced at the $150 price tag. He simply whipped out his iPhone, scanned the bar code and found a better price at the Bed Bath and Beyond store. When he asked the Williams Sonoma manager to match the price, they refused and he made his purchase – at the Bed Bath and Beyond. It was that simple. There is Data Behind the Book Users Not Customers offers page after page of contextual data and research from the Digital Leadership Set Survey that Shapiro (@amshap) ran as CEO of HUGE, a digital marketing agency that helps global companies reimagine how they interact with their customers and manage their business in the online economy. Shapiro had these opinions and observations about the digital user experience being at the core of a company's profitability so he started the Digital Leadership Set study to start collecting hard data that would prove or disprove his theory. To start, they went to the Fortune 1,000 and then grouped them according to industry. Then for each industry sector they evaluated the twenty largest companies. They measured over sixty aspects of the company that included how effectively their digital effectiveness across all aspects of their business. This information was then aggregated into an overall digital excellence rating between 1 and 100. The companies with the top ratings became part of the Digital Leadership Set. They included: Apple, Amazon, Macy's, Wal Mart, Wells Fargo Hewlett Packard and more. Notice that these are not ALL digital or online companies. In fact, there are several mature companies in the Leadership Set that have evolved and transformed themselves time and time again. The result was that:
What You Will Learn From Users Not Customers This 200 page book only has seven chapters that take you on a journey of realization. The introduction is dedicated to bringing home the point that:
Once you've wrapped your head around the new context of how buying decisions happen you'll move on to building a user-centric management team. The meat of the book shows you how to structure your business in a way that brings the user experience to the forefront and attract and engage users by giving and not taking. My favorite chapter in the book is called "TCPF Sales". TCPF stands for Trust, Convenience, Price and Fun. The epiphany that Shapiro gives you here is that people are online for only two basic reasons:
If you were to only read one chapter – read this one. This is, by far, the simplest, most concrete and clear explanation of how your users (and you) go about making purchasing decisions. Shapiro also gives many, many examples of companies (both startups as well as established brands) who have embraced this principle and how they did it. I wasn't surprised when I saw that one of his examples was Mint.com. This story hit home with me because I've been using Mint as an example of a web site that is so easy to use and understand from the split second you land there. I'm not a user of Mint, so I was blown away at their ingenious business model. The service is free and uses advertising to make money. So what, you say – that's not new. But here's the cool part. They only show you advertising that saves you money and improves your financial performance. The ads you see are targeted to you and your financial goals and the ads actually HELP you. The result is that while most conversion rates for ads are about .3% Mint gets an average of 12%! That is crazy! Don't Read This Book If. . . This is not the book for you if you like the status quo. If you intend to close your business and retire in the next couple of years – this book will only be mildly entertaining. But if you intend to be in business for the long haul, then you can't afford NOT to read this book. Let me warn you. You will find yourself confronted on so many levels. Your web site isn't good enough, your customer service or management isn't organized around the user, etc. This book isn't written to make you feel good – it's written to snap you into shape for the future. Check out the web site for Users Not Customers to get PDFs of free chapters as well as lots of great videos and blog posts. From Small Business Trends     |
President Obama announced on Friday that he 
I really thought I was a rebel back in the 80s when I had blue streaks in my hair or in the 90s when I told a boardroom full of conservative main line executives that it was a dog-eat-dog market and we were wearing pork-chop underwear. So when I started reading my review copy of | You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu