Cafe owner shares 5 tips for growing your business with technology

If you’d asked anyone 10 years ago about how important technology was in running a successful café, they probably would have responded: not at all!

But today, we are increasingly seeing small businesses embrace technology to grow and be more relevant to their clients.

We spoke to Nathan Dunn, owner of Tuihana Café Foodstore, about what it means to run a cafe with technology at the heart of everything. He gave us five tips for growing your business using technology like Xero and social media.

The business

We are a Café Foodstore situated in Mt Eden, at the city end of Dominion Road in Auckland. We purchased the business four years ago when it wasn’t doing very well, and we have had the hard but satisfying job of turning it all around.

We cater to local clientele and also visitors who hear about us! Our food is a Kiwi/Maori mix. We have favourites such as eggs bennie and a delicious lamb burger, combined with some traditional Maori herbs like horopito and kawakawa. Our bread is made on site and is the traditional Rewana (sourdough potato) bread.

Embrace social media in multiple ways

I believe we’re one of the most tech savvy and social media active cafes in NZ. We are active every day on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, with big fan bases spread across those three platforms.  Our staff have Instagram on their phones, so they can take a quick snap of something exciting. It immediately pushes out to the other platforms, through a custom software platform I developed. We also allow for mobile ordering, via SMS, email or Twitter DM.  As far as I know, no other café allows you to order a flat white through Twitter. We also provide free WiFi in the café that requires no login codes, so it’s super easy for everyone.

We also use Xero’s online accounting software to manage our finances, so technology is really at the heart of our business if every aspect.

Invest in staff, listen to customers

Amazing staff. Staff will make or break a café. We also listen to our customers, a lot. Our regulars are a big part of our business, and some of them come in multiple times a day. If they are having a slow day at work, they want to come to the café for a pick-me-up. It’s up to our staff to create those personal, genuine connections, to keep our regulars coming back. We are constantly making changes and improvements based on what they think.

Be willing to make changes fast

Besides lots of exciting new food options, we try many different things in the cafe around marketing. The interaction with our customers via social media, and using cloud-based technology like Xero, allows me to see what’s working and what’s not, and adjust our focus to suit.  The margins in hospitality are razor thin. If something’s not delivering, we need to change it, and fast. It may be too much wastage, or food priced incorrectly, so it’s far too late to do all these at the end of the financial year.

Use technology that speeds you up rather than slows you down

I do all the accounts, and have directorships in a handful of other businesses, so I am time scarce.  Xero allows me to reconcile my accounts in about 10 minutes and see how we are tracking. Bank feeds and invoicing are also major features for us. We can quickly and accurately code up our transactions, and run weekly profit and loss statements to see how we are tracking.

The fact Xero is cloud based is a must for me. I’ve just been in the US for two weeks, and was able to do my GST return and file it from a hotel in Louisville, KY.  This week I’m in Singapore, and I’m just as functional as if I was in NZ.

Find the metrics that matter and check them regularly

Xero allows me to be very efficient. I don’t have to spend a lot of time digging for the info I need.  It’s all there, ready for me to analyse and act on. I do a lot of reconciling on my phone and iPad, and I run reports on my laptop.

By being able to do weekly and even daily profit and loss statements, we can see how we’re doing in real-time and make any tweaks. It’s important to do comparisons from previous periods (such as the previous month, or even previous years) to make sure we’re still growing. It’s not enough just to see money in the bank; this can be a false sense of security. So I would say the real-time visibility and being able to see exactly where we are at has allowed us to grow because we can respond to things much quicker.

Anything else you’d like to add?

If you’re not using Xero you’re setting yourself up to fail.

Check out Tuihana Café and Foodstore on Twitter @tuihanacafe and Instagram  http://ift.tt/1AVRW9i

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How to charge what you're worth and get it

Resources: 

Pricing

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Happy workplace, happy business

In this guest blog, serial entrepreneur, CEO of Central Working and Business of Happiness ambassador James Layfield offers his thoughts on how a happy workplace supports a happy business. 

Imagine your ideal workplace. What do you think of? Do you picture conscientious, innovative colleagues, or a trendy office? Maybe it’s a plum view across the city?

For me, it’s the people you work alongside that make your job what it is. A business is only as good as its people but it’s not just about getting the recruitment right.

Creating a special environment is important if you want to build a happy and successful business. We’re not just talking about the workspace being stimulating. At its heart – and this is crucial – it should encourage regular human connections and the chance to chat.

The aesthetics should never trump the practicality of a working environment, but sadly they often do. As startups and entrepreneurs you have the freedom to choose your working environment, so make the most of that opportunity.

You dedicate the vast majority of your time to your business so doesn’t it make sense to spend it in the most effective way? In a nurturing environment, surrounded by people that inspire you, can help you grow, and that genuinely care about you doing well? An increasing number of businesses are realising that the current world view of an “office” isn’t helping them do that, so they’re looking for other options.

I passionately believe the best alternatives offer opportunities to collaborate. People need people; we work better and achieve more together. Of course there are times when working independently is vital for concentration and getting stuff done, so you need to offer options for different modes of working. But these occasions should be the exception rather than the rule if you want to make magic happen at work.

You can find the perfect physical space that encourages collaborative working and attracts top talent, but a supportive culture and a dynamic atmosphere still needs to be nurtured.

Try these three simple tips to discover a business full of smiling faces:

1. It’s good to talk

How often do you send or receive an email from someone across the room when a quick chat would have been far quicker and more productive? Or perhaps you get caught up in the confusion of a misinterpreted email. If a quick chat will do the job, head over or pick up the phone instead. It’s better to know there are no crossed lines and the bonus is that you might discuss or learn something really useful. Opportunities exist in the spaces between the facts; you can’t see them in an IM.

2. Listen up

It can be difficult to give people your undivided attention in today’s digital, ‘always-on’ world. But committing to this can lead to huge leaps in productivity and morale for your team.  Listening is harder than you think; most of the time you think you’re listening, but in fact you’re off in that next email or worrying about that next meeting. Stop, be clear and listen. You’ll get way more done.

And keep an ear open for opportunities to help colleagues and be aware of what’s going on around you. This might mean unplugging the headphones or taking the time to have a proper conversation when you next bump into someone in the kitchen.

