Spanish Small Business Owners are Confident

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The other day I heard that Spanish small business owners are growing at an incredible rate.

Bank of America recently conducted a survey of Hispanic Business Owners… 394 of them to be exact. These were from all over the country.

It showed some remarkable and eye-opening statistics. And we all love statistics. Take a look at their confidence numbers:

Confidence Statistics

88% think that the Hispanic small business environment will get stronger over the next 10 years.

77% have plans to grow their businesses over the next 5 years.

71% have expectations of increased revenue this year. Almost 40% of them plan to hire and close to 30% plan to apply for expansion loans.

65% of them think that Hispanic small business owners have challenges that others don’t. However, most of them feel their culture has been an advantage.

60% see local economic growth over the next year or two and most of them think the national economy is moving in the right direction.

Pretty enlightening isn’t it? I love seeing those numbers. I’ve always felt that the Spanish community is under-served and under-estimated.

Now for some more enlightening statistics, which go hand-in-hand with my last article about Social Media.

Most Hispanic Small Business Owners utilize social media in a big way, including all digital business tools.

Digital Trends

93% use digital tools every day, like online banking. This is compared with a 74% national average, across all cultures in America.

76% use social media to help run their businesses, compared with only 41% national average. Most concentrate in three areas. (Marketing, Networking, and Communicating with Customers) Plus, over half of those polled used social media for hiring.

53% said that social media has been good for their business, much higher than the national average.

It’s no wonder that Google recognizes Hispanic Small Business owners as being more in tune with technology than many others.

Perhaps the business community should embrace this growing trend.

April 4, 2018 | Marketing Guru

Business Development Strategies

How to Use Twitter for Promoting Your Business

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When thinking of how to use Twitter for promoting your business, most people shy away from Twitter because they don’t understand it.

Twitter, quite simply, is a short message communication tool. It allows up to 140 characters only. The good part is that it will allow links to other web content. So, if you write an article, create a video, or take a great picture, you can promote it on Twitter.

You can develop a following by simply speaking your mind and following other people, who have similar interests.

Twitter is considered a micro-blog because the length of posts is so small.

The first step on how to use Twitter for promoting your business, is to sign up and create your profile. This is an important step because it’s the only way anyone else will know who you are and what you’re all about. Use your personal name if you are a professional. Use a business name if you don’t fit into the professional category or just want to promote your business instead.

It’s important to complete your profile. Take your time and do it right. Upload your images, logo, etc. Really flesh it out. You don’t want to scrimp on this step.

Now for the good part. Actually using Twitter for promoting your business.

First, you want to slowly begin to follow anyone you find that you’ve done business with, worked with, sold to, bought from, competed against, etc. I mean anyone you have any connection with at all. Follow them.

Then, start “tweeting”. Just send out a note or thought. Try to do this as often as you can, but make your tweets relevant. If you see something great, you can “re-tweet” it. Once you get familiar with all of this, you’re going to want to be more careful about what you tweet. Share something useful or interesting. Share a great recipe, comment on your recent visit to a sporting event, a product you tried, etc. Talk about something your business is doing, something you’re planning, something you just got finished doing. Things like:

“I just finished inventory and determined I have way too many cherry wood step ladders. These are going on sale this weekend (link)”

“That was an amazing basketball game. KU didn’t win, but the game was exciting”

“OMG I just tried the new garlic & herb brie from Central Market. You’ve got to try it!”

“Register for my free e-book about the best way to cook a great steak with our new pellet grill. (link)”

“How to Use Twitter for Promoting Your Business. See my new article (link)”

Mix it up. Don’t just talk about your business, that’s boring and nobody wants to only hear about you.

But at least 50% of the time, drive traffic to your site somehow. You can even write non-business articles on your site and promote those. People are….people. They like human interest stories and tips that help enrich their lives. Everyone has talents other than the business they’re in. So, talk about yours and share your wisdom with the world.

Now, an advanced move is to begin using hashtags. These are things like #usingtwitterforbusiness or #twitterforbusiness

There’s a really thorough article all about this at https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-twitter-for-business-and-marketing/

Take a look at what they have to teach and give it a shot.

I recommend making a task list as you read. That way you’ll hit all the main points.

Until next time, take care and God Bless.

April 3, 2018 | Marketing Guru

Business Development Strategies

Old School Business Promotion Ideas

Flyers, Coupons, Chamber of Commerce, Door to door, oh my!

So, I get it. We’re firmly in a digital age, but that doesn’t mean the old marketing methods don’t work. On the contrary, they work even better than ever because most people are too lazy to use them. Either most business owners won’t do the work required or they think new methods actually work better.

