Hulk Smash Puny Unions!

Oh if only it were true. My childhood hero, the Incredible Hulk would be smart enough to understand that unions are a bunch of over-paid, under-worked cry babies.

So I am back on my anti-union kick again. Why? Because GM shut down a plant in Indiana because the union workers voted to shut down rather than take a pay cut. Union workers were given the following options:

• Take a pay cut down to the top-end of industry standard wages for the regions AND get at $35,000 bonus for taking the pay cut, OR
• Transfer to other GM plants and keep the same salary

The union voted instead to shut down the plant. The shut down occurred on 6/30/11.

I am speechless.

The local economy will be severely impacted on several fronts. Not only have 600+ workers lost their jobs, they will also lose $1.8 million in property taxes annually, lost additional jobs (the plant wanted to hire more people at the lower rate), and double-digit unemployment. Folks, we gotta stop the selfishness and look to the greater good! People can't think outside of their own lives to see how this decision affects so many other people in that community. They are now going to look to the governement to supply their needs rather than work for a living. Utter laziness and selfishness.

I again state that while unions were needed at one point in our nation's history, they have outlived their need and have become a horse-and-buggy business. Were are driving America into the dirt, and soon we'll all be begging for a job and be back in the same situation we were in during the Great Depression if we don't change our mind set about employment.

Bust up the union.

With all the fancy hoo-hoo about mission statements, business plans and the like for start-ups, I'd like to list my top start-up myths. Way too much emphasis is put on these corporate buzzword concepts that can easily take away from what you really need to be doing: run your business. So here are my top 6 start-up myths:

You need a business plan to be successful. – This couldn’t be further from the truth. When I started my first business, one of the most asked questions was, “Do you have a business plan?” My answer was, “No.” I think business plans are the most over-rated thing in the start-up world. When you start out, you are small, and everyone in your start up should be on the same page. A business plan doesn’t necessarily put everyone on the same page, i.e. it isn’t the first place everyone goes to when something is in question. Good communication is a better plan to have.

What is important to have is access and participation in some type of mentorship program. Oklahoma City (where I am located) has several very good start-up programs in which you can have access to some very talented and experienced individuals who can help with questions and provide guidance on the “dos and don’ts” in the start-up world.

You need a mission statement. – Very similar to Myth #1, a Mission Statement can never replace good communication and great management. It is up to you, as the business owner, to make sure that everyone understands there mission. After all, the mission is to “stay afloat and make money” (which was my first mission statement, BTW). And don't be hoodwinked into thinking that your customers care about whether or not you have a mission statement, because they really don't care. They just want a good product and/or service at a great price.

You need money to begin a business. – I made this mistake in my first business. I listened to all those people who said I needed seed capital to get going. While seed capital from Angel Investors can be very helpful (depending on the type of business you are starting), not all start-ups need money to get started. The problem with investment from outside sources is now you have to answer to other people, who often have differing opinions than yours or even from different Angels who have invested in your company. This is a HUGE headache. While there are other benefits Angels can provide (such as experience and advice), I would rather grow a business organically, which gives me more autonomy, allows me to keep more of the money I own and I don’t have to answer to anyone.
If you have a limited budget, you will be forced to be creative. And the lessons you will learn from this creativity will be with you for the remainder of your time as an entrepreneur and are valuable in avoiding the same pitfalls in the future. Just keep costs low where possible, use low-cost marketing strategies, and be pro-active and agile to the changing needs of the business. That way if things don’t work you, you’ll be happy you didn’t sink a bunch of your own (or others!) money into it.

Being my own boss means life will be so great! – Being an entrepreneur of a start-up is more of a way of life than it is a job. I am here to tell you, your life will revolve around your business, not the other way around. And it will be that way for most entrepreneurs no matter how successful your business is. This is a most important consideration if you have a family as you don’t want to sacrifice your children or your relationship with your spouse as this is sure to have dire consequences. God/Life/Work balance is essential for your happiness. Keep your priorities in order, always, and you will have a better chance of success.

