Small Business

Thumbnail image for The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Use Doodle.com to Schedule Meetings and Events

The Top 5 Reasons You Need to Use Doodle.com to Schedule Meetings and Events

In short, Doodle.com makes it easy to find a date and time for a group event by using a poll-based scheduling system; it’s not a calendar.
Want to schedule a Sales and Marketing meeting between 15 people, including some employees in the field? You can either do it the old fashioned way and send out an Outlook invite – and receive several “Decline to attend” responses – or you can set up a poll in Doodle to see what time works best for everyone, and then lock it in place.

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Thumbnail image for The Professional Confessional: When is a sale lost?

The Professional Confessional: When is a sale lost?

Lately I’ve been hitting some snags in my sales cycle. Without a doubt, my strength lies in the early stages of the sale. As the Marketing Manager for the past two years, I’ve been crafting our messaging, so I know it inside and out and can generate interest very quickly and lock in meetings. However, I’m having trouble closing.

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Thumbnail image for Marketing and Sales: Can’t we all just get along?

Marketing and Sales: Can’t we all just get along?

Please help me understand the thought process behind separating sales and marketing; in many cases the two departments literally undermine one another. I’ve just never understood why most teams don’t work side by side: it’s like driving around without knowing where you are going. The blind leading the blind. The right side of your brain not being connected to the left.

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Thumbnail image for The Professional Confessional: Etiquette 2.0

The Professional Confessional: Etiquette 2.0

As an avid user of Web 2.0 tools in my social and professional spheres, there’s bound to be some spillover, right? I recently committed a bit of a networking faux pas, and I will, of course, share the embarrassing details with you in the spirit of opening up some discussion around the topic!

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Thumbnail image for Writing Effective Emails: Some Lifesaving Tips

Writing Effective Emails: Some Lifesaving Tips

We live in a tech world and it’s growing more techy by the minute. I know many sales reps who believe the only way to prospect is to pound the streets or make calls, but whether you like it or not, email is an essential tool for reaching clients and prospects. If you write a good email you’re far more likely to get a response than a callback from a voicemail.

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Thumbnail image for Key Performance Indicators: Paralysis by Analysis

Key Performance Indicators: Paralysis by Analysis

Some thoughts on best practices for Sales & Marketing benchmarking. What’s essential, and can it go too far?

I’ve had mixed results over the past few years working with both Sales & Marketing organizations that have recognized the need for tracking metrics & key performance indicators (KPIs). As staunch believers in CRM, we have…

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Thumbnail image for The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 20 HitList

The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 20 HitList

This is the second in a series of Friday posts in which we’ll cover the best articles we’ve read all week. Most will be new, some will be old, but hopefully they’ll all be useful, interesting or entertaining.

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Thumbnail image for The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 13 Hit List

The Best Articles We’ve Read This Week: The Feb 13 Hit List

This is the first in a series of Friday posts in which we’ll cover the best articles we’ve read all week. Most will be new, some will be old, but hopefully they’ll all be useful. The list isn’t huge and it isn’t exhaustive, because if it were there’d be no chance you’d read them all.

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Thumbnail image for When to Quit Your Day-Job to Focus on Your New Business

When to Quit Your Day-Job to Focus on Your New Business

At what point should I leave my day-job to focus 100% on my new business? I’m being stretched thinner and thinner every day and find myself physically unable to give 110% to each of my responsibilities, and yet the prospect of leaving a stable, well-paying job in a recession is downright scary if not completely asinine. Then again, I think that a recession is actually the best time to start a new business.

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Thumbnail image for Report Your Income – Duh

Report Your Income – Duh

Former Senator Tom Daschle, who was to head the Health and Human Services Department, had income that he didn’t report in a timely fashion. We are not talking one day’s tips from being a waiter, we are talking a 6-figure sum.

With the caveat that I am not a tax attorney or accountant, here’s the easy answer – Report all of your income. That’s right – report it all.

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Thumbnail image for Management of Your Most Important Asset: Yourself

Management of Your Most Important Asset: Yourself

Last week, there were reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was evaluating whether Apple violated the law in failing to disclose a material event – the apparently failing health of their CEO, Steve Jobs. I’ll let others evaluate this issue. However, it reminds me of an issue for the small business owner – your health.

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Thumbnail image for I am Your Client: I Can Be Your Walking Advertisement or Cease to Exist

I am Your Client: I Can Be Your Walking Advertisement or Cease to Exist

I am your client. Satisfy my wants, add personal attention and a friendly touch, and I will become a walking advertisement for your service. Ignore my wants, show carelessness, inattention and poor manners and I will cease to exist. It is important to me that you appreciate my business. I want the best I can get for the money I spend. When I criticize your service, and I will, to anyone who will listen when I am dissatisfied, then take heed.

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Thumbnail image for The Benefits of a Recession are the Same as Those of a Forest Fire

The Benefits of a Recession are the Same as Those of a Forest Fire

This is a stressful, painful, and trying time for many of us, particularly those who have found themselves unemployed following a round of “strategic workforce reductions.” To be sure, before this ends we will suffer the loss of more jobs, homes, savings, and investments, but I dare say that at the end of this recession we will be a better nation for…

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Thumbnail image for Should Small Businesses Use a Payroll Service? Thoughts for Minimizing Your Risks

Should Small Businesses Use a Payroll Service? Thoughts for Minimizing Your Risks

There are many “vectors” pulling on the owner of a small business. You have to market the company, get the business, do the work, and get paid. The sales to payment cycle can be months long, during which you have to manage the cash flow to cover your costs and pay your employees or sub-contractors, before you can take money for yourself. One of the many non-billable tasks that you might de-prioritize are employment taxes…

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Thumbnail image for Small Business Owners: Back Up Your Data!

Small Business Owners: Back Up Your Data!

Perhaps you remember the episode of “Sex in the City” where Carrie Bradshaw turns on her Mac laptop, only to see the “Sad Mac”, indicating a serious hardware failure. This means that she cannot access any of her files. Her beau chastises her for not backing up her computer. She conjectures that backing up is a ritual for some strange secret society – because she has never done it and never heard about it…

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JPMorgan Conference: A Stream of Consciousness Report

The JPMorgan biomedical conference met at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco the week of 12 January. The opening event of the funding year, this conference serves as a bellwether of funding for biomedical firms for 2009. Even without name tags and the registration canvas totes, it’s easy to spot these “masters of the Universe” (thank you Tom Wolfe.) They are mostly Caucasian men dressed in suits, heads bowed in reading their Blackberry screens as they walk around Union Square with a paper coffee cup clad in its corrugated protector and plastic top…

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How to Sell a Price Increase in a Downturn

Mark Hunter of SalesHunter wrote a guest post for the Sales and Management Blog, and it’s a must-read if you’ll be raising prices in 2009…

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The Year Ahead: Make Better Decisions

2008 and several years preceding it will not go down in history as the best years for good decisions. So let’s make 2009 the Year of Better Decisions. Tom Davenport at Harvard Business Online wrote a great piece on how to improve your decision making process in 2009, and I suggest you give it a read and apply it to your world…

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More Reasons Why Now Is The Time For Hatching Something New

Neil Davidson at Red Gate Software published this post on OnStartups in response to Jason Cohen’s post, 6 reasons why this economy is good for startups. Neil chidingly curses Jason for beating him to the punch, but comes up with 6 more great reasons for why now is as good a time as any for startups…

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What Obama’s Proposed Tax Cuts Mean for Small Businesses

Here’s a welcome report for entrepreneurs this new year: President-elect Barack Obama’s massive stimulus plan is expected to include three key tax breaks for small-business owners…

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