Overcome Social Media Fears with 3-step Approach

February 22, 2012


Depending on whom you ask social media phenomenon of the last few years has either been a great boon to small business owners or a complete nightmare. No matter which side of the fence you are on, one thing is certain – small business owners can no longer ignore social media these days. Number of savvy owners has been using social media in innovative ways to improve different aspects of their business leading to higher sales and improved profit. Despite this fact, there are some who are fearful of delving into social media due to lack of knowledge or for fear of getting into quagmire.
Fear no more, friends!! The 3-step approach we have described below will navigate you through the challenging road to conquer the social media battle. We do not promise that you will become next Mark Zuckerberg with this approach, but we do believe that you will be able to overcome your social media fears and use it to the benefit of your business.
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7 Interesting Ways Small Business can Use Social Media

February 18, 2012


When small business owners hear about social media their attention immediately goes to Facebook and Twitter. They think of social media as a place where customers go to gossip and complain about their businesses or where business owners can go to publicize their products. This limited view doesn’t do full justice to the potential social media holds for small businesses. There is lot more to social media than just Facebook postings and Twitter broadcasts. We showed how you can use other interesting social media tools as well as some emerging social media tools in earlier posts. In this post we will review how you can use those and other tools in interesting ways to improve your business.
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How to Make Daily Deals Work for your Business

February 14, 2012


Daily deals facilitated by companies like Groupon and Living Social are double-edged swords for businesses. On one hand, they help you get new customers and improve sales. On the other hand, you end up with high operating expenses and dissatisfied customers, if not done right. Reading the horror stories that some businesses experienced you might think that it is never a good idea to work with daily deal companies. While this reaction is understandable, it may be extreme and may result in you losing out on the benefits offered by daily deals. We think with the right approach and proper planning you can make daily deals work for your business. Below we provide tips on how to do it.
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Is Groupon and other Daily Deals Good for your Business?

February 11, 2012


Daily deals have proliferated in the last year like dandelions during spring time. I am receiving at least 4-5 deals from one well-known daily deal company alone. Are you feeling left out because you still have not run any daily deal yet? While many businesses and consumers have taken advantage of this latest marketing tactic, I don’t think you need to feel sorry if you have not jumped on this bandwagon. This is because for every business that has seen great success with daily deals, there is another one who can share horror story from his experience. Just look at the experience of one particular business.
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How can you Succeed in Business by Failing

February 7, 2012

In the previous post we discussed why failing is so important for all businesses. If you haven’t failed, you haven’t tried hard enough. And if you haven’t tried hard enough, you have lost the battle even before it has begun! In this sense, failure is closely tied to risk-taking. Only those who are willing to take risks are going to possibly fail. But then only those stand any chance of becoming successful.
Not all failures are created equal. There are some who will never recover from their first ever failure. And there are others, like Thomas Edison, who can fail 10,000 times but come up with life-changing innovation at the end. So, is it possible to approach risk-taking to improve your odds of success at the end? We think the answer is YES as shown in the following bullets.
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Success is Overrated. Why Failure is Important.

February 4, 2012


What is it about failure that brings different reactions from people? Just look at the way two types of people talk about how they failed. You can figure out who is going to make it big eventually and who will continue to toil for a long time. The first one will go something like – “Oh, what fun it was to work on that business!! Yes, we had to close the business eventually, but the thrill and experience we got from it we will never forget.” Now, compare this to what the second type of people are saying – “Boy, I would never go through that type of experience again. Not only did I lose everything I had, but, most importantly, I have lost desire to try something new again. Wish I had not got into it in the first place.” Guess who is going to be the successful business person?
Why is it important to fail?
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What Type of Business is “Right” for You?

January 31, 2012


Is there such a thing as “right” business for you? It is a fact that not everyone is suitable to become a small business owner. There are signs that tell you whether you will succeed in owning a small business. But once you know that you have what it takes to be a small business owner, can you take it one step further and figure out which type of business will be a good fit? I think the answer is YES.
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What Business are you Really in?

January 28, 2012


“What business are you in?” This is one of my favorite questions to ask when we meet with small business owners and entrepreneurs. On surface this appears to be a very simple question. If you are a pizza business owner, of course you are in the business of selling pizza or food. But, think about it in terms of what value are you bringing to your customers rather than what you are selling. Are your customers really craving for pizza or are they looking for the convenience of no cooking and pizza happens to be one of the choices? Are they ordering pizza to feed bunch of kids at a birthday party? Are they looking to satisfy their hunger after late night partying without having to drive to your store? As you can see, how you look at your business can have a significant impact on how you run your business. In fact, it can determine the success or failure of your business down the road.
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How do You know if your Business Idea will Succeed

January 24, 2012


Majority of small businesses fail in the first three years. As remarkable as this statistic is, it doesn’t stop number of aspiring entrepreneurs from pursuing their dream of owning a business. They think about their idea as the best thing since sliced bread was invented and are convinced that there is a huge untapped market out there that nobody as cracked. They have run their idea by close confidants and got their endorsement. Uncle Bob likes their product and Aunt Ann can’t wait to get her hand on it. There is only one problem. It is still an idea in your head!!!

So how do you go past this “pie in the sky” idea stage and make it a reality? Even more important, how do you know that this idea will succeed and will not leave you with agony and angst when it’s all over?
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What can Small Businesses Learn from Netflix Mistakes

January 15, 2012


If you have been following business news in the last few months you know that Netflix is going through rough times. Their loyal customers are cancelling accounts in droves and the stock price that was around $300 just 6 months ago is now hovering around $70, wiping out almost $10 Billion in market value. Ouch!!
So what happened? Well, everything that could go wrong did. On one hand, the business of movie rental is going through massive shift – from DVD to streaming video and the competition is increasing with large companies including Apple, Amazon and Google entering the market. On the other hand, Netflix picked wrong time to make changes to their business model and made big gaffes in communicating to their customers.
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