Emile

A: It couldn’t be much worse, could it? Like many others, I do indeed see things continuing to improve as this calendar year winds down, and getting better next year especially.

I think the real question is – what are you going to do to make it better?

By now, you know the drill.  I don’t need to tell you to work smarter, or market more, or increase your networking, etc.  If you are still in business right now, you have figured those things out for yourself, along with plenty more.

That said, you got me thinking.  The kids are indeed going back to school, and like us, they want this year to be a good one too.  My youngest daughter, Mara, is starting high school tomorrow (bittersweet for this old dad for sure!) and the more we talked, the more I thought what I am telling her about high school is pertinent to many of us too, me included.

Here is what I mean: One piece of advice I gave her was to ‘get involved.’  The more you put into school, high school especially I said, the more you will get out of it.  But it is a point equally as valid for any small business person – just ask my pal Bill.

Bill is a freelancer, and like many small business people, he found it frustrating and isolating to work alone most of the time.  So about a year ago, Bill made a conscious decision to get more involved in his community.  As a result, not only was he happier, but his business took off.  Between joining Le Tip, and his local chamber, and taking some development classes at the local community college, and sponsoring a local Little League team, Bill expanded his network greatly, met lots of new people, increased his happiness quotient, and yes, grew his business.

Of course this also fit in with other things that my daughter had been hearing from us, her big sister, and friends, namely, be open to meeting some new people and making some new friends.  It turns out that that is as important in business as it is in school.  I think the thing my pal Bill liked best about his year of living socially is that he got out of his self-imposed cocoon and made a couple of new friends.

I also liked the piece of advice one of my brothers gave my daughter – “make a mistake” he said.  It wasn’t “don’t be afraid to make a mistake” but to actually make a mistake.  His point was that in her willingness to try some new things, my daughter would have to be a bit fearless and not worry so much about how it might look.  That is especially valuable advice for a teenager.

It’s not bad for an entrepreneur either.

I was watching the new NBC show Shark Tank last night and was fairly disgusted by something I heard.  One of the sharks, Kevin the billionaire, hammered one of the would-be entrepreneurs because he had filed a personal bankruptcy at one point. “Don’t ever file bankruptcy!” Kevin bellowed.

Easy to say when you’re worth a couple of billion, eh Kevin?  But for most entrepreneurs, bankruptcy is the safety net that makes taking a big risk on a big idea more tolerable.  No, of course no one likes to file bankruptcy, but unless you are willing to swing for the fences, you will not hit the business homerun.  You may knock it out of the park, or you may strike out.  That’s the risk you take.  That’s the juice.

So yes, make a mistake my sweet Mara.  Try and hit one out of the park. You will, and you’ll whiff a few too.  That’s perfectly OK.

Today’s Tip: Do you have a business travel horror story? It might earn you a free trip to Hawaii. Embassy Suites Hotels last week announced the launch if its “My Business Travel Blunder” contest, where entrants can win a complimentary vacation just for revealing their most “blunderful” business travel story. You can enter here.

TJ

A: I love this quote from the late, great Paul Harvey: “In times like these, it is good to know . . . that there have always been times like these!”

Sure, we have all heard that this Great Recession is the worst economy in 50 years, and it is, but that does not mean that there have not been equally bad times to be in business, because there have.

And what works in times like these? You bet, discounting.

Consider 1974 if you will. That year, new president Gerald Ford had to deal with an ongoing, expensive conflict in Vietnam, a quadrupling of oil prices, a huge drop in the stock market, and 11% inflation combined with stagnant growth – or “stagflation”. 

With the economy in such bad shape, it hardly seemed like a time to start a new business, but that is exactly what Dennis Brown did, and he succeeded because he tapped into the economics and mood of the time and created a business that offered low, low prices.

Specifically, Brown opened a new motel in Aberdeen, South Dakota and set prices at a mere $8.88 a night. By 1979, he had more than 70 hotels in his chain, and today, Super 8 Motels is one of the world’s largest discount motel chains with more than 2,000 locations.

