Business Generation

How perfect are you? Are you above error, mistakes and missteps? I am—and of course I am lying. Who is above the need for a little grace, both in and outside of the business setting?

In “Are You a Fallible Human Being?” John Mariotti puts that question on the table. In his article, Mariotti discusses the grace factor when it comes to celebrities and other high profile individuals.  All I have to say about that is, Humans are humans and grace is grace – until you do something that I really can’t tolerate. (Well, you know how we humans are: We have a lot of grace for our favorites and none for yours).

But Mariotti did make me think about the small business owner. What happens when we misstep with our customers? Whether it

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You’ve taken our previous recommendations about starting and maintaining a company blog. Congratulations! You’re on your way to helping your company website increase readership and search results status.  However, how can you increase the number of views that each and every blog post receives, even after it has been posted for some time?

Simply writing a new blog post on a frequent and regular basis may not be enough to increase total readership.  Here are a few ways you can assure that your blog posts get read again and again, even after posts have been archived.

1. Link to Previous Posts

When you come up with new content, it is likely you will reference a topic that was posted on a previous blog article.  Improve your page views, as well as your SEO efforts, by interlinking your blog posts.  This will encourage readers to click and view an older post, and you get more total views on an old article.

2. Acquire

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PROVIDENCE – Providence’s debt earned a C+ and ranked No. 49 among 100 U.S. cities’ to be “in the red,” according to Men’sHealth.com.

In order to calculate its “American Cities With the Most Debt,” the publication looked at personal bankruptcy rates (FDIC); average credit scores, debt, late payments, and credit usage (Experian); percentage of homes facing foreclosure (RealtyTrac); percentage of homeowners and renters who spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing (U.S. Census); and average 401(k) contributions (BrightScope).

The most in-debt city, at No. 100, was Las Vegas.

“Have you heard about the new high-stakes game in Vegas? It’s a gamble called ‘living there.’ The economic downturn has been more like a flaming nosedive for the citizens of Sin City. Things are so bad, in

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New small business owners often run into the problem of how to get the word out about their product or service without spending a lot of money. Even experienced small business owners run across this problem when cash flow for the month ebbs.

What can you do to make the most of your marketing and still get ways to reach your customers? It can take a bit of creativity and cleverness to develop a marketing strategy on a shoestring budget – but it can be done!

Below we present five popular ways you can effectively promote your business without a lot of money. So without further ado…

1. Effective Email Campaigns

   One of the most cost effective marketing strategies that has the most impact are email campaigns. Dir

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It’s overwhelming. It’s overloaded. Sometimes it’s just flat out too much! It’s the information age and we have answers, tips, advice and thinly veiled marketing pitches for the latest “this-that-and-the-other” coming at us from every direction.  And sometimes we love it. Because (if the marketing department did their job right) we hope that this miracle product will make our business as profitable as we dreamed.

Online Marketing

But when it comes to online marketing (and information in general), we just need the truth about what works and what doesn’t. And the truth is there is no miracle product for our business – meaning that while there are great things on the market, nothing eliminates the strategy work that the small business owner is responsible for.

So how do we get a handle on online marketing? I suggest we start at the heart of the matter and work our way out. In fact, Mike Blu

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New entrepreneurs who start up a small business have an enormous task at hand. One of the biggest tasks is simply getting the small business off the ground and going with some momentum. Unfortunately, for many new small business owners and entrepreneurs, their new business takes longer than anticipated to acquire that forward momentum. Much of that failing is due to a lack of business focus.

We live in a world where everything is “instant”. We have On Demand television so we can watch our favorite shows anytime, rather than at the scheduled broadcast time. People want to drive a new car off the lot the same day through an instant loan application and decision. And, of course, we want our meals instantly via fast-food chain restaurants.

However, our desire for instant gratification does not necessarily apply to growing a business. Most small businesses are not successful overnight. In

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