When I was running my first technology company, I found it hard to sleep: too many thoughts and ideas buzzing in my head. So I used to get out of bed, do email for about an hour, and then go back to bed. On one occasion, I was dismayed to get an instant reply: I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.

I realized that I had become an email bully: that employees saw the time stamp and felt, in some way, chastised. That hadn’t been my intention but one of the first lessons of leadership is to appreciate that what you mean and what is heard are two separate things.

Everyone I know feels harassed by email which has invaded their waking and sleeping hours. The combination of fear (I don’t want to be caught napping) and efficiency (I want to keep the backlog manageable) erodes peace of mind. Executives email all day, much of the night, during meals, during meetings. And everyone agrees: it’s awful.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

A new tool was recently launched to take the pain out of paperwork, with Doccy able to cut different processes down to sixty seconds.

“Small businesses are time-poor and spend a lot of time sending regular documents such as estimates and invoices. It can be hard to keep track of these documents, and it’s also boring and tedious,” says Michael Cindric, developer of Doccy.

“There are plenty of other value-add tasks and client work that should be a priority, and I wanted to create a tool that would easily turn documents into templates to save all companies time, effort, and money.”

Recent research from banking consultant East and Partners has found that the average small business will spend up to 20 hours per week on administration.

Doccy allows businesses to streamline regular client documents like letters, proposals, invoices, and other forms into personalised templates through a custom field and mail merge approach online.

These documents can then be turned into a PDF file and emailed directly to clients.

Cindric developed Doccy after finding the process of document creation difficult in his own business Sentia, a boutique mobile and web application development company.

He says, “There were so many documents that I was not sending as I just didn’t have the time. I thought that there had to be a better, more efficient way.”

The app also syncs with Dropbox, providing an online file management service and allowing office staff to be alerted when documents are sent.

Somewhere in between dreaming about a 4-hour workweek and the reality that you’re becoming a 24×7 workaholic is an illusive notion called work-life balance.

Contrary to popular belief, achieving some sort of balance between work and play is achievable. You actually have more control over it than you think if you know how to go about it.

Here are five factors that can make the difference between a life of fulfillment and a life filled with regret.

1. There is an optimum balance.

Here’s the theory: If you work too hard and completely miss out on life, you’ll be miserable. If you have too much fun and don’t make enough money, the result’s the same. Those are the extremes. Somewhere in between is an optimum point where you work hard enough, make enough money, and still have fun.

That optimum point is different for everyone–but it does exist.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

Margaret Thatcher was famous for needing only four hours of sleep. That’s the popular wisdom, at least; her critics might argue that chronic sleep deprivation explains some of the crazier policies of her latter year.

What researchers now appreciate about sleep is that, as your brain tires, it sucks energy (in the form of glucose) away from the areas needed from critical thinking, in favor of those areas that keep you alert. So you can turn up–you just can’t think very well.

What is striking about leaders, however, is that even those who do get a decent eight hours a night are mostly early risers. Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton Investment, gets up at 5 AM. Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone gets up at 6. Tim Armstrong, CEO of AOL, gets up at 5 because, he says: “Life is too exciting to sleep.”

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

Ruth Gallace, CEO of the boutique fruit winery and cider house Rebello, has been named a finalist of the Women in Business award in the 2013 Australian Excellence Awards.

“Women often second guess themselves and find it difficult to say no, but you learn very quickly that in order to succeed you need to have confidence in your decisions,” says Gallace of what she’s learned in business.

Originally a graphic designer, the mother of two created Rebello with her husband Matt eight years ago while living on his family’s strawberry farm on the Mornington Peninsula. Coming back from a family holiday overseas “beyond broke”, they were looking for something new to do with their lives.

With Matt’s father having made fruit wines for many years, the couple decided to buy off this part of the business and build on it.

Success came slowly in the early days, with the pair working on it as a part-time pursuit. Gallace realised the problem was that while buyers loved the product stylistically, there was no category for them.

“What we learned quite quickly was that we needed to start blending to make them a little bit more accessible,” she says.

