Empowering Small Business

How Small Businesses can Build Brand Alignment

The ability to build a strong and enduring brand, and one that can be successfully measured vis-a-vis competition in terms of financial performance, is a hallmark of successful busineses. What these companies have been able to achieve is alignment between corporate brand attributes (what the organization is known for) and its leadership team brand attributes (how leaders lead). What ultimately occurs in the marketplace is the acceptance of a common brand identity that blends this outward organizational face with the actual leadership faces - and if successful, a leadership brand emerges.

The Harvard Business Review just published a fascinating article that drills down into the process for creating a leadership brand and a brand that will successfully create long-term differentiation from competitive brands. The five categories of steps to the process include:

1. Master Leadership Fundamentals: Help organizational leaders develop and master fundamental skills such as strategy (a point of view of the future and the ability to position the organization for this future); execution (creating the internal systems to operate the organization and the actions that deliver results); talent management (building a cohesive and committed team across all functional levels); talent development (creating the next generation of leadership); and personal proficiency (improving on one's own internal skills that enable performance, trust and relationship building).

2. Match Corporate Brand Attributes with Leadership Attributes: Identify what defines and differentiates the organization in terms of attributes and qualities and link these brand attributes with the necessary leadership skills and behavior.

3. Assess Leaders Vis-a-Vis the Lense of the Market: Assess how the market evaluates your leadership team in terms of qualitative & quantitative research (interviews, focus groups and surveys) with customers, partners, investors, and other audiences that comprise your market infrastructure.

4. Give External Market Audiences a Teaching Role: Incorporate external market feedback in corporate training programs and leadership courses - and invite them to participate. When I was a partner at Regis McKenna we had a great training department that regularly and vigorously incorporated our clients, analysts, market partners and the like.

5. Measure the Success of Leadership Branding: For a brand to be successful it must show positive impact on an organization's financial performance. Create metrics that track this success in terms of market share growth, confidence in future earnings (price/earnings ratio), and competitive displacement.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

How to Pitch to Angels

Angel investors, those wealthy individuals who invest in the vicinity of $50K to $1M in emerging companies, represent an increasingly important financing strategy for entrepreneurs seeking start-up capital. One of the side benefits of having angel investors is that many have earned their own wealth through running successful businesses, and they are interested in "staying in the game" and finding productive ways of applying their knowledge and experience. As a result, invested angels can provide a great deal of subject matter expertise to entrepreneurs and serve as committed advisors to the company - in addition to providing much needed cash infusions.

Many metropolitan communities have angel investor communities, made up of individual investors, who are looking to fund new companies in order to gain equity stock ownership with an eye on ROI. To start the angel fundraising process, entrepreneurs should first determine if their community has angel groups - whether formal or informal.

But before presenting to angel groups, or individual angel investors, entrepreneurs should educate themselves about what makes "angels" tick - what motivates them, what they are looking for in business plans, what type of returns do they expect, etc. It's not a simple exercise, and it's important to understand the psyche of these early stage investors. So, here's a good list of books (compiled originally by the Kauffman Foundation) to dig into and assimilate so you are prepared for those important angel pitch meetings.

1. Angel Financing for Entrepreneurs: Early Stage Funding for Long-term Success. Susan L. Preston. Answers the basic questions about angel investors - their profiles, how to find them and what they want to see in business plans. Great appendix referencing websites, directories, and basic start-up templates.

2. A Good Hard Kick in the Ass: Basic Training for Entrepreneurs. Rob Adams. Think about the return on investment and not just your great technologies and products. It's a hard shift for entrepreneurs, but that's what angels are looking for. Confirm that a market exists for what you are selling, and be sure to have conducted customer research before you get in front of potential investors.

3. The Venture Capital Cycle. Paul Gompers and Josh Lerner. What is the world of professional investors, and how do VCs approach the process from the initial investment stage to exit strategies? A thorough analysis of early stage investing.

4. Attracting Capital from Angels: How Their Money and Their Experience Can Help You Build a Successful Company. Brian E. Hill and Dee Power. What's due diligence, evaluations and dilution - and how do you approach angels and benefit from their experience? A must read for talking to the angel investment community.

