2 seconds after Halloween it seems that all the retail stores put up their Christmas decorations – trying to capture as much of the Holiday market as possible. Typical ways that retail stores use to capitalize on the holidays include extended hours and sales. This is all well and good. Today I want to give you an early present by giving you some novel ways to think about holiday promotions.

Many people are fed up with holiday crowds, which is reflected in the growth of online sales and the decline of some traditional retailer’s sales. There also seems to be a trend towards buying fewer gifts, but those gifts tend to be higher-ticket luxury items.

In the type of marketing we all should be doing ,we start with the customer in mind. What do we know about people this time of year?

– Time is a commodity – there’s too much to do and too little time. – People have more shopping to do than they usually do. – People are under a tremendous amount of stress. – People tend to clean and decorate their houses.

These are just some of the factors affecting people during the holiday season. I’m sure you can think of many more. Take these things into consideration, and take the stance of being a giver.

Here’s an idea I’ve never seen (so I want credit if you use it). If you own a store, offer free gift wrap – nothing new there. While people are getting their gifts wrapped, they get a free chair massage? You could partner up with a local spa, or even a massage school who could also give every customer a promotional coupon. You save your customers time, take away their stress, and create a fusion marketing partnership with the spa.

If you are in a household service business, offer to do additional winterizing services for your customers to save them time. Offer a free holiday housecleaning. If you aren’t in the cleaning business – again team up with a cleaning service.

Give-aways are great. Give away free Christmas trees – depending on where you are you could buy a couple hundred for $10 a piece. The deal could be – spend $100 and take home a free tree. Give away turkeys, or complete turkey dinners – a lot of grocery stores have this promotion.

Everybody gives away calendars, aim for something different but still useful. How about ice-scrapers if you live in the north? Blankets, sweatshirts, caps – are all good promotional items when the weather turns cold.

Holiday cards are great. People enjoy getting them and displaying them. Hardly anybody sends Thanksgiving cards, definitely consider it. In this politically correct age (gasp) you have to be sensitive to people’s religious sensibilities. Send Happy Holidays cards and not Merry Christmas Cards – unless you are absolutely sure your customer celebrates Christmas.

If you have any kind of retail business, think about add-on gifts that might be used as a second gift. A florist might include a free gift-wrapped ornament with a certain level of purchase that can be sent to a different address. Two gifts for the price of one. Buy one get one free offers are great at holiday times.

Use your creativity this holiday season and think about how you can solve your customers’ problems.

Copyright 2005 Marketing Comet

The following are some examples of modern financial management theories formulated on principles considered as ‘a set of fundamental tenets that form the basis for financial theory and decision-making in finance’ (Emery et al.1991). An attempt would be made to relate the principles behind these concepts to small businesses’ financial management.

Agency Theory

Agency theory deals with the people who own a business enterprise and all others who have interests in it, for example managers, banks, creditors, family members, and employees. The agency theory postulates that the day to day running of a business enterprise is carried out by managers as agents who have been engaged by the owners of the business as principals who are also known as shareholders. The theory is on the notion of the principle of ‘two-sided transactions’ which holds that any financial transactions involve two parties, both acting in their own best interests, but with different expectations.

Problems usually identified with agency theory may include:

i. Information asymmetry- a situation in which agents have information on the financial circumstances and prospects of the enterprise that is not known to principals (Emery et al.1991). For example ‘The Business Roundtable’ emphasised that in planning communications with shareholders and investors, companies should consider never misleading or misinforming stockholders about the corporation’s operations or financial condition. In spite of this principle, there was lack of transparency from Enron’s management leading to its collapse;

ii. Moral hazard-a situation in which agents deliberately take advantage of information asymmetry to redistribute wealth to themselves in an unseen manner which is ultimately to the detriment of principals. A case in point is the failure of the Board of directors of Enron’s compensation committee to ask any question about the award of salaries, perks, annuities, life insurance and rewards to the executive members at a critical point in the life of Enron; with one executive on record to have received a share of ownership of a corporate jet as a reward and also a loan of $77m to the CEO even though the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the US bans loans by companies to their executives; and

iii. Adverse selection-this concerns a situation in which agents misrepresent the skills or abilities they bring to an enterprise. As a result of that the principal’s wealth is not maximised (Emery et al.1991).

