Compare these two sentences:

“In the author’s opinion, it is in most peoples’ best interests when excessive verbiage is avoided by people who are engaged in the act of writing.”

“Don’t fluff up your writing.”

They say the same thing, but the second one is much more direct and memorable.

Whether you’re writing website content, instructions, or an important email - every word costs your readers time and energy.  If it doesn’t pay off quickly, you will quickly lose their attention and potential business.

Pack a lot of content into a few words.

If you’re not convinced, here are some illuminating resources:
- Mark Twain said “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”
- Google cuts words mercilessly.
- If you add 100 words to your website, people will read less than 20 of them.
- A book On Writing Well

Everyone knows about globalization nowadays.  Developing countries like China and India are known for their cheap exports.  If you go to Wal-Mart and pick a random item off the shelf, chances are it’s made in a developing country.

Big enterprises have a vast network of foreign suppliers and professional purchasers to take advantage of the cheap importing opportunities.  As a small business owner, it might be difficult for you to find good and reliable foreign suppliers.  The good news is that the internet helps level the playing field.

Alibaba is an online business-to-business platform connecting buyers and suppliers, with an emphasis on suppliers from developing countries.  You can search by products, prices, countries, or even special deals.  If eBay is the trading place between consumers, then Alibaba is the trading place between businesses.

If you are curious as to whether you can raise your profit margins by finding cheaper suppliers, Alibaba might be a good starting point.

Most small businesses these days have a website up to share information and attract new customers.  If you don’t, you might want to consider getting one designed.

If you already have one, have you ever wondered what kind of people are visiting it?  Where are they from?  What do they click?  How did they get there?  How many come back?  Answering these questions helps you understand how people interact with your website, so you can improve on weak points and promote your selling points better.  Luckily, there are free tools online that can help you track how people use your website.

Google Analytics gives you detailed information on how your users browse your site.  It can tell you what time of the day you get the most traffic, which countries the users from, which page is the most viewed, etc.  The nice thing about it is that the graphs are all interactive, allowing you to drill down to find the exact information you want.

Quantcast shows you the demographics of your users.  Information like the age group, average household income, the gender percentage, etc.  How could you target your marketing message better if you found out that most of your visitors were women over 50?

Using these tools is very easy if you already have a website.  Simply sign-up for a free account, and follow their instructions to attach a small piece of HTML code on your website.  You might be surprised by how your website is being used.  We know we were when we saw Malaysia in the top 10 countries visiting us.  Time to go international, anyone?

Using barcodes to enter products can be quicker and more accurate than manually typing in item codes. If your products already have barcodes on them, then all you really need is a barcode scanner and some software. If not, you can first make your own barcodes.

If your products are going to be sold in other retail stores, you’ll need to use standardized formats and pay to make sure your barcodes are unique. We won’t cover that in this article, but you can find more information here.

Otherwise, if the barcodes are just for your business’ own use, it’s pretty easy to print them yourself. Barcodes are just a special way of writing letters and numbers so that a scanner can read them. You can make up your own letter/number codes (e.g. ABC1234) for each of your products. Then, use some software like IDAutomation’s free version of their barcode label printing software to print them as barcodes onto some sticky address labels, like those Avery sells in office supply stores. You can then peel them off and stick them onto your products, and you’re all set.

If you want to print barcodes directly onto your packaging or other materials, you can instead get a barcode font and use that to type barcodes into your designs in Microsoft Word, Publisher, Adobe PageMaker, etc. IDAutomation also offers a free Code 39 barcode font. There are different types of barcode fonts and symbols - Code 39 is the simplest type, but perfect for your company’s own use. Other common types you might come across are UPC-A in North America and EAN-13 in Europe.

Don’t let all the barcoding jargon scare you away - it’s quite easy to get started and you can really speed things up for your business.

Listening to your customers is critical in identifying how your business can improve.  But usually, you only hear from either your greatest fans or the customers having the most trouble.  What do the rest of your more moderate customers think?

