Small Business News: The White Paper Overview

Pundits still say they are a great way to develop credibility for your business easy to distribute in their popular current PDF format and also, if done right, a marketing effort for your business attracting future sales leads, clients and customers. But in the shadow of new online marketing tools like blogs and social media, how important are white papers really these days and what can they still do for your small business? 

How interactive is your white paper strategy. If you think business white papers are old fashioned and out of step with modern small business realities…well, maybe you’re doing them wrong. According to Tom Pisello, if we look at white papers broadly as vendor provided information on products and services they still represent a hugely effective way of influencing purchasing decisions. The question then, is not do white papers still work but are your white pages engaging customers. The ROI Guy

How safe are the white papers you are downloading? Though they may be a great source of information about products and services and a powerful marketing tool for small businesses everywhere, there’s a new cause for alarm with the popular white paper format on the Internet today. A victim of its own success, the dominant PDF format has also become a popular tool for hackers intent on spreading malware collecting stealing personal and launching network viruses. White Paper Pundit 

Small business white paper marketing basics. Usually 4-10 pages in length and created in PDF format, white papers have an incredibly wide range of possible uses. But deciding on your objective when creating one of these documents to market your business, product or service is important to get the most out of this potentially valuable format. Business.gov 

10 tips for excellent white paper marketing. ”When done right, nothing pulls in qualified sales leads like a well-targeted offer for a juicy white paper. Offers for white papers and Webinars make up the bulk of ads in Web Digest For Marketers and the solo emails sent once a week to subscribers,” writes Larry Chase, whose watched effective white paper marketing for over a decade now. Here are Larry’s tips for success. Search Engine for Marketers

Do your white papers generate leads? Hey, let’s face it. Like any other small business tool, if the white papers you create for download and distribution don’t convert at all to people contacting you about your product or service, it’s all been in vain. Of course, you are building your credibility all the while but that may be for sales years down the road. What about business now? Here are some basics for creating a white paper that generates leads. HubSpot Blog

How to reengineer the white paper. Bob Buday and Tim Parker describe white papers as “a key piece of the thought leadership marketing mix.” They’ve created a new micro site with additional links going deep on the topic of how to reboot white papers for their ongoing role on a changing business and technology landscape. See the links on creating content and enticing readers and also check out Parker’s introductory video telling with more on what it’s all about. The Bloom Group 

Are you using the “new” white paper? After years of effectiveness the white paper remains king, especially when it comes to converting prospects to clients and buyers in the B2B software industry. Still, it’s not quite the same white paper as it turns out: shorter, tighter, more engaging and inspiring. If you’re not using this new white paper, here are some points aimed at giving you old white paper format a rehab. Highly Competitive

White papers are still important to customers, a survey finds. Here’s another reason not to abandon your white paper campaign if you already have one or to start one if you don’t. In fact, the survey by Eccolo Media suggests 83 percent of respondents found white papers “moderately to extremely influential” when making a decision to purchase a product or service. Can your business afford to be without this edge? Marketscan

Want to know more about the online importance of white papers to small business? Download the full-length 2010 B2B Technology Collateral Survey Report including information on the incredibly influential role white papers continue to play and the huge importance customers and clients, particularly in B2B business relationships, place on the information they find there. Download the complete report at the link above. Eccolo Media

Do white papers really have a future? Despite all the enthusiasm displayed outwardly for the white papers as a medium to spread information and build credibility for your business and brand, are they slowly being overtaken by newer and more popular technology? What does it say about the future of white pages if one of the leading proponents of the medium spends most of his time promoting social media instead, like the above event held this past summer? Writing White Papers

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Entrepreneur's Journal: Launching a Language School in Beijing

