5 Ways to Mindfully Scale Your Business and Make More Money

The art of scaling takes some mastery. Companies don’t grow by themselves.

If demand suddenly exceeds capacity, it could mean gridlock and death by success. Scaling up smartly is a critical balancing act. It takes a lot of skill, a little luck and it never hurts to follow in the footsteps of your predecessors.

Let’s say you’re starting a digital media company hoping to grow your readership to match and surpass the likes of Yahoo Tech and Business Insider’s Tech Insider. Sounds like an impossible? Well, you might look to a company like Digital Trends, because that’s exactly what they did.

Co-founders Ian Bell and Dan Gaul started Digital Trends from a shared love of home entertainment, cars and a belief that tech should be accessible and fun. Digital Trends is now enjoying its seventh year of growth.

After they doubled their traffic in September 2015 and followed up with their biggest year ever, they had to regroup to figure out where to go next and how to fix some “loose bolts” along the way. Based on their real-life experiences, here are some key lessons we can learn from for sustainable, healthy growth:

1. Establish a glossary of terms for your team.

This often overlooked step combats jargon, which creates confusion and inefficiency. Make sure you have a clear definition of all those terms that get thrown around in meetings and on sales calls.

Pete Jacobs, VP of integrated and content marketing at Digital Trends, points out that jargon words can mean different things to different people, and all the more to different departments. Make sure everybody’s on the same page about your terminology.

“Seems simple,” Jacobs notes, “but it can be very costly.”

2. Define success on a company level and within departments.

As your company gets bigger, departments will naturally become more insular.

Make sure communication channels are open and remember a win for an individual or department may not necessarily move the company forward. So take the company-wide success goals and break them down into departmental success goals.

This ensures your productivity translates into goal attainment.

ADVERTISEMENT

3. Invest in what’s working best for you.

There’s never enough room in the budget to do everything.

It’s easy to imagine all the wild success you’d be enjoying if only you could spend a little more money. “With limited resources,” says Jacobs, “don’t fall for the software and headcount fantasy about what you would be doing if only you could afford it. Invest in the group making do with less and quietly getting it done.”

By putting your money into what’s already working, you’re empowering the company’s most competent and productive team members to go even further. That’s going to get more mileage from your budget.

4. Be smart, but get lucky.

“We dodged a couple bullets in the last two years,” Jacobs says of Digital Trends.

“While all of our industry was pivoting to video, we stalled on growing our video offerings. We felt like we were falling behind.” Now, he says, many of their peers who chased video as their business’ core offering have seen their valuations drop, forcing them to lay off staff members.

Though it was difficult and sometimes contentious, Digital Trends stuck to their process and held steady while other companies failed to fortify their web traffic sources or to properly monetize video.

Of course, as is usually the case with success, it wasn’t just a stroke of luck. Adhering to core strengths is a sound business strategy. “Don’t get swayed by what others are doing if you can’t make it work internally,” says Jacobs.

5. Make certain to approach acquisition soberly.

The goal of growing your company should not be to find a buyer. Remember that acquisition is a byproduct of success, not the definition of it. Growing a healthy, flourishing company is both the journey and the destination.

There isn’t necessarily an endpoint. But if you’re doing it right, you may find yourself catching your break in the wake of a five-year growth spurt, regrouping to plan how to deal with the next five years of success.




Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Simonkr | Getty Images






ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Take Your Business To The Next Level Right Now!

There are a lot of business owners out there these days, and the startup market is a crowded one. So, you need to be clear about what you can do to help take things to the next level and make your business more of a success. There are a lot of things that play a role in this, and you are going to need to know what it takes to be more successful in the world of business.

So many things need to happen in order to take this as far as it can, and you have to get a lot of things right. There is such opportunity for success in the modern world, and the important thing to do is to look at how you can improve the way you run your company. These are some of the best things to think about if you are serious about taking your business further today.

Improve Your Marketing

Make sure you look at what you can do to make the marketing process more enjoyable. This is something that plays a big role in taking the business onto bigger and better things. Marketing is the essence of how you achieve success as a business owner. There are a lot of excellent options for digital marketing, such as using the services of companies like Advocado media. This is really important for developing an expert marketing strategy to make the company more successful.

Hire the Right Staff

You have to do as much as possible to make sure you have the right staff for your business. Chasing the perfect employees is absolutely crucial when it comes to improving your approach to business, and strengthening the company for the future. This is something that you need to get right as soon as you can, and there is a lot you should think about here as well.

