Here is a roundup of important small business tips to start out your week on the right track. We’ve tried to collect some of the best resources to get you started but we’d love to hear from readers as well, so if you’ve got some tips or advice to add, please, as always, leave them in the comment section below. Enjoy!
Legal
Legal tips for your small business. From Jeffrey Fabian of Fabian LLC, serving small business and legal professionals, here are a collection of legal issues every small business must look out for. Consulting on legal matters with an attorney can be another important step, but remember that legal issues of all kinds come with the territory in small business, so be prepared. 365 Days of Startups
Ideas for maintaining your professional image. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, your online reputation is becoming more important every day. So what does a Google search say about you? If you don’t know yet, you should find out. Reputation has always been an important commodity in the business world. The Internet has made it more important than ever. Beware! Startup Professionals Musings
Customer Service
Tips for creating a more appealing product or service. You may think you’re giving your customers choices, but, in reality, you’re only handing them indecision. And perhaps an invitation to do nothing? Here’s an alternative. Give them a step-by-step on how to use your product. Tell them what to do and how to do it. And don’t worry if it doesn’t fit every customer’s needs. They’ll create the fit that’s right for them. Chris Brogan
Marketing
How to set yourself apart from competitors. Saying you’re better than your competitors just isn’t good enough (even if it’s true.) The question is what you can offer customers that is different from any one else in the market. Create a service no one else provides in exactly the same way, and you’ll have a marketing strategy that can work in the long run. Duct Tape Marketing
How to use “help marketing” to strengthen your business and brand. You can call this PR instead of marketing if you like, but no matter what you call it, it may be the best thing for your brand and business, if you do it right. Helping others including your customers is really what your business should be about anyway. So don’t be afraid to show your willingness to extend a helping hand. TechLunatic
Startup
How to seek help from business accelerators. Efforts to get new businesses up and running have increased in recent years and business accelerators in various forms are spreading across the country, according to this piece on the trend. Often these organizations offer “more help than funding” but can still be an important resource depending upon the nature of your startup. Bloomberg Businessweek
Taxes
How to prepare for tax compliance expenses in your small business. Ballooning tax regulations are a huge source of expense for small businesses, especially here in the U.S. It’s important for small business owners to consider the expenses related to tax compliance, since this is likely to be an ongoing burden for small business owners into the foreseeable future. WSJ
Last minute tips for last minute tax filers. If you’re doing your small business tax filings on your own, here are some last minute tips you may want to consider ranging from how to file an extension to how long to keep your tax records and more. If you want some last minute advice as the tax deadline closes in, why not take a few minutes and watch the video? BostoneHerald.com
Self-development
A new persription for stress and overwork: relax! Small business owners and entrepreneurs, like everyone else, experience burnout at times and can easily become overwhelmed with work. After all, when the final responsibility for everything falls upon you, there’s no one else to turn to. But experts now suggest that taking those breaks when necessary can be absolutely essential. Here’s more. The Globe And Mail
Tech
Tips for keeping your business technology up and running. Keeping your business technology alive and kicking is not just a luxury in today’s small business world. It is an absolute and vital necessity! So tips on keeping the critical tools you use to operate your business and serve your customers should always be a priority. Here are some tips you won’t want to forget. Jackrabbit.com Blog
From Small Business TrendsSmall Business News: Best Small Biz Tips Today
A 75-year-old woman was recently arrested by the Georgian police after she single-handedly cut off Internet connections in Georgia and neighbouring Armenia.
AFP reports that the pensioner was digging for scrap metal with the intention of stealing it when she stumbled upon a fibre-optic cable which runs through Georgia to Armenia, forcing thousands of Internet users in both countries to lose Internet connection for several hours. Georgian Railway Telecom, the company that owns the cable, said that the latest damage was serious, causing 90 percent of private and corporate Internet users in Armenia to lose access for nearly 12 hours while also hitting Georgian Internet service providers.
“I cannot understand how this lady managed to find and damage the cable. It has robust protection and such incidents are extremely rare,” Giorgi Ionatamishvili, Georgian Railway Telecom’s marketing head, told AFP.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time it happened. In 2009, another scavenger damaged a fibre-optic cable while hunting for scrap metal in the impoverished ex-Soviet state, forcing many Georgians’ Internet connections to get interrupted.
