Micro Business for Teens » Running a Micro

Pinterest and Your Micro Business Pt. 3

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Today marks our third and final discussion on Pinterest! We recently explored how giant companies leverage Pinterest for their business. (Take a look here.) Did you know in the average week, there are over 11 million visits to the site? That is some serious traffic, traffic that could benefit your micro business! What are some practical ways you can incorporate Pinterest into your business? The blog Micro Business Perspectives, by Jason Keith, sheds some light on ways to leverage this popular platform:

1. Don’t just self-promote. Focus on how you can improve the image of your business, its overall brand. Post recent photo shoots from your photography business, images of your pastries from your baking business, specific tools you use in your woodcarving business, etc. These visuals impress potential customers and show your loyalty to your business. They’ll love it!

2. Incorporate Pinterest into your business’ website. Just as you can incorporate Facebook “likes” or Twitter “Retweets” into your micro business website, you can do the same with Pinterest. Have a “Pin-It” option for customers to spread your brand through Pinterest.

And 3. Follow other “Pinners.” When you are pinning other business’ products, it shows on both your page and the business’ page, giving you unexpected promotion into a market you might not have thought about.

Be sure to visit these sites as well for even more tips:

9 Tips: Boost Your Business with Pinterest

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips

Who knew this popular social medium could benefit your micro business? Take advantage of what Pinterest has to offer, and watch your micro business soar!

Need advice for managing your micro business? Find it in my book, Running a Micro Business.

Carol Topp, CPA

Quote This! – Success

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 10 May 2012 12:00:40 +0000

Looking to start your own micro business? Find inspiration through Quote This!, a short blog series dedicated to sharing encouraging quotes for teen micro business owners.

Much has been said about success in business. As you start your micro business, keep these thoughts in mind:

“The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vidal Sassoon, recognized British stylist

“If hard work is the key to success, most people would rather pick the lock.” – Claude McDonald, British diplomat

“Every single person I know who is successful at what they do is successful because they love doing it.” – Joe Penna, musician and filmmaker

“The road to success is always under construction.” – Arnold Palmer, American professional golfer

“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford, Industrialist, Founder of Ford Motor Company, and Developer of the Assembly Line

Courtesy of Nick Tart, Founder of 14 Clicks

Work hard to build a micro business around what you love, teens, and that is a success!

Carol Topp, CPA

Pinterest and Your Micro Business Pt. 2

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:50 +0000

A few short weeks ago, we discovered what Pinterest was all about. (Missed it? Find the first part here.) Now that you’ve made your own account and seen what Pinterest has to offer, what does this mean for your micro business? Great question.

Pinterest isn’t just a photo-sharing site for individuals anymore. Big name businesses are using it to promote their products! Not convinced? Take a look at these popular businesses that are actively using Pinterest:

Apple – Multinational electronics company

Starbucks – International coffee company

and Nike – International sportswear and equipment supplier

Why are these giant companies so interested in Pinterest? It is a great avenue to instantly advertise products or promotions. They also use the site to improve a customer’s overall experience. Starbucks, for example, uses its Pinterest to suggest new drink ideas, good breakfast and drink pairings, and distribute promotions for their rewards program. Now that’s marketing!

Dive in to how these companies (and many more!) use Pinterest. We’ll wrap up this blog series with easy tips to improve your micro business with Pinterest!

Carol Topp, CPA

Quote This! – Entrepreneurship

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:00:59 +0000

Looking to start your own micro business? Find inspiration through Quote This!, a short blog series dedicated to sharing encouraging quotes for teen micro business owners.

Today’s quotes center around the spirit of entrepreneurship. Take a look at these wise words to bring into your micro business:

“The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

“An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it. ” - Roy Ash, co-founder and president of Litton Industries

“Start today, not tomorrow. If anything, you should have started yesterday.” – Emil Motycka

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas Edison, American inventor and businessman

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest learning experience.” – Bill Gates, former CEO and chairman of Microsoft

Courtesy of Nick Tart, Founder of 14 Clicks

Aim high and work hard, entrepreneurs!

