LinkedIn’s Love Affair With Small Businesses. Four Ways LinkedIn Small Business Can Help You.

We know that on Facebook we can connect with our customers and buy advertising. With Twitter we can Tweet our way to success (NOT!) and buy advertising to get even more in front of our prospects and customers. LinkedIn is growing but I suspect for many business owners it’s just a digital rolodex that you flip through and try to make meaningful connections. You can do this and so much more. LinkedIn shows you how at Smallbusiness.LinkedIn.com .

In one of the most elegantly designed and simple to use web sites I’ve seen in a long time, Smallbusiness.LinkedIn.com is a treasure trove of easy to use content helping you understand how to use LinkedIn to build your personal brand, market your business, make sales or hire someone.

There are so many ways you can use LinkedIn for business. One SIMPLE tip is just to have a better LinkedIn profile.

I heard this tip stressed by Black Enterprise’s Senior Vice President. LinkedIn’s advice on better building your profile is here.

If you want to know how to get the MOST out of LinkedIn check out Smallbusiness.LinkedIn.com

Top News: A Study Says 98 Percent of Mobile Malware Targets Android

Small business owners need information to stay competitive. But following the latest updates even in your industry can be tough with everything else on your plate.

The Small Business Trends editorial team wraps it all up and puts it in one place for your benefit.

Mobile

Your Android phone could be a target. A report from Kaspersky Labs says 98 percent of mobile malware now targets the Android operating system. It’s not too surprising given Android’s popularity, but how safe is your mobile technology now?

Huawei launches five new devices. The China-based company is now targeting the U.S. market. And with their low price, they might appeal to budget conscious small business owners. Here’s an overview of the five latest devices and a look at when U.S. business owners might be able to  get a hold of some.

Welcome to the future of business cards. TouchBase Technologies imagines a business card with conductive ink. Tap the card on a contact’s smartphone and your information is instantly transferred.

Web

It’s crowdsourcing on your own domain. Sure, Indigogo and Kickstarter give you the ability to quickly and easily raise funds for your startup. But CrowdtiltOpen offers something more â€" a chance to add your own branding.

Grand St. could be a new place for tech hardware startups. If your new small business isn’t a website but instead a “leather organizer that can charge your smartphone” or an “iOS enabled guitar,” you may want to try this. You can sell consumer ready, beta test a new product or take preorders.

Microsoft OneDrive is finally here. And it turns out it’s much more than just a name change. The newly branded Microsoft cloud storage service has a few new surprises for users. Lets have a look at what you get with your OneDrive account.

This Chrome feature will warn you of malware. Too bad some feel it may already look a bit like a malware trick. A box appears on your screen when Chrome detects a change in your settings. But some users say this is exactly the kind of thing Google tells people to look out for.

Social Media

LinkedIn will soon open its publishing platform. Last week the social network for professionals announced a new publishing option had been opened to about 25,000 members. And many more will be given access soon, the company says. Posts you create will appear in your LinkedIn profile, but could eventually have much greater influence.

Social media customer care. Businesses of all sizes are taking social media more seriously. Nowhere is this more clear than in the expansion of companies like Brand Embassy. Social media monitoring comes in all shapes and sizes. But this is one of the latest.

This service is for social media management. Socialbakers has raised $26 million to further improve its offerings. But so far components include analytics, management of social channels, social media listening and more. There are also a number of resources and social media marketing reports for various countries.

This Pinterest marketing tool listens to your brand. Discover, from Pinterest analytics and social marketing company Tailwind, has some features that could give insight. They include monitoring the number of followers, repins, likes and comments.

This report says Facebook ads encourage “fake” clicks. The idea is that users paid to add “likes” to specific accounts with a fake profile also “like” other accounts too to disguise their activities. The easiest of these to find would be accounts that show up in Facebook ads.

Policy

U.S. House passes important smartphone bill. The proposed legislation would allow you to “unlock” your smartphone once your contract expires. The bill must still be passed in the Senate and could face further amendment. But some say the ban on “bulk unlocking” remains business unfriendly.

This program funds exporters. Members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship believe the State Trade and Export Promotion Program is a necessity. The pilot program gave grants to small businesses seeking global markets and some want it renewed.

More funds for Score are possible. If U.S. Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) has his way, SCORE could receive $10.5 million by 2015. The organization offers free mentoring to small businesses from an estimated 11,000 volunteers.

Tech

3D Printshow gives glimpse of business uses. There seems to be a lot of excitement over 3D printing these days and the implications for small business and entrepreneurship seem clear. This event gives an even broader perspective of possible business uses for the technology.

Advice & Resources

Entrepreneurs are optimistic people. Now there’s data to back that up. Despite all the complaints about the economy, a recent survey shows entrepreneurs remain pretty positive. Small Business Trends Publisher Anita Campbell reports.

Plan for the worst. It could take you 1000 days to see your income rise again after starting a new business. It may not be the kind of uplifting talk you expect from entrepreneurs, but it is a realistic expectation. If you plan to quit your job to start a business, say goodbye to that steady paycheck for a while.

Services

How to automate the hiring of new staff. This article gives you a walk-through of software designed to automate the hiring process. You can maintain a career portal where perspective employees can apply. You can also keep track of those applications once received.

Reading Photo via Shutterstock

Which Online Invoicing Software Solution is Best For Your Small Business? Sage One Invoicing Launches

Earlier this week Sage One launched a fresh new online invoicing solution for small businesses. Sage One Invoicing.

My first invoicing solution, years ago, was Microsoft Word. I created an invoice with my logo and email it to a client or send it to them in the mail.

I did this for a few years, until I tried to use Intuit Quickbooks invoicing solution. It was complicated and money showed up twice.

Next, I switched to Freshbooks and loved it, but I was tired of using two different money management solutions.

Then I switched to Quickbooks Online and found that invoicing solution to be pretty simple - but I do still have funds that are showing up twice in my profit and loss statement. Very annoying.

What solutions are you using to invoice clients and keep track of your funds?

Sage One launched about 2 years ago and was specifically designed to make it very simple and easy for small business owners to manage their clients and finances. Recently Sage One Invoicing launched to specifically address the need for businesses to INVOICE and collect payments faster and easier.

Sage One and Sage One Invoicing continues to show that it is no longer as difficult to START a small business as it was 10 years ago, or 5 year ago. All the tools you need to market, manage finances, hire talent and so many other things are all a mouse click away.

These services are offered by new startups and by mature companies like Sage who have years of experience in helping small businesses grow.

Which Online Invoicing Software Solution is Best For Your Small Business? Sage One Invoicing Launches

Earlier this week Sage One launched a fresh new online invoicing solution for small businesses. Sage One Invoicing.

My first invoicing solution, years ago, was Microsoft Word. I created an invoice with my logo and email it to a client or send it to them in the mail.

I did this for a few years, until I tried to use Intuit Quickbooks invoicing solution. It was complicated and money showed up twice.

Next, I switched to Freshbooks and loved it, but I was tired of using two different money management solutions.

Then I switched to Quickbooks Online and found that invoicing solution to be pretty simple - but I do still have funds that are showing up twice in my profit and loss statement. Very annoying.

What solutions are you using to invoice clients and keep track of your funds?

Sage One launched about 2 years ago and was specifically designed to make it very simple and easy for small business owners to manage their clients and finances. Recently Sage One Invoicing launched to specifically address the need for businesses to INVOICE and collect payments faster and easier.

Sage One and Sage One Invoicing continues to show that it is no longer as difficult to START a small business as it was 10 years ago, or 5 year ago. All the tools you need to market, manage finances, hire talent and so many other things are all a mouse click away.

These services are offered by new startups and by mature companies like Sage who have years of experience in helping small businesses grow.

Sage Launches Subscription Invoicing Aimed At Small Business Customers

One of the biggest challenges and frustrations of running a small business is getting paid. Now Sage has announced a new monthly subscription-based invoicing service. Called Sage One Invoicing and costing $9 a month, it is targeting small businesses as its core customers.

The reasons for this seem to be pretty clear. According to the company, 57% of small businesses struggle to get paid quickly. About 71% of these businesses use Word or Excel to generate invoices. And 47% send their invoices in the mail.

So a more organized, more productive system is required. The new invoicing service is being promoted as a simple alternative to other billing methods.

Well, consider this scenario which is probably very common to many small business owners. You make your own invoices in Word or Excel. Then, you either email them or mail them.

Afterwards it becomes extremely difficult to track the status of those invoices. Which ones have been paid? Which ones are still unpaid? Which ones are partially paid? Keeping on top of it all is a huge challenge. How do you remember to re-invoice late payers?

With Sage, those challenges are eased considerably, the company says. Once you send out your invoices from Sage, the customer can pay directly from the invoice into Sage’s credit card service or Paypal. If the payment is late, Sage One will tell you so you can send the invoice out again. Partial payments are also tracked, the company says.

Another plus is that, being online, Sage can be accessed from any computer with an online connection. Out of the office? No problem. Just sign into your account from another computer to see all of your invoices.

An official announcement from the company has more.  Sage One Product Manager Mike Savory said:

“There are many choices in the market today for online invoicing solutions, but some are too complicated for a small business’ needs and others don’t offer enough functionality. Sage One Invoicing is just right for business owners who want to look professional, get paid faster, and get back to doing what they love.”

Sage Launches Subscription Invoicing Aimed At Small Business Customers

One of the biggest challenges and frustrations of running a small business is getting paid. Now Sage has announced a new monthly subscription-based invoicing service. Called Sage One Invoicing and costing $9 a month, it is targeting small businesses as its core customers.

The reasons for this seem to be pretty clear. According to the company, 57% of small businesses struggle to get paid quickly. About 71% of these businesses use Word or Excel to generate invoices. And 47% send their invoices in the mail.

So a more organized, more productive system is required. The new invoicing service is being promoted as a simple alternative to other billing methods.

Well, consider this scenario which is probably very common to many small business owners. You make your own invoices in Word or Excel. Then, you either email them or mail them.

Afterwards it becomes extremely difficult to track the status of those invoices. Which ones have been paid? Which ones are still unpaid? Which ones are partially paid? Keeping on top of it all is a huge challenge. How do you remember to re-invoice late payers?

With Sage, those challenges are eased considerably, the company says. Once you send out your invoices from Sage, the customer can pay directly from the invoice into Sage’s credit card service or Paypal. If the payment is late, Sage One will tell you so you can send the invoice out again. Partial payments are also tracked, the company says.

Another plus is that, being online, Sage can be accessed from any computer with an online connection. Out of the office? No problem. Just sign into your account from another computer to see all of your invoices.

An official announcement from the company has more.  Sage One Product Manager Mike Savory said:

“There are many choices in the market today for online invoicing solutions, but some are too complicated for a small business’ needs and others don’t offer enough functionality. Sage One Invoicing is just right for business owners who want to look professional, get paid faster, and get back to doing what they love.”

Government Contracting: How To Do Some Research Before Market Entry

There is nothing worse than attending an event where a speaker will whet your appetite for a new market, then leave you hanging. At many small business conferences around the country, inevitably one of the speakers will bring up doing business with the government, and perhaps they will offer accurate advice, but not always.

There are many myths about doing business with the government, some perpetuated by those seeking to take advantage of novices, others simply out-dated, others still kept alive by those unwilling to understand how the market is changing. Many of those who write or speak are not B2G (business to government) experts and inadvertently include inaccurate information.

The federal government is the largest buyer of goods and services, buying virtually anything used in a business setting and more. They spend hundreds of billions annually. So on the surface, it is an attractive market.

However, there are hundreds of nuances and thousands of regulations, so before you get too excited, let’s do a reality check. Before entering the government contracting arena, a little research is in order. But where to start?

The first thing you need to ask yourself is, “Does the government buy what I sell?”

While the answer is usually yes, it is best to get a definitive answer. One place to start is the General Services Administration (GSA) website. Once there, look at the “Most Requested Links” and click on the “GSA eLibrary.”

This takes you into the eLibrary, where you can find not only whether or not the government buys what you sell, but who else is selling the same or similar products.

Next, type your query into the search box and then select one of the three options:

• “all of the words”
• “any of the words”
• “exact phrase”

As an example, let’s say you sell office furniture. Type in “office furniture” and select “exact phrase” and click the “enter” key.

The page that comes up matches your phrase. For you, you are interested in the numbers of the left side of the page. These numbers are in red and they are under the word “Source.” Each number represents a GSA Schedule contract. The matches include:

• Schedule 48 (Transportation, Delivery and Relocation)
• Schedule 71 (Furniture)
• Schedule 71 II K (Comprehensive Furniture Management Services)

You are looking for Schedule 71. So mouse over the red “71″ and you will find the full range of products and services the government purchases through Schedule 71, and it is extensive.

After scrolling through, go back to the top of the page and look for the red arrow next to “Download Contractors (Excel).” Click on this and it will take you to the “Download” page where you are then prompted to click the “Download” button.

This will download an Excel file that includes full company contact info, phone, email, company URL, DUNS, business status (various small business categories) and whether or not the company participates in a few state and local government programs.

This file tells you that there are 2,739 companies currently participating on GSA Schedule 71, trying to leverage this contract to sell to Uncle Sam. (I don’t show you this to scare you off, but to let you know that every niche in the federal market is highly competed.)

You’ve now done some government contracting research prior to market entry, and you now know what/who you’re up against. There are ways to enter this market and to win business - but as you can see, you cannot expect it to happen quickly.

Research Photo via Shutterstock

GCHQ \'harvesting Yahoo webcam sex images\'

February 28, 2014

Some 1.8m sexually explicit webcam images have been harvested from Yahoo Webcams and stored by GCHQ according to The Guardian.

GCHQ has been accused by a national newspaper of harvesting 1.8 million Webcam images from Yahoo users over a lengthy period.

The Guardian - citing former NSA operative Edward Snowden-sourced (and leaked) documents from the UK's spy agency - says that Operation Optic Nerve collated the images from Yahoo users between 2008 and 2010. Yahoo has denied any knowledge of the project and describes it as a completely unacceptable privacy violation.

The paper points out that some of the Webcam images may include detail of an adult nature, noting that Yahoo's software allows more than one person to view a given video stream.  This raises the curious spectre of GCHQ staff viewing sexually explicit images as part of their job, SCMagazineUK.com notes. 

GCHQ, for its part, has not denied the Guardian report, saying that all of its work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework, which ensures that its activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate.

In its statement to the Guardian, the spy agency said that "there is rigorous oversight, including from the secretary of state, the interception and intelligence services commissioners and the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee."

Digital forensics specialist Professor Peter Sommer - who is also a Visiting Professor at Leicester's de Montfort University - said that GCHQ's ability to harvest webcam images en-masse does not come as a surprise.

He told SCMagazineUK.com, however, that the agency's lack of forethought over the project does, however, surprise him.

"The argument for - that one might conceivably identify someone of interest via facial recognition technology - seems feeble against the costs of doing so, the likelihood of success and the obvious problems of collateral intrusion of privacy," he said. 

"There is also the high costs of initial acquisition, storage and processing of the data, along with the facial recognition plus the handling of the inevitably large numbers of false positives to deal with," he added.

Professor Sommer went on to say that there is the issue of GCHQ staff viewing obscene material to contend with.

Success, he explained, needs to measured against the harm that could be mitigated.

"Over the last few years, for example, there have been an average of seven terrorist deaths and 500 to 600 annual homicides taking place every year," he said.

Against this, he added, the question is whether a judgement about Operation Optic Nerve has been made within GCHQ, by its legal advisors or by Ministers who accept responsibility by signing off warrants.

