Indie Books Now Have a Better Shot With Brick-and-Mortar Bookstores

Self-published authors and indie publishers will now find it is easier to have their books distributed  in the United States through major book distributors, such as Baker & Taylor.  Indie books are now on a similar footing as books published by larger traditional publishers, when it comes to the opportunity to get in front of brick and mortar bookstores.

Best-selling author Kristine Rusch, who also has owned a publishing business and a book distribution startuop, outlines her take on the changes recently on her website.  She says it’s a recent change.  Bookstores now have access through Baker & Taylor, to all published print books, whether via Amazon’s Createspace (for self-published authors) or large traditional publishers.

The changes have to do with Baker & Taylor, one of the major book distributors, changing its policies. Earlier this year, she says, Baker & Taylor made the terms of discounts and returns for print on demand (POD) books by self-published authors, more favorable for bookstores.  Also, POD books are now mixed in with traditionally published books, instead of being segregated, on Baker & Taylor’s lists, Rusch notes.

In the past, self-published authors were at a disadvantage. Their discount/returns policy was less favorable from a bookseller’s perspective, than traditionally published books.

Rusch says the changes will be a boon to self-published authors:

“The change is also great for self-published writers (indie writers) who do a print edition as well as an e-book edition. In fact, the news for those indie writers is fantastic. The news will have no impact at all on indie writers who do e-books only, except that it might convince them to start putting their titles into paper as well.”

In the past, self-published and indie writers might literally drive around with books in their cars visiting bookstores. Only after a lot of hard work would some manage to get their books into bookstores.

She recommends you list your book through “Extended distribution” in Amazon’s Createspace.  Doing so will get it  picked up by Baker & Taylor. Extended distribution costs $25.

Still, It Won’t Mean Automatic Sales

Rausch is quick to point out that simply getting an indie-published or self-published book in front of bookstore owners, won’t necessarily mean your book will be stocked in a bookstore.  Your book still has to present a good business proposition for the bookstore:

“A bookstore won’t order your book unless the bookstore knows that someone wants it. Sounds like a Catch-22, but if the writer isn’t in a hurry, then it’s not a problem. So a reader has heard about your book through word of mouth and asks for it from a favorite bookstore. That’s when the bookstore will order and not before. Word of mouth first, brick-and-mortar stores second.”

Rausch told us in an email interview that it’s best to have “several books” under your belt, before expecting to get picked up by brick-and-mortar stores.  ”Books also need good covers and good cover copy. They need to be priced similarly to traditionally published books or the bookstore won’t make any money,” since bookstores make money off of the over price.

Marketing, especially word of mouth, is essential. She offers marketing advice for authors on her website.

 Aren’t Brick and Mortar Bookstores in Trouble?

You might wonder if getting into brick-and-mortar bookstores even matters.  After all, every time we turn around we hear that brick-and-mortar bookstores are in trouble.  But some signs suggest that their death has been predicted prematurely.  According to a report in the Christian Science Monitor, sales at independent bookstores are up:

Sales at independent bookstores rose about 8 percent in 2012 over 2011, according to a survey by the American Booksellers Association (ABA). This growth was all the more remarkable since the sales of the national chain Barnes & Noble were so tepid. “I think the worst days of the independents are behind them,” says Jim Milliot, coeditorial director for Publishers Weekly magazine. “The demise of traditional print books has been a bit overblown. Everybody is a little anxious, but they are starting to think they’ve figured it out for the time being.”

That’s good news for self-published authors.  Independent bookstores are more likely than large chains to stock indie books. So the growth of independent bookstores, even as large chains like Barnes & Noble cut back, is a positive for self-published authors and POD books.

The Problem With Social Media

Last month, both Forbes and USAToday ran stories on how social media isn’t working for small businesses. The Forbes piece was titled, “Why Small Businesses Are Losing On Social Media.” The USAToday piece was a bit stronger, “Study: Social Media a Bust for Small Businesses.”

Both were in response to a survey recently released from Manta revealing that most small businesses (over 60%) don’t see any return on investment (ROI) on their social-media activities. That bares repeating - most small businesses don’t see any return.

When I came up with the title for this I was not yet aware of any of this. As a business owner myself who’s done extensive research with years of direct personal experience with social media, I feel the need to share my perspective with fellow business owners trying to decide the best way to spend their marketing money.

The Manta study was not a surprise. Despite the social media hype, I know that many small business owners are having a hard time justifying the expense of a social media marketing effort - and for good reasons. For one, it’s hard to be certain what a social media marketing effort even means. Talk to four social media experts and there’s a good chance you’ll get four answers. Assuming you get an answer you like, it’s then hard to interpret the results.

Not a strong case for investing a ton of money, or time, in social media.

No one likes to be unclear about what they’re paying for and that’s especially true with small business owners. It’s hard to spend hundreds, or thousands, on something you can’t show or cleary explain to your spouse. While we know there’s no guarantee on ROI (Return on Invesment), we like to see what we’re paying for and have a good sense of its value.

You’d think things would be different from 100 years ago when John Wanamaker famously said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” If he were commenting today, referencing social media, it wouldn’t be, “Half the money I spend is wasted”, it’d be “60%.”

Social Media experts will argue that it’s not working for 60% of small business owners because they don’t truly understand it, they’re going about it wrong. They’re not working with the right people and they’re not giving it enough time. All of those things may be true, and all of those things can be said about all marketing.

While some liken social media, and social media experts, to the necessary evil of auto maintenance and auto mechanics, journalist B.J. Mendelson takes it a bit further. He calls social media BS. In his new book, “Social Media Is Bullshit,” Mendelson examines popular tales of social media “success” and reveals some unsettling truths behind the surface.

While I appreciate Mr. Mendelson’s perspective, it seems harsh. Anything that provides a platform to present our product, service or perspective to our target audience and potentially engage them, isn’t BS.

Confusing? Yes. Over-hyped? Probably.

However, Mr. Mendelson is right about one big BS aspect of social media: Facebook “Friends” and Twitter “Followers.” As we all now know, most Facebook Friends aren’t really friends and most Twitter Followers don’t follow. Adds Regina Hartt of Hartt’s Pool Plastering: “No amount of Facebook Likes is going to sway a prospective customer to spend 5 to 40k on a pool plastering job.”

So, that’s the problem I see with social media.

Even social media rock star, Gary Vaynerchuk, admits it’s a confusing landscape. I just returned from a Digital Summit where Vaynerchuk spoke and stated that “Marketing in 2013 has never been harder.” He then added, “But you have no choice. You have to do marketing.”

He’s right, we have to market. There just may be better ways to do it than with social media.

Thumbs Down Photo via Shutterstock

Three Key Advantages of Implementing Cloud Based Channel Management Software

These days, thanks to affordable e-commerce hosting platforms, setting up an online retail store is easier than ever before. But as every business owner knows, inventory management, customer service and ultimately profitability are highly interlinked; and this is where growing businesses can often find themselves struggling to keep up as they start selling across multiple channels. Using an excel sheet to track orders received via the retail store or on the website, can be cumbersome, time consuming and leaves the business vulnerable to customer service issues resulting from stock-outs.

Cloud based solutions for multi-market management

Not surprisingly the answer to this business challenge lies in the clouds.By implementing a cloud based multi-channel software that integrates orders, inventory and customer data across various sales channels, growing businesses can streamline their sales and CRM processes. Here are the key advantages of implementing cloud based channel management software:

• Manage inventory:The software enables a cumulative online inventory status of each product across channels at all times, thereby eliminating the need for manual tracking. If a product reaches the minimum reorder level the software will prevent staff from taking further orders and can be used to disable the product availability online and even trigger orders to suppliers. Reduced efforts in inventory management can also lead to significant cost save.
• Improve sales: Track performance of each product across channels. See what your customers are buying to customize your merchandise and marketing promos. For instance Brightpearl cloud based integration software can be used to build multiple - branded storefronts online to target specific customers. Pull contact list from across channels and use the software to send letters, emails, text messages to your customers on marketing promotions.
• Be better informed: Assess your business performance from anywhere using an internet connection. Provide information to people within the organization as per roles. So for example sales staff can be given access to the CRM and sales sections, whilst your accountant can have access to the accounting ledgers and stock control.

