By Bahar Ferguson
Technology has become the great equalizer throughout society. If you are able to advance with the technology, you are ahead of the game. This leveling of the playing field has been particularly beneficial to small businesses and startups.
If you were to sit down and make a list of all the small business you know of, Amazon is probably nowhere even close to making that list. And considering Amazon has recently surpassed $1 trillion valuation, you’re not wrong for leaving them off of a small-business list. However, if you were making this list in the late 1990s, they might be one of the first small businesses that come to mind. Amazon’s transformation into the world’s largest e-commerce site is because of a creative idea and technology that was available to their small businesses.
One of the areas that technology is helping small businesses the most is actually the most important area of all — launching. Technology has made starting a small business easier than ever. Companies and services like Wix, LegalZoom and Freelancer make starting your company a breeze and cost-effective.
Websites like Wix and Squarespace are platforms for website creation. They make creating your own custom website quick and easy for anyone — without needing education or training. All you have to do is choose a template and edit the content that is already there. If you want to step it up a level, you can start from scratch, but that is still just dragging and dropping images and text, filling out a few forms and connecting to your custom URL. In just a few hours, you can have a sleek and stylish custom website up and running for your company.
Starting your business requires legal work and company registration with the state. For those that need help registering and getting the proper licensing to begin operation, there is LegalZoom. LegalZoom will help you register regardless of your business type. They can help with an LLC, corporation (S or C), nonprofit, limited liability partnership and many others. Having this type of on-call, freelancer legal assistance is a huge help that is there when you need it.
Freelancer is similar to LegalZoom in the way that it is there when you need it, but differs when it comes to what it’s there for. Freelancer is a website where you post a task you need done, set a price range and then receive offers from dozens of freelancers. You can use Freelancer to help design a company logo, design a website, illustrate packaging of your product, create custom content for your blog or even Photoshop your family photos.
Freelancer is a great asset because you have the ability to review your freelancer’s portfolio and ratings first, assuring you are picking the right person for the job. Once you have chosen a freelancer, you can get the expert help you need. Having tools like LegalZoom and Freelancer will keep your operational costs down by reducing full-time employees, all while assisting you in the areas you may be lacking strength. All of these tools will help you get your company started.
Once your company is up and running, there are plenty of tools that will help you continue to fine-tune your day-to-day operations. Technology has an application to assist in almost every area and small businesses need to take advantage of this so they can compete with larger companies. Applications like Monday and ShipStation make running and operating business more efficient.
Monday is a task management application that helps keep an entire business focused and on the same page. It visually displays all the tasks, goals, projects, clients or blog posts; which person has the lead on each one; the task’s current status; and what the estimated completion date is. You can adjust priority levels and group employees together to speed things along if needed.
ShipStation assists small businesses with the complex and expensive world of shipping. ShipStation connects with the most shopping carts, carriers and marketplaces. They import orders from every sales channel into a one easy-to-read platform, simultaneously creating shipping labels for over 30 different shippers. ShipStation lets you focus on running and growing your business rather than struggling over mundane tasks.
Another way that technology is evening the playing field for small businesses is with advertising. More specifically, PPC (pay per click) and SEO (search engine optimization). These tools can be used separately, but together they create a heavy web presence that captures customers.
Pay per click (PPC) is a way of attracting customers through keyword searches. So, for example, when a potential customer searches for a “trampoline” on Google or another search engine, they will be shown a list of trampoline websites to choose from. Because this is a keyword businesses are paying to advertise on, that customer will see multiple options listed at the top, all with an ad next to them.
If that customer likes what they see and they click the link to view more, that business is charged for the click, thus, completing the pay-per-click process. This is huge for small businesses because they now have the same advertising tool that large companies have. They can grab from the same market with the same tools and effectiveness (depending on keywording) as a company like Amazon does.
PPC is a very quick and effective tool, while SEO is a slower process but is even more effective. Search engine optimization is where your website/business appears on a search page. If you have a high/strong SEO, your webpage would appear below the PPC advertisements. SEO comes with more perceived credibility than PPC because it appears to have been around and you don’t have to pay to come up at the top.
With so many ways to utilize technology, small businesses are better off than ever. Don’t have a logo? Hire that out. Can’t read legal jargon? Get on LegalZoom. Are your employees slacking off and avoiding accountability? Subscribe to Monday. Thanks to technology, almost any problem can be overcome and you can get back to what you do best — running your business.
Bahar Ferguson is president of Wasatch I.T., a Utah provider of outsourced IT services for small and medium-sized businesses.