Professor Sommer went on to question whether a judgement over the project has been made by the Commissioners and Intelligence Services Committee of Parliament - who are, he says, supposed to be exercising oversight in such cases.

Sarb Sembhi, an analyst and director of consulting with Incoming Thought, said that the webcam image harvesting programme is almost certainly to have been one of a great many relatively minor projects that are carried out within GCHQ, but which are then shelved once the programme has been completed.

"I find it quite amazing that they have been able to collate everything from the Webcams concerned, as, whilst it's clear they have been grabbing everything they can from Yahoo's systems, the question is what they can achieve with such large volumes of data," he said.

Sembhi added that the assertion that the Webcam images were harvested without analysis as to whether the images would be useful - and without selectively deleting those that were not useful - adds weight to suggestions that the project was a trial one. 

"It's clear from this that [GCHQ] was only in an early phase with this project. As well as having to deal with potentially vast amounts of data, it's also clear that they didn't really think the scale of the project through," he said. 

"I also suspect that most of the budget for the project will have been spent on storing the data, rather than analysing it," he added.

Home Depot Had No Ice Salt. 7-Eleven Did. Lesons In Small Business Customer Service

I was looking for “ice salt” to prepare for the coming snow this weekend. As happened a few weeks ago, Home Depot, Shopright and other big box retailers had no salt.

I went to 7-Eleven, as I did last week, and they had lots of salt.

The franchise owner told me that he knows his customers and works hard to ensure he has in stock what they need.

Why can’t big companies do this more consistently, especially for items that are in high demand at only certain times - like salt - days before a snow storm?

Step number 5 of Infusionsoft’s (all in one online sales and marketing small business software) Lifecycle Marketing is “deliver and delight” . If you delight your customers - they’ll always come back for more and tell others about you too!

I speak about this in a short video below or here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSXjJtiUZaw

RSA 2014: Time and knowledge key to beating cyber attackers

February 28, 2014

BH Consulting analyst Brian Honan and Tripwire chief technology officer Dwayne Melancon considered how IT can beat cyber-attackers in a quick-fire presentation at the RSA Conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

In their talk on ‘Disrupting the progression of a cyber-attack', the duo ran through some basic - and more complex - methods of deterring attackers, and concluded that internal knowledge and time can play pivotal roles.

“Figure out where the critical files are, and where the sensitive users are on the network. Spend more time on dealing with those,” said Melancon, who added that some firms spend too much time defending all areas of their network - something he referenced as a “wack-a-mole” technique.

He continued that firms need to develop a finely-tuned view of what represents a good and bad network, and said that this can often be achieved by establishing a “good baseline understanding” of what normal usage looks like.

Honan, meanwhile, was keen to stress that too many CISOs and IT departments are losing sight of the fact that they have the “home” advantage when facing attackers who may well be breaching the company's perimeter for the very first time.

“One thing we fail to recognise is that there is a home field advantage when defending - you know where everything is, but attackers have to go scan, go searching and that can take time. Distract and divert [attackers] from their core goals, and make it difficult for them to manage.”

Melancon - a 25-year industry veteran who previously held management roles at DirectWeb, Symantec and Fifth Generation Systems, also picked up on this theme and suggested that delaying hackers is sometimes enough alone for them to move onto easier targets.

“Time is money for attacker,” said Melancon. “The longer the time [in the network] the more likely they are to get caught. It can give you the information on who did this.”

“Know your network. You control traffic during the attack - you can slow it down,” added Honan another deterrent. He continued by comparing IT defence to that of castles in centuries gone  by and suggested that IT team should know “who their peasants are” and what represents “acceptable loss”.

Tripwire has posted a neat infographic of some of the main issues from the talk. You can see SC Magazine's coverage from the show - as well as B-Sides and Trustycon - here.

Aggressive Wi-Fi attack malware developed - in a lab

February 28, 2014

New Wi-Fi malware has the potential to cause serious problems if it falls into the wrong hands, according to Professor John Walker, Nottingham-Trent University.

A research team with Liverpool University has created an aggressive proof-of-concept piece of malware designed to propagate via Wi-Fi and use multiple attack vectors to infect any computer system it encounters.

Details of the project will be published in the EURASIP Journal on Information Security, and build on earlier research from the team.

Known as Chameleon, the malware has been designed to rotate through multiple known structural weaknesses in wireless APs (access points) and systems, as well as avoiding detection using multiple methodologies.

The good news is that the code has no payload, but simulated tests carried out in Belfast and London have proven the malware as successful in propagating itself across wireless networks.

What is interesting about the tests are that the University's School of Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Computer Science reports the code was able to successfully infect remote systems, since traditional security software looks for malware either on the host system or the Internet - not across a wireless link.

This suggests the malware uses a malformed packet header approach to compromising the Wi-Fi routers and systems it encounters.

In addition, by adopting an interrogative approach to the routers - similar to Wi-Fi sniffing apps such as Fing - the code can also gain access to other computers that are also wirelessly linked to the router concern.

Alan Marshall, professor of network security with the University, said that, when Chameleon attacked an AP, it did not affect how it worked, but was able to collect and report the credentials of all other WiFi users who connected to it. "The virus then sought out other Wi-Fi APs that it could connect to and infect,” he explained.

Professor Marshall went on to say that Wi-Fi connections are increasingly a target for computer hackers because of well-documented security vulnerabilities, which make it difficult to detect and defend against a virus.

Professor John Walker of Nottingham-Trent University's school of science and technology, said he was unsure of the reasoning behind publishing the methodology on how the code operated - he also warned of the dangers of the malware leaking beyond the research team.

"Now they have created this code, they need to look after it. They should not be taking the malware home, nor should they be leaving it, for example, on a laptop that can be accessed by other people," he said, adding that what the researches have created sounds more like an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) than a simple piece of code.

"It sounds almost like a mini-Stuxnet, as it has the potential to cause serious problems if it falls into the wrong hands,” he explained.

Rob Shapland, technical operations manager with pen-testing specialist First Base Technologies, said that Chameleon is a very clever piece of code and warned that it would be a relatively simple task to add a payload to the malware. "It's interesting that it blacklists protected Wi-Fi APs," he said, adding that the malware's methodology is an evolution of earlier attack mechanisms.

Keith Bird, UK managing director with security vendor Check Point, said that Chameleon is a really interesting development, as it mirrors how real-world attackers are increasingly exploiting new vectors and devices that are not protected by traditional anti-malware measures. 

"The spam attack over Christmas 2013 that used more than 100,000 consumer devices - including Web-connected refrigerators, smart TVs and multimedia hubs - showed how vulnerable such smart devices are," he said, adding it also illustrated how open networks cannot be trusted.

"It is critical it is that users change the settings for these devices away from the factory defaults, to stop hacking and other forms of attack," he explained.

Brendan Rizzo, EMEA technical director with Voltage Security, said that Chameleon's development demonstrates the further deterioration of the traditional perimeter-based approach to security. 

People must now assume that any network and any firewall can be breached. "Instead they must focus on protecting the data itself so that if an attacker does reach their sensitive data, it remains protected with strong encryption," he explained.

Michael Sutton, VP of security research with Zscaler, said that Chameleon should be considered a worm, with the best defence being to ensure that default passwords on wirelessly connected hardware are changed - but sadly, he added, this is a basic control that is often ignored.

In related news, Bluebox Security CTO Jeff Forristal showcased one Wi-Fi attack method that could trick smartphones into connecting to spoofed service set identifiers (SSIDs), used to uniquely identify wireless networks, at this week's RSA Conference.

Steven Aldrich of GoDaddy: 50% of SMBs Still Working in the Stone Age

According to a newly released GoDaddy survey, even with all of the affordable and easy to use apps available today, there is a large number of small businesses out there that just haven’t made the leap to the cloud.

Steven Aldrich, SVP of Applications at GoDaddy, joins us to share and discuss some of the findings from the study, including what working in the Stone Age is costing small businesses that are slow to step away from the pad and pencil.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Can give us a little bit of your personal background?

