Customers seek small businesses for the individualized and attentive service they don’t always receive from large corporations. While this personal touch is a competitive advantage, it’s under threat. 32 percent of organizations are shifting customer service from live assistance to automated service, likely as a long-term cost cutting measure. Robotizing customer interactions has hidden and...
Each year, the Smart Hustle Small Business Conference presents a lineup of fantastic speakers - experts on everything from leadership and business development to branding and marketing, with a particular focus on small businesses! But when a marketing superstar like Seth Godin is part of your conference’s speaker lineup, you know it’s going to...
It is undeniable that the internet has changed everything about how businesses operate. Take for example marketing. Once upon a time, the only marketing option for businesses was print and media – newspapers, billboards, TV ads and mailing out brochures and sales flyers. Today, the internet provides a whole new avenue for advertising products...
Many businesses still view social and search advertising as separate and distinct marketing strategies. However, when businesses rely on only one marketing tactic, they are missing out on consumers who are in different phases of their buying journey. Consumers have different preferences for consuming information online, and data shows that a digital marketing approach...
Many small business owners I encounter tell me that digital marketing and marketing automation are two areas that completely evade them. Sure they are doing what they can, but for so many, marketing isn't their forte, and hiring a marketing expert is often times outside their budget. So, what's a small business owner to...
Let’s start with this: while “sponsoring foreign workers” is perhaps the most incendiary phrase in the political vocabulary right now, the fact remains that across the country tens of thousands of employers each year look outside the U.S. for permanent and temporary workers. And believe it or not, in most cases this is a very...
Nearly every company has a trademark or service mark – either the name of the company advertised to the public or the name of the company’s product. A trademark is a name, word or logo used to indicate the source of a product or service. While a “trademark” technically refers to a brand used...
If you are an entrepreneur doing business in New York City, then chances are you’ve heard of StrtupBoost. Founded in 2014 by Jason Malki, the organization has hosted scores of events designed to bring together all the different players in the NYC startup community. Jason describes StrtupBoost as “an ecosystem” comprised of mixers, panel...
I’ve never met a small business owner who didn’t believe they were fiscally conservative when it came to running their business. Small business owners have to pinch every penny--it’s a matter of basic survival. What an entrepreneur believes versus what’s really happening can be two very different realities. Expenses accumulate, and it’s easy to lose...
While many people consider LinkedIn to be high up on their list of trustworthy social media platforms, it isn’t necessarily the first place they think of to share their visual content. But LinkedIn has just announced that it is rolling out the ability to natively share video content via its mobile app. Currently testing...
