KAREN MISHRA:Don't Wait for a Crisis to Put Your 'Crisis PR' Plan in Place

Public relations is something that anyone running a business should always keep top of mind. Case in point: A wonderful business trip I took to Puerto Rico last week was tarnished by a disastrous experience with American Airlines.

The problem occurred with my return flight: Apparently, the airline was having computer issues but failed to communicate these issues openly and honestly with those of us in Puerto Rico waiting to fly to Miami. As a result, I arrived home 12 hours late, exhausted and more than a little peeved about my customer experience.

Here are a few things that you can learn from my experience so that you don’t make the same mistakes when an unexpected crisis happens to your business. There are many steps to a thorough "crisis PR" plan, but here are a few you can work on today.

DAVID CICCARELLI: The Importance of Product, Process and People

If you had to pick three areas that have yielded the greatest return on investment of your time and money, without a doubt they'd be your product, process and people. Here's why. 

1. Product
All the advertising dollars in the world won't help a bad product, and you need to be confident that your product delivers on its brand promise. You know what that is -- it's what you tell your customers your product is going to do for them. Does it deliver on the brand promise consistently?  

DA Y 7: 10 SMALL BUSINESSES YOU CAN START WITH 100,000 NAIRA ONLY

Now Day 7 looks at herbal products as the world has come full circle to where it all started and the industry is growing rapidly as they proffer solutions to issues that Western medicine cannot resolve.
 A lot of buying and selling is going on right now on the internet and therefore you don’t need a shop or even a website; you need to be disciplined though and reach out to people you already know and then go on from there. We would give you examples of what you can sell, where to find them and how to sell them!

BRENTON HAYDEN: 3 Ways to Develop a Business Success Barometer

Studies show a direct correlation between goal-setting and success, and it’s easy enough to see why. Having goals gives you purpose and a sense of direction. Goals put you in the driver’s seat, allowing you to take control of your business and your future success.

But like all good things, goals that are too vague can be tricky to measure. This is unfortunate, because an objective that can’t be measured, or quantified in some way, is little more than wishful thinking -- no matter how noble it may be.

ZACH CUTLER: To Recruit 'A' Players, Try This 5-Step Method

When I started Cutler PR six years ago, focusing on client success and perfecting the craft were at the forefront of my mind. Now, as we’ve grown to become a global company with clients and staff throughout the world, and as we continue to hire, focusing on onboarding “A players” has shifted to the forefront of my responsibilities.

Having or lacking great talent will determine whether a company continues to grow and succeed.

DANIEL ALLY:The 1 Question That Made Me a Millionaire

Every day, my inbox is filled with requests from my readers and audience members about what I did to become a millionaire.

My answer often surprises them. 

Let me put it this way: Earning $1 million in a year takes the same effort that earning $10,000 per year takes. However, the difference is not in the effort which you put forth, but in what you think about your efforts.

I've had dozens of jobs before I learned the secret formula of obtaining wealth. In fact, I remember one job at a car-manufacturing factory where I had the displeasure of waking up 3 am to walk a dozens miles per day as I traversed stray items to it's proper location. It was menial, but even worse, degrading. 

DAN ANTONELLI:20 Years,20 Tips for Building a Healthy Business

Twenty years ago, I officially registered my business, opened a business checking account and started my company. I had all the passion and enthusiasm many new entrepreneurs have, but like most, I didn't have a clue what lay ahead.

I clearly remember how many people told me my business was a huge mistake. The idea I had, to work with small businesses on their advertising, would never succeed, these naysayers opined.

But I didn't listen. Instead, I gave up the secure day job I had and chose to follow my passion. I worked 'round the clock out of my humble basement-home office, and despite being incredibly green and naive about what it takes to run a business, I made it work.

RUAIRI GALAVAN: 10 Tips to Make Your Customer Support More, Well, Personal

Business should be personal, even when it's conducted online. So, when you offer support, don't treat queries as mere "tickets"; that's just wrong. Customers should never feel like a number in a long list. Instead, they should feel as if they're involved in a one-on-one conversation.

This means that your customer support staff will have to respond quickly, personally and pro-actively, even though these actions may feel difficult for your company. Here are some tips to help.

ROBERT WALLACE:4 Elements of Brand Stories That Inspire Customer Loyalty

There’s nothing more memorable than a good story. From the Odyssey to Superman to Harry Potter, everyone relates to the hero who is dealt challenges and uses his wits, talent and resources to prevail in the end. Storytelling has been used to inform, entertain and connect us to something or someone since the beginning of our existence.

Only storytelling and narrative structure are powerful enough to create loyal, raving fans who share your story with their networks. Let’s face it: There is most likely another company out there doing what you do or very close to it. They address the same problem for customers, have similar resources and, heck, they may have even beaten you to market.