Multi- channel management can help growing businesses do away with the pains of tedious inventory management and improves the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Earlier this month Brightpearl, announced integration of its software with e-commerce hosting websites Bigcommerce,  Shopify and Amazon.  As per Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s chief platform officer, “Brightpearl’s commerce acceleration platform enables our retailer customers to synchronize their order, inventory and customer data from multiple Shopify storefronts”. It also offers integration with Magento web store and eBay. The growing popularity of Brightpearl software stems from its affordable pricing and ease of use.The other cloud integration software providers are ChannelAdvisor ( among the oldest platforms) , SelerPro and SellerExpress.

Depending on your business dynamics, one software could be more suitable than the other, so do contact them directly for more  information.

10 Tips for Making Your Startup A Success

The entrepreneur community has been buzzing with the story of Yahoo acquiring Tumblr.

The Internet giant purchased the site founder David Karp launched from his mother’s Manhattan apartment for $1.1 billion. At only 26-years-old, Karp is expected to receive up to $220 million from the deal.  Though he eventually took venture funding, Karp launched his hugely successful social blogging platform from a simple idea.

His story is an inspiration to others seeking to start the next big thing. Here are 10 tips from the business blogging community for creating the next big startup success story, from a simple idea:

Start with a great product. - Erica.Biz

Twitter and similar Silicon Valley startups gained momentum with support from the so-called “digerati.” However, you don’t need the support of top tech bloggers or trend setters to launch a great startup. All you need is a really great product or service and a customer base that loves it. Blogger Erica Douglass gives us a look at the “Macklemore Effect” and how it can rocket your startup to success.

Pick the right startup name. - Entrepreneur

Picking the right name for your startup is also important. Gary Backaus and Justin Dobbs of Memphis-based ad agency Archer>Malmo gave a presentation earlier this year at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference. The presentation looked at how to pick the best name for your startup. Here are their five best suggestions for picking a business name that will take you from startup to success.

Pay attention to your business plan. - SBA.gov

Entrepreneurs may differ on the importance of a business plan or on what form it should take. But a good business plan is key to startup success. Here are five fundamental principals of good business planning from business planning expert and startup founder Tim Berry. Look at Berry’s suggestions as a best practices list to aspire to when creating the business plan for your startup.

Make sure the price is right. - Startup Professionals Musings

Investor and blogger Martin Zwilling gives us an overview of the kinds of pricing decisions startups must make. These are not simply decisions about how to price a product or service competitively. They are also decisions about the kind of pricing model, for example, free product or service monetized by ads, freemium service et cetera.

Change your approach to recruiting. - The Verge

Startups have been evolving their approach to recruiting for quite some time. Plain old want-ads were replaced by  online job boards and replaced by recruitment via LinkedIn. Now there’s yet another way to hire workers. TaskRabbit, a site dedicated to contractors, is moving toward offering more long-term work.

Make your startup an attractive acquisition target. - Business Insider

Tumblr wasn’t the only Yahoo acquisition last week. The company also bought online gaming company PlayerScale for a price not yet disclosed. Sometimes the key to success is to build a company, product or service other businesses can use. Create something other companies could build into their model then sell it to the highest bidder.

Generate some buzz. - Small Biz Viewpoints

This is basically the art of getting people talking about your brand, and it’s not confined to the Internet. Consultant Harry Vaishnav offers 15 creative suggestions including everything from placing ads on billboards to giving away some of your products. Don’t stop with these suggestions. Come up with some creative ideas yourself.

Learn two simple tips for viral marketing. - Small Business Trends

Viral marketing has become the holy grail for those seeking to get their message out and have it spread. But once you create an infographic or other piece of content that goes viral, what’s your next step? Tech and social media blogger Drew Hendricks teaches us how to capitalize on that initial success. Create infographics and videos that pick up where your initial viral marketing message left off.

Understand social media marketing â€" for real. - Social Steve’s Blog

Social media and social media marketing are not the same things, says social marketing director Steve Goldner. Just because you have a Facebook or Twitter account you update regularly, does not make you a social media marketer. Goldner outlines a list of considerations that go into real social media marketing. Have you developed a serious social media marketing campaign for your startup?

Think about your mobile customers - About Us

No matter what kind of startup you are launching, getting your message to mobile customers is more important than ever. In this post, Simon Phillips discusses some of the questions you should ask when thinking about your mobile presence. A website is no longer enough unless it can be viewed easily on mobile devices, for example. How might the mobile revolution affect your startup?

Three Key Advantages of Implementing Cloud Based Channel Management Software

These days, thanks to affordable e-commerce hosting platforms, setting up an online retail store is easier than ever before. But as every business owner knows, inventory management, customer service and ultimately profitability are highly interlinked; and this is where growing businesses can often find themselves struggling to keep up as they start selling across multiple channels. Using an excel sheet to track orders received via the retail store or on the website, can be cumbersome, time consuming and leaves the business vulnerable to customer service issues resulting from stock-outs.

Cloud based solutions for multi-market management

Not surprisingly the answer to this business challenge lies in the clouds.By implementing a cloud based multi-channel software that integrates orders, inventory and customer data across various sales channels, growing businesses can streamline their sales and CRM processes. Here are the key advantages of implementing cloud based channel management software:

• Manage inventory:The software enables a cumulative online inventory status of each product across channels at all times, thereby eliminating the need for manual tracking. If a product reaches the minimum reorder level the software will prevent staff from taking further orders and can be used to disable the product availability online and even trigger orders to suppliers. Reduced efforts in inventory management can also lead to significant cost save.
• Improve sales: Track performance of each product across channels. See what your customers are buying to customize your merchandise and marketing promos. For instance Brightpearl cloud based integration software can be used to build multiple - branded storefronts online to target specific customers. Pull contact list from across channels and use the software to send letters, emails, text messages to your customers on marketing promotions.
• Be better informed: Assess your business performance from anywhere using an internet connection. Provide information to people within the organization as per roles. So for example sales staff can be given access to the CRM and sales sections, whilst your accountant can have access to the accounting ledgers and stock control.

Multi- channel management can help growing businesses do away with the pains of tedious inventory management and improves the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

Earlier this month Brightpearl, announced integration of its software with e-commerce hosting websites Bigcommerce,  Shopify and Amazon.  As per Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s chief platform officer, “Brightpearl’s commerce acceleration platform enables our retailer customers to synchronize their order, inventory and customer data from multiple Shopify storefronts”. It also offers integration with Magento web store and eBay. The growing popularity of Brightpearl software stems from its affordable pricing and ease of use.The other cloud integration software providers are ChannelAdvisor ( among the oldest platforms) , SelerPro and SellerExpress.

Depending on your business dynamics, one software could be more suitable than the other, so do contact them directly for more  information.

Two Ways To Up The Security of Your Files Before Transferring or Sharing

When you’ve got really sensitive materials, like tax documents, that you need to transfer, simple human error or malicious identity thieves can do a ton of damage. Have you ever emailed a sensitive file to the wrong person, or worried about who was accessing your Dropbox files from the other end of the cloud? Financial documents, personal records, passwords, photos, and credit card numbers could all use an extra coat of security on their trip from your computer to someone else’s.

