At a growing company, I think one of the many difficult things is communication. If you communicate ‘too much†nothing gets done because you're in meetings all day. If you don't communicate enough, then no one knows what's going on or in some cases even what do to.
David Hassell, Founder and CEO of San Francisco based 15Five is out to change that.
The premise is very simple. 15Five provides employees with some simple questions to answer (it takes 15 minutes to complete). Their managers can then read these reports in about 5 minutes. These managers can then take the employee reports and roll them up into reports that their managers can read in 5 minutes as well.
At a growing company, I think one of the many difficult things is communication. If you communicate ‘too much†nothing gets done because you're in meetings all day. If you don't communicate enough, then no one knows what's going on or in some cases even what do to.
David Hassell, Founder and CEO of San Francisco based 15Five is out to change that.
The premise is very simple. 15Five provides employees with some simple questions to answer (it takes 15 minutes to complete). Their managers can then read these reports in about 5 minutes. These managers can then take the employee reports and roll them up into reports that their managers can read in 5 minutes as well.
Small business owners often have more important things to do than manage multiple different spreadsheets, repeatedly checking to make sure that data is consistent between customer accounts, inventory, and sales. However, these tasks are essential, so luckily some cloud-based solutions have popped up in recent years to help businesses simplify these tasks and avoid manually updating multiple spreadsheets over and over again.
Now, small businesses have another option to consider. TradeGecko is a cloud-based application that aims to help small businesses manage inventory and sales, along with customer accounts and data.
The application first launched to the public back in October. And now, thanks to a $650,000 seed funding round, the application is integrating with other SaaS applications for businesses, such as Xero and Shopify.
These integrations will allow TradeGecko users to connect their online storefronts, accounting software, and other applications directly to their TradeGecko account, so that relevant data is updated automatically and in real-time. The Shopify integration is currently available to TradeGecko users, and integration with Xero is coming soon.
TradeGecko was created to help small business owners with various tasks such as managing customer accounts and data, keeping track of stock levels and inventory, and keeping all sales channels synchronized and up-to-date in one central system. These new integrations simply eliminate a step in the process of keeping information up-to-date, since many of TradeGecko's users already use these types of applications and services.
The photo above shows many of the different features of the TradeGecko dashboard, from tracking the value of inventory to updating user information and even tracking sales throughout the month.
The application offers plans ranging from $49 a month to $499 a month. Plans vary based on how many orders and products need to be tracked and managed and how many user logins are needed to manage the account. A 21-day free trial is also available.
TradeGecko is based in Singapore and was founded in January by three entrepreneurs from New Zealand â€" Carl Thompson and Cameron and Bradley Priest. Since its launch, over 200 trial accounts have been opened in 26 different countries.
AboutOurWork is a relatively new service, started by serial entrepreneur's David Hunegnaw and Brooke Paul that helps businesses find other businesses.
I'm not entirely convinced of the need for this kind of service, but I do think it has promise and I've been wrong more than once!
Facebook is a great advertising platform for businesses to reach consumers and in some ways other businesses. Twitter is a social engagement platform for content. LinkedIn is great for reaching out business professionals.
AboutOurWork, based in Columbus, Ohio, is a network focused on matching the BUSINESS to another BUSINESS. That's the big difference.
With AboutOurWork you get  a company profile and the ability to make your company profile your web site â€" with no AboutOurWork branding.
Recently AboutOurWork launched a new service â€" MatchUp which is pretty innovative.
From their web site, “MatchUp™ is our proprietary recommendation engine that identifies companies highly complimentary to yours and makes the necessary introductions. Automagically. Simply provide the information that best describes your business and let MatchUp™ do the rest.†MatchUp tells you if another business would be a good client, vendor or collaborator.
There's more to AboutOutWork such as analytics and a “connected†service.
If you love networking and connecting with other businesses and like to try out new things â€" give AboutOurWork a try. It's basic features are free and then you can pay for more services.
Small business owners are known for their resiliency. Heading into 2013, small businesses have survived the big box invasion and weathered the most challenging economy in recent history.
While The National Federation of Independent Business' recent report on small business owners' optimism for the coming year was disheartening, recent trends and the success of Small Business Saturday should give us hope.
Small businesses remain at the heart of the U.S. economy and are poised to drive significant growth in 2013. There are approximately 23 million small businesses in America, which account for 54 percent of U.S. sales, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, and that number will continue to grow.
Hiring at large organizations has remained stagnant, driving more experienced people to leave the corporate world and start their own small businesses, and in turn hiring more employees. In fact, small businesses have provided 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net new jobs since the 1970′s.
