Are you working from home for the first time? Back when I was working in the corporate world in my late 20s, I (like many Americans) occasionally dreamed of working from home. I had this romanticized image of slowly getting up in the morning, heading to my home office in my PJs, and taking some time off in the middle of the day to run errands or read a book. Then I started my own small business in my home and, BOY, was I in for a rude shock! It turns out that working from home requires a specific kind…
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Do you already have exciting plans in place for your small business in 2020? One of the smartest things you can do as a small business owner is to always think about the future. You should constantly have something on the horizon, whether it’s planning a webinar, starting a podcast, developing a new product or service, or building a spectacular website. It also can make for the perfect time to completely revamp your brand. And as we’ve almost reached the end of 2019, I’ve started to put some real thought into the services that I’m going to be offering you…
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Want to know the worst feeling in the world when you’re a small business owner? It’s when you feel the first inklings that you’re getting sick. You know the signs. Sleep the night before may not happen. Your energy is running dry, or you get a tickle in the back of your throat. You think, “I’m getting sick. I can’t afford to get sick! I have too much to do this week!!!” As a small business owner, it’s not unusual that everything is on your shoulders. Your customer service, marketing, daily tasks, sales, EVERYTHING goes through you. And if you’re…
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How exactly do you go about building a brand for your new business? Over the last few weeks, we’ve been taking a look at the various aspects of brand building. This included the basics of branding, graphic design, and how to rescue a struggling brand. But you might be wondering, but how do I start building a brand from scratch? Well, help is on the way! What is a Brand? As I’ve said before, a brand is like a container that holds all of the assets, both tangible and intangible, of your business. Everything from your logo and color scheme…
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When I’m working with a client to either create a new brand or reimagine their existing one, a common question I hear is, “What’s the difference between graphic design and branding?” Conflating the two is an easy mistake to make. After all, when people think of brands, they think of logos. Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Nike… All of these brands have logos that instantly identify them. At a glance, a customer knows everything about those businesses, just by seeing their logo. However, logos and other graphic components are only one part of branding. As I’ve said in the past, think of a…
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Does your website have a core lead magnet attached? Imagine this: You’re looking for a digital marketer (a pretty big stretch, huh?) You go onto a website, but the only things that are offered on it are paid products. There is no real way to see what kind of content they create for free. Instead, you have to go in blind and hope that they can meet your content creation/social media/email marketing/ funnel creation/ technical needs etc. And for some, that can be too high a price. Now, when you come to my website, I offer free content right off…
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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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Remember the old adage for those with gigantic cable packages? “300 channels and nothing’s on?” That certainly isn’t a problem anymore. Ignoring the phenomenon of cord cutting (I mean, how many people really want to pay for cable today?), you can find just about all of the entertainment that you want from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube and other video services. Streaming video has mostly replaced traditional cable, offering people the ability to watch whatever they want, whenever they want. You no longer have to scroll through guides to see what’s on. Instead, you just type (or speak!) what you…
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About 30 years ago, do you know where one of the best places to market to people was? Their car. The very first thing they did after they got into their car in the morning was turn on the radio. And chances are that it remained on for their entire commute to work, both back and forth. This offered advertisers a captive audience (literally, if the driver was on the highway!) Back then, radio ads were smart and inventive. Frankly, some of the most effective and brilliant marketing campaigns of all time were on the radio. But then around 15…
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