Making Your Voice Heard as a Small Business Owner

Politics has been on everyone’s mind lately due to the recent midterm elections. In California, where I live, there was much debate (as always) about whether certain propositions on the ballot would actually help citizens—or were simply smokescreens for big businesses to profit. And two of the candidates, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, touted their former experience as corporate CEOs as a good reason to vote for them as politicians, though neither one won.

We all know the role that big business plays in politics and the influence large corporations have on government via lobbyists and donations.But did you ever consider that your small business could have the same kind of influence?

Of course, one small company cannot hope to wield the influence of a massive global corporation. But by banding together to make our voices heard, small businesses can make a difference.Sound too intimidating?Start small. For many of us, the issues that affect our businesses the most are the ones being debated on the state or even local levels.

Making your voice heard can start as small as working to get a zoning variance so you can run a business from home. In my area, business owners have successfully lobbied to get parking meters removed so that more customers will visit their businesses, legalize sidewalk dining to attract more customers to restaurants in a beach community, and change restrictions so that local coffeehouses can feature live music at night. You may not think of these as“government” issues, but these are the little things that make a big difference in a company’s profitability—or even survival.

Local governments are hurting for money these days, which means they’re thinking more creatively and are more willing to listen to solutions proposed by business owners. Once you’ve cut your teeth on some of these local issues, consider what’s cramping your business’s style at the state level. Is it taxes? Regulations?

Recently on my blog SmallBizDaily, politician and marketing professor Amy H. Handlin shared her7 tips for successful lobbying. One of the tips that rang truest to me:Create a coalition.Handlin advises reaching out to other entrepreneurs who share your concerns, then educating more business owners about the issues so you can all be effective lobbyists for change.

You can also hook up with community organizations that share your concerns. This article onBusiness News Dailycites a business owner who joined forces with organizations from churches to the Boy Scouts to protest a transit project that would have required his business location to close. Or you can join an existing business organization that shares your attitude about political issues.

Another solution—run for office.One entrepreneur I know went so far as to run locally office this year (she didn’t win, but maybe next year).

Whether we vote red or blue, the reality is that government—large and small—affects all of our lives and businesses. Shouldn’t we have an effect on government as well? You can get more in-depth advice on successfully advocating for your goals by reading Handlin’s book titled,“Be Your Own Lobbyist: How to Give Your Small Business Big Clout with State and Local Government.”

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6 Free Banner Ad Creators for Your Small Business

If you’ve ever needed to create a simple banner ad, you might want to try one of these six online tools.  Each of these tools offers an online banner creation service, most free, but some have premium options if you want to upgrade.

As with many things that are free in life, there’s a catch: Most of these sites want your e-mail address.  You also have to put up with annoying sites or special offer popups.  But stay focused and you’ll find all of these sites offer value and a speedy result.  Whether you are pleased with the result or not is a matter of taste— but the price is hard to beat on these tools.  So let’s get started:

Bannersketchis a totally free banner creation service that amazed me with its directory of free templates. The actual service and process was pretty easy, but I could not get it to change the color of the text in the ad–thus, as you’ll see below, white text on a light background. Not very easy to read.

So, I started over and created a very plain text banner. Same problem with the font selection tool, however. If you happen to know the 6-character code for colors you like or want to visit a Web chart, you can gohere. Despite my small challenges with Bannersketch, I still recommend giving it a try.  Note: You have to provide your e-mail address to get the code, but you can click the box to opt out of the newsletter.

MyBannerMaker.comoffers a quick service for do-it-yourself types. I had my choice of animated/flash banners, plain banners (like you see below), insert-your-own-photo and more. At the end, MyBannerMaker asks you to upgrade to a paid plan, but also gives you the option to stay“free.”

I created this very simple banner in 60 seconds. Note: The default size is much larger (728×90) than this, but I had to scale it down to fit our post format.

Animation Onlinehad one of the simplest sites, but only offered 7 or 8 template choices. If you’re in a hurry and don’t mind a basic-looking banner, this site might work for you.

123-Banneris one of my favorites. They create a full flash ad.  I had options to create a plain graphics banner, skyscraper (think tall, tower-type ads, often displayed on the right side of a page), sound ads and more.  We could not get the flash ad to display here, so it is just a snapshot of the flash, but if you can close your eyes and imagine movement and cool bells and whistles, that would be good..

BannerCreator.nu— At first glance, this site looked very technical, or at least too detailed for my tired reviewer eyes. But after spending just a few moments studying their site, I grew to appreciate their approach.  Most of the options were dropdown menus or quick color selector options. After entering my text, I could hit Preview and instantly see the result. Then Download and I had my banner. No e-mail, no registration.

Google Display Network— no banner ad creator review would be complete without mentioning the behemoth of online advertising, Google.  Most small business owners think of AdWords as those simple text ads you see in your search results. But the giant has not been sleeping.  Google created a Display Ad Creator tool back in 2008, but it hasn’t really hit the mainstream (in my humble opinion).  If you use Google AdWords, you can find this tool in your dashboard.

I created the banner ad below and linked it to BizSugar.com, the social bookmarking site for small business owners and sister site toSmall Business Trends. Again, I sized it down to fit here, but I could choose any or all of the eight sizes they offer, in a matter of minutes. Google gives you tons of choices, but they also wisely show you what ads have the highest click-through rates and what’s popular.  This is a template ad, but I added the copy.  If you’ve not tried Google’s Display Ad options, you might want to check it out.

If none of these banner ad sites strike your fancy, you can always create something in Paint, Microsoft Publisher, PowerPoint or any other tool that has drawing features.  It may not be the same in quality as a professionally designed ad, but it would be free.

Or you could go in the opposite direction and get banners professionally designed.  Your own Web designer or a graphics designer most likely can create display ads for you.  Or you could try an online design service.  One such service isPointBanner.com.   Last September, Anita Campbell wrote about a positive experience with PointBanner.com. You can read thereview of PointBanner here.  PointBanner does not offer a free service, but the service is relatively fast and inexpensive.  You can get a banner ad professionally created for under $25 per ad, in roughly 2 days.  You don’t have to learn a tool or HTML color codes, and your email will be kept confidential with PointBanner.

Tell us in the comment section below what you’re using to create banner ads inexpensively.

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Stop Trying to Turn the Unemployed into Entrepreneurs

Here’s an idea that policy makers like: Take the unemployed, give them entrepreneurship training, and turn them productive, tax-paying business owners.

Of course the politicians love the idea. It gives unhappy, out of work people a shot at the American dream and reduces unemployment at the same time.

There’s just one problem. It doesn’t work.

We’ve had this type of policy in place since 1993, when the federal government created the Self-Employment Assistance (SEA) program to provide small business training and advice to people receiving unemployment insurance. To help turn the jobless into entrepreneurs, participants in the program getentrepreneurship education and advice and receive their unemployment insurance payments without having to look for a job.

The gold standard for evaluating whether a government policy works is to run an experiment. If some people are randomly assigned training and assistance and others are not, then observers can see whether the government-provided help has any effect, while ensuring that the group receiving the treatment is no different from the group that didn’t receive it.

In the mid-2000s, the Department of Labor designed just such an experiment to see if entrepreneurship assistance and training increases small business ownership and performance. To assess the benefit of the government help, participants in the Growing America through Entrepreneurship (GATE) program were randomly assigned to receive entrepreneurship assessment, training and counseling or to serve in a control group that received none of these. Researchers then observed whether those that got the help had a higher rate of business ownership and small business performance over the following five years.

In December of 2009, the Labor Department released the results of this study; and they are instructive. Compared to the control group, the recipients of the entrepreneurship training and assistance:

• Were no more likely to own a business
• Had no lower rate of business closure
• Earned no greater self-employment income
• Had no greater sales
• Had no more employees
• Were no less likely to receive unemployment benefits
• Were no less likely to receive public assistance benefits.

In fact, those who received the training and assistance were five percentage points less likely than the control group to have received a business loan, and had invested only invested 70 percent as much in their businesses. And those who received the government’s help were more likely to find getting customers to be a challenge than those who received no assistance.

