Debunking Myths About Merchant Cash Advance Loans to Small Businesses

For many people who are vaguely familiar with the term, ‘Merchant Cash Advance’, it is not something they want to deal with. This is probably because many business people have always viewed this kind of loan with some degree of suspicion. It is worthwhile for you as a small business owner to learn what it really is and what it really does.

Many businesses fall into financial problems which can be sorted out in the short-term by merchant cash advance facilities. You will not be in a position to take advantage of this facility unless you purge some of the myths that float around about such loans. Here we debunk these myths and we will see how they can help your business weather financial storms.

  • MYTH 1 – Merchant cash advances are expensive for you: This myth comes from the fact that most quick loans are deemed to be expensive. The truth is that the interest which is pre-agreed is the only money you have to pay over and above the amount you borrowed. Most service providers do not charge any application, processing or closing fees like banks do.
  • MYTH 2 – They are for failing businesses: Not true at all. All businesses come into financial difficulties once in a while. This does not mean that those businesses are on the verge of failing. In fact, merchant cash advance for small business, as short-term financing, has helped such businesses ride financial storms and emerge stronger and better afterwards.
  • MYTH 3 – You cannot use merchant cash advances to spur growth: When business owners, who know the value of these type of loans, take them, it is not because they just want to help with cash flow shortfalls or such issues. You can take such financing to acquire new machinery or improve your business process or carry out renovations, all which spur growth.
  • MYTH 4 – They have a negative impact on credit ratings: Strictly speaking, a merchant cash advance loan is where you sell your future credit and debit card sales to another party. This loan will actually help you avoid a bad credit score by helping you to pay off debts, maintaining your payroll and by preventing you from loading all your debts on your credit card.
  • MYTH 5 – The processing period is long: Here, the opposite is true. The time taken by most merchant cash advance companies to process your application can be as short as 48 hours and definitely not extend beyond one week. Comparing this period to the weeks or months a bank takes to approve your conventional bank loan, you know where the advantage lies.

Most business myths are easily debunked by having the right information. As a small business owner, merchant cash advances could be the difference between your business now and increased productivity.

Josh Wallace has written widely on small business funding in many respected journals. He is also an advisor to the government on small business promotion. For more information on merchant cash advance for small business, contact him for insightful advice.

The post Debunking Myths About Merchant Cash Advance Loans to Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Can.

Debunking Myths About Merchant Cash Advance Loans to Small Businesses

For many people who are vaguely familiar with the term, ‘Merchant Cash Advance’, it is not something they want to deal with. This is probably because many business people have always viewed this kind of loan with some degree of suspicion. It is worthwhile for you as a small business owner to learn what it really is and what it really does.

Many businesses fall into financial problems which can be sorted out in the short-term by merchant cash advance facilities. You will not be in a position to take advantage of this facility unless you purge some of the myths that float around about such loans. Here we debunk these myths and we will see how they can help your business weather financial storms.

  • MYTH 1 – Merchant cash advances are expensive for you: This myth comes from the fact that most quick loans are deemed to be expensive. The truth is that the interest which is pre-agreed is the only money you have to pay over and above the amount you borrowed. Most service providers do not charge any application, processing or closing fees like banks do.
  • MYTH 2 – They are for failing businesses: Not true at all. All businesses come into financial difficulties once in a while. This does not mean that those businesses are on the verge of failing. In fact, merchant cash advance for small business, as short-term financing, has helped such businesses ride financial storms and emerge stronger and better afterwards.
  • MYTH 3 – You cannot use merchant cash advances to spur growth: When business owners, who know the value of these type of loans, take them, it is not because they just want to help with cash flow shortfalls or such issues. You can take such financing to acquire new machinery or improve your business process or carry out renovations, all which spur growth.
  • MYTH 4 – They have a negative impact on credit ratings: Strictly speaking, a merchant cash advance loan is where you sell your future credit and debit card sales to another party. This loan will actually help you avoid a bad credit score by helping you to pay off debts, maintaining your payroll and by preventing you from loading all your debts on your credit card.
  • MYTH 5 – The processing period is long: Here, the opposite is true. The time taken by most merchant cash advance companies to process your application can be as short as 48 hours and definitely not extend beyond one week. Comparing this period to the weeks or months a bank takes to approve your conventional bank loan, you know where the advantage lies.

Most business myths are easily debunked by having the right information. As a small business owner, merchant cash advances could be the difference between your business now and increased productivity.

