A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Angus Loten, titled, “For Small Firms, the Check is Not in the Mail” really struck home with us here at Cazbah.  Angus’ article poignantly describes one of the potential downsides of being a supplier or vendor to big companies; the fact that you may not get paid or that you certainly won’t get paid on time.

“About 14% of nearly 5,000 entrepreneurs cited late payments — or customers that didn’t pay at all — as their biggest challenge in 2010, up from just 2% in 2008, according to a study released Wednesday by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo.”

We hear the horror stories from our small business customers all the time about how they have been abused by their largest customers and their late payment practices. All small businesses have felt the burden of financial instability at the expense of their larger corporate customers at some point. This is a serious issue for all small businesses who depend on their receivables for cash-flow, which is most of them.

According to the National Federation of Independent Business, “in 2011, small businesses waited up to 46 days on average to get paid, six days longer than in 2010 and 10 days longer than 2006.”  This resonates with many of our customers, who are often battling to get paid. Bear in mind that these numbers represent the average, which means that there are late payment situations reflected in these numbers that are much worse.

Charles Broersma, CEO of Cazbah, relates his experience with a large corporation:

“Some big businesses have perfected, and frankly institutionalized, the process of holding out on and late paying their small business vendors.

I recall being invited to attend a Vendor Summit, which was an annual affair put on by a local big business here in Rochester (we’ll refer to them as ‘Company X’), some years ago. I felt privileged to have been invited to such a prestigious occasion. That is, until I got there and realized what it was.

The event kicked off with some fanfare about the bright future and new products that were being developed and the goals of the company and how we all had to pull together as a team, yada, yada. Then, the current CEO of the company, who was a mere Vice President of something or other at the time, got up and basically told a packed auditorium that they (the vendors) were going to lower their prices to ‘Company X’ by 10%, across the board, and that ‘Company X’ was going to extend their payment terms on all invoices to the vendors.

I was in shock. I had never heard of such a thing. I was sitting next to the president of a small manufacturing company that had been serving ‘Company X’ for years. His comment to me was that this was typical behavior. He clearly didn’t like it but, he wasn’t surprised in the least. He said, ‘what are we going to do? If we want the business, you have to put up with this unfair and unethical behavior.’”

It’s important to note that “Company X’ is a profitable, multi-billion dollar annual revenue company. It hardly seems like the type of behavior befitting such a company, to walk all over their small business suppliers.  But, as evidenced here and elsewhere, it happens all the time and is an accepted business practice.

It’s hard enough for any small business to succeed, let alone do so without getting paid! One would assume big businesses would be the most reliable, accepting a corporate responsibility to pay their bills on time. Clearly, this is not the case: “on average, big businesses – those with 1,000 or more employees – paid their bills more than a week past the due date on invoices.” This is the start of a vicious cycle, with small businesses unable to pay their bills on time, and so it goes…

‪We’d like to hear from you about your challenges as a small business.

‪Have you been stung by the big company late payment bug? Are your customers “holding-out” on you, and if so, for how long?

Small businesses have huge potential for growth and development online, however, it is hard to know how exactly to get customers knocking on your door. Is your website producing results and generating revenue? How do you know if your website is doing the best job possible? This article explains the 5 characteristics of successful websites.

1. They are optimized: Simply put, optimization is the process of getting website traffic by ranking high on key terms within the search engine results pages. Google actually uses over 200 factors in in ranking sites and what these factors include and how many are used is updated all the time.

SEO is extremely important because a website is essentially useless if no one can find it. An optimized site can mean the difference between getting 200 visitors a month and 200 visitors a day and yet it is one of the most dismissed aspects of website development. With a professional and well optimized site it is possible to compete with “the big guys.” Your services may be more conducive to someone’s project than the competition, but without this key piece potential customers have no idea your business even exists.

2. They are social: If a business is engaged online via blogging, social media or connecting, people are likely to think you are serious about your customers. These associations tell potential customers you are committed and care about forming customer relationships. The internet is a great no-pressure zone for people who are interested but hesitant to take action. Not to mention, networking through social media gets you “out there,” and is a great way to build brand awareness with relatively low cost.

