We usually try our best to keep this blog about the adventures, challenges and stories of small business and startups and providing tips for the community. Today, however, is an exception and we wanted to pass along our special thanks to some folks and make our readers aware of KikScore being in the news yesterday. Our friends including Ramon Ray and Joseph Mutitjo at the fantastic SmallBiz Technology blog did a feature post covering KikScore and one of our great customers, paybaQ. That article was picked up at Business Insider as well too so yesterday was a two for one news special for us.
Lastly, as I mentioned in my comment to the Business Insider article. If you are a small business or a blogger and would like to try out KikScore for FREE for 60 days, please leave a comment here, send us a tweet to @KikScore on Twitter or post a comment on the KikScore’s Facebook Fan Page.
Special thanks to Ramon and Joseph for taking the time to cover KikScore. And as always thanks to the community and our fabulous customers for continuing to support and use KikScore!
KikScore has had the pleasure of interviewing many small business owners over the past few years, asking these entrepreneurs about all areas of their businesses and what has spurred their growth, while also throwing in light-hearted pop-culture related questions.
In Part I of this two-part Greatest Hits series, I highlighted the top five lessons learned from these interviews with regards to establishing a successful small business. If you missed Part I, click here.
In Part II, I will present five of the most important challenges faced by these small businesses that our interviewees shared with us. These issues are extremely pertinent to all small businesses and it is vital for small businesses to overcome these challenges in order to succeed.
Here we go, the five most common challenges faced by entrepreneurs and their small businesses:
5. Keeping Up with New Technologies
“As the cost of running business with a physical store or office is comparatively high due to the monthly rental fee as well as the consumption of electricity and the hiring of manpower, more and more businesses like us tend to create their presence on the Internet.Without a significant competitive advantage, a retailer will be forced to raise a white flag in this cruel and heartless battlefield.” – Margaret Chan, founder of Cherry’s Brandname Gallery
In today’s world, technology is rapidly changing and businesses must keep up with latest innovations in order to stay modern and be successful. Companies have to start utilizing the internet, for both its e-commerce capability as well as a marketing and advertising tool. Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are essential to small businesses, as millions of users check and use their personal accounts on those websites multiple times each day.
4. Lacking Adaptability
“While it is important to hold on to your vision, it should never be at the expense of building a sustainable business model. Your business plan whether it is one page or fifty, should be an evolving document that scales to put you in the best possible position to serve your clients and generate revenue.” – Tai Goodwin, founder of Launch While Working
Another challenge entrepreneurs also face is the ineptitude to alter or adjust your business plan. The business world is full of surprises and unexpected circumstances. In order to run a successful company, businesses must be flexible and able to adapt to the changing environment around them.
3. Fear of Failure
“Another challenge I had was more of a mental one, which was the fear of ‘Can I start my own business?’ There are so many company decisions that we take for granted until we have to make them ourselves.” – Gregg Hand, founder and owner of Hand Law Offices
Two weeks ago I mentioned how the number one piece of advice for having success as a small business is keeping the long-term goal in perspective and never giving up or losing hope. Therefore, one of the challenges faced with starting a small business is dealing with the fear of failure. You cannot be afraid that you’re going to fail and act hesitantly because then you will fail; you must be confident with all of your decisions and maintain the passion with which you started your business. Owen Wilson’s character in Wedding Crashers puts it best when talking to his partner, “Your goddamn negativity! I don’t need it! I’m an idea man. I thrive on enthusiasm. Don’t take the wind out of my sails. I need you.”
“As a small business I believe our biggest challenge is gaining trust in a potential new customer. If a shopper sees a Macys logo or a Best Buy logo they are not going to question is this a secure company/site. As a brand that is growing, we are not mainstream and are years away from becoming a staple in the beauty industry. We overcome that challenge by gaining one new customer at a time. Proving to that customer we are legitimate business, that is not going to sell their name to any third parties, is going to ship their order, their most private and intimate information is in a very secure area, and if there is any problems whatsoever with their order we will do everything we can to correct it and make it right.” – Brian Esposito, CEO of Avenue You Beauty Store
In order to be successful, you must generate revenue from customers and unless you develop a brand-new product or have a revolutionary idea, you are most likely going to enter into an industry that already has a fair share of other competitors. There lies the biggest challenge of small businesses: finding customers and then keeping them. Finding customers as a small business relies on effective networking and marketing, and especially positive word of mouth. Whether it is online or in newspapers, spreading your name and attracting publicity is a must for businesses to find customers. In addition, promoting your credibility and trustworthiness is a necessity to ensure that once you land a customer, he or she will return.
This is the service that we here at Kikscore provide for online businesses. We show your potential customers that you can be trusted, allowing shoppers to review your record of reliability and creditworthiness through the Kikscore Trust Seal and the KikReport. After overcoming all these obstacles, you’ll be “so money”. More information regarding Kikscore and its trust seal can be found at https://www.kikscore.com/more.html and https://www.kikscore.com/confidence_badge.html respectively.
