Making the Web Work for Your Small Business

While I don't own my own business, I often think about ideas of how to do things if I were to own my own PR firm or any other kind of business for that matter. My ideas mostly stem from using the resources on the web. There are tons of resources available that probably only a fraction of small business owners know about. Here are a few, relative to the typical needs or departments in a business:

IT - IT is a huge expense for every business. Technology changes so rapidly that it seems like if you don't have a team of computer scientists working for you, you'll be behind the times. Here are some ideas for the business man on a budget:

1. For CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, Salesforce.com sounds like a powerful, flexible and affordable solution.
2. For email, calendar management and collaboration software, I think just using Google Apps for business with Gmail with Google Calendar and Google Docs would be a very powerful and cost-effective solution. And you can get personalized domain names so when you give your email address out it doesn't say soandso@gmail.com, instead it can say whatever your domain happens to be, like soandso@ITsolutions.com or whatever. Google Apps also integrates well with Salesforce.com.
3. For website management, you could hire someone from Asia to do it for cheap through www.Offshoring.com, or if you have a little web design experience (or at least know how to use Adobe Flash and Dreamweaver a little bit) you could just purchase a template from www.FlashMint.com and customize it to your business. Or if you're really bad at web design or know nothing about it, you can use Microsoft Office Live Small Business where they have a really easy and simple way to build and manage a website.
   
4. Along with websites, another thing to do is use Google Analytics for high-quality website analytics that don't cost a fortune like offerings from Omniture or other high-end web optimization companies. You could also use Google Webmaster Tools and Google Insight for help with search engine optimization.
5. For conference calls you can use www.calliflower.com which will allow you to set up free conference calls and give you full administrative privileges by being able to track who gets on the call and recording calls.
   

Marketing - marketing seems to be the one area of a business that eludes most small business owners. We cringe at the thought of going into business without knowing how to sell or market our great product or service. Well, here again, some resources on the web can help.

1. For logos and graphic design help, you can use www.logoworks.com where for just $100 you can get a professionally designed logo. Normally these types of services cost thousands of dollars by going through a typical graphic designer or ad agency. They can also help with letterheads, brochures and other print marketing materials.
   
2. For public relations (and search engine optimization) you can use www.prweb.com where for just $200 you can send out a search engine optimized press release that will get posted on Google News and Yahoo News within hours. It is also a great way for you to get your name in front of journalists who might want to do a story on you or your company.
3. Also for added publicity, you can get an ad in the Radio-TV Interview Report, a magazine read by radio and TV producers who look through it for potential guests and show ideas. Got a new book? Put in an ad! They may just call and ask you to do an interview on the radio!
4. Don't forget the other free or cheap outlets such as Craigslist.org, Ebay, Amazon and others.
5. You can also use social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as means of promoting yourself or your business. But be careful, you don't want your friends to start blocking you because all you've sent them is spam.
   

Accounting - doing the numbers and keeping up the books in any business can be challenging, especially if you don't have an accounting or finance background. Not to worry, with a little familiarity of accounting principles and some relatively cheap software from Microsoft, you'll be up and running in no time.

1. Using Microsoft Accounting Express is free and the professional version costs $200. These can be invaluable in helping you track and manage inventory, cash flow and liabilities.

That's pretty much all I have time for right now. Maybe in a later post I can go into strategic planning and organization. But hopefully this list can give you some ideas for how to run your business a little more efficiently.