XYDO.COM: top articles for Small Business http://www.xydo.com Sales pro Grant Cardone says when others go to sleep, you need to wake up. Here's his advice on how to work smarter to boost sales and gain a competitive edge. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223927 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223927 After a year of litigation, merchants may finally get the green light to apply surcharges to customers paying with credit-card.Every time a customer pays with plastic, the business pays for the privilege to swipe the card. But that soon could change. According The Wall Street Jounal, a number of merchant-filed lawsuits against the credit card companies Visa and Mastercard may result in a settlment that will allow businesses to impose a surcharge on customers paying with cards.Currently, both Visa and MasterCard have prohibited merchants from applying a customer surcharge. But this surcharge, the merchants argue, is important because it could cover the transaction fee they must pay to the card companies for every swipe."We continue to believe that a settlement is the likeliest outcome as neither side wants a drawn-out legal battle and the defendants don't want to risk having to pay treble damages if they lose," Sanjay Sakhrani, an analyst with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, wrote in a research note last month. Over the last year, the parties have held settlement discussions.The outcome of the suit, which was filed by larger merchants like Payless ShoeSource and Safeway, Inc., will have implications for all merchants that accept credit cards in the U.S. Both Visa and MasterCard are expected to pay the defendants between $8 and $12 billion and reduce interchange fees, reported The Journal.While American Express and Discover aren’t listed on the suit, both companies have rules allowing a surcharge as long as other credit card companies allowed it. Since Visa and MasterCard won't allow it, merchants that accept all cards couldn't benefit from those rules.According The Journal, 10 states (including California and New York), have laws prohibiting credit card surcharges, so it is unclear how the settlement will affect these states.Either way, a former Wal-Mart executive is certain these surcharges will benefit both merchant and consumer."If there were surcharges in the marketplace… the networks, who are primarily responsible for establishing prices for acceptance, would bring their product costs down," Mark Horwedel told The Journal. http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/merchants-to-receive-credit-card-surcharge-rights.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29 http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/merchants-to-receive-credit-card-surcharge-rights.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29 Last week I talked about eliminating managers. What is it like to run a company with no managers at all? I promised to cover the subject this week in more depth. The end of middle managers - everyone leads In my opinion, a company needs leaders—not managers. From the top down, every http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2012/07/10/the-end-of-middle-managers-and-why-theyll-never-be-missed/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkwilliams/2012/07/10/the-end-of-middle-managers-and-why-theyll-never-be-missed/ Why you should hire the absolute best person you can find, and not a whole bunch of average ones. People are a company's most expensive asset. It costs a lot to recruit, train, manage, communicate with, and retain employees. I'm a fan of quality over quantity with everything I do, but I find that with people it's especially important. Scaling a company the right way is challenging. I have scaled five businesses from zero, including my current company, the Rubicon Project, which has grown to more than 200 employees in seven offices and five countries around the world in less than five years. One rule that has served me well is to focus on hiring the absolute best people I can find, rather than many average ones. It sounds simple, but it does come at a cost. Great people are generally more costly. If you pick wrong, it could hurt severely. If you pick right, it's an investment that I assure you will save you money in the long run. 1. Great people attract great people Overall, your talent people will increase exponentially, while your recruiting costs will decrease. 2. They'll increase your team productivity Add fresh, new A+ talent to the team, and you'll get everyone to step up their game, and increase productivity across the board. 3. They'll magnify your horsepower I've witnessed time and time again that one ultra-talented individual can produce the work of a team of ten. 4. Don't overlook communication overhead Every new hire dilutes the signal of your core communication. It simply costs a lot more to communicate with and manage a larger group of people: more meetings, more meetings, and more meetings about meetings; management, middle management, senior management, and so on. Time equals money. You get the picture? Hire fewer, sharper people. 5. Hard incremental costs There are direct costs--per employee--for health care, benefits, taxes, phones, computers, networks, software licenses, subscriptions, chairs, desks, office space, recruiting, interviewing, training, payroll processing. The list goes on and on. So go out on a limb and take the risk. Hire the best person you can find. Hire the person you think you can't afford. If you're growing your business, it's all an investment and every investment has risk. Take the biggest risks with your most valuable assets--your people. When you get it right, they'll yield the greatest rewards. Frank Addante is founder and CEO of the Rubicon Project, the world’s leading real-time trading platform for online ads. A five-time entrepreneur, he sold two companies and took a third public. He is author of FounderBlog.com. @FrankAddante http://www.inc.com/frank-addante/recruiting-hire-the-best-most-expensive-candidate.html http://www.inc.com/frank-addante/recruiting-hire-the-best-most-expensive-candidate.html Apple pushed out the Gold Master (GM) version of its new Mac operating system, Mountain Lion, to developers today. The GM is essentially the same completed software consumers will be able to buy. This means Apple is likely very close to releasing Mountain Lion to the public. Apple said Mountain Lion would launch by the end of July, but did not give a specific date. It'll cost $19.99 to upgrade your operating system from the Mac App store. Click here to see what you need to do to get your Mac ready for Mountain Lion > Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story » http://www.businessinsider.com/mountain-lion-gm-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 http://www.businessinsider.com/mountain-lion-gm-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 Software-coding start-up GitHub has raised $100 million in its first round of funding. Venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is leading the financing. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303292204577517111643094308.html?mod=rss_Technology http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303292204577517111643094308.html?mod=rss_Technology Marketers don’t always have it so easy (wait ... do we ever?). Summer months are notoriously slow, holidays are difficult to work around, and even weekends take away from the steady flow of leads you want to generate. So how do you push past these obstacles and keep your marketing going strong through the rough patches on your calendar? Here at HubSpot, we’ve found that one of the best (and most fun!) ways to prepare for a slow week, month, or season is to host a marketing hack night. Great question. A “hack night” (or “hack day” or “hackathon”) is a specific amount of time set aside for a bunch of your team members, coworkers, or employees to get together and work toward some sort of productive goal, typically with the aim of completing a project from start to finish within that timeframe. For example, HubSpot’s first ever marketing hack night, which we held at the end of June, was organized so multiple teams each created a marketing campaign that we could launch in July. We kicked off the event at 5 p.m. and had until midnight to get everything done, beginning with brainstorming initial campaign ideas, all the way through to finalizing our promotional materials, scheduling our email sends, and testing our landing page forms. And the good news is -– it was a huge success! We had nearly 40 HubSpotters volunteer to participate (marketing team members and contributors from other departments alike), and collectively, we cranked out over a couple hundred hours of work in one night. Ready to give your marketing a boost, and incorporate some major company bonding while doing it? Follow these 7 simple steps to make your own marketing hack night a huge success! As with any project, it’s important to start by deciding on the specific goals you want to accomplish. What do you want the outcome of your hack night to be: a completed, integrated marketing campaign, a batch of blog articles to fill your backlog, a comprehensive content analysis? What metrics will you use to measure your results: traffic, leads, customers, increased social reach, more blog subscribers? And over what timeframe(s)? Put together a list or an outline of your goals, and reference it going forward so you can plan your hack night in accordance with them. Now that you’ve decided on your goals, figure out the best way to structure your hack night so your participants can accomplish those goals in the most effective and efficient way possible. For example, if your goal is strictly to get the most and the best possible work done in the least amount of time, you should build teams based on each individual’s strengths. If your goal is to expose people to different areas of marketing that they don’t typically have experience with, build teams of employees from various departments within your company. (We chose the latter, and found that the variety of backgrounds contributed new perspectives to the projects and helped us learn from each other as we worked together.) However you choose to set up your teams, make sure it aligns with your goals. Don’t forget -- your coworkers are dedicating their personal time to put in some extra work, so you’ll want to decide on a way to reward them for all that extra credit. Why not try some gamification? Choose a selection of prizes and a set of criteria for determining a winner. Framing your hack night as a competition will encourage your participants to produce high-quality work, and since you’ll actually be implementing the results of their work, you want it to be top-notch. If you aren’t sure what would best motivate your participants, ask them! They’ll give you some good ideas and you can choose the ones that are reasonable given your budget. If you’d rather not spend money on prizes, announcing a winner and providing company-wide recognition can still serve as good incentive for participants to give it their all. When planning your hack night, you’ll want to decide on an optimal environment for your participants. Again, this goes back to your goals. Do you want this to be strictly productive with little social focus? Give each team their own conference room so they can concentrate with minimal distraction. Want hack night to be more fun, social, and engaging? Put everyone in one big room! At HubSpot, we found that having everyone work in the same space made our marketing hack night feel more event-like, allowed us to take breaks and socialize with members of other teams, and helped us avoid an atmosphere of biting competition (too much of that is never a good thing). Put on some quiet music in the background. Order dinner. The more inviting you make the environment, the more involved your participants will be. And if certain individuals find that this environment isn't condusive to working, they can always find a quiet space of their own to hole up for a while (like some of our bloggers did, for example). Before you kick off your hack night, make sure you have a list of rules and guidelines for the event. What should their main goals be? Will the teams be allowed to help each other? Are there any materials they must use, or must not use? At the start of your hack night, communicate the answers to these questions clearly, so your participants go in with a solid understanding of what they should aim to accomplish and how to go about it. While step 5 is still fresh on your minds, that being said, you don’t want to give them too many rules. Hack nights are a great opportunity to give your company’s employees a chance to work with new people, think outside the box, and step outside of their comfort zones. Let them figure out how to approach their projects. Give them the freedom to make some of the big decisions on their own. Guidelines are good, but don’t restrict their creativity. You’d be surprised what a group of smart people can come up with when they’re motivated, working together, and have the chance to choose their own project, tools, and approach. You just organized a whole event. Don’t let the results of your hack night go to waste! One of the most important – arguably, the most important – part of your hack night is actually implementing the work your teams produced. Use those blog posts, landing pages, email sends, social media promotions, graphic designs, pieces of code. Launch your campaigns, update your product. Even if your event was highly social, remember that your ultimate goal was to produce a certain output. So go ahead and take advantage of all the awesome materials you now have, and use the metrics you outlined in step 1 to gauge the success of your results! Congratulations on planning your first hack night! I hope you and your participants find the experience rewarding, take the opportunity to really come together as a team, and most of all, crank out some killer marketing content and results. Happy hacking! http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33369/How-to-Create-200-Hours-Worth-of-Marketing-Content-in-One-Night.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33369/How-to-Create-200-Hours-Worth-of-Marketing-Content-in-One-Night.