Small Business Tip: Free Shipping Equals New Customers!

If there's one thing customers love, it's the belief that they are getting a great deal. One of the easiest ways to pass a deal onto your customers is to offer free shipping.

With the growth of the Internet shopper, the offer of free shipping has exploded. Nearly half of the online purchases last year involved free shipping with many consumers declaring that they will cancel a purchase if free or discounted shipping isn't available.

There are lots of ways that a retailer can offer free shipping. It may be a straight up discount or a bonus for repeat customers. It may require a minimum purchase or be offered to exclusive subscribers. The one requirement is that your customer leaves the transactions feeling like they have received a wonderful deal.

Here's a look at some of the free shipping options you may want to consider:

Free shipping on every order. Not many retailers off the all free, all the time option. A handful of big retailers have embraced this model to help streamline the shopping experience for the customers. Fans of the free shipping model are L.L. Bean, Nordstrom and Sears.

Members only. For this free shipping option, you have to be members of the exclusive club. Typically this only involves signing up for a fee oriented online club (e.g. Amazon Prime) or signing up for frequent email blasts.

Minimum order size. One of the most popular free shipping options requires us to buy more than we originally intended to in order to receive the free shipping option.

Site-to-store shipping. One of the newest free shipping options is the site-to-store option offered by some big name retailers. This requires you to order online and then visit the retail store to pickup your goods.

Flat-rate shipping. It may not be totally free, but it represents a big discount.

Small Business Tip: Ready, Set.... Outsource

Take a look at your to-do list for the week. Do you have items that you know you will never attempt to get done? Do you have a bunch of items that won't help generate revenue? Is there stuff that is just outside your area of expertise?

If the answer is yes, it may be time to call in the experts to help take some of the noise off the line. For example, are you spending your time doing bookkeeping when you really should be seeing clients or are you spinning your wheels writing web copy when you should be designing a website? It's definitely time to outsource anything that isn't driving new business.

Here are some ideas of where you would be better served by calling in an expert:

Writing. This may be totally self-serving, but not everyone is a writer. When it comes to those documents that you plan on using to build your business, it can be well worth the investment to call in a business writer to put your business into words.

Bookkeeping and Taxes. I highly recommend taking a class to ensure you understand your financial statements, but it can be beneficial to call in a bookkeeper / accountant to help pull your books together.

Creative Work. If you spin your wheels when it comes to creativity, there are lots of experts who relish in their creative rolls. A relationship with a great graphic designer will reap benefits for years to come.

Technology Setup. Ok... you can do your own technology setup. It takes hours to get your DSL up and running. Researching the newest technology can take days. A technology expert can streamline all your tech needs so you can be up and running in no time.

Cleaning. You have better things to be doing than emptying trash cans. Every entrepreneur will spend some time doing their own tidying up, but there comes a time when you will need to call in a cleaning service to take the dirty work off your hands. (This can especially be true if you work in a home office!)

Production. Sometimes you get so bogged down in the production of your product that you don't have time to focus on anything else. If production issues are eating your day, it may be time to call in a production expert to help manage all the day-to-day issues.

Errands and Scheduling. Entrepreneurs often have to manage the needs of their business and their daily lives at the same time. Rather than go to an office away from the clutter of home, life follows them everywhere. Often the first position to be filled for an entrepreneur is the personal assistant who can help with everything from picking up the dry cleaning to setting your schedule.

Anything You Don't Enjoy. Life is too short to do the things that you don't really enjoy. You will have to take on these things at first, but once the cash flow comes in outsource them ASAP.

Is Email Ruining Your Small Business Productivity?

Email can be the best friend of a small business owner or it can a major drain on your time!

Email can be invaluable tool designed to keep you in constant contact with your customers, employees, suppliers, and more. It can also be a distraction that pulls your attention away from the business of running your business efficiently.

