Author: Steve Header

By Bridget Weston Pollack

Autumn is here, and before you know it, you’ll be saying, “Happy Holidays!” It can be hard to think about the holidays as summer wanes, school starts, and everyone gets back to their fall routines.

Now, before the holidays get hectic, is the perfect time to plan ahead for success. Many experienced business owners start this planning process in June or July!
Prepare for a successful holiday season by reviewing these six tasks and delegating with your team.

1. Order supplies
Check last year’s orders to anticipate how much of basic supplies you’ll need, whether that’s shipping supplies and packaging, paper towels and toilet paper for your restrooms, or branded gift cards for holiday shoppers. If this is your first year in business, your network may be able to guide you through your first holiday ordering season. Remember to order early to avoid rush shipping charges later in the season. Being prepared can help you meet your customers’ needs with ease.

2. Make holiday schedules
Now’s the time to determine your holiday operating hours. Will you be open longer than usual? Do you plan to close your business for a few days? Be sure to tell your staff about holiday hours, and explain your expectations of them during the holiday season. Ask your team to request any holiday time off by a certain date, so you can plan employee schedules accordingly.

3. Stock extra inventory
Anticipate holiday orders by manufacturing additional product or placing orders with your vendors. Your suppliers are under their own pressure, and they may have ordering deadlines to get product to you in time for the holidays. Mark these deadlines on a calendar you can see easily so these ordering deadlines don’t pass you by.

4. Check your website
Give your business website a once-over to make sure it’s ready for a busy holiday season. Is the design tidy and easy to use? Can customers easily find your most popular products or services? Does your ecommerce checkout work smoothly? If you’re the person who works on your website most often, hand this task to a staffer or a trusted friend. They’ll be able to spot the issues you might miss.

5. Decorate
Even if you feel like the Grinch when it comes to holidays, add a little extra flair to help stand out from the crowd during this busy season. Your whole team can get involved: plan a late-night or early-morning decorating party. Order takeout for your team, play festive music (or regular music, for the Grinches among us), and transform your business in a matter of hours. Remember to check corners for cobwebs and dust your fixtures to help your merchandise shine.

6. Plan a new marketing campaign
Why will customers want to spend time at your small business this holiday season? What makes you unique? Determine the answer, and build a marketing campaign around it.

Maybe you have the best selection in town. Maybe your pumpkin spice desserts are coveted all year long. Maybe your customer service can solve any shopping conundrum. Build your holiday marketing about what makes your business stand out from the crowd.

Don’t forget to plan for Small Business Saturday on November 25th! Kick off the holiday season by adding your business to the Shop Small map now, and take advantage of free promotional materials available to small businesses. More than 112 million customers reported shopping on this day celebrating small businesses last year!
Already feeling overwhelmed by the holiday season? Meet with a SCORE mentor who can guide you through the preparation process.

Bridget Weston Pollack is the Vice President of Marketing & Communications at the SCORE Association.

Article as appeared in score.com

Photo credit: goodwillb2b.com

 

 

 

 

 

If these guys can do it, you can do it!

Passion to fuel the drive and business help to keep the drive alive are key!

By Lynne Richardson

A dream for many of us is to start our own business. Thousands of us do so annually in the United States. But it can be tough to create a successful small business. Many of us “go with what we know” and begin a business based on a talent or interest we have. For example, if you bake well, folks will encourage you to open a bakery. Or if you have incredible woodworking skills, you may open a cabinetry shop. Other people see a need in a community and launch a business to fill the void. Perhaps you see a need for house cleaners or editing or child care. Each of these addresses needs while also, hopefully, providing an income for the owner.

But how will your business survive and thrive if you don’t understand the business part of your new operation?

Do you know how to legally begin? There are regulations galore that apply. Having an attorney that specializes in such matters can prove invaluable.

What about figuring out the costs of running your business? Do you know how to do this? Determining the costs will factor into how much you should charge for your product or service. Most non-business majors aren’t aware that not only must that baker understand how much the flour, sugar, eggs, and butter cost in making the fabulous cakes, he must also figure out the overhead involved in running the oven and refrigerator. How do you do that? And if you are pricing your own time, as an editor would, what is a reasonable and fair hourly rate? An accountant can help with this and also with keeping your books.

