EDUCATION BLOG

The article I just had published “The Plot to Take YOUR Money” is ranked on Google page #1. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone, it’s rated #1 and #2 of 7,570,000 results. This occurred in part because of the training I received for my marketing education business. Click the link below to see my results on Google and if you would like to have the education to market online click this link   http://duanehatfield.com

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=plot+to+take+your+money&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=plot+to+take+your+money&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=f36d3c22a357aa92

Embrace your next customer complaint.

A recent blog article from SCORE advices entrepreneurs to use customer complaints to make their businesses stronger:

“…rather than a punch, perhaps it is better to view a complaint as valuable training, coaching, business toughening. Customer complaints are some of the most valuable growth data you could hope for… it is free, candid, focused feedback by clients who have engaged with your company. And studies consistently show that embracing complaints with good systems and follow-up can be an effective growth strategy.”

Make customer service one of the most important jobs you do as a business owner.  Ann & Michelle Connor from AdviCoach are offering a free Customer Skills Workshop at the Hannah Grimes Center in Keene, NH on Friday, September 10, 2010 Noon – 1:30pm.  View workshop details and register today.

Douglas County Business Workshop Calendar—September 5, 2010

By Jennifer O’Neill, UCC Small Business Development Center, Administrative/Program Specialist, 541-440-7824 or jennifer.oneill@umpqua.edu. Pre-registration is required.

Workshop Title:            Mission Possible-Job Search

Date:                              September 7^th through September 10^th (Tuesday –Friday’s)

Stop by the office to be scheduled.

Time:                             Contact UT&E

Cost:                              FREE

Location:                        UT&E, 760 NW Hill Avenue, Roseburg

Sponsoring agency:       Umpqua Training & Employment

Contact Phone #:           541-672-7761

Workshop Title:            1^st Steps to Starting Business Workshop

CRN: 20885

Date:                              Friday, September 30^th

Time:                             3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Cost:                              Free

Location:                        UCC Workforce Training Center, 2555 NE Diamond Lake Blvd

Sponsoring Agency:      UCC Small Business Development Center

Contact Phone #:           541-440-4669 or 541-440-7824; Registration 541-440-7744

Workshop Title:            Basic Website Design

CRN:                             21009

Date:                              Tuesdays & Thursdays, August 31^st through Sept. 30^th

Time:                             8:30 am – 3:00 pm

Cost:                              $85

Location:                        UCC Campus, TC 104

Sponsoring Agency:      UCC Community Education

Contact Phone #:           541-440-4655 Kathy

Workshop Title:            Basic Tax Preparers Course

CRN:                             21040

Date:                              September 7^th through December 4th

Time:                             4:30 – 8:30 pm Tuesday’s

9:00 am – 1:00 pm Saturday’s

Cost:                              $449

Location:                        UCC Workforce Training Center, 2555 NE Diamond Lake Blvd – Tuesday’s

UCC Campus, WCH – Saturday’s

Sponsoring agency:       Community Education

Contact Phone #:           541-440-7651 Michele

Workshop Title:            Certified Flagger Training

CRN:                             20930

Date:                              September 7^th

Time:                             4:30 – 10:00 pm

Cost:                              $79

Location:                        UCC Campus, TC 119

Sponsoring Agency:      UCC Community Education

Contact Phone #:           541-440-7691 Judy

Last Friday (27 August 2010), we held the first DCU Business School Practicum Day. Starting at 8.30am, students on the MSc in Business Management and MBS in Marketing programmes displayed “research” posters, presented and answered questions regarding their major summer assignment, a group practicum.

A View From Above - some of the poster displays at DCU Business School's Practicum Day 2010

A practicum is an assignment designed to give students supervised practical application of previously studied theory. In DCU Business School, we offer MBS in Marketing and MSc in Business Management students the choice of undertaking a individual dissertation, which is largely an academic piece of research, or a group practicum. We source practicums from a wide range of organisations, business and not-for-profit, and initial ideas for projects are presented to students via Moodle in February. The students make proposals for these projects and start working on them in March. A report of work completed is submitted at the end of July. Later in August, student groups present their project for 25 minutes to two assessors who then question them on their project. Feedback is provided on this interview and students then present their “research poster” and present and answer questions from an audience of peers, faculty and other guests for 10-15 minutes.

Tiernan Kennedy presenting his group's work on the use of digital marketing for international student recruitment for DCU Language Services at DCU Business School Practicum Day 2010.

This year 22 groups presented their projects, which fell in to four main themes:

• Original business plans – business ideas that students have identified, research and prepared business plans for.
• Irish e-Business Marketing – marketing projects for Irish e-businesses
• International Marketing – marketing projects for Irish businesses typically involving an international aspect
• Local Businesses and Projects – marketing practicums for organisations located on the Northside of Dublin

In addition, two MSc in E-commerce (Business) groups presented their original business plans relating to online mannequins and mobile apps. (The MSc in E-commerce (Business) is a jointly offered programme with the School of Computing and has a separate presentation day earlier in August.)

The Perigord Team fielding questions at the DCU Business School Practicum Day

Overall the day was very enjoyable and interesting. It gave students both the opportunity to (i) clarify issues raised or unaddressed from their report and interview and to (ii) see and appreciate the efforts of their peers. As well as students, guests including faculty,  industry, other members of the University, incoming students and parents attended. All were impressed with the quality and volume of work. Unlike dissertations, students have the opportunity to address a real-world problem with a live client or indeed pursue their own business idea.

The Foodies' Edu-plate Nutritional Learning Toy

As every business and context was different, approaches and projects varied dramatically and really brought individual competences to the fore including ideation, industrial design and digital marketing skills. The DCU Business School Practicum Programme also gives the Business School an opportunity to engage with the wider business community and forms a central part of our civic engagement strategy.

This year the projects had a strong digital marketing element and the students ably demonstrated their skills in integrating a wide range of activities including:

• online market research
• applying marketing strategy frameworks e.g. STP, SOSTAC etc.
• SEO
• direct e-mail
• blogging e.g. WordPress, Blogger
• microblogging e.g. Twitter
• social networking e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace
• digital advertising e.g. Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, Boards.ie
• online PR and social bookmarking e.g. Digg, Reddit, Mixx, Del.icio.us
• social media platforms e.g. Hootsuite, Tweetdeck
• media distribution e.g. YouTube, Scribd, SlideShare, Flickr

Professor Darach Turley discusses practicums with Marie Mooney at DCU Business School Practicum Day 2010.

However, digital marketing was not the only focus. Work on best practice tendering process, brand communications and sales training featured strongly as well as the financial planning skills inherent in any business plan. All groups presented well and confidently fielding difficult and awkward questions at times. It struck me that from a communications perspective, they had all managed to reduce over 10,000 word reports to 25 minute presentations then to 7 minute presentations and then ultimately one page – no mean feat! And at the end of the day, I certainly was satisfied that these students can hit the ground running in the job market with both the theory and practical skills need in today’s economy.

The roll of honour:

Theme 1 – Original Business Plans

• Foodies – an educational toy for teaching good nutrition.

The Foodies Team - Deirdre Shanahan, Terence Bowden, Aisling Meleady and Sophie Gavard - at their poster. The group brought their multidisciplanary background to develop a business plan for an educational toy for teaching children good nutritional habits.

• Online Fits – an 3-D body shape visualisation solution for online clothing retail sites.

Katia Zavershinskaya, David Gilchrist and Enkeled Uldedaj explain 3-D body shape visualisation in their Online Fits practicum project.

• Sample Circus – a circus-themed event-based tryvertising business for the cosmetics industry.

Cara Kennedy, Lyn Whyte, Martina Martinez-Cano and Caroline Mullen present their poster on Sample Circus at DCU Business School Practicum Day.

• Dot Dot Dot Fashion Marketing – a digital marketing business for emerging fashion designers.

Stephen Conway, Valeria deFeudis, Emmy Rangel Calderas, Margaret Connolly and Nichola McHugh bring some style to the DCU Business School Practicum Day with Dot Dot Dot Fashion Marketing.

• Afro Celt Airlines – an airline operating between Dublin and Lagos.

