Home Wealth Project
Extensive Research On How To Build Wealth From The Comfort Of Your Own Home.
Easy Kids Halloween Crafts
Mar 21st
Kids Halloween Crafts Ideas And Instructions. Ideal For School Or Home. Kids, Parents And Teachers Will Love These Simple But Effective Ideas. Make All Of Your Own Halloween Decorations For Home Or For The Classroom.
Easy Kids Halloween Crafts
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Mar 19th
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5 Easy Ways to Increase YOU on Your Web site
Mar 14th
Your customers are obsessed with social media. They’ve discovered that it’s through social media that they can get to know more about your brand. They’re able to peek behind the curtain and see what you believe in, what your team looks like, and if you’re passionate about the same types of things they are. And believe it or not, it matters. We want to do business with companies we believe in, who believe like we do. But no one knows what you believe in until you take the time to show them.
How can you increase the “you” on your Web site to bring people in? Below are six easy wins.
1. Talk About How You Do Business
Sure, you need to talk about what you do and how customers can benefit from it. But spend more time talking about how you do business and why you do it that way. That’s what’s going to set you apart from your competition. Because oftentimes you’re not competing on price. You’re competing on your level of service, on your trustworthiness, on your values, on your culture, on what you believe in, and the story you’re telling. This is what you need to show off to help you put more “you” in your business. This is the information people want to hear.
2. Focus On Your About Page
I know. I’ve written about your About Page a couple of times here at SmallBizTrends. Your About Page has the distinct honor of being both one of the most important pages on your Web site and one of the most ignored. Instead of using this area as a place to tell the story of our brand, we use it as our personal Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, not too many customers are interested in the unabridged version of your life.
Instead, use your About Page for more interesting purposes:
- Tell a story about your company that draws people in and gets them excited.
- Post pictures of you and your team through various times in the business’ history. [Bonus points for embarrassing haircuts.]
- Include videos of yourself and your employees talking about what you’re passionate about.
- Show pictures of what your business looks like on the inside. Let Google help you.
- Include links to the company’s social media profiles and the profiles of key personnel.
Use the page to show your personality, your company culture, and what you believe in. That’s what a user is looking for when they visit your page. Not your biography.
3. Show Off Your Assets
See this woman?
She doesn’t work for your company. She doesn’t work for anyone’s company. So stop using generic images to show off your staff, your building, and your customers. Instead, show off real people and places. The benefit of this is two-fold.
First, you give yourself more interesting images to work with. Your customers are bound to be more colorful than the faces of people you can buy on the Internet – let them shine. Maybe even leave a cheap camera lying around and encourage customers to take their own photos. Get images for your site and create a photo wall in your store. Two birds with one stone and you get to make customers feel more invested and more part of your business.
The second thing this is going to do is attract prospective customers. When we’re looking for information, we don’t want to see stock images. We want to see what your business really looks like. This helps us find it when we’re lost, but it also gives us a sense of what it’s going to feel like when we walk through your doors. Having this information up front puts any customer at ease.
4. Adopt Video
Create a video that shows off your business, your employees and what company culture is like. Once you have it, put it on your Web site and encourage your customers to share. Facebook it. Tweet it. Stumble it. Include it in company newsletters. Do your best to get it out there and to let people see what everything looks like behind the scenes. Video creates a more intimate experience between you and your customer. They’re able to see you and to hear you and make note of your mannerisms. Break down that wall with them.
5. Show Social Conversations
Working hard to build your Twitter following and engage with customers? Awesome! So don’t hide it! Put your feed directly on your home page and let people see and hear these conversations in real time.
Use Facebook plugins to show off the size and depth of your community. Embed company YouTube videos on your Web site. Link off to your favorite Pinterest boards even if they’re not related to what you do every day on your Web site.
Show your social conversations and add your voice to your Web site in new and dynamic ways. Your home page copy can only do so much. Giving a user the opportunity to see you having a conversation with real customers does a heck of a lot more.
If social media has led us on to anything it’s that our customers want more of us on your Web site. They want to see you and hear from you. By adopting some of the tactics above you’ll highlight the “you” in your brand.
5 Easy Ways to Increase YOU on Your Web site
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
It’s So Easy To Get Lost In The Details But Don’t Quit
Mar 10th
When you’re working to build a business, it seems like the first hurdle is to get going. Just like track runners, you do an extensive amount of work to get you to the starting line.
Your pre-season training and practice includes all those early steps like:
- market research to see who needs and wants what you have
- strategy planning to lay out a simple roadmap for the business and
- office set up to have an efficient and inspiring place to work
All this effort just to “open your doors.” It was exciting at first, but now the details overwhelm you.
Keep Going
Make a simple choice to keep moving forward no matter what. To help you do this Susan L. Reid in “Are You Getting In The Way Of Your Startup Success?” suggests that you keep your mind together and yourself inspired by breaking “down your to-do list into small, bite-size segments that leave you feeling energized and successful.”
Instead of looking at that big master list that you need to finish, take a small piece of it and put it on your list for the day. Replace “launch my new website” with “write my front page copy” and “post my headshot.” Simple consistent steps will get you there.
Get Help
In “How To Build A Virtual Marketing Team” Ivana Taylor suggests that you get help. Instead of doing it all yourself you can build a virtual team to implement different aspects of your project. But she makes on important point:
“Working with virtual teams forces you to create very detailed work instructions.”
To make the most of this team, you have to get very clear about what you want from them.
Get Clear
Virtual teams make you redefine how you have a meeting. In addition to using technology to hold one on one or group meetings when necessary, you have to get to the point quickly — your virtual team may bill by the hour, so you don’t want to waste the time. In “Why Meetings Are A Waste Of Time And How To Run Them More Efficiently” John Mariotti says meetings should be “no longer than they need to last.”
You meet to train, inform, brainstorm. And the type of meeting and purpose for it will help you determine the time frame. Whether it’s the mindset, the marketing or the meetings, just keep it moving toward your goal, you’ll get there.
“Failure will never overtake you, if your determination to succeed is strong enough.” ~ Og Mandino, Author of The Greatest Salesman in the World
Starting Line Photo via Shutterstock
It’s So Easy To Get Lost In The Details But Don’t Quit
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Easy Panini Recipes
Feb 6th
Panini Are A Hot Market! Easy Panini Recipes Is A Step-by-step Recipe Book With Over 50 Panini Recipes Including Quick Sauces And Panini Making Tips.
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Feb 4th
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5 Easy Ways to Stay on Top of Your Accounting
Jan 26th
Failing to keep good financial records is like driving a sports car at top speed with your eyes closed. It may be ok for a little while, but eventually you will crash and burn. Perhaps one of your new year’s resolutions is to keep better financial records for your business. You may have pledged to finally tame the paper beast lurking in your office, or at least find your desk under all those receipts. But there’s one small problem.
You think the only way to achieve these goals is a painful one.
In fact, you believe that walking on broken glass would hurt less than “doing the books” on a regular basis. Fear not! Here are 5 easy ways for you to stay on top of your bookkeeping in 2012:
1. Make Friends with Technology
There are cost effective ways to make collecting and recording your business expenses easy. This is not a myth. I will not be suggesting you consult the Loch Ness Monster in the next bullet.
Despite being a finance geek I absolutely hate tracking expenses. Then one day I discovered Shoeboxed and the world became a brighter place. Shoeboxed will convert expenses into an organized data file. No more typing in paper receipts!
The best part is that you can submit expenses just about any way you want short of carrier pigeon. Electronic receipts can be emailed, scanned copies of receipts can be uploaded for processing, and hard copy receipts can be submitted in the postage paid envelopes supplied.
Other easy and cost conscious options you may wish to consider are; Concur, Expensable, Keebo (UK Based), and Neat.
2. Call In Reinforcements
Would you pay someone $100 to keep from being in a head on collision at 70 mph? How about $200? $1,000? In fact it is hard to give an upper limit because you know the effects of a head-on collision would be devastating, potentially fatal.
Wouldn’t you pay to save your business from a similar fate?
Technology alone may not be enough to conquer your accounting needs this year. A great solution that is easy on the budget is a bookkeeper. Shop around for a reputable one who will strive to stay within your budget and provide regular reporting on key metrics.
3. Visual Reminders to Open Your Eyes
Select a picture or graphic that reminds you of the consequences if you fail to follow through. Then select a graphic that depicts the benefits of success. My first picture would be a Pinto driving off a bridge, and the second would be a Porsche 911 Turbo convertible cruising down the Autobahn.
Put these on a page, print it, out and hang it on your wall.
4. Make Falling Off the Wagon Hurt
Keeping resolutions is hard. Creating new habits is hard. Only 19% of people who make resolutions actually keep them. Clearly positive reinforcement alone will not work.
Every month you fail to keep your commitment do the following. Get a one dollar bill from your wallet and say out loud, “I’m simply throwing money away.” Then tear up that bill and throw away the pieces. Need a bit more drama? Burn it instead.
If the $1 bill doesn’t make you wince, try a $5, $10, or even $100 bill. By not tracking your financials you are actually throwing away far more money than you destroy in this exercise. In fact, you may be about to drive your business right off a cliff and not even know it.
5. Be Publicly Accountable
While peer pressure was the bane of your existence in high school, now it can be a very effective tool. Declare your bookkeeping intentions. Not just to your Mom, your golf buddy or your dog. Declare it on your blog, this blog, or some other painstakingly public forum.
In your public declaration include a commitment to provide monthly or quarterly updates on your progress. Failure to post an update will cause people to assume that you didn’t follow through. Who wants that verdict in the court of public opinion?
Final Thoughts
Which of these ideas will work for you? Do you have another tip or trick that can help people tame the bookkeeping beast? I really will come back and check for updates in the comment section.
Porsch Photo via Shutterstock
5 Easy Ways to Stay on Top of Your Accounting
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
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Jan 13th
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Jan 12th
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Easy Language Systems: Spanish! Worlds Fastest And Easiest Method…
