Carnival of Small Business Issues

Carnival of Small Business Issues - Edition 13

Welcome to the 13th edition of the Carnival of Small Business Issues.

I received a ton of submissions last week - a lot of them spam. But I had to go through all the submissions to ensure the good ones were not left out.

As always, posts submitted after the Sunday midnight deadline will be considered for next week’s carnival.

Please link back to the carnival and support us. Also, if you think your entrepreneur friends will enjoy these articles, why not pass on the link to them.

Why not consider hosting the Carnival of Small Business Issues. Happy reading!

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Marketing

I have narrowed down the marketing list to the following articles. Each of these articles presents one segment of the marketing (and sales) value chain. So whether it is Chris extolling you to change your perception of marketing as a combination of online and off-line tools or Jim pointing out that sometimes talking features is better than benefits, I trust you will find value in these posts. And when you are there, share your views and start a discussion on marketing.

• Chris Denney of Lead Optimize says “Online marketing for complex products is an end-to-end process and a great deal of follow through is required throughout the sute and then off-line with lead management … when sales people knock on your door, are you glad they are there or do you peek out your window and stand still for a moment thinking, ‘maybe he didn’t see me walk by the window’ …” in his post End-to-End Online Marketing.
• Jim Logan says There are times when features are better than benefits. For all you sales and marketing people out there, this may come as a bit of a surprise. “… addressing experts in a given field is one time when features win over benefits.”
• Warren Wong of INTJ Personal Development describes the first mover advantage as an entry barrier in his post The Gap Concept. “If there are two companies competing for the same market, the second company to enter the market would have to do more marketing than the first in order to have the same number of customers …”
• “They key to developing user-focused websites is being aware of what your visitors will be looking for, and then providing answers to their questions ….” - This is the ought to be the main objective of Developing User-focused Websites.
• Terry Dean of Integrity Business Blog says, “No matter what business you’re in, you have to sell your ideas to others. If you can’t sell other people your ideas, your business will flounder, you won’t get the promotion at work …” in his post How to influence others.
• Cade Krueger at Write to Right talks about how Branding can save a business customer marriage. “Find out who your proper client is and protect them from the dangers in the world. They have to enter your place or web site feeling comfortable and satisfied.”

HR

Two excellent HR posts this week. Moral of the stories: “Rewarding for behavior A while hoping for B” (I wrote a post on this earlier) and “don’t turn a blind eye to the wrong doings that goes on in your organization”.

• Bhupendra Khanal at Business Analytics looks at the high attrition rates in Indian businesses - especially in IT - and the short term solutions employed by HR. “Intelligence is not equal to success but intelligence plus application is.” Are you really paid enough?

Finance

• Where does you money go? Tips and tricks for tracking the flow. “Money flows like water. It can gush like a raging river or drip like an annoying leaky faucet at midnight”, says the Millionaire Mommy Next Door.

Operations

I’ll let the following posts do the talking themselves.

• Mike Buckley at Mime your own business talks about integrity in business using the popular Discovery Channel show, Man v/s Wild in his post Not so smart after all. Americans, it seems, trust small businesses more than any other institution with the exception of the military. Think about it - at the end of the day, businesses run on trust.
• “Have you ever had the experience of looking back on a busy day, week, or month only to realize that you didn’t accomplish nearly as much as you had planned?” asks Dr. Robert Karlsberg (The road to CEO) in his post Get more done with activity logs.

Miscellaneous

This section covers everything from productivity tips to startup tips.

• “Can you really launch a business with just one client and a payphone for an office? Yes - if you know how to serve that client …” says CapForge in his post Sometimes all it takes to start a business is one golden account.
• Peter at Succeed with this talks about Avoid easy mistakes in business. “Don’t you stop to think why so many small business startups fail? There must be common grounds to all these businesses that make them go down”
• Michelle Cramer at GreatFX Business Cards talks about Is tort reform necessary to protect small business. “… more than half of small business owners polled are not all that concerned about being sued. Michelle uses the case where a judge sued a dry cleaner for $54 million to make her point.
• The enormous Gmail productivity list. As the name suggests Free Geek provides us with a long list of how to use gmail more efficiently.
• Tupelo Kenyon talks about Take time for you. “Do you feel that taking time for yourself is a rare luxury? It is vitally important to allow some time for yourself … whenever anyone asks anything of you, you stop what you are doing and help them … learn to draw the line…”
• When it comes to the next big thing, forget about it says Ruth Mitchell who writes at Buy Outside the Box. “You know they always say when one door closes another one opens, but they never bother to tell you how long the dang hallway is.”
• Rubsy at Advice and Rants asks What is a holiday? “What does holiday mean to you and what doesn’t it? How do you fit in treats into your week and what are they?”

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This concludes the 13th edition. Hope you enjoyed the articles.

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