Small Business Resource Library

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners’ economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q4 2016 Survey Findings include:

-  The number of small business owners reporting a year-over-year (YoY) increase in holiday revenue rose significantly in 2016, while the number reporting a YoY decrease dropped significantly. Interestingly, both groups cited the economy as a reason for their revenue changes.

-  After five consecutive quarters as the top macroeconomic concern, concerns about declining consumer confidence dropped significantly in 4Q16. However, concerns about inflation, interest rates and hiring and keeping good employees trended upward.

-  Small business owners are more confident in their local economies and expect higher revenue in 2017. Additionally, a greater percentage of small business owners plan to increase their marketing efforts, with a focus on online channels.

To view the full Q4 2016 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here 

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners’ economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q3 2016 Survey Findings include:

-  Credit and debit acceptance has spiked in the past year, with customer demand, speed and convenience cited as key drivers. In the past 12 months, businesses with revenue of less than 500K appear to have adopted cards increasingly faster than others. Financial institutions may want to maintain and increase their efforts around educating this audience about the benefits of card acceptance.

-  Responses show small business owners’ optimism about revenue and profits declining, as they remain concerned about consumer confidence and inflation.

-  Small businesses report they plan to borrow less money in the near term. Compared to a year ago, responses show greater satisfaction with cash flow and collections efforts along with plans to limit capital investments. These shifts point to a potential decrease in loan demand that financial institutions may want to consider in their strategies.

-  Business owners report recent increases in their focus on marketing and advertising, and they also say those efforts have been more effective.

To view the full Q3 2016 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners’ economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q2 2016 Survey Findings include:

-   In 2Q16, small business owners’ continued to show a gradually increasing preference for using cards to pay business expenses.

-   New data shows Amazon to be among respondents’ top suppliers across industries, and concern about finding quality suppliers is down. These trends suggest small business owners increasing card usage may be driven by the value they find in online suppliers where cards are the predominant payment method.

-   Responses around staffing show contrasting needs:

     - Overall, the number of small business owners citing anxiety about finding and keeping employees and the number who plan to increase pay both dropped significantly. However, when asked whether they’ve found hiring more of a challenge compared to 2015, nearly a quarter said yes and the majority of these respondents are addressing that challenge by offering higher pay and better benefits.

To view the full Q2 2016 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners' economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q2 2015 Survey Findings include:

• Small business owners show record high confidence in near term growth, reporting that they plan to pay employees more, increase inventory levels, make capital investments, and increase advertising/marketing.

• While small business owners plan to support anticipated growth by borrowing money, their anxiety over access to financing, payment terms, and inflation is also growing

• Lower fees and better rewards are cited as top reasons for increased card usage and may also be driving small business owners' increasingly positive perception of their banks

To view the full Q2 2015 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

09/21/2015 from Visa Business

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners' economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q3 2015 Survey Findings include:

-  While overall optimism about the economy remains high, confidence may be plateauing due to increased apprehension around attracting new customers, managing cash flow, and staying in business

-  Many small business owners indicate plans to invest in automation tools for email and social media, demonstrating that digital marketing is becoming integral to business owners’ overall marketing strategies

-  Small business owners may be looking to increase their reliance on credit cards as a source of funds. However, they appear concerned that insufficient credit card limits may hinder them from using their cards more

To view the full Q3 2015 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners' economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q2 2015 Survey Findings include:

-  Small business owners show record high confidence in near term growth, reporting that they plan to pay employees more, increase inventory levels, make capital investments, and increase advertising/marketing.

-  While small business owners plan to support anticipated growth by borrowing money, their anxiety over access to financing, payment terms, and inflation is also growing

-  Lower fees and better rewards are cited as top reasons for increased card usage and may also be driving small business owners' increasingly positive perception of their banks

To view the full Q2 2015 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

09/21/2015 from Visa Business

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners’ economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q4 2014 Survey Findings include:

• Small business owners are showing more signs of optimism across multiple categories, but concerns in some key indicators, such as inflation, still remains.
• For the first time since this survey began, small business owners cited credit cards are a more efficient form of payment than checks.

To view the full Q4 2014 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

03/26/2015 from Visa Business

Visa Small Business Spend Insights draws on Visa Business card spend data and responses to a quarterly survey to provide a snapshot of U.S. small business owners’ economic confidence. Small businesses and those serving them can benefit from the insights shared in this quarterly newsletter.

Q3 2014 Survey Findings include:

• Small business owners’ attitudes are showing more caution overall about the recovering economy and expense management.
• Card continues to make strides on cash and check as a preferred, and more efficient payment method.

To view the full Q3 2014 Visa Small Business Spend Insights Report, click here.

01/11/2015 from Visa Business

Diversity: The Key Ingredient to Building a High Performance Team

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September’s theme of Diversity in Small Business. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

A high performance team is defined as one that operates with a common purpose, common goals, mutual respect, trust, and commitment. A high performance team goes beyond participation to collaboration where team members work together interactively to achieve common goals by capitalizing on each member's unique skills, knowledge, and abilities to the fullest.

To become a high performance team, a group must exhibit four primary characteristics:

• Communication
• Sharing
• Collaboration
• Flexibility

These four traits evolve based on your ability as the leader to build a cohesive team unit where team members trust each other, respect each other, commit to the team's common purpose, and understand why, when, where, and how they add value to the team. When your team exhibits these four high performance team traits, it will be more effective and productive. Conflict will decrease and make way for positive, measurable results.

High performance teams deliver measurable benefits to individual employees and the company as a whole, which transfer to customers, investors, business partners, and other key stakeholders through improved efficiencies, effectiveness, productivity, and results.

A Diverse Team is a Strong Team

Consider the definition of a high performance team. In order for a team to operate at peak levels, members must be committed to a common purpose, however, that doesn't mean the team is made up of a homogeneous group of "yes" men and women. It means that team members prioritize the organization's objectives over individuals' objectives and work collaboratively to achieve a set of common and clear goals.

Remember, high performance teams are characterized by open communication, constructive conflict, mutual respect, trust, and a willingness to relinquish individual control to achieve superior results collectively. A team filled with "yes" men and women cannot operate at the highest levels of performance because there will be no constructive conflict or open communication if everyone is always in agreement (at least outwardly).

The strongest teams include members with different experiences, different areas of knowledge, different work styles, and different ways of thinking. A team filled with autocratic leaders cannot function at peak levels just as a team filled with individuals with a very specific set of expertise cannot because the team will be impeded by tunnel vision. On these teams, innovation is stagnant, creativity is stifled, and the type of breakthrough thinking that delivers a competitive advantage to a business is nonexistent.

Bottom-line, to drive maximum results, develop high performance teams that include a diverse group of members. That is the only way you can be certain that team outputs are the best that they can be.

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

09/30/2014 from Women On Business

Four Reasons A Culturally Diverse Team Will Help Your Business

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September's theme of Diversity in Small Business.Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself.Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business , to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Over the years, as I went from solo-preneur(read burned out, trying-to-do-everything-myself-preneur), to "I have a top-notch team who is way better than me", I understood the power in having a well-rounded team.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's invaluable. This is why we as entrepreneurs hire our weaknesses, so we can focus on our strengths. Together our individual strengths make us one heck of a team.

But what about having a well-rounded culturally diverse team ?

I've had the pleasure of working with team members and freelancers from all over the world, and I think it's taught me a lot personally, and made me more aware of my own actions and the way I interact and relate to them.

We often underestimate the value of building a diverse team, but there are several reasons why you 're going to want to actively seek it out now and in the future. On top of all the benefits of having a diverse team, I'm going to let you in on a few ways that I have made working with my team, spread across the world, even easier.

What is Cultural Diversity?

Before I dive into all the good stuff, let's discuss what cultural diversity is in the first place. By definition, cultural diversity refers to a community that is represented by different races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and sexual orientations.

In reference to your workplace, this could mean you have team members who are from Africa, Canada and New Zealand, some who are Buddhist or Catholic and others who aren't so religious.You could have team members who are black, white or purple(you never know!), straight or gay.The point is, you leave discrimination at the door and open your team up to every unique individual.

Whether you have actively or subconsciously kept your team homogeneous, you have been missing out on some of the greatest benefits of cultural diversity.

So what are they ? Let's discuss.

Benefits of Cultural Diversity

If you have heard the old phrase from To Kill a Mockingbird, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view", then you likely know where I'm going with this.When you are building a business you want to appeal to the greatest number of people to grow your audience, but how can you do this if you don 't consider how others may perceive you?

Incorporating the culturally diverse taps you into the opinions of those who have gone through different life experiences. It' s these different experiences that are so invaluable.They can help fuel new ideas, promote more open-mindedness and help your team to be less judgmental.

According to studies conducted by several different factions including the VEOHRC and the European Union Commission, it was found that having a culturally diverse workplace not only increased productivity, but also your bottom line.

How's that for good business!

Their research found that there were three areas that improved thanks to diversity:

• Product Creation – A diverse team that works well together is more capable of creating new products for their target audience because they understand and appreciate the values of a diverse audience.
• Operations – The more diverse your team, the more you learn about cultural differences and, in this case, holidays and practices. Acknowledging these differences will make your team members feel more accepted and less likely to quit. Less turnover and more engaged workers? Yes, please!
• Marketing – Chances are your audience is going to be diverse, so why not build their trust even more by showcasing your very own diversity? The more diverse the team, the higher perceived value you have with your audience.

Coordinate with Google Hangouts and Skype

Having frequent online meet ups with your team is essential if you want to bounce ideas off one another, discuss upcoming projects and see what everyone is up to for the week. Luckily there are two great (and free!) tools you can use to do this; Google Hangouts and Skype.

If you want to have group calls, Google Hangouts is probably best. You can share screens, send documents or files to one another, and see all members in one screen. Did I mention they have fun overlays like devil horns and princess tiaras you can place over yourself to make weekly hangouts fun as well as business-savvy?

Skype, on the other hand, offers cheap calling capabilities so if you need to phone one of your team members in another country you can do so at low rates, or use the free version and see them face-to-face.

Get to Know Your Time Zones

Working in different time zones when you have a base can be tough enough, but if you're flying around the world like I am, remembering which time zone and coordinating with your team gets even harder.

By far the best online tool I have found is WorldTimeBuddy.com. This free service allows you to choose up to 4 different time zones and then all you do is scroll over your hour and you can see where it correlates with your team.

If you want to share this with your team, you can click the "Link This View" option and email your entire team a screenshot of your individual time zones highlighted with the meeting time.

Another top tool for scheduling that I highly recommend is timeanddate.com/meetings. It's great for figuring out the best time to schedule calls, team meetings and such. Saved my bacon a time or two!

Share Documents No Matter Where You Are

You've organized your tasks, had your meetings and are all working in the right time zones, but what if you need to share documents with your entire team? Dropbox and Google Drive make sharing images, media files and documents simple.

Google Drive is free for anyone using a Gmail account. You can create folders, subfolders and documents of any sort; Word, Excel and PowerPoint to name a few. You have the ability to share what you want and can choose what level of access your team has to specific files.

If you want your team to be able to edit, you can open access for that or you can make a document read-only.

Similarly, Dropbox offers a free account for up to 16GB of data and is a great cloud-storage space to keep any media files or PDFs. From here, you can share the link to a particular document with your team, or even your audience.

As you can see, having a culturally diverse team can be incredibly beneficial to your ever-growing business. Building a team with members who offer different points of view, experience and knowledge will help you create the best possible products and services for your audience.

Keeping everyone aligned if you are located all over the world doesn't have to be difficult either. If you put into practice the tools mentioned above then you and your culturally diverse team can storm the interwebs and give your audience exactly what they are looking for.

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

Cultural Diversity Is Hard…But Worth It!

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September's theme of Diversity in Small Business. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Culture is the total communication framework: words, actions, postures, gestures, tones of voice, facial expressions, the handling of time, space, and materials, and the way she works, plays, makes love, and defends herself. All these things and more are complete communication systems with meanings that can be read correctly only if one is familiar with the behavior in its historical, social and cultural context.

                                     –Edward T. Hall

While working over the past 7 months toward our upcoming site relaunch, my team and I came to understand firsthand the benefit of a culturally diverse team. The varied perspectives that arose out of our cultural differences served to sharpen, clarify and bolster both our brand messaging and our business. But those benefits didn't come without a struggle…

The truth is that cultural diversity in your entrepreneurial team can be an invaluable resource or an intractable liability, depending on the attitudes, paradigms and resiliency of those involved.

It is our tendency as humans to take in the world through the construct of "schemas" or pre-conceived categorizations. Generally we tend to feel neutral about our own point-of-view, not recognizing it as one of many possible perspectives, but rather experiencing it a as a universal, visceral and self-evident truth. And this is where we get into trouble in intercultural communication: most of us have a knee-jerk tendency to view a dissenting perspective as antagonistic or threatening.

That knee-jerk tendency is a privilege the entrepreneur cannot indulge. To be truly entrepreneurial in your thinking is to approach every situation with openness, compassionate curiosity, innovation and the vision that more is always possible.

Cultural Diversity Is Hard…

Below are some guidelines, born of our experience, for leveraging cultural diversity to enhance your vision and take your business to a new level:

1. Engage with empathy

Acts of creation are tremendously vulnerable expressions of our deepest selves. Anyone who has ever shared her own creative inspiration publicly understands this to be true. Add to this picture that most people are by nature change averse, and you have the recipe for heated and conflictual elements in collaborative projects.

It's important to understand that something primal and emotional comes to bear when we're engaged in collaboration with people who have a cultural paradigm different from our own. Usually these emotions take the form of perceived threat or intimidation, and behaviors born of these emotions are often combative and lacking in curiosity.

