Archives for February 2019

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Earlier this week, we all snoozed through a large portion of the Super Bowl.

Hopefully, before you dozed off, you were able to catch the story of former NFL star Nolan Carroll.

Nolan never got to play in the Super Bowl during his NFL career, but like nearly 1 in 4 former pro football players, he’s making a play in small business afterward.

He’s teaming up with an international human rights lawyer and launching an app called YOOTROO. It’s designed to help local mom-and-pop businesses, probably just like yours.

His story is not the only NFL start-turned-entrepreneur story we’ve shared. Check out this story on Chris Gronkowski, the brother of Super Bowl champion Rob, and how he’s using Instagram to build his brand.

Football wasn’t the only thing making headlines this week. We also learned about some surprising jobs numbers and a new survey was released on just what people want to see from your social media posts.

Check them all out in our news and information roundup below:

Employment

Economy Adds 300,000 Jobs in January Despite Government Shutdown

The U.S. economy added 304,000 jobs while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4 percent in the first month of 2019, according to Department of Labor (DOL) data released Friday. January 2019 Jobs Report January marks the 100th straight month of job growth in the U.S., a record more than twice as long as the previous one of 48 months set in June 1990.

Marketing Tips

26% of Gen Z Wants to be Entertained by Your Online Content

Content is the engine that drives today’s digital ecosystem. Whether it is a website, blog, social media channel or even e-commerce, you have to have the right content. And for 26% of Gen Z consumers, you will do better if you entertain them. The data comes from an international study commissioned by WP Engine and conducted by The Center for Generational Kinetics.

Research

30% of Freelance Writers Make Less Than $10 Per Hour Their First Year, Survey Says

Written content has become an integral part of an online presence, and this has created a boon for freelance writers. As more freelance writers enter this segment, the question has to be asked, “How Much Do Freelance Writers Make?” The Pay Survey 2019 from Make a Living Writing is looking to answer this question with the help of 1,400+ participating freelance writers.

Social Media

Big Changes Come for Business Users as Google Plus Shutdown Looms

If you use it for your small business, you probably know the end of Google Plus is near. The consumer side of Google Plus will shut down in April 2019, but the company started implementing changes starting on February 4, 2019. The shutdown comes months before the August 2019 date Google announced in October of 2018.

Taxes

14 Important Dates for Small Businesses in the 2019 Tax Calendar

Tax season is approaching. But for many businesses, managing taxes can be a yearlong undertaking. In fact, there are many different types of deadlines you should be aware of throughout the year. 2019 Tax Calendar Here are the most important tax dates for businesses to know in 2019.

Image: DepositPhotos.com

This article, “In the News: Former NFLer Turning Attention to Mom-and-Pop Businesses” was first published on Small Business Trends

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I swear, every time I buy something somewhere I have the cashier asking me to “take this survey” or “let me know how we did” or “fill this out for a chance at a prize.”

Ugh…

I mean, I know what they’re trying to do, but it gets really, really old.

Still, it did inspire this Valentine’s Day cartoon …

This article, “Even Cupid Needs Customer Feedback” was first published on Small Business Trends

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The numbers speak for themselves—having a work environment that engages employees is just as important as good sales numbers and loyal customers.

How to Improve Office Culture

Here’s 10 ways you can make your company’s office culture better.

Be Transparent  

A company that wants to build an office culture where everyone feels engaged needs to be open and transparent. Making sure that your office is positioned for growth means spotting and fixing problems before they knock everyone off course.

Being transparent means sharing the lessons from any failures or mistakes. When you hide shortcomings from employees, you’re only maintaining an office and not fostering a culture.

One quick way to get this ball rolling is to let employees submit anonymous questions that get answered by management at scheduled meetings.

Stop the Burnout Cycle  

It’s important for business leaders to understand that a healthy work environment means long term growth. Burning people out so the company succeeds has always been a bad idea, more so now when skilled people are in short supply.

Scheduling the week’s work in advance can make all the difference. There’s lots of software on the market that can help you and your team take the needless hustle out of your office like this offering from Zoho.

Dress Appropriately

Working in an office means that you need to be respectful of your clients and fellow co workers. Common sense needs to prevail. Even though many dress codes are more relaxed these days, you still need to be mindful of how you represent your employer by what you wear.

Align Your Office Culture with the Bigger Picture

When you’re looking to shape an office culture, you need to be sure you’re designing something that can fold into the bigger company picture.  Do your teams work together toward clearly defined goals or do you foster competition to boost sales numbers?

You might need to brainstorm across several departments here to get input.

Foster Collaboration  

This needs to come from the top down so it spreads through your small business. Hosting a social team event is a great way to break barriers down so everyone gets to know each other on a personal level.

Define the Mission  

If you want everyone to work together and be on the same page, you need to tell them clearly what’s on it. Start by tackling the tough questions like what people can expect from working in your office and what values are front and center for your business.

Don’t Come to Work Sick  

You might fall behind on a project or two if you’re sick and stay a home to recoup. However, coming in when you’ve got a bug can give the whole office the sniffles.

Use Technology  

Everyone needs to be on the same page for your staff to stay motivated. There’s a variety of digital tools to get that done like Alexa For Business. This is a great way to alert everyone quickly when there’s a meeting or big announcement.

Maintain Office Equipment 

Motivating people to do great work is at least partially about giving them the right tools to work with. Preferably ones that are well maintained. Slow computers that crash a lot can actually be an unnecessary anchor on your office atmosphere and production both.

Keep the Atmosphere Bright  

The right lighting makes a big difference.  Natural light and plenty of windows actually improves the energy level and motivation.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “10 Ways to Improve Your Company’s Office Culture” was first published on Small Business Trends

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As the leader of a small business, you’re bent on driving growth. You are willing to put in the work that’s needed to achieve that, but paradoxically, working too hard could create unexpected obstacles to your business growth.

If you’re working hard and putting in long hours but your business has hit a plateau, it’s possible that your hard work is the problem.

Here are some of the ways that working too hard could be holding your business back from realizing its growth potential.

Working Too Hard Stops You from Delegating Effectively

When you work too hard, you end up micromanaging your own employees. This undermines their dedication to the business and sends a silent message that you don’t trust them to meet your expectations. That can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, generating resentment and an unhealthy work atmosphere.

“As a CEO and Entrepreneur, your success will directly correlate to how well you can assemble the best team and then bring out the best in those people,” notes Mark Moses, the CEO of CEO Coaching International. “Micromanagers should never be CEOs of large or growing companies. This is because they are simply too complex to micromanage. Being involved at every level and not delegating to your team creates a bottleneck that essentially strangles an organization.”

Indeed, in order for your business to really scale, you need talented employees who are experts in their areas of specialty. If you’re working too hard, you are probably carrying out tasks which don’t draw on your real strengths. When you hire experts, they can carry out the work in less time, thanks to their training and experience, and you can free yourself up to focus on those strategic tasks which no one else can do.

Working Too Hard Stops You From Building Scalable Business Systems

No matter how hard you work, there is a limit to what a single person can achieve. For a business to scale successfully, it needs to be based on smart systems that can expand beyond your own capabilities. When you focus on completing task after task at all costs, instead of building a scalable business process that will do it for you, you’re stunting your business growth.

“Yes, your talents and skills were the reason that it was able to get up and running, but they will not be the tools that allow it to reach future success,” says Ken Marshall, founder of Doorbell Digital Marketing. “Now don’t get me wrong, working hard and getting things done is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, when your company is in its infancy, you’re going to be doing most of the work. But at some point you’re going to have to figure out ways to remove yourself from all of the repetitive or non essential tasks, take a step back, and look at where the ship is headed.”

Working too hard can create an overdependence on you. If your employees are constantly interrupting you to ask for decisions that they should be capable of reaching on their own, it prevents you from focusing on your more important core responsibilities, and holds them back from potential growth in their own roles.

Working Too Hard Prevents You from Thinking Creatively

For your business to scale, you need to feel passionate about it. But when you work too hard, your drive and passion get drowned out by petty tasks that should be delegated to someone else.

You could end up focusing too narrowly on the minutiae of the business, making it difficult to see the big picture and create an effective business strategy. At the same time, rushing so fast from one task to the next prevents you from focusing fully on any one aspect of the business, which will also prevent you from maintaining perspective with a holistic growth plan.

A study by Stanford University designed to measure cognitive load found that people who were told to remember a seven-digit number made far poorer decisions than those told to remember a single-digit number. When you’re stressed out by your unreasonably large workload, it hampers your ability to think creatively. It maxes out your cognitive load with minor issues, leaving you with no capacity to make difficult business decisions or react to important growth opportunities.

How to Avoid Being a Bottleneck at your Own Company

Changing the habit of working too hard is easier said than done. Simply working less isn’t a viable solution. There’s a good chance that vital business processes grew up around your habit of overwork; if you suddenly reduce the amount of work you’re doing, you could cause the whole business to fall apart.

An important first step is to reflect on what is causing you to work too hard. Identifying the cause could give you the insight you need to change your work habits.

Sometimes, CEOs end up working too hard because there isn’t enough money to hire more employees. If this is the case, then the solution is simple – get out there and find a way to add an employee or two. A business loan could give you the working capital you need to make some new hires.

Often, the habit of working too hard springs up because you are the one who established all the key business processes. You never transmitted them to others, so no one else knows what to do. By sharing core business processes, contacts and passwords with selected executives and employees, you can withdraw your personal involvement in every business issue.

Having trouble accepting that someone else can do a task as well as you can is especially common among CEOs who’ve nursed a company from its startup days. If you’ve always been the one to do this task, it’s easy to think that no one else can replace you. But no one is irreplaceable. Learning to step back a little and show some trust in your employees is the path to a better work atmosphere, as well as improved business growth.

Occasionally, CEOs overwork themselves simply out of ignorance that there is a better way. It’s not easy to pause the whirlwind, but investing time to develop more sustainable, growth-friendly business practices is a worthy investment.

Are You a Roadblock or a Catapult?

As the CEO, you could work hard in ways that hold the company back from reaching its full growth potential, or you could work smart in ways that make you the source of its success. Working too hard can creep up on you without you realizing.

With a little perspective, you can gain insight into the causes of your behavior, and learn how to change it to enable your business to scale successfully.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “Reasons Working Too Hard at Your Business is a Waste of Time” was first published on Small Business Trends

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You can’t ignore YouTube if you’re looking to promote any type of business these days. There are 1.9 billion monthly users and over 30 million daily users. With numbers like that, you’ll want to know about the 20 types of YouTube videos you can use to promote your business.

Types of YouTube Videos

Testimonials

These have a great impact but you need to be careful. Stay away from just having a talking head in the video. It’s best if you can show a customer using your product while they talk about it.

Store Tours

These are made better when you can get the owner to provide helpful tips along the way about the goods and services. The added personal touch builds engagement.

Reviews

Everyone likes customer reviews. They are a lot like the client testimonial versions but you need to make them more realistic. Get opinions on the street to make them even more authentic.

Demonstrations

You need to understand the problem you’re solving for the prospect here. Using a “day in the life”  series of demos gets them to relate.

Unboxing Videos

These are one of the latest ways to engage your audience. People love to watch someone else unwrap something new and these are a great vehicle for influencer marketing.

How To’s

It’s important to be specific with these ones so you’ll attract the right target market to your video. For example, “How To Use This Screwdriver” won’t be as effective as “ “How To Use This Screwdriver On Drywall.”

Shopping Sprees

Not only are these one of the most popular kinds of YouTube videos, but they work well with small business products if you can find an influencer who will highlight your goods.

An Introduction to Your Business

This works especially well if you’re a sole proprietor in a service industry like accounting. These also work best when they’re not overly scripted.

Explainer Videos

Animation is a great way to capture your target market’s attention . These are a popular way for your small business to explain what they do because they’re fun.

Offers

If you use the right keywords in the description , you’ll get people flocking to these types of videos. Limited time promotions are one of the best versions to use.  Remember to put the url in your description.

Behind The Scenes Videos

These really foster engagement. People love when they get to peek behind the curtain and see what goes on when folks are relaxed in a work setting.  These are great for personalizing your business and giving it a face.

Live Webcasts

If you’re really confident in the way things are running at your business, you can go live with a behind the scenes video. Promoting these for certain times and dates when you know your target market is online requires a little research that pays off.

A Series of Video Tips

These do well because they position you as an expert and put a face to what you’ve got to sell.  Remember a constant stream of content works best.

Interviews

These are a little different than testimonials. They can be in a newsy style with the interviewer off camera for an added touch. Asking folks on the street in front of your store what they think about your goods and services works. Don’t forget to include a call to action in your description.

Webinars

These are generally high value and they don’t cost a lot. Creating a slide show to add to the mix is a good idea. You can go live with one of these on YouTube so you’ll need energetic presenters.

Narrated Powerpoints

These are simple and visual—two of the cornerstones of making a great sale. Just put one of these presentations together, talk over the visual and upload it.

Educational Videos

These are popular for small business owners that want to stress their expertise. If you can fill a room of interested people, these are even more popular and credible when you present from the front.

Comparison Videos

You might be tempted to get long winded here but don’t. The small business videos that get the best responses are three minutes or under.

Staff Videos

YouTube Analytics is a great tool that will tell you how these are going over with your target market. Having your staff talk about why they like working in your shop makes for a feel good video that attracts clients.

Corporate Videos

Production value matters here. When you’re on this level, you should be looking at hiring professionals. Don’t rush into these. A carefully designed plan works best.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, “20 Types of YouTube Videos You Can Use to Promote Your Business” was first published on Small Business Trends

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