After reaching 1 billion websites in September of 2014, a milestone confirmed by NetCraft in its October 2014 Web Server Survey and that Internet Live Stats was the first to announce (see the tweet from the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee) the number of websites in the world has subsequently declined, reverting back to a level below 1 billion.

 

 

 

Learn about the most common mistakes that new business owners make and how to avoid them.

  by Beth Laurence, J.D.

Most small businesses fail within the first five years, often from a lack of planning at the outset. There are a number of financial pitfalls that new businesses must avoid in order to survive. You can improve your new business' chance of succeeding by learning about, and taking steps to avoid, the top ten mistakes new business owners make.

1) Starting Your Business With a Large Loan

Many small business owners make the mistake of borrowing large amounts -- either from banks, credit card companies, home equity loans, or friends and family -- to start their businesses. Because these business owners start off owing so much money, they feel pressured to make a profit immediately -- and they may have to make high monthly payments on the loans. A wiser approach is to save a good amount of money and to rely mostly on those savings when you begin your business.

 2) Planning on Making a Profit Right Away
Most small businesses are not profitable within their first year or two. You should have a reliable source of income from something other than your new business to sustain yourself during your start-up period.

3) Spending Too Much Money at the Beginning

Many small businesses spend too much money "setting up shop," buying equipment and furniture, and investing in business cards and brochures. Plan to start on a shoestring. And remember, if you spend a lot of money, that's more money you can lose if the business fails. (For information on what to do if your business falls into debt, read Nolo's article 

4) Hiring Employees You Don't Need

Hiring employees subjects you to registration and record keeping requirements and can be very expensive. You'll have to pay unemployment taxes, withhold state and federal income taxes (as well as Medicare and Social Security taxes), pay for workers' compensation insurance, and comply with safety regulations to avoid injury to your workers. (To learn more about your obligations as an employer, read Nolo's article Hiring Your First Employee: 13 Things You Must Do.)


You may face severe penalties -- and may even be found to be personally liable -- if you don't comply with all of these requirements. If you need help with your business, consider hiring an independent contractor or a worker from a temp agency rather than a permanent employee.

5)Renting Space You Don't Need

Renting space is usually not necessary when you're just starting out. Often times, you can work from home. Running your business from home can save you tax dollars too. (To learn more about tax savings for home businesses, read Nolo's article.

Renting commercial space is expensive, and if you need to make modifications to the space, can be even more so. If your business doesn't work out or you can't afford to rent and have to move, you'll probably owe the landlord rent until your lease runs out. You will most likely be personally liable for these payments because most landlords require small business owners to sign personal guarantees, even if the business is officially an LLC or a corporation.

6) Not Developing a Business Plan

Even if you're not soliciting money from investors, business plans are useful. Come up with a financial forecast to see if your business can make money and will have money year-round. Among other things, consider:

• what your initial financing needs are
• what challenges your business will face (in terms of competition and marketing), and
• how your business will survive and grow past the initial start-up period.

Your business plan should include a break-even analysis, profit-and-loss forecast, and a cash flow analysis. (For more detailed instructions on business plans, read Nolo's article Business Plan FAQ.)

  7) Not Knowing How to Collect Bills
One of biggest problems new small businesses face is collecting bills. You should be aware that some clients may not pay their invoices on time. So plan to spend some time collecting what is owed to you -- you might need to re-bill clients or to contact them personally when they are late in paying you. (For more advice on getting paid, read Nolo's article

8) Not Planning for Cash Flow Problems

There may be times when your business runs low on cash, either because business is slow or because your clients or customers are late in paying you. You should either apply for a credit line with a bank or develop some other emergency plan for how you are going to pay your bills when you don't have enough cash to do so.

