Job Creation and Small Businesses Blog

This new reality show is pretty informative about the world of business start-ups. This is a great show, because entrepreneurship is now prominently on TV and quite entertaining! It is also a good opportunity to see how investors and entrepreneurs think. Mind you, not all investors think in such a greedy manner as certain of the sharks on this program, but entrepreneurs need to realize that they are not doing a favor to investors when they present their projects to them for financing. There are many good projects everywhere. Investors have one goal: making money. Some choose to invest in small businesses to help the community, but they still want to make money. It should be known that investors are mostly interested in investment with a high yield, i.e. ventures that will make money fast and at a higher rate than what they would get at the bank. Investing in a business is always a gamble, but the level of risk has to be acceptable. What is interesting with this program is that it shows first hand how investors think and is very representative of how entrepreneurs think. In my next blog, I will discuss the myths brought on the show by entrepreneurs and that are common to most new entrepreneurs.

Need help to start a business? Visit www.WhizVentures.com and look at the excellent, easy to follow start-up books available on the site.

It has been another busy week and has been a while since I wrote a blog, but many things have been happening!

Newsletter

We have launched a newsletter. When you register, you receive our free e-Book: 10 Steps to Creating Your Dream Job by Starting a Business. This FREE 38 page (748K PDF file) e-book explains what starting a business means in all areas of your life. You will know what to expect and how to go about it with a step-by-step method that is easy to follow. To get your free copy, got to http://www.whizventures.com/ebook.html

Radio Shows & Entrepreneur Showcase

We have also started a series of interviews of young entrepreneurs on BlogTalkRadio. Our first guest was Ben Weissenstein of Grand Slam Garage. Ben started a lemonade stand at 4, then started his current business, Grand Slam Garage, at 14 and he has added a few more businesses to his repertoire. Follow the story and listen to the interviews at http://www.whizventures.com/showcase.html

Think Tank

If you want your jaw to hit the floor, take a few seconds to check out the evolution of employment since 2004 and see how acute the problem has gotten in 2008-2009. This little animation is short and well worth it. http://tipstrategies.com/archive/geography-of-jobs/

After seeing that, what are we supposed to think? Isn’t it difficult to figure out what is going on in this economy? Is it getting better or worse? Is it wise to start a business now? Are things going to get back to how they were before the recession? How can we make sense of all of this?

To answer these questions and more, we have set up a special Think Tank of very perceptive people, to help us navigate these tumultuous waters. No, things are not going to get back to where they were before, but there is hope at the end of the tunnel. To learn more about what our Think Tank foresees and recommends, see http://www.whizventures.com/thinktank.html

Eggs All Over Your Business…

We have started a system to recognizing and acknowledge excellent customer service. In this day and age, customer service is not always what it should be, so good service is worth noting.

Have you noticed the 3 golden eggs appearing besides our banner at the top of our WhizVentures.com Web site? Those are the golden eggs used in our grading system. This time, eggs all over your business is really good!

And Now the Eggs Go To…

This week I had 2 very positive customer service experiences with 2 of my suppliers. First, after updating my Flock browser, I encountered a little technical glitch. Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a real person within a few hours of submitting my problem! The problem was rapidly resolved, even if it took several e-mails back and forth. I received answers quickly and the problem was solved.

Three eggs to Flock!

Second positive experience: with my Web hosting supplier, 1&1.com. I called the customer service and got a real person on the line fast and the problem was solved and everything was explained very clearly.

Three eggs to 1&1 as well!

By the way, customer service is one of the recommendations from our Think Tank. And 1&1.com has a special going on right now, if you need very affordable Web hosting. They offer you the first 3 months of hosting for free. Check it out at http://www.whizventures.com/web.html

Of Other Scams…

This week, I have been notified twice that I had won several million dollars in an e-mail lottery. All I need to do now is to give them all my personal information in order to collect my prize. Right! I just hope none of you are getting caught by this! If you want to watch a free tutorial on how to recognize a fraudulent e-mail, go to WhizVentures.com’s Business Tutorials

Many people would like you to believe that there are miracle recipes and want to let you know about them provided that you fork out many hundreds if not thousands of dollars. The trick is to sell you information that you can find for free on the Web for $50, $100, $1,000 and up to $3,000. That is a good business to be in, provided that you have no conscience and do not mind taking advantage of people who are already down on their luck…

At the moment, very few people have a clue of what is really going only , and the few who do have only a partial idea because things are relentlessly moving and nothing is stable. If you want to get an insight and try to understand the situation in order to position yourself for what is coming in the next months and years, read what our Think Tank has to say… (See the Think Tank link above.) And remember that scams take many shapes and forms, and some really look legitimate. To read and learn more about scams, go to http://www.whizventures.com/scams.html

One of my businesses is offering translation services. With the current state of the economy, doing business with small and medium businesses can be difficult because many of these businesses finance part of their operations by delaying payments to their suppliers. This is not an acceptable practice but, unfortunately, it happens more often than not especially when you, as a small supplier, have to deal with one person for the work, and with another (the accountant) for the payment.

