This Week in Small Business: Find success through love!

news you can use

Valentine’s Day, customers in love with your business and courting Millennials make this a heartfelt collection of tips from around the Interweb.

Leadership, management and productivity

With Valentine’s Day in mind, Noreen Seebacher writes that the customer experience is like a great marriage and explains how to keep that marriage healthy with nine points.

A key to getting everything done in your small business is to get some clarity…but that’s easier said than done. Here are three leadership strategies you can put into action right now that will lift you above the fray.

Check out these six ways to make your customers absolutely fall in love with your small business.

This piece outlines one hashtag you hope your customers aren’t using when they mention your small business in the social media.

Steve DiGioia shares six customer service facts every business should know and internalize.

Marketing and sales

Okay, you’re blogging, but if you aren’t generating enough business from your efforts, these seven ideas from Ian Cleary will help a lot.

Tapping into the Millennial market is fundamental for continued growth and success. These three “show-and-tell” tips will help you gain credibility in that crowd.

If your small business can be marketed with visuals, check out this guide on how to advertise on Instagram.

Content marketing can certainly be cost effective, but not if you’re making these common B2B content marketing mistakes. And if you really want to be successful, you need to craft a killer brand voice and mission statement for your marketing.

Just as crucial as content marketing is mobile marketing. These seven strategies will help put you on the road to success.

This article explains retention marketing and tells you why you need to start using it today.

Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation

Check yourself against these 15 signs that say you’re destined to be an entrepreneur…following that link may be your first sign.

Politics, government and the economy

Are importing and exporting in your future? About half of the small businesses in that sector think international trade conditions will be improving.

It looks like Fortune 500 firms are still grabbing federal contracts that are supposed to go to small businesses.

This editorial from the other side of the pond says that the growth of part-time, flexible jobs offered by companies such as Uber is a double-edged sword.