Author Archives: Small Business Planned

About Small Business Planned

*** DO NOT DELETE THIS PROFILE *** This is the profile of David Moloney, web designer from smallbusinessplanned.com. This profile allows smallbusinessplanned to continually deliver your hosting bonuses. If you delete this profile, your hosting bonuses will also cease. If you have any questions, please email me at david@smallbusinessplanned.com

Selecting the Best Phone Answering Service: 10 Tips

6 Replies

As discussed previously, a phone answering service can be a cheap and effective way to ensure every call to your small business is professionally answered at all times. But before you search and sign up for a provider in the same breath, you need to know what to look for. Here’s what you need to assess:

10 Tips to Choose the Best Phone Answering Service

1. What Are Your Set Monthly Charge?

This is pretty straight forward. Almost every phone answering service will have a fixed monthly charge, regardless of usage. This monthly charge will vary quite considerably. Make a note of this set charge so you can weigh up its value against the other rating factors.

2. What Are Your Call Answering Rates?

This is your variable usage cost. Almost every phone answering provider will charge you a fee per phone call they answer. Again, this amount will vary considerably depending on the overall terms of the contract. Sometimes this set fee is as low as 20c per call. Sometimes it’s as high as $2. Sometimes providers charge out their labour by the second. Make sure you do your sums to estimate how many calls you are likely to receive and then how much this is likely to cost each month. Be aware that as your small business grows, you will receive more and more calls (and more spam calls) which will increase your monthly bill. Thankfully, providers often have multiple call plans that you are able to switch between. These plans will cater to low and high call numbers.

3. What Are Your Action Rates? (such as a booking / message)

Chances are you’re going to want your call service to help you out with more than just answering the phone. A customer is either going to want you to make a booking or pass on a message. Your virtual receptionist service will often charge an additional fee for each of these actions. Again this can range from 20c to $2. Put these charges in context with all the other fees charged. Estimate your total calls, then likely total actions. This will help you gauge what your true cost per call is likely to be.

4. What Hours & Days Can Your Phone Service Operate?

Some phone services operate 5 days a week, 9-5pm. Others operate 7 days a week 24 hours a day. I recommend selecting a 24/7 operator as this will separate you from your competition. You’d be amazed that some people do actually pick up the phone and call to inquire at 2am in the morning. Seriously, I’ve seen the call logs.

5. How Well Can Your Phone Service Inform Callers?

It’s important to understand that the person answering the phone on your behalf becomes the spokesperson of your business. In your caller’s eyes, they are your business and everything they say is what your business stands for. A good phone answering service will have a set of FAQ on hand, along with product and service information. This is only natural as people are likely calling up to find out some basic information before wanting to speak to someone. Do not make the mistake of employing a phone service that will merely answer the phone and then say ‘umm…. not sure… I’ll get someone to call you back’. This screams alarm bells to the prospective customer.

6. Can The Phone Service Synchronize With Your Business Communication Tools?

The real power of a virtual receptionist comes in being able to synchronize with your business communication tools such as appointment calendars or messaging protocols. Ask your phone service to name the programs they can integrate with remotely. If they can enter data directly into Google Apps for instance, this will save you time.

7. Can You Have a Trial Period?

How do you ensure that the phone answering service you choose is the best fit for your business before committing to a contract? You need a trial period. These ‘Try before you by’ periods will give you an indication of the service standards. Try calling them a few times at different times. Listen to how the service answers more general questions. If you are happy with their levels of service then give them a tick. If not, you haven’t committed to a lengthy contract. Just set realistic expectations. Your phone service can never be a 100% in and out replacement of your business. Instead, view them as a close second.

8. What is the Length of Your Contract?

Some phone services will insist on an annual service contract. Other ones allow you to go on a month by month contract. If you’re new to the relationship I suggest choosing the shortest option possible, before committing to an extended term if things all go smoothly. In general, the longer the contract, the cheaper the fixed and variable costs will be.

