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Showing posts from February, 2016

The Top 4 Social Media Tools for Your Business—In Order

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Are you hoping to launch a successful social media campaign? The process can be overwhelming: between producing content on a multitude of platforms, publishing at the right times, interacting with followers, and more, it can seem like a full-time job in itself. Aren’t there tools to make it easier? Absolutely—but now the question is, which tools do what?  Some tools are channel-specific, and others can help you manage multiple accounts from one platform (don’t you think it would be convenient to be able to tweet and respond to Facebook comments all in the same place?). Because executing a social media campaign is not an overnight process, the order in which you take your steps matters, too; and some tools are best for helping you with particular milestones. Here are some of the best social media tools, in order from campaign launch to completion:  Hootsuite  Hootsuite is known as a scheduling tool, but it also offers social listening capabilities. If you are a fledgling brand, you mig
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4 Tips For Modernizing Your Customer Service

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Do you remember the days of the Dot-Com Bubble in the early part of this century? That was a time of high speculation and lofty expectations as to how the Internet was going to transform the enterprise world. One of the most unusual predictions made a couple of decades ago was related to the future of customer service, which some analysts believed would be nearly eliminated through automation and highly efficient business processes.  Fast forward to today: despite incredible advances in robotics , we are not even close to replacing customer service agents with automatons. If anything, consumers have become more demanding with regard to the support and service they expect from modern companies. In today's highly competitive economy, the customer service strategies of the 20th century will not allow you to thrive in your sector. If your approach to customer service has not changed too much since the year 2000, you really need to modernize your strategies. Here are four tips to get yo
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Equipment To Help You Run A Successful Startup

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The best company has the best tangible resources from the main building to the equipment. After you have chosen the right location for your business, whether it is a warehouse or office building , the next step is to fill this space with equipment. Here are several ways to find the best equipment for your startup company.  Decide the Type of Equipment You Need  Think of all the rooms or warehouses where you find different types of commercial equipment. For most businesses, it is every room from the lobby to the break room. Also, more owners are investing in streamlined, automated machines to make life easier for customers and employees. In the main lobby, there are kiosks to help them perform simple tasks without the help of customer service agents . In the copy room, there are recent models of digital or laser printers, copiers and scanners. Even in the break room, there are the latest tools from contemporary furniture to energy efficient appliances. Finding the right digital printer
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4 Ways Labeling & Branding Can Boost Business

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In today's world of high competition, it's easy to look toward new and flashy ways to market your business in an attempt to stand out from the crowd. However, there's a reason that the tried and true methods have withstood the test of time, and the simple fact is that they work. One such tool is the custom label.  These stickers come in a variety of sizes to meet your needs and can be professionally designed with your company's colors, logo and messaging. Customized stickers are versatile and can be used in any number of creative ways to fit your business needs, no matter what your sector or industry. Read on to learn more about how labeling and branding can make a difference in your business.  1. Enhance Customer Service  Custom stickers are a great way to enhance your customer service efforts. Customers appreciate a small token, particularly if it's useful or of value to them. Affixing your label to water bottles, mugs or magnets can provide you with inexpensive
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Warehouse Maintenance: 4 Ways To Keep Up With Production

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When you work in a warehouse, you're often responsible for ensuring that items are made and packaged in a certain amount of time. A production line can be difficult to maintain if there are several items that need to get shipped by the end of the day or the end of the week. However, there are some tips that you can try to keep up with efficient production and to help other workers stay on task as well. After all, time is money, so you need to keep on schedule to reduce overhead . The Picking Path  While this isn't a formal line in warehouses, the picking path is created so that everyone knows where the production line begins and where it ends. The line often ends with the wrapping process. It's a path that can help to dictate the flow of production in the warehouse to make it easy for work to be completed in a timely manner.  Equipment  In order to ensure that all of the components are working together, you need to make sure the equipment that is used is in the correct wor
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The Buyer's Journey Has Changed. Has Your Sales & Marketing?

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Marketing is a very old tradition, as is sales. One can imagine salesmen haggling with customers in the marketplaces of ancient Babylon. Where there is trade, there is sales. In the early 20th century, one Frank Hutchinson Dukesmith wrote an article for Salesmanship Magazine that presented the first break-down of the buyer’s journey. He used the acronym AIDA: “attention, interest, desire, action.”  ● Attention: A salesperson introduces a prospect to a product.  ● Interest: As the prospect expresses interest, the salesman introduces specific details about the product.  ● Desire: The salesman convinces the prospect that they really need and want the product.  ● Action: The consumer makes a purchase decision. The salesman closes his deal.  A century later, the sales process has changed dramatically. The birth of the Internet has given people more purchasing options than ever before, and it has changed the way they look for the products they need. As traditional advertising loses effect
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Bootstrap Business Blog Blitz: Quick Questions

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I get questions on a daily basis about social media marketing, digital media, entrepreneurship, SEO, retail, and many other topics through various outlets. These questions come through my website, social media platforms, forums like Quora / Reddit / Google / Inbound.org, and other outlets. When I have a lot of information to share on a particular subject I'll usually write an in-depth answer in the form of an article here... but I don't always have the time. Sometimes I just give a quick answer, or whatever comes to mind first without edits.  It's actually ending up feeling a bit like hustling entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk 's book #AskGaryVee (which I'm finishing now before posting a review), but I've actually been doing this for years with previous businesses.  This will be my first installment of Bootstrap Business Blog Blitz, tackling quick questions from readers, viewers, peers, and friends. You'll also see plenty of internal links throughout which bri
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Leverage Your $10 Digital Media Startup For A Corporate Career

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You can leverage your digital media expertise you've learned here at Bootstrap Business to earn a great small business or corporate career in more of a 9-5 capacity. Chances are if you've gone through the my Bootstrap Business tips and tutorials, you aren't really looking to work a 9-5 job. You probably want a major change in the status quo . You can skip to the next section if you need to, but you might want to keep an open mind. The lifestyle of an entrepreneur year after year isn't for everyone. Even if you're a die-hard entrepreneur now or can't wait to drop your current job, your perspective now it can certainly change. Entrepreneurship can cause severe burnout over time and the security of consistent work, health benefits, paid vacation, and a 401k might be major considerations depending on where you are in your personal and financial life. You can always be a "sidepreneur" and enjoy entrepreneurial business ventures during your free time with a
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6 Smart Brian Halligan Startup Quotes

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Here are some of my favorite inspirational business quotes from co-founder & CEO of Hubspot Brian Halligan: 1) "People shop and learn in a whole new way compared to just a few years ago, so marketers need to adapt or risk extinction." 2) "To be successful and grow your business and revenues, you must match the way you market your products with the way your prospects learn about and shop for your products." 3) "You can’t out-spend the giants, but you can out-think, out-teach, and out-help them." 4)  "Innovation: Imagine the future and fill in the gaps." 5)  “Think across the traditional boundaries of your marketplace to alternatives, not just competitors.” 6)  “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” --- I hope you enjoyed this compilation of great motivational business quotes from Hubspot 's Brian Halligan. Interested in more inbound marketing wisdom ? Read My Posts: - 8 Great Seth Godin Business Quotes  - 8 Great
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4 Tax Time Tips for Stressed Out Small Business Owners

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Money is without a doubt one of our greatest stressors. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that a time of year that focuses solely on our earnings and expenditures and requires us to answer to Uncle Sam can be a bit overwhelming. Small business owners have the added pressure of prepping their business’s taxes and making sure that all the necessary information is in place so that their employees can prepare their personal taxes. If it’s all starting to feel like too much, here are a few tips to help lighten the load:  Get Help  Whether it’s asking an employee to reorganize a troublesome filing system, using W2 software to prep those documents for employees, or calling a trusted CPA to prepare your return, when it comes to taxes it is always ok to ask for help. Just because your taxes have to be done each year, doesn’t make it an easy process. There are many papers to gather and numbers to crunch, and being the top dog of your business doesn’t mean you have to do it all yourself. There’s ne
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5 Offline Marketing Tips That Will Change Your Approach to Marketing

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You can be forgiven for thinking that with the digital revolution fingering every part of our lives, that offline marketing is dead. Old-fashioned, old-hat and passé, why on earth would you want leaflets and business cards, brochures and banners? Because they are still worthwhile offline marketing techniques that connect people with your business.  These five affordable offline marketing tips, brought to you by Colour Graphics , will make you question and reconsider your approach to marketing. Are your marketing activities hitting all the right notes?  #1 Network  The first thing that came to mind when you read the sub-heading was spending hours at a hosted session, attempting to strike up conversations with everyone in the room. And failing, miserably.  However, networking is another work for conversation and rather than attending mass networking events where everyone else seems to know each other, have a conversation with people who would be willing to buy or trial your product.  A
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6 Bad Online Marketing Habits To Quit

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Good marketing is essential for making your ingenious new product or service into a full-fledged success. It’s not just about dishing out a good product, it’s also about convincing people that they need it, and that it is just what they’ve been looking for. It takes quite a bit of thought to develop a marketing strategy that is effective, yet sublime enough so that people won’t see right through it.  Marketing has been around for ages, but with the advance of the Internet it’s grown to a whole new level. Nowadays ads are everywhere, and they’re constantly being developed to be more effective. That being said, there are still a few things you can do to make sure that your marketing strategy is good enough to draw new clients in. Here are a few tips that we’re sure will come in handy when planning your next marketing campaign.  1. Not Frequently Updating Your Blog  If your last blog post is a month ago, Google isn’t going to include it in a lot of searches, because there are a lot of o
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5 Things You Can Do to Grow Your Profit Margins

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Companies often measure their growth by revenue and then become frustrated when their profits fail to grow as fast as their sales. As you build your business, spend some time understanding how increased profit margins can improve your bottom line fast er than adding to your sales.  Proceeds from every sale must pay your selling and operating expenses before they can become profits. If you focus on growing your profit margins rather than only on growing sales, however, you can directly add to the profitability of your firm. Use the following tips to earn more money from every sale.  Reduce Order Processing Time  When order processing requires less time, your company can process more orders during a day, often without significantly increasing overhead. As a result, profit margins rise. Shorten the elapsed time between receiving an order and delivering goods and services.  Tactics and tools such as automation, templates and product sourcing can accelerate the sales cycle and also give y
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