Hiring people with a degree will increase my chance of success. – This couldn’t be further from the truth, especially for start-ups. I would rather hire somebody with initiative and experience. Why? Firstly, people without a degree are usually cheaper to hire than those with a degree. And secondly, people with experience have shown they can do the job. In my experience in hiring software developers has been that those without a degree (for the most part) actually like what they do, and happy people means a better work environment and better products.

I am the determiner of my own success. – When I went to the Inc. 500 conference in March of 2006, one of the speakers was Bo Peabody. Mr. Peabody founded Tripod.com, which later sold to Lycos for $58 million. He had just released his new book, “Lucky or Smart?: Secrets to an Entrepreneurial Life” which intends on determining whether success as an entrepreneur is based on one’s intelligence or is it just pure, dumb luck. Bo gave several examples in his speech as to various successes and failures, including his own successes, and had determined that pure, dumb luck had prevailed. He had determined that there were very smart people who had just as many successes and failures, and there were some relatively *stupid* “not-so-smart” people that were successful (and failed) as well. There was no method to the madness, so he sided with luck.

When I got home, I read his book, and a Bible verse came to mind:

It was an epiphany to me that it wasn’t smarts or luck, and therefore it wasn’t up to me. It was really up to God, and His sovereignty. That's not to say that we shouldn't be wise and use the mind God gave us, but our success is and always has been up to Him. He gives us whatever skills we have. And God will give wisdom when you ask Him (James 1:5). So I strongly encourage you to take Proverbs 22:2 into consideration when starting any new business.

I am a jQuery junkie. I love jQuery.

What is jQuery you might say? Well, since I do have a strong small business owner following, I feel I must explain (from Wikipedia):

gMap jQuery Plug-In

"jQuery is a lightweight cross-browser JavaScript library that emphasizes interaction between JavaScript and HTML. It was released in January 2006 at BarCamp NYC by John Resig. Used by over 27% of the 10,000 most visited websites, jQuery is the most popular JavaScript library in use today."

In layman's terms, it is an uber-cool javascript framework that can make your website dazzle in terms of visual functionality. You know I am all about usability, and since Flash isn't a good usability platform, jQuery picks of where Flash left off. We can do so much more with jQuery and make it SEO-friendly (where Flash is NOT). jQuery is lightweight and very fast, and is really very simple to implement.

jQuery also has "plug-ins" that extend the functionality of the base framework. Since it is open source, people develop plug-ins and (usually) allow people (like me) to use them for free. Free is cool.

Thus, I have compiled what I think are the freshest and coolest jQuery plug-ins for 2011 so far:

1. gMap

gMap allows you to embed Google Maps data easily, with a high amount of flexibility. gMap can be customized in many different ways. All you need to do is to pass a JSON object to the gMap() function. You can also add custom geocoding to highlight your location when the map is displayed on your website. Here is a small snippet of code:

$("#map1").gMap({
    markers: [{ latitude: 50.083, longitude: 19.917 }]
});

2. fb.wall

The name is kind of self-explanatory. This cool jQuery plugin allows you to easily display the Facebook wall of any user, page or app with just a tiny bit of code:

$('#live-demo').fbWall({
    id:'Websites-That-Work',
    showGuestEntries:true,
    showComments:true,
    max:5,
    timeConversion:24
});

You can easily customize the look-and-feel, or leave it as is to make it look just like an embedded Facebook page.

Supersized jQuery Plug-In

3. Supersized

For all you photography small business owners, this jQuery plug-in is the "right size" for you! What does it do? It resizes your best photos to fill up the screen as a background for your web page. I really like this plug-in, and can't wait to use it on the next photography-related website I build.

There are so many powerful options, I won't display a code snippet, just go over to the Supersized jQuery Plug-In site and see how it works for yourself.

4. Imagin8

Imagin8 is an image slider/fader. Big deal. Yes! It is a big deal because it isn't just another image slider (as there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of jQuery image sliders out there). The Imagin8 plugin reads the path of the 1st image and then loads the next numbered image under the same path. Your images will need to be named numerically in sequence, as in: 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc..., but this is way cool, especially if my clients want to change their images without having to get me involved. It is extremely lightweight, and is called simply like:

HTML:

$("div.imagin8").imagin8({ images : 8 });

jQuery.contentEditable jQuery Plug-In

And that's it! There are a few options, such as fadedelay, delay and if you want the images to display in reverse (playbackwards).

