5 Ways to Grow Your Business During the Recession

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While most companies are focused on surviving the recession, smart companies are making efforts to grow during the recession. 

Thor Harris, small business wealth expert and president of Percepture, a marketing, branding and strategic media relations company, gives  BusinessNewsDaily readers advice on how to expand your business while others around you are floundering.

Expand your sphere of influence. Networking is key. Set a goal of attending an outside event where you can make new business contacts two nights a week. Do not attend industry-focused networking events. There are too many similar people looking for the same potential clients at these kinds of events.

Cut the fat out of your current budget. Look at everything you can trim that is nonessential and reevaluate your entire budget.

Tap in to your attorneys and accountants for business referrals. Remind your contacts that you will give them a percent of any new business they throw your way.  Same with your current clients, ask them for recommendations and referrals.

Use social media tools. LinkedIn is an excellent way to tap into new prospects, but most people don't use it or know how to. Learn how to use LinkedIn.

Take a break. Running your own business is hard. Take one full day off a week and turn everything off. Recharging your personal batteries is a must.  

Harris has managed public relations and innovative marketing programs for some of the world's largest companies and best-known brands —  including Daimler-Chrysler, Sony, Foot Locker, The Islands Of The Bahamas, Ingersoll Rand, Konica Minolta, Century 21 and ChevronTexaco. He sits on the Board Member of the American Red Cross, Business Marketing Association, and the New Jersey Entrepreneur Network and is a member of the NJ Technology Council and the American Chemical Society.

By BusinessNewsDaily Staff

Small Business Matters

Do you have the mindset to be an entrepreneur? Many of our veterans do.

In fact, of the 24 million military veterans in the U.S, four million are small business owners.

Moreover, statistics show that the success rate of these veteran-owned businesses is higher than other startups - perhaps a reflection of the discipline, skills, and leadership experience acquired in military service.

Providing further help, there are a number of tools and services from the SBA, VetBiz and other non-profit organizations specifically designed to help veterans with the formation and expansion of their business ventures.

This following list summarizes some of the general business guides, financing options, incentives, and other resources available to help veteran-owned businesses succeed.

Getting General Business Advice

If you are a current or prospective veteran business owner, familiarize yourself with the SBA’s Office of Veterans Business Development (OVBD) Web site - here you can find assistance, outreach and support for veterans interested in starting or expanding a small business.

Financing for the Veteran-Owned Small Business

In the past 20 months, the SBA approved more than $250 million in loan guarantees to more than 2,800 veterans and their spouses.

Much of this funding comes from the SBA’s Patriot Express Pilot Loan. Launched in June 2007, the program is a streamlined loan product based on the agency’s SBA Express Program, but enhanced with guaranty and interest rate characteristics.

Loans are available up to $500,000 and qualify for SBA’s maximum guaranty of up to 85 percent for loans of $150,000 or less, and up to 75 percent for loans over $150,000 (up to $500,000).
The loan can be used for business purposes, including start-up, expansion, equipment purchases, working capital, inventory or business-related real estate purchases.

For more information about the loan, qualification criteria, and how to get started visit the Patriot Express home page here.

For information about other available loans from the federal government as well as programs in your state, use this government-developed Loans and Grants Search Tool.

Franchising Incentives for Veteran Entrepreneurs

If you want to be your own boss but are wary of the startup risks, buying a franchise offers an appealing alternative.

For veterans considering buying a franchise there are also added incentives. The VetFran program, started by the International Franchise Association, provides financial incentives to veteran franchise buyers that are not available to civilian franchise investors. Some of the 200 participating franchisors waive training fees, others discount franchise fees, but all agree to offer incentives for veterans.

A current list of participating companies and the discounts these franchise systems offer is available on this Web site, www.franchise.org, under 'VetFran Directory.'

If you like the idea of a franchise, make sure to do your research first. This guide provides helpful advice on buying and evaluating a franchise and also includes information on how to avoid common scams.

For more click here

The big push for small business is jobs

The SBA's chief lays out the steps Washington is taking to create jobs on Main Street.

FORTUNE -- Small Business Administrator Karen Mills' Washington D.C. office overlooks a railroad where trains whiz by hauling freight. It's a reminder, she says, that American industry is still working. These days we could use that reminder. American manufacturing is in the tank, and small business lending -- a much-cited economic driver -- fell again in the second quarter, on the heels of a lackluster five years. On the upside, loans backed by the Small Business Administration are on the rise, with banks breaking records in SBA lending last year. Mills sat down recently with Fortune's Anne VanderMey to talk about what her office is doing to give small business a leg-up and help bring American unemployment back down to earth. Edited excerpts:

Q. What are the SBA's big projects right now?

A. Well, the big push is jobs. As you probably know, half of the people who work in this country work for small businesses. And it's more than that, because two out of every three net new jobs come from small business. So we mean it when we talk about small business being the engine for the economy. We are focused, and have been from day one, on making sure that these small businesses have the tools that they need.

What can the government to do drive that job creation?

It's not government that creates jobs; it's small business. Our job is to make sure they have the access to capital, the access to contracting opportunities, and the help, advice and mentoring that they need to go out and be successful.

So we're providing capital, we're providing mentorship, and we're doing it in conjunction with existing infrastructure that is out there instead of reinventing the wheel. We're working with big companies like IBM (IBM) and GE (GE) to find ways to help small business thrive as part of their supply chains. We're also developing public-private partnerships like Startup America, which Steve Case is leading, that provide mentors for entrepreneurs.

