small business in the us

As 2010 comes to an end and I reflect on all the challenges I have had this year as a small business, a consultant, a husband, and a father... I can't help but wonder what 2011 will bring? What is small business and startups and the families that endure them going to experience next?

2010 brought with it incredible challenges with our banking system, banks taking back business loans, causing countless good business to shut their doors and wonder... Why did I start this business?

We saw incredible decreases in our home valuations and net worths... As the stock market climbed to new heights and big corporations sit on the most cash they have had in decades...

For the small business, it is survival and trying to find the way out. From my experiences putting sales teams together and working on many different businesses, your true focus needs to on marketing (SEO, social media, email, and SEM) and lead management.

If you have a good idea that makes money, stick with it! Try different approaches to marketing and stick with repetition. Don't just try something once, try multiple times and measure the results.

I wish every small business owner a Happy New Year!!!

Why Knovial?

It all started 14 years ago when I started building custom websites for small businesses... What a challenge that was! I was basically working around the clock, everyone needed changes all the time!

Once Internet technology really started to evolve, about 8 years ago I started one of the first content management platforms that let anyone update their web content using access and asp! It worked great, but I son found out everyone had different needs, like custom forms, e-commerce and more...

I had to make a decision, do i do custom projects or try and build generic features that the entire customer base could use and benefit from? Custom is a lot easier! I choose the generic route and 8 years later i am excited about what Knovial has truly become... a single database that integrates web cms, e-commerce, custom forms (the client can easily create and manage), sales crm tools, and marketing tools that allow us to build powerful internet based businesses!

Not to mention the latest in iPhone and iPad social media and blogging tools and a new sales crm app in the way!!!

I am optimistic that 2011 will be the year that Knovial is found out by hundreds of companies looking for an easier way to do business online. Ey would you not want your web, sales, and marketing managed and supported by a single company?

anywhere technology

I have to say, with all the news apps and mobile devices, it looks like we will be able to connect and interact from anywhere...

A little history, I was a consultant and I had one of the first blackberries... I could type in the dark with it! I probably did about 300 or more messages a day! Now, with iphones and iPads, I might not be able to send as many messages as fast, but i can do a lot more!

Now I can write a blog on my iPad (doing this one right next to my kids watching Tinker Bell)! No worries, I have seen it a 100 times!

At Knovial we are working on an array of mobile apps, social media, blogging, sales, even an app to help relationships! How exciting!

One thing remains, any good business needs a solid database! Be sure you to check our site out in about 30 days and you will see what you need to have a truly SOCIAL business online!

You have to get one: iPad

I think I speak for everyone, the apple iPad is a must have. I have two kids and they both absolutely love the educational games and things they can do on it!

I also love the portability of it. The idea that I can just read a book, read the news, check the weather, etc.... Anytime and anywhere with complete ease -- is awesome!

But, let's think about it for business... Now the small business can finally be connected with everything they need to be.... Their website, social media, blogging (this was written on my iPad!), projects and more.

Imagine, not having to boot up that terrible old laptop and just do what you need to do and move on! That is what business is supposed to be about.... The business!

KnovialBLOG- are you ready to blog from anywhere?

Are you ready to easily blog on your iPhone or iPad? We are almost ready to submit KnovialBLOG to the AppStore!

Pretty soon our Knovial CMS clients will be able to blog on the go and have their blogs automatically post to blogger.com and wordpress! Not to mention their website too! Get ready to write some blogs!

Top 5 reasons you need e-Commerce

Top 5 Reasons you need e-commerce

Every business needs an edge. Whether you're selling a good or a
service, your business needs something that puts it over the top, that
makes people search them out before they look for any other
alternative. If you're looking for that edge, consider an e-Commerce
solution to set yourself above the rest. Here are the top 5 reasons
why e-Commerce is the solution for you.

1. Around the clock purchases.

The days when your store had absolute opening and closing times are
over. Customers want to be able to shop when they want, wherever they
can find an internet connection. Not only do they want to buy goods
over the internet, but they'd also like to be able to schedule their
cable repair, hair cut appointment, grocery delivery and pick a time
to bring their car in for a tune-up--all online. If you're not
providing them with an e-commerce solution for these scheduling and
purchasing needs, you can be sure your competitors will. Imagine how
much money you could make--even when your physical store is closed!

