10 Effective eLearning Options for Entrepreneurs |  |
- 10 Effective eLearning Options for Entrepreneurs
- Facebook is Trying to Make Advertising Simpler
- 11 Barcode Generators for Managing Inventory – And for Marketing
- Internet Sales Tax Issue Still Lives Despite Activist Claims
- 5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts That Highlight or Hinder You
| 10 Effective eLearning Options for Entrepreneurs Posted: 11 Jun 2013 04:00 PM PDT
The constant evolution of entrepreneurship is one of the attributes that makes the career path so exciting: A fluid and flexible job description, expansive industry boundaries and technological innovations that repeatedly make business better. The unpredictability of the pendulum profession can be very detrimental, but equally rewarding as well. Which is why it’s so important to keep up with all the countless changes. And education, like every other aspect of the entrepreneurship backend, needs to be effective in both time and cost. We asked members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invitation-only organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs, the following question to find out what’s on their virtual curriculum:
Here's what YEC community members had to say: 1. Steve Blank’s “How to Build a Startup” “I encourage every entrepreneur to go through Steve Blank’s “How to Build a Startup” course on Udacity. It’s really the best tool out there to help you effectively learn how to use customer discovery, the business model canvas and lean principles in building your startup. So make sure to take (and complete) the course — and remember, do the homework!” ~ Eric Koester, Zaarly 2. Sales Courses “It doesn’t matter if you’re advertising, raising VC or working sponsorships or direct sales — if you don’t know how to read people and situations and turn leads into sales, then your ventures are going to suffer. There are a ton of great mentors and courses out there; look for ones that emphasize practical steps and not just the theory of how to persuade and sell. Your revenues will thank you.” ~ Kelly Azevedo, She’s Got Systems 3. General Assembly Online Classes “We like to stream various General Assembly online classes for the entire office to view. Developers, designers, strategists and account services can all benefit from learning about other roles, including UX, content creation, public speaking and general product classes. We value the variety and relevancy of classes offered.” ~ Bobby Emamian, Prolific Interactive 4. Free Courses “Skillshare and Udemy are two great eLearning programs, but there are a wealth of others available for newbie entrepreneurs, and some are absolutely free. There are classes offered by Khan Academy (general learning), Code School (coding assistance), KelbyTraining.com (photography), JavaScript Playground (JavaScript help) and more.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance 5. Statistics Classes “I know the statistics classes I took in college (at least those that I didn’t change majors to avoid) only gave an introduction to the topic. The more direction you can get out of the numbers you have, though, the easier it is to make business decisions. A few in-depth stats classes are always a good choice.” ~ Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting 6. Inc.’s Course List “As an entrepreneur, the courses recommended by Inc. are your best marketing tool. You need to be able to sell your ideas and yourself to not only clients, but recruits, investors and potential partners as well. You need to be confident, engaged and prepared. The Inc.-recommended courses can help you get there.” ~ Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net 7. Marie Forleo’s “B-School” “I highly recommend B-School, founded by Marie Forleo, for entrepreneurs or budding business owners (especially women) who want to create online businesses and lives that honor their individualism, flexibility and passions. This modern take on marketing and selling online completely changed my business and tripled my bottom line. ” ~ Melissa Cassera, Cassera Communications 8. Free Conference Videos “If you’re a new Internet entrepreneur, save your money. Many conferences for entrepreneurs charge hundreds of dollars to attend, but they routinely post their videos online for free after the conference. Check out free videos from conferences like Big Omaha, LessConf, MicroConf, Startup Lessons Learned and LeWeb. Also, check out Foundation, a great entrepreneur interview series from Kevin Rose.” ~ Clay Hebert, Spindows 9. Success Academy “Success Academy is a solid learning platform for entrepreneurs. They are more about conveying the real advice that has led to many of their facilitators’ successes.” ~ John Hall, Influence & Co. 10. Ryan Porter’s “Talk Ain’t Cheap” “Ryan is a bestselling author, TEDx speaker and platform guru. Many don’t realize how big an opportunity public speaking events can be for building a platform. When you have an audience listening to your ideas and you are able to capture their names and emails by directing them toward free content through a platform URL, the possibility for later ninja-nurturing campaigns is tremendous. ” ~ Michael Costigan, Youth Leadership Specialist Electronic Learning Photo via Shutterstock The post 10 Effective eLearning Options for Entrepreneurs appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Facebook is Trying to Make Advertising Simpler Posted: 11 Jun 2013 01:30 PM PDT Facebook says it is trying to make its advertising products easier to use and more understandable for customers. In an announcement on the official Facebook Newsroom blog last week, Fidji Simo, product manager at Facebook, wrote the company would streamline its advertising products from 27 different choices to about half that in the next six months. The company says it decided to simplify its advertising offerings because of customer preference. In her post, Simo wrote:
Though Facebook was not specific about all the advertising products likely to be eliminated, Simo did mention some that would be disappearing. And some sponsored posts associated with Facebook business pages will be affected. QuestionsOne of the sponsored products scheduled to disappear is a feature called Questions. The special post offers a multiple choice question about a product or service users can respond to if they wish. But in the post, Simo said business customers would prefer to just add a question in a post and get a response in the comment section.
OfferAnother kind of sponsored post set to disappear is the Offer, wrote Simo. The Offer post includes a simple product description and “get offer” button, allowing visitors to take advantage. Again, Simo said advertisers felt using an ad explaining the offer with a link to the company Web page was simpler and more effective.
Sponsored StoriesAnother type of ad post that will not so much be eliminated as consolidated is the sponsored story post. Up until now, Facebook advertisers have had to buy a separate product for the best “social context” on their sponsored posts. Often this includes information on friends or fans who have “liked” or “commented” on a sponsored post. The added product is called “sponsored story” and is a separate purchase in addition to the post. From now on, however, Simo says Facebook will be eliminating the extra steps and adding social context with each ad purchased. It’s unclear from Facebook at this time whether this means advertisers will be paying less for the additional social context in their ads or whether the cost of a sponsored ad will simply be part of the new advertising package. However, Simo claims data from sources like Nielsen and comScore show social context increases return on advertising and brand awareness.
A New LookChanges are expected to make ads more consistent in appearance and to make the advertising process on Facebook simpler by reducing the number of potential ad formats. Below is Facebook’s vision of a more consistent ad format.
Most of these changes will begin in July, Simo wrote. She was less specific about what other changes the company might be making in its advertising products and services or what cost changes, if any, might be associated with the consolidation. Reaction from the Facebook marketing community has been fairly calm. “It's going to be OK, don't panic,” wrote Laurie Cutts, Director of Marketing for Nanigans, on the company blog last week. Nanigans is a social marketing agency specializing in helping clients with Facebook advertising. “Yes, Sponsored Stories have been a part of our lives as marketers for quite some time now,” Cutts added. “As we've come to learn, though, social ad units, especially on Facebook, have a shelf life. For Sponsored Stories that time has come.” What do you think? Will these changes improve your efforts to market to customers on Facebook, make them more difficult, or have little or no effect? The post Facebook is Trying to Make Advertising Simpler appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 11 Barcode Generators for Managing Inventory – And for Marketing Posted: 11 Jun 2013 11:00 AM PDT Keeping track of your products and assets manually is a chore. Why not barcode them? The technology to create them is accessible via the Web and there are tons of free apps for smartphone users that can serve as scanners. For the business owner who needs to get inventory organized and barcoded, this list of barcode generators is for you. Below are eleven free and low-cost tools to create either barcodes or QR codes. QR codes are more of a marketing tactic. You have probably seen these codes in direct mail packages, in emails or on storefront windows and doors. A QR code can suffice for certain types of inventory control, but most companies prefer barcodes for inventory management. All of these barcode generators are free unless otherwise noted. Plus there is a useful book listed at the end of the article. 11 Barcode Generators
One of the easiest online barcode creators that I found. As you can see above, you just select the style you need or want and the software creates it. OnlineLabels has both a barcode and a QR code creator. They also have a nifty Nutrition Label creator. I’m thinking of making my own low-fat potato chip label so I won’t feel guilty anymore… They have a simple online tool, but also sell the fonts in their downloadable software package. They sell a range of barcoding equipment and label makers, but also offer barcode and QR code generators online. TEC-IT lets you download its online tool code snippet to place on your own website. They also sell a full barcode software suite for Windows, Mac, and SAP.