Steven Aldrich: I’m an entrepreneur at heart; paper route, summer storage business in college, built lofts for folks with my roommate, started a business and have been CEO of a couple.

I was fortunate enough to become part of GoDaddy as we were transforming the company to help really bring individuals through the process of successfully founding, running and growing their businesses. I’ve been involved in small business my whole life at this stage.

Small Business Trends: Can you talk about the tax survey you just released?

Steven Aldrich: GoDaddy has historically been known as a domain name registrar. Meaning, we help small businesses pick the right name for their business and then use that to build websites, host their website, send email.

The last few years we started to broaden that set of services we’re bringing to small businesses. One of the services we added was online bookkeeping. We wanted to take a pulse of how small businesses today, are thinking about both, keeping records for their business, tax time, given that, that’s a timely topic right now and just hear how businesses are doing on those couple of topics and that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Small Business Trends: Can you give us some of the high level key findings from the survey?

Steven Aldrich: The one that is not surprising, but always surprises if that makes sense, is that small businesses, by and large, are still trying to maintain an understanding of their business by hand.

We found that over 50% of small businesses still track how they’re doing on either a spreadsheet or pencil and paper. When we talked to small business owners and asked them why they said, ‘I know it’s not perfect but I’m able to get by.’

Then when we asked them if they were confident in knowing how they were doing. Almost half of them said, ‘No.’ Then we said, ‘Are you asking an accountant for help?’ Again, half of them said that they never talk to an accountant. Those that do, only half of those talk to their accountant more than once a year.

What we found was that spreadsheets and paper are still the rule, rather than the exception.

Small Business Trends: Wow, I’m seeing here more than half of SMB’s still use pen and paper or a spreadsheet to track expenses?

Steven Aldrich: Yes, and what that means is two things. One, it’s extra work. When we talk to small business owners, they get so excited about finding customers, delighting those customers, having those customers come back and delivering excellent products and services to them. If you’re doing this work by hand, this is one of the least pleasant tasks that small business owners talk about - keeping the books and doing their taxes.

So it gets pushed to the bottom of the stack, and at the end of the day, they collapse into bed. This is the stuff that doesn’t get entered in the spreadsheet or doesn’t get written down in the ledger or in the expense book.

That means the small business owners not as up to date on what’s going on with their business - really come home to roost at tax time. That’s when you need to have your revenue and your expenses ready to roll so that you just pay your fair share of taxes, not too much and not too little.

In the survey, this time a huge percentage of these small business owners, 40%, are taking 6 or more hours and many of them actually said it was taking days to just organize the information for their taxes. One of the things we know that means is the business owners are either not spending time with their customers, not spending time with their family, or not sleeping. None of those three things are good.

Small Business Trends: What’s the difference between those who actually do use an online service versus the small businesses not using technology and still operating like they’re in the Stone Age?

Steven Aldrich: We asked folks that are using the GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping service, ‘How long did it take you and how confident were you in the outcome?’ We found it takes six or more hours, even days, using manual methods or spreadsheets.

But folks using online bookkeeping from GoDaddy took two hours on average. That’s because the data is being collected everyday automatically, behind the scenes from your bank accounts, your credit card accounts, your PayPal or Etsy, your Amazon or Ebay accounts. Your invoices can be sent and payments tracked automatically.

So, you’ve got an ongoing record of how you’re doing and you’ve got it on the desktop, you’ve got it on your mobile device. When it comes time to getting your schedule C ready, which is what small business owners almost all file with their 1040′s, they’re ready and literally they hit the button that says schedule C worksheet. They take a look, make sure any uncategorized stuff gets taken care of at that time, and then they can enter that data into a tax prep program like TurboTax.

Or hand it off to their accountant, which we’ve heard now from lots of folks saves not only the business owner time, but it also saves the business owner money. Because they don’t have to go and pay an accountant to do all the data entry. Which the accountant doesn’t want to do anyway. Right? They want to do the value added stuff.

Small Business Trends: There’s a lot of information coming out of this study. Can you give me one or two things that surprised you in the results?

Steven Aldrich: When you ask the small business owner. ‘How confident are you that you know what your tax situation is going to be for the last year?’ Only 15% said that they knew how much they owed.

That’s a wake up call to the community saying, ‘We’ve got to help small business owners break this Gordian Knot of fear around taxes and not knowing that there’s a better way to stay on top of the business.’

There is the ability now for that small business owner to not only have their cake and eat it too, but also know how they’re doing without having to become an accountant themselves. They can spend their time on their business and we’re delighted to be able to be a part of that at GoDaddy.

Small Business Trends: Where can people learn more about the survey and things that GoDaddy is doing specifically for small businesses?

Steven Aldrich: I’d recommend they go to GoDaddy.com. It’s a really terrific place to find the breadth of things that we do for the small business owner.

We’ve got the ability for people to get a domain, so they can choose a name for their business. Get a website. Get hosted. We’ve got some new services around finding new customers called GetFound. We’ve got the ability to run your business and be more productive with things like Office365 from GoDaddy and invoicing and bookkeeping tools as well.

This interview on small businesses not using technology is part of the One on One interview series with thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This transcript has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click on the player above. 

Don’t be Late for a Waste of Time

True story.

I was finishing this cartoon up and spell-checking the caption in Photoshop.

When the spell-checker got to “full-of-crap” it stopped and offered up the word “phallocrat” instead.

When I looked “phallocrat” up I learned it meant “a male who assumes authority over females due to his maleness.”

Who knew Photoshop had such a great sense of humor?!

(I swear this is true. I even took a screenshot!)

Don’t be Late for a Waste of Time

True story.

I was finishing this cartoon up and spell-checking the caption in Photoshop.

When the spell-checker got to “full-of-crap” it stopped and offered up the word “phallocrat” instead.

When I looked “phallocrat” up I learned it meant “a male who assumes authority over females due to his maleness.”

Who knew Photoshop had such a great sense of humor?!

(I swear this is true. I even took a screenshot!)

U.S. House Passes a Bill Allowing People to Unlock Their Phones, But….

A new bill that makes it legal to unlock your smartphone at the end of your service contract has narrowly passed the U.S. House. However, some language in the bill may stifle businesses that sell unlocked phones to consumers.

This should be good news for any small business owner who’d like to continue using a smartphone they like but wants to switch to another mobile carrier.

The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act passed the House of Representatives by more than two-thirds majority. The bill will now move to the Senate, The Hill reports. Once law, the bill would let smartphone owners who purchased their devices after Jan. 27, 2013, legally unlock their phones. Though those owners would have to wait until their current contracts expire.

Smartphone owners could have unlocked their phones in the past legally. But that privilege expired when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was not renewed by the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.

The summary of the bill reads:

“This legislation allows any individual who wishes to unlock their cell phone for personal use to seek help from others without violating anti-circumvention provisions and clarifies that this bill does not permit the unlocking of cell phones for the purpose of bulk resale.”

It’s the last portion of the legislation that has some groups irate with the House. As the bill stands, a smartphone owner can go to a business and have their phone unlocked. But that business cannot unlock phones and resell them in bulk.

Sherwin Siy, the VP of Legal Affairs for the consumer watchdog group Public Knowledge said in response to the current bill:

“We’re disappointed that the House was unable to reach a compromise that would have prevented such barriers and still met the objectives of helping consumers. There is bipartisan support for such an approach to reform and we’re hopeful that the bill will be improved in the Senate.”

Previously owned unlocked phones have risen in popularity for business owners who are looking to get a smartphone without a contract. Though the initial purchase price may be high, an unlocked phone offers benefits. One of these is being able to choose your carrier and potentially switch if necessary.

The change in the current bill to add the ban on “bulk unlocking” was a last minute one. The Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act could be amended further in the Senate before passage.

Unlock Photo via Shutterstock

TrustyCon: Malware expert Mikko Hypponen kicks off conference on \"trust\"

February 27, 2014

On Thursday, famed malware researcher Mikko Hypponen wasted no time addressing his decision to pull out of the RSA Conference.

Instead of presenting his talk on governments developing malware at RSA, he delivered his speech in an AMC movie theater directly across the street from one of the conference's massive venues in San Francisco's Moscone Center.

The largely filled 400-seat theater contained a lineup of speakers, such as Hyponnen, that pulled out of their RSA Conference talks after a December Reuters exposed an alleged $10 million deal between the National Security Agency (NSA) and security firm RSA, which led to the company using a weakened algorithm in one of its security products.

“RSA should have known better,” F-Secure's chief research officer Hypponen told attendees at the Trustworthy Technology Conference, called TrustyCon.

In its first year, the event was described by organizers as a “trust conference” - as opposed to a security conference.

“The suspicions had been floating around for years,” Hypponen said, referencing the flawed algorithm and RSA deal.

“And I'm not going to speak at the RSA Conference in the future either,” he later added.

Hypponen, who had spoken numerous years at the well-known RSA Conference in the past, said he distinctly remembers “being proud about seeing his name on the wall” during his first talk.

“Today, I'm happy not to have an RSA Conference badge on me,” he said.

After addressing his decision, he dived into his talk on how governments, which have entered into the space of writing malware, have completely transformed the level of sophisticated cyber threats users now face.

In his presentation, he gave an overview of the evolution of malware, from something often “written by 15-year-olds for fun,” in the early 90s, to the likes of Stuxnet and Flame, conceived and developed by nation states.

“If someone would have told me that 10 years ago, I would have thought it was a movie plot,” Hypponen shared, while ironically delivering his talk in front of the big screen featuring his PowerPoint presentation.

Upon increasing revelations about the U.S. government's ability to spy on, or target, the data of users around the globe, he said that it was a “failure” on the industry's part that there weren't many major internet service providers or software firms in Europe as compared to the U.S.

This fact puts global users in a dependent position with American companies, which often manage online services or handle data for worldwide users, Hypponen explained.

He later said that security is taken for granted when firms, who are hit by major breaches or cyber attacks, hardly ever suffer major consequences with lasting impact on the business - such as their stock significantly dropping or the company folding.

Security professional Alex Stamos, who helped organize TrustyCon, supported Hypponen's call to action for the security community.

“We are failing,” Stamos said of the industry, before introducing Hypponen.

He added that the community must stop blaming users for security shortcomings, and find ways, in spite of sophisticated actors, to latch onto avenues for “building technology that people can feel comfortable using from day to day.”

This article was originally published on SCMagazine.com.

RSA 2014: CTO demos mobile Wi-Fi hack to capture sensitive app data

February 27, 2014

At RSA Conference 2014, a CTO demonstrated a number of relatively easy ways that mobile devices can be pwned by attackers.

Of note, Jeff Forristal, CTO of San Francisco-based Bluebox Security, showcased one Wi-Fi attack method that could trick smartphones into connecting to spoofed service set identifiers (SSIDs), used to uniquely identify wireless networks.

Forristal presented the findings on Wednesday during a session, called “Predatory Hacking of Mobile Devices: Real Demos.” Throughout his talk, he emphasized the ease with which smartphones could auto-connect to fake networks leveraged to steal users' sensitive data.

To carry out the hack, Forristal said a Wi-Fi radio (used to broadcast "available," but spurious SSIDs) would be needed. In addition, a software access point, another radio, would be used to trick devices into taking the bait and connecting, he said.

With a third cellular radio, Forristal was able to verify the connection by giving mobile devices the information they requested. He noted that all of the tools needed for the hack were completely legal, and easily purchased.

A Wi-Fi pineapple, for instance, which can be purchased for around $100, was one of the devices that Forristal mentioned.

“This thing was purpose built for Wi-Fi shenanigans,” he told the crowd.

By exploiting security issues in Android or iOS devices (a WebView JavaScript callback issue in Android, and an iOS secure sockets layer verification error) and using the available tools, an attacker could launch man-in-the-middle attacks to glean clear text data exposed by mobile apps, Forristal said.

Information such as device IDs, GPS location data and international mobile station equipment identity (IMEI) numbers, were exposed by the popular weather app AccuWeather that was targeted in the demo.

Last July, Bluebox exposed a major vulnerability in Android devices which could allow an attacker to hijack any legitimate app without modifying its digital signature. And at this year's RSA Conference, Forristal demonstrated how a number of risky activities, combined with known flaws in devices, could further open devices to attacks resulting in data theft.

Haphazardly using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connections, or downloading malicious or “leaky” apps, are a prime example of how mobile devices could be exposed, he explained.

“Every single one of those activities carries risks and opens up attack surfaces,” Forristal said.

This article was originally published SCMagazine.com.

98 Percent of Mobile Malware is Aimed at Android Users

Ninety-eight percent of mobile malware is aimed at Android users, a report from security experts Kaspersky Labs says.

This is largely because of the popularity of the platform. But the study also notes the “vulnerability” of Android’s architecture as a reason the mobile operating system is vulnerable. And most of this malware is aimed at stealing money, including targeting credit card information.

The report also says the mobile malware economy has moved from individual actors to more organized groups of programmers and developers mostly designing malware for profit.

The study notes:

“It is safe to say that today’s cybercriminal is no longer a lone hacker but part of a serious business operation. There are various types of actors involved in the mobile malware industry: virus writers, testers, interface designers of both the malicious apps and the Web pages they are distributed from, owners of the partner programs that spread the malware, and mobile botnet owners.”

According to the study, a total of 143,211 new modifications of malicious programs targeting mobile devices were detected last year. Also, nearly 4 million installation packages were used by cyber criminals to distribute mobile malware. In the last two years, Kaspersky has identified 10 million unique malicious installation packages.

Malware is spread primarily through apps downloaded from third party sites other than Google Play though a recent report also indicates the amount of Google malware on Google’s store is also increasing.

Of course, being aware that your mobile device is nearly as vulnerable as your computer is the first step in protecting your business from being the next victim to an attack. We’ve recently noted that although mobile devices are increasingly being targeted, device makers are investing in defenses, too.

Image: Securelist/Kaspersky

CrowdtiltOpen Allows Free Crowdsourcing on Your Own Domain

The free, open-source crowdfunding site was launched last week. Unlike Indigogo, Kickstarter and similar sites, CrowdtiltOpen allows for full customization of the look and feel of your business’ crowdfunding site. You can even use your existing domain or another one.

For startups or companies looking to expand their profile by launching a crowdfunding campaign, this may be an ideal option. The company says that you can raise more money, establish your brand, and establish longer term relationships with your supporters through CrowdtiltOpen.

CrowdtiltOpen has several templates created for you to use, according to the company website. It also allows for HTML and CSS tweaking to get your crowdfunding pages exactly as you need them.

Crowdtilt’s Ajay Mehta writes that CrowdtiltOpen is doing for crowdfunding what WordPress did for blogging:

“By making powerful crowdfunding accessible, we’ve hopefully just scratched the surface of how organizations are using CrowdtiltOpen … and we can’t wait to see what the next year holds. [WordPress] changed blogging by making tools powerful enough for brands and individuals to create their own experiences. It’s time for crowdfunding to grow up, the same way that blogging has, over the past decade.”

CrowdtiltOpen allows your business to start a crowdfunding, pre-order or donation campaign through the platform. The site says it will handle the “back end” of your crowdfunding site, including processing payments and donations for non-profit organizations. The customizing of the look and feel is up to you.

Since it’s an open-source platform, CrowdtiltOpen is free to use. There are third-party services that can be integrated into your campaign, like ones that manage your payments and shipping. All campaigns provide analytics which tell you who your customers are. Successful campaigns only pay standard credit card fees.

