Small Business News: Small Biz Strategy


What’s your small business strategy…you’ve got one, right? It’s the difference between success and failure and should be one of the first decisions you make about your business. Creating a strategy encompasses how your business markets, delivers services, manages costs, uses tools and, in general, tells its story. If this sounds like a pretty big deal, it is! Check out the links below covering the many aspects of small business strategy. And then tell us…what’s your small business strategy?

Planning

How to engage with your customers. Whether you’re talking about customers who enter your bricks and mortar establishment or visitors that frequent your Website, engagement is the key. In this post, we look at how this happens in the new social media environment, including a big infographic with more insight about how to drive and engage customers with your brand. MyBeakSocialMedia

What Bob Seeger can teach you about business strategy. Making your message both easy to understand and compelling may be the biggest challenge your small business faces. As the Bob Seeger song says “What to leave in, what to leave out.” What are you leaving in and what are you leaving out in your small business message? Are they the right things? What do they mean to your business strategy long term? Duct Tape Marketing

Do you have what it takes? To engage in the kind of strategy that will make your small business a success, you’ll have to have the right stuff. Don’t worry! No one is necessarily born with all these skills, but this article looks at some real weaknesses that could put your success at risk. Open Forum

Self-development

5 strategies to improve productivity. Planning for your successful small business doesn’t just involve long term strategy about how to grow and position your company, but also short term strategies about managing your own productivity. Are you happy with the amount of work you get done each day? Do you allocate the right amount of time for every aspect of your business? If not, here are some steps to improve today. Today’s Admin

Case Studies

Why you need social media: The Naked Pizza story. Does your small to medium sized business really need social media as part of your marketing strategy? It does if you plan to have a meaningful conversation with your customers about your brand and what you stand for. In a world of infinite choices, no matter what you’re selling, your message had better be something more. And your strategy had better involve telling someone about it. BizSugar

Spotting and exploiting small business trends. An important part of your business’s ongoing strategy must be to remain on the lookout for trends that benefit your business brand. When the British press earlier this month reported the official wedding cake for Friday’s royal wedding to be “a floral-themed fruitcake with cream and white icing frosting” U.S. fruitcake makers saw a surge in business. What trends are you missing and how could you market your business better when fate smiles upon you? WSJ

Marketing

How to find a brand ambassador. One of the best strategies for building your business or your brand can be to find a brand ambassador who will share what you do with their network and generate buzz without you having to lift a finger. One of the best reservoirs for such ambassadors can be your employees, but finding the right employees to fulfill this role can be more complicated than it looks. Inc.com

Financial

Controlling your legal costs. Not all strategy is marketing, and a cost containment strategy is equally important if you want your small business to succeed, especially in those lean early years. While many of your costs can be easily figured out in advance, legal costs can sometimes be a challenge. Mike Periu offers this explanation for the problem and a strategy for correcting it. Open Forum

Sales

What’s your e-mail marketing strategy. E-mail marketing can be a very effective way of connecting with customers and eventually generating interest and sales if done correctly. But without a strategy, your best intention for creating an effective e-mail marketing campaign may not be enough. Consider this list of important tips to include in any e-mail marketing campaign. Capture Commerce

What is your sales strategy…really? Blogger Gary S. Hart explains this should NOT be the same old “better features, greater performance, more revenue, bigger cost reductions, higher ROIs” crap everyone has been trying to cram down customers’ throats for years. Because a true sales strategy for your small business, Hart writes, must be so much more. Here are some tips to get you started.  Sales du Jour

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  1. May I also suggest a goal setting system called GoalsOnTrack. It’s a web-based goal tracking and time management tool, with a very nice web 2.0 interface, and has many nice features to help you keep track of goals, and most importantly it lets you better organize daily todos towards achieving goals. Highly recommend it for serious goal achievers.

  2. Thanks for all the good information and We shouldn’t forget the time because Time is the key to Success.