The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

We are exactly one week away from Black Friday, the official kick-off to the holiday shopping season!

While I adamantly refuse to participate in the sport (Yes, Black Friday is a sport, and a contact sport at that. It requires training, endurance, skill and strategy. May the best shopper win!), I thought it might be fun if a few PartnerUp team members shared some of their classic Black Friday stories with all of you.

Coffee Anyone?
Last year I went bright and early with people from my church. But instead of getting in on the extreme shopping action, we sold coffee to all the bitter cold (and crazy if you ask me) consumers who had been standing in line for hours. It was quite the fundraiser!
– Mindy, Executive Assistant

I Saw It First!
I remember being at Best Buy one year and there was a really good sale on a certain digital camera. I’m guessing there was only one left in the store because right there in the aisle were two women shouting over this camera while two employees tried to mediate the situation to the best of their ability. I stood there in awe with a crowd of others just watching the fight.
– Brian, Director of Community

People Everywhere
I had never done the Black Friday thing before, but last year I decided to give it a try. As I neared the mall at 5:00 a.m., I remember wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was shocked when I parked my car and saw a line of people that stretched on for what seemed to be miles. It was definitely an experience I won’t soon forget.
– Alyssa, Graphic Designer

E-commerce Only
With the invention of the Internet, I don’t understand why anyone gets up at the crack of dawn, stands in line in the freezing cold and then claws their way through crowds of shoppers. I definitely shop on Black Friday because of the deals, but I do it online in my pajamas from the comfort of my own home.
– Riaz, Director of IT

If any of you have a great Black Friday story you’d like to share, just leave a comment below. We’d love to hear it!

Have a great weekend!

1. Recycled printer cartridges. Printer ink is insanely expensive. A low-cost solution to a new cartridge is a recycled cartridge.
2. Offer your expertise. Teaching a class, speaking at a conference or writing an article is a cheap and easy way to promote your business and position you as an expert.
3. Trade association benefits. Trade associations sometimes offer all kinds of cost-saving benefits, including competitive group insurance.
4. Alternatives to expensive software. One alternative is open-source software, a fraction of the price of commercial software. Also consider free software downloads on sites like Download.com.
5. Used office equipment. Computers, copiers, furniture, etc. can all be bought much cheaper used. Look at auctions, classifieds or used equipment stores.
6. Temporary employment. If your business has slow times of the year or busy times of the year, don’t pay full-time employees to sit idle during slow periods. Instead, consider temporary employees to step in during surges.
7. Interns, interns, interns. Many positions can be filled by low-cost (or free) college interns eager to gain experience.
8. Clean up your mailing list. The U.S. Postal Service will correct addresses, note incomplete addresses and add ZIP+4 numbers so you’re eligible for bar-code discounts…and they’ll do it for free!
9. Tax deductions for home businesses. Mortgages, rent and utilities can certainly be deducted from taxes when you have a home-based business. But so can maintenance expenses like house cleaning and lawn care.
10. Don’t ship it if you can pick it up. If you live or work near one of your suppliers, consider picking up your orders rather than having them shipped.
11. Learn new skills. Rather than paying a freelancer or consultant to do a recurring task for you, consider having them come in only once to teach you how to do it yourself in the future.
12. Barter. You can exchange all kinds of goods and services. Check out sites like Barter.net to find opportunities.
13. Go green. Energy-efficient technology and equipment is a huge money saver. There are also tax benefits to purchasing these technologies.
14. Shop around. Get as many quotes as possible to find the lowest price around. Once you find that price, quote it to vendors and suppliers you really like to see if they’ll match it.
15. Check out VoIP. For many small businesses, the VOIP phone service is a much cheaper alternative to those of traditional telecommunications companies.
16. Laptops over desktops. Laptops consume much less energy than standard desktop computers and they allow you to work remotely or while you travel.
17. Freelancers, consultants and contractors. Hiring freelancers, consultants and contractors can save you a lot of the overhead costs that comes from regular full-time employees.
18. The magic of YouTube. Rather than paying to advertise your business through a television commercial, create a video and post it on YouTube for free.
19. Online coupons and promos. The Internet is full of coupons and promotions for all kinds of products and services. You just have to be willing to look for them.
20. Use free forms. Don’t bother buying forms or spending time creating them yourself when you can find tons of them online for free. Just download, customize and print.

Email addresses are a key tool to effectively marketing your business. Unfortunately consumers have become all too weary of freely giving up their precious email addresses.

