FreshBusinessThinking.com:

Online social network for homeworkers Enterprise Nation is giving £100 to 100 businesses and would-be businesses for their “good ideas”. The competition, in association with PayPal, is asking its members how they’d spend the money on their ventures, awarding £10,000 in all.

Ideas 101 in association with PayPal launches today and asks, “if we gave you £100, how would you spend it?” And the question’s not hypothetical! PayPal and Enterprise Nation are giving £100 to 100 of its members with the best business ideas. The money can be spent on anything from training, to equipment or branded t-shirts.

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Despite that fact that it is 2010 and today’s marketplace being technologically driven, you might be surprised at how just many small-businesses still don’t accept credit card payments. If your small business doesn’t currently take credit/debit cards than you are really missing out on a sizable revenue stream. Due to the many benefits credit cards offer- convenience, security, increase of purchasing power, etc, many of today’s shoppers prefer to use credit cards when paying for items bought online or in-person.

In order to start conduct credit card processing, your business needs to first be set up with a merchant account. Merchant accounts make it possible for small businesses to accept payments made to them via credit and debit cards.
It is important that you have the necessary information lined up before applying for a merchant account as to prevent any possible delays. When applying, lenders typically require that applicants have a running website, voided check, active checking account, and proof of ownership. If you operate within in a high-risk or specialized industry, than additional items like photos, trade references, and recent tax returns may also be requested.

Merchant accounts are available either directly through a vendor or through a third party agent that is partnered with the vendor. Credit card transactions can be processed and verified via electronic authorization in three ways:

• After swipage, the credit cards magnetic strip is verified by the credit card terminal

• The customer’s information is already registered in the credit card terminal and/or website

• A readable computer chip inside of the credit card is processed

For more information on merchant accounts, check out credit-card-processing-review.toptenreviews.com, nabancard.com and Wikipedia as I found all of them to be pretty helpful.

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Atlantic Online:

To stanch the flow of continued job losses (with 263,000 jobs lost in September, up from 201,000 in August), the White House is weighing new options. Among them are more stimulus-style projects as well as traditionally conservative approaches such as tax cuts for small businesses. As Obama’s economic team pursues new strategies for America’s catastrophic unemployment, economists of all stripes are offering suggestions. Dire times have pushed some pundits to cross party lines looking for solutions. Below, five ideas for tackling unemployment and two warnings about what not to do.

* 1. Send Money to States – The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib notes that states are more vulnerable since many are required to balance their budgets and are also better at pushing out jobs than the federal government. “Getting additional help to states in coming months might well be both the most efficient and the most politically feasible action Washington could take to avoid sinking deeper into the jobs hole,” he writes. “Getting money out to states quickly may have been the single most effective impact of the February stimulus package. That money — which went for construction projects, education and health-care programs — helped financially strapped states avoid even bigger disasters as they put together budgets for the current fiscal year.”

* …But States Must Court Businesses – Jennifer Rubin examines Michigan, a state that has spent and worked extravagantly to promote jobs without success. “For starters, it is one of the more heavily unionized states around. The UAW did its number on the car industry, and any employer coming into the state will have a similar experience with Big Labor. Given the choice between a right-to-work Sun Belt state and a Big Labor–dominated Rust Belt one, most employers will (and do) choose the former,” she writes. “Think for a moment (aside from the political impossibility of it) what would happen if the state passed a right-to-work law allowing employees to refuse to join a union. I’d imagine employers might take another look at Michigan.” Read more.

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FranchiseTalk:

* Check that existing business continuity contingency plans address long-term absenteeism rates. In particular, check to see if core business activities can be sustained over several weeks with only a minimal workforce available.

* Identify your company’s essential functions, which might include accounting, payroll, and information technology, and the individuals who perform them. The absence of these individuals could seriously impair business continuity. Cross-train employees to perform essential functions to ensure resiliency.

* Plan for interruptions of essential government services like sanitation, water, power, and transportation, or disruptions to the food supply. For example, employees may need back-up plans for car pools in case mass transit is interrupted.

* Determine which outside activities are critical to maintain operations and develop alternatives in case they cannot function normally. For example, what transportation systems are needed to provide essential materials? Does the business operate on ‘just in time’ inventory or is there typically some in reserve?

* Update sick leave and family and medical leave policies and communicate with employees about the importance of staying away from the workplace if they become ill.

* Establish or expand policies and tools that enable employees to work from home with appropriate security and network access to applications.