“That’s where we really started to see some success, because all of a sudden the retailers and restaurateurs knew what it was and where they could place it in their fridge, and they knew how to talk to their customers about the product.”

One blended product they created is the wine now known as the Strawbellini, a curious blend on strawberry wine and moscato that won double gold at the San Francisco International Wine Competition.

The urge to innovate led to Rebello trying its hand at cider, creating Australia’s first 100 percent real fruit blended cider two years ago.

“It’s something ingrained in our culture because of the type of person I am and the team that we’ve built…we’re all creative types and relentless with coming up with ideas. We’re definitely the type of people who are energised by new ideas and new projects,” Gallace says.

While she’s honoured by being named a Women in Business award finalist, Gallace says she’s never really given much thought to being one of just a handful of women in the alcohol industry.

She says, “The best person for the job is the best person for the job.”

Business ownership can be a great way to achieve the working life that many people hanker after – greater day to day flexibility, a financial return on hard work, being the boss, creating a viable business.

So every year people dive into the business ownership pool intending to emerge as successful entrepreneurs. There is no doubt that swimming your own race can be a thrilling, empowering process but there is a way to have a support team on hand to help you on your way.

Working together

Franchising is all about building on the experience of others, whether that is the knowledge gained by the entrepreneur who built the original business concept that you buy into, the specialist knowledge of marketing and IT departments, or fellow franchisees.

A franchise network is just that – an interconnected group of people who are working together to enhance and promote the brand, and in the process build a strong and financially successful business.

The appeal of a franchised model is that many of the difficulties of building a business are eased with the back-up of experienced practitioners in fields such as marketing, IT, finance, admin, even site selection and rental negotiations.

You might not have the freedom to set up and run your business exactly as you like but this is countered by the support you will receive from a good franchisor that runs the umbrella business and has learned the hard way what works and what doesn’t.

This means you don’t have to endure the full series of trials and errors that mark a fledgling independent business.

Business support

For starters franchisees undergo training. This might take a matter of days, weeks, or famously in the case of McDonald’s, months. So when you start up on the first day you know something of what to expect, how to manage processes, deal with customers and talk about your product or service.

A first class franchisor will offer ongoing support with business matters, either formally with benchmarking performance and regular support team visits, or through mentoring from fellow franchisees.

Franchisees are given operations manuals to follow that guide the daily running of the business. This includes assistance with local area marketing and sometimes there is centralised admin for invoicing or a call centre that processes customer leads.

There also may be a recommended supplier for products who will offer a negotiated rate.

Leveraging the brand

Above and beyond this of course is the appeal of a brand, and that is what can be a particular attraction. Many people see the benefits of trading under a well-known name: there is the advantage of customer awareness enhanced by national marketing campaigns.

While there are costs to be paid for the support franchisees receive, and the need for compliance doesn’t suit everybody, many people see the value in building their future within a franchise model.

Although fast food franchises come to mind easily, the reach of the franchising method of business extends into all fields from mobile dog washing to accounting, from home renovations to aged care support.

Some franchise systems rely on particular technical skills and knowledge and look to practitioners in these areas to take on a franchise. But the vast majority of franchise models expect their franchisees to be inexperienced in the new field of business and arrange their training and business support accordingly.

Route to independence

A franchisee invests in a business for a specific time period, often three or five years. In many cases the agreement with the company is renewed so the franchisee can continue trading if they so wish.

Franchising can be the pathway to independence, even to a mini empire as franchisees themselves replicate their success across more than one outlet or service location.

“Your brand is the magnet that draws consumers to your product or service,” says Ken Carbone of Manhattan design and branding firm Carbone Smolan Agency. Here are five rules of attraction:

1. Understand the value of designing your brand identity

“Make it a priority and find money to invest in it right away,” agency co-founder Leslie Smolan says. “So many people have a business idea, ask their cousin to design a logo and say, ‘That’s my brand.’ It’s a mistake. Your brand often is the most important thing beyond the product itself.”