So yes, low prices can work, and work big time. Many businesses in fact tie their brand to low prices and succeed as a result:

• Wal-Mart
• McDonald’s
• Amazon.com

So the question is not whether lowering your prices can work, sure it can, instead, the question is whether lowering prices can work for your business.

Lowering prices does not work for every business, and the one time that cutting your fees usually does not help much is when you have a high-end brand. BMW could gain little by suddenly selling their cars for a lot less because its brand is based, at least in part, on expensive luxury. Discounting would cannibalize its brand.

That said, the low price strategy often works for plenty of small businesses, especially in this type of economy. People are shopping right now. They want a bargain. If you are not willing to give them one, then they just might take their business elsewhere.

I have often said that one key to business is to ask people what they want and then give them what they want. I bet if you asked your customers what they want, today, many would say lower prices. So you better consider giving them that.

And as you do, you do have to be careful how you do it, and how much you do it. Lowering prices will bring in more people, yes, but it will also eat into your margins. Crunch some numbers before diving in.

One good way to start is to choose a loss leader. That is, pick a product or service that you think would be more popular if you put it on sale, and then put it on sale. The idea is to attract attention and entice customers and clients to your business with a great deal. The loss of profit on that item should hopefully lead to more sales of other things, hence ‘loss leader.’

Aside from the loss leader, discounting prices can take many other forms:

• It might be a regular sale
• It can mean bidding on projects lower than you normally would
• You might even start offering discount coupons

Whatever tack you take, be sure that you let your actual and potential customers know that you are in fact giving them a deal. Mention it in your advertising or when you are chatting them up.

Low prices are a big selling point today, and if you do it, take full advantage of it.

Today’s Tip: On Wednesday, May 20, at 11:00 a.m. eastern, Capital One is hosting a free webinar on how to survive and thrive in this economy. I spoke last week with Todd Kennedy, the  Vice President of Capital One Small Business, and he told me that the one-hour webinar is intended to help small business with information on getting credit, tips for motivating employees, and also ideas for succeeding online and with social media.

Says Kennedy: “We want to give small business owners practical tips on how to succeed in a tough economy.” It’s a great service of which any small business should take advantage. You can watch it live, or a recording of it later. Steve says check it out, here.

With e-retailers expected to buy less holiday season merchandise this year because of the economic downturn, they need to sharpen their strategies in coordinating pricing promotions with available inventory, says Paula Rosenblum, managing director at research and advisory firm Retail Systems Research LLC.

“Plan a pricing strategy, plan your inventory strategy, and make sure the two are in synch,” Rosenblum says.

She adds that retailers this year, worried about overbuying merchandise in an off economic year, may experience unusually high levels of inventory out-of-stock. If that turns out to be the case, it will be even more important for retailers to take several steps to increase gross margins on merchandise sales to help compensate for the loss of revenue, Rosenblum says.

Retailers working with lean inventory levels should take a harder at free-shipping offers and how they’ll affect product sales, for instance, and work with merchandise suppliers to apply the steepest promotional price discounts to products that will be available in the highest volume.

“Work with merchandise vendors to figure out what your sacrificial lambs will be and how you can work together to maximize order fill rates,” Rosenblum advises retailers. She adds that arranging for some suppliers to ship heavily promoted products directly to customers could be a good option for maximizing both order fill rates and gross margins.

“We know there’s a lot retailers cannot plan, and we don’t know what the economy is going to really look like,” Rosenblum says. “But we can plan for all kinds of contingencies. A retailer winner will do that now to have a better holiday season.”

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=30433

Linda

A: There’s an old maxim about advertising and dogs which that is pretty true, and I once I had the dog to prove it. Her name was Gert. Like most dogs, Gert hated it when she had to swallow a pill. She would spit that pill out as fast as she could.

I learned that the only way to get Gert to swallow a pill was to wrap it in something she loved. I usually stuck it in a hunk of cheese. She would gobble the cheese up, pill and all.

Well, your mass media advertising is not unlike that pill. Customers don’t really like ads. They try and to avoid them and figuratively spit them out by turning the page or changing the station or zapping through them.