9) Not Planning to Protect Personal Assets

You don't want your business debts to endanger your personal assets, such as your home or your savings account. Some options for protecting your personal assets include purchasing liability insurance for your business, and structuring your business as a corporation or an LLC. (To learn how to protect your personal assets from business debt, read Nolo's article

10) Choosing the Wrong Ownership Structure

Choosing an ownership structure is one of the most important decisions you'll make for your new business.
Consider your specific needs. The following factors can help in making your decision:

• What are the potential risks and liabilities of your business? (For instance, building houses, making edible goods, fixing cars, and selling alcohol carry inherent risks.)
• How willing are you to spend the money it takes to set up and maintain the records for a separate business structure (such as an LLC or a corporation)?
• What are your expected profits or losses in the first couple of years? Unincorporated business structures let you deduct business losses from your other income, but corporations do not.
• What are your plans for seeking investors? Sophisticated investors often prefer the stock structure of a corporation.

Don’t miss this:

When your content is optimized and shareable, it means your visitors get more engagement with their own shares.

Social Media Culture

 I have attended many live podcast and webinars to learn some tips in making money on social media and websites. Some are very informative, if you're good with technology and SEO, you can take these tricks, and do it yourself, if not register for the class. It might be worth it in the end. I do try and challenge myself to learn how to do it. That can be consuming, but you''' save tons of money.. If you have zero knowledge on how to integrate codes, links and so on,  further your knowledge on the subject., I have Wordpress and will look into their tutorials.  One of the valuable tips I received from from a webinar guru is the: Affiliation programs.

There are many affiliate programs to choose from in making money online. Fairly easy installation for integrating the HTML source code on your posts.

Here is one of the easy ones. Do take your time, before you research too many at once. Until you find your groove and get comfortable that it becomes seamless.  I was so zealous in subscribing to as many I could find. But once you get approved it could become overwhelming.

Click on the link below to get started. This one I started with. It took me a while to understand where to inset the HTML source code, but finally I got. it. So play around with that. Take the merchants that pay the merchants that pay the most, and those that reflect what you sell. Some will approve you and some won't find your content relevant to what you're wanting to advertise.


 Find a sponsor for your web site. Get paid for your great content. shareasale.com.

 

 "Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased, constantly or it vanishes" `Peter Drucker

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/peterdruck154448.html?src=t_knowledge

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/peterdruck154448.html?src=t_knowledge

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/peterdruck154448.html?src=t_knowledg

 There is truth to be said, to this quote. Today, with the constant change and fast moving pace of technology, we no longer have a choice to remain ignorant. Unless of course you have deep pockets in hiring full time staff, or pay huge monthly fees to have someone else do it for you.

 I did look into some of these companies which specialize in search engine optimization,  with a hefty price tag, I simply couldn't afford. Not really understanding what I was getting for my money, didn't give me the desire to opt in. Frankly, unless you know the terms and jargon in what you're getting, won't guarantee you to be on top of the first page landing of search engines. It's like, looking for a needle in a haystack, it won't happen miraculously. You have to be in control to make it happen.

 I asked a friend  of mine that does SEO implementation, to have a look at my website, and tell me what I was missing. He came back with his prognosis, and explained that Google changed the way it performed and had recently made changes to how it ranks websites. Bottom line, my website was no longer meeting the new criteria set for ranking on the first page of search engines. This explained why, my phone lo longer was ringing. I was so desperate to find a solution,  I was no longer a viable company among the 50 million other sites, fighting for top ranking on the first landing page, I was losing huge amount of sales to the competition

It didn't matter if I had the best keywords or metta tags, in my browser, that wasn't enough anymore. Constant updating and adding fresh content to my website would have search engines pick up on the important stuff it based itself on. Please be aware, when I mention fresh, it can't be something that you copy and paste from another site Plagiarism is something search engines don't like, it will push further down the page.  Mapping your site is crucial.

 Getting back to why I am writing about this experience that recently happened to me, is buyer's beware. I had one of the better known online directory company call me a few months ago. The sales rep called me  see if I was still at the same address and if the number was correct, yes, I replied. Then she started telling me about the directory service. I didn't know at the time if it met my budget, $50/monthly can take a toll on slower months. But insisted the importance of being listed, without realizing what I was doing,  I agreed that, yes, it could benefit my company, I hung up and left it at that.