Small Business Saturday, which took place on November 24th, proved that consumers are willing to buy from local merchants. Consumers spent $5.5 billion at participating independent retailers, surpassing estimates of $5.3 billion, according to the National Federation of Independent Business and American Express. American Express reported that transactions at small business merchants increased approximately 21 percent compared to last year.
The U.S. government has recognized the value of Small Business Saturday as well, with elected officials in all 50 states as well as President Obama voicing their support. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a Small Business Saturday Resolution supporting efforts to encourage consumers to shop small, and to raise awareness of the importance of small businesses.
Additionally, U.S. small businesses are now emerging as global players. They are leveraging eCommerce technology and social media to connect with new customers around the world. And, according to a survey conducted by Interactive Media in Retail Group, global eCommerce sales are expected to surpass $1.25 trillion in 2013.
Even in an uncertain economic climate, it's reassuring to see the recent success of small businesses. If the government and consumers both in the U.S. and around the world continue the recent trend of supporting local businesses, we'll see in 2013 that small really can be mighty.
Girl self-employed in flower shop Photo via Shutterstock
AboutOurWork is a relatively new service, started by serial entrepreneur's David Hunegnaw and Brooke Paul that helps businesses find other businesses.
I'm not entirely convinced of the need for this kind of service, but I do think it has promise and I've been wrong more than once!
Facebook is a great advertising platform for businesses to reach consumers and in some ways other businesses. Twitter is a social engagement platform for content. LinkedIn is great for reaching out business professionals.
AboutOurWork, based in Columbus, Ohio, is a network focused on matching the BUSINESS to another BUSINESS. That's the big difference.
With AboutOurWork you get  a company profile and the ability to make your company profile your web site â€" with no AboutOurWork branding.
Recently AboutOurWork launched a new service â€" MatchUp which is pretty innovative.
From their web site, “MatchUp™ is our proprietary recommendation engine that identifies companies highly complimentary to yours and makes the necessary introductions. Automagically. Simply provide the information that best describes your business and let MatchUp™ do the rest.†MatchUp tells you if another business would be a good client, vendor or collaborator.
There's more to AboutOutWork such as analytics and a “connected†service.
If you love networking and connecting with other businesses and like to try out new things â€" give AboutOurWork a try. It's basic features are free and then you can pay for more services.
Technology and all of the features that come along with it are great. However, sometimes it's necessary to remove the noise, confusion and technicality and get back down to basics. Tune in as Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, a clean and simple contact management system, joins Brent Leary to discuss the benefits of removing the clutter to hone in on what really matters when it comes to customer relationship management (CRM).
* * * * *
Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
Jon Ferrara: Sure. Some people call me the ‘Don Quixote of Relationship Management.‘ I have been doing CRM and SFA longer than those acronyms have existed.
I dreamed up an idea called GoldMine and that idea was that it would empower the entire company to collaborate, communicate, nurture and build business relationship to grow that company's revenue and profitability. Â And I am back to fix what I think got off track in CRM. Because it is not about relationships.
CRM is a transactional logging system where you force your sales people to type in what they did and who they did it with so that management can run reports. The sales people today still live in their contact tools. Â Those contact tools are:
Outlook
Address Book
Google Contacts
But the problem is the way they communicate is scattered in six different tabs in browsers and three different apps, and desktops.
We are here to fix that with Nimble. Â Nimble helps your company turn conversations into cash.
Small Business Trends: Turn conversations into cash â€" a good thing.
Jon Ferrara: You know 20 years ago, I trademarked “Turn Your Contacts into Gold ®,†and we did that with GoldMine.  One of our secret sauces was this thing called automatic processes. I think that most business people don't need these complex systems that are out there today, these expensive CRM and marketing systems.
Most businesses between 5 and 25 people need about 10% to 20% of the functionality that all of these systems have. Â That's what GoldMine did so well. Â What Nimble does is gives you the core of things that you need to attract and retain customers. Â It is simple. It is:
Contact
Calendar
Communications
Social list engagement
Collaboration
There's a little bit of sales and marketing thrown in. Â That's all you need in a business today.
As your needs grow, we integrate the key things that allow you to extend where you need to extend. We integrated with HubSpot to manage leads and now they are our business partner.
So the division of Nimble is that we are going to integrate the core things that businesses use as they grow the marketing platforms, support platforms, listening platforms, collaboration platforms and even the sales platforms.
Small Business Trends: What's going on with this new partnership you have with HootSuite?
