Week in Review: HP Mobile, Microsoft Vulnerability, IRS Fast Track

From the latest tech to policy changes to other up-to-the-minute shifts that could affect your business, there’s a lot to keep up with. Meanwhile, you find yourself at the end of another busy week with your feet up trying to take it easy.

Sit back and relax. We’ve done all the heavy lifting. The Small Business Trends editorial team has assembled the most important news for you all in one place. Here are the top stories in review.

Latest Tech

HP lets you print from mobile. A new accessory lets you print from your mobile devices on older HP printers. Don’t worry. It will be included in your new printer when it’s time for an upgrade.

Microsoft reveals system vulnerability. If you have an older version of Windows, Office or other programs running on your computer, beware. Microsoft says you may be a target to hackers.

Dell computer smell upsets customers. Businesses both large and small must deal with customer complaints that seem to spring up without warning. Dell shows how to respond to one such potentially embarrassing issue.

Public Policy

How Obamacare is affecting small business owners with individual policies. Even small business owners who originally supported the President’s healthcare plan are hurting, now that they are getting the bill for replacement policies.  It ain’t pretty. Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell gives us the rundown.

The IRS will fast track small business. Being audited by the Internal Revenue Service is never a good experience. But at least a new IRS program may speed things up a bit. Read more to evaluate your options.

Trends

Smartphone subscription projected to hit 5.9 billion. For small businesses who market online, this means catering to an increasingly mobile market place. But it also may mean new markets opening up.

Smartwatches win for wearable tech. Right now, at least, more people would buy a smartwatch than Google Glass or similar products. Get the details of the survey here.

Social Media

SnapChat turns down $3 billion from Facebook. It may sound crazy, but experts insist there is a method to this startup’s madness. Their audience just keeps growing!

Facebook helps boost Canadian French Fry chain. It’s a good thing social media does drive sales. Because Facebook is the only social media marketing Ryan Smolkin planned for when launching his successful string of eateries.

Finance

What the shutdown has done to loans. There has been another side affect of the recent government shutdown (now averted), says Biz2Credit CEO, Rohit Arora. Anita Campbell has more in this story about how small business loan rates are down.

Entrepreneurship

Amsterdam company has clothes for your chair. It may sound like a crazy idea, but sometimes being safe with your products just isn’t the right answer. It’s time to get creative.

Your next idea could come to you anywhere. Look, we all know the temptation to seek out that most contemplative spot where inspiration supposedly always strikes. But the truth is, your next business idea may come upon you when you least expect it.

Reading Photo via Shutterstock

Starbucks Loses “Charbucks” Case Against a Small Family Business

It’s something you don’t see too often these days. A small family owned business has twice prevailed against a huge international brand in court. And this David and Goliath story could have important implications for small businesses everywhere.

On their website, Annie and Jim Clark, owners and operators of The Black Bear Micro Roastery, claim:

“Simply put, the big companies won’t produce the product that we produce, because high quality and high volume just don’t mix.”

But it wasn’t the quality of the New Hampshire couple’s product that the national chain, Starbucks Corporation, took issue with. It was the name given to a particular roast the coffee maker produces.

A peek at the product description for Mister Charbucks Blend, shows the similarity to the brand name of the larger coffee retailer was no accident.

The Clarks’ website describes the coffee as having:

“…the strong “dark” notes that West Coast coffee drinkers like.”

The description together with the name of the blend are clear references to the charred roasting Starbucks has made famous all around the world.

Still, despite a phone survey taken on behalf of Starbucks which seems to indicate at least some confusion among customers, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Black Bear. That court agreed with an earlier ruling that the name of the blend only minimally diluted the bigger cafe chain’s brand and trademarks, reports Reuters.

So what’s the takeaway here?

The court’s decision allows the Clarks to continue selling their Charbucks Blend. But the couple were dragged into court not once but twice. This must have been costly and disruptive for both them and their business.

So unless you have the money, the time or the stomach to put up with protracted litigation, you may want to think twice. Or at least consult an attorney before straying into similar territory with your product or brand.

