The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Theresa Davidson of 3:17 Video Productions:

“3:17 Video Productions is a production company that supplies any need of video and film production that you need. [They] film weddings, family events, personal message DVDs, corporate Videos, TV Commercials, short films, etc..”

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Andri of Andri Tambunan Photography:

“Andri Tambunan is a freelance photographer based out of Sacramento specializing in documentary, editorial, humanitarian, commercial, travel, people, special events, and fine art photography.”

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

When you use WorkingPoint, you aren’t just getting a smart, streamlined system to manage your business, you’ll get great customer service too!

Our team has many years of experience working with small businesses in accounting, operations, inventory control, the list goes on. In fact, some of us have even owned our own businesses, so we understand first hand the challenges of running a business and keeping all your information accessible and accurate.

Whether you email us, tweet us, contact us through our website or from inside your WorkingPoint account, we’re standing by to answer any questions you have and help  you resolve any issues you’re facing.

We love our customers! And our customers love us too! But don’t take our word for it, read for yourself:

MC said,

I appreciate your help and how prompt you always are. Whatever
they are paying you, they should double it! 🙂 Thanks again so much.

Russell said,

Thank you I also want to thank you and everyone there for providing such superior customer service. Anytime I’ve ever had a question, I’ve had a prompt and very clear response that immediately resolves my issue. I also love the WorkingPoint program. Very easy to use and understand.

Solomon said,

I love working point and you have been great about helping me move my data into the system.

Vezu said,

I must say, working point is the best. I have used other softwares of which I paid more and got less for my money. You guys have a great service.

Join the conversation: Check out our blog, follow us on twitter, be a fan on facebook or visit our feedback forum.

No matter what your business there some days when being an entrepreneur is harder than others. On those days, when you have to get out of bed even if you don’t feel like it, what can you do to get yourself in the right frame of mind to tackle the universe?

Depending on what you need, there are three great sources to help every entrepreneur stay focused, invigorated, and motivated. Whether you only watch one at a time or do multi-hour marathon sessions, each of these sites has great content that helps remind any entrepreneur why fighting the good fight is still better than working for someone else.

Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner

Site: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/

Stanford University is often credited with being the cardiovascular system of the Silicon Valley. As such, Stanford has developed a number of programs that bring entrepreneurs of all stripes on the campus to speak to students. Happily for those of us outside of the 408 area code, Stanford then makes these talks available online via streaming video.

TED videos

Site: http://www.ted.com/

By now I’m sure almost everyone has heard of TED. TED, which stands for technology, entertainment and design, is an international conference of innovators, thought leaders, scientists, entrepreneurs, statesmen, artists and entertainers who come together to share ideas, discoveries, passions and personal stories.

MIT World

Site: http://mitworld.mit.edu/

Like Stanford, MIT has a long-standing tradition of fostering advancement in science and technology that directly fuels entrepreneurial opportunity. Whether your interest is in architecture, economics, education, innovation, medicine or technology, MIT attracts the most exciting thought leaders in their respective disciplines, and then makes their lectures available online for free to anyone who wants to watch.

Whether you’re having a bad day, or just looking for something inspiring to watch while you wolf down lunch at your desk, I strongly recommend getting each of these sites a shot. I have yet to meet anyone who has not been able to find something exciting and inspiring in me is amazing collections of videos.

Estimated taxes for the April 1 – May 31 are due June 15.

Use WorkingPoint’s Estimated Tax Report to help you calculate what to pay and report on your IRS Form 1040-ES. The estimated amount it based on the data you have in WorkingPoint, so if you are new to WorkingPoint, be sure to figure in any sales or expenses not included in your WorkingPoint account. In addition, be sure to subtract out any payments you have already made for the 2010 tax year from the Total Estimated Federal Taxes Owed for 2010 to get an estimate of the balance.

Learn more about the Estimated Tax Report in our online Help Center. The Estimated Tax Report is a premium feature and only available on the Premium account plan. Not on the Premium plan? Upgrade today!

