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Confusion Doesn’t Look Good On You: Profile Your Way To Clarity
Dec 31st
If confusion and overwhelm was an outfit, I would tell you to take it off, because it doesn’t look good on you. If it’s old, worn out and faded, then let it go.
What you wear should enhance what you have instead of playing up your weakness. In fashion, the goal is to wear what looks good on you. I’m saying clarity and balance looks good, so wear it well and wear it often. But how?
In “What Not to Do: The Most Important Decision You’ll Make,” John Mariotti says, “Refocus your time, talent and money on the important things, the big things, that will make a difference.” Sometimes that’s easier said than done, but here are two things worth your time—profiling your profitable passions and your ideal customers.
The goal is to understand your passion and your customers.
Profile your profitable passions
What do you want to do and can it pay for your lifestyle?
Ivana Taylor shows you how to find your passion and turn it into a profitable business. But it takes effort. You not only need to discover what you are interested in, but you must also find the market who would buy the product or service and the language that would get their attention, using tools like Google, eBay and Amazon.
And after you find the right niche, then it’s time to put more effort into clearly identifying your clients.
Profile your ideal customers
Who do you serve, what do you they want, where are they now and how do you reach them?
The last three questions become much easier to answer when you figure out the first one.
Ivana says:
“When you narrow your message…to a group who values what you are selling, then the rest of your marketing system becomes obvious and easy to implement.”
I spent a lot of time confused and it didn’t look good (or feel good) on me either. To profile my target client I used 3 of the 8 creative ways to profile ideal customers that Ivana mentions—complaints, Web traffic and character descriptions.
Understanding what my clients complain about and the types of people visiting my site based on my Alexa.com profile made it easier to create a character sketch of my target audience. And when you understand what your target audience looks like, then you can figure out where they shop, what they read, where they go to have fun, etc. All that knowledge creates opportunities to meet, market and serve them.
Now that’s a good use of time. Get clear and then get busy.
Confusion Photo via Shutterstock
Confusion Doesn’t Look Good On You: Profile Your Way To Clarity
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
An Inside Look At The Business Behind Cyber Monday
Nov 28th
In 2010, 88% of online retailers participated in Cyber Monday, and the event only looks to be gaining more steam. This infographic breaks down the rapid growth of one of the biggest shopping days of the year and explores the retailers’ behind-the-scenes attempts to keep up with the increasing customer volume.
Cyber Monday is growing by leaps and bounds every year as people realize that it is far easier to make a purchase online than it is to wait outside a store at 3 am. We can expect to see even more buyers participating in 2011, with sales going higher than ever.
Source: Modis – IT Staffing Agency
View full post on Business Pundit
What Future Entrepreneurs Will Look Like
Nov 22nd
While Sasha and Malia Obama haven’t publicly announced that they plan to start businesses, they share something in common with the kids most likely to have such plans: They’re African-American.
According to a Gallup poll of a representative sample of 1,721 children in fifth through twelfth grade conducted this Spring, African-American kids were significantly more likely than White kids to report that they plan to start a business. While 39 percent of White children said they plan to start a business, 52 percent of African-American kids reported this intention.
These numbers are interesting because they are so different from current adult self-employment rates. According to a recent study by Steve Hipple of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, African-Americans had lower incorporated and unincorporated self-employment rates than Whites. For unincorporated self-employment the rates were 7.4 percent for Whites and 4.5 percent for African-Americans. For incorporated self-employment, the rates were 4.2 percent for Whites and 1.5 percent for African-Americans.
Does the divergence between children’s plans and adult actions represent a generational shift in attitudes toward entrepreneurship among children of different races? Or does it demonstrate the greater obstacles that African-Americans face in achieving their entrepreneurial ambitions? I don’t know.
What do you think?
Source: Created from data from Gallup-Hope Index 2011
Image from Paul Frederiksen/Shutterstock
What Future Entrepreneurs Will Look Like
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Game Tester Guide – Brand New Look! #1 Game Testing Site In Cb!
Nov 16th
Earn $24.38 Per Sale… Plus A Chance To Earn An Additional $10.47 With Our High Converting Upsell… Amazing Conversion With The New Design! Make Awesome Money Promoting This Great Product…
Game Tester Guide – Brand New Look! #1 Game Testing Site In Cb!
Kegel Magic – Converts 1 in 15 – Look! – Easy Money! – 75% Of $34.99
Jul 16th
Kegel Magic is going to shoot to the top of the heath niche fast. Promote now and make easy money in an evergreen niche. How to tighten love muscles and vagina – thousands of searches and very low PPC cost! Give it a try and make easy money!