5. jQuery ContentEditable WYSIWYG Rich Text Editor Plugin

jQuery.contentEditable is a light-weight WYSIWYG rich text editor plugin that uses contentEditable support in modern browsers for in-place HTML editing. Basically, you can use it to edit Rich Text Format (RTF) right inside your web-browser over the Internet. The developer, FreshCode, has opened it up to open source development, which to me, is very exciting. There are all kinds of applications that this can be used for. Take a gander at http://www.freshcode.co.za/plugins/jquery.contenteditable/demo.html

Why jQuery?

I prefer jQuery over other highly-interactive visual applications like Flash for the following reasons:

1. Open source - jQuery is a light weight open-source standard that works across all browsers. There is no special plug-in required.
2. Extensibility - Since it is open source, there are literally tons of free plug-ins readily available and more being developed and released every day.
3. Ease-of-use - It is amazingly easy to implement. Really.
4. See #1 - I cannot say enough about open source. It is the way of the future, and the word "proprietary" is beginning to have a negative connotation about it, and for good reason.

What is your favorite jQuery plug-in?

As promised, here are 5 common-sense things each small business website owner should do after their site goes live.

This list isn't comprehensive, but it is extremely practical. I have blogged about social media's importance to the small business for a long time. I haven't previously touted Google Places, but it is definitely a good thing.

1. Go Local

Submit your business to Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local to stake a claim for your business in your area. This will get great results when people are searching for your business on the Internet.

2. Do a local Adwords Google campaign

A Google Adwords campaign creates a link to your site in the right hand column next to search results on Google. Google distinguishes between these links, which are purchased on a pay-per-click basis (which means you pay a few cents every time someone clicks the link), and organic results by labeling them "sponsored links." Although ideally you'll want your site to be listed near the top of the organic results as well, these links increase your visibility even more and help you wrangle up all the local search traffic in your market.

3. Start a Facebook page

If you haven't already, start your own Facebook page. It is a great way to connect with current and future customers. Stay active with it, and don't give up. It can be a very cost effective and beneficial form of advertising for your small business. Then advertise it on your business cards, website and printed materials.

4. Start a Twitter account

For the same reasons as starting a Facebook page, this is also an excellent medium for staying in touch with customers. If you don't understand it, get your son or daughter to be your official social media guru. Just make sure they don't embarrass you with silly teen tweets. :)

For more information about Twitter, see Twitter 101 for the Small Business Owner and Small Business Marketing On The Cheap.

5. Submit a press release

This is probably one of the best things you can do for your site. It creates high-visibility through relevant links to your site. Search engines love press releases, so make sure you get a package that includes some type of SEO. You'll be amazed at the longevitiy a single press release can have over the course of several years.

For more information about press releases, see Social Media, PR and the Small Business and Small Business Marketing On The Cheap.

So you've designed a website and the customer is happy. It's time to go live, right? No. The giddiness derived from the prospect of actually getting to invoice the customer can often cloud your thought processes. So here is a list (not all-encompassing, but still a list) of things to do and check before you go live with your customer's new site.

Keep in mind this is from the developer's perspective. I write a lot about the small business owner, so I don't want the (un)educated small biz owner to get confused. I know some of us techno-geeks speak geek speak too much, so please don't think that this is for you small business owners. This is for us geeks only.

First step in good design: sketching

1. SEO Keyword Integration

I personally require my clients to write their own copy, but I have "final" say in editing (not really, but it makes me sound important, doesn't it?). Why? Because I need to integrate the relevant keywords and key phrases into the text. Of course, I don’t change what the overall page is attempting to relay, I just integrate the keywords and phrases people are searching. Minor changes can make a huge difference.
For instance, one of my longest customers, Holiday World of Houston, did NOT want me to use the phrase “Used RVs” in their site. They drank the whole “the term ‘used’ is a negative connotation thus we want to use the term ‘pre-owned’” thought process kool-aid. I convinced them that people don’t search for “pre-owned”, but rather “used” (to about an 11:1 ratio). Their related traffic quadrupled within the next quarter. 'Nuff said!

