The truth is, there are immense benefits that come with opening your business up to extending payment terms. It’s simple: operating on net terms is an opportunity not to be missed by your small business, and here’s why.

1. Financial Health

If your company operates on net terms, it says to other businesses, financial institutions and even customers that your business is fiscally strong. Extending credit is something that cannot happen unless you, as a business, have a healthy cash flow. By making net terms available, you immediately boost your financial reputation.

2. Product Validation

Resistance towards credit operations can, at times, come from a business owner’s fear that their customers will receive a service or product, be dissatisfied (for obscure reasons), and refuse to pay.  Truthfully, though, payment terms tell customers you trust your product and are well aware of its value. You don’t see the danger because you’re certain of customer satisfaction. Having enough trust in your product to sell on credit helps customers put trust in your brand.

3. Customer Appreciation

Every small business is looking for a way to say thank you to their customers. Extending net terms is a sure-fire way to do so.  Giving customers a chance to be more flexible with their cash flow is an invaluable opportunity.  It shows trust and they won’t forget it.  It also develops sincere customer loyalty; they come to you not only for the credit extension, but out of appreciation for the confidence you’ve placed in them.  It’s a little step that goes a LONG way.

4. Competitive Edge

Not all businesses operate on net terms. End of story. So those that do get an immediate leg up on the competition. Cash flow is king and payment terms give customers a chance to have better control over their own. Therefore, when choosing between two companies, one who offers credit and one who does not, customers find themselves led to the company that operates on net terms. Extending credit means gaining competitive advantage.

5. Money, Money, Money

Looking for a way to make more money? What business is not? Increasing sales is a goal of every ambitious business owner. Did you know that operating on net terms is the simplest (and most cost-effective) way to accomplish this? By extending your customers’ payment due date, you are enhancing their buying power.  Not only will more customers want to buy since you offer such attractive terms, but the longer buying period means they can actually buy MORE. Simply put, increasing their buying power leads to increasing your sales.

If extending credit makes sense for your business model, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be. Small businesses now have the power to effortlessly manage a credit department, which gives them the chance to enjoy the enormous benefits net terms can bring to a company. Don’t be left out!

You're reading: 5 Reasons Your Small Business Must Be Extending Net Terms, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

FedEx Office just released a survey that measures the attraction power of signage and its impact, and the results are very telling. Look at some of these numbers and the undeniable reasons why good signs are worth the effort.

1. Increased Sales: Almost seven in ten (68 %) of American consumers have actually purchased a product or service because a sign caught their eye.
2. Foot Traffic: Almost eight in 10 (76%) consumers have entered a store simply because its sign caught their interest.
3. Word-of-Mouth: Three out of four consumers (75%) said they have told someone about a store based simply on its signage.
4. Perceived Quality: More than two thirds (68%) of consumers believe a store’s signage is a reflection of the quality of its products or services. (And if you think a bad sign is better than no sign, think again. More than half (52%) of consumers said they are less willing to enter a store with misspelled or poorly-made signs.)

You're reading: Four Reasons You Should Be Using Signs for Your Retail Business, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

Here are four free downloads we currently have on the blog. There is no opt-in or verification process in place. You can just click the download links on each page to start using the files immediately.

Enjoy!

Sample Marketing Plan Template

This template was originally created as a one-page marketing plan for the Small Business Bonfire. It’s been updated a bit, but it’s still a streamlined and action-focused marketing plan template that should give you a great start. Download the marketing plan template here.

Action Plan Template

Whether you’re working on executing the goals your outlined in your marketing plan, business plan, or growth plan, being able to identify individual action steps is vital. This action plan template helps you create bite-sized action items that you can knock off one-by-one to get closer to reaching your goals. Download the action plan template here.

2012 Marketing Calendar Download

We’re plugging right along in 2012, but there is still plenty of time left to try something new with marketing. This 36-page marketing calendar and planner includes all of the holidays you already know and love, as well as some more obscure holidays that you can use in your marketing campaigns. Download the marketing calendar here.

The Self-Employed Resume Template

You may have thought that your resume days were over when you started your business. While that may be true in some cases, there are times when you may find that you do need a resume to outline your background and experience. This template provides the framework to get you started. Download the self-employed resume template here.

If you find the downloads useful, please pass on the links and share with your network.

Image credit: arinas74

You're reading: Four Free Downloads That Will Help Your Small Business Now, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

So the goal for entrepreneurs is to figure out what shapes the collaborative experience and use that knowledge to increase the odds that the crowdsourcing experience will be overwhelmingly positive for both parties.

To help us figure it all out Matt Barrie, Chief Executive at Freelancer.com, has agreed to answer a few basic questions.

