There has been much hype about the small business bill, but little actual fact reporting as to what this legislative action offers American small business people. Here are a few of the features of this much publicized bill as well as how they may help or hurt people just like you.

• Increase in Small Business Administration Lending Programs. This will make it easier for small business owners to get an SBA loan, which can be difficult. Owners will also have the option of obtaining an SBA loan to pay off other debt, which may keep floundering small businesses alive.
• Small Business Lending Fund. This offers a financial incentive for small banks to increase the amount of money they lend to small businesses. You likely won’t get any of this money, but it will encourage banks to lend to you. This indirectly may increase investment in businesses like yours.
• New Tax Incentives. New business expense dedications will triple in the next two years so small business owners can recoup some of their start up expenses. Further, investments in small business will be exempt from capital gains tax, encouraging larger corporations to get behind this vital part of the US economy.
• More Deductions. You will be able to write off large capital expenditures such as property all at once instead of over a period of years. Business owners can also deduct health insurance costs right off the top. However, you will have to file a 1099 for every supplier that receives more than $600 from you.
• Global Export Support. If you are thinking about taking part of your operations overseas, this will help out. New positions will be opened in government agencies that help businesses deal with foreign exports, such as the Office of the US Trade Representative. A new grant program will help small businesses begin trading on a global scale. While many people have criticized this provision as encouraging outsourcing, its true effects remain to be seen.
• State Small Business Credit Initiative. If you need a loan and this loan would create new jobs, you may be able to get preferential loans. This is expected to create more jobs in small businesses and in manufacturing.
• Increased tax penalties for small business owners. Someone has to pay for all these perks, and in this case it may be the owners who don’t get their taxes complete on time. Penalties will be doubled and calendar year penalties will be almost quadrupled. Because this bill will increase the number of documents to be filed, this may pose a burden for owners who fall behind.

Although the bill has little Republican support, it nonetheless has the support of several business and trade groups. Like many pieces of legislation, the language is complicated enough that it may be years before we can accurately see exactly how the bill affects small business owners who are struggling to make ends meet in this difficult economy.

Although the economy is recovering (according to economic experts at least), small business owners can’t help but notice that they must work harder than ever for each and every sale. This makes branding and marketing more important, especially for small businesses who are often pitted against much more established large corporations. This leads many owners to ask, “What is my company’s brand message?” Indeed, your success or failure may depend on the answer to the following question: What are customers perceiving when they interact with your business? There has never been a better time to ask this question or to find your own personal answer.

Sending a Clear Message

One of the biggest mistakes that a small business can make is trying to be everything to everyone. In order to send a clear brand message, you must first decide who you really are as a business. What is your persona? What makes you different from other businesses in your industry? If you look at some of the most iconic businesses on the globe, they send a clear message about what makes them different. Once you decide what makes you different, your entire brand, including your logo design, should be focused around this.

If you send a confusing or muddled message, your potential customers will not know what to expect from your business. This will leave them susceptible to the competition. Your marketing message defines what makes you different from every other brand that they encounter.

“All About Me”

What makes some brand messages appealing to the customer while others hold no draw at all? The answer may lie in what—or, rather, who—your brand it about. One of the key elements of a successful brand message is that it shows customers what they will get from your company or products—as opposed to what you are offering. This may seem like a confusing distinction, but it really comes down to pronouns. Instead of telling customers what you will give them, tell them how they will benefit. Everyone likes to deal with a company that is “all about me.”

Time for Branding?

If you think that marketing can handle your brand message for you, think again. Your marketing doesn’t really tell your customers what your brand message is; that’s a task for your brand and logo design. Your brand, logo design, and other visual elements should send a clear message about what customers can expect from you. Your marketing should supplement this by offering details, such as cost and features. If you have a strong brand with a strong brand message, what you are offering will be clear.

A brand message is one of the most important “products” that your company can offer, and the only way to offer it is through a professionally created logo design and brand. If you want to give your company the advantage of a brand that customers can’t say no to, talk to a professional logo design today. Give your company the advantage that it deserves.

Few of us (probably none of us) want to sabotage out chances of getting a small business loan, but that unfortunately is what many small businesses do. Here are the top five ways that they do them. Hopefully this list will help other make better decisions and avoid inadvertently compromising their own future.