This project started as Crowdhoster last year. Crowdtilt allowed hundreds of companies and non-profits toexperiment with the Crowdhoster platform. The company claims that some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns have been launched through Crowdhoster. That includes a campaign for Soylent, a food/drink, which raised $2.1 million from about 20,000 contributors.

Crowdtilt says the company is working to integrate Bitcoin payment options for campaigns. It’s also developing a way to purchase multiple rewards in a single transaction.

Image: CrowdtiltOpen

CrowdtiltOpen Allows Free Crowdsourcing on Your Own Domain

The free, open-source crowdfunding site was launched last week. Unlike Indigogo, Kickstarter and similar sites, CrowdtiltOpen allows for full customization of the look and feel of your business’ crowdfunding site. You can even use your existing domain or another one.

For startups or companies looking to expand their profile by launching a crowdfunding campaign, this may be an ideal option. The company says that you can raise more money, establish your brand, and establish longer term relationships with your supporters through CrowdtiltOpen.

CrowdtiltOpen has several templates created for you to use, according to the company website. It also allows for HTML and CSS tweaking to get your crowdfunding pages exactly as you need them.

Crowdtilt’s Ajay Mehta writes that CrowdtiltOpen is doing for crowdfunding what WordPress did for blogging:

“By making powerful crowdfunding accessible, we’ve hopefully just scratched the surface of how organizations are using CrowdtiltOpen … and we can’t wait to see what the next year holds. [WordPress] changed blogging by making tools powerful enough for brands and individuals to create their own experiences. It’s time for crowdfunding to grow up, the same way that blogging has, over the past decade.”

CrowdtiltOpen allows your business to start a crowdfunding, pre-order or donation campaign through the platform. The site says it will handle the “back end” of your crowdfunding site, including processing payments and donations for non-profit organizations. The customizing of the look and feel is up to you.

Since it’s an open-source platform, CrowdtiltOpen is free to use. There are third-party services that can be integrated into your campaign, like ones that manage your payments and shipping. All campaigns provide analytics which tell you who your customers are. Successful campaigns only pay standard credit card fees.

This project started as Crowdhoster last year. Crowdtilt allowed hundreds of companies and non-profits toexperiment with the Crowdhoster platform. The company claims that some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns have been launched through Crowdhoster. That includes a campaign for Soylent, a food/drink, which raised $2.1 million from about 20,000 contributors.

Crowdtilt says the company is working to integrate Bitcoin payment options for campaigns. It’s also developing a way to purchase multiple rewards in a single transaction.

Image: CrowdtiltOpen

RSA 2014: \'BYOD is not going away\'

February 27, 2014

Speakers at this week's RSA Conference in San Francisco stressed that the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is changing - not ending.

Coming on the back of reports of companies returning to corporate deployments or even embracing Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) schemes, SCMagazineUK.com spoke to Good Technology CTO Dr Nicko van Someren and Domingo J. Guerra, president and co-founder of mobile security start-up Appthority, to gauge the state of BYOD in business.

Van Someren, the former chief security architect at Juniper Network and also ex-CTO of nCipher, was keen to point out that BYOD isn't going away, and instead will be just one of many different deployment models for embracing mobile devices in the workplace.

He added that businesses have gradually shifted from initially wanting email access on their personal mobile devices, to now using them to run fully-functional applications for specific lines of business.

“It's been a bit of a journey - they started out with calendar, then email and now they want to open attachments and apps suitable for lines of business,” he told SCMagazineUK.com in a meeting just outside the Moscone Convention Centre.

“We see [the trend] going from this initial push of ‘let's get data out and in a way we can control' to moving to mobile-first.” Guerra, of Appthority, added that he too is seeing a mobile-first approach with enterprises starting to roll-out a handful of custom apps into their enterprise application stores.

Indeed, with a third of all workplace devices expected to be personally-owned by 2018, Someren is adamant that BYOD is now mainstream, with many businesses realising its value.

“There's going to be a wide spectrum of deployment models - BYOD is not going away, plenty of enterprises recognise the value to capex, that users like their devices and that they check their work email more often.”

But managing this via MDM tools has become too cumbersome, says Someren. “The buzzword for many years has been MDM, but the problem with it is that it has the wrong D. Mobile Device Management is a very blunt tool and the underlying problem here is data management.

“Device management might be part of it, but it's not the entire holistic solution.”

Appthority's Domingo J.Guerra added in an interview with SCMagazineUK.com that while some industries - and countries (he notes Germany as having stringent privacy laws) are backing away from BYOD, it is merely one choice of many in IT's arsenal.

A bigger issue however - he notes - is that whitelisting and blacklisting apps is becoming increasingly difficult in an age where top apps come and go in a short space of time.

“We analysed the top 100 apps on the App Store and found that 57 of them had disappeared [from the charts] within six months. There's not a lot of sticking power and white lists don't work for very long.”

As a further concern, Guerra said that there's “confusion” over ever-changing terms like MDM, Mobile Application Management (MDM) and Enterprise Mobility Management (MDM).

Malware threats live large

But defence is just one side of the coin for mobile security, as evidenced at the RSA Conference where speakers talked often of the rise of mobile malware.

Trustwave's Neal Hindocha demonstrated how hackers can track "touchlogging" on iOS and Android devices - even those which haven't been jailbroken or rooted - while reports outside of the show from FireEye and Kaspersky detailed cyber criminals increasing focus on attacking mobile platforms.

In a brief exchange with SCMagazineUK.com at the San Francisco conference, Lookout Security researcher Marc Rodgers detailed how mobile malware is changing. And while he said that cyber criminals often go for the ‘long-hanging fruit', he added that they will do anything to get their hands on personal data.

“Bad guys are already targeting devices for data, we know they have been targeting laptops for a while because a laptop with data is worth more on the black market than the hardware itself. The same thing has now happened to smart devices. A smartphone with data is worth 3 times its price on the black market without data.”

Larry Ponemon, founder and analyst at the Ponemon Institute, touched on this recently in an interview with SC.

“I believe the insecure app problem will get much worse in terms of stealth and sophistication of mobile malware,” he said via email. “This problem is exacerbated by the BYOD movement. Despite the predicted rise in mobile risk, I don't have much faith that end users will proactively defend their smartphones or tablets from criminal attacks.”

RSA 2014: \'BYOD is not going away\'

February 27, 2014

Speakers at this week's RSA Conference in San Francisco stressed that the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is changing - not ending.

Coming on the back of reports of companies returning to corporate deployments or even embracing Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) schemes, SCMagazineUK.com spoke to Good Technology CTO Dr Nicko van Someren and Domingo J. Guerra, president and co-founder of mobile security start-up Appthority, to gauge the state of BYOD in business.

Van Someren, the former chief security architect at Juniper Network and also ex-CTO of nCipher, was keen to point out that BYOD isn't going away, and instead will be just one of many different deployment models for embracing mobile devices in the workplace.

He added that businesses have gradually shifted from initially wanting email access on their personal mobile devices, to now using them to run fully-functional applications for specific lines of business.

“It's been a bit of a journey - they started out with calendar, then email and now they want to open attachments and apps suitable for lines of business,” he told SCMagazineUK.com in a meeting just outside the Moscone Convention Centre.

“We see [the trend] going from this initial push of ‘let's get data out and in a way we can control' to moving to mobile-first.” Guerra, of Appthority, added that he too is seeing a mobile-first approach with enterprises starting to roll-out a handful of custom apps into their enterprise application stores.

Indeed, with a third of all workplace devices expected to be personally-owned by 2018, Someren is adamant that BYOD is now mainstream, with many businesses realising its value.

“There's going to be a wide spectrum of deployment models - BYOD is not going away, plenty of enterprises recognise the value to capex, that users like their devices and that they check their work email more often.”

But managing this via MDM tools has become too cumbersome, says Someren. “The buzzword for many years has been MDM, but the problem with it is that it has the wrong D. Mobile Device Management is a very blunt tool and the underlying problem here is data management.

