The Missing Piece of your Marketing Strategy: In-Person Marketing

“A simple face to face connection is perhaps the best way to gain a new customer.”

Every year, companies spend enormous amounts of time and money developing innovative marketing techniques. From electronic billboards, to sponsored web articles, to even creative skywriting -- businesses are constantly trying out new methods to drive growth. This desire to experiment with marketing is valuable, but often these efforts are poor uses of resources. Just because it is new doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Too often, businesses forget to focus on the simplest and perhaps most effective strategy: in-person marketing. Personal relationships with customers are critical to driving revenue and business growth. A simple face to face connection is perhaps the best way to gain a new customer.

Personal connections are especially important in the early stages of your business when you are still perfecting your model. Customer feedback is a key way to find out what elements of your business aren’t working. You can check in with your customers frequently and gain valuable information about pricing, quality, or anything else you want to know. A strong personal connection will ensure the feedback they give is honest and reliable. These connections are also great for market research. Learning more about your customers – who they are, where they are, and what they want – is critically important. You want to constantly tweak and improve your business to keep it relevant in the market place. Even for larger, more developed companies, maintaining and creating new personal connections is vital. It’s a big mistake to just see customers as dollar signs. Businesses who fail to understand what their customers actually want will not last long.  

Making meaningful connections with people can also be a great way to expand your business. Of all the types of advertising, one of the most valued is “word of mouth.” Your business profits when satisfied customers share their experiences and recommendations to friends and family. One Tweet or Facebook post could lead to many new customers. Again, this is why in person connections are so important. One solid interaction with someone will allow you to put a “face to the business.” Customers are of course more likely to share their opinions if that personal connection has been established.  One connection could lead to a whole web of potential new business leads. A small investment of time can lead to huge amounts of rewards. Your growing business could be one connection away from exponential growth.

In-person marketing is perhaps the best way to market your business, and best of all, it just requires a little bit of time. It’s as easy a quick call to a good customer. 

Declare Independence: Separate Personal and Business Finances

One common mistake entrepreneurs make, especially in the early stages, is not separating their business and personal finances. Too often, business rookies will use their own debit and credit cards for work expenses. As usual, this quick and easy option is not the smartest or most efficient of managing your business finances. Without separate accounts, it is much more difficult to track important metrics like revenue, expenses, and cash flow. In addition, having a combined account makes tax preparation more tedious and frightening than it already is. Using your own card may seem easy today, but next spring you are going to be frantically crawlingly through months old bank statements – desperately trying to remember if that $30 at Starbucks was really a valid business expense.

It is recommended that all entrepreneurs create separate accounts for their businesses. Not only does this validate the new enterprise, it will make life much easier. This separation gives real credibility to the business, especially if you are thinking about incorporating in the future. It is simple too. With one trip to the bank you can create a new account for your business. In addition, software applications that aggregate and organize your finances work great with this separate account system. Handlr is an especially great resource to use. Not only does transactions get entered straight into your business account, but simply access and see valuable, accurate, financial statements when you need them. Altogether, the liberation of your business finances will make your life less complicated and your business more credible and efficient.  So if you’re still using a combined account, declare your independence, automate your business with Handlr, and hold on tight for growth.

Step Back to Move Forward

No one said starting a business would be simple. As Shakespeare once said, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."  In today’s environment, owners have to do it all. They need to be accountants, customer services representatives, digital marketing experts, and more. Too often, owners are overwhelmed by the details. Organizing invoices, tracking employees, and chasing payments all distract from the real goals of the business. Instead, you should be ensuring the quality of your service, engaging with customers, and driving new growth. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do it all.

There is an expanding school of thought that entrepreneurs shouldn’t be judged by how many hours they work, but rather by how effective those hours are. “I work 60 hours a week” shouldn’t be a badge a pride, but rather a sign you may be going wrong. Diligent, consistent work is the key to growing a business, but if it is focused in the wrong area, your efforts may be in vain. The solution is delegation. For many new business owners, it is very difficult to relinquish control. You need to be sure that the job still gets done right. You need to guarantee the payments are on time, your employees are where they need to be, and the budget remains balanced. But there really are tools out there that can help. Handlr has the resources to assist you more effectively in delegating and managing tasks. Our system makes handling finances and logistics a breeze. Applications like Handlr are so appreciated by business owners because not only does it do their tasks efficiently and correctly, they free up a lot of time for you to do what is really important – running your business.

To see Handlr in action, book a demo here.

Survival of the Tech-Savviest

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

— Charles Darwin

There was a time when if you wanted a ride across town, your only choice was to call a cab. Now, with a few taps, you can call an Uber or Lyft and get where you need to go. To many, the instructions to “call a cab” now seem strange and outdated. While paying for your ride with your phone was once thought of as unusual and unsafe, it is now rare to find someone with more than $40 dollars cash in their pocket. Although cabs were often dirty, slow, and expensive, you can argue that their biggest weakness was failure to change.

The point of this illustration is that you have to adapt to survive. The most successful businesses are the ones that embrace change and continue to give real benefit to their customers. This means adapting to and accepting new methodologies that technology now offers. Not only will platforms like Handlr make your business more efficient, they will help you compete in a market that is relying more and more on technology. “Oh, I just pay you on my phone?” is no longer a weird request. Oh, no more paperwork & invoicing? -- It is quickly becoming a valuable and appreciated convenience. The ability to directly message customers is revolutionizing customer service.  Scheduling appointments in a few clicks is becoming the new standard. Businesses who fail to adapt to the increasing demand for mobile and digital services won’t be able to compete. The competition is changing and customers are taking notice. For today’s businesses the choice is clear: you either adapt to new technology or go the way of the dodo.

To see Handlr in action, schedule a demo to see the magic here.

5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

01. Not staying on top of consumer needs

In our previous blog post, “Don’t Fear the Feedback” we stress the importance of always keeping the dialogue open with your customers on how they’re feeling about your business. By always engaging with your audience, you get a direct response of areas of improvements that you may have never identified. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking every word literally and doing as they wish. But figuring out why they have these hiccups with your business, and implementing a strategy that best fits your business’ needs is the way to go. You can broaden the scope of how you collect your feedback by emailing a simple survey, leaving a quick form to fill, or if you’re using Handlr, your customers can automatically review/rate your business right after the service is performed, straight off their phone.

02. Burnout

Burnout is way too common of a problem with small business owners. It’s a double-edged sword to do what you love but it requires so much effort to see little growth sometimes. No one realizes that to be an entrepreneur, is to also sign-up for a 24 hour job. You live, breath, and sleep your business and that can throw you into a crazy, go-go-go mentally. Some tips to avoid the entrepreneurial burnout:

1. Hire a team you can trust - find skilled, high-quality workers that want to be apart of your business’ growth. From our past experiences, our best employees come from referrals from family and friends, or using hiring platforms like Hireology to match up better candidates and hire smarter.

2. Don’t be afraid to delegate the work - have trust in your team members to check off some of your tasks. It will challenge them in ways that help them grow, and make them feel like a true MVP on the team.

3. Put automation in place - by utilizing business management platforms like Handlr, it can save you hours and hours per week on mundane tasks. Forget dealing with that stack of paperwork, and embrace freedom with automated scheduling, invoicing, and more.

4. Take a vacation once in awhile and don’t feel guilty about it - we all know and need that friend that forces us to go on a weekend getaway. And once in a blue moon, you’ll half-heartedly say yes and go. But so does your laptop, your phone, your forms, and before you know it, you’re still working on your R&R time. Taking a step back and breaking your work state-of-mind is a great thing to do. Listen - it’s a great thing to give yourself a real break. Taking a vacation refreshes the mind and lets you come back to your Monday more focused with new perspectives.

