The Blog
With backgrounds in business start up and a long history of assisting entrepreneurs in bringing their products and services to market, we have some words of advice for business leaders about how to approach communications, marketing and business messaging.
Navigating Financial Uncertainty
We may have recovered our ability to treat and provide care for people with active COVID-19, but our supply chain and economy have some long-term recovering to do. Clearly, we are feeling the impact of China's slow ability to immunize its citizens and reopen its factories and economy. And we are seeing the crisis of...
America Is Back At Work
While where and how we go to work may still be a work in progress, the jobless claims for unemployment have plummeted to a 54-year low. This means that the labor market is tight. Layoffs are hitting record lows as employers recognize that laying off a team of human resources may not be simple to replace. Since...
When You Have to Build the Airplane While You are Flying It
Change happens. And businesses need to be able to change with new regulations, new technologies, new opportunities, new stockholders, new visions and even new employees. The challenge has always been to manage current business, expectations and processes while preparing to launch the new part. While some describe it...
Ransom and Security
A few years ago, I was working on a campus that was trying to enhance security for the potential of an active shooter entering any of the buildings. A decision was made to make several of the buildings accessible only with “swipe ids” that would be “tightly controlled” with a code that could be changed randomly...
Value Experience
The 2015 movie, The Intern, told a story about a 70-year-old corporate retiree who was hired as an intern in a trendy online fashion clothing business. Beating out all the trend-setting young people, the 20-something CEO, played by Ann Hathaway, decides to take a chance on the old, seemingly oddball, Robert DeNiro,...
If I had a Quarter….
IF I were to ask a business owner about the state of the company’s inventory I would get a pretty accurate accounting of how much stock was on the shelves, how much was on the way in and how much could be turned around if the supply chain took a hit. IF I were to ask a business owner about how closely the financial...
Moving On After a Loss
In the past 10 months we have experienced a lot of loss. Small businesses have been rocked by a virus that none of us anticipated at the turn of the New Year last year. We have experienced the loss of those we considered as family as colleagues have lost jobs, we have shuttered offices and storefronts and hunkered...
COVID Customer Service
How has the COVID-19 pandemic become an excuse for terrible customer service? COVID Customer Service illustrates a big hole in business response to the pandemic. Everyone was more than understanding the Spring of 2020 as the shutdowns began that there would be bumps in reaching businesses. We all sympathized with...
Watch for the Echo Chambers
Let's be really honest. Nobody really wants news that makes you uncomfortable. It is certainly much easier to shoot the messenger than to deal with facts that will challenge your comfort zone. It's always been a danger in management that one loses touch with the front line work force, customers, the competition and...
Get Ready for Normal
With 6-8 months to survive before the COVID-19 vaccines will be readily available, questions your business should be asking is what specifically you are doing to plan for the next several months of the pandemic and how will you pivot once the opportunity to return to “business as usual” returns. The lessons of the...
Business Tips for Hard Starts and Hard Times
So, here’s the deal. We are not just getting started in a career in marketing, public relations or journalism and professional writing. We’ve been doing this for a really long time. If there were any tips we would drop to people who are getting started in a new business near the top of the list would be these items:...
Written Business Plan
Download a .pdf of this presentation by clicking here. Your Planning Guide for Writing a Business Plan Building a written Business Plan is a vital road map for keeping new and existing companies on track. This downloadable video provides a detailed outline to help you get started in drafting or updating your plan. ...
Best Practices: A Successful Interview
Thoughts for Interviewing Potential Teammates Each interview is an opportunity to match the person on the resume to the real possibility of a future employee. Interviews should be a conversation in which you share your vision for the company and the position and the applicant can share their expertise and have...
Deciding Who To Interview
Selecting the Best Candidates Once a job is posted, resumes and applications will follow. Deciding who will earn an interview and who may be a good fit for your business starts will a careful review of the paperwork that has been submitted. As you review these documents keep in mind that this is the best first...
Hiring
Finding the right people to work with you is one of the most difficult and costly decisions you will make. Remember that time is your most valuable resource and it will take time to search for someone and then train them. If they are an unsuccessful fit for your business, you will find yourself starting over with the...
Employees Require Human Resources
With employees, businesses must formalize Human Resources processes. At a minimum, businesses must set up proper accounting and payroll systems and there must be an employee policy manual formally specifying the employer’s expectations. Human Resources are busy offices Payroll and Accounting Systems:...
Important Hiring Forms
Each Employee must fill out the following forms W-4 Form- This form is filed with both the IRS and the State of Tennessee. The W-4 disloses how much the employer will withhold on behalf of the employee for Federal Income Taxes. Here is the link to the form: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw4.pdf W-2 Form – This form...
Employer Required Insurance
At a minimum, your business must carry Workers Compensation Insurance and Unemployment Insurance. Tennessee does not require Disability Insurance (although several states do require it), but there are guidelines for voluntarily carrying Disability Insurance. Workers Compensation Tennessee requires...
Hiring Help
At some point every Entrepreneur will need more hands and decisions will be made about hiring help! There are, after all, only so many hours in a day and so many things one person can do. And the best advice is that you should turn over the parts of the business that you are not good at to someone who is. Decisions...
Best Practices: So You Want to Start a Business
Start a business? At some point most people probably think that having your own business would be a dream job. Who wouldn’t love to be their own boss? Who wouldn’t love to answer to themselves, design their own hours, be in charge of their destiny? For most people, the reality of needing a steady paycheck that...
Pitfalls of Entrepreneurship
Every Entrepreneur knows that time is everything. When you are launching your vision, there are simply not enough hours in the day to do everything on your list. Your desk is never clear. You are doing everything yourself. For many, you have been in a work environment where there were people to whom you could hand...
Types of Entrepreneurs
En-TRE-pre-NU-er The term Entrepreneur is a derivation of Entreprendre, a French verb that literally means “to Undertake”. common acceptance of what an entrepreneur is the people who choose to run their own business – a business they have created from scratch with all the risks and potential rewards that come...
Knowing An Entrepreneur When You See One
There are certain characteristics that define an Entrepreneur. They are inherent traits of a world view that many believe cannot be taught or learned. Most believe that you simply are one or you are not. For those fortunate to be in business with one – or in a family with one, understanding what makes your...
Best Practices: Secure Your Accounts
Every online social media account your have is a back door into your business. You need to act securely. Generally, online security begins by buttoning down your own cell phone. One of the common hacking techniques is to duplicate the SIM card from your cell phone. Once this happens, the hacker can not only login to...
Best Practices: Responding to Online Reviews
Many social media platforms allow customers or interested people to provide a review or comment about their experience. Like in all parts of life, people tend to take the time to review something because they had an extreme experience -either very good or really terrible. It is very important that you respond...
VRBO
VRBO is an online vacation rental booking site that allows people to attract business to a home or cabin vacation instead of a large hotel or resort. The set up for a VRBO account will require lots of photos of the home or cabin rental property and the interior of the building as well. There are fields that allow you...
TN Vacation
TN Vacation website is a tourism website for businesses in Tennessee. With many of the CSllc clients working inside the State of Tennessee, it is important to look at tourism and marketing available tools. Each state will host similar programs and CSllc is happy to work to gain access to these tools in the state(s)...
Eventbrite
Eventbrite is a platform for marketing and ticketing for events. The site allows users to browse events by categories, geographic regions, etc., to find events of interest. Eventbrite is a free service providing your tickets are free. Eventbrite Fees Eventbrite allows you to use the platform free of charge to...
Yelp
Yelp is a crowd-sourced platform for business listings. It functions similarly to an online phone book with names, addresses and phone numbers for businesses to help people find your business. However, the site also functions as a review space for people to write comments regarding their experiences with your...
With about 2.77 billion world-wide users, LinkedIn is the Business to Business serious Social Media platform. It excels in linking business with professionals in their industry and businesses to businesses for networking and potential sales leads. 91% of LinkedIn users report that they use the content people post on...
YouTube
YouTube is an effective online tool for building a community with people who interested in the type of business or service you have to offer. As one of the two top searched platforms for information, there are compelling reasons to include YouTube in your digital marketing plan. A key strategy for the best way in...
Instagram boasts 1 billion users with 95 million shares every day. Instagram recognizes reduced attention spans and trades on providing high quality images that scroll by rapidly. Insta users are not shopping for products, rather they are looking for visual stories, experiences or even adventures they can take...
In any given month there are about 326 million Twitter users. Setting up your Twitter Business Account is very similar to setting up your own. Follow the prompts. You'll Need to Select a Handle Select a Twitter handle that is short and is as close to your business’ brand name as possible. Hashtags are...
Pinterest Targets Milennials and Women Pinterest, with its 320 million monthly users, is the way to reach Millennials and women. The site attracts half of all United States Millennials and 68% of women 25-58 years old. While it remains largely female, 40% of the new accounts are men. What is important to keep in mind...
With 2.27 billion users, Facebook can be a powerful marketing or communications tool for small business. There is a Business Facebook page that is similar to but has more features than a personal page. To create a Business page you must first have a personal page from which to launch. You will be able to follow the...
Google My Business
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Google My Business platform for any business. While Microsoft has its Bing search engine, DuckDuckGo assures the user a level of privacy as they search, Wiki focuses on the wiki account information, CCSearch offers copyright free content results, Internet Archive...
Best Practices: Getting Started with Social Media
Social Media offers a wide range of options for businesses. Each platform has its own audiences and every platform requires constant attention to keep things current. In this blog we will take a look at Best Practices for getting started on social media. Being present and searchable online is a part of every business...