This Week in Small Business: News and information to boost the financial state of the union
While President Obama and the Republican Congress argue over who has the best plan for the middle class, small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs continue to take matters into their own hands. If you’re in that group, some of these articles and news stories from this week should help you achieve your goals. Find the topics that concern and interest you most, then dig in. Leadership and Inspiration Are you looking to pick up some college coursework to boost your small business success, or need to give college degree advice to a family member or friend. Here are five degrees good for small business success. And while you’re at it here are seven marketing skills you should pick up and how/where to learn them. Women, including Millennials, are taking the reins of leadership today and changing the way business is done. In this three-minute video, Inc. President and Editor-In-Chief Eric Schurenberg details several very successful businesses that got started on the proverbial shoe string…and some very short ones at that. Of course, it usually comes down to working with a great team. Here are ways to keep them motivated. Marketing Add together the data from your apps, your fitness band, your car’s onboard GPS and other devices, and the picture marketers have of you will be virtually complete! On the other hand, much of our data still delivers a great quantity of information, but few qualitative insights. We need to get beyond demographics and “likes.” Revenue Marketing: How to get your sales and marketing departments to not only communicate but collaborate. And here’s a primer on the differences between sales and marketing. Content comes in a variety of forms. Dan Newman thinks a Podcast is one form that your small business should be using, NOW! Maybe you can use a podcast to help you achieve micro-fame. And if you’re using visual content, understanding and managing these metrics can boost engagement. Finally, here are four very practical examples of Youtube videos you can be publishing. Email marketing tenaciously holds its ground in the digital world. Here’s why it works and here are 10 ingredients for a successful campaign. Social media marketing continues to evolve quickly and Signpost CEO Stuart Wall thinks small business may be losing interest in Facebook and Yelp. On the other hand, the sharing economy – think AirBnB, Uber, Etsy – may be the bigger player. “I love it when a plan comes together.” – John “Hannibal” Smith, The A-team, and if you want to create buzz for your small biz, first you must write a killer marketing plan. Jim Joseph, North American president of the New York-based communications agency Cohn & Wolfe, lays out step number one and you may want to keep it agile. Government, politics, money and the economy The way the SEC treats small business seems to be sending the message: We’re just not that into you! Congress needs to act. In that spirit, House Small Business Committee chairman Rep. Steve Chabot says he’ll focus on reducing taxes as well as cutting regulations issued by the IRS and EPA. Gallup has been watching the trends in startups and business failures for decades. It looks like a clear winner has emerged, and it’s not very good news. However, in these 14 cities perhaps things are...
read moreYou Must Be Careful When You Use Social Media in Hiring
If you said TMI a generation ago, everyone would have known you were talking about Three Mile Island. Use the same acronym today and everyone knows you’re referring to “too much information” – and too much information is what small business owners can get when they turn to social media in the hiring process. There are ways social media can help us when we’re looking for employees, but they can also be misleading and even lead us into legal problems. Let’s look at some of the pitfalls and how to best avoid them. Protected classes The place to start is with understanding the legally protected classes and characteristics with regards to employment. Among these are sex, age, race, religion, disability, genetic information, national origin and pregnancy. You can easily see that many of these can be discovered through a person’s social media profiles. A good first step to take so you avoid legal problems is to not make social media screening something you do early in the hiring process. You may want to learn more about candidates as you narrow down the field and have considered other input, such as after an interview. An in-person interview would reveal most of these protected characteristics so you could not be accused of using social media for discriminatory purposes. Next, if you do choose to use social media, be very consistent in your approach. Do the same searches for each candidate and if you find something that raises a red flag, take a screen shot of it so you can document exactly what has caused your concern. Also, don’t ask candidates for their passwords. It’s just social media When you’re weighing what you have discovered through social media, always keep context in mind. We will talk to our friends and families in ways that are far different than how we conduct ourselves at work. Also, don’t put any weight on what others say about your candidate. There might be inside jokes you don’t understand, or the third party might be holding some kind of grudge. On the positive side, if a candidate has a social media account that seems to be centered around your industry, it can be a good indicator that the person is serious about continued growth and success. Getting outside help There may be other laws in your area that govern employment, so you need to make sure you’re fully aware of your boundaries. Hiring an experienced local company to do screening for you is one way you can protect yourself. You may also want to invest in an hour or two of time with an attorney that specializes in this area. Lastly, although we have been discussing hiring here, you also need to be careful in the firing process. For example, a court decision has established employees’ right to discuss wages, hours, and working conditions in the social media without fear of retaliation by the...
