Who Cares About Customer Loyalty?
Repeat customers, raving fans, angry backlashers, commodity shoppers. Oh boy, what a range of loyalty these represent. And in your years, you may have experienced all of these. Here’s another way to look at the ladder to an ideal customer loyalty relationship. But first, let’s examine the three kinds of loyalty you don’t want to engender……
Read MoreSmall Biz Interviews: Reaching for the Sky
Krissy Jones and Chloe Kernaghan opened a Sky Ting, a yoga studio in Chinatown, just over a year ago. Lifelong dancers, they both got into yoga in college as a way of training or managing stress, and met each other while studying more intensively under their mentor. Krissy and Chloe became friends, and realized they both…
Read More10 Basic Tips to Reduce Costs and Grow Faster
When you’re starting a business, you want to make sure all your risk factors are under control. The old adage, “It’s better to be safe than sorry,” applies, and that justifies buying that extra computer or hiring a few more people on the team. But once the business gets moving, you have to start looking…
Read MoreHow Mobile Technologies are Impacting Small Business Owners
Mobile technologies really are changing the ways small businesses operate and compete on a global scale. Recent surveys have shown that, in order to stay competitive and remain successful, small business owners must tap into mobile technologies. According to a report produced by AT&T and the Small Business & Entrepreneurship (SBE) council, using mobile technologies…
Read MoreHow to Measure Offline Advertising with Google Analytics
<rant> Since I’ve been in the digital space, I have worked under the title “web analyst,” using “web analytics” tools like Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, and WebTrends. However, the preface “web” is misleading. The term “digital analytics,” though broader, still doesn’t do justice to the capabilities of these platforms. We can measure so much more…
Read MoreHow to Beat the Demand for Longer Blog Content
If your business or organization has a blog, then you’ll want to know what your readers want: LONGER CONTENT! The annual Orbit Media Studios survey of 1055 bloggers demonstrates that the longer your blog post is, the better results you’ll get. The average blog post this year is up 19% over last year to 1054 words! Now, that’s…
Read MoreFree (and Honest) Small Business Owner Job Description
I have stressed the importance of creating job descriptions before you start hiring to expand your small business. But I recently realized that I’ve never discussed a job description for the actual small business owner. Instead of discussing it, I decided to write it. See how much of it describes your job. Small business owner job description…
Read More7 Keys to Making a Micro-Business Your Success Path
In the last few years, I’ve heard more and more about a new type of small business, called a “micro-business” (or micro-enterprise). These are usually characterized as owner-operated, with five employees or less, and less than $250,000 in sales. With the low cost of e-commence entry, and powerful Internet technologies, they require minimal capital to…
Read MoreQuestions to Ask Trade Show Organizers
I am often asked how to tell which vendor events will be worth your time to attend. There are two things you should do to determine if a trade show is a good use of your time and money before signing up: Visit theevent as a guest and check it out for yourself. Often you will be surprised…
Read MoreStartup Stock Options as Fool’s Gold
Terry had a good job with an established software company but left to join a startup. Why? “Because they’re giving me startup stock options.” Too bad. Two years later that job ended. That startup was going nowhere, cutting costs, and fighting extinction. Terry needed a new job. Again. What about those options? They had no value whatsoever. They…
Read More