The woman has been charged with damaging property and could face up to three years in prison if convicted.
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Sources: Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers fined $75,000 each
Lakers coach Phil Jackson has been fined $75,000 for making unauthorized comments about collective bargaining, sources said Thursday.
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NBC <b>News</b>, CNBC, MSNBC All Particpating in NBCU's 2011 'Earth Week <b>...</b>
The networks of NBC Universal, including CNBC, MSNBC and NBC News, are all lining up green-themed programming for the 2011 installment of the company's Green is Universal “Earth Week” April 17-24. On “Today” Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda ...
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Great <b>news</b>: Working population percentage drops to three-decade <b>...</b>
Great news: Working population percentage drops to three-decade low.
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China is a notoriously tough market for American brands. The last few years has seen tech giants like Google struggle to do business due to restrictive censorship and retail giants like Best Buy and Home Depot have found that heavy price competition makes it hard to gain a toehold. Yet, despite the conventional wisdom, Apple’s business in China is booming and it’s not lower prices but better presentation that’s driving their success.
The Chinese economy is having some of its best years ever due to the rising world demand for consumer electronics, much of which is manufactured in China’s city-sized factories. The Mercury News reports that this has led to the average Chinese citizen being more flush with cash than ever before and ready to spend it on what would previously be deemed as unaffordable luxury.
Paul French of Shanghai-based Access Asia indicates that the increase in middle class affluence is behind the increase in purchasing power. “There is now enough of an urban middle class with enough money to afford Apple products. Five years ago — or even two or three years ago — there weren’t enough of those people.”
Five years ago, Apple didn’t have a retail store in China, now it has four, including a stunning split-level glass and metal flagship store in Sanlitun, an area of Beijing known more for its nightlife than its retail outlets. Those stores aren’t barely surviving either, with $2.6 billion in revenue this year, four times what we saw last year from Apple in China. This should mean that Apple is fighting the price war well in China, offering its products for less than they can be purchased in the US, but that’s not actually true. In fact, Apple sells a comparatively specced 13-inch Macbook Air for $180 more in China than it does stateside.
This success seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom, typically premium products have not sold well in cost conscious China. Some, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, say that Apple will have to eventually compete on price or risk losing the Chinese consumer. “The iPhone is going to be huge in China. That’s a given.” he tells the Mercury News. “But if Apple wants it to flow out across China, it has to come up with lower price points.”
Yet Apple shows no signs of slowing down in the Chinese market, which is projected to account for 10 percent of Apple’s revenue within 5 years.
When asked, locals said that in a country where the people like to try products out before they purchase them, Apple is doing the best job of presenting those products. Apple’s retail stores offer the Chinese consumer a chance to test the products in a beautiful and visually stimulating atmosphere and those efforts are paying off with big sales numbers. This kind of attention to the senses and emotions of the consumer wasn’t pioneered by Apple of course, but they are one of the first major companies to bring that kind of experience to China’s city centers in a big way.
This difference in the way that the products are presented is doing its job in separating Apple’s products from the rest of the pack almost everywhere that its retail stores are located, but nowhere is that effect felt more than in China. A country where consumers are hungry for polished products presented in a stimulating atmosphere and they finally have the cash to afford them.
As rumors of a later-than-usual iPhone launch for 2011 persist, a new report reveals that the notoriously secretive Apple is being even more careful than usual when dealing with overseas suppliers.
"Apple is keeping its iPhone 5 cards extra close to the vest on this launch to avoid a falloff in iPhone 4 demand ahead of a refresh, especially given the February launch of the CDMA iPhone 4 with Verizon," Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities said in a note to investors on Friday. He believes that the iPhone 5 could still launch in June or July, as previous models have.
White noted that various rumors have pointed toward a launch later than June this year for the fifth-generation iPhone. One report from March alleged that Apple has not even begun ordering components for the anticipated "iPhone 5," and the device is slated to arrive in the company's 2012 fiscal year, which begins in late September.
