In the spirit of the retail season, with only a week to go until Christmas, I offer these four Christmas sales tips to entice shoppers into your store (and out of the big boxes).

1) Offer one big bargain a day. I'm borrowing this idea from The Bay, which is offering big discounts (30% or more) on some one well-known item each day to bring Christmas shoppers in. It can work for you too if you have well-known brand merchandise or particular items that people are looking for.

2) Make it a discount, not a thing. In a flyer recently, a retailer offered a free pair of socks to anyone spending over $20 in their store over their three day pre-Christmas sale. But what if I feel I have enough socks or that socks just aren't very Christmasy? They've lost me.

3) Court them personally. Presumably you have a customer database and an email list. Use it to do some last-minute email marketing, offering customers special offers such as extra discounts just for them, buy one get one free deals not available to the general public etc. The message is "you're special" - a hard message to resist.

4) Make sure your discount is worthwhile. Shoppers are used to being spoiled this Christmas shopping season as retailers go out of their way to entice them to give them their business. So puny little 5, 10 or even 20 percent discounts aren't going to cut it unless you do something like a 20% off storewide sale. On individual items, the higher the discount the better. Shoppers will compare.

Do you have any get-them-into-the-store tips for small businesses wanting to increase Christmas sales? I'd love to hear them.

Image (c) Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

More on Increasing Christmas Sales:

• Increase Christmas Sales by Gifting Your Customers
• 8 Rules for Good Customer Service
• 10 Ways to Increase eBay Holiday Sales

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

The Kauffman Foundation has released a new study, "Making of a Successful Entrepreneur", which provides insight into company owners' beliefs about what influences the success or failure of a startup business.

The survey researched the beliefs of 549 company founders of successful businesses in high-growth industries, including aerospace, defense, computing, electronics and health care.

In summary, asked what were the most important factors in their success, the entrepreneurs cited prior work experience, learning from previous successes and failures, a strong management team and good fortune.

Asked what they thought were the most common barriers to entrepreneurial success, 98% of the entrepreneurs surveyed answered the lack of willingness or ability to take risks.

What's the connection between this 'most common barrier' and the 'most important factors of success'? I'm guessing that being willing to take risks leads to more learning opportunities.

Other barriers to entrepreneurial success cited by respondents were:

• the time and effort required (93 percent),
• difficulty raising capital (91 percent),
• business management skills (89 percent),
• knowledge about how to start a business (84 percent),
• industry and market knowledge (83 percent),
• and family/financial pressures to keep a traditional, steady job (73 percent).

The solutions to raising most of these barriers seems pretty straightforward; a person who doesn't have industry or market knowledge or know how to start a business can easily find out. A person without business management skills can take courses in business management and/or solicit the help of a mentor/coach.

But I admit, #1 stymies me. How do you teach a risk-averse person to take risks?

Or is risk-taking even as important an attribute of entrepreneurship as this study would suggest? What do you think? What Are the Most Important Characteristics of an Entrepreneur?

More on Being an Entrepreneur

• Thinking of Starting a Small Business?
• Are You Ready to Start a Business Quiz
• Canadian Small Business Statistics on Being an Entrepreneur

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

The competition for Christmas shopping dollars is fierce, so small retailers really have to go the extra mile to bring in Christmas sales. Here are five ideas for gifting your customers that will help increase Christmas sales and possibly increase customer loyalty, too.

More on Increasing Christmas Sales:

• The 5 Types of Customers
• 8 Rules for Good Customer Service
• 10 Ways to Increase eBay Holiday Sales

Photo courtesy Barbara.

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

It's easy enough to forget during this festive time of year, but fiscal year end is little more than two weeks away for many small businesses.

Making your income tax instalment payment today brings the basic tax question back to the forebrain; are you paying more income tax than you should?

If you think the answer is "yes" or just aren't sure, have a look at these six year end small business tax tips. There's still time to implement some or all of these before the New Year.

