Join the small business community on November 26 to celebrate the 2^nd annual Small Business Saturday®. The day, sponsored nationally by American Express, is designed to support small businesses during the busiest shopping season of the year. 

According to the 2011 Small Business Saturday Consumer Spend Survey, 89 million people said they plan to shop “small” Saturday.

According to industry experts there are approximately 27.9 million small businesses in the United States. Many of these businesses are solo businesses with no employees. Shopping small this Saturday is a great way to support your local and online small business communities. When you support small local businesses a greater percentage of the money remains in your local economy.

Shopping small benefits everyone. Shop your local mom and pop business this weekend, support an indie or small business online or take your family out for a meal at a local non-chain restaurant. Your support will go a long way with a small business.

Wondering how you can shop small for big results with Words For Hire this weekend? If you are employed and considering a career change in 2012, take advantage of the Small Business Saturday Special over on my career site or get your business ready for 2012 with a marketing assessment, social media readiness analysis and training, public relations strategy or content management plan. Just fill out the Shop Small contact form at the top right of this page and I will follow up within 24 business hours.

Enjoy Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but I hope that you will also pledge to support at least one small business this weekend. Your small support can make a big difference!

Related:

How much do you really know about small business?

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This week we have been discussing Mrs. Teague, a woman who had a storehouse of content that she wanted to offer for free. She had definite attitudes about fee versus free. You can read part 1 here and the follow-up here.

In my discussion with Mrs. Teague I shared that I had no problem with anyone making a profit.  My disclosure prompted her to protest “But I’m a giver! Her sentiment seemed to imply that giving and profit are mutually exclusive.  This is one of the common beliefs I encounter that hint at our complex attitudes about money and in particular wealth.

I talk to so many small business owners who struggle with charging for their services. They do things for free, go beyond an established scope of work and very often charge too little for their services. They seem almost ashamed to make money, and are uncomfortable asking for it.

Money is not evil. It is inanimate and only has the power we assign to it. Having money does not make a person bad or less virtuous than those who have less. In this country we have these complex ideas about money. I have not heard anyone scream that they want less money but we have definitive ideas about how much is “too much” and how money should be spent when you live in abundance.

As a business owner you have to delve into your attitudes and relationship with money so that you can be a responsible steward of your life’s work. Getting to the root of any dysfunction can uncover attitudes that may be limiting you in multiple areas of your life.

Making a profit from your time and expertise does not make you a selfish, money grubbing charlatan. Profit is part of being a responsible business. Ensuring that you have a good and healthy cash flow says that you respect the precious gift which has been entrusted to you. Profit also allows you to be a giver. When you make money you can invest in other businesses goods and services, create jobs indirectly or directly and support the nonprofits and charities of your choice.

Unless you have taken a personal vow of poverty, your goal as a business owner should be to develop and sustain a profitable business.

Just as I am not against profit, I am not against free. With both, comes a responsibility to do what is right by your customers and your business.  If “free” is going to bankrupt your business, then it’s not a smart decision. You should also reconsider free if you cannot afford to offer true value without a price tag.  Even free comes with a cost and a decision as to how those costs are allocated – shared with the recipients or solely the burden of the giver.

Deciding on how much you want to profit is up to you. The first step is to understand your costs. Some businesses give so much that they struggle to cover the basics. MBO Partners has a great free online tool that will help you to determine your billable rate based on your costs and desired profit.

You can also begin to examine your attitude about money. Does money make you feel guilty, and if so why? Taking time to discover how you really feel about money provides an opportunity for you to become a much stronger financial manager, business owner and person.

Do you or someone you know struggle with making money or charge for services? How has it impacted your business and/or your relationships? Do you have any advice for others struggling with this issue?

Resources:

The Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and LifeConscious Finance: Uncover Your Hidden Money Beliefs and Transform the Role of Money in Your Life

Thank you so much for reading! Subscribe to keep up with the latest posts and feel free to spread the word!Get free updates via RSS or email.

This is Part 2 in a series. In the last post we discussed a woman who wanted to provide a collection of free information. She had the option of giving or selling the information to active companies in her market who would provide both content and service. She refused because she was adamant that it should be given away rather than sold.

Readers Weigh In

Brad Shorr noted: “One of the beauties of the free market system is that people are free – free to give things away or charge for them, if they can. What is wrong is to condemn the whole idea of profits.” Meryl K. Evans agreed and pointed out that giving it away for free “could lead to an unfair situation if someone else takes advantage.” Sherwood MacRae cut to the heart of it asking, “Could it be that the attitude she appears to have is the reason she has not accomplished her objective?”

Capitalism – economic system in which individuals and firms are relatively free to compete with others for their own economic gain

Free is a Price

As many of you noted the beauty of a free market system is we are free to set a price, even if that price is zero. As much as Mrs. Teague protested capitalism she was an active participant. She was not running a business and had no desire to profit from her offering. There is nothing wrong with that at all. She was however, wrong in her judgment of other businesses that chose to exchange similar information for fee.

The Solution

Putting economic theories aside I focused on helping Mrs. Teague achieve her objective. The price point did not change the need to cover the basics of service, sales, and marketing. We had a product and a price and now had to work within her defined budget to get it to market.

An early idea was to give the content to the local library. The library was honored but could not accept it as they did not have the staff or resources to manage the information. Determined to move forward, Mrs. Teague decided to create her own website to host and distribute the information to visitors.

With a limited budget, the next step was determining the best and highest use of her dollars.  It was essential that site visitors had the ability to search by term or alphabetically. The search results would link them to the appropriate PDF which they could then download immediately. Usability was essential, and therefore the highest budget priority was the site and site functionality.

She wanted to hire a copywriter to write the site content. However, I advised her to write it on her own. She would only need a short intro text instructing users how to search and what was available. There would be no call to action, contact forms, opt-ins or need to develop an ongoing relationship with the visitor. She could gain inspiration from similar sites.

As of this writing, Mrs. Teague is working with a highly experienced web design company to get her new site up and running.

Free is a choice but one that comes with the same responsibilities of a higher price point. In other words, whether fee or free, it’s still business as usual.

Once we stripped away the emotion around fee or free, we were able to focus on executing on Mrs. Teague’s vision. Her problem was easily solved, but it’s not so easy for other business owners. Tune in for the last installment in this series as we take a look at the emotion of money.

Are you surprised that Mrs. Teague proceeded with her plan? What advice do you have for others considering if and what to charge? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you so much for reading! Subscribe to keep up with the latest posts and feel free to spread the word!Get free updates via RSS or email.