Josh Wallace has written widely on small business funding in many respected journals. He is also an advisor to the government on small business promotion. For more information on merchant cash advance for small business, contact him for insightful advice.

The post Debunking Myths About Merchant Cash Advance Loans to Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Can.

How Can You Get Individual Superstars to Work Together?

When you have a small business, you need to have the best hire to be part of your tram. However, it’s not always a piece of cake to gather aces and put them on their best places and get them to work altogether.

Most managers are then faced with the question on how to combine their talents, skills, and brains for one project and lead them to work harmoniously.

Vince Lombardi believes that the secret to building a team of superstars is to motivation them to work towards a common goal. But even if we’re not talking about sports, the same motivation is quintessential in any team, especially in the workplace.

In the Team Effectiveness Review led by Elaine Yew at Egon Zehnder during the late 90s, she discussed the six critical team competencies that can make an A-team thrive.

Let’s explore the six ingredients that make individual superstars work great with a team.

Balance

It’s not enough that the team understands the importance of diversity of skills and strengths. They should be also willing to incorporate them. Dan of The Leadership Freak noted about 13 reasons why teams lose momentum and one of them is dominant members who cause others to feel insignificant.

As the leader, you are responsible to help your members understand each other’s skills and strengths despite the fact that superstars tend to be “me-focused”. By identifying each superstar’s motivation, you can work around how to best motivate and inspire them to work with others without feeling the need to be always be on the spotlight.

Energy

An ambitious team thinks about long-term momentum at a high level. Superstars are naturally driven individuals who always have the thirst for victory and excellence and each member’s enthusiasm would easily rub off on others.

Alignment

Do your team members understand the larger team purpose? If not, you may want to direct all theirefforts on one central objective. It’s time to leverage their thinking. TribeHR Staff said businesses are most successful when employees’ personal goals are aligned with that of corporate goals. Yes, while each member may have personal goals and priorities, team leaders should aim to make the business thrive and ensure that each team player’s goal aligns with that of company’s.

Resilience

Author Margaret Heffernan said that social capitals make a group resilient. By that, she means trust, knowledge, reciprocity, and shared norms. If you are a team leader, it helps to show your team the outcome of their collected efforts. Writer Glenn Llopis said one of the ways to inspire a team is to make them feel that their hard work makes a difference beyond just profitability.

Efficiency

One of the biggest challenges to teams is how to deal with pressure not only individually, but also as a team. You may encourage your team to try a few quirky de-stress hacks such as photography contest activities or simply employee’s day out. After a super-busy week, your team deserves relaxing and reenergizing activities to keep them motivated and happy at work.

Openness

Do the team members’ value engaging with the broader organization? When each member has connection to one another, it becomes effortless for them to share ideas, concerns and contribute towards the common goal better.

Having great individuals work together as a team is a great opportunity and a challenge to focus on the over-all and high level goals. By focusing on the over-all objectives, one can minimize the potential clashes within the team and make the best use of individual talents, skills and take advantage of the adversity of the group.

Having aces on their best places allow each team member to feel significant without having the need to be constantly on the spotlight and think more of the common goal as opposed to focusing solely on individual ones.

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A Guide to Improve Online Customer Experience with Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategy

For aspirants in eCommerce industry who wish to make it big, merely cataloguing products and focusing on intelligent navigation will not suffice. It’s time to think out of the box. And this comes through the process of upsell and cross-sell strategy. Most of the digital businesses often do not care of this selling technique and lose revenue in the long run.

Why Upselling and Cross-selling?

The process is an art of introducing customers to complementary products that gets instant acceptance. According to Forrester research analyst, upsells and cross-sells strategy is responsible for an average of 10-30% of eCommerce revenue.  Every time a customer buys something, and if you fail to offer an upsell and cross-sell, you are definitely missing a great opportunity to increase your sale.

Surveys have revealed that both these strategies are useful in increasing revenues manifold. Also, the tool helps customers choose the high quality products when shopping online.

Here’s how it goes…

Let’s say a customer is looking at purchasing a camera

Upselling strategy: After selecting a camera, if customer is immediately presented with the option of buying a DSLR camera, the merchant is trying to persuade the customer to switch his purchasing decision to a more expensive product. Upselling is getting the customer to spend more money on the same type of product he initially intended to buy.

