Marketplace Tuesday! - March 09, 2021 Entrepreneur |
- Marketplace Tuesday! - March 09, 2021
- How do I grow my side hustle into a real-world business?
- Square is ruining my business
- Want to sell to VPs and C-suite level? Find the ones who recently changed jobs.
- TOP 5 Strategies to Find More Than Just Your First Customers (step-by-step guide included)
- Has anyone made a living off of solely social media accounts? And if so at what amount of followers was it possible?
- Advice on hiring customer service support (phone/email)
- Have an idea to make me some extra cash at weekends. How do I go about finding customers?
- should i settle for .net until i can afford the .com for my new llc?
- Tool to help ecommerce entrepreneurs create personalized thank you videos for customers using AI
- Anyone interested in learning a new drop shipping method?
- After 2 years of grinding, we have finally launched on Product Hunt
- How Do I make a referral relationship and get b2b leads?
- The Top 3 Reasons No Business Owner Should EVER ignore their Accounting
- Interested in owning a Las Vegas tattoo studio?
- What are some actual things a teenager (16 year) can do outside the US?
- Student looking for work
- Where should I look to sell my business?
- Cheap media buyer to scale your business?
- What Small Business Can Learn From Elon Musk
- Advice needed
- Money is THE wrong metric of success.
- How to Find Content Ideas for Social Media
- Branding is not important.
| Marketplace Tuesday! - March 09, 2021 Posted: 09 Mar 2021 02:00 AM PST Please use this thread to post any Jobs that you're looking to fill (including interns), or services you're looking to render to other members. We do this to not overflow the main subreddit with personal offerings (such logo design, SEO, etc) so please try to limit the offerings to this weekly thread. Since this thread can fill up quickly, consider sorting the comments by "new" (instead of "best" or "top") to see the newest posts. [link] [comments]  |
| How do I grow my side hustle into a real-world business? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 08:01 AM PST TLDR: how do I accelerate growth? By day, I'm a developer at a major software company. By night, I'm an online marketer with several websites and services. When I just started, I was doing everything myself - content writing, editing, publishing, and promotion. I tried outsourcing content writing as it was the most time-consuming, but I quickly realized that finding a quality writer was incredibly difficult, VERY expensive, or many times both, so I thought that freelancers were going to water down my standards. Then, a friend told me that all outsourced work is always of lower quality. If I was going to turn my nose up at that, I would never scale and my hustle will die eventually because I'm burnt out. So, I decided to let it go and hire "good enough" writers, and lo and behold, the dip in sales was almost invisible. That was step one. I thought that was in a good position - 30% MoM growth, and the content quality was actually going up as I was training people up. I was outsourcing 80% and doing the crucial 20% myself. Or so I thought. But soon I realized that even those 20% were taking up all of my time. So, I started thinking of ways to outsource even more. I realized eventually that I had some things that I just wouldn't let go of, but I really could - all it takes is sitting down and doing an SOP with a screen recording and explicit steps. That was step two. This is where I am at. I am going through step two time and time again. Every time I go back to these two simple truths:
Right now, I have people doing many things I thought I would never outsource, and I have people double-checking the first people. Still, I sometimes sit down at the end of the week and realize that I spent almost my whole week doing something stupid like tweaking a landing page or tinkering with CSS. Something that takes an hour max. So I think to myself: I lost another week. Again I go back and ask myself: where am I being a bottleneck again? And I go back and delete myself from another less-than-critical process. I know many of you went down the same path. What was the next step? What was the next simple truth that will help the business grow? What is step three? Thanks. Hopefully, this is understandable and helpful to others like me. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2021 08:00 AM PST To make a long story short, a few months ago square allowed someone to log into our account and change the deposit information on a few of our individual stores to some random person unassociated with the company. It took us a few weeks to notice since everything is automated. Once we noticed we alerted Square and supposedly an investigation was opened. We were told we would get the money back, but that for the short term we needed to leave the accounts linked to this random person that was defrauding us for purposes of the investigation. They literally won't let us change them back to our normal accounts. This happened in December of 2020. It's now months later and nothing has changed. We call square. They refuse to discuss it unless they contact our account owner. They say they will call back. They don't. On the rare occasion that we do speak with someone, nothing is accomplished. We've seen no movement on this issue for months. They are now holding hundreds of thousands of dollars of ours, and we are unable to get any answer whatsoever on when we can get it back. In fact, they won't even give us anything in writing regarding the entire situation. We are at a loss for what to do. Covid nearly took us out, and then once we finally got things going well this happened. There's no end in sight, and we're afraid that if we switch processors we'll never see any of this money again. Hiring an attorney seems like the move at this point, but that's going to tie things up for years if they decide it makes sense to just let it play out. I'm considering booking a flight to San Fransisco and sitting in their lobby until someone can tell me whats going on. But I feel like they won't even let me in the lobby though with covid regulations. -- To top it off I was just transferred around for 30 minutes by square on the phone while writing this. The call then disconnected. Again. [link] [comments]  |