Afro-celt Airlines - Charles Okinji, John Keating, Paul Tyrell and Stephen Osondu

• SmartLED Lighting – a wholesale distributor of LED lighting solutions.

SmartLED Lighting (Keith Lawless, Andrea Bonnie, Una O'Neill, Lorna NiMhuiri and Ivan Casado) - a wholesale distributor of LED lighting solutions.

Theme 2 – Irish e-Business Marketing

• Horseplay – digital marketing research, plan and pilot for horseplay.ie, a specialist equidae website.

Aoibhe Dunne and Conor Quinn display their Horseplay project poster.

• Tenderme - digital marketing research, plan and pilot for tenderme.ie, an online tendering site.

John Cullen explains his practicum project on digital marketing for TenderMe to Professor Brian Leavy at the DCU Business School Practicum Day 2010

• In Loving Memory – digital marketing research, plan and pilot for inlovingmemory.ie, an online memorial site.
• Digitary – digital marketing research, plan and pilot for Digitary, an online qualification validation service.

Steven Nee and Khaild Hussein pose in front of their poster on their Digitary practicum.

• HRLocker (UK and Ireland) – digital marketing research, plan and pilot on the Irish and UK market for HRLocker, an online HR software service.

Antonio Minuta and Carolann O'Sullivan pose in front of their research poster on HRLocker (UK and Ireland).

Theme 3 – International Marketing

• Toddler Holidays – digital marketing research, plan and pilot for Toddlerholidays.com, a France-based holiday home rental specialist for families with children under the age of 5.

Aideen Murphy and Ailish Tully present their findings on research and work completed for Toddler Holidays at DCU Business School Practicum Day.

• HR Locker (North America) – market entry and digital marketing research on the US market for HRLocker, an online HR software service.

Simon McNally, Katie Murray, Kimberley Ramsay and Siobhan Buckley and their HRLocker (North America) poster at DCU Business School Practicum Day.

• Dabl – market entry and localisation research on the Chinese market for Dabl, an online cardiovascular disease management system software developer.

Brian Joyce, Tien Nghiem, Guang Yang and Rachel Murray researched a Chinese market entry strategy for Dabl.ie for their practicum.

• DCU Language Services – digital marketing research, plan and pilot on international student recruitment for DCU Language Services, a language school and testing service based in DCU.

Seyed Mohammad Amin Amirkhalili, Zara Walsh and Tiernan O'Kennedy in front of their research poster on international student recruitment for DCU Language Services.

• Equinome – a marketing strategy for Equinome, an equine genetic testing service for the bloodstock industry.

The Equinome Group (Niall Clarke, Risteard Kinsella, Brendan Davis and David O'Rorke)

Theme 4 – Local Businesses and Projects

• Perigord – online communications strategy research, plan and pilot for Perigord, an online digital asset management service provider.

The Perigord Team - Ian Hemmingway, Rosemary Clancy, Eimear Murphy and Anton McMenamin

• Irish Teaching and Learning Festival – marketing strategy for teacher registration for the Irish Teaching and Learning Festival. Check out the Irish Teaching and Learning Festival Blog.

Damien O'Ceallaigh, Emer Keenan, Sheena O'Dowd and Roisin Lyons at their research poster at DCU Business School Practicum Day.

• North Dublin Chamber of Commerce – a social media research, pilot and training for North Dublin Chamber of Commerce.

Niamh Downey and Laureen Morrissette present their poster on their North Dublin Chamber of Commerce practicum.

• DCU Civic Engagement – a marketing strategy for DCU in the Community, a DCU civic engagement initiative.

The DCU Civic Engagement Group - Cormac Hyland, Jenny Gaynor, Joanne Coughlan, Marie Mooney and Tom Muldowney.

• Printpac - sales and marketing research and strategy (including tendering) for PrintPac Services, a print services company.

Aine Morris, Jenny O'Driscoll, Kate McGuinness and Diarmuid Murphy and their practicum poster on work completed for Printpac Services at DCU Business School Practicum Day.

• Timing Ireland – digital marketing research, plan and pilot for Timing Ireland, a precision sports timing solutions provider.