In response to the inherent risk posed by agents’ quest to make the most of their interests to the disadvantage of principals (i.e. all stakeholders), each stakeholder tries to increase the reward expected in return for participation in the enterprise. Creditors may increase the interest rates they get from the enterprise. Other responses are monitoring and bonding to improve principal’s access to reliable information and devising means to find a common ground for agents and principals respectively.

Emanating from the risks faced in agency theory, researchers on small business financial management contend that in many small enterprises the agency relationship between owners and managers may be absent because the owners are also managers; and that the predominantly nature of SMEs make the usual solutions to agency problems such as monitoring and bonding costly thereby increasing the cost of transactions between various stakeholders (Emery et al.1991).

Nevertheless, the theory provides useful knowledge into many matters in SMEs financial management and shows considerable avenues as to how SMEs financial management should be practiced and perceived. It also enables academic and practitioners to pursue strategies that could help sustain the growth of SMEs.

Signaling Theory

Signaling theory rests on the transfer and interpretation of information at hand about a business enterprise to the capital market, and the impounding of the resulting perceptions into the terms on which finance is made available to the enterprise. In other words, flows of funds between an enterprise and the capital market are dependent on the flow of information between them. (Emery et al, 1991). For example management’s decision to make an acquisition or divest; repurchase outstanding shares; as well as decisions by outsiders like for example an institutional investor deciding to withhold a certain amount of equity or debt finance. The emerging evidence on the relevance of signaling theory to small enterprise financial management is mixed. Until recently, there has been no substantial and reliable empirical evidence that signaling theory accurately represents particular situations in SME financial management, or that it adds insights that are not provided by modern theory (Emery et al.1991).

Keasey et al(1992) writes that of the ability of small enterprises to signal their value to potential investors, only the signal of the disclosure of an earnings forecast were found to be positively and significantly related to enterprise value amongst the following: percentage of equity retained by owners, the net proceeds raised by an equity issue, the choice of financial advisor to an issue (presuming that a more reputable accountant, banker or auditor may cause greater faith to be placed in the prospectus for the float), and the level of under pricing of an issue. Signaling theory is now considered to be more insightful for some aspects of small enterprise financial management than others (Emery et al 1991).

The Pecking-Order Theory or Framework (POF)

This is another financial theory, which is to be considered in relation to SMEs financial management. It is a finance theory which suggests that management prefers to finance first from retained earnings, then with debt, followed by hybrid forms of finance such as convertible loans, and last of all by using externally issued equity; with bankruptcy costs, agency costs, and information asymmetries playing little role in affecting the capital structure policy. A research study carried out by Norton (1991b) found out that 75% of the small enterprises used seemed to make financial structure decisions within a hierarchical or pecking order framework .Holmes et al. (1991) admitted that POF is consistent with small business sectors because they are owner-managed and do not want to dilute their ownership. Owner-managed businesses usually prefer retained profits because they want to maintain the control of assets and business operations.

This is not strange considering the fact that in Ghana, according to empirical evidence, SMEs funding is made up of about 86% of own equity as well as loans from family and friends(See Table 1). Losing this money is like losing one’s own reputation which is considered very serious customarily in Ghana.

Access to capital

The 1971 Bolton report on small firms outlined issues underlying the concept of ‘finance gap’ (this has two components-knowledge gap-debt is restricted due to lack of awareness of appropriate sources, advantages and disadvantages of finance; and supply gap-unavailability of funds or cost of debt to small enterprises exceeds the cost of debt for larger enterprises.) that: there are a set of difficulties which face a small company. Small companies are hit harder by taxation, face higher investigation costs for loans, are generally less well informed of sources of finance and are less able to satisfy loan requirements. Small firms have limited access to the capital and money markets and therefore suffer from chronic undercapitalization. As a result; they are likely to have excessive recourse to expensive funds which act as a brake on their economic development.

