Hi All!

The number of people submitting quality articles has really picked up lately. This is good news for us all because the more people submitting articles the better the newsletter gets. So, don't be shy about submitting articles and be sure and tell your friends about Small Business Brief.

Have a great week!

Linda Riley
News Editor

Making LinkedIn work for small town pros
Source: http://www.smallbizsurvival.com
Seek out people looking for expertise that you can provide. One of the best ways to do this is to answer questions in LinkedIn's Questions and Answers. Once you have helped someone with their question, follow up with a direct message. This can be one of the most effective ways to build new relationships on LinkedIn. It also allows you to become rated as an expert on LinkedIn.

Submitted By: Darryl
Feedback: Comment or Vote

How to Outsource Your Brain for Fun AND Profit
Source: http://www.searchinfluence.com
Start easy, do that rigorous self-assessment and identify those things which take your time but not your passion. And then find someone else to do them. One good starting point is Elance. Elance is a global marketplace for people who know how to do stuff to connect with people who need stuff done. How bout that?

Submitted By: localhound
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Marketing to Your Customer Types
Source: http://www.small-biz-marketing-tips.com
By learning to market to your customer types based on the particular stage they are at, you will be able to ultimately convert more people to repeat customer status. It's not difficult to do but will require some effort on your part. Here's how it works.

Submitted By: Corte
Feedback: Comment or Vote

The Back Of The Napkin - Solving Problems & Selling Ideas with Pictures
Source: http://blog.rebarbusinessbuilders.com
Dan Roam's "The Back Of The Napkin" is the most practical book on problem solving and idea presentation that I have seen in a very long time. I think every small business owner owes it to themselves to check out this book.

Submitted By: bbrelsford
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What Everybody Ought to Know About SPF Records
Source: http://nickwilsdon.com
SPF records are increasingly being used as a filter for email. That means that failing to put one on your domains (or that of your clients) can result in email being sent directly to the spam bin, bounced back or even deleted.

Submitted By: NickWilsdon
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Background Checks: What You Need to Know
Source: http://www.businessweek.com
With background screening now the norm, employers and employees should be aware of how checks are done and how to protect themselves.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

30 Most Useful SEO Tools for Internet Entrepreneurs!
Source: http://blog.webbizideas.com
Are you looking to promote, increase your website ranking, and sales. Here are the top 30 SEO tools that will help you do this.

Submitted By: WebBizIdeas.com
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Research: Getting to the Roots of Your Site Visitor
Source: http://www.invesp.com
Understanding your visitor is the underlying answer to creating a successful website. However, gathering the required information can prove to be quite a task. There are a variety of ways to gather key information about site visitors and of course the more methods you utilize and implement the greater the results.

Submitted By: ijidak
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Podcast: Hidden Profits? You Can Find Them!
Source: http://www.smbtrendwire.com
An informative discussion about the concept of value based pricing - pricing for products and services in incremental phases.

Submitted By: sannwood
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Freelancers: Here's Why You Need a Blog
Source: http://freelanceswitch.com
Everyone with a blog, please raise your hand. Alright, those of you with hands up can leave the classroom and hit the bar early. The rest of you, stay here, because this lesson is important.

Submitted By: Rachel
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Leaving the Rat Race
Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com
Pursuing your dream isn't as easy as quitting your job and following your heart. Passion doesn't pay your bills or provide for your family, which is why many entrepreneurs hang on to the security of their 9-to-5 jobs during the difficult startup phase.

Submitted By: newsblogger98
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Quick & Dirty Guide to Copyrighting Your Content
Source: http://www.bruceclay.com
You work hard to create content that will inspire your users and describe exactly what it is your site is about. Unfortunately for you that unique content that you've poured your blood, sweat and tears into is now being stolen, scraped and copied at this very moment. What do you do?

Submitted By: DavidWallace
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Is It Okay If You're Not Qualified For The Job?
Source: http://freelancefolder.com
If I could attribute one idea to my success as a freelancer, it would be this: "You Are Who You Say You Are." All too often, beginning freelancers question whether they are, in fact, allowed to call themselves "professionals". At what point is it acceptable to say, "I'm an expert in my field?" At what point can you confidently charge $100 an hour?

Submitted By: Robert
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Art Gets Entrepreneurial
Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com
There is a new crop of artist-turned-entrepreneurs who forgo the gallery system by starting their own businesses. These artists create products--prints, T-shirts, stationery--to sell online, at craft and art fairs, and wholesale to boutiques. They might hook up with a manufacturer and put out a line of limited art toys, or license their designs to other companies. They may even sell some work via galleries--but it's not like they're waiting around to be discovered. They're branding themselves and creating a DIY revolution.

Submitted By: newsblogger98
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Free Tool & Alerts For Google's Malware Blacklist API
Source: http://nickwilsdon.com
SERPGuard is a free tool which uses Google's new Safe Browsing API (their blacklist of suspected phishing and malware-infested web pages). If Google lists your site in this service it can greatly reduce your sales, clicks or rankings.

Submitted By: NickWilsdon
Feedback: Comment or Vote

My Essential Plug-Ins for WordPress Blogs
Source: http://www.searchengineguide.com
David Wallace provides four plug-ins as well as one adjustment (or hack) to the post template itself that I feel are essential in order to have a great WordPress experience.

Submitted By: DavidWallace
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Creating Your Unique Value Proposition
Source: http://www.small-biz-marketing-tips.com
Defining your value proposition is the first step in clearly identifying how your products and/or services are different from the competition. If you can't define some unique feature or benefit that makes you stand out, your customers may default to the only other option - price. And believe me, you don't want to be forced to play the low price game - even when you win, you lose.

Submitted By: Corte
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Four Ways to Grow Your Email File Organically: It Is So Worth the Wait
Source: http://www.marketingprofs.com
Reap the rewards by focusing on these four organic elements for building a healthy and viable email marketing list.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Answer Questions or Lose Sales - You Decide
Source: http://www.ayoswebdesign.com
Do you hate a pushy salesman that doesn't listen to your questions? Like a pushy salesman, your website will lose sales if it is so intent on selling to the customer that it fails to answer ALL the questions the customer wants answered before he will buy your product or service.

Submitted By: ijidak
Feedback: Comment or Vote

4 Power Tips To Make Your Blogging More Productive
Source: http://www.dumblittleman.com
I am always in search for ways to improve my blogging productivity. Today I decided to share some of these no nonsense tips which have helped me and which can also help you to make your blogging more productive.

Submitted By: Robert
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Don't Be Yet Another Site with a List of Products!
Source: http://www.ayoswebdesign.com
The internet is a noisy and confusing place for online shoppers. To generate sales, your website has to do a good job of removing some of the confusion by helping the visitor narrow down his choices. Otherwise, you will quickly see most visitors leave your site in frustration.

Submitted By: ijidak
Feedback: Comment or Vote

20 Useful Tools to Make Web Development More Efficient
Source: http://sixrevisions.com
There are many available tools to help make web development projects quicker and more productive. Aside from a handy text editor or WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, you can find plenty of tools and utilities that can greatly increase development speed, reduce debugging and testing time, and improve quality of the output.

Submitted By: MarketingMinefield
Feedback: Comment or Vote

30 Websites to follow if you're into Web Development
Source: http://sixrevisions.com
Here's a superb list of websites to help you discover new techniques, resources, and news about building websites.

Submitted By: MarketingMinefield
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Small Business is "Underground" and Independent Contractors are "Illegal"
Source: http://blogs.openforum.com
You may be interested to see what the Senate is up to. Apparently, the business of small business is considered "underground" and hiring independent contractors is going to be illegal? What next. . .

