Experience what is new and exciting at this year’s tournament

THE PLAYERS Championship comes to the Jacksonville area just once a year, but what a week of fun it is—and the 2011 tournament is no exception. From May 9 to May 15, THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL – MAY 6: A course scenic of the third hold during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship on THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on May 9, 2010 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Stan Badz/PGA TOUR)

becomes THE place to be!

On the next few pages, you will find some of the latest and greatest in the goings on for this year’s tournament, as well as a TEAR OUT map of the course. We have specially designed this four-page section to be easily removed so you can take it with you while attending or entertaining at the tournament.

New for 2011

Cell phones: Fans can now bring cell phones into the tournament (in silent mode at all times) and use them in designated areas shown on course map as “Mobile Talk Locations.”

Venues

This year, THE PLAYERS introduces seven new/upgraded venues, which addresses the call for more shade, bathrooms, areas of relaxation, and an enhanced overall experience—for you as well as clients you may want to entertain at this event. These new venues include:

•JELD-WEN Stadium Village and PwC First Tee Challenge. A completely tented and air-conditioned venue featuring cell phone and mobile device access, restrooms, and a cash bar with mixed drinks, as well as the PwC First Tee Challenge— a replica of the famous 17th island green where you can get a commemorative photo taken at the Stadium Snapshot experience.

•The Terrace. An exterior fan zone open to the public featuring a cash bar with mixed drinks, tables, and umbrellas.

•Four Points. An exterior fan zone open to the public that provides seating, as well as food and beverages for purchase.

•The Grove. An outdoor, shaded area, that is open to the public with tables and umbrellas.

•The Patio. A shaded area with tables, as well as food and beverage for purchase.

•The Bluff. The grandstands around No. 18 green have been removed to allow fans to get closer to the action as the best players in the world finish their rounds. The Bluff features casual seating and provides wait staff to serve food and drinks. The first 200 fans to arrive at The Bluff each day will receive a comfy chair— at no charge—and can stake out a prime location at No. 18 green for the entire day.

•The Courtyard. A picket-fenced, private, open-air hospitality location serving beer, wine, and soda, as well as light snacks—this private venue may be one of the best options to provide an affordable, daily hospitality option for your business.

All of these venues are highlighted on the map on the next two pages.

Executive Women’s Day

The first-ever Executive Women’s Day at THE PLAYERS will take place on Monday, May 9, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the TPC Sawgrass Clubhouse and Stadium Course for almost 250 women business leaders and decision makers on the First Coast, where they will learn the value of golf in developing business and personal relationships.

Executive Women’s Day will focus on success stories from women who’ve built profitable businesses, become corporate leaders, and utilized mentoring and networking to develop strong business and social relationships.

The Power Broker’s Breakfast, sponsored by Coca-Cola, kicks off the event with a breakfast panel discussion on topics emphasized as top of mind for professional women, including women entrepreneurs, areas of achievement for women-led businesses, funding sources for business development, mentoring, networking and how to monetize it, and philanthropy.

Such speakers include Carolyn Mathis of Harbor View Advisors; Donna Orender, the former WNBA Commissioner; Dea Sims, entrepreneur and founder of Promo Depot; and Terry Zebouni inventor of the BandZorb.

This will be followed by an “Inside the Ropes 101” informative behind-the-scenes tour showcasing how this event is run as well as the etiquette of entertaining clients and the art of professional networking during the week.

The tour will be followed by “The Bottom Line Luncheon,” sponsored by Citi, featuring guest keynote speaker Contessa Brewer, MSNBC’s prime-time news anchor and host of “Caught on Camera.” A veteran television journalist, Contessa Brewer is a widely-recognized anchor on MSNBC and is known for her marathon on-air coverage of breaking news and big political stories. As a national correspondent, Brewer has reported on stories such as Hurricane Gustav, the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans.

The event ends with the “Wine Down – Network Up” event sponsored by Destination Planning. Attendees of this wine tasting/networking event are encouraged to make new friends and business contacts that will last beyond the one-day event.

The Executive Women’s Day is also donating $10,000 from this event to the Junior Achievement’s Girls Program (JAGirl$) program, which helps teach area girls ages 8 to 18 the basics of money management including how to balance a check book, save money, and manage a household.

WEB EXTRA! Entertainment guide

Prior to attending THE PLAYERS, visit www.AdvantageBizMag.com/archives/7248 to see “The Ultimate Entertainment Guide to THE PLAYERS.” This guide provides a one-stop guide of everything to do at The PLAYERS, from where to get the best food, best shade, best drink deals, and restroom locations.

A one-stop guide of everything to do at THE PLAYERS, from where to get the best food, best shade, best drinks deals and restroom locations.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL - MAY 9: Phil Mickelson plays the 17th hole during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship on THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on May 9, 2010 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Chris Condon/PGA TOUR)

Best places to cool off

Need to beat the heat?  All of the locations below are open to grounds ticket holders and give you a chance to take a break from the action – and the sun – while enjoying the atmosphere that is uniquely THE PLAYERS.

• For the first time, the JELD-WEN Stadium Village is completely tented and air-conditioned, making it the ultimate destination when you need to cool off.  While you’re there, enjoy a variety of interactive activities, mobile device Wi-Fi access, luxury restrooms and a cash bar. And the JELD-WEN Stadium Village is one of only two locations (with The Terrace) – outside of private hospitality venues – where you can purchase mixed drinks.
• New in 2011, The Grove is an outdoor, shaded area located behind No. 17 tee. The venue features umbrella tables and an LED video board, and since it’s just a sand wedge (or less) from The Food Court – which features food and drinks for sale from various local establishments – it’s the perfect place to enjoy a picnic lunch in the shade.  The Grove will quickly become the spot for fans to meet up and hang out. Instead of telling your buddy, “Meet me out by 17,” and then searching through all of the random fans for an hour, just say “Meet me at The Grove!”
• The Patio – also new in 2011 – is located close to No. 10 tee and the 18 hospitality area and is a shaded area with tables, food and beverage for purchase.  You can relax away from the heat without missing any of the action. Fans who hang out at The Patio will be able to view all of the action on Golf Channel and the NBC telecasts on a large video screen within the area. Think of this as your outdoor sports bar at THE PLAYERS.

Where to be seen

Everyone who’s anyone is at THE PLAYERS – and if you’ve been at least once, you know that No. 17 is a major hub of activity.  But check out these other hotspots and you’ll be sure to run into someone you know – or want to know.  Just don’t forget to return to the action out on the course at some point!

• You’ll need to purchase an upgraded ticket to gain access to The Turn, but it’s well worth it.  Located between No. 18 and No. 9, this hospitality venue gives an excellent view of both holes – either from the air-conditioned interior or the outside stadium seating.  The Turn was rocking when it debuted in 2010 (and quickly sold out).  Don’t be on the outside looking in this year.
• Of the seven new venues debuting in 2011, put The Patio at the top of your list.  It’s got plenty of shade to enjoy, places to sit and beverages to purchase.
• The No. 1 tee is your chance to be seen by friends and family – and possibly a worldwide television audience.  Be part of the crowd when the best players in the world tee off and you just might make the Golf Channel or NBC broadcast.
• If you have an upgraded Clubhouse ticket, don’t spend all your time indoors!  Hang out on the Clubhouse Lawn and enjoy food and beverages, available for purchase, from award-winning TPC Sawgrass Nineteen.  In the shadow of the beautiful 77,000 square-foot clubhouse, the lawn offers ample chairs, umbrella tables and a view of No. 18 green.

Where to see the golfers

Don’t roll your eyes – yes, we know, “Duh, on the golf course,” is the appropriate response.  But where, EXACTLY?  Check out these sneaky locations to get up close to the action and as personal as possible to some of the best players in the world.

• True golf fans know that the Practice Area is a must-stop at THE PLAYERS.  You can grab a spot up against the rope line and be thisclose to the world’s best as they hone their craft…sometimes for hours on end, not to mention the fact that players usually stop and sign autographs as players come and go.
• Located on the Clubhouse side lawn – and new in 2011 – The Terrace gives you the best of both worlds: a great spot to relax with a cash bar (with mixed drinks), tables and umbrellas, as well as a unique view of the chipping green and practice area, where you can watch players warm up and work on their games – and maybe pick up a tip or two.
• Another area where players let their guard down and interact with the fans is outside the Scoring Area. Players enter the scoring area located between the Clubhouse and the JELD-WEN Stadium Village to sign their scorecards after they finish their rounds on Thursday-Sunday.  This is one of the best places to hang out and collect player autographs.

Best chance for celebrity sightings

Sure, there’s Tiger, Phil, Ernie, Rickie and the rest of the gang.  But THE PLAYERS has its fair share of celebrities who are big fans of the world’s best golfers, just like you.  You never know who you’ll see strolling along the rope line and enjoying the action, but here are a few additional locations where celebs flock throughout the week.

• Hang out near the new Jaguar Den by No. 17 tee for a glimpse of some of your favorite former Jags, coaches and Jaxson De Ville as they relax and enjoy THE PLAYERS Championship.
• Don’t miss Military Appreciation Day on Wednesday on the Clubhouse Lawn, where Darius Rucker will be performing.  Local celebrities and TOUR players often attend the concert and mingle with the crowd, so keep your eyes peeled.
• While the Patriots’ Outpost is open only to military personnel and their families, it’s not a bad idea to hang out near the facility (located on the hill between No. 16 and No. 18 fairways), as dignitaries and celebrities are always stopping by to spend time with the troops.  And even if you don’t see someone you know, say hello to some of our local men and women in uniform – who should be recognized, even if they’re not famous.

Best beverage deals

You need to cool off, and we’ve told you where to find the best shade and A/C.  But an ice-cold drink is no doubt at the top of your list.  Be the first to check out these deals, and your friends will think you’re an insider.

• A limited-edition THE PLAYERS acrylic tumbler, filled to the brim with THE PLAYERS Signature Drink – the Sawgrass Splash – is available wherever spirits are sold.  For $10, you’ll get a 20-ounce Sawgrass Splash in a 2011 PLAYERS tumbler that features the tournament logo and a list of the past champions.  The commemorative cup itself (with no beverage) is available for $5.
• Also new this year is THE PLAYERS 20-ounce cup, available in all grounds concession stands, The Turn and The Benefactor.  For just $1, you can upgrade your frosty beverage and take home a keepsake of your PLAYERS experience.
• Newsflash: it can be warm in Florida in May. Don’t be that person in 2011 whose good time is ruined by dehydration.  Drink water, lots of it. There are water fountains at the following locations to provide fans with FREE, quality H20: No. 5 green; No. 12 tee; at the practice putting green near No. 1 and at the main spectator entrance at the P2 lot.

Best places to eat

With all there is to do and see at THE PLAYERS, chances are you’ll be spending most of the day at TPC Sawgrass – which means you’re bound to get hungry at some point.  No worries about that – we’ve got you covered with a variety of tasty options located at concession areas around the golf course.  Here are the top-three places to put on your radar screen come lunch time.

• You already know the JELD-WEN Stadium Village is the place to go for fun, games, shopping and chilling out (literally).  But you can also grab a great snack at the All-American Grill, which serves traditional concession items like burgers and hot dogs.
• If it’s options you’re after, The Food Court is calling your name.  Located behind No. 16 green, there are plenty of choices sure to satisfy everyone in the family.  Grab some classic concession favorites from the All-American Grill, or pick items from a favorite local restaurant like Bono’s Pit Bar-B-Q, Brucci’s Pizza or Tropical Smoothie Café.  When everyone has what they’re after, stake out a shady spot with tables and chairs at The Grove and enjoy a relaxing family meal.
• The Benefactor is an upgraded ticket, but it’s well worth the price considering the view (behind No. 17 tee) and the food (signature items Morton’s The Steakhouse).  We’ll let you decide when – if ever – it’s time to leave.

Best food deals

Hanging out at THE PLAYERS is an all-day affair and not one to enjoy on an empty stomach.  After all, a hungry fan is an unhappy fan.  Here’s a list of the best grub for the best price.

• Calling all families!  Plan ahead and purchase The Family Plan package, which offers 2 adult tickets, unlimited youth tickets and 4 Value Meals for only $99.  The meal includes a hot dog, chips and soda or water, which can be redeemed at the concession areas at No. 1 or No. 3 tee or the All-American Grill at the Food Court behind No. 16 green.
• THE PLAYERS Mayport Shrimp Wrap debuted last year and was such a hit, it’s back in 2011.  The wrap was created by the culinary team at TPC Sawgrass and will be served during the tournament, as well as throughout the year at Nineteen.  The wrap is a shrimp salad made from local Mayport shrimp, mayo, Old Bay seasoning, red onion, celery, lime juice, lemon zest and Tabasco sauce; served with cabbage on a wheat wrap.  It’s a fresh taste of Jacksonville.

Best bathrooms

Don’t laugh.  We know you care.

• No port-o-lets here.  The restrooms at the JELD-WEN Stadium Village are top-of-the-line, luxury facilities that feature air conditioning, running water and bathroom attendants. Freshen up and get back in the game.
• The Grove and The Patio also offer premium, structured restroom facilities, giving you one more reason to spend some time at these new locations.

Best merchandise

THE PLAYERS is already Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Beach’s ultimate fashion show, but why not add to your closet collection with a few carefully selected items that are uniquely THE PLAYERS?  Since all the merchandise is fabulous, these recommendations are more about strategy than specifics.

• When you first arrive at THE PLAYERS, immediately stop at the Main Entrance Merchandise Tent as you enter the P2 gate from the main parking lot, at the end of the Walk of Champions.  Stock up on all the necessities for a day at the course – hats, sunscreen and one or two limited-edition items with THE PLAYERS 2011 logo that might not be there by day’s end, like a commemorative 2011 PLAYERS pin flag, PLAYERS tumbler (with a list of the past champions on the back), golf ball, towel or lapel pin.

• Mid-day, head over to the JELD-WEN Stadium Village and cool off in the A/C while browsing the 6,200 square-foot merchandise area.  You can check your merchandise with an attendant and pick it up at the end of the day, so no worries about lugging around your loot.
• If you’ve got a Clubhouse ticket, you’ll want to hit up the TPC Sawgrasss Golf Shop as well to check out everything from PLAYERS merchandise to TPC Sawgrass keepsakes to balls, clubs and other golf equipment.

Best views of 17

You know you’re going to spend some time – probably a lot of time – at No. 17.  But where can you best experience all that this world-famous par 3 has to offer?

• The Benefactor is an upgraded ticket, but the view doesn’t get any better than from the second floor of this shared hospitality venue.  And when you’re looking out over the 17^th tee with an ice-cold drink and a snack from Morton’s The Steakhouse, you may never want to leave.
• It’s easy to find a great seat on Wednesday at No. 17, where you won’t want to miss the little-known but much-enjoyed Caddie Contest.  Each year at THE PLAYERS during the Wednesday practice round, players and caddies switch roles when they arrive at the famous 17^th hole, and the caddies get the opportunity to take a swing.  This is great tradition unique to THE PLAYERS and one that provides an added layer of entertainment for the fans, players and caddies alike.
• Post up at the hedges behind No. 17 tee.  You’ll need to get there early to grab a spot, but it’s worth the effort.  You’ll hear plenty of interaction between players and caddies on club selection – and you’ll be part of the “oohs” and “aahs” as their ball hits the green… or splashes in the water.
• An underrated spot to watch golf within the natural amphitheater near the 17^th hole is on the hill behind the 16^th green. Here you get to see players take aim at the risk/reward par 5 16^th hole and still get to watch them take on the famous island green at the 17^th.

Best views of golf NOT at 17

With all that’s going on in the new venues at THE PLAYERS, don’t forget to venture out on the golf course to really soak up the action.  Here’s a quick list of sneaky spots (read: less crowded) that offer great views of this world-class event.

• No. 2 green/No. 3 tee is one of the spots on the course where you can catch the best players on the PGA TOUR deciding whether to go for the par 5 in two shots or lay up; and then you can keep an eye on them as they head over to the next tee to take on the 177-yard par 3.
• On a course known for risk vs. reward, the par 5 11^th hole might be the one that offers players with the most decisions of all. Players have two separate fairways to which they can lay up with their second shot… or you can egg them on into going for the green in two.
• The mound between the 10^th tee and the 16^th tee is a great spot to catch two different tee shots during play.
• The 13^th green offers a more intimate setting to see players hit into a par three than the 17^th. There are several areas around the green and tee that get you close to the action.
• If you’re one of the first to show up at The Bluff each day, we’ll give you a comfy chair – at no charge – and you can stake out a prime location at No. 18 green for the entire day.  You can enjoy a great view of one of the best finishing holes in golf, as well as wait staff who will take your food and drink orders so you never have to leave the action.

Best family-friendly venues

THE PLAYERS is one of the best, most affordable family entertainment options going, and there’s more to a day at TPC Sawgrass than the world-class golf (although we bet a glimpse of Phil Mickelson or Rickie Fowler will make your son’s or daughter’s eyes light up).  Spend some time with the kids at one of these locations where they can have fun without worrying about anyone saying, “Quiet, please.”

• Experience the best of Stadium golf at the JELD-WEN Stadium Village and the PwC First Tee Challenge – a scaled version of the famous 17th hole where kids and adults alike can see just how difficult it is to reach the green.  The area also includes video games, concessions, merchandise and outdoor seating – where you can rest up before returning to the tournament action. New this year is an upgraded Stadium Snapshot experience, where you can get a commemorative photo taken, as well as a ball-fitting and custom door-fitting exhibit, courtesy of JELD-WEN and its “Perfect Fit” program.
• Keep the little ones – and moms and dads, too – full and focused on all the action after resting up in The Grove.  The Grove is an outdoor, shaded area, open to the public located behind 17 tee with easy access to The Food Court.  Everyone can grab some classic concession favorites from the All-American Grill, or pick items from their favorite local restaurant featured in the Food Court (Bono’s Pit Bar-B-Q, Brucci’s Pizza and Tropical Smoothie Café’) and meet back at one of the picnic tables for a family lunch.
• No trip to THE PLAYERS would be complete – especially for the kids – without collecting a few autographs.  Be sure to hang out in one of the “Autograph Alleys” for the best shot at snagging a prized signature from some of golf’s greatest players.  Autographs are encouraged near the Clubhouse, Practice Areas and the Scoring Area.

What not to bring

You’ve got sunscreen. Sunglasses. Your fashionable hat. All the things needed to make a statement and have a blast at THE PLAYERS.  But what shouldn’t you bring to the golf course?

• Once the tournament starts on Thursday, don’t get sent back to your car because you brought a camera.  While taking photos is permitted – encouraged! – Monday through Wednesday, any budding shutterbugs will need to leave the equipment at home once the competition gets underway.
• Kids (6 years and older) to a hospitality venue without a ticket.  Yes, kids get in free to THE PLAYERS with a ticketed adult – but this policy applies to grounds tickets only.  If you’re planning to spend some time in The Turn or The Benefactor, for example – and we hope that you do – and if your child is 6 years of age or older, they’ll also need one of these upgraded tickets to gain admission.
• We’ve got plenty of places to sit and tons of shady spots with umbrella tables, but if you want bo bring your own chair or umbrella (just in case), here’s a tip for avoiding a common rookie fan mistake: leave the cases or covers for those items in your car, as those are prohibited items.

Where and how to use your cell phone

Worried about missing a call while you’re at THE PLAYERS?  We have an app for that.  The PGA TOUR unveiled a new cell phone policy in 2011, meaning you no longer have to worry about separation anxiety because you were forced to leave your mobile device at home.  But don’t be “that guy” who reminds everyone why cell phones weren’t allowed on the course for so long and follow these tips.

• Put your phone on silent.
• Use designated areas throughout the golf course when making or receiving phone calls (check the course map for “Mobile Talk Locations”).
• Don’t use your mobile device for video recording at any time during the week.
• Only use your mobile device to take photos Monday through Wednesday.

Best place/best strategy for getting players’ autographs

While we can’t discount the ultimate strategy for getting tons of autographs – be a cute kid and say “please” – these tactics will definitely increase your chance for success, no matter your age.

• Hang out in an “autograph alleys.” Post up at near the Clubhouse, Practice Areas and the Scoring Area, as these locations are where players tend to stay until the last request is satisfied.  Players are much more apt to stop and sign in these areas as opposed to when they’re out on the golf course.
• During the practice rounds, follow the same group for a couple of holes. Rather than the Johnny-Come-Latelys who just show up with the mob of autograph hounds, players will often reward those dedicated fans who have stuck with them for an hour or so; you’d be surprised how often a player will make a point to thank you for following along all day.
• Make a statement (a good one, of course).  Wear a “Phil is my Phavorite” t-shirt.  Get six of your best friends to join you and shave the letters “A-K-4-E-V-E-R” into the backs of your heads.  Dress up in total Ian Poulter gear and spike your hair.  Just be respectful, creative and bring a Sharpie.

Best travel tips for THE PLAYERS

They say getting there is half the battle, right?  Here are a few quick travel tips to make sure you arrive in style to THE PLAYERS 2011.

• For out-of-towners, JAX is the preferred commercial airport (check out all THE PLAYERS signage!) and St. Augustine for those who fly privately (hollah, high rollers!). Visit www.playerschampionshiptravel.com for golf vacation packages and information.
• The best way to access the public parking lot is via SR-210 from Nocatee Parkway.  Trust us, you’ll avoid the congestion and delays that are typical of A1A and spend more time enjoying the tournament.  And be sure to purchase your parking in advance (and online) for Thursday-Sunday to avoid any back-ups in the parking lot or, worse yet, the prospect of being turned away once parking is sold out.
• If you live close by, ride your bike to the tournament and use our “bike valet” off ATP Tour Boulevard Thursday through Sunday of tournament week.  A $5 donation is suggested, which benefits the North Florida MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Chapter.  And even if you don’t live near TPC Sawgrass, meet up with friends at a nearby park or business and “bike-pool” to the tournament.

How to better negotiate with your vendors

“The current state of the economy is quite a challenge and it’s hard to drive top-line sales growth,” says Tony Lego, entrepreneur and franchise owner of Expense Reduction Consulting (ERC) and presenter at the Knowledge is Power workshop sponsored by Bushnell & Company.

“More revenue that doesn’t increase profit is not the answer. You are not going to make up a negative with more volume,” Lego continues. “Selling your items or providing your services at a loss, are you going to be in business long? No.”

Lego says that with just a 20% cost reduction in your indirect/overhead costs can provide you a 30% net profit improvement. “This just shows how businesses need to focus both on top line growth and bottom line, back-end frugality, if you will,” says Lego.

Some of indirect/overhead items slipping through the cracks include travel lodging, printing, equipment maintenance, UPS FedEx, employee health benefits, freight, general business insurance, merchant card processing, office products, packaging, telecommunications, temporary labor, and waste management.

“For a smaller to mid-size business, one of these may not add up to a lot of money, but if you take three or four and start adding them up, its 10, 20, or 50 thousand dollars a year,” says Lego. “These are opportunities that are definitely out there.”

Areas to focus on

Lowering supply costs can be accomplished by having a focus on several areas:

•Center lead supply purchasing. Assign one person to conduct purchasing activities and monitor inventories because they can develop expertise in procurement and negotiations, help to lower supply costs over time and evaluate suppliers, and reduce duplicate efforts within organization. Be sure you balance the associate cost to the purchasing savings/value.

•Internet shopping. The Internet brings the supply industry to the desktop and can be a great source for product research and pricing because in some cases, you can deal directly with the manufacturer or authorized distributor and you can conduct product and price comparisons.

Just be sure you determine which supplies to source over the Internet, as you do not need to buy all of your supplies there; you structure your Internet shopping efforts as it can be time-consuming; you are dealing with a safe and secure website, on that displays the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) logo and you are not providing any personal information.

•Employee compensation program. A basic incentive program to share a small percentage of the savings can yield big rewards to your bottom line and it provides your employees a reason to look out for profit improvement. Ensure you clearly define the program by establishing minimums and maximums, and you communicate and show how saving impact company health/profit

•Inventory control. As important as supply price/value is the amount of inventory that is carried of supply items. This is important because your company’s cash is used to purchase and hold any excess inventories and it reduces cash available for other activities such as advertising, payroll, etc.

To save on inventory, you can leverage suppliers or distributors systems capabilities, use A, B, C, inventory classifications and supply variability, calculate your inventory carrying cost and set targets, and assign the same person that does the purchasing to manage inventory and hold them accountable.

•Strategic sourcing Use a robust and holistic purchasing process to ensure the lowest cost of ownership is achieved to ensure the best price/value combination is achieved and maintained. You can accomplish this by establishing a defined process and monitor compliance to the process, resourcing this process in accordance with its business value, investing in training and supply market intelligence, assigning supply categories responsibilities and setting reduction targets, and providing finance support

•Focus on the vital few costs. Limited resources should be applied based on the 80/20 rule to get the maximum value. To achieve this, look at the dollars you spend by category and pareto, apply your employees to conduct the strategic sourcing process according to the pareto, and develop an approach to harvest savings from the 20% of the none addressed spend.

•Hire a purchasing partner. A purchasing partner provides external experience, supply category sourcing best practices, and detailed supplier and pricing understanding to optimize your value, but don’t assume your partner’s interest is aligned with your companies. Be sure to conduct a background review and leverage partner to create value.

Immediate short-term actions

1. Take advantage of association discounts. Many professional associations have already negotiated discounts on things such as office supplies and etc.

2. When you negotiate pricing, provide as much information about your usage to determine the best price based on real numbers.

3. Don’t allow auto-renewal clauses in contracts.

4. Partner with your suppliers to see what you can do to help them lower their costs (e.g., change delivery schedule, order process, product specifications).

5. Don’t be afraid to renegotiate an agreement in the middle. If costs for the suppliers have dropped, they often will negotiate.

6. Take your top 10 expenses from last year, put them in a spreadsheet, and graph the monthly and unit cost. You will quickly see pricing issues.

7. Look at shipping habits. Does that package have to be there using the fastest delivery method?

Tony Lego can be contacted at 904-401-1235, TLego@ERCsaves.com, or through www.ERCsaves.com/TLego.

EXTRA! To see the entire workshop presentation, visit http://advantagebizmag.com/events/videos, sign in, and learn.

How holding an event can help market and benefit your future business plans

Whether you call it a get-together, networking, an event, or a party, holding such anactivity has proven to be one of the most effective ways to market your business. With a high return on investment, we wanted to know what all it takes to and why you should host an event.

Two specialists in corporate meetings and events, Becky Wyatt and Tricia Deckard, take a few minutes to answer some of our questions.

Q: Why should small business owners consider events?

Becky: You know, when you think about it, there is less and less face time with your customers, prospects, co-workers, and even with your friends. Meetings and events allow you to have valuable human interaction, and let’s face it: Sitting down in a friendly atmosphere to talk and network is an experience that can’t be achieved online or on the phone.

Tricia: Even more than that, many studies show that the return on investment for events beats just about any other type of marketing your business can do. One study from Cornell University found that nothing rivals face-to-face events if you want to capture attention, launch something new or different, or if you want to build positive emotional connections or human networks and relationships with your customers, prospects, or employees.

Becky: Plus, there is a lot of research lately that demonstrates the advantages of trade shows and conferences to growing your business. For instance, you might want to hold a private trade show so your customers and prospects can meet with partners, suppliers, and company members. Options in the event marketing industry are limitless.

Q: But don’t you find that while we are in the midst of a sluggish economy, events can be replaced by something less expensive?

Tricia: I learned that during a down economy, you need to keep marketing. Unfortunately, in the last few years, events have been criticized because of the excesses of mega-corporations. For those with small businesses, creating a budget dedicated to events is one of the smartest things they can do.

Becky: Budgets! Yes, that magic word. Creating a budget for events means that you can turn to experienced event planners and they can help you create something within your budget. You can have a memorable event without breaking the bank. And looking to professional meeting and event planners can result in unbelievable savings on contract negotiations with venues and suppliers.

Q: How do you plan an event with a client?

Tricia: Beyond setting a budget, you need to determine what you want to accomplish. For example: Is this a fundraiser? Is it a celebration? Are you introducing a new product? These big picture elements become an event planner’s goals.

Then an event planner can help establish objectives: How much money do you want to raise? How many buyers do you hope to attract at the product launch? Do you want to get people to switch to using your product rather than Brand X? and that kind of thing.

When there are set objectives, then you can measure whether your event accomplished what you wanted it to.

Becky: Another major piece of planning an event is to define the personality of the companies or groups you work with. Are they very corporate? Are they a creative, artsy group? Are they “techies” and “geeks”? All of that helps an event planner come up with the right event for each client.