We've streamlined the website, boosted our venture capital-style small business investment fund, cut in half the time it takes for small businesses on a government contract to get paid, and cut the licensing time for a loan down from 18 months to less than six. We also  just closed a record year in SBA lending -- $30 billion. In October 2008, the credit markets just froze, and small businesses were telling me, "I need a loan to save my businesses." We stepped in with the Recovery Act and raised our loan guarantees to 90%. That was exactly the right medicine, because our loan volume came rushing back. We were also able to bring back about 1,200 banks that hadn't made a loan since 2007. So now you had more businesses with more local points of access. They could walk in and say, "Well, if you don't want to just give me a loan, how about a loan with an SBA guarantee?" With the passage of the Small Business Jobs Act, we're continuing these 90% guarantees that have led us to a record quarter. This really is the best year ever in SBA history.

But loan volume for the smallest businesses, the ones asking for loans less than $150,000, actually fell 13% in the last two years. Is that a concern?

Exactly right. Our loan buying has been at record levels, but there are still gaps. One of the gaps is in the smallest loans and in the underserved communities. So we saw this about a year ago and we launched two important programs, Small Loan Advantage and the other is called Community Advantage. The objectives of both are to open up points of access and streamline the paperwork, without increasing the risk. We wanted to make small loans easier for the banks, where bigger loans can be more cost-efficient.

We've also opened up our flagship 7(a) lending program to community development financial institutions. Those lenders operate right there in the community and these are the people who know who's the great entrepreneur -- the one who we really should back, even if it doesn't look on paper like a traditional loan. That expanded access is going to provide more opportunity for these smaller businesses in these more underserved communities.

For more click here.

My Grand Experiment: Turning Off AdWords

By PAUL DOWNS
Monday, October 24, 9:36 a.m.: As I explained in my last post, I recently found myself with a surprising new problem: all the work we can handle. Because our backlog of orders is as high as I want it to be, I decided to take the opportunity to run an experiment: What would happen if I stopped running Google AdWords?

I have been spending $500 per day on sponsored search, and I believe the results have been well worth the money: $1.8 million in sales as of this morning. But I also believe this is a rare opportunity to see whether AdWords is doing the heavy lifting in our marketing or whether our search engine optimization efforts are yielding results as well.

In January, I started keeping track of the number of inquiries we get each day. The most we have received in a single day has been seven, which has happened three times. There have been 11 days when we received no inquiries. The daily average is 2.65. The weekly number has ranged from eight to 22, with an average of 13.5. So far this year, we have had a total of 569 inquiries.

My own prediction is that our number of inquiries will fall below average, and I would be surprised if it’s not a significant drop. If the number remains close to the average, it would imply that I could be spending a lot less on AdWords than I am now (here’s a previous post I wrote about my experiences with AdWords). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard from so-called S.E.O. experts that there is no need to pay for traffic, that I could just run a good S.E.O. campaign and the inquiries would come for free. The experts imply that people tend to ignore the paid links at the top of the page, in favor of the free links further down. I am deeply, deeply skeptical about this. And that’s why I’m running the test, starting today.

2:41 p.m.: We get a call from a furniture dealer in Tampa who is looking for a table with a logo. He says he was told to call us by a client who went to Google to look for tables with logos. He couldn’t remember whether the client had searched this week or not. Out of curiosity, I checked the search string “logo conference table.” We are the fourth and fifth free listings. Nos. 1 and 2 are competitors, and the third is an irrelevant result. Score one for S.E.O.

5:30 p.m. No other calls today.

Total for Monday: one inquiry.

Tuesday, October 25, 8:45 a.m.: I find an e-mail from a potential client who submitted our Request For Info form through the Web site at 8:35 the previous evening. He’s looking for a 12-foot square conference table. I search Google for “square conference table” (using Safari) to see where we land, and our “square and u-shaped tables” page is the eighth free listing on the first page of results. I’m loving the preview feature that Google has added to its results pages — to the right of each result is a gray arrow. Roll your mouse over it, and you see the whole page that the link points to. It’s a fast way to see what you are getting into before you click a link.

My salesman, Don, follows up with the potential client by e-mail. It turns out it’s a monastery where the monks have taken a vow of silence; the client requests that we not communicate by phone. Also in my in box this morning is an e-mail from a guy who wants me to convert a walnut tree in his backyard into a dining set. This most likely came through our old Web site, which listed lots of dining furniture. I send him an e-mail with a link to a lumber dealer who can evaluate the condition of the tree for him and give him the news that it takes several years to process the lumber before anything can be made from it.

5:30: No more calls or e-mails, and it’s time to go home.

Total for Tuesday: two inquiries. Week to date: three.

Wednesday, October 26, 9:39 a.m.: Incoming phone call from a local seminary. (Hmmm. The second inquiry this week from a religious organization.) The seminary is looking for a U-shaped table. The caller says he searched Google and found our site. I tried a search for “u shaped conference table” (using Chrome) and found that we were the top free listing.

5:30: No other action. Calling it a day.

Total for Wednesday: one inquiry. Week to date: four.

Thursday, October 27, 3:56 p.m.: An e-mail arrives from a possible client. I call her and learn that she searched “conference tables,” which returned a bunch of cheap-looking stuff she didn’t like. Seeing the suggested search string listing at the bottom of the page, she clicked on “custom conference tables” and found us. We are the top free listing for that search. When I first designed the new site, I imagined that “custom conference tables” would be a very heavily searched phrase, but our search stats reveal that “boardroom tables” gets more than 100 times as much traffic. I have since added a landing page to the site that specifically shows boardroom tables. This shows up near the top of the second page of free results. We do extremely well with “custom boardroom tables” — it’s the first free result — but unfortunately it gets less than 1 percent of the traffic that “boardroom tables” gets.

Total for Thursday: one inquiry. Week to date: five.

For more information go here