The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

Small business owners ponder long and hard about what their target audience wants. They think to themselves, “What would it take to get a potential customer to buy from me?”

While this is a great question, perhaps a better way to start is by looking at yourself. What would it take for you to buy from you?

The sad truth is that too many small business owners themselves don’t buy/use the products/services they offer. I’m not suggesting you beat yourself up over it, but rather that you take some time to think realistically about why. What would it HONESTLY take for you to walk through your own doors, open your own wallet, order your own products and utilize your own services? Once you figure that out…adjust.

The mere thought of cold calling makes many people’s stomachs turn. It’s a difficult and nerve-racking experience that takes courage, confidence and thick skin.

So if you’re nervous (which you probably are), it helps to warm up before you call. Run through your opening statement in your head or out loud. Anticipate potential questions. It can also help to warm up your prospect by sending out preliminary materials like fliers or brochures. That way when you call, your prospect will already have some context as to what you do.

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law last February, the small business community saw an opportunity to capitalize on the many government contracts that were about to be doled out.

While the Recovery Act does not specify a goal for contracting with small businesses, guidelines request that federal agencies follow the overall goal that 23 percent of government contracting money goes to small businesses.

According to Joe Jordan, Associate Administrator for Government Contracting Business Development at the Small Business Administration, the federal government has exceeded this goal. As of Oct. 2, nearly 26 percent of stimulus contracting money—more than $4 billion—has been awarded to small businesses.

The Defense Department, which typically falls short in awarding contracts to small businesses, has awarded them a whopping 58 percent of its Recovery Act contracting budget.

Not all agencies are putting up promising numbers however. Only 6.7 percent of the contracting money being dispersed by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management has gone to small business.

Nonetheless, this is great news for small business. And for those businesses out there wishing they had gotten in on the action, there are still opportunities available. Just go to Recovery.gov to learn more.

As technology advances and consumers continue to upgrade their mobile devices and increase their usage of the mobile Web, research in this space also continues to expand. I recently found two pieces of research that I think small business owners should pay attention to.

Consumer Alerts
A recent survey from Harris Interactive measured consumer sentiment toward mobile devices as they relate to shopping, sales promotions and impulse purchases.

The research shows that consumers are interested in receiving opt-in mobile alerts from their favorite places—42 percent of 18 to 34 year olds and 33 percent of 35 to 44 year olds. The research also shows that 9 out of 10 U.S. adults make impulse purchases when they are out and about and hear of a sale or special going on near them.

Making the connection?

There is an opportunity here for small businesses to trigger these impulses through mobile alerts, so think about how your business could adapt to take advantage.

Peak Performance
Gomez Inc., a Web application experience management company, on Monday released results from a study examining the experiences and expectations of consumers when it comes to the mobile Web.

Unfortunately for many businesses, consumers seem to be pretty dissatisfied. Nearly 75 percent of respondents complained of slow load times. This is particularly scary because of additional results.

• 85 percent of consumers said they are willing to retry a mobile Web site two times or less if it does not work initially
• More than half are unlikely to return to a Web site that they had trouble accessing from their phone
• 40 percent said they’d likely visit a competitor’s mobile Web site instead

The lesson here is that businesses need to place the performance of their mobile Web site at the top of their priority lists to avoid this discontent and capitalize on the mobile opportunity.

This is a guest post by Jamie Flinchbaugh.

I’ve met a number of people who want to start businesses but have been clawing away at the same idea for many years without progress. I’ve met just as many people who have great ideas but never bring them to fruition. These folks are stuck because they don’t approach idea management the right way. Idea management is a discipline that every entrepreneur, present and future, should master.

Here’s how I handle the process. As I generate ideas, either randomly or through brainstorming, I use a spreadsheet to track them. This includes the idea, status, next steps, required financial or time investment, and current or potential partners. When I have an idea, I don’t judge it nor do I start to work on it. I simply add it to the spreadsheet. This gets it out of my head so I can manage it rather than be distracted by it. I keep this spreadsheet updated continuously, color coding the ideas I discard, those I turn into something, and those that have simply stalled.

Why is such a list important? First, the organization of your ideas can be used for further idea generation. If you’ve tracked five ideas but then decided against them, that’s OK because your brain can potentially use those bad ideas to trigger the generation of good ones. The more ideas you generate, the more your brainstorming skills and habits will grow.

Second, and more importantly, the spreadsheet will help you better analyze the viability of your ideas. Too many people fall in love with the first idea they have because it’s their only idea. The list helps you to think more critically than that. It enables you to say no to the wrong ideas so that when the right ideas come along you can say yes with conviction.

Idea management is critical to the development of your business. Businesses thrive off ideas, but if your ideas don’t go anywhere your business won’t go anywhere either.

Jamie Flinchbaugh is an executive coach, consultant and entrepreneur. You can follow more of Jamie’s writing at www.jamieflinchbaugh.com.

Promoting the right person is important to the well-being of your company. So before you start moving an employee in to his or her new position, look at how the employee would handle the transition. Moving from co-worker to boss isn’t easy for everyone.  In fact, many people simply can’t handle it, so make sure that candidates would be able to lead objectively.

Some people are natural-born brainstormers, and some people are not. If you’re one of those who are not, I know how you feel. It can be tough. Luckily I have some tips that have been given to me over the years to make for more productive brainstorming.

1. Start by throwing out the craziest, most far-fetched ideas. They may not be as crazy as you think.
2. Talk your business issues through with people who know little or nothing about your business. You’ll get a fresh perspective.
3. When brainstorming with others, emphasize the notion that no idea is a bad idea.
4. Try Googling random/weird words or phrases that may only be slightly relevant. It will help get the juices flowing.
5. If you’re stuck in the middle of a brainstorming session, walk away and do something completely unrelated. It will allow you to free your mind and come back refreshed.
6. Don’t just stop when you think you’ve come up with the right idea/solution. Keep going until you’ve exhausted every avenue. The best may be yet to come.
7. Don’t worry about evaluating a single idea until later. Brainstorming time is just for throwing out ideas.

Have a great weekend!

The microlending site Kiva.org is known for helping entrepreneurs in developing countries get financing to start and run their small enterprises.

How it works is entrepreneurs-in-need create profiles of themselves and their struggling businesses. Then Internet users can choose to provide small loans of $25 or more to these entrepreneurs who are located in nearly 50 impoverished nations across the globe.

With the recent lending issues facing small businesses in the United States, San Francisco-based Kiva has decided to open its services to struggling entrepreneurs in its own backyard.

Premal Shah, president of Kiva, believes that small businesses are a real growth-driver for the U.S. economy and wants to help them.

“Even before the credit crunch, small business loans were hard,” Shah said in an interview with National Public Radio. “Post credit crunch it’s really, really hard. So, Kiva started thinking, ‘Wow, we’re allowing people in the developing world to request loans, why not un-crunch America and allow people here in the U.S. to request loans and see if the Internet community wants to fund them.’”

The thing to remember should you be interested in looking for financing through Kiva.org is that this is a microlending site, meaning if you need hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn your dream into reality, you’re not likely to receive that kind of funding. Kiva users typically ask for/receive between a few hundred dollars and several thousand.