1. Prove that you are bad with money. Banks prefer to lend to people who are good with money—mainly because money management is such an important part of running a small business. Therefore, the best way to avoid getting that loan that you need is by showing them that you couldn’t manage money if it rolled over and played dead for you. You can do this with repeated overdrafts, consistently low balances, and a low credit score. This alone may be enough to sabotage your small business loan, but there are four more tips for those of you who need them.
2. Fail to communicate. Successful entrepreneurs are usually good communicators, so failing to communicate may also help you sabotage your small business loan. Don’t return calls, turn your internet off altogether, and keep all needful documents anywhere but where you need them. If you miss a projected milestone or even a payment on a loan, avoid them even more strenuously. Banks like to deal with people who keep them appraised of their financial state, so avoid this as much as possible. Similarly, a failure to form a relationship with your banker can be a great way to sabotage your chances of getting a loan. Having someone who believes in you, has a history of dealing with you, and also knows the small business world in general can be a huge advantage—one that you don’t need if you are trying to sabotage that small business loan.
3. Give them as little information as possible. Things like business plans, resumes with your credentials, and other similar documents are none of their business, right? No one has the right to ask for your personal information, even a financial institution that is considering making a sizeable investment in your future. If they ask, get testy and refuse in the rudest way possible. Better yet, tell them that these documents don’t even exist.
4. Have no collateral. One of way of showing you are completely unworthy of a small business loan is by not having any other property to show for yourself. If you have no house, no car, and no property beyond a pup tent and a cat, tell your bank loan officer that as soon as possible. They’ll make sure you don’t get that loan you are trying so hard to avoid.
5. Refuse to invest your own capital. After all, this would show that you are confident in your business’s chance of success. We all hear about people who make it big with no collateral of their own. Hold out for this type of situation, even if it means sabotaging your chance of getting a small business loan.

According to an oft-quoted story, famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud was once asked if there were a branch of the mind that he didn’t understand. He replied: The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?”

Freud should have asked the shopkeeper next door. Business owners who market to women must answer this question correctly almost every day. Here are a few tips for creating a small businesses experience that will keep female customers coming back.

1. Create a sense of community. Women are the caretakers of relationships in our society, at least partly because they are so good at maintaining that all important social context. If you want to reach female customers, make sure you have a well rounded social networking presence. You also may want to try offering group classes that are related to your product and even tutorials on how to use them. Last, make your store a fun place to meet and socialize. Women are likely to return to a place where they meet new friends and generally have fun.
2. Offer great service. Women are more likely to notice that your cashier didn’t say thank you or that they never received a tracking number on the article they ordered. They also are the most likely to struggle with heavy packages or to need help getting purchases to their cars. Train your employees to anticipate these needs and offer a helping hand. Your customers will return to a place where the shopping experience was made comfortable and easy.
3. Make them feel special. Everyone wants to feel like an A-lister, but most companies seem intent on treating their customers like nobodies. You don’t have to roll a red carpet; try saying hello and asking them about their day as they walk in the door. You’d be surprised at how far a simple smile will take you!
4. Offer multiple gift options. Women tend to be in charge of procuring, wrapping, and sending gifts in the family home. Offering gift packs, gift cards, and several gift options for them will not only increase your sales, it will make them see you company as a problem solver in their lives. Remember to offer services such as wrapping, packing, mailing, and delivery so they can get all of their gift services in one place.
5. Reach out to their children. Regardless of the social class and unique aspects of the women who comprise your target group, there is a good chance that your female customers have children and/or grandchildren. If you have ever shopped with children, then you know that they can really complicate a shopping trip. Offering small accommodations, such as a small play area or a candy dish, can help appease these tiny ones so their mom can get a little shopping done. If your customer has to leave your shop to deal with a bored or poorly behaved child, you have just lost a sale.

Offering a new line of products is one key way of staying relevant in the business community. In particular, adding a ‘high quality’ line with additional benefits is so common in modern business that it is almost ubiquitous. Before the recession, many consumers preferred ‘upgraded’ versions that offered better service or different features than the average product, and companies large and small were more than willing to comply. However, with the recession becoming entrenched in American economics—and American shopping habits—many small business owners are beginning to see that their upgrades may diminish their core brand.

Diet sodas are a good example of this behavior and its results. Introducing low calorie options, a practice now common in beverage businesses ranging from Coca-Cola to Vitamin Water, is standard in the industry as more and more customers embrace healthy lifestyles. However, what does the ‘new and healthy’ drink say about its parent product? The new product suggests errors in the original, and suddenly neither looks as good any more. The original version has too many calories; the diet one simply doesn’t taste as good as the original. The result has been a gradual decline in sales for sodas and other sweetened beverages.