We’ve enumerated the reasons why Dropbox is not secure in the past. Let’s take a look at a few solutions:

Encryption and Decryption

Using a third party program like 7-Zip or WinRAR to encrypt your files before you send them is a free and easy fix that requires just a little extra work and planning. You simply choose a password and encrypt the file, then send the .zip or .rar archive. On the other end, anyone wanting access to your secure files will need a password. You give the password to your chosen receiver somehow. Depending on how secure you want to be about it, you can share the password by email, by phone or in person.

It’s a good secondary level of security to keep your sensitive documents safe even in the event of a Dropbox breach. Two points of failure.

DigitalQuick

Another solution is a third party program called DigitalQuick. It just launched, and is offered as a free download. DigitalQuick provides the unique ability for users to see what their friends and colleagues have done with their shared files and when. Unlike other services, DigitalQuick does not require passwords or the need to remember encryption keys; instead, data is safeguarded by simply clicking and setting permissions - leaving nothing to remember or worry about.

Everyone has likely had the experience of accidentally emailing a résumé, report or photos to the wrong person, and then making an unsuccessful attempt to recall the email. With DigitalQuick, even if recipients have the file or even the permissions to open it, those recipients can always be removed as a shared member or have their permissions changed so that they are ultimately unable to access that file.

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Let us know in the comments how you ensure your sensitive files transfer securely!

Parental Leave from Employment: The Parent Trap

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer got a lot of flak earlier this year when she announced that employees would no longer be able to work from home. But the company’s more recent announcement concerning parental leave stating that all new dads would get 8 weeks of paid paternity leave hasn’t generated nearly as much buzz in the blogosphere. While there’s still a whole lot of attention to the roles of women in the workforce, the roles of dads are far less up for grabs, it seems.

Parental Leave: The Parent Trap

Should your business consider offering paid paternity leave?

According to a study cited by Marketwatch, last year 15 percent of employers did so - up 55 percent from the prior year.

While paid paternity leave might sound like a luxurious perk that only big companies can afford, the reality is it may be a smart move for your business. Why? If you offer paid maternity leave, you can pretty much bet every new mom in your company is going to take advantage of it. But if you offer paid paternity leave, it may not end up costing you a cent. That’s because few dads actually use the privilege.

Another study cited in the Marketwatch article reports that just 12 percent of fathers took advantage of paid parental leave when it was offered. Even dads who did take the leave typically used much of it to work. There are a variety of reasons for this, from cultural norms and peer pressure, to the need many new dads feel to become super-breadwinners, to the simple fact that new dads aren’t breastfeeding 12 times a day while recovering from a major medical procedure.

The federal Family and Medical Leave Act requires small businesses with more than 50 employees to offer 12 weeks of unpaid leave with benefits and job protection to qualified workers (those who have been with the company at least 12 months) for the birth or adoption of a child. Your state likely has its own version of the FMLA, which might impose more stringent regulations such as additional unpaid time off or disability payments for new mothers.

Parental Leave Policies

How can you create a parental leave policy that makes sense for your business, as well as for new mothers and fathers?

Start by working with your attorney, HR person and accountant to determine what laws apply in your state and what types of policies will work for your company. I mention the accountant because you need to consider financial issues in the worst-case scenario. If you have a lot of young, married people on staff, and offering paid paternity and maternity leave could leave you with half your staff out on leave while still being paid, you may not be able to offer this perk. On the other hand, if most of your employees are in their 50s, you’re probably safe offering a more generous policy.

If you do choose to go beyond the “bare minimum” with your parental leave, make sure you let employees know it. Parental leave policies vary so much from state to state and company to company that employees may not realize offering, say, two weeks of paid leave is a generous gesture on your part. For example, your employee handbook could state that while the law doesn’t require any paid leave, you believe it’s important to give new parents the best start, so you choose to offer X weeks of paid leave.

Finally, be flexible, yet consistent. Whether you’re dealing with new dads or new moms, a personal approach goes a long way to making employees feel valued during a stressful time of their lives. Work with each employee to figure out how their duties will be handled while they’re on leave, whether that includes some type of work-at-home arrangement, hiring a temp or cross-training another employee to carry the workload.

At the same time, be sure you don’t offer options to one employee that you don’t offer your other staff members, or you could end up with disgruntled (and possibly lawsuit-minded) employees.

Family Photo via Shutterstock

Two Ways To Up The Security of Your Files Before Transferring or Sharing

When you’ve got really sensitive materials, like tax documents, that you need to transfer, simple human error or malicious identity thieves can do a ton of damage. Have you ever emailed a sensitive file to the wrong person, or worried about who was accessing your Dropbox files from the other end of the cloud? Financial documents, personal records, passwords, photos, and credit card numbers could all use an extra coat of security on their trip from your computer to someone else’s.

We’ve enumerated the reasons why Dropbox is not secure in the past. Let’s take a look at a few solutions:

Encryption and Decryption

Using a third party program like 7-Zip or WinRAR to encrypt your files before you send them is a free and easy fix that requires just a little extra work and planning. You simply choose a password and encrypt the file, then send the .zip or .rar archive. On the other end, anyone wanting access to your secure files will need a password. You give the password to your chosen receiver somehow. Depending on how secure you want to be about it, you can share the password by email, by phone or in person.

It’s a good secondary level of security to keep your sensitive documents safe even in the event of a Dropbox breach. Two points of failure.

DigitalQuick

Another solution is a third party program called DigitalQuick. It just launched, and is offered as a free download. DigitalQuick provides the unique ability for users to see what their friends and colleagues have done with their shared files and when. Unlike other services, DigitalQuick does not require passwords or the need to remember encryption keys; instead, data is safeguarded by simply clicking and setting permissions - leaving nothing to remember or worry about.

Everyone has likely had the experience of accidentally emailing a résumé, report or photos to the wrong person, and then making an unsuccessful attempt to recall the email. With DigitalQuick, even if recipients have the file or even the permissions to open it, those recipients can always be removed as a shared member or have their permissions changed so that they are ultimately unable to access that file.

-

Let us know in the comments how you ensure your sensitive files transfer securely!

Three Small Businesses That Pulled It All Together Using Collaboration Technology

Swerve Driving School had a problem. The driving school with locations in California and Washington was growing quickly. With so many projects, Swerve staff needed a way to easily manage multiple projects and collaborate without sitting around a conference table for hours each day.

Enter Liquid Planner. Swerve Driving School has approximately ten daily users, combined with eight to ten contractors and vendors. Using Liquid Planner allows these busy team members to log in as their schedules allow. They can check the status of projects and update their own work to keep everyone in the loop.

“While we initially were interested in Liquid Planner from a pure project management perspective, we’ve since discovered that its collaboration functionality has become even more important to our team,” says Fred Wright, Swerve CEO. “From a collaboration standpoint, we now use LiquidPlanner more than e-mail to share documents. Meanwhile the Workplace Chatter feature lets us discuss tasks with one another in real-time without us all having to be in the same room at once. So you can see, we really view LiquidPlanner as a platform for all of our project communications.”

With LiquidPlanner, businesses can also manage projects from an iPhone, iPad, or Android-based device, keeping projects moving while participants are on the road. With rates starting at $24 monthly per user for businesses with less than ten employees, LiquidPlanner is affordable, as well.

Creating a Digital Office

Ramar Foods International is faced with a more geographical-based challenge. VP of Marketing, PJ Quesada, says the company has offices in Northern California, Southern California, and Hawaii, which makes daily communication a challenge. Quesada has plans to relocate to Hawaii eventually, where he’ll manage his “digital team” through Podio, a solution from Citrix.

