Run Your Business -- Don't Let It Run You

Probably the most essential concepts of being a business owner is always to run your company; do not let it run you. To run your business is to establish a vision of what is attainable. a vision that is certainly greater than doing the day-to-day work associated with your ability or trade. To lead your company is to make a path based upon your strengths and to take inventory of your flaws for you to fill in the spaces.

To run your business is to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves and to find the resources you'll need. To run your business is being aware of the limiting beliefs that you hold and replace all of them with beliefs that will push you forward, keep you motivated and encourage you. To run your business is to own a business and also a balanced life, not have the business run you.

Letting your business run you will mean that:

•           You are satisfied with exactly what is and ignore what can be.

•           You spend your time carrying out the daily tasks that you are familiar with and at ease doing.

•           You are the business that without your energy and time, the business is absolutely nothing.

To discover if you're operating your business or if it is running you, have a day to day activities checklist for one week. Every 30 to 60 minutes, momentarily end whatever you are accomplishing and create a note of the things you did during that period of time.

Make your notes brief - you don't need to write a novel and you don't wish to take more time writing your notes than having the work done. You should not judge the activities you are writing down, just simply write them down. You will evaluate your activities with your coach when you're finished picking up your notes for one week.

After seven days of writing down your activities, take a good look at everything you have written.

•           How are you spending your time?

•           Where is your focus going?

•           What do your activities say about precisely how you are leading your business?

Being a business owner means taking accountability for the business that you've developed. It's not hard to be resentful of all the time it takes to operate a business. Put one eye on the future and determine where you would like your business to be in 1 year, 5 years, ten years and 20 years. Then put your other eye on what is happening in the business right now. A business owner can all together hold the two existing reality and future possibilities.

You will be amazed to see the outcome of this exercise.

5 Thanksgiving Ideas for Brands

As families, friends and loved ones get together to celebrate Thanksgiving, marketers should consider looking at just what the meaning of this holiday might help them add meaning to their own connection.

You can feel the anticipation growing. Blissful discussions of dinner plans, heated debates concerning the best recipes for stuffing, some anxiety over travel prospects and bustling shoppers stressing out their most favorite grocery store: indeed, Thanksgiving is near. It is, again, this time of the year where we're willing to get in touch with loved ones and feel the urge to be pleased for good things in our lives.

While it’s easy to totally embrace the celebration on a personal level, I'm wondering how challenging it is to make the leap in our work. How do we show thanks towards the individuals who matter to us - our clients and customers? When was the last time we thanked them? And did we do it properly: was the appearance of our gratitude sufficient with what our clients really mean to us?

There's absolutely some motivation to be found in Thanksgiving, a celebration that completely encapsulates both sides of gratitude, feeling it, and acting on it. Here's 5 things about Thanksgiving that will motivate brands.

1. Thanksgiving started out as a tradition to celebrate the harvest of the year. The loyalty of a client is just what brands aspire to harvest over and over again. Creating innovative branding campaigns or elaborating wise promotions. So, as Thanksgiving nears, we have to ask: what do we should harvest? Sales, engagement, customer satisfaction - how have they been grown over the last year?

2. Having established what you harvested, no matter big or small, considers thankfulness. Doesn’t mean your customers who naturally will appreciate all the enjoyment you contributed into their daily lives. I’m talking about how you have expressed or show your gratitude for your customers’ loyalty. Be it ancient or nascent? What have you conducted these days to show you value their business?

3. In the era of data and ROI driven marketing and advertising, there's no excuse to not be grateful. Each and every move from customers is taken into account. Therefore, marketers can create something good to reward their behavior and express appreciation. Planting those little seeds of thankfulness will guarantee success of the next harvest.

4. Because Thanksgiving also is about giving back. Henry Van Dyke summed the idea wonderfully: “Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse.” We construct a whole company around this mantra. We understand the price of small rewards that can nurture or change a relationship among brands and their customers. We call it generosity marketing.

5. Lastly, if food is that important on Thanksgiving, it’s mainly because dinner is a fantastic excuse to assemble around with friends and family and share a meal, experiences, emotions. Thanksgiving is indeed one of these times a year where we are eager of focusing again on emotions and connections. If the occasional family drama invites itself to dinner, this is also the best time to rebuild broken links. This is certainly something brands can very well relate to. In today’s economy and tough competitive environment, emotions are the one thing that keeps the bond between a brand and its users together. If you think yours is drained or you hope to strengthen it, we may help.

New Guidelines for Search Engine Traffic

Over the past few years, Google has changed exactly how people search for products and services on the Internet. If you desire your website to generate a great deal of visitors regularly, then you'll need to produce content that's alluring to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Internet marketing experts used to depend upon keywords to enrich content and bring traffic. But things have changed and now there's much more to web content than merely a couple of keywords and some intriguing links.

Your Content Has To Be Relevant To Your Website

As soon as the search engine changes, Google warned website owners that their content has to have worth for visitors if it was going to help push a website up in to the first page of search results.

Originally, having pertinent content on your website wasn't a requirement so much as following formulas to game the system. Today, it really is one of many strictest rules marketing experts follow.

All of your current website content has to focus on your business and supply worth to your readers. If you have a website that sells shoes, then publishing recipes for cupcakes is not a good idea. That kind of content will not provide any value to your readers and it could get your website banned from Google results.

Your Content needs to have Good Grammar and Spelling

Back in the day of web content, website owners could obtain content cheap from overseas suppliers who barely speak English. So long as the keywords were in place, it did not matter if the remaining portion of the content even made sense at all or if website visitors stuck around, so long as they visited an ad or offer while they were there.

The rules have totally changed and now your posts really need fantastic grammar and spelling if you want to attract traffic.

Today, your content also has to be 100% original, too. This means that you should not cut and paste someone else’s article onto your website. These guidelines about content structure are incredibly essential for website owners to follow.

Keywords Have Changed

SEO marketing experts used to use one and two-word phrases to help attract visitors to a website. From the time Google started changing its algorithms, that concept has also passed by the wayside.

Today’s keywords are phrases and even partial sentences that can help the search engines to discover the best match for a user’s search request. Rather than short phrases, keyword searches are not four and five words long. These are known as long-tail search phrases and they're becoming the norm for all website content.

Links Should Be Natural

A website was once able to use just about any kind of backlink to draw in traffic and it is acceptable. But Google has clamped down on backlinks and it has changed the rules on what is suitable and what is not.

With regards to links in your website, you can’t purchase links. You have to go out and solicit deals with other website owners to trade links and make the linking more natural. And, the websites you link to should be reliable and related to what’s on your own website. Once again, Google is looking to create a focused search experience for the user by reducing undesirable links and poor websites.

Your website will benefit substantially from well-crafted content which deals with the needs and concerns of your readers. It’s important that your content, keywords and links are all appropriate to the theme of your website and offer value to your users.

If this may seems like a lot of work, it’s because it is! SEO can be quite a great long-term method to generate traffic, but it really does take time and a great deal of consistent energy.

How Important Branding is to Your Marketing Strategy?

The American Marketing Association (AMA) describes a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol, design or perhaps a combination of them developed to identify the products and services of a single seller or group of sellers as well as to identify them from those of other sellers.

Hence it makes sense to figure out that branding isn't about getting your target market to get you over the competition, but it's about having your prospects to see you as the only one that gives a solution to their problem.

The goals and objectives that a good brand will achieve include:

- Delivers the content clearly

- Verifies your credibility

- Links your target leads emotionally

- Motivates the buyer

- Concretes User Loyalty

To achieve success in branding you must learn the needs and wants of your customers and prospects. You do this by developing your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact.

Your brand lives within the hearts and minds of buyers, clients, and prospects. It's the sum total of their experiences and beliefs, a few of which you can influence and some that you can't.

A strong brand is important as the battle for customers intensifies every day. It is important to spend some time investing in exploring, defining and developing your brand. After all, your brand could be the source of a promise to your consumer. It's a fundamental part in your marketing communication and one you don't want to be without.

A 9 step beginner's guide on how to write a blog post

These are the tips for beginner bloggers to begin with their writing journey.

Step 1: Choose your topic

After an individual reads your blog post, what would you like them to come away with? Do you have an announcement, pieces of information, or perhaps a significant story to share with? Find out what exactly you intend to obtain with your blog.

Step 2: Key points

You may simply have one key point or several points to create in your blog post. Either way, it is best to write your key points all the way down. If these points will need to go in a particular order, this is the time to order them.

