Top 5 Local Marketing Mistakes [SB#016] – Although you don’t really notice it, local marketing is all around you. Every time you open a telephone directory, turn on the radio or even go to your kid’s football game, local marketing is there. If you are like most people, you really don’t notice it. This is because local marketing tends to be really, really bad. Those little guys have all these advantages over larger corporations, but they just don’t know how to take them. If you are one of these little guys, avoid making the following mistakes.

Top 5 Local Marketing Mistakes Video

Do NOT Commit These Marketing Mistakes! [SB#015] – Marketing is one of the most important parts of running a business. Most of the small businesses that fail, do so because of either a lack of marketing, or bad marketing. You need to get the word out about your business, and you can do so most effectively by avoiding the following five mistakes.

To read the full transcript of this video visit:http://www.logodesignworks.com/blog/small-business-marketing-mistakes-video

Do NOT Commit These Marketing Mistakes!

How to prevent Social Media Marketing Failure [SEO#14] – Social networking is one of the best ways to build an online business. After all, it is effective and mostly free—what is there not to love here? However, there are a few mistakes that can destroy your social media marketing. These are so common that it is a little sad. Okay, it is a LOT sad. And by avoiding these mistakes, you can give your online campaigns an automatic advantage. Here are a few things NOT to do.

How to prevent Social Media Marketing Failure Video

‘Local’ is the new black—or at least the new green. Many modern people are eager to support their communities and help the environment by buying local. This can be a boon for small business owners, but only if you market your small business brand as a local option.

One of the big challenges in developing and marketing your small business brand is that the cheapest and most available marketing methods are online. This means that you must adopt a hybrid approach that combines your local brand with online marketing strategies. Here are a few tools to help you get started.

How To Market Your Local Business Online Video

Increase your profits with a business blog! [SB#013] – A lot has been written about blogs as business and sales tools, but they can be valuable SEO tools as well. Although many experts are pointing to social networking as the media of the future, most of us still follow our favorite blogs and check in with them on a regular basis. In addition to entertainment value, a blog can improve your search engine optimization as well as inviting new people to your website and gaining valuable organic links. Many people look for quick fixes in SEO when in fact an occasional blog article can do wonders for improving your Page Rank over the long term. Here are a few ways to make your blog do double duty for your website—fostering sales and increasing your Page Rank at the same time.

Increase your profits with a business blog Video

Many entrepreneurial success stories begin this way: X had a dream, but his dream was turned down at the local bank. This is a situation that many entrepreneurs face. While it can be scary, it does not have to be a dead end. The reason so many success stories begin this way is that it is actually very difficult to get a bank loan to start or expand a small business. However, there are alternate forms of funding that can help you achieve your dreams. It’s just a matter of knowing how to approach them.

How To Fund Your Entrepreneurial Dreams Video

The first question to ask yourself is a hard one: why did the bank reject you in the first place? Here are a few reasons.

• No prior relationship. In some cases, the rejection comes because you do not have an established relationship with the bank. Banks prefer to extend loans to their own patrons. They can easily see your financial history and already have a relationship with you. This was not as important in the days of easy credit, but it has become increasingly important as small business loan funds dry up.
• Poor presentation. You need to package your entrepreneurial dreams as a sure thing. This means showing that you have done your homework. Do you have a professional business plan? Have you investigated the market for your product or service? If insufficient or poorly presented information is the reason for your rejection, it will be a barrier with other funding sources as well.
• Too much risk. Banks have been burned by defaults, which is making the institutions increasingly wary. If you simply are presenting top much risk, there is little that you can do to change this. It is a seller’s market for loans right now, with far more demand than available funds. Many banks are looking for as much as two years of consistent revenue before they throw their own money in the pot. If this is  the case, you will simply need to find alternative funding.

Many lenders are not shy about letting you know why they are rejecting your application. Talk to your loan officer to see what the problem is. This will be very important in getting alternative funding because you will often be able to correct the situation before exploring other avenues. Here are a few sources to consider.

• Angel investors. The banks are unwilling to finance your dreams because they don’t know you. They don’t know how motivated you are, or what skills you bring to the table that will make you a better-than-average entrepreneur. However, you probably have friends, family and acquaintances who know these things about you. Consider asking one or more of these people to invest in your business or become a silent partner. This is a difficult step to take because financial relationships can interfere with personal ones, but it may be the only way to make your business dreams see the light of day. Just make sure your agreement is spelled out clearly in a contract so both sides feel protected.
• Microfinance. Because small business loans are becoming increasingly difficult to get from large financial institutions, there are smaller businesses offering loans within set geographical area. You can usually find ones in your area by contacting your local Chamber of Commerce or your city government. Microfinance lenders are usually nonprofit organizations that have been given grants to boost local businesses. Often, they offer not just loans, but a wide array of services and information for entrepreneurs. Some also help to link up potential entrepreneurs with angel investors.
• Crowdfunding. This is one of the newer ways of getting a loan, but it is also one of the fastest growing. Crowdfunding is almost exclusively online. It usually focuses on peer-to-peer lending, with a large base of lenders each loaning a small amount to your entrepreneurial venture. One thing to remember is that many of these websites will check your credit record and set your interest rates accordingly. Others let you set your own interest rate. Some charge fees, while others do not. Even though these are largely philanthropic ventures, you still may not be getting the best possible deal. Each site is a little different, so shop around before you decide that this avenue is right for you. If you are interested, check out sites such as Prosper and Kickstarter.
• Seller financing. If you are not starting a business but rather buying an existing one, seller financing may be a possible funding source. The market for businesses is similar to that for real estate—that is, tanked. Many sellers are willing to consider alternative payment structures or receive their payment in several payments rather than in just one. This is becoming increasing common right now, so don’t be afraid to ask about it.
• A side job. Running a business is hard work! While you probably feel exhausted enough at the end of each working day, getting a side job (or keeping your day job for the time being) may be the only way to finance your entrepreneurial dreams. One way to make your money really work for you is to use your earnings to set up an account at a local credit union. Place your earnings in this account. After several months, you will not only have a decent amount of money for your small business ventures, but a relationship with a potential lender. Local credit unions are often more generous with loans, especially when dealing with members.
• Lean operations. If you have some start-up money already, you may be able to open shop with only your own funds if you can keep costs low enough. Many small businesses now are starting with less than $10,000, so you will certainly not be alone. You can also break down your business’s opening into phases, financing each one as you have the ability. Few people can afford to open a business in the traditional manner anymore, but this does not have to stop you from achieving your dreams.

Connecting with your customers is one of the most important parts of building your small business brand, but it can also be one of the most difficult. Few modern small business owners have a traditional storefront that allows them to have an actual conversation with the people who buy from them. Others may have a traditional business with a physical location, but find that it is still difficult to find time for that human touch. Here are a few tips for making the connection with your customers.

How to connect with your customers video

Ask open-ended questions.

Whether you are interacting with your customers in person or via a social networking page, ask questions that will get a thoughtful answer. In general, these include any question that cannot be answered with a single word. This will allow you to start a meaningful conversation, gaining important information about your consumer base while also making a valuable connection.

Examples of open-ended questions:

• How is (health care reform, globalization, changes in regulation, other contemporary issue) going to affect you?
• What product is your favorite and why?
• How do you plan to spend this holiday weekend?

Think outside the workplace.

Neither you nor your customers exist in a bubble. There is a whole wide world out there, with trends, news, and generally lots of stuff going on. You can set yourself apart by discussing some of these issues as they affect your business. Avoid being opinionated about overly controversial topics, however—this will turn many people off. Stay professional, but stay up with the times.

Good topics for conversation:

• News related to your business.
• Advocacy and need.
• Humorous topics.

Be a person.

It’s not unusual for people to feel that they must be 100% professional at work and leave their personal life at home. This is the American way of business, and we are trained in it from the day we start our first job. However, many people patronize small businesses for that human touch. It’s okay—and even beneficial—to let your customers see that you have a very human life outside of work in small ways: by posting your child’s drawing in the office, including a little personal detail in your ‘About Me’ webpage, or otherwise.

