When it comes to running and marketing a business, there are going to be things that work for some businesses and don’t work for others. But there are also some essential elements — a logo, an email strategy, interesting content — which all small businesses will need. Here are 10 tips to consider for marketing your business more effectively from members of the online small business community.
Create a Brand Logo in Minutes
A good logo is essential to any small business branding campaign. And you don’t need to be a professional designer or spend tons of time and money on a great looking logo. In this post on the Kissmetrics blog, Neil Patel explains how you can create a logo for your brand quickly and efficiently.
Use This Intro for Email Marketing
Email has been a staple of small business marketing plans for years. But despite that staying power, rumors about the demise of email marketing persist, causing some new entrepreneurs to overlook this powerful tool. If you’ve fallen into that category, take a look at this DIY Marketers post by Ivana Taylor for a guide on getting started.
Make Your Boring Blog Interesting
Blogging is another popular marketing tactic for small businesses. But if you want your blog to actually make an impact, it has to interest people. This Blogging Tips post by Christopher Jan Benitez details how you can make blogs from boring niches interesting. And BizSugar members commented on the post here.
Keep Track of Outsourcing Benefits
Outsourcing various parts of your business operations, from marketing to shipping, can offer great opportunities for growth. There are various benefits to taking this route. And Ivan Widjaya of Biz Penguin outlines some of those benefits in this post.
Know These MarTech Facts
Technology has made massive changes to the marketing landscape in recent years. So if you want your own marketing efforts to make a splash, you need to know the facts about the technology involved. Check out this Marketing Land post by Scott Brinker for more.
Use Videos Effectively in Your Sales Process
When it comes to increasing sales for your small business, video can prove to be an effective format. In this Smallbiztechnology.com post, Ramon Ray dives into how video can make an impact on various parts of the sales funnel and shares actionable tips for entrepreneurs and sales professionals.
Learn How to Market Through Text Messages and Chatbots
Marketing ultimately is just about communicating with customers. So it makes sense for businesses to use the platforms that are most popular with their customers. That can include text messaging. For more on the subject, check out this Content Marketing Institute by Chris Frascella.
Don’t Pay Too Much Attention to Your Competition
Your competitors can certainly make an impact on the success of your business. But it can also be a detriment for businesses to pay too much attention to those outside entities, as Rachel Strella of Strella Social Media argues here. You can also see discussion from the BizSugar community about the subject here.
Use Facebook Ads for Market Research
Market research is an essential step for any small business looking to grow and reach more customers. And Facebook can be a great platform for doing so. This Social Media Examiner post by Maria Dykstra includes some tips for using Facebook ads for market research.
Focus on These Important SEO Tasks
Search engines can be another great method for reaching the most relevant customers for your small business. To make the most of these platforms, you need to focus on the most important tasks, like the ones listed in this Search Engine Journal post by Patrick Reinhart.
If you’d like to suggest your favorite small business content to be considered for an upcoming community roundup, please send your news tips to: sbtips@gmail.com.
April Fools Day falls on a Sunday and a holiday this year. But this won’t stop people from “celebrating” this day of practical jokes anyway — perhaps in the office come Monday!
April Fools Day Pranks at Work
There’s a chance some pranksters at your office are already hard at work on a hilarious gag to unleash on co-workers when returning from the holiday weekend.
But according to one employment law expert, April Fools Day jokes and pranks are probably best left for outside the workplace. And as the boss of your small business, it’s your job to make sure the pranks likely to be pulled around your office don’t get out of control.
Seyfarth Shaw at Work, a legal compliance company serving small businesses, recently surveyed 400 managers and employees about April Fools Day pranks.
Online April Fools Day Pranks Most Popular
The office prank is evolving. While you’re still likely to see someone’s stapler stuck in a Jello mold, it’s more likely the pranks around your office will be online.
The company says the most popular pranks today are online or involve social media of some kind. In a survey 37% of respondents said online pranks were most popular at their office.
That’s not good, according to Seyfarth Shaw at Work President Philippe Weiss, an attorney. These pranks are “immortal” in the sense they’ll always be online to remind the recipient of the joke.
The problems start when the recipient or the butt of the prank does not appreciate it.
Class Pranks
Any fan of “The Office” will surely remember Jim pranking Dwight all the way through the series, not just on April Fools Day. At the time, online pranks were hardly possible. Well, those office hijinks are still popular, according to the company’s data.
In addition to the online jokes, 34% say “office space remodeling” is most popular at their office. Another 16% say “food-related” pranks take the cake, and 5% said “automotive alterations” were the top jest.
April Fools Advice
People seem to have reached the height of sensitivity these days so it’s always important to keep this in mind before pulling off a prank.
Weiss offers some advice for entrepreneurs dealing with the issue. If you’re the one in charge of a small business, your pranking days may be over. No matter how ripe the opportunity, “a boss pranking is offering a complete pranking license to his or her employees,” Weiss says.
Instead of participating, the boss should be more of a prank ref. Ensure the pranks being pulled by your employees don’t demean or discriminate.
And as the leader, it’s important you set up some kind of ground rules for pranks at the office. Remind employees pranks should be kept between friends, are light-hearted in nature and safe.
Before an employee pulls off a prank, they should think twice about how the recipient will take the joke.
Employees should also avoid pranking the boss and no one at your small business should consider pulling a joke on any office visitors and especially not your customers.
With average earnings of $100,000 and up and no college degree required, a professional actuary is probably one of the highest-paying jobs — and yet one you may not have heard of. While some have heard of the term “actuary”, very few know what these people do.
Although actuaries don’t need a college degree to work, getting into the field is not expected as author Chloe Hung will tell you. Becoming an actuary is a challenging process with challenging examinations that require knowledge of statistics, probability, computer programs (Excel, SAS, etc.), and project management skills. These requirements are the reason most prospective actuaries go to college before attempting the exams.
A college degree doesn’t guarantee an actuarial student will easily pass the exams as author Chloe Hung found out. Hung experienced plenty of stops during her journey to becoming an actuary. Once a future actuary passes the initial exams, they earn “Associate” status until they pass another round of exams. At that point, they can legitimately claim the professional actuary title.
For some, going through these grueling actuarial exams and a certification process isn’t worth it.
For others, this process is a small price to pay for a high-earning and growing career. Strength in Numbers guides and motivates current and future actuarial students through this challenging career.
Hung is a formerly confused (but determined) actuarial student who persevered through the actuarial exams to become an actuary consultant, coach and mentor. Her book, Strength in Numbers represents her continued passion to improve awareness and job satisfaction in the actuarial industry.
Her mission is to help other prospective actuarial students break into the actuarial field with confidence.
What Was Best About Strength in Numbers?
Strength in Numbers is an inspiring career guide for aspiring actuaries written from the perspective of a former college student who has survived the process. Because of Hung’s background, she is able to tailor her advice to her target student, the hopeful (but nervous) college student who wants to determine if an actuarial field is a realistic possibility for him or her.
What Could Have Been Done Differently?
Although the subtitle of Strength in Numbers describes this book as comprehensive, it’s really more of an overview. The book outlines the key steps and struggles in becoming an actuary but lacks enough detail. For example, “Strength in Numbers” fails to share specific information about the content or format of the actuarial exams.
Strength in Numbers also lacks a comprehensive description of the actuary field. While the book gives hints. more information is needed on the different industries and their day-to-day responsibilities. This would further help the book reach its goal of reaching future actuaries.
Why Read Strength in Numbers?
Strength in Numbers is the next book any aspiring student should consider after getting introduced to the actuarial field. The actuarial field doesn’t get a lot of press but offers many high-paying careers.
Hung does students a huge service by profiling this career and demonstrating it is possible to break into it with the proper training. Hung doesn’t sugarcoat the entry process. She simultaneously shares the obstacles of the field and also how to go about overcoming them. That possibility is what carried Hung through her actuarial journey and what inspired her to write Strength in Numbers.
Uber is closing the doors on its on-demand package delivery service, RUSH, in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, TechCrunch has learned. In an email to users, Uber said it plans to close RUSH operations June 30, 2018.
“At Uber, we believe in making big bold bets, and while ending UberRUSH comes with some sadness, we will continue our mission of building reliable technology that serves people and cities all over the world,” Uber’s NYC RUSH team wrote to customers.
Uber has since confirmed the wind-down.
“We’re winding down UberRUSH deliveries and ending services by the end of June,” an Uber spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We’re thankful for our partners and hope the next three months will allow them to make arrangements for their delivery needs. We’re already applying a lot of the lessons we learned together to our UberEats food delivery business in over 200 global markets across more than 100,000 restaurants.”
With UberRUSH, which I forgot still existed, people can request deliveries for items no more than 30 pounds in size, except animals, alcohol, illegal items, stolen goods, and dangerous items like guns and explosives. Last April, Uber stopped providing courier services to restaurants, encouraging them to instead use UberEATS, the company’s food delivery service. The shutdown of UberRUSH comes shortly after Shyp, an on-demand shipping company, announced its last day of operations.
If you’ve ever had a scoop of ice cream so good that you find yourself muttering “sweet Jesus” then I have some advice for you: eat more of that ice cream. Now, if you happen to be the owner of an ice cream business and you overhear your customers and employees mutter the same phrase when they taste your ice cream I have some advice for you too: don’t even think about using that expression as the name for your store.
Oops. Too late.
Unfortunately, I’m not acquainted with the owners – Andrew Richmond and Amin Todai – of the Sweet Jesus ice cream shop in Toronto, Canada. If I did, I’d have given them this advice. Now, unfortunately, some are giving them the cold shoulder.
According to a recent article in The Star, both Richmond and Todai have come under fire from religious groups who are claiming that the name of their store is “blasphemous.” Of course, the name has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with that out-of-this-world feeling you get when you have a scoop of their ice cream. Even Richmond and Todd point this out on their website, writing that the company’s name is just a “popular phrase that people use as an expression of enjoyment, surprise or disbelief.”
But this doesn’t matter to the people who are offended. In Canada, where Sweet Jesus has almost twenty locations, people are more chilled out about these things. But now that the successful chain is expanding into the U.S., religious activists here are turning up the heat.
Complaints began appearing earlier this year after the entrepreneurs opened up shops in Baltimore and the Mall of America near Minneapolis objecting about the brand’s logo which some feel is “offensive and revolting” and encourages “hate speech towards Christians.” According to The Star report, a petition which has more than 8,000 signatures as of a few days ago calls for a “public apology for openly (attacking) the Christian community and God.” Opponents are demanding the store change its name because “Sweet Jesus is all about trashing Christianity and mocking the saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now before you sound off with your own opinions about the religious right or whether or not the shop’s owners really are taking the Lord’s name in vain, just hold on a minute. People have a right to their opinion and it’s not for a business owner to decide what does or doesn’t offend someone. This story is not about Jesus. It’s more about whether or not a couple of guys should name their business after Him. In my opinion, they shouldn’t.