Tricia: Another thought: Don’t forget the people who work for you. Events where you celebrate good work and achievement build internal loyalty almost better than anything else you can do. An event planner can arrange recognition events as well as incentive travel for top achievers.

Q: We read a lot about ‘green’ initiatives. Does that play a factor when planning events?

Tricia: Most people today understand that it’s important to be environmentally responsible. Many event planners can create events that are earth friendly by not using a lot of unnecessary paper products, by specifying reusable catering items, and encouraging responsible promotion or events.

Becky: Absolutely! The more an event planner can source locally, the greener the event. Having a vibrant local business community is one of the best things about being located in Jacksonville—there are so many amazing resources and venues here that you really don’t have to go anywhere else.

Q: If someone likes the idea of holding a company event, what should that person do?

Becky: If you don’t have that budget planned yet, put one together. Figure out what it is you want to do, how you want to be perceived by your attendees, and how you can grow your business as a result of this event. And remember, an event planner can surely help and guide you every step of the way.

Tricia: There is more to event planning than simply “throwing a party,” particularly if you want to get the most return for your investment. One thing about being an event planner is he or she pays particular attention to all the details that too often are overlooked.

For example, one real headache in planning events is the registration process. Event planners are experienced in this area and can take that task off your shoulders. Working with professionals—just as you want your customers to do—is the key to successful meetings and events.

Becky Wyatt and Tricia Deckard, specialists in corporate meetings and events, are owners of Jacksonville’s Plan Ahead Events. Becky’s resume includes planning business meetings, fundraisers, and golf events as well as extensive experience working in the non-profit sector. Tricia, with a master’s degree in Organizational Management, spent 15 years in sales and marketing, which included planning promotional events for businesses and universities. They can be reached at 904-361-8197, beckyntricia@planaheadevents-jax.com, or through www.planaheadevents-jax.com.

Connecting employee performance to the bottom line

By Chad V. Sorenson, SPHR

Performance management. Strategic plans. Employee retention. Terms oftenassociated with large companies. Do they really matter to the small business owner?

Absolutely! When a company wants to improve its bottom line, it often spends its time focused on the number of hours an employee works rather than looking at the effectiveness of the employee as a way to save money. In the long run— that might not be the best plan.

While controlling wages and hours worked is important, identifying what employees are doing and how effective they are can be just as crucial. But, where do you begin?

Hire the right employee

Before you look at hiring your next employee, you need to clearly identify the expectations of the position and the qualities that will make a person successful in that role. These expectations or responsibilities are usually found in a job description. If you don’t have one, start by making a list of the duties this position will need to accomplish.

Don’t forget to include what you expect in terms of customer service, quality of work, and quantity of work. Customer service isn’t just for your sales force. Whether you are a plumber, computer technician, or accountant, great customer service is key in obtaining and retaining clients. Lack of focus on this aspect can cost your company a great client— negatively impacting your bottom line.

Interview your candidates with a purpose. What are you looking for exactly? Yes, they need to be proficient in the basic skills of the job, but a more important attribute is often their attitude. Do they like to learn? What do they say about their last job? Do they have a willingness to work with your other employees? Are they focused on serving customers, both external and internal.

Hire their attitude and train their skills. Even the most technically proficient employee can have a bad attitude. Who do you want around your clients and other employees?

Set the expectation

What does the first day on the job look like at your company? Do they spend half their day filling out paperwork? Are they shuffled from one warm body to another? Or, do they get to sit with the new boss and spend their day getting to know the company and their new co-workers?

Spending a couple hours with the boss will help the new employee learn what is expected of them. Reviewing a job description can lay out the responsibilities of the new role, but actually sitting down and talking will help the new employee understand what will make them a success in the company.

Most companies have an accountant bookkeeper, however, each company may expect different reports to be done or tasks to be completed in a different way. Unless you have that initial conversation and set the expectation, not only can the employee feel out of touch in the new role, but the manager may grow frustrated with their performance and begin to second guess the decision to hire that new employee.

Setting the initial expectations in a clear and concise manner will also give you something to measure the performance of the new employee. Employees want to know how they are doing. Their goal is to please the new boss, and without constructive feedback, many employees are left second guessing their work. Too often they will be more focused on how they are doing rather than looking for ways to please the client.

Engage them in the process

Employees who are engaged in their day-to-day activities are more likely to become your top performers. If they are playing an active role in their own performance development, they will be continually looking for ways to improve their skills. On the other side, workers who are disengaged often don’t care about learning new skills or pleasing your clients.

When managers actively involve employees in the decision-making process, the employees are more likely to buy-into the process because they have some skin in the game. Frequently, they will look for ways not only to achieve the goals, but identify ways to go above and beyond.

Don’t overdo it

A recent survey by MetLife indicated that while companies of all sizes have seen productivity gains in the past year, it may have come at the expense of employee loyalty. According to the survey, only 47% of employees felt a strong sense of loyalty to their company, which is down 12% from three years ago. In addition, more than one-third of workers are looking to change jobs within the next year.

Stress and doing more with less are key contributors to employee dissatisfaction. While companies can improve the bottom line in the short-term by increasing employee productivity, employee satisfaction and morale can begin to suffer if pushed too far. Managers need to stay connected with their employees to identify downward trends in morale before it reaches a tipping point.

As the economy grows stronger and opportunities increase for your company, so will the opportunities for your top performers. Companies run the risk of losing their strongest players if they don’t monitor and balance their workloads, productivity, and employee satisfaction.

A matter of prevention

So what can a company do to prevent their employees from leaving? Include them in the process. Help employees grow their skill set and create a plan to increase their value to your company. Nearly all employees want to develop their career and learn new things. Most will do so. Your decision is whether you will help them do that in your company, or watch as they take their next step up the career ladder by joining your competitor.

Employees who are engaged in their own performance development can increase a company’s bottom line by always looking for ways to improve their own performance and the company’s results. The opposite is also true. Workers who don’t care are probably doing just enough to get by and couldn’t care less about their impact on your customers. The decision is yours.

Chad V. Sorenson, SPHR, is the president of Adaptive HR Solutions and vice president of Talent Development Inc. His primary focus is helping small and mid-sized employers navigate employment law and get the most out of their employees. He can be reached at 904-716-4846, csorenson@adaptivehrs.com, or through www.adaptivehrs.com.

Confidentiality agreements can protect the idea behind your product or service

By Howard A. Caplan

Partnering with a larger company can be a powerful way to positively exploit acommercial product or service, but you must take care to protect the idea behind the product or service. Premature or non-protected disclosure can allow the “partner” to proceed without you.

Limited disclosure of ideas or information occurs in a number of business areas. One of the more common is protecting your idea when pitching it to another party. Your goal is to sell or license the idea, which may be a product or service provided by you or your company.

Licensing is more common because of the difficulty of determining a realistic value before the idea is commercialized. Another common circumstance is when a prospective buyer of a business wants information from the seller. The buyer is doing his due diligence investigation. The seller wants to protect the buyer from using the confidential information if there is no sale.

In either case, you would use a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement to protect against the improper use of your information. This agreement is only a prelude to the ultimate contract you will enter into for the actual commercialization of your idea or the sale of your business.

Protecting your pitch

How do you protect your idea when pitching it to a company that could use the idea in a commercially viable manner?

Perhaps the most important thing to remember when you have an idea that you think is valuable is that your amazing idea may only be amazing to you. Approaching companies with ideas can be extremely difficult. Many companies, more so larger companies do not readily accept ideas from outsiders or have strict rules about how outside ideas are received.

For example: Your lawyer speaks with the head of U.S. research and development for a large pharmaceutical company about presenting your idea. The director seemed to express an interest though he never gave your lawyer an address to send a confidentiality agreement to.

Yet suppose he had given your lawyer the address. Then your lawyer would have sent him an agreement that would provide for the limited disclosure of your idea, but would not contain the idea. The agreement is often called a confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement (CNDA).

The CNDA is how you protect yourself from unauthorized use of your idea by the other party. Some companies that accept outside ideas will accept your CNDA. Others will modify it, and others will use theirs.

Many companies that do accept outside ideas will only do so from your attorney or certain other professionals. Companies have many reasons for this limitation. One is protection if they are working on a similar idea. Another is the expectation of dealing with a non-impassioned party if discussion ensues. And another is avoiding infringement claims.

The approach

Depending upon the nature of the idea and the company you are approaching, you may be better served by a one- or two-step approach. If the company is interested in using your idea then you will enter into a sale or licensing agreement.

Some important points to consider in either a one- or two-step approach are:

•How to disclose enough information about your idea for the company to decide if it has an interest in your proposal;

•If the company is interested, then when and how much more of your idea will you disclose. If appropriate, when will you provide product samples;

•How long does the company have to let you know if it is interested in pursuing your idea, not pursuing your idea, or advise you that it has already been pursuing a similar idea;

•Limitations on the company’s use of your information to assess the idea;

•Protecting you if the company claims no interest or that it is pursuing a similar idea, yet actually uses your idea;

•The next step or steps if the company is interested in your idea;

•The application of patent, copyright, or trademark laws to your idea;

•What state’s law will apply if a dispute arises and where that dispute can be addressed; and

•If you need to agree to keep confidential any information from the company.

Prepare a contract

Whether you sell or license your idea is less important at this stage then getting your foot in the door. If the company is interested in using your idea, it is paramount to have a solid, well-drafted contract to protect your rights.

Success can be measured in two ways: one is contracting for the positive commercial exploitation of your idea, the second is if the idea is a commercial success. But a commercial success alone may be of little comfort.

There are many instances when a successful product did not bring success to the person with the idea. A good contract is crucial.

For example: In two high-profile instances, the person who sold or licensed the idea to the company (or the persons later owning the licensee rights) prevailed in court because they had well-drafted agreements.

In one case, Peter Roberts was wrongly told by a Sears Craftsman Tool Division officer that his quick release ratchet would be a side line. Mr. Roberts sued Sears and won over $8 million. In another case, the licensee of Listerine won the right to continue receiving royalties even though the trade secret formula had become public knowledge.

The right deal

For every high-profile case there are many modest cases, and for each of these cases there are many successful ongoing license agreements. This last point merits attention. You can sell your idea for a set fee. Or perhaps the idea is such that you can sell a product or service to the company. You can license your idea and receive an on-going royalty.

The royalty can be for a specified time or perpetual, as in the case of Listerine. Or you can both sell the idea and receive a royalty. Again, for every successful Slinky or disc operating system there are hundreds of marginally profitable deals.

In conclusion, the only certain way to protect your idea is to have restraints on the party whom you expose the idea to. The best method of placing restrictions is a CNDA that sets the boundaries for when and what you will disclose, the scope of investigation by the other party to assess interest in your idea, next steps if there is an interest, and remedies if the other party uses your idea without authorization.

Howard A. Caplan is a solo law practitioner of the Caplan Law Firm, P.A. He can be reached at 904-256-3333, info@caplawfirm.com, or through www.caplawfirm.com.

Ways managed services experts are addressing your healthcare IT challenges

By Mike Stockwell and Ron Holton

The economy is beginning to rebound from its slump, and numerous signals arepointing to even more growth in the coming years. This change has prompted the IT managers of many healthcare companies to undergo audits of their current IT infrastructure, and some challenging trends are beginning to emerge.

The lack of capital in recent years has meant that a number of healthcare companies have had to postpone infrastructure upgrades and prolong technology refresh cycles. Administrators are seeking solutions that will streamline their IT and deliver scalable, efficient results.

Research firm Gartner Inc. recently conducted a survey of IT staffers from 1,004 large enterprises in eight countries to identify their top challenges and priorities as they moved into 2011. Below are some of these challenges and explanations as to how managed services experts are addressing these needs for customers.

Challenge: Space is limited

The Gartner study revealed that 47% of respondents ranked data growth as the biggest data center hardware infrastructure challenge. Data containment initiatives were named the second most common driver for strategic growth initiatives by 37% of respondents.

A growing number of healthcare companies are now utilizing complex hosting services to handle their critical data needs. Complex hosting is a premium managed service that leverages engineering expertise, deep experience, best practices, and enterprise-class infrastructure to deliver peak performance.

Companies that offer these services as part of their managed services portfolio help customers back up data to disk and tape, manage data backup on customer-provided hardware, rotate tapes, and manage customers’ backup library or replicate data to alternate sites.

Certain companies, for example, also offer cost-effective backup and storage, fewer demands on internal IT staff, enhanced tools for online management, improved security and availability, and real-time monitoring to their clients.

Challenge: Building to scale

While a return to growth is a positive trend, when coupled with the escalating popularity of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), the result is an increase in data that brings with it concerns of increased costs relative to hardware, software, associated maintenance, administration, and services.

Gartner’s survey revealed that 62% of respondents said they plan to expand their hardware capacity at existing data centers by the end of 2011, and of these, 30% plan to build entirely new data centers.

As an alternative to building your own data center, consider utilizing virtualization or cloud services from a managed services company. Virtualization services provide cost-effective high availability, quick provisioning of new servers, lower hardware cost, and a smaller data center footprint. These types of services are becoming increasingly popular; 67% of respondents to the Gartner survey said they plan to spend money on virtualization in 2011.

Gartner’s survey also revealed that 37% of respondents named system performance and scalability as the second biggest challenge for them in the coming year, while another 36% cited network congestion and connectivity issues. Cloud computing provides one of the most efficient and innovative options to boost the scalability of an environment.

Continuing to increase in popularity is the hybrid cloud model, which is a custom-designed solution that combines data center services with cloud services in a virtual and physical environment. Such a solution is unique in that it gives businesses in the healthcare industry access to cloud services and expertise that allows them to leverage the power of the cloud based on their specific needs.

Challenge: Playing by the rules

April Adams, research director at Gartner Inc., stated that data capacity on average in enterprises is growing at 40% to 60% year over year. This has been caused by a number of factors, including an explosion in unstructured data that must be stored due to regulatory compliance requirements.

Leaders in providing full-service managed hosting for businesses worldwide aggressively support customers in their efforts to meet the regulatory demands of their industry or governing agency.

For example, certain companies can assist its healthcare clients to be compliant with privacy controls like HIPAA/HITECH in addition to offering expertise in SSAE 16, CyberTrust, Food and Drug Administration, Payment Card Industry, Data Security Standard, European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), ISO 27001, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley.

Challenge: Forecasting the unexpected

Survey respondents indicated that business continuity and data availability were the chief motivators behind their strategic 2011 plans. Healthcare companies with mission-critical applications or IT operations know they have to be prepared for hardware failure or losing access to their equipment.

Many businesses are now using highly secure data centers in combination with their own IT facilities to provide a more complete business continuity solution. Managed services providers with the best business continuity and disaster recovery portfolios offer world-class data centers and a geographically diverse footprint.

When downtime is not an option and the failover must be as continuous as possible, a managed services company can provision and ensure a complete redundant architecture with automatic traffic redirection and hot site mirroring. Failover to hot sites keeps the additional effort of maintaining a secondary site from overloading the primary IT staff and gives geographic diversity without paying for constant travel to the secondary facility for maintenance.

Mike Stockwell is the vice president and general manager and Ron Holton is the director of customer engineering for the overall operations of Peak 10 Jacksonville. Peak 10 is a managed services company with world-class data centers. It delivers scalable, economical and reliable solutions for hosting and managing complex IT infrastructure. They can be reached at 904-279-1777, mike.stockwell@peak10.com, ron.holton@peak10.com, or through www.peak10.com/jacksonville.

Discover the parallels between how an athlete trains and how you run and grow your business

By Aaron Marston

As I sat down to critically evaluate our company’s performance at the end of thefirst quarter of 2011, I reflected for a few minutes on the goals we had established going into the year.

Like many small companies, we set financial and profitability goals, both overall and by product and service. We set customer service and product quality goals and developed initiatives to help reach these goals. We started employee programs to improve their performance, education, and skill sets, as well as programs to improve their experience and satisfaction with us as their employer.

Financial reports needed to be completed, quarterly evaluations had to be done on all staff, and staffing requirements had to be considered going into our busy summer months.

The dreaded ‘to-do’ list

As I sat and looked at the laundry list I just created, I feel my palms begin to sweat. “Marketing materials, website, upcoming promotional events…” I  feel my neck and jaw begin to tighten. “Back office software issues, end of the year tax preparation, 50 e-mails in my inbox…” My heartbeat begins to quicken and my blood pressure rises.

My “to do” list is quickly turning into an “I don’t know how I am going to do” list and I am having a primal “fight or flight” response. I take a deep breath, turn my computer off, and put on my workout gear. For the time being, I choose “flight.”

I warm up, get a light sweat going, and stretch out a few problem spots before getting started. “The list” is still on my mind, but it won’t be for long. I begin my cardiovascular intervals, working hard for a minute or two, before allowing myself a minute to recover. A few stray thoughts of “the list” enter my mind, but I quickly push them away and increase the speed and incline on the treadmill. This is my hour.

New thoughts

In between intervals, my only thoughts center on my breathing and my racing heart rate. The minute of rest allows me to recover, catch my breath, and compose myself so I can do it again. Treadmill, rest, recover, repeat, weights, rest, recover, repeat, medicine ball, rest, recover, repeat.

Each training day is set up this way, with periods of intense activity followed by periods of relative rest and recovery. The short periods of intense activity allow me to push beyond my comfort zone, to do more than I would be capable of achieving for a sustained period of time.

The variety keeps me from getting bored with the monotony of steady state work. The short periods of relative rest allow me to recover, give me the strength I need to perform these intervals again, and keep me from burning myself out.

Bike, rest, recover, repeat, cool down, rest, recover, stretch, recover. I sit back down at my desk, prioritize my list, and begin. I am ready to fight.

Performing new feats

Interval based training has allowed athletes to perform feats that were once thought impossible. The legendary wrestler and strongman Milo, a six time Olympic champion, was said to have carried a 4 year old bull on his shoulders. According to legend, he did so by lifting the animal daily from the time it was a calf until it matured.

Legend or not, the principle stands that pushing the body beyond its comfort zone and forcing it to adapt to increased stresses allows it to continually improve and accomplish things that were unthinkable in the past. This only works if the body is allowed adequate rest, recovery, and nutrition.

If the body does not get this rest and recovery, and you continue to push past your comfort zone, you will only succeed in accomplishing the exact opposite of your desired outcome. You will grow wearier, the benefits will begin to diminish and eventually reverse course, and you will ultimately burn yourself out.

Discovering similarities

The parallels between the approaches an athlete takes to training and a small business owner takes to running and growing their business deserves a closer look. Both require planning and organization, drive and discipline, goal setting and goal attainment. Both require appropriate rest and recovery, intensity and variety, vision and execution.

As small business owners, you all have your lists, your priorities, and your e-mails. Those will always be there and will never be complete. You could literally work around the clock and there would still be work to do.

However, instead of falling prey to the law of diminished returns, take a page from the athletes’ playbook. Work hard, rest, recover, repeat. Plan vacations and schedule downtime for planning, thinking and preparing. Make time for family, friends, and for yourself—and yes, make time for exercise (intervals of course).

Your family, your friends, and your business will thank you. Like Milo, you can accomplish goals that others might have thought impossible.

Aaron Marston is the executive director of The HIT Center of Jacksonville, LLC and Healthletix Management, LLC. He is an expert in the fields of exercise science and athletic training and has over 15 years of experience in these fields. He can be reached at 904-475-9600 or through www.thehitcenters.com.

By Richard Close
With the deadline for filing personal tax returns closing in, you can’t put off

reviewing your 2010 receipts much longer. When it comes to filing taxes for self-employed individuals, you should take advantage of as many allowed deduction as possible. Maximizing these deductions will not only save you money, but will reduce the overall potential for tax liability.

A good rule of thumb is to eliminate any personal purchases, or anything that was used for personal use, from your receipts or logs. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code only allows for “ordinary and necessary” expenses in your business. This means if it was not used for specific use by your business, it is not an allowed deduction.

1. Vehicle expenses. As a self-employed individual, you can either deduct vehicle expenses by standard mileage or actual expenses. If you have not been keeping a mileage log, standard mileage may not be the option for you, as the log will be the only proof for this expense.

You can deduct interest paid on a car loan if the car is used for business purposes. If the car is only used for business 60% of the time, you can only deduct 60% of the interest paid that year.

2. Bookkeeping and accounting. Tax Preparation fees can be deducted from your Schedule C. Basically, you can only deduct the fee for preparing your self-employed portion of the return as a business expense. The rest of the tax preparation expense can be deducted from your Schedule A on your personal return. All bookkeeping and/or accounting expenses can be deducted as it pertains to maintaining your business records.

3. Travel, meals, and entertainment. When you’re preparing to deduct expense related to travel, meals, and entertainment, ensure they were for business use only.

Travel expenses are deductible when you are required to be away from your tax home (your primary residence) and are in need of rest or sleep while you are conducting business. This also applies for any meals necessary while you are traveling. More good news: Tips are also allowed as a deduction during travel.

Entertainment expenses are deductible only when you are entertaining a customer, client, or employee. The expense must be common or accepted in your field of business, and be considered helpful for your business. Beware: You can only deduct approximately 50% of your unreimbursed business expenses.

4. Office supplies. Most people make numerous trips to office supply stores for their everyday needs—sometimes more frequently than they would like (with big bills to prove it!).

Paper, ink, postage, computers, printers, and related office supplies are all necessary for you to keep your business running professionally and efficiently and thus are tax deductible. Always keep your receipts, and if you are purchasing business and personal supplies, it’s advisable to get your business purchases on a separate receipt. This can be a small gold mine in deductions, as most people do not realize how this can add up over the course of one tax year.

5. Business use of home. Be cautious when you are claiming portions of your home for business use. This is easily one of the most frequent places that tax payers can make mistakes.

The business portion of your home must be one of the three following:

•Your principal place of business;

•A place where you meet or deal with your patients, clients, and/or customers; or

•A separate structure not attached to your home.

The business portion of your home doesn’t have to be used exclusively for business. Examples include using the space to store products or using the space as a daycare facility.

Many people use portions of their home for business purposes, if not run their business out of their home. You need to know what size the space is in order to have a complete deduction, which can save you money in the long run.

Just the beginning

This is merely scratching at the surface of what items and expenses can be deducted when you file your Schedule C. Review your receipts and records for the 2010 tax year. If you have expenses not listed above, check out IRS Publication 334, available at www.irs.gov, to see if your deduction is an allowed expense.

Preparation of a self-employed tax return is not simple, and can cost you big when prepared incorrectly. If you do not feel comfortable preparing your return on your own or have a large amount of expenses, it is in your best interest to seek a licensed and qualified tax preparer or CPA.

This is a guest post by Richard Close, on behalf of the Tax Defense Network (888-248-9058 or www.taxdefensenetwork.com). As a former IRS Revenue Officer, Richard “stole” $10 Million for the IRS. Now he works to help American taxpayers. Richard writes IRS news and updates daily on his website, The IRS Hitman (www.irs-hitman.blogspot.com). You can find answers to common tax questions in his knowledge vault.

Controlling time means controlling time wasters

By Christy Crump

Everyone feels a need to better manage time. Just as you look at controllingexpenses to improve your budget and bottom line, it’s necessary to control outgo—or the things that waste your time—in order to manage time.

Let’s look at some environmental and personal time wasters, and how they relate to your professional life.

Environmental time wasters

1. Other people. To help control how others waste your time, make an effort to:

• Close your door at certain times of the day for uninterrupted work time—even if you have an “open door” policy.

•Discourage drop-in visitors by turning your desk away from the door. When you face the door, everyone who walks by can be a distraction. Out of sight; out of mind.

•Control your environment by standing up to talk to visitors. Don’t invite them to sit if you don’t want them to stay.

•When meeting with a colleague, go to his or her work area. This puts you in control of your time, and when you are finished, you can leave without seeming rude.

2. Phone calls. One way to aid with this time waster is to limit your phone call time. Try to:

•Screen calls when possible, so you can prepare before returning the call. If you are prepared, you can cut the call time by 50%.

•Review which calls need personal follow up, and delegate others.

•Provide short answers when possible. Give good customer service, but don’t give detailed information and answers if they are not asked for.

•Stand while on the phone. This not only burns calories, but causes you to end your call sooner than if you are seated in a comfortable chair.

3. E-mails. Studies show people’s heart rate increases when there are unread e-mails waiting, but you really should attempt to:

•Shut down e-mail during scheduled, uninterrupted work time. When you “switchtask” from your work to e-mail and back to your work, it can take up to 20 minutes to re-engage.

•Avoid copying multiple people on an e-mail when assigning work. When you send an e-mail to multiple people, one of two things will happen. Either each will assume that one of the others is doing it and no one does it, or all of them do it and waste time duplicating work.

If you must copy numerous people on an e-mail, spell out what you want each to do.

4. Meetings. To assist with this time waster, meetings should be well-planned, organized, and time-sensitive. You should also:

•Develop and follow an agenda with time limits on each agenda item, and assign a timekeeper to enforce time.

•Prioritize items according to importance, and eliminate unnecessary items.

•Avoid “off track” or prolonged discussions. Use the “parking lot” to handle extra or prolonged discussions.

Personal time wasters

Personal time wasters can be just as devastating to your calendar as environmental time wasters. The difference is you have complete control over personal time wasters. Are you exercising that control?

1. Social interaction. People with a high need for social interaction have problems when the need is not met by the job and environment. This becomes a time waster when you leave your work area to look for interaction.

When you do this, your work is not being completed in a timely manner, and you may be inflicting yourself on others who need and want to work uninterrupted.

2. Can’t say “No.” Those with a high need for acceptance tend to have problems saying “no.” This becomes a time waster when you take on too much, and rather than doing a few things well, you do a lot of things poorly. Learn to say “no.” It is better to under promise and over deliver than to over promise and under deliver.

3. Perfectionism. This becomes a time waster when you continuously work to perfect your product to the point you miss a deadline. I would never encourage someone to produce a substandard product, but at some point you have to let it go. If you’ve done the best job you can, it’s as perfect as it can get.

4. Risk avoidance. A person with a high need for risk avoidance looks for backup, clarification, and approval to the point the project and deadline are compromised. A good example of risk avoidance is when you want to invest in a particular stock.

You analyze the stock, watch it for a few weeks, research it, call a broker, and ask a friend their opinion. When you finally make a decision to invest, the stock has shot up so high, you can’t afford it. You avoided risk, but in doing so, you missed your opportunity.

5. Procrastination. Procrastination creeps in and takes over before you realize it. When you put off doing something that must be done to the point it becomes an emergency, you are procrastinating.

Good ways to overcome procrastination are to:

•Make time to get organized, and designate time to stay organized. Organized people tend to procrastinate less.

•Ask yourself, “What is the best use of my time right now?” And do it.

•Break down overwhelming tasks into small tasks. Henry Ford said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”

•Eat your frog! Brian Tracy’s book, “Eat That Frog,” says to treat the one thing you procrastinate doing the worst as a frog. Commit to eat the frog every morning, so the rest of your day will seem great. Write your procrastination on a sticky note, and place it next to your computer. Every morning, eat that frog before doing anything else. The rest of the day will seem more pleasant. When you beat the procrastination written on the sticky, throw it away and start over with a new procrastination.

Go out and conquer your environmental and personal time wasters!

Christy Crump is president of Crump & Associates, a company that enhances human capital through a unique, proven approach to staff education and training that improves performance and increases efficiency and effectiveness. She can be reached at www.crumpandassociatesfl.com.

When it comes to your taxes, the IRS may just be human after all

By Keith Johnson

As business owners and individuals, you’ve all had that sinking feeling at one time or another when your tax return is prepared and you get hit with the shocking news. Because of improper planning, unforeseen circumstances, or some other emergency, you find you owe Uncle Sam more than you can afford to pay right then.

This scenario is most likely to occur because of two reasons. First, the IRS requires businesses that have a payroll to file and pay payroll taxes on a Form 941. It is easy for a small business owner to find themselves overwhelmed by the amount of federal payroll taxes they held from their employees as well as the required company match for Social Security and Medicare. The Form 941 is due every quarter and can make any small business owner lose sleep figuring out how to stay current, especially in these hard economic times.

Second, and related to the first, a sole proprietor who may not even have employees may find themselves owing a significant amount of self-employment tax. Self-employment tax is actually the government’s way of ensuring that sole-proprietors pay their fair share of Social Security and Medicare. The tax runs around 15% of net profit, is counted toward your Social Security benefits, and is in addition to the income tax generated by the net profit reported on Schedule C and line 12 of the 1040. Again, this tax adds up quickly and has left many small business owners in despair.

