Dec

28

SBA: Think Credit Cards Instead of Big Loans

December 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Some people continue to criticize the U.S. Small Business Administration for making loans they say are too small and putting caps on Section 7a loans.  They want to increase the maximum loan size from $2 Million to $3 Million. 
But guess what?  That’s what small businesses want:  small loans.
According to a study by the SBA’s Office […]

Dec

27

SurePayroll’s Interesting Small Business Scorecard

December 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment

According to the most recent SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, small business hiring was down slightly during the first eleven months of 2006, but paycheck amounts are up. 
SurePayroll, a payroll service with 18,000 small business clients around the United States, has been calculating its Small Business Scorecard since January 2004 based on actual payroll data.  The […]

Dec

14

Advisors and Vendors: How to Convince Small Businesses They Need You

December 14, 2006 | 1 Comment

If you sell technology or staffing services to small businesses — or if you are an accountant or lawyer serving the small business market –  then I expect you will find the following research of interest. 
Six Disciplines Corporation surveyed leaders of small businesses with between 10 and 100 employees to find out what makes the most successful small businesses. They wanted […]

Dec

13

Web Increasingly Is the Place to Reach Small Businesses, Says Warrillow Survey

December 13, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Warrillow & Co. has published the results of its SpendTracker survey, and it shows that the Web is increasingly seen as the place to prospect for and reach small businesses.
The survey, which was conducted in the fall of 2006, asked companies that market to small businesses (1) where they currently spend their marketing dollars, and (2) where they […]

Dec

8

The Complexity of VOIP

December 8, 2006 | Leave a Comment

According to this article by TechTarget, SMBs find voice over IP (VOIP) too complex:
“SMBs definitely haven’t been adopting the technology like enterprises, mainly because the technology is complex. Anything that’s complex is going to be difficult for these small companies,” said Gary Chen, an analyst at Boston-based The Yankee Group. “There are so many pieces […]

Dec

6

Despite Predictions, Email Marketing is Not Dead

December 6, 2006 | Leave a Comment

B2B email still works well to reach business decision makers with marketing messages. 
Sure, it takes more time and effort today to make sure that emails get through filters and get opened, given the clutter in all our email inboxes.  But, dollar for dollar, email still is a very effective channel to reach customers, community members and […]