No, I don’t have anything against Jesus and yes, I’m an advocate of free speech. But even more so, I’m a capitalist. The minute I see clients of mine let anything related to religion, whether it’s serious or in jest, make its way into their business I see a potential risk to their profits.
People around the world, and not least in the U.S., feel very strongly about religion. I don’t mess with that. I respect your faith. But please…keep your religion to yourself. Don’t hang crosses or pictures of your religious heroes on the walls in your reception area. Don’t hold daily prayer sessions in the office (and yes, I have one client who does this, to the discomfort of some of his employees). And to the guys at Sweet Jesus…don’t make jokes or have fun with the name of a religious figure. Bad idea.
Doing any of this risks alienating both customers and prospective employees. Business is tough enough without having yet another headache to deal with. Now Richmond and Todai are dealing with this major headache. Is the media attention worth it? Perhaps. But c’mon — they were smart enough to come up with this name. Think of another. I’m sure your ice cream is worth it. Otherwise, letting religion play a part in your company’s branding or environment is inviting trouble.
A company called Clipisode is today launching a new service that’s essentially a “talk show in a box,” as founder Brian Alvey describes it. Similar to how Anchor now allows anyone to build a professional podcast using simple mobile and web tools, Clipisode does this for video content. With Clipisode, you can record a video that can be shared across any platform – social media, the web, text messages – and collect video responses that can then be integrated into the “show” and overlaid with professional graphics.
The video responses feature is something more akin to a video voicemail-based call-in feature.
Here’s how it works. The content creator will first use Clipisode to record their video, and receive the link to share the video across social media, the web, or privately through email, text messaging, etc. When the viewer or guest clicks the link, they can respond to the question the show’s “host” posed.
For example, a reporter could ask for viewers’ thoughts on an issue or a creator could ask their fans what they want to see next.
How the video creator wants to use this functionality is really up to them, and specific to the type of video show they’re making.
To give you an idea, during a pre-launch period, the app has been tested by AXS TV to promote their upcoming Top Ten Revealed series by asking music industry experts “Who Is Your All-time Favorite Guitarist?”
BBC Scotland asked their Twitter followers who they want to see hired as the new manager for the Scotland national football team.
The content creator can then receive all the video responses to these questions privately, choose which ones they want to include in their finished show, and drag those responses into the order they want. The creator can respond back to the clips, too, or just add another clip at the end of of their video. Uploading pre-recorded clips from services like Dropbox or even your phone is supported as well.
Plus, content creators can use Clipisode to overlay professional-looking animations and graphics on top of the final video with the responses and replies. This makes it seem more like something made with help from a video editing team, not an app on your phone.
Because Clipisode invitations are web links, they don’t require the recipients to download an app.
“[People] don’t want to download an app for a one-time video reply,” explains Alvey. “But with this, people can reply.” And, he adds, what makes Clipisode interesting from a technical perspective, is that the web links users click to reply can work in any app in a way that feels seamless to the end user.
“That’s our biggest trick – making this work in other people’s apps, so there’s no new social network to join and nothing to download,” he says.
The app is free currently, but the plan is to generate revenue by later selling subscription access to the authoring suite where users can create the animated overlays and branding components that give the video the professional look-and-feel.
In an online CMS, creators can author, test and deploy animated themes that run on top of their videos.
The final video product can be shared back to social media, or downloaded as a video file to be published on video-sharing sites, social media, or as a video podcast.
Clipisode has been in development for some time, Alvey says. The company originally raised less than a million from investors including Mike Jones and Mark Cuban for a different product the founder describes as a Patreon competitor, before pivoting to Clipisode. Investors funded the new product with less than half a million.
The app itself took a couple of years to complete, something that Alvey says has to do with the animation studio it includes and the small team. (It’s just him and technical co-founder Max Schmeling.)
Whenever you are doing something online that requires you to present an official ID like a passport or driver’s license to complete the transaction, it presents risk to both parties. Consumers want to know they are secure and brands want to know the person is using valid credentials. That’s where Veriff comes in.
Kaarel Kotkas, CEO and founder of the company, says the goal is to be “the Stripe of identity.” What he means is he wants to provide developers with the ability to embed identity verification into any application or website, as easily as you can use Stripe to add payments.
The company, which was originally launched in Estonia in 2015, is a recent graduate of the Y Combinator winter class. When you undertake any activity on the web or a mobile app that requires a valid ID, if Veriff is running under the hood, you can submit an ID such as a driver’s license. It uses a secret sauce to determine that the ID being presented is an officially issued one and that it belongs to the person in question.
When you consider that there were over 15 million identity thefts in the US in 2016 alone, you know it’s not a simple matter to identify a forgery. Fake IDs can be quite good and it’s often difficult to identify fraudulent ones with the naked eye.
It’s hard to tell the difference between the real and fake IDs in this shot. Photo: Veriff
If you want to open a bank account online for instance, you have to provide proof of identity for the bank. With Veriff, you take a picture of yourself, then submit a picture of your official ID and Veriff analyzes it to make sure it’s valid.
The idea is to make the ID process easy and quick for the consumer, while providing an accurate way for the brand to check IDs online. Consumers also benefit because someone can’t use their identity online to get credit or other services.
If there is an issue with the ID, the person can be directed to a human for a video chat where they can discuss it if need be.
The company currently has 20 customers and is on track to do $100,000 in revenue this month, according to data they provided at their Y Combinator Demo Day presentation. They plan to make money by charging $1 per verification.