Do you need assistance in finding a location for your business or will your business be based out of your home? There are pluses and minuses for both. A real estate professional can help identify factors to consider for external locations. Twenty five years ago I consulted with a women’s formal dress rental shop.

The concept was radical! Men rent tuxedos for formal events, so why not provide a service for women to do the same with dresses? As we discussed potential locations, the owners were adamant that, given the newness of the concept, they wanted to be “off the beaten path” a bit. The storefront had to be easy to find, but not on the main drag in the community. They perceived that clients would not want to be seen visiting the store. A commercial real estate agent listened to their needs and found them the perfect location.

Another aspect to consider when starting your own business is the human resources function. If you are a sole proprietor, then this may seem less critical at the beginning, but if you have any employees, thinking about it early in the creation process is important. There are legal issues regarding employment as well as practical ones. What you don’t want is to have to make the rules up on the fly.
We’ve all heard the stories about how many big-time organizations like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard started in dorm rooms or garages. But the founders started small. Their amazing idea, coupled with their entrepreneurial spirt and incredible work ethic, ultimately resulted in a blockbuster business.

The key is that they began! What amazing idea do you have? Are you willing to work hard and stick to it, even when it seems impossible to do so? Many small businesses begin as side businesses—the founder continues to work for another employer and devotes time to the start-up at nights and on weekends.

Do you dream of being your own boss? Are you hesitant to pursue your dream because you don’t understand the business side? Most communities have free resources to assist you. Check out the local Small Business Development Center office in your area for help.
Remember that Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Take that single step today! But be smart and try to understand the business side of the business before your small business even has a chance to fail.

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You might think you’re a great multitasker, but you’re not. There’s no such thing

By Matthew Toren

When I was younger, I, like many young entrepreneurs, prided myself on being a master at multitasking. I thought I needed to be a strong multitasker to optimize efficiency and productivity at every moment. And I thought that everyone who was successful got to where they were by being great multitaskers. But, the truth is, there’s really no such thing as multitasking.

The myth of multitasking
Most of us think of multitasking as a necessary part of life. How else could we possibly meet the demands of our over-scheduled, hectic lives? But, the truth is, you can only truly multitask (accomplish more than one task simultaneously) if:
One or more of the tasks is “second nature. In other words, it is so well-learned that no real thought is necessary to complete the task, like chewing gum or walking.

The tasks being performed involve different brain processes. For instance, if you’re reading a book, you can listen to classical (instrumental) music at the same time, but if you listen to music with lyrics, you won’t retain as much of the information you’re reading. This is because both reading and listening to songs with words activate the language center of the brain. And the brain literally cannot process more than one task in any given category at a time.

So, for all of us who insist we’re multitaskers, what does this really mean? It means that we might feel like we’re multitasking, and we might even appear to others as though we’re multitasking, but we’re actually completely switching from one task to another over and over. As much as you might feel like you have the ability to read your email, talk on the phone and engage in Facebook Messenger chat all at once, it’s literally impossible. What you’re actually doing is playing multiple games of “red light/green light” in your brain — constantly starting and stopping each task repeatedly. This is known in psychology as “serial tasking,” not multitasking.

The downside of multitasking
Some compelling research by the American Psychological Association shows that what you think is multitasking is ineffective and inefficient. According to studies, as you switch from one task to another (red light/green light), the transition is not a smooth one.

There’s a lag time while your brain shifts attention from one task to another. And while it feels like this shift is seamless, it actually takes time. How much time? Research has shown that multitasking takes as much as 40 percent more time than focusing on one task at a time — more for complex tasks.

And now for the really bad news: a respected Stanford University study actually showed that those who consider themselves to be great multitaskers made more mistakes, remembered fewer details and actually took longer to complete tasks than those who did not consider themselves to be frequent multitaskers. Several years ago, I would have firmly argued against that point, but now that I’m more of a seasoned entrepreneur, I must admit that focusing on one thing at a time makes for higher quality work.