9. Can You Provide Monthly Call Reports?

As you won’t be answering the phone, it’s easy to start to ‘lose touch’ with the number of calls and the nature of the inquiries your receiving. A good phone answering service will be able to provide monthly call statistics such as:

The number of calls you received
The times each call have come in
The types of calls received (inquiry only, booking, information etc)

Track this information on a monthly basis to see whether you would actually be better off modifying your service. You may end up noticing that your business needs an on site receptionist in the mornings, but can then revert to a phone answering service from 2pm onwards.

10. How Do I Contact my Phone Answering Service Provider?

Do you have an account contact at the phone answering service, and if so, can you easily contact them via phone and email? If something goes wrong with the service you will need to be able to rectify the problem as soon as possible.

In closing, I recommend you enter the above areas into a spreadsheet or document and assess the phone answering service options against one another. Then go for it.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

Phone Answering Service: Do You Need One?

9 Replies

If you’re a small business service provider or someone that’s constantly on the go, being contactable is a key area of your business. If your customers can’t reach you, your level of trust and professionalism will suffer and they’ll be less likely to refer new business to you. And if prospects can’t contact you, they’ll spend their money with a competitor and you miss your important first sale. Ouch. Enter the phone answering service. I’m going to explain how this service rocks and how it beats any of the alternatives for small business service providers.

What’s a Phone Answering Service?

A phone answering service is a paid service that has an external company remotely answer telephone calls that are incoming to your small business. The external company will answer incoming phone calls as if they are part of your business and then answer basic questions, make bookings or pass on messages directly to you either by email of SMS. So in short, a phone answering service will take care of all you incoming calls and send any actions to you via an agreed channel. This frees you up to concentrate on other areas of your business.

A Phone Answering Service Will Improve You Business

Can’t I Just be Contactable on My Mobile Phone?

Sure that’s an option. An option that many small business owners take. Everyone’s got a mobile phone, but you need to realise that these present some negatives both to your customers and yourself. These include:

Mobile phones are more expensive for your customers to call. This increase in cost can put prospective customers off, especially if they believe they are going to engage you in an extended conversation
Having a mobile phone number as your sole method of communication can paint your small business as being less trust worthy or more amateurish than other more established businesses. A local phone number provides more trust and a feeling that this business is solid and will be easy to deal with if difficulties arise
When answering your mobile phone, you could be anywhere. There’s a good chance that you won’t have your essential business tools nearby to answer questions that arise. This may come across as unprofessional and disorganised
Again, as you may answer your mobile phone anywhere, the background ambiance may distract from the conversation. You could be in a noisy area which makes key details of the conversation hard to hear. Let alone jotting down notes on a piece of paper that you haven’t got.
Yes phone reception is getting better, but there are still pockets of the country which can drop out or render you uncontactable. Good bye service
Listing your mobile phone number means that people could call you 24/7. Now that’s annoying

Can I Just Hire a Receptionist?

Yes by all means. And a lot of small business owners do. Receptionists are a good option because the receptionist will answer your calls and sort out the details on your behalf. They can also perform other duties essential to the ongoing health of the business. But with this benefit comes cost. A receptionst adds a significant cost to the running of your business. For small business owners that are just starting out, this cost is often unpalatable. Who can afford an extra couple of hundred dollars a week? Ouch. This increases your break even point. And whats more, a receptionist can’t answer calls every minute of the day. A receptionist is a fantastic option for established businesses, however small businesses that are just starting out, simply can’t afford it.

All in Favour of a Phone Answering Service

So how do we maximise the benefits of a fulltime receptionist, but minimise the cost? The answer is with a virtual receptionist. I’ve been involved with a small business that has used a virtual receptionist for about two years. The service pays for itself in the first two days of the month, by answering sales calls that would otherwise be missed. And best of all, it costs a fraction of a full time employee. About $300 or so per month, depending on the number of calls you receive. And that’s for 24 hour service. I genuinely believe more small businesses should use them.

There are a number of companies and solo providers who offer virtual receptionist services. If you’re just starting out, differentiating between each offering can be confusing. For this reason I recommend you read my article on selecting the best phone answering service for your small business.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

Understanding Perception and Reality

4 Replies

Understanding the difference between perception and reality is one of the most important skills you need to not only excel in small business, but to excel in life. It helps you relate, understand the point of view of others and persuade.