In January, Facebook announced that it would be changing its feed algorithm to promote users’ well-being over time spent browsing content. That’s a relatively new approach for a company whose ethos once centered around “move fast, break things.”
It wasn’t all that long ago (approximately a year and a half before the algorithm change) that Facebook VP Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, published an internal memo called “The Ugly,” which was circulated throughout the company. In it, Boz made it clear to employees that connecting people (i.e. growth) is the main focus at Facebook, at all costs.
Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.
And still we connect people.
The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.
He goes on:
That isn’t something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.
That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.
Facebook launched in 2004 and ushered in a honeymoon period for users. We reveled in uploading photos from our digital cameras and sharing them with friends. We cared about each and every notification. We shared our status. We played Farmville. We diligently curated our Likes.
But the honeymoon is over. Facebook grew to 1 billion active users in 2012. The social network now has over 2 billion active users. A growing number of people get their news from social media. The size and scope of Facebook is simply overwhelming.
And we’ve been well aware, as users and outsiders looking in on the network, that just like any other tool, Facebook can be used for evil.
But there was still some question whether or not Facebook leadership understood that principle, and if they did, whether or not they actually cared.
For a long time, perhaps too long, Facebook adhered to the “Move fast, break things” mentality. And things have certainly been broken, from fake news circulated during the 2016 Presidential election to the improper use of user data by third-party developers and Cambridge Analytica. And that’s likely the tip of the iceberg.
The memo was written long before the shit hit the fan for Facebook. It was published following the broadcast of Antonio Perkins’ murder on Facebook. This was back when Facebook was still insisting that it isn’t a media company, that it is simply a set of pipes through which people can ship off their content.
What is so shocking about the memo is that it confirms some of our deepest fears. A social network, with a population greater than any single country, is solely focused on growth over the well-being of the society it’s built. That the ends, to be a product everyone uses, might justify the means.
Facebook has tried to move away from this persona, however gently. In late 2016, Zuckerberg finally budged on the idea that Facebook is a media company, clarifying that it’s not a traditional media company. Last year, the company launched the Journalism Project in response to the scary growth of fake news on the platform. Zuckerberg even posted full-page print ads seeking patience and forgiveness in the wake of this most recent Cambridge Analytica scandal.
While that all seems like more of a public relations response than actionable change, it’s better than the stoic, inflexible silence of before.
After Buzzfeed published the memo, Boz and Zuckerberg both responded.
Boz said it was all about spurring internal debate to help shape future tools.
Boz is a talented leader who says many provocative things. This was one that most people at Facebook including myself disagreed with strongly. We’ve never believed the ends justify the means.
We recognize that connecting people isn’t enough by itself. We also need to work to bring people closer together. We changed our whole mission and company focus to reflect this last year.
If Boz wrote this memo to spark debate, it’s hard to discern whether that debate led to real change.
The memo has since been deleted, but you can read the full text below:
The Ugly
We talk about the good and the bad of our work often. I want to talk about the ugly.
We connect people.
That can be good if they make it positive. Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide.
So we connect more people
That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated on our tools.
And still we connect people.
The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.
That isn’t something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.
That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.
The natural state of the world is not connected. It is not unified. It is fragmented by borders, languages, and increasingly by different products. The best products don’t win. The ones everyone use win.
I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this. Most of us have the luxury of working in the warm glow of building products consumers love. But make no mistake, growth tactics are how we got here. If you joined the company because it is doing great work, that’s why we get to do that great work. We do have great products but we still wouldn’t be half our size without pushing the envelope on growth. Nothing makes Facebook as valuable as having your friends on it, and no product decisions have gotten as many friends on as the ones made in growth. Not photo tagging. Not news feed. Not messenger. Nothing.
In almost all of our work, we have to answer hard questions about what we believe. We have to justify the metrics and make sure they aren’t losing out on a bigger picture. But connecting people. That’s our imperative. Because that’s what we do. We connect people.
Technology can help small business owners reduce cost, improve operations and provide better customer service. These tips can help you make the best use of it.
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Tech Check is a weekly blog that offers suggestions for solving some of the biggest headaches business professionals face with technology.
David Walke, President and CEO of goCharge, a 10-person distributor of mobile device charging kiosks located in New York, NY.
The problem:
David’s biggest technology frustration: limited battery life. He (like many of us) finds himself constantly having to charge devices and rarely makes it through a day without needing to plug something in. Unfortunately, he finds himself with few options to resolve this issue. “Unfortunately, we’re still working on solving it,” he says. “Battery life just needs to catch up with consumers’ frequency of use, which has not happened yet.”
Our expert’s advice:
Anthony Mongeluzo, the President and CEO of Pro Computer Service in Philadelphia, has these four suggestions:
Close all background applications that are running. On many of your mobile devices, applications run and waste useful battery life. Software applications will use your Internet and your GPS, both of which can tax the battery.
Dim the screen brightness. Dimming the screen a little bit extends battery life.
Shut down services that you are not using. For instance, if you are not using a Bluetooth device, turn off Bluetooth.
Use WiFi whenever possible. Cellular data is one of the biggest drains on your battery. When possible (and secure), utilize WiFi networks wherever you are.
My thoughts:
I’ve downloaded an app called Advanced Task Manager for my Samsung S8 that closes apps running in the background. I also rely heavily on my device’s power savings mode, particularly if I’m travelling and know that I won’t be using many of the phone’s features. Airplane mode – even when not in the air – cuts back on some battery-draining activities. Finally, I always carry a spare USB charger with me – it’s cheap, small, and really does the trick!
CV Portfolios offer an easier alternative to personal websites that are often sparsely populated, out-of-date or otherwise neglected.
Thanks a technology that the company is calling VoiceGraph, writers no longer have to keep the pages updated themselves. Instead, co-founder and CEO Joe Griffin said VoiceGraph indexes stories from the top publishers online (about 250,000 currently) and matches them to their authors. It also aggregates metrics around social sharing and connecting to the authors’ own social media accounts.
“At the end of the day, what we want to do here is give freelancers very robust tools that make it as simple as possible to address one of the biggest hurdles freelancers were having: creating a portfolio and maintaining it,” Griffin said.
So for example, you can visit my CV Portfolio to see many of my latest TechCrunch articles. Granted, that’s not that so exciting, since you can do the same thing on my TechCrunch author page, but this could be pretty useful if I was a freelancer with a variety of publishers, or if I wanted to highlight articles I wrote for past employers.
There were around 400,000 automatically generated CV Portfolios at launch. Authors can claim their profiles, then edit them by creating new sections, moving articles around, deleting work that they’re not proud of, adding links or uploading files. And again, it’s a lot easier because they’re starting with a portfolio that’s already populated and automatically updated with new stories.
(And yes, if you’re a freelance with an automatically generated portfolio that yo don’t want on ClearVoice, Griffin said you can just delete it.)
The product is completely free. Sure, you can can use your CV Portfolio to promote yourself on ClearVoice’s talent marketplace, where freelancers get hired by companies to help with content marketing. But Griffin said he’s perfectly fine if people just want to create CV Portfolios and don’t participate in the market at all.
This week the issue of privacy in social media dominated the news. And as Mark Zuckerburg gets ready to head to Washington, the impact of Facebook’s woes on small businesses was addressed. The of eroding trust in the social network among Americans could make may have small businesses rethinking use of Facebook to reach customers.
This week’s summary also looks at the economy, financing, and technology trends to name but a few of the topics. You can take a look at the rest of the small business news and information roundup below.
Social Media
Could Facebook’s Latest Data Collection Scandal Impact Small Business Users?
Facebook is in the midst at a series of scandals threatening to impact the size of its user base and thus perhaps its usefulness to small businesses seeking to reach potential customers. Small businesses can create Facebook pages for their brands and use promoted posts and other paid advertising to reach Facebook users.
Facebook Suffering from Trust Issues Compared to Other Small Business Providers
Americans are losing trust in Facebook (NASDAQ: FB). American Trust in Facebook Declining According to a recent poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, the social media company ranked lowest in trust on privacy issues among the major tech companies serving small businesses.
52% of Small Businesses Post on Social Media Daily
The latest Clutch survey says 52 percent of small businesses post on social media every day, and women-owned businesses are more likely to use it more than men. How Small Businesses Use Social Media in 2018 Seventy-one percent said they use social media, with 16 percent that are not currently using it but plan on doing so, and 13 percent said they don’t use it all.
Economy
Reaction from Small Business Community Mixed on Omnibus Spending Bill
Late last week, President Donald Trump signed into law the 2018 omnibus spending bill. It’s being called a long-term spending plan for the federal government. And because Trump signed it into law despite threatening to veto it, another federal government shutdown was averted.
Employment
Google Hire Now Lets You Make Employment Decisions Right in Gmail
Last year Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) entered the recruiting space with Google Hire, an Applicant Tracking System software for small businesses, and now it has improved the service with the addition of a Gmail add-on. What does this mean for recruiters? You can now interact with potential candidates within Gmail and not have to switch between applications.
You Can Thank Us Later -12 Tips for Hiring the Right Person
It can be a daunting task to find the right employee to fill the vacant position your company has to offer. You want someone who can handle the responsibilities of the job and also have a personality that works well with your current employees and overall company culture.
Finance
Do You Need a Business Debt Consolidation? Read to Learn More
An entrepreneur takes many risks simply by making the choice to start a business. You likely did all of your homework and have an excellent business model you’re using. You likely secured financing through credit cards or a small business loan, both of which seemed sensible considering your anticipated revenue.
Management
21 Educational Websites for Entrepreneurs
We tend to think of learning a new skill or “going back to school” as something you’d do when looking to change careers, or to upgrade within your current one. But lifelong learning has incredible benefits, both personal and professional, say researchers. It makes communities more productive and innovative, and gives employees the ability to cope with constantly changing workplaces.
Equality in the Workplace: 14 Ways to Improve Things and How to Get Started
In Getting to Equal 2018, a survey of more than 22,000 working men and women, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) identified 40 factors that influence women’s advancement in the workplace. When these 40 factors are present, the study found, women are four times as likely to reach executive levels in the workplace.
Marketing Tips
How to Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising for your Small Business
While search engine optimization is an important marketing strategy for all businesses, big brands and companies receive the most hits because they rank higher in searches for wide-ranging keywords. Google doesn’t feature small businesses and smaller brands on the first page of results very often.
Apply These 4 Steps to Improve Digital Marketing Optimization (INFOGRAPHIC)
For your digital marketing efforts to produce desired results, you need a strategy. And to stay relevant, you need to revisit that strategy from time to time.
Retail Trends
Shopify vs. Amazon: Which is Better for Your Ecommerce Business?
If you plan to sell products online, you’ll need to choose the right platform for your online store. Amazon and Shopify are both great platforms to launch an ecommerce business, but there are big differences between the two you’ll need to sort through. Shopify vs Amazon Fiverr just completed an analysis of the two platforms.
Sales
Master the Art of Closing a Sale: Remember These 3 Things
I have a friend who just quit her last corporate job. In a matter of two months, she’s managed to have $39,000 of proposals out. She’s also closing sales left and right. While hanging out with her recently, she mentioned how closing sales is easier than she thought it would be. She had no prospects three months ago.
Only 53% of Salespeople Made Their Quotas in 2017, How About Your Team?
Only 53 percent of salespeople made their quota in 2017 according to The Miller Heiman Group and CSO Insights “2017 World-Class Sales Practices Study”. This was across the board regardless of company size, industry and location. But obviously if your small business employees a sales team, you should examine their numbers to see whether they are part of the trend.
Small Biz Spotlight
Spotlight: Former Contractor Breaks into Ecommerce with Wood Tree Swings
Dean Morrow built his business on classic product — with a twist. Morrow is the founder of Wood Tree Swings. The company seeks to update and personalize this type of product while still maintaining the old-time feel. Read about Morrow’s entrepreneurial experience and the business itself in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
Small Business Loans
5 Secrets of Improving Your Credit Scores in Small Business Finance
Most entrepreneurs at one point or another must search for funding to launch of grow their businesses. Startups, by nature, do not have a track record of generating revenue or profits. Nor do they have a history of repaying loans. However, individuals do. This is why credit scores play such a critical role in small business finance.
Small Business Operations
How to Become Better Prepared for Flood Risks to Your Small Business (INFOGRAPHIC)
The costliest year on record for natural disasters in the US was 2017, coming in at $306 billion to date. And flood damage from hurricanes Harvey and Irma had a lot to do with the billions of dollars needed to recover. A new infographic by The Water Filter Men highlights the dangers of floods and what you should do before, during and after a flood.
Startup
10 Expert Secrets to Small Business Success
There is no secret to running a successful business. It takes hard work, intelligence and plenty of smart strategies. However, getting input from experts can apacertainly help. Here are some secrets and tips from members of the online small business community to help you start and grow a successful business.
Report Reveals the Costs of Starting a Restaurant
If you are looking to open a restaurant, ascertaining the initial startup and expected operational cost will help you determine what kind of establishment you can open. The new infographic from Bid on Equipment goes into great detail as to what it will cost you to start and operate a restaurant.
Technology Trends
Zoho Creator 5 Ups the Ante for Low-Code App Builder Tools
Zoho today announced a major update to Zoho Creator, its “low code no code” tool to enable anyone to create an app. Creator 5 is the fifth major release in the tool’s 12 year history. A Look at Zoho Creator 5 Overall, the feel of the new Zoho Creator is more intuitive and easier to use.
Small Businesses Can Now Send Money Using Google Voice Assistant
Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is continuing its integration of Google Assistant in more services as it looks to compete with Amazon’s Alexa and even Apple’s Siri when it comes to payments. The latest effort is being able to send money from your contacts using your voice and Google Pay.
The Average Website Is Cyber Attacked 44 Times Per Day
In its analysis of 6 million websites, SiteLock said the average small business site experiences 44 attacks per day or 16,060 attacks per year. The SiteLock Website Security Insider Q4 2017 report identified alarming trends in attacker behavior and tactics, according to the company. SiteLock Website Security Insider Q4 2017 Although the 44.
Businesses in New Hampshire may soon be able to work their teenage employees harder.
A bill passed last week by the New Hampshire Senate would increase how many hours teenagers can work in the state. Currently, anyone under age 17 is not allowed to work more than 30 hours during a school week and up to 48 hours during vacations and summer break.
The new bill would allow teenagers (who get permission from their parents) to work up to 48 hours a week during the school year and up to 40.25 hours a week when there’s a four-day week of school (for example, after a holiday weekend). The workweek during the summer would also be increased to 56 hours. In addition, the state’s Department of Labor would receive less leeway to investigate businesses, enforcement measures would be reduced and evidence standards would be increased.
“The bill provides much better clarity and understanding of the responsibilities of businesses and how they need to report, monitor and manage people they’re hiring,” Sen. Andy Sanborn (R), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, told the Concord Monitor. Supporters also feel that it would also provide more opportunities for young workers.
Mike Somers, who is president of the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association, agrees. He thinks the bill would help give more breathing room to businesses and allow teenagers greater choice. “We’re trying to save our business owners, the ones being penalized in fines for miscellaneous offenses,” he said.
The bill passed the Senate on a close 11-10 vote with some opponents declaring that the state should be doing more to encourage students to increase their studying and education so that they can earn higher wages in the future, rather than spending the time working for lower wages now. “I’d rather they be a trained, higher, more-educated workforce,” said Democratic Senator Bill Gannon, who opposed the bill. “Because that’ll be better for New Hampshire in the long term.”
New Hampshire’s House of Representatives has yet to vote on the proposed legislation.
I’m just back from this week’s TrailheaDX developer conference put on by Salesforce. But it’s like no other developer conference I’ve ever been to. That’s because in addition to the expected focus on coding, languages, platforms, integrations, etc, the whole event was infused with equality from a variety of perspectives. And it wasn’t a bolt-on, side-show or after thought to just say we think equality is good. It was at the heart of the event, as many if not most of the presenters were women developers and people of color.
And as part of the event, Salesforce celebrated the efforts of the company’s developer community to extend the opportunity for underrepresented groups to get involved with building apps and participating in financial rewards that come with being a cloud developer.
While I was there as an industry analyst to hear more about how the Salesforce platform is progressing and how the company is providing tools to make it easier for coders and non-coders to leverage the toolset, it was great to see a diverse group of people demonstrating and teaching the 10 thousand registered attendees how to build all different kinds of apps. And even the inspirational stories were diverse, with my favorite being a fireside chat between Salesforce’s Chief Equality Officer Tony Prophet, and the extraordinary Betty Reid Soskin, the nation’s oldest park ranger at 96 years young!
With equality being so central to the culture of Salesforce, I was glad to spend a few minutes talking with Molly Q. Ford, Senior Director of Global Equality for Salesforce. Molly shared with me why Salesforce has placed equality at the heart of the organization, the business impact it is already having on the company, and why it is important to the future of the organization when it comes to attracting millennials to the company.
Below is an edited transcript of our conversation. To see the full interview, play the video below or click the embedded SoundCloud player.
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Small Business Trends:One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is the whole role of equality in Salesforce, but before we do that, maybe you could give me a little bit of your personal background.
Molly Q. Ford:I am seven years part of the Salesforce Ohana. Ohana is the Hawaiian term for family, so our chosen family, part of the employee base here. I started my career as a communications person. Throughout my years, I would always look for representation or opportunities to see people like me on stage, to see those people reflected back at me. I started organically during my PR tenure here at Salesforce to work on putting women on stage, people of color and really wanting to see that community reflected in the voices that we hear from Salesforce. That lead to me creating the Women’s Summit at Dreamforce. That was 2015 and that was taking Dreamforce, known as the world’s largest software conference, and spending one whole day dedicated to exploring women leaders, women thought leaders. So, you see these amazing conversations happening on stage and then you look up there and say wow those are all ladies. Really powerful. That grew into me creating my own role.
I moved into employee success or what we call HR here, working on diversity and within months, the company decided we’ve done things to advocate for LGBTQ in Indianapolis. We’ve done equal pay. We focus on high potential women and advanced in gender equality in Salesforce, but we really wanted a team that would be proactive and be accountable. Where’s the accountability? Who’s driving this strategy for the company?
So, think about Salesforce in that we have four core values: Trust; trust being our number one value, trust with our employees, trust with our customers. Then growth, innovation, and then equality. So we said, how do we really live out equality and manage that? With that, we hired Tony Prophet as our Chief Equality Officer. Tony had been a long-time customer of Salesforce from HP and Microsoft and he had the opportunity to move and to become part of our Salesforce Ohana and we built a team that said we need to focus on driving equality for the company.
How do we turn this into a core value? We actually want equality as if we’re a business unit, like we’re a cloud strategy for the company. We have a V2MOM, as you know our guiding principle for the company.
Small Business Trends:Just so folks know, what does V2MOM …
Molly Q. Ford:Yep, absolutely. Vision, and then your Values, Methods, Obstacles, Measures. So if we said my V2MOM is to lose weight, then we say, okay how do we all make that happen and what’s our vision for that, and what’s our methods? How are we gonna get that done? Is that drink water, exercise, run a marathon, and what are your obstacles and measures to have that happen? So we created the office of equality. I like to say that my day job is to sell equality, to bring our employees on this journey. I need 30,000 employees and our customers to join us on this path to equality.
The Business Value of Equality
Small Business Trends:Salesforce has been a really successful company over the years. What role is equality playing in that ongoing success and what role will it play in the future?
Molly Q. Ford:Well, we know from studies from McKenzie that companies focused on gender and racial equality have the opportunity to outperform their competitors, that they can be more successful. So we do equality because it feels good, but we also do it because there’s a business value. We also think that our equality narrative between equality and giving back with our 1-1-1 model where we’re giving 1% of our employees time to schools, 1% of our equity to non-profits and NGOs [which] can use our products. That’s helping us to attract and retain talent. People want to come to a company that’s saying, wait, we don’t have all the answers, but we’re trying and more importantly we’re saying that we’re going to advocate and stand up for our employees and customers.
Small Business Trends:You guys are doing a special award around equality tonight.
Molly Q. Ford:Yes.
Small Business Trends:Equality has become a really central part of Salesforce only starting what, less than two years ago.
Molly Q. Ford:Absolutely.
Small Business Trends:Why has it become so immediately a part of the culture?
Molly Q. Ford:I think it’s a time where we’ve seen Salesforce make some moves again in Indianapolis, standing up against discriminatory legislation advocating for women and equal pay and this became a time where we said, okay let’s have a concentrated focus. How do we do this and drive our business as well? I think also it’s a time where our employees … You know studies are telling us that millennials want to work for a company that gives them a greater sense of purpose at work, that is doing that advocacy. We saw Marc [Benioff] stand up a couple of weeks ago and talk about CEO activism. A responsibility to not only provide for our shareholders, but also be defenders of our values. And we’re really excited about tonight’s equality awards.
Salesforce Equality Awards will honor trailblazers in equality that have been advocates, that are standing up and using their voice. For example, that’s actress Evan Rachel Wood. She stood up and actually testified about #MeToo, and about harassment that happens within her industry.
Then we have the honorable former [San Francisco] Mayor Edwin Lee. Mayor Lee was strong partner to Salesforce. Especially in driving technology into education. Helping us with our program that’s simply called, Circle the Schools, where Salesforce executives go partner with a principal at a school, a public school and we said, what do you need, and how do we help you. Whether that means buying iPads for the classroom, or that means painting over graffiti and providing a principals discretionary fund. So, that partnership with Mayor Ed Lee was invaluable to Salesforce. He will be missed. So we want to honor his legacy and his wife will be joining us to celebrate his award.
