Self-employed professionals and solo business owners are everywhere. They are roughly 15 million in number, according to the Christian Science Monitor, and inundate the U.S. business landscape.
New web- and cloud-based technologies are allowing individuals to employ themselves and contribute services with previously unseen efficiency. Publishing tools, blogs, social media, search engine optimization and even mobile technologies allow individuals to promote and sell their services on a more even playing field.
However, solo entrepreneurs and self-employed individuals ...

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Consumers act according to the season, and businesses shape their operations around these trends. They ramp up marketing activities during high{-}sales periods, such as the holidays, and prepare for market projections by hiring and investing accordingly.
Marketing and PR departments are particularly aware of this change in season, and you can see that change every time you visit a store. Pumpkin lattes, Christmas savings, back-to-school deals, Thanksgiving turkeys, Presidents Day sales, Florida tourism spots in January ...

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With all the hype surrounding social media these days, one might forget the role of the traditional website in attracting and communicating with customers. The user-friendliness and low cost of setting up a Facebook page or Twitter feed is attractive to many cash-strapped entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals. However, these individuals should understand that, despite all sensation, branded websites are still among the most visited by consumers.
According to the most recent Global Web Index report, 62 ...

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You don’t have to consume the news 12 hours a day to know that the job market is terrible right now. Worse yet, labor market conditions are expected to remain toilsome for years to come. However, few economists expect the employment situation to show greater long-term deterioration.
But amid the fuss and lack of hiring, some small businesses may even have forgotten healthy hiring practices. Perhaps they stumble upon some capital that allows them to hire ...

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Where do entrepreneurs come from? How you can one identify them? Can it be taught? Is it an experiential learning process or is it didactic? Few people can answer these questions with any kind of accuracy, and those with the right kind of wisdom understand that the reality of entrepreneurship is more complicated than a matter of psychology, upbringing or demographics.
Sure, those components contribute to the creation of entrepreneurs, but the essence of the world’s ...

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Unless your business is franchised, you’re a member of a community. Retailers, restaurants, neighborhood banks, insurance firms, auto mechanics – all local businesses have a role in serving and employing the community, and their efforts to maintain a relationship with it is not merely a marketing imperative, but an ethical one too.
Here are four basic tips for building a good relationship with the community.
1.) Don’t view your customers as demographics
That being said, market dynamics work ...

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In a down economy, entrepreneurial activity tends to flourish. Of course, startup success does not necessarily follow, but the lack of employment opportunities can incite out-of-work professionals to pursue their own venture as a means of returning to work.
The Kaufman Foundation reported earlier this year that startup activity has reached a 15-year high. It’s true that employment among these ventures has dwindled, but the mere surge in entrepreneurship warrants a rundown of the various expenses ...

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Remember when social media was little more than a phenomenon of college freshman and internet hipsters? Remember MySpace and Friendster? Remember when Facebook expanded its offering to high school students? The word “nostalgia” comes from the Greek terms for homesickness and pain.
While few savvy business marketers yearn for a return to those early inceptions of the medium, it’s fun to reminisce. More importantly, returning to those initial appeals can be illuminating in terms of market ...

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Entrepreneurs are like the rock stars of the business landscape. Okay, so that’s a bit much, but the glamour of films like The Social Network, the pop appeal of tech leaders like Steve Jobs and the business leanings of musicians such as Jay Z and Russell Simmons have pointed to a surge in entrepreneurial sensationalism. The result? Entrepreneurship is becoming hip.
Naturally, this would lead to a surge in startup activity. Over the past decade, there ...

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As companies continue to suffer from weak sales on both the consumer and business-to-business end, many owners and executives have grown frustrated, unsure how to proceed in such a hostile economic climate. While an adverse marketplace cannot be controlled on an individual level, business owners can take such circumstances to review some of their practices, the most important of which may be marketing.
In the broadest sense, marketing is what connects you to your sales prospects ...

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