The next step
Whether or not you’re convinced that multitasking is a myth, I challenge you to try shifting to single-tasking. Focus on one project or activity at a time, then switch to the next when you’re finished. You’re likely to see an increase in your productivity, and you might actually end up saving time, as strange as that might seem.

Also, it’s good for relationships. If you’re reading your email while someone is talking to you, you’re not really listening or you’re not retaining what you read. Either way, it’s just no good.

Some of the most successful entrepreneurs I know have designated times for checking email, using social media and making phone calls. They focus on that one task until they’re caught up, then move to the next. In the meantime, whatever they aren’t focusing on is closed. No email notifications all day, no Facebook message popups and no answering calls that aren’t necessary, unless it’s that tasks time for attention.

As appeared in Entrepreneur.com

 

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His success is all the more amazing when you learn how many times Walt Disney failed.

By Shawn Doyle

Everyone knows Walt Disney. Almost everyone has been to a Disney park somewhere, seen a Disney movie (live action or a cartoon) or knows some Disney character. Some people even go on Disney cruises.

Disney the man.
I think in some ways people know more about Disney, fewer people about Disney the man. Walt Disney, the man, has somewhat faded into the background for many people. It is understandable since he died fifty-one years ago, in 1966. Walt was a visionary, an entrepreneur and a creative genius. There are some invaluable lessons every entrepreneur can learn from what he was able to accomplish in his life.

1. Never give up.
Many people don’t know that Walt Disney was not an overnight success. He started several companies that went bankrupt. He started a commercial art studio, and it tanked. He tried to create advertisements, and they also failed due to lack of revenue. Instead of giving in or giving up, Walt always just tried the next thing. 

As Walt said, “All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

2. Be a problem solver.
Walt Disney was the consummate problem solver. He was very observant and was always looking for ways to solve a problem and how it could be an opportunity in the marketplace.
He took his daughter to a park to ride some rides, and he noticed the rides were dirty and in bad shape, and the people operating the rides were rude.

Walt thought about this problem — and it became Disneyland. He wanted a place that was safe and clean, where parents could take their kids.
As Jason Kilar once said, “When I was 10, we drove to Disney World. When we arrived, what impressed me most was the meticulous attention to detail; there wasn’t a gum wrapper anyplace.”

3. Be willing to reinvent yourself.
Many people don’t know that Disney’s first major cartoon star was not Mickey Mouse — it was Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. He had signed a contract with a distributor for the short cartoons and was thrilled with their success.

When he went to renew the contract, they fired Walt. The distributor said (unknown to Walt) that they legally owned Oswald, and that Walt Disney didn’t, as outlined in the contract.

Even worse, all of Walt’s animators left Walt and went to work for the other company.
Walt went home having lost his biggest success. He had to start over.  As Walt said, “Mickey Mouse popped out of my mind onto a drawing pad 20 years ago on a train ride from Manhattan to Hollywood at a time when business fortunes of my brother Roy and myself were at lowest ebb and disaster seemed right around the corner.”

4. Surround yourself with talent.
Walt Disney admitted he was not the most talented at drawing or animation. As he once said, “I started, actually, to make my first animated cartoon in 1920. Of course, they were very crude things then and I used sort of little puppet things.” He was brilliant at knowing what he did best and was able to hire the best artists and animators in the world.

The person who animated Mickey in the early was not Walt but an animator named Ub Iwerks. Walt didn’t have to have the talent for drawing, but he had the vision. It’s like being an architect — you don’t have to be the general contractor. You just have to know what you want the project to look like when it is done.

5. Be curious.
Walt was an inquisitive soul and always wanted to learn new things. In animation, this led to some stunning developments in the early years.
He is famous for making the first sound cartoon, the first live action and animation mix film, the first full-length cartoon movie. Until then, Walt’s cartoons were fluffy, short, mindless entertainment people watched that came on before the main feature.

