Small Business Hints

Business Lessons from Elite Sport – Part Three

Luca Mansfield — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:59:12 +0000

Champions are made when nobody is watching.

I spoke with a sporting client today. We have done some great work and he has made brilliant progress since we started working together. Every so often I check in to see how things are and if progress is being made consistently.

I always ask the question – Are you following through on the essentials? An

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Web Marketing Influence: Scarcity

Owen Dods — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:58:14 +0000

In the final tenet of Robert Cialdinis Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he examines scarcity.

Like reciprocity, commitment & consistency, social proof, liking and authority before it, scarcity has an undue influence on us due to our desire for shortcuts.

We have been trained that things that are rarer have more value than things that are common. Therefore, to make things appear to have more value, marketers can promote or even fake the scarcity of an object or information.

Like many people, I subscribe to a number of daily deals, like LivingSocial.

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Radio Shack reconnects with hobbyists

Gabriella Catts — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:10:09 +0000

Radio Shack, a retailer now better known for selling wireless phones, is getting back to its hobbyist roots.

The Texas-based consumer electronics retailer has launched as part of a campaign dubbed The Great Create.

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Is the New Office Going to Cost You an Arm and a Leg?

Owen Dods — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 20:01:32 +0000

For anyone who is in the process of starting up a new small business, the thought of office equipment may be secondary with all that is needed to get things up and running.

That being said, having the right office equipment in place from day one and making sure you are saving wherever possible with utilities, etc. should be a primary focus, especially in these challenging economic times.

Some budding entrepreneurs will hold the line on office expenses, while others will open up their checkbooks and spend, spend, spend.

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GM on track to recapture global auto sales lead

Gabriella Catts — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 12:37:34 +0000

AP Photo The Volkswagen exhibit shows the 2013 line of automobiles at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Monday.

AP Business Writers

DETROIT — General Motors Co. is on track to retake the title of world’s top-selling automaker, riding strong sales in the U.S. a

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Event Coverage: Intersection Event Brings Together Variety of Great Minds

Luca Mansfield — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:07:00 +0000

I participated in and covered for Technorati the 2012 session of The Intersection Event, an annual conference of hand-selected attendees from a variety of backgrounds, all considered innovators in their particular field, whether social networking, gaming, education, faith, law, entertainment, technology, charitable giving and more. This year, Intersection was held at the beautiful headquarters of Pixar Entertainment.

The morning session began with Dr. E

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A Not To-Do List for Ad Agency New Business

Owen Dods — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:19:47 +0000

Most everyone has a To-Do List. But it can be helpful to periodically create a Not To-Do List. Simply make an assessment of all of the non-productive things you are currently doing that need to be eliminated.

Review the previous years calendar of activities and evaluate which of your activities produced the best results for new business and which didnt. Id suggest making a list of your activities and create a ranking system.
Create a list of agency activities you are involved in that have nothing to do with new business.
Evaluate your current To Do List.

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Small Business of the Day: Barefoot Bath and Body

Luca Mansfield — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:10:59 +0000

Small Business of the Day: Barefoot Bath and Body

Who: Deanna Crowe, 43, @barefootbath

When: February 2008

How: Crowe had been working as an assistant manager in retail sales when she became a mother for the first time. Feeling that working out of the home no longer suited her, she left work to become a full-time wife and mother.

“It didn’t take long for me to decided I needed to do something else,” she said.

She soon became interested in melt-and-pour glycerin soap, and moved on to handmaking lip balms and cold process soaps.

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What to Get the Geek In Your Life

Owen Dods — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 01:35:31 +0000

This week I answered that question on my 207 segment.

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Grant winner’s update: developing new products

Owen Dods — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:02:52 +0000

Well, we made it through another Black Friday sale. It was a busy week, but successful and very well worth it. We increased sales and also took advantage of a few ourselves. I hope you all received some great deals as well, but more importantly I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving with your friends and loved ones.

We are now focusing intensely on developing our new products. We have some new designs drawn up for our air cleaners that we want to debut at one of our largest trade shows in the industry coming up in February. It is important to stay on top of the game in our industry by producing the latest and greatest products. Sometimes it’s as simple as designing a new look for a current product, or as detailed as manufacturing a whole new product to help increase horsepower, or solve an issue customers are experiencing. It takes creativity, patience, time, and dedication to make a new product work and prove why it’s better than before, or better than a competitor’s product.

We are currently researching a new addition to Horsepower Inc. that will ma

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Can Lawyers Be Entrepreneurial?

Luca Mansfield — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:52:14 +0000

To some, the phrase entrepreneurial lawyer may sound like an oxymoron, but weve just published an article by Eileen Zimmerman, reporting that more and more lawyers are choosing entrepreneurship over the partner track.

Margie R. Grossberg, a partner at the legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey Africa, said she saw an increasing number of associates choosing to start their own firms. “In the past, associates found if they worked really hard and did the right things, they made partner,” she said. “That’s not necessarily the case anymore — the odds are a lot slimmer and it’s also not as coveted as it once was.” These lawyers want more control over their futures, Ms. Grossberg sai

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Nokia Delists From Frankfurt Stock Exchange

Gabriella Catts — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:10:22 +0000

Nokia has been working through a massive cost-cutting downsizing program, laying off thousands of employees, closing plants, and outsourcing operations.

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Jobs, housing data bolster growth outlook

Luca Mansfield — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:45:57 +0000

WASHINGTON – New U.S. claims for jobless benefits hit a seven-month low last week and permits for future home construction rebounded strongly in October, the latest data to suggest the economy was gaining traction.

The improving economic picture was spoiled somewhat by another report on Thursday showing factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region slowed this month on weak orders. However, employers hired more workers and increased working hours.

“Economic conditions are moving upward at an accelerating pace,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

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Google gives a little peak under the hood as they disclose some search algorithms

Owen Dods — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:42:54 +0000

Google recently released a blog post and video detailing ten recent search algorithms. Now just to be clear, Google is not doing this to be nice and help you understand their system better. They are facing an antitrust investigation among other things. Of course this disclosure is just a small sampling (10 of 500+ changes) so it is not going to allow you to jump to the top of the search engine results, but it will give a better idea of what Google is looking for when crawling and reviewing websites.

Here is a quick review of some of the more relevant items.

Google is more likely to choose text from the page content, and less likely to use text that is part of a header or menu. Honestly this is nothing new.
They are putting more relevance on titles specific to the page content instead of boilerplate links with duplicate anchor text. Anchor text in links has slowly been losing relevancy over the years as people abused anchor text links. Ideally you should still concentrate on both as they make for a better user experience.
Providing fresher more recent results. A lot of this has to do with the loss of the agreement with Twitter in addition to trying to compete with the fresh news and content provided by social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc. Either way this is a win-win for businesses who provide fresh content and news on a regular basis.

And to learn more follow the link in my opening paragraph.