Grow Up, Ye Small Business!

Social media, blah. Google Docs, blah. Cloud, blah blah. Mobile, blah blah BLAH! 


Do you ever wonder what it is that you actually need to grow your small business? Do you need a Facebook page? Maybe, but probably not. Do you have to belong to 100 circles on Google +? No. Must you hang out on Twitter for an hour every day? Definitely not. Should you buy all of your employees iPads? Quite possibly, yes. But first, let's get back to the basics.


What is the plan, Houston?
In the mad rush to acquire customers, put up the website, make the products or services better,  a startup may forget the value of a few operating principles: such as, creating an operations plan.


Say what?
Yes, this is the document that spells out your short and long-term strategy, core processes and systems: it's the guide for getting work done at your company. If you, as CEO and founder, die tomorrow, will people know how to renew your facilities contracts or what kind of insurance you have? What about information systems? Is there a special feature that only you know how to use? How about dealing with the Top 5 customers: what's the secret sauce to keeping them happy? How about hiring: what are the key personality traits your company needs from a candidate to succeed?


It's time to write it all down, people. I covered this topic recently for Business on Main, where I'm a regular contributor. Check out the article. I weave in the advice of two sharp operations and process consultants who know the pains of small businesses that don't pay attention to the fundamental activity of operations planning. Operations seems so, well, boring compared with updating your Pinterest page. Or, is it?

“Operations is an exciting place to be and it's just as critical as sales and R&D, “ says Jud Barr, CEO of JTB Sales and Operations Consulting in San Francisco. "The market is moving too fast to do business as usual. Companies need to continually probe and be prepared to shift with the times.”

Social Media: a Waste of Your Company’s Time?

By Polly Traylor

There's a wealth of content on the Web about how to maximize your social media presence and gain the most from this exciting new media. But wait: should your business spend much time on social media in the first place? For small companies, the ROI can be tricky. You probably have a small marketing staff, and it's unlikely you can dedicate even one person to a social media program. Despite popular messaging from social media pros on the ease-of-use and affordability of social media, it's actually a time-consuming and increasingly complex marketing vehicle. If you want results, you'll need to spend time on quality content, regular updates, community interaction and integration of your social media pages with SEO and overall marketing strategies. You've also got to keep pace with new features and privacy issues of top social media channels. Can you justify the time?

The first determination is whether your customers are hanging out on social media -- and on which sites. Do your targets regularly use social media for researching products and services in your space? If you're not sure, you'd better find out.

Secondly, you need a distinct plan and a strategy. Most marketing experts don't advise ad-hoc social media posting. How will social media fit into your overall marketing program?

Thirdly, you have to measure social media marketing efforts regularly. This is usually not expensive -- but it does take time and diligence.

Recently, I wrote an article for Business on Main, a Sprint-sponsored community for small businesses on the MSN network: "Are You Wasting Your Time on Facebook and Twitter?”. The story was an attempt to shatter a few myths about social media marketing. Here’s an excerpt:

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"The cost issues are critical for a small business," says Paul Verna, senior analyst with eMarketer. Larger companies can afford to hire an agency or even a team of people to handle the time-consuming chores of creating content, making regular updates and monitoring corporate social media pages. A small company may only have a part-time resource. “Even having one person dedicated to your social media profile better have an intense payoff at the other end," Verna warns.

It's no wonder that a recent Hiscox survey of more than 300 participants found that just 12 percent of small companies described social media as a "must" for their marketing and promotional strategies, and nearly 50 percent of respondents aren’t using social media at all.

"Most people go on Facebook to connect with people like family and friends or to play games, and they really don't care about your ball-bearing company," observes Mark Schaefer, a blogger and consultant in social media marketing. "At the end of the day, you have to go to where your customers are.”

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While social media can be a useful investment for many small businesses, Facebook and Twitter aren't always the top choices. Twitter is an excellent vehicle for science and technology companies and communities. Facebook can be fantastic for consumer goods and services. But don't forget: there's also LinkedIn, YouTube, Yahoo and AOL communities, your company's blog, industry discussion forums and local social media sites. As Facebook and Twitter grow larger, their steady flow of new features may be overkill for small businesses. This article on Social Media Today does a nice job of outlining the issues with Facebook, and offers some helpful alternatives.

Before jumping into social media, understand your choices, customer preferences, and if social media is likely to meet company goals. If it still seems worthwhile and you know which sites will resonate with customers, start small. Once you start posting regularly and develop a community of followers, you have set an expectation for activity.

Crowdsourcing: Outsourcing on Steroids

Recently, I wrote about crowdsourcing for one of my clients, a small business-focused site called Business on Main, on the MSN network. It’s fun for me to write about how the Internet continues to change everything including business models and how work gets done. Crowdsourcing isn't for every business, but it does seem to apply to many diverse business tasks.

I answered a question on the site about how crowdsourcing can help a small business, which I'm reprinting below. I'd love to learn more about how small businesses, even consultants like me, are using crowdsourcing:

• Is crowdsourcing appropriate for activities such as PR, marketing communications, and even, journalism? What cool examples have you seen?
• Is the crowdsourcing "member" (a.k.a. worker) getting screwed financially from these arrangements?

It seems hard to believe that some of these contractors aren't losing money -- but others, if they are smart, might be getting more volume in exchange for a lower project fee, and coming out on top.

 If only I could use crowdsourcing to get my house in order and laundry done every day.

 Anyhow, here is how I responded to the Business on Main question. What do you think?

 [Reprinted from MSN Business on Main]

Sites such as CrowdFlower, crowdSPRING, Trada and uTest enable a business to complete projects using the collective intelligence of a knowledgeable and skilled community. Instead of spending hours finding the right contractor to do a job, such as designing your website or translating copy into Japanese, post your project on a crowdsourcing site and then review the bids from people who have been pre-qualified.

Crowdsourcing can save you time looking for skilled workers, and may be more affordable, too. “It is usually cheaper, up to 30 percent less than offshoring,” says Matt Johnston, vice president of marketing and community at uTest, a site for software testing.

Companies often find they get as good or better quality results with crowdsourcing. Depending on your needs, you may have a virtual team of people working for you on one or many projects. "Crowdsourcing allows you to tap into the creativity and diversity of an entire community," Johnston says.

Sarah Harris, marketing manager for Norman’s Rare Guitars, says she had mediocre results with freelancers before using crowdsourcing. She used crowdSPRING to source a logo design and Web design project, and was delighted with the result and the service. “I had a lot of revisions for the designers and they were all receptive and completed everything so quickly,” she says.

As crowdsourcing has evolved, there seems to be an unlimited number of ways a business can use it. Beyond Web design, marketing and software development, companies are using crowdsourcing to make videos, do fundraising, conduct market research, transcribe audio files, take customer orders and provide customer support, and even to solicit ideas for new products and services.

Crowdsourcing is a novel and efficient way to hire experts for short- or long-term projects. Give it a try, but don't shortchange the processes you use for hiring contractors on your own. Provide ample guidance up front about your business and goals when requesting bids for a project, says Niel Robertson, CEO of Trada, a site for paid search advertising experts. “If you frame the problem better, you can get much better results," he says.