Jake Snelson - Vyde

Prepare for Holiday Sales Now So You Can Avoid Stress Later

You may be wondering why we’re talking about holiday sales before November, but we believe you can never prepare too early. The holiday shopping season will arrive before you know it and without a concrete plan, your business could miss out on the biggest shopping time of the year.

Obviously, the first step in preparing for holiday sales is determining what you will be offering your customers. In order to this, you should look at your sales goals for the year and what kind of discount you can realistically afford to offer. Once you’ve determined that, you’ll want start making other preparations. Here are a few things to make sure you plan out for your holiday sales.

Prepare Your Website for Increased Holiday Sales Traffic

If you own a business, then you probably have a website (or online platform) where you direct customers to make purchases. The website traffic during your holiday sale could lead to slower loading times or even a possible website crash. Last year, 39% of e-retailers claimed they lost money due to website performance or stability problems. Instead of settling for what could happen, you need to take action to prevent these situations.

The first step is to talk with your website host. Make sure that your website can handle an increase in traffic. You should also make sure that you have enough bandwidth to handle a lot of people visiting your website at the same time. Most users will give up within a couple of seconds, so you should aim for two seconds or less. The faster the better.

Next, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. Over 50% of emails are opened on phones. So, 50% of the people who read your email will view your website on his or her phone. If it doesn’t load or is hard to use, then you’ll lose those customers. Optimize your website for mobile so you don’t lose out on these interested customers. Again, you’ll need to keep your load time low; however, it can be slightly slower than a computer load time, but just slightly.

Next, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. Over 50% of emails are opened on phones. So, 50% of the people who read your email will view your website on his or her phone. If it doesn’t load or is hard to use, then you’ll lose those customers. Optimizing your website for mobile should be a top priority. Again, you’ll need to keep your load time low.

Plan a Strategy for Reaching Your Ideal Customer

A marketing plan is an important part of any sale, but the most important part of the marketing plan is reaching the right people. Small business owners should take advantage of marketing techniques that don’t cost a lot but, reach a lot of people. We have found that email and social media marketing are best for small businesses.

Email marketing is a great way to reach people who are actively interested in your business. These people gave you their emails because they want to hear from you. The best way to increase your reach is to keep building your email list. You can use your deals and sales to get people to sign up for your list. Once you have a great list of interested people, you can create an email marketing campaign that drives sales.

Business owners know that social media is a great marketing tool, but it can be hard to implement. A lot of the time businesses focus too much on marketing and not enough of the social aspect of things. First and foremost, social media marketing needs to be social. You need to respond and interact with your followers so that you can build trust and build community.

Once you have that down, you can move onto targeting your ideal customer. Hashtags are the perfect tool to zero in and reach your ideal client. Some platforms even let you target your posts to a certain group of people. Just last week, we used Facebook’s targeting feature and had 854 organic impressions on a single post. We didn’t pay a dime to reach those people. We just targeted people who would be interested in the post. It was a simple way to reach our ideal customer.

Prepare for the Post-Holiday Sales Madness

Everyone knows that holiday sales can create mania, whether online or in a retail space. However, we tend to forget about the post-holiday madness. This time is spent with people returning or exchanging items, taking advantage of the super sales as retailers try to get rid of the rest of the holiday stock and so much more. You need to prepare your team to handle all of this.

One way to make things a little easier on your customers and your team is to refine your returns process. Train your employees to follow a system that makes returns easy on them and your customers. You should also make sure that everyone is aware what your returns policy is. Post it at your register so that customers can see it and they don’t try to fight with your cashiers over it.

When you’re setting up your returns policy you should encourage people to keep spending his or her money at your store. You can do this through two ways. First, you can try to get people to exchange their items rather than just return them. Perhaps, you can hire a personal shopper who can assist customers and help them find an item that works better for them. Your second option is to adjust your return policy to have customers receive in-store credit or gift cards for their returns. That way, you don’t lose out of the revenue, just because of a return.

What other things do you do to prepare for holiday sales? Leave a comment and let us know.

FAQs for Preparing for Holiday Sales

Why is it important to prepare for holiday sales early?

Early preparation ensures that your business is ready to handle the increased traffic and demand, helping you maximize revenue and avoid potential issues during the busiest shopping time of the year.

How can I ensure my website can handle increased holiday traffic?

Speak with your website host to confirm that your site can handle a traffic surge. Ensure you have sufficient bandwidth and optimize your site for fast loading times and mobile compatibility.

What are some effective marketing strategies for reaching my ideal customer?

Email marketing and social media marketing are cost-effective strategies. Build and utilize your email list and engage with your social media followers using targeted content and hashtags to reach your ideal customers.

How can I optimize my returns process for post-holiday sales?

Train your employees on a streamlined returns process and clearly display your return policy. Encourage exchanges or offer in-store credit to retain revenue from returned items.

What steps can I take to make my website mobile-friendly for holiday shoppers?