Also, we have the honorable Stevie Wonder. How amazing is that? An equality trailblazer and activist whose music is like the soundtrack of the ’70s, the ’80s and even modern day times. Then we have Emily Chang. She’s also an anchor for Bloomberg, but also the author of Brotopia. So really bringing to light some of the conversations that are happening in Silicon Valley about whether that be a bro culture or about discrimination and how we can really draw gender equality and tech.
Last but not least, because we’re here at TrailheaDX, we want to honor our community developer folks. And that’s Shonna Hughes. And Saturdays she’s teaching Pop Up Tech. She’s taking underserved kids and teaching them how to code. She’s teaching them how to actively get involved in the Salesforce economy. So tonight, we’re gonna take the time to honor those heroes and sheroes of ours. There’s equality trailblazers that are in our community. To just recognize them for the work their doing and just let them know that they’re appreciated and part of our Ohana.
Small Business Trends:If we look out five year from now, where do you hope equality will be, not just for Salesforce, but particularly when it comes to tech community, where do you see equality being in five years if things that you’re doing catch on with other companies?
Molly Q. Ford:I think a lot of companies have joined us on this journey to equality. We in the valley, we’re sharing best practices, we’re talking. We’ve noticed that no company right now has the answers to solving this, but we’re all working on it. So one thing we’re doing, is we’re working on making Salesforce more inclusive. We hope that spreads. How do you come inside our walls and be more inclusive and then how do we spread that externally? In five years, right now, it’s hard to say. There’s so many challenges with equality that we’re facing, but I hope that we evolve. We have those wins along the way and we can celebrate our successes.
Small Business Trends:And where can people learn more about what Salesforce is doing with equality?Molly Q. Ford:You can learn about that atsalesforce.com/equality. We have our equality trailblazer information also in full transparency. We have our diversity data and stats there and reporting out what we’re doing as a company. We have a lot of information about Ohana groups or employee resource groups. Those are the ten organization that are employee volunteer lead, that are helping us drive equality inside Salesforce.
Artificial intelligence (AI) application in business has companies big and small excited about the possibilities of this technology. But like all new technologies, it has to be applied properly and with clear strategies if businesses want to fully benefit from AI.
By 2025, Tractica forecasts annual worldwide AI software revenue will increase to $89.8 billion. And Gartner says AI technologies will be in most of the new software products by 2020, and it will create more jobs than it gets rid of.
Artificial intelligence includes natural language processing, machine learning (ML) and cognitive computing. These processes have sub-processes which can be customized and personalized to address the specific needs of your business.
Here are six features to look out for in an AI solution. And although use cases may be different, having these features will allow you to use the technology to become smarter, solve problems, introduce new levels of efficiency, and go after new opportunities.
Machine Learning
Machine learning is in the news just as much as AI. This is because it is a subset of AI. But it requires good data to make it work. By establishing what you want to do, identifying what is available (data), and knowing the constraints, machine learning can start working on your problems.
With these processes in place, machine learning solutions can learn complex decision systems, find patterns and anomalies in data, raise alerts and much more.
Automation
Automation is one of the most touted features in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Being able to automate the manual processes in your company will save you time and money. The AI framework you put in place must be able to address different process automation tasks. To simplify the process, it has to be an easy to use visual modeling exercise without the need for additional skills or labor.
Invoicing, job applications, marketing and scheduling are some of the many tasks you will be able to automate.
Bot Design and Deployment
Bots are being used by businesses to interact with customers and make companies available 24/7. Chatbots as well as transactional, informational, and entertainment bots can be designed to provide valuable information and keep customers engaged.
Your AI solution should have an option for designing and deploying the bots for you. Conversational AI can be created for conversational commerce, return policies, company information and more.
Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU)
Key to fully optimizing your AI solution are natural language processing and natural language understanding for full speech recognition and interaction. Your customers are going to be calling, talking and leaving messages. Being able to convert audio to text and using the data will deliver multiple benefits, including analysis and understanding of multiple languages and dialects.
The information can then be used to gain insight into customer sentiment, to launch personalized marketing campaigns, and to improve products and services.
Cloud Infrastructure
Cloud offers the scalability you need to grow as needed and access resources to deploy the most complex artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. The interdependence of AI and cloud will be key to fully exploit the capability of both.
When you leverage platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) to create and launch your AI solutions, you will ensure near 100 percent resource availability at all times for business process automation and all other AI related tasks.
Price
Pricing for artificial intelligence and machine learning projects vary greatly, and no two projects are alike. Identifying the project definition and solution architecture is an undertaking in itself. But companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Google and IBM have solutions in place with pay-as-you-go pricing for managing some of the cost.
If the solution you choose delivers in its ROI, then it will be worth the price. But the benefit of AI is the technology keeps evolving and it will continue to deliver long after you have paid for it. The key is not only finding the right partner, but also developing a solution that will check all the boxes for your business.
Identifying the Need and the Technology to Solve it
As a small businesses owner, before you start investing in AI, it is critically important to identify the problem or problems you are trying to solve and the business opportunities you are trying to capitalize on. Once you have the answer to those problems, you can start looking for solutions and service providers to make it happen.
Another key point to remember is how the solution you select fits into your existing IT environment. Will it have a high learning curve? After all, if you are a small business and can’t afford another hire, it has to be easy enough to learn and be used by current staff. The goal of AI is to make your business processes smarter, and the smarter they are the more you will grow.
If you are interested to explore AI Solution, sign up for the AI Advisory Service at no cost to you.
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