Wishful thinking

If something like that happens to you, you will feel like ignoring it and hope it goes away, or when an IRS letter comes, you’ll want to leave it in the mailbox and hope the mailman takes it back; however, the IRS is similar to a spoiled child in the fact it doesn’t like it when it’s ignored. But instead of pouting or throwing a temper tantrum, the IRS can resort to filing liens and levies, as well as take you to court.

But remember, the IRS actually is staffed by human beings just like you. The IRS will not only work with you to resolve your tax issues, but bend over backward as long as you work with them in good faith. It is a little known fact that the goal of the IRS is taxpayer compliance, not criminal prosecution.

Make no mistake, if you owe the tax, you owe the tax and the IRS can’t help that. But they can make payments much easier if you let them.

What to do if…

You just got a letter from the IRS stating you owe $5,000 in taxes and have $500 in penalties and interest on top of that. The first thing you need to do is not panic. Call your tax advisor immediately and tell him or her what is going on.

Perhaps a mistake was made by either your payroll preparer or you, but only a thorough review of your payroll or financial records will confirm that. Many business owners will get such a letter to find there was a timing or processing error, such as a payment not posted to the account correctly.

•It may be legitimate. If a review of your business records by your tax advisor reveals that the tax may be legit, what’s next? Your advisor should prepare a Form 2848, IRS Power of Attorney for you to sign. It allows the advisor to represent you to the IRS on your behalf.

It allows the advisor to discuss your tax situation over the phone, collect records for your account, and be present at any meetings with IRS agents. It doesn’t allow the advisor to access bank accounts or make business decisions for you. Go ahead and sign as your advisor will not be able to do much without it.

Your tax advisor can then contact the IRS and get in touch with the agents who can best explain your situation and review your options. Before the IRS can help you, you must be up-to-date with your tax filings. The IRS will advise if there are any missing returns. Get them filed immediately. Payment arrangements can be figured out later.

Once your tax advisor has all of the information they need to catch you up-to-date, you may find that you don’t owe anything. This happens more than you may think. There may be penalties and interest for late filing, and if that’s the case, request your advisor to write a letter to the IRS requesting abatement of penalties. If this is your first offense, the IRS will usually grant it. Interest is harder to remove unless it is the result of an IRS error.

•It is valid. Let’s say the tax you owe is legitimate, and you’re in over your head. The IRS will allow you to enter into an installment agreement. You need to file a Form 9465 for this. If the amount is less than $10,000 and you have not had another installment agreement in the last five years, the IRS cannot refuse your request.

Basically, your setting up a loan payment arrangement similar to a car or mortgage. The IRS will ask you for a monthly payment amount which can pay off your tax in four or five years, but it does cost $105 to set up.

Also, if the tax is expected to be paid within 120 days, do not use this option. The IRS collection process is such that taxes owed will not go into active collection status for 120 days. This also appears on the Form 9465. Use this like a same-as-cash alternative.

•It is a financial hardship. Suppose you’re really in trouble. There are other alternatives to asserting financial hardship such as Offer-in-Compromise, which is rarely granted but worth looking at. There is also a Currently Not Collectible (CNC) status, which puts collection activity on hold for up to 10 years.

At this point, you need to organize your financial records as the IRS will require you to complete a 433-A or 433-B collection statement. This lengthy form requires supporting documentation for your assets, liabilities, income, and expenses. This is a pain to put together, but will help the IRS in determining a reasonable payment.

If you can show the IRS that repayment will cause severe financial hardship, they are more likely to work with you. You can also request the services of a Taxpayer Advocate by filing an aptly named Form 911. An advocate will help grease the wheels to resolve your tax problems.

Know your options

Getting in trouble with the IRS is easy to do and happens to many more than you may think. Don’t feel you’re a failure or a bad business owner. Lots of things can happen to put you in hot water. There are also many options the IRS has given you to resolve any problems. Get the help you need immediately. Don’t wait for it to go away.

Keith E. Johnson CPA, is owner of Keith E. Johnson CPA PA in Jacksonville, Fla., a full-service CPA firm providing accounting, auditing, consulting, and tax services to individuals, businesses, and non-profits. He can be contacted at 904-727-0077 or kejcpa@comcast.net.

ON THE WEB For more information on 2011 taxes, visit http://advantagebizmag.com/archives/6113.

Goal setting that makes a difference

By Snowden McFall

A few years ago, Dominican University did a study that showed people who havewritten goals are much more likely to succeed. Are your goals in writing, and are they SMARTE?

Future vision

Where do you want your business to be one, three, and five years from now? It’s easy in a down economy to focus on cash flow and bringing in new business, but if that’s all you pay attention to, growth is unlikely. Think about where you want your business to be five years from now.

What kinds of revenue do you want to earn? What kinds of customers are you serving with what products or services? Will you be doing business locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally? Will most of your business be online, or will you need multiple locations? How many employees will you need to provide your services or products? What raw material will you require? What is your anticipated overhead?

Once you have a clear picture of what you want your business to be in five years, back it up. What needs to happen in three years for you to achieve your five-year vision? What needs to happen in one year for you to reach the three-year vision?

When you’re crystal clear about where you want to be, it’s easier to formulate written goals that you can act upon and share with your staff.

Make your goals S.M.A.R.T.E. goals

You may have heard this concept before. Make your goals SMARTE goals, which means Specific, Measurable, Attainable through action, Realistic, Timely, and added here is E for Emotional.

Vague goals produce vague results. For example: We are increasing our revenues in 2011. By contrast, an example of a SMARTE goal: Smith Industries is successfully and easily growing our revenues 22% nationwide by Dec. 1, 2011, by expanding market territory to Asia.

This goal is specific because you know exactly how you will increase revenues; it’s measurable because you can see month to month how you are doing. It is attainable, realistic, and has a set deadline. The emotional component of success and ease adds another dimension to the goal and makes it that much more effective.

The next step

Take every goal you have and convert it into a SMARTE goal, then share it with everyone in your company. Tie this goal list directly to your company mission to ensure you are aligning all aspects of your business effectively. Give everyone a meaningful and significant “why” for achieving these goals (sometimes it is to keep them all employed.)

It does no good to increase revenues if you don’t have support staff to handle the business when you get it, or if shipping becomes a nightmare. How can you add value to your customers every step of the way? What can your business do that is unique? Meet with your team and puzzle out all the contingencies of what could happen if you were successful with each goal. Take the time to think it through, and then put the goals in writing for everyone to see.

Why goals fail

Goals can fail, but there are steps you can take to help ensure success. Be sure to avoid the following errors.

1. Goals are not aligned with your “why.” This means goals don’t fit your company mission or don’t resonate with you as a leader. Everything my good friend, Paul Evans, does in business is ultimately in support of his “why”: 100X missions, which provide support and homes for orphans worldwide, often rescuing them from the slave trade. Be sure to align all of your goals with your “why.”

2. There is no accountability. In that same Dominican University study, they found goal achievement increases dramatically when you have an accountability partner who helps you track your progress. That’s why having an exercise buddy is so effective; you might skip exercise class if it was just you, but instead, you honor the commitment to your accountability partner.

Establish someone in the company to hold you accountable and be sure there is positive accountability at every level. Set up weekly and monthly check-ins to see how you are doing on your progress. Cheer each other on, and remind each other of your why as you work on the goal.

3. The goals are unrealistic. Most have had the experience of setting a goal and having it fall flat—but perhaps your goal was not realistic in the first place. Knowing your company history, the economy, and various outside factors which impact your business, what realistically can you expect your business to achieve?

Do the reality test with each goal and then set up an action plan with strategies to achieve them. Break down each goal into smaller, more manageable steps and delegate effectively with accountability measures in place. Check in every month, and if you need to re-evaluate or renegotiate a goal, do it.

Celebrate success

In new research from Harvard, there is documented proof that when you focus on the good things in life and business, your happiness and productivity levels increase. Celebrate small successes along the way, catch others in the act of doing something right, post a bulletin board where wins can be seen, and do this both electronically and physically.

Praise your team as they make progress, both in writing and in person, because 88% of workers NEVER receive thanks for what they do. Be sure you do thank them.

Written goal setting with accountability can make your business stronger and healthier financially. Involve everyone on your team and get them Fired Up! for success. You will all benefit.

Snowden McFall, professional speaker, trainer, and author, is the author of “Stress Express” and “Fired Up!” and the owner of Fired Up! Professional Speaking & Corporate Training. For her free report, the 10 Keys to Fire Up Your Business and Ignite Your Success, go to www.firedupnow.com/keys.html. She can be reached at 904-940-7355

Discover your strengths and seize your opportunities by examining your weaknesses and identifying your threats

By Mark Bajalia

At some point in your career, most of you have probably done this on some level without really thinking about it. But a thoughtful approach to SWOT analysis can help you and your company discover new opportunities, as well as manage and eliminate threats that could potentially impede your progress and success.

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning methodology used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing a company either generally or which may be applicable to a specific project or business venture.

Applied to a business generally, a SWOT analysis enables a company to develop a niche and match its resources and capabilities in the context of the competitive environment in which it operates. Applied to a specific project, a SWOT analysis allows a project manager or team to specify the objective of the project and identify the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective.

Begin with the end

A SWOT analysis begins with the end, so to speak. In other words, you must first determine what the desired end state or goal is for the company or the specific project. Once that is done, you must objectively analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats relevant to the end state or goal.

•Strengths. These are the internal characteristics of the business, project manager, or team that give it an advantage over others in the industry or those competing for the same project. When evaluating your strengths, you need to consider the resources and capabilities your company or team brings to the table and how that gives you a competitive advantage.

Ask questions such as: “What do we do better than anyone else?” “What resources do we have that others competing against us do not?” and “What makes us unique in our industry?” You need to consider your strengths from an internal perspective, but also from the perspective of your customers and competitors. You also need to be realistic and objective.

•Weaknesses. These are the internal characteristics of the business, project manager, or team that place you at a competitive disadvantage. In evaluating your weaknesses, you need to ask questions such as, “What do our competitors do better than us?” “Why would a customer utilize a competitor instead of us?” and “Do we lack technology or resources that our competitors possess?”

In examining your weaknesses, you need to do so from an internal perspective. Identify weak point or limitations in one or more resources or competencies that impedes effective performance. List as many identifiable weaknesses as possible and in doing so, you will be able to turn the weaknesses into strengths.

•Opportunities. These are the external environmental factors that create in roads to achieving success either for the company generally or with respect to the specific project undertaken. In order to determine what opportunities exist, you must analyze trends in your marketplace and anticipate needs.

Opportunities may come from an unfulfilled need, arrival of new technology, implementation of new regulations, or changes in competitive circumstances. You need to contemplate realistic concepts that may stimulate new areas of growth or point you in a new direction which may be a path of less resistance and allow for the completion of the project or achievement of the end result in a more efficient manner.

•Threats. These are the external elements that can cause trouble for the company or which serve as barriers to the end goal. Threats can be dictated by shifts in customer tastes, elimination of a specific need in the marketplace, new regulations that limit or eliminate opportunities, and changes in competitive circumstances. Identify as many realistic threats as possible and be prepared to deal with them.

What matters most

A SWOT analysis is a simple and useful framework for analyzing your organizations strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats it faces. It helps you focus on the things that matter most and take the greatest possible advantage of the opportunities available.

The most important thing to remember when conducting a SWOT analysis is to be realistic, objective, and specific. In doing so, you will discover your strengths and seize your opportunities by examining your weaknesses and identifying your threats.

Mark Bajalia is a partner and a managing member in Brennan, Manna & Diamond’s Jacksonville office. He is an experienced commercial, business, and insurance litigator, having prosecuted and defended numerous cases in state and federal courts and in arbitration. He is rated AV Preeminent by Martindale Hubble, has been recognized as one of Florida’s Legal Elite by Florida Trend Magazine, and has been selected as a Florida Super Lawyer in the field of business and insurance litigation. He can be contacted at 904-366-1500 or mbajalia@bmdpl.com.

By Hector Cisneros

That next, big networking social is coming up, but are you ready? Here are some tips to get the most out of your next networking event using proven techniques that will bring home results.

1. Have a plan. One of the first things is to always go to a networking event with a plan. Ask yourself, “Who am I looking to be introduced to? What new businesses have I been working this month? Which professions often send me referrals?”

Establish if you are there to get referrals for yourself or for others. It can be very beneficial to bring three business cards from one of your referral partners and work to specially get them referrals that day as well. Use the above questions to help you create your list of six to 12 categories or people you are looking to meet.

Remember, networking events are great places to invite potential guests for that organization. It is easy to invite people to a social, and it is also a great way to introduce them to the power of networking, and, more importantly, it will build your credibility with the host organization.

2. Know the length. Be sure to take into account how long the meeting is. Essentially, for every 10 minutes of meeting time, you can effectively talk to at least one person. In an hours’ time, that’s six people; in two hours’ time, you could have at least 12 names. It is possible to talk to a lot more people—especially if you are talking to small groups of people at a time.

3. Bring business tools. Make sure you bring plenty of business cards, at least 50 for big events, as well as a pen and a pocket notepad. If you have a business card file with your referral partners’ cards in it, bring that too. This could be a great opportunity to find referrals for them. These are all important business tools.

4. Make connections. When speaking with attendees, ask who they are looking for and see if you can make a connection for them. It will make a big impression on them and build your credibility. After they tell you about themselves, ask them to introduce you to the people on your list. By helping them find their connections, you have empowered them to help you.

5. Prepare your presentation. Once you have your list, decide what you want to say as your 60-second presentation. Don’t ask for too many categories or people—ask for no more than three at a time. If you get to meet your first three prospects, you can start on another three.

In a 60-second presentation, you can say something like, “Tell me about your business (or who are you looking to be introduced to),” and then listen. When it is your turn, say something like, “I’m on a mission to  meet these three people, (or introduce my partners).” After that, most people will try to introduce you if they can.

6. Seek referrals. If you’re looking to get referrals for someone else, remember the three card trick. Select a referral partner you have decided to help and ask everyone you meet, “I have a friend who has helped me out a lot this month, and I want to repay their kindness. Who do you know here who is _____?” Then fill in the blank with the people your referral partner is looking to be introduced to! (Obviously, you have to know who they need.)

Use this technique at every networking event you attend and you will always have referrals for your strategic partners.

7. Stay focused. When attending the actual event, focus on your list. Don’t be distracted, stay on task, and don’t drink or eat too much. You’re there to market your business or get referrals for others and meet very specific categories’ of people.

With your list of who you want to meet, start working the room from right to left and go through each section of the room until the entire room has been covered, then start over again. In two hours, you should be able to go through the room twice.

Make sure every person you talk to knows who you’re looking to be introduced to. Furthermore, let them know that you would appreciate that they mention it to their referral partners as well.

At the end of this event you should have about 12 names to follow up on. This is not the best place to try and sell somebody your product or service, especially if they don’t know you. Take the time to get to know them and build trust through face-to-face meetings.

Use these tips at your next networking event and get more business!

Hector Cisneros is a 17-year veteran of BNI, was BNI Director for more than six years, and is still a member in good standing in the River City Chapter. He is an entrepreneur and businessman with more than 30 years of networking experience. Currently, he manages three businesses and coaches’ business people in the fine art of Internet and word-of-mouth marketing. He can be contacted at 904-712-9355, hecisneros@gmail.com or through his blog at www.networkersapprentice.com.

How contributing your time, talent, and treasure can benefit your bottom line

By Crystal and Michael Freed

No business can fulfill its potential without philanthropy. Philanthropy is not simply throwing change to a beggar or resources to a group or cause; that is charity—helping to support a temporary need.

Philanthropy, on the other hand, is a deliberate plan to address—through the contribution of time, talent, and treasure—specific societal needs in such a manner that the need will, over time, diminish and ultimately be eradicated. This article briefly identifies certain benefits of philanthropy.

Build better communities

Businesses benefit from the stability of the communities in which they do business and the quality of the available workforce. Given this, altruism aside, businesses have a fiscal responsibility to be good stewards of their communities. A defined plan for philanthropy is the most efficient manner to fulfill that responsibility.

Homelessness, for example, in addition to the dehumanizing impact it has on the homeless themselves, can be a genuine drain on the business community. Increased crime, concerns for safety, and the allocation of tax dollars to programs to triage the homeless problem, are just a few of the negative impacts.

That said, it makes good sense for businesses to devote some of their financial and people resources to plans and programs designed to eliminate homelessness and transform the homeless into contributing members of society.

Build brand identity

Philanthropic outreach also is an efficient mechanism to build and reinforce brand identity. Yoplait contributes to breast cancer research; Cheerios supports childhood reading; and your business can and should support causes that resonate with your customer-base and communicate how your business wants to be perceived.

Philanthropic giving is good news about your company and will often garner “earned media,” which is generally more effective than paid advertising. Philanthropic outreach also earns a company reputation for being a good and responsible corporate citizen. This type of goodwill results in a benefit of the doubt when bad news or company crises arise.

Boost employee morale

Philanthropy is also a powerful tool to boost employee morale. A great workplace creates a team atmosphere in which team members feel that they are a part of something bigger than being transaction costs on an assembly line of corporate profit.

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “philanthropy is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself…”

Design a company philanthropy plan, and permit and encourage employees to support it with their time and talents and even treasure, and a bond and commitment will emerge that surpasses what can be accomplished with wages, hours, and working conditions.

The “feel good” factor

Philanthropy is a morale boost because, among other things, it feels good personally. It feels good to help people; it feels good to improve circumstances; it feels good to do something constructive about social ills.

The personal benefits are many, but may include confidence, attitudinal lift, and improved emotional and even physical health.

The bottom line is that philanthropy—in addition to being the right thing to do morally—when purposefully and effectively implemented, is good for your business and your personal bottom line.

Michael and Crystal Freed are attorneys in private practice in Jacksonville, Fla. Michael is the Florida Managing Partner of Brennan Manna & Diamond, and Crystal manages The Freed Firm. Michael and Crystal devote their time, talent, and treasure to, among other things, support education, creating opportunities for the economically disadvantaged, missionary advancement, and combating child exploitation and human trafficking. Michael can be reached at 904-366-1500 or mrfreed@bmdpl.com, and Crystal can be reached at 904-262-2193 or clfreed@thefreedfirm.com.

Six steps you need to know to successfully have an online business

By Ronnie Soud

When it comes to developing an online business, there are six things you need to consider for it to be a success. You need to form your business idea, do your online market research, create a business and marketing strategy, develop a website, perform online marketing, and then test, expand, and refine your online business.

Your business idea

Every business starts with an idea, but in today’s world; most business ideas need some refinement. Often times, the best strategy is to create a unique business that appeals to a niche market. Center on the unique features your product or service offers versus the competition, or how your product or service solves a unique problem within a particular market. This makes marketing and growing your business easier because it allows you to concentrate your product, service, and sales/marketing materials to a well-defined market.

Conduct online market research

Online market research determines target audience and online competition within your market. Online marketing research will identify:

•Top competing websites and what each is offering;

•The top search terms entered to find information about your topic/product/service;

•The competing websites that rank for those search terms; and

•The cost of gaining visibility on these related keyword searches.

Keyword research sets the foundation for online marketing strategy and initiatives, which include website design, content creation, search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), blogging/article strategy, and social media. A few keyword research tools available include Google AdWords, Wordtracker, and WordSteam.

In addition to keyword research, you should do an online competitive analysis. It looks to answer such questions as:

•How many pages does each competitor have on their website?

•What type of content do they have?

•Are they offering special/exclusive products and deals online?

•What keywords are they targeting?

•What special Web design elements are they using?

Conduct a search for your target keyword phrases and note the sites that show up for those searches. Visit each website looking for answers to the above questions.

Create the strategy

Once a thorough review of the online market and competition is done, create a business and marketing strategy by defining audience demographics, website traffic and sales goals, and an online budget.

A clearly defined market helps develop targeted website messaging, content, and design. Figure out your audiences’ age, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, income level, interests, etc.

You also need clearly defined goals to keep the marketing process on track and well organized. Define short- and long-term goals for your website.

Use the information from the keyword research and online competition analysis to develop a professional looking website and an online marketing strategy. Some areas to consider include website content/copy, SEO, PPC, e-mail marketing, and landing page development.

Develop a website

Now design and develop the business logo, website, and website copy. Market research, keyword research, and the competitive analysis will help define the creative marketing elements and messaging that needs to be incorporated in the creative/branding elements.

Don’t forget who you’re trying to target—make sure you focus your copy and messaging on that audience, and don’t offer website functionality that that particular market segment doesn’t understand. Keep it simple. Keep it targeted.

You will need to develop a unique message, copy, and logo. Your message needs to be about what makes you, your product, and your service unique within the market. Be as descriptive as possible.

Make sure the logo is unique amongst the competition and get a good quality logo because it will be used to make all of your sales, marketing, and advertising materials for years to come.

Your website is your online storefront, and is often the first impression your potential customers have of your business. Make it easy for them to use, read, and buy/contact. Don’t get carried away with flashy design elements—keep it simple.

You also want to get as many visitors as you can to perform some type of action on your website, whether it’s entering their e-mail for more info, deals, coupons, and new arrivals or they leave a comment on a blog, photo, or video. This way, even if they don’t buy during that visit, they have given you information about themselves, their interest, or buying habits. You can then use this information to make edits/additions to your website.

Also, make sure your website will be easy to expand when the time is right. You will want/need to add new pages, photos, and videos; possibly even a blog, forum, online contest, etc., as you grow.

Perform online marketing

If you are concerned about getting traffic from search engines, then SEO and PPC are two areas to pay careful attention to during the initial research and strategy phrases.

SEO techniques are separated into two different areas: On-site optimization and off-site optimization.

On-site optimization is the foundation for all further SEO efforts. On-site optimization factors include keyword research, website content structure, custom title tags, meta description tags and H1/2/3 tags for each page, and internal page linking structure.

Off-site SEO factors help the site gain more visibility through a variety of methods, such as link building, online press releases, and writing articles/blog posts/photo/video on major online publications such as News4Jax.com or Jacksonville.com.

PPC allows advertisers to bid on specific keywords relevant to their products, services, and target audience. The advertiser has full control over which keywords they want to upload, how much they want to bid on each keyword phrase, and full control over the content of their ads.

E-mail marketing is still one of the most powerful online marketing channels. When users submit their e-mail address,  they are giving you permission to advertise to them. Take advantage of this opportunity, but don’t abuse it. Do two or three e-mail blasts per month.

Today, communication on the Web moves faster than ever. It’s quicker and easier to reach a large amount of people than ever before. Most of the speed of online communication can be attributed to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Ensure you are among the social communities as well.

Test, expand, and refine

A website is a work in progress. Set up website analytics so you can monitor your site growth each week. Analytics gives you great insights to how visitors are finding and using your site, the keywords that are bringing in the most visitors, which search engines are giving you the most visibility, etc. All of which allows you to make any necessary changes to the website in order to boost user engagement levels.

Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics) is a free website stats tracking system. Sign up for a free Google Analytics account, and Google gives you a code to place on every page of your site. Once that code is placed, you will start tracking your website visitors.

Once visitors are on your site, it’s important to monitor how many pages they visit on average, how long they stay, and what are the most popular/visited pages. From this monitoring, you can refine your website content. Pay attention to pages with high-bounce rates as those rates are an indication that users are not happy with the content or credibility of the page. You can add more relevant/detailed content or images or graphics to the page to help clarify your points.

Websites need to expand their content offerings in order to grow. Continue to add content that your audience will find useful, such as articles or a blog that focuses on “how to” articles, FAQ’s section, or start a forum or online discussion group to connect like-minded users and share information.

Final thoughts

Users choose to interact with online businesses that are a trusted and good source of information (read: they educate the user). Remember, positive credibility and reputation go a long way online. Be the company that educates the most and you will be the company that sells the most.

Ronnie Soud is the Marketing Director for Evision Worldwide. He can be reached at 888-957-0002 or through www.evisionworldwide.com.

Stack

“We look at the future in a very short window because for technology you have to,” says workshop presenter Andrew Stack, principal of My Executive Centers during the most recent KNOWLEDGE IS POWER workshop, sponsored byFirstAtlantic Bank and Advantage Magazine.

“It just evolves so quickly and changes are made so rapidly that looking any further out than that as it relates to the workplace is probably irrelevant,” he says, while referring to the timeline of what we can expect in the next six to 24 months in workplace technology.

What does it mean to you as a business owner or business manager, and how can you leverage the near future of technology into the workplace? You do it by knowing what will drive the future and what will push some of the big companies to innovate technologies that aren’t currently in the workplace.

Future drivers

Those drivers include economic/financial and regulatory drivers, operational drivers, and demographic drivers. Economic/financial and regulatory drivers include things such as the recession, changing accounting standards, wanting to decrease fixed expenses, and the way lending standards have increased.

“We survived the recession, but companies need to be more flexible,” says Stack. “If there’s anything we’ve learned in the last three to four years, it’s that we need to be able to adjust the way we run our business based on the changing economic climate.”  He says businesses need to know how to expand/contract as the market dictates.

Operational drivers are what customers are demanding.  As business owners, you are becoming more specialized in what you do. Enhanced IT/tech capabilities are needed just so you can respond to the changing market. Customers are tech savvy and use the Internet and social sites for information and you need a website and to be on social networks to keep up, as well as reach out further on what customers you can attract.

Demographic drivers represent the change in the makeup of the workplace. Mobile computing/telephony is mainstream, whereas it wasn’t 10-15 years ago and the workplace itself has evolved from hierarchal to a collaborative team. Younger workers are requiring a better work/life balance. “With technology, they are no longer constrained by the tether of an office or 8-5 working hours,” says Stack, “Because they can work on weekends from home or a nearby Starbucks.”

So how do we get there?

Lamey

“Look at the years 2010 and 2011. These are going to be the years that will really change the industry in technology as we know it,” says second presenter Donny Lamey, president of DiscoverTec. “Just like in the mid-1990s, everyone had to have a website. They didn’t know why, but they did.

“That is kind of where we are today as technology is changing and new product and services are emerging. Ten years from now you will look back at this period and see how technology shifted from a ‘you must own and control everything’ to a shared service,” says Lamey.

According to Lamey, one of the biggest challenges to technology is the high infrastructure cost—large upfront costs, short equipment lifespans, rapid changes in technology, high cost of IT support—and it’s difficult to achieve ROI. He says that’s when companies start choosing what to update and upgrade, and they end up with a mismatch of technology.

The new workplace

How does it all tie together in the workplace? “Workplaces are becoming more team-oriented with people working together, so today’s tools and technology are designed for it,” says Lamey. “The new workplace is being driven by devices such as your phone or tablet—you dock it, and you are there.”

How do you get all the software and files you need when moving from a traditional workplace to this new workplace? Cloud computing. “Cloud computing is really not new as it is the same concept as a mainframe,” says Lamey. “The main difference is you can access things through Web and are able to use everyday product and services.

“Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.”

For example: You are on the Internet and can access your entire network and you are able to access what you are doing at work, then you can access it on your phone after you leave the office, and then access it again at home—all seamlessly; the same file, the same icons, the same desktop, just not the same location.

Cloud benefits

The cost benefit to cloud computing is enormous. “You save a lot of money as a company, which goes immediately to your bottom line, and you always have the latest and greatest to work with,” says Lamey. Other benefits he discussed include:

•Hosted solution saves time and money;

•Universal software used as industry standard;

•The latest version of the complete software suite;

•Enhanced security from hackers, viruses, and spam;

•Easily access and share documents from anywhere;

•All data resides in one location and is backed up daily; and

•Allows businesses to be more efficient in its operations.

EXTRA! To see the entire workshop presentation, visit http://advantagebizmag.com/events/videos, sign in, and learn.

Does your small business need an app to stay competitive?

By Robyn A. Friedman

Brian Young leads a double life. By day, he’s a periodontist with a thriving practice in Jacksonville. By night, he’s a developer of apps for the iPhone.

Young

In December, Young, 36, launched Tracknburn, a health and fitness application that allows users to track the number of calories they consume and burn on a daily basis. This is the fifth app Young developed—and his most successful. Over 24,000 people have downloaded Tracknburn to date, at a cost of $2.99. But Young hasn’t made a profit—yet.

“There are two primary reasons why a company might have an app,” Young says. “It would either be to support their ongoing business or to use it as a business model where they’re generating revenues from the application itself.”

Tracknburn is an example of the latter. Young developed the app as a hobby, he said, albeit an expensive one: he’s plunked down about $50,000 on the project so far.

