GoHuman Blog

Remember the insane difficulty of dropping checkbooks for credit cards and online banking? Still not fully there yet? Have you ever tried selling on eBay?

Introducing new technologies to your beloved business is just plain hard work. There are some big hills to climb, and from the bottom they often appear bigger than Denali (Look it up — it’s taller than Everest).

In tackling these challenges, big, resource-rich companies have all the advantages — right?  Not really. Introducing new technology is difficult for all businesses, regardless of size. But it is far easier for a small business.  You don’t have thousands of staff to retrain, millions of dollars tied up in antiquated machinery, or terabytes of data stored in dusty databases designed decades ago.

But how should you do it?  The answer is surprisingly simple.

Introduce the smallest, simplest change that will produce greater benefit to your business more than it costs.  Positive ROI.

Just keep the changes small, with definable goals and benefits; and never stop moving forward. That simple approach means that your business is constantly strengthened with a more stable platform created for your next advance.

Here at GoHuman our aim is to leverage internet technologies to assist the small business owner. You may not be ready to launch your own website and manage the hardware, software and security issues, nor undertake the investment and potentially harmful distractions that go with it. That’s why we have designed our services so you can take it forward in small steps – and of course, we’ve made the first step free.

You can post your services with GoHuman with up to five separate initial postings, at no cost. Each posting can promote a different distinctive service – or be aimed at a different zipcode area. Perhaps concentrate most of your postings around your home location, and experiment with a mail-order service aimed at a zipcode in another state. Maybe test with different graphics, text and colours to see which attract the most attention. Best of all, have your customers recommend your personal local service – giving you a real edge over big nation-wide companies where the customers are just a number. If you are already marketing elsewhere, then add GoHuman as another string to your bow. Marketing your business with GoHuman is a small step, with easily definable goals and benefits.

We have big plans to introduce new features and functions to GoHuman, and by taking the first simple steps now, the next steps will be simple too.

Invest a few minutes and give us a try. Could we possibly make it easier?  If so, please let us know!

“It’s habit probably. People like to stick to the places they know,” I said, not wanting to put pressure on him.

“It’s a shame really,” he continued. “We all go to that overpriced deli down the road, instead of trying nice wee places like this – and then the wee places just disappear!”

Ah – some insight into what new business owners are up against, I thought. I launched The Flavour Co almost exactly two years ago, and it’s only in the last few months that groups of kids in from the local secondary school have started coming in for their lunch – the younger ones, who have just come up from the primary school nearby.

It’s a reflection of adult behaviour – we’ve had regular customers since day one, yet I feel we’re only just beginning to become an established fixture in the area. And I’m still not sure if the shop will survive!

Although my shop is regularly full of customers, it’s hard to make the books balance. We need a more consistent flow of customers. Passing trade often just passes us by because the shop is so small.

In addition, people are spending less due to the recession – we’ve had to delist some of our more premium lines. Our margins are good, but you need to make a lot each day to cover the overheads.

I often wonder whether things would be easier if I’d managed to lease a bigger shop. But that can bring its problems too. This is obvious from the number of larger cafes that are closing down. One day they’re full of customers; the next day their windows are pasted up.

Here’s an example that might explain why so many apparently successful retail businesses are having difficulties.

I recently read an interview with the owner of a coffee bar that had been launched around the same time I launched The Flavour Co, but in a different town. It’s much bigger than mine and according to the owner it has an annual sales turnover of £320,000 a year, which seems like a dream to me.

It’s situated quite close to the city centre, unlike my café/juice bar which is in the west end of Glasgow, close to the university but not right in the centre of town.

The owner of this café has 12 staff working various shifts, and they will be needed as the café serves food as well as several hundred coffees each day.

500 coffees over 10 hours would mean you have to make coffees at a rate of roughly one a minute.

According to the owner, the money doesn’t go far enough to pay his key staff what he thinks they are worth, or to give him a decent salary. I found this surprising, so I decided to do a rough breakdown of estimated costs.

Coffee sold in coffee bars is known to have a very high margin, but this particular coffee bar specialises in high quality coffee and also offers food. There will be some wastage. I would estimate the cost of the stock at 25%, or £80,000 for the year.

That would leave £240,000.

VAT (value-added tax) is chargeable on restaurant and takeaway hot food at a current rate of 20%. This would take £48,000 away from the turnover, leaving £192,000.

Given the central location and size of the café, and the advertised rent of a retail unit on the same street, I would be very surprised if the rent and rates combined came to less than £50,000 a year.

That would bring the annual takings down to £142,000.

The minimum wage in Britain is currently £6.08 per hour for an adult over the age of 21.

The establishment in question has 12 staff. Assuming that some of them are part-time, while there will probably be a couple of full-time managers, let’s estimate that on average they are all on minimum wage and working four days a week, eight hours a day, and that they get holiday pay.

That’s £6.08 x 8 hours x 4 days x 52 weeks, which gives them an average salary of £10,117 each – not including National Insurance, holiday cover and other benefits such as maternity or paternity cover.

£10,117 x 12 = £121,405. Subtract that from the total and you’re left with just £20,595 per year to pay the fuel bills, water bills, licensing, maintenance, bank interest charges – and the owner’s salary.

