Every day this week we will be tweeting out a new question regarding small businesses.   Share your insight with us and you will be entered to win one of five prizes ranging from a gas card to a gift card for JetBlue (chosen at random).

Question of the Day (Friday): What’s the best part about being an entrepreneur?

So, what do you have to do to participate?

• Follow @Grasshopper on Twitter.
• Tweet the best part about being an entrepreneur with the hashtag #GHSMB.

Details:

• Duration: Monday, April 25 at 9 AM EST – Friday, April 29 at 5 PM EST.
• Entry: Tweet your answer to the question of the day with the hashtag #GHSMB. NOTE: To be considered a valid entry you MUST follow @Grasshopper AND include the contest hashtag #GHSMB.
• Winners: There will be 5 winners, one for each day of the contest.  Winners will be chosen at random by Grasshopper employees.  *No purchase necessary*
• Prizes (given at random):

$100 Jet Blue Gift Card (@PatEast) $100 Marriott Gift Card (@KissesForUsAll) $50 Gas Gift Card (@LinzLovesYou) $25 Staples Gift Card (@JSandifer) $25 Fandango Gift Card (@ToolHangerz)

You can be entered to win each day, provided you answer the question of the day each day.  Entries for the daily question will be closed at 12 AM EST.  Check back to see who the winners for each day are and what they’ve won!

Winners for each day will be announced the following day via our Twitter account at 10 AM EST, and Friday’s winner will be announced at 5 PM EST on Friday, April 29th when the contest ends.  Be sure to check back for the winner and participate each day!

Good luck!

WINNERS:

Monday’s question: What is your biggest challenge as a small business? (Ended)

Winning answer: Being knowledgeable in all aspects of business while driving growth and expansion. Hard being a one-man shop and staying on budget. – @ToolHangerz

How much noise should you make before you launch your product? Some pundits believe “none” is the best answer because nefarious bandits may steal your idea. Other entrepreneurs think it is never too soon to start letting people know how your product will change the world. If you agree with the latter, several sound and relatively economical approaches exist to generate buzz while you are preparing for a full product launch.

This guest post is by Alex Stetson, a web marketer for Super Web-O-Matic; Webomatic is a Boston-based business that brings high-end web design to main street businesses in an affordable website package.

So your business is up and running. You have customers, you’re getting calls but you aren’t getting as many leads from your website as you’d like. Is your website design hurting your business? Read on to see if your business is committing some of the most common small business website design faux pas, and get some gems of advice about how to rehabilitate your web design to help your business.

Common Mistake #1: “Pizzazz” gone wrong.

“Pizzazz” gone wrong is like owning a restaurant and hiring an over caffeinated clown as the hostess.  Think about how annoying auto scrolling sidebars, pop-up windows, auto-playing music, and flashy splash pages (think blinking words) are.

Why it’s a Mistake:

• They’re distracting from your website’s core business purpose.
• They’re high maintenance and prone to be buggy.
• Interactive features can cause site crashes and a broken website is bad for business.  Imagine giving the impression that you don’t have your stuff together? (Gasp!)
• It can cause your site to load really slowly.
• It can alienate potential customers because of the certain software requirements and bandwidth needed to support that type of stuff.

Words of Wisdom:

Stick to tried and true when it comes to your small business website design.  Your goal should be to make your design as reliable and user-friendly as possible. Be tasteful, transparent, and to-the-point.  Hire the girl next door to hostess, not the psycho clown.

Common Mistake #2: Weak call to action.

Not having a clear actionable button or header on your website is like having a store full of products with no place to check out.

Why it’s a Mistake:

• It’s a huge goal/sales deterrent.

Words of Wisdom:

Use big, bright calls to action in central locations on your website design.  Make sure the button looks clickable, and that it’s clear exactly what will happen when they click on it.  Use color contrast, placement, and design to make it easy for users to complete the desired site action or goal.

While many young entrepreneurs make the mistake of dwelling on past failures, serial entrepreneurs appear almost weightless in their ability to rebound from the past and move forward.

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article last week about an informal survey they did regarding voicemail. The findings?

• More than half of respondents younger than 35 said they were in no rush to check their voicemail, saying they listened to it only every few hours or days.
• Seventy-six percent of those younger than 35 said they favored texts or e-mails over voicemail
• Those older than 55 said they preferred phone calls and voicemail

It seems as if there’s a pretty big generation gap when it comes to voicemail.

How does this effect business? Is voicemail still relevant?

I fall into the younger than 35 crowd and when it comes to my personal phone, I hate voicemail. I rarely check it and when I do, I typically delete it before listening to the whole message.

When it comes to my work phone however, it’s a different story. If I’m away from my desk or really in a zone, voicemail takes over. Do I listen to it? Of course I do. But with features like voicemail to email and voicemail transcription, I don’t listen to it in a traditional sense. There is no calling into a voicemail system; I simply listen to the mp3 on my computer.