When a regular client starts delaying your payments, you have to make a decision: tough it out and wait for long periods before being paid (if you do so, chances are that this trend will remain for good), or try to diplomatically rectify the situation in order to get your payments more promptly. This usually starts with polite inquiries with the people responsible for the payment.

If you contact the client in order to be paid faster, you may encounter one of the following situations:

1.    The client cooperates and expedites your payment (unlikely but lucky you if it happens!).
2.    You have to contact the client several times and tables start to turn on you, as you become the perceived “harasser” (not a pleasant feeling). You will most likely be given a vague time for the payment, or you are given dates that are not met. After many phone calls and notices, you finally get a late payment or you are not told when the payment is going to be made and you still get it late. (Not pleasant either!).
3.    You deal with an accountant who reigns on the business finances and gives you no cooperation whatsoever and tells you that you simply will be paid at the end of the month (and they don’t necessarily mean the current month).
4.    You aggravate the client and he/she decides to do business with someone else.
5.    You find a diplomatic way to solve the problem and have to do it all over again every time you deliver the work.
6.    You find a diplomatic way to solve the problem once and for all.

Personally, I tend to favor the last option. Here is how I did it recently, when one of my good clients started delaying several payments. After a few invoices were paid more than 2 months after the delivery of the work (and I have to add an additional delay for the bank to clear the check), I decided to send out a little note to my client (not the accountant) that read as follows:

“Dear (name withheld),

I just need to let you know that I have to adjust my work schedule to ensure a timely revenue stream.

Since I know that your company will pay me for my work only in two months, if that is okay with you, I will schedule the larger document that I currently have on hand to translate for later this month. I am sure that you understand that no landlord or supermarket is giving me that kind of deferral, and I have to make sure to survive in this tough economy.

If that does not suit your timeline, please let me know as soon as possible, so I can make the necessary adjustments to my schedule.

Thank you and best regards…”

The result was that I received notice the very next day that new arrangements were taken and I could receive Paypal payments instead of checks. I did not have to contact the client: the client contacted me. Where before they were sending checks 2 months later, the payment is now made with PayPal on the day following my delivery of the work.

Always remember that you deserve a prompt payment for the high-quality work that you deliver promptly. This is to underline the importance of diplomacy and doing business with the right person. Being an entrepreneur means being solution-oriented and creative in all areas!

This BLOG is originally published by Danielle Vallee at http://blog.whizventures.com

Job Creation and Small Business Blog by Danielle Vallee at www.WhizVentures.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at blog.whizventures.com.

I do not know if any of my messages to the White House, through the special Web site for change that President Obama set up from early on, had an influence on yesterday’s announcement on the government setting up a program to help small businesses, but the main thing is that someone finally noticed!

Even though they are called “small businesses”, there is nothing small about them. My previous posts and available statistics demonstrate clearly that small businesses are the engine of the economy. The President’s message reiterated that 99.7% of all businesses are small businesses, and 70% of all new jobs of the pas decade have been created by small businesses!

The financial help that has been announced was in the form of assistance to the secondary market. What this means is that it is going to free more funds to finance small ventures. However, this does not mean a free ticket for someone to improvise and try her hand at starting a business without being prepared. Anyone undertaking a new venture should be well prepared, and that is what the Whiz Biz in Changing Times is helping you with. But here is an overview of the most immediate action this plan should have.

At the moment, certain community banks provide financial assistance to small businesses in the form of loans. They have a certain amount of money at their disposal to do so. Once they have used up this fund, there is none left for any new loan.

A percentage of each loan is guaranteed by the government. What the bank does is bundle up that proportion of small loans (1) into a bigger bundle (2) that can then be sold to a larger financial institution (3).

This larger institution does not normally get involve with small loans, because there is not enough money to be made on them. You see, it is as much trouble doing the work for a $50,000 loan as it is for a $5,000,000 loan. But the profit is not the same. However, buying larger loans (2) does make sense for them and they do not mind that it is a bunch of smaller loans. This, in turn, frees money (4) for the community bank to offer more loans (5).

What the government wants to do is increase the guarantee and various conditions, so the community banks can sell a higher proportion of loans to the secondary market, freeing more funds to finance new small businesses. They also want to see a decrease in fees charged by banks for those loans and for other business services.

As President Obama said, making things easier for small entrepreneurs will allow more people to say “Why not me? Let me try!” And isn’t it uplifting to learn be told by the President of our country that we are limited only by our willingness to take a chance?

This BLOG is brought to you by www.WhizVentures.com and is originally published by Danielle Vallee at http://blog.whizventures.com