GroupPrice Launches Group Buying for Small Businesses
To help small business owners save time and money in buying the local services, software and supplies they need to grow online, GroupPrice has launched, putting the power of group buying in the hands of small businesses. Designed to increase profit while cutting costs, GroupPrice offers a range of local services and software from well-known brands geared specifically to help small businesses grow online.
GroupPrice offers weekly deals at up to 60 percent off regular price targeted specifically to small businesses to help them:
- go online—with website design, copywriting and e-commerce services, hosting and more;
- grow online—with email marketing, search engine optimization, online advertising, mobile apps and more; and
- manage online—with online accounting and bill pay, online backup and security services.
“GroupPrice takes the hassle out of finding the local services and software small business owners need and lets them buy a great deal quickly,” said Van Jepson, CEO of GroupPrice.
Lock in a Great Deal Quickly and Easily
Similar to Groupon, which uses a daily deal tipping-point strategy where a certain number of consumer members must commit to buy at a set price for the deal to be “on,” GroupPrice employs a weekly deal fixed-price strategy, where business members can see the great deal, buy it, and share it with colleagues in a few minutes? With the deals available all week, it gives harried business owners time to research and compare to ensure the local service, software or supply meets their exact needs without missing out on a great limited-time deal.
“We’ve eliminated the guesswork and risk in the buying process by offering only pre-qualified deals from trusted companies that can help small businesses grow while saving time and reducing costs,” Jepson said.
Instant Time to Market and Targeted Channel for Merchants who Sell
For merchants with local services, software or supplies geared toward the small business market, GroupPrice provides a highly targeted channel to quickly launch promotions and deals into this growing business segment. With GroupPrice, merchants can offer tailored pricing models and selling benefits without directly competing with their other channels. And, the GroupPrice system can help merchant’s better balance supply and demand with more accurate insights of short-term group-buying demand.
GroupPrice is continuously adding new limited-time deals to its offering at the request of business members and through its free merchant self-signup at:
http://www.groupprice.com/scripts/vendorreg.asp
To sign up and get exclusive access to discount group-pricing deals, visit http://groupprice.com.
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
Digital Signature Changing the Business World Forever
You have an important, time sensitive document that you need a client to sign. You fax it to them, and then drop them an email letting them know that the document is on the way. Then you wait, somewhat impatiently, for the client to fax you back the signed document. And you wait. And you wait some more. Your deadline is fast approaching but you still don’t have the signed document that you need. You email the client and inquire about the document. They swear that they’ve faxed it already, but will send it again. Meanwhile, someone in a different department grabbed some documents from the fax machine earlier, your important document included. You’ve wasted time and energy waiting for your document and miss your deadline.
Sound familiar? If your business requires a lot of signatures on a lot of different documents then the above scenario is most likely one that you are familiar with. It used to be that the fax machine ruled long distance business deals, but not anymore. With companies now offering digital signatures, the fax machine, and all the headaches that can come with it, no longer has to be an issue.
What is a Digital Signature?
A digital signature is just what it sounds like: a signature that is obtained and transmitted digitally. Digital signature is fast becoming the most popular way to get business documents signed. Instead of faxing documents to be signed, or requiring your clients and business partners to print off the contract, sign it, scan it and then email it back to you, digital signature allows everything to be done through email. You can email documents and contracts and your clients and business associates can sign them directly on line and then email them back to you. It literally takes seconds verses the time consuming method of faxing or scanning signed documents.
How it Works
It’s so easy to set your company up to use digital signatures. There’s no software, signature pads, digital certificates or intensive training required. Everything is done through email. Basically you email your client or business partner the document and they open it up, sign it using their mouse and email it back to you. It’s that easy! And since it’s all done through email, you can send out a document to multiple people at the same time. You can also email the signed document to other members of your team or other people in your company.
The Benefits
Just think of all the time you’ll save by emailing documents instead of needing to fax them. You’ll also save your clients valuable time since they won’t need to check their faxes and fax the documents back or, even more time consuming, print, sign and scan the documents. It’s also easier to send out a document to multiple recipients. Digital signature companies also offer a document management system that can save you time and make keeping track of documents much easier. Digital signature systems are also easy to use and don’t require purchasing new software or hardware.
The way things are done in the business world is always changing, sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. But with digital signatures, the change is definitely a good one. This new way of getting important business documents signed is easier, more efficient and a better option that the traditional fax or scanned documents. The more time you save on getting documents signed, the more time you have to spend on other aspects of your job. And while some changes turn out to simply be fads, it’s clear to see that the use of digital signatures will be around for a long, long time.
About the Author: Joshua Bitton represents EchoSign, the leader of the 2nd generation of electronic signature solutions – 100% web-based, fully digital signature solutions that do not require digital signature pads, digital certificates or scanning software.
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
Small Business Marketing Through Your Online Blog
Promoting your business is one of the most important things that you can do if you want for the business to succeed. It is not always easy to capture the attention of the public these days. Whereas advertising was pretty straightforward, now you have to market online if your company is going to get any recognition at all from the public. Marketing online is not always as easy as you might imagine it to be. There are some tricks which will allow you to be more successful with online promotions than with others. It pays to know about the tricks so that you can enjoy a more successful business.
The online blog has emerged as one of the greatest informal ways to grab more attention from the public at large. Not only do they get to know about your company, but they get to connect in a more personal way. You can connect the blog to your social media sites. You can also provide outstanding content which people can enjoy and will bring them back again and again. Additionally, you can offer free tools like eBooks and more for only an email address. By marketing through these means, your blog will turn from a simple way to tell people about your business to a great marketing tool.
Connect to Social Media Sites
Social media sites are the most popular sites on the internet these days. More people spend more time on them these days rather than any other location. They meet with their friends, learn about companies and play games. Most any business has a profile on these sites. If you do not, you are considered to be out of touch with the modern age. Linking to the sites through your blog will allow people to follow your blog and other info about your company in a way that they are familiar with.
Use the Right Content
Content is one of the most important things you can put on a blog. After all, without content the blog is nothing other than an information tool. Loading the blog with SEO content and other marketing devices will help to attract attention to the blog in the first place as well as help in making sure that the blog will allow you to market correctly in the future as well. Write content which is not only effective in grabbing attention, but that is useful enough to make people want to return simply to see what else you have to offer in terms of content.
Gather Email Addresses
Gathering email addresses is extremely important to be able to contact clients later. Offer information on everything from the VoIP business phone system to marketing information. Offer the ability to get even more information through a free eBook when they sign up for a free subscription with your site. The only thing they will need to do is to provide you with their email address. Once you have the email address you can use it to commit to a direct marketing program.
About the Author: Resource Nation provides free tools, tips, and purchasing advice for business owners and entrepreneurs in over 100 business categories ranging from VoIP business phone system to credit card processing. Whether it’s connecting businesses with local and national pre-screened vendors, or offering easy service comparisons on a VoIP service, Resource Nation empowers business decision makers by providing the information they need to make smart choices.
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
How User Centered Design Can Help Small Business Owners Websites
The vast majority of small business owners are providing products or services in areas other than website design and effectiveness. As such, they are at the mercy of their web designers and developers to create an online presence for their company that is effective and successful at enticing its visitors to perform desired actions. In order to take control and provide higher chances of online success, small business owners might consider employing the principles of User Centered Design (UCD).
A general overview of UCD is such that the user is the focus of determining how their needs, wants and even their limitations are the primary focus driving the decision making process of the design. Many professional web designers fail to understand this concept, much less employ it in their work flow. If those you’re paying to come up with effective websites for your company are not even considering using UCD, you might want to take the lead and find someone or a service that will help you in the endeavor.
Understand the Users
When it comes to the design of your website, understanding what your users are doing is definitely an important aspect of online operations. The challenge however is that this type of metrics, also known as analytics, can only tell you what has happened:
- How many visitors came to your home page?
- Where did those visitors come from: search engine results pages, email newsletter links, deep links on other websites, etc.
- How long did the visitor stay at your site?
- How many pages did they view while they were there?
Again, this information is well and good, but even with the metrics you just don’t have the insight into what was going through the visitors mind.
Why They Do What They Do
This brings up the value of understanding why your website visitors do what they do. User Centered Design is just the vehicle you need in order to gain knowledge and understanding of that “why”.
The more you understand how UCD works, the easier it will be for you to learn what areas of your website can positively (or negatively) affect the visitor’s experience. Once you have this type of knowledge, you can make iterative changes which then allow you to further cement the user experience.
The Value of UCD Service
A quality UCD service will help you understand the intangible aspects of how a visitor uses your website. Often times there’s nothing more than a frustrated thought passing through the users mind. No click or time on page is likely to help you understand that emotion. But with UCD you might have the chance to watch video of test users as they make their way through your online pages.
Note a disgruntled sigh, or observe the slightest eye roll at the same time a user is attempting to navigate through your site, and you have a much clearer idea of where a problem could exist. You’d never get that depth of insight with a tally of the number of times a user made it through a page (via clicking on navigation links.)
Overall, when you decide to design your small business website with UCD techniques you’ll be able to make positive changes, faster. These changes help to support your business’ online goals and provide you with the justification for making otherwise hard decisions.
The best news is that you don’t have to be an expert in design or have a doctorate in user psychology in order to take advantage of these concepts. There are services available in the marketplace that excel in providing small to medium sized businesses with the capabilities to do much, if not all the research and development online. If your online success depends upon the actions of your website visitors, why not take the time to find an effective and reasonably priced user centered design service as soon as you can. Your bottom line will surely thank you!
Author Bio: Shelly Towns is a writer and avid blogger, who often finds herself writing about website design testing, user experience, and website development.
Photo Credit: ivanpw
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
Using Greeting Cards to Market after the Holidays
Most marketing-savvy business owners know that holiday greeting cards make a great way to market to clients and prospective customers, but did you know that the holidays aren’t the only time when you can use this method to your advantage? Greeting cards enable you to keep up the lines of communication with your prospects, to promote a healthy business relationship and to make them more likely to think of you when they have need of your products or services. Once the holidays are over, it may seem like the season for greeting cards has gone, but that simply isn’t true. Here are a few ways to use greeting cards to market to your prospects after the holidays have passed.
Ringing in the New Year
If you missed the boat for Christmas cards, or if you just want a way to incorporate greeting cards into your post-holiday marketing campaigns, the New Year makes a great reason to send greeting cards to your prospects. Thank them for their business during the previous year, and wish them health and prosperity in the coming year. This reason for sending greeting cards is great because you can easily send your cards in late January, or even later if your company operates on a different year-end schedule. For instance, if you do business in the education industry, your year ends in May or June, making summer a great time to send out year-end cards.
Birthdays
It’s a good idea to keep track of all your customers’ birthdays. Sending cards on customer’s birthdays promotes a good relationship with them, plus you can take advantage of the opportunity to send them special offers or discounts in honor of their birthday. Ask for this information when they set up an account with you or via friendly conversation, and always remember their special day with a greeting card.
Warm Spring Wishes
Many people greet spring with relief and joy as winter being over means more daylight and warmer days, and often brings with it a sense of lightened mood, too. “Happy Spring” cards are a great way to remind your customers of your products and services, and may work especially well if you have a seasonal business, such as a landscaping business or even an online retailer that sells gardening supplies or other seasonal products.
Back to School
If it fits in with your type of business, sending out greeting cards in celebration of going back to school can provide an effective way to keep in touch with your customers. Families with kids and adult students often buy clothes, office and school supplies, computers, and other things just before the school year starts. Other businesses might see a surge in popularity once the kids are back in school — summer-wearied mothers might like to treat themselves to a massage or a day at the spa, for example. Sending out cards to wish everyone well in the new school year can make for a very timely reminder of the products and services you offer.
There are many different ways to market your business with greeting cards, and no, you don’t need Christmas — or even an official holiday — in order to do so effectively. Your type of business may even suggest some good reasons to celebrating with a card.
About the Author: Vern Marker is a freelance writer on several different topics including customer relationships. Business greeting cards are a great way to enhance customer relationships.
Photo Credit: Lauren Manning
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
Five Regulations Entrepreneurs and New Business Owners Should Review
With a seemingly infinite number of legal regulations to abide by, starting up a new business for the first time can be daunting for entrepreneurs. Federal, state, and local government agencies set certain requirements so that they can regulate professional industries to protect consumers and prevent fraud. The more you know about the process before you begin, the better prepared you will be to jump through all those legal hoops. A number of these legally enforced regulations require the business owner to pay additional fees that will need to be budgeted into opening expenses.
- Application for Registration of Name
Chances are one of the first things you thought about when planning your new enterprise was what you would call it. You’ll need to reserve and register your name with the state(s) in which you plan to do business so that it can be recognized officially. In some states, such as New Jersey, applicants must list three potential names in case another entity has already registered their top choice. Whoever submits and signs the application will have ownership of the reserved name. These applications are also used to transfer business names to new owners or enterprises. The exact fee varies, but is oftentimes around $25 to $50. - Seller’s Permit
States require any individuals or businesses to obtain a seller’s permit if they intend to sell or lease merchandise, cars, or any other tangible personal property. The permit allows the entity to sell items as retail or wholesale. Those applying for a withstanding business should apply for a regular permit whereas those planning to operate a seasonal business, like a fireworks stand, can apply for a temporary permit that will be valid for 90 days. - Request for Tax Clearance
A tax clearance is a review of financial records to determine if an entity is compliant with all state tax laws. If your enterprise will have employees that require you to withhold taxes, you will have to request a tax clearance to ensure you are trustworthy enough to submit the necessary financial reports accurately. Business owners must meet certain obligations under state law that require them to file tax returns on time and with the correct payment amount, and tax clearances help ensure this in advance. - Surety Bonds
Virtually all industries require new professionals to purchase a surety bond before issuing them a business license to operate within the state. Surety bonds act as a preventative measure to ensure that professionals will follow all licensing and industry regulations applicable to their positions. There are thousands of surety bonds available, and their costs vary based on the state’s regulations for the industry and specific profession. For example, due to the nature of their work, a contractor getting a surety bond in California for a multi-million dollar construction project will pay a much higher fee than used auto dealer in Missouri who doesn’t do high volume sales. - Partnership Registrations
If you’re going into business with a friend or other industry professional, there are a number of steps that you will need to complete in order to operate legally within any given state. Depending on the nature of your partnership, i.e. limited partnership or limited liability partnership, you will need to meet different requirements. Establishing a partnership for your business can be beneficial, but only if you do so in congruence with the law.
This article was written by Kristen Bradley from SuretyBonds.com, an agency that provides surety bonds to professionals across the nation. SuretyBonds.com helps entrepreneurs meet licensing requirements every day. The agency offers advice to new business owners to help them open their business as soon as possible.
Photo Credit: robnguyen01
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
Running a Small Business From Your Home: 8 Ways to Make it Work
‘Start small’ has always been my mantra in my years of coaching start ups and emerging entrepreneurs. It may feel unambitious to run a business from your home but it has many dividends. It helps you have time to ‘test the waters’ without racking up unnecessary overheads as a start up. It also allows you time to make your mistakes and fine tune that business model you had all nicely painted in you business plan or executive summary.
So go ahead and try to work from home and if you are already at it, lets take a look at how to excel at it.
Get Dressed and Go To Work!
‘But I am at home and besides no one can see me through the telephone ‘, you may say but the very act of getting up in the morning and getting ready to sit in your work area and do some uninterrupted work will boost your work morale and get your innovative juices flowing.
One of the mistakes home based entrepreneurs make is being too informal about their work ethic; that is one robber of time and MONEY.
Look The Part
Remind yourself often the reason why you left paid employment or college, for that matter, to pursue this dream of yours. Don’t allow yourself come across as slouchy and unprofessional. When you are meeting leads or prospective clients, you want them to register some trust in your ability to do what you say you do. ‘You are addressed by the way you are dressed’, one of my mentors always said.
Create A Sanctuary
It may be a desk in the dining area or a cleared out space in the garage, designate a place where you can work on your computer, write down ideas and keep revolving documents. Let other people in your home know and respect this place as your thinking spot. Even the children can understand this, just let them know.
Obey the Routine
Write out your daily schedule and use that to create a roaster which will form the blue print of how you operate. Everything from time for follow up phone calls to time spent online or days and times for hitting the road for some networking etc. Whether your a service provider or manufacturer this can work for you. An entrepreneur has told me he works a mandatory 14 hours everyday and that’s any 14 hours! You can try that if it suits your lifestyle, some personality types work better that way.
Tone Down the Distractions
No need fixing the conference call with your manufacturer and accountant at a time when, for instance, the children are back from school or the cleaning lady is hoovering. Keep the distractions at bay when you are working or better still work from a nearby coffee shop when there is work being done in the house or other similar one off distraction.
Meet the Clients!
Although some traditional professions like accounting and law frown at it, going to meet your client rather than them coming to you may just work very well for entrepreneurs, even ones who have ‘big’ offices. I find that it helps bridge the formality gap and it helps you see your client in his own environment and often helps to meet his need better, given the extra feel of his personality you may be getting from such visits.
Be Honest
If you are a start up and this company is just you for now, say so. It is absolutely unnecessary to say ‘we’ when speaking about your business. You should say ‘I’. If you are good at what you do and deliver on your promises you won’t need to amp the capacity of your business by saying ‘we’.
Also ‘underpromise and overdeliver’ has been said for years and it still holds true. The customer is always delighted when results are delivered earlier than stated.
Be Memorable
Because there are many other event planners, web designers or software developers everywhere you turn, it should be a priority to make yourself memorable …… in a good way that is.
You are the face of your start up, even where a prospect does not end up an actual client, let them remember the experience of interacting with you. They may just call you again. Being respectful, personable or playing the charm card is not a sign of a lack of confidence, on the contrary it shows you know who you are and what you can deliver.
About the Author: Cynthia Obioma Ezeani has worked extensively in Nigeria coaching start ups and emerging entrepreneurs since 2006. She currently resides in Massachusetts.
Photo Credit: Roland
Want to be our next guest author? Click here for details…