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 News updates all day from Fast Company.Why doesn't Pinterest have an affiliate program that pays out whenever someone buys a product that you pinon the site? The idea is so obvious that two Pinterest-like competitors have already begun doing just that. The latest is social photo-sharing site The Fancy. After launching its social commerce platform in May, which allows you to purchase items in addition to "fancying" them, it is now opening a referral program. Each time you you "fancy" a product, you'll get a unique referral code to share with friends. If your friends end up purchasing the items you share, you'll get a 2% cut of the sales. Earlier this month we reported on a similar referral program from Wisemarkit. But even if you combined the user base of Wisemarkit and The Fancy it would be dwarfed by Pinterest's more than 20 million users. For more news like this, visit our main Fast Feed page regularly. http://www.fastcompany.com/1842351/the-fancy-referral-program-pays-you-for-sharing?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29 http://www.fastcompany.com/1842351/the-fancy-referral-program-pays-you-for-sharing?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29 ..and yet the above quote from Frank Herbert is exactly what many people ignore when trying to understand who is influential on any given topic. Conversations are not fixed points in time but are dynamic and agile with different participants contributing throughout. If people are trying to influence a conversation to ensure their message resonates throughout their target audience it is essential that they target the right people, at the right time in the right manner. Too often people only focus on who are the right people but haven’t access to the right tools to help with the later areas. Working in tandem with Ramine Tinati from the the University of Southampton, we analysed multiple conversations via a unique tool called TweetFlow for common trends. The results were astounding and has directly impacted the way I work. In previous discussions, I have explained how: As part of this, much of the focus has been on two of the primary personas within the topology of influence. The idea starter and the amplifier – however, what I have only recently realised in my own Eureka moment is that a forgotten but critical player is the curator needs to be engaged with. This person, often overlooked due to their relatively low popularityhas proven to be a significant driver of influence. When analysing the three types below, it is clear to see that as marketers we must adopt both technology tools and sociological profiling to help us interact with people. Idea starters start early in great detail but often do not engage when the conversation reaches maturity and amplifiers publish and move on. If we were to engage with these two types when a conversation has been established in the market for some time because we rightly understood that these two people were instrumental in making this happen, then we would be wasting our effort. Instead it is the local expert who maintains the conversation and enables it to grow. Taking the Gartner hype cycle concept, I have adapted this to the growing maturity of a conversation topic. As marketers, we need to identify at what stage of a conversation we are engaging in, so that we in turn can ensure that our limited time and focus is spent concentrating on the right people who have the greatest chance of influencing others. Stage 1: Conversation Trigger Regression analysis of conversations often point to a few individuals who initiate the concept. These ‘idea starters’ often collaborate with curators to refine the concept and amplifiers to help publicize their thoughts. Engagement with the idea starter via collaborative discussion holds the greatest opportunity to influence the conversation. Key influencer: Idea Starter Preferred Engagement Behaviour: Collaborative discussion Stage 2: Peak of Concurrent Conversations When an ‘amplifier’ becomes interested in a conversation, it has the opportunity to reverberate around communities. With a large audience, an amplifier’s voice is disproportionately loud and for this reason has often been the target of many influence campaigns. Engagement with group has the greatest chance of success provided a relationship exists. However, this opportunity is often extremely hard to achieve and hence marketers have instead opted for influencing the influencers of this group (i.e. idea starters) or using paid methods (e.g. advertorials). Nevertheless, what cannot be doubted is that when an amplifier publicises content, it generates a huge volume of conversation. Key influencer: Amplifier Preferred Engagement Behaviour: Pre-packaged content that is easy to reproduce Stage 3: Trough of Early Adoption As any blogger will tell you, after the initial excitement of a meme, there comes a quick and sudden lull in conversation volume. What is most apparent is that the early catalysts for discussions no longer actively participate in the conversation. This is a crucial stage as it is here where the traditional key influencers of idea starters and amplifiers make way for the curator. Curators are the niche experts who are known within their circle as the go-to-person about a niche area. They may not have a huge number of followers but they maintain the conversation when others have left. Key influencer: Curator Preferred Engagement Behaviour: Q&A, scenario discussion Stage 4: Slope of Enlightenment For an idea to manifest, it takes time and evidence-based discussion to prove that it is an idea worth following. It is at this stage that once again we see the curator as being a focal point in idea adoption. Stage 5: Plateau of Mainstream AdoptionYou may never get as high a degree of volume of discussion as with the Peak of Concurrent Conversations but it is at this final stage where key commentators are dominating the conversation. Adoption of the idea is widespread with the initial idea starter and amplifier having progressed to other areas some time ago. In this video created with TweetFlow, you can see how idea starters start early in the conversation, amplifiers give it mass growth but it is the curators who make it last. Idea Starters – this small collective of people are the creative brains behind many of the thoughts and ideas that other people talk about. Even though they may not necessarily have a large audience themselves, their insightful opinions often flow and are repeated throughout conversations long after they have left. They are typically well connected to other idea starters (where they collaborate on thoughts) and amplifiers (who they often rely upon to spread their views). Idea starters tend to be well connected to curators and amplifiers. Amplifiers – these people frequently have a large audience and following. Their expertise may be deep but often they rely upon other contacts to provide opinion to which they then let their readership know about. They often have professional or commercial motivations such as journalists