Carol Topp, CPA

Pinterest and Your Micro Business Pt. 1

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:00:12 +0000

You can hardly go anywhere without hearing about Pinterest these days. Well, what is it? And more importantly, how can Pinterest benefit your micro business? In this blog series, we are going to dive in to what Pinterest is all about and how to use it. We’ll see which businesses already use Pinterest and how YOU can take advantage of this popular medium for your micro business. Let’s get started…

Pinterest is a social media website, just like Facebook or Twitter. But instead of keeping up with what your friends are doing, people upload content in the form of “pins.” Now, what are these pins? They can be anything you like: recipes, funny photographs, the latest fashions, good books, exercise ideas, cool new products, anything! By clicking on each pin, you are linked to a website with tutorials, pictures, or more information on the subject. It’s a great idea, and other people think so too! It has exploded in popularity over the past year.

pinterest © by cambodia4kidsorg

So, why use it? Each individual user has unlimited “pinboards,” to which they save these “pins,” like the picture on the right. Think of it as a cork board that you thumbtack fun ideas to. This allows you to look back at past “pins” and also check out what your friends (or potential customers!) are interested in.

Sounds cool, right? You might be thinking, “This is awesome! How do I get started?” Right now, to become a Pinterest user, you have to be invited by someone who already has a Pinterest account. Find a friend who has Pinterest and ask them to invite you. Or you can apply to the waiting list and wait to be accepted.

Go ahead, get started by creating an account. Play around with the “pins” and “pinboards.” See what other people are interested in. Once you do, come back to see which big name businesses are using Pinterest to their advantage! …

Carol Topp, CPA

Guest Blog: The Basics of Running an Online Business

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:00:47 +0000

I am happy to welcome Natasha to Micro Business for Teens! She has recently launched teenwebhosting.com, a great source for teens who wish to take their micro businesses to a new level through the Internet. What does it mean to create your own website? What is a web host? Is it expensive? What does a great website need? Natasha is here to share her secrets! Teens, take a look at her advice:

“So you’ve got a great idea for a fantastic online business and you’re amped to get started. What’s the first step? Planning. And as you’re drawing out the business plans in your mind, you’re going to have to think about creating a website. A lot of offline businesses build websites to advertise their business to a broader audience. If you plan on creating an online business, then getting your own top-level domain might be critical. Other than just looking cool, top-level domains will get you and your business a lot more respect and make your business easier to find. Customers are the life of any business and you are going to need a lot of life if you want success.

Now the first thing you’re going to need is a top-level domain name. When I say “top-level,” I mean that your website address will be Your-Name-Of-Choice.com (.net or .org) rather than Someone-Elses-Website-That-You-Are-Just-Borrowing-Space-From.com/Your-Name-Of-Choice.com. You can go register the domain name with some great domain registrars. Keep in mind, though, a lot of hosting plans offer free domain names. That makes things even cheaper and easier. The only problem is some offer the free domain for only a year. After a year, you will have to pay full price (usually somewhere from $10-20 for the year. Still very cheap!) However, some web hosts offer free domains FOR LIFE. That means, as long as you’re with that hosting company, you will never have to pay for the domain name! A lot of hosting companies are offering incentives like FREE DOMAINS to entice you to sign up with them. That and the prices have decreased dramatically. On teenwebhosting.com, you’ll see that there are some plans with a monthly charge less than $2 a month. And there are no hidden setup fees either!

After you’ve decided on a domain name, it’s time to look for some other features you might want in a web host. How much space are they offering? Most sites offer more than enough space. A simple webpage is about 10KB. (There are 1,024KB in 1 MB). A lot of webspaces offer 5MB and up. Quite a few offer UNLIMITED disk space. So, unless you plan on running a media intense gaming site, you should have more than enough space for multiple pages. You might want some cool extras, like certain scripts to build chat rooms or message boards, WordPress, or marketing credits at Facebook and Google. You can find all of these and more by looking through the different hosting packages.

At teenwebhosting.com, you can compare the prices and package deals with multiple companies. Finding the right company for you should be a snap! Just find the package that will offer you the most tools that will help your business and you’ll be ready to start hosting your own website. If you need some extra help, I’ll even set up your WordPress blog or first website for you after you’ve signed up with a hosting package through my site. If you’d rather do it yourself, I also have tutorials on how to work with WordPress. As soon as you’re set up, you’ll be ready to bring the traffic right into your business.”

Thanks so much, Natasha! Web hosting seems tricky, but your tips easily explain how teenage micro business owners can successfully run their own website. Be sure to follow her website for any other questions. Happy web hosting, teens!

Carol Topp, CPA

Building a Web-Based Store

Carol Topp, CPA — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 19:00:06 +0000

6 Tips for Building a Web-Based Store

By TY MCMAHAN

Four years ago, Jared Madsen started a company that makes bicycles built for five. He sold his bikes—which had two wheels and a rear bucket big enough to tote four children—wholesale to shops around the country.

But today, 90% of sales at his small business, Madsen Cycles, in Murray, Utah, come from an online store that took his Web designer half a day to embed within his company’s website.

The company’s bikes are now sold by him directly to consumers for about $1,485 apiece, at what he describes as a “way higher profit.” He declines to specify his markups.

Mr. Madsen says he initially thought the online store would just fill in “holes” where he didn’t have distribution. But the benefit to him in the end, he adds, was that the Web store made it possible for him to dramatically reduce his reliance on third-party shops.

As a result, the online store is now his business’s main source of income.

Have a company website? If you’re not using it to sell your goods or services, then you could be losing out on an opportunity to boost your company’s bottom line.

Forrester Research says online shopping has surged in recent years and is continuing to grow. U.S. online retail sales, which rose 12.6% to $176.2 billion in 2010, are expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 10% through 2015, the research firm reports.

Building an ecommerce platform within your company website doesn’t have to be complex or expensive. A number of new services—such as such as Goodsie, Shopify, Storenvy and Weebly—now make the task easy and affordable. You can use these services to design a store, upload product, create shopping carts, manage fulfillment and more, —all for as little as a few dollars a month.

Older platforms such as eBay and Etsy allow merchants to sell direct to consumers with benefits such as built-in site traffic. But these new services give merchants more control over the look and feel of their online stores.

“I wanted to have some sort of online presence or shop, but I thought it would be too much work and I couldn’t do it on my own,” says Kimberly Lash, who uses Goodsie to sell vintage clothing at ShopAmour.com. “I thought eBay felt like just selling clothes. You couldn’t build a brand or company. There’s tons of traffic and people are already going to the site, but you can’t create a brand.”

The cost to use the new Web-store services ranges from as little as $5 up to $179 a month. Both Storenvy and Weebly are “freemium” services, offering the basic platform for no charge. The services can be free because the platforms make their money selling additional features, such as more storage. Storenvy charges monthly fees of $4.99 to link a store’s own domain name and $2.99 for a discount code feature. Weebly charges $5 to link a domain name. Goodsie offers the first month for free, then a flat $15 each month for all features.

The Shopify platform is the most feature-packed and also the priciest. The company charges $29 a month and a 2% transaction fee for all e-commerce features and up to 100 products. The company says its most popular offering is $99 plus a 1% transaction fee and up to 10,000 products.

We spoke to executives at Goodsie, Shopify, Storenvy and Weebly, as well as Tom Davis, global head of e-commerce at footwear and apparel company Puma.

Based on their suggestions, here are our tips for using these services to create an online store:

1. Invest time, and possibly money, in taking good photos.

Photography is the “dirty little secret” of e-commerce, according to Mr. Davis. “[Customers] can’t touch and feel your wares, so your photography needs to be an important element.”

Merchants should professionally photograph as many details of a product as they can afford.

Goodsie Chief Executive Jonathan Marcus recommends shooting each product individually, as well as while it’s being worn or used by a model, in order to show how big the product is.

2. Use a voice that matches your brand.

“There’s a fine line between cute and strategic,” says Mr. Davis. For example, a flower shop may describe marigolds as “perfect for fall and a favorite for moms,” while an electronics store may provide a more technical description of products. Merchants should also consider how their descriptions might surface in search-engine results, he adds.

3. Experiment with the layout, and mix it up.

The new services, which emerged within the past five years, provide hundreds of templates for the arrangement of products on the page, as well as a wide variety of different colors and fonts. “Change things every two to three weeks over three months and see what drives the best results,” Mr. Davis says.

Goodsie’s Mr. Marcus adds that stores need to be thoughtful about what products fit together on a page. For example, an apparel company may consider arranging items that make up an entire outfit.

4. Figure out the payment gateway.

This is the trickiest part of creating an online store, according to Mr. Davis. Store owners will need to set up a merchant account with a bank to link funds from the credit card company or a third-party processor like PayPal, which lets customers use its merchant account under certain terms, usually with very little setup required. PayPal does not charge a setup fee.

Currently, Weebly stores only accept Paypal or Google Checkout to process payments. Goodsie offers those services, as well as Braintree Inc. and Authorize.net, a Visa Inc. company, to accept credit card payments. Shopify offers dozens of payment options.

PayPal accepts all major credit cards with no setup or monthly fees. The service takes a 2.9% fee per transaction on monthly sales up to $3,000. The rate reduces as monthly sales increase. Google Checkout charges the same. Authorize.net charges a $100 set-up fee, a $20 monthly fee and 10 cents per transaction. Most services charge about $10 per chargeback in the event a refund is issued.

5. Try to make online shopping feel like an experience.

“Do you have the right boxes? Do you have packing foam? How do you want merchandise to be presented when your customer opens the box? Remember, that’s the only one-on-one you’re going to have with a customer,” Mr. Davis says. He suggests offering gift wrapping and sending hand-written thank-you notes to add a more personal touch to the e-commerce experience.

Alternatively, you can outsource fulfillment. Shopify integrates with third-party fulfillment services such as Fulfillment by Amazon, Shipwire and Webgistix. The cost of this can range for tens of dollars into the thousands depending on the product and volume of shipping. Those who choose to outsource fulfillment should do several trial orders with a service before committing to a provider, Mr. Davis suggests.

6. Promote heavily.

With the growth of social media, these e-commerce platforms have baked in Facebook and Twitter integration so the store and individual products can be “Liked” and tweeted across the social networks. This requires registering for those services separately. The e-commerce platforms will ask the usernames and passwords of those separate services to sync the store. Gaining a following on services like Facebook and Twitter is a good way to alert customers to new products or specials, and to gain customer feedback, and potentially evangelism.

Goodsie and Storenvy have tools to “port” an entire store to Facebook, enabling shopping directly through the social network. They say the process is as simple as installing an application and all products are automatically imported into a Facebook store. Store owners lose some control over the look of their store on Facebook, of course, however.

Storenvy also combines all stores built on the platform into one big marketplace. It claims its stores are making almost 15% of their sales through the marketplace rather than through direct traffic. Goodsie also plans to launch a similar marketplace.

A similar version of this story appeared previously in Dow Jones VentureWire.

Write to Ty McMahan at ty.mcmahan@dowjones.com

From The Wall Street Journal

Carol Topp, CPA

Business tips on video

Carol Topp, CPA — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:00:20 +0000

Need quick tips to start your micro business?

You have got to visit SBTV.com, Small Business TV.

It’s full of short videos on all kinds of micro business topics like:

Marketing
Money
Technology
Green business
Legal
Internet business
Success stories

These videos are geared toward grown ups, not teenagers, so don’t be overwhelmed. Listen to a few videos; you never know what could apply to your micro business!

Here’s a few to start out:
Small Business Taxes

Social Media Tricks for Your Small Business

Legal Issues for Home-Based Businesses

Make sure to check out my book series, Micro Business for Teens.

Carol Topp, CPA

What Do Teens Think of Email?

Carol Topp, CPA — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:52:40 +0000

Data and infographic by AWeber Email Marketing

How to Raise an Entrepreneur

Carol Topp, CPA — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:53:22 +0000

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article titled “How to Raise an Entrepreneur.”

One commenter, who owns his own engineering firm, asked:

Nice, but how do you prepare them for the IRS paper, 941′s and 940′s, (withholding and federal unemployment), w-2s and w-3s, (employee reporting and employer reporting for SS and Medi)? Don’t forget the 1120′s (corporate tax filing).

Duplicate ALL of this at the state level and add Business Entity Taxes, Sales and Use tax filing,and filing the annual report with fee. If your S corp is in two states duplicate this for the foreign filings (out of state). Add the agent for the foreign S corp.

Then we get to the insurances. Property and liability, workers comp and if there is any money left, health insurance. and the list goes on, all for a 1-5 person S Corp.

Guess that there was a point in this list and that would be to give our kids a business environment that is conducive to conducting business.

Scott P. (used with permission)

Scott is correct there can be alot of paperwork, IRS forms and state laws for a micro businesses owner to understand.

But it’s not impossible.

My reply to Scott:

How do you prepare them? A little at a time.

I recommend that a teenager start a micro businesses as a sole proprietorship (not a corporation or partnership) with no employees (so no 941s, w-2, etc.) . I also recommend service businesses, not product sales, to (usually) avoid sales tax. If they do want to sell a product, they will learn a lot and apply math skills to calculating the sales tax. It’ll be good for them.

Finally, I recommend they create home-based businesses and I find they can usually get an insurance rider on their parents’ homeowner policy, if needed at all.

If students learn basic business skills as a teenager, they won’t be as overwhelmed when starting a small business as an adult.

I agree with your final comment and I do hope some of these teenagers grow up and try to change the business environment. I’d like to see more small business owners run for public office or influence legislation.

Carol Topp, CPA
Author Micro Business for Teens