Home Wealth Project

Social media is coming into its own as a tool for networking and marketing in small business and larger brands a like. Beginning with blogs and moving into the rapidly expanding worlds of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more there is a lot to learn AND a lot to be gained, so log on and enjoy!

Basic Tips

First, avoid these social media mistakes. Before you even get started plunging into the world of social media, it’s probably not a bad idea to look at some of the things you shouldn’t be doing. Make no mistake, there are major errors that will cause this fantastic tool called social media not to work effectively, or, worse yet, do more harm than good. Have a look. Bloggertone

Seven great sources of blog inspiration. Yea, we know. That blog content can be hard to come by, not just finding the time to write but just finding all the ideas needed to churn out a decent post day after day. But never fear. Even the greatest writers in history had dry spells. Here are some places to look when you hit yours. Sociatic

Dos and Don’ts

Using Twitter for business: Q&A with Cindy King. Editor of Social Media Examiner Cindy King fields key questions in this live online question and answer session held via Facebook earlier in the week. The session was perserved in transcript form for all to enjoy. (Thanks to Niall Devitt for making it all happen.) Follow along to see if your burning Twitter question is answered. Social Media Ireland.

How not to spam friends on Facebook. Mistreating your friends in social media is no different than mistreating them in the real world. If you do it too often, you may soon find you don’t have friends anymore. This can be disastrous for your online brand and business of course. But with social media so new, how can you be sure you are not accidentally making these mistakes? We’re so glad you asked. Social Media Virtual Assistant

Customer Service

Feeding your customers with social media. A very small part of networking and social media is actually getting your community’s attention. A much bigger part is keeping it. But what is the trick to getting and keeping a community loyal and slowly turning them into customers? It all comes down to what you give them and whether it leaves them wanting more. BizSugar Blog

Social Media SEO

How does social media drive Search Engine Optimization? How much do Twitter, Facebook and the rest affect your Website’s standing with the major search engines? The question continues to be asked among Internet marketers but a statement recently from Google has caused even more speculation. Here’s one analysis of what social media really means to SEO. SiteStream

Content Basics

Stop writing boring blog posts! Seriously. Stop assuming your blog posts are boring because of the subject matter. There’s probably a much better reason and it’s you. Here’s an unsettling look at what’s really wrong with your social media content and some advice and how you can go about fixing it. Business 2 Community

How to be a bit more discerning. When was the last time you started a blog post and then decided to change course in mid-post completely abandoning what you were working on for something you think is better? Or when was the last time you finished a blog post completely, looked it over and ended up pushing “delete” instead of “publish.” If you haven’t done either of these things recently, maybe that’s what’s wrong with your content. And it’s got to change. Blogging Bookshelf

How to deliver on Twitter or any other social media platform! Though Jason Kienbaum may have assembled a great list of tips here for how to handle your Twitter account, it seems to us that his suggestions will work well on just about any other social media platform too. We hope you agree and that you will join us in checking out and implementing Jason’s great tips for socializing online today. Business Done Now

It may be one of the most powerful social media tools of them all. But with all the publicity lavished on Facebook and Twitter, you might not think of LinkedIn immediately when mapping out your social media campaign. But while the site that evolved from an online Rolodex into a huge business networking community may not be as flashy as some of its rivals, it has some important features that cannot be ignored. RhinoSEO

Small Business News: New Social Media Rules

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Want to Franchise a Business? 5 Sacred Rules to Become the Next Great Franchise

Jan 20th

I’ve recently been engaged to help sell a very successful national franchise company and been able to observe firsthand many reasons why a franchise company grows to $10 million in sales through 600 nationwide locations. Last year I also worked on the other end of the spectrum, helping two business owners locate the necessary capital and expertise to begin the journey of becoming the next great franchise company.

These two experiences have helped deepen my understanding of the five Sacred Rules that distinguish great franchise opportunities. I offer them here, in case you are considering converting your business into a franchise company.