5. State of the Art: An Executive Briefing on Cutting-Edge Practices in American Angel Investing. John May and Elizabeth F. O'Halloran. A good collection of articles and interviews comprised from angels investing groups in the U.S.

6. Every Business Needs an Angel: Getting the Money You Need to Make Your Business Grow. John May and Cal Simmons. A time-honored book with lots of practical tips on the step-by-step interactions entrepreneurs need to take with angels. A good, hands-on reference manual.

7. Terms Sheets & Valuations: A Line by Link Look at the Intricacies of Venture Capital Term Sheets and Valuations. Alex Wilmerding. What's common stock, preferred stock and dilution and what will these terms mean to your business? A well-used guidebook for navigating investment deals.

8. The Art of the Start: The Time-tested, Battle-hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything. Guy Kawasaki. The get real, get current and get going manifesto for how to make a go of your start-up business. Pay attention, Guy Kawaski is everywhere and knows everyone in technology. Read his blog, too.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Five Stages of Small Business Growth

A classic Harvard Business Review study tackled the complex problem of analyzing the issues and growth patterns of small businesses in such a way that it identified the common problems that arise at key stages of small business development. The report integrated relevant small business experience, a thorough literature search and empirical research to develop a framework for the five key stages of small business growth: Existence, survival, success, take-off and resource maturity. The following summarizes the key concerns for each stage.

1. Stage I: Existence. At the beginning, small business owners are most concerned about finding and signing up customers and being able to deliver their products and services. They are grappling with the question of whether they will get enough customers and deliver enough products/services to become a viable business; whether they can move from a test/beta/pilot phase to being able to scale; and whether they have the financial resources, cash, to meet all start-up requirements. The companies that move past these issues and remain in business become Stage II companies.

2. Stage II: Survival. At this point, businesses have proven their basic business plan premise and have an true operating concern. The focal point at this stage then is the relationship between revenues and expenses. Owners are evaluating whether one, they can generate enough cash to break even and cover the repair/replacement of basic assets; two, whether they can get to cash flow break-even; and three, whether they are be able to finance growth in order to earn an economic return on assets and labor.

3. Stage III: Success. This is a pivotal point for owners in that the business has reached economic health, and the owners are debating whether to leverage the company as a growth platform or consider the company as a means of support for them as they embark on disengaging from the company. Thus, there are two substage tracks to the Success stage. In the Success-Growth substage, the owner pulls together all resources and risks them to some degree with the intent of financing growth. If this is the direction, they are focused on the basic business staying profitable while the company enters into a parallel strategic planning and execution phase. In the Success-Disengagement phase, the company should be able to maintain itself indefinitely barring external environmental changes. Managers take over the owner's operational duties, and the strategy is to essentially maintain a status quo. The owners either benefit from the cash flow from operations "indefinitely" or prepare for sale or a merger.

4. Stage IV: Take-off. Knowing that they are poised for growth, what owners face at this juncture is how to grow quickly and how to finance their growth. Both operational and strategic planning is being actively done, with managers having very real responsibilities. Owners then grapple with structural organizational issues of how construct the enterprise and how to delegate to these managers, and in what way. In terms of cash, the owner is often faced with having to tolerate a high debt-equity ratio as well as aggressively manage a cash flow and expense controls. Failure at this stage often occurs because of the attempt to grow too fast - run out of cash, or not being able to effectively delegate authority to a managerial team.

5. Stage V: Resource Maturity. At this point, the company has the staff and financial resources to engage in detailed operational and strategic planning. It has a decentralized management structure with experienced, senior staff and all necessary systems are in place. The owner and the business have separated to a large degree, both financially and operationally. If the company can continue as it has, and maintain its entrepreneurial spirit, it has a strong probability of continued growth and success - as long as it avoids what the study calls "ossification." Ossification occurs when innovation stalls and the corporate culture begins avoids taking risks - both common traits in corporations as they grow. The key is to maintain a nimble culture that pays attention to environmental, market changes and has the organizational structure and incentives that reward adaptation.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Passion is Nothing New to Small Business Owners

According to the American Express Small Business Monitor, a semi-annual survey of small business owners, over 38% of respondents said that the strongest and most important factor in becoming an entrepreneur is passion - having a driving and compelling vision, ambition and motivation towards a particular subject matter focus.