or analysts but are also more often than not self-created experts and avid sharers of information. Their advantage and their burden is their huge number of followers they need to keep satisfied. This behaviour ensures that they need to receive pre-packaged content that they can easily repost, retweet or repurpose so that their audience does not diminish. Amplifiers are frequently well connected to idea starters as the source of their content. Curators – this group though having a far smaller audience are perhaps one of the most influential groups. Long after the idea starter and amplifier have left a conversation, it is the curator that maintains discussion. This niche expert collates information about a specific topic and is frequently sought after for advice about this specific area. They often take part in discussions with idea starters and are avid readers of topic-specific amplifiers. Commentators – these people individually have little influence. Their behaviour often resembles little more than adding a comment without contributing greatly to the conversation. Their influence should not be ignored but should instead be viewed as a collective to measure the trend of opinion around a subject. An interesting factor is that this group are often self-moderating - when negative comments are posted often these contributors will often intervene to correct inaccuracies or a unfounded negative views. Viewers- In the conversation this invisible group who we call viewers don’t leave a foot print except through Google. Indeed it is through Google, and the impact of viewers on search results, that these other groups become influential and evolve their role within a conversation. Authority rests with the search patterns of those who simply observe in a democratic world. In order to stand the greatest for marketers to influence a conversation, they must appreciate what maturity stage the conversation currently is at. Upon doing that they will need to target the most appropriate person from within the topology and engage with them according to their behavioural characteristics. End note: We are currently beta-testing the next iteration of TweetLevel which will allow anyone to identify what type of influencer a tweeter is via its algorithm. If you would like a beta-access password, please contact @jonnybentwood http://socialmediatoday.com/jonnybentwood/593741/critical-importance-time-when-understanding-influence?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 http://socialmediatoday.com/jonnybentwood/593741/critical-importance-time-when-understanding-influence?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 This low-budget mainstay can help you learn your customers work and fill your database. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223946 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223946 Rise and shine! Are you excited to be ridiculously inefficient at the office today, putting in more hours and having less impact, so you can ultimately spend less time with your family and friends and forgo pursuing enriching hobbies that make your life worth living? Me neither. And for small business owners, or marketers working in a smaller department with fewer resources, the hours required to be effective can seem daunting at times. So it's no surprise -- albeit unfortunate -- that consistency wavers for many marketers who are drowning in a sea of other tasks that make them take their eye off the prize. And it's particularly unfortunate for inbound marketers, because inbound marketing works best when it's pursued over a long period of time with unwavering dedication. That's all well and good, but what are we all supposed to do to actually be effective with less time and fewer resources to, well be effective? Focus on pulling the biggest levers you can pull in the least amount of time, that's what. This post is going to assume you can carve out only 4 hours for inbound marketing every week -- inspiration taken from Tim Ferriss' popular book The 4-Hour Workweek -- and tell you how to allocate those hours to keep your inbound marketing alive, well, and thriving. The 4-Hour Inbound Marketing Workweek Create Blog Content - 30 Minutes You can create a week's worth of blog content in 30 minutes? No, you probably can't. In fact, it's my profession, and I know I couldn't do it. You can, however, outsource it to someone in 30 minutes. At the beginning of every week, sit down and think of the topics you'd like to publish on your blog the following week. Then send those topics along with some keywords you'd like them to include to a freelance writer. If you do this every week, you'll have found a writer that you like, that understands your business, and you know is reliable. If you haven't ever outsourced content creation, I recommend checking out Zerys -- it's a great content marketplace to get started on! To save yourself even more time, ask the writer to include internal links within the blog copy. That way, when you get your bundle of blog posts back at the end of the week, they will be optimized and ready to publish after a quick once over from you. Just put them into your CMS, and set the schedule dates so they auto-publish for the following week! Create an Offer - 60 Minutes You could outsource your offer creation, too -- if you had a great writer you already knew, you could chat with him or her about the offer and have something ready to go that required 60 minutes (or less!) of your time. More of the author's time, sure, but you wouldn't need to put in more than an hour. Marketing offers are a big deal, though. They're the crux of your lead generation efforts! Many marketers want to have a bigger hand in the offer creation process, and I get that. So when you don't have time to write a long, elaborate whitepaper or ebook, you should default to some offers that require a little less time to put together. In fact, I've written an entire blog post full of offer ideas for time-crunched marketers. Here are some of the highlights you could easily pull together if you set aside 60 minutes to focus on offer content creation: Blog Bundle: Select a theme around which to write (we might choose SEO, for example), and find all of the blog posts you've written on the subject. Then "bundle" them together to form a comprehensive offer that teaches leads about every aspect of that subject matter. Persona- or Industry-Driven Offers: Take an existing offer, and tweak it to cater to a persona or industry you're targeting. Continuing with the SEO offer example, we might tweak an existing SEO ebook that talks about the topic generically for all marketers, and edit it to apply to international marketers, edit another to apply to ecommerce marketers, and edit it yet again to apply to enterprise organizations. All of these segments have slightly different SEO problems that require a unique piece of content, but they're not so radically different that you'd have to create an entirely new offer from scratch. Templates: Instead of spending time writing, those marketers who aren't wordsmiths may find it easier to create a template that prospects can download to make their lives easier. Is