It’s in the numbers

Apps—custom application software that runs on mobile devices—are all the rage these days. And it’s easy to see why. Just consider the numbers:

The use of mobile devices is exploding—the smart phone market alone is projected to grow 24.5% in 2011, according to International Data Corp. (IDC).

Application developers have churned out over 300,000 mobile apps in the past three years.

Worldwide mobile app revenue will exceed $35 billion in 2014, IDC projects.

In January, Apple announced that more than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from its App Store by 160 million iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users worldwide.

As a small business owner, it’s tough to ignore these statistics.

Design and development

But developing an app is time-consuming and costly. You need a professional programmer who has experience designing apps—often more complicated than a typical website. Separate apps need to be written for each smart phone platform; Android apps don’t run on iPhones, for example. And even once you develop an app, if it’s for the iPhone, you need to get it past Apple’s tough reviewers, who reportedly evaluate some 10,000 new apps each week.

Is it really worth the time and effort to develop an app? Does your business really need one?

Ennen

“A lot depends on what the small business is,” said Steve Ennen, president of Social Strategy1, a media intelligence firm in Ponte Vedra Beach. “I think it’s a stretch to say they are mission critical at this point, but they offer a set of advantages that are relevant to the digital ecosystem right now—that you can capitalize on if you know how to employ them smartly.”

Better benefits

Some advantages and benefits of having your own app include:

•Mobile apps get you to your customers. Today’s consumer is tech-savvy, better informed, and with high expectations of receiving timely and relevant information. “Today, businesses must reach customers where they are—not just wait for customers to come to them,” said Bernie Brennan, the Ponte Vedra Beach co-author of Branded! How Retailers Engage Consumers with Social Media and Mobility.

•Mobile apps give you visibility and drive traffic to your business. The more people who see your app and use it, the more potential customers you will have.

Gresham

•Mobile apps help you compete. “They level the playing field for small businesses,” said George Gresham, PhD, an assistant professor of marketing at Jacksonville University. It used to be that only large businesses could afford to have their own apps. Not anymore.

•Mobile apps cost less than some other forms of advertising. An app allows a business owner to reach millions of potential customers. Even though it can cost up to $50,000 to develop an app, depending on its technical sophistication, they still can be quite cost-effective when compared to other forms of advertising. Plus, some apps can generate revenues on their own.

Weigh your options

But experts say that apps are not a necessity for every business. “Don’t get blinded by the latest shiny object,” said Ennen. “Just because it’s available doesn’t mean your business is right for it.”

Indeed, there might be other digital creations that serve your company better. A well-designed mobile website, for example, is easily accessible to customers on their mobile devices and provides the information they’re likely to need on the go: address, phone number, directions, and basic information about the products and services you offer.

Plus, a presence on sites like Foursquare, Yelp, and Google Maps can lead mobile customers to your door without the expense of your own app.

Factors to consider

Still interested in developing an app for your business? Here are some factors to consider before taking the plunge:

•Is your app sustainable? In other words, is it something that users will keep coming back to frequently—you know, like Angry Birds—or will usage decline after the initial buzz fades?

“There are lots of stories of people with a gold rush mentality who started building apps thinking they would make a million dollars,” said Ennen. “But usage peaked, and then the app went away because there was no sustained usefulness behind it.”

The best apps are relevant, useful, and encourage users to come back repeatedly.

•Do your customers really access your product or service via their mobile device? If you’re a professional and the bulk of your clients find you on Twitter or LinkedIn, for example, it may not make sense to develop an app. Focus on what works for your particular business—market to your specific customers or clients—and resist the temptation to jump on the app bandwagon.

•What is the ROI? If the app won’t generate business, it isn’t worth the investment.

Do your research

“Find out who your competitors are, and determine what they’re doing right—and wrong,” said Angel Ayala Torres, a computer engineer at CloudYellow in Jacksonville, who is about to release GoTaxiCab, his first iPhone application, which

Torres

allows users to hail a taxi and pay for it via PayPal. “We tried other taxi apps on all platforms—even Blackberry and Android—to make sure we were bringing something to the market that is different and better.”

“Don’t have an app just to say you have one,” said Young, the periodontist. “If you’re going to spend time, money, and effort to not only develop but also manage and maintain an app, it needs to be functional. It needs to serve a purpose. If it doesn’t, then it’s just a waste of time.”

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing writer to Advantage. She can be reached at robyn@everythingwrite.com.

Why e-banking is the best thing since sliced bread

By Lori Putnam

Those us who have paid attention over the last 25 years have witnessed the emergence of technology at what can best be described as warp speed. If you really think about it, the technology of today was probably obsolete before you evenpurchased it!

In the world of financial services, the technology boom has created the ability for bank customers to obtain immediate and accurate banking information, real-time and online. As e-banking technology began to emerge and improve, the initial fear that online banking would replace branch banking was quickly replaced with a desire to offer as much information to our customers through online portals as possible.

When you can sit at the computer at midnight in your pajamas and learn about the products and services your bank offers, it’s a better educational experience than sitting at your banker’s desk, trying to decipher “bank-speak” and knowing there are four people behind you waiting to be seen. This doesn’t mean you never need to go into a branch, but many things that used to be done in branches can now be done electronically, which can save you time and money.

Extended services

Most people log onto their bank’s website to balance their checkbook ledgers. They’ll look at their current or recent activity, maybe look at the detail of some checks they forgot to enter into their ledgers, transfer money to or from savings, and originate electronic bill payments through their bank’s online bill payment site. But e-banking is much more robust than just paying and receiving.

Need to stop payment on a check? Chances are you can initiate a stop payment from your bank’s website. Got a kid in college who needs money? You can initiate a payment to them through your bank’s online bill payment system. In fact, most banks’ online bill payment products can not only accommodate payments to credit cards and utilities, they can now accommodate payments originated electronically to individuals, and business owners wishing to make electronic payments can attach invoices and even apply discounts to electronic bill payments.

E-banking also extends to the lending arena, with a variety of information available through not only your bank’s website, but the links they most likely provide. These links can include calculators for loan payments so you can determine how much a payment will be and how long it will take to repay, as well as detailed information on the variety of loan products available to you, whether you are a business or an individual.

Many financial institutions offer online loan and credit card applications, and even current rate information for their most standard loan products. The e-banking application is virtually the same as what you would complete in a branch office; in fact, many banks no longer use paper applications, but instead originate in-branch loan and credit card applications through their internal electronic systems.

What about investing and retirement? Your bank’s website most likely offers a retirement planner so you can determine how much to invest and at the current rate of savings, how much you will have when you retire, and even asset allocation information so you know how to build a more balanced investment portfolio.

Want to keep up with the current news on your bank? Check out the website. News and information about your bank is readily available for your reading pleasure.  Many banks also offer the option to begin the new account opening process through their electronic sites, and some offer “switch kits,” which can help ease the pain of establishing yourself at a new financial institution by making the process a little more manageable.

New services

With the movement toward “paperless” transactions, many banks offer a terrific service, generically referred to as Remote Deposit. Remote Deposit allows business customers the ability to make non-cash deposits through a secure website using a desktop scanner.

Users simply scan their checks to be deposited, correct any errors that may occur during scanning, and then submit the deposit for practically immediate credit to their bank accounts. The images of the items are stored electronically and can be viewed anytime. While most banks do have processing cut-offs for credit for remotely deposited items, the system itself is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week; deposits can be originated and transmitted to the bank and images of deposited items can be reviewed anytime, day or night.

Along these same lines, electronic bank statements, or e-statements, are gaining popularity as “go green” becomes the rallying cry of reducing paper waste. Statements are delivered through a secure system and retrieved at your convenience. All e-statements include transaction details, and most e-statements include the images of the items transacted on your account.

Wire transfer remains one of the most popular methods of moving funds swiftly between banks, and with the ability to originate wire transfers through electronic banking, customers can save a trip to the bank and even gain a reduction in the cost of wiring funds. Payments initiated or received through the Automated Clearinghouse (ACH) are the preferred method of handling payroll and expense reimbursements. Most banks even offer a “self-service” ACH product, which allows the end user to process ACH payments without the use of an intermediary, such as a payroll company.

Another e-banking service gaining popularity is Positive Pay. Check fraud is one of the most common reports of fraud among businesses. Positive Pay offers one of the most effective methods of deterring check fraud by allowing users to compare the checks they have issued against those being presented for payment on any given day.

Items that do not match the checkbook register raise a red flag and the user must decide if these exceptions represent fraudulent activity. This gives the business owner control over the items being presented for payment against their account, which in turn helps control costs by minimizing the risk of check fraud.

Your e-banking site also offers a wealth of information regarding FDIC insurance, the bank’s officers and directors, identity theft and fraud protection, and more. Many bank sites offer a tool that allows you to pull all financial information into one site for money management purposes. There’s even a good chance that if you visit your bank today, there are e-banking kiosks available for your use, right at the branch site! And we never even discussed the variety of electronic functions that are available now through ATMs and mobile banking. That’s best saved for another article.

It’s probably safe to say that advances in technology have not quite given us the time or cost savings that jet-packing to work or traveling by transporter might have offered us. But taking advantage of the many products and services offered by your financial institution’s e-banking site can certainly make it easy and convenient for you to manage your daily financial needs.

Lori Putnam is vice president, commercial deposit manager, and cash management officer for FirstAtlantic Bank. She can be contacted at 904-446-2567 or lputnam@bankfirstatlantic.com.

8 steps to ensure worthwhile returns on investment

By Jeffrey Spear

There are many things you can do to grow your business and attract sales. When it comes to marketing, most people think of advertising, websites, and perhaps even costumed dancers holding signs on the street corner.

While these are credible marketing tactics, you need to consider whether or not your business benefited from this activity, and if the results warranted and/or offset the costs for implementation.

Unless the answer to both is an undeniable “yes,” you’ll want to reconsider your marketing and promotional plans.

Step 1: Seek qualified help

To get things started, find a marketing specialist who can evaluate your competitive landscape, define a unique selling proposition, and develop an appropriate marketing plan. One advantage to this is it will be an unbiased set of eyes and ears that can evaluate your marketing activities from a fresh perspective.

Make sure to ask about the successes this supplier has created for other clients. If they cannot provide statistical evidence of results, find someone else. At the very least, obtain client references to confirm their effectiveness.

Step 2: Establish goals

Marketing can contribute to your bottom line in many ways. For new businesses and brands, it generates awareness and provokes inquiry. For established operators, and while it still supports awareness and inquiry, marketing can help increase market share, deepen brand understanding, and/or persuade buyers to change brand preferences.

The important thing is to define what you expect in advance, making sure your goals are feasible, clearly defined, and agreed upon by senior management. Subsequently, communicate these goals to your marketing team, making sure promotional messages and tactics are in alignment with and responsive to these confirmed objectives.

Step 3: Make a plan

Delivering the right message at the right time aimed at the right audience takes careful research and analysis. So does evaluating your sales cycle, identifying seasonal peaks and valleys, and crafting an appropriate marketing response.

There may be other variables to consider such as anticipated introductions of new products, ongoing improvements and upgrades to core offerings, intrusive competitive challenges, etc. Each of these situations could significantly influence the direction of your marketing program.

Anticipating and responding to these dynamics with a thoroughly researched and expertly planned marketing program will help you satisfy your business and marketing objectives with greater efficiency.

Step 4: Choose your weapon

It’s equally important to employ the right tactics. Whether it’s advertising, trade shows, Web-based promotions, or even a dancing chicken, what you select and the rationale behind those decisions will make a huge difference in the results you record.

When it comes to technology, please keep in mind that there is far more hype than reality about what works and what doesn’t. That being said, and especially if your key audience spends a significant amount of time online, you’ll want to investigate, confirm effectiveness, and prioritize online marketing opportunities.

In many cases, a more integrated approach—one that links traditional and technology-driven tactics—may be the best solution. In this regard, a print or broadcast message may ask audiences to visit your website, or your website, blog, or online ad could direct readers to your store or ask them to call.

Step 5: Have a budget

It’s easy to see how marketing can become a costly proposition. In order to avoid wasteful or ineffective spending, and to create investments that translate into meaningful outcomes, it is essential to have a budget.

Even when resources are limited, there are ways to generate worthwhile returns on investment. This is where the service provider you have selected can get involved. While advertising sales reps may be biased, your marketing advisor can take a holistic approach—evaluating opportunities based on the budgets you’ve set and the outcomes you expect.

While you may not be able to afford everything, you can prioritize essential activities and delay others. While growth may take a bit longer, you want to be sure your marketing investments are properly planned and managed so you can avoid damaging pitfalls and disappointments.

Step 6: Be delightful

It is human nature to spend more time doing things that are enjoyable and emotionally pleasing. In this regard, and regardless of the tactics you embrace, find ways to appeal to the senses and deliver positive experiences. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling office supplies, legal services, retirement packages, or tropical adventures, as long as your marketing approach engages your audience in an enjoyable, memorable, and delightful way, you are sure to generate favorable responses.

Step 7: Watch what you’re doing

The only way you can prove return on investment is to track and statistically evaluate the impact of the tactics you employ. While some are easier to track than others, there are lots of ways to acquire evidence of performance.

These days, most interactive activity is traceable through a variety of online services that quantify Web visitors, confirm delivery of e-mails, and monitor click-throughs. For public relations, there are a number of print and broadcast “clipping services” that provide tangible evidence of performance.

When it comes to advertising and direct mail, the process requires a bit more in terms of logistical planning. Again, the marketing advisor you work with should be able to recommend and develop effective tracking mechanisms for every tactic.

Step 8: Confirm success

Once you’ve tracked and recorded outcomes, you can construct mathematical formulas that assign a dollar value to your achievements. For example: If you spend $1,000 on a trade show and you meet 1,000 visitors, the cost per contact is one dollar. Going one step further, and if you secure 10 qualified leads, your cost per lead becomes $100. Finally, and after contracts are signed, you will be able to calculate the revenue generated per marketing dollar spent.

Similar calculations can be applied to Web visitors, phone inquiries, coupon redemptions, etc. and will confirm just how effective your marketing investments have been.

As you can see, there’s a lot of work that goes into a truly effective marketing program. When you plan ahead, define goals, set budgets, employ qualified marketing professionals, and take the time to delight your audience, the outcomes can be rewarding.

As long as you track, evaluate, and quantify your efforts, you’ll be able to justify marketing activities and confirm worthwhile returns on investment.

Jeffrey Spear is president of Studio Spear, a leading national marketing consultancy that approaches consumer products and brands—from research and planning to packaging, point-of-sale display, and promotions—in ways that generate undeniable interest. He can be reached at 904-685-2135 or 866-787-8761, jeff@studiospear.com, or through www.studiospear.com.

Procurement and technology do mix!

By Tony Lego

Lowering supply cost can be a daunting task for organizations even if its operations are lean and mean. The cost of operating a company continues to rise while getting new customers is harder than ever. Add to this the cost of providingemployee benefits, which are also rising, and it is becoming more difficult to operate a financially healthy business.

But you can increase profits by reducing the costs associated with expenses and overhead by cutting supply cost or reducing HR cost. Reducing supply cost can be an arduous and time-consuming assignment. A supply program running at peak efficiency requires time, knowledge, resources, and dedication. However, by focusing on what is most within your control, you can achieve substantial savings.

Reducing through technology

Several ways to use technology to address the issue of supply cost reduction include Internet shopping, inventory control systems, RFQ systems, spend aggregation/management systems, and hiring a purchasing partner.

Internet shopping: The Internet brings the supply industry to the desktop. It can be a great source for product research and pricing, but can become time-consuming if shopping time is not structured. Internet purchasing saves money by eliminating overhead such as warehousing, sales representatives, advertising, etc., and in turn the savings are passed along to the consumer.

In many situations, you deal directly with the manufacturer or an authorized distributor, but use caution when using the Internet as some of those great-looking sites may be out of someone’s garage. Orders should only be placed from trusted sites and never send personal information, such as your Social Security number, bank account numbers, or credit card numbers, over the Internet if you are not absolutely certain the vendor is legitimate or if the website is secure. Many websites display a SSL (secure socket layer) logo at the bottom of the landing page as their assurance you are on a secure site.

Inventory control system: Inventory control systems can be as simple as a pencil and pad of paper, Microsoft Excel worksheet, or more robust systems using software and bar code scanners.

In electronic inventory systems, re-order point inventory levels can be set to trigger re-ordering, and minimum and maximum inventory levels can determine reorder quantities. This reduces necessary stocking levels and minimizes unnecessary ordering of supply items, which translates into a more effective and efficient supply system—giving you greater control over where supply dollars are spent.

Ask your distributor representative if they have such a system available for your use. Some distributors will supply a basic system for little or no cost if you ask.

RFQ system: RFQs (request for quotes) are used to determine the best price for the same or similar item from different manufacturers/suppliers. There are providers that offer the capability to conduct RFQs via the Internet, which saves you time in administering the RFQ process. Some provide ways to rate each suppliers bid on various factors such as capacity, quality, product offering, flexibility, and terms. This helps you quickly hone in on the supplier that will be the best fit.

Before creating the RFQ, you need to know what you want in the product (specifications, tolerances, performance levels) to meet your application of the product. This is very critical to obtaining the right product at the best possible price, and can save a considerable amount of time in product selection.

If you are unsure of the product specification or capability required to perform the intended application, you can invite suppliers to educate you as to why their product/service is best suited for your needs. But beware—getting three bids is not the end of the procurement/strategic sourcing process, it is the beginning. This assumes that you have selected the correct/best suppliers and defined your requirements accurately.

Spend aggregation/management systems: Many businesses that start out small and grow into sizeable organizations with multiple locations usually are missing a way to aggregate their spending across items and services. These companies have hundreds of supply items and overhead items, and the “spends” quickly grow when you look at your spending at a category level.

For example: A telecommunications company with three locations and 20 associates at each with 10 telephone lines and 10 people using the Internet per location. If you look at this at a location level, they are only spending a couple hundred dollars per month. Not a really big dollar cost. But if you aggregate the spending on this across the locations, now you are talking in the $1,000 plus per month. You can see how expense items/services can quickly add up.

There are many systems and solutions in the marketplace to help you accomplish this, such as Google Spend Aggregation. But before you take this route, make sure you are ready to do what is necessary to categorize your purchases into the correct/accurate categories, and keep them maintained as you move forward.

Hiring purchasing partners: Business has become more complex, offering a variety of products/services under one roof, largely in response to customer demands. The result is that direct materials purchasing consumes a vast majority of the purchasing organizations time and effort. This complexity now requires a greater range of skills and knowledge to navigate a sea of suppliers and products/service to get to the best value, and usually comes with a reduced focus on indirect expense items/services, which should not be the focus of limited purchasing resources.

However, the indirect area of purchases can and has produced significant savings for businesses. The issue here is, “Are the savings significant enough to justify hiring a staff of full-time procurement experts?”

In response to this need, several organizations offer purchasing expertise and technologies on an as-needed basis to help businesses maximize value and harvest savings in the indirect expense area. These technologies include price benchmark and supplier databases, which help the partner to quickly identify opportunities in your indirect expenses. They also deploy advanced negotiation techniques using Web-based tools to ensure a competitive environment is created for your purchases.

Take control

Each of the previously mentioned points, when implemented, can help you take control of supply purchasing. Each action by itself will achieve positive results, but each also has a trade-off associated with it: time utilization, use of material resources, human resources that might be better utilized performing increased revenue activities, or importance of saving a few dollars relative to other matters.

Time and other valuable resources expended to save money may eliminate any savings at the expense of something else; in reality, it may actually cost you money. Businesses have always relied on purchasing departments with dedicated men and women who understand sourcing and negotiation practices to conduct product/service research, supply market/supplier research, and presenting RFQs or RFPs (request for proposals and other procurement techniques).

Unlike the person in customer service, sales, production, marketing, accounting, or new product development, the purchasing department is dedicated to knowing how to purchase. Purchasing partners and departments dedicated to a business’ bottom line provide a service that can yield significant savings with improved business efficiency.

Tony Lego is an entrepreneur and franchise owner of Expense Reduction Consulting (ERC). He can be contacted at 904-401-1235, TLego@ERCsaves.com, or through www.ERCsaves.com/TLego.

The next generation of business computing is cloud computing

By Stephen Commorato

Traditionally, a small business would consist of several desktops, laptops, and servers networked together on the premises.

But one challenge small businesses are currently faced with in a traditional platform is the upcoming end of life on the XP operating system. Yes, XP will continue to work on your PC, but without the support and patches from Microsoft, the security risk of your network and information will diminish significantly.

Another challenge is the industry’s move to 64bit hardware instead of continuing 32bit, and how upgrading desktops and servers are essential for compatibility with a new operating system for the best performance in your organization.

Because there are so many options available today you should consult with an IT company to analyze your business goals and objectives. There are many factors and the most important is current infrastructure, so choose an IT company that has knowledge and experience in data networks (transport) and not just local switching and sharing of computers.

Business advantage

Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture, and utility computing. By using software hosted in the cloud rather than on-premise, cloud computing can deliver significant business advantages.

There are several deployment methods to get to the cloud and the first component consistent with all methods is a cloud client. The client computer hardware and/or computer software that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or is specifically designed for delivery of cloud services, and, in either case, is essentially useless without it. Examples include some computers, phones and other devices, operating systems, and browsers.

•Public Cloud or external cloud describes cloud computing in the traditional mainstream sense, whereby resources are dynamically provisioned over the Internet, via Web applications/Web services.

•Community Cloud may be established where several organizations have similar requirements and seek to share infrastructure so as to realize some of the benefits of cloud computing.

With the costs spread over fewer users than a public cloud (but more than a single tenant), this option is more expensive but may offer a higher level of privacy, security, and/or policy compliance. An example of a community cloud includes Google’s “Gov. Cloud.”

•Hybrid Cloud has been used to mean either two separate clouds joined together (public, private, internal, or external), or a combination of virtualized cloud server instances used together with real physical hardware.

The most correct definition of the term “hybrid cloud” is probably the use of physical hardware and virtualized cloud server instances together to provide a single common service. Two clouds that have been joined together are more correctly called a “combined cloud.” A combined cloud environment consisting of multiple internal and/or external providers “will be typical for most enterprises.”

Another perspective on deploying a Web application in the cloud is using hybrid Web hosting, where the hosting infrastructure is a mix between cloud hosting and managed dedicated servers— this is most commonly achieved as part of a Web cluster in which some of the nodes are running on real physical hardware and some are running on cloud server instances.

A hybrid storage cloud uses a combination of public and private storage clouds. Hybrid storage clouds are often useful for archiving and backup functions, allowing local data to be replicated to a public cloud.

•Private Clouds still have to buy, build, and manage them and thus do not benefit from lower upfront capital costs and less hands-on management, essentially the economic model that makes cloud computing such an intriguing concept and IT organizations use their own private cloud(s) for mission critical and other operational systems to protect critical infrastructures.

Components of cloud computing

The two most significant components of cloud computing architecture are known as the front end and the back end. The front end is the part seen by the client, i.e., the computer user. This includes the client’s network (or computer) and the applications used to access the cloud via a user interface such as a Web browser. The back end of the cloud computing architecture is the “cloud” itself, comprising various computers, servers, and data storage devices.

Cloud application services, or “Software as a Service (SaaS),” deliver software as a service over the Internet, eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer’s own computers and simplifying maintenance and support. People tend to use the terms SaaS and cloud interchangeably, when in fact they are two different things.

Application delivery typically is closer to a one-to-many model (single instance, multitenant architecture) than to a one-to-one model, including architecture, pricing, partnering, and management characteristics.

For a small business owner, the benefit, first and foremost, is to lower your initial capital costs and predictable recurring expenses. The second is to have greater agility and scalability to add and subtract depending on the needs of your company. The third is to have access to more advanced software and capabilities.

The big three!

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft provide shared (public) or hybrid solutions, but for this purpose, the focus will be on Microsoft because it is the most common business solution in the workplace.

Microsoft offers a comprehensive set of cloud-based business solutions that complements the portfolio of on-premise solutions that customers already know and trust.

With the Microsoft platform, you can choose when to run solutions in the cloud (public or private), on-premise, or a hybrid model. Microsoft Online Services in world class datacenters are delivered to customers as subscription-based services, reliably delivered with 99.9% scheduled uptime, and carry a financially backed service level agreement.

Customers who purchase the Microsoft Online Services realize a 40% discount over purchasing standalone services.

Microsoft’s online solution suites

The deployment of Microsoft Online Services (MOS) is generally accomplished with a 24-hour turnaround to the customer.

Small businesses typically may use Microsoft Office, and use of a file server or Microsoft SharePoint and Exchange mail is generally replaced with a third-party POP3 or webmail because the cost of ownership of an exchange server maintaining software and hardware is a burden to their budget.

MOS provides enhanced services affordable to customers unable to afford a collaborating work environment.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus: The world’s leading productivity tool now seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services—for the best productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser.

Microsoft Exchange Online: This provides cloud-based e-mail, calendar, and contacts with the most-current anti-virus and anti-spam solutions.

Microsoft SharePoint Online: This provides cloud-based service that helps businesses of all sizes create sites to share documents and insights with colleagues, partners, and customers.

Microsoft Lync Online: This provides cloud-based instant messaging services, online meeting experiences with PC-audio, video conferencing, and screen sharing.

Stephen Commorato is the senior engineer for Tec on Call Inc., a company with a core team that helps clients solve intricate challenges in implementing small-to-medium scale, complex, and business critical IT development and integration programs. He can be reached at 904-880-2355, steve@tec-on-call.com, or through www.tec-on-call.com.

Creating effective and meaningful sales messages to help gain strategic partnerships

By Jeffrey Spear

Experience tells us the most-effective marketing strategies are those that generate an emotional response and appeal directly to the senses. Whether you satisfy a need, eliminate a problem, grant a wish, or offer a reward, understanding your audience and telling him or her exactly what they want to hear in a way that evokes a positive emotional reaction can be extremely powerful, compelling, and persuasive.

The approach described above answers that all-important question, “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). When your pitch is developed in response to a fully identified audience, anticipates their needs, and tells them exactly what your product or service will do for them, the likelihood of meaningful outcomes increases significantly.

Don’t state the obvious

How many times has a business been asked, “What is it that makes your product/service special?” only to provide the answer that the primary attribute is “quality.” If you think about it, any producer of a product who cannot make this simplest of claims is in real trouble.

The next attribute of effective sales messages is to avoid making statements that evoke the response, “I should hope so!” When you make generic claims such as top quality, reliable service and/or on-time delivery, they can all be answered with “I should hope so!”

If your goal is to improve perceptions of credibility, desirability, and value and offset competitive challenges, your key messages need to do more than state the obvious.

Get creative

Keep in mind that these sales statements are not tag lines. While tag lines will also resonate with customers and enhance brand impact, their job is to create visibility, memorability, and cut through.

When developing sales messages, and asking buyers to choose your product over all others, you have to say more than “Just do it.” (Nike), “I’m lovin’ it.” (McDonald’s) or “Open happiness.” (CocaCola).

Arguably, the most important attribute associated with effective sales statements is appealing to the senses—creating positive emotional links between brand and buyer. Matter-of-fact statements such as “low sodium,” “ready to eat,” or “all natural,” while important features, fail to generate any sort of meaningful or lasting response.

On the other hand, statements such as “Hard working. Easy drinking.” (Full Throttle energy drink); “Soup that eats like a meal.” (Campbell’s Chunky soup); and “A wickedly delicious relish.” (Wickles pickle products) are all examples of just how emotionally charged brand messages can be.

Tailor your message

Before you upgrade and launch a new marketing campaign, make sure your messages are tailored, engaging, appropriate, and relevant. If you’ve answered the question, “What’s in it for me?” in a meaningful, creative, and emotionally appealing manner, success is right around the corner.

Jeffrey Spear is president of Studio Spear, a leading national marketing consultancy whose sole objective is to effectively position your company, your brand, your products, and your services way ahead of the rest. He can be reached at 866-787-8761, jeff@studiospear.com, or through www.studiospear.com

Learn six ways you can stay connected to your small business and improve its productivity when you have to travel

The American Small Business Travelers Alliance (ASBTA) says that in today’s society, small businesses can’t afford to conduct business solely from their offices. The ability to stay connected to the office, business partners, and customers is vital to success.

The effective responsiveness of small businesses means more than just having a business cell phone and making an occasional call from the road. It means collaboration, sending and receiving e-mail, and keeping calendar and businesses documents updated wirelessly by synchronization among other tasks.

