It is likely that most small business owners don’t dream of being “small” for long.  Who doesn’t want to be the owner of the next successful restaurant chain such as McDonalds or the next IT Company to watch its profits soar?  Can you imagine what could happen if your small business could mimic the success of these innovative companies?  What if you had the chance, as a small business owner, to work directly with one of these successful businessmen or women who are sitting on top of a global company?  You may not have that opportunity, but you can reap the same benefits by taking the time to study their business plans, their mistakes, and their successes. Study any information that you can get your hands on pertaining to that company.

To recreate the success that you see in some of these other businesses, you have to study them and strive to be like them.  Use them!  Research the history of a successful business that is similar to your own.  This is a cost-effective way to save time and money when developing your own business plan.  This is sometimes referred to as best practice benchmarking.

Specifically, what kinds of ideas and practices are you looking for in your research?

The answer can vary, however, the most popular ideas that small businesses take away from larger more successful ones are as follows:

• How to cut business expenses
• Ideas about product development
• Effective management of employees
• Time management

One of the most important things to remember when you are doing this research is that you want a business that is uniquely yours.  Therefore, you will want to borrow the best practices of successful businesses but at the same time you will want to make them conducive to your own company.

For more information, please visit www.CraigDuswalt.com.

Mental Health Month: Lessons From Slash

By Alicia Sparks

Last week we looked at Catherine Zeta-Jones, and for this week’s “Mental Health Month: Lessons From…” we’re looking at legendary rock guitarist Slash.

On March 26, 2011, Slash auctioned off what’s been described as an “extensive collection” of his personal belongings – everything from clothing and guitars to furniture and vehicles – and used the proceeds to help raise money for the Los Angeles Youth Network, an organization that takes in wayward youths.

A hefty helping hand it must have been, too, considering his Corvette Stingray and the guitar he played during his last Super Bowl performance alone brought in over $200,000.

So what’s the lesson?

Learn to let go.

Whether the baggage is physical or emotional, letting go can benefit both you and others.

In Slash’s case, he possessed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of things. Sure, they were all meaningful to him in one way or another, but they were just things – things that were serving him no purpose by just taking up space.

[...] we moved into a new house and we had all this stuff in storage. And we’re like, ‘This doesn’t get used, so an auction would be really, really cool. Let’s give it away to charity and just let some of this stuff go.’ It was definitely an exercise in tearing yourself away from things. (Spinner)

This Mental Health Month, see if you can learn to let go. Maybe you have lots of things just lying around (or worse, in storage) that no longer serve a purpose. Could you hold a yard sale, or sell them on eBay, and donate the money to charity? Could you donate them directly to Goodwill, The Salvation Army, or another local charity in your area?

Maybe it’s emotional baggage you need to let go. Is this the month you make an appointment with a therapist, join an online support group, or just sit down with a good friend and a cup of coffee and learn to let go of the grudges, hurt, and disappointment that’s serving you no purpose?

http://www.rockstarsystemforsuccess.com

Lady Gaga will be releasing songs from her new album on FarmVille before they can be heard anywhere else. The use of the Facebook game app is a revolution in music marketing and if it catches on, many other artists are likely to follow her lead.

The upcoming and highly anticipated “Born This Way” album is due to hit the stores on May 23. But Lady Gaga has announced that she will release songs from the album on FarmVille. The singer will have her songs put on a section of the online game before the album is in stores.

Lady Gaga will unveil GagaVille, a farm within FarmVille on May 17. It was developed in collaboration with Zynga. The farm will be in keeping with the artist’s style and themes from the album, such as crystals, unicorns and even sheep on motorcycles.

Between May 17th and 19th, you will be able to complete tasks which unlock and stream a brand new and previously unreleased song every day.

Lady Gaga said:“I want to celebrate and share ‘Born This Way’ with my little monsters in a special way that’s never been done before.

Well, it’s certainly original! But as more than 63,000,000 people play FarmVille every month, this is the ultimate place to promote your music (or anything else). I wonder what it is costing them each. And is it only a matter of time before other artists harness the power of Facebook apps?

Will you be heading on down to GagaVille this May 17?

Google is always changing things and as small business owners who count on Google for new customers, we need to keep up on what’s going on because it impacts our business.  Here are some of the recent changes, and some tips on what you can do to take advantage of those changes to better market your business.

Google’s ‘Panda Update’

Panda is the name of Google’s latest algorithm change in February of 2011.  Google’s goal:  to weed out (and penalize) content farms; that is those sites that are “gaming” the system by posting massive amounts of low quality and duplicate content.     The update was meant to improve the user search experience so that they would only find high quality results in their queries.

So how does this impact your business website?  If you have a high quality website, it should improve your search rankings.  However, if you’re finding your website is not ranking as high as it used to, here are a few questions to ask.

