Features
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The L-Shaped Recovery Rolls On
May 10, 2011
Friday's unemployment report was certainly nothing to write home about. The ballyhooed increase of +268,000 private payroll jobs was met with the reality of a rise to 9% for the unemployment rate and decrease of -190,000 in the household survey, which includes self-employment and small business. The number of people not in the labor force went up by +131,000, not a good thing, and that same figure is more that +2.9 million than last year.
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Devil in the Details: Issues and Answers in M&As
May 09, 2011
A company may depend on a few accounts - or sometimes just one customer - for the largest share of its business. This kind of concentration, say NDP and MargolisBecker, can be a two-edged sword, especially when negotiating a multiple of EBITDA for sale of the company.
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Manage Your Future...Building your personal brand
May 05, 2011
Have you ever wondered why certain people always appear to be in the right place at the right time? You know the ones I’m talking about; they always seem to get the next great opportunity; the promotion, the new job, the big order. These are the people that others want to meet and get to know. They are regularly chosen to be on the “best” team and most often are recognized for the work they do.
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YouTube: The Video Revolution
May 03, 2011
For a truly great social media marketing campaign, it’s imperative that your company integrates video. Having a customized YouTube channel gives your online efforts depth and diversity.
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Q1 GDP Disappoints, but No One is Surprised
May 03, 2011
GDP was reported as +1.8% by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a disappointment compared to Q4′s +3.1%. The economy began its recovery at the end of the second quarter of 2009. In Q4-2010, it finally surpassed the level it was at when the recession began in Q4-2007. So both the recession, and the recovery, are over. Recoveries are usually highlighted by about two quarters of very high growth of between +5 and +8% or so, and that has not happened.
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Marketing at Work: Tools and Techniques
April 29, 2011
The job of reaching customers and prospects in a cross-media multi-channel world keeps getting tougher. Marketers are faced with an excess of options that, quite frankly, can be overwhelming. Years ago, there were only a few primary media choices—outdoor signage, newspaper, radio, and television. The limited number of options made it easier to distribute an advertising budget.
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Size doesn’t matter
April 27, 2011
A decade ago, a business bestseller with the title “It's Not the Big That Eat the Small...It's the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool,” came out with a brief flurry of hype, then disappeared. Pity. The book’s premise – that speed was the defining factor in business success – was forward-thinking at the time. Now, it’s become an essential survival tool.
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Shocking News! We Had $200 Oil in 1980: Here's Why
April 25, 2011
Things are never what they seem in economics. Dr. Joe explains the strange math that reminds us about the distortions of inflation and the wonder of ingenuity, and how news reporters seem to be unaware of them.
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How To Give An Awesome Speech
April 25, 2011
You don’t have to pull off a crazy stunt to be a successful marketer. Sometimes you just need to say the right thing. Public relations whiz Bill McGowan, who heads Clarity Media Group, teaches clients how to promote themselves through public speaking.
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Optimizing Your Team’s Performance
April 20, 2011
As your business progresses and matures the challenges you’ll face and the opportunities you will encounter require a planned approach to building highly successful teams. Each of our organizations consists of multiple teams (i.e. manufacturing, operations, senior management and sales and marketing) and our overall success is contingent upon their effectiveness.
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Economic Casablanca: I am Shocked! Shocked!
April 20, 2011
On Monday the stocks and bonds markets where rattled by the announcement by Standard & Poors that US debt still had a AAA rating, but they had lowered their outlook for those obligations to “negative.” The markets took the supposed news badly at first and then found ways to digest it through the trading day with little change to its trading range for the last few weeks.
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Use Social Media to Market Your Business
April 19, 2011
The Internet is becoming the preferable news source for people around the world, which is why businesses need to take advantage of social media marketing. An entirely new marketing strategy may seem very overwhelming to businesses though, perhaps because they may not know much about it or because they may not have room in their budget to take a chance on it. But with social media, it is a very affordable opportunity to promote your business online because most of the sites are free to join!
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Marketing Trends for 2011
April 18, 2011
A new year means new goals, new successes and new opportunities. How will you embrace the evolving trends and execute them to bring the greatest achievements for your marketing? Recently, we looked at the trends for 2011, including mobile computing and mobile devices. Now let’s look at what social media and integrated campaigns mean for marketers in 2011!
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8 Easy Ways To Make Your Customers Love You
April 14, 2011
Everyone knows you can’t have a business without customers. However, one of the worst mistakes any business can make is focusing its marketing efforts on attracting new clients while neglecting past and current customers. Here’s what you can do to show your clients how grateful you are for their business.
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Lead Generation & Social Media
April 13, 2011
Social media certainly has had an impact on the way people communicate. Rather than soliciting a list of companies by the phone, social media has given sales teams a new approach. This new process involves capturing a prospect's attention by engaging them with useful information and providing compelling content as to why that prospect would benefit from the sales representative's business.
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10 Personality Traits That Kill Entrepreneurship
April 12, 2011
Having a great business idea is only half the battle. You also need to be an effective leader. Even some of the most innovative entrepreneurs can be hindered by insecurity or impatience. Here are some red flags to look out for.
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Still Trudging Through and Trudging Some More
April 11, 2011
Today's economic conditions make economists wish they had more hands and while making the common people more frustrated in their attempts to figure it out. Oil and food are rising in price, but the economy seems better in some ways with some reports of improving employment. GDP is still rising, but some industries are still suffering. Dr. Joe explains why just staying busy is not enough and that it's what you're doing that really matters.
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Talk to Me! How to Use Voice Software to Create Incredible Customer Experiences
April 06, 2011
As a business owner today, you have multiple communications tools at your fingers. Contact forms, your website, Facebook, Twitter, text… and did I mention email? But there will always be a time when you need to talk to your customer. Pick up the phone. Chat. Follow up, Or even to resolve an issue.
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All Six Recovery Indicators are Now Positive
April 05, 2011
All six of our recovery indicators are in positive territory for the first time since the start of the recession. There were some movements in the indicators from the Institute for Supply Management non-manufacturing indices, the biggest being non-manufacturing imports, which is now at 50, or neutral.
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Have We Lost a Generation of Small Business Owners?
April 04, 2011
We’re down more than 1.1 million. That’s how many fewer self-employed Americans there are today than when the Great Recession began. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, there were 589,000 fewer incorporated self-employed people and 569,000 fewer unincorporated self employed people in December 2007 than in February 2011. Perhaps most remarkably, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, we have 753,000 fewer self-employed people.
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“I Can’t Eat an iPad”
March 21, 2011
While he loves computers, when it comes to dinnertime, Dr. Joe still prefers food. Seems the Fed would prefer we think otherwise. As far as understanding inflation at its core, a good meal can go a long way if you have the money for it.
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Distance doesn’t matter
March 20, 2011
A decade ago – when business journalists were “discovering” the Web - one of the most-hyped headlines was that every company could now sell world-wide. Like most over-heated rhetoric, the concept that distance no longer matters came and went with some notice and little real change. Most companies discovered that – while selling over great distances was indeed easier than before – fulfilling and servicing was hard enough to make it unprofitable.
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Why It’s Time to Kick Your Green Initiatives Up a Notch
March 18, 2011
Results of the second-annual Sustainability & Innovation Survey of global corporate leaders by MIT’s Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group suggest that green practices are taking firm root in the business world. Nearly 60 percent of the 3,000 businesses surveyed said they are increasing their investment in sustainability.
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10 Ways to Continue the Conversation with Customers
March 15, 2011
For too many small business owners, once a customer leaves your shop or your service is completed, the conversation ends. But it doesn't need to stop there. If you can continue those threads of dialogue online through e-mail, newsletters, and social media, you have a better chance of building stronger ties to your customer base.
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Resolutions for the Merger & Acquisition Minded Executive
March 13, 2011
As businesses close their books on another eventful year, say the M&A specialists at New Direction Partners, ‘tis the season to be thinking proactively about 2011 and forming clear plans for making the most of the strategic possibilities it will bring.