Business Buffet

We have all tried the new year’s resolution thing, you know, eat healthier, get more exercise, read more, spend more time with friends and family…yada yada yada.  News Year’s Resolution is really just a joke seeking punchline.  Heck, today is January 3rd and most of you have already broken your promises.  In today’s episode, we’ll explore the idea of setting New Year’s Business Resolutions versus create Small Business Action Plans.

One thing that many bigger companies have is history. They’ve been around a while and have done things a certain way. Boeing, IBM, Ford, just to name a few, have clearly done things a certain way and its paid large dividends. But becoming a large company has its drawbacks. If they changed certain things during growth, would that have helped or hurt? Making changes to things that have historically worked is very hard, but just because you’ve done it a certain way for many years, doesn’t always mean that’s the best way to do things now. Today we’re going to give you some things to look out for, some reasons to consider change; not just for the sake of changing but changing for the better.

The US Census Bureau reports 9.1% of all US businesses are majority-owned by veterans, yet only .5% of the population ever served in the Military.  Veteran-owned businesses in 2018 generated more than $1.1 trillion in revenue and employed more than 5 million people with an annual payroll of over $195 billion.  On the surface, one could argue veteran-owned businesses have a higher than average success rate; what could other small business people learn from veterans who are in business?  In today’s episode, we are going to explore business operations from a veteran’s point of view and see if there are some nuggets we can all add to our plate.

If you're in business for yourself you will invariably get a bad review, whether it's about your product, your service, or both. Is it ALWAYS bad to get a negative review? It could be unfounded. It could be a competitor trying to throw insults your way to get a competitive edge. It could also actually have merit. We'll walk you through one of the most debated issues pertaining to running a business. When you get a bad review, what SHOULD you do?

Small business owners make all the decisions and thus oftentimes lose track of the “outsiders perspective” on problem-solving.  Industry trends, market conditions, and unknown competitors can all have drastic negative impacts on business operations.  This podcast episode explores ways a small business owner can problem solve issues they may or may not know their business has.

Successful marketers have a secret they don’t want YOU to know about and that is, they learn the psychology behind marketing. The vast majority of marketers aren’t psychologists, but many successful marketers regularly use psychology in appealing to consumers. As today is Black Friday around the United States, it seemed appropriate to talk about certain psychological strategies marketers deploy, which includes, but is not limited to, the psychology of color. Smart, skillful, honest marketers use psychology legally, ethically, and respectfully to attract and engage consumers, and compel them to buy.

In today’s fast paced business world, technology, new regulations, market trends, industry standards, and consumer preferences constantly change.  Small business owners are especially impacted because taking time to keep educated on important matters takes time, often time we don’t have.  We are in a learn or die situation as business owners and thus must always be learning.  Today’s podcast will go over things every business owner should stay current with and give time-saving tips on how to accomplish.

Being an entrepreneur is a very popular trend these days! But is everyone cut out to run their own business? The short answer is 'yes' but we'll dive into that deeper on today's episode of the Business Buffet!

The dream of the world-wide-web was very inexpensive business marketing opportunities.  History being the best teacher, that vision didn’t really pan out.  Instead, good old fashion hard work still holds true.  However, in 1984 Jay Conrad took the business world by storm with his Guerrilla Marketing book.  Over the last 35 years, the ideas of Guerrilla Marketing have been tried in the digital world, some efforts more successful than others.  Today’s podcast explores Guerrilla Marketing in the digital age and gives small business owners tips for maximizing marketing effort while minimizing costs.

Sometimes the best time to hit the market is at good enough.  This could be your product or service development or the marketing campaign to promote your business.  The important thing to consider is getting to market and gaining valuable real world feed back.