Want to Be Awesome? Attend One of These Events

Want to be awesome?  Attending educational events helps you and your team grow your skills.  Learn how to be a master in business — and you don’t have to go it alone.  Help is all around you, some of it free and some it low cost.  But aren’t you and your team worth whatever the investment is, be it time, money or both?

And don’t forget those contests and awards programs!  They serve a role, too.  They help you get needed cash and other benefits for your business.  And they bring recognition to your company.

You’ll find these kinds of opportunities in our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Wells Fargo Works ProjectWells Fargo Works Project
June 30, 2014, Online

The Wells Fargo Works Project is a video or essay contest specifically for small business owners in the United States. To enter for a chance to win, tell your business story. Five small business owner winners will be selected from a pool of 25 finalists. The finalists will each receive $1,000. The five winners will each receive:

- $25,000 for their business.
- Business mentorship tailored to their specific business needs.
- A $5,000 donation in their name made by Wells Fargo to a local eligible non-profit organization in their community.

Wells Fargo is a sponsor of Small Business Trends’ CEO Anita Campbell.

Hashtag: #WellsFargoWorks

Marketing Makeover $25,000 From CBS LocalMarketing Makeover $25,000 From CBS Local
June 30, 2014, Online

Would you like a Marketing Makeover, to the tune of $25,000? Enter for a chance at this awesome prize package! The winner will get a streaming ad for CBS Local’s online radio station; display ads; search optimization services; Constant Contact Toolkit; and expert advice and a marketing plan. Just tell your story and why you deserve a marketing makeover. Open to U.S. small businesses. See rules, and enter today!

Bizapalooza 2014: Planning and ProfitsBizapalooza 2014: Planning and Profits
July 09, 2014, Online

Bizapalooza gives you a unique opportunity to connect with industry pros who really want to see you do more with your small business. Come as you are to this virtual small-business festival, then walk away with a fresh perspective, loads of free resources, plus practical solutions to fix what’s holding you back. FREE – and with freebie resources. Sponsors needed, too!
Hashtag: #Bizapalooza

Who Gives a Fund Contest - Caribbean CruiseWho Gives a Fund Contest – Caribbean Cruise
August 29, 2014, Online

Create a short fun video using the phrase “Who Gives a Fund.” Share it on social. The video with the most views will win a round trip within the continental U.S. to beautiful Miami, and a 3-day cruise to the Caribbean, for two. See WhoGivesaFund.com for complete rules and details. Presented by eSmallBusinessLoan.com, to highlight that traditional bank loans are not the only source of money for your working capital needs in your business. Get a merchant cash advance from eSmallBusinessLoan.com.
Hashtag: #WhoGivesaFund

More Events

More Contests

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

The post Want to Be Awesome? Attend One of These Events appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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From Our Community: 10 Quick Tips for Business Growth

Tablet time poolsideEDIT
It’s time for another edition of our community news and information roundup. A survey of the business blogs and social sites we follow across the Web reveals some great discussions on how to grow your business this week. We’ve collected 10 of the best tips to get you started.

Create The Right Incentives for Your Employees (Secrets of Business Mastery)

The key to a great business is great employees. For everyone other than solopreneurs, this means figuring out the secret of how to motivate more than just yourself. Here are some tips from Mike Agugliaro

Give Your People Room to Change (Awen Therapy Blog)

Growing your business will require growth and change from those working with you too. Though therapists Jay Blevins and Jasmine St. John often deal with family relationships, this advice works equally well when dealing with a business in transition.

Be Sure Your Business Can Be Found (GoDaddy Blog)

It may be an amazing stat. But Raj Mukherjee, senior vice president of Presence and Commerce, and Raj Nijjer, senior director of Product Management, at GoDaddy.com, tell Brent Leary of CRM Essentials that 50 percent of U.S. businesses still don’t have a website. So obviously getting online is a major step you need to take, if you haven’t already. See the full webinar below:

Learn the Art of Team Building (Xactly)

It’s almost impossible to escape a sports reference here. Blogger Greg Pisacane suggests looking at the arena of World Cup Soccer for more about how to build a better team. Hint: growing your business to succeed in a new market usually requires more than just continuing as you have been. It usually requires mastering new approaches to take things to the next level.