 To my surprise, this week, I  received a bill for that same company, which I totally forgot about. According to the bill, I was 2 months in arrears. I immediately called the company for an explanation, I told the customer service agent, that I never asked for this service to be implemented, and that my understanding was the sales rep, I spoke with, would follow up with a phone call and an email which never came. The customer service rep,tells me, my initial conversation  was recorded, she put me on a brief hold while she went to listen what was being said. She came back to say, I had agreed to the service. After arguing with the rep for about 15 minutes, she transfers me to her superior, I repeated  once again to explain that I never asked for this service, she was unflappable, she told me with her chirpy voice, that she would be more than happy to send me the recording, and low and behold, I received it in the next 5 minutes as promised. Weird, I'd like to point out, on never receiving the sales rep follow up email to what we discussed but within 5 minutes, I receive the recording.

I hang up, with no resolution to the matter but being forced to pay for something I don't recollect. I immediately start researching, the validity of a verbal recorded agreement. According to the information I found on a law website , a verbal agreement is legally binding. Damn! 

At the end of the day small business owners wear many different hats and so much more diversified than before. In my case, I am in the  distribution of spray tanning and lash products as well a trainer. In the midst of doing my everyday business, I became an accidental geek. Seriously, I have never worked so hard in my entire life than having to start reading and learning in how to, "Do it Yourself" Search Engine Optimization.

 Last year, I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of advertising large companies did on every social media platforms, which catapulted a decline in sales in my business, because, I didn't have the expendable cash to spend on advertising dollars.  It literally sent me in a downward spiral of anxiety and depression. After a year of feeling like I could no longer get out of bed, I took the matter into my own hands. I could no longer blame the economy, it was now in my hands, I took responsibility. And to understand and validate what I am saying, watch the movie, "The Big Short" and start digging for valuable knowledge.

If you offer on line classes, and you want to integrate on your website, I have found one that will facilitate your entries to schedule classes and courses effortlessly.  I stand behind this one 100%, easy to use, it's got everything you need. After months of research, all I was finding was schedulers to book spa appointment or other services. Click on the link to register an account. Easy set up!


  This one includes:

• Business details and logos
• Website integration
• Regional settings
• Colors and styles
• Online payments
• Notifications and reminders
• Messages
• Classes, courses and events
• Resources
• Black out periods
• Booking preference
• Customer details
• Pricing Seasons
• Prices 
• Integration

Easy to use dashboard, customization, affordable!


 http://www.bookeo.com?ref=2241554MYLE3E152A38D22F3NTYMUT<script 

"Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement." ~Peter Drucker

The most important investment you'll make is investing in a website. Don't try to do it yourself if you don't have the basic knowledge of Wordpress or DIY websites that give you templates, even these have to be designed specifically to represent your brand. It's important to invest in a good site and find a web developer that is affordable, but one that understands your industry, leave it to the experts. You have to know exactly how to set up the right tabs on the header for easy navigation and make it user friendly. People will not spend the time going through your website and dig through layers of information to get to the source.

DIY maintenance on your website is time consuming, but being a small business, your funds are limited as to where they will be allocated. After you pay for your cost off goods, salaries and taxes, you barely have enough to survive. Especially nowadays where competition is fierce. Every businesses is trying  to get a piece of the pie. Larger companies could afford the best in SEO experts, or content writers to keep up to date with the latest technology and have good content by hiring full time bloggers and social media gurus.

Over the years, I realized my sites, were just sitting there doing nothing, I wasn't capitalizing on my investments in monthly hosting fees.  I wasn't getting much foot traffic, not even my established clientele would browse and look for new products. I soon discovered that people in today's fast paced technology are not necessarily loyal to your brand. Everyone will surf the net to look for the best deals. So you need to get creative to keep people coming back.

