20 Quotes for a Prosperous Year as a Small Business Owner

Some may call you a dreamer or a fool, but one thing is for sure … you are a natural-born entrepreneur and business leader.

You have the natural aptitude for inventive ideas to fill a product or service gap and the adventure and drive to take you there.

Whether you are an aspiring small business owner looking to launch your first venture in the coming year or having been riding the entrepreneurial train for a decade, here are some inspiring quotes to ring in your New Year with success and good fortune.

From innovation and passion to perseverance after failing, the list compiles quotes from successful business leaders, intellectuals, Internet visionaries, and even rappers so you have hope in the hard times and can latch on to words of wisdom for optimal success in your business.

On Innovation

• “The best use of life is to spend it on something that outlasts it.” â€" William James
• “I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.” â€" Thomas Edison
• “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” â€" Albert Einstein

On Passion

• “I daydreamed for motivation. I didn't lie to myself and talk about my passions and how if I was passionate enough about something I could be successful at it.” â€" Mark Cuban
• “The clothes are an extension of me. The music is an extension of me. All my businesses are part of the culture, so I have to stay true to whatever I'm feeling at the time, whatever direction I'm heading in. And hopefully, everyone follows.” â€" Jay Z
• “I can't imagine a person becoming a success who doesn't give this game of life everything he's got.” â€" Walter Cronkite

On Failing

• “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” â€" Thomas Edison
• “I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” â€" Steve Jobs
• “Show me a person who never made a mistake, and I will show you a person who never did anything.” â€" William Rosenberg
• “If you fail let it be your fault â€" Don't let someone else fail for you.” - Joe Griffin (CEO of iAcquire)

On Motivation

• “You can want success all you want, but to get it, you can't falter. You can't slip. You can't sleep. One eye open, for real, and forever.” - Jay-Z
• “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” - Vidal Sassoon
• “If you ain't making waves, you ain't kickin' hard enough.” - Unknown

On Relevance

• “So often people are working hard at the wrong thing. Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” â€" Caterina Fake (Co-founder of Flickr)
• “How you climb a mountain is more important than reaching the top.” â€" Yvon Chouinard (Founder of Patagonia)
• “I think when you move past your fear and you go after your dreams wholeheartedly, you become free. Know what I'm saying? Move past the fear.” - LL Cool J

On Excellence

• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -- Aristotle
• “Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.” -â€" Robert Orben
• “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” â€" Chinese Proverb

Use these quotes for small business owners to go out and have a prosperous year.

5 Ways to Get Your Business Into Shape for 2013

As the calendar turns to another year, it's the perfect time to take stock of your business and make some important changes for an even better year ahead.

Here are five simple things you can do to start the year off right:

1. Retool Your Pricing and Packages

The ideal time to re-evaluate your current pricing and packages is the New Year.

If you're a solo professional or small business owner, you have undoubtedly realized that no one is responsible for giving yourself a raise but you. Too often, self-employed individuals end up working for the same rate year after year because they're too busy to evaluate just how much their time is worth.

Why not enact a rate increase effective January 2013 for all new clients?

To give enough notice for your existing clients, it may be wise to offer them a special deal or incentive to continue working with you. For example when I raised my rates a couple years back, I immediately applied it to new clients but let existing clients continue working with me at my old rate for 3 months longer.

To stand out from similar businesses in 2013, you may also want to consider creating packages instead of just charging by the hour. For example, if you're a graphic designer, you could create a “New Year, New Website” package that allows people to purchase multiple website-related graphics they need in a single transaction.

If you already have packages, give them a second look to determine which ones may need updating, upgrading or even retiring.

2. Revive Your Workspace

If you can't get to your desk without knocking over a pile of papers, your workspace could use some sprucing up

Start fresh in 2013 by creating a more attractive and useful working environment. Spend a day organizing, filing, and/or recycling all the paper you've accumulated in the last year. You may also consider making things more comfortable by upgrading to an ergonomic chair. Finally, try sprucing things up visually by adding artwork, color and greenery so you'll want to keep things organized and beautiful.

