In this day and age, we’ve grown to learn a lot about the inner workings of businesses.  The internet, newspapers, and magazines are filled with lessons on strategies, best practices, how-to’s, etc.  You can easily find hundreds of articles on subjects such as management, marketing, technologies, and so on.

What seems to be lost in this sea of knowledge are the more human touches that all businesses need.  After all, a business is just a group of people working together to provide some products or services to other fellow human beings.  The bonds between employees and connections with customers can never be replaced by any technology, marketing techniques, or operational practices.

In this Christmas season, why not take the opportunity to celebrate these special bonds?  Give a little gift to your customers, throw a party for your staff, and show your appreciation for these relationships that have been developed and nurtured throughout the years.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Email marketing is a fairly inexpensive form of advertising. You can potentially reach thousands or millions of customers at almost no cost. However, many companies have been using this technique indiscriminately. The result of this is a huge amount of unsolicited emails (i.e. spam) that end up annoying people.

When email marketing is done badly, the offending company is often called a spammer and can potentially violate the law. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1) Permission
We should get permission from the recipient before sending them emails. You could have a registration form on your website, where the user can decide whether to receive emails from you.

2) Opt-out Link
Every email should include a link where the user can unregister so that they won’t receive any further emails from you.

3) No Purchased List
Some companies might buy an email list from a provider. This is very dangerous as the recipients who give permission to the provider might not welcome other emails from you.

When you’re doing any email marketing campaign, ask yourself a question, “how would I feel if I were the one receiving this email?” This common sense approach will help you to identify whether your emails are useful and relevant to the recipient or not.

If you’re a business based outside of the United States but use Paypal to collect US dollars, Paypal might be double-charging you.  First, you pay the usual Paypal fees.  Second, you’re probably paying Paypal another 2.5% to exchange your money from USD to your local currency.

You’d think that if you have a US dollar account with your local bank, you could just have Paypal deposit it to your US dollar account.  But they won’t; they’ll only deposit US dollars to US-based banks.  They won’t send you a cheque either.  They’re making easy money by skimming 2.5% off the exchange rate, and they like it that way.

Here’s how we got around it in Canada.  You might be able to do something similar in other countries as well.

First, we looked for a bank based in the US that would let us set up a business account with them.  If you’re a sole proprietor, you might be able to set up a personal bank account, which is a little easier.  We used Harris Bank.

Then, we looked for a good foreign exchange (forex) business to exchange our US dollars to Canadian dollars.  Most offered us rates that had a markup of only around 0.5 - 1 percent off the mid-market rates.  This meant that we’d save about $200 each time we exchanged $10,000.  We’re planning on donating this extra money to charity.  We chose Calforex, which is reputable, convenient, and offers competitive rates.

After setting those up, here’s how we transfer money:
1.  Withdraw money from Paypal into our US bank account (at Harris).
2.  Write ourselves a cheque from Harris to our local US dollar bank account.
3.  Arrange a trade with Calforex to convert our US dollars to Canadian dollars.

This takes some extra time to set up, but it’s worth it if you have sufficient volume or you’re annoyed with Paypal.

If someone asked you to describe your business in a few words, how would you do it?

If it takes you a few minutes to describe all the things that you do; you probably need to think more about what’s really important to your business. And your audience will probably be stifling yawns.

On the other hand, if you can answer too quickly, “I’m an accountant” or “I sell watches”, you might be limiting yourself too much. To most people, calling yourself an accountant doesn’t just mean you work out numbers, it comes along with certain stereotypes, like being very formal and boring. The danger comes from thinking of yourself this way and being subtly pulled to act just like the stereotype.

Try adding a little twist to your summary. Maybe you’re “Toronto’s friendliest accountant”. Not only will this help customers remember you, but it helps you think of ways you can stand out even more. Maybe you should use plain language and graphs to help your clients understand their financial situation. Maybe you can send handwritten birthday cards or wear more casual and colourful clothes.

When summarizing your business, tell people what you do, but also what makes you different.

A trap many big companies fall into is losing touch with their customers.  Many executives never talk to customers directly, only learning through statistics and demographics.  As a result, they often make decisions to treat their customers like numbers, not human beings.  Customers dread calling into these sorts of companies, like AOL.

Small businesses have the advantage that the owners and decision-makers are often forced to be on the front lines dealing with customers.  This helps in gaining a deep understanding of what customers want.  In fact, I often prefer buying from small businesses because they usually have a more personal touch.  Ironically, as the business prospers, the folks in charge often throw away this connection with customers by hiring poorly-paid customer service people.

It doesn’t have to be like this.  Some big companies, like Nordstrom, are famous for their customer service.  The key is growing your company intelligently.

Make sure all the decision makers in your company spend at least some time keeping in touch directly with customers by doing customer service, taking orders, or making some calls.  This will help them understand how your offerings can be improved.  They’ll get to hear problems and suggestions right from the customers.  Or if customers are confused, they can think about how to tweak the product or information to clarify.  It’s also an incredible motivational boost when they know exactly whom their work will help.

It may be humbling, and you might hear some complaints that they don’t have time for it, but you can’t afford to let the business be run by people who don’t know your customers inside out.

If you’ve ever sat at your office feeling too tired to get anything done, this article is for you.

When you’re working on creative tasks, people often lack the energy they need to be effective more than the time.  We all have those times when we’re feeling lackluster and those times where we’re ready to kick butt; I know I can be ten times more productive when I’m hyped than when I feel a little drowsy.  If you have the flexibility of choosing when you want to work, you should think about taking advantage of these energy cycles.

For example, I’m not a morning person.  I’m usually most energetic in the mid-afternoon.  I generally try to set up my day to take advantage of this.  In the morning, I’ll take care of easier tasks like writing emails or running errands.  Then when I’m at my most productive, in the mid-afternoon, I’ll set aside a block of time to work on problems that take more concentration.  This is a lot easier if you’ve been able to organize things so that you can choose when you want to work.

Planning your work around your energy is one thing, but there are also things you you can do to increase your energy levels.  Many people rely on caffeine to wake them up.  I find this helps me in doing repetitive tasks, but it makes it harder for me to think creatively.  Doing some exercise is a great way to get the blood flowing through the body and brain.  Eating a light, nutritious lunch is also great.  See what works for you by experimenting.

We’re an odd group.  A collection of small business people, non-profit volunteers, and motivated employees going beyond the call of duty.  We’re scattered all around the world, young and old.  Most of us have never met, maybe only shared a few words by email.  And yet, we share the bond of all being sculptors of change.  We aren’t content to take the easy route and just settle into our place in the world.  We pose one burning question: Can we overcome all the obstacles and hardships that will block our way towards carving out the change we need?

To our friends who bravely work on rebuilding Afghanistan while fighting still rages on:  yes we can.

To the quiet but resolute young lady who abandoned her safety net to write a novel and seek out how to have a greater impact:  yes we can.

To all the entrepreneurs whose loved ones accuse them, “You’re crazy.  You can’t make a living doing this.”  Tell them:  yes we can.

To the multi-talented dreamer who won’t let the mounting chains of debt stop him from finding the path towards change:  yes we can.

To the artisan who continued crafting delightful soaps while fighting misguided legislation that could sweep it all away:  yes we can.

To the volunteers who turn away material rewards so that they can provide crayons for hospitalized children or shelter to the sexually abused:  yes we can.

To my closest friend whose battle with depression took him inches from death, but couldn’t stop him from making his vision a reality:  yes we can.

We may all be carving out change in different areas, but we share the strength of the human spirit as our chisel.

When you’re making decisions on different marketing or advertising channels, a big question is how much can you afford to pay for each visitor or sales lead.  This can help you make informed and profitable decisions.  All it takes is gathering the right information and some simple math.

If you’re selling things online, you can use an online tool to track how many visitors you’re getting.  Say on average you get 5000 different people visiting each per month.  From your sales statistics, you had 250 customers last month with an average profit of $15.  Then you can estimate that 5% of your visitors turn into customers, so each visitor will contribute on average 5% of $15, or $0.75 to your sales.  This is just a quick estimate - it doesn’t account for things like repeat purchases or the chance that they’ll tell their friends - but it’ll serve as a starting point.

So now you can use this as a quick test to figure out whether you should use certain forms of advertising.  If you pay 50 cents per click for a sponsored search result on Google Adwords, you’re still earning an average profit of 25 cents each time someone clicks, so you should do as much of this as you can.  On the other hand, if you’re paying $200 a month for a banner ad that brings in 100 visitors, you’re paying $2 per visitor, which probably means you’re losing money, unless visitors from that banner are particularly likely to buy.

You can use a similar analysis to find out how much a retail window shopper or sales lead is worth to you.  But after you make your marketing decisions, go back to treating your visitors as human beings, not dollar signs.  This’ll be both more enjoyable and profitable in the long run.