How to use Facebook Live to get the reach you want (and used to have)
Remember the “good old days” when your small business Facebook posts would organically reach a huge chunk of your fans and friends? Those days rapidly disappeared when generating ad revenue became as important or more important than growing users for Facebook. However, in many ways, Facebook’s new video streaming feature – Facebook Live – has turned the clock back to those free ’n easy days. Because Facebook is investing millions to establish and promote its live streaming, if you create Facebook Live content, it will reach a lot of your followers today. It’s the Wild West out there now folks, so take advantage of it, we don’t know how long this will last. Facebook Live monetization If Facebook follows its usual path, it will start finding ways to monetize Facebook Live, and for businesses, I predict that there will be some fee that correlates to your desired audience size. But I don’t think that will happen soon. Right now you should be experimenting with Facebook Live to find the best ways to engage your followers. A couple of paragraphs ago I alluded to the Wild West and that’s also a good description for the live streaming video world today. YouTube is a player. Periscope is popular. Meerkat is still around. Blab died but is being resurrected. And, now Facebook Live is commanding a lot of attention. Your business and your audience will guide you toward favoring one or two of these platforms. Video marketing guru Greg Jarboe wrote a good article comparing and contrasting Facebook Live, Periscope, and YouTube over on his Tubular Insights website. I suspect that, in any case, many small business owners will want to try Facebook Live, especially if they haven’t already established themselves on Periscope. It is an older average demographic, but that doesn’t mean the younger consumers aren’t there; it just means that the Gen Xers and even Baby Boomers are also there. How to use Facebook Live There are two major approaches to use on Facebook Live: Engage your audience, Sell to your audience. Most users will be working to better engage their Facebook followers. A few will discover that they can actually make sales using the video streaming feature. If you have rabid Facebook fans and spend some time using other social media to get them interested in a product, you might be able to use Facebook Live essentially as an infomercial. Even if you hope to eventually sell directly via Facebook Live, it’s probably a good idea to spend some time testing the streaming video feature to see what kinds of content resonate best with your audience. Some concepts to consider are: Product introductions, Behind-the-scenes looks, FAQs, Interviews/Q&A with a guest Live event broadcast (How about a sidewalk sale in a local community?) Advanced promotion for the live event mentioned above A daily “diary” A video version of a written blog A video “infographic” (How about using a white board like some of the cable pundits?) Clowning around Many years ago artist Andy Warhol said that everyone would someday enjoy “15 minutes of fame.” While Facebook Live probably won’t make you famous, it will give you a lot more than merely 15 minutes of valuable exposure to your most important customers. So take advantage of this window of opportunity when Facebook...
read moreFree (and honest) Small Business Owner Job Description
I have stressed the importance of creating job descriptions before you start hiring to expand your small business. But I recently realized that I’ve never discussed a job description for the actual small business owner. Instead of discussing it, I decided to write it. See how much of it describes your job. Small business owner job description We have a great need for small business owners. There are openings in every state of the union and unless desired on the candidate’s part, relocation is not required. This is a long-term, full-time position that requires total dedication to the company. The successful candidate will have the perform following duties, have the listed abilities, and meet the educational requirements below. Be certain to review the compensation expectations before applying. Duties The small business owner is responsible for all aspects of the day-to-day operations and strategic planning for the future. Due to these broad duties, the successful candidate will be able to perform the following functions: Exert financial control and planning. The small business owner must be able to understand the financial principles necessary for small business success. These include, payroll, taxation, inventory, cash flow, margins (gross and net), as well as other industry-specific financial areas. Manage purchasing department. Running a small business, even if it’s service oriented, requires a lot of purchasing. These can be raw materials, finished products, and general supplies required for overhead. Assuring your company gets the best possible prices is important in order to be competitive and successful. Handle general administrative responsibilities. Scheduling employees and jobs along with all the various functions performed by a human resources department will be part of your standard duties. Provide customer service. As the small business owner, you are ultimately responsible for the satisfaction of your customers or clients. You may delegate some of the areas (see Delegating below) but you need to provide sufficient oversight to be assured that you are meeting customer expectations. Head up sales and marketing. Nothing happens in your small business until a sale is made, therefore your most important duty is to be certain that sales are being made. This requires skills in marketing, advertising, and sales. Abilities The small business owner must be competent and effective in several general areas. Sometimes these abilities are natural, sometimes they must be learned…and sometimes they are learned the hard way. Goal setting. Although small business owners are responsible for all of the duties listed above, they must still maintain a strategic outlook and set goals for the organization. These goals must be short term, medium term and long term. Delegating. The successful small business owner recognizes when help is needed and understand his or her shortcomings. Therefore, you must wisely delegate tasks and specific areas of responsibility to others. Team building. To scale a small business, it requires an ever-growing team of loyal employees. The successful small business owner knows how to work with others to get the best from them. Communicating. Virtually every item on this Small Business Owner Job Description requires excellent communication skills. You need to know how to communicate verbally in both one-on-one and groups settings and you also must be able to communicate via digital technology – social media, chat apps, email, etc. Problem solving. The path to success for the small...
