Have you missed any of my posts from around the Web this week? Keep reading for a quick roundup.

I’ve got a new gig blogging over at Small Business Loans.com. Check out my first post to learn how to minimize the financial risks of starting a business–and keep reading to get lots of useful advice on all aspects of business financing.

There’s lots of positive news about the economy, including a new report that affluent Americans are feeling highly optimistic. Get the details in my post on Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Businesses are slowly starting to spend, too. If you market business-to-business, you’ll want to read this article, where SBDC Business Advisors Monica Rayes and Trevor Shickman share expert advice on winning B-to-B business.

If you’re considering hiring, don’t limit yourself to your own backyard. New research shows employees are more willing than ever to move for work. Learn more on Network Solutions‘ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Or consider hiring a teen. Learn how hiring a teen helps more than just your business in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

What do your women workers want? The answers might surprise you. Check out my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends to find out.

Speaking of women, conventional wisdom used to be that Mom makes most of the family purchasing decisions. That’s changing. Find out who’s in the driver’s seat by reading my post on AT&T‘s SmallBusinessInSite.

Are you worried customers of your retail store are using smartphones to find better deals–and walk out on you? Then you need to read my post on the Huffington Post Small Business.

Many studies show that teleworking improves employee satisfaction–but there’s one situation where it might do the opposite. Learn what teleworking arrangement you should avoid in my post on the Huffington Post Small Business.

Is there something you stink at? ‘Fess up–and read my post on SCORE‘s Success Blog to learn how to get better.

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Did you miss any of my blog posts from around the Net this week? No worries, just read on below.

Do you really know how your employees feel about working for you? If you want to keep them, you’d better. Get the scoop in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

We all know consumers are going mobile–when shopping, that is. But what are they buying and on what devices? Find out in my post on Network Solutions‘ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Do you use content marketing to attract customers? (Or are you not even sure what “content marketing” is?) Learn how well different types of content work in my post on AT&T‘s SmallBusiness InSite.

Maybe you use Facebook ads. How well do they work for you? Find out what other business owners think in this Huffington Post Small Business post.

What’s up with Generation Y entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs)? Get the scoop in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

And, in the words of Nike ads, if you’re thinking about starting a business, stop thinking and “just do it.” Read my post at SCORE‘s Success Blog for inspiration.

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Did you miss any of my posts around the Net this week? Here’s what’s on my mind as we head into year-end.

Find out the real reason people aren’t buying from your website in my post on Huffington Post Small Business.

Also on Huffington Post, get my top trends to watch for 2012.

Getting financing these days isn’t easy – but for some entrepreneurs it’s easier than for others. Find out more in my post on Network Solutions‘ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Young adults are a hot market today–but finding out who really influences their purchases may surprise you (I know it did me!). Get the scoop in my post on AT&T‘s SmallBusinessInSite.

This holiday season, moms took to tablet shopping in a big way. Learn why mobile commerce isn’t going to die out after January 1 in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

Who’s your business nemesis? Maybe you could learn a thing or two from them. Discover how in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

Will you be hiring in 2012? Find out what other small business owners are planning in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

The end of the year is a good time to get organized for next, so with that in mind, check out 5 of my “favorite things” for small businesses in my column on AllBusiness.com. And as you look back on 2011, take a moment to look ahead and plan for a better 2012–my SCORE Success blog post shows you how.

One plan for 2012 should be getting a grip on your business finances. Learn how a P&L statement can help in my Q&A on the LA-SBDC website.

Finally–this time of year is a time for celebration, so don’t forget to celebrate your customers (and build your business in the process). Read my post on the SBA‘s Industry Word blog to learn how.

Happy Holidays!

It is not an easy job to find the perfect analytic tools for your website. Website analytics help you identify the ads, campaigns, keywords, and referrals that contribute the most to your bottom line. Here’s more from Mark Drake, cofounder of WebsiteService4All and imSMB,

If you are not testing and tracking all your online advertising then every change you make, and every piece of advertising you pay for could be costing you money. When you run an advertising campaign, you run it with the intention of making money; but how do you know if it is really working? This is where website analytics comes in.

Web analytics is the collection, measurement, analysis and reporting of internet data for the principle reason of understanding and optimizing your advertising. Currently there are quite a few resources around the web to track your website, and it seems like it might be a complex task to find one that works and is understandable.

Imagine if you could accurately track every link on your website.

