Last month I covered the basics of building your social media marketing. The next step in building your foundation is to build a solid central focal point for the rest of your marketing activities to flow to, your website.
Website
Primary Functions of Your Website
Target
Do you know YOUR target market? (more…)
One of the biggest perks of running daily deals is being in control, and deciding when you want to run them. Whether it’s once a year, once a month, or even once a week–you get to the make the final decision on what works best for you business. How do you know when the timing is right?
The right timing for your local deal will really be based on what you’re looking to accomplish. Maybe you want to make the most of your busy season, fill up the store when things are slow, or show some customer appreciation. Here are some of the best times to run local deals:
When you’re at your busiest
It may seem counter intuitive, but one of the best times to run a local deal is when your business is at its busiest. Whether it’s a certain day, weekend, or even an entire month–times when your business is already seeing heavy traffic are perfect for running a local deal. (more…)
Most of us start businesses because we want to be happier. We’re certain that when we are our own boss, we’ll finally have the creative freedom, autonomy, challenge, and meaning that we’ve been craving. We imagine our future selves working on our own terms, for something that we believe in (or at the very least are excited about). We dream about how this new professional reality will improve our personal lives, too — we’ll have the time and flexibility to exercise, to eat right, and to see our kids, friends, and spouses.
But the truth is, it’s astonishingly easy to be unsatisfied as an entrepreneur. Despite our best intentions, we endure a lot of stress, we get burned out, and most importantly, we stop having fun. We question our ventures and ourselves, and we may sometimes begin to think that entrepreneurship isn’t all it’s made out to be.
And this is where many of us give up trying. We don’t throw in the towel — we settle. We tell ourselves that we’d still be less happy working for someone else, and that this is as good as it’s going to get. (more…)
How to maximize your funding strategy in multi-unit development
More and more entrepreneurs are looking to develop a funding strategy that will allow them to develop multiple units. The most common scenario is the desire for a “three-pack” over a two to three year window. Funding multi-unit development may have been difficult in the past, but since the credit crisis in 2008, financing a multi-unit strategy is even more challenging than ever.
While every entrepreneur’s needs and situation are different, one thing is universal; how an entrepreneur funds the first unit affects his ability to fund the future units. In other words, if arranging financing for the first unit without considering how it is going to affect his ability to get additional financing, he may find himself without any options to fund the second and third units. With that in mind, let’s look at a few different scenarios and some possible strategies to successfully obtain the funding needed to become a multi-unit franchisee. (more…)
Here’s a riddle for the export-eager entrepreneur: What clocks in at 192 pages and is free? Unless you have a habit of absconding with condensed Gideon Bibles, the only answer we have is the SBA’s Export Business Planner.
This massive tool is designed for “business owners who are exploring exporting.” While we recommend other resources if you’re merely exploring the possibilities of exporting, such as export.gov’s “Export Questionnaire“ or “Basic Guide to Exporting,” the Planner remains the go-to tool when you’re past considering exporting and ready to commit resources to this aspect of your business.
Once you download the tool (a PDF), simply skim the first few chapters as they contain largely fluff or information you should already know if you’ve come this far in the exporting planning process. We’ll cover the chapters that matter most. (more…)