Starbucks Photo via Shutterstock

How Often Should You Update Your Small Business Blog?

Running a small business blog makes a lot of sense, marketing-wise. It’s great for SEO (search engine optimization), because search engines love websites with a steady stream of fresh, quality content. It’s great for engagement because visitors enjoy looking forward to new articles, resources and information on a regular basis.

So How Often Should You Update Your Blog?

You’ll find all sorts of advice out there on this topic. Some experts advocate quality over quantity, and say you can post to your blog once a week, or even once a month, as long as it’s consistently high-quality material - long, well-written posts with authoritative links and statistics and research.

Others adhere to the idea that it’s imperative to update your blog every day, even if you just throw up a dashed-off post that consists of a link and a few sentences of commentary. Frequent posting, they say, drives search engines more impressively than quality.

So, who’s right?

What’s the magic number for updating your blog that will give you the right balance between quality and quantity, keeping both search engines and visitors happy and returning to you again and again?

The unfortunate truth is there’s no magic number. But there are some updating frequencies that are better than others, and there is a right number of posts per week for you and your particular small business.

Here’s What You Shouldn’t Do

Don’t Post Less Frequently Than Once Per Week

Even if you have the most amazing quality blog posts ever written, if you’re not updating at least once a week, you’re losing momentum. Search engines crawl your website less often. Visitors and potential customers forget that your blog exists.

If your updates are more than a week apart, it’s about as effective as not blogging at all.

Don’t Set a Schedule That You Can’t Adhere To

While it’s true that daily content can give your small business blog a great boost, it’s equally true that a sudden drop in publishing frequency can damage your efforts.

Burnout can be a serious problem for bloggers. If you’re trying to write fresh content every single day, you’re probably on a fast track to running out of steam.

Unless you have someone whose only job is to write daily blog posts, or you’re planning to supplement original content with guest posts, reprints and material, you don’t have to write fresh. A daily post schedule probably isn’t the best choice for your small business blog. After all, you’ve got a business to run.

Here’s What You Should Do

Realize Blogging Done Right is Good for Business

When you have a regularly updated and engaging blog, you’re positioned for more website traffic and increased lead generation. According to recent data from marketing company Hubspot:

• Companies that blog 3 to 5 times a month, or around once a week, have more than twice the traffic of companies that don’t.
• Company blogs with 15 or more posts per month see more than five times the traffic of non-blogging companies.
• Small businesses have the most significant results and the greatest traffic gains when they update blogs more often.
• Increasing your publishing frequency from 3-5 times per month, to 6-8 times per month, can nearly double your inbound sales leads.

Set a Realistic Schedule and Stick to It

Consistency is the most important aspect of small business blogging. Once you have a regular schedule, your visitors will know to expect new material at those intervals. They’ll come back to look for your latest post. Search engines also give higher preference to regularly updated websites over those that update sporadically or infrequently.

For most small businesses, updating your blog one to three times per week is a realistic and effective schedule. Make your blog updates a priority, continue to provide quality posts and resources, and you’ll see returns in the form of more traffic and increased sales through your small business website.

Blog Photo via Shutterstock

More in: Blogging

How Often Should You Update Your Small Business Blog?

Running a small business blog makes a lot of sense, marketing-wise. It’s great for SEO (search engine optimization), because search engines love websites with a steady stream of fresh, quality content. It’s great for engagement because visitors enjoy looking forward to new articles, resources and information on a regular basis.

So How Often Should You Update Your Blog?

You’ll find all sorts of advice out there on this topic. Some experts advocate quality over quantity, and say you can post to your blog once a week, or even once a month, as long as it’s consistently high-quality material - long, well-written posts with authoritative links and statistics and research.

Others adhere to the idea that it’s imperative to update your blog every day, even if you just throw up a dashed-off post that consists of a link and a few sentences of commentary. Frequent posting, they say, drives search engines more impressively than quality.

So, who’s right?

What’s the magic number for updating your blog that will give you the right balance between quality and quantity, keeping both search engines and visitors happy and returning to you again and again?

The unfortunate truth is there’s no magic number. But there are some updating frequencies that are better than others, and there is a right number of posts per week for you and your particular small business.

