Why Small Businesses Need To Take Control Of Their Web Presence

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The Internet has revolutionized the marketplace for small businesses. With a vast potential audience, small businesses can utilize different tools to grow their businesses rapidly online.

A shocking two in three UK start-ups fail within their first year.  With this in mind, it is important to ensure that your business’s online presence is properly maintained.  This is crucial to success, especially if you don’t want to become another negative statistic. A 2011 study undertaken by marketing company Tealeaf in conjunction with Econsultancy found that companies are missing out on millions, if not billions of pounds in lost revenue due to poor websites.

“A poor online user experience, coupled with a lack of visibility and understanding, translates into a significant amount of lost revenue,” commented Geoff Galat, CMO of Tealeaf about the study.*

Companies need to take control of their online activity in order to ensure that they stay one step ahead of the market. The internet is in a constant state of flux and businesses need to adapt their online presence accordingly if they are to get ahead.

There are a number of things that a business making the jump online needs to consider. For a start, you will need to establish a dependable, well-built website, which is backed up by a technically capable workforce. The loss of either should be covered by insurance. Specialist business insurers can help inform small businesses about the risks involved in operating online.

Of course, the obstacle for businesses going online is competition. Getting ahead on the internet is a tough job. The pace of change is constant and businesses moving online need to remain on their toes. Below we take a look at what you may need to consider to get started online and what you need to think about when it comes to venturing in to social media.

A cut above the rest

For ultimate control of your business website, it can be a good idea to have somebody within your team with a thorough grasp of web design and coding. Equipped with a basic grasp of HTML, CSS and php you should be able to control the look of your website and to deal with basic user input and interaction.

Of course, if you do not have the resources to hire a permanent member of staff to run your website, there are numerous web design and hosting companies out there that can help get your website off the ground. If you do not want to pay a design company and have some basic online skills, or at least an aptitude to learn more, you could look at free self-publishing tools such as WordPress to get started.

Taking control of Social Media

Businesses need to create a constant presence online to have the greatest impact and one of the best ways to get started in this today is via social media.

The world of social media and online networking is familiar to most people. The growth of social networks has provided a tool of previously unimaginable marketing power for businesses of all sizes. With over 800 million active users now on Facebook, it is one of the world’s most sizeable platforms from which businesses can interact with key clients and customers. Taking Facebook by the reins should be top of the list for any business serious about making an impact online.

With over 340 million tweets posted daily, Twitter requires an amount of attention not far short of Facebook. It is easy for businesses with a weak knowledge of the workings of Twitter to find that their posts are buried and their profile ignored. Success on Twitter is all about the construction of carefully worded messages that give readers cause to pay attention, or even to re-tweet. It is also all about dialogue and engagement, all of which take time. It could therefore be a good idea to give at least one member of staff responsibility for monitoring and updating all of your company’s main social media profiles. To save time and manage effectively tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are great. These allow you to manage profiles from one main hub, as well as other tools such as scheduling updates.

For businesses keen to interact with the public via social media, it is advisable to acquire insurance cover. Hiscox’s Public Liability Cover, for example, could safeguard your business against any issues or damaging claims that could arise from using the online sphere to support and promote your business.

*Quote from http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7599-poor-online-experience-costing-business-billions)

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Learn Your Long Term Lessons

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Every now and then, I get back pain.  I typically lift things with my knees and not my back, but the usual issue comes in for me when I twist it the wrong way, whether it be lifting something or doing something else.  I can usually feel a twinge and can predict that a few days later, I’ll be in some pain.

The pain has never been that debilitating for me.  It’s just more of an annoyance.  For a few days, it will hurt a bit to change positions when sleeping and I’ll be sore when I wake up but it will generally go away after I stretch out for a bit.

I went to the doctor some time ago when it was actually really bad on one occasion.  He told me that I needed to do a series of exercises when this happened, and also said that I could reduce this by strengthening my back.

Cool.

So I took home the sheet of exercises, did them, and noted that it did take considerably less time to recover than in the past.

So far, so good.

Now, whenever I get the pain I do the exercises and they help.

That’s the short term lesson and I have that down pat.

But, if you look back at the doctor’s advice, I have completely skipped over the second part of his advice.  To work on strengthening my back.

Really, isn’t that the most important part?  Of course, but I admit, I skip it over because it’s harder, and it’s a longer time commitment.

How often do we do that with things in our financial world?  Get in a little credit card debt.  Oops.  Go ahead and cut the budget for a couple of months and if you’re lucky, you could be out of it, but unless you go through the harder exercise of putting steps in to avoid having it happen again, it’s likely to happen again.  And again.  And again.

So, if you’re looking to improve something, whether it be a health issue, a finance issue, or something else, don’t just focus on the short term.  Don’t just lose those five pounds and call it a day.  Don’t just get rid of that credit card debt and forget the whole thing.

