8 Advantages of Being a Small Business Owner Now | Small Biz Trends

June 29, 2015June 29, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The past few years have seen an opportunistic and favorable business environment and it looks like thankfully it is poised to continue.

Here are the advantages of being a small business owner … now.

Technology Tools

In no other time has technology made it easier for us to do business, communicate and grow on such an efficient and far reaching scale. The Web, email marketing, social media, plug-ins and apps allow us to organize and focus communication. and to help people in ways that save us time and energy and improve efficiency.

The cloud offers front end management of tasks, while many small service companies still juggle paper spreadsheets and calendars to stay organized.

What These 4 Data Breaches Can Tell Us About Security | All Business

June 26, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, and anyone can fail — especially in the business world.

IBM’s “2015 Cost of Data Breach Study” shows that the average total cost of a data breach is $3.8 million, representing a 23 percent increase since 2013. The cost for each lost or stolen record increased 6 percent, from a consolidated average of $145 to $154.

Several companies also have been sued for their negligence in preventing these attacks. Data breaches are huge failures, but taking a look at these four big ones can teach us a thing or two about how to better secure our data.

The Chain Breaker: A Dairy Queen Like No Other | Serious Eats

June 25, 2015 ~ CBPS ~ Leave a comment

When the DeLeons took over, the original 1949 contract transferred, meaning the Moorhead DQ doesn’t have to adhere to many strict company rules. Had they signed a newer contract, they would have had no choice but to discontinue their barbecue sandwiches and Polish dogs and launch a full Orange Julius menu like many newer DQ franchises. Thanks to their old-school contract, the Moorhead DQ still pays the original 1949 royalties rate on Dairy Queen treats that they order from the corporate warehouse. Perhaps most importantly, DeLeon is able to source ingredients from outside providers and still make many desserts in-house.

Trivia Tuesday: Which came first? Apple or Microsoft? | Neowin.net

June 25, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This is perhaps one of the biggest tech rivalries in the world, but the question I’m exploring today is which company came first? Which was the first to release an operating system? The first to release a tablet PC or smartphone? The first to create a billionaire?

The question of when the companies were founded is a pretty easy one. Microsoft came first, founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 4, 1975. Apple followed nearly exactly a year later on April 1, 1976 in Cupertino, California.

The interesting thing, though, is Apple was technically the first company out of the two to release an operating system that used a graphical user interface (GUI). On January 24, 1984, the guys behind Apple released “Mac System Software 1.0” on their original Macintosh commercial computer. This was almost two years before Microsoft released their extension of MS-DOS on November 20, 1985: Windows 1.0. It also wasn’t particularly successful.

The 10 Commandments of Business from Jim Collins | Page19

June 24, 2015June 25, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

1. Find your Hedgehog concept. — Good to Great

Imagine a fox hunting a hedgehog. The fox is crafty and invents a battery of complex tactics to get at the smaller creature, yet despite all of its cunning, the fox never wins. The hedgehog has a simple, foolproof parry to any attack: it curls up and becomes an unbreachable spiked ball.

According to Collins, good-to-great companies find their own Hedgehog concept—something simple, clear, and fail-proof—by asking themselves three key questions:

What can we be the best in the world at?

What can we be passionate about?

What is the key economic indicator we should concentrate on?

Collins found that after an average of 4 years’ iteration and debate, good-to-great companies discovered their own Hedgehog concept at the intersection of these questions. After that point, every decision in the company was made in line with it, and success followed.

Take the example of drugstore chain, Walgreens. The Walgreens Hedgehog concept was to be the best, most convenient drugstore with a high customer profit per visit. By pursuing it relentlessly, Walgreens outperformed the general stock market by a factor of 7. By contrast, their competitor, Eckerd Pharmacy, lacked a simple Hedgehog concept and grew sporadically in several misguided directions, eventually ceasing to exist as an independent company.

5 Easy Ways to Refine Your Blogger Outreach Emails |Getentrepreneurial.com

June 23, 2015June 22, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Just like an outreach email should be easy to look at and digest so is this blog post!

1. Type with a purpose

Before you send that outreach email, peruse the blog, hone in on what you are asking for of the bloggers you’re pitching and what you are willing to give to them for their time and awesomeness.

Emails that are super short and to the point have the best response rates because, let’s face it, we are all slammed and time is too precious to read a lengthy email!

The first sentence of your email should state who you are and why you are reaching out.

2. Don’t overdo the subject line

When inboxes fill up, it’s common practice to delete a bunch based on subject lines. Something that is over the top or too “salesy” are the first ones to be clicked in to oblivion.

Try asking a simple question or having a conversational subject line like “Your latest post on xyz pain point was awesome” or something as simple as “let’s collaborate” is more effective that over thinking it.

The Future of Messaging: How to Text Without Data or Wi-Fi | Inc.com

June 23, 2015June 22, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Forget having directions, tickets, or our checkbook with us. Our lives now seem to revolve ensuring that Wi-Fi will be there wherever we may roam so we can open our digital wallets, Google map it, or have our tickets scanned. When there is no Wi-Fi, our biggest fears come to life.

There is hope, thanks to some inventive technologists and entrepreneurs who have designed a solution that goes beyond data and mobile network requirements. (Yep, you could all text without a data plan.)

Yes, some of us have iMessage if we use iPhones and iPads, which means we can forgo that unlimited texting plan on our smart phone bill. However, we are all still slaves to Wi-Fi or have memorized how fast our data plan is chewed up with every ping.

But, another iOS app is rapidly changing how teens are texting through their Apple devices, and soon it will do the same with those with Android systems.

5 things to consider before you quit your job and go to grad school | Mashable

June 22, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Do you have some vague plans to go back to school at some point, and get more education? Can’t go wrong with another degree, right?

Well, no. In fact, that’s actually a pretty dangerous assumption.

Getting an expensive degree without knowing exactly what you’ll be getting out of it is a quick way to rack up debt that won’t necessarily help you achieve your goals. So, before you (possibly) get yourself in a lot of trouble, here are five questions to consider before applying to school, again.

1. What are the requirements, and do they seem interesting to me?

First things first, are you even interested in additional studies? You never want to get a graduate degree solely because you don’t like what you’re doing now or because you don’t know what you want to do next.

10 Skills That Are Hard to Learn But Pay Off Forever | Entrepreneur

June 19, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The best things in life may be free, but that doesn’t mean they won’t take time, sweat, and perseverance to acquire.

That’s especially the case when it comes to learning important life skills.

In an effort to ascertain which talents are worth the investment, one Quora reader posed the question: What are the hardest and most useful skills to learn?

We’ve highlighted our favorite takeaways.