Small Business Success? The Perfect Small Business Model in 12 Steps

Too Many Ideas?

 

Among the best attributes for small businesses that are successful and should be modelled – not that many businesses have or necessarily need all of them – are that:

1. The business can be operated from home (i.e. no giant additional rental overheads).

2. The business does not require a large inventory of product (another financially crippling overhead).

3. The business has several income streams (e.g. service as well as sales – this is how car dealers survive).

4. The business involves a product/service that buyers pay for immediately and not on a 30-day/60-day/90-day/120-day basis (late payment of accounts has sent countless small and large businesses under).

5. The business relates to the owner’s existing skills/expertise.

6. The business has a considerable/total cash-in-hand sales element.

7. The business earns income when the owner is away (e.g. vending machines).

8. The business is not too reliant on finding good staff (finding and keeping quality staff is one of the biggest issues for all small business operators).

9. The business is not based on too small a number of clients (e.g. an advertising agency with only 1 client) – this gives the client the power and not the business!

10. The business appeals to human needs that demand constant fulfillment rather than occasional wants (the food retail business is far more bankable than many other ‘tertiary’ service businesses e.g. people have to eat but they don’t need to have their tarot cards read).

11. The small business has a clear point of differentiation from possible competitors e.g. it is faster; it is open after hours when others are closed (like an ‘after hours’ beauty salon appealing to executives who work late); it comes to the client’s home; it caters to a specialized niche such as the disabled or gay or senior market; it is much simpler than existing competitors; it is in the best possible location; or it is much cheaper than obvious competitors. Without such a characteristic, a small business will probably struggle.

12. The business is one that the owner clearly enjoys or has some natural affinity with e.g. a car enthusiast importing and selling used Jaguars from Britain.

Tired of waiting for a great business idea? Find out about over 400 of world’s best new business ideas – real new businesses making real money – with Terry Kyle’s massive new book for entrepreneurs, 400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World.

More details at his website where you can also subscribe to his free weekly new business ideas e-bulletin.

BTW, The World’s Biggest Book of Photography Competitions, Awards, Grants & Places To Sell Your Photos Online by Steve Donovan, the world’s largest reference book of photography contest, competition, award, grant and online photo sales information is also worth checking out.

Cool New Business Idea: Sunday September 14 2008

 

Kid

In my research travels, I came across this:

Kideo (www.kideo.com) is a new product offering the parents of young children the ability to buy cartoons featuring their sons or daughters interacting with the likes of Spiderman and the Care Bears (selling for about $40). Along with the animated head shot of the child, the videos also feature the other cartoon characters talking to the child (by name) in the cartoon and their image is also on the product packaging. This concept is similar to that of http://www.flattenme.com where children can be featured in personalised, illustrated storybooks.

BTW, I have no commercial association with this product at all – my interest, as my book title below would suggest, is in uncovering great new business ideas around the world.

Have a great day.

Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
Small Business Ideas – 400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World
Squidoo Business Ideas
EzineArticles Business Ideas
Blogger Business Ideas
Digg Business Ideas
Amazon USA Business Ideas
Amazon UK Business Ideas
Photo Contests & Photography Competitions

Small Business Marketing: Brilliant Lessons From The Movie, “What Women Want”

Small Business Marketing: Brilliant Lessons From The Movie, “What Women Want”

The other night I was watching a DVD of Mel Gibson’s 2000 film, “What Women Want”, an entertaining enough ‘rom-com’, and it really resonated with a couple of things that information marketing guru Eben Pagan talked about recently.

Now for those unfamiliar with the film’s plot, basically a sexist guy (Mel) working in advertising in Chicago kind of semi-electrocutes himself and suddenly has the power to hear what women are thinking. As a result, he can then use his marketing messages to directly ‘tap into’ the thoughts of women.

Now I worked for a long time as a creative director in advertising in the past on accounts like IBM, Pepsi, Cadbury’s and Kellogg’s, so I’ll skip over the irrelevant comparisons with real-life advertising agencies.

