Growth can be a scary thing for a small business. In my field, I know plenty of freelance writers who prefer to think of themselves as exactly that – freelance writers – rather than small businesses. Running a small business can be scary, especially when you think about expanding. A large number of small businesses never grow beyond their single, sole proprietor employee.

Not that this is a bad thing. Some businesses aren’t especially conducive to additional help. I’d argue, however, that these are few and far between. Most small businesses, if they want to grow, are going to need to bring on some additional help at some point.

But, where do you start? Here are some common options:

• You can hire someone on a seasonal or part-time basis to handle your bookkeeping and taxes, but I don’t really consider that hiring an employee. You’re contracting for a service in that scenario. Same goes for hiring copywriters like us.
• Many small businesses start by hiring an office assistant who can field phone calls, handle scheduling and make sure that the bookkeeper gets all of the information he needs. This can be a good move, especially if organization isn’t your strong suit.
• You can hire another worker to do what you do. This frees you up to do administrative tasks, as well as sales.
• Hire a salesperson. Just because you’re good at what you do and believe in the product doesn’t mean you can effectively sell it. Bringing on someone to serve as a paid advocate for your business will pay for itself almost instantly – assuming the salesperson is good at what she does.

In my estimation, it’s that last one that should really be your first priority. Not every business can benefit from a salesperson, but most can. Once you’ve got more sales, you have more revenue. Once you have more revenue, you can begin to think about hiring an office assistant, more workers, and, eventually, a manager to do what you do while you spend your winters in Cancun.

So, what does a professional copywriter do for you?

He helps you send the right message.

Specifically, he tells your potential customers about your product or service and about how their lives will be improved if they choose your small business. He does this in three ways:

1. Benefit-Rich Copy

In many cases, your average consumer isn’t nearly as concerned with the inner workings of your business as they are with how your product or service can help them. Benefit-rich copy can be difficult to master, but it has a huge payoff. In many instances, it takes the impartial eye of the professional copywriter to truly identify those benefits for your potential customers.

2. Crystal Clear Copy

The final area in which a professional copywriter excels is in providing copy that clearly communicates. This is especially useful when talking about the features of your product or service. While most potential customers are interested in what your product or service can do for them, some need to know the technical details. The professional copywriter provides those details in the clearest way possible. Whether it’s simply explaining the unique design of your product or whether it’s describing the process in which you provide your service, the professional copywriter can do it.

3. Master-Crafted Copy

In your small business, you know what works. You know how to provide your service or make your product better than anyone. Unfortunately, just because you’re an extremely talented and smart person doesn’t mean you magically know how to effectively craft copy. Copywriters (the good ones at least) are masters of language.

Take, for example, the local bagel shop here in my home town of Bay City, Michigan. Now, I know the owner. He’s an extremely intelligent, well-educated man. Yet this is what I saw on his sign the week after he installed his credit card machine:

Credit Cards Taken

Obviously, he isn’t suggesting his business will steal your credit card, and folks know that. But the simple ambiguity creates a negative response on the part of potential customers, even if they don’t realize it. Even this three-word advertisement could have benefited from a professional copywriter.

So, are you sending the right message? If not, contact us today and we’ll boost your business with benefit-rich, crystal clear and master-crafted copy.

If your local small business website isn’t helping your business grow, something isn’t right. In most cases, you’re just not using a model that works well for your target audience, your geographic location or your field. For most folks, it’s a process of trial-and-error to figure out exactly what a website can do for you and how. Many local small businesses just give up along the way out of frustration.

Choosing the right online presence for your business is key. Here are the three most common online business models for local small businesses:

1. Online sales.

Some businesses can sell their products or services online just as well as they can offline. A good example of this is the secondhand shopkeeper who decides to create a website in order to feature certain items he has on an online auction site like eBay. That shopkeeper may soon find that he’s selling as much via his website as he is via his storefront.

On the other hand, some businesses don’t work as well with this model. If you’re in a service field, for example, you’ve got a tougher battle with this model. The same holds true for folks in an extremely competitive field. Often, they can’t compete with online prices and they can’t provide their value added product or service online.

2. Informational reserve.

Other local small business websites provide a way for the business to provide data to potential customers. A restaurant might post their hours, their daily specials and maybe even their entire menu on their website. This kind of online business model is roughly equivalent to brand awareness. Some of the kinds of information provided may include:

• Contact information
• Product or service information
• Hours
• Location
• Company profile

Any business can benefit from this kind of online business model, but the payoff is often not worth the cost. In a rural area where there are three restaurants, having a website isn’t going to increase your brand recognition significantly. In the middle of Manhattan, however, it can be very helpful.

