For example, if you want to reach the HR managers at companies in a certain geographic area, simply go to LinkedIn and follow these steps:

1. Set up an account and connect with your clients, friends and vendors. The more “connected” you are online, the easier it will be to get introduced to new prospects.

2. Click on the “Advanced Search” link located near the main search form.

3. Customize your search by entering in the industries, title, location and keywords that would be related to the prospect you are looking to find. For example, you could enter “HR” or “Human Resources Manager” in the title search, and then narrow your results down using the “Postal Code” lookup and “Within X Miles” setting.

4. Unless you want a particular industry, leave that area unchecked.

5. When the list comes up, do a sort by “Relationship” so that those with the closest relationship to you or your contacts are ranked towards the top. If you find someone you want to connect with, look for people YOU know who can introduce you.

You Can’t Control Your Brand: You can only INFLUENCE it. I actually thought this insight was very powerful. If you think about it, your ‘brand’ is formulated in the mind of your customer. It’s the feeling they get when they think of your company, product or service; but since the CUSTOMER generates the feeling, only they get to decide what that association is. To that end, your brand is the sum total of everything you do. For example, you eat at a restaurant where the food is outstanding but the bathrooms are dirty, the waiter is rude and they get your drink order wrong…twice. Unfortunately, the food may not be enough to get you to come back again.

An Important Question You Should Know The Answer To: As business owners we spend YEARS perfecting our services, working on our operations and building our business – yet most of us only spend minutes thinking about what message we want to portray to the marketplace. During this interview, David posed the following idea: “What question do you want to be the answer to?” For us, it is “What company can just make our computers work in a productive and secure way, be there when I need them, answer the phones with a live person, do the right thing even when no one is looking, is personable and can talk in a simple to understand language?”

Marketing Is Not A Department: Most people think marketing is just about web sites, brochures and postcards. Not so. Marketing should infiltrate every aspect of your business. To that end, make a list of every touch point you have with your customers and prospects and ask yourself, “Am I being INTENTIONAL about how we interact with our clients to make sure we are fulfilling our brand promise?” That would include often overlooked areas like how you answer the phone, or what you print on the invoices you send out.

Being “Good” Is Not Good Enough…Anymore: With SO many choices, being “good” at what you do is no longer an advantage in the marketplace – it’s the entry point to doing business. Think of how many “good” restaurants you go to, or how many “good” stores you frequent. Chances are they deliver a satisfactory product or service, but not one that blows you away. In order to truly win the hearts (and wallets!) of our clients, we have to work on being outstanding.

Search Engine Optimization. If for no other reason, blogging weekly about a particular topic will work wonders for your search engine optimization. Make sure your blog entries frequently include the keywords that people are likely use when searching for your services online, but avoid spamming the blog (overusing the words). There’s no scientific percentage here; just don’t repeat them so often that your writing seems unnatural to your readers.

Free PR. The media is constantly surfing the web for content and for experts who can provide content and commentary. All it takes is one reporter to find you online and you could get tons of free publicity. You can bolster your chances of getting mentioned by writing about current events in the world or local news. For example, if you sell insurance and a hurricane or other natural disaster hits your town, you should blog about useful tips for people submitting claims to their insurance agents or how to determine how much insurance you should have, etc.

Indirect Selling. Writing stories about projects you are working on, clients you’re serving or case studies is a great way to showcase your expertise and “indirectly” sell services. Of course, you can also use your blog for new product or service launches and get direct input from clients and prospects on new products and services they want to see.

This was written by Bernie Heine, Professional Business Coaches, Inc.

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Are you struggling with how to make your business more profitable? Are you frustrated with working long hours and still overwhelmed with so much to do and so little time? Are you confused about what it will take to actually succeed in your business even though you are passionate about it? The truth is, as a business owner there are seven critical mistakes you may be making that are holding you back.

The first critical mistake many business owners make is not having a clear vision. A clear vision is your strategic intent for your business; the clearer the vision, the stronger the strategic intent. Take a look at your vision for your business, do you have one? If not, it’s time to create a vision or reevaluate the one you have.

The second critical mistake is not understanding that your business is a direct reflection of you. T. Harv Eker a best selling author says “How you do anything is how you do everything.” Consider improving yourself through books on leadership, courses on personal management, tools of time management and organization, or having a coach, mentor or by joining a mastermind group. Any of these options can help improve yourself and will have a positive impact on your business.

The third critical mistake is assuming that enthusiasm and passion for your business is enough. Ever wonder why some businesses are very successful and others fail? Business success is not random, it happens by design. Two key skill sets are needed, one being your talent, enthusiasm and passion and the other being business acumen. If you do not understand the skills of successful business practice you are just a technician in a job. Look at professional athletes and singers for example. They have a lot of talent but they also are continuous learners and work with the world’s best trainers and coaches to constantly improve their skills.

