Promote your business, week of September 7, 2020 small business |
- Promote your business, week of September 7, 2020
- What marketing technique have you used that had surprising results?
- CRM/Marketing - Am I dreaming or is there an ultimate tool that can do all we want it to do?
- Help with stock management
- Is dropshipping a good way to start with e-commerce?
- Opening a business in US with no residency/citizenship
- What is your biggest question/problem you have regarding pitching your startup/giving presentations?
- Contracts and Liability Waivers
- Need advice on expanding hobby/TCG store into books, what should I know about running a tiny bookstore?
- Where To Find Ethical Dropshipping Suppliers?
- How to manage an email box with multiple people?
- Collecting and tracking Venmo for my SMB
- Courses on digital marketing
- Service Business - What to include in budget?
- Part-Time business ideas w/ up to 50k to invest?
- Hands on business start up ideas.
- Crazy/Unique Ways To Generate Traffic?
- E-commerce Facebook ad help!
- Endicia users, beware: Shipping records produced by DAZzle are not to be trusted!
- Website for small business or not?
- Has anyone used C2FO?
- How to get rid of overstock inventory fast?
- When did you start making profit?
- Anyone else having trouble...
- How Can You Manage to Keep Your Work-Life Organized?
| Promote your business, week of September 7, 2020 Posted: 06 Sep 2020 05:43 PM PDT Post business promotion messages here including special offers especially if you cater to small business. Note: To prevent your messages from being flagged by the autofilter, don't use shortened URLs. [link] [comments]  |
| What marketing technique have you used that had surprising results? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 01:20 PM PDT I was actually surprised by the number of clients I got when I was running my company through YouTube. [link] [comments]  |
| CRM/Marketing - Am I dreaming or is there an ultimate tool that can do all we want it to do? Posted: 07 Sep 2020 02:10 AM PDT Hi y'all Need some help before my head explode ;) Bear with me, as I try to explain all of this. We are a small, 3-man, coffee roasting company. We have a popular website, where people order coffee and we have both small and large companies (hotels, coffee shops, etc) as clients who order by phone or e-mail. We also have people contacting us via facebook/instagram and other channels. As we are growing, we see that we need better control of our clients and better tools to run our webshop, so a while ago I stated looking for a good solution where we could follow up our clients, both the ones that shop in our webshop and all of our other clients who order coffee by phone. Not to mention a system my sales person can use to add leads and follow up on these. So basically we need some sort of CRM system for that. We also do a lot of e-mail marketing and use the stats from the sales we do online to send out various e-mails based on previous purchases, etc. Today we use Drip for this. We also have a chat on our website and would love to have a chat robot. Not to mention that it would be create to have a meeting planner, where people could book a meeting with one of use via an online tool. On top of this, we would like to use our own domain as a sending domain and all of this has to support localization, so that it either supports Norwegian or all "client facing contact" is in Norwegian. Now, just googling CRM give me hundreds and hundreds of options and I have been trying our several tools lately. Hubspot looks like a good fit, but to activate all the tools we need, the cost is WAY more than we can afford (thousands of dollars per month). Zoho one has a lot of these tools, but my sales guy is VERY non-tech, so he has a hard time finding his way around all the different tools that Zoho offers. So, after reviewing at least 20 different products the last couple of weeks, I am realizing that there is probably not one single tool that will satisfy what we want. Looks like I have to find 2-3 tools to satisfy everything we need; Integration into Wordpress/Woocommerce These are the ones I've had a look at: HubSpot, ActiveCampaig, Klavyio, Pipedrive, SugarCRM, Salesflare, Salesforce, Keap, SuiteCRM, Zoho, Monday.com, Agile, GoSquared, Nimble (And probably a few more that I have forgotten So please share some real world experience of what you are using, either a single tool or the best combination of tools that you have found, because I really need some help to land a decision here ;) Thanks, T [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2020 04:00 AM PDT Hi everyone. I have a bit of a convoluted question, hoping someone can help me out or point me in the right direction. We sell coffee beans, but we only keep them for 2 weeks from their roast date. Thereafter, they go on sale at a discounted price. We have a supplier who only roasts once a week, on a Wednesday. We order from them on a Monday, and receive the stock the following Monday. The problem we have is estimating how much to order each week so that we