This week’s roundup of “How To” articles, educational resources and upcoming events, business news and success stories recommended by SBE Council President & CEO Karen Kerrigan.
Startups and Entrepreneurship
Ted Allen’s Awesome Tips for Future Restaurant Owners, Small Business Trends. “He recently shared some of his top tips for young people looking to become the next generation of entrepreneurs and chefs shaping the restaurant industry in an email interview with Small Business Trends. Here are Allen’s top tips for aspiring food entrepreneurs.”
This Startup has a Small Army of Therapists With Laptops, Ready to Help People Anywhere, Inc. “Staffed by a small army of 91 therapists with laptops at the ready, the Springfield, Missouri, company took in roughly $2 million in revenue in 2017. With the exception of raising $250,000 from friends and family, DotCom Therapy is self-funded–and during the first quarter of 2018, it became profitable.”
4 Critical Stages Transform an Idea Into a Business, Startup Professionals. “Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup. Even fewer are able to grow the startup into a viable business.”
Branding, Marketing, and Sales
Don’t Waste Time! 4 Steps to Targeting the Most Important 20% of Your Customers, Small Business Trends. “Do you know the 80/20 rule of retailing? According to BRP Consulting, 80% of a retailer’s sales typically come from 20% of its customers. The key to growing your business is to identify that 20% and get them to buy more from your store. Personalization is the secret…”
SCORE Webinar
Generate More Sales with a Winning Marketing Funnel
May 16, 1:00 p.m. ET
Are you missing out on potential online customers? You need to understand the digital marketing funnel, also known as the customer buying journey, from awareness to conversion.
Deluxe’s Brad Keys will work through the marketing funnel, from the top down, to optimize every step and ensure that you are reaching your potential customers at the right time and place.
You’ll learn tips and strategy at each point in the funnel, including:
● Display advertising, SEO and content marketing
● Facebook and Instagram advertising
● Search (Google AdWords & Bing)
● Retargeting, email remarketing, organic social posts and reviews
Learn more about this webinar or register here.
When to Push and When to Pull With Your Marketing, Entrepreneur. “The old-school approach of ‘push’ marketing works well in the early stages of a business, where you need to get your name out in front of many customers and establish your place in the market. ‘Pull’ marketing normally occurs throughout the life span of an operation, becoming more and more productive as you’re able to leverage your brand and positive word-of-mouth to attract more business.”
The One Strategy Shared by the Top 100 Marketing Brands, Small Biz Daily. “Want to know the key to creating an authentic brand? It’s simpler than you might thing. It’s pairing your brand’s messaging to fit your audience.”
5 Blog Promotion Tactics That Work, Small Biz Daily. “You must have heard how producing content is one the key element of a successful digital marketing strategy and if you are like most people, you are churning out quality content day after day, week after week. But you will quickly discover that writing good content is just one half of the equation.”
Use These Powerful Psychology Strategies to Choose Fonts for Your Business, CrowdSpring. “Choosing the right font is a great way to immediately reward your customers with a feel-good visual experience. Your font choice can have a major impact on the bottom line for your small business, so make sure you choose well.”
Operations and Management
The New Tax Rules and Your Small Business (podcast), SBE Council on Forbes Books Radio with Barbara Weltman. Barbara talks about how she helps small businesses for free, and covers what’s in the new tax bill (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) and how it impacts the self-employed and small businesses.
GDPR: Should Your Worry? What Small Businesses Need to Know, Small Business Trends. “The GDPR deadline is on May 25, 2018, and when it is fully implemented it will provide a single set of rules for data processing in the EU. For anyone doing business in the EU and its citizens around the world, it means you have to follow the rules. Failing to do so will result in some heavy fines.”
Fraud in Your Workplace and How to Prevent It, Barbara Weltman/SBE Council. “Inventory is short, money is missing from the till, or you’re reimbursing an employee for bogus T&E costs. These are all examples of employee fraud. It’s probably not a question of whether you experience it but rather how much employee fraud is costing your business.”
Keeping Your Business Safe From Cyber Attacks (video), SAP Small Business/Growth Matters Network. Did you know 60 percent of hacked small and medium-sized businesses go out of business after six months? Don’t be one of them. Protect your small business. SBE Council president & CEO Karen Kerrigan and Entrepreneur-in-Residence Kristie Arslan provide key tips and practical advice in this video.
Old Digital Photocopiers are an Identify Thief’s Dream, Fast Company. “That’s because most digital photocopies used by businesses have internal hard drives that save scans of every copy made. Yet when a business gets rid of the copier, they rarely ever wipe the machine’s internal hard drives. This means the next person that acquires that copier–or just gets access to its hard drive, can potentially clean an untold amount of sensitive documents and other information, reports CBS News.”
6 Steps for Assessing the Financial Health of Your Small Business (blog post and video), SBE Council/Growth Matters Network. “As a business owner, it is easy to get mired down in the day to day operations of managing your business. However, the more information you have about your bottom line, the better you will be able to make spending and staffing decisions as well as plan for growth. Set aside some time every month to assess the financial health of your business. Here is a list of key items you should review.”
3 Tips on Hiring Your First Remote Employee, Small Biz Daily. “While there are many benefits associated with hiring a remote worker, there are also challenges. This includes communication barriers, monitoring work activities, measuring performance and more. Hiring the right individual can potentially reduce or even eliminate some of these challenges associated with remote working.”
Success and Inspiration
How Instagram Helped Former NFL Football Player Tobias Dorzon Find Six-Figure Success as a Personal Chef, CNBC. “Trading in his cleats for a chef’s coat seemed like a natural transition for the young athlete, but Dorzon admits that his first year as a full-time chef proved to be a difficult one financially.”
Small Change: The Crowdfunding Site That’s Making Neighborhoods Better Places to Live, Locavesting. “Eve Picker is an architect, city planner, urban designer and real estate developer, among other accomplishments. Her passion for community development and smart, sustainable design led her in 2016 to found Small Change, a Pittsburgh-based real estate crowdfunding site. We caught up with Eve recently to discuss financing transformational projects—such as affordable starter homes built on odd lots, like the one pictured above in New Orleans—and the next wave of commercial real estate crowdfunding.”
5 Key Successes Will Sustain Entrepreneur Inspiration, Startup Professionals. “For success under in this challenging and stressful environment, it’s important to recognize every small element of success to keep your inspiration alive. Here are five key ones to celebrate.”
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