Mobile phones are essential to shopping these days, and a majority of cell phone owners say they’re willing to share personal data with merchants in exchange for such things as coupons and discounts.
But navigating mobile marketing can be confusing for small business owners, who must avoid bombarding people with unwanted texts while they’re slogging through crowds of holiday shoppers. So how can local merchants use mobile marketing effectively? Here are six tips.
Employee turnover costs money.
A 2012 study by the Center for American Progress shows that it costs a business roughly one-fifth of an employee’s salary to replace that employee once they’re gone.
These costs show up in obvious and subtle ways.
They show up in the hard costs of hiring a new person (what’s involved with advertising, interviewing and screening). They surface in the training and management time spent onboarding a new employee. More subtly, but no less significantly, these costs also show up in the time it takes a new hire to reach a predecessor’s productivity.
The more turnover a company has, the more these costs eat away at the bottom line. While there’s no way to eliminate employee turnover completely, here are five strategies that companies can implement to make it the exception and not the rule:
We asked members of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) to share their thoughts on what it takes to be a great entrepreneur. Here’s what they had to say.
Grit
“One characteristic which separates good entrepreneurs from great ones is grit. Being an entrepreneur isn’t easy and you won’t always make perfect decisions. However, the leaders who can persevere through both the good and bad times have what it takes to be a great entrepreneur.”
Jeff Martin, EO Minnesota
CEO and Founder, Collective Genius
Networking is just as important today as it was before Linkedin was ever a twinkle in a developer’s neuronal pathways. Alana Muller of Coffee Lunch Coffee reveals how to do it right in 2015.
Many people consider networking a practice that is only relevant when they’re on the job hunt, or little more than a business card exchange. And with the advent of professional online networking platforms, isn’t traditional networking obsolete, anyway?
In Coffee Lunch Coffee, Alana Muller says no. Networking matters because it provides us with a supportive and enriching community and keeps us open to developments in our fields and in the job market. Not only is it as essentials as it was the days before Linkedin and Glassdoor, Muller argues, but it’s a prerequisite to professional success.
So, how do we start connecting with others professionally and in an enjoyable way? Here are two key ideas about networking from Coffee Lunch Coffee that will help you start off on the right foot.
v.18 n. 53 – Released January 12, 2015
In the last decade, technology has made it cheaper and easier to start new businesses, finance them, realize operational efficiencies and scale geographically. It has also empowered customers and employees through social media, which has created opportunities for competitors. While these changes have been transformative, coming technology advances in the areas of smart robotics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and Big Data (“AI Revolution”) will metamorphose how businesses are staffed, operated and managed.
Creating a website can be daunting. Same goes for updating or improving your existing website. It feels like a huge project. You may feel like you don’t know where to start.
The good news is, with the right help and the right tools, creating a website is a very manageable process today.
And it all starts with a good plan. To get started, think through what you need to do. Start making notes to keep track.
The following website checklist, provided courtesy of Verisign, will guide you as you consider key issues and what is involved.
Dear Oprah:
No effing way. I could not believe it when a producer from Harpo Studios got in touch last week, asking if I could perform at your “The Life You Want” San Jose tour stop. I mean, OPRAH WINFREY! I’ve always wanted to hear, “Welcome Revollllllvaaaaa,” as I cartwheeled onstage, to tell you my life story—the profundity of all my lingering student loan debt causing you to weep and then declare to America that I am your new BFF. (Sorry, Gayle!)
And the title of your tour: The life you want? Um, hello! As a performer, writer and activist, I’ve spent 12 years taking a million chances, attempting to live in alignment with my spirit, rather than our toxic culture. I’ve spoken up as a survivor. I’m the female comedy act in a space helmet. You want me in your lineup, right? Your producer was totally calling to add me to your list of “trailblazers,” including Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth Gilbert, right?!?
Ah, but Oprah, you are a wise woman. I should have known that, in the phone call with your producer, there was a deep spiritual lesson in store for me
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants publicly funded community college available to all Americans, a sweeping proposal that would make higher education as accessible as a high school diploma to boost weak U.S. wages and skills for the modern workforce.
The initiative’s price tag has yet to be revealed, and it faces a Republican Congress averse to big new spending programs. Obama was promoting the idea in a visit Friday to Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee, and in a video message posted to Facebook Thursday evening.
You may recall that Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information”. So if you’ve been seeing the Birthdays of people you hardly know appearing UFO-like in your Google Calendar lately, never fear — this is just Mountain View doing its thang organizing your stuff.
Specifically, this bit of Googly info-admin boils down to its algorithms harvesting the birth dates of all of your Google contacts (which means anyone you might email regularly) and any Google+ users you added to the circles of your (in all likelihood Google-enforced) Google+ profile, and then inserting those dates into your calendar so you don’t have to.
Ta-da!
Q: how useful is it to have the birthdays of people whose birthdays you don’t at all need to have in your calendar mixed in with the birthdays of people you do need in your calendar, cluttering up the place where you record other stuff you do really need to know?
A: not useful at all!
Dispatches From The Front 