This week in small business: Tips from a BMOC, 2017 predictions, boost your reading speed and more

news you can use

I predict that the 2017 business trend forecasts won’t stop being published until we all break the habit of writing 2016 on our checks. But that’s okay, we found a few good ones this week, along with a lot of advice for entrepreneurs and those managing startups.

Leadership, management, and productivity

Kelsey Clark gets the secrets to career success from her five favorite female bosses – a quick and good read to start 2017.

Is your home office holding your back? S. Tia Brown delivers the entrepreneur how-to information you need to upgrade from home office to business space.

How are you doing on your New Year’s resolutions? In this PCWorld article from Intel, you’ll learn how to train your brain for success in 2017.

Ian Altman gets brave and predicts the top 10 business trends for 2017 in his Forbes piece.

The most successful people tend to be voracious readers. If you really want to get up to speed (boost your words per minute), Tom Bilyeu offers some great tips and strategies.

Marketing and sales

Have a new product ready to launch? How will you promote it? According to Matt Lawton’s article, a survey of 730 senior marketers points to social media as your best bet.

Here’s some more crystal ball gazing: 4 top SEO trends for 2017.

If you’ve been focusing on GenXers and Millennials, you need to check out Connor Blakley’s ideas for marketing to Generation Z.

Vicci Ricci must be a BMOC. After all, the college student’s social media reach is something like 250 million. Steve Young captures Ricci’s influencer marketing tips.

Does getting 25,000 subscribers in 30 days and then monetizing them sound good? Cheryl Conner gives us the story of one young entrepreneur who went that route.

Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation

Isaac Asimov wrote the classic I, Robot. If he were writing today, he might write I, Digital Assistant Bot. Check out what Nicholas Badminton has to say about artificial intelligence and the economy in TechCrunch.

I’m a major proponent of instilling business savvy in our children, so I appreciated Deep Patel’s Entrepreneur article, “5 Life Lessons You Kid Will Learn as a Young Entrepreneur.”

Pricing is always a popular topic and we’ve heard a lot about the “freemium” model in recent years. Here’s why Courtney Williams rejected it for his startup.