not only have enough to fulfil current orders, but also have enough to fulfil some of the ones that come in before the next purchase order (buffer stock). Currently, we are more or less just estimating how much buffer to order to hold us over for the week, but this means that when we get it wrong, a customer can end up waiting more than a week for dispacth, depending on how soon after Monday morning they order (this is when we do the weekly order). If we over-order, we end up having to sell more than we'd like at a discount. So essentially we are trying to balance it between not making customers wait too long and not have to discount too much of it. I'm sorry if this is not clear, please let me know if I can clarify anything. Also, if this is not the sub for this kind of question, can anyone please point me toward a sub where it would be more appropriate. Thanks for reading [link] [comments]  |
| Is dropshipping a good way to start with e-commerce? Posted: 07 Sep 2020 03:30 AM PDT I've recently been thinking about starting with dropshipping, but the wide variety of mixed opinions on the subject has completely confused me. If done right, will it be a good way to make money so that I can move on to grander ideas? If not, what do you guys recommend is a good way to start earning money online, specifically when it comes to opening an online business? [link] [comments]  |
| Opening a business in US with no residency/citizenship Posted: 07 Sep 2020 03:06 AM PDT I'm from Iraq and work as a freelance online; but many times after I finish a commission the client struggles to find a method of sending the payment through since my bank account isn't recognized by many, and services like Paypal and Transferwise don't operate here, which often led them to just buy gift cards and send that. I'm now considering opening a small business elsewhere and connecting it to a bank account there, is this possible from where I live? I've looked into northwestern registered agent but not sure if they'll suffice. Thanks in advance [link] [comments]  |
| What is your biggest question/problem you have regarding pitching your startup/giving presentations? Posted: 07 Sep 2020 05:09 AM PDT Hello all of my fellow entrepreneurs! 🚀 I suck at many things. 💩 But one thing I think I can do pretty well is give compelling (award-winning, so it's on merit 😋) presentations/pitches. Hence, several of my entrepreneurial friends have asked me about tips & tricks about pitching their business/making investor or client presentations. I've recently started thinking about ways I could ensure as many impactful ideas as possible have a voice. But obviously, as you always "start with the problem", I've got to ask: What is your biggest question/problem you have regarding pitching your business/giving presentations? I'd love to give value by answering any questions or helping in any way possible (whilst cheekily using the questions you have as a bit of market research to see what things founders struggle the most with 😋). No lead capture or similar BS included. Pepper me with the most difficult, unsolvable questions you have! 😉 Hopefully, I can be of any help. Thanks! TLDR; the question is in the title, dude. ✌🏽 [link] [comments]  |
| Contracts and Liability Waivers Posted: 07 Sep 2020 12:20 AM PDT I am launching a few small businesses, one of them being a mobile activity program where participants will be doing different exercises. I've found release of liability waivers online but I'm wondering just how technical I need to get with it? Obviously legal trouble is not what anyone wants but do I need to hire a lawyer to help draft a document like this? Also, would this apply for writing labor contracts to have clients sign and agree to for once I start doing freelance developing? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2020 03:25 AM PDT Hello, I will try to explain my situation as thorough as possible. Currently I own a small local hobby store, mostly focused on Trading Card Games (MTG, YGO, CFV, PKM), Dungeons and Dragons "like" games and small sellection of boardgames and merch. I am in no way big, but I have solid local community supporting me and I also sell online of course (who doesnt). I also run small rental offer for the few tables I have in store, for the board games etc. Currently I am moving my store to a new location (due to trouble with my previous landlord) and I am thinking of expanding my inventory into books. Why books you might ask? There are few reasons for that. First of all I see an opportunity in it. We have a chain of stores in the country, that sells video games, scifi, fantasy and horror books. They are closing down, or rather they are getting purchased by different company and that company doesnt focus on the books. But the store in my city have a huge community that visits it for the books, people and atmosphere. A lot will change pretty soon in that regard and I see it as an opportunity to "claim" that community. Second of all, in my country books are in lowest tax category which helps in a way. Third of all, I have a bigger