My brother is in the midst of selling booths for an annual tradeshow and he showed me the list of almost 700 businesses he works from. “See here” he said, pointing to the multi-colored spreadsheet on his screen. “The ones in red have gone out of business since last year’s show.”

Yikes! There were a LOT of them! Whether it’s the economy, the increased tax burden or they just ran out of oomph to fight the good fight, about 30% of his list is now out of business. Since – last – year!

I wouldn’t want that to happen to you! So, whether you need just a little bit of extra cash or a humongous amount more each month, here are a ton of ways businesses can make more money:

1. Sub-lease some space. Got some extra space you’re not using? Perhaps it’s a small office, an alcove or a closet. (Just kidding with that last one!) Maybe there’s space in your parking lot or out in the “back 40″.

2. Create a coupon booklet. You’ve seen those “Entertainment” booklets, right? Same concept. Find a whole group of friends who have businesses and agree with one another to extend a discount when customers mention your business name or bring in a coupon.

3. Cross-market with a related business. This doesn’t mean you need to sell, rent or even loan your customer list. You can each include coupons in mailings, set up displays in storefront locations, add links to websites, “interview” your marketing buddy for your next newsletter or blog, co-host a customer appreciation event (free food is a must!) or co-sponsor a youth sporting event or community fundraiser. You double your reach this way.

4. Teach what you know. Set up a teleclass or webinar account and hold monthly online classes. You’ll need a list of loyal fans, prospect or clients to invite to your classes, good word of mouth and a distribution method to promote your classes. Set your pricing based on the technical level of the topic.

5. Invite a vendor to hold classes at your place of business. It doesn’t have to be a perfect match with your business specialty; just make it related enough so it makes sense. For example: a car parts business could hold a “Tailgate Cook-off” during football season and a beauty shop could host a lingerie fashion show.

6. Set up an Amazon.com associates account. If you’re going to do book reviews on your blogs and websites, why not make it easy for your readers to purchase the books you recommend AND get a small check in return? Sure, you might prefer to promote your own books or products on your site, but readers get tired of people always hawking their own stuff. Offer some variety.

7. Create a fulfillment center. If you’ve got the space, an order management or shopping cart system and some spare time, you may be able to ship products for another small business. I spoke with a business owner the other day and they have just enough product sales each month to justify outsourcing it, but not enough to require a big fulfillment house. If only they could find someone they trust to do this for them!

8. Fire a client. Yup, you heard me! You know you’ve got one, maybe two, who drain your time and patience. Let them go and free yourself up to generate a more profitable use of your time. What, you don’t think you’ll be able to find a new client? I challenge you to do the math and figure out the hourly rate you’re making with that individual or organization. I’m sure you’ll be able to backfill and after a month or two will be much happier you did the deed! If you need additional help with this, stay tuned for next week’s post on “How to Fire a Client”.

9. Bundle a product or service. Combine related items into one package. Even if you don’t increase the price, you may find you clear slow-moving inventory more quickly. If you’re a service provider, add another service offering or bonus products (books, CD’s, a lint brush) to justify a higher price.

10. Ask for payment in full in advance. Cashflow is king, right? You’ll never know until your ask and if you give a small discount for cash payments or payment in full, in advance, many will jump at it. You don’t have to make it your only option – just make it an option, then make the offer.

11. Offer Cadillac and Chevy options. People like to have choices – not so many that it makes them crazy, but just enough wiggle room to get what they want and still feel like they’re in control. Always give people options and you may be surprised to learn they take the higher priced option as often as not!

12. Look for the waste. One of the first things most companies do when they face a cash crunch is cut a job, or two, or three. How about put those folks to work looking for ways to save money in other areas? Ask if they can come up with other ways to bring in added revenue. (Note: avoid the “or else” tone in your voice or you’ll scare ‘em silly and they’ll be no good to anyone)

13. Stop spending. (Hmmm, have we heard that somewhere else before recently?) I know the economy is in the tank and we’d like people to spend, spend, spend, but let’s face it, this is “pedal to the metal” time. If you’re going to stay in business, you might be able to give yourself some breathing space by doing a “line by line veto”. Set some parameters about what is a need vs a nice-to-have and bump it up against the monthly shopping list.

14. Follow up on leads. I know this sounds really, really dumb. I mean, doesn’t everybody? No – actually very few people follow up on leads. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve called a business establishment with the intention to buy and no one called me back. Most salespeople who come back from Tradeshows don’t follow up on leads.

15. Build products into your service business or services into your retail business. When I bought a Mac earlier this fall, I was upsold a series of training classes to help me become more efficient with my new Mac. “Of course you can pick it up on your own,” the salesman told me. “But chances are, it’s going to take you much longer to learn all the features and your time is valuable. We can help you get up that learning curve much faster and save you money in the long run.” And I fell for it. And do you think I’ve taken the time to go down there and sit through a class yet? Nope. (Although now that I’ve written about it, I’d better get on down there, eh?)