If you work from home, you may want to consider a change of scenery by trying out a shared office space this year. Check out a website like LiquidSpace.com or Loosecubes.com. Working in a shared office environment one day per week can help you beat the isolation and distractions of working from home.

3. Get Your Books in Order

Very few small business owners go into business because they love handling the administrative tasks, yet things like cash flow and Profit & Loss statements can make or break your business:

• Are you still managing your finances on a combination of paper scraps and Excel files?
• Do you know when a client is late on their payment?
• Do you scramble each year at tax time to track down your expenses and receipts?

Think about which aspects of your financial books caused you the biggest headache last year, and get a new tool to solve it. The right tool will free up your time and benefit your business' financial health.

4. Set Trackable Goals

Come January 1, 2013, everyone is keen to set a goal or two. Unfortunately, by the time February rolls around, these goals are long forgotten.

This year try setting two types of goals for your business:

• Define one or two aspirations or goals, representing where you'd like your business to be in the coming years.
• Define smaller, bite-sized goals that can be tracked on a quarterly basis. Examples might include revamping your website home page, increasing Facebook fans by 20%, rolling out new services, etc.

It's important that the smaller goals feed into your aspirational goals to ensure your day-to-day activities work toward the master plan you're envisioning for your business.

5. Focus on Your Customers and Clients

Regardless of industry or annual revenues, a successful business hinges on happy customers. Therefore, the most important step toward a successful 2013 is to continue putting your customer's needs at the forefront of everything you do.

With every decision you make, think about how it will impact your customers. If you're not sure what your customers need from you this coming year, just ask them. Even in the age of social media, a simple phone-call or in-person meeting is the best way to take the pulse of your customers. A quick conversation will reveal invaluable insights about your customers and what they need to be successful.

Are you a solo professional or small business owner? Tell us what steps you're taking to get your business in shape for 2013!

Woman working out in a gym Photo via Shutterstock

7 Tips for Creating Powerful Landing Pages

A landing page is any page on your website that's sole purpose is to prompt a visitor to take a certain action.

For example, maybe you're promoting an eBook on your website and the landing page exists to encourage the download. Or you're running a paid search campaign where the ad drives users to fill out a contact form. The landing page is what serves up your call to action and gets someone to take that next step.

If your landing page doesn't drive users to take the action you've laid out for them, it failed. Don't fail.

Below are seven tips for creating powerful landing pages:

Have a Clear Objective

For a landing page to be successful, the objective of the page must be clear, both to you and a person landing on it. For your part, you need to identify exactly what is this page is designed to do. Do you want a user to:

• Fill out a contact form?
• Download something?
• Make a purchase?
• Take another specific action?

Once you know, all action on the page should be crafted to push users toward that one objective. If it's not relevant to the action, it doesn't belong on that page. That includes content, visuals, extra buttons, etc.

Match Your Headline to What Came Before

As users, we always want to make sure we're in the right place. You can help your visitors feel safe on your site by matching the headline of your landing page to the text they clicked from. If the ad text you used matches the landing page headline, this is a sign to users that their jump made sense and they're exactly where they need to be.

If it differs, even slightly, then users may become uneasy or unsure of their footing and hit the back button. You want visitors engaged with your site content. You don't want them wondering if they took a wrong turn.

Highlight Important Points

Let's be real, most people who land on your website will be skimming it. They'll be on the hunt for the words and phrases that are most important to them and which tell them your website is relevant to their needs.

So know what those words and phrases are (this is where keyword research comes in) and highlight them on the page. Use them early on in your content, toward the beginning of sentences, and then again at the end as this is where their eyes are trained to go. Make it easy for visitors to find these words inside the rest of the text.

Talk Directly to the Visitor

Because your landing page is designed to specifically convert a visitor, you want to talk directly to them. Use “you” and “your” as you explain how your product or service benefits them. Talk directly to their biggest pain points and focus on how you're going to help them and how much easier it will make their life.

The more you can talk to someone and help them visualize your ability to help them, the stronger your argument.

Vary Paragraph Length

Another way to create a page that is engaging to users is to vary text length used in paragraphs. What this does is to help create visual separation to make the page easy to read and digest. It's also more visually appealing than landing on a page filled with large blocks of text.

Varying paragraph length will help draw users into the content and make the content easier for them to skim.

Provide a Clear Call to Action

Considering we're talking about a landing page, you'd think this would be obvious. But you'd be surprised how many sites create landing page without clear calls to action!

Make sure the CTA is obvious to a user, either via graphic element or large, linked text. If the copy is short, then placing a CTA on top of the page, as well as toward the bottom should suffice. If the page is longer, then you may want to add additional CTAs to make sure that users notice them. But if this isn't clear, then the entire message of the page has been lost.

Remove All Distractions

This is essential. If it does not inspire someone toward the specific conversion, it does not belong on the landing page. This includes navigational elements, other links, extraneous text, humor, images, etc. Everything on the page should be related to the action you're trying to get someone to take. If it does not, then it's a distraction. And it should be removed.

Creating stronger landing pages is something every business owner should aspire to do. Your landing page is very often the deciding factor in whether someone converts or they get distracted and leave your website.

U.S. Senate Strikes Deal to Avoid Fiscal Cliff

Happy 2013! With the arrival of the New Year comes news of a U.S. Senate vote to avert the looming “fiscal cliff”.  Both the cliff and the new stopgap measure have been a focus for many in the small business and entrepreneur community. We'll also take a brief look forward at some of the other issues important to business leaders moving into the New Year.

Forward Motion

Strike a deal. Business owners and entrepreneurs have been understandably apprehensive about the looming fiscal cliff coming at the end of 2012, with automatic tax increases and other worrisome issues. But the stopgap agreement approved by the Senate in the predawn hours raises a different set of concerns if it is approved by legislators later this week. Tax increases for earners making $400,000 or more may have an impact on some business owners and entrepreneurs. The New York Times

Look for the signs. This will be the year for a rebirth in business social media and a boost in entrepreneurship, says one marketing strategist and speaker. In this 35 minute video and accompanying blog post, we see some bold predictions, with broad implications for business leaders of all kinds. A new way to look at social media will emerge, including the realization that these channels are more useful for networking than for sales. Meanwhile, small mom and pop entrepreneurship will rebound even as VC fueled startups falter. Conrad Flynn

Better Resources

Watch for new tools. Samsung's move into the mobile market has been well-publicized. Now the Korean-based electronics manufacturer is expected to introduce smartphones based on the Tizen open source mobile operating system. The move represents a diversification for the company already known for its mobile devices using Google's Android operating system. The company also plans Windows Phone devices in the future, meaning ever increasing options for mobile business. The Next Web

Beef up your blog. If you have a blog for your business already or are just starting one, this is an excellent time to either come up with some new resolutions to take your efforts to the next level, or plan ahead for what you hope to accomplish with your new business blog in the New Year. Lorna Sixsmith gives you some tips, including looking at your goals and objectives, examining topics, avoiding writer's block, optimizing your site, and improving the quality of photos and other content. Write on Track

Better Decisions

Focus on hiring. If you're anxious about the economic future of your company in 2013, perhaps you should consider a new approach. Instead of looking at the glass as half empty, consider a half full perspective, suggests Warren Rutherford of Executive Suite, a company providing leadership coaching and executive recruitment. Focus on the opportunities presented by hiring new talent in the new year. Consider what new hires may offer your company in terms of growth. Tweak Your Biz

Work for change. If you want your business to be different in 2013, you will need to work for that change. Start by thinking of what you hope to change about your business in the New Year. To get started, follow these suggestions to help you realistically make a difference in your business, says Jennifer Warawa, senior director of partner programs at Sage, a leading provider of North American small business accounting services. Virgin.com

Start the New Year strong. To close the old year and start the new one strong, here are seven questions to ask about your business, says business and career branding consultant Deborah Shane. These questions look carefully not only at where you are going and how you want your business to change, but also at where your business is now. Ask yourself how well your business is working, how well your relationships are going, and how you want your marketing and branding to change in the coming year. Small Business Trends