http://www.small-business-how-to.com Small-Business-How-To.com en-us webmaster@small-business-how-to.com http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/180.cfm Is your personality killing your business? We all know someone who seems to chronically get in their own way. Short-tempered and short-sighted, they don't realize that these personality traits are getting in the way of greater business and personal success. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/members/179.cfm Facebook is the king of social networking. In truth, there are no close competitors. If you have a small business, it is imperative that you create (and use) a Facebook fan page to interact with the thousands of potential customers in your area or across the world! We'll show you how to get started. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/177.cfm Building online relationships via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other sites has taken the spotlight off of the old school way of networking with potential customers and partners. Building real, in-person relationships is as important, if not more so, than it ever was. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/176.cfm People are not meant to function at an extreme pace year round, but many small owners forget this. They are in "survival" mode, not realizing this can create more problems than it solves. To thrive instead of just surviving financially, you must schedule routine time off. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/175.cfm Marketing can slip to the back burner when you are trying to manage a business. But small business owners must move it to the front or there might not be a business to manage! I understand, though, that working with staff, customers and product can suck a lot of time and energy from the guy or gal who runs it all. But despite understanding, I can't encourage you enough to make a habit of marketing. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/174.cfm Your marketing efforts should always have a "call to action", i.e. something requesting a next step from a prospective customer. This next action could be returning a form, heading to a web site, making a call, or signing up for a newsletter. But before the "call to action" should be a compelling offer. WHY should they do this thing? http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/173.cfm Mother Nature is unpredictable and so are your fellow human beings! Disaster used to imply just weather issues, but these days it can be violence or hacking. Companies that thrive after disasters like Katrina were companies that had a plan and were prepared. Are you? http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/172.cfm As a small business owner, I'm assuming you have, or are at least in the process of building, a website. But once you build it, how can you be sure people actually find it. Unlike Field of Dreams, building it does not ensure that "they" will come. There are easy ways to increase traffic to your site. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/169.cfm When developing your small business's online presence, don't be all over the place. Make sure you have a design that goes across all platforms and that potential customers can find out everything they want to know about you via your website. Don't be all over the place... http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/168.cfm In a business like landscaping, finding and keeping qualified, committed employees can really be difficult. I don't want to diminish this. Fortunately, the current job market makes it a bit easier, but generally business owners managing this type of employee will encounter two primary challenges: ATTENDANCE and PERFORMANCE. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/166.cfm No one, and thus no business, is mistake-free. Sometimes these mistakes cause our customers great headaches, or even heartache. What do you do when this happens? How can you retain or regain a dissatisfied customer? http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/165.cfm As a small business owner, you have a wealth of experience and information that you can share. In the Internet age, it is easy and possibly lucrative to brand yourself as an "expert". Whether you are a retailer, a craftsmen or a service provider, going the expert-route is a great way to drive interest (aka customers) to your business. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/156.cfm We've been having some interesting Twitter conversations about the concerns of small business owners like yourself. Of course, the number one is HOW DO I GET CUSTOMERS IN THE DOOR? If they don't come in, they can't spend money, right? Not necessarily, let's see how. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/155.cfm Entrepreneurs and small business owners are like Olympians. They gotta have hope and nerve and go for the GOLD. Sometimes there are great rewards. Often there aren't. To even get to the Olympics you have to be better than hundreds of thousands of competitors. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/154.cfm Would you like to have a government official or agency running your business? Not unless you want to run it into the ground. Unfortunately many small business owners pursue their marketing program like a government official. Discover the insight you need now ... http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/152.cfm Small-Business-How-To.com is on Twitter and we follow a lot of Main Street businesses (florists, construction, hardware stores-you name it!). One thing we've noticed is that most of these businesses aren't very active on Twitter (or Facebook either). http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/151.cfm I was recently in a nearby town, meeting with a client who sells high quality Navajo rugs. By "high quality" I mean $2,000-$30,000 authentic handmade rugs. He was wondering, as you can imagine, how to more effectively market these in this down economy. We came up with a great idea. Read about it here http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/150.cfm Google is really on a rocket ride of creating new tools, technologies and applications. I can hardly keep up as I'm reading different blogs and news stories about their latest gadget. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/148.cfm Growing a loyal customer base is the subject of countless books, articles, discussions and speeches. Is it really that hard? I don't think so. I think we all can count numerous ways we were let down as customers or clients. Doing the opposite of that is one way. http://www.small-business-how-to.com/public/144.cfm Does an owner of an S corporation need to take a salary, and if so how much? This video introduces you to the basics of owner's salaries in S corporations.