The moral of this story is that customers don’t like choosing between taste and calorie counting. Introducing this choice diminishes the overall brand. However, there is a choice that consumers dislike even more: choosing between quality and value. This is exactly what upgraded lines ask them to do.

Scope Outlast is a product that serves as a good example of upgrades diminishing a line. This latest addition to the Scope brand claims to offer breath-freshening power for up to five times as long as the original product. However, it costs around fifty percent more per ounce than original Scope. When a customer walks up to the drugstore shelf, Scope asks them to choose between the quality product and the value one. It isn’t hard to imagine that customer choosing another brand, one that promises quality and value in the same bottle.

A last example is Starbucks. The coffee giant has long marketed their coffee as ‘worth it’—that is, worth the additional money and time spent in line when compared to home brewed coffee. This fall, Starbucks introduced a line of instant coffee called ‘Via’. Customers were encouraged to test the new line and confirm for themselves that it indeed tasted as good as Starbucks coffee. This begs the question: why should any customer ever again wait in line for a four dollar latte? This branding giant inadvertently pointed out that its cornerstone product now has a lower cost and more convenient alternative that offers the same advantages.

Part of surviving as a small business is introducing new lines and new products as the market changes. However, as you can see from these examples, it is important to consider every new addition in the context of your overall brand. Offering an upgrade may imply certain disadvantages to the core product. With a branding consultant, steps can be taken to diminish this effect and ensure that all of your lines are successful and well branded.

A recent J.D. Powers and Associates study looked into the shopping habits and attitudes of young people between the ages of 22 and 29, asking them to rank different brands according to their preferences. What they found has huge implications for small business owners everywhere.

When the twenty-somethings were asked to name their favorite brands, value brands had particularly high rankings. For example, Old Navy was up with Anthropologie when it comes to fashion, while Subway was one of the highest valued restaurant brands. This suggests that the new generation of young adults has one preference that is usually associated with older adults: value.

What exactly is value? Don’t confuse this term with cheapness. Value means that the consumer is getting the most benefits for their hard earned dollar. The harder it becomes to earn that dollar, as in poor economies, the more benefits they expect. Subway, one of the top brands in this survey, promises fresh, healthy food for a relatively miniscule sum. Old Navy promises a variety of fashionable choices at an affordable price point. Neither of these brands is necessarily the cheapest option, but merely the one that has presented their brand as offering high value for the dollar.

This suggests a practical mindset and a love of getting something more for your money than an expensive designer label. It also poses new challenges for companies marketing to young adults. There was a time when young adults wanted decadence, premium brands, and unique benefits. However, those decades are over. No longer is the premium choice going to be chosen as a matter of fact by twenty-somethings. Like their parents and grandparents, these consumers are thinking about how to get the most for every dollar. If you want them to buy your product, you have to offer that little something more.

Clearly value is not the only brand aspect that appeals to this market. For example, Anthropologie and Bath and Body Works, neither of which is a ‘value’ brand, both were highly ranked in the survey. These brands offer not a low price, but a high level of quality and uniqueness. In other words, there is hope for premium brands marketing to this value-oriented group of consumers.  However, it is certainly notable value brands are being chosen more and more as the most loved brands of this age group.

Another key belief that the study found in this age set was the feeling that, while moving from job to job may be a necessity in the early years of a career, they long for the security that comes with staying with the same company for decades. This has interesting implications for companies trying to sell their brand to young adults. While they are willing to ‘jump ship’ and switch brands routinely to get a better value for their money, they likely also long to find a brand and stick with it. If you can position your business as this brand, you are likely to find huge success in the world of small business.

Domino’s recently unleashed a new marketing push. While this is nothing new for major corporations, the content is somewhat unusual. In a national commercial, the president of the company admits that the pizza simply isn’t as good as the competition. Clips are shown of unhappy customers comparing the product quality and taste to ‘cardboard’ and ‘ketchup’. The answer, according to Domino’s, has been completely redesigning their pizza from the crust up to taste better and include higher quality ingredients.

However, the marketing isn’t limited to a few well placed television spots. Domino’s also has dedicated an entire website to their pizza turnaround where consumers can leave comments about the new product. The brand also has been featured heavily on television shows from The Colbert Report to CBS’s Early Show.

How does this fit with the Domino’s brand? There are several aspects of this new marketing scheme that are downright revolutionary. First, Domino’s is completely changing their brand with this new campaign. The fact is, few Domino’s customers order this pizza because of its taste alone. On the contrary, many are attracted to its low price—one of the lowest in the pizza delivery field, with pizzas available for as little as five dollars—and the speed of delivery. In fact, Domino’s has spent the better part of a decade selling their half-hour delivery time as a major reason to call their number. People who want speed and low cost order from Domino’s; those who want a high quality pizza instead choose one of the company’s competitors.

