How To Set Wages to Reduce Turnover and Optimize Competitiveness
If you were getting paid what you’re really worth, would your paycheck go up, or down? Don’t worry, I won’t make you answer that question, but it does put into focus an important issue: How to determine the pay rate for a position in your small business. A recent PNC Economic Outlook Survey found that two out of five small and medium-sized businesses plan to hike wages in the next six months. That’s the most since back in 2008. And on top of that, nearly 60 percent said they would boost pay by 3 percent or more, while the national average is at around 2 percent. The 3 percent figure is also above the Federal Reserve’s inflation trigger. Perhaps the higher than average number is due to postponing pay hikes in recent years, but whatever the reason, we get back to the central question of how to determine salaries and wages. Get the job description written With any question regarding a position in your business, the place to start is with a good job description. Sometimes small businesses end up creating “hybrid” positions that combine skills from various professions. For example, an office aide might be required to do a little work with graphics on a regular basis. You need to put this in your job description so you can get the right person and also set the right salary. There’s an excellent online resource today at Salary.com that allows you to input a job title and see a salary range for your area. It’s a great starting point, however don’t just jot down the figure and call it a day. If you have a job that requires additional skills you may need to think it out more. Also, you want to check other sources to confirm what you learn from the online source. Check other sources To fine tune the range for your new hire, look at local job listings, online and in print. Also consult trade organizations in your area. They often have “help wanted” listings that may give you salary range information. The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers a wide range of data available online, including results from its national compensation survey. You can find some job categories in your area by searching its database. Further, when you’re setting the salary range for a new employee, it’s a good idea to double check pay rates for your current crew. Use Salary.com and verify that you’re within an acceptable range for each position. Bringing in someone who is being properly paid to match his or her job requirements – if coworkers are over or under their expected ranges – may create a toxic workplace. With a solid job description and a thorough survey of the labor market and salary ranges in your area, you can plug new employees into your operation and know that you are paying them fairly. This will reduce turnover and help keep you...
read moreYour Logo Is Your Introduction: Make It Good
Before your customers know anything about you, they’ve probably seen your logo. What do people say about first impressions? I’ve recently created a logo and tagline for our Outrageous Success movement. For two reasons I didn’t rush the process. First, I understand its importance and second, a good logo conveys a lot of information and often in a fairly abstract format. Sometimes you need to really think deeply and give yourself enough time to understand what it is communicating. If you don’t have a logo for your business or are considering a new business, here are some points to ponder as you make your choice. What a logo should do Good logos say a lot about your business and they communicate on various levels. When coupled with a tagline, they can speak more directly to people. Here are what a good logo can do for you: Establish a brand identity. This is the first thing a well designed logo will do for you. When customers see it, they think automatically about your business. Give your business a professional and established look. A good logo takes your business to the next level above “a guy with a business card.” People should subliminally think, “This must be a real company. It has a strong logo.” Communicate what you do. Potential customers should look at your logo – and perhaps your tagline – and see that you offer something they may need. Build loyalty. The repeated exposure to your logo should remind customers of your exemplary customer service or top quality line of products. If you have created a positive business relationship with people, every time they see your logo, they will be reminded of that. Basic logo designs Highly successful companies have different approaches to logo design and they fall into four basic categories. No single category is inherently superior to any other, although some may be easier to conceive. Type based. Your logo could be a typographical treatment of your business name. Facebook and Sony would be examples of this style. The big ones are the business equivalent of single name celebrities, like Oprah. Illustrations. Other businesses use an illustration that communicates who they are. The purest of these might be the logos of some professional sports teams, such as the St. Louis Cardinals and Denver Broncos. Abstract. We all know the Nike swoosh. We never need to see the name of the company. Further, its design has come to communicate speed and athleticism. Hybrids. Often type will be combined with either a realistic illustration or abstract design. The type may be the name of the company, a tagline or both. Color me customer-centric The colors you choose for your logo are as important as the design. Colors communicate on a very instinctive level and you have to keep this in mind as you select your design. Far too many small business owners just go with colors they like. Check out this infographic to get a good idea of what different colors communicate. When you think you have a good basic color you want to use, do an online search for color schemes and you can find other colors that will go along with it. Whether you decide to try to design your own logo, find a local designer or...