But what WAS fascinating in the movie and VERY valuable to us marketers were certain brilliantly clarifying lessons:

Firstly, the film reminds us that customers’ buying behaviour is largely driven by irrational fears, frustrations, hopes and volatile emotions.

Is your business marketing working on that emotional impact level?

Virtually all advertising appeals to emotion instead of logic because emotions are far more powerful in influencing behaviour.

However, the trick that the film showed brilliantly in the climactic Nike pitch scene was just how SPECIFIC we have to be in addressing the fears, frustrations and emotional impulses of our target markets.

In my view, the film is must-see marketing training for that reason alone. Watch that scene and the ad itself which Gibson’s character narrates to see how specifically he addresses EXACTLY ‘what women want’.

But, you ask, how can we find out what these (often hidden) emotions and irrational fears are?

In my humble opinion, we have to be in constant dialogue with individuals precisely in our target market and constantly inviting new research ‘guinea pigs’ in order to find more out about “What My Buyers Want” and no, it won’t be a new car.

It will be usually be a SPECIFIC, deeply EMOTIONAL need, want or desire.

As Eben Pagan rightly says, most non-essential purchases are driven by emotion THEN rationalized by the logical part of the brain later.

The science-fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein put it another way: “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”

People usually want to talk but you are looking for an especially frank, honest and blunt person who will tell you what’s REALLY going on with your target market. Though the marketing ‘inventor’ is unknown, Eben Pagan recommends building a whole composite ‘avatar’ with a whole life story of your typical customer or client mapped out.

Are you doing that with your marketing at the moment?

One conversation with a candid prospect could be worth a great deal of money to your business not only in what SPECIFIC marketing messages you are putting out, but also in NOT saying things that alienate or turn off your prospects.

It may sound a bit crazy – actually marketing is full of way crazier stuff than this – but IMAGINE what thoughts you would hear if you could overhear your prospects’ thoughts.

At their very psychological core, what common drives and specific thoughts exist among them?

Is it the desperate need for respect from their peers or superiority over them? A sense of power over their lives? The desire to be cool, accepted and popular? Even these are much too general and need a great deal more development on the SPECIFICS.

“What Women Want”. Check it out for a quick marketing refresher course.

Have a great day.

Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World

“These are not just small business ideas, they are smart business ideas…you’ll learn a great deal from these words of wisdom.”

David Meerman Scott
Bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR

www.Latest-Business-Ideas.com
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Small Business SEO? Why SEO Is A Complete Waste Of Time For Your Small Business

Small Business Online Marketing WITHOUT SEO? Absolutely.

OK, put the guns down and hear me out BEFORE the public execution begins over such an outrageous statement.

Here’s why SEO could be a total waste of time for a small business or home business entrepreneur, namely, you:

Unless you have invented a time machine, time is finite.

Limited.

Valuable.

All of us entrepreneurs have so many demands on our time that some days we’re pretty clueless. So in this time-poor lifestyle, why should we allocate vast time (or even financial) resources to SEO and boosting our rank on Google?

Right about now, the SEO guys here are turning red with rage and phoning up hit men.

But let’s get real.

SEO is expensive. Often very expensive.

Most small business entrepreneurs simply do not have the time or financial resources to compete with bigger businesses who have full-time consultants or firms working constantly on their SEO to bump up their Google place a notch or two.

What I propose is a marketing model quite different and one that I hope gives you back some time and money.

At heart, I’m a guerrilla marketer driven by cost-effective (including time, not just money) results-driven tactics and strategies and to be blunt, I’m too technically illiterate to appreciate a lot of the nuances of say, H1, H2 and H3 codes.

There’s a simple saying in our business: sell what is already selling.

Let’s apply this to your SEO-less online marketing.