By Venessa Wong

The Entrepreneur: Corinne Dillon, 25, founder of Discover Mandarin
Background: From grade school through Harvard, the New Jersey native was fascinated by China and struggled to learn Mandarin, eventually relocating to Beijing in 2007. She finally felt comfortable writing and speaking a few months after studying with Chinese language tutors who favored conversations over textbooks. Inspired by her breakthrough, she quit her job at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in 2009 to establish a Mandarin-language teaching business with her husband, with $25,000 of their savings.
The Company: The Beijing-based business has 10 full-time teachers, including Dillon's original five tutors, who give live, one-on-one lessons over the Internet to predominantly English-speaking students located around the world. Since launching in April, Discover Mandarin has landed 30 customers who pay between $175 and $1,500 for packages of classes, and Dillon expects revenue to reach $100,000 in 2011.
Her Journal: Most people's Chinese names are transliterations of their native names. For me, when I was at Harvard, I had a professor from Beijing who named me Di Qing. It was the name of a real Song Dynasty general, a man. My teacher said, "I think you are very lihai, which means 'fierce,' and you have potential to go to China and do great things." There is a saying that if Di Qing is in the vanguard, you'll win. I don't know that I am deserving, but I am very proud of this name.
I had spent two summers in Beijing and lived in Hong Kong for three years as a kid when my dad was working for Avon. When I graduated, I knew I was going to be involved with China. The language was a challenge I wanted to beat. A lot of Americans have this misconception that learning Chinese is impossible. I am living, breathing proof that that is not true. I want to give people the linguistic tools to interact with China in a positive way.
Along with my husband and five of my own Chinese teachers-cum-friends, I started Discover Mandarin in November 2009. It is registered in the U.S. but we're based in Beijing. We're a young company—we now have 10 full-time teachers and some of my employees are younger than me. The economy just opened up in 1978, so it's newer, it's fresher, and people have drive and entrepreneurial ideas.
In the U.S., someone my age might not have had this opportunity. If I'd stayed in the U.S., I'd probably be working at a big corporation and wouldn't have been inspired by daily contact with the scrappy, "only in China" brand of entrepreneurs.
The hardest thing as an entrepreneur, even in the U.S., is that you get up every morning and you have to be your own best advocate and your own cheerleader. No one else can give you that positive mental energy every day.
When we first got started, some days I needed to be on the subway by 6 a.m. to get to our office by 7. This is difficult and unpleasant in Beijing, a huge, sprawling metropolis that has the worst traffic and longest average commute time of any city in China. If you ask Chinese people what China's biggest challenge is, most will say there are too many Chinese people.
Even though I can do the bulk of the work from home, I still make an effort to come to the office at least four times a week. I love my teachers—I love speaking and practicing my Chinese with them, brainstorming with them, and talking to them. Commuting also keeps me on a good schedule, while at home it's easy to get distracted by laundry, ironing, and, of course, Chinese soap operas.
I also still deal directly with the students: They're mostly high schoolers but we've also had undergrads and business professionals from the U.S., an Italian journalist, and an Australian professor who needed to prepare for high-level meetings with Chinese officials. I am hoping for a big influx in the next few weeks for the back-to-school push and have increased capacity to handle 100 students.
My favorite Chinese idiom is "Be prepared; have no worries." It's a good motto for business. If you prepare in advance, you'll be good. I'm ready.
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Small-Businesses Bill Gets Final Approval in Congress

September 23, 2010, 4:16 PM EDT By Brian Faler

(Updates with comment from Obama in third paragraph.)

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Congress gave final approval to legislation aimed at boosting lending to small businesses in what is likely to be the Democrats’ final jobs bill before the Nov. 2 elections.

The House today passed 237-187 a measure offering tax cuts, loans and revived stimulus provisions to ease the flow of credit and show voters that Democrats are trying to boost the economy. The bill, approved by the Senate last week, goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

“The small-business jobs bill passed today will help provide loans and cut taxes for millions of small-business owners without adding a dime to our nation’s deficit,” Obama said in a statement. “I look forward to signing the bill.”

