In my previous article, Making Money: The Economics of Email, I discussed the customer acquisition cycle and how email marketing fits nicely into that effort, acting as the grease to speed the process along. Email has direct financial benefits, but there are also a number of other benefits that are difficult to track. For example, if your logo appears in an email, you might not see sales from people who drove right over to your store to make a purchase, but it might make your website seem more familiar to a visitor who has seen the email, and that might make her more comfortable making a purchase at a later date.…
Continue readingAre You Ready For American Express OPEN’s Small Business Saturday?
Entrepreneurs are getting ready as everyone looks forward to the inception of a new shopping event: Small Business Saturday. The first-ever event will take place on November 27, as part of American Express Open’s plan to support the local economy.
America’s largest employers are still small businesses and it makes sense that the industry gets the attention it deserves by having a whole day dedicated to it. The national movement is getting more traction as the actual event draws near. Advocacy groups as well as the public and private sector unite to support this national campaign. This concerted effort to support small, independently-owned businesses would help to drive sales in the holiday weekend shopping traffic.…
Continue readingHow Creating an eBook Can Help Develop Your Online Presence
There are a number of reasons to create an eBook to help develop your online presence. Here are a just a few of them:
Build your email list
As many online entrepreneurs will tell you, building your email list is one of the most crucial things you must do in order to establish presence online regardless of whether or not you intend to make money. Certainly if you want to make money through your website and your presence online, an email list is even more vital.
But how to get people to hand over their email addresses to you – willingly – and with open ears to what you have to tell them?…
Continue readingMaking Money: The Economics of Email
I live close to a golf course, so my garage is always full of golf balls collected by my children. We literally have big plastic containers filled with golf balls sorted by type and condition. While I like to keep a container with the best of them in my trunk to restock my endless need, my children have other ideas.
Mitchell and Madeline, who seems to have the same entrepreneurial spirit I have, would rather sell these balls back to the golfers as they drive by our house on their way home.
The reality is, turning a profit on free golf balls might prove less profitable than they hope.…
Continue readingCloud Computing and Your Small Business
In a constantly changing technological world, small businesses try to keep up with the hype by getting on the innovation band wagon. One such innovation is cloud computing. Designed to remotely host software, servers and data storage, it promises to reduce operational expenses and lower the cost of energy bills.
This of course is beneficial to those who have limited budget and limited knowledge of technology infrastructures such as small business owners. Yet, a cloud hosting survey reveals that more than half of SMB respondents have no intention of using this trend. And the reason for this is that small business owners are not well informed of what cloud computing is and what its benefits are.…
Continue readingAntisocial Media: The Opposite of Social Media
Engaging with the media in an interactive manner is no longer a “nice to have” – it is a necessity. But, how much is enough and what are the true consequences of doing “just enough?” And, what if “just enough” isn’t? More often than not, “just enough” is anti-social, if not anti-business.
Here’s an example of “just enough” thinking:
Client: “Yes, we are even more active on Twitter and LinkedIn. We even post a blog now and again. We are with the program and making great progress. Let’s move on to talk about upcoming press releases.”
It was another one of THOSE meetings. …
Continue readingSmall Business Data Protection Tips
Loss of data is one of the reasons why a business may result in failure. Since businesses run on information, when data is lost or access those data are disrupted, the impact may threaten business operations.
According to Ontrack Data Recovery Findings, there are five causes of data loss:
- Human Error
- Computer Viruses
- Natural Disasters
- Hardware or System Problem
- Software Corruption or Program Problem
The above-mentioned root causes account for loss of revenue for businesses across different industries which are alarming especially for small business owners. The lack of disaster recovery plans may spell disaster and this is not uncommon for SMBs who typically do not have the budget and internal IT expertise compared to large enterprises.…
Continue readingTop 6 Secrets To Great Customer Service
Each of us has different experiences with customer service; some are good while most that we hear about are just horrible. Businesses, no matter how big or small, need to evaluate how well they are serving their customers.
There’s already a new standard and it is not just to have “good” customer service, it’s about being great. In a very competitive market, business owners cannot just ignore the importance of service excellence.
A business book review, by Ivana Taylor, of the book “Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us”, the primary intention of the author was to make a research on what goes on with call centers.…
Continue readingThe Infiltration Of Mobile Solutions In Small Business
The business industry is becoming more fast-paced and inventive in hopes of expanding their customer base. In fact, more entrepreneurs are now joining the mobile computing band wagon to gain more traction for their small business.
Mobile computing is part of a technology that can change your business and it is all about portability and convenience as well as providing an avenue for increased operational efficiency. As a small business owner, being away from the office can have some serious effects on your productivity and having the capability to remotely access your files definitely serves as one of the biggest advantages of this technology.…
Continue readingTips For Dealing With Your Most Difficult Clients
Some people you just can’t please. At least, that’s the truism my grandpa used to say to me. Clearly, grandpa didn’t run a small business. While some people are harder to make happy than others, as a CEO of a small business you can’t just write off difficult clients, unless of course you don’t mind taking a hit in your business.
But, after you’ve spent all day running your catering business, for example, cooking, responding to calls, and delivering orders, getting a complaint from someone because their food arrived at 5:03 instead of 5 isn’t going to make them your favorite person.…
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