1. Manage your energy, not your time.
If you take a moment to think about it, you will probably realize that you are better at doing certain tasks at certain times. For example, my creative energy is highest in the morning, so that is when I do my writing each day.

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Pope Francis has approval ratings any leader could envy: 88 percent of American Catholics think he's doing a good job, and nearly three quarters of Americans in general view him with favor. What is he doing right?

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Fewer small business owners perceive themselves as successful now than did at the start of the economic recovery, a Wells Fargo-Gallup survey of a representative sample of 601 small business owners reveals. In 2009, 43 percent of small business owners reported feeling extremely or very successful as a small-business owner. By 2014 that fraction had eroded to 37 percent.
The results are perplexing.

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4 Pillars of Outstanding Customer Service
1. The Perfect Product
2. Caring Delivery
3. Timeliness
4. Build an Effective Problem-resolution Process

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Between working all the time and being high energy in all circumstances, establishing a small business is more exhausting than ever. Here is how one entrepreneur does it.

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I think many of the tools on this list have the potential to become invaluable assets for both small businesses, and individuals alike. Jump over to the bottom of the post to see these tools in action as I have gathered up a slideshow to give you a better idea of what to expect.

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Interesting visuals can make a huge impact on your website and online marketing efforts, whether they be photos, videos or other forms of media. Social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and even Meerkat have made these visual forms of media even more prominent.

Members of our small business community have some tips for using each of these visual platforms and for including visual elements on business websites. Read on for the full list of tips in this week’s Small Business Trends community roundup.

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Despite the warning, a number of extremely well known brands are still scrabbling to minimise the impact of Google’s mobile algorithm update, leaving smaller businesses with the advantage as long as they do not panic according to leading UK and US Search experts.

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Why devote 10 minutes a day to Facebook? There are many reasons why, but most importantly Facebook can help strengthen your relationships with your customers. The smaller your business, the more important these connections can be to help keep your company thriving.

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People make resolutions about losing weight, stopping smoking, and other habits that they probably will not give up. Business owners should take advantage of this time-for-future-thinking opportunity to set goals to enhance their businesses. Here are five resolutions to help entrepreneurs have a more profitable 2016.

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I work with a ton of small businesses, and I love it. I love seeing different business models, helping entrepreneurs with limited resources and experience, and getting unique perspectives that you just can not find in bigger, often more cookie-cutter business establishments. One-on-one, we can share information and insights, and build a strategy that is helpful for their business.

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Being an entrepreneur or business owner is, for a lot of people, choosing to work 80 hours a week for yourself to avoid that 40 hours you’d be working for someone elses corporation. That was absolutely true for us when we first started. In our first few months as entrepreneurs we each got in a minimum of 80 hours per week - that’s a lot of work! We realized pretty quickly that we needed to change something. We were drowning!

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Marketing is a three-syllable word that seems so simple, yet encompasses so much. Marketing is a multi-faceted approach to promoting a product or service. Both traditional and unconventional marketing methods have a place in the small business world. Marketing helps small businesses focus on building their brand and identity.

There are few limitations to marketing options, and the opportunities listed here are just a few that will generally result in a decent ROI (Return On Investment) for most small businesses. That said, do not be afraid to be creative -- no one knows or understands a small business like its owner, so think outside of the box and don't be afraid to experiment.

Innovative Ways to Market

As a general rule, true creativity is lauded across the globe. From the iconic Burning Man Festival, which is held annually in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, to ever-diversifying International Women’s Day, there are recurring events that celebrate the innate abilities and the creative potential that exists within us all.

Conversely, creativity is typically viewed as an inherently disruptive force in the world of business and commerce. After all, the boldness and distracting nature of innovative thinking is often considered to be detrimental to the basic mechanics of business management, while the endless pursuit of productivity often forces entrepreneurs to eschew creativity in favour of something more reliable.

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Visitors seldom leave a small business website with a neutral impression. For most prospects, your small business is an unknown quantity, so their first impression of your company will either make them more comfortable doing business with you or less comfortable. For this reason, you want their first experience with your website to inspire them to contact you—not your competitor.

These are the 10 biggest website problems that can drive potential new business away:

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You stare at a blank screen for what seems like hours, waiting for your brain to come up with a brilliant idea, and it never comes. There has to be a better way to brainstorm, right?

There is--and it might be as simple as doing the laundry.

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1. Wasting five minutes.
When you have five minutes of down time, how do you spend that time? Most people use it as an excuse to rest or laze.

By lazing for five five-minute breaks each day, we waste 25 minutes daily. That's 9,125 minutes per year (25 X 365). Sadly, my guess is we're wasting far more time than that.

34 Things You Need to Give Up to Be Successful

Enhance The Customer Experience

The term user experience or UX is often used in the context of web design, with the idea that features must be designed with the end user in mind. Customer experience or CX includes UX but also encompasses every touchpoint that customers have with your business.

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Koch wanted to give back in the most meaningful and valuable way he and his team could. Ten years ago, the company started the Sam Adams Brewing the American Dream (BTAD) program to mentor and provide funding to food, beverage and hospitality startups. Many of these companies are founded by African American women, including Jessica Spalding of Harlem Chocolate Factory.  During the past 20 years, African-American women’s rate of starting businesses was 605% versus 44% for all businesses, according to The 2017 State of Women-Owned Businesses* commissioned by American Express.

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Want to be a better negotiator? Here are some simple tips.

1. Listen more than you talk.
It is easy to go into a negotiation focused only on what you'll say, especially when you are nervous.

The goal of a negotiation is not just to get what you want, but also to help the other side get what they want. (Otherwise, how will you ever strike a deal?) To do that, you need to actually know what the other side wants -- which means you have to listen.

Finding common ground means knowing common ground exists.

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Harvey Weinstein. Bill Cosby. Kevin Spacey.

No, there apparently is no shortage of accused sexual predators roaming Hollywood. And, while there are have been stories galore over the years about the creeps and their casting couches, it wasn’t until the #MeToo movement that women really were able to get the word out about the seriousness of the issue and, if not put an end to it, at least shine a light on it.

And that begs the question: Will there be a #MeToo moment for small business?

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As a small business owner or manager, sometimes the sheer volume of things that need to be done makes it hard to remember to think about others. It's important, however, to give back to your community. In fact, if you own a small business that draws on local customers, it's important to do things that strengthen your bonds with your community.

Not all of these apply to every type of small business. A retail store can do things that a small service-based business can not, but at least one of these should apply to your business.

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It is often assumed that giving back is something that only big corporations can do. After all, larger businesses often have more profits and can easily give away money to notable causes. But it doesn't mean that smaller businesses can't do the same. Often times, small businesses can also have a significant impact on organizations that can use their help.

We asked members of the Forbes Business Development Council for ideas on how small businesses can give back to their communities.

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Have you ever shared bad news with coworkers, employees or partners? As much as we don't want to shoot the messenger, sometimes we associate negative feelings with the person who tells us bad news.

Work is hard enough as is. You do not need a negative halo effect associated with you, especially if a situation was out of your control. For example, maybe you and a partner organization submitted a proposal and were waiting to hear back from a Fortune 1000 client. The client tells you that another company out-bid you with a lower quote.

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There are a lot of ways to build fast-growth companies. Just consider this year's Inc. 5000 list. The annual ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America includes everything from canned wine producers and freight movers to kayak makers and truck bumper manufacturers.

The six companies below, though, take the cake when it comes to innovative business models. Whether it's reinventing hospital garb or hosting mind-blowing vacations, these startups all have one thing in common: They have tapped into something their customers really  wanted.

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There's a lot of advice out there for the lazy and unmotivated: Take baby steps! Set a timer! Enlist an accountability partner! But what if the best way to tackle lack of motivation is not to give any sort of advice at all, but to ask for it instead?

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Despite recent stock market turmoil, everywhere you looked this year someone was heralding the strength of the economy, which grew at 3.5 percent in the third quarter. However, not all economic growth favors small businesses, and some even detracts from it. The Inc. Entrepreneurship Index, which measures the quarterly health of the U.S. startup economy, currently sits at 83 out of 100 for the third quarter of 2018. This is down two points from the second quarter and a full nine points from the first quarter of 2017, when our Index peaked. Our indicator sees one factor in particular still dragging like an anchor on the startup economy: job growth.

Even though overall economic conditions have been largely favorable, small businesses have hit a growth ceiling as larger companies--bolstered by generally strong market conditions, favorable tax policies, support from local governments, and easing federal regulations--have been gobbling up talent. This is why, for the past year, the Index has shown a startup economy that is strong but slowing.

