Even though the financial crises are slowly loosening its grip on the business arena, small business owners and entrepreneurs are still reluctant to initiate their businesses. Setting up a business is relatively more difficult that running it. According to the latest Statistics released by US Small Business Association (SBA), there are 49% chances of a small business failing within 5 years. This shows the appalling success ratio of establishing a business these days.

But, failure can be avoided if preventive measures are taken beforehand. One of the common reasons of small business failure is the lack of planning and forecasting. Following are 5 common questions that haunt a small business in its initial stages and hence must be addressed ahead of time.

1. What Are My Financial Perimeters?

The first question to answer before establishing a small business is regarding your financial perimeter. You must establish your business scope and scale according to your financial stretch. Most small businesses fail because their liabilities outweigh their assets. Moreover, some entrepreneurs tend to be over-ambitious and diversify their business more than their available resources. This leads to under-utilization of resources and your business falters.

2. Do I have the Right Corporate Logo?

The next critical thing that determines a stable business is your corporate identity and image. Corporate logos are the cornerstone of every small business brand identity. They help the customers in memorizing and recalling your brand/product when required. Without giving due consideration to your identity development, you cannot run a successful business venture.

3. Who are Your Targeted Customers?

Another common small business owner’s mistake is not defining their target market beforehand. In a rush, they fail to correctly identify and recognize who they would like to cater through their business offerings. For a small business, a well defined target market is suitable to gain reasonable and stable profits.

4. What is my Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?

According to the SBA Statistics of 2011, there are over 27 million Small Businesses in the US alone. In order for a new entrepreneur to make his mark in the business arena, uniqueness and distinction is required. Hence, another question that small business owners must ask themselves is what their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is. This refers to the one competitive advantage that makes them stand out from the crowd. By defining your USP, you can make an impact in the market.

5. Do I have the Right Marketing Tools?

In this congested world of media and gimmicks, marketing is something that is hard to overlook. Before establishing your small business, you need to be aware of the marketing tools like business cards, flyers and corporate brochures that will propel your business in the market and help you advertise your business to the target audience. Without adequate exposure of your business, nobody will recognize your presence in the market.

The function of a website is somewhat similar to corporate logos. This is because it is an integral part of the corporate image of any business nowadays. Since internet is the emerging media in business promotion, every firm requires a website that can communicate with their customers in a clean, corporate and convenient way. The design should accurately project the purpose of the business to the target audience.

Just like your business cards, your corporate website acts a medium of communication between you and your customers. Since they heavily rely on obtaining information through the website regarding your business, one must make sure that the design is kept simple yet elegant. Following is a collection of 20 fresh corporate website designs that display straightforward yet corporate look.

1. Mint

2. Clearspring

3. Paramore

4. Speak Light

5. Checkout

6. Postbox

7. Kupferwerk

8. BlackBerry

9. Integrated Wealth Counselors

10. Trent Cruising

11. Gateway

12. Scott Breuer Homes

13. McDonald’s

14. RealMacSoftware

15. Preserve

16. Envato

17. 8Interactive

18. Dell

19. Capgemi

20. Product Planner

Large corporations like Nike and McDonalds have a sizable edge over their small business counterparts. This is because they correctly value the importance of corporate logos. Why do we prefer buying shoes with the Swoosh sign and not just any local footwear? Why do we fancy dining at McDonald’s and not at a neighborhood restaurant? It is because these multinational corporations have truly valued their corporate logos for spelling out their brand.

What you miss for undervaluing your business logo:

Small business owners fail often because they undervalue the significance of a logo design. Considering it as a mere symbol to be used on the company signboard, they overlook the intangible benefits that it has to offer. The lack of brand knowledge and education is what forces an entrepreneur to disregard a corporate logo. But there are certain repercussions for not properly valuing your corporate logo. Here is what you miss for not valuing your logo

• A corporate logo provides a professional and authentic feel to your small business.
• Most people remember more of what they see than what they hear or read. So your logo generates memorability and recollection in the minds of the customers.
• With a corporate logo, your small business will possess the merit of facing the corporate giants.
• Proper branding generates trust and loyalty among your customers.
• It enhances your business existence in the marketplace by acting as a reminder.
• An already established brand identity helps you in expansion of your business to newer domains.

Thanksgiving is round the corner. Although it is just a holiday, but if you think like an astute businessman, it is also an ideal time to promote your business. Like every other auspicious occasion, thanksgiving also brings a host of opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on.

Holidays seasons like thanksgiving, Halloween and Christmas are the prime time when customers are emotionally sensitive and responsive to any activity related to the occasion. Thus, there is a great prospect for small business owners to utilize this vastly untapped opportunity of marketing their products and services.

Marketing Techniques to use on thanksgiving:

Following tips will help small business owners understand how they can successfully promote their business this thanksgiving:

1. Synchronize your Corporate Logo:

One of the latest and catchy marketing gimmicks that companies use nowadays is they spice up their corporate logos in line with the upcoming occasions. The best example is Google, which changes its logo on every important occasion in order to blend with the customer’s feelings. This technique is especially useful for restaurants and fast-food chains.

2. Send Greeting Cards:

Greeting cards have been one of the most common techniques of business promotion. By sending greeting cards to your present and potential customers, you remind them that you care about them and value their sentiments. This in turn, generates trust and integrity of your business. Remember to print your corporate logo on it as well.

3. Deliver Thanksgiving Gifts:

Thanksgiving is all about “Giving” right? So it’s high time to give your customers something in order to create goodwill. You cannot imagine what it means for customers if you send them complimentary gifts. For example you can purchase turkey basters, which are inexpensive, tie a ribbon to it and attach your business card and deliver.

4. Give Thanksgiving recipes:

Use your corporate brochure to connect with your customers on this thanksgiving. What is the best part about Thanksgiving? Food! You can attach some yummy thanksgiving recipes to your brochures. This way, the customers will feel obliged to your services.

5. Spice up your corporate website:

Online marketing and social media is growing incessantly, and small businesses must take advantage of this marketing mode. Using your corporate website, you can make a huge impact on your customers by aligning your website with the thanksgiving occasion. You can wish your customers through your webpage and add interesting facts related to thanksgiving.

The biggest constraint that any small business encounters in its initial stages is advertising and promotion budget. The unavailability of funds immobilizes small business owners to launch their company identity through proper promotional campaign. What good is your business logo when it is not evident in the market?

Overcoming the budget constraint!

Lack of media exposure is a prime reason that small business owners fail to initiate their business. In this overcrowded world of media coverage, it is imperative to make your business identity noticeable. Social media is especially helpful in this cause for small business owners who do not have sufficient funds to raise an advertising campaign. In simple terms, social media helps small business in getting heard. It is the cheapest form of promotion.
With the increase in consumer awareness, it is essential for businesses to establish their names in the market. The mindset of consumers has changed drastically over the years. People nowadays emphasize on the brand name rather than the product itself.

The statistical facts:

Common sense apart, there are statistical evidence to proof that social media is gaining popularity among small business owners as well. Recently, The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business in collaboration with Network Solutions published the Small Business Success Index (SBSI). It is a study that discloses the degree to which small businesses are accepting social media. According to the report, social media adoption among U.S. small businesses doubled in the past year from 12% to 24%.

The report follows a list of extensive figures. Following are the rest of the interesting facts of the study:

• 75% have a business page on a social network site like LinkedIn or Facebook.
• 69% enthusiastically post status updates and articles of interests.
• 57% are building networks through sites like LinkedIn or Facebook.
• 54% monitor customer feedback of their business on social networks.
• 39% run a blog on their area of proficiency or interest.
• 26% tweet information related to their area of interest or knowledge.
• 16% use twitter to provide customer service.

Social Media - Time to embrace:

With all logical and statistical information, it is evident that social media is the best tool in bolstering the image of small businesses. Social media is like a great conflagration that sprawls over the blogosphere within minutes. It spreads out your business information within the blink of an eye. Hence for those who haven’t yet embraced the blessings of social media should start using it right away. The results will be evident within days.

Failure is every small businessman’s nightmare and an investor’s worst fear. Yes, the apprehension of failure looms in the minds of every small business owner from start. But everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it? Then why do 9 out of 10 small businesses ultimately fail?

Some small business owners are lucky enough to last for a few years, while a majority of them don’t even stay long enough to celebrate a single anniversary. One can never attribute the reason of small business failure to a solitary reason. In a normal business life cycle, there are four phases. The introductory, growth, maturity and decline phase. Failure at each level is owing to different reasons. In order to analyze the precise reasons for failure, let us make an inspection on each phase of the small business life cycle.

• Failure at introductory stage:

A majority of businesses collapse at the initial stage. This is the stage where the business is raw. The main reasons that small businesses fail in this early phase is lack of planning. Businesses set-up in haste are always prone to fail. Without any future planning and long-term strategy, any business is likely to fail. Another reason for collapse in the early stages is the lack of financial support to sustain the business over the years. This is also linked to reckless planning on the part of small business owners.

• Failure at growth stage:

In the growth stage, a small business commences its take off from the runway of infancy to the skies of development. Problems during this phase are partly attributed to the lack of vision and forecasting. Although many small businessmen claim extraneous factors to be the real cause of failure, but this is far from the truth. No doubt, unexpected business and environmental factors play a role in failure of business. But this crisis can be averted with a pre-planned approach taking all the intrinsic and extrinsic factors into account.
“There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them.”
 Tom Krause

• Failure at maturity stage:

At the maturity stage, a small business moves towards the phase of stability. At this point the business growth is in stagnation. Since the business has reached its threshold, it cannot move any further until innovative measures are taken. This is the reason why small businesses at the maturity stage fail. This is the point when small business owners require inducing innovative and creativity to lift their business endeavors.

• Failure at decline stage:

This is the final stage that a failing small business goes through. Failure in this phase is genuinely due to lack of commitment and interest on the part of the owner(s). Business at the decline stage is like a sinking ship. There is little that a small business owner can do. But then again…where there is a will there is a way. Small business owners should work out a bailout plan for their business in advance to prevent this situation.

However, I would advice all the small business owners not to give up easily and try to overcome all these problems mentioned above. After all, it’s better to try and fail than fail to try.

Certainly, the topic today is not new, but surely very controversial one. Being in this corporate world I would like to discuss the importance of logo design contests in a corporate world. The logo design awareness is on a rise and business owners are now very convinced about having a strong corporate identity. But this also brings in number of choices to get a logo design, leaving us confused in the end.

Crossing the basic debate about advantages and disadvantages of Spec work, I would like to highlight a new aspect. Recession has given birth to abundant small businesses, making them approach different logo design contest sites to get a new corporate identity within a limited budget.

Here I would like to ask a question to all the great names of logo design community and expect an honest answer… Is it wrong to get a logo from a contest site, in these low economy times?

Unquestionably, the success and failure of a business immensely relies on its corporate logos and a professional company logos should be our top priority. However, looking at the present economy crisis, when so many people are being laid off, not left with much choice except to start a small business to earn their bread and butter.

Big names of design community evidently oppose design crowd sourcing and ridiculously curse the spec work. Brand stack, Crowd Spring, Inc Spring, 99Designs, MycroBurst and many other such resources are crudely being blamed for supporting this trend of design contest sites. They believe that designers are paid too low on such sites and mostly their hard work is wasted.  I think before tagging the logo design contest sites as immoral and useless, they should consider the present economy breakdown. Every business owner cannot pay big prices of top designers and in such circumstances they are not left with much choice then these contest sites.

After sharing my verdict, I would like to know from you all if the present financial break down is a justifying reason to approach logo design contests and are they really beneficial?

            Running a business definitely requires a lot of work, time and money. However, small business owners believe in small budget marketing strategies which often lead them to wrong decisions. Unfortunately, only few start up businesses make it beyond their 3rd year and this is because of their one mistake which doesn’t let them survive longer.

Yes, small business owners invest a lot of time and money in property and equipment, but do not often match it by investing suitably in their logo. We all are well aware of the value and integrity a corporate logo adds to a business. However, to save their precious bucks, many small business owners avoid getting professional corporate logos.

Below, we go through 10 common logo design mistakes which if small business owners are aware of, can increase their chances of survival.

• Some corporate logo designs turn out to be a paint box with number of colors splashed in single design. Choosing color should be your last decision, so starting your work in black and white is best.
• Using too many fonts in a single logo concept can create lots of confusion. A logo design cluttered with multiple fonts fails to deliver your company message.
• The most common mistake which is getting very common nowadays is copying others designs. If a business owner gets impressed with someone’s logo design, he insists his designers to come up with a similar logo design.

Luckily, all these mistakes are all avoidable and lead us to the right path of success. I think this is the high time that we stop under-estimating the significance of company logos and regardless of our business size, try to opt for quality logo designs.