Tag Archives: incubating businesses

Bulls-Eye Employee Engagement

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bullseye

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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kooky-numbers

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 →

7 Essential Stages for a Total Online Presence

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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 →

Servant Leadership

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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 →

Announcing: 100 Days to Launch – Tourism

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Applications will soon be accepted for the Cumberland Business Incubator’s (CBI) 2016 Accelerator, 100 Days to Launch – Tourism. The selection committee will review applications to find the top candidates with an existing business or those interested in launching a new business with a tourism focus. Continue reading →

A New Twist for Gift Cards

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gift cards

Gift cards are big business. Each year $400 billion worth enter the market. About 30% of gift-card values go unspent annually, in part because it’s so easy to forget about that piece of plastic you’ve tucked away somewhere. At 23 George Bousis started his Chicago-based company, Raise, offering gift-card holders the chance to sell the cards they don’t want and buy others they do want at a discount. With the new mobile app, Raise lets consumers grab discounted cards as they wait in line to make a purchase. Continue reading →

Planning to Sell Your Business?

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sell-a-las-vegas-business

This article appeared in Forbes Magazine 8/28/2015 – by Bob House

Selling a business can be a challenging process. However, like many challenges in life, business owners who take the time to properly prepare will fare much better than those that jump right in.

This is the real life lesson learned by one couple that successfully sold their North Carolina cafe after 18 years of devoted ownership. Their story is an example of how a little prep work can ease the selling process and perhaps more importantly, lead to a higher sales price. For every small business owner, whether planning to sell now or much farther down the road, these lessons apply. Continue reading →

DECISION

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decision

 

At the moment of every day I must decide what I am going to do the next moment; and no one can make this decision for me, or take my place in this.

                Jose Ortega Y Gasset, Philosopher and Essayist

Given options, sometimes clients have a hard time deciding what to do. I found the following essay on making decisions in Josh Kaufman’s The Personal MBA – Master the Art of Business. Continue reading →

What Do We Do?

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Logo resaved Have you ever been so busy with the work of your business that you felt like it was time to stop and take stock of what it is you do?

Bonnie reminded me that it’s probably time we do just that. I thought I would share with you what I came up with. Continue reading →