These results followed an earlier experiment in Massachusetts in which the random assignment of entrepreneurship training and assistance did not increase self employment income or the odds of working for oneself five years later.

An experimental study in Washington showed that entrepreneurship training and assistance was beneficial over a shorter period of time. And other studies have shown correlations between government help and the odds of being an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial performance. However, to date we have no solid, experimental evidence of the long term benefit of entrepreneurial assessment, training and counseling on the tendency to be an entrepreneur or performance at small business ownership.

This result has an important implication: government efforts to help people become entrepreneurs don’t make people more likely to run their own businesses or do a better job at managing them.

Would America would benefit more if we gave the resources used to fund these ineffective programs back to small business owners? It’s a plausible hypothesis and one worth testing.

So here’s what I propose: Give those with a different set of beliefs about how to enhance small business performance a chance to test their ideas. Let’s randomly assign a tax cut to some small business owners and see if the businesses paying less employ more people five years down the road.

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Small Business Events Webinars to Make You More Successful

This list of small business events, webinars and conferences is brought to you every two weeks as a community service bySmall Business TrendsandSmallbiztechnology.com.

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The Make Mine a Million $ Business San Francisco Event
November 7, 2010

This two-day event features our famed Make Mine a Million $ Business competition, where you get to vote for your favorite woman entrepreneurs to win our coveted prize package. Plus, you’ll experience renowned business experts, exciting speakers, provocative panels and fun workshops, and access to a vibrant community of ambitious entrepreneurs growing their businesses just like you.

Entrepreneurship and Small Business Series
Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship Research
Multiple Dates, Hudson, OH

Entrepreneurship and the Green Economy
November 8, 2010
Dr. Robert J. Hannemann, director of the Tufts Gordon Institute at Tufts University School of Engineering in Massachusetts, discusses entrepreneurship and the green economy.

Numbers Demystified
November 17, 2010
Jim Griggy, Certified Business Advisor at the Ohio Small Business Development Center (OSBDC) at Summit Medina Business Alliance Inc., will explain how to read financial statements using meaningful comparisons and financial ratios.

New York Entrepreneur Week
November 8-12, 2010, New York City

NYEW is a semi-annual event built for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs, providing an exclusive educational experience for innovation-minded start-ups to multi-million dollar revenue generators.

More than 100 speakers from 40 cities, 15 states and 3 continents converge at NYEW. New York Entrepreneur Week encompasses five days of innovative and hyper-targeted events, including:

* Inspiring keynote speeches from recognized business leaders
* Riveting panels delivering relevant mission-critical advice
* The flagship RELENTLESS business plan competition

Pubcon 2010: Social Media, Search and Affiliates
November 8-11, 2010, Las Vegas, NV

PubCon Las Vegas 2010 conference is an important gathering of search and social media innovators, offering an unrivaled highly-productive conference experience at cost-effective rates, and with the leading technology and online marketing visionaries. Every attendee will come away with valuable new ideas and solutions for their businesses.

This year’s Kickoff Keynote speaker is New York Times technology columnist, David Pogue. It will be held at the Wynn Las Vegas, and features 28 in-depth sessions, plus fresh keynote speakers every hour.Register.

Small Business Tech Tour 2010

Final city: November 9– Atlanta

Learn how to leverage technology as a tool to grow your business! Brought to you bySmallbiztechnology.com, this full-day event is for business owners, entrepreneurs and business professionals who want to have fun, network and learn– whether you know nothing about technology or know a lot.

BlackBerry Reseller Road Tour
Multiple Dates and Locations

Dallas, Tuesday November 9, 2010
San Jose, Thursday November 11, 2010

Meet face-to-face with the BlackBerry team and get the inside track on sales and technical knowledge at the BlackBerry Technology Reseller Road Tour event nearest you. You’ll also be able to discover more about BlackBerry Enterprise Solution Express, gaining in-depth knowledge that will differentiate you as a BlackBerry solutions provider. Each free event is divided into two sessions: sales and technical.

Nassau Trade Show 2010
November 9, 2010, Woodbury, NY

The Nassau Trade Show 2010 is creating countless opportunities by bringing together premier businesses from Long Island, New York City and the greater metropolitan area with national corporations, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, government agencies, business advocacy groups and the media.