Step 3: Pull together your resources

Would you like to support your key points with facts? Probably just links to external sites to confirm your point or help your audience learn more. If you need outside sources to relate back to your key points, find them now and keep them somewhere that is uncomplicated to reference.

This really is the time to search out photos or videos to go along with your post. Be sure you have permission to utilize the photos. Pro tip: you can utilize advanced search features in Flickr to search for innovative commons/commercial use photos. You can also make your own graphics using free online services like Canva or Pixlr.

Step 4: Expand your points

This is the time to begin writing your blog post in long form. Increase your key points into sentences and paragraphs. When you’re writing, think about your tone. Are you currently attempting to sound academic? Do you want to attain a business audience? Is this blog post for your friends and supporters?

(Note: We have made an assumption that you have already considered your brand voice and tone, which explains why we haven’t mentioned this until Step 4).

Step 5: Edit

Step out from your blog post for a while. Get caught up on your emails, take a stroll, grab a coffee or tea? Break. Return to your post and edit. Minimize garbage content that doesn’t provide your audience anything valuable. Put in some sentences, links, or images that may help you illustrate your points much better.

Step 6: Ask a friend

Have somebody else to give the article a once-over. They’ll make it easier to discover areas where you can cut irrelevant bits or they can inform you of where you need to do much more explaining.

Step 7: Finalize your title

Even though you might have a working title when you begin, you’ll need to craft a great, final title now that the meat and potatoes of your post are done.

Step 8: Submit your blog

Now, it’s time for you to post your blog. Be sure to put all your links and images into your post. Work with tags and categories to help your readers find your post. Preview before you'll post to be sure nothing has gone astray.

Step 9: Share

Whether it’s through email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or other avenues, be sure to share your post. You’re far more likely to get readers if you actively share your own content. It is also okay to share your content more often than once! Great news right?

3 Good Reasons Websites Are Essential for Small Businesses

Managing your own business is no easy task along with your to-do-list is guaranteed to never end. Having said this, you shouldn't use this as an excuse to consider short cuts when considering having online presence. You start with your website, it’s important to position yourself online with a powerful, professional destination that provides customers the impact you mean business and the motivation to want to engage more with your business. With this thought, think about these 3 logics behind why having a strong website is important.

First Impression Matter

Let’s be realistic - we live in a world where people Google before they go shopping, visit online review websites like Yelp before they buy and “check-in” via Facebook as they start to go about their days. Because of this, you need the first impression to be the ideal it can be. Beginning with your website, people are passing judgment and making decisions about whether or not they are going to even go to your store, restaurant or office. They’re likely to dismiss you completely, as well, whenever they believe that your website doesn’t show the kind of experience your company - or a business like yours should provide.

Window Shopping Isn't Exactly What It Used to Be

Strolling down your local Main Street isn’t the only approach individuals look into stores and other small businesses these days. With routine visits to Yahoo, Bing, Google, Yelp and other online sites, people are regularly in search of where they plan to make their next purchases. Make sure your company is well showed on these sites by first and foremost, having a website but by also being showed among each of the online search engines, review sites as well as other online spots your business may be considered for customer review. Beyond having your URL address readily available, also be absolutely sure your address, telephone number and email is well exposed. Social media links can’t hurt, either but only include these if you are actually participating in social media.

No Website Signifies Losing Business

By now it’s clear that if you don’t have an online presence, you’re passing up on chances for customers to identify you and if they want to spend money with you. This said, in case you have a bad website it is better to have no website. While no website results in missed opportunities, a bad website can actually be worse simply because it literally makes your business look poor. With numerous template based websites available today, like Shopify.com, for you to personalize for your one of a kind business, there’s truly no excuse for your website to appear unprofessional and sloppy. If you can’t proudly showcase the website you have currently live and obtainable for the world to check out online, remove it. A bad website is far worse than no website but let’s be clear, both of them are unhealthy for business.

Whether you are a one man or woman show or operate with 100 employees, your website should look as if you have a team dedicated exclusively to maintaining your presence online powerful and remarkable. The real key here is “appear” versus actually having someone updating your website each day. For most small businesses, this is simply not necessary. Nevertheless, having a professional, polished looking website that operates effortlessly and gives customers uncomplicated navigation, strong photo images, professional quality content and an overall experience that activates them enough for them to want to do business with you is key.