3. They are updating regularly: A website that is merely present online, it is not doing a whole lot of good, and possibly doing a lot of bad, especially if there is no new information or worse, contains incorrect information. When people log on they are fundamentally searching for information. If a website is constantly updated with relevant information people come to it. Unique and fresh content delivers results.

4. They are tracking and analyzing: Analytics is a great way to understand the needs of the people coming to your site. Knowing how they found your site, where they went, how long they spent and what pages they clicked on is incredibly useful in building a site that serves the needs of your customers. If you find, for example, your about us page is clicked on the most, you might consider expanding it and updating it, ultimately improving the quality of your site. Knowing your customers is extremely useful information and a business that tracks its site is undeniably ahead of the curve.

5.They Have Easy Navigation: Are pages easy to access and does the layout make sense for the user? Navigation should be consistent across the entire site and relevant content should be easy to find. It is also essential that the load time of the website stay low. If a site is laden with graphics and animation causing it to run or load slow, people will look elsewhere. The average American spends about 8 seconds on a website – that’s it! Consequently, a site needs to capture attention, and fast. At a glance people should know your unique value: what makes you different and why they should care. Uncomplicated navigation and clear messaging keeps people on your website.

Want a real-life example? Herm Harrison, Vice President of Foster Transformer Company, talks about the challenges of having a static website and the results of his successful website.

Have you gotten one of these emails?
Dear Sir,
We are the authorized anti-cyber squatting organization in China. We write to inform that we received a formal application from a company who is called Saiberwi Investment Co., Ltd is applying to register “YOURDOMAIN” as their domain name in China on Mar.29th, 2011.

The email continues on to tell you that if you don’t reply, they will automatically give the mysterious Saiberwi Investment Co the .cn extension of your company’s domain name because they must be your Asian business partner. If you inform them you don’t know doodley about Saiberwi Investment Co., the offer will be made to sell you multiple variations of your domain name with Asian country extensions at ridiculously inflated prices.

And then there is the real purpose of the email; to scare uninformed business owners into paying $100-$500 US dollars for additional domain names (.asia, .cn, .com, .tw, .hk etc.). I’ve seen variations of this scam floating around the mailboxes of clients for the last five years or so. A Google search of the phrase “anti-cybersquatting organization in China” results in a flood of online forums identifying these emails as a scam.

So what should you do if you get one of these emails?
Nothing, Ignore it, Delete it!

That’s not to say that it might not be a good idea to register your trademark or purchase a domain name in China. In fact, if your business plan includes introducing product to the Chinese market, it’s definitely something you will need to take care of. But it should be done as part of a larger plan to do business in China not in response to an unsolicited email from a rather shady web company who charges inflated prices.

If you currently or plan on doing business with China and want to secure your domain name, most full service registrars will happily sell you .asia or .cn .com extensions for a heck of a lot less than $327.00 a year.

Have you come across any recent email scams? Let us know we’ll help sound the alarm.

Last week, Illinois Governor, Pat Quinn, signed state legislation requiring large Internet retailers to collect that state’s 6.25 per cent sales tax on all Illinois Internet shoppers. While Illinois brick-and-mortar stores cheered wildly at the newly leveled sales tax playing field, Internet retail giant Amazon.com picked up its ball and went home. Calling the law “unconstitutional and counterproductive,” Amazon said it plans to end relations with its Illinois affiliates by April 15.

This bill is just the latest salvo in the ongoing battle waging between giant Internet retailers, state governments and brick-and-mortar retailers. It started in 1992, when the US Supreme Court ruled that only sellers with a “nexus” (i.e. a physical presence in a state in the form of retail outlets, warehouses, offices, transportation hubs, etc.) were required to collect that state’s sales taxes.

In 2008, the State of New York found a way around the 1992 ruling by claiming that in-state affiliates provide those out-of-state retailers with a physical presence. Affiliates are website owners and bloggers who post a retailer’s advertisement or links and receive a commission on any sales that result on the retailer’s site via clicks from the affiliate’s site. Dubbed the “Amazon Law”, it applies to retailers who receive a total of more than $10,000 in referrals within a 12-month period from New York affiliates.

Amazon immediately challenged the law in court, where it still remains today. As other states started enacting their own versions of “Amazon Law”, Amazon has responded similarly by closing warehouses and terminating affiliate relationships.