Learn how you and your employees can stay on the go with business travel or personal obligations and still conduct business as usual.

Six productivity trends

According to the ASBTA, there are six productivity trends that will play a major role in how small businesses stay competitive with larger corporations, reduce costs, and better meet customer needs.

ASBTA’s research identifies the following top six travel productivity trends that will have the biggest effect on small businesses in the next two years:

• In-flight Wi-Fi: Now offered in-flight, Gogo Wi-Fi (www.gogoinflight.com) allows you to stay connected to your business while flying. Each paid Gogo session includes full Internet, VPN, and e-mail access. Gogo Wi-Fi can be pre-purchased or paid for inflight, and can cost as little as $4.95 for short trips, $12.95 for single flights three hours or longer, and $34.95 for unlimited.

•GPS Technology: A GPS unit is absolutely invaluable if you’re trying to navigate an unfamiliar city. A GPS unit will ensure you’ll get to your meeting, even if you miss a turn. The GPS unit recalculates routes and revises directions based on your location, no matter where you are.

More advanced GPS units include the option to download local attractions, gas stations, stores, and restaurants. To maximize GPS productivity, look for a GPS unit with a traffic receiver accessory to give the most recent route updates.

•Security: Security continues to be a significant issue for small businesses.  Wireless connectivity increases that concern for everyday activities. Companies must defend against viruses, spyware, and system intrusions.

According to Chuck Sharp, president of ASBTA, “Internet security often is a vulnerability many small businesses haven’t adequately addressed. If businesses are not proactive by implementing anti-virus, firewall, and spyware solutions, the result may be disrupted productivity. Begin immediately and be proactive by continuously updating the virus and spy definitions”

•Technology adoption and life cycle: The adoption of new technologies has been a vital component to the increased productivity of small businesses. According to ASBTA surveys, more small business employees are traveling with a laptop. “Technology continues to evolve, so it is important to set realistic goals and schedules to purchase new technology,” Sharp said.

•Wi-Fi Hotspots: Rapid growth, diversity in technology, and the widespread deployment of Wi-Fi Hotspots have greatly increased business traveler productivity. Businesses utilize Wi-Fi connections at Hotspots, airline clubs, hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants as well as utilizing Google or Yahoo to find Wi-Fi enabled locations.  The need to stay connected has led to an increased demand for laptops, PDAs, and smart phones.

“Small businesses have readily embraced the concept of the Extended Office,” said Sharp. “The ability to conduct business wherever you are, whenever you choose, with the same capabilities significantly improves productivity.”

•Airport conference facilities: Productivity advances during travel begin at the airport. Major airlines and the airports themselves are making it possible for business travelers to effectively utilize any wait with greatly improved and easily accessible facilities.

For example: American Airlines enables businesses to save valuable time and travel expense by meeting onsite at the airport, utilizing state-of-the-art meeting facilities at Admirals Club Executive Centers. Executive Centers are fully equipped with everything from computer data ports and speakerphones to slide and data projectors, and customers have access to other necessary office equipment, such as paper shredders and copiers.

Embrace the new

These are challenging times for small businesses. Sharp suggests, “Recognizing and embracing new productivity trends for everyday activities will keep small businesses relevant, while affording them the opportunity for incredible impact and growth in their industries.”

American Small Business Travelers Alliance (ASBTA) is a national organization serving small business travelers by providing information regarding resources and services, savings on air fares, car rentals, and accommodations, as well as technology designed to improve and enhance your travel experience. For more information, visit www.asbta.com.

Flexible programs allow entrepreneurs to continue their education while running a business

By Robyn A. Friedman

Lang C. Tarrant values education. After graduating from the College of Charleston and pursuing a career in commercial real estate, the 36-year-old entrepreneur completed a curriculum that earned him a CCIM designation (Certified Commercial Investment Member) for his expertise in the commercial and investment real estate industry. He also fulfilled the educational requirements to receive the prestigious SIOR designation (Society of Industrial and Office Realtors).

Not content to sit on his laurels, Tarrant, managing director of Tarrant Commercial Real Estate in Jacksonville, recently enrolled in an accelerated MBA program at Jacksonville University (JU). This semester, he attends class from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and works the remainder of the week. The accelerated MBA program at JU takes 12 months to complete and costs approximately $25,000.

“I’m a firm believer in continuing education,” said Tarrant. “I’ve reached the pinnacle in the commercial real estate end of continuing education, so the next step was to get the MBA—that was always a personal goal of mine.”

Tarrant had been hoping to get the MBA for some time, which he said would “further solidify me as the business executive running this company,” but the active commercial real estate market in Florida prevented him from doing so. Now that the market has cooled, however, he can fit the classes into his schedule.

Most companies—56 percent, according to the Society for Human Resource Management—offer graduate educational assistance benefits to their employees. This type of educational assistance not only helps the employee but also benefits the employer, which gains a more educated workforce. Additional education also helps employees increase productivity, improves employee morale and reduces turnover.

But continued education is just as vital to small business owners, who need to keep their skills sharp—and develop new ones—to compete in an ever-changing global economy. And even if small business owners are technically competent in their own professions, they may lack management experience, preventing them from taking their businesses to the next level. Tarrant, for example, said that the finance, accounting and computer classes he’s taking help to complete his knowledge base.

“There is no such thing as standing still,” said Candace Moody, vice president of WorkSource, the regional workforce development organization in Jacksonville. “If you’re in a business or industry that’s constantly changing—and what industry isn’t—you absolutely need to make lifelong learning part of your business plan.”

Moody said that an advanced education can help small business owners position themselves as more current in their field. Plus, customers with educational credentials may actually seek out those with similar credentials for vendors or partners.

There are two ways to approach education, Moody said. You can focus on getting credentials that will resonate with customers and prospects, or you can choose to fill gaps in your own experience that will allow you to make substantial changes in the way you operate. “Either way, do your homework,” she added. “Look for a program that is accredited and that has high quality instructions and high academic standards.”

Fortunately, colleges and universities are increasingly developing flexible programs that allow business owners to advance their education.

The Davis College of Business at Jacksonville University offers several programs that lead to an MBA. Tarrant is enrolled in the school’s accelerated day program, which takes 12 months.

There’s also a Flex program, with classes in the evening. “You can take as many or as few courses as you can handle,” said Mary Anne Waikart, director of graduate programs at Davis. Students must have three years of work experience to enroll, and the program takes 18 months to five years to complete. It costs about $25,000.

A third alternative is the Executive MBA program, for students with at least 10 years of work experience. Classes are every other Friday afternoon and Saturday, and the program takes 17 months. It costs about $49,000.

The University of North Florida’s Coggin College of Business also offers MBA programs for students who work full-time. According to UNF’s website, most of the 600 students in its MBA program are working professionals, but about 20 percent are full-time students. A typical student takes two courses each term while working full-time. To be accessible, graduate classes are offered in the afternoon and evening; some are even offered on weekends.

Misha Gryb, 27, is president of YanaEx Inc., a Jacksonville company that develops, designs and manufactures products for the food and pharmaceutical industries. He enrolled in the Flex MBA program at JU in October and attends class every Monday night for three hours. He expects to earn his degree in two years.

“I wanted to gain more knowledge in finance, accounting, marketing and human resources,” Gryb said. “This degree will help me improve the performance of my business. That’s the main reason I’m going back to school.”

Gryb’s wife, Ashley Testa, who also works full-time, is enrolled in the Flex MBA program as well. Attending classes with his wife helps him to better juggle the responsibilities of work, family and school.

Indeed, achieving balance may be one of the biggest challenges facing entrepreneurs who go back to school. After all, it’s difficult enough to balance work and family; for students, school is thrown into the mix as well.

Students need “an extreme amount of time management as well as a supportive staff and family,” Waikart said.

Still, MBA students say it’s all worth it. “I did the analysis, and I think it will not only improve my productivity but also open other business opportunities and give me a competitive edge,” said Tarrant. “It’s just another arrow in my quiver.”

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing writer to Advantage. She can be reached at RAFWriter@att.net.

Accomplish success by understanding your profit and loss statement

By Keith Johnson, CPA

The ability to read and understand financial statements is critical to a business owner’s ability to effectively run an organization, and, in many cases, the difference between a profitable, thriving business and one that will shut its doors.

Financial statements such as the balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L), or income statement, give the practiced reader many clues as to a business’s viability and performance.

Of the two most major financial statements, the easiest for most small business owners to read and understand is the P&L. In its most basic form, the P&L provides a summary of an organization’s activities during a given period of time. Although one year is the most common time period a P&L is prepared for, it can be prepared for a six-month period, quarterly, monthly, weekly, or daily.

The P&L theory

The theory behind a P&L is actually very simple. Essentially, you take all of your income and billings and put it in a big pot. You then subtract what you spent and the result is your net income (hopefully, you will not have a net loss). Your net profit is what the business and owners are taxed on. If you can understand that, you have won half the battle.

Record your income

The first step in reading a P&L is to record all of your income from your business activities, usually your sales. They can be broken out by the different products or services you sell. For instance, a CPA’s P&L could show income from tax preparation, audits, and business consulting.

If you have more than one product or service, the income from each activity should be recorded. The income from the different products or services is summed up to produce gross income. Gross income is all revenues realized by the business.

Subtract your expenses

There are two basic types of expenses which are subtracted from income to get to net income. The first is cost of goods sold. Cost of goods sold are expenses that go directly into your product or service. They include raw materials, labor that went into the product, and other items that are actually in the product.

If an expense is not traceable to the product, do not include it here. Cost of goods sold is subtracted from gross income to produce your gross margin or gross profit. This is an important number as it shows how much money you have left after making your product.

A healthy gross margin may vary by industry, but as a general rule, you want a margin of at least 50% to 60%, if not more. If your gross margin is too small, you will be caught short on paying your operating expenses. You will need to raise your prices or you will have liquidity problems.

The other type of expense is called operating expenses. These expenses are paid, but do not go directly into the product. These expenses may include rent, utilities, phone, insurance, Internet, uniforms, auto expenses, travel, and continuing education. These expenses are just as crucial, but are not reflected into the final product or service.

You need to sum up each expense by account to get total operating expenses. Operating expenses are subtracted from gross profit to get operating profit. Many small businesses will stop here, but there may be small adjustments for nonoperating income and expense, as well as income tax.

Look for oddities

The best way to interpret your P&L is to first look for any expense that sticks out. Are your advertising expenses out of line with your dues and subscriptions? Do you have large bank service expenses? You may need to switch banks. Do you have large travel expenses? You may need to find more effective means of meeting, such as through webinars or conference calls, which may save you money. If one expense dominates your P&L, you will want to do additional research to understand why.

Schedule regularly and keep current

Second, you want to commit to producing P&Ls on a regular basis. Many CPAs will sit down with their clients quarterly to review their financials. By preparing regular and consistent P&Ls over time, you will be able to detect trends and act upon them.

For instance, you may have declining sales. Is it seasonal, or is it something else? Are your payroll expenses out of line? Payroll expenses may be the biggest expense you have. By trending payroll expenses, you will be able to make better hiring decisions. Are your bad debts going up? If so, you may want to implement tighter credit policies. Are your costs of goods going up? You may want to switch vendors or change buying habits. Current P&Ls give a business owner the “eyes” to see their business and project future performance.

In addition to having a firm grip on the pulse of the business, a business owner will find that updated P&Ls will be requested by many different stakeholders in a variety of situations:

•Current P&Ls are used by accountants to prepare the business tax returns;

•They will be required from bankers in credit and lending decisions;

•Vendors may request them to extend credit;

•Government and major purchasers may request them as part of a bidding process; and

•If a business decides to go public and issue stock, P&Ls will be required by regulatory agencies and investors.

Get with a program

The good news is that with a little investment in time and money, you can produce financial statements quickly and easily. Using a small business software program such as QuickBooks, any business owner can prepare P&Ls for any time period desired.

You can also prepare comparative P&Ls to see how your current activity matches up with past performance. The program is relatively inexpensive (about $200 plus tax), easy to learn, almost universally used by accountants, and very forgiving in errors, which you will certainly have while learning the program.

The key is that you must reconcile all of you bank and credit accounts each month. By reconciling all of your accounts, you will ensure all of your income and expenses are recorded and you have all of your information current. Your accountant can help you with this, or various local resources, such as the Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Center, University of North Florida’s Small Business Development Center, and the Beaver Street Enterprise Center, often have reasonably priced classes to learn how to enter transactions and reconcile.

Having the ability to understand a current P&L means you have the information you need to make timely and critical decisions for your business to not only survive, but thrive.

You will be able to take advantage of opportunities and stay ahead of your competition. Make a commitment to understand your financial statements as a New Year’s resolution and you will likely find 2011 to be a very happy and profitable year.

Keith E. Johnson CPA, is owner of Keith E. Johnson CPA PA in Jacksonville, Fla., a full-service CPA firm providing accounting, auditing, consulting, and tax services to individuals, businesses, and non-profits. He can be contacted at 904-727-0077 or kejcpa@comcast.net.

How to have your employees fit and keep your healthcare costs down

It has been said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That adage can also ring true for small business owners. By making small changes and adding a wellness program, you, too, can keep the doctor away, your healthcare costs down, and create a high-performing workplace.

With healthcare costs and premiums increasing 15% to 30% a year and 50% of the population obese and hypertensive, many companies are looking for alternative solutions. A wellness program or a wellness-type approach for your business may be just what the doctor ordered.

Where to begin

One of the best places to begin adding a wellness program is to find out what the cost drivers are, which can be accomplished by having a health risk assessment performed. A health risk assessment generally includes a lifestyle questionnaire, health screening, and counseling/coaching.

At the end, the employee receives a report of their individual finings and the company receives a group report, which is a valuable tool for understanding the needs of their population, what risks they have, and what targeted interventions their population would most benefit from.

“As you recognize where the problems are and the more you’re educated on what your real cost drivers are, the more you recognize what the potential savings are by applying a wellness program,” says Aaron Marston, an expert in the fields of exercise science and athletic training, is the executive director of The HIT Center (www.thehitcenters.com) of Jacksonville LLC and Healthletix Management LLC.

The cost of wellness

“Studies have been done on the return on investment of wellness, and all of them come up with for every $1 invested in wellness there is a return on investment of $3 to $6,” says Ann Sabbag, MS, CEO and founder of HealthDesigns (www.healthdesigns.net), a leader in worksite wellness specializing in employee health assessments, biometric screenings, and face-to-face health coaching.

That is quite the return on investment when you consider that adding some sort of wellness program to your business doesn’t have to be expensive.

“There are a lot of changes a company can make within their company to really create a fit culture in their workforce,” says Marston. “Regardless of what you have for a budget to provide for your wellness program, you can always do something for your employees. It can be something as small as quarterly educational in-services, such as bringing in a dietician or lifestyle coach to speak to your employees, or what you purchase for your vending machine—these are all things that really don’t cost much of anything.”

“Employees, as well as the organization, benefit when employers provide the tools and education they need to help improve their health and make it easy for them to do so in a supportive environment,” adds Sabbag. “The greatest thing is that employees want to be healthy, they just need the right information and some support and believe they can be successful.”

Changing for the better

Does your kitchen or break room constantly stock donuts, cookies, and soda? When you order food in to the office, is it pizza and burgers?

“Companies really need to take a look at their work environment because if they want employees to improve their behaviors and make healthy choices, they need to make it easy for the employee to do so,” says Sabbag. “You don’t have to make elaborate changes; it’s the small things that make the big difference.”

Some easy-to-incorporate workplace wellness approaches include:

• Serving healthy foods at company sponsored events;

• Having healthier snacks on hand in your breakrooms and kitchens;

• Providing bottled water or a water cooler;

• Asking your vending machine vendor if it’s possible to change to healthier options;

• Seeing if you can have a section or area for healthy food,  such as a salad bar or fresh fruit, and entrees that are low fat, high protein, and high fiber in your company’s or building’s cafeteria;

• Starting an intramural kickball or softball team;

• Selecting healthier food choices for those working lunches;

• Picking an event per quarter that you and your staff will participate in, such as a walk for the cure or a charity 5K;

• Creating a challenge within your workforce where you have multiple teams working against each other and they get points per mile or minute walked or per pound of weight loss;

• Sponsoring a community walk or run, and then offering to pay half or all of the registration fee to any employees that form teams;

• Mapping out a one-mile walking course around your workplace or building;

• Encouraging your employees to use the stairs. You can even decorate the stairwells with artwork from employees’ children or local artists;

• Providing a small, non-elaborate fitness rooms or offering fitness equipment that can be checked out;

• Paying for gym membership if employees turn in a weekly log from when they attended the gym and worked out;

• Putting volleyball nets or basketball hoops or court in a small area or parking lot; and

• Encouraging employees to conduct walking meetings. It can be easily done with four to five people and the same amount of information can be covered and discussed in a more pleasant, active way.

The bottom line

“It needs to be an approach that they are going to be able to use consistently and it can’t seem like a punishment,” says Marston. “In order for it to be a long-term solution and for you to get the return on investment, it needs to be something the employees want to do.”

Sabbag sums it up by saying, “The bottom line is if we can get employees to be more physically active, eat fewer calories, manage stress, and not use tobacco, everything improves—cardiovascular health, diabetes, osteoporosis, weight, and cancer.”

“Health risks go down and health costs follow right after. People will have more energy spirit and vitality less health risks and wellness really can be the magic bullet when it comes to driving down healthcare costs.”

How to get customers by giving away your expertise

By Pete Michaud

As a business owner, you’ve accumulated a lot of expertise over the years that you may not realize you have. Strategies, methods, and skills that are obvious to you could be startling revelations to people just starting out.

Advertising can be a pricey way to tell potential customers how good you are, but giving away your expertise is a free way to show customers how good you are.

There are two different strategies to giving away your expertise, of which you can choose one or both. One is to be an expert’s expert; the other is to be a customer’s expert.

Become an expert’s expert

Microsoft runs what they call the MVP program. MVP, or Most Valuable Professional, is a designation software developers can earn from Microsoft for being active in the software development community. An MVP developer is a recognized expert who has written articles, blogs, and books that help other professionals make the most out of Microsoft technologies.

Developers clamor to get the competitive and temporary MVP designation because, with it, they can name their hourly rate, are offered publishing deals with technical presses, and have more customer prospects than they can possibly take on.

While Microsoft has taken the initiative in the computer programming industry to create a specific designation, anyone can become an “MVP” in whatever industry they are in.

For example: James does fine carpentry work. He builds high-end furniture and fabricates delicate woodwork for historic properties. While other skilled tradesmen struggled to find work during the recession, he remained booked solid with commissions for a full year out.

“It’s the videos,” he says, explaining his good fortune. James has a sizable following on the video hosting website YouTube. He posts videos that demonstrate the techniques of woodworking. Some videos are overviews of a particular period style, while others show a very specific technique or specialized tool.

By sharing his videos for free, he’s trained tens of thousands of aspiring woodworkers who all look to him as their “Expert’s Expert.” When they have too much work themselves or when there is a project out of their skill range, James is the first person they think to refer their potential customers to.

James has a secretary process the requests that flood in from all over the world asking him to produce everything from Jacobean valuables chests with oak inlays, to Federal-style looking glass frames.

James made himself the “MVP” of fine carpentry, but there is another strategy you can use to bring in customers directly.

Become a customer’s expert

While the previous strategy was all about making a name among your professional peers and earning referrals and credibility by doing so, this strategy is about helping your customers directly.

For example: Floor & Décor sells flooring of all types, from granite tile, to ceramic backsplash, to rental-grade laminate. Their customers are mostly homeowners who are renovating kitchens, bathrooms, foyers, or solariums.

One customer acquisition strategy they use is to host floor installation workshops. Homeowners come to a store location to attend classes that teach them how to use the materials that Floor & Décor sells. Classes vary, but they cover topics such as floor tile or hardwood installation.

Once a potential customer has come to the store to learn, they are primed and ready to buy all the tools and flooring material from Floor & Décor instead of a competitor. The added benefit is that if a customer attends the class and finds the work too difficult or time-consuming, Floor & Décor is ready with their own professional installation service right at the moment that the customer fully understands the value of the service.

You don’t have to be a national company to use the “customer’s expert” strategy. For example: A CPA for small businesses can run a workshop about how to organize the accounting system for a particular type of business. When those workshop attendees need their quarterly taxes filed or their business grows beyond their ability to manage the books, he’ll be the first accountant on their mind.

Ways to give it away

Whether you choose to become an expert’s expert, a customer’s expert, or both, you have a variety of options to give away your expertise.

If you’re not comfortable being on camera or presenting in front of groups of people and you prefer writing, try having a blog or website. If you already have a blog or website, provide a free PDF report relevant to the customers in your industry. Let them download the valuable content in exchange for their e-mail address.

The free information is passed around the Web, attracting more prospects, and you can use the list of e-mails later to contact those people about special offers—or better yet, to give them more free information.

If you don’t have a website, you can write guest articles on established websites or in magazines that your customers read. If you’re ambitious, you could write an entire book.

No matter what methods or strategies you employ to give away your expertise, it’s never too late or too early to start. If you begin to build presence and credibility now, the effort will pay off for years to come as a stream of potential customers who already understand what you do and trust you to do it flow into your business.

Pete Michaud is a veteran Internet entrepreneur who has started businesses in the technology, marketing, and healthcare spaces. His current venture, Kenrose Media (KenroseMedia.com), is a publishing company specializing in health and wellness titles. He helps entrepreneurs meet and exceed business goals by training them to connect with core principles, overcome uncertainty, and plan effectively. He can be contacted at pete@kenrosemedia.com or through PeteMichaud.com.

How technology can help you improve efficiency, cut costs, and increase revenues    

By Robyn A. Friedman

Still using paper and pencil to keep track of your fleet? How about a telephone?

If you’re not using technology to manage your fleet operations, then Paul Norse has a message for you: You could be making more money.

“The technology now for fleets is amazing,” said Norse, vice president of Jacksonville-based Security Center USA, a security solutions provider. “We put money back in your pocket through cost savings and time savings. And we’ve got the return-on-investment calculations to prove it.”

Fleet technology solutions, such as vehicle tracking systems, are no secret to large organizations. But as prices come down, smaller businesses with fleets, such as plumbing and electrical contractors, pest control companies, and courier services, are now adopting this technology, which can help them operate more efficiently, reduce costs, improve safety, save time—and ultimately increase revenues.

“By using technology to track the location of vehicles, companies can monitor the efficiency of a particular route or determine at any given time if one driver is closer to a customer than another—both saving time and money, which is good for the business owner and the customer,” said Cathy Hagan, area director of the Small Business Development Center in Jacksonville.

Hagan said that companies with large fleets or those with a lot of contract drivers probably get more out of their investment in technology than do smaller firms. But companies with small fleets can start with a simple GPS system to help drivers find their destinations faster—and even that measure can help save time and money.

Tracking your fleet

Norse is a distributor of technology manufactured by C3 Location Systems called the “Great Communicator,” although there are similar systems available from distributors across the country.

Here’s how it works: A small “black box” is installed underneath the dashboard and hardwired to the power supply of the vehicle. The box acts as a transponder, providing vehicle status updates and reports via satellite and cellular signals. Anyone who has access to the Internet can log onto a secure website to pinpoint the location of the vehicle, see if the ignition is on or off, the speed of the vehicle, where it’s been—and much more.

The Great Communicator can locate, track, and recover vehicles; monitor vehicle diagnostics and let you know when the oil needs to be changed; and notify an administrator if the vehicle has been in an accident, is speeding, leaves a certain pre-defined geographic boundary, or is stolen. It’s kind of like an OnStar system on steroids.

What can it do for you?

Here’s what fleet technology can do for your business:

•Reduce costs. The ability to track vehicles allows you to create more efficient routes for drivers. It also enables dispatchers to send the closest driver to emergency calls or track when the vehicle is idling. That reduces fuel expenses.

“A lot of workers will sit in a parking lot at Publix and eat lunch while the air conditioning is running and the vehicle is idling,” said Norse. “With an idling alert, you can designate a particular time—if the vehicle is sitting still and running for five or 10 minutes, for example—and you’ll receive an e-mail and text alert.”

Norse said that his own company, which has a fleet of eight vehicles, has saved $600 to $800 a month in fuel costs since installing this technology. Using the system to help monitor vehicle diagnostics and ensure that vehicles get oil changes and other preventive maintenance on a regular basis can also help reduce overall operational costs.

•Save time. Technology can save time not only for a business operating a fleet, but also for its customers. That can help improve the competitive position of a company and increase customer loyalty. Harold Boyett knows this firsthand. Boyett, president of Jacksonville-based Blue Streak Couriers, spent 20 years working for UPS before purchasing the company.

“UPS went through a major technological transformation over that two-decade period, so I had the luxury of seeing firsthand how technology can be leveraged to improve efficiencies and to drive costs out of the equation,” he said.

Boyett uses Xcelerator Dispatch Software in his business, a Windows-based software solution designed for the courier, messenger, logistics, and warehousing industries. Drivers use handheld devices that do barcode scanning, capture customer signatures, and allow dispatchers to track them in real time.

It’s an integrated solution, allowing customers to request package pickup online, and streamlines the entire life cycle of a particular package, from pickup to delivery to paying the driver, invoicing the customer and receiving payment. It also allows customers to track their packages.

Boyett said that the software costs him “a couple of thousand dollars a month,” but saves him many times that in operational efficiencies—such as allowing him to operate with fewer order-entry employees.

•Increase revenues. Norse’s customers purchase his technology on a 36-month term for $50 per month per vehicle after putting $100 down and paying a one-time activation fee of $49. But most recoup that cost by cutting idle time, reducing overtime expenses, and eliminating downtime. That translates into more streamlined operations.

“Unfortunately, employees in the field aren’t heavily supervised, so you get a lot of downtime, playing around and time in between calls that we have been able to eliminate,” he said. “We can usually increase calls by a minimum of one or two per week. The revenue you’re generating from those calls is more money in your pocket.”

Larry Teague & Sons Plumbing in Jacksonville, a customer of Norse’s, has shaved time off its routes since installing the technology in its nine Ford vans, said Melanie Darlington, the company’s office manager.

“We work on every side of town, even in St. Augustine, so when we get calls in during the day, we can distribute that work more efficiently,” she said. “That saves us time, money, and gas.” Darlington also verifies drivers’ timesheets using the technology, helping her manage payroll better.

Norse said that lately, his product has been purchased by not only business operations, but by consumers.

“Surprisingly enough, a lot of husbands want to make sure their wives are safe—or make sure their teen is abiding by speed limits,” he said. “But it’s really suited for fleet operators—painting companies, electrical companies, plumbing companies, you name it. If you have a fleet, you need it.”

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing editor to Advantage. She can be reached at RAFWriter@att.net.

5 small business blog tips that make a big difference    

By Pete Michaud

Success with a business blog means attracting and retaining customers. Blogging is also an excellent way to prove your industry expertise and expand your network.

You probably already know you’ll need to write sharp prose and update your site regularly, but do you know how to add that extra pizazz that takes a blog from ordinary to outstanding?

Read on to learn the five critical elements that every blockbuster business blog shares.

Tip #1: Focus on your real customers

Small business owners like you are experts in at least two areas—not only your business domain, but running a small business as well! Maybe you run a dog grooming business. It would be easy to get caught up writing about how to run a dog grooming business, which would be fine if your customers were other dog grooming business owners. If your goal is to get dog grooming customers, then you need to write about grooming dogs.

The difference is subtle, but the effects of shifting focus from you and your business, to your target customers and their needs will transform your blog into a marketing powerhouse.

Tip #2: Add value with every post

If your blog posts are all about you and they don’t address the needs and interests of your visitors, then people won’t stick around for long. They certainly won’t convert into customers.

Don’t bloviate about your latest product release, price change, or customer acquisition. That’s all about you, and frankly, your customer doesn’t give a damn.

Ask yourself before writing and posting, “What is in it for my customers? Does this post help them solve a problem they are facing or give them information you know they need?” If the answer is no, then don’t post it!

Of course, you want to promote yourself and your business to your customers, but droning on about yourself will make you look like a boor. So how do you announce a new product or service in an interesting and useful way?

For example: A successful blogger started a company that helps people build a following on Twitter. He wrote a post about wanting a following on Twitter, and the exact steps he took to build that following. The process was slow, painful, and monotonous. For that reason, he said, he built a piece of software that could help him by doing everything he did manually, only faster. And he also made his tool available to the public.

The response was huge. By sharing that step-by-step guide that addressed one of the very specific needs of his target customers, he positioned himself as a credible expert in his market and convinced hundreds of people that their problem was worth spending money on.

