Weekly Roundup: What does and does not work marketing online

Matt About Business Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I've read and share them with you here.

These posts focus on small business solutions or resources online (or both!).

Enjoy!
Matt

Facebook for Business
Link: https://www.facebook.com/business
My Take: Facebook's online resource center for businesses - a great place to start or learn more about what you can do with Facebook!


7 Ways To Get Your Website Ready to Convert Traffic From Your Publicity Efforts Into Prospects and Clients
Link: http://www.helpmywebsitesell.com/website-publicity-conversions/
My Take: Hard-hitting advice to increase website conversions - turning visitors into customers.


Top 25 Websites Offering Small Business Help
Link: http://www.businesscreditblogger.com/2010/09/27/small-business-help/
My Take: Looking for information and resources for small business? This post is a great jumping-off point!


Google Study: PPC Ads Do NOT Cannibalize Your Organic Traffic
Link: http://searchengineland.com/google-study-ppc-ads-do-not-cannibalize-your-organic-traffic-86972
My Take: An interesting look at the question of paid vs. organic search and whether you need both.


18 Social Networks for Entrepreneurs
Link: http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2932-18-Social-Networks-for-Entrepreneurs
My Take: Some great sites for meeting and greeting online.


10 Must-Have Business Apps for 2011
Link: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220065
My Take: A solid list of tools for any business.


Making Sense of Facebook and Foursquare with a Business Perspective
Link: http://www.smcubedconsulting.com/2011/07/making-sense-of-facebook-and-foursquare/
My Take: Both sites can be used to market locally - learn how.


3 Daily Deal Sites For Entrepreneurs Offer Serious Business Savings
Link: http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/entrepreneurs/3-daily-deal-sites-for-entrepreneurs-offer-serious-business-savings/
My Take: Great sites and good deals - I've been loving AppSumo!


What Doesn't Work When Marketing Online
Link: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/entrepreneurs/2011/07/26/what-doesnt-work-when-marketing-online/
My Take: 9 online marketers answer the question, "What online marketing avenues have been the most ineffective for your business and why?"

LinkedIn Launches Button That Lets You Apply for Jobs
Link: http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/apply-with-linkedin/
My Take: Seems like this should have happened a long time ago...


Matt Mansfield is the Head Tour Guide at Matt About Business (http://www.mattaboutbusiness.com) where he helps entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 companies create strategies and tactics for managing and marketing their products and services both online and off.

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Wrap up July in the Brag Basket

The Brag Basket is our tradition of sharing. The basket is always free and open all weekend, this one July 29-31, 2011.

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing.

What can you do in the Brag Basket?
introduce yourself
share some great news from this week
congratulate a friend
laugh about something wonderful that you tried that failed
applaud for each other
Don't hold back because of that word, "brag." When you hold back, you hide your good news and accomplishments that might inspire others.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, or catch me on any social network.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Village Post Offices are New Old Idea

The US Postal Service is bringing back a very old idea in an attempt to keep afloat in very modern times. The USPS is studying more than 3,600 post office locations for possible closure. At the same time, it's looking to contract with about 2,500 small grocery and convenience stores to create "village post offices."

The new Village Post Office

Hopeton, Oklahoma 73746
Already slated for closure.

The Postal Service will be looking for these small stores to contract with, including groceries, pharmacies and other retailers. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe made the announcement, along with the closure study list, this week.

"Many of these general stores are hanging on for dear life out there," Donahoe said. "They can take the money we give them to pay the rent and pay the light bill. We think it's a real win-win proposal."

The contracted stores will be in charge of staffing and hours, and their services will be limited. For example, they are not expected to be able to provide certified mail or ship odd sized packages, CNN Money reported.

The original village Post Office
All of this reminds me of Haltom's store in Hopeton, Oklahoma. When I was a kid in the 1970's, Haltom's was the general store and post office. Everett Haltom was the grocer, and Leora was the postmaster. The current Hopeton Post Office is a modular building. It makes no sense as a stand-alone entity. It has already been marked for closure, even before this week's announcement. Hopeton doesn't have a store anymore, but we do have a bank, and I would give real money for them to put a "village post office" in there.

A small town business opportunity?
Can small town retailers make a Village Post Office into a profitable sideline? It would take a certain minimum of traffic and population to make it work. There is no indication of how a business would go about volunteering. The process of Federal Government Contracting is never simple. If you're possibly interested, I recommend you find your state or regional government bid assistance or contracting assistance service to help you with the process.

Thanks to Miss Dazey for prompting me to write about this.

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People like cows

I don't know why it is that people like cows so much, but they do. And there is an important tourism lesson in that.

Stargardener had a great time
meeting my cows. 

Pam Mandel, Nerd's Eye View, spent July in Austria amongst a dairy herd. Her conclusion? She likes cows, even when confronted with the realities of life and death. Read about her thoughts in Goodnight, Ladies.

I've been posting more pictures of my cows to my Twitter and Google+. They consistently draw interest and reactions. When I shared the struggle for life of a new baby calf, I was inundated with people interested in him. People still ask about him, six months later.

I've had two friends drive for hours and hours to come for a visit recently. They've had a great time meeting my cows.

Something less than 2% of the US population is involved in production agriculture. Most people are 3-5 generations removed from the farm. That means fewer and fewer people grew up farming.

Translation: big opportunity for small towns.

Farming is different. Cows are interesting. Baby chicks are a marvel.

Visitors want to experience it, even for a little while. It's different, and it's fascinating.

Corollary: Stop trying to sell your small town like it's a big city. Be who you are. 

Small Town Tourism Action Item: Start planning your fall farm tour.

Heading out for a pasture tour. 

1. Get four or five local farmers, orchards, ranchers, you-picks, what-have-you, to allow visitors on a special weekend this fall.
2. Encourage them to plan special activities or fun that day.
3. Put together a driving tour to the locations. Make a mobile friendly online version at Google Maps, and a printed paper one to hand out. Put the QR code and the short URL on the paper brochure. 
4. Talk to your local or regional CVB (if that's not you). Ask them to help promote it.
5. Pitch it to the nearest metro news.
6. Do all the other things you know you need to do on an event. 
7. Report back. How did it go?

And make sure the visitors get a chance to see some cows. Because people love cows.

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Great Plains and Southeast regions leading in small business social media adoption

Could it be that the Great Plains is outpacing the West Coast in social media adoption by small and medium sized businesses? Yes, it is possible.

Zoomerang, the online survey people, did a survey of more than 500 small and medium business decision makers. The results were released June 15, 2011.

"Less-populated areas or cities with a strong small business presence are relying more and more on cost-effective mass-communication tools for business news, customer support and acquisition, as well as networking," said Alex Terry, General Manager of Zoomerang. "For people immersed in technology driven cultures, such as Silicon Valley, this data may come as a surprise, but I believe they can learn from less-technology enriched regions."

Translation: small town people can teach big city people a thing or two about building community online.

Most small businesses are not on social networks yet

• Nationally, 75 % of those surveyed said their business did not yet have "branded social media sites, like a company Facebook page or Twitter handle." 

Great Plains and Southest most active on social

• The regions with the highest percentage on social media were the Great Plains at 30% and Southeast at 28%. 
• Decision makers for businesses within the Great Plains (22%) and Southeast (28%) are also among the most active via social media on behalf of their company
• The New England/NY region showed the lowest percentage of social media adopters. 

Few have policies in place

• While 23% of small businesses nationally said their business is active on social media, only 15% said they have a social media policy for employees. 
• Another 14% said they were either in process or evaluating. I suspect that means a lot of people know they ought to have one, but don't want to admit they haven't done it yet. 
• Interestingly, 6% said they had fired an employee for misuse of social media. 

Resources

• Here's the press release: Social Media Adoption Among Small- and Mid-Sized Businesses Strongest in the Southeast and Great Plains. 
• And here's the infographic.