What does this all mean for small and mid-sized e-commerce sites? In many ways, not much. Most of the state laws being enacted or proposed are targeted at large retailers. Transaction thresholds used to decide who does and does not have a sales tax collection responsibility have been for the most part set high enough to exclude many small to mid-sized businesses.

The other businesses being impacted by these laws are the affiliates of retailers like Amazon and Overstock.com, many of whom are retailers themselves and may be selling their products on these sites. A small but very vocal group of Vermont bloggers and in-state retailers affiliated with Internet sellers are organizing a counter campaign to fight that state’s proposed Amazon law. Some of these small businesses would stand to lose substantial income generated by their affiliate programs with major retailers.

The biggest danger for small businesses is if the tax collection responsibility rolls down to smaller players. Though the technology needed to calculate and charge the appropriate sales tax amount at the time of the purchase is relatively easy to implement, the reporting and payment of those taxes to thousands of state, county and municipal tax departments would be disastrously onerous for many companies.

One path out of the sales tax quagmire may be the Federal government stepping in to establish a single remote Internet retailer sales tax. Unfortunately, the US Congress tabled the national Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement last year and shows no signs of passing it anytime in the near future.

Until that time, small and mid-sized businesses would do well to keep informed on the sales tax landscape and, use the services of an e-commerce savvy CPA or market-aware web professional.

What are your thoughts on the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement? Good idea or not?

Videos are a great way to differentiate your business and YouTube is no longer regarded as just an entertainment site. It has grown into an invaluable business resource. With some time and creativity your videos can open new opportunities for your small business that would make a Fortune 500 company cringe with envy. Here are ten reasons why YouTube is a must for small businesses.

1.) It’s Free
Unlike television ads or radio spots YouTube and for the most part social media is free. To become a visible entity on the web it takes time and effort, not money and connections like in traditional media. This medium can be leveraged so a small start up has the same potential to go viral as a much more recognized brand and that can happen very quickly with videos. YouTube is the most watched website for videos and your YouTube channel is like having a second website without the cost of hosting and upkeep.

2.) Drive Sales
A video on YouTube is a great referral to your site. Your video can be seen by many people, optimized and shared through different social media tools like Facebook and Twitter. Because each video will have specific keywords or Tags associated with it. It will be found by the folks who are looking for you and your products via search engines like Google which owns YouTube and has about 70% of the search engine market. A powerful medium to showcase your products and build leads.

3.) SEO
As I mentioned, a YouTube Channel is like having a second site and lends room for you to describe your company and the products and services you provide. Along with the Channel you can describe each video individually with tags to help weed out the folks looking for cute kitty shenanigans. Tagging your video for SEO purposes will give you a great advantage of being found in general search. Each SERP page provides results for videos. For instance if you sell “baseball cards”, that key term in general search will have millions of results but, on video only thousands apply.  Because the SERP page prominently shows video results there is much less competition and therefore giving you a greater chance of being found on page uno. That will lead to much more exposure to your brand.

What Do I Write About in My Blog?

My products & services, RIGHT?  Better not.

Your company blog content is a great way to communicate with your potential and current customers.  It’s a way to give them the news they are interested in.  Reading about the best features of products A, B, and C can easily be done via your website and for a blog post, can be really boring if done too often.  The common question I hear from my clients is, “So what DO I write about?”

I recently came across a blog by Urban Outfitters – a retail clothing store.  They are making the UO Blog thee Go-To Place for current fashion trends.  They are writing about fashion from all over the world – not just their own store.  Their focus seems to be: what else do our customers want to know?  They are writing about things that their clientele care about, in this case, looking cool and wearing the latest trends.

UO’s blog content considers the consumer instead of focusing on specific products.  Their content is updated often, which makes people want to come back for more.  Don’t be taken aback by UO’s choices of clothing in the photos, videos, and set up.  It is uniquely designed to target a specific audience.  Great work UO.  They seem to know their customers well.

But you’re a small business that can’t spend the time or money investigating and traveling and researching.  What is your blog about, then?  If you go back to Urban Outfitters’ focus, it’s simple: what else do our customers want to know?  Do you get phone calls from customers asking questions about how to fix something, how to determine the correct size, what are the best ways to use a product?  Take the answers you provide over the phone and write about them.  Do a little research on Google to enhance your content, and wallah!  You have a great post with little effort.  Write about the latest updates in your industry, the trends; the big news.  Write about what is going on within your business location – remodeling? A party? A promotion? A new hire? The owner’s hobby?  The list goes on and on.