| Want to sell to VPs and C-suite level? Find the ones who recently changed jobs. Posted: 09 Mar 2021 09:51 AM PST Especially because I'm running a B2B Enterprise SaaS, more than 50% of the potential customers I started a conversation with were in a c-suite position (thus, have high decision-making power on their companies). Usually, the problem is that people in these positions are extremely difficult to start a conversation on cold outreach... Unless you know who to reach out to and when to reach out. Turns out that the strongest buying intent signal I've found from managers in C-suite positions is when they move to a new company or get promoted to a new role with even more decision-making power. Why? Timing is the key. When one of these managers changes jobs, they are likely looking to shake things up internally. New processes and new ways of doing things will be on their minds, so this is the perfect timing to let them know that a product or service like yours exists to solve their problems. More, if these managers joined a growing team, you'll likely find an even higher level of urgency to find solutions that accommodate the growth of the team! This is the type of insight that helps you bring a new life to your pipeline of new opportunities. > I have gathered these insights and provide detailed steps on how to create a process to reach out to these potential customers at scale on this guide. ------ It boils down to this flow:
Hope you found this insightful! ------ I regularly share insights about startups, growth and sales here. Stay tuned and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Happy to help! [link] [comments]  |
| TOP 5 Strategies to Find More Than Just Your First Customers (step-by-step guide included) Posted: 09 Mar 2021 07:57 AM PST Getting the first customers is a milestone that any entrepreneur has well stored in his mind. However, the real milestone in a startup is to build a process that gets more than just the first customers, in a repeatable and scalable way. Over the past years, I've helped several startups get off the ground to reach serious, scalable growth. One interesting thing I've seen so far is that all the top performers focus on processes that help them find potential customers with much higher chances of converting than other startups in the same industry. Basically speaking, they find very specific audiences that are in need of their product, then they target and win one small audience at a time. This helps them better manage limited resources especially in competitive markets with large established players. To help you achieve that as well, I've compiled the Top 5 strategies I've seen leading B2B startups to use to find new potential customers online: 1. People interacting with LinkedIn contentEvery day, many professionals open their thoughts for discussion on LinkedIn. Every time this happens, lots of interactions are generated. People that are liking or commenting on those thoughts are publicly showing alignment with a topic that is relevant to them. This opens the possibility to find an entire audience out there that might be ready to start a conversation with you. Collect the profiles that are interacting with content that is related to the problem you solve and create a targeted cold outreach strategy to the ones that match your ICP. 2. Managers with decision-making power that recently joined a new job on a growing teamLet me say it straight, this information is easily available to anyone, and yet not a lot of people realize how powerful this is. When someone with decision-making power changes jobs, he/she is likely looking to shake things up internally. New processes and new ways of doing things will be on his/her mind, so this is the perfect timing to let them know that a solution like yours is available. More, if the team is growing, you'll find an even higher urgency to find tools and processes to accommodate that growth! Fortunately, a simple tool like Sales Navigator has this readily available. On account search filter for growing teams (tailor for departments to which you sell your product), then on the lead search, you can filter for the ones who have recently changed jobs in the last 90 days. This is the strongest buying intent signal I've found so far. 3. Conference AttendeesPeople attending conferences are more likely to have decision-making power over the topic they are curious about. If they are investing time and money in it, they're signaling this is also a relevant topic to them right now. Your time and money are limited, so you won't be able to attend all the events you want. Not being able to attend an event doesn't mean you can't connect with every potential prospect who is. With conferences going remote there hasn't been a better time to leverage this opportunity. It's like speed networking on steroids, but with the most relevant audience for your business. 4. Negative reviews on websites like G2 or CapterraWebsites like G2, Capterra, and FeaturedCustomers are great knowledge sources about your competitors. Not only you can use the reviews to learn more about issues that people usually feel, but you can also identify potential new customers from unhappy reviews. If you sell a product that competes with a large incumbent with lots of listed reviews, plus you have a better offering for the points mentioned in the review, then this is a relevant potential customer to you. 5. Create an open resource to attract visitors with intentIf you have a complex product, most of the time your potential customers don't understand it to its full extent, so they don't value it enough. A good way to nurture potential customers is to create an open resource that leverages something your core product solves for. This way, you can build enough trust and create a stream of inbound potential customers. Have these people subscribe to an email list and slowly let them know how you solve other problems they might also feel. ------ I hope you found these helpful and inspiring! > You can find a detailed guide with actionable steps for each of these strategies. PS: You'll also find 6 other strategies that I believe are worth testing for. Happy prospecting! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2021 11:01 AM PST |
| Advice on hiring customer service support (phone/email) Posted: 09 Mar 2021 11:41 AM PST I run a small ecommerce company that has become overwhelming in the amount of work. I find myself doing customer service the majority of my day and little to no time furthering the overall business. The ecommerce business I have focuses on high ticket items and requires high attention to detail. Has anyone been in this sort of situation offer any advice on outsourcing phone call and email work? I'm afraid that doing so may lead to issues with communication, but I feel this needs to be done so I can free up my time. [link] [comments]  |
| Have an idea to make me some extra cash at weekends. How do I go about finding customers? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 09:22 AM PST I work full time as a bus mechanic in the U.K. but I would love to make some extra cash at weekends. I've realised that a lot of people can't even do basic things on their cars such as oil changes, light bulbs and brake pads. Ideally I'd want to start doing these kinds of jobs for people on the weekend because 1, it would earn me a little income and 2, I enjoy doing those things so it would keep me busy and stop me being bored. However, I have no idea where to advertise this? How do I get going? Any advice is welcome. [link] [comments]  |
| should i settle for .net until i can afford the .com for my new llc? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 12:01 PM PST i'm not sure what to do, the .com is taken and is for sale at 5k, i need it but just can't afford it yet. it's a graphic design/printing company. [link] [comments]  |
| Tool to help ecommerce entrepreneurs create personalized thank you videos for customers using AI Posted: 09 Mar 2021 02:55 PM PST Hey all! I've been talking to ecommerce entrepreneurs about how they personalize experiences for their customers, and I recently learned that a personalized video can be a big driver of conversion and repeat purchases! But obviously, as an insanely busy ecommerce seller, it's really hard to create a new video for each of your customers. My friend and I built a little software tool that uses AI to automatically create videos for your customers. The videos will look and sound like you made them for your customers but will be automatically generated by software. What do you all think? Would something like this be useful for you? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone interested in learning a new drop shipping method? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 02:35 PM PST Would anyone like to learn a new drop shipping method? It's not like any ole generic drop shipping strategy. There's no barcodes involved with this, it's not retail and the items are NOT from China. I've found that it's really successful. I also noticed no one has ever done it after intensive research. My profits have been anywhere from $70-200 and I've made 300 a few times. These products are used and I swear I've hit a good mine. I would like to be paid for the info but I'm not asking for an arm and leg, before you scream SCAM, pls ask me some questions first. Not looking for a shit load of ppl as I don't want it to be flooded. If you're interested just let me know! [link] [comments]  |
| After 2 years of grinding, we have finally launched on Product Hunt Posted: 09 Mar 2021 02:44 AM PST It was a long journey and the long-due launch is finally happening. I am very excited. How it all started: I was working as a freelancer to manage social media accounts for multiple brands, but the existing tools I was using were either too expensive or were not good enough. Most of the time I needed multiple tools just for getting simple things done. Out of my frustration, I decided to build the solution that I wanted myself. The aim is to make life easy for small businesses and marketing agencies. Today: Things are finally happening as we intended. We are continuously working on our application and today we launched it on Product Hunt. Please share your feedback on Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/socialbu [link] [comments]  |
| How Do I make a referral relationship and get b2b leads? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 10:06 AM PST I own an advertising consulting firm, and am looking for information on how to build a network of referrals. We work with ecommerce businesses. Done some work with Lululemon, Wholefoods, can-am, and a plethora of small-medium businesses you most likely havnt heard of. We have been directly responsible for generating millions and million of revenue for different types of business but I am still stuck with the same problem from when we started the firm: where do I get leads for new business? On paper we are very persuasive. Handful of MBAs and PhDs in our partners, and a lot of previous work to show, blah blah blah. Once we get to talking to prospects, we can usually close them, but I am not sure the best place to generate b2b leads. Our experiences here have been running businesses ourselves, and working with others, but lack in b2b sales leads. Im wondering, how do we go about creating a network of referrals between multiple businesses, i.e- a lawfirm who refers their business clients to us, and we refer any legal work our clients need, back to them. A CPA who refers the small businesses they work with to us, and we send our clients who have tax needs, to them? Any ideas on how that would work? Or the best place to get b2b leads? I can build a sales team and hire people and pay them, but where do I get the b2b leads to give to the team?? Any info would be great! [link] [comments]  |
| The Top 3 Reasons No Business Owner Should EVER ignore their Accounting Posted: 09 Mar 2021 07:12 AM PST Hi all. I might be a bit biased on this post as I'm an accountant but after talking to a lot of business owners in different stages of growth, I'm surprised how little attention so many entrepreneurs pay to their finances. A lot of people will write it off as a painful necessity that only the nerdy bean counters will enjoy and not a value-add activity, but the truth is accounting is a VERY powerful tool that can be leveraged to grow faster than you expected. So let's check out those reasons… 1) TAXES!!! This seems like a no brainer but it's amazing how much money people leave on the table. If you don't have your books in order, tax time is going to be a nightmare. You're going to end up paying your preparer more to get everything organized, and even then, it's probably not going to truly reflect your situation which could mean a higher bill. You may have to file extensions to get your return in late, because if not, you could face penalties. And even if you're owed money, you won't get that until much later, which means less cash for you to invest back into your business. Time value of money is real. Wouldn't you rather have that refund now instead of later? 2) Financing (loans or equity investments from new partners) Let's say you need $50k to pay for an office expansion, or buy some new equipment, or to invest in a big batch of inventory because you know that doing so will catapult your operation to the next level. But uh oh, the funds aren't there. This is where the financing becomes crucial. You can go to the bank or maybe some private investors, and do you know where they're going to want to look? You guessed it. Your financial statements. If all you have is your word and no numbers to back up your existing business, not many people are going supply you with the money you need. Most savvy investors will want to dig into your financial ratios to see how well you can manage debt, how high your operating margins are, and other metrics that tell a story about how good of an entrepreneur you are. This is the starting point for all the smart money on wall street when looking at a stock to buy, and the same principle applies to banks and investors who want finance any business. 3) Planning and Business Transformation This is my personal favorite as it's directly tied to how profitable and successful your business can become. In almost any activity, if you're trying to improve or transform, you absolutely have to track your progress. The same is true in business and your accounting records are the best way to measure and manage your growth. Comparing your results over time and benchmarking your financial statements to other companies in your industry is an excellent way to find cost cutting opportunities, better ways to manage your cash, and new ideas for investing to expand. Applying industry standard financial ratios to your business is a great way to set goals and budgets for you to target as well. Because when you map out your goals and actually have a plan to follow, you're much more likely to transform your business. Also, if you can start to forecast your results and see how those numbers stack up to your budget and actual results you have even more data to work with. Tying it all together The truth is, if you're focusing on one these things, the other 2 will follow. That's the power of getting your finances under control. It creates a snowball effect of positive transformation. Something as so seemingly mundane as getting your books in order can help you lower your taxes, get faster and easier access to financing, and making planning for the future a breeze. BONUS If you feel like really digging into some more specific ways an accountant can help with the finer points of these 3 things, I'd recommend the following article. We accountants are more than just bean counters, we're business superstars! https://bravurafs.com/business-planning/30-ways-a-great-accountant-can-give-your-business-a-boost/ [link] [comments]  |
| Interested in owning a Las Vegas tattoo studio? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 01:00 PM PST Hi friends, my name is Caleb Cashew and I own Black Omen Tattoo in Las Vegas. Oct last year my wife and I had our first baby so now we're planning on moving out east to get him closer to grandparents and great grandparents. Instead of closing or selling my studio I thought it'd be more exciting to give everyone a chance to join the tattoo industry. Using my entrepreneurial mindset I tried to figure out a way to raise money, level the playing field, spread art, donate to a worthy cause and hook one person up big time! So to do all this I'm selling prints of my artwork and each one comes with a Golden Ticket that could win you ownership of Black Omen this July! It'll be fully stocked and ready to go with over $15,000 in inventory, supplies, etc. so just turn on the open sign. This event has been in multiple news papers and podcasts as well as on 8 News Now and in Inked magazine! We were also approved by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. So what's the cause other than moving the fam? I'll also be donating 10% of sales and my (gorgeous) hair to ChildrenWithHairloss. A non profit foundation that provides children in need with wigs. So if you're interested in getting into the tattoo industry or owning your own shop then here's an amazing opportunity for you with minimal investment. Check my website- WinaTattooShop.com or hit me up here if you have any questions. Thanks! -Caleb Cashew [link] [comments]  |
