Apple iBeacon Is a New Location Tracking Alternative to GPS

Apple’s new iBeacon and other future beacon technology could transform how your business communicates with customers and employees.

Beacons use low-powered radio signals to allow smart devices to communicate with them. The iBeacon, specifically, allows iPhones to communicate via Low Energy Bluetooth. Indoor spots with poor cellular service and where GPS doesn’t always work are ideal locations for beacons, Business Insider notes. The iBeacon was included in Apple’s iOS7 update. And iPhones with Bluetooth 4.0 can act as both receivers and transmitters.

Apple introduced physical iBeacons at its retail stores recently. Several are strategically placed throughout the store and as a customer walks around, the beacons trip off messages to that customer’s iPhone. A customer can even scan an item they want and pay for it from their phone using the Apple Store app. The app too uses beacon technology, according to information at the Apple website.

In another example, if a grocery store has beacons placed in specific aisles, when a customer walks in range of that beacon, they can be informed via a mobile device of products on sale. Advertisers are even arranging with grocery retailers to have spots played on a phone while a customer is walking through a particular aisle, according to a recent Bloomberg report.

Kirsten Osolind, President and COO of re:invention consulting, observes:

“Beacon technology will improve the way consumers use smart phones and transform numerous industries by solving the indoor geo-location challenge. It has great potential to facilitate better mobile payments thereby disrupting the whole credit card ecosystem because of its range.”

BestFit Mobile, a company that aims to improve how brick-and-mortar retailers use Low Energy Bluetooth to their advantage, adds more business applications for beacon technology in a recent statement:

“The right apps also help retailers gain significant insights into how customers shop, what brand decisions they make, and how they convert. These are the same advantages online retailers have enjoyed for years, but brick-and-mortar stores were unequipped to leverageâ€"until now.”

There are a few drawbacks to fully utilizing beacons as a means of communicating with customers or employees. The biggest is that for it to work, the intended recipient of the message must have your business’ app installed on his or her phone. The customer must also have a Bluetooth radio on and agree to accept messages from your beacons.

Using Smartphone Photo via Shutterstock

Concerns over Asus and Linksys router vulnerabilities

February 19, 2014

White hat hacker discloses router vulnerabilities that might only be fixed when new firmware versions are deployed.

The continuing problem of broadband router/modem vulnerabilities hit the security spotlight overnight, after it emerged routers from both Asus and Linksys were both affected by the issue.

Users of several Asus routers - typically used by premium broadband users in a corporate setting - woke on Wednesday morning to news that a white hat hacker had been leaving messages on their systems telling them their routers were vulnerable to attack.

Users of the more generic Linksys family of routers, meanwhile, have also been rocked by reports that their modems are also vulnerable to a simple exploit that could give an attacker remote access to the router. SCMagazineUK.com notes that the issues are worm-related, but are linked to the Moon worm reported last week by the SANS Institute. 

Ars Technica broke the bad news that users of several Asus routers - models RT-AC66R, RT-AC66U, RT-N66R, RT-N66U, RT-AC56U, RT-N56R, RT-N56U, RT-N14U, RT-N16, and RT-N16R - have been hit by taunting messages that they should take more care, as their modems are hackable.

The exploit used by the unknown white hat hacker appears to be the same one as flagged up by PCWorld Norway earlier this month. 

Ars Technica says that users are finding warning advisories on USB storage devices attached to their Asus routers, apparently left there by seemingly non-malevolent white hat hackers.

As many as 13,000 users may be affected by the warning messages as that number of external IP addresses of Asus router users were recently published on the Internet, as well as a BitTorrent file containing lists of the files on each victim's hard drive.

Asus says it has patched the affected router models, however the patch needs to be installed manually, and stems from the fact that the Asus routers - unlike the industry norm - has access to remote administration, remote FTP and SMB functions open by default to all remote devices.

SCMagazineUK.com understands that this feature was enabled,  to allow easy access to Asus' cloud computing services.

On the Linksys side of the fence, meanwhile, researcher Kyle Lovett claims that the Linksys EA2700, EA3500, E4200 and EA4500 router models have Port 8083 left open to external interrogation and access.

An attacker would simply need to use the Shodan security vulnerability engine for details of the open port on the routers, and then gain immediate access to the modem's remote administration GUI, bypassing existing authentication systems.

Lovett, who reported his findings to Linksys last July, claims that around 30,000 routers have been found in his research scans, adding that Port 443 also appears to be open on the affected units. “What happens is that during installation or upgrade, often one of the CGI script hangs and doesn't complete,” he says.