To obtain customer email addresses you must first give in order to receive. Create a drawing or contest that requires an email address. Offer a monthly email newsletter filled with quality, useful content. Use email to inform customers of upcoming sales or deals.

It’s November now, and we’re entering in to the time of year that’s chock full of holidays. One right after the other it seems. For employers this means giving employees time off…or not.

Businesses aren’t actually required to give employees time off for any holiday, federal or state. The fact is you can make employees come in on Christmas Day if you’d like. But just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Here’s what you need to know when it comes to holidays and time off.

Religious holidays. Antidiscrimination laws prohibit anyone from discriminating on the basis of religion. For employers this usually only becomes an issue when it comes to religious holidays. Basically the rule goes like this: if an employee needs to leave work or take time off to observe a religious holiday or for any religious purpose, the employer cannot legally refuse the request.

Your business type. Many businesses can completely close up shop on a holiday and it won’t even cause a dent. Others, like restaurants, grocery stores or retail shops, stand to make a lot of money on a holiday, and closing could be detrimental. If it doesn’t make much of a difference whether you stay open or not, consider giving everyone off. If it’s important for you to stay open, consider offering employees time and half as a sort of peace offering.

Will you be working? Spending time with family and friends over a holiday is important to everyone, including you, the boss. If your plan is to take the day off but still require employees to work, you’ll likely receive a lot of backlash and resentment. It might be wise to instead give employees off if you yourself will also be taking off.

Paid or unpaid holidays? Paid holidays are great, but not all small businesses can afford to do that. If going the whole nine yards and paying for every holiday is feasible, then go for it. If not, then here are some options.

• Close for only the most important holidays and only make those ones paid. Stay open for other (unpaid) holidays, but make them optional.
• Stay open year round and allow employees to choose three holidays each year they’d like to have off/paid.
• Make all holidays unpaid, but give employees the option to work (and get paid) or not work (and not get paid).

Which holidays to choose. There are seven main holidays that employers typically give time off for—New Year’s Day, Easter (if open Sundays), Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. Many employers also consider holidays such as New Year’s Eve, Christmas Eve, the Friday after Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Good Friday, or even sometimes the employee’s birthday.

Have a great weekend!

The Small Business Administration is looking for nominees for the 2010 National Small Business Week Awards. This is a great opportunity for any small business. Not only is it a chance to step into the spotlight and gain some individual recognition for hard work and a job well done, it’s also the perfect place to connect with members of the media and gain recognition for your small business.

The SBA’s small business awards cover many different categories. They include the Small Business Person of the Year from every state and one national winner, the Young Entrepreneur of the Year, the Small Business Exporter of the Year, the Family-Owned Business of the Year, and many more. Awards are also given for individuals or organizations whose work furthers small business success.

If you’re thinking, “Great, I’ll go nominate my business right now!” it doesn’t exactly work like that. You must be nominated by a local organization “dedicated to the support of the small business community,” according to SBA guidelines. This can include trade and professional associations and business organizations.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, Nov. 13, which if you’re looking at a calendar you can see is tomorrow! (The process isn’t too tedious, so it is certainly possible to still nominate.)

National Small Business Week will be held May 23-25 next year. To learn more and get started, just go to the 2010 National Small Business Week website.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you own, excellence in social media can come from any industry, anywhere.

Winners of the Forrester Groundswell Awards—awards for outstanding social technology applications—were released recently, and the winning businesses really ran the gamut. They included a yarn company, a company that provides credit scores and an Australian committee that coordinated a social effort to raise money to rebuild a town devastated by bushfires.

The different social media methods used also varied widely. There were word-of-mouth campaigns, podcasts, communities and more. Winners also found innovative ways to use tools like Facebook and YouTube.

An easy way for any business to start getting involved is through blogging. Blogs can be about ANYTHING! There are blogs about Victorian antiques. There are blogs about bacon and cheese. There are even blogs about blogging. If you own a company that produces gluten-free dog food, start a blog! I guarantee there’s an audience out there dying to know more.

The point here is that any business in any industry of any size in any location is a perfect fit for social media. You just have to be creative and willing to give it a try!

Working from home may seem like the perfect situation, but when your home and work life become intertwined you might find yourself greeted by chaos.

To help ease the stress set aside a definite space that can only be used for work. This could be a spare bedroom, the garage, or if space is limited it may even be a small desk set up at the end of a hallway. Wherever it is, the rest of your space needs to be reserved for home life. These boundaries should absolutely not be crossed.

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.