Business Blog

Praise vs Reprimand: How to Treat Employees

Praise vs Reprimand: So how are you supposed to treat employees? Many people feel that keeping your employees down will keep them from asking for raises, or seeking other employment. But this cannot be farther from the truth. Praising your employees helps their morale it helps their demeanor and it helps them feel better about coming to work. I’ve been on both sides of this topic. As an employer I always lean towards praising employees and sometimes too much. I have experienced employees leaving because I pumped up there or ego so much that they overvalued themselves and thought they could make more elsewhere. However, I find that their morale is much higher in their production is much higher. I would rather train and give opportunities to people who have a high morale and a high productivity and then just be happy with who sticks. Otherwise, you’re left with the staff who feels bad about themselves, unsure about their job, does not like coming to work, feels undervalued and u…

The Number 1 Tip for Top Search Engine Ranking

Top search engine ranking requires dedication. What's The Trick for Top Search Engine Ranking? The trick is to post often. Many people think that to rank on the search engines you need to pay for a service hire someone or use Google paper click. But that can’t be farther from the truth. Yes it will get you fast traffic, at a cost. But it won't last or get you further down the road to ad independence. Organic traffic is KING! Daily Content for Search Engine Ranking The best way to break in Google Bing Yahoo or other search engine is to post unique content daily and, if possible, add a video. Posting often gives your website fresh content that Google can index and lets the search engines know that you are an active website and something that they can reference to people who search things on the Internet. The services that you might hire can achieve this for you, but you can also achieve it for yourself so searching the Internet will come up with more and more of your listings in…

My Continued Battle With Facebook

As a followup, I'd like to discuss my Battle with Facebook. In my previous post, Is Facebook Advertising Worth The Hassle , I talked about how difficult Facebook can be. And how it's still worth it. Well, Facebook is making it very difficult for me to continue to have that point of view. My Battle with Facebook Continues Today, 8 of my client's ads were beginning to pay off. After weeks of paying hundreds of dollars and tweaking them to be productive, they were finally pumping out leads and I was so very happy. That was this morning.....then, as if the Universe was playing a sick joke on me, they turned the ads off automatically. I noticed they were off and so I began to turn them back on. Then, I got a notice that my account was cancelled for violating their terms and conditions!!!!! Wait Facebook...What? After finally getting my ads approved, they later decide I offended the thought police? And they won't even tell you why, or how to fix it. I poured over their policies agai…

Get Referrals From Clients

If you want to get referrals from clients, you must realize that they love you best while you're helping them, not after. Too many salespeople make the mistake of beating around the bush when asking for referrals. They do a great job for their clients, and then when everything is all over, they ask for referrals or worse; they say something so weak it should be likened to a limp noodle. They say, "if you run across anyone I could help will you please tell them about me"? Gee whiz...that will never work. So, how do you get referrals from clients? I'll tell you. Tell them what you're going to do Do it Tell them what you did, and ask for referrals That's it! Let me elaborate... Tell them What you're going to do When you begin a sales process, you want to clearly set the stage for the relationship because you're in total control of it. That's right. Don't believe anyone saying, "the customer is always right". That has a different meaning. You dictate the sales relationsh…

Is Facebook Advertising Worth All The Hassle?

Facebook Advertising has gained popularity, no thanks to the Facebook policy makers. The overbearing and complicated ads system is littered with rules and political correctness, along with tons of seemingly meaningless regulations. Some of these really have merit. Some don't. But, the bottom line is Facebook is still worth using for advertising because it works. I'm not positive it works well enough to pay what they inevitably charge, but it's not all that bad. Facebook has a very ambiguous method of determining what to charge, fraught with a network of tunnels to navigate. For instance, trying to get an ad approved is sometimes easy and sometimes tough. It depends on....well....nobody knows. Recently, I tried to post several ads for over a week, only to learn that they didn't like the picture. It may or may not have portrayed politically evil competition where one side won over the other. What? One wins and the other doesn't. Blasphemy! It's true that social platforms ar…

How to Purge Deleted Emails from Outlook

How to Purge Deleted Emails from Outlook Ok. I know this is off the wall, but it's important. If you've ever seen an inbox full of emails with lines through them, and they don't go away, you'll know how frustrating it can be. Yes it's petty and insignificant, in the grand scheme of things. However, little annoyances add up. At least they do in my life. So here's my story of me learning how to purge deleted emails from outlook. After I set up my email account for TopLocal.org, I added it to my Outlook, along with several others. In total, I have 8 accounts managed by Microsoft Outlook. (SIDE NOTE) Microsoft, if you're listening....please, please, please add the "all inboxes" function. It's silly you don't have it in Outlook but it's free with Windows 10 mail. So, come on and get with the program. Anyway, back to how to purge deleted emails from outlook. My story continued... Then, I noticed a ton of emails from the site, asking me to moderate comments on my posts. So I deleted…

Spanish Small Business Owners are Confident

The other day I heard that Spanish small business owners are growing at an incredible rate. Bank of America recently conducted a survey of Hispanic Business Owners... 394 of them to be exact. These were from all over the country. It showed some remarkable and eye-opening statistics. And we all love statistics. Take a look at their confidence numbers: Confidence Statistics 88% think that the Hispanic small business environment will get stronger over the next 10 years. 77% have plans to grow their businesses over the next 5 years. 71% have expectations of increased revenue this year. Almost 40% of them plan to hire and close to 30% plan to apply for expansion loans. 65% of them think that Hispanic small business owners have challenges that others don't. However, most of them feel their culture has been an advantage. 60% see local economic growth over the next year or two and most of them think the national economy is moving in the right direction. Pretty en…

Old School Business Promotion Ideas

Business Promotion includes Flyers, Coupons, Chamber of Commerce, Door to door, oh my! Do I really Need All of That for Business Promotion? Yes. So, I get it. We're firmly in a digital age of business promotion, but that doesn't mean the old marketing methods don't work. On the contrary, they work even better than ever because most people are too lazy to use them. Either most business owners won't do the work required or they think new methods actually work better. Don't get me wrong, new digital marketing works if done right. But most people don't know how or don't think it takes as much work as it really does. Old-school marketing methods have worked for centuries. And because many people are using email, social media, and web advertising, the old methods are hardly used anymore. However, let me ask you a question. Do you get tired of all the email in your inbox? You probably delete things just because you have too much to go through. And you also probably automatically ha…

Juggling Family With Business

Juggling family with business is really tough for some people. They constantly argue about how much time is being spent at work, or talking about work. The kids and other topics seem to be placed down the list and not given the importance they deserve. Juggling family with business requires one thing...Boundaries! Boundaries When Juggling Family With Business Yes, boundaries are necessary. You must set up a division between work and home, while making sure the family understands that your business is part of your life. They shouldn't be too hard on you about wanting to discuss it. They real key is to understand that your spouse and children are more important than your business. If your business fails, what do you have? Your spouse and kids. And, even if you need to work for someone else in the future, you will still have them on your side. So, always put them first. Juggling family with business is easier than you think, if you learn that simple rule. You will hear me say th…

Create The Best Blog Post for SEO

Create the Best Blog Post for SEO So, you want to create the best blog post for SEO. There are many ways to write a blog post. But if you want a blog post that's best for search engines, there's a pretty distinct answer and pattern to follow. From a fundamental view, the best blog post for search engines is ANY BLOG POST on a regular basis. But it get's deeper than that. Added video To create the best blog post for SEO, you need to add video as much as possible. Google loves video and any post with video will hold more weight than one without it. The most important post is a daily one. Nothing else is this important. But video will provide a huge boost. At least 400 words long There's not much to say about this except that it needs to be at least 400 words. This is from experience and not based on any known facts about the Google algorithm, because nobody knows for sure what's in it. 400 words has shown to be about the minimum for effective results. Keyword Optimized …

Tips for Appropriate Workplace Relationships

Ok, this post is not going to be a happy one. But, it needs to be written. I've owned businesses, and been self-employed, for a long time. I always got too close to my employees, make friends too quickly, and craved the kind of comradery that coworkers had. I almost always worked out badly. As a boss or manager, you can't have friends at work. You can be friendly, but you can never truly open up and be friends. This really also goes for coworkers, even if you're not the boss. Why? Lawyers and opportunistic people! It's that simple. The only reason you can't truly make friends at work is the unfortunate part of human nature that makes people try to get ahead by pulling other people down. So, you open up and tell an employee or coworker about your life. It will come back and bite you. They will either use it against you or tell someone else who will. This is truly unfortunate because of the countless hours you spend with the people at work. Most of your life is …

Does Stupid Advertising Really Work?

As I drive to work, an hour each way, I listen to stupid advertising whether I like it or not. It makes me wonder if stupid advertising works or not. My wife says that it's memorable but doesn't make her want to buy anything. So let's take a deeper look at the psychology of stupid advertising. The first thing I wondered about was, "Do these businesses know their ads are annoying, or do they really think they are actually good"? The former would be smart and the latter just makes me sad. I saw a story about a really stupid lawyer ad on YouTube and read the story. The recent graduate set out to make a stupid video, making fun of the current stupid lawyer ads we see on TV. So, he did it and, to his amazement, it worked! His video went viral and he got tons of business from it. Now, this guy did it right. He went above and beyond the usual annoying antics on purpose. In fact, many of the stupid advertising I see is for accident lawyers, used cars, guns & ammo, carpe…