Did you know that small business owners spend one day per week doing paperwork? In fact, according to research by YourTradeBase, more than one out of two small business owners (51%) believe that paperwork is preventing business growth. Interestingly, women business owners spend the most time on administrative paperwork (32% of women business owners spend more than 10 hours … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2015
5 Tips to Prevent Your Website from Falling into a Black Hole of Mediocrity
Not everyone likes writing. Not everyone’s good at writing. But that doesn’t stop gazillions of companies from getting their employees to write their web content, to… er, save money. Often you end up with a hot mess of confused messaging, disjointed copy, and a tone of voice split seven ways to Sunday. And nobody, but no one sticks around when they’re baffled by blah-filled … [Read more...]
Married to Sales – A 10-Step Sales Process
This isn't a piece about how to land your next client. The truth of the matter is, I don't know what you should do to land your next client. I can tell you what I've done, but that may not work for you. I can tell you about a sales process that works, and it just so happens to look a lot like my marriage. It's not perfect, but it works. Surely, you’ve developed a significant … [Read more...]
Rewire or Retire? Gain a Board Seat First
For his whole career John (no, that's not his real name) built an arsenal of achievements that did not end once he became a C-suite executive. His success was noted in a number of ways. He was highly respected, called on to speak at leading industry events, and his advice was sought after in private meetings. He had a strong sense of accomplishment and was happy with how his … [Read more...]
How Etch A Sketch Helps Creativity
Today, with all the tablets, phones, and electronic devices, you might think children have it better than we did growing up. I don’t know about you, but I loved playing with the Etch A Sketch. I made all kinds of designs and spent hours playing with it. What I didn’t realize back then was that I was using my creativity. This “device” was helping me broaden my … [Read more...]
3-Step Check-up to Make Sure Your Social Media Strategy is Working
With the world of commerce in the summer slowdown, now is a good time to perform an audit of how your company’s efforts are performing in reaching out to customers and other audiences on social media. These audits, which a business should do every six months, examine where things are going well in your social media outreach, what you need to do better and what measures are … [Read more...]
Entrepreneurship – Why Gender Is Not an Issue
I am going to be totally frank with you all. I have never entertained the idea that my gender was an issue with regards to how I approached my working life as an entrepreneur---ever. I am using ‘issue’ in the same way I would use ‘matter of contention’ by the way. Similarly, I have never let my nationality, age, height, number of offspring, etc. become an issue in running … [Read more...]
You Have to Get Lost Before You Can Be Found
How I went from having a dead end job and hating my life to successfully launching a company and finding happiness... Have you ever heard the saying, "You have to get lost before you can be found?" Yeah, I thought that was crap too. But that's exactly what happened to me. I was lost. Like… crying in my car, banging my head against the steering wheel, clinging to a fortune … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Sell Your Brand
Building a loyal customer base is absolutely essential for your business if you want to achieve steady sales growth. According to Pew Research, loyal customers on average are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. Your probability of making a sale to an existing customer is 60 to 70 percent compared to 5 to 20 percent probability for selling to a new … [Read more...]
Telecommuting Benefits Employers and Employees
Did you know that telecommuting delivers tangible benefits to both employers and employees? It has been projected that the cost savings of telecommuting would be over $1 trillion per year in the United States if just half of employees with jobs that they could do from home worked remotely for just half the year. According to the data in the infographic shown at the end of … [Read more...]