The system then just bypasses the rest of the set-up and operates as is, he goes on to say, noting that he has spotted four vulnerable scripts: fw_sys_up.cgi; override.cgi; share_editor.cgi; and switch_boot.cgi. 

Linksys, for its part, says that its older E-series routers and Wireless-N access points come with the remote management access feature switched off by default and customers must enable it to be vulnerable.

Commenting on the latest batch of router vulnerabilities, Andy Davies, head of research with security consultancy Pentura, said that this type of hardware hacking is an increasingly common problem. 

"While users of affected routers could purchase a different model from another vendor, there's no guarantee that the replacement would be less susceptible to other, as yet undiscovered vulnerabilities," he said.  

"In some cases, routers are shipped with services such as remote administration and remote FTP open by default, so users should check these settings and change from the defaults where appropriate. But sometimes, there's no fix until the vendor eventually releases a new version of firmware that users can deploy," he added.

Barclays KVM attack down to rogue employee

February 19, 2014

Gang allegedly siphoned money from bank in sub-£10k tranches to avoid investigation.

Details of the methodology used by a gang that allegedly engineered an attack on a Barclays Bank computer last autumn emerged in court this week.

As reported late last year, eight men were arrested in connection with a £1.25 million fraud against the bank, with police confiscating cash, Rolex watches and credit cards thought to have been associated with the fraud.

At the time, police said the gang attacked a computer in the Swiss Cottage (London) branch of Barclays, transferring money from the branch to accounts held elsewhere.

In a trial at Southwark Crown Court this week, it emerged that a bank employee is alleged to have helped the gang attach a KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) adapter to the bank's PC, so allowing members of the gang to access the computer remotely.

The gang is then alleged to have uses the employee's credentials to make a total of 128 transfers from six business accounts. The transfers were each under the £10,000 limit UK banks impose on inter-bank transfers before further checks - sometimes with the Bank of England - are carried out.

Police say that, when they searched one of the gang member's house, they found a crib sheet in his toilet cistern with details of bank customer accounts, as well as a KVM unit with a Three 3G modem attached.

Jean-Jacques and four other men (aged between 25 and 52) are on trial in connection with the fraud. Police say the men - who deny all charges against them - may be linked to a similar attack against Santander Bank last September, when another man, not currently on trial, allegedly impersonated a BT OpenReach engineer to gain access to a restricted area of the bank and attach a KVM device.

Some press reports suggest that the bank has yet to recover £700,000 from the cyberheist. The Daily Telegraph newspaper reports that the gang allegedly stole more than 400,000 pieces of mail and "conned American Express and Coutts customers into handing over their security details."

Professor John Walker, a Visiting Professor with Nottingham-Trent University's School of Science and Technology, said that many types of bank breaches are often caused by people using their own ingenuity and imagination to counter the known aspects of security used by banks. 

Walker, who is also CTO of IT security consultancy Integral Security Xssurance,  says that these types of attacks may be more common than you might think, as yesterday he was shown a piece of equipment that could be used to connect into an element of the banking system.

That kit, he explained, can be used to override the security of a bank to generate many multiples of transactions, all using relatively simple equipment, but with a price tag of £6,000 (US $10,000).

The key problem facing banks where rogue members of staff are involved, he says, is that the background check methodology may be flawed.  As one example, he said that, in a case he was involved with, a major global brand employed someone with a false background.

"There are of course many other technologies which may be leveraged to support such an internal attack, ranging from simple devices which may be attacked to systems to capture log-on credentials, to the more sophisticated, like the PAWNIE express plugs, which may be attached to LANS, and then remotely connected via a cellphone or WiFi," he said, adding that there are also sophisticated key loggers available, which now feature remote WiFi connections.

"Last year I was involved with a commissioned social engineering attack on a London based office. After a number of attempts, the unauthorised incursion was successful, and a number of passive devices were planted - some of which were adorned with the markings of a well-known hacker group - in prominent places and then plugged into the mains," he added.

Analyst says insider threat mainly down to lack of understanding

February 19, 2014

"Privileged user management is central to enforcing security policies" says Bob Tarzey, analyst at Quocirca.

Following on from SC's earlier news on IS Decisions' report, which revealed that UK businesses are being hit by more than 1,000 internal security breaches every day, SCMagazineUK.com spoke to Bob Tarzey, analyst and director of Quocirca, the business research analysis house. 