Leverage

This is the term used to describe the converse of gearing which is the proportion of total assets financed by equity and may be called equity to assets ratio. The studies under review in this section on leverage are focused on total debt as a percentage of equity or total assets. There are however, some studies on the relative proportions of different types of debt held by small and large enterprises.

Equity Funds

Equity is also known as owners’ equity, capital, or net worth.

Costand et al (1990) suggests that ‘larger firms will use greater levels of debt financing than small firms. This implies that larger firms will rely relatively less on equity financing than do smaller firms.’ According to the pecking order framework, the small enterprises have two problems when it comes to equity funding [McMahon et al. (1993, pp153)]:

1) Small enterprises usually do not have the option of issuing additional equity to the public.

2) Owner-managers are strongly averse to any dilution of their ownership interest and control. This way they are unlike the managers of large concerns who usually have only a limited degree of control and limited, if any, ownership interest, and are therefore prepared to recognise a broader range of funding options.

Financial Management in SME

With high spate of financial problems contributing to the high rate of failures in small medium enterprises, what do the literature on small business say on financial management in small businesses to combat such failures?

Osteryoung et al (1997) writes that “while financial management is a critical element of the management of a business as a whole, within this function the management of its assets is perhaps the most important. In the long term, the purchase of assets directs the course that the business will take during the life of these assets, but the business will never see the long term if it cannot plan an appropriate policy to effectively manage its working capital.” In effect the poor financial management of owner-managers or lack of financial management altogether is the main cause underlying the problems in SME financial management.

Hall and Young(1991) in a study in the UK of 3 samples of 100 small enterprises that were subject to involuntary liquidation in 1973,1978,and 1983 found out that the reasons given for failure,49.8% were of financial nature. On the perceptions of official receivers interviewed for the same small enterprises, 86.6% of the 247 reasons given were of a financial nature. The positive correlation between poor or nil financial management (including basic accounting) and business failure has well been documented in western countries according to Peacock (1985a).

It is gainsaying the fact that despite the need to manage every aspect of their small enterprises with very little internal and external support, it is often the case that owner-managers only have experience or training in some functional areas.

There is a school of thought that believes “a well-run business enterprise should be as unconscious of its finances as healthy a fit person is of his or her breathing”. It must be possible to undertake production, marketing, distribution and the like, without repeatedly causing, or being hindered by, financial pressures and strains. It does not mean, however, that financial management can be ignored by a small enterprise owner-manager; or as is often done, given to an accountant to take care of. Whether it is obvious or not to the casual observer, in prosperous small enterprises the owner-managers themselves have a firm grasp of the principles of financial management and are actively involved in applying them to their own situation.” McMahon et al. (1993).

Some researchers tried to predict small enterprise failure to mitigate the collapse of small businesses. McNamara et al (1988) developed a model to predict small enterprise failures giving the following four reasons:

– To enable management to respond quickly to changing conditions

– To train lenders in recognising the important factors involved in determining an enterprise’s likelihood of failing

– To assist lending organisations in their marketing by identifying their customer’s financial needs more effectively

– To act as a filter in the credit evaluation process.

They went on to argue that small enterprises are very different from large ones in the area of borrowing by small enterprises, lack of long-term debt finance and different taxation provisions.

For small private companies, these measures are unreliable and textbook methods for judging investment opportunities are not always useful in organisations that are privately owned to give a true and fair view of events taking place in the company.

Thus,modern financial management is not the ultimate answer to every business problem including both large and small businesses.However,it could be argued that there is some food for thought for SMEs concerning every concept considered in this study. For example it could be seen (from the literature reviewed )that, financial records are meant to examine and analyse corporate operations. Return on equity, return on assets, return on investment, and debt to equity ratios are useful yardsticks for measuring the performance of big business and SMEs as well.