“Device management might be part of it, but it's not the entire holistic solution.”

Appthority's Domingo J.Guerra added in an interview with SCMagazineUK.com that while some industries - and countries (he notes Germany as having stringent privacy laws) are backing away from BYOD, it is merely one choice of many in IT's arsenal.

A bigger issue however - he notes - is that whitelisting and blacklisting apps is becoming increasingly difficult in an age where top apps come and go in a short space of time.

“We analysed the top 100 apps on the App Store and found that 57 of them had disappeared [from the charts] within six months. There's not a lot of sticking power and white lists don't work for very long.”

As a further concern, Guerra said that there's “confusion” over ever-changing terms like MDM, Mobile Application Management (MDM) and Enterprise Mobility Management (MDM).

Malware threats live large

But defence is just one side of the coin for mobile security, as evidenced at the RSA Conference where speakers talked often of the rise of mobile malware.

Trustwave's Neal Hindocha demonstrated how hackers can track "touchlogging" on iOS and Android devices - even those which haven't been jailbroken or rooted - while reports outside of the show from FireEye and Kaspersky detailed cyber criminals increasing focus on attacking mobile platforms.

In a brief exchange with SCMagazineUK.com at the San Francisco conference, Lookout Security researcher Marc Rodgers detailed how mobile malware is changing. And while he said that cyber criminals often go for the ‘long-hanging fruit', he added that they will do anything to get their hands on personal data.

“Bad guys are already targeting devices for data, we know they have been targeting laptops for a while because a laptop with data is worth more on the black market than the hardware itself. The same thing has now happened to smart devices. A smartphone with data is worth 3 times its price on the black market without data.”

Larry Ponemon, founder and analyst at the Ponemon Institute, touched on this recently in an interview with SC.

“I believe the insecure app problem will get much worse in terms of stealth and sophistication of mobile malware,” he said via email. “This problem is exacerbated by the BYOD movement. Despite the predicted rise in mobile risk, I don't have much faith that end users will proactively defend their smartphones or tablets from criminal attacks.”

Wix Small Business Breakfast Features Brooklyn Design Shop co-Founder (March 5th - NYC)

Wix and Infusionsoft are excited to host the second Small Business  Breakfast in New York City on 5 March 2014.

The featured expert is Stephanie Joy Benedetto Co-Founder and Business Director of Paper No. 9, a Brooklyn-based design lab specializing in bespoke sustainable textiles and limited edition products. Paper No. 9 was a 2013 WGSN Global Fashion Awards finalist and has been featured in Vogue, WWD, InStyle, Drapers, Interview, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and New York Magazine - The Cut.

The co-hosts are Annie Malarkey, Community Outreach Manager for Wix and Ramon Ray the Marketing and Technology Evangelist at Infusionsoft and Smallbiztechnology.com.

Check out more information at http://www.smallbizbreakfast.com

Customer Service Matters Much More Than You May Think

Customer service is a big “elephant in the room” for so many businesses out there. It’s really not easy to train yourself or your employees with the virtues required to be a well-rounded, service-minded personality - a person with all the necessary attributes to make patrons to your business happy each and every time.

Learn From the Baby Boomers…

One thing that’s caught a lot of young entrepreneurs off-guard as they’ve built their business is the fact that there’s an aged segment of customers out there (baby-boomers) who care just as much about the customer service experience they receive, as they do the quality of the product you’re selling them.

Scott Hume, Editor at BurgerBusiness, says:

“Baby boomers, guys like me, really value good service and a good experience.”

Gen Y and Gen Z individuals often don’t have the same expectations. To them, the concept of chivalry is a foreign one, and they’ve learned not to expect too much, particularly with regard to value-added-service.

Does that mean if your business sells more to one and not so much (or at all) to the other, that you should develop customer service practices that suit that specific demographic? Absolutely not. Even if your target demo doesn’t expect much of you, they’re ten times more likely to come back and do business with you next time, if they have a decent experience.

This is a universal reality across all businesses, regardless if you sell tangible or intangible products.

Poorly Misunderstood Benefits From Providing Top-Notch Customer Service

1. Getting it Right the First Time Generates More Profits

Poor service can be about how the order system functions, how the sales staff treats prospects, how you develop and then satisfy consumer expectations of your product/service, or simply the overall perception they’re left with after doing business with you (i.e. did they feel treated fairly or rudely).

What does this have to do with saving money, you ask?

Poor service = Poor quality = Poor Profits

It’s all about reworking. Every time you have to rework something it costs you money. If the customer feels like they were deceived, treated rudely, or any of their expectations weren’t met, it’s likely they’ll demand a refund, a redo, or a freebie - if you’re lucky. They may simply not come back and certainly won’t recommend you. One time sales rarely a rich man make.

Every rework costs you money, unless the customer’s the type to only give you one chance. Then you just lost a repeat customer and the word-of-mouth marketing they could have provided you. Indeed, poor service quality directly affects your bottom line.

2. When They Come Back and Bring Others With Them, You Make More Money

In most businesses, return customers and word-of-mouth are what will make you successful. Using the burger analogy, let’s run with a fictional customer service scenario about two different burger joints:

Exhibit A: The first burger place (Let’s call it “McGurdy’s”). Customers are greeted with a smile and the staff is taught to take their time answering any and all questions the customer might have. Each staff member is paid above minimum wage and the atmosphere is one of teamwork and positivity.

The burgers aren’t going to be featured on Gordon Ramsay’s signature menu at Caesar’s Palace, but the health standards are excellent, the service impeccable, and the food is on par with other fast food joints.

Exhibit B: The next burger place (“The Burger Pit”) makes the best burger mankind has ever tasted. This little shop is run under the thumb of one man; a surly old fella who screams orders at his staff, who get paid the minimum pay allowed by law.

The customer service staff jumps every time the old fella yells, often interrupting the customer service flow and interaction. The old man screams at staff for “talking to customers for too long” and tells customers who complain to leave his store and never return. The health standards are impeccable under the iron rule of the old fella, service is slow and disjointed, and the burgers are a fantastic experience to say the least.

Which would you choose? Naturally, customers will choose the best burger on the planet, no? After all, the quality of the product should dictate popularity. But it doesn’t.

Customers want to feel respected and listened to. Very few return customers would go to the Burger Pit over McGurdy’s because going to get the best burger means their patience is likely to be tried to the extreme, and they might have a downright unpleasant experience. The majority will go where the combination of product quality and service are best (a “happy medium” in the absence of a business that truly has all elements of their product and service covered.)

3. Staff Turnover Will Burn a Hole in Your Pocket

Franchise businesses understand this concept very well, yet they deal with more turnover costs than most small businesses make in a year. The small business owner has to learn this lesson the hard way, often letting ego get in the way of good judgement. The “take it or leave it” approach to staff management will eat a hole in your profits every time.

You’re probably wondering: How the heck did we get here? What does this have to do with good customer service and how poor service can cost me loads of cash?

Most employees, including front-line service employees, want to take pride in what they do. Also, every one of those employees is, and will again be, a customer at some point in their life.

Question: So they’re not happy because you don’t care about the service level - what are they going to do?

Answer: They’ll be less passionate about their job, making the customer’s experience even worse. Eventually, they’ll quit. Creating a positive, customer-focused environment is key. If your service levels are up to par, the majority of new hires will stick around longer-term, even if you’re in a high turnover industry like fast food.

How much money does turnover cost your business?

A lot more than most inexperienced managers and business owners think. Most employees are worth at least a couple of thousand (just in paperwork and training costs) after their first few days on the job.

Customer service matters - much more than you may think.

Customer Service Photo via Shutterstock

RSA 2014: Clarke, Hayden call for changes in intelligence-gathering

February 27, 2014

“When you find a vulnerability in encryption software you should fix it, not exploit it,” former U.S. cyber security advisor Richard Clarke said Tuesday during a packed session at the RSA Conference in San Francisco.