According to Rogers and Steinfatt, authors of Intercultural Communication, "Taking the role of the other (empathy) usually leads to important differences in the perception of the situation." It's been my experience that the shift in perception that comes with empathy is an effective diffuser of cultural conflicts. The challenge lies in getting to an empathic state of mind.

A good place to start is to practice imagining the experience the other is having. Be generous with your listening, and try to assume that the other's intentions are constructive and generous as well. Remember that if the shoe were on the other foot, you would want to be extended the benefit of the doubt.

2. Embrace the detractor(s)

During the course of our launch preparation, my team and I spent an agonizing weekend determining the copy of the new splash page. There were 4 of us working 12+ hours to write a mere 171 characters! It was made more frustrating by the fact that 3 of the 4 of us agreed on our initial idea (formulated in the first hour) and wanted to move forward. But one of us was adamantly opposed.

We knew intrinsically that we should embrace the detracting viewpoint because if we'd actually managed to hit our vision precisely in the initial copy, our teammate wouldn't be taking issue with it. We knew more was possible. And yet, we were exhausted, rushed, behind schedule. Couldn't we just call it good enough and move on?

But we didn't move on (until the decision was unanimous) because we realized that as a member of our team, the detracting individual was raising a salient concern. We labored through an additional 12 hours of brainstorming, heated conversation and near meltdowns, until the final vision (the unanimous vision) rose from the ashes of all that struggle and conflict. And it was perfect–an encapsulation of our collective vision with the right length, right voice and right message. It was an ecstatic high to realize we had pressed through and come out in a new plane of possibility.

And this is precisely the value of diversity in your entrepreneurial team: with diversity comes dissent. By embracing dissent, you introduce a whole new level of depth, nuance and reach to your vision and messaging. When you perceive dissent as antagonistic and threatening, you cut yourself off from the open curiosity that is the lifeblood of entrepreneurship. Despite the additional time, work and frustration that came from the dissenting voice in our team, we recognized and embraced the value of that perspective and came out so much stronger for it.

3. Don't misinterpret the inability to communicate as the absence of a good idea

In addition to influencing our perspectives, culture determines the way we go about communicating our ideas to others. It is easy to disregard an idea that isn't presented well. But communication is it's own skill set, and just because presentation isn't in someone's wheelhouse, doesn't mean they don't have a lot to contribute to a project.

This was illustrated to me recently in a Startup Weekend Terrence and I participated in. The purpose of the event was to give aspiring entrepreneurs the chance garner support from a community of entrepreneurs/experts to launch their own startup. Each was given a chance to pitch their ideas to a voting crowd and those with the most votes would receive the support of investors and a team of experts to help them launch.

The effectiveness of these pitches varied widely, but we noticed right away that the ideas given the best presentation received the most votes/attention, while some of the best ideas were overlooked (often because the presenter was a scientist, tech geek or otherwise specially skilled and not a marketer or public speaker). We decided to pool our votes and put them all in the direction of one individual whose presentation suffered but whose idea held real promise. He was given the chance to move forward to the next level and by the end of the weekend, he emerged head and shoulders above the rest as the most viable startup idea of the whole weekend.

When people from different cultures talk to each other or interpret world events, the meanings they assign to messages are automatically filtered through the collection of attitudes learned from their own cultures.

                                                          –Rogers and Steinfatt, authors of Intercultural Communication

…But Worth It!

Though it's important to select your entrepreneurial team on the basis of common vision, too much commonality can actually weaken the success of your endeavor. Admittedly, working within a culturally homogenous group may streamline your process and enable quicker and more efficient work, but likely at the expense at your quality and creative possibility.

By cultivating diversity in your team, embracing dissenting views and working patiently through differences, you will arrive at the best possible iteration of your vision–one that has been clarified and distilled through constructive critique. Have the patience to see it through, and it will pay off!

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

09/24/2014 from The Mogul Mom

4 Ways to Incorporate Cultural Traditions into the Workplace

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September’s theme of Diversity in Small Business. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

The American workplace is growing more diverse each year, with the U.S. Census Bureau predicting that by the year 2050, there will be no minority in the country, and between 2000 and 2050, immigrants and their children will comprise 83 percent of the growth in the working-age population. This multicultural workforce means that many offices will be tasked with bringing together workers from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. Here are four ways to incorporate cultural traditions into the workplace.

Instead of viewing diversity as a challenge, smart business leaders see this as an exciting opportunity. When employees work together, they learn more about each other’s cultures and find that they can each bring their own unique experiences to each project. By encouraging this teambuilding, a business can benefit from higher morale and better overall performance.

Have a Cultural Potluck

Each member of your team has traditions, whether they are part of holiday celebrations or weekly Sunday dinners. Set time aside on a regular basis to have each employee bring in a meal that represents his or her culture. Even American workers may bring in food that is unique to their own region of the U.S. This can help workers see that even two people who grew up in the same town could have completely different traditions.

Celebrate All Holidays

Christmas decorations have long been a part of office celebrations, but what about holidays like Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the Chinese New Year? Some of your employees may not even celebrate Christmas because of their own religious beliefs or backgrounds, so it’s important to keep that in mind as you schedule your annual Christmas party. However, Christmas celebrations are a great tool for boosting morale and building camaraderie, so a good compromise may be to make celebrations optional, while also adding in festivities that honor everyone’s beliefs.

Be a Role Model

Team leaders should strive to be role models to others in the organization, learning as much as possible about each culture represented to better interact with employees. In some cultures, an action like shaking hands can be viewed completely differently than it is in the U.S., and being educated can highlight these differences. When an employer respects an employee’s beliefs and traditions, other employees will follow.

Respect Spirituality

Religion and spirituality can be tricky subjects in a business environment, but business leaders can navigate these issues gracefully. Problems occur when one employee feels offended by another person’s spirituality, so it’s important that an employer know how to handle these issues as they arise.

As the workplace becomes more diverse, leaders will be given the responsibility of fostering an environment of respect and tolerance. A culturally diverse workplace benefits everyone, enabling individuals to grow as they learn from each other. When a business brings tradition and culture into the workplace, team members learn to celebrate each other’s differences. This increases productivity and helps with overall team-building, while also giving employees reason to take time off from working hard to celebrate multiple holidays.

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

09/16/2014 from Smallbiztechnology.com

What Does Diversity Mean in a (VERY) Small Company?

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September's theme of Diversity in Small Business. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Having a diverse workforce can be a challenge for small businesses, especially in certain parts of the U.S. or globally. To get the benefits of diversity, you may need to expand your thinking.

Many large companies must comply with corporate or even governmental diversity mandates.

They are also made up of such large workforces that it's easy to cultivate a rich mixture of experiences and people.

But smart businesses—of any size—don't view diversity as a requirement, but rather as an opportunity to grow and succeed. The variety of your employees' backgrounds, cultures, and upbringings are a strategic advantage that you can tap into.

With that in mind, it may seem that a small business is at a disadvantage. It can be difficult, if you're running a five or ten person shop, to be diverse. Making matters worse, many small business owners fall into the trap of hiring people who they like, and who are like them.