2. Know yourself

“Start with your company’s identity,” Smolan says. “What is the singular expression of your brand distilled down to its simplest form? You must define the essence of your philosophy.”

…to read this article in full, visit leading US entrepreneurial resource entrepreneur.com

The team behind dog grooming service Blue Wheelers has taken on the challenge to innovate, creating a tablet app to help franchisees work on the road.

“Most franchises are developed from the franchisor’s perspective, and the developer develops the program to meet the franchisor’s needs. This product was developed in the exact opposite way; we looked at what would make a franchisee’s business more efficient, what they needed and what would help them run better businesses,” says Martin Rose, owner of Blue Wheelers.

Martin bought the business, formerly operating as HydroDog, with his wife Janie seven years ago. Now boasting over 200 franchisees around the country, Blue Wheelers has seen growth of more than 80 percent since the couple took over.

The decision to create the application came through recognising the changing needs of the business as it continues to expand, with technology and communication standing out as key aspects ready for innovation.

“Our franchisees spend all day on the road, so it’s important for them to be equipped with the right technology to operate their businesses as effectively as possible,” says Janie.

The CRM (customer response management) app, set to be rolled out across the company throughout the year, was trialled with 60 franchisees.

The couple acknowledge that not everyone will be completely comfortable with the app, but will continue to make adjustments to improve it.

“We expect that it might be a slow manoeuvre into people embracing it, but we believe that they definitely will in time, and it’s just a matter of managing the process,” says Janie.

One of the main features of the app allows franchisees to show customers before and after shots of what their dog will look like after a treatment according to breed, ensuring customer satisfaction.

As well as booking and confirming appointments, the app will also act as a marketing tool by allowing franchisees to send out emails tailored to suit different customers, for example special offers based on their dog’s birthday.

“It’s all about customer relations management. It gives them the ability to communicate with their customers in a valuable, constructive, and personable way,” says Martin.

Having worked with names like Google and Emirates, his company AV 24/7 is now one of Sydney’s leading audiovisual companies and recently celebrated ten years in business.

We spoke to Prisuda about his decade with AV 24/7:

What led you to create AV 24/7? 

A desire not to conform to the standard. I wanted to create an environment that was creative, innovative, personable and out of the box. I didn’t see myself working for someone else and I knew I had found something that I loved and was great at, so wanted to develop that in my own way with my own company.

Were you ever daunted by the task of starting your own business, given you hadn’t studied business? 

To be honest, I wasn’t really daunted by it at all, but I probably should have been. I don’t think I knew what to expect at first, I just knew what I wanted and was determined to succeed.

How has your role evolved over the years? 

I started out managing all elements of the business – sales, invoicing, installing jobs. I now mainly focus on the creative technical side and client management and have employed a great team to work on all the other elements.

How have you found working with both your father and your wife at AV 24/7? What challenges and benefits have come with working with family? 

Luckily I didn’t have to work with both at the same time as I’m sure that probably wouldn’t have worked! However the positives would certainly be honesty. Working with family you get the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. My father taught me a lot about technology growing up and a lot about business. I was lucky to have him as a mentor.

Working with Libbie has also been a great experience. I think that us both coming from families of entrepreneurs and business owners and working in family businesses growing up, we are both passionate about business, so when we take work home with us it’s not a problem. We are often brainstorming ideas over dinner or coming up with new business ideas on weekends, it’s not a chore in that respect we enjoy running the business together. On the negative side, it took a while to work out our roles and to respect each other’s strengths and support the weaknesses.

AV 24/7 has worked with huge names like Samsung, Emirates, Google etc – how did this kind of growth come along, and had you envisioned it when you first opened the business? 

This business didn’t come straight away. Working with large companies is a long road and requires consistence and a build up of trust. Having a great track record and a positive attitude toward business shows that you are trust worthy and have your clients’ best interests at heart. A lot can go wrong on the technical side of an event, so it’s important to know that no matter what happens your supplier will make it happen and take the pressure off. There’s no room for error.

What is your favourite aspect of the business and of your part in it?

Being creative and innovative. I set aside time to spend with technology, come up with new and creative ways to do things and learn about the newest available technologies. My time spent in the warehouse going back to the core of the business’ innovative side is certainly my favourite. And of course delivering the events and spending time with our clients is a big part of what keeps me driven.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about business over the years? 

The biggest lesson I learned in the early years was to not judge your financial success by the money coming in. I think as a small business you focus on your clients, delivery and making sure you have the money coming in, that is certainly the most important thing you do. However, it is so important to know where you stand from a NET perspective. If you always know where you stand it changes the way you do business and influences your decisions in a positive way. We now balance our accounts monthly instead of yearly like I did in the first years of opening the business.

Most entrepreneurs are accustomed to long days and hectic schedules. But if you want to make smart decisions for your company, what you put in your body matters almost as much as how many hours you put in at the office.

Here are seven foods you should add to your regular diet if you want to keep firing on all cylinders. These foods may not make you smarter, but they’ll help you stay sharp and think clearly–especially when you’ve been glued to your desk for 12 hours.

1. Salmon. This is one of the best brain foods out there. Salmon is rich in Omega 3 essential fatty acids that have been shown to enhance memory and cognition. Plus, Omega 3s have anti-inflammatory properties that have been shown to reduce the incidence of heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. Shoot for three servings of wild Alaskan salmon a week.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama argued that 3-D printing could “revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” His speech echoed a sentiment that has been gaining traction among entrepreneurs and techies for some time now.

Three-dimensional printing, also known as additive manufacturing, has been around since the late 1980s and has produced some exciting advances. Companies in the industry have printed aerospace parts, industrial manufacturing equipment, and even human stem cells. One company is working on a technique to print functioning human organs. Although all of this is promising, 3-D printing technology still has a long way to go.

The industry is poised to grow to $3 billion globally by 2018, up 56 percent from 2012, according to a study by the market research firm Global Industry Analysts. So far, big companies have dominated the sector.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

As an entrepreneur running a bootstrapped company, marketing is not likely at the top of your to-do list. Bootstrapped companies are by definition lean, so founders don’t usually spend much on formal marketing. After all, great products sell themselves, so why bother?

Unfortunately, if you’re not doing much marketing, you’re missing a huge opportunity to scale your business. When done right, marketing will help attract new customers, strengthen your brand relative to competitors, and position your company for long-term revenue growth. The best part: You don’t need to spend a fortune to do it.

New marketing channels are growing exponentially as digital communication evolves. So the first step is to identify opportunities that deliver the most bang for your buck. The following strategies and tools can be a great starting point for cash-strapped CEOs looking to kickstart their marketing programs on the cheap.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US small business resource, Inc.

The 2013 Yellow Social Media Report found that 65 percent of Australians on the internet are using social media, with two thirds accessing it via smartphones.

“We’re seeing major changes in the way Aussies are now using social media. The average consumer is now more likely to post a comment or tweet from a mobile device, and the number of people using tablets has almost doubled in the past 12 months,” says Kelly Brough, executive general manager of digital partnerships and innovation at Sensis.

“More Australian consumers are using social media to inform their purchasing decisions. This presents small and medium businesses with clear opportunities to build customer relationships and potential sales, however our research shows that businesses are not effectively engaging with these channels,” she says.

The report found that 29 percent of small businesses and 24 percent of medium-sized businesses don’t have a strategy in place to drive traffic to their social media accounts, with almost half the small businesses surveyed relying on social media share buttons on their website.

This is a reflection of the decrease in spending on social media over the past year, which has come hand in hand with the drop in overall marketing budgets.

This has, in turn, influenced what small businesses do on social media.

While discounts and giveaways were found to be the key reasons why consumers follow brands, only a third of SMBs on social media offer such incentives.

Just over half of the SMBs surveyed stated that they use social media for two-way communication with clients, contacts and consumers, and invite comments, ratings, and reviews on their social media sites.