Tarzey, who wrote the foreword to the aforementioned report - in which he said that the day-to-day internal security threats faced by most businesses are not down to malicious behaviour, but the misuse and poor use of IT - argues that the insider threat is primarily about employee's lack of understanding - or even stupidity - when it comes to using IT in a business environment.

"It really comes down to defending IT systems using security policies and ensuring that staff understand those policies," he said, adding that his observations suggest that Privileged User Management (PUM) is central to enforcing those policies.

PUM, he says, is all about setting controls on individual user accounts, and ensuring employees only have access to those facilities that they need to carry out their jobs.

Where Active Directory deployments are involved, he told SCMagazineUK.com, you cannot normally control things to this degree, which is where specialist security technologies come into play, as it allows management to tightly control all aspects of the employee interactions on a given platform.

"This goes all the way down to simple limitations, such as preventing two logins on a single user ID taking place at the same time," he said.

One of the most interesting features of security systems seen in recent years has been the use of automated warnings sent to users by the security software itself, rather than simply logging a given suspect security incident to management for them to take action.

This was first seen around four years ago when Check Point implemented the `User Check' technology in its security platform - where management were only alerted to minor employee security errors, after a number of automated email warnings - each rising in importance - are sent to the employee concerned.

The strategy behind the automated warning approach is that users will feel less threatened by a computer warning than they would if their line manager intervened in an action carried by the employee concerned.

Tarzey says this automated warning approach is an issue he agrees with, as people will take notice of an automated warning.

"This is something we see with DLP (Data Leak Prevention) systems all the time. Little warnings help a lot. We've seen around 30 to 40 percent of organisations actively deploying DLP technology today," he said.

Guiding employee behaviour, he added, is a good way of avoiding IT mistakes in an organisation, but the more insidious threat is the malicious attack, where a user's actions are clearly intended to harm the organisation.

Tarzey added that the problem with malicious attacks - as compared to mistakes - is that if any employee really wants to do something, they will go ahead and do it - even if the security software attempts to lock down certain aspects of their behaviour.

The good news, he told SCMagazineUK.com, is that 99 percent of security problems in most organisations are not down to malicious attacks, but employee misunderstandings.

As Tarzey says in his report foreword, the insider threat can mainly be mitigated with an investment in tools that monitor and, to a certain extent, control users, for their own benefit and for that of the organisation they work for.

QuickBooks Replacement Intacct Raises Money to Penetrate SMB Market

Cloud accounting software company Intacct has just raised $45 million. The company says it will use the money to improve its product and do more marketing.

That may be a good idea. If you haven’t heard of the company yet, you’re not alone.

Intacct is still relatively young and small, used by a little more than 7,300 customers. Those customers range from accounting firms to tech companies and even non-profits and faith-based organizations.

The cloud software provider positions itself as a replacement for QuickBooks and similar on-premises accounting software for larger companies â€" like Sage and Oracle.

With prices starting at $400 per month, Intacct is obviously targeting the larger end of small businesses and midsize companies.

Though small, the company experienced some rather impressive growth last quarter. Intacct reports the business saw a 40 percent increase in the number of bookings compared to last year. The company also says it experienced almost 60 percent growth in new customer acquisition for the quarter ending December 2013.

In an official announcement on the Intacct website, CEO Robert Reid said:

“As the fastest growing mid-market cloud financial software vendor, Intacct has already established itself as a major player in the largest business application software segment. Our continued success in the industry, along with increased market share, has attracted additional capital for the company. This new round of funding will enable us to further accelerate our growth, drive new product enhancements, and reach into new markets.”

The new round of funding was led by Battery Ventures. Other investors include Bessemer Venture Partners, Costanoa Venture Capital, Emergence Capital, Sigma Partners, Split Rock Partners and Morgan Creek Capital Management.

The market for cloud-based accounting systems for small to medium-sized businesses is getting crowded meaning more choices for small business owners. Late last year, the cloud-based accounting software company Xero announced raising $150 million in funding for further expansion in the U.S. market.

Like Xero, the San Jose company is focused on promoting its cloud-based software as a service model as distinctive from older on-premises systems.

In the release, Intacct spells out this differentiation:

“Intacct and its channel partners continue to see the largest growth coming from companies looking to switch off of outdated on-premises financial systems from Microsoft and Sage to Intacct’s modern, cloud financial software. These companies have struggled with software designed well over 25 years ago (pre-Internet) that requires multiple add-ons, extra hardware, costly expert customization, and ongoing IT support just to keep up with their constantly changing business needs.”

