A focus group event hosted by Telus and Lumos Research last month provides insight on what types of businesses might be strong B2B business opportunities.

Speaking of the key challenges their businesses experienced over the last six months, the small business owners in the study identified four changes that they would like to make to improve their businesses:

• Finding the right people for the job;
• Consolidating technology to improve productivity and cost effectiveness;
• Attracting new business;
• Developing new products and enhancing customer experience.

It seems to me that these four priorities for business improvement would be fertile ground for either business startups or for established businesses looking for a new market. What product or service do you have or can you develop that will help small businesses accomplish any of these desired goals?

( The Telus/ Lumo Research focus group event consisted of Western qualitative interview sessions with nine small business owners and the Eastern focus group session with seven small business owners. The small businesses in attendance represented a variety of industries, including retail, hospitality, food services, medical/wellness and field services.)

More on Business Opportunities

• Best Business Opportunities for Tough Times
• Best Green Business Ideas
• Best Business Opportunities 2009

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Business startup is always a stressful time, as no one knows how successful a new business will be until the startup period is over. But sometimes people trying to develop new businesses even inadvertently do things that sabotage their new business' chance of success.

In The Top 10 Startup Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Starting a Business, Cherilyn Lester says that being a Jack of all trades, failing to plan and wasting money on brochures and business cards are the main business startup mistakes people make.

But what do you think? Add your thoughts to this page: What Are the Most Common Business Startup Mistakes People Make?

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If you have an iPhone and a need to make conference calls, what could be cooler than managing your teleconference through your iPhone?

Calliflower Mobile Conference Calls for Your iPhone lets you do just that.

With Calliflower, you can have people dial in from all over the world if you like, moderate the call like you would in a web conference through hand raising, muting and text questions, and even record the ongoing conversation.

The for-a-fee version is $50 USD per month. (You can save $100 if you sign on for a year.) A free scaled down version is also available.

I found out about Calliflower Conference Calling for the iPhone in the Financial Post. Read more about Apple/Blackberry apps in Big Apps for Small Business by Danny Bradbury.

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You could be if you're an eBay small business owner in Canada who sells full-time or part-time and you meet the eligibility requirements.

First prize is worth $3000 CAD in a combination of cash, free advertising space and professional development to help grow the winner's business.

This year there's also a Comeback of the Year Award, valued at $2000 CAD, to recognize Canadians who experienced a professional or personal setback, and then found success with eBay.ca.

And all you have to do is fill out an entry form for the 2009 eBay Canada Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Entries must be received by midnight (ET) on August 9, 2009. Winners will be announced during Canadian Small Business Month in October.

More information on eBay's Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

More About Selling on eBay

• Tips for Selling on eBay
• Keys to Successful eBay Selling
• Troubleshoot Your eBay Listings (About eBay)

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"Great marketing to small business isn't about figuring out how an entrepreneur might use your product, it's about figuring out the entrepreneur himself. A business owner's habits, daily routines, and information sources are all prerequisites for your marketing campaign" (Warrillow Weekly News, July 7, 2009).

The writer of Warrillow's weekly newsletter is speaking of how small business owners in the finance and insurance industry differ from other small business owners when it comes to online learning.

Brokers and advisors are nearly twice as likely as the average small business owner (SBO) to participate in a webinar or online tutorial and attend online training at nearly triple the rate of the average entrepreneur, he or she says, and therefore, need a different marketing campaign than the average small business owner.

The point, however, certainly doesn't just apply to business to business marketing. No matter what you are selling, the first thing you need to do before anything else is "figure out the consumer" of your products and/or services. This is your target market and the more detailed your profile of your potential customers, the better chance you have of developing a marketing campaign that they're going to see and pay attention to.

Defining Your Target Market

• How To Find And Sell To Your Target Market explains how to use market segmentation to zero in on the folks who are most likely to buy from you.

• Writing the Market Analysis provides a research guide for working up a customer profile.

Image (c) Sami Sarkis / Getty Images

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The How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Business Strategy Webcast was a valuable listen. Charlene Li* really clarifed how businesses can and should use social media and really got me excited about the possibilities of engagement. (View the Webcast here).