For some people entrepreneurship is a philosophy. For others, it’s the price we pay for an idea we are passionate about. But what’s the difference? And, even more importantly, why does it matter?

I think it matters most if you are in a B2B business yourself. As a business that serves the needs of other businesses, understanding the motivations of your customer can go a long way toward understanding how to sell to them, when not to, and where their comfort levels are.

It also matters socially. Birds of a feather will often flock together, and that is often true of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs tend to have slightly different lifestyles than people who are content to be employees, and as such, they tend to find it easiest to relate to other people with a similiar outlook on life.

Entrepreneurship as a Means

What do I mean when I say ‘entrepreneurship as a means’? I mean that entrepreneurship is the means by which someone can accomplish something worthwhile. Owning your own business may not be your main goal, merely the vehicle to help make your real goal possible.
For entrepreneurs who fall into this group, there are often a myriad of motivators:

• Lifestyle
• Wealth-building
• Passion around an idea

Any of these things can lead someone to set aside the relative ‘stability’ of a J-O-B, strike out on their own, and start building their own business. For these people, while entrepreneurship may be an adventure with its own series of challenges and rewards, it also may not be in their bones, and if circumstances changed, these are often the people who could be content to go back to working for someone else again.

Entrepreneurship as an End

The other side of the coin are the real evangelists. These are the die-hards who will move from venture to venture, opportunity to opportunity, and for whom working for someone else is the psychological equivelant of being buried alive.

This is a completely different mindset, and one that I would guess is in the minority among entrepreneurs, though they are often more high profile. This group tends to have a tenacity that keeps them moving on to a new idea after the last one crashed and burned. This is the group that writes blogs, starts conferences, builds incubators, hosts Meetups, and sponsors competitions.

One of the most important reasons to stop and consider this question is really for yourself, however. Is your entrepreneurial journey a means or an end? The reason I find this question particularly compelling for business owners is that it helps set priorities.

If entrepreneurship is an ends in and of itself, then bouncing from one idea to the next, building multiple businesses at once and having a social circle that is largely composed of other entrepreneurs is probably a common sight.

However, if entrepreneurship is merely the means, then your other goal should be clear. Why? Because entrepreneurship takes sacrifices that being an employee doesn’t. While the payoff potential is greater, the investment is far steeper — sometimes at great cost to the rest of your life. Any new entrepreneur needs to understand than before diving into the pool.

Understanding what motivates you is how you know what things to outsource vs. what things to manage internally; it’s how you figure out what are the priorities for your time and how to focus your business objectives; and it’s how you identify your own personal tipping points where the sacrifices are not worth the price.

Entrepreneurs who never stop and consider these points can end up like hampsters on a wheel, with no progress and no recognition of their lack of progress. Knowing why we do what we do, what we hope to get out of it, what we’re willing to pay to get it, and how long we are willing to keep it up is how we build a plan — for our business and for our life.

And, in the end, whether we meet the goals or not, at least sorting out the motivation helps us keep marching on the days when it’s hardest to get out of bed.

The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Erika of Erika Joanne Designs:

” [specializing] in quality tole, decorative painting, and colored pencil art supplies, and instruction for all levels..”

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Tom Delonge of All Access Communications:

” [providing] sales, service, installation, and consulting on business telephone systems, dialtone services and network cabling in the local Baltimore/Washington and South Central Pennsylvania region.”

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

Are you a new business but you don’t want to look new when invoicing your customers? With WorkingPoint, you can change your starting invoice number and look like you’ve been around a while invoicing customers like crazy.

Here’s how invoice numbers work:

If you are new to WorkingPoint, invoices start at 00001. When you save your first invoice without changing the number, the next invoice you create will be 00002, and the next one will be 00003 and so on in sequential order.

The last invoice number you saved on an invoice determines the next invoice number.

Changing your starting invoice number is super easy and can be changed at any time.

