How to Beat Your Competition: Lessons from “Eclipse the Wonder Horse”

I recently read the story of Eclipse, the horse described as the greatest racehorse of all time. Eclipse raced between 1769-1770 and was unbeaten in eighteen races. When Eclipse raced it was never a close finish.  He beat other horses by massive distances of one or two miles! It was this amazing ability that gave rise to the phrase “Eclipse first, the rest nowhere“. In your market are you beating your competition by miles like Eclipse or is the race to every new customer a close finish? Follow these three steps and you’ll ensure that it’s your small business first, your competition nowhere. 1. Pick Races You Can...

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Best Practices for Managing Virtual Employees

Coming out of this recession has been difficult for small businesses everywhere. While many companies have crumbled under the financial pressure, others turned to different options, such as outsourcing, to maintain regular business on a tight budget. One way to outsource your work is to hire virtual employees. Often times outsourced positions are cheaper than in house, which makes it a worthwhile option while the recession lingers on.  You can choose to hire someone yourself or work with a companysuch as those who provide HR outsourcing services. Regardless of your hiring process, make it worthwhile by utilizing these three...

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New Technology Makes Small the New Big in Business

In the past larger businesses have had access to all the best tools and resources and consumers have been faced with an impossible choice. Large companies can be faceless, disinterested, and difficult to deal with. However, they have traditionally been able to offer simple, easy solutions that smaller firms could not. From simple things like the ability to contact a firm 24 hours a day, or the ability of a company to take card payments, the big boys had it all. However, the bigger they come, the harder they fall. Fast Movers Small companies are now in the strongest position they have been for years. In some senses this is a bit of a...

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7 Tips to a Great Skype Interview

Thankfully, working from home has gotten easier because of the wonderful world of technology. We are able to perform job duties to our fullest without ever leaving home. Skype is becoming the fastest interview platform for many different companies because of simplicity and inexpensiveness. Whether you are conducting a Skype interview or on the interviewee end, here are 5 tips to consider before you log on next: Internet Connection: First and foremost, you want to make sure that your internet connection is fast and reliable. There is nothing like a choppy and dysfunctional Skype interview to really frustrate both ends of the interview....

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A Basic Overview of the AMT

One of the perennial tax issues that comes up is that of the alternative minimum tax, or the AMT. Originally, the AMT was instituted as a way to ensure that those with high incomes, and who might take advantage of excessive deductions, pay at minimum, what they should owe. However, in the intervening years since the introduction of the AMT, it has expanded somewhat. In some cases, those with what could be considered a middle class income, and those who might not actually have a large amount of personal deductions. How Does the AMT Work? Basically, the AMT works by requiring those affected to pay the difference in what they owe. You...

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Tie Employee Compensation to Firm-Wide Returns: 6 Steps

Pay bonuses based on your company's overall financial success, and get your employees pulling in the same direction. As a business owner or manager, one of the most difficult things to oversee is compensation and expectations at employee review time. Initially we at User Insight did the same thing most companies do: a review after an employee's first six months, with annual reviews every year after that. Along with the review usually came some type of bump in an employees' base pay. But as a consultancy, we have the added complexity of ebbs and flows in the amount of work we are servicing. Inevitably, employee review times would be fall...

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Master Face-To-Face Marketing: 15 Sources Of Event Management Intelligence

You may be organizing an in-house event, trade fair or seminar as part of your current Marketing Plan.  Some of you may be participating in a trade show or convention as an exhibitor, sponsor or partner in the months to come. If so, tap into some great advice on how to maximize your presence and effectiveness in these face-to-face marketing opportunities. Read on to pick up on some key event tools out there. WHY: Include Events in your Marketing Mix? They deliver something no online experience can quite match up to: real in-the-flesh face-to-face meetings and marketing opportunities. Events are multi...

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5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Pinterest for Business

If you have been on the fence about using Pinterest for your business, it's understandable. I know what you're thinking, "Oh man! Not another site I have to keep up with!" But if you were getting results out of using the network, wouldn't you want to give it a try? Here are my reasons why you should be using Pinterest for your business. 1. More Website Traffic Websites and blogs are reporting an increase in traffic to their sites once they started using Pinterest. As soon as I began using Pinterest for Idea Sprouts I began to get new traffic AND leads from the site. Since increased website traffic can also increase leads...

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Social media news: Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube

Tuesday was a busy day in the social media world. Here is a quick overview of what happened on Facebook, Google,Twitter and YouTube. Facebook Facebook released Facebook for WordPress. The new plugin allows bloggers to take their sites to the next social level with a wide range of features: Cross-posting to Facebook Timelines and Pages Customizable Like, Send and Subscribe buttons A Recommendations bar An Activity Feed Box A Comments Box with SEO support Open Graph Protocol integration Users can also choose to mention Facebook friends or Pages in their posts. Further, the plugin also works on mobile devices...

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