Tip #3: Don’t oversell

What the blogger did with his Twitter article was clever because he added value with his post that doubled as an explanation of and advertisement for his business as well. Business bloggers are always thinking of new ways to convert visitors into customers. That’s a great skill to have, but it’s easy to go overboard.

No reader is going to stick around for a hard sell every time you post an article on your blog. If you bombard them with popups when they enter your page, and all they get out of the deal are thinly veiled infomercials seducing them to give you money, their defenses will go up and they will run, not walk, away from your blog and your business.

Blogging works because it gives you a platform to communicate with your customers, who, over time, begin to associate you with your market. When the time comes to make a purchasing decision, you’ll be on their mind.

Blogging works much like a Coca-Cola advertisement. When is the last time you saw a billboard that said, “Buy Coke right now!”? Instead you’ll see its colors and logo with a tag line like, “Life is good.” Those advertisements exist to keep Coke on your mind and to connect the concept of Coke to the good life.

That way when you’re standing in the supermarket aisle a week later and there is a red package of soda right next to a blue package, you’ll choose the red package without thinking too much about it.

Blogs work the same way, by making you visible to your customers and associating you with trust and expertise in your niche. When the time is right for them to buy, they will think of you first.

Tip #4: Show your personality

You have thoughts, opinions, and goals and the best thing for you to do is show yourself as you really are on your blog. People want to connect with other people, and if you try to maintain a dry, corporate style in your blog writing, you won’t give your readers anything to connect to.

There is some controversy about how formal you should be on your blog. Some people say that staying business-like lends you credibility, and warn that sharing too much of yourself might offend some readers.

Ask yourself, “Do you trust your accountant because he’s a stone-faced rock of a person, or is it because you like him and think he’s competent?” We don’t choose doctors or dentists based on how serious they can act or how “professional” they seem. We choose based on a good bedside manner, who we feel we can trust and be honest with.

Another important question to ask yourself is whether you really want to work with people who are offended by you. Maybe it would be for the best if those who don’t like you don’t try to work with you.

Tip #5: Stick to It!

Finally, even if you’re talking to the right people in the right way, you’re still susceptible to the number one reason business blogs fail—bloggers give up too early.

You may feel discouraged early in the life of your blog because it seems like no one is reading it, and that is perfectly normal. Even expert bloggers start blogs that get almost no traffic for months. In fact, you can expect it to take between six months and a year to take off.

The reason is that growing blog readership is exponential, not linear. Instead of straight diagonal line going upward, the graph of your blog’s popularity is a curve that borders near zero before it finally explodes upward around month eight.

Don’t give up before that explosive growth hits. If you stick to writing sharp, personal content that your customers really appreciate, your blog may soon become one of the driving forces behind the growth of your small business.

Pete Michaud is a veteran Internet entrepreneur who has started businesses in the technology, marketing, and healthcare spaces. His current venture is Kenrose Media, a publishing company specializing in health and wellness titles (on the Web at www.KenroseMedia.com). Pete helps entrepreneurs meet and exceed business goals by training them to connect with core principles, overcome uncertainty, and plan effectively. Pete’s blog is on the Web at www.PeteMichaud.com and you can reach him at pete@kenrosemedia.com.

Why you should never have more business partners than you can fit in an elevator    

By John Minahan

Never have more partners than you can fit in an elevator. It’s a comment that seems like a joke, but is deadly serious when you’re starting a business. Too many partners will create conflicts you don’t need. Even the most bonded of partnerships will fray under the pressure of competing interests.

While it is important to have partners who each bring skills to the table, these choices must be made carefully and with an eye toward keeping the group a manageable size. Every partner you add increases the possibility of an interest that will stray from the good of the company.

What’s more, a big group of partners is simply difficult to manage. Good communication is key to a successful partnership, and when the partner group is too large, that communication becomes more complicated. There is always the risk that one partner will hear important news last and be aggrieved as a result or that some other critical piece of information will get to some partners but not all. A big group is added complexity. Keep the partners group compact and manageable.

Rules to follow

If you’ve run into problems, there are rules to follow to improve a partnership.

Rule 1: Schedule regular and open communication. A formal meeting once a month, either in person or at least by phone, is a must. Review the past month’s performance and talk to each other as owners, not as managers. Discuss matters in your common role as owners.

Rule 2: Clarify ownership versus executive. Owners own the company; owners don’t run the company. When you go into the corner office of a company and ask that individual what he or she does, nine times out of 10, you will hear, “I’m the owner.” That’s the wrong answer. The owner might be who you are, but it’s not what you do.

What you do is your job title: you are the CEO, the CFO, or the VP of sales. That’s the phrase that tells people what you do all day. You can’t be an owner all day. If you take “owner” as your title, then all day you will be operating in your mental state as an owner, and that might mean worrying about your investments, wondering whether you will make enough money to send your kids to college—all kinds of things that have no business being in the mind of a manager.

A manager must work at all times for the good of the company. Owners must recognize that if they are going to be involved in the day-to-day experience of the company, they can’t operate as owners. They must operate as their job titles dictate. Otherwise, they might steer the company away from its best path forward.

Not only are owners hobbled by their own conflicted interests, but also employees are undermined. When they have a question, instead of respecting the clear management hierarchy, employees might shop around from owner to owner while looking for the answer they like. Owners need to know their management roles and respect them.

If an employee comes to the owner/CEO with a payroll question, the CEO should respond, “That’s not for me. Take that to the CFO, and whatever the CFO says is your answer.”

Rule 3: Define roles and responsibilities. An offshoot of defining owners versus executives is defining roles and responsibilities. The most efficient way to run a company is to have employees assigned to specific tasks without overlap. This is true for partners and owners as well. The greater the definition of their roles, the less likely you are to have conflict. This is a key principle because when roles are allowed to overlap, it’s often a disaster.

Take this example from the U.S. military. It’s called the Buzz Saw. The military has a method of covering as much ground during an assault as possible, and it is called the Buzz Saw. Here’s how it works. If you have three professional snipers and their mission is to protect a certain area while under attack, how do they cover as much ground as possible?

The answer is strict division of territory. Each is given an area to cover that does not overlap with the other two snipers’. That way they can cover as much ground as possible without waste.

This seems like a very simple concept: each sniper has a separate area of responsibility, but there are downsides to it, to be sure. If one sniper fails to achieve the goal, the other two might necessary.

What happens if or when their division of territories overlaps? Because each sniper does not have a personal area of responsibility, the method of sharing risk will fail. Yes, certain areas are better covered, but each person is now stretched. Terms and phrases such as “bandwidth,” “stretched too thin,” and “scope of responsibility” all mean the same thing: You are stretching your resources.

Relate it to business owners

Now look at this in the context of three business owners. When owners do not have defined roles and they share duties, risks appear because now there is overlap. That can create conflict. Who is in charge of the areas where there is overlap? That confusion can lead to paralysis or two individuals working at cross-purposes, neither of which is good for a business.

What’s more, not only do you have overlap, you have gaps. You have the CEO and CFO worried about finance and the CFO and COO worried about accounting. So who is focusing on sales and delivery?

When individuals are stretched over multiple areas of responsibility, key elements fall through the cracks. On the battlefield, that can mean defeat. It’s the “shoot everything that moves” method of attack. It wastes time and resources. It is far less likely to succeed than the “shoot only in a defined area” method. This concept is just as applicable in the business world.

Too often, you are conditioned to see sharing as a good thing, a frame of mind in which you should all strive to be. That might be true in your personal lives, but it can have negative consequences in other settings. The battlefield is one. The business world is another.

John Minahan is an advisor to CEOs and executives, a certified public accountant, and author of The Business Mechanic: 9 Simple Ways To Improve Your Business. He is also cofounder and owner of a successful and multimillion-dollar media company, which was named one of the fastest growing private companies by Inc. Magazine. Minahan can be reached through www.BusinessMechanicBook.com.

What entrepreneurs need to know about intellectual property issues    

By Thomas C. Saitta

Among the many concerns facing entrepreneurs, protection of intellectual property (IP) and IP issues in general are often overlooked—especially during the start-up phase.

While some trademark, copyright, and patent issues may be addressed down the road, an early awareness of IP issues can be beneficial to all entrepreneurs.

Trademarks

After weeks of brainstorming, you have decided on the perfect name for your new business or product. The good news is that you are not required to get any sort of government permission to use your mark—you can spend thousands of dollars on new signs, brochures, menus, packaging for the product, etc. and spread the word far and wide.

The bad news is that if you have not performed a trademark search, you may shortly receive a demand letter from the owner of an identical or similar mark insisting that you stop using the mark. You are now faced with the choice of fighting for the mark in court or rebranding your service or product—both of which will likely entail significant costs.

Additionally, while you receive certain limited common-law protections merely by use of your chosen mark, you should also explore the benefits of registering your mark either within the state or federally. Registration of a trademark puts others on constructive notice of your rights, and a federal registration in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can extend your rights throughout the country and enable you to secure international protection.

Copyrights

If you create an original work in a fixed expression (write a song, book, or manual, or create a website, for example), you should determine whether registering the work with the Copyright Office would be useful. The process is relatively straightforward, and registration can be valuable in certain instances.

Another copyright issue that often arises is the question of ownership of software and website content when the software or website is developed by an independent contractor. As strange as it may seem, you do not automatically own the software or website copyright even though you have paid a third party to produce it for you.

Still another concern with websites is the issue of unauthorized use of photographs taken from other sources. It is a common occurrence for website developers to use copyrighted photographs without obtaining permission from the copyright owner, and it is the owner of the website that usually ends up paying for this infringement.

Patents

If your new venture includes an invention, then you must pursue patent protection for your product. A patent gives the inventor the right to stop others from making, using, or selling the invention, which gives value to the invention by precluding competition or by allowing the rights to be licensed or assigned to third parties.

In a business enterprise, the issue of employee inventions made on the job should be addressed in an employment contract to avoid ownership disputes.

Words of wisdom

A final word of advice: The old saying that it’s better to spend a little money now rather than a lot of money later applies in the IP world. Seeking advice from an experienced IP attorney before problems arise will almost always be money well spent.

Thomas C. Saitta is a registered patent attorney and board certified in intellectual property law. He is head of the intellectual property department at Rogers Towers P.A. in Jacksonville, Fla., and can be reached at 904-346-5518, TSaitta@rtlaw.com, or through www.rtlaw.com.

How you can market your professional services firm using thought leader strategies

“The days of the magic marketing bullet are gone,” says Brian Barquilla, founder and publisher of Jacksonville Business Advantage, a lead generation firm specifically designed to introduce professional service firms to new client relationships, at the most recent Knowledge is Power workshop.

“As a general rule, it’s accepted as good practice to be wherever your customers are,” says Barquilla. Whether it’s marketing with virtual boards, social networking, advertising, events/dinners/lunches, or networking, are you sending the right message?

Of all the marketing techniques, there is one you have the most control over—word-of-mouth. Referrals from satisfied clients are your best next potential clients, so how do you encourage word-of-mouth?  

“It doesn’t magically happen,” says Barquilla. “You have control of what is said about you, your reputation, and how you are perceived among your peers.”

So what are the best practices to position yourself as “THE” subject matter expert? How can you engage clients and prospects in live meaningful professional interaction?

Using the thought leader strategy

Using the thought leader strategy means to find every opportunity to share your expertise at industry trade groups or private invitation events, making yourself available to the media and industry insiders, publishing white papers, and even writing a book.

“Progressive firms and individuals do this for the purpose of starting new relationships, says Barquilla. “It works in getting business because it builds your credibility, influences decision makers, and spreads goodwill for your company.”

So why don’t you do more of it? Because it goes against everything you were taught. For example: A CPA suggested we conduct a simple, two-hour workshop to call attention to his business. Through interacting with our readers, we knew there was a “pain” about reading financial statements, balance sheets, P&L, etc., as most small business owners are not experts in finance.

But when we approached him with the idea on coaching business owners on how to extract data from financial reporting to make better decisions, he balked at the idea stating clients normally pay him $200 an hour to do that. While he was right, he didn’t immediately understand that in a group setting, he was stimulating thought and opening doors to new business.

After the event was over and people were standing three deep to set appointments, it was immediately clear the effort paid off.

Barquilla says that by embracing thought leader principals, you remove the anxiety and pave the way for meaningful conversation.

Lessons learned

While marketing your services for 2011, keep some of the following tips and lessons in the forefront of your mind.

•Lesson #1: Embrace the “Give a little, get a lot” model. You may have 16 years of formal education, but that doesn’t necessarily give you an advantage over your competition. “Be willing to demonstrate your expertise and earn trust to engage your next client,” says Barquilla.

•Lesson #2: Use a third party if possible. Most people you deal with know what you do for a living, so hosting your own event can compromise your credibility and hurt your attendance. “It would be better to find a host organization,” says Barquilla. “And, in most cases, you can still invite important prospects and clients.”

•Lesson #3: No infomercials. “You have a captive audience and it’s the content they want to hear,” Barquilla says. “Don’t worry, being the expert in the room is all the advertising you need.”

•Lesson #4: Put some lipstick on that pig. Not everyone will find your topic exciting, so find a local hook or hot topic to draw some similarities. Maybe even find a partner to help you accomplish this. “If it creates win/win relationships, do it—and be creative,” says Barquilla. “Ask yourself, ‘What can I do to make our event spectacular?’”

•Lesson #5: Form channel partner relationships. Partner with other firms or complementing professionals to give you more value and double or triple your marketing power. Use each other’s network to create leads.

•Lesson #6: Offer some real take-away value. You want to make people glad they invested their time and money with you. If your content is weak, hold off talking until you can be proud of it. Get a third-party opinion from someone you trust. Consider a handout so people can reference you later.

•Lesson #7: Charge for it! Mistakenly, too many professionals offer free seminars because they think that if it’s free they will get better participation. That is not usually the case. “What you will get is less participation and poor-quality prospects,” says Barquilla. “It’s all about perceived value.”

Have confidence to charge for your events. If your clients think twice about $20, do you want them as a client anyway?

•Lesson #8: Don’t lose the moment. Document the event by videotaping it, voice recording it, or offering it as a podcast. You can use these in the future to engage new prospects and give current clients peace of mind that they are working with an industry leader.

“You can also repurpose your content on your website, offer podcasts, make a video link in your e-mail signatures, and create e-mail newsletters,” says Barquilla.

•Lesson #9: Follow up. One way to follow up is to have a third party make phone calls and ask questions such as, “Thanks for attending the event last week, did it meet your expectations? What would you like to hear about in the future? Any questions you didn’t feel comfortable asking in front of the group?”

These questions are designed to bring out pain and uncover some business if it’s there. “You can also try sending out online surveys on your presentation,” says Barquilla. “Make it as easy as possible and short.”

•Lesson #10: Make yourself available. Be sure once an event is over you clear your schedule the next day so you can return all calls and e-mails in a matter of minutes and hours, not days. Barquilla says if you wait until tomorrow, you are yesterday’s task. Book those new consultations within 48 to 72 hours if possible. Stay top of mind!

•Lesson #11: Alert the media! Give the media something to write about and make their job easy by giving them a good press release. Include your media contacts on any mass communication efforts. Give them your private cell phone number and get back to them immediately. Let them repurpose your content for you. In short, make yourself easy to work with.

What’s next ?

To succeed with the  “thought leader strategy,” one of the first steps is to determine your best audience. Start with trade organizations and professional groups because they all have something in common—they are looking for ways to keep their members interested and educated.

Pitch a ready-made, entertaining presentation with a well-thought out topic and an executive summary as well as some slide samples. “By making a presentation entertaining,” says Barquilla, “you keep people’s attention—and that’s smart business.”

How the top 10 human resources trends of 2010 will continue to reshape the way successful businesses operate in 2011

This tumultuous year in business has transformed human resources (HR) strategies in organizations of all sizes.

Jeff Fenster, founder of CanopyHR Solutions (www.canopyhr.com), says, “Challenging times inspire creative solutions, and the volatile economy has forged many changes in the human resources sector. Businesses are trimming excesses in order to succeed, and that means human resources has become a more integral part of business planning than ever before.”

So what are the top 10 human resource trends? They include:

1. Stretching the compensation dollar

Although 2010 showed some signs of recovery, HR managed workforces that were considerably smaller than just a few years ago. HR’s role in managing productivity through ancillary projects while maintaining employee morale and well-being was challenged by the parallel expectation that workers be twice as productive.

Innovative HR professionals instituted creative programs such as gift card giveaways and lottery prizes to boost employee enthusiasm in lieu of raises and bonuses.

2. Embracing social media

Social networking’s undeniable impact hit the big screen in 2010, and it hit workplaces in a number of ways as well. Managers learned to be on the lookout for lost productivity as employees grew increasingly concerned with checking in with their favorite social networking sites.

On the upside, savvy HR pros saw a shift in the landscape as hiring and firing trends played out online. Posts cost some careless employees their jobs as HR monitored Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. Smart employees landed new gigs by harnessing the power of social networking to market themselves and share information about job openings.

Policies were developed to communicate clear boundaries and expectations and to attract top talent with the latest tools-with some even canceling subscriptions to online job sites and shifting to social media recruiting.

3. Keeping the communication lines open—especially amid healthcare reform anxiety

Maintaining employees’ trust in the company and its business decisions through the ups and downs of healthcare reform was a must. Smart senior management kept communication lines open to demonstrate accessibility and willingness to answer questions and address concerns as they arose.

That applied not only to top-down communication, but to lateral lines as well. Human resources professionals were charged with bringing functional departments together; communications, legal, payroll, and IT departments—everyone had to communicate a unified message to maintain employee trust.

4. Retaining top talent

When soaring unemployment numbers left many top performers handling increasing workloads for the same old salary, human resources departments had to focus on retaining company stars.

Some of these high performers got antsy as compensation froze and expectations rose. Many continued to struggle with the lingering losses they’ve felt after company layoffs. This delicate situation required that HR pros soothe sore nerves and keep these folks from looking for greener pastures with creative incentives and sincere appreciation.

5. Managing three generations of work styles

As young Millennials entered the workforce, companies had their hands full integrating three distinct generations: Millennials, Gen Xers, and baby boomers. The aging boomers believe strongly in security and loyalty. They don’t always see eye to eye with hard-working Gen Xers who have more of an independent streak. The Millennials shook things up with the attitude that if they don’t like what’s happening at work, they’ll go home to mom and dDad.

This generational juggling was best handled with management training that stressed the characteristics of these disparate groups and how to motivate and inspire the most productivity from them. Succession planning also came into play as firms prepared for the replacement of retiring boomers with less motivation to stick around now that they’re feeling overworked and underpaid. 

6. Sharing an ounce of prevention

Healthcare reform drew the spotlight to employee wellness issues in 2010, shifting more emphasis to preventive programs such as smoking cessation and obesity reduction.

Ben Franklin’s proverbial “ounce of prevention” may finally see its day in the sun in 2011 workplaces, as employers continue the 2010 trend of encouraging employee participation in wellness programs in order to increase productivity, reduce absenteeism, and boost the health of their staffs.

For some, it’s also a long-term strategy to avoid higher health coverage costs for increasingly overweight and unhealthy American employees.

7. Clearing up confusion

Another obvious consequence of healthcare reform’s starring role in 2010 was employee confusion and uncertainty about health benefits. It became an imperative for human resources staffers to communicate benefit changes in advance, whenever possible, and explain changes in terms of how they would affect individual employees and their families.

A crucial piece of that puzzle was often dispelling the misperceptions that dominated the public conversation—from dire cuts to death panels. Few changes have occurred yet, so this trend will persist in 2011 and beyond, compelling HR teams to closely monitor things like free flu shots, effective dates, and the details of grandfathered health plans—and of course, clearly communicating these details to employees in a timely manner.

The smartest pros will keep arming themselves with concise answers to difficult questions that will continue to arise as changes are implemented and look for new ways to reach employees with relevant information.

8. Managing the virtual workplace

Tech advances continued to lure employees into new territory, especially when it came to virtual work and telecommuting. The trend came with pluses and minuses. Some companies slid into this trend with ease, as exempt Gen Xers with no defined hours blended work and personal responsibilities into an organic off-site workday.

Other companies struggled with nonexempt workers. Meticulous time tracking was required to ensure proper payment of overtime and the like. Most of the latter companies discovered the concept was detrimental to business.

It’s a lifestyle management issue that will continue to show up on HR radar screens in 2011 and could be further impacted by additional tech developments.

 9. Working together

Leaner, more streamlined companies must share information laterally to get the most from scarce resources. HR teams took a leadership role in reaching out to other departments and “sharing the sandbox.”

More than ever, employees in every department have a sense of facing adversity together. Strategic-minded businesses used the momentum to support strong teamwork and innovative solutions that crossed department lines for everyone’s benefit.

10. Riding out the recession

As much as circumstances have improved, the recession that was battled against throughout 2010 continues to impact companies and individuals—a trend that will likely continue beyond 2011.

HR departments and executives need to tune into their resources and prioritize more than ever before. True innovation is the best way to establish solid initiatives without a solid budget. Successful firms will continue to prioritize wisely, focusing on the most-effective tools to enhance business strategy and achievements and develop new business.

 “Uncertainty breeds fear in everyone from employees to executives,” says Fenster. “Perhaps the most important take-away from the major shifts we saw in 2010 is that the best HR professionals are those who are best at managing uncertainty and allaying fears.

“That means always reaching out for new information and reliable answers and communicating that information clearly. It also means creating new ways of helping managers and employees move forward, even when the future remains uncertain. Great change requires great innovation, so I think we’re going to see some exciting programs and strategies come out of this adversity.”

“It’s easy to lie to ourselves. Little lies build into something big. For things to grow and change, we must get out of our comfort zone and start stretching to do different things,” Dave Josephson told a sold-out crowd at a recent Knowledge Is Power workshop. Josephson is a certified coach in the Strategic Mindset Process with The Growth Coach.

Josephson’s aim during the 90-minute session was to help participants identify the things in their mindset that were holding them back in their businesses, and to show them how to break the cycle that keeps them from reaching new heights.

The process consists essentially of three activities—all aimed at finding the most critical barriers to success. Josephson led the group through three activities:

1. Understanding your reality. Knowing where you are starting from is the only way you can change, he said. He asked the group to write down three things that bugging were them. These things are your reality, he said.

2. Listing the things that clutter your thinking or your life. In addition to things that are bothersome, Josephson said people have a lot of clutter in their lives. He suggested these might be e-mail, watching too much television, leaving tasks undone, and many more. He asked the group to list as many clutter items as they could identify.

“Clutter can be physical, such as a garage so messy you can’t get the car in it or a desk so covered you can’t see the desktop, or emotional, such as feelings of unworthiness or depression.”

Then, referring to the 80/20 rule—80% of results come from 20% of activities—he asked the group to pick out those clutter items that have the most effect on their success. He then asked, “What would happen if you reduced clutter by only 5% and replaced it with something positive and money-making? This could actually improve your bottom line by 30% to 40%! And you could grow really big by removing 10% of your clutter.”

How to get rid of clutter? Make a commitment, he said. Your commitment choices (depending upon the type of clutter you are dealing with) are don’t do it; delegate it or outsource it; downshift its scope and frequency; or destroy and redesign.

3. Assessing your life. Josephson said the wheel of life consists of a number of spokes— family/friends, play, mind, health, financial, spiritual, and career/business. He asked the group to rate their satisfaction on each of these spokes and connect the dots. “Does your wheel look like it is out of warp?” he asked, indicating that most people have wheels that are flat in some areas.

These flat areas are where you should focus your attention for at least a month. “You’ll find,” he said, “that if you put air in the tire, other parts will puff out, too.”

Power to change

The purpose of the exercises, said Josephson, is to help you see the reality of your life, as it is now. “But, you have the power to change,” he stressed, explaining that results are the end product of actions and behavior, which are driven by attitude. “If you want an attitude makeover, look at the results you want to achieve first,” he said.

For example: If you know that 2% of your calls will result in sales, then to get two sales each week (the result you want), you need to make 100 calls (actions to take). To drive those actions, you need to think positively about selling (attitude adjustment), perhaps by thinking of yourself as an expert instead of a sales person.

What this amounts to, he explained, is a change in story. The old story of someone who has trouble selling is “I hate selling but I have to do it for a living.” The new story is “I am an expert who can help others solve their problems.”

“We can make the decision to change our success thermostat,” said Josephson. “Our business can become what we allow it to become.” Key to this decision making is the kind of questions we ask ourselves, he explained. “We can ask empowering questions or disempowering questions. ‘Why is this happening to me?’ is disempowering and dislodges the logical side. But questions such as ‘What can we do to solve this problem?’ are empowering; they engage the local side.”

He ended by challenging the group, “What can you do to take your business to the next level?”

Dave Josephson

Dave Josephson is a certified coach in the Strategic Mindset Process with The Growth Coach (www.thegrowthcoachofjax.com). He can be reached at 904-861-0434. Advantage’s Knowledge Is Power workshop was co-sponsored by VenturePlex and Costco.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Go to go to http://advantagebizmag.com/events/podcasts to download a podcast of Dave Josephson’s workshop, “How to break through the self-sabotage barrier.”

By Andrew Stack    

Just the other day, there was an employee telling her colleague that she was leaving the office early so she could go home and “get some work done.”  

She continued to tell her workmate that the office had become a distraction and, for her, having the solitude of a quiet space in the spare bedroom was better than the office.

That in itself is incredibly profound in the sense that how and where you define your work environment is not so much about location or design as it is about your ability to produce.

That tired phrase of “thinking outside of the box” has taken on the figurative meaning of unorthodox or creative, but in this case, literally means thinking outside the box—the box being the four walls of your office and what you define as your workspace.

While you must still recognize the need for a formal place to gather so you can plan, organize, and collaborate on work projects, you can alter your perspective on your workplace to one of “just in time and just enough” versus having a reservoir of resources sitting idly on standby.

Increasingly, thoughtful business leaders are doing just that.

Office evolution

There was a time not so long ago that “the office” was not only a place for work, but was a symbol of status. You knew your company had arrived the day you signed that seven-year lease or completed the final touches on the executive boardroom.

In many cases, that time has come and gone. With the commercial real estate industry struggling with double-digit vacancy rates and warehouses upon warehouses of used office furniture, there should be a new exhibit at the Smithsonian on the evolution of the American office.

It could start circa 2006. On display, the curator shows a 400-square-foot executive office (with a 50-inch big screen TV); a 20-person boardroom table with a state-of-the-art, HD projector that works with every model of laptop, except of course, yours; a $30,000 copier/scanner/fax/printer/aggravator; and a wax figure of the post-modern administrative assistant.

The very next exhibit would show the “future office” and how it will evolve by fast forwarding to 2011. There, a business owner is seated in a nondescript, 12-foot by 12-foot office, firing up his iPad, plugging in his DA-Dongle, and opening MS Office 365.

He’s able to do this because of something called the Cloud. All of his applications, file folders, documents, and drivers reside nowhere near his computer, but in a bunkered SAS 70 data facility thousands of miles away, owned and operated by a third party.

What’s in it for you?

 All of this should not be too hard to imagine because in many cases, it’s true. Software as a service (SaaS) allows business users to tap the computing resources they need real time without the expensive hardware, maintenance, upgrades, and support that come with traditional enterprise systems.

With such a system, you can basically operate from anywhere. You can work from home, on the road, at a coffee shop, or share a workspace—perhaps even “share” a seat. For example: When a business owner sits down at a workspace to conduct his business, he may notice that the seat is warm. That is because just moments earlier, a sales representative that he neither knows nor ever will was conducting a product demonstration via ISDN videoconferencing in that very same chair.

This type of set-up allows you the freedom to work from wherever you are and when you need to without having to pay for equipment, services, a building, and overhead. You have the liberty to set aside a block of time, head to a workspace, conduct your business without distractions or other items getting in your way, and then leave when you are done, while still maintaining and running your small business.

Many workspaces come fully equipped and furnished with state-of-the-art technology, meeting and training facilities, and business support services. Because of these services, you may find a group of folks working at an open workstation area collaborating with people from a multitude of different companies, where they share best practices, leverage past experiences, and bring critical mass to the idea-generating process that is necessary in today’s chaotic marketplace.

Or, you may hear a woman listening to her voicemail on her laptop in the office coffee lounge. She’s able to do this not because her company bought her the latest iPhone, but because she was provided with unified messaging services via her office business center shared-services membership—a system that sells for tens of thousands of dollars is now available to her for a few dollars a month.