3. Get personal

Chat about life away from work and take an interest in colleagues’ hobbies when you grab lunch or a drink together. Not only will this help build better relationships, but you’ll also uncover hidden opportunities, whether it’s an untapped client lead or a skill you didn’t know someone had.

There’s no complex equation or algorithm required to create a happy business. Instead it’s the little changes you can make every day that could help you realise you were in your perfect place to work all along.

James Layfield is CEO of Central Working, a leading network of business clubs with locations across London and Manchester. Central Working provides over 800 businesses of all sizes with the environment, community and support to thrive.

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Employment intermediaries rules: how to work out if you’re affected

You may not know if your business qualifies as an employment intermediary, and we couldn’t blame you. But it’s extremely important you know if you are affected by the legislation that was included in the Finance Bill 2014 concerning false self-employment (so-called Onshore Employment Intermediaries). Besides bringing new tax and National Insurance considerations for both businesses and contractors, this law means that ‘intermediary’ businesses will now have to make quarterly reports to HMRC in…

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Polly LaBarre’s Maverick Manual for Success

As a founding member of the Fast Company magazine team, Polly LaBarre has seen her share of successes—and failures—in the business world. Now the cofounder and director of Management Lab, she helps businesses and entrepreneurs succeed. She starts by asking them a single question: Are you capable of changing as fast as the world is changing?

Speaking to the audience at Day Two of Xerocon Denver 2015, LaBarre shared the seven tips that make up what she calls her “Maverick Manual for Success”:

1. Stand for Something

According to LaBarre, now more than ever, success hinges on standing out from the crowd and doing what it takes to make people pay attention. “Today you really have to make a case for why what you do matters. So you have to stand by a set of ideals,” LaBarre explained. “You have to imagine and advocate for a better future.” Nothing is more compelling than someone driven by a sense of purpose, both in life and in the world of business. And purpose, as LaBarre defines it, isn’t a wishy-washy sense of well-meaning, but a way to refine and focus your talents. “Purpose,” she says, “is really about sharpening your edges.”

2. Lead Without Authority

“It’s very clear that the age of the all-powerful, all-knowing leader is over,” declares LaBarre.  Most 21st-century organizations struggle to find balance between control and employee freedom. They know this is the path not only to a great work culture, but also to customer satisfaction. Freedom and happiness tend to trickle into the products and services that companies that get it right produce. . Here are some of the signs of a non-traditional, non-hierarchical management structure:

•    Coordination happens without centralization
•    All ideas compete on equal footing
•    Power comes from sharing, not hoarding
•    The wisdom of the many trumps the authority of the few
•    Novel viewpoints get amplified
•    Mediocrity gets exposed

3. Do the Work of Art

“Art is work that can change someone for the better,” says LaBarre. Many of the most successful individuals and organizations today strive to inject some creativity into everything they produce. “Creativity is central to what it means to be human,” explains LaBarre. “The problem is, we tend to grow out of our creativity instead of growing into it.” To “do the work of art,” no matter what business we’re in, we need only to become more serious about experimenting, iterating, and prototyping. As Pixar’s mantra puts it, “Be wrong as fast as possible,” because for every 1,000 ideas, there may be only one that’s a real home run.

4. Learn As Fast As the World Is Changing

To keep up with the pace of change today, LaBarre says, “We have to cultivate a first-person experience of the future.” What does that mean? It means being open and hungry for change, and willing to get outside of our comfort zones as much as possible. LaBarre cites the Randomised Coffee Trials, or RCT, pioneered by Nesta. They used an algorithm to determine, randomly, which employees would meet up for informal coffee meetings. It’s well known that establishing weak ties with people you wouldn’t ordinarily hang out with can spark new creative insights. The best inspiration often comes from an unexpected meeting of normally separate ideas. But it’s also important to be humble and receptive so those insights have room to arise. “You can’t learn anything new,” says LaBarre, “without a solid dose of humility.”

5. Ask More Questions than You Give Answers

“In a world that is filled with ever-expanding complexity. Where no single person can really have all the answers anymore. Someone who is open and driven by questions can surface more possibilities. Attract more perspectives. Enlist more support than someone who is closed down by certainty,” says LaBarre. How much of your time do you spend listening and asking questions as opposed to making assertive statements? If you start paying attention, you might be surprised by what you find. LaBarre assures us that most people need to actively practice the art of listening and inquiring. Because while those skills may have come more naturally to us when we were younger, it takes work to rethink the many conclusions and assumptions we’ve accumulated over time. “Practicing innocence,” she says, “takes courage.”

6. Practice Dissent

“Your job as a manager is to encourage employees to misbehave in some way, to get away with something,” says LaBarre—at least if you have any hope of innovating outside of the ordinary. “It’s the questions nobody’s asking for,” she points out, “that yield the innovative ideas that nobody has tried before.” So hang out with the disrupters, the outlaws, and the outsiders. Learn from them. See how you can apply their reckless, out-of-the-box approaches to the way you run your business. Above all else, LaBarre recommends that everyone learn to “invite the subversive in” rather than being afraid of what, at first glance, might be a little unnerving.

7. Rock the Boat (But Don’t Tip it Over)

While pursuing radical transformation as if there’s no tomorrow is all well and good—how does one rock the boat without either falling out of it or overturning it? This is especially important for anyone who’s part of an organization where “positive deviations” might not always be appreciated. “Steve Jobs famously said that it’s more fun to be a pirate than to be in the navy,” says LaBarre. “But what if you’re a pirate in the navy?” As with all the strategies above, finding the middle way between extremes is probably the safest course. But don’t let fear of potentially capsizing yourself or your company hold you back from at least making moves in destabilizing directions. There wouldn’t be anything very maverick about that.

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Farming in the Cloud, 12 months on

It’s been a big year for Farming in the Cloud. We are excited to be heading to Fieldays this week at Mystery Creek, where we’ll be returning as Premier Feature Sponsor for the second year.

The first year of Farming in the Cloud was all about delivering on a farming blueprint. With our partners, we wanted to connect the farming team (banker, accountant, farmer and farm consultant) onto the single ledger. The focus was on giving the whole team the same platform to work on in both cash and accrual – an industry first.

It’s been a tough year for the sector. Particularly in dairy where the volatility has seen a massive increase in the use of smarter tools to help farmers plan. This was covered off in a recent article from a Figured and Xero user that featured on Stuff.co.nz.