“The day-to-day confusion before we found the Podio solution was that projects would not get done on time,” Quesada says. “We were using Basecamp a little bit, I used it prior to finding Podio, but other than that we were trying to make do with email and Google Docs. There is so much coordination that has to happen when you are manufacturing a product and you finally bring it to market that in order to do that, having a centralized platform for the information and process flow is totally essential. Podio is how I keep a pulse on the entire business.”

Podio includes a suite of apps to allow each business to customize the software to match its individual needs. Prices start at $9 per employee monthly, with the ability to add partners and clients for free.

Managing Workflow on Campus

Robert Goodman, director of business and intelligence for Georgetown University, recommends Intuit’s Quickbase for managing workflow. Goodman needed a way to manage his I.T. department’s complex processes that require several levels of approval. Through Quickbase, Goodman and his team are able to communicate more effectively and manage assignments using a personalized dashboard.

“I’ve implemented and used Quickbase at several companies on my own accord,” Goodman says. “In addition to workflow, I find the email notification, reporting, and data management tools in Quickbase to be top-notch. I now spend more time as a director on the business policies which govern our data than in the software system which manages it.”

Quickbase allows businesses the ability to pull in existing data from Excel and CSV to easily create usable databases. Quickbase can be a little on the pricey side, though, with team plans starting at $299 per month for up to ten users.

Other Popular Solutions

While it might not have been the best solution for Ramar Foods International, millions of users collaborate each day using Basecamp. Current discussions and to-do lists are prominently displayed on each user’s dashboard and a “notes” feature allows teammates to share ideas alongside uploaded documents and images.

Teambox is another popular collaboration tool that small businesses have embraced. In addition to its Cloud-based solution, Teambox also helps companies who prefer an on-site collaboration tool with its Teambox On-Premise model. Teambox On-Premise can be stored on a business’s own servers, safely behind its firewall. While all of the above-mentioned solutions come with security, Teambox recognizes that some businesses opt to forgo the Cloud, due to either compliance requirements or personal preferences.

When it comes to project collaboration suites, one thing is clear: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Thankfully, many of the above-mentioned tools have free trials, allowing small businesses to try out features.

Three Small Businesses That Pulled It All Together Using Collaboration Technology

Swerve Driving School had a problem. The driving school with locations in California and Washington was growing quickly. With so many projects, Swerve staff needed a way to easily manage multiple projects and collaborate without sitting around a conference table for hours each day.

Enter Liquid Planner. Swerve Driving School has approximately ten daily users, combined with eight to ten contractors and vendors. Using Liquid Planner allows these busy team members to log in as their schedules allow. They can check the status of projects and update their own work to keep everyone in the loop.

“While we initially were interested in Liquid Planner from a pure project management perspective, we’ve since discovered that its collaboration functionality has become even more important to our team,” says Fred Wright, Swerve CEO. “From a collaboration standpoint, we now use LiquidPlanner more than e-mail to share documents. Meanwhile the Workplace Chatter feature lets us discuss tasks with one another in real-time without us all having to be in the same room at once. So you can see, we really view LiquidPlanner as a platform for all of our project communications.”

With LiquidPlanner, businesses can also manage projects from an iPhone, iPad, or Android-based device, keeping projects moving while participants are on the road. With rates starting at $24 monthly per user for businesses with less than ten employees, LiquidPlanner is affordable, as well.

Creating a Digital Office

Ramar Foods International is faced with a more geographical-based challenge. VP of Marketing, PJ Quesada, says the company has offices in Northern California, Southern California, and Hawaii, which makes daily communication a challenge. Quesada has plans to relocate to Hawaii eventually, where he’ll manage his “digital team” through Podio, a solution from Citrix.

“The day-to-day confusion before we found the Podio solution was that projects would not get done on time,” Quesada says. “We were using Basecamp a little bit, I used it prior to finding Podio, but other than that we were trying to make do with email and Google Docs. There is so much coordination that has to happen when you are manufacturing a product and you finally bring it to market that in order to do that, having a centralized platform for the information and process flow is totally essential. Podio is how I keep a pulse on the entire business.”

Podio includes a suite of apps to allow each business to customize the software to match its individual needs. Prices start at $9 per employee monthly, with the ability to add partners and clients for free.

Managing Workflow on Campus

Robert Goodman, director of business and intelligence for Georgetown University, recommends Intuit’s Quickbase for managing workflow. Goodman needed a way to manage his I.T. department’s complex processes that require several levels of approval. Through Quickbase, Goodman and his team are able to communicate more effectively and manage assignments using a personalized dashboard.

“I’ve implemented and used Quickbase at several companies on my own accord,” Goodman says. “In addition to workflow, I find the email notification, reporting, and data management tools in Quickbase to be top-notch. I now spend more time as a director on the business policies which govern our data than in the software system which manages it.”

Quickbase allows businesses the ability to pull in existing data from Excel and CSV to easily create usable databases. Quickbase can be a little on the pricey side, though, with team plans starting at $299 per month for up to ten users.

Other Popular Solutions

While it might not have been the best solution for Ramar Foods International, millions of users collaborate each day using Basecamp. Current discussions and to-do lists are prominently displayed on each user’s dashboard and a “notes” feature allows teammates to share ideas alongside uploaded documents and images.

Teambox is another popular collaboration tool that small businesses have embraced. In addition to its Cloud-based solution, Teambox also helps companies who prefer an on-site collaboration tool with its Teambox On-Premise model. Teambox On-Premise can be stored on a business’s own servers, safely behind its firewall. While all of the above-mentioned solutions come with security, Teambox recognizes that some businesses opt to forgo the Cloud, due to either compliance requirements or personal preferences.

When it comes to project collaboration suites, one thing is clear: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Thankfully, many of the above-mentioned tools have free trials, allowing small businesses to try out features.

Why Small Businesses Have Trouble Getting Credit

Only one third of small business owners were able to obtain all of the credit that their businesses need, a recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey shows.

The survey’s finding is not surprising. Many economists, policy makers and small business advocacy groups have long explained that small businesses have a harder time obtaining credit than their larger counterparts. When it comes to accessing capital, size definitely matters.

Even among small businesses, the smaller the company, the lower the odds that it has a loan (see figure below) or a line of credit. Only 15.7 percent of businesses with one or fewer employees have a business loan and only 33.7 percent have a line of credit, the NFIB survey shows. By contrast, 56.8 percent of businesses with between 50 and 250 workers has a business loan and 65.4 percent has a line of credit.

Source: National Federation of Independent Business, 2011 finance survey

Rather than reveal some sinister motives among bankers, however, these patterns simply reflect the economics of business credit. Fewer small businesses have access to credit than larger companies because lending to them is riskier and more expensive than extending credit to larger companies.

Default risk is higher in the small business loan market. Small businesses fail at higher rates than big businesses and changes in the business cycle have a larger impact on their profits. Because lenders cannot always charge interest rates that are commensurate with a borrower’s default risk, the most risky small business borrowers are often unable to get credit.

Lending to small businesses is more expensive than lending to big companies. Part of the problem is the fixed cost of making a loan. Some costs are the same whether you make a $50,000 loan or a $5 million loan. Therefore, profit margins are higher on bigger loans. Of course, larger companies are more likely to need bigger loans than their smaller counterparts, which leads lenders to focus on larger customers.

Additionally, evaluating small business loan applications is often expensive. Little publicly available information on the financial condition of small companies exists, and small businesses’ financial statements are not always very detailed. Small business owners’ personal finances are sometimes intermingled with those of their businesses. The very large variety of small businesses and the way they use borrowed funds make it tough to apply general lending standards. Finally, monitoring the financial condition of small businesses often requires lenders to build personal relationships with small business owners.

These economic principles have important implications for those seeking to boost small businesses’ access to credit. Encouraging more lending will require policies that take into account the greater cost and risk of lending to small companies â€" and why small businesses have trouble getting credit.

