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“National Small Business Week offers the opportunity to engage in a national dialog about small business and consider new trends and opportunities,” says Kurt Bilafer, global vice president and in charge of sales at payment platform WePay. He took advantage of various Small Business Week events, such as attending webinars, and found that “there is plenty to learn throughout the week about how to improve your business.”

Here are some tips and trends highlighted during Small Business Week that were aimed at helping you grow and improve your small business.

Focus on Financial Fitness

A firm financial foundation is just one aspect of a small business’ success. The webinar “Tips for Getting Your Business Financially Fit” was provided by the SBA’s SCORE mentorship program. Presented by John Shapiro of Intuit Quickbooks, the webinar discussed how understanding the financial condition of your business can be important to planning for long-term success.

Invest in Online Business Growth

No matter your business, your online presence may need constant bolstering. A variety of events held throughout the week helped small-business owners with the task of shining on the web. Google teamed up with small-business-focused organizations and hosted free workshops on how to grow your company’s web presence.

“Building a solid online presence requires embracing technology enabled platforms and leveraging their power,” says Bilafer. “These platforms’ speed of growth and economies of scale enable them to out-compete traditional businesses. Well-known platforms include social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and sharing economy apps like Uber and Airbnb. Any company that has a product or service or a business system they’ve perfected that enables other companies to better operate their business can evolve to become a platform company.”

Believe in Endless Possibilities

This year’s Small Business Week was especially encouraging when it came to opening a business today, believes Debora McLaughlin, CEO of The Renegade Leader.

“The week’s key message of ‘Dream Big, Start Small’ opens the door of possibility,” she says. “For the first time, anyone can be an entrepreneur. With the Internet, access to crowd funding, venture capital and the willingness of organization such as the SBA to offer assistance, small businesses can be started with ease. The traditional barriers of funding, research and marketing data and lack of mentorship are eliminated.”

Learn to Ask for Help

A far-reaching event such as Small Business Week illustrates how helpful it can be to ask for and seek out assistance. “Small businesses don’t have to go it alone,” says McLaughlin. “The path to entrepreneur can be lonely, and many business owners believe they have to know all of the answers, which isn’t true. Instead, seek out resources, such as the SBA, Center for Women & Enterprise  and the Association of Procurement Technical Assistance Centers, the latter of which helps businesses secure large government contracts.

A key lesson to come out of Small Business Week is the SBA’s willingness and ability to assist a wide range of businesses, adds Brett King, senior vice president and managing partner of Elite Financial Associates. “This forum encourages communication between successful business owners and provides step-by-step assistance, which may help to eliminate common mistakes new business owners make. As the old saying goes, why try to reinvent the wheel. Most successful people in business are the one’s willing to learn from others with more experience, which is the key purpose of National Small Business Week.”

Take Full Advantage Next Year

In addition to providing a wealth of information on how to improve business, Small Business Week offers a unique opportunity to market your business, believes Karen Leland, founder of the branding and marketing strategy firm Sterling Marketing Group and author of The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand.

“A variety of ways exist to take advantage of small business week and promote your business,” says Leland. “This can be everything from holding a special webinar or meeting to offering a discount and using social media to promote the week. The great thing about Small Business Week is that many small events that the general public may never have heard of otherwise become apparent during the week, and this positively impacts small business in exponential ways.”

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As many of us know, small businesses are an important part of our economy: “More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year,” the SBA reports. But there are also a fair amount of challenges and concerns that come with running your own business, and many of the events this week were created to help provide guidance and encourage business growth.

I spoke to several small-business owners to hear them voice their opinions about their top concerns to learn how they grow from those challenges. Perhaps you’ll be able to take some of these lessons, and use them for your business this Small Business Week and beyond.

It Takes a Village

At the heart of the discussion surrounding National Small Business Week is the idea that running a small business is not a solo venture. Those small businesses that succeed in today’s ever-changing environment gather and rally the best talent possible to achieve success, notes Don Cloud, president and founder of independent financial firm Cloud Investments LLC.

“Employee recruitment and retention is essential for a business to run efficiently,” says Cloud. “This means using some creativity when it comes to those high-level employees you require to succeed. It can be a delicate balance between company revenue and employee compensation.”

People are always the first challenge, agrees Bill Wooditch, founder, CEO and president of risk-management and insurance services firm The Wooditch Group. “Employees are the joy, the triumph and the ‘fun’ in the creation of a culture that can change the course of a company.”

It’s an exciting challenge to find employees ready and willing to grow with your company, notes David Glickman, co-founder and CEO of Ultra Mobile and Primo Connect. “A business often starts with a number of highly skilled generalists [who] have broad experience and can fill in gaps. As the company grows, hiring specialists becomes more important and the transition can be incredibly complex,” he says. “At Ultra Mobile, we’ve refined the structure of the organization to accommodate these changes, as well as improved our processes, which is needed as the business grows.”

Mark Aardsma, CEO of ATS Acoustics, agrees. “In a growing business, it’s essential to ensure our key personnel continue to develop the technical and human skills they need to take on new levels of responsibility. If we aren’t committed to investing in that, the business will outgrow us.”

Frank Granara, CEO of General Insulation Co., feels that creating a “village” that works together to seamlessly further the mission of your small business requires carefully fostering your company’s culture. “We focus on developing our people through multiple training programs,” he explains. “In addition to basic skill-based training, we have a leadership development program for our high potential leaders as part of our succession plan. We encourage our employees to look towards the future and continually strive to improve each day.”

The secret to retaining high-quality employees for your village is keeping them engaged, adds DeDe Murcer Moffett, an international speaker and author of SNAP Yes! The Art of Seeing New Achievable Possibilities in Business and Life. “When it comes to employment, people don’t leave companies; they leave disengaged managers,” she says. “Although money is important, what keeps employees buying into a company’s mission is having their own personal vision acknowledged and validated. Employees are less likely to seek employment elsewhere when they feel they are working together with the company towards a larger purpose and common goal.”

Technology as an Engine for Growth

There’s no doubt that the Internet and mobile have made running a small company potentially big business. The SBA has even scheduled online events focused on increasing business through mobile and other technologies. Such events are designed to help small-business owners who may find that keeping up with the Jones’ in the technological department can be daunting.

“The Internet is the great equalizer between small and large businesses, allowing for a deep and global reach into customer markets at a low cost, yet high speed,” says Patrick Stroh, owner of Mercury Business Advisors. “The challenge comes with adequately taking advantage of all of the aspects, including distribution, virtual storefronts and all the other benefits of doing business on the net. Today the key element of using the internet for distribution and marketing is mobile. Having a clear, robust mobile strategy is paramount for small businesses.”

For Marsha Friedman, CEO and founder of EMSI Public Relations, the digital landscape has provided opportunities along with challenges.

“In the past, we helped clients build their brands strictly through editorial coverage in traditional media, but hard-copy newspapers and magazines reduced their size and staffs, so we’re now competing in the digital space, which means a great demand for quality content, 24/7,” Friedman says. “Given that digital media development is critical, there is more competition for client marketing dollars. Fortunately, a significant part of our business involves providing quality content, and we were an early adopter of digital marketing. As new software and platforms are being created, we’ll see more opportunities for businesses to succeed in their marketing efforts. But be warned: Things will be even more competitive, because your competitors will have the same opportunities.”