read moreClone Yourself With These Small Business Prouctivity Apps
The old truism that “you can’t be in two places at one time” used to hinder a lot of small business owners. However, thanks to the mobile app revolution that truism isn’t quite as true anymore. And, I’m happy to say that according to a recent SurePayoll survey, small business owners are becoming “immersed” in mobile technology. This is certainly boosting productivity which helps startups make it through those crucial first years and allows established small businesses to expand more easily and push more dollars to the bottom line. SurePayroll’s infographic (see below) does a good job summing up the survey findings and if you want to really get into the weeds, check out the company’s press release. Let’s pick up a little on the idea of being in two places at one time and take a quick look at a few apps that allow you to do that, in as much as the laws of physics permit… Doodle. Have you ever spent a big chunk of your morning trying to find a meeting time that works for everyone? With Doodle you can poll your invitees and find out what time works for everyone. While they’re answering the poll, you can be somewhere else, being productive. By the way, that’s just one feature it offers. Zite. How much time to you spend managing RSS feeds, searching Google and scrolling through your favorite news sites? Zite learns your interests – getting smarter as you go along – and curates your reading material. While Zite does your searching, you can be productive. OfficeTime. Does your business track billable hours and expenses? Liberate yourself from the tedium of pulling together the details when you get back to the office. You can also track to projects so you always know exactly where you stand and can invoice clients almost automatically. Sharing apps. There are several excellent file sharing and idea sharing apps and if you haven’t yet mined the gold they have to offer, now’s the time. Explore Google Docs, Dropbox, Evernote, Cubby and Microsoft OneNote for starters. HootSuite. If social media marketing is an integral part of your small business, the HootSuite “dashboard” gives you excellent control wherever you are. Further, anytime you’re online and something catches your eye, you can capture and schedule it as a post for virtually all of your social media accounts. It’s auto-scheduling feature really is like enabling your brainpower to be in three places at once. GoToMyPC. This app gets my award for most literally delivering the functionality of being in two places at one time. If you’re on the road and you need something that’s on your computer back at the office, this app offers a free magic carpet ride through cyberspace. It also comes in handy if you are your small business’ “tech support” and have to show someone back in the office how to get something done. Finally, all customer relationship management solutions have mobile apps. Make sure you and your staff are using one. Admittedly, this is a short list and there are many great apps that boost small business productivity. What are some of your favorites? Image: By Methodshop, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
read moreHow to Take Your eBay Selling to the Next Level
I recently wrote about my experience of getting rid of stuff from around the house and selling the items on eBay. For some people, this process can last a long time – they’ve built up a big “inventory” through the years – but others find the pickings fairly slim after a few weeks. If you’ve enjoyed your experience selling on eBay, and want to devote more time to it, you have to start purchasing items for resale. Here are some questions to ask yourself and ideas to consider if you want to take your eBay selling to the next level. What is your long term vision? Do you want a little extra spending money or would you like to turn eBay selling into a full-time business, or one component of a retail business? If you watch shows such as American Pickers and Storage Wars, you’ll see some ways that vendors find stock to sell online, often through eBay auctions. You’ll also see that these vendors have other ways to means their merchandise, including retail stores or selling at flea markets or swap meets. What is your area of expertise? Do you have a hobby or have you been collecting anything for many years? If you’re an expert in an area, you might start your resale career by selling in that area. Recognizing value is the critical skill to have when you’re shopping for items to list on eBay. TIP: Sometimes items that don’t have a high enough resale value in the United States, have additional value overseas. If you’re an expert in certain collectibles, are there overseas buyers who will pay a premium for those items? How to find merchandise You usually want to maximize your margins when you sell on eBay so you need to buy items as cheaply as possible. If you’re looking for general merchandise here are some ideas: Offer to clean out cluttered garages, rooms, attics for relatives and friends. Do the work and haul away the stuff in exchange for keeping any items you think may be valuable. Cruise the weekend garage sales and flea markets. Find the websites and newspapers where these sales are listed. All the professional shoppers get there early. Study the local auction houses. There are probably several auctioneers in your area. Invest a little time learning how they work and which ones have potential to supply your eBay startup. If you feel lucky and savvy enough, try an abandoned storage unit auction. Look for online auctions. Bulk quantities of returned or “damaged” merchandise are auctioned off in large lots on the Internet. These can be a gamble, but smart buyers often turn a profit. Also, many local governments auction off surplus items on a regular basis. Check city and county websites. Find the nearby super-bargain stores. Most larger communities have one or two stores that deal in returned or cosmetically damaged merchandise from major retailers. Look for the “clearance” items in these stores that have been marked down to 75 percent off original retail. Consider all these sources for merchandise in the context of how far you want to take your eBay business. For example, if you buy a storage unit, or some pallets from a damaged shipment, you may have to go rent a storage unit yourself. But if you buy a...
read moreProtect Your Business as Email Con Artists Step Up Their Game
I’m a huge proponent for making constant improvements and tweaks to offerings so they stay current and adapted to a changing market. I wish honest small business owners were as dedicated to that process as the scammers have proven to be. One of the newest product releases from the Nigerian-Prince-Has-Money-For-You industry is targeted at smaller businesses. Employees in a company receive an email that looks like it’s from a senior executive and it’s flagged as “Urgent.” This new ploy has been called the “bossy business scam” as well as “masquerading” and usually hits companies that do business through China. Banks in South Africa, Turkey and Japan have also been used. Attention to details required The email requests that money be wired to cover something like a vendor payment or other business need, such as a confidential investment. Don’t think anyone in your organization would fall for the scam? Don’t be so hasty. According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, the average loss so far has been $55,000 and some losses have gone above $800,000. Nicole Vincent Fleming, a consumer education specialist at the Federal Trade Commission wrote an alert on the scam explaining that the crooks put together email addresses that look close to the real thing so employees in a hurry might not notice the small telling details. In a more sophisticated variation of this scam, hackers are able to break into an company email system and generate the requests for money from a legitimate email account. Prior to receiving the phony email, scammers often contact the business posing as a vendor and requesting information to “update” the business’ account. This gives them the intelligence they need to pull off the second part of the ploy, where they ask for money. Scam prevention measures To give your small business a strong line of defense against this and other scams, be sure you do the following: Talk about Internet security and fraud at company meetings on a regular basis. Require multi-person approvals for any payments above a certain dollar amount. Use a standard purchase order system that requires management approval to spend money. Train your employees on security measures, such as calling back companies on a known phone number when you get requests for information. When you have a workforce of savvy scam-busters, you can rest a little easier knowing that you aren’t enriching a pack of overseas con men…and women. Image: Online Fraud, © 2008 Don Hankins, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike...
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