Here is the point and don’t miss it — he didn’t know how to do any of those things. His curiosity led him to investigate how to do these things and figure out how to get it all done. Walt said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

6. Diversify.
Walt was smart enough after building a successful animation studio to get into live action movies, documentaries, television, amusement parks and tons of products. He could have just been an animation studio, but that would not have created the kind of success his company had.

I think Walt said it best: “Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.”

Every business needs to keep looking at ways to grow and diversify.

As appeared in Entrepreneur.com

 

By William Craig

How do you define success? How do you live success in your daily life? While that last question sounds like the mantra of a self-proclaimed business guru or a yoga instructor, there’s merit in asking.

An entrepreneur’s path to success is personal and to make it, there are eight important pieces of advice you need to keep in mind:

Check Your Business Attitude

The golden rule also applies in business. When your attitude is enthusiastic, supportive and eagle-eyed, the people will come, and the product will get attention. Check your business attitude, and leave the bad attitude behind.

Remember Passion to Douse the Burn of Failure

Passion often gets compared to fire, but the element of fire both creates and destroys. Remember passion for extinguishing the burn of failure. What are you so passionate about that if you fail and fail again (and you will), you’ll keep pushing forward?
Your answer focuses your goals and keeps you on target. It’s a balm for a wounded ego when failure inevitably burns the edges of your dreams like a well-loved book.

Authenticity is Everything

The spotlight is primarily on transparency in business nowadays, and while that’s important, authenticity is everything to your business as an entrepreneur. You’re the face of the brand.

People will watch your personal and professional lives, and your behavior reflects the personality of your business. In all that you do, be authentic, and transparency will come naturally. If you’re different, honor your uniqueness.

Don’t Hide Behind Tech

Reach out and don’t hide behind a computer, smartphone or website. Don’t hide behind tech to do business, because business is still all about the people. Face to face connection shouldn’t be discounted even in a technological age.

Open up your platform. Don’t hole up and give a sermon on your pedestal once it reaches a measure of success. Be visible — not for the sake of what you do to maintain a brand’s reputation but for the power of authentic connection.

Prioritize Your Full Spectrum Health

As an entrepreneur, the concept of work-life balance often feels like just a myth. Your employees have a set number of hours, but you don’t. You’re always on call as an entrepreneur.

It’s necessary to prioritize your full spectrum health, and that doesn’t mean only your physical health. Maintain screenings and annual check-ups, and remember taking time for yourself lets you work at your peak performance levels. Create a policy for Summer Fridays or let employees take a half-day. You can always make up that time the following week.
Your full spectrum health includes your physical, mental, social and spiritual health. Connect with family. Stimulate your mind. Meet friends for coffee. Do things that make you happy. If you don’t respect your whole health, your energy reserves will deplete, and you will burn out.

Level Up the Individual

Many call being successful in business “playing the game,” but there are those who play the game unethically and forget the “little” people who made their success possible. In chess, the pawns and knights are also important. In online multiplayer games, all players on teams have roles to play to succeed in their quest.

So, level up. Level up the individual and help your team members grow by nurturing their potential to get more done. Match them to major projects that align with their passions and career interests. What does each employee bring to the table? Group the less experienced with the more experienced to reach dynamic solutions and expand employee horizons.

Quality Goes Beyond Qualification

Quantity and quality in business are a precarious balance. You get what you pay for, and you need to get to know who you are paying beyond paper qualifications. In Singapore, developing professionals get fellowships to develop their unique skills beyond a paper assessment, helping to keep traditional industries alive.

When hiring, look for the quality beyond qualifications. Who is this person behind the professional? Reach behind the interview script they’ve prepared to impress you. Someone may check all the boxes of a job ad, but do they mesh with your company’s culture, values and long-term vision? How can your business benefit this candidate and their career?

Strategically Act on Feedback

You’re excited about your product release, but before the big day, you need to test and retest customer experience, keeping communication open. 64 percent of customers expect real-time exchange from the businesses they patronize.

Strategically act on feedback. If there are tools or uses the company can’t address now, you can save them for the future. Various departments should be able to weigh in on the feedback of other departments, sharing data across channels for cross analysis. Information exchange allows your company to prioritize product features the customer most needs or desires.