“Dream Big, Start Small”

This year’s National Small Business Week theme,”Dream Big, Start Small,” epitomizes the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s a small-business owner’s great idea that propels the business forward in the first place. Yet while a business is often expected to start small, growth is desired, and that can be one of the small-business owner’s biggest challenges, believes Bill McBean, a small-business owner, speaker and author of The Facts Of Business Life.

“A small-business owner’s main hurdle is keeping the business growing and moving forward, but this is harder than it sounds,” he says. “To grow steadily, small-business owners must pay attention to a variety of factors in managing growth, including understanding the marketplace for themselves and their competitors, fully understanding value and price points and how products stack up to the competition.”

Bobby Rossi, co-founder of men’s lifestyle website Headlines and Heroes, adds, “Competition is fierce in the online sphere. In order to ensure continued growth, you need to keep customers continuously engaged, which creates brand loyalty. One way we’ve done this is by holding ongoing giveaways, which has allowed us to consistently engage with our audience and keep them coming back for more so that our company can continue to grow.”

Standing out from the crowd is often the key to growth, notes Jeffrey Leiken, CEO of Evolution Mentoring International and co-founder of HeroPath Life Coaching. “There is a flood of voices and opinions in the marketplace now. Amateurs with small budgets can build a website that makes huge promises or represents them as an expert, regardless of whether they are. To a certain extent it is a challenge to continually stand out from the crowd amidst the cacophony of noise and flurry of data coming at people, but it’s necessary in order to succeed.”

Aaron Zwas, a strategic technology advisor, believes it’s important for small companies to have solid business processes in place. “Many small businesses are built around what I call ‘personality driven processes,’ meaning that the business sinks or swims on the efforts of one or two individuals. This kind of passion is necessary and even healthy at the start, but as the business grows, something gives, such as missing a big order or falling out with a key supplier. It’s vitally important for small businesses to map out the key business processes that make their operations tick. Documenting those responsibilities enables business owners to safely shed responsibilities to other employees so that they can focus on the big stuff.”

Glickman agrees. “Once you’ve started a company and proven your business model, you shift from startup to scale-up mode. At this point, the challenge becomes removing any restrictions on growth. For us this has been a matter of ensuring we have hired the right senior leaders and ensuring we have enough funding.”

You worked hard to launch your business and you need to work equally hard to keep it relevant and thriving, says Stroh of Mercury Business Advisors. “A relentless focus on innovation drives consistent and predictable growth. If you aren’t reinventing your value proposition every three to five years, you are falling behind, so you must focus on innovation and how to consistently drive new thinking, ideas and improvements through your business. And don’t fall for the myths that innovation is only about new technologies or requires significant investments. Sometimes the best innovations for any-sized business is to discover innovations that already exist and simply apply them to your business.”

Join the discussion with other small-business owners here.

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“For the first time, businesses in America are being defined not by what revenue their products bring in, but by what their brand stands for, and leading this change is the millennial generation, whose values are drastically different than their parents’ generation,” says Joseph Anthony, CEO of millennial marketing agency HERO Group.

Millennials Are Redefining Business Success

“In a post Great Recession economy, young Americans freshly out of college and riddled with student debt are entering the workforce facing unprecedented challenges. As a result of this reality, millennials have redefined success from a strictly monetary sense to being something that adds value,” says Anthony. “This shift in thinking about measuring success has turned the millennial generation into the generation of social change for a better world.”

Small businesses are now finding themselves needing to adapt to the demands of millennial customers and employees seeking to improve society.

Today’s young people make no distinction between business change and social change, agree Glenda Eoyang and Royce Holladay, co-authors of Adaptive Action: Leveraging Uncertainty in Your Organization. “At Human Systems Dynamics (HSD) Institute, we engage with numerous millennials in the context of helping them learn models for getting unstuck and achieving results in today’s workplace,” say Eoyang, who is founding executive director of HSD, and Holladay, who is director of services. “Working with these young people, we find that the ‘results’ they want have less to do with making money and more with making a difference in people’s lives. It’s just the way they naturally orient.”

There are positives to this outlook, say Eoyang and Holladay. “There is tremendous power in the compassion, hope and incredible optimism it takes to believe you can truly change the world for the better. While a disillusioned baby boomer might think, ‘These kids have these pie-in-the-sky ideas that just don’t work in the real world,’ the fact is that these social enterprises exist and are thriving.”

Unique Millennial Worldview

Millennials have gotten their one-of-a-kind perspective from their experiences, which have been decidedly different from those of prior generations. “Millennials are the first generation of Americans who will be less financially secure than their parents,” says Anthony. “Their world view, shaped by the tragic events of September 11 and the global financial crisis, have led them to have less faith in the American Dream. The stereotype that millennials are lazy and materialistic does not hold water when you consider their values. This is the generation of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. They are the antithesis of Gordon Gecko’s ‘greed is good’ mantra. For millennials, what your brand stands for means more than its bottom line.”

This unique world view has also made millennials more adaptable to change than prior generations. “What we see as a big differentiator is how the different generations respond to the new state of the workplace. That state is pure chaos, unpredictability and constant, relentless change,” note Eoyang and Holladay. “It may be somewhat of an oversimplification, but from what we’ve observed, baby boomers are fearful of this reality, while millennials are comfortable with it and even excited and optimistic.”

Millennial employees and business owners view the world through a unique lens that is quite different than baby boomers, say Eoyang and Holladay. “This generation is forging ahead with social entrepreneurship. It’s a natural manifestation of how they experience the world—whereas boomers tend to see work and society as separate boxes.”

Boomer small-business owners and consumers also approach marketing differently, adds William`Chase, owner of Webtacular, which creates business websites. “One thing that millennial entrepreneurs do right is use social media to create authentic connections with their clients,” he says. “Instead of bombarding them with advertising, they instead connect with them to build real relationships that then turn into lucrative sales. The older generations tend to focus on slick ads that many customers are desensitized to. One thing you can never grow desensitized to is genuine connections with people. Millennials are willing to take the extra step to find out what customers want and how they can help.”

Marketing to prior generations mostly relied on creating a level of awareness of your brand or product, agrees Anthony. “For millennials, who are bombarded with display advertising non-stop, brands need to create affinity by fostering a deeper level of engagement between the brand and the target audience.”

Embracing the Millennial Outlook in Small Businesses

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, millennials now outnumber baby boomers as the nation’s largest generation, which means that “there is simply no other approach to business than the millennial approach,” says Anthony. “Yes, it’s more challenging to develop a communication strategy that feels innate and genuine, but many Americans now expect this level of authenticity.”

In order to keep millennial employees satisfied and committed to working for your company, it’s vital that small-business owners “infuse meaningful, socially conscious action into their jobs and workdays,” say Eoyang and Holladay.

“Millennials often start up their own ventures, because they’re unhappy with the way existing companies are run. If they can’t find an outlet for their passion for making a difference at your company, they’ll leave and take that incredibly valuable capital somewhere else. In order to prevent this, small-business owners can let millennial employees take ideas that drive social change and run with them—perhaps as independent projects or even as spin-off ventures,” they advise.

When it comes to attracting the millennial consumer, small-business owners should first ask themselves why their company exists, Anthony adds. “If you’re of the opinion that one great idea can change the world, determine what your brand’s inherent value is. When your small business delivers a product, package it with a purpose. As buzz terms stemming from the millennial generation like ‘shop local’ continue to catch fire, small businesses remain at a tremendous advantage for wooing millennial consumers.”

Read more articles on company culture.