It gets even more challenging when you are drawing from an applicant pool that's fairly homogenous. I discovered today that of Maine's 1.3 million residents, over 96% are white.

What's a small business to do?

Think beyond race.

Most Americans, when they hear "diversity," think racial diversity. And that's certainly a big part of it. In fact, race is still such a big issue in the U.S. that I worked on this paragraph for about fifteen minutes, concerned that it might be perceived as insensitive.

That's certainly not my intent.

Working in a very small shop, or running a business in a homogenous part of the world, leads to a lack of unique perspectives inside your business. To develop that robust, dynamic approach to business, think beyond race.

• Do men and women have the same opportunity in your company?
• Is your company environment welcoming to gay, bisexual, and transgendered co-workers?
• Does everyone go to the same church as you, or do you pull from a wide variety of different houses of worship, including those who place science above religion?
• Have any of your employees served in the military or seen action?
• Did all of your employees grow up in your hometown, or do you have people from all over the state, country or globe?
• Does anyone have experience from a corporation? Has anyone been involved with a startup before? Has anyone run a non-profit?
• Is everyone a college graduate? Is anyone a college graduate?
• Do you have someone with an Obama sticker? Is there someone else with an impeach Obama sticker?

Further, do you have a corporate culture that welcomes new ways of thinking, or is your motto, "this is the way it's always been done"?

Have you ever changed the way things have been done based on the suggestion of a new employee...perhaps in a way you weren't entirely comfortable with?

Think beyond employees.

At flyte, we have seven or eight employees at any given time, but we have developed a great working relationship with a number of amazing independent contractors.

We like to think of them as extended family.

Your own workforce may be more than just your employees. It could include independent contractors or outside collaborators. You might find diversity in an advisory board you set up yourself, or in the mentors you seek out, or even the coaches you hire.

In a pinch, you can even pull in focus groups to help break up any group think you may be suffering from.

Think activities.

Although extra-curricular activities may not diversify your workforce, it can certainly help jolt your creative thinking and problem solving skills.

Next time, go beyond a company picnic and step out of your comfort zone. Take your team to a dance recital. Or a NASCAR event. Or an art exhibit. Or a Habitat for Humanity event. Or skeet shooting. Or a spelling bee. Or community theater.

Bonus points if one of your employees has a part in the play.

Just get your team to experience something new, and open themselves up to other world views.

The takeaway.

None of this should be taken as a way of avoiding hiring a diverse workforce. The point is, hiring a bunch of "you's" follows the law of diminishing returns.

If you want to have a competitive advantage, you need new ideas and fresh perspectives. If you struggle to find that diversity because of a small workforce or unvaried applicant pool, you'll need to consider new types of diversity and a wider definition of your workforce.

Further, you can maximize varied thinking through new experiences for your team.

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

09/16/2014 from Flyte Blog

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September's theme of Diversity in Small Business. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

It is time for businesses to change the conversation about diversity.

It is not enough to talk about how to appeal to, engage, and retain more diverse people and perspectives. Instead, let's start talking about why we need to make diversity a bottom-line priority. Here's a look at six business diversity lessons that can improve your brand, company culture and bottom-line.

1. Want to expand marketing opportunities? Consider the diversity of your biggest fans.

   Hopefully you have identified your target audience, but as your business grows you will find you have more than one target (I know you're thinking, "but finding the first one was so hard!"). I understand, but stick with me. This is actually a great thing because it fosters new growth and reveals your true market potential.

   For example, your products and services likely appeal to a primary target, but there is also a secondary, and maybe even a third. What is important to grasp here is this: your buyers are diverse; each segment with its own set of needs, beliefs and values. How they spend their money with you and consume information also varies.

   When you talk about diversity in terms of race, gender and age alone: "What company wouldn't want a slice of the $750 billion combined annual spending of African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic communities in the U.S.? And if you add to that the growing strength of the pink dollar and the retiring population, we're talking big bucks." (Source: Experience.com) Ultimately, embracing the diversity of your consumer base will help you uncover new marketing opportunities. As a result you'll foster brand expansion and customer-driven innovation.

2. Fact: The U.S. workforce is becoming more diverse. Is your small business?

   The latest census results firmly establish that the ethnic make-up of the U.S. is shifting at a pace faster than anyone anticipated. It should come as no surprise that a diverse economy is a strong economy.

   In fact, "Businesses that embrace our nation's changing demographics reap the economic benefits of a diverse and inclusive workforce. Businesses that recruit from a diverse workforce are better able to find the best and the brightest talent needed to compete in an increasingly competitive economy. By bringing together our different backgrounds, skills, and experiences, businesses are better able to breed the type of innovative and creative solutions needed to succeed in an increasingly competitive economy." (Source: Center for American Progress) The beauty of this is that you can stay true to your brand and still embrace the key drivers of success – diversity being one of them.

3. Revitalize your business image with 'diversity actions' that extend well beyond marketing copy.

   How odd it is to read a glossy sales brochure that says one thing and then engage the same business that does the complete opposite. You know … the delightfully edited photographs of diverse people (doing diverse things) and enchanting copy that leaps off the page, making you think, "they get me … they really get me!"

   Yet, when you arrive at their place of business, or visit them online their presence is far from the picturesque flyers they marketed in the first place. For consumers this presents a huge disconnect, leading to distrust and confusion. So, please do yourself and your bottom-line a favor: ensure that diversity extends beyond those glossy pages.

4. Business diversity is like a 'good business idea' – worthless without purposeful execution.

   Great business ideas are plentiful, but execution is not. The same can be said for business diversity efforts. Trust me: you cannot be all things to all people – this we know. But you can do your best to serve a customer base that – well, just so happens to be 'diverse.'

   Like most things in business, diversity can be simple yet impactful. Start by gaining a clear definition of diversity. As Julie Kempf, founder and President of JBK Associates suggests, 'Beyond race and gender, it can also include considerations of age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, mental and physical capabilities, gender identity, family status, language, and working style. Your first task should be to define diversity for your organization. There is no one-size-fits-all solution." Next, build external communications and internal activities to foster cultural intelligence. Most importantly, begin to communicate in an authentic way that resonates with your brand.

5. Best in class businesses lead with diversity at every consumer-facing touchpoint.

   Let's talk about what's really on your mind – customers. How you speak to them is a cornerstone of your messaging and it influences your market position. If you've ever heard anyone talk about marketing strategy, this is a large component. What you say (your messaging) tells audiences why you are different and why they should care. And ultimately, successful marketers (while sticking to their brand promise) communicate several different messages in market, at the same time.

   For instance, if you sell toys direct to consumers you have two audiences: parents and children. Each message has to fit each influencer in a non-conflicting way. Or, if you sell to both men and women, your messaging should cater to each group. If you are unsure just how far down the 'diversity rabbit hole' you should go, start mining customer data and learn more about existing customers; then make it a priority to create more targeted messages.