Wasp Barcode (above) offers a free online barcode generator, in addition to a full arsenal of barcode technology, to help you create codes. They even email them to you after you fill out the form. The generator is hosted at SourceForge and is highly rated and only available as downloaded software. No online tool. Barcode Generator and Overprinter Well-rated on CNET as a top download. They have a 15-day free trial, but it is $60 to purchase a one-time license. Smartphone Ready QR Codes for MarketingFor those who want to create smartphone-ready QR codes for marketing and sales purposes, the three online generators below are solid. Kaywa is a free online QR code generator. However, they also have a robust paid plan because it has deeper analytics that it can perform. QR Code Generator from the ZXing Project ZXing Project is one of my favorites because they let you put all sorts of custom data into the QR code.
QR Stuff is a rich site with all sorts of options to make customizing your QR code painless. As you can see above, lots of options. Bonus: A Book on Barcodes Matt Kostanecki, marketing guy at inFlow Inventory software, wrote an excellent, detailed book on the topic of barcodes. If you need to create a barcode system, you’ll want to check out this affordable barcode book for small businesses. For Amazon Prime members, it’s currently free on Amazon. With all of these free and low-cost barcode generators, there is no reason to keep doing it manually. Even if you don’t use them at the point of sale, it will help you during annual and quarterly inventory counts. If you are considering a barcode solution, are you planning to use a smartphone as the scanner or will you purchase a stand-alone scanner? The post 11 Barcode Generators for Managing Inventory – And for Marketing appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Internet Sales Tax Issue Still Lives Despite Activist Claims Posted: 11 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT
The so-called Internet Sales Tax isn’t dead, despite what you may have heard. Here’s what happened: Last week, a millennial advocacy group called Generation Opportunity planned a so-called “Facebook bomb” of Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). Rep. Goodlatte happens to be the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which is considering the Internet Sales Tax (known officially as the Marketplace Fairness Act.) The group claims it inundated the Republican Congressman’s Facebook page with more than 3,000 comments urging him to stall the bill in his committee so it never reaches the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives for a vote. Setting the Record StraightWhile they may have gotten the response they wanted from Goodlatte, the group apparently inferred more than the Congressman intended to say. In a statement from Generation Opportunity, it said Goodlatte told the group that the Judiciary Committee would not take up the Marketplace Fairness Act. Generation Opportunity said Goodlatte’s comment to them “effectively kills the bill,” according to the group’s release last week. After a local Virginia TV station picked up on that story and contacted Goodlatte, the Congressman clarified his message and gave the Internet Sales Tax bill some life, but not much. He issued a statement saying,
Whatever Goodlatte means by “alternatives,” it doesn’t seem to quite add up to the killing of the bill Generation Opportunity had claimed. Small Business Owners Still DividedSmall business owners are still divided on the Internet sales tax proposed legislation anyway. Though it recently passed the U.S. Senate, it will need to be approved by the House before it’s sent to President Barack Obama to be signed into law. If passed as is, the legislation would require most online merchants to collect sales tax from their customers, including those in states where the merchants have no established location. That’s good news for affiliate marketers who claim the bill is a good alternative to “affiliate nexus taxes” requiring companies like Amazon to pay sales tax if sales to its site come through affiliates based in some states. The nexus taxes have caused some companies to discontinue association with affiliates in states where they exist, advocates for the affiliate industry say. On the other hand, Ebay, which advocates for thousands of small merchants using its services for online selling, says the law, if passed, will be a regulatory nightmare. It could make these merchants responsible for complying with 9,600 state and local tax jurisdictions across the country depending on the location of each customer. Where Things Stand on the Internet Sales TaxBut even if the Internet Sales Tax bill isn’t dead yet, it may still have little chance of ever passing. As we reported earlier, there is much less support for the bill in the House than in the Senate, so the bill may stall in committee with or without activist efforts. Internet tax Photo via Shutterstock The post Internet Sales Tax Issue Still Lives Despite Activist Claims appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts That Highlight or Hinder You Posted: 11 Jun 2013 05:00 AM PDT
