Increase Your Small Business Audience with a Blog

An Important Tip to Increasing the Popularity of Your Small Business

The word “blog” has become very common in today’s technology driven world – every large corporation, famous celebrity and everyone in between has one. Although blogs may seem like they are only useful for certain people, the truth is that maintaining a blog can be a great asset to a small business. Some of the advantages of using this marketing tool include increasing search engine optimization, sharing knowledge with others, and developing a relationship with your audience.

What You Should Know About Blogs before Starting One

When blogs first came onto the scene (what feels like eons ago), they were basically a digital journal that lived online for everyone to see. Although many people still use blogs to chronicle their lives, businesses and business professionals are now using blogs to make a bigger impact on their target market, helping blogs to evolve into something much bigger. Savvy marketers use blogs for content marketing and some individuals are generating revenue for popular blogs by leasing out advertising space on their webpage.

Advantages of Blogging for Small Business

Relationship Development – Blogs take on a much less informal tone than other reoccurring marketing pieces such as newsletters or mailers. When written correctly, blogs give small business owners the opportunity to connect with the customers and other members of their target market on a much more personal level. Through reading the business’ or the business owner’s blog, consumers get a better idea of what you and your business are all about and that connection often leads to higher sales.

Search Engine Optimization – Another great advantage of starting a blog is how often your business’ entries will show up in different search engines. Search engines like Google and Yahoo are constantly scanning the Web for new content – the more you refresh your blog, the more likely your content will show up at the top of popular search engines. When your business is showing up organically, meaning you haven’t paid for advertisement, at the top of Google the more likely consumers are to click your link.

Increased Exposure through Sharing – Many blog platforms give readers the ability to easily share what they are reading with others, through email, text message, or social media. Smartphones have made this even easier by including one-click sharing for many different forms of content. By creating a blog and including the right content, there is the potential to have that content shared among your customer’s family, friends, and co-workers time and time again. This increased exposure will lead to more hits on your company’s blog and website, which can ultimately lead to a positive impact on overall sales.

How to Know If a Blog is Right for Your Small Business

There is no formula or established checklist that helps business owners to decide whether or not a blog is right for their company. In the end, it comes down to trial and error – before deciding a blog isn’t right for the company or the tool that will send sales over the top, give blogging an honest try. There are a number of free blogging services that will eliminate the cost associated with trying blogging and many business owners are surprised at the impact it can make on their business as a whole.

Need help getting your small or home business off the ground? Stacy O’Quinn has created dozens of six figure earners and you could be next! To learn more about Stacy, click here.

*Photo Courtesy of Mike Licht via Creative Commons License

Grow Your Network and Grow Your Business

How to Effectively Network to Improve Your Small Business

Networking is an important part of business, weather you are an aspiring entrepreneur looking to start a new business or a seasoned owner looking to expand your current operation. Although this is a key part of growing your business, for many small business owners, networking can be a challenging task. When you are ready to start making meaningful business connections, there are a few tips you can follow to make sure that your networking efforts will have a positive impact on your business as a whole.

First Impressions are Everything

When you are running a business, you never know who you are going to come across in your day to day activities that will make an impact on your company. Because of this, it is important to make sure to put your best foot forward during networking events and even just normal interactions every day. Studies say that it takes 200 times the amount of effort to undo a poor first impression that it does to make a good one, so make sure to be present and show the best version of yourself as much as possible.

Create a Personal Connection

Making a great first impression is the first step in networking and making connections for your business. The next important step is to make a personal connection with the people you are interacting with that is both positive and make others feel good about you. Doing this is memorable, and part of networking is building a group of people who want to call on you when your business can fulfill their needs or wants. When conversing with others, use questions that are opened ended instead of ones that require only “yes” or “no” answers – this leaves the door open to learn more about people and connect with them.

Be a Great Listener

When networking and trying to build strong business relationships, it is important to focus more on the relationship portion of the transaction than the business part. This idea goes hand in hand with making a good first impression – conversations with possible business partners should be warm and engaging. It is important to also show a genuine interest in other people and spend more time listening to what they have to say about themselves than talking about yourself and your business.

Reconnect

After a networking event, make sure to follow up with the people you interacted with – when you do not touch base with your connections in a timely manner, the conversations you had and the effort you exerted to network with them were wasted. A few days after meeting someone new, take the time to pass them a hand-written note letting them know you enjoyed meeting and speaking with them and also thanking them for their time. This will show others that their interactions with you were of value. 

Still looking for the right small or home business opportunity? Did you know that Stacy O’Quinn has helped dozens of entrepreneurs create a six figure income using the skills he has learned from Dani Johnson training? To learn more about Stacy and his opportunity, click here.

*Photo Courtesy of Marc Smith via Creative Commons License

Make Your Business More Attractive to Investors and Banks

Tips for Making Your Small Business a Great Financing Candidate

All business owners dream of expanding their business in some way – taking on more clients, moving to a larger space, or possibly opening a second location. Even if a small business is profitable, chances are very few business owners have the funds to finance an expansion on their own. In many cases, business owners turn to investors and bank loans in order to afford capturing their dreams of expanding. In order to ensure financers are interested in your business, there are a few key tips you can follow.

Be Consistent with Small Business Financials

In the eyes of banks and investors, your business looks as good as your accounting records. Because of this, it is very important to make sure you hold yourself and your employees responsible when it comes to fiscal accountability. Communicating the business’s financial history is a huge part of being an attractive investment – the best business models, best profit margins, and beating out the competition simply do not compare to the consistency of your accounting when looking for financing.

Properly Manage Debt Financing

It is also important to make sure the business’s short-term and long-term costs work well with its current financing structure. Many businesses find themselves bearing a heavier load than they can handle in terms of debt financing. When you fund your business with credit card balances and merchant cash advances (MCA), it can leave you in danger of having to deal with unmanageable Annualized Percentage Rates (APR) and other fees. Habits like these also reflect badly on loan applications.

Make Sure You Break Even

Another attribute that makes small businesses more appealing to investors and bank lenders is having strong cash flow. It is important, both to secure financing and for the business as a whole, to make sure the business’s current income can support the level of costs it must incur in order to operate effectively. Even if you are approved for financing, taking on a large expansion when the business is struggling to handle its current expenses can be tricky and even lead to the failure of the company all together.

Tax Honesty is Important

Being honest on taxes is a good practice to keep, regardless if you are looking for additional business financing or not. In the long-run, being up front about the business’s financial situation and filling out tax forms properly and on time will reflect well when it is time to expand. Many lenders have seen business owners over-report expenses while also under-reporting their revenue – dishonesty in this form does not sit well with investors and can mean the difference between being approved or being denied.

Be Up Front with Business Objectives

Many lenders and investors will ask small business owners why they are looking for financing and will often require a set of business objectives in order to justify making the financial investments. It is important to be clear about what your objectives are and be able to describe them in detail to the lender. When thinking of how to present business objectives, consider these questions – What is the financing going to be used for? What is the return on investment for the business? What are the internal and external roadblocks that pose the biggest risk to the expansion, project or business as a whole?

Want to learn more about running a successful small or home business? Check out Stacy O'Quinn's personal blog! Stacy has worked with some of the best mentors in the business and in addition to running his own six figure home business, he now teaches others how to do the same! To learn more, click here.

*Photo Courtesy of 401(K) 2012 via Creative Commons License