Republicans objected to provisions creating a $30 billion program in which the Treasury Department would buy preferred shares in community banks, with participants paying the government dividends on a scale depending on how much they increase lending. They said the plan amounted to little more than a smaller version of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

“This is TARP, pure and simple,” said Representative Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican. “It is the capital purchase program with a different name.”

Thirteen Democrats voted against the measure. Walter Jones of North Carolina was the only Republican to support it.

Economist Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve vice chairman, said many small businesses have had “extreme” difficulty getting loans, though he said poor sales remain their biggest problem.

‘Spitting in the Wind’

“They always have a hard time getting credit, and given the state of the markets they’re having an even harder time now,” Blinder said in an interview. “This ought to be helpful on that score, but if the economy grows at one and a half percent, we’re spitting in the wind because there’s no demand.”

“The thing that drives small businesses over and above everything else is the ability to sell their product,” he said.

For all the controversy over the lending initiative, it’s far from certain banks will participate in the program, said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. Banks will probably be reluctant to take the government’s money, he said, after seeing TARP recipients hit with retroactive executive- compensation limits amid a public outcry over tax dollars going to institutions paying million-dollar salaries.

“I’m skeptical that banks will actually take the government up on their offer,” said Zandi. “The memory of TARP will be in the minds of those lending institutions, and they’ll be reluctant to use the capital.”

Drop Out

Lawmakers have attempted to allay those concerns by allowing participants to drop out of the program “without impediment” if the government makes changes to the rules that would have a “materially adverse” effect on them.

The bill would also revive stimulus provisions cutting fees and increasing limits on loan guarantees offered by the Small Business Administration. Agency statistics show that volume fell by more than 50 percent after loan guarantees expired and funding to cover fee waivers ran out in May.

The bill would reinstate through the rest of this year provisions increasing to 90 percent the share of loans the agency insures and waiving fees that can total more than $56,000 on a $2 million loan.

“That’s probably the most potent aspect of the legislation in the near term,” Zandi said.

Other provisions would provide $56 billion in tax cuts over the next 12 months, with the bulk coming through “bonus depreciation” that allows companies to more quickly write off the cost of purchases.

$12 Billion

The tax cut would amount to $12 billion over 10 years, the yardstick used by Congress to determine how much bills cost, in part because businesses taking bigger deductions now wouldn’t be able to claim them in the future. That would increase projected tax revenue in subsequent years.

The bill would be the fourth major jobs measure to clear Congress this year. Previous legislation offered a payroll tax credit for new hires, aid to state governments to prevent layoffs and extended unemployment benefits.

The administration has called for additional measures, including a permanent extension of a tax credit that subsidizes corporate research and development programs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced separate legislation offering companies a payroll tax credit for each job they create in the U.S. that replaces a worker abroad. Neither is likely to clear Congress before lawmakers adjourn, probably next week, for the midterm election.

The bill is H.R. 5297.

 

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Businesses reluctant to borrow

Businesses prefer to wait for stronger signs of economic recovery before borrowing from banks.

According to a study by Investec Bank of 201 businesses with an annual turnover of £1 million or more, 63 per cent had no desire to borrow money during the summer.

Some 9 per cent of businesses with a turnover of £1 million or more have cancelled or postponed business development plans.

Jack Jones of Investec says: ‘With a high degree of uncertainty over the economy, many businesses are reluctant to borrow money from their high street banks, and are either keeping their savings in deposit accounts or using it to pay bills.’

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7 Ways to Communicate Your Commitment to Sustainability

This series is commissioned by UPS.
You don’t need to have a big company to embrace sustainability.  Smart and committed small businesses are adopting sustainability practices, too. They are incorporating recycled goods in their manufacturing supply chains.  They are requiring their transportation fleets to be more efficient.  They are reducing their energy consumption in day to day operations.
Incorporating sustainability into your business is an important step.  But it is equally important to communicate your commitment internally among your team, and externally to business partners, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders.
By communicating internally in a clear and consistent fashion, sustainability becomes an ingrained part of your company culture — one that your employees can take pride in, increasing their satisfaction.By communicating externally to business partners, suppliers and service providers you’re setting expectations about how you do business.  This can influence their practices and practices in the broader community, too.And by communicating to customers, you demonstrate that you share your customers’ commitment to our environment.  More and more customers expect this kind of commitment from the companies they buy from.