Email Marketing Outside the Gift Box
November 9, 2010, 10:00am PST, Webinar

How to use holiday email marketing to promote your services, drive repeat business, and improve customer loyalty. If you’re not in retail you may think a holiday email marketing program isn’t something you need to think about. But email marketing is about a lot more than convincing people to come to a store or order a product online to put under the tree. Join email marketing expert Melanie Attia to learn about “holiday email marketing for the rest of us” in this webinar that includes practical examples, tips and advice on how you can put the power of both email marketing and the holiday season to work for your business.

2nd Annual SBA Meet the Lenders
November 9, 2010, New York City

Once again the SBA has put together an opportunity for you to meet one-on-one with loan officers from SBA-participating lenders. You will also have a chance to learn about other programs the Federal Government offers for small businesses.
Experts from 8(a) Division and SBA resource partners-SBDCs, SCORE, WBCs and Government contracting will also attend.
(note: no link) To RSVP emailnewyorkdo@sba.gov.

The International Business Conference
November 10, 2010, New York City

Incorporating lessons learned from the latest opportunities and pitfalls, The International Business Conference will provide attendees with critical information and resources needed to thrive in the growing global marketplace. If you are currently doing business overseas or are considering doing so, this is a“must-attend” event.

Vertical Response VRTweets for the Holidays Tweet Chats
November 10& 17, 2010, 1:00pm PST, Online

Topics:
Holiday Subject Lines That Jingle
Holiday Offers That Deliver

Log on to Twitter during any of the times below and follow the hashtag #VRTweets. To join the conversation, add the hashtag to your tweet and it will be added to the #VRTweets chat feed.

Toyota’s Opportunity Exchange
November 10, 2010 Cincinnati, OH

This annual trade fair and seminar brings together Toyota’s Tier I suppliers, who participate as exhibitors, and MBEs who attend as our guests. Toyota believes this one-of-a–kind event demonstrates our commitment to lead by example and pushes the importance of applying creativity to the business of Supplier Diversity.

BYOB 2011– Build Your Own Business– Become Your Own Boss
November 13, 2010, Philadelphia

Come and spend a day with Melinda Emerson, Smallbizlady, in Philadelphia on November 13th. You’ll plan a strategy to leave your J.O.B. to start your own business; those of you already in your own business will learn new skill sets to take your business to the next level. Whether you’re thinking about starting a business or in your first five years in business, this workshop will give you new perspective on how and what you do.

Global Entrepreneurship Week
November 15-20, 2010

Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is the world’s largest celebration of entrepreneurship. This annual event occurs over the span of one week and includes the participation of entrepreneurial experts, policy-makers, education practitioners and politicians.

This year, GEW will feature thousands of events in more than 100 countries. In the United States, universities, colleges and organizations from all 50 states will connect young people through a variety of local, national and global GEW activities and events designed to help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators.

Maximize Your Success– SCORE, HP& Intel: Small Business Workshops
November 16, Tampa, FL

SCORE, HP and Intel provide real insights and simple solutions to help you increase efficiencies, boost your productivity and grow your business.

You will get essential advice on technology-based solutions and marketing strategies that can help your small business, including how to better understand your customers and target them more effectively, how to rethink your marketing in the digital age, and how to manage your marketing to reduce costs and increase sales.

Facebook for Business
November 17, 2010, online

This 75 minute class will cover the following topics:
1. Editing your personal profile for business purposes
2. Creating a business page (“Like” Page)
3. What to put on your profile vs. your page
4. Managing page settings
5. Facebooks changes over the past few months

This web class is designed for you, the small business owner. If you are looking for ideas on how to market on the web or are just getting started, this 75 minute web class will give you the tools you need to understand and get you motivated about marketing on the web.

Taste of Technology Business Series: How the Inc. 500 Leverage Technology for Profitable Business Growth
November 18, 2010, New York City

There are many companies all over the United States, leveraging technology successfully in their businesses. These businesses, however, also struggle with the same issues you do.
- How to acquire new customers and use new (and older) tools such as social media, email marketing, blogs, web sites?
- How do they know which tools to use and which tools not to use?
- How do they know how to hire experts to help them?