Looking for more tax information?

These collections of articles on the site may have just what you're looking for:

• Canadian Income Tax
• GST and HST
• PST

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

Setting goals and achieving them is an integral part of doing business, so if you've been running a small business any length of time, you've already got a string of accomplishments behind you. But which of these has been your biggest business success, the accomplishment that you're proudest of? What's your small business success story?

More Places to Share Your Stories

• How Did Your Small Business Survive the Recession?
• What's Your Worst Customer Service Experience?
• How Did You Get Into Starting a Small Business?

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

If you're an eBay seller and you don't already know about this, you'll definitely want to know that currently eBay sellers who use eBay's Online Shipping Tool to prepare and pay for a shipment will receive an exclusive 25% discount on Canada Post's standard retail rates for Expedited Parcel™ shipping services within Canada or to the United States.

Expedited Parcel services include:

• delivery confirmation,
• guaranteed delivery times,
• online tracking, and
• coverage up to $100 for loss or damage.

And some eBay facts for those of you, like me, who enjoy statistics; last year, during the holiday season, Canadians purchased on eBay:

• Nearly three-million items in the Video Games category, including 462,000 video game systems like Nintendo, Sony PlayStation and Xbox 360;
• more than 2.5-million books;
• 2.1-million DVD, HD DVD & Blu-ray movies; and
• 657,000 women's handbags.

Seeing these kinds of numbers makes it easy to see why eBay is some retailer's only storefront.

More About Selling on eBay

• 7 Tips for Selling on eBay
• Keys to Successful eBay Selling
• 10 Ways to Increase eBay Holiday Sales
• Troubleshoot Your eBay Listings (About eBay)

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

Lilibetathome has what she calls a basement sewing hobby that has led her to occasionally sell handicrafts to small stores. Now she worries that she will have to give up doing what she loves because an insurance valuator has deemed her home a place of business and "they are insisting I "cease all business activity" or forfeit our home insurance".

Meantime, Amy in Nova Scotia wants to start a small business boarding cats in kennels in a room in her home, but may have to shelve her dream because "my home insurance provider is giving me grief about getting liability insurance for my home" and business insurance is so expensive.

Is it possible to find any affordable home-based business insurance? Read what I and others say about this in the Small Business Canada Forum - and feel free to add your own advice and/or suggestions.

You might also want to read my article, How to Save Money on Home-Based Business Insurance.

Other questions and discussions in the Small Business Canada Forum right now are:

• The best time tracking software.
• The best place to get merchant services such as POS machines.
• What are the best Internet merchant accounts?

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

A digital voice recorder makes a great gift for someone - or for yourself.

Olympus DS-61
digital voice recorder

It's hard to beat their convenience for business people, students, and travelers. They're perfect for those situations where you don't have pen and paper (or a laptop) handy or for recording meetings or presentations when your fingers just wouldn't be able to keep up. No more lost ideas or peering at scribbled notes wondering what on earth you meant by that abbreviation!

These Top Digital Voice Recorders all have the ability to record and transfer information to your computer, making it easier to organize, edit and play back your voice files. Some are professional grade.

More on Digital Voice Recorders:

• Top Digital Voice Recorder Transcribers - Digital Voice Recorders with transcription capabilities.

• Top Digital Voice Recorders Under $100

• Before You Buy a Digital Voice Recorder - A guide to digital recorder features to look for.

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

The more I read about virtual phone services, the more I like them. For small businesses, they can really help provide customer service and communication at a reasonable price - and make the small business look much bigger.

Below Kevin Baker, my1voice Product Marketing Manager for Protus offers tips on how a virtual phone service can help keep your small business running during the holidays - and help provide some time to enjoy the holidays with your family as well.

• Tip 1: Record informational messages that answer repetitive questions. Rather than taking time to answer the same questions about what days you'll be working over the holidays or what time the business is open, pre-record a message and make it an option on your virtual receptionist. This tip is extra helpful for businesses whose hours will be varying greatly during the holidays.