We’ve seen an impressive buy-in from farmers who want to understand the full picture and get more involved in budgeting. “Before using Figured and Xero, the biggest frustration I faced was keeping different farm performance information in different systems. Making it difficult and time consuming to see the whole picture,” said John Evans a sheep, beef and crop farmer from Rakaia.

Xero’s partners have been a big part of the solution. Particularly those that have been early adopters of our farming solution who provided critical feedback. These partners are focussing on adding value to their customers every day and share our passion for the sector. It’s also been awesome to work with some new accounting firms with a focus on rural and looking to disrupt with Xero and Figured.

Figured

Our farming software partner, Figured, continues to lead the way by designing a solution most closely aligned to the blueprint. Figured’s solution focuses on delivering to the whole farming team. With the recent launch of Figured 2.0 they have accelerated and delivered their two year roadmap in 12 months. In 2.0, Figured has built in a lot of early adopter feedback including:

• Multi-farm
• Generic stock trackers
• Enhanced reporting
• Full tax valuation tools for advisors
• Integration with Fonterra
• Live updates of milk prices for major suppliers
• Easy switch between cash and accrual views

Also during the last 12 months, LIC took a cornerstone shareholding in Figured. This was a great vote of support by a large industry cooperative and of the work they are doing. This will also see the future integration of the LIC Minda tool.

Other Partners

We recently welcomed iAgri to our farming ecosystem. iAgri has integrated their online farm management tools with Xero.

We were also pleased to announce at Xerocon Auckland that our accounting partners using Xero with clients on Cashmanager Rural will be able to sync with Xero on a monthly basis. We look forward to seeing this integration continue to expand.

We’re continuing to work with more and more partners, so keep an eye out on our farming ecosystem on our add-on marketplace.

Rural Feeds direct into Xero

Along with our expansive direct bank feeds, we now have direct rural feeds in place with the major rural suppliers, including:

• CRT
• Farmlands
• Farmsource (previously RD1)
• PGG Wrightson
• Rabobank

We are also pleased to announce that Ashburton Trading Society (ATS) has committed to build their integration with Xero. This will be really powerful for our South Island farmers, making it easier to have their transactions from ATS directly into Xero. Watch this space.

Payroll

It’s also been a tough year for farmers around HR compliance. We have seen strong uptake and interest since launching Payroll in Xero. Payroll in Xero continues to innovate and is updated regularly. It will be a strong tool to help farmers manage their compliance seamlessly within their accounting platform.

Broadband

Following last year’s roadshow, it was clear that there is a lack of understanding of the Rural Broadband Initiative. This being picked up and discussed widely now across the industry. There are plans to tell the story of the rapidly expanding options for rural New Zealand.

Where to next?

We’re kicking into the next phase, which is about extending the farming ecosystem. We’re inviting more farming software partners to take part. We’re also linking on-farm software and monitoring tools into the farm financial platform. We want to complete one end-to-end platform for rural New Zealand.  The next phase also includes scoping global delivery. So if you’re outside New Zealand, please email farming@xero.com to register your interest.

Our focus on growth, productivity, and using real-time information to enable better farm business decisions is key to lifting the performance of the rural sector. We just launched Xero Business Signals, allowing Xero users to track key performance indicators. This will be great for our rural clients. We’re also excited to use our data to deliver real-time, industry specific benchmarking and insights to help the industry grow.
If you are coming along to Fieldays, pop in and see us at the Xero stand in the main pavilion. And make sure you check out our farming page for more information and to see our special Fieldays offer.

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Your Customers Are Diverse, So Why Isn’t Your Business Strategy?

Your customers already are incredibly diverse. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 36% of the population identifies as a racial or ethnic minority group.

Your customers are going to become increasing more diverse. If current rates of national population change trend as they have for the past 20 years, by 2035, non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered by “minorities”. Did you know that Hawaii, California, New Mexico, and Texas all already have more “minorities” than non-hispanic whites.

The rise of culturally diverse customers is not limited to large cities and the surrounding metropolitan areas. Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 19% of non-metro and rural residents and have become more geographically dispersed across the Nation.

Does your marketing and messaging reflect your culturally diverse customer base? Here are 3 easy ways to get caught up to speed so your business appeals to your entire community.

1. Recognize Diverse Holidays & Traditions

For most businesses, consumer interest is still strongest for sales and promotions. Expand your business’ holiday calendar to include new holidays and traditions, like the Chinese New Year (February 8th) or Day of The Dead (October 31st). Learn more about your community, and what traditions are commonly celebrated around town. In hispanic communities, a girl’s 15th birthday (her Quinceañera) is a major family and friends event. As an example, if your business is connected to party supplies, a restaurant, or event space, market the idea of using your business for a Quinceañera gathering.

Offer coupons and sales for these diverse holidays, and be sure to wish your followers well on social media!

2. Embrace Multi-lingual Media

It’s already increasingly common for businesses to advertise in the local, non-english papers and media. You should also produce marketing materials (menus, flyers, signs, coupons etc) in the most popular non-english language. It’s fairly cost effective to simply create front and back versions of your materials, where your message is translated on the backside.

To determine if you should translate parts of your webpage (Google’s automatic web page translation service  isn’t always 100% accurate), take a look at your Google analytics. Under the Audience category. click “language”. If you see a fair amount of traffic from other languages, you could probably benefit from adding a special section just for content in that language. If you do opt to product an alternate language section on your site to appeal to your diverse customers, hire a translator to ensure your unique messaging and brand is accurately portrayed. Here’s a little food for thought: Best Buy has found that users of the Spanish language spend twice as much time on the website and also spend twice as much money per visit than users of the English site. An added benefit of including spanish language content is the increased opportunities for search traffic for spanish keywords.

3. Represent Them

I’ve written a lot about how images boost sales and engagement, but not if those images are overly homogeneous. Diversify the people in your images, or the models on your website. Whether it’s social media, advertising, or on your actual website, it’s important for the potential customer to see themselves using your goods or services. If your business make product selections, include items specific to their culture or community.

Bonus word to the wise: if you are not a member of their community, do not attempt that community’s slang to appeal to your diverse customers. This never works for brands!

The Best Small Business Advice, Delivered!

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Funding Options Leading the Northern Powerhouse Charge

For anyone involved in business finance, you’re probably aware the government are taking huge steps to create a ‘powerhouse’ of business in the north. With such visions of grandeur, it’s becoming apparent that the process of turning this dream into a reality is a rather complex one. This said, there have been plenty of parties keen to gather and contribute to the improvement of SMEs in the north, and we predict progress… soon.