3. Customer interaction.

The final online business model for local small businesses is one in which the business is able to connect and interact with their customers. This model may include social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or it may include blogs, newsletters or even forums. This kind of website provides an avenue for the small business to build relationships with their customers, which ultimately leads to increased sales.

This model relies on a great deal of time and effort from the business. You need to respond to customer comments, and you need to actively be adding value to the customer’s online experience. This model works well for small businesses whose products revolve around the personality of the business owner, such as for musicians or authors. Service businesses can benefit from this model, too. Other businesses, especially those that rely on high volume, won’t benefit as much from this model.

The right mix

Of course, it isn’t always this cut and dried. Many businesses incorporate elements from all three online business models for their local small business. The trick is figuring out which ones work best for you, and from there determining what percentage of your marketing resources you want to devote to each.

Now, to be sure, that argument is not without merit. Product or service knowledge and belief in those products or services are key to writing good sales copy. However, there are things that a copywriter provides that the small business owner doesn’t automatically have. These include:

• Sales copy writing experience. You see, over the years a professional copywriter writes a lot of copy. We at Composing Business have learned what works and what doesn’t. We know what kinds of techniques are likely to make a visitor to your webpage click on your product or service link, and what kinds of techniques are likely to make them navigate away from your page. As with most fields, there are some things you have to learn by doing.
• A working knowledge of sales psychology. Now, we’re not in the business of “tricking” people into buying your products or services. The fact of the matter is that, unless we have some faith in you or your offerings, we’re not going to do business with you to begin with. We believe your product or service stands on its own merits. However, there are specific tactics we’ll use to make your sales copy more pleasing to the brain, whether or not the reader realizes it. From things like paragraph size to the “rule of odds and tens,” we give your sales copy a boost that you may not know how to provide.
• Format-specific sales copy. The sales copy we provide for a print brochure is vastly different from a website sales page, for example. We tailor your sales copy to whatever medium you intend to deliver it in.

In short, an experienced sales copy writer like the folks here at Composing Business bring specialized knowledge to your sales copy. That specialized knowledge will:

• Engender confidence from your target audience
• Create rapport with your customers
• Reflect your business’ commitment to quality
• Accentuate your own unique selling proposition
• Spread brand awareness

And most important, good sales copy will

Increase your sales!

One of the biggest challenges facing IT managers today is reducing capital expenditures in IT. It’s not the 1990s anymore; there is more and more pressure on IT management to justify their costs to a sometimes-apathetic senior management. Add to this the increasing familiarity that senior management have with IT issues in general, and you can find yourself being constantly pressured to get costs down, both in terms of lowering ongoing costs and reducing capital expenditures.

Fortunately, there are some ways you can help contain costs and reduce capital expenditures in IT:

Review Your Portfolio

Take a look at all of the applications used in your organization. Identify the ones that are underutilized, ones that are duplicative and ones that may be absent altogether. Create an extensive list of applications, users and owners across the entire organization. This portfolio review will help you to be able to prioritize capital expenditures going forward, and it will also identify places where the organization has multiple apps that perform essentially identical tasks.

Review and Renegotiate Contracts

For many organizations, contracts are a large portion of your IT budget. Maintenance and support services are necessary and important, but you need to get a handle on them. Figure out where they exist – even outside of the IT department – and identify places where you can leverage savings or save on licensing.

Once you know where your contracts are, you can begin to renegotiate. Create a situation where vendors can compete to lower costs while getting rid of overlapping applications at the same time. Consider lengthening contracts to give you cost savings.

Analyze and Prioritize Projects

Take a strategic look at projects. Use a consistent prioritization approach. Break down projects into strategic points that can benefit the organization in the immediate future, rather than the entire project implementation which can take years.

Part of this process involves determining where benefits can occur and how fast. The quicker you deliver benefits to the company, the lower the overall cost and the more justified the expenditures.

Manage Lifecycle

Older IT systems have higher costs in terms of maintenance and retaining inefficient hardware and software. Take a look at older systems, and analyze the true cost of keeping legacy equipment. In many cases, systems beyond their lifecycle serve only as something of a security blanket for a department. In many cases, the data in those systems can be retained offline through ERM or imaging. In other cases, the data can be converted to an SQL database with query tools. Getting rid of legacy equipment will get rid of operating costs, maintenance costs and may even save money on the electricity bill.