16. Shrink your mailing list. I just switched my email distribution system over to a new provider and had to ask subscribers to opt back in. The list management company is picky, picky, picky about taking on a clean list. I gnashed my teeth and growled when I realized I’d lose a good number of people who would not opt back in. But then it occurred to me – why would I want to keep mailing to a group of folks who aren’t interested? Why not focus my time on a small group of “fans”, spend less for list management (I pay them by the number of subscribers) and avoid “carrying” people who are basically just taking up space? When you cull your list, you can do it via phone to test someone’s interest and you just never know, the personal contact might generate some new interest!

17. Stop responding to bid requests. How much time do YOU spend submitting bids on projects where you know (admit it – you KNOW!) you are the third bid required to fulfill a purchasing policy? Can’t you tell in their voice when they call? Haven’t you been around the block long enough to know that rarely do those inquiries come through with paying business? So, let’s either draft up a template for “those calls” and ship it back with the click of a keystroke OR make a business decision to opt out. Yup, you may miss out on the occasional serious buyer who just sounds like a tire kicker. (Usually the “Ummm, what is your fee?” question in the first 5 seconds is a dead giveaway) Go through your folder of “Inquiries” and see how many of them turned into actual business. I can tell you what I’ve found after going through that folder!

18. Sell it. Is it time to go back to a “real” job? Are you ready to let your spouse do their thing for a while? How about closing it down, taking a break and starting something new? There are lots of options out there – lots of new opportunities. Avoid getting yourself stuck in a rut and waking up one day wondering why you didn’t chuck it five years earlier. I know most of us just don’t want to give up, but there’s no shame in making a different choice. Perhaps you have more information now than you did before. Perhaps you’re not so optimistic that taxes will actually go down and would rather not run the risk of watching it dwindle away.

This is where my lawyer tells me I’m supposed to insert the “…consult your legal adviser before making any decisions with tax implications” message!

19. Get hundreds more tips in this book by Janet Switzer.

While I did succumb to one of those well choreographed book selling campaigns on the Internet, I have found her book very useful. And in the interest of full disclosure, this link is hooked to my Amazon Associates account, so thank you in advance if you decide to purchase Instant Income: Strategies That Bring in the Cash. I believe in following my own advice!

20. Your ideas go here: please share your suggestions with the rest of us. Got any scathingly brilliant ideas that have worked for you or someone you know? Please tell us about them in the comments section.

And thanks again for participating! The more we all stick together, the better off we’ll all be!

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Did you know you can promote your club, cause, church, council, event or business by blogging?

In a previous article on How to Start a Business Blog, I discussed 11 how-to tips which people felt were pretty helpful. But on my How to Blog webinar yesterday, we covered more tips you also deserve to know! For instance:

Blogging isn’t just for business anymore! It’s now being used by pastors, book clubs, trade association groups hoping to influence the public, people who want to promote a cause, etc. Consider it as THE best source of putting your message into the public forum. As long as your purpose is clear (see next paragraph), you can even use blogging to promote yourself as a subject matter expert to attract a new employer. If job seekers are smart, they’ll start a blog to promote their knowledge, skills and experience with something other than a two-page resume! (More tips for job seekers can be found at ColoradoCareerCoach.com) Here are reasons why those groups might want to build a blog:

  • ministers who do weddings might want to offer tips to couples considering marriage
  • someone starting a membership club would want to attract new members and keep existing members informed
  • anyone who teaches classes could provide lesson plans to students via their blog
  • non-profits could keep donors up to date with articles and statistics on medical advances, etc. via their blog
  • book clubs could do book reviews and include author audio interviews on their blog

And the neat thing is – you can have your blog up and running with your own private domain and hosted for one year for less than $100 bucks a year! Yep, it’s true! Kiss the concept of needing an expensive website goodbye!

Avoid blogging until you’ve developed your social media strategy. People spend a ton of time fiddling around with cool new technologies and then discover they haven’t really thought it through. They didn’t consider how the blog works within their business or marketing plan. There should be specific reasons why you want to blog, or jump into Twitter, Facebook, etc. not just because everyone else is doing it. (Just like our momma’s told us!) Build your blog around your strategy. It will drive the selection of your domain name (URL), main keyword phrases, subject lines for your posts, etc.

Consider the distribution channel you want to use to pump out your content. Now, most folks will figure out how to pull in your content via their own feedreader since AOL, Yahoo, Google and other browsers come with a feedreader already built in. But the majority of us aren’t real clear about feedreaders and still prefer to get articles sent to them via email. PLUS, you’ll want to build your list! So consider a content management system that also allows you to build your prospect list and send them goodies every now and then – bonus articles, audio downloads, etc. Here are some good ones: Aweber.com, Feedblitz.com, 1Shoppingcart.com – some are more complicated than others, but each are priced about the same – about $29.95 for up to 2500 names on your list.

Accept the fact that if you build a blog, you should blog! Or at least, someone you trust, anyway. Yes, there are folks out there who pull in content from article directories and other industry sites set up for that specific purpose. And then you know what happens when you populate your blog with articles everyone else is using? Readers get bored. They’ve seen it all before. They never get a clear sense of who YOU are and what you stand for! You can’t be bold or innovative through someone else’s content. The Internet is chock full of content with more coming our way every day so people have become more discriminating. They want something different and helpful because their time is valuable. Avoid throwing up content that wastes their time just to fill a “page”.

Consider creating a downloadable report or ebook to thank folks who sign up for your blog. As we speak, I’m working on one report for each of my four blogs (yes, I know, but I really DO have a life!) It’s not a bribe – it’s a thank you. It’s also a way to create some viral marketing for yourself or organization. People tend to pass those things around and if you’ve included live links back to your blog or website, your name and phone number, twitter, facebook or linkedin pages, your information will end up in the hands of many people. I’ve discovered a good service for distributing ebooks and downloadable reports and I get no compensation for referring them – check out Ejunkie.com, okay? I tested them on my 48 Ways to Deal with Difficult People ebook last night and for $5 month, they will let me upload 500MB of data. With limited graphics in your ebook or report, that should be plenty!

You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m really sold on this technology, and you’d be right! In 2006 I started my first blog and quickly discovered it was the best darned marketing tool ever. Well, at least until something else comes along! The technology isn’t too hard to learn, people love the format, it pulls you up to the top of the search engines if you publish often and set it up properly. About a year ago, I figured out that people gravitate towards blogs that fulfill a niche or focus on just one audience or topic, so I started up three more blogs. Each one targets a different audience, although some readers are on all four of my blogs. (They just can’t get enough of me, I guess! haha!)

So, if you’re going to do this, my final tip for this post would be: get real clear about who your audience/readers are, what you want them to do, think and feel and then make a list of all the topics they’d be interested in reading about. Sit down and come up with a list of 100 article titles; it won’t take you long once you get going. THEN, head on down to the grocery store or bookstore and look at the magazine rack. Notice the way the headlines are written on the covers. Yep, even the National Enquirer with the two-headed, 200 lb. baby! Then log onto some online newspapers and news sites and notice how they write their headlines. It’s usually the “Top 10 Reasons Why…” or the “6 Steps to Doing X”, “How to Do X With Your Eyes Closed”, and my all time favorite, “21 Sinful Secrets of X”.

That’s it for today folks! I’m heading up to Estes Park to watch elk and soak in a hot tub and after all this blogging, dontcha think I deserve it?

Laura, writing from my little cabin in the woods at 7200 ft. above sea level

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Will Colorado Springs Streetcar Study Fuel Economic Development?

01.20.2010

I love profiling innovative business concepts and this is definitely the right time to employ creative ideas that pack an economic development wallop!
So when my sister, Lisa Bachman, got involved in the Colorado Springs Streetcar Study, my ears perked up! After 14 years with a larger firm, the time was right for her to put [...]

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How to Save Money on Human Resource Information Management Systems

01.18.2010

Want to save money next time you search for an HR information management system?
Mike Theimer believes most people spend more than a boatload of money unnecessarily and from what I’ve seen in my little corner of the world, I’d likely agree!
I’ve worked for a few organizations that found themselves knee deep in alligators when implementing [...]

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Payroll Tips from Meike Alberts of Perquest Payroll

01.17.2010

Money scares me! No, not the spending of it, I’m good at that. I’m talking about the tracking and reporting part!
So, I’m in awe of folks who help others manage the tracking…and reporting…and the paying…and even more reporting! One of those folks is Meike Alberts, a Perquest Agency Owner. They do Payroll.
I interviewed Meike to [...]

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How Twitter Wooed Me Back

01.16.2010

I was a fool to leave Twitter behind in a search for just one social media stud! Silly girl! Why couldn’t I see they’re all just alike!
Yes, dear readers, I have to admit it, but I’ve fallen back into Twitter’s “arms”! But now I’m older and wiser and can better manage the relationship!
(How about you? [...]

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7 Entrepreneurial Tips from Jeff Schneider

11.12.2009

Erma Bombeck said, “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died”.
Pretty sound advice, wouldn’t you say? And it also makes sense to take advice from folks who have had growth success.
Look, here comes one now! Let’s stop this gentleman in his tracks and pick his brain to see what advice he can offer on [...]

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Why I Jilted Twitter for Facebook

10.29.2009

Isn’t it fun to flirt with new social media prospects?
There are SO many to choose from. But I soon grew weary of playing the field, my “social settings” were ticking, and it was high time to settle down. So I considered my options, evaluated my prospects and over a year ago, I chose Twitter. I’ll [...]

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Three Great Resources on Blogging and Social Networking

08.17.2009

Lo and behold I just hit the “publish” button on today’s post on How to Start a Business Blog when I remembered some resources that would be helpful in your blog development process. (I get NO compensation for recommending these resources.) So here they are:
First is Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to [...]

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11 Tips on How to Start a Business Blog Revised

08.17.2009

Hi folks, I’m republishing this article because I’ve discovered new info which may be helpful. You may also notice a new URL/domain name for this blog. It no longer “lives” under LauraBenjamin.com but has it’s own “address” of BenjaminsBusinessBlog.com
How to Start a Business Blog

Blog platforms, social networking tools, affordable flip digital video cameras and website [...]

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