Crowdsourcing Your Small Business

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Crowdsourcing Your Small Business

Crowdsourcing is a way that small business owners can outsource projects that would be typically carried out by an employee or contractor to a large group of people (a crowd), through an open call.

For instance, a small business may ask their customer base to help develop a new product idea, complete a design task, or refine or test a new product. Crowdsourcing has become very popular with businesses large and small, allowing them to leverage Web 2.0 technologies for mass collaboration and helping them to achieve their business objectives.

Crowdsourcing represents a tremendous opportunity for small business owners. Especially ones that have a passionate client base. The real key is actually finding the right way to solicit the ideas and suggestions of your client base directly. Then effectively evaluate them. After attaining and evaluating the information, you can then choose the best ideas that make sense for your business to implement.

Until recently, small businesses accomplished this by having a customer suggestion box or form. Have an suggestion? Let us know and we will consider it. Many businesses took this a step further by providing an email address or online form for customer suggestions. While these approaches work well, they often fall short because there is no open dialogue concerning the ideas and suggestions.

There are many ways to make use of social media for crowdsourcing your next business project. You may begin small by engaging clients in an open two-way discussion on your website or blog. For those who have an active customer following, you can ask questions and request feedback and suggestions in the form of comments.

To attain a greater degree of interaction, you may consider creating a web-based community or forum where you can encourage your members to get involved in the idea and decision-making process.

There are several things that you want to consider before you begin crowdsourcing.

Decide on objectives and strategies. For instance; what type of suggestions and feedback are you looking for? Who is your target audience, and will they be interested in sharing ideas with you? Is your business dedicated to hearing what they have to say and taking action?

You will also need to establish an idea management process. This may well be the most difficult part to accomplish. It's important to establish a clear process for looking at and analyzing the data, ideas and suggestions that you receive, so you can set aside adequate resources and be completely open with your clients about the status of their ideas.

Design and develop your online community platform. There are many software platforms that you can use like; Uservoice.com, IdeaScale.com and Salesforce.com to name a few.

Then promote it to your existing client base and invite them to comment and contribute. Ask questions that encourage their own thinking and entice them to answer by offering something of value to them in return. Acknowledge and celebrate great ideas and suggestions. Communicate ideas in action and provide credit wherever credit is due.

Crowdsourcing can't be just for show or publicity value. As a small business owner using this method, you must be ready to seriously consider all suggestions and be sincerely open to change.

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About the Author: Lisa M. Cope: Get more great tips on promoting your home based business web site, plus grab Grab 3 Great Private Label Reports that you can use right away to start building your business: http://lisamcope.com/blog

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