2. Relevant Page Titles

For the same reasons as above, except that Google places a very high importance on page titles. The worst-ever thing you can do, from both a usability and an SEO perspective, is omit a page title. And “Contact Websites That Work” as a page title is mucho better than “Contact Us”. Why? Just think of the millions of pages out on the information super highway that have the term “Contact Us”. Unless your business name is “Us”, this isn’t relevant.

Also, if you are using an editor such as Dreamweaver, unless you set a page title, it will put “Untitled Document” as the page title. A quick search rendered 50,600,000 results for "Untitled Document". Wanna compete with that?

3. File Naming

For SEO purposes, it is important to include specific terms relevant to the data they contain. Use hyphens instead of underscores, as a genuine Google-dudette (Vanessa Fox) says it is best to do so. She states that the file name “african-elephants.html” is seen as two words (African and elephant) whereas African_elephant.html is seen as one word. So you have a better chance that someone will search for “African elephant” vs. “African_elephant” as their search term.

4. Google Analytics

Whether you are creating a new site or upgrading an existing one, be sure and include the site-specific Google Analytics code into every page of the new site. This will help you monitor changes in traffic, pages per visit, new visits and bounce rates.
If you are building a new site, one thing you should do as soon as you sign a contract is put the code on each page of the existing site (if they haven’t already done so). This will at least let you monitor the traffic for a short time (some take longer than others ;) before the new site goes live. This will at least give you some type of difference for very important items like bounce rate and page views.

5. Server-Side Includes for Headers, Footers and Navigation

It is SO much easier to maintain and make updates to any site if these are broken out into separate includes. And if your customers are anything like mine, they usually want a 1/8” separation between their logo and some other text in the header, it is a maximum 30 second change to an include file rather than a 30 minute ordeal editing each page.

6. Copyright

Along with the above tip, this one can be easily remedied by placing in the footer and adding some quick JavaScript code to make sure that it renders in future years without touching. Just add something like the following:

© 2008 (By the way, when using the copyright symbol, you don’t need to put the text “Copyright”. Just a pet peeve of mine.)

<script language="javascript">

var d=new Date();

yr=d.getFullYear();

document.write("©2008 ");

if (yr!=2008)

document.write("- "+yr+"<br/>");

</script>

All Rights Reserved.

7. Links Back to Your Own Bad Self

As part of each contract, I ask my customer if it is okay to put a link back to my own site. I haven’t had one deny it yet. This helps your own site’s page rank. But don’t simply just put a link with your company name, make the links relevant using text and titles in the link. Putting another link to My Web Dev Company Name probably already has your site’s SERP pretty high, so it is a wasted link. Make it relevant to what you do using your own SEO for your site. Something like "Small business web development by Websites That Work"

8. Font Size

Dude, use relative font sizes, such as % or em UNLESS it is directly for the purposes of formatting a particular element. Good practice to set all font sizes to em, then go back and set larger fonts to absolute sizes if zooming breaks layout/format.

9. Link Validation

Before going live, I always use one of the many online link checkers to tell me if any of my links are broken. Just do a search for link checker on Google. This is just good business.

10. Spelling

Even though I have my customer write the copy for each page, I copy and paste the text of each page into Word to check spelling. This is the last thing I do before going live. Even with my advanced speling and grammer skillz, it still helps with fragment sentences and poor grammar checks.

Keep in mind, sometimes mis-spellings have benefits. I have purposely used commonly mis-spelled words in my text if SEO analysis shows that people have that tendency. One of my customers installs garage doors. Believe it or not, I found that some people (they’ve GOT to be from Texas) have a tendency to spell “garage” as “garge”.

11. Form Validation and Functionality

Test all web forms for form validation (if your customer requires it) and ensure that all form data gets sent properly and to the proper people. Get confirmation from each email at the customer site that they did indeed receive any emails you sent from the form. This, again, is just good business.

12. Sitemaps

All sites should have a sitemap of some sort that search engines can use to crawl the entire site. On smaller sites (30 pages or less), I put a link to every page in the footer of the page. Otherwise, create a page that categorizes the different areas of the site, with links to each page at least once. This will ensure that some of the non-google search engines will see each page.

