The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

1. Dimdim: Dimdim is a Web conferencing application that lets anyone deliver synchronized live presentations, whiteboards and Web pages and share their voice and video over the Internet—no download required.
2. ADrive: ADrive offers 50 GB of free online storage and backup for all file types. The 50 GB of space is currently the most you can get as far as free offerings. Most others offer just 1-5 GB for free.
3. Blogger: Blogger is a free blog publishing tool from Google that allows you to easily share news, tips and other relevant content with your audience.
4. Craigslist: Craigslist is an online classifieds site where you can post jobs for free.
5. Mint: Mint.com is an online finance tool that can be used for money management, budgeting and other types of financial planning.
6. ZoneAlarm: ZoneAlarm, maker of Internet security software, offers a basic free firewall protection that monitors inbound/outbound traffic and makes you invisible to hackers.
7. PartnerUp: PartnerUp is an online networking site for small business owners and entrepreneurs. With a free membership you can network, search for people (e.g. business partners, team members, etc.), search for resources and get small business advice.
8. CutePDF Writer: CutePDF Writer is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. It installs itself as a “printer subsystem,” enabling virtually any Windows applications to create professional quality PDF documents.
9. Your Pitch Sucks?: Your Pitch Sucks? is a public relations pitch reviewing/editing/advising service. Just send them your PR pitch and they’ll tell you if it sucks (to put it bluntly) and how to fix it.
10. Google…anything: Google makes a ton of free tools to help entrepreneurs. Examples: Google Docs, Google Analytics, Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Alerts, Google Wave, etc. Check them all out!

Have a great weekend!

Showing appreciation for a job well done is important to the productivity of your employees and in turn the growth of your company. Here are some low-cost ways to show your employees that you’re grateful for the work that they do.

1. Free food. Bring in pizza for lunch or muffins and juice for breakfast.
2. Travelling trophy. Create a fun trophy that can be passed around from employee to employee.
3. Charity work. Let an employee or the whole team take a day off to do work for the cause of their choice.
4. Discounts. Give employees discounts on the products or services you provide.
5. Movie days. If the whole team has reached an important goal, take an afternoon to pop some popcorn, throw in a movie and celebrate.
6. Sleep-in days. Allow employees to earn “sleep-in days”—mornings when they don’t have to come in until 10 a.m.
7. Gift cards. Have gift cards for things like movie theaters, coffee shops or car washes on hand, so you can hand them out whenever they are deserved.
8. Family time. When the kids have a day off school, working parents can find it tough to accommodate. When this happens, allow star employees to work from home.
9. In-house entertainment. Consider providing games, TVs and other forms of entertainment in your break room.
10. Thank yous. Simply saying “thank you” or writing a hand-written note can sometimes be all it takes to make an employee feel appreciated.

These are simply suggestions. What’s really important to remember is that not all employees want the same things or will be motivated by the same gestures. Consider what each individual employee will respond to as well as the whole group and tailor your forms of appreciation accordingly. Most importantly remember that showing appreciation and rewarding your employees doesn’t have to be expensive.

When I was in college, the big question was, “what do I want to do?” It’s a question that all young adults have at least thought about. The answer for me was writing. The answer for others could be anything from teaching kindergarten to serving in the military to being a personal trainer.

For young entrepreneurs, maybe the answer doesn’t matter. Maybe “What do I want to do?” is the wrong question. I read an excellent post this morning on The Entrepreneurial Mind that talks about the question that entrepreneurship students SHOULD be asking themselves.

“What goods or services are needed that people are willing to pay for?”

Instead of focusing on themselves and what they want, entrepreneurs need to focus on what other people (potential customers) want. Pursuing your dreams and being willing to take risks is a good thing. But living in a rusted-out van down by the river because your vintage record shop didn’t pan out is not.

While I’m a huge proponent of people finding what makes them happy in life, I agree with the author’s points. We live in a shaky economy right now, so we have to be smart about the decisions we make and the paths we follow. That’s not to say that young entrepreneurs can’t still pursue the things that make them happy, because they can, they just need to approach them intelligently and with the needs and desires of potential customers in mind.

Now that it’s November, most retailers have only one thing on their minds—the holiday shopping season. While it doesn’t officially kick off for consumers until the day after Thanksgiving (or if you’re my mom about two months ago), the implementation of holiday sales strategies for many retailers are already underway.

One thing that online retailers should look in to this year is the second annual Free Shipping Day, which will take place on Dec. 17. Online shopping typically declines around Dec. 12 because consumers fear that their packages may not arrive before Christmas Eve. This causes a problem for online retailers in the way of declining sales in the holiday home stretch. To combat the problem, Luke Knowles of FreeShipping.org created Free Shipping Day, which was designed to help these online retailers on the last day they can guarantee delivery before Christmas Eve.