   Veteran marketing consultant Diana Huff explains how you can make your marketing efforts do double-duty: "If you have two or more groups of people you need to reach, it makes sense to produce ads with different messages and run them in niche publications;" or "use links on your home page to segment multiple audiences."

6. Diversity-minded businesses understand that if you want to better serve a market, then you must employ the market.

   There are tremendous benefits of serving a diverse customer base, but you can't serve them if you are out of touch with them. According to the HR Council, "Proactive outreach and recruitment efforts that deliberately focus on increasing diversity can support an organization when engaging a new audience …"

   Their suggestions include: getting the word out, building relationships with cultural groups and organizations that work with diverse communities, promoting your business as a viable place to work, and connecting with the volunteer base of your community. So, look for ways to employ your local market and recruit in ways that offer more reach and exposure.

 

Ultimately, the business case for diversity has moved far beyond acceptance. We are at a crossroads that leaves many business owners questioning how it can be practically applied and relevant in a way that builds their bottom-line and the community they serve. It starts with these diversity lessons and a pragmatic approach; coming to grips with where we've missed the mark and how we can be honest enough with ourselves as leaders to course correct for the future ahead.

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

6 Principles For Building A Winning Business Culture

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of September's theme of Diversity in Small Business.Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself.Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

I'm seeing a renewed appreciation of culture and values in business these days. Maybe it's just another example of nature abhorring a vacuum, but I prefer to think it's a natural evolution of the pervasive social networking communities where people relate to, and expect to interact with businesses and products they like. They drive the market, rather than the other way around.

“Your values as you create a startup are the key to creating an enviable culture that attracts more customers,” says Ann Rhoades in her book Built on Values. She would assert, and I agree, that you need to get it right the first time because first impressions are critical, and changing your values and culture in the eyes of customers and employees is extremely difficult.

I believe in a startup culture that strongly transmits the values of integrity, customer focus, and results. Ann outlines six fundamental principles that are key to building this culture, or changing an existing culture to improve financial return, customer satisfaction, and employee performance:

1. You can't force culture, you can only create environment. Every culture is the culmination of the leadership, values, language, people processes, rules, and other conditions, good or bad, present within the organization. No leader can “create culture,” just the environment where the desired culture can emerge and flourish.

2. You are on the outside what you are on the inside. The service you provide for your customers will never be greater than the service you provide to your employees. You can't force people to treat customers well if they feel ill-used themselves. Hire a diverse set of people who fit your desired culture, and treat them the same way.

3. Success is doing the right things the right way. By defining your values and behavior by the right actions, you simplify and enable everyone to make the right decisions on the front line. Empowering and educating everyone to make the right decisions at every opportunity leads to happy customers and business success.

4. People do exactly what they are incented to do. Your expressed values will be perceived as hollow and meaningless unless you base compensation and rewards on the behaviors that go along with the values. It takes diligence and courage to hire only people with these values, and fire ones who have lost them.

5. Input = output. Your organization will get out of values only what they are willing to put into them. Communicate your values often, and use values-based performance metrics to gauge your results, measure the level of implementation, leadership development, and succession planning.

6. The environment you want can be built on diversity, strategic values and financial responsibility. Conscious actions, beginning with determining a set of shared values and fostering diversity, can set up the necessary conditions for encouraging a culture that will make a startup into a leader. Values are most critical when making tough decisions, but that is also when they come in handy to illuminate the way forward.

Startups are the only businesses able to set their culture and values from a clean slate. Values start and emanate from you, the founding entrepreneur. Your values are not what you proclaim on your mission statement (if you have one). They set the culture by what you live by and project on the front line in day-to-day actions.

Strategy matters, but without a winning culture and the right values to drive it forward, your strategy will take you nowhere. Good leaders matter, but you need a culture with positive values in order to attract the best leaders and compete effectively.

Leaders drive value, values drive behavior, behavior drives culture, and culture drives performance. High performance makes new leaders. This is the self-reinforcing circle of excellence every startup needs to succeed. You can't afford to wait on any of these, so get your culture right sooner rather than later.

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

09/06/2014 from Startup Professionals Musings

11 Tips For Getting the Right People to Work for You – Hiring & Delegating Like A Pro

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August’s theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Your ability to grow your business is directly related to your ability to hire the right people, delegate effectively and invest time into revenue generating activities. Today I'm going to share with you what to do BEFORE you want to hire someone and how to effectively work with them AFTER they are hired.

Back in college I was assigned to read the book 'One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey'. One of the key takeaways is that EVERY task in your company should be done at the lowest possible level. There are a lot of 'monkeys' in business, the trick is figuring out who in the business needs to tackle them.

If you are the owner or the CEO (chief executive officer), then you NEED to have someone else doing the monkey tasks that are draining your day. Your time should be spent on creating products and content, and generating revenue. If you are a company of one, you're probably thinking that you should do everything. WRONG. Even if you don't feel like you have enough money to hire an assistant full-time or even part-time, bring in key players on a project-by-project basis to help you. For me, I hire contractors. I also hire college students as interns and even teenagers in my neighborhood to do things like mail catalogs, manage social media tasks, and anything else that THEY can handle for their level of knowledge. I use other, more experienced people for more advanced tasks like distributing press releases, sales, finding key contacts in organizations, creating opt-in forms, posting on my blog, etc.

Even if you feel like this is outside your current business level, read on. When you're ready, you'll be able to delegate like a pro and use your time more effectively.

What to do BEFORE YOU HIRE SOMEONE:

1. Write a detailed job description. This is for you just as much as it is for the post on Craigslist or even on Facebook. Think through the DAILY, WEEKLY and MONTHLY activities this person would do on a regular basis. Think about the one-off or irregular tasks they will manage. How many hours a week or month will these action items take someone with that skill set to complete? How much are you willing to pay in exchange for that time? If you don't know where to begin with this, keep a journal of all the things you do for a week. At the end of that week, go through and mark a 'K' on all the things you need to keep for yourself and write a 'D' next to all the things you could have someone else do.

2. Figure out what you're going to do with your time once all of those tasks are being handled by someone else. This is for YOU. Always be driven by what that new time will do for you so that you can stay motivated and keep your assistant on task. Write this down. For example: What will you do with that hour every Monday if your assistant is now updating your blog?

3. Interview and hire. This part is a personal decision. You have to hire the person that is the right fit, and only you can decide that. My only advice here is that hard work, drive and the willingness to learn are more valuable than a resume.

4. Consider trial periods. I hire contract employees on a single project basis to see if I can work with them. I like to see their work ethic and our chemistry. I like to see how they work through problems and when (and how) they ask for help when they are stuck. If I like what I see, I hire for regular work.

What to do WHEN YOU'VE FOUND THE RIGHT PERSON TO TAKE AWAY YOUR 'MONKEYS':

Whether you are using a neighbor kid, a contractor or a VA, here are some tips for a win-win relationship:

1. Set a regular schedule, even if they can do things away from your home (aka office). I ask all of my employees for office hours so I know when I can call and when they are 'on the clock'. I also want them to treat this like a real job, not just something they can do 'when they have the time'. Office hours help.