Once you’ve done that, begin the really hard part.  Putting the measures in place that will keep those five pounds off and will keep you from getting in debt again.  They’re harder.  I’m not going to lie.

But it’s worth it.

I promise.

Now, off to do something about that back of mine…

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page.This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

How To Get Free Debt Consolidation

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If you are looking to consolidate your debts, you may have been disheartened to see the many types of fees involved and the high cost this would add to your existing debt.  However, if you look hard enough and get creative enough, there are some ways to get free debt consolidation.  It just takes a little time and patience.

Do It Yourself Debt Consolidation

You first free option for debt consolidation is to try and do it yourself.  You may not be able to do this based on your credit scores or other consideration, but you should give it a try.

The object of debt consolidation is to get a lower interest rate and single payment for all your debts.  You could find this yourself by either: looking for a credit card that offers balance transfers and low APRs, or even looking at getting a home equity line of credit.  Both of these options can offer lower rates, and you can do it yourself.

Second, you could look at getting a loan from a peer-to-peer lending site like Prosper or Lending Tree.  Both of these sites offer loans from other individuals, so you can usually get a loan for just about anything, regardless of your credit score.  The only risk here is that the interest rate may not be lower than your existing debt.

Using a Company

You can sometimes find companies that offer free debt consolidation loans, but you need to do your research.  The companies that offer them usually service the loans themselves, and so their profit comes from the interest on the loan.

Free debt consolidation loans, however, usually require some type of collateral, so make sure that you fully understand the agreement before getting into it.  You could have your house or car on the line and not even know it.

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

Why Managers Should Spend An Extra $8 Per Month

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It’s been a few years since I have been a manager.  I work in the IT industry and I managed groups consisting of tech support members, from help desk to desktop support to network and server techs.

I always got favorable reviews as a manager.  I was hands on enough to be involved and know what was going on, yet not so much a micromanager that my team did not have the flexibility to put their own style into their work.

Two things that I always did.  Always:

  1. Provide consistent feedback.  Nothing infuriates me more as a manager that does not provide feedback on a regular basis, instead choosing to point out faults (or as I would call them, areas of opportunity) during a review.  This blindsides employees and I refused to have any of it.  I always made sure to provide feedback, both positive and negative, on a timely basis.  With this, employees were able to improve or build on their strengths all the time, not just after a certain period.  I’m also proud to say that I never had an employee once tell me during a performance review: “I’m surprised to hear that.”
  2. Stay in touch with employees.  It’s important to have regular interaction with employees.  I am less a fan of one-on-one meetings or weekly team meetings as I am chatting now and then to see how things are progressing, what’s being worked on, and to figure out anything else of importance.

This leads into the $8 a month.  Because, I realized that a very effective way of doing this is to let employees come to me.  Give them an incentive to stop by and chat.

How did I do this?

A big tub of animal crackers on my desk.

Yes, I became known as ‘the animal cracker’ guy.

Once people knew that I had animal crackers, a good portion of the team would stop by to grab a quick snack.  If I was at my desk, I’d always say hi and chat with the employee about what was going on.

The animal cracker strategy worked great.  Many people will take what I said above about interacting with employees outside of formal meetings, and will do by walking around.  This is certainly necessary regardless of whether you have animal crackers (and of course for the people who don’t eat animal crackers), but there’s still a fundamental difference in having your employees come to you.  They’re not on guard.

Even walking around informally means that I’m going up to someone at their desk.  If they’re busy, they’re not going to want to be interrupted and may not engage me in a conversation about how things are going to the extent that they would if they came to my office.

If you have an extra $8 per month and manage a group of employees in an office environment, keep doing what you’re doing, but add in a bucket of animal crackers. I believe you’ll find that your interactions with a good portion of your employees will improve.

And if you don’t like animal crackers, substitute pretzels.  I’d avoid chocolate or candy only because they’ll resent you for providing sweets and the subsequent weight loss that goes along with it :)

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

The Day I Wasted A Ton Of Money At Home Depot

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In my semi-ongoing series about my job history, I wrote about how I was let go and how that took me by surprise.  That was March 1, 2005. On March 2nd, I wasted a bunch of money at Home Depot.

I woke up thinking: “Hmm, what should I do with my time?”  I knew I’d spend time looking for a new job, but I also knew I’d still have hours in the day to fill with time.  Instead of planning on sitting around watching movies or messing around on the computer, I figured I would tackle a bunch of little things around the condo.

The condo next door to mine had recently been foreclosed on, and sold by the bank.  The new owners had bought it as a place for their nanny to live, and a friend that they knew had him come in and do a bunch of repair and fix-up work.  It wasn’t a major renovation but he added a lot of finishes around the house, and I was inspired.