Do you want to grow good quality shiitake mushrooms for your small business? You can have nutritious addition to your collection if you fruit your logs. These elegant, fleshy fungi can add a delicious touch to your recipes. The flavor you will get will outweigh any other recipe which makes use of other kinds of mushrooms. You can even keep these fresh shiitakes in the refrigerator for two to three weeks. Even if they dry up, they will regain their original texture if you soak them in water. The process of blanching and then freezing will help in keeping the shiitakes in usable condition for several months.

Start your business with these tips

You may be pondering over the idea of now starting your cultivation. If you have a fruitful production, you can even think of starting your own business on a small scale. Buy mushroom logs for sale from renowned suppliers and get a fresh supply of mushrooms. Learn some of the basic tips so that you can end up with a nutritious yield.

1. Regular maintenance

You should purchase mushroom logs for sale from the market and take adequate steps to maintain them regularly. These chunks can be kept healthy by soaking them after a gap of two weeks. For this purpose, you should use only non-chlorinated water. The sources may be filtered, bottled or rainwater.

2. Living organism

You must be aware of the fact that the log you are dealing is a living entity. Air, water, and sunlight are the elements necessary for the growth of mycelium. You can always force fruit your log after a gap of two months. This objective can be attained by soaking those blocks in non- chlorinated water for an entire day. These will lead the chunks to believe that the spring or the fall season is just around the corners.

3. Types of woods

The blocks which work best are oaks, ironwood, hard maple and sweet gum. You can attain faster results by using lighter hardwoods. However, they are not that durable compared to denser types. The presence of fungicidal resins makes softwoods inappropriate for mushroom cultivation. You can always trust a reliable supplier for providing you with the right choice of logs.

4. Commercial operators

The commercial operators are experts who produce logs by making them pass through various temperature settings and immersing them in cool water at appropriate intervals. The best quality chunks are supplied to the farms and local businesses.

5. Various factors having an impact

You can enjoy cultivating fresh mushrooms for four years or so if you take adequate care of your logs. The factors that have an impact on the fruiting of the logs are the level of moisture, amount of sunlight and appropriate temperature. You should always keep in mind that a well-rested log produces the most effective results.

Check out the websites

You should ensure that you buy these logs from renowned manufacturers. Otherwise, you will not have the expected outcome, and you will end up being disappointed with the quality of the yield. Always go through the various websites and then take a well-informed decision.

Over the past decade more and more people are getting fired, getting downsized, or getting fed up with their corporate jobs and embark on the journey as a small business owner. Unfortunately, most of the new small business owners fail to consider their marketing plans or strategy. There are many marketing concepts for small business marketing to consider and plan for, but here is our list of Top 10 Marketing Concepts For Small Business Marketing.

Marketing Concept # 1: Consistency

Consistency is the number one marketing concept for small business marketing only because it is left out of marketing concepts for so many businesses. I have worked with a long list of clients, big and small, that are extremely inconsistent in all areas of their marketing. Consistency helps lower the cost of marketing and increase the effectiveness of branding.

Marketing Concept # 2: Planning

Once small business owners decide to be consistent with their marketing, planning is the next major concept to engage. Planning is the most vital part of small business marketing or any level of marketing, for that matter, and so many owners, marketing managers, and even CMOs plan poorly. Put the time into planning your marketing strategy, budget, and other concepts presented here to ensure success.

Marketing Concept # 3: Strategy

Strategy immediately follows planning because your strategy is the foundation for the rest of your marketing activities. In the process of planning, you must develop your strategy: who you will target, how you will target them, and how will you keep them as a customer.

Marketing Concept # 4: Target Market

Target market is also another key concept for small business marketing. Defining exactly who you are targeting allows small business owners to focus on specific customers and reduce marketing waste. A well-defined target market will make every other marketing concept so much easier to implement successfully.

Marketing Concept # 5: Budget

Although it is listed at number 5, budgeting is important throughout the entire process. Creating a marketing budget is usually the hardest and most inaccurate part of small business marketing. Most small businesses owners lack a great deal of experience in marketing, so their budgets usually end up skewed. The most important part of this marketing concept is to actually establish a marketing budget. From there, you can worry about how to distribute your available funds.