Perfect Your Website

The website is the digital calling card for your business, and the one element around which everything else is based. Your website markets your brand, it gives people an impression of the company, tells them what it’s about, and can be the difference between success and failure. Working hard to perfect your website is absolutely crucial if you want your business to be a success.

Gain Investment

The very best businesses out there are the ones that manage to get the right funding and finance their business more effectively. This is something you need to make sure you work hard to achieve, and it is going to help you be more comfortable. There are a lot of things that play a part in this, and it is important that you manage to gain investment in the best possible way.

As you can see, there are a lot of things that play a role in the process of taking your company forward. There are a lot of changes that you can make and improvements you have to consider. So, it is really important to do what you can to take your business to the moon. This is an excellent way of being a modern success and making things more enjoyable.

ADVERTISEMENT

Source: https://www.theselfemployed.com



ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Top 14 Proven Growth Hacks to Grow Your Small Business

The owner of a small business must successfully manage a lot of tasks simultaneously. As an entrepreneur, you must overcome resource restraints and at the same time focus on growth.

Statistics indicate that growing your business at the initial stage is not easy. Nearly 20% of businesses do not last for a year and 50% of them don’t make it to the fifth year.

 It is a bit tricky to fight a battle on every front at the same time. You need help to boost sales and grow your business. That’s where growth-hacking comes in.

In the piece, we will see what growth hacking actually is and how it is useful for small businesses.

What is growth hacking?

Growth hacking involves quick experimentation across various areas of your business to identify the most efficient methods for achieving growth. The term was coined by the CEO of GrowthHackers.com, Sean Ellis after he found the absence of focus on growth in traditional marketers. In Ellis’s own words, “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.”

The use of word “hacking” in the term suggests that it’s a clever way of producing higher growth results through a few shortcuts. The main aim of an ideal growth hacking strategy is to increase your customer base by keeping investment to a minimum.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the proven growth hacking tactics that every small business owner should know to grow their business.

Best and proven techniques to growth hack your small business

• Prioritizing content marketing

Content marketing is one of the most valuable marketing strategies for businesses. Statistics cite that it’s 62% cheaper than traditional marketing and generates three times more leads.

Create a blog with content that is properly optimized with trending, high-volume, and low-competition keywords to present your business as an expert in the industry. These blogs generate heavy traffic on your website and produce more conversions.

Blog posts and other informative content is meant to educate readers with high-quality information. Users visit your website to gain important, helpful knowledge, which helps in building credibility and enhances brand awareness.

• Online reviews matter

Online reviews are essential when it comes to building brand credibility. According to a survey, 84% of users trust online reviews and testimonials when considering purchasing a product or service.

Make it easy for users to view and react to all the praise you have received online. Present the top quotes and testimonials on your homepage as comments from satisfied customers. It is helpful in encouraging your prospects to make the purchase.

• Integrating calls-to-action with your social media platforms

In order to boost growth, you need to encourage your prospects to take a specified action. Integrating your calls-to-action across various social media platforms is the best way to motivate your customers to take action.

Ask users to sign up for your product or share or like your posts. Ensure that your call-to-action is precise, clear and easy for customers to understand and take action.

• Requesting feedback

Listening to your customers is the best way for any brand to grow further. Ask users for their feedback on their experience your product or service. Improve your business accordingly to present a best-in-class user experience, which ultimately is helpful in boosting sales.

For better interactivity, use popups to ask for users’ comments after making a purchase. The aim is to capture insight and feedback from customers so you can improve the customer experience.

• Offer freebies

Offering free downloadable or viewable assets is one of the most effective ways of growing your email list quickly. You may try offering a free ebook in exchange for the user’s email address.

Ensure the freebies you are offering are aligned with your marketing strategy and the theme of the product.

• Use customer retargeting

Retargeting simply means bringing your customers back to your website in an attempt to sell to them again. The best way to do it is by showing targeted ads to customers who have been to your website previously.

Google and Facebook retargeting contains optimizations, which show targeted ads to your previous customers and encourage them to make the purchase.

• Offer discount coupons

Another effective way to build your email list is distributing discount coupons, which also encourages users to make the purchase. Adding the feeling of urgency in your deal also helps boost conversions as users don’t want to miss interesting deals.

You can use exit intent pop-ups containing information about your coupons. The system detects a visitor, who is about to leave your website.

Use pop-up creator tools to create best-in-class customized pop-ups, which instantly catches customers’ attention.