Make Yourself Contagious (Ability Success Growth)

No, executive coach Elli St. George Godfrey isn’t suggesting you catch a flu and spread it around the office. But as a leader in your company, you can influence the value system and preferred behaviors of those working with you. Godfrey talks a bit more in the BizSugar community about the emotional intelligence this kind of leadership requires.

Create Your Story (Business on Market St.)

When starting your business, you may have thought mainly about profit and loss. But growing your business may require something more. Your marketing can and should be thought of in terms of narrative. Here’s how copywriter Andrew Gordon suggests you approach your brand’s story.

Gather the Right Data…And Know How to Use It (Caffeine, Ramblings and Tech)

We live in a world where there is no shortage of data. But knowing who will be using that data or information, how it will be used and what value it will bring is far more important. Blogger Shea Laughlin suggests making a plan so that you can use the data you collect effectively to measure your company’s growth.

Learn to Use Social Media for Your Business (Social Media Fuze)

Like an online presence, social media marketing is something few if any businesses can afford to be without today. And this is especially the case if you plan to hope to grow your business to the next level. In fact, Internet marketer Mary Green has compiled a list of 20 industries that already successfully integrate social media into their marketing approach. And that’s just scratching the surface, Green tells the BizSugar community.

Master the Secrets of Content Marketing (Content Champion)

Using social media to communicate with customers and get feedback is one thing. But you also must learn to leverage channels like Twitter to promote your content on your website and blog. This is how you really put your marketing message to use and start targeting new customers who can help your business grow. Here Loz James shares some basic tips.

Be Open to Online Coupon Marketing and Other Options (Digital Information World)

You may have heard that online coupons and other techniques aren’t as popular as they use to be. Tell that to Amazon, which now seems poised to enter the market too. Here blogger Irfan Ahmad shares an infographic on the power of online coupons. And we see some further discussion in the BizSugar community on the topic.

Help us with future community news and information roundups. Send suggestions for coverage to sbtips@gmail.com. Or post to the BizSugar community. It’s where we search each week for the freshest and most authentic small business content.

Tablet time poolside image via shutterstock

The post From Our Community: 10 Quick Tips for Business Growth appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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How to Turn a Love of Fashion Into a $500,000 a Year PR Firm

turn your love for fashion

Starting a public relations agency isn't necessarily the most traditional path to find work in the fashion industry. But a love for art and fashion eventually led Katherine Niefeld to do just that – and it allowed her to realize her dream of working in fashion.

An art history and psychology major at the University of Michigan, Niefeld spent her summers assisting fashion editors at Teen Vogue Magazine in New York. There, she had the opportunity to spend time with the magazine's extensive clothing and accessories collections. That is where her love of fashion really blossomed. In an email interview with Small Business Trends, Niefeld said:

"When I moved to NYC after college and worked with Teen Vogue, my love for fashion really grew and I knew I wanted to be a part of it."

So in order to make fashion a part of her career, she attended New York University obtaining a Masters Degree in public relations.

turn your love for fashion

Then in 2009, she launched her own boutique PR agency, BlinkPR. It was a gutsy move, but she chose the agency's name based on one of her favorite books, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. She said the book taught her about the importance of going with her gut and just making her dreams happen. So she jumped into her new career and kept her focus on what originally drew her to it in the first place.

BlinkPR specializes in PR for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands. Often, the PR concepts Niefeld and her team use for their clients are the same that might be used for clients in other industries. But BlinkPR also specializes in helping with fashion shows and similar events. That gives Niefeld the opportunity to work with style collections and models, and to facilitate photography and videography interviews.

turn your love for fashion

By staying focused on that specific niche, Niefeld was able to help BlinkPR stand apart from other agencies and find success. In 2013, the agency made over $500,000 and is projected to continue growing in 2014.

