Would you like to get more new customers without spending a dime? Business referrals are a great way to increase your business’s customer base while developing long-term business relationships that will have a positive impact on your bottom line.
In this episode of “The Little Big Show,” small business expert Denise O’Berry shares three simple steps you must take to get better business referrals today.
How to Get Better Business Referrals in Three Easy Steps
Do you know how to be happy? Or are you waiting for happiness to find you?
Despite what the fairy tales depict, happiness doesn’t appear by magic. It’s not even something that happens to you. It’s something you can cultivate.
So, what are you waiting for? Start discovering how to be happy.
How to be happy: What science tells us
Only 10 percent or so of the variation in people’s reports of happiness can be explained by differences in their circumstances. It appears that the bulk of what determines happiness is due to personality and — more importantly — thoughts and behaviors that can be changed.
So, yes, you can learn how to be happy — or at least happier.
I was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and grew up during World War II. Dad sent us to a farm on the outskirts of Maribor to be away from the city bombings, and he went to Austria to make arrangements for us to move.But with the war ending, he was unable to get back.
When I was 9, my mother wanted to escape Yugoslavia to reunite with my father. So in 1945 she paid a man to take me across the border to Austria, but we were caught. He was arrested, and I was released. My mother, sister, and I tried again several days later but could not get anyone to take all three of us.
So she paid another man to take me across, but he only took me part of the way. He told me to stay on the road until I came to the house at the top of the mountain. There was only one house visible in the distance, and I walked and ran toward it. It was getting dark, and I was scared. I could hear voices and several gunshots. Inside that house my father waited for me. My mother and younger sister followed months later.
Back then I had only two dresses to wear to school, and they got shorter and shorter as I grew. I hated feeling out of place and really wanted to have clothes that fit and were appropriate. Having a limited wardrobe, I always dreamed of clothes.
Theres a growing number of startups focusing on the food market. Thats likely because, as VC Dave McClure says, the market opportunity for food technology is huge.
Last year, investors poured in roughly $350 million into food startups, according to CB Insights. Last month, Food Hackathon hosted its inaugural event in San Francisco with the goal of teaming up entrepreneurs, developers, and designers to create products geared toward the food ecosystem. And just last week, Seamless and GrubHub announced a merger, bringing even more attention to food startups.
Investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. has released its 26th semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” consumer insights project, which pointed to a sequential sign of spending moderation and tempered intent to spend across multiple categories and household income levels.
“Our fall 2013 survey results suggest teens are experiencing general spending fatigue across key categories, specifically fashion related items. The absence of a clear product catalyst is a key contributing factor to diminished spending proclivity. Intent to spend also moderated, despite over two-thirds of teens signaling confidence the economy is stable to improving,” Steph Wissink, co-director of research and senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, said in a news release. “We are also observing trends that imply teens are browsing regularly on their mobile devices, shopping less frequently and engaging with brands ‘on demand’ on their own time. This dynamic alters the assumptions surrounding the square footage and retail inventory needed to service this target demographic. A period of rationalization may be needed.”
Some findings from the survey include:
Learn how to get a better night’s sleep with these 3 tips to beat insomnia.
Relaxation techniques, like deep breathing, getting into a “bedtime routine” of winding down, even journaling those stressful thoughts that keep your mind jumping. These tips can all help you sleep but as the associate nutrition editor at EatingWell Magazine and a registered dietitian, I’m also interested in how to use food to beat insomnia.
Nearly half of all adults have worked in the restaurant industry at some point, and 46 percent of restaurant employees say they would like to own a restaurant someday.
Clearly many people dream of owning a restaurant. No one dreams of owning a failed restaurant, though.
That’s why I asked Tyson Cole, one of the Food &Wine magazine’s 2005 Best New Chefs, 2011 James Beard Foundation Best Chef Southwest, and co-owner of the Japanese restaurants Uchi and Uchiko in Austin, Texas, for tips for would-be restaurateurs.
Just keep in mind Cole’s background is varied, extensive–and unusual.He quit one job after he was told he couldn’t make sushi because he was white; he was rehired two days later but told he had to work in the back where guests couldn’t see him. He was also fired for giving a guest a free dessert; he was rehired when the manager found out the guest was Denzel Washington.
Heres what he says, in his own words, about how to start a successful restaurant:
Driving Green
Buying green is just the first step in reducing the environmental impacts of automobile use. Your choice of vehicle is most important, but how you drive and how well you maintain your car, van, or light truck will also make a difference.
Gillette sits as #18 on Forbes’ Most Powerful Brands list. How does a company that sells disposable razorblades for mere pennies on the dollar have a value of $16.8 billion dollars?
It’s because they leveraged what we now know as the razorblade model of business.
The business came about due to the creation of a disposable safety razor which coincidentally required the use of the blades made by whom? Gillette.
The basic principle of the razorblade model is to leverage a lower priced item (often labeled as a loss leader) in hopes that the customer comes back to your business which offers a premium component to said item. The lower-tiered item should, in theory, be valuable in its own sense but having access to the premium product increases its value and longevity, for the consumer.
These types of businesses have become commonplace.
Take a look at the printing industry which has a stronghold on printing supplies. Keurig, too, has a dominant share on the single cup brewing industry thanks to the inexpensive machine but premium priced K-cups.
The truth is that every business has an opportunity to uncover and leverage the razorblade model.
The following will provide a few tips (and examples) to do so.
Temperatures in New York are increasing, and after 2047 they won’t return to the historical average of the past one and half centuries, according to a study today in the journal Nature.
“Climate departure,” when the average temperature for each year is expected to exceed historical averages from 1860 through 2005, will occur in Jakarta and Lagos in 2029, Beijing in 2046 and London in 2056, according to the study. New York will match the global departure 34 years from now and tropical areas will get there sooner.
The research highlights the urgency of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions because the warming climate may drive some species to extinction, threaten food supplies and spread disease, according to the study. By 2050, 5 billion people may face extreme climates, and migration and heightened competition for natural resources may trigger violence and instability.
“The results shocked us: regardless of the scenario, changes will be coming soon,” Camilo Mora, a geographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Within my generation, whatever climate we were used to will be a thing of the past.”
Dispatches From The Front 