2. Easily support recurring payments.

If your business has a monthly subscription, membership or regular
service option, you know how much hassle it is to keep track of those
recurring payments. With e-commerce it's simply a matter of entering
the customer and the payment terms, and it's all taken care of for
you. Customers can even enter their information when setting up an
account with your store, save their payment information in the system
and initiate their own monthly membership or service fee. Instead of
initiating a new transaction every time, having a recurring payment
makes ordering from you easier for your customers--and for you, too!

3. Enable payment through project management and your sales force.

With a web based e-commerce system, anyone with a computer and an
internet connection can complete a transaction at your online store.
This means that your project management and sales force can complete a
sale over the phone, via e-mail inks or, if necessary, directly from a
customer's site. Your sales force and project managers can create new
client accounts and set up payment schedules on the web, transmitting
that information instantly to your clients and initiating an instant
invoice for order fulfillment.

4. Be where your customers are - Online!

More and more people research online before heading out to a
brick-and-mortar store to make their purchases. Your customers will be
making price comparisons and finding products on the internet before
they even know about your store. If you don't have an online presence,
how will all of these potential customers find you? You want to be
sure that your store leads the pack when people hit a search engine to
look for your product.

5. Use electronic invoices to save paper and time.

When customers use the shopping cart on your web store, they take care
of payment at the time of purchase, no longer requiring a paper
invoice to pay the bill for your goods or services. Not only will you
save a lot of paper, but you'll reduce your postage bill at the same
time. Think of how much energy you'll save when you don't have to
print out and mail invoices each month--or when you won't have to
provide your service technicians with paper invoices to bring to your
clients.

No matter how you look at it, e-commerce solutions are a smart
addition to your business. Not only will you increase revenue when
customers can shop your store around the clock, but e-commerce can
help streamline and modernize your invoicing and payment processes.

Learn more about knovial now

Top 5 reasons your business needs CMS

When building or re-designing your website, many small business owners question if they ought to set up a content management system (CMS). A CMS is an instrument intended to help non-web pros generate, edit and administer website content like articles, images, videos and more, with ease.

Small business content management system (CMS) is a multifunctional application intended to make website content administration uncomplicated, completely web based and visual, as well as affordable. Successful web based content management system makes site control easy similar to working with a word processor and it can be learned with little effort and time.

Reasons why your business may require a Content Management System:
• You intend to update your website often.
• A non web professional will managing your website.
• You would like to make updates from anywhere from the internet.
• Your business sells a large number of items through you website.
• You run or maintain a blog and need to make constant updates.
• You require publish things on your website quickly and often.

What are the top 5 reasons a small business needs a content management system?

1. To reduce the cost and time to get content, images, video, and flash online - No business owner desires an out-of-date dull looking website that has few options to visitors and users. With the right small business content management system you can put together the image your business deserves. You can easily create and upload as many design templates as you desire to your business website and control the look of your site to make your web-pages diverse. Content management system is a web based administration system which provides a full division of content and appearance. You will not need much assistance form a professional programmer, but if you need professional help with the web design content management system providers are available to help.

2. To make it easy to create landing pages for marketing efforts and track leads – With a content management system you can now run marketing campaigns across an assortment of channels from a single application. With a content management system you get a consolidated outlook of campaign expenses and performance. These tools can act as your control center for running and tracking campaigns across all channels starting from finding a lead to closing the deal. Now you can make smart choices on where to devote time and money while validating the impact of your advertising actions on your company profits.

3. To make it easy to change designs on the site as needed – Changing your website design, something which most high-quality sites do every few of years, has never been easier. Now you don’t have to change your content management system to change your site design, saving you time and money.

4. To ensure proper tracking to monitor site traffic and behavior – content management system can give users important information about the performance of their websites. While managing you website you can analyze your efforts with information about website traffic, user behavior, Search Engine Optimization keyword rankings, website contacts, and more.