So, once you are committed to sustainability in your business, how do you communicate that commitment?   Here are 7 examples of situations where other businesses are communicating their sustainability commitments:

1. Develop a sustainability plan, publish it publicly and measure it – It’s a strong statement of commitment when you’re willing to come out publicly and state what you are doing toward sustainability, and then honestly and transparently report on your progress toward your commitment.  Gojo Industries is one company that sets goals for sustainability and publishes those on its website.  Example of one of their goals:  reduce water usage in operations by 30%.  It also includes a detailed report of sustainability results on its website.

2. Reduce energy consumption in your company fleet – one business I know has photographs of their company fleet of Toyota Prius cars on their Mission page.  By putting it on their Mission page, it helps convey that it’s part of the company founders’ principles. Another company, the Brookshire Grocery Company, has an entire page on its website devoted to how it is reducing energy consumption in its fleet of trucks and cars.

3. Use green packaging, including recycled packaging – at the consumer Electronics Show this year, HP actually had its green packaging displayed alongside its computers.  You could do something similar at your next trade show, displaying green packaging along with your products and marketing materials.


4. Incorporate recycling in your supply chain – if you recycle in your supply chain, make a video of it explaining what you recycle and how.  Put the video on your company website, your company’s YouTube channel, Facebook Page, and anywhere else that customers, business partners and other stakeholders congregate online.

5. Pay consumers for recycling items – Teracycle is a company that is all about recycling.  Their original line of products – worm dropping fertilizer — is packaged in recycled plastic soda bottles.  They’ve gone the ultimate route in incorporating recycling into their supply chain.  Teracycle has created recycling programs that pay consumers and groups $.02 each for collecting plastic drink pouches, which are then turned into eco-friendly fences that the company sells.  The public recycling programs are front and center on their website home page.  But they do more than have recycling programs – they make it fun and challenging, creating “recycling brigades” and publishing recycle goals, to generate customer involvement in recycling.  This has the added benefit of spurring word of mouth.

6. Establish sustainability standards for choosing suppliers and service providers – Large corporations are leading the way on this, by requiring their suppliers and providers to embrace sustainability practices.  Walmart, for instance, has 15 questions for suppliers about sustainability (PDF).  Think about your existing suppliers and next time you have an account review or the contract is up for renewal, inquire about their sustainability practices.  Heck, don’t wait for contract renewal time – compose an email or letter asking what they do about sustainability – and do it now.


7. Source your supply chain sustainably — One small grocery chain, Buehler’s, buys produce locally from growers that use environmentally responsible growing methods.  The chain displays “Buy Local” signs in their stores, and information on their website about this initiative.  They’ve also produced a video for YouTube about purchasing produce grown by the Amish, at the Mt. Hope Farmer’s Market.  This makes customers happy, too, as local produce is usually less expensive.
* * * * *
Remember, we’re not talking about greenwashing here – i.e., taking a few shallow steps to make it look like your company is involved in sustainability, and then crowing about them to the world, solely for the sake of impressing people.  Sustainability is a commitment that starts with company management and employees, and that you incorporate into your business at various levels.  Only then should you communicate about sustainability.  Anything else will quickly be seen through for the PR stunt that it is, and not for a true commitment.


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A fix for smog-belching motorcycles

ElectroJet founder Kyle Schwulst By Mike Scott, contributing writerSeptember 3, 2010: 5:48 AM ET

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- When Americans debate the impact of fuel emissions on the environment, they usually talk about cars and trucks. But what about smaller vehicles like motorcycles, scooters, lawnmowers and ATVs?