Rule #1: Make your partners profitable.
This first rule sounds easy, but it often gets obscured by the economic pressures you will begin to feel preparing your financial projections. First and foremost, your concept must allow your franchisees to make a significant profit. The more the better.

Yes, a unique, exciting concept is helpful in attracting attention and selling franchises, but the business process and procedures, both operations and marketing, must give your future business partners (franchisees) the opportunity to be successful financially. The more successful they can be, the more successful your franchise company will become. If you maintain focus on this rule, many of your other challenges will become much smaller.

Rule #2: Have a great answer for the question, “What have you done for me lately?”
Creating ongoing value is critical for a successful franchise relationship. Once you have trained your franchisees and helped them establish their businesses, the value the franchisor contributes to their future success will diminish with time, at least conceptually. Are your recipes unique and always changing? Does your scheduling system make your franchisees more efficient and profitable? Is your marketing process effective and inexpensive? Is your budgeting software critical to profitable projects? Does your real estate department help find great locations? These and other questions are ones franchisees will ask.

While a strong franchise agreement will protect the franchisor, the objective is to create a win-win relationship, and to continually innovate to make your business, service, marketing and products better.

Rule #3: Quit or hire.
Keep in mind you are embarking on an entirely new business endeavor in which you have no practical experience: franchising. You are no longer running your business and training others how to do the same; you are the CEO of what you hope will become a successful national franchise company.

I’ve seen many companies fail and wind up entangled in the legal system because they never make the full commitment to their franchise company. Hiring a franchise development company to create marketing and sales documents and prepare your Federal Disclosure Document is enough to help you sell a couple of franchisees. But if you want to become a meaningful and successful company, you have to support your earliest partners and make sure they are successful.

Christian Faulconer, CEO of Franchise Foundry, offers some good advice here: Remember, if you decide to build a franchise system around your successful business, it’s like starting a second business. Selling your products or services to your customers will still require significant time and effort, but now you also have to find time to build the franchising infrastructure and market and sell your franchise opportunity. It can seem like you are running two separate businesses, and the demands can become overwhelming without the right partners.

Keeping your current full-time job as president of your business and then working in your startup franchise company almost never works out. Consultants don’t cut it, either. Make a commitment and either quit your job as president or hire someone to run the franchise business, but recognize you probably cannot be successful at both jobs at the same time.

Rule #4: Raise capital.
There are two reasons for this sacred requirement. First, it is a great reality check and screening mechanism. When you begin to talk with others, friends, customers and especially franchise consultants, you’ll hear only positive feedback. If you want to really hear the truth, ask for a check.

Consultants will tell you the idea is a sure success because they have a hammer and you are the nail. Friends want to support you and it is always easier to praise and encourage than provide constructive feedback. Your customers already love your service, so they are not the best ones to offer feedback on the viability of national expansion.

Kert Gennings is the COO of Boardwalk Fresh Burgers and Fries and has grown two large food-service franchise companies. He offers this thought: “Preparing a formal business plan for converting your company into a franchise company is a very enlightening exercise as it will help you crystallize your thinking. Once complete, use that document to raise the money you will surely need to have a fair chance at success. If you cannot raise the money, listen to what the marketplace is telling you. Not that you have a bad business, but that perhaps it is not ready for national expansion.”

Secondly, you will need the money you raise to help with marketing, sales, franchise support, registration in states that require it, and hiring a person to help run your old or new business (see point 3).

Rule #5: You must have a great selling process (selling is service and vice-versa).
You must have a process to sell your franchise to people you do not know. Ninety-five percent of your customers who tell you they are interested in becoming a franchisee will never write you a check. And even if all of them do, it is not enough to create a viable business. You need to sell to people you do not know. All successful sales are the natural outcome of a successful process. If you want a great example of an automated process, you can visit Process Peak.

