Thoughts Are Things: Are Yours Good For Business? |  |
- Thoughts Are Things: Are Yours Good For Business?
- Is Your Business Great to Own?
- Goodbye PostRank, Hello Google Social Reports
- The Truth About Pinterest for Your Small Business
| Thoughts Are Things: Are Yours Good For Business? Posted: 01 May 2012 11:30 AM PDT I can't get this idea out of my head: Thoughts are things. They have a way of becoming a part of your conversation and fueling your actions. You can't just ignore the bad thoughts and expect them to go away. You have to check them and change them when they don't serve your life or your business.
In “Let's Quit Complaining And Appreciate What We Have” John Mariotti says:
Whether or not you agree with what John has to say in the article, there is something to be said for mindset in the face of a problem. Og Mandino, author of The Greatest Salesman in the World, says that:
For some of us, the disguise is too good and we can't see past it so we miss the opportunities. But what if we lived and handled our business like Napoleon Hill, who was correct when he stated:
We face challenges daily and we have access to all kinds of solutions. It just depends on how you look at it. Have You Ever Discovered . . .The perfect product or software, became excited about it and were ready to buy it, only to realize that it's priced out of your range? At your current stage in business you simply could not afford to purchase it. So what do you do?
Where others see problems, the savvy business owner sees opportunity. It's all about the mindset. After all, businesses are just solutions to a series of problems. Innovation Begins With The Way You Think Referencing an article from The New York Times, Anita Campbell, Founder of Small Business Trends, in “Small Business Innovation Lessons From 3 Big Companies“ highlights things that we can learn from Google, GE and DreamWorks. They are simple nuggets to pull into our own businesses, but the best advice won't work for you if the thinking doesn't change. We're responsible for our mindset. It's our job to evaluate (consistently) and update (when necessary) the way we think. Tragedy has a way of shaking things up, but what if you created your own shift — so to speak. Laurel Delaney in “How To Become A Winner, And Stay A Winner” says that among other things:
A healthy dose of the truth can do wonders for your creativity and drive to find new solutions. Find Out What Your Clients Want They will tell you the truth if you ask the right questions and just pay attention. If you're the owner with a big staff under you, then get back on the ground floor for a few days. You need to get eye level with your clients and your team. There's no telling the type of problems and solutions you'll uncover. You were driven and stirred up in the early days of your business. Use the direct engagement to wake you back up. But don't stop there. Pursue the company of successful others. If you’ve been going it alone in your corner of the world, then become a part of a community that's making waves. Just being in the same space may get you inspired again or lead to a new idea. For leaders, maintaining the focus and fanning the flames is a big part of the job. If you become dull, your team will eventually follow (or leave).
From Small Business Trends |
| Is Your Business Great to Own? Posted: 01 May 2012 08:30 AM PDT Many CEOs and business owners will agree that the benefits of ownership far outweigh the struggles and daily challenges. While entrepreneurship is still one of the best ways to fulfill the American dream, only a small percentage of companies are truly “great to own.”
Is your company valuable to someone else? Creating value in a company is still considered by many to be one of the great ways to create wealth, create jobs and realize the American dream. However, many businesses are not sellable for a value that would motivate the owner to sell and others are not sellable at any price. Are you creating a company that will realize its full sales value without you? Is your hard work focused in areas the marketplace will value most and reward with you with a premium valuation? Do you have a clear strategy to not only create but maximize company value? Does your company provide unique benefits for founders and owners? You have sacrificed a great deal to build your company, is it reciprocating in the most creative, effective and important financial areas? Beyond a nice company car and expense account, is your company taking advantage of available planning opportunities to create a tax efficient liquid asset base, helping to protect your assets, protecting your family and partners? Have you taken the time to insure your company is providing for you as well as you do for it? Does the company creating tax efficiency? Business ownership is one of the great tax planning vehicles available today. Beyond expense reimbursement and the benefits mentioned above, are you structured properly to maximize tax efficiency at the time of an eventual exit from your business? Has your company taken the steps to ensure maximum efficiency of annual distributions and provide downside market protection on investment assets? The tools and mechanisms exist to allow your company to create greater tax efficiency for a higher tax environment in 2013. Is the company vulnerability free? Are your officers and directors properly protected personally from frivolous lawsuits? Does the company and your partners have the immediate liquidity to acquire the shares from a deceased or disabled partner? Are important personal assets creditor proof? Once your organization is past the survival stage and moves into maturity, these are important questions that will protect your most valuable asset and allow you to sleep easier at night. Do you have a great culture? You probably spend more time with your company then anywhere else, and creating a great culture may be the most important ingredient for a company that is great to own. Entrepreneurs talk a lot about culture, yet it is rare to experience a great corporate environment. While compensation and benefits are a component of great culture, it is often the little things, the creative policies and flexibility that create a great corporate culture. Your business impacts every other aspect of your life. Having a company that is great to own will likely make the other areas of your life more rewarding and enjoyable and will enable you to realize full value for your business when you eventually decide to exit your business. Question Photo via Shutterstock From Small Business Trends |
| Goodbye PostRank, Hello Google Social Reports Posted: 01 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT The bad news is that as of today PostRank has been officially shut down. The good news is you probably weren't using PostRank or aware that it even existed. And that's okay. Because the even better news is that last month Google released new Social reports into Google Analytics to help you hold on to all the metrics you actually cared about. So you're social data isn't really going anywhere. In fact, it's more convenient to access than ever.