2. If they're local have them come to your house at least once a week, or month, and work on your computer (if they are doing office jobs) so that you can see how they work and so that you can create an environment where they feel comfortable asking questions. It's also a good idea for you to see how long it takes for routine tasks to be completed so you can budget accordingly. Always make sure that the right 'monkey' is at the right place in your business.

3. Google is a gem. Keep their ACTION list (with the daily, weekly and monthly tasks) on Google Drive where you can update it on the fly and your employees can see it at any time. Instead of deleting tasks, I have them moved to a 'done' tab. I like to keep track of work history. Good online 'Task Lists' will have a description column, a due date column, a completed column and a notes or questions column. This will give your employees detailed instructions, and provide you with a place to write down all the things you want them to do. If I use emails to communicate to-do lists, things get forgotten. If I use word documents, employees could work off of old lists. Some companies use collaboration software and apps like

4. My friend Angella Johnson once said, 'Delegate, don't dump and drive.' Delegation is about communicating the desired outcome and making sure that the essence of the assignment is understood before handing it off. (If you want more information about effective delegation, you may be interested in this article.)

5. Take time to share the big picture. Help your employees realize what their tasks enable your company to do and to become. Help them understand how this improves the bottom line and what taking this task off your plate means to you. Help them feel like a contributor to something awesome and they will feel awesome working for you.

6. Find out their underlying motivation that goes beyond money. Do they want praise or concert tickets? Do they want bonuses for extra work or public recognition? Every employee wants to be appreciated, as much as they want a paycheck.

7. Set expectations and opportunities for accountability, and check in. In my organization we have regular employee meetings. I make sure objectives are being met, ask how I can manage them better, and we create objectives for improving performance. Thomas Monson said, 'When performance is measured, performance can be improved.' Appreciate your business enough to meet regularly with your people.

There is no real manual for hiring assistants and employees. Like a marriage, if you go into it expecting it to be a certain way, you could be horribly disappointed. However, if you go into it knowing that your success as a business is dependent on every task being done at the RIGHT level in your business, you'll find the right people to help you grow.

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

08/28/2014 from Startup Princess

Relationship Advice…For Your Small Business

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Relationships are the most important part of building a business.

I would argue that relationships are even more important than revenue because strong relationships and strong performance go hand in hand.

Now before I start preaching on relationships in business, I will insert a disclaimer: I'm not perfect! I've had my share of relationships that have gone sour, and to say I've learned a lot along the way would be a huge understatement.

Contrary to what many people believe (even the many acquaintances I know), I can be very guarded in my relationships, and that guard is a huge giant now in my business relationships. It wasn't always this way. There was a point where I would literally spend entire days just helping other people, saying "yes" to every request that came across my desk, and fearing what people would think of me if I couldn't fulfill a request.

Now I know that keeping my guard up and protecting my energy allows me to give the best of myself in the relationships I have with this community and my clients. When I drain my energy doing things I really don't want to do, for people I really don't want to do things for, I deplete myself from the relationships in my life that matter the most. Other than my family and close friends, the most meaningful relationships I'm always working on building are those with my clients, employees, and community.

You + Clients

The way you manage your client relationships could make you very successful, or make you broke. The latter is what almost happened to me in my early stages of business.

I gave so much of myself to my clients, and I failed to set boundaries on my time and the scope of the projects I would work on. The client always got a lot more than we had contractually agreed to, usually without appreciating the extras, and making those exceptions soon led to unrealistic expectations. There were a few people I worked with that made me feel bitter, and I never ever want to feel bitterness like that again in my business.

My top tip for client relationships: Train your clients.

That's right, train your clients. This is meant in the most loving way so that everyone is on the same page regarding expectations of the work you're doing together and the relationship right from the beginning. After those expectations are set, my heart is wide open and I'm all in.

You + Employees

The relationship between a founder/manager/boss and their employees is a hotly debated topic in some of the mastermind circles I've been part of. What's too close? What's not close enough? What's inappropriate? My team is my business family, and when someone new joins the team, I'm all in right from the start.

You have to trust the people you hire. Always get on a call, preferably video, before hiring someone. When you have that face-to-face conversation you will likely know in your gut whether the person would be a good fit or not. When I'm interviewing someone, these are the red flags that will likely result in the candidate not getting the position:

Red flag #1: Late showing up

If someone shows up late to the interview, the chances of being hired are slim. Of course there are emergency situations that come up, and in that case an advance notice is appreciated. Being late for no good reason shows a lack of organization and enthusiasm for the position.

Red flag #2: "I really just want to work from home."

Since we work with a lot of other business owners and people virtually, we get a lot of applications from people looking to be able to work from their home. In interviews, I have sensed from some people that working from home is viewed as easier than their other gig, and that's not the kind of attitude I can deal with. Anyone who even remotely hints at the fact she just wants to work from home, and doesn't care about the company or mission, is not considered.

Red flag #3: Knows little about your company

I always ask questions about our company and mission to see if a candidate has done their research. It still amazes me how many people don't care enough to learn about a company they are applying to work with. If a candidate knows little about my company, I care little about that candidate.

My top tip for employee relationships: I've learned to not listen to all the contradicting opinions out there on this subject and rely on my intuition. I advise you to do the same.

You + Your Community

She Takes on the World Inc. is a social enterprise. I want to be clear: social enterprise does not necessarily mean non-profit, even though that's what many people assume. We're a for-profit company focused on sustainable and scalable revenue that maximizes our profit so that we can use portions of that profit to impact the three philanthropic pillars we focus on: entrepreneurship, education, and empowerment.

For example, with the success of The Conquer Club and The Concord, my intensive mastermind, we were able to help build The Conquer Academy in Tanzania this summer. The opening of this school was one of the happiest days of my life, and I can't wait to visit next year. Projects like this are our "why" and the reason we work so hard to continue growing this company.

My top tip for community relations: Find a way to play your part, and use your business to give back in a way that feels in alignment with your personal and business values.

One of the best pieces of relationship advice I've received came from being a student of A Course in Miracles. The course talks about how no relationship is an accident, and each gives us a series of lessons we are meant to learn whether it be a relationship in our personal lives or our businesses.

Each relationship is one giant mirror, so look carefully at the reflection you're seeing.

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

08/28/2014 from She Takes on the World

Team Building Exercises

You don't need to run your small business alone. We've put together a resource of team building exercises to help you coach, delegate, and improve your employee dynamic. We've teamed up with www.Create-Learning.com's founder and CEO, Michael Cardus, who works with companies, small and large, to optimize their team's potential, and bundled two of his exercises for you:

• The Coaching Wheel is a resource for efficient decision making. If you and your team utilize the same decision making steps, it's more likely you'll reach the same conclusions and goals, together.
• Social-Network-Unplugged-Network visually connects you to team members through business and personal-based commonalities. You may learn things about colleagues you didn't know previously, and this will hopefully bring your team closer together.

Check out these exercises here, and see how they can benefit your team.