13. Google Sitemaps

Firstly, please read Google’s information about Google Sitemaps and make sure you understand the importance of proper importance ranking and crawl intervals. Then go to one of the many, many free Google Sitemap generators and create a Google Sitemap. After it is created, edit it for importance and interval, then upload it to the site. Don’t forget to add it too Google, either.

14. Cross-Browser Checks

There are plenty of free and not-so-free cross-browser checking sites and software out there. I recently found IE Tester, and found it to work quite nicely for testing differences between the various (and so ridiculous) versions of Internet Explorer (BTW – I am fairly excited about IE9 – it is a step in the right direction!).

15. Get Sign-Off From the Customer

The most obvious is the also the most important. After you have done all of the above, ensure your customer is smelling what you are stepping in. This ensures your happiness as well as theirs. Plus, it puts the honus on them if something isn't just right.

Not to forget...

For some of the more advanced customers, here are some other items to think about:

• RSS Links:

  <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="My RSS Title" href="href-to-feed.rss" />

• Print-friendly Stylesheet
• Custom 404 pages
• Favicons

What's Next?

In my next blog post, I'll talk about what to do after your new site goes live, from a customer's perspective.

Courageous GOP Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin State Senate Republicans are my heroes. Union busters. Education reformers (for the better). Brave and patriotic, they endured death threats, beatings and slander, but they passed (at least for now) legislation that will limit teacher tenure by discharging bad ones and promoting good ones. They also passed merit pay, rewarding great teachers with bigger salaries. And if layoffs be needed, Wisconsin will be able to keep their best teachers regardless of seniority. And this will also help counteract the multi-billion dollar shortfall Wisconsin is set to experience.

What is wrong with that?

Nothing. It is a step in the right direction, without a doubt. Unions are generally a bunch of underworked, overpaid cry babies that love entitlement and hate progress. It doesn't matter that the entire infrastructure of the country is about to experience financial ruin - all they care about are themselves. There is no care for the greater good. We are a generation that only thinks of self, no matter the consequences. This type of self absorption is sending us down the road to Rome, and we are soon going to burn as a result.

There was a time in our history in which unions were needed and appreciated. Now all they do is raise prices, lower quality and expectations, and we all suffer as a result. Look at all of the organizations that have come close to collapse (and even needed bailouts): car manufacturers and the United States Postal Service. They both have very strong unions, and both are or have come close to collapse. While financial institutions don't necessarily have unions (at least strong unions), there demise (almost) is a result of greed, which isn't far off from union mentality.

Having owned my own business, people need to come to the realization that they should be happy God has provided a job to them. There is symbiance between business owners and the employees, and it is a beautiful thing when done right. But when one side expects too much and starts thinking they are owed something greater, it collapses.

I remember watching a documentary years ago (I wish I could remember more about it) in which a textile factory owner moved his business to a city that had almost experienced financial collapse because a local car manufacturer pulled out. The town was all but dead. The business provided about 100 jobs off the bat, and the owner gave huge bonuses every year to every employee based on how long each employee had been with the company. The town started regaining its status again. The people who worked there were happy and loved the business owner. And the business owner reciprocated those feelings. He increased benefits as time went on - benefits that most of us can only dream of.

All was great - the company was growing and hiring more people until one day a new employee starting whispering "we need to unionize". People started to listen. Most had come from that type of environment, and the conversation started leaking up to the top. The business owner told everyone that if they did indeed form a union, he would shut the plant down and move. They didn't listen, and they unionized. Guess what happened? The business owner, after all he had done for the town and the employees, shut it down and moved. Oh well.

What do you think? Are unions still serving their purpose and serving the American worker? Take the following poll:

Do you think unions are antiquated and no longer needed?

I am so happy I made the move from iPhone to Android. I documented the issues I was having with AT&T in a previous blog, and I now have much better service, more minutes and data, all for less out-of-pocket expense. So to help promote Android apps, here is my next set of intriguing and what I have found to be essential Android apps for (small) business (in no particular order):

Locale

Cost: $9.99

"In March 2005, Judge Robert Restaino jailed 46 people when a mobile phone rang in his New York courtroom and no one would admit responsibility." A group of MIT students decided to create an app for that. Locale is an application for those situations when the ringer on your phone becomes bothersome, such as when your phone beeps or rings during an important meeting or even in the doctor's office (happened to me). This application used to be free, but due to its popularity and potential importance in any business setting, it is now close to ten bucks at the time of publication.

