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3 Tips to Making Your Small Business Big in 2012 [Guest]

Guest post written by Kathleen Hubert

3 Tips to Making Your Small Business Big in 2012

Making a small business into a large success is not as challenging as it might seem. Dreaming of creating a big business from that small company that is currently running and bringing in profits is only the first step in achieving the goal. Following three simple rules can help bring in big successes in 2012 that will ultimately result in creating a big business.

List Successes

Before starting out with a new business plan, it is vital to determine what worked in 2011 and what held your small business back. List the items that sold the most or the marketing scheme that brought in new customers to your company.

Beyond listing the successes, make another list of what did not work for the business. Differentiating what works for you and what does not can help ensure you have repeat customers and maintain the current client base.

Show Expertise by Helping

Creating a blog that gives advice on how to use products or what services might be useful in which situations can not only help clients who are looking for answers; it can show expertise in your business field. By establishing yourself as a professional who is not only seeking profits but also trying to give help when clients need a hand, you are bringing in more interest and work.

Making use of blogs, social networking sites and other Internet resources is a great way to help your small business grow and start blooming into a big company. Social networks and blogs are particularly useful when you want to establish your experience and professionalism in the field.

Make a Plan

The final tip to follow is making a business plan based on the figures and information from previous years as well as customer feedback about services or products. A business plan should detail what you intend to do for growth, what you plan to avoid for the next year because it did not work previously and which areas clients would like to see improved. By working on a plan and creating a method of obtaining the goal of becoming a big business, the dream can ultimately become a reality.

Small businesses always have a hope of growing into a large corporation. Fortunately, it is possible for any business to reach for greater success with a plan of action and a few simple rules.

Kathleen Hubert is a blogger who writes on a variety of different sites. Check out more of her work at car loans.

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All Write Already

Just Start WritingWriting a blog post each day isn’t at all difficult.

Writing a post that make sense, adds value, and provoke conversation or curation from others might.

I often suggest that you just – start – writing. Spill it. Write, don’t edit. You’ll get better at it as you do it.

Let’s take blogging for instance. Where do we begin…

Well … after a few minutes of silence (except for the cursor getting louder with each blink), we avoid the noise of silence by … by diverting our attention to things with tangible results.

We …yes that’s it, we change a color on the banner, or … we put up a new widget, and of course … we must learn how to do so, so we read up on how to do code to get the widget up and … hey, what’s that … I could use one of these too (y’know, one of those plugins that helps encourage readers to subscribe to my newsletter), oh … but I also don’t have a newsletter. Well, maybe I should do research on which newsletter service is best (and free) oh, here’s one, I should watch the tutorial video.

Hours later, after putting together widgets, colors, and watching tutorial videos, I’m almost ready to write that post. Oh, but I don’t have content for that new newsletter, I should write that first.

And we stare.

Again.

At that blasted cursor.

But hey, bright side is now we have our ducks in a row. But they just sit there. Sitting Ducks. I wonder if there’s a dot com for “sitting ducks”. Maybe a mobile app? I should do some research if there’s a mobile app for stuck writers. Oh here’s one. hey, that looks good. I should buy this to get some ideas for my mobile app. Hey, this is cool.

An hour later, I’m inspired and ready to create a mobile app for my new idea. Heh, and all this because I thought I was dry for ideas. Nonsense! This innovation stuff is a breeze.

Okay, here’s a free thing to create a mobile app. Let’s see. Connect RSS feed of the site. D’oh, I have to go get the dot.com first. Boom, there – now to design the site, Let’s see… Pour a glass of wine, some cheese and crackers, okay – now we’re getting down to business. This year is gonna be great… (and off to work we go)

But we still haven’t written a word (though now we have another site, and a mobile app – both needing words)

As Sean Connery said in Finding Forrester. Punch the keys!

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Project 2012: Video-a-Day – #VaD12

Many of us have heard, if not participated in, some of the Photo-a-Day communities around. One thing I’m trying this year is a Video-a-Day. And here’s my first entry here on the first:

At this time last year, Instagram and Pinterest weren’t even on your radar. Wouldn’t be great if when the cool video app comes out (maybe Instagram goes video?), you’re ready and practiced?

 

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Access and Action: Premium Content and Business Blogging

Earlier this week, I read this post on Premium Content and thought about cost and value.

Stephen P. Smith is heading towards a more systematic approach to publishing his work. I have an eye and ear towards Stephen’s work on Twitter and via RSS, but some of his content on Google+ has caught my attention. It’s those longer, deeper thoughts that he speaks about in his post about Premium Content

In his post uses two key words: Access and Action.

And I believe these two words are the keys to creating premium content that will add an additional revenue stream to many small and independent business owners.

We use a blog (or other streams and content) to give a taste-on-a-toothpick, not wanting to give away the farm. But many small business owners wonder when the farm gets shown.

Premium Content with Access and Action for you might look like a workshop in a Google Plus Hangout; an in-depth video training on YouTube (but with a limited access URL); or a membership site like The Dialing 8 Project. In each of these scenarios, the intended audience has special access (to the content and creator) and actionable responses – the take-aways are tangible.

Back to Stephen – His premium content has two choices. The first, a weekly delivery, is less expensive than just about everything and slightly more than a freely published blog post. Another, a monthly subscription, is offered at $25 month.

Hmm, I thought. Less expensive than a full consult and if I glean one thing that adds $25 of revenue to my practice – it’s worth it. Ah, but I love this line: The thinking is free, I get paid to answer the email. Subscribers get to engage privately with Smith on things that they find a challenge – and Smith responds with an in-depth reply.

For less than small cup of coffee a day. But with more and longer-lasting benefits.

How might you create a greater, in-depth form of content that includes Access and Action for your audience?

 

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Are You Asking the “Why Should I” and Missing the “Why Are They”?

Is Your Business Ready for Mobile?Wow, things change fast, hmm?

New things, changed things, different ways to use things. And have you seen the way those people are using those things?

And so we are faced with a question (or two). Many of us start with this one:

Why (on earth) would I want to do that?!

Unfortunately, as you may have determined by the tone (the exclamation after the question mark) this really isn’t a question – though it should be, just without the sarcasm.

And if it is a question to find understanding of what it might mean to you, follow up with this question:

Why are they doing  that?

By trying to find out what are they getting out of using that thing, or how it’s improving their lifestyle –  you’re priming your brain and your business to be prepared to serve your customer  - and the next wave – better.

I recently read a piece of data that shows 1 of 5 parents use a mobile device to communicate with their kids while they’re both at home (time for dinner or don’t forget the dishes). Whether you and I agree with that practice is secondary in the context of business.

It’s what’s being done now, and it’s what is coming around the bend. Adults and soon-to-be adults are using mobile. Have you see the people you drive next to and in front of. Everyone is on it (including you).

So next time you see something new or changed, maybe give a little focus to value they have found to help us find our own value.

Is your business ready for mobile?

  • Mobile Apps
  • Mobile Sites
  • Location-Based pages (Google Places, Foursquare, Merchant’s Circle, etc)
  • Other quick-to-implement and necessary to woo your customer ideas.

These are some of the things we’re discussing in our Dialing 8 CoLaboratory Hangout today (members only). If you want to join us tomorrow, let me know in a way convenient to you and I’ll make it happen (9am, 11:30am, or 7pm CST).

Is your business ready for mobile?

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Thanksgiving Stuffing for Your Blog Readers

Big weekend coming up. Football. Shopping. Food. Family.  And more of the same.

Along about Saturday afternoon, a lot of folks turn their attention elsewhere – and it’s a perfect time to lay out some goodies for your readers and new visitors.

I’ve been suggesting for years that weekends might have a lower number of visitors, but the depth of each visit grows. Don’t forget the weekends, especially the long ones.

Holiday Weekend: Schedule your Posts

Most blogging platforms (or blogware) allow you to schedule posts. BufferApp and Hootsuite are two tools you can use to schedule postings for Twitter or Facebook.

Thanksgiving Gratitude

Maybe this is the weekend to thank a dozen or so folks that you’ve found to add value to your information consumption. Something like Folks I Follow.

A Family-Sized List Post

How about an enormous helping of list posts that will get tweeted around and give ample time for leftover reads throughout the weekend. What would your list be? Here’s mine: 64 Different Types of Blog Posts

Picture or Poetry

Maybe you’ve had a yearning, or a stretch of the mind – to write up a post of the poetry kind

With Gratitude

And as for you my reading friend? After you’re done writing, I hope you enjoy a bit of time with family or shopping or football with delicious food.

