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Today’s food franchise owners have a plethora of technology franchise tools at their disposal. Some of them are designed to help the customer. Some are designed to help the franchise business. Both are becoming popular with food franchise owners. Combined, they are helping shape the way business is done in what is a very competitive and sometimes ...
The post 10 Food Franchise Technology Tools And Solutions appeared first on Small Business Trends.
Little Passports, a children’s education company spent $30,000 on Facebook advertising in one month, and generated $130,000 in revenue that same month, reports the New York Times.
“The tracking pixel is one of several changes Facebook has made to its advertising tools in recent months. Advertisers can now specify objectives like increasing traffic to a website, encouraging more “likes†or converting more sales. They can choose whether their ads appear in Facebook’s “news feed†or in a column on the far right of its pages. And they can target demographics they want to reach more precisely.â€
If you have not tried advertising on Facebook, or found your results not so great - consider trying it again. But before you do any advertising ensure you know your target audience and that your advertising copy is well crafted.
Check out tools such as GroSocial which can help you capture leads and gamify the engagement experience on Facebook. Amazon.com best seller, “The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing†is something you might want to consider as well. Finally, just capturing leads or generating “likes†is not enough. You’ve also got to nurture and continue to engage with your prospective customers and customers - only a CRM tool can do that. Check out Infusionsoft (all in one sales and marketing CRM software for small business) for help with that.
Are you a music artist who supplements your revenues with sales of T-shirts and posters? If so, as of this week you can sell that merchandise through your Spotify profile. The global music site now allows music artists to display their merchandise on their Spotify pages and link directly to their online stores. The announcement was made on the official Spotify blog:
“We’ve been testing this merchandise functionality with a number of artists over the last month and the response from fans has been fantastic. We’re really excited that Spotify’s 24 million music-loving users can now see merchandise and concerts while listening to their favorite artists, and that we, in turn, can provide additional revenue opportunities for artists of all sizes.â€
Spotify already offers a way for independent musicians to make royalties based on the number of times people listen to their music. With the new merchandising feature, artists now have another monetization option. Music Ally reports that the program was piloted with about 200 artists for the past few weeks, including rock n’ roll legends Led Zeppelin. Spotify director of artist services Mark Williamson tells Music Ally:
“What’s important to us is that with this integration, we don’t just want to chuck a merchandise listing up and say ‘that’s it’, we want to optimize it, so we’ll be examining what’s working across all the artists, what kind of items are selling.â€
Spotify and its partner in the new roll-out, Topspin, stress they are taking no percentage from the new merchandise sales. This is especially the case because many sales are generally taking place off the site in an online store already being used by the artist. Topspin is the company providing the link tool that lets artists connect the display on their Spotify profiles to their online stores.
The new program may help to blunt criticisms already leveled by independent artists disappointed by their earnings on Spotify.
There are some limitations. For now artists can only list up to three items. And the feature is only available in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, Music Ally reports.
However, the company is expecting to roll it out in other countries at some point in the future.
Images: Spotify
A Government plan to collect the health data on every person in England on a single database - and then share the information among health professionals - is being threatened by data privacy fears and the likelihood that it will break the upcoming new European-wide data protection law.
The NHS is leafleting all 22 million households in England this month to explain that from April, under the ‘care.data' programme, electronic patient records from every GP practice in the country will be centrally gathered and shared with researchers from academia and pharmaceutical companies.
Under the plan, the Government's Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) will merge this new swathe of GP data with existing hospital information, and more data from social care and community services. Each person's record will be anonymised, using their date of birth, postcode, NHS number and gender to identify them, rather than their name.
The scheme will allow people to opt out of sharing their data - but campaigners point out that the planned EU data protection law currently insists that individuals must have the right to directly ‘opt in' to data sharing.
The proposal has pitted medical charities, who insist the NHS data sharing will save lives, against privacy reformers, who support the right of people to actively choose to share their data.
Charities and medical research organisations including Arthritis Research UK, Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust last week launched a joint advertising campaign urging people not to opt out.
And in a press statement, Dr Jeremy Farrar, Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: “Patient records will provide a rich source of important data that can help researchers develop much-needed treatments and interventions that can improve and even save people's lives."
But in an emailed statement to SCMagazineUK.com, Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, criticised the fact that “some research organisations seem to think patient choice and consent is an annoyance, rather than an issue of respecting people's right to decide what happens with their private medical recordsâ€.
He added: “As ever, there seems to be a deliberate effort to exaggerate the implications of a proposal to undermine its objective, namely ensuring people have the right to decide what happens to sensitive information about them. Given the growing evidence that supposedly anonymous research data can be re-identified, a risk that is only going to increase, this seems an entirely reasonable position that respects and protects our privacy.â€
Another concern is that data may not be anonymised in all cases. HSCIC will be able to share identifiable information about people with researchers providing they are “approved organisations for approved purposes, and there must be a legal contract in place with penalties for any misuse of the informationâ€.
Permission to share must be granted by the Secretary of State for Health or the Health Research Authority (HRA), on the basis that the research is in the public interest and it is not possible to use anonymous information nor to ask the individual's permission (for example if there are extremely large numbers of patients involved).
HSCIC is trying to calm people's fears over this. A spokesperson told SCMagazineUK.com: “Readers should be reassured to know that the HSCIC Board last week agreed that a report detailing who we give data to and the grounds on which it has been released, will be made public on the website every quarter.
“We are absolutely committed to the public understanding what is being done with their information as well as to people realising they have a right to object, if they feel uncomfortable with the process.â€
NHS England's Chief Data Officer Dr Geraint Lewis has also insisted that the data will not be for sale, saying: “Patients and their carers should know that no data will be made available for the purposes of selling or administering any kind of insurance and that the NHS and the HSCIC never profit from providing data to outside organisations.â€
But for those people still worried, the care.data guidance explains: “If you do not want information that identifies you from being shared outside your GP practice, inform a member of staff at your practice. They will make a note of this in your medical record. This will prevent your information being used other than where necessary by law, such as in case of a public health emergency.â€
Meanwhile, the UK Government was already trying to water down the draft EU data privacy law - and this threat to its flagship medical data sharing programme has only increased those efforts.
The Ministry of Justice has been negotiating for the EU legislation to be less prescriptive and to balance the needs of civil liberties while allowing for economic growth - on the grounds that in its current form it will cost UK businesses up to £360 million a year.
Now the fear that care.data could infringe the law been raised by Department of Health officials, according to a 21 January report in The Daily Telegraph. A DoH spokesperson confirmed to SCMagazineUK.com: “We are fully aware of the negative impact this (law) would have on both care.data and UK research and we are working with the Ministry of Justice to negotiate changes.â€
The care.data programme has already been implemented in a small number of GP surgeries who have been piloting the scheme since June 2013.
The Government said national rollout has now started across all GP practices in England. They are currently being sent an information pack containing guidance and materials so they can begin the process of engagement with patients - and allow time to raise patient awareness so that any objections can be recorded.
UK organisations are being urged to take a series of security steps such as encryption, staff education and monitoring, and limiting ‘privileged' users' access to data, in the wake of the theft of 20 million people's credit card details in South Korea.
As SC reported on Monday, the massive data breach was caused by a contractor at credit scoring firm Korea Credit Bureau being able to access, steal and sell the financial data of around 40 percent of the population of South Korea.
Among security experts, it ranks second only to the ‘insider theft' of secret data on US intelligence operations by ex-contractor Edward Snowden - and has prompted warnings that UK companies are still too focused on external cyber security threats.
Mark Brown, director of information security at Ernst & Young, told SCMagazineUK.com: “The breach highlights to companies the significant and realistic risk of an insider threat to their security systems. We see many businesses focusing significant resource on tackling and responding to external risks and threats in information security. However, it is important to reinforce that good security starts internally. It is vital that all employees are educated on cyber risks to minimise an organisation's exposure to data mishandling.â€
Paul Ayers, VP for EMEA at enterprise data security firm Vormetric, agreed, saying that recent research by his firm shows “a whopping 73 percent of organisations†fail to block privileged insider user access to sensitive data.
