The year is moving along at a fast clip, and hopefully your business is on the road to achieving the goals you have established for 2018. It goes without saying that revenue growth is the top priority for entrepreneurs, and this week’s roundup of “how to” information and resources provides some solid ideas for achieving those growth or expansion goals. Happy reading, and growing!
Karen Kerrigan, President & CEO @KarenKerrigan
Branding, Marketing and Sales
Three Unconventional Tips from a Social Media Expert, THRYV.com. “I regularly hear social media advice that doesn’t sound realistic to me–and I say this as someone whose workweek is dedicated to a corporation’s social media presence. This same advice must sound downright ridiculous to local business owners, where social media is just a small part of a much larger overall job.”
Making More Time for Sales, Susan Solovic/SBE Council. “Consider the impact to your bottom line if you could increase the percentage of time sales professionals spend selling by 25 to 50 percent?”
12 Awesome Visual Marketing Tools That Will Help Grow Your Small Business, CrowdSpring. “Fortunately, there are some terrific, affordable tools and services that can help you to improve your company’s visual marketing and help your company compete more effectively against established companies.”
Why Augmented Reality Will Be One of the Hottest Marketing Trends in 2018, CrowdSpring. “AR is more than a buzzword. AR is an exciting and engaging way for marketers to get in touch with customers. According to a report from Digi-Capital, AR technology is poised to become part of the mainstream significantly faster than previously anticipated. It is projected, for example, that the market for mobile AR will be worth an incredible $108 billion by 2021.”
Operations and Management
Freelancers: Challenges and Solutions, Barbara Weltman/SBE Council. “It’s predicted that the majority of the U.S. workforce will be freelancers by 2027. Freelancers experience challenges that employees do not…As someone who’s essentially been a freelancer for 35 years, here are some of my ideas about these solutions.”
8 Strategies for Regularly Reinventing Your Business, Startup Professionals. “Everyone and every company needs to continually learn from their experience and adapt to a changing world to thrive. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is an old adage that really doesn’t work in today’s business world. If you don’t plan to reinvent yourself regularly, your competitors will make you obsolete, and any success to-date will likely be short-lived.”
7 Ways to Incent Employees to Feel and Act as Owners, Inc. “Owners feel they have skin in the game, and benefit from improved effort and results, rather than just getting blamed for problems. Unfortunately, according to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report, only about one-third of employees feel like owners.”
Educational Resources
SCORE Webinar: 5 Shortcuts to Business Success
February 22, 2018, 1:00 p.m. ET
Imagine running a successful local business with time on your hands. Sounds like a dream, right? It doesn’t have to be. In this webinar, small business author and speaker Barry Moltz will share tips to help you run your business efficiently. You’ll learn how to:
● Select a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system
● Encourage a prospect to respond (when they won’t)
● Use email marketing effectively
● Write emails that get opened
● Create a feasible social media strategy
SCORE Webinar: 5 Tips to Make Your Restaurants Social Media Appetizing
February 20, 2018, 1:00 p.m. ET.
Establishing your restaurant on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will not only give you the opportunity to bring in new customers, but it will also help you strengthen your relationships with current customers.
Join this webinar and learn five tips to make your restaurant’s social media presence more appetizing! In this webinar, you will learn:
● How to post the best food photos on Instagram
● Quick ways to request and share testimonials from your happy customers
● What types of questions to ask on Facebook to spread more word-of-mouth
● What to tweet and retweet
● Effective ways to show appreciation for your team on social media
Distance Learning from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), WIPO. “Want to learn about the basics of intellectual property (IP)? Or expand your knowledge of copyright, patents, trademarks, arbitration, traditional knowledge and IP management? Then our online courses might interest you! Find out more here.”
Startups and Entrepreneurship
How to Come Up With a Brilliant Business Idea, Small Business Daily. “The best business ideas come from your strongest areas of interest, says Ryan Robinson, an entrepreneur and writer who teaches people how to create self-employed careers.
10 Strategies to Isolate Smart Risks in a New Venture, Startup Professionals. “There are no guarantees in business, but it pays to learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs and business experts who have gone before you. As a long-time mentor to entrepreneurs, here is my collection of smart risks that investors and I look for in new startups.”
How to Start an Online Business in 4 Steps, Bplans. “We’ve come a long way since Amazon sold its first book online in 1995. If you’ve been thinking about starting an online business, there are all kinds of opportunities that use a number of different business models.”
Market Intelligence
New Homeowners: Millennials are (Finally) Movin’ On Up, Small Business Daily. “…home ownership is on the rebound—it’s already up to 64.2% today. What’s driving the surge? Millennials, of course….According to the Census Bureau, home ownership for millennials has risen from 34.7% to 36% in a year.”
The Economic Effects of Outdoor Recreation, Bureau of Economic Analysis. “Americans who hit the trails to ski, bike or hike aren’t just working up a sweat; they’re also generating economic activity. Outdoor recreation accounted for 2.0 percent of the U.S. economy, or $373.7 billion, in 2016, according to prototype statistics for the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ newest special account. The outdoor recreation economy grew 3.8 percent in 2016, compared with the overall U.S. economy’s 2.8 percent growth that year, the data show. This is the first time BEA has put numbers to a group of activities that encompasses catching fish, riding horses, flying gliders and more.”
Most of America’s Fastest Growing Companies Aren’t in Tech, Inc. “…more than 70 percent of the most successful entrepreneurial companies are in fields like retail, construction, and government services.”
ITA’s Top Market Report: A Market Assessment Tool for U.S. Exporters, International Trade Administration. “Top Market Series is meant to help exporters determine their next export market by comparing opportunities across border. Each report ranks future export opportunities within a particular industry based on a sector-specific methodology. The report provide a detailed assessment of the competitive landscape within a sector, as well as the opportunities and challenges facing U.S. exporters in key markets.”
Small Business Policy and Legal Issues
U.S. Senate Committee Moving on “Small Business Watchdog” Nominee, SBE Council. “On February 14, the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship hosted a confirmation hearing on the nomination of David C. Tryon as the Chief Counsel for the Office of Advocacy at the U.S. Small Business Administration…The office is a voice for small business, publishes research, and oversees ten regional advocates that work with the small business community across the country.”
The 2018 Policy Agenda for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses, SBE Council. “Still, there is more to be done to make the U.S. more globally competitive for all U.S. businesses and to revitalize the ecosystem for entrepreneurial activity. Transforming the outdated regulatory system, improving capital access, lowering health coverage costs and increasing choice and competition, global market access and intellectual property protection, additional tax code fixes, affordable energy, and ensuring all communities across America have access to quality broadband are some of the key areas for action.”
A Federal Judge has Ruled that an Embedded Tweet is Copyright Infringement, Fast Company. “This is an especially alarming decision, as it goes against over a decade of legal precedent that put the liability on the host of the content, not the person that links to it.”
Personal Improvement and Success
10 Habits that Will Dramatically Improve Your Life, Success. “We have to be very careful in choosing our pursuits, because our habits make us. Cultivating the habits that follow will send you in the right direction. They’ll help you to lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life, whereby you cultivate the best within yourself.”
How to Make a Great First Impression, Small Business Trends. “So how can you ensure people are judging you accurately and also seeing your best side in just a few milliseconds?”
What the Sharks Have Learned After a Decade in the Tank, Success. “The show, produced by MGM Television and Sony Pictures Television, will mark its 200th episode when it begins its 10th season this fall. That’s a special feat, even for generation-defining TV. Consider that Seinfeld ran for 180 episodes, while The Office ended its run with its 201st episode.”