George Foreman III Turns Boxing Legacy into Fitness Startup EverybodyFights

In small business, family ties make a powerful motivator. So, imagine what it’s like to be the son of a sports and business legend. And imagine what it’s like to follow in your father’s footsteps?

On the Small Business Radio Show this week, George Foreman III discusses how he ended his boxing career without a loss. And how he started EverybodyFights. His facilities have the “grit of a traditional boxing gym, but is delivered in the style of a luxury fitness studio.” He left boxing when he realized he enjoyed teaching fitness classes in a gym and had too little time to train.

How to Give Back to Your Community

At 21, George became George Foreman Sr’s business manager where he learned a lot about selling consumer products like the iconic “George Foreman Grills”. He explains that he loves business because he can “provide value and make money….you can help people and be rich” at the same time. George also believes that the way you give back to your community is to create jobs.

According to George, what makes “EverybodyFights” unique is that it focuses on creating that community by bringing people together through fitness. He says it’s “the smiles and engagement you get from the people that walk through the door. It’s all about execution and that can’t be commoditized.”

When George got started in Boston, no landlord would lease a space to a business with the word “fight” in the title, so the company began as “The Club by George Foreman III”. Eventually when it became successful, he changed the name back to “EverybodyFights”.

Strangely enough, George says that his club actually teaches people not to fight. Instead it trains people to have more self-assurance. This is because “statistically, when people walk with more confidence they are attacked less”. He understands that people can get “pretty wound up” at work with customers and coworkers. Many times, he reminds us that “winning the fight is knowing when not to fight with others” but just to be able to think more clearly and offload that anger somewhere else like the gym.

George believes that there is a place for the home fitness market. He believes a lot of people won’t exercise in a group. They wait until they are in shape. (Which, of course. proves impossible without exercise). He reminds us what science has proven. If “you sit on the couch for 6 months, things seem much more difficult to do…Home fitness is a gateway to (eventually) show up in person. “

Listen to the entire episode on the Small Business Radio Show.

Image: everybodyfights.com

This article, "George Foreman III Turns Boxing Legacy into Fitness Startup EverybodyFights" was first published on Small Business Trends

How to Start Your Writing Business with These 15 Sites

Are you a unicorn writer looking to share your writing talents with the world but you’re not sure where to start?

Maybe you’re looking for a way to make a little money on the side of your main gig.

If you’re a writer of any skill level, you’re in luck — there are numerous online websites and resources for you to share your writing — and get paid for it.

Keep reading to learn more about 15 of my favorite freelance writing jobs for beginners.

1. Hire Writers

At Hire Writers, you can apply to write articles and other content for various websites.

With the free writer membership, you can write about what you want by picking from a number of different topics based on websites’ needs.

You can also write when you want, creating your own work-from-home schedule.

If you don’t feel like writing, there are other jobs to choose from, as well, including research, proofreading, and idea generation.

The best part — this freelance writing job pays weekly.

2. Online Writing Jobs

This freelance writing job is focused on content and SEO writing, so if you’re a writer with a marketing background (or an interest in marketing), this is the site for you.

The free application process to become a writer for Online Writing Jobs includes a unique writing sample that you get paid for.

Once accepted, your work will earn you $15 to $50, depending on your skill level and the complexity of the content.

3. iWriter

If you’re looking for a freelance writing job but don’t want the hassle of sending bids or proposals or looking through a ton of available jobs, you’re in luck.

At iWriter, people, websites, and companies select you from a list of writers.

They then present the work they need completed, and you get a freelance writing job.

4. Writer Access

Writer Access is another great resource if you want a freelance writing job but don’t have the time to sort through businesses, clients, and projects.

After applying and passing Writer Access’ proficiency test, the site uses artificial intelligence programs to scan your sample work and match you up with the best brands and agencies that you can write for.

5. The Content Authority

The Content Authority is a more in-depth resource for freelance writing jobs.

But you can still be a beginner. In fact, this website uses a tier system for their writers. Every new writer begins at Tier 1, which includes a probationary period during which the writer can begin creating a small portfolio.

After the probationary period, the work is analyzed and the writer can be promoted to a higher tier.

Once officially a writer for The Content Authority, you will be paid weekly, if you have a minimum of $25 in approved articles.

6. Textbroker

Textbroker is a great resource for beginners looking for a freelance writing job because it accepts writers with varying levels of experience.