Submitted By: sannwood
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Why Emotional Benefits Are the Key to Reader Response
Source: http://www.copyblogger.com
If you're writing to persuade, you have to hit the gut before you get anywhere near the brain. The part that decides "I'll have that" is emotional. The rational brain usually has to follow along afterwards and ok the decision, but if it doesn't work emotionally, logic will never get a chance to weigh in.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

How to Effectively Buy Into Facebook
Source: http://www.clickz.com
In the quest to make a splash on what is arguably the hottest social network around, Social Ads can be a marketer's best friend. They're designed to be a support mechanism for Facebook Pages (but can be used to promote external sites or Facebook Applications as well), and combine the best traits of more familiar methods of marketing, including display advertising, behavioral targeting, RSS, even celebrity product endorsements.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

You're a Small Business, Now What Do You Do?
Source: http://www.asklacerte.com
Here are six types of business structures, each with its own legal, tax and business ramifications.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

To Harness Social Media, Get Thee Into a Routine!
Source: http://www.smallbiztrends.com
I find value in social media sites. My biggest problem is finding the time to visit and use them. So how do you prevent social media from taking over and eating up huge chunks of your productive workday?

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Marketing Through the Transaction
Source: http://www.ducttapemarketing.com
Small business marketers seem to get the before and during parts, but so few get the after. Making the phone ring and closing the deal are important, but what you do once someone says, "yes, I want to be a customer" is often what sets one company apart from an entire industry.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

How to Create Remarkable Content When There's Nothing New Under the Sun
Source: http://www.copyblogger.com
Being creative in a world where nothing is new is difficult. We all want to be the one to shake the earth and move mountains with our brilliant ideas and thundering blog posts, but it's tough.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Self-Promotion: The Secret to Business Success
Source: http://guruknowledge.org
I think it's admirable to want to achieve greatness in the business world. But how do you get there? Simple. You have to master the art of self-promotion. Because despite all of the latest gimmicks, business has always been and always will be about promoting yourself better than the other guy.

Submitted By: dking
Feedback: Comment or Vote

Finding the Right Price for Your Retail Products
Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com
You often see or hear retailers' advertisements that promise you "quality merchandise at a fair price." Well, just what is a "fair price?" As you enter the retailing arena, you will soon learn that there really is no universally accepted definition. Most of the time the answer is "It depends. . ." It depends on how much you paid for the merchandise, who you bought it from, what your competitors are charging, your overhead expenses, your sales volume, and a hundred other variables.

Submitted By: newsblogger98
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The Power of Positioning
Source: http://www.businessweek.com
Positioning is the process of distinguishing yourself from competitors in specific ways in order to be the preferred provider for certain market segments. It's the act of designing your company's offer and image so it occupies a distinct and valued place in the targeted customer's mind. The main benefit of clear positioning is that it controls how the market perceives you and helps make your products and/or services more attractive.

Submitted By: LindaRiley
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Improve Conversion By Testing, Testing, and Testing
Source: http://www.grokdotcom.com
By testing the performance of different content on your website you learn what improves your conversion rate and what does not. By systematically testing and applying the lessons from those tests, you will improve your website's conversion rate tremendously over the long haul. You will also become more adept at identifying techniques that work.

Submitted By: ijidak
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Beyond Bagels and Coffee - New Ideas for Networking
Source: http://www.startupnation.com
It's 8 a.m. You're sitting at a table with other entrepreneurs, business cards at the ready, sipping coffee and chewing a bagel. As the networking event's speaker drones on, you rehearse your 30-second elevator speech in your head. You hope the meeting will be fruitful, but wonder if there's a better way. Sound familiar?

Submitted By: LindaRiley
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You're Not Just a Writer, You're the Editor-in-Chief.
Source: http://www.doshdosh.com
Do you want to take your blog or business to the next level? Here's some excellent advice from Maki at DoshDosh... think of yourself as the Editor-in-Chief, and not just as a writer.

Submitted By: MarketingMinefield
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