In terms of what type of passion then guides and motivates small business owners, building their customer base (34%) had the strongest influence followed by the importance of being profitable (27%) and closing "deals" (15%). This response suggests that small business owners are more pragmatic in nature and more focused on the tangibles (what they can see and measure) vs. the intangibles of business (what they may experience or feel).

Growing their business is also a major strategic objective for small business owners, and 71% of respondents stated that over the next six months that they plan on growing their businesses in an array of ways. The most popular path towards growth was by selling more of the same product or service (50%), followed by launching new product-service (22%), branching out into new markets (14%), and increasing investments in their current business (11%).

Maximizing productivity is a key issue for all entrepreneurs, and many are turning to the Internet for ways in which to improve how they conduct business, with 88% using the Internet for business activities. 60% going online for travel planning, 60% purchasing goods online from wholesalers and 48% conducting online market research. 19% of male-owned businesses have established an online presence to sell products and services compared to 16% of female-owned businesses.

What frustrates entrepreneurs most in terms of business management is not having enough time to do everything that is needed to run a business (20%).  Employee management came in second with 16% of respondents voicing that they are frustrated with daily HR needs. Finding money to grow their small businesses or developing the business, managerial and operational skills required to run their businesses were equal frustrations to respondents (15%).

For many entrepreneurs business is family business and for those that are parents 61% would like their children to join their business and 18% are in their business today because they "inherited" the family business in one way or another. However, only 37% of respondents stated that they have a succession plan crafted for an orderly transition to a family member. Although this finding is a disparity in terms of desire and action, it is not uncommon in terms of the percentages of people who conduct orderly estate planning and transfer.

In thinking and planning for life at business retirement, 39% believe that social security will fund less than 25% of their retirement over 58% stated that private investments are necessary for providing for their long-term security. Concern over being able to fund their retirement increased this year (66% vs. 62% in 2006), but 57% reported that they are "on track" to save for retirement vs. 55% last year.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Small Business Optimism on Upswing

According to a recent study published by OPEN from American Express Small Business Monitor, a semi-annual survey of small business owners, small business optimism is growing and on an upswing. Over 87% percent of survey respondents have a positive outlook about the future of their business, characterizing their outlook as "half-full" vs. "half-empty." As entrepreneurs are a bellwether for the economic outlook for many U.S. industries, because of their purchasing impact, this optimism is a positive indicator for the economy overall.

The percentage of small business owners investing in capital expenditures is 60%, and are most likely to spend their monies in technology and technology infrastructure - such as desktops, laptops and printers. 20% of the respondents plan on investing in more expensive technologies such as software, servers and telephone systems.

In terms of hiring, 36% plan to hire staff, and 72% of those said they need to hire staff in order to manage growing businesses or grow their businesses; 42% additionally said they need seasonal new hires and 35% need to hire because of a new business venture.

In terms of quality of life and "downtime", this subject area is of strong importance to small business owners and most are satisfied with their leisure time they are able to carve out for themselves (81%).  However, making this time has its stresses and over 64% find it challenging to create a work-personal life balance and women small business owners are more stressed than men in crafting and maintaining this equilibrium (71% vs. 65%).

In terms of the other costs of being an entrepreneur, 67% of respondents report that they are indeed experiencing and having to make sacrifices. Of those, the biggest area of sacrifice is in the area of family (52%), friends (42%), personal finances (36%) and health (35%).

Having flexibility interestingly enough, is the top rated essential aspect of being a small business owner-entrepreneur. 65% of the respondents reported that they make personal time for themselves during their business day, and men are more likely than women to spend this personal time on themselves (66% vs. 60%).

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Benefits of Working for Small Businesses

There are clearly pros and cons about working for a small businesses, but the allure of being part of a smaller and more tightly-knit organization is strong. As a recent article in Saving Advice notes in greater detail, here are some compelling reasons for selecting a small business as your career path of choice:

1. Learn About the Entire Business Process: Typically when an employee works in a small business their job performance expectations go beyond a normal job description. Because of a smaller workforce, daily deadlines and multiple work requirements most employees get to wear a number of hats and be exposed to the business' overall operations. It's a great way to learn about all the "moving parts" and understand what it takes to make a business run successfully.
2. Closer Contact to the Owner - CEO: In a smaller organization, there are fewer layers of management and an owner/CEO is actively involved throughout the organization. A more junior employee may be assigned to a task supporting the CEO directly, and have an early opportunity to be mentored by him/her. Nothing is more valuable in career development that being exposed regularly to someone in senior leadership who is interested in mentoring.
3. More Responsibility - Direct Authority: It's normal in a small business to own complete projects and be responsible for outcomes as opposed to how larger organizations orchestrate projects. There employees more typically own a specific "piece" of a project, and someone designated in a project manager capacity is the person pulling all the pieces together. Although the risks are greater when you are a project owner, the opportunity to learn and manage are greater as well.
4. Fewer Office Politics: By virtue of sheer numbers, the probability of office "soap operas" diminishes in a smaller work environment. Although one bad apple can certainly be more visible in a small business, that individual is also more easily dealt with than complex social networks that spread negative vibes.
5. Easier Recognition: What you accomplish, or not accomplish, is easier to be seen and acknowledged in a small work environment - creating the opportunity for earlier rewards than might take place in a larger operations.

Comprehensive Pay-Per-Click Campaign Management

In March 2007, comScore Networks reported that 7.3 billion domestic searches were conducted on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others. As Internet usage by U.S. consumers has continued to expand, it has never been more important that businesses can be found online.

One reason pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns have become so popular is that they are significantly quicker than traditional search engine optimization. Businesses don't need to change any of their current website content, so PPC campaigns can be implemented almost immediately and results can take just minutes versus weeks or months to get started and see leads. In fact, Jupiter Research (2007) reports that the majority of advertisers are satisfied with the ROI of their search engine marketing.

At Innuity, our PPC campaign packages are designed to ensure that businesses are connected with consumers most likely to purchase their services and goods. We research and identify highly targeted keywords, set up clients' search engine marketing campaigns and provide ongoing management to generate the maximum budget results.

Each of our PPC packages includes our complete end-to-end campaign set-up and maintenance; the only difference is the number of qualified prospective customers-leads that will be sent to your website on a monthly basis:

• Traffic Express: 260 target clicks-leads per year @ $50/month
• Traffic Plus: 780 target clicks-leads per year @ $100/month
• Traffic Pro: 2,400 target clicks-leads per year @ $250/month

Innuity's PPC Comprehensive Campaign Management programs also include:

1. Keyword Research: Innuity's PPC team researches current consumer search behavior for each specific client's business and helps identity the most relevant, high-impact keywords for the campaign.
2. Ad Creation: Our online marketing experts craft the online text ads for your campaigns that will generate results.
3. Account Set-up: Our team sets up accounts within the search engines - uploading the targeted keywords and text ads.
4. Monthly Campaign Management: Once accounts are active, we continue to monitor the performance of campaigns - identifying additional keywords and modifying ads to motivate qualified customers to click to a business' website.
5. Detailed Reporting: At the end of each month, businesses receive a detailed report showing the number of prospective customers sent to their website.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Motivating Small Business Employees & Teams

It seems intuitively obvious that marshalling a workforce to perform at consistent high levels would be a top priority for all businesses, small and large. Yet the task of understanding the nuances of positively impacting employees for the purposes of motivation, productivity and performance is somewhat elusive. The Harvard Business Review recently published an article  titled, the Inner Work Life, which details their research on understanding the subtext behind business or at-work performance.

What their research suggests is that if an organization doesn't see peak performance in the workforce despite regular pep talks & updates, pizza Fridays and public recognitions in team settings then perhaps the organization hasn't taken care of employees' "inner work lives." The HBR study defines inner work lives as the interrelationship between employees' closely held private perceptions of their work environment, the emotions they experience as a result of this awareness, and their resulting level of motivation to perform and "do good work."

