Jul

10

Rundown of Small Business Communities of Banks

July 10, 2008 | 3 Comments

NetBanker has an interesting overview of the small business community sites of banks and financial services companies. Jim Bruene, the author, gives a summary of these communities:
Advanta’s Ideablob
American Express’s OpenForum
Bank of America’s Small Business Online Community,
Capital One’s Slingshot,
HSBC’s (UK) Business Network
Intuit’s Quickbooks Group:
VISA’s Business Network on Facebook is just mentioned. Left off the […]

May

20

Another (Limited) Way to Segment SMBs

May 20, 2008 | 1 Comment

If you wanted to sell small businesses on advertising solutions for their business, here’s a new way to break them down:
1. “Branded branches,” (e.g., Bank of America), which reportedly comprises 60% to 65% of the advertiser spend. This might be thought of in the conventional approach as the “national-local” segment.
2. Co-op sellers […]

May

4

Follow the Leader to Find Small Business Blogs

May 4, 2008 | 5 Comments

I often get asked, “How does one find small business blogs, so my company can reach out to the small business community?”
There are a number of techniques for identifying small business blogs that attract the audience you want to reach.
The technique I am going to cover today is called “Follow the Leader.” If you can […]

Nov

29

Are You Building a Community of Loyal Customers?

November 29, 2007 | 4 Comments

Are you building a community of readers and customers and participants? 
That’s important, because a community is central to a strategy of reaching out to the small business market.  True, your ultimate goal has to be to sell your services and products to small businesses.  But to do that you first have to think about engaging them.  Engagement is not […]

Nov

11

Small Business Partner Programs - 10 Ways to Get the Word Out

November 11, 2007 | 5 Comments

There’s an increasing trend of big companies partnering with small businesses.  I wrote about this a few weeks back in my article,   Stop Selling and Instead Partner with Small Businesses.
And if you are one of the forward-thinking companies that already has set up partnership programs with small businesses, kudos to you.
Now, how about publicizing your […]

Nov

9

Latest Small Business Snapshot: Businesses and Employees

November 9, 2007 | 2 Comments

The SBA Office of Advocacy has come out with an updated annual snapshot of small businesses in the United States (PDF).
This chart shows the number of small businesses, the industries they are in, and the number of employees (click chart to open larger image):

Click for larger chart
In reading this chart remember these points:

“Nonemployer firms” means single-person small […]

Oct

29

How Small Business Friendly is Your Organization?

October 29, 2007 | 2 Comments

Uh-oh. It could be bad news for small businesses in the lumber business that hire immigrants or aliens.  They have to deal with two of the least responsive agencies in the U.S. Federal government for small businesses: the U.S. Forest Service and Immigrations.
The National Ombudsman Report (PDF) just came out for 2006. The National Ombudsman, Nicholas […]

Oct

22

Call it a Small Business, No a Mid-Sized Business, No a Large Corporation

October 22, 2007 | 8 Comments

The need for clear and consistent terminology to define “what is a small business?” has been obvious for a while now. Let’s go over some of the existing definitions.
The U.S. Small Business Administration adheres to its definition of under 500 employees.  That is, except in the case of about a zillion exceptions for various industries (so many that the SBA needs a 42-page PDF […]

Oct

18

Stop Selling and Instead Partner with Small Businesses

October 18, 2007 | 5 Comments

Are you finding it a challenge to reach niche markets?  Too costly to go after on your own? 
Has innovation inside your organization stalled or become stale?
Perhaps it’s time to do what companies like Google and Proctor & Gamble are doing: partner.  A growing trend is that of large companies partnering with small businesses to their mutual […]

Oct

3

Constant Contact Goes Public!

October 3, 2007 | 3 Comments

It just goes to show:  there is money in the small business market.
Constant Contact, the email marketing services company that made its bones selling to small businesses, went public on the NASDAQ yesterday.  Today was its first trading day. 
Here is the announcement (sent via the Constant Contact email marketing software, of course):
We have some exciting […]

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