In an emailed comment to journalists, he said: “Privileged users exist in all organisations. Examples include ‘root' users, domain administrators and system administrators, many of which are often short-term contractors. They often have powerful, privileged, network access rights and, although these users require a high level of access to enable them to conduct the tasks that they need to perform - like software installation, system configuration, etc - there is a very real security issue that arises when these users also have access to data stored within computer systems, and have the ability to read documents, copy or change them.â€
Ayers advised: “The best solution is to limit access so that privileged users can't actually read or edit the information in data files, but can still move them around as their job requires.â€
But he warned: “Unfortunately the majority of organisations do not yet have this capability and the Korea Credit Bureau incident is an example of what can go wrong. This will likely begin to change as more incidents of insider threat data breaches make headlines, but for now a high level of risk from inside company networks remains.â€
Matt Middleton-Leal, regional director for UK & Ireland at CyberArk, pointed out via email that the insider threat does not just apply just to the ‘privileged' person concerned. “The threat from within can also include the accidental misuse of privileged access, or the abuse of these accounts by cyber attackers, who immediately seek out these credentials once inside a corporate network in order to steal information or embed malware in a system.â€
Like many of the experts, Middleton-Leal emphasised that “a breach of customer data can spell disaster for a business, due to the loss of customer confidence, revenue and the possibility of severe financial penalties if they are found to have been negligent in the protection of this informationâ€.
He recommended: “It is essential for organisations to have a system in place that is capable of managing, monitoring and controlling all privileged access and activity, with the option to terminate a malicious session if necessary.â€
Mark James, technical director at ESET UK, said in a comment to journalists that  “encryption is a key first step, and ensuring data is fully locked down should be a basic†- but he too felt that “organisations need to be aware that despite having the latest technology in place the biggest threat, whether intentional or accidental, may in fact come from within.â€Â
James advised: “The ultimate aim of any IT policy should be the creation of a ‘security-aware' workforce. All staff should be conscious of the security risks they face, best practice and likewise feel empowered by processes policing access to sensitive data.â€
The tech giant removed browser extensions from its Chrome store after finding that both hosted malware serving up intrusive ads.
The two extensions, which are called “Add to Feedly†and “Tweet This Pageâ€, were previously reputable applications with solid reviews on the Chrome Web Store.
However, as the latest sign that cyber criminals are looking at new ways to infiltrate popular web services, both attacks were made possible after scammers offered to buy the application from the developer. They were then able to take advantage of each application's auto-update facility, in order to create a malware-infected version that served up intrusive ads to trusted users.
Amit Agarwal, the developer of  “Add to Feedly†revealed that he sold the application to an unknown owner via PayPal after receiving a sizeable offer.
“It was a four-figure offer for something that had taken an hour to create and I agreed to the deal," wrote Agarwal on his blog. After taking over the application - which is said to have approximately 32,000 users, the unknown owner added code to the browser extension, which automatically updated on users' computers, so that it served invasive ads to people who browsed the Internet.
Agarwal expressed regret at his decision, but says that users are still able to swerve the malicious software.
“The extension does offer an option to opt-out of advertising (you are opted-in by default) or you can disable them on your own by blocking the superfish.com and www.superfish.com domains in your hosts file but quietly sneaking ads doesn't sound like the most ethical way to monetise a product.
“It was probably a bad idea to sell the Chrome add-on and [I] am sorry if you were an existing user.â€
Hackers employed the same tactics to serve ads, redirect links and take over Google searches on another Chrome extension, “Tweet This Pageâ€, while the maker of another extension revealed that he too had been approached by hackers.
“Over the past year we've been approached by malware companies that have tried to buy the extension, data collection companies that have tried to buy user data, and adware companies that have tried to partner with us. We turned them all down,†said ‘gemusan', the founder of ‘Honey'.
"Usually [they] start with an email and progress to a call,†explained the co-author on Reddit. “I've spoken to a few on the phone and they sound just like normal people proposing a business deal. I'm sure they've justified what they do in their own mind so they don't sound shifty or unsure at all. Mental gymnastics is an amazing thing."
The developer was keen to point out that his application has not been taken over.
Those users looking to remove the malware-ridden extensions are urged to remove the application in question.
Last week I was on a train platform and observed an elevator sensor (or trigger) in action. I wanted to share this video with you to help you think about what sensors and triggers are in your life to help you adjust course.
Check out the video here or below
Small business owners tend to be optimistic by nature. Â You have to be, if you want to overcome the obstacles of running a business.
Still, the economy has been pretty rough since 2008.  Are there signs of improvement?  If I had to sum it up based on two small business optimism surveys, I’d say it’s “status quo†or perhaps “cautious optimism.â€
Per the latest NFIB Optimism Index, small signs of optimism have appeared. But it’s hardly robust signals. According to the National Federation of Independent Business’s Chief Economist, William C. Dunkelberg, and analyst Holly Wade in their commentary to the Index, â€Consumers are a bit more optimistic as are small business owners, but in the context of history, these measures are still weak.â€
Small businesses are creating some jobs and hiring, and they are spending on capital for their businesses. In general the outlook for sales and business conditions was reported to be a bit better for the upcoming months:
“NFIB’s December survey did provide some positive signals, with the best job creation figure since 2007 and a large increase in the percent of owners reporting actual capital outlays in recent months. The jump of 9 percentage points in December over November suggests that most of the increase in spending came very late in the year. Expectations for real sales growth and for business conditions over the next six months improved substantially over November readings as well.â€
As you can see from the chart below, since 2008 optimism has been dismal, historically speaking.  There’s been an upward trend, including that little uptick next to the red arrow, but it’s still not back to “normal†levels.
The numbers reported in January are based on a December 2013 survey of 635 small businesses from among the NFIB’s 350,000 members.  The businesses surveyed are from various industries, with retail, construction and agriculture well represented.  The majority have fewer than 20 employees.
The Hiscox eDNA survey actually dropped in optimism from 2012 to 2013.
However, the bright spot worldwide is the United States - comparatively speaking, at least. Â The Hiscox survey covers multiple countries where Hiscox does business. Â The United States reported the most optimism for the year ahead, in the most recent Hiscox survey. Fifty percent are optimistic (see green arrow in chart below):
According to Hunter Hoffmann, head of US Communications of Hiscox, “Forty-eight percent of those in the U.S. reported increased revenue.  That’s better than other countries we track,†he told us in an interview recently.  The average of all countries is a 37% increase.
Hiscox has over 40,000 small business insurance policies in the United States.
Hiscox conducts the survey from small businesses it insures.  They fall into professional services industries, such as IT consultants, marketing firms, real estate professionals, personal trainers, health and beauty salon owners, life coaches and event planners.  Many of them are younger businesses owned by up-and-coming entrepreneurs.  â€They tend to be optimistic and likely to implement innovations in their businesses†leading to positive results, Hoffmann added.
Hiscox’s small business portfolio consists of small businesses with under $2 million in annual revenues (usually equating to fewer than 10 employees). About half are solo entrepreneurs.  Hiscox also insures larger-sized small businesses through brokers.  The survey covered 3,000 small businesses, with 500 from the United States.
Business owners are realistic, too.  According to Hoffman, they insure their businesses to “make sure their hard work doesn’t go away through no fault of their own or an accident.† Hiscox has seen its insurance portfolio grow since 2010, when it brought its small business offerings to the U.S. market.  The company offers three main types of insurance.  Professional liability covers the business for liability when you give advice. General liability covers you or staff at a client location, or if the client is on your premises and gets injured.  And a business owners’ policy includes professional liability coverage but also includes coverage for office space and damage to it.
What’s your attitude toward your business’s outlook?  Cautiously optimistic?  Or status quo?
Thumbs Photo via Shutterstock
The operation that likely led to the infection of Target's point-of-sale (POS) systems - allowing attackers to claim data on 40 million payment cards, among heaps of other information - is known as KAPTOXA, according to a release by iSIGHT Partners.
The cyber threat intelligence organization worked collaboratively with the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) to determine that the KAPTOXA operation has resulted in the compromise of several retail information systems.