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The “big guys” are constantly responding to changes, such as Subway, which recently introduced a new carved, healthier turkey option to meet consumer demand for healthier fast food options. But the good news is that small-business owners can react more quickly, says branding and marketing strategist Karen Leland, founder of Sterling Marketing Group  and author of The Brand Mapping Strategy: Design, Build and Accelerate Your Brand.

“Today, shifts in technology, political climates, market preferences, etc. are a constant and should be the expected norm,” says Leland. “The good news for small businesses is that they are much better able to pivot and adapt than large corporations, because with just a handful of people, as opposed to thousands, small businesses can almost instantly react to the marketplace.”

Change in the marketplace is a given, agrees Charles Chehebar, executive vice president of Accessory Headquarters (AHQ). “We like to say that the market changes like the weather, and if you’re not properly geared to combat the weather, then you might catch a cold.”

When It Comes to Business Trends, Being Proactive Is Best

Given that change is inevitable, it’s the small-business owners who stay ahead of the curve and are proactive, rather than reactive, that do more than survive—they thrive. “Being a leader is preferable to being a follower,” says Chehebar. “In the business world it is imperative to be ahead of the curve with trends in order to keep your customers constantly coming back for newness and always wanting more.”

How a small business reacts to change will determine success, agrees Scott Moffitt, president and CEO of the financial planning firm, Summit Financial Group, Inc. and author of College and Retirement: You Can Do Both. “Being proactive or reactive will determine whether your company is a market leader or you are late to the party and fighting for remaining market share. While being an early adopter may at times have a longer gestation period before your target audience embraces, greater success will be had once they do embrace.”

Leland concurs. “Lagging in trends always puts a small business behind, because you end up playing ‘catch’ up and ‘me too,’ rather than being an industry leader. When a company waits until a loss of sales or clients forces them to make a change, they are always behind the eight ball. Not just financially, but emotionally. The mood in a small business that is struggling or trying to change with the times can be one of frustration and fear. As opposed to the mood of a company that is being proactive and future oriented, which is more hopeful and exciting.”

Anticipate Needs and Desires

When a small-business owner manages to anticipate needs and desires and makes changes in response, doing so leads to “tremendous opportunities for increased consumer engagement and loyalty—even when you charge more,” says Sandy Rubinstein, CEO of the marketing and engagement company DXagency. “Starbucks has done a tremendous job introducing new, healthier food options, including yogurt, fruit and granola.”

It might be difficult to give up strategies and products that led to your success, but it’s imperative to do so when it’s clear that those offerings have run their course, believes Joseph Michelli, CEO of The Michelli Experience  and author of seven books, including The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW.

“Remember that it’s not about you, it is always about your customer,” says Michelli. “We are in business to serve the needs of others, and when we do so, we prosper. If we can anticipate needs and fulfill even the unstated wants and desires of consumers, we can command a premium. Watching and listening for things your customers are likely to want is the key to innovating rather than following the herd. You have to also be willing to cut your losses and diversify your efforts so as not to get caught on the wrong side of a BIG bet.”

Stay True to Your Company Mission

One of the most effective ways companies can stay ahead of marketplace changes is to be clear about what they stand for, says Jackie Dryden, chief purpose architect of Savage Brands and author of Get Your Head Out of Your Bottom Line: And Build Your Brand on Purpose.

“Businesses that get out in front of changes are the ones that last, and one of the best ways to do this is to be clear about the company’s purpose,” says Dryden. “Taking a proactive stance that clearly states what the company stands for attracts customers who are interested in something greater than just sales transactions. When a business communicates its true purpose beyond making a profit, it will attract and retain loyal customers who are more impervious to trends and market conditions.”

Dryden points to the outdoor clothing company Patagonia and their 2012 message to customers to take back the holidays and focus on family and friends rather than gift giving. “When retailers across the country were releasing advertisements to convince people to buy more, Patagonia encouraged their customers to buy less. The company encourages sustainable behavior, and the customers love that about them. Not only do Patagonia’s customers trust the company, but many are also loyal, vocal advocates. People want to invest in brands that have values similar to their own.”

Identify Market Changes and Business Trends

Staying ahead of the trends so that you can react quickly requires that you identify market changes, and that means remaining interested and curious. “Look no farther than your own backyard to see the market trends,” says Leland. “Pay attention to what’s popular on social media, blogs, online publications, television, and listen to customer feedback.”

The pendulum has shifted and consumers are telling businesses everything they need to know to run a smart and efficient operation, says Pamela Herrmann and Patty Dominguez, co-creators of the marketing company CREATE Buzz. “Small businesses are closer to their customers than big national brands, and the customer insights you need are free online if you turn up your social listening skills,” says Herrmann and Dominguez. “Once you know which social media platforms customers use, it’s easy to track conversations and identify influencers and note their questions and frustrations so you can identify product and service gaps.”

Tips for Introducing New Offerings

Successfully introducing new offerings takes illustrating how the changes will benefit your customers, says Moffitt. “It cannot be about what it will do for the company financially. It has to be about why you are so excited to be able [to] enhance your clients’ experiences and why that has value for them. Increased price will not be an issue if the perception is that the value has increased.”

Cheheba agrees. “People in the know are always looking to be the trendsetters and not trend followers and will probably have no issue paying a bit more just to keep up with the latest style.”

Your most important task is to let your customers know you listen to their desires and needs, Leland says. “A ‘we heard you, and here is what we are doing about it’ response is the best jumping off point,” she says. “Focus on ways to share how a new idea will enhance a customer’s experience with the brand. When a brand is upfront and candid about why a product is being added or changed and how this move fits customer needs, there is a much better chance the move will resonate with customers.”

Beware of Trend Marketing

It’s easy to get caught on the bandwagon. “Customers are savvy and they see through attempts to play ‘me too’ just to boost sales,” says Dryden. “It’s much easier to attract customers with a new product that actually ‘fits’ what the brand stands for. A long-term strategy that keeps a brand aligned with its true purpose— the good it wants to contribute to the world— is much more effective. Companies that stay true to who they are and build their reputations from the inside out are the ones that usually lead the trends, not follow them. They are the bands that customers love and competitors envy.”

Read more articles on getting customers.

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Benefits to Hiring College Graduates

“Today’s college grads are a great source of new, fresh energy for your business,” Houlihan says. “They’re skilled at Internet research and are willing to put in extra hours. Since they haven’t had a lot of experience with other companies, they’re less likely to come to you with preconceived notions and other ways of doing things. That means they’re easier to mold into what you ultimately need.”

College graduates may be highly innovative and used to working in collaboration in team environments. They have often had some leadership experience, so they are often quick learners and are usually highly energetic. From a compensation standpoint, they may also be more cost effective.

Cautions When Hiring College Grads

There may be, of course, a variety of cons to hiring newbie employees, Harvey notes. “College grads can be impetuous. Because they have little or no experience building a resume, they may not realize that they should stay with a company for more than two years to look stable to their next boss. They also may not realize how good they have it at their first job, which may lead them to quit early for what they perceive as a better opportunity to do something more conducive to their true passion.”

To help protect your investment in terms of orientation, training and compensation, Harvey suggests digging deep when vetting and interviewing college grad applicants. “Employers will do well to probe deeply into the true passion of each applicant to see where the person sees himself or herself in five years. It may not be at your business, and that is something to consider before you do any hiring,” she says.

Also be prepared for a “cut-and-paste mentality,” where the new grads ask for examples that they can just copy, Houlihan warns. “This approach makes them feel less culpable. And protection from culpability is at the heart of their reliance on virtual communication, because it protects the user from accountability.”