Day 5: small businesses you can start with 100,000 Naira only

 Now Day 5 considers Books, most Nigerians are now aware of the importance of reading non academic books to broaden their horizons and more importantly some books that can change people’s life. I did an article a while ago looking at Top 100 Books that Change the World, I may bring back the serialization in future. Motivational books and autobiography can be an inspiration to both young and old, so this genre would sell quicker if you choose to go for it. Amazon built a fortune selling just books before they diversified! 

DAY 4: 10 small businesses you can start with 100,000 Naira only

Now Day 4 considers mobile phones (new and used). Nigerians are one of the most sophisticated consumer in Africa and you can find on our streets the latest mobile phones and gadgets! 
A lot of buying and selling is going on right now on the internet and therefore you don’t need a shop or even a website; you need to be disciplined though and reach out to people you already know and then go on from there. We would give you examples of what you can sell, where to find them and how to sell them!

DAY 3: 10 small businesses you can start with 1000,000 Naira only

Now Day 3 considers products that are not necessity in its real sense but it is difficult to find original of it in Nigeria. There are so many imitation products that if you sell the original you may quickly build your reputation and increase your customer base. 

A lot of buying and selling is going on right now on the internet and therefore you don’t need a shop or even a website; you need to be disciplined though and reach out to people you already know and then go on from there. We would give you examples of what you can sell, where to find them and how to sell them!

DAY 2:10 small businesses you can start with 100,000 Naira only

 

Now Day 2 goes straight into how to decide what business to start. You must have passion for whatever you want to do so in your decision pick out of the 10 businesses we are showcasing or pick something else that motivates you, we are here to support your dream. Identify the need you want to satisfy, preferably a product or service required by a lot of people. 

A lot of buying and selling is going on right now on the internet and therefore you don't need a shop or even a website; you need to be disciplined though and reach out to people you already know and then go on from there. We would give you examples of what you can sell, where to find them and how to sell them!

10 small businesses you can start with 100,000 Naira only

Most of the big businesses around today started very small, the owners had a big dream but little resources so they started with what they had and grew it from there; a few examples are Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Dangote etc.  When you have decided to start you can easily build the momentum to propel you to greatness if you don’t allow other people’s opinion to derail your dream.
A lot of buying and selling is going on right now on the internet and therefore you don’t need a shop or even a website; you need to be disciplined though and reach out to people you already know and then go on from there. We would give you examples of what you can sell, where to find them and how to sell them!

Volvo's all-electric car will arrive in 2019

Volvo says it will put an all-electric car on sale by 2019.

That goal is part of a larger strategy to grow the number of plug-in cars in its lineup over the next few years.

In an announcement of this new strategy, Volvo said it expects electrified vehicles to account for up to 10 percent of sales "in the medium term."

The Swedish carmaker did not provide any details on it's planned electric car. They'll presumably trickle out over the next four years or so.

BUBBA PAGE: 3 Reasons Why The Customer Is Always Right...Is Wrong

You've probably heard it a thousand times: "the customer is always right."

Wrong.

Sometimes, the customer is right. Often, the attitude that the customer is always right drives away good business as your company focuses on satisfying those who cannot be satisfied, or focuses on creating short term satisfaction over long term customer loyalty.

Let's look at where exactly "the customer is always right" breaks down, and what you can do about it.

How to Inspire Innovation Among Employees

Keeping up with competition means being able to innovate almost 24/7. That can be taxing on your employees who are already working hard to complete current tasks and keep up with the flow of business. 

One thing you can do to streamline creativity is to make sure important business data is organized in one place, such as cloud-based business management software, so that you can access the information you need when it’s needed. Having your processes in place will free up time and allow you to be a leader who helps inspire your team for productive breakthroughs. Here are some more ways to inspire innovation among your hard-working employees.

SHERRIE CAMPBELL: 7 Powerful Tools for Reinventing You and Your Business

If you’re in a rut or things aren’t progressing as quickly as you would like, it is time to make changes. Change means reinvention. We all have the opportunity in life at any moment to reinvent ourselves. Each time a major shift in life -- starting a new job, moving or losing a relationship -- is a chance we have to take our power back, start over and begin a fresh chapter.

We must take back our control back to ever reach our full potential. However, the most successful entrepreneurs don’t wait for life traumas for inspiration. They see every day as a day for reinvention and using their power to its fullest.

SUSAN SOLOVIC: What Your Small Business Can Learn From 60 Years of Disneyland

Disneyland is celebrating its 60^th anniversary this year. This kind of staying power is rare today. I’m certain that you probably know several amusement parks that have opened and closed over the course of your life.

Yet, as anyone who has waited an hour or more in the Pirates of the Caribbean line knows, the popularity of Disneyland is as strong as ever. This is despite shifting demographics, the rise of video games and all the other societal changes that have sunk so many other businesses.

MARK DAOUST: How I Manage 5 Kids and a Growing Business

There are people in the world who say you can be either a business owner or a parent, but not both. My response is: It’s completely possible to be both, and I can say this confidently because I’m a card-carrying member of the multi-child entrepreneur club.

It's true: My wife and I have five kids (one girl and four boys!), so life in our household gets a bit chaotic. Throw in the fact that we home-school our kids and that I run a thriving eight-year-old business, and you can see that we juggle quite a lot of balls at once. But I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

JEFF BOSS: Find Your Niche in 60 Minutes or Less With These 4 Question

Creating a value proposition that investors and customers are likely to buy into isn’t easy. After all, you need to distinguish your brand from the thousands of other startups competing against you every day.

With consumers today being equipped with more knowledge than ever before, your ability to not only create but innovate will be tested constantly. This sort of demand is a lot to ask of one’s willpower. It takes strong personal leadership to stand by your purpose and passion while also being questioned on a daily basis. However, if you know your motivations and what you stand for, willpower doesn't even have to enter into the equation.  

BRANDON EPSTEIN: The Entrepreneurial Time Machine

Do you believe in time travel?

I do..

Though I’ve not fully figured it out – I can say definitively that it is

 possible to distort time. With practice you can both slow down and

 speed up time.

This is possible, because time is a product of your perception.

If you put your head down and only focus on your work without

 any other distractions for this next year I guarantee that is going 

to be one of the fastest or shortest years of your life depending on 

how you go about focusing.

SUJAN PATEL: The 6 Musts of a Successful Holiday Marketing Campaign

The holidays waiting right around the corner. Holidays are a perfect time to connect with your prospects and celebrate those feelings of camaraderie, gratitude and interconnectedness. Marketers can leverage these feelings to deeply engage with their customers on an emotional level and build trust and credibility.

The holidays are a popular time to market, so it’s important to put a lot of thought into your holiday marketing campaign. You want to appeal to everyday emotions while also standing out from the crowd. There’s a lot of spending that occurs during the holidays -- the trick is to get your customers to spend with you and not your competitors. Here are six musts of a successful holiday marketing campaign:

JAYSON DEMERS: 10 Things That Stress Out Entrepreneurs More Than Anything

Entrepreneurship is a stressful role for anybody. You’ll be in charge of leading people, making decisions, and determining the fate of your business with your actions -- and to top it all off, you'll probably have a significant chunk of your personal savings invested in the project. All those stressful little situations you ran into as an employee seem far less important when you’re in charge of your own business; and at the same time, your perspectives on what constitutes a “challenge” or a “concern” will shift.

These 10 situations stress out entrepreneurs more than anything else:

JAMES KERR: 5 Easy Steps to Grow Your Business

For many leaders, it is a constant struggle to define ways to grow a business. Consequently, many senior leaders further complicate matters by over-thinking and over-engineering their growth strategies. It doesn't have to be that way!

Here are 5 easy steps to follow to grow your business:

MORAG BARRETT: 6 Tips for Taking Back Control and Performing Better

There is a pervasive myth surrounding entrepreneurs, one I am sure you can relate to. It goes something like this: “Oh, how wonderful! I’d love to run my own business. All that flexibility and control over my own schedule! I’d be able to spend time doing X, Y and Z.”

And therein lies the myth of running your own business.

Sure, it may give me the flexibility to work at 10 p.m. or 6 a.m. (always the former. . . I don’t do early mornings). It may enable me to avoid rush-hour commutes for meetings with clients. I don't have to travel so much, or work on weekends.

ADAM CALLINAN:5 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Invest In

We all know what the term "investment" represents: it typically revolves around taking an amount of money and buying bonds or shares of an index fund or a public or private company. But there are a number of time investments that every entrepreneur should make that, although they won’t put out an annual percent-based rate of return, will produce both personal and professional returns that will go well beyond the public financial markets.

Most of these concepts will seem fairly straightforward, but the reality is, many entrepreneurs -- particularly first timers -- will overlook them while burying their noses in 16-hour workdays with few breaks. It’s hard to express how mentally and physically unhealthy this can be, particularly if done over periods of weeks, months or years.

Let’s take a look at five easy opportunities to invest time in your health and your sanity, which will no doubt have a tremendous affect on your business.

3 Marketing Mistakes Business Makes That Hurt the Brand

When changes occur in your industry or your customer base evolves, is your business nimble enough to reflect those changes in your marketing campaigns? More importantly, 
can you maintain the trust of existing customers and build trust among prospective customers without damaging your brand?

For many businesses, problems occur when their marketing strategy veers from what their brand stands for. This creates confusion in the minds of the target audience, threatening the brand’s most valuable components — its inherent integrity and how it differentiates itself from the competition.

Large companies often have entire departments dedicated to maintaining a cohesive, integrated approach to brand building and marketing campaigns. But smaller businesses with fewer resources must pay special attention to designing and executing marketing campaigns that stay consistent with their brand.

Typical branding and marketing errors include:

JASON LUCASH: 3 Ways to Keep Company Morale Up During High Turnover

At one point or another, almost every company – Google-esque in size or Joe’s accounting firm headquartered in his mother’s basement – goes through a period of high turnover.  Turnover is an even more prevalent plague to the startup world, especially during a company’s infancy.  In order to retain valuable employees and lure in top-notch talent, you need to be able to beat the negative juju that departures may bring to the work environment. 

Here are a few budget-friendly ways to keep your employees happy and engaged even when the tides are tough.

LARRY ALTON:These 5 Mistakes Make Meetings a Huge Time Waste

Meetings can be some of the most rewarding, collaborative parts of your workday. They can also be some of the biggest wastes of time. As an entrepreneur, you’ll be deciding when to have meetings (and you’ll be directing them), so it’s on you to make sure each meeting is as smooth and productive as possible. Considering that one bad meeting could waste dozens of hours in cumulative time, you might be tempted to throw meetings out altogether, but don’t forget that meetings can be valuable opportunities to learn, brainstorm, solve problems, and reconnect as a group.

The key is to avoid these five major meeting mistakes, which prevent a meeting from achieving its potential as a collaborative unifier:

TARA-NICHOLLE NELSON: What Leaders Can Learn From Black Churches About Keeping Team Members Engaged

I grew up attending all-black, Baptist churches. But, then one Sunday, I found myself visiting a nearly all-white Presbyterian church in downtown Berkeley. It was a large congregation, with hundreds in attendance and a woman minister I greatly enjoyed. But it was so quiet in there.

I couldn't help comparing this church with the rollicking, regular church experiences of my youth. When prayer ended, I even said “amen!” out loud. Well, heads turned. Many heads turned.

After church, a number of people spotted me as a visitor and stopped by to shake my hand, say hello and deliver various other warm welcomes. I mentioned my voluble amen-faux-pas to one woman and she joked, “I know! It’s so quiet in here that my kids call us ‘the frozen chosen.’”

Facebook is launching a satellite to expand Internet access in Africa

Facebook Inc said it would launch a satellite in partnership with France's Eutelsat Communications to bring Internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

The satellite, part of Facebook's Internet.org platform to expand internet access mainly via mobile phones, is under construction and will be launched in 2016, the companies said on Monday.

SUSAN MATTHEWS APGOOD: 5 Ways to Pump Your Business into the Media

When starting a business, many people think their product or service is so good that the media will flock to them offering coverage. That is rarely the case; coverage is something you have to earn. And to do that, you should keep a few simple ideas in mind, regardless of whether your business is two weeks or two decades old.

LISA EVANS: Managing a Business While Navigating a Personal Crisis

It isn’t often that I bring my personal life into my work, but recently I’ve come face to face with a battle that many entrepreneurs will have to face at some point in their businesses – my husband was diagnosed with cancer, something which has not only turned my personal life upside down, but has caused me to have to re-evaluate my business as well. Whether dealing with a health crisis, a divorce or a death in the family, personal crises can derail a business if not handled effectively.  

Several entrepreneurs shared their advice on how they continued to run their businesses in the midst of personal crises:

10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! Here's the tech news you need to know to end your week.
1. Snapchat is on track to generate $100 million (£66 million) in revenue over the next 12 months. The mobile messaging company is also ramping up its advertising efforts.

2. Crowdfunding site Patreon has been hacked. Motherboard reports the hack happened on September 28, and it looks like several gigabytes of internal data has now been released online.

3. Amazon plans to ban Apple and Google streaming devices from its site. Apple TV and Chromecast don't work with Amazon's video streaming service Amazon Prime, so it is going to remove them.

ELISE MITCHELL: 4 Steps to Taking Calculated Risks That Move Your Business Forward

Entrepreneurship and risk go hand in hand. Whether you’re launching your startup or expanding your service offerings, every venture brings the risk of failure. Yet only 17 percent of executives surveyed said their risk-evaluation procedures were working, and a staggering 70 percent said their companies had no such procedures in place.
Instead of taking each decision as it comes, formulate a deliberate risk-evaluation process from the get-go. Every opportunity should drive forward your company’s long-term vision, but there are a few principles that ensure you’re making smart moves when it comes to risk -- not blind leaps of faith.

How Smart Companies Get Employees to Brag About the Business

Your employees can provide the strongest, most passionate endorsements of your business -- if they’re engaged.
An astronomical 96 percent of employees who are engaged in their jobs try their hardest at work. If that many of your employees are giving it their all, day in and day out, your company will certainly go the distance. But tapping into that engagement is another story entirely. Here are the five most important strategies that will make your employees want to brag about your company: