This week in small business: Win despite ad blockers!
Ad blockers, influencer marketing, and other issues critical to today’s business environment get good coverage in this week’s collection of curated content from around the Internet. Leadership, management, and productivity If you can use more weapons in your war against distractions this article by Morey Stettner offer six tips. We often hear that half of new businesses fail within five years. This infographic by Shubhomita Bose tells why. Serial entrepreneur Jennifer Spencer makes a great case for “slow and steady wins the race.” Tanya Lynch offers her list of the top 10 books for women in business. If you have friend whose e-commerce customer service sucks, direct him to this article by Judith Kallos. (I’m confident yours is great. Right?) Michael Kay offer seven sound and basic steps required for financial success. Marketing and sales Rhonda Bavaria sees email marketing as the power tool that may not be in your marketing tool kit. Find out if she’s right. Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead details 50 marketing tools you can use for free! Influencer marketing is all the rage but Andrew Stephan says there could be an unintended consequence that hurts your brand. Are you using and personalizing the six marketing channels described in this piece by Katie Sweet? Or how about your cross-device marketing strategy? See what Stacey Rudolph has to say in this infographic. Susan Gilbert says you can win over your brand audience despite the rise of ad blockers. Let’s hope she’s right. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Don’t let bureaucracy derail your startup. Stefan Bruun offers advice. Sarah Miller dropped out of college twice. She’s now 23 and has made $4 million…so far. Sophie Haslett tells the story. There are entrepreneurs who are making tech-fashion marketing cool, according to this Entrepreneur article by Cheryl Conner. Teyonna Ridgeway offers “10 Entrepreneurship Gems To Learn From Stephanie of Coveteur.” Hey ladies! Think you’re too old to make that dream a reality? Check out this list of overachievers by Whitney Johnson and you’ll think again. My Say examines the ability of technology to “re-humanize” sales in startups and small business. Omer Goldberg confesses that he “burned his startup to the ground.” Here are the lessons he learned. Politics, government, and the economy Noah Smith takes a good swing at explaining why Americans feel upbeat about an economy that isn’t really all that hot. For an interesting look at the world economy, read what changes young people see in a wide variety of...
read more3 red flags: Be smart with your lease if you may sell your business
One of our most popular guest expert articles is “Ready to Sign Your Lease, But Your Landlord Has Work To Do?” by Cliff Ennico. Readers check it out every day. Cliff offers some extremely good advice for business owners as they enter into a new phase of an existing business or the establishment of a new venture. However, for some business owners, there are other, more forward-looking, considerations. If you think that you may be putting your business up for sale within the period of your new lease, you need to take a wider view of the lease details and look at it from the perspective of a potential buyer. Here are some things to consider: Term. If you plan to sell, how likely is it that your buyer will want to keep your operations in all their current locations? For example, if a competitor or the owner of a related industry were to buy your business, that person might want to consolidate operations and close one or more of your current locations. An iron-clad, long-term lease would tend to put off that buyer, or at least exert downward pressure on the sale price. Transferability. Can your new lease be transferred to a new owner, and if it can, are there any other stumbling blocks related to this issue? For example, if you’ve been in the same location for a long time and have merely “renewed” your lease under its original terms, there may be some “baggage” in the lease that you’ll want to drop. For example, it’s not uncommon for new renters to be required to “personally guarantee” the lease. That could make you personally responsible for the lease after you sell the business. In a similar way, there may be language that gives the building landlord the right to approve the new owner or renegotiate the terms of the lease when it is transferred. These situations can cause significant problems during the sale that result in a price reduction, delay, or both. Responsibilities. If you have a long-term relationship with your landlord, you may have developed some casual understandings about “who does what” with regards to common expenses associated with the property. These don’t really “transfer” when you sell. Buyers will want responsibilities to be clearly defined, otherwise they are, in a sense, buying a “pig in a poke” and could find themselves responsible for unexpected expenses. When it’s time to renegotiate your lease, don’t get lazy and just pencil in a new rent and term. Look at it from the perspective of a new buyer and also from your position, should you decide to sell. If you have any inkling that you might put your business on the market, talk to an expert, such as a broker or lawyer familiar with business sales in your area or industry. A bad lease can weaken your position or even scuttle a...
read moreIs your state in the top 10 for online business friendliness?
Almost every week we see a new article with a headline like “10 best cities for startups” or “10 most business-friendly states.” Frontier Communications, the digital, long distance, cable TV, and Internet service provider, just released their “Top 10” list and it has a specific focus that makes it interesting: 10 Friendliest States for Online Business. To pay special attention to the attributes that make an area more promising to online businesses, Frontier weighed five factors: Technology. They considered the state’s average megabits-per-second (Mbps) speed, as well as public access to broadband internet and technical support. Demographics and Population. They looked at population totals, gender percentages, and median household incomes while conducting their research. Workforce and Education. What’s the percentage of those offering Bachelor’s and/or advanced degrees? What are the minimum wage and unemployment rates? Economic Climate. Factors here included the state corporate sales tax rates, corporate income tax rates, number of SBA loans given, and how many local businesses were launched and closed within a calendar year. Cost of Living. What’s the average home cost in each state? Are the real-estate taxes manageable? How burdensome would your energy bills be? Here’s their ranking: Virginia ranked highly for its technological capabilities and its high quality workforce, and the state already has a strong business friendly reputation. (More on that below.) Washington has many economic averages that are better than the nation as a whole, including income. It also has no corporate income tax. Low unemployment, home to many high-powered companies, and a hotbed for tech startups propel this state. Oregon ranked very highly for its technological capabilities and its commitment to internet access for all. It’s huge, a long-time hub for global businesses, is virtually unparalleled for technical capabilities, and has a strong economy. District of Columbia: Lots of foreign capital, an educated workforce, strong economy, and an “agreeable” cost of living. (I should probably also note here that D.C. isn’t a state.) Lots of Ivy League schools nearby and a very corporate tax friendly state. Working hard to provide great Internet access. Strong economy, excellent tech capabilities, and Red Wing (the city, not the hockey player) is trying to become a tech hub like Austin and Silicon Valley. Low unemployment, a well-educated workforce, and a commitment to improving its tech capabilities. When I see these top 10 lists, I’m often surprised by how much they can vary. In some ways, the criteria selected can be arbitrary. Take cost of living for example. We know that the cost of living in California, the District of Columbia, and parts of Virginia are sky high, yet they do quite well on this list. In fact, a high cost of living typically correlates to a well-educated and tech-savvy population, where wages are high. To shed more light on the conclusions of this list, I decided to cross reference it with Forbes’ 2016 list of best states for business. I think that any state listed on both the Frontier list and the Forbes list, must certainly have a lot going for it. So, here are the winners of double honors: First on Frontier, sixth on Forbes. Second on Frontier, ninth on Forbes Third on Frontier, first on Forbes (for the second year running, by the way). It’s also interesting to note that California...
read moreThis week in small business: Africa, online dating, walking, and the oncoming recession…
This week’s collection includes entrepreneurial encouragement from Africa, important SEO guidance, a strong case for clarity (and walking!), tapping into online dating strategies, and much more. Leadership, management, and productivity Annie Pilon succinctly outlines 10 little things you can do to tweak your small business for big business results. Do you have clarity? No, really, do you? Check out Ann Latham’s article on how disclarity is killing your productivity before you commit to an answer. Sara Gilbert delivers an essay on practical “steps” to success. Literally. She suggests walking! I appreciate contrarian views and that’s what Steve Dennis gives us when he makes the case that e-commerce isn’t retail’s biggest disruptor. Patrick Bet-David teaches the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and personal development and in this Entrepreneur video, he talks about 12 ways smart people fail at business. Liz Elting makes a strong case for creating women-friendly workplaces in her Forbes article. Marketing and sales Are your customers in love with you? Maybe you need to steal a few marketing strategies from the online dating industry, as detailed by Joshua Pompey. If you need a quick overview of the important pillars of SEO, Ankur Shah offers it in his ValueWalk article. And while we’re on the topic of SEO, you need to hear what Aleh Barysevich has to say about defending yourself against negative SEO. Brooke B. Sellas asks – and answers – the question, “Is the ‘be everywhere’ approach a smart online marketing strategy?” You don’t need big-name influencers to make millions online through influencer marketing, says Jonathan Long, the founder of Market Domination Media. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Do you want your next business venture to be online? If so, Parker Davis has five ideas to get you started. Wanna-be founders are always asking about grants. Deborah Sweeney offers advice in her article on the GoDaddy blog. In this episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, Kimberly Aya talks about how she got her rental cakes into 1,000 grocery stores. (Yes, I said rental cakes.) Stop following your passion when it’s a dead end, says Deep Patel, on his way to busting seven big success myths. I’m not Nigerian royalty looking for someone to help me claim millions of dollars, but I would like to steer you toward Victoria Onehi’s article detailing how many (40 percent!) Nigerian women are becoming entrepreneurs. And if you need more entrepreneurial encouragement, check out Kevin Kruse’s article on four real-world secrets to entrepreneurial success. Politics, government, and the economy Despite the gridlock in D.C., Jake Rennie says that Americans are still optimistic about the economy. But are they wrong? Conor Sen speculates on how the recovery will...
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