Optimize your website for mobile use by ensuring fast loading times and easy navigation on smartphones. This helps capture the significant portion of customers who shop via mobile devices.

How a Human Resources for Small Business Can Solve Your Small Business’ Problems

A human resources department is a great asset to businesses of any size. The moment you take on employees your business becomes more complicated. Without a human resources (HR) department it can become overwhelming to handle all the issues on your own. However, if you have a human resources department they can handle the small stuff and only come to you with the big stuff.

Human resources teams can handle a lot of different issues. We’re only going to cover three of these areas today. However, because the scope of an HR department is far reaching, you should determine which areas you need help with in your business and find a HR manager that can help tackle your problem areas.

Human Resources Handle Hiring

If you’ve grown your small business from a one-man show to a thriving business, it can be hard to relinquish control, especially when it comes to bringing people onto your team. However, this is a great task for your human resources team. HR professionals know how to find the right people for the position.

First of all, a lot of the hiring process doesn’t need to be done by the business owner. Your HR team can help you by sorting through resumes and cover letters, a tedious task that is essential to finding the right candidate. They can do online searches of your applicants.

Once you and your team have selected the potential candidates, the human resources department head can interview the applicants. Once they’ve narrowed the selection, you or the department head for the open position can do a final interview and choose your new employee.

Taking all of these steps off of your plate and using a HR team to do them, frees you up to continue running your business.

Human Resources Provides Conflict Management

Conflict arises no matter how great a company, it’s employees or it’s management team is. It’s unavoidable. However, having a way to handle those issues is where a good business can become a great business. A human resources team is equipped to help handle conflict.

According to Joseph Grenny, co-founder of VitalSmarts, a company that focuses on training and organizational development, every unaddressed conflict wastes around eight hours of company time, either through gossip or other unproductive activities. You can avoid this by urging your employees to talk to their HR rep about any issues that arise in the work place.

This is especially helpful to handle manager-employee situations. Many employees worry that they can’t express any issues to their managers without losing their jobs, which creates a hostile environment. HR reps can help employees address issues with their managers in a safe place. Then they can work with managers to solve the issues.

Human Resources Can Increase Employee Retention

A company that values its employees is more likely to keep them. Simply having a human resources department shows your employees that they have someone who is looking out for them.

The HR department is going to become the voice of the employees. Which means as a small business owner, you should listen to suggestions or complaints that come from HR. They are telling you how your employees are feeling. If you want to have a great company you need to listen to everyone, especially those at the bottom of the totem pole.

FAQs about Human Resources for Small Businesses

What role does a human resources department play in small businesses?

A human resources department handles various issues, including hiring, conflict management, and employee retention, alleviating burdens for business owners.

How does HR assist in the hiring process?

HR professionals manage tasks like sorting through resumes, conducting online searches, and conducting initial interviews. They streamline the hiring process, allowing business owners to focus on core operations.

Why is conflict management crucial in a small business setting?

Conflict is inevitable in any workplace. HR serves as a mediator, resolving disputes between employees and managers, fostering a positive work environment, and saving company time lost to unproductive activities.

How does HR contribute to employee retention?

By valuing employees and providing a supportive environment, HR helps increase employee retention. The department serves as a voice for employees, conveying their concerns and suggestions to business owners for a more inclusive workplace culture.

Why should small business owners heed HR recommendations?

HR represents the pulse of the workforce. Listening to HR insights and addressing employee feedback fosters a collaborative environment and contributes to the overall success of the company.

Get the Money You Need to Grow Small Business Today Through Factoring

We invited Bjorn Peterson, Owner of Flex Business Capital to share his thoughts on small business financing, specifically an alternative to traditional bank loans – factoring.

Today your business doesn’t need to rely on bank loans or struggle with cash flow – factoring is the smart alternative to traditional small business financing through banks. For example, a trucking company was in a huge growth stage yet was short on cash to make payroll. We worked with them to quickly provide cash based on the many invoices they were waiting to collect, rather than them waiting for customers to pay. Success! The trucking company met their payroll obligations and were able to hire additional employees to meet their growth needs.

What is factoring?

Call it factoring, invoice factoring, factoring financing, asset based financing or accounts receivable financing – these all describe using your account receivables, your customer invoices, to quickly and simply improve cash flow. Basically, your company receives money now for invoices that will be due in the next 30, 60 or 90 days. Factoring financing can quickly provide your company immediate cash from $5,000 to $10,000,000.

This cash flow infusion from factoring financing can be used for anything, such as:

Paying outstanding bills and taxes
Buying additional equipment or inventory
Taking on new business opportunities and customers
Hiring new employees and making payroll
Expanding into new markets

What types of companies use factoring? No matter what a company’s industry or situation, factoring is a great resource for funding. Factoring helps companies that:

need cash immediately and can’t wait for a bank loan to be approved
have outgrown their banking relationship and are looking into different financing options
are unable to obtain sufficient financing from their bank due to bad credit
are new start-ups who have no credit history and aren’t able to qualify for bank loans (Banks typically require a company to be in business for 2 years before they will extend a line of credit!)

