I’m getting out my Crystal ball today to make some predictions about the about the trends I see in the future and how they may effect small business.

1. Web Based Applications. I predict that in the next five years most of applications that you currently use on your desktop will migrate to the web. Currently accounting, office suites, email, and CRM applications have a strong web presence. In addition, companies like Google, Force.com, and Amazon are making infrastructure available for computer programmers. For the small business person, this is going to be one of the biggest boosts to growth. You’re not going to need expensive computers and networks, and you will be able to access your business applications from multiple locations. The technology barrier for entry will all but be eliminated in most businesses.

2. Cloud Based Infrastructure. There are currently a multitude of companies give you the ability to set up a server over the Internet and pay only for usage. I believe that the server room is soon to be a thing of the past for most companies.

3. Internet Everywhere (Mobile and Wireless). Mobile devices and Internet connectivity will become ubiquitous. (I’ve always wanted to use that term in a sentence). Both consumers and business will be able to access data from any location. Services like that Clearwire (high speed wireless Internet) will become common from cellphone and other providers. It will be important for businesses to embrace mobile technology to be successful.

4. The Death of the Phone Number As We Know It. (I’ve been predicting this for years, eventually I’ll get it right.) With the growth of Internet phone applications, Phone numbers will begin to fade away. Most calls will be over the Internet via Skype and Skype-like services. Phone numbers, where you have them, will no longer indicate your location (I already deal with someone who has a Texas area code but lives in Georgia.)

I’ve been using an iPad for that last 5 days. The model I’m using has 16gb with WI-FI only (no 3g wireless). During my time with the iPad, I’ve mostly used it  to connect to my corporate network via WI-FI and VPN. After the first hour of Apple induced euphoria, I came back down to earth and started to use it. Here’s what I concluded:

Pluses:

1. Size–its a lot smaller and lighter than my MacBook Air.
2. Battery Life– It can go nearly 2 days with normal use in WI-FI mode.(I didn’t have  the 3g model and I didn’t use bluetooth so those battery hogs could effect battery life if used). Its a lot longer then any laptop or even my iPhone, for that matter.
3. Screen. Crisp and Bright.
4. Applications. Lots of them, specifically for the iPad. You have the force of Apple behind it and, with that, tons of iPad specific apps.
5. App Store. The App Store is easy to navigate, and does a great job of differentiating iPhone apps from iPad Apps.
6. Email. If you like the iPhone email you’ll love the iPad Email

Neutral

1. Web Browser. The iPad size browser is great. Its easy to read, and pages display properly on it (with the exception of Flash*). On the other hand  some advanced web features don’t work on the iPad,  for instance, Regular Google Docs won’t work properly on the iPad, so you have to use the less powerful the mobile version.
2. Keyboard. It’s a lot better than the small touch screen keyboards, but you still wouldn’t want to type more than a paragraph on it.
3. iPhone Apps, Yes, they load and work, but they are the same size as the iPhone. If you want to make them bigger, all you do is zoom in. (Yes, they are bigger after you zoom, but they look hokey.)

Bad

1. No Camera (Supposedly coming later in the year). I would be nice to use Skype for with video.
2. No External Memory. You get what you get when you buy it, and its not easy to move data.
3. No Removable Battery. Someday you will need a new battery, but when you do you’ll have to send the whole unit away.
4. iTunes. You still have to manage the unit with iTunes. iTunes never made sense to me before, and still doesn’t now.

I think that the iPad is great tool if you understand its limitations. It’s great for entertainment, light web browsing, and checking email. If you travel frequently, but don’t need a full laptop, the iPad is very convenient.  Make sure, however, you test any sites you need to use before get one so you are not unpleasantly surprised.

* Flash refers to Adobe Flash, a tool often used to add interactivity and video to websites.  Apple does not support, or currently plan to support Flash  on the iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad

I’ve now caught up with the year 2010  and created a mobile version of this site. (Thanks to the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin.) Mobile computing via a web enabled phones is one of the fasted growing consumer trends. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve be in the car looking up stuff on my iPhone (while my wife drives).  If you are in the retail business, a mobile site is a great way to get to your potential customers while they are actually looking for your business.

Anyhow, enjoy the mobile version of the site.

What is your social media doing for you ?
You’ve got your Facebook fan page, a twitter account and a blog. You post blog updates, product announcements, and specials to Facebook  and Twitter. You have  links on your emails and website to your social media pages. You have social media covered right ?  No, all you have is yet another method of transmitting information to your existing customers and prospects, you could just as easily send them emails (and it would probably be more effective since tweets, and wall updates tend to get lost in the stream of information on social media sites).  If all you want to is be hip, and you have the resources to do it, this is fine. But, if you want to actually use social media to reach out to new prospects you need to make it viral.

How do you get social media to be viral and grow your business ?
You need to have some percentage of your tweets, and wall posting re-tweeted, recommended, and referenced so people who wouldn’t otherwise see them will. Thats the viral part. So how are you going to do this?  Build a relationship:

1. Don’t just tweet promotional info, nobody watches TV just for the ads (except perhaps the Super Bowl) They watch it for entertainment and information. Add personal, general business, and industry information that may interest your customers and prospects.
2. Get in the conversation. Reply to to comments, tweets/postings, answer questions, do it regularly and frequently (multiple times per day).
3. Manage your reputation, negative information should be responded to immediately. Figure out how to make your critics your fans.
4. Collaborate with others in your industry to extend reach. (Contests, cross promotions, recommendations, etc.)
5. Commit to it. Social media is a long term investment; If you drop it after a short time you won’t get a decent return.

As you can see there is a significant commitment of time and effort to get social media to work. But if your prospects and customers are using social media it can pay off.

Related Posts:

• A couple of great marketing resources
• There’s No Such Thing as Social Media

Keeping Track of your customers and prospects is critical for a small business. The following web based applications offer free CRM functionality.

Highrise 250 contacts and one login with the free version.

FreeCrm 5 logins and advertising with the free version.

Zoho CRM 3 logins with the free version.

I read an article today on Forbes today about ‘Why Cloud Computing Matters to Small Biz’ and it reminded my about a story from my past that supports the point made in the article.

About 8 years ago a partner and I put together plan to start  what would be now be called a cloud application.  (Back then the term “cloud” hadn’t been coined in its current form, so it was just a “web-based” application.) As part of this project, I had to put together a business plan which included hardware and networking expenditures. Obviously, for a ‘web-based application’ we needed servers, network infrastructure, a fractional T3 (pipe to the web). Those costs were significant; they included $25,000 in servers, $2000 in network infrastructure and, $5000 per month for Internet, and this didn’t even include rent for a place to keep it all. And for all that, there was no redundancy, and every 5 new customers we would have to outlay another $10,000 for more servers. This was  lot of money for 2 guys without jobs to come up with.

To do the same thing  today, I can go to GoGrid, Force.com, Amazon web services or any other cloud based infrastructure provider, and set it up for a fraction of the cost. On top of that,  the costs are completely tied to usage so I don’t have to outlay a lot of funds up front while I wait for my  customers’ monthly fees to cover the cost.  (Great for cash flow!!). In addition I have, backups, redundancy,  and network bandwidth that can grow with the business.

Needless to say, the cloud creates opportunities for business that just a few years ago were out of reach. (By the way, that business never got off the drawing board for a multitude of reasons)

How do you think the cloud can help or hurt small business ?

You customers don’t use the yellow pages to find you anymore, they use the web.  I have listed four major directories you need to be listed in. These are the ‘yellow pages’ of the 2010’s. If you’re not listed in these directories, not only do you run the risk of being invisible to your customers, your competitors can ‘hijack’ your listings and steal your  customers from you.