These figures are based on my own estimates based on the owner’s claimed turnover, but my guess is that his actual costs will be higher than I’ve estimated, not lower.

The owner has never run a café before; he is clearly full of passion and enthusiasm, and he may well make a success of it in the end. But it shows what café owners are up against these days. Coffee bar prices really need to rise if these businesses are to be sustained – but that’s not going to happen in a recession.

The alternative solution when people are reining in their spending, is to attract a huge number of customers. It’s easy to think you’ll be able to do this, but actually making it happen is more difficult. And if you’re planning to open a new café, it’s very difficult to establish how many customers you’re likely to get. Few café owners want to share this kind of information.

Before I launched The Flavour Co I searched for market research on this but could find nothing. Instead I sat in various cafes and counted the number of customers coming in at various times. This gave a very inaccurate picture, because there are so many different factors involved.

A much better idea for anyone thinking of starting a café is to look at websites like Company Check in the UK, which gives data on limited (incorporated) companies. Also websites advertising businesses for sale sometimes include details of turnover.

Bear in mind that the figures in adverts might be slightly exaggerated.

Rents can be found by looking at commercial property websites, and remember that they can vary sharply in streets that might be close together, depending on foot traffic.

Business rates in Scotland are shown on the Scottish Assessors website.

Also remember that unless you’re very lucky or conditions are exceptional, it takes time, years in fact, to really establish a good customer base.

In this blog I want to share a potential mutual solution for both frustrated home seekers and fed-up landlords.  It’s called Rent-to-Own, and it’s a real estate investment model that has worked well for me and several of my friends over the years.

The benefits of Rent-to-Own for renters:

• They can become homeowners if they have income, but poor or no credit.
• If something changes and they need to move out, there are no penalties, and no effect on their credit rating.
• They can lock in a purchase price to protect themselves against rising housing prices.
• They can renegotiate the purchase price when the market goes down.
• It is great for small business owners as renting vs. paying down a mortgage is good for their debt-to-income ratio.

The benefits to investors:

• They will get renters with an owner mentality vs. a renter mentality.
• They can typically ask for full-market or slightly above market price, as there is not much competition for homes that can be rented with the option to purchase.
• When providing the rent-to-own option, homes typically move much faster than ordinary sales. My own experience (and that of some of my friends) is that homes that may normally stay on the market for 6 months can move in 1 to 2 months.
• The renter takes care of maintenance and repairs, minimizing the time and energy required to manage a property. (No phone calls Saturday night at 11 o’clock complaining about a clogged toilet).
• In some states like Tennessee, the income is considered passive and therefore not subject to corporate income tax, if you have an LLC that is owned by your family. (See your lawyer/accountant for details or your state’s appropriate tax form: TN Tax form FAE 183.)

If you like the sound of these benefits, stay tuned, as we’ll explore how this all works in more detail in future blogs. In the meantime, check out the Real Estate section on GoHuman.com (update to your zip code)!

We’ll start with a couple more relevant definitions. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process whereby a website or web page is made more visible via the organic (free) listing. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of promoting and marketing a website through paid listings (advertisements) on search engines. SEM can include elements of SEO, but not vice versa.

In the realm of search engine marketing (SEM/paid listings), a wealth of options exist and if you’re not careful, you can throw your hard-earned money away on a “little of this” and a “little of that” and not get a great return on your investment (ROI).

Ads on most search engines operate on a PPC (pay-per-click) model, meaning that you pay only when a user clicks your ad, and not for the ad impression (the instance in which the ad appears on the page in response to a query). Another common and useful pricing model in online advertising is cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), in which you pay per impression, not for any clicks on your ad. How and when to use CPM will be covered in more detail in a future blog.

Let’s explore the top search engine options currently available to you. The three most notable paid advertising search engines are Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft/Bing. Google continues to dominate the scene with nearly 65% of the market share, while Yahoo and Microsoft/Bing are battling it out for second place, at 15.1% and 15% of the market share, respectively.

All three search engines utilize the “bidding” option, whereby you determine a monthly spend (this is your budget) and then figure out how much you are willing to pay for each click. You set your maximum bid (i.e. $0.45/click) and depending on a variety of factors such as the keyword competition, geography, and relevant content, your ad will appear.

Now let’s throw another tool into the mix: social media advertising. There’s been a lot of talk about social media and quite frankly, who isn’t familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube? But Facebook is more than just a way to reconnect with high school friends or to share pictures. Facebook, like LinkedIn and YouTube, now offers paid advertising. The difference between search engine marketing and social media marketing is that the former is primarily based on keyword queries and the latter on relevant content.

Getting the most out of SEM requires selecting the option that’s right for you. If you’re trying to appeal to a bigger audience and you want people who are searching for your product (whether it’s coffee or cameras), Google is probably your best choice. If you can afford it, also advertise on Yahoo and Microsoft/Bing. Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube are better suited for those trying to brand their product and not necessarily complete an action (ie. sale or sign-up). Social media marketing does not allow you to do a search for a product; rather, display ads will appear based on relevant content.