However, value is one of the most potent brand values a company can claim, and this means far more than low price. To the new consumer, value means reasonable quality at a reasonable price. Domino’s can never be the true low price leader when supermarket freezers are full of low quality pizzas at half the price and fast food joints on almost every corner offer one dollar hamburgers. This company needs to offer something worth picking up the phone, and this new pizza is designed to do exactly that. This offers a powerful message to businesses everywhere: that price wars alone do not make a brand. In fact, as we have seen with Domino’s, low price can destroy a brand by reducing the quality of the product as more and more corners are cut.

It should be noted that Domino’s is not just branching out in marketing content, but in marketing method as well. While they are retaining old methods of advertising, such as television commercials, they are also hitting digital media and social networking hard. You can interact with the Domino’s Pizza Turnaround on Facebook, Twitter, and the company website. The television placement on The Colbert Report was particularly revolutionary, with the host cracking jokes and generally making a fool of the company while also clearly enjoying the product. This came across as authentic, which shows how important nontraditional marketing can be for companies of all sizes.

Only time will tell if this campaign can revive the Domino’s brand, or whether the new pizza is truly worth all of the fuss. However, Domino’s deserves serious kudos for stepping outside the box when it comes to marketing—no pun intended.

Your customer’s relationship with your business is a core part of your brand. This relationship determines whether customers will walk in your doors, buy a product, and return in the future. Like any relationship in your life, customer relationships and branding your customer experience will require effort on your part. Here are five ways of nurturing and building this key part of your small business brand.

1. Focus on meeting needs. Instead of telling customers how great your business and its products are, tell them how you are going to meet their needs. What problem are you solving for them? If you can make someone’s life easier or more pleasant, it will be easy to be viewed as a friend, an entity that the customer has an ongoing relationship with. Make this customer focus a core part of your brand and your marketing. Read more about marketing to the affluent.

2. Make all interactions as pleasant as possible. Few people can maintain a healthy, ongoing relationship with a person who is difficult to deal with, and business relationships operate in a very similar way. From the way you and your employees answer the telephone to the way you handle returns, all customer interactions should be streamlined and managed in a way that the customer comes out feeling like a winner. As with human relationships, business relationships are developed over time through positive interaction.

3. Create an aesthetically pleasing environment. Studies have shown over and over that the public prefers attractive people for both personal and business relationships. While aesthetics aren’t everything, they are a huge part of the overall picture. This means that creating clean and attractive spaces, both in physical locations and websites, is a key part of nurturing the customer relationship.

4. Put yourself out there. You would never make friends and build relationships in your day-to-day life if you stayed in your bedroom all day. You need to be in the public eye in a variety of ways, offering brand-consistent information that creates curiosity and encourages your target customer base to develop a relationship with you. Invite the customer to do business with you through marketing, including traditional advertising as well as nontraditional methods such as social networking and community involvement.

5. Maintain your brand. How would you feel if a good friend suddenly changed their behavior drastically? People find this frustrating and alienating whether they are dealing with a human relationship or a business one. Once you have a cohesive brand and logo design, let it permeate every aspect of your company. Customers will be more likely to behave as though they have a relationship with you if they feel that they know your business well. Let them get to know you by creating an authentic experience that is coordinated to be consistent over a wide variety of interactions and leads to complete brand integration and helps build brand loyalty.

There is an immense amount of give and take between branding and customer relationships. The way you deal with these relationships is a huge part of your overall brand, but your brand must be inviting enough that the customer is open to a relationship in the first place. Be sure that your brand is one that invites the customer to be friends; a branding consultant can help if you are unsure about the process.

There are so many choices to make when starting up a new small business and one of the most essential is the legal status of your business. While most small businesses choose to use the sole-proprietor title others chose S Corp, C Corp, or LLC. All types of Corporations provide a degree of legal protection to their owners.

The main difference between the differing types of corporation is the way that taxes are paid. I will examine the different corporation choices in another blog article. In this article I will examine the differences between the simplest of corporations, Limited Liability Corporations, and the Sole-Proprietorship.

Legal Protection

The first major reason most business owners choose to incorporate is to reduce the legal responsibilities of the owners. In a sole proprietorship, the individual owner and the company are one in the same. This means that if someone sues the business, then the personal assets of the owner, car, home, etc., are fair game in any judgment against the company.