• Is the content on my website original or aggregated from other sources?
• Is my site branded as an authority in my subject?  Does it answer reader’s questions clearly and authoritatively?
• Is my site easy to navigate?
• Is it obvious what my site is all about?  Does the site provide valuable information?

Google’s Matt Cutts was asked if companies need to rethink their search engine optimization strategies so as to link higher in Google as a result of these changes, to which Matt replied, “No.  Simply build a site that people love.”

Google Business Photos:

If you are a business owner with a retail location in the areas of Orange County, California; the Bay Area, California; Phoenix, Arizona; San Antonio, Texas, or St. Petersburg, Florida, you can apply to be one of the first businesses to be photographed in the “Business Photos” project.  Google wants to enhance the user search experience on Google Maps (Places) and much like you can zoom in on a business on Google Maps to get an exterior street view and many times building view of the business you are searching for, soon, you’ll be able to get an interior view as well.

Google Business Photos will be a similar experience to the virtual tour experience you can get on many hotel or real estate websites.  The program is just in its beginning stages and is free to business owners who have a retail location that is popular on search.  (Think restaurant, retail, boutique, etc.)  All you need to do is apply to the program and then Google will contact you if you are selected.

Google Plus One (+1)

In addition to the changes mentioned above, Google is also rolling out their version of the Facebook “Like” button, called +1. Simply stated, when searching on Google, and you find a website that you like, you can click on “+1″ to recommend the site.  Frankly, this is a Google update that I don’t “like.”  Hey Google, is there a way that I can give it a “-1″?

Google is working very diligently to incorporate social queues into their search algorithm.  This means that a site that gets more +1’s will rank higher in search results than one that does not. In my opinion this system is rife for gaming.  Theoretically, all you have to do is to pay a bunch of high school kids to click +1 on your site all day long to increase your site’s popularity.

Before you can”+1″ things you need to make sure you have a Google profile set up.

Nearly every business has felt an impact from the recession. There has been no escaping. The root causes were universal and had a domino effect.

Some small-business owners believe they’ve seen the bottom and they are surviving — they are OK and they expect to persevere with modest adjustments. These small-business owners are kidding themselves. The bottom has not been reached, and it will be a long slide until it does. We are in for a five- to 10-year disaster.

Defeat the Downturn
During such times, it’s easy to panic. Panic, which is fear-driven and not based on fact but on emotion, has tremendous power, the power to change the direction of business. But do you want to give in to panic, throw your hands in the air and accept self-destruction, actually accelerating it, becoming a part of the panic, stimulating more?

There’s an alternative to panicking. We are confronting change, and change is an opportunity for advances. Now you have the choice to take advantage of change it or allow yourself to be buried by it.

Make the right choices today and see the results tomorrow. It’s not just about adjusting prices — you need to broadcast your differences, tell people why they should shop with you, provide them with added value, and not discounts, and watch your business grow in a down market.

Be a leader, and the people will follow. As a small-business owner, you can help lead the way out of the recession. Start with your employees, move to your vendors, and then support your customers and your market area. Announce the good news, and everyone will line up.

Here are 10 rules of engagement that will help you successfully recast your business and succeed in the new economy:

1. Evaluate and eliminate excessive debt. If your revenues have dropped, you may not be able to service the debt you took on when your revenues were much higher. Any debt can be worked out — secured debt, loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, mortgages, lines of credit, and even leases.
2. Downsize. If you haven’t already, reduce your headcount and overhead. You can deliver the same amount — or more — by increasing productivity.
3. Track your finances daily — and start today. Install a key indicator system to track your business and have daily, weekly and monthly financial reports issued. Follow profitability per job, per week, per client, per product. Use these indicators to focus on your most profitable products or services. Make nothing that does not bring in a profit.
4. Reduce inventories and overhead at any cost. Look for items that does not move or turn frequently. That’s where your cash is locked up — in your cost of materials, labor, and so on, waiting to be turned into cash after it’s sold and the receivables collected. This can result in a huge cash drain.
5. Train and cross-train your staff. If every job or task is learned by at least one additional person, when the primary person is out, the secondary person cross-trained to perform the task can leap in and save the day. And so work continues, and productivity remains high despite the absence of a key player. Smoother production, greater productivity and happier customers mean a better bottom line.
6. Review your marketing and reduce spending on traditional media. Use the internet and focus on existing clients first; get more out of them. Internet marketing will save many companies.Consider what’s called the long-tail theory (www.thelongtail.com), coined by Wired Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson. In short, it means that there are folks on the internet making profitable hits of niche products, services and entertainment.
7. Resist profit-eating sales and discounting. Don’t give away your product; instead, compete with service, quality and uniqueness. Create a niche and have a competitive advantage. The big box stores cannot compete with you, especially on service. It’s the small-business competitive advantage.
8. Expand geographically if possible. Internet marketing can take you anywhere, especially if you can create an expertise or a niche item or service. Find what you do that is unique and do it as large as possible.
9. Manage effectively. This means tracking and analyzing key indicators, financial reports and productivity., . Get smaller first and more profitable; then grow slowly and carefully.
10. Focus on quality. That’s what wins in the long run. Never forsake this principle.

The horse is out of the barn, but there is still time to close the door…quickly. Get better, get smaller or be forced out. It’s your choice.

Sean Cook is CEO of ShopVisible LLC. With more than 11 years of experience in online marketing, management and new technology innovation, Cook translates ShopVisible’s premier e-commerce platform solution into bottom line results for clients.

Social ecommerce is becoming more and more important on networks like Facebook. More than another “new frontier,” it is attracting innovative marketers that are taking advantage of new technologies and responding to their consumers.

Working with fans to create unique shopping and sharing opportunities empowers the kind of viral experiences that were fundamental to Facebook’s own rapid growth and consumer engagement.

But how can you maximize the social network to close sales for your own business? Here are five tips to help you design a Facebook presence that makes buying your products more desirable and easy.

1. Make it Unique

Your Facebook store should be different from your main website. The key is offering fans an engaging experience that makes sense within the environment. You can’t just put a shopping cart in Facebook and expect people to use it. Give your consumers a reason to become fans and give your fans a reason to purchase on Facebook. Consider offering exclusive merchandise available only on Facebook or making products available before you can find them in stores.

2. Encourage Collaboration

Facebook is the perfect environment to create a compelling and collaborative buying experience. People love sharing on Facebook — it’s what the space is built for. Letting people share this information is a great example of how retailers can join the conversation in a relevant way.

Retailers who harness the potential of comments, likes and shares will empower messages to go viral. Facebook makes it easy for your fans to share deals and purchases. Offering incentives, loyalty programs, checkin capabilities and other word-of-mouth generators will not only spread your reach further but give your fans a reason to purchase on your Facebook Page. The retailers who offer wish lists, collaborative shopping experiences and incentivized sharing on Facebook will likely see a surge in traffic and sales.

3. Create an Exclusive VIP Experience

We know from the success of companies like Gilt Groupe that people like to be “in the know” and they like to invite others to join the club. Let your Facebook fans be first in line to access new merchandise, limited edition pieces and products that are only available to them through Facebook. Your fans are more apt to share their limited-access purchase with other fans. This builds buzz for hard-to-get products and prompts Facebook users to become fans to get involved.

4. Privacy and Security are Paramount

Facebook stores that immediately ask permission to access personal data are a major deterrent for all consumers, especially those who are simply looking to browse. Offer an experience that doesn’t require fans and consumers to install an application. Consumers are wary of their personal data being tracked, so if you do require an application installation, specify what information you are going to access and what you’re going to do with it.

People like familiarity, especially when it comes to their financial data. Offering familiar alternative payment methods like PayPal or Amazon checkout will extend greater buying confidence. Make sure that consumers know you maintain the highest security during the checkout process. Make sure you only use technology partners that maintain PCI Level 1 compliance — it’s the right thing to do.

5. Make it Easy to Navigate and Work

Don’t want to lose your customer? Make sure your Facebook store is easy and intuitive to navigate. Consumers shouldn’t endure more than two to three clicks to find the product they’re looking for. Facebook recently introduced customizable navigation links on the left side of the page. Retailers can use these links to provide their customers with quick links to their top product categories. It’s also crucial to offer search capability within your Facebook store. Implementing a search bar that also offers predictive text allows a customer to get directly to the item they’re searching for.

Your website is not the community, and Facebook is not your company site. Don’t just copy and paste between the two. There is a reason why Facebook is unique — it is a community for sharing, collaborating, being the first to know, and much more. Give your fans something of value and make it fun, and they’ll reward you by telling everyone they know.

Many people are exploring the option of freelancing in today’s marketplace, whether it’s for extra money or more flexible hours. Whatever the motivation, becoming a part-time or full-time freelancer isn’t as easy as it seems.

Forgoing a steady paycheck from a full-time job, freelancers make a living by using their talents for multiple clients, the operative world being “multiple.” It takes discipline and organization, and it helps to have an online community with whom you can share resources, best practices and even job prospects.

Here are a handful of freelancer communities that provide resources and paid opportunities for freelancers. If you’re a freelancer who has used these or other sites, let us know in the comments.

1. Elance

Elance offers freelancers the ability to set up a profile, apply for projects directly and do the actual freelance work in their cloud-based work area. There are several subscription levels on the site. You can opt for a free, basic level that provides a profile, a minimum number of proposals to potential clients and minimum workroom storage space. The highest subscription permits multiple users, “preferred listing” status, enhanced storage space, wire transfers and other features for $40 per month. These two levels are the extremes — there are other options in between to align with your needs.

From a business perspective, companies can hire freelancers and use the cloud workspace to manage the project. This is a plus for companies that need to manage multiple contractors at the same time.

Elance also streamlines the oft-troublesome invoice and payment process — the company pays Elance, then Elance pays the freelancer. Elance guarantees that its online system will get users paid on-time.

2. oDesk

oDesk is similar to Elance in that companies can hire contractors from the oDesk database or they can bring their own team together using the oDesk platform. In both cases, oDesk handles the payroll.

The difference is that oDesk does not charge the contractor or the company to sign up with them — there are no fees to post jobs or create profiles. oDesk makes its money by taking a 10% cut of all payments, which is outlined in the FAQs on its site.

As a freelancer, oDesk offers jobs in many categories. Freelancers are able to create oDesk profiles outlining their past work history and skills. You can also take a few online skills tests to verify your abilities with various apps and tools — Excel, Java, WordPress and Ruby on Rails, to name a few — for a potential client.

3. Sologig

Sologig is reminiscent of a traditional job board. Freelancers can register for free and sign up for an e-newsletter so job opportunities come right to your inbox. Once you’re signed up, you can search for jobs or peruse an RSS feed of open gigs. To target opportunities that would be a good fit, you can upload your resume and let Sologig’s job-matching technology match keywords in your resume with company listings.

Companies such as Ernst & Young, Lockheed Martin and Medix IT Staffing Solutions pay a fee to post jobs. They also can access the Sologig profiles database to search for freelance talent directly.

4. Hour.ly

Hour.ly is a relatively new social networking community. Launched on Labor Day 2010, Hour.ly gained some initial attention by winning the People’s Choice Award at the O’Reilly Media Startup Showcase.

It’s free to join Hour.ly and create an online profile with your contact information, photo, social media contact info and your work availability. Once you see a job you like, you can submit your online profile with one click. You can also opt-in for a background check to demonstrate to potential companies that you’re serious. Instead of letting you search jobs, Hour.ly matches freelancer profiles with open jobs (companies can post for free) based on location, pay rate, experience and scheduling availability.

Once a match is made, employers can interview people using the Hour.ly video chat system.

5. Freelance Switch

Freelance Switch is a community site that lists freelance jobs in addition to providing information about the freelancer lifestyle. The site has many articles about setting prices, finding and dealing with clients and getting referral business. It recently relaunched its regular podcasts, which cover topics such as debt collection, personal branding and contract negotiations.

Accessing the resources is free, but applying for jobs is possible only with a paid subscription. Rates start at $7 per month.

Companies are able to post freelance opportunities for free — Sony, Nokia and Adobe have posted jobs on Freelance Switch.

Chances are good that, at some time in your life, you’ve taken a time-management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. “Why, with this knowledge and these gadgets,” you may ask, “do I still feel like I can’t get everything done I need to?”

The answer is simple. Everything you ever learned about managing time is a complete waste of time because it doesn’t work.

Before you can even begin to manage time, you must learn what time is. A dictionary defines time as “the point or period at which things occur.” Put simply, time is when stuff happens.

There are two types of time: clock time and real time. In clock time, there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year. All time passes equally. When someone turns 50, they are exactly 50 years old, no more or no less.

In real time, all time is relative. Time flies or drags depending on what you’re doing. Two hours at the department of motor vehicles can feel like 12 years. And yet our 12-year-old children seem to have grown up in only two hours.

Which time describes the world in which you really live, real time or clock time?

The reason time-management gadgets and systems don’t work is that these systems are designed to manage clock time. Clock time is irrelevant. You don’t live in or even have access to clock time. You live in real time, a world in which all time flies when you are having fun or drags when you are doing your taxes.

The good news is that real time is mental. It exists between your ears. You create it. Anything you create, you can manage. It’s time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around “not having enough time,” or today not being “the right time” to start a business or manage your current business properly.

There are only three ways to spend time: thoughts, conversations and actions. Regardless of the type of business you own, your work will be composed of those three items.

As an entrepreneur, you may be frequently interrupted or pulled in different directions. While you cannot eliminate interruptions, you do get a say on how much time you will spend on them and how much time you will spend on the thoughts, conversations and actions that will lead you to success.

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

1. Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You’ll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
2. Any activity or conversation that’s important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they’re unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you’re doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having “office hours.” Isn’t “office hours” another way of saying “planned interruptions?”
5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don’t start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what’s missing in your next call or activity?
7. Put up a “Do not disturb” sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
8. Practice not answering the phone just because it’s ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don’t instantly give people your attention unless it’s absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
10. Remember that it’s impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.