03. Not staying on top of digital trends

Technology is an ever evolving industry, and it’s a challenge for business owners to stay current with already little spare time. This little investment of just keeping in-the-know with the tech industry can pay off big amounts for your business. Check in on the “technology” section of your news source, get ideas from your customers and other business owners, or discovering emerging platforms on your own that could potentially help launch your business is what this is all about. And don’t be afraid to learn new things! Being complacent with your software that was designed in 1999 is definitely holding your business’ potential back - exponentially. It’s time for that upgrade. This also ties in with point 1. of keeping up to date with your customers’ needs. If your customers are always using their phone to find information or buy products, it’s a clear indicator of perhaps you’d want to expand that way as well.

04. Profitable Business Model

At the end of the day, if your business isn’t showing profit, it’s in a state of decline. Identify where the money gets made and shift your focus. It’s a game of trial and error but there’s a tremendous amount of gains to be made. We all know of the beginning story of Zappos where they weren’t even sure consumers would be comfortable with buying shoes online. So what did they do? They threw up images of shoes and a couple of “Buy Now” buttons to gauge the response. Orders flooded in, and they had to scramble to buy shoes from retailers to fulfill orders. Now, they make over $2 Billion in gross merchandise sales per year. The lesson learned? They weren’t afraid to research and investigate where the money was. Identify your profitable strengths or else you’ll end up in the 80% business failure bracket.

05. Out-of-Control Growth

This is an unfortunate scenario of overnight success that we’ve seen too frequent in the past. Businesses nail a product and the demand is skyrocketing high. But the infrastructure is lacking - not enough hands on deck, manufacturers aren’t solidified, the business owner takes out a huge loan to make the ends meet, and things just go flying out of control. Sometimes, baby steps to scaling a business is the route to go where you can control and fine-tune details just the way is needed.

The take aways: Failure is expected in the entrepreneur world but it’s the reaction to it that matters. See failures as a learning opportunity and lesson for the future. A true entrepreneur will get back up from the failures, find a new venture, AND apply the lessons learned from past failures to come back stronger than ever. Be resilient, persistent, and dedicated to the work will pay off down the road.

Life Hack: How Long Should I Nap?

Ch. 10 of the Comprehensive Checklist for Growing Your Business: Community Outreach

In the midst of your crazy day of managing a business, the thought of community outreach and social responsibility probably isn’t floating around at the front of your head. They all say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” and that applies to raising a business as well. Without the support of your neighbors and community, your business probably wouldn’t exist. Let’s take a minute to surface the real ROIs on doing a little something for your community.

There are different levels of involvement that you can choose from that best fits your availability. You can sponsor local events, organize meetings/networking gatherings, or participate in a meetup. The opportunities of helping your community can get really fun and creative while also being a cost-effective method of marketing. It’s also a great opportunity to rally up your employees for good old team building and morale boosting. Now, on top of all those positive things, let’s get to how it can help build your business.

1. Get yourself publicly known by your locals.

   The more you put your name out there, the more your community will gain awareness of your business. Community outreach is heavily effective because it puts a real person in front of prospective customers. In contrast, with an ad, or website, it garners a one-way communication to your audience. Making real connections to people involves engagement, and a moment that you and your customer share - it’s hard to forget that.
    

2. Build long-lasting relationships with them.

   By putting a face on your business and engaging in conversations with people in your community, it’s only natural that you start to build long-lasting relationships with them. You get to know first names of pivotal people in the neighborhood, their family, and story. Slowly, business owners can build their network and make important connections that are beneficial for the long run. However, these connection are symbiotic. The more resources and value you can provide for your customer, they more they depend and come to you.
    

3. Increase company reputation and image.

   By staying active and involved in community events, it builds fantastic repertoire amongst your neighbors and customers. The driving force of purchasing decisions are made by emotion. If you can connect with your community on an emotional level, it’s a win-win for them and your business.

Community outreach can build your clientele and strengthen your presence in your community. By participating in these events, businesses can develop customer loyalty and top of the mind recall. It is also fantastic for building a positive reputation which can then lead to long-lasting, returning customers. Investing time into this method of marketing doesn’t have to be a complex process. Doing something as little as printing branded bookmarks for the library, or providing water for your local marathon can leave an unforgettable, lasting impression on your business.