Throughout our lives and especially in our formative years we are exposed to thousands of conversations, incidents and transactions that all shape how we perceive the World. This makes us who we are today.

The Gap Between Perception and Reality is Important to Understand

What’s Perception and Reality?

The answer to this question can become quite philosophical, possibly requiring Keanu Reeves. Perception is how someone interprets a situation based on their life understandings. Reality is how the situation actually is, as accepted by the accomplished experts in the field who have access to all the information.

Sometimes We’re an Expert, Sometimes We’re Not

There are some topics we know inside out and others that we wouldn’t have a clue about. For the things we do know a lot about, our perceptions are close to reality. We intimately understand the subject and how to get the best out of it. For things that we don’t know much about our perceptions can flap in the wind, shaped largely by heresay. Edward de Bono is a guru of these perception misrepresentations and comments:

“Most of the mistakes in thinking are inadequacies of perception rather than mistakes of logic.”
- Edward de Bono

Perception Case study

It’s our past knowledge of topics that defines how we approach them. Let’s take a look at how this works.

What are you an expert in? If it’s potato salad, chances are you know the best potatoes to use, the most appropriate green salads to add and the best mayonnaise. It’s a safe bet to assume you can get a good deal on each of these products and get the freshest produce available. You know where to look and you know where to get the best price. You’re a pro. High five me.

In this case you have the knowledge and experience to achieve the best solution. You’re not swayed by other people’s potentially bad advice and you’re comfortable in your decisions. Your perceptions about making top notch potato salad and the reality of making top notch potato salad are closely related.

But visit another environment where you don’t have a lot of experience in, say healthcare, cookware or architecture and it’s a different story. As you don’t have a lot of experience in these areas, you have an information disadvantage. Enter your perceptions to fill in the blanks.

If You Don’t Understand a Subject You Will Draw on Your Previous Biases

Perceptions act as a shortcut to ‘fill in the blanks’ when you have knowledge gaps. Sometimes this perception gives us the right direction, such as ‘trust the man in uniform’ or ‘the woman in that expensive car will order high quality products’. Sometimes these perceptions ring true. But other times perception lets us down e.g ‘That restaurant is too cheap it must be terrible’, ‘I love that singer, so her new album is going to be great’ or 9 out of every 10 small businesses fail.

How to Overcome the Perception Divide

You need to admit to yourself that you are not an expert
If there’s time and opportunity, research your topic to get a general understanding of the area
Approach an impartial expert on the subject. Ensure you’re choosing someone who has been there, rather than ‘just knows’
Clarify the information learned by cross checking it online or by posting questions online
Approach the supplier or primary and ask for their recommendations, noting any similarities in the other advice you’ve receive

Now obviously, the steps above are quite involved and would therefore only be suitable for more expensive or high involvement purchases. For lower priced items a simple (but thorough) online search should be conducted to cross check specifications and recommendations. Try adding the terms ‘review’ or ‘forum’ to your Google search to uncover more helpful results.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

Gary is the Most Successful Man in the World

Small Business Consistency Pays Off

3 Replies

Small Business Branding consistency is one of the most fundamentally important factors in the keys to your business success. If you want to be known for a level of quality or for being a business that delivers something different, you need to back this up at every opportunity. One miss and you’re down the plug hole, without any jam donuts.

Small Business Branding Consistency is Important

Small Business Branding Fail – My story

Here’s a great example of consistency letting a small business down:

About a week or so ago I bought an online present for my wife. The gift was for a service from a fellow small business. Overall, the interaction had some good and poor elements. It’s a shame, because with a few simple tweaks essentially costing $0, the whole experience could have gone from ok to memorable.

Let’s look at the pro’s and cons of my small business experience

Pros of my Experience

Good website address
Enticing website design and functionality
Great customer service
Good product

Cons of my Experience

In the mail I received a generic ‘to who it concerns’ letter, rather than a personalised letter
My letter wasn’t personally signed
My letter was ripped
The logo on the letter was pixelated. Gasp!

So it turns out I had a really good experience at the start of my interaction, but the delivery of the service (voucher) was quite poor. And guess what I remember most – the last thing that I experienced, being the poor voucher. The service attached to the voucher is great, however its voucher representation is not consistent with the quality service it represents.

