In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, the integration of technology has become indispensable for small businesses aiming to thrive in a competitive market. In a recent episode of Stimulus Tech Talk, Nathan Whittacre, CEO of Stimulus Technologies, and Marketing Manager Sherry Lipp, engage in a thought-provoking discussion on the transformative role of technology in propelling small business growth. Let's delve deeper into the key insights shared during this enlightening conversation.
Listen to Stimulus Tech Talk: Unleashing Your Business Potential: Tech Tactics for Thriving Entrepreneurs
The Evolution of Small Business Technology
Over the years, the technology landscape for small businesses has undergone a remarkable transformation. Gone are the days of cumbersome manual processes and exorbitant software costs. Today, cloud-based solutions and affordable software subscriptions have leveled the playing field, empowering even the smallest ventures to access powerful tools previously reserved for larger corporations.
Key Tools for Small Business Success
Domain Registration and Email Hosting
Nathan emphasizes the importance of establishing a professional online presence through domain registration and email hosting. By investing in a domain name and hosting email accounts through platforms like Office 365 or Google, small businesses can enhance credibility and build trust with customers.
Accounting Software
Managing finances is critical for small businesses, and the advent of cloud-based accounting software such as QuickBooks Online has simplified this process. With features tailored to the needs of small enterprises, these platforms offer scalability and cost-effectiveness, enabling efficient financial management.
CRM Systems
Effective customer relationship management (CRM) is essential for nurturing client relationships and driving sales. Platforms like HubSpot and Zoho provide comprehensive CRM solutions, allowing small businesses to organize customer data, streamline communication, and implement targeted marketing campaigns.
Security Measures
In an era of increasing cyber threats, prioritizing cybersecurity is non-negotiable for small businesses. Implementing measures such as full drive encryption, secure email protocols, and data backup solutions ensures protection against potential breaches and data loss.
The Rise of AI Technology
As technology continues to evolve, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) holds immense potential for small business owners. AI-powered tools like Grammarly for email drafting and virtual assistants for task management offer unprecedented efficiency and productivity gains.
SEO-Focused Strategies for Small Businesses
Incorporating SEO-focused strategies is crucial for enhancing online visibility and attracting potential customers. By optimizing website content with relevant keywords, creating engaging blog articles, and leveraging social media platforms, small businesses can improve search engine rankings and expand their digital footprint.
Technology plays a pivotal role in small business growth, whether you're a sole proprietor or building a small team. From streamlining operations to enhancing customer engagement, leveraging the right tools and embracing innovative solutions can unlock a world of opportunities for entrepreneurs. By staying abreast of technological advancements and adopting a proactive approach to digital transformation, small businesses can chart a course towards sustainable success in today's dynamic marketplace.
Need help building your technology business plan? Watch our training session on building your business technology blueprint.
Stimulus Tech Talk: Unleashing Your Business Potential: Tech Tactics for Thriving Entrepreneurs transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, tools, crm, sole proprietor, system, ai, inexpensive, technology, company, email, small businesses, years, integrates, sole proprietorship, website, buy, stimulus, great, grow, podcast
SPEAKERS
Nathan Whittacre, Intro, Sherry Lipp
00:00
You're listening to Stimulus Tech Talk. A conversation based podcast created by stimulus technologies covers a range of topics related to business and technology.
00:14
Welcome to a Stimulus Tech Talk. I am Sherry Lipp. Hi, I'm marketing manager had stimulus technologies. And I'm here today with our stimulus technology CEO Nathan Whittacre. And we're going to be talking about tech for small business growth. Hi, Nathan.
00:31
Hey, Sherry. Hello, everybody. Thanks for being here today.
00:36
So this is kind of a fun topic, I think for you know, we talk a lot about teams and cybersecurity and stuff. But this is more for those the smaller business. And so how do we define small business?
00:48
You know, that's a tough question to ask. Because if you ask the Small Business Administration, the US government, they define it as like, an I think it's under $200 million in sales. And you know, it could be hundreds of employees. But I think for this discussion, let's say, you know, a company that's 10 or less employees, so call it a much smaller business. So that's kind of our discussion here. Because I think the federal government's definition would be considered a large business for a lot of people listening to this part podcast.
01:24
Yeah, so we are talking about people who, you know, smaller business, maybe even a solo person who may not think about some of the things that we've talked about, because they're so small. But, you know, kind of starting now, what tools do you think? Or do you maybe wish you had when you were starting your business, since it was kind of, you know, the dawn of the technological age.
01:47
So funny, funny story. So my very first business was my candy store at my house when I was 11 years old. And my parents had owned businesses before that, in the late 70s, early 1980s. And back then, you know, the best technology that they had in their office was a 10. Key, adding machine and the typewriter, you know, so the technology wasn't there. And so they taught me, when I was young to keep track of inventory, and my cells on these ledger papers, and I still have them, it's kind of I should have dug him out of my box in the garage. But, you know, they sold ledger papers that we would keep track of inventory by hand. That was a lot for an 11 year old to do. But it was not that long later, it was another six years later that we were starting up stimulus technologies. And you know, the tools for small businesses were expensive at the time, you know, we were an IT company, but a lot of these things like QuickBooks, and, and these, the software packages were either pricey, or, you know, maybe we didn't have all the technology or the ability to use them. The internet was in its very nascent beginning. And so, you know, connecting out to the world was also expensive for us. So, I wish I had a lot of these tools that we have now. Because it would make things a lot easier. So you know, you think about for solo practitioners, today, there's so many things that you don't need an IT company for to help out with, you know, a lot of these cloud systems, whether it's accounting software, your your QuickBooks Online, or Xero, or some other accounting software, those are very inexpensive, and they're scalable, depending on the size of your company. File management tools, you really don't need a server anymore, like you did even 10 years ago. Things like Dropbox, or Google Drive or Microsoft, three, 365, OneDrive, you know, a lot of these tools allow you to collaborate with either yourself or with your team and share documents much easier. So there's just so many cloud tools out there that allow you to basically manage any side of your operation for either free or very low monthly cost.
04:24
Would you say in the past, when it comes to costs, was it that you had to buy like one software package and it's kind of a one size fits all or they had a couple of different tiers, and now you can actually scale it for your size.
04:36
There's obviously a capital investment because, you know, 20 years ago, you were always buying licenses, and these licenses could be expensive, even something like Microsoft Office. You know, if you bought a computer, it didn't necessarily come with, you know, Word and Excel and PowerPoint and Outlook. You would have to buy that and it was $250 In addition to the price of the computer, so, you know, now those tools are a monthly price, you know, as inexpensive as you know, 10 $15 a month. And so it's easier to scale when you when you need those that software and then you know, a lot of, you know, whether it's a CRM or your accounting system or or whatever it may be, they might have a freemium option, that you could start out for free with the software. And then as your team grows, or you need more functionality that you, you buy up. And so it just allows you to start using these tools, and at a very low cost or free and then as your company grows, and you have profits coming in that you can afford to buy them on a monthly basis, because it's a subscription model, rather than having to spend, you know, 1000s of dollars on pieces of software.
05:58
What do you think, are some of the most important tools, maybe somebody just getting started with a business should have.
06:04
So what are the things that I really recommend to make yourself seem a legitimate business is you need to register a domain name. So if you're setting up, you know, stimulus technologies, you buy a domain name, stimulus, technologies.com, or stimulus tech.com, or something along those lines, like what we have, I would recommend staying away from running your company with a Gmail or Yahoo, or some other free email service. Make yourself legitimate and it's an inexpensive investment, you know, $25 a year, you can get a domain name, and then add on some email addresses, you can host it with Office 365, or Google. And you can use those apps to you know, host your legitimate email. So that would be the first thing I would do as a company is just get a legitimate domain, get an email address, and start using that rather than your, your free, you know, Gmail, or outlook.com, or Yahoo or AOL, you know, there's no, people still use your AOL address. So that would be the first thing. And then you know, your CPA will thank you if you have legitimate accounting software. So you know, there's lots of inexpensive accounting systems out there. QuickBooks Online is a very popular one. So you know, the accounting system, and then some other things depending on what your business is, like, if you're looking to do email marketing, or, you know, trying to generate clients using some type of CRM, I was at a meeting last night. And most of the people in this meeting were solo entrepreneurs, their speakers, you know, I'm, I'm training and working towards keynote presentations and speaking and, and among these other speakers, and that's their business, their only business is speaking. And they're using a CRM like Zoho is a great you know, so entrepreneur, CRM, HubSpot has a free version, you know, there's definitely good contact relationship managers out there that you can get for it an inexpensive price to start. And then as you grow, there might be some fees associated with it. Usually, those systems, you know, have a limit to the number of contacts you have in there before you have to start paying. And then, you know, you want some security tools on on your system. So you know, when you're signing up for the Google or Microsoft 365, you know, make sure that you're adding on the event security features for your email, and also backup systems. So you're backing up your data if you're using a cloud only system. So if all your data's in OneDrive, or Google Drive, have a third party tool that's backing up that data because that data can get corrupted, even though it's in the cloud. And Microsoft or Google isn't necessarily providing backup services. So in that same group of people, somebody recently shared that they learned, you know, 10 years ago, you know, they had all their speaking engagements and all their presentations and all that on a hard drive and an external hard drive. And that got corrupted and they lost like all their history and so you know, even from a solo business, you have a lot of intellectual property you want to protect so it's really important that you have some type of system that's protecting that so just because you're small doesn't mean that you know, there's not protections you needed to have in place but a lot of these are available inexpensively and you can do them yourself.
09:50
And do you think a solo sole proprietor should have like a separate system from personal for business like a separate laptop? up, and Is there security that's designed more for business than you would use on the personal computer.
10:06
If you have like a family computer that your kids are using, or other people are using it, I would say something separate. You know, it's important to separate, you know, those personal uses, whether it's gaming, or whatever it may be from your business use. So definitely that I would say, if you know, you should have something that's primarily dedicated to your business operations. Again, you know, you can go down and, you know, online at Dell, or HP or Lenovo or Mac and buy a laptop for inexpensive, and I'd recommend using that. And I do recommend that whatever you're using for business, that you should get the professional version of Windows or Mac, because it does give you some tools that are important, like full drive encryption. We've talked about that on this podcast before that, you know, making sure your data is secure. No matter what size of business you are, you certainly don't want to have your data getting lost or stolen. So having that full Drive Encryption is important. And that's only available with those professional versions of Windows. So making sure that you're getting Pro and not just home. But yeah, I think a good separation, if you if you're using like family computer or something like that. Don't use that for just your business use also.
11:35
Yeah, and I imagine there's it's different if you are if you're somebody who has customers, as opposed to maybe somebody who's making a product and selling that b2b. But if you have customer information, obviously, you're going to meet that protected.
11:47
Absolutely. Absolutely.
11:50
And what tools do you think, you know, for somebody who's trying to grow their business? What kind of technology do you think small business owners should be looking at?
12:01
I think, you know, today any digital marketing tools, you know, things along the line of, as I mentioned before, a MailChimp or HubSpot, or some type of CRM, that allows you to do digital marketing or marketing via email, and, you know, maybe combining it with other types of marketing. You know, in stimulus stimulus, we do multi channel marketing, we do, you know, our website, or our emails, our, you know, webinars, this series with the, the podcast, and all, and we do direct mail and the speaking engagements and webinars, keynote speaking. And all that information is kept in a CRM. And so, you know, I'd highly recommend getting a CRM set up. Again, if you're starting from scratch, you know, maybe choose one that integrates with your website, so you can have those contact forms directly going into your CRM. So, you know, again, HubSpot, or MailChimp will do that for you. And both of those are really inexpensive to start and will grow with you. There's other ones out there and mentioned Soho is as another option. So if you're looking to grow, and especially if there's any prospect that your team is going to grow, so if you're going to have a marketing manager like Sherry, or you know, salespeople, or other people involved, you know, if it's just all in your Outlook, or all on, you know, these wonderful sticky notes or things like that at your desk, it's not going to, it's, it's going to be difficult to communicate that information with other people. So getting an all in one place is a good start. And then you could do fun things like email broadcasts and take your leads through campaigns drip marketing. There's a lot of great stuff out there that allow you to communicate and grow. I look at my wife, I'll give a little bit of plug for her. She runs a sole proprietorship and is a road race company. And she puts on these events. And over the years, she's built up a great list in her CRM and that's how she keeps her business going is through that CRM and constant contact with with her people that have bought from her in the past or showed interest and it's all integrated and it works great. So, you know from a sole proprietorship, and even if you're doing it all yourself, having that information in one place is a great you know, great move for you to do.
14:48
And, you know, a lot of smaller businesses are probably going to, they might be hiring freelancers and contractors more often is there too. technology that can kind of help manage that. And also make sure that you're, you know, staying secure with your data.
15:07
Or so there's some great tools and great sites out there. I recommend if you're a sole proprietorship and looking to freelance what I really like about Upwork, or Fiverr, are two great websites, a great systems to to hire freelancers, I think from a security standpoint, we worry about payment, right? Are you going to, you know, pay somebody to do something and they don't deliver. And so using a system like Upwork, our Fiverr is it goes into an escrow account, and then you know, they are the intermediary to make sure that the work product is done, you're satisfied with it. And then on the other side, the Freelancer isn't getting stiffed, either you or you know, you're putting money into this escrow account before they start working to know that there, there's money there available for them, once they complete the project. So that would be the first thing I'd say is, you know, use a reputable site to make that coordination and find these freelancers and look at product, you know, their reviews of their work product. And then, you know, don't share too much information, you know, make sure that, you know, there's always that question is, like, if you're having your website developed, you just give them blank access to your to your site or in your passwords. And I think it's much better if you're going to do that is you know, set up alternative and restricted accounts for him. So let's say you're developing a WordPress website, and somebody's going to help you with their, your SEO, or to develop the site, you know, create them in a separate account on WordPress, give them the, the, the rights to go in there and make changes. But then when they're done with the work, disable the account, so that they can't go in there indefinitely and make those changes. So that's, you know, use a reputable system, look at reviews, and then only give access to things that they absolutely need access to toe, we've we've seen it over the years that it's it happens too often that they're, you know, the web developer and and or, you know, this Freelancer has done work in the past. But they hold like the ownership of the website or ownership of you know, the email system, and then you're trying to do something five years down the road and becoming an, you know, trying to help you and your company do that. And we're like, you know, this is hosted by, you know, John Smith. And do you know, John Smith, Oh, I haven't talked to him in five years. And then he's like, now, you know, on a safari in Africa for the next three months, and he can't contact us. So make sure you retain ownership of all your intellectual property, your websites, your email accounts, all that make sure that you have an own the administrative rights to all that and your domain because that's your property. That's, that's part of the value of your company, whether you're a sole proprietor 10 employees or 1000s of employees, you know, that your company, your branding, your website, that's all value that you want to protect? Yes, definitely.
18:11
And you know, kind of one final question on this, wherever you think ay ay is going to lead to help small very small businesses and when you can they use that as a tool as their as their getting going.
18:27
Again, I'll go back to the Speakers Association that I belong to all sole proprietors, and that's the big discussion for them is how AI is allowing them to be so much more productive, you know, whether it's helping you draft emails, you know, a system like Grammarly, which integrates with Word and Outlook to, you know, be your editor of emails or administrative assistant that corrects your spelling and phrasing. So those are some great tools that integrate that I'll allow you to use AI to better craft emails. There's definitely some AI virtual assistants out there that will you know, manage your calendar and ensure your tasks are getting done. Microsoft has a new one that's recently come out. I personally haven't tried it out yet. But it's something on my list to try out which is the copilot. So there are some great tools that are coming out from an AI that integrate with our normal workflow that allow us to be more productive. If you haven't tried out chat GPT yet, highly recommended because you know, again, if you're writing drafts or if you're writing any documents or communication chat GPT and whatever AI tool that you use, really is is very helpful. Maybe a little bit more along the lines when we talked in our podcast a while ago about it. If you're looking to move Multiply yourself, you can implement things like chatbots on your website that, you know, give customers some interaction as they're going to your website, self service of information. And then once they get past a certain point, then it automatically integrates into your CRM or your management system. And those are also pretty inexpensive to implement. So AI, even for small businesses is very useful. I don't think a sole proprietor is going to go out there and develop a multimillion dollar, you know, AI tool that's going to help them, you know, build widgets. But you know, we can use AI as small small businesses are sole proprietors to multiply our efforts very easily with with some of these cool new tools.
20:49
Yes, definitely. Well, thank you so much for oh, and we do have a couple of past podcasts on AI. So definitely check those out. There's one on content, one on AI for business, so people should definitely check those out. Especially there's a lot of interesting information out there that we just got. Thank you so much for your insights on this, Nathan.
21:09
Thanks. Sure. And thanks, everybody, for joining. And I, you know, hopefully in this podcast was we're talking about things that help you grow your business and if anybody's interested in learning more, you know, we have our book that I go into a lot of this about how to use technology to make your system more productive. So the CEOs digital Survival Guide, it has a lot more information in there and you can check it out. All
21:33
right. Well, thank you and thanks, everybo