08/28/2014 from Visa Business

Hiring for Success: 4 Things to Seek and Avoid in a New Hire

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

To ensure your next candidate is a lasting member of your team, it's important that you know what you should search for as you filter through résumés. Here are a few things you should look for, and avoid, when going after a new hire.

For a growing business, success largely relies on sourcing and retaining the right people. But despite the many tools now available to small business owners, many still make the costly error of hiring the wrong person. The time it takes to research and interview a wide variety of candidates in order to find the right one is well worth it if it saves a business hundreds of thousands of dollars in wasted training and lost productivity.

Consider the Job Type

Before beginning your job search, know exactly the type of personality you're seeking. If the person will be pounding the pavement every day, rounding up sales, you'll likely be looking for experience on the résumé, personality in the interview and, honestly, a bit of an ego. A customer service representative will need a personable, patient temperament, as well as the ability to diffuse explosive situations. But if you're searching for someone to handle your written communications or handle your business's day-to-day tasks, you may find the information you need in the résumé itself by looking for small errors that could indicate the person doesn't pay attention to detail.

Because bad hires can be so costly, businesses might want to consider testing candidates prior to hiring to determine "fit". Talent management company Caliper provides insight to a candidate's personality and matches them with the exact job you are hiring for to determine if they will be a "good match". Carolyn Crummey, owner of VirTasktic, used the service for years in her previous position as Director of Operations for a manufacturer's rep firm and highly recommends small businesses make the minimal investment before hiring. "We used the Caliper testing on every hire we made, from outside sales to customer service to administration, because although we could see past experience and test for skillset, we couldn't always determine their personality which is an intricate part of hiring the right person for the right position. The small investment we made up front to test was well worth it. It not only saved us from making a number of hiring mistakes, it also helped us develop the people we did hire because we knew where their true strengths and weaknesses were and could build off that information."

Don't Rush to Judgment

While experts have traditionally cautioned against hiring someone with large employment gaps or frequent job changes, in the current economy, hiring managers are seeing this much more often. Don't dismiss these prospects outright. Instead, work to determine the reason for these employment issues to alleviate your concerns. Is this person a flight risk or is he simply looking for a chance to be a part of a startup that makes it for the long haul?

Look for Passion

Throughout the process of reviewing résumés and interviewing candidates, search for a level of passion in whatever that applicant has done in life. Whether you're hiring HR professionals or marketing managers, you should seek someone who has a passion for the field. You can determine this by asking questions in the interview about each candidate's past positions. If someone can't clearly describe what he did in previous positions, consider this a red flag.

Determine Interest

One mistake employers make is assuming a job interview is a one-way process. Just as you're screening the candidate as a good fit for your team, the candidate should be taking an interest in your organization and the job itself.  During the interview process, the applicant should show signs that he has spent time researching your company and believes in your business model. The candidate should also ask questions and appear to be determining whether your business is the right fit for him, as well as for you.

Putting the right team in place is essential to your business's success. As you work to find the right person to add to your team, take the time to get to know prospective hires and make sure a new employee has the same passion for your growing business as you do.

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

08/27/2014 from Smallbiztechnology.com

The Candidate You Interviewed Is A Huge Red Flag– And Here's Why!

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August 's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

You've likely heard the adage: Where there is smoke, there is fire.Well this is not only true of forest fires … it also pertains to your "something-just-doesn't-feel-right" job candidate. Don't miss these must-read tips on how to decipher the common red flags potentially disastrous new hires may display.

Most small business owners realize how essential it is to adequately vet new hires, before they have been hired. This especially rings true if you have experienced how incredibly difficult it is to work with, write-up, and subsequently release underperforming employees. Probationary periods are fine, but they shouldn't replace the due diligence necessary to flush out bad hires from the start.

If you think you can wing it, hope for the best, and fill an empty job slot — think again. According to the Center for American Progress,'it costs businesses about one-fifth of a worker's salary to replace that worker. For businesses that experience high levels of turnover, this can add up to represent significant costs. "Studies further cite it is costly to replace workers because of the productivity losses when someone leaves a job, the costs of hiring and training a new employee, and the slower productivity until the new employee gets up to speed in their new job."

The costs of high employee turnover are tremendous. As entrepreneur William G. Bliss, President of Bliss & Associates Inc., explains "It should be noted that the costs of time and lost productivity are no less important or real than the costs associated with paying cash to vendors for services such as advertising or temporary staff. These are all very real costs to the employer."

It is better to hire the right employees from the start. Thankfully, some candidates will exhibit undesirable traits early on to make it evident they aren't the best fit for your company. Here's a look at three major red flags to look out for during the hiring and interview process:

1. A general air of negativity abounds.

   Chronically, negative employees can incite conflict and erode morale throughout the workplace. As HR Morning's Tim Gould suggests,"They're not always easy to pick out of a crowd, but they can do an amazing amount of damage over time. Most of the time, these folks don't make the big mistakes that call attention to themselves.They're frequently pretty good at their jobs, so they're not called on the carpet too often. But like a virus running in the background of a computer program, their acidic personalities eat away at the goals-and ultimately the bottom line-of the company week after week, year after year."

   Negativity poisons the well and creates an environment of distrust, while polluting the perception of that person-making them appear weak and unprofessional.In contrast, successful employees with a positive attitude learn to build good relationships while being valuable contributors. While negativity in the workplace is not uncommon, chronic negativity is a red flag that shouldn 't be ignored.

2. Mea culpa is not in their vocabulary.

   During an interview, open-ended interview questions are known to work best. This affords candidates the opportunity to share specific examples and prior work scenarios. If a job candidate is quick to assign blame to others, but never takes stock of individual faults, this will be problematic down the road. No one continuously bats one hundred in business. Playing the blame game to hide bad behavior and shift responsibility doesn't bode well for any company culture.

   As Psychology Today contributor, Elliot D. Cohen, Ph.D. explains, "One of the most destructive human pastimes is playing the blame game. It has been responsible for mass casualties of war, regrettable acts of road rage, and on a broad interpersonal level (social, familial and work-related), a considerable amount of human frustration and unhappiness." However, accepting responsibility for good and bad decisions in the workplace is a sign of maturity and self-awareness. So, if your potential new hire exhibits a nature of habitual finger-pointing, you may want to point your hiring efforts in a new direction.

3. Lack of drive and ambition is obvious.

   The best employees seek out work that is meaningful and challenging. They also actively consider training and development opportunities to grow personally and professionally. A positive attitude, unrelenting work ethic, and impressive achievements are ideal and obvious, but a lack of ambition, below par work ethic, and little achievement to speak of is a bit more difficult to spot.

   If a candidate is merely looking to fill an empty chair, consider it a red flag.However, this type of red flag is easier to dismiss if you are in desperate need of a warm body to fill an empty org chart. While you shouldn't look for employees to dump undue and unfair amounts of work on, a job candidate should readily express the desire to take on new challenges and job responsibilities.