So what do you do?

You need to wrap your ads in some tasty metaphorical cheese of course. Your cheese may be a great benefit, or humor, a giveaway, or maybe a catchy jingle.

Whatever it is, the first lesson of mass media advertising is that creativity works.

But let’s drill down a bit more.

Radio: If you want to succeed in your radio campaign, here are three rules to follow:

Rule # 1. Pick the right station: It does not matter how great your ad is or how clever it is, if you pick the wrong station, the ad is a waste of money. The people who need to hear it, who might buy what it is you are selling, will never hear it. So be sure to pick the station with the right demographic.

Rule # 2:. Have a creative ad: Right, the cheese. First, make sure you have a “headline” that catch’s their attention! After that, the key is to be engaging and creative. Radio is a medium that takes place between the ears; people must use their imaginations to make it work. Whether that means telling a story or using wacky sound effects is up to you.

Rule # 3:. Buy as much frequency as you can afford: Radio requires frequency. It is said people have to hear an ad six times before they really hear it. In addition, listeners change stations, tune out ads out, and talk on the phone while listening, so you have to repeat the same message again and again to get it heard. How many ads do you need to buy? As a general rule of thumb, on any given station, no less fewer than 15 is preferable for during a week, and 25 or more is desirable.

And remember, no matter how clever it is, you ad must answer one basic question the listener is asking: “What’s in it for me?”

Television: TV is the 800- pound gorilla of traditional advertising because it works. That said, it most certainly is not for everyone.

The challenge and opportunity of television has to do with its reach. Because you will be reaching a large audience, you will pay accordingly.

How much? One 30-second spot in the afternoon may cost $250 (depending on the station and city, of course.). That same ad during the evening news may cost $750 or more. During prime time, it may be double that. Overnight, it could drop to $50.

So the first thing to consider is whether you even need to reach that many people. Ask yourself:

·        Do I have a business that has regional appeal?

·        Can I afford to advertise often enough to get people to notice, remember, and act on my ad?

·        Is there a better, more cost-effective, use of for my advertising dollar?

·        If my ad works, can I handle the increased traffic that will result?

Like radio, frequency is one an important element to of successful television advertising. You simply must air your ad a lot to get people to act on it. This is even more difficult in this age of the DVR, where when people zap ads.

Another option is cable television, where the rates are far less expensive because the audience is much smaller. If you decide to advertise on cable, the same rules apply (creativity, etc.) but be sure that you specifically choose what which stations and shows you will be on. Ending up on the “broad rotator” schedule, though cheaper, means that your ads will be placed anywhere, anytime.

Also consider also overnight and weekend ads.

Mass media advertising can indeed work, if you make it “cheesy.”

Today’s tip: One key to a successful TV or radio ad is to repeat vital information: “Head On: Apply Directly to the Forehead! Head On: Apply Directly to the Forehead! Head On: Apply Directly to the Forehead!” Annoying, yes, but memorable, too.

More importantly: Be sure to repeatedly repeat your phone number and URL.

Mike

A: As a general rule, buying a business can be a very good idea, but as with everything else in this economy, to make sure it will be a successful venture, you have to proceed with caution and do your due diligence.

First the pros: With a pre-existing business, you should have a pretty good idea of what you are getting. The business makes X number of dollars in profit a year, has Y number of customers, and so on. The kinks should mostly be ironed out and the brand is already established. All good, that.

There are two potential pitfalls, as I see it:

1.      First, you have to make sure that the success of the business is not due to the current owner. If the customers, for instance, are his personally and not really those of the business, that is a red flag.

2.      Similarly, you need to be extra certain, given the economic times we are in, that the business will remain as profitable as it has been in the last few years.

When it comes to buying a business, there are few people more knowledgably about the process – selecting, financing, etc. – than the folks over at BizBuySell.com. The site is one of the top marketplaces for businesses and franchises for sale. It lists everything from inexpensive home-based businesses to gas stations, large ventures, franchises, and more.

So to better answer your question, I called up Mike Handelsman, the general manager of BizBuySell.com and spoke with him.