Listed among the companies customers are a variety of firms including Wikipedia, Signal 88 Security, Meetup and Grubhub

Image: Intacct

Update: ICO and doctors force delay of NHS patient database

February 18, 2014

The Government has bowed to pressure from its own privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), and the British Medical Association (BMA) and delayed its controversial plan to collect the health data of every person in England on a single database.

Under the £50 million ‘care.data' plan, from April onwards the electronic patient records in every GP practice in England were due to be gathered and then merged with data from hospitals, social care and community services to create a single anonymised database that could be accessed by researchers from academia and pharmaceutical companies.

But earlier this week the ICO accused NHS officials of failing to explain the new scheme in the way they promised to, while the BMA said it was “deeply concerned” that patients had not been properly told how they can opt-out of the new ‘Big Brother' database'. In response, NHS England has postponed the scheme for six months.

The row came over the way the scheme was communicated to people, in particular the fact that anyone can opt out of sharing their health data. Despite explanatory leaflets being sent to all 22 million households in England last month, surveys showed that around two-thirds of people did not recall seeing them.

As a result, NHS England has said it will now carry out a publicity campaign to explain the scheme and ensure people are aware of their right to opt out.

This directly addresses the concerns raised by the ICO, which had launched an investigation into how the opt-out rights had been explained.

Earlier this week an ICO spokesperson told SCMagazineUK.com: “We were shown the communications plan for this. But we don't feel it's been implemented necessarily in the way that we expected. The NHS themselves have introduced an opt-out - it's not an opt-out under the Data Protection Act - but even so they're still obliged to let people know about it, and that's what we're looking at. Our role is to see whether patients are being made aware of what's happening to their records and the fact that they can opt out if they want to. We feel that the opt-out itself has not been explained as clearly as we were told it would be by NHS officials.”

Privacy campaigner Nick Pickles, director of Big Brother Watch, who had supported the calls for the scheme to be delayed, told SCMagazineUK.com that people can opt out by visiting the website https://www.faxyourgp.com/.

But the new database has been backed by medical charities, who insist that NHS data sharing will save lives. Last month, charities and medical research organisations including Arthritis Research UK, Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK, the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust ran a joint advertising campaign urging people not to opt out.

The six-month delay is a further body blow to the care.data programme, after the NHS' own risk analysis showed that the database will be vulnerable to hackers and the insider threat.

Last month, it was also revealed that the opt-out clause could break the forthcoming new EU-wide data privacy law which may insist people must actively ‘opt-in' before their personal data can be used.

This story was updated to reflect the database delay on 19th February.

3 Tips for Creating a Winning Team

One of the most important tasks a business owner will undertake is putting together a winning team. Even in an employer’s job market, it can sometimes be difficult to find an employee that has the necessary skills while also being a good fit for the environment. Here are three tips for creating a winning team.

I am blogging on behalf of Visa Business and received compensation for my time from Visa for sharing my views in this post, but the views expressed here are solely mine, not Visa’s. Visit http://facebook.com/visasmallbiz to take a look at the reinvented Facebook Page: Well Sourced by Visa Business. The Page serves as a space where small business owners can access educational resources, read success stories from other business owners, engage with peers, and find tips to help businesses run more efficiently. Every month, the Page will introduce a new theme that will focus on a topic important to a small business owner’s success. For additional tips and advice, and information about Visa’s small business solutions, follow @VisaSmallBiz and visit http://visa.com/business.

3 Tips for Creating a Winning Team

One of the most important tasks a business owner will undertake is putting together a winning team. Even in an employer’s job market, it can sometimes be difficult to find an employee that has the necessary skills while also being a good fit for the environment.

As you work to put your team together, there are a couple of things you can do to ensure long-term success. With the cost to replace an employee estimated at 20 percent of that employee’s salary, it’s crucial to find the right professional from the start. Only then can you begin the hard work of growing your team. Here are a few tips to help business owners as they build their next team.

Go Beyond the Résumé

The internet gives people instant access to a wealth of information about an individual. All you need is the name of a candidate and you can see, in advance, what the person looks like, what his or her personal interests are, and information about his or her work history. By conducting this research before the interview, you can gain insight into the personality of the worker, which will help in determining whether that person is a good fit with other team members.

LinkedIn is an especially valuable resource in building your business. At one glance, you may be able to identify common connections, allowing you to call a friend or colleague to ask for feedback on that individual.

Use Behavioral Interviewing Techniques

Traditional interviewing involves asking such clichéd questions as, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” The problem is that most interview subjects arrive armed with canned answers to these tried-and-true questions, so interviewers don’t get a clear picture of the candidate.

