Small Business Brief
Weekly Newsletter - May 15, 2009
"Fetching the Best Small Business News & Information"
Caution: Google May Be Sending Your Customers Away
Source: http://smallbiztrends.com You may want to go take a look at your Google Local Business Listing to verify it still exists and is sending people to the right Web site. It seems that due to what Google is calling an "algorithm change" many Google business listings are being merged with other companies located in the same building or with competitors who work nearby. Broken down, that means customers looking for you may actually be sent to the Web site of your competitor instead.
How To Outsource Your Traffic Generation
Source: http://www.shoemoney.com This is how I've grown my business past the point of my competitors being able to keep up. I'm just simply able to out work them because I have more man hours to play with.
Retaking Control from Twitter and Facebook
Source: http://www.chiefhomeofficer.com/ This is not about the ills of Social Media. It's about productivity. It's about habits we let run unchecked and roughshod through our business that steal our time, sap our output, and ultimately - at best, leave us less productive, and at worst, wither our bottom line. You have a finite amount of time to produce income-generating work.
Make it Outrageous - Make It Bigger, Make It Goofy, Make It Last
Source: http://www.damniwish.com Take your cliche warranty or satisfaction guarantee and make it remarkable. Brikolor, a Swedish furniture company, guarantees its furniture for 300 years. Calling it a "lifetime warranty" wouldn't have been worth telling anyone about, but a 300-year warranty is unique (even though it's basically the same thing).
How I Did It: Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn
Source: http://www.inc.com/ Every second, someone joins LinkedIn, a sort of six degrees of separation for professionals and the brainchild of social-networking pioneer Reid Hoffman. LinkedIn has 38 million members in about 200 countries, but in Hoffman's mind, that's merely a good start.
Starting Over-as an Entrepreneur
Source: http://www.wsj.com/ For laid-off or worried workers, launching a business may seem the best path to survival. Here are the stories of five people who are taking that route-and the lessons they've learned so far.
Whose Business Is This Anyway? Facing the Customer Feedback Frenzy
Source: http://webworkerdaily.com As consumers, we used to suck it up and take it when we were using ... products and services created, managed and hosted by others. Today, we are almost drunk with the power we have to make or break a company by what we blog, tweet, Facebook, and more. So what are companies to do when the entire landscape of customer input and feedback mechanisms has gone haywire? Here are some thoughts about this new feedback frenzy that can send a company reeling from the impact of input.
Brand Building in the Face of Fear
Source: http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/ You sales may be down. But do you know why? People are certainly buying less, and explanations like, Well, there's a recession going on out there, is not helpful. What's important is to understand the fundamental role of fear, and then turn it around to strengthen your brand. Some of the world's most enduring grocery brands were built on the back of the Great Depression, Each one turned the threat into an opportunity. There's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do the same.
How My Start-up (Barely) Survived its First Year
Source: http://www.inc.com Of all the challenges I faced that first year, one in particular stands out in my mind. It taught me an important lesson about what to do when you're suddenly confronted with potential catastrophe because of conditions over which you have no control -- something a lot of companies are facing today.
How to Write Copy for
Short Attention Spans
Source: http://www.copyblogger.com/ Take a closer look at your pages - especially the very first paragraph. How can you condense and filter your message to attract the casual browser and convince them to stay? Are you making good use of headlines, sub-headlines, photos and captions? Does your call to action really call them to act or is it buried under heaps of text?
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