Last week, we talked about finding conference sponsors from your local network, working with local businesses. Today, let’s talk about being your own sponsor. Adele McAlear shared herexperience with local sponsorson last week’s post Why put your conference attendance into someone else’s hands? Take charge and send yourself to the event. If it is worth attending,…
Defining a distinct niche is key to building your small business. The narrower the niche, the wider the opportunity. Easy to say, but hard to do. Where do you find your niche? How do you define it? Niche Marketing is Not Wrong Jay Ehret speaking at the 140 Conference Our friend Jay Ehret at The…
Great marketing ideas for your business bombard you all the time. Your ability to capture the best of those ideas and execute them is one measure of your success. Photo by koalazymonkey on Flickr Those new promotion ideas come at you from all over. And you’re reading online right now, coming up with even more. But…
After I told you about my project folder, Jen asked for my day-to-day planning tool. So here it is: a simple weekly calendar. Before I start my work week, I review the projects in my project folder and assign the next actions to particular days on my weekly planner. I use the six most important…
I’ve been asked about the simple folder I use to manage all my many projects. I call it cheesy because there really is nothing special to it. I just picked a way that worked for me. Let me walk you through it. Each week, I use this folder to review my projects as I plan…
Setting retail prices is like some arcane art form. How the heck are you supposed to figure out what to markup items in your retail business when no one wants to give you real numbers? Here are two starting points for setting retail prices and markups. Keystoning Keystone pricing is simple and fairly common….
People have to hear your message seven times before they remember it. Or, that’s what I’ve heard. (You may have heard a different number, but the exact number isn’t important. What is important is to realize you have to repeat yourself. And if you’re in business, you’ll have to repeat yourself a lot.) Small Business…
Knowing each customer as a real person is a strength of the best small town businesses. New tools allow you to keep that kind of small town connection even as your business grows or moves online. How well does the College Street Pubknow these customers? You probably keep an email address list of customers, right?…
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