5 Summer Tips for Your Business

1. Announce Holiday Themed Specials

   Why not do a Summer Special? I know, we see these promotions all the time. It’s because they work. You might want to go for the less-celebrated holidays to make your promotions really stand out like National Dog Day on August 26.

2. Do Birthday and Life Event Marketing

   I recently saw a brilliant post card from a business owner who just had a baby. His special offer was in honor of his new son, who he was holding in the photo. Business is getting more personal, so announce birthdays and life-changing events to your customers and reap the rewards.

3. Hire Extra Help

   In summer, there are plenty of students and young people who want to learn about business and would make great additions to your team. Tap into this great pool of talent.

4. Revolutionize Your Business and Sponsor Plan

   Chart the course of your business and sponsorships for the next half of the year. Analyze what has worked for you and what you need to change to pump up your business success.

5. Have a Party

   You can have your own networking mixer or an educational seminar. Even though it’s a business event, make it fun. Decorate, play games and give away prizes. Encourage people to network and learn more about your company.

Go with these proven strategies and add some fireworks to your business.

Should a Strip Club Sponsor Little League?

James Wallace, general manager of the Jet Strip, a Gentleman’s Club in Lennox, California, donated $1,200 to sponsor the city’s little league team. Lennox is ridden with gangs and the team needed $1,200 or they would close down. If kids don’t play little league, they may join gangs.

Wallace wanted to keep the gentleman’s club’s donations quiet and not want the kids wear the business name on clothing..”We don’t really like to brag about it,” he said.

The Problem: The Little League Team Turned the Money Down

The team and some people in the impoverished city didn’t believe in the values of the strip club as a sponsor. The little league team refused the money.

Do you think the little league team should have accepted the sponsorship?

I’d love to hear your comments.

Are You Too Attached?

I recently dropped my cats, Sneakers and Carmella, off at the cat hotel for a few days and realized how attached I am to them. 

Then I thought about my all-consuming attachment to my business.

I reflected back to the days when I was an employee.

Wow! I was able to work during the day and not and I didn’t spend my nights and weekends thinking about the business.

As entrepreneurs, we are a different breed and we become attached to our businesses.

Here are some great ways to step back from your business and recharge so you can give more to your team and your clients:

1. Take off 1 day a week to read an do some planning and visioning for your company.
   Get out of your office. You can go to an opulent hotel lobby, by the water or wherever you come up with great visions for your business.
2. Strive for completion, not perfection.
   Don’t get caught up in the perfectionist trap. Strive for good enough and move on to the next project.
3. Have a stellar group of coaches, mastermind partners and an advisory board. Get great people on your team who can relieve you of time-consuming tasks.In the sponsor world, your mastermind group is called the advisory board.

I’d love to hear your comments.

Did You Ever Think of Attending a Business Conference to Get Sponsors?
Go to the exhibitor booth of your potential sponsor. When it’s not busy, ask the company representative at the booth who you can contact in the sponsorship or marketing department. Then take their business card and make a note of the key influencer who can help you get a sponsorship deal.

The “Quality Introduction”
When you call the key influencer, use the name of the person that referred you. This is the “quality introduction” and it gets through the gatekeepers and opens lots of doors.
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Here are some more tips for success when you attend your next business event

1. Have Clear Goals
   Make an agenda for what you want to accomplish at the event. Do you want to learn more strategies to grow your business? Do you want to meet more clients and referrals? Do you want to check out speakers and potential sponsors?
2. Get to the Event Early
   That way you can have more time to make business connections. If there is a speaker, you can claim a prime seat to see the speaker without obstructions of big heads and hairdos. The front tables at events tend to be power tables. By arriving early, you can assure yourself a seat in these influential circles.
3. Don’t Let Those Business Cards Sit There
   Call the people you met at the event and see if you can arrange a coffee date, phone call or meeting. Thank you cards and e-greetings are wonderful ways of acknowledging the person’s importance. It’s also a great idea to write a quick e-mail to the people you met at the event. Your fortune is in your follow-up.

Epson WorkForce 840 Knows Business

I’ve never been a fan of multifunction printers until I tried the WorkForce 840 all-in-one from my sponsor Epson. They want to empower women business owners and this is the flagship model of the company’s line of printers for micro and home-based businesses.

In addition to the usual menu of print, copy, scan, and fax functions, the WorkForce 840 features Ethernet and Wi-Fi networking, an automatic document feeder (ADF), and the ability to print directly from your mobile device. I love the fast-drying ink and the duplex feature where you can print both sides of the paper flawlessly.

There’s also a very cool 7.8-inch touch display is a 3.5-inch color LCD with a number of buttons for functions such as home, page forward, page back, and move up a menu level.

Epson also offers Epson Connect, a new portfolio of cloud and mobile services enabling mobile users to print documents and photos directly to their Epson printers from a mobile device. Epson Connect offers two solutions – Email Print and Epson iPrint. Email Print allows customers to print out e-mail and file attachments by simply sending an e-mail from their smartphone or other mobile device to an enabled Epson printer. The Epson iPrint application, for the latest iOS- and Android-based devices, allows customers to print a wide range of content such as photos, documents and web pages by simply downloading the Epson iPrint application and connecting to a Wi-Fi enabled printer.

When you’re not on your phone but in the office, you’ll find the copy and scan functions useful. You can also use the ADF to produce double-sided copies and scan double-sided prints.

The Bottom Line: Epson supports women in business and the WorkForce 840 is perfect for your office or your home. I print all of my seminar flyers, presentations and even family photos on this printer and the design fits the small or home office perfectly.

Project Runway and Sponsors

Project Runway is sponsored by HP and Intel. Check out this 4 minute video to see how they promote their sponsors. Very cool! http://bit.ly/rfwfYm

Texts at Midnight?

Do Instant Communications Make Your Life Easier or More Stressful?

My business colleagues are telling me about

• Texts at midnight
• Emails with random thoughts, jokes and brain farts
• Business calls on the weekends
• Social media invading their free time

How to Train Your Clients

When I first started my business, I was available to my clients 24/7. After a few years, I wanted my life back, so I let clients know that I don’t work nights and weekends.

Tips for Creating Boundaries

• If someone sends you an email on after hours on Friday, reply on Monday morning.
• Respond to late night texts the next business day
• Create a social media policy and decide on when you’ll post and tweet
• Don’t pick up your business phone on the weekends. That’s what voice mail is for.

I’d Love Your Comments

5 Tips to Maximize Your Productivity

My Pick for Productivity: Epson WorkForce 840 All in One Printer

Small business owners understand that time is a valuable resource that is always in short supply. In order to affect the bottom line, you need to work smarter, faster and make every resource count. Over the years, I have followed these five simple tips to help maximize my productivity at the office.

1. Keep your workspace clean and organized. Eliminate the need for filing cabinets by converting documents to electronic, searchable PDFs using an all-in-one printer like the Epson WorkForce 840. Many new and small businesses have little extra room in their office, so consolidation is key.
2. Go wireless. Free yourself to move about your office or attend important meetings while still staying connected. Integrating a strong wireless network into your business makes connectivity and accessibility simple for you and your clients.  Be sure to leverage any Wi-Fi-enabled technology to ensure your get the most out of the technology investments you’ve made.
3. Make technology work for you. Electronics are a major investment, and choosing the right hardware can make all the difference in your productivity. Integrating smartphones or tablets into your daily routine to easily search online or print important documents and photos can be a huge time savings.  With the ever-expanding to-do lists small business owners must tackle on any given day, fast, reliable and easy-to-use technology can save you from a world of headaches.
4. Think sustainable. Doing your part to conserve resources can also benefit your bottom line. Cutting down on paper usage with duplex printing (printing on both sides), running ENERGY STAR qualified devices and even turning off electronics when not in use can help show you and Mother Earth a little more green.
5. Love where you work! This is your business, so make your office whatever you want it to be. I have many pictures of my mother and daughter rescue cats, Carmella and Sneakers, that I have printed to keep me happy and productive even on the longest work days.

Are Customers Walking Out On You?

Did You Know That 2 Out of 3 Customers Walked Out of a Store Because of Bad Customer Service?

67 percent of customers said they hung up on a customer service phone call without having their problem addressed.

Customers also found it annoying when businesses hid their phone numbers on their web sites.

Voting With Their Feet

Most people don’t complain about bad customer service. They vote with their feet and take their business elsewhere.

Take a look at your customer service and make changes if necessary. Then people will tell the world about your 5 star customer service.

Top 3 Social Media Opportunities for Women

More women than men visit social networking sites
and spend 30% more time per month using them.

Companies are looking to reach women as consumers, advocates and entrepreneurs.

For women, social media offers abundant opportunities to lead, innovate, and build relationships.      

1.   Become a Thought Leader

Women can gain celebrity and expert status on social media. Michele Cobin Friedlander, a family law attorney, constantly answers questions on parenting blogs and social media. This has led to quality referrals and top-notch clients.

2.   Create an Emotional Connection

Making an emotional connection is one of the best ways to attract women to your brand. You want to ignite a reaction like, “Wow, that’s me!” By creating a two-way conversation, you are personalizing your brand and creating trust. This is a great way to highlight your stellar customer service.

3.   Contact the Person Privately

Once you’ve gotten to know someone through social media, it’s time to initiate a conversation. Be friendly, respectful and brief. After a few messages back and forth, I like to ask for a phone appointment. I’ve gotten to know phenomenal people from social media that have become clients, cheerleaders and great friends.