4 Office Hacks to Keep the Creativity Flowing

1. Get a Whiteboard, Any Board

   Visualization is so important to help conceptualize ideas and sometimes, an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper just won’t cut it. Drawing out your thoughts on a greater scale that’s quickly presentable to your colleagues helps everyone understanding your thought process. It’s also more efficient in hashing out possible contingencies and with a good whiteboard eraser, anyone can jot down ideas as fast as the conversation is going.
    

2. Find a New Playlist

   Music makes you think more creatively - plain and simple. According to an article on bufferapp.com, “moderate noise levels increase processing difficulty which promotes abstract processing, leading to higher creativity.” Simply stated, if we distract our brains just a bit more, it’ll push itself a bit harder and find new approaches to understanding the work at hand.
    

3. Mobile Office Day

   The day-to-day environment of being inside the same four walls can get you stuck in the same mindset. Throwing yourself into a fresh setting or location will push your mind to reconceptualize ideas as new influences come into play. Go outside, catch some sun, feel the breeze on your face! At Handlr Headquarters, we like having our meetings on a hike or during a fencing lesson, no big deal.
    

4. Wine

   Need we say more? Dealing with a task that you just can’t solve is frustrating as it is. And, acknowledging the frustration can push you deeper into the spiral of frenzy. It’s all going to be just fine. Now, although we don’t condone excessive amounts of alcohol consumption, letting loose over a glass of wine can increase your creativity. Don’t believe us? In a study titled, “Uncorking the muse: Alcohol intoxication facilitates creative problem solving,” it stated, “Moderate intoxication … improves problem solving and leads to what participants in the Consciousness and Cognition study referred to as ‘sudden insights,’ which the sober participants reported significantly less often” (Vinepair) Boom.

5 Reasons to Not Just Take Checks and Cash

Welcome to 2016, where consumers are less and less carrying around their wallets. Consumers these days are now being exposed to many different payment platforms. We have Square, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Android Pay, the list is growing everyday. Where does your business stand with accepting other forms of payment? Here are 5 reasons why your business should not just take checks and cash.

1. Checks are becoming an archaic thing of the past

Let’s face it.  Soon, checks will be an extinct method of payment. According to Bank Innovation, “From 2003-12, checks decreased by half, from 36 billion to 18 billion.” It shows that soon enough, (estimated by 2021 with the rate of decline) check use will plummet to a whopping zero. Major grocery retailers like Whole Foods and Albertson’s have stopped accepting checks for the past several years now, and we’ll continue to see this trend widen as more payment technology expands and becomes available to us.

2. Cash isn’t always available on hand

If you’re anything like me, and a part of the emerging generation of the young, mobilized, “Swipe” generation, getting cash requires taking an extra step to get a transaction done. Going to the ATM to withdraw cash, or going to a store just to hit the cashback button, it all takes extra time in the day. People have to find cash and the stash (as much as I’d like it to be) isn’t infinite - the cash flow has to be replenished. As opposed to electronic funds, consumers always have access to their accounts, whenever, wherever.

3. Cash =  Room for Error

Dealing with cash is a mainly a manual activity. We count cash with our hands, do the math in our heads, and in cases where cents are involved, there’s a million coins multiplying and jingling in our pockets. We’re constantly adding and subtracting figures even with a register machine. This leaves a huge margin for error and inaccurate cash handling, especially when a business owner has a staff of workers dealing with cash all day. Lessen the friction of handling cash and automate payment processing. When dealing with a large fleet of people out in the field, it's best to not have them physically handling the cash and checks so that they don't have to be responsible for dropping off payments to you as the owner.