According to the Government Accountability Office, taxpayer identity theft has increased fivefold since 2008. This has become an absolute nightmare for the IRS, especially its criminal investigations division, the division responsible for investigations of of identity theft. However, even the IRS admits that they “pursue criminal investigations of suspected identity thieves in only a small number of cases.” In other words, the majority of identity thieves are not prosecuted. Identity thieves are faced with far too few obstacles and therefore, their crime rates will continue to rise. And indeed they have risen: there were 248,357 incidents in the 2010 fiscal year, in comparison to the 51,702 in 2008.
The Implications:
The identity theft counts are more than just a mere statistic: these numbers make up a trend that affects more than tax returns. The rise in identity theft rates mirrors that of other cybercrimes. Online trust concerns are a direct result of the inability of security solutions in keeping up with rapidly developing technology. The changing face of technology and cyber commerce make security much more complicated than the situation shown in the comic above.
Giving away any information at all online can pose a risk. The recent Sony Network breach is proof that even larger, established companies can’t always protect customers’ information. Personal information obtained from Sony included the names, addresses, email addresses, birthdays, PlayStation Network and Qriocity passwords and user names, and online user handles, of over 70 million customers.
Naturally, people have become more protective of their financial and personal information. This poses unfortunate challenges for small businesses who are trying to make their mark in the seemingly endless web of the internet. Customers are extremely reluctant to give away their personal information to lesser-known companies, and therefore, online businesses suffer. In fact, more than 63 percent of shoppers leave transactions uncompleted because they are concerned about online security. At an average of $109 in abandoned goods per transaction, online businesses lost $21 billion in the year 2008 alone.
Recent events make it even more imperative that small businesses, consumers, and the government all work together to create a safer shopping environment. The practice of online commerce is here to stay, so we must all take steps to protect our own information and the information of our customers. What are you doing to improve online trust concerns?
KikScore has had the pleasure of interviewing many small business owners over the past few years, asking these entrepreneurs about all areas of their businesses and what has spurred their growth, while also throwing in light-hearted pop-culture related questions.
In Part I of this two-part Greatest Hits series, I will highlight the top five lessons learned from these interviews with regards to establishing a successful small business. Many of these innovative and impressive business owners shared related advice and acknowledged similar trends in the e-commerce field. So without further ado, here are the Top 5 Things You Should Do When Starting a Small Business:
5. Keep your website simple and easy to navigate
– “My advice to people about an online presence is to keep it simple and clean and VERY easy to navigate AND to have a Content Management System (CMS) so you can update your site yourself.” (Whitney Zimet, owner of I Am The Maven)
– “Spend the money to get a good website. We went with a woman who did “websites for small businesses” but she really wasn’t experienced in sites with a retail/shopping cart component. So, the site looked okay on the surface, but I later learned that she had used very amateur programming on the back end, making it enormously difficult for another web programmer to make changes. This also limited our SEO.” (Kimberley Stewart from OnBoard Outfitters)
4. Have a flexible business model, being able to adjust quickly to a changing environment
– “Never think what you’re doing today is what you’ll be doing 10 years from today. Markets change and products evolve. Learn to adapt quickly.” (Michael Alter, President of SurePayroll)
– “Be willing to change. Always look at your business in a new way.” (Rick Shoop, owner of Oregon Seafoods)
3. Utilize social media outlets
-“Another trend is tapping into more social media platforms and applications. Combining sites such as Facebook with applications developed by Wildfire you are very quickly able to promote coupons, contests, and/or sweepstakes.” (Brian Esposito, CEO of Avenue You Beauty Store)
– “Take full advantage of all social network and free Internet advertising. 50% of our sales come from social networking sites, the chain reaction you can achieve from them is priceless.” (S.J. Trotter, owner of www.exclusiveclothingretail.com)
2. Establish a safe and secure online presence
– “Apart from that, customer’s satisfaction is also of utmost importance to online business. Exceptional customer service results in greater customer retention, which in turn results in higher profitability. We therefore strongly believe that customer loyalty is one of the most crucial and major contributors to sustainable profit growth. Over 60% of our profits are from customers who came back and made their purchases more than once within the 3-month period.” (Margaret Chan, owner of Cherry’s Brandname Gallery)
– “In 2010, much of our energy will be focused on improving the website and making sure our customers have confidence in shopping with us. KikScore is a great tool that helps us demonstrate that trust online.” (Madalyn Duerr, owner of Tufted Topper)
1. Keep the long-term goal in perspective and never give up
– “Most importantly: Don’t let anyone tell you no. You are your own best advocate and no one is going to do the work for you. Don’t let obstacles prevent your idea from ever being tested – you have to go out and do it.” (Andrew Shelton from Trackpack Coolers)
– “In my opinion the most important ingredient in a business’s success is the passion of the person or people running it.” (Mark Sarpa, CEO of Frecklebox)
– “Stay far from timid, Only make moves when your heart’s in it, And live the phrase ‘sky’s the limit'” (The Notorious B.I.G.)
As cybercriminals become more advanced and efficient, all businesses must recognize and prepare for the imminent threats of online hackers. The issue of cyber-attacks has made its way to the Senate, debating the amount of power the president should have in dealing with cybercrimes (Full story here).
Similarly, in accordance with the looming threat of online fraud and cybercrime, the Online Trust Alliance (OTA) released their annual Online Safety Honor Roll and Scorecard two weeks ago, revealing the many insecurities of the internet. Their findings were very surprising, making me question my privacy and safety on the internet. Two of the most shocking discoveries include:
Only 26% of the top websites and government agencies evaluated by the OTA were recognized for their adoption of the best, most efficient technologies to help protect users’ privacy and identity. This means that 74% of the top websites used by millions of people have not implemented safe measures that protect against malicious emails and rogue websites. Organizations that made the Honor Roll enacted email authentication processes, Extended Validation SSL Certificates, and testing for malware and known site vulnerabilities. More than 500 million emails originated from the organizations lacking efficient online security measures. These facts demonstrate that we are not protected on the majority of sites we visit and are members of, and therefore we must consider reevaluating websites before giving them any of our personal information.
Social media, e-commerce, and financial services ranked higher in securing their sites than government agencies. About 27% of the FDIC 100 and 24% of the Fortune 500 qualified for the Honor Roll, though only 12% of government agencies made the list. It doesn’t make me feel particularly safe that government agencies’ websites are some of the most vulnerable to cybercrime attacks. The government and its various agencies should be the ones protecting us, enacting the proper online security protocols and trying to set an example, not being most susceptible to malware.
This report is extremely important for both e-commerce shoppers and small businesses. Online shoppers must realize the dangers of registering on sites that may be unsafe and prone to cyber-attacks and abuse. Therefore, they will seek out websites that have the proper preventative online security measures, and will most likely buy from the large, reputable online websites. This will in turn hurt small businesses that lack a reputation in online safety, and are trying to flourish in e-commerce. This makes it even more important that for small businesses to succeed that they clearly demonstrate to the public their record of trustworthiness and reliability so potential customers are ensured that the small business they’re dealing with can be trusted.
Hey guys! This is Jason and I am a new intern here at Kikscore!
I am a rising sophomore at American University, majoring in Business Administration with a double specialization in Accounting and Marketing. I learned a lot my first year at school, especially in my Business 1.0 class. Having intended on just majoring in Business Administration with a specialization in Accounting, this fundamental class introduced me to a variety of business-related fields, especially sparking my interest in marketing. The class emphasized how important of a role the internet plays these days, not just in marketing but in all aspects of business and society.
Take the recent killing of Osama bin Laden, for example. The television news channels most likely broke the news to the adults who were still awake at the time. However, the internet and its many social networking sites informed millions of college students and teenagers around the world of the breaking news. Statuses on Facebook such as “OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD!! AMERICA!!” and “Osama bin Hidein for ten years, now he’s dead BOOYAH!” were appearing on my news feed by the second. In fact, a tweet by a former chief of staff that read “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn” actually broke the news to the public (this article can be found here: Twitter Reactions to Osama’s Death) This is a great example of how important and influential the internet is, and how significant it can be for businesses.
However, I first found out about Osama’s killing from shrieks and yells coming from the hallway of my dorm. Even though I am not political whatsoever, I do attend a school that is revered for its politically active student body. (I am also an avid sports fan and we don’t have a football team, but I love it! Go figure.) And one of the many perks of going to school in DC is the fact that I am only 15 minutes away from the nation’s capital. So that night, I went to the White House with a large group of friends, joining the thousands of Americans already there to celebrate, singing the national anthem probably about 50 times.
My favorite rapper Kanye West puts it best by saying that he is the “voice of this generation.” Maybe I’m not rich or famous like Kanye, but I believe I am also the voice of this generation. Times are changing and with the evolving power of the internet and media, we are all the voices of this generation. After hearing about Kikscore, I was immediately interested in joining this small, internet business and I am excited to use what I have learned in Business 1.0 to help here. I am eager and ready to gain first-hand experience and practice with this rising online start-up.