Jon Ferrara:Â HootSuite is a great social media dashboard. If you bring up a contact in your HootSuite stream or in Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin, you have no idea what you said or what your team members said. Â Or the history of the engagement or what is pending and who is going to do what.
By integrating to HootSuite, when you bring up a person who is talking to you, or about you, or your brand, you can see their complete history, if they are in Nimble, of every conversation on every channel that they ever had with you or your team â€" email, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin.
If they have commented on your stuff, if they have talked about your brand or you. Then you can schedule follow-up actions, activities, forecast deals and schedule activities for your team members that enable you all to stay on one page.
The reason that is important is because if you start using Nimble in sales, marketing, customers service, products and then in the executive suite, where everybody is on one page, you need to have that history in one single location.
That gets me to social selling, because I think that is the next beachhead that is going to happen as it moves from marketing and community management into the rest of the company. I think sales people are going to benefit the most from that engagement.  Because â€" don't sales people need to understand who their customer is?
Small Business Trends: They absolutely have to understand who their customer is, who their prospects are and the best way to build that relationship with those folks.
Jon Ferrara: That's right. Â So if you go into your Twitter stream or Facebook or Linkedin, you have a single identity. If you see in HootSuite somebody wanting to engage with, you can pull that person out of the Social River and put them in your Nimble database by clicking a button in HootSuite. That contact turns from a one dimensional Twitter profile into a three dimensional living and breathing person where we map out their profiles across all the networks, and show you who they are.
This allows you to look at their walls to figure out what you share in common and to begin to understand how you might best to approach them to develop the relationship required for them to open up to you about their business issues, which as a professional, you can then solve.
Mae West said:
“Out of site is out of mind. And out of mind is out of money, honey.â€
Small Business Trends: I don't know if I have ever had a conversation where you haven't brought in a Mae West quote.
Jon Ferrara: People don‘t know it, but she was a smart business woman.
Small Business Trends: If you watch those movies, she was all about business.
Jon Ferrara: Business baby.
Small Business Trends: Are there any other integrations that we should be on the lookout for?
Jon Ferrara: We're going to be announcing something every month. It is not just the big guys like Zendesk, Get Satisfaction, Yammer, SalesForce QuickBooks, but all the little guys.
Because ultimately, we need to stay focused on the core, key simple things that would empower you to attract and retain customers:
Contact calendar
Communications
Simple social list engagement
Basic sales and marketing
Small Business Trends: Where can people find out more?
Jon Ferrara: Follow me on Twitter where I teach every day. I am trying to empower people. Â I am @Jon_Ferrara. Â Find us at Nimble.com.
And for your community Brent, I would like to make this offer:
Register at:  Nimble Free Business Trial (normally 14 days)
Email: Â info@nimble.com
Subject line:  Extended 90 Day Free Business Trial, Brent Leary Interview Offer, Small Business Trends
This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
So 2013 is here â€" it's time to THINK fresh for 2013. Thinking fresh does not necessarily mean to START fresh and change, what it does mean is that you think every aspect of your business and what MIGHT need to change. One of these changes might be in regard to your accounting software.
I use Intuit's Quickbooks to mange my cash flow, as most small businesses do. Ironically (or not), I also use Freshbooks for accounting as it's online and I just find it so easy to use.
However, there are many alternatives on the market. Sage's Peachtree is one â€" it's desktop software. Other accounting services include Xero, Outright, Freshbooks, Indinero and Quickbooks Online. Some of these services are robust and have many features for growing businesses â€" other services are “light†and offer more limited features for smaller businesses.
Wave Accounting has made some recent change in their services:
Transactions with new “auto-categorizationâ€
Invoicing â€" rebuilt from the ground up, and accept credit card payments from your customers; powered by Stripe with “Pay Now†feature
Personal Finance â€" rebuilt for tighter integration w/ business finances. Includes budgeting and real time investment tracking, and net worth calculator â€" Essentially for those who have personal finances intertwined with business finances
Mobile apps â€" to be launched in January for Payroll Management and Receipt Scanning
Payroll â€" launched in all 50 states in November, now fully integrated with all the other Wave products
So 2013 is here â€" it's time to THINK fresh for 2013. Thinking fresh does not necessarily mean to START fresh and change, what it does mean is that you think every aspect of your business and what MIGHT need to change. One of these changes might be in regard to your accounting software.
I use Intuit's Quickbooks to mange my cash flow, as most small businesses do. Ironically (or not), I also use Freshbooks for accounting as it's online and I just find it so easy to use.