Perhaps that is why behavioral-based questions are now more popular than ever. With a behavioral question, you can ask something like, “Describe a time when you had to make a decision you knew wouldn’t be popular. How did you handle it?” Or, “Tell me about a time when you had to think outside the box.”

Behavioral-based questions do more than put candidates on the spot. They help you determine a potential employee’s thought processes to make sure they are a good fit for the organization.

Ask for Team Member Input

As you’re building your team, you shouldn’t leave out the other people who make up that team. If you ask for their thoughts on the skills and personality traits the new employee should have, they’ll feel as though they’re a trusted part of the business. Additionally, you’ll likely get valuable feedback on what they feel the team is lacking in terms of personality and skills.

Part of building your team is supporting and inspiring each of your team members as the team grows. Ensure each employee is getting what they need out of the work experience and try to create a positive culture that will ensure employee longevity. As the unemployment rate continues to drop, professionals may find they’re more challenged than ever to keep skilled workers. Your supportive, nurturing environment can make a big difference when a competitor tries to woo one of your workers away.

Be The Best “Business Of One” You Can Be

“‘Entrepreneur’ just denotes that you recognize that you’re doing things across disciplines and that you’re blazing your own path.” ~ Pharrell Williams

Having your own business is still one of the most dreamed about career goals most people have, but one of the hardest to sustain.

Just the idea of it sounds rewarding and fulfilling and it is. But, don’t get lulled into romanticizing it. If you are going to start a business, you just have to make sure you are doing everything that you need to do to professionalize it.

The entrepreneurial mindset is characterized by initiative, adventure, risk and perseverance. Not everyone is cut out for this going it solo - ownership experience. We are responsible for taking ownership of being the best at who we are and what we do. We all “own” our process which greatly impacts the outcome of how things turn out.

My colleague JT O’Donnell, Founder of Careerealism, says:

“It should come as no surprise much of what is written about launching a startup or being an entrepreneur can be applied to ourselves as we lead our respective business of ones to greatness.”

Taking leadership of your company if you do own it and ownership of your career if you run it are “musts” in today’s competitive business world.

Take it from me, after 7 years it is not for the faint of heart, but it is fulfilling. As I continue celebrating this milestone as an entrepreneur, I am also musing and thinking about what it took to get here and what it will take to stay.

Small Business Delivers Big Opportunity For Many

The SBA considers firms with fewer than 500 employees small, placing nearly every business in the country (99.7 percent of firms that have employees) under that umbrella term â€" thus, it is no surprise they employ the most workers.

Forbes uncovered some impressive current statistics about small business from it’s 38 million members, which gives us a good picture of the current small business landscape which is  encouraging:

• Twenty eight million small business in the US.
• Over 50% of workers work in small businesses.
• Sixty five percent of new jobs are generated by small business.
• Fifty two percent of small businesses are home based.

Small business in this country drives the economy and our communities. One can be a successful small business locally or globally, with a brick and mortar store or a website hub, or both.

The US Small Business Association definition of small business:

• Is organized for profit.
• Has a place of business in the US.
• Operates primarily within the U.S. or makes a significant contribution to the U.S. economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials or labor.
• Is independently owned and operated.
• Is not dominant in its field on a national basis.

Whether you are a business of one, two, three or five hundred, what it takes to start up and be successful requires the same fundamentals, regardless of size. The biggest differences are scalability and operations.

Carefully Consider the Benefits and Liabilities of Being a “Business of One”

The key benefits to being your own boss include financial freedom, flexibility, decision making  power, creativity, innovation and a viable solution to being unemployed or underemployed. Imagine taking your talents or hobbies and applying them to a viable niche or maybe taking on a franchise.

I have sadly witnessed the negative outcome of people who jumped in without the proper assessment, evaluation, product, plan, capital and skills. They were wiped out financially, emotionally and had a hard time recovering.

This endeavor can be a dream maker or dream killer. Going into it with the right skills, plan, motivation and professionalism and not a fantasy is the preparation that can make it or break it.

If you are thinking about starting a business or just have, here are some resources from the SBA.gov that are invaluable. Twenty questions and 10 steps that can help you make good decisions, be better prepared for the challenges and improve your success.

Make Sure Are You The Right Fit for The Job

The question of whether successful entrepreneurs are born or developed is an ongoing discussion. I will say, and do believe, that entrepreneurs share some important qualities. They take initiative, seize opportunity and have a higher risk tolerance. They are good decision makers, more focused and have stamina.

