Food Processing Training For Local And Export Market

10 Ways for Small Businesses to Dominate Local Markets

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There are several ways small businesses can better position themselves to compete in the local market. Most small businesses need more consistency throughout the year to survive in the increasingly competitive marketplace. Fortunately, there are several ways small businesses can better position themselves to compete in the local market.

1. Small business tips online.

According to a study from Bazaarvoice, roughly 39 percent of in-store shoppers research a product online before buying at a physical location. This means that your small business must have an online presence in order to compete locally. How can your small business improve its online presence?

2. Improve your local SEO.

Focusing on improving your small business’ local SEO will help generate more traffic to your website and ultimately, more leads and sales for your business. With roughly 97 percent of consumers going online to search for local businesses, why wouldn’t you make SEO a priority? Additionally, Google is placing more emphasis on local search with prominent local results floating at the top of targeted search queries. With that said, Google has altered their local results to focus on the top three businesses for a specific search. This means, while difficult, getting your small business inside the top three results can result in tremendous return on investment. To get started, make sure you register your business with Google and Bing Places. Other considerations to improve local SEO include, hyper-local content creation onsite and offsite, outreach and publisher partnerships with local websites, optimizing your website (NAP, keywords, etc.) and strategic social media management among others.

3. Increase online reviews.

Online reviews are a critical part of your local search rankings, not just on Google and Bing, but also sites like Yelp and Facebook. Additionally, online reviews are the modern version of word-of-mouth advertising and can persuade new customers to use your small business, or to not use your small business. In fact, roughly 67 percent of consumers reported that their purchasing decisions were influenced by online reviews. Thus, it’s important to perpetuate reviews from your customers, especially if you know they had a positive experience. Consider adding calls-to-action on your receipts or training your employees to ask for reviews on your Google+, Facebook and Yelp page.

4. Use email marketing.

Email marketing is an undervalued resource for small businesses. It gives you a scalable tool to communicate with current, previous and potential clients. In fact, it seems like most small businesses put more energy into social media than email, even though email marketing is estimated to yield three times higher results and a 17 percent higher value in conversion. Consider using a free email marketing resource like Constant Contact.

5. Target paid local results.

With local search getting increasingly difficult, it might make sense for your small business to consider pay-per-click (PPC) options like AdWords. PPC is when you pay for each individual customer that visits your website after clicking a specific advertisement. The best part is, you can optimize PPC campaigns to target affordable, yet actionable keywords in specific geographical areas. PPC lets you get your advertisement in front of highly targeted keywords in your local market, which will increase your conversions.

6. Small business tips offline.

Brick-and-mortar locations are the staple of small businesses. Even in the increasingly digital world, there are several offline tactics that can help small businesses excel.

7. Become active in the community.

Small businesses are often considered to be “backbones” of their respective communities. As a result, local companies can differentiate themselves by staying active in local affairs. In fact, 82 percent of consumers consider corporate social responsibility as an important factor when making purchasing decisions. As a start, you can join your local Chamber of Commerce to find relevant events in your target market. If you really want to make a splash, consider sponsoring a local event or charity. Social activism in your local community is an excellent marketing tool and a great way to gain positive PR.

8. Target local government contracts.

The government sets aside specific contracts for companies that are designated as small businesses. If your business qualifies, you should consider going after local opportunities. Winning a government contract can provide a stable and consistent revenue stream to supplement other clients. The SBA states that the law requires the government to award 23 percent of their contracts to local businesses, which amounts to roughly $115 billion annually. Winning these contracts are not a given, and you’ll need to devote time and energy into understanding and finding opportunities, as well as creating compelling proposals. However, the risk vs. reward is substantial if you’re able to win a government contract.

9. Focus on the customer experience.

If small businesses are the backbone of a community, then customers are the heart of small businesses. As such, it is vital that your small business focus its efforts on providing the best customer experience possible. Cox reports that 90 percent of U.S. consumers frequent small businesses at least once a week. Furthermore, 63 percent of the respondents said that they feel a strong need to support local entrepreneurs. This is mostly in part to the convenience, customer service and social equity of local businesses compared to corporations. As a result, small businesses can dominate their local market by providing incredible customer service, convenient operating hours, a friendly atmosphere and the inclusion of customer opinions and feedback into strategic decisions.

10. Don’t be afraid of change.

Change is one of the hardest things for small business owners to accept. However, an inability to adapt to changing trends can kill your small business quicker than any competition can. In fact, autonomy and flexibility are two benefits that small businesses have over corporate competitors. The bureaucracy of larger companies can make it difficult for pivots or strategic changes, but as a small business with a typically flat management style, you are able to adapt on the fly. CRM and other integrated data systems can provide small businesses the insight needed to see trends in their operations. This will help you capitalize on opportunities and prepare for imminent threats.

Life as a small business owner can be difficult. With the saturation of local markets and the increasingly globalized economy, the external pressures forced down on small businesses can seem insurmountable. However, there are several strategies that small businesses can focus on to improve their competitive position. Remember to market yourself online, continue to improve your relationship with customers and never be afraid to change.