At this info packed event you’ll learn how the Children’s Progress and Green Logic succeed in leveraging technology and how you can learn from their challenges, which are the same as YOUR challenges.

TWTRCON SF10
November 18, 2010

Real-time tools are transforming business, government and non-profits. TWTRCON SF 2010 will be a one-day total immersion in the case studies, the practical skills and the tools that organizations need to stay at the cutting edge of the real-time web. Learn from the national brands, small businesses and others that are using the real-time web to deliver bottom-line results, including Ford Motor Company, H&R Block, Parle Agro/Creativeland Asia, SAP Community Network, Southwest Airlines, Wells Fargo, AspenSpin.com, Curry Up Now, The Roxy Theatre, St. Supéry Winery and more.

Brain Exchange Roundtable: How to Reap Juicy Profits in 2010
November 18, 2010, New York City

Making a bigger profit isn’t as simple as just making more sales. In this economic environment one of the most effective ways to increase profit is to decrease expenses and tighten money surveillance, while continuing to seek new ways to increase revenue. Guest expert Stacie Urbach will show you how to track your numbers so you can find the places to cut and the places to enhance. * How to read your business’ financial statements * How to find hidden value in your balance sheet * Where to look for potential profits * The difference between profit and cash in the bank * How to create profit-oriented projections * The best business management reports to view on a regular basis * The benefit of using financial software to manage your company as well as your finances.

SM@RT Conference
December 8-10, 2010, Reno-Tahoe, NV

The SM@RT conference features keynotes by David Nour and Scott Klososky, plus more than two dozen presenters speaking on a wide range of social media topics. The conference is designed for business professionals, small businesses, nonprofits and those working in marketing/advertising who want to take their promotions and business strategies to the next level using social media

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth 2011 Conference
January 20, 2011, Atlanta, GA

* Nearly a dozen hands-on seminars to help your business soar to your highest vision
* Growth strategies from top business authors, radicals and visionaries
* Meet& tweet with host Amy Cosper, editor in chief of Entrepreneur
* Networking throughout the day to build partnerships and connections
* Business growth perspectives from the Entrepreneur of 2010 winners

Tory Johnson’s 2011 Spark& Hustle National Tour
Multiple Dates and Cities Feb-July 2011

Whether you’re just getting your feet wet with this“business thing,” barely keeping your head above water, or finally ready to swim with the sharks, Spark& Hustle is the place to learn (exactly) how to transform your fledgling (or floundering) business into a wildly profitable venture.

To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit ourSmall Business Events Calendar.

If you are putting on a small business contest, award or competition, and want to get the word out to the community, please submit it through ourEvents& Contests Submission Form(We do not charge a fee to be included in this listing— it is completely free to list your event.) Only events of interest to small business people, freelancers and entrepreneurs will be considered and included.

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Read No Jerks on the Job and Learn to Manage Difficult People

One thing we can all agree on is that there are entirely too many jerks in the workplace.  If you’re the CEO, you might think you’ve got jerks working for you.  And if you’re at a lower level, you probably think your boss is the jerk.

In the newbookNo Jerks on the Job: Who They Are, The Harm They Do and Ridding Them from Your Workplace,Ron Newton explores the epidemic of jerks in the work environment.  While there have always been difficult people on the job, it seems that jerks, or“adult brats,” as Newton like to call them, are more pervasive than ever.

After receiving a review copy of this book, I wanted to see just how pervasive jerks really are.  So I searched on Google for “working with jerks” and got 1,800,000 million results.  Next, I tried “dealing with jerks” and only got 560,000.  That tells me there are far more people on the Internet complaining about jerks than there are offering solutions.

Perhaps Ron Newton is on to something.

Jerks and Juvenile Delinquents

Newton inherited his expertise in jerks in a rather unusual way:  he ran a wilderness camp for juvenile delinquents.  It was his job to take these no-good brats and turn them into functional members of society.  He didn’t think much about bratty behavior inside companies until people started calling him for help.  It’s interesting how one calling (helping children in trouble) leads to another (helping companies deal with delinquent adults).  And no one was more surprised at what came out of it than Ron Newton.

