Small business owners are feeling increasingly optimistic about the economy, and as a result, more than half of them are planning to hire in the next 12 months, according to The GrowBiz Media Small Business Hiring and Retention Survey 2012, conducted using SurveyMonkey Audience.

Here are some of the survey’s key findings:

Hiring:

• 58.6% of small businesses surveyed are hiring. Increased demand (60.9%), attrition (46%) and expansion into new products, services or markets (44.1%) are the top driving forces. All three point to economic improvement.
• 23.7% of small businesses need new employees, but either can’t afford them or are too concerned about economic uncertainty to hire them.

Economic Outlook:

• 52.3% of small business owners think the economy has improved in the last 6 months, compared with 23.4% who think it has worsened.

Employee Retention:

• 82.2% of small business owners think employee retention is extremely or very important.
• However, the majority of employers (73.3%) say they aren’t concerned about employee retention as the economy improves.
• Nonetheless, some small business owners and decision makers (32.3%) have begun to make changes to improve retention.
• Manager/subordinate relationships (78.1%) are seen by employers as the most important factor in employee retention, and 67.4% of small business owners have already made investments in those areas.

Employee Benefits:

• 10.9% of employers are planning to add paid benefits in the next 12 months.
  • Health care is the top paid benefit (62.1%) that employers are planning to add in the next 12 months.
• 15.5% of employers are planning to add unpaid benefits in the next 12 months.
  • Among unpaid benefits, team-building activities are the most popular addition (53.7%).

“Our survey confirms what I’m hearing in my talks with small business owners: They’re feeling more optimistic about their own businesses and the economy, and making investments to help their businesses and the economy grow,” said Rieva Lesonsky, CEO of GrowBiz Media. “I’m especially pleased to see small employers recognizing the importance of both paid and unpaid benefits to employee retention, and taking steps to compete with big businesses in this area.”

The survey of 700 U.S. small business owners, the majority of whom have between two and 50 employees, was conducted in March 2012 using SurveyMonkey Audience.

“We are really excited to see companies using our new SurveyMonkey Audience product offering. Talking to 700 small business owners is a fantastic way to take a pulse on the hiring market and create unique, quality content to help the GrowBiz Media readership,” said Brent Chudoba, SurveyMonkey’s VP of Business Strategy. “We built the Audience product to help our customers find the right respondents for their surveys, and GrowBiz Media is a great case study on how survey data can produce excellent content.”

View the full survey results here.

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How are you feeling about your business and our economy? Well, if the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index is an accurate measure, the answer is “pretty darn good.” According to the latest study, U.S. small business owners’ feelings about the current state of their companies, as well as their future prospects, are the most optimistic they have been since the July 2008 Wells Fargo/Gallup study, conducted just when the Great Recession took hold.

Small business owners in the Wells Fargo/Gallup survey felt pretty good about their current situation, but where they’re really optimistic is in their expectations for the next 12 months. Small business owners predict improvement in terms of their overall financial situation, cash flows, and credit availability.

Viewing the Wells Fargo/Gallup survey, I was reminded of the old saying, “Act the way you want to be, and soon you will be the way you act.” In other words, perception matters more than reality. Wells Fargo/Gallup survey notes that small business owners’ expectations for the future have more bearing on what they do than does their current situation.

I hope you’re feeling optimistic about your business’s prospects, but if you’re not, why not try acting as if you are?

• Invest in new technology instead of scrimping and making do with old, outdated equipment. It makes a huge difference.
• Think big and long-term. Start that project you’ve been putting off.
• Reward your employees—if not financially, with time off, flextime or other free benefits.
• Market your heart out. Reaching out to customers reminds them you’re still here to help them.

What would it look like for you to truly believe in your business and its future? It might be different for every small business owner. Take some time to think about it—and then act on it. I’ll see you on the sunny side of the street.

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“One year ago, people were looking for financial stability in companies they were purchasing from because of all of the business closings,” she says, citing surveys conducted by her company, Smart Advantage, Inc. “Now, on-time delivery outranks that because so many businesses cut back their inventory during the worst of the recession. With demand increasing, customers have more difficulty getting what they want on time.”

Smith’s company analyzed more than 150 customer surveys to learn why customers buy particular products or services from particular companies. It’s an essential practice for any business owner during any economic cycle, Smith says, but most don’t do it. Her analysis of 10 years of double-blind customer market research for more than 100 businesses revealed that, 90 percent of the time, most businesses do not know their customers’ top values. They are often shocked to learn what is at the top of the customers’ value list.

Smith offers these tips for getting to know your customers – and potential customers – so you can deliver the customer service they want and adjust your sales and marketing plan  to become more relevant.

• Customers are usually looking for “how” things are sold, not “what.”  For most products, there are any number of suppliers. If someone wants to buy a camera, a doorknob, a car, they can drive to the nearest store or order from the first company that pops up on Google. But they don’t. Why? Because there’s something else they value more than the product itself. It may be product durability, the company’s reputation for customer service, or safety features. “If you don’t value what you bring to the customer, they won’t value it either,” is Smith’s mantra.  Very few companies know how to effectively articulate what differentiates them, so price often becomes the tiebreaker.

• Understand that existing customers and prospects usually have different values.  Smith’s company research analysis shows that 70 percent of the time, customers and prospective customers differ in what they most value. When that happens, your message to customers should be different than your message to prospects.  Very few companies make this distinction in sales and marketing messaging. Existing customers may have come to depend on your top-notch help desk. It’s what they’ve grown to value most about your company. Prospective customers haven’t yet used your help desk so they don’t know how essential this benefit is yet.

• Use what you learn.  If you find customers most value speedy responses when they have a problem, and your customer service department is slow, then fix customer service. Make sure to tell the customer service employees that customers have rated fast response time as their top priority. When you’ve got stats you can brag about – brag away: “98 percent of customer calls are returned within 30 minutes; 2 percent within 1 hour.” Now you’ve used that information in two valuable ways: to make your company more relevant to customers, and to let customers know you’ve got what they want.

• Invest in disciplined customer research.  Research data collection costs have gone down 30 to 35 percent in the past few years and can now be affordable to smaller companies.  Double-blind customer market research is the gold standard and well worth the expense, but it’s not feasible for all companies. However, even a small investment in research can reap huge returns. Some less expensive and free alternatives to find out what your customers want include sharing the expense with an industry association; partnering with an organization that needs the same information or a peer that doesn’t compete with you; hiring a college intern; or creating an online survey using a free basic service, such as Survey Monkey.

Jaynie L. Smith is CEO of Smart Advantage Inc., a marketing/management consultancy whose clients range from mid-sized to Fortune 500 companies. She consults nationally and internationally with CEOs and executives to help them define their companies’ competitive advantages.  Her first book, Creating Competitive Advantage (Doubleday Currency; 2006), is in its 11th printing and is consistently ranked in the top 1-2 percent on Amazon.com for marketing and management books. She holds undergraduate and master’s degrees from the New York Institute of Technology.

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During many springs, I helped the St. Louis Cardinals get into peak mental condition for their upcoming season. Back in 2006, I was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals to train them in mental toughness. They already had a coach to teach them the mechanics of pitching, batting, and fielding. What they needed was to learn how to set goals, focus on their priorities, stay positive, be disciplined, and win. I became their first Director of Mental Training, and that year they went on to win their first World Series in 20 years. I helped them win again in 2011.

The principles of mental toughness are as useful in the workplace as they are in the dugout. Here are five ways to train your business brain in mental toughness, taking a cue from the world champion Cardinals.