Virtual communication may also be the culprit in the erosion of soft skills, such as making phone calls to develop relationships with customers and vendors. “The younger generation tends to want to do everything by text, email and tweets, when a simple phone call would be so much more efficient and productive,” says Houlihan, who suggests training them to use realtime communication methods first to establish relationships and virtual communication second to document and confirm. He suggests monitoring them for a few weeks to make sure they’re doing this.

Importance of Transparency

Another potential drawback of hiring college grads is that few may have a basic understanding of how your business monetizes on your goods and services. “They tend to think of a job as a specialization that is insulated from the sales process, despite the fact that many of them are working in the realm of sales support,” Houlihan says. “This can result in a myopic view that does not always take in the big picture.”

You may help solve this limited view and mold effective workers by going long on orientation. “In addition to good job descriptions, spend time explaining how your company’s business model works,” Houlihan says. “Make sure they understand that their money comes from the customer, not the company. When they see their job as ultimately supporting sales, they will have a better understanding of not just what they do, but more importantly why they do it. This will make them more productive, engaged and empowered.”

Consider What Drives College Grads

Like generations before them, this era of employees is unique. They often place a high value on freedom to enjoy personal time, and they may strive for work-life balance, so consider offering flexible hours whenever possible. If working from home is an option, also consider allowing for certain days as telecommuting ones. Consider making meeting the deadlines with exceptional work the barometer of performance, rather than hourly accountability.

“This generation of college grads also has a deep desire to be proud of where they work on a social basis,” Harvey says. “They want their employers and their products and services to stand for more than their mercantile values. They want to tell their network that they work for companies making a difference in the world. So make sure they know how your company is doing just that.”

Read more articles on hiring & HR.

This article was originally published on April 30, 2015.

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Pennies add up, says Marcy Hogan, a manager with SendOutCards. “I was elated to discover that the USPS lowered the cost of stamps,” she says. “My business is a technology-based greeting card and gifting system where recipients receive real cards and gifts in the mail via USPS. Along with plans and packages for sending cards and gifts, my clients purchase postage through the system. Many of them use SendOutCards as a follow-up and marketing tool for their businesses. With the lower cost of stamps, they’ll save money on postage, which is part of their marketing dollars.”

It pays to closely consider shipping charges, agrees Luz Sellers, co-owner of Sellers Gifts, a gift and concierge service. “Shipping fees cut into profit quickly,” Sellers says, “which is why I’m mindful of the various mailing options and even of the use of shipping supplies, such as tape.”

It’s possible to keep shipping charges from taking a big bite out of your bottom line. Reduce shipping costs by keeping the following tips in mind.

Compare Packaging

It’s often best to use packaging provided by the postal carrier. Using your own packaging can cost you more if your box is considered an off size, exceeds certain dimensions or is especially heavy. On the other hand, the USPS’s flat rate boxes allow you to pay the same amount of money no matter how much the packages weigh. In general, it’s best to choose the smallest box or envelope possible—the smaller the package, the less it usually costs to ship.

Save on Packing Materials

Packing materials can add substantially to the cost of shipping. Recycle whenever possible, which will save money and is an environmentally friendly option. Also buy packaging materials in bulk. When weight isn’t an issue, opt for less expensive newspaper over more costly packaging materials like Styrofoam peanuts.

Negotiate

Small businesses can have a surprising amount of clout when it comes to negotiating for lower shipping fees. Compare prices and look for shipping reduction incentives, advises Ronna Coe, owner of Coastal Component Industries (CCI). “We changed our credit card processing to Authorize.Net through Merchant Services. They are a partner with the Small Business Growth Alliance (SBGA) that offers shipping discounts with FedEx. After I signed up for and received a large discount from FedEx, I called my UPS manager to see if they would match my FedEx pricing, and they did.”

Look into Regional Carriers

If you ship within a certain geographic area, it may be more expedient and cost effective to use a regional carrier. Such carriers tend to have lower prices than national companies. Before signing up with a regional carrier, check out their delivery areas carefully to make certain they can help you service your clients.

Try Prepaid Shipping

Some postal carriers offer a discounted rate if you buy certain quantities of shipping labels prior to using them. You simply use the labels when shipping is necessary, rather than paying for each package. If you are going to try this, it’s best to know the box or envelope size that you’ll be using most often.

Inquire about Association Discounts

Belonging to certain organizations can mean a member discount when it comes to shipping. If you are a member of a sizeable association, ask if there are any discounted rates with carriers such as FedEx and UPS.

Read more articles on saving money.

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APRIL 07, 2016Recently the New York State Legislature mandated paid family leave for most employees, making New York the fifth state in the nation to adopt such a program. The program gives new parents and those with ailing family members paid time off to care for them.

What makes the New York State mandated leave so significant is the fact that it includes employees working for small businesses and offers workers up to 12 weeks of paid time off. This is double the time provided by California, which was the first state to adopt government-funded paid leave in 2004.

U.S. an Outlier When it Comes to Paid Leave

As our national attention continues to shift toward work-life balance issues such as family leave, it becomes readily apparent just how behind the times Americans actually are. While the U.S. does guarantee up to 12 weeks of job protected leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to Pew Research,  America is the only industrialized nation that doesn’t require employers to pay employees on parental leave.

Now that two of the nation’s most populated states have adopted paid family leave policies, it’s likely that more states will continue to follow suit. It may eventually become a federal mandate, says Ted Mayeda, co-owner of M & M Nursery and Fairy Garden Expert. “Though paid family leave may be inevitable, it does bring definite pros and cons for small-business owners.”

Benefits of Paid Family Leave

The perks of mandated paid family leave for small businesses obviously benefit the employees, but they also make their way back to the employers. One area is improved employee morale. Those employees who are able to take paid time off during a baby’s first months or when a severely ill family member needs them are far more likely to remain content and return to their jobs with renewed enthusiasm when the leave ends.

Paid family time also extends to fathers, which benefits the entire family, adds Linda Scott, owner of eFrog Press. “I have seen the benefits of family paid leave in person,” Scott says. “When I worked at a state university, both parents were entitled to paid leave. Fathers I knew really seemed to enjoy having the extra bonding time to spend with their infants.”

In addition to sending a positive message to those employees who use paid family leave, such benefits also communicate to other employees that the company is concerned about their overall well-being. This investment in human capital by small-business owners is likely to increase employee morale overall.

Drawbacks of Paid Family Leave

Providing paid family leave to employees is not without its drawbacks for small businesses, notes Henry Hutcheson, president of Family Business USA and author of Dirty Little Secrets of Family Business. “Family leave policies, while certainly beneficial for new parents and individuals with sick family members, can place a burden on smaller businesses. The drawbacks are two-fold: smaller businesses, because they are small, are financially impacted more than larger corporations. At the same time, as the policies are at a state level, such policies could become added to the list of reasons why some companies may relocate to other states.”

Family leave policies are particularly burdensome if the leave must be paid for by the business owner. For those owners in states with publicly funded paid maternity leave laws—including California, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York—the economic impact isn’t as major, though it’s still necessary to pay for the training and salaries of fill-in workers.

If your business is in any other state, you are obligated by law to offer all employees 12 weeks of protected family leave, meaning their jobs are secure until they return. You’re currently not required to provide any paid leave to those employees who take time off, although some companies choose to do so in order to keep valuable employees happy. This can in turn have a long-lasting, positive impact on job performance.