Take advantage of Score, the SBA, Small Business Development Centers and free workshops in your county or city and get some counseling. Most of this is free or a nominal fee.

Find a Need and Niche and Fill it

What can you do? Can you turn a hobby into a side or main business?  What do people need? What trends open up opportunity? These are the questions to ask yourself.

I love the show Shark Tank because it presents real people creating and inventing things that they hope make people’s lives better. Most of the products and services are born out of finding a solution for something they needed that they couldn’t find.

Talk to people you network with, and watch what hot social media topics are getting the most action to track what people are talking about.

Build Your Tribe and Buzz

If you have already started a business, I encourage you to use all of the self marketing, promotion and professional branding tools available today. Social Media alone can be a huge way to build your tribe, buzz and word of mouth. Combine the power of visual pictures with great content that educates and tells your story and the story of your customers. Your professional brand image should be current, fresh and focused.

Here are some hot business and industry categories, that might be a good match for your skills and interests, to start your small business.

This is the best time to start a business since 2011. But it takes the right personality, niche and plan. If you believe in yourself and what you can do to help people, then I say go for it. It’s exciting, rewarding and fun most of the time.

Be the best “business of one” you can be - but remember to build a strong network of many to support you.

Business Woman Photo via Shutterstock

EXCEL Act Offering Capital to Small Businesses May Not Be Dead Yet

Remember the EXCEL Act? Not many people do.

The acronym stands for Expanding Access to Capital for Entrepreneurial Leaders. The bill was first introduced in 2012. It was supposed to increase the amount of capital available to small businesses through a program regulated by the Small Business Administration. Most recently re-introduced to the Senate in September 2013, it is still awaiting a debate on the floor and a vote.

Despite support from Democrats and Republican in Washington, it has gone nowhere. Still, some on Capitol Hill say the idea behind the legislation isn’t dead yet.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) touched on the EXCEL Act during the confirmation hearing of Maria Contreras-Sweet as new administrator of the SBA. Landrieu said the bill could have helped up to 40 small businesses and created close to 2,000 jobs immediately if it had passed. Landrieu wanted Contreras-Sweet to affirm her support for the EXCEL Act and other measures that would help small businesses get access to long-term capital.

The legislation was first introduced by Landrieu during National Small Business Week in 2012, and was re-introduced to the Senate in September 2013. The Louisiana Senator said her bill had bi-partisan support but was held up from passing by “a handful” of legislators. Landrieu was, until last week, chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

As a refresher, here are some more details on the EXCEL Act:

If passed, the bill would actually amend the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) program.

First, it sets the maximum amount of debt that the Small Business Administration (SBA) can guarantee under the SBIC program at $4 billion per year. That’s an increase from $3 billion currently. It’s believed the increase in the SBA’s leverage limit would encourage more private investment funds as a result.

Provisions in the legislation would encourage banks to offer more SBA-backed loans. But it would also direct small businesses that are denied loans back to the SBA for more guidance. The bill would encourage banks, individual investors, and local municipalities to invest in SBIC Funds, according to a Small Business Committee report.

SBICs are private investment funds regulated by the SBA that invest in qualified small businesses with private capital and money borrowed through SBA guaranteed securities.

Money Photo via Shutterstock

14 Ways to Increase Your Company’s Facebook Visibility Without Spending a Dime

What is 1 thing I can do to ensure my Facebook content is more likely to be seen (and clicked on) in my customers’ news feeds â€" without spending money?

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Post Contest Information

Make your content interesting enough to be liked, commented on or shared by your network. I do a lot with quick contests for prizes, and that causes a lot of traffic to the post. This keeps it in the news feeds of my network and their networks.
- Darrah Brustein, Finance Whiz Kids | Equitable Payments

2. Use Exciting Images

Images that pop out and attract attention can cut through the walls of text on your newsfeed. Pair images with a solid call to action to get some great results. If you can create a discussion in the comments of a post to drive engagement and virality, that’s even better.
- Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

3. Post From Your Profile

Facebook pages are continuing to see a decrease in organic reach as a result of changes to the news feed algorithm. In addition, Facebook wants page owners to spend money to promote their messages. With these factors decreasing page reach, try posting content on personal Facebook profiles if you feel comfortable. The reach can be greater on profiles than pages and doesn’t cost anything.
- Brett Farmiloe, Internet Marketing Company

4. Time It Right

Simply put, there are certain times of the day that people are more likely to be browsing Facebook. Test which times of the day get the most response from your customers and do more of that!
- Matt Ehrlichman, Porch

5. Encourage Likes and Comments

Facebook’s news feed filters posts based on what it thinks each person is most interested in seeing, and a big part of determining this is what that person likes and comments on. If someone has liked or commented on something you’ve posted, they are going to see a lot more of your content. Try different ways of getting this engagement such as contests, photos, etc.
- James Simpson, GoldFire Studios

6. Upload Video Content

Without fail, uploading video to Facebook increases the amount of news feed views without spending extra dollars. If you use video in your business, make sure you share them by uploading directly to your Facebook rather than posting a Web address from Youtube or Vimeo. Facebook gives these uploads more weight and displays them better on mobile devices. Also, make sure to nail an awesome thumbnail to increase your CTR.
- Robert De Los Santos, Sky High Party Rentals

7. Make It Shareable

Make sure the content you are posting is something you would want to see in your own news feed. Try to make it interesting and shareable. The more likes your post receives, the more it will stay on top of the feeds.
- Evrim Oralkan, Travertine Mart

8. Find Common Ground

Make your brand relevant to their lives. When winter started, we posted a question saying “It’s getting cold in New York City, what’s the temperature like where you are?” We got 36 comments from people sharing where they were and what the weather was like there. For the fall, we hosted a “Create your own pumpkin-inspired chocolate bar” contest and that post had the fourth highest reach for us!
- Fabian Kaempfer, Chocomize

9. Entertain Your Followers

Produce edgy and funny content. Who isn’t engaged when smiling or chuckling to themselves?
- Phil Dumontet, DASHED

10. Don’t Include Links

Putting a link in your Facebook post that leads people to different sites means your post might not show up in customers’ newsfeeds. A photo or video that people can see or watch from within Facebook will be given a higher rank and would be more likely to show up in the newsfeed. Consider including links in the comments section of the post and within the graphic instead.
- Natalie MacNeil, She Takes on the World

11. Analyze Past Content

Getting more interaction with your content through likes, shares and comments is an integral part of increasing your Facebook content’s reach. Check your Facebook analytics to see which pieces of content have outperformed others and use that as a guideline for creating future social content. Also, interact with commenters to encourage more engagement, and you’ll see an increase in organic reach.
- Lauren Fairbanks, Stunt & Gimmick’s

12. Post Content Outside of Business

Like any online community, you need to nurture a Facebook audience. To do so, make some posts that are not directly related to your business but that would be interesting to your target demographic. This will get you more likes and exposure and will help build a brand that customers will associate with your product or service.
- Carlo Cisco, FoodFan

13. Encourage Notifications

You can suggest to your customers that they choose “get notifications” from your page, so they do not miss any of your updates, deals or other messages.
- Jesse Pujji, Ampush

14. Post in Groups

Use a Facebook group to share your content. Most users have notifications turned on so your content is much more likely to be seen than if it was from a fan page. Our group has less users than our fan page, but we always see much more engagement when we post in the group over the fan page.
- Sarah Schupp, UniversityParent

Brady’s Beef: Diversification and Personal Customer Relationships Are Key

John Brady recalls the ah-ha moment when he decided that selling directly to the public was the way to go.

Brady runs Brady’s Beef, a business supplying “grass finished” and naturally raised beef. The business sells directly to families in Salt Lake City, Utah. Customers are also in Pocatello, Idaho Falls and Boise in Brady’s home state of Idaho, as well as customers as far off as California.

All these deliveries are made directly by truck from Brady’s home base in the tiny community of Downey, Idaho, the location of Brady’s Plant Ranch.

Brady says the answering machine at the ranch literally says that if no one is there to pick up the phone, it is because they are out “rounding up the roses and branding the begonias.”  That’s because the ranch does not just raise cattle, but also raises ornamental plants in greenhouses and sells them at a garden center that draws local customers.

The business also grows vegetables that are sold at farmer’s markets.

This gives the ranch, operated by Brady, his wife, one full-time employee and some seasonal employees â€" three distinct businesses with very different markets.

Between 12 and 15 years ago, Brady sold many of his products not directly to customers, but for wholesale to larger companies.

Especially in the case of the ranch’s ornamental plant business, Brady had marketed aggressively to larger greenhouses. It was so much easier to load all your inventory of ornamental plants into a truck, drive them to a single destination and sell them all at once.

But Brady will never forget the year that his biggest customer simply said “no.”   It was due to internal changes at the customer’s company, but of course Brady’s small business was affected.

Suddenly, he was stuck with a full inventory from his greenhouses and nowhere to sell them. It was difficult, but Brady managed to scramble and sell what he had produced anyway.

Still, the experience taught an important business principle that he abides by to this day.  Relying on only one or a few big customers might make things easier in one way. But in another, there was always the huge risk one big customer would simply stop buying.

The ranch had cows and calves that it had been selling on the commodity market for quite some time. But Brady said determining they could make more money selling beef retail had been part of what drove some smaller beef producers into a new market.

Another factor, he said, was a minor scare over “mad cow” disease some years back. The issue sparked public interest in beef raised on grass or hay, as opposed to other less natural or less traditional alternatives.

But as much as the product the ranch produced could be described as back to basics, the system used to market it is pure 21st century.

The Brady ranch has strong customer bases for their produce at farmer’s markets and for their ornamental plants at their local garden center. Still they found interesting these two distinct customer groups in a new product, naturally raised beef, was a hard sell. So they had to find new customers.

Enter the Internet.

Brady admits:

“The Internet thing is just amazing. Everyday I get on my email and almost everyday I see another order. I don’t know if that would have been possible without the Internet.”

Brady reckons his Web presence at BradysBeef.com and the efforts of son Robert, an online marketer at Righteous Marketing, are largely responsible.  After all, with most of his customers between 35 and as much as 850 miles away (in the case of California) it’s tough to believe anything else.

Brady prefers to sell his beef to individual customers and families he can meet face to face. He finds the feedback very helpful and believes a personal relationship with clients is an important part of his business.

He has been approached by restaurants, but says most aren’t good fits as customers.   Most restaurants, he points out, serve steak and hamburger.  But he has to sell the entire beef.

He’s also resisted taking orders from customers he can’t deliver to personally. Examples would be interest he’s received from people in New York and Florida. He says filling these orders would require shipping and a whole new level of complexity to his business. Also, he says he doesn’t like the idea of freezing beef for transport and prefers selling his product fresh.

One solution is a line of beef jerky the ranch is now test marketing. In theory, it would be a product that would be easier to ship over long distances.

As far as other ways to expand, Brady says the business plans to market more creatively to customers of the ranch’s two other customer bases: Those visiting farmer’s markets for produce and those visiting the garden center for ornamental plants.

* * * * *

iCIMS, a leading provider of talent acquisition solutions for growing businesses, is proud to be the official sponsor of Small Business Trend’s “Small Biz Spotlight” of Brady’s Beef. Like iCIMS, Brady’s Beef has overcome challenges and has gone on to succeed by constantly adapting and improving. iCIMS is delighted to have the opportunity to support the passionate drive and dedication of companies like Brady’s Beef through the sponsorship of the “Small Biz Spotlight.” (Visit the “Small Biz Spotlight” series archives and stay tuned for more small business stories there.)

Images: Brady’s Beef

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The Perils of Renting Mailing Lists: Bank Mailer Sent to “Slut”

Imagine renting a mailing list for marketing purposes, and finding your company publicly embarrassed on Twitter over it. That’s exactly what one bank faced recently.

A San Francisco freelance writer got a credit card offer in the mail from Bank of America, addressed to “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire.”

Actually, McIntire’s mother got the mailer on her behalf.   After informing her daughter that she had received this offer in the mail, the self-described feminist writer set out to discover how she got her new middle name. According to a Chicago Tribune report and tweets that McIntire sent to her followers, fault is being pinned on an honors society she joined in college:

The Golden Key International Honour Society partnered with Bank of America to jointly market a card to its members. A letter inside the addressed envelope even has the same unfortunate name tagged in paragraphs to make it sound more personal, like: “Lisa Is A Slut McIntire, you have earned this special ….”

After her tweets went viral, it prompted some quick apologetic responses from the honor society and Bank of America. The honor society has accepted blame for the mix-up.

To its credit, Bank of America tweeted an apology to McIntire and contacted her directly by phone, too. Golden Key says that McIntire’s middle name was changed in the records sometime between 2004 and 2008. The bank says its mailing system is on the lookout for profanity. Apparently, not the word “slut,” though.

Luckily for both Bank of America and the Golden Key Honour Society, McIntire has taken the whole incident rather lightly:

For businesses, the incident is a reminder of the perils of renting mailing lists for direct marketing.  Obviously the honor society and the bank were both embarrassed.

But beyond that, consider that the information used to send McIntire her credit card solicitation hadn’t been scrubbed in up to 10 years old.  How useful could that information be?

Oops Photo via Shutterstock