More than a century ago, a small casino with a big future opened its doors in the town of Rosendale, N.Y.

By the early 1920s, the casino had expanded its offerings and begun screening some of the earliest films ever produced. As a result, the venue quickly became a regional entertainment hot spot. A stage was constructed in the 1930s so the theater could host vaudeville and burlesque acts, which headlined there for nearly a decade.

The shows came to a halt in the early 1940s when the casino was appropriated by local government and briefly used to house the town’s fire department. But everything changed on Feb. 18, 1949, when Anthony Cacchio Sr. reopened the facility as the Rosendale Theatre. Ever since the re-opening night screening of Blood on the Moon, starring Robert Mitchum, the movie projector hasn’t stopped rolling.

In 2010, after 60 years of operation, the Cacchios decided to retire from their long-time family-run business and sell the theater. Instead of striking a deal with local real estate developers, they entrusted the historic 272-seat theater to the Rosendale Theatre Collective, a nonprofit organization created to help preserve the facility.

“About three years ago, this community actually bought the theatre,” says Ann Citron, the theater’s managing director. “We’ve been in the process of opening it up a little more since we bought it. For example, we just bought hearing-assist devices.”

According to Citron, the theater remains a vital part of the community and its economic stability.

“It is my belief that art and economic development are completely tied together,” she says. “Rosendale is a very old area. We’re two hours from New York City. We have a lot of people who come here and spend the weekends. It’s a beautiful, old historic town. There used to be a lot more businesses. It’s been really trying to revitalize. But now we’re at a point — in part because of this theater and how many people we bring into town — where we have five or six restaurants on Main Street. We have a few shops. Everybody is starting to do better.”

Citron believes that the Rosendale Theatre is essential to bringing people into town as a destination. “We have quite a lot of seniors. We have a group of kids who go to school not too far from here, and many of them are in wheelchairs,” she says.

To make the venue more accessible, Citron recently turned to Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign.

“We are in the process of raising funds to put a wheelchair lift in — our theater has four steps up — so we can be ADA compliant and so we can serve all our patrons,” she explained in her entry. “We are still in need of more funds to make our wish come true.”

Intuit recently announced that this particular plot would have a happy ending: Citron’s wish is being granted.

“Thank you so much! We are so very appreciative,” she says. “Right now, we put down a wooden plank at the side door to get somebody [in a wheelchair] in. The lift will allow them to go into the lobby and into the bathroom as well as come in the front door. We will be able to have that outreach and make a public statement that we are completely accessible.”

Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign is announcing one winner a day through May 24, 2013. Check out the list of current winners, and find out if yours is one of the wishes we’ve granted!

“What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

It’s one of the provocative questions Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg asks in her best-selling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.

Sandberg, a Harvard-educated executive who came to Facebook via the U.S. Treasury Department and Google, centers the book around the idea that women are preventing themselves from attaining leadership positions and need to take responsibility for breaking through the glass ceiling by leaning in instead of stepping back.

“We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in,” Sandberg writes.

Sandberg’s approach to the professional world has obviously served her well at big corporations. But do the same lessons apply to women entrepreneurs developing their own ideas and small businesses?

“Leaning in looks a little different from our ranks than within corporate America, but I think Sheryl Sandberg’s ideas still resonate,” says Lauree Ostrofsky, “chief hugger” and coach at Simply Leap coaching services. She agrees that women generally need to be more aggressive and, in Sandberg’s words, “take a seat at the table.”

“I coach women who want to work for themselves, and I have my own business, too,” Ostrofsky says. “I witness the nervousness around being good enough to deserve that seat. We get to decide that, no one else, and I think that’s what Sheryl is saying.”

Carmen Kosicek, a registered nurse who provides career counseling to her peers, says, “I am sitting at the table and love her book. I’ve been working on it, but now the jet fuel has been added. I am ready to lean in.”

Emilie Cushman, co-founder and CEO of the video interviewing platform Kira Talent, thinks the lessons in the book definitely apply to women who run their own businesses.

“Sandberg is clearly successful and the ‘lean in movement’ is definitely net positive,” Cushman says. “From my perspective, ambition and tenacity are the antidotes to both gender and age biases. Founding a company, raising capital, and recruiting a great team were more about setting a compelling vision and tenaciously going after it than anything else.”

Work-Life Balance

Sandberg is a wife and mother, and in the book she advises women to select a partner who will work with them to achieve work-life balance.

“When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home,” Sandberg writes.