Why Small Businesses Have Trouble Getting Credit

Only one third of small business owners were able to obtain all of the credit that their businesses need, a recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey shows.

The survey’s finding is not surprising. Many economists, policy makers and small business advocacy groups have long explained that small businesses have a harder time obtaining credit than their larger counterparts. When it comes to accessing capital, size definitely matters.

Even among small businesses, the smaller the company, the lower the odds that it has a loan (see figure below) or a line of credit. Only 15.7 percent of businesses with one or fewer employees have a business loan and only 33.7 percent have a line of credit, the NFIB survey shows. By contrast, 56.8 percent of businesses with between 50 and 250 workers has a business loan and 65.4 percent has a line of credit.

Source: National Federation of Independent Business, 2011 finance survey

Rather than reveal some sinister motives among bankers, however, these patterns simply reflect the economics of business credit. Fewer small businesses have access to credit than larger companies because lending to them is riskier and more expensive than extending credit to larger companies.

Default risk is higher in the small business loan market. Small businesses fail at higher rates than big businesses and changes in the business cycle have a larger impact on their profits. Because lenders cannot always charge interest rates that are commensurate with a borrower’s default risk, the most risky small business borrowers are often unable to get credit.

Lending to small businesses is more expensive than lending to big companies. Part of the problem is the fixed cost of making a loan. Some costs are the same whether you make a $50,000 loan or a $5 million loan. Therefore, profit margins are higher on bigger loans. Of course, larger companies are more likely to need bigger loans than their smaller counterparts, which leads lenders to focus on larger customers.

Additionally, evaluating small business loan applications is often expensive. Little publicly available information on the financial condition of small companies exists, and small businesses’ financial statements are not always very detailed. Small business owners’ personal finances are sometimes intermingled with those of their businesses. The very large variety of small businesses and the way they use borrowed funds make it tough to apply general lending standards. Finally, monitoring the financial condition of small businesses often requires lenders to build personal relationships with small business owners.

These economic principles have important implications for those seeking to boost small businesses’ access to credit. Encouraging more lending will require policies that take into account the greater cost and risk of lending to small companies â€" and why small businesses have trouble getting credit.

Why Small Businesses Have Trouble Getting Credit

Only one third of small business owners were able to obtain all of the credit that their businesses need, a recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey shows.

The survey’s finding is not surprising. Many economists, policy makers and small business advocacy groups have long explained that small businesses have a harder time obtaining credit than their larger counterparts. When it comes to accessing capital, size definitely matters.

Even among small businesses, the smaller the company, the lower the odds that it has a loan (see figure below) or a line of credit. Only 15.7 percent of businesses with one or fewer employees have a business loan and only 33.7 percent have a line of credit, the NFIB survey shows. By contrast, 56.8 percent of businesses with between 50 and 250 workers has a business loan and 65.4 percent has a line of credit.

Source: National Federation of Independent Business, 2011 finance survey

Rather than reveal some sinister motives among bankers, however, these patterns simply reflect the economics of business credit. Fewer small businesses have access to credit than larger companies because lending to them is riskier and more expensive than extending credit to larger companies.

Default risk is higher in the small business loan market. Small businesses fail at higher rates than big businesses and changes in the business cycle have a larger impact on their profits. Because lenders cannot always charge interest rates that are commensurate with a borrower’s default risk, the most risky small business borrowers are often unable to get credit.

Lending to small businesses is more expensive than lending to big companies. Part of the problem is the fixed cost of making a loan. Some costs are the same whether you make a $50,000 loan or a $5 million loan. Therefore, profit margins are higher on bigger loans. Of course, larger companies are more likely to need bigger loans than their smaller counterparts, which leads lenders to focus on larger customers.

Additionally, evaluating small business loan applications is often expensive. Little publicly available information on the financial condition of small companies exists, and small businesses’ financial statements are not always very detailed. Small business owners’ personal finances are sometimes intermingled with those of their businesses. The very large variety of small businesses and the way they use borrowed funds make it tough to apply general lending standards. Finally, monitoring the financial condition of small businesses often requires lenders to build personal relationships with small business owners.

These economic principles have important implications for those seeking to boost small businesses’ access to credit. Encouraging more lending will require policies that take into account the greater cost and risk of lending to small companies â€" and why small businesses have trouble getting credit.

Research reveals reality of password sniffing over HTTP connections

When you load in a login form over HTTP, ‘anything you do after that is a little bit pointless'.

According to a blog post by security researcher Troy Hunt, websites commonly have a login page on an unencrypted page and potentially allow users to have their passwords captured.

Hunt, whose research on security failings by Tesco last summer led to the information commissioner investigating the supermarket chain, claimed that often website owners will say that the password ‘posts' to HTTPS so passwords are secure.

He said: “Loading login forms over HTTP renders any downstream transport layer security almost entirely useless. What people forget about SSL is that it's not about encryption. Well, that's one feature of secure sockets, another really essential one is integrity in so far as it gives us confidence that the website content hasn't been manipulated.

“Anything you load over an HTTP connection can be easily changed by a man-in-the-middle, which is why it's absolutely essential to load those login forms over a secure connection. OWASP is very specific about this in part 9 of its top 10 web application security risks and summarises it well in the transport layer protection cheat sheet.”

Hunt said that he was highlighting this issue, as well as a number of websites he had spotted doing this as "they're high-profile sites yet they all load the login forms over HTTP and post to HTTPS".

He recommended loading a login form over HTTPS, either by linking to a dedicated login page or popping it up in a separate window or even loading a whole site over HTTPS.

“This is all a bit odd really; these sites have gone to the effort of implementing some SSL but then blown it by loading those login forms over HTTP,” he said.

“As we saw with Woolworths (which Hunt used as an example in a video), posting over a secure connection is completely useless if there's no integrity in the login form itself, an attacker may already have the credentials by then if the connection is compromised - which is the very risk they all implemented SSL to protect from in the first place.”

In an email to SC Magazine, Hunt said that the point he was trying to make was in regard to the ubiquity with which this pattern is employed.

He said: “I've seen so many cases where someone has tweeted an organisation about this and received a dismissive response that I wanted to demo the risk as simply as possible. This is not one of those ‘here's all your passwords' risks, it requires effort to weaponise, but as I said in the blog post, that effort protects against exactly the same risk they're concerned about by posting to HTTPS in the first place so it's odd not to do it properly.”

Asked if the reason why HTTPS has not been deployed across websites was because of the impact on the user experience, Hunt said that this was not the case, and there were many places where this is done already.

“I think more websites aren't doing this for the same reasons more weren't protecting authentication cookies before the emergence of Firesheep - the awareness isn't there,” he said.

“Certainly the barriers such as cost and HTTPS support by partners is lowering (and I dare say it's now non-existent in most cases), I put it down more to developers not understanding the risks than anything.”

Get Your Business Game On with “The Gamification Revolution”

Circuses were meant to draw the audience's eye to various clowns, acrobats, trapeze performers and artists meant to bedazzle and delight.  With more people spending time online, companies can feel as if they have to run Barnum and Bailey rather than a company.

One entertainment concept that has spread through the last few years is gamification â€" connecting to customers through implementing design concepts from games and loyalty programs based on behavioral economics.  The concept is the study of a new book The Gamification Revolution: How Leaders Leverage Game Mechanics to Crush The Competition.

The authors, Gamification.co CEO, Gabe Zicherman, and Joselin Linder, wrote the book believing that long term customer value awaits those business that make engagement rewarding for the customer.   I discovered the book via NetGallery and requested a review copy.

This book is not meant to explain check-ins and game app code planning. But the book is an opening round in understanding how to engage a company and customers with gamification techniques - techniques that have arisen with the age of mobile computing and app development.

