Latest Tips, Tools, & Technology to Build Your Business
Business
Maximizing Your Online Presence
Feb 17th
Online businesses are today's gold rush.
Your company is growing at a pretty steady rate, but you know from all the business news that your website presence isn’t what it should be. You don’t have an onsite web development team and, after visiting your competitions websites, believe that a custom website design would really make your company stand out.
You could find a company that specializes in website design, but in reality it’s not just the design that’s important. How that website is optimized, what kind of content is most effective, as well as campaigns that could bring more customers in, are also More >
Looking For A Business?
Feb 14th
As the economy continues its agonizingly slow recovery, many people have been out of work for an extended period of time. If you’re one of them and have the desire to own your own business, rather than returning to the workaday world, finding the right fit in a business can be daunting. For a few people they know exactly what they want to do, as they’ve dreamed about it all their life. However, for many their dream job was the one they just lost. Now they feel like a boat without a rudder, just drifting in circles.
Keeping Your Business Local More >
Pre-Launch Pilot Program
Feb 7th
Time's running out. Need to stay focused to get my pre-launch program ready.
It’s finally here. I’m setting a pre-launch pilot program start date of March 1. This means I have to really focus for the next couple weeks to get everything in order. I’ve done most of the business plan, there’s just a little tweaking to do there, so now I need to move from the planning stage to the implementing stage.
Here’s what’s on my list for the near future:
Email to prospective pilot program participants.
Write email
Send to prospects
Design web site.
Pick theme for web site.
Define web site parameters.
Find graphics.
Prepare each week’s More >
Effective Marketing
Feb 3rd
Common Business Mistakes to Avoid
Good information, very poorly presented. Will this help or hurt your business?
I was just reading an article on how to use YouTube to advertise your business. They had the Old Spice ads running as an example. They went viral and I realized I was in trouble.
Videos are really big in getting people to pay attention to your product or service, but I found the Old Spice ads disturbing. I thought, “Gad, if I give that to my husband the house is going to end up destroyed.” It did nothing to make me want to buy their More >
When You Need A Break
Jan 31st
Keeping things light actually makes you more productive!
It’s important to never become too serious when you are working. Did you know that they’ve proven that people who have a lighthearted attitude toward their work are actually more productive than those that are serious? So, when you see that your employees need a break, come up with something crazy like a duckface contest.
Lighthearted doesn’t mean you don’t get the job done. I just means that you don’t allow yourself to get bogged down in stress, tension, worry, and perfectionism. All have been shown to not only reduce productivity, but also damage your More >
Getting Good Or Bad Ratings
Jan 30th
Today’s market is totally about page rank. There are a lot of ways to get a higher page rank. Having a lot of people come to and like you site is one of the more powerful ones.
There’s a relatively new site available call LinksGage that Indexes the best free websites ! They then allow people to rate the site. When someone does a search in your category, your site will be shown in the listing according to your rank in the thumbs up percentage. The higher the percentage the better your ranking.
It looks like it might be a useful way to reach More >
Can You Work With Different Work Styles?
Jan 24th
It is interesting to see different work styles. My husband and I are almost like oil and vinegar. He wants everything in order before he starts on anything. I like to just grab things and wing it. He spends hours making sure every words and graphic is infinitesimally in the right place. I just get them close enough. He likes to read volumes and go to every web site he can find before he starts a project. I take what I know and add to it as I need to. He hates to take classes. I love to take classes. More >
From Home
Jan 20th
The Author of this post is Darius Boone
Working from home means being able to be there when the kids get home from school.
Working from home is really nice for me. I love being able to be home with the kids but also use my clear service providers to stay in touch with the office from any room –sometimes I even email with my colleagues while my car’s in park waiting for the kids to get out of school! My mom always worked so I really wanted something different for my family since I missed her and hated being a latch-key kid. I More >
Bankruptcy Misconceptions
Jan 19th
Do you feel the hammer hanging over the head of your business' financial security?
There are so many misconceptions about bankruptcy that I thought it might be helpful to highlight a few. There were massive changes to the bankruptcy law back in 2005. Some people even came out of it believing that if you hadn’t filed by 2005 you never could! That’s how mixed up everything got.
I’m just going to highlight a few of the more common misperception here.
First, your house, car, and boat are not exempt from paying off the loan if they are listed in your bankruptcy filing. You’ll More >
2012 What’s Next?
Jan 17th
Keeping your sites focused on the most important thing can sometime be hard when starting up a new business.
I just read a blog by Pamela Slim about entering the new year powerfully. I looked at her ideas and thought, “Those are great, but I just need money coming in right now.” One thing that I find myself losing sight of as the months roll by and I still don’t have my business off the ground is perspective. I lose the fact that this is a journey and I start to focus on the end product, money.
Right now I find it More >