After dealing with months of layoffs, pay cuts and worries, employees are stressed out and in need of … something … from you.

As you keep the bottom line from slipping into the red, there are steps you can take that will improve morale, relieve stress and not cost anything. Consider these moves made by various bosses quoted in INC and The Wall Street Journal. One or more could position you to move forward as business improves.

• Upgrade job titles even if you can’t pay more or can only make a token increase in pay. Several of your workers could be called “manager” or “director” of some facet of your business. It’s especially appreciated by people who were out of the workforce for a time before you hired them. They can visualize the title showing up on future resumes. They will, however, probably want to stay with your company, where they already have an important job.
• Let people work from home wherever possible. They will appreciate setting their own hours, be they day or night. Working remotely gives them the autonomy that many people like. It makes them feel like entrepreneurs.
• Create a bonus plan in lieu of pay raises. It could be tied to the amount of revenue they generate for the company.
• Hold weekly meetings where they can talk about their jobs. Let them make suggestions and voice complaints about issues you may not be aware of but that you could deal with. One boss met with employees individually. The more he listened, the better they felt.
• Let them be part of the solution, how to increase business and cut costs. Make a road map to company progress and share it with your people. Present a detailed plan you will execute over the next few months and in the coming year. Reinforce the company’s vision.

As one boss says, when people are focused on surviving, they forget that the end goal is thriving.

Always be frank about current circumstances, but demonstrate a positive view of the future. You know it’s coming even if you don’t know just when that thriving future will arrive.

By holding a focus group, you will find out a great deal about your customers, their opinions of your company, their purchasing habits and their needs.

Most groups include about a dozen people. Some should be current customers, but it’s also good to include people who aren’t familiar with your business. No employees should be part of it, and no competitor should be invited.

You can select the attendees yourself or hire a research firm to find participants help you plan and conduct the session. According to Business Week magazine, the firm could charge $2,000 to $5,000 depending on how much you have them do.

Where you will hold the focus group is a big decision. Organizations, such as Qualitative Research Consultants and the New York American Marketing Association, have facilities equipped with video recording equipment and one-way mirrors so you could observe the group without your presence becoming a distraction.

Decide what you are trying to learn and have a list of questions and conversation starters on hand. One good question: How would you describe who would use your service and products and why?

You can lead the discussion if you can comfortably — and impartially — moderate the group. Don’t do it if you are sensitive to criticism. People can be blunt and give negative feedback, but it will probably be their honest opinion.

Make sure everyone participates. If one person is dominating the conversation, avoid eye contact with her or him and turn toward quieter members of the group to draw them out.

Don’t let the discussion wander too far afield. At the same time, be flexible and let the conversation flow. Someone might bring up an idea you haven’t considered.

As you examine your findings, watch for the themes and ideas that stand out. Consider how you might use them in your product development.
If you had professional leaders, they can help with this task.

The Centre for India and Global Business at Cambridge University says there’s a new business term. Organizations have added it to other buzzwords that include Six Sigma, total quality, lean and kaisen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement.

Jugaad (pronounced joo-gaardh) comes from a Hindi slang word that means an improvisational style of innovation that’s driven by scarce resources and attention to a customer’s immediate needs, not lifestyle wants.

That means inexpensive invention on the fly, according to Business Week.

In an economy where companies have less money for research and development, and where consumers are trading down to good-enough products and services, they say development on the fly has its place.

The term is now found at Apple’s in-house training programs and those of other companies.

At Cisco, which opened what the San Jose company calls a second global headquarters in Bangalore in 2007, the innovation agenda is about affordability and scale.

Not protecting customer data can lead to fraud liabilities for small businesses and result in lost customer trust.

While protecting customer data may seem intimidating, it need not be. Financial institutions and card processor companies can help by offering solutions that are designed with the small-business owner in mind.

Heather Johnson, an independent cosmetic consultant with Mary Kay Cosmetics, has a small business with a big customer list that includes friends and family members who trust her with their card information. Protecting that data poses some of the same challenges for her that big businesses face, but Johnson doesn’t have an information security department to help her.

Turning to her card processor, ProPay, for help, Johnson discovered that the right solution for her business was as simple as an encrypted handheld card reader that can be as mobile as she is, but is also secure. “I never even see customers’ credit card numbers,” Johnson said. “I don’t have to worry about losing receipts or my customers’ personal information. Even if the reader is stolen, the information is protected.” The system encrypts the data and, after authorization, deletes any prohibited data elements from the reader that criminals are looking for in order to make counterfeit cards.