“Incurring additional financial obligations is very hard for small businesses, however, investing in good employees is a good long-term investment,” says Hutcheson. “With the unemployment rate dropping and good employees [being] hard to find, businesses that offer this type of benefit show that they are investing in employees and that attracts and retains high-quality employees.”

Given the many good reasons to provide paid family leave to employees, it makes sense for small-business owners to do their best to offer at least some compensated time off. For instance, voluntarily paying for one or two weeks of pay will show employees that you care about their well-being.

Read more articles on hiring & HR.

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MARCH 31, 2016As California recently raised its minimum wage to an eventual $15 an hour over the next several years and other states like New York consider following suit, the wage increase brings up an important question. How might minimum wage hikes affect your small business? It turns out there may be both benefits and drawbacks to paying baseline employees more money.

“The correct level of our minimum wage has always been a hotly debated topic—and for good reason. There are good and bad arguments on both sides,” says Parviz Firouzgar, an entrepreneur, speaker and author of 20/20 Hindsight: If I Knew Then What I Know Now I’d Be A Lot Richer.

“The recently proposed minimum wage hike to $15 per hour in California will not be a sudden jolt to our economy, as it is a gradual hike taking several years to complete,” Firouzgar says. “The fact is that it’s a measure that must take place at some level sooner or later, as the cost of living in California along with standard annual inflation is high.”

Benefits of Minimum Wage Hikes

A minimum wage increase can be beneficial, Firouzgar believes. “Raising the level of income for substantial numbers of people provides more money circulating throughout the economy, which may benefit everyone due to the increased purchasing power of the masses,” he says.

Apek Mulay, owner of Mulay’s Consultancy Services and author of Mass Capitalism: A Blueprint for Economic Revival, agrees: “If all small businesses in a community raise the working wage of their employees, the employees in turn have more disposable income, which they can spend to buy products and services from small-business owners, who then discover that they get back more than what they invested in paying raised wages.”

Though a rise in minimum wage at first may cause some job loss as employers focus on keeping the most valuable employees and letting others go, in the long run it can benefit small business, adds Henry Hutcheson, president of Family Business USA  and author of Dirty Little Secrets of Family Business. “After letting some employees go,” he explains, “small businesses get a more dedicated quality workforce over time.”

Drawbacks of Minimum Wage Increase

Small businesses may be left with a dilemma when it comes to increasing the minimum wage, Firouzgar notes. “On the downside of controlling the minimum wage at any level is that it is essentially a manipulation of the market where the natural levels of supply and demand should logically dictate hourly wages,” he says. “Many small businesses will be forced to cut their labor force or raise their prices, and some will explore automation with robotics.”

In the fast-food industry, an increased minimum wage is already leading to exploration of automation, Firouzgar points out. “This automation has the potential to eliminate thousands of minimum wage workers, which is not something anyone likes to see happen, but it is unavoidable with or without minimum wage increases,” he explains. “As our technology progresses and automation becomes an obvious outcome, a minimum wage increase serves to accelerate innovation in this field, as necessity becomes the mother of invention.”

Solution to the Minimum Wage Dilemma

To adjust to the increase in wages and even profit from them, small-business owners may want to consider making some adjustments.

“There is a solution that most small businesses should consider, and it has to do with the value employees provide,” Firouzgar says. “The small-business owner should contemplate how he or she could reposition employees, giving them more responsibilities, in order to increase the value they contribute to the business so that their work is commensurate to the amount they are being paid.”

Read more articles about HR.

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The Federal Records Act requires that emails of federal officials be public  so that anyone who wishes to—including other government officials, news media and historians—can access them. Small-business owners may not have to worry about constituents, but they do have partners, employees, investors and possibly board members to answer to. And most small businesses have classified, sensitive and proprietary materials that shouldn’t get into the wrong hands.

Here are some tips to help you stay out of hot water when it comes to your and your employees’ email accounts.

Draw a Line

No good can come out of mixing private and company emails. As a business owner, it may be best to delineate between private and business emails, according to Eldonna Lewis-Fernandez, a veteran negotiation and contracts expert and author of Think Like a Negotiator.

“As a corporate employee who was building a business while working a corporate job, I had to toggle between two worlds,” Lewis-Fernandez says. “I could not use my corporate email for personal use and could not use my personal email for corporate use.

“The biggest concern when using your personal email for official business is the inability to track it and the possibility of information getting hacked and sensitive information getting in the wrong hands,” she adds. “This is why safeguarding of information is so critical, and keeping your official business official is paramount to protecting not only your company or organization but also yourself.”

Know Employee Email Rights

As an employer, you have the legal right  to monitor employee emails on your company’s email system. Doing so may ensure that company proprietary information remains safe, and monitoring may enable you to head off trouble that might be brewing. At the same time, it’s also often important to note employee email rights.

Provide Employees With Guidelines

“Email remains the go-to form of online communication and often involves the transfer of sensitive and proprietary business information in both text and file format,” says Robert Rasmussen, COO of Balboa Capital. “Because of this, it is imperative that businesses have an iron-clad policy regarding the use of company and personal email. The email policy should be approved by company executives and a legal counsel, and be included in their employee handbooks.”

One best practice may be to provide employees with clear guidelines regarding company email use in your employee handbook. This may help ensure that employees abide by email protocol that’s best for the company and can protect your business if a legal issue arises regarding email.

In the employee email guidelines, consider spelling out rules regarding company email use. Note when they should use company email and when it’s best to use private email. Discuss when it’s acceptable to forward company emails and to whom. Tell employees if their company email is being monitored.

Protect Company Information

The misuse of email may present companies with a number of security and legal risks, Rasmussen suggests. “If an employee sends an email containing confidential information over an untrusted network that does not have the necessary security protocols, it can be read or copied during transmission,” he says.

Rasmussen advises that small businesses have their IT departments use best practices when it comes to securing and monitoring email communication.

“Network infrastructures should be equipped with firewalls, routers and anti-virus software,” he says. “For an added layer of protection, the mail server application and mail client application can be secured and email encryption technology can be deployed.”

Privacy Online May Not Truly Be Private

The bottom line is that any correspondence put into cyberspace—be it in a company or “private” email—cannot have a guarantee of privacy, advises leadership expert Roxi Bahar Hewertson, author of Lead Like It Matters…Because It Does.

“Anything we write or say electronically is recorded somewhere, like it or not,” she says. “If you don’t want it to show up on the front page of The New York Times, then don’t write it or say it in an email or text.”

Read more articles on cybersecurity.

This article was originally published on March 13, 2015.

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“When you think about the demographic changes on both the buyer and seller sides—younger “digital natives” vs. retiring baby-boomers—you realize that technology will continue to penetrate every aspect of our business and personal lives,” says Dave Stein co-author of Beyond the Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World. “Whether it’s wearables to meet healthcare provider requests or robots to further manufacturing effectiveness, efficiency and quality, tech is at the core of it all. SXSW introduces these trends and offers small-business owners the opportunity to delve into those trends that are promising, as well as to meet those who conceived, built and use these trending products, services and practices.”

For small businesses to effectively compete with larger rivals, the understanding and use of technology is often the great equalizer, adds Paul Friederichsen, CEO of BrandBiz and a former creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi. “SXSW empowers small businesses with awareness of the tools and techniques they need in today’s hyper-competitive environment,” Friederichsen says.

Social Media Leads to Social Messaging

At this year’s SXSW, much discussion centered on the shift currently occurring from social media to social messaging, with a significant increase in consumers wanting more intimate sharing in more private networks. This shift is so significant that it may be redefining how brand marketers connect with consumers. The goal now seems to be enabling more intimate conversations.

Marketing is vital and can help small businesses be competitive, Friederichsen believes. “The social media to social messaging trend revealed at SXSW will have the greatest impact for the vast majority of small businesses. It is, without a doubt, the next evolution of marketing communication.”

Stein agrees. “One key trend is the use of social media and messaging to attract and nurture new customers and clients. The amount of noise and hype in the social arena is deafening, but we’ve seen smaller companies propel significant growth through the use of social media strategies relevant to the markets they are pursuing. Social media messaging technologies can provide sales and marketing people with a further and deeper reach into the mind and wallet-share of their target markets.”

Online Harassment

In light of the fact that online activity can and has led to online displays of dark, hateful behavior online and cyberbullying, SXSW held its first Online Harassment Summit. The day-long event featured a wide variety of speakers and tackled solutions for such subjects as why hate thrives online, the economics of online harassment and the bullying of youth online.

“Small-business owners have the biggest challenge when it comes to online harassment,” Stein says. “Having been a victim of harassment myself—the situation, fortunately, was resolved quickly—I understand how very debilitating this kind of digital warfare can be for a small business. Individuals targeting a business can cause the closure of social media accounts [Facebook, for example]. Larger companies have dedicated often well-equipped teams to deal with harassment, but smaller companies must be online to attract new customers and nurture existing ones, so they have the most to lose when it comes to targeted harassment.”

Next Generation Marketing

SXSW acknowledged the fact that today’s consumers rely on multiple digital resources to navigate their days and discover and engage with businesses—from online directories, to email, review sites and mobile search. Their presentation on this topic focused on this evolution in behavior and offered businesses tips for successfully navigating the digital age, such as how to buildup online reviews and communicate with key customers. As a result, it’s imperative that small business owners establish a strong, solid presence on the web.

SXSW Takeaways

As seen at SXSW, technology is continuing to advance, and it’s fascinating, notes John Kohl, president and CEO of TuneGO, a multi-platform music discovery network that connects independent artists with music producers, songwriters, promoters and consumers. “There are, however, certain fears that come with this robot-driven future and will most likely get worse as society continues to depend on technology, such as the hacking of automated cars,” Kohl says. “For small businesses, the lesson is to use technology to listen to customers and show that they are valued.”

Stein echoes Kohl. “SXSW teaches us that small businesses need to understand that technology should be employed as a medium to deliver value that will support achieving business goals and objectives—not as an end unto itself,” Stein explains. “If you want to acquire technology to play with, fine. But if you want to grow your business, you had better know precisely how that new, bright, shiny object is going to get the job done and what the risks are in accomplishing that.”

Read more articles about innovation.

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MARCH 08, 2016On International Women’s Day, March 8, what do women in business think about the state of women entrepreneurship? Thanks to technological advances that have increased the ability to work remotely and an increased access to capital, it may be easier for women to make their dreams a reality. In fact, as women continue to define and create their own careers and set off on their own courses, there has never been a better time to be a woman entrepreneur, believes Darnyelle A. Jervey, owner of Incredible One Enterprises.“Women are traditionally known as the head decision-makers in a family, so as more women leverage their gifts in the form of entrepreneurship, the more value will be added to the marketplace,” Jervey says. “I see women becoming more business savvy, confident and focused on leveraging their business platform to usher true change into business.”

I spoke to several female small-business owners and thought leaders to hear their views on the state of women in business and issues like gender parity, as well as the changes they see in store for women entrepreneurs.

Increased Resources

“It is becoming the norm to see women owning their own businesses in America, and the opportunities are growing. There are many more resources to help women get started in business and stay in business for a long time. In recent years, gender inequality in the workplace has changed, and women have proven themselves to be just as qualified and can be easily as successful as their male counterparts.”—Gabrielle Edwards, owner and head buyer, Mixology Clothing Company

Growing Sense of Community

“What is very exciting is that there is a strong sense of community surrounding women entrepreneurs. There are growing resources geared toward women starting their own businesses and investors that specifically seek to support women-owned and operated companies.  As a recent entrepreneur, I have been welcomed into a network of strong women supporting one another and sharing their experiences so we can all learn, provide feedback and grow our businesses together. The number of women small-business owners will only continue to grow over the coming years. As the resources and funding for women continue to expand, there will be fewer barriers to entry, and more women will be able to start up their own companies.”—Jane Wu Brower, CEO and founder of Goalposte

More Internal and External Acceptance

“As a female entrepreneur and small-business owner for 25 years, it has become easier to be accepted in my profession. In the beginning, I was one of a few women professional speakers, coaches and thought leaders in business, so it was difficult. Now I find the less I focus on the gender issue, the less of an issue it is. When I see a conference where the speaker roster is male-centric, rather than see it as an exclusion of a talented female speaker, I see it as an opportunity to put my name into the mix, and they typically welcome me to join the lineup. The biggest change I see is women developing new patterns of thought and belief systems around their capabilities—rather than their gender. In my teaching, success is an inside job. We experience what we believe about ourselves, because we project those beliefs into our experiences.”—Deborah Peters, business coach with Neuro Engineering Institute

“To close the gender gap faster, women must make it a priority to become aware of their mental obstacles and then work to tirelessly eradicate them. We tend to just believe what we believe without ever challenging that belief. And beliefs aren’t logical. Of course a woman should be paid the same amount for same work. But women still have a hard time pushing back and drawing the line. Why? That is the question. Why do we still have a hard time feeling good about demanding what we deserve? Because on some level, we have a belief about what is right, accepted and moral behavior for the female species. And no matter how much we talk about the gender gap, nothing will change very fast until we identify and remove the belief that says we can’t or we shouldn’t.”—DeDe Murcer Moffett, international speaker and author of SNAP Yes! The Art of Seeing New Achievable Possibilities in Business and Life

Women Bring Something Different

“It’s no surprise that women think differently and communicate differently than men. In many ways, this can be an advantage for women entrepreneurs. In the financial services industry, for example, women entrepreneurs are still the minority. The industry is changing, and there is a need for relationships and interpersonal communication that extends beyond the traditional scope of financial planning. With the increasing presence of robo-advisors in the financial services industry, being competitive means doing the things that the low-cost robo-advisor can’t do, which includes high levels of customer service, understanding the hopes and dreams of the clients and being able to add value through education and family interaction. Women are good at creating and maintaining relationships, and in my industry, that gives women entrepreneurs advantage and ongoing opportunity.”—Jennifer Landon, Southeast Idaho’s founder and president of Journey Financial Services

“Women have a statistically higher emotional intelligence quotient. If we use this to our advantage in the boardroom as we do at home, we’re unstoppable. Ever tried to get something past your mom? Exactly. There is nothing like a woman’s intuition.”—Nina Ojeda, CEO and founder of The Avenue West

“Women not only bring a feminine view, but a minority view to occupations such as in STEM, which are in very high demand. Having this kind of foundation—the brainpower and her own financial base—can lead to opportunities to break out and start a business based on solving a problem and/or providing a service around her passion.”—Sofia Milan, consultant, author and speaker

Success Breeds Success

“I spent most of my young adult life in the entertainment industry and started on the path at a young age. I thought what I was experiencing was ageism, but it wasn’t until I hit my mid to late 30s that I realized it had never been ageism, but was always sexism. There are more and more empowered women who have no fears of jumping in and starting their own business. The more of these we see, the more successes there are.”—Shawn Simons, owner of Kitty Bungalow Charm School for Wayward Cats

“According to Mercer’s 2016 ‘When Women Thrive‘ study, Latin America is the only region on track to closing gender parity at the professional level by 2025. Organizations recognize that women offer a different skill set that is needed, yet only 22 percent of North American organizations report equal representation of women in functional jobs. In many instances, this is a training issue and will take many years to turn around. If you’re a woman and don’t want to wait around for organizational change, take action yourself. Start your own business. It’s a huge amount of work, but you will be 100 percent in the driver’s seat, and the rewards are exceptional. I have owned my own consulting firm for almost 35 years. I have always been respected and treated as an equal with men in similar businesses.”—Elaine Biech, president of ebb associates

Read more articles about women in business.