Conclusions

It's a small study, with results grouped into really big regions. So take it for what it's worth: something interesting to think about. 

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Learn from others in the Weekly Roundup

Matt About Business Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I've read and share them with you here.

These posts focus on either choosing, or using, small business solutions online (or both!).

Enjoy!

Matt Mansfield

View my affordable Small Business Search Engine Optimization Packages (SEO): http://bit.ly/kwn2ex

How to Tell Your Business Story: 5 Ways to Inspire Your Target Audience

Link: http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/2011/07/how-to-tell-your-business-story-5-ways-to-inspire-your-target-audience-to-do-business-with-you/
My Take: Storytelling is very powerful - here are 5 ways to tell your business story and inspire action.

10 Free Business Tools Too Valuable To Ignore

Link: http://www.openforum.com/articles/10-free-business-tools-too-valuable-to-ignore
My Take: I am a big fan of most of these (especially number 3, the best Twitter chat going IMHO), and was happy to discover the rest. Playing with Producteev right now...interesting tool.

5 and a half ways to ensure you never run out of content

Link: http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/07/21/5-and-a-half-ways-to-ensure-you-never-run-out-of-content/
My Take: A straightforward take on how to keep the content rolling.

Five Tips for Marketers From MTV's Study of Millennials' Digital Habits

Link: http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/marketing-tips-mtv-s-study-millennial-digital-habits/228811/
My Take: Very interesting insights about marketing online.

Your Website: What's It Saying?

Link: http://biznik.com/articles/your-website-whats-it-saying
My Take: Your website needs to let your brand shine through loud and clear.

How We Kept a Customer Service Screw-Up From Becoming a Nightmare

Link: http://www.bnet.com/blog/customer-relationship/how-we-kept-a-customer-service-screw-up-from-becoming-a-nightmare/722
My Take: One e-mail glitch almost destroyed this company. Learn how they handled the issue.

IndieGoGo Founder: Crowdfunding Tips For Entrepreneurs On The Hunt For Cash

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/slava-rubin/indiegogo-founder-crowdfu_b_903627.html
My Take: If you've ever thought of using an online funding solution (such as http://www.indiegogo.com/ or http://www.kickstarter.com/), here are some great tips for success.

The 3 Step Formula for Getting More Traffic 

Link: http://socialtriggers.com/more-blog-traffic/
My Take: This video teaches you to position yourself to differentiate your offerings and bring more traffic. It's short, but I took lots of notes.

Local Search A Multi-Site, Cross-Platform Affair — Report

Link: http://searchengineland.com/local-search-a-multi-site-cross-platform-affair-report-86530
My Take: As local search volume continues to boom, the options for businesses to reach searchers grows as well.

The Secret Language of Entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurese 101

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephanie-kaplan/the-secret-language-of-en_b_906073.html
My Take: Finally, something fun to wrap-up the list. Enjoy!

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A summer brag basket

The Brag Basket is our tradition of sharing. The basket is always free and open all weekend, this one July 22-24, 2011.

Summer basket from Elle-Epp on Flickr

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing.

What can you do in the Brag Basket?

• introduce yourself 
• share some great news from this week 
• congratulate a friend 
• laugh about something wonderful that you tried that failed 
• applaud for each other 

Don't hold back because of that word, "brag." When you hold back, you hide your good news and accomplishments that might inspire others.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, or catch me on any social network.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

SEO Basics for Tourism

A different kind of engine...

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of those things you hear about online. If you can just change a few magic things, your site will appear higher in the search results, you'll get more customers, and retire to Bermuda. Or something like that. The things that work in SEO are always changing, and it seems more like a dark art than a clear cut science.

So Sheila Scarborough and Andy Hayes, two tourism smarties, are doing a webinar on the tourism SEO basics. (I'm playing moderator.)

Tuesday, July 26, 2011. 2pm Central time.

What you can expect to learn:

• Keywords: the DNA of SEO
• Google Places: without it, you’re toast in local search
• Steps for updating your site to make it Google friendly
• Tricks that will help your site stand out
• Quality, ethical strategies for getting “backlinks” and maintaining momentum

There are daily steps you can be taking to rank higher. Find out more: Tourism SEO Basics: Gaining Traction and Getting Sales

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Take your social media marketing to a new level

You've experimented with social media. You've learned the tools. You know what you're doing now, and you're pretty comfortable. How can you take it to the next level?

A friend and I talked about this exact question this weekend, and I'm sharing the answer with you.

The Secret: Stop talking about you. Listen to them, and talk about what they want. 

Here's the four step process:

1. Define your customer. 
2. Find out what they want to know. Note: you probably need to ask them, rather than guess. And remember they are interested in themselves. 
3. Set up the keyword searches and subscriptions that will bring that info to you. 
4. Plan how you'll share that info through your all your channels: social media and networks, your paper communications and your paid advertising. 

Where do you fit in?   

Is there room to share your news, or important information from you? Sure! That fits in with the other stuff. Except now there will actually be customers listening and reading.

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You can't grow until you break one of the Four Ps

You have to break out of your existing limit in some dimension in order to grow. One way to look at your business limits is through the Four P's of Marketing.

(A little rusty? Get the refresher course at The Four P's of Marketing.)

Now break them

1. Draw four big circles on a piece of paper. Put one of the Four P's in each circle, and leave some room to make some notes. 
2. Now describe your business inside each circle. Let's start with, say, Place. Write down a word or two to describe how you currently target place. Is it your local area? A few towns? Have you defined towns of a certain size, or customers in cities of a certain size? 
3. How could you break out of that circle? Try to think of Place in a different way. Do you deliver? Do you work on-site? How much do you do online?  Do this with each circle. 

The exercise of defining what you do now, helps you to think about how you can change. And you have to change in order to grow. But now you have a big list of possibilities to pursue. 

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Using social media INSIDE your business in the weekly roundup

Matt About Business Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I've read and share them with you here.

These posts focus on either choosing, or using, small business solutions online (or both!).

Enjoy!
Matt Mansfield

If you need a website, consider getting a free consult with Matt: Think Outside the Browser because your website should do more than sit there and look pretty.
Want to Make Your Business Social? 10 Things You Can Start Doing Today
Link: http://socialmediatoday.com/satejaparulekar/314295/want-make-your-business-social-10-things-you-can-start-doing-today
My Take: Love this article with tips on using social media tools INSIDE your business!

Small Businesses That Understand Social Media
Link: http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/small-businesses-that-understand-social-media/
My Take: Real-world examples rock! Here are two inspirational stories to kick-start your social media efforts.

61 Google Plus Tips, Thoughts, and Requests
Link: http://www.bloggingbookshelf.com/marketing/google-plus-tips-requests/
My Take: A very thorough look at Google+ uses, tips and more.

How to Embed Twitter Testimonials on Your Website
Link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-embed-twitter-testimonials-on-your-website/
My Take: A how-to with step-by-step details.

The Linkedin Profile - Infographic
Link: http://blog.lab42.com/the-linkedin-profile
My Take: How are folks using their LinkedIn profiles? Find out with this infographic.

Save time by automating daily customer communications tasks
Link: http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/2011/05/save-more-time-by-automating-daily-customer-communications-tasks/
My Take: Communication is the key to engagement and automation is the key to communicating effectively to all of your customers.

How To Accept Credit Cards From Your Mobile Phone (Video)
Link: http://gearsofbiz.com/all/how-to-accept-credit-cards-from-your-mobile-phone/
My Take: Need to accept credit card payments while at client offices, art fairs or any other times you are on the road? Here is a step-by-step how-to video.

23 Ways to Leverage a Blog Post for Content for Marketing Success
Link: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/23-ways-to-leverage-a-blog-post-for-content-for-marketing-success-043227
My Take: Make the most of the content you create with these methods for repurposing a blog post.