What's critical for small businesses and their leadership then is to demystify the inner work life system - that interplay beween employees' perceptions, emotions and movitation. Steps in this system include:

1. An event happens or annoucement made - like an email sent that doesn't get a response or a lay-off that is announced by senior management in a general email

2. Each individual tries to make sense of the occurrence - creating an internal explanation and determine potential implications

3. If resulting perceptions from the "making sense" phase are positive this fuels the employee's motivation which then drives performance along four dimensions - creativity (can produce new solutions), productivity (speed of output), commitment (buy-in to the work itself) and collegiality (ability to connect as a team member and as an active part of the organization).

If the resulting feelings are negative, then output suffers across all these areas.

What's interesting is that while giving positive feedback and other typical employee-building techniques are helpful in building a positive cycle inside employee's inner work lives, the single most important tool is helping people believe that they can make positive, forward progress in their work. To build that trust, and encourage a true belief in one's personal progress, managers and top executives need to:

1. Provide direct help

2. Provide appropriate resources & time to accomplish task

3. React to outcomes with a learning orientation, rather than simply an evaluative orientation

4. Set clear, understandable and believable goals and explain why their output matters to their team, organization and customers.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Innuity's Data-Driven Approach to Natural Search Rankings

Over the years, Innuity has continued to refine its approach to search engine optimization (SEO) to one that leverages the data behind consumer behavior and the search engine algorithms that are used to determine top rankings for specific keywords. Innuity has a five step process that includes keyword identification, ROI analysis on selected keywords, webpage revisions, link recruitment for high ROI keywords and ongoing link expansion.

1. The Assessment Phase: Clients provide Innuity with an initial set of keywords that are relevant to their business. Innuity then utilizes its proprietary tool, Optify, to expand this list to identify similar words or phrases that prospective and current customers are currently using to search for products or services in the client's category.

2. Solution Plan: Innuity's Optify tool conducts a detailed, research-based analysis for each keyword resulting in a prediction of the length of time it will take to get a top ranking for each potential keyword. This step allows Innuity to calculate the project revenue from each keyword--resulting in a plan that will focus efforts on the keywords that will deliver maximum business results.

3. Website Revision: Once the keywords have been identified, Innuity's team of professional writers create content pages for the client's website that are focused on each selected keyword phrase. Innuity then works with client to integrate these pages into their websites.

4. Traffic Generation: After each page is live, Innuity's marketing team works on recruiting links to these pages from reputable website and online directories. These links improve the "importance" of your website and the specific keyword pages, leading to improved rankings.

5. Detailed Reporting: At the end of each month, clients receive detailed reports showing how their websites are ranking for each of the targeted keywords on Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO

Affordable Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses

Innuity has launched a small business search engine optimization product that's absolutely affordable for small businesses, and drives qualified customers to the websites of small businesses. With the majority of consumers in the U.S. now using the Internet to search for products and services, it has never been more important for small businesses to be included in online search results.

Today, natural search results (what you see when you type in a keyword in Google and the unshaded list pops up) represent 70% of clicks from the search pages; represent higher conversion rates than paid search (pay-per-click advertising); and become a company asset once achieved (no click fees for hitting on the search result).

With Innuity's new Search Engine Optimization (SEO) service, we research consumer behavior for a small business' targeted customers and create/execute an online program to get their website included in relevant keyword searches on the major search engines.

Our comprehensive service includes these steps:

1. We create an in-depth analysis of consumer behavior in your business category.

2. Using our proprietary tool, Optify, we evaluate and predict the keyword search terms that will be most attainable for your website.

3. Our team of content writers then focuses on the top five keywords (based on ROI potential and your input) and create five dedicated content pages for your site.

4. We then perform ongoing link recruitment to ensure that the search engines index these keyword pages.

5. We provide ongoing keyword ranking reports, showing the current ranking for each of the five targeted keyword phrases on Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

At Innuity, we have a data-driven approach to natural search engine rankings and over the years we have continued to refine an approach to SEO that leverages (1) the data behind consumer behavior and (2) the search engine algorithms that are used to determine top rankings for specific keywords.

Shivonne Byrne, Innuity CMO