Where’s My Droid

Price: Free

If your phone is as important to your small business success as mine is, then this application is for you. I haven't lost my phone yet, but I have misplaced it. Once I thought, "I can just call it to hear it ring." Wrong. I tried, but I couldn't hear it. It was on silent. Nice. What this app allows you to do is set up your phone to turn off silent and ring loudly no matter what the settings just by simply using your buddy's phone to send a special text to it. You can also get the location of your phone in GPS coordinates with a link to Google maps so you can get directions to it should it get lost in a public place.

Parcels

Price: Free

If shipping is a big part of your business, then this is an invaluable app for you! You can set the preferences to run in the background and also configure the refresh interval. You can also configure to silently notify you via your phone during times when you don't want an annoying ring. Also integrates with Google Maps to track your packages. Amazingly, this app supports all of the following carriers:

• Amazon (USA, GB, DE)
• Apple
• Aramex
• BPost (Belgium)
• City-Link (GB)
• CNE Express
• DHL (Germany)
• DHL (USA)
• DHL Domestic (GB)
• DHL Express (GB)
• DHL Express National (Germany)
• DHL Global Mail
• DPD Standard (Germany)
• Fedex
• GLS
• Hermes
• Home Delivery Network (GB)
• Hongkong Post
• Israel Post
• Itella (Finland)
• Japan Post Int. Mail
• Laser Ship
• On Trac Shipping
• Parcelforce
• Post (Austria)
• Post (Denmark)
• Post (Switzerland)
• Posten (Norway)
• Posten (Sweden)
• Royal Mail
• Spee-Dee Delivery (USA)
• TNT
• TNT International (Netherlands)
• TNT National (Netherlands)
• UPS
• UPS Mail Innovations
• USPS

Bluetooth File Transfer

Price: Free

Based on FTP and OPP (Object Push Profile), this app allows you to browse and manage the files on any Bluetooth-enabled device. You can also use it to receive files and transfer contact information. Doesn't do much more, but if you have ever need to transfer documents and can't find a thumb drive, this app can be a life saver in a business situation.

Android Time Card

Price: $3.95

If you are like me, I work on several different projects. This app has been invaluable in allowing me to charge time to different customers and email the time in CSV format with the push of a button. It also allows you to track mileage. The only thing missing is a means of generating invoices with my own header. I paid $2.95 (if I remember correctly) when I bought it, so it seems to becoming more popular.

Expense Cloud

Price: Free

Expense Cloud allows you to manage expense reporting through your phone (online). It is fully featured (though they need to make it more intuitive - takes some getting used to) and you can create expense reports, track approvals, and manage expenses for your company. It nicely integrates online with QuickBooks, among others.

Call Track

Price: Free

Call Track is an interesting app in that it logs your phone activity to your Google Calendar. Nifty huh? You can categorize by incoming, outgoing, and missed calls. You can also dump your current call log to your calendar.

Simple though it seems, I am too often amazed at how small business owners fail to lend their ears and listen what their customers have to say about the product or service the receive. This has been amplified as of late around the office as the visually-impaired gentlemen that provides the vending machine snacks and drinks simply has not heeded the requests of my fellow team

members (myself included) about provided "healthy" snacks instead of the candy bars and potato chips he has supplied since he first started his business years ago. I see people bring in 100 calorie packs of almonds and other low calorie or otherwise healthy snacks. I mentioned to him about three months ago that if he would put some 100 calorie packs, he would get much more business. He readily agreed to do that. Nothing has changed. When I shared this with other team members, they echoed similar circumstances. Don't get me wrong, we are happy to support him through his vending business, but how hard is it to at least provide some healthier alternatives to the candy bars, chocolate and potato chips, and as a result, increase his revenue?