One of the key components of this movement is to directly help those at the heart of it – this includes existing business, firms looking to grow, and start-ups.

Yesterday (4th June 2015), during a conference held by KPMG Manchester, and organised by the ICAEW, a number of big names gathered to discuss this important topic. Representatives from key financial institutions included MSCA president Colin Gillespie, Ron Emerson of the British Business Bank, and Louise Beaumont who heads up Public Affairs at GLI Finance.

In the crowd were a host of finance specialists, ambitious entrepreneurs, and business owners who were also keen to thrash out the issue of how we can all work together to put the north well and truly on the map.

In what was a positive morning of discussion, Louise Beaumont made the important point about the balance of government and private sector help for SMEs, and how Funding Options can play a lead role in this process – especially so, given the introduction of the bank referral scheme.

Referring to the way customers behave and how solutions have adapted to this, she stated, “This is a generation who are Googling a finance solution and getting speedy, accurate support without needing a traditional relationship at all.” in reference to the platform set up here at Funding Options.

This is exactly why we work hard to understand the way businesses seek finance and by operating closely alongside key influencers we are working towards a platform that will directly move businesses forward in a positive direction – not just financially.

To read the full press release from the event, click here. 

Update: To see Manchester Evening News’ coverage of the event, click here. 

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Happiness is the key to success

What is it that makes us truly successful? Renowned psychologist, best-selling author and happiness guru Dr. Robert Holden believes our definition of success has changed over time.

While many of us were brought up to believe that success will make us happy, Robert says we’re now looking at success differently. “In fact, I think many of us today believe happiness actually increases our chances of success,” he says.

Speaking at Wednesday evening’s Xero Happy Hour workshop for entrepreneurs in London as part of the Business of Happiness project, Robert challenged us to think about what our own image of success really looks like.

Happiness is a great way of measuring success, Robert says. “When we’re happy, it brings out the best in us. We think more clearly, we perform better, and we’re much more fun to be around… when we’re happy, people want to work with us.”

“When you truly know what makes you happy and when you really follow your joy, that’s what increases your chances of success.”

“What is the point of success if we’re not enjoying it?”

“In the past, I really think work was just about making money, buying stuff and increasing your net assets. Now work is about expressing yourself and being creative. It’s about making a contribution, showing the world who you are.

“So for a lot of us, we don’t have a job, we have a purpose and our work is meaningful. A meaningful job, a meaningful life, that’s a huge key to happiness.”

After surveying more than 1,000 UK entrepreneurs and working alongside a panel of experts in business and psychology, we identified five tips to help you build a happier business.

Five tips for a happier business

Have a vision: Knowing what you’re working for helps you take pride in your work and focus on your goals.

Good relationships: Honest and clear communication with your employees, clients and customers helps to keep them happy.

Freedom and flexibility: A good work life balance and being able to enjoy free time or family occasions with flexible hours allows you to manage your workload and do your best job.

Growth and investment: Learning new skills and helping others to do the same encourages engagement and excitement.

Creativity: It’s not just about coming up with new ideas, but also allowing yourself and your team to be creative and using the right tools to do so.

Hear from the experts

Top Tips On Running A Happy Business from Xero on Vimeo.

What makes your business happy? Tell us here and be in with a chance to win a one-on-one session with happiness guru Dr Robert Holden. Entries close 26 June 2015. For more about the business of happiness, visit xero.com/happy.

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How to set up a small business while working on the side

Many of us feel like we’re tied into full time employment yet have a burning desire to break free from the self-imposed PAYE shackles and start our own business. Starting a new business can be scary. It’s a leap into the unknown and there is a lot to consider. When you’re employed full time by a company and looking to start a business in your spare time, these pressures can be a lot higher….

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Meet the Business Lender – Arkle Finance

In this article, you meet one of the niche lenders in business finance, Arkle Finance, who specialise in asset & equipment finance. Asset finance is a really effective product for small businesses so learn more about what your business can expect and how to tell if you’re eligible for the funding.

We caught up with Daniel Bailey, Associate Director, to find out more.

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1. Tell us a bit about the history of Arkle and how it stands out from the crowd

Arkle started life in 2002 (then known as Weatherbys Finance Ltd) with the aim to provide asset finance facilities for UK business seeking to finance the acquisition of business equipment.   It changed name in July 2009 (to Arkle Finance Ltd, and is also referred to as “afl”) and has evolved to become a provider of a range of asset finance facilitates, some of which are specialist, to a wide range of clients.

2. What areas does Arkle specialise in financing (in terms of types of equipment)

Arkle has a multiple divisions but the noteworthy areas are the Consumer Finance division which uses the trading style “Evington”, the Education Asset Finance Division and the Energy Equipment finance division.

The Consumer Finance division specialises in providing asset finance facilities for, Motorhomes, Classic Cars, Narrow Boats, Cruisers and other leisure related purchases by private individuals.

The Education division provides suitable facilities for schools seeking funding for a wide range of assets. Finally. The Renewable Division supports the funding of PV Solar Panels,  Biofuel Boilers, Wind Turbines and energy efficient products such as HPV LED lighting.

3. What sorts of businesses does Arkle love to lend to (such as industries/sectors etc)?

Arkle recognises that well managed businesses operate in a diverse range of sectors. What we aim to do is seek to lend responsibly and offer products that best suit a client’s specific circumstances.

4. What’s one of the strangest businesses that you’ve lent to, and can you tell us how you did it?

We have provided asset finance facilities to a wide range of clients, including high street retailers and container shipping companies.

5. What are your views on the burgeoning alternative finance market, and how Arkle fits in that marketplace?

The alternative finance market often encompasses a wide range of areas of finance and I suspect that many of those operating within those industries would consider their offering to to be relatively mainstream. We do recognise that the way transacted has the potential to change significantly over the next 5-10 years. As an example the emergence of the electronic signature as a solution is relatively new to asset finance and Arkle has been one of the first finance companies to adopt it.

6. What would be your message to any business looking to apply for finance?

Simply, once you have found a suitable asset finance broker or finance house be as open as possible and try to provide them with your broad requirement not your expected finance solution. This means allowing time and providing all relevant information to help understand your business and needs. The good firms will then have a good chance of putting together the most appropriate solution.

