Archive for category Getting Started
Volunteer to Help
Posted by admin in Getting Started on January 29, 2012
A great way to make more social connections and get more customers is to get involved and volunteer to help or sponsor an event in your business community.
Volunteer to sponsor and / or help in a charity event, an environmental clean-up of a community area , or a beautification project, or sponsor a local amateur sports team. Advertise the event on your business website, donate some of your product, and or some of your services for use as prizes; doing good things like this and giving back to your business community helps with more good publicity about your business. Whether its your business name and number on the back of young athletes’ t-shirts or links back to your website from your listing on the charity website, the goodness that you’ll give to others, you’ll get it back, and more.
For example, the Shannon Miller Lifestyle Women’s 5K and Children’s Fun Run. The Women’s 5k, the Children’s Fun Run, the SML Health Fair with FREE screenings and vendor booths – something to benefit the whole family, and it’s all for raising money for the Shannon Miller Foundation, to fight childhood obesity. You can become a Sponsor for the event, or volunteer to help and share your skills and talent; it’s a WIN – WIN situation.
Think about it for a minute. What can your business do to help your local community, and let more people in your community know about your business?
How to Improve Your Business
Posted by admin in Getting Started on December 5, 2011
A good business owner is always looking for ways to improve their business.
1. Get new ideas is to keep learning; reading articles online and in magazines and books, follow other successful entrepreneurs on Twitter and Facebook, and their website blogs.
2. Set goals for your changes and improvements, and then make small, manageable, incremental improvements. You can get to your goal with this approach.
3. Measure and track your efforts and your results.
- How much did you spend for your advertising last month?
- How many new visitors did your business see as a result of that advertising? (And ask your visitors which advertisement brought them to you.)
- How many of those visitors made a purchase? (Did you make a profit from their purchases, or did you pay more for advertising than you made in sales that resulted from that advertising?)
Entrepreneur Michelle Chance-Santhong of Cool Shopping Ideas shares her inspiring progress to improvement, applying some of these concepts in her recent video.
If you have some more suggestions to help small business owners improve their business that you’d like to share, please
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add your Comment below,
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or send us your suggestions to share via our Contact form.
Automated Answering Message
Posted by admin in Getting Started on October 21, 2011
What sort of automated answer message does your business telephone number have?
Does your caller hear a message like:
Hello, this is (your business). No one is able to come to the telephone now, but if you will please leave your name, telephone number, and a brief message, we’ll be in touch with you as soon as possible.
I was recently surprised to return a missed call and hear:
Hello, if you would like to be removed from our calling list, please press 1.
No business name, no promotional message, but sending a message that sounded to me like their business believed most callers would not want to hear from them again.
When you answer your ‘phone, take a breath and think what kind of impression you want to send to the person who’s calling you, and smile, because people can hear the smile in your voice.
Have you heard some strange automated answering messages? Please share them with us in a comment.
Better Business and Charity
Posted by admin in General, Getting Started on September 27, 2011
How can you benefit your business and do something good for your community? Get involved in your community and help to support a local charity.
For example, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month; there are many local charities that you could volunteer your time and your services to help.
Here in Jacksonville, on October 1st alone, you can take part in:
1. The Pink Ribbon Symposium at the Thrasher-Horne Center for the Arts, in Orange Park.
It’s a free event that offers multiple breakout sessions for your questions with answers from medical experts. You can join others in volunteering to help to promote learning about breast cancer, survivorship, good health and wellness issues.
- Mary Fisher Design helped out by developing a great website.
2. Victory In Pink is a Celebration of Women Who have Fought Against Breast Cancer by St. Vincent’s Healthcare, at the St. Johns Town Center. The Celebration is a free event and will include the Pretty In Pink fashion show, with makeovers and massages, the Ladies Night Out Breast Cancer survivor fashion show and education.
- Olympic Gold Medalist Shannon Miller is helping out by being emcee for the event,
And, there will be a special Victory In Pink After Party (with hors d’oevres, gourmet cupcakes, a champagne toast, music, winter fashions, and dancing – - Proceeds from this ticketed event benefit Cancer Services at St. Vincent’s HealthCare through the St. Vincent’s HealthCare Foundation).
3. Bands Against Breast Cancer, a group currently conducting educational and informational activities throughout the First Coast area, is holding their 4th Annual Boobsapalooza, their major fundraiser, with ten bands playing on two stages at Lynch’s Irish Pub. Founder Henrietta “Hank” Watson has led a group of dedicated volunteers to help educate and empower women to save their own lives in the battle against breast cancer.
Think about a cause you believe in. Give some of yourself, your time, your services to help. You’ll feel good for what you do and you will get good back for what you do, just like the motto of Business Networking International, “Givers Gain”.
Do you have a story about how you have helped out with a charity in your community that you’d like to share? Please send it to us via our Contact form. We’d like to share your positive story to inspire others.
What is Google+ ?
Posted by admin in Getting Started, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Networking on August 29, 2011
The top search engine on the planet, Google, has launched a new social media platform that they call Google+.
You can use it to connect with people socially. It’s kinda like Facebook, but not exactly. It’s kinda like Twitter, but not exactly. This is still a new platform and isn’t Google’s first shot at creating an online social community.
Thinking about getting into Google+ ?
If you’d like to learn some more about Google+ and maybe join in the discussion with a friendly group of business people, web designers, developers, optimizers, programmers and more, who share an interest in marketing at the Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 meeting of the Jacksonville Search Engine Optimization Meetup.
Jacksonville SEO Meetup is hosted by experienced e-commerce entrepreneur and public speaker, Michelle Chance-Sangthong, and now meeting at 7845 Baymeadows Way in Jacksonville, Florida.
For more information, and to sign up, visit the Jacksonville Search Engine Optimization Meetup web page.
Opportunity
Posted by admin in Getting Started, Keyword Development, Social Media Marketing, Website Development on August 19, 2011
Hey, do you hear that sound? That’s Opportunity knocking.
The nation’s economy is on a rollercoaster, but if you hear opportunity in all the noise, then now is the time to help your business; improve your online presence, increase your search engine rankings, and make some “lemonade” out of all of these “lemons”.
Some businesses are folding up, cutting back, even looking for work in other, larger businesses. Instead, we can help you make those small changes that will have big returns.
Jax SEO Works and Key Theory are helping small businesses optimize their business websites.
By using SEO techniques and social media concepts, with some strategic planning, we can help you make your site rank higher in search engines for certain key terms. Optimizing your website for related terms will increase the probability of your site being found sooner, too. And, the easier people can find your website, the more traffic your website will get, and more sales for your business.
Want to understand more about SEO? This YouTube video will help.
Contact Ken at Jax SEO Works, or Kenny or Rylan at Key Theory to get started today.
Community Involvement
Posted by admin in Getting Started on August 5, 2011
Another great way to make more social connections and get more customers is to get involved with events and activities in the community around your business.
Help support a children’s softball team, take part in a community area clean-up or beautification project, sponsor a local team walking for a charity; doing good things like this and giving back to your business community helps with more good publicity about your business. Whether its your business name and number on the back of young athletes’ t-shirts or links back to your website from your listing on the charity website, if you give goodness, you’ll get it back.
For example, Bonnie Arnold of Bonnie’s Floral Designs volunteered to organize this year’s Annual Painting of the PawPrints in Jacksonville, Florida, for our home town Jacksonville Jaguars. Bonnie is doing something good to help the community, and by giving her business e-mail bonnie@bonniesfloraldesigns.com for volunteers to reply, people can also find out about her Floral Design business.
What can your business do to help your local community, and let more people in your community know about your business?
Building Your Network
Posted by admin in Getting Started, Social Media Networking on June 14, 2011
Part of growing your business is growing the network of people you know and work with.
You can socially network with others in your trade or profession as well as networking with clients and potential customers. Sometimes one sort of relationship (social) leads to another (business), but don’t push your business/sales – focus on building relationships. The important thing at social meetings is to be yourself; friendly, helpful, and fun. Don’t try to create an image to impress others; let your own qualities shine.
Find organizations in your local area that you are interested in.
Visit their meetings. Get involved with the groups you enjoy. (If you don’t enjoy what you are doing, it will just stress you and your unhappiness will be obvious to others.)
For example, we enjoy going to Jacksonville Search Engine Optimization Meetups. Our group meets on a monthly basis; a gathering of web designers, website search engine optimizers, graphic designers, and others just interested in finding out more about websites and how to optimize their search engine results, such as business owners and members of groups and non-profits. We enjoy the positive, sharing atmosphere of the meetings, hosted by Michelle Chance-Sangthong.
Try this out yourself.
Think about some groups that you’d like to find out more about. Go visit them and get to know them. Start building your network!
Reviews, Evaluations, and Testimonials
Posted by admin in Getting Started, Internet Marketing / PPC on May 19, 2011
When consumers are looking to find a service or product, they often look for reviews, evaluations, and testimonials.
What kind of experience have others had with this business? Are there many good reviews, or mostly complaints?
One way to share the positive evaluations of your business is by adding a page of testimonials or referrals on your business website.
Our family dentist, Dr. Ted Haeussner, has a great domain name for his new website – http://orangeparkdentist.com. Ted has been our family dentist for almost 20 years, and keeps up with technical developments in the dental profession through his active involvement in a number of professional organizations. Ted’s patient’s benefit because he is vigilant to provide the latest in dental care practices, procedures, and treatments for us. Recently, I suggested he add a Testimonials page to his site, to allow his patients to share their stories.
What business couldn’t benefit from a positive review, evaluation, or testimonial? As my wife, Yvonne, and I plan for our future, we appreciate the clear and strategic financial planning advice we have received from our financial advisor, Tom Trotta. Sharing your knowledge and experiences with others is just a helpful thing to do.
In your evaluations, testimonials, and referrals, your website visitors are looking for
- customer thoughts and hesitations,
- a little personality,
- and how the product or service improved the customer’s quality of life,
not hearing what a great product or service your business has, or a sales pitch.
You can also post your evaluations, testimonials, and referrals on your social media platforms, to continue to build trust and credibility, and encourage interaction with your customers.
It’s OK to mention your product or service from time to time, but remember that social media conversations should be mostly human interaction – helpful, interesting and/or fun.
Time Management
Posted by admin in Getting Started on April 20, 2011
Everyone has the same 24 hour days in which to get as much of the things they feel are most important, as they can.
Some people seem to be able to get so much more done in a day than others. These people are able to do more because they practice time management.
Each morning, when you are starting your day, consider what you want to accomplish during the day. Set some realistic goals. Sometimes it helps to write them down in a list. Many people enjoy the satisfaction of crossing completed goals/tasks/projects/errands off their list as they progress through their day. Consider how much of your day that you can spend on each of these goals, and, as you progress through the day, try to spend no more time on a goal than you allotted.
Around mid-day, go over your list and see how you are progressing. If you see that you have more things to do on the list than you will be able to accomplish that day, you can re-prioritize your remaining goals for the day. You may decide to accomplish some of your goals on another day, but you will be able to focus on getting the most important things done during the remainder of the day.
At the end of your day, take a few minutes to go over your progress on your list of goals. You won’t always accomplish all that you plan to but that’s OK; you have to focus on what you got done, not what you didn’t do (remember the glass is “half full”). And as you practice estimating how much time to set aside each day for accomplishing your goals, you will get better at managing the time you have each day.
In a related article, USA’s Most Decorated Gymnast, Shannon Miller, posted her insights on time management, on her Shannon Miller Lifestyle website. http://shannonmillerlifestyle.com/health-and-nutrition/health-and-wellness/time-management-for-the-busy-woman