Tom Muldowney discusses the Timing Ireland practicum with Ed Dooley, Ciaran Dunne and David Fox at the DCU Business School Practicum Day.

DAVENPORT, Ia. – A few months ago – I actually had to look back and realized it had been awhile – I mentioned I would teach a business class on blogging through the Eastern Iowa Small Business Development Center.

Well, low and behold the class is officially listed as a Continuing Education offering in the Scott Community College catalog, mailed out to households in the Quad-City area earlier this month.

I’m excited because I’ve pursued the SBDC to offer such a class for nearly a year. And now that it’s coming up I’m just incredibly thrilled for the opportunity – and know it will “magically” come together in the midst of my busy wedding season… (Yes. It. Will!)

The class is an intro to blogging and geared for business owners who want to start their own blog or improve on what they are currently doing. I have some creative elements planned for the class, which is limited to 8 –  so sign up… soon!

Best ways to register are:

1. By phone – call SCC at 563-441-4100
2. In Person – go to the Urban Center, 306 W. River Dr., Davenport (next to Figge Museum)
3. Mail: Print out the registration form on the back of the catalog (click on screen capture above to view), print it out and send it in.

… and… make sure to spread the word via the “Share” tags below recently introduced on the blog!

Thanks, and have a great weekend!

Shuva

There have been lot’s of changes, 2 new store and 2 stores leaving.  Katie at Forever Frames is leaving for her next new big adventure and our partnership is dissolving.  We wish her all the best on this VERY exciting time.  Katie has been such an encouragement and supporter of arts in our community.  She will be leaving a big crater-hole.  Be sure to thank her for all of her awesome work!

We also are dissolving our partnership with Cara studios for various reasons… It was a great partnership, especially when we were first getting started.  We wish Leslie continued success in her endeavors.

One new shop is in Winter Park, Kendall and Kendall Hair Color Studio.  I met the salon manager at the Honda dealership when I was having my car fixed.  Crazy, huh?  Well, we are the perfect fit.  Support them and thank them for making it a priority to support a local artist!

Another new shop is Downtown Diva.  Check out their site, so cute!  This is our first store in East Orlando!!!  I am especially excited about this as we have lot’s of fans at UCF!  Cory and her staff are amazing.  Warning, if you shop here you will become friends with the owner… so if you like impersonal, super-uber coorperate style shopping, you should stick to mall of millenia.  Hey, I’m just saying.

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT – MODELING CONTRACT RISK

Contract risks exist in nearly all economic sectors; however, some contracting and procurement organizations do not generate plans or perform rigorous evaluations on their suppliers to minimize this risk. One of the main goals in managing contracts is to avoid interruptions in the services performed by suppliers. To meet this goal, supply management professionals must evaluate each supplier that may have a contracting agreement with their organization.

From a technical point of view, there are several elements — certifications, tangible evidence, site visits and the like — that help supply management professionals minimize a potential breach of contract. This is not the case when we look at the financial side.

While many organizations include bidder’s financial statements and financial ratio evaluations as part of the technical qualification in a sourcing process, there is no standard methodology to quantify or evaluate the bankruptcy or insolvency risk of those bidders. Also, depending on the length of the contract, the financial stability of suppliers may have changed over time. Discriminant analysis may be the answer for those looking for a solution to this problem.

DISCRIMINANT ANALYSIS — WHAT IS IT?

Discriminant analysis is the most common statistical method used to predict bankruptcy risk. It is a statistical model used to classify an element into two or more predefined groups. For this article, the predefined groups are those with high risk of insolvency and groups with minimal risk of insolvency. This method is used primarily in analyses where the dependent variable is presented in a qualitative form. To have a consistent outcome, the model needs to be applied on a sector-by-sector basis to achieve an apples-to-apples comparison.

BUILDING THE MODEL

Building a discriminant analysis model is a five-step process involving: 1) identifying the data, 2) preparing the data, 3) generating the function, 4) understanding the results and 5) choosing the predictive value. To illustrate the steps, consider a contracting company that expects to initiate a variety of sourcing processes related to trucking services. The company needs a tool to qualify the financial situation and indicate the likelihood of bankruptcy for each supplier it will eventually invite to participate. The outcome will be referred to as a dependent variable (referred to as “S”). The company also wants to calculate this likelihood based on specific financial ratios for each supplier — these ratios then become the independent variables.

STEP 1: INFORMATION REQUIRED FOR THE ANALYSIS. To build the model, the company needs two main pieces of information:

• Two groups of companies: one group that actually went into bankruptcy and another group that didn’t during a specific period of time for the same sector being analyzed (in this example, trucking services). This is a key requirement. Without it, the formula cannot be built.
• Financial statements for the past two to five years for the suppliers identified in the previous point. You can gather this information from public sources if the companies are publicly traded, or request the information from the suppliers. For example, if the supplier is privately held, you may need to request specific data; or, if the supplier is publicly traded, you can gather the information by examining the supplier’s filings with the government and other sources of publicly available information.

STEP 2: PREPARE THE DATA FOR ANALYSIS. The next step is to perform calculations using selected financial ratios, which allows us to generate the model, as shown in Figure 1 below. The number and type of financial ratios may vary by sector, but the common rule is to include as many as possible. In our example, we identified 10 financial ratios (see the sidebar on the right for their definitions) and separated the suppliers into two groups of three companies each. Then, we used the past financial statements, gathered in the previous step, to calculate each of the financial ratios for each supplier in the two groups.

STEP 3: GENERATE THE DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION. Once the financial ratio calculations are complete, a discriminant analysis can be conducted using statistical software currently available on the market (for instance, SPSS, SAS or Statistics). The software will create a formula (the discriminant function) that separates each potential supplier in both groups based on the independent variables (in this case, the financial ratios). If successful, the software identifies the discriminant function as well as a series of coefficients that measure how well the function discriminates or categorizes the groups.

STEP 4: UNDERSTAND THE RESULTS. After entering the data into the software, the program provides a variety of information, including:

• Discriminant function. This formula separates a concept (in this case, suppliers) and classifies them into groups. The function reveals coefficients (in this case, the financial ratios) and a constant (an unchanged value).
• Wilk’s lambda test statistic. This statistic shows how separated the groups are on a scale from 0 to 1. If the value is closer to 1, it will indicate low discrimination. On the other hand, if the value is closer to 0, there is a high difference between the groups. The implication of a low discrimination is that the groups cannot be easily compared and contrasted. Thus, a different financial analysis tool should be used.
• Group centroids. Centroids represent the average value of the scores for a specific group. If centroids are quite different, then the groups have a high discriminatory power and vice versa. Again, a low discriminatory power reduces the comparison effectiveness of the discriminant analysis.

Going back to our example, the contracting company used the information on the table in Figure 1 and entered the data into a statistical software application. The software provided the discriminant: S = (2.15 x S3) – (0.12 x S6) + (1.20 x S7) + (114.5 x S8) – 0.14.

Financial Ratios

Within the discriminant function, the dependent variable S equals the score for the “n” supplier. The software identified coefficients including 2.15, 0.12, 1.20 and 114.5. And the software identified the independent variables to be used in the discriminant function as S3 (acid test ratio), S6 (working capital turnover), S7 (operating cycle) and S8 (debt ratio). From the 10 ratios analyzed, the software determined that only these four ratios were needed to

Discriminant Analysis Model

identify in which group the specific supplier is classified (high risk of insolvency or minimal risk of insolvency). In addition to the financial ratios, the function includes a parameter — the constant, which equals 0.14. However, it is the coefficients that weigh the importance of each ratio.

Our example also indicates a Wilks’ lambda test statistic (∧) that equals 0.002. Because the number is much closer to 0, this means there’s a large difference between the suppliers classified as solvent and insolvent.

The group centroids identified in our example were calculated as 37.24 for the onbankruptcy group and 1.55 for the Bankruptcy group. The difference in values between the two groups means they are highly discriminatory (there’s a large difference between the numbers to gain a clear comparison between the two groups). These two numbers are also critical in the next step when choosing a predictive value.

If the formula/function has a low discrimination power (for example, a Wilk’s lambda test statistic that is close to 1 or centroids that are close in range to one another), then it won’t work correctly, and it couldn’t be used to separate the suppliers into the groups. In some cases, this may occur and, in such cases, the discriminant analysis is not the appropriate tool.

STEP 5: CHOOSE THE PREDICTIVE VALUE. If the software provides the expected results — meaning it provides a function that can efficiently differentiate your predefined groups — the next and final step is calculating the predictive value. This value is used to compare the different scores the discriminant function provides for each of the suppliers under analysis. Depending on where the specific score falls, that particular supplier will be classified into one of the two groups.

Identify this predictive value by calculating an equidistant point between the centroids: Nonbankruptcy centroid (37.24) + Bankruptcy centroid (1.55) ÷ 2 = 19.39. Therefore, if the score S for a supplier is below 19.39, this supplier will be classified within the Bankruptcy risk group. On the other hand, scores above the predictive value are categorized within the Nonbankruptcy group. The function and the predictive value are valid only for the trucking services market and should be updated with new historical data periodically to guarantee accuracy in the categorization.

APPLICATIONS

The supply management professional or category manager may use this valuable information in a pre- or post-award contract phase.

Pre-award phase. From a pre-award contract perspective, supply management professionals can use the bidder scores as part of the evaluation analysis in a sourcing process (that is, assign weights depending on the value each bidder obtained). In our example, the contracting company that built the model is now in the middle of a tender process for trucking services in the southern region. As part of a qualification process, “financially healthy” was included as a factor in the evaluation matrix, and scores need to be assigned to four suppliers. In our example, a scale of 50 (scores below 19.39) and 100 (scores above 19.39) representing poor and high financial health was used. Financial statements were requested from each one of these suppliers as part of the tender package.

Financial ratios S3 (acid test ratio), S6 (working capital turnover), S7 (operating cycle) and S8 (debt ratio) were calculated based on the financial statements and introduced in the function: S = (2.15 x S3) – (0.12 x S6) + (1.20 x S7) + (114.5 x S8) – 0.14.

Pre Award Phase

Results are shown in Figure 2 above.

Consequently, bidders A and C received scores below the predictive value of 19.39 and were considered suppliers with a high risk of bankruptcy. Therefore, they are given 50 points in the qualification matrix. On the other side, bidders B and D are awarded with 100 points due to their financial health (their S scores are above the predictive value of 19.39).

Post-award phase. In a post-award contract situation, the same philosophy can be used as a monitoring system for current suppliers with contracts in place. This helps the contracting organization anticipate risk situations with a particular supplier and take preventive actions to avoid or minimize a potential service disruption. In the example in Figure 3, below, the same contracting company decided to award the trucking services contract in the southern region to supplier D. Two years have passed since the award, and the supply management organization has been recalculating the S score for this supplier on a year-by-year basis using updated data for each year to monitor its financial stability.

Post Award Phase

The downward trend in the supplier’s S score, as noted in Figure 3, illustrates that something occurred with this supplier since signing the contract two years prior. This clearly indicates that there is a high risk of bankruptcy that might affect the contracting organization. Supply management professionals can use this information to mitigate risk by trying to understand the current situation of supplier D and help them get back to the right path, or identifying a backup supplier in the event supplier D is not able to deliver the services requested in the future.

Supplier insolvency or bankruptcy risks remain prevalent in the current business environment. No matter how it is used, discriminant analysis is a tool that provides consistent and accurate information on an organization’s financial health at any point in the procurement process, providing supply management professionals with an additional and statistically correct option to evaluate or monitor their suppliers. Furthermore, the tool will improve the overall understanding of an organizational supplier base from a financial point of view, making the sourcing decisions more robust.

Going forward, the same analysis may be applied to other areas of the supply management function where predictive modeling for categorization is needed. A good example is on-time delivery suppliers versus suppliers with recurrent delivery delays. If we could generate a mathematical function that allows us to identify if a supplier will deliver on time, we could use this logic as a sourcing award decision based on the required on-site date for a specific material — thus optimizing the procurement process and guaranteeing material availability. There are many areas waiting to be analyzed. The possibilities are endless, and the tool is already here.

Always Yours——–As Usual—— Saurabh Singh

Source: August 2010, Inside Supply Management^® Vol. 21, No. 8

There are three elements that enable The Entrepreneur Project to deliver real results to program participants:

Personal & Business Development
Unlike most business building programs, it coaches you on both personal and business development. After all, if your friends and family are perpetually frustrated because you can’t carve out time for them, is a business that doubles in size truly going to make you happy? Apart from work/life balance, many of the obstacles that come up in business relate to personal blocks that require solutions so that you can achieve better outcomes.

Business Basics
The course guides you through an understanding of business fundamentals you may never have learned – because you’re flying by the seat of your pants. Don’t worry, if you haven’t cracked a textbook in 20 years, this instruction is not complicated but very, very practical. With help, you’ll put together a written plan that will serve as a roadmap for your business.

Masterminding & Resource Sharing
Along with mentoring from an experienced, knowledgeable instructor and coach, you’ll benefit from masterminding and resource sharing with the other members of the group (limited to 8 participants).  Very often another participant in the program has the perfect answer or rationale for something that’s been holding you back.

The Entrepreneur Project has a proven track record of increasing participants’ business revenues an average of 120 percent.  Find out more: Attend the next Entrepreneur Project Sampling & Information Session.

DEAR ABBY:

The company where I work posted an ad online and at our state unemployment job board for a position that needed to be filled. The ad detailed simple but specific instructions that included asking applicants to write a cover letter to address certain questions. It also said – in large letters: “YOU MUST FOLLOW THESE DIRECTIONS OR YOU WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED FOR EMPLOYMENT.”

Of the 133 résumés we received, 76 did not contain the information that was requested. These applications were moved to an “incomplete” file and not considered for hire. What’s sad is that judging by their résumés alone, several of these applicants had the qualifications we were looking for.

With unemployment being what it is, I was surprised that the majority of the applicants did not comply with the simple instructions. Please advise your unemployed readers that a job is out there for them, but they must follow instructions.

—TRYING TO BE HELPFUL, TUMWATER, WASH.

Search Engine Optimization is probably one of the most misunderstood aspects of small business marketing plans.  There are so many non-truths out there. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what works and doesn’t. Even seasoned business owners sometimes get confused as SEO trends are constantly changing. While there are many different expert opinions, these 7  tips for SEO are tips that the majority seems to agree on.

1. Perform a keyword search. This is the first step you should take in your SEO campaign. Thoroughly researching your keywords can sometimes make or break your online marketing strategy.
2. Avoid using the same meta tags for every page. Each page should be unique and focus on a different keyword. Example if your first page is focused on Small Business Marketing, page two should be on something like Canadian SEO Services.
3. Be Honest. Don’t try to trick search engines by overusing keywords or hiding text. This is unethical and could get your site banned.
4. Update your site regularly. Make sure your website is always up to date with the most current information. By this I mean is your event or sale has expired, remove or archive it. It shouldn’t still be showing up in the upcoming events section of your website.
5. Avoid competing for single keywords. If you are a small business owner with limited funds, forget about trying to compete for single keywords. Instead try keyword phrases. For example, instead of using “marketing” try local Atlanta marketing company”.
6. Great Content. Make sure your content is accurate, engaging and original. Your keywords should be strategically inserted in the content of your site. Remember to avoid sprinkling them all over the page; it has to make sense when it’s being read.
7. Proofread. Make sure that you have checked your site for typos and content mistakes. If you can, have someone else read through your website. It’s sometimes hard to catch your own mistakes. Here’s a trick that I use. Once my site is live, I take each page and put it into a Word Document and it makes it easier to find errors. Be careful with this one though because it won’t always find words that are misused like their instead of there.

I hope that you have found this information useful. If you find that you don’t have the time to properly implement SEO into your marketing campaign or you’re not comfortable with this project, contact our support team. Apex Bizness Solutions is an Atlanta based Virtual Assistant Company with a trained team of professionals that can assist you with your small business online marketing.