Wednesday Wisdom is the go to place for ideas to help grow your business.  You can contribute to Wednesday Wisdom by adding your own thoughts, ideas or articles you’ve found,  which will help others grow their businesses, in the comments section below.

Please click on the link to read previous Wednesday Wisdom posts.

After a brief break due to some site upgrades last week, Wednesday Wisdom is back. So sit back and grab a coffee and get ready to find something that will seriously inspire you in growing your business.

Blogs

This last week the World’s news has been dominated by the terrible earthquake to strike Japan and the widespread after effects to peoples lives and businesses. How you’re able to deal with these events when they strike could mean the difference between whether your business can carry on or quite literally cease trading. This shocking event is a reminder that your business needs a business continuity plan and AllBusiness.com includes the the key features that you need to have in place to get your BCP up and running.

Neal from WealthPilgrim.com shares his  9 Tips For Owing a Successful Small Business.  Based on the 9 principles  that he’s learned from running his own successful small business and helped steer his business out of trouble.

Joshua Black over at the Underdog Millionaire describes 10 Ways to Bring More B2B customers to your small business which has some useful ideas to attract more clients. Point 3 is particularly worth repeating – people buy from people not organisations. Which is just as true in Business to Business as it is in Business to Consumer.

With all the talk of using social media to promote your business, it’s easy to forget about the traditional methods of promoting your business. StartupNation.com writer Wendy Kenny tells us what you need to know when advertising your business.

Video/Audio

David Siteman Garland over at The Rise To the Top is getting Married. Whilst he’s away he’s reposted some remixed interviews from his archieves. One particular interview that I thought was not only interesting but shared some really useful resources was his interview with Smallbiztrends.com founder and owner of BizSugar.com, Anita Campbell. Whilst you’re there you might also want to check out his interview with Dylan Lauren of Lauren’s Candy Bar Store who explains how she’s taken her New York in to a destination store that appeals to young and old alike.  A great example of turning your business into an experience.  In the interview she shares some great insights from her father Ralph who you might have heard of .

Andrew Warner over at Mixergy features an interview with Phil Laboom who has had his fair share of ups and downs in his career. Going from multi million $ incomes to $10 an hour and back again. This is a great story about persistence and seizing opportunities when they arise. Equally important, but mentioned less is knowing when to quit.

Reading

James Clear over at Passive Panda has put together a list of  50 free e-books on the subjects of working for yourself, marketing and promotion, outsourcing and productivity, freelancing, coaching and consulting and blogging social media. You can access the link by sharing his article on Facebook / Twitter (which is a great idea in itself) to make your stuff go viral.

I’ve just finished Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to Drive Your Career and Create a Remarkable Future by Seth Godin, which I downloaded from Audible and listened to it on my iPod (If you use the Audible link below you can buy it for $7.49). This is quite an inspiring read about how to be more valuable to your organisation and earn a good living as an “artist” (Godin defines an artist as someone who is a master at what they do which can’t be replicated easily by anyone else).

So, that’s what we’ve discovered this week, what about you? What stands out that is worth sharing?