4 Reasons Local Businesses Rock

27
Oct
2011

local farmers marketThanks to the internet it has become increasingly easy to purchase products from not only across the country, but across the world, as we are no longer bound by geographic borders. Most things are only a click away. Online retailers can offer prices and convenience that a brick-and-mortar store cannot. However, what many people don’t take into consideration is their local economy.

While buying online or from big-box retailers may be easy and convenient, it is not always the best option. All around you are local businesses doing what they do best: putting money back into your economy, donating money to charities, and creating jobs.

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Daylight Savings: Commit That Hour to Reading

27
Oct
2011

Soon, we’ll be getting one whole hour back in our reserves: Woohoo! But seriously, if you want to make an impact on my day, help me reclaim five hours at a time, not just one! But I digress. If you can only spare me one hour, I say we take it and spend it on reading. Not fakey reading, the kind where you skim a bunch of blogs and pat yourself on the back afterward. No, I’m talking about an honest to goodness book with a spine and pages. With the day appearing to shorten because of an earlier sunset, why not even have your entire family take that extra time to read books together, similar to a “game night”?

Reading books seems such a faded pastime. Consider the word: pastime; to pass the time. Wow, how lackadaisical! Really sounds more like a guilty pleasure, don’t you agree? In an era filled with  haste and perpetual movement to get things done and keep moving on, reading books in that reclaimed hour might just calm us down a bit. While progress doesn’t happen without us all doing all those things that keep the world spinning, why must casual book-reading be disposable? At a time when literacy among youth is going down, but tube-gazing, reading seems the perfect answer.

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[Video]: Setting LinkedIn Vanity URL

19
Oct
2011

If you’re just getting started with LinkedIn, or if you’re an avid user, this short tutorial will come in handy. (Trust us, we’ve seen plenty of accounts that still haven’t set this up!) When you set up a LinkedIn account, there’s no reason to put up with the long, ugly URL they assign up; customize it instead, so it’s more reflective of your name and is easier to share. Share this with those you love, and if you will, give us a thumbs up on Facebook once you get it set!

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Economic Gardening (No Shovel Required)

12
Oct
2011

Economic Gardening - the heart of economic growth What is Economic Gardening?

Before you can know why you should care about economic gardening, you probably need to know what it is. The core idea of economic gardening is that local entrepreneurs and businesses are the biggest contributors when it comes to creating new jobs. The philosophy basically says that the most local economic growth happens when local entrepreneurship is emphasized, as opposed to trying to attract businesses from outside the community (known as “economic hunting”). The whole concept dates back around 20 years. In 1989, Littleton, CO (pop. 41,000) lost their biggest source of employment due to relocation. Rather than crumple up and scream “No fair!”, they decided to leverage their local businesses in an effort to sustain their economy… and thus economic gardening was developed. Since then, over 15,000 jobs have been created in Littleton since then.

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Stop! It’s Time to Define Your Blog’s Audience

04
Oct
2011

RamsgateIf you’ve started a business blog or are just thinking about starting one,  you have probably sat around on more than one occasion and pondered “What should I write?” It makes sense that this is often the first thing people consider; after all, a blog is nothing without its content. But, there is actually one thing even more important than what or how you write: Your audience. So before you think about writing your blog post… stop! It’s time figure out who you’re writing it for.

As wonderful as it would be to sit and blog about whatever comes to mind, the reality is that in order to be a successful blogger you need to tailor your content to a specific group of people you want to reach. Writing a blog for young women will be very different than writing a blog for middle-aged men, for example. We see many bloggers put in a considerable amount of time to write a well-crafted post, only to have it completely overlooked because it is aimed at the wrong people. Not only is this going to lead you to extreme frustration, but we’re also 100% sure that you don’t have time for this.

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Why Auto Follow Apps Suck (Really Though)

29
Sep
2011

RU4 Real Recently we talked about why you should rethink automating your content on your Facebook fan page; the main reason being because it dramatically lowers fan engagement. Now we’re here to tell you about another icky trend we have noticed that hurts more than it helps: automated following. Auto follow apps have become increasingly popular on Twitter. For those of you who are lucky enough to never have run into this, here’s the break down: Auto follow apps are applications that follow every user on a specified list automatically, the users follow you back automatically, and viola! You have thousands of followers to call your own.

So what’s so bad about that? Everybody wants to have a large amount of followers, right? After all, isn’t that often times the first thing you look at when visiting new a Twitter page? It can be very discouraging when you’re working hard to tweet lots of great content and feel like no one is out there to read it. You might even feel embarrassed that your numbers aren’t quite what you were hoping for. We’re here to tell you that despite what you may have heard, automated apps like these are not the solution. Here are 4 reasons that auto follow apps suck (yes, we said it… they SUCK!):

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4 Business Coaching Conspiracy Theories That Might Actually be True

22
Sep
2011
A Private Place When you think of business coaching, what comes to mind first? Rah-rah sessions? Feel-good moments where you get a pat on the back and validation for all of your ideas and decisions? If you believe this is what business coaching is, we have some news for you: it’s not. We’re here to dispel some notions you’ve come to know and set the record straight. If there was ever a doubt, be clear that your business coach is conspiring…
  1. We will tear apart your ideas. The truth is good coaches will tell you when you’re wrong and will help you avoid pitfalls in every way possible. Sure, we’ll let you keep and refine the good ones, but the bad ones, the unprofitable or ill-conceived ones will get promptly kicked to the curb.
  2. You won’t be able to hide behind excuses. Sorry, but you’ll need to share your excuses with someone who wants to hear them, it’s just not us. Reasoning, yes, excuses, no. We want the truth why something wasn’t done like it should have been. We want your accountability to be first. Excuses fix nothing. Excuses are the anti-fixer.
  3. We will prove that you don’t always know best. You hired us to be an adviser to you, to help you. Fighting sound ideas we develop for you, or not implementing them is not helping your business. Let us do our job. We want you to succeed.
  4. We will make you uncomfortable. It’s really part of the job description to make clients squirm a bit. The reasoning is simple: when things are too much the same, complacency cannot be far behind.
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