* Collaborate with insurers, health plans, and major healthcare facilities to share your pandemic contingency plans and to learn about their capabilities and plans.

* Maintain a healthy work environment. Ensure adequate air circulation. Post tips on how to stop the spread of germs at work. Promote hand and respiratory hygiene. Ensure wide and easy availability of alcohol-based hand sanitizer products.

Tell your employees about the threat of pandemic flu and the steps the company is taking to prepare for it. Establish an emergency communications plan and revise periodically. The plan should include key contacts (with back-ups), a chain of communications (including suppliers and customers), and the processes for communicating pandemic status and actions to employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers inside and outside the worksite in a consistent and timely way.

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New York Daily News:

No tax question is too tough for New York’s top accountants, and Your Money is putting them to work for you — for free.

The annual Daily News Tax Hotline is returning this week to assist filers. An all-star team of certified public accountants will be on hand tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., to take your calls and reply to your blog posts and e-mails.

To get help, call (212) 210-2044, visit nydailynews.com/money or write to tax@nydailynews.com.

The Daily News is partnering again on the Tax Hotline with the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants, whose members have helped thousands of Daily News readers over the years.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for consumers to obtain free tax advice from top tax professionals,” said Sharon Sabba Fierstein, president of the society. “Our members have expertise in federal and state tax issues to respond to questions on any level.”

Your Money Editor Scott Wenger added: “In a tough economy, every legitimate deduction is crucial. Many readers don’t realize they may qualify for a refund.”

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Small Business:

1. Have a induction policy for welcoming and training new employees. Don’t just leave it to whoever is available. Human resources should cover the HR side of the induction with a trainer (if you have one) or a senior manager or supervisor covering the more hands on part of the job. Either way the following is a minimum of what is required.

2. Give your employee a warm welcome. Don’t just point them to the area they work and let them get on with it. Nothing makes a new employee feel comfortable more than a warm welcome.

3. Give them a brief description about your role as a supervisor. Knowing who’s in charge and what you expect from them will make them more comfortable with you as the boss.

4. Give your new employee a welcome tour of the whole department or, if the site isn’t too big, the whole site. Make sure they know how to get to the bathroom, emergency exits, cafeteria etc.

5. Give them a brief summary about the company, its history as well as its mission and objectives.

6. If possible demonstrate your company’s products and/or services, paying particular attention to the products relating to the area in which the employee will work. This will make them more secure and confident with the work that they are going to be doing.

7. Explain to your new employee how the company works particularly if the company has any unusual working practices or a different structure than the norm. Again, this will help familiarize them with the company. Continue reading.

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ITworld.com:

*Send out an e-mail newsletter. Even if you have a small bricks-and-mortar business, you should be collecting the e-mail address of every customer who walks through your door.

That way you can send them a regular newsletter with special offers, special events, coupons, and more.

“Your newsletter will keep your best customers coming back again and again,” says Tribby. “You can send your newsletter with cheap software like Get Response, which for only $17 per month Early to Rise uses to send e-mail to more than 440,000 subscribers. Or you can set up a new account with free e-mail services like Yahoo or Gmail to send messages to your list of customers.”

* Try your hand at online public relations. If you have a new product coming out, you should announce the news online. Write an informative press release with plenty of “contact” info that leads back to your own website or business. But because not too many people will be interested in reading only about your business, be sure to link your “news” with a hot topic of the day. It could be something that’s been in the news or that is controversial in your industry. Then submit it to online press release sites like PRWeb.com or Free-press-release.com.

For example, Tribby reports that she had the good fortune to interview Newt Gingrich in March 2007. Immediately after the interview, ETR posted a press release to several online press distribution services. It also uploaded comments about the interview to news-aggregating services, blogs, and political forums (with a back-link to the release posted in its Investors Daily Edge archive).

“Within the weeks following the initial interview, website visits and traffic ranking more than doubled and conversion also showed a spike,” says Tribby. “Three months later, the release was still being picked up by the media and through syndication… and the Investors Daily Edge website was enjoying residual traffic and back-links from this effort.”

* Hold teleconferences (a.k.a. teleseminars). Anybody can pick up a telephone and start talking. And that’s the key to using teleconferences to promote your business. It works like this: You find an expert in your industry to interview over the phone, you arrange a number for your customers to call in to hear the interview either for free or a modest fee, you offer another product to your customers during the call, and you record the call (which you can sell later).

“Essentially, you could have hundreds, or even thousands, of your customers listening in to your marketing message for minimal cost,” says Tribby. “My own company does teleconferences that cost less than $1 per attendee to produce. We actually had one that brought in $330,000.”

* Participate in joint ventures. Leverage your relationships with other, likeminded businesses in your niche or in related industries through joint ventures. Each JV is different, but it basically involves working together to promote each other’s products, with each side taking a split of the profit. It’s a great way to accelerate the growth of a business without spending much money.

“When joint venturing, look for strong partners, businesses that have skills or resources you lack,” advises Tribby. “Make sure each side’s contribution is equal and decided in advance. Make agreements simple, but put them in writing. The idea is to create joint ventures that are easy to maintain, financially lucrative, and long-lasting.

“Agora Inc., the ‘parent’ company of Early to Rise, grew its business from $1 million to $60 million primarily through joint ventures,” she adds. “It partnered with outside investment writers to publish financial newsletters and grow each publication’s subscriber list.”

* Use pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Services like Google AdWords offer a great low-cost way to advertise online. The best part is that your ads are targeted to Web surfers who are looking for products or services just like yours. You can even target your ads to specific geographic areas—perfect for bricks-and-mortar businesses.

In PPC advertising you pay only when someone clicks on your ad on the results page of Google. And your ads, which are three lines with a headline and your URL, show up only when someone is searching for keywords you have designated for your ad. You bid on these keywords, which should be terms that you think your target market is searching for. Because you bid and control how much you spend, you can limit your investment to as much or as little as you’d like.

“The key to success with PPC is testing,” notes Tribby. “You have to change your headlines, copy, and offer until you find the combination that brings in sales.”

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Press Release 365:

For a limited time, Axioi, Inc. will provide coaching at no cost to new members of one of the world’s most successful work-at-home training programs. By enrolling through a special URL, new members of the Maverick Money Makers Club will automatically be eligible for one month of free personal coaching.

There are typically three common truths to starting a work-at-home home business: 1) It is possible to get started without a coach, but it is a lot easier and often faster to succeed with one. 2) Coaching for a start-up company can be anywhere from five to twenty thousand dollars; often more. 3) Every vendor will upsell, upsell, upsell.

This joint venture provides personal one-on-one coaching at no cost for one month with no expectation that coaching will continue beyond the gifted time.

Says Isak Griffiths, owner of Axioi: “Mack [Michaels] and I both really want to see people create amazing lives for themselves. There is nothing like having the time and the money to be able to care of your family, give back to the community, and enjoy being with your friends. We want to give people every opportunity to make this happen.”

This is a limited opportunity, however. More info here.

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Virtual Entrepreneur:

How gloomy are entrepreneurs?

Check out the latest results of a survey of 805 small-business owners by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group. In the last 420 months that the NFIB has taken that monthly pulse of small-business owners–on everything from profits and inventories to hiring and capital spending–last December marked the second-worst in terms of overall optimism. (The most pessimistic month was recorded during another recession–back in 1980.)

Few think the pain will subside anytime soon. There comes a point, though, when it’s time to stop worrying and get down to the business of, well, staying in business.

While every small company has its own specific challenges, there are plenty that span all industries. We canvassed the entrepreneurial landscape looking for common problems–and tapped top business minds for their cures (or at least palliatives).

How can I plan when I can’t project?… read on.

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Best Syndication:

You’ve decided that you want to run your own business from home. You’re probably looking forward excitedly to running an enjoyable and rewarding business but you’re also a little bit nervous about the idea. There’s so much to think about and lots to do. In this, the first of a series about running your home based business let us explore the options of where you will work.

This may seem a very strange question but determining your “work environment” at home is very much dependent on the type of business you have. If your business is home based, but the practical aspects of the work takes place elsewhere (for example, if you are a plumber or an electrician) then your needs are going to be different to someone running, for example, a massage business from home. However, one massage therapist may provide their services in the comfort of their clients’ own homes while another will attend to their clients in a specified room at home. So as you can see, there are different needs and requirements.

Therefore there are a number of things you need to consider in terms of space. Will you be working from home or at home? Working from home doesn’t necessarily mean you need less space. Our plumber for example will require secure storage space for tools, materials and probably a vehicle, whereas a freelance writer may only need a table or a desk for their laptop.

Do you require storage space for any equipment you need to run your business? Read on…

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CIO Today:

Teleworking, broadly defined, is the ability to work from a home or remote location for all or part of the work week. Companies have been implementing large-scale teleworking programs for close to a decade, following a trend that had its root in contact centers.

Use of home-based agents became a popular business strategy because of the clear, measurable results proven out by rigorous performance metrics, and the reduction in employee churn typical of many contact center operations. In recent years, improvements in technologies have led to a wider adoption of teleworking as an accepted work situation. Technology advances, such as high-speed Internet, IP telephony , e-mail, instant messaging, Web conferencing and videoconferencing, can streamline communications and collaboration among remote workers, enabling them to function as if they are in the same office.

The rise in teleworker programs makes a strong case for enterprises to consider the use of unified communications (UC) and may be the driving force leading to much wider deployments. The basic tenant of UC — communication and collaboration from anywhere, anytime — is demonstrated in the teleworker and mobile worker situations. More.

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Bizjournals.com:

Need help figuring out the next step for your small business?

The Montreat College MBA program may have some answers. A team of the school’s graduate students is offering consulting services as part of the class’ spring semester project.

The students interview the selected business owner and employees. They then research a specific issue and recommend a solution.

The program allows students to gain hands-on experience and provides participating businesses with third-party consulting at no cost.

“It’s really a mutual benefit,” Montreat professor Norm Petty says. “It gives our students some insight into business strategy and what it takes to be successful.”

A group of students recently paired with Sweet Dreams Mattresses Inc., a Mooresville retailer, to help the company analyze sales strategies. Owner Greg Law says the students secret-shopped his two family-owned stores, analyzed his market and presented him with a booklet summarizing their suggestions.

Law, who founded the $2 million business six years ago, says he used the research to help plan a third store and increase online sales.

“It was nice to get a fresh, unbiased look at our stores from a group on the outside,” Law says. “What a great resource for a small business.”

Past projects have dealt with personnel, marketing strategies and production.

Program leaders say interested companies need to have at least $1 million in annual revenue and be able to provide meaningful work experience.

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San Francisco Chronicle:

* Even loyal customers eventually use other suppliers, so you’ll have to acquire new business in order to maintain the status quo – or to survive a difficult market.

* List the firms that compete with your customers. Each company on that list is a potential new customer.

* Solicit referrals. Offer discounts, freebies or other incentives to customers who bring you new business.

* Try direct marketing. Direct marketing and mailing lists are a convenient way to identify and obtain lists of accurate, targeted sales leads for your business.

* Seek out symbiotic partnerships. Prospect sharing with similar industries can provide benefits to both parties.

* Look outside your niche. Think creatively about other markets that may want your product or service. Visit trade shows in crossover industries for ideas.

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PR Web:

1. Plan for the Future. Write down your goals and visualize the future, your personal and business success. Read “The Attractor Factor” by Joe Vitale. Require your employees to develop professional growth plans.

2. Time Management. People are your inventory. Have your employees enter time every day. Make sure they understand what they are supposed to be doing and how long it should take. Have a rigorous approval process.

3. Invest in Your Business. Fear of a bad economy holds people back from achieving their goals. Fear stands for False Events Appearing to be Real. If you believe you will be in business in the future, then you must invest in the future (marketing). Use profits from the last few years to fund the growth during these competitive times.

4. Hold People Accountable. Make sure everyone in your company has goals and is measured and rewarded for achieving these goals. Good systems need to be in place and project managers may require training.

5. Get a Coach. All successful people have coaches and mentors. Athletes have coaches to make sure they are constantly improving and have the right mental attitude. Coaches can help you strategize, make decisions, solve problems and even help with employee issues.

6. Train Your People. Make sure that your staff is well trained. The cost of training pays off and insures client satisfaction and project success. Trained staff results in less time and cost on projects, and reduces writing off project fees.

7. Focus on Client Satisfaction. 80% of revenue comes from 20% of clients. It costs a lot more to get new clients than keeping the ones you have happy. Find out if your employees are keeping promises to your clients? Focus on the Good Clients!

8. Tightly Manage Utilization and Project Profitability. Since project-based professional service firms sell people, make sure all staff members are “running” at peak efficiency. Set target goals and manage schedules. Being profitable is better for Employees, better for Your Clients and better for the Company.

9. Keep Up With Technology. Your competitors will have an advantage if they can deliver a project with less cost and on schedule.

10. Improve Processes. A company review will help identify how much time is wasted with inefficient processes and redundant systems. Everything can be done better and more efficiently.

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