An online survey tool can help to gather more feedback and help you organize it to decide how to improve.  You can make your own survey, invite your customers to complete it, and then generate reports with graphs and charts on their responses.  For example, you might find that only 30% of your customers know about your latest product, and decide to improve that by showing it more prominently on your website or sending out a newsletter.  Most of these tools are free to start, but will charge reasonable rates if you have a large number of responses.

Here are 2 of these online survey tools:
- Survey Gizmo
- Survey Monkey

Give it a try today.  What your customers think might just surprise you.

Having a professional e-mail address and telephone number will help you make a good first impression when you hear from customers, but having a nice logo and website will make them more likely to contact you in the first place.  As a businessperson, you don’t need to be a great designer if you can find someone who is.

Traditionally, hiring a designer involves first finding someone you can trust on quality, style, and budget.  This is not easy.  A new alternative is to host a design contest for your logo or website, let designers around the world submit entries, and award the prize to your favorite.  This way, there’s no risk of getting tricked into hiring a lousy designer.

Two websites that make it easy to host these contests are:
- 99 designs
- Crowdspring

Ballpark costs are about $250 for a logo and $500 for a basic website design, including the contest prize money and administrative fees.  The average turnaround time is about a week, with somewhere around 25 entries.  Of course, you’ll get more entries with a larger prize or if your contest guidelines spark the designers’ creativity.

If you want to touch up your company’s look, holding a design contest may be a good way to do it.

The first impression you make on customers may include the e-mail address that you use. An address like janedoe42@hotmail.com looks amateurish, whereas jane@mycompany.com is much more professional. Here’s one way you can make the switch, typically for under $20 a year.

1. Pick and register your business domain name (the part of your e-mail address after the @ sign). If you have a common business name, it might be already taken, so you might have to get a little creative. Some sites that provide this service are godaddy.com and 123-reg.co.uk, or search for domain name registration in your country and check that your choice offers free e-mail forwarding (most do).

2. Sign up for a GMail account. Many other e-mail services will also work. It doesn’t matter too much what this address is, as your contacts usually won’t see it.

3. Set up e-mail to forward to your GMail account. You can usually do this from a control panel that you’ll be given access to after step 1. Instructions for GoDaddy

4. Set up GMail to make it look like you’re sending messages from your new business e-mail address. Set this as your default account.

That’s it! Now you can log into GMail and treat that as your business e-mail address, your contacts won’t be able to tell the difference.

The internet is great for finding little bits of information quickly, but for most people, good old-fashioned books are still the best way to learn things in depth. You’re holding back your business growth if you don’t learn from reading the best; but you also don’t have time to filter out all the junk. To help, here’s three recommended books that changed the way we think about things:

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey. This isn’t really a business book, but helps guide you towards habits and mindsets that will make you better at accomplishing whatever you want to do. Habit #7: Sharpen the saw. Constantly working yourself to exhaustion will leave you like a dull saw - ineffective. You need to occasionally sharpen the saw - recharge and strengthen yourself by spending time with loved ones or relaxing with a good book.

2. Made to Stick, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book teaches you 6 characteristics that make your ideas more memorable and contagious. The first characteristic: simplicity. The book quotes a successful defense lawyer saying “If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get back to the jury room they won’t remember any.” Unify your message into one core point.

3. Good to Great, by Jim Collins. This book is the result of 15,000 hours of research into the question “How does a good company become great?” They identified 6 main differences. The second difference: First Who… Then What. Good companies will set a business strategy, then hire people to get the job done. Great companies focus on hiring great people, then let them figure out a strategy.

Do yourself a favor and pick up one of these books now. If you’re just starting your business or thinking about it, pick up the 7 Habits. If you’re trying to get the word out, grab Made to Stick. And if you’re thinking of growing or hiring people, read Good to Great. Each one has incredible teaching value for your time and money investment.