The process of implementing these games and strategies into business is called gamification.  With it you can build experiences that will provide built-in meaning and trigger the motivation of employees and customers.

The cost for not developing interest can be severe. Zicherman and Linder outline an example from Fox Meyer, once the fourth largest drug distributor in the United States:

“Without employee and customer engagement, the best laid strategies and tactics are doomed to fail…. [Fox Meyer] began a project with the software management firm SAP and the business management firm Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) for the purpose of transitioning to a new enterprise resource plan (ERP), which would serve as the back-end system for the automation of its warehouses. Despite an aggressive 18 month rollout program, the company did one major thing wrong. It forgot to engage its employee base…. By 1998 the $5 billion company went bankrupt.”

The value derived can be significant as well.  Companies are using gamification to change their businesses and to drive behavioral economics. In fact, the best businesses figured this out even before the dawn of jQuery.  A mention of McDonald's success with its Monopoly reveals the author's penchant for context from history:

“According to the company, the game itself was responsible for 5.5 percent same-store revenue lift in a single month for the 4th quarter of 2011. This equates to approximately 350 million dollars in incremental revenue over 60 days of the promotion.”

Jump to today's gaming environment, where even console games are being challenged (my Atari 2600 is weeping as I write this!);

”What's more, mobile games, especially social and casual games (like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, and Tiny Wings), are rapidly taking over where consoles and MMOG once were king. A recent study from MocoSpace found that while 80 percent of social gamers play while commuting or waiting to begin appointments, 96 percent admit that they are playing these games at home from their couch, bed, or front porch…. These hundreds of millions of players and their numbers are growing all the time - are changing the way we think about games and the gamers, and they are demanding a more games like experience from the rest of their world.”

The World According to App

Game terms such as game mechanics, points, badges and leaderboards are introduced.  But do not look for code or discussion about best programming development.  Instead the book focuses on ideas best meant for brainstorming.  You'll learn why rewards are popular â€" they lead to status, access, and power.

The main process that makes games possible are laid out in six motivations â€" desire incentive, challenge,  achievement, reward, feedback, mastery.  To make these motivations real, goals are established in the game, but most games are now designed such that winning is not the main objective.

Readers who own small businesses can benefit by paying attention to the behavior shifts mentioned in The Gamification Revolution. The author delves into the behavior economics and gets to the heart as to what is on the customer's mind.  Cultural attitudes towards automobiles is highlighted here. In previous generations, teenagers dreamt of getting a driver's license and the perceived freedom that would come with driving where they want. Recent research has discovered that today's young adults are ambivalent about driving. The fact that automobiles include more technology as a selling point is an affirmation of the shift.

Topics like this are supported with the author's questions meant to help the reader think about how behaviors are shifting.

Your Move

The text can feel like a word version of the game RISK.  Zicherman and Linder provide interesting historical facts that give context to how gaming has really been a part of how things get done.  Did you know refrigeration came from Napoleon offering a prize for better food supplies for his military campaigns?

“In 1795 he offered 12,000 francs to the invention that could solve the food presentation problem.”

The historical factoids help drive home the point that much of gamification is not brand new â€" it's been around for generations in different ways.

Of course, a book about gamification should demonstrate gamification, right?  The Gamification Revolution includes an app that supports the text in the book. It includes video collaboration tools with friends to see your ideas and a social media link for the company's profiles in the book.

All in all you'll learn that the best way to beat the competition is to let your employees and customers experience as much fun as possible.  The Gamification Revolution will show the way to what fun works â€" while still having fun all the while.

The Internship: A Lighthearted Movie About Google and The Changing Business World

”The Internship‘ is a new movie that follows two laid-off salesmen as they attempt to start over in their careers through an unpaid internship at Google. It arrives in U.S. movie theaters in June. It comes across as a feel-good movie with special relevance for anyone interested in the inside workings of Google.

What ‘The Internship' is About

The movie stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn (pictured above) as Billy and Nick.  The two find themselves out of work thanks to an increasingly digital world and an employer that couldn't keep up.

In need of jobs and to prove their relevance in this digital world, they somehow talk their way into getting highly competitive internships at Google.  They are seasoned people … er, middle aged.  All the other Google interns are young, tech-savvy ivy-leaguers and geniuses.

Through the course of their internship, the two are responsible for tasks such as managing the Gmail help line. However, they don't have the tech know-how of their younger counterparts, and need to ask for their help.

The movie pokes fun at Google, with comic references to its famous laid-back work environment and experimental technology like self-driving cars.

But it also pokes fun at the difference between two generations - one with formal education and weaned on  Web technology, and the other with more life experience but not necessarily an abundance of tech know-how.  Obviously, as a comedy you can expect it to overplay the differences between generations.

“The Internship” is mainly intended for some quick laughs and a feel-good storyline.

It does, though, contain some themes that are relevant in today's business world. The importance of technology is a big one. The merging of different age groups and skill sets into a workplace environment is another. It also highlights how some business professionals have had to reinvent themselves out of necessity.

Made In Cooperation With Google

Of course, the cynical will look at this movie and say, “Hey, it's just one giant product placement for Google!”

That was the take of Stuart Heritage, whose piece in The Guardian was titled “The Internship: a dire warning about megacorps? Nope, it's an ad for Google.”

And in fact, Google was deeply involved in making the movie.  In an interview in AllThingsD, the director, Shawn Levy, says, ”Literally, every single computer screen and every single white board in the movie was either done by a Googler or sent to us by Google or personally verified and approved by a Googler, because I wanted the movie to be accurate in the small details, as well. Every time you see a shot, even in the distant background where there's a dry-erase white board, what you see on that white board is something that you see in the Googleplex, and I wanted all of that to be accurate.”

Google co-founder Sergey Brin makes not one, but two, cameo appearances in the film.

Ironically, in real life, there's not much age difference between Brin and the two co-stars who are played as so “old.”  Brin himself  will turn 40 this year - hardly a youngster. Vaughn is just 3 years older than Brin. Wilson is only 5 years older.

Yes, Google is as much a character in the film as any of the humans. Take it as lighthearted fun that may have particular relevance to those who use Google products daily.  And it has a few minor business lessons buried within.

The Internship movie hits theaters in the United States on June 7, 2013.  Here's the trailer:

Image credits: stills from movie trailer

Our Latest Curated List of Events, Awards and Contests

Every week we bring you a carefully-vetted list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

7 Steps to Facebook Success â€" How to Make Money on the World's #1 Social Network
June 04, 2013, Online

If you've been feeling frustrated and overwhelmed by the constant changes and tweaks on Facebook, and you've been struggling to measure a real monetary result from your Facebook marketing efforts â€" you're not alone! On this free mega online event, Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith will share her own 7-Step Facebook Marketing Success Plan that's packed with money-making tips for YOU to turn the world's most popular social network into the TOP source of quality leads and paying customers for your business! It's free - register today and save your seat!

Making Money Online: Ecommerce Done Right with John Lawson
June 25, 2013, New York, NY

Looking to create independence from this shifting job economy?
Want a stream of income that works for you around the clock?
Have a great idea of what to sell online but don't know how to get started?
Dreaming of growing your online store from a hobby to a full fledged, profitable business?
Join John Lawson, award winning Social Commerce Strategist, American Express featured businessman, author, and founder of 3rd Power Outlet â€" an online clothing retail outlet that has exceeded $25 million in sales.
John will be sharing his practical, down-to-earth methods for building your own ecommerce business from the ground up in this two part workshop, packed with resources, tips, and how-to instruction.
Discount Code
SBTRENDS ( $25 off)

WBENC National Conference & Business Fair
June 26, 2013, Minneapolis, MN

The Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) will convene 3,500 decision makers from the nation's leading corporations, government entities and women's business enterprises (WBEs) to generate business together and stimulate economic growth at the 2013 WBENC National Conference & Business Fair in Minneapolis, MN, June 25-27, 2013.

Big Awards for Business
August 14, 2013, Online

The Big Awards started with a mission of recognizing real talent and performance. Real business people, those with experience and knowledge, judge the Big Awards. Request an entry kit today and submit your nomination by August 14, 2013.
Discount Code
SBT50 ($50.00 off)

More Events

• Zoholics â€" Zoho User Conference
  May 29, 2013, San Francisco, CA
• Supercharge Your Business Network
  May 29, 2013, Online
• How to Find Sales Opportunities in Your CRM | Free Webinar & E-Book
  May 30, 2013, Online
• Small Business Summit
  May 31, 2013, Athens, GA
• Leadership: Becoming The Leader Your Business Needs You To Be
  May 31, 2013, Online
• Strategies for Raising Growth Capital in Volatile Markets
  June 04, 2013, Online
• Build Up Your Business: Growth By Design
  June 05, 2013, New York, NY
• Search at eBay Webinar for Small Business Owners
  June 05, 2013, Online
• CT Business Expo
  June 06, 2013, Hartford, CT
• “The New Entrepreneurz” Presentation
  June 06, 2013, New York, NY
• 4th Annual MACs Women's Entrepreneur Summit
  June 08, 2013, New York, NY
• Win to the Winth Power Workshop
  June 09, 2013, New York, NY
• The Inc. Leadership Forum
  June 10, 2013, San Diego, CA
• How Your Personal Credit Score Can Affect You in Business
  June 12, 2013, Pittsburgh, PA
• Business Webinar: I Survived and Dominated The Crisis
  June 12, 2013, Online
• Veteran Entrepreneur Training Symposium
  June 13, 2013, Reno, NV
• Future Energy New York
  June 13, 2013, New York City
• National Small Business Week
  June 17, 2013, Washington, DC
• Web.com Small Business Forum â€" Raleigh
  June 20, 2013, Raleigh, NC

More Awards and Contests

• CNBC Prime's Crowd Rules $50,000 Challenge
  June 03, 2013, Online
• CrowdIt Launch Challenge
  June 04, 2013, Online
• 2013 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women
  June 28, 2013, Online
• eMinutes $2,500 Entrepreneurs Contest
  June 30, 2013, Online
• Huggies MomInspired Grant Program
  July 31, 2013, Online
• 2013 Big Awards for Business
  August 14, 2013, Online
• The Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition
  November 08, 2013, Online

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

8 Top “Guilty Pleasure” Books for Summer Reading

Just to be clear, my business book addiction also takes a vacation.  There's only so much marketing strategy any small business owner can read about, right? Sometimes, you have to change it up and this is my summer reading list that has a small business spin, but is certainly not all business.

A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr

After spending about 25 years in manufacturing, I'm ashamed to say that I've acquired a sort of potty mouth.  So when I saw this book on the NPR website, I thought I'd add it to my reading list.

Melissa Mohr takes us on a historic journey of swearing that will transform the way you react to swearing.  For example, she covers the difference between obscenities and oaths and goes into details about how swearing or not swearing in the Middle Ages could be a matter of life and death.  The book also covers censorship and the rise of racial slurs.

Overall, this book will make you a more refined consumer of language and add to some colorful cocktail talk over the summer.

The Entrepreneur Diet : The On-the-Go Plan for Fitness, Weight Loss and Healthy Living by Tom Weede

For those of us in colder climates, Summer is an ideal opportunity to lighten our eating and a great time to get healthy.

Entrepreneurs lead busy and stressful lives and The Entrepreneur Diet looks like a great book to point small business owners in a healthier direction.

This book is published by Entrepreneur Magazine, so you know they understand how we live.  Inside you'll find habits for shedding fat, habits that work with busy schedules, stealth exercises that can be done on an airplane and many more healthy strategies for busy business people on the go.

A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley by Neal Thompson

What's a Summer reading list without a good biography?  When I saw this title about Robert Ripley (from Ripley's Believe it or Not) it took me back to my childhood and one of my favorite books to grab when it was reading time and my favorite cartoon in the newspaper.

You'll enjoy getting to know this cartoonist turned millionaire adventurer through the eyes of Neal Thompson (@NealThompson).  Ripley embodied the entrepreneurial spirit with his penchant for making outrageous statements that often turned out to be true such as that Charles Lindbergh was only the sixty-seventh man to fly across the Atlantic or that “The Star Spangled Banner” was not the national anthem. (Really?  I didn't know this!)

This is why I loved Ripley and you will find his story inspirational.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

So if the healthy entrepreneur book didn't get your attention, maybe Salt Sugar Fat will.  I heard about this book from some friends and then I heard an interview on NPR and this is how it ended up on my list.

I'm not one for conspiracies, but if you love documentaries like Food Nation, then you'll want to grab this book for yourself.  Michael Moss (@saltsugfat), Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the New York Times unearths the “secret sauce” behind our cravings for all things salty, sweet and fattening.  (Whew!  I'm glad it's not just my lack of willpower!)

As it turns out, food companies spend a lot of research dollars and time figuring out exactly what trips our taste buds into wanting more and more of their products.  They call it the “bliss point” and you'll call this book riveting.

Hacking Your Education by Dale J. Stephens

This is the season where young people are either heading into college and about to spend more money than you can earn in a decade or getting out of college with relatively poor job prospects.

If you're part of either of these conversations, then this will be a book for your summer reading list.  Dale Stephens (@DaleJStephens) claims that you can hack your education and that college degrees are antiquated.  The new generation of “Hackademics” (as he calls them) are building successful careers and futures with nothing more than curiosity, confidence and grit.

Hmm, sounds like the attributes of budding entrepreneurs, doesn't it?

Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Many of you are going to be spending the summer at a variety of sporting events.  If you're there with your kids or grandchildren, you might see everyone get a trophy and you'll either applaud it or go on a rant. Whichever camp you fall into, here's a book that will keep you company in the shade.

Top Dog is all about identifying your own competitive style and learning how to tip the odds in your favor.  For example, home field advantage matters in sports as well as in diplomacy and business, women are better at judging risk while men are better at ignoring it.

There are tons of other interesting strategic game plans you can learn from the world of sports that you can incorporate to build a winning business.

Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation by Michael Pollan

Since I'm a foodie, Cooked grabbed my attention.  This is a really interesting book, not just about food and mastering the art of elemental cooking, but about impact of NOT cooking.

When we stop cooking, we hand off a critical component of nutrition as well as relationships to corporations.

Michael Pollan's (@michaelpollan) position is that taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable.

Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters by Jon Acuff

The idea of “success first and significance later” is dead.  This is the phrase that stopped me cold in my tracks.  It explained why Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials put such a high priority on the quality of how they spend their time and who they spend it with.

Jon Acuff (@JonAcuff), Wall Street Journal best selling author explains how much the idea of success has changed over the last 100 years.  Baby Boomers are starting second and third careers and technology has given rise to a whole new tribe of entrepreneurs.  Acuff explores the idea that there are only two ways to get through in life; average and awesome.  Average is the easier path and doesn't require much effort, while the awesome path is extremely challenging.

So where is the middle?  You'll have to read the book to find out.

As I pulled this summer reading list together, I noticed that I didn't have any totally off the business path books.  Do you have any on your list?  What are you reading this summer to get your mind off of business?

What is a SERP?

The word “SERP” stands for “search engine results page.”  It's pronounced ”serp,” just like in the first syllable of the word serpent.

So, just what is a SERP?

Imagine someone doing a search in Google for a word or phrase.  Google will return results for that particular search on a Google search results page.

You've seen SERPs many times. Above is an example of SERP in the Bing.com search engine.