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Thanks to Daniel at Arkle Finance for taking the time to answer our questions! 

 

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7 key announcements from Xerocon Denver day one

Every Xerocon brings a slew of new Xero product announcements and software enhancements, but Xero partners were in for a real treat today in Denver. Here’s a brief overview of some of the features we unveiled —including a brand-new app for your Apple Watch.

1) Business Performance Dashboard

Businesses will now be able to identify potential pain points or concerns early enough to take action. The Business Performance dashboard incorporates Xero’s new analytics function. The dashboard’s reporting option provide a view of a business’s performance across a wide range of standard business metrics. Business owners and their financial advisors can easily view graphs of each metric through a simple, beautifully designed and integrated interface. This will fast become a critical tool for promoting effective, real-time decision-making within small businesses.

2) Apple iOS Integration

It’s no secret that the rapid adoption of wearable technology is well underway. Xero’s mobile app offers consistent access and ease of use from any Apple device—whether a MacBook, iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Our keynote showcased an integration with the Apple Watch that provides consistent, elegant banking notifications while owners are on the go.  “We waited to see how it would be used, and found that the Apple Watch is primarily a notifications engine,” said Luke Gumbley, Xero’s Product Manager of Mobile. And the Xero Apple Watch app does exactly that, providing notifications of transactions as they come in. Learn more at xero.com/apple.

3) Enhanced Integration with Gmail

At Xero, we’re dedicated to creating solutions that seamlessly integrate with the tools businesses already use. That’s why we’re working to integrate email and contact records—initially via Gmail—into the Xero platform. Xero users will have the capability to choose a filtered view of their inbox in relation to a specific business contact, expanding the capabilities of Xero beyond accounting and into other crucial areas of small-business management.

4) Payroll in Xero expands to Colorado

“We do believe that there should be a seamless integration between payroll and accounting,” said Silvana Narvaez, Xero’s Director of Product, Global Payroll. Xero’s payroll function—now supporting businesses in Colorado—streamlines the accounting process by providing accurate employee timesheet management, as well as worry-free payments with direct deposit or printed checks.

5) Xero Me

In an effort to simplify critical communications between business owners and their employees with Xero Me, a new iOS app was designed to ease and automate key functions that come with running a business. With the app, employees communicate easily and immediately with business owners and decision-makers to request time off or view payslips in real-time from their mobile device, whether at home, at work, or on the go.

6) Xero Billable Expenses

Xero has new expense capabilities to help businesses manage costs that they can bill to clients. It paves the way for consistent, transparent expense tracking in an effort to promote positive cash flow. When a purchase is recorded, the business owner can simply specify which client to whom the expenses should be assigned.

7) Practice Reports

This was a real treat: The Practice Reports are a simple and fast way for accountants and bookkeepers to generate powerful business insights for their clients. Traditional financial reports take hours to build and are difficult to keep up­-to-­date. Xero’s Practice Reports enables reports to be built in minutes and based on accurate real-time data.

That’s just a taste of the new features and products available to Xero partners. Stay tuned to this blog for more details on each of the seven announcements above.

Until next time,

Angus

The post 7 key announcements from Xerocon Denver day one appeared first on Xero Blog.

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Staples Rodway reaches Xero Group Platinum in New Zealand

Today we are pleased to welcome Staples Rodway to group Platinum Partner in New Zealand.

Staples Rodway is a great example of a leader in cloud adoption. Strong growth across their seven New Zealand offices – in Tauranga, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Hamilton, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland – has been instrumental in them reaching Platinum Status.  Staples Rodway now boasts more than 1000 customers on Xero.

It’s really encouraging to see firms with regional reach, realising the benefits of moving their clients to Xero.

Staples Rodway’s proactive approach has been particularly impressive. They’ve run Xero seminars and have educated their clients on the benefits of cloud accounting.

Staples Rodway has embraced Xero’s platform to break down barriers between the client and their accountant.  They’re a true example of how client and accountant can work together to help small businesses grow and prosper.

Mark Kingsford from Staples Rodway Auckland said, “Staples Rodway is pleased to become a Xero Platinum Partner. Staples Rodway sees Xero as an important tool in providing our clients with real-time value added advice. It is also an influential instrument in driving business process automation and change as well as delivering greater innovation and efficiency.”

Daimon Stewart from Staples Rodway Taranaki said, “Reaching Platinum status is an achievement we’re proud of. For us, it represents the effort we have put into embracing technology. Xero allows us to better service our clients by giving them more relevant and timely information. It gives us the opportunity to provide useful advice that adds real value to their business. Our clients are sleeping easier knowing we have a greater oversight of their business”.

Thanks Staples Rodway for your continued support! We look forward to continuing our relationship.

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The post Staples Rodway reaches Xero Group Platinum in New Zealand appeared first on Xero Blog.

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Stephen Dubner on 7 ways to think like a freak

Our Xerocon Denver presenters continue to give us new perspectives on the best ways to innovate in the world of business. But Stephen Dubner, radio host and acclaimed author of Freakonomics, brought a perspective all his own, as usual. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Stephen before, and I was excited for him to tell our partners and customers how to “think like a freak.”

Thinking like a freak means looking at common, everyday problems through an out-of-the-box lens. This process lets you question every step involved in your current systems and processes. It also means re-examining whatever conclusions you arrive at. How can you be sure you’re actually performing at the highest level if you’re not willing to deconstruct the way you’re currently working?

According to Stephen, re-evaluating the “way things have always been done”can help you to discover some new, avant-garde ways of doing business. This should be backed, whenever possible, by solid data gleaned from research. Here are the key takeaways from Stephen’s main thesis on how anyone can gain the benefits of thinking like a freak:

1) Start with the Customer

Everything must start with the customer. Ensure you are running the right tests, and conducting the right research, so you know what your customers really want. This may differ from what they say they want or what your market research suggests they want. In fact, surveys and market research may just be telling you what you want to hear (more on this below). Find new, data-based ways to discover your customer needs. Then at least you’ll know that what you’re doing is based on genuine customer knowledge, needs, and insights.

2) Find Real Data

To succeed, you must find data that truly reflects the real world, rather than data that reflects what people say they will do or how they perceive they do things.  According to Stephen, “Survey data and market research data are some of the lowest forms of data. We don’t know our own behavior very objectively, especially if we project into the future.” For businesses, this means honing in on data rather than opinions. Sometimes the best research is the research we conduct in-house, with our own data and our own eyes.

3) Money Doesn’t Matter

Well, of course money does matter, but it’s not always the most powerful way to retain, motivate, and incentivize staff. Seek different ways to incentivize that will achieve real results. Look at the real reasons for what your employees are and are not achieving and try to change that. Keep in mind that for many people, money really isn’t what’s most important.

“Human behavior change is really hard,” Stephen told the Xerocon crowd. “Figuring out how incentives really work, as opposed to guessing, is important. The real moral of the story is, rather than relying on people to do the right thing, come up with incentives to help encourage them to do it.”

Stephen shared the tale of how Cedar Sinai Medical Center in LA came up with a number of methods to change their doctors’ behavior. They wanted to encourage their doctors to wash their hands after seeing patients – a simple task that could dramatically reduce the spread of disease. They tried issuing a memo imploring people to do the right thing. They tried offering Starbucks gift cards as a reward. They even tried having nurses jump out to surprise doctors with applause whenever they spotted them washing their hands. A lot of it was pretty creative, but none of it worked.

Finally, someone had the idea to appeal to a doctor’s conscience. Physicians were asked to place their hands on petri dishes, which were then sent to a lab to cultivate whatever bacteria had been found on their hands. The horrifying results were posted as the screensavers on all the hospital’s computers. By appealing to medical professionals’ own values in such a visceral way, the 9% observed hand-washing rate increased to nearly 100% virtually overnight.

4) No ‘Magic Bullet’ Data

A lot of data makes it difficult to determine why people behave the way that they do. Consider workforce science – the process of understanding what employees do, why and under what situations. Look deeper for data that explains the reasoning behind employee and customer behavior.

5) Throw Out Convention

Many businesses continue doing things the way they always have, purely because that’s the way the last person did it. Wrong!  Rather than working within the traditional framework, throw it all out and consider how you would do things if you were starting from scratch. Even if you don’t actually do it—the thought experiment alone can yield powerful results. You’re guaranteed to find room for improvement.

6) Be Like a Child

“Thinking like a freak means to be willing to think like a child a little more often,” Stephen said. Children often ask ridiculous but wonderful questions. By emulating that degree of open inquiry you can help ensure that you’re asking the most unthought-of, unconventional questions too. As much as a child continually asking why can be tiresome, they do make you look at a situation, problem, or opportunity in a whole new way. This opens the door to a better, more efficient, less costly or more inspiring way of approaching business.

7) Make Decisions, Not Habits

Often we believe that we are making informed decisions, and yet the truth is that we are acting out of habit. If you want to implement real change then you need to make a goals list, keep track of the decisions you are making, and measure your achievements. Make real decisions and act on real goals—and make the effort required to do things differently in order to break old habits.

Fortunately for all of us at Xero, Stephen believes accounting has a bright future. No matter what kind of transactions currency the future may bring, there will always be a need for an accounting system which is:

•    User-friendly
•    Accessible
•    True
•    Accurate
•    Dynamic

Overall, he says the keys to being successful in business today are to:

•    Experiment and test early
•    Measure consistently
•    Be prepared to change or abandon a once successful idea if or when it begins to fail

So look beyond the traditional data. Understand that the way things have been done before isn’t always the best way forward. Seek to uncover the reasons behind why people do what they do and what will truly incentivize them. If you can do those things you not only help your business, you’ll be well on your way to thinking like a freak.

The post Stephen Dubner on 7 ways to think like a freak appeared first on Xero Blog.

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Weekend Favs June Six

Weekend Favs June Six written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.

I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road.

Good stuff I found this week:

meistertask – highly intuitive task management tool from the mindmeister folks

Firefly Connections – tool that automatically creates and sends a weekly newsletter for you

Zenefits – free online HR platform to bring payroll, benefits and other HR functions to one place

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Turn Your Website into a Lead Generation Machine

Turn Your Website into a Lead Generation Machine written by Alex Boyer read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

The Duct Tape Marketing website generates leads, does yours? Created using placeit

Your website is a very powerful tool in your marketing toolbox. It is completely customizable, flexible and is the base for all of your marketing efforts in the modern world. Without it, you would be missing out on the countless people that search for your industry and product online.

But even with a powerful website and a content marketing strategy, most websites don’t instinctively collect leads on their own. You could have all of the website visits in the world, but unless you have an opportunity to nurture those leads and convert sales, those metrics are just hollow numbers that may not affect your bottom line.

The most useful websites to small business owners actively collect leads for the owners to convert. They have mechanisms in place that get their visitors to volunteer their information. With that, you have a lead that is not only well informed about your brand and product, but has also expressed interest in learning more.

Preparing the site

Before you can actively seek your visitors’ information, you must first have the infrastructure to collect that information. There are numerous tools that allow for lead capture on most websites. You can have a subscription plugin, something like WPSubscribers. This tool allows you to put a widget in the sidebar, header or footer that allows your customers to submit their information (you’ll see something similar on the right of this post.)You may have seen several sites with popups (you may have even encountered ours on this site.) These can be created by tools like Smart PopUp or PopUpAlly..

Of course, most of these tools can be integrated with the email service you already use. If you aren’t using email services like to reach out and collect email lists, you really should, but that’s a topic for another day.

So how do you get them to submit their information? Well, as usual, it all begins with content.

Give them value

An email address is valuable these days. So many people look to keep their inbox as free as possible. It means something to most people to hand it over. That is why you must be willing to give them some value in return.

Be prepared to create something special in return for their email addresses. Most businesses create weekly newsletters to send to their customers. Here at Duct Tape Marketing, we offer our “Best Stories on the Web Weekly,” a collection of some of the best small business marketing tips and stories on the web. It just takes a bit of time to curate and load into an email blast, and you’ve got a valuable piece of content for your audience.

Another strategy is to offer an eBook or White Paper in exchange for the information. You’ve heard of companies that use this strategy. In my hometown, there’s a local lawn service company that offers a “Guide to choosing the right lawn service” for free. The white paper offers very valuable information without selling, all while providing their salespeople the information they need to follow up and complete the sale.

You can even collect your content in themed eBooks and get more mileage out of the great content you’ve created in the past. These are very similar to white papers, just a bit longer.

Your website is powerful, but you can lose business if you can’t use it to gather leads and close sales. Unlock all of its power by turning your website into a lead generation machine.