there something you can create in Photoshop, Excel, or even Word that your leads would love to have bookmarked or saved on their desktop to use over and over? Perhaps you're an accountant whose clients could use a simple deduction calculation spreadsheet, for example. I bet you could whip that up in a jiffy, and your leads would go nuts for it! Remember, helpful content comes in forms other than the written word. You can find many more options for quick lead-gen offer content that you could whip up in 60 minutes or less in this blog post. Create Your Offer's Landing Page - 20 Minutes Now that you have an offer, you'll need a landing page to direct traffic to. Landing page creation doesn't have to be complicated -- we use our own tool in HubSpot that lets you literally drag and drop form fields onto your page, and use a WYSIWYG editor to input your copy. In fact, once you've created a landing page you like, you can just clone it and make copy tweaks to align with the offer you're promoting on that landing page! It couldn't be simpler. If you still find yourself staring at a blank web page unsure of what to write, there's a simple formula you can follow to ensure all the information you need to convey to visitors is taken care of. First, include a heading that clearly states exactly what this landing page offers -- an ebook on using Pinterest for business, a template to calculate tax deductions, a kit about grooming your unicorn whatever. Then include a subheading that succinctly explains what you will learn by downloading the offer; this is critical because it's like the elevator pitch that demonstrates the value of your offer, and why a visitor should give away their contact information to redeem it. Then, go into a bit more detail about your elevator pitch, explaining some of the key pieces of information the offer will divulge. We like to use bullets or checkmarks to do this, as it helps break up large chunks of text, making it more likely visitors will peruse those points of value. Finally, include a relevant image to help make your landing page more engaging and break up the monotony of the text. We usually choose an image of the offer itself, but you could go a different route as long as the image relates to your offer! Of course there are other things on this landing page that are important. Social sharing buttons, for example, will help increase the reach of this landing page. And we didn't even include the form in this screenshot, though certainly you need to include a form on a landing page (how else would you capture that lead intel?). But if you include those four components in your landing page copy along with, of course, your form, you'll have an effective landing page on your hands that takes very little time to whip up. To learn more about how to write effective landing page copy, read our blog post, "The 7-Point Checklist for Powerful Landing Page Copy." Create Your Offer's Call-to-Action - 15 Minutes Now that you have that stellar landing page, how do you think anyone's going to get to it? You'll need a call-to-action to help drive traffic there from other pages on your website, particularly your blog posts (where you'll undoubtedly be promoting this offer, right? Right.) Here's the thing about calls-to-action -- they don't need to be complicated. In fact, it's better that they aren't complicated; the simpler they are, the easier they are to understand, which means more conversions for you. Some businesses simply use text as their calls-to-action, which is a-okay, but we like to create visual CTAs for our website so they stand out a bit more. What do you need to do to create them? Well, we use HubSpot's CTA-generator to create simple buttons with compelling copy; but we also like to play around in Photoshop, PowerPoint, and even Paint to create CTAs sometimes! And when you boil CTA creation down, it's really nothing more than a background color, a contrasting text color, and an image -- all hyperlinked to go to a landing page on your website. So go ahead, pop into your favorite image editing tool and create a CTA image of your own! If you've never tried it before, you'll be shocked how simple it really is. And you can use our ebook about creating effective calls-to-action to guide you through the process. Do Some Email Marketing - 30 Minutes You can get more leverage from your lead gen offer if you incorporate it into your email marketing. After all, there are certainly leads in your database that would be interested in reading your latest offer, and sending it to them via email will help aid in more reconversions. Simple take an email template -- most ESPs, like HubSpot, have email templates at the ready that are friendly to all email clients and look good, too -- and write a short bit of copy that explains why your offer would be interesting to the recipient. In fact, you can take much of the copy straight from your landing page, where you explained the offer's value proposition already! Why reinvent the wheel? To make your time spent creating this email worth your while, you really need to spend some of those 30 minutes segmenting your email list. Remember, email is most effective when it's properly targeted, which ultimately boils down to sending your message to the right audience. In fact, emails sent to segmented lists result in better open rates for 39% of marketers, lower opt-out and unsubscribe rates for 28% of marketers, and increased sales leads and revenue for 24% of marketers, according to eMarketer. We've written a blog post to walk you through how to properly segment your email lists if you're unsure of how to get started. And if you decide to set up an entire automated email campaign, not just do one email send, rejoice! You only have to put in the work once, because you'll have set up a workflow that runs on autopilot based on the triggers you've set up. Set Up Your Social Sharing - 30 Minutes You've created all this great content that's poised to generate tons of leads for your business but how are people going to hear about it besides email? Through social media, of course! Now that you have your blog content, your offer content, and your landing page all set up, you have the information you need to create your social media content for next week. Simply craft updates for each social network to promote this new content, and pepper it with other interesting links and status updates to keep the right promotional balance. If you're using a social media publishing tool, you can simply input these updates (using a link tracker like bitly to keep track of the links in your updates) and schedule their publish date. Boom! You've just set up your social media content for all of next week! Pretty easy when you just set aside a few minutes to bang it out, eh? Monitor Your Social Presence - 25 Minutes Now that you have content set to publish, you'll have to check in periodically to ensure the conversations taking place on your social networks are going smoothly. Divide this up into periodic checking every day -- check in a few times a day for a few minutes, and you'll be able to respond to questions, triage customer service issues, and engage with followers in a friendly manner. You don't need to troll your social media accounts every second of every day; people understand that you're not glued to your Facebook page, waiting to respond to a comment at a moment's notice. If you're using a social media tool that lets you filter for important keywords, you can make your life even easier by setting up alerts for mentions of those keywords so you know when you need to check back in. Analyze Your Marketing - 30 Minutes Take a few minutes each day, and once at the end of the week, to see both the daily and weekly analysis of which marketing activities are moving the needle. If you're using closed-loop marketing software, you can easily take a quick look at your dashboard to see a snapshot of your performance, and identify any performance anomalies can be drilled down into for further analysis. For example, if you saw an increase in leads from your blog on one day -- or during an entire week -- you can drill down into what kind of content you published (and then publish more of that type of content). Remember -- part of being an effective 4-hour-a-week inbound marketer is pulling the biggest levers you can pull with the least resources, so you need your marketing analytics to identify those levers. What has the biggest impact on your bottom line? That's where you should be putting your limited time and resources! What do you do to make your inbound marketing activities more efficient? Image credit: potzuyoko (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=0615226f-d996-4f84-a944-d80d6386beb0"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-0615226f-d996-4f84-a944-d80d6386beb0").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-0615226f-d996-4f84-a944-d80d6386beb0").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); (function(){ var hsjs = document.createElement("script"); hsjs.type = "text/javascript"; hsjs.async = true; hsjs.src = "//cta-service.cms.hubspot.com/cta-service/loader.js?placement_guid=2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45"; (document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0]||document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]).appendChild(hsjs); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45").style.visibility="hidden"}, 1); setTimeout(function() {document.getElementById("hs-cta-2891588d-22d3-4b0b-8db4-27a7a57f6c45").style.visibility="visible"}, 2000); })(); http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33366/The-4-Hour-Marketing-Workweek.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33366/The-4-Hour-Marketing-Workweek.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+HubSpot+%28HubSpot%29 The outspoken business-makeover specialist Tabatha Coffey of Bravo reality show fame dishes on how to keep customers coming back. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223908 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223908 News updates all day from Fast Company.According to well-sourced rumors, Microsoft is poised to reveal Bing Fund, a brand new angel incubator effort. It's not a typical fund, however, and as its name suggests it's actually intended to drive innovation in Microsoft's own Online Services Division (the segment of the company that contains Bing, MSN, AdCenter and other online tools for tasks like advertising--and a Microsoft job advert says it's going to be "working with startups and accelerators to bring a wave of innovation to OSD." Bing has been a huge and controversial effort by Microsoft to steal search market share away from Google and thereby drive revenues through online advertising associated with Bing's search results. Microsoft last week had to write down $6 billion for the purchase and failure of online ad seller aQuantive--a move that pushed its quarterly finances into a technical loss.Visit our main Fast Feed page to keep up with the news through the day. http://www.fastcompany.com/1842277/microsoft-rumored-to-launch-bing-fund-angel-incubator-scheme?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29 http://www.fastcompany.com/1842277/microsoft-rumored-to-launch-bing-fund-angel-incubator-scheme?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29 Small companies have unique benefits that help them in social media. They can be more personal, more intimate, move faster, and be more flexible. Big businesses have problems due to their size, organization and bureaucracies. But they also shine in some areas that small companies fall short. Here are 5 social media lessons that small businesses can learn from big businesses. http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/591266/5-social-media-lessons-small-business-can-learn-big-business?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/591266/5-social-media-lessons-small-business-can-learn-big-business?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Social+Media+Today+%28all+posts%29 As the government on Friday released its latest official snapshot of the American labor market -- finding that the economy in June added a paltry 80,000 net new jobs, while the unemployment rate held steady at 8.2 percent -- most commentators seized on the data as generic fodder for the unceasing campaign story.How will Republican nominee Mitt Romney exploit these fresh indications of distress for his own political benefit? Can President Barack Obama survive a weak economy to claim reelection? These are predictable questions, the sorts of reactions we can play for ourselves in our heads without bothering to turn on the television. Their ubiquity testifies to the degree to which too many professional observers are inured to the real human experiences behind the data. The horrendous job market is not a political story. It is a national emergency playing out in slow motion, a catastrophe that has come to dominate life in millions of American homes. The persistent shortage of paychecks has seeped into our aspirations and made them smaller. It has eroded the basic American understanding about the supposed rewards of trying hard, getting educated and looking for work -- a formula too many people have been following only to wind up destitute, discouraged and dispossessed. Read More...More on Opportunity: What Is Working http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/latest-jobs-report_b_1654661.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-s-goodman/latest-jobs-report_b_1654661.html Many observers now take a jaundiced view of international sanctions, describing them variously as toothless, counter-productive or misdirected. For once, though, they appear to be working. According to the New York Times' Thomas Erdbrink and Clifford Krauss, the oil embargo imposed by the U.S. and EU — which only took full effect last week — is already crippling the Iranian economy: "After years of defiance and insistence that sanctions were barely being felt at home, Iranians are acknowledging the latest round with growing alarm. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that they were “the strongest yet,” they write. "International oil experts say Iranian exports have already been cut by at least a quarter since the beginning of the year, costing Iran roughly $10 billion so far in forgone revenues. Many experts say the pain is only beginning, since oil prices have been falling and Iran’s sales should drop even more with the European embargo that went into effect on Sunday. Oil experts estimate that Iran’s oil export revenues are down about 35 percent compared with the beginning of the year, they report. And Iran's foreign minister has even compared the pressures Iranian society faces to what the country experienced during its brutal war against Iraq in the '80s. The sanctions — which include limits on access to foreign reserves — have also destroyed the value of the Iranian rial. Inflation is up 21 percent, and the price of staples like bread has increased 40 percent, according to Yassamin Issapour, a researcher at the American Foreign Policy council, writing in the Wall Street Journal. What's more, the West is unlikely to experience an oil price spike rebound effect, given the unusual crude oversupply OPEC is experiencing. Erdbrink has also reported that the sanctions have magnified earlier economic mismanagement by Iran's own government. "Economists also agree that much of the damage to the economy has been self-inflicted, saying that the Ahmadinejad government went on an import spending spree after oil revenues started hitting record levels from 2005 on." Because they've only just taken effect, it's still too early to say what impact the sanctions will have on Iran's nuclear aspirations. But unlike previous sanction regimes, it seems likely there will be tangible gains. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story » http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-oil-sanctions-working-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-oil-sanctions-working-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 As a recent arrival to Silicon Valley and its unique culture, I’ve had the unique opportunity to consider how it contrasts with the culture of medicine, with which I’m deeply familiar. I’ve been especially struck by the excessively reductive view many Silicon Valley engineers seem to have of medicine, a practice http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2012/07/08/medicine-and-silicon-valley-two-cultures-with-more-in-common-than-you-think/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidshaywitz/2012/07/08/medicine-and-silicon-valley-two-cultures-with-more-in-common-than-you-think/ By providing a platform for fans to connect, congratulate, and commiserate with one another -- not every game ends well -- Yanks in Exile is helping the larger Yankee community to find itself. It might also help the sports marketing community peek into the future. For the "exiles" concept may in fact be the next big thing in sports marketing http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/07/08/the-new-york-yankees-in-exile-the-next-big-idea-in-marketing/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/giovannirodriguez/2012/07/08/the-new-york-yankees-in-exile-the-next-big-idea-in-marketing/ Amazon will launch a new Kindle Fire tablet in Q3 this year, according to All Things D, citing sources developing apps for the device. The new Kindle Fire will have a sharper screen with a different aspect ratio (1280 x 800 pixels versus 1024 x 600), according to the report. Amazon is expected to announce the new tablet in the second half of the year, so keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks. All Things D has more details on the new Kindle Fire, so check it out > Don't Miss: Our review of Google's Nexus 7 tablet > Please follow SAI: Tools on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story » http://www.businessinsider.com/new-kindle-fire-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29 http://www.businessinsider.com/new-kindle-fire-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Falleyinsider%2Fsilicon_alley_insider+%28Silicon+Alley+Insider%29 Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) November’s election is right around the bend and at this writing it appears as though the outcome won’t make much difference to the economy. That’s because neither candidate appears poised to http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/07/08/why-president-obamas-job-creation-plan-edges-out-mitt-romneys/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/07/08/why-president-obamas-job-creation-plan-edges-out-mitt-romneys/ PRWeb. Help a Reporter Out (HARO). North Social. Engine 140. iContact. Small business owners, marketers and managers may recognize one or more of these products. But fewer people are familiar with the umbrella brand of Vocus. Vocus is a cloud-based marketing and PR software company. Like some other companies that we’ve covered here on Small Business Trends, the Vocus goal is to unify a highly fragmented landscape that today contains countless tools each intended for narrow siloed tasks. Few of us have time to investigate all the marketing tools out there for small businesses — let alone master them all and share data seamlessly between them. Vocus wants to make it so that you don’t have to. Integrated Products Key to the Strategy The Beltsville, Maryland headquartered company is on a path to connect the dots and provide business users with an integrated experience to save time and be more effective. According to their most recent investor presentation, a key part of their strategy is to provide an all-in-one product suite. “We began to see that SMBs had a variety of point products, used separately, that left SMBs with little integration in product, and consequently, marketing strategy,” explained Frank Strong, Director of PR at Vocus. As a result, the Vocus product strategy has evolved toward integrated product suites to handle more of the small-business marketing process seamlessly, end to end. If all you need is a tool or service to perform a single marketing task, you can still get that with individual Vocus products. Example: market your business through email (iContact), distribute press releases that appear in search results (PRWeb), or find media leads to generate publicity (HARO). But you now can also purchase subscription offerings that combine various functionality into integrated product suites covering multiple marketing activities. There is a Vocus marketing suite and a public relations suite for small businesses, with prices ranging from $1,950 – $9,950 annually, based on modules and needs. Intelligence Interjected into Small Business Marketing Vocus’s aim is not only to make marketing easier, but also more intelligent and effective. The social media module, for instance, helps you see and measure activity related to the company Facebook Page, Twitter account and website. It also attempts to provide analysis and intelligence, such as providing suggestions for which Twitter users to follow. For small business owners and managers responsible for a business Twitter account who don’t know what to do with it, the Vocus platform is designed to “train” business users while they are using the product: Click to open larger image in new tab For instance, the “handwritten” note next to Tweets on the Vocus dashboard (see image above) either analyzes the tweet or recommends taking action such as “Check out this important post on Facebook.” These recommendations, said Strong, provide direction to busy business owners or marketers. Growth While Learning Along the Way Vocus has grown in part through acquisitions. Case in point: the company acquired email marketing software iContact for $169 million in February of 2012. Another acquisition was PRWeb. During that acquisition, Vocus found it wasn’t PR pros who used PRWeb. Rather, it was small businesses wanting to drive traffic to their websites. “In reality, these customers weren’t necessarily seeking a press release distribution, although reporters find information through search as well,” said Strong. “They really were after a content marketing system.” Vocus is a publicly-traded company on the NASDAQ, with reported 2011 revenues of $115 million, having grown from $28 million in 2005. Its software products are used by more than 120,000 organizations worldwide, and are available in seven languages. * * * * * Vocus is one of the key brands showing their support of small businesses by sponsoring the Small Business Influencer Awards. From Small Business TrendsVocus: Small Businesses Shouldn’t Have to Piecemeal Their Marketing http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/vocus-small-businesses-shouldnt-have-to-piecemeal-marketing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/vocus-small-businesses-shouldnt-have-to-piecemeal-marketing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 Uh Oh. I’m only on the first page of the introduction of The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz (@toiletpaperentrepreneur) and I’m already laughing. When we talked about his sending me a review copy of this book, he told me this was going to a more serious book about building your business – and it is. But I’m still laughing out loud in my kitchen at 6am on a Saturday over a cup of steaming coffee (which is when I write these book reviews). I hope the rest of my family doesn’t hear me. Let me tell you a little bit about the author, Mike Michalowicz. In the interest of full disclosure, Mike has become a sort of professional friend. That happened after I reviewed his last book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He’s not the kind of guy everyone likes. Some people may think he isn’t serious because there’s a playful, unassuming, comedic teenage-sense of humor that you notice first. I mean who else would name their book “Toilet Paper Entrepreneur?” But he’s the kind of guy I LOVE because beneath the carefree, frat-boy style is real down-to-earth wisdom that only a small business owner can appreciate. Knowing How to Grow a Great Pumpkin Translates to Growing a Great Business – Really There are lots of analogies about how to grow a great business; fast cars, toilet paper and now pumpkins. I’m dubious about this. Thank the LORD I didn’t have to wait until page 85 to get the connection. Mike gets to it on page 15 (whew). Here is the inspiration for the book – an article in his local paper on how to grow GIGUNDA pumpkins in – are you ready – Seven Steps! STEP 1: Plant promising seeds STEP 2: Water, Water, Water STEP 3: As they grow, routinely remove all of the diseased or damaged pumpkins. STEP 4: Weed like a mad dog. Not a single green leaf or root permitted if it isn’t a pumpkin plant. STEP 5: When they grow larger, identify the stronger, faster-growing pumpkins. Repeat until you have one pumpkin on each vine. STEP 6: Focus all your attention on the big pumpkin. Nurture it around the clock like a baby, and guard it like you would your first Mustang convertible. STEP 7: Watch it grow. In the last days of the season, this will happen so fast you can actually see it happen. There you have it – the secret to growing a million dollar business in the pumpkin patch. These steps are actually converted to business-speak a page later, but you’ll have to read the book to get those. How To Use Pumpkin Plan In Your Business By the time you get through the first chapter – you will be sold. You’ll find yourself saying “YES! This is me. I’m going to Pumpkin Plan my business!” But this book is NOT a workbook. You can’t just stop reading and do something he talks about. I suppose you can but let’s just say you won’t want to. You’ll want to keep reading, then put the book down, then really think about the wisdom that’s between the lines that have you laughing and chuckling to yourself and at the same time SEEING yourself in the myriad stories he tells throughout the book. Let me give you a sort of tip before you even crack the pages – the book starts with a story about not being “That guy” – the guy who gives his whole life to his business and then is sitting on the porch worn and torn drooling (a rather bad paraphrase of Mike). This is the foundation of the book. The pumpkin patch process is what you’ll see Mike repeating in a variety of industries and situations. And your job is to read, learn and then apply what you’ve read to YOUR business. No fancy worksheets, no short cuts, just a little “Work the Plan in 30 Minutes or Less” summary after each section. What strikes me about each of these to-do elements is how much of them are not about DOING – they are about who you are BEING in your business. And remember – you don’t want to BE – That guy! Who Should Read Pumpkin Plan And Why While the book is written for the small business owner, I actually think it has HUGE implications for sales folks as well. After all, aren’t we ALL sales people? I never thought I would say this, but this pumpkin patch process has wisdom and practicality written all over it. If your business is in those “Life Sucks” stages where you find yourself thinking that all you need is to close that one BIG deal? Yeah – you need this book. Get over it, the big deal isn’t going to save you. And if you are doing great, but want more time to enjoy your business and your life, pick this puppy up and free up some time while you make more money. I’m not trying to sell this book to you. I can’t promise that what’s in the book will grow your business – only the choices you make and actions you take will do that. But, if you implement the Pumpkin Plan, you just might find yourself laughing all the way to the bank. From Small Business TrendsRead The Pumpkin Plan to Grow Your Business http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/the-pumpkin-plan-book-review.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/the-pumpkin-plan-book-review.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 Sites like Twitter and Facebook are overrun with brands trying to get consumers' attention. So what do you do? Get crafty, that's what. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223920 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223920 Several programs offer kids with an interest in tech an opportunity to begin developing start-up skills.Across the country right about now, many kids are heading off to summer camp where they'll do things like earn merit badgets and complete the usual crafts projects. But