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Daniel Watson's insight:
Referral business is the lifeblood of a profitable and sustainable business, and business owners need to ensure they maximise the opportunities that are available to them, to encourage their customers to send new customers their way.
Too many small business owners, sit back and hope that they can build their business on referrals from satisfied customers, but this rarely occurs unless a very pro-active approach is taken to generating referral business.
This good article, suggests that business owners must ensure that they stay "top of mind" by remaining relevant to all of their customers, and it provides five tips to follow that are proven to generate more referral business.
CAEXI BEST's curator insight,
May 22, 7:26 PM
5 conseils éprouvés pour générer plus de renvoi d'affaires
Chris Serafin's curator insight,
Today, 11:08 AM
These are great, and if you look at what some successful #blogs or #online-businesses do, you can see elements of these steps in all of them. Do these ring true for you? Did they leave any out of the top 5:?
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The road to success in small business is never easy, especially for those business owners just starting out or in the consolidation phase of building their business, and avoiding time wasting and costly mistakes in these early days is vital.
One tried and proven way to avoid early costly business mistakes, is to realise that many before you trodden the same path, and to tap into their experiences so that you avoid the mistakes made due to having limited experience in business.
This good article, based on interviews with 22 successful entrepreneurs, provides seven tips you can follow to avoid common mistakes and get your business off to a great start.
Nathan DC's curator insight,
May 22, 5:55 AM
4. Use social media, but don’t expect it to fix everything
Chris Serafin's curator insight,
Today, 11:19 AM
Did they leave any really important areas out? In your experiences what is the most important area of starting your own +business to advise others about?
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Small business cannot exist without a constant flow of customers, and in the absence of a marketing department to do the work of attracting customers, a small business owner or manager needs to focus a lot of their attention on marketing activities.
Many such owners try to reinvent the wheel, not realising that over the years others have developed tried and proven marketing ideas that individually and collectively, provide a cost effective blue print to succeeding in the task of attracting the right customers to a small business.
This excellent article, stresses that no small business can survive today without an effective marketing strategy, and it provides eight marketing tips that all small business owners need to implement if they want to attract the right customers in the numbers they need, to make their businesses successful.
crystal rosa's curator insight,
May 18, 5:54 AM
Find all Health And Medical Centers businesses in Los Angeles, CA, California with their business address, contact and other information.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The majority of small and not so small business owners, find themselves buried every day in the day to day challenges of business survival, and rarely make time to look at the bigger picture and position their business for the future.
It is far from unusual for a harried business owner to understand the need to make the time to work on their business, but when time is made for this purpose, to then realise that they don't really know how to proceed or how much time to devote to this key task.
This excellent article, suggests that a business owner needs to allocate at least a day a week to effectively work on their business, and it provides a list of 10 things a business owner should be doing when working on their business.
Yu Ji's curator insight,
May 15, 5:16 AM
Lots business are thing about work in their business.However, it is far more important to carry it out from the whole perspective, which means 'work on the business'. Also, the reason why it is so important for every business owner to spend time working ON their business is ''If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business''.
This excellent article, suggests that a business owner needs to allocate at least a day a week to effectively work on their business, and it provides a list of 10 things a business owner should be doing when working on their business.
Big Red Cloud's curator insight,
May 16, 6:48 AM
use big red cloud and have time to work on your business - simple online accounts
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Strong company values, drive consistent business outcomes by providing a decision making framework, one that draws a clear line that is never crossed regardless of internal or external pressures that may be applied to decision makers.
Strong values, assist a business to resolve the fundamental tension which exists between a business and its employees, and they help align employee desires to the objectiveoff the business.
This excellent article, suggests that developing strong company values is vital for consistently good decision making, and it provides a series of steps to follow to build strong values into your business.
Olivier Billion's curator insight,
May 13, 6:22 AM
Owner's values to become company's values : this is of course a key of alignement
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The reality that most recruiters are under 40, results in business owners seeking to recruit new staff, rarely being presented with competent and capable candidates who are mature and experienced.