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When Mandy Bass speaks to business leaders and professionals who want to improve sales, productivity, teamwork, customer satisfaction and profitability she consistently finds that they are working way too hard to achieve the results they seek. With that in mind, for the New Year she has compiled a list of seven small or low-cost things that could get small business owners, solopreneurs and sales professionals big results in 2019.

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As we welcome 2019, attention is shifting to what’s on the horizon for small businesses in the year ahead. The reality is that the nature of work is evolving. During my more than 25-year career, I have held a number of leadership positions. Early in my time in the health insurance industry, compensation reigned supreme among my employees, while health and wellness were perceived as a nice-to-have benefit.

Now, workplace norms are beginning to align more with employee wants and needs and new rules about conducting business are being established — particularly when it comes to employee health and wellness. I believe this shift, which I have witnessed within my own team, will continue to dominate work environments across the nation in the new year.

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Switching careers can feel intimidating, but you have got to make some moves if you’re spinning your wheels at your current job. Tech industry jobs are hot right now, and you can make great money once you’ve got the know-how to compete with other tech candidates. Here’s a breakdown of the fields with the best opportunities.

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Ranking a business website higher enhances its chances of gaining a lead that could ultimately turn into a new business sale. To rank, a website higher needs quite a few steps and does not happen overnight. Let’s figure out the five most common and impactful professional SEO tips that a CEO insists upon.

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Most small business owners today know that they need a website. But what many fail to realize is that their websites need to be more effective.

A website is meant to attract consumers to your business. But what do those consumers do once they land on your website? Maybe they give you a call or pop into your bricks-and-mortar location some time. And, sure, that’s all fine and dandy. But even better than that, your website itself can actually generate leads and sales for you with just a few simple tweaks.

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If you want to change your circumstances, you need to change the way you think. You have to stop believing that you are stuck in your situation and passively accepting that you’re incapable of doing anything about it.

Many people allow themselves to be caged by their fear and anxiety. For these people, an inner critic always seems to be whispering in their ears, keeping them from succeeding. The truth is, negative thinking will shackle you to a life that’s both mediocre and unfulfilling. If you want to stretch yourself to your fullest potential, you need to escape your self-imposed prison of negative thinking.

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Secure-computing engineers generally view these schemes as sound in theory and productive to deploy. But in practice, it can be dangerous to rely on a sole element to act as the check on the whole system. Undermining that safeguard—which has proven possible in many companies implementations—strips a device of critical protections. Worse still, manipulating the enclave can make it appear that everything is fine, even when it's very much not.

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Small-business owners were victims in 43 percent of data breaches tracked between Nov. 1, 2017, and Oct. 31, 2018, according to a 2019 Verizon report. The report tracked security incidents across all industries, but the most vulnerable sectors this year were retail, accommodation and healthcare.

What does the issue look like on a national scale? If we take the sample size of infected sites SiteLock said they found in 2018 -- approximately 47,244 out of 6,056,969 checked -- and apply that percentage to the country’s estimated 30.2 million small-businesses websites, minus the estimated 36 percent that do not have one, then we can loosely estimate the amount of infected small-business websites to be around 150,757.

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Adaptability, hustle and momentum are everything, especially in todays competitive, ever-changing technological environment. If only your employees would spend fewer hours on social media and more time perfecting their individual crafts, your business would easily outpace less efficient competitors, allowing you to live the entrepreneurial dream you’ve always wanted.

But how can you instill a greater sense of urgency without making everyone miserable at work?

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The entrepreneurs on Inc.s second annual Female Founders 100 list have transformed every major industry in America. Meet the boundless dreamers making the biggest difference in 2019.

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In other words, press coverage is priceless, but where do you start? To find out more, we asked 16 marketing experts and entrepreneurs to share interesting and cost-effective ways to get media coverage.

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As companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Target begin to dazzle us with the growing possibility of same-day delivery, it’s becoming harder for small businesses to compete in ways that provide the same speedy delivery without relying on high-emission forms of commercial storage or transportation options like renting space in large warehouses and air delivery.

That is all now changing thanks to an organization called Ohi—a US-based warehousing and delivery service that allows small businesses to offer speedy, sustainable delivery options.

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Small businesses are often on the cutting edge because they have to be. With smaller foundations and limited budgets, small-business owners have to think on their feet every day, developing strategies that boost productivity and the bottom line. Because a small business can not afford to embrace strategies that do not provide quick, measurable results, the trends that spring up among them are likely to make a positive difference in any company.

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Small business sentiment is on the rise to kick off 2020, with confidence nearing all-time highs, according to data from CNBC and SurveyMonkey. The CNBC/SurveyMonkey Small Business Confidence Index climbed two points in the first quarter, from 59 to 61, as concerns over trade policy impacts lessened, thanks to a trade deal with China and the signing of the USMCA. This is a sharp turnaround from the lows seen last summer as trade turmoil weighed on Main Street’s outlook.

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We are in the midst of a difficult time in history. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a health crisis, and both the economy and jobs are suffering as a result.

While many of us can work from home, others cannot. But if a silver lining exists, perhaps it’s this: Now is the perfect time to learn a skill or launch a new career. Affiliate marketing gives you that opportunity.

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How people usually do elevator pitches
Among those who put thought into their elevator pitches, there tends to be two basic formulas:

Formula A: Introduce oneself and the name of the company, then describe the product or service in the context of the customer or industry’s pain point. Then, at the end, make the ask.

Formula B: Identify the pain point before introducing oneself and the name of the company. Then describe the product or service, followed by the ask.

While I am adamant that the only hard and fast rule of communication is that there are no hard and fast rules, I favor Formula B. People are most likely to embrace a solution when it is provided within the context of a problem they care about solving. By starting with a pain point, the entrepreneur is speaking to what an uninformed audience cares about right away thus making sure that the first thing their audience hears has intrinsic value to them. This helps the audience become immediately invested in solving the problem, which helps the entrepreneur to build some momentum.

1. Focus on the positive
2. Hit the reset button
3. Never give up
4. Network

The end of the year is a critical time for businesses especially for small businesses that are looking to make the most out of holiday shopping. 23ABC spoke with two business consultants on how small businesses can adapt to make the most out of this final stretch of 2020.

Starting with investing in your community.
Their second piece of advice is to build an honest and transparent relationship with your customers and business neighbors.
As times have slowed down, they are encouraging business owners to take a good look at who their ideal client is and reshape their marketing for them.
Lastly, being collaborative and creative.

1. A question that delves into past experiences within working cultures and extrapolates where future environments may/may not align. For example: Creating the right culture is important for our company. Can you share details on a time you were in a toxic work environment, and how did management handle the situation? Describe when you were in a wonderful work environment and what management did correctly.

2. Deciphering how the candidates prefer to be managed as a key to ensuring management-style alignment. For example: Taking guidance from leaders is a critical part of any working arrangement. Describe how you like to be managed and how would you describe the ideal leader for your personality style?

3. Understanding motivations and expectations for long-term engagement. For example: We believe in long-term retention, and so we are cautious on the type of candidate we onboard. If you were going to commit to helping build this company long-term, what would it take for you to be happy and motivated?

4. Perspectives on their self-awareness of personal growth objectives and needs. For example: We all have challenges we are working to overcome. If you had to assess your challenges, where would be areas that you would focus to develop and look for support to improve?


5. Communication competence and tolerance for different interaction styles. For example: We all have different communication and coordination styles. What is the method you most effectively consolidate new information to inform your work, and what is your preferred communication style to align with your leadership and stakeholders?

A survey of small businesses conducted by Appalachian State University in coordination with Selective found that cybersecurity and technology issues were growing concerns for 44% of survey respondents due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, only 20% of survey respondents have cyber insurance coverage.

The findings highlight an awareness gap among small businesses about the risks they face from cybercrime. Twenty-eight percent of data breaches impact small businesses, and phishing attacks account for over 30% of breaches, making them the biggest cyber threat for small organizations.1 Cyber coverage from Selective can help small businesses manage and mitigate risks with comprehensive coverage options and cyber threat education.

Rae has posted a series of political stances that define a sort of moderate conservative manifesto. It hits everything from...

I just filmed a little unboxing-and-enthusing video. It's for the 25th Anniversary editions of Little, Big or, The Fairies' Parliament, by John Crowley. Illustrated (or rather, with Art by) Peter Milton. 

April 25th. DEAD BOY DETECTIVES. It's really good -- it's funny, it's smart, it's scary, and it even has a few familiar faces...