Marketing Concept # 6: Marketing Mix

The marketing mix is usually defined as product, pricing, place, and promotion. As a small business owner, you must specifically decide on your products (or services), the appropriate pricing, where and how you will distribute your products, and how will you let everyone know about you and your products.

Marketing Concept # 7: Website

In today’s market, a business of any size must have a website. I hate when I see businesses that have a one page website with out-dated information. Customers, be it businesses or consumers, will search the web over 60% of the time before making any purchasing decisions. This marketing concept contains a slew of additional components, but you must at least develop a small web presence of some kind and keep it updated.

Marketing Concept # 8: Branding

Many small businesses owners also neglect this concept. Small business marketing must focus on this marketing concept just as much as large corporations do. Branding consists of the pictures, logo, design scheme, layout, make up, and image of your products and even your company. Branding is how your customers perceive (please place a lot of emphasis on that word!) your products and company. Make sure to pay special attention to what kind of brand you are building through each step of your planning and implementation.

Marketing Concept # 9: Promotion and Advertising

Promotion and advertising is a very complex marketing concept, but must be considered for any type of business and its products and services. Once you engage the previous 8 marketing concepts, you must finally let your target market know about you and your products. Proper promotion and advertising will result in effective brand recognition, and, ultimately, increased sales.

Marketing Concept # 10: Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

The concept of customer relationship management has become a huge industry in the marketing world. There are many types of software and services offered to help businesses of any size handle their customer relationship management. Since there is so much available, usually for a large sum of money, small business owners usually look at this concept as something they are not big enough for or have enough money to implement. Don’t be fooled by the massive industry that has evolved from this concept. Maintaining proper customer relationship management is essential to creating loyal and consistent customers.

This list of marketing concepts should be examined, researched, planned, and implemented, especially by small businesses, in order to be successful. Also, your marketing doesn’t stop here. Each business is unique and will have additional components that must be considered, but this list will jump-start any marketing plan.

These small business bookkeeping tips will help you get your books up to date and keep them that way in less time. They’ll help you maintain financial control, and help you manage your working capital more effectively and securely.

1. Before you contemplate recording any transactions in your ledgers, organize your paperwork in your files according to these bookkeeping basics. It will save you time, and time is money.
2. Work out how much you earn in your business per hour. If the answer is more than what it will cost to hire a professional bookkeeper, then hire one. If not, then do the transaction processing yourself. Get a tax accountant to do your year end filing so you don’t have to keep up with arbitrary government rule making, and miss out on tax allowances.
3. When you’ve got your paperwork in order then consider how you’re going to record your transactions. This could be in a traditional hand written ledger, or more likely using software. Understand your bookkeeping software requirements before you buy anything to prevent dissatisfaction.
4. If you don’t have much money for investing in financial software, then consider using open source accounting software.This can be obtained for little or no cost. Click the link above to learn the advantages and disadvantages of using open source.
5. After you’ve decided what you’re going to record your transactions in then follow these basic bookkeeping tips to make sure you record your transactions in the most efficient manner possible.
6. Make sure all cash is accounted for by performing a bank reconciliation. Ensure the transactions that are recorded on your bank statements are recorded in your books, and the balance on your statement is in agreement with that in your books. Make sure that you know the amount of any uncleared and unpresented checks (cheques) which will explain any actual difference between the statement and the account on your ledger.
7. Likewise, make sure all petty cash is accounted for by counting the cash in your cash box and agreeing it to your cash book.
8. Perform routine counts on items you carry in stock, and ensure that what is recorded in your books agrees with the quantity you have on the shelf. This is an area where strict control pays dividends as unexplainable differences often occur usually due to sales ‘samples’, spoilage, quality defects, returns etc. This is an important area to get right as any differences will have to be reflected in the financial statements and usually affect the profit line directly.
9. Keep a Fixed Assets register. While not a ledger in your books as such, a fixed assets register is essential to keep track of essential business equipment. This means the cost, the location the depreciation, the purchase date and the remaining life. The value of these assets are carried in your balance sheet. It can be surprising how, as you grow, things you thought you had have gone! Especially small high value technology.
10. Follow these small business bookkeeping tips, but don’t forget to use the information kept within your books intelligently. Working capital management is how you manage your daily, weekly, and monthly cash, debtors, supplier payments and inventory/stock control to keep you in business, and really make a difference to the bottom line (the profit line) of your business.