   If they squirm when asked about their opinions on new ideas in the work place or if they're quick to quip:"I can't do that" or "That's impossible", without consideration, it is more than a cautious voice of reason.Ultimately, you want to hire employees who can overcome obstacles and find creative ways around them.If someone exhibits "throwing in the towel" behavior, too early, they have the potential to cause problems down the road-and drag other employees down with them.

Ultimately, before you make an offer, do so knowing that you completed the due diligence necessary to protect your downside as much as possible. And if you think red flags are harmless, consider the exit costs, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, orientation, training, productivity losses, potential customer dissatisfaction, reduced or lost sales, administrative costs, and more …

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

08/19/2014 from YFS Magazine

How to Increase Revenue and Get Your Freedom Back By Outsourcing to the Right People

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Many business owners have type-A personalities, and I'm no exception. We want to be in control of everything, all the time. Worse, we think nobody else can do it as well as we do. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking chains you to your business and imposes a ceiling on your revenue growth.

The other big excuse we make for not hiring help is that we can't afford to do so. In reality, if you pay someone $15 to $50 per hour, and you reclaim those hours generating revenue at twice that rate, your revenue numbers will grow. That's exactly what happened for me. The more help I hired, the more money I made because it freed up time for me to focus on what I do best. And if you really, truly, can't afford it, there's always the opportunity to barter for services.

The truth is that you are not a superhero. You can't possibly do it all, and there will come a point when you hit a revenue ceiling because you are out of personal bandwidth. When I made the shift from doing it all myself to hiring the help I needed, everything changed. My revenue has grown in direct proportion to the amount of outsourcing I've done over the years.

Deciding What to Hand Off

One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing is that you can utilize the skills of as many people as you need to complete tasks. I have a group of 14 contractors who I work with. Some work with me on an ongoing basis, while others work by project. I have various virtual assistants, a website designer, an IT professional, and two web technology specialists-people who can troubleshoot site issues and create custom coding when needed. Because I publish books, I contract projects to several editors, book designers, and a book indexing specialist. I also work with a copywriter, a researcher and a bookkeeper. In fact, the bookkeeper was my very first hire when I became an entrepreneur 11 years ago. I have always hated dealing with numbers and it made perfect sense to have someone else handle it all.

If you need help deciding what tasks to outsource, here are some considerations:

• Tasks you dread or don't enjoy (seriously, this one is liberating!)
• Tasks that someone else could easily handle for you (like simple administrative paperwork)
• Website content management
• Calendar/schedule management
• Billing, shipping or receiving
• Customer service by phone, web or email
• Social media management
• Tasks you think someone else can't handle!

The reality is that if you can do it, someone else can do it too. If you can't find someone with the skill set needed, you simply need to invest the time to train a great candidate and let go of the control that you're afraid to lose.

Hiring and Managing the Right Person for the Job

I learned the hard way that you have to be clear about what you want to accomplish with each person you hire. I went through numerous virtual assistants in my first year of outsourcing because I kept trying to fit square pegs into round holes. I had to start by defining the role and the tasks involved, and then match that up with someone who already had the skill set. Figuring that out was a game changer.

You also play an important role in the success of the person you hire because you must be a leader, and a good leader provides clear instructions and expectations. Ideally, you should document your processes. I have files full of documents that cover everything from how to handle a call with a prospect to checklists that explain the steps involved in posting content to my website. Handing this information over to your new hire will make life easier for both of you.

Then, you need to monitor results and adjust accordingly. I like to manage people the way I would want to be managed. That means that I praise and thank them for a job well done, I address issues clearly and calmly, and I never micromanage. If a contractor's work requires too much of my oversight to confirm that it gets handled properly, that's a big indicator that the person isn't right for my team. In that case, it's best to move on and hire someone else.

Just Make it Happen (You Can Thank Me Later!)

The bottom line is that my business wouldn't exist as it does today without a team of wonderful people who help make it all happen. In fact, I recently went through a major loss (the unexpected death of my husband), and if not for my team, my business would have imploded. My assistants stepped up and took over so that I could take some much-needed time away for healing. I don't even want to think about how I would have managed without them.

Remember that many of us entered into entrepreneurship seeking freedom and financial security, but if you're chained to your business as its only worker, you'll have no freedom at all and your income will hit a ceiling at some point. Hiring help will give you back some of that freedom you deserve, and help you increase your revenue in the process.

To find experienced contractors, ask around for recommendations or visit: Elance.com, Odesk.com or IVAA.org.

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

Strengthening Relationships Through Delegation

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Creating Twitter Lists to Build Relationships that Turn into Sales

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.

Building and maintaining relationships is a key component of a successful small business strategy. In fact, fostering small business relationships can give you a unique competitive advantage.

Fortunately, it doesn't have to cost a lot of money for you to build and maintain connections with current and potential customers. For example, you can use Twitter lists to follow specific types of people or content, and to join relevant conversations.

The following are five ways you can start using Twitter lists to build relationships that could turn into sales.

1. Engaging with Prospective Customers

   To get started, create lists of Twitter users who fit your target customer profile. You don't have to follow them and they don't have to follow you in order for you to add them to a public or private Twitter list.

   You can monitor the tweets published by users on this list and jump into conversations as appropriate. Don't sell! Instead, add useful information to the conversations happening, and you'll start building relationships with prospects that can turn into sales later.

2. Interacting with Current Customers

   You can also create a Twitter list of your current customers and monitor their questions, referrals, etc.

   Be sure to acknowledge when a current customer says something positive about your business! Even if they don't include your Twitter username, you'll see their tweets if you have them in a smaller, easier to manage, Twitter list.

3. Monitoring Competitors

   Don't be afraid to create a private Twitter list to monitor your competitors. You never know what opportunities you might spot!

   Keep Twitter lists that you're using for monitoring private, but lists that you want to use as a way to recognize other people can be public.

4. Listening and Communicating with Wider Audiences for Word–of–Mouth Marketing

   Remember, Twitter lists can be used to build relationships with a wide variety of people. For example, the relationships you build through a Twitter list filled with key members of your local community, online influencers of your target audience, or journalists who write about the types of products or services your business provides, could all lead to word–of–mouth marketing that drives sales.

5. Subscribing to Lists Created by Other Twitter Users

   You can follow public lists created by any other Twitter user simply by visiting their profile and selecting from the lists they've created. When you find a list you like, there is no need to recreate it. Just click the Subscribe button, and you'll be able to monitor the list.

   Keep in mind that when you subscribe to a list, it appears publicly on your Twitter profile. If you don't want anyone else to know that you've subscribed to a specific list, you'll need to recreate it as your own list and make it private.

   How do you use Twitter lists to build relationships that turn into sales for your small business? Leave a comment below and share your tips.

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

Every Small Business Founder Needs An Advisor

This blog post was written for Visa Business as part of August's theme of Fostering your Small Business Relationships. Every month, Visa Business focuses on a topic and offers actionable ideas for taking care of your business, your employees, your customers, and yourself. Visit our Facebook page, Well Sourced by Visa Business, to find efficient solutions, in-depth information, and trusted resources.