1. Google Local. The 800 pound gorilla of everything Internet. With a listing here,  your company will show up on local searches on the web, and on cell phones. It also helps to ensure that when someone types your business name into Google, they will get accurate information.
2. Bing Local Listing Center. Bing is currently  a chihuahua nipping at Google’s heels. But, you should never underestimate  Microsoft with billions of dollars to spend on marketing their new search product.
3. Yahoo Local. While not the behemoth it was 10 years ago, Yahoo still has significant reach — especially with all those yahoo mail users.
4. Yelp. Yelp is not a search engine per se, its a group of listings with comments and ratings. If Yelp covers your area, and users are commenting on your industry and/or business, you need to claim your listing respond to comments.

Not only are these directories available on your potential customers’ desktops, they are also on your customer’s mobile phones.  Making sure you are listed gives you a better chance of being found in the home and on the road.

Related Articles

• Are you invisible to potential customers?

What do you think about local search ?

Toilet Paper Entrepreneur ‡

Since its after Christmas, and you are probably flush with a bit of holiday cash, and you are ready to start on a new business endeavor…how about about spending some of that money on a book? The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is small book (175 pages) that cover a lot of ground about starting a business.

Ok, before I start, why might you ask would I review a business book on a tech site?  Two reason: first, most computer books are boring, you probably wouldn’t want to read them even if they were ‘good’. Second, this book is peppered with tips about how to use tech to help run your business on a shoestring budget.

The book’s primary focus is small ‘bootstrapped’ start-ups. If you are  planning a $5MM venture round, while some of the techniques in the book could be useful, you are probably not the focus of this book. On the other hand, if you’ve got an idea for a small business, or you are running small business this book may be for you.

The first two sections of the book cover motivation, and creating a vision of where you want your business to go, while the second part deals with a more nuts and bolts approach to running your business.  If you are just getting started running your business, or trying to decide where you want to go with a business,  this book could be very helpfull to you. Be warned, the author, Mike Michalowicz uses some crude language, so it’s not for the under 16 set, but its very easy to read, and he is able explain concepts well.

Here is the tech tie in, throughout the book there are gray boxes with TPE TIPS, a good number of them deal with Internet tools to help you run your business. Its like a getting an extra bonus in your book.

Whether you get the book or not, the author also has a blog that’s worth reading.

Buy this book at Amazon‡

Sometimes the Internet can open up whole new markets for you. I had the opportunity to talk to a gentleman who runs a small  company that provides hand’s-on training for specialized industrial equipment. He sets up training classes all over the country. About 3 months ago he decided to jump into web based training. He hired a company to  make high quality  training videos, and a programmer to initially setup his site. He priced his classes at a very low price point, and after just one month of being live, he is thrilled with the outcome. In that time he has gotten more new customers than he gets in 4 months for his traditional classes. He told me that he has been able to reach a whole new demographic of customers, (younger, more computer literate). Because of his low price point (under $50.00), if his customers can’t get their employers to pay for the class, many are willing to pay out of their own pockets.

What’s the moral of this story–If you have a business that’s not web based, stop, look around, and see if you can expand  your business with web based technology. Technology that was very expensive just 5 years ago is now very affordable. Technologies like web 2.0, cloud computing, and video are high quality and easily within reach of almost any business. Take a few minutes today and think about what you could do for your business, and then see if you can make it happen. Its probably cheaper and easier then you could ever imagine.

Here are  4 sites worth for  reading for tech news if your not a techie and are running a business:

smallbiztechnology.com. As its name indicates, this is a blog that deals with technology for small business. It has lots and news and tips.

CNET. CNET provides tech news and information in a very non-techie friendly format.

ZDNet. More technical than CNet, but worth a regular review.

irunabiz.com. For obvious reasons.

Leave a comment and let  me know what sites you like to read.

Related  Posts:

Fast Read: Technology Help Forums
A couple of great marketing resources