Original Article written: Derek Miller

Culled from: Enterpreneur.com

5 Daily Habits of Successful Entrepreneurs

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The entrepreneurial spirit lights a flame of hope in the hearts and minds of people near and far. For most, it's a symbolic journey, one that delves deep into the far-reaches of their minds, revealing their deepest hopes and dreams, illuminating the pathway to self-discovery and eventual financial freedom. 

Yet, as enticing as it sounds to launch a new business, it's also fraught with challenges that run to the core of who we are inside. It's a journey with long and windy roads, twisting and turning their way through a sea of despair and struggle, battling against our darkest and most salient fears, forcing us to furiously fight our way towards the shores of hope and prosperity. 

Clearly, it's not easy running a business. But don't tell that to the wild-eyed innovators who have their sights set on achieving monumental success. Don't tell that to the entrepreneurs who've endured doubt and questions as to their abilities, their entire lives. That won't dismay or dissuade them at the outset. No, it most certainly won't. 

However, as exciting as the start of any entrepreneurial journey is, we also know how mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and of course, financially taxing it can be to run and manage a business in the long term. 

The question that beckons most has very much to do with just how a business can succeed in the long term. While it's easy enough to start a business, it's obvious that longevity is what eludes us most. 

There's a reason why investors invest in the people behind the business rather than the business or the idea itself. You can have a groundbreaking idea for an innovation or a revolutionary new product and launch a business with it, but that doesn't mean you'll succeed. 

If the person running the business lacks the fundamental building-blocks of a successful entrepreneur, no matter how much money is pumped into that business, nor what strategy is employed, it will eventually fail. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually. And 10 years from now, that business will be all but a distant memory. 

So what is this magic recipe for long-term success in business? What's the formula that some of the world's most successful entrepreneurs employ to see things through? Clearly, you need to be agile, innovative, productive and an effective with your actions to succeed, but you also need to instill a set of good daily habits so that you can automate your success. 

Habits hold the gateway to success in any endeavor. Not only do the habits we hold dictate the quality of our lives, but they also reflect our potential for success. Bad habits will always hold us back, especially when it comes to running a business with any staying power. Yet, it's not just about eliminating the bad habits, you need to instill the right habits for entrepreneurial success. 

The world's most successful entrepreneurs have endured some of the most trying times. They've endured countless failures along the way to business success, with endless headaches and restless nights. But they didn't give up. If you look at some of the most famous people who've failed in the world, there are, in fact, five core habits that stand out. 

1. Waking up early.

The reason why the world's most successful individuals wake up that early, is because, It's in the early-morning hours, when the world is still and silent, that we can focus and concentrate best on our efforts, to see things through and push towards our long-term goals. 

Even for those people that don't consider themselves as morning persons, simply wake up 15 minutes earlier the first week, then another 15 minutes earlier the following week, and so on. Do it until you reach your wake-up-hour goal. 

2. Effective time management.

Time is life's greatest equalizer. We all have the same amount of time in the day. It doesn't matter who we are, where we're from, the color of our skin, religion, and so on, we all still just get 24 hours in a day. That's 86,400 seconds. That's it. Not more and not less. 

What does make a difference, however, is just how we use the precious time we do have. Do we squander it? Or do we use it effectively, masterfully managing our time to achieve our goals? The world's most successful people are also some of the world's best managers of their time. If you're serious about long-term success, then you need to instill this daily habit into your life. 

The main difference between the few who get ahead and the many treading water is how well they spend their time.

3. Daily goal setting.

Not only do successful entrepreneurs set long-term goals, but they also engage in daily goal setting. They set goals every single day based on what they want to achieve in the long term. The daily goals help to provide clarity at a smaller scale, rather than being overwhelmed by the enormity of those monumental goals we want to achieve years down the line. 

4. Meticulous planning.

It's great to set goals, but harder to achieve them when we fail to plan. The world's most successful entrepreneurs are meticulous planners. You need to determine how you're going to get from Point A to Point B to give yourself direction and to better understand how you'll approach the finish line in the future. 

Think about a plane for a moment. Every airplane has a goal. Its goal is to fly from one city to the next, leave at a certain date and time, and arrive at another date and time. Yet, there is tremendous amounts of planning that go into that goal. The plane has to plan its projected direction of travel, air speed, elevation and so on. 

Similar to the plane, you need to plan your route to your goals. Creating a massive action plan, and tracking your progress on a daily basis, will also allow you to overcome any difficulties or change your approach if you see that something isn't working. When a plane hits turbulence or air-traffic congestion, it changes direction, elevation or speed so that it can eventually reach its intended target. 

5. Persistent action.

The cliché of taking action has been hammered home in the self-help genre for ages. Everyone speaks about taking action, but not everyone can follow through and do it. We get sidetracked and veer off track. Things come up and we lose our focus or we end up procrastinating towards our goals. 

However, this is by far one of the most important daily habits you can have to reach eventual success. Still, the problem is overcoming the silent killer known as procrastination. However, there is a so-called hack for this. It's called the 15-minute rule. Take the one thing that you've been putting off for the longest, set a timer on your phone, and do it for just 15 minutes. 

All it takes is 15 minutes. Don't promise yourself more than that. Just 15 minutes. What you'll come to find is that after those 15 minutes are up, you'll have built some momentum and you might keep going. And even if you don't continue, you'll have broken the stifling pattern of procrastination.

Original article written by: Robert Adams

Culled from: entrepreneur.com