Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

Many small business owners and entrepreneurs operate as a one-person company. Especially when the company is a start-up and is running on a shoe-string budget, the entrepreneur becomes the wearer of all hats in the business.

However, when should you hire help? Sure, it's nice to save on expenses by doing everything yourself, but one person can only do so much. Sometime you just need to bite the bullet and acquire the help you need to keep your business running smoothly, efficiently, and without clutter.

Signs You May Need an Assistant

How do you know it's time to hire an assistant? Here are some clues you might find familiar.

• Clutter - is your place of business (home or office) cluttered with piles of unorganized and unfiled papers and other materials? This is a sure sign you might have use for an assistant.

• Unanswered mail - Do you have stacks of mail and email that you simply do not have time to pay attention to? Yes, an assistant could be your answer.

• Unprocessed orders - Are you behind in processing orders for your products? Another body can help keep your business in the black by fulfilling sales orders.

• 16 hour work days - Are you working from 6am to 10pm every day? This is a sure sign of quick burnout and that it is time to hire an assistant.

• Unwillingness to delegate - Do you have trouble letting other people do any task related to your new small business? While it can be tough to let go of certain tasks, the first step is recognizing you have a problem with delegation.

Hire or Temp?

One question you should analyze is whether you should outright hire a part-time or full-time assistant, or simply contract an assistant through a temp agency. There are pros and cons of both.

Employee

Hiring an employee can give you the satisfaction that you helped create a job. You also get to have full control over who you hire. However, hiring an assistant in your employ also comes with additional responsibilities, including paying state and federal payroll taxes, social security taxes, workman's comp insurance, and paying for any benefits you choose to provide.

Temp

Using a temporary agency can be beneficial in that you don't have to worry about all the payroll taxes and insurance costs for an employee. However, you will be paying at least 50% more than you would for an employee's wage. Another plus is that you don't have to fire or layoff any employees when work is slow. Simply use the agency when you need it.

However, you don't have much input as to who the agency sends to you. Of course, as a client, you can give feedback and always ask for someone else if a certain individual does not "click" with you.

Virtual Assistant

In recent years, there has been a rise in "virtual assistants," who are freelancers who work from their own homes and assist you through telecommuting. This could be ideal if you need emails answered, online research conducted, and other tasks that are completed online. The benefit is that virtual assistants are very affordable, and since they are freelancers, you don't have to worry about employee tax, health insurance, and other costs traditionally associated with full-time employees.

Tasks An Assistant Can Do For You

What kinds of work should your assistant do? Here are some ideas. Use this list to help determine your need for an assistant.

• Filing - Need to file away correspondence, invoices, sales forms, etc? An assistant's specialty is organizing a filing system.

• Correspondence - You could even have your assistant perform some correspondence tasks, such as general responses to letters and email.

• Blogging/Social Media - An assistant could be your outreach person to your customers through blog posts and social media account updates.

• Errands - While a true professional administrative assistant is not usually keen to pick up your dry cleaning, you could hire a college student part time to help you do general tasks, including some driving around to help you run the errands you don't have time for.

Specialist or General Assistant?

A general assistant can help with duties and tasks mentioned above. But what if you need someone to do more specific and specialized tasks? You may want to hire a specialist if you have a need for any of the following:

• Accounting/Bookkeeping - A bookkeeper specialist can help you with your daily, weekly, and other regular accounting processes.

• Marketing - Perhaps you need someone to help with general marketing functions like copywriting, brochure creation, and other areas of marketing.

• Cooking/Baking - Say that your business may be catering. You may require a specialist assistant who can help prep food or perform much of the baking tasks.

Your assistant may be just a few phone calls away. Take a long look at whether you could benefit from an assistant, and make the right choice on how to cure your extra work load according to your budget and needs.

New small business owners often run into the problem of how to get the word out about their product or service without spending a lot of money. Even experienced small business owners run across this problem when cash flow for the month ebbs.

What can you do to make the most of your marketing and still get ways to reach your customers? It can take a bit of creativity and cleverness to develop a marketing strategy on a shoestring budget - but it can be done!

Below we present five popular ways you can effectively promote your business without a lot of money. So without further ado...

1. Effective Email Campaigns

   One of the most cost effective marketing strategies that has the most impact are email campaigns. Direct, customized, and targeted, email campaigns can return significant responses, all for very little or no cost.

   However, there is a tremendous difference between legitimate email marketing and spamming or sending unwanted or unrequested marketing messages to unsuspecting email boxes. You want to send your email marketing campaigns only to those who opt-in.

   To do so, collect email addresses through your website. A popular strategy is to offer a free ebook or other useful download in exchange for an email address. Have existing clients fill out contact info sheets. In light of joint ventures, you could even swap email lists from similar businesses to send out messages to their customers and clients about special offerings.

   Your email campaigns should be succinct and to the point, providing value to the reader. Offer a special sale, introduce a new product, or share press coverage with your readers.

2. Produce a Vodcast Series

   Videos are the hottest trending thing on Web 2.0. Open your Twitter or Facebook account, or even read the online news, and you will see a link to an interesting video at least daily.

   Now, consider if your video is one of those getting passed around the viral networking sites. Your website could generate a lot of traffic, and you could profit considerably.