1. Watch your swing; forget the home run. If you focus on your target, such as finishing the report, making the sale, or acquiring the new client, you may never get there. Pay attention to your process instead. Identify those daily goals that have the greatest influence on your performance and, therefore, your success. If your aim is to double your client load in one year, then figure out three specific tasks, or process goals, you need to complete each day that will help you reach that ultimate target. Then be relentless and consistent about completing your three process goals every day.
2. Don’t take your eye off the ball. Many high-performing businesspeople believe they can multitask and still maintain focus. The American Psychological Association cites a study showing that multitasking leads to as much as a 40 percent drop in productivity. Recent research from Stanford University found that multitaskers are less productive than their single-minded counterparts, and also suffer from weaker self-control. Regain control of your performance. While completing the three essential tasks you identified above, turn off your cell phone and shut down your email.
3. Be your own ref. If you want to be more productive, you need to establish your own limits–your “not to-do” list. This might include counterproductive tasks such as responding to company emails during family time, talking to clients after 3:30 p.m., or not saying yes right away to a new project, but giving your answer the next day, after you’ve slept on it. Be sure that you are scheduling your calendar rather than allowing your calendar to schedule you.
4. Get R&R between workouts. Nearly 4 out of 10 workers are regularly fatigued, according to a recent study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Lack of sleep causes fatigue, and that’s a productivity killer. In fact, the rate of lost productivity for workers with fatigue was 66 percent, compared with 26 percent for workers without fatigue. Fatigued workers lost an average of 5.6 hours per week of production time. Make rest, rejuvenation, and 7-9 hours of sleep a priority.
5. Listen to your body. When professional athletes try to push through the pain, they end up on the DL. In the workplace, this is known as “extreme working,” and it results in lower performance. New research found that 69 percent of extreme workers–super high achievers who regularly work 60-80 hours a week–admit that their extreme working habits undermine their health. Most of these workers can’t sustain this level of performance, and end up burning out, just like promising athletes who have to sit on the bench all season or retire early because of injuries.

Jason Selk, Ph.D., is the bestselling author of 10-Minute Toughness (McGraw-Hill, 2008) and Executive Toughness (McGraw-Hill, 2011). He is a regular contributor to ABC, CBS, ESPN, and NBC radio and television and has been featured in USA Today, Men’s Health, Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Self, among others. Dr. Selk uses his in-depth knowledge and experience from working with the world’s finest athletes, coaches, and business leaders to help individuals and organizations outperform their competition. Learn more at http://www.enhancedperformanceinc.com.

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Do you ever find yourself making a stupid management mistake? Today’s guest post by Darryl Rosen will help you avoid making it again.

Have you ever glanced down at an incoming text while an employee is talking to you? DUMB! Maybe you bark “Just get it done!” to your team and then walk away. DUMB!

Even smart managers make dumb mistakes. But the difference between dumb managers and smart ones is that smart managers notice when their salespeople are unmotivated and their workers are uninspired. Smart managers will work at making small behavioral changes, one step at a time, to correct common management mistakes that are impeding their performance.

Here are seven dumb mistakes managers make, and what to do instead. Do any of these sound familiar?

