You know the old saying that mistakes are why they put erasers on the end of pencils? Well, that might do the trick when you’re in the 6th grade, but when you’re a small business owner, mistakes have slightly higher stakes! As a small business owner, I’ve faced countless difficulties throughout my career. Heck, like everyone else in the world in 2020, I’ve faced incredible challenges over the last few months! The good thing is that I’ve learned how to take those mistakes and learn from them. But trust me, that wasn’t easy! I’ve always found that the next best…
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About 30 years ago, do you know one of the best places to connect with your customers? 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!) But then around 15 years ago, things started to change. People stopped listening to the radio as much when they headed to work. Instead, they would put on music from…
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I don’t know about you, but every week I get “emails” touting a new secret SEO growth tactic or hack that promises to get me on the first page of Google! It got me thinking about how overwhelming SEO can be to entrepreneurs, because there are so many components to consider. Keywords, on-page and off-page optimization, link building, oh my! The list goes on and on. So, let’s start here, how much do you know about SEO? Sorry (not sorry) for the rhyme there, but it’s a question that every small business owner should be asking themselves. Over my many…
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Do me a favor. Go onto your Instagram or Facebook account and see how long it takes you to find a picture of a cat or dog. Don’t worry; I’ll wait. My guess is that it happened WAY faster than you expected. Pets have taken over the social media world. We might be torn apart by world events, pop culture, and trolling on social media, but there is one thing that brings us all together: Cute pictures of animals. So, the big question is, how can you harness the awesome power of pets to put a spotlight on your small…
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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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As a busy small business owner, I bet you had trouble this year finding time do a good spring cleaning. Boy, I know that I sure did. Some things go out the window when you’re swamped with work, and spring cleaning is usually one of them. You look around the house, think, “This is tidy enough,” and get back to work. But what about the spring cleaning that you need to do for your small business? One place that almost every business could do a spring cleaning is on their website. Even a well-managed website eventually need to be revamped…
Read MoreLet me ask you a hypothetical question. Imagine you are looking for a virtual assistant to help with your small business (a fairly good bet, seeing as you’re here right now). You narrow your choices down to two VAs. To make your decision, you bring up their websites. Both of the sites look good. They are cleaned and polished, not looking dated at all. There are lots of services offered, some solid testimonials, and the graphics and copy are all high quality. Ah, but then you visit the “Blog” sections. In one of them, you see that they haven’t updated…
Read MoreOne of the most common questions that I get asked in free consultations is, “How do I grow my business?” And boy, is that a loaded question! As a virtual assistant, there are a ton of ways that I can help you grow your business, ranging from taking advantage of my digital marketing services to business coaching. But I have always found that one of the most effective methods is to host a webinar. A webinar is essentially an online seminar, and there are so many benefits to creating one! Figure Out What Aspect of Your Business You Would Like…
Read MoreThere’s a great Jerry Seinfeld comedy bit that perfectly sums up how some people feel about public speaking. “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” In my experience working with clients, I’m afraid that I have to agree. Speaking in front of people is a fear born right out of “show and tell,” back when they were a kid. Getting up in…
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As small business owners, the internet has given us so much. It’s often used for procrastinating, with cat videos on YouTube or reading random articles on Wikipedia. But that’s the “bad” stuff. It’s also given us social media networks that we can use to connect with clients directly.
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