read moreMixing Business with Personal is Trouble – Especially on Facebook
You’ve probably heard of gateway drugs, right? I’m starting to think of a personal Facebook page as a kind of gateway social media drug. Some years ago Facebook started letting anyone sign up for a free personal page. They also didn’t mind too much if you promoted your small business. Then they got strict about people using their personal profiles for commercial use and everyone was supposed to move to a business page. This was okay at first, but soon Facebook started restricting the number of people who would see your business page posts in their news feeds. Today, to guarantee a significant number see your business posts, you need to buy advertising. So, over the course of a few years, Facebook hooked us on the light stuff (personal pages), moved us to the hard stuff (business pages) and then took away our free samples. Facebook, Inc. Oh well, that’s their business model and I hope they do well. However, this may not evolve into the best social media platform for small businesses. While Facebook continues to be great for many small businesses, I don’t doubt that their marketing team is putting more effort into signing up corporate accounts. Because of its size, I think Facebook lusts to be the “Superbowl” of social media, and have a similar lineup of major advertisers…and ad rates. If you and your small business have been able to lurk under the Facebook radar so far with your “personal” account, you would be wise to move your business to a commercial page before the Facebook mall cops bust you. However, before you make a major effort to lure your personal Facebook friends over to your business page, make sure it offers great content and that you’re committed to the move. Once you think your business page offers sufficient value, start promoting it via your personal page. But don’t feel too bad if only a small percentage of your “friends” opt to “like” your business page; you only want the ones who are serious about your business – the non-interested would just be another form of “spam.” Making Fans of Friends Amy Porterfield suggests using a video to promote your page to your friends and also offering a free giveaway, like an ebook. Most small business owners will have to venture outside of the Facebook circle of personal friends to build up the fan base of their business page. When you have something good to offer, promote it by running a “Like” ad campaign. Despite Facebook’s increasingly strong-armed tactics to get you to advertise, there are many benefits to having a commercial page. Among these are: More tabs and apps, The ability to hold contests, Access to targeted advertising, Powerful analytics, and More potential for winning “fans” (personal accounts are limited to 5,000 friends). Finally, if it looks like you’re having a difficult time connecting with good prospects through Facebook, there are other social media platforms that would love to have you...
read moreWill Small Business Be the Real SuperBowl Winner?
The commercial tie-ins to major sporting events are more important – and visible – than ever and the NFL’s SuperBowl may be the biggest man on campus. Every year we breathlessly await the premieres of those clever SuperBowl ads and it takes players on the winning team about 5 milliseconds to start sporting caps emblazoned with their team logo and embroidered type proclaiming them SuperBowl Champs. Small businesses “will receive” If only there were a way for small businesses to benefit from a little bit of this SuperBowl madness. Well, there is. The NFL in conjunction with local SuperBowl host committees has a “Business Connect” program that aims to benefit small businesses located in the general area where the game is held. Although it’s too late to apply for this year’s business connect program, here’s a list of products and services that it includes: Building Materials, Carpenters, General Contractors, General Laborers, Painters, Catering/Restaurants, Food and Beverage, Event Planning, Entertainment, Tables and Chairs, Tenting, Furniture, Printing/Graphics, Signs and Banners, Security, Staffing, Transportation, Venues, Decorations, Balloons, Florist/Flowers, Gift Baskets, Gift Items, Novelties/Promotional Items, Media/Public Relations, Audio Visual, Sound, Video Equipment, Lighting/Staging, Pyrotechnics, Set Design and Construction, Courier Services, Electricians, Electronics (Wire and Supplies), Office Supplies, Photography/Video, Port-O-Lets, Waste Removal, Barricades, Carpeting/Flooring, Equipment Rentals, Fencing, Generators, Golf Carts, Hardware Supplies, Heavy Equipment, Linens, Pipe and Drape, Scaffolding, Tour Services, Trailers, Vans, Banking, Computer/web, Consulting, Employment agencies, Janitorial services, and Temporary