7 Tips for Small Businesses

At Telonium, we maintain, “Your business is our business.” As a result, we’ve assembled seven tips geared toward small businesses, from leaders in the entrepreneurial field, to help your business grow and succeed.

1) According to entrepreneur.com, it is an absolute must to develop an in-house training program, as opposed to outsourcing employee training. Aaron Herrington, co-founder of the recent start-up Modea (a digital advertising company), found their 12-hour employee-training program engaged both new hires and company executives alike.

“People are much more aligned and understand the direction and expectation of what everyone else does. That has made what we do and how we do it more efficient,” Herrington said.

In addition to getting all members of the company on the same page, an in-house training program will save money in the long run.

2) Rhonda Abrams, a fascinating business guru and strategist affiliated with USA Today’s “Money” section, offered several tips for small, start-up businesses. Her most compelling tip? Get your business listed online. That way, when customers search the Internet for a product you’re promoting, the name of your company pops up in the search engine.

Abrams suggested listing your business with a variety of sites, including, (Bing) bing.com/businessportal; (Foursquare) foursquare.com/business; (Google) google.com/places; (Yahoo Local) local.yahoo.com; and finally, (Yelp) biz.yelp.com/claiming.

3) smallbiztrends.com promotes continual networking (duh!!), but emphasizes the necessity of a small business to “get out and see customers.” There’s something about face-to-face hobnobbing that endears customers, while attaching a (smiling, beautiful, intelligent…you pick the adjective) face to your company.

HOWEVER!

4) Abrams, as well as the team here at Telonium, cannot stress enough the importance of social media. Use all online marketing avenues such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc. to increase your company’s visibility, promote networking, and form relationships with prospective customers and business partnerships.

5) businessknowhow.com advocates a simple and cost effective way to entice prospective clients. Make and distribute proper business cards. Make sure your card clearly demonstrates what your business is about and why the prospective client should do business with you (make it catchy!), is the proper size, has legible text, and isn’t too cluttered. Most importantly, don’t let your cards sit in your desk drawer collecting dust! That won’t benefit anyone…

6) There was one more tip we liked from businessknowhow.com: create special deals for existing customers. It costs more money to find new clients than to maintain current customers. So keep ‘em coming back for more!

7) We saved the best tip for last! If you are a start-up company or a small business, hire the right people! As a small company, your employees will have multiple tasks which, in larger businesses, may be delegated to numerous employees. Mashable.com, in collaboration with Bantam Live, endorsed five qualities to look for in future employees.

1. Flexibility– as a small company, your employee may have to juggle many things at once. They should be able to go with the flow.

2. Responsibility– look for an employee who will take ownership of his or her ideas and be willing to defend them if necessary.

3. Entrepreneurial Spirit– find someone with enough guts to abandon an idea or task that just isn’t working. An employee with this essential quality will shrug off the failure and move onto the next thing.

4. Innovative Outlook– this seems pretty self-explanatory, but you should seek out a prospective employee who will challenge himself/herself to think outside the box.

5. Drive– you need someone who is self-motivated. You will be busy and won’t be able to tend to your employee’s needs 24/7. This quality goes hand in hand with patience.

Telonium isn’t just a hosted VoIP company; we’re here to help, because—believe it or not—we really care about your success. A lot.