read moreQuick guide to online invoicing for small businesses
By Mark Thomasson The traditional way of invoicing has many limitations. It takes a lot of time which you could use for business development and strategic thinking. For most people, operational details are boring and time-consuming, especially for small business owners. You must manually generate the invoice, send it by mail to the client, and wait for their check. There is a way to simplify the entire invoicing process and improve your business. Online invoicing made a major breakthrough in achieving cash flow. Also, it´s automated, so the online invoicing software does everything for you. With it, you don’t have to think about billing due dates. It keeps track of payment status and an amount of every client´s debt. These benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many of them. When you try an online invoice system such as ours, you’ll be sorry why you didn’t know about it earlier. If you are a small business and you want to show your full professionalism to your clients, you must master invoicing process. You can create and manage your invoices using this simple guide to online invoicing for small businesses. First, it’s important to format your invoices correctly Although this process is online and you have many beautiful and functional templates to choose, there is some formatting that you must standardize. If you choose a corporate invoice template, legal invoice template, catering invoice template or any other, all your invoices must have the same format. Fortunately, that is the rule that most templates follow. So it doesn’t matter which industry you’re in, there are always invoice themes to reflect that and integrate with your branding strategy. What should the invoice header look like? On the left top of every invoice, there needs to be the name of your company and logo, or your full name if you are a freelancer. Under that, you should list your contact information: address, city, state, ZIP code, country, your phone and email. The client’s contact information Beneath header, on the right side of the invoice, add your client’s information such as: company, client´s name, address, phone, and email. If you do freelancing and you don’t know the address, then it is all right to add your client’s name and email address only. Invoice number and date On the opposite side of the client’s information, you should add: invoice number, preparation date, payment due date and preferred payment option or currency. Set a due date of 30, 45 or 60 days from the preparation date by client’s pay cycle. Listed items In the central part of the invoice (in a tabular display) list all the products or services that you delivered to your client. Include these six columns: Item: This is the short description of your delivered products or services. Quantity (or Hours): This includes quantity of sold products or how many hours you worked on projects. Price (Rate): In this column, write the price you are charging for products or your hourly rate. Discount: If you give a discount to the client it should be emphasized here. Tax: Include taxes here. Line total (Amount): This is the total charged amount that is for every product or service. Finally, calculate the Total, which is the Subtotal (sum of Line total) plus tax, delivery...