If there were ever a timely business book, “Save Your Small Business: 10 Crucial Strategies To Survive Hard Times or Close Down & Move On” by Ralph Warner and Bethany K. Laurence is certainly it. Promoted as a road map to small business survival, Warner and Laurence provide simple, no-nonsense, steps that can make a huge difference in running, saving, or if needed closing, your small business. Running a small business has always been hard, but currently it can be brutally agonizing, if not downright scary. This guide may just provide you with the information to make today’s bad economy, or bad economies in the future, opportunities so that in good times your business will be poised to thrive.

The book starts out saying it will be your small business companion, and recommends you create a business survival plan, prepare a current profit-and-loss statement and cash flow analysis, and establish an advisory board. It the delves into chapters that will provide the tools to help you decide whether it makes sense to continue, hibernate, close, or sell your business and offers some strategies you can implement to get your business back on track.

Chapter One: Can You Save Your Business? This chapter discusses topics such as planning for short and long term, selling your business, putting your business in hibernation, and saving your business. It also looks at some special considerations for retailers, services, construction, restaurants, wholesalers and importers, and franchises.

Chapter Two: Don’t Ignore Bad News. Why you can’t wait, cutting costs, changing direction, quitting and selling are addressed. There are also strategies on determining how much to cut expenses and acing slowly to reverse cutbacks.

Chapter Three: Control Your Cash Flow. This area can be one of the most important, especially for the small business. Topics include: Keeping paying your bills on time, how to create more cash, and what not to do, such as using merchant cash advances, maxing out credit cards, and borrowing against your house.

Chapter Four: Minimize Liability for Your Debts. Are you personally liable for business debts? Liability for jointly owned debt. What can creditors do if you don’t pay? Prioritizing debt payments, including payroll, taxes, utilities, and many more.

Chapter Five: Concentrate on What’s Really Profitable. Face it, the goal of a business is to make a profit. This chapter looks at getting a quick profits plan on paper, making money in a service business, and making money in retail or manufacturing. It is a short chapter, but if it gets you thinking about making a profit, it has done its job.

Chapter Six: Innovate on a Shoestring. Invention, Copying, Serendipity, and Making Innovation a Continuous Process are addressed in this chapter. This chapter may inspire you to brainstorm the next wonder gadget that every household must have. Depending on your business, this may be what you need.

Chapter Seven: Identify Your Customers. Before you can create an effective marketing plan, you need to know who your likely customers are. This chapter discusses aiming at the bull’s eye and filling in your target. Topics include current customers, need, price, access, and experience.

Chapter Eight: Don’t Waste Money on Ineffective Marketing. If we only knew which of our marketing efforts were producing the best results. This chapter helps you determine things about your marketing such as: Marketing the right products or services to the right people, not spending big dollars on advertising, asking long-term customers for support, encouraging customers to recommend your business, using paid listing effectively, marketing on your own website, and holding a “trying to stay in business” sale.

Chapter Nine: Handle Layoffs Fairly – And Keep Your Best People. Laying people off is often one of a business owners most dreaded tasks. This chapter provides guidance in this area by looking at: Making a wise layoff plan, the logistics of a layoff, and keeping the great people you hire. Some very good advice for this unfortunate part of business.

Chapter Ten: Don’t Work Too Much. What? If your business is floundering, you must work more, right? This chapter tackles the subjects of the importance of a sane schedule and how to work less and make more. Priorities and delegation are the keys the authors discuss.

Chapter Eleven: Work With Your Best Competitors. The four areas this chapter covers include: Treating competitors with respect, getting business from competitors, working for competitors, and working with competitors.

