Has this winter given you the blues? It’s around this time of year when the winter weather can really start to wear you down. With stunningly cold temperatures all across the country, even in the states that are warmer during the winter, folks are really starting to miss the sunny days of the summer. Feelings of “hibernation” and depression are normal around the end of January/beginning of February. It’s called Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it can take a huge toll on your productivity and your business. As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you need to be able to give…
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You know, the only bad part about taking a vacation during the holidays is when you return to work in January. You sit down at your desk and just feel… stressed. You might feel overwhelmed at the amount of work that has piled up while you were taking a well-deserved festive rest with family and friends. There are clients to take care of, blog posts and social media that need to be written, a ton of email marketing to send out… Happy New Year! Thankfully, you don’t have to do it all alone. If you had a virtual assistant working…
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Who in their right mind would plant seeds in the dead of winter? Smart small business owners, that’s who! The biggest hope for a new year is growing your business. That’s what most New Year’s Resolutions are about, people want to grow. Grow their business, grow their income, personal growth. Growing your business doesn’t happen by accident though, you need to plant seeds. For an entrepreneur, the seeds of growth are plans for the future, and January is the perfect time to make them. Seed #1: Make a New Year Business Plan Do you have a business plan, written down…
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There is nothing like shopping for gifts to make the holiday stresses pile up! Even though Black Friday is behind us, the malls are still packed with folks trying to find the right gifts for their family and friends. You’re probably one of them (if you can find the time…). Gifts are more than just objects; they show someone how much we care about them. And who does a small business care about more than their clients? Small client holiday gifts or gestures can be a great way to reinforce current client relationships while also reviving old ones. These don’t…
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There are some holidays that seem almost custom-made to give you the perfect excuse to reach out to former and current clients, telling them how much you appreciated their business. There is Christmas, of course. Valentine’s Day is another popular occasion. And then, there is the November holiday that is coming up fast, Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the time of year where we gather with family and friends to give thanks for all of the wonderful things in our lives. For the small business owner or entrepreneur, Thanksgiving also gives you an ideal opportunity to be thankful for your business, including…
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Time flies. To me, it feels like the year just got started, but now we are rapidly approaching the end of it. With Thanksgiving in just a few weeks, you can soon expect to see holiday decorations everywhere, with “Jingle Bell Rock” playing every time you walk into a mall. Between the chaos of the holidays and the end of year work crunch, you might be worried that you won’t be able to find the time to spend with your family and friends, let alone make time for a winter vacation. The last thing you want to do is get…
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How long is your to-do list? To-do lists are awesome things. Just trying to get through the day-to-day work at your business can be stressful. When you need to tackle a huge project, the work can sometimes seem overwhelming. By using a great to-do list, you can mitigate that stress by seeing all of the tasks of the day, week, or month laid out in front of you. The trick is that, when you are running a small business, your regular to-do list might be a bit too limited to get the job done. This is one of the reasons…
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Have you ever heard the old saying, “Show, don’t tell”? Visual and graphic design is an absolutely essential part of any company’s branding. Without an attractive visual element, a brand is simply words on a page. With great graphic design, a brand can pop and get into the minds of potential clients and customers alike. Unfortunately, many companies tend to put the importance of graphic design on the back burner, either believing it doesn’t makes a huge difference or feeling that they can do just as good a job themselves. This kind of thinking can make or break a business.…
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With the advent of social media, the world of advertising has been blown wide open. It used to be that small businesses would have to pay through the nose to get print ads in major publications. I mean, how else could they get the attention of new customers? But social media and the internet changed all that. Now, small businesses can run specifically targeted ads on social media platforms, and best of all, they can do it at a price point that is WAY cheaper than it used to be. One of the best advertising platforms today is an app…
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Having to work when you are suffering through an illness is a nightmare. Every step, every thought, every burst of energy requires so much effort that it can feel like you are trying to run through a swimming pool. Everyone has had to do it at one point or another, no one enjoys it. But when you don’t have a cold, flu, or easily identifiable illness, we don’t really think about the our health or the energy we expend. We simply go about our day, exerting the necessary energy to complete tasks. As small business owners, we often put our…
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