Alicia Vanderschuere, founder and CEO of rosieMADE, a website that sells products from companies run by women, says the traditional workplace is not designed for women — especially those who want to have a family, too.

“Since I can’t change all of corporate America, I decided to build a system for women, by women,” Vanderschuere says. “I launched my company in November 2012 as a way to lean in myself and also to help other women entrepreneurs. I’ve read Lean In, and I am really excited about the focus this has created in the marketplace on women’s issues.”

Is Leaning In Something New?

Is the concept of leaning in something new, or is it a revival of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s?

“Those of us who have been entrepreneurs for years have leaned in for so long,” says Catherine Saxton, chairman of the Saxton Group, a public relations firm. “Sheryl Sandberg is merely a beneficiary of all the brave and bold women who marched in New York City in the 1970s, marched on Washington for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1980s, and whose spiritual leaders were their peers,” Saxton says. “This is very old news, but if it inspires a new generation to keep climbing on our shoulders, carry on.”

Sandberg is clearly inspired to do so. “Writing this book is not just me encouraging others to lean in,” she notes. “This is me leaning in. Writing this book is what I would do if I weren’t afraid.”

Firing someone is, without a doubt, one of the most unpleasant experiences imaginable for a small-business owner. But sometimes letting an employee go is essential for the well-being — perhaps even the survival — of the company.

Jonathan Pyle, a vice president for ThinkHR and a 25-year human-resources veteran, recently shared his expert insights into how to determine when to terminate a worker and what steps should be followed in the process.

Speaking at the recent Hire Smart Small Business Event hosted by Intuit and LinkedIn, Pyle acknowledged that the top 10 priorities of small-business owners rarely include learning to manage employees out of the workplace.

“Business owners know when someone is not doing their job, especially when you’re small,” he observes. “So, how do we know when it’s time to terminate an employee? What we would [ask] is, When is it the right time to talk with candor and explain to someone what the expectations are?”

Candor is the biggest “dirty little secret” in employee management today, Pyle asserts. Frequent communication and fluid feedback not only reinforce employee expectations, but also make termination easier should the need arise. In many cases, these discussions serve as an effective push in the right direction for poor performers. At the very least, this process serves as a clear warning to the employee that change is both desired and expected.

Complicating matters for employers, however, is the increasingly common concern an improperly handled termination could result in litigation.

“What we know from years and years of experience is that a lot of business owners worry about being sued,” Pyle says. “But if you’re candid, honest, and issue-specific, you’re not going to get in trouble.”

The HR expert believes that the gravest offense to an employee’s pride and emotional health is being let go unexpectedly. “We want to avoid surprises,” he says. “The worst thing that you can do is sit them down and terminate them without warning. That’s when they feel humiliated. That’s when they don’t feel they’ve been respected.”

When the notion of termination arises, Pyle says, that’s the time to begin a frank but non-confrontational discussion with the employee. When verbal warnings don’t result in improved performance, the next step is to provide a written warning specifying that additional corrective action, up to and including termination, will take place if the undesired behavior continues.

“When someone reads and signs a document with that language,” he explains, “we’re going to reach them with the gravity of the situation. We’re not going to surprise them at the end of the day.”

These are just a few of the tips shared by experts at the Hire Smart event. Want more? Login here to get free access to all of the resources from the conference, including exclusive video of all the seminars at the event.

Small-business owners can’t just sit back and wait for perfect employees to walk through their doors. If only it were that easy! So, how do you hire the right people?

Experts in HR, talent acquisition, and professional networking recently gathered at the Hire Smart Small Business Event hosted by Intuit and LinkedIn to answer that question.

For starters, no one grows a successful business alone, says Rhonda Abrams, founder and CEO of PlanningShop and a USA Today columnist.

“Many entrepreneurs believe that they must do everything themselves,” Abrams explains. “After all, if you’re a hairdresser, lawyer, consultant, you naturally believe that clients are buying your services, not the services of an associate. It’s comforting to your ego to feel that you’re special, the only one who can provide the level of services your clients demand. Moreover, you’re afraid that if associates build relationships with clients, what’s to stop them from leaving and starting competing businesses?

“Growth demands learning how to delegate. You might begin to grow by delegating tasks that are not necessarily customer-facing, such as administrative or accounting. But you’re going to have to develop the staff to take over some of the responsibilities you now believe only you can handle. That means improving your skills in hiring, training, and — especially — leading. That can be scary. But if you want to grow, you have to learn how to be the conductor and not try to play every instrument.”

Abrams was among the many outstanding presenters at the Hire Smart event who contributed helpful insights. Here are five specific hiring tips we culled from their presentations.

1. Hire for optimism and attitude. “It’s important to hire for attitude,” says Alison Salisbury, founder of Fiscally Fit. “You can teach anyone to use an Excel spreadsheet. You cannot teach people skills. You either have [them] or you don’t. There are some attributes you cannot teach.”

When it comes to small businesses, particularly in startup environments, things often can and do go wrong, she adds. When the chips are down, even the best leaders are well-served by optimistic and positive people who instinctively lend motivation by searching for solutions rather than negative people who waste their time and yours by focusing on setbacks.

Whether a candidate you’re considering possesses the technical skills needed for the job or not, if he or she lacks the personal skills and winning attitude that drive successful companies, take a pass and keep on looking, Salisbury advises.

2. Let your network do all the work. According to Abrams, you should only place ads for the job opening at your business after you’ve comprehensively mined your established network of colleagues and associates. Abrams believes that referrals from current employees — people who have already been assimilated into your workplace and understand expectations around the office — are worth their weight in gold.

3. Use LinkedIn to connect talent with opportunity. From small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, LinkedIn has become a trusted recruiting tool for employers of all shapes and sizes. “We’re all about helping find a perfect fit,” says Luke Baxter, senior product marketing manager for talent solutions. “That’s one thing I genuinely think LinkedIn can help with. Because of our network connectivity and notion of identity, you can find someone who really fits with your goals and work ethos.”

Baxter notes that many employers fail to use the full scope and potential of LinkedIn to find talent that fits like a glove. “Take a look at your industry on LinkedIn,” he suggests. “Look for people with titles relevant to what you’re thinking about doing next.”

One resource that Baxter believes could significantly improve the hiring experience through LinkedIn is its premium Talent Finder service. “This turbo-charges your search in three ways,” he says. “You can see more and do more with the search. You can use InMail to contact folks. And you can organize profiles to pick up where you left off.”

4. Consider whether you need an employee or an independent contractor. Finding the right fit might mean avoiding a new “employee” altogether. Having defended employers ranging from sole proprietors and mom-and-pop shops to large public entities and Fortune 100 companies, attorney Alison L. Tsao of Carothers DiSante & Freudenberger says independent contractors play an important role in growing a company.

According to Tsao, the 2008 recession gave rise to increased use of independent contractors. These professionals, who are typically experts in their fields, can save as much as 30 percent on payroll, she says. But not every situation is appropriate — professionally or even legally — for independent contractors. So, it’s imperative to understand what she calls the “legal test for determining independent contractor status.” (To learn more about this, check out her informative presentation.)

5. Hold an “intention intervention.” Various experts stress the importance of understanding why a potential new hire truly wants the gig in the first place. Is the applicant truly passionate about your opportunity, or is this an in-between job for someone who’s desperate to earn a paycheck? To best ensure a good fit, small-business owners must gauge each candidate’s personal or professional intentions.

These are just a few of the tips shared by experts at the Hire Smart event. Want more? Login here to get free access to all of the resources from the conference, including exclusive video of all the seminars at the event.

Tropical parrots are among the most exotic, beautiful, and intelligent creatures that may be kept as domesticated pets. As such, they’re always in demand. But caring for the birds — which are known for their colorful plumage, hooked bills, and blunt tongues — is a massive responsibility that many owners are unable or unprepared to handle.

“Parrots are very long-lived,” notes Judy Tennant, founder of Parrot Partner, a rescue and rehabilitation center based in Ottawa, Ontario. “Some of them can live for up to 80 years.” Many people are forced to give up their birds for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how demanding they are, she explains.

“They are wild animals — semi-tame,” the bird handler and trainer says, noting that there are very few places for relinquished birds to go today due to the heavy demands of their care.

“We offer a place that will take care of them and train them,” Tennant says of Parrot Partner, which she formally launched in 2011. “We have a veterinary technician on staff, and I’ve got a background in exotic animal training and behavior modification.”

Beyond rescuing birds that need a new home, Tennant and her staff work tirelessly to educate current and prospective parrot owners. Their goal is to foster informed, responsible parrot care.

“It’s a very specialized service we offer — and I love it, obviously,” confesses Tennant, who was an educator specializing in leadership development and organizational behavior prior to founding her organization. “I’ve dedicated my life to it.”

Tennant’s passion for parrots inspired her to enter Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign. Her wish: to give all of the parrots she rescues a place where they can fly again.

“What we’re wishing for is an outdoor aviary to house parrots who have been relinquished or given up,” she says. “These birds are meant to fly. If they don’t, it’s like having a dolphin in a bathtub.”

Tennant thinks an aviary represents the only chance these birds will have to fly somewhat freely again. Domesticated birds, after all, rarely survive if reintroduced to the wild.  Over time, a parrot’s natural survival instincts — including their ability to find food — are severely diminished.

Today Intuit granted Tennant’s wish to build a new aviary for her beloved birds.

“This is amazing,” she says. “These guys [the parrots] struggle without being able to fly, and they are really going to just blossom because of this. … They are going to be able to play together, fly together, and hang upside down from branches.”

Tennant says she gets teary-eyed when she thinks about it. “We have 20 parrots right now, and we will probably be able to take on more because of this. Imagine 20 parrots being ‘let loose’ for the first time in years. The improvement in their health, happiness, and disposition is going to be overwhelming.”

Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign is announcing one winner a day through May 24, 2013. Check out the list of current winners and find out whether we’ve granted your wish!

Few business-related responsibilities are as daunting or stressful as hiring employees.

Perhaps you’ve conducted interviews before, but the stakes are higher when you’re hiring for your own company, says Alison Salisbury, founder of Fiscally Fit, which provides money-management services to retirees, busy professionals, and other small businesses.

At the recent Hire Smart Small Business Event hosted by Intuit and LinkedIn, Salisbury shared her experience in learning which critical questions to ask and how to evaluate job candidates during interviews.

“It’s important to hire for attitude,” she says. “You can teach anyone to use an Excel spreadsheet. You cannot teach people skills. You either have [them] or you don’t. There are some attributes you cannot teach.”

Last year, when Fiscally Fit developed the need for a money manager to meet with clients in their homes, Salisbury began searching for an employee with the right personality and impeccable integrity, as well as the technical skills required to do the job.

She published ads in regional media for a “daily money manager” and solicited candidates who were warm, friendly, trustworthy, patient, nonjudgmental, people-oriented, and comfortable with computers.

With the assistance of a job coach, Salisbury set up an innovative hiring process that she calls “self-selective.” The ads, for example, featured a phone number that provided callers with a pre-recorded message from Salisbury. In it, she asked them to leave a voice mail that answered these three questions:

• What are your three strongest attributes?
• Why are you suited to this position?
• What is your biggest success?

“Every person who called this number listened to the message and then hung up — every single one,” Salisbury recalls. “Some of them would call back and answer the questions.”

Not surprisingly, plenty of applicants didn’t follow her instructions at all. Instead, they looked up the company and submitted a traditional resume or reached out by phone or email.

“Some of those people were probably very highly qualified,” Salisbury says. “But, to be fair to me and fair to the process, I asked them by email to please follow the directions. None of them did. So we had quite a few people fall off the list. Then, those people [who] followed the directions and went through the next couple of steps were invited to a group interview. And this is where it got really fun … and interesting.”

Salisbury and her job coach invited a handful of candidates to a meeting in which they were asked open-ended, fact-based questions. “All of these questions were designed to let us get to know these people as people [through] how would they respond in certain, specific situations,” she explains.

Her questions (and requests) included:

• What sort of jobs and companies have you been applying for and why?
• At the end of your career, what do you want to have achieved in your life?
• Tell me about one mistake you made in your career.
• Based on what you’ve heard today, what do you think this job is all about?
• What do you do when a co-worker or colleague wants to chat when there’s work to be done?
• Tell me about a time when a customer or co-worker got mad at you.
• Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the past six months.
• Tell me about a time when you knew you were right, but you still had to follow directions or guidelines.
• Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done.

“During this process, I had an opportunity to explain to the candidates my vision for the business,” Salisbury says. “I could engage with them visually to see if they were able to buy into the goals and visions I had for growing my business. I could tell by the way people were responding who could buy into what I wanted — and that was a huge indicator of who was a strong candidate.”

Salisbury believes this process allowed her to find an excellent employee who has since flourished at Fiscally Fit.

“So, what have I learned?” she asks. “Hire for attitude. When my coach first described this hiring process to me, I was very skeptical.” But by being open to trying something new when screening and interviewing candidates, Salisbury says she was able to find a quality employee in short order.

“I am on the verge of starting this process all over and hiring again,” she adds. “My dream is coming true. When you’re open to new ideas, working with other professionals, and taking suggestions, you just never know where it’s going to lead you.”

These are just a few of the tips shared by experts at the Hire Smart event. Want more? Login here to get free access to all of the resources from the conference, including exclusive video of all the seminars at the event.

You’ve set up your Facebook business page. You’ve claimed your spot on Foursquare. You’ve painstakingly pinned images that reflect your brand to Pinterest. Those are all inexpensive marketing techniques that require more time than cash.

But where do you go beyond social media to market your company on the cheap?

“Although social media has changed the marketing game for small businesses, it hasn’t changed what’s truly effective,” says Joseph Szala, principal and creative director of Vigor, which specializes in restaurant marketing. “Relationships will always hold strong in thick and thin, so fostering strong bonds with the community will help build your business and keep it steady.”

Szala recommends introducing yourself to potential customers and people who might recommend you to others — and offering discounts for those referrals.

Networking

Laurie Morse-Dell, an entrepreneur and business consultant, says you can’t beat old-fashioned networking for marketing yourself and your brand.

“One of the reasons that social media does so well is because it’s based on relationship-building and networking,” Morse-Dell says. “But it’s important to remember that offline networking is just as valuable, especially for small businesses.”

Morse-Dell recommends attending community events while wearing a garment featuring your company logo and taking advantage of chamber of commerce mixers and other venues where business cards are traded.

“The most important thing to remember about networking is that you don’t want to come across as the salesman everyone is trying to avoid,” Morse-Dell says. “Ask questions of the people you meet and be genuine in getting to know them. You will learn a lot from listening and then learn how you may be able to best serve them.”

Public Speaking

One way to introduce yourself to groups in the community is to offer yourself up as a speaker.

“Just like small businesses across the country, many networking organizations, trade associations, and chambers of commerce are also short on cash,” says Stephanie Richards, founder of SowGrow Public Relations.

“Event budgets have taken a hit, which means that many of these organizations are looking for high-quality speakers who don’t charge speaking fees,” she advises. “Consider proposing a topic and offering yourself as a potential speaker. You may not get paid for your time, but speaking is often one of the best ways to establish your credibility and meet potential clients.”

Cold Calls

If you prefer to market one-on-one, consider making a call.

“There is a very inexpensive marketing tool sitting on every business owner’s desk or in their pocket or handbag: the telephone,” says Wendy Weiss, a sales coach and trainer who bills herself as the Queen of Cold Calling.

“Prospecting by phone is direct, effective, and inexpensive, and it makes a human being-to-human being connection,” she says. “You can have a real conversation with a real prospect in real time.”

Press Releases

If you prefer the written word to verbal communications, consider issuing a press release.

“Traditional press releases done properly can make a big impact on a small business,” says Don Sorensen, principal at Big Blue Robot, which helps companies manage their online reputations. “The larger services like PRWeb and PR Newswire are great for this.”

Sorensen recommends putting a meaningful search term in the title of your press release so that search engines will find it and display your company high in online search results.

Customer Rewards

If your marketing strategy includes rewarding existing customers to encourage their loyalty, customer incentive programs can be implemented at a low cost. Simple punch cards (buy 12, get 1 free!), in-store events (free chocolate samples!), or extended sales discount days (20 percent off on Friday, too!) are all examples of building customer relationships with little cash outlay.

So is keeping in touch with pen and paper.

“The hand-written note is often overlooked in today’s age of email, Facebook, Twitter, and every other social media platform,” says Hillary Berman, founder of Popcorn & Ice Cream, a small-business marketing and consulting firm.

“A simple thank-you note to express appreciation for a customer, a birthday card to demonstrate recognition of a special day, or a letter to check in and see how a business can be of assistance, can provide substantially greater value than nearly any mass marketing campaign,” Berman says.

“These personal touches cost little more than postage and time.”

Nestled in the far northwestern corner of Massachusetts, where it’s flanked by Vermont and New York, Williamstown — a charming community of 8,200 residents — is home to one of the oldest dairy farms in the region, Cricket Creek Farm.

In 2002, Dick and Jude Sabot purchased the farm from their neighbors in the hopes of protecting the land for future generations. Although Dick passed away in 2005, the Sabot family continues to oversee the thriving operation  in commitment to their mission statement: “To produce nourishing food that honors our animals, respects the land, and feeds our community, and to exemplify a sustainable model for small-farm viability.”

“When my family bought the farm, it was a conventional dairy farm,” says son Topher Sabot, who has managed daily operations since 2009. “Most dairy farms are not open to the public at all for a lot of good reasons, in terms of safety and things like that. [But] one of the biggest goals from the start was to have this farm be a community resource.”