Chapter Twelve: How to Close Down Your Business. Most people don’t ever want this to happen, but the reality is that it does. This chapter offers some good strategies if you decide it is time to close the business and do something else. Topics include things like creating a closing team, looking at contractual obligations, dealing with landlords, collecting bills and selling off inventory, notifying and paying employees, liquidating assets, notifying creditors and customers, paying your debts, paying taxes, and dissolving your business entity. This is not a pleasant topic, but unfortunately an important one if you find yourself having to go this direction. The book provides guidance in the process.

Chapter Thirteen: Dealing With Debt: Bankruptcy and Its Alternatives. Introductory chapter on these topics with some good advice, but you will need more resources if you choose to go down the bankruptcy path, or better yet, seek counsel from a qualified professional.

Appendix A provides guidance on preparing a profit and loss forecast and a cash flow analysis. There are more complete references on these out there for sure, but this short bare bone basics on them will get you started and at least help you determine where you are at.

“Save Your Small Business” is a good guide for the struggling small business owner, and also provides information for the small business owner who doesn’t want to fall into hard times. Educating oneself regarding business is crucial for small business success. This is one more Nolo title that will help small business owners hopefully survive, but also liquidate and close with less pain if that is the course that must be taken.

Each business has its own needs, but you still want to make sure you are covered by some insurance, no matter how small your company is. In short, general liability insurance for small business tends to cover things like personal liability for members and the consequences associated with third party claims for property damage / injury. You can add additional items of medical injury for yourself and damage for your own property.

When you are looking over CGL policies, you’ll see terms such as “General Aggregate Limit”. This refers to the advertising or personal injury, medical payments, and/or fire damage. “Operations coverage” refers to the basic coverage afforded for property damage and bodily injury due from your or an employee’s negligence.

You might also see “Products and Completed Operations Limit” depending on your line of work. This coverage includes protection for those who manufacture or sell a particular product, or are contractors providing services. If damage occurs and your product or negligent service could be responsible, you’ll obviously face a lawsuit. This is a type of separate aggregate limit and the claims of its nature will not reduce the General Aggregate Limit, although it will still be subject to limits such as “Per Occurrence Limit” for each claim.

General Liability Insurance for Small Business Limits and Claims

The “Per Occurrence Limit” refers to the maximum amount that the policy will pay for a single claim arising from your Personal or Advertising Injury / Operations / Products and Completed Operations. Each of these claims WILL decrease the separate aggregate limit.

A few other terms you’ll find include Personal and Advertising injury, Fire Damage, Medical Payments, Bodily Injury, and Damage to 3rd Party Property, which are all self-explanatory.

Your industry will also play a role in the exact type of coverage you need. When searching for general liability insurance for small business, see if there is any tailored insurance available. Choose a company that specializes in businesses such as yours and have coverage tailored to risks prevalent in your particular field. Consider the risks you’ll likely be facing that might not be covered in a GCL or Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) and have those risks included in your coverage.

Another very important thing to look for is claims responsiveness. Only get general liability insurance for small business from a company that has a lot of positive reviews – especially regarding its claims response time. Claims should be easy and fast to process. One provider in particular to start with is Hiscox Business Insurance. The rates are fare, claims process is fast, and Hiscox offers free, instant quotes on its website.

I work with a lot of small business owners just like you. Many of you share a common problem: the belief that the only way to success is to follow the corporate model and “hide” your true self from clients. That you need to adopt a sterile, professional persona, and reserve the real you only for play.

Nothing could be further from the small business truth.

In order to be successful on your own terms, it’s vital that you forget everything you’ve learned in the corporate arena about how to present yourself as a business owner. Success is not one size fits all. It comes in as many different sizes as there are small business owners. Decide for yourself what success means to you and move toward that. Create a version that fits with your own values, dreams and lifestyle hopes.

Potential clients are most likely to work with you when they sense you are being your natural self. The product and price will take a back seat to the genuineness. Today more than ever, clients want to work with real people, people they can know, like and trust.