Come into your business every day with passion and authenticity and be present. Look for quality behind qualifications when hiring and strategically act on feedback from customers before a product goes to release. Level up employees.

Nurture your full spectrum health to be an example for your employees. Success will follow as you claim the path that’s yours.

Article appeared in Forbes.com

 

 

Photo credit: pauloliverfpblog.wordpress.com
Small business marketing doesn’t allow much room for error—with limited time and resources, you simply can’t afford to bank on something that’s solely based on gut feel, the current fads, or your untempered love for your brand

By Gino Lisondra

As a business owner or marketer, you also don’t want to spend too much time and resources on a marketing plan/strategy that might eventually end up unsuccessful.

Maybe you haven’t thought that much about marketing. Maybe you haven’t made mistakes yet, but here’s a list of common marketing mistakes you can avoid if you want to launch a successful and sustainable brand marketing strategy for your small business.

Weak brand identity

For a marketing strategy to work and sustainably deliver, you, a business owner or marketer, must first build and design a solid brand identity.

What does your brand represent? Who is your target market? And how do you want your brand to engage this target market?

First step: get a website/update your website. If you don’t have a website yet, don’t just consider getting one—you need to get one. Getting a website and building it to strengthen your brand is now a necessity.

If you already have a website, make sure it continually generates fresh and relevant content. How to do this? Employ social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—these and similar giant platforms no doubt help a lot in engagement.

You want to engage your target market, but you also need to make sure all your social media marketing directs back to your website, not the other way around.

Good content, the right content, engages your followers and directs them to your website. The right content need not be complicated: start with great visuals and informative, relevant text. Simple, relevant, and engaging content inspire action from customers.

Your social media presence must direct them to your website so they can now purchase and avail your products and services. Good marketing sells; good sales mean good profit.

Unsatisfactory communication with customers

After engaging your market, you now want to keep them coming back for more. You want to eventually strengthen your market reach, too.

Making sure you attend to all customer inquiries and proactively respond to their feedback is one sure way to keep your customers. It will also ultimately grow your market.

Always respond promptly and professionally. Respond with the information they need and the relevant content you want to keep them engage—don’t just respond right away, but respond with the right content right away.

Unmindful of competition

Learn from your competition. Staying in your own bubble is a no-no, even for small business owners and marketers.

Keep updated and sufficiently informed with what your competition is currently up to.
Get an idea on how they plan their future marketing strategies. This will help you create a clearer picture of your own future marketing strategies.

By taking the perspective(s) of your competition, you build a resilient marketing strategy that isn’t just better in the present time, but has the potential to be better still in the near future.

To compete, you need to be able to understand what your competitors are doing with their brands, anticipate their next marketing move, and play an even better game than theirs.

Not doing marketing at all

Even big companies and more established brands do marketing: even if they tell you they don’t. As a business owner, you need to understand that marketing has now become an essential part of any business.

Simply, your business can’t do without marketing. Don’t dwell in the illusion that eventually, the superb quality of your product or service will speak for itself—because most of the time, it won’t. Doing this will only bring more harm than good to your business.

If you haven’t yet, start planning your own marketing strategy now. Yes, you will devote some time and resource, but a sound and well-thought-of marketing strategy is always better than no marketing strategy at all.

 

Image credit: Cecilie_Arcurs | Getty Images

Getting sidetracked may actually help you

By Marc Wayshak

You know that feeling you get when you absolutely crush a sale? You connect with a prospect who’s excited about your offering, and you close a larger deal than you ever expected to. If these big successes feel random and unpredictable, it’s time to focus on a reliable sales presentation strategy that can help you crush more sales than ever before.

By following just a few simple steps, you can make any sales meeting a success. Are you ready to give the best sales presentation of your life? Check out these five steps to the perfect sales presentation, so you can start to crush your sales goals:

1. “KISS.”
In this case, KISS stands for “Keep It Short, Stupid!” It might sound harsh, but this simple advice will help you give a killer sales presentation, every time. Do you like listening to someone else ramble on and on? Of course not — and neither does your prospect. This is common sense, yet most salespeople get carried away with excitement over what they have to share and end up talking way too much. Make this mistake, and you’ll see your prospect’s eyes glaze over. Instead, keep your presentation as short as possible. Focus only on what your prospect cares most about, and nothing more.

2. Present a solution.
Don’t think of your offering as a product or service. Instead, think of it as a solution to your prospect’s deepest frustrations. Spend the discovery portion of your meeting uncovering and understanding those top challenges, then focus the rest of your presentation on solving them. Don’t get distracted by features and benefits that aren’t relevant to your prospect, or you might just talk your way out of closing a big sale.

3. Tell a story.
Rattling off a list of features and benefits isn’t engaging. It’s boring. Keep prospects interested by using case studies to tell a story. Not only is this more fun for prospects to listen to, but it also allows them to picture themselves achieving specific results. Share the story of a client who faced a similar key challenge and solved it with your offering. This brings lists and statistics to life in a compelling way that will ultimately help you close way more sales than ever before.

4. Be willing to get sidetracked.
When you’ve rehearsed your presentation and have certain points in mind that you’d like to cover, an interruption from a prospect might catch you off guard. You might think, “I don’t want to get sidetracked,” or “I’ll just finish this point really quickly and then see if they have any questions.” This is sales suicide! If you want to close a sale, you have to understand what your prospect is thinking, and any interruption is the perfect opportunity to do that. Welcome your prospect’s question or concerns. Then use what you learn to tailor the rest of your presentation to what your prospect cares most about.

5. Ditch the monologue.
Many salespeople, when moving from the discovery process to the sales presentation, switch from an engaging dialogue to an informative monologue. Instead, keep the meeting conversational by ending sentences with little questions such as, “Does that make sense?” or “Would this work for you?” These mini-questions create more value when you sell, and provide you with helpful feedback throughout the meeting. This feedback will ensure you and your prospect are both headed in the same direction — toward a successful close.

Which of these five steps stands out to you? How will you use it to make your next presentation your best one yet?

By John Bertino

Creating high-quality content that has real value to readers but also furthers marketing goals can be a significant challenge for small businesses. Before we get into the how, let’s talk about the what and the why. What’s the premise behind content marketing (aka “inbound marketing”) anyway?

What Is A Content Asset?

Content can be defined as almost anything you put on the web: blogs, social media posts, emails, graphics, videos — it’s all content. Meanwhile, a true content asset is an in-depth resource that goes beyond a simple blog post and provides additional value to your audience. White papers, data studies, how-to guides, and even long, detailed blog posts fall into this category. Rather than just providing general information, assets give a comprehensive overview of a subject. Such assets can be expensive to produce, but done properly, they are well worth it.

Why You Need Content Assets

Content creates value for customers and prospects. More than 80% of shoppers say they research online before they buy, and 84% say they are looking for product information. These behaviors hold true for both B2C and B2B buyers. If you provide the answers readers are looking for with content, you elevate the audience’s perception of you from peddler of goods and services, to authority site and influencer.

Better yet, many search engine ranking factors are related to content. This means websites with high-quality content also generally have strong SEO.

Note:

• Google’s primary purpose is to provide the best possible answer to user queries. When you provide comprehensive answers, you rank higher in search engines.

• Traffic is another metric Google uses to measure rank, and great content attracts more web traffic.

• Great content accrues backlinks, another key ranking factor in search engine optimization.

• Location specifics are essential to mobile search. Content gives you the opportunity to include plenty of local information.

• Being truly relevant to a niche means your site covers a topic wholly and completely; going beyond just using “keywords” and, instead, covering a topic wholly and completely. This works wonders for your on-page SEO!

Content makes your customers happy and makes Google happy. The better your content, the happier everybody is, including you, the content marketer.

How To Create Content Assets

All content is not equal. Valuable content is detailed, insightful information visitors want to share and link to. To generate that level of interest, you’ll need to share insider knowledge. And, like everything else, you should start by crafting a strategy.