ADVERTISEMENT

Implement organic SEO strategies
Using organic SEO techniques is an effective strategy for engaging prospects. Data suggest that 70-80% of users ignore paid ads altogether. Moreover, organic traffic is the most effective way to drive traffic to your website.

Upgrade your SEO strategies and go organic as much as you can. Pure SEO techniques help you bring more traffic than social media outreach and helps in increasing conversions.

• Create an app

Having an app gives you a significant competitive edge over the competition. Mobile apps are becoming extremely popular as apps account for a whopping 89% of mobile media time.

Build an app with advanced capabilities with the help of a popular app building service in order to bring more visitors to your site.

• Take mobile optimization seriously

As 48% of users use mobiles to search on the internet, it’s extremely important that you optimize your website for mobile devices. 61% of mobile users won’t be visiting your website again if they have trouble accessing it. Considering its importance, Google also emphasizes making your website mobile friendly.

Ensure that your website and marketing emails are fully compatible with mobile screens to get the most out of mobile traffic.

• Gamify the onboarding experience

Gamification is used by various businesses as it makes the whole customer journey interesting. Gamifying the onboarding experience involves rewarding new users for using the product and referring it to friends and colleagues.

Incentivise users as they refer your brand to their friends and colleagues in order to increase your user base. Offer various milestones as the customers use your product.

Gamification helps to make the whole customer experience interactive and encourages to the customers to use and recommend your service or product.

• Use deep analytics for decision making

Data and analytics are at the heart of every business. Measured data helps in maintaining complete insight into the results of your business.

You can use data to trim all your unnecessary expenses, identify areas which need improvement and the places where you are committing resources without any results. Measure and use the data for intelligent decision making.

• Make freemium products

People like to use free products. Making a freemium product helps you attract a lot of attention from potential reviewers as they don’t need to buy the product to review it.

However, freemium does not mean the product lacks best-in-class features. A freemium product with amazing features is what you are looking for.

You can then encourage the users to go for the paid version of the product for more seamless support, additional features, and unlimited integrations.

• Keep experimenting

Experimentation is a scary topic for small businesses. Usually, small businesses don’t have enough room to experiment considering budget limitations.

However, experimenting opens new doors for new growth opportunities so that you can bring in more customers.

Sometimes, your strategies may fail but in the long run, your gains could be much higher and worth the time and amount you are investing into it.

Conclusion

Growth hacking is all about finding new shortcuts to grow your business and bring in more consumers. It is a completely ethical and efficient practice. Small businesses must try innovative ideas to make growth-hacking simple and easy.


Follow the tips above and get the most from your growth-hacking strategy. This will help in taking your business to the next level.


Source: https://www.business2community.com


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

6 Steps to Leverage Online Events to Start and Grow Your Business

What empowers an aspiring entrepreneur to become a leader? Experience, understanding and knowledge of business foundations and practices are essential. Even so, there's no way to overstate the impact an entrepreneur's network of like-minded peers, mentors and customers can have on the big picture and the small details, too.

No surprise, then, that making yourself available and visible is one of the best ways to connect with leaders. You can leverage your time at conferences and networking events, or you can reach out directly via email, messaging apps and a personal phone call. 

But how do you go from striking up a conversation to building a relationship without wasting anyone’s time -- including your own? Over a recent two-week span, I organized an online event that enabled me to connect with more than 100 business leaders and draw nearly 6,000 participants. 

Never hosted an online event? No problem. These strategies can help you across a variety of business-need categories:

• If you're beginning your entrepreneurial journey, you might seek mentorship, feedback or validation to help "presell" an idea.
• If you're working to take your company to higher level, you may need promotional partnerships, new clients or publicity.

You can follow a few key steps to launch a successful experience around your idea, with little to no budget.

1. Define a topic.
Your event's topic should be relevant to your industry, category or interest group. That's the no-brainer. A carefully designed event will build lasting relationships with leaders in your space. It also can help grow an audience of people who can provide feedback on your ideas, buy your products and refer you to other leads.

The potential is huge, so it's crucial to make sure the subject will resonate with your target participants. Because my focus is on providing entrepreneurs with resources to help them bootstrap their ventures, I launched the Bootstrapping Summit.

First, though, I needed to learn whether such an event would find its mark. I floated the idea by emailing a sample group of subscribers from my larger newsletter list and asking for their feedback.  If you don’t have a newsletter or customer base, post your idea in online communities and groups. This is also a great way to build a group of ambassadors who can help you promote the event when it’s live.

2. List 100 potential speakers.
Once you define the topic, your search for speakers becomes straightforward. Google search and tools such as Buzzsumo and SparkToro can help you create a list of top influencers within a few hours. Speed up the process even more by identifying the Top 5 podcasts in your industry, then use keywords in the search box to narrow the list of guests. Anyone who's been invited to the best podcasts should be regarded as a credible voice in your market.

3. Reach out for an interview.
Experts like to be treated like experts. For the Bootstrapping Summit, I made my pitch to 250 successful entrepreneurs, and 163 of them answered. I aimed for 100 speakers, but your goal might be much different. 

Timing and relevance are two key factors to influencers’ willingness to respond and be part of any event. If you scoured top podcasts to generate your list of potential speakers, you can review the most recent interviews and reach out with a note about the episode. Demonstrate your genuine interest by including a few follow-up questions that expand on the previous segment and preview the expertise you hope they'll share at your event. You'll elicit far more responses from recent podcast interviewees than those whose episodes published a year ago.

Podcasts aren't your only channel for free resources. You can search for recent articles, YouTube videos or speaking engagements and follow the same model. To locate email addresses, consider a tool such as Voila Norbert.

ADVERTISEMENT

4. Ask them to promote the event.
Getting industry leaders to dedicate 30 or 45 minutes for your online event is only one part of the success equation. The most effective way to spread awareness and drive registrations is to provide each of your experts with a compelling reason to become your advocate.  

There's no one-approach-fits-all answer to convince influencers to promote your event to their audiences. There are some best practices, however. First, inquire about their needs and short-term objectives. Spend some time thinking about their goals and then propose meaningful ways you could help. Offer them something of value.  

As I prepared for the Bootstrapping Summit, I asked one of these simple questions: "What's your short-term goal?" I learned some speakers were looking for ambassadors to help market their own upcoming launches, so I proposed to be one. Other speakers were looking for referrals, so I made sure I connected them with the right people. I discovered that most speakers were happy to share "just because" -- and because being part of a closed group of experts brings big branding value.

5. Recruit promotional partners.
Before pitching my event to potential partner companies such as RightMessage, ClickMeter, Rebrandly, Zenkit, Bubble and FreeeUp, I was careful to recruit enough known speakers to grab their attention. I asked each promo partner to email the company's membership list about the event. My 14 partners brought me nearly 2,000 additional participants I likely wouldn't have reached otherwise. 

6. Be different.
To differentiate your event, you might prepare and share supplemental material, create extra lessons, link to discounts from promotional partner companies or offer an hour of your time to a few winners randomly selected from the participant group. 

I set apart my Bootstrapping Summit by organizing six, one-hour, live Q&A sessions with selected speakers. Participants had the chance to ask questions in real time -- getting valuable input from leaders who typically charge $500 an hour. 

Entrepreneurs often spend too much time trying to solve the wrong problem. Learning from the best while building longlasting relationships is the best way to shortcut your path to success and cultivate a community of people to share feedback and invest in your products and services. 




Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image credit: Westend61 | Getty Images


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Former Apple CEO John Sculley Shares 4 Key Strategies for Growing and Marketing Your Business

With a business resume like John Sculley’s, you can’t help but name-drop.

He was the president of PepsiCo, CEO of Apple and a founding team member at MetroPCS. Now, he’s CMO at RxAdvance, a national pharmacy benefit manager. Under Sculley’s leadership in the 1970s and early ‘80s, PepsiCo’s marketing campaigns brought it closer to Coca-Cola’s standard market share. He later helped build MetroPCS into a $9 billion company before its sale to T-Mobile. And although his famously tenuous relationship with Steve Jobs led to the latter’s temporary departure from his own company, during Sculley’s 10 years at Apple, he says the company’s growth ballooned more than 1,000 percent.

More than five decades in the business world have taught Sculley growth and marketing strategies that he treats as touchstones to this day.

“Entrepreneurs are different from other people,” he says. “Entrepreneurs are insatiably curious. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers … Entrepreneurs are the ones who come in, and they say, ‘There has to be a better way.’”

Here are Sculley's top four tips for growing your business idea and marketing your way to success.

1. Use perceived weaknesses to your advantage.

Sculley was head of Pepsi’s marketing efforts during the height of the “cola wars” -- a series of head-to-head campaigns between PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company in the 1980s.

“Coke was the most valuable brand in the world at that time,” Sculley says. “They owned reality -- everyone looked to them as leader.” Because of that, he knew that if people saw the brand names next to each other on bottles, they’d likely choose the popular option: Coca-Cola. But when a series of blind taste tests resulted in people preferring Pepsi, Sculley decided to encourage people to think differently about the industry.

The ensuing campaign, called the “Pepsi Challenge,” launched in San Antonio, Tex. -- a market where the beverage was outsold by Coca-Cola 12 to 1. They filmed people taking blind taste tests, then ran commercials featuring those who chose Pepsi. “The more [Coca-Cola] complained, the more we sold,” Sculley says.

Make a list of any fears you’ve adopted about why your business idea won’t work. Then spend time brainstorming ways to turn them into advantages. If you’re worried your product or service would trail competition, think about ways you could to turn it into an industry dark horse. If you don’t have as large of a team as you would like, bill your endeavor as an intimate business that individually responds to each customer. Changing your mindset could very well change your business outcome.

2. Be able to explain your idea in a simple way.

When Steve Jobs dreamed up the iPod years after the launch of the MP3 player, he didn’t ask consumers, “How would you like to have a miniaturized disk drive or a faster processor?” Sculley says. Instead, he told his audience: “This amazing little device holds 1,000 songs, and it goes right in my pocket.”

As the saying goes, “You don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” No matter how complex your idea is, you need to be able to explain it simply to anyone. This won’t just help you sell your product or service -- it’ll also help attract quality people to team up with.

3. Don’t take any shortcuts on customer experience.

When gearing up to launch the first Macintosh computer in 1984, Apple was running low on time. Sculley remembers an engineer showing Jobs the computer’s motherboard before the launch event -- and Jobs rejecting it on sight because of its layout and aesthetics. Sculley remembers the engineer telling Jobs, “No one will ever see it -- no one will know!” Jobs allegedly responded, “I’ll know.” And that was that. The motherboard was redesigned in a classic example of Jobs’s “no compromise” approach to his products and user experience.

Sticking to your guns -- what you believe in from the very beginning -- can be key for success as an entrepreneur. “The greatest companies are focused on the customer from the very start,” Sculley says. Take Amazon, which focused on reimagining supply chain for consumer ease. The company’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, was recently named the richest person in modern history with a net worth of more than $150 billion -- but he says he still reads emails from his public inbox (jeff@amazon.com) to stay involved with Amazon’s customer base.

4. Know that power has shifted from producers to the people.

In Sculley’s day, he says, the creators of products or services with the most resources often achieved the highest levels of success. He remembers that when PepsiCo created Mountain Dew, building the marketing strategy took seven years. “No one would build a brand like that today,” he says. The power dynamic has shifted from producers to consumers, chiefly via the power of individuals sharing their opinions over messages with friends, reviews, blog posts and social media. “We are going through the most amazing change in marketing since it was first created,” Sculley says.

When bolstering your business idea, don’t just think about the product -- think about the experience as a whole. The idea that consumers value brands that provide experiences is part of why companies such as Stitch Fix -- which sells personalized styling and on-demand clothing deliveries -- are on the rise. Through word of mouth and promoting a unique experience, Sculley says, you can build a profitable brand without spending much on advertising.

AFFORDABLE ADVERTISING OPTIONS

Source: entreprenuer.com
Image Credit: Getty Images



ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

Use These Growth Strategies to Build a 6-Figure Business

I built my first business to multiple six figures fairly quickly in 1999. It was a service business that filled a major need for a select industry. It's a business that many entrepreneurs can still start and build successful today. I sold that business and started a lifestyle business in 2011. I heard good things about generating income online and doing it passively, so I figured I could get to six figures or more quicker. I was wrong. 

For the first year, I made less than $10,000. I did everything the industry leaders advised to do. Yet, no forward progress. It was frustrating. I chased leads, I worked hard every day, and I felt like giving up more times than I can count.

In 2012, I did "crack the code." I focused and understood four important growth strategies. They've helped me build a six-figure business that gives me freedom and financial security and that pays me to travel to 25 countries a year. These strategies can apply to any type of business. Use them.

Build your audience with more than posting on social media.

The major social media platforms get billions of users daily. The opportunity to reach them and tell them about your business is exciting. While this has opened many doors for us as entrepreneurs, it's also created a crutch. It's not uncommon for entrepreneurs to build their entire marketing strategy around posting on social media organically. You've probably seen a fellow entrepreneur posting constantly about their business. It repels potential leads.

The major social media platforms are publicly traded companies that have to make a profit for their shareholders. The way they do this is by always changing. If you build your foundation on their platforms, your business will suffer when they decide to make a change that benefits their bottom line.

Social media marketing should only be one part of a diverse and ever-evolving marketing plan for your business. Email marketing still works well. Media exposure grows businesses. Webinars, joint ventures, public speaking and many others ways help you market and grow your business. Don't put all your eggs in the social media marketing basket.

Understand and execute consistent lead generation tactics. 

The way any business grows is by getting new customers. But more than that, you need a system that brings in fresh leads on a consistent basis. Too many businesses don't succeed because they're dependent on the few customers that they already have, or worse, on one major customer. Both of these scenarios can be a scary place to be. You're one decision away from having no income. 

To grow a six-figure business, your lead generation should be stellar. We live in the digital age. You can generate leads through your blog, podcast, videos, on social media, through webinars, training in large groups, local business chambers, media exposure, getting articles published online and many other ways.

While you generate consistent leads, you'll build multiple revenue streams and passive income along the way. Doing these two things helps you build a stable foundation and creates financial security. You can build a business that's more than just you.

Understand your value and don't give it away. 

Self-limiting beliefs can be the kryptonite of any entrepreneur. It could be a few negative words from haters or even someone you like. It could be a comment left on your content or customers that want refunds. There are situations that take a knock at your confidence and those instances lead to you undervaluing your knowledge and expertise. Don't do it!

You give away enough of you through your free content and the ways you pay it forward. You should charge more because there are customers who would gladly pay because they understand the value you provide. Charge based off of value and raise your prices as necessary. Don't hop on calls or answer messages when your gut is telling you to ignore the requests. Do what makes sense for you.

You can build a six-figure business this year by understanding and by implementing these strategies that have withstood the test of time and change. Start by adjusting your mindset to what's possible and put in the work daily.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com
Image Credit: Getty Images



ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

[VIDEO] 3 Simple Things You Can Do to Grow Your Business

After talking to hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners, like financial advisors, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, business coaches, startup founders and more, Entrepreneur Network partner Greg Rollet has identified three simple things you can do to get more clients.

Now, these three things are not an exhaustive list, and there are a million different ways you can achieve them. But, they are at least a starting point you can use to develop your business and get more clients. For example, Rollett advises that you need to have a plan for your media.

This can take form in different ways. You might provide editorial content, meant to entertain readers and grow your audience. Or, you could create advertising, which would hopefully drive that audience toward an action -- particularly making a purchase or investing in you.

But, that's just one decision. You also need to decide on whether you want to make written media, photos or videos. Do you want it to be a digital media or something physical? Should it be long or short and what are your goals for the project?

This isn't about a one-size-fits-all solution -- each business will have different media needs. But, media is vital if you want to grow your business, because in the end, it's just a medium you can use for your message.

ADVERTISEMENT

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

10 Tips for Improving Customer Experience and Growing Your Business

Optimize Your Website’s User Experience and Boost SEO

Search engines don’t just look at keywords when determining how to rank websites. They also want to call attention to sites that provide great user experiences. So by optimizing the user experience of your website, you can also boost your SEO. 

Supercharge Your Google Shopping Ads

Google Shopping can be a powerful way for ecommerce businesses to get their products in front of more online shoppers. You can make that tool even more powerful by investing in advertising options. 

Consider the Benefits of Podcasting

Podcasts have been around for years. But many businesses still overlook them when creating their content marketing strategies. 

Follow These Top Holiday Season Digital Trends

The holiday season offers some major opportunities for businesses to market their products and services online. But you need to keep an eye on the landscape to get the most out of your efforts. 

Learn These Lessons About Social Media and Millennials

Marketing to millennials has become a hot topic for businesses in recent years. But some businesses still have difficulty using social media to connect with this group. 

Overcome These Digital Transformation Challenges

Technology is forcing businesses in all industries to transform. But there are challenges that go along with that. 

Be Intentional with Your Character Count on Twitter

Twitter recently increased its character limit from 140 to 280. But does that mean you should double the length of all your tweets? 

Increase Word of Mouth Referrals with Online Reviews

Online review sites have made a major impact on how consumers choose which companies to do business with. These reviews can lead to tons of word of mouth referrals for businesses. 

Balance Your Small Business Budget with These Key Steps

No matter what trends and strategies you employ for your small business, eventually it all comes down to money. So having a budget is key. 

Run an Effective Business with These HR Management Tips

Managing your team on a daily basis is another essential business chore. So you need to create HR processes that work for your team and your bottom line.

Source: https://smallbiztrends.com

Image Source: Shutterstock

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!

5 Secrets To Keeping Your Mojo Flowing, In Good Times and Bad

Deciding your own schedules. Choosing your own projects. Working as much or as little as you want. The freelance lifestyle seems like a dream. Only when it isn’t.

Accompanied by all that flexibility and the freedom to work in your pajamas comes the nerve-racking worry of whether you’ll be able to pay all your bills this month. Will that long elusive client finally pay up? Can you afford to replace your broken down car with a functional one and keep up with your loan payments?

So yeah, it’s good when the sun shines bright on you. But unlike a job that brings in an assured salary every month, cloudy days (months?) can burn a serious hole in your everyday finances. Having been in that boat myself, I can guarantee you, it’s not a fun place to be in. So what helped me in those dark days and helped me sail along splendidly eventually? These simple tactics.

1. Dig into your network

When the going starts getting rough, don’t hesitate to reach out to your friends. Be prepared to get a lot of pushbacks, and don’t feel too bad about it. Most people are too busy making their own ends meet to go out of their way and help someone else out. However, there will definitely be a few good Samaritans out there who can guide you to interesting opportunities or who will at least put you on to someone else if they can’t be of much use themselves.

You’ve been active on various platforms, interacting with friends and coworkers for years. You’ve probably built a reputation for yourself and in all likelihood, your network knows what you’re good at. This is the time you tap into these networks and figure out opportunities for yourself. Research proves that social networking is used by employers to find the right candidates. A study by Google shows that the most successful workers tend to be the most active on social networks.

LinkedIn is a great place to start but don’t limit yourself just to LinkedIn. Facebook shows your friends with common interests as yours. Twitter allows you to reach out to just about anyone from Bill Gates to your next door neighbor.

Find people in your niche and don’t hesitate to contact them for opportunities.

2. Create for the joy of creating

Human actions are typically motivated by the expectation of rewards. Professor Wolfram Schultz from Cambridge University shows us that when our expectations from any action are low, and when these actions are met with unexpected rewards, the amount of dopamine released into our brains is huge. Conversely, when we work with clear expectations of rewards that are not met, the resulting crash is nerve wracking.

Take note from this study and prepare yourself for the worst when you’re faced with a slump on the professional front. Do what you do best – write, paint, craft, sing, whatever – without huge expectations attached to your actions. Do it for the joy of your craft and the results will automatically follow through.

3. Learn new skills, explore new tools

A low period in your freelancing career is a good time to retool yourself both literally and metaphorically.

You could opt to upgrade your current skill sets by checking out courses online or at your local community college. I know a friend who built a successful pastry shop business after attending a free workshop on baking and cake decorating at her local arts and crafts store. Websites like edX, Alison and Khan Academy offer hundreds of different modules in a wide variety of subjects for absolutely free. Many universities offer online certificate programs that look great on your resume, upgrade your proficiency and don’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Besides gaining new skills, you can also use your down time to learn about new tools that make your work quicker, better and easier. Frequently, we freelancers double up as our own web designers, content marketers and bookkeepers. Traditionally, we have had neither the money nor the resources to accomplish these to our satisfaction. Fortunately, the internet is now a powerhouse of free tools that enable us to do just that.

For example, MarvelApp lets you turn your mockups and ideas into realistic mobile and web pages with its super simple prototyping capabilities. No need to hire a web developer or designer to do the coding.

You also have loads of help with publishing and marketing your blog and social posts – Snip.ly makes content curation a breeze, PDF Split&Merge allows you to mix, blend and remarket your whitepapers and ebooks, and Piktochart enables you to turn that boring block of industry data into visual content for your C-suite audience.

Finally, if you want a better handle on your freelance business’ finances (who doesn’t?) check out Nutcache for a free and easy to use invoicing and time tracking tool.

4. Spend money to make money

When you’re down on your luck, it seems like every penny saved is a penny earned. While this may have been true for your mom’s generation, today you need to invest in your business to see returns coming from it. Just as a savvy investor puts money into the stock markets during a bear run and sees his money grow when the markets inevitably bounce back to a bull run, create a fund for advertising your services when the orders stop coming in and your business needs that extra push.

If you have a website or a blog, promote it using AdWords and other PPC tools. Are your users active on Facebook? Advertise to your perfect target audience with paid ads on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, as the case may be. Use a tool like Retargeter to communicate to users who have already visited your website before and have shown interest in your services. This is also a good time to revive your email database. Use tools like MailChimp or Vertical Response to build ROI driven email campaigns that will bring you measurable results.

5. Moonlight: Poetry doesn’t pay the bills

When things are not looking up in your core area of expertise, don’t hesitate to branch out. It’s awesome to live on the hope that your next big client is just around the corner, but a freelancer does not have the luxury of “wait and watch” time. Bills need to be paid, the wheels of life need to be greased, and all of that comes at a price.

Head out to the hundreds of multi-disciplinary job boards on the internet and try your luck in areas that may even be a tad out of your comfort zone. Besides that usual suspects like Odesk and Elance, pick from sites like PeoplePerHour or Fiverr to find some truly out of the box freelancing opportunities. Who knows a great new project could just mean the beginning of a whole new career track!

In Closing

In good times, simply go with the flow, but remember to breathe and have a little fun for yourself too. When things slow down, try the tips detailed above to keep your head above water. Peaks and troughs in your career are expected. With a dash of resourcefulness and loads of positivity, there’s no slump that is unconquerable.





Source: http://www.theselfemployed.com 
Image Credit: Getty Images


ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business networking association dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs develop, expand and grow. We offer affordable opportunities to help create a positive impact and advancement in your business interests and personal quality of life to take you to the next level.
Stay Connected with WNFP!

Don’t Let Growing Pains Take Your Business Down

 In the past year, several high-profile entrepreneurial companies have been in the news for not-so-positive reasons. Once held up as role models, these businesses and their high-profile founders (I won’t name names) are now struggling to survive. The common denominator in their downfalls? There are several, but the main culprit is too-rapid growth.

Growing fast might seem like the answer to a small business owner’s prayers. But often, the perils of rapid growth illustrate the saying, “Be careful what you wish for—you might get it.”

What lessons can you take away to help avoid the risks of rapid growth?

1. Company culture matters.

Growing businesses run into trouble when their PR persona doesn’t jibe with what’s actually happening inside the company. If you promote your business as an egalitarian, forward-thinking innovator, but your workplace is actually rife with sexual harassment, it’s only a matter of time until customers find out about the disconnect and dump you like a hot potato.

To-do: It’s easy to keep control of your company culture when there are only a few of you. However, as your business expands, be sure to instill the same culture in all your new employees. Employee handbooks, onboarding practices and systematized training help ensure everyone’s on the same page. Make sure your managers embody your company culture, too.

2. With capital comes complexity.

Getting a fat round of funding from angel investors or VCs looks like the answer to your dreams—but often becomes a nightmare. In return for the money, you now have investors looking over your shoulder and second-guessing you, or even directing you.

To-do: Before you seek financing of any kind, know what you’re getting into. If you take money from investors, you’ll need to report on results, live up to their expectations, and maybe even give up some control of your business. The alternative could be losing it entirely.

3. You’ve got to pay the bills.

Buzz and hype can take you far, but if you aren’t paying your bills on time, you’ll eventually crash and burn. Rapid growth brings new costs, as well as the temptation to splurge on fancy office furniture or an expensive advertising agency to maintain your image.

To-do: Keep careful tabs on your company’s cash flow. You may need to monitor it daily to stay on top of things. Weigh any new expenses carefully, focusing on spending in ways that will benefit your business—not your ego.

4. Hire wisely.

When rapid growth stretches your small business’ staff too thin, it’s a recipe for disaster. Overworked employees can’t do their best, and your company’s product or service quality suffers. Eventually they become resentful, spurring morale problems and potential PR disasters.

To-do: Employees are the foundation of your business, so don’t scrimp on hiring. Have plans in place for how you will add staff as needed. That doesn’t necessarily require hiring full-time employees; it could mean knowing where to find the best independent contractors, virtual employees or temporary workers.

5. Walk the walk.

You’re busier than you ever thought possible, getting next to no sleep, and walking on air from the excitement of your business dreams coming true. It’s all too easy to start believing that the rules don’t apply to you. If you expect your employees to work for peanuts or your vendors to wait for payment while you’re signing the lease on a snazzy new sports car, you’re in for a big surprise.

To-do: Never ask your team to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. Of course, you should focus most of your time on high-value activities, but you also need to be willing to get down in the trenches when it counts. Showing employees you understand their sacrifices and your partners that you honor your commitments will help your reputation grow along with your sales.

Source.com: https://www.theselfemployed.com - http://www.score.org



ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business networking association dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs develop, expand and grow. We offer affordable opportunities to help create a positive impact and advancement in your business interests and personal quality of life to take you to the next level.