Location, Location

Today with the emphasis towards online information gathering, communications, and sales, small businesses leaders often neglect to fully understand the importance of physical location to the success of any business.   

While experts estimate one out of three new ventures focus on being online only, they along with many businesses with brick and mortar needs, view the physical location as an afterthought.  For reasons to be discussed below, location (formation and brick-and-mortar) should be ranked third after financial strength and product or service appeal in importance. 

First and often overlooked, it is important to consider location when a company is being formed.  Experts estimate most small businesses are formed within three miles of the founder’s home.  This factoid is not a surprising given a majority of ventures often begin within the founder’s home. 

INCORPORATION

At the basest level, where a company is incorporated or obtains its legal authority should be based on which states, like Nevada, have tax rates that are low or non-existent for smaller enterprises.  These states are also flexible as to physical location for the headquarters so that using a local mailbox center will often suffice.   

Finding the right state for incorporation can save small companies thousands of dollars in its first years.  There are also professional incorporation providers available to ease the process.  Whether the company is a C, sub-chapter S, partnership (LLP), or LLC should be the recommendation of your accountant.  Moreover, it is important for new business people to put themselves behind some legal entity to protect their assets. 

Second, once the legal incorporation is in progress, the next step is deciding if a brick-and-mortar location is necessary.  Leasing an office, shared space, using your kitchen table, converting your garage, are all available alternatives.  The key to these choices is not over committing to more than the company needs in its initial efforts.  Above all, seek to conserve as many liquid funds as possible to stretch out your runway to profitability. 

For products in need of a retail operation, choosing a location is critical to success.  Some of the factors to consider are: 

Type of business location (retail, mobile, commercial, industrial, etc.)

Consider your brand

Foot and car traffic offers ability to generate sales. 
What is the mix of nearby stores and are they complementary 
Rent amount; find out if it can it be kept smaller in the beginning 
Structure lease requirements to give the company grow or contract
Find locations that reduce the cost of build out 
Explore all equipment costs, lease alternatives 
Examine the local labor pool characteristics
Easy to connect with vendors and suppliers

Insure space availability for delivery services 
Determine adequate parking availability for customers 
Evaluate crime statistics involving nearby retail outlets 

Checkout common charges, escalations, extraordinary expenses associated with the location

A recent study by Small Business Digest determined many companies entering their fifth year begin to consider purchasing their first physical property.  For professional services firms, this point occurs about three years later.  For retail stores and distributive companies, these considerations usually revolve around needing extra space.  

Real estate experts are split on the advisability given the high interest rates but the availability of existing buildings often well-suited to the company’s needs at attractive prices make for compelling arguments to purchase.  A rule-of-thumb one real estate expert suggests is to double current square footage needed in choosing new location to allow for expansion in later years. 

In today’s market, with the advent of work-at-home hybrid efforts, office planners suggest waiting until 2026 before purchasing office space.  Also, they point out there is a glut of office space available today that will be augmented by new buildings coming online.  Many will combine in work and living developments which may offer attractive work-life opportunities. 

LOCATION, LOCATION

This has been a necessarily brief overview to a very important small business consideration, location.  There is much more to discussion necessary but small business leaders should keep thinking about location in all of their planning. 

Regulatory Requirements Growing

In their desire to increase tax revenue, improve oversight, and strengthen its regulatory grip on small businesses, governmental agencies are close to adding major regulatory requirements.

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Designed also to help identify companies being used to spy on American companies to gain trade secrets, efforts to date for informing small business leaders have been spotty at best.

Let’s start with the change already law and which estimated 20+ million American small businesses are already in violation.  Charged with implementing these new requirements is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).  Under the law that went into effect January 1, of this year, FinCEN is bringing into new databases registered information which more substantially disclose who are the beneficial individual owners of the millions of small businesses.  Failure to comply, can result in hefty fines.

Approved by Congress in by the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act, individuals can no longer hide under opaque private companies, foreign entities and other subterfuges when owning, investing, or managing small businesses with less than 20 employees.  Companies must provide additional background, verifiable personal data, and financial information on any person who benefits from the operation of a small business.

In the first months of 2024, only about 400,000 of the nation’s estimate 22 million small businesses had complied with the law’s requirement.  FinCEN intends to step up its educational efforts after the April 15^th Tax Deadline.

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While this registration program poses additional burdens, perhaps the more worrisome issue facing small business leaders is the expanding effort by the Department of Labor and the IRS to further limit the use of casual workers.  It is estimated that in 2022 more workers received 1099s forms than W2 forms.  The former wage reporting mechanism reports to the government of wages earned but requires no contributions to social security or other deductions usually taken from paychecks of full-time employees.

