Archives for September 2020

Running an ecommerce business is tough. It’s even more difficult when the products you ship include live bees. In this instance, accuracy and efficiency in order tracking and team communication are key.

Crown Bees recognizes these challenges all too well. A year ago, the company ran most of their operations using unorganized spreadsheets. But they found a tool that integrates all their functions in one dashboard. This allows them to save time, better serve customers, and strive toward their eco-friendly mission. Learn more about Crown Bees and how they overcame this common business challenge below.

What the Business Does

Sells healthy hole-nesting bees and a variety of bee-raising supplies along with quality support and educational programs to ensure customer success

Specifically, the online store includes live mason and leafcutter bees, supplies, equipment, and bee houses.

Business Niche

Connecting people to nature by educating customers about sustainable bee-raising and pollination practices

Crown Bees has been part of the industry for more than a decade and is dedicated to helping customers succeed. In addition to their products, they provide research-based educational resources to help its customers become successful beekeepers. Ultimately, Crown Bees is striving to achieve its vision of living in a society in balance with nature where more plants and food are produced through natural pollination by solitary bees.

How the Business Got Started

To provide an eco-friendly solution to increase food production.

Founder Dave Hunter started the company back in 2009. He wanted to help build a future where food production keeps up with population growth naturally. Troubled by the current honeybee collapse, he researched the need to diversify pollination. And eventually more people began realizing the impact they could have on the environment in their own backyards.

Crown Bees basically created the industry. So they’re recognized as leaders in beekeeping supplies and education.

Biggest Win

Working toward their mission.

Every year, Crown Bees gets to help gardeners raise hundreds of thousands of solitary bees. This allows them to increase bee populations, ultimately leading to more pollination and more food.

Biggest Challenge

Organizing data.

Crown Bees used to utilize G-Suite and huge spreadsheets to track customer data. But this left the company with some communication issues. They never knew who had updated which documents. And this led to wasted time and loss of accuracy.

Karl Alexander, marketing director for Crown Bees said, “When dealing with live animals, accountability, timeliness, and accurate data are crucial.”

Lesson Learned

Integrate tools into one platform.

Since tracking order fulfillment is especially important when dealing with live bees, Alexander decided to improve accuracy by changing tactics. Instead of relying on huge spreadsheets, he began looking for a tool that integrated multiple functions.

He ended up finding a solution with a familiar provider — Zoho.

Crown Bees already used Zoho Projects. But they were unaware that they could cover so many other functions with Zoho One.

Alexander says, “I focused on looking for tools that integrated and I honestly didn’t think I’d find them all in one place until I looked into Zoho.”

Once they implemented Zoho One, they started seeing improvements within a month. The company uses Campaigns, CRM, Desk, Analytics, and MarketingHub heavily to automate their marketing, sales, and customer service. They also use various other tools like Projects, Cliq, WorkDrive, and Forms.

Alexander adds, “Our efficiency has drastically increased since everything is now automated and unified, creating an incredible difference and streamlined company processes.”

Future Goals

Expanding their wholesale business.

The wholesale section of Crown Bees’ website has nearly doubled in sales in recent years. They’re also considering subscription models where customers can essentially rent bees.

All of this is made easier by the automation and organization they enjoy with Zoho One.

Alexander says, “We especially like working with Zoho because they’re always innovating—it’s almost like Zoho knows what our business needs before we do and it’s changed how we do business completely.”

Images: Crown Bees

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Branding experts and marketers stress the important of having a unique business name. A business name is the foundation for advertising to get new customers.

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What Should I Name My Business?

Choose a business name that will connect with your brand and of course make sure the name is available. Short and simple is best for business name ideas.

How Do I Name My Small Business?

Consider your target audience when choosing a business name. It should be used as a domain name and in an email address too. Brainstorming with employees is a good way to get name ideas for your business.

Using dictionary words can get you started and make sure you pick the right business name or brand names.

What Are Some Business Name Examples?

Cisco is a good example of a great business name. It’s a short form for San Francisco. Acronyms are great too. Like AOL or the BBC. Remember, any ideas for names of your business can be blended together. Check with name availability and available domain too.

How Do I Create a Business Name?

Some entrepreneurs struggle when generating names. Find a relevant, memorable, and available brand name for your business and check name availability. If your first choice is unavailable, don’t be afraid to choose a different name.

See these tips to create the perfect business name.

A business name generator automates the process and sometimes checks for name availability too. When searching for a name for your business, these tools can help.

Use them to find brand name ideas for specific niches. For example, you can search for craft business names. Just enter keywords related to your industry to create your business name.

You can use what’s generated or add your own spin for the perfect business name. Then check your state’s business registry to be sure someone else isn’t already using it.

Of course, any good ideas for a brand name need to be trademarked. However, registering a company or business name can be tricky.

To learn more, read our 10 Small Business Trademark Mistakes that Cost you Money .

Business Name Generators for Small Businesses

Here’s a list of business name generator tools:

1. Business Name Generator

Business Name Generator (BNG) has good features and helps find good business name ideas. Start by adding relevant keywords. You can add more than one industry. In this case, the search is for a new trendy floral shop that also specializes in wedding flowers. You can also filter searches based on your industry, specify if you want one word or two in your business name, and even add special features like rhyming.

2. Shopify

For ecommerce businesses with a website, Shopify offers an online tool to generate business name ideas for a company or brand name. The tool provides name ideas that are available as domains. You can even use generators that are specialized for individual industries, like those for boutiques or fashion lines. The Shopify name generator will let you see domain availability right away.

The query search allows you to generate 10 optional domain names with more extension names to choose from. Though the site encourages you to create a Shopify shop with the domain name they’ve suggested, you could also go elsewhere to purchase the web address.

3. Oberlo

With Oberlo’s name generator, you enter a single keyword and then get your brand name and business name ideas. It also makes sure they aren’t already taken. It’s free to use, and allows you to quickly register a domain for your top choice once you make a decision and determine name availability for your business.

Oberlo also allows you to enter variations of words into the search bar prompting additional results. Once you’ve decided which name you like, be sure to set up a domain as soon as possible to make sure you have domain availability.

4. Namelix

Namelix uses AI to generate brand name and business name ideas that are easily branded and short. If you’re always on the lookout for a new brand name for a product or campaign, this tool will even learn your preferences over time so it can give you personalized suggestions.

Namelix allows you to include multiple keywords to search for domain availability for your business making sure they aren’t already taken. It also includes exclusions. Namelix’s User Interface (UI) provides great aesthetics and maximum responsiveness.

5. Wordlab

Wordlab is less of a naming generator than the other tools on the list and more of a forum instead. To use it, you simply sign up for a free account and create a post with information about your business. Then members of the community will help you create business name ideas that best suit your needs.

Worldlab seems more fun than functional. Instead of returning a list of multiple names for your business, you just get one.

6. Panabee

Panabee lets you search company names, domains, social media handles, and app names. Since the tool takes all of these things into account, you’re more likely to end up with a business name idea that you can easily brand across platforms.

In addition to checking domain availability, it will tell you how much they cost as well. It allows you to also choose a different extension from the dropdown menu. Panabee works with GoDaddy and offers excellent first-year domain name registration pricing as well. The downside here is that clicking through to social media networks takes you away from the site.

7. BizNameWiz

The BizNameWiz business name generator lets you enter multiple keywords related to your business then immediately get hundreds of business name ideas and determine domain availability.

Once you find a company name you like, you can click it to find domain availability for that name right on the platform. This is to make sure the name isn’t already taken.

8. Anadea

Anadea’s business name ideas generator is perfect for businesses and app developers. You can specify whether you want the name to be available as a domain or in the app store so you can find something that’s actually usable.

Once you choose a domain, you’ll be prompted to get a quote for the domain and website building service. Anadea also offers custom web design and app names for your business needs.

9. Novanym

With the Novanym business name generator, you can access tons of available business names that are already branded, so you can save time and money when launching your business. You can either enter keywords to generate personalized suggestions or browse by industry or category to find inspiration. Novanym says it offers .com domains, hassle free domain transfer and other perks.

Your name comes with a choice of logo designs thus providing you with a one stop shop for your business name and brand.

10. Namesmith

The Namesmith business name generator offers a tool that finds domain availability options for your new venture. Enter a few keywords and then specify the type of domain you’re looking for to come up with a list of suggestions. To make a selection just scroll through the list, and ‘star’ the ones that stand out to you.

The Namesmith search will yield results based on different search types. These include search by language, top-level domains, and various word blends you might find appealing. For example, search by rhymes, prefixes and suffixes, modified spelling of your chosen keyword(s) plus a few other options.

The options from your search query include exact match names, blends, and other combinations. Namesmith even provides suggestions based on common misspellings and word reversals.

11. FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a bookkeeping tool that also offers a free name generator. Start by choosing your industry. Then you can enter a few keywords to generate some suggestions that are specific to your type of business.

Once a few business name ideas come up and you select one, the name you selected will appear on a new page for you to look at. FreshBooks also provides a tool for creating your logo in addition to providing you with a business name.

12. GoDaddy

As one of the biggest names in web domains, GoDaddy is also well equipped to help you create a brand. The generator is pretty similar to other options. However, since it’s on GoDaddy, you can easily work through the domain registry process on the same platform.

The GoDaddy tool comes with a simple tool to navigate and plenty of customization options.

13. NameStation

NameStation offers a keyword based generator that you can use to find business names and domains. Namestation also offers suggestions from its community through contests if you opt out of the names the algorithms generates.

Its community of over 1 million registered users have conducted almost 8,000 name contests so far. The downside is the free version shows limited results and doesn’t filter out taken domains.

14. Squadhelp

Squadhelp offers different options for naming businesses. You can use the corporation name generator to automatically come up with suggestions. However, you can also use the tool’s community of professionals to bounce ideas off of.

With a 100,000 plus community of creatives you can hold a contest in addition to the AI support. This could make Squadhelp an ideal candidate for finding the name of your business.

15. Dot-O-Mator

Dot-O-Mator turns business naming into a sort of game. You can enter keywords or categories, then select types of words or phrases that you like and see what the tool comes up with when it combines those two options.

The intuitive process of naming allows you to easily identify your selections and help you settle on a final choice for your business.

16. DomainWheel

DomainWheel is designed to help businesses find names that can double as domains. Enter keywords and your choice of extensions to see an extensive list of options. You can also go right from the generator to a domain registrar to jump on reserving your company’s name as a website.

Each search comes with a number of combinations, putting together a list of original names that are meant to fit your site’s needs, and can display up to 15 domain extensions (.com, .org, .net, .biz, .info and others). A helpful feature here is that the tool only shows results that are available for purchase. If you’re still undecided, scroll to pick from a list of rhyming suggestions and keywords that have a better potential for your site.

DomainWheel comes with an algorithm that helps to pick your related topics and comes with creative suggestions. It helps you to select extensions that you would like to include in a search. You also get plenty of domain name and customization help.

17. Naming.net

Naming.net  works for naming things like product lines or promotions. You simply add a keyword, then the prefixes or phrases you may want to combine it with, along with preferences like number of syllables and whether or not you want to register it as a domain.

You can also add rhymes, Latin or Greek roots, and other words for variations. This business name generator also gives you some naming tips to read including naming advice and 10 things to consider when naming your domain, product, or business.

18. Namemesh

Namemesh specializes in helping entrepreneurs come up with unique company name ideas and domain by combining key words and phrases. For example, they can help you get creative with domain extensions to fit your business name into a site in a very interesting way.

After you enter your keywords, the NameMesh page divides your query into several categories such as common, similar, new, and fun, to help you find the right domain for your needs. It also comes with a checkbox to hide registered names as well as social media availability.

This comes with multiple categories to narrow your search and choice of domain registrar to get the best possible deal. The premium section comes with lots of filter options, such as extension, registrar, registered/non-registered, and maximum character count, which helps you narrow your options.

19. Within The Flow

Within The Flow offers generators for both business names and slogan ideas. You can use it to gain a ton of inspiration for picking your company name. It’s a standard keyword system, but all the names are available on the company’s platform so you can quickly set up an ecommerce solution.

Within The Flow comes with three simple steps — search, choose and launch — to make your search easy and convenient. It also has a robust support for ecommerce, drop shipping and social media marketing ideas as well.

20. Nameboy

Nameboy’s corporation name generator lets you enter one or two keywords. It also connects with Bluehost to let you set up your new site. The features allow you to search a domain name with two keywords. You also have full control in regards to removing or adding hyphens. Nameboy also provides you with a list of domain names for resale.

If you need help coming up with a domain name from scratch, Nameboy can help as well. All you have to do is type in one or two keywords and the platform provides a whole host of company name suggestions in seconds.

Image: Depositphotos.com

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One of the benefits of using an integrated ecosystem in the digital world is it solves a lot of problems and eliminates compatibility issues. The Zoho ecosystem has 45+ business applications addressing everything from CRM, accounting, billing, mail, commerce, HR, supply chain, and much more.

If you want to become more familiar with the ecosystem, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu along with Zoho Chief Evangelist Raju Vegesna and Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends, will join host Brent Leary on Facebook to highlight what it has to offer.

Zoho already has a concierge service to help guide its customers through the 45+ applications on its platform. And this allows you to navigate the ecosystem on your own and use the tools that best suit your business. However, Zoho has an extensive outreach program that provides free lessons and events such as this one to let users know how they can optimize the tools even more.

Learn how you can leverage the opportunities Zoho offers to improve your business operations across the board withing a singular ecosystem.

The Live Event will take place on Sept. 29 at 10 AM ET.

Click the button below and go to the Facebook page.

 

Register Now

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Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Getting Started with Zoho One
September 23, 2020, Online

In this presentation, we will walk through an overview of Zoho One using real case studies from Zoho customers to demonstrate different ways Zoho One can support your business.

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Opportunities for Entrepreneurs and Communities in the Zoho Ecosystem
September 29, 2020, Online, Facebook – Small Business Trends

How familiar are you with the Zoho ecosystem and the opportunities it opens? Join us on Facebook at Small Business Trends as host Brent Leary speaks with Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu along with Zoho Chief Evangelist Raju Vegesna and Anita Campbell, CEO of Small Business Trends to learn what the Zoho ecosystem is, and how it’s much more than using software and apps. Learn about the many opportunities for businesses to create revenue streams, create jobs and improve their communities. And learn how to leverage the opportunities Zoho has to offer.

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Small Business Expo 2020 – PHILADELPHIA
October 28, 2020, Philadelphia, PA

Small Business Expo is a FREE one-day event to attend for small businesses to network, attend great business-growth workshops, build new business relationships, exchange ideas, shop from new vendors and learn from leading industry experts. If you are serious about starting or growing your business, Small Business Expo is a “must attend” event. Small Business Expo is the #1 Business to Business Networking Event for business owners, entrepreneurs, start-ups, decision-makers or anyone who works for a small business or is interested in starting a Small Business.

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LinkUpConferenceShow
November 12, 2020, Online

LinkUpConferenceShow (LUCS) is a digital networking conference that merges the incredibly dynamic worlds of tech and comedy to provide informative and personalized networking opportunities designed to help executives, entrepreneurs, business leaders and tech professionals grow and scale their businesses. LUCS is the tech conference that combines Silicon Valley insights with New York’s nonstop energy to bring the technology community a totally new virtual experience designed to inspire, engage and entertain.

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More Events

• Indegene Digital Summit Virtual 2020 | Sep 25, Oct 2, Oct 16
  September 25, 2020, Online
• The Marketing Analytics for Brand Survival Virtual Summit
  September 30, 2020, Online
• How to Choose the Right Entity Structure for Your Real Estate Business
  September 30, 2020, Online
• Small Business Expo 2020 – PHOENIX
  October 1, 2020, Phoenix, AZ
• Transform USA 2020
  October 1, 2020, Online
• VEGPRENEUR Summit
  October 3, 2020, Online
• AI Champions, Online – Supply Chain
  October 6, 2020, Online
• The WFH Virtual Conference | Remote Work Event
  October 8, 2020, Online
• World-Famous HR Technology Event, Oct. 2020
  October 13, 2020, Las Vegas, NV
• Creative Operations San Francisco 2020
  October 14, 2020, San Francisco, CA
• Building Business Capability Virtual 2020
  October 19, 2020, Online
• Experiential Marketing Summit 2020
  October 19, 2020, Online
• Miami’s Largest MBA Event! QS MBA Tour
  October 20, 2020, Online
• Small Business Expo 2020 – CHICAGO
  October 20, 2020, Chicago, IL
• Healthy Minds Innovations to Host Virtual Healthy Minds@Work MasterClass on Mental Health and Stress Reduction
  October 20, 2020, Online
• Forbes School of Business & Technology Thought Leader Summit and Young Thought Leader Summit
  October 20, 2020, Online
• Atlanta’s Largest MBA Event! QS MBA Tour
  October 22, 2020, Atlanta, GA
• Houston’s Largest MBA Event! QS MBA Tour
  October 24, 2020, Houston, TX
• Austin’s Largest MBA Event! QS MBA Tour
  October 26, 2020, Austin, TX
• Claims Innovation USA Virtual Event
  October 26, 2020, Online

More Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends.

You can see a full list of events, contest and award listings or post your own events by visiting the Small Business Events Calendar.

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Are you facing a dilemma – to hire a freelance developer or not to hire a freelance developer? If yes, then you can go ahead with a freelance developer without pondering any further.

According to the latest report from Lemon.io, 71% of respondents confirmed that their previous experience of working with freelance developers was good or very good. What’s more, 40% of respondents stated that they would absolutely recommend hiring freelance developers to other businesses.

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Lemon.io Freelance Developers Survey

Companies are happy working with freelance developers. 44% of respondents rated their experience of working with freelance developers good, while 27% of respondents voted their experience as very good.

As we can see, a significant number of respondents (71%) have a positive experience working with freelance developers.

Only 7% of companies have bad or very bad experience of working with freelance developers.

The positive experience of working with freelance developers has encouraged business owners to recommend freelance developers to other entrepreneurs.

86% of respondents would recommend freelance developers to their fellow entrepreneurs.

Only 1% of respondents said that they would absolutely not recommend freelance developers to their fellow entrepreneurs.

Alexander Volodarskiy, the founder and CEO of Lemon.io, “Hiring freelancers has been a grey and lonely area for years. Everyone does that but no one talks about it. Startups talk about building a culture, finding the best first employees possible, but we rarely mention that our MVPs were built by Ukrainian guys from a city whose name we can’t pronounce, or by an Indian girl who completed weeks of work in just two days. So we figured, this would be a good time to start talking about how and why we work with freelance developers.”

Reasons to Hire Freelance Developers

Businesses can reap multiple benefits from hiring freelance developers.

25% of respondents have said that freelance developers are more affordable and flexible than in-house developers.

What’s more, 20% of respondents have stated that freelance developers can bring a bigger variety of skills on the table.

In the ongoing pandemic, more and more businesses are adopting remote work culture. And a freelance developer can easily blend into a distributed team.

So there is no surprise that 16% of respondents have hired a freelance developer because they’re having a distributed teams.

Why Businesses Shy Away From a Freelance Developer

Working with a freelance developer can benefit companies in many ways. But not all work with freelance developers.

The survey reported the following reasons why respondents have never hired freelance developers:

• 18% of respondents are not sure whether they can afford a freelance developer
• 14% of respondents don’t trust the skills of a freelance developer
• 14% of respondents haven’t hire freelance developers just because they are concerned about their intellectual property

As a small business owner, your first responsibility is to reduce operating costs to increase profits. So hiring a freelance developer fits well in your business strategy.

If you’re not concerned about intellectual property, there is no reason why you cannot work with a skilled freelance developer to save money.

However, hiring the right freelance developer can be tricky.  So you should do proper research before making the final decision.

You can check this list of 35 freelance sites to search for a skilled freelance developer for your project.

About the Survey

Lemon.io conducted the survey to understand what companies feel about working with freelance developers. The survey included 300 representatives of businesses registered in the United States. It was conducted from February 2020 to June 2020.

Image: Depositphotos.com

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Posting on social media can be complicated and time consuming. But it doesn’t have to be.

Since many businesses want to post similar content on a recurring basis, automated tools can help. RecurPost is one such tool.

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Small Business Spotlight: RecurPost

Read about the company and its solution in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.

What the Business Does

Provides a social media marketing tool.

Founder Dinesh Agarwal told Small Business Trends, “Small businesses easily get overwhelmed with social media management and hence cannot keep a consistent presence on social media. However, with RecurPost, we help them concentrate on their business and leave the grunt work of managing their social accounts to us.”

Business Niche

Makes it easy to post recurring content.

Agarwal says, “We allow our users to create content libraries, such as a collection of blog posts or videos, marketing material and other people’s content etc. They can then create a schedule for the entire library. When they want to put new content into circulation, it can be added to the libraries without affecting the existing schedule.”

How the Business Got Started

As a more complicated version.

Agarwal explains, “We first created a very sophisticated social media marketing platform. It was so complicated that we managed to overwhelm 100% of our users. It is no surprise that we had to shut it down soon after. However, we knew we were on to something as we were able to get people excited about it. That is when we decided to launch an easy to use version. That is how RecurPost was born.”

Biggest Win

Gaining early traction by word of mouth.

Agarwal adds, “We once demonstrated our product to the members of a Facebook group. They all loved it and shared it in other groups that they frequented. That word of mouth marketing helped us gain a lot of new users quickly.”

Biggest Risk

Saying no to a major deal.

Agarwal explains, “App Sumo offered us a deal recently. They wanted us to provide a lifetime deal to their audience. They claim to have a list of a million people who love good deals. I thought about it and decided to say no to them. Some people had a good experience with them, but some of the founders had to shut their services down after going on App Sumo.

“If we were exposed to 1 Million people, that could have established as a leader in our space in no time. However, if we got bad reviews that would mean death to our business. I took that risk to play safe and decided to grow organically. It is working well for us.”

Lesson Learned

Don’t rely on third party APIs.

Agarwal explains, “We are always playing catch-up with changes to their platform. We need dedicated resources to manage those connections.”

How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000

Marketing.

Agarwal says, “I have realized that technical founders like myself need to learn a lot about marketing and then hire an excellent team to do the actual job. Growing a SaaS business requires more than a working product that your users love. It requires you to continually expose your product to potential customers who are in the market.”

Favorite Quote

“A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame.” – Rabindranath Tagore.

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Image: RecurPost, Dinesh Agarwal

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