I’m a Japanese and business major at the University of Pittsburgh. For those of you (probably a lot) who don’t know the word ‘gaijin,’ it means ‘foreigner’ in Japanese. I studied abroad in Japan for a semester, so I can tell you that it’s basically your second name while you’re there. Before I go on, I will say that I’m definitely not an anime-obsessed in-your-face Japanese major. Actually, contrary to popular belief, a lot of us are in it more for the language and culture than for the “Hey look! I can watch anime without subtitles!” I’m not knocking those who do. I’m just putting this out there to clear up any potential stereotypes. It can and should be noted that both groups of people do exist within the Japanese major.
As my major oh-so-subtly implies, I’m pretty interested in doing international business (probably marketing) with Japan. Therefore, I guess I’ll have to become more than ‘that gaijin’ if I want to fit into both the U.S. and Japanese cultures. Perfect first step: knowing how to work with businesses on a person-by-person basis as well as thoroughly understanding the internet as a business tool. That’s why I’m really excited to work with KikScore. I’m always learning more about the Japanese language and culture, which I’ll need. On the other hand, you really need more than your professors when learning how to work in a business setting.
I guess what I want to say is that that I’m glad to be working with people who will put me on the right track.
I met the fantastic Laurie McCabe at the Small Business Summit in New York last month. Laurie and her partner Sanjeev Aggarwal run the very influential market research company, the SMB Group, that focuses on studying the small and middle market business. Laurie alone has over 20 years of experience in studying this market and conducting in-depth studies and competitive analysis. The SMB Group is only growing in influence as a research group that knows the ins and outs of the Small Business space. In fact, Laurie and Sanjeev just last month authored the 2011 Impact of Social Business on Small and Medium Companies. Earlier this year they published the 2011 Top 10 SMB Technology Market Predictions and have a number of other studies coming out soon.
Just one of the many great items that came out of the Small Business Summit was that Laurie wanted to sit down with Mike and I to learn more about KikScore and how KikScore helps small businesses take information about their reputation and track record of reliability and trustworthiness and display that to shoppers and leads so the small business can sell more.
We want to say thanks to Laurie and Sanjeev for sitting down with us on this podcast. Please check the KikScore interview (and the other great podcasts too) here.
As a freshman business major at the University of Maryland, I am proud to say that I now have over a semesters’ worth of college experience under my belt. Unfortunately, that also means that I have a semesters’ worth of late nights: long hours in the study lounge, more coffee than I’d like to admit, and of course, that inevitable moment when your school’s website goes down an hour before the assignment is due. Of course.
Oh, the joys of being a college student in the 21st century! My friends and I love to “reminisce” about the days when assignments were due in class instead of online, at midnight. As a college student, don’t I have the right to pull a couple all-nighters?
We often hear that our society is so rapidly changing because of the technology that enables us to research, communicate, and collaborate so efficiently. However, does the Internet really benefit my schoolwork? Most of the time I would say definitely, but sometimes I wonder…especially if you consider the way that sites like Facebook and StumbleUpon fuel my procrastination.
It is for this very reason that I’m excited to be on board with KikScore, which is a company that hopes to revolutionize the way that people interact with the net. Is it possible to harness the power of technology “good” and not “evil?” Well, of course…I just can’t wait to learn how.
Hi, my name is Jacelyn. I’m new here and it’s very nice to meet you.
Today the KikScore team is making the trek up to New York city to attend the 2011 Small Business Summit. This is the sixth annual summit and it is organized by the fabulous Ramon Ray and his team. We have had to miss the last few years events so this year when we were offered an opportunity to attend we jumped at it. It is even true I picked the Small Business Summit over attending SXSWi which is coming up this weekend (well 14 month old Asha had a roll in that decision too!). And yes, the trip up to New York did include me getting up at 3:50am this morning to catch a cab at 4:20am so I could grab the 5am train out of DC’s Union Station! You read those times right! As I tweeted earlier this morning either I need to find a mimosa or some really strong Red Bull type drink. In all seriousness, the excitement that we feel at KikScore about attending the event will more than keep us rolling throughout the day.
If you can not make it to New York, the Summit will be live streamed. The agenda is jam packed with great speakers that include DC’s own Warren Brown (Cakelove), Mark Gambill (Dell), Christopher McCann (1-800-Flowers), John “ColderICE” Lawson (Ecommerce Expert) Elen Pack (ELance), Kirk Averett (Rackspace), Jim Fowler (Jigzaw), Pamela O’Hara (BatchBlue Software) as well as Ramon Ray and many others.
Watch out here for some updates (if we get a break between all the great content and networking) or check the Twitter stream under #smallbizsummit.
If you are in attendance, please look for me and say hello. I will be the person wearing two hats! Well at least figuratively (our nights and weekend entrepreneurs know what I am talking about there!).
As cybercriminals become more advanced and efficient, all businesses must recognize and prepare for the imminent threats of online hackers. The issue of cyber-attacks has made its way to the Senate, debating the amount of power the president should have in dealing with cybercrimes (Full story 
Hey guys! This is Jason and I am a new intern here at Kikscore!