Like any good business coach, he thinks you need to begin with the basics: “Start with a self analysis, decide what you are good at, figure out whether you are an entrepreneur (aside: The Small Business Bible can help with that!), and then start thinking about the sort of business that fits your interests and affords you the right type of income.”

Once you pass that self-analysis test, then it’s time to start digging in. BizBuySell.com for instance, allows you to find all sorts of businesses for sale in your area. You can see how much they are going for and what other requirements may be needed.

Once you start to really get serious, Handlesman suggests that you check into hiring a business broker, for several reasons.

·        First, good brokers will help you make a smart decision.

·        They also know what is for sale in your area.

·        They will help you with loan options. And finally, and importantly,

·        They are paid by the seller, not the buyer.

When I asked Mike Handlesman if it is possible to buy a business with no money down, that is, with 100% seller financing, he answered that is possible, but it won’t be easy, noting, “Most sellers have been waiting for 20 years to retire and won’t want to wait longer to cash out.” But you never know; you just might find someone willing to help you get started if they see that you will be able to pay them off in a few years.

“But remember, the danger of finding a seller willing to do 100% financing is that the business may not be very viable.”

Rather, he noted, partial seller financing is far more commonplace, and likely to happen. In fact, Handlesman noted, “if you have some money, or some financing lined up, it’s a buyer’s market. There are distress sales out there.”

If you want full or partial seller financing, the expert gave these tips:

·        “Show that you have a high likelihood of success” – you have experience, contacts, etc.

·        “Offer aggressive terms” – a 3 year note, that sort of thing.

·        “Work with a broker.”

·        “Engage the seller as a consultant for six to 12 months” – that way, you up their income.

Buying a business, especially with some seller financing, is another option in this challenging economy.

Today’s Tip: Want to find a broker, or get the value of a business? BizBuySell helps with those too. Steve says check it out.

Jim

A: I know you will be happy when I say, no, it isn’t. In fact, not only should “Going Green” not entail any major expense, it can actually save your small business money. After all, the whole idea is to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

There are any number of small steps any small businesses can take to help reduce their carbon footprint. Here are some of my favorites:

Change your light bulbs. By simply replacing your standard bulbs with compact fluorescent (CF) bulbs (the squiggly ones), you can reduce your power bill significantly. Added bonus: The new bulbs also provide better color and flicker less.

Use Energy Star equipment. Energy Star certification means that the appliance or product you are buying and using is green, highly energy efficient, and can save you money.

Choose an all-in-one printer. By using an all-in-one printer that offers two-sided printing (also called duplex printing) you can easily and immediately reduce your paper consumption, and costs, in half.

For example, Brother (a company I have done some work with) has a cool printer (the MFC-9840) that automatically allows you to print on both sides of the paper, is super fast, and is Energy Star-certified. I love that printer.

Use timers and motion sensors. Lights are often left on in conference rooms and other offices when they are not in use. By installing occupancy sensors, you will be assured that your office energy use will be efficient and not wasteful. It will save you money.

Similarly, electronic equipment like computers and monitors are usually not turned off when not in use. To remedy this, put a timer on that power strip.

Reuse and recycle. Boxes, packaging, paper, and office folders can easily be re-used. And, if you don’t reuse them, then at least have recycling bins handy so people can recycle them.

Buy recycled office supplies. Paper, pads, sticky notes, file folders, and even ink and toner cartridges can be purchased in recyclable versions, and often at the same price as similar “regular” items.  Indeed, many recycled paper products are now roughly the same price as conventional paper due to increased demand and better production operations.

Use green power. Many local utilities offer customers renewable power from green sources such as wind farms. Often, there are local incentives for using such sustainable energy supplies, and the new stimulus law also includes federal tax incentives for alternative energy use. Similarly, there are all sorts of breaks for investing in green tools like solar panels.

As with many of these ideas, while in the short run these things may seem like an expense, over the long term, such changes don’t cost, they pay.