Oil and gas, trucking, business services, staffing agencies, manufacturing, wholesale, technology, telecom, digital businesses and online enterprises – all types of industries use factoring financing.

Invoice factoring can particularly help small and mid-sized firms because it offers flexibility and immediate working capital. Large companies can also benefit from invoice factoring, but the additional cash flow is often more needed for start-ups and growing businesses.

So, how quickly can you get cash with factoring financing? Today. Yes, that’s right, with factoring you can receive funding today or within a very short period of time, rather than waiting 30, 60, or 90 days for payment from customers. No credit history, like with a start-up, or bad credit are okay because approval is based on the credit of your clients, not your credit. Even if you’ve had trouble qualifying for other forms of financing, factoring is a viable option.

Introducing Your Factoring Partner – Flex Business Capital. Ready to see what factoring can do for your cash flow situation? The process is simple and can be done online by visiting FlexBusinessCapital.com. You’ll enter some information about your business and receive approval for your funding the same day. Our goal is to be your partner in growth for the entire life of your business.

Say goodbye to strict bank requirements and long credit applications. Small business factoring provides you instant cash with zero debt and more flexibility. Try factoring financing for your business today at FlexBusinessCapital.com.

Bjorn Peterson is the Owner of Flex Business Capital. Flex Business Capital offers small businesses factoring financing to solve cash flow problems without debt, so they can focus on growth and success.

FAQs about Factoring Financing with Flex Business Capital

What is factoring?

Factoring, also known as invoice factoring or accounts receivable financing, is a financial solution where businesses sell their accounts receivable (invoices) to a factoring company like Flex Business Capital to improve cash flow.

What types of companies benefit from factoring?

Factoring is advantageous for companies that need immediate cash, have outgrown traditional banking relationships, struggle with bad credit, or are startups with no credit history. Various industries like oil and gas, trucking, staffing agencies, and technology firms utilize factoring.

How can businesses use cash obtained from factoring?

The cash obtained from factoring can be used for various purposes such as paying bills and taxes, purchasing equipment or inventory, seizing new business opportunities, hiring employees, and expanding into new markets.

How quickly can businesses access funds through factoring?

Unlike traditional bank loans, factoring provides quick access to funds, often on the same day. Approval is based on the creditworthiness of clients, not the business itself, making it suitable for startups and businesses with poor credit history.

Why choose Flex Business Capital for factoring financing?

Flex Business Capital offers a seamless online process for businesses to obtain factoring financing. With a focus on providing instant cash without accumulating debt, Flex Business Capital aims to be a long-term growth partner for businesses across various industries.

5 Essential Content Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Reach

Last month we discussed what content marketing is, and today we want to provide you with a few essential content marketing ideas for your small business. Choosing the right content marketing tools are a vital part of developing a successful content marketing strategy.

We’ll go over the top 5 content marketing ideas, so that you can see and understand how they work. Then you can choose one or two of them to pursue for your business. These are in no particular order, so it doesn’t matter which options you choose. All of them work in different ways, so you can pick whichever works best for you and your business.

Content Marketing Idea #1: Infographics

Infographics display data in a visual format. They are usually long vertical photos that shows different statistics using graphs, or other visuals. Infographics are effective because they give audiences a lot of information, but they break it down so it’s easy to read and understand.

Infographics are especially effective on Pinterest, because they take up a lot of space. When you create an infographic you should make sure it links to a page or blog post on your website. That way when people want to learn more about the infographic they saw, they can easily find your website.

Content Marketing Idea #2: Blog posts

A lot of businesses don’t realize that they’re utilizing content marketing when they write a blog post, but it’s one of the most common content marketing ideas.

Consumers want to be informed before they buy a product. Which makes blog posts a great content marketing tool. If you can become an authority in your field and consumers trust you, then they’re more likely to use your products or services.

When you’re creating blog post as part of your content marketing you need to make sure that you’re addressing concerns that your customers have. That way you’re providing value instead of being salesy. If you’re ever stuck and need ideas for content, ask your audience! They’ll be happy to tell you where they’re struggling and then you can be the one who solves their problems.

Content Marketing Idea #3: Podcasts

Podcasts and blog posts are closely related. but the way the content is delivered changes. What we love about podcasts is that they feel more personal than a blog post. Hearing someone’s voice helps you feel closer to them.

A great feature of podcasts is using guests to help educate your audience. Inviting guests to your show is beneficial for you and your audience. It allows both of you to make a new connection and exposes you to a new perspective. If your guest promotes their experience on your show, you will also be able to reach a whole new audience, which will, hopefully, boosts sales!

Content Marketing Idea #4: Books

Writing a book may seem like a big commitment just for marketing, but it can be a great content marketing idea. Because a book is a lot of work, you want to be able to get a lot of use out of it.

A book is a great way to grow your email list. A book is an incredibly valuable opt-in for potential subscribers. You can either provide an ebook, which subscribers can download after they’ve subscribed to your list. Or you can have your book published and have the subscribers pay for shipping costs. When people have to put money into the product they’re more likely to value it.

