Small Business Trends is Moving

This weekend (November 5 - 6, 2006) this site will be moving to a new domain, a new look, and a new software package -- WordPress.

Over the weekend we will be moving to a new address: http://www.smallbiztrends.com. If you go there now you will simply see a page listing the site features. You will know when the move has occurred, when you can see the newly re-designed blog at that page.

Please update your bookmarks with the new URL: http://www.smallbiztrends.com.

Also, the new RSS feed will be: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SmallBusinessTrends (NOTE: the previously posted URL was incorrect! If you subscribed to a different URL, please use this one now).

Chances are that the site may be unavailable temporarily for a short while, as the move is taking place. I am sorry for any inconvenience.

See you over at the new site!

Holiday 2005 Online Sales To Increase

The predictions for holiday 2005 sales are rolling in fast and furious for the United States market. Here is a rundown so far:

• Forrester Research forecasts that U.S. holiday sales on the Web will top $18 Billion in 2005. That is an increase of 25% over last year, and another 2.5 million shoppers online. And 79% of retailers are offering free shipping! That's a pretty amazing percentage doing the free shipping.



• Jupiter Research says that holiday sales online will reach $26 billion in the United States, an 18 percent increase over 2004. Jupiter also predicts that free shipping will be big this year.

Both reports indicate that what is driving more Web shopping is: (1) higher gasoline prices in the U.S., and (2) continuing broad adoption of the Web, i.e., more Americans are online and comfortable transacting business there.

For retailers that are primarily brick and mortar, doing more to push their online channels would be a good move. Also, retailers not offering free shipping will be at a competitive disadvantage -- so think about offering free shipping.

Small Business Trends Newsletter Now Online

Those of you who read this site using RSS feeds and newsreaders may be unaware that we offer a free monthly newsletter, too.

Join the 2000+ readers who like to receive the monthly newsletter because it contains a digest of the most popular articles on this site (by page views). You will also find important announcements and a Letter to the Editor feature, and links to offsite content. It's a good way to be reminded to come over and catch up on what's happening.

The newsletter goes out via email roughly every 3 to 4 weeks. We know your time is valuable and we try not to bombard you. We never sell your email address to third parties.

Read the latest newsletter online here.

Or you can find out more about the newsletter and free downloads that we offer for subscribing, on the main Small Business newsletter directory page.

Using Email For Selling to Small Businesses

Do you use email to make cold calls on small businesses? Or, more precisely, do you use email as the first point of contact to try to get an appointment by phone or in person with a small business owner?

Over at BNET I have two articles posted about using email as part of your sales outreach -- and I'm not talking about blasting out thousands of direct marketing messages (or spam as some might call it). Read:

Cold Calling Today

Making Email Contact with Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs

Free Book Giveaway - "Selling is Dead"

Would you like to be entered in a drawing to win a copy of the new book, "Selling is Dead"?

The authors, Marc Miller and Jason Sinkovitz, were kind enough to donate three (3) copies of this hardback book published by Wiley & Sons.

To be entered in the drawing, all you need to do is take our quick 3-minute survey.

Your answers to the survey will help develop market intelligence about what it takes to sell to small businesses successfully today. All responses are 100% anonymous. Survey results will be shared on this site and to newsletter subscribers.

About the Book

You can read reviews of "Selling is Dead" over at Amazon.com. The book is getting good reviews, such as this one:

"Selling is Dead" is one of 10 best books on sales effectiveness published in the United States in the past 20 years. * * *

Of course selling isn't dead, literally. But it's changing in major ways, the authors say. Sales teams are underperforming because they are ineffective. The cost of sales people has risen much higher than their productivity. If selling isn't exactly dead, it's broken. The authors say the main reason is that sellers are generally unable to cope with the quickening pace of innovation."

Also, if you want to communicate directly with the authors -- and get further bites of insight -- go over to the book's blog, Selling is Dead. These days, even books have blogs.

Details, Details

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Winners will be chosen by random drawing. The books will be mailed anywhere in the world. Survey and drawing ends November 12, 2005.

Go here to take the 3-minute survey.