It’s all in a name… | The Startup Magazine

May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Your domain name is your identity on the web. It is the starting point of your journey online, but more importantly it is the go-to destination for all your traffic – and therefore it needs to be the right one to showcase your business. Choosing your domain name is a decision not to be taken lightly. You want to make sure you choose one that reflects your business or venture, so people instantly know they have found the right website. But you also need to ask yourself how easy it is to find and to promote.

To make the decision process just that little bit easier, we’ve put together a few key points for you to consider when choosing your domain name:

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee: Employment Is Over | Forbes

May 24, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Alan was a clever guy who came to a job-search workshop we presented. He told jokes and cracked everyone up.

He said “Working at my former employer was like being a prairie dog living in a prairie dog village where life was happy and gay. The only problem for the prairie dogs was that right next door to the prairie dog village lived an erratic and violent farmer with a shotgun who every so often would lean over the fence, take some shots and pick off a bunch of prairie dogs. You never knew when it was going to happen.”

Alan stayed at his ex-employer for six years and survived eight layoffs. He finally got whacked in the ninth round.

“It was only when I got laid off that I realized how much stress I had been experiencing, but ignoring,” said Alan.

“Because of the crazed-farmer-with-a-shotgun dynamic in my old company, everybody was under huge stress. It didn’t matter what your job title was or how well you hit your targets. If they decided to change the strategic plan one day, you were still toast.”

Alan put his finger on the most significant change that has occurred in the working world since I started working in 1979.

Teamhacking 102: Best Management Tips for New Leaders | Page 19

May 24, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This week, we’ll show you how to empower your employees to promote constructive workplace debate, how to organize your team to play to each worker’s strengths, and much more. Let’s get to it!

1. Create safe conversations by showing people that you respect them and their interests.

From Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler: We’ve all seen how an otherwise rational conversation can quickly go off the rails when people feel threatened. So what steps can we take to keep the atmosphere in a conversation safe?

A safe atmosphere hinges on two key conditions: a feeling of mutual respect, and a common purpose.

Converting Leads Into Customers: Create a Sales Funnel for Your Business | Getentrepreneurial.com

May 20, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The sales process is a long road dotted with pitfalls and junctions that can lead potential customers astray. Sales representatives cannot cover every step of the way, but they can pull together a map, and put visible signs to direct people. Namely, sales funnel prevents the sale pipelines from becoming clogged, which is why many online businesses take advantage of this model. In fact, internet marketing has embraced these techniques as they show great promise in terms of establishing sale relationships with buyers in the long term.

7 Retail Turnoffs That Send Customers Away Screaming | Small Biz Trends

May 19, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Today’s retail environment is more competitive than ever. With big retail chains launching their own apps, installing the latest technology in their locations and offering an omnichannel shopping experience, small retailers have a lot to keep up with. Fortunately, some of the effective ways to put your retail store on a level playing field with the big boys are also the easiest, according to a new study.

Retail Turnoffs

A recent Harris Poll surveyed U.S. customers to find out what their biggest retail turnoffs are, and the results may surprise you. It seems the basics — such as a clean, well-maintained store — make a huge difference in whether customers will return to a particular store. Overall, “general bad odor” is the biggest retail turnoff, cited by 78 percent of those surveyed. Close behind on the list of retail turnoffs:

How Reposting Old Blog Content Will Boost Your Traffic | HigherVisibility

May 18, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

“Content is king” is an adage that has been adopted and practiced by every successful blogger across the web for years. So practiced, that there’s a definite surplus in content. While content continues to flood the internet at an increasing rate, users continue to only consume so much of it. This creates a problem-or opportunity, depending on how you look at it-with blogging strategy. In an attempt to stay at the surface in such a competitive landscape, bloggers are cranking out content at a rate that takes away from the quality of their posts and contributes to the excess information put out there for users.

The effort of content production can be subsidized with reposting old blog content-an effort that can drastically increase your site’s traffic, make useable content readily available for your readers, and make your writing last longer. Content takes time to produce, so you might as well squeeze as much use out of it as you can. Part of doing that means upcycling and reposting old content, specifically the content that has performed well.

Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It? | Bloomberg

May 17, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For residents of minority urban neighborhoods, access to Amazon.com’s vast array of products—from Dawn dish soap and Huggies diapers to Samsung flatscreen TVs—can be a godsend. Unlike whiter ZIP codes, these parts of town often lack well-stocked stores and quality supermarkets. White areas get organic grocers and designer boutiques. Black ones get minimarts and dollar stores. People in neighborhoods that retailers avoid must travel farther and sometimes pay more to obtain household necessities. “I don’t have a car, so I love to have stuff delivered,” says Tamara Rasberry, a human resources professional in Washington, D.C., who spends about $2,000 a year on Amazon Prime, the online retailer’s premium service that guarantees two-day delivery of tens of millions of items (along with digital music, e-books, streaming movies, and TV shows) for a yearly $99 membership fee. Rasberry, whose neighborhood of Congress Heights is more than 90 percent black, says shopping on Amazon lets her bypass the poor selection and high prices of nearby shops.

Nobody Saw This Volcano Erupt … Except NASA’s Satellites | Live Science

May 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in 60 years, Mount Sourabaya erupted with a spectacular show of fiery lava — in fact, it erupted twice. But there wasn’t a single human soul who saw the eruptions live; nobody lives on the volcano’s remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

Instead, satellites captured images of the eruptions, which happened on April 24 and May 1, 2016, NASA reported.

Volcanic eruptions in far-flung places, such as the South Atlantic, used to go unnoticed. But the advent of satellites and seismic monitoring has given scientists new insight into volcanic events worldwide, NASA officials said.

Helping Your Best Employees Leave You | Inc.com

May 16, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of the things I am most proud of as the 20 year owner of my executive sales firm Corporate Rain International is how many employees and associates have left me to take a leadership role at other companies or to start their own ventures. While I see a multitude of articles written about holding on to great employees, I never see an article about celebrating an employee assuming greater leadership and greater personal growth by leaving.

There should be more discussion of this, particularly in the small business universe. I believe in supporting employee growth and fulfillment even to the point of their leaving your company. I see this as a fundamental step in creating good through-branded culture.

8 Reasons Great Employees Quit (Even Though They Like The Job) | Life Hack

May 13, 2016May 13, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There are many reasons why people change jobs. These days, it is uncommon for someone to get a job and stick with it for the rest of their life. There are many opportunities and our lives are filled with diversity and flexibility. However, there are often patterns to why people decide to move on from what seemingly is ideal employment — and it isn’t just about the money or the location.

Here are eight common reasons why someone might quit their job.