COVID-19: How to Take Your Business Virtual for the Next 90 Days

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the recent spread of COVID-19 a global pandemic as it moves from country to country. Quarantines seem to be happening left and right. New cases of the virus make the news almost daily. Markets seem tenuous at best. If you’re the owner of a small business, you might feel like freaking out right now. All I can say? Don’t Panic. As an entrepreneur and small business owner myself, I certainly feel your pain. COVID-19 is serious, and the effect that it is having on businesses across the nation is real. But …

Losing Business at Checkout? How to Increase Shopping Cart Conversions

Don’t think you need to increase shopping cart conversions for your e-commerce site? Think again! Let this sink in—the typical online store loses 68% of its potential sales to shopping cart abandonment. Many online retailers think that these losses are just part of doing business as online—shoppers can easily change their minds at the last second. Perhaps they never intended to purchase anything in the first place. Window shoppers can certainly still exist online. But the majority of the time, your website is the real problem, not the fickle customer. I know what you’re thinking—fixing a website is time-intensive and …

How to: Pinterest Marketing

How to: Pinterest Marketing Pinterest marketing is something often overlooked. Pinterest can be used for more than DIY birthday gifts and nifty holiday desserts. If you’ve been using the site already for pinning ideas you think are interesting, you might be surprised to know that marketing with Pinterest doesn’t take much extra. Like other social networks—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—Pinterest gives you the ability to share things you like. And for a business, it allows for free exposure. Pinterest is all about networking, sharing things, and linking to content, which makes it ideal for driving new customers to your product or service. …

What Small Business Owners Can Learn From Big Business About Marketing

For 26 years I worked in corporate consulting, helping Fortune 500 companies with customer segmentation, customer treatment strategies for marketing & operations, and how to improve their long term customer relationships.  What I learned is as applicable for the single entrepreneur as it is for the corporation seeking to improve its stock price. Marketing isn’t sales, it is a part of every client transaction Having a client isn’t about making the sale.  It’s about forging a relationship that will endure from the sale, to the delivery and support, to the cross-sell, up-sell and the referral of new clients.  The business …

Does Your Service Live Up To Your Tag Line?

A month ago my business networking group decided that we should all run a charity 5K together and that it would be even more fun if we had team shirts with our group name and logos on it, like the real running shirts you get in races.  We decided to get something nice, not one of those cheap throwaway tees but a sports tee that we could be proud of and wear again and again. I took the action to create the shirts and after having one of my talented graphic artists come up with a snappy looking design, I …

business processes

Do Your Business Processes Make You Sink or Swim?

How did you spend your day yesterday? Did you spend time developing business processes for how you can grow your business? Did you call 10 prospects who might be a good fit for your services? Did you invest time in coaching your successor to allow you to grow into your next exciting venture? No? If you’re like most small business owners, your day was spent delivering the services that make money for your company, fighting fires, answering emails, trying to make it through your “to do” list and then mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Linked In reading updates when your …