I read the headline for an article about the government requiring healthier snacks in schools today, and before reading the article, thought about how small businesses could benefit from the law. With a little thought and creativity, it could be a small business boon. So I started reading the article and came across the following:

Affecting the child's ability to think? Really? That is fantastic, if you think about it! Forget about the fact that another instance of the Federal government sticking their hands where it shouldn't be. Forget about the fact that it is just better to serve healthier food to kids. What this small company did was demonstrate to their potential customer how they could make their customer successful. Ever since George W. implemented "No Child Left Behind" (which was a nice idea, but poorly implemented - schools now "cheat" to pass the exams), ensuring kids have sharp minds has become suddenly important to an otherwise "I just want to get through the school year alive" mentality. In my niece's senior year, she decided (and I have no idea why) to take Physics. She never passed a test. In fact, the best score she got was a 56 on the very first test. But she passed, and so did the entire school. No one failed. If her high school didn't meet certain graduation requirements, then they would stop getting federal funding. So now you can see how Fresh Healthy Vending played to their customer's basic need: success. They proactively "listened" to their customer and offered a solution in a manner in which the customer probably wasn't actively looking for.

So what type of small business are you? Are you listening to your customer, then doing your own thing or are you actively seeking solutions that your customers don't yet realize they need? You can actively listen to your customer by understanding what makes them a success, then play on that basic instinct. Just realize that your customer's success is your success.

It is that time of year again. You know, the time in which 90% of all Americans resolve to lose weight. I tried to come up with a "Top 10" small business New Year's resolution list, and read through some others, but I wanted to get a better pulse on what the small business owner wants to do a better job of in 2011.

Reading through the hundreds of posts, most seem related to improving customer service. While this is absolutely important, isn't this something we should always have at the top of our list? No matter what time of year it is, we can always improve customer service. Agreeing that it should be on everyone's list, what are the top things small business owners across the US should do this year to improve?

While reviewing the posts, nothing really stuck out to me as being an innovative thought. And quite honestly, I am still stuck on the idea of what we can do as an organization of small businesses to improve job creation. My last post about how to create jobs in this economy initiated a heated debate that required me to shut down comments on my blog. Why it started such a firestorm I still don't understand. There are a lot of angry small business owners out there that really want the government's help on job creation. I think the best help the government can give is tax breaks to small business, and that "other" types of stimulus help in which the US government takes tax dollars from others to place it in the hands of others is wrong, and tantamount to socialism. Less government intervention is best in this capitalist society. Of course, this is just my opinion. I am sure some of contemporaries have some even better ideas, ideas that are truly innovative.

So, my question to you is this: What is your (Innovative) Small Business New Year's Resolution? Email me at kmartin7 /at/ gmail.com and let me know. I'll post the best on an upcoming blog post (with full credit, of course!).

Jobs (or the lack thereof) are a key indicator of the state of the U.S. economy. We are still losing jobs, which really is a concern of mine, as it is most Americans. Since small business makes up 99.7% of all employer businesses, it only makes sense that if jobs are on the rise, then the economy is doing well. It doesn’t take long when I turn on the television first thing in the morning to hear about the unemployment rate on the rise. President Obama claims to be pro-small business, but his ideas generally seem counterintuitive to promoting small business (increasing taxes on small business? Really?) So how can the government really help small businesses create new jobs?

I have an idea.

Hopefully, most of you small business owners have some of that green stuff in the bank at the end of your fiscal year. That money is called “profit”. The problem with Uncle Sam and that pile-o-cash (some are small, others are big), is that he wants to tax you on it. But you and I both know it really isn’t “profit”, it is money that is poured back into your business to help increase its success. So what ends up happening is Uncle Sam takes a large portion of the money you would use to help grow your small business next year.

To solve both issues, how about we create a government-mandated “account”, similar to the Section 125 cafeteria plan used to help pay out-of-pocket medical and childcare expenses, that is tax-free and can only be used to “hire” and employ new people for the coming year? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a proponent of more government, but if the government must get involved to help stimulate job growth, this seems like an excellent way to promote job growth, help the small business, which in turn will stimulate economic growth.

Of course, my idea needs some work. I have been thinking about this for a few months now, and it seems plausible to me. I say it is time to turn Mr. Obama's campaign slogan “Yes We Can!” into an action, rather than an empty promise.