Riding a lawn tractor for just an hour spits out as much pollution you'd get from driving a car for hundreds of miles, according to former Ford Motor Co. engineer Kyle Schwulst.

"It's something that people don't realize, but the traditional automobile has come a long way in becoming much cleaner than smaller engines," Schwulst says. "So much attention has been paid to automotive engines, but the smaller ones are much more harmful to the environment."

That's why Schwulst, 30, founded ElectroJet, a 10-person company that develops electronic fuel injection systems for small engines.

For the non-gearheads out there: Fuel injection systems regulate the mix of fuel and air that goes into internal combustion engines. They make engines more efficient and less polluting. For that reason, fuel injectors replaced carburetors in most trucks and automobiles by the end of the 1980s.

But most small-engine vehicles still use carburetors. That's why they emit so much pollution.

In 2003, Schwulst launched ElectroJet in Brighton, Mich., a distant suburb of Detroit. Now, seven years later, he is going global.

In June, Schwulst signed a partnership agreement with Magneti Marelli, a multibillion-dollar Italian manufacturer of high-tech auto components. The two companies have teamed up to develop an electronic fuel-injection system for the world's two largest motorcycle markets: India and China. Together, those nations build more than 40 million new motorcycles -- equivalent to 75% of the global total -- each year.

New rules limiting motorcycle emissions took effect in China this July. In India, similar regulations are expected to go into effect next year. Both policies closely resemble restrictions that are currently in place throughout much of Europe.

Asia's potential market is vast. "If we look at 40 million vehicles needing our product worldwide each year, with an average sale price around $50 each, that is a $2 billion market," Schwulst explains.

But courting an Asian audience comes with challenges. The biggest? Keeping down costs. A new motorcycle in China typically costs $600 or more -- roughly equivalent to an average citizen's annual wages. Any feature that even slightly increases the price will hurt sales in the Chinese market.. For that reason, ElectroJet's new devices will mimic the size and shape of carburetors in existing motorcycle designs, allowing them to be swapped into production with minimal disruption.

Within the U.S., ElectroJet has been successfully convincing investors it has what it takes to grow. The company has raised about $2.6 million in outside capital. Of that money, the state of Michigan kicked in $1 million in loans and investments; the rest came from private investors, Schwulst says.

ElectroJet's longstanding clients say the company's products are well-designed and flexible, which bodes well for their adoption on a global scale.

One of those clients, Sonex Research, is a company in Annapolis, Md., that designs engine combustion chambers for military drones and other specialized vehicles. Sonex uses ElectroJet products to control fuel delivery.

Schwulst and his team designed ElectroJet's fuel injection systems to work with the four-stroke engines traditionally used in automotive applications. But Sonex engineers have found ways to pair them with the military's preferred two-stroke engines, which typically run on heavy, kerosene-based fuels.

"That's nothing short of amazing," Pouring says, referring to the fuel injectors' flexibility. "It really speaks to the superior design used to create the fuel injection systems. That really is why the company has such a bright future."

Schwulst agrees. Now, thanks to "the partnership with Magneti Marelli, one of the largest suppliers in the market, we have the resources to deliver," he says. "It's a game-changer for us." 

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Business nous starts young in capital

More than half of London’s students plan to set up their own business.

According to a study of 224 university attendees by insurer Hiscox, 54 per cent already have a business idea, with plans to become entrepreneurs in the near future.

Of those with plans to start up, IT is the sector most respondents hope to succeed in (18 per cent) with hospitality and catering (11 per cent) and education (11 per cent) also popular.

Some 30 per cent started their courses intending to be self-employed at some stage, while 40 per cent have been running money making enterprises while studying.

Undergraduates see the value in starting early, with 78 per cent believing that some of the best businesses are set up by young people.

John Heaney, SME expert at Hiscox, says: ‘It’s extremely encouraging that despite the knock on effects of the recession on the job market, the best of British entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking amongst London’s graduates as many look to set up in the future.’

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