5 Steps to Establishing Yourself as an Expert Online and Off
Link: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/07/establishing-yourself-as-expert.html
My Take: Establishing your authority as an expert is key - here's how.

5 Great Tools for Social Media Teams
Link: http://socialmediatoday.com/leo-widrich/318151/5-great-tools-social-media-people-working-teams
My Take: I'm always looking for better ways to manage my social media efforts; here are 5.

Free Consultation on Your Website

Link: http://www.mattaboutbusiness.com/products-and-services/think-outside-the-browser/

My Take: Your website should do more than sit there and look pretty.

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Inspire others in the Brag Basket

The Brag Basket has become our tradition of sharing. The basket is always free and open all weekend, this one July 15-17, 2011.

"Basket Mania"
by jmbmommy on Flickr

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing.

What can you do in the Brag Basket?

• introduce yourself 
• share some great news from this week 
• congratulate a friend 
• laugh about something wonderful that you tried that failed 
• applaud for each other 

Don't hold back because of that word, "brag." When you hold back, you hide your good news and accomplishments that might inspire others.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, or catch me on any social network.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Two business lessons about your customers

My nephew tries out Deb Brown's
Galaxy Tab. (It works with Flash.)

A story with two points. 

In New York City, I asked my nephew to use my iPad to find restaurants. As he clicked through to the restaurant websites, some rendered well on the iPad, some didn't. One site didn't come up at all, just a background color. We finally guessed it was an all-Flash website, incompatible with iPad.

And that brings us to Point Number One:

Businesses with Flash-based websites lose potential customers. 

When I tweeted about this, one person replied that we should have bought an Android-based tablet. "Should have" is not the issue. That's trying to reconfigure customers to suit yourself. Some of your customers did buy iPads. You have to adapt to suit them, or cut them out. Cutting out incompatible customers is a valid business decision. Just make sure that is what you mean to do.

And that brings us to Point Number Two:

"Our job is not to configure customers, it is to configure our business to serve customers."
Liz Strauss, at BlogWorld Expo 2009

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Community volunteers can help save rural businesses

The Whiting Cafe gets a makeover,
thanks to 100 community volunteers.
Photo from Kansas Sampler Foundation.

Community volunteers can make a big difference for small town businesses.

The first one I heard of was the Whiting Cafe Makeover orchestrated by the Kansas Sampler Foundation. One hundred volunteers descended on a tiny 25 year-old cafe for several days of much needed clean up and improvement. Read more about this in the Flyover People's report, More From Whiting Cafe Makeover.

And I just read about Fitch's Neighbors, at the Center for Rural Affairs. A group of 40 local volunteers helped update the grocery store inside and out. And they aren't finished. They plan to make this an ongoing project and are working on the inventory system next.

If you could round up 50 volunteers, what local business would you help out? How could you help them? What if you helped a different local business each year? And what is stopping you?

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Peek into competition websites with Compete

How much do you know about your competitor's website? Do they get more traffic than your site, or less? What keywords are sending them the most traffic?

Compete.com can give you the answers.

Put in three website addresses. Compete will give you their traffic chart. For websites with enough traffic, it will also give a list of top keywords. Good stuff, and all at no charge. Of course, if you'll sign up for a paid account,  you can get additional reports and features, including lists of sites that refer traffic to them.

Traffic graph from Compete.com

• Check into the competition. 
• Check out a website before you choose to advertise with them. 
• Gather ideas from websites in any industry. 
• Run a quick check on other businesses in town. 

It's a quick way to get an idea of the relative traffic of any two (or three) websites.

Get all the goodness at Compete.com.

How would you use it?

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Connect with your customers in the Weekly Roundup

Matt About Business Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I've read and share them with you here. These posts focus on either choosing, or using, small business solutions online (or both!).

Enjoy!

Matt Mansfield

If you need a website, consider getting a free consult with Matt: Think Outside the Browser because your website should do more than sit there and look pretty. 

How NOT to get Twitter followers
Link: http://www.stopthinksocial.com/blog/2011/7/3/how-not-to-get-twitter-followers.html
My Take: 10 actionable tips for becoming more "follow-able" on Twitter.