If you don’t want to use your book as an email opt-in, it’s a great way to make a passive income. Who said content marketing had to be free? There are a lot of ways to self publish books without spending a lot of money. Again you can do an ebook or a printed book. You will be able to charge more if you provide a printed book. You can either sell your book on your website or through a site like Amazon.

Content Marketing Idea #5: Videos

We’ve saved the best content marketing idea for last! Video is the most popular type of online content. People are ten times more likely to engage with video content, which means it’s a great way to introduce people to your brand and tell them what you can do for them. The best content marketing videos are funny or witty, which makes them more shareable. The Squatty Potty is an excellent example of successful video content marketing.

After you have your video concept planned and you’ve shot and edited your video you need to get it in front of your audience. There are two ways to go about this. The first is finding hosting for your video. If you’re not a technical person, this can sound confusing, but it’s really simple. You need somewhere to upload your video to and you probably already know where that is: YouTube. YouTube is, by far, the most viewed video site. YouTube is also owned by Google, and we know that Google promotes content hosted on it’s sites. So, not only will your video be on the biggest video platform, but Google will also prioritize it in searches.

The second place you’ll want to use your video content is on social media. Facebook users alone watch 100 million hours of videos a day. This means that social media is the perfect place to share your videos. You can share video on almost every social media platform. You can either share the full video, a link to your video, or a short clip of the video. When you’re sharing videos on social media platforms just make sure you add a message with a call to action to promote more engagement with your video.

Which content marketing ideas stuck out to you? Let us know by leaving a comment.

FAQs About Essential Content Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

What is the benefit of using infographics in content marketing?
- Infographics are effective because they present complex data in a visually engaging format, making it easier for your audience to digest information. They are especially powerful on platforms like Pinterest, where they take up more space and can drive traffic back to your website.
How can blog posts help with content marketing?
- Blog posts are an excellent content marketing tool because they allow you to provide valuable information to your audience, build trust, and establish yourself as an authority in your industry. By addressing common customer concerns, you can help solve problems and attract more leads.
What makes podcasts a good content marketing strategy?
- Podcasts are a personal way to connect with your audience by allowing them to hear your voice and engage with your content in an intimate format. Inviting guests can broaden your reach, expose your brand to new audiences, and build stronger connections with your listeners.
Why should I consider writing a book for content marketing?
- Writing a book can help you build credibility, grow your email list, and even generate passive income. Offering the book as an opt-in for new subscribers or selling it online can be a great way to attract potential customers and offer valuable insights that resonate with your audience.
How do videos enhance content marketing efforts?
- Videos are one of the most engaging forms of content and can significantly increase brand visibility. People are much more likely to engage with video content, and platforms like YouTube and social media make it easy to share videos widely. Using humor or creativity can make your videos more shareable and help you reach a larger audience.

7 Daily Habits for Success that Entrepreneurs can Learn from the World’s Most Influential Business People

If you talk to the most successful business owners, you’ll find that they have a few habits in common. We’ve listened to these people and have compiled a list of seven habits for success that are used by some of the top business men and women in the world.

Meditation

Meditation is no longer just used by yogis and monks. It’s one of the top tools CEOs and other successful people, use meditation to manage stress. The goal of meditation is to bring peace, joy and happiness to your life.

There are a lot of different types of meditation and there isn’t one right way to meditate. You need to do what works for you, even if that just means sitting quietly for a few minutes. As long as you find peace and aren’t thinking about how much you have to do, then you’re doing it right!

Here are a few types of meditation you can try:

As you’re cultivating your habit for success try using meditation. It’s a great way to clear your head and relax when you have a lot of pressure on your shoulders.

Schedule Your Day

Time management is one of the best habits for success! It’s a great tool for achieving business goals and still having a personal life.

Living by a schedule can help you stay focused and accomplish your to-do list, which is another habit successful people use. You don’t have to schedule out your day by the minute, but it’s good to have an idea of what you’re doing every hour. Time blocking is a great method for keeping a loose schedule that allows for flexibility when you need it. You can learn about time blocking, to-do lists and other helpful habits in our previous post, 5 Organizational Habits for Small Business owners.

Another way to really utilitize your time is to multi-task. A lot of successful people try to combine less important tasks. Mark Cuban, a businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, reads his email while exercising.

Combining tasks like that is a great way to get the most done in a day. Just make sure you aren’t multi-tasking everything. Some tasks need your full attention in order to produce quality work.

Make Time for Fitness

Most business owners devote 80% of their time to their business and 20% to the family or social lives. Which means they don’t leave time for themselves.

As we discussed, practicing meditation is good for your mind and implementing that habit can help your mental health. However, you really should take time for your physical health as well.

Exercise is one of the habits for success that you can’t leave out.

You don’t have to become a body builder or a cross fit junkie in order to be fit. (Although, if you can do those, good for you!) Just spend 20-30 minutes a day exercising.