5. A good CMS lets the customer easily grow into new features like project management, e-commerce, community building, and more. The right CMS will allow users to generate online shops rapidly and without difficulty. No specific programming skills are required during the easy setup procedure or for running your online store services and website features. Moreover, the right CMS will allow users to create online communities swiftly and effortlessly, giving you full control over the layout of your message board.

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Importance of Social Media for Business

With the release of the new Google Caffeine and other revamped search engines, with faster search technology, indexing, and crawl capabilities, it is more critical than ever before to understand and utilize social media in your business. Online businesses cannot afford to ignore the importance of social media. As potential business revenue remains a simple click away, your business partners, upper level management, and other employees can stay adept with changing marketing approaches for online businesses and services. Furthermore, it is now a simple fact that businesses can no longer wait for consumers to come knocking at their online doors for products and services. Because social media websites are where prospective consumers gather, businesses now have to meet them there. In fact, the business to consumer playing field is leveled in a win-win situation on social media sites. Those that already use and love your products and services can easily spread the word about them to their friends, family, and associates by becoming your “friend” on your business social media site.

SEO for Business and Social Media Every online business must get a firm grasp of SEO to survive as a viable entity over the internet. However, as social media is moving forward at lightning speed, many business owners are riding the lightning bolt of change and are snapping up the full advantages of faster indexing for social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. How is it possible to take advantage of social media and still be SEO ready as a business owner? Fortunately, being SEO for social media is easier than ever before. The main key point to being SEO ready for social media is to integrate highly searched key words pertaining to your business into your social media sites. You can do this by taking advantage of blogs and word bites within social media sites to create small messages about your business. These small messages will go a long way by providing current information about your business to your social media family that will have quick access to your posts. This also allows prospective customers searching for the products and services you provide to quickly find you via faster indexing. Customer Experience and Your Business Not only will your social media sites provide your “friends” with the opportunity be associated with your products or services, but they will also be able to share their experiences in the most natural way. This continues to be the best way to help new prospects become more aware of your business.

Essentially, you are using the power of word-of-mouth. but you are just harnessing it in a different way, the social media way. Your Own Social Media Department Social media is so powerful for businesses today, that you should strongly consider creating your own social media department for your business. Depending on how small or large your company is and the company budget, this could mean a one person job or hiring an entirely new team. However many employees you decide on, the most important thing is to focus more attention on the development of social media marketing for your business.

Social Media and Your Mission Statement Furthermore, make sure that your mission statement stays at the center of your social media marketing. Although this may seem complex at first, it is important that all members within your new social media department remain on the same page. This will mean creating a simplified methodology to what the customer acquisition will look like to new prospects. Once you are all on the same page, it will be easy for your department to take a stay currently indexed within as many social media markets that your company can manage. Customers will perceive your well thought out prospecting and they will want to purchase your services and products and tell their social media and non social media friends about your business.Need help with social media? Click us out.

Ways to Manage Online Content

Content management, broadly defined, covers everything from a legal pad to a library to YouTube — all the many ways of organizing information to make it useful. The rise of computing and the Internet, in particular, have brought forth vast new quantities of information as well as new ways of sharing and managing it.

What are content management systems?

By content management system (CMS), we mean software that enables users to organize, store, search, and retrieve different kinds of information online. The information can exist in varied formats — straight text or hyperlinks, sound files or graphics, videos or flash animations — and the online delivery platforms can include Web pages, blogs, wikis, videos, social media and other online outlets.

Managing a static Web page and a blog or two is pretty easy. But companies today have opportunities to leverage their knowledge much more effectively, and to do so they require more robust systems to create and manage content — continuously, at any time, as the organization changes.

Knowledge lies within

How can a company get great timely content onto its sites? One of the best ways is by tapping the experience and wisdom of employees. A business leverages that human capital when it enables employees to create content and publish it directly.

A well-designed CMS permits virtually anyone to manage online content in ways that once required advanced design and technical skills. This distributed content creation is something new in business, allowing companies to enlist wider layers of employees in developing and publishing information. Some examples:

•    After a new product gets the green light, the project manager uses a CMS to publish the news on the company’s Web sites. In a matter of minutes he uploads a press release, screen shots, products sheets and a video, and then updates the company’s pay-per-click ads.

•    A company wins a big contract on the eve of a trade show. The marketing director writes an article, posts it to the Web site, and runs down his CMS list. With a few keystrokes he changes an obsolete phone number on one page, adds an address field to another, updates a graphic elsewhere, and even sends the news article out for translation to French and Spanish.

•    “Hello, IT? Is there a mistake here?” The east-coast plant manager says he’ll run short of frames if his scheduler follows the online manual. Other plants will be calling tomorrow —  but the programmers rewrite a sentence and post the revision. Notifications and version control flags flow automatically, and production lines keep humming.

•    The new-hire admin in HR knows Word but no HTML. On his first day, he uses a CMS to build a Web site for the blood drive — a multipager with graphics and flash, drop-downs and forms, a video from the CEO. And with his knowledge of Word, he gives the site a noticeably professional look.

What these employees have in common is the ability to strengthen their companies’ online impact quickly and directly. Some work internally, others externally, but in each case the content they post draws visitors, directly and through search engines. And these visitors use the content they find to advance the company’s goals.

Fresh content is king — just ask Google

The companies that leverage the Web most effectively are those that maintain dynamic, up-to-date content on their sites. One of the main reasons is that such content attracts search engines. Google, for example, publicizes its preference for informational sites over commercial ones.

That doesn’t mean a Web site can’t be used for advertising. But in addition to short, sharp taglines and ad copy, companies should include substantive content — white papers, FAQs, knowledge-base articles, and so on — that give the site an informational character.

And it’s not enough to fill a site with information and then leave it alone. Search engines also favor freshness. Google knows its search customers want relevance and currency, so its search algorithms assign higher rank to pages and sites whose content is frequently updated. In addition, sites with fresh content are more likely to grow link partnerships with other sites.

The benefits of a content management system

More timely and effective communication. It’s a universal best practice in business. Give employees clear instructions and they’ll perform tasks more efficiently. Focus sales force messaging, and sales will begin to align more closely with strategy. Target an audience closely, and the marketing machine will find, pitch and convert more customers.

Increased search engine traffic. Content is search-friendly, because search engines rank sites to satisfy their own customers — searchers who prize fresh content over marketing claims.

Stronger collaboration. Building a culture where employees truly share knowledge is a big undertaking, and every company that embarks upon it finds out that sharing generates content. To reap benefits, this content must be easily accessible to those who need it.

Reduced disruption from employee churn. By systematizing and diffusing individual knowledge, a CMS helps to minimize the effects of employee comings and goings.

Reduced costs. A CMS can free up IT resources from maintaining Web content. It’s not longer necessary to devote skilled, $70,000-a-year employees to writing routine HTML, sizing graphics, cutting and pasting, creating standard forms, and reporting site statistics.

What to look for in a CMS

Many Web products advertise “content management” features, but sometimes these amount to little more than marketing claims. A company’s first look at any CMS should focus on three areas that combine into a true system:

Ease of use. Is the interface unique, or does it correspond to widespread standards? To put employees to work creating content, not learning new formatting rules, go for convention. If the CMS offers a variety of templates and an intuitive, what-you-see-is-what-you-get interface — especially one based on Microsoft Office — anyone can access familiar tools easily. This gives every employee the comfort of knowing they too can create new content with some typing and a few clicks.

Functionality. A CSM should let users manage different media — text, images, flash animation, sound, video. And look for functional site tags, so users can easily create interactive Web pages with drop-down menus, forms for gathering information, and online transactions. Adding passwords, search, print, rating and discussion functions to a page should be easy, and language conversion should be built in. Don’t forget stats and path analysis, the more granular the better, so you can understand how visitors use the site.

Integration and scalability. A CMS should let users easily link content and features on the same site and elsewhere. And it should integrate readily with key business processes in marketing (including pay-per-click campaigns), sales, accounting and operations. But robust doesn’t mean all or nothing. The best CMS designs are modular, allowing a company to grow its online presence — adding video features, for example — on its own schedule.

Key elements in a CMS implementation

Nail the business case first. Content management systems share some basic principles, but they are far from identical. Every business is unique, so understand your goals and expectations. How will you measure progress and define success?

Define the stages. Universities devote whole curricula to content management. For an online CMS, these are the basic stages:

Workflow: business rules, procedures, ownership
Creation: authoring responsibilities, single-source tools, editing
Storage: file systems, version control, access rights, archives
Publishing: channels, personalization, usability testing

Manage change. Hidden knowledge is an orphan, but transparency raises new issues of ownership — not to mention review processes, security and access. Audit trails become more important: Who touched what, when? You’re not just training people on a system, but on business processes, thus increasing productivity and business profitability.

What about IT?

Some IT organizations are mired in busy work — creating and recreating similar forms, translating press releases and documentation updates into HTML — and they will welcome technology that frees them up for core missions of systems support, security, and delivery of business intelligence.

But a robust CMS can meet resistance in some shops— especially when it succeeds, and management begins to apply it more widely. Before long a new administrative assistant is creating and managing multiple and complex Web portals, and an IT fiefdom may be threatened.

Content management isn’t an alternative to IT. Rather, it’s a powerful tool for employees in marketing, corporate communications, accounting, and virtually every other function — including IT. A well-designed, properly implemented CMS helps each department organize, exploit and share the full depth of its knowledge, thus strengthening its contribution to the company’s forward progress.

A well-implemented CMS improves IT productivity. At the most basic level, it helps IT employees focus on operational reporting and business intelligence instead of content management and HTML generation. It helps this critical department rise to its strategic task of enabling business, rather than creating, supporting and hoarding complex systems that have been rendered obsolete.

If you’d like to know more about content management, and how your business might benefit from it, InterScape Inc. has the experience and expertise to show you the ropes and provide CMS solutions with the Knovial Platform. Please contact us today.

KNOVIAL offers an eco-friendly, cost-effective solution

Going “green” is more than a hot new trend; it is fast becoming a key strategy for many organizations today. Given the economic and intangible benefits, there is little wonder why.

Many socially-conscious companies, nonprofits and other organizations are going green in an effort to be more sustainable to protect our natural resources. They are adopting more eco-friendly practices to be more environmentally responsible. But from a practical standpoint, opting for greener online applications instead of paper-based functions can yield tangible results that positively impact the bottom line. Using digital forms, virtual meetings, and online communications in the work environment minimizes paper consumption, saves time, reduces driving and lowers costs.  

Moreover, research shows most consumers feel that companies should do more to protect the environment, and they are attracted to businesses that meet their expectations. Gaining consumers’ favor can translate into enhanced customer loyalty, increased sales—and, ultimately, greater profits.

The Bigger Issue about Going Green

In a broader sense, going green is about demonstrating good corporate citizenship and accountability to the environment. Corporate giants like General Electric, Google, Wal-Mart and Dupont Chemical have been leading the way in launching green initiatives. However, small entities can also go green by leverageing paperless online applications to realize economic benefits and impact the world. There is a pressing need to conserve paper and other resources. Consider this:

·         The papermaking process creates harmful carbon emissions that contribute to global warming.

·         Using digital files instead of printing documents can save a considerable amount of paper, energy, water and landfill space—not to mention reduce greenhouse gas emissions that can contribute to climate change.

·         Reducing paper consumption by one ton can conserve enough energy to power the average American home for six months, save 7,000 gallons of water and 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one metric ton of carbon equivalent.

·         Paper products represent the largest portion of the trash generated by U.S. cities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, paper and paperboard products account for about 83 million tons or 33 percent of all materials in the municipal waste stream, the EPA reports.

·         In America, 173 reams (500 sheets per ream) of paper are used about every five seconds, according to Global Warming Initiatives Inc., a North Carolina-based organization whose goal is to help companies reduce greenhouse gases. Each ream of paper not printed equals 18.5 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Not printing 173 reams of paper can save a tree and lessen atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by more than 2 metric tons. 

·         Prices of raw materials such as copper, steel, cement, paper and any sort of energy have gone up three, four, five or more times in the past two years—making resource conservation a critical issue.

Employing Digital Forms

Using environmentally-friendly electronic files can help organizations—of all types and sizes— become more green, lean and competitive in the marketplace.

Choosing digital files instead of paper forms, reports and other documents can offer significant cost and time savings. Maintaining digital documents avoids the need to print out unnecessary hardcopies, saving paper, ink, money and millions of trees. Not only that, operating in a digital environment can result in a more productive and positive experience for your employees, customers and partners. All of this can add up to a healthier bottom line. 

Switching to online applications to incorporate green tactics is easier than you think. You can use digital forms to collect and share information among a group of users. You can customize forms to your specific needs and take advantage of online support and digital approvals (instead of faxing) to save paper and time.

Using Digital Files and Media

Using electronic files and media can give your employees, customers and partners convenient access to your organization’s information. With digital brochures, sales sheets and other marketing collateral, your sales team can provide customers and prospects with instant sales literature. The added speed and efficiency can shorten the sales cycle and result in easier, faster and more sales. Electronic brochures are also more cost-effective than traditional ones since there are no printing, mailing or postage costs involved.

Your Web site can be a central repository for all your media and digital files, including downloadable brochures and other sales material. It can also be a great marketing tool for featuring video testimonials, which can help you build trust with prospects more quickly and easily. And with a content management system to make changes to your site, adding digital files and other information is easy. A user-friendly editing tool allows updates to be made without any special technical skills. So anyone in your office can make changes to your Web site to ensure visitors receive the latest information.

Optimizing Your Sales Efforts

Providing access to digital tools can help your sales team streamline their processes and operate more efficiently. Sales staff can attend “green” meetings from their office, saving travel time, gas—and carbon emissions. They can also record prospects’ information instantly, generate digital reports and create electronic invoices to conserve paper and time. Electronic invoices can provide a significant cost savings. Paper invoices are responsible for an estimated 10 percent of all trees cut down around the world, and creating paper invoices uses as much electricity each year as 20 million homes.

When designing digital reports, it’s important to create documents that display the appropriate information. This reduces the need to print out reports for further analysis—which, in turn, helps to maintain the original digital file. In addition, maintaining corporate information in an accessible digital format makes it easier for management to detect and respond to businesses challenges.  

Reducing Costs and Travel Involved with Processing Orders and Checks

The use of digital documents can significantly reduce travel time and costs in processing orders. Electronic invoices allow you to forgo the administrative, printing and mailing costs of paper invoices. E-invoices are the ideal complement to remote check processing, which allows you to deposit checks electronically without physically going to the bank.

You can deposit checks any time from your office—even after banking hours and on weekends. And you can reduce the labor-intensive process of manually preparing checks for deposit, as well as the researching, transporting and storing required for paper checks. All you need is a computer, check scanner and Internet connection to process checks remotely.

Going Green with KNOVIAL

The KNOVIAL platform from InterScape Inc. makes going green extremely easy. It’s a comprehensive solution that provides a variety of features that organizations need to operate effectively online.  For example, KNOVIAL offers a form/work center that allows you to build custom forms without any coding or database work. You can create any form you need with the click of a button—including forms for digital approvals and signatures. You can also encrypt forms for added security, embed forms into content and export form submission to Microsoft Excel.

 

Other KNOVIAL offerings include a communication center for sending promotional email and marketing messages; video conversion and online streaming; sales management and reporting; and advanced content management.

 

With KNOVIAL, you can capitalize on rich interactive online applications and avoid hassling with printed documents—which often aren’t even necessary. More importantly, KNOVIAL allows you to adopt environmentally-friendly, online applications that can go a long way in improving your processes, public relations image and bottom line.

Learn more about how going green with KNOVIAL can create some “green” for your organization. Contact InterScape CEO, Matthew Francis at 678-522-6650 or mfrancis@interscapeinc.com today!

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