ES: Can you explain in simple terms what crowdsourcing is and how it benefits solopreneurs and small business owners?

MB: Crowdsourcing, simply put, is pitching your problem out there and having groups of people propose solutions. It creates a competitive social interaction between diverse sets of crowd who you would probably overlook, simply because they are not the usual people you run to.

This does not mean, however, that they do not possess the skills needed to resolve your problems — it’s just that the whole system reinforces the idea that expertise is limited to the “experts” is broken down. It encourages everyone who has a great idea to step up and eventually stand out.

ES: What advice do you have for the “control freak” solopreneur who needs to outsource to grow but has a hard time letting go of responsibilities?

MB: You have to trust the right people and communicate regularly with them to achieve the results you want. Freelancer.com gives small business owners peace of mind … Milestone payments ensure the entrepreneur never has to pay for work that doesn’t suit his requirements and that freelancers also get what is due them for the work they accomplish.

ES: On a site with so many potential hires, how can a small business owner pick the right person for the job?

MB: …The small business owner can always check the reputation of the freelancer he or she is planning to hire. Entrepreneurs should not always go for the people who bid the cheapest — instead, they should check the quality of the freelancers’ [past] work. Cheapest is not always best.

ES: Can you share a case study of how a small business owner was able to expand through outsourcing?

MB: Alexander Seinfeld, a writer and ordained rabbi who used Freelancer.com’s services, once shared this:

“I have a published Android app, and it would not have been possible within this budget or time frame without freelancer.com. I’m grateful for this amazing service, which has made this and other projects possible. I hope that my experience will help others be successful and avoid some of my stumbles. Freelancer.com helps you, but you still must do your due diligence.”

You can see the Android app he’s talking about here.

As a parting thought, Barrie reminds readers to remember that a good idea is a good idea, no matter where it comes from and that crowdsourcing through sites like freelancer.com encourages an exciting exchange of ideas between people around the world.

You're reading: Outsourcing Advice from Freelancer.com’s Matt Barrie, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

My colleague was adamantly against the idea of creating a Plan B, while I argued the value of having a fall-back plan. Here is an overview of our perspectives. Weigh in with your own at the end.

Go Big or Go Home

My colleague’s perspective is this: If you are not committed enough to do whatever it takes to create a successful business, then you are destined for failure. I agree with this! Remember this post?

But then he went on to say that actually taking the time to create a Plan B gives you an out; it gives you permission to fail. He said if you forge ahead without the safety net, you sure as heck will be a lot of more likely to fight to stay up on that tightrope (doesn’t starting a business often feel like that??), no matter what.

His perspective is that it’s the cushion we create to soften the fall that actually tells us it’s okay to give up and fall off.

He told a few different stories about entrepreneurs he worked with who used their Plan B to justify every shortcoming, every failure, every wimp-out. He said contingency plans make entrepreneurs soft.

The Case for Contingency

Now, my perspective. I don’t entirely disagree with what my colleague said, but I would never recommend walking a tightrope without a net. That’s just stupidity, unless you have a death wish.

Here’s the thing, starting a business is hard. Painful, gut-wrenching and exhausting. And after you put every piece of yourself into it, you may still fail. There are no guarantees. That is the nature of business — a large percentage of new businesses simply don’t survive. And that’s the risk you take when you become an entrepreneur.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to squeeze your eyes shut, leap off the edge and hope you survive to tell the tale. Having a contingency plan is a smart. Here’s why:

• A contingency plan forces you to face the possibility of failure.
• A contingency plan can boost your confidence and give you a sense of security that makes the necessary risk-taking easier.
• A contingency plan can help you devise an incremental start-up plan instead of going full throttle before you’re ready (i.e., starting a business on the side while you’re still working full-time).
• A contingency plan is never going to be half as good as your goal, so staying far away from it can be motivation by itself.

What’s Your Happy Place?

By the end of the discussion (no punches were thrown), we agreed that a Plan B can work for some, but maybe not others. A lot of it seems to depend on your personality, your desire and your determination.

So, we’re going to turn the floor over to you now. Do you have a contingency plan? Why or why not?

Image credit: christgr

You're reading: Is Having a Plan B the Kiss of Death?, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

We have three cats, two cars, and a two-bedroom home with more books than just about anything else in the house (I’m a reader, not just a writer). My girlfriend and I decided that this time around we would use a professional moving company.

I had called a couple of local companies and received quotes that were all in the same range. Then out of the blue and with no prompting a local moving company “tweeted” me. They congratulated me on my move, asked where exactly I was moving to, and offered to provide a quote.

I told them where I was moving to, and they sent me their phone number and a link to their free quote page. I decided I had nothing to lose. I filled out the form and the next day someone from the company called me. We went through the usual questions and he gave me a very competitive quote, including a 10% discount for being a Twitter customer.

