Why You and Your New Business Idea Need to Embrace Reviews | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

September 21, 2016September 20, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

So, you’ve come up with a cool business idea, given it an online presence and now the masses are starting to take notice. Things are going well, but as your business starts to grow you need to find ways to engage customers and get them to part with their cash. One of the best ways to encourage them to hit the buy button is to use reviews.

According to the experts, customer reviews, expert reviews and ratings are extremely effective at boosting customer confidence which, in turn, makes them more likely to make a purchase. As outlined by BrightLocal, 88% of consumers use reviews to determine the quality of a business. Surveying 2,104 US and Canadian consumers, BrightLocal found that only 12% of people don’t read reviews, which suggests that they should be seen as a priority for all online businesses.

5 Tips for Effective Online Reputation Management | All Business

September 21, 2016September 20, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

All businesses need to keep track of an online reputation. It only takes a couple of hours for a bad customer experience to go viral and impact your bottom line. It’s even worse if you don’t know it’s happening and you’re not on top of the situation. Here’s what you can do to improve your online reputation management:

1. Know What’s Going On With Your Brand

The first step to effective online reputation management is understanding what is being said about your brand. You need to be aware of what is happening with your brand, and what others are saying. There are brand monitoring tools like Mention that can help you holistically manage your brand and keep on top of your reputation. Another good idea is to set up Google Alerts so you can see what others post about you.

Factoring: What It Is and How to Choose a Service | Business News Daily

September 19, 2016September 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Choosing a factoring service doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are three things to consider when selecting one for your business:

What type of factoring does your business need?

How much of your outstanding invoices do you need funded and when do you need it?

How much are you willing to pay?

We will help you answer these questions below, but if you already know what you need and just want to see our recommendations for the best factoring service, visit our best picks page.

The first step to choosing the right factoring service for your business is figuring out which type of factoring you actually need. For instance, do you need a factoring service that covers all of your outstanding invoices upfront, or will a partial payment suffice? Do you prefer to keep receiving payments from customers, or will you hand collections over to the factoring company? And do you want to be held responsible to the factoring company if customers don’t pay? These are just some of the considerations we’ll cover below.

The finance metrics that matter most to startups | The Startup Magazine

September 19, 2016September 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

You don’t need to be an accountant to start a company but you should become intimate with key accounting metrics. Lack of financial literacy is the greatest threat to a global surge in entrepreneurship. Most companies fail because their founders had little or no financial acumen.

Such was almost the case with my first company. Pockets filled with seed money, I worked hard on creating nice products and chasing down new customers only to be in deep trouble within a year. The only financial focus I took was to deposit cheques and pay bills. The only metric I looked at was my bank balance and as money ran dry. The less I had in my account the more I looked at it. The disaster was avoided only after I brought in a great CFO and took classes on accounting.

How Creating A Culture Around Coffee Can Boost Millennial Engagement At Work | Forbes

September 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Coffee. It’s the drink we reach for when we need to get excited on Monday mornings or to help us through that Wednesday afternoon slump. Americans love coffee, with more than half of adults drink at least one cup per day. Millennials are avid coffee drinkers too, particularly with espresso-based drinks. According to one study, gourmet coffee beverage consumption among 25-39 year olds jumped from 19% to 41% between 2008 to 2016. The availability of these types of drinks has dramatically increased, as Starbucks has opened over 19,000 stores worldwide since 2000.

This change in coffee consumption started a shift in workplace coffee options. “Office coffee services have traditionally been the worst of the worst,” according to Jesse Kahn, national sales manager for Counter Culture Coffee, “and there’s been a lot of growth in companies recognizing the need for a better coffee experience.” Companies like Mars Drinks, for example, are working to provide higher quality coffee options.

The Top Trends in Franchising Business Today | Getentrepreneurial.com

September 15, 2016September 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When broken down, franchising simply represents methods of distributing products and services. For some time now, entrepreneurship has been the career path for many victims of downsizing and corporate layoffs. Despite the uncertain job market and the unstable economy improving considerably in recent years, business ownership remains a standard means of employment.

Franchising has become a major priority for people who seek the freedom of owning a business without undergoing the struggle of creating a concept from the ground. For that reason, franchising will continue to be a relevant part of the economy. Studies show that when done right, it can be a powerful business model for quick growth. Franchisees win through economies of scale, a defined system, mentorship, and support. As more entrepreneurs look at franchising as a viable path to success, it is vital to understand the emerging trends and how one can take advantage of them.

5 Benefits of Having a Website for Your Small Business | Small Biz Trends

September 15, 2016September 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Last week at SmallBizTrends I shared the statistic that 47 percent of small business owners still weren’t using social media because they didn’t feel it was important to their business. That post spurred a lot of strong comments, both on site here and on Facebook. Eventually the conversation went from whether SMBs should invest in social media to whether they even need a Website or an Internet presence at all.

I really wish we could stop having this conversation.

You probably know some businesses who are doing phenomenally well without a website. I do, too. But I often wonder how much better they could be doing if they took the time to invest in one. And when I say “website,” I don’t mean an electronic version of that brochure they’ve been handing out for the past 10 years. I mean a legitimate, well-thought-out site that is designed to inform, engage and convert their audience.

How Chromebooks Are About to Totally Transform Laptop Design | WIRED

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

GOOGLE’S FIRST CHROMEBOOK was the kind of laptop you’d design if you didn’t give a damn about laptop design. It was thick, heavy, rubbery, boring, and black. Black keys, black body, black trackpad, black everything. Everything about the Cr-48 was designed to communicate that this device was still an experiment. Even the name, a reference to an unstable isotope of the element Chromium, was a hint at the chaos raging inside this black box. “The hardware exists,” Sundar Pichai told a crowd of reporters at the Cr-48’s launch event in December of 2010, “only to test the software.”

Moments later, Eric Schmidt took the stage and preached about how the “network computer” tech-heads had been predicting for decades was finally ready to change the world. “We finally have a product,” Schmidt said, “which is strong enough, technical enough, scalable enough, and fast enough that you can build actually powerful products on it.” Apparently already sensing the skeptical feedback Chrome OS would get, he gestured toward the audience and told them “it does, in fact, work.”

6 Features of Entrepreneurship We Tend to Over-Exaggerate | Entrepreneur

September 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Entrepreneurial preparation and education is interesting. For obvious reasons, preparation matters; the more informed you are about the logistics of business ownership and the interdisciplinary knowledge you need to keep things running smoothly, the better you’ll be able to manage an enterprise.

But at the same time, there are some things about entrepreneurship you can’t learn in business school.

To resolve this gap, many new entrepreneurs seek the mentorship and guidance of more experienced business owners. However, there’s a small problem there, one we’ve all faced at one point or another: Entrepreneurs tend to over-exaggerate some truths about entrepreneurship, which can lead to false expectations, unnecessary preparations and, in some cases, the prospect of scaring people away from business ownership altogether:

7 Hacks for Getting Your Website Indexed by Google | Life Hack

September 12, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Whether you want to connect with others online to sell a product or to raise awareness of a specific cause, it is imperative to get your site indexed by Google. This typically takes a while, and there is also a long process to get your search engine ranking raised. However, there are a few specific hacks you can employ to cut your wait time and improve your ability to quickly be found by qualified leads. Utilizing these hacks is a fantastic way for entrepreneurs to have a more solid launch for each new business venture.