The site includes resources for improving your writing as well, including videos and tutorials, case studies and e-books, and editor feedback on your pieces.

7. Zerys

Zerys is a great free resource for those looking for a freelance writing job.

It costs nothing to sign up and nothing to maintain your writer profile.

Zerys includes a writer rating, which shows clients your quality and skill level.

And, once you set up your profile, you can receive notifications for job postings that match your skills, interests, and availability.

8. London Brokers

London Brokers is your basic freelance writing job resource.

Once you create your profile for free, you can sort through and select jobs to take, including articles, blog posts, and other SEO and creative content.

London Brokers is a good choice if you’re looking for continuous work and weekly pay.

9. Copify

Copify is the resource for you if you’re looking to get started asap. Copify has a very quick application process with turnaround of 48 hours or less.

Once accepted, you receive daily payments. It’s up to you to decide how much you will be paid by determining how much you will work on any given day.

10. Crowd Content

Crowd Content is a little more serious for freelance writing jobs.

With Crowd Content, you don’t simply apply to be a writer and select from a job board like you might with many other freelance writing job sites.

Instead, you apply for specific opportunities.

For example, you can apply to write product descriptions for Bloomingdale’s.

Or, you can apply to be an editor for an enterprise.

Best of all, Crowd Content includes several online educational resources to help you improve your skills as a writer.

11. Scripted

Scripted is one of the only sites on this list that allows the writer to set prices for themselves.

This means that you get to determine how much you’ll get paid for your freelance writing job.

There are a number of online resources to help you calculate the best pay rate per word based on your experience and skill level.

12. Great Content

Great Content is the only freelance writing job website on this list that specifically advertises multilingual copywriting.

So this is a fantastic resource for you if you are seeking a freelance writing job and English is not your first language.

It’s also a great tool if you happen to be multilingual, because it increases the number of jobs that you can take.

13. Listverse

Listverse is unlike any other item on this particular list.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good source for those looking for a freelance writing job.

Here’s how it works: you pick a topic for your list. It can be anything, but it has to be unique and interesting.

You create your list, including one to two paragraphs per list item.

Then you submit your list to the site.

If they like the list and want to publish it, you get $100. If your list receives the most page views during any of the remaining months of the year, you receive an extra $1000.

14. WritersDomain

Writer’s Domain isn’t quite as unique as Listverse, perhaps, but it’s still a great resource for beginners looking for a freelance writing job.

After applying — which includes a grammar test, so study up — you simply start writing.

Pay rates are $0.02-$0.05 per word, and writers are paid once per month.

15. Word Gigs

At Word Gigs, all of the work writers do is ghostwriting for clients.

That means no personal credit and no bylines for the writer.

So if that’s not something you’re into, you might want to skip this one.

But if you’re okay with ghostwriting, then you’re in luck, because Word Gigs is an amazing opportunity for those looking for a freelance writing job.

The pay at Word Gigs is possibly the best in this list.

Earn around $4.50 for a simple 300-400 word article, or up to $425 for a 20k word e-book.

Republished by permission. Original here.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "How to Start Your Writing Business with These 15 Sites" was first published on Small Business Trends

Cyber Monday Disrupt Berlin special: Get a $200 gift with purchase

The holiday season is officially on, and Disrupt Berlin 2019 opens  its doors in just nine days. We’re ready to celebrate both occasions in festive style with a one-day Cyber Monday special. Buy a pass to Disrupt Berlin* today, 2 December, and you can pick any gift — up to $200 in value — from the TechCrunch Gift Guide.

Not familiar with our gift guide? You’re in for a treat. TechCrunch folk verge on the maniacal when it comes to choosing the gadgets, gear and services we use. Since we love to share, we curate the guide and pack it with absolutely awesome stuff.

Once you purchase your pass* to Disrupt Berlin today, we’ll contact you the week after the conference ends to get your preferred selection from the gift guide priced up to $200 (US). Cross a name off your holiday shopping list and choose a gift for a loved one, a friend or your kids. And if you decide to pick a cool gadget for yourself — hey, who are we to judge?

If you want to talk about gifts that keep on giving, Disrupt Berlin tops the list. This international conference boasts thousands of attendees from more than 50 countries, 200 media outlets and hundreds of early-stage startups exhibiting the very latest innovations across the tech spectrum. It’s opportunity on steroids.

We packed the Disrupt Berlin agenda with world-class speakers, presentations, in-depth Q&A Sessions, panel discussions and workshops. The cream of the international early-stage startup crop will compete in the Startup Battlefield pitch competition for a $50,000 equity-free prize and bask in the spotlight of investor and media attention.

You’ll find infinite networking opportunities in Startup Alley. Our expo floor will be home to hundreds of pre-Series A startups eager to connect and impress. While you’re in the Alley, be sure to meet our Disrupt Berlin 2019 TC Top Picks — a cadre of innovative startups handpicked by TechCrunch editors.

This year, the TC Hackathon finalists will pitch the products they built in less than 24 hours live on the Extra Crunch stage. If you’re looking for creative devs in your startup — or if you just appreciate code poetry — this is a great opportunity to see the solutions these highly skilled competitors created to address real-world problems.

And CrunchMatch, our free business match-matching service available to all attendees — makes networking easier, more productive and less stressful. Who doesn’t love that?

Disrupt Berlin 2019 takes place on 11-12 December. Tis’ the season — take advantage of our one-day Cyber Monday celebration. Buy a pass to Disrupt Berlin 2019 today*, and you get to choose a gift — worth up to $200 — from the TechCrunch Holiday Gift Guide. Come and join us in Berlin!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at Disrupt Berlin 2019? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

*Purchase must occur before 11:59pm CET on 2 December and must be a full-priced pass without any additional discounts applied. You will be contacted via the email address you submit in your registration after the event has been completed to provide your preferred gift selection valued up to $200 USD.

Uncapped raises £10M to offer ‘revenue-based’ finance to growing businesses

Uncapped, a London headquartered and Warsaw-based startup that wants to provide “revenue-based” finance to growing European businesses, is officially launching today and disclosing that it has raised £10 million in funding.

The capital is a mixture of equity funding and debt (money it can use for lending), and sees the fintech company backed by Rocket Internet’s Global Founders Capital, White Star Capital, and Seedcamp.

I understand a number of angel investors also participated. They include Robert Dighero (Partner at Passion Capital), Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas (COO of GoCardless) and David Nolan and Kevin Glynn (founders of Butternut Box).

Founded by “serial entrepreneur” Asher Ismail (who was most recently CEO of Midrive), and former VC Piotr Pisarz, Uncapped has set out to use various marketing, sales and accounting data to be able to offer finance for young businesses based on their current (and projected) revenue.

Specifically, Uncapped says it will enable founders to access working capital between £10,000 and £1 million for a flat fee of 6% interest. It’s being pitched as a smart alternative for growing companies that don’t want to give away equity in return for capital to help grow.

“The first decision that entrepreneurs need to make when raising finance is whether to give away a portion of equity in their company, or take on debt,” explains Ismail. “Equity is a slow and very expensive way to fund growth, while loans add more risk. We’re creating an alternative that sits between debt and equity financing, while offering the benefits of both. We started Uncapped so that entrepreneurs wouldn’t have to give up a piece of their company or put up their house”.

Ismail says that Uncapped provides entrepreneurs with access to capital without the need for “personal guarantees, credit checks, warrants, or equity,” and promises to move a lot quicker than investors, or for that matter, more traditional forms of debt finance, can.

“We don’t require customers to share any business plans, cap tables, or pitch decks,” he adds. “All we need is to verify their business performance. We connect to the business’ existing sales and marketing platforms, like Stripe, Shopify and Facebook. Revenue-based finance also gives founders the flexibility to repay less when their sales slow or the market hits a downturn”.

The only stipulation is that businesses must be based on online payments and have at least nine months trading history. This makes Uncapped particularly suitable for companies operating e-commerce, SaaS, direct-to-consumer, gaming and app development businesses.

“For example, our first customer was online menswear brand, L’Estrange,” Uncapped Pisarz tells me. “For e-commerce businesses, December is typically the most challenging time to invest in growth, as inventory and marketing costs are at a peak but Christmas sales have not yet come through. We were able to provide the business with an advance within three days”.

Meanwhile, Ismail claims that Uncapped is the first company of its kind to launch in Europe (which is somewhat of a stretch) and that venture capital — although very different — is probably the closest alternative form of financing.

“Despite the $35 billion invested in Europe by VCs this year, many companies do not fit the venture model,” he says. “They might be a family business that doesn’t intend to sell, an entrepreneur focused on more of a niche market, or minority who may be overlooked by traditional funders. Whilst VCs will often meet 1,500 companies and back just five of them a year, we have the ability to provide 100s of businesses with growth capital for a flat fee much faster and without sacrificing equity at an early stage”.

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Classified ads provide en effective and economical medium to reach your target audience and improve your sales and profit.

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DecisionLink Unveils ValueCloud for Sales

DecisionLink has launched its new app, ValueCloud, that integrates with Salesforce. As a result, it gives self-service user experience that guides value propositions.

ValueCloud Customer Value Management Platform

ValueCloud is a Customer Value Management (CVM) platform with features that include a set of applications and sales tools.  These help businesses to create, store and leverage customer value assets. As a result, it gives teams the ultimate differentiator- value-based conversations.

ValueCloud allows sales reps to take a value hypothesis into every meeting as easily as pulling a customer case study off a website. It comes with financial insights into the interface allowing for a guided tour of key financial tenets. These include addressing issues like ROI, payback period, Net present value (NPV) and cost of delay.

Differentiate on Value, not on Price

Value hypothesis tests if a product is valuable to prospective customers. A value hypothesis determines if a customer should adopt your product. If done correctly, a value proposition can give your business a huge advantage over your competitors. Conversely, an ineffective value proposition can make your ideal customers turn to your competitors simply because they don’t understand that you offer what they need right away.

Identifying your unique value proposition effectively distinguishes you from your competitors. And it is key to establishing your success in both marketing and sales.  

The company says the application will help salespeople with value-selling capabilities at scale. It also provides insights in sales to elevate conversations from price to value. Covering early-stage conversations with clients, and/or the development of business cases, further down the funnel to close opportunities

This would mean small businesses can now look towards creating value for their customers. ValueCloud will now make it easy to glean valuable insights into customer value. Thus helping to implement effective CVM processes as a strategic practice for gaining and retaining more customers.

By enhancing the value of CRM systems ValueCloud provides the missing link to elevating conversations and shifting relationships from tactical to strategic. Thus providing valuable insights from initial sales call all the way through to contract renewals.

Easy Five-Step Process

Crafting effective value propositions may sound straightforward but the process can be challenging because it needs to be distinct, concise and interesting. value propositions need to be customer-centric, which means focusing on what users need as opposed to what you offer.

ValueCloud helps your sales force to work on their value hypothesis much faster. For example, using traditional means it could take anywhere from a few hours to several days to produce for an account. ValueCloud brings automation to what Salesforce does in regards to the value hypothesis process.

“ValueCloud for Sales is a breakthrough technology, with it, DocuSign sales professionals can create a compelling and personalized value hypothesis for any account in minutes,” says Ran Haimoff, Director of Strategic Sales Programs.

The ValueCloud features include a five-step valuation process. Step one requires defining the scenario. This includes picking the particular account, the model to use, and the specific situation involved in the opportunity. This could be the type of industry, competitor, use case or even geographic location.

After defining your scenario, ValueCloud will allow you to review the benefits. The benefits are grouped by categories in terms of employee efficiency, revenue optimization, security and others. Consequently, you can use a specific or a combination of the processes which you think applies to your case.

Once you finish with your benefits, you will then provide high-level numbers that are important to the business case. These will include estimate costs for a baseline leading to the estimate business case with the goal of helping you generate statistics on the business case, including ROI, payback period and more. As a result, it will finally lead you to review your results which in turn will help you generate a high-level overview for the prospect.

Image: Decisionlink.com

This article, "DecisionLink Unveils ValueCloud for Sales" was first published on Small Business Trends

5 Ways to Up Your SMB Management Game in 2020

Running a business is a lot like running up the down escalator. If you pause for a moment, you won’t be standing still. You’ll be going backwards, and fast.

You need to be constantly on the lookout for new ways to streamline your business management processes. And you must improve your business growth. This is because if you aren’t growing, you’re going down.

As we move into the home stretch of 2019, it’s a good time to assess your company’s processes. Also assess your management techniques. Then you can gather a few new tactics. And make them even stronger and more powerful for 2020.

Up Your SMB Management Game in 2020

Here are five ways to raise your game as a small business leader in 2020.

1. Automate, Automate, Automate

Automation is key to efficiency in every business. But that goes double for small businesses. Here each employee has to punch above their weight.

Bringing in automated tools frees up your employees. They can then dedicate more time to those tasks that can only be performed by a human. This helps to increase efficiency, decrease costs and boost customer satisfaction,

The best areas to automate include:

• Accounting and financial management tools like FreshBooks, QuickBooks, and Wave automate some of the most annoying and time-consuming business tasks, like preparing and sending invoices and chasing up late payments.
• Expense tracking software like Expensify and Zoho Expense can automate expense approvals and reports.
• Project management tools like Trello and Monday help you assign tasks, follow progress, and automate individual and group reminders to make sure that you always meet deadlines.
• Social media management tools like Falcon and AgoraPulse can automatically flag any mention of your business, and automate scheduled posting around the clock to your social media feeds.
• Email marketing software like Mailchimp and aWeber let you set up automated drip campaigns.

2. Make It Easy to Book Your Services

You don’t want there to be any obstacles for your customers to overcome in order to book your business, but a small business doesn’t have the resources to man booking lines around the clock.

Fortunately, online scheduling software means that you can place a booking button on your website, so that customers can check your calendar, schedule appointments, and book your services immediately. They don’t have to pick up the phone, or wait for you to respond to their message.

Don’t stop there! You can place a booking button on your Facebook page, and even in your “Google My Business” entry. vCita’s booking software is an approved partner for Google, offers apps and plugins for WordPress and Wix sites, and has an easy API, making it simple to insert booking buttons at every touchpoint. You can also use it to collect prepayments, issue invoices and follow up with customers.

3. Go Big on Employee Engagement

Employee engagement is the new customer engagement, because engaged employees are more productive and deliver better customer service. It’s just as important in a small business where you can’t afford high employee turnover and each employee matters, so you need everyone to bring their all.

Increasing employee engagement is a multi-faceted process:

• Delegate as much as possible and avoid micromanaging
• Encourage good communication between everyone in the business, using a system like Slack or WhatsApp.
• Keep all your employees in the loop by sharing KPIs, celebrating achievements, and acknowledging setbacks.
• Use new apps and tools for small businesses, like Bitrix24, Hi5, and Reward Gateway, to set up incentive systems, rewards hierarchies, and bonuses.

It’s also important to show appreciation for your employees’ hard work. Research has found that 21.5% of workers who don’t feel that their work was recognized have interviewed for a job in the past three months, as opposed to 12.4% of workers who do feel recognized.

4. Deliver on Customer Service

A successful business is all about the relationship. In 2020, no one is going to wait until customer service lines open at 9am tomorrow; they want answers now.

The good news is that AI is here to help you out with chatbots. Chatbots are the new FAQ section, providing fast answers to customer questions as well as guiding leads to book an appointment, choose a product, return an item, check on holiday opening hours, and more.

Chatbots aren’t just for big business anymore; new apps and plugins like HubSpot Chatbot Builder simplify things to a level that SMBs can afford. Build chatbots in Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Telegram, as well as embedding them in your business website to provide personalized service round the clock.

5. Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful force, with over half of social media users turning to it to research products and services. It’s not just for millennials, either, as 77.5% of Gen X and 48.2% of baby boomers are online, according to eMarketer.

However, the domination of Facebook and Twitter is long gone. Your potential customers are on every channel, and it’s difficult for a small business to cover them all.

Instead of scatter spraying, consult social media marketing statistics to help you choose which platform to focus your efforts, what type of content to share, and how to time your social media posts for maximum impact at minimum cost.

Tightening Your Game Keeps You Ahead of the SMB Pack

The business market is getting more competitive and cutthroat every year, but these tactics can tighten your business management and keep your company ahead.

Streamlining social media, making it easy for customers to make a booking, automating business processes wherever possible, and delivering excellence in both customer service and employee engagement are best practices that set SMBs up for success in 2020.

Image: Depositphotos.com

This article, "5 Ways to Up Your SMB Management Game in 2020" was first published on Small Business Trends

The Innovator’s Book Shares Inspirational Thoughts for You and Your Team

Are you working on something BIG?

Or, maybe you feel like you should be bigger and bolder than you are today.

If you’re feeling somewhat cynical or out of sorts and out of ideas, maybe you ought to pick up a copy of  The Innovator’s Book: Rules for Rebels, Mavericks and Innovators by Dr. Max McKeown.

The Innovator’s Book is what I’d call an inspirational gift book.  It’s a book you can gift to yourself and if you like it enough, you might choose to give it to members of your team, folks you work with, customers or anyone who could use a little inspiration in the innovation department.

I have to admit when I first received the book to review, it was what I’d call a #MehMoment. Nice book, nice thoughts. So what. More on that later.

Then I decided to dig into the author.

Over the years, I’ve learned that when something strikes me as “meh”, that there’s usually a nice bit of goodness just beyond it. As expected, I was not disappointed,

The Magical Dr. Max

To appreciate The Innovator’s Book you have to appreciate the author first.  His name is Max McKeon, and he goes by Dr. Max.

Dr. Max is a strategic advisor to many of the world’s most admired companies and a popular speaker all over the world.  He’s written several best selling books; The Strategy Book, #NOW, and Adaptability. He has a Ph.D. and an MBA with a specialty in strategic change and an MSc in Psychology. His research focuses on the relative effectiveness of different approaches to innovation.

Dr. Max also has a terrific YouTube channel where you can see him in action.  I highly recommend checking out a few videos before you read the book.  Why? Well, you’ll get to see and hear him for yourself and then you can superimpose his energy and lovely accent over the book content.  Seriously — it makes a difference.

With that, you have some context from which to enjoy this book.

A Peek Inside The Innovator’s Book

The Innovator’s Book looks like it’s designed to provide inspiration. It’s a small book about 4 x 6 with fun images to introduce the concepts and relatively large print that makes it a joy to read.

It’s a book you pick up, randomly open to a page, read and then reflect on how the wisdom on the page can be applied to your life and your business.

Like all good psychologists, Dr. Max breaks the book into three overarching jobs that an innovator should be focused on:

1. Making new ideas useful
2. Building a bigger brain
3. Winning with new ideas

Then he breaks each job into a key question:

1. How can new ideas be made useful?
2. Can we build a bigger brain?
3. How can we win with innovation?

What to Do With The Innovator’s Book

Give it as a corporate gift: The book is a unique size and super easy to read.  It’s an ideal gift for clients to place in their offices, waiting rooms, anywhere folks could use an injection of optimism and creative thinking.

Use it as a meeting starter: If you pride yourself and your team as being innovative or having a goal of increasing innovative thinking, this is an ideal book to use as a meeting starter.  Simply open to any page, read the content and have a quick discussion. Here’s an example of one of my favorite quotes in the book —

“New ideas are like babies: beautiful, ugly, and not finished yet.”

The meeting facilitator might simply read this quote and start the meeting by discussing the idea behind the quote.

Imagine how differently a brainstorming meeting might proceed with this at the start!

Share with a young person: If you have high school, college or young employees in your midst, consider this an “innovator’s starter kit” that will help them differentiate themselves and stand out from the crowd.

Conclusion

It’s easy to say that you’re committed to innovation. It’s more difficult to actually do it.  The Innovator’s Book is the fun, easy way to make innovation a living, breathing element of your business.

Image: Amazon

This article, "The Innovator’s Book Shares Inspirational Thoughts for You and Your Team" was first published on Small Business Trends

6 Google Marketing Tools Every Small Business Owner Should be Using

Most of us know Google as search engine, but they have also created some powerful marketing tools that can help small business owners get the most out of their marketing spend.

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E-Commerce Day in California Will Help You Start Selling Online

If you are looking to launch, buy or grow an E-Commerce business, E-Commerce Day is for you.

The event has tracks specifically designed to teach you what you need to learn based on where you are in your E-Commerce journey. This includes startup, growth and agency.

Each track will cover sales and marketing, operations and financial with industry leaders using breakouts and presentations in the PechaKucha format.

In addition to real-world examples from entrepreneurs, you will also learn from the head of Google’s E-Commerce and the manager of Shopify’s education program. They will be two of the more than 30 experts from Brex, Privy, Postscript and other companies.

Some of the tracks include Marketing Your E-Commerce Business and Start Selling with Shopify.

Considering E-Commerce is replacing how most people do their shopping, this event is a must for business owners who want to learn the in and out of digital commerce.

E-Commerce Day is going to be held on February 4, 2020 in Marina del Rey, California.

Click the red button and reserve your free spot before it is taken.

Register Now

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Events, Contests and Awards

• 4th Annual Blockchain Opportunity Summit 2019
  December 10, 2019, New York, NY
• Pitch Deck Summit
  December 11, 2019, Austin, Texas
• IoT Forum on Smart Home
  December 12, 2019, Sunnyvale, Calif.
• Millionaire Mastermind Entrepreneur Summit
  December 16, 2019, Atlanta, Ga.
• Chief Data And Analytics Officers, Financial Services
  February 04, 2020, New York, NY
• E-Commerce Day LA
  February 04, 2020, Marina del Rey, Calif.
• The Responsible Business Summit New York 2020
  March 16, 2020, Brooklyn, NY
• National Small Business Week
  May 03, 2020, Online
• TECHSPO New York 2020
  May 07, 2020, New York City, NY

More Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends.

You can see a full list of events, contests and award listings or post your own events by visiting the Small Business Events Calendar.

Image: E-Commerce Day

This article, "E-Commerce Day in California Will Help You Start Selling Online" was first published on Small Business Trends

Avoid Distractions and Improve Your Marketing with These 10 Tips

You promote and market a business online in so many different ways. It’s easy to get distracted with tactics that aren’t completely in line with your business. You’re struggling with these distractions. Or you want to avoid this problem before it starts. Learn from these insights shared by members of the online small business community.

Find Where Social Media Fits into the Customer Journey

Social media can be a very important part of your marketing strategy. But if you’re not thinking about it in terms of the actual customer journey, you could be really missing out on some of its potential. To optimize your messaging to the needs of your customers throughout their buying journey, read this Duct Tape Marketing post by John Jantsch.

Don’t Let Digital Distractions Destroy Your Well Being

There are so many different tools and platforms available online that sometimes they can become more of a distraction than an asset for your business. If you’re worried about digital distractions destroying your small business, check out this Smallbiztechnology.com post by Renee Johnson to see if it may be time to scale back.

Unplug from Technology to Become More Productive

You use a lot of tech to run your business. Unplugging for awhile could actually help you gain some focus and get more done. Jennifer Hanford discusses the benefits in this Strella Social Media post. And members of the BizSugar community commented on the idea further here.

Boost Sales with Web Accessibility

You can share tons of effective messages online. But if you’re not accessible to your customers, you could be missing out on the real benefits of all that hard work. In this DIY Marketers post, Joydeep Bhattacharya goes over some of the benefits of web accessibility that you should be aware of.

Create an SEO Strategy for Website Redesign and Migration

Don’t get distracted with all the design elements and shiny toys. They go along with getting a new website. But SEO remains one of the most important aspects that can impact your business. This Search Engine Watch post by Jacqueline Dooley details how you can create a strategy for the next time you redesign or migrate your website.

Prepare Your Small Business for the Busy Holiday Season

The holidays are a busy time for many small businesses. There are tons of exciting possibilities for promoting or calling attention to your business during this time of year. But it’s also important to make sure your business is prepared for the holiday rush. Learn more in this SmallBizDaily post by Jay Reeder.

Stand Out in the Crowd of Content

Content marketing is one strategy you can use to stand out from the crowd. But many businesses end up simply creating posts that mirror one another. In this Content Marketing Institute post, Dennis Shiao outlines one of the most important things you can do to make sure your content actually stands out.

Consider Facebook Alternatives

For the last couple years, it seemed like Snapchat might surpass Facebook in certain circles when it comes to social media use. And while some other social networks might be worth checking out, it’s important to not get distracted by focusing on those that won’t be around for the long haul. Christian Zilles elaborates in this Social Media HQ post.

Optimize Your Business for Local Searches

Focusing on local customers is an important part of the marketing plan for any retail or service area business. To really optimize your marketing for your local community, read the tips in this Philips.com post by Philip Verghese. Then see what BizSugar members are saying about the post here.

Use the Psychology of Liking to Grow Your Business

Lots of businesses get distracted by focusing on likes or other interactions online. But if you’re not focusing on what those likes mean to the psychology of your customers, then you’re probably not really moving the needle for your business. Ashlee Brayfield dives deeper into this concept in this Crowdspring post.

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This article, "Avoid Distractions and Improve Your Marketing with These 10 Tips" was first published on Small Business Trends