It’s no secret that when you run a small business it’s easy to lose your life in your efforts to achieve success. Because it does take a lot of time, effort and work to build that successful business you’ve been dreaming of. But that doesn’t mean you should give up your personal life in the process. Do that and you’re likely to be unhappy, whether or not you’re successful.
The longer I’ve been in business, the more I’ve realized there are major differences between entrepreneurs who are successful, and those who aren’t. So I decided to make a list of the top ten and share these important insights with you…
In the end, what every business seeks is commitment – from our customers, our staff, our partners, and our entire collaboration universe. Commitment erases friction, creates momentum and drives substantial profit.
But in a world where most everything our companies offer can be acquired somewhere, perhaps even from our own company, for free, how do you create the kind of company, product or service that drives people over the edge to commit – to pay for something that’s available for free, to evangelize something for no tangible gain, or to pour their heart and soul into building something that yields far more than a paycheck or a promised result?
Lately it seems like entrepreneurs everywhere have jumped on the online marketing bandwagon. From pay-per-click ads, to social networking, online article submissions, hiring SEO firms and more. Many are also spending a fortune and doing everything under the sun to improve their search engine rankings.
Just about every day I get another email looking for a link exchange with one of my sites. And about every other day I get an email from some SEO firm who wants to guarantee me the first spot on Google’s search results.
I ignore them all. In fact, I don’t even spend much time, money or energy trying to battle my way to the top of the search engine results. You may not want to either. And here’s why…
If you take a look at a list of the oldest businesses in the world, you’ll see the glaringly obvious fact that the majority of the companies listed are Japanese.
Germany makes a good argument for having a fair few, while the U.S. begins a late charge once they broke away from British rule. The rest is a mish-mash of European countries and developing countries (at least in the later part of the list).
So why does Japan have such a strong command of business, and what it takes to survive?
How easy are you to fool? Most of us tend to consider ourselves savvy professionals. After all, if you have your own business you clearly have some level of aptitude when it comes to the business world around you. Yet there are still situations where we may end up taken in, tricked, misled, or just plain romanced. The problem is, all around in the world there will always be some new technology or feature that could help change your business.
Demystifying better social media marketing often starts with doing a better job of connecting with customers. But how can you connect with customers if you don’t know who they are?
Do you know who your customers are? Do you know what they search for and talk about on social networks? What influences them to buy or to recommend things to others?
You know what you need, or would like, to know about your customers. First, basics, like addresses, correct names and titles, phone numbers, company description, and then much more.
Why are you in business?
Is it just to make money? …Or because you couldn’t find a job? Or is there something more?
For a large number of entrepreneurs—and their clients and customers—that “something more” is clearly becoming more and more important.
Not that there’s anything wrong with starting a business because you need the cash, or can’t find a job. I’ve done it myself more than once.
Whether you see Facebook Places as a cool new way to find out where your friends are, another invasion of privacy from a company that builds its empire on the bones of your privacy, or a great way to find out who’s home to rob, with half a billion potential users, it will be hard to ignore.