And a third report alleged that Apple is working on a major revamp of iOS, its mobile operating system, for version 5.0. New features like cloud-based storage of music, photos and video are rumored to arrive in the update this fall, likely alongside new iPhone hardware.
But despite all of those reports, White isn't yet convinced that the iPhone 5 will be introduced later than its typical June or July timeframe.
"Although we do not have a smoking gun that definitively rules out a delayed autumn unveiling or one that supports a launch this summer, there is a pattern of activity in motion with the supply chain that makes us question a delayed launch," he said.
White also cited sources who indicated that iPad sales could reach up to 40 million units in calendar year 2011. And supply chain sources also indicated that disruption from the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan will actually end up benefitting Apple, as suppliers will "rush to support Apple at the expense of competitors."
The analyst already revealed earlier this week that Apple has been offering upfront cash payments to component suppliers in order to secure components in the wake of the disaster in Japan. Apple has apparently also been using a "three cover guarantee," referring to capacity, stock and price, to block out competitors and prevent them from building ample supply of devices.
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During today’s Google earnings call, one analyst asked for some color on Google’s mobile business. CFO Patrick Pichette didn’t give much more in terms of specifics, but he did offer up some color. “Without any radical effort, we already announced at end of Q3 this is a $1 billion run-rate business,” says Pichette. Mobile is “growing at an amazing blazingly pace,” he says. “We tripped into $1 billion.”
Mobile search is definitely something Google is keenly focussed on. Senior VP of Local Jeff Huber noted on the call: ” In terms of where it trends over time, the smartphone is becoming an extension of the person, and how they do everything.”
Google is tackling that opportunity with mobile search obviously, but also with Android, which comes with Google search built-in as the default. Google is seeing 350,000 Android devices being activated a day.
Asked whether Google would have to build out a local salesforce with feet on the ground to take advantage of the new mobile and local advertising opportunities, sales chief Nikesh Arora didn’t rule out any possibilities. “we will use a combination of existing sales teams and methods and others that might be required,” he responded. Sounds like Google is picking itself up and going after the next billion dollars or two in mobile search.
Photo credit: Flickr/ Jeffrey Beall
Google reported solid quarterly earnings this afternoon, but EPS was slightly below expectations and expenses were high.
The expenses were apparently cause for investor concern, and shares have dropped more than 5% after hours.
In particular, cap ex spend was $890 million. Google explained most of that was related to the purchase of new buildings in Dublin and Paris.
Operating expenses were also up thanks in large part to the 10% one-time salary raise, which kicked in this quarter.
In a Q&A with investors during the earnings call, several analysts wondered if this level of expenditure is the only way Google can continue to grow revenue more than 20%. Execs tried to reassure them that Google is measuring and paying very close attention to the expense side of the equation.
The basics:
Gross Revenue of $8.58 billion was slightly better than expected and rose a strong 27% year over year.
Net Revenue of $6.54 billion slightly better than expected.
Adjusted EPS of $8.08 is slightly--slightly--below expectations of $8.13. Revenue was strong, so the key will be whether the earnings miss is the result of lower margins (bad) or, say, a higher tax rate (irrelevant).
Paid clicks growth was better than expected at 18% year over year (vs 15%-17% expectation). This is Google's key revenue unit, and better-than-expected unit growth is positive.
Revenue per click increased 8% year over year, at the high end of expectations.
Free cash flow was a solid $2.2 billion. Cash flow from operations was spectacular--$3.2 billion--but the company spent an astronomical $890 million on capital expenditures, much more than expected. (What on earth are they spending all this money on?)
Product highlights: Android is getting 350,000 activations per day. Chrome now has 120 million users -- that means 120 million people who are more likely to be "locked in" to Google services. YouTube revenue is doubling every year, but still no concrete numbers to share.
Bottom line, Google remains robustly healthy. 27% year over year revenue growth in a company this size is extremely impressive, and the core search business is humming along. The high capital expenditures are a question and concern--it will be interesting to hear what the company says about them on the call.
Here are some slides from the deck Google used on its earnings call. Scroll past them for our live blog of the call itself.
You've got to love 27% growth from such an enormous base.
Traffic acquisition costs are looking good as well:
But this is what investors are worried about -- costs rising as a percentage of revenue, particularly R&D and sales and marketing. A lot of that is salary-related:
Here's another way of looking at it: operating margins are getting lower:
Here are our notes from the call:
4:27 ET: We're waiting for the call to start. We'll see if Larry Page jumps on, since he just took over as CEO last week. He's reportedly investor and press shy, so we'll be curious to see how he performs.
One slightly curious note: the call isn't being broadcast on YouTube as it has in the past.
4:31: Larry will join at the beginning of the call. It's also Patrick Pichette, CFO. Two of the new senior VPs are on board as well -- Susan Wojcikci (advertising), Jeff Huber (local and commerce). Plus Nikesh Arora, the chief business officer, who's been on past calls.
4:33: Page notes 27% revenue growth. Tremendous improvements still ahead. Now he's talking management changes.
"Everything we told you last quarter has happened." He's managing day to day operations as CEO. Eric Schmidt is on government and partner outreaches -- last quarter he was in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, and Spain. Sergey working "very intensively" on a few projects.
4:34: Also made changes to simplify their org structure. He's thanking Jonathan Rosenberg, who's been on most of these past calls.
That's about it. Now it's on to Pichette.
4:35: Expenses show the 10% across the board raise for the first time.
Gross revenue up 27%, $8.6B. It actually rose 2% quarter to quarter -- and last year Google had the Nexus One goosing revenue. Plus this year the disaster in Japan.
Google Network revenue up 19%. Negatively impacted by loss of search distribution deal, plus search quality improvement -- spam control. It always serves us well.
Other revenue was down 10% year over year to $269 million. That's mostly Google Apps and Enterprise Search, a very small business.
Aggregate click growth up 18% year to year, and 4% from last quarter. The shift from offline to online is driving that.
4:40: International revenue was 53% of total.
TAC was 25% of total revenue, $2.2B.
Overall opex totaled $2.8m, including stock-based compensation.
Opex increase is primarily payroll, some advertising.
Op margin 37.6%
Headcount up 1,900 during the quarter. total 26,316 employees.
Capex is facilities, data centers. Facilities driven by purchases of buildings in Dublin and Paris. Capex is "lumpy from quarter to quarter" depending on when it wants to make capex investments.
4:43. Boasting about Android, fastest growing mobile OS, and Chrome, fastest growing browser. Pushed frontier of mobile search which is adding to overall search volume. YouTube "win win" platform for content owners and users.
Second half of 2010, grew 25% year to year. This quarter 27%. Compared to comp of 23% a year ago. "We are building multibillion dollar businesses" and confident now is the time to invest. Discipline.
4:45: Local and commerce SVP Jeff Huber.
Ambitious hiring this quarter by design. 2011 will be biggest hiring in history, hired 1,900 this quarter. Core and growing businesses are doing well, so "who wouldn't want to invest in this business." Over half the "Nooglers" who joined will be in new areas like YouTube, Chrome, Enterprise.
Search: improving quality. Launched over 90 quality improvements, including changes to ranking algorithms. Impacted about 12% of queries, and addressed over 80% of sites that users reported.
Had adverse affect on revenues on SOME SITES in Display network. But improving search is always the best thing to do in the long run.
Personal, as in building around people. Launched the +1 button, easier to share results. "This is just the beginning" more personal search coming soon.
Mobile traffic up 500%+ over last two years.
350,000 Android devices activated per day. Recently launched in-app billing.
Chrome: users "very valuable". Investing in Chrome marketing. Now more than 120m daily users, more than 40% added in last year.
Chrome OS "also going well" and look forward to launching devices later this year.
Enterprise: growing across businesses and schools. New deals, reseller agreements. University of Texas, Boston U.
Pleased our ITA deal closed, travel search lots of room for innovation there.
Huber is now thanking Jonathan Rosenberg as well. "Friends and colleagues for over 15 years. He will be missed"
4:49: Now it's Susan Wojcicki.
Lots to be excited about in ads. Search is still core, but big oppty for growth.
"How can we search the perfect ad for every query?" New creative types, new ways for advertisers to set up campaigns. Product Listing Ads, introduced Q4 last year.
Display advertising: bought DoubleClick 3 years ago, lot of integration, lot of progress. Display Network up 5x since acquisition, doubling annually in Brazil, UK, and Japan.
Display advertisers either performance oriented (conversions) and brand oriented (awareness). Launched new stuff for brand advertisers, like Display Ad Network Reserve -- buy premium inventory on a guaranteed basis. Also tools to measure effectiveness of campaigns -- not just clicks.
Ad Exchange -- transaction volume has tripled in past year, 2/3ds of that inventory bought via real-time bidding.
YouTube: revenue doubling year over year, shared with more than 20k content partners. The more money we make for them, the more engaging stuff they upload.
AdMob: over 150 million iOS and Android devices, up 50% in last four months.
Advertisers starting to run mobile-only campaigns. Incorporating local -- how far are you standing away from the advertiser's location right now?
4:55: Pichette taking over again for Q&A.
Q: Opex up 45% year over year excluding traffic acquisition cost. Is this kind of spending required to retain 20%+ revenue growth? Or one-off?
A. Clearly the effect of the one-time salary change. Salary increase flows through to other stuff like 401(k) and vacation, so disproportionately felt in first quarter. "Nooglers" as well. One-time step change in labor, but after that regular.
Marketing has increased since last year because it's providing great returns. Both customer acquisition and key products like Chrome.
Still disciplined: quarterly reviews to get your next funding.
Q. What about marketing costs? What's going on?
A. Professional services. Chrome -- really pushing the web. When they get Chrome, instead of having to look for Google, they get it. It's there already. "Everybody who uses Chrome is a guaranteed locked-in user of Google."
Q. How does Larry view the company differently than it was?
A. Position hasn't changed. We're a tech company, focused on users, looking for products that can affect billions of people. Computer science helping find problems for billions of people.
If you think that way, Chrome, Android, search all make sense. The 70/20/10 is very alive. "Search is the next billion dollar business." 90 improvements on one side, 40 on the other -- search still in our infancy. Mobile, display, enterprise.
10% is commerce, social, stuff that's nascent. Strategy same core lenses, same products that serve billions of people.
Q. But financially? Any meaningful difference?
A. No. Build great products, same financial discipline.
Q. More about opex. Customer acquisition in Chrome, salespeople. Do you think your 20%+ growth rate would be achievable without these costs? Will you still get the growth without the costs?
A. Strategy in context of last 4 to 5 quarters. Trajectory of revenue growth, 23%, 25%, 27%. We're funding revenue growth with discipline. "Carpe diem, it's there to take."
Q. Imagine display is $20B based on various figures. Right now you're at 10% or so. How big can that be? And as display gets bigger, how does that affect margins?
A. Search unique with very very high margins. Display more paperwork. But still very good margin product. "All of those dollars I want." Plus great "symbiotic" relationship -- display ads now showing up in search.
Could say that display was stalled at $50 to $60B because video wasn't there. YouTube helps reach 23 to 24% more consumers. Efficiency of Web applied to video. All efforts trying to build that display, rich media and video. Every profitable dollar of revenue is good.
Q. What about social data? You don't run social network. Do you need it for search?
A. Jeff Huber -- it's important, we use 200+ signals for ranking search today. It's one of many inputs. Assets that apply to that, we do have large number of users coming to our door every day. Considerable percentage logged in, using multiple products.
Pichette: launch of +1 is commitment to get every signal. Continued focus on social as one of 200 signals.
Q. Does Chrome give you any signals you can integrate into search results?
A. Huber -- will be part of story over time, personalized today. Chrome experience, can sign into Chrome, will sync info across computers.
Q. Where are those bold steps to control expenses? We don't see it. And is social really just one of 200 variables?
A. On expenses, you see ramp-up on one side. Guarantee you everybody who has cost center has to demonstrate productivity. Data center, incredibly steep. Sales force. We always think of cost per x. Cost per bit for data centers. Even food, everybody has productivity curve.
Google is growing 25% year over year from a $25B base. Tide coming with it, but every element of the company is "scrubbed and scrutinized." The unit costs haunt many of my managers.