Basically all that an online retailer needs to do is go to freeshippingday.com and fill out a short form with contact info and their Free Shipping Day offer. They also, of course, need to be willing to eat the shipping costs for that day as well as guarantee delivery of packages before Christmas. What happens when you fill out the form is that your logo will appear on the Free Shipping Day homepage on Dec. 1. Consumers that prefer to shop retailers with free shipping (which is 75% of consumers according to Forrester Research) can then click on your logo and immediately be directed to a page displaying your offer.

Last year more than 250 merchants participated in Free Shipping Day, including big names like Macy’s, Kohl’s and Bloomingdale’s. Between December 8 (when the site launched) and Dec. 18 (Free Shipping Day 2008) the site received 250,000 visitors—105,000 of which occurred just on Free Shipping Day itself.

While this is only the second year for Free Shipping Day, the site seems to have gained a ton of traction. For online retailers who have personally experienced a decline in holiday sales right before Christmas, I encourage you to check this out.

Taking clients out for business dinners can be a great way for you to interact with them on a more personal level. We live in a busy society however, so you must be respectful of other people’s free time. Find out what kind of schedule your client has. Does he need to be at home with his kids on week nights? Does she prefer to spend her weekends at her house on the lake? Sometimes just by showing that you’re being cognoscente of your clients’ busy schedules and home lives, you can go a long way in gaining trust and deepening relationships.

Normally we try to provide you with useful, relevant small business content, but today we’ll be bending the rules a little. It’s Halloween (although not officially until tomorrow), and we’d rather show off our sweet pumpkins!

Earlier this week the PartnerUp office spent the afternoon celebrating Halloween by eating sugary treats, carving pumpkins and listening to “The Monster Mash.”

If at all possible, take some time to have a little fun with your employees today. You could dress up in costumes, carve some pumpkins, or bring in some treats. If nothing else, celebrating can be great team building.

Happy Halloween! Have a great weekend!

Any small business owner who has a website needs to know where visitors are coming from, what they’re doing on the site and where they’re going.

Luckily there’s Google Analytics—an awesome tool from Google (obviously) that can tell you just about anything you want to know about your website visitors. The best part for small business owners…it’s totally free.

Here are some examples of what Google Analytics can tell you about visitors to your small business website.

• Google Analytics can tell you exactly where your visitors just came from when they reach your site. Did they come from a particular search engine? Were they directed to you from a social media site? Was it a marketing piece that sent them to you? Knowing where exactly your traffic is coming from will help you figure out where to focus your marketing efforts.
• Google Analytics can tell you which pages your visitors are frequenting. This can show you which kinds of content your visitors are attracted to and which kinds they aren’t. Maybe you could expand aspects of a particularly popular page into less popular pages.
• Google Analytics  can tell you how much time visitors are spending on your site, where they are spending their time, and ultimately which pages of your site they are most frequently leaving from.  This could help you troubleshoot why visitors are leaving and how you can make changes to prevent them from leaving. Perhaps it is as simple as changing some wording to make your message clearer and less confusing.
• Google Analytics can tell you where your visitors are geographically located. By looking at what is called the Geomap Overlay, you’ll be able to quickly see in a very visual way the varying locations of your visitors. You may find that the audience you’ve been targeting is not exactly the audience you’re getting. Maybe you’ve been marketing to Midwesterners but are also seeing a large following on the Eastern Seaboard. Knowing this will enable you to tweak and/or expand your marketing efforts.

Many small business owners shy away from using Google Analytics because they’re not IT experts. But you really don’t need to be. If you can follow Google’s directions (which are pretty good), you’ll be just fine. To get started just go to Google.com/Analytics.

Despite previous attempts by the federal government to spur small business lending, little has helped. In another attempt to get back on track, the Obama administration is working on two new initiatives.

Aid community banks in lending to small business

• Plan: Banks with less than $1 billion in assets can borrow from the government at a 3 percent dividend rate—a reduction from the 5 percent rate the Treasury Department currently offers borrowers.
• Intention: Back in February $730 million was given to the Small Business Administration to help them offer incentives to large banks that make qualifying small business loans. Despite these efforts, lending through the SBA has dropped 36 percent in the 2009 fiscal year. So the government wants to look at lending from a new perspective—community banks. They want to make cheap capital available to small banks in hopes that they’ll use it to lend to local small businesses.
• Problem: Some community banks believe that additional capital is unnecessary, saying that they’ll already lend to borrows so long as they’re qualified. They believe the incentive won’t make much difference.

Increase the maximum loan amount on SBA loans

• Plan: Raise the maximum loan amount on SBA loans from $2 million to $5 million. Also raise the maximum loan amount on SBA-backed micro loans from $35,000 to $50,000.
• Intention: Larger loans will provide more money to small businesses and franchisees looking to start and grow their businesses.
• Problem: The majority of small businesses looking for loans from the SBA are not looking for anywhere near the current ceiling of $2 million. Of the 44,000 loans the SBA backed last year, fewer than 15,000 were for more than $150,000.