• Tip 2: Spur holiday sales by offering door busters. Add a burst to your ads and/or direct mail/email promotions encouraging customers to call a particular extension you set up to promote the door buster of the day. You can even use different extensions for each advertising vehicle so you can track which ones get the most calls - thus telling you which are the most effective at driving customers to action.

• Tip 3: Post frequent status updates on hot holiday items. Each holiday season there's an item or two in low supply and high demand. When that happens, customers tend to call around to see who has it. Rather than taking floor personnel time away from live customers to answer the phone, you can use the information message to post updates on your current inventory levels of those items. Be sure to add a date and time so customers know how current the information is.

• Tip 4: Set up other FAQ messages so customers can help themselves. If you have questions that come up often, and that have simple answers with no choices, create an FAQ recording that customers can check themselves. Just remember to leave them a way to opt out and talk to someone live if they want.

• Tip 5: Put a Call Me button on your website. These days customers often gather information on the Web then use other means to make the purchase. Make it easy for them to call by adding a Web call button to your website. Customers click the button, input the phone number they want to use to receive the call, and are connected quickly - while they're still looking at the product or service on the screen. It's doubly important if you're a retailer without a Web purchasing capability.

• Tip 6: Use the conference call feature to tie up last minute business deals. Instead of missing out on holiday parties you can step aside with your peppermint hot chocolate in hand and finish-up last minute business with the my1voice conference call feature.

• Tip 7: Don't stay behind waiting to receive a fax in your home office while your family heads out to the in-laws for a pre-holiday feast. You can choose to have a notification sent to your email address on your smart phone to let you know when your fax has arrived, or you can have the fax itself sent directly to your email inbox! Treat my1voice fax delivery the same as you do with your voicemail messages. Never stand waiting for a fax again!

• Tip 8: Use smart call forwarding to offer 24x7 customer support. When customers need help during the holidays, they usually want it right now - even if it's 2:00 in the morning. With a small staff you can't be in the office 24x7. But you can use smart call forwarding to forward calls to any phone you choose. Have each person on staff take a night to provide that support during the holidays - then advertise it's available.

• Tip 9: Use smart call forwarding to carve out a little time for yourself. A small business owner's time is not his/her own anytime during the year. But during the holidays it's especially precious. With smart call forwarding you can sneak out to do a little extended shopping, trim the tree with the family, or a holiday lunch without losing touch.

More on Phone Systems & Handling Phone Calls

• TalkSwitch: PBX Phone Service for Small Business
• 3 Keys to Business Phone Greeting Success
• Phone Answering Tips to Win Business

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter

Once you've come up with a business idea (the first step to starting a small business), it's time to write a business plan.

This is the step to starting a business that many people like to try to avoid or shortcut, but it's one of the most important steps of all.

When you write a business plan, you:

• get to test your business idea in a safe environment, avoid wasting time and money on an idea that isn't profitable;

• are forced to learn more about your chosen industry, the competition and potential markets, helping you avoid potential costly mistakes; and

• hugely increase the possibilities of getting any kind of funding, as both lenders and investors see no point to wasting their time with people who don't have business plans in hand.

So why do some people try to avoid writing one? Laziness, I think. It's a lot of work to write a business plan. However, if you want to start a successful small business, it's work that's absolutely vital.

And be aware, too, that you don't have to work all the way through a full-blown business plan if all you want to do is see if a particular business idea is worth exploring further. You can use The Quick-Start Business Plan for this, five questions that will tell you if it's worth the bother of working through the business plan process.

When you're ready for the full-blown version, my Business Plan Outline will lead you through the process; each listed section of the business plan links to a detailed article explaining how to write that particular part of the plan with an example of the finished product.

Image (c ) Winston Davidian / Getty Images

Most Popular Articles | Newsletter | SB Canada Forum | RSS Feeds | Follow Me on Twitter