The mid-life crisis. The dead-end job. The job that’s slowly killing you inside. The job, or the small business, that’s now gone because of a completely unpredictable global catastrophe. These are situations that occur at least once in nearly every person’s life. They are what Randi Levin calls “transitional moments,” and they are precisely...
Cash crunches are a fact of business life. Clients drag their feet in paying you. Vendors want their money. And now COVID-19 means that even businesses who may have weathered those ups and downs relatively unscathed in the past are having trouble mitigating cash flow woes. While there are no simple answers for every business,...
I’m a tech guy, so I was excited when chatbots became more popular. But even I was surprised to find that chatbox use is growing so fast. According to one report, the U.S. chatbot market was $2.6 billion in 2019 and is predicted to reach $9.4 billion by 2024. You might be thinking that only...
I’m a big fan of America’s Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs)! I’ve spoken at their conferences and written many articles for the website. This year is the 40th anniversary of America’s SBDCs, and the organization is throwing a great party! Wednesday, March 18, 2020, is America’s SBDC Day, and you’re invited to celebrate, with local and national...
One of the first things I do when I want to learn more about someone or a business is going to that person’s or business’s website. That’s why I was shocked to learn in a recent survey that only 60% of small businesses have websites, and the reasons they thought they didn’t need them. Wow! That...
You've got the hot lead, or several of them. They're really interested in your service. 2 weeks later, you look at your desk and realize their business card is still on your desk and you've not connected with them. Sales follow up is essential to driving more profit and revenue in your company. You...
Ryan Westwood is a man on a mission to spread leadership principles to his team, his one page business plan is one of the keys to his success. Simplus founded by Ryan, is a successful Salesforce technology partner which was just sold to Indian mega company InfoSys for $250 million. Amy Osmond Cook, CMO of...
With social media and dynamic, interactive websites making connecting to people easier than ever, we pick up the phone less and less. However, a phone is still impactful. When you talk to people there is less miscommunication and misinformation, because hearing someone’s voice and tone say almost as much as their words. The same goes...
Connecting to customers now happens primarily on social media and online, through email and chats. Many times a customer issue can be solved in one of these formats, but sometimes, a good old fashioned phone call is needed. Do your employees know how to talk to customers on the phone? It wouldn’t be shocking...
Seth Godin has one of the biggest email newsletters in the world. However, Seth Godin doesn’t have much of a social media presence. What social networking activity he does has seemed to be mostly automated, reposting directly from his blog, and there wasn’t much custom content for social media platforms. Until one day, there...