If the small business owner did a simple mail merge, signed the letter, cut it with a sharp knife and used a better logo, things would have turned out so much better. I would have been a happy customer who had full confidence in the small business.

This story illustrates the importance of small business branding consistency at every turn. And how each interaction can either work to enhance your expectations or erode your trust. We each have a baseline of expectation when we look to engage a small business. For instance if we are speaking to a mechanic, we’d expect more of a matter of fact conversation. If speaking to a lawyer, we’d expect something more formal. Likewise if we visited the website of a global brand, we’d expect a bit more than from the local pizza joint. By understanding these expectations you can not only work to deliver on them, but also exceed them. And that’s what will separate you from your competition.

Important Areas For Business Consistency

Let’s take a look at your small business through a customer lens, so we can try and determine whether your business is acting consistently across all customer points.

Your Website

Is your website quick to load, giving the user a seemless experience?
Is your website easy to use, making it easier to get information?
Do all the links on your website work?
Does your website address reflect your business name?
Does the look and feel of your website reflect your other business operations?
Does your website look good?

Your Storefront

It’s essential that your storefront is clean inside and out and reflects the personality and pricing point of your products and services. I’ve covered this in detail with mistakes that damage your small business

On the Phone

Does your business pick up the phone quickly?
How do you answer the phone? Is it hiwelcometojimsplantsthisisjamie can I help you? Can you be understood and do you come across as approachable?
Does your voicemail message give enough information, without being too long?
Do you return phone calls promptly, indicating this on your voicemail message?

Goods

Are your goods presented in their best light?
Are your goods easily accessible and not cluttered?
Can people receive goods in perfect condition?
Is your delivery process seemless?

Take a moment to look at each part of your business. Have a friend pose as a customer or even better, hire a professional mystery shopper. The closer we are to our small business, the more difficult it is to see the view from a customers eyes. If you forget about how customers perceive you, your business is headed for a rocky decline.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

80 20 Rule: Pareto Principle

4 Replies

Have you heard of the 80 20 rule? Well, it’s official name is the Pareto Principle, named after the economist Vilfredo Pareto. The principle has been used successfully by Microsoft, 37signals and Tim Feriss to allocate effort for maximum results.

So what’s the go? In an ideal World we’d like to believe that effort and results are equally rewarded in a fair exchange. 1 unit of effort should reap 1 unit of results. But this romantic view does not match up with reality. Effort and reward have a non-linear relationship. Sometimes we can plug away at a task for hours and get minimal results, other times results seem to flow after only a short period of time. This can be frustrating. Welcome to the world of the Pareto Principle.

The Pareto Principle: 80% of Effects Come From 20% of Causes

Back in 1906, Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the population. He also noted that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of his pea pods.

Later, the economist Joseph M. Juran took Pareto’s work and started to apply his logic to management theories far broader than Pareto’s original 80 20 rule construct. Juran pretty much breathed life into the Pareto Principle and was responsible for its worldwide adoption and recognition as we know it today. In keeping with the principle, you could say that Juran put in 80% of the effort to promote and teach the principle, but he himself only received only 20% of the spoils. It’s a cruel world isn’t it?

Pareto Principle Examples

80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
80% of your results come from 20% of your employees
80% of your sales come from 20% of your items
80% of the time you are using 20% of an applications features
80% of the time you spend fixing problems are caused by only 20% of the problems
80% of the custard scroll is just pastry. The other 20% is custard

Well, I made up that last one. Truth be known the 80 20 rule is probably closer to 95-5 for that one. They just keep reducing the amount of custard don’t they?

So How Can I Use the 80 20 Rule?

Bear in mind that the Pareto Principle is a guiding principle, it’s not an absolute truth. That means it would be silly to believe that the principle holds true across every case. The premise of the principle should make you evaluate what you are doing and have you focus your effort to get the most bang for your buck.

By understanding that you may be allocating 80% of your time towards 20% of your clients, you should begin to reevaluate your priorities and whether all your client relationships offer the same value. Maintaining problem clients can in fact be costing you money (not to mention emotional stress). Perhaps under-servicing them or tactfully recommending them to a competitor may free up your time for other more profitable ventures?