Rather than spending months or years (time is money) on optimising everything about your page, devouring every latest SEO trick and building hundreds of quality backlinks, instead make sure that your fine-tuned marketing messages constantly appear on sites that Google ALREADY loves.

When your messages appear on some of these sites, Google will put it on Page 1 in UNDER TWENTY MINUTES.

And you have time to go out and enjoy a movie rather than buying another SEO book.

And yes, I think you MUST use a paused Adwords account to find out exact long search phrases in your niche to use as titles and content in your messages.

But that’s very different to constant SEO development of your own website/s.

If you want to find these Google-loved sites where your messages MUST appear, go to alexa dot com and check the top 100/500. Work out where you can get your messages seen ON THESE SITES and indexed rapidly and high on Google.

For example, I get incredible Page 1 Google results from a site that is in the 8,000s on Alexa – all WITHOUT a penny spent on SEO. One in the Alexa 300s is phenomenal.

Google ALREADY loves these sites and doesn’t care much for mine but I don’t care. Because my messages are on those sites! And I keep them there.

Those sites are among the biggest traffic drivers to my poorly-SEOd site. And they’re free to place messages there.

No PPC either – all free.

Don’t even get me started on Pay-Per-Click!

Now imagine if you have great marketing messages appearing on TWENTY of these Google-loved sites a day.

This will give you far more IMMEDIATE and FREE traffic than wasting years of your life on SEO-ing YOUR site to death.

Of course, you MUST have YOUR landing pages properly tested and sorted when the traffic does come from these other Google-friendly sites but you have optimised it for PEOPLE, targeted prospects, not a Google robot that changes its mind constantly about Quality Score!

See what I mean? After all, did you find this article on my website?

So there we are.

Let the vengeful fists of SEO fury come now.

Nonetheless, I hope this helps your small business journey because I know how important succeeding in it is to you.

On an unrelated matter, I came across this cool axiom from Jim Rohn today: “Your personal income rarely exceeds your personal development.”

Hard to argue with the J-Bird there.

Have a great day.

Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World
www.Latest-Business-Ideas.com
www.squidoo.com/NewBusinessIdeas
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Terry_Kyle
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Ideas-Latest-Greatest/dp/0955898900/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216981113&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Small-Business-Ideas-Latest-Greatest/dp/0955898900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216981155&sr=8-1

How To Start My Own Small Business

How To Start My Own Small Business
By Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World

So you want to start your own small business BUT don’t want to lose your shirt or blouse if it all screws up?

Cool. Makes sense.

So, apart from deciding to go for it, aim to apply these principles in choosing your business and you stand a very good chance of making it:

1. The small business can be operated from HOME (i.e. no giant additional rental overheads).

2. The business does NOT require a large inventory of product (another financially crippling overhead) i.e. it is service-based rather than product-based, at least to begin with.

3. The business has SEVERAL income streams (e.g. service as well as sales – look at hair salons selling high-markup products AND hair care).

4. The business involves a product/service that buyers pay for IMMEDIATELY and not on a 30-day/60-day/90-day/120-day basis (late payment of accounts has sent countless small AND large businesses to the bottom of the river without a scuba tank).

5. The business relates to your EXISTING skills/expertise (or it’s something you are prepared to develop your knowledge in very quickly) so avoid offering neurosurgery in your neighbourhood unless you spent the last 10 years cutting open people’s heads in a hospital.

6. The business has a considerable/total CASH-IN-HAND sales element.

7. The business still earns income when the owner is away (e.g. vending machines) – not necessarily vital but pretty nice.

8. The business is not too reliant on finding good staff (finding and keeping quality staff is one of the biggest issues for all small business operators).

9. The business is not based on too small a number of clients (e.g. an advertising agency with only 1 client) – this gives the client the power and not the business!

10. The business appeals to human NEEDS that demand constant fulfilment rather than occasional wants (the food retail business is far more bankable than many other service businesses e.g. people have to eat but they don’t NEED to have their tarot cards read – mind you a tarot card reading service is very cheap to set up and actually a pretty good small business model).

