All Entries in the "ManagingSmart" Category
8 Places to Find Your own Free Business Mentor
No matter what type of business or startup you run, having a “mentor” to help guide you can increase your odds of success, big time. Having a wise, loyal advisor – especially one who’s “been-there, done-that” – is like money in the bank. Mentors can’t make decisions for you. That’s your job. But their expertise [...]
7 Ways to Embrace a New Normal for 2013
For business owners, there’s a “new normal” out there, and it doesn’t look a whole lot like the old normal. If your business seems to be on a treadmill, maybe it’s time for a makeover. Put everything up for grabs, including your mission statement, business and marketing plans, budget, sales and expense expectations and more, [...]
5 Ways to Make Service Part of Your Business DNA
Customer service expert Ron Kaufman has a radical notion that great service shouldn’t be as hard as it seems to be for so many businesses to deliver. “Service is everywhere,” says Kaufman, author of the new book Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Customers, Colleagues and Everyone Else you Meet. “But there’s a disconnect [...]
How Return-on-Relationship (ROR) Trumps ROI
Small business owners traditionally view customer relationships this way: You produce a product or service, and customers pay you money, some of which you re-invest in finding more customers. But Bill Lee, author of a new book called The Hidden Wealth of Customers (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) has a different notion. Wouldn’t it be [...]
8 Ways to Deftly Handle Customer Complaints
When a small business receives a customer complaint it has two basic choices: Treat the complaining customer like a pain in the neck, or use the complaint as an opportunity to improve. Business owners who are adept at handling and learning from complaints know all too well that one complaining customer might represent many others [...]
9 Ways to Make your Contacts Really Count
Small business owners and start–up entrepreneurs are often advised to relentlessly network in order to build connections that can help grow the business. But while networking is indeed a valuable endeavor, many business owners connect with the wrong people – or the right people in the wrong way. According to Vickie Milazzo, a bestselling author [...]
How Rock Star Customers can Help You Grow
In an age of digital discovery and social media, here’s something that more and more local business are learning: Existing customers can be one of the most powerful growth engines ever. One way to put this engine to work is to identify and harness the hidden marketing potential in your “Rock Star” customers. But watch [...]
The 6 Vital First Steps for any New Business Idea
You’ve just come up with a killer business idea. What now? Glad you asked, because this is where millions of would-be entrepreneurs stumble without ever getting started. Before you create your product or service, try to raise money, file for a patent or write a business plan, heed these words: That’s not what you need [...]
10 Ways to Build a Can-Do Culture in Your Business
Does your business have “drainers” – people whose negativity drains everyone else’s energy and drags your business down? Or, worse yet, are you a “drainer” yourself? “Nobody sets out to be a drainer,” notes Jon Gordon, a business “attitude” consultant who works with businesses, professional sports teams, universities and other organizations. “It’s just that some [...]
Why You Should Have a LinkedIn Business Page
Although LinkedIn is the world’s largest social media network for business people and professionals, most small business owners still don’t have it on their marketing radar. But that’s changing as LinkedIn itself ads more features aimed at helping businesses market to its 160 million registered users, and more small businesses start taking advantage of this [...]