Keep in mind, your initial franchisees will be early adopter personalities, risk takers. They will become franchisees because they like ground-floor opportunities and are easier to sell based on a concept and an opportunity. However, when you update your FDD, you are required to list your current franchisees (with contact info). Those people will become a critical part of your sales process weather you like it or not. The key to your long term-success is how happy you make those early franchisees, and if you are cutting corners to save money or because you are not committed to the idea of franchising your business, their negative comments to prospective franchisees will really hurt future sales.

Keep in mind that franchising is a heavily regulated industry. The IFA has developed a process for selling franchises called FranGuard. Your sales team should be familiar with that process and the steps you need to take to protect your system as you sell franchises.

Becoming the next great American franchise is a worthy goal, but there are many challenges along the way. Make sure you’ve done all of your research and identify partners who are truly vested in your future success.

Want to Franchise a Business? 5 Sacred Rules to Become the Next Great Franchise

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10 Old New Rules for Business Emails

Jan 11th

What do you think: Are we all underestimating the importance of email? Maybe because it gets lost in spam, or because of alternative channels in twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook? A smart person reminded me recently that email is the backbone of social media. And in a recent post on business etiquette in the American Express OPEN Forum, small business expert Steve Strauss wrote:

Email is now the dominant form of business communication and should be treated as such. Some uniform policies help everyone stay on track.

I say that even with the “e” in front of it, it’s still mail. It is your business communication. It’s not just sales. And our being immersed in quick-and-careless text communications doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay attention to our own emails. And if you’re going to do it – and face it, you are – do it right. I think my list here is nothing we don’t all already know, but we may need the reminders. I hope this helps:

1. Keep it short. We’re all busy. Most of us are skimming our emails, looking for the key points, and trying to get in and out of them quickly. I’ve never written anything that wasn’t more useful when cut to half its length.

2. Make the subject line a summary. This one seems obvious, but scan your own emails and you’ll find most of the subject lines are haphazard at best. We have threads that grow like snowballs attached to the subject of the first message, a subject that has long since been changed. We have come-on subjects like headlines, trying to trick us into reading further. Don’t sound like a spammer. Describe your message in your subject line.

3. Start and end with “you.” This is one of the fundamentals of business letter writing: Address your reader’s self interest. Start your first paragraph with the word “You” and include something like “you asked me…” or “you wanted… ” or “you mentioned” or “you need.” Start your last paragraph with “you” again and stress what your reader will get out of doing whatever it is that you’re asking.

4. Only one topic per message. You’ll find your actual results of emails go way up when you break your emails into a single message for each topic. Those additional messages you’d like to include are much more likely to get lost. Break the messages up.

5. Use appropriate tone. Be careful and be correct with tone. Sarcasm, parody, and irony are hard to put into cold hard black and white text. Tones are very easily misunderstood. Don’t ever write an email that could be misinterpreted and forwarded on to somebody out of context. Never write an email that would be embarrassing if quoted.

6. Don’t send extra copies. It’s a message, not an archive or a vault. We all hate those cover-your-backside extra copies going all over email to anybody who might vaguely someday accuse you of not having sent something, or handled something, or followed up. Send your email to the people it’s intended for, and nobody else.

7. Respect spelling and grammar. Use a spellchecker at least, but recognize as you do that spellcheckers don’t catch a lot of glaringly bad errors. Using “there” for “their,” for example, or the very common confusion of apostrophes and plural, as if every plural word needed an apostrophe. Try this google search or my personal favorite, 10 common misspellings at oatmeal.com. These errors to do your communications what a big piece of spinach caught in your teeth does to your smile.

8. Remember it’s not private. Your company email belongs to the company, and your personal email can get called up in court. People who want to and know how can snoop in email. Never write in email anything that is embarrassing to you or your recipient, inappropriate, bigoted, illegal, or stupid.