read moreYelp killed the ‘soft opening’ – What you can do about it
I have a friend who spent most of his life in California. He lives in Tennessee now and loves it, but he’s always on the lookout for a good Mexican restaurant. He’s only found a few that live up to his expectations. He was excited when he saw that a new Mexican Restaurant was about to open near him. One afternoon he decided to go online and check out the menu. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t have a website (mistake number one), but he saw that there were a couple of reviews on Yelp. Power of negative reviews The reviews were written by locals who, like him, were anxiously waiting for a good Mexican restaurant to open in their neighborhood. Unfortunately, both reviews panned the food. The service was okay, but the quality of the food didn’t pass muster (mistake number two). Maybe the restaurant will see those reviews, take them to heart, and improve the quality of the food. Maybe locals will give the restaurant a second chance. Those are both big “maybes.” However, one thing is certain: In our day of instant online reviews, the importance of your first impression is critical. It’s a cliché to say that you only get one opportunity to make a first impression, but that is hyper-true now when people can post Yelp or Google reviews the moment they set down their forks. And, if you make a bad first impression on one customer, it can become the vicarious first impression of one hundred or a thousand other potential new customers. For years, new restaurants and stores have been using a tactic called the “soft opening.” Before declaring an official “grand opening,” these businesses open their doors with little or no advertising so customers begin to come in in smaller numbers. It helps the business owners iron out problems that would be magnified if they were inundated with customers during a heavily promoted official grand opening. There are a lot of advantages to using the soft opening, as Dave Carter outlines in this article. Modify the soft opening However, there is nothing to stop soft opening customers from posting online reviews, so that strategy alone may not always be the best way to work out the bugs. Today, it may be necessary to organize a “pre-soft opening” with invited guests who understand that they are “test customers.” People in this special group would need to agree to two things: Not to post any online review, and Provide you with an honest, anonymous review. In other words, say to them, “If you were going to review my business on Yelp, what would you say? How many stars would you give it?” Provide a means for them to give you this information without revealing their identities. It’s imperative that you know all the bad along with all the good. Although I’ve been using a restaurant as my example here, any local business that provides a product or service and is subject to online reviews should use some variation of this strategy. Get ready for Broadway Broadway musical and play producers have been using this technique for generations. They try out their shows on the road in smaller communities and even have preview nights in New York when reviewers aren’t allowed to write about their shows....
read more4 partners or hires to propel your business growth
If you’ve set your success goals high– and are honest with yourself – you know that you alone can’t do everything. You read about the “fog of war” and sometimes I think there’s a “fog of running or starting a small business” when you can get so focused on making it through the day or week that you fail to see the bigger picture. Let’s look at an important piece of that bigger picture: What addition(s) to your management or ownership would best position you for the growth you want to achieve. Where you are in the life of your small business will, in large part, determine the position of this person or persons. If you’re just getting off the ground, you might consider bringing on a partner. If reducing your ownership share isn’t an option, that channels you toward making an addition to your management team or hiring consultants. You need to really analyze your weaknesses and uncover where a strategic addition would benefit you the most. The areas to explore are: Operations, Technology, Sales and Marketing Financial If you’re in the startup mode, I would add “fundraising” to this list. However, the background of a person good at fundraising often overlaps with sales and marketing or financial professionals. Let’s look at each of these categories to help you get started with your analysis. Operations. Constant incremental improvements in the operations side of your business can pay off with dramatically increased profits. If you’ve been doing the same things the same way for a long time, or your business is new and you’re “flying by the seat of your pants,” a skilled professional who knows how to get things done efficiently, may be ideal for your company. Another element of this is that it might be time to outsource some of your operations. You may even want to consider going overseas to get some things done. Do you have the time or experience to do this? If not, consider adding a Mr. or Ms. Fixit to your team or ownership. Technology. Companies that best leverage technology are the most likely to succeed today. If you’re limping by on old systems kludged together to “run” your business, bolstering your technology talent could be what you need to get to the next level. Do a technology audit. See how your systems compare to the current best practices in your industry. You might bring in a professional to look at what you do and make suggestions. That person might end up working with you to upgrade your systems. Sales and marketing. I doubt I need to emphasize the importance of this category. The question you need to ask yourself is if your sales and marketing efforts currently have the kind of direction they need to achieve the level of success you’ve always hoped to achieve. Look at sales and marketing from a strategic point of view. Is there, in fact, a strategy in place? How is your territory or client base growing? If you think you can always milk the same cow, you’ll find that the cow soon starts producing less and less milk until it eventually goes dry. Financial. You may know your product or service better than anyone in the world or be able to sell ice to Eskimos,...
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