Today’s success tip comes from Geoff Lyons.

Geoff Lyons is the director of Haka New Zealand which specialises in importing a wide range of products. Haka has now also created a top-level clothing brand under the same name.

What are your top five tips for developing a great small business?

1. Honesty - we have always maintained that in order to sleep at night and steer clear of any problems (such as tax liability), we would not entertain any activity that could result in us being caught by the authorities. Three years ago we had a complete tax audit and after three weeks of investigation we were pleased to be informed by the tax department that we did not owe any back taxes after trading for seven years.

2. Staff - we believe that staff is one of the company’s greatest assets. We have a terrific bunch of staff so we reward them well and give them time off for important occasions, for example, a child’s awards ceremony. These actions have been returned tenfold by our staff who are always willing to go that extra yard for us and remain 110 per cent loyal.

3. Communication - in our business, where we are constantly dealing with numerous retailers and buyers within each organisation, it is critical that we maintain close communication at all times. We like to set the example by always returning messages, phone calls and emails and insist that our staff do the same. This may seem like a very small point to make but if our customers know that they will always get an answer, be it good or bad, it enhances their confidence in dealing with us.

4. Budgeting - from the first day of business we set ourselves a sales and expense budget for the financial year and asked our accountant to work out the financial result of each month. We then sit down and analyse the results and go over both the sales and expense details with a fine-tooth comb to see how we can increase profits in the future. I believe that too many businesses fail to have an accurate depiction of their financial position and therefore have an unrealistic perception of how their business is performing.

5. Sense of humour - I would be very surprised if any business I know would have an office that laughs as much as ours. We have always had a very open mind when it comes to what is and isn’t office protocol and do not hold anything back. We do not believe in closed door meetings and try to involve staff in as many matters as possible. Obviously, this may not work for all offices but I have definitely found that it makes it a lot easier to walk into work in the morning knowing that you are going to have some laughs during the day.

This website contains even more great tips from Geoff Lyons.

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Today’s success tip comes from Matt Freedman.

Matt co-founded Redback Solutions and has built the business into an e-marketing, web development and digital agency with offices in Sydney and Newcastle. Redback has worked with over 200 clients, helping them market their businesses online. In 2007, Matt and two other entrepreneurs launched Sticky Tickets, an online business that allows anyone to promote an event and sell tickets to it.

What are your top tips for using blogs to generate exposure and traffic?

Blogs are an essential part of the e-marketing mix for most businesses. They allow you to provide more in-depth and valuable information to your market than your website (which should be more commercially focused).

A blog allows you to demonstrate your expertise and differentiate yourself from your competitors. As blogs have a lot of content rich in keywords that relate to your business, they are very search engine-friendly. When creating your blog you should:

* Post articles regularly - once a week is the minimum, but you should try to post something new every couple of days. If your blog is updated regularly people will keep coming back to read the new articles. If it hasn’t changed, they will stop checking it.

* Post articles that have information that is useful and relevant to your target market. While you don’t want to give all your secrets away, share what you can, because people who want to do it themselves are probably the clients you want anyway.

* Get your own domain name for the blog. This will be easier for people to remember and will remain the same if you decide to use a different blog platform in the future. For example, my blog is www.mattfreedman.com.au. However, you could have a domain name that relates to the subject matter, for example, www.makingwidgets.com.au.

* Contact blog authors with complementary topics and cross-link with their blog.

* Submit your blog to blog search engines, such as Technorati.

* Once a fortnight or once a month send an email to your database (friends and customers). The first few lines should contain the beginning of your most recent blog post and should link them back to the blog for more details.

This website contains even more great tips from Matt Freedman.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE NOW.