The future

The future may show your accountant reviewing the P/L statements for the last two years, looking a bit befuddled because on your 2009 statement, he sees rent expense, tenant insurance, office furniture and equipment, IT systems and support, and the full-time salary of an administrative assistant.

However, no such line items appear in your 2010 statement and the percentage change in net income is astounding. What radical change in standard operating procedure could produce such results?

Whether you need these services for one-time training and meeting events, once in a while for big presentations or videoconferencing, or more frequently as a place to “get stuff done,” your business needs can be met or enhanced at a workspace as many are a one-stop-shop for office services.

With a workspace or office business center, you can enjoy the state-of-the-art services they offer without the hassles of purchasing and maintaining the systems yourself.

Andrew Stack is the president of My Executive Center LLC. He can be reached through www.myexecutivecenter.com.

9 ways to attract and retain employees with benefits that don’t break the bank 

By Robyn A. Friedman    

Amy Ogden loves to volunteer. Over the years, she’s managed registration at a charity golf tournament, provided office assistance to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and presented a health and nutrition workshop to Girls Incorporated—and she’s done it all on company time.

Ogden, director of public relations at Clockwork Marketing Services Inc. in Ponte Vedra Beach, participates each year in “Volunteer Day,” sponsored by her employer. “This is always a special day for me,” she says. “Having my company’s support as I give back to the community is very meaningful.”

Paid time off is just one employee benefit offered by small businesses intent on keeping employees happy while containing costs. As the economy continues to struggle, businesses are looking for ways to reduce their overhead. Many cannot afford to give out raises or bonuses this year; others are cutting back on benefits.

But even with these cost-saving efforts, it’s essential for small businesses to continue to show employees that they care and appreciate their services. That’s one way to reduce costs associated with turnover, absenteeism, and sick time.

“Not giving out raises can have a real negative impact on employee morale and motivation,” says Dr. K. Habib Khan, acting dean of the School of Business at Stratford University in Falls Church, Va. “But if you take the time to show that you appreciate them during this rough economic time, they will be more likely to hang in there and remain dedicated and loyal employees.”

According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), in 2010, organizations spent an average 19% of an employee’s annual salary on mandatory benefits, 18% on voluntary benefits, and 11% on pay for time-not-worked benefits. With these costs, it’s easy to see why employers would want to cut back on benefits as many struggle to survive.

Still, after a decline in the number of organizations offering employee benefits from 2008 to 2009, SHRM reports that employee benefits have remained relatively steady over the past 12 months, which is a promising sign.

Ways to reward

Many companies are trying to find ways to reward their employees without racking up additional bills. Here are nine ways to show your employees that you value them without breaking the bank:

•Paid time off. Even if it’s just one or two days per year, employees will appreciate it. “It’s important for each one of our employees to have a work/life balance,” says Jackie Artybridge, vice president of Clockwork Marketing Services. “It’s really stressful here, but we want everyone to be happy, and you need that balance.”

•Flexible scheduling. Some employees might prefer to work four 10-hour days per week and have three-day weekends. Others may enjoy working at home one day a week.

“We never, in the history of human resources, have had the opportunity we do now because of technology to have flexible scheduling,” says Robin Bullock, president of the Jacksonville chapter of SHRM. “There are a lot more of those types of benefits now because people can get very creative about what they offer.”

•Casual dress codes. Even if it’s just one day per week, such as “Casual Friday,” employees appreciate this benefit.

•Catered lunches. Nova Pressroom Products, a manufacturer of pressroom chemicals based in Jacksonville that has 15 employees, offers catered lunches once or twice a month.

“We’re a fairly new company, and we’re still in a growth mode, so we’re sort of skinny on benefits to begin with,” says Ron Rose, the company’s president. “We have medical insurance, but we do like to do things that help morale that aren’t terribly costly.”

•Discount medical and lifestyle benefits. Jacksonville Beach-based Practical Health Benefits sells a discount medical package that offers 15% to 50% discounts on dental care, 20% to 50%  off eyeglasses, pharmacy discounts, and a “Consult-a-Doctor” benefit—all for $15 per employee per month. He sells to both individuals and small and mid-sized businesses.

“We’ve seen an increase in our business,” says Steve McCann, the firm’s president. “This is a great complement for companies that have gone to higher deductible [health insurance] plans. For as little as $15 per month, you can expand your coverage and still save money.”

McCann also offers a $29.95 per month package that has 14 employee benefits, including roadside assistance, chiropractic care, and more.

•Wellness programs.  These can include gym memberships, massages, or educational programming designed to help employees make healthy choices. Wellness programs can also help reduce sick time and might lower health insurance premiums.

•Local discounts. Consider setting up trade relationships with other local businesses. For example, negotiate a deal with a local restaurant to offer a 20% discount on meals to your employees. That not only benefits your employees, but also helps the restaurant fill tables. You can work out similar deals with hotels, spas, or retail shops.

•Offer spot bonuses. Keep stashes of items on hand to occasionally give away to those going above and beyond the call of duty. These could be gift cards, concert or movie tickets, or free meal coupons.

•Celebrate milestones, both large and small. Instead of waiting for an employee’s 20th anniversary to celebrate, consider recognizing that individual at five years—and personalize the reward. If the employee likes skiing, for example, purchase lift tickets for them at their favorite ski resort—or concert tickets to a popular band.

One piece of advice to an employer seeking to come up with creative ways to compensate employees: You don’t have to spend a lot.

“Don’t overlook small benefits,” says SHRM’s Bullock. “There are benefits to a $10 gift certificate to the movies for an employee who loves movies.”

Watsie Petree, a dealer services manager for Nova Pressroom, enjoys the twice-monthly lunches catered by her employer. Her particular favorite is the barbecued pork, chicken, and ribs from a restaurant near the office.

“It makes you know that they care about you—and then you want to give back to them,” she says. “It’s good for moral when we all sit around the table and eat together and laugh. You could be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

 Indeed, morale—as well as employee attraction and retention—are what it’s all about from the employer perspective.

“For a lot of small business owners, it’s really challenging to be able to pay for all the healthcare needs for your employees,” says Clockwork’s Artybridge. “But when employees know they’re valued, that makes a difference and causes an employee to want to serve and really do their best.”

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing editor to Advantage. She can be reached at RAFWriter@att.net.

Employee benefits in a post-recession economy

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, even though employee benefits have remained relatively stable since 2009, benefits offerings have experienced a downward trend when compared with statistics from five years ago. Even noncash perks are being cut.

Here is the percentage of companies offering some creative or unusual benefits to their employees:

 Benefit                                                2006                                        2010

Dry cleaning services                          13%                                         7%

Pet health insurance                              5%                                         4%

Holiday parties                                    87%                                        79%

Milestone rewards                               76%                                        68%

Company picnic                                  66%                                         56%

Take Your Child to Work Day           38%                                        25%

Pets at work                                           4%                                           6%

(Source: Society for Human Resource Management, 2010 Employee Benefits Survey)

How going green can bring in business

Just what is an eco-aware consumer? Helen Rake, CFP, principal and financial advisor for Collins Capital Management Inc. and speaker at a recent Knowledge is Power workshop, states it is “a consumer that when given a choice, is choosing to spend their hard earned money on products that move the world toward to more sustainable or more energy-efficient tomorrow.”

One of the most recent forecasts on the state of green business, the economy, and its drivers conducted by Green Biz Intelligence Unit found that the economic downturn has taken a backseat to growing consumer requirements as the principal driver of corporate environmental strategy.

“What this means,” says Rake, “is even with the economic downturn that has happened, consumer requirements have picked up, which means the companies have had to answer regardless of what their economic situation is.”

Who are they?

Today’s eco-aware consumer is doing business with companies that embrace environmental preservation, treat employees well, and provide products that allow them to enjoy a healthier lifestyle. The eco-aware consumer also wants to ensure that their children will be able to live a healthier lifestyle.

There are two categories of the eco-aware consumer: the behavioral greens and the think greens.

•Behavioral greens—This is 62 million Americans that think and act green. They buy green products and believe companies should help consumers become more environmentally friendly.

•Think greens—These up and comers are still being convinced. They think green, but don’t always act green.

“Eco-aware consumers are not extremists nor are they impractical in their product and service demands,” says Rake. “Basically, the eco-aware consumer is really just a socially responsible buyer that wants to put their money where their conscience is. They want to feel good about what they are purchasing.”

Why you should care

Rake says you should care because for one, there are some basic economic principles at work:

1. Supply and demand. What is mainstream for consumers is mainstream for companies. Basically, whatever the consumer wants, the company should provide because when consumers demand and the company produces, consumers buy and companies profit.

2. Reduce costs equals increased profit. Adopting energy-saving green business practices has a positive effect on the company’s bottom line.

And for another, “Locally, your business has a fantastic opportunity to set itself apart from the crowd by putting practices, products, and services in place that will attract these eco-aware consumers that are willing to spend more for a better choice,” says Rake.

She also says those companies that embrace it, do it for the right reasons, want to provide something to the community that is sustainable, and want to provide to these consumers are the ones that will benefit.

“The opportunity is yours,” says Rake. “I think now is the best opportunity we’ve ever had in this area to do this, to pay attention to this, and act on it.”

How to market to the media

Julie Watkins, green reporter and meteorologist from Action News CBS 47/Fox30 and the second speaker at the event, says that news stations are always looking for story ideas, and stories that promote green practices are always good.

“If you provide press releases detailing visual live shots and stories, and the more compelling the story or active the video, the more likely it will get covered,” says Watkins.

When writing a press release, you should be sure to:

•Include who, what, when, where, why, and how;

•Keep it short;

•Highlight the visual aspects; and

•Provide contact information at the top and at the bottom.

With two types of news, hard news and soft news, Watkins says there are many opportunities for you to promote your green business or actions.

Hard news is generally what you see on the evening news with a live reporter. While not always good news, it is what people tend to pay closer attention to. For your green story to be considered hard news, it will most likely have to involve dangers and risks, or offer help during a disaster, is innovative to the consumer, is leading the city, is socially responsible, or has tie-ins to breaking news.

For example: A hair care product was found to have high amounts of formaldehyde. If you ran a hair salon that carried all-natural, green products, you could inform the news stations and get some recognition.

Soft news is more so what you see in the mornings or on weekends with in-house interviews and evening news “kickers.” These are generally the more fun packages. For your green story to be considered soft news, it will most likely be your community projects, sponsored local events, festivals and expos, fundraising efforts, or has ties-in to holidays.

For example: Your business will run a paper retriever drive in your community with it titled something like, “30 bins for 30 days.”

“One of the best things you can do to promote your green practices is to get to know your local news anchors and reporters,” says Watkins. While some anchors and reporters are more active in green movements than others, your morning or weekend reporters are most likely to cover your green events. “And if you can find a green reporter in your area, you’ve hit jackpot,” says Watkins.

To see a green office checklist, visit http://advantagebizmag.com/archives/5710 and click on the link.

Steps to a greener business model

When you remake and rebrand yourself as green, the more attractive you will be to the eco-aware consumer. Here are a few things you can do.

•Get an audit and act on the results. 

•Make small changes in phases and be transparent about it. Things such as using power strips, changing to energy-efficient light bulbs, and using leaner packaging are small things that can have a big ROI. 

•Brand yourself green. If you use a local printer who prints with soybean inks on recycled paper, tell people about it. 

•Promote your business through green business organization and online listings. 

•Track your results and report them. 

•Tout your stewardship. Send out press releases, print it on your business stationery, tell your customers, etc. 

•Be careful and be serious. You need to be sincere in your efforts and honest about the challenges you face when going green. Don’t be a “green washer.”

green_office_checklist_nbis

Is your business positioned to take advantage of the newly defined healthcare industry?

“When there is change, there is opportunity” was the overall message at the most recent KNOWLEDGE IS POWER workshop sponsored by BBVA Compass and the Small Business Resource Network (SBRN). And there is plenty of change coming down the way when it comes to healthcare.

Some changes are certain, others are not, but one thing is clear, relating the new healthcare legislation to your small business can be done—when you learn how to craft your own strategy to understand the new flow of money that is happening within healthcare.

“Healthcare is vast,” says keynote speaker Brian Klepper, PhD, principal in Health 2.0 Advisors and Healthcare Performance Inc. “It accounts for $2.6 trillion, one-sixth of all dollars in the economy and one-eleventh of jobs.”

So what type of things can succeed in such a vast area? According to Klepper, “anybody who can lower costs and risks while improving quality doing any one of a thousand things in healthcare” can succeed. In other words, to be successful, your venture must prove it can create new value or produce transactional streamline and reduce complexity risk and/or cost while improving quality/safety.

Where are the opportunities?

According to Klepper, the largest area for opportunities is in medical management He equates medical management to that of air traffic control, where it is a process that looks at the universe of processes that is going on in the system and says, “What can I do to make this more efficient and have better outcomes.”

The next area for opportunity is in scientific and medical advances, such as minimally invasive and laparoscopic surgeries. These types of surgeries are an opportunity because they offer a quicker return to work, smaller incisions, less pain, and lower costs. This area also includes all types of new devices and procedures.

“Anything that moves us from a client server to the Web reduces the transaction cost to one-fifth,” says Klepper, which is why this, also referred to transactional streamlining, is another area of opportunity.

The last area of opportunity is in consumerism—getting consumers engaged in prevention and wellness.

Creating growth

Marsha Proctor Killen Esq., CEO of Strategy Gen (www.StrategyGen.com) and second keynote speaker, believes that customers are the key to success to creating profitable and sustainable growth. “All successful strategies that are sustainable start with a customer focus and product focus,” says Killen.

Just who is impacted by Healthcare reform?

• All of us—patients, consumers, caregivers;

• Employers small and large;

• Hospitals, doctors, and clinicians;

• Health insurers; and

• Government, federal and state agencies.

Killen used the employer segment and a wellness program to provide an example as to how a small employer is impacted by healthcare reform, and then explained what the difference is in a product offer and a product-focused product offer.

 “As a small employer, you are going to have different requirements of what a wellness program may be than a large employer,” says Killen. “So always keep that in mind and why it is so important to understand your customer to be able to create sustainable profit program.”

7 “must haves”

Killen states that these are the seven most critical “must haves” for creating profitable and sustainable growth strategies. You must:

1. Have a market strategy. You need to have a strategy that extends beyond launching a new product, tweaking an existing product, or promoting your product.

2. Understand your emerging customer needs. You must know what your customers are going to need and understand how those needs are going to be under different healthcare reform scenarios.

3. Design to the needs. You need to design specific products and services based on who your targeted customers are.

4. Look at competitive pricing. Realize and know that the lowest price is not always the winner. Customers look at the most value for their dollars.

5. Have a communication strategy. Have a communication strategy and let customers and potential customers know you are out there. You will have to think about how to get them to the environments that you normally don’t participate in.

6. Create customer focused sales plans. Consider changing your sales model and go to customers in new and different ways. “Be sure you know how your customers want to buy your product and not just how you want to sell your product and services to your customer,” says Killen.

7. Identify your product. Identify what it is you are giving your customers because it is a customer experience once they purchase your products.

“The bottom line is you need to be able to define to these new customers of yours why your product or service? What’s the benefit to them? What problem does it solve?  Why are you different? Why your company? and What makes you better than your competitors?”

“Don’t assume healthcare is easy. Leverage your expertise and prove the concept,” says Klepper. “These kind of innovative things, things that can make us all work better—that is where the opportunity is.”

By Chad V. Sorenson, SPHR    

Fired. Terminated. Dismissed. Let go. Made available to the industry. There are many ways to say it, but they all have the same result—you’re down one employee and there are probably some hard feelings and bruised egos left behind.

Hiring and firing, when done right, can be very effective and lead to better results. When misapplied or misunderstood by managers, however, hiring and firing can cause headaches and increase an employer’s potential liability.

There is an old saying that states one should “hire slow and fire fast,” but many employers often get it wrong. Just like investors who know they are supposed to buy low and sell high, too many do just the opposite.

Last month, Richard Hadden talked about behavioral interviewing and getting it right the first time when hiring an employee. Now, what do you do when you need to terminate that employee?

Just do it

The natural tendency of most people is to avoid conflict and confrontation, but as a manager, you are doing a disservice to yourself, the company, the less-than-adequate employee, and your top performers by avoiding performance or behavior related issues at work.

Each stakeholder is affected differently by your inaction when dealing with performance or behavior issues.

•The manager: You probably spend more time dealing with these issues than serving your customer or working with your top performers.

•The company: Productivity can be impacted by a low-performing employee. Customers often see the issues directly or indirectly, which, over time, can impact their image of your company.

•The nonperforming employee: If you, as the manager, are not addressing the issue, you are, in effect, telling the employee their behavior or performance is acceptable. You may also be letting the other employees know that substandard performance is tolerated.

•The top performing employee: Your inaction can lead to your top performers becoming disengaged in their job and eventually lead them to move to another company. Your attention has been diverted to the nonperforming employee and your star employee has been picking up the slack.

Step by step

Once you have determined that an employee needs to be terminated, there are a series of steps you need to take to protect your company and minimize the disruption in the business that may follow.

1. What is the issue? What is the specific policy or rule that has been violated; or what is the performance issue that needs to be addressed? Once this is known, talk to the employee in a nonthreatening way. Don’t beat around the bush, but be tactful in your conversation.

Explain the issue and talk about how to resolve it. It is always better if they can come up with a solution that is acceptable to you rather than simply telling them what to do. In the end, be sure to clearly communicate the consequences of not correcting the problem or not improving the performance.

2. Is the consequence fair? Not every result or consequence has to be the same; however, the actions of an employer must be fair. In other words, are the actions consistent with your company policy? Have other employees in similar circumstances been treated in this manner? Does the punishment match the action?

3. Is the decision based on a business reason? The best way to avoid a charge of discriminations is to ensure all decisions to terminate someone’s employment is based on a business reason or need. In addition, informing the employee of the business reason for the termination will reduce the chances of them believing you are singling them out.

Your company needs to have employment policies in place to ensure a safe and productive work environment. If an employee violates these policies, he or she needs to be told about it. In some cases, the employee needs to be given the opportunity to correct the behavior. However, if the behavior continues, the next step in the disciplinary process must occur.

The same holds true with performance-related issues. There should be performance standards for every employee in order to deliver the best product or service for your customers. If an employee is not performing to these standards, tell them about it, develop a plan to improve the performance, and reward success—do not accept subpar work.

In addition, you need to verify that there are no other legal reasons why this termination cannot occur. There are numerous employment laws that preclude the termination of employee at certain times during their employment. It is always best to seek the guidance of a human resources consultant or employment attorney to get answers to all the proper questions before stepping over a line.

4. Have you documented every step in the process? One of the best protections against an employee’s charge of discrimination is proper documentation. Document every step in the process as you go. Don’t wait for a termination to occur or a charge to be filed to document what happened and why.

Memories fail and people leave. If you can show the business reasons why someone was terminated and the steps that led up to this outcome, you should be able to reduce your liability.

5. Terminate with dignity. No employee should be surprised by their termination. If you, as the employer, did everything right, the employee should know the consequences of their behavior or lack of performance.

In the event of an immediate termination for a flagrant violation of a company policy, the employee should still not be surprised because they would have been made aware of the policy when they were first hired.

During the termination meeting, be direct, polite, and courteous. Explain the reason for the discharge, tell them the next steps in regard to their benefits and final paycheck, inform them of the effective date of the termination, and the manner in which they must leave the premises.

Do not hold out hope for the employee that the situation can be reversed. Do not blame others for the termination. Do not discuss the termination with other employees.

By terminating the employee with empathy (not sympathy) and dignity, you may be able to minimize the amount of resentment the terminated employee may have toward the company. In addition, you are showing the other employees who remain that you apply the company policies in a fair and just manner.

It’s never easy

Terminations are never easy. Sometimes managers avoid them because they are afraid of lawsuits or simply dealing with the confrontation. This doesn’t have to be the case.

If you address situations as they arise and be clear about your expectations of the employees, they will respect your decision as an employer. Most importantly, you will retain a high-quality workforce that produces results you desire—and your employees will thank you.

Chad V. Sorenson, SPHR, is the president of Adaptive HR Solutions and vice president of Talent Development Inc. His primary focus is helping small and mid-sized employers navigate employment law and get the most out of their employees. He can be reached at csorenson@adaptivehrs.com.

By Bert Livingston    

Most small business owners and professionals are familiar with group term life insurance programs—particularly those that offer up to $50,000 of term life insurance to employees.

These programs, sanctioned by Section 79 of the Internal Revenue Code, also permit employers to provide additional amounts of term life insurance in excess of $50,000 to employees. To the extent that they do so, the employer must report the value of the excess coverage in the employee’s W-2 as additional compensation.

The value of this coverage for tax reporting purposes is determined under Table I of the Treasury Regulations, in the form of uniform premiums computed on the basis of five-year age brackets. So long as the employer is not directly or indirectly a beneficiary of the insurance, all employer contributions to the plan are currently deductible and the employee not taxable on the first $50,000 of coverage.

Permanent benefits

What is less commonly known is the same Section 79 permits a group term insurance plan to provide permanent benefits. The regulations define a “permanent benefit” as “an economic value extending beyond one policy year (for example, a paid-up or cash surrender value) that is provided under a life insurance policy.”

When a Section 79 plan containing permanent benefits is adopted by an employer, there are several significant advantages:

•All contributions to the plan are currently deductible to the business;

•Only a portion of these amounts are includible in the participant’s income;

•Plan assets (in the form of life insurance policy cash values) accumulate tax-deferred;

•In the event of the participant’s death, an income tax-free survivor benefit is provided;

•Benefits can be structured to avoid estate taxes; and

•Once the plan is terminated, the participant has the option of receiving a tax-free income stream from the insurance policy to the extent of the policy’s cash value.

Determining eligibility

Section 79(d) does contain nondiscrimination rules as to eligibility and benefits. Certain types of employees can be excluded from consideration, such as employees who are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, employees who have not completed three years of service, and part-time (not more than 20 hours per week) or seasonal (not more than five months per calendar year) employees.

A plan is nondiscriminatory as to benefits if “the type and amount of benefits available under the plan do not discriminate in favor of participants who are key employees.” A well-designed plan requires that all eligible participants be offered the option to elect the same type of benefits offered to key employees (e.g., permanent benefits).

Such a plan will also require that all employees be offered a nondiscriminatory amount of benefits, by mandating that ALL participants shall be offered a life insurance in an amount that represents a uniform percentage or multiple of W-2 compensation.

Know the options

Because the options available to eligible employees that involve coverage in excess of $50,000 of term insurance will result in an increase in the employee’s gross income—and generally an increase in the employee’s income tax liability—employees are permitted to decline coverage in excess of $50,000.

Most employees accept the free (to them) $50,000 of group term life insurance and waive their right to higher amounts of insurance or permanent benefits.

Employees who do not elect to receive permanent benefits must include the value of the permanent benefits in their gross income, reduced by any amounts they contribute from their own funds for the permanent benefits.

The actuarial formula for calculating the value of permanent benefits is set forth in the Treasury Regulation under Section 79 of the Internal Revenue Code, and is based on such factors as the age of the employee and the type of insurance contract used. Only specially designed life insurance contracts will produce favorable tax results under this formula.

Is it for your business?

Section 79 plans are not for every business and your insurance professional will help you determine eligibility. But for those closely held businesses and professional practices where there is a fit, these plans provide an exciting, tax-advantaged opportunity for both owners and employees.

Bert Livingston is a financial advisor at National Financial Services Group with 30 years of experience in the financial services industry. He is a registered representative and investment adviser representative of Equity Services Inc. He can be contacted at 904-296-3300.

Disclaimer: This is not offered as tax or legal advice. For advice concerning your own situation, consult with an appropriate professional advisor. The views and information contained herein have been prepared independently of the presenting representative and are presented for informational purposes only. TC58753(0910)

By Dr. Harold S. Resnick    

Difficult economic times can create stress and challenges for any business. But trying times can also create potential opportunities. It is during difficult times that true leaders sustain and grow their business—ready to expand even more rapidly as the economic climate improves.

Surviving during difficult times does not necessarily require more capital. Some of the best business opportunities come from natural organic growth when a company focuses on the basics that created its success in the first place.

Following are some “back to the basics” guidelines to consider.

Focus on current customers

Current customers are your best resource for sustaining and growing your business. In times like these, it is critical to pay extra attention to every customer—to make sure their needs are being met and they feel they are being treated properly. It is harder to replace a customer than it is to address their issues. Satisfied customers tend to purchase more goods and services.

Reach out to customers you have not seen for a while. Check in with them even when they are not in the midst of a transaction to surface and address any issues. This provides a great opportunity to ask them to identify any other needs or desires that could turn into additional business.

For example: You purchase your first new car. The salesman sends you a birthday card every year and calls you one other time each year just to check in and see how you are doing. Because of those actions, you purchase three more cars from the same salesman.

On the other hand, let’s say you are leasing a high-end vehicle. Your visits to their service department are marginal—the service was acceptable, but it comes with an attitude. You never hear from the salesman until he calls you two months before the end of the lease and opens the phone conversation with, “Guess who this is?” You can probably guess the outcome: Neither he nor that dealership gets your future business.

Look for revenue growth opportunities

Your best top line growth opportunities come from current customers. Current customers already have a relationship with you. They are the best immediate source of potential value-added revenue.

Consider the following two simple examples. Your lawn is serviced by a small business owner with three crews. As the winter season approaches, business slows down and he has more capacity. He calls to make sure you are satisfied with his service. While on the phone, he asks if you need any landscape or irrigation system work. If he had not made that call, he would have missed the revenue opportunity.

On the other hand, the man who installed your landscape lighting comes by to perform basic maintenance. He complains about how bad business has been during this current housing market, since most of his business was installing systems for new houses. When you ask him whether he was going back to all those houses he installed five years ago to see if they wanted upgrades, he confesses he never kept a customer database. Today, he is paying a high price for that lack of customer focus when times were good.

Another opportunity for revenue growth is the natural extension of your business. Adding or extending a service that is closely related to your current business creates opportunity for additional revenue from current customers. It also opens up a whole new set of potential customers.

The final opportunity for revenue growth is to ask current customers for referrals to new customers. A satisfied customer advocating on your behalf is the easiest way to attract a new customer. Yet many businesses have no solicitation or referral process. Consider a program, perhaps with some incentive for current customers, to help bring new customers to you.

Search out and remove leakage

Every company has leakage. Leakage is the money that “leaks out” in between your top line revenue and bottom line profit.

There are many sources of leakage. Some of the most common sources are quality or service issues that require you to provide a service again at no charge; providing a replacement product at no charge because the initial product was defective; addressing product ordering or delivery issues; internal process inefficiencies; untrained employees who cause errors; etc.

Examine your internal business operations. Finding and correcting leakage issues can make dramatic bottom line differences.

Invest in your employees

During difficult times, many employers cut back on training and development. Others freeze salary increases. For some organizations, this belt tightening may be necessary, but it should be avoided if at all possible.

This is the time to invest in your best employees and address issues with marginal performers. Marginal performers may “pick up their game” if you describe the issues in terms of performance or behavior and not personality. They are also keenly aware that good jobs are hard to replace.

But the real opportunity is to continue to invest in the development of your best employees. Investing in employees during difficult times builds loyalty, commitment, and greater productivity.

On the other hand, employers who take advantage of employees during difficult times may find that those employees will vote with their feet when better opportunities become available.

Challenging times are not easy, but they do provide an opportunity to look hard at your business and focus on the basics. Paying attention to customers, strengthening the quality of products and services, improving the efficiency of internal operations, and developing key talent will ensure your survival in today’s economy and position your organization for dramatic growth as the economy improves.

Dr. Harold S. Resnick is an internationally renowned organizational development consultant. His most recent book is titled, “Energizing Workplace Performance.” He can be reached through www.worksystems.com.

By Snowden McFall    

As a small business owner, you have an enormous amount to get done every day. And if you’ve been hurt by the economy, you more than likely have fewer employees who are doing more, which means your to-do lists never end and at the end of the day you often feel frustrated.

Half-started projects, incomplete reports, neglected client correspondence, and business books begun and never finished all drain large amounts of energy and actually create stress.

Incompletions [all those things described above] can create significant anxiety, worry, and tension. Every day, you make commitments to do things. Saying you’ll meet a client at a certain time is an agreement. Committing to have an employee review done by a certain date is an agreement. Promising to send that article you read to a new contact is an agreement.

Keep your agreements

Most business owners are good at keeping agreements with prospects and clients, or they would quickly go out of business. In today’s world of ethics and integrity violations, people have significant distrust of business. The only way to overcome that is to be stellar in your reliability and commitment-keeping.