However, there are many alternatives on the market. Sage's Peachtree is one â€" it's desktop software. Other accounting services include Xero, Outright, Freshbooks, Indinero and Quickbooks Online. Some of these services are robust and have many features for growing businesses â€" other services are “light†and offer more limited features for smaller businesses.
Wave Accounting has made some recent change in their services:
Transactions with new “auto-categorizationâ€
Invoicing â€" rebuilt from the ground up, and accept credit card payments from your customers; powered by Stripe with “Pay Now†feature
Personal Finance â€" rebuilt for tighter integration w/ business finances. Includes budgeting and real time investment tracking, and net worth calculator â€" Essentially for those who have personal finances intertwined with business finances
Mobile apps â€" to be launched in January for Payroll Management and Receipt Scanning
Payroll â€" launched in all 50 states in November, now fully integrated with all the other Wave products
While writing this bit for this cartoon, I couldn't get over the nagging feeling that maybe I'd published this cartoon here previously, so I dug into the archives.
Turns out, this cartoon hadn't been published, but a similarly themed cartoon had.
I think maybe this woman should stay away from bar graphs.
The fraudulent issuing of certificates from a Turkish certificate authority (CA) has led to major web browsers revoking trust.
According to Dustin Childs, group manager of response communications at Microsoft Trustworthy Computing, an advisory was issued after it became aware of "active attacks using a fraudulent digital certificate issued by TurkTrust". This has led to Google, Microsoft and Mozilla revoking trust in the certificates causing this problem.
It was initially detected on Christmas Eve by Google software engineer Adam Langley, who said that its Chrome browser detected and blocked an unauthorised digital certificate for the ‘google.com' domain and after investigating, it found that the certificate was issued by a CA linking back to Turkish TurkTrust.
Langley said that it alerted TurkTrust who discovered in August 2011 it had mistakenly issued two intermediate certificates to organisations that should have instead received regular SSL certificates.
He said: “Our actions addressed the immediate problem for our users. Given the severity of the situation, we will update Chrome again in January to no longer indicate extended validation status for certificates issued by TurkTrust, though connections to TurkTrust-validated HTTPS servers may continue to be allowed.â€
Microsoft's advisory said that TurkTrust incorrectly created two subsidiary CAs - ego.gov.tr and e-islem.kktcmerkezbankasi.org and the first was then used to issue a fraudulent digital certificate to google.com. This fraudulent certificate could be used to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks against several Google web properties.
Michael Coates, director of security assurance at Mozilla, said that while this was not a Firefox-specific issue, it was concerned that at least one of the mis-issued intermediate certificates was used for man-in-the-middle (MITM) traffic management of domain names.
“We are also concerned that the private keys for these certificates were not kept as secure as would be expected for intermediate certificates,†he said.
“An intermediate certificate that is used for MITM allows the holder of the certificate to decrypt and monitor communication within their network between the user and any website. Additionally, If the private key to one of the mis-issued intermediate certificates was compromised, then an attacker could use it to create SSL certificates containing domain names or IP addresses that the certificate holder does not legitimately own or control.
“An attacker armed with a fraudulent SSL certificate and an ability to control their victim's network could impersonate websites in a way that would be undetectable to most users. Such certificates could deceive users into trusting websites appearing to originate from the domain owners, but actually containing malicious content or software.â€
A translated statement by TurkTrust acknowledged that two ‘incorrect statements' were issued by it in August 2011 that browsers detected in December. “The certificate was cancelled immediately after the notification [was made and] all systems [were] examined in detail [to determine] the exact source of the problem, respectively.â€
It also said that as a result of the investigation, the "erroneous output occurs only once" so in the absence of any interference with its systems, any loss resulting from this instance have been identified.
Microsoft is to release seven bulletins next week, but will not patch the zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer.
Of the seven bulletins, two are rated as critical and the remaining five as important. Software including RT, Office, SharePoint and System Center Operations Manager will also be patched.
Wolfgang Kandek, CTO of Qualys, said: “For IT administrators, the focus should be on the two critical bulletins. While the first one affects only Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2, the second one lists all versions of Windows, plus a number of server software. It is likely that it is a vulnerability in one of the base libraries of Windows that is widely used, such as Windows XML Core Services, which had its last fix in July of 2012 under MS12-043.â€
Ziv Mador, director of security research at Trustwave SpiderLabs, said: “Of the two critical bulletins one of them lists all currently supported versions of Windows from XP SP3 up to Server 2008 R2, as well as several versions of Office, SharePoint and Groove Server. This is most likely an issue in one of the base libraries meaning it will have a wide impact.