I remember the first time I saw the Twitter blue Bird “chirping” image after I launched my business in late 2007. I loved it from first sight and use. The idea of short 140 character comments and microblogging was brilliant. I don’t think any of us could have seen the impact Twitter would have, in it’s real time, immediate ability to distribute breaking news and information. But it has transformed how fast we see it – and get it. Says Digital Expert, Brian Solis, about TNN, the Twitter News Network:
Not only do we Tweet, but we follow the Twedia, have our own Twitterverse, read Twitorials, think some people are Twitless and yes, there is a Twitionary. Social media, especially Twitter, is changing the game of journalism and allowing anyone to potentially break a story and take on the role of journalist. I learned about Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Osama Bin Laden’s deaths from Twitter. Other breaking stories include the Hudson River plane crash, the royal wedding announcement, Hurricane Sandy and the Moore Oklahoma tornado. Twitter wants you to know a few stats about how brands use it, as it continues it’s mission to be considered as a major media company, which it is already well on it’s way to becoming:
Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July as an online social networking service and microblogging service that enabled its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets.” Twitter got it’s name, from the word twittering, which is the sound birds make when they communicate with each other. This turns out to be an apt description of the conversations and activity that happens on Twitter. Twitter provides people with real-time public information. Even more profound is how it also helps groups of people to mimic the effortless way a flock of birds move in unison. As I work with small businesses, entrepreneurs and professional consultants on their social media plan and messaging, I recommend Twitter as an integral part of that plan. Twitter is an integral tool, resource and community. Especially now that smart phones, mobile and texting are exploding. As an early adopter on Twitter (2008), I have learned much about etiquette, useability, utility and results. Amazingly, the top 15% of Twitter users account for 85% of all Tweets. Below are 5 Twitter do’s and don’ts that can highlight or hinder you in how you stand out, get noticed and are remembered on Twitter. 5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts5 Twitter Do’s That Highlight You1) Consistency Be consistently authentic and deliver daily value. 2) Thankfulness Thank people and show gratitude. 3) Genuineness Tweet like you think and speak. 4) Respect Respect the etiquette of the community and space. 5) Positivity Vibe positivity, optimism and brand your own style. 5 Twitter Don’ts That Hinder You1) Over Sell Don’t over sell, over automate and under serve. 2) Spam Don’t spam people, be disrespectful or be rude. 3) Over Tweet Don’t over Tweet, overwhelm and under engage. 4) Vague Don’t have an unfinished bio, bad avatar and no legitimate contact information. 5) Steal Don’t post, re-tweet or steal content without acknowledging the source. Although I have had some unfortunate interruptions in error on Twitter lately, I remain a staunch advocate, dedicated user and fan of the platform. If you get suspended or have any problems with Twitter, don’t panic. Here’s everything you need to know to get reinstated. You don’t have to be on Twitter to be successful, but having Twitter in your media mix and using it strategically can enhance your business brand, reach and social media fun. Learn more about how and why to use Twitter in these infographics. What are your top Twitiquette do’s and don’ts? Blue Bird Photo via Shutterstock The post 5 Twitter Do’s and Don’ts That Highlight or Hinder You appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
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