Broken agreements destroy relationships. If you don’t do what you say you will do when promised, that’s a broken agreement. The problem for many entrepreneurs is keeping agreements with themselves.

Promising themselves they will get up early to exercise and then rolling over when the alarm goes off is a broken agreement. Telling themselves they will review that new report on technology and never look at it is a broken agreement. Pile up enough of those and you have a fundamental sense of discomfort, distrust of self, and poor self-esteem.

Completion is powerful

In “The Path of Least Resistance,” Robert Fritz describes the circle of completion. The three phases in this circle are germination, assimilation, and completion.

Germination is the initial startup phase of a project. This is usually where you feel the greatest excitement and enthusiasm. You’ll most likely share that contagious energy with others, get your client fired up, and propel your team forward.

Assimilation is the phase where people take action, where you’re actually doing what needs to be done to make things happen. This is where many people get stuck and never completely finish projects. They get halfway done or quit just short of realizing their goals. That is a big mistake because they lose out on all the success, joy, and power that comes from completion. All too many businesses get stuck in assimilation.

Every time you reach completion there is a distinct and special energy you experience. Reflect on the last time you finished some goal or project you’d been working toward for some time. How did you feel? Were you satisfied and pleased with yourself, perhaps even proud?

Did you delight your client? Did you finish on time and under budget? Does that client now value you highly and want to do more work with you? That great feeling is all part of the energy of completion; that energy gets you motivated to accomplish your next goal and actually fuels the next project.



How to get more completion in your business

• Do a walk through. Walk through your office and notice what is incomplete. Are there piles and piles of papers to be filed, hundreds of emails to be read, contracts to be reviewed? Take 10 minutes right
now and just do one of those tasks. Feel the completion.

• Perform a 10-second tidy. Are there any old newspapers or half-read industry magazines in your office? Recycle them or throw them away right now.

• Prioritize your day. Tackle the top six most highly leveraged activities first thing each day. The ones that have the biggest ROI and payoff for your clients and your business should be the top six. Focus on those first every day.

• Give praise. Reward yourself and your employees every time you have a big completion by taking everyone out to lunch or passing out bonuses or handwritten thank-you notes to each employee who worked on the project. Celebrate successes.

Completions can fuel your energy for new projects, hugely improve your productivity and well-being, and get you motivated! Start tackling your incompletions now and see how much better you feel and how much stronger your business becomes as a result.

Snowden McFall, professional speaker, trainer, author, is the owner of Fired Up! Professional Speaking and Corporate Training. She can be reached at 904-940-7355 or through www.firedupnow.com.

By Robyn A. Friedman   

When David and Patricia Watkins started their mobile pet vaccination clinic, Pet Shots Cheap, about 18 months ago, they knew they needed insurance. So the Jacksonville-based entrepreneurs sat down with a local agent, who sold them liability and workers’ compensation policies.

Two days later, the agent called to say their application for insurance had been denied.

“We were really concerned because without insurance we couldn’t work,” said David. “And because the company was already insuring our competition, we were wondering what the real issue for the denial was.”

Rather than give up, the couple sought advice from the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of North Florida, where they were referred to another agent, who successfully obtained insurance for the fledgling venture.

The Watkins’ experience is not unusual. Many small business owners face challenges in procuring the proper insurance coverage for their companies. For some, it’s because they’re unfamiliar with the types of insurance they should have or the policy limits necessary to adequately protect them.

Others, particularly those with home-based businesses, may be underinsured. According to Independent Insurance Agents of America, 40 percent of home workers are underinsured because they believe—incorrectly—that their homeowners policy covers their business operations.

“Many entrepreneurs don’t understand insurance because they are intimidated by it,” said Vicky M. Zelen, president of Zelen Risk Solutions Inc. in Jacksonville. “Coverage forms are complicated and somewhat difficult to understand without a law degree.”

From the beginning

Most small businesses should have the following types of insurance in place from day one:

Property coverage. Commercial property insurance covers business property and physical assets—whether the property belongs to you or is in your care, custody, or control. For example: A dry cleaner that has customers’ clothing or a warehouse storing other businesses’ goods.

General liability. A liability policy protects a business owner against claims for accidental bodily injury or property damage to a third-person’s property. For example: General liability insurance covers a restaurant if a customer slips and falls while dining there or if someone claims the food made him sick.

Commercial auto. This covers your company vehicles for comprehensive or collision and protects the business from liability resulting from accidents with third parties. It covers bodily injury of third parties and/or property damage to the vehicles or other property of third parties.

Workers’ compensation. Workers’ compensation is required by the state for any nonconstruction business employing four or more people and any construction business with at least one employee. It provides medical and partial wage replacement benefits to employees who are injured while engaging in work-related activities.

Workers’ compensation is affordable and provides excellent coverage, so many insurance agents advise small business owners to obtain it—even if they are exempt because they only have one or two employees. 

In addition to

While the above four types are recommended—or required—for most small businesses in Florida, there are additional types of coverage that, depending on industry, may be relevant.

Business interruption. This covers lost business income as well as extra expenses to help get your business back up and running fast. If a fire destroys your restaurant, for example, you will receive a check for lost business income from the insurance company.

Errors and omissions/malpractice. This type of liability insurance protects those who provide professional advice or services, such as attorneys, accountants, physicians, architects, engineers, etc.

Key person. Key person insurance protects a business if an employee instrumental to the success of the venture dies or becomes disabled. If that person is a product developer, for example, it could cover the cost of finding a replacement.

Health. A group health insurance policy not only protects the employees of the business, but can also be a valuable tool for attracting and retaining employees.

Liquor liability. If your business serves liquor—even if you use caterers with bartenders—then liquor liability coverage is a necessity, and may be included in your general liability policy.

Employment practices liability. This protects employers for employee-related issues, such as wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, etc. “This is the fastest rising claim in the property casualty industry,” said Christian Baird, a property and casualty specialist with MetLife in Jacksonville. “All an employee would have to do is say you pinched her once, and you’ve got a lawsuit.”

Disability overhead. Baird said this protects an entrepreneur in the event he gets sick or injured and cannot work. “We’re all three times more likely to get sick or injured and not be able to work for two and a half years than of dying before the age of 65,” he added. “So this helps make sure the business continues in the event of a debilitating disease or accident.”

In the market?

Some expert tips to consider when you are in the market for insurance:

•Consult with experts at the SBDC or SCORE. They can help ensure you have adequate property limits without overpaying on premiums.

•Get quotes from three different insurance agents, and consider using an independent broker, who represents many companies and may be more objective.

“Some of the captive insurance companies such as State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide, and Farm Bureau have excellent insurance programs and can be tough to beat for coverage and price,” Zelen said. “But independent agents can usually write all of your insurance.”

•Incorporate risk mitigation practices into your business operations. “There are a lot of different things you can do to assess your risk and mitigate that risk as opposed to buying insurance,” said Cathy Hagan, area director of the SBDC in Jacksonville.

“If you do background checks on employees or take care of your property so it doesn’t create hazards, that could protect you and maybe lessen the requirement of insurance.”

•If you work at home, remember your homeowners policy will not protect you from liability resulting from your business operations. So if a client injures himself in  your home, you may be in trouble—unless you have a rider to your policy that protects your home-based business or another type of general liability coverage.

•If you use subcontractors or have vendors, consider obtaining a certificate of insurance from each one to ensure they have adequate coverage as well as workers’ compensation. 

•Make sure your insurance carrier has a high rating and is financially secure. Look for a rating of A or better.

Most important, work with an insurance agent who specializes in business—or who at least devotes a large chunk of his time servicing the needs of business clients.

 “A good insurance agent will explain the coverages available to clients so they are knowledgeable and make smart insurance purchases,” said Zelen.

Robyn A. Friedman is a contributing editor to Advantage. She can be reached at RAFWriter@att.net.

What’s adequate insurance cost?

Premiums vary based on a business’s operations, assets, number of employees, payroll, property holdings, revenues, policy limits, etc. According to Vicky M. Zelen, president of Zelen Risk Solutions Inc., coverage can run as little as $300 per year—or can be unlimited for large entities with risky operations. General liability insurance is usually from 1% to 5% of annual revenues, she said, although this varies greatly depending upon the industry.

By Richard Hadden, CSP  

Hiring is one of the most important and far-reaching functions any manager performs. Deciding who does and does not get to play on the team has implications the tentacles of which extend throughout the organization, and for years to come.

Make the right hiring decision and your job as a manager gets immeasurably easier; get it wrong, and your headaches will compound daily.

One tool that helps managers get this all-important decision right more often is behavioral interviewing—a method of conducting job interviews that focuses on specific behaviors in order to discover and identify candidates’ qualities, characteristics, and skills.

Here’s the premise: The most accurate predictor of future performance, in many situations, is past performance in a similar situation.

Although behavioral interviewing has probably been in use, in one form or another, since the ancient Egyptians were quizzing potential pyramid builders, its use has become more widespread and popular since the 1970s—when the research of industrial psychologists gave it more credibility and structure.

The good news is you don’t have to be a psychologist to use it well, but you do need to do it right. A qualified human resources professional, either in your organization or from an outside service provider, can be a huge help.

Setting parameters

Besides linking past and potential situational performance, behavioral interviewing also recognizes that certain qualities or characteristics—let’s call them “dimensions”—are particularly valuable for certain jobs, environments, and organizational cultures.

Behavioral interviewing works best when the interviewer has established a limited set of dimensions that predict success with a particular job in the organization.

For example: Suppose you’re interviewing for a sales professional in the industrial chemicals field. Of course, you’ll have certain educational and perhaps experience requirements for successful candidates.

But beyond that, you’ve determined, after analyzing the job in your organizational culture (which is important because it may be different for the same job in a different organization), that those who have been successful in this role had the following dimensions in common:

• Good oral communication skills,

• Presence (they make a good appearance and a positive impression),

• Resilience (they are able to bounce back when people say “no”),

• Initiative, and a

• Strong ability to influence.

You would then ask questions that help you understand whether or not the candidate you’re interviewing is strong in these dimensions. You ask how they have, in the past, behaved in certain situations or what they might do given a certain hypothetical scenario.

To determine to what degree the candidate possesses good oral communication skills, for instance, you might ask for an example of what he or she did to effectively communicate with someone they didn’t especially like.

You might ask what steps he or she does to ensure a good first impression to look at the dimension of “presence,” and have him or her provide two examples of working under pressure to examine resilience.

Now suppose you’re a manager in a medium-sized, family-owned company. The culture in the company emphasizes individual sacrifice for group benefit. In other words, prima donnas are not suffered lightly and team orientation is paramount.

You’re interviewing for a multipurpose administrative position that also involves marketing support and some creative writing. In this case, you might be looking for people with these dimensions:

• Consideration,

• Team orientation,

• Tolerance for repetitive tasks,

• Creativity, and

• Self-organization.

Can you interview for qualities like “consideration?” Sure. Provide a scenario of your phone constantly ringing during the interview and you taking every call, and then ask, “What would you do?”

If team orientation is important, ask, “Tell me about a time you gave up something you really wanted for the good of your workgroup.” And rather than asking, “What is your tolerance for repetitive tasks?” instead ask, “If you were working on an assembly line, doing the same task all day, what would you do to stay alert and make the job more engaging and interesting?”

Telltale answers

Of course, it’s not just the questions that matter—it’s also the answers. As an interviewer, be mentally prepared for a general range of what kind of answers you’re seeking, but don’t be overly rigid in your expectations.

Behaviorally anchored questions tend not to have a right or wrong answer, but rather good answers, and, well, not-so-good ones. As an interviewer, you must develop skill in determining to what degree a particular answer predicts success for the candidate in that job.

Don’t use behavioral interviewing to the complete exclusion of other kinds of questions. Good interviews cover a wide range of topics. As the interviewer, you’re trying to get to know this person, at least just a little bit, in a very short period of time. You want to know not only can this person do the job, but also:

• Will they be happy, productive, and successful doing it here? and

• What will it be like to work with this person?

Hotelier Bill Marriott said, “It’s more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.” While experience is important, and some cases absolutely crucial, your hiring success would probably improve by following Marriott’s advice.

Behavioral interviewing is a great way to match people with the opportunity to do great things for your business.

Richard Hadden, CSP, is an author and professional speaker who helps organizations understand the business case for creating a great workplace. He’s co-author of the “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and the brand-new book, “Rebooting Leadership.” He can be reached through www.ContentedCows.com.

Behavioral questions

Behavioral interviewing helps you determine future performance of a candidate by asking questions about past performance in a similar situation. Some examples of behavioral interview questions include:

• “Give me an example of a time when you had to communicate effectively with a person you didn’t especially like. What did you do to communicate effectively with that person?”

• “What steps do you usually take to ensure people get a good first impression of you?”

• “Please provide two specific examples in which you have worked well under pressure?”

• “How would you cope with the repetitive rejection of selling a product where 90% of the time the buyer says, ‘no’? What would you do to stay motivated to continue?”

• “Tell me about a time when you inadvertently offended someone. How did you handle it once you became aware of it?”

• “If your cell phone rang in the middle of an important conversation, what would you do?”

• “What would motivate others to be on a team with you?”

By David Goad   

With the proliferation of webinars as a common communication vehicle for business, odds are you may eventually be asked to present in one—maybe as a featured speaker or as a panelist sharing the virtual stage with others.

There is plenty of advice on how to be a good moderator, but not as much on how to be a good panelist. 

So here are three tips that will help you pull off successful webinar appearances.

Tip #1: Prepare

Since you already know your subject so well, is it really necessary to rehearse? Unequivocally, yes! Even before you get to the “dry run” or dress rehearsal, you should have prepared the key messages that you want to rise to the top during the live session.

Write out an introduction, a closing, and at least three to five key supporting points. Rehearse them out loud until they come out in a confident and conversational tone.

If you express them passionately during your dry run, your moderator is more likely to ask you about them during the live event. Encouraging your moderator to ask you transitional questions between your slides will help you sound more natural and conversational.

You might also find it helpful to ask to see the presentations from your fellow panelists in advance. It’s awkward to show up at the prom with matching dresses, and painful to be blindsided with controversy.

Tip #2: Project

Present with more power than you think you need. Typical webinars with audio and PowerPoint slides are a lot like doing a radio show. Listen to a radio talk show host in your car and note the pace, energy, and vocal variety used to keep your interest. Without body language to help you engage your audience, your voice must do all the work.

Instead of sitting at your desk with your phone to your ear, put on a good, quality headset and stand up to present. Don’t hold back on gesturing with your hands, even if your office mates begin staring at you.

Your energy and airflow will be much stronger, and the audience will hear the difference.

Tip #3: Pay attention

This seems obvious, but there are great speakers who are so focused on their own words that they repeat something already said by another panelist. It is also more interesting to the audience to hear a conversation or debate instead of a one-voice lecture or product pitch.

Pay attention to courtesy—take care to let other panelists get in their equal share of “air time.” You can even ask them what they think about your last point to get them talking. This is also a great stalling technique if you need a drink of water.

Help your moderator during the question and answer (Q&A) period by suggesting commonly asked questions the audience may be interested in. With certain webinar programs, you can send private chat messages to the moderator about questions you want to be asked or corrections you would like to make.

Pay close attention to what is being asked during the Q&A and give short, but impactful answers. If needed, use the “defer and segue” technique for tough questions, perhaps adding in a valuable point you wanted to make. 

For example: “That’s a deep dive question that would be better answered by one of our engineers, and I can connect you with an expert after the session. But your question is part of a larger issue we’ve heard from others in your industry… how much time and money should you spend on customization for your end-users? We have deployment experts who can help guide you in that decision.”

Prepare, project, and pay attention

Follow these tips to ensure your message is well-delivered, even if your moderator is not quite up to par. The audience will appreciate it and seek you out for more information after the webinar. And the skills you develop for online presenting will be just as helpful for face-to-face presentations. A webinar may be virtual, but it’s still stage time.

David Goad is a speaker, writer, and Cisco marketeer based in Tracy, Calif. Learn more about his approach to business communication and inspiration from his blog, Short Stories with a Point located at http://davidgoad.wordpress.com.

To hear more…

•You can listen to customers discuss how they were able to demonstrate complex software demos, launch new products, and present to virtual audiences from anywhere to anywhere in the world by visiting www.webex.com/m/ShowcasePodcast-Events.mp3.

 • You can also learn about customized solutions that can help you transition your traditional face-to-face events to online events by contacting Cisco WebEx Collaboration Solutions Expert, Gretta Spaulding, at gretta.spaulding@webex.com.

By Brian J. Bibb   

No doubt about it: Having a matching 401(k) plan is an asset when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent. But are you aware that sponsoring a 401(k) can put you at risk?

If you, as an employer, choose to offer a 401(k) plan by becoming a plan sponsor, you incur a significant liability—and that liability extends to your personal assets.

If you act as a plan sponsor, you are held legally responsible for every aspect of the plan, such as fulfilling 5500 filing requirements, depositing employee contributions within the proper time frame, and providing investment oversight, along with many other operational requirements.

No assumptions

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) Section 404c provides a plan sponsor with statutory relief from liability for the investment actions taken by participants in a participant directed account plan.

Unfortunately, you cannot assume that because you are meeting 404(c) requirements or have a full-service 401(k) vendor that all of your fiduciary exposure is covered. This reasoning is one of the biggest disconnects in the 401(k) market today.

Many plan sponsors and CFOs assume because they are using a recognized 401(k) vendor that that vendor is taking care of all the necessary compliance issues. Unfortunately, as demonstrated by recent court rulings, this is not always the case and could be a financially devastating assumption.

ERISA, a federal law that regulates retirement plans, defines fiduciary responsibility in functional terms as anyone who exercises authority and control over the plan’s assets or has discretionary authority and responsibility in the plan’s administration.

Its day in court

In recent years, court cases hold ERISA fiduciaries personally liable to replenish retirement plan funds that become depleted because of the fiduciary’s actions or inactions. Even failing to make employee contributions from payroll within the required time frame exposes the plan fiduciary to unnecessary risk.

In 2008, the United States saw ERISA-related class actions top $17.7 billion, a shocking increase from the $1.8 billion payout in 2007. Of these, some of the largest settlements involved allegations of breach of fiduciary duty. The plans involved are also more frequently those of smaller businesses.

In 2008, the Supreme Court (LaRue vs. Dewolff, Boberg, & Associates, Inc.) ruled that 401(k) plan participants be permitted to sue plan sponsors over the investment performance of their account. This ruling put all 401(k) plans at risk, regardless of size, because of the possibility that it allowed any individual participant the ability to file a claim for losses in their individual, self-directed account.

Because these class-action and individual lawsuits are often fueled by poor economic conditions, you will see more attorneys encouraging employees to sue. Each employer and/or CFO acting as a plan sponsor or fiduciary therefore must remember to take precautions by keeping up with new regulations and taking steps to reduce legal exposure. If you are a plan sponsor, you must also fully disclose to your employees the associated risks and costs.

Your alternatives

Employers acting as plan sponsors do have the option of delegating duties of a limited scope to a specialized fiduciary for the plan’s administration: one for selecting, monitoring, and replacing the plan’s investment options, or one for certain trustee duties.

Plan sponsors can even go so far as unloading the liability for other duties by delegating them to a full-scope, professional, and independent fiduciary in accordance with ERISA section 3(21).

If you are thinking about freeing yourself from the personal liability associated with your fiduciary role, you have options. One of the best and most overlooked options in the market is the use of a Multiple Employer Plan (MEP).

MEP is a single-employer plan maintained by two or more contributing sponsors that are not members of the same controlled group, under which all plan assets are available to pay benefits to all plan participants and beneficiaries. This allows two or more smaller employers to offer a more robust and affordable benefit to its employees.

With this MEP type of plan, a principal plan sponsor bears all responsibility and liability—including residual oversight duty to monitor a full-scope independent ERISA section 3(21) named fiduciary—for running the retirement plan.

For decades, small-business owners have used MEPs to provide top-quality plans for their employees without the liability and administrative burdens associated with traditional single employer plans.

In most cases, the costs to provide these plans are significantly less as well.

Know what you’re getting into

A 401(k) can actually be a great thing, and it’s important to assess how you, as a business owner, go about managing your employee benefits.

Remember to be wise when selecting a partner to assist you in your retirement plan benefits program. You will want a trusted partner who will not only show you options that provide your employees the greatest benefit in the marketplace, but one who will show you how to provide that benefit for the greatest value to you and your business without exposing you to unnecessary liability and administrative hardships.

Ask questions so you fully understand the delegation of responsibilities and who holds specific liabilities. This can save you an enormous amount of time, energy, and money.

Brian J. Bibb is the president of Bibb Financial Services. Bibb Financial Services offers custom 401(k) plan services for small- to medium-sized businesses in Florida and Georgia. Learn more by calling 800-395-0091 and visiting www.BibbFinancial.com.

By Kimberly Deas        

When Holly decided to start a cheesecake company, she knew she could not afford a storefront immediately, so she looked for a low-cost opportunity to launch her business. She decided to create a strategic alliance with a local restaurant.

The restaurant owner would allow her to use the restaurant as her commissary and she would supply him with cheesecakes. The arrangement worked well for both. Holly had a place to bake her cheesecakes and a steady flow of dessert-craving customers. The restaurant was supplied with delicious handmade cheesecakes for their customers. It was a real win-win relationship for both parties. 

Today, more small business owners are setting up atrategic Alliance Partnerships (SAP) as a way to grow their business. Strategic alliances allow you to leverage the resources of another business in order for both businesses to achieve their goals.

Common resources that are often leveraged include employees, facilities, knowledge, and contact bases. By sharing resources, both businesses can grow more rapidly with lower costs than without the alliance.

SAPs open the door to new opportunities for the businesses involved. Here are four important benefits to an effective strategic alliance:

• Instant trust and credibility. By partnering with a business that already has an established reputation in the marketplace, you can quickly gain credibility and trust from the marketplace purely by association. You are elevated to a higher level in the eyes of potential clients that know your partner. You gain significantly more credibility through association with a credible business than through an advertisement alone. If you are a newer business, this allows you to establish credibility in a few months that might normally take years.

• More clients. Setting up a cross-marketing campaign in which you market to your partner’s customers and vice versa allows you to increase your contact base with no additional cost. It is like doubling your contacts overnight.

• Addressing more of your clients’ needs. Partnering with a business that can provide your clients with more services allows you to be the “one stop shop” your clients are looking for. For example, a hair salon might partner with a masseuse to come in three days a week to provide its clients with massages. The salon is now able to serve more of its client’s needs without hiring staff and incurring additional overhead. The masseuse has new clients and comes highly recommended by her new partner.

• New markets. By partnering with a business that specializes in a particular niche market, you can quickly tap into new market segments. A CPA firm might want to work with first-year business owners. By creating a SAP with a legal firm that specializes in incorporating businesses, the CPA can quickly access a pool of potential clients for a fraction of the cost of creating it themselves.

1+1=4

An effective strategic alliance becomes more than a sum of the parts. Working together allows both businesses to experience growth beyond what they could have done alone. This is how 1+1 = 4.

The key to achieving this type of exponential benefit is to choose the right partner. Just like a marriage, the right partner makes all the difference. Your partner becomes a reflection of your business.

A mismatched partnership can have detrimental effects on your business. Because your partner is a reflection of your business, a poorly chosen partner speaks volumes about your business. This could result in loosing clients, a tarnished reputation, wasted resources, potentially even staff losses and possibly a lawsuit.

Go slow; take your time. Get to know your partner. Find out about the business and its owner and their way of doing business. Just a like a marriage, once you are in the relationship, it is much harder to get out.

As you consider a partner, use the following criteria to evaluate if it is a good match for you:

1.     Complement. Does your partner’s business complement your services and products? In a strategic alliance, it is important that the partners complement and don’t compete for the same clients.

2.     Business styles. Can you work together? Many partnerships fall apart because the partners just can’t work together. Sometimes differing business styles can ruin a partnership. Take time to evaluate your partner’s business style with yours. Do you ‘click’ with your new potential partner?

3.     Credibility. Does the individual have a good reputation? His credibility will be your credibility, especially if you are a newcomer. Take time to get to know your potential partner. Check out his web sites and talk with his clients. Ask for references. Would you be happy being his partner?

4.     Needs of the contact base. If you are cross-marketing, does the potential partner’s client base need or want your services and vice versa? For a successful partnership you want a mutually beneficial partnership. Look for a win-win. 

5.     Size of the contact base. If you are cross-marketing, is it a fair trade? Consider the size of the client base of your potential partner. Ideally, you want to have a similarly sized contact base. Your partner might feel cheated if she offers 1,000 contacts and you have only 10.

6.     Efforts of your partner. Can your partner put in the same effort that you are willing to put in? If not, this will seem like an unbalanced relationship and may fall apart.

7.     Consider your goals. Can the partner help you achieve your goals? Consider your objectives with the partnership and confirm your partner has the resources, abilities, and desire.

Taking the time to thoroughly evaluate your partner will save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of cleaning up after a partnership gone wrong. The rewards of an effective strategic alliance are well worth the effort it takes. Imagine doubling your contacts, opening new markets and obtaining instant trust and credibility. It is truly no surprise why strategic alliances are so popular with small business owners.

Kimberly Deas is the founder of SBHBTools (www.sbhbtools.com). Her firm designs customized marketing strategies for small business owners including social media plans. She can be reached at KDeas@SBHBTools.com or 904-206-7754.

Something old, something new. Lifestyles Realty Web (www.lifestylesrealtyweb.com), a locally owned company, has both: An “old” established name, and a new business model that has allowed it to grow, despite the odds in the current real estate market in Florida.

“Lifestyles originally came to Jacksonville in 2001,” said partner Kris Pedersen, who had been a vice president with the old firm. “It was owned by Michael Bugg. In 2003, real estate started picking up and the company grew at a fast pace. Within two years there were 400 agents in nine main offices and 72 branch offices in five states.”

When the bottom fell out of the real estate market, Lifestyles Realty closed its doors and Bugg returned to Atlanta. “I left in 2006 and went into development,” said Pedersen. “But I kept my eye on the market. I saw Dan McCarthy and his partner Ryan Fitzgerald grow their Florida Realty Web agency and saw an opportunity to resurrect the Lifestyles brand, which people recognize.” Pedersen joined McCarthy and Fitzgerald, and Florida Realty Web changed its name to Lifestyles Realty Web.

The “something new” that has contributed to Lifestyles’ success, according to McCarthy, is the tools it gives its agents, including a novel fee structure, which he says represents a new business model for real estate. He says Lifestyles has taken the best of two worlds—Internet real estate and traditional real estate—and combined them to help their agents succeed.

“We are trying to give our agents the chance to make as much as they can,” said McCarthy. “We know the agent has to do a lot more work than they used to. The most important thing is to get the top agents, and the top agents want to be rewarded.”

Those rewards come essentially in two ways: the ability to negotiate the seller’s fee and a 100% commission structure.

Under the buyer’s co-op plan, many sellers who list with Lifestyles pay a flat fee for a listing that appears in the Jacksonville-area multiple listings service (MLS) as well as on Realtor.com—two key real estate marketing tools. The seller may choose to do most (or all) of the work in showing the house and closing the deal and pay no additional fees. But if a seller wants full support and wants to be represented by an agent, a Lifestyles agent is able to negotiate the seller’s fee, down to 2%. “We give our agents the tools to negotiate with homeowners to do the best possible things for them,” said McCarthy.

Lifestyles agents who bring buyers to the flat-fee listing’s seller also have the power to be rewarded with the co-op commission (generally 3%) that is available to all licensed Realtors.

Many Lifestyles agents work under an 80%-20% commission split. Recently, however, the agency initiated a new pay structure—a 100% commission option for top agents. “The 80-20 agents get leads,” says McCarthy. “With our Internet presence we bring in a lot of leads. Some agents don’t need those leads; they are well established. We give them 100% commission.”

To make money, the agency charges a flat $395 transaction fee, no matter the selling price of the property. The agents also pay a $195 monthly desk fee, or a one-time annual fee of $1,800. “We had an experienced agent who was considering leaving real estate because of the market come on board,” said McCarthy. “In the first six months, he’s made an extra $15,600. For experienced agents, [the 100% structure] is a ‘no brainer.’”

Lifestyles Realty Web is located in Jacksonville Beach. Its resurrection, combined with the changes in how the agency operates, is working. It was grown from three agents to 23 within 18 months. The partners are also opening an office on the Southside, and are considering opening one in the fall in either Orange Park or Mandarin.