• How many visitors each campaign has brought in
• Ad tracking
• Sales today
• Unique clicks today
• Total unique clicks
• Referring page stats
• How many affiliates; subscribers each page generate
• Total sales that campaign created
• Cost per click analysis
• Cost per sale analysis
• Export reports for easy viewing/charting in other programs

Google Analytics: (Recommended) Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Google Analytics makes it easy to improve your results online. Google Analytics is free to all advertisers, publishers and site owners.

Urchin: Urching is one of the most comprehensive, information rich, easy to use, real-time Web tracking, and analysis application, but it’s expensive.

Webtrends: Webtrends is a powerful, easy-to-use tracking tool measure the effectiveness of your Website performance, from pay-per-click; online marketing to search engine optimization. Real-time; presentation ready. This software is so easy to use, you do not need any experience what so ever.

Web analytics have life cycles; they involve the interaction of the prospective clients with various components of the website before making a purchase. As the potential client becomes familiar with the website, he/she will spend more time and browse through multiple pages with each returning visit. Your ultimate goal is to make your website saleable enough to have them convert to a customer, and ideally on the first visit.

Analytics are the first step in understanding what is going on with your marketing, how you’re getting people to the website, what’s working and what’s not, and where your visitors place most of their interest.  Understanding this information allows you to identify strong and weak points in your marketing campaigns to save, and make you, money.

Mark Drake has over 15 years experience in Web Services and technology. Mark was the Co-Founder behind the launch of several internet service providers that range from a Web Design Company to Hosting and Online Advertising. He and his partner Steve Woodcock co-founded and operate WebsiteService4All (a website design firm) and imSMB (a hosting and online advertising service).

How often have you spent an entire business week working to “make payroll” without a single moment’s thought about your bottom line? You’re not alone. With credit crunch and cash flow fears looming, it’s not surprising that beefing up your net profit doesn’t often make your top ten to-do list.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) of small businesses either didn’t make a profit last year or failed to increase their profit, according to the year-end report from the National Small Business Association (www.nsba.biz). It doesn’t have to be that way! There are simple, creative steps any business can take to improve their bottom line — whether you’re a solopreneur or own a small business with a few employees.

Step 1. Change the rules of operation. To compete in today’s marketplace, you’ll need to generate more sales while reducing expenses and tweaking costly administrative processes. To increase sales, try cross-selling — offering new services or goods that complement your current offerings. Switch to a “relationship-based” sales model that gets them coming back to you (offering monthly or yearly service plans). Or lure them in the door with specials or giveaways. To trim expenses,  automate your business with real-time records for sales, expenses, time spent, and more. Review this data constantly, including office spending and pricing decisions. Finally, audit your administrative functions. Are there tasks you could outsource to save money? Would it be more cost-effective to hire part-timers to do these tasks?

Step 2. Stay visible and connected. Even if you’ve been around for decades, it’s important to stand up to the competition and wear your reputation on your sleeve. Accreditations, licenses, and certifications — for your business or for individual employees — can set you apart from your competition. Take your reputation online, utilizing social media, your website, and a blog to connect with clients and make strategic alliances. Use ad sharing with complementary businesses, and take advantage of affiliated marketing online tools to drive new customers to your site.

Step 3. Maximize your cash flow. One of the best ways to achieve a stable cash flow is to offer prepaid retainers or ongoing payment plans. Maintenance contracts, for service-based businesses, are another great way to create a brand-new revenue stream. Other ways to keep the cash flowing include once-a-year or once-a-month contract renewal fees (for registration, maintenance, subscription, usage, etc.), managing workload so many customers get ongoing service, rather than just one large client holding up service for everyone else; and managing credit payments to avoid fees or to take advantage of discounts and better terms.

Step 4. Streamline management costs. How efficient are your employees? How many customer leads do you have? How much are you owed in Accounts Receivables? Questions like these need to be answered immediately, and to do so, you need to automate your business. Create a user-friendly system for employees to access and add data, keep all information updated and synchronized, and be sure to build in back-office, administrative time (to manage your accounts and your business) into your project fees, hourly rates, or ongoing charges.

Step 5. Raise the marketing bar. Today, marketing is all about immediacy. Give your business an instant presence through online networks including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Set up group meetings, sales presentations, and special promotions using webinars. Or, offer tutorials, demos, or new certification sessions as webcasts or podcasts for immediate download. Don’t forget to measure all of your marketing efforts to see which ones are indeed cost effective. You can do this with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software solution linked to your accounts receivable system.

Step 6. Make everyone a salesperson. From telephone to email to face-to-face meetings, every employee has the opportunity to spread your company’s message and engage in potential sales-generating behavior. Jobs are no longer about going to the office and biding your time. Everyone needs to pitch in to help: cutting costs, selling, networking on the web, marketing, and more. Get them motivated to sell your message by encouraging self-development, or through roundtables, conferences, lunch meetings, and webinars. Reward employees who seek continuing education, or who make an extra effort to represent the company inside and outside of work.

Patricia Sigmon is a successful entrepreneur, a sought-after speaker, and one of our leading experts in the field of profit management. She is founder and president of David Advisory Group (www.DavidAdvisoryGroup.com), a boutique firm that specializes in helping CEOs and small and midsized businesses reengineer their business practices to generate more profit, cut inefficiency, and optimize their earning potential. Her new book is Six Steps to Creating Profit (Wiley).

Have you missed any of my blog posts from around the Net this week? Here’s a quick rundown of the latest.

Spring is sprung and the economy’s finally thawing out. Get some good news in my post on AllBusiness.com.

Did you get fooled on April Fool’s Day? That’s OK, just don’t let it continue into your business. Learn the 4 foolish mistakes that can hurt your business in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

Ever feel like your business relationships live entirely online? That’s not a good thing. Find out why face to face interaction can make all the difference in making the sale in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

Another important benefit of business relationships: referrals that can boost your sales. Learn how to make referrals work for you in my post on the SCORE Success Blog.

What’s “gamification” and what could it mean to your business? Get the scoop on this hot trend in my post on Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

Mobile shopping is poised for takeoff. Will your business be along for the ride…or left in the dust? Get the answers in my post on AT&T’s SmallBusinessInSite.

Last but not least, learn the surprising news about where that cell phone call might really be coming from in my post on AOL Small Business.

Have you missed any of my blog posts from around the Web this week? Here’s the latest:

If you need help but aren’t quite ready to hire, consider outsourcing–not overseas, but to the rural U.S. Read all about this growing trend in my post on Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends.

One thing you should be doing overseas is exporting. Learn about new initiatives from the federal government that can help in this post on Network Solutions’ GrowSmartBusiness blog.

What roles do you play in your small business, and what “faces” do you put on? Read my take on the many hats small business owners wear in my AllBusiness.com column.

Wearing umpteen hats, of course, makes for some hefty time-management challenges. Get my tips for smarter time management on the SCORE Success Blog.

Good news for small business: Americans are starting to spend again. Find out where they’re putting their money in my post on AOL Small Business.

Americans are taking more risks these days–are you? Learn why risky moves can pay off big for your business right now in my post on American Express OPEN Forum.

Have you ever dealt with a prima donna saleperson? Maybe you’ve got one on your team now. In today’s guest post, sales expert Kevin Davis, author of Slow Down, Sell Faster!: Understand Your Customer’s Buying Process and Maximize Your Sales, shares his secrets for dealing with this type of profitable, but maddening, employee.

How do you manage a Prima Donna? One thing to think about is how the Prima Donna got that way to begin with. Often we sales managers create Prima Donnas by leaving them alone over many months and taking a “hands-off” style (which is a nicer way of saying a lack of management) rather than continued and ongoing communication.

Also, sales managers often don’t communicate expectations, or set standards, on anything other than production. And a standard is only a standard if you coach to it on an ongoing basis. So, naturally, top producers think sales production is the only thing that’s important to the manager. This is a logical conclusion for them to make.

If you are frustrated by one or more Prima Donna reps, then at least part of the solution is for you, the business owner, or your sales manager, to look in the mirror and ask, “What possible role did I have in allowing this situation to develop?” And, more importantly, “What changes do I need to make going forward to prevent future Prima Donnas?” What you don’t confront, you condone.

OK. So let’s say you have a Prima Donna on your team. What do you do now?

This person may exhibit some (hopefully not all) of the following characteristics: makes others feel bad, doesn’t care or doesn’t think about how he/she affects others, has an intimidating style, can be verbally abusive, arrogant.

But Prima Donnas are passionate, hard workers. If you come down hard on this person, he/she may just take their talent elsewhere. Not good.

So, you need to be flexible here. Have a heart-to-heart with your Prima Donna. Communicate specific examples of their behavior and ask, if roles were reversed, how would they feel to be on the receiving end? Communicate the importance of team work, and the important role that they have in the overall performance of the team. But at the end of the meeting, be very clear and specific about your expectations of their personal behavior going forward.

Passionate, hardworking, experienced and talented people deserve to be treated, in some ways, differently. They consider this special treatment a form of recognition.

But in other ways, ways determined by you, they must be treated exactly the same as everybody else. Be very clear and specific with your Prima Donna about what your expectations are going forward. You simply cannot allow them to continue to exhibit behaviors detrimental to the team as a whole. You must actively manage this situation, and manage to your expectations. Good luck!

© 2010 Kevin Davis

Kevin Davis is president of TopLine Leadership Inc., a leading sales and sales management training company serving clients from diverse sectors.  He has 30+ years of experience as a salesperson, sales manager, sales trainer, and consultant.  His 1996 book Getting Into Your Customer’s Head helped redefine how salespeople approach selling. For more information about his book Slow Down, Sell Faster, please visit http://www.slowdownsellfaster.com/ and connect with Kevin on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s Cyber Monday. Is your business offering special deals? If so, you’re not alone. A survey conducted by BIG Research for Shop.org, part of the National Retail Federation, showed that nine out of 10 retailers plan to offer special promotions today—an increase from 72 percent in 2007.

Cyber Monday started out because consumers who didn’t have high-speed Internet access at home were waiting for the Monday after Black Friday to go to work and shop using their companies’ Internet connections. Today, lack of high-speed access is less of an issue for most people—but a sizable number are still planning to shop at work. According to the survey 54.5 percent of workers who have Internet access on the job (that’s 70.1 million people) plan to shop for gifts at the office.

Hoping to grab your share of those sneaky shoppers? Here’s what other businesses are doing: Offering specific deals (49 percent, up from 42.9 percent last year), one-day sales (41.2 percent vs. 32.9 percent last year) and free shipping on purchases of all sizes (21.6 percent vs. 15.7 percent last year).

Negotiation is one of the most important skills small business owners can have–but it’s often one that they lack. In today’s guest post, negotiation expert Jim Camp shares 11 tips to improve your chances of getting what you want from your next negotiation.

Running a business entails dozens of negotiations every day: getting employees to learn a new process or program, making personnel decisions, managing conflict, dealing with customers and suppliers, wooing new clients, improving sales, working out pricing, and so on.

The best way to boost your effectiveness as business owner is to learn some basic skills used by professional negotiators. Here are 11 of them:

1. Start with “no.” Don’t compromise. Instead, invite the other party to say no. Tell him you won’t take no as a personal rejection. A shrewd adversary will view you with more respect; a naïve adversary will feel safer to start the discussion.
2. Forget closing. Don’t think about, hope for, or plan for the outcome of the deal. Focus instead only on what you can control: your behavior and activity during the negotiation.
3. Be prepared. Before you go into a meeting, learn everything you can about the other party, the competition, and your own position.
4. Identify obstacles. Before any meeting, identify everything you can think of that might come up during the negotiation — your baggage and their baggage.
5. Expose the elephant. Bring your problem, their problem, and anything else standing in the way of your agreement out into the open. Doing so clears the air and eliminates surprises.
6. Have no emotions. In negotiations, be emotionally neutral. Exercise self-control so you have no expectations, fears, or judgments. Above all, overcome neediness, the number-one deal killer.
7. Be like Columbo. Let your opponent feel superior to you. This is the “Lt. Columbo Effect.” Don’t dress to impress, name drop, use fancy language, or get on a grandstand.
8. Get him talking. The person talking most loses the advantage. Ask questions that begin with what, why, how, when, and where. Learn about his needs, requirements, hopes, fears, plans, position, and business objectives so you can position yourself as the solution.
9. Build your M&P for him. Every negotiation, whether it’s a phone call or a formal business meeting, needs a mission and purpose. Your M&P is to help the other party see how your three or four top features will benefit him and help him achieve his goals.
10. Solve his problem. Help him see that giving you the deal you’ve proposed is to his advantage. Spend all of your time getting information about his world, understanding the challenges he anticipates, and the problems he sees–and then present yourself as the solution.
11. Don’t be friends. The other party is not your friend. You’re not seeking loyalty or a long-term relationship–symbols of neediness. What you want, instead, is respect and a fair agreement that accomplishes your mission and purpose, and solves his problem.

Jim Camp is president and CEO of Camp Negotiation Systems, and has trained and coached over 100,000 people through thousands of negotiations in more than 500 organizations. He is founder of J. Camp University, which offers Camp Method “Start with No” Credentialed Negotiation Skill Courses to organizations and individuals who wish to develop professional negotiating skills and become credentialed in negotiation. His bestselling book, Start With No (Crown Business), has been translated into 12 languages. Find out more at www.StartwithNo.com.