6 Keys to Growing Your Business in 2016

If your child, young pet or garden wasn’t growing…what would you do?

A. Nothing

B. Hope they started to thrive without YOU making any changes

C. Ask yourself, “Am I adequately feeding and hydrating?”

D. Consult a pediatrician, veterinarian or expert gardener?

I bet you’d go with C & D yet many business owners choose A & B hoping for a miracle.  Don’t be one of them. Continue reading

Tips for Getting Meaningful Customer Feedback

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Michael Sippey is currently the VP of Product for Twitter and shared the following tips in an article I read recently. According to Sippey there is one important rule and three steps for gathering powerful customer feedback that can make all the difference for your product roadmap. Continue reading

Bulls-Eye Employee Engagement

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One of the ‘secrets’ to a successful small business is having employees who are engaged, aligned with what you’re doing and enjoy working with you and your team. We’ve all experienced interactions with businesses where the employees are clearly just showing up for the paycheck and don’t care at all about what they’re doing. That’s a business on life support. It’s equally easy to see when employees genuinely like and believe in what they’re doing…and that makes all the difference to a customer and ultimately the business. Continue reading

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Numbers…

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The season where we all start to look at our numbers will quickly be upon us. The end of the year. The context that those numbers are in matters, so take a deeper look this year until you understand what your numbers are really telling you.

Let’s say you brought in $200,000 of revenue this month. Is that good or bad? It depends. If you brought in $100,000 last month, it’s good. If your expenses were $400,000 this month, it’s bad. Everything in context. Continue reading

Cumberland County-Global Entrepreneurship Week

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It’s Global Entrepreneurship Week around the world. In Cumberland County in cooperation with Junior Achievement of East Tennessee, the local Youth Achievement Foundation and the Cumberland Business Incubator (CBI) of Roane State Community College, a lot is happening. Continue reading

8 Traits for the Most Successful Entrepreneurs

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I read an article by Ryan Robinson and thought you would like to know what he has learned through his interviews and studies of the most successful entrepreneurs. What makes them successful? Why do they succeed when so many do not? Continue reading

7 Essential Stages for a Total Online Presence

online presence

The seven stages of building a total online presence according to Duct Tape Marketing are:

  1. Content Platform
  2. Organic SEO
  3. Email Marketing
  4. Social Media Marketing
  5. Online Advertising
  6. Mobile and Location
  7. Analytics and conversion

1.Content Platform – Much of what happens online revolves around content. It’s how you get found, why people pay attention and how you start to exchange value. Content platform starts with building a listening station with tools like Google Alerts, TweetDeck, Trackur, Social Mention, Sprout Social and Raian6. You’ll be listening to gain insight into your market, your competitors and important groups, including key journalists, working toward a better understanding of the most important keyword phrases that resonate with customers in your market. Continue reading

Trade Show Marketing Tips

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It seems that I have walked the floors at trade shows or vendor display areas at conferences a lot during 2015. If you have plans to participate in booth (or table and chair) marketing events in 2016, I hope these tips make your time spent there more rewarding. Continue reading

Servant Leadership

leadership

“Good leaders must first become good servants.” Robert K. Greenleaf

45 years ago, the phrase “Servant Leadership” was used by Robert Greenleaf. Since then there have been a number of business books written about this style of leadership and what it means.  The topic of leadership is always a hot one. We’re all looking for better answers.  Although servant leadership isn’t always specifically referenced in business writing, most successful leaders practice it to some degree. Continue reading

Quotes for Business from Fictional Characters

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Leadership

“Your title gives you claim to the throne of our country, but men don’t follow titles, they follow courage.”  – William Wallace, Braveheart

Why?  Leadership is much more than a title.  Many business owners are finding that out as they seek to develop their next generation of leadership for their companies.  True leadership is earned and it is much more than just knowledge of the business and a title.

Entrepreneurship

Continue reading