staffing agency. SuperBowl 50 Applications are being accepted for next year’s SuperBowl Business Connect Program, which is being held in the San Francisco Bay Area’s new Levi’s Stadium. Businesses in the nine Bay Area counties can apply. However, the program is limited to businesses that are certified as minority-owned, women-owned, disabled veteran-owned, or lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Small business owners and local communities should steal this page out of the NFL playbook. While few cities will ever host a SuperBowl, there are all kinds of major yearly sporting events, such as tournaments and races. If there is one near you, see if they have an outreach program to local small businesses. If not, have your chamber of commerce and other business organizations, lobby the promoters to get something going. Of course, when these kinds of events come to your town, there are many ways you can use them as tie-ins to sales and marketing campaigns. I will note, however, that if you don’t want the NFL to come down on you like a 350-pound lineman, you need to steer clear of using the term SuperBowl for commercial purposes. They are very protective of that trademarked name and in that way they are far from alone in the world of big-money sports. Apparently using the phrase “Super Sunday” is okay and your customers will know what you’re talking about. So, get creative, get organized and find ways that big events can kickoff major sales in your small...
read moreNeed to Meet the Mobile Marketing Challenge? Master This One Concept
One of the downsides of being involved in rapidly evolving industries that are connected at the hip to rapidly evolving technologies is a certain sloppiness in what is meant by various terms and how they relate to one another. Right now in marketing there is quite a lot of “blurring” between mobile marketing and local marketing. Sometimes when people are talking about mobile marketing the subject really is local marketing. It’s easy to understand because there is a large area where these two categories overlap. Much mobile marketing is local and much local marketing gets consumed on mobile devices. Further, we’ve seen how successful mobile marketers have scored big in holiday shopping; the same thing will be true throughout the year. I could list several bullet points of tips, but I think there’s one big concept that dictates almost everything else when it comes to marketing on mobile devices to boost local – and ecommerce – sales. That concept is User Experience. Mobile devices – cellphones and tablets – are fantastic pieces of technology, but the user experience isn’t always equally fantastic. Let’s break this down into stages that could be compared to a kind of “sales funnel.” The search stage. A huge percentage of searches is now being conducted on mobile devices. Concurrent with this is an impressive growth in voice searches, which Google is banking on, by the way. Businesses that depend on people entering through the front door need to make sure all their information is correct and that they have the recommendations and social media presence to rank highly in search results. Mobile screens are small. If you aren’t at or near the top of search results, you may not be seen. If you have a smart phone, install the Google app and do a voice search for “coffee shop.” Who do you see? Who is missing? Why? If you aren’t at or near the top, the user will be really inconvenienced trying to find you. The information stage. If you are lucky enough to be found in a mobile search, are you giving prospects the right information in a way that they can consume it. Mobile customers don’t have time to drill down through five pages of your website to get their questions answered. Be sure you aren’t letting your “standard” website design and layout get in the way of your mobile users. Also, be sure that contact information is correct and you’re ready to respond to queries. For example, if a mobile device user taps your phone number and it auto-dials, will it always be answered? Any hiccups in the information gathering stage downgrades the user experience. The sales stage. Not all mobile marketing is local because ecommerce websites also leverage mobile devices. In the case of ecommerce sites, how easy is it to order using a cellphone? If prospects have to scroll around a series of screens looking for the right buttons to click, many will drop out. Brick and mortar locations need to be sure that map locations and hours are correct across all the various databases where they might be discovered. All retailers must be sure that they have in stock any items being browsed on mobile devices, unless it’s clear that the item is a special order or there...
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