Problem was, I didn’t have the money to do any really big stuff, nor did I have the experience to tackle anything more than painting.

So, I thought that getting stupid little stuff would somehow add up to something big.

I think I dropped around $350.  While some of the stuff I did was probably legit, looking back I would say that probably 80-90% of that was wasted.

I’d split the waste into three categories:

  1. Stuff I actually did that really didn’t need to get done – For some reason, I decided that I needed to replace all the switch plates throughout the entire condo.  At a buck or two a pop, it didn’t seem that big a deal, but I probably could have just cleaned the ones that were there and saved over $30.  I also bought a bunch of new doorknobs for the inside doors as the ones were getting scratched.
  2. Stuff I bought that I could have used but never bothered with – Those doorknobs I just talked about, I replaced about half and then forgot about the rest.  When I moved out of the condo, I just left them there in case the new owners wanted to use them. They didn’t match anything in our new house and with all the chaos of moving, I didn’t want to bother with selling them, nor did I want to take it with me.  Probably wasted $50 in doorknobs.
  3. Stuff I bought that was absolutely wrong – There were a couple of closet doors that didn’t stay on their track.  I bought stuff that was supposed to fix them but it wasn’t even the right stuff. Of course, by the time I got to it, a few weeks had passed, and I had no clue as to what I did with the receipt.

Looking back, I didn’t see that I was panicking at the time, but I think that I was, and that I wasn’t making rational decisions after having just lost my job.

I guess in the grand scheme of things, $350 or thereabouts isn’t as bad of a waste as I could have seen.  I could have booked a big trip or bought something really big.  So, maybe it was the most responsible of the irresponsible type of decisions I could have made, I don’t know.

Either way, you know those closet track thingies I thought would work?  I actually still keep them, just as a reminder of myself of the stupidity of that purchase, hoping that I wouldn’t repeat the waste.

Have you ever bought a bunch of stuff with good intentions only to realize later that it was a complete waste of time and money?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!

When One Cost Offsets Another

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We recently had a couple of trees in our backyard removed.

One of the things that attracted us to the neighborhood where we purchased our house was the fact that the developer left many of the trees in place.  This is pretty rare for most neighborhoods built in the last 30 years or so (ours was built in the late 1990′s) as most prefer just to level all of the trees.

Our backyard really wasn’t a backyard as the developer and the previous owners elected not to do any landscaping.  We loved the trees but we wanted trees and a backyard.  So, our first major project upon moving in was to have a portion of the yard cleared of many brush trees and trees that had died off which allowed us to in some grass.  We left about 20 trees along the back of the property line and about 15 trees around the yard, so we still have plenty of trees.

In 2010, I noticed that one of the larger trees was developing problems.  A couple of major limbs didn’t seem to be getting any growth.  My worst fears were confirmed last year when even more of it died off, and the remaining section shed it’s leaves in early July (it was NOT fun sitting on the deck on the 4th of July with leaves raining down).  As such, I knew it was time for it to come down.

The tree in question was about 30-40 feet in height, and a good chunk of it hung over the deck.  As such, I knew taking it down would be as simple as having it cut down in one piece.  The tree guy we use confirmed this and said it would take a few hours.

We had a couple of other trees taken out, as well as stump grinding on all trees, and we also had a row of bushes in front of the house removed as they had gotten too big for their area and trimming them would have killed them anyways.

The total cost for all this work was $700.

But was it?

I figure that the actual cost is probably going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $550.

How is this?

Because part of the costs were offset.

See, one of the things that we do is re-mulch all of the beds where bushes and trees are.  This happens every two years, on years ending in even numbers.  The total cost of this is around $150 or so.

Because the tree guy brought a chipper, he chipped up the tree, and was able to leave the pile of chips in my driveway.  It took a few hours spread over three days, but all of the trimmings went around the front and back yard planting areas, saving me the $150 or so in mulch.

Part of this will go back out in expenses as I need to buy some topsoil and seed to fill in the spots where the trees used to be.  We’ll also probably use some of the ‘savings’ to re-plant the area where the bushes came out (albeit with some smaller sized varieties).  Still, it’s always helpful to not just look at the initial cash outlay involved with doing something, but look at the longer term cost.

For example:

If you’re considering a new washing machine at a cost of $800, but the calculations show that it will save you $75 a year between reduced water and electricity usage, you might look at your true cost in the neighborhood of $700 or so (about one year of ‘savings’ is the most I’ll typically calculate).

What other examples can you think of?  Have you ever calculated the cash cost and the true cost of a project or purchase?

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, or check out my Facebook page. This original Money Beagle post Copyright 2012 Money Beagle is authorized to appear only on www.moneybeagle.com. Thank you for reading and remember: It’s a great day to be alive!