For Johnson, the secure reader was also an opportunity to talk to her customers about the steps she was taking to protect their information. “It opens up a conversation about security and makes me look more professional. They trust me.”

Visa has been working with small businesses and has invested heavily in advanced fraud-fighting technologies. Its approach has worked, with fraud rates decreasing by more than two-thirds in the past two decades. It is a good information source for small businesses looking to improve data security.

Visa offers these tips to help small-business owners prevent data loss:

Be sure you are using secure payment software that does not store sensitive card data and adheres to industry security standards. A list of compliant vendors is available at http://www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

Be sure that your systems do not inadvertently store sensitive cardholder information. Check with your merchant bank or processor to determine what data you may need to retain, and what you must not retain under any circumstances.

Follow the payment card industry’s data security requirements and consider working with a security vendor to complete a vulnerability scan of your systems and a questionnaire. Many merchant banks and processors can provide referrals.

For more tips and information, visit http://www.visa.com/cisp.

Every day, people with disabilities make important contributions to America’s workplaces.

However, statistics show that in both good economic times and bad, they have far fewer job opportunities than the general population. A new initiative aims to change this by helping employers and others recognize the value people with disabilities bring to the workplace.

The “What Can YOU Do?” initiative, launched by the Campaign for Disability Employment, encourages employers to be inclusive of people with disabilities and to implement good workplace practices that benefit everyone.

The campaign Web site offers free tools and resources for various audiences. Employers are invited to express their commitment to inclusive workplace practices and people with disabilities are asked to share their job skills and experiences. Visitors can view the campaign’s “I Can” public service announcement and download posters to share the message that at work, it’s what people can do that matters.

For more information, visit http://www.whatcanyoudocampaign.org.

Are men more trustworthy than women or vice versa? Are older people more trustworthy than younger people? Can you trust some industries more than others? These and other trust-related questions are answered in a new study conducted by Trusted Advisor Associates, a management consultancy focused on the role of trust in business.

The data are based on 10,000 responses to the company’s online Trust Quotient™ — a proprietary self-assessment instrument that measures trustworthiness as a composite of four components (credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-orientation). The responses were scored on a scale and combined to produce an overall trust number rated on a scale of 100. The study represents the largest ever on the subject of trustworthiness, and the implications of the findings bring some much-needed definition and texture to the broader dialogue around issues of corporate ethics, integrity and trust.

For example, men and women achieve nearly equal trust ratings but they get there quite differently, the data show. Older and retired workers rate significantly higher on the trust scale than do younger workers. And despite popular stereotypes, trustworthiness varies more at the personal level than at the industry level–trust is largely a personal phenomenon.

“While there’s been a lot said recently about trust in business, much of it understates the role of personal trustworthiness,” said Charles H. Green, founder of Trusted Advisor Associates and developer of the Trust Quotient and other trust diagnostics. “Despite the attention we give issues like metrics, ethics and corporate transparency, the role of personal trustworthiness in corporate leadership remains underplayed. Trust starts and ends with people.”

Who are more trustworthy–men or women?
Overall, there is very little difference: Women rate as slightly more trustworthy, at 79.7 vs. 79.0. However, the differences are instructive: Women and men score equally on credibility, and women have a slight edge in reliability–20.6 vs. 20.4. The big difference comes in the factor of intimacy, where women are 0.5 points higher–19.8 vs. 19.3. Thus, most of the gender difference derives from higher scores at the key factor of intimacy.

Does trustworthiness increase or decrease with age?
One of the strongest correlations in the Trust Quotient (TQ) study is the linking of TQ and age. The older we get, the more trustworthy we are (or at least think we are).

Does trustworthiness vary by industry or job?
Overall, there are few discernible patterns at the industry level. As a broad statement, those with jobs requiring high personal interaction (general management, training, sales) tend to rate higher than those in more solitary roles (supply chain, accounting, legal). This underscores that trustworthiness is a personal attribute, distributed broadly across industries. It also suggests a large opportunity–no matter what industry you’re in–to differentiate by building businesses with higher concentrations of trustworthy people.

While most management theorists advise people and organizations to focus on strengths instead of weaknesses to improve performance, these findings clearly indicate that in the arena of trust, a different approach is necessary.

“Some business leaders make the case that to improve performance, people and businesses should leverage their strengths rather than concentrating on fixing their weaknesses,” said Green. “This makes a great deal of sense in areas of skills mastery. But when it comes to trust, the opposite is demonstrably true. By focusing on their weaknesses, individuals can make rapid improvements in their trustworthiness, and those improvements will accrue to the industries and organizations within which they work. By becoming aware of an imbalance in our trustworthiness strategies, we can improve our integrity.”

To take the Trust Quotient quiz and see how trustworthy you are, go to http://www.trustedadvisor.com/quiz.

With so many people out of work during this recession, it should come as no surprise that many are thinking about starting their own businesses.

And with so many jobs moving offshore, even the people who are still employed should consider starting a business as a back-up plan. Unfortunately, most of these start-ups will struggle to survive … but they don’t have to. There’s an easy way to mistake-proof any business – all it takes is a little time using free online tools and search engine research with Google.

Mistake 1: Not Listening to the Voice of the Customer Most business entrepreneurs become enchanted with an idea and pursue it without thinking it through. They end up with a garage filled with unsalable merchandise and wonder what went wrong. Others open a store and name it something cute, like a hair salon named Curl Up And Dye. Or they start an Internet business but don’t bother to understand what customers really want. Why do they fail? The answer is simple; they didn’t understand the “voice of the customer.” Businesses large and small can use a voice of the customer matrix to describe what customers want and how to deliver it. Toyota uses this kind of matrix to design better cars, and you can use it to design a better product or service.

To succeed in business, it’s best to figure out where the crowds of customers are going and then get in front of the crowd. In the old days, this would involve lots of market research, focus groups and money. Today, these answers can be easily found on the Internet for free with Google’s key word tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Let’s say you want to start a pet food bakery that makes healthy treats for dogs and cats. Just search Google’s keyword tool for “pet bakery” and “pet food.” You’ll quickly discover that there are over 500,000 searches a month for “pet food” but only 8,000 a month for “pet bakery.”

There are also 33,000 searches a month for “wellness pet food.” From this one might conclude that “pet food” is too broad and would have to compete with the big chains; “pet bakery” is too narrow; but “wellness pet food” might be just the niche to explore because these customers are probably willing to pay a premium.

Mistake 2: Not Speaking Your Customer’s Language As learned from Mistake 1, customer language can differ from our own. Based on the search terms above, it might be smarter to name your store “Wellness Pet Food” (customer language) instead of “Bow Wow Biscuits” (your language) because that’s what the crowd wants. Don’t paraphrase (using healthy instead of wellness); use the customer’s exact words. Then check domain name availability for “Wellness-pet-food.com” or “Wellness_pet_food.com.” If it’s available, register it (try a site such as GoDaddy); if not, try adding other key words likely to attract customers such as your location.

Be aware that Google cannot identify compound words, so registering a site like “WellnessPetFood.com” won’t be as effective as “Wellness_Pet_Food.com.” Separate the words with a dash or underscore to improve the site’s search engine ranking.

This “get in front of the crowd” strategy also works for service businesses. Let’s say you are a hypnotherapist in Denver with “HypnoDenver.com” as your site. Many other hypnotherapists in town also have hypnosomething.com as their site name. What are prospects searching for? They don’t want “hypnosis;” they want to “stop smoking” or “lose weight.” Domain names like “Stop-smoking-Denver.com” and “Lose-Weight-Denver.com” would be a great start.

With more than 100 million Internet users in the U.S. and billions of Internet-capable cell phones, no business can afford to ignore the power of the web. Even if you don’t plan on having a Web site, you will want to own the domain name to prevent others from using it. And, if the business succeeds locally, having the domain name will make it easy to expand into a regional, national or global Internet business.

Mistake 3: Not Making Your Product or Service Better, Faster or Cheaper Too many entrepreneurs try to enter an already crowded market. Search the Internet for your product or service to find out how many competitors are out there. When searching for the key words, “pet food Denver,” Google finds 726,000 results. “Wellness pet food Denver” yields 149,000 results. If Google reveals too many competitors, consider another line of business. If Google reveals no competitors, that can be just as bad. Someone, somewhere should be offering a similar product or service. If not, there are no customers.

“Pet food” for example, is crowded with low cost super chains. From the voice of the customer perspective, customers want you to be better, faster or cheaper than the competition. Are you more innovative? Do you provide better customer service? Are you more effective and efficient? When customers can’t distinguish one business from another, they default to the familiar or low cost one. If you’re not sure what customers want in a particular product or service, start by asking your friends, family, neighbors, and even people on the street. Capture their responses. In general, are they saying:

• “I want better ________ (e.g., pet food).”
• “I want cheaper ________ (e.g., cell phone service).”
• “I want faster ___________ (e.g., healthcare, service, delivery, repair, etc.)

Then ask: “What is the competition offering (better, faster or cheaper)? What can we do differently?” If you can’t answer these questions, neither can your customers.

Mistake 4: Not Testing the Business Concept Once Google has revealed what customers want (in their language, not yours) and you’ve identified a unique value proposition from the voice of the customer (better, faster or cheaper), it’s time to test the concept. For this, Google offers another powerful tool: Adwords (adwords.google.com). Google makes its money by putting ads around its search results. Many entrepreneurs use Adwords to test business and marketing concepts before they throw a lot of money at it.

Tim Ferriss, bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek, used Adwords to test various titles for his new book. He bought pay-per-click ads using various titles (Adwords will alternate them for you) and each ad took the Internet user to a different Web page about the book. Ferriss let the “wisdom of crowds” choose the best title for him.

All of this research might take a few weeks and a few hundred dollars, but it’s a lot cheaper than wasting your hard-earned money on a doomed startup.

Mistake 5: Not Bootstrapping the Business Most people start looking for a “business loan” (3,350,000 Google searches) before they think about a “business plan” (1,500,000 searches). Entrepreneurs don’t always need a lot of money to get started. If Mrs. Robin Andrew’s third grade class at Pelham Elementary School in Pelham NH can start The Bow Wow Biscuit Company (www.bowwowbiscuits.org), you can too.

If the business is a product, don’t make 10,000 of them. Put up a Web site; bake a few in your kitchen and sell them online or give away free samples to test the response. Or make a prototype and get people to try it and provide feedback. Post-it™ notes are a classic example of this and look at how successful they are. When customers start clamoring to buy your products, then get money to do a production run.

If the business idea is a service, print some business cards (carefully crafted with the crowd’s keywords and phrases) and pass them out at local business meetings.

This is how entrepreneurs bootstrap businesses that grow. It’s also how they avoid sinking huge sums of money into bad ideas. This “crawl-walk-run” strategy works as well for new businesses as it does for new babies.

If the first business idea doesn’t click, try another one. Walt Disney went bankrupt several times before succeeding … but then again, he didn’t have Google. Good luck with your start-up!

About the Author:
Jay Arthur, the KnowWare Man, works with companies to fire up their profits with Lean Six Sigma. Jay is author of Double Your Profits. He spent the last 20 years helping organizations maximize revenue through the “Lean Six Sigma System,” a collection of audio, video, books and software. Jay is also the author of Lean Six Sigma Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide and the QI Macros for Excel – Software for Six Sigma, SPC, DOE. To plug the leaks in your cash flow, sign up for free Lean Six Sigma lessons online at: http://www.qimacros.com/freestuff.html.

In my 20 years in the public relations business, if I had a nickel for every time a client asked me to get them on Oprah it is safe to say that I would be a very wealthy woman at this point in my career!

Oprah is indeed the gold standard, and her show carries weight not only because of Oprah’s massive viewership, but also because they’re loyal. She brings with her tens of millions of loyal viewers who trust her so implicitly, that they buy practically any book she recommends, any product she endorses and follow her advice on just about every topic from politics and parenting to bowling and basket weaving.

When most PR agencies are faced with that request, they smile and nod and tell their clients they’ll do their best, but we all know what it really takes to get on Oprah.

You have to understand a few basic premises:

Oprah is NOT a Product Peddler – The Oprah Winfrey Show does not exist to provide coverage for your product, company or book. Her mission is to inform and entertain her viewers so that they keep tuning in, and her company can sell advertising at top dollar. The more engaged and sizeable her viewership, the more revenue she takes in.

Her show is a true “No Spin Zone” – You can’t spin yourself into a guest spot on her show, because her staff scrutinizes her guests more severely than the press dissect political candidates. You can’t disguise any element of your past, and you can’t use PR techniques to make yourself look more credible or noteworthy than you actually are. Her people are media pros and will see through it.

They don’t see their roles as bookers or producers – they see themselves as caretakers of a multibillion-dollar brand name and a television personality whose name is synonymous with credibility and trust. Protecting her show and her name is tantamount to protecting themselves and their roles in shaping a media juggernaut. You can’t fool them – either you’ve got the goods, or you don’t.

You don’t call her, she calls you – This is the one thing no publicist ever tells a client they hope to sign.  Why?  Simply because they are afraid it will make their agency or service irrelevant to the client who can sign the big check.  Ninety-five percent of Oprah’s guests are invited, and are rarely booked because a publicist made a phone call and pitched a client. It’s rare that any of her staff even make themselves available to hear pitches from publicists.

Seeing a guest similar to yourself on her show does not move you to the top of the list.  If anything, seeing a competitor or guest similar to yourself on her show actually makes her less interested in you.

With that being said, a publicity campaign is absolutely critical if your eventual goal is to get on Oprah’s show.  Contradictory?  Not really. Here are some critical tips to give you the best shot at getting on her staff’s radar screen:

Start locally – Earlier, I mentioned that 95 percent of her guests are invited without a pitch from a publicist, but that doesn’t mean publicity wasn’t involved. Her bookers and producers find out about unique guests by reading the news. They scour the Internet and local newspaper sites, looking for unique individuals and stories from all over the country. All those national headlines you read every day about the guy whose 8-year-old saved his life by giving him CPR, or the woman whose dog dialed 911, didn’t happen in Anywhere, USA. They happened somewhere, and in that somewhere was a local TV or print reporter who found out about it and wrote about it. The foundation of any campaign to get in the national media is to prove you were at least interesting enough to make your hometown papers or TV newscasts.

Stand for Something – The mistake a lot of people make when hitting the media is to be all things to all people, to appeal to the broadest sector of the population, to cast a wide net. However, most of the people you’ll see on Oprah are not good for all time zones – they are passionate, opinionated people who hold strong views and may pick a position that can upset some element of the viewing audience. Controversy and conflict is what drives most talk shows. Imagine how interesting Crossfire would be to watch if everyone agreed, and you’ll see my point.

Have an Impact – Just because you write a book that exposes hidden injustice in some area of society, it’s not enough to just stand behind the book. You have to be an activist, a clarion voice of passion who actively campaigns to right the wrongs you’ve exposed. Having an impact on people’s lives, and earning the news coverage in your local community, is the highest-percentage way to get on the radar screen of Oprah’s staff, if not Oprah herself.

At the end of the day, there is no magic potion you can take, no staffer or producer you can pay off, and no stunt you can pull that will get you on Oprah. But if you are truly unique, have an impact on people’s lives and have the support of your local media, you’ve got as good a shot of being featured on Oprah’s show as any of the people she’s already put on the air.

About the Author:
Marsha Friedman is a 20-year veteran of the public relations industry. She is the CEO of EMSI Public Relations http://www.emsincorporated.com, a national firm that has provided PR strategy and publicity services to over a thousand clients including corporations, entertainers, authors and professional firms. She also hosts a national weekly radio talk show, The Family Round Table, and is author of the book, Celebritize Yourself.

Everyone enjoys getting a pat on the back — and, in a time when social media has become part of our global consciousness, the power of social proof is perhaps stronger than ever before.

It is with this thought in mind that Jim Mueller and his partners launched Propadoo.

Propadoo puts your testimonials & referral requests on auto-pilot. Here’s how it works:

• Streams Real-Time Testimonials on your website — increasing your conversions
• Generates Leads with referrals from happy customers
• Boosts SEO with user generated content & search-engine friendly Propadoo profile

Yesterday I had the chance to sit down with Jim to discuss how he got started, why folks should use Propadoo, and how this service can fit into your overall marketing strategy. In this twenty minute audio, you’ll quickly discover why Propadoo should be in every small business arsenal.

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Ken Fisher’s new book, How to Smell a Rat, has struck a cord with novice and professional investors everywhere. In an era of Bernie Madoff-like scams, Fisher brings welcome relief in How to Smell a Rat — a deft delineation of common warning signs to heed and thereby save your financial future.

Fisher has been writing Forbes magazine’s “Portfolio Strategy” column for 25 years. He says investment fraud can strike anyone at anytime. But nearly every investment Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated, including, Bernard Madoff’s massive fraud, could have been easily detected, and more easily avoided.

Using the example of “Everyman Jim,” an investor swimming in shark-filled waters, Fisher gives a clear, fast-paced guide to his principles, such as, “Due diligence is your job, no one else’s.”

Fisher not only tells the reader what to avoid in the shark-infested waters, he gives practical, easy-to-follow examples of investment strategies. Some are from his own firm. He is founder and CEO of Fisher Investments, one of the largest registered investment firms.

The reader who likes stories will be interested in those about Madoff, Allen Stanford and a number of other historical scam artists.

Fisher’s five red flags that should make alert investors back away include:

• Advisors who have access to your money.
• Promises of returns that are too good to be true.
• Mumbo-jumbo that takes the place of explaining investment strategy.
• Information on the fake benefits of exclusivity and other strategies.
• Relying on someone else for due diligence.