11. The small business has a clear point of difference from possible competitors e.g. it is faster; it is open after hours when others are closed; it comes to the client’s home; it caters to a specialized niche such as the disabled or gay or senior market; it is much simpler than existing competitors; it is in the best possible location; or it is much cheaper than obvious competitors.

Without such a characteristic, a small business will probably struggle.

12. The business is one that the owner clearly ENJOYS or has some natural affinity with e.g. a car enthusiast importing and selling used Jaguars from Britain – the new XK rocks!

Good luck and keep me posted on your small business journey!

Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World
www.Latest-Business-Ideas.com
www.squidoo.com/NewBusinessIdeas
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Terry_Kyle
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Ideas-Latest-Greatest/dp/0955898900/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216981113&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Small-Business-Ideas-Latest-Greatest/dp/0955898900/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216981155&sr=8-1

7 Powerful New Ways To Boost Your Google Presence

7 Powerful New Ways To Boost Your Google Presence
by Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World

Traffic.

It seems like all we talk about now on the Web. Hey, so why fight it?

Apart from all the usual techniques that you’ve probably heard a hundred times before, here are my latest ‘secret’ discoveries for expanding your business footprint on Google:

[1] Use (free) Amazon discussion forums at the bottom of bestseller pages in your niche area. Discuss a book or current issue in your niche BUT on the bestselling individual books pages only. You can find this near the bottom of the page under the area called “Customer Discussions”. Google seems to love posts in these discussions. Make sure that your Web address and your favourite (Google) keyword search terms are in your post. You need a normal Amazon buyer’s account to participate of course. I have seen Google pick up new posts here in under 10 minutes.

[2] Make (free) comments in your niche areas on the MOST VIEWED articles on ezinearticles dot com. Again, most viewed articles in your niche only, add constructive keywords-related comments and you are given a link on your name (no backlink though) but this is a very Google friendly site (Alexa ranking of 319!)

[3] Most press release Web services charge lawyer-like money but www dot prlog dot org and www dot freepressreleases dot co dot uk are free and picked up by Google quickly. Look for my own press releases to see what I mean.

[4] Having a personal blog might be good (I’m still deciding) but aggregating blogs (which all feature your landing page/s URLs and keywords) by automating their transmission across the web on hundreds of sites is much better. Go to www dot feedage dot com and www dot feedraider dot com (free registration to use).

[5] See my other post entitled “Video Marketing Through YouTube” or watch the video at the top of www dot trafficgeyser dot com.

[6] Set up press release and one-article news pages on your own site (must be numbered correctly to be indexed) and submit them to Google News (details at www dot google dot com/support/news_pub/bin/). Like Google Books, Google favors its own areas highly.

[7] If you have a book out, make sure it is submitted to Google Books – a service where they allow readers to look through a percentage of submitted books. If you only have an e-book, you will need an ISBN number but it is worth it. Caveat: Google Books is very slow to process submissions but the SE ranking for these pages is very high (go to books dot google dot com/partner/).

Do you have any Google gems to share?

Have a great day and I hope these help your business.

Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World
http://www.Latest-Business-Ideas.com

Video Marketing Through YouTube

Video Marketing Through YouTube
by Terry Kyle
Advertising Copywriter & Creative Director

Recently I came across an interesting net statistic – over 50% of all web traffic is now video. And it’s share of the internet ‘pie’ keeps growing.

Apparently, YouTube now accounts for 12%+ of ALL web traffic too.

In short, the simple reality is that we must all now integrate video-on-the-web as a necessary component of our overall marketing strategy.

From my own marketing and research, including stuff for my book, these are some (hopefully) useful learnings and observations that can help speed up your no-cost/low-cost transition to video marketing:

[1] Achieving pretty good quality for video is easy with any standard camcorder.

