|
|
|
Cheap Web Hosting, What To Look For And What To Stay Away From
“Bargains for sale, Unlimited Hosting for only a Dollar.” “Get your hosting here, 50 cents for the first three months. “ “Use now. Pay later”. In today’s world of hosting, instead of who’s got the bigger and better thing, it’s who has it for...
Disaster Prevention Tips For Hiring A New Manager
It happens over and over in businesses every day.
Within large companies, people are promoted to management positions to reward them for performance as individual contributors. After all, the compensation system limits reward options, so why...
Follow-Up Marketing: How to Win More Sales with Less Effort
Copyright 2005 David Frey A study done by the Association of Sales Executives revealed that 81% of all sales happens on or after the fifth contact. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups imagine all the...
How To Understand The Financial Pages
There are a number of key terms that investors should be familiar with. Though these terms are regularly banded about in many articles, they are not explained by many of the authors of these articles. The aim of this article is to explain a...
The Basics of Forex
Foreign exchange market is also known as Forex or FX market. To date, it is the world’s biggest “economic bazaar”. FX produces an average of over $1 trillion daily earnings. That is 30 times more than combining all the volumes of America’s equity...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Grow Your B2B Small Business Without Marketing
Summary: Want to grow your business-to-business small business without chasing after new clients? Expand with new value-added services that complement your existing offering. Find out how.
If you have a business-to-business small business, some of your clients inevitably will go out of business, get bought out, undergo management shake-ups, or just get seduced by a new vendor. You have to grow your business just to stay in business. But how?
• Undertake costly and time-consuming marketing and networking projects to get new clients to make up for the inevitable attrition.
• Ask your existing clients to refer new clients. This is always a good idea, but it's not the fastest or most reliable way to get new business. You could wait months to see results.
• Don't get new clients at all. Instead, expand your offerings to your existing clients.
Choosing Your New B2B Small Business Offering: What to Look for
Expanding your B2B offering might sound like a bit of a headache and that is a possibility. You have to select your expanded offering carefully. Here's what to look for:
Complements existing offering
In case you're tempted to branch out too far, keep these factors in mind:
• Market. If your expanded offering complements your existing offering, your existing clients will provide a ready market.
• Credibility. "Jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none:" it's a cliché, but people instinctively believe it. Which would you trust more: a shoemaker who also sells wristwatches or a shoemaker who also sells socks?
• Skills. You will inevitably need new skills for your new offering. This includes the softer skills of selling and servicing the offering. The fewer skills you have to acquire, the smoother your rollout will be.
Modest investment to start
The only guaranteed way of minimizing your risk is to minimize your investment. Remember: investment doesn't just mean money, but also your time and energy. Choose an expanded offering that won't be all-consuming.
Strong existing demand
Face it: your small business already has its hands full with its existing business. You can't afford to break ground on something the world doesn't know about yet. Look for an unfulfilled demand on the part of your existing client base.
Hypothetical Case Study: B2B Service Expansion
Lisa is a virtual assistant who has expanded from data entry to helping her clients organize their internal records. But offshore companies are taking away record-keeping
clients just as they did with data entry. Getting new record-keeping clients would be an uphill battle against offshoring.
What does Lisa do?
1. Lisa gets into a few long telephone calls with her favorite clients. One client mentions his secretary is tired of handling payroll. Another says he is fed up with being put on hold with his current big-name payroll processing company.
2. Lisa researches payroll processing outsourcing. She finds it's a business where offshore companies have not made great inroads. Domestic businesses have not glutted the market, either. Traditionally, the technology needed to run a payroll process business was so expensive that only a few large firms could compete. The new software that allows any small business to offer payroll processing services has only been on the market a short time. Meanwhile, the cost of startup is only the cost of the software, plus a portion of her sales. Best of all, the only training she needs is to read up on a few payroll manuals, and do a test run with one or two of her most supportive clients.
3. Lisa gets a few of her clients on the phone and asks them point-blank if they would be interested in outsourcing their payroll processing to her. They sound interested.
4. Lisa finds a reputable payroll processing software company founded by someone with extensive experience in the field. She calls the company up and confirms that they have not sold a franchise in her area yet.
