Pricing Strategy Guide: Service Businesses
Developing a pricing strategy may not be a science, but sometimes it can feel about as difficult as performing brain surgery or engineering rocket ships! Service businesses are at particularly high risk of pricing confusion. It’s much trickier to put a dollar value on things like time and expertise than to determine the cost of producing…
Read MoreEntrepreneurs: Born or Made?
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times: “why are you an entrepreneur?” Early on you knew that the entrepreneur lifestyle was for you and overtime it evolved to be part of your personality. The idea that entrepreneurs are a “special breed” of people has been floating around for a while now.…
Read MoreIs It Time to Ditch the Term “Social”?
Is social media social? What at first blush might seem like a highly ironic and utterly absurd question has a surprisingly firm grounding in reality, at least in today’s existing digital marketing reality. When you take a moment to stop and think about it, much of the largely two-way interplay on the ubiquitous digital communications…
Read MoreWhy the Sales Funnel is Alive and Well on the Web
Do a quick search for phrases around the death of the sales funnel. There’s article after article opining that the sales/marketing funnel is dead because the buyer’s journey is no longer linear. Makes sense, right? Ok, so let’s abandon the funnel since it’s dead. No way. You’d have to pry it out of my dead…
Read More7 Tips to Deal with Unhappy Customers
No one likes to receive a complaint—but complaints are worth their weight in gold if an organization learns from them and then uses the information to improve the customer experience. Customer complaints can be used to build a better customer experience and turn a dissatisfied customer into a raving fan. A good response to a…
Read MoreWhy Banks Deny Small Business Loans
There are many reasons why banks deny an applicant’s small business loan request. Unfortunately, this happens too often, even when the business idea is a great one. Why does this happen? Why is it so hard for entrepreneurs and small business owners to gain the financing they need to start or run their business? Understanding…
Read MoreThe Best Things Small Businesses Can Do to Reduce Overhead
Running a small business is much different than operating a Fortune 500 company. You may have limited resources when it comes to how much you make in a month or year as well as face limitations as to outside funding sources. If you don’t manage your overhead, the company could lose significant amounts of money…
Read MoreHire “Jacks” (and “Jills”)
Sometimes you need to hire a specialist already trained in a single narrow task. But for most of us, we’d do far better hiring someone who has proven from past experience to be a “jack of all trades” able to fill many positions, do many tasks, learn and perform in many situations. You’d be going against…
Read More4 Essential Tips for Beginning Entrepreneurs
Congratulations! Inspired by the 10% of new businesses that succeed, rather than daunted by the 90% that don’t, you’re ready to become an entrepreneur. You’ve got ideas, talents and abilities in which are worth investing your time, effort and resources. Acquiring and developing the right resources is one of the most important factors in the…
Read More9 Great Paths to Recurring Revenue for Your Startup
Every new business quickly realizes that revenue coming in every period on a committed basis is the Holy Grail to survival and growth. According to many experts, getting new customers is five to ten times harder than getting additional revenue from existing customers. Thus the subscription model (low fixed monthly payments), is rapidly becoming the norm…
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