Colors do more than make your business or product look pretty. They actually have a real impact on consumers’ perceptions of your business, which can in turn have an impact on your sales and revenue. I [...]]]> Importance of Color in Business

Posted by Megan Dorn under Random thoughts, Small Business

Colors do more than make your business or product look pretty. They actually have a real impact on consumers’ perceptions of your business, which can in turn have an impact on your sales and revenue. I read in a post on the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur recently that “research reveals people make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment or product within 90 seconds of initial viewing, and between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color.”

Basically what it comes down to is that color is probably much more important to your business than you think, and it pays to know what you’re doing in that department. You don’t have to be a color strategist (yeah, that’s an actual job) to be effective in your use of color, but you should probably know the basics regarding what different colors convey. So here they are:

• Red=Love and Passion
• Orange=Enthusiasm and Creativity
• Yellow=Cheerfulness and Optimism
• Green=Natural and Refreshing
• Blue=Peace and Tranquility
• Purple=Luxury and Sophistication
• Pink=Romance and Femininity
• White=Innocence and Purity
• Black=Authority and Power
• Brown=Reliability and Masculinity

Color should be taken into consideration in all sorts of aspects of business. Look at your logo, marketing collateral, office paint colors, and even what you wear to meetings. It all conveys a certain message. So is your color scheme conveying the image you’re trying to project?

Best Source for Meaning of Colors:

http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-meaning.html
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-schemes.html
http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-theory-basics.html

If you have chosen a certain color it would be useful to know all of the complementary colors as you rarely will use just one color. Check out the following sites to get an idea of colors.

http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

I also found this site that gives an example of what a blog may look like using the main color you have chosen.
http://colorschemedesigner.com/

I thought I would start a thread on some places to go look for assistance.

First off there is your local SBA and organizations such as that.  They can help you get a business started.

Then there may be [...]]]> People starting businesses always have ton of questions and sometimes do not know where to turn when asking them.

I thought I would start a thread on some places to go look for assistance.

First off there is your local SBA and organizations such as that.  They can help you get a business started.

Then there may be the really tough questions and you could try a site like http://www.bizmore.com or find a startup business consulting firm to help on the really tough questions.

Small Business On-line Resources

Colorado Small Business Development Centers
www.coloradosbdc.org
Listing of SBDC’s in Colorado with contact information
Internet Resources including government offices, organizations on financing programs, minority certification, procurement and a variety of information resources
- Colorado Business Resource Guide
- Workshops offered by SBDC’s
- Business Plan Guide

SBDCNET, Small Business Development Centers,
National Information Clearinghouse
http://sbdcnet.utsa.edu
A portal to the most comprehensive and practical small business resources for entrepreneurs. Includes: business startup, demographics, statistics, company research, inventing, veterans, international trade, home business, small business trends, business plans, marketing, government procurement, franchising, minorities and women, tax information etc.

U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
www.sba.gov
The SBA website is a complete small business resource
that includes: Small business training calendar for Colorado;
Forms for SBA, IRS and OSHA; Information for starting, financing and managing a business; SBA loan programs:
Franchise registry, E-books and small business management publications;
Free business startup guide.

SCORE (Senior Core of Retired Executives)
www.score.org
Affiliated with the US Small Business Administration. Mentors to small business. The Business Resource Index has many links to useful sites with amortization tables, templates for a business plan, copyright research, demographic data, etc.

SCORE, Denver Chapter
www.scoredenver.org
Small business workshop schedule
303 844-3985

Inc. Magazine (How to start & run your business)
www.inc.com

Kauffman Foundation (Entrepreneur resources)
www.entreworld.com

My Own Business
www.myownbusiness.org
Non-commercial site that offers a free online course in starting a business and developing a business plan

Wall Street Journal Center for Entrepreneurs
www.startupjournal.com
Toolkit includes tools such as: starting costs calculator, cash flow calculator and sample business plans. Capability of trademark searching for Federal, Canadian and European trademarks and domain names. Business opportunities –businesses and franchises for sale.

There Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from Micro$soft that are usually very expensive.

There is also money management software, project planning software, and graphic software.

Well there is a solution for small businesses that are [...]]]> There is a ton of software a new business sometimes feels that they must purchase right when they are starting off a new business.

There Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from Micro$soft that are usually very expensive.

There is also money management software, project planning software, and graphic software.

Well there is a solution for small businesses that are starting out is to use Open Source Software.
There is a great web site that lists all of the commercial software along with it’s Open Source Alternative.
Check out Open Source Alternatives web site.

They will show you stuff like
Expensive App             Free Apps
Photoshop                   The GIMP
VISIO                         DIA
MS Office                    Open Office
Illustrator, CorelDraw  Inkscape
Quickbooks                 Postbooks

There are many more and almost every big commercial application now has an Open Source alternative.  It is possible that you may need to be running Linux for some of these, but Ubuntu has become as easy to use as Windows or a Mac.

I found another Blog posting about 50 top applications and their alternatives.
The post was made early in 2008 so the software most likely has gotten even better since then.

Check out http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

I have tried a few and the one that seems the simplest to use and has collaborative abilities and excellent exporting formats is  Mind42.com.  Manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world – collaborative, browser-based and for free.

Using a [...]]]> There are many solutions on the net for mind mapping software.

I have tried a few and the one that seems the simplest to use and has collaborative abilities and excellent exporting formats is  Mind42.com.  Manage all your ideas, whether alone, twosome or working together with the whole world – collaborative, browser-based and for free.

Using a mind map is a great way to build an org chart or brain storm an idea.  It can even help create something as simple as a to-do list.

Mindmap Example

Check the BNET Article.

Go straight to the Easy Projects Web Page.