What to name your Facebook Business Fan Page

by Mark Ijlal

Malik asked a question about naming Facebook Business Pages:

1. Name it after your business. For a local business and especially a location based business like a restaurant / attorney / CPA / retail stores – this is more than adequate after all their name is what is known and how people find them. Yeah I know it is the old Yellow Pages approach but for millions of businesses who you and I both know will use a Facebook Business Fan Page as a business card to put their name, address, phone number, 4 pictures, products or service information, some half hearted coupons and update it once a month – this is more than enough. Maisano’s Italian Restaurant, Aaron’s Auto Repair Shop, Attorney Scott Yaldo and Great Lakes Real Estate Property Managers all will work for their respective businesses.
2. Name it after your website. For Threadless, Zappos, Salesforce and millions of businesses that run entirely on the web and that is where their customers are found – the name of the LLC that owns the business is unimportant; there is no physical location where customers are walking in; the only name that is known to their customers and prospects is their website. So name it after your website that makes the sale.
3. Name it after your brand. Starbucks. Nike. Detroit Pistons. A hit HBO show like True Blood. People know and love your brand. Why not erect a Fan page where they can all hang out and share their love of your brand with each other? Brands know it and they are busy doing it.
4. For firms that sell the invisible: services, advice, consulting, coaching, PR, B2B with long sales cycles: Name it,  so it means SOMETHING to the people who matter the most: your past, present and future customers. And yes that means that you will be active in building this Fan Page as your hub for your business on Facebook.

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Article source: http://bx.businessweek.com

Turn Web Traffic Into Foot Traffic

By Justin Kitch

A solid web presence is essential–even for the smallest brick-and-mortar businesses.

“Call, click or visit” has been a common call to action in small-business advertising for most of the past decade. The underlying assumption, of course, is that a small business has a telephone number, a place of business open to the public and a website. While a phone is probably a given, a brick-and-mortar store may or may not exist. And odds are that a small business does not have a website.

For years I’ve quoted an old survey that said 60 percent of small business don’t have a website. But lately I began wondering if that number was still accurate. I was shocked to see that it has held steady through the first decade of this century. An April 2009 survey by The Discover Small Business Watch found that only 38 percent of small businesses with five or fewer employees even have a website. A full 62 percent remain “non adopters.” And that number has decreased only three percent since 2007, when 65 percent of small businesses were not on the web.

It continues to baffle me why any small business wouldn’t use the internet as an essential sales, marketing and customer relations tool. Establishing and maintaining a web presence is incredibly cheap and easy these days. And web advertising is much more powerful than most traditional print or broadcast advertising in that it enables the business owner to engage customers in a two-way conversation and gain valuable feedback on their products and services.

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Article source: www.entrepreneur.com

Flyingstartups.com a great resource for new businesses

It seems that first shoots of economic recovery are beginning to show so maybe now is the time to start considering taking that business idea out of your head and make it a reality.

If you don’t know where to start you could do a lot worse than look at the website www.flyingstartups.com. It’s a great resource for budding entreprenneurs with lots of useful advice and ideas. Amongst the website features are member forums and a facility where users can keep track of their progress and get feedback in what are known as Pilot Logs.

Steve Parks is the founder and he has written a number of books to help those looking to get a new enterprise off the ground off to the best possible start. Why not take a look and see if it inspires you to get started. It’s a supportive community which may just help make that dream of yours a reality.

Promoting your business for free

If you or your organisation has something to say getting your message across is very important but in financially difficult times many are taking the decision that the cost of distributing that message is too great. This is understandable if you stick only to traditional methods of promotion such as PR agencies but more and more ways of promoting a business are available now than ever before for little or no cost.

Get the Most From Your Written Testimonials

By Ivan Misner

Original article: www.entrepreneur.com

Make it standard practice to ask clients and contacts for testimonials and you’ll build your credibility and your business.

Written testimonials influence our actions and choices in myriad ways, sometimes without our even thinking about them. For example: You and a friend decide to catch a movie, but your tastes don’t always coincide. So you open the local paper and check out the film reviews. You decide you want to go to dinner first, but there are so many restaurants in your area that you don’t know which one to pick. So you open up a local magazine and scan the recommendations of the magazine’s food critic.

Even more powerful than these “professional” testimonials, however, are those that come from trusted personal contacts. If you have enough time, you might call or e-mail a couple of other friends to get their movie and restaurant suggestions. You’re likely to follow their advice, too, because you know that they know your likes and dislikes pretty well.

So it is in business. Before people come to your firm for a particular product or service, they often want the comfort of knowing what others have said about you.

Read complete article: www.entrepreneur.com

Your company in 30 seconds

From www.smallbusiness.co.uk

‘What do you do?’ is a question that can put even the most seasoned business brain under pressure. Craig Fisher, founder of business consultancy The Sales Expert, explains how to put together a concise and compelling elevator pitch.

In today’s mobile business climate you never know when an opportunity is going to present itself. You will probably only have one chance to paint the best picture of your business to a prospective client or partner.

Your elevator pitch helps you to articulate the essence of your business in the fewest possible amount of words. What do you do? Who do you do it for? What does this mean to them?

These are the questions that you need to answer in the time it takes to take a lift from the ground to the top floor. Don’t alienate your target with a deluge of facts and figures; your objective here is not to close. It is to lay the foundations for the opportunity to do so.

Secrets of great exhibition stands

An Image Creative Design (ICD) product story

Graham Forster, Chairman of Image Creative Design (ICD), the specialist 2D event agency, reveals how to attract visitors to an exhibition stand.

I’ve been asked many times to divulge the secrets behind why ICD clients seem to attract more visitors to their client’s stands than say other exhibitors who appear to have spent substantially greater sums on larger stands.

The answers always remain the same: the secret is simple but, all too often difficult to implement.

How to Give a Killer Presentation

By Steve Tobak

It’s hard to imagine your career going anywhere unless you can deliver an effective presentation. Unfortunately, most of us are born without the presentation gene. I have no idea why, but for most professionals, presenting is a real struggle.

They stand there, like they’re glued to the floor, with their 90-slide presentation with a dozen bullets and sub-bullets and a book of text on each slide. Then they complain that executives and salespeople make all the money.

I’ve sat through presentations that were so bad I wanted to strangle the guy just to put him and the audience out of their misery. I’ve also seen presentations that were so inspiring they changed my life.

Connecting with an audience, communicating your vision and passion for a subject, can be a beautiful experience. It’s also a rare opportunity to make an impression that might impact your future. It can either be a gateway or a roadblock to professional growth. Which one is entirely up to you.

Inform and consult your employees

From Business Link

The Art of Good Communication

Be clear about what you are trying to achieve and explain to employees whether you are informing, consulting or negotiating with them.

To encourage a two-way flow of information between employees and managers, consider:

• holding regular meetings
• using language your employees understand - not jargon
• keeping discussions focused, relevant, local and timely
• using open-ended questions to draw out ideas from employees
• ensuring your communications reach every employee, ie don’t forget part-time workers, homeworkers and absent workers
• using social events to break down barriers and build up trust

How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

By Penny C. Sansevieri

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit http://www.amarketingexpert.com

How To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

1) Blog frequently

Most new bloggers dislike hearing this. Trust me when I say that the struggle for content is ongoing. New bloggers, however, feel like it`s just happening to them. The truth is, don`t get a blog just to have a blog. Get it and keep it updated. It`s the quickest way to gaining traffic. How often should you blog? Three times a week. The best days to blog? Studies have shown that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are key days for blogging.

2) Stay on point

I tell authors this a lot: stay on point, stay on topic. Why? Because if you don`t you`ll lose readership. Once someone commits to your blog they want to keep reading relevant information. So don`t blog one day about your book, your speaking, or your mission and the next day share Aunt Ethel`s pot roast recipe.