Small Business Development Center dodges a bullet

Everyone in South Carolina should breathe a sigh of relief that the budget for the Small Business Development Center is being reinstated thanks to a veto override today. Cutting revenue producing/job producing/business supporting initiatives like this program is short-sighted and counter-productive.

The SBDC is co-funded by the federal Small Business Administration, so each dollar of state funding brings in additional funds from the SBA to support the growth and development of small businesses in our state.

In the past five years, the SBDC has helped more than 500 businesses get started, assisted those businesses in obtaining more than $1 billion in government contracts and $815 in business loans and contributed to the creation of more than 6000 sustained and continuing jobs - more than 2700 of them in 2010. Each dollar the state has invested in the SBDC has returned $5.85 to the state's economy.

As a small business launched in the last two years, Portfolio has benefitted from the presence of the SBDC in Greenville. We received invaluable advice, information, direction and a sounding board for ideas. I know several people whose businesses might not be functioning today were it not for the assistance they found at the SBDC.

Sound bites and slogans are tossed about readily these days. Often they revolve around supporting small businesses and growing jobs. The governor's veto here is a rubber-hitting-the-road moment. The SBDC more than supports itself and achieves the goals of growing the economy through the strength of small businesses. Each year, it seems, this program must fight for its life. With the heart and soul of its function being the advancement of business and the creation of jobs - and a battle it is helping to win - that seems to be an odd program to have a target on its back.

If you are a small business hoping trying to grow, an individual hoping to start a business, or an established business looking to expand avail yourself of the resources and experienced consultants at the SBDC. It's an unparalleled resource, it is free to you and hopefully it will not be an endangered program lost to a frenzy of budget cutting.

The more we use it; the less likely we'll lose it.

Deconstructing the language of design

Acronyms and technology are barrier islands between most of us and the tools we need to use and understand to promote, manage and run our businesses.


So, here are some basics to help you communicate in the language of the designer.

• Icons. An icon is a small image that represents something else. Ideally, it should be very clear so there is no guesswork on the part of the viewer about what they are looking at. Icons - like the ubiquitous man/woman bathroom signs - may be used to overcome language barriers and appear in all manner of sizes. In the online/digital word, icons are often much smaller and designed to be a call to action. When you see an envelope symbol, you just know that is the link to use to send an email.
• Favicons. A variation on the icon theme designed for today's social media marketplace. These are 16X16 pixel images that represent a company or an individual online. Favicons are used on websites (the image that appears in the browser tab alongside the name of the site), on Twitter/Facebook and other sites and in situations where it's not possible to run your full logo. A favicon can be a reduced version of your logo or a specially designed alternative version. If you intend to have a significant online or social media presence, you should ask your designer to create a favicon since not all logos will lend themselves to reduce or crop to this size.
• Pixel? What's a pixel? Take a photograph. Get a magnifying glass. Look very closely at the photo and you will see it is made up of millions of tiny squares. Each square is a pixel, which is the smallest unit of a picture. Each pixel has its own grid coordinates on the image. Step back and the pixels visually join together to create the overall image - or in the vernacular - a pix. 
• Resolution roulette. I - or someone with an advanced degree in printing technology - could go on forever on dpi (dots per inch) vs ppi (pixels per inch) and how each is used. But here's what 99 percent of us need to know:
• The higher the resolution the more detail in the image.
• High resolution is only as good as your ability to see it.
• Computer monitors - it doesn't matter how much you spend on them - display images at 72 dpi. 
• Magazine quality printing is 300 dpi or better. 
• Higher quality images are larger, take up more space and take up more time to load. So unless you are printing a magazine, you want your images to have a resolution of 72 dpi if they are being viewed on a webpage.
• Understanding color: RGB, CYMK, HSL, Pantone, oh my! There are different color processes for different types of printing. The desired color is created by either adding or subtracting colors at certain percentages. Different types of printing utilizing different inking and color systems and thus require photos and graphics that are created using the right color process.
  
  For example, newspaper offset printing is a four-color process known as CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black), colors on web pages are represented by hexadecimal codes created by an RGB process (Red Green Blue), and many high end printers match colors using the Pantone Color Matching System which uses a patented process of base inks with a precise color matching to reproduce just about any color that the eye can see.
  
  Why does this matter? Because there is no such thing as RED. There are hundreds of reds. And if your logo uses Pantone 185 (232 Red/17 Green/45 Blue), it will not match up with Pantone 187 (175 Red/10 Green/45 Blue).
  
  Make sure you ask your designer to provide you with the color values for all the colors used in your logo and any alternate color palette that's developed for you. Only with that information can you guarantee a proper reproduction of your logo and your brand every time.

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Have questions about your logo or branding? We'd love to talk with you. Email us at design@portfoliosc.com.

Logo design: Getting what you pay for

Great. You decided to get your company's logo professionally designed. So how do you know you've gotten what you are paying for, what should you expect?

There are as many definitions of "design" and "designer" as there are people pondering the concept. Design - as in all art - is in the eye of the beholder. One definition that many might agree on is that graphic design is a creative process undertaken to convey a message to a specific audience. That definition is a good one because it conveys that design is collaborative and it is a process. 

So the first thing you should expect from your designer is some method of sharing and discussing your company, your products, your philosophy, your persona and your likes and dislikes on things as basic as color and type style. This may take the form of a conversation or two, some written questions provided as a way to promote new lines of thinking. If you own Compass Services, it might seem like a "no-brainer" to make some compass illustration your logo. But an experienced designer will dig deeper with you and you may end up somewhere that wasn't on your horizon when you started out.

Once the designer has more information, they have to translate that into ideas. Ideas are rough - often unformed. Because people tend to get caught up on color and typeface, these first passes may be nothing more than conceptual pencil sketches. Any good designer should give you some choices. Walk away from any designer who can only give you one "choice" and is looking for a quick approval. 

Once you've settled on a concept, the designer will refine the design. This is fairly important as it involves deciding on a color palette. This color palette should impact every other area of your public persona - website, brochures, business cards, trucks, etc - so it's important. Imagine if Coca-Cola founder John Pemberton had said, "You know, I really don't like the red." Ideas about appropriate colors should already be forming - from your design concept discussions, from your business, from your products. But if nothing trips your trigger on the first pass, most designers will create more choices. 

This is where we get into the issue of deliverables. Once all is said and done, what should you get an how do you use it? 

• Your designer should provide a logo in several different formats that you can use in different types of applications. At minimum you must get a vector file (.eps). This file is not an image but a data file and can be scaled up to a billboard or down to an icon without losing any detail. It is the .eps file that you will need for any high-quality printing, for clothing, for printing premium items like mugs or clothing. Printers may  tell you that they can take your .jpg (j-peg) file, which is really a static image of your logo, but they will then charge you a design or set up fee to basically turn your .jpg into their interpretation of your logo as a .eps file. Since they don't know your fonts or color palette, this may be inconsistent with your approved logo. You can get a feeling for the difference between a jpg and eps file by putting any jpg image into a word processing document. Now select the image and drag it until it fills the page. You will see it lose quality.
• There are many areas where you can get away with a .jpg (such as online uses including digital stationary, email, and websites). If you want to have color backgrounds, you'll need a transparent logo in a .png format. This should be SOP for any designer.
• Color palette. At minimum, you ought to know what colors are actually used in your logo and what typeface and styles are in use. A more detailed "branding book" or "identity guide" may be an option with your designer and may be worth having. But there are many times that know what your actual colors are and what ink settings are required to reproduce them can be very important. 

So, how much does all this cost? That is going to vary widely. But most designers will have a pricing level with minimal changes and, at the higher end, a level that includes unlimited changes. Make sure you honestly assess if you are a tweaker or not. Be honest; deceiving yourself can be costly when your designer starts piling on extra charges. 

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NEXT: Icons and favicons, oh my! Deconstructing the language of design.

Why your logo matters

Every business has to be fiscally responsible and especially in this economy finding ways to reduce expenses is critical.

Many small start ups take the DIYers path: create your own brochure, design your own website, write your own ad, make your own business cards and design your own logo.

As a company that provides all these services, we see concerns in all these areas. But at the same time, we know that the readily available tools do make this possible. You can get a serviceable website, a passable brochure and an OK business card by doing it yourself. When business picks up and your capabilities improve you can invest in an improved presence.

But you can't do this with your logo. As the heart of your corporate identity, your logo must have a permanence about it. A good part of your first few years will be spent networking and growing awareness and recognition of your company. Much of that connection will be made through the visual link of your logo.

A logo is not just your name in a different typestyle. Nor can you pick a nice photo out of a clip art library.

Your logo represents several things about your company.

• Your product/s or services. But if you are diversified and offer more than one type of product it is harder to pin a logo on this.


• Your principles and values such as strength, quality, watchfulness. Think of CBS's camera lens as the eye on the world.


• Your personality. Are you cool, hip, techy? Or mainstream, moderate, solid? Are you telegraphing experience or new ideas?

Designer Milton Glaser, who created the iconic "I Love NY" logo discusses the four keys to a good logo in Inc. Magazine .

The consistent element is that it takes a collaboration between a designer and a business to create a great logo. and no matter how small your company, you still want a great logo. No matter how many times you change your website, your logo will still be a prominent visual. Your brochures will change, but your logo will still be on the front. A better quality business card will still carry your logo.

Make your dollars count by investing in a good designer and a good logo.
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Next: What you should expect from your logo designer.


- Put our experts on your team -

Email emancipation

Depending on which surveys you read, the average business person spends a minimum of 90 minutes a day reading email. In my experience, I think it's longer. And it's certainly become more pervasive now that smartphones, tablets, iPads and other mobile devices keep us attached to our email 24X7.

Whether it's a ding, a trill or a subtle vibration, you are never fully able to escape from the onslaught of communication.

Despite the fact that we've had email for a couple of decades now and many tools and methods have evolved to get it under control, most of us are still being controlled by our tools.

