Wednesday Wisdom – 7 Ideas to Grow Your Business
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Life is a learning process. We learn from trying out things and adapting. The idea behind Wednesday Wisdom has always been to inspire you with articles from around the blogosphere to help inspire you to grow your business. I know some people find round up posts of use whilst others find no value in it. So in the spirit of trying something out, I’m going to try to make Wednesday Wisdom the go to place for ideas for business growth. Whether that’s books, videos, blog posts or articles.
You can contribute to this by adding your own ideas or thoughts of things that should be included in the comments section below. Either way, please do let us know what you find useful / inspiring and what you don’t.
If you’d like to read the articles from our previous Wednesday Wisdom posts you can do so by clicking the link.
Here’s what we’ve found this week, so sit back and grab a coffee and get ready to find something that will inspire you in your business
Blogs
- Last weekend was the Superbowl – I don’t know much about American football, but I know the Superbowl is a big event. One where companies spend millions of $’s creating epic advertisements to be played during the intervals. Susan Gunelius on Entrepreneur.com shares some memorable ads in What You Can Learn from Super Bowl Ads but more importantly some important takeaways for small businesses own marketing and advertising strategies.
- One of the fundamental mistakes that many entrepreneurs make is assuming that just because research tells you that people want your products or services, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to buy it. Here Problogger reminds us that we need to be Understanding the Difference Between “Want” and “Want to Buy”
- David Worrell writing on Allbusiness.com explains the steps that any entrepreneur should considers when conditions change and cash starts going out the door faster than it’s coming in 4 Rules to Cure a Cash Flow Crisis
- If your business has a website then there are certain things that your visitors have come to expect and therefore your site needs to include these things (such as ease of navigation etc), Lisa Barone on Small Business Trends lists the 6 Must-Haves for Your Small Business Website you should absolutely have.
- A great story by Stephanie Chandler about her ‘little brother’ and the lessons that she’s learned from him about why he’s successful – you can apply these easily too. Money Management Secrets from a Millionaire Entrepreneur
Video
Entrepreneurs by their very nature of creative people. They dream up solutions and seize opportunities. Quite often the biggest problem they face is not having too few ideas, but too many. In this 18m and 33s video – Seth Godin explains on the 99percent.com why we should spend more time on thrashing out ideas at the beginning rather than at the end of end of the process, so that products can ship on time and on budget.
Books
I’ve just finished reading Corey Perlman’s eBoot Camp: Proven Internet Marketing Techniques to Grow Your Business - I’ll be including a full in the next couple of weeks, but suffice to say, this book is going to be on the ‘recommended reading list’ for two types of people. Those who are starting out with a website and those who working with web designers. It explains the importance of keywords, headings and metatags and more importantly how to use them. Plus a whole host of techniques for maximising your online presence. One golden nugget of advice is that even if you’re using a web designer don’t leave SEO to them. Make sure you tell them what keywords you want to use. [Amazon US version]
At the moment, I’m spending a lot of time driving so as well as listening to Podcasts I’ve been listening to Audiobooks, next week I’m going to be listening to Tony Hsieh’s Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. Business Plus on the recommendation by a number of people including my good friend Chris Ducker over at Virtual Business Lifestyle.com. I’m going to download mine from Audible.com and you can get one for yourself for only $7.49 by clicking the link below. Or purchase the book directly fromAmazon.com
Please do tell us what you think in the comments section below and what you’ve found useful yourself this week.
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My name is Matthew Needham and I'm a full time interim manager and consultant. I work with businesses large and small to help them grow their businesses, save money or improve their business processes.
I'm an entrepreneur, accountant and blogger. You can read more about me, or The Big Red Tomato Company on the 
Hey Matthew:
As usual you have posted some great resources.
I especially liked the Seth Godin video. I sometimes have the lizard brain. Resistance can be so hard to overcome, at least for me anyway.
- Rick
Rick Byrd´s last [type] ..My New Facebook Fan Page – Have A Look
Matthew Needham Reply:
February 14th, 2011 at 10:33 am
Hi Rick, thanks for the comment! I too have the lizard brain at times. I think Seth dishes out some sage advice. Do all your thinking at the begining. I’m currently in the process of writing a book. I think the actual writing bit will be fairly straightforward, but the hard work will be in figuring out who the customer will be and how the book can be of most use to them, which I think is a perfect illustration of Seth’s point. It’s much easier to thrash out at the begining. It’s only mindmaps and conference calls. But down the line it will involve time and money, both rare commodities! Thanks again, Matthew