There are so many benefits of exercise, all of which can help you build your business. We’ll just list a few of these benefits.

Increases endorphins
Improves mood
Lowers your risk of heart disease and diabetes
Gives you more energy
Teaches goal setting (and accomplishment)
Improves memory

Pick a time during your day when you can fit in exercise and stick to it. Use the time blocking method that we talked about before so that you can dedicate a time to your fitness.

Meal Plan & Prep

Along with fitness, eating healthy is an important habit for success. It goes hand in hand with exercise, you really have to use both to be healthy.

There are a lot of benefits to eating healthy. As an entrepreneur these will benefit you directly:

Increases productivity
Keeps you alert
Helps you sleep better
Relieves stress
Makes you smarter
Boots your immune system
Spikes energy levels

As a busy entrepreneur, you don’t have a lot of time to create healthy and delicious meals every day. It’s hard enough to grab fast food when you’re in the middle of work.

Meal planning and prepping can help you stay on track with your health. In order for meal planning and prepping to work you have to devote time each week to plan and prepare your meals. Experts recommend starting with the meal you have the most trouble with. For instance, if you’re always running out for lunch, start by planning a week’s worth of healthy lunches. On Sunday spend an hour putting them together so that throughout the week you can grab one out of the fridge and be ready to go. Once you’ve tackled one meal, move on to another one.

In the age of quick information, reading is becoming a lost art; however, successful people still cling to reading as one of the most important habits tor success.

Reading can give you a leg up in the business world. It doesn’t necessarily matter what you read, but you should cover the three main categories: read the news, read for pleasure and read to learn.

First, reading the newspaper is an excellent habit to get into. Staying up to date on current events has many benefits. First, you can keep track of the market and make smarter business decisions. Second, knowing what is going on in the world makes you more intelligent, which builds trust. Finally, you will be able to hold a conversation with anyone because you know what is going on and can form an opinion on it.

Reading for pleasure is important as well. It’s a great stress reliever. When you take the time to read something you want to read, reading becomes a form of self care. Which can improve your health. Reading for pleasure can even help you become a better analytical thinker!

Reading for knowledge is one of the habits for success that the best business leaders sear by. People such as Warren Buffet, Mark Cuban and Malcom X all attribute their success to reading and learning. They’ll all tell you that you need to keep educating yourself beyond your formal schooling.

Keep Learning

We alluded to this in the previous habit for success, but it’s so important that it deserves it’s own subject!

If you want to be successful in business and in life you can’t stop learning just because you have a diploma. Learning is critical to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Especially, where technology is constantly changing how businesses run.

There are a lot of ways that entrepreneurs can continue their informal educations. Like we said before, reading is the best way. Try to read as much as you can. If you want to learn about a specific topic, look for an online course. Podcasts are another great option for entrepreneurs. You can listen to tips from experts in your field and while doing other things.

Don’t forget that your experiences are great ways to continue learning. Anytime you have a new experience take time to analyze it and see what you can learn from the situation.

Be Thankful

Being thankful might seem like an odd habit for success, but it’s the most important one.

Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful overnight. In most cases, it’s going to take a long time for you to reach your dreams.

It doesn’t matter what stage of success you’re in, remember to be thankful for what you have and to the people who have helped you along the way.

Do more than just think about what you’re thankful for. Show people how thankful you are for their support. This could mean donating to charity, or giving your supporters gifts.

You’ll find that your life is happier when you focus on the good and let the rest roll off your back.

Just Because You’re A Creative Entrepreneur Doesn’t Mean You Have to Live Paycheck to Paycheck

Taking the plunge into entrepreneurship, especially creative entrepreneurship, is intimidating. One of the scariest parts of entrepreneurship, is never knowing where your next paycheck is coming from. Which means most creative entrepreneurs live paycheck to paycheck.

But, what if you didn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. What if you could be a creative entrepreneur without living on a fixed income. There are ways to stretch your paycheck so that you can stop living paycheck to paycheck and start building financial stability. We want to help you break the paycheck to paycheck cycle.

Start Saving

When you live paycheck to paycheck, you typically aren’t saving a lot of money. However, if you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck, building a savings is the first step.

Having three to six months worth of savings will help you stay out of future debt. Even if you have a great debt reduction plan you never know when you’ll have an emergency and need to make a payment that is outside of your budget. If you don’t have savings then you’ll end up creating more debt to cover the emergency expenses.

It may seem impossible to save money when you live paycheck to paycheck, but there are ways to make it happen. We’ll suggest a few as we go along.

Reduce Debt

Most people who live paycheck to paycheck are swimming in debt. They rely on credit cards to get through their monthly expenses. Like we mentioned before, unknown expenses can really hurt, especially when you rely on credit cards to cover those expenses.

We know what you’re thinking right now. “How am I supposed to pay off any debt when I live paycheck to paycheck?” There are ways to reduce your debt even when you don’t have an influx of cash.

If you have bigger loans, like a car loan or mortgage, see if you can restructure your loan and roll your debts into one payment instead of many payments.

Loan restructuring works because car loans or mortgages typically have lower interest rates than credit cards. If you have the equity in your car or home, you can get the money to pay off the credit cards. You can then make a bigger payment, at a lower interest rate, on the newly restructured loan.

This method can be complex, so speak with an accountant before you jump right into restructuring your loans. You should always understand what you’re doing with your money before you make a big decision such as this.

Build Wealth

There are two ways to increase your cash flow: reduce your expenses or bring in more money. Both options can help you break the paycheck to paycheck cycle.

You can determine what expenses you can reduce within your own budget. We want to talk about how you can bring in more money.

As a creative entrepreneur, this is easier said than done. You have to either find new clients and put in more hours or find a way to use your skills to create a passive income.

Work on Getting Consistent Clients

The hardest part of being a creative entrepreneur is that your clientele is not consistent. You usually work with someone once and then don’t hear from them again until they need your services. This cycle is what keeps you in the paycheck to paycheck predicament.

If you want to break that cycle, you need to change how you run your business. Try setting up packages that will commit clients to more than one service. Or you can use an email list to reach out to your clients and see if they are interested in other services you offer.

Whatever strategy you choose, try to generate new sales from your current clients so that you don’t have to work as hard to bring in more revenue.

Create Passive Income Streams

Passive income streams are a great option for creative entrepreneurs. With a passive income stream you create a product that you can sell to multiple people. Passive income streams are helpful in generating new revenue. It’s also great when you don’t have time to devote to individual projects.

As a creative entrepreneur you can sell photographs, printables, pre-made products. The main point is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time producing each individual product.

Ultimately, you can choose if you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck. you just have to make decisions that will lead you towards a financially free life.

Why Keeping Track of Your Product Inventory is Essential to Your Small Business Success (Plus a Free Inventory Tracking Sheet)

Keeping track of product inventory might just be an entrepreneurs least favorite task. However, it’s necessary if you want to be a successful business owner.

Tracking product inventory is useful for multiple reasons.

It lets you know what products are best-sellers.
You can save money by not over ordering.
Free up space by only ordering what you need.

We’re going to help you develop habits that make taking inventory easier so that you can easily keep track of your inventory.

Identify Product Inventory Patterns

Product inventory patterns are helpful so that you can keep your shelves stocked and never miss out on a sale. You need to determine which items are flying off the shelves and which ones are sitting, so that you can keep up with your customers.

It may take a couple months of consistent tracking before you see patterns. However, once you begin to look for patterns, you will see them. Once the patterns become apparent, you can start making smart decisions regarding ordering.

Figuring out what products aren’t selling can help you save money. You don’t want to over order and lose money on products you can’t sell. Retailers lose about 3.2% of their revenue in overstocks. Keeping track of your product inventory can help lower that number.

Another important trend, or pattern, to look for is which products sell during different seasons. Obviously, summer products are going to sit on the shelf during December and January. And Christmas items aren’t going to be in high demand in June. However, seasonal items will be in high demand for a couple of months and you don’t want to lose out on revenue because you didn’t keep enough in stock.

To avoid this, research your past sales and set goals on what you want to sell this year. Then, make your order. Also talk to your supplier on rush orders, just in case you exceed your goal and need to order more products.

Prioritize Top Selling Items

It’s important to keep your most popular products in stock at all times. In a day and age where people can find just about anything online, and for a cheaper price, it’s crucial to keep your most sought after products in stock.

Typically 80% of your demand is for 20% of your products. Running out of these popular products can result in a 4.2% loss in overall revenue.

In order to avoid running our of your top selling items, create a system that prioritizes these items. Perhaps they are the first items on your inventory tracker, so that you can always do a quick look to see where you’re at. Another good way to prioritize these items is to use a visual system. Mark your most popular items so that you can quickly look around your storage and check up on those items often.

Whatever method you use, just make sure you have what you need so that you don’t lose out on sales!

Create an Product Inventory Backup Plan

There are so many options for tracking product inventory. Some people may suggest one system over another, but ultimately, the best system is the one that works for you and your business. Whether you choose a system that uses barcodes, tracking by hand or a visual system, just make sure it’s effective in your business.

However, if you choose a system that is online or needs a computer in order to know how much product inventory you have, you need to have a backup plan. What are you going to do if the system’s server is down? What if you lose power and can’t access your systems? Can you continue with business as normal?

If you rely on technology for your inventory use a thumb drive to back it up. You could even print it off and keep it in a safe place in case you run into a issue next time you do inventory. You can look at your backed up copy to see the differences. It doesn’t hurt to let your accountant know how much you have in inventory either. Plus, we love all of kind of stuff!

How to Determine if Content Marketing is the Right Choice for Your Small Business

We all know that the marketing landscaping is changing. Traditional marketing such as television or print ads, billboards and phone books aren’t effective. When was the last time you even opened a phone book? Content marketing is the new wave. It’s a great way to draw customers in and help them learn about your business. There’s just one thing holding back. What is content marketing exactly?

There’s no reason to be embarrassed about not understanding content marketing. Most business owners use it without even realizing it! According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

There are two parts of content marketing that are the most important: valuable content and profitable customer action. We’ll discuss how to achieve both and why it’s good for your business.

Content Marketing Should be Valuable

Content marketing only works if your customers get value from your marketing. This makes it hard to come up with content because everyone is different and what some fine valuable, others don’t. The best way to see if your content has value is to follow these guidelines

Is it findable? Great content is only valuable if people can find it. This means that you need to search engine optimize (SEO) your content with relevant keywords so that people can find it when they do a search.
Is it readable? Readers have short attention spans, so it’s important to make sure your content is easy to read. Breaking information down into bullet points and using section headers can really help with this.
Is it actionable? Like we mentioned before, your content needs to make your audience take action. A call to action is necessary for great content marketing.
Is it shareable? Going viral is a real thing, and it can be great for business. People should be excited to share your content with their friends. When they share your content, it increases the number of people you reach.

If you follow these guidelines, your content will be valuable, no matter what the subject is.

It’s easy to understand why valuable content is good for the consumer, but what does it do for you and your business? The way people make purchases has changed. Most people will do a lot of research before they make a purchase, so if you can be a part of that research process, people will come to you ready to use your services. Which, brings us to our next point. How can we turn content marketing into profitable customer action?

Content Marketing Should have Profitable Customer Action

Although the marketing landscape has changed, the goal of marketing hasn’t. In order for content marketing to bring in more business, you have to get customers to take action. This action doesn’t necessarily have to be to make a purchase, although that is the end goal. Sometimes action means sharing a post, leaving a comment on a video or contacting your sales team.

In order to get customers to take action you have to prompt them. This prompting is referred to as a call to action (CTA.) A call to action needs to tell your customers exactly what you want them to do. The following tips will help you write a killer (and effective) CTA.

Use strong verbs to promote action (buy, order, sign up)
Elicit emotion to draw customers in
Tell them how you’ll solve their problems
Put a deadline on the CTA so that people want to take advantage of it now!

There are two stages in converting content consumers in customers. The first stage turns visitors (either of your website or social profiles) into leads. This is the convert stage. In the convert stage you are trying to get your visitors to head your call to action. In most instances you call to action will lead them to a form where they can give you their contact information. Once you get their contact information, you can turn a visitor into a lead.

Managing customer relationships is how you can turn your leads into customers. This step is called the close. The close may require a sales team member to contact your lead and pitch them your product or business or simply answer questions the lead has. Once your team has made the close, you’ll want to keep in touch with your customers and make sure they are still happy with your business and your products. As long as they are, you’ll turn your customers into promoters. Which is the best kind of customer you can have.

As you can see, content marketing is consumer focused, but the payoff is well worth the effort. Check back in next month and learn about what types or content marketing you can use.

FAQs on Content Marketing for Small Business:

What is content marketing exactly?

Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a defined audience and drive profitable customer action.

How can I ensure my content is valuable to my audience?

To ensure valuable content, make it findable through SEO, readable with concise formatting, actionable with clear CTAs, and shareable to increase its reach and impact.

Why is valuable content important for my business?

Valuable content engages consumers during their research phase, positioning your business as a trusted resource, leading to increased conversions and customer loyalty.

How can I turn content marketing into profitable customer action?

By incorporating effective calls to action (CTAs) that use strong verbs, elicit emotion, offer solutions, and include deadlines, you prompt consumers to take desired actions, ultimately converting leads into customers.

What are the stages in converting content consumers into customers?

The convert stage involves turning visitors into leads through CTAs and forms, while the close stage entails managing customer relationships to convert leads into customers through sales interactions and fostering customer satisfaction to turn customers into promoters.

What is the Widow’s Exemption?

The widow’s exemption reduces the tax burden on widows by reducing the amount of a widow’s taxable income. States individually determine the widow’s exemption rules and laws for themselves. It is not a federal exemption.

Most commonly, the widow’s exemption effects the state inheritance taxes. When one spouse dies, he or she typically leaves all, or most, of his or her estate to the surviving spouse. The widow is then exempt from paying state inheritance taxes on his or her dead spouse’s estate.

Because it is a state by state exemption it’s important to understand what the laws are in your state. Federal laws don’t regulate what each state can do. If you don’t understand the widow’s exemption in your state, it’s best to talk with a tax professional.

Some states apply the widow’s exemption to property taxes. Florida is one of the states that give widows an exemption from property taxes.

The Widow’s exemption is only available to widows who remain unmarried after his or her spouse dies. This applies to exemptions from inheritance and property taxes. In the eyes of the government, you are no longer a widow when you remarry; therefore, any remarried widows would have to pay taxes.

Widow’s Exemption Scenario

Mindy’s husband passed away six months ago. When Mindy met with her Certified Public Accountant (CPA) after her husband’s death, she learned that she was able to take advantage of tax breaks for widows.

Mindy will still file last year’s taxes as married filing jointly because her husband would still need to pay any taxes owed. However, going forward she can file as widowed, unless she gets remarried.

She can also take advantage of the widow’s exemption. In Mindy’s husband’s will he left his entire estate to her. Mindy isn’t currently working, so she doesn’t have the funds to pay the taxes on the inheritance. With the widow’s exemption she can keep the inheritance to live on without having to pay taxes she can’t afford.

How to Respond to Bad Reviews of Your Small Business on Yelp & Google

Online reviews provide a forum for customers to share their experiences with a business. Which is outstanding if you have positive reviews, but if customers are posting bad reviews it can hurt your business.

You can’t remove bad reviews from online review sites like Yelp and Google; and you shouldn’t want to! Trying to remove bad reviews, no matter how untrue or unfair they are, shows that you aren’t able to take criticism. It also makes it look like you aren’t willing to be honest and open about your company. Instead of trying to get bad reviews removed, learn how to respond to them.

Use the following tips to respond to bad reviews.

Apologize to the Reviewers for a Bad Experience

You never want your customers to have a bad interaction with your business, but eventually it’s bound to happen. When you are responding to reviews the best thing you can do is acknowledge your customer’s dissatisfaction and apologize for it. This doesn’t mean you are taking all the blame for the situation. You’re just apologizing that they didn’t enjoy your services. A simple, “I’m so sorry you had a bad experience.” shows that you care about your customers.

Nothing turns the mood from anger to understanding quicker than seeing a small business owner show humility. A simple apology can help you change the mind of a disgruntled customer, or (and perhaps better yet) it can change the mind of a new customer who saw that despite a customer’s bad experience the business owner went out of their way to try to right the situation.

Address Specific Points of Bad Reviews

Have you ever been in an argument where the person you’re arguing with just keeps listing things you’ve done that upset them? That’s basically what’s happening when people are reviewing your business online. They’re mad about something and boy, do they let you know what went wrong!

When a reviewer starts to list the ways you’ve upset them, start taking notes. These points will give you concrete issues to address in your response. Try to address each point that your reviewer mentioned. In your response, you’ll want to do the following things:

Thank your reviewer for letting you know where issues are in your business.
Let the reviewer know how you are, or are planning, to address the issue.
Explain what may have caused the issue and again, explain how you plan to fix it.
Offer an olive branch. This doesn’t mean you need to pay them back for their bad experience, but offer to have them visit your business again and give you a second chance.
Give the reviewer a way to reach you. This shows that you are sincere in wanting to fix their bad experience.

Try to Resolve the Issue

Bad reviews can easily offend small business owners. Especially, when that review is unfair or a down right lie. However, if you can change your perspective and take the bad review as constructive criticism, then you can change a bad reviews into an opportunity to improve your business. If the reviewer mentioned a legitimate issue within your business, you must take their advice and make a change.

Like we mentioned in the previous point, you need to tell your customers how you are addressing their concerns. This validates the customer and lets him or her know that you are always striving to improve. When a customer sees that a business is doing their best and wants to improve, it can change their perception of the business. This means that you can turn a negative review into a positive one. If a customer sees your response and is impressed with you, they may edit or even remove their review. It never hurts to try and change the mind of a customer who had a bad experience.

Now that you have a few tools to respond to bad reviews you can combat those internet trolls. Just keep in mind that a constant stream of bad reviews can be indicative of a deeper issue for your business. However, if you occasionally have a bad review, then it is probably an isolated incident, and now, you know how to deal with that.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Responding to Bad Reviews

Should I try to remove bad reviews from sites like Yelp or Google?
No, you shouldn’t try to remove bad reviews. Removing them can give the impression that you’re unable to handle criticism and lack transparency. Instead, focus on responding professionally to show you value feedback and are committed to improving.
How should I respond to a bad review?
Start by apologizing for the customer’s negative experience. Acknowledge their dissatisfaction and express regret without necessarily taking full blame. A simple, sincere apology shows you care and can help calm an upset customer or even positively influence potential customers reading the review.
What should I address in my response to a bad review?
Address each specific point raised by the reviewer. Thank them for their feedback, explain what caused the issue if possible, and let them know how you’re planning to fix it. Offering a resolution, like inviting them back for another try, shows sincerity and commitment to improvement.
How can I turn a bad review into a positive opportunity?
Use bad reviews as constructive criticism. By addressing legitimate concerns and making changes to your business, you demonstrate that you’re constantly striving to improve. This can lead to changed perceptions and, in some cases, the reviewer may even update or remove their negative feedback.
What should I do if my business receives multiple bad reviews?
A constant stream of bad reviews might indicate a deeper issue within your business that needs to be addressed. Review the feedback to identify recurring problems and work on resolving them. Occasional bad reviews, however, are likely isolated incidents and can be managed with the strategies mentioned above.

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Author: Jake Snelson