The trick is in the lighting – a ‘softbox’ (to you and I, a fancy shmancy light in an umbrella) is about $80+ on Yahoo shopping and some Muslin background paper (around $50+) will give you very professional results.

This is the setup used on apple’s training videos on their website (go to http://www.apple.com/macbookair/guidedtour/ and click on “Watch the Guided Tour” to see this in action), a style copied perfectly by one of my marketing heroes, Eben Pagan.

This is a great video marketing template to follow and can be done for very little money.

So, what should you shoot?

I recommend a (series of) 3-5 minute informational segment/s genuinely helpful to your niche which has your web address featured throughout (semi-discreetly) and/or video testimonials from satisfied customers.

Quite simply, it will probably be you talking into the camera in a static mid shot (you may need to look that term up) for the entire clip.

Check out Eben Pagan’s use of post-seminar video testimonials at http://doubleyourdating.com/CockyComedy/ (go to the very end of the page) and type in “Eben Pagan” on YouTube to see all his testimonial videos there.

This is a very powerful marketing tool. In fact, his ‘Double Your Dating’ website has an Alexa rank of about 13,000 which is sensational for an information product of this type and I’m sure his constant video marketing greatly helps this.

[2] Use Windows ‘Movie Maker’ (free), Adobe ‘Premiere’ (majorly not free but get a 30 day trial copy from Adobe to get started) or Mac’s ‘Screen Flow’ to import your video into your computer.

Remember, YouTube videos are not allowed to exceed 10 minutes and under 5 is better from an audience attention perspective.

[3] Once you have your video made, DON’T submit it to YouTube.

Yet.

Instead, use http://www.tubemogul.com (free last time I looked) or http://www.trafficgeyser.com (not free but trial offer probably still available) to submit to DOZENS of web video sites at once including YouTube.

Yes you will have to go to each one first and set up an account and password (use the same one for all of them) but after that, these programs do all the uploading for you.

It is not uncommon for uploaded videos to be ranking well in Google in less than 30 minutes after uploading.

As John Reese says, the more action you take, the more success you make (or words to that effect) and your web videos do NOT need to be Hollywood standard.

Just get them made and up there to start getting used to working in this medium.

Your marketing videos are working in two important ways: [a] people will watch the video (because it is informational and genuinely helpful) with your web address burned on to the screen (haven’t tried this with Windows Movie Maker but definitely works with the other two programs) and,

[b] Google will pick it up and usually give your video a decent (free) search engine result IF your video is titled with your EXACT Google keyword search phrase and your account with YouTube should be that phrase as a username too.

Trafficgeyser.com has a video tutorial on the exact steps of this (when you are there, look at how TrafficGeyser are using a video at the top of their page as their most powerful marketing weapon).

Keep in mind that YouTube has an Alexa ranking of #3 (i.e. it is the 3rd most visited site on the planet).

My site and yours do not.

You won’t get a backlink to your site from YouTube but the spread and indexing of videos on the web is astonishing.

Of course, feature your helpful instructional videos on your own website too – you can embed them via YouTube if you are worried about your web host charging you extra for all that additional data transfer.

Message me if you aren’t sure how to do this and I’ll fill you in.

Rules for Choosing a Business Name

5 Important Guidelines for Choosing a Business Name

Based on my experience as a copywriter and creative director in the advertising industry, here are some useful principles when brainstorming your new business’ name:

1. Convey the specific benefit to your prospect in the name.

Rather than taking the time to build up a new business based on a branded name (you need pretty deep marketing pockets for this type of ‘money pit marketing’) e.g. Sue Smith Accounting or John’s Auto Centre, instead build the specific benefit to your target market into the name itself.

In the case of the two above examples, Instant Cash Tax Refunds and 30-Minute Tune-ups would have a lot more immediate impact and generate business from Day 1. To be blunt, if a small business is to survive, it needs to be generating business quickly and very cheaply.