You are an expert already, just write it down.
Where do you get the inspiration for your blog? Write back we would love know.

We are warning our clients and small businesses to be aware of a search engine ranking flimflam. A confidence game played on the unsuspicious who pay for keyword ranking and traffic. This unscrupulous charade demands money upfront and promises that your website will move ahead of the pack. They also guarantee oodles of visitors that could take other websites months if not years to accumulate. Don’t be scammed, these third party search engines are illusionists. They use slick technology as their smoke and bots as their mirrors, all the while lining their pockets with your much needed marketing dollars.

The misconception of “the more traffic the better” is only part of the equation. Relevant traffic is what affects the bottom line. These “new” search engines that are charging upfront for web positioning and traffic are using bots and malware to make it appear their false promises are true. To separate the wheat from the chaff we rely on the data. Google Analytics provides us with the raw information that shows that these new search engines or catalog referral sites are not bringing relevant traffic. In fact, in many cases they are using bots to click on your site. The bots will show as a visit, but they aren’t real people who wish to do real business.

This scenario has reared its ugly head recently. A fairly new client bought into this suspicious and intricate ruse. They we’re charged $1,500 a month for website traffic. They did get plenty of visits but with a bounce rate of over 92%. The fraction of visits that did not immediately bounce out stayed on the site for an average of 11 seconds. Out of all this buzz and bother there was not one goal conversion. Not one of the so called visitors purchased anything nor requested more information.

Google Organic (unsolicited web traffic) for the same time frame was about 20% higher in visits, had a bounce rate of fewer than 43% and the visitors here spent an average of 3 minutes on the site. Affix that with 23 goal conversions (and another 24 from other reputeable referrals) and it is apparent to us that the “new” search engine is about as reprehensible as it gets.

There are no quick fixes to Search Engine Optimization and everyone should be very wary at the “throw money at it” solution process. Before you send one RED cent to these companies with unrealistic promises, do the research. A basic search will pull up many threads of conversation regarding deceitful web marketing practices.

Because this is an ongoing investigation and for legal reasons we cannot provide the exact name(s) of these internet advertising scammers here.  But we will offer free consultation regarding this post. You can leave questions in the comments section or email me directly at bgriffin@cazbah.net

If you are a victim of fraud of this type of criminal marketing scam or sales pitch activity you should file a complaint at the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Victims need to report these incidents and start fighting back. Don’t let the Internet Search Engine Data Merging Keywords scammers do this to other victims.

Have any stories about internet advertising or instant traffic scams? What are your experiences with the “new third party” search engines? Write back on the comments section we would love to know your thoughts.

Kind of goes without saying, doesn’t it? I mean, who hasn’t heard how challenging the bank lending picture is for small businesses? We speak daily with small business owners, across the country in a multitude of industries. The story is always the same; banks aren’t lending and they have become extraordinarily conservative with respect to their loan / line approvals.

Worse yet are the numerous stories of banks coming back around to their small business customers to ‘reevaluate or review’ a loan package or line of credit. The banks have been doing this with regularity over the past year and a half primarily because they have economic jitters (and regulators breathing down their necks) and, the unconditional right to do so. Often times, this activity requires extraordinary amounts of work on the part of the business owners (a major distraction) in order to provide the bank with an updated inventory count or some other form of business valuation, to appease them enough to move their company off the hot seat.

Speaking as a small business owner, it’s especially frustrating to see all of this going on, knowing full well the significant contributions that small businesses make to the US Economy in the two leading areas that determine the health of the economy at large; real GDP (gross domestic product) and net new jobs created. According to the SBA, “small businesses create most of the nation’s new jobs, employ about half of the nation’s private sector workforce, and provide half of the nation’s nonfarm, real gross domestic product…”

So here’s the good news, sort of: HR 5297 – Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010. This SBA bill, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, is big news for small businesses. It passed the House but… we’ll get to that it just a moment.