Analyze Return

As more and more IT projects come under closer scrutiny, linking those projects to specific organizational objectives and/or financial returns is important. Look at project goals, and define measurable outcomes. Find ways that new projects can actually ,save the company money free up organization resources or promote a company’s overall strategies. If a project can’t do these things, it should be reconsidered.

For a successful business meal, it’s not enough for you to show up in your Mercedes. One of the hallmarks of a successful CEO in the social setting is the ability to handle ordering and drinking wine. Believe it or not, some clients are watching to see how comfortable you are with wine, and will consider your ability to handle wine as a reflection of your character.

Here are a few things you can keep in mind that will be sure to impress at your next business meal:

Pay attention to your guests.

Ask whether your guests have any interest in wine. If the answer is distant or your guest seems uninterested, she probably doesn’t know or care much about wine. If she answers in a specific fashion, such as naming her favorite wine, express an interest in that wine and order it if it is available and appropriate for the meal.

Make the server your ally.

Ask for help in a subtle way. When you receive the wine list ask “is there anything of special interest I ought to know about?” or “have you tasted anything lately that’s distinctive?” Both of these statements imply that you know something about wine, and that you’re asking the server to fine-tune your selection process with his knowledge of the particular wine list.

Handle red wines carefully.

Expensive red wines should age at least six years. This rule applies especially to French Burgundy, Bordeaux and Rhone Valley wines, as well as Italian triple crown winners and Spanish Vega Sicilia Unico wines. Ask that older red wine be decanted, and ask for the larger red wine glasses. Both of these procedures add flavor to the wine.

Know how much to spend.

Wine is another part of the meal, not just a beverage. Don’t order the most expensive wine on the list or you may seem pretentious. Order wine that is priced about the equivalent of the full meal for a single person. If the average meal price is $100, then you’ll want to spend $100 for the wine to go with the meal. This demonstrates that you care about quality, but aren’t foolish with company money.

When you’re courting an important client or meeting with significant people in your business, make sure your car stands out as much as your knowledge about wine. Bring your Mercedes in to MYCLIENT for routine maintenance and to make sure it’s in top condition.

While traditions may seem near and dear to us, the fact of the matter remains that many traditions that we practice and celebrate have only been around a relatively short time, when you look at the whole of human history. For example, while there certainly are historical reasons for doing so, placing decorations on a fir tree at Christmas time has only been around for a few hundred years. So has giving gifts on Valentine’s Day, or passing out candy on Halloween. And, while the baby shower is an idea that’s been around for a long time, many of the traditions surrounding it are relatively new.

In times past, the focus of a baby shower really wasn’t the baby necessarily. It was largely about the new mother. It was a way for friends and family to help out a new mother by giving her some material items that she might need. More importantly, it was seen as a way for experienced mothers to provide new mothers with advice about a great number of subjects, including labor and delivery, the postpartum experience, breastfeeding, and even child rearing. Given this fact, it was typically common to only have a baby shower for the first time that a woman had a baby. After all, after the first, it was assumed that she would know what to expect during labor and whatnot.

In more recent times, the focus of a baby shower has become more about celebrating the baby. It is less a time of giving advice than it is a party. Friends and family gather to have a good time and to just celebrate the impending arrival. In some ways, the baby shower is as much for the baby as it is for the mother. As such, it has become more and more common for women to have a baby shower for their second and subsequent pregnancies.

Some etiquette experts recommend that the second and subsequent baby showers be limited to close friends and relatives, or to guests that did not attend the shower for the first baby.

Aromatherapy is an all-natural method of using essential oils to help treat a variety of conditions, as well as provide benefits to the mind, mood, and spirit. Aromatherapy has been used for a number of different purposes. You can even use aromatherapy during pregnancy to help to alleviate some of the common pregnancy difficulties, as well as help you to relax at a time when it is often very difficult to relax.

First of all, there are some things that you should keep in mind when using aromatherapy during pregnancy. First of all, you will want to make sure that you avoid certain essential oils that may be known to cause blood thinning or to cause cramps or contractions of the uterus. These sorts of essential oils would include basil, cinnamon, clary sage, cypress, fennel, jasmine, juniper, myrrh, parsley, peppermint, rosemary, and thyme. In addition, you might want to dilute your essential oils a little bit more than you otherwise would when using aromatherapy during pregnancy. Finally, essential oils should probably not be used during the first trimester of pregnancy, as this is the most critical time for your baby’s development.