7 AdSense Strategies You Should Adopt
Link: http://blog.2createawebsite.com/2011/07/04/7-adsense-strategies-you-should-adopt/
My Take: Make the most of Google AdSense.

3 Easy Ways to Get More Twitter Followers
Link: http://www.smcubedconsulting.com/2011/07/3-easy-ways-to-get-more-twitter-followers/
My Take: Solid steps to take to build up your Twitter following.

To Whom It May Concern
Link: http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/2011/07/to-whom-it-may-concern/
My Take: There's no excuse not to personalize when engaging your customers, especially when the tools make it so easy!

How to Destroy Your Brand on Twitter
Link: http://www.bnet.com/photos/how-to-destroy-your-brand-on-twitter/6244643
My Take: Real-life lessons on how to fail on Twitter (click at the bottom of each post to see the next page).

How to Best Harness Inbound Marketing Leads
Link: http://www.inc.com/guides/201107/how-to-best-harness-inbound-marketing-leads.html
My Take: Inbound marketing is a great website strategy, but it only works if you handle the incoming traffic the right way.

The Power of Surveys
Link: http://www.pbsmartessentials.com/2011/07/the-power-of-surveys/
My Take: Surveys are great tools for learning more about your customers. This post discusses 5 options for conducting your own.

10 Helpful Title Tips From Top-Viewed Blog Posts
Link: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/19314/10-Helpful-Title-Tips-From-Top-Viewed-Blog-Posts.aspx
My Take: Links to a bunch of top 10 tip posts on a variety of useful small business topics.

How One Nasty Online Complaint Hurt My Business
Link: http://www.bnet.com/blog/smb/how-one-nasty-online-complaint-hurt-my-business/4942
My Take: Learn how to recover from a complaint or bad review.

Corporate Blogging: Build the Blog or The Blogger?
Link: http://outspokenmedia.com/blogging/corporate-blogging/
My Take: Useful insights into starting a blog for your business.

If you need a website, consider getting a free consult with Matt: Think Outside the Browser because your website should do more than sit there and look pretty.

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

You are welcome in the Brag Basket

The Brag Basket has become our tradition of sharing. The basket is always free and open all weekend, this one July 8-10, 2011.

Organized baskets by Smaku on Flickr

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing.

What can you do in the Brag Basket?

• introduce yourself
• share some great news from this week
• congratulate a friend
• laugh about something wonderful that you tried that failed
• applaud for each other

Don't hold back because of that word, "brag." When you hold back, you hide your good news and accomplishments that might inspire others.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.


New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Beware of Emails Claiming to Be From the IRS

The IRS is reporting that bogus email scams are resurfacing.

Of greatest concern now is one involving payments allegedly rejected by the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. The bogus email contains a link that may download malicious software.

Information on what to do if you receive a suspicious IRS-related communication is available on IRS.gov.
The IRS does not send emails to individual taxpayers concerning their personal income tax account. Also, the IRS will not send emails to any business taxpayer regarding employment tax returns nor any type of business tax.

Close your business or sell? A third option

Some businesses are hard to sell. In fact, more businesses simply close down than sell. *

I may have a third option for some businesses.

Friendly construction workers in Lima, Peru
(Apparently, I don't have a lot of
construction photos.)

I met a man who moved from the big city to a small town. As he went about building a business and life in the small town, he maintained his construction and remodeling business in the big city, commuting a few days a week. The income was still good, though the non-financial costs were getting too high. Most of his business came through the network of customers he had built up for 20 years. Many other good construction people in the city were short of work, so no one would be able to afford buying his business or even his customer list. He was thinking of just closing the business and walking away. I thought I saw a different solution.

The Solution
First, he needed to locate a small group of trusted people to take on jobs for him, in exchange for a finder's fee or a percentage. Then, as customers called him, he could accept the jobs and refer them out, while making sure customers understood who would be doing the work. He would still draw income from the business, without all the additional stress of commuting back to the big city every week.