If you find yourself being pulled into the email abyss with a never ending flow of messages flowing in and out of your mailbox, there are a few rules that can help streamline your communications and keep you focused on running your business.

1. Set aside a few dedicated times during the day to respond to emails
2. Limit the time of each email session to keep your business moving
3. Prioritize your responses so time critical emails are done first and less critical ones can be done at the end of the day
4. Clean out your subscriptions. If you don't need to read it or you automatically hit the delete button, it's time to unsubscribe!
5. Setup an email hierarchy so higher priority emails are sent to dedicated folders (e.g. sales) and less critical ones are set to your personal email (e.g. the latest photos of your sister's kids)

Keep to these simple rules and watch your daily productivity increase along with your profits!

Small Businesses Are Taking Longer To Pay the Bills

If you are a small business owner, you probably already realize that it is taking small business owners longer to pay their bills these days. If you find yourself doing the daily dance of stalking the mailman hoping for a pile of paid receivables, you are not alone.

According to the Raleigh-based small-business research firm Sageworks, small businesses across the country are seeing their average accounts-payable days rising. Manufacturing is taking the longest at an average of 40 days, real-estate businesses are at 20 days, and retailers are up to 34 days.

Why is it taking customers longer to pay?

Client payment slowdown. It's the trickle down effect, major corporations that have enough cash flow are taking longer to pay their smaller subcontractors. When big clients take longer to pay, small businesses will tend to pay their vendors much slower.

Poor cash management. When you are a small business, you will have to make collection calls. It is one of those functions that we put off sometimes until it is too late to collect. Many entrepreneurs finding themselves in the position of having to put together credit decisions on the fly that they come to regret later.

Downturn Delay. With the recovery funds not flowing as quickly as small businesses expected, many business owners are scrambling just to keep the doors open day-to-day. As a result, some of the administrative functions of running a business like their billing procedures have fallen to the side. Delayed billing results in delayed payment.

Is your business paying bills slower after the downturn?

Starting Your Business: Assembling Your Team

Once you have your business plan in place, it's time to build the team that will help you put it into action. The team that you choose will help you start, operate and manage your business. Whether they are employees, contractors, interns or just experts to call in a crunch, there are some factors that you should consider when choosing your support structure.

Vision: Do they fully understand your company's’s vision, mission and goals?

Experience: Do they have the skills and experience necessary to effectively implement the business plan?

Function: Do they bring value to your organization?

At minimum, you'll need a team of professionals you can call on for advice or contract for startup activities. This team may include:

A Business Consultant/Writer: OK.... this is a personal plug, but you'll realistically need an expert who can help with building your business plan and achieving your goals. The amount of documents that need to be developed at startup can be overwhelming and a great writer can help mark off a bunch of those to-do items off your list.

Designer(s): A critical early expenditure that will assist you in building the brand image of your company. From development of the company logo, creation of marketing materials, and design of your website, a professional graphic and / or web designer will set you apart from the competition.

Attorney: Startup is the time to make sure all the t's are crossed and i's are dotted. An attorney will guide you through the legalities of selecting the business structure, guidance on legal matters, and contract review.

Bookkeeper and / or Accountant: The financial aspect is often the most difficult portion of starting up for many new business owners. An accountant can assist you in establishing an initial operation budget and implementing the accounting system. They can also be invaluable in filing quarterly and annual tax statements. On a monthly basis, a bookkeeper can keep the books up to date on a weekly or monthly basis with minimal cost.

Administrative or Virtual Assistant: An administrative assistant can help keep the business organized and moving forward so you can focus on the bigger picture. Most startups can't afford an in-house administrative professional right away, but there are a growing pool of virtual assistants that can be hired to take some of the noise off the line.

One of the first lessons that new entrepreneurs learn is that they can't do everything themselves. It is often cheaper and faster to hire an expert to help you maneuver the hurdles of startup. Take the time to map out your team structure and find the resources available to help you implement your business plan and you'll save yourself many headaches.