1. Define your purpose. Will your asset be free to access? Will it be downloadable in exchange for signing up to a mailing list? Are you creating a report, e-book or step-by-step guide? Are you hoping writers and bloggers will backlink to your content?

2. Profile your audience. Your purpose will define your audience, which may be customers, prospective customers or industry influencers (who may also be prospective customers).

3. Allocate your resources. For best results, you’ll need a talented writer who can establish or mimic your company voice, a layout/graphics artist, and a promo budget for social and search pay-per-click advertising.

4. Flesh out your topic. Start with relevant terms (short and long-tail keywords) always with your specific audience in mind. Your content should be designed to thoroughly answer questions frequently asked by target readers. If you’re exploring a business topic, demonstrable results such as facts, statistics and research results add credibility and value, and also make your asset stand out from similar efforts.

5. Pull it all together into a polished, informative piece and publish your masterpiece online. Where you post it is another detail to carefully consider. If it will be the center of a content marketing campaign designed to build your mailing list or generate leads, you’ll need a landing page with an email signup. To drive traffic or build audience awareness, you might consider posting it on a high-traffic site.

How To Promote Content Assets

The next step in the process is Promo, with a capital P. Once your asset is written, illustrated and polished to perfection, maximize your investment with a promotional blitz.

Email (before and after). Before you publish, email journalists and industry bloggers with a sneak peek and ask them to write about or reference your asset. After it’s published, email your target audience, and send a reminder or thank you to your journalist/blogger contacts. If you don’t have an email service in place, you will need one, along with a good customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Share on social networks and in groups. Contact influencers — people who interact with you on social media — and ask them to share. Use minimum viable tests to find the best strategy for social traffic, then concentrate your efforts on the most successful distribution channels.

Keep it going. Content assets should be evergreen information that will be valuable for a long time. Keep promoting on social media and in feedback. For example, if a customer tweets a question, give a brief answer and add “if you’d like to know more, we have a free e-book on this topic.” Remember, whenever you engage a customer, their audience sees the interaction as well.

If your asset is truly valuable, interest will grow over time, and with it, traffic to your blog. Add to your content library as often as your budget will allow, and you’ll gain a reputation for authority, reliability and knowledge. Follow these steps closely and any small business can attract traffic with content. .

 

By Young Entrepreneur Council

Starting a business and leading it to success takes a lot of work, with long hours, seemingly insurmountable obstacles and great sacrifice. Hard work aside, accomplished business owners also share a series of special skills and behaviors that make them suitable for the challenges of an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

A recent Harvard Business School study of the skills and behaviors that can determine an entrepreneur’s success identified several factors that make all the difference. These include the ability to identify opportunities and being comfortable with uncertainty, along with good financial management skills, the ability to build networks and having vision and influence.

So how do you know if you have what it takes to run a winning business? Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council list several crucial things an entrepreneur should do to ensure success when facing the challenges of today’s business world.

1. Turning Challenges Into Opportunities
Many business operators complain about the ever-growing complexities of business. I acknowledge that, but I would also like to add that those represent opportunities and signal shifts in the competitive landscape. Social responsibility, online presence and customer-centered focus are becoming a more important consideration for business. – Lonnie McQuirter, 36 Lyn Refuel Station

2. Adapting
As Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution posits, it is not the strongest, nor the most intelligent of the species that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. Today, information and technology move at a very fast speed. It’s OK to be wrong and make mistakes, but be wrong fast and adapt to changes. – Aliaksandr Matseikovich, Excel Impact, LLC

3. Taking Action
Stop talking about what you’re going to do, and do it. Ideas are a great start, but action is the key ingredient. And action requires persistence, conviction, passion, and unwavering mental strength — areas where many entrepreneurs naturally falter. Show your success, don’t tell. – Sam Miller, Boston Biomotion Inc.

