Category: a slice of STRATEGY

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Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

How to brand your brick and mortar business

Posted on by Red Slice

If you are fortunate enough to own a sweet little boutique on Main Street or a bustling restaurant along the wharf or a funky pet store in the city’s hippest arts district, I have to admit my jealousy. Brand is just as important to service- providers that survive on a laptop as it is for physical businesses. But there are oodles of possibility for boosting your brand when you have a tangible location to decorate, staff and gather your tribe.

Here are 9 ways you can boost the brand of your brick and mortar business:

  1. Build your online community – and then gather them together for a Fans Only event: Whether you host an exclusive wine and cheese Tweet-Up or invite Instagram followers to a seasonal sale, use your space to host real-life events to not only treat your loyal fans like royalty but to create memories and connections rooted in your physical store. Nothing endears people to your brand more than remembering a good time they had making new friends that was all because of you.
  2. Decorate with intent: While many of us only have websites as our main customer storefront, you are lucky. You have a whole physical space in which to convey your brand in a way customers can see, feel, smell, hear and taste. Carry your visual identity into the store with paint colors, signage in your official fonts, and brand imagery throughout. Trying to create a fresh, airy, calm brand vibe? Lay out your store in a similar way. Stock merchandise and create a floor plan that delivers the brand promise to your community in a real, live way. Choose appropriate music and even lighting schemes and scents. If you can, choose a location that extends your brand. If you’re all about being hip and funky, can you rent renovated warehouse space with brick walls or exposed steel beams? If you’re all about adorable, frilly and cute, can you find an old Victorian and give it a fresh coat of lively colors, inside and out?
  3. Collaborate with “The Enemy:” Befriend competitors or neighboring businesses and exponentially reap more rewards for everyone. Can you host a sidewalk sale with all the businesses on your street, share expenses for some entertainment and ads, and draw more foot traffic for everyone? Can you partner with complementary businesses to offer a “crawl” of some sort that take people from place to place as one package deal, like a food tour or yarn crawl (something I recently learned small local yarn shops do). By joining forces, you can do something bigger than any of you could do alone – and not only create more category awareness as a whole but reach a heck of a lot more people. And this collaboration will only spark amazing brand goodwill in the eyes of all customers involved.
  4. Support a cause: Do you love animals? Support a local food bank? Contribute to the fight against cancer? Partner with a local non-profit and host a charitable event at your location. You can offer 10% of all net sales to the charity for the night or ask customers to bring a canned good to get $5 off their purchase. Not only is it brand magic (and good karma) to give back and align with a worthy cause (especially one that compliments your brand, like a pet store hosting a mobile animal adoption event or a women’s boutique raising money for breast cancer), it can attract new customers and perhaps garner you some killer press.
  5. Sponsor targeted events: If you’re an athletic apparel store, sponsor the city’s annual 10K Holiday Run. If you’re a pet photographer with a lovely studio, contribute a photo session package to the Humane Society’s fundraising auction. If you’re a spa, sponsor a local women business owners’ luncheon. Similar to #4, this involves going out into the community to support a worthy cause or event related to your target market, rather than bringing people to you. And you can often provide a goodie bag item or some other tchotchke that gives people a reason to visit your location when the event is over: a discount, a free sample, an exclusive invitation.
  6. Offer live classes and educational events: You’re lucky enough to have a space so use it. Just like you promote valuable educational content on your blog, you can also give people a live experience. If you’re a yarn store, offer Knitting 101 for Beginners. If you’re a pet store, conduct a seminar on proper dog and cat dental care. If you’re a book store, bring in a local business book or cookbook author to present a mini-seminar. If you’re a hair salon, ask one of your product reps to educate on the benefits and proper usage of some of their most popular products. Offer attendance incentives, serve some nice appys and beverages and keep the selling soft. Nothing endears your brand more to people than when you give them something useful. They will remember.
  7. Develop a signature touch: OK, so the Tiffany blue color is taken, but what little touch of class can you add that will become your brand signature and delight customers? A local coffee shop places a single chocolate-covered espresso bean on the lid of every drink. Totally unexpected, totally cool. A home décor store wraps your purchased items tissue paper enclosed with a delicate raffia ribbon. Felt like a gift to yourself every time. Examine your business from every customer angle: Can you do something with the packaging, check-out process or even in-store displays that can become a brand differentiator for you? Maybe all your shelves are a unique recycled wood, maybe your hangers are all purple velvet? Get creative.
  8. Hire right: With the unique ability to convey your brand in the physical world comes great responsibility. Just one negative experience in your shop with an employee will ruining your brand forever – and with social media, you don’t want to take the chance of that one unhappy person influencing thousands. Hire good brand ambassadors. Will they support your brand values and leave the right brand impression on customers each and every time? Do they treat people who don’t buy on a visit just as well as the treat the ones who do? Just one employee has the ability to make or break your brand, since that one person represents your entire business to the customer at that moment. Hire people you know will live out the brand when they pick up the phone, turn around a disappointed client or ring up the next person at checkout.
  9. Remove all barriers to purchase: This sounds obvious but I’m constantly shocked by how many times small businesses get this wrong. Make it as easy and seamless as possible for someone to buy from you. This experience will make or break your brand. This means accepting cash AND credit cards (sorry folks, cost of doing business), investing in a really great and easy-for-employees-to-use POS system to expedite checkout. Clearly labeling all items with the right SKU’s. Posting the right pricing information near the product (don’t make me guess). Making sure you staff well enough so people don’t wait forever in line and change their minds because it’s too much hassle. I hate when I’m ready to buy my stuff and the cashier has disappeared for a spell. Ensure your staff is trained well so they can truly serve the customer and are not just some hired monkeys scanning a bar code. I’m always uber-impressed with bike shops. My husband is a cyclist, so we’ve been to many and we never fail to find that any staff person we may grab is super passionate and knowledgeable about cycling. They attract the right people, invest in training and ensure there is no reason for the customer to leave without exactly what they are looking for, unless they don’t happen to carry it. And if there’s ever a wait, a staff member will always drop whatever they are doing to assist in almost every bike store I’ve seen. That’s quality.

If you have a brick and mortar business, how have you branded yourself? What has worked for you or been less successful? Do any businesses you love have a signature touch? Please share your wisdom in the Comments!

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

7 lessons learned while writing my book…and what they can teach you

Posted on by Red Slice

Ever wanted to write a book?

When I was six, I wrote an elaborate children’s story about a family of mice who vacation at Disneyworld. I detailed their quaint village, their quirky personalities and every road trip adventure they encountered along the way. I never quite finished the tale, but relished the creative writing process. Explains all the poems, unpublished essays, and Chapter One’s sitting on my laptop, gathering dust.

Do you have an unfinished opus about your expertise sitting on your laptop? How about the next Harry Potter or crime thriller?

Fast forward 34 years: I have now authored two books and published several print and online articles.  And these seven valuable lessons I’ve learned may help you with your future screenplay, non-fiction best-seller or literary novel.

  1. Discipline your muse: Sorry, folks. Inspiration doesn’t always just “strike” especially when you’re on deadline. I used to write only when I literally couldn’t stop the ideas from tumbling out of my head.  That doesn’t work well when you have a launch date or an expectant publisher. I thought the muse would simply strike at her own whim and I could just lazily wait for her arrival– when, really, she often comes when you discipline yourself and consistently sit down to write. Make your writing schedule realistic like I did and break it up into doable chunks (i.e., this week, I’ll complete the outline. Next week, I’ll focus on chapter one.) If you sit down and just start writing, just like showing up to a job, some days you’ll produce brilliance and others you’ll produce crap. And if you need to take a break one day, take it. Ditch the guilt and then get back to the work tomorrow. The more you produce, the more you’ll finesse, tweak, explore, hammer out, invent, – and the more likely those “A Ha!” moments will come. It’s a probability game. The more you do, the more chances you’ll find gems in the work.
  2. Commit out loud: If you’re working on a book, you’re working on a book.  That means people need to understand your schedule may be different, you might not be at your spouse’s beck and call and you may have to pass up on certain activities. How do you make this happen? Not by hiding your writing in the dark of night, but by sharing your goal with the people in your life. State your intentions out loud so you not only force yourself to commit but you set others’ expectations of your time and attention. If you treat your writing as a hobby, to be done only “when you have time” or “feel like it” (see #1) it will never get done. Added bonus? You can find support, cheerleading and maybe even a few proofreaders along the way.
  3. Get comfortable with feedback: If you wither and die when someone gives you constructive criticism, get over it or go home. No one is perfect and every writer will tell you that good writing is re-writing. You need objective outsiders to review your work, especially professional editors and proofreaders. What may make sense in your own head could leave readers scratching theirs. My editors (rightly) questioned my chapter order, whether a story really made sense or not, where I was repeating myself. Just like your brand needs an objective audit, same is true for your book. But make sure you are seeking out feedback from trusted experts (professional developmental editors, etc.) or readers in your target audience and not merely changing course according to the whim on any old critic who comes your way…which brings me to #4…
  4. Picture your reader: Just like with a brand strategy, it helps to identify your actual reader. Not only will this help you effectively market the book, it prevents the writing from becoming a tangled mess. You absolutely need to be clear about for whom you are writing and what they will get. Branding Basics was written with small business owners, non-profit leaders and entrepreneurs in mind. I had a very clear picture of these people and this guided the wording, explanations and analogies that I used. I wrote Rebooting My Brain for both women struggling to overcome a life crisis, as well as brain injury caregivers and survivors. I pictured them in my mind as I typed.  What questions might they have? What information would they want to know? What would move, delight or inspire them? This ensured my memoir became something universal, useful and valuable for others.
  5. Prepare for diverse reactions: This one was a shocker. Turns out, the people I thought would be most excited by my book writing expressed passing interest (if that) and others who I thought wouldn’t give a damn became my best cheerleaders. At first, it really irritated me and, honestly, made me very sad and unsure. Here I was, doing something that absolutely petrified me, and it was like certain people close to me were not even acknowledging it. Recognize that writing a book is an art form and not everyone “gets” artists. Some don’t know how to respond, some may think you’re nuts, others will drool with envy and still others will admire you beyond belief and support you full throttle.  And by support, I mean even just simply remember that you’re holed up writing and ask you how it’s going from time to time.  But I finally learned that my big dream was big to me and people are usually just doing the best they know how. They have their own lives to live and dreams to pursue and may not even realize how deeply their reactions (or non-reactions) are hurting you. If certain people in your life don’t engage for whatever reason, that’s kind of not any of your business – you have work to do. Throw expectations of other people’s reactions out the door, write the book because your soul has to, needs to, and be humble and grateful to those who openly support your dream.
  6. Prepare for self-doubt….often: At every point in my book writing process, for both books, I doubted myself. My expertise, my knowledge, my ability to tell a good story, whether people would care, whether they would judge me. You name it, I thought it. This is natural when you follow a dream. Someone once said that if you’re scared, then you know you’re doing the right thing. Every writer has at one point during the writing process thought, “What the hell am I doing?” But if you believe in yourself, your knowledge, your story – and never lose sight of the value it will provide – that will help you stay the course. Post up inspirational notes, talk to other writers, find an online writing community and surround yourself with people who will prop you up (or take you out for vodka tonics) when the doubt attacks.
  7. It’s your story…TELL IT! One day while writing Rebooting My Brain, my heart sank as I scrolled through title after title of “aneurysm survivor” books on Amazon and I thought, “What can I possibly add to this conversation? Some of these people are overcoming way worse long-term disabilities than I am. Plus, I’m not famous or anything so who will care about my story?” One of my dearest friends emailed me, “Maria, Eat, Pray, Love was just about a regular woman who got divorced and took a trip. How many books have been written about that? It’s all in how you TELL it, in your voice, which makes it a story people will want – and need to – read.” Bless her wise perspective. And the countless emails I’ve received thanking me for all my books have done for them is all the proof I need that she was right. No one can tell a story or share wisdom the way you can and you just may touch someone in a way no other book or story can. Don’t think your story isn’t valuable because the plotline has been done. If that were true, people would never write another new book again. Put your unique spin on it and just believe.

Which piece of advice resonates (or scares you) the most? If you’ve written a book, what additional advice would you share from your own lessons learned? Please share in the Comments!

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

3 ways to “social proof” your business

Posted on by Red Slice

What is “social proof” really, and why does it matter to your business? If you’ve ever used Urban Spoon ratings to decide where to eat, Angi to decide which contractor to hire or followed a recommendation given to you by a trusted friend, you have already seen the power of social proofing your business.

Today’s guest post comes from Ali Rittenhouse: Digital Diva + Tech Cheerleader.  She recently entered my orbit through – wait for it – a friend’s recommendation (see, this stuff works!) and shares 3 tips on how to social proof your own business. Read her wise words below:

Have you social proofed your business lately?

Social Proof is more important than having a fancy-schmancy website with all the bells and whistles or catchy copy lingo that you paid someone a whole lot of moola to write for you.

Consumers look to other consumer’s opinions to make their purchases.  We use Social Proof to make our decisions.   We want to know that someone has gone first and had success before we try our hand at it. (Tweet this!)

As a business owner, Social Proof is just what your customer is looking for before they hand over the credit card info.  It’s kinda like virtually wrapping your potential customer up in a soft, warm snuggie!  When someone is considering investing money or making a big purchase you want them to feel confident, warm and snugglie about purchasing from you!  Rather than uncomfortable, unsure, and uneasy because this leads to shopper’s remorse and refunds.

You can create social proof in many different ways. Below are 3 tips and examples to Social Proof Your Business:

1.  Testimonials of Success.

Do the testimonials you have from clients reflect the success you brought to them through your coaching, writing or product?  A testimonial should provide social proof to the reader.  Having a testimonial that simply states “Alicia Rocks” is NOT Social Proof.  Be sure to always include a headshot along with links to their website when you display their testimonial.   If you can get them to do a video – even better!!  People will connect with them

You can display testimonials in many different ways on your website and social networking sites.   Ask for them from those that have downloaded your freebie or enjoyed your free tips from your blog.  Let them know that it will be a great opportunity for exposure for their business as well.

2.  Social Media

Hook your website up to provide your social media social proof (say that 5x’s fast!).  Install a Facebook Like Widget on your sidebar that displays info from your Facebook Page.  You can set it to show the purdy faces of your Likers – it will by default show their friends faces first!  Twitter also has plenty of widgets that you can add to your blog or website that will pull in your feed.  Use Tweet-stimonials to display your favorite tweet-stimonials of success to your website.  LinkedIn offers a feature for people to recommend you that does mimic testimonials.  Ask your clients to make recommendations of your services or products on LinkedIn.

Don’t forget you must also establish yourself as The Expert or The Go-To person for your fans and followers.  You can do this by participating on their pages more than your own.

3.  Be Creative!

There are several different items that I gave consideration to for this last tip but I am going with BE CREATIVE!  Come up with creative ways to incorporate Social Proof into your online presence.  Be a guest blogger for a well-known website, ask to interview a well-known guru that your viewers can benefit from, or display pictures taken with high-level professionals in your industry.

About Ali: Ali Rittenhouse is a Digital Diva + Tech Cheerleader.  She has a talent for unpacking digital mysteries into simple steps even non-geeks can master. Ali is on a mission: to activate a new generation of tech-powered trailblazers–women who bust stereotypes, break glass ceilings, build six-figure empires from their living room sofas, and show the world who’s boss.  She offers training and coaching for women entrepreneurs and their tech-savvy assistants. Check her out at – http://aliciarittenhouse.com/.

Now it’s your turn: What have you done to use Social Proof to your advantage? Please share your testimonial of success in the Comments below.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

The 10 must-have messages you need for your brand

Posted on by Red Slice

Want to know one of the most-often misquoted sayings in our culture?

It’s Ralph Waldo Emerson’s take on consistency: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

Often this is quoted without the word “foolish” which changes the whole meaning of this nugget o’wisdom He’s not saying consistency is bad, per se, but that consistency which doesn’t serve a purpose, which is foolish, is really the sticky wicket.

Consistency in your branding and messaging efforts is vital if you want to be memorable and get noticed. An old marketing adage suggests that you need to hear a message 5-7 times before it really sticks  – and I’d hazard a guess that this number has gone up in today’s crowded marketplace. I often tell my clients that if your message is vastly different each time you say it, then it’s like you’re starting the counter back at zero each time. How the heck will that help people really remember you and slot your brand in the right place in their brains?

Enter the Key Messages Document.

You’re busy enough running your business and managing everything on your own to have to sit down and re-create the wheel each time you need a new brochure or have to send someone a blurb about your company. Make you life easier and make sure you create these 10 core messaging elements once, and then use them over and over again to save time and hassle.

Because I love you, I created this handy dandy worksheet for your downloading pleasure that breaks down the Key Messages you should have in your brand toolkit. Once you fill this out (after thinking through your brand strategy, of course) keep it handy: pin it to your shortcuts menu, post it up by your desk. And watch how easy peasy it will be for you to fill out that form or zip off that email to a partner or advertiser. The added bonus? I give you a Messaging Platform to fill out that will serve as the foundation for all your future copy, from website to sales pitch to whatever. This is a godsend if you tend to work with different writers on different projects and helps them hit the ground running.

Download this Key Messages Document now and enjoy it with my blessing….

As Emerson said, foolish consistency is pointless and ridiculous. But consistency that not only saves you time AND achieves your business goals is actually a pretty smart move. (Tweet this!)

Aaaannnndd….for some more juicy advice on the four keys to creating magnetic messaging, please check out this Red Slice TV show video on MySourceTV. I think you’re gonna LOVE IT!

Photo Credit: Betsy Weber, Flikr

What other elements or processes in your business do you find go more smoothly with consistency? Do you streamline and repeat something in particular to save your sanity? Please share in the Comments!

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

How to finish: 5 tips for making wild dreams come true

Posted on by Maria Ross

It’s February, which means about 80% of your New Year’s goals are already shot, right? Why is dreaming up our big ideas so much easier than making them happen? Today’s insightful guest post from entrepreneur and content marketing expert Betsy Talbot will change all that.

When you embark on a big project for your business, even one as essential (and fun!) as branding, it’s easy to get lost in the details and spin out of control. Either your list of actions or decisions grows so big you can’t possibly finish it (so you don’t even start), or you make a serious dent in the list but run out of steam before you finish.

It is frustrating to be gung-ho about something important and watch it wither away to apathy or outright frustration before it is finished.

My husband Warren and I are pros at getting things done. It has always been true, but it is even more so since we first had the idea to travel the world in 2008. We eventually made our journey into a lifestyle media business called Married with Luggage that we kept for many years (we retired it to pursue other entrepreneurial ventures), and we created books and videos to show other people how to create the life they really want from the life they already have. We challenged ourselves personally and creatively to do new things, publicly and privately, and we mostly succeed.

I’m not writing this to brag. I’m writing because people notice these things, and we get this question a lot via email and in person:

Why do we accomplish so many of our personal and business goals while other people struggle to even get started on theirs?

While we’d like to think it is because we are superhuman (only because we could then justify wearing shiny costumes and capes), the answer is much more practical.

In fact, it consists of just 5 basic steps which I’m going to share with you today. Tip #1 is…

1. Goals have deadlines

In our book, Dream Save Do: An Action Plan for Dreamers, my husband Warren and I wrote that a dream without a deadline is already dead. This is true if your goal is as big as a trip around the world or as small as making one sales call per day.

After you’ve determined a goal, whether it is to move, start a side business, paint your house, save money, get a new job, or lose weight, the first step is giving yourself a finish date. Without it, you won’t push yourself to get it done, no matter how much you want it. The status quo and routine of life is too comforting, too hard to break out of, without a specific reason to do so.

When we start a writing project, the first step is to give ourselves a publish date. From the very first word of the project, we know when it is due and how many words have to be written each day to make it happen. When we decide to travel to a new destination, we pick a date to go/arrive. We may leave a lot of details open after we decide to do something, but we never shrink back from a deadline.

The action of setting a date propels you to begin the work to make your goal a reality. (Tweet this!)

2. Take action on dreams every single day

You can’t really be part-time about your goals and dreams or you’ll never reach them. Many people think life is changed by big steps, huge events, and giant milestones, but the truth is that big, lasting change happens in the tiny steps and choices you make every single day. The cumulative effect of those small steps is what brings about the milestones and big leaps everyone around you thinks happened overnight.

Before we left on this journey in 2010, we sold a few possessions every single week for 2 years. Creating Craigslist ads isn’t glamorous, but it took this daily attention to decluttering to free us up to leave (and pad our bank account at the same time).

Now we use the same strategy to carve out time to write books, set up an editorial calendar, manage our websites, edit photographs, practice languages, exercise, market our books, and contribute to other websites. We also make time to connect with our friends and family around the world every week. Most people think we’re on permanent vacation, but it is because we do these essential things that we continue to live a life of travel and experience.

You don’t get something for nothing.

The small actions you take on your goals every single day are a better predictor of overall success than your perfectly drafted plans or good intentions. (Tweet this!)

3. Don’t be afraid to try something new or make a mistake

When you want to accomplish more things, it means you’ll be doing more. It may sound simple to spell it out like that, but people forget. And when the things you want to get done are new to you, you are bound to make mistakes.

Warren and I screw up regularly, but we typically don’t screw up twice on the same thing. The key in all this new activity is to learn from what works as well as what doesn’t so you continually improve as you go. When you eventually become good at one thing, it opens up space in your life to become a beginner at something else.

When we were in Peru we signed up for our first multi-day trek. We had zero experience other than walking, and we came very ill-equipped to handle the rigors of the journey. We were wet and tired every single day – we didn’t even bring rain gear during the rainy season! – but we learned a lot. Since then, we’ve become pros at trekking and do it all over the world.

The key is to never stop making mistakes because it means you’ve stopped trying new things. (Tweet this!)

4. Know how to take negative feedback

Opinions are like asses: everyone’s got one. And sometimes the person giving you his opinion is an asshole. But getting things done requires a certain amount of rubber to your skin. You will always have critics, even when you do amazing things (Campbell’s Soup says thousands will lose jobs after Betsy Talbot selfishly cures common cold! Details at 11.). Sometimes the feedback is justified and you can learn from it, making you or your project better, and other times you’re going to just have to let it bounce off.

The key is divorcing your personal feelings of worth from feedback on your endeavors, both good and bad. Failure or mistakes on a project do not equate to failures or mistakes as a human being. This is also when you discover that some people will love what you are doing for the exact same reasons others hate it. You will never please everyone, and knowing this from the start will help you keep moving – and learning – when negative feedback starts.

When you can step to the side and view feedback in a more objective way, it allows you to glean the lessons and discard the trash quickly and productively. (Tweet this!)

5. Track actions and results

Whether you geek out like we do with a spreadsheet or you journal your progress creatively with video or art, staying on track with a goal requires tracking. If your project is longer than a day, you will forget what you’ve done, the brainstorms you had for what to do next, or the ideas others contribute along the way. Tracking also keeps you from veering off into unnecessary tasks as your attention wanders.

Weight Watchers has built their entire business around tracking food and calorie intake daily and weighing weekly. Athletes keep track of their personal best performance times so they can improve. Project managers track everything from software development to building houses.

We keep track of the metrics on our website, Facebook page, and book sales, learning what works and what doesn’t. We track our pitches to other websites, radio, and magazines. We monitor our daily writing counts when working on a book. We make a list of all the things we want to see/eat/do when we arrive in a new location so we won’t forget.

It can be as simple as a small notebook or as elaborate as a software program.

You’ll reach your goals faster if you know what to do, when to do it, and what happens as a result of doing it. (Tweet this!)

How you can get more things done

Whether you have one big dream in mind or just want to accomplish more of the small stuff on a regular basis, these 5 habits will create the perfect environment to make it happen. We work these habits every day, and they have given us a life we once only dreamed of. (In fact, that’s why we never had it before: we were only dreaming!)

  • Set a firm deadline
  • Take daily action on your goals
  • Don’t be afraid of mistakes and trying new things
  • Learn from negative feedback (and ignore it when there is nothing to learn)
  • Track your actions and results

Betsy and Warren Talbot show people every day how to make their biggest dreams a reality with practical, step-by-step advice that works. Check out their book, Dream Save Do: An Action Plan for Dreamers, to find out how you can make your wildest dreams a reality. (EDITORIAL NOTE: It’s fantastic!) 

Which one tip will you put into practice today to make your dreams a reality? Tweet me @redslice and let me know!

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Why small businesses need to pay attention to engagement

Posted on by Red Slice

Today, here’s a juicy guest post by small business writer Erica Bell about why engagement matters.

Starting a business isn’t easy, I know. Small business owners wear many hats, from CEO to Marketing and HR Manager, and are constantly under a time crunch. While managing the business from sunrise to sunset may already be a challenge, small business owners can’t forget to pay attention to customer engagement. Because smaller businesses often have smaller marketing budgets, they need to pay attention to engagement, something that doesn’t require a large financial investment. Customer engagement is how small businesses can drive loyalty, create return customers and boost starting off sales.

Build Loyalty

Small businesses need to spend some time engaging with customers and building customer loyalty. A customer who supports your business from the beginning and has a great experience will return for more! When small businesses get started, it’s the return customers who build the business. Make sure you are engaging with these early on customers to build their loyalty. How? Be personal and responsive to customers and see those same customers return and spread the word.

  • When a customer is engaged with a company, they develop deeper emotional commitment to the companies, granting them an average 33 points higher Net Promoter® score (NPS®), a common measure of customer loyalty (Bain & Company).

Increase Sales

Engagement with customers can lead to an increase in sales. Customers are likely to share their fantastic experiences and interactions with your brand with their friends, family and in some cases the general public. You can keep engaged and satisfied customers coming back while attracting new ones. Remember, it costs more for your business to acquire a new customer than it does to keep current customers. Engaged customers tend to stick with your business longer, buy more often and refer your brand to their friends. (Tweet this!)

  • Customers who engage with a brand online report spending 20 percent to 40 percent more on that brand, or on that company’s products (Bain & Company).

Provide Better Service

Customer engagement and the customer experience often go hand in hand. When you know where your business is falling short in terms of customer service and the customer experience by engaging with customers, either through social media, your business phone or review sites, you can alter your current strategies for better performances in the future. Engage with your customers to find what they do and don’t like and what they would like to see from your business in the future.

  • Poor customer experiences result in an estimated $83 Billion loss by US enterprises each year because of defections and abandoned purchases (Parature Customer Service Blog).

When engaging with customers, make sure your employees are friendly, personal and knowledgeable. Great personal experiences and great customer engagement leads to great customers who talk about your business and brand in a positive light. Help your business stand apart from the major corporations by providing better, more engaged responses to customers, no matter how they choose to contact you. Engaging with customers can make your job as a small business owner easier. You can cover your marketing, customer service and sales bases all at once!

About Erica: Erica Bell is a small business writer who focuses on topics such as small business call center software and making the most of a business phone system. She is a web content writer for Business.com, Media Inc.

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How to do SEO in 5 minutes (really)

Posted on by Red Slice

Guest post today by digital marketing veteran Linda Rubright

If it is any solace to small business owners, bloggers or online entrepreneurial dreamers, please know the big companies are just as confused about SEO as you are. In my 15 years in helping companies from the extremely big ones to the one-person-shop-small-ones the single commonality amongst all in regards to SEO is – confusion – confusion in regards to the best SEO approach, best SEO tools and whose advice to trust – this week.

In all of this I see countless companies and individuals throw their hands up and decide to rely on other online and offline website traffic driving strategies instead of attempting to decipher the seemingly indecipherable SEO world.

But, I would highly encourage you not to do this.

And here is why: regardless of what the SEO industry would like you to think and what their constantly changing often contradictory information may make you think – SEO is not difficult. It is not even close to difficult. There are a few (seven to be exact) easy (I swear) things to do which when you get in the practice of doing can make enormous differences in getting traffic to your site. AND the bonuses of this? It take five minutes to do and from my experience those who do it typically reap great SEO rewards very quickly!

7 Steps on How to Do SEO in Five Minutes:

1. The first step is the most important one and it does not require any tools (hurrah!).

Before writing a new post think about the two or three keyword phrases which most accurately describe what you are going to write.

As an example, let’s imagine you are writing a post on the best Mexican restaurants in Denver. The two or three keyword phrases that would perhaps best characterize the content of your post (and would also be realistic terms people would use when looking for great Mexican restaurants in Denver) could be:

“Denver’s best Mexican food”
“best Mexican restaurants in Denver”
“top rated Mexican restaurants in Denver.”

It is important that you are as specific as possible. You do not want to pick “best restaurants in Denver” for your post because you are then placing yourself in competition with every other post online that discusses the best restaurants in Denver, Mexican or otherwise.

Likewise you do not want to select “best Mexican restaurants” because then you are competing with every post that was ever written about Mexican restaurants (in Denver, Dallas, Dusseldorf and beyond).

However, when you select keyword phrases such as “best Mexican restaurants in Denver” or “top rated Mexican restaurants in Denver” these are keyword phrases which both describe exactly what your post is about and likely reflect phrases people would actually enter in Google, Yahoo and Bing when looking for information on great Mexican restaurants in Denver.

As our keyword phrases are a bit long, we will select two of the three to optimize our post:  “best Mexican restaurants in Denver” and “top rated Mexican restaurants in Denver.”

2. Put selected keywords in the headline of your post 

The headline, also sometimes called the H1 in the SEO world, is the actual title of the post. The headline is the first great place to look for opportunities to include your keywords.

A great SEO headline for our piece could be, “The 10 Best Mexican Restaurants in Denver”. This is a great choice for a headline because it includes one of our keyword phrases and it let’s potential readers easily understand what the post is about. A win-win!

How to do SEO headlines (also called the H1)

3.  Put your selected keywords in the URL

With most blog and website tools, the URL will default to a version of the title of the post. If you are using Wordpress you can change this default to be able to enter your own specific URL by going to:

Settings > Permalinks > Custom Structure and enter /%category%/%postname%/

URLs are another great place to include your keywords! As we used one of our keyword phrases “best Mexican restaurants in Denver” in our headline we will use our other selected keyword phrase in the URL as follows: www.mywebsite.com/top-rated-mexican-restaurants-in-denver.html. The ‘-‘ between each keyword is critical as this indicates to search engines where one word stops and another begins.

How to optimize URLs for SEO

4. Get the selected keywords in the content of your blog 

Your keyword phrases should be in approximately 2 to 5 percent of the total content. As an example, if your post is 500 words you should mention your keyword phrases in about 12 or so of these 500 words.

Please note, the keyword phrase “best Mexican restaurants in Denver” is five words. As you already mentioned this keyword phrase in your headline you only have seven more words to include to meet your keyword quota. If you were to mention “top rated Mexican restaurants in Denver” once and perhaps “best Mexican restaurants in Denver” another time somewhere in your post you have more than met your keyword phrase quota!

5.  Name your images with your selected keyword phrases 

Imagery is a great way to make your post appear a bit more interesting (and appetizing). It is also a great way to include selected keyword phrases in your post.

For example, let’s say you had a picture of a veggie burrito from one of the mentioned restaurants in your post. Typically this picture’s default name would be something like dsc1010.jpg, which does not help in terms of SEO.

However, you could name the photo: veggie-burrito-from-one-of-the-best-mexican-restaurants-in-denver.jpg and this would be a good boost for SEO. It is a bit more work but a great way to help include your keywords in your post, support your SEO efforts and even have a chance for showing up when in image searches!

Further, you can include your keywords in the ALT image text and the caption. The ALT image text is the content that is displayed if the image does not appear due to slow Internet or other technical issues. It is also the text that appears if you rollover the image. Great SEO content for the ALT image tag and the caption could be, “Veggie burrito one of the best Mexican restaurants in Denver.” (The ALT Image text and the caption can be the same.)

How to name images for SEO

6. Include your selected keywords in your page title 

The page title is the clickable link that shows up in Google searches.

Example of how page titles and meta descriptions appear in search results.

It also shows up at the very top of your post.

Where page titles appear on your post or page

The Page Title is considered the most important SEO element and as such it is very important for you to include your selected keyword phrases in it. Using our example you would name your page title:

Top 10 Best Mexican Restaurants in Denver | Top Rated Mexican Restaurants in Denver

Efforts should be given to make each page title approximately 70 characters. Each keyword phrase can be separated by a ‘|’ or a comma.

Many people make the mistake of giving their business name precedence in the page title. Remember, it is very likely that if you Google your business name you will show up on the first page (likely at the very top). SEO is about ranking for keywords you do not rank for; it is not about ranking for keywords in which you already rank, so it is likely not necessary to include your business name in page titles and other SEO data.

If you do not have SEO features (page title, meta description) already built into your post functionality and if you are using Wordpress, I recommend the Yoast SEO plugin.

7.  Add your selected keywords into your meta description

This is the few sentences that appear in search results below the page title which describe the content of the post. It is a great feature to help people understand what your page is about and as such it is a great place to also include your keywords. Meta descriptions should be approximately 140 characters.

A good meta description for this post could be: “Get the local knowledge on the best Mexican restaurants in Denver and see which restaurants in Denver are considered the best by the locals.”

 

How to add in page titles and meta descriptions with Wordpress Yoast SEO plugin

….

Linda Rubright

Linda Rubright is a veteran of the digital marketing arena with over 15 years in the space. She has worked with companies from major Fortune 5s  to small start-ups in the US and around the world. She also is the founder of The Delicious Day, a blog on living and working well. She can be reached at linda@thedeliciousday.com.

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

4 powerful business lessons from James Bond and Skyfall

Posted on by Red Slice

James Bond…entrepreneurial guru?

I recently saw Skyfall,, the latest installment in the Bond franchise and it was incredible. Not normally a Bond fan, I loved Casino Royale, wiped the awful Quantum of Solace from my memory, but thoroughly enjoyed this latest turn. The characters were complex and flawed, the performances brilliant, the pace lively and Daniel Craig does wonders for an expensive suit. I left the theatre like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster. My husband – a native Scotsman – even dared admit, “I have to say that Daniel Craig can now be crowned the best Bond, even better than Connery.” Blasphemy! But very true.

That said, our favorite Secret Agent can also teach us some powerful business lessons. So strap on your Rolex submariner, put on your X-ray sunglasses and climb inside your tricked-out Aston Martin as we review Bond’s best advice:

  1. Stick to the basics: We’ve grown accustomed to Q loading Bond up with spectacular gadgets before each mission. In Skyfall, we watch with delight as Bond confronts his age by meeting the newest Q, a young techie hipster that wouldn’t look out of place at Apple’s Genius Bar.  One assumes Bond will get some sort of iPod mets Kinect device or some Google-developed driverless car. But no: Q simply hands Bond a Walther PPK, which is a small automatic pistol, and a  tiny tracking radio. Even Bond is surprised but it turns out that’s all he needs when in a pinch and Q mocks him by saying something like, “What? Were you expecting another exploding pen?” In our age of the next new shiny object coming out every 5 minutes, it’s easy for entrepreneurs and business owners to forget the basics and get lost in the glitz. But often, it’s the old, simple secrets that make the best weapons for your business success: building your brand strategy before throwing away money on tactics, delighting customers, collaborating in person over coffee, providing quality products/services, delivering what you promise.
  2. There’s always a way through: Many scenes in Skyfall leave viewers thinking, “Oh, he’ll never find a way out of this one!” And then, of course, Bond continues to chase the bad guy onto a moving train, escape an island run by a madman and outsmart an evil mastermind and all his henchmen with just his wits, resourcefulness and resolve. No matter how bleak it seems, no matter how much you think you’d stop running or surrender, Bond shows us that ingenuity can help you see every problem in a fresh way. If you are facing business challenges, step back and look at the issue from another angle. If sales are down, should you offer a new product or service, or adjust your prices? If no one is reading your blog, can you clarify your brand value or find other avenues to promote each post? If prospects don’t know who you are, can you partner with someone else for more exposure? There’s a million ways to look at a problem and a million levers you can pull before you throw in the towel.
  3. Stay calm under pressure: There’s an awesomely sexy scene in Skyfall where Bond crashes into the passenger car of a speeding train. As the surprised onlookers gawk, he maintains his balance, straightens up, adjusts the cuffs on his impeccable suit and proceeds to walk through the train car calmly as he continues chasing his man. That’s grace under pressure.  When things hurtle out of control, customers demand attention and you are juggling 637 things at once, how do you respond? Do you handle everything calmly and get the job done, or do you freak out or run and hide? It’s up to you to tame the chaos and say no to things that prove distracting.
  4. Control the conversation: Towards the film’s climax, Bond realizes he’s constantly one step behind his nemesis. Bond is reacting to, rather than controlling, the conversation. He sets a trap and then lures the baddie to his turf where he can now proactively make the moves he wants to make and keep his enemy off-balance, rather than vice versa. Sometimes, in business, we react to the everyday fires and demands that others are making on us, rather than keeping our eye on the ball and charting a clear course to our mission. We end up slaves to a to-do list, rather than making time to achieve our long-term vision. We need boundaries: not checking email every second, or making sure people know we only return phone calls between 3 and 4 pm, or whatever system works for you. Get your strategy sorted first and work towards that before you let the seemingly urgent but ultimately less important demands on your time take over. Change the conversation to the one you want to have.

Any other business lessons that Bond (or other movie heroes) have taught you? Please share in the Comments below and get some link love back to your site!

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Avoid the strong-arm: 3 tips for smarter small business marketing

Posted on by Red Slice

I’ve been hearing some disturbing stories about Yelp‘s aggressive (and sometimes intidimdating) sales tactics to purchase paid advertising – and recently got to experience it on the phone firsthand on behalf of a local nail salon owner friend. I’m still gathering info about this to approach a WSJ reporter who could investigate these claims further and fairly get Yelp’s side of the story. (PS, if you have a story to share, please email me) Makes me not want to use them anymore, and I used to love them.

One small business owner I know claimed that when she turned the ad sales rep down, he said, “Well, this will destroy your business, you know.” Another story I heard was that someone had signed a year long contract with them – and claims it was the worst mistake he ever made and wished he could get out of the contract.

But since this is all circumstantial, and this is a blog of my own perspectives and opinions (and not an investigative journalism outfit), I wanted to instead share three must-do tips to avoid being strong-armed into making poor marketing choices:

  1. Know your audience: Sounds obvious, but be crystal clear on your target ideal customers. Not just “women” but what age, income? Where are they and what do they do for a living? What do they care about? What are their hobbies and interests? Build this character profile and you stand a much better chance of asking the right questions of advertisers to ensure you’re not wasting your money. (Tweet this!) For example, if your business appeals more to high-income working moms in urban areas, you can avoid spending money on advertising to stay-at-home moms or young teen women, let’s say.
  2. Ask about the ROI:  Ask for references, proof points or statistics. If they say their website traffic is “really good” ask to see a breakdown of unique visitors and where they are coming from.  If they say their other advertisers are seeing great results, ask for case studies or if they will let you speak to at least 3 of them as a reference check. Ask if there is any guarantee on performance or credit given if things underperform – do they provide performance statistics for you? Don’t be afraid to ask an advertiser to prove their claims. (Tweet this!) And make sure if you invest that you do so for a test period and track your sales and visits accordingly. Recently, I placed an ad with HARO and they have not responded to requests to provide click through data on the ad. Lesson learned: I should have done a better job of tracking that myself!
  3. Talk to others: Don’t be afraid to reach out to other local small businesses or others in your field and ask about what they are hearing regarding the outlet. Collaborate with others and don’t pretend you know all the answers. (Tweet this!) This will save your butt and avoid mistakes. For example, if you are part of the local SBA, merchants association or a networking group (even one online), ask others if they’ve invested in what you are considering and what their success has been. One small business owner I talked to shared that a business which could have been perceived as competitive shared his negative Yelp advertising experience with other similar businesses in the area, just to help them avoid the same mistakes. There’s enough to go around, and wee’re all in this together so ask about and share these lessons.

Now, I want to hear from you: Have any other hard-earned tips? And do you have a negative experience to share about Yelp or some other similar outlet? If so, please leave a Comment below (or shoot me an email at maria@red-slice.com if you prefer).

Cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive™

Follow your dream Part 2: How Cartograph Wines creates an experiential brand

Posted on by Red Slice

Wine is such an experiential brand, I absolutely adore it. Not just for it’s lush taste, but no other everyday product in my mind comes close to evoking so much emotion, lifestyle or delight of the senses with one glass clink. There are so many branding lessons we can learn from our favorite wines and how they behave as businesses.

Continuing my interview with Alan Baker, Cartograph’s wine maker and owner, who we had the good fortune to meet on a trip to Healdsburg, California back in August. In Part One, we heard Alan’s amazing tale of how he got from radio engineering in Minnesota to winemaking in Northern California – and the four lessons he learned to make it happen.

Today, Alan shares how he effectively creates an experiential brand and differentiates from the competition.

RS: Glad to have you back, Alan! Tell us Cartograph’s brand story. How do you position it against the competition? What experience do you hope to convey and how do you do that in your customer interactions? 

AB: Both Serena and I come from other careers and we each found wine in different ways. Our brand story is right on our label. The logo shows the five points on the globe that brought us to wine and then brought us together to make wine. Wine is more about emotional connections and memories than simply about the perfect taste and aroma combinations. Putting a graphic representation of our story on the label helps people remember us and hopefully keeps our story in their minds if they have a great experience with our wines. (Tweet this!) Our brand is about those wonderful moments when an experience with a great bottle of wine gets etched into your mind forever. And while the front label tells our story, the back label plays to our nerdier side, illustrating the growing season and winemaking history for each wine. So looking at the labels you can get a sense for what the growing season was like for each vineyard.

If our customers know anything about us,  it’s that we personally handle every piece of our business from grape sourcing, through winemaking, and then personal correspondence after they buy our wine or join our club.

RS: What is the best branding lesson you have learned from building an “experiential” brand? What are some brand hits or misses you’ve experienced?

AB: Focus focus focus. Do one thing really well before branching out. (Tweet this!) As a winemaker, I’d love to play with a dozen grape varieties but we needed to knock Pinot out of the park and doing that first was my main goal. Now that we’ve had success with Pinot, we can do a few small specialty wines for club-only release but our public face is all about Pinot Noir.

What brand actions work? Winning fans by talking directly to them on social media and through other channels. Our most loyal clients are all connected with us on various platforms and we share a lot of ourselves with them.

Things that don’t work? We’re still learning the best way to run promotions to increase sales during slow times or to move more volume but discounting is not the way to do it in our circumstance. People see a premium product being discounted and they will wait until they see that price again to buy. There are other incentives to encourage purchasing. We can’t compete on price point due to our vineyard sources and tiny lot sizes. We have to give wine lovers an experience to remember and hopefully they become our friends.

RS: Wise words. What is your winery’s specialty wine or most popular seller that people should try?

AB: We are a very small winery and celebrate year-to-year vintage variations. A great example of how weather affects the finished wines is comparing our 2009 and 2010 Floodgate Vineyard Pinots. 2009 – warm year – is lush and round on the palate, a classic Russian River Valley Pinot. 2010 – cool year – is racy and vibrant with the focus on bright red fruit. It is a truly elegant wine that should be very age worthy. Both are great examples of Russian River Valley Pinot but quite different when tasted side by side.

RS: Now, some fun stuff! What is your favorite way to enjoy wine?

AB: Working as many hours as we do, we don’t have a lot of free time but those warm evenings when we get home in time to enjoy a glass of wine while plucking a few things out of the garden for dinner is a real treat.

Connect with Cartograph Wines: www.cartographwines.com ~ Twitter ~ Facebook

Is your brand a commodity competing on price, or an experience that offers unique value? How does this impact your marketing tactics? And don’t forget to check out Cartograph for some great wine gifts…ho, ho, ho!