   You can use a decent consumer camcorder and video editing software to make an entertaining vodcast. Make your videos short, no more than five minutes. Talk about your products, but make it interesting and viral. Perform a clever demonstration or create a highly useful tutorial.

   These types of videos cost very little, but can help you promote your business online in a spectacularly viral way.

3. Tell Your Story - Obsessively

   There is no harm in bragging. Don't be afraid to tout your company's achievements whenever you get the chance. Take our friend, Stephen, for example.

   Stephen was a 30 year old writer for a local metropolitan newspaper. With his involvement in the community, combined with his overabundant energy, creativity, motivation, and overall gumption, it was no surprise that soon after his 30th birthday, he was awarded the position of executive director for a regional non-profit organization.

   In his first year after being awarded the position, he doubled the amount of donations to the group, quadrupled the contact list, and raised considerable awareness of the group's mission. How? By his consistent messages through social media postings every day, constant press releases of news and happenings, and not being afraid to approach people to talk about his group's objective of which he was passionate about.

   Why shouldn't you be as passionate about your business as Stephen?

4. Get a Celebrity Endorsement

   Unlike paying a celebrity for a voiceover or taping a national commercial, a single high-profile celebrity can help your business. Even local celebrities can get the word out about your business if they like what you offer.

   Consider the above example. Stephen met the cast of Sesame Street during an unrelated fundraiser for a different cause. While socializing with the long-term members of the popular children's show, he pressed his cause for his non-profit. Some of the Sesame Street members were very interested in Stephen's cause, and with a few mentions on Facebook and other online sites, Stephen's little local non-profit got national exposure from well-respected celebrities!

   Your for-profit business can get similar results. All you need is the gumption to approach high-profile individuals. Go for it! The best that could happen is that you'll get national exposure. As they say in negotiation rooms, "don't ask, don't get."

5. Ask Your Loyal Customers To Spread the Word

   And lastly, don't be afraid to ask your loyal customers to tell their friends and family about your product or service. Word of mouth marketing is absolutely free and can get you big rewards in higher customer numbers without spending truckloads of money on advertising.

   Bootstrap marketing can work for your small business. All you need is a little creativity, assertiveness, and possibly a little luck from a hit viral video to get your company noticed by your target customer.

New entrepreneurs who start up a small business have an enormous task at hand. One of the biggest tasks is simply getting the small business off the ground and going with some momentum. Unfortunately, for many new small business owners and entrepreneurs, their new business takes longer than anticipated to acquire that forward momentum. Much of that failing is due to a lack of business focus.

We live in a world where everything is "instant". We have On Demand television so we can watch our favorite shows anytime, rather than at the scheduled broadcast time. People want to drive a new car off the lot the same day through an instant loan application and decision. And, of course, we want our meals instantly via fast-food chain restaurants.

However, our desire for instant gratification does not necessarily apply to growing a business. Most small businesses are not successful overnight. In fact, it may take years to even become profitable. Even Ray Kroc, McDonald's founder, said, "I was an overnight success alright, but 30 years is a long, long night."

With that said, a small business owner needs a particular laser-like focus to steer the businesses toward his or her goals.

But what do you need to know to keep a small business focused like a laser beam and on track for success?

Keep in Mind the 3 Ways of Business Expansion

A new small business owner has three options for growth:

1. Continued marketing expansion and growing customer base of current product or service offering. - This is simply the growth of a business through new customers, wider distribution, and expanded manufacturing of current business products.

2. Adding companion products - A small business can also grow through the addition of similar or complementary products to those already offered.

3. New product line - A small business can also expand and grow by developing a completely new line of products or services to offer customers.

In normal business evolution, an entrepreneur will continue growing a business through the original business product line. However, in these days of instant gratification, many impatient entrepreneurs will likely want to try "new things" to kick start or jump start a business into success.

These efforts rarely succeed, and in fact, usually have devastating consequences to the original business. It is best to apply focus, as well as a healthy dose of patience, to an existing business product line before expanding through new business lines or additional products. You want to ensure that you have enough cash flow and quality control in your original product lines before diluting your efforts with new ones.

5 Laser Focus Strategies

Once you have ascertained the best ways to grow your business, there are five ways you can apply smart focus to helping your company thrive.

• Set goals - How will you know if your business is growing unless you have something to work toward? Set goals for your business. It could be financial goals, customer base goals, production goals - whatever you feel would help your business grow.
• Set regular review periods - Small business growth doesn't just happen by osmosis. You need to set regular review intervals to check how well you are progressing toward your goals. This allows you to make adjustments as necessary.
• Question new opportunities - A new business opportunity may seem like a good deal at first glance. It could be a joint venture, a modification request to a current product, etc. However, remember that you are trying to meet a goal already set. Seriously question whether it is the right time for a new opportunity for your small business.
• Know your strengths (and weaknesses) - You must know what you are good at, as well as areas that need improvement. Your business growth will more easily happen when you focus on where to excel and where to improve.
• Learn to say no - As mentioned, it is easy for a new entrepreneur or small business owner to want to try different things. Learn to say "no" when an opportunity takes away focus from your goals.

You can avoid the common downfalls of most small business owners. Avoid becoming a failed business statistic. Learn to focus your business on growth by setting goals, knowing what you're good at, saying "no," and regularly review your progress. In the end, you are likely to be a more successful business and entrepreneur.