Although no affected organizations are named in a more extensive KAPTOXA publication - issued by iSIGHT in conjunction with the USSS, Department of Homeland Security, and Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center - the report indicates iSIGHT began investigating impacted retailers beginning on Dec. 18, right around the time Target announced its breach. Â
Although several other “technically sophisticated†techniques were used in the attacks iSIGHT investigated, the malware that extracted payment card information from POS systems is dubbed “Trojan.POSRAM†and correlates strongly with another POS malware known as “BlackPOS,†according to the report.
“At the time of discovery and analysis, the malware had a zero percent anti-virus detection rate, which means that fully updated anti-virus engines on fully patched computers could not identify the malware as malicious,†according to the report.
Andrew Komarov, CEO at cyber intelligence company IntelCrawler, has been investigating the BlackPOS malware since March 2013. He suggested that a variant of the BlackPOS malware was used in the recent successful attacks on Target and Neiman Marcus.
In a Friday IntelCrawler release, the author of BlackPOS was identified as 17-year-old Sergey Taraspov, who is said to be well-known in underground circles as a writer of malicious code. Komarov told SCMagazine.com on Thursday that Taraspov has ties to Saint Petersburg and Nizhniy Novgorod and that the malware author should be arrested soon. Â
“Some other bad actors really used very similar malware, like Dexter, Alina, or BlackPOS, as all of them work with Windows-based back offices and have typical methods of RAM scraping,†Komarov said, explaining that Taraspov was likely involved in the sale of the product, but not the actual POS attacks.
According to the IntelCrawler release, Taraspov sold more than 40 builds of BlackPOS to criminals in Eastern European countries - among other countries - at about $2,000 a piece, or for half the money earned on sales of stolen card data.
Komarov said more information should be revealed soon on other retailer breaches.
This story was originally published on SCMagazine.com.
A security company, Proofpoint, claims to have uncovered a hacking involving a refrigerator and televisions â€" and 750,000 malicious emails.
Appliances and all sorts of gadgets now have Internet connections. Experts have warned about the potential of such appliances and other gadgets being used in cyber attacks. Proofpoint claims to now have evidence of one of these attacks using such devices. This would be the first time such an attack using devices which are not conventional computers has actually been reported
From Dec. 23 through Jan. 6, malicious emails were sent in waves of 100,000 from all sorts of devices connected to the Internet, Proofpoint says.
The company says the attack included more than 750,000 phishing and spam emails in all. Over 25 percent of the volume of the emails were sent from devices that were not conventional laptops, desktops or mobile devices. Hacked devices included routers, smart TVs, and at least one smart refrigerator. An official Proofpoint report explains:
“No more than 10 emails were initiated from any single IP address, making the attack difficult to block based on location - and in many cases, the devices had not been subject to a sophisticated compromise; instead, misconfiguration and the use of default passwords left the devices completely exposed on public networks, available for takeover and use.â€
So, the next time you grab your lunch from the company lunch room, you may be stumbling on a cyber attack. For devices that are connected somehow to the “Internet of Things,†be sure they are as secure as anything else.
According to proofpoint, most such devices aren’t protected by anti-spam or anti-virus infrastructure available to organizations and individuals. They also rarely have dedicated IT teams or software to address new security issues as they arise the way conventional computers do.
In the report, Proofpoint adds:
“The result is that Enterprises can’t expect IoT-based attacks to be resolved at the source; instead, preparations must be made for the inevitable increase in highly distributed attacks, phish in employee inboxes, and clicks on malicious links.â€
The company says such smart devices are expected to grow to four times the number of conventional laptops, desktops and mobile devices over the next few years. So businesses must be aware of the risks.
Smart TV Photo via Shutterstock
You’re probably already on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. But does your business have a presence on Instagram, Snapchat, or Vine? Every year, new social networks launch. While you shouldn’t be on every social network, you definitely should identify the networks that would help further your marketing objectives.
Take some time to research what brands are doing with newer social networks and see if you can benefit form a presence there, too. For example, waffle truck Waffluv is an excellent example of how to do Instagram right. Spend a little time searching, and you’ll find plenty of other brands to model.
When social media first became a major part of online marketing, many companies made a big mistake. Their attitude towards social media - “Let’s get on Facebook/Twitter so we can sell more to our customers!†- didn’t actually fit with how users spend their time on these sites.
Instead of using social media to sell (which doesn’t work well), you should focus your social media efforts on improving your users’ experiences with your brand. Make 2014 the year your social media channels actually become a conversation with your customers, publicly showing how you value their input (even if what they say isn’t quite positive).
Some people see their roles as small businesses like they’re John Wayne: independent cowboys who single-handedly tame online business.
It’s already a mistake to plan online marketing in this way, and 2014 is going to make it a lot worse.
Organic link building is essential for the success of an online business, and social media is an excellent way to naturally increase your reach and get customers to share your links. By partnering with other online marketers in your space, you’ll be able to naturally increase your social media presence, find ideas on ways you can improve throughout the year, and grow your business in 2014.
2013 was the year mobile traffic to local sites grew to 27% - that’s almost a third of local web traffic. When you plan socially shareable content, don’t just think of desktops. Instead, keep smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices in mind, and optimize your social media profiles for local visitors.
Some businesses may actually be spending too much time on social media. If your social media presence isn’t furthering your business goals, you may want to consider changing your strategy. Consider making some of the following changes:
Re-evaluate your social media goals.
Decide how your social media efforts are helping you to achieve those goals.
Determine how much time you actually need to spend managing your social media accounts.
Focus more on posting engaging content rather than timed updates.
Be more consistent with posting on your social channels
As the importance of social media continues to grow, doing social media right will take more and more time in 2014. Social media is important - too important to leave to an intern or untrained customer service rep. Instead of leaving your social strategy to change (and effectively wasting your efforts), don’t hesitate to reach out to a social media marketing team and get some help. The cost is usually much lower than you’d expect, and the return on your investment usually pays for itself.
Social media can be a huge boost for both small and large businesses, but only if you have the right plans and objectives. Follow these tips to see your social media marketing improve in 2014.
During the 1992 presidential election, there was a sign that was reportedly hung by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager in their Little Rock Office that simple stated “It’s the economy, stupid.†This was a reminder to everyone that worked there that the only thing that the national race was about was the economy.
That year, I started my third business after failing in two others. This time, I made my own sign and tacked it up in my office. It read, “It’s cash flow, stupid.†It became my daily reminder and mantra. Starting out in my first business in 1980′s, I thought that the only thing that mattered was to sell my product to whoever would buy it. I reasoned that if you make sales, you eventually make money.
This worked great until customers didn’t pay me on time or at the same rate as my business expenses grew. Unfortunately, even if my customers did not pay their bills when they were due, my employees and vendors still wanted to get paid on time. What I realized is that sales do not pay bills, cash does.
Collecting the cash from sales means everything. It is the gasoline that makes your business engine work. Without cash, your business literally suffocates. Most businesses fail because they run out of cash leaked through losses or other poor management practices.
Check to see if you have more or less cash when comparing the beginning month and end of month balances. If the end of the month cash balance is higher, the company is cash flow positive. If the end of month balance is lower than at the beginning of the month, the company is cash flow negative.
Don’t outsource the math. By definition, cash flow is typically your monthly profit, plus the change in accounts payable, the change in accounts receivable, and the change in inventory. The higher this number is monthly, the healthier your company will be.
The sooner a customer pays, the higher the cash flow. The Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) for your business should never be more than 133% of your invoice terms. Don’t extend credit to a customer that has not proven they can pay in a timely fashion. Remember that credit is a privilege, not a right. Better yet, get your customers to pay with a credit card or prepay for your services.
Extended credit from your vendors will boost your cash. Always pay within the agreed period of time. However, if you have 30 day terms, try to get 45 days by building up a reliable track record.
Buying inventory only to sit for months on your shelf waiting for customer orders can take a lot of cash out of the business. Track your inventory carefully. Know what sells quickly and what never moves off the shelf. Know how long your customers will wait for a product and still be satisfied. This will determine the setting of reorder points (when a product is reordered to be put into inventory) and the reorder quantities (how much is reordered).
What have you done in your business to improve your cash flow?
This article, provided by Nextiva, is republished through a content distribution agreement. The original can be found here.
Cash Photo via Shutterstock