Cross-selling: Ones when the DSLR camera is purchased, if the customer is presented with options like a camera bag, additional lenses and memory card, it complements their existing purchase. When customers are offered additional products to support and complement the product that he has already decided to buy, the technique is called cross-selling. The special packages supporting the main item allow your customers to receive that extra at a special price. The strategy aims at getting a customer buy more products in addition to the original product he intended to buy from you.

In case of an online business, upselling and cross-selling includes showing the related and relevant products on order or product page.

The Core Difference

Upselling is about understanding the features of your more expensive products and how those features can be of great value and benefit to the customers. While cross-selling involves how the special packages supporting the main products allow your customers to acquire that extra they require at a special price.

Can You Upsell and Cross-sell everything?

Simply focusing on selling more and increasing the customer’s cart size isn’t always the right strategy. You need to understand what exactly your customers want. Consider what actually makes sense to show your customers and at which stage in the purchasing lifecycle.

Consider the three primary factors during Upsell and Cross-sell Method-

Relevance of the add-ons

Showing irrelevant additional products will unnecessarily confuse your customers. Make a list of your products and accessorize them with the compatible ones. Given a situation, customers will always need something besides the product he’s currently buying.

The greater familiarity your customers have with the additional item, the more likely they’re to buy.

Value for money

While you upsell and cross sell your products, do not increase the overall product order by more than 25 percent. Customer should feel the worth of every penny they spend.

Right time to approach

You don’t want to seem pushy with your products and on the contrary, you also don’t want to miss the window of opportunity. It is recommended to create triggered-based rules to showcase the right message at the right time.

Don’t exaggerate

Ones you know what to upsell and cross sell your customers, be tactful about it. Showing your customers heaps of unnecessary products, page after page will only confuse your customer’s acuity about your brand. This ultimately affects the overall conversion rates.

Are You Considering Upselling or Cross-selling?

Most of the retailers often remain confused as what to select – upselling or cross-selling. Research and analysis has revealed that consumers are more attracted to the upselling process than the cross-selling. It has been observed that they pay more attention to the pages that upsell the products. Studies have also revealed that 4% of the total online sales are usually driven by upselling strategy, whereas cross selling drives only 0.2%.

However, it has been noticed that cross sell is more effective when the products are presented on the checkout pages. It should not be ignored completely, but suggestions of the add-ons should be made more intelligently based on what the customers are buying, post purchase history and the amount they spend.

Measure your Performance

Analytic tools help in assessing the purchases that has already taken place and the trends associated with it. If a mother is buying diapers for her baby, she might buy other products related to infant care. This trend needs to be analyzed so that next time a mother clicks on a diaper in an online catalogue, she must get a pop-up of other products related to her baby care. These related products are quite useful for prospective customers.

Considering all these factors, plan your upsell and cross sell strategy to improve conversion rates as they’re effective drivers of additional revenue for your business.

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Moving Product: How to Save Money on Your Startup Transportation

When small business owners launch a transportation service, they usually have high fuel costs right up front. However, there are many ways to keep gas costs low throughout the year. If you use these tips you can help save money and make your investment in transportation pay off.

Design a Strategic Network

To configure the best network, you must understand how your business allocates clients to different distribution centers. By using a networking tool, you can find a good network easily because the system will provide detailed information about historical order volumes. It will also recommend the most efficient routes to use during the day. As a result, you will lower your daily fuel costs. The first step is recording all your trips, who makes the most purchases, and how the traffic is on each route. From there you can work out a good system for improving the costs of getting around.

Route Optimization
You must optimize your routes to cut your costs. By maintaining your vehicles, daily carbon emissions will reduce as well. For this task, you will need advanced scheduling and routing software. Typically, businesses that use route optimization tools lower their fuel costs by nearly 20 percent. Many drivers waste gas because they don’t plan their routes with a good tracking tool. Invest in highly efficient tracking devices to give drivers information about the length of every route. When routes are accurate, drivers get big savings since they don’t waste as much time. Make sure you are always on top of repairs and part replacements as well. When vehicles run at peak health and performance, so will your business.

Lease a Commercial Truck
Leasing a commercial truck will free up capital for your company. The process is very affordable because most companies will not need a down payment. Each payment that you make every month will cover any maintenance issues that could occur. Overall, this transportation option is highly recommended because it can lower your taxes during tax season. Other services like Arrow Truck Sales might also offer commercial trucks for sale which can be a good investment for a company that plans on using transportation like this for a long time.

Fuel Usage Strategies for Commercial Trucks
According the experts, morning is the best time to fill up a commercial vehicle. When pumping the fuel, use the lowest setting to reduce gas vapors and never fill the tank when the gas is nearly gone. If you fill the tank while it is partially full, the truck will have better fuel mileage. Find out what the best hacks might be for your particular vehicle and see how you can improve them.

Train the Staff
If your employees have poor driving habits, monthly fuel costs will be high because frequent starting, stopping, and shifting affect fuel efficiency. To save gas, your drivers should not press the gas petal or the brake petal too quickly since both these actions increase gas consumption. This strategy will only produce great results if the drivers have good routes. If they avoid stop lights and heavy traffic, there will be less starting and stopping throughout the route as well.

Overall, you can save money on your transportation if you rent a commercial truck, choose good routes, and train your staff properly. Preparing for your distribution and transport early on will give you a head start over the competition. Make sure you know what you can afford to invest in and what will pay off in the end.

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Small Business Community Involvement: Why It’s Important

Consumers are looking for many things in businesses today. A growing number of people now want businesses that have some type of local connection or that give back. This means you will want to consider contributing to the surrounding community or neighborhood. There are several reasons why it is important for small business community involvement to be encouraged.

Raise Brand Awareness

The first reason to get involved is to raise brand awareness with the people who matter most to the business. Getting out into the community with banners or just branded t-shirts will begin to make people aware that your business and brand exists. Being directly involved with the community allows you to actually show your brand message and personality in a way not usually possible through traditional marketing techniques. The impression you leave can make a real difference when someone is making a purchasing decision later.

Build Community Trust and Loyalty

A second reason community involvement can be beneficial is because it builds trust and loyalty for your business within the community. The people who see your business in the community will come to realize that your company is not a faceless conglomerate with the exclusive goal of earning a profit. It shows that you are willing to work to help the community and give back, like the foundation by Gary Young. This is going to instill trust in people. Additionally, if community members know you support local causes, then they are more like to choose your business over a competitor or generic online site.

Networking Opportunities

A major reason to get your business out and involved in the community is that there might be many surprising networking opportunities. Helping the community could potentially expose you to important local figures, elected officials or even other business owners in the area. You could use these contacts to potentially strike new business deals, handle problems with your company or work on joint marketing efforts. Networking can be very powerful within a community and often opens doors that would have remained closed otherwise.

Strengthen Employee Bonds

Many of the employees working for your business are likely to live in the surrounding communities. A benefit of getting involved locally is that your employees will start to feel a sense of pride working for your business. This can lead to personal ownership of each job position. The employees might even start to establish stronger bonds with coworkers. This can make your business stronger and more productive. It could also reduce turnover and eliminate problems finding the best local talent.

Improve the Lives of Neighbors

Something to consider is that getting involved with the community is going to start improving the lives of your neighbors in different ways. You might help to increase property values, reduce poverty and improve the local economy through charitable actions. This actually benefits your business by making it easier for the people in the community to make more purchases potentially from your company. A stronger and better community means more disposable income and happier customers.

Earned Media

A final reason to get involved with the community is the possibility of earned media. If your business is out in the community frequently, then there is a chance that you will eventually be covered through the local media outlets. This could mean free stories about your business in local newspapers, on the radio or on the nightly news. Earned media can expose your company to many more people than some other types of advertising.

Being involved with the community can elevate the profile of your business, give employees a good feeling about working and make neighbors feel a connection to your company. It is a valuable way to build up your company within a given area. You should always look into getting involved with the community when running a business.

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What is it Like to Win the Business Achievers Awards? – Alan Armstrong – Almac

We talk to former winners of the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards to learn more about how winning the award has impacted on their businesses.

In this post we speak to Alan Armstrong – Almac

Almac: Overall Business Achiever Award, 2014
Alan Armstrong – Almac

Headquartered in Craigavon, Almac is an established contract development and manufacturing organisation providing an extensive range of integrated services to over 600 companies globally within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors. Services include state-of-the-art drug discovery, world leading cancer diagnostics, research and development, manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients, formulation development and the support of global clinical trials. Today the global organisation employs over 3,500 staff in a diverse range of activities.

What was your start-up day?
My career started when I graduated as a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1981 and joined Galen Research Laboratories (Almac Group’s predecessor organisation) in 1978 in the Quality Control department. I was promoted to Quality Assurance Manager in 1982, taking responsibility for overseeing regulatory compliance throughout the company. From 1982 to 1995 I held a number of Operational and Management roles within the Galen organisation.

In 1995 I was appointed to the Board of Directors of Galen Holdings PLC as Chief Operating Officer and when Sir Allen McClay retired from Galen in 2001 to establish the Almac Group the following week, I was right by his side taking up the privileged position of Chief Executive Officer.

Alan Armstrong - Almac

Alan Armstrong – Almac

 

What motivates you?
Keeping Allen McClay’s vision alive motivates me daily. Allen was a father figure to every single Almac employee and we all believe in the vision which he created and shared. He was a highly passionate man, believing that every individual has a responsibility for the community, society and the world they live in.

Though he passed away in January 2010, there is still a strong sense of his presence around the company throughout all our facilities. His vision very much lives on in every decision the Board makes, ensuring his many ideas, philosophies and legacy are evident. I know he would be extremely proud of what we have achieved so far.

What keeps you up at night?
As a farming man, I am up every day at the crack of dawn. After a long working day between the farm and Almac, there is not much that can keep me up at night!

What’s been the most surprising part of running the business?
The staff of Almac surprise me every day. There is a true sense of loyalty and belonging felt not only by me, but all employees regardless of their location and I firmly believe this emanated directly from Allen himself when he used to talk about the Almac “family”.

The rate of expansion has been phenomenal and a true success story over the past 30 years. Our unrivalled range of services, innovative approach and proven quality record makes Almac a major player in drug development both now and we believe for generations to come.

What’s been the most challenging for you?
We firmly believe there will be more emphasis by pharma and biotech companies to use companion diagnostic tests to assist treatment decisions and focus on personalised medicines. This will inevitably impact the services our clients demand. Fortunately we have been working in this space for many years and have considerable expertise to leverage and help inform our clients accordingly.

Changes to international regulatory and compliance guidelines will present many challenges and Almac is planning ahead by ensuring a proactive approach is taken in both the interpretation and implementation of required standards.

And the most rewarding?
Achieving year-on-year growth, development of the global company and knowing that Allen McClay would be proud of our achievement.

What are some of the characteristics of people that have been successful at your company?
Almac has a strong track record of investing in our people. It is in our Core Values and Vision that, People are Almac’s core asset. Individually and collectively people are critical to the success of our vision. We recognise excellence and acknowledge that to empower our employees, we must invest in their continuous development’.

In addition to continuous employee training and development, we also endeavour to recruit the best talent globally. This is evidenced by the fact that we currently employ 30 different nationalities at our corporate headquarter site in Craigavon. It is also significant to note that we currently employ a high calibre of graduates as well as 5 professors throughout the Group whose expertise and knowledge is both exceptional and indispensable.

We are in a very covetous position at Almac where I am proud to say many of our Directors and Senior Management team have been with the company since graduation. This has added a stability and loyalty few other companies of our size are able to claim, particularly within our industry and means that Allen McClay’s vision to see Northern Ireland remain the firm’s headquarters and engine room has not been altered.

What are you most excited about for the future?
The future of Almac is very exciting! We are continuing to expand and grow our service offerings by investing in our people and innovation. I am particularly excited to see how we will increase our Global Presence having opened our Asia Pacific Headquarters earlier this year.

Any amazing families, partners, friends behind the scenes you’d like to thank – how did they support you in the early days?
We were delighted to be named Overall Business Achiever in these prestigious awards, particularly when pitched against other outstanding companies across all of Ireland. This is a fantastic recognition of the hard work by all our global teams and dedicated employees, without whom this success would not be possible. It is difficult to pinpoint a few people for me to thank, therefore I would like to give a huge congratulations to everyone at Almac who made winning this coveted award possible – it is a true honour for all of us.

What doors has winning the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards opened for you?
Being named Overall Ulster Bank Business Achiever of the Year was a special moment for us. It not only gives our employees a distinguished accolade of which we can be proud but is an endorsement of our work delivered to our clients and partners, building their trust and confidence in what we do. We also believe it helps to motivate our global team to meet business objectives.

What was the biggest benefit for you winning this award?
It’s the fourth successive time that a Northern Ireland company has won this award, and Almac beat off competition from a record number of entries from across Ireland. The judges have recognised the significant international footprint established by the Almac Group, clearly demonstrated by our international growth strategy achieving outstanding levels of sales, profit and market share growth.

Winning the award has enabled us to be recognised for and promote our Unique Selling Points.

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What is it Like to Win the Business Achievers Awards? – Dawn Cann – Avondale Foods

We talk to former winners of the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards to learn more about how winning the award has impacted on their businesses.

In this post we speak to Dawn Cann of Avondale Foods.

Best Food and Drink Award, 2014
Dawn Cann – Avondale

Established in 1965, Avondale Foods the family-run company is located just outside Lurgan, Co. Armagh, on Chestnut Farm. Avondale initially grew and sold vegetables before moving focus to research and development and subsequently diversified into vegetable processing. With products supplied under own label and Country Kitchen brands, the company supplies most major supermarkets.

What was your start-up day?
Avondale was founded in 1965 and initially traded under the name of ‘S. Geddis & Sons’.  I joined the business on a full time basis in 2000.

Dawn Cann of Avondale Foods.

Dawn Cann of Avondale Foods.

What motivates you?
Building on the company’s success and a love of good food.

What keeps you up at night?
My 2 year old twins!

What’s been the most challenging part of running a business for you?
Refusing to compromise on quality in order to achieve a lower cost, during challenging economic times a few years ago.

And the most rewarding?
Seeing someone put one of our products into their shopping trolley still gives me a buzz.

What is one mistake you’ve made, and what did you learn from it?
I’ve made a few mistakes and I’ve learned not to repeat them.

What are some of the characteristics of people that have been successful at your company?

  • Integrity
  • Belief in the company’s ethos of sourcing high quality ingredients.
  • Passion for good food.

What are you most excited about for the future?
The company’s ability to develop exciting and innovative products coupled with growing consumer interest in foods has provided us with an excellent opportunity to expand our product portfolio.

Any amazing families, partners, friends behind the scenes you’d like to thank – how did they support you in the early days?
This is a family company, where the second generation are now in senior management positions.  We all have different skill sets which complement each other.

What doors has winning the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards opened for you?
The Business Achievers Award has helped raise our profile.

What was the biggest benefit for you winning this award?
Winning this award was recognition of the team’s continued work in delivering high quality products.

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Small Biz, High Tech: 4 IT Hacks for Small Businesses

Running a small business is a constant dance between producing a product or service for people at a cost that compares to or beats your competition. One of the costs is information technology or IT. A small business that can find inexpensive and powerful options in this area can create an advantage for their business in their marketplace. Here are 4 IT hacks that can help your small business be more profitable.

IT Hacks: Organize Better Meetings

Increasing a client base can be a challenge for a small business. Meeting with potential clients face-to-face is limited by geography. With technology today, there are simple ways that a business can organize a meeting on teleconference that will allow for face-to-face interaction. There are individual video conferencing tools like Skype that allow for individuals to connect face-to-face across the world. There are also online meeting programs that allow presentations and ideas to be shared over an unlimited number of locations. Low cost products like Go To Meeting or Any Meeting are two meeting software suites that allow for powerful presentations.

Keep Your Office Running Smoothly

Organization is the key to success in any business. Fortunately today there are software suits that can help manage your schedules. For example AdvancedMD is a medical software suite that allows a small office to organize the scheduling of patients, their records, issue bills, manage patient care and measure the performance of your business. The best part is that once this type of system is set up, it runs with very little maintenance. A small office staff can all access the vital information and provide adequate care for all patients. There are similar management software products for almost any type of office as well.

Take Control of Your Web Properties

Managing and developing your own websites may seem like a daunting task but with the technology available today it shouldn’t be. Developing a functional and well-designed site can be done through the use of WordPress with a minimum of training. Having this skill available opens you up to make changes to a website quickly and at a low cost. It will require paying a hosting fee, but this cost is very minimal compared to paying someone to manage your website. HostGator is a great hosting program that is safe and responsive to questions. The investment in this area can save thousands of dollars over the long term and provide your small business with a website that is more representative of your products and/or services.

Build Relationships through Email

Connecting with you customers is vital for any small business. There are many different options available to help manage your email list depending on price and types of communication you desire. Constant Contact is one of the easiest email marketing suites to use although it has some limitations in function. Get Response and Aweber are high-functioning software suits that make it easy to create and run complex chains of marketing emails. The best part about these products is that once you have it set up, it runs on autopilot. Email lists provide a great opportunity to directly contact your customer base and a business can get their product or service in front of the customers.

Running a small business is an exciting endeavor that can become very profitable. Learning to decrease the IT challenges a company faces will clearly make things run more smoothly. All four of these IT solutions can be managed in house with inexpensive and powerful software programs. Allowing a small business to perform big is the goal of these 4 IT hacks for small business.

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