Try stepping into your client’s shoes. Can’t you tell right away when a business owner you’re considering working with seems artificial? Don’t you want to escape without signing on the dotted line?

Find true small business success by being yourself, by standing out as the natural star that you already are. Your brilliant light will attract clients who want to work with someone just like you!

(1) 6K or less. Most of that is the machine. The remainder is incidentals: 18″ Traffic Cones, a 30′ Measuring tape… etc. I know it may seem like a big number, especially when you’re struggling. So, don’t buy anything yet. Buy my book first. I list everything I use. One step at a time.

(2) No real shop is necessary. Most stripers work from their own garage. I did for (12) years. Many work from an enclosed trailer. Some may rent a (24) Hour Access, U Store It, type facility. Again… no real shop is necessary.

(3) No real inventory. Paint and stencils are the inventory. Buy paint on the way to the job, after you’ve been given the job. Buy stencils once. Yes, I manufacture stencils. My Handicap stencil is 28 years old. Stencils can be a (1) time expense. Buy as you go. Buy as you grow.

(4) You don’t have to quit your day job. Firefighters don’t. Teachers don’t. I did. Stripe the bank parking lot on your day off. Stripe the restaurant lot before they open, even if it means (2) trips.

(5) Almost any economy. I’ve been through both. In a good economy, people build, repair and seal coat parking lots. Stripers are needed. In a slow economy, people only “Re-Stripe”. ( Think about retail stores or car dealerships during a slow economy. They will chose to only Re-Stripe. ) I still had work.

I needed / wanted a side business. “Pavement Marking” = Parking Lot Striping, met the criteria. ( That criteria includes… that I can do this with a little cash, some learning, and also, make a living. I earned 165K from striping. I take Winter off. )That’s in my book. I was broke when I started. ( When you’re broke, it has nothing to do with money. ) Now I’m not. It wasn’t easy. I had no one to talk to. After (16) years of full time striping, I wrote my book; How I Stripe a Parking Lot… to help others. The title also says; 24 Years, By Myself. It’s now been (28).

If you’re looking for something that can really work, consider parking lot striping. Take a look at my site; http://www.AmericanStriping.com. Take a look at my book. Buy that. Read it through. Call me. Everyone has the same (2) questions: “what machine do I buy, what paint do I use?”. I have the answers. I can help. I’d like to help. Thanks in advance. My name’s Dan.

Small business marketing is increasingly complex. The online environment changes rapidly so it is important to remember the basics of marketing. That is focus on the needs of the customer.

Profile Your Target Customer

Who is your ideal customer, what do they buy, why do they need those products or services, and why do they buy from you? Most businesses serve several market segments, each with different requirements. So it is important to identify those segments and build a customer profile for each.

Decide How To Reach Your Customer

What are the best ways to reach identified customers and market segments? It may be the best route is offline but more likely the most efficient and cost-effective method will be online marketing. Research what methods target customers use to source information. It may be via search engine queries, or possibly social media, or online publications. Whatever route is best, target your efforts on those mediums.

Be Found

There is little point in having a website if it is not found when a prospect types a relevant search term into one of the major search engines. Statistics show that over 90% of prospects never go beyond page 1 when looking for information. The same argument applies to social media. With any online marketing tool, the objective is to be found.

Build A Relationship

Once found, only a small percentage of prospects will make an immediate purchase. A much larger proportion will keep coming back to learn more and will buy in the future. Once a prospect lands on an online communication channel the objective is to start to build a relationship and credibility to achieve a sale in the medium to long term.

Convert

A relationship is of little use if it does not ultimately convert to a sale. So it is important to lead prospects down a path and specifically tell them what you suggest they do (calls to action). The process may include securing a prospect Email address (perhaps in return for a valuable download) to facilitate ongoing dialogue.

The key to small business marketing success then is to start with the customer. With the customer defined, deliver the information they need and develop a relationship that ultimately results in a sale. It is important to make sure the message goes out via a method that is most likely to be read and engaged with. Don’t be invisible, forget the marketing hype and focus on the basics.