Of course it won't last forever. Customers will drift away to work directly with the new trusted people. He'll see fewer and fewer jobs as he is no longer present in the city.

He found the idea promising, and went off to try it out. I thought you might like to hear the idea, improve on it, maybe share it with someone who needs a third option for exiting their business.

*Note: No one knows for sure how many businesses sell each year, but the SBA says over 600,000 US firms close each year.

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Convert more browsers into customers with the Weekly Roundup

Matt About Business Weekly Link Roundup

Each week, I collect the 10 best posts that I've read and share them with you here. These posts focus on either choosing, or using, small business solutions online (or both!).

Enjoy!
Matt Mansfield
If you need a website, consider getting a free consult with Matt: Think Outside the Browser because your website should do more than sit there and look pretty. 

SEO Checklist: 60 essential checks before launching a website
Link: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/seo-checklist-60-essential-checks-before-launching-a-website/
My Take: An extremely thorough guide to SEO in plain English chock-full of links to actions you can take whether you are launching a new site or want to touch-up the SEO on an existing one

7 New Ways to Improve Your Google Rankings
Link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/7-new-ways-to-improve-your-google-rankings/
My Take: Wanna' rank high in Google search? Learn how!

10 Little Known Factors that Affect Your Conversion Rate
Link: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/10-factors-conversion-rate/
My Take: Conversion is key and these 10 actionable tips can help you increase the rate on your website.

6 Ways to Instantly Improve Facebook Fan Engagement
Link: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/18550/6-Ways-to-Instantly-Improve-Facebook-Fan-Engagement.aspx
My Take: You can use these actionable tips on Facebook right away.

Pay It Forward—Use LinkedIn to Help Your Network
Link: http://www.ithinkbigger.com/web-columnists/amy-hoppenrath/item/2884-pay-it-forward%E2%80%94use-linkedin-to-help-your-network
My Take: Love this take on giving which builds social capital and is just plain good karma.

Jive: 53 Percent Of Execs Believe They Must Adopt Social Business Or Risk Falling Behind
Link: http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/29/jive-53-percent-of-execs-believe-they-must-adopt-social-business-or-risk-falling-behind/
My Take: Think social media is a passing trend? These business leaders don't think so...

Looking For Domain Name Ideas? Use These Tools.
Link: http://www.growmap.com/domain-name-ideas/
My Take: All the good domain names are taken? Get inspiration from these tools.

The Simple Anatomy of a Conversion-Optimized Blog
Link: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/18340/The-Simple-Anatomy-of-a-Conversion-Optimized-Blog.aspx
My Take: Some more blog conversion tips goodness!

5 Tools That Help Measure Your Social Media Influence
Link: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-tools-that-help-measure-your-social-media-influence/
My Take: Wondering how you're social media strategy is working? These tools can provide the insight you need.

Turn Commenters Into Newsletter Subscribers With 30 Seconds of Work
Link: http://live-your-love.com/commenters-into-newsletter-subscribers/
My Take: If your site is built on WordPress, you're gonna' LOVE this!

Cookie or no?
Link: http://holykaw.alltop.com/cookie-or-no-flowchart
My Take: And finally, an extra fun link for the holiday weekend.

If you need a website, consider getting a free consult with Matt: Think Outside the Browser because your website should do more than sit there and look pretty. 


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What you can put in the Brag Basket

Fireworks Basket o' Fun
by Linden Tea on Flickr

The Brag Basket has become our tradition of sharing. The basket is always free and open all weekend, this one July 1-4, 2011. (I'll spot you an extra day for the Fourth of July holiday in the US.)

Even though I call this the Brag Basket, it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. 

What can you do in the Brag Basket?

• introduce yourself 
• share some great news from this week
• congratulate a friend 
• laugh about something wonderful that you tried that failed 
• applaud for each other

Don't hold back because of that word, "brag." When you hold back, you hide your good news and accomplishments that might inspire others.

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on Facebook.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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