Kegel Magic – Converts 1 in 15 – Look! – Easy Money! – 75% Of $34.99
Make Me Grow Taller – Big Prizes Up For Grabs – Look! – 1 in 15 Buy!
Jul 4th
Promote Make Me Grow Taller.com and make a whopping 75% of $44.95 for every sale! Converts at 1 in 15 on Google Adwords and is an excellent, evergreen, hungry niche! Easy money as an affiliate and as big as Forex Turbo, or CB code! Full Coaching!
Make Me Grow Taller – Big Prizes Up For Grabs – Look! – 1 in 15 Buy!
What to Look for Today in Online Invoicing Apps
May 17th
Back in January 2010, we gave you a list of 30 Online Invoicing Apps for Small Business. We got lots of emails and comments. Since then, readers like you have pointed out invoicing apps we missed. So we thought we’d add some new players, and take another look at the market.
The first thing we did was add an additional 20 online invoicing software apps to the list, and renamed the post to: 50 Online Invoicing Apps for Small Business.
The second thing we did: we reviewed the market as a whole to see what’s changed and what’s new. We discovered that the online invoicing market has evolved and is starting to “grow up.” One change in online invoicing and billing solutions from 17 months ago is that back then, most solutions were pretty broad (or marketed that way, at least). Their websites simply offered a Web-based solution for the small business owner, no matter what type of company. Now, there are more niche offerings specifically for certain industries. For example, you’ll see Time59, which focuses on the solo attorney market. Or there’s Zencillo, which offers a product for Spanish-speaking business owners.
Other things have evolved over the past 17 months, too:
- MOBILE — Almost all vendors have dialed in to the mobile market. Most offer iOS and Android solutions to complement their Web-based product. Apparently they are banking on the fact that small business owners operate on the go, and increasingly use mobile devices not just as phones but to conduct business transactions.
- FREE VS SUBSCRIPTION – Large or well-funded vendors may offer a completely free solution as a way to pull you into other products they offer. Free is a positive — but shouldn’t be the main deciding factor. Some of the most exciting features and time-savers come from the smaller vendors. Also, the smaller vendors tend to be the ones offering tailored solutions to specific industries or types of businesses.
- DASHBOARD INTELLIGENCE – More analytics tools and dashboards are available to help you determine how your cash is flowing. Now you can expect your invoicing tool to do more than just handle invoicing transactions well. Now the bar is higher. Look for an invoicing tool that gives you both: transactional capability AND intelligence.
- VIDEO TO “SHOW” YOU – Marketing, support and training sections of their websites are using more video. This strikes us here at Small Business Trends as a great use of video. A video can convey much more information than words when it comes to showing people what the software is like and how to use it.
- MORE TESTIMONIALS — More credible testimonials appear on all of the sites, including the original 30. This in part is a reflection of the fact that many of these apps now have more of a track record 17 months later. That’s a good thing. We suggest looking closely at the type of business giving the testimonial. That may give you some clues as what type of industry or size of business the product is best suited for.
- PROMINENT PRICING — Almost all vendors, at least the truly savvy, list their prices prominently so you can easily answer the most important question: Can I afford this? Business owners are time-pressed. Many of us are shopping for online software after hours and on weekends or holidays. And time is money for many of us in the small business world. So look for a vendor that makes it easy for you to make a choice online, without needing to contact them for additional information.
On each of the earlier 30 reviewed, I visited each site again to confirm mostly if pricing was the same or different. If there were any significant changes, the short summary has been edited to reflect the new information. In a couple of cases, companies went out of business or sold and are not currently available. Fortunately, most of the original 30 are still doing well and keeping up with customer demand.
Visit the full post, “50 Online Invoicing Apps for Small Businesses,” and please feel free to share your comments, thoughts and recommendations.
What to Look for Today in Online Invoicing Apps
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
3 Ways to Look at Marketing
May 2nd
After reading “Is Any Publicity Good Publicity?” by John Mariotti, I started thinking (and rethinking) about marketing. John says the “news media spreads stories in a blink of an eye,” but if messages are so easy to spread, why do small business owners seem to struggle with marketing?
Could it be our mindset? Even though effective marketing is as fundamental to our businesses as the quality of the product or service that we provide, we small business owners have a tendency to put marketing on the back burner. Below are 3 ways to look at marketing to help us shift our mindset.