This is harder in some business types than others but all marketing should focus on solving a specific problem with a specific, measurable solution. Branding TV campaigns and full-page colour spreads are for Coca-Cola and McDonald’s (and don’t actually drive any business anyway).

2. Make your business name, your web address too.

We live in the internet age now and most service-based businesses will be attracting either a lot or most of their new customers and clients through search engine traffic and/or picking up (free) ads from Craigslist and Gumtree and (not free) Yellow pages (online).

Why not start building your web presence into the business from the beginning by actually having it there, working for you immediately e.g. InstantCashTaxRefunds.com (if you are locally-oriented, putting the area in too could be beneficial though try not to make it too long).

You should also make sure that your business website is properly set up with a location map, current deals/offers, testimonials, contact details and professional presentation (learn to use a digital camera if you don’t already know – how many ebay products have terrible photos?).

3. Test, test, test. But with the right audience.

Testing is vital and should be built into all aspects of your new business marketing. You should be testing Google Adwords variations, different classifieds, colours and – if relevant – the visual appearance of your retail environment.

But even before that, join relevant forums or local groups in your niche and ask them directly about your business name and slogan – not just which one/s they like but why they like it or don’t like certain options (ask them to pick from 5 maximum at a time) and engage in an ongoing dialogue about offering specific solutions to their needs. This marketing information is priceless.

Note carefully the actual words they use and feature these in your marketing – not marketing textbook jargon. Testing names on your family is worthless if they are not in your target market and they are probably too close to you anyway to offer unbiased assessments.

Testing is free.

Advertising is not.

Advertising a great small business with a lousy name and lousy ad copy is painful, expensive and, most importantly, unnecessary.

Removing your own assumptions about your prospects and testing can be tremendously enlightening and, strangely enough, people want to freely offer their thoughts on this subject.

4. Emotional not logical.

Virtually all advertising appeals to emotions and not rationality or logic.

Why?

Because emotion is far more powerful in influencing human behaviour than logic. Besides, what we buy based on emotion, we rationalise later. If possible, try to build an emotional ‘hook’ into your business name, or if not, your slogan.

Coming back to InstantCashTaxRefunds.com, clearly the appeal here is greed. 30-Minute Tune-ups appeals to impatience.

A flat, sterile, logic-appealing name and advertising will simply not cut through the ad clutter – at least not in the short term.

5. Should you make it poetic?

This is an area of huge debate among experienced marketers.

A catchy name is obviously easy to remember.

FedEx rhymes. Krusty Kremes has alliteration. Ikea has exotic flair.

But these are massive brands with massive budgets to drive home the customer benefits of what they offer. Personally I feel that a new small business name shouldn’t be too cute or clever – nightclubs, bars and coffee joints are exceptions – and focus on a gut-level, emotion-tugging, benefit-related name that pulls customers right from the start.

Here’s the acid test for your name idea:

When a customer hears the (proposed) name of your business, do they immediately go, “I want/need that service now”? Imagine you are in a book store and see a book’s title and immediately think, “Wow, I want that book” – before you’ve even opened it. That’s the kind of reaction you’re after in testing so don’t rush it and keep testing until you’re getting that kind of reaction.

Bonus Extra Principle:

When you do build in the specific benefit into your new business name and/or slogan after testing, make sure you can actually deliver on it. Remember that you want to be creating word-of-mouth endorsement marketing ‘disciples’ and not antagonists bad-mouthing your operation.

What are your thoughts about new business names?