The Pareto Principle should teach you to:

Concentrate on servicing (and acquiring) your most profitable customers
Concentrate your efforts on your most heavily used services
Concentrate your efforts on improving your most widely reported problems

By focusing on the low hanging fruit, you’re better placed to receive results and rewards higher than the effort you need to use. Now that’s smart business.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
sbp.strongerbranch.com

ColorPic: Determine Any Colour on Your Screen

13 Replies

Ever wanted to determine the exact colour of an item on your screen? I’m going to show you how you can do it in a sinch.

We ask a lot from our computers. We expect that our applications will seamlessly integrate with other applications, without any errors. Unfortunately often this is not the case. Formats get messed up, items get cropped and even colours get changed. This drives everyone insane.

ColorPic Helps You Determine Any Onscreen Colour

I’ve talked a lot about the importance of branding and consistency. One key element of consistency is colour. Sure, you may have thoroughly documented your brand’s colours, but what if you’re stepping outside these colours and you’d like to match another colour your working with, perhaps from a photo or PDF?

By golly, this can be a hassle.

If you don’t have access to the source files, you’ll need a professional photo editing program to determine the colours used. And that will cost a bit of money. But never fear, I’ve stumbled across a free program that lets you view the colour specifications of anything on your screen, giving you instant CMYK or HECS values. These values can then be matched in your work.

You Need ColorPic

ColorPic is a neat little (only 500kb) program that you can download for free and have sitting on your desktop. Whenever you wish to get the specifics of a colour, simply open the program and hover over the colour in question. You can even save the colour to a custom palette, allowing you to recall it later. Too simple. See the ColorPic quickstart guide for more details

My ColorPic Tutorial

To demonstrate how easy this program is to use, check out my video below:

Download ColorPic

Download ColorPic for Free from Iconico

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

Anchor Text: Mix it Up

12 Replies

Wait a second. It looks like the playing field has changed. In my previous article about the importance of anchor text I recommended using the same anchor text consistently across all your articles and directory posts. I said that over time this would show Google that you are the authority for a given keyword phrase. Well, now Google aren’t fans of this arrangement. You need to mix up your anchor text.

Anchor Text is Best Mixed Up

According to SEOWIZZ, it turns out this is now bad anchor text advice. Google have changed their algorithm to combat spammers, and anchor text was in their firing line. Tim Grice comments:

“The research clearly shows, in terms of ranking, building a strong domain is far more important than anchor text.”

Google are on a mission to make their search engine as human as possible, all the while trying to reduce the prominence of sites that try and ‘game’ the system at the expense of quality.

From Google’s point of view, it would be abnormal for a site to be constantly receiving the same anchor text linking in. There are millions of words in the English language and to think that different people are using the same phrase all the time to link to your site is probably stretching it. Google have therefore reduced the emphasis on links that are using the same anchor text phrase. They are still worth Google juice, just not as much.

So How Should We Use Anchor Text?

To get value from your anchor text, you need to mix it up. So rather than using the anchor text ‘Brisbane Valet’. Mix it up with similar text such as ‘Valet of Brisbane’ or ‘Brisbane’s Valet Service’. Choose four or so phrases and alternate using each one. This will make your links look more natural to Google and will therefore carry more influence.

It’s also a good idea to have back links to various pages of your website – rather than just to your home page. This shows Google that your website has depth.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned

Autoplay Youtube Videos Suck

13 Replies

Looking to upset your readers? Then you need to set your website to autoplay YouTube videos.

If you’re thinking of setting your website’s video setting to autoplay don’t. You’ll be sacrificing readers. Having a video that automatically starts the moment a visitor arrives on your site is a bad idea.

Looking to Autoplay YouTube Videos? Don't.

Do Not AutoPlay YouTube Videos on Your Website

Because…

1. The auto start videos act as an interruption, forcing your readers to make a decision that they may not be ready for. When your reader lands on your site for the first time, they’re trying to interpret your site’s purpose, navigation and reputation. This is a delicate phase. Kind of like a timid bird . If you spook the reader, by taking them outside their comfort zone, they are likely to retreat to the back button as quickly as possible. This is exacerbated by not being able to find a ‘stop video’ button.

2. Most videos have sound. Sometimes users are in an environment where they prefer that sounds weren’t playing. This could be at work or when someone is sleeping next to them. Imagine the users embarrassment when they load a site, and a video automatically starts bellowing: “I Can Tell You The Secret of Miracle Wealth!” You betcha the user is going to hit the back button in a flash

3. And each time the reader goes back to the home page, the video is going to begin loading again from the start. Repeating the first phrase ad nauseum for eternity. How annoying is that?

Advantages of Autoplay YouTube Videos

But ok, let’s look at the other side of the fence for a moment. Surely there are some advantages to using autoplay YouTube videos. These include:

1. Showing the world that you can code autoplay YouTube videos (Great article btw Brian)

2. Your video gets more views (whether it’s viewed to the end is another question)

3. You’re highlighting the content in the video. Effectively forcing engagement on your readers. Surely this has got to work for some readers?

Hmmm… those advantages don’t really win the jam donuts.

My advice is to happily feature your YouTube videos on your site, but let the user decide whether and when they want to play them. Don’t alienate your readers by forcing choice on them. When you force choice, people are inclined to retreat to the back button.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
sbp.strongerbranch.com

Rework 37Signals Book Review

8 Replies

Rework by 37Signals is one of seven books I recently ordered from Amazon. After the friendly delivery man handed me the box, I dived in to breathe the new books. I found myself drawn to this unassuming small business book. It jumped out, yearning ‘read me’.

The combination of the premium simple black cover, the thicker pages, the bigger font and the accompanying cartoons all worked. I was spellbound.

Rework by 37Signals

As I was skimming through the book, I found myself settling in and reading the pages in detail. Within a few minutes I was fully committed. Those other books would have to wait.

What’s This Book About?

“If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I’m investing in REWORK every time. A must read for every entrepreneur.”
-Mark Cuban, co-founder of Broadcast.com & owner of the Dallas Mavericks

Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson are two talented fellows. Talented because they can concisely articulate a crucial point in a paragraph. This is great for you because it cuts out a lot of the chaff and gets you straight to the information you need to super charge your small business.

The book focuses on implementable process and lifestyle decisions entrepreneurs can use to achieve success. This includes shunning meetings, sharing knowledge, keeping short lists and hiring correctly.

Physical Book Dimensions

Rework by 37Signals is 280 pages. It’s engineered for easy reading. The text is about 14 font at 1.5 spacing. It’s an A5 hardcover with each page thicker than normal, contributing to a ‘premium’ feel. Each point is rarely over two pages and is always prefaced by a likable cartoon sketch.

Why Should You Listen to 37Signals?

37Signals is an American software company founded in 1999 that originally consulted in web design. Its core focus now is web application development. So, put simply they design non customized software solutions. And these solutions are good. For a company of under ten people, it’s estimated they had a revenue of $8 million. In a somewhat ‘against the grain’ approach, they endorse moving away from outsourcing, staying small and hands dirty by achieving success themselves.

What do I Rate the Book?

Over 250 people have rated the book on Amazon, with the average rating being 4/5 stars. It does deliver clear actionable advice. Some of it common sense, other acts as validation. There are a few gems in there though. I have to agree with the 4/5 rating. Very few books deliver so simply.

I love the fact that you can start or pickup the book from anywhere and walk away with a snippet of great information.

Who’s the Book For?

I completely recommend buying this book if you’re a small business owner, or wish to give a present to another small business owner. The information is to the point, actionable and clear. Many business owners take years to grasp the concepts in this book, taking the hard way to success. This book provides a clear understanding of what to focus on and what not to focus on. And it’s often the opposite to what you’d expect.

Can I see Some Sample Content?

Sure, here’s 37Signals’ 13 Simple Rules for Success in Business, taken from the book. This provides some summary snippets (and cartoon illustrations) such as:

Workaholism sucks
No time isn’t an excuse
Editing is essential
Go to sleep
Focusing on you
Saying no
Sharing
Passing on good people

That should more than whet your appetite for more. It’s also only a couple of bucks. Checkout Rework on Amazon for more of a glimpse, along with the great reviews.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned