DATE ARCHIVES : 2010

Upholding a Culture of Confidentiality

protection customer confidentialityAccording to a recent Trend Micro Global Survey, data loss is one of the biggest concerns for small businesses. It is hard to safeguard your company information if not all your employees think of its importance. Not everybody can appreciate the fact that ensuring the safety of your data is the lifeline to the success of your business.

Confidential information is entrusted to your company by your clients and it is done because they trust you and your services. It is natural therefore that everyone who represents your company in one way or another should be vigilant in protecting confidentiality.…

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Achieving The Right Balance In Employee Interaction

employee interaction

Operating a business, no matter which industry you enter, is vastly competitive. It comes as no surprise then that small business owners are especially critical of how productive their employees are. Low productivity is bad for business, we don’t need to be rocket scientists to figure that out.

One of the most common (and most obvious) reasons why there is a decrease in productivity is employee interaction. In a dog-eat-dog world, there’s still such a thing as too much and too little and both can result in loss instead of profit. Striking the right balance is crucial in ensuring that productive time is exactly what it should be: productive.…

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7 Tools For Measuring Social Media Marketing ROI

tools for measuring social media roiSocial Media is going crazy viral as each day passes. Nowadays, it seems that everybody and their mothers use different social networking sites for a variety of purposes. In a show of entrepreneurial spirit, small businesses everywhere started to get on this marketing technique and follow it with such gusto that every article seems to focus on this strategy.

The measurement of your return of investments is important because it gives you an understanding of how effective a particular marketing campaign is. Sadly, 84% of those using social media do not measure ROI.

There are various tools which you can use to measure social media ROI.…

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Kickstart Your Online Community With Your Offline Customers

Developing a thriving online community is a challenging task for many small businesses. But if you have a business with an offline component – a retail store or physical location, a call center, or any other offline way that you interact with customers and prospects – you can use this to your advantage. Don’t compartmentalize your thinking by trying to build your online community only with people that you reach online.

I suggest focusing efforts at first on bringing your existing (and happy!) customers into the online fold – this can really help build your community, grow your audience and kickstart organic online community growth.…

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Publicity for Publicity’s Sake

Internet marketing can be tough. You would need to have an effective strategy in place depending on what stage your business is in. The competition is fierce as everyone vies to take the top spot on search engine results.

online business publicity

There is a saying that bad publicity is still publicity and this is one line in marketing that reputable businesses should never cross. Take the case of the DecorMyEyes scandal. In a gist, the owner of this online eye wear business uses negative customer reviews to be on the top echelon in Google search.

It is a well-known fact that to be in the coveted top spot on search engines, you would need to have high page rank sites link to your site.…

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Planning Your Year-End Business Tax Strategies

planning your tax strategiesWhile everybody else gears up for the holidays, small businesses should have another thing in mind apart from sales: filing taxes. As the fiscal year draws to a close, it is important that business owners review the current financial situation and start implementing strategies to help minimize your income tax.

There’s no better time than the present to start planning which tax strategies are best for your business, for you to get deductions. Before the holiday rush, business owners should already have a plan in place. If you don’t have one yet, now is as good a time as any to come up with one.…

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5 Bad Habits That Keep You From Getting the Funding You Need

bad habits that won't get your business funding

It’s common for small businesses to slip into bad habits that limit their ability to get funding.   From unscreened customers to generous payment terms, here are some of the most common reasons lenders will not loan to small business owners.

1. Not putting profits back into the business

When you hear these pleasant words from your accountant, “You should take a draw before the end of the year,” think again.   Building equity in your business has a positive impact on your ability to get funding.   A lender always looks at your debt-to-equity ratio.   The more equity you have, the better your ratio.  …

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Reaping the Soft Benefits of Email Marketing

In my previous article, Making Money: The Economics of Email, I discussed the customer acquisition cycle and how email marketing fits nicely into that effort, acting as the grease to speed the process along. Email has direct financial benefits, but there are also a number of other benefits that are difficult to track. For example, if your logo appears in an email, you might not see sales from people who drove right over to your store to make a purchase, but it might make your website seem more familiar to a visitor who has seen the email, and that might make her more comfortable making a purchase at a later date.…

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Are You Ready For American Express OPEN’s Small Business Saturday?

American Express Open's Small Business SaturdayEntrepreneurs are getting ready as everyone looks forward to the inception of a new shopping event: Small Business Saturday. The first-ever event will take place on November 27, as part of American Express Open’s plan to support the local economy.

America’s largest employers are still small businesses and it makes sense that the industry gets the attention it deserves by having a whole day dedicated to it. The national movement is getting more traction as the actual event draws near. Advocacy groups as well as the public and private sector unite to support this national campaign. This concerted effort to support small, independently-owned businesses would help to drive sales in the holiday weekend shopping traffic.…

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How Creating an eBook Can Help Develop Your Online Presence

create ebooks to boost your online presence

There are a number of reasons to create an eBook to help develop your online presence. Here are a just a few of them:

Build your email list

As many online entrepreneurs will tell you, building your email list is one of the most crucial things you must do in order to establish presence online regardless of whether or not you intend to make money. Certainly if you want to make money through your website and your presence online, an email list is even more vital.

But how to get people to hand over their email addresses to you – willingly – and with open ears to what you have to tell them?…

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