Alex Boyer is a Community Manager and Content Ninja for Duct Tape Marketing. You can connect with him on Twitter @AlexBoyerKC

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6 Free Social Media Tools for Startups to Build a Strong Social Media Presence

6 Free Social Media Tools for Startups to Build a Strong Social Media Presence written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

You had a great idea, and you’ve built a viable business model around it, but getting the word around about the products and services you have on offer can prove to be quite challenging. With the use of social media, you can reach out to a greater number of people in lesser time. If you invest effort in social media management consistently, platforms like Facebook and Twitter also help you establish a relationship with your buyers.

Sure, continuous interaction means there may be instances when disgruntled customers diss you on social media. Instead of being scared away by the possibility, you should focus on having a crisis control strategy in place. Respond to negative feedback immediately and make it up to your customer. Good deeds on social media give you double the mileage – you can not only reconcile with an unhappy customer, but also reassure the others that you’re listening to them.

Building a strong social media presence is an imperative for startups in the digital age. Here are a few tools that will come in handy.

Rapportive

Sometimes, business correspondence via email can be tricky because there’s only that much you know about the other person. Rapportive fills this information gap by connecting your Gmail account to Linkedin. The tool comes as a free plug-in for Chrome and extracts a person’s Linkedin profile to display the information within your Gmail window.

DrumUp

DrumUp is a smart content discovery tool that scours the web for relevant content based on the keywords you input. The tool acts as a central dashboard for your Twitter and Facebook profiles, letting you manage multiple accounts simultaneously. It allows you to choose from a list of suggested content, edit and schedule posts, and also add custom posts to the queue.

Easel.ly

If you’ve used any social media platform or have been tracking the social media space, you know that visual content receives a higher rate of engagement. However, you’d think that creating visual content is a time-intensive task. Easel.ly makes you think again. The tool offers ready-to-use infographic templates that are categorized by subject. All you have to do is choose from their list of categories and search for a specific subject.

Collecto

A dedicated tool for Instagram, Collec.to lets you manage your photos, organize them into albums, run contests to promote your brand and get statistics on the effectiveness of your campaign. It also gives you statistics for your profile, as well as others’ who you follow, provided they are subscribed to the tool.

Canva

With Canva, everybody can be a designer. The tool offers image templates and editing options to create a wide range of visual content, including Facebook Cover Photos, Email headers, Youtube Channel Art, Photo Collages, Twitter headers, Ads, Presentations and more. It also offers design tutorials to help you hone you artistic abilities.

Newsle

Newsle is a monitoring tool that can be used on several social media platforms including Linkedin and Facebook. It tells you who among your connections, both on email and social media, are most in the news. This essentially means that you can track mentions of you professional acquaintances, competitors and peers.

Each of the tools discussed here offer a unique functionality and together make for a powerful social media arsenal. Given that all of them are free, you’ve got no excuses to put off trying them out to see how they can boost your social media presence.

Jessica has a keen interest in social media and content marketing and writes extensively about it. She represents Godot Media, a leading content marketing firm.

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How to Systematically Create an Annual Editorial Calendar

How to Systematically Create an Annual Editorial Calendar written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

I talk about content, well, all of the  time. I know many of you are sick of reading about it, but I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. In fact, high-quality content that addresses the needs, concerns and questions of your ideal clients is pretty much the price of admission these days.

It’s not enough to create and optimize web pages and call that content either. You must commit to producing content much like a publisher of a magazine and you must do it strategically.

Content is Strategy

Waking up on Monday and deciding what to write about on your blog is not a content strategy. Content is such an essential element in the marketing puzzle you must plan your content like you might your promotional calendar or budget for the year.

Taking a strategic view of content means you must understand the body of work you need to create over time to turn your content efforts into an asset that will serve your business long-term.

In my view, this means applying the same kind of keyword, competitive and linking research that most associate with SEO to your editorial approach. And that’s the point really – in order for your content to pay dividends it must help drive traffic, shares, influence and conversion.

Finding Your Themes

The first step is to start making a list of your most important themes. I generally try to find three core themes and about nine supplemental themes. (Nice tidy 12 monthly themes.) Your core themes are the kinds of things that might be found on your homepage or even in the title attribute of your home page. Or, perhaps the main navigational elements of your site.

Your supplemental themes round out the list and while not as important, certainly make fodder for your ongoing blogging efforts.

Start with brainstorming. Lock yourself away and start thinking about the kinds of things people ask about the most, where you make your most money, or where you see the greatest opportunities in your industry. This is often enough to create a good start to your list. Obviously, if you have a team, get them involved – they may actually know better than you. (Industry jargon that means nothing to the prospect must be left out here.)

Now take that list to the Google Keyword Planner and see if you can find themes that have significant volume. You must balance key terms with being too generic though. A term like “marketing” wouldn’t make sense as a theme, even for a marketing consultant, but a term like “referral marketing tactics” might.

From this work, you should have developed a pretty solid dozen or so candidates for your monthly themes. I also like to take the terms to the Google search page and see what they suggest as related searches and who shows up on page one for these terms now.

Researching Topics

Now that I have my terms I want to get more specific ideas for actual topics I might map to each month.

For this task, I lean pretty heavily on a tool called BuzzSumo. There are other tools that can be useful, such as Topsy, but BuzzSumo does so many things I find myself sticking to it.

The basic thing BuzzSumo does is show you the most shared content for any term you put into its search box. (Note this can be a URL as well if, for example, you want to see most shared content on a competitors site.)

I use it to uncover actual highly shared blog posts around each of my themes so I can get some solid ideas for my own content and see what types of things get shared the most by others. You do have to use a little creativity here – for example a plumber that does bathroom plumbing might also search some common problems related to bathroom plumbing to find good ideas.

I might also employ a site like Quora to see the kinds of questions people are asking about my themes. Answering questions is always a good idea for a blog post.

Going Beyond

Now that I have a good start to the actual topics related to my themes, I want to start figuring out who else writes about my themes, who else like to share this kind of content and what sites are seen as influential in the space.

Again, BuzzSumo is a pretty great power tool. With the higher paid plans, you can discover a list of influential bloggers related to the topics you are interested in. I generally follow and list these folks on Twitter and even subscribe to some of their blogs in Feedly so I can start sharing their content. Eventually, I may try to develop the kind of relationship where I could ask one or more of these folks if I could submit guest content or if they would like to do so for my site.

You can also narrow your topic search to include only guest posts. It’s pretty good bet that a person likes to write guest posts or a site likes to take guest posts if they show up on this search.

This is indeed a way to get more content to fill your plan but it’s also the strategic part of building links to your site and gaining exposure for your content outside of your own efforts.

I further use BuzzSumo’s info to show me who is linking to and sharing content related to my topics and often create more lists to look for more strategic relationships beyond what people might call the “usual suspects in thought leadership land.”

Now Document

By this point, I have a pretty good amount of content identified to fill in my plan so it’s time to turn to a tool to document a plan and calendar. You can use any spreadsheet really (Smartsheet, Google Sheets, Excel) to document your themes across twelve months and then simply add the elements of your platform – blog, podcast, guest posts, eBooks, etc. Then you set your goals for how much content you want in each element each month. (I wrote a post a while back called 10 Ways to Use One Piece of Content – you should read this post as well if today’s idea appeals to you.)

For a specific view of each month, you might want to add an editorial calendar as a spreadsheet or by using a WordPress plugin. It’s pretty amazing how simply documenting a plan seems to help get more done by keeping the focus on the future rather than scrambling to create the present. (I realize that’s not a very Zen idea, but it’s the reality of business.)

You know you need content, so stop fighting it and start making a plan that allows you to better delegate, build and amplify your content asset.

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3 Advantages to an Experiential Web Presence

3 Advantages to an Experiential Web Presence written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

I spend a lot of time online. Whether it’s at work researching and managing my clients, at home browsing my favorite blogs and shopping, or on the go using Uber and Google Maps, I usually always have a way to access the Internet. Throughout all of my Internet time, and in the last few years especially, I have noticed a shift in how businesses portray themselves online. Gone are the days when there was a specific formula for mapping out website navigation, organizing content and images, and displaying a prominent call to action. Now with greater accessibility to the Internet through various devices, coupled with the advancements of modern technology, browsing the Internet has truly become an experience for the user, with tremendous advantages for businesses.

Just as a brand’s physicality is an experience in itself, the digital presence of a brand should reflect that experience in a similar light. The evolved user experience is no longer the traditional model of providing information. It’s using technological enhancements, like responsive design, better navigation, higher resolution visuals, storytelling capabilities, and many more techniques in order to attract your visitors, keep your visitors, and finally, convert your visitors. Below we elaborate on these advantages of an experiential website.Advantage: Attract your visitors.

1. Advantage: Attract your visitors.

There are many ways to create an experiential website. When you find your creative team to design and develop it, part of their market research entails researching your competition and your customers. They will be able to tell you what your competitors are doing correctly and where they are failing, so that you can take the opportunity to surpass them. More and more companies are investing in the user experience, because their customers are expecting it, especially those of the millennial generation. The importance of responsive design and mobile marketing, for instance, is more important now than ever, as studies have shown that businesses that incorporate this into their experiential website, are thriving. Take advantage of the opportunity to stay ahead of the competition and attract visitors to your website!

2. Advantage: Keep your visitors.

When users have a positive experience on your website, they are more likely to return. This in turn provides you with loyal customers who then become brand advocates, in other words, your greatest referral database. The research that is used to attract your visitors is additionally applicable to the ways in which the website will retain them and keep them coming back for more. Bounce rates have exceedingly increased, due to the lack of an experience. Once you have this research that demonstrates what your users are looking for, it will be far easier for you to tweak your user experience to their tastes. Give your customers a seamless digital experience so that they can find all of the information they are looking for, when they want it, all while enjoying it. The best way to retain your visitors is to constantly and continuously give them what they want!

3. Advantage: Convert your visitors.

We often hear from business owners that the user experience of their website comes secondary to their bottom line, which is to simply have a digital presence so that they can increase online sales. They don’t know how to justify the ROI of an experience. However, now that we know that your visitors are looking for these experiences and transforming into brand advocates because of these experiences, we can expect to see results in the sales cycle and in revenue flow. Guesswork and experimentation are no longer necessary when your users are entertained, moved and understood via your website.

In an increasingly data-driven world, businesses are finding ways to understand the motivations behind consumer behaviors and then applying that knowledge to a website that gives their potential and current customers a unique and memorable experience specifically catered to them. As a company experienced with the user experience, we at ParadigmNEXT hope that you take these 3 advantages to your advantage and launch a beautiful digital presence, with the focus being an experiential website.

Yana Nirshberg is the Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Creative Director at ParadigmNEXT, Inc. ParadigmNEXT is a digital marketing consulting agency headquartered in Chicagoland. We service brands both directly and via their nominated agencies, ParadigmNEXT delivers a seamlessly integrated Brand Experience and a greater measurable return on marketing investment (ROMI). Services we provide include brand identity, integrated marketing, inbound marketing strategy, art direction, web-design & development, startup incubation and product development services to a wide array of clients ranging from bootstrapped startups to successful longstanding companies. We’re deeply rooted in the tech startup community in Chicago and abroad, and have great relationships with emerging seed funds, VC’s, startup founders, and collegiate entrepreneurs.

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Classic Podcast: How to Differentiate Your Business

Classic Podcast: How to Differentiate Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Marketing Podcast with Bernadette Jiwa

For this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, we’re turning the clock back to 2013 and one of the most popular, and one of my favorite interviews of all time. We’re revisiting my chat with Bernadette Jiwa, and we talk about her then new book Make Your Idea Matter. Since speaking to her, she has published three more books including The Fortune Cookie Principle, Difference and her latest, Marketing: A Love Story. You can visit her very popular marketing blog, The Story of Telling here: http://ift.tt/Kvo8Ch

Jiwa is someone you should be following if you’re not. She created her brand by doing one thing very well – creating content people love.

She’s the leading voice these days on differentiating your business and someone that has proven you can build a large and loyal following through content.

Questions I ask Bernadette:

• How writing a book based on a blog is different than writing a “Big Idea” book
• How do you define branding in a small business setting?
• How can a single moment play into the definition of your brand?

What you’ll learn if you give a listen:

• How to differentiate your business and not be boring
• How to decide on what to write
• How your customers are involved in the creation of your brand

This week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is MarketingProfs. Do you have the write stuff? Unleash your inner writer by downloading the latest MarketingProfs marketing writing kit for free! Visit: http://ift.tt/1G5z4ET

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