New Home Business Ideas? How Cool Are These 3 New Ones:

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New Home Business Ideas? How Cool Are These 3 New Ones:

by Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World

In doing research for my books, I came across these three new home business ideas or at least small business ideas that can be run from home that I thought forum members would be interested in:

Incidentally, I have no affiliation whatsoever with these businesses but think they are great ideas to model – even in cities and countries far from the original small business:

1. Weight Loss ‘Buddy’:

TV shows like “The Biggest Loser” and bestselling books like Dr Phil’s “The Ultimate Weight Solution” illustrate how chronically overweight people struggle to overcome their destructive habits. A weight loss buddy – like a ‘dive buddy’ – mentors, guides, inspires and supports obese individuals one-on-one in their drive to reform their health. This is obviously a massive market sector given the Western world’s obesity ‘plague’ and plenty of free marketing ‘oomph’ could come from free classifieds sites like Craigslist, Gumtree and relevant forums. With a big number of clients mentored for 1-5 hours per week, this could be a dynamite small business. Obviously the ‘buddy’ should be fit themselves, possess decent people skills and have a good knowledge of health and diet. Positive word of mouth could drive a business like this for years. More info at weightlossbuddy dot com

2. Shared Property Buying:

Even despite the credit crunch (or when it fades out), the ridiculous prices of real estate in most major cities still exclude most first-time buyers (Hello London!). One company, Shared Spaces, has set up a web-based facility for strangers to co-invest in property together, thus sharing the mortgage burden while allowing all parties to get on to the ‘property ladder’. It’s apparently all legal, contracted and doing well – it seems especially suited to young urban buyers who could not otherwise buy property. More info is over at sharedspaces dot co dot uk.

3. A Jobs Website For Ex-Military Personnel

MilitaryExits dot com specialises in job placements and employment listings for ex-military personnel. It is precisely this kind of targeted micro-niche that a successful small business can profitably develop. Initially, it could be web/home-based and would – if handled and marketed properly – generate a lot of goodwill with media, the armed forces, patriotic employers and governments (government contracts perhaps?).

I am always eager to hear about and share new business ideas so if you know of any other cool new small business ideas, let’s share…

Small Business ‘X-Factor’? Try These 3 Ideas To ‘Branson’ Your Business

In our increasingly competitive marketplace, it seems to me that adding the ‘X-Factor’ or unique ‘star power’ to our businesses is pretty important if they are to grow.

But how?

From my own advertising agency background, I believe that it can be done in (at least) three ways:

1. ‘Branson Your Business’ – Richard Branson has a business persona that is extremely positive, fun, gregarious, generous and one that suggests he sees the world as a place of abundance where anything is possible (even space passenger flights!) rather than as a place of scarcity where there is hardly anything good and just many aggravations. He is completely extroverted and enthusiastic in approaching, talking to and connecting with everyone he meets. These attributes are a great model to follow.

2. Stardom by association – if your business has one or more well known clients, promote that fact. Some catering company vans that I often see around my neighbourhood here have the slogan under their company name, “Supplier to Virgin Atlantic”. The fact is that if your business is associated with ‘big name players’, it implies that you or your business is a heavyweight, has credibility and should be taken seriously. The point is not to merely have one or more ‘name’ clients but to actually feature that association in your business marketing materials e.g. through their logos on your brochures or website. When I used to hire personnel in advertising, I was always far more influenced by who a candidate had worked for rather than one who told me that they were “hard working” or other tired descriptions (which were probably true).

3. Creating a buzz around your business – a business that is up to date, hungry to try new ideas and a sense that there is ‘always something happening’ is quite contagious. Staff should be switched ON, know their stuff backwards and not be time-wasting gossipers. I believe that this sense of ‘something happenin’ here’ is often based on the tempo of the buying experience, the faster and more efficient it feels (depending on the business), the greater the buzz or ‘vibe’ in a business – this is particularly true in many retail businesses. Places where staff are busy, active and seem like they don’t have enough time to do all that needs doing (within reason) are usually much more enticing than those with a snoozing guy behind the counter reading ‘The Sun.’ In short, a business should have the identity of an expert ‘do-er’ not a lazy ‘snoozer’.

I do of course appreciate that these ideas are much easier to apply in some businesses than others.

More thoughts on this over at my site at http://www.latest-business-ideas.com

Best regards
Terry Kyle
Author/Editor
“400 Latest & Greatest Small Business Ideas From Around The World“