Author: knjohn

How Online Reviews Can Make or Break Your Company | Small Business Trends

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Many small businesses constantly chase great online reviews. Because they have become a critical part of the prospect’s decision-making process. But what are the mistakes that they should avoid in the process? And are fake reviews going to dismantle the entire system?

The Impact of Online Reviews on Businesses

On the Small Business Radio Show this week we speak to Jeremy Lessaris. Lessaris founded irevu, an online reputation management company. He discusses how reviews can make or break your company. He says that “a one star drop at a plastic surgery office can cost the company millions of dollars.” They are having even more of an impact because Jeremy adds that Google is now frequently listing reviews in some cases before organic search results.

Read More

Consulting Networking: 6 Best Practice Guidelines | Tom Spencer

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of the more memorable parts of the consulting recruiting process was witnessing people attempting to network with consulting firms. What stood out was that people didn’t seem to have a commonsense understanding of networking best practices. Consequently, I witnessed some networking maneuvers that were simply bad form. I thought I had buried those amusing memories in my past, but this summer students have been seeking to network with me, and so now I’m experiencing some of these less than optimal networking tactics from the other side. Hence, I thought it would be helpful to highlight 6 pieces of tactical guidance for networking with consulting firms.

Read More

Starting a Business: My Expectations vs. The Reality | Business.com

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

You can have a revolutionary business idea, but that doesn’t mean you’re cut out to be an entrepreneur.

To no one’s surprise, starting a business can be tricky. A person can have an amazingly revolutionary, insightful business idea, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that person is cut out to be an entrepreneur. After starting three businesses, and reflecting on my personal and professional journey, I’ve come to realize that while no two business owners’ paths are identical, there are some universal experiences that can help to shed some light on the entrepreneurial adventure. Here’s some of what I’ve learned along the way regarding my expectations vs. reality.

Read More

Pulse Technology Uses Electricity to Quickly Defrost Frozen Windows | Digital Trends

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Nobody likes the winter ritual of defrosting windows on a cold morning. Thanks to an international team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Japan’s Kyushu University, however, such indignities may not hang around for too much longer. They have developed a new way of removing ice and frost from surfaces with impressive efficiency — requiring less than 1% of the energy and 0.01% of the time required for traditional defrosting methods. In addition to car windows, it could be used for other surfaces, such as defrosting airplanes.

Read More

5 Things To Know About Movement Marketing | The Startup Magazine

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Traditional marketing strategies focus on advertising. However, movement or cultural marketing takes a different path. Movement marketing influences customers to either rise up against an idea. As such, the proper use of this marketing strategy can elevate a brand to a brand-fueled experience that relates to your clients. Since this strategy influences the decision of the client, the result is a long-term domination of the market. Here are five things to know about movement marketing.

Read More

Why Your Employees May Be Quitting in the Next 9 Months, According to New Research | Inc.com

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In the past few years, employee retention has become an increasingly prevalent issue for companies, with several studies pointing to the different reasons your employees may be leaving.

Just last year alone, the Work Institute’s 2019 Retention Report found that 41.4 million U.S. workers left their jobs in search of better opportunities, equating to a 27 percent voluntary turnover rate.

By 2023, this number is estimated to increase to 35 percent. The Work Institute conservatively estimated that the cost to lose a U.S. worker is $15,000.

Read More

Ford says its Autonomous Cars will Last Just Four Years | TechCrunch

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The automotive industry has been promoting self-driving cars as a kind of panacea that will solve numerous problems that modern society is grappling with right now, from congestion to safety to productivity (you can work while riding!).

Unfortunately, a very big question that has been almost entirely overlooked is: how long will these cars last?

The answer might surprise you. In an interview with The Telegraph in London, John Rich, who is the operations chief of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, reveals that the “thing that worries me least in this world is decreasing demand for cars,” because “we will exhaust and crush a car every four years in this business.”

Read More

Lambda School’s For-Profit Plan to Solve Student Debt | WIRED

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Early this summer, tech entrepreneur Austen Allred was on Reddit, as he often is, when he noticed something suspicious. The coding forums he frequents, where people usually talk about JavaScript bugs and command line functions, were being suffocated by rants and raves on a particular topic: a coding bootcamp called Lambda School, which Allred happens to run.

To Allred, the posts looked suspiciously robotic. Perhaps a competitor was posting spam to get any mention of Lambda banned from the forums. Maybe it was a bootcamp critic on a tear. Allred had heard that people were spreading rumors he was behind the accounts, trying to gin up more exposure, good or bad, for his startup. “People want us to fail,” he says, casting a glance from under the brim of his signature grey and red trucker hat, emblazoned with the eponymous Greek letter. “People want to think that Lambda is a scam, because they want to believe the results we’re producing are impossible.”

Read More

Why Remote Work Can Help Bridge the Hiring Gap, Especially for Rural Professionals | Entrepreneur

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The current job market tilts heavily in the job seeker’s favor, with a historically low unemployment rate, more open jobs than professionals to fill them, and more people quitting their jobs than any time in the last 17 years.

However, most of the good news for job seekers is in urban and suburban areas. Rural employment has unfortunately failed to recover as quickly or as well as urban employment since the recession.

Read More