On the other hand, if your company is organized as an LLC, the company is a separate entity from the owner. If a person sues the company, only the assets of the company can be used to pay any legal judgment. The personal assets of the owner are safe unless the owner is not found to be personal negligent for the losses.

Credit

Most new businesses require some type of capital to get started. Because a sole proprietorship is founded on the name of the person who owns the company, any credit and debt is the sole responsibility of that person. If the business fails and loans cannot be repaid, the owner of the company is completely liable for that bad debt. With an LLC, the business is a separate entity from the owner. This means that if the business should fail, in most cases, the debt would not be the sole responsibility of the owner.

In addition, how a business applies for credit and financing differs with each business entity. With a sole proprietorship, the credit history of the owner is the only basis in determining whether the business is a good credit risk. If the owner has bad credit, getting the business financed is going to be much more difficult.

When the business is incorporated banks can also look into the credit history of the corporation. This may not help obtain funding for start-up costs but it will impact credit decisions after the LLC has been established for a period of time.

Legal Requirements

One of the major reasons business owners choose not to incorporate is the paperwork involved. The paperwork involved in becoming an LLC is not as onerous as the legal requirements for some other business types, but an Article of Organization and the Operating Agreement will need to be drawn up. While these articles can be drawn up without outside help; legal assistance is always recommended. Some states will have additional fees and specific requirements for LLCs that will need to be adhered too.

The deciding to begin a new small business is a major life-changing experience and each smaller decision will impact the health of your new business. This decision should be based on the size and complexity of the business and how many owners, shareholders, or members the business will have. While a LLC take more time and effort to establish it may become the difference in staying in business for two years or twenty.

Most small business owners are not also experts in corporate and tax law, but to choose the best corporate structure for your small business you need at least some basic knowledge on these subjects. If you chose to incorporate your small business instead of operating under a Sole-Proprietorship you have several choices.

The major choices are LLC, or Limited Liability Corporation, S-corp, and C-corp. To explain all the differences between these types of corporations I would need to fill dozens of pages with legal jargon. Instead I boiled the differences down to the essentials that will impact your day-to-day operations.

LLC

The major reason to form a LLC is to reduce the legal liability of the owners. In a sole-proprietorship all the losses of the business along with any legal action against the business is the direct responsibility of the owner. In an LLC the corporation is responsible for the losses of the business and legal action would generally focused on the corporation and not the individual.

For those that like the simplicity of taxes with a sole-proprietorship no federal tax changes are made by becoming a LLC. Single-owner LLCs are taxed just like sole proprietorships, and multiple-owner LLCs are taxed just like partnerships. You should, however, be aware that forming an LLC might subject your business to additional state taxes. Certain states (California for instance) subject LLCs to “franchise taxes” in addition to a typical income tax.

S-Corp

S-Corporations, on the other hand, have the ability to provide some tax savings as a result of the fact that profits from an S-Corp are not subject to Self-Employment Tax. However, before you’re allowed to distribute any profits, you are required to pay any owner-employees a “reasonable salary.” This salary will be subject to social security and Medicare taxes (which total the same amount as the Self-Employment Tax). As such, the tax savings only take effect once the business has a pretty sizable income. S-Corps owners still file taxes in basically the same way as sole-proprietorships and the business does not pay taxes as its own entity.

S-Corps are significantly more complicated from a legal and financial perspective. Unless you have a background in accounting or law it is recommended that you consult a lawyer and accountant before setting up an S-Corp and yearly to make sure all legal requirements are fulfilled.

C-Corp

Unlike the previous two business structures, C-corporations are taxable entities. This means that the corporation itself is taxed on its income (as opposed to other structures which simply pass the income along to the owner(s), who are then taxed on it). This means that the profit from the business is essentially taxed twice; once as business and then a second time as personal income. Also, like S-corporations, C-corporations are more complicated from an accounting, tax, and legal standpoint than sole proprietorships, partnerships, or LLCs and in most cases will require outside consultants.

While I focused on tax differences between these corporate types there is also considerable differences in the business structure and how individual are paid within the business. In general, the type of corporate structure can be broken down based on the size of the business. The smallest businesses benefit from the simplicity of a sole-proprietorship, partnership, or LLC. Mid-sized business benefit from the potential tax savings of an S-Corp. While generally only larger businesses with a group of shareholders use the C-corp structure. Of course, the decision of corporate structure can only be decided on an individual basis depending on the unique needs of that business.