If you want to change your invoice number sequence so that your invoices start at a higher number, simply change the number on your next invoice to any number you want and we’ll add the next number in line to the next invoice you create. For example, if you want to start invoicing at number 41072, enter that number in the invoice number field on a new invoice, save it and send it on to your customer. The next invoice you create the invoice number will automatically be 41073, and the next invoice will be 41074, and so on.

By simply changing your invoice  number to a higher number, you can look like you have been around a while longer than you have (or if you are new to WorkingPoint, you can pickup where your invoices in your old system left off).

Note: WorkingPoint only recognizes numbers when applying a sequence to a new invoice, so we won’t be able to find the next number if you enter in something like INV#3000 – only numbers, like 30001.

The more time you spend with WorkingPoint, the more ways you’ll find that it can help your business.

The first thing any marketer will do is say, “Know your audience.” Find out who they are. Write your copy, target your ads and create your videos with your target customer in mind. Know who they are, where to find them and how they buy.

The reality, however, is that even if you are crystal clear on your audience, nearly a century’s worth of Meyers-Briggs personality assessment data shows us that there are still four different decision-making quandrants to consider when crafting your message.

The NT’s

At 15% of the population, this is not a large crowd. However, this is the group in which the majority of CEOs fall, so it’s a safe bet that organizational leaders and decision making authorities often number among this reasonably small part of the over-all population. This group likes data, but they don’t want to have to read through it in detail. And they want to make a decision quickly. So give them their information, and then let them move directly to a purchase opportunity. If you bore them or annoy them with too much information they have to sift through before they can act, you’ll lose them. Their time is typically more valuable than their money, so remember that when talking to (or writing for) them.

The SP’s

This is a much larger segment of the population, at a full 32%. Just like the NT’s, this group likes to make decisions quickly. Unlike NT’s, however, this group is most readily swayed by an emotional appeal. If you can find the emotional key that matters to these buyers, then they are quick to become a customer. Be aware, however, that this customer can also be hard to establish a long-term relationship with, because someone else with a great sounding emotional appeal could lure them away.

The NF’s

Another one of the smallest groups, only comprise about 15% of the population. Like SP’s, this group also consists of emotionally-driven buyers, however these ones like to take their time. No rash decisions, and no hurried impulses. Emotional sway may rule, but not on a whim. This can be a highly loyal customer over time, so treat them well and they’ll be among the best evangelists you could ask for.

The SJ’s

The last group is the largest, coming in at a whopping 38% of the poulation. However, this group is also the most difficult, because they want facts. Lots and lots of details, with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed. They want everything to line up very logically, and they want to take their time processing through the information to come to a balanced and informed decision.

So, now that you know all this, what do you do with it?

Well, the first thing you don’t do is go out and re-write all of your marketing collateral to target the 38% of the population who are SJ’s. On the contrary, the best thing to do is to find a way to talk to each of these groups. A few tricks to keep in mind when crafting web copy for the various decision-making styles:

1. Remember that the web is a non-linear experience. Do not assume that people are going to go from Page 1 to Page 2 to Page 3, like they would in a book. Assume that jumping around is key.
2. Recognize that fast decision-makers will almost never read an entire page. Slower, methodical decision makers will make it farther down a page, but even then, too much copy will be wasted.
3. Play the logical and the emotional sides whenever you have both. Don’t assume that your company or product needs to pick one or the other. Always remember that one argument will sway some people, and the other will work with others.
4. Make sure your call to action (sign-up, purchase, etc.) is clear and readily available from every page. Fast decision-makers are often impatient, and once they decide they are ready to buy, they don’t want to have to hunt around to figure out where to go to do it.

All in all, remember that knowing your customer is only the first step. The next step is then crafting your message to meet the needs of how that customer makes a purchasing decision. Once you stop to consider this, go back and look at your website (or other marketing material) again, and see if it’s speaking to all four quadrants. I’d be willing to bet, you’ll quickly see some opportunities for improvement.