Successful Business People Always Start with a 'WHY'?

“The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is that you’ll fail ten times for every success”

-Adam Horwitz

The above fact reveals the real problems of being an entrepreneur. But the real entrepreneurship endeavor is successful if only it has a clear inside out view of its product and customers.

As per Bloomberg, 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses go wrong within the first 18 months. There are a number of reasons like out of cash, no differentiation, failure to talk value proposition, leadership crisis. Yet the biggest reason to failure is that the venture is not able to explain its daily existence. I.e. WHY it does exist?

Specialists have demonstrated that there is a clear distinction between the normal companies and prosperous companies.

What normal companies do?

They build products and services that solve the aim of “WHAT”, know a little about “HOW”, however the “WHY” is absent?

Just what successful companies do, distinctly?

They focus from inside out, i.e. from “WHY to WHAT together with taking care of HOW”

"The Golden Circle" a strategy by Simon Sinek, explains the existence of successful companies.

These companies are in existence in order to satisfy the desires of their customers together with the sole goal to produce value, monetary gains on the other hand are just the consequence.

Apple turned significantly successful and is among the world’s most valuable brands with a brand value of $104 billion as on Nov 2013, but just how?

For those people who have heard the speech of Steve Jobs, throughout the first I-Phone launch, it would have been evident precisely what does, WHY to WHAT signifies.

“People dreamed of a music player, a mobile phone and an organizer in a single gadget [WHY], we at Apple using our capabilities and innovation [HOW] have produced these technologies together and designed a wonderful music phone with inbuilt organizer, the I-Phone [WHAT]”

The way Steve has communicated the real goal of the product, was Thoroughly (From "WHY" to "WHAT")

This difference in communication had been a approach to indicate the real purpose of the product.

Someone rightly mentioned,

“If your product requires advertising or sales people to sell it, it’s not good enough.”

If an entrepreneur has the ability to make the customer realize “WHY” the product/service have been developed, “HOW” it will solve a purpose and “WHAT” exactly it appears like, the job is done.

Knowing the “WHY” by the customer will have a deeper effect and it can be a “need satisfying product” and not much of selling is necessary and the product sells by itself.

During a TV interview of a Senior Executive of a company, the interviewer asked a concern why your company exists. The response was clear orthodox, from the textbook reply "to make money". Even though we can understand or know that the company is there to generate money but at what exactly value proposition?

Not just for the entrepreneurs, it’s for the companies, to make their workforce, customers and stakeholders realize "WHY" they exist.

Most entrepreneurs/companies are unsuccessful because their target is on "WHAT" and often on a "HOW" but the "WHY" is missing.

4 SEO Tips for Beginner's Small Businesses

In this period of time of ‘always connected and constantly online’, it is now more essential than ever for a business to possess a website. Numerous small business owners still neglect concentrating on their website as a principal focus of marketing and generating sales to their company.

Often they search for the easy route or the most inexpensive route (or "FREE" route) toward getting a website going. 1 major factor that gets pushed aside is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This is the method for site owners to mainly take their site, allow it to become 'search friendly' and always try to marketing their website towards customers in hopes of ranking, coming up in results and being identified.

While it might appear tricky, too much to handle and prohibitively costly, this can sometimes be a misunderstanding of the procedures engaged. In fact, with the right setting up details, you can place your business in a better overall and commence your way in the direction of having customers find you and make contact.

Allow me to share 4 basic SEO tips for Small Business to get started on Search Engine Optimization.

 

1. Register for Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools - While Google Analytics isn't really exactly what it was previously, it is the basic principles of accomplishing anything online. Aside from the details it offers which are excellent, possessing analytics on your site is SEO 101. Implementing Webmaster Tools is as well, along with building a sitemap.xml file for your site. This is a simple 10 minutes of work which you can spare for certain that will pay off in the long run.

2. Focus on Good Content - Do you want customers to find your business and really know what you do? Then make sure your content does that for you. Cautiously ponder on how you would be if you were the customer or if you had the client in your store or in your office, what would definitely you be saying? Make sure you have a good amount of detailed content on your site that shows the search engines what you’re about and does the same for your potential customers.