And if along comes Saturday and you want to peruse the conversphere – walk the stacks over at Alltop or feast upon the eye-pleasing Pinterest and decorate your own board. There’s tons of stuff for every interest at either place.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

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Do You Really Want Comments on Your Blog?

There are lots of platforms for conversation these days, so many endless streams of information, so many places to see and be seen.

Yet many still gauge their success on how many comments they get on their blog.

It seems there are three stages of of thought around comments on a business’ blog:

  1. Fear of negative comments
  2. Worry that no one will ever comment
  3. Replying to all the comments becomes a chore

Some never get to the third stage – heck, some never overcome the first stage and therefore don’t blog – but those are trails for another stroll.

Would you rather have comments on your blog or have others comment about your blog elsewhere?

I’ve long held to the practice and teaching that long comments should become blog posts. And while I’m a big believer in conversation, it’s as much about our behavior as the give-and-take.

While there is value to people commenting on your site,  isn’t that mostly an ego-massage more than a relationship builder and revenue generator?

And frankly, don’t you get a bit more excited when someone shares your link out to their audience than the excitement of a comment coming in? Outward vs Inward.

It is, after all, a world wide web we weave, hmm?

 

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Toe-Tapping Into Music and Google Plus for Business

Amidst the off-tune, oft-covered wales and tails of how Google+ is not good for business, along comes another plus to the party. And it may just be something for your use of Google+ Pages.

If you’ve been around here for some time, you know I like finding ways to use new tools to touch multiple senses, maybe punctuating posts with sound bytes from movies or asking how chocolate chip cookies sound.

As Google announced the new Google Music, I wondered how it might be used for business or better,how could we use Google+ plus Music together. So I posted this:

Cool, right? Hey, who threw that tomato from the bleachers, this is just the birth of the news . . .

So here’s a line of thought: Occasionally on your Google+ Business posts (especially the long ones), go find a song that fits and share the preview. Your readers will be able to hear the soundtrack of your posting.

It won’t (yet) work when you’re attaching a link, video, or photo – only one attachment at a time for now – but it can add a flavor to your thoughts.

Will it work? You know my song n dance: I Dunno, Let’s Find Out

Give it a shot, and let me know how it goes.

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Authorship and The Mystery of REL=Author (Clean and Patient)

If you haven’t heard anything about the hurdles of the “rel = author” snippets, it’s still new (part of HTML5) and Google is using it for several reasons. It is, however, an important issue – and one you need to look at implementing.

You folks that know me have heard me say, “I’m talk-nology more than technology” so here’s the business reason (not the tech reason) you want to know about this and get authorship on your site:

Faces

Here’s the search result of a post I did earlier today on Google+ Hangouts for Business:

A few things to notice:

  1. Amy-Mae Elliott’s piece on Mashable shows up with Amy-Mae face in a byline. Along with Google+ Circling options.
  2. Every result has a +1 button (I clicked this one)
  3. My face shows, but only because I clicked on the +1 button. If others in my circles or contacts do likewise, I will see their face as well. Those who +1 that are not in my circles – I won’t see their face.
  4. Interesting, +Denis Labelle shared my bit on Google+ – and he shows up close to the top as well.

From what I’ve read, having the proper authorship isn’t going to give you a better search position. Yet, you and I both know that people will be drawn to the faces in the byline. And those “circle” options. So convenient.

There’s another important part of this though: Patience

A few folks are pulling out their hair over or investing many hours on getting this right (I have no hair left, so I’m stuck on the latter).

Don’t try to game a system. Throw away the conspiracy theories. Last night I found that maybe clean code and patience is what’s necessary.

Dialing 8 member and Real Estate pro Craig Kamman saw his byline start to appear in search results recently:

Now Craig’s domain is pretty new. He did use a plugin found on Robert Dempsey’s site. So clean code (site is new + a trusted plugin). Patience (I think Craig put that into place a few weeks ago).

Clean code. Patience. Face in a byline. That’s rel = author.

You’ll need the Rich Snippet Tool. And the help page that guides you through it.

I’m still in patience mode:

Here are some great helps from others who’ve got it right thus far:

- Scott Hanselman
- AJ Kohn
- Joost de Valk 
- Jim Connolly

 

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The Dialing 8 Project: Intro Video

This video is now up on Dialing 8 (launching on 11/13/11) and on the sidebar here at ConverStations

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