When I first started thinking about President’s Day this year, I thought it would be helpful to blog about being an effective business leader. Whenever you start a company, you have the right to be the president. After all, it is your company. It was your idea, your seed capital, your contacts that got the […]
Do It Yourself SEO for Small Businesses
No matter how you approach a search engine optimization or (SEO) project, the ultimate goal is to increase your brand’s online visibility in the search engines. This visibility will help increase traffic, conversions and sales. Leveraging the possibilities of internet marketing can be overwhelming for small business owners who are already wearing many hats within […]
When You’ve Done All You Can, Get Up!
There comes a time in every entrepreneur’s life when you just catch a bad break. You work really hard on a deal. You thought it was yours. Then at the last minute, after nearly a year-long sales process, you loose the contract. This especially stings when you’ve spent hours studying the customer and cultivating an […]
How to Communicate Your Business Vision
As a business leader, it’s your job to craft a vision for your business. Once you know what that is, you need to be able to communicate it to a wide audience including your customers and your employees. Even the interns need to know. Why? Because your need to share a vision that everyone understands, […]
How Do I Get New Customers Part 1
So often I am asked about how to get new customers that I decided to develop a two part series on the topic. No customers, no business. A simple and obvious fact, which leads new business owners to ask the question “How do I get customers to see and buy from my business?” The […]
How to Get New Customers Part II
There are numerous ways of getting new customers but not all methods are applicable to all businesses. I also need to remind you that getting repeat business from your existing customers is far easier than attracting new customers, but it is important to have a strategy for getting new customers in the door. In Part […]
Budgeting Tips for Small Business Owners
If your fiscal year parallels your wall calendar, then you made it through Q-1 or as you may formally call it, the first quarter. Perhaps you’re feeling optimistic about the goals you’ll accomplish this year, or are concerned about your revenue goals for the second quarter. It’s best to look at where you’ve been to […]
Are You Doing Your #1 Job as an Entrepreneur
Your skills as an entrepreneur can make the difference between a booming enterprise and closing your doors far too soon. Your #1 job as a small business owner is to sell. Your job is to motivate, inspire and convince customers, potential investors, and often family that your business idea is worthwhile. It typically requires passion […]
Smallbizchat Celebrates 3 Years of Helping Thousands of Entrepreneurs
Today marks the third anniversary of my Twitter talk show #Smallbizchat. We launched the weekly #Smallbizchat, in April of 2009, as a peer-to-peer mentoring program to help early stage entrepreneurs get answers to their small business questions. The goal was to provide information to help end small business failure. With 82% of small businesses going […]
Should You Have Good Pricing or Great Pricing?
Should you have good pricing or great pricing? Our first instinct is to have great prices that will permit us to crush the competition, gain market share and fuel fast growth. The usual problem is that great prices typically provide slim profit margins. Good pricing, however, over the long term, should create enough profitability to […]
