When it’s just you in the business, or you’re the boss, no one makes you keep hammering away at what needs to be done except you. Marketing may be the most important activity in your business, but it’s also hard to be consistent, with everything else you have to do. Here is one system you…
Last year at the Oklahoma Entrepreneurship Conference, we had two people tweeting: me and @stargardener. When we announced the hashtag we were using for the event, we got the oddest reactions. We had a tweetup, with just the two of us, and it was great. And the brand-new-at-the-time @OKCCoCo was there. This year, there were…
Our crack research staff (my husband) caught a discussion thread about tourism websites. This one happened to be on a hunting safari forum, but there are lessons for anyone’s tourism website.(If you don’t like hunting, or hunting pictures, don’t click through: here is the original hunting discussion thread.) A hunting and tourism operator asked the…
Every small business has to market itself, but not many small businesses have a marketing plan of any kind. Even fewer have one they actually use. That’s why I developed the Simplified Marketing Plan, back in 2006. It’s high time to update it. The plan is simple, so you’ll actually do it. There are just…
Small Biz Social Media Summit 2010 is a live, rub elbows, shake hands and sit down across a table from other small business owners event in Hutchinson, Kansas, on June 5 and 6, 2010. Our friend Deb Brown, with help from our friend Grant Griffiths, put together some of the most respected social media, internet…
Last week, Enid, Oklahoma, hosted a tourism forum, with over 90 people in attendance. Here are some of the best points captured in my notes. Best silver bullet in travel: People want to eat like the locals. Recommendations from the locals of the hidden gems and “must eat there” places. Hardy Watkins, Oklahoma’s State Tourism…
The upcoming US Census matters to rural small businesses because it will affect your community for the next ten years. Census data is key to: Federal grants, especially CDBG and Rural Development Economic development efforts Redrawing political boundaries from Congressional districts, all the way down to local political boundaries Every single person counted brings $790…
Our friend Linda, @MissDazey42, is a retired business owner, with experience in sales, market research, etc. (Her motto: “If I had my life to live over, I’d pick more daisies.”) Linda shared this story about her experience with a local business for our series on mistakes small businesses make. Two years ago, I had the best experience…
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