Small business writing: 5 ways to deliver polished content
There’s no way around it – for any successful small business, writing is critical. It’s not easy. Check out these verbal hoops you need to jump through: You need to be able to engage prospects in as few as 140 characters, You need to be able to hold prospects’ attention through long-form blog posts, and You need to be able to keep these prospects coming back for more. In other words, when it comes to small business writing, you need to be all things to all people. Here are some tactics and tools you can use to help you accomplish these extreme goals. Hire writers. If writing is not your thing at all, hire people to do your small business writing for you. You can hand off your social media accounts to others and you can find freelancers to create blogs. I’m not going to spend too much time on this, because working with freelancers is territory that has been covered here and elsewhere extensively. There are a couple of good articles over on Hubspot that get into some of the nitty gritty: How to Hire the Freelance Writer of Your Dreams, by Paul Furiga, and 9 Questions you MUST Ask Before Hiring a Freelance Blogger, by Corey Wainwright. Hire an editor. If you feel your writing skills are okay in terms of being informative and engaging, but you’re not quite as confident in your command of grammar, spelling, and usage, strike up a business relationship with an editor. You may have a grammar Nazi maven in your circle who would be worth a try. I know a professional writer who often has his wife look over his work because she spent years as a high school yearbook teacher and her proofreading skills are through the roof. Check out the various freelance sites to find an editor if you don’t know one locally. If your writing just needs a little polishing here and there, the cost should be very reasonable. However, if your work requires rewriting and reorganizing, the price will go up. Grammarly. There are many apps that will check your small business writing grammar, from Microsoft Word itself, to various WordPress plugins. Warning: none are perfect, so you need to be able to recognize when they are wrong or when you’re breaking a rule on purpose for effect. Grammarly comes in free and paid editions. I’ve only used the free version. I like it because it spans all the places where you’re likely to write something your prospects will see. It even warns you about problems in your Facebook updates – virtually every nook and cranny where your small business writing is likely to appear is covered. Hemmingway app. In honor of the KISS maxim – Keep it simple stupid! – and with a bow to Ernest Hemmingway’s clean, terse use of the English language, this app is like a hair straightener, it will help you take out all the kinks and get you straight to the point. It’s just a fact of life that most small business writing today should be geared to a sixth-grade reading level and the Hemmingway app does a good job assigning your work a readability score. You’ll know if you need to simplify sentence structure and word choice. I’ve subjected one...
read moreWith #WeirdOneLetterOffBrands, choosing a brand name just got a lot harder
Looks like I need to add another warning to the article I wrote entitled, “5 Tips and 2 Warnings For Choosing Your Small Business Name.” I was checking trends on Twitter the other day – which, by the way is a good strategy to use when you’re looking for topics to write about – and saw that the Twitterverse was joyfully tweeting around the hashtag #WeirdOneLetterOffBrands. The humor is in adding one letter, changing one letter, or omitting one letter in order to turn a famous brand into an infamous – and often hilarious – brand. So I guess this gives us another challenge when we’re planning our next startup: Don’t choose a name that’s just one letter away from turning your business into a punchline. In order to have a few laughs together, I grabbed some to share with you here. I’ve tried to keep these family friendly, but if you don’t mind pushing the envelope of taste a little, you should head over to a site like Twazzup and browse some of the entries yourself. In the meantime, enjoy my samples...
read moreWith #WeirdOneLetterOffBrands, choosing a brand name just got a lot harder
Looks like I need to add another warning to the article I wrote entitled, “5 Tips and 2 Warnings For Choosing Your Small Business Name.” I was checking trends on Twitter the other day – which, by the way is a good strategy to use when you’re looking for topics to write about – and saw that the Twitterverse was joyfully tweeting around the hashtag #WeirdOneLetterOffBrands. The humor is in adding one letter, changing one letter, or omitting one letter in order to turn a famous brand into an infamous – and often hilarious – brand. So I guess this gives us another challenge when we’re planning our next startup: Don’t choose a name that’s just one letter away from turning your business into a punchline. In order to have a few laughs together, I grabbed some to share with you here. I’ve tried to keep these family friendly, but if you don’t mind pushing the envelope of taste a little, you should head over to a site like Twazzup and browse some of the entries yourself. In the meantime, enjoy my samples...
read moreTop 2 requirements for a strong small business support network
With all the means of communication today, there are many different ways to network, but who should you include in your network? I’m not going to get into your network of prospects. That’s different for every business. I want you to have a network that supports your business – a network where you can get advice, gather business intelligence, and find the support and encouragement you need as you work hard to grow your small business. It’s almost like parenting I want to start with an illustration. You, or someone close to you, has been a parent, so you probably know that parents of children around the same ages network and do things to support one another. In addition to that, the wise parents will turn to their parents or grandparents for advice and support from time to time. This is basically the same model you should be striving for as you build your small business support network. You want to include other business owners who are in the same situation as you (more on this in just a bit) and more experienced businesspeople who have “been there, done that.” Each of these groups in your network will be able to offer valuable advice and lots of support and encouragement. Further, because they have different perspectives and different networks themselves, it will enrich your position even more. Your small business peer support network There should be more than one element in your peer network. You should be networking with owners of businesses that are similar to yours, or at least in the same general industry, and you should also be networking with business owners in your geographic location. You can accomplish both of these by being active in state-wide or national trade groups along with being a member of one or more local business groups. With professional or industry associations, you’ll stay on top of trends in your sector. Some of those will help you control costs and apply the latest technology to your business. With your local network, you’ll learn about deals from local suppliers, develop prospects, and promote increased commerce in your home area. Generally speaking, peer group advice will help you out with the “nuts and bolts” of running your operation. Your connections to more experienced business leaders will help you understand what’s required for long-term growth and also be there for you when a major issue arises that you don’t know exactly how to deal with. Finding experienced advisors You may be able to find this kind of seasoned, sage advice with a local mentor, or through your work with a state-wide or national organization. However, you’ll probably have to work a little harder to really establish these kinds of relationships. For example, look at the former officers of national associations and see if any who live nearby or at least not too far for occasional lunches together. Of course, you can always pick up the phone and talk to these individuals and send emails back and forth. If you’re having trouble finding someone who fits the description of a seasoned veteran in your industry, contact the local branch of SCORE. They have a great membership of experienced executives who are willing to share their knowledge. Finally, I want to stress the importance of getting...
read more13 reasons commercial accounting software is better than Excel spreadsheets
It’s a little ironic: Spreadsheets launched the personal computer business back in 1979 yet today spreadsheets can sink your small business…if you insist on using them for your accounting. VisiCalc was probably the first “killer app” and it gave millions of people an excuse to buy a computer for both business and personal use, and while I love what we can accomplish with spread sheets, when I’m asked why to use accounting software instead of Excel spreadsheets, I have many reasons to offer: Spreadsheets and spreadsheet formulas are only as accurate as the person doing the entries. It’s easy to lock major mistakes in place and difficult to discover them. SaaS (software as a service) accounting packages allow you to seamlessly access your data from virtually any device and any location. Accounting software is developed by professionals who understand accounting – most small business spreadsheets aren’t. For example, do you think DIY accounting spreadsheets enforce double-entry accounting? It’s easy to download from your accounting software to a spreadsheet, but going in the other direction usually takes a lot of matching up of fields, which introduces more opportunities for errors. You need to be working with an accountant. Accountants prefer to use one of the major accounting software packages. Your accountant will be able to automatically get the reports he or she needs. If your accountant has to fuss with your spreadsheets, it will eat up time and cost you more. Accounting software is designed to grow with your business. If you insist on creating your own spreadsheets, you’ll soon have a data “house of cards” that will collapse under its own weight if you manage to get big and successful You need good up-to-the-minute reports to follow your key performance indicators (KPIs). Accounting software comes with multiple reports built in. Trying to create these yourself would be a nightmare. If you plan on growing, you’ll eventually have several people who need access to your accounting program simultaneously. This is easy with commercial software, more difficult with a home-grown spreadsheet system. Your time and your employees’ time can be better spent growing your business, don’t waste it on tinkering with spreadsheets. A dishonest employee can make a few difficult-to-see changes in a spreadsheet and hide nefarious activity. If you get audited, you’ll start out on the right foot with the auditor by using commercially accepted software. Tax preparation will be much easier with commercial software, which is updated to stay in line with changes in the law. Sending reports, invoices, and payments to customers, vendors, investors, and others is much easier and more dependable when you have all of your financials in a good accounting software package. Those are 13 solid reasons outlining why you should use accounting software instead of Excel spreadsheets; I’m sure there are more. Lastly, getting back to how I started this article: I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that going the home-grown spreadsheet route for your accounting could sink your small business. Here are a few reasons why: Errors in formulas can cause you to make bad decisions, Developing your spreadsheets steals time away from building your business, and A dishonest employee could tweak your formulas to hide stealing. I’ve done a lot of work with Sage over the years so I know...
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