I’m sure that you’ve visited websites that read… a little bit oddly. They keep mentioning the same word or phrase over and over again. “If you’re looking for the best car repair in West Palm Beach, Florida, then you will want to visit our West Palm Beach car repair shop. We offer the best car repair service in West Palm Beach, Florida. WEST PALM BEACH!!!” This kind of search engine optimization is a holdover from the early days of search engines. Back then, they could be fooled into thinking that your site was a leading one simply by stuffing it…
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Get as much work done in as little time. This is the overriding goal in your head when you’re a small business owner. Time is money. If you only have a few hours every day to get everything done, you’re going to need to be super-efficient. Unfortunately, there are a ton of little, but essential tasks that can get in the way of your efficiency. For example, social media. Why You NEED Social Media Social media is a crucial part of every digital marketing strategy. Being on all of the major social media networks is how you reach out to…
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Congratulations, you’ve landed the client of your dreams! Now the trick is to keep them! Being a small business owner is a series of ups and downs. One minute, you’re on top of the world, doing the work you want to do with tons of clients. The next minute, some of those clients drop off, leaving you scrambling to find new ones. (Unless of course, you are ALWAYS marketing in the background!) However, at times, it can be like the world’s most un-fun roller coaster. As you gain more experience. You realize that the trick is to build up a…
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For some small businesses, getting a new client is “Good news, bad news” time. The good news is that you have a new client! The bad news is that if you don’t have an automated onboarding system, it can be a massive headache. There is the first consultation, the follow-ups, sending/signing the contract, convincing them of the importance of filling out their client information form, invoices, scheduling your kick off call, learning their habits and preferences… It’s a ton of work! Of course, you can make things go much smoother by streamlining your entire client onboarding sequence. And a big…
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Oh, the joy of tech support… Just about everyone has had the experience of their computer dying in the middle of an important project, only to have to spend the rest of the day wrestling with tech support. Listening to hours of “Your call is important to us” hold music and low-level clueless employees whose advice basically boils down to “Turn it off and then on again.” Then, if you don’t mysteriously get disconnected, you MAYBE might get to someone who can actually help you with your problem, if you’re lucky. So imagine trying to deal with tech support while…
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Do you remember sitting in school as a kid, vaguely staring at the walls as your teacher droned on and on about geography, history, or math… You were kind of paying attention. Maybe take a note every now and then, but the sad reality is that your attention is elsewhere. The material just wasn’t engaging you. But why? What your teacher was saying might have been interesting, but without a visually engaging element, your attention was lost. What if the teacher had a winning slide deck? We like to think that, as adults, we have more focus. That we can…
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Do you have a business plan? Something that I highly recommend all of my clients (and pretty much every entrepreneur) do is create a business plan at the beginning of the year. Spending the first week or so in January putting together a comprehensive business plan can pay off dividends for a small business through the new year. A business plan gives you a map, with goals and strategies that may help you confront the biggest challenges facing your business. But here is the problem: plans change. Things change! Life happens! Maybe your business did even better than you expected…
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Do you remember what it was like when you were a kid during the summer? It was like heaven! Three entire months off school with no work whatsoever! I remember waking up to the smell of fresh cut grass and would scramble out of bed to get outside! Unfortunately, endless summers can’t last forever. But here’s the good news! One of the benefits of being an entrepreneur with a business is that you get to make your own schedule. Yes, you absolutely need to work like crazy during the summer to grow your business, but if you want a three…
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Do you have any tricks or tips that help get you through your daily workflow? Back when I first started my small business, my daily workflow was very different than it is now. There were very few applications out there that not only make my business easier to manage but also helped me get so much more done throughout the course of my day. Today, I have tons of programs, automated processes, and other tools that help me be super productive from the first thing in the morning until the very end of the night. If you’ve ever been curious…
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Ok, I’m going to admit it. I… occasionally… binge watch Netflix. I know, I know, I’ve heard all the arguments against it. It ruins the show, it’s a waste of time, etc. But the fact is that it’s fun to binge watch a show with your loved ones (or by yourself with a giant bowl of popcorn). Binge watching has gone from something that only those who buy DVD box sets do to something that just about everyone does. You pick a show on Netflix, sit down on the couch, and enjoy the ride. But Netflix is only one option…
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