Here’s What You Shouldn’t Do

Don’t Post Less Frequently Than Once Per Week

Even if you have the most amazing quality blog posts ever written, if you’re not updating at least once a week, you’re losing momentum. Search engines crawl your website less often. Visitors and potential customers forget that your blog exists.

If your updates are more than a week apart, it’s about as effective as not blogging at all.

Don’t Set a Schedule That You Can’t Adhere To

While it’s true that daily content can give your small business blog a great boost, it’s equally true that a sudden drop in publishing frequency can damage your efforts.

Burnout can be a serious problem for bloggers. If you’re trying to write fresh content every single day, you’re probably on a fast track to running out of steam.

Unless you have someone whose only job is to write daily blog posts, or you’re planning to supplement original content with guest posts, reprints and material, you don’t have to write fresh. A daily post schedule probably isn’t the best choice for your small business blog. After all, you’ve got a business to run.

Here’s What You Should Do

Realize Blogging Done Right is Good for Business

When you have a regularly updated and engaging blog, you’re positioned for more website traffic and increased lead generation. According to recent data from marketing company Hubspot:

• Companies that blog 3 to 5 times a month, or around once a week, have more than twice the traffic of companies that don’t.
• Company blogs with 15 or more posts per month see more than five times the traffic of non-blogging companies.
• Small businesses have the most significant results and the greatest traffic gains when they update blogs more often.
• Increasing your publishing frequency from 3-5 times per month, to 6-8 times per month, can nearly double your inbound sales leads.

Set a Realistic Schedule and Stick to It

Consistency is the most important aspect of small business blogging. Once you have a regular schedule, your visitors will know to expect new material at those intervals. They’ll come back to look for your latest post. Search engines also give higher preference to regularly updated websites over those that update sporadically or infrequently.

For most small businesses, updating your blog one to three times per week is a realistic and effective schedule. Make your blog updates a priority, continue to provide quality posts and resources, and you’ll see returns in the form of more traffic and increased sales through your small business website.

Blog Photo via Shutterstock

More in: Blogging

How One Man Successfully Entered the SAP HANA Platform Eco-System

Chris Carter was your quintessential geek in love with technology - the guy who brought a Commodore and an Apple IIe to college. He always had a penchant for learning new technologies and sharing them with others. Years later, this passion is still reflected in his ventures. Both his initial and current ventures are about helping businesses adopt emerging technologies.

Carter has been in the SAP eco-system for nearly 20 years and has a deep understanding of cloud computing and big data. For those of you who may not know what SAP HANA is, here is the definition from the SAP HANA website:

“SAP HANA is an in-memory data platform that is deployable as an on-premise appliance, or in the cloud. It is a revolutionary platform that’s best suited for performing real-time analytics, and developing and deploying real-time applications. At the core of this real-time data platform is the SAP HANA database which is fundamentally different than any other database engine in the market today.”

Seeing the need for a company that could provide cost effective, strategic solutions using the best of SAP, cloud and big data analytics, Carter founded Approyo in 2011. The video below explains the concept:

The company’s strategy is based on the platform eco-system trend that is becoming prevalent in the tech world. We have seen the success of this model with Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Salesforce’s Force.com. Using this strategy based on a platform and its eco-system, a large number of developers are able to build their businesses cost-effectively without the time-to-market disadvantages.

They support companies making their shift to the SAP HANA platform by developing ready to deploy and secure predictive analytics solutions. Carter says the distinct benefit that the HANA platform has over other big data technologies is that it gives you the ability to fit structured and unstructured data right into the system. Without the hassle of massive hardware deployment and huge costs. It also allows its customers to choose the pay-as-you-go model or a monthly subscription.

The company has been providing SAP HANA services for the past two years to customers in sectors like retail, oil & gas, manufacturing and healthcare where massive amounts of data is generated on a daily basis. SAP HANA is based on a columnar in-memory database that allows deep analysis while capturing fresh transactions in real time. These features have helped Approyo evolve into an advanced developer of vertical solutions with real domain insight in industry segments, such as energy management at hospital facilities.