Use your new knowledge.

The great thing about making a connection is that it goes both ways. As your customers come to know more about you and your business (encouraging them to choose your brand), you also will learn more about your customers. This will allow you to guide your business toward a more customer-friendly brand and tap into needs before your competitors even see them.

Engaging your customers is more difficult than it sounds. You will usually have to reach out multiple times before you begin to get meaningful responses. Further, what works with one set of consumers might not be effective with another. This is an area where a little experimentation can pay off immensely. People long for that personal touch, but few business owners take the time to give it to them.

Social networking is somewhat controversial in the ecommerce world. On one hand, it is a great way to bring in customers and promote your ecommerce website. On the other hand, it can be a huge time sink, one that does not really pay off for many businesses. This is a personal matter that depends on your audience and your general market, so you ultimately have to decide if social networking is worth your time. Here are a few things to look at when evaluating the situation.

• Number of fans. This is an obvious factor, but one that many ecommerce website owners ignore. If someone is not motivated to click ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’, they probably will not be motivated to become a customer. Fans are by definition engaged with your brand via social networking, so a dearth of them indicates that this media is simply not reaching them. If you are spending a half-hour every day managing a social network with fifty fans, you may need to think hard about time priorities.
• Amount of interaction. Not only is it important to evaluate your number of fans, you should also keep tabs on how much these fans interact with your pages. A fan that clicks ‘Like’ and never returns is not the same as one who is actively viewing and sharing content. A small but highly engaged customer base is more valuable than a large and indifferent one. Therefore, the level of interaction and brand engagement should be a big part of how you evaluate your ecommerce website.
• Traffic. Even if you have few fans or relatively inactive ones, your social media campaign may be reaching a large amount of people if it has a lot of views or traffic. Quality beats quantity, but this does not mean that quantity is useless altogether. If your social networking pages are being viewed but your fan base remains low, this can mean that your social media strategy needs to be rethought. Obviously fans are interested in your page, but something is stopping them from taking the next step.
• Leads and Profit. Sometimes a social networking website seems dead, but when evaluated it is found that it is driving a large number of leads and sales to the website. This is definitely something to consider. After all, sales are ultimately the point of your marketing efforts; a social networking campaign that produces them is a success even if other aspects (such as number of fans) seem lacking. You might be surprised; Dell, for example, found that they make $1 million per year on leads from Twitter alone.
• SEO. Social media websites that link to your ecommerce website can help to increase your search engine optimization. This is not the main purpose of social networking, but it is certainly a nice side benefit. Even if you don’t feel that your social media campaign is bringing in fans, it may be worth it to maintain a minimal amount of social networking just to bump your site up in search engine results.

Becoming an entrepreneur can be like tiptoeing through a field littered with landmines. Some of the most explosive and most destructive landmines that you can step on are legal ones. Legal mistakes can not only ruin your business, but ruin your life. Here are the most common legal mistakes that entrepreneurs make and ways of avoiding them.

Legal Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Business Video

Legal Mistake: Equal Partnership
When you are beginning a new venture with a partner, most people will assume that it is a 50-50 split of decision-making power and profits. This seems like the fairest way to run a business. However, in practice this can be a recipe for frustration. What happens when you and your partner have a disagreement over a major issue in your business? Don’t think it won’t happen. In my experience, partnerships often end this way. There is a reason we have a President and a Vice-President rather than 50-50 Co-Presidents.
Legal Remedy:  The Non-Democratic Partnership
If you are thinking about a partnership, consider making it a 51-49 split or making one partner silent. This will give one person (preferably you) the decision-making ability when there are important disagreements. No business should be a democracy; someone needs to be in charge, especially in the difficult early days.

Legal Mistake: Not Incorporating
Many entrepreneurs choose a sole proprietorship, limited liability company or S-Corp because it is easier. They cost less to set up—especially a sole proprietorship, which costs nothing. The problem is that these give you no protection whatsoever. Creditors or sue-happy disgruntled customers can come after not just your business, but you personally. You could end up millions in debt and homeless. This may seem like an extreme possibility, and it will certainly feel extreme if it happens to you.
Legal Remedy: Incorporation
Incorporation is almost always the right choice for business, whether they are large or small. First, it makes it easier to get funding because it shows that you are serious about your business and you have your ducks in a row. Second, it protects you personally if your business fails or is sued. Sure, you might lose the business in bankruptcy. However, you will be able to start over quickly and know where you are sleeping in the meantime. It may take a little more time and expense in the beginning, but piece of mind is priceless.

Legal Mistake: Verbal Agreements
Many entrepreneurs make verbal, ‘hand shake’ agreements with partners, vendors and clients. Then, when the deal does not work out, no one can seem to agree on what the original terms were. In some unfortunate cases, unscrupulous people will not hold up their end of the bargain simply because they know that it will be difficult to enforce.
Legal Remedy: Get It in Writing
Putting expectations in writing protects all sides of any agreement. These don’t have to be written in stone; they can be modified as necessary. If you do not regularly consult with a lawyer about business deals, you may want to start now. However, this can be expensive and out of the financial reach of many entrepreneurs. If you are in this situation, don’t let it hold you back from getting legally enforceable agreements. There are many legal templates and other forms on the internet that you can access. Sometimes legal documents are not even necessary; you merely need a written agreement that is signed by both parties. A quickly drawn-up contract is better than none at all.

Legal Mistake: Trusting the USPTO
If you are a responsible entrepreneur, you did your homework before filing for a trademark. You took a look through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database and poked around the internet for an afternoon. Convinced that no one in your area or line of business is using your name or logo design, you then filed for a trademark and began printing stationary.
Legal Remedy: Do Your Homework
It is good to begin with that database and the internet. However, because so much is at stake, you need to really be vigilant. Look in not just the national trademark databases, but in the state one as well. You should also look at domain registries, business directories, the Yellow Pages, and every other resource that you can think of. Then, file for that trademark and, if possible, hold off on investing in branded inventory until you are legally free and clear.

Legal Mistake: Friends with Benefits
As your business grows, you may be tempted to take on new partners who could add immensely to your business, either through cash investment or through their life experience in your field. You like them, they like you; who needs a contract? You probably intend to get a detailed agreement worked out and signed after other important stuff is accomplished, but it just keeps getting pushed off into the future. After all, you are all nice people. And then it all goes south.
Legal Remedy: A Detailed Agreement
When you first take on a partner, you go through a honeymoon period. You have not yet noticed that they have a really annoying laugh or that they could not balance a spreadsheet to save their lives. You both think only wonderful things about each other, which makes it much easier to have those hard conversations. In addition, your partner has not invested huge amounts of time or money in your business yet, so it is not too late to walk away if no agreement can be reached. You need to work out who owns what, who has what power and who will leave with which assets if the partnership does not work out. Consider it a prenup for your business. Don’t forget what we said about 50-50 partnerships!

As you can see, it is easy to avoid many of the most common legal landmines that confront entrepreneurs. All it takes is a little time and a lot of vigilance. There is no reason to leave yourself unprotected; make sure that your business has the legal foundation that it needs for success.

“What do we want? Jobs! When do we want them? Now!”

Americans have spoken, and the message is that the high unemployment rate is becoming simply unacceptable. In order to create some of these much-needed jobs (and salvage his own political career), President Barack Obama is introducing a new measure that claims it will create middle class jobs quickly, putting workers back in the office, factory and construction site.

Will Obama’s Plan Work?

So, what many people in the United States want to know is: will it work? And, just as important, will it work quickly? Even those among us who are employed know too many people who have been touched by the recession. The President’s package includes six basic ideas, which range from highly controversial to simple common sense. Here is a short analysis of Obama’s proposed package and how it will affect Americans. More specifically, we will look at how it is going to affect the greatest job-creating force in the nation: small businesses and entrepreneurs.

• Build infrastructure. It is ironic that, while the government is paying out millions in unemployment benefits, the infrastructure of the United States is crumbling around us. We don’t usually see the effects until they create a crisis. A good example would be the crumbling levies that sit quietly until a large storm or hurricane hits and then break altogether. With many of the unemployed workers in order nation unemployed construction workers, it makes sense to take this nonworking workforce—many of whom are getting a government check anyway—and hire them to correct some of our major infrastructure problems. This is similar to the New Deal associated with Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

How will this affect small business owners and other entrepreneurs? If you are in the construction or engineering trades, there will be more work available in your sector. If you are not in these trades, you still will see the economy stimulated as more Americans are given higher paying work and hope for the future.

• Lower the tax burden. While the former Economic Recovery Act was a boon for large corporations, most of the tax breaks and funds earmarked for business stimulus were given to corporations rather than to small businesses. In fact, small businesses, which have created more than ninety percent of the new jobs in the recession, received less than a percent of the tax breaks and bonuses.

One of the key problems is that hiring new employees is expensive. There is a huge amount of taxes involved in keeping employees, and that is in addition to wages and benefits. It is a huge burden in times of economic growth; in a recession, few businesses will take the risk. Obama’s plan will lighten the tax load on small business who hire, fixing one of the core issues that is keeping the economy down.

• Streamline regulation. There are many regulations regarding becoming an entrepreneur. Some of them are common sense measures to protect the public, but others seem to make no sense. This has a many-fold effect on entrepreneurs. First, it makes people reluctant to open a small business if they have never done so before. After all, it is too easy to make a small misstep and end up in trouble. Many of these regulations have to do with hiring, which can make existing sole proprietorships wary of hiring.

Obama wants to go through these regulations with a fine toothed comb and get rid of the ones that don’t serve any real purpose. This can only be a good thing for the many entrepreneurs who are baffled by the plethora of red tape that seems to accompany every step of business growth. Unfortunately, this will only affect federal regulations, while most of the really zany restrictions are local or state laws.

• Reform free trade. This one makes many business owners nervous, because one of the key factors in the United States recession is the virtual evaporation of low-skilled work as technology allows business owners to hire overseas workers at lower prices. Many of the new trade agreements that Obama refers to are actually existing ones that have not been signed or are stuck in red tape. It is estimated that these agreements will save almost 400,000 jobs and create many more.

For some entrepreneurs, this will mean that new international markets are open for business. For others, it will mean that their products face less foreign competition on American soil. Either way, it will be a good move for entrepreneurs, because Americans are currently on the wrong side (the unemployed, nonproducing side) of many key international agreements.

• Encourage ecologically friendly practices. Many buildings in the United States are immensely inefficient. There are common sense ways of making huge improvements, but who is going to pay for that? Obama  suggests that the government should help. The green section of his new proposal could save Americans $40 billion in energy, which will certainly help businesses that struggle with overhead. Because many companies will be contracted to provide these upgrades, it can mean more work for businesses in the green industries.

• Train future workers. One of the main problems behind unemployment is that there is currently a mismatch between the training of American workers and the needs of potential employers. Many, many companies are hiring and cannot find the skilled and experienced workers that they need. This is especially true of fields involving technology and science. In fact, many businesses are having to apply for special permits to bring in skilled employees from other countries.

Obama plans to deal with this by encouraging companies to hire interns in high demand fields such as engineering. This gives students the chance to train for a career in which there are actual jobs. This will not create jobs, but it will fill current positions with American employees rather than specially imported immigrants.

Because the new measure focuses mainly on the entrepreneurs and small businesses that are actually creating work and bolstering the American economy, Obama’s plan might work. However, it only has a chance to do so if it can make it past a highly divided Congress. This is where Obama’s leadership skills will be put to the test. As the President pointed out repeatedly in the speech, the new plan includes actions that both Republicans and Democrats have traditionally supported. We will have to see if Congress can put aside their squabbles and personality differences long enough to actually do their jobs.