space that needs to be filled and of course I could go into inventory I am allready comfortable with but I have more than enough of that and I am looking to expand into new categories to draw in a few more similiary minded people. Fourth of all I am a book junky. But here comes the issue. As a book junky I consume every book I get my hands on. Whether its theoretical astrophysics, romance novel or an epic fantasy series. I would like to focus on specific niche which is Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics, Manga and Horror books because it goes well with my theme and a lot of my community also likes these kinds of books and naturaly the other community I was mentioning is into these as well. But the thing is I dont know how to sellect the books. Should I go for every new release? Or should I choose only some of them? I can stock up on most popular series of course but how to make the right choice in the rest? Any other advice you could give me going into the books? I can imagine that huge bookstores just goes for anything that gets released, but I cant imagine small bookstores doing the same. Also I would like to say that I allready did a research on the topic to some extent, I know the profit margins (I am okay with them) and I am aware that its no a type of inventory that moves fast (I am used to that). But the huge sellection kinda throws me off. I am also allways looking to expand into something new, so if you have any suggestions I would be happy to consider. Thanks in advance, R.P. [link] [comments]  |
| Where To Find Ethical Dropshipping Suppliers? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 06:16 PM PDT I've got the basics on dropshipping, but finding ethical suppliers has been one of the most difficult things ever. I even thought of starting with Aliexpress and Alibaba, but they're not reliable platforms since they allow some sketchy sellers in. Truth be told, I love many of the products mainly because of how esthetically pleasing they are. But the price has a lot to do with it as well, I could get more profit this way. That's why so many dropship store owners seek these two alternatives at first. My goal is to be ethical, so I really need to think carefully and source products that fit my brand's ideals. So, having this goal in mind:
The second option would be my preference but I haven't found one like that yet - I tried a few but they're still paid, as well as any supplier directory. Is there anyone here that has dealt with these kinds of things to inform me? [link] [comments]  |
| How to manage an email box with multiple people? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 01:45 PM PDT We have 1 customer service email box... however, it gets managed by several people. Extremely inefficient and hard to manage. Using a simple business outlook, we can have a manager go in and tag each email to a person but this is getting out of hand Is there a system you use? Or how do businesses go about this? [link] [comments]  |
| Collecting and tracking Venmo for my SMB Posted: 06 Sep 2020 08:45 AM PDT So I'm currently making around $1200 per month from my SMB/side hustle. My expenses are under $100 a month (mostly just shipping .. I make digital prints and upcycle clothes from fabric scraps and donations so my costs are quite low). I receive a good number of my payments via venmo, and have kind of been lumping everything into my personal account and budget tracking. Is this a bad idea? Is it possible to create a second Venmo account for my business? TYIA!! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Sep 2020 12:59 AM PDT For my small business, i want to learn more about digital marketing like social media IG, facebook, ads, algorithms, photography, editing etc In a professional and genuine manner, any decent online places to suggest? Reasonable price, and useful learning materials [link] [comments]  |
| Service Business - What to include in budget? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 06:41 PM PDT I'm starting a business that provides service mostly in peoples homes. Occasionally my vehicle will be used by myself for clients. I'm trying to create a budget and write up a business plan and my question is..When you are self employed and are selling a service, what counts for "costs"? I know obviously gas if it is used. But if I'm using my personal car and personal cell phone and already have internet and a computer at home, do these need to be factored in? I am not certain I will be purchasing a new car, cell phone, etc. for business needs. Although it is a possibility if it's deemed necessary. TIA! [link] [comments]  |