5. Within six months, Lisa has taken over the payroll processing of about one-fifth of her existing clients. Though she has lost two large clients to offshore virtual assistant services, her business income has grown by fifteen percent, since she has gotten more work without having to invest in marketing.
Of course, Lisa's success took hard work. But she was able to maximize her effort by choosing an offering she could expand her business into easily. Payroll processing is one example of a value-added service that many B2B small businesses can transition into smoothly. But whatever new offering you go with, just make sure to choose your new offering carefully.
About the Author
Joel Walsh recommends you check out this site for expanding your business with payroll outsourcing: http://PayClerk.com/?%20payroll%20outsourcing
[Publish this article on your website! Requirement: live link for above URL/web address w/ link text/anchor text: "payroll outsourcing" OR leave this bracketed message intact.]
|
|
|
|
|
| United States Small Business Administration |
| An electronic gateway of procurement information for and about small businesses. Search engine for contracting officers, marketing tool for small firms, ... |
| www.sba.gov |
|
| SBA |
| The Small Business Planner includes information and resources that will help you at any stage of the business lifecycle. ... |
| www.sba.gov |
|
| Main Page - SmallBusiness.com - Small Business Resources |
| Find Small Business plans, advice, tutorials about organization, corporations, entrepreneurship, and smallbusiness. |
| www.smallbusiness.com |
|
| Yahoo! Small Business: Domain Names, Web Hosting, E-commerce ... |
| Yahoo! Small Business provides products and services that enable you to establish and grow your business on the Internet. Services include domain name ... |
| smallbusiness.yahoo.com |
|
| Small business advice business start up small business finance ... |
| business start up small business finance start up advice. |
| www.smallbusiness.co.uk |
|
| Smallbusiness.gov.au redirect to business.gov.au |
| Business Entry Point - Helping small business in big ways. An Australian Government initiative. The content from this website has now been consolidated into ... |
| www.smallbusiness.gov.au |
|
| Business & Small Business |
| Online and print small business publication. Information to help start, grow or manage a small business. |
| www.entrepreneur.com |
|
| Microsoft Small Business Center |
| Your home for information about Microsoft's small-business products and services, tailored business advice, technology tools, and more. |
| www.microsoft.com |
|
| The Small Business Advisor - advice for starting and operating a ... |
| Advice and assistance for starting and operating a small or home based business. |
| www.isquare.com |
|
| SCORE "Counselors to America's Small Business" |
| A nonprofit association dedicated to encouraging the formation, growth, and success of small business nationwide through counseling and mentor programs. |
| www.score.org |
|
| Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource |
| IR-2006-2, January 3, 2006 - Temporary and proposed regulations will significantly reduce tax filing burden for nearly 950000 small business owners. ... |
| www.irs.gov |
|
| Welcome to Small Business BC your business resource in British ... |
| BC Business Services offers assistance and resources for those running or starting a business in British Columbia and Vancouver. |
| www.smallbusinessbc.ca |
|
| Small Business Service | Home |
| Provides information and advice to help small businesses realise their potential. |
| www.sbs.gov.uk |
|
| NSW Small Business |
| A site developed by the NSW Department of State and Regional Development for small businesses. Topics include management, resources, current issues and ... |
| www.smallbiz.nsw.gov.au |
|
| Business Management & Advice: Small Business Resources & Information |
| Looking for business management and advice? Our website includes small business resources and information that can help you. Visit the small business ... |
| www.businessweek.com |
|
| Small Business Lawyer, Attorney, Law, Legal Help - FindLaw for ... |
| Information and legal sites relevant to small business. |
| smallbusiness.findlaw.com |
|
| Small Business Funding Opportunities (SBIR and STTR) |
| Links to Small Business Funding Opportunities and SBIR / STTR Applications. |
| grants.nih.gov |
|
| Microsoft bCentral Small Business Directory |
| Directory categorized by industry with company business card feature. |
| sbd.bcentral.com |
|
| Our site has moved! Please update your bookmarks! |
| Facilitates the sharing and exchange of information among small business development centers, the small business administration and other business-oriented ... |
| sbdcnet.utsa.edu |
|
| Small Business Development Corporation |
| Our business information services provides guidance to improve business skills and knowledge on advice on starting, buying, selling and expanding a small ... |
| www.sbdc.com.au |
|
|