The acronym SERP, or sometimes the plural form SERPs, tends to be used in discussions about search engines or search engine optimization.  It might be used in a sentence such as:  ”You appeared number 3 in the SERPs.”  Translation:  When we did a search in Google for the type of product your company sells, your website appeared as the third result down on the search page in Google.

The person making that statement usually means the website appeared number 3 after all the paid ads (outlined in yellow in the image above).

But not always - it's also possible to buy a number 1 position in the SERPs, simply by buying pay-per-click ads from a search engine like Google or Bing.  That's because there are two types of results returned on most search engine pages in Google, Bing or other engines:

• Organic results - These are results that come from natural placement in the search engine hierarchy.  If you have good content on a useful page with links pointing to it, that page may show up high in the search results for people searching on a relevant term or phrase.
• Paid search results - As the phrase implies these are purchased ads. You buy text ads that show up at the top or top right column of the page. They are commonly called “pay per click ads” because most of the time the advertiser pays only when someone clicks on the ad.  In Google these are called AdWords. In Microsoft's Bing they are called Bing Ads.

Either type of result can result in your website appearing high in the search engines for a specific word or phrase. But of course, paid ads can be expensive unless you really know your way around the bidding system for buying paid search ads.

So why are SERPs important?

Studies show the higher up you appear in the search results, the more likely someone searching will click over to YOUR site.  Most SERPs consist of multiple pages.  A search for a popular term will return dozens,  hundreds or thousands of search result pages. In the example pictured above, over 700 million results were returned.

Imagine being a searcher faced with all of those SERP pages. Who has the patience and time to click through them all?  No one.

Therefore, the pages that appear highest in the search engine results pages are more likely to get clicked and get the traffic.  That usually means that if you want to get meaningful traffic, your business needs to appear on the first page of the SERPs or possibly the second or third page.

Who uses the acronym SERP?

SERP is a technical acronym.  Most of the time the people using a term like SERP are search engine optimization professionals or marketing professionals.  If you hire a professional to help you with your search engine placement - or even just read up on the topic yourself - sooner or later you will encounter this term.

Either way, as a small business owner or manager who realizes the importance of your business being found online you will want to know what a SERP is.  The more you know, the better informed the business decisions you make.  And you'll be better able to hold your own with the people or firms you hire.

For more on this topic and related topics, see:

SEOBook:  Search Engine Marketing Glossary

SearchEngineLand:  What is SEO?

Google: Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (PDF)

3 Ways to Perform SEO on a Shoestring Budget

Small Business SEO Trends to Keep an Eye On

Amazon to Launch Kindle Worlds, a Marketplace for Fan Fiction

Do you like to write or read “fan fiction”? Fan fiction, if you're not familiar with the term, is where fans of an original work write their own stories based on characters in the original work.  For example, the Fifty Shades of Gray trilogy that has topped bestseller lists, was based on fan fiction deriving from the Twilight series of vampire books.

Well, if you write fanfiction you now have a new outlet for it: Amazon.com.  Amazon announced this week that it is launching Kindle Worlds. This is a place where short-story authors can write and get paid for stories they write based on their favorite TV shows, movies, music, or games.

The company will roll out the Kindle Worlds for Authors platform soon. Fan fiction writers will be able to submit their work for digital publication. Amazon Publishing will retain the copyright to any submitted work and sell it across platforms on its free Kindle Reader apps.  This is a way to get short stories published without going through traditional means and avoiding rejection letters.  However, you have to be willing to abide by Amazon's rules.

Stories that are accepted will be based on Worlds that are created based on licensing agreements Amazon reaches. At the beginning, only a few Worlds will be available for authors. Amazon has worked out a deal with Warner Bros. Television Group's Alloy Entertainment that allows fans of shows like Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl to write stories based on these shows. Writers can use settings and characters and write their own short stories.

Because the fiction is done under licensing agreements, it also avoids potential copyright issues for the fan-fiction writers.  That's always been a gray area for fan fiction.  Some authors of original works have taken action against fan fiction.  Others have given their blessing.

Through this new service, the author writes a story that sticks to this “World” and submits it to Amazon, where it is available as an eBook for Kindle readers.  Amazon sets the price - between $0.99 and $3.99.

Longer stories (more than 10,000 words) that carry a larger price tag will receive a 35 percent royalty of net sales.  Authors of works with a lower price tag and shorter in length (between 5,000 and 10,000 words) will get 20 percent.

The publisher and the “world” owner (so far, this would just be Warner Bros.) would split the rest.  Amazon sends a payment monthly.

Image: Vampire Diaries

NYC Events: Upcoming NYC Business and Technology Events (5/24 – 5/30)

Here is a listing of NYC Business and Technology Events for the upcoming week (5/24 â€" 5/30) that we thought would be beneficial to our small business community in the Greater NYC area.

Have a business and/or technology event coming up in the New York City area that you'd like us to add to our weekly post? If so, email us at eve...@smallbiztechnology.com.

 

How To Build A Million Dollar Site With Chris Broadway

May 24, 2013, â€" 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM, WeWork Labs, 175 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014

Our May Meetup will consist of a 40 minute talk followed by a 20 minute Q&A with Chris “Broadway” Romero, who was previously the Co-Founder of Thisis50.com. We are always picking Broadway's brain about making moves in the Hip Hop world. After creating Thisis50.com, Broadway has been able to work with some of Hip Hop's biggest names in different capacities, but makes his mark on the creative and visual side of things. That video you like, chances are Broadway had something to do with it.

Besides being your favorite rapper's go to technology guy, Broadway is a serial entrepreneur. He has served as an adviser to many startups in the Music Technology world and is always looking for a way to add value and put a dent in our world. When not working on BWAY Creative or taking on clients, Broadway is busy working as a VP at 212 Decibels as he builds out the future of Music Discovery.

 

Marketing, Trademarking, and Strategic Planning â€" The Next Steps for Your Business

May 29, 2013, â€" 6:15 PM to 8:00 PM, 33 Nassau Ave, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY

Have you started a business? Great! What's next?
Come learn from a panel of experienced professionals how to grow your business and what the next steps are towards meeting your goals. This cohort will discuss marketing, branding, trademarking, and strategic planning. In addition, we'll have a open Q&A session at the end of the seminar, where you can ask questions about your specific business. Free business advice? Yes, indeed.

 

How To Get Prospective Customers To Say ‘WOW' and Close MORE Sales!

May 30, 2013, â€" 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM, Regus Office Suites, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10106

What you offer is amazing, but too often prospective customers just don't“get it”! They don't buy or they aren't willing to pay what you know your product or service is worth. In this seminar, we'll show you how to overcome that so you can close more sales!

Using marketing techniques taught at Harvard Business School, Evan will show you how to dramatically increase the number of people who buy. He'll show you a way to talk about your product or service that makes prospective customers say “WOW!”
Ramon will show you how to use the 7 steps of Lifecycle Marketing to capture leads, nurture prospects and turn customers into loyal, lifelong customers.

 

dd:IMPACT Conference Groundswell: The Next Wave of Content (presented by Digital DUMBO)

May 30, 01:00 PM to 8:30 PM, Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St, Brooklyn 11201

At the first dd:IMPACT of 2013, “Groundswell: The Next Wave of Content,” we'll explore how the most successful companies and brands in the world are using content and platforms to spark movements and increase their bottom lines.

We'll examine how content allows creatives to work more closely with digital teams to create new products, partnerships, and businesses through the next wave of campaigns, experiential activations, curators, storytelling, media formats, platforms, and more.

The panel discussions will feature industry leaders from brands like The New York Times, VICE/Virtue, The Onion, MINI USA, Pulse, Digg, R/GA, Artsy, Cowbird, Narratively, Fohr Card, and more!