I had never heard of the company, I did my research and found they had a good reputation locally so I chose to give them the business. Why? Well the deciding factor was that they had been proactive; they are obviously monitoring the Twitter stream for people who are moving in the Dallas area so they cab reach out to them to offer assistance.

I want to support local business, this just made it a lot easier to do so. What is really compelling about this whole episode is that not only is the company using social media in a way that generates business, but that they are efficient and have a great customer experience when you actually speak to them. Remember, social media will only take you so far but in the end what really counts is the experience you provide the customer.

With the move approaching rapidly, it is nice to know that we have the major detail crossed off the list. Of course now I have to see if the company can execute the move as well as they executed their social media, but that is a story for another time.

Image credit: rms519

You're reading: The Power of Using Social Media for Local Business, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

If you’re thinking of adding ads to your small business website, Google’s latest page layout update will be of interest to you.  Similar to new homes, location is everything when it comes to ads.  As recently as January, Google has stressed the importance of website page layout and has warned website owners that they will be penalized if their “above the fold” area is filled with ads rather than content.

Users want the content they are searching for to be simple to find and easy to read, which means they don’t want to have to scroll through half of a page of ads before they find the information they’re looking for.  More importantly, they won’t.  If your customers can’t find the information they need quickly and easily, they will leave your site and you could lose a sale.

Wondering if your website has too many ads above the fold making it a target of Google’s updated page layout requirements for web design?  Search Engine Roundtable suggests using Google’s Browser Size tool that will help you decide whether your small business website has too many ads cluttering up the content.  While Google’s own search appears to be in direct contradiction to their latest update, as Search Engine Land points out, if your site is crawled and determined to be too full of “above the fold” ads your page rank will be lowered and this will affect your ability to be found in search.

If you find that your website is falling short in traffic or you suspect it is guilty of having too many ads, you can use some of the tools provided by Google and make a determined effort to keep your content easy to find, concise, and relatively free from “above the fold” ads.

Need help designing (or re-designing) your small business website’s page layout to align with Google’s latest algorithm update?  Search News Central has a great break down of an optimal page segmentation and layout for your small business website.

Image Credit: Zeafonso

You're reading: Bonfire Buzz: Optimize Your Small Business Website Ads, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

For many, this means automation — using RSS feeds and scheduling tools to make sure there is a steady stream of useful content in front of your fans. But sometimes, less is more. And you can do quite a bit as far as engagement goes by taking just a few minutes a day to manually interact with your fans.

Here are five hands-on yet easy ways to engage with your fans on Facebook that are fresh, real-time and won’t take long to do.

1. Pin and Highlight

By now, you know all about the Timeline design for Facebook pages (this article on Facebook Timelines by Mari Smith is also a must-read) that rolled out in March. Two new features of the Timeline are Pin and Highlight. Pinning allows you to pull a post from anywhere on your page and “pin” it to the top of your page for seven days. Highlight lets you expand a post so it fills both columns on your timeline. This is a great way to get more mileage out of the content you already have on your page.

2. Like and Comment

When someone posts something on your page, or comments on one of your posts, it’s the perfect opportunity to like and comment back. You can set your notifications in Facebook to send you an email when someone has posted or commented, or you can use a notification app like Hyper Alerts so you don’t miss anything. This kind of interaction only takes a few seconds, but it can open up the door to conversation, sharing and more engagement.

3. Welcome New Members

The new Timeline layout makes it very easy to see who has liked your page and when, so you have an opportunity to personally welcome new fans. The challenge here is being able to communicate directly with fans, which is a bit limiting from a page perspective. Here are a few ways you can do it:

• If a new fan is a friend on Facebook, you can tag them in a post, welcoming them to the page (when using the page as your personal profile).
• You take take advantage of being able to view which pages have liked your page (from your Admin Panel, click “See All” next to New Likes, then sort by Pages). Once there is mutual “liking” (you like their page, they like yours), you can tag the page in your posts.
• You can send a message to any fan that emails you through your page.
• You can tag a person who has commented on a thread on your page. Example: You post, “Who’s new here? Welcome, please introduce yourself below.” And you can tag any fan that comments on that post.

4. Post Immediately

Part of keeping up with manual posting on your Facebook page is being successful at integrating it into other marketing activities that you already do for your business. For example, if you blog, make it a habit to post a link to your blog posts, as soon as you publish them. Or, if you’re an avid blog reader, post links as soon as you find something of interest to your audience. If you read something interesting on Twitter, bring it over to your Facebook page. Consistently think about how you can incorporate what you’re already doing into your Facebook page.

5. Use Pictures

There is no debating that photos and other images have a lot of attention-getting power. And every small business can use images to grab attention, whether they use product images, photos of their stores and customers, inspirational quotes, etc. In fact, you may already be doing this for Pinterest. Try sharing your photos and images on Facebook first, then upload them to Pinterest and add a link back to your Facebook post. This will give you some extra mileage for both your content and your Facebook page.

These five ideas are only the beginning of ways you can manually engage with your Facebook fans. What are some of the things you do on your page?

You're reading: 5 Easy Ways to Boost Engagement on Your Facebook Page without Automation, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

Your press kit needs to be an attention grabber, so make it exciting. If you’re not a graphic designer or copywriter, we strongly recommend splurging a little on your press kit so you give the best possible impression of your business.

Anatomy of a Press Kit

Depending on the type of business you operate you should consider including all of the following items in your press kit:

Sales Letter

Also called a pitch letter, this is your chance to make a good first impression and explain why your products and services are must-haves. If this document is missing a call to action, you’re doing it wrong!

Press Releases

Include one or two newsworthy items that can easily be picked up by an editor or writer. The emphasis here is on “newsworthy.” Press releases should not read like a sales letter.

Business Cards

Stick in one or two business cards — one for the recipient and at least one additional card for sharing.

Product or Service Reviews

Are people saying good things about your business or your company? Collect and compile a one-page sheet of reviews and testimonials; positive chatter lends credibility to you and your business.

Professional Bio

This piece of collateral is a must for one-person outfits, but may also be an appropriate piece for all founding members. If a bio isn’t a good fit, consider adding a company background or company history piece.

FAQ Sheet

Writers and editors can use an FAQ to get story ideas as well as explain complicated or little-known facts about your business and industry.

Recent Articles

If you already have press coverage, pull a couple of recent articles from your business’s clip file. Don’t keep a clip file? Start immediately! You can use web searches and Google Alerts to keep track of mentions online.

Photos & Brochure

Tuck these items into the folder if you have them. Pictures and brochures are another great way to tell your company’s story.

Award List

This is absolutely the time to be a show-off. If you, your business, or your unique products and services are winning awards, create a list that includes the name of the award and the date it was received. If it isn’t obvious by the award’s name, explain what you were recognized for.

Event List

The event list is pretty simple, really. You just tell people where and when they can find you. The idea is to let people know when you or your company representatives will be present for public speaking engagements or industry conventions.

Press kits can be customized, and it’s a good idea to create hard-copy kits as well as online kits that can be downloaded directly from your website. To save on shipping, you could create a multimedia disk instead of the traditional kit. Just include your documents as PDF files and burn any audio and video files that are relevant to your business.

Have you built a press kit for your business? What items would you add to this list?

You're reading: How to Build a Press Kit for Your Small Business, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!

Engagement isn’t a one way street, though.  One of the best tips I can give you from blogger to blogger is to read and comment on other blogs from your field, as well as in the social media field; if you own a specialty boutique, use Google’s Blog Search to find other specialty blogs to add to your social media reading and comment on.  This is a great way to gain insight into the market as well as gather inspiration for future posts of your own, properly credited of course.

Get Started

Haven’t started a business blog yet?  Before you get started with the publishing, there are a few tips you will want to follow when building your business blog.

Be a Confident Blogger

Having a hard time beating blogger’s block?  Maybe it’s time you got bossy with yourself and your blog.  In order to have a successful business blog you’ll have to be confident in your abilities as a writer, build confidence with these practical ideas from Content Mastery Guide.

Stay in the Know

As I mentioned earlier, keeping up with industry blogs is important, as well as stocking your RSS feed with marketing blogs.  This will help you keep with the latest marketing tools and tips from the professionals usually without it costing you a penny.  Unbounce has gathered 75 of the top marketing blogs for you to subscribe to in your reader.

Make Room for Improvement

No matter how long you’ve been blogging, there will always be ways for improvement; blogging is an ever evolving field with constantly changing variables, like search engine optimization.  A successful business blogger knows that occasionally we must review our blogs and look for ways to increase engagement, conversions, or improve our sites.

Blog like the Best

Every small business blogger wants to find runaway success, but few every do.  Ever wonder what you need to do to ensure your blog’s success?  It’s simple. Ok. Not really, it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and research.  Social Media Examiner helps bloggers find top blogging success, or at least gives them the keys to that success, with their 5 tips to becoming an industry leading top blogger.

Being a blogger is hard work, but the rewards for a small business far outweigh the time and energy put into it.  Blogging for your business is great for search engine optimization, opening communication with customers, and conducting research.  What tips do you have for small business bloggers?

You're reading: Bonfire Buzz: Better Business Blogging Tips, which was originally posted on the Small Business Bonfire. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. You may also want to join our free small business social network!