The thinly veiled reference to the controversy regarding the alleged shady deal between the National Security Agency (NSA) and security firm RSA drew scattered applause from the audience. Clarke also acknowledged that last year's revelations by Edward Snowden implied that as technology has advanced and grown, so had “the potential for a police surveillance state.”  

Beyond that, both Clarke and General Michael Hayden, formerly director of the NSA and of the CIA, downplayed concerns about the NSA “spying” scandal, stressing the program is both legal and not unexpected. Both men expressed doubt that other countries, including our allies, didn't know that spying was going on with Clarke characterizing the outrage as being as disingenuous as Peter Lorie in Casablanca when discussing gambling at Rick's.

“A lot of people knew it was going on and are doing it too,” Clarke said. Hayden noted that the program had been authorized by two presidents and received the required nods from Congress and the judicial branch.

While both speakers took jabs at Snowden, with Clarke at one point saying “it makes my blood boil” to hear supporters call him a whistleblower, they agreed that NSA bore responsibility for the steady stream of revelations. “If NSA had better internal security, none of this would have happened,” said Clarke.

The former government cyber security guru's 300-page Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology requested by President Obama made 46 recommendations for tightening NSA security and improving transparency of U.S. surveillance activity.

Clarke noted that both goals could be met more easily if senior policymakers in government “learn about intelligence and how it's collected,” clarify “what they want collected and not collected,” and then give NSA clear guidance.

This story was originally published on SCMagazine.com.

Create A Digital Velvet Rope To Boost Business

The Internet is many things, but there’s one thing that it isn’t: Exclusive.

Every tween from Albany to Zanzibar can access just about any location on the web. That makes it difficult for marketing professionals to capitalize on a basic human motivation: The desire to be part of an exclusive group.

New York City’s Studio 54 made the “velvet rope” famous back in the heyday of disco. Everyone who wanted to be somebody queued up behind the velvet rope with the hopes of being granted access to that mirrorball-bedazzled hallowed dance floor.

How can you reproduce that kind of emotional response at your website?

Simply put, you have to create “exclusivity,” either real or (somewhat) imagined. The desire to become part of the “privileged few” will help turn casual visitors to your site into regular users, customers, and names for your mailing list. Apple is a company that has worked hard to create the feeling of exclusivity around its brand of products. Here are some techniques that will work for you:

Early access. Give someone who signs up for your mailing list early access to downloading a white paper packed with great information. This is like sharing a secret with someone; it builds a special relationship between the people involved. It’s also a good technique because at some later date you can use the content for a more general purpose.

Members-only perks. This is a variation on the early access strategy. You can have pages on your site or privileges that are only available to those on your mailing list. This can be a message board, posting reviews, uploading photos, or the ability to ask you a question. Another members-only early-access perk would be advance notice of sales.

If you do this, we’ll…. If you’re promoting something like a webinar, you can mention special offers that will only be available to those who participate. “Only those who attend the webinar will receive free copies of the slides and a transcript of the session.” Or you can say, “At the end of the session, we will give you a link to a 50 percent savings on our newest widget.”

We only have space for 25. Put a cap on how many of an item you’ll sell or how many people can enroll in your event. Be honest about what you do. Adding something like, “This will not be available again until March 2015” is a way to give you the ability to re-offer the item/service and it also creates an additional sense of urgency.

Enlist the endorsement of a noted Twitter personality. If you want to introduce something new, connect with a person who is big on Twitter or a blog and say something like, “Only @exclusiveguy followers will get a link to download the beta of our new Android app.”

Google used this kind of “VIP access” to create buzz during the rollout of Google+, Gmail, and more. To get in on the early versions you had to be a friend-of-a-friend. There’s one more lesson we can learn from Google regarding this marketing technique: User expectations will be high when they sign up for something they feel is exclusive. Make sure what you offer is sign-up-worthy.

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saxonmoseley/24523450/ ”Queue,” © 2004 Saxon Moseley, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

China Based Huawei Introduces Five New Devices, Eyes U.S. Market

Chinese smart device maker Huawei unveiled a raft of new products at the GSM Association Mobile World Congress (MWC) over the weekend in Barcelona.

The company is the world’s third largest maker of smart phones and tablets right now, and that’s all without much activity in the U.S. But that may change soon. The company unveiled a smartphone, a 7-inch phablet, an 8-inch tablet, a mobile hotspot, and a wrist activity tracker at the event. Company leadership said that making headway in the U.S. is its next goal, according to a Reuters report.

If Huawei can eventually gain a footing in the U.S. market, it could be a boon for small business owners who feel they’re spending too much on technology. Huawei devices are known for their affordable prices but few mobile carriers are actually offering the phones and tablets.

At MWC, the company unveiled its new smartphone, the Ascend G6 4G. The new smartphone features a 4.5-inch LCD display, weighs 115 grams and is 7.85 millimeters thick. It  features a 5 megapixel front-facing camera and an 8 megapixel camera mounted on the rear of the device, too.

The company is also planning a 3G version of the Ascend G6 smartphone in a few weeks and 4G version available starting in April. There was no word on pricing but one review suggests that it could retail for about $330 US.

In addition to the smartphone, Huawei also unveiled its new 7-inch phablet device called the MediaPad X1 and an 8-inch tablet called the MediaPad M1.

Businesses might use the devices as a way to keep connected in an ever more mobile work environment. The company calls the MediaPad X1 the slimmest 7-inch phablet of its kind. It weighs 239 grams, is 7.18 millimeters thick and has a 13MP rear-facing camera. But it’s uncertain when the device will be available in the U.S.

The 8-inch MediaPad M1 is touted as an entertainment device, But it is loaded enough to get work accomplished, too. The device supports multi-window display so you can stream video while getting some work done at the same time. The device also has fast download and built in WiFi routers. The device will come to developing countries first before hopefully being available in the U.S.

Huawei also introduced its first mobile WiFi hotspot device, the Huawei E5786.

The company also unveiled its first wearable device, the TalkBand B1. It has a curved 1.4-inch screen and fits around the wrist. It can make and receive voice calls and can be synced to compatible Apple and Android devices.

Image: Huawei

3 Types of Social Media Marketers. Which One Are You? All About Me, Never Around or Givers

There’s three kinds of folks who are using social media, three kinds of social media marketers.

They are:

1. All about me

2. Never Around

3. Givers

(use the comment section below to give a shout out to your favorite social media marketer - at the end of the week I’ll send one of them, on your behalf, a gift card!)

Tweet

These folks could represent yourself, a colleague, someone you follow on Twitter, a page you like on Facebook.

Watch my video about it below as well!

All About Me

These are people who ONLY Tweet about themselves. Who only post on Facebook abut themselves. When they post something on Instagram you know it’s a coupon to buy more of their products. These folks will most likely never succeed online.

Never Around

These are folks who hardly ever do anything on social media. They might Tweet like once a month or every quarter when they’re forced to by their PR company or their 13 year old marketing intern. They never engage, never post - they wonder why they only have 3 followers and why social media “is not working for them”. These are the heads of companies who are “too busy” to post a photo on Instagram. These are newbie small business owners who are waiting for the “perfect opportunity” to Tweet!

Givers

Givers are what we all want to buy. They know their audience, share with their audience what most benefits the audience, they share about other people (other businesses, etc) and they of course share what THEY are doing as well. They are givers.

Givers will always succeed in social media. When you share about others, others want to share about you. This was reinforced to me by Jeffrey Hayzlett last week at an NSA NYC meeting.

Tweet

Check out Gary Vaynerchuk’s Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.

Check out Ann Handley’s Content Rules

Check out Ramon’s Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing

Watch how Melinda Emerson, Shashi Bellamkonda, Brian Moran , Gene Marks, Anita Campbell and Rieva Lesonsky are all about sharing online.

Here’s a video where I speak about this (below) or here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F525L1mRcQU