If you weren't familiar with PostRank, it was a great service acquired by Google last June. It allowed content producers to understand their content better by "scoring" it based on the number of comments it received, links, mentions, tweets, and other social media metrics. If you were a small business owner, this kind of social data was invaluable in understanding the types of content your audience was interested in seeing and how users were engaging with it across the Web. But PostRank is no more. However, site owners and content producers shouldn't be sad. With Social reports from Google, you'll still be able to take advantage of valuable social insights. Last month Google announced the release of a new set of Social reports inside Google Analytics. According to Google designed to help SMBs:
How will it help you accomplish all this? With the help of five new reports. 1. The Overview Report The Overview report will allow small business to see what they're most interested in – the impact social media is (or is not) having on conversions.
With the Overview report, SMBs can easily visualize which social channels are performing the best, which need some work, and where conversions are coming in the process. With this information, business owners can assign a monetary value to the social media and understand ROI. The Overview report breaks conversions down by Last Interaction and Assisted Social Conversions. In the report above, you'll notice the dark blue circle shows you when social media was the last interaction between a user and a conversion, while the lighter blue circle shows where someone interacted with your brand via social media but didn't convert until a later date. 2. Conversions Report Before we can talk about the Conversions report, we need to have a conversation about Goals. Yes, that's Goals with a capital G. Now back to the report! With your Goals identified and set up, the Conversion report allows you to measure how each of your social channels is contributing to your Goal success by giving you a site-specific conversion rate. This will help you identify what kinds of content leads to Goal completion and what your ROI looks like for each social network. 3. Social Sources The Social Sources report does exactly what you'd expect – it helps you visualize how users behave depending on what social network they're visiting your site from. With this report, you can see if people who interact with your content on Twitter lead to a desired outcome or if they're too scatterbrained to make it all the way through. You can also use this report to determine what types of content do the best on which network. For example, maybe your Facebook fans are more likely to convert but your Twitter followers are most likely to share a piece of content. Knowing this can help you build out site specific content strategies that you can use in the future. 4. Social Plugins If you've ever stared at your blog wondering if people even care about the content you're producing or if you should try something else – this report is exactly what you're looking for.
The Social Plugins report lets you measure the effectiveness of your content based on how many shares it's getting via the different social networks and on which networks it is most popular. Again, this is invaluable information while you build out and tweak your content strategy. You may also be surprised to find out that a particular social network is more successful than you thought it was. I know many business owners are discovering this about Pinterest. Another way to use this report? To help decide which social plugins you want to display on your Web site. Stop making your blog look like NASCAR. 5. Activity Stream While the other Social reports listed above will show you the level of social activity on your site, this report focused on how people are engaging with your content across the greater social Web. Google will show you the URL for the piece of content shared, how it was shared, where it was shared it, and what a user said about it when they shared it with their community. Being able to easily track engagement off your site is super valuable. Not only does it give you the chance to spot content ripples, but since it also shows you the names and faces of the people sharing your content, it gives you the information you need to track your brand's influencers. Currently Google is able to track content shared on Google+, as well as a number of hub partners including Blogger, Delicious, Disqus, Livefyre, Reddit, and others. Social media ROI is the Holy Grail we're all working toward. By taking advantage of the new Social reports inside Google Analytics, we can all get just a little closer. Google tells us Social reports will be available for all users over the next few weeks under the Standard Reporting Tab. I'd encourage you to take a look. From Small Business Trends |
| The Truth About Pinterest for Your Small Business Posted: 01 May 2012 02:30 AM PDT The new social media site Pinterest has some definite benefits for small business, but be aware there are some negative aspects too. Like many other tools, it has pros and cons you should understand before getting started. New FrontierTips for new tools. Here’s an introductory look at how Pinterest can be used as a small business tool. There are also some helpful tips on how to get started using the site with small business in mind. SeaCoastOnline.com Hurt by social media? You’ve probably heard the advice by now that Pinterest can have a positive affect on your business. But one business owner had quite the opposite experience with spammers on the site who actually did her business harm. Mashable Business OpportunitiesAffiliate marketing opportunities. Pinterest has had a shaky history where affiliate marketing is concerned. Initially, the site’s own Skimlinks affiliate program caused an outcry among users. Currently, an independent affiliate marking program called PinDollars is being treated as spam by the social network. Small Business Trends A new home for crafting businesses. It wasn’t so long ago that Etsy was dominating the news as a place for crafting small business owners to market their products. Today, Pinterest is appealing to this group in a different way. ReporterNews Big SuccessPinterest’s founder speaks. If you want to know how this innovative social network changed the game in social media completely, there’s no better place to start than with the story of the company’s rise and no better place to hear that story than from the company’s founder. Business Insider Big brands discovered it. How about you? If some of these companies are using the features of the world’s most talked about social media network, why not your small business brand? How can Pinterest boost your company’s visibility? InvestorPlace Digging DeeperA new era in marketing. In April, business coach Stephanie Ward participated in a live chat with the BizSugar community on Facebook about marketing small business using Pinterest. Here is a brief overview of that session with a link to the archived chat. BizSugar Blog Some fatal flaws. Despite its increased user base and growing popularity, some critics say Pinterest presents some problems not easy to ignore. Are these issues bigger than those troubling other social networks? CreateHype Reality CheckThe legal deal. One of the biggest concerns raised about Pinterest again and again is one of copyright infringement. Before starting to use Pinterest for your small business, explore the legal ramifications possible for this new tool. JD Supra The big appeal. Before you start using Pinterest, maybe it would help to better understand the appeal the site has with its rapidly expanding fan base. Here are some important things to consider about why we love love Pinterest. Los Angeles Times From Small Business Trends |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business News, Tips, Advice - Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment