Survey says…

Every now and then you have to stop guessing about what your customers are doing and actually ask them. This fall, we conducted a survey of over 650 entrepreneurs and business planners who are using our software. Their responses yielded some helpful information for others tackling the most challenging aspects of business planning.

As part of our series on “Back to Fundamentals” in business planning for Global Entrepreneurship Week we’ve posted an article about our survey, what it tells us, and you, how to use survey results in developing and planning our marketing strategies, tactics and programs.

Click here to read our Planning tips from Palo Alto Software customers article.

Tags: , "back to fundamentals", backtofundamentals, global entrepreneurship week, marketing tools, survey
Posted on November 19th, 2008 | No Comments »

For those of you who attended Monday’s Back to the Fundamentals webinar, you heard a lot of references to some websites, books and blogs.

For the reference of those people looking for more information and for those of you who weren’t able to make it to the webinar, I’m going to put a reference list here.

If there are any that I fail to include here, please leave a comment and I’ll track it down and get it for you.

Tim Berry

Blogs : Planning, Startups, Stories, Up and Running,  Tim’s posts at HuffingtonPost, Tim at Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends, Planning Demystified at AllBusiness.com

Books:  The Plan-As-You-Go Business Plan book and website, Three Weeks to Start-up

Slides: Download the slides from Monday’s webinar as well as other presentations Tim has given over the years.

The webinar itself will be available for download starting today at our video site   eta: This link is fixed now, sorry about that!

Resources: Palo Alto Software products,  Business and Marketing calculators, more planning video’s.

I hope that was helpful, again, if I’ve missed anything or you’re wondering about a particular resource or website, just comment!

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: backtofundamentals, business planning, global entrepreneurship week, resources, smart planning, Tim Berry, webinar
Posted on November 18th, 2008 | No Comments »

Interesting article today on Businessweek.com about the importance of recognizing your business costs and getting them under control now verses later, when it could be too late:

“…by recognizing the problem early and making moderate reductions, small firms can avoid more severe cuts later on, financial experts say. Companies that ignore warning signs can erode their profits with rising costs, and those that borrow to meet those costs can wind up insolvent.”

How many of you are looking at your personal or household budgets and cutting expenses? Change vacations plans? Did you dump those magazine subscriptions that you don’t need?

Why wouldn’t you do the same thing at your business?

The answer is, you would! No question. Right?

Now, here’s the next question. Are you being smart in your cuts, or are you looking at the highest costs and slashing them without really looking down the road and seeing what the cut is going to do to you later on? How many of you immediately shut down your advertising campaign? Canceled all your trade show appearances? Eliminated a position or two on your staff?

Let me say this again. Cutting your business costs now verses later is a good idea… but making sure you make the right cuts is going to make the difference between having a strong and functioning business and a “just hanging on” business down the road.

You are in business now because you made smart choices. Keep that up. Pull open your budgets, study your cash flow, your planned vs actuals, your forecasts. Adjust them for the good, the bad and the really really ugly. Be brutal in your projections and then look at your costs.

Make a plan. A good plan.

Now is not the time for guess work and hasty decisions. You can’t afford it.

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Have you signed up for the Back to the Fundamentals webinar with Tim Berry? There’s still time! Register Right Now by clicking this button

Tags: backtofundamentals, business planning, global entrepreneurship week, smart planning, Tim Berry, webinar
Posted on October 30th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

There’s a lot of talk in the media and the blogsphere about the economy and how businesses will be reacting to the climate. Many are guessing there will be layoffs coming in the next several months. PR and Marketing departments are tightening their belts and some companies are cutting those departments altogether. Pretty scary times. But they don’t have to be.

If you look carefully, you’ll find a small but very vocal group of business advisers and business owners who are being smart and not reacting blindly to what is happening in the world.

They’re sitting down with their budgets, their management teams and consultants and really looking at what needs to happen to ensure their businesses survive.

If business is slowing down, what are you doing to ensure your customers keep coming back? If your competitor slashed their advertising budget, isn’t this the time for you to add a couple more budgeting dollars to pick up where they’ve left off? That expensive marketing tool or reporting system that costs you thousands of dollars a month - have you checked to see if there’s a low cost alternative that does pretty much the same thing?

Don’t doom your business by reacting too strongly to what’s going on. Sit down and make good decisions about where your money is being spent and where it will do even more good in the future.

Please join us November 17th, 2008 for a special webinar by Tim Berry on the importance of going Back to the Fundamentals of business.

Sign up for Tim Berry’s Webinar!

Tags: backtofundamentals, business planning, global entrepreneurship week, smart planning, Tim Berry, webinar
Posted on October 21st, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Taking a little time out here to make a couple announcements:

1)  We had a bit of an issue with our blog and some of you were not getting any of the blog posts in your RSS feeds for a while. We’ve fixed that and you should be able to see all of them now. We apologize for the rush of posts all at once, but hope you enjoy all the great “new” content you missed! Things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

2)  We’re going to be participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Week, November 17th-23rd. We’re getting all the specifics put together, but I’m going to give you a sneak peek!

Keep checking back for more details and some outstanding articles and posts all centered around getting back to the basics of your business. (If you’re interested in attending Tim Berry’s webinar on the 17th, make sure to register soon! It’s first come first serve and space is limited! Click the picture for more information.)

3) Palo Alto Software’s product Email Center Pro has released version 2.0!   Internally, several Palo Alto Software employee’s are participating in a “solidarity experiement” where we’ve all committed to … well, I’ll let Jason tell you all about it. Head over to our Dead-Simple Software blog to read all about the things we’ve decided to give up or do in the coming weeks.

That’s it! That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

‘Chelle Parmele
Social Media Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: business planning, Email Center Pro, email management, global entrepreneurship week, Palo Alto Software News, Plan as you go, roller skates
Posted on October 16th, 2008 | No Comments »