4. Niching Down
Niching down is the most crucial step in finding success in today’s internet-connected world. Your business is no longer confined to your local market, your market is now over 7.5 billion people. The more specific the service or product you provide to your audience, the more premium of a price you can charge, and the easier it will be to become the go-to expert in your niche. – Bryan Kesler, CPA Exam Guide

5. Testing Different Options
Always be testing assumptions. Your customers and their preferences may not be what you think they are. Coming from a brand background, I focused on making our product attractive, clean, and different. I A/B tested, but always variants within that criteria. Then, one day, we changed our icon to look like everyone else’s, and a little uglier. Doing that increased our downloads tenfold. – Pokin Yeung, Absolute Games

6. Avoiding Stagnation
To succeed in the modern business world, entrepreneurs must maintain their curiosity and propensity for action. Stagnation, or just doing things the way they’ve always been done, is a threat that seems largely ignored by far too many enterprises. The world is changing rapidly, and it seems most companies in established industries outside of tech are missing out on a lot of opportunities to change. – Michael Robinson, Armor Safe Technologies

7. Bringing in Overseas Talent
Utilize talent from around the world via online resources and you will be surprised how many freelancers with amazing talents at affordable rates you can find. Also make sure to bring a unique and personal approach to solving issues, motivating your employees, and to marketing online. Do you really think sending “40 percent off” emails every other day is the most effective newsletter marketing method? – Shu Saito, AllFilters.com

8. Thinking Laterally
Entrepreneurs today need to use lateral thinking in order to grow faster than regular brick-and-mortar businesses, and to think outside the box. In order to achieve that, they need to combine the tools, routines and tactics of the top performers to gain efficiency and automate as much as possible. This will enable them to achieve clarity and work on their business rather than for it. – Arthur Menard, SPARTAN

Often catastrophes are not only salvageable but they can lead to some of the most valuable client relationships you’ll have

By Colin Kingsbury

There’s a saying among pilots about certain types of human error: “There are those who have, and those who will.” Starting and building a business is much the same — no matter how good you are, how hard you try or even how much you care, sooner or later you’re going to get it completely and horrifyingly wrong.

The good news is that, at least some of the time, and more often than you might think, these catastrophes are not only salvageable but can lead to some of the most valuable client relationships you’ll have.

I am the co-founder of a talent management software company that has grown by nearly 300 percent over the past several years. A while back, I was asked to join one of my account managers and her manager on a client call. This was a common enough occurrence when the company was based out of my apartment, but now, closing in on 100 employees and 2,100 companies using our products, such a request meant only one thing: bad news. As I sat down in a high-rise conference room with a commanding view of Boston, I expected the worst.

And I got it. The client described returning from a vacation to a project that had spiraled wildly out of control, with users at different offices all but declaring war on her team, processes that had worked in the test environment failing constantly and worst, a feeling of being professionally humiliated by being associated with such a complete and utter mess. It sounded like a field report from the trenches after the second day of the Somme.

When she finished, it was my turn to respond. First, I apologized. Solving the problem, or even proposing a solution, is often less important initially than acknowledging and validating the customer’s pain and anger in that moment. I’ve never seen a situation made worse by saying “I’m sorry.” (Plus, one of the superpowers that founders have is the ability to humanize their company to a customer.)

Next, I told them we’d come back in a day with a plan to resolve the issues they identified, but I also offered them the option to terminate our relationship at their discretion, if that’s what they wanted. Doing this is painful because sometimes the client will actually leave, but it’s ethically the right thing to do, and it can spare you the cost of litigation and reputational damage if they just want out.

The client was guarded and noncommittal but said they’d at least look at our plan, so we made sure it was our best work. After a series of increasingly detailed discussions, they elected to give us one more chance. We set up for a partial relaunch in three months based on simplified requirements we knew we could nail, and when that succeeded, the relationship began to pivot back toward normalcy.

But here’s the thing: Our relationship actually went well beyond normal. After all was said and done, after months of diligent work, the clouds broke and our relationship actually improved. Today that client is one of our most engaged.

Why? Because when you’ve gone through a near-death experience like this, you’ve demonstrated that your commitment to customer success is more than a slogan. And while clawing your way out of a deep, smoking hole is almost certainly the most stressful way to create a happy, long-term reference account, the odds of success are much better than you think.