After spending time to see what others were doing and studying what the competition was up to, I had to take matters in my own hand and become pro active in order to survive. I set out to ask SEO experts to take a look at my sites and point out what needed to be done, what changes had to be implemented to be on top of today's technology. The reports came in, it wasn't positive, my websites were training to page four on search engines, and sometimes trailing behind page ten. That was a reality check. I took their advice they listed and chiseled at it until I was satisfied. Many of the experts tell you that inputting keywords, or meta tags no longer suffice, the reason being is that mot search engines are looking for sites with original content, affiliations, links to other companies, blogging, company listing on sites such as yelp, yellow pages and etc.

I had my work cut out, everyday I set time aside to learn something new and then implement these changes. So this week I was focused on adding new plug ins. My business depends on selling courses, its  90% of my revenue. After researching various companies, I found one that responded to my needs.  Months of searching, led me to companies that offered scheduling to spas and salons, although I am in the beauty industry, my business is a combination of selling products to the beauty industry, not booking appointments for services. My frustrations grew until I found Bookeo which was the answer to my prayers, easy to set up and compatible with Wordpress. They also have an easy  step by step website integration and I love it how easy it is to use. Task, accomplished.

The next thing I did, was to go on my Wordpress dashboard, to look at some new plug ins, most are free, so it's a matter of finding one for your specific needs, these plug ins mostly are Gravity forms which you upload the plug in and then activate it. The one I added was a chat box. This facilitates the shopper's experience. This form can turn a lead into a sell, and you won't lose them, if they don't want to enter their information on the contact form.  There are pros and cons, but love the live interaction I have with clients.

The next task I am going to implement is a RSS feed, once you set that up, you won't need to do anything else to keep subscribers up to date with newsletters. Unless you have an email account such as Mail Chimp. But I am looking to reduce my costs, by doing everything from my website. Stay tuned...I will let you know how that turned out. Happy Friday!!

It's just amazing how life can throw you a wrench right when you just think things are going to be all right. This is not the first time I've reached a crossroad in my life. Being on my third marriage, I know a thing or two about feeling loss, disappointment, blame, anger, numbness and so much more negative feelings to know that I don't want to go down that road again.

I have made up my mind  this time, I am going to fly solo. Knowing what I know today and the wisdom I have gained over the years, it's futile to throw blame and trying to justify to family members and friends why you're breaking up your 20 year marriage. Like it will make people feel better to know why. How can you explain to someone in one conversation what went wrong over the course of 20 years, it's impossible, relationships are complex, let alone trying to explain it over a cup of coffee.

Besides, most friendships you've accumulated over the course of a marriage are mutual friends, why should you put these friendships caught in the middle of a drama that doesn't belong to them. Why can't anyone just remain friends. Same goes for kids, as in my case we have a blended family, both sets of children where young when we met, we formed good relationships with our step kids, why ruin this dynamic, it's got nothing to do with them. Our kids are busy with their own lives, they're starting out families, I have not intention of ruining this for them. Again, it's our story, not theirs to take the burden.

I am not saying that it will be easy, there are obstacles and challenges that will come with this huge change. Areas which I know will be difficult to surmount, but I won't let fear take over, I will remain strong in the eye of the storm. My wellbeing depends on it.The first  and foremost obstacle to deal with, is that, we are running a home based business together for the past 10 years, what to do? The business is not doing so good, for a few reasons that I can enumerate,  but, I won't blame outside circumstances  nor the economy or the weak dollar, for the outcome on where we stand financially.

As much as he would like to remind me the mistakes I made, yes admittedly, I made some bad choices, but part of growing on a personal and business level, is making mistakes, learn from them and move on. Unfortunately, that isn't something that sits well with him, his way of thinking is, mistakes should never have been made in the first place. That's all nice in a perfect world, when one thinks in black and white with no shaded areas, but in the real world of business,  and moving faster than ever in this constant fast pace, one needs to be open and embrace change, otherwise you'll remain stagnant. And if you're not willing to take chances you might as well work for the corporate world, right? But that's a story for another day.

