Small Business Success Still Relies On Communication

If you’re in small business, be prepared to communicate. It’s an important part of what small businesses do. The same thing goes for those who lead them. Here are some tips and tools to help you better master communication for your small business.

Opening Up

Why you must spend time face to face. Technology is great. It connects us in ways never possible before. But there are limitations to what technology can do when building important business relationships. Here’s why. Jennifer Warawa

It’s lonely at the top. But it doesn’t have to be. Here are 10 ways many business leaders avoid loneliness and isolation. As a small business owner you may sometimes feel isolated too. How do you work to avoid those feelings. Startup Professionals Musings

The State of Business

Big companies want to handle your IT. There was a time when IT services for small businesses and startups were handled by smaller firms as well. No longer. Here is why big business wants a piece in serving your IT needs. WSJ

What Washington is telling small business. Small businesses and entrepreneurs did feature in the President’s State of the Union Address. But what is big government really telling small businesses about where they fit in? Entrepreneur

Blogging & Engagement

Why blogging is your business. No better paradigm of business communications exists today than the small business blog. Personal and focused, it is at the same time representative of your brand. But it may turn out your blog is even a bigger part of your business than you thought. Noobpreneur

The importance of engagement. Is your small business engaging with customers, clients and the public in the way that it should? What tools and approaches can you use to reach the necessary engagement with your customers? Famous Bloggers

Marketing & Sales

The problems with converting leads. Your marketing is a form of communication, but what is really important to consider, when deciding if that communication is effective, is to look at whether your audience is turning into customers. Dawn Westerberg Consulting

Tech Basics

Best gear for podcasting. Podcaster Ileane Smith shows you her personal choice for equipment to use in your own efforts and explains a bit more about why podcasting is so critical to communication in small business today. Basic Blog Tips

Making Connections

It’s still about the people. No matter how small business communications is done, it’s still a very human interaction. Technology and techniques aside, what will really make you better at marketing and selling is to better understand your customer? B2B Marketing Smarts

Do you know your audience? No, it’s not a silly question! Do you? Because all of the above won’t help you much if you don’t. Here’s why you’ll need to consider the people you’re addressing first before finding success. Respectfully Disobedient

From Small Business Trends

Small Business Success Still Relies On Communication

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The Single Greatest Factor of Success in Business


The Single Greatest Factor of Success in Business

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

There are so many important ideas and concepts in business. Things like strategy, purpose, and passion are integral to success, but none of it really matters without one ingredient – and that’s clarity.

Image Derek Keats via Flickr CC

Clarity is that strong and unwavering sense that our daily choices are grounded in an authentic sense of purpose. Clarity is how we create a sketch of something worth asking others to complete. Clarity forces us to form the right questions.

Without clarity everything we do is either an attempt to gain it or a stab at the hope that we are moving in the right direction.

Almost every business I’ve ever worked with, including my own, struggles with this idea. But, until we are really clear and inspired by why we do what we do, whom we do it for and how to do it with complete and utter honesty – little else matters.

Clarity does not emerge by simply switching on some beacon in hopes of throwing a clear and guiding light. No, it comes when we discover a rusted but sturdy lamp in the basement of an old house. Then, only through careful tinkering and polishing this lamp begins to cast a flicker of light.

And, as we continue to polish and tinker, something truly brilliant begins to evolve.

With clarity comes control. With clarity comes grace. With clarity comes joy.

Finding and keeping clarity takes work. It takes an unbending willingness to see things for what they really are. To filter decisions based on what might be best for others. To understand how to create the products and services our customers really need.

Clarity is both a feeling and a direction. It can be experienced and seen. It is at the same time perfect simplicity and obvious complexity. Clarity inspires us and those around us.

But what is it exactly?

  • Clarity is turning purpose to profit
  • Clarity is leading with stories
  • Clarity is using $50 instead of $49.99
  • Clarity is asking what to leave out
  • Clarity is meeting the whole person
  • Clarity is amplifying without hype
  • Clarity is doing more with less
  • Clarity is embracing the truth
  • Clarity is anticipating needs
  • Clarity is measuring one perfect thing
  • Clarity is forming decisions out of beliefs
  • Clarity is a potent brand promise

Clarity is the most important idea in any business.

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

Her Success is Frightening

How can a talent for applying horror film makeup be transformed into a multi-million dollar business? Read this roundup and discover more about how special and creative talents and abilities can be transformed into the most unique businesses as well as how to operate those businesses once created.

Success Stories

Unexpected opportunities turn to thriving business. This entrepreneur didn’t begin her career as a makeup artist with the knowledge she would be building a multi-million business from her efforts. But a new career led to unexpected opportunities. Shine

Creating a business from writing talents. Stephanie Chandler built a business based on her passion for marketing and her ability for writing, translating her talent and interests into a business featuring non-fiction business books for entrepreneurs. BizSugar Blog

Operations

Why you should launch more often. Some people argue that introducing products too often will mess up positioning and message in a highly competitive field, but serial entrepreneur Prasad Thammineni argues just the opposite. Small Business Trends

What are the benefits of a deadline? Deadlines are a part of life whether you own and operate your own business or work for a traditional employer, but facing one has its positive aspects. Here’s how to make the deadline work for you. Main Street Chamber

Marketing

Mistreating your customers? You may not realize it, but if you treat your best customers poorly, even unknowingly, the result could hurt your reputation and your brand. Focus on seeing your business the way others might and do the best you can for customers. Jonathan Fields

Analytics boosts small business. It doesn’t matter how small your business may be. Analytics can provide an edge that will transform everything. Understanding the benefits of analytics for your small business is the key to moving into a whole new world of competitiveness. Zimana Blog

Startups

Does your small business need a staff? In some cases staff may be necessary to attract investment, something many startups may need to consider these days in the current economic environment even though it may run counter to the idea of keeping your operations lean. WSJ

What can we learn from failure. This recent post focused on five small businesses that failed this year. But let’s not focus on the negative. Behind each of these failures is a lesson to be learned about what could be done better next time. You’re the Boss

Tips & Trends

There is such a thing as bad publicity. Here John Sternal talks about the overall impact of bad PR on your business or company and also what to do to improve matters for you and your brand. Understanding Marketing

Automating SEO for E-commerce. If the importance of e-commerce to today’s small business market does not need to be stressed, perhaps the need for SEO as a method of enhancing e-commerce performance does. Here are some thoughts. Capture Commerce

From Small Business Trends

Her Success is Frightening

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

How Do You Define Success?

How do you define success? A new study from The Hartford set out to discover what constitutes success in the eyes of small business owners. Here’s what the Small Business Success Study of 2,000 small business owners found:

success concept

Overall, business owners are feeling good. One in five (22.9 percent) say their businesses are very or extremely successful. Nearly half (46.8 percent) say their businesses are moderately successful. Just 30.3 percent say their businesses were “slightly” or “not at all” successful. Asked to project forward for the next two years, only 6 percent feel they won’t achieve success in that time frame.

The survey also asked small business owners to choose their top answer from among various definitions of success. The top three responses were:

  • Make enough money to have a comfortable lifestyle: 24 percent
  • Do something I enjoy or feel passionate about: 23 percent
  • Increase the profitability of the business year to year: 18 percent

Other possible answers, including “have the free time to do whatever I wish,” “expand to new markets,” and “sell the business for a substantial profit,” were far below the top three, only garnering single-digit responses.

Based on how small business owners themselves define success, what type of small business owner is the most successful? The Hartford found that the entrepreneurs who feel most successful are those who have 10 to 20 employees and have been in business for more than 20 years.

This group was more likely than average to say their businesses are currently successful. They were also more confident about the future. And they were significantly more likely to admit they’re closer to “complete” success.

What’s enabled them to succeed? The study found two key steps these businesses took: they used professional advisers to prepare for future growth, and they realized that paying employees well attracts better workers and leads to greater success.

Of course, simply having stayed in business for 20-plus years was surely a contributing factor to feeling successful. But it seems to me that entrepreneurs who enjoy the greatest success have a realistic attitude toward their business. They don’t expect miracles, but they do have goals and plans. They’re optimistic and they enjoy what they’re doing. Sounds like most of the small business owners I know!

How do you define success?


Success Photo via Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

How Do You Define Success?

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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6 Benchmarks That Gauge Success

How do you measure and gauge your success today? Is success all that you thought it was cracked up to be?  By definition, success is a noun: “the favorable outcome of something attempted.”

success graph

The answers to the two questions above are tied into the lens we look through at any place in our life cycle. Each place in that cycle is real, legitimate and important. The question and answer of how we gauge our success has dramatically changed for most of us in the past few years, as we have seen our circumstances and assets change. That has gotten me thinking about what the benchmarks are today that gauge success for me.

I have seen people’s health, financial security, family structure, business and career path and stability change in the snap of a finger. My life path has changed more in five years than in the prior two decades!

If success is about the favorable outcome of things we attempt, then I measure success today through these six benchmarks.

1) Making Quality Life Connections
Nurturing and improving long-term, healthy relationships with family, friends and colleagues

2) Engaging in Healthy Lifestyle Choices
Working at and integrating work/ life balance, diet, exercise, stress management, hobbies and fascinations

3) Working on My Spiritual Condition
Going within and underneath the exterior, to our values, beliefs, acceptance, tolerance, paying forward and connectedness

4) Exercising My Willingness to Learn
Always challenging and pushing my ability to stay open to new ideas, skills and learning

5) Having Resilience to Change
Embracing, accepting, dealing with and arming myself for unexpected change

5) Building Networks and Support Systems
Continually building strong, mutual personal and professional communities and connections–and using them

6) Staying in and Living in the Now
Focus on the only reality that I have, which is the day I am in, and making the absolute most of it

Gauging my success today has very little to do with material success alone, which is  fleeting without these benchmarks. Material success is a manifestation of these benchmarks and comes with a quiet resolve to enjoy and share them with all who make them possible to have and achieve.

Seriously, I don’t know anyone who has sustained happiness and success without these benchmarks as a foundation. Just ask any of the many examples of people who have crashed and burned because of greed and fraud. The universe sees right through that, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

What are the benchmarks that gauge your success today?


Image from violetkaipa/Shutterstock

From Small Business Trends

6 Benchmarks That Gauge Success

View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends

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Adversity and the route to success

Resource-rich regions often fall behind in developing significant industrial and cultural capabilities. Japan does well despite having very few resources at all.

Well-rounded and popular people rarely change the world. The one voted most likely to succeed probably won’t.

Genuine success is scarce, and the scarcity comes from the barriers that keep everyone from having it. If it weren’t for the scarcity, it wouldn’t be valuable, after all.

It’s difficult to change an industry, set a world record, land big clients, or do art that influences others. When faced with this difficulty, those with other, seemingly better options see the barrier and walk away.

Why bother? The thinking is that we can just pump some more oil or smile and gladhand our way to an acceptably happy outcome.

On the other hand, people who believe they have fewer options take a look at the barrier and realize that even though it will be difficult to cross, it’s the single best option they’ve got.

This is one of the dangers of overfunded/undertested startup companies. Without an astute CEO in charge, they begin to worry more about not losing what they’ve already got than the real reason they started the project in the first place.

View full post on Seth’s Blog