HR 5297 stands to benefit small business in some big ways. First, it provides a 90% loan guarantee via the SBA, giving the banks the security that they need to make a loan. Compared to the normal 75% guarantee, it can mean the difference between getting the loan or not. Second, there are no fees associated with this loan package. This alone can save a small business tens of thousands of dollars! Third, the loan limit has been increase to $5 Million. The bill also allows businesses with up to $15 Million in net worth to qualify. The previous limit was $8.5 Million. In addition, small businesses with existing SBA loans that have balloon payments coming due can refinance their commercial loans through this program.

Now for the bad news: Politics…need I say more? HR 5297 passed the House of Representatives on June 17^th with 241 in favor, 182 opposed and 9 abstaining. A small margin for sure but, it passed. It has since stalled in the Senate due primarily to a Republican filibuster.

This post is not intended to be a political commentary. It’s my hope that our representatives in the Federal Government will have the good sense and the higher calling to put aside their differences and truly act in the best interest of the people by passing this bill.

Monday, September 13^th is the day Senators head back to Washington after their summer recess. Waiting for them, front and center, will be HR 5297. As you can imagine, there is a lot of energy and anticipation surrounding this particular bill. With all of its attributes and the fact that it could be very profitable for the banks, it stands to be a win-win-win. Small businesses win, they get funded. Banks win, they make profitable loans. Government wins, they serve their constituency, create real GDP and jobs.

The SBA lending community (approved banks) has started to come alive recently and, according to several business owners that I have talked to across the country, banks are now reaching out to their small business customers in order to reopen funding discussions. Presumably, this is in anticipation of the passage of HR 5297.

If you have not heard from your banker recently and you are interested in seeking funding through the SBA, you owe it to yourself to put a call in to him or her and find out what they are doing to prepare for the potential passage of HR 5297. More importantly, you should find out what they can do for your small business specifically.

The entire 122 pages of  HR 5297 is available.

Discussing Cazbah, an Internet marketing services company, to business owners in manufacturing and industrial distribution recently reminded of the “Peter Principle,” which states:

“Employees within a business will rise to their own level of incompetence. Beyond that point, they will not be particularly effective inside the organization, and will not contribute as they once did.”

Well, business Web sites need to be considered like an employee – they are an internal resource that needs to be utilized as effectively as possible for the ultimate growth of the company. Like any resource; it needs to be kept current, relevant and in synch with the business goals.

Unfortunately, many businesses neglect their sites so they remain a static listing of products – lethargically posting information to its point of incompetence, running rampant inside many vertical markets; such as healthcare, food production, bio sciences, and others.

Account Manager

Cazbah, an Internet marketing services firm, provides small to mid-sized businesses with everything they need to succeed on the Internet. Our highly effective solution includes a dynamic database driven Web site with simplified content management, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, e-commerce shopping cart, and dedicated service and ongoing support. Cazbah customers gain a greater level of control and generate measurable results!

Responsibilities
Key responsibilities for the Account Manager position include identifying and defining our clients’ requirements and needs, managing all aspects of a clients’ online sales and marketing strategy, and understanding and applying the Cazbah capabilities to our clients’ situational needs. Responsibilities include:

• Training our clients on the Cazbah tool set
• Monthly contact with clients
• Development and implementation of Internet marketing plans
• Working with the Cazbah production team to implement Internet marketing plans
• Analyze Web site performance and make appropriate adjustments to Internet marketing plan.

Required Skills
Candidate must have Internet marketing experience and have knowledge of how Web sites are built and maintained. A BS/BA degree or equivalent work experience in customer support, marketing or technology industry is also required. Experience working with small businesses/start ups preferred. In support of this, the candidate will have the following:

• Excellent communication skills and feel comfortable dealing with their assigned clients on a daily basis
• Basic Web site editing skills
• Strong knowledge of MS Word and Excel, and basic photo editing knowledge

Preferred Sills
The ideal candidate will have a passion for small businesses along with a strong knowledge of Web development. Preferred candidates will be skilled in the following areas:

• Google AdWords knowledge / certification
• Google Analytics knowledge / certification
• E-mail marketing knowledge
• Social media marketing knowledge
• Sales and distribution knowledge for retail and manufacturing industries

Benefits
The Cazbah Account Manager position is a salaried position with a healthcare plan, and matching simple IRA.

Please send cover letter and resume via e-mail to careers@cazbah.net
No phone calls please. We are an EEO Employer.