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“Social media has revolutionized the way online users communicate with each other, and video is an integral part of that shift,” says Kim Levine, head of production for Wasabi Publicity, Inc. “Quite simply, visual storytelling is the most powerful tool available to spread your message and tell your story in the digital age—even more powerful than print and text.”

Business Video Increasing on Social Media

Business video continues to gain ground, particularly on social media sites, believes Erica Allison, CEO and PR strategist for theAllison Development Group. “The obvious is YouTube, which according to the company, has more than a billion users, and the number of hours people spend watching videos on the site is up 60 percent per year. In addition, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat have placed their proverbial flags in the video sandbox within the last year.”

An increasing number of people are searching for solutions online delivered through the medium of video, and many millennials consume more online videos versus television, believes Pamela Herrmann, co-founder with Patty Dominguez of the business consulting firm Create Buzz and author of The Customer Manifesto. “If your target audience is in the millennial age range, this approach is what we would classify as ‘low hanging fruit’ that allows your company to deliver content via video and engage with your target audience.”

The increased business video trend is likely to continue, Dominguez adds. “A great way to monitor trends is to look at what kind of social media apps are being developed and how quickly they are being popularized. If you think Snapchat, Periscope, Meerkat and Blab are only for 16-year-old girls, you’re missing out on some of the most powerful organic growth strategies for your business. Major national brands are already on platforms such as Snapchat, creating engagement and brand loyalty. Small businesses have a big opportunity to leverage these types of video platforms to spread their message, highlight their value proposition and create customer engagement.”

Benefits of Business Video

Digital marketers V. Michael Santoro and John S. Rizzo are co-founders of InVidz, LLC. They developed Vaetas, an interactive video marketing system that helps businesses gain a competitive advantage using the power of video. They point out the following benefits of business video:

• Provides an Ideal way to connect with your target market and make your business stand out.
• Is effective for brand awareness, lead generation and online engagement.
• Builds authority online, which builds trust with potential customers.
• Has SEO value and can generate organic traffic long term.
• Allows brands and small business to identify new ways to establish meaningful emotional connections with their audiences.

Ease of Entry Into Business Video

It used to be that you needed a production crew to shoot a professional business video, but that may no longer be the case, Allison notes. “Today, it’s as easy as grabbing an iPhone, recording and sharing. With that level of user-friendliness and removal of barriers to entry, video popularity and use will naturally increase.”

Many free apps, including Vyclone, are available that may help make it easier to create a business video, adds Allen Shayanfekr, CEO and co-founder of Sharestates. “These apps enable small-business owners to film a simple video from multiple angles.” He created a 90-second video that explains everything about investing in his platform for the novice investor. “We were able to quickly explain the concept of real estate crowdfunding in simple, clear and engaging ways,” he says.

Almost any business can leverage video, advises Dominguez. “We’ve seen some amazing videos from landscapers, plumbers, mechanics, attorneys and even CPAs that net results. Some are recorded on a smartphone and edited in iMovie and uploaded to YouTube, while others are recorded by videographers for a fee. No matter how it’s done, the videos allow small businesses to tell their stories and share brand personality.”

Making the Most of Business Video

Taking advantage of the popularity of business video and using it to further your small business may be possible, if you keep a few tips in mind.

• Brand yourself as an authority. Business videos that offer helpful expert content can help make you stand out in your field. “Each video should be about a single topic, state the problem, how the problem can be solved and share a call to action that can turn the video viewer into a lead,” says Rizzoof of InVidz. “Businesses that leverage video are doing a few things really well,” adds Herrmann. “They have created a small library of brief how-to videos within their subject areas of expertise that are designed to educate and inform.”
• Take advantage of all your hard work. Use business videos to their utmost. Post them to your social media platforms, put them on your website’s homepage and use them in email campaigns.
• Upload business videos for proper SEO.  Reverse engineer what your ideal customer would be looking for online and create a title for your business video based on those key search words.
• Use basic marketing principles. “Before recording a video, ask who is your target audience?” Allison says. “Where do they go for information? Where are they hanging out in social media? What is the best way to deliver a message that provides value, engages and generates a desired outcome?”
• Evaluate the payoff. Determine how much time, effort and energy you and your team can devote to business video and how much time is needed to generate a call, click or lead, advises Allison. “If you can quantify those questions with an answer and you’re ready to dig in to video, the benefits will be increased brand recognition, a shortened sales cycle, as well as low cost, far reaching marketing that traditional paid advertising may not accomplish.”

Read more articles about digital tools.

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Rewarding customers’ purchasing behavior by offering store credit or gifts can help encourage loyalty and increase business. Though a rewards program can help make customers happy, trouble can arise. Some companies discover that when they make changes to loyalty programs that appear to benefit the company and penalize the customer, such moves are bad for business.

“When your customers get used to one way of doing things in terms of rewards—especially if it is a perceived or real discount of some kind—changes that seem like they benefit the company rather than the customer can feel like a slap in the face and will make some people angry,” says Donna Cutting, founder and CEO of Red Carpet Learning Systems. “When an airline I use regularly changed their rewards program and I had to spend more to earn status, I wasn’t happy. Your customers could have the same reaction.”

Other challenges of rewards programs include the fact that they can be difficult to manage and expensive to run, Cutting believes. “If you’re building loyalty on discounts, you’re also possibly cheapening your brand. Are you really building loyal customers? Or are they just customers who are spending more because they want something for free? There’s a difference.”

Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs

Despite their potential risks, customer rewards programs may bring a lot of benefits to your business. “In addition to making your customers feel special, having a rewards program gives you the ability to collect data on your most loyal customers in order to know them better and build better relationships with them,” Cutting says. Loyalty rewards programs can help provide you with information about your customers’ buying habits and likes and dislikes. That way you can attach rewards to those products you want to sell.

When you implement a loyalty rewards program, you also may be communicating to your clients that you’re interested in making your relationship with them mutually beneficial and that you want to make them happy.

“The fact is that customers enjoy incentives, and as a result actually spend more,” says Cutting, author of 501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers: Easy-to-Implement Ideas to Inspire Loyalty, Get New Customers, and Leave a Lasting Impression.

Rewards programs may also help boost business by incentivizing customers to purchase more goods and services, and make it more likely that clients will share the program with their friends and family.

Tips for Tweaking Loyalty Programs

If you do find that your rewards program needs to be adjusted, Cutting suggests keeping your clients as happy as possible by considering the following tips.