Choosing cash as a means of payment also means dealing with receipts. In other words, generating trash. Whether a business is writing up a receipt for the transaction, or a consumer is receiving one for his or her payment, how inconvenient is this process? Going paperless is on the rise (soaring, actually), and receipts are thrown in the trash 2.5  seconds after it’s handed to the customer. Whether it’s choosing Square, PayPal, Venmo, or it’s built into an app like Handlr, automating payment processing means businesses get paid quicker, and faster. The best part of automating the payment process is avoiding the awkward conversation of, “So, that invoice from last week…”

4. Mobile payment is preferred

Since 2014 and the almighty release of Apple Pay, I’ve gotten used to the idea of not carrying around my wallet anymore. In fact, I get a bit irritated when I walk into an establishment that doesn’t support Apple Pay. I even prefer to shop at locations that accept it. When they don’t, I think, “Why isn’t this business investing in the easiest ways to accept payment?” But taking a step back, the percentage of preference of mobile payment is outstanding. TechCrunch reports that, “Ninety-four percent of consumers under 35-years-old bank online,” weighing the scale far on the electronic/mobile side. It’s the livelihood of a business to offer methods of payment that consumers prefer, otherwise, they’re not coming to ya.

5. "Electronic Funds are Not Safe."

In, “How the Decline of Cash Makes America a Safer Country,” posted by The Atlantic, Thomspon states that cash was the bloodline of the black market, because cash is absolutely untraceable and easily stolen. Now with the declining statistics of using cash, we see a correlation if a decline in the percentage of crime rates, particularly with robberies and other illegal activities. There’s dangers to using anything really, including using cash.

Also, banks and payment processing companies ensures consumer safety and most of the time, gets the money back pretty quickly to their account when there are instances of fraud. In cases of unauthorized transactions, it’s common for banks to immediately issue a new card (with a temporary card in the meantime) fast.

And lastly, we have to remember that convenience trumps all. Paper checks are quickly dying because it takes days to process and it’s simply a long process to deal with it. The success of fast-food restaurants and on-demand services like Uber, is because it’s so instant, easy, and accessible to use. 

Ch 5. of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Review, Review, Review

Review your financial reports for the year before and make sure that your bookkeeping is organized for the year ahead.

Financial Reports and Statements come into play when you least expect it. It’s important to stay on top of your reports because investors, creditors, and banks look at these to analyze a company’s performance and overall standing. It’s a good rule of thumb to review your statements to ensure accuracy and thoroughness.

Stay organized! We’re still early on in the year and starting off on the right foot can make this your easiest year of bookkeeping yet. Here are some tips we’d thought might help:

• Get a separate bank and credit card accounts for personal and business.
• Dedicate a small amount of your time per week to organize your finances.
• Ditch the paper & declutter- the IRS accepts electronic copies of your receipts.
• Store it in the cloud - you can’t do a quick word search through your physical folder of files!
• Sign up for Quickbooks Online to keep your finances organized and ready for taxes.
• Don’t know what you’re doing? Simply, ask for help from a professional.

I’m Behind on Bookkeeping

Is, “I can’t even right now,” your first reaction when you hear, “bookkeeping?” It’s a heavy chore, we get it. If you’re at a loss of where to even start when you need a Profit & Loss Statement, hire a local bookkeeper for a few hundred dollars per month. They can help keep you organized and prepared for taxes. You can also outsource your bookkeeping to a company like Bench.co who provide bookkeeping experts you can depend on.

Staying on top of paperwork is one of the many keys to success when owning your own business. Double checking, or even triple checking your numbers and financial reports safeguards you and your business from future mishaps when those reports have to come into play again. If you have any suggestions or ideas on what works for you when dealing with reports and statements - we’d love to hear them! Feel free to drop us a line in the Contacts section.

Are you a fearless entrepreneur? Here's 3 tactics for overcoming fear.

