Tips For Dealing With Your Most Difficult Clients

dealing with difficult business clientsSome 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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What Every Small Business Should Know About Business Incubation

advice and help from business incubatorsBusiness incubation has been in existence in the U.S since 1959 and has been growing ever since. In Anita Campbell’s article, Business Incubators: The Next Innovation Engine?, legislators are looking into business incubation as a way to boost job growth.

Since small businesses are the major contributors in job creation, it just makes sense that the small business sector be given as much support as the government can. More help = more small businesses= more jobs.

Business incubation has a wide range of services. It goes above and beyond just leasing a space and giving sound business advice. Some services include help with regulatory compliance, access to angel investors or venture capitalists, and other administrative services which are essential to any type of business.…

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Which Hat Is Your Site Wearing? Optimizing Your Website

black or white hat seo techniquesIf you are like most entrepreneurs, you would already have milked different social networking sites for all their worth. And why not? It sure would drive more traffic to your site. The higher traffic percentage your site gets, the higher chances of getting more sales.

There are many search engine optimization strategies which can help increase rankings. A successful internet marketing campaign needs to be well-thought of and well-planned. You should never lose sight of your goal instead; you need to be guided by it.

The article SEO- Are You Missing The Point? suggests that the more optimized your site is, the higher ranking it gets, therefore increasing site traffic and a possible increase in sales.…

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Guide To Being In More Control Over Managing Your Work

guide to better control over your businessSmall companies are often controlled by one person in particular, the CEO. Often times the CEO will take on many different kinds of tasks in order to make sure that the company will be able to enjoy better success.

The only problem is that by wearing the different hats necessary to do everything from lead generation to closing sales, it can leave little time for anything else. It is a hectic lifestyle to be sure. This is why it is important that you take a practical approach to managing yourself, your time and your future. This will help you to be more successful as well as make it where the company can be more successful.…

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Social Media: Is Visibility All There Is To It?

Gone are the days when businesses just relied on neon signs, tarpaulins and pamphlets. Since the inception of social networking sites, entrepreneurs harnessed it to maintain business relationships and attract new customers. Marketing has taken on a whole new meaning once social media became prevalent, especially for small businesses.

While it is true that the more people know your business exists, the higher chance you get of being considered to fit consumer’s needs, there is still the matter of being able to establish that you can deliver what you promised you would.

You may be sending hordes of email, tweeting left and right, posting new blogs daily all in the hopes of being noticed by more of your target market but have you measured how much of an improvement your business made since you started marketing online?…

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Business and IT – Adversaries or Partners?

business relationships with ITDoes your company’s Information Technology area act more like competitors rather than partners with the business?

A poor relationship with IT can be extremely detrimental to the efficiency, productivity and cost-effectiveness of your organization.

Watch for some of these warning situations:

“¢ Everyone knows HR cuts payroll checks, and finance pays vendors. IT doesn’t always have the opportunity to regularly show its value and can be taken for granted. People don’t want to talk until something is broken, or frustration has mounted to the point of eruption. IT is regularly in a reactive mode.

“¢ IT helps make operations more efficient, but change in organizations can be stressful and can create uncertainty.…

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5 Smartphone Apps CEOs Shouldn’t Ignore

smartphone apps for CEOsEverywhere you look, people are doing something with their phones. They are either texting someone, or they are using one of the thousands of apps available.

Small business CEOs need to have access to their office even when they aren’t in them.   Here are some smartphone apps to help you out.

1. iTerminal – One thing any company needs is the ability to get paid. The iTerminal app will allow you to accept credit card payments right from your iPhone. All you have to do is enter the information in the easy to use interface and it will process the payment immediately.…

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Financial Literacy Among Entrepreneurs

financial literacyAny person who is running their own enterprise and is accountable for it can be called an entrepreneur. But not all entrepreneurs can be called financially literate. Financial literacy goes beyond just knowing what goes on in the financial world, it is about understanding finance so that effective decisions about the business can be reached.

With the current economy, there is undoubtedly a need to improve financial literacy especially among those in the business sector. You may have the best business idea or the most innovative products in the market but if you do not have the essential financial knowledge in managing the money your business makes, you are in for a rough ride.…

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Employee Retention Strategies

employee retention strategiesThere are two main problems concerning human resources today. The first one is the unemployment rate which causes grossly underqualified people to apply to your company and the second is employee retention. For business owners, retaining your best employees may pose as a challenge.

Entrepreneurs know how competitive hiring is in the business sector and the fear of employees jumping the fence to join a competitor is more palpable now more than ever. It is hard to find good employees but it is even harder to promote company loyalty. Once you find top quality people to work for you, you have to ensure that you can keep them because retaining quality employees is one of the keys to ensure the growth of your business.…

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Optimize Your Marketing Efforts Without Hiring a Team of Know-It-Alls

email marketing One of the keys to success for every small business is a really smart marketing program that keeps existing customers in the fold and continually incites prospects to join. The program should include the most cost-effective ways to raise brand-awareness, leverage your expertise and share deals.

Although many are still hesitant to move away from snail-mail or the telephone, others are rapidly discovering that email marketing is one of the most effective means of generating sales.   Research conducted in 2009 by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that email outperforms all other forms of direct marketing.

If you’re new to email marketing, or want to crank it up a notch, here are three tips to help you build and grow your email marketing list without having to look for additional budget.…

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