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Build Fall Business with Great Images

August 19, 2013

It might seem surprising but, beautiful images can help increase sales for your business. Posts with photos on Facebook received 120 percent more engagement than link or text-only posts, and Instagram and Pinterest have become increasingly popular social media platforms for consumer engagement. If you’re not yet using images as part of your marketing efforts, now is a great time to channel your inner photographic genius, and use your final weeks of summer to try it out.

Following are a few tips that you can put into practice now, to help increase sales and build customer relationships for the busy season:

Show some love. 57 percent of all mobile phone users own a smart phone, which means that you probably have a camera with you at all times. Show your customers how much you care by thanking them on your social channels. Use images you’ve taken at your business during the final days of summer and early fall and have some fun with it. (more…)

11 Tips for Transitioning From Employee to Employer

August 12, 2013
YEC Question: What’s your best leadership advice for going from employee to boss — of yourself, and maybe others too? (name one tip)

Get Ready For The Investment

“You’re used to managing a crushing workload, difficult clients and phone on perma-ring, but when you’re the boss, you get to handle ego and emotions too. An important lesson is that managing personalities, expectations, egos and abilities is just as important as everything else on your plate. A happy, healthy, productive team is a product of time and energy spent caring for your team on a personal level.”

– Yael Cohen | Founder, President, CEO, F–Cancer

Pick Up The Boss Work

“One of the most common thing that employees do when they become the boss is they still do employee tasks.That kind of work is supposed to be done by employees and you are supposed to do boss work! When we run a business, it is our job to build systems and manage people to run these systems. If you find yourself doing the work, keep asking yourself, how can I replace myself for this task?” (more…)

Are You Just Procrastinating?

August 8, 2013

Do you know what you should be doing to make your business ‘world class,’ but you are not doing it? You may come up with a million reasons why you have yet to act, but actually, you’re putting it off. Procrastinating. Getting in your own way. Ah, we’ve all been there. Indeed 70% of North Americans report procrastinating from time to time, and 20% of us are chronic procrastinators – regularly and habitually putting things off for the utopian tomorrow.

If you haven’t taken action on an important task, project, or business growth strategy its only for one reason – and its not because you are lazy: It’s because you haven’t identified the specific “type” of procrastinator you are (or “types”). By identifying your “type,’ you can begin the find the right solution.

After working with hundreds of people in small businesses, I have identified 10 types of “Action Blockers.” You can see from reading the list that there are very different reasons that set you up to put things off, and the skills you would need to become an “Action Taker” vary accordingly. (more…)

Could We Do This in a Team Meeting?

August 6, 2013

I spend a lot of time in my seminars imploring leaders and managers to spend more time with their employees: “You need to spend time every day with your direct-reports providing guidance, direction, support, and coaching!”

Often, managers will raise their hands and ask, “Could we do this in a team meeting?”

Team meetings are great. They are critical to any leader/manager’s repertoire. But team meetings are really only useful for four purposes:

  • Creating a feeling of belonging and togetherness. (This reason should be used sparingly. Maybe once a quarter).
  • Sharing a bunch of information to a bunch of people in the same way at the same time.
  • If there is an open question/problem with multiple constituents so the various constituents may discuss together; hear what each other says; respond spontaneously to each other; and move together toward a common solution.
  • Because team meetings so often make it clear that certain one-on-one huddles are necessary and must immediately follow the team meeting!

(more…)

How to Master the Art of Self-Promotion

August 1, 2013

“Politics is a direct-response business,” declares the digital director of President Obama’s re-election campaign. “People do things if you ask them to do it, and … don’t … if you don’t ask.”

Exactly! In fact, this is true not only in politics, but also in social media. If you want your readers to click “like” or “retweet” or “reblog” or “pin” or “plus,” you gotta ask for it. Not for nothing do two of the web’s most popular sites — BuzzFeed and Mashable — serve up big buttons at the top of each article, beseeching you to “share me now!” What’s more, these icons now include the number of shares in real time, boxing you in with peer pressure: “Don’t share me–I dare you!” This is marketing at its finest: so subliminal, you think you’re making a considered choice.

Too often, however, those in the communications field blanch at making an explicit ask. We think of ourselves as marketers, not salesman. We trust in the purity of our craft, rather than tricks of the trade. Yet there’s a reason “marketing” and “business development” often find themselves in the same job title. It’s because a marketing budget isn’t self-sustaining, but ultimately depends on the success of sales–those who make the ask for a living. As any salesman will tell you, products don’t “sell themselves.” People need nudges. (more…)