Britt Alwerud

A few weeks ago I sat in an audience of 40 other business CEOs and founders and listened to Mike Jones of Science, Inc. say the words, “Are you doing something right now that makes you money?”. This quote ended up on my whiteboard as a constant reminder to stay on track and work on tasks that make me money instead of make me busy. Which is ironic, because right now I’m writing a blog post instead of calling a hundred small businesses to spread the word about Handlr. The truth is, starting a business is completely overwhelming. It’s like staring up at a massive mountain and thinking, “How the hell am I going to scale this thing?”. The answer? One step at a time. Mike shared with us that success rides on two basic principles: sales and an unfaltering belief in your business’ potential for growth.

The bottom line is that fear is the enemy when it comes to sales and believing in your success. It’s scary as all hell to cold call people or to walk up to strangers with your card in hand. It's nerve-wracking to put your idea out into the world. It’s scary to hear the truth and the truth is, not everyone is going to love your idea. It’s scary to put your whole life savings (and wedding fund if you're like me) into a new crazy idea and it’s scary to think that there’s a possibility that not a single soul will want to sign up for your new app. Fear is a bitch. It can paralyze you and make you want to crawl up into a ball.

Owning my own business for the last 9 years and starting a new one, has been quite the roller coaster. It’s the best feeling in the world to be financially independent and to grow something from nothing, but it’s also scary to see your bank account near zero and to have so many employees relying on you to pay their living wages. It’s sometimes terrifying to shoulder so much responsibility for your business, your employees, your business’ reputation and your own living expenses. But it’s so worth it and the last 9 years have taught me so many lessons in bitch slapping fear in the face. I’m not going to lie, I have moments of panic, every entrepreneur does, but I now know how to stand up to my fear and most importantly, I know how to change my mindset.

The only thing that we have control over in life is our own mind. We have the power to choose the way we want to think about things. Dog training has taught me to train my own brain. I can train myself to approach difficult matters confidently, objectively, logically and without fear (ok, most of the time). Today we aren’t running from saber tooth tigers or wolves to survive, but we are still experiencing varying degrees of stress to make it in the modern world. You can think about stress as something negative, or you can change your mind about it and think of it as a motivator to keep you moving forward. Some stress is good, it keeps you going. It’s just important to keep it in check and not become paralyzed by it. I’ve found that 1) perspective, 2) progress, and 3) balance, keeps stress in check and fear at bay.

#1 Perspective in life is everything. It’s really the only thing that we truly have control over in life.  You can choose to think about things any way that you want. You choose to be scared, unknowledgeable, ungrateful, panicked, or clueless, or you can choose to be confident, knowledgeable, grateful, poised and clued in. You can be these things by taking action and taking control of your thoughts. To do this you must be self-aware and reflective in order to make a conscious effort to cancel out the negative and change it to a positive. Being scared or panicked is caused by a stressful response based on something that happened to you in the past or because of staring at the unknown future. Being in the present moment and taking one tiny step at a time toward your goal is really all that you can do and is completely do-able. You can look at a giant mountain that needs to be climbed, or you can look at your own two feet and put one ahead of the other. This perspective will propel you forward instead of become stuck in a quagmire of fear. Being grateful for being on your own two feet and being thankful to be on your personal journey of learning and growing will keep your perspective healthy and manageable. Like the old saying goes, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” Where you think you’re going to end up isn’t always the case and worrying about the future just slows progress.

#2 Progress is another key to keeping fear in check. Checking off little goals and tasks gets you one step further on your hike to the top. Everyone starts somewhere and overnight success is a rarity, not the norm. I have a tendency to look at the big picture and end goal way too often and fear sets in. Changing my perspective to what I can do today, keeps the fear in check. I have to remind myself that DogZenergy started as Wagz n’ Wigglz on my street with just a handful of dogs and that it took a few years to walk a dog on every single street in all of La Jolla and greater San Diego. We all start somewhere and progress is made when we keep on moving.

#3 Keeping life in balance is an art form and is the key to staying calm, brave and laser focused. Even though I can’t juggle, I have an imaginary Brittany in my head who is a fantastic juggler. She juggles a lot of balls. There’s one for my family, friends, Handlr, DogZenergy, pets, fitness, fun, health, mindfulness and learning. I am happiest and most brave when all of these balls are up in the air. If I drop one, a few others start dropping and then I’ve lost all my balls and marbles. Luckily I have ball obsessed golden retrievers who help me pick up my metaphorical balls. This is sounding weird and somewhat dirty. Getting back on track here… it’s tricky to keep your life in balance, but especially as an entrepreneur, it’s essential to take care of yourself to be the best version of yourself. You are your business and your business needs you. You don’t have time to be worrying and fretting about the future or whether or not things are going to turn out the way that you want them to. You just need to keep it all in perspective, make progress and stay balanced.

“
“Fear can only grow in darkness. Once you face fear with light, you win.” -Steve Maraboli”

Ch. 3 of the Comprehensive Guide for Growing Your Business: Guidelines

Why Guidelines?

Guidelines are crucial to maintaining consistency and excellence in your business. McDonald’s and every other franchise of the world have detailed guidelines and protocols in place to ensure that services are performed the same way, every time. Employee Handbooks and Business Guidelines (even if it’s just for yourself) are important to make sure that your business can run without you and that quality is guaranteed every time.

Guidelines are there to set the company’s tone that you see perfect for your business. It explains the core mission/standards of your business and covers all aspects of your business you can dream of, going beyond the protocols. From team member benefits, team member work behavior, or the specific conditions of what constitutes an absence, tardy, write-up, citation, or termination. It’s a great resource/reference to have for you and your team in uncertain situations.

Read the E-Myth and the 4-Hour Work Week to change your life as a business owner.

Gerber offers insightful strategies and tactics to conquer having your dream business. He walks you through the cycle of a business, from, “entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective” (Amazon). The E-Myth is considered mandatory reading from us for anyone looking to start a small business.

4-Hour Work Week

From an entrepreneur himself, Timothy Ferriss shares a common problem all entrepreneur encounters. The work overload and no life balance what so ever. He introduces a new acronym, (also the names of the chapters): DEAL (Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation). It’s so easy to get caught up on the hamster wheel and before you know it, running a business means working day in and out endlessly. Read the 4-hour workweek and seek the balance you want in your live/work life.

It’s a Bonsai Tree Thing

If you already have your guidelines in place, be sure to revisit them and update/edit any changes once in awhile. Owning a business is a constant learning process and as you grow, your guidelines should become more detailed and fine-tuned as your business changes.

The End of an Era: Why Yelp is on its Last Leg

More than ever, an online review, often anonymously written on websites like Yelp can make or break a small business. If you own your own service business, chances are you’ve already felt the dramatic effects of a single negative review can have. A disgruntled customer can ruin a business’s reputation without ever stepping foot inside, and with little to no evidence of their claims. Search the web and you’ll encounter endless horror stories of distasteful reviews that, regardless of merit, have essentially crushed a business’s standing with the public. Even when countless good reviews outweigh a few bad ones, the systematic way in which Yelp strong arms its business users creates a dead end for a small business on the cusp of greatness. The real problem lies in Yelp’s ability to “filter” reviews in an effort to reduce fake reviews that have plagued the site.

However, the more you look in to this feature, the more you begin to wonder if Yelp is using this as a tactic to scrape money from a helpless business. John, an East Bay Restaurateur explained his experience to the East Bay Express in an article that explores the Extortion tactics that Yelp is using against owners like himself. John received multiple phone calls from Yelp employees after a few bad reviews of his restaurant inexplicably appeared at the top of his page. When Yelp offered to remove these reviews at an enormous price, John knew something was wrong "It totally felt like a blackmail deal. I think they're doing anything to make a sale." John isn’t alone. Hundreds of businesses around the web are stuck in similar situations, all the while potential customers avoid their establishment. Simply google it and you’ll see for yourself.

The lack of a standardized format for reviews means that a business's Yelp profile rarely accounts for an accurate reflection of it’s standings with the public. This is an out of date process that will eventually fail. As the public catches on to the scheme, Yelp will lose credibility and more structured review systems will take its place.