1. Safe Marketing
Some of us think of safe marketing as “I’ll just market a little bit.” So you toss an ad in the local paper and the Yellow Pages. You pass out some business cards, tell a few friends, hand out some flyers and call it day. You feel kind of good because you did something and didn’t waste your money (hopefully). But it’s the cost of effective marketing that saves your business (and by cost I mean the time it takes to strategize. Hit-and-miss-marketing isn’t good for business in the long run). In my opinion, the only safe marketing is relevant marketing.
2. Relevant Marketing
Does anybody care about what you are talking about? Does it matter to your target market?
What do your customers care about?
Communicating a message that nobody cares about is the worst feeling in the world—and it’s bad for business. A quick way to get started in the right direction is to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around you. Find the events that your target customers care about or would care about if they knew about them. What are the holidays, tournaments and major events that affect them? Discover this, and then plan your marketing around helping your clients and prospects celebrate, acknowledge or participate in that event.
Where are your people?
Relevant marketing also demands that you know where your people (target market) are. Is your target market reading the Yellow Pages? If they are, then buy that ad. Or do they go to Google to search addresses and phone numbers? If they go to the Web for local information, then get into the online directories. Choose to be relevant with your marketing. Talk about what your target customers care about and make sure your information is listed in the key places that they naturally go to.
In “How Objections to Social Media Are Killing Your Business,” Ivana Taylor says that “one of the most common objections to social media is that it’s a fad–here today, gone tomorrow.” But, if it’s here right now and relevant to your target audience, then use it to your advantage, and connect. Social media is not not the only tool in your marketing mix, but it’s one of them. Come up with a strategy and get started. The cool thing about being a small business owner is if it’s not working, you can tweak it quickly.
In “7 Facebook Contest Ideas for Small Business,” Janet Thaeler gives some great ideas to help you use contests to grow your Facebook page, including “tie your contest into current events.”
3. Consistent Marketing
When I say consistent, I don’t mean doing the same old boring things over and over again. I mean that your marketing strategy is consistently applied. You must consistently take the time (at least quarterly) to evaluate and reevaluate what you are doing and how effective it is. Do more of what works — because it works, not because you have always done it.
Effective marketing is strategic and it takes a lot of effort upfront – but it pays for itself on the back end.
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
What Apple Water Would Look Like
Mar 4th
Blame It On The Voices illustrates what happens when you sic Apple copywriters on a bottle of water:
View full post on Business Pundit
One way to look at the internet, mobile, web and tablets
Jan 18th
It might be about the size of the screen and whether or not you’re standing up.
Start at the bottom. For the first five years of the Internet, the most used function was email. Email remains a bedrock of every device and system that’s been built on top of the internet, though sometimes it looks like a text message or a mobile check in. This is the layer for asynchronous person to person connection, over time.
Moving from left to right, we see how the way we use the thing we call the internet has evolved over time. We also see how devices and technology and bandwidth have changed the uses of the net and, interestingly, how a growth in mass has led to a growth in self-motivated behavior.
Early online projects were things like Archie and Veronica and checking in changes to the Linux code base. You needed patience, a big screen and a sense of contribution.
Layer on top of this a practice that is getting ever more professional, which is creating content for others to consume. Sometimes in groups, sometimes using sophisticated software and talented cohorts.
As we move to the right (and through time) we see the birth of online shopping. Still to this day, most online shopping happens on traditional devices, often sitting down.
The sitting down part is not a silly aside. Ted Leonsis theorized twenty years ago that the giant difference between TV and the internet was how far you sat from the screen. TV was an 8 foot activity, and you were a consumer. The internet was a 16 inch activity, and you participated. I think the sitting down thing is similar. You’re not going to buy an armoir while standing on the subway.
Moving over in time and device and intent, we see the idea of consuming content. While tablets get their share of shopping, this is where they really shine. I think 2011 is going to be the year of the tablet, from the Kindle to the iPad to the thing we used to call a phone.
It’s in the last two categories that these other devices, things that don’t involve sitting down, are superior, not just a mobile substitute. The social graph is a very low bandwidth, peripheral attention interaction, perfect for this audience and this medium. And the last category–tell me where I am, where to eat, who’s near me, what’s the weather, get me a cab right now–is all about me and now and here.
I don’t believe this is a winner take all situation, any more than one bestselling book makes all other books obsolete. I think different pillars work for different devices, and there will continue to be winners in all of them.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
