The scandals and controversies over personal data collection have been making headlines for the last few months. With the various revelations and the new European regulations, it’s possible that collecting personal data online and using it for targeted advertising might be throttled back to some extent. However, advertising targeted via users’ personal data and behavior isn’t […]
Susan Solovic
How to Get Even Greater Benefits from Testimonials
Social proof. Testimonials. Recommendations. Likes. Positive feedback. 5-Star reviews. There are a lot of different terms for when customers say good things about your business and your team. We’ve talked about the importance of sharing these glowing words with prospects—such as featuring social proof on your website—but there’s another way to leverage these assets to boost […]
Be Careful to Balance Design Trends with Your Established Image
There is little doubt that Millennials are driving markets today and this is especially true online. One place where their impact is literally seen is in design. Online design trends move quickly today and this is because the tastes of younger Internet users drive the changes. And, the tastes within younger consumers always change more quickly than […]
Don’t Sink Your Sales Team with This Bad Management Choice
What makes a successful sales rep? Here are some often mentioned attributes: Total focus on their own accomplishments, and The ability to work independently. What makes a good manager of sales reps? I don’t think too many would argue with these: Total focus on the accomplishments of others, and The ability to work closely and […]
Prospects Want to Hear Your Story Before They Hear Your Pitch
I’m not an independent television producer, but I would wager that right now the holy grail among TV people is to produce a show that turns into a binge-watching sensation on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, or one of the other up-and-coming video streaming services. To me, the binge-watching phenomenon puts an exclamation mark on a recent […]
Are Visitors Sneaking In Through Your Website’s Side Door and Missing Your Message?
Small business owners sweat over what they want to put on the homepage of their websites, but all that attention may be misguided because of a critical, but common, misunderstanding: Many—if not most—of your visitors never see your homepage. If you’ve worked hard on your content marketing and social media marketing, the majority of your visitors […]
Small Biz Optimism: 2 Important Questions for Your Management
I have two questions for you today: Are you investing in capital improvements? Are you sweetening the pot to attract good candidates? If you aren’t taking those steps, you can be pretty sure your competitors are. The May 2018 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index survey reports that 67 percent of small businesses are making capital outlays and […]
Revealed: Women Entrepreneurs’ Crowdfunding Advantage
Note to women entrepreneurs: Make society’s gender stereotypes work in your favor! Personal experience and years of observation have taught me that women have a more difficult time winning investor backing for their startups than men. In fact, only about 1.3 percent of startup funding goes to women-owned projects. Since the most in the venture capital […]
Are You Missing Out on These Online Free Advertising Opportunities?
I’ve found that a lot of small business owners don’t know that they have free advertising credits on sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo, the various social media platforms, and Amazon waiting to be cashed in. This usually happens for one of two reasons: Someone else developed their site and took care of hosting, or The […]
Small Business Survey Reveals Areas to Gain a Competitive Advantage
A recent survey of 1,794 small business owners revealed expected—and unexpected—results, some of which can help you find ways to better competitively position your business in the coming months and years. The first finding that surprised me is that well over half the respondents were women: 57 percent. Only 39 percent said they were male […]