The Sabots wanted to provide an opportunity for people to learn about where their food comes from, he says. “So, when we had to do some initial construction — like for our milking parlor — we designed it so that people can watch milking. Our creamery was designed with windows so that people can look in and watch the cheese as it’s made.”

Suzy Konecky, the creamery’s manager, shares the family’s passion. “Education and awareness about what we’re doing on the farm is really important to us, from our philosophical perspective,” she says. “But also having a space where people can sit down and enjoy the products that they buy here is really critical to customer retention.”

To that end, Cricket Creek Farm appealed to Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign for a grant that would help it procure new signage and seating.

The wish entry reads: “With this money, we will purchase signage that welcomes people to the farm and shows them around and picnic tables, so [they] can spend time on the farm and enjoy the artisanal cheese and bread that we produce and sell in our small farm store.”

This week, Intuit announced it will grant Cricket Creek Farm’s wish and help the dairy farm continue to prosper.

“We’re super excited and extremely grateful. We are on cloud nine!” Sabot says. “We want people to be able to come with their kids and spend the day here. They can bring some food or get some cheese here and go sit at a picnic table and have a nice lunch while watching the chickens forage for grass or checking out the calves.

“The signage is a big part of that, too, because we want to have more information available. If someone is not around to explain the different breeds of pigs and why we have them, there will be information there so people can read about it and understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. That’s really important.”

Intuit’s Small Business Growing Strong campaign is announcing one winner a day through May 24, 2013. Check out the list of current winners and find out whether we’ve granted your wish!

In my previous posts, I’ve talked about a lot of issues at Cranky Concierge that need to be resolved. Three that immediately come to mind are finding a new phone service, choosing a better email provider, and deploying a more robust customer relationship management system. I’ve made some progress on each one, but not nearly as much as I’d like.

So it’s time to make my efforts more effective by getting organized, setting priorities, and attacking the problems one at a time.

First, I’m going to work on the email issue. Most of our work is done via email, so this is the most important action item right now. I’ve already identified the new provider, but now I need to take the necessary steps to make the switch. This shouldn’t be hard, but it does require me to block a couple days off so I can back things up, set up the new system, create new email accounts, and then get everyone switched over.

After that, updating our customer relationship management system comes next. As I look to hire another employee and grow the business, it’s going to be important to have a more robust system than the rudimentary one we’re currently using. This will need to happen sooner rather than later.

Despite my rants against my phone provider, the task of finding a new one ranks third. I had no choice but to rebuild our custom call routing settings that the company erased during its “upgrade,” because I couldn’t switch to another service immediately. So, although I don’t like that I’m still paying a company that utterly disregarded our needs as a customer, the system works well enough for now.

Although this plan of attack makes sense at the moment, I suspect other issues will pop up. To be most effective, I’ll just have to keep remembering to reset my priorities instead of trying to do everything at once!

You’ve no doubt heard the internet adage “content is king,” but have you really taken it to heart?

If your online marketing efforts are limited to a static website and a Facebook page, you may as well be advertising your business on a sandwich board for all the good it’s doing you.

Here are few reasons why your small business needs a content marketing strategy.

1. People don’t trust traditional advertising. The days of attracting customers solely through display advertising and marketing messages are over. According to a report by market research firm Nielsen, consumer trust in traditional advertising has taken a nosedive. However, the report also reveals that “nearly six in 10 global online consumers (58 percent) trust messages found on company websites and half trust email messages that they signed up to receive.” A strong content strategy taps right into those receptive consumers.

2. Content boosts your SEO. The current search ecosystem no longer rewards keyword-stuffed websites and other web spam. And Matt Cutts, Google’s top expert on the subject, has repeatedly said that Google rankings hinge on quality content. As search engines get more sophisticated at ferreting out the best information for users, the more critical it will be for you to produce fresh, relevant, authoritative, and unique content to rank highly in search engine results pages.

3. Content resonates on social media. A 2011 AOL study shows that 27 million pieces of online content are shared daily in the United States, and that number has likely grown since then. Furthermore, the study says that 60 percent of those shared messages specifically mentioned a brand or a product name. If content isn’t a key component of your social media efforts, you’re missing out on a powerful marketing opportunity.

4. Content builds relationships. Ultimately, content marketing is about building a relationship with your target audience. Creating content that shares your expertise around your product or service helps establish you as an authority in your industry. It also fosters trust (see #1). People will come to you for insights, ideas, and solutions — and bring you their business, too.