Don’t get me wrong, new digital marketing works if done right. But most people don’t know how or don’t think it takes as much work as it really does.

Old-school marketing methods have worked for centuries. And because many people are using email, social media, and web advertising, the old methods are hardly used anymore. However, let me ask you a question. Do you get tired of all the email in your inbox? Do you delete things just because you have too much to go through? Do you automatically hang up on robo-calls? If you answered yes, you aren’t alone.

Many consumers are so bombarded by email, social media ads, invasive pop up ads, and other digital advertising that they would welcome actually speaking to someone face to face once in a while.

So don’t abandon new methods, but make sure they are the right methods and add back some old-school marketing. Have high school kids pass out flyers in the neighborhood, attend Chamber of Commerce functions and get involved with your community, hire some people to canvas the area and promote your business, sponsor your local high school sports teams, and get to talking with people face to face again.

You’ll be glad you did.

March 8, 2018 | Marketing Guru

Business Development Strategies

Use Common Sense When Describing Your Business in Advertising

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Most people think they need to prepare crafty descriptions for their business, especially when preparing a script for radio or television ads. I will describe why this is not needed, a waste of time, and could even hurt how effective your ad could be.
These days people are very picky about advertising. I’m the first to make fun of ads I hear in the radio. Some of them really leave me rolling my eyes because the business owner tried so hard and that showed. But what also showed is that they are obviously stuck in the past with old tactics that don’t work anymore.
Using terms like, “folks”, “fast friendly service”, “quality materials”, “attention to detail”, “quality workmanship”, and “chuck in a truck” to describe your competitors should be used with caution or not at all.
Yes, using terms that you might use in a flyer or business description are taboo in radio advertising in particular. The reason radio is so touchy is that your audience can only base their opinions of your business upon what they hear. If your voice is annoying at all, you should hire a professional. And a marketing or sales expert should edit your script or come up with an original one from scratch.
People are wise to anything that sounds too good or blows away every competitor out there. Sure you’re proud of your business. But, even if you do blow away your competitors, you shouldn’t come right out and say that.
Instead, try being a bit humble and speak from the heart. Tell the story and endear people to you based on your heart. Consumers will put up with all kinds of bad service if they believe in your mission and how it affects you and your family. So promise good honest service and competitive prices, but let them know what you are trying to build and why. If you are building your company to hand off to your kids one day, then talk about that. If you are wanting to build your business to the point where you can support some other mission or charity, then talk about that. Give people something real to grasp.
I’m building TopLocal.org to benefit small business owners with my knowledge and experience. Lord knows I’ve been through the wringer and made plenty of mistakes. Perhaps I can help others with that knowledge and ways to circumvent problems that I had.
I’m also building TopLocal.org for retirement and to provide a good job for my son, nephew, and friends who are all great talent but who have all struggled for many years.
I’m building a platform where business owners can come together and have some fun promoting each other effortlessly.
That’s why I’m doing this. So why are you doing what you do?

March 7, 2018 | admin

Marketing 101

Using PowerPoint as a Marketing Design Tool

Did you realize that you could use PowerPoint as a design tool?

You can use PowerPoint to design flyers graphics email headers and really anything. It’s an amazing tool
and it’s easily to use. I think the main thing for me is that you can use it without any specialized knowledge. If you don’t know how to use Photoshop or illustrator or four in design or those kinds of programs you can use PowerPoint to design it just about everything.

Early in my marketing career I learned PowerPoint and before that Corel DRAW. Illustrator is difficult, it’s an Adobe program just like Photoshop, but Microsoft doesn’t really have a photo editor or illustrator program like Adobe does. So when I found out the PowerPoint can actually be manipulated to use as a design tool I was happy. For instance you can open a new PowerPoint presentation and design it to be portrait justified and then you can change the size from 7- 1/2 x 10 to 8- 1/2 x 11 and you can design a flyer right there on PowerPoint. Then you can save it as a PDF and upload it to any number of office supply houses or print shops like Staples. I’ve designed many flyers over the years and the easiest ones to design were from PowerPoint.

The best thing about PowerPoint as a design tool is that you can write text and change how the text looks. You can make it three dimensional, change the color, apply gradient, drop a shadow and many other tools that help your designs look professional. When designing your marketing piece you can create layers easily with PowerPoint. You simply right click on the element, and you can arrange it to go backward or forward in the layer order. And if you have transparent background PNG images layered, it can be a very powerful effect.

So next time you want to design something try PowerPoint I think you’ll find it to be easy tool and effective.

March 7, 2018 | admin

Business Development Strategies