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12 New Year’s Resolutions that Will Change your Business in 2012
- Written by Amex Open Forum
- Hits: 2527
Last year, I wrote about the New Year's Resolutions that every small business owner needed to make for 2011. As the economy has shifted, what a business owner needs to do to be successful in 2012 is now changed. Forget about richer, thinner and healthier. Here are 12 new resolutions that you need to be making this year.
Repeat after me:
1. I will build a company, not just feed a hobby. Not having a job is not a good reason to be in your own business. This is the year, you need to move from being a “jobbie” as Carol Roth calls it to creating a real company that can thrive even if you are not there. ... Read More
8 Tips on How to Make a Small Business Successful
- Written by Business 2 Community
- Hits: 3180
How to Make a Small Business Successful 8 Tips
By James Debono, Published January 1, 2012
How to make a small business successful
With the lack of opportunity in the job market more and more people are looking for alternative ways to make an income. As a result entrepreneurs from all walks of life are starting businesses with the sole intention of making their personal fortunes and creating a legacy. Long before that bridge is crossed, one of the many questions to answer is, how to make a Small business successful?
In this post you will discover 8 tips that will show you how to make a small business successful.
1. Know Your Customer
If you have taken the time to complete a business plan then you will have highlighted exactly who your ideal customer will be. If you haven’t done a business plan, I would suggest taking a step back and completing one. Rather than targeting everyone, be specific. If you are selling designer shoes for women then don’t aim your marketing towards eighteen year old male football fans. If your mission is to supply software to legal companies, don’t aim your marketing towards stay at home moms.
Know your ideal customer and target them directly. ... Read More
3 Reasons Entrepreneurs Need To Interact With Real People
- Written by Entrepreneurs Unpluggd
- Hits: 2489
by Tim Jahn on December 27, 2011
Who are you selling your products and services to? Are you selling to enterprise companies? To parents? To students? To other startups?
If you’re selling to enterprise companies, you should be interacting with people at those types of companies regularly. Getting feedback from senior citizens about your product is pointless if you’re selling to students.
Most of the time, you’re selling to what I like to call “real people”. People that aren’t inside your social/professional bubble. People that might live in a totally different region of the world than you. But many times, you’re not talking to those people. Instead, you’re constantly hanging out with other entrepreneurs, designers, developers, and other groups of people who aren’t your actual customers.
There are 3 reasons I think you should be talking to “real people”: ... Read More
Want More Business? Ask for It
- Written by Fox Business
- Hits: 2583
Written By Mary Rosenbaum Published December 27, 2011. FOXBusiness
It seems obvious that people satisfied with your services or products would be great brand ambassadors, yet asking for referrals or recommendations is one of the least utilized and most avoided techniques used by small business owners to gain more customers.
It’s not always easy to ask for referrals. You don’t want to turn off clients or embarrass them by asking and risk losing their business. Or perhaps you’ve already asked and are reluctant to ask again. Or maybe you’re afraid the request will make you appear needy or unsuccessful. ... Read More
The Overwhelmed Small Business Owner’s Guide to Simplicity
- Written by Small Biz Trends
- Hits: 2867
We have more ideas and responsibilities than we have time in a day. Plus, every piece of success seems to come with new challenges. In fact, opportunities come from the challenges that we’ve learned how to maximize. And since we can’t control everything that happens, we might as well learn how to move forward in spite of it.
If being overwhelmed is your issue, then start with one thing at a time.
One new lesson a month.
You can learn it by reading a book, completing an online program, attending a local marketing class. However you choose to learn the lesson, find one key point and focus in on it until you understand it enough to use it.
In this information age, we tend to “spot” read and “half” know. In turn, we know about things, but we don’t know how to use them. We don’t know how to make them work for our business. So break this cycle on purpose.
And you don’t have to do the legwork yourself. Assign it to someone on your team, but make sure it’s learned and used to benefit your company before the month is over. ... Read More