| Part-Time business ideas w/ up to 50k to invest? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 01:12 PM PDT Hopefully some of you can help me with this mental exercise I have for myself. So, I'm thinking of investing about 15 hours a week after work and/or some time over the weekends to invest in my future. I have a good but increasingly less secure job and want to supplement my income. I have up to 50k that I would invest in it and would be very happy if I can within a year make about $1,000/month. I am not handy or very exacting so I am not really into the usual suggestions as power washing or contractor-type disciplines. I am more of a thinker, not great with my hands. With that, are there any of you that have any ideas or have done something similar? I'm more middle aged and not a spring chicken and am looking for my next act. Thanks for any ideas! [link] [comments]  |
| Hands on business start up ideas. Posted: 06 Sep 2020 10:57 PM PDT I'm a skilled trades man, looking to start my own business in my hometown. I am a millwright/welder by trade, and I work about 6 months a year in my industry. Now, I'm looking to start up my own small business and I'm growing around for some ideas. I've considered painting/outside home restoration, masonry work and other ideas. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Crazy/Unique Ways To Generate Traffic? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 10:32 PM PDT I've just started a new website sharing the best referal schemes (basically showing people legitimate ways to make free money), and what I need is a large amount of traffic (uk spefically). I've had lots of businesses before, and have good knowledge of SEO and how to implement it. But with my previous businesses I've always been able to piggyback off another websites traffic (e.g etsy) so I've never had a business where I completely need to generate the traffic myself. So I'm open to any ideas... Ptc or whatever! The quality content is there, I just need the people! I'm also not selling a product, I just need people to click my links. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2020 08:32 PM PDT Hi there, I started Facebook ads for my clothing brand back in May. The initial setup was conversion based and a retargeting campaign. the traffic started picking up and got about 20 conversions from both campaigns. Towards the end of June, everything started slowing down so I tried tweaking the audience around to see if it helps but nothing changed. Then in July, I added new items to my collection and created similar campaigns (slight changes in the audience) and started to get conversions again. In August it stopped working again, tried everything but it won't pick up. Two main observations I had so far:
Anyone has any suggestions or alternative ways to drive traffic and conversions to my store? I also tried AdWords but no success so far. [link] [comments]  |
| Endicia users, beware: Shipping records produced by DAZzle are not to be trusted! Posted: 06 Sep 2020 08:24 PM PDT Endicia's DAZzle postage printing system has been a hot mess for years and I've got no shortage of gripes about it, but this one takes the cake and has some real legal implications. If you're shipping with Endicia, take heed. A month ago we shipped a package to Germany that's being held because of a supposedly incorrect address. A perfectly routine problem, and the first thing we always do is pull the shipping record (the "Customer Online Label Record" as it's titled on the form itself) to show exactly how it was shipped. Only I looked more carefully at it than usual and discovered that the information was pulled from at least two other records aside from the one requested. The address and customs description are correct, but the total customs value doesn't add up (one $50 item with a $190 total), and the customer's phone number is wrong. I did a little digging and discovered that the phone number came from the most recent piece of mail sent, and the customs value came from the most recent international shipment sent. Neither of those pieces of information existed in the system a month ago and could not have been on the real label. I've also verified that the XML log from the time of printing has the correct information. So if you're relying on Endicia instead of post office shipping records - don't. Take photos or something, but don't expect the shipping record to reflect what was actually printed. Hopefully this will get a quick fix, and I can't imagine that the USPS would be happy about one of their trusted postage vendors being so lax about records, but given the chaos in the USPS and the world in general right now it's probably a good idea to assume the worst and take steps to make sure you're covered. [link] [comments]  |
| Website for small business or not? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 05:27 AM PDT I few weeks ago I started doing pro bono digital consulting for small businesses to help during COVID. (https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/idfpai/any_local_shops_need_pro_bono/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) The most curious thing I've seen so far is that many folks don't have a website. Some use Facebook as their website. Some have google my business pages. Some don't. Made me curious... is it just the folks I'm working with or does the larger pool not necessarily have a website set up? Would love to understand your reasons if you fall into that camp. Also... feel free to just chime in and let me know what your digital "storefront" is. Curious if I'm missing something outside of web, google, fb, ig. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2020 08:41 AM PDT We are in the contract phase with a new client. They are a fortune 500 company. The terms are EOM + 90 days. The contract says "company shall apply a two (2%) discount to the invoice price if payment is made within ten (10) days of the receipt of the invoice by company. " My concern is that if they choose NOT to pay within 10 days then cash flow wise it becomes a problem for us to carry the cost for 90 days. This company is set up with C2FO. Has anyone used this service? What is it? How does it work? [link] [comments]  |
| How to get rid of overstock inventory fast? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 12:07 PM PDT So I have this huge problem right now and it sucks. It's my fault though, but this is teaching me a huge lesson and I will learn from it. I have a lot of inventory that's been sitting there for the longest and just taking up space which is... 1) just dead money sitting there and 2) it's taking up space for fresh new inventory that I can be selling faster. My store and garage at home is where its all at. A lot of the stuff I bought for $50-$65 and I've been listing it on OfferUp/Facebook marketplace for $40-$60, but a lot of people either don't show up or lowball me for like $20 and it's kind of annoying since I'm already losing money and have to deal with stuff like this. Any recommendations on how I can maybe sell it faster to make space and recover some money and room to invest in new merchandise. [link] [comments]  |
| When did you start making profit? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 08:03 AM PDT I started my small business of selling greeting cards on Shopify at the end of last year, but didn't really have time to put into it because i was working 50-60 hour work weeks for my job. I quit my job at the beginning of this year and when quarantine happened, all my job interviews I had lined up were put on hold, so I put all my time into growing my business and decided to start selling on Etsy since it's a lot easier to get noticed there first. In 5 months, I made over 500 sales and it's so exciting! I've now expanded to stickers, posters, and custom portraits. I have so many new products I want to add to the store in the next few months, but it is costing me a lot to order wholesale of multiple new products and in return, I have yet to really make a profit. My credit card is acquiring more debt than I'd like, but I'm telling myself you have to spend money to make money. Do any of you small business owners have advice in whether I should wait to order my new products until I sell more of what I already have in stock? Or should I continue ordering more stuff because I never know which product may be the one that sells so well that I start making a lot of profit? Would appreciate hearing your experiences/advice, thank you!! [Edit: Thanks for all your advice so far, I really appreciate it! Y'all have made me realize that I'm probably getting ahead of myself. I've been wanting to open a shop and share my creativity since I was young and now I think I'm just excited to make all the different products I wanted to, but I think I will slow down and focus on just growing and selling what I have now before adding more stuff to my shop. And yes, it's true that I don't have much savings to help me right now because the past few years I was diagnosed with some health issues that made keeping a job difficult so I wanted to try to turn this side thing I did for fun into a possible full-time business someday now that I have the time!] [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Sep 2020 06:02 PM PDT With Stamps.com? I'm just wondering if it's just me. I've been using it for months and recently I'm unable to print postage for shipping and I'm not sure what to do. It won't let me add funds. Is anyone else having trouble with this? [link] [comments]  |
| How Can You Manage to Keep Your Work-Life Organized? Posted: 06 Sep 2020 05:57 PM PDT As someone who does a lot for your small business, how do you keep all the aspects of the business organized? Do you write everything in a booklet, keep detailed sticky notes, have weekly to-do lists etc. I was wondering if you used analog methods or if you used a digital life management system and why. Are there any features of your current organization methods that you would like to see changed to help you keep your business growing? We are launching a life management/organization app that is designed to help small business owners keep track of all aspects of their business and was hoping that this information could help improve the tool! Thank you all so much! (By the way, if you're interested in learning more about our launch, you can go here: http://v2.iln.app/ ) [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from smallbusiness: Questions about starting, owning and growing a small business. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment