Small business is anything but small in our economy.  Small businesses represent over 99 percent of firms with employees.  They generate almost half of the total private payroll in the United States and have generated sixty to eighty percent of all new jobs per year for the last ten years.  It is also interesting to note that fifty-three percent of small businesses in the U. S. are home based.

These businesses need photography, particularly in this age of the internet.  Even if a business does not yet have a web site, it soon will.  It is rapidly becoming, if it isn’t already a stark necessity.  Over the next ten years it has been predicted that there will be over 15 billion more web sites.  That is a lot of photography!

Conceptual stock photos, or descriptive stock photos?

There are two basic different types of stock photos that will be needed, conceptual and descriptive.  Conceptual shots are useful for businesses that deal with such hard to illustrate themes such as financial services, insurance, banking and various non-product oriented businesses.  Realistically, most business can use both.  For example, if you run a dry cleaning business and you want to print out a flyer you might use a picture of a shirt on a hanger…or maybe something like a two people rolling out a red carpet…to indicate the service orientation of your business. 

If you shoot pictures of shirts on hangars to fulfill those needs you might license a lot of them to dry cleaners.  If you shoot people rolling out a red carpet your market suddenly becomes dry cleaners, bed and breakfast inns, even auto repair shops.  A picture of a red carpet representing superior service can work for large, medium and small businesses alike.  The market for your stock pictures becomes that much larger.  When the stock photo in question reads quickly as a small thumbnail, you dramatically enhance your chance of the image being chosen. 

You can shoot a shirt on a hangar for little cost.  To shoot two people rolling out a red carpet is probably going to cost more and take more time.  It will also be more difficult to shoot really well, and may need a lot more post.

Shoot the concept, shoot the story

A good way to approach this whole problem of what and how to shoot would be to shoot a shirt on a hangar (descriptive shot), a suit of clothes spread out on a bed (illustrating preparation), a model fixing his tie (again, preparation), similar shots with a woman model.  Perhaps even the two asleep in bed, waking up, turning off the alarm clock, getting ready in the morning, fixing breakfast, washing dishes, a close up of dirty dishes in the sink, and, eventually, rolling out the red carpet.  In other words, set up a shoot around a concept, and when appropriate, work through a story with your photographs.

Have a shot list, stick to it

To prepare for your photo shoot visualize each shot, each step.  What props will you need?  What wardrobe? How will you need to light it?  Allow plenty of time for each shot, for the transitions between shots, and for wardrobe changes.  Wardrobe changes can dramatically increase the number of selects you can get.  But such changes can slow you down too.  I always print out my shot list and check each one off as I complete it.  If there is a clothing change I stop and review my list.  I always have enough extra shots built in that if one shot just isn’t working, I can move on to the next.

Get the shot, but don’t over shoot

There is a fine line between moving on too soon, and not shooting enough.  The trick is to know when you have your shot and it is time to move on.  I have improved the efficiency of my shoots tremendously by slowing down and paying more attention to each shot rather than just firing away and then firing away some more because I haven’t paid enough attention to really know if I gotten what I wanted.

Take time to check your work

At least two or three times during a shoot, if at all possible, I will stop what I am doing and check a few shots on my laptop to make sure that my photos are in focus and the details are looking right.  I’d rather find out problems during the shoot than after the models have gone home!

Slowing down yields more

Take the time to plan your shoot, create a comprehensive shot list, visualize the process of each shot, plan carefully for props and wardrobe, take your time, review your work, and reap the rewards. You will be glad you took the time and whether they know it or not, the small business that needs your work will be glad too.



E Law Blog

SEO is crucial for small online businesses. With this in mind there are six quick steps to take in order to make a profit through small business seo.

The first step involved in targeted as SEO success is understanding the importance of search engine optimized copy and content at your website. This applys on many levels, keyword enriched content is the foundation upon which all of your other SEO efforts will be built.

The second step associated with small business SEO success is to make certain that you use appropriate metatags are at your website. Many people forget the importance of metatags when they go about designing a website. In fact there are crucial to your overall targeted SEO success.

The third quick step towards small business SEO success is making sure you select an appropriate domain name for your website. You need to bear in mind that the domain name you choose for your operation will have a bearing on your search engine rankings.

The fourth quick step towards small business seo success, to get you on your way to making a profit with SEO, is to make certain that your website is fully functional and fit for purpose. This means that you ought to make certain that your website is attractive and user friendly.

The fifth quick step towards targeted success is to consider engaging the services of a professional. If you’ve never engaged in SEO efforts, you want to give serious consideration to enlist the support and assistance of a professional or an expert. There is too much at stake to put your small business seo efforts to chance.

The sixth quick step towards small business SEO involves setting up a strategy and a system through which you will continually review what you’ve done in regard to your SEO activities. You need to make certain that your SEO efforts remain effective not only when you implement them but for the future life cycle of your website.



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Did you know it is possible for you to start an Internet business for very little money out of your own pocket? There really is no need for you to go into debt for several thousand dollars to get started with a small business of your own.

Here are five Internet small business is you can start for under $100!

1. Start a WordPress blog and host it yourself. You can find website hosting on the Internet for as low as $5-$10 a month.

If you are not technically inclined you can hire someone to set your WordPress blog up for you. Many people will do this for under $50 and you will be set up and ready to start making money on the Internet.

2. Start an affiliate marketing business of any kind. It truly is possible to start an affiliate marketing business for free because as an affiliate you get paid to sell other people’s products.

The best way to do this again is to host your own website and create pre sell web pages around the products you want to sell. By doing this you are differentiating yourself from the competition and are also giving yourself several marketing advantages.

3. Create and sell information products online. You actually could do this with a free blog from Blogger. Certainly for less than $100 you can buy information that will teach you everything about creating and selling information products on the Internet for a very good profit.

4. Join a network marketing company if you like working with other people. There are many network marketing companies now that base their business online.

You can join these for less than $100 and be set up offering quality products with an excellent compensation plan. The advantage of a network marketing business is you get paid on the efforts of other people as well.

If you enjoy working with people you can build a downline of distributors to help you make money. This can be a lot of fun and does not cost a lot of money out of your pocket either.

5. Private label rights offer an excellent opportunity for people to make money on the Internet today. These products are already created for you and with just a little bit of alteration you can repackage them to look like your own.

You can pay somebody to put these products online and split the profits with them and would have no out of pocket costs at all.

This is five Internet small businesses you can start for under $100 today.



Wallpapers 5

Most people don’t realize that every small business uses copywriting to sell their product or service.

Those catchy phrases on that brochure are copywriting.

The content of that sales letterare copywriting.

The direct-mail packet you received in the mail with discounts to area businesses- Yep. You got it that’s copywriting.

And while you may appreciate the value in hiring a professional to write an effective sales letter, benefit-laden brochure, or have-to-have-it internet ad, professional copywriting services may be out of the price range of your small business.

It’s impossible to gain the expertise in a short amount of time that a professional copywriter has earned through years of training and experience. That said, there are a number of quick and easy things you can do to make your content stand out – and more importantly, to sell your product or service for immediate revenue.

Headlines

In almost every case, headlines are a quick and effective way to grab your reader’s attention. However exciting the information that follows, it’s not going to do you any good unless you can pull your prospective client in immediately by making them want to read more.

In the age of email, IM-ing and video conferencing, people want information fast. If you bore them they’ll move onto something else, and you’ll lose an opportunity to tell them why your product or service will change their life for the better.

The headline is usually in a larger and/or bolder font than the text directly below it. This enables your promise to stand out more and to get the readers attention. The idea is to make your prospective client want to keep reading.

You may have seen headlines like these

“Lose 20 pounds in Two Weeks – And Eat all You Want!”

“Make $5,000 – with Nothing More than a Computer and 5 hours a Week!”

“Save Thousands on Heating Oil This Winter!” (an ad for a woodstove)

In virtually every business, even those often deemed “professional”, your message will be more urgent and compelling with a headline. Consider the following example for a technology consulting company:

“Finish Your Projects On Time and Under Budget – Without Hiring a Single New Employee!”

See what I mean? Headlines work. Start by defining your company’s promise. Every small business has one – all you have to do is tell your customer what it is.

Bullets and Fonts

Especially with a very technical subject matter, or with a product or service that requires a lot of information, bulleting out the finer points of your small business benefits can break down large blocks of information into an easy-to-read format.

When faced with a page full of text, the eye tends to drift to areas of interest – things that stand out from the rest of the text. For this reason, varying your font style and size just a tiny bit can make a real difference.

If I bold this sentence, you will likely pay special attention to it.

If I use italics to make my point here, it will be the rare individual who doesn’t notice – not the italics, but what’s been written in them.

The key here is not to go overboard. You don’t want to make your letter or brochure look like an advertisement for the circus (well, unless your small business is a circus). Just create enough interest to keep them reading and keep them invested in learning more about your small business.

Do-It-Yourself?

You’d probably prefer to contract out your copywriting services. Hiring someone else means you get a professional and can move onto matters that fall more clearly within your area of expertise.

But the reality is that many small businesses simply do not have money in the budget to hire a professional copywriter – at least not in the beginning.

In this case, try coming up with some material of your own using these tips. Who knows? You might even discover a talent you didn’t know you had.



Show My Shots

The recent sub-prime mortgage crisis and the interlinked subsequent turmoil in the financial markets has generated many concerns in businesses and the general outlook on the economy. The question we want to answer is: will it affect small businesses?

There is no easy answer to this question. But let’s examine the different drivers at play.

On one hand, we have a mortgage market that’s become a lot tighter. This will make it increasingly harder for people to get mortgages. Traditionally, borrowing against your home has been one of the most common ways of funding a new businesses (according to a survey conducted by the Federation of Small Business 25% of start ups use bank loans as their main source of funding, while 49% use bank overdrafts). So these facts would indicate that the credit crunch will have a knock-on effect on small businesses by affecting entrepreneurs’ ability to raise funding.

Equally, a lot of people who are already on the property ladder will find that their equity is being squeezed by the drop in house prices, so again making it harder to gear up.

On top of this, banks have gone into saving mode, switching from looking aggressively for borrowers to looking for lenders. So even with property to secure against, chances are that people will generally face it more difficulty to get a bank loan.

On the other end of the food chain, larger businesses, who are already geared up may find it harder to service their debt especially if consumer spending is affected (of which there are no clear signs as yet). Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the GDP so if that goes down… it pretty much all goes down.

With the above in mind, the number of business startup is the next year is estimated, by some, to drop. Barclays bank estimates that new business formations will drop from 420,000 a year for the past three years to about 360,000 next year.

I don’t share that view. Seemingly paradoxically I believe that the above will actually lead to a growth of the small business sector. The small business sector has always been the most resilient in the economy, benefiting from the lack of a cumbersome fixed cost base that burdens large businesses and with little or no debt to service.

There is the question of course of ‘how do we finance a small business without a buoyant property market to piggy-back on’? Well considering that over the past three years, despite abundance of cheap credit, 40% of start-ups (according to the FSB survey 2006) used own savings and retained profits to part-finance their growth, one can argue that that figure will increase in times when credit is tighter and when people are also nervous about their employment prospects.

Added to this is that fact that entrepreneurs today have more tools at their disposal to help them ‘boot-strap’ their venture than any other time in modern business history. Technology of course is the underpinning force behind this, enabling people to work remotely even deploying virtual teams without having to incur the traditional set-up and costs. Sites like ours – www.peopleperhour.com, we’d like to think, are making a distinct positive contribution to that.

Personally, I think the problems of the current financial crisis can be attributed to one key fundamental factor that, unfortunately, is an innate human trait: greed. The past number of years has seen an excess liquidity fuelled by cheap credit, which has led to a frenzy of over-spending and over-exposure. What has this led to? Large organizations eating up more than the can chew. Like Northern Rock.

This downturn will be a smack on the face to those who have got too greedy. And those will be naturally the ones at the top end of the food chain. As people become more nervous of the situation and their job security in those organizations, I think more people will resort to embarking on their postponed hidden desires to branch out on their own.

After all there something uniquely beautiful and paradoxically uplifting about a bleak economic climate: there’s less to lose!



E Law Blog

Running a small business can be a difficult undertaking luckily there are a number of ways you can receive help that you may not even have to worry about paying back. The government offers a number of grants to small businesses to do a variety of things in order to increase the chances of that small business succeeding. The first thing to do is check and see if you qualify for any grants. One of the ways to do this is to check with the chamber of commerce or the better business bureau.

These locations may have information on grants that can help out small business owners who are looking to set up shop in that area. There are many areas that offer grants to small businesses just to get them to open up or they may be offered in order to keep a small business alive within a given area, which may be suffering from a lack of businesses. You can also check with a number of websites, which can list grants that are available to small businesses within your area. The types of grants vary. There are grants for equipment, rental expenses, there are even some grants that can help to pay employee expenses such as for benefits or can help you with your living expenses if you are a single employee business.

The only way to know if there are grants available to you in your area is to check. Once you find out which ones you qualify for you may want to do some research into writing grant proposals or have a professional help you put it together. This will increase your chances of gaining the grants you need. In addition, grants can be a wonderful alternative for small business owners who may not have enough personal credit to take out loans.



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When considering different forms of advertising, always think about postcards. When I refer to postcards I mean 4 inch by 6 inch (4″x6″) flyers. I have many reasons to use them, especially in small business marketing, and I have found them to be very effective. Here are five good reasons why postcards should be included in your marketing campaign.

Reason #1: Low cost to print.

4″x6″ postcards are pretty inexpensive to print in comparison to most other printed items. I can have a box of 5,000 cards designed, printed, and delivered for under $500. Brochures can cost that much for 500. When dealing with small business marketing, these flyers can save a huge amount on marketing and printing costs.

Reason #2: Size.

I’m sure everyone has seen a 4″x6″ flyer at some point. Many times they are placed on your car or left in your door. These flyers are easy to handle, distribute, and save. If someone receives a 4″x6″ flyer with coupons on it, they are more willing to save it than if they receive the same coupons on an 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper. Obviously, everyone will have different reasons for using flyers, but 4″x6″ postcard-size flyers are effective in just about every situation.

Reason #3: Postage Costs.

Postage goes up quite often. It seems like every time I go to the post office, it has gone up again. When determining how small businesses will market to their target markets, postage is always part of the equation. If you are mailing a 4″x6″ flyer, it will cost you the postcard rate, not regular first class, which saves you almost half. Many people tell me they use a mailing house and it helps reduce costs, but I have used them before also. The savings you receive in postage is usually eaten up by the mailing house’s fees, and even before those fees, you still save money with 4″x6″ flyers.

Reason #4: Quality.

4″x6″ flyers are used quite a bit, especially by the entertainment industry. For this reason, there are many printers available for 4″x6″ flyers. You have to be selective in choosing your printer, but the better printers provide a top-quality finished product. The price I quoted earlier is for UV-coated, 14 pt stock, and full-color on both sides. Most small businesses struggle with price of printing because they usually can’t order large quantities. They usually end up using weaker quality products to save money, but 4″x6″ postcards can be top-quality and still save money.

Reason #5: Attention-Grabbing.

Many direct mailers tell me I should send a letter, sample, pen, and other garbage in an envelope. Besides the outrageous cost this brings, it weakens the response. People see a marketing piece in the mail a mile away, including postcard flyers. Will they take the time to open the envelope, maybe. Will they read the postcard flyer because the information is staring at them, definitely! Test the theory yourself: see how many envelopes you decide to open versus the number of postcards you read.



Giga Flux

If you are in the market for a web hosting service for your small business there are some options to keep in mind.

Email: Not all affordable web hosts will offer email. You need to make sure that you have a complete email setup with your hosting plan. Check to see if your host offers auto responders, POP3 and email forwarding. If they do this should be enough to run your small business email needs.

Secure Servers: If you plan on use a shopping cart to sell items this is a must have. Referred to as SSL, this option allows for secure payments between your site and the customer. If you are selling and have a shopping cart then make sure your small business host offers SSL.

Control Panel: A good control panel is easy to navigate, understand and actually comes in useful. A bad control panel can be a living nightmare. If you host uses cPanel as your main admin control panel you are in good hands. If the host runs their own version of a homegrown control panel be wary. Lake of controls can really keep you from running your site efficiently.

Windows or Linux: Do you know if your site needs to run on a MS Windows server with FrontPage extensions or does it need PERL, PHP or MySQL? These things you will need to find out if you intent to run a successful small business web site.

Affordable web hosting for small business is a very real possibility. It can be done at a very good price and if you go into it with the information you need you’ll come out with a very good solution.

 



Show My Shots

From the mid seventies we can note that scholars makes the distinction between small and large businesses in terms of needs, level of sophistication and range of strategic planning. Bracker and Pearson (1986), Rue and Ibrahim (1998), Perry (2001) and Wijewardena, Zoysa, Fonseka and Perera (2004) all formulate definitions of strategic planning which take the uniqueness of small businesses into account and allow for the fact that small businesses cannot draw on management and material resources in a manner similar to that of large organizations.

Empiric studies’ findings indicate at a correlation between strategic planning and performance. Nevertheless, the findings are mixed. A survey of twenty-six experimental studies enabled Miller and Cardinal (1994) to identify a significant positive connection between strategic planning and small business performance. Robinson (1982) found a significantly high level of profitability as well as an increase in sales and returns on sales and the number of full time employees in a group of small businesses that employed external consultants for the purpose of strategic planning. Compared with other businesses, Bracker and Pearson (1986) discovered a significant increase in income and remuneration per entrepreneur in businesses that prepared strategic plans (the highest of four designated levels of strategic planning). No significant increase was detected in the measure salary expenditure divided on the sum total of sales. A significant differentiation in the rate of sales increase was found by Rue and Ibrahim (1998) in small businesses that incorporated written planning (basic or sophisticated), as opposed to other businesses. Perry (2001) detected a significant differentiation in the degree to which planning was conducted in small businesses that did not applied for bankruptcy as opposed to those that did. Wijewardena et al. (2004) define three levels of planning: no written planning; basic planning; and detailed planning. The findings indicate that the level of planning stands in direct proportion to the level of increase in sales. Yusuf and Saffu (2005) classify three levels of planning: low; moderate; and high. A connection was found between increase in sales and the low level of planning. No correlation was found between strategic planning and increases in market share or in profitability.



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Keeping costs under control is a challenge that most companies face, but for small businesses operating on tight budgets it is essential if they are to survive. So, any new technology, such as free calls via the internet that can help reduce costs is welcome news to the large army of small businessmen and businesswomen throughout the UK.

For those who regularly deal with international clients and suppliers it can be quite damaging to cash flow to frequently travel abroad in order to attend meetings. Previously, however, the only realistic alternatives to face-to-face meetings were phone conferences which tended to be difficult to arrange, usually expensive, and often led to confusion and misunderstandings between the parties involved.

However, the combination of internet and broadband has made life a lot easier for small and medium-sized businesses, especially those that have clients or customers in foreign countries. Although larger companies can usually afford to regularly send staff abroad, for many small businesses such an expense cannot be justified. So, those that have customers abroad must find alternative methods of conducting their business, and using internet phone and video calls can be the perfect solution.

David Wilson, Managing Director of Pipped Online Ltd, a specialist marketing agency based in the South West of England, has suppliers and customers throughout the UK, Scotland, Germany, and Canada. Constant travels to their premises took him and his small number of staff out of the office for days at a time, leading to a loss of productivity and an increase in company expenditure. But recently, he has been able to cut down international travel and reduce his telephony bills after selecting to use internet phone and video calling for his business.

For firms operating on incredibly tight budgets like PippedOnline the ability to conduct high quality video conferences via PC is literally a Godsend. Not only can Wilson get the vital human interaction necessary to develop meaningful business relationships, but he can also do it without leaving the comfort of his own office. In addition, it also addresses the productivity issue as key employees are not out of the office travelling to meetings.

He said: “We win in three ways with video conferencing. Not only can we spend more time in the office being productive, we keep costs down by not travelling and it also makes PippedOnline more eco-friendly by cutting down our travelling carbon emissions.”

But, Wilson concedes it is the economic benefits that appeal to him most. In line with the figures produced by OFCOM detailing the impact on SME costs, he has seen his broadband bills drop by 20% since 2004, and his telephone costs reduced by 8% over the same period.

Now, he is also seeing the benefit of reducing international travel costs, as he regularly makes free video conference calls to his clients in Canada and Germany, via the internet. Using video conferencing is particularly pertinent for Wilson as he is able to include several staff and suppliers at any one time, although he has never got anywhere near the maximum 24 people that he could include.

He is in no doubt though that all small businesses should take up the internet phone and video calls options, although rather mischievously he hopes his competitors don’t, making their cost base significantly higher than his own!



Show My Shots