9. Email isn’t for arguments. Angry words are not biodegradable. Never argue in email. Walk down the hall or get on the phone. I’ve learned this myself the hard way, thinking my brilliant use of the English language could somehow make a point better than I could with old-fashioned talk. It never does. Email almost never wins a point or stops an argument. It almost always makes things worse, not better.

10. Mind those threads. Most of our email software builds long emails like kids build snowballs rolling downhill. Each new email is gathered up below in the thread. Is there anybody out there who hasn’t at least once realized in dismay, too late, that you’ve accidentally emailed a long thread that included too much information or some embarrassing comment about somebody along the way. Don’t you hate it when that happens? And then, aside from that problem, there is just the plain glut of useless information as every new email in the thread includes all of the previous emails. Think of how much sludge we’re sending through the pipeline. Does everybody need to be reminded in every email about everything that was said in all the related emails?

10 Old New Rules for Business Emails

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California Rules the Venture Capital Ecosystem

Dec 22nd

California has been the number-one state for venture investing for more than 30 years. It doesn’t matter whether you measure VC activity in dollars, deals done, or capital under management. Actually, based on certain measures, California today accounts for a larger slice of the venture capital pie than it did 30 years ago.

California’s Dominance in Venture Capital

National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) data shows that, in 2009, half of all venture capital dollars invested in the United States were deployed in California. And over the 29-year period from 1980 through 2009, the state was responsible for 44.1 percent of all venture capital investment dollars. In no year since 1980 did California account for less than 32.2 percent of the dollars that VCs put into startups.

A similar pattern can be seen from the data on deals. In 2009, California accounted for 40.6 percent of all U.S. venture capital deals. Between 1980 and 2009, the state accounted for an average of 38.9 percent of all VC investments. And in no year since 1980 did the state account for less than 32.2 percent of U.S. VC deals.

Among metropolitan areas, the San Francisco/San Jose axis has dominated venture capital for decades. According to a study by Henry Chen of Harvard University and his colleagues, the San Francisco/San Jose area accounted for 19 percent of all venture capital offices in 1985 and 24.4 percent in 2005. By contrast, Washington D.C. only increased from 3.1 to 5.3 percent of all offices over the 20 year period studied by the researchers, and Atlanta only increased from 1.8 percent to 2.3 percent.

Why It’s Not Likely to Change

The dominance of California (and the San Francisco/San Jose metro area in particular) in venture capital is unlikely to change. The distribution of venture capital across states has barely changed over the past two decades even though the industry has gone through remarkable changes – rate of return, amounts of money invested, and numbers of firms shifting dramatically. If expansion and contraction of the industry did not appreciably alter the geographical distribution of venture capital, then the distribution must be very stable.

That stability is a function of a positive feedback loop between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs who need VC funding. Venture capitalists need to find good investments, help entrepreneurs to build companies, and make sure that business founders act in accordance with investors’ interests. All of that is easier if investors invest locally and stick to investing in places where a lot of venture capital-backable companies are already present. In their study, Chen and his colleagues found that when venture capital firms open new offices, they tend to expand to Boston, San Francisco/San Jose, or New York, rather than places where venture capital isn’t already prevalent.

Entrepreneurs whose business models need venture capital, in turn, tend to locate near existing venture capitalists because those locations are where funding is easier to find. As a result, venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs they finance have remained concentrated in places like Silicon Valley for the past 30 years.

Implications

Venture capital-backed companies are high performing businesses, creating more jobs, producing more innovation, and generating more wealth than other kinds of startups. This pattern has led governors and legislatures to look for ways to build up the venture capital industry in their states.

However, policy changes, such as lowering state income taxes, have done little to increase the amount of venture capital in most states. Instead, venture capital remains concentrated where it was most prevalent 30 years ago.

The positive feedback loop between investors and entrepreneurs keeps other states from building up their venture capital industries. California continues to obtain the lion’s share of U.S. venture capital, making it the go-to destination for starting high tech companies in need of venture capital; and the presence of those companies in California leads venture capitalists to concentrate their efforts there.