Rather than take a “one size fits all” approach to advertising, consider the following points in choosing the “right fit” for your small business:

• Compare the ad pricing of all three search engine options – can you afford to advertise on all three or should you choose the one that will give you the most bang for your buck?
• Consider your market – are you trying to achieve a measureable result (sale, sign up, newsletter, etc.) or are you trying to create a brand?
• Constantly re-evaluate your return on investment (ROI) goals
• Is social media relevant to your business or are you succumbing to the hype?

Don’t be pressured into parting with your hard earned money. Knowledge is your best tool when utilizing search engines or social media to market your business. And, of course, don’t forget another powerful advertising tool at your disposal, and a free one at that: posting your business on GoHuman!

 

Starting a business may be a necessary path for a lot more people going forward, as the economy is not consistently creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth. Those who have lost jobs in the recent economic turmoil may be faced with the cold, hard reality that when unemployment benefits run out they will have to take matters into their own hands.

This does not have to be a daunting task requiring herculean efforts. Simply put, a business satisfies a need for which a fellow human is willing to pay money. Look around. If you don’t see something in your community that people need done and are willing to pay good money for, you are not in touch with reality.

In my case, I started with the simple idea that people who start businesses will always need access to money. If I could find sources of money and connect those sources with the many business owners that needed capital, I would have a steady stream of business. Little did I know at the time that the whole banking system would seize up and make applying for a simple business loan a pain-staking process… one in which people would gladly pay a guide handsomely in order to get them to the other side. It’s been a 12 year journey, but today I have a thriving business that supports my family of six with one currently in college and two having completed college recently!

At GoHuman, we understand what it is like because we are in the trenches every day, fighting the fight of the entrepreneur. It’s our business to help you succeed. Here’s how we can help you on your path to success, at no cost to you. Start out by posting your business, for free, on GoHuman. Then build your reputation and online presence by directing friends, customers, or prospects to your online presence. And follow our blog to learning the basics of how to market your new business. These simple steps will continue to pay dividends long into the future.

At this early stage, determining your target market, finding the most economical solution for your particular niche, and getting a return on your investment (ROI) through branding or paid search marketing all are important issues that must be addressed. Learning the terminology and lingo surrounding those issues will enable you to make the best decisions for your business. 

ic and paid listings appear in response to the same user query (in this case “organic coffee”), the results are independent of each other. This allows for websites that do not rank highly in the organic listing to rank at or near the top through paid searches. We’ll go into greater depth on this topic in future blog posts.

As a small business owner or entrepreneur, it pays to know what your choices are and if you’re reading this blog…CONGRATULATIONS! Because chances are, you’ve already taken advantage of GoHuman’s free search directory as a first step in marketing your business. And if you haven’t signed up yet, go to www.GoHuman.com and choose the level of service that you feel will benefit your business the most. We’re changing the way your world works!

 

But what about the little guys, the small business owners, the kind of folks who make up the heart of the GoHuman community? Is it okay for them to be greedy, because their greed may not cause quite as much harm? Or because they are only greedy for thousands — rather than for millions or billions?

It’s helpful to consider these kinds of questions, because the motives which drive us to become entrepreneurs have a strong influence on how we conduct our businesses. Many people take pride in what they do and in our culture that is seen as positive. I must admit that pride motivates a lot of people to do good things. But pride can also motivate people to do bad things because pride – at its core – is a selfish motive, just as greed is a selfish motive. I believe that greed is actually based on pride. Pride leads people to want to be number one, just for the sake of being number one. Whom does that serve? It serves the self, and our own ego.

If we are motivated by pride, it can have several negative consequences on our business. Pride tends to rob us of our objectivity. For example: When customers complain about our service, we become defensive instead of realistically looking at what we could improve. This kind of pride is focused on superficial concerns, and it does not create loyal customers, but rather hurts the bottom line.

Alternately, when the motive is a genuine desire to serve the customer, we strive to do our best for them. We put pride aside and and avoid cutting corners or cheating in any way, even when the customer does not realize it. This kind of give-rather-than-get approach, when done in a smart and thoughtful way, will pay dividends for both our business and our customers. By de-emphasizing pride and greed at the local level, we can build a better community than what the big shots in the financial centers and capitals of this world have created.

Unfortunately for the rest of us who own a small business, we are not too big to fail, and are allowed to do so on a daily basis.  Bigger is not better and oftentimes the backlash against big institutions and the government are played out in the news ad nausea.  But nothing ever seems to change and the big continue to get even bigger, often times with the help of politicians in Washington (case in point, Solyndra).

GoHuman.com is a small player in the internet world with a big message.  We believe that change starts with one person who makes a decision not to go along with the status quo and actually do something.  That “something” can be as simple as moving your bank accounts and loans from Big Brother Bank to a local credit union or community bank.

Let’s not be participants in the next great bank bailout. Let’s also do our part so that it can be said that 64% of the assets in the country controlled by the big banks does not include our assets.  Hopefully, the next chart that comes out will show this percentage has peaked, and is on its way back down.  Then we will know that one person, deciding to make a change, can impact the world…….Go Human!