“The other critical bulletin only lists Windows 7 and Server 2008 as vulnerable but it still results in remote code execution so it shouldn't be taken as any less serious.
“The five remaining ‘important' bulletins result mostly in elevation of privilege, with one security feature bypass and one denial of service. Six of them impact different versions of Windows and Windows Server, with one elevation of privilege hitting Microsoft System Center Operations Manager.â€
However the zero-day that caused problems for Microsoft over the Christmas period will not be fixed next week. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution of Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 and Microsoft has released a workaround Fix It and encouraged users to use the Microsoft Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) to help prevent exploitation of this vulnerability.
Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, said: “While we applaud Microsoft for responding with a Fix It over the weekend for the issues with Explorer, it's interesting to note that nothing in these bulletins seem to directly affect IE. The Fix It Microsoft issued is a workaround so we still need a formal patch for this issue.
“However, Microsoft often fixes one thing to address another, so it's possible that they are correcting the issue with IE at the operating system level with one of the patches. If the browser is just a path to an underlying vulnerability in the operating system, then this issue will likely be fixed by one of the patches. If the vulnerability is exclusive to the browser, on the other hand, then this is still something to watch out for.â€
Adobe has also announced that it will release security updates next Tuesday for Reader and Acrobat XI (11.0.0), earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh, and Adobe Reader 9.5.1 and earlier 9.x versions for Linux. Also, Oracle will publish its quarterly Critical Patch Update later this month.
In December, we reported that Apple had decided to manufacture some products in the U.S. However, the fact remains moving into the New Year, outsourcing will continue to be a driving force in business. This roundup looks at what outsourcing is doing to the business world and at the advantages your company can reap.
Make Changes
Outsourcing is changing China. Last year, conditions in Chinese factories that manufacture tech products for U.S. firms became the center of controversy. The issue was working conditions, worse in Chinese factories than would be permitted in the U.S. and other plants. U.S. leaders are also eager to bring more manufacturing jobs back. But manufacturing in countries like China by foreign companies is likely to continue…however, with better conditions. The New York Times
Eight outsourcing mistakes. When looking to outsource products or services for your business, be careful you make the right choices. In this post, we hear from eight entrepreneurs who use outsourcing regularly. Here entrepreneurs like Steve Chou, Fraser Cain, Sean Platt, and others talk about their experiences. Whether successes or failures, these experiences could help you improve your business's effectiveness, increasing productivity while reducing costs. Rana Shahbaz
Reduce Costs
Saving on medical costs. One way to outsource services is to look into contractors and sub-contractors. These options as alternatives to hiring full-time employees will become increasingly important with new healthcare regulations on the way, writes Elaine Love in this guest post about small business employment. First, look at the pros and cons of these two kinds of outsourcing to see whether either or both might be right for your company. The Small Business Playbook
Class is in session. “Many small business owners are less interested in the logistics of running their company and more in the concept or product they are putting on the market,†says Kate Webster of ResourceNation.com. To meet this need some businesses are turning to HR outsourcing options. Here is a look at what such organizations do, the benefits and drawbacks, and how to decide whether HR outsourcing is right for your business. OutsourceHow
Other Options
Outsource your SEO. Many larger companies hire an in house Search Engine Optimization specialist or perhaps a whole SEO department. However, smaller businesses sometimes do not have the budget necessary for another full salary even to fill the important roll of making sure their Website has good visibility online. Fortunately other options exists, writes SEO specialist Nick Stamoulis. One is to study SEO and get started yourself. The other is to outsource your SEO services. Here's how. Brick Marketing Blog
Nine more outsourcing options. You may think the greatest challenge facing your company is money. In fact, one of the most limited resources available to you as an entrepreneur is your time. There are many resources you can use when looking for ways to outsource services and products. Here is a list of some of the best from small business coach Stephanie Ward to save you time and potentially money. Firefly Coaching
What you don't need. There is one kind of outsourcing you may want to avoid. Outsourcing forum posting services has inherent dangers you should consider first, writes Chris London, art and online marketing director for Pixel Productions Inc. This kind of outsourced SEO may be something your business should avoid. Pixel Blog
AboutOurWork is a relatively new service, started by serial entrepreneur's David Hunegnaw and Brooke Paul that helps businesses find other businesses.
Small business owners are known for their resiliency. Heading into 2013, small businesses have survived the big box invasion and weathered the most challenging economy in recent history.
Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?
So 2013 is here â€" it's time to THINK fresh for 2013. Thinking fresh does not necessarily mean to START fresh and change, what it does mean is that you think every aspect of your business and what MIGHT need to change. One of these changes might be in regard to your accounting software.