 Day one  of flying solo. I partially packed my office, at least my beloved computer that continually gives me my daily bread, so grateful to that object... loaded the car and came to my daughter's house...
.

There's something to be said about getting up in the morning to a good cup of coffee. My love for coffee stems back in my early twenties when I worked part time in a gourmet food store that was a replica of the original Zabar's in NYC. (8oth & Broadway).  In the seventies this popular place became somewhat of a legend when people like the great John Lennon and other singers and famous actors would frequent this establishment for it's fine caviar and coffee beans. I knew I had to catch a fast train to NY, on the possible chance encounter with John Lennon or Janis Joplin. (I was young and full of hope). Away I went on a train in search of this great place, Upon arrival, I was giddy with excitement, the first thing I asked were directions to Zabar's,  this establishment was close to central park, in the neighborhood where John Lennon lived with Yoko. I never did get a chance to see him in that store, but what I discovered was the fresh roasted coffee they served. I was hooked with the first cup of coffee I drank, I had never tasted better coffee in my life.  I only had instant coffee in the past to compare to. Nonetheless, I had a great weekend discovering a whole new world and came back to Montreal to start my career as a barista, thanks to my boss who totally believed that I would make a fine barista because of my curiosity in mixing different blends of coffee beans. 
So goes the story on how I became a coffee lover.

Today, I appreciate my morning coffee more than ever, since coffee became something of a pop culture.   I am always on the lookout to try something new, a new blend, a flavored cappuccino, a cafe au lait served served in bowls (my ultimate favorite) on rue St-Denis, Montreal.  One of my other favorite is the Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee, I remebered years ago when it first become popular, the price per pound was more expensive than gold, hence the name, liquid gold.

In the past several months, I have researched CRM's for small businesses. There are so many to choose from that I became overwhelmed with this task. Doing comparisons from one company to another didn't help , so much information each CRM company  gave, I'd forgotten what I read when I went to the next one, it was daunting and never ending. Finally, what I've done as a process of elimination:  I looked at their pricing menu as a starting point, something In line with my monthly budget. I took the features I was most interested in, selected my top three and then did  a comparison to each. This was the easiest and most efficient way of choosing. 
Most CRM's offer you a thirty day trial period, so I signed up and registered for live demos and took advantage of the companies that offered phone support. Since I am a visual person, having phone support and someone to walk me through was a breeze and helped me decide which one I liked the best, based on the features and customer service.
I held off as much as I could before getting serious in implementing a CRM into my business. But having had the opportunity to try different ones, I  arrived at the conclusion,  to be efficient in business, no matter the size , was the smart thing to do. During my research, I was also contemplating on an email service. I had tried a few of these, but I wasn't keen on having to load emails outside a database.I wanted one shop stop.

Book Yourself Solid written by:  Micheal Port

One of my absolute favorite  books on marketing your business. Here's an excerpt of his book on cross promoting.

This is one of my absolute favorite online marketing strategies because it allows me to partner with, and promote, other people I think are fabulous while they do the same for me. We've talked about how important it is to get other people to talk about you so you can quickly build trust with potential clients. Well, cross-promoting through marketing partners is the best way to do so. If my colleague sends out an email to her newsletter subscribers endorsing my services, products, or programs, her subscribers are more likely to trust me. When I promote her, the same will be true. It makes it much easier to build relationships with potential clients that way. It's just like meeting a great friend of yours. You love your friend and if your friend loves that person, you assume that person is great. The same goes for cross-promoting online (and offline). You can cross promote like this on many levels,: between you and another service professional who happens to serve the same target market or with or with larger associations and organizations. If you're an accountant who serves small business owners and you develop a relationship with the membership director for an online small business association that has 75,000 members and she promotes your services to their membership, just think all the of these new potential clients who turn into clients. The possibilities are limitless. This is why this is my favorite online marketing strategy. Here are some other strategies to consider:

• Co-produce special promotions you could not afford on your own.
• Have a contest with the prizes contributed by your partners. A very good example on the bakery located in Toronto who gave away a "Free" Powerball ticket with the purchase of $20.00. That was a brilliant marketing move. It gave their customer the convenience and they in turn made a huge profit. It was a win, win situation for both.

Online cross-promotion has the potential for a big marketing payoff because partners can successfully expand through one another's  client base.  Both you and your marketing partners can gain an inexpensive and credible introduction to more potential clients more effectively than with the traditonal lone-wolf methods of networking, advertising, or public relations.

 

 
While there’s no overnight success when it comes to converting social media followers to customers, there are some strategies you can implement immediately to see results. Remember the importance of branding – every social interaction says something about your brand. Here’s how to make sure it says exactly what you want your brand to convey:

1. Upload Consistent Avatars

If you’ve got an old logo for your Twitter icon, your new company logo for Facebook and a product image on Google +, you’re sending a mixed message to your followers and customers. Stick to a single avatar across all channels so that visitors build a mental connection from the social platform back to your site.

Use a high-quality version (large pixel size) of your company logo, unless you’re branding yourself, in which case you should use a really great smiling photograph. The reason to use a large image size is that sometimes others download your logo from social sites if they write about your company, so you want it to be as high quality as possible.

2. Use Similar Colors and Design Across Platforms

In addition to ensuring that your images are the same on all social media profiles, it’s important to deliver a similar look across the board. This, too, should tie in with what you’re doing on your business’ website.

Twitter allows you to upload a custom background to your profile. Facebook and Google + provide a large banner photo or image up top. These are valuable real estate locations, and they provide you with the opportunity to use similar color and design elements to integrate with your company logo colors and the design of your site. A visitor should be able to recognize your brand from any social page they visit.

3. Deliver Consistent Messaging

Develop a voice that speaks to what your company is all about. If you provide useful tips for your audience on Facebook in a professional tone, make sure you’re not using all caps and slang (“OMG THIS BLOG POST ROXX!”) on Twitter, as an example.

Your social updates represent your company so it’s important, first of all, to maintain a professional voice, and second, to be consistent. Visitors should know what to expect when browsing your social profiles.

This is especially important if specific qualifies are key to the impression you want to convey: luxury, formality, trust, professionalism or other attributes. If one of those types of attributes is important to your brand, you need to convey that attribute throughout your social messaging.

4. Provide Unique Content on Each Channel

That being said, you shouldn’t duplicate content across all social channels. It’s fine to share the same blog post, as an example, but find a new way to present it for each channel.

Ideally, you want to give people a reason to follow you on all platforms. If you’re delivering the same identical update on all at exactly the same time, there’s no reason for them to do that.

Diversify your communication strategy for each. Mix up what you offer, as in this example:

• On Twitter, share relevant links from our blog and other industry sites
• On Facebook, share videos our audience appreciates, as well as answer questions about our products
• On LinkedIn, actively participate in industry groups
• On Google+, engage with other users and start a dialogue

5. Check for “Unofficial” Pages, Claim Them, and Brand Them
Check social sites to make sure there are not already pages set up that you haven’t claimed.

This can happen on review sites like Yelp. Look for instructions on how to claim your profile, such as here for Yelp.

On sites like LinkedIn, there may be a company page but no one is listed as the Administrator and therefore no one can update the page. So you have to contact LinkedIn to be able to assign administrators.

Or it may be a situation where someone has used your company name without permission, in which case you will have to contact the social network and report the unauthorized use. Facebook has a form to report impersonations of individuals or companies.

6. Focus on 2 to 4 Social Sites

It is possible to go overboard when it comes to joining social media sites. Sure, you want to reach as many people as possible, but you’ll do better to zero in on only as many as you have time to update. Think deep, not wide.

When you focus, it is easier to develop a consistent message and brand visibility.

Remember, the more effort you put into social media, the better the results. Aim for a consistent, engaging experience, and you will attract new followers and, eventually, customers.

About the Author:

Anita Campbell

Guest Blogger