3. Focus on your Meta Data - This is often the part which gets tricky for beginner business owners, but if you had a site developed, you really should be able to add this. Center on good Meta Titles and a good Meta Description for every single page and be distinctive for each one. Mention your products or services in the areas you offer them. Be sure to add your brand in there. Your brand and building it is crucial.

4. Don't Forget About Your Site - One more area of SEO is always keeping it fresh and once you get going, you have to remember to keep adding more and feeding your site. Often, the mindset is the fact that once you establish a site, you're done. Are you setting up citations? Have you been operating a blog? How about Social Media? Never allow your efforts go unnoticed.

SEO is a regular procedure, but one that with hard work does get acknowledged. Though it might appear to be a great deal to do, you can hire a trustworthy agency that will dothe job within your budget and build a distinctive strategy which fits what your targets are and what you really can afford. Just don't disregard executing it.

3 Straightforward Strategies to Nail a First Impression

To amaze customers doesn't have to be highly-priced. But it sure takes diligence and attention to details.

3 to 5 seconds. That’s all it takes to make or break a first impression. You may remember how to make a constructive impact on a personal level, but what about at your place of work?

The look and feel of your business always tells volumes.

Here are three things every business ought to check before the very first customer walks in the door:

1. Always keep customer touch points spotless.

A thoroughly clean office or store states that, 'We always care about quality.' Eliminate any sign of neglect or laziness. Wash windows, sweep floors, vacuum carpet. Maintain the restroom tidy and always fresh! Even if your office does not draw in retail foot traffic, you’re delivering a message to employees and vendors. Don’t just let dust bunnies stand in between you and more revenue.

2. Add more color to client surroundings.

Adding a pop of color to your business location can produce a good and welcoming look and feel. Home sellers plant flowers. Creative agencies flaunt bold furniture. Tech startups paint bright walls. Hospitals work with relaxing pastels. Work with colors and style to develop a statement regarding your brand and draw in the right customers without saying a word.

3. Reduce furniture and other accessories-declutter.

Regardless of what kind of business you own. Having the right things in the right place will always lead to a safe and productive environment. Getting rid of things that aren't important will always be a big help for our own environment especially in the office or in our company we're in. Through this for sure we can avoid detracting customers and prospect buyers.

Three to five seconds to make an impact which will last a lifetime. You will discover several choices for customers as well as their loyalty is fleeting. Continue to keep customers devoted to what you’re selling and not what you're stockpiling.

Problems With Your B2B Communications?

Still actively playing by the aged principles when it comes to your business communications, particularly email marketing or are you going out on a limb to stand out in the inbox?

If you're a business to business company, perhaps you've recently taken a good, close look at your business communications?

Have you specifically looked at your email marketing through the eyes of your customers?
I'm guessing if you have, you may find some surprises. You'll find that your business is gasp boring.

Yep, I stated it the B word. Boring. It is not something we wish to declare, but a lot of us in the B2B environment feel as if we can't help it because we have been told that B2B companies usually are not exciting and can't work with humor (which I don't agree with wholeheartedly).

Recently, I even penned a post about how exactly you can take advantage of nontraditional holidays, but I feel as though many B2B companies end short as they are still having fun by the old rules.

Should B2B be more like B2C?

After running some tests with this email marketing , I've seen lots of email in my respective business and personal inboxes. I've got to confess that Business to Business e-mails could take a great dose of encouragement using their B2C (business to consumer) alternatives.
Right here is a wonderful experiment. Have a look at your own business inbox and check out the subject lines, resourceful, calls to action and copy. What do you see? Just what grabs your attention?

At this point, move on over to your personal inbox and find out what's going on in there. Observe any variations in voice and tone? How attention-getting will be the subject lines? Do they have a different sense of urgency? Is the creative perhaps a lot more colorful, pleasing and fascinating?

The differences could differ, certainly, depending what sort of emails that you are subscribed to, nevertheless I'm guessing you had a similar experience to mine in your inboxes.

So what do you say? Do Want to join me in shaking up B2B communications and giving your subscribers something more powerful, creative and intriguing in their inboxes?

Just how do you plan to enhance your B2B communications, or do you already? Share with me your experiences in the comments below.