The fourth critical mistake is not understanding the value of connections. They often judge activities or events as to whether there will be an immediate return on investment. With that in mind business owners miss valuable connections, resources, introductions and strategic alliances. Business owners are often too busy IN their business and miss the opportunities around them.

The fifth critical mistake is trying to be all things to all people. Many business owners make the fatal assumption that if they too narrowly define their market they will lose business. In actuality a business should directly address its clearly defined target market. This allows the business to be an expert, have credibility and get referrals. Make your business stand out from the crowd, show dramatic differences versus your competition, lead your defined niche and charge more money.

The sixth critical mistake business owners make is suffering from “it’s easier to do it myself” syndrome. Keynote speaker Patricia Fripps says: “There is no sense in doing well, that which you shouldn’t be doing at all”. Learn to outsource and focus your efforts on those things that you do best.

The final critical mistake is not understanding the importance of systemizing and what that really means. Systems save valuable energy, create consistency, save time and build credibility. Key areas to have good systems are marketing, sales, customer service, human resource, finance and administration.

It’s time now for you as a business owner to take action. Identify one critical mistake that you are making; you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. Once identified, set a path to improve results immediately. Will you take that step?
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Thank you Pam!

You may be thinking, “So why should I worry about our data storage?” or “What’s the big deal in keeping everything?” While it is true that even offsite data storage costs have gone down by about 25% this year, the simple fact is that keeping your data forever can create long-term management challenges and lead to headaches when something needs to be found. Most often companies that save everything don’t do so because they think it’s the best way, but because they aren’t sure what needs to be saved or deleted.

Certainly every organization needs to save information for its own purposes, such as transactions, accounting records, analytical data, and so on. Not only that, but regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require enterprises to save certain kinds of content for a prescribed period. You may not be hit by these acts, but rest assured more regulations are in the works.

Data retention is a balancing act. Keep too much and not only will the cost of eDiscovery in a law suit (even a frivolous one) be astronomical, but you also increase the risk of damaging findings being discovered. On the other hand, delete data without a specific and rigorously enforced retention policy and you’re not likely to receive the benefit of the doubt with the courts as to why requested information is not available.

So what should you be doing? To address the problem, here are 4 data retention strategies you must consider:

1.) Start with the storage analysis, not the storage technology or procedures.
Know what data has to be kept and for how long. Many times requirements are dictated by industry or legal requirements. There are software tools to help you in analyzing what information is stored on your servers and how it’s used.

2.) Segment user populations.
Use categories such as executives, back-office employees, sales, and people who deal with the company’s intellectual property and treat their data differently. You certainly don’t need to keep back office transactional data as long as executive strategic communications.
3.) Be precise and consistent with data retention policies.
Carefully crafted and enforced policies will more often than not be deemed legally defensible causing less legal exposure and dramatically lowering the cost of eDiscovery.
4.) Don’t confuse back-up with archiving.
Since backup systems don’t generally have the granular control needed to save some types of information for a short time and others for longer, using them as archival systems can be costly and risky. For example, if a certain business record needs to be saved for seven years, the wrong place to save it is on a backup tape with 65,000 other files.

Avoid the expense and hassle of having too much data by having and enforcing strong policies and using proper tools to maintain independent data archives. We can assist you in identifying best practices and cost effective software tools for your business.

Visit BSSI’s Computer Support website.

An easy and often overlooked way to collect customer feedback is through a Digital Suggestion Box (DSB). A DSB allows customers to comment and rate products or suggestions, giving you powerful insights on what they want to buy and how to secure their loyalty. Not only do DSBs allow customers to voice their ideas and opinions, they also allow other customers to vote on them. Imagine a kind of “American Idol” for business ideas where a customer can offer an idea and everyone else gets to vote it up or down. The key benefits of a Digital Suggestion Box are:

• Increased customer loyalty.
  Allowing your customers to provide feedback will make them feel valued and important, creating trust and a stronger bond.
• Insights into what customers will buy.
  Your customers know your services and products best and will often provide end-user feedback you could never discover sitting around a boardroom table.
• Increased brand loyalty.
  Customers who provide feedback that is acted on will feel more “invested” and will often become your best sales people.
• High quality feedback in real time.
  DSBs provide feedback instantly; forget spending weeks or months doing surveys, phone calls and offline communications!

There are multiple Digital Suggestion Box services offered by firms like USERVOICE, IDEASCALE, and SALESFORCE with costs ranging from free to $600 per month for large multi-forum set-ups.

Vist BSSI’s Computer Support website.