As technology rapidly advances, we become more social online and the rise of the mobile web continues to become a dominant driver in business activities – there has never been a better time to start your own business. We have never had the opportunities that exist in today’s digital revolution that can lower entry barriers so much.

Previous to these times, starting a business was one giant leap for mankind for each of us. We were limited by what we could afford, who we knew that could get us places and sometimes pure luck with striking the right cord at the right time.

Entrepreneurs should harness these services to work for them. There are so many good ideas out there; they just need the legs to stand on to get up and running.

There are now services out there for businesses to help them get up and running without all the cost, pressures and risks.

These services are provided by other businesses and made for businesses, specifically those who are just starting to gain some momentum. Here are a few services to turn your brilliant idea into an up and running business:

Cloud Services

Want to reduce the cost of managing your own server, upgrading your IT, even having IT Staff? Look no further than Cloud Service Providers. In fact you’re probably using them now (MYOB, XERO, Mailchimp, Salesforce). Outsource your technology services and lower your costs.

Social Media Services

Social Media has opened up the global market for your business. You now have the potential to reach millions through Social Media. Think about it as a Customer Service Portal, a CRM, a promotional platform and a place where you can respectfully tap into what people are actually interested in, rather than broadcasting into the white noise. Small business owners can get up to skill with Social Media by attending training classes, or if they would purely like to focus on their sole business operations, they can outsource their Social Media Management to B2B Community Managers. Think about the cost saving of having your own Social Media Professional looking after your portfolio without the investment in salary, super, benefits, insurance or training.                                        

Incubator / Share Spaces

Many businesses just need a location to get themselves started. Instead of investing into a huge new fancy office, a couple of workstations will do the same trick. Here is where Incubators and Co-Working spaces steps in. Not only do you save by paying what you use as you go, you get to network and build relations with other entrepreneurs who are just starting out too. Invaluable experiences are gained in this process at Incubators and they are made for the B2B market.

Mobile Technology

Smart Devices are starting to take a large market share of our online usage time. This applies to your customers too. This means that having a mobile presence as an App for your business is essential. Therefore having your website mobile and tablet friendly is a must. Use the services of B2B mobile developers to secure your business’s location in the mobile realm. This market is only going to get bigger.

These four simple services provided by an array of business to business providers out there, will help lower your costs from day dot, help you build the networks and relations in your industry, help you communicate and market to a global audience and most importantly help turn that little idea that keeps you up every night into the reality you keep dreaming about.

Know of any more? What other B2B services have you used in getting up and running?

As always, Share + Enjoy.

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Facebook. The biggest social network in the world. With memberships skyrocketing towards the 1 billion mark, its current population makes it the third largest nation in the world!

What does this mean for your business? More than likely, lots of your customers are on Facebook. Also and more importantly – lots of your customers and potential customers can be talking about your business on the social network.

Many Social Media strategies will focus solely on having a Facebook page, a presence, to help with your customer engagement and marketing. But this is 2012. Having a Facebook presence was so 2011. Now is the time to start building your Facebook pages into locations on the web where you customers can interact, engage, be rewarded and drive your revenue through the usage of Social Commerce, and/or Facebook’s own commerce facility: F-Commerce.

Social Media is not about selling. It’s about building the relationships which then drive the sales. So why not beef up your Facebook page with some tailored Apps to make it more ‘sticky’ – that is, have more activity on there. You can even give your visitors the opportunity to directly purchase from you.

Here are a few Facebook Apps that will help you achieve this:

Livechat for Fan Pages (Paid) – want to provide customer service in real-time through Facebook. This app lets you talk to your customers. Imagine the potential of solving someone’s complaint through this instant messenger service.

Forums for Pages (Free) – Does your business have current hot topics or issues you want your customers to engage in? What about ideas your customers help build? This app allows your customers to contribute to your businesses discussions.

Fan of the Week for Pages (Free) – why not reward one of your pages fans once per week for their activity on your page. This not only helps build a stronger relationship with your fans, it also helps get them to promote their winnings to their network.

Events Calendar (Free) – do you have real world events that you want your customers to attend, but don’t want to send out a whole heap of Facebook event invites (annoying?). Build a Calendar and promote it. You can load your events, and customers can click through to each Facebook event you link.

Maichimp (Free) – Since your customers and potential customers are spending so much time on Facebook, why not get them to join your e-newsletter risk whilst they are there. A simple form delivers subscriber information straight into your Mailchimp Database.

Payvment (Free) – want to sell directly through Facebook? With over 1.1 million users of this app, Payvment allows you to set up a Facebook store and sell your products / services directly.

BigCommerce (Free) – one of Australia’s fastest growing companies, BigCommerce allows you to add a shopfront to your Facebook page, providing you with an optimum Social Commerce Solution.

So that’s just a few ways you can add some more value to your Facebook page, increase your customer activity, engage with potential new customers and make the page more shareable. If most of your customers are on Facebook, why not make your page a place they want to re-visit over and over again?

The more people there are talking about your brand, the stronger your brand becomes. My theory is – Build it and they will come.

Let’s Connect:

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