The report also found that social media usage by SMBs in regional areas has grown, with both businesses and consumers in these areas more active on social media than their metropolitan counterparts.

Star of the event was entrepreneur, Lucie Trinco, who revealed the secrets behind her successful business, Il Tutto.

Walking into Sydney’s VIVO Cafe, I was warmly welcomed by Samantha Dybac, Head of the League’s NSW branch. I saw women enjoying themselves – networking over breakfast, discussing current affairs and exchanging business ideas.

Founded by young entrepreneurs, Sarah Riegelhuth and Sheryl Thai, in 2011, the League’s mission was to bring young women together in a friendly, welcoming space and to help them pursue their business ideas and goals – whether they’re experienced or budding entrepreneurs or just those aspiring to start a business in the future.

Every six weeks, the League hosts a breakfast meeting, featuring a successful businesswoman who shares the highs and lows of her entrepreneurial journey, and the most valuable lessons learned along the way.

Lucie Trinco of Il Tutto

Lucie Trinco, the entrepreneurial brains behind Il Tutto, was the key speaker at the League’s latest breakfast meeting.

With over 20 years of experience in designing handbags, Trinco spotted a gap in the Australian marketplace for luxury baby bags for style-conscious mothers.

After noticing a high demand for baby bags that are both stylish and practical, Trinco decided to design her own range.

Six years in business, Trinco has enjoyed remarkable success, both locally and internationally, with celebrities like Dannii Minogue, Miranda Kerr and Cate Blanchett being spotted carrying her designs.

She acknowledged that her work as Head of Design at Oroton opened many doors for her and helped make the start-up process easier.

Not only did she go into business with extensive knowledge of the retail industry, but also with ready access to supply chains.

But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. The biggest challenge she faces, even today, is managing cash flow.

With Il Tutto growing so rapidly, it has been a struggle for Trinco to cash flow that growth.

The reason for this, she said, was that retailers often send orders triple of what they forecasted, and that manufacturers want money in advance whereas retailers pay 30-60 days after delivering orders.

Trinco’s top tips for entrepreneurs:

1. Know your niche. 
   Clearly identify who your end customer is and how to communicate with them effectively. The consumer landscape is challenging, so developing the right strategy and delivering it in a tailored manner is crucial.
2. Know your competitors.
   Find out what your competitors do well, and find something that they don’t do so well and make that your point-of-difference.
3. Write a business plan and review it regularly.
   Make sure your business plan includes your mission statement and a breakdown of how you will reach your business goals – i.e. production, marketing, distribution, etc. Make sure to review your business plan and make updates.
4. Have your supply ready.
   You need to be proactive about your supply. There’s nothing worse than promising and failing to deliver.
5. Use your networks.
   Bloggers are an excellent resource for brand advocacy. They provide a more personal and relatable voice and are trusted by their audience.
6. Build relationships with the media.
   Engaging with media practitioners will help gain editorial coverage and increase brand awareness. This also means you need to have professional photos ready.
7. Ask for advice.
   Get experts to advise you on areas that aren’t your strengths – you don’t always need to figure it all out by yourself.
8. Use celebrity endorsements.
   Celebrities are style influencers. Consumers are more likely to try a product a celebrity uses.
9. Make sure your staff know about the brand and product.
   Big retailers often struggle to provide satisfactory customer service, so it’s important you use that to your advantage and make sure your staff are fully trained about the brand and product and know how to deliver quality customer service.
10. Be responsive to customers.
    Be attentive to complaints and make sure you are always vigilante in answering questions as quickly as possible.

To find out more about the League of Extraordinary Women, visit their website.

Any small business owner that’s had a taste of success will have contemplated ramping up their business in one way or another.

Rapid business growth can be an exciting time for small businesses with all manner of opportunities and connections being met and actioned. Whilst this is wonderful, growing too rapidly can also be a time of great danger and can even lead to the demise of many a small business. With that in mind lets take a look at just a few of the key areas that must be carefully considered and planned for before expansion plans are put in place.

Does your business have the room to grow?

No matter what business you run, you will have a physical workspace, anything from a home office to a large warehouse. Can you grow where you are, or do you need to expand upon your location? Perhaps this is not possible in your present location and a move to new premises is in order. This opens up a can of worms, in terms of cancelling leases, finding new premises in a suitable location and the associated costs. Legal fees and moving expenses can be a substantial drain on cash resources and time taken away from actually running the business. Moving may be a necessity before expansion, but can you afford the short term drain on time and cash resources?

Keep staff involved

When it comes to staffing, small businesses often rely on current staff to play a large role in the expansion, it makes sense to do so given their inside knowledge of the business operations. However, business owners must be careful not to put undue stresses and pressure on current staff and risk burnout or having critical errors made due to long hours. Keeping staff involved in the expansion and growth of a business gives them a sense of ownership and creates a great team that will work together and feed off the growth to inspire further growth down the track. Bringing on new staff must be managed carefully, time must be taken to ensure they are fully informed of where the business is going and the plans you have, smooth integration into the current workforce is a must.  Don’t neglect their training in your haste to expand otherwise you risk losing good staff or potentially damaging relations with existing customers.

Manage existing customers

It’s your current customers and clients that got you to where you are today so neglect them at your peril. Often the thrill of the chase for new business will see existing clients feeling neglected or unloved. Dedicating a team or particular employee to manage those existing customers and clients will help to prevent them from wandering away from your business. If customers and clients are accustomed to receiving personal service from you as the business owner make sure that you still maintain regular contact or assign a delegate to liaise with those customers on your behalf, always with the understanding that you are there to back them up. Perhaps even schedule a time to explain to current clients your plans so they are more understanding of the limitations on your time.

Smart marketing

Marketing will always be essential when expanding a business. Getting the message of your product or service out to the marketplace in a consistent and timely manner is the key. Stay true to what’s worked in the past and tailor differentiated marketing plans based on your service or product offerings. One generic plan may not be suitable if your businesses offerings are diverse, it will only serve to confuse your target audience.

Keep up with administration matters

Often administration of a business is seen as a necessary evil, but ensuring that policies and procedures are in place to manage new business is essential. Flying by the seat of your pants may have worked as a solo entrepreneur by the time for acting that way is over. Ensuring adherence to key business procedures allows for a consistency throughout the business, preventing confusion and time delays in dealing with the manner in which new business is brought on board.

IT is important

Most small businesses don’t have a dedicated IT department and fixing IT related issues often falls to a key staff member who becomes a pseudo IT department and neglects their normal duties. Create an IT budget to manage the implementation of new hardware and software that can more than adequately handle business growth. Having to renew computer hardware after a couple of years because it couldn’t keep up with the expansion is an unnecessary and avoidable drain on time and finance resources.

Expanding a small business should be an exciting and fruitful time when managed well. Ensuring that all aspects of the business from staff, to marketing and IT are all adequately placed to handle the expansion will allow you to grow with as few headaches as possible. There will always be issues that arise, but keeping a strong united team capable of adhering to key business policies while keeping new customers happy will keep the dramas to a minimum and allow you to focus on the bigger picture, a viable healthy business capable of surviving the toughest of storms.

With the number of print publications folding at an all time high due to the prominence of digital arena, businesses and their marketing teams are constantly creating new and innovative ways to keep up with the changes.

The latest print publication to fold is fashion and lifestyle magazine, Grazia. In the United Kingdom, Grazia has been a hit that sells more than 210,000 copies a week. The fact that the cover price is lower at around $1.50 compared to $6 in Australia probably helps, however, regardless of their pricing structure, magazines are turning digital and many publications are closing their doors.

This is not only affecting the larger businesses but small businesses that everyday are attempting to be seen in the marketplace and stay up to date with the latest communication technologies.

Constantly Innovate

Innovating your brand or services not only helps you keep up with the times and helps keep you in the game, it gives you another reason to communicate with your customers and clients.

Without sugarcoating it, consumers expect the best regardless of price, so money and time is required. The plus side is small businesses are lucky as they have the freedom to nurture their new innovation from start to finish unlike larger businesses who battle through management and red tape for any decisions and changes to be made.

As a small business, offering new products, changing the packaging on your products and most importantly creating new communication avenues keeps you constantly revitalised and in the forefront of a consumers mind.

An example currently that sees a larger business trying to be innovative is Fairfax Media that will switch from broadsheet to compact-sized formats shortly.

It is expected that the publisher will redesign to result in a short-term lift in sales of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age during the launch period. Fairfax plans to switch them to compact formats within the next year when it closes its two biggest printing facilities at Chullora in Sydney and Tullamarine in Melbourne, and shifts the publishing of the newspapers to regional sites.

The new changes will also have two new sections. Pulse – encompassing health, science and personal wellbeing – will appear in The Age on Mondays and the Herald on Thursdays. The Shortlist will replace the Metro section and appear on Fridays, including an in-depth planner of weekend events.

These changes don’t come as a surprise as print media needs to make changes to keep up with online media avenues. These changes will surely always be changing as technology is constantly evolving.

But there is an upside. Many small businesses are now looking at different communication avenues than your usual print media advertising or editorial. The shift is happening right now and is seeing more technologically savvy ways making more importance to a small business.

Thinking Big

Marketing and advertising is turning more digital everyday from promotional billboards in Westfield’s and car parks to larger outdoor billboards like you see on highways and airports.

Innovating your standard billboards to be digital is reinventing the marketing wheel to something that stands out and grabs the audiences attention in a new light.

Digital advertising, if in the right location, can be powerful even for a small business. An example could be a restaurant within a shopping centre; advertising on the digital light boxes throughout the centre is a great marketing tool to ensure people know of your presence. You can choose one or multiple light boxes within a centre depending on your budget, which can also sometimes be relatively cheaper that your usual print advertising which is slowly fading out anyway.

Innovation has big rewards

Innovating your brand can be a huge reward to the existence and development of your business. If you innovate your brand to be bigger and better and even more targeted you are more inclined to do better.

A recent example is a Personal Trainer, who for many years was a trainer to a good number of people and only gained exposure through word of mouth and basically plateaued but he wanted to change and grow his business.

The business structure was changed to focus solely on women and transforming them through food and fitness. This was a more targeted approach and through various marketing activities gained great exposure that has put him on the map within his industry.

The main innovative effort that the trainer utilised was video production. By thinking about the times and how technology is very prominent, a video was created based on his business and what his services include, put him on the map to reach a wider and younger population.

If the trainer never innovated himself and his brand it would have not gone anywhere and he would not have been able to reach a larger audience as he has now.

The strength in animation

Animation is also creeping its way into marketing of a small business as the production costs of a traditional thirty-second TV commercial is often out of reach, however they can now turn to a highly skilled Gen Y or Z animator at a fraction of the cost.

With technology ever growing and the pool of educated professionals coming through the ranks, small businesses would be silly to not tap into the new thinking and platforms of which it can utilise for its own success.

The tools and technology by which small businesses can now communicate along with the savvy minds behind them leaves an unimaginable horizon for SME’s in Australia.

Technology is helping create new avenues for communication and digital is definitely the most popular way. Small businesses may be small by name but are definitely thinking big and out of the box to target their audience in great new ways introduced through technology.

When it comes to dealing with toxic emotions and overheated outbursts, few have more stories than Ken Lindner. As agent to media personalities like the Today Show’s Matt Lauer, Mario Lopez of Saved By the Bell fame and Dateline‘s Lester Holt, Lindner has soothed his fair share of flared tempers.

He even wrote a book about his experience. In the newly released Your Killer Emotions (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2013), Lindner offers advice about how to keep one’s feelings in check and avoid making decisions based on toxic emotions — key skills for start-up founders and CEOs alike.

So what then is the proper way to diffuse an emotionally-charged startup environment? Here are Lindner’s top tips:

…to read this article in full, visit leading US entrepreneurial resource entrepreneur.com

After receiving $2 million in investor funding, The Loop has recently completed a major redesign ahead of a UK launch.

“We decided that our vision was bigger than being just an Australian player, we really wanted to compete on a global stage,” says Pip Jamieson, co-founder of The Loop.

The idea for the site came from co-founder Matt Fayle’s experience with friends in the creative industries who kept coming to him for advice on how to build their own website.

That then led to the question: once you’ve built that web presence, how do you get it in front of the people who may hire you, or people you want to collaborate with?

“[Fayle] wanted to create a space that was really easy for creative professionals to be able to promote themselves, but making it equally easy for companies or potential collaborators to find those creative,” says Jamieson.

The site, which works both as a job board and an online portfolio, was a risky venture for Jamieson and Fayle, who both left comfortable jobs to create the start-up out of their own savings.

In 2009, Fayle, then director of digital at Viacom, approached Jamieson about his idea. Jamieson, who worked in New Zealand as head of marketing at MTV at the time, says she was blown away.

“I was finding it really hard to connect with up and coming talent. If you put an MTV job on a job board like Seek it’s an absolute nightmare, you just get inundated with people who just want to work at MTV who don’t have the relevant skills,” says Jamieson.

The rapid growth of the service came through partnerships with universities around Australia and events like TEDx and Vivid.

“It came from a lot of partnerships, but it’s also been driven by viral and word of mouth. For us social media’s also just been incredible at driving traffic to the site, and in the end as soon as one person got a job they told ten friends and it snowballed from there,” says Jamieson.

With over 65 000 active users on the site, 70 percent of which are logging on every day, the time for the UK launch felt right.

Although the launch gives the British Jamieson the opportunity to move back home, she says there are several reasons why the timing is right now.

“London’s our biggest user base outside of Australia, and it really started ramping up during the GFC. We’ve had massive growth in the region already, and the scale is just huge compared to here. There’s 2.2 million creative professionals in the UK which is almost 10 times the size of the market here,” she says.

“Also, because of the GFC they’re investing heavily in the creative sector in the UK. The government and the industry in general see it as a really sustainable way for the economy to recover, because it’s encouraging innovation and growth.”

While she’s excited to move back home and see the business continue to grow, Jamieson says she’s always going to miss Sydney’s weather.

As if making the transition from student life to the working world wasn’t hard enough.

In March, the unemployment rate among 18- to 29-year-olds was 11.7 percent, more than four percentage points higher than the national average of 7.6 percent, according to the millennial-advocacy group Generation Opportunity.

But here’s an interesting twist: Nearly half of the college students surveyed in a new report on millennials out today aren’t using the professional-networking site, LinkedIn. That survey called “The Student Employment Study,” which was produced in by Gen-Y research firm Millennial Branding and AfterCollege, an online career network for college students and recent grads, found that 46 percent of students don’t use LinkedIn.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US entrepreneurial resource entrepreneur.com

Loyal customers? Check. A trustworthy team? Check. Solid profit? Check. But something’s nagging at your gut. While everything looks right, it doesn’t feel right. This isn’t what you set out to build. You hate it. Or maybe you’re just bored. Something needs to change–and fast. You need to upend your brand.

It’s a scary idea–shaking up this thing that looks right and, at its essence, works pretty damn well. But instead of continuing to sit around with a burlap-skivvies level of comfy, you need to move some pieces around, toss others and build something that’s true to you.

Step 1: Assemble your front stabbers. 

When prepping to upend your brand, you need a trusted set of advisors: I call them “front stabbers.” We all know people who are happy to give their opinions once your back is turned. But front stabbers–experts, partners, customers or friends–are brave enough to offer the straight-to-your-face, no-BS insights you need to set your brand right. They’ll help you figure out a new direction and goals for yourself, as well as what existing and (fingers crossed) new customers will want from you.

…to read this article in full, visit leading US entrepreneurial resource entrepreneur.com