| What are some actual things a teenager (16 year) can do outside the US? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 12:49 PM PST Im in Norway I want some realistic side jobs that don't promise to pay 120/hour and etc. I want something to do to get an actual income. What would you recommend? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2021 06:56 AM PST Hi guys, I've been working a Project Management internship at a large luxury car manufacturer and have had experience in more technical roles at different manufacturing facilities. I've been working since I was 15. Eventually, I worked myself up to the lead worker at at the restaurant I worked at in high school. I've always loved the idea of entrepreneurship but after working for the weekends this semester, I am craving something more meaningful and I am starting to get serious. As of right now, I would love to get in on the ground floor of a startup. Being thrown into the weeds and absorbing all of the information surrounding me would be the ultimate goal. Right now, my tasks do not provide me with the feeling of accomplishing something meaningful to the company. If you were to hire me, I can guarantee you would not regret it. I am a junior in Industrial Engineering. Industrial Engineering is all about looking at problems/processes and dissecting it down into making it work efficiently. Additionally, I am pursuing a computing emphasis. Which means I can code at an intermediate level and I am more than open to working on a technical project. In terms of availability, this can be negotiated. My time ends at my current position on May 14th. However, for the right position I could do some work on the side until then. Ideally, this job would provide me with location/time flexibility. I hate being tied down to the 9-5 and I would be more efficient if it were up to me. I have been living in a rural area for awhile and I would love to move to a major city. So, if the location was right I would be open to relocating. Anyways, please pm me if you have any questions or would like to see my resume. I would love to hear about all opportunities. [link] [comments]  |
| Where should I look to sell my business? Posted: 08 Mar 2021 06:22 PM PST I'll try to keep this short. I own an edTech website that has grown really well since I started it 10 months ago. It gets 30k organic visits each month, has over 4000 registered students, a mailing list of 3000,9 published courses, 2k twitter followers, a Discord community of 400, etc. I'm a programmer (CS guy) and that's what the site teaches (it's all interactive and automated). Trouble is, I'm not much of a marketer, so revenues are low for the amount of traffic and interest it gets ($250/mo currently). I'd love to keep growing this thing but I'm getting tired and I'm wondering if someone else might do a better job. Where should I look to find potential buyers? [link] [comments]  |
| Cheap media buyer to scale your business? Posted: 09 Mar 2021 10:07 AM PST Never saw someone offering service of cheap media buyer for startups or just sceptical entrepreneurs who want to scale business and income. Why cheap? Well, how can you trust someone's service until you see it really work? And where is a catch? Low cost service stops once the media buyer manage to scale business and income to the rate where money is no more issue for average service cost of media buyer. Sound reasonable? If yes and you have online store selling product or service and you want to jump on this 'train', I have space for 2 more clients. Leave comment, question... want to know your thoughts. Extra information: Who is media buyer? - Person who scales business income by making and testing ads and audiences to find best match with lowest cost. I hope this post is not against the rules of sub. [link] [comments]  |
| What Small Business Can Learn From Elon Musk Posted: 09 Mar 2021 06:10 AM PST Do you have a product or service that the market doesn't seem to understand or value? Are you met with skepticism? Are you to far ahead of the curve to be mainstream yet? Take a lesson from the Tesla. Recently I've been reading about Elon Musk and some of the (seemingly) audacious business decisions he made and is still making. He isn't exactly breaking the rules. Read More [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 09 Mar 2021 05:32 AM PST Hi I'm 18 years old and I started reading books recently, I wanna know what steps I could take to become financially free... So if anyone can let me know important basics or mistakes to not repeat, that would be amazing [link] [comments]  |
| Money is THE wrong metric of success. Posted: 09 Mar 2021 08:13 AM PST Just saying, seems like most people forgot about that. Out. JP [link] [comments]  |
| How to Find Content Ideas for Social Media Posted: 09 Mar 2021 03:24 AM PST One of my most frequently asked questions is "What do I post on Social Media?" When we start our online journey as a business it is easy to get burnt out and have your mind blocked. This usually results in a lack of consistency on Social Media, as well as an overall dislike for your accounts. You should be excited about your content and the value you are offering to your audience. Therefore, I am going to share with you the best ways you can find ideas for your Social Media content, and quickly too!
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| Posted: 09 Mar 2021 09:18 AM PST Let's say for example you make 5k in profits from your business, what percentage do you think your branding is contributing? Branding is basically people's gut feeling about your business. It includes how you look, what you say, how you say it, the vibe your business gives off, the values you live by etc. As a business owner, do you honestly feel branding helps your business in any significant way? [link] [comments]  |
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