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Archive for the ‘small businees’ Category

If you sell millions of dollars a year in products and services from a platform each year like I do, then you know that small business owners could stand to learn a few of the secrets that mark master sellers.

Small business owners have a million headaches to juggle: taxes, regulations, arcane business laws, employee benefits, employee conflicts…the list goes on and on.

So you can almost forgive small business owners for overlooking one of the most important ingredients to their success-selling.

But there’s no getting around the fact that thriving businesses sell and sell often and well. As Zig Ziglar likes to say, “You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.”
That’s why small business owners must understand and apply one killer selling secret that I and my fellow seven-figure salespersons use to close sales and show customers why the services and products we have to offer them are smart investments.

So what is the killer selling secret that can move minds and ignite action?

I’ll tell you.

It’s learning to “Pay For The Product Upfront.”

Let me explain.

Every sales pitch you ever devise should immediately reveal to the prospect why their investment in your product or service is, in effect, cost neutral. For example, let’s say you sell a product that costs $2,000. Before you ask for the order you must first show the customer how the product will save or, better still, make them at least that much money-guaranteed.

For example, my coaching clients understand that their five-figure investment will boomerang back into their pockets within the first year of their time with me. Why? Because I educate them on the return on investment (ROI) BEFORE I even think about asking for the sale. If more small business owners monetized the value of their service or products in detail (as in down to the penny) before they made their pitch, they would see a dramatic and near instantaneous increase in their business.

So why don’t more small business people do this? Why don’t more people apply the secret selling weapon? After all, most entrepreneurs are smart and driven. They cover all the details except the strategies and tactics of power selling. Why?

Well, I think it’s because they are burdened with the million other things that compete for their attention. And from experience, I also know that many have never been mentored or coached in the art of sales, persuasion, or the power of personal influence. Does that make them bad people? Of course not. Does that make them less success in their entrepreneurial endeavors? You bet.

That needs to change, and it needs to change now.

Be great!

The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama in late September, is designed to tackle America’s continuing high unemployment rate by bolstering that sector of the American economy that has traditionally been responsible for the creation of the most American jobs: the small business sector. Small businesses, defined by the Small Business Administration (SBA) as any commercial concern with fewer than 500 employees, employ slightly over half of all private sector employees and over the past 15 years have generated close to 65% of all new jobs.

It’s no secret that the recent economic downturn has hit business where it hurts. Even in prosperous times, business formation is a risky endeavor: over half of all small businesses fail within their first year, in part because their owners have an incomplete knowledge of the business law necessary to guide them through business formation. In the year 2008, the first year of the recession, almost as many of these businesses closed as were started, and many of those businesses had been in operation over ten years.

The 2008 $825 billion economic stimulus package contained very few provisions aimed at helping small businesses. The Act sought to rectify that situation by extending loan enhancements first put into place by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Among other things, the Recovery Act allowed the SBA to raise the government-backed guarantee on its 7(a) loans to 90% and it also allowed the SBA to waive its $1,000 packaging fee on both its 7(a) loans and its 504 loans.

While loan modifications such as these make SBA loans a more attractive and useful option for entrepreneurs, it also makes the already complicated process of transacting an SBA loan even more complicated. Dealing with the SBA can already be problematic for startups, particularly those involved in non-traditional commercial ventures such as online businesses. In order to take the best advantage of the loan modifications, tax breaks and accelerated pay-outs offered under the new business assistance bill, startups and other businesses would be well advised to engage the services of an experienced business attorney who understands exactly how the Act can aid business formation.

Provisions of the Business Jobs Act

In addition to the loan modifications the Act contains other provisions designed to help small businesses attain access to the capital they need for operations and expansion. These include:

- A permanent increase in the size of the maximum loan available under the 7(a) and 504 loan programs from $2 million to $5 million; a corollary increase in the maximum loan amount available through the 504 loan program specifically targeted at manufacturing from $4 million to $5.5 million.

- A permanent increase in the microloan cap from $35,000 to $50,000 specifically designed to help entrepreneurs and startups.

- A temporary increase in the loan amount available to SBA Express loan recipients from $350,000 to $1 million.

The bill also introduced eight significant tax cuts for small businesses:

- The elimination of all capital gains taxes for business investments held five years or over.

- An increase in the write off for capital investments from $250,000 in Year One and $25,000 in Year Two to $500,000, and increasing the threshold for these write-offs to $2 million.

- An extension of the 50% bonus depreciation through the close of 2010.

- A health insurance deduction for the self-employed.

- Simplified rules regarding the deduction of cell phones and cell phone-related expenses.

- A temporary increase in the deduction for start-up costs from $5,000 to $10,000 (with a ceiling of $60,000.)

- For certain businesses, the ability to offset taxes – including the Alternative Minimum Tax – through business credits from the past five years.

- A decrease in penalties for tax errors that disproportionately affect businesses and small business owners (particularly sole proprietors.)

An Experienced Business Lawyer Can Help

The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 provides significant new advantages to small business owners and to entrepreneurs who are in the process of forming a new business. Counterintuitive though it might sound, historically recessions have been excellent times to launch startups. Just ask FedEx.

However, the SBA process is extraordinarily difficult to navigate without the assistance of someone who is well versed in business law. Traditionally, the SBA has been very reluctant to make loans to startups: without a proven track record, the new small business owner is seen as a loan risk. An online business may be viewed as even a greater risk since in many cases it lacks the equipment and other capital that is viewed by the prospective lender as collateral in the worst-case scenario that a repayment schedule cannot be met. If you want to leverage the many benefits offered by the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 on behalf of your startup, your wisest course is to consult with an experienced business attorney.

Enterprise resource planning is a business management system that integrates all facets of the business, including planning, manufacturing, sales, and marketing. As the ERP methodology has become more popular, software applications have emerged to help business managers implement ERP in business activities such as inventory control, order tracking, customer service, finance and human resources.

Small business are usually family enterprises and hence not too many of them use ERP software as they have an accounting system in place. Many companies provide ERP solutions to small-sized business houses. Few players in this field are Microsoft Business Solutions, NetERP, Compiere, and The Intuitive Enterprise Solution.

Microsoft Business Solutions has recently offered to provide ERP solutions to small and medium sized businesses. This would connect the small and medium sized businesses with large organizations, their employees, customers and suppliers for improved efficiency.

NetERP is an ERP solution from NetSuite. It is a business application that supports back-office operations. This can manage financials, purchasing, inventory, Web presence and payroll with the ERP components that are compactly integrated.

Compiere is an Open Source ERP software that suits small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the global marketplace. It covers different areas like Customer Management, Supply Chain Management and accounting.

The Intuitive Enterprise Solution is an ERP software application that helps small and mid-size manufacturing businesses achieve increased productivity and at the same time, lower costs. Intuitive ERP focuses to build flexibility and control, organizes information and also automates business processes across an enterprise. This product offers complete integration of planning and materials management and procurement. It also facilitates reduction in cost of manufacturing and financial business processes and thereby improves productivity, quality and control.

It is believed that accounting systems can manage a small-scale business effectively. However, the trends are changing today with many small enterprises investing in ERP, as it is cross-functional and enterprise wide.