Small Business Trends

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you create or what product or service you offer. In some ways all businesses are the same. How we build them, make them stronger and finally reach our business goals involves a set of principles that are the same for every entrepreneur. Whether you’ve started your business yourself or taken it over from someone else, building a business is a constant process. What you do today will affect your business tomorrow. Here are some tips to help you make the right choices.

Customer Service

How to solve a customer’s real problem. Are you jumping to conclusions about how to solve a customer or client’s real problem? Maybe you’re shoving a ready made answer in their direction without taking the time to learn what they really need. Or are you waiting around for the customer to articulate their need themselves and ask you for their perfect solution? Both of these approaches are less than ideal, says David Brock. And, though his message is uniquely calibrated to sales professionals, it can apply to all small business people seeking to provide the perfect product or service. Partners in Excellence

Find a business idea by making life better. Here’s a unique strategy for planning or creating a business from Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. Though the suggestion is probably uniquely suited for tech businesses (all the examples Matt gives fit into this category), it really applies to any business idea or model you can think of. The idea is basically to walk around your house or apartment looking for “hot spots,” places filled with stress, clutter or disorganization. Why, you ask? Ah, because solving these problems for people is where entrepreneurs are at their best. Gadgets, Google and SEO

How poor communications can ruin your business. Of course, communications inside your business between owner and employees or between co-workers and partners is imperative for a healthy business, but good communications with customers is equally important. Letting customers hang with inadequate information or without addressing their concerns will affect your brand and loose you business in the long run. Remember to keep your customers in the loop, solve their problems and keep talking. Retaining customers requires good customer service and this means communicating with your customers to make sure their needs are met. flyte

Marketing

Want more sales from your online business? We’ve all heard about tricks to build relevant traffic to our business Websites, ideas for Search Engine Optimization that will let us be found on the first page of Google and even ways to use social media effectively to establish our brand and draw even more attention to the Website we’ve built to promote our business online. We know about blogs and keywords and inbound links and more. But, of course, conversion, how well a Website transforms visitors into customers, is the real measure of how successful a Web presence is today. There’s a secret weapon you may not have thought of. John Jantsch has more. Duct Tape Marketing

What Japanese business card etiquette teaches you about first impressions. The business card may or may not be on its way out as a means of introduction, but this post about how to treat prospects in a business relationship remains valid whether business continues to be done by passing little pieces of printed card stock around or migrates entirely to the digital world. How you treat prospects and customers in the little details of your interactions leaves an impression that cannot easily be erased. These early interactions may color a business associate’s view for years to come. B2B Bloggers

Are you naive about your online marketing goals? Every online business owner wants a popular Website with heavy traffic translating to great sales. But how realistic is this goal? What if the people visiting your site have no interest in your product at all? Does it help to have a lot of them? Statistics suggest that a small number of visitors to your site will translate into customers immediately with more hanging around until they get to know your brand better and learn more about what you can do for them. But to get even this result, it helps to make sure you have the right kind of visitors in the first place. SiteStream

Self-development

Better results in business through better life choices? Can successful business truly be linked to a successful life? Jackie Purnell thinks so. Here is her prescription for the healthy body, mind and outlook every entrepreneur or small business owner needs to increase productivity and do what is necessary to successfully move your business ahead. Read her suggestions to see where you may be sabotaging your small business success with unhealthy life choices that are holding you back. Building Business Creating Brands

Business lessons from the people in your life. Statistics and marketing studies may teach you plenty about where your business should be headed. But the abundance of information out there can be overwhelming and perhaps even a bit discouraging at times. For this reason, Susan Oakes suggests a different approach. Take some simple lessons about curiosity and determination from the people you know in your life. Breathe new life into your marketing efforts with some of the simplest ideas around, shared by people you interact with everyday. M4B Marketing

Strategy

Word of mouth marketing is alive and well. Only today it lives on the Internet. Entrepreneurs and small business people of every stripe have long known that the best marketing is free. Spreading the word about your product is all about getting people excited about your brand and what it stands for. But today a whole new set of digital tools has changed the way this information is most commonly spread from your biggest fans to their friends and beyond. Entrepreneur & Self-Employed Business

Why your business blog isn’t working. You can substitute social media or any other new marketing strategy in here and we’re sure you’ve heard similar complaints from small business owners. The fact is that no business strategy works if you don’t use it. You can’t attract attention to your blog if you don’t post regularly or to your Facebook or Twitter account, if you don’t update it regularly. Business strategies cannot succeed or fail, if they are never implemented, so give a new strategy time before you declare it a failure. flyte