Editor’s Note: This article was previously published at OPENForum.com under the title: “Creating Venture Capital Ecosystems.” It is republished here with permission.

California Rules the Venture Capital Ecosystem

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What’s Inside the New Net Neutrality Rules?

Dec 21st

Posted by Home Wealth Project in 2478

The FCC will vote on new rules governing net neutrality today. Big companies like Verizon and Comcast would love to brush anything related to net neutrality under the rug, since lack thereof allows them to charge tiered rates, control what users see, and gain more ownership of the Internet in general. Many users, on the other hand, want the Internet to stay open, affordable, and available. The Washington Post describes the thrust of the FCC rules:

Under the regulations, companies that carry the Internet into American homes would not be allowed to block Web sites that offer rival services, nor would they be permitted to play favorites by dividing delivery of Internet content into fast and slow lanes.

It means that a cable company such as Comcast could not slow traffic of Netflix video, while a wireless carrier such as Verizon Wireless could not block competing Web voice services, such as Vonage.

So much for that Comcast toll lane.

Nobody’s been able to see the actual FCC order yet, but PCWorld’s Chloe Albanesius was able to get more details from an FCC official. She writes that the FCC order mandates transparancy for wireless and broadband providers, bans providers from blocking content, apps, services, or websites (as long as they’re legal), and that there’s no “unreasonable discrimination rule for fixed broadband providers.” There’s more:

Tiered pricing: The order discusses the issue of broadband providers giving users choice for broadband service, and notes that this could be beneficial for some customers.

Paid Prioritization: The order explains the FCC’s concerns about paid prioritization and says it’s unlikely to be deemed reasonable.

Addressing Complaints: If someone files an unreasonable network management complaint against an ISP…the FCC will then decide whether or not to initiate an inquiry…any complaint…will be addressed quickly under an accelerated timeframe so as not to drag on for months on end.

The FCC is also revising its own power as an agency after being handed its ass in an appeals court ruling this April, in which it lost the right to a 2008 network enforcement against Comcast, according to Albanesius.

It sounds like the regulation against blocking content will be a win for users, while the FCC’s apparent approval of tiered pricing, a model that is already in effect anyway, works for providers. Lacking more detailed information, it seems like the most contentious part of the bill has to do with paid prioritization. It’s counterproductive for the FCC to outlaw that, since the Internet was designed for it (CNET):

(T)he designers of the protocols that make up the modern Internet…In the late 1990s, the Internet Engineering Task Force revised those standards to allow network operators to assign up to 64 different traffic “classes,” meaning priority levels.

A July 1999 IETF specification (RFC 2638) discusses paid prioritization by saying: “It is expected that premium traffic would be allocated a small percentage of the total network capacity, but that it would be priced much higher.” Another specification (RFC 2475) published half a year earlier says that setting different priorities for packets will “accommodate heterogeneous application requirements and user expectations” and “permit differentiated pricing of Internet service.”

Today that concept of “differentiated services” is referred to as DiffServ. It’s part of quality-of-service technologies that companies like AT&T offer, usually to business customers, that rely on DiffServ packet headers to group different types of classes of service together. Real-time voice communication may be ranked the highest, followed by financial transactions, then e-mail, and finally bulk file-transfer protocols that aren’t as sensitive to brief slowdowns.

Why stymie Internet quality for the businesses that sorely need it? Our comparative Internet quality in the US already stinks. There’s no need to make us even less competitive by slamming necessary prioritization setups. Internet access rules should address both consumers and businesses. This particular rule ignores the fact that connective speed and quality aren’t just for better video watching, but for better business operations, too.

If net neutrality is voted in today, and if objections go to the courts, I hope that this is the one issue they sort out.

View full post on Business Pundit

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The Content Inspiration and Creation Rules

Dec 15th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Marketing Tips

The Content Inspiration and Creation Rules

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing podcast with Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes or subscribe via other RSS device (Google Listen)

Ann Handley CC Chapman The need to produce lots of educational content is a given these days – I’ve written about both how to find inspiration and how to create a systematic approach to content generation in recent posts.

I think, perhaps, most people get this idea so the focus is turning squarely on practical ways to get this done. For this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I visit with Marketing Profs Chief Content Officer, Ann Handley and Internet Marketing Expert and Founder of Digital Dads, C.C. Chapman about their new book Content Rules.

The title of the book has an obvious double meaning – as in these are the rules and dude, content ruuuules (think Wayne and Garth) – and it’s one of the first books that really does lay out the path for how, when and why to produce content that will help you achieve your marketing objectives in this information crazed world we find ourselves living.

And since this is a book and podcast about content I thought I would share a list of other content about the book:

You can listen to the show by subscribing the feed in iTunes or a variety of other free services such as Google Listen (Use this RSS feed) or you can buy the Duct Tape Marketing iPhone app. (iTunes link – Cost is $2.99) or Android app and listen to the show as well as about ten past shows on your phone.

View full post on Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

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Small Business News: New Business Rules

Nov 16th

The rules for business keep changing but a few things stay the same. First impressions matter, technology keeps changing the game and costs keep rising as customer tastes change bringing a never ending evolution to what it means to be in business. In today’s roundup we see what is always changing and what remains the same.

Self-development

What Al Pacino could teach you about business. Whether it’s interviewing for a big corporate job or as a small business person calling on a client a few important tips really matter when making a first impression. Think of that impression as the beginning of a lasting relationship (whether it turns out to be or not) and you will soon discover why the such impressions matter. IvanWalsh.com

Are you working too hard to be productive. Miranda Marquit asks this seemingly contradictory question appropriate especially to the small business person who manages his or her own time. Would less time working lead to more productivity and, if you kept a journal of tasks accomplished, Miranda wonders, would you really find you are as productive as you believe? Personal Dividends

Online Marketing

Building the better business blog. Like building the better mouse trap this process is both simpler and more complicated than it may at first seem. Here are 15 brief tips from blogger Laura-Lee Walker that can turn your ugly duckling of a blog into a beautiful swan. Don’t forget. If you’re blogging for business, Walker’s ideas will be especially beneficial when growing your audience. Adventures in Technology

The art of commenting. Whether it is in a community platform setting (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) or on a blog like this one, commenting is an important part of Web 2.0 and of what makes the social media…well…social. So how do you do it right and how can you comment effectively (without appearing to simply be trying to get attention or attract a link or a visit back to your site.) Ann Evanston suggests to always try to add value and has created an informative video about her approach. Warrior Preneur

Startups

Million dollar business ideas can be “nutty.” No matter what your idea or how much money you have to begin, there is no limit to the kind of business can be successful if it effectively fills a need. Take “geese abatement”, “hand-made wooden jigsaw puzzles” or “pet travel.” The most important aspect of any business is that it creates value and that customers rewalize thatg value. You don’t need a lot of investment to make a success. Just an idea that’s a bit off the wall. Yahoo! Finance

Healthcare

Small business Blues could provide solutions to healthcare. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan recentloy announced new small business health care programs that could be just what the doctor ordered to provide healthcare benefits at affordable rates. The program is set to launch in January and could set the tone for new small biz healthcare plans if found to be a success. The Detroit News

Global

A tale of two entrepreneurs. The Internet has certainly connected small businesses and entrepreneurs to the world in a way never before possible. With little investment, a business of almost any size can now operate globally. But what, if any, are the pitfalls of this new global leveraging and are they out weighed by the benefits. John Jantch has more with these two great entrepreneurial interviews. Duct Tape Marketing

Education

Training the kids to be entrepreneurs. Cameron Herold has a pretty cool idea about solving the world’s problems. Let’s raise up a generation of entrepreneurs and let’s start in grade school as soon as we can identify them. The idea is that unlike training someone to be a doctor or lawyer, training someone to be an entrepreneur and that this is a worthwhile goal can pay huge dividends in the future by raising a generation able to see problems and correct them. TED

Small Business News: New Business Rules

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Small Business News: Rules To Live By

Nov 11th

1 comment

What are your small business rules to live by? We’re willing to bet everyone has their own. Yet, it is always helpful to interact with others and to develop new ideas for how you might implement things in the future. Here are some suggestions from a very broad cross section. Creating a sustained and successful business is about having the right rules and implementing them properly.

Management

After the smoke has cleared. Lots of people talk about having a plan, whether for the launch of a business startup, the beginning of a marketing campaign, the launch of a management intiative., whatever. But Frank Bradley argues more, many more, should concerned about an “after action review” to figure out how things went and how they can improve next time. Don’t use excuses when thinking about the “after action review.” It has the potential of helping things go smoother next time around. Bloggertone

Tech

How collaborative is your small business? Or, put another way, how collaborative are the workers inside it…or the contractors or freelancers who work with you? The answer could determine not just whether your company will be a leader in the changing business environment. It could also impact your bottom line which can affect your business’s survival. Ready Talk

Stratup

What’s in a name? Quite a bit, as it turns out. That is if you ever intend for anyone to give you startup cash. Now, if you’re a bootstrapper, plan to use your own money, funding from family and friends or happen to be blessed with the kind of business that needs little money to get started, disregard all this…maybe! For the rest, here’s a tonue and cheek look at how to obssess over your company name. Chubby Brain

Branding

Choosing between a personal and corporate brand. When choosing between a personal and corporate brand for your business, which is the better choice. I know. I know. We’ve blogged here before about small business being all about people, but in this unique post, Luke of Melbourne poses an interesting dilemna. Could the same personal brand that opens doors and makes it easy to relate limit growth potential and erode your privacy? ProBlogger

Marketing

New rules for marketing. The old way of marketing is gone. Behold, all things are become new. And if you trully want to understand why the traditional pitch doesn’t work anymore, why becoming a world-class influencer is key or why attraction is no the name of the game, listen to this podcast from Robert Bruce interviewing Brian Clarke. CopyBlogger

Products & Services

Is your product or service too perfect? One tech entrepreneur, Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.com, weighs in on another tech entrepreneur, Steve Jobs of Apple, on the topic of waiting too long to get your products or services to market. So what does this have to do with you and your small business? Plenty. Matt lays out the reasons for getting your stuff out there and into the hands of customers fast. If you don’t, someone else will. Ma.tt

Innovation

Why, in business, you will have to alienate somebody. Think you can go through operating your business and innovating without upsetting some of your loyal customers? Just forget it. Instead, count on it that if you innovate and delight the vast majority of your fans, at least 2 percent will be unhappy with what you’ve done. And unhappy enough to make a lot of noise about it. Seth Godin’s Blog

Home Business

Reasons for running your business from home. Not every business needs an office on main street. Not everyone needs a showroom, conference room, board room, waiting room. Not everyone needs a place customers can visit or one where you need to go everyday. In fact, many businesses these days don’t need a location at all. (Some do. But many don’t.) Here’s why working at your house may be a better idea. BellaOnline

Entrepreneurship

Are you really an entrepreneur? I mean really? Well, if you’re not Jolie O’Dell really thinks you ought to stop calling yourself one. You’re not an entrepreneur if you’ve simply got an idea, are looking for funding, unemployed or underemployed. We’re not sure we agree with Jolie’s premise entirely here. Do you really need to have an investor to be an entrepreneur? What about the businesses that were started with almost nothing. Bootstrapped you might say? Still, it’s a good reminder that it’s important to move an idea forward not just have one. jolieodell.com

Small Business News: Rules To Live By

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Rules of Engagement: Social Media

Oct 15th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in Marketing Tips