The definition of who is a full time worker and who can claim 1099 status has been under attack for 10 years and the latest series of proposed regulations go far forward of anything previously proposed.  These changes are currently up for review and it behooves any small business leader to become aware of them quickly.

Plus there are two other regulatory issues threatening small business employer-employee interaction. The first concerns franchise workers.  There the Department of Labor is still trying to dictate that an individual franchise owner is part of a large company made up of franchises.

The second, and more ominous, is extending its authority into such areas as home-based childcare and Uber-type businesses.

Staying abreast of these trends is another management requirement facing small businesses this year.  Stay tune, more may be coming.

A Squeeze Page Can Build Your Lead Generation

An effective onboarding process is the beginning of the sales funnel that should end with more voluminous conversions in a shorter time-frame.

The sales funnel begins with generating leads.  While referral of a satisfied customer is always preferable, another way in through your squeeze page.

For those of you who have not yet heard this term, a squeeze page is basically a short landing page with one main purpose: to “squeeze” the email address out of the page visitor.  In other words, it’s a promotional page with the goal of lead generation (or “list-building”).

Smart businesses like to balance their online mixes and do both: direct-to-sale efforts (i.e. selling a product) along with list-building (i.e. lead generation) efforts.

But not all squeeze pages are created equal.

Some are very short and pithy, with a headline and call to action… more ideal for mobile phone viewing, which how the majority of people are now viewing pages.  While others have longer copy to convey the value proposition of why the prospects need to give their email addresses.  Your target audience, delivery platform, message, offer and other variables will determine which format you may want to test.

Here are some key elements in creating effective squeeze pages and getting leads for your business.

1. Gets Attention. It is important for a squeeze page to have a strong headline and an eye-catching masthead image.
2. The Free Offer. You need to show the reader the reason they need to sign up and give you their email address.  Tell them WHAT are they getting out of it?  Typically it is some kind of free bonus, such as a .pdf report, white paper, e-newsletter, which answers a question the prospect may have, solve a problem and teach them something they don’t know.  All of the bonus benefits and the value proposition need to be outlined in the body copy in a clear, easy-to-read format (usually bullets).
3. Why Listen to You? It is also important to briefly outline WHY the prospect should listen to you.  Introduce yourself and your credentials to the reader; explain why you are the expert, and it is important to hear what you have to say and give you their email address.
4. Visually Appealing. Use call-to-action buttons that are bright (i.e. red, orange, yellow) and other graphics that catch and keep the visitor’s attention all the way down the page.  Consider highlighting savings, providing a headshot of the expert, and other relevant graphic enhancements.
5. If you have testimonials that speak to your expertise, use one or two short, strong ones in quote boxes along with the endorser.
6. No Distractions. As mentioned earlier, squeeze pages have one simple goal: to collect an email address. Do not to have other clickable links on the page or navigation.  You want to keep the readers focused on only giving you their emails and clicking “submit.”
7. Contact Information. To add credibility, at the bottom of the squeeze page, add your physical mailing address of the business, an unclickable web address, and perhaps a pertinent affiliation and/or award to add prestige, authenticity and promotes visitor confidence.
8. Legal Disclaimer, if needed. In certain industries, such as health or financial publishing space, it is necessary to add the necessary disclaimers specific for that industry.  In general, you need to add “The information and material provided on this site are for educational purposes only.”
9. Anti-Spam Pledge. Under the email collection fields and above the call-to-action button, it’s a best practice to add some anti-spam verbiage to alleviate any concerns to the reader that the email may be sold or rented.
10. Ask Less. Get More. For each additional information field you ask the prospect to give, i.e. first name, email address, etc., you will get fewer responders. Think about your ultimate goal for the squeeze page when determining how much information you’re going to ask for.

The squeeze page is only the beginning.  A good, strategic list-building campaign will have many elements that all work together to get a prospect’s attention (the ad); get them to sign up (the squeeze page); help them bond with the ‘expert’ (free offer); become informed on the topic or offer related to your business; and, ultimately, get the prospect to convert to a buyer of a paid product.

This is called the onboarding process. And an effective onboarding process is the beginning of the sales funnel that should end with more voluminous conversions in a shorter time-frame than if you don’t have an onboarding process in place.

So evaluate your business.  See how many leads you are bringing in on a monthly basis, at how much per lead, and how quickly these leads are converting to buyers.

Then decide if squeeze pages and setting up an onboarding process are right for your business in 2018.