Right there between Black Friday and Cyber Monday resides Small Business Saturday. It’s a day dedicated for shopping at your local small business. According to American Express (the sponsor of Small Business Saturday), sales were down this year compared to 2016. This year 108 million shoppers spent $12.9 billion, compared to 112 million shoppers spending $15 billion last year. The survey further shows that the majority of small businesses visited during Small Business Saturday were food or clothing related. Much less in retail and specialty stores. You probably saw commercials encouraging you to shop small, shop local. However, the emotion invoked is guilt. Buy small business because you should help small business. Buy local because you should help your community. Well, guilt can take you so far. $12.9 billion, to be precise, but it is declining. While Dan Ariely may claim that buyers don’t always make pure economic and rational…

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1. Set cashflow targets One way of controlling cashflow is by preparing and maintaining a cashflow forecast. Andrew Johnson, financial controller for telephone conferencing provider Powwownow, advises that this can be updated weekly, to provide an accurate outlook for the next six to 12 months. He says: “Setting targets for the credit controllers is an excellent way to ensure it is given the attention necessary and provides a level of satisfaction and ownership to hit and beat these.” 2. Agree clear payment terms Establishing clear payment terms from the outset is important as Suzannah Nichol, chief executive of construction industry body the National Specialist Construction Council, explains. “If you don’t start off knowing what your payment terms are, it is difficult to know when you are going to get paid, ” she says. “If you don’t know when a payment is overdue, how are you going to manage your cashflow?”…

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A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. by Benjamin P. Hardy A certain farmer had become old and ready to pass his farm down to one of his two sons. When he brought his sons together to speak about it, he told them: The farm will go to the younger son. The older son was furious! “What are you talking about?!” he fumed. The father sat patiently, thinking. “Okay,” the father said, “I need you to do something for me. We need more stocks. Will you go to Cibi’s farm and see if he has any cows for sale?” The older son shortly returned and reported, “Father, Cibi has 6 cows for sale.” The father graciously thanked the older son for his work. He then turned to the younger son and said, “I need you to do something for…

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Written by Jimmy Ombom I know that every marketer’s goal in Facebook is to get leads from the hundreds of ads running at that site. Yes, it is a great idea to have ads running on Facebook because of the billions of users who use it. Its however sucks to just getting people clicking or liking on the ads with zero conversion. Right? There could be many reason why this happens. Let’s look at how we can avoid this. Reasons why your Ads Do not Work A Bad Product You are selling a product that no one is interested in. Or you are selling it the wrong way. No matter how much you invest in ads, if no one wants to buy it. It will not sell. I keep mentioning that not everyone in social media is interested to buy. Most of the guts are just looking out to…

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For many years people have thought that the reason organizations struggle with creativity is because there aren’t enough good ideas.  Therefore, leaders sought to fix the problem by having staff generate more ideas, and practices proliferated that improved idea generation (such as brainstorming) and individual creativity (such as classes). But brainstorming and art classes haven’t solved the problem: Leaders still say that there isn’t enough creativity, often blaming lackluster returns on inadequately creative solutions. But what if too few ideas isn’t the real problem?  What if there are plenty of good ideas, and the real issue is that people in decision-making positions – the leaders who are complaining about the lack of creativity – are refusing to act on them? There is good evidence that points to this as the actual issue organizations face. Research by Justin Berg has shown that some companies don’t have a deficit of creative ideas, they have…

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If you want to start your day the same way Tony Robbins does, you only need to set aside 10 minutes. Robbins has spent the last three decades as the world’s foremost performance coach, taking on clients like billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones, tennis champion Serena Williams, and former president Bill Clinton. He’s sold millions of books and audio lessons, and thousands of people attend his seminars every year. Robbins recently offered a peek into his “Unleash the Power Within” event, a three-and-a-half day intensive course designed to give participants an action plan for overhauling their lives. Tickets run from $650 to around $3,000, but Robbins streamed over an hour of his talk in front of a sold out crowd in New Jersey’s Prudential Center over Facebook Live. One of the lessons covered was the most important aspect of his morning routine, an exercise he calls “priming.” It’s rooted in…

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Business Life Cycle Your business is changing. With the passage of time, your company will go through various stages of the business life cycle. Learn what upcoming focuses, challenges and financing sources you will need to succeed. A business goes through stages of development similar to the cycle of life for the human race. Parenting strategies that work for your toddler cannot be applied to your teenager. The same goes for your small business. It will be faced with a different cycle throughout its life. What you focus on today will change and require different approaches to be successful. The 7 Stages of the Business Life Cycle Seed The seed stage of your business life cycle is when your business is just a thought or an idea. This is the very conception or birth of a new business. Challenge: Most seed stage companies will have to overcome the challenge of…

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Is Website Push Notifications Is Killing The Email Marketing? If you haven’t gotten yourself acquainted with website push notifications yet, now is the time to get on board – seriously, these welcome message for website things are going to be huge for lead generation techniques, increasing your conversion rates and maximising your return on your website investment. In fact, they’re already kind of huge, and they’re changing the game when it comes to online marketing trends. There are lots of tools out there to help you build your business quickly, and this is just another to add to that ever-growing list. So what is Website Push Notifications? And, is it an email killer? Keep reading closely to find out and how to get started today. In essence, a website push notification is a way to get your company’s most relevant information straight to a hot prospective customer. Read that again:…

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Make strong emotional connections with your customers by sharing your ‘why’ with them. It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day – the long to-do lists, the endless meetings and the overwhelming amount of emails. I’m sure there are times when you feel like working at your company is a drain; so why do you do it? If you’re like me, it’s because you love what you do. You have a purpose driving you – even through the not-so-fun tasks. Your organization also has this purpose – this overarching “why” driving the entire business. Your company’s “why” is different from your mission or vision. But it can sometimes be hard to define – and even harder to communicate and share with others. “Every organization on the planet knows what they do,” says Simon Sinek, leadership expert and motivational speaker. “Some know how they do it, the things that you…

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Work isn’t recess but it shouldn’t be detention, either. The last thing any manager wants their team members to do is dread coming to work each day. Because people spend the majority of their time at work, it is important managers do all they can to make that time enjoyable, exciting and well-spent. A dictatorial manager who lacks empathy or insight may produce but high turnover will cause them to ultimately fail. Excellent managers do their best to make 80 percent of the job rewarding, with a 20 percent balance of healthy stress. While this may not always be the possible, it is nonetheless their goal. 1. Knowledgeable To create a happy and successful team, exceptional managers make sure to be knowledgeable in every area of their field, and to have the resources necessary to gather the information they are lacking. They are responsible and thorough in their direction of…

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