The immense value that Approyo brings to the table can be gauged from this case. For a hospital that wanted to reduce indirect costs, it designed a solution that could reduce costs by 28%. It took into consideration various data sets - average energy costs, quarterly costs, patient days, housekeeping down to their cafeterias, maintenance and repairs - to understand the hospital’s workflow and impact on energy consumption cost. Carter says even little things like linen - the specific days when they are done or when deliveries are taken care of - provided useful insights and data for implementing a process change at the hospital.

They have also developed solutions for the Finance and Retail verticals. Based on its success with such vertical solutions, the company offers Ignite, a set of industry-specific templates that expedite the implementation of SAP HANA technology aligned with a company’s business strategy. What sets them apart from other SAP HANA resellers is that rather than just providing hosting services for SAP HANA, it helps companies develop a roadmap for implementing the SAP HANA technology. The company develops solutions using the data provided by various APIs to derive big data insights for better business outcomes and ROI.

Approyo targets the SAP eco-system which has over 74,000 customers and today has 23 resellers in 14 countries, above $1 million in revenue and is profitable. As only 1.6% of SAP customers are yet on the HANA platform, there is scope for them to tap further into this eco-system.

The Fourth Quarter Was Err. . .Groovy

I love trying to come up with new takes on the standard sales graph cartoon, and this one was a fun idea that I was really looking forward to drawing. But I wanted to make sure it read as “trippy.” So I did a quick search for images on “tripping out.”

I got a good sampling of psychedelic images. I was examining them closely when my wife walked into my office. “What are you looking at?” she asked. “I’m researching tripping out,” I responded.

Now, any other spouse might have continued questioning, and rightly so. But when you’re married to a cartoonist, what comes back is more like “Oh, Okay. Hey, dinner’s ready.”

The Fourth Quarter Was Err. . .Groovy

I love trying to come up with new takes on the standard sales graph cartoon, and this one was a fun idea that I was really looking forward to drawing. But I wanted to make sure it read as “trippy.” So I did a quick search for images on “tripping out.”

I got a good sampling of psychedelic images. I was examining them closely when my wife walked into my office. “What are you looking at?” she asked. “I’m researching tripping out,” I responded.

Now, any other spouse might have continued questioning, and rightly so. But when you’re married to a cartoonist, what comes back is more like “Oh, Okay. Hey, dinner’s ready.”

Xero Launches New Features and Plans for a Payroll Solution

Xero, the cloud-based accounting solution, has added a collection of new features recently. All enhance the experience of small businesses using the software, the company says. And all seem like lead-ins to the company’s planned introduction of a payroll solution in the second week of December 2013.

Jamie Sutherland, President of Xero US, in a recent phone interview said:

“We like to use the phrase ‘born in the clouds.’ The software really lets you understand the cash flow in your business.”

Unlike desktop driven solutions or those with a hybrid online version, Sutherland claims Xero offers real-time views of your business’s finances as changes occur. Sutherland says this is because the information resides on Xero’s third party servers and not in different versions on various computers.

Packages start at $19 per month for small businesses depending on the number of invoices and payments being processed.

The New Zealand-based company recently raised an additional $150 million in funding to compete in the U.S. market where it arrived two years ago.

New Xero Features

Below are the new features the company says it’s rolled out recently in a run-up to the introduction of its new payroll offering:

• Xero Touch is a new version of its Apple mobile operating system recently updated for iOS7. It allows users to check bank transactions, invoice, check with an accountant and more directly from a smartphone.
• Xero Files is a new drag and drop application. It lets you add invoices, transactions, expense receipts, fixed assets, contracts and just about any other kind of files into Xero. You can then attach them to related files and documents making them easy to find, the company says. See the video below:

• Xero Purchase Orders now allows you to put together purchase orders for your business in the same way you can already put together invoices on Xero.

New Payroll Feature Coming

Sutherland says the new payroll service is coming to Xero the second week of December 2013 with several price packages based on the size of your company.

Xero will be sharing more details about the new service at a live online “roadshow” presentation scheduled for Dec. 3, 2013.