There are some very basic methods you can use to get control of email and some tools - some embedded in your mail readers like Outlook and others that can be purchased like Mail Tags and Mail Act-On for the Mac - that can help automate your methods.Here are three tips:

Develop an email methodology. Email is a task generator - not a library. People send you email because they want you to READ, SCHEDULE, MEET, REVIEW, CONSIDER, VOTE, ATTEND, COMPLETE .. something. So set up a folder system based on actions. For example:

•  Read Later (email that's interesting and requires no action from you) 
• Waiting (email that will require an action once something else has been completed or email where you have assigned tasks and need to make sure they are completed by someone). 
• Action (things I have to do/respond to today) 
• Follow up (emails I need to follow up on in the next day or two) 

Discipline yourself. Schedule specific times each day when you are going to read and act on email. Don't open your email every time a new message comes in.

Automate standard tasks. Every time you click on "Yes, I'd like to receive more information", that's another email that's coming into your mailbox on a regular basis. All of us get ads, newsletters, curated listings of topics you may find of interest, daily digests from FaceBook, LinkedIN, newspapers and magazines. Even if it's material you want, it is not demanding immediate action. Learn to set up rules that will automatically move these messages to your "Read Later" folder. Or, if it's something you no longer want, directly to your trash.

Rules in Outlook and Apple Mail can automatically categorize mail so it can be easily pulled up when you need it. In Outlook, an even more powerful feature is the ability to turn messages into tasks or appointments right through the inbox.

These steps can help you "triage" your mail based on what you need to "DO." Or often who needs to do it (think of all the emails you get copied on that really don't involve you).

The important thing is at the end of each day there should be something less than 15-20 emails in your inbox.

Remember: email is a tool to help you do your job, it is not your job. A construction worker isn't "hammering", he's building a house.

Let your Irish sing out loud for a change!

Don't just pound on the table when you are out at the St. Patrick's Day celebration today. Sing along! Sing out loud and with confidence because you will actually know the words to the songs! Unless you actually are Irish, that's probably not always the case. So Happy Paddy's Day from Portfolio. Follow this link to download a pdf with the words to 50 of the most popular Irish songs. 

That's OK, you can thank us later. And if you'd like to signup for our newsletter while you're waiting for the download, that would be good too.

Slante.

If time is money, this story is bad news

How much time do your employees waste each day?

According to a study reported Friday by Inc Magazine it's as much as 50 percent. Yikes! If you're a small business that has scrapped and saved in order to finally make a hire or two, that has to be a little scary. The study - somewhat self serving from a business communications company - found that:

Workers spend more than a third of their time (36 percent) trying to contact customers, partners or colleagues; find information, or schedule a meeting. (When, exactly, should you schedule a meeting? Another survey says Tuesday afternoon.)  Another 14 percent of an employee's day: duplicating information (forwarding emails or phone calls to confirm if fax/e-mail/text message was received) and managing unwanted communications, such as spam or unsolicited phone calls.

There are many issues we could talk about in relationship to this story including employee management, but the problem really is how to reclaim the lost time and make employees more productive.

A well-worn metric of computing is that the average user utilizes less than 10 percent of the functionality of any program. Unfortunately, this has been a casualty of managers who don't understand or promote technology, the lack of real training and ongoing reinforcement of best practices and an overall acceptance of one of the most innovation-killing attitudes found in almost all workplaces: "We've always done it this way."

Perhaps. But that's not a requirement. Here are three tips on ways to do it differently.

1. The largest installed email/calendaring program in the world is Outlook. Chances are your office is running it. If so, we can save a lot of time by using the program's scheduling functions to schedule meetings. Easily set up groups from your company's address book either for permanent or temporary teams. Create a project team group, select the group when scheduling and open the scheduling assistant. The assistant will show you all the individuals in the group and their free time. Use the "find free time" feature to find the available times when everyone on your team can meet.

2. Not all meetings are internal and setting up times with clients, customers and vendors can be even more challenging. Several tools utilizing internet-based "cloud" services tackle - and solve - this challenge. Timebridge is our favorite. Link your calendar to the Timebridge service and scheduling a meeting is a three-step process: enter the names of the people you want to meet with (if they are in your address book you only have to start typing the names), write a message to your attendees, then select five times from your calendar that are available. Alternately, you can allow your attendees to select times that are open in your calendar.

Timebridge does everything else: Attendees are brought to an interface where they can select all the times that will work and a "best" time. When everyone's agreed on one, the service sends an email confirming the date, time and other meeting details. What used to take 5-7 emails per attendee to accomplish, is done in one web site and three steps.

3. The biggest time waster the survey found was managing email with 50 percent of the day spent on it. We are working for the technology rather than making it work for us. To turn that situation around, make Outlook rules your friend. You have a very powerful organizational tool in rules if you take the time to learn them. You can assign incoming mail to projects or clients based on email address or domain name, you can move automated messages, message receipts and meeting acceptances out of your way and into a holding folder, you can send newsletters, RSS feeds, automated mailing lists into a "read me later" folder. With just a few rules, you can get your inbox down to a more manageable size of items that require action.

There are many more tools on the average person's desktop that can help you save time, be more efficient and more productive. If time is money then it's worth it to learn how to stop wasting so much of it.
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Portfolio can help your company make up for lost time and regain productivity. Contact us at 864-213-6314 or email info@portfoliosc.com to find out how we can help.