The fact that mature workers and younger workers possess a different type of intelligence, and a business needs both types of intelligence operating within the business to be successful, means that businesses not employing a certain percentage of mature workers are missing out on gaining a competitive advantage over companies whose employee profiles are skewed heavily towards younger employees.
This excellent article, discusses the different types of intelligence that younger and older workers possess, and it identifies four opportunities for a business to improve productivity, move beyond stereotypes, increase work flexibility and improve organisation training by employing older workers.
TourdeForce's curator insight,
May 9, 6:40 AM
Jonathan Haynes, Tdf Consultants comments, "Companies need older, experienced candidates as well as fresh, young minds. What is also important is to bring in talent from other industries. ompanies become too fixated on the idea that only someone with direct experience is relevant to a job. Not so - pigeonholing in any form is the death of most companies."
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Life as a business owner or manager, whether one likes it or not, is a life where stress is unavoidable and the ability to manage stress levels is a key skill to acquire.
Allowing the stress associated with running a business to get on top of you, will impact on your emotional well being, and ultimately have a negative impact on level of success you will have in business.
This excellent article, suggest that stress is manageable and should not be suffered in silence, and it provides a series of steps you can follow to help you discover the causes of your stress and put together an action plan to turn stress into a positive force.
Shirley Marriott's comment,
May 12, 3:59 PM
This is one area that I can help with. I offer a variety of therapies which will help to reduce your stress levels and give you the much needed time out even 10 minutes and I offer these therapies not only in a variety of clinics but due to the lack of time people have I can come to the office environment. During the therapy you remain fully clothed and I work with you to cause the least disruption to the work being carried out. As little as 10 minutes can make a huge difference to a persons life. We think we have not got the time but can you really afford for the negative effects of stress to build up?
WorkplaceIncentives's curator insight,
May 12, 11:19 PM
Stress is often seen as the result of an event. The event causes stress. However this isn't true. We as individuals have the ability to control whether or not we 'get stressed'. It is in fact our perception of any event or 'thing' that may cause us to be stressed. Should we perceive an event in a positive light or choose to frame the event constructively, we can prevent ourselves from becoming stressed. As you're reading this insight you might be thinking that it may seem like we're stating the obvious and yet so many people, probably including yourself, get stressed on a regular basis...
Jesse Wieser's curator insight,
May 20, 7:43 PM
My thoughts
After reading this article, I find the mini-relaxation plans suggested are a huge help when your running on little to no time and just need a quick breather. The relaxation plan in this article goes into detail about what can you do to relieve some stress in 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, etc. which can be very helpful even trying these plans in between classes on account of the fact school can be very stressful at times. What I enjoyed the most about this article is the 2 minute relaxation plan, where I'll be taking 1 deep breath for every number I count down too since deep-breathing helps relieves stress and some of the bad toxins in your body.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Your brain is a marvellous instrument, but as a business owner, you need to be aware that trusting your brain can cost your business dearly.
Sometimes, in thinking you are right about any given subject, you are actually being directed by your brain, rather than reaching a sound conclusion based on effective analysis and quality reasoning.
This excellent article, strongly suggests that you should never trust your brain to be right about anything, and it supports this assertion by listing 10 good reasons why this is the case.
Jim Tenuto's curator insight,
May 2, 1:54 PM
Paul Green adds to the dialogue of Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, and the Heath brothers latest, Decisive.
Audrey's comment,
May 2, 3:48 PM
There are some really interesting points made about the brain, e.g. how its thinking is based on schemas, such as prejudices. However what is not taken into account is how much thinking is mediated by the emotions, Audrey@homeschoolsource.co.uk
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Time management tips abound, yet many business owners and managers still seem to struggle to make better use of their time, and as a consequence their businesses perform below expectation.
Getting organised, is the starting point to successfully managing time more effectively, however deciding which tasks should be given priority is a key element of successful time management.
This good article, suggests that the right mindset is required to be a good time manager, and it recommends splitting tasks into one of four quadrants and provides tips on how to effectively tackle the tasks allocated to each quadrant.
claire butterworth's curator insight,
April 29, 4:09 AM
Great practical article, with great tips to implement straight away!
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The journey to success for a small business owner, can be long, tiring and financially draining, and the few that really succeed have generally been far from overnight successes.
To establish a business from scratch, then grow it to a sizeable and sustainable operation, is said to require focus, discipline and often unconventional thinking.
This excellent article, suggests that it takes more than just these requirement to be successful in business, and it outlines five essential principles every business owner must follow on the journey to growing a successful business.
claire butterworth's curator insight,
April 24, 4:24 AM
To establish a business from scratch, then grow it to a sizeable and sustainable operation, is said to require focus, discipline and often unconventional thinking.
This excellent article, suggests that it takes more than just these requirements to be successful in business, and it outlines five essential principles every business owner must follow on the journey to growing a successful business.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The life of any business owner is hectic at the best of times, and the temptation to be trying to do multiple activities at the same time is strong, yet succumbing to this temptation can actually work against achieving your objectives in an effective and timely manner.
Reasearch has discovered that chronic multi-tasking can have long term chronic effects on brain function, and that frequent multi-taskers use their brains far less effectively, resulting in the conclusion that multi-tasking is a weakness rather than a strength.
This short article, discusses the research findings, and introduces two tips to assist all business owners to avoid the temptation to multi-task and become more effective managers of their businesses.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
The sales process, is in itself an important part in getting to yes, especially in B2B sales where overlooking important steps in the process will result in a definite no.
New entrepreneurs and new salespeople can be extremely passionate about the product or service they are promoting or selling, and whilst this can be a positive trait, it can backfire for a number of reasons and effect the sales outcomes negatively.
This excellent article, explains why it doesn't pay to get to exited if you want to achieve sales success, and it outlines the four mistakes that too much passion can cause you to make in your selling role.
Monika D'Agostino's comment,
April 25, 4:18 PM
So true. Being too excited about the product often leads to eager decisions and keeps sales people from listening to the prospect's needs.
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Big Red Cloud's curator insight,
Today, 10:07 AM
make your accounts simple...get ....big red cloud...simple online accounts
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Many older business owners, will have grown up with the saying "the way to hell is paved with good intentions" ringing in their ears, and as a consequence will tend to avoid running with too many ideas at once.
Unfortunately, youthful enthusiasm, impatience and failing to be strategic about the process of integrating new ideas into a business, causes many younger business owners and managers to see their ideas fail to pass the implementation test.
This excellent article, suggests that suceeding in business is all about turning ideas into action quickly and efficiently, and it provides six strategies to help you to transform your business ideas into real results.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Despite the pace of radical change and the ever increasing advance of technology into all areas of the business world, the world is not about to end, and business owners who embrace change and apply emerging technology to their business, will be positioned to be more innovative and to out-perform their competition.
Business owners who have the ability to think strategically and execute strategies to ensure ongoing growth in the face of uncertainty and change, will help their businesses to overcome tough times and ultimately prosper.
This excellent article, suggests that the necessary skills can be distilled into five key steps, and it outlines each of these steps in the order they need to be depoyed in any business.
CAEXI BEST's curator insight,
May 19, 8:41 PM
Survivre à l'anarchie économique - Cinq étapes stratégiques pour la croissance
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Daniel Watson's insight:
In order to grow a successful business, a business owner needs to be an effective and active networker, and unfortunately many business owners run a mile from networking opportunities that they should be exploiting for the benefit of their business.
Often the reluctance to get out and build and engage with a network of other business owners and people who can help a business owner to be more successful, stems from a lack of understanding of the techniques required to effectively network, and the fear of looking inadequate in the eyes of potential targets due to not knowing how to interact with others when networking.
This good article, stresses the importance of networking as a key element of building a successful business, and it provides 16 tips that a business owner can follow to become an effective networker.
donhornsby's curator insight,
May 15, 7:31 AM
No one is immune from networking. Embrace it, find the fun in it, and it will serve you well.
Zolar's comment,
May 15, 7:39 AM
networking is important to success.. i hope it will help my business
Denyse Drummond-Dunn's curator insight,
May 16, 10:08 AM
Great tips on how to do more of what we all know we should be doing more of.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Small business owners fall into two groups, those who recognise the need to effectively market their offerings and who seek the right platforms to promote their products/services, and the rest who take a far more adhoc approach to marketing and generally fail to have a sound marketing strategy.
Those who fall into the first group, often waste a lot of time and energy especially in the now critical area of online marketing, while they try to come up to speed in making the best use of their chosen marketing platforms.
Those business owners, who recognise the power of YouTube as a low cost extremely effective marketing tool when managed in the right hands, will definitely appreciate this great guide to making effective use of this online marketing platform.
Ana Tapia's curator insight,
May 13, 10:19 AM
i didn´t try but seems simple!
Não experimentei mas parece-me simples e uma abordagem a experimentar!
José Antônio Carlos's curator insight,
May 14, 7:24 AM
Aqui um outro exemplo de como uso de ferramentas de baixo custo, no caso o YouTube, pode ajudar a pequena empresa a se mostrar par potenciais consumidores
Tia Ribary's curator insight,
May 17, 2:37 PM
Getting geared up to shoot my own first YouTube video, this article came at the perfect time. If you are unsure about ANY topic this graphic/map points to, just click the "NO" and you'll be taken to a wealth of information on that very topic.
What a great way to deliver specific content!
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Growth for growths sake is not a sound business strategy, and business owners seeking to grow their businesses need to understand growth's likely impact, and prepare their employees in advance of launching any growth initiatives.
To successfully grow a business, a business owner needs to develop a clear growth strategy, and then prepare a business plan that details how the growth will be achieved and how the process will be effectively managed.
This excellent article, suggests that achieving growth involves avoiding the risk of the impact of growth making the business vulnerable in a competitive market, and it provides a comprehensive guide to successfully growing a business.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Revenue shortfalls are the bane of every business owner, yet many business owners fail to maximise the revenues available from their existing customers, and tend to persue the more costly avenue of chasing new customers for necessary additional revenue.
Whilst most would understand that increasing the level of repeat business from a customer base is a low cost solution to overcoming revenue shortfalls, not all business owners are well versed in the ways to effectively encourage repeat business, and as a consequence they ignore the opportunities available.
This excellent article, suggests that if you want repeat business you need to make your customers feel special, and it lists nine tips you can use to help your business to achieve higher levels of repeat business.
paulgreen's curator insight,
May 7, 6:39 AM
It takes a lot of time to find new prospects and turn them into customers. It is much more cost effective to turn existing customers into repeat customers.
Your current customers are already familiar with your work, how you work and the rates that you charge. You have already built a relationship with them and there is a level of trust between you.
Your current customers are often neglected as you endeavour to get new ones - these tips will help you focus on business that may just be waiting for you to grab.
Mr Branson's curator insight,
May 8, 4:44 AM
Only last night I was thinking to myself with Linkedin boasting over 200 Million professionals why is networking so silent? http://www.infogurushop.com I came to the conclusion having been online over a decade - perhaps we are all too busy with social media, website content, backlinking, posting, submitting, SEO, PPC, video creation, sales, tweets, scooping, family, marriage, online dating, reading news all in one day, and so much more. What do you think?
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Business owners, who are not aware of the very high cost of ignoring the issue of improving employee engagement levels in their business, doom themselves to remain at the bottom of the business pile.
As more and more research is conducted, the benefits of having engaged employees are becoming obvious, yet awareness of the high costs associated with having dis-engaged employees is not as well known.
This excellent article, suggests that employee engagement really matters in business, and it outlines the 10 key benefits of having engaged employees and identifies five key areas where attention will assist to increase employee engagement levels.
Yu Ji's curator insight,
May 2, 9:08 AM
To achieve the highest level of CRM, not only does customers have to get involved, every employee in organisation should also have the awareness of ownership.
Martha Schade's curator insight,
May 5, 6:44 AM
Why waste the incredibe abilities talents and insights that humans have? Because they can be difficult to manage?
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Leadership means many things to business owners, and many believe that to be a great leader, they must be charismatic, have a commanding presence, be a visionary and also be well educated at a top school.
Unfortunatly, if they do not fit this mold, many business owners see the leadership role as not being an area in which they can make a huge difference to their businesses.
This excellent article, dispells this widely held belief and suggests that servant leadership is displayed by the most successful leaders, few of whom display the common traits believed to be displayed by great leaders.
CAEXI BEST's curator insight,
April 29, 8:28 PM
Servant Leadership: Un chemin vers la haute performance
Kimberly Pope's curator insight,
May 14, 8:42 PM
What are your thoughts on being a servant leader? Its worth a read.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Small business owners need to do everything they can to stand out from the crowd, and in this ever evolving digital world, creating a memorable personal brand is a key element in this process.
If you do not take control and manage your online presence, your personal brand is actually in the control of others, and potential customers or clients searching your name online, may be presented with a picture that is not flattering to yourself or your business.
This excellent article, suggests that you need to control your online presence in order to create a memorable personal brand, and it provides eight tips you can follow to achieve this outcome.
Jonathan Martin's curator insight,
April 25, 5:05 AM
This is what I am talking about Branding is the way to go. IF you don't brand yourself, where are you going to be in 10 or even 5 years time, how will people differ you from someone else selling the same product
Aaron Doucette's comment,
April 26, 11:22 AM
The majority of small businesses I've worked with didn't develop any strategy going into their marketing. Tends to be more a hodge-podge of tactics that have worked over the years. I will often approach a business who is doing a lot of non-cohesive marketing; this is a customer that sees the advantage of marketing and probably knows it can be done better.
Jason HJH.'s curator insight,
April 28, 10:05 PM
Be cautious with point 5 because it gives you excuses to be lazy and not update your site on your own. Otherwise this is a very good and actionable list.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
All business owners are well aware of the importance of having customers, yet many are not leveraging their current customers, to get more customers for their business.
Unfortunately, before any business can leverage their existing customer base to get more customers, they must ensure that their current customers are fully satisfied with the service they have previously received.
This good article, suggests that reviewing your customer service policy and making sure that it is properly and fully implemented needs to be the first task, and then it outlines five ways to get your existing customers to refer others to your business.
paulgreen's curator insight,
April 22, 9:29 AM
It is thrilling to do some spring cleaning in your business and improve your customer referral policy. Spring cleaning is often thought of as the deep and thorough cleaning that takes place after the long winter has ended. While spring cleaning is usually thought of in connection with a home, spring cleaning should also be done in your business. Entrepreneurs should take time on a regular basis to evaluate the condition of the business, to find ways to improve the business and its operations. An important place to concentrate cleaning and improvement efforts is the area of customer referral.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Whether they know it or not, all business owners are leaders to their business and those who work in it, and it is beholden upon them to develop their leadership skills to the highest level they are capable of achieving.
A key leadership skill, one which marks the difference between good leaders and great leaders, is the skill of being able to display genuine empathy towards other people and their problems.
This excellent article, suggests that not only do leaders need to display this skill but they also need to create widespread empathy towards customers by the people they employ, and it provides seven tips to develop empathy on an organisational level.
John Rudkin's curator insight,
April 18, 5:48 PM
Leadership is all too easily manipulated to personal ends. There is always a personal competion going on. Sonmeone always wants what you have, and you yearn for "better". Sad really. Empathy cannot be learned, it has to be instilled. It takes a certain sort of person to be a great leader - one who is led without recourse to demand leadership.
Jerry Linnins's comment,
April 28, 10:54 AM
Good read and something to think about in our competition, conflict, challenge, and cost-constrained organizational climates. We need horizontal AND vertical empathy.
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Daniel Watson's insight:
Competing with larger companies possessing bigger budgets and highly sophisticated tools, has in the past, been a hurdle almost too difficult for small business owners to overcome.
That was until the advent of sophisticated, free or low cost online tools that are capable of delivering productivity gains, that enable astute small business owners to compete head on with their larger competitors.
This good article, identifies that these easy to use productivity tools are now readily available, and it identifies six of the best for you to try out in your business.
Sigrid de Kaste's curator insight,
April 15, 7:04 PM
If you're a time poor Small Business, check out these 6 Online Tools
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nice