Let people know what you are doing. Lots of consumers are making purchasing choices these days based upon how green a company is. So be sure to make note of what you are doing, what changes you have instituted, and then be sure to get the word out to the local media and your customers. Many customers will reward your efforts with increased loyalty.

On this Earth Day, remember that going green is your classic win-win: Not only does it help the environment, but it also can significantly lower your operating expenses. Who would thunk that going green actually saves green? 

Today’s Tip: One final idea: Be sure to get your employees involved. No doubt, many will have ideas of their own for how you can do even more in the greening of your business.  Involving motivated employees will allow them to participate in a cause they believe in while also helping the planet, and your business.

(Part 2 of 2)

Mike

A: Last week, I wrote about how critical it is today to have, not just an online presence, but a professional, robust, powerful Internet presence; how you need to embrace social networking, and  how your website is as “important today as a business card was in the last century” (Rod Kurtz, Inc. Magazine)

This week, I would like to drill down a little bit into maybe my favorite e-marketing tool – e-mail marketing. There are all sorts of ways to use email to grow your business, but for my money, the bread-and-butter, best ways are e-newsletters, and actual emails.

But don’t just take my word for it. When it comes to email marketing, there may be no more knowledgeable a source than Gail Goodman, the dynamic CEO of Constant Contact, one of the top email marketing companies in the world.

Goodman started running Constant Contact in 1999 and has since grown it into a business with more than 250,000 customers. She was named the Best Entrepreneur in the 2007 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and her company came in at Number 16 on Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 50 fastest-growing women-led companies.

So when I recently spoke with Goodman about why email marketing is so effective, she was, not surprisingly, a source of great ideas. To start with, she says, the essential power of email marketing is that it “facilitates repeat sales and word of mouth referrals while also keeping you visible. It is also very affordable and stretches your marketing dollar.”

Think about it. People forward emails. That is a form of word-of-mouth advertising. The same is true for e-newsletters. As such, email marketing both helps with customer retention as well as customer acquisition. And that it takes little more than some sweat equity makes it quite attractive in this economy.

Goodman says that today, e-mail becomes even more important since it allows you to forge a connection with customers, and that can make the difference between someone being a one-shot and a repeat customer.

For maximum effectiveness, Goodman advises that your email correspondence be all about them, not you. Of course you can and should use email to announce a sale or some other special, but to be truly successful, the savvy email marketer will use email to connect with their customers.

Says Goodman, “Don’t use email or e-newsletters to always ask for an order, instead, use it to help your customers. If you own a restaurant, for example, send out a recipe or a coupon.” The important thing, she notes, is that you use your email to stay in, well, if constant contact, then at least regular contact.

This leads to her other important point, namely, that not only must you get permission (”It is not like direct mail where you can just send mail to anyone”), but that in fact “permission is perishable.”

When someone opts-in for your e-newsletter or otherwise gives you their e-mail address, Goodman says that “it is, of course, not permission for daily emails, and it is also not permission to wait a year. Use that permission wisely.”

If you do that, if you create and grow a list of customers and their e-mail addresses, and then use that list to stay in touch by making your correspondence about them, and thereby forge a connection with them, then you will be well on your way to becoming a master e-marketer.

Today’s Tip: One of my favorite business shows is MSNBC’s Your Business, on Sunday mornings (and not because I am an occasional guest.) The show is full of great ideas, insights, and real world strategies. Aside from hosting the show, the multi-talented host JJ Ramberg is also small business owner herself. It is fun to watch and I always learn something new. Steve says check it out.

(Part 1 of 2)

Mike

A: I couldn’t agree with you more. Did you know that more than half of all small businesses in this country do not even have a website? (Maybe the only thing worse than no website is having a bad one, since instead of leaving no impression, you leave a bad one instead.)

Not having a great website, not having a robust Internet presence, and not marketing and selling online constitutes business malpractice in the 21^st Century.

Beefing up your online presence is like getting in shape. What you must do today is flex your digital muscles.

Here’s how:

1. Build website muscles. As I said, the only thing worse than no website is having a bad one.

We all know what those look like, don’t we? It’s the site where the homepage scrolls on for about five minutes, where the graphics are jarring and ugly, it has too much copy and slow loading graphics, and it says “© 2004″ at the bottom. In short, the bad site looks like, not only did your teenage daughter build it for you, but no one has attended to it in several years.

What a mistake.

To me, there are two exceptionally great things about the Internet, from a small business perspective:

• It allows you access to markets you otherwise could never reach, and
• It allows you to look every bit a big and professional as the Big Boys.

So where do you get that great website? There are no shortage of online options.

Example: Last week, my brother (who is no Webhead) had to build a site for one of his marketing clients. So he surfed over to Microsoft Office Live (Microsoft is a company I do some work with, btw), and built his client an elegant, great looking site – for free.  With a simple point and click graphic interface, and pre-loaded templates, here is but one way that anyone can get and grow online easily and affordably.

The important thing is that you take advantage of such tools. Beefing up your Web muscles will make your business less wimpy.

2. Find some “workout” partners: Going to the gym is a social activity, and in that vein, the more friends who support your efforts to get in digital shape, the better you will do.

The Web is a social medium, so it behooves you to take advantage of everything that it offers. Doing so will help you create advocates, find new customers, locate strategic partners, and drive increased sales.

There are several ways to do this:

Get social: It’s not called “social media” for no reason. Sites like Facebook and Twitter enable you to connect with other small business owners and potential customers.

I have a pal in San Francisco who has created many significant and lucrative business deals via LinkedIn. He will have some project he is working on and will need to tap some business for sales or partnering or whatever. He has found that he almost always is able to get to the right person in those companies through his LinkedIn connections.

Be Web 2.0 friendly: This era of the Internet, the Web 2.0 era, is distinguished by interactivity; people want to do more than just read about your business on your site. They expect to some level of interaction. So that is what you must give them.

That means different things, from forums and videos to blogs, comments, and podcasts. Making and posting a video, for example, explaining who you are and what you do is not difficult.

Help people find you: Your site also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO). SEO will allow your site to be found by people who share your interests, who are looking for what it is you sell. Having keywords sprinkled throughout your site will, like Jerry Maguire, help them help you.

The point is, the more professional, social, and interactive your site, the more you will be able to grow your business, easily and affordably, and thus allow you to get in Webtastic shape.

(Next week – using email to grow your business)

Today’s Tip: Warrilow and Co. is looking for the next Small Business Marketer of the Year. If you or someone you know has created a marketing campaign that created superior results, you could win an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas, and, even better, inclusion in various social networking sites. Apply here.

Kelly

A: There is no doubt that big business needs small business. Not only do they sell to us, but they also buy a lot of goods and services from us. But big business is much different than small business. If you are going to try and crack the corporate market, I think you need to keep these tips in mind:

1. You have to solve a problem: Your first step (after identifying your target of course) is to show the company in question generally, and the manager to whom you are pitching specifically, that you have a service they need and that by buying from you, you will be solving a problem they have.

So before ever even making that first phone call, educate yourself about the company. Find their pain points and be ready to explain how you can alleviate them.

2. Know with whom you are dealing: Corporate managers are busy people who have to justify the decisions they make to higher-ups. You will need a dynamic presentation and need to follow up, and then follow up some more. Show them that you are the best choice for this expenditure such that they can explain it to their manager (and their manager’s manager.)

A proven track record helps, as do testimonials from other companies with whom you have worked (even if they are not Fortune 500 companies.)

3. Appreciate budgets: Every department and every manager has a budget. When they buy from you it means they will not be spending their money elsewhere, so you really need to be able to show them that this expenditure is the best use of their limited budgetary dollars.

4. Have a dynamite proposal and presentation: A good business proposal explains your idea, simply and logically. It will be easy to read and understand. It will explain to the reader, who may know nothing about your idea, what the proposition is and how it will work. It will also avoid jargon and hyperbole.

More importantly, a good business proposal is a sales tool that shows the reader how it is in his or her self-interest to agree to what you are proposing. The proposal must therefore be persuasive, well-written, and compelling. Don’t over-hype, but don’t under-sell either. And remember what I said about their time; they’re busy.

So keep your proposal sharp and to the point. To be taken as a professional it must be professional.

5. Check out their supplier diversity programs: Many corporations have what are known as “Supplier Diversity Programs.” These are efforts to increase their purchasing of goods and services by selected small businesses, typically those owned by veterans, women, the disabled, and minorities.

For instance, AT&T states that the:

“AT&T Supplier Diversity Programs are designed to promote, increase and improve the quality of the overall participation of small, minority, women and disabled veteran business enterprises (M/WBE and DVBEs) in our supply chain. Our goal is to procure 21.5 percent of our products and services from M/WBE and DVBEs. . . . Together, we look for opportunities to work with diversity suppliers in all aspects of our business — from advertising to central office engineering, computers, outside plant construction and network provisioning.”

Many corporations have offices dedicated specifically to helping small businesses enter their diversity programs, so check them out.

Today’s Tip: A book you might want to read is Bag the Elephant: How to Win & Keep BIG Customers, by Steve Kaplan.

Ann

A: I do agree that we are in extra-ordinary times and it makes sense to be on the lookout for cutting edge ideas and strategies. You never know which one might make a big difference.

Let me give you an example:

We have all heard about R.O.I. – Return on Investment. It’s a useful way to analyze whether you are receiving sufficient bang for your buck for your efforts.

But have you ever considered your R.O.O. – your Return on Organization?

Look, we all know that main two pain points for most small businesses are not enough time and not enough money. This is even truer in light of the current economic environment. But what if I told you there was a simple, affordable way to get more of both? After all, as we all know, time is money.

I have been doing some work with Office Depot recently in order to help small business owners understand how, with just a few smart changes, they can increase their ROO, and how that can have a significant impact on the bottom line. In fact, it is estimated that increased ROO can yield up to an extra two hours of productive time a week and up to an additional 6% of revenue.

How? Well, think about it. It costs five times more to create a new customer than it does to keep a current one. The whole idea is that with some extra time you can take better care of your best customers. No, 20 minutes a day may not seem like much, but what if you used those 20 minutes a day to their maximum effectiveness? You could check in with customers, make some sales calls, send out some ‘checking-in’ emails . . . that sort of thing.

It all adds up.

Being more organized means having more time to be more effective and make more money. It’s as simple, and as important, as that.

So here are a few examples of some things you can do to increase your ROO:

Get your office or workspace organized: No matter what kind of business you are running, having the right work environment saves you time and money every day.

Incorporate a filing system that actually makes sense for your business. Always have Post-Its on hand so you are ready for your next brainstorm. Whatever it is, make sure you have you need to be organized.

The right tools can make a big difference.

Make sure you are sufficiently mobile. What business are you in? No matter the answer, let me suggest that you are in the service business, especially in this economy. You simply have to offer exemplary customer service right now.

And one of the best ways to do that is by taking advantage of mobility computing so you can respond to customer needs wherever you happen to be. Notebooks are the best-selling computers right now for a reason; make sure you have a good one.

What about your Blackberry or Smartphone – is it helping you help them? It better! And, there are a lot of apps to choose from to make you more efficient and that help you use your time better.

These types of tools will ensure you’re always able to meet and exceed customer needs, regardless of where you are.

Own your software, and don’t let it own you: It’s amazing how often small business owners buy the best software to help them with their business, but fail to take the extra time necessary to fully learn how to use it, when doing so can save them a lot of time down the road.

Software manufacturers spend enormous amounts of time and money learning about small business and they use that to make programs to help us succeed. Take advantage of that. Learn how to really use your software.

The important thing to see is that there are savvy ways to get ahead right now that do not require spending heaps of money. Being more organized in all areas of your business will increase your ROO, and that will yield some powerful results and rewards.

Today’s Tip: According to SCORE, here are two important things to keep in mind regarding customer referrals:

• If a customer compliments your work, ask them for a written testimonial to put in your marketing materials.
• Always follow up a referral with a thank-you to the referrer. Also consider sending the referrer a coupon or other discount.