Huber now on social: one of many signals. We regularly measure and tune.
Pichette again: expenses, we really want to lay the ground clear on these issues.
Q. Search algo changes -- how does that affect search ads and cost per click? And what's driving display ad revenue growth -- ad units or more targeting?
A. Huber: 12% of queries affected. Was Web search only, not ads. NO effect on CPC. Did affect display network, but focus is on user experience.
Wojcicki: Can buy audiences, target more effectively. It's both. End to end platform to enable buying across the Internet for all advertisers and all publishers.
Pichette: Some properties tuned to display like YouTube, but entire Web is more powerful than any single prop.
Q. What about tablet share -- is it as important as smartphone share?
A. Jeff Huber: tablets doing well, lot of growth in that segment. Dynamics -- hybrid between mobile and desktop when you look at user behavior. Optimistic about Honeycomb. Xoom was product of the show at CES in January. More products, more innovation.
Enable advertisers to target tablets, which will help that segment.
Q. Employee bonuses and social -- define success?
A. This is an internal matter. We focus a strategy across many platforms, we wanted to signal to employees that social is an important signal and worth investing. No further comment.
Q. Search important, but engagement might be more important. Have you looked at 70/20/10 and think about shifting to build greater engagement? Look at how other products and services can be integrated in?
A. Web in general, how platforms are growing, we're focusing in areas where engagement matters. Local, mobile, YouTube, all about engagement. Mobile, Chrome. Technology fuels engagement. At highest level, search itself is more engaged today than it was 3 years ago. It's part of our strategy.
Q. Engagement through frequency rather than share of time.
A. When you are in YouTube, you're spending more time in YouTube. Android phone, now visiting and in town, additional signals sharing with friends etc.
Q. Does Chrome give you potential to create unique products, apps, content services?
A. Huber: great opportunities in that. Chrome Web Store -- same model as Android Market, bringing it to that platform.
Q. How much is a mobile user worth today, and how do you think about larger acquisitions?
A. Can't answer about mobile user. Look at our focus, we're very excited about mobile. Great potential there. Monetization side -- click to call ads. Locally targeted ads, ability to engage users where they are. Smartphone will be way people do everything -- inform, entertain. It will merge.
Q. Do you think value can go up order of magnitude in 3 years?
A. Wojcicki: very early in what mobile can do. Will grow overall opportunity, overall pie.
Nobody is going to say a substantive thing about acquisitions.
We haven't found big one that will significantly accelerate our growth. We have a really focused agenda, don't want massive distraction. Google is a specific culture --- big acquisition must be both financially sensible and cultural fit. "That's a pretty high bar to pass."
Q. Non cost-per-click ads -- what kind of growth are you seeing? And does Google have a video strategy outside of user-generated content?
A. We have new people on board with YouTube to expand beyond user-generated.
Huber: user-generated is huge. But we're interested in "long-form premium content," another area is developing content of, by, and for new medium being created. Next New Networks acquisition was there.
Wojcicki: we're allowing advertiser to bid with CPA (cost per action) then Google figures out CPC (per click) in background. Also CPM (per impression). Depends on whether advertisers are more performance or ad-driven. As we introduce new kinds of ads for brand advertising, CPM will become a bigger deal.
Q. How bad was Japan? You also said 350k Android activations per day -- can you give breakdown smartphone v tablet and US v international?
A. Our first response to the events was to help the Japanese community. People finding people and disaster recovery. Focus on community, not optimizing revenue.
Tons of searches, by the way, but not monetizable searches. Japan is great market for us. Historically they bounce back fast. We can't predict how will rebound on advertising, but it's a 1st world economy that will recover.
Huber: Android. Not going to answer the question. But we have strong partnerships in Europe, Japan, Korea, and international is growing. Android is relatively early on in tablets, Honeycomb just came out. Big innovations coming.
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Great <b>news</b>: Working population percentage drops to three-decade <b>...</b>
Great news: Working population percentage drops to three-decade low.
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Resident Evil Mercenaries VS. hits iOS <b>News</b> - iPhone - Page 1 <b>...</b>
Read our iPhone news of Resident Evil Mercenaries VS. hits iOS.
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