There were a lot of takeaways but for me the main one is Charlene's insistence on the importance of setting objectives for your business' use of social media and using them as a framework for all of your social media interactions.

She said that there are five social media goals for businesses and a business should pick one to focus on and do it really well before moving on to anything else.

Charlene Li's 5 Specific Business Goals for Social Media

• 1) to listen to customers;
• 2) to talk (as in having a conversation, not just blathering to oneself);
• 3) to be energizing - energizing your most passionate fans to do the talking for you;
• 4) to support people - Charlene gave the example of Comcast using Twitter Search to find people who are having problems with their products and offering them help;
• 5) to embrace - going beyond asking questions to implement suggestions.

And another big takeaway - if you don't know what you're doing there, get out of the space. If you don't have an objective and a strategy, you're just wasting your time.

What do you think? Is it necessary to focus on only one goal at a time? Are all of these goals even possible for small businesses? How might you know you were doing something really well and it was time to move on to another stage? How might you energize your business' fans?

*Charlene Li is the co-author of Groundswell and founder of Altimeter Group. Named "One of the Most Influential Women in Technology" by Fast Company magazine, she is a much sought-after speaker.

More on Social Media

• Poll: What Types of Social Media Do You Use?
• What is Social Media?
• Social Media Marketing
• How to Promote Your Business on Twitter

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Do you have a vision statement for your business?

If not, you should.

The vision statement is your motivation and your rudder; it's both the why and the how of your operation.

Simply put, the vision statement is a picture of what you want your business to be in the future.

As I say in How to Write a Vision Statement :

"Without a vision statement, effective business planning would be impossible; it's the vision statement that provides the destination for the journey, and without a destination, how can you plan the route?"

So if you don't have one, follow the three easy steps in How to Write a Vision Statement to create one today and get reinspired!

Like to see some examples before you write your own? Here's a page of Sample Vision Statements.

And here's another page of vision statement samples that you can add your vision statement to when you're done.

On Mission and Vision Statements

• Mission Statement vs. Vision Statement
• How to Write a Mission Statement

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We like to think of summer as a time of rest and relaxation but for many small business owners, nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than lounging on lawn chairs, we're on the phone, online, on the move as changed schedules and vacations make it even tougher than usual to juggle business, family and play. If 'busy' and 'stressed' describe you, knock some of the stress out of summer with my 11 Time Management Tips.

These other time management resources will also help make it easier to balance your work and life while still accomplishing what you need to do:

• Organize Your Life!
• I'm Just Too Busy. How Do I Find More Time? (About Stress Management)
• Business Efficiency Tips for Busy Work-At-Home Moms (About Women in Business)
• Top 9 Time Management and Productivity Tools (About Human Resources)

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The problem with ordinary business cards is that they have no call to action. You hope the potential client or customer will when you hand one out, but the business card itself doesn’t do anything to encourage him or her to do it.

With one clever foldover, the brochure business card solves this problem and gives you the space to explain why he or she should call, too. Here's what you need to know about designing your own brochure business cards.

More on Business Cards

• Make Your Business Card a Marketing Vehicle
• Don't Forget Your Promotion Kit
• Does Your Business Card Pass the Trash Test? (About.com Small Business Information)

Image (c) Susan Ward

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If you get a chance to listen to an expert talk about something you're trying to do, you should always take it. That's why I've signed up for How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Business Strategy, a free webcast from ClickZ.com and SearchEngineWatch.

The expert is Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell and founder of Altimeter Group. Named "One of the Most Influential Women in Technology" by Fast Company magazine, she is a much sought-after speaker and has often presented at top technology conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, SXSW, and adTech.

In this one hour webcast, she's going to speak about "breaking social media trends, discuss how to create customers who "evangelize" for your company, and how to establish and support relationships between and among your customers".

Register for How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Business Strategy Webcast

Webcast Date: July 8

Starts at 1 p.m. EDT, 10 a.m. PDT

More on Social Media

• Poll: What Types of Social Media Do You Use?
• What is Social Media?
• Social Media Marketing
• How to Promote Your Business on Twitter

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