1. Assuming they’re paying attention, when they’re really planning tonight’s menu. Just because they’re quiet while you tell them how to structure tomorrow’s presentation doesn’t mean they’re actually listening and learning. Making sure your people pay attention isn’t their job. It’s yours. Check for understanding. Go around the table to gauge everyone’s grasp of the key expectation. Ask each team member if he or she is on the same page. Have each member verbalize his or her next action step. Brainstorm new approaches.
2. Turning their job into an episode of “Survivor.” All the weaklings got kicked off the island and now you’ve got an ace team. They’re talented, smart and resourceful. So you set steep goals and say things like “Have at it” or “Get it done.” Soon, though, your “tribe” is looking haggard and anxious. That’s because you threw your great performers to the wolves. Instead, ask them, “What information can I provide to help you achieve this goal? What are the best ways we can succeed?” Let them know you’ll both support them along the way and provide the necessary resources to win the challenge.
3. Hiding behind email to avoid a difficult discussion. When potential conflict is involved, it’s so much easier to send a terse email than to make the effort to resolve the issue face-to-face. But is this the behavior you want to model to your employees? C’mon–be a leader and set an example. First, prepare for the talk. Next, ask yourself how you helped create this problem. When you meet, speak in facts, and don’t make assumptions about the person’s character based on his actions. Ask questions, show respect, discuss action steps attached to consequences, and come to a mutual agreement.
4. Turning into the Incredible Hulk. Do you lash out at your people, figuring fear will motivate them? Here’s the rule: if you wouldn’t say it to your spouse, you shouldn’t say it to your employees. (Your current spouse, that is–not your ex!) Anything that can be said in a negative manner can also be said in a positive manner. Being yelled at makes people feel worse; it doesn’t energize them. Get in the habit of rephrasing negative statements into encouraging ones. So, “I won’t listen to another angry supplier because of you guys!” becomes “I know you guys are better than this. What can we do differently?”
5. Walking around naked, without mirrors. Are you like the emperor who wore no clothes? Is anyone brave enough to tell you what you don’t want to see about yourself or the company? If your people are telling you exactly what you want to hear, rather than what you need to hear, it won’t be long before they lose respect for you. Don’t depend on others to reflect back to you. Look in a real mirror. Are you clear about what you expect? Do you share your expectations in a straightforward manner? Can your people count on you to lead them with intelligence, vision, and consistency? Do you hold yourself accountable for everything that happens under you? Don’t forget to reward feedback.
6. Being a helicopter manager. You hover over your employees. Your people stop in several times a day with questions. Your sales professionals call and text you constantly from the road to help them solve problems. You wouldn’t tolerate 10 calls a day from your child, so don’t let your sales professionals or other employees do it, either. Your micromanagement style is making them stupid. Set aside one specific hour a day when they can call or stop by to go over open items, questions, concerns, etc. Let them solve their own problems the rest of the time.
7. Watching their lips move, but hearing nothing. Quick: could you look at every employee and identify each person’s greatest challenge? If the answer is no, you either haven’t asked them lately, or weren’t listening to them when they told you. Help others feel heard by turning down the volume of your ego and turning up the volume of your listening. When people talk to you, ask them clarifying questions, such as: “What does that mean? Can you be more specific? How did you reach that conclusion?”

Darryl Rosen has many years of experience running an internationally renowned company and is now a leading performance coach for managers and sales professionals. These tips are adapted from his newest book, Table for Three? Bringing Your Smart Phone to Lunch and 50 Dumb Mistakes Smart Managers Don’t Make! Learn more at www.tableforthreethebook.com.

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Have you missed any of my blogs this week? Read on for the quick recap.

Could Facebook and Twitter actually hurt your business and keep customers from buying from you? Get the truth in my post on Huffington Post Small Business.

Does encouraging your employees to become entrepreneurs sound crazy? Crazy like a fox, maybe. Find out how entrepreneurial employees can boost your business in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

One thing employees don’t want to be: corporate. Find out how to turn this to your advantage in my post on Huffington Post Small Business.

In your efforts to make more sales, are you turning your best customers off? Discover the big mistake you might be making in my post on Network Solutions‘ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Then, find out how to increase customer loyalty with one simple step in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

If your business sells upscale products, you’ll want to know the surprising results of a survey on what demographic buys the most luxury goods. Check out my post on AT&T’s SmallBusinessInSite for the scoop.

Speaking of target markets, the Hispanic customer is one of the biggest markets out there–and growing by leaps and bounds. Learn how to market to Hispanic consumers in my Q&A on the LA-SBDC Network website.

Getting ready to start your dream business? Be sure to read my post on SCORE’s Success Blog for the most important startup step of all.

Before you launch, you’ll also want to check out my post on SmallBusinessLoans.com for tips on building your personal credit so you can get the financing you need.

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You’re not worried about your employees leaving you–not even when the economy picks up and big companies start hiring. Your workers love your company and they’re loyal and true…right?

That may have been true a year or two ago, but I’m sorry to say you can’t be sure it’s the case now. Several recent studies have shown that companies’ intentions to hire are higher than they’ve been since the recession began. I’m talking about both big and small firms, which means it’s not just Mega-Conglomerate International that could be stealing your employees—it’s your nearest competitor down the street.

So how can you help ensure your employees stay put when the economic tide rises and jobs become easier to find? Here are three tips.

1. Think money. Let’s face it, the almighty dollar is a big factor in whether your employees come or go. The PayScale 2012 Compensation Best Practices report found 44 percent of companies gave employees raises last year, and 93 percent plan to do so this year. Before you panic, keep in mind a straight salary or hourly raise isn’t your only option here. Many companies are using pay-for-performance, such as bonuses or profit-sharing, to reward employees only when certain goals are achieved.
2. Show your appreciation. Employees want to know they’re valued, and sometimes this can mean more than money. When you run a small company, there’s no excuse for not spending some time with your employees every day. Compliment them—publicly–when they’ve done a good job, ask about their lives and generally show you’re glad they’re part of your team. A personal relationship with the boss is a big plus for most people and can make the difference in keeping them happy.
3. Provide opportunities for advancement. Whenever possible, promote from within. Don’t have openings right now? You can still help employees stretch their wings—and learn new skills—by cross-training them with co-workers, starting a mentorship program where employees teach each other new skills or senior workers mentor novices, and signing them up for conferences, webinars and educational opportunities offered by your industry association. Employees don’t want to feel they’re stagnating. Give them the chance to learn something new, and your business benefits, too.

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Today is the first day of spring. Celebrate by checking out guest poster Lindsey Amos’s five tips for spring cleaning your office. Then celebrate how much more productive you are by taking a quick stroll outside!

Whether you’re working at the kitchen table in your home, or you’re logging your work hours in a corner office, staying organized can be a big challenge. The aesthetics of a messy, cluttered desk aren’t ideal for any office environment, but the real issue is the unnecessary time and energy you can spend looking for important documents or office tools – and how that wasted time can affect your productivity.

Here are five simple tips to keep your workspace organized.

1.    Get Rid of Old Papers. Chances are many of those papers piled high on your desk aren’t of any value to you. As you begin to sort through your stack of papers, ask yourself: Do I need this? Why? Where will I look for it when I need it? Then create a filing system that best fits your needs, and make a point to file future documents as they are created to keep the problem from reoccurring. Remember to think before you print. Ask yourself: Do I really need to print that file, or can it survive in binary code?

2.   Separate Business and Pleasure. Regardless of where you do the bulk of your work, it’s important to keep distractions at bay. Keep a home office free of distraction by having a designated mail location away from your office space, and encouraging family members to keep the area free of toys, tech gadgets, and anything else that might invite lost time and inefficiency to sneak into your day. If you work in an office, cell phones and smartphones can be a big productivity-killer. Keep your phone in a designated location, and check it every few hours, instead of every time you hear the text message chime.

3.   Keep Supplies and Often-Used Items Separate. Daily-use items that you’ll likely need throughout the course of a day, like your laptop, pens, planner and Post-It Notes, all deserve a spot on your desk. Other items, such as tape, stapler, paper clips and envelopes, should be neatly stored inside your desk. This keeps less-used items from taking up valuable desk real estate, but ensures that they are easily accessible.

4.   Organize Your Computer. When your favorite desktop background starts getting obscured with icons, it’s time to de-clutter your virtual desktop. File away documents that you’ll need again, and send everything else off to the virtual recycle bin. Not only will you have a much more attractive desktop screen, but you will save countless hours searching for your important documents.

5.    Slow Down. One of the biggest pitfalls to organization is finding the time to do it. Invest the time to properly organize your space, so files, supplies and other items are in an intuitive, easy-to-find place. Once you’ve established a system that works for you, stick to it! Spending a few seconds to return items to a designated spot will help you save lots of time in the long run.

Keeping your office clutter-free will not only help you stay sane, but more importantly, keep your productivity level high.

Lindsey Amos is Marketing Communications Specialist at Wasp Barcode Technologies.

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By Lain Hensley, COO and Cofounder of Odyssey Teams

Corporate philanthropy might bring to mind company executives handing over big checks to deserving charities, but a new breed of giving is making philanthropy a much more integrated part of corporate culture and company identity. Companies are forever associated with the philanthropy they are involved in, and how they engage with charitable work can often define who they are to much of the outside world. Learn more from our guest blogger Lain Hensley, cofounder of Odyssey Teams, a philanthropic teambuilding event planning business.

The benefits of corporate philanthropy are widespread. Philanthropy can motivate company staff, raise corporate morale and help a company identify with the community it serves. Here are ten ways your company can think outside of the check-writing box, and launch a philanthropy program that makes a difference both in your community and your company:

1. Write down what you already do: Even if you do not have an existing corporate philanthropy program, start by writing down how your business seeks to improve the world with their product or service. This brand statement will help guide your corporate philanthropy.

2. Select a Charity: There are hundreds of deserving charities to choose from, so narrow your choices to charities within the community where your business is headquartered and charities that have ties to your industry.

3. Give Away Your Products: There is no more direct tie between your company and your philanthropy than donating your products. If you are a computer company, give away computers to a local school. If you are a shoe company, donate shoes to low-income families.

4. Volunteer: Get your employees involved by encouraging them to volunteer. The person-to-person interaction of volunteering is incredibly rewarding, and having your employees out volunteering as ambassadors of your brand is a great way for your company to connect with your community. Require or encourage employees to volunteer four hours a month or one hour a week, and build from there.

5. Encourage Additional Volunteering: Just like sales teams get sales awards, volunteers should also be rewarded. Create a “Community Member of the Year” award for the person who does the most volunteer work in the community each year.

6. Help a Family or Individual: Charity in the 21st Century can be a very impersonal act of simply handing over money. Re-personalize it picking a worthy recipient for your employees to support. Find a local family that needs help and get hands-on. Help clean up their yard, pay their rent, buy a used car for them, help them find a job. You’ll be amazed at how much more rewarding this personal form of charity is, and you will be amazed at the benefits to employee morale and co-worker collaboration.

7. Give Personal Donations: Give donations in people’s names to different charities as part of the year-end bonus to high-paid sales people.

8. Sponsor Sports: There is nothing more central to a community’s identity than high school sports. With current state budget cuts, and dwindling property tax revenue, schools are cutting back on athletics. Step up and sponsor a team. And then play a game against those teams at the end of their season, to let your employees meet and interact with the team they supported.

9. Highlight Results: If you are giving money to the local food bank or the local boys and girls club, connect your company to those non-profits by posting photos of the recipients of the food your company bought, or the children who now have a bike because of your company’s donation. Those photos allow your employees to see the results of your charity, and feel the empowerment that comes with giving.

10. Practice Daily Charity: Charity is an act, but it comes from an attitude of giving. Be nice to each other every day. See charity as an opportunity that is always just around the corner. Don’t miss the chance.

Lain Hensley is the cofounder and COO of Odyssey Teams Inc. He has developed effective and inspirational philanthropic team-building programs used by some of the world’s largest corporations. Since co-founding Odyssey Teams Inc., Hensley has traveled around the world presenting the company’s programs, including prosthetic hand-building program Helping Hands and bicycle-building event LifeCycles, to Fortune 500 companies. Hensley is the author of two books on facilitation.

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Have you missed any of my blog posts from around the Web this week? Keep reading and you’ll be all caught up.

March Madness is coming. Is it going to take your business productivity down? It doesn’t have to–check out my post on SmallBusinessLoans.com for tips on turning March Madness to your advantage.

Speaking of special seasons, find out some easy ways your business can benefit from seasonal promotions all year long. Read all about it on The Industry Word.

You know you need a mobile strategy. Check out my post on Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBusiness blog to learn just how mobile can boost your business’s sales.

Speaking of mobile, read my Huffington Post Small Business post to find out why tablet owners are the most desirable customers you can have.

Think you know all about who’s on social media? Think again–and read my post on AT&T‘s SmallBusinessInSite for some surprising stats on which demographics are most active in social networking.

Is your business outdated? Don’t become a dinosaur–read my post on American Express OPEN Forum to find out how to stay relevant (and profitable).

Are you giving your employees raises? Well, your competitors might be. Find out how you can deal in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

Are you still making customers log in to do, well, just about anything on your website? You might want to stop after you read this Huffington Post Small Business post.

It’s not just about the customers. Are you getting what you want from your business? If not, read my post on the SCORE Success blog to learn how to fix it–pronto.

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