Once you keep those safety considerations in mind, you can start considering which essential oils to use for aromatherapy during pregnancy. You might use eucalyptus, for example, which will act as an anti-inflammatory, and an analgesic. You might use Frankincense, which has sedative properties, to help you relax. You might use neroli, which has both anti-inflammatory properties and sedative properties. Mandarin is thought to help to relieve the retention of fluid in the legs, and can be massaged directly on the ankles. Petitgrain can be used to relax, but may also help if you are feeling a bit blue. In addition to these, there are dozens of other essential oils you can use during pregnancy. There are even aromatherapy mixtures, designed to be used for massage during pregnancy and aromatherapy spritzers that are designed for pregnancy as well.

Same sex marriage is one of the most controversial topics of our time. Whether it’s a national beauty pageant or whether it’s a particular state trying to decide for itself how to define marriage for its citizens, rarely a day goes by when same sex marriage doesn’t find its way into the headlines. Understanding the arguments for same sex marriage is the first step in really being able to get a handle on the issue.

On the one hand, you have people who believe that marriage should only be defined as being between a man and a woman. Often, these people support the idea of same sex partnerships or legal civil unions, suggesting that the term “marriage” be specifically reserved for an arrangement between one man and one woman. On the other hand, you have people who argue for marriage rights for all: that people be allowed to marry, even if it is two men or two women.

Yet, for all of the attention the issue has received, there seems to be little effort on each side of the argument to understand each others’ arguments and have an honest dialogue. Further complicating the matter is the fact that the issue seems to be tied into other political causes. To really grasp the arguments for same sex marriage, you need to be able to break away the ancillary concerns and the hype, and get down to the real basis for the argument. When you do, you’ll find that there are some rather compelling reasons for same sex marriage, even for those who are not directly impacted by the issue.

Here are the top 10 arguments for same sex marriage:

1. Equal Rights. The most common argument for same-sex marriage suggests that marriage is a right that should be enjoyed by any two consenting adults. The right to marry someone you love, and the right to make a commitment to that person is fundamental. In this way, the argument for same sex marriage echoes the civil rights argument from generations past. Proponents suggest that denying same sex couples the right to marry is akin to denying minorities or women the right to vote. Same sex partnerships or civil unions are not the same, and bring to mind the days of racial segregation when African Americans were forced to drink at a separate drinking fountain or sit in a special section of a restaurant. Refusing the right of same sex couples to marry is the same as refusing Hispanics or African Americans the right to marry.

2. Financial concerns. Same sex couples want to marry for the same sorts of reasons that men and women want to marry. One of those reasons is the financial security that comes with being marriage. Married couples enjoy specific financial benefits under the law, such as different tax rules, Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, and the inheritance of property. In addition, there are issues like joint ownership that are not normally available to same sex couples that are currently only available to married couples. Some of these concerns can be address at an additional expense and through private legal means, but some of them can only be addressed through marriage. Some companies, recognizing that this is a serious issue for their employees, have already begun extending certain types of benefits to same sex couples, even though they aren’t legally married.

3. Legal concerns. Marriage doesn’t just provide benefits to the partners in a financial way. There are other specific legal matters that marriage provides benefits for. One of these is the issue of medical care. If one member of a same sex couple becomes ill, the other person may not even be allowed visitation rights because the law doesn’t consider them a spouse or family member. In addition, in the absence of a personal directive or living will, the partners may not be able to speak on behalf of one another when the other is incapacitated. Same sex couples should enjoy the same rights in this regard as heterosexual couples.

4. Marriage is about love. The fact of the matter is that most couples, whether they are a same sex couple or not, don’t get married for legal concerns. They don’t get married to get a tax benefit. They get married because they want to express their love and commitment to the other person. Marriage is a way for a person to say to their partner, “I love you so much that I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Through better or worse, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, I want to be with you.” Denying a couple the ability to express their love in this way is denying them the ultimate form of expression. A civil union doesn’t carry the same kind of social weight as marriage in this regard, and this is one of the main reason that many same sex couples don’t want to settle for a simple civil union. Same sex couples are capable of and deserving of the same love that heterosexual couples are.

5. Marriage encourages commitment. One of the most compelling arguments for same sex marriage is the idea that allowing same sex couples to marry actually strengthens the institution of marriage, rather than weakening it. Same sex couples who want to marry are looking for the same kinds of benefits that other couples are. They want, among other things, to be in a relationship of commitment. They want to express not only their love, but their monogamy and their dedication to one another. Just as marriage helps to reduce sexual promiscuity among heterosexual couples, so this kind of ultimate commitment helps to do the same for same sex couples. Just like marriage among heterosexual couples can help to curb a high-risk lifestyle, the same holds true for same sex couples. Allowing same sex marriage, then, helps to strengthen society and encourage monogamy, which is something that opponents of same sex marriage claim to support.

6. Marriage is an issue of religious freedom. The reality of things today is that marriage is a religious institution with specific civil consequences. Because both the religious world and the legal world are intertwined, there can be some rough waters to navigate here. The moment you begin to deny marriage to one couple, any couple is now at risk. While today it is only same sex couples that can’t marry, this line of reasoning suggests that one day only Protestant couples could be allowed to marry (or Muslim couples, or any particular religious permutation). In the same way that other religious have directly influenced the way that marriage came to be and what it came to mean to society, so same sex couples should have the right to marry and live in line with their own personal religious convictions. There are even religious institutions that specifically recognize same sex marriage, and that will perform private religious ceremonies to unite a same sex couple. Unfortunately, these ceremonies only carry a religious weight, and not a legal one.

7. Homosexuality is a legal and accepted lifestyle, and is likely caused biologically. Homosexuality was once considered a type of deviant behavior, engaged in only by moral reprobates. Research today suggests that homosexuality is not caused by reprobate behavior, but instead has a biological cause. This research suggests that sexuality is determined by a hormonal process, and that people don’t “choose” to be gay any more than straight people “choose” to be straight. Because homosexuality isn’t illegal and because it isn’t a choice, there is no reason that same sex couples should be denied access to the institution of marriage. Here again, discriminating against same sex couples becomes an issue of discriminating based on a physical characteristic – how their hormones fire – rather than on an ideological or behavioral basis.

8. Same sex marriage would increase the number of adoptions. Because same sex couples can’t procreate, allowing same sex marriage the same status as heterosexual marriage would help to address the adoption crisis. There are many children in need of adoption, and same sex couples can provide a stable and loving home for these children. While opponents may argue that children growing up in a same sex household will be adversely affected, there is no research to date that fully supports this theory. There is no reason to think that a child that grows up in a same sex household will be any worse or better off than a child that grows up in a traditional household with a man and a woman.

9. Same sex marriage does not hurt anyone. Marriage has always been, and remains to this day, a relationship between two parties. The two parties involved in marriage are the ones affected by the marriage. As an institution, marriage has a place in society. However, which two specific people marry doesn’t have an effect on the greater scale of things. Society isn’t hurt in the process of two people choosing to marry. In fact, there is a case to be made that marriage, as an institution, would be strengthened by allowing same sex marriage. More couples would be allowed to marry, and the institution would continue to be maintained. Divorce and infidelity are threats to the institution of marriage; allowing same sex couples the right to marry is not a threat to the institution.

10. There is no slippery slope. Allowing same sex marriage doesn’t necessarily mean that the next step is to allow polygamy, or to allow deviant forms of sexual behavior. Allowing same sex marriage is simply the logical extension and natural evolution of the institution. Marriage has long been the ultimate way for a couple to express their love and commitment to one another, and to legally sanction their relationship. It exists, in part, to help foster family values and to provide security and financial stability to those couples. Allowing same sex marriage doesn’t redefine marriage as an institution, and it doesn’t open Pandora’s Box. It merely takes marriage as it has been throughout the ages and recognizes the right of same sex couples to reap the benefits the way that heterosexual couples can.

It isn’t likely that this issue will be resolved any time soon. Because homosexuals are in the minority, and because there are still so many social taboos surrounding the issue, it has been an uphill battle. Many heterosexual people have little understanding, or interest, in the issue of same sex marriage. And, while many of them may believe that same sex marriage should be allowed, very few believe in the cause enough to make it a priority. So, the gay community is left with a relatively small number of supporters.

However, as the issue comes more and more to the fore, voices that support same sex marriage are being heard. Courts across the land are ruling in favor of same sex marriage rights. And while there are advances, there are also setbacks. Some states continue to pass or to try to pass amendments to their state constitutions that define marriage as being between a man and a woman. The battle rages on in a state by state basis, as there are no federal statutes that define marriage in a specific way. Many advocates of same sex marriage believe that the ultimate solution to the issue has to be at the federal level. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court tends to rule against same sex marriage rights, and the issue is such a hot button that few legislators are willing to take up the cause.

Still, the tide does seem to be turning. Most social analysts and experts expect that, within a few decades, the right to marry will be extended to same sex couples in the same way that it is enjoyed by heterosexual couples. Time will tell the tale, of course. In the meanwhile, many states find themselves in the situation where they are trying to define marriage for themselves, and to determine whether or not the state can sanction a marriage that isn’t between one man and one woman.