Small Business Simplifier
Helping You Work More Productively, Profitably and Enjoyably
Once upon a time, my calendar was bursting at the seams. With four active children, a retail photography studio, activity in my church, and community volunteer work, my color-coded calendar looked like a rainbow threw up all over it. I was busy 24/7 and the word “relax” was not a part of my vocabulary. I …
Norbert Wiener penned his famous The Human Use of Human Beings almost 70 years ago. It was a fresh look at management and management theory and birthed the field of cybernetics, effectively introducing automation to management theory. Wiener was instrumental in looking at business coordination as a process integrating people and machines (cybernetics) to produce …
Businesses are designed to make money. For this reason, business owners and marketing managers are concerned about the return on investment they receive from their marketing campaigns. The better return a marketing campaign provides, the likelier it is that the company will grow and will have the sales it needs to reach the next level. …
So you’ve decided to add public speaking to your arsenal of tools to grow your business. This is a good choice as speaking can be a great way to grow your business. For more on that see my recent post Three Ways Speaking Can Grow Your Business. Learn the Art of Public Speaking But how …
Are you feeling stuck in your business marketing? Are you looking for a way to expand your reach without spending a fortune? Would you like to attract more potential customers and increase your authority? If the answer to these questions is yes, you should consider public speaking. Speaking on topics in your niche, whether to …
I went to Wall Drug last week. Wall Drug is a great big drug store in a tiny little town in the middle of South Dakota. Other than being the western entrance to Badlands National Park, there isn’t anything particularly distinguishing about Wall from any of the other hundreds of small towns we’ve passed by …
Last night I went to my local school district’s annual middle school honor band concert. My youngest daughter is a musician and earned the honor of second-chair flute this year. All of my children are musicians, but this one has a passion–and a talent–that well exceeds the other three combined. Since we had a musician …
Getting started in the world of blogging can be confusing. First you have to decide whether you want to be on Blogger or WordPress. Or you can choose one of the many other blogging platforms such as Tumblr, Typepad, Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace. Choosing a blog platform can be overwhelming. There are many blogging platforms …
Are you missing an important tool in the quest for search engine success? If you are using images in your blog (and you should be), they can help your blog’s search rankings. But if you aren’t making use of the Alternate Text box for each image, your images aren’t helping your site’s rankings. Using Alternate …
I have a Gmail account and use Gmail for all of my business mail. If we’ve emailed, you probably don’t realize this because my email address is marie at marieleslie.com. Gmail doesn’t show up anywhere in my emails unless I choose to send from my Gmail address. I’ve been through several email systems in the …
Is your email inbox like mine? If I don’t pay attention to mine on a regular basis (meaning every 12 minutes), it somehow seeks revenge and its contents multiply faster than the hangers in my closet. Since I don’t want to spend my day babysitting the inbox, I’ve developed a few strategies. They allow me …