Even more important than the success, Niefeld says, is simply the fact that she's been able to break into the industry she loves. She says that the fast paced environment and her ability to work with fashion designers are her favorite parts of the business and career she’s created.

The post How to Turn a Love of Fashion Into a $500,000 a Year PR Firm appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Office in the cloud: What are you waiting for?

Concerns are largely unfounded, and cloud services are already being used by many companies without them realising says Aidan Simister. Go to Source

5 Steps to Guide Your Next Local Marketing Campaign (plus The $25k Makeover Contest)

Finding new customers is a huge task for any small business, but it's especially difficult if you run a local business that requires local marketing to customers from a limited geographic area.

This fact is well known and well cited – and it's actually what motivated the $25,000 Marketing Makeover contest that we talked about a few days ago.

If you haven't heard, CBS Local is teaming up with Constant Contact and Audio AdCenter to present one small business with a $25,000 marketing prize to boost their local marketing efforts. The contest runs until June 30, 2014 – so we urge you to learn more about it and enter here.

But in the end there will only be one Grand Prize winner – it will change one small business owner's life, but by taking the right steps ALL small businesses can be winners if they choose the right strategy.

There are many specific marketing techniques you can try (and we do encourage you to explore your options!) But having a general game plan will help. Use these 5 steps when setting up your next local marketing campaign.

1 – Decide on Your Local Marketing Budget

Before you start out any local marketing campaign, you need to have a budget set. Knowing your budget will help you figure out what strategies are within your grasp, and what tactics you'll have to set aside for later (when that budget – and your business – grows).

How much you budget for local marketing can vary from $0 to thousands of dollars. If you're not sure where to start, take a look at how much other small businesses are spending on marketing and decide on a dollar amount that you feel comfortable with.

The following are results from a 2013 Yodel survey, which asked small business owners, "On average, how much is your business' monthly marketing budget?"

  • 23 percent of small business owners said $0, meaning no money is specifically set aside for marketing each month
  • 56 percent reported a budget between $1 and $499
  • Only 22 percent spend over $500 per month on marketing – and of that 22 percent, 13 percent spend between $500-999 (meaning: only 9 percent spend over $1000 per month)

The results show that you don't need to have a huge marketing budget to be successful. Choose a number you feel comfortable with, and adjust it up or down as you explore what works for you.

2 – Try Offline Local Marketing Strategies

Next, you have to decide where that marketing budget goes, and one thing most local businesses think about is their offline local marketing strategy.

Offline strategies like these are designed to capture people who are in your geographic area and therefore potential customers.

There are many direct local marketing strategies that you can try, and here are a few ideas to get you going:

  • Flyers, business cards and other promotional merchandise
  • Running special offers, contests, or handing out coupons
  • Teaming up with other local businesses – for referrals and even for a joint-venture promotion
  • Community involvement, such as volunteering or having company-sponsored volunteering events
  • Sponsorship, including sponsoring events, sports teams, or charities
  • Traditional forms of media, like ads in the local paper or on the local radio station

Results of your local marketing efforts will vary, to make sure you pay attention to what works and what doesn’t.

3 – Try Online Local Marketing Strategies

Okay, so you're a local business. Maybe a restaurant, a clothing shop, or a business that provides a service like yard maintenance or cutting hair. So you don't have to be online, right?

Wrong!

Online strategies should be a part of any local marketing campaign because your local customers – like everyone else these days! – spend a lot of time online. Basically you have to go where the customer is.

Just like offline strategies, there are many things you can try – but this list will get you started:

4 – Merge Your Offline and Online Local Marketing Campaigns

This is an important step that many small businesses forget – they either focus on offline marketing…or online marketing…or even both – but their campaigns are disjointed and not as effective.

Whatever promotion you decide to run for your first local marketing campaign, try to think of ways that you can push that campaign both offline and online. What you end up getting is a multiplying effect, where you create more buzz, entice more customers, and have more success.

There are a lot of ways to merge your local marketing campaigns so with this one we really encourage you to be creative! However, if you're stuck – or don't quite understand how you can fit offline with online strategies – check out these ideas:

  • Get your business set up on FourSquare and encourage customers to use it. That means that when customers stop into your business (offline) you'll get an online check-in that promotes the business.
  • Use hashtags to promote offline events online. Perhaps you're running an offline contest – think of a short but creative hashtag to identify the event. Then include this hashtag on all promotional flyers and posters so people know about it, and encourage those entering the contest to use the hashtag when they talk about it or enter.
  • Consider using QR codes. These look like little squiggly boxes, and you can place these codes on your offline material (like business cards, menus, in-store ads). When someone sees the QR code offline, they can scan it with their phone to be directed to more information online.

The possibilities of combining offline and online local marketing are endless and it's a pretty wide open field right now. Find some clever way to merge your local marketing campaigns and you will definitely get noticed.

5 – Measure Your Local Marketing Results

The final step in the process is to evaluate the results of your local marketing campaign. It's a way to reflect and discover what works for your small business.

The basis of measuring your results is first deciding what you should measure. Some things you may consider are sales, phone calls, emails, likes, check-ins, the number of people who come to an event, or enter a contest, or anything else that can be counted and measured.

You may have to be creative when deciding how to measure your campaign, but in some cases there may be a tool available (such as ReachEdge for digital campaigns). You may also have to deal with the fact that some campaigns (like social media marketing) are hard to measure – so choose a couple different things to see what works.

However you do it, measuring your results its essential to success because it helps you determine what strategies will work for your small business, and what your ROI is.

I know these 5 "simple" steps look like a lot of work – but local marketing IS a lot of work – a lot of potential rewards too! The idea of these steps is that when you get to #5 you can cycle back to #1 for your next campaign. Over time you refine the process and discover your personal secrets to business success.

Take a second to enter the $25,000 Marketing Makeover contest – because one small business owner's dreams WILL come true on August 1, 2014! And then follow these steps to launch your next local marketing campaign.

The post 5 Steps to Guide Your Next Local Marketing Campaign (plus The $25k Makeover Contest) appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

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The “Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing” Will Set You on Your Path

beginner's guide to content marketingI don't know how to tell you this, but you're not going to get away from content marketing, no matter how hard you try.

There have been countless books written on the subject, with no signs of stopping.  But the problem isn't a lack of books or how-to information. The problem is finding a book that meets you at your level of expertise.  And, I have to say, while there are lots of books that are very complete and detailed on the topic, few are approachable enough for the content marketing newbies among us.

I've just received my review copy of The Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing for Small Business by Matt Mansfield (@MattMansfield) and I have to say that this might be what the content marketing doctors have ordered.

Yes…You Can Do This!

Matt Mansfield is truly a content marketing expert.  You know how I know this?  Because he's able to simplify his message without diluting the impact or effectiveness of what he's teaching.  In other words, he understands content marketing so well, that he can explain it to a twelve year-old.  And if you're a small business owner who is wearing at least five hats in your business – you will appreciate this.

Matt works with small businesses as well as Fortune 500 companies to create powerful content that drives targeted online traffic.  More targeted traffic means more targeted customers.  This is a good thing but only if you do it right.

You won't have to worry about that with this book.  It's truly easy enough to read through once within a couple of hours and then go through it again to actually put Matt's suggestions into practice.

A Quick Tour of The Beginner's Guide to Content Marketing

There are three sections to the book:

  • Section I: Understanding Content Marketing Basics so You Can Decide Whether It's Right for Your Business
  • Section II: Take Your First Steps Toward Creating Great Content
  • Section III: Discover Where You Can Learn More About Content Marketing and Find Help

What more can I tell you? These section names are fairly self-explanatory.  In the first section, he's helping you decide if content marketing is good for you – you can just assume that it is and move on.

The meat of the content is in section two, where Matt gives you step-by-step instructions that you can use to start implementing.  You'll really enjoy the section on how to use Google Keyword Planning to determine what to write about.

Just to be clear, this isn't a comprehensive how-to book or section, it's just enough to get you comfortable and not feel overwhelmed.

Finally, in section three, you'll learn how to get help in creating your content.

And Then Some

Don't think that this little, easy-to-read and implement book is all Matt Mansfield has to offer.  You see, originally this book had something like 32 chapters and 5 appendices.  Then he had this a-ha moment and realized that no small business owner would have the time or inclination to read that.

So, he decided to chop that content out and use it as separate little ecourses.  So once you've gone through this Beginner's Guide to Content Marketing for Small Business, you can head over to his website and check those out as well.

If you've been thinking about using content marketing, but haven't quite gotten to it, Beginner's Guide to Content Marketing for Small Business is a great first step that will get you going in the right direction.

The post The “Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing” Will Set You on Your Path appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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This Phone Changes Retail; Federal Contractors to Get New Rule

outdoortabletEDIT

Amazon launched a new phone this week. Meanwhile, the comment period began for a plan to raise minimum wage for federal contractors. As a small business owner, you may not have time to follow all the news pertinent to you. The Small Business Trends editorial team has your back. Enjoy our roundup of the week’s top stories.

Tech

Amazon Launches a Phone! Fire Has a Scan and Buy Feature. The new Amazon Fire Phone announced this afternoon in Seattle by the online mega-retailer has specs that put it on par with Motorola’s Moto X. They include a 4.7-inch Gorilla Glass HD resolution display, rubbery surface and metallic buttons. There’s also a 13-megapixel rear facing camera. But it’s what you can do with that camera that really seems to make this phone unique.

Video Will Be 79 Percent of Online Traffic by 2018, Says Cisco. If you’re not using online video to market your small business or brand, you’re likely missing out on a lot of traffic. And now is probably a good time to get started. A new study from Cisco, the company’s VNI Global IP Traffic and Service Adoption Forecasts, 2013–2018, reveals this. The study says that by 2018, 79 percent of all Internet traffic will be video-related.

Warning: Be Sure to Back Up Sensitive Documents on Your Phone. Researchers say a new kind of malware will encrypt all the files on your phone and then demand a ransom to release them. With an increasing reliance on mobile devices among small business owners, one danger is the loss of valuable documents carried on your mobile device.

Policy

DOL to Seek Comments on Minimum Wage For Government Contracts. The Department of Labor will seek comments on a proposed rule raising minimum wage for employees of federal contractors to $10.10. The comment period is expected to extend from June 17 to July 17. The rule change is the result of an executive order signed by President Barrack Obama Feb. 12.

Get Ready for Lower Capital Investment Expensing. The amount the U.S. tax law allows businesses to deduct in a year for investments in new property, equipment and computer software is falling. From 2010 to 2013, businesses could deduct up to $500,000 in investments in a single year instead of depreciating that investment over time. But this year, due to changes in the tax code, that amount could fall to just $25,000 a year.

Web & Mobile

Amazon App Has Coupons, Reviews Like Groupon, Yelp. Does this sound familiar? An Amazon app gives customers coupons and also has reviews of some local businesses. Called Amazon Local, it is a free download from the Apple iTunes Store. Amazon says the app allows customers to: “…view and buy offers in seconds, whether it's a fast-selling Amazon MP3 deal, a special chef dinner, or a luxurious massage.

Microsoft Releases Outlook Web App for Some Android Users. We’ve heard that Microsoft is planning to release an Android version of its Windows Office bundle before the end of the year. Now we see an Android version of the Outlook Web App, Microsoft’s email and calendar software popular with business users, is up on Google Play.

You Might be Using Small Business Workbench and Not Even Know It. You may regularly use accounting software to keep track of simple debits and credits in your business. But creators of a new e-tool claim theirs will let you do even more.

Pangea Today: Their News. Their Voices. Your Language. “We want to make people more aware of what's going on in other parts of the world. And we want to make them excited to hear about another culture.” That’s the goal of Pangea Today, says Nelly Yusupova, head of marketing strategy and technology for the newly-launched news aggregation website.

Legal

Judge Says LinkedIn Can Be Sued Over Aggressive Email Tactics. You’ve worked hard to maintain a good online reputation. That means you’re careful not to be constantly updating your social media streams with repetitive marketing pitches or overbearing posts. And that includes your email etiquette, too. It also means not inundating your contacts’ inboxes with one marketing message after another.

Rule Changes

What Kickstarter’s Revised Rules Mean to You. Plenty of ventures have used the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to get up and running. Projects range from a company offering a new home brewing kit to one creating an innovative new game console. The site’s success has also spawned a wide variety of competing crowdfunding sites, giving those interested in raising money for a business or other project more options.

Wikipedia to PR Firms: Sockpuppets Not Welcome. Wikipedia doesn’t want any more Sockpuppets. Hey, that’s not our term — it’s a term Wikipedia actually used. First, some marketers and businesses apparently faked tons of reviews on sites like Yelp. Now, marketing and PR firms may be using hundreds of fake accounts to try to improve clients’ images on Wikipedia.

Economy

Small Businesses: Is the Great Recession Over for You? Here’s some positive news:  small business optimism is back to pre-Great Recession levels.  Small business owners are feeling more optimistic than anytime since September 2007. That’s according to the latest Small Business Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). And that is indeed good news to see conditions bouncing back.

Social

Chirpify Adds Analytics to Social Commerce, Acquires Measureful. The social commerce space is heating up. We recently learned about social commerce site Soldsie. The site lets customers buy from your Facebook or Instagram site just by commenting. Now, Chirpify, a social commerce site that’s been around for about four years, is adding analytics to its social media selling tools with the acquisition of social analytics startup, Measureful.

Richard Owen, Satmetrix: Net Promoter Score’s Role in the Age of Social Customers. The Net Promoter Score has been used for years to help companies understand the role customer loyalty plays in the financial health of their organizations – assisting them in determining what actions should be taken to drive referrals and longer customer relationships.

Entrepreneurship

Hotel Pattee: Community Support Drives Business Onward. Would you go to a town where you knew almost nobody just to purchase a business that had already failed twice? You would if you were entrepreneurs Jay and Denise Hartz. Prior to an initial trip in August 2013 to Perry, Iowa with plans to purchase the historic Hotel Pattee, the Hartzs literally knew a handful of people in town.

The Role of Entrepreneurship in Rising Income Inequality. Income inequality is growing in America, and it has much of the chattering class in an uproar. Between 1981 and 2011, the share of income (including capital gains, but excluding government transfers) of the highest earning one percent increased from 8.9 to 19.

Will Your Next Business Suit Be an Executive Hoodie? Whoever thinks that hoodies don't belong in the workplace has probably never seen the Executive Pinstripe Hoodie from Betabrand. The Executive Hoodie is made from suit fabric and retails for $168. Mark Zuckerberg provided the inspiration behind the hoodie, and its launch coincided with the social media giant's IPO.

Are You a Stay at Home Mom in Need of a Voice and Business Outlet? Entrepreneurship has been a growing trend with moms for decades. Holly Hurd was one of those moms. She started her own financial trading company out of college and eventually developed and sold her own hedge fund. She also had several other entrepreneurial ventures throughout the years, including a line of furniture and books on business related topics.

Awards

Live Awards Coverage: Meet a Few Rule Breakers. Successful entrepreneurs are risk takers and rule breakers. And the Rule Breaker Awards celebrate the success of business owners who do things “their way.” This was the first year for the event. The inaugural Rule Breaker Awards ceremony was held on June 10, 2014 at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York City.

Outdoor tablet  image via shutterstock

The post This Phone Changes Retail; Federal Contractors to Get New Rule appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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