Entrepreneurship, while challenging, can be hugely rewarding. If you’re a micropreneur, you might feel alone in your endeavor, but we’ve got your back.
Here, get inspiration from other business owners and learn their secrets to success. You’ll also get tips on hiring employees or freelancers, choosing a business partner (or not), and general tips to keep you motivated and successful.
I’m one of those know-it-all people you love to hate. I’ve felt (up until recently) that there was little I needed to learn in the world of content marketing. After all, I’ve been in the industry for 15 years! But I’ve learned to set my ego aside in this matter, and as a result, I feel like I’ve achieved what I’d like to call the entrepreneur edge.
What’s the secret?
I know there are people who detest resolutions because they think they’re unattainable and pointless, but I’ve been creating New Year’s business resolutions and personal ones for so long, they’ve become a habit. No, I don’t always achieve them, but setting them for the coming year helps me align my mind with where I want to go.
This was originally published on AllBusiness.
I have proudly been an entrepreneur for 13 years. Longer, if you count my short-lived gift basket business in college. I thought I’d always be one, and that I’d never take a JOB job.
But that’s exactly what I’ve done.
And I couldn’t be happier. Here’s why I traded being my own boss for a 9-to-5:
One of the most challenging parts of building a business is assembling an effective identity and brand for your company. What should your logo look like? What will be your colors, fonts, and graphics? What will be your slogan?
For people who are better as business managers and creators of products, this can be an overwhelming task. It’s not the kind of thing that you learn in culinary school or during your time as a journeyman heating and cooling professional. And trying to develop it at the same time that you are perfecting your product, shopping for business supplies, and hiring employees can be too much.
That’s where franchising can make all the difference. When you become a franchisee, you already have a pre-built marketing image. Your brand is already widely known, so you won’t have to spend your valuable advertising dollar to explain who you are or what you do. That frees you up to work on the day-to-day necessities of your brand new enterprise, all the while letting an established firm promote and identify your products and services.
I’ve been attending local networking events as long as I’ve run my content marketing agency (so, 13 years). I’m aware that trying to sell yourself isn’t the general concept behind effective business networking, that it’s better to build relationships over time rather than “machine-gunning” your business card to everyone in the room. And believe me: I’ve seen people do that, and it never goes well.
But it surprised the heck out of me to get advice about networking from none other than my mother recently. I was complaining to her that work had been slow this summer, and she suggested I try out her “Mamma Networking Theory.”
This post - How to Bring New Life and Innovation Into Your Business - was originally published on StartUpNation
Perhaps you’re struggling to find new customers, or you’re feeling stagnant in your startup. Maybe you’re having difficulty competing with others in your industry. Whatever the case, you feel the need to breathe new life into your business. Shake things up a little! Here’s how to bring new life and innovation back into the business you so painstakingly built from the ground up.
One day you might build up a reputation that precedes you, turning your company into a household name, but you’ll never make it there if you don’t thrive and expand — and you can’t thrive if no one knows about your business. That’s why bringing attention to your name and brand must be one of your core concerns as a small business owner. To make steady strides towards your goals, you need a sustainable marketing budget.
Part of this will involve simply doing an excellent job and impressing your customers, picking up recommendations in the process, but the bulk of it will stem from marketing. The first obstacle there is that good and varied marketing costs money — there’s only so much you can achieve without making a meaningful investment — which is where a sustainable marketing budget can help.
This business post was originally published on AllBusiness.com.
If you’ve read any of my articles, you know that they are often inspired by my life. My current inspiration (if you can call it that) is dating. I just ended something because my instinct saw red flags. In the past, I’ve ignored these to my detriment, so I’m pretty proud to be seeing them before I get hurt.
But your gut doesn’t just tell you about potential “creepazoids.” It can tell you a lot about your business . . . if you’re willing to listen.
Originally published on AllBusiness.com.
If I could go back 13 years to when I first launched my marketing company, I would do things a little differently. Of course, I’ve learned a lot along my entrepreneurial journey, and am much savvier about how to launch and grow your local business now than I was then.
Recently, I launched a second business — a local craft workshop company — and was able to learn from my own wisdom gleaned from mistakes made with the first. May you also benefit from these tips so that you get to success even faster than I did!