A Wilderness Journey Into the World of Jerks

The book is written in two parts. Part One provides background on Newton, his experience in working with juvenile delinquents and how he applies those principles to his work with jerks. Part Two provides guidance and advice to those of us who have to work with jerks.

Newton uses the metaphor of a wilderness journey throughout the book. He’s speaking as a narrator, directly to the reader.  Perhaps Newton chose this tone and approach to make himself and the reader a little more comfortable in dealing with a potentially difficult topic. (Of course, another option is that the readermightbe a jerk, so he or she may as well go on the journey and learn something.) Either way, it’s an interesting approach.

In part one of the book, you’ll get lots of opportunities to say to yourself,“Oh – that sounds just like _______!”I felt pangs in the pit of my stomach as Newton’s descriptions of jerks brought back memories of people I had worked with who made my life a living nightmare.  That wasn’t pleasant, and it made me anxious to get to part two where I would learn if there was anything I could have done to change things.

Understanding Where Jerks Come From

I suppose there is some value in understanding where jerks come from.  After all, if you don’t take the time to understand the root cause of a problem, how can you solve it? However, if I were currently working with jerks, I’m not sure I would have the patience to spend time understanding their situation and what caused their behavior.

Newton attributes the increase of adult brat behavior to many of our societal systems, such as:

• Our military system.  Newton tells the story of Robert Rangel, the last Vietnam War draftee to retire with uninterrupted service.  Rangel was certainly not the model of good behavior.  He was working the system for all he could get.  But firm consequences led him to stay in the military and build an honorable 40-year career.  Today, the military lets a lot of poor character traits slide.
• The government(of, by, and for the adult brat).  Newton says that the government has become more deficient in character and wisdom as it seeks to make excuses for improper behavior.
• The educational system(I am the greatest). Our educational system has made a practice of false self-esteem building and unconditional validation.“We handle children much more delicately.  They feel good about themselves for no reason.”
• The postnuclear family system.“The most influential of all the system factors contributing to the rise of delinquent adults is the decline of the married, two-parent family unit,”Newton contends.

There are many, many more causes of adult brat behavior. Newton spends over half the book going into each one in detail, with actual examples of adult brats either from the business world or his wilderness trips.  If you agree with what he’s saying, you’ll be nodding your head.  If you don’t agree, you’ll have an uncomfortable 113 pages of reading.

Finally, a Fix

I was glad to get to Part Two because in all honesty, Part One had made me a little too emotional for my own good. The following are just a few of the solutions Newton offers.

• Create a transparent environment.This is a principle of healthy two-way interaction in which we are free, without fear of exploitation, to reveal what we think or feel with those we choose.  It surpasses rank or authority.
• Embody the values you want to representbeforesetting yourself up as an example.
• Huddle-up.This is a group problem-solving session that ultimately drives accountability.

There are many more recommendations in this book that will guide you as you move through the wilderness that is working with jerks.

Are You a Candidate for This Book?

Who can resist reading a book about difficult people?  There is some kind of sick, gossipy joy in identifying bad behavior and pointing out those who have it.  There is a whole other joy involved in explaining exactly what it is about this person that is deficient or lacking–in proving that we are good and they are bad.

No Jerks on the Joboffers a lot of explanation and a lot of recommendations for solutions.  But don’t expect to be able to implement these principles alone and without help.

Perhaps the biggest benefit that any businessperson can get from this book is being able to identify jerky behavior and not feed into it or make it worse.

This book offers many insights and great guidelines for dealing with difficult people. For me, about the only thing that was missing had to do with the actual layout of the book.  I wanted more bulleted points; I wanted answers or solutions to jump out at me more – rather than having to wade through the muck that is human relationships.

But in the end, Newton stays true to his promise.  This is a wilderness journey, and you have to make the journey to get to the other side.  If you’re working with difficult people,No Jerks on the Job(websitehere; on Twitter@Bratbuster) will make you feel like you’re taking action in the right direction.

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