5 Things to Add to Your Small Business Wish List

As a small business owner, you should create a wish list of things you need to strengthen your position and reach your long-term goals. This list of objectives should be formulated with clear guidelines, realistic expectations, and outstanding values. Your business goals should be backed by dependable employees to better ensure that you deliver the greatest value to your customers.

The following goals can help strengthen your customer relations and overall business performance:

1. Find the ideal employees

In many cases, small business owners hire friends and family to manage day-to-day responsibilities. As your business expands, you can use the vast employment resources available to find dedicated employees outside of family and friends. When hiring employees outside your personal circle, make sure they understand your goals, values, and employment guidelines. Allow candidates to sell themselves to you and run all necessary background checks, including contacting previous employers.
2. Make time for yourself

Many small business owners fail to add a proper vacation to their wish list or agenda, and often wind up working over 40 hours per week throughout the year. Even if you are highly motivated to make your business successful, everyone needs a break to rest, recharge and effectively envision their ultimate goals. Thankfully, you don’t have to step away for a long period of time. An extended weekend allows for some much-needed relaxation and contemplation of your business goals. Instruct your employees to contact you for emergencies, but take time to refresh your mind and, if necessary, reassess your objectives.

3. Use social media

Social media enables you to attract new customers and job candidates and keep followers in the loop about your products and services. Additionally, if customers share your business by linking to your web page, they may provide you with valuable feedback, which in turn, enables you to connect with a larger audience over time. As a bonus, positive comments from customers on social media will often generate more business leads, thereby increasing revenue for the products and services they’ve recommended.

4. Implement an efficient credit card management system

Because many customers prefer to use credit cards to make purchases and pay bills, small businesses can and should accept credit card payments for a minimal fee. To minimize the hassle of sending invoices or accepting checks, find a technology provider to implement online credit card payment technology. Remember that although there is a fee involved with credit card processing, the efficiency can help convert each transaction into a potential recurring or long-term customer.

5. Work with other businesses

Many successful small business owners work communally by providing services to one another and collaborating on a small or large scale. These business connections can prove even more valuable when they recommend your products or services to their customers. You can also pool resources with other businesses at networking or marketing events in your local community or by joining your local Chamber of Commerce.

Even if you have no plans to drastically expand your small business, it’s critical for you to make a wish list and pursue it. And whether you operate a standalone business or have a staff of employees, following through on these objectives is important to your long-term success.

5 Online Business Ideas You Can Start Tomorrow

When you dream of opening your own business, you might envision four white walls and a mess of boxes to unpack in a commercial space. However, it doesn't have to be this way. With today's technology, you can start and run a business online, often with little to no cost.
By focusing on your strengths, you'll be able to build a client roster and get your online-based business started. Here are 15 great ideas you can run with

1. SEO consultant

Do you know the ins and outs of search engines and have skills in platforms like Google Analytics? The owners of a lot of smaller companies don't realize how much of an impact search engine optimization (SEO) can have on their business. Educate those business owners on the power of SEO to help transform their websites into a more SEO-friendly property. Use your skills to show business owners how to read and use their analytics data the right way, and how to properly use keywords and structure content to get more traffic.

2. Business coaching

If you possess a great deal of business experience and knowledge, why not create a business that helps aspiring entrepreneurs find success? You can use your skills to help new business owners get off to a good start and help experienced entrepreneurs keep up with demand. To show off your knowledge and skills and bring in clients, you can also write articles about business on platforms like LinkedIn.

3. Specialized retailer

There's an audience for everything, whether it's making dollhouse furniture or creating organic dog food. With a specialty e-commerce store, you can reach those customers who are seeking your specific products. All you need is a web-hosting service with an integrated shopping cart feature or with e-commerce software, and your business will be operational in no time. You can even work with vendors to ship products to customers on your behalf, which means you don't need to own a lot of inventory.

4. Social media consultant

Larger companies can hire an agency or full-time staff member to run their Facebook and Twitter accounts, but small businesses often have to handle their own social media marketing. With so many responsibilities, business owners are often too busy, overwhelmed or undereducated about the importance of social media to spend time developing and implementing a great social media strategy. As a consultant, you can help them determine the best tactics, posting schedules and content for their target audience. As their follower count grows, so will your business.

5. Web design

There's nothing more off-putting than a poorly designed website, and often, it kills credibility. If you know HTML and have a good eye for design, you can launch a service to create attractive, easy-to-use websites for small businesses. Put your skills to good use for business owners who want to take their online presence to the next level. Build a comprehensive portfolio, and then create your own website to show it off and attract a steady stream of clients.

Is Your Content Marketing Effective?

Effective content marketing consists of connecting with your customers without focusing on excessive direct sales. While hard selling still has a place in various industries, this new marketing strategy delivers ongoing, valuable, and actionable information that ultimately leads to customer loyalty. It may also prove more suitable to your target market and business goals. Consider these crucial steps to ensure your marketing efforts produce maximum results. 

Have you defined your audience?

Every business and market is divided by niche segments. For example, matchmaking websites may offer relationship advice for people based on age or interests. Your content marketing strategy should directly speak to your core audience, targeting their particular needs and wants as opposed to casting a wide net. If your small business provides a diverse line of products and services, you should divide all marketing efforts by profiling each group of customers and their corresponding interests.

Do you have a sound strategy?

While content marketing can produce effective and long-lasting results, you should develop a plan in the event of failure or eventual success. What would your next move consist of should you not generate enough leads? How often and aggressively would you communicate with your prospects? As a general rule, it is good practice to maintain a newsletter with a continued stream of information, allowing you to communicate with prospects long after you reach them. Polls, surveys, and customer feedback should also be taken into account as part of your overall strategy.

Are you measuring results?

Your marketing strategy cannot be sustained without properly measuring results. If you generate a healthy amount of leads through multiple sources, you should measure which of these are the most and the least effective. This enables you to modify efforts accordingly or eliminate a source altogether. What are your customers' browsing habits? What type of content engages them? Certain tools, like Google Analytics, can provide detailed information, such as your audience's click-through rate, bounce rate, and how long they stayed on a particular page. Buffer is a similar service that primarily focuses on social media analysis.

Are you providing real value?

Your ultimate business goal is to generate profits, but this should not be your only focus when trying to build new business relationships. Promoting your products and services in excess is a surefire way to turn off your prospects. Instead, follow the 80/20 rule, where most of your content consists of useful information followed by the occasional product mention. For example, offer a coupon code to those who follow you on social media or via your newsletter campaign.

Are you going above and beyond?

Running a website and a social media account is simply not enough anymore. Powerful content marketing consists of networking with others in your field. Reciprocate by promoting noncompetitive content through your own online channels in exchange for submitting content to your industry contacts to promote on their channels. Become a guest contributor on prominent news sources where your audience tends to visit. Expand your reach beyond standard publishing practices, while measuring your results at the same time.

Can you back up your information?

Providing general information may intrigue your prospects, but backing it up with interesting and irrefutable data can lead to much better results. Include detailed statistics and relevant information that may help your audience gravitate toward your business. If your offer consists of resume services, for example, reveal the percentage of failed job interviews due to poor resume structure and formatting. Your services will naturally become more favorable as a result.

Content marketing is about reaching a target demographic, conducting educated analysis, and establishing long-term relationships. Consider using professional content writing solutions, such as Scripted, to ensure your marketing strategy effectively addresses your customers' needs.