• Involve customers in the solution. Explain to customers that the current rewards program requires adjustment and explain why. Then ask for their help in coming up with a solution that creates a win-win for everyone.
• Communicate early and often. People tend to swallow potentially unpleasant news a lot more easily if you apprise them of the changes ahead of time. The fact that you’re being courteous and giving them a heads up also shows you respect their business. Rather than sending out a mass email and website announcement saying you’ll be making changes immediately or in a day or two, give them a month to adjust. Communicate about the change several times. The first email message is likely to be missed by a portion of your customers. If you have a brick-and-mortar location, also plan on announcing it at the checkout counter and via employees.
• Explain the why. Customers may want to know why you’re making a change in your rewards program. When you do explain why, try to also clarify how you have devised a solution that will continue to reward their loyal patronage.
• Train staff to react appropriately to complaints. Have a clear script available for dealing with disgruntled customers and try to make sure that all your employees adhere to this “party line.” This can help ensure there’s no confusion regarding the change, while also giving clients a chance to vent.

Read more articles about customer engagement.

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In light of recent stock plunges, some of which are affecting Internet giants, it’s not surprising that some market forecasters are predicting we may be headed for another busted Internet bubble. Reasons for this include a decrease in private startup funding rounds and more startups finding it necessary to raise money overseas, because big investors no longer seem to trust Internet valuations.

Internet Bubble Bursting?

Despite recent setbacks in the stock market, some small-business owners in the trenches don’t feel that the Internet bubble is bursting.

Rich Pleeth, founder of Sup App, a free mobile app that notifies users when friends are nearby, sees investors becoming increasingly cautious, given the current state of the stock market.

“Looking at this from an early startup’s perspective that is raising funds, we can see that investors are becoming increasingly cautious. The stock market is going through a period of adjustment, which means investors and high net worth individuals are not seeing the huge returns that they have seen in recent years,” Pleeth says. “In the past five years, we’ve seen stocks increase dramatically, which results in more capital to put into startups, but now many public companies’ stock prices are decreasing, as they cannot prove those prices.”

Future Outlook for Small Tech-Related Companies

Investor caution in general may have an effect on how growing companies obtain funding.

“It’s going to be increasingly hard to raise funds, as high net worth investors will have less funds available than in previous years, because their public stocks will not be doing as well,” Pleeth says. “There is always going to be investments available for great startups that are solving a problem, but what we’ve seen in recent years is that when it comes to startups, investors have become increasingly less interested in investing in very early stage companies.”

This can make the funding landscape especially difficult for small companies that thrive on innovation, as they can often require a vast amount of funding for research and development. That may continue to be an issue, McMackin adds. “Small firms typically need to procure a hired gun to get them through funding and angel investing. If these firms lack the knowledge to gather funding, they normally do not succeed, regardless of the ingenuity of the business idea or product. Smaller firms need to be cognizant of their bottom line while enhancing development of their products,” she says.

“We’re entering a period where it is even harder to raise funds,” Pleeth adds. “It’s important to realize that if startups were easy, everyone would be doing them and everyone would be raising crazy amounts of capital. The truth is it’s hard. Ensure you have a great product, a great team and you’re solving a problem, and you should be able to raise the funds you need to succeed.”

Read more articles about raising capital.

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Vinay Tannan, a registered U.S. patent agent and innovation strategy consultant with Taan Consulting who works with clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies, answers those questions and more for OPEN Forum.

What will a patent do for me and my invention?

“Broadly speaking, a patent is an agreement between you and the government,” Tannan says. “In exchange for disclosing the details of your invention to the public, the government grants you a limited period of time to exclude others from practicing that invention, which protects your invention or your inventive idea.”

How important is it to protect my invention?

“Patents are an important contributor to intellectual growth and economic development, because they play a key role in supporting businesses bringing new products and services to the marketplace,” Tannan explains. “Imagine a medical device company seeking to bring a new product to market, which may require thousands or even millions of dollars in investment. How can they take that risk knowing a competing company could make and sell the exact same product? Patents enable you to justify the investment with some assurance that you’ll have an exclusive period of time to monetize the product.”

Does my patent apply worldwide, and will it last long enough for me to see financial gains from my invention?

“You can only exclude others from using your invention and selling the resulting products in the U.S.,” Tannan says, noting that patent protection obtained in the U.S. applies only to within the country. “If you only have a U.S. patent, you can’t exclude the product from being made overseas, but you can prevent it from being imported and sold in the U.S.” If you wish to patent your product in other countries, that must be done on a country-by-country basis, Tannan adds.

“Patents in the United States last either 14 or 20 years, depending on what is being patented,” he notes.

How can I tell if my product or idea is patentable?

“In order to qualify for a patent, an invention must be conceived and reduced to practice; then meet certain criteria as dictated by law,” Tannan says. “In brief, the invention must be useful, novel and non-obvious to a person skilled in the art. Inventions of all sorts from various industries might be eligible for patent coverage. It’s best to consult a legal expert such as a patent agent or attorney regarding patentability.”

Are there any drawbacks to acquiring a patent?

“A notable drawback to patents, particularly for startups and small businesses, is the fact that they require a sizable investment of money in filing fees and legal expertise,” Tannan says. “For example, taking an application from filing through prosecution [the latter refers to negotiating the patent] and eventually to issuance can easily run a bill in the six figures.”

Is it worth the expense?

“Patents are by no means necessary to have a successful product, but don’t ignore them as a value-add or from a defensive standpoint,” Tannan says. “The return on investment could be tremendous. A business could dramatically increase its value with a robust patent portfolio, given the asset value and the competitive advantage it may provide. To protect their investment and get the best outcome, small-business owners should take great care in having a well thought out patent strategy to ensure that they are investing wisely.”

What steps would I take to make sure it’s the right choice for my business?

If you want to explore patent protection for an invention, typically the first step is to evaluate the invention for patentability, Tannan advises. “A keyword search of Google Patents, Lens or another one of the many free online patent databases can shed light on what prior art already exists. Reviewing prior art is no trivial exercise, however, so consider speaking to a legal expert who can provide you with a more accurate opinion,” he says. “Any past public disclosure, such as a scientific publication, PowerPoint presentation, webpage or product flyer can be used by a patent examiner as prior art that would bar you from obtaining a patent.”

The second step in evaluating your invention involves its commercial viability. “A patent isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on if the claimed invention isn’t desirable in the marketplace,” Tannan says. “This type of evaluation might be easy for an established business that understands its industry well, but it can be a significant challenge for startups or individual entrepreneurs. I advise researching the market landscape for existing products and determining if there would be work-arounds to your invention that competitors could use. Also be sure to explore the broadest possible applicability for your invention before filing, as it may have other uses outside of your original product idea or industry.”

If I decide a patent is right for my invention, what steps should I take next?

“The steps to acquiring a patent can vary, but typically the process involves filing a provisional patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office [USPTO] and within 12 months converting it to a non-provisional patent application, which usually comes in the form of a patent cooperation treaty [PCT] application,” Tannan says. “At that point, you generally have 18 months to decide in which countries to pursue patent rights. Or you can skip this step and file directly in the countries of choice.”

Next, you argue the merits of your invention in a back-and-forth with patent examiners, which is known as prosecution, Tannan explains. When this is complete, you receive allowances of certain claims that you agree to, which results in issuance of the patent. “The claims you agree to constitute what you can exclude others from practicing with your patent,” Tannan says.

Anything else I should keep in mind to ensure the patent process goes as smoothly as possible?

“Avoid preparing applications on your own,” Tannan warns. “A poorly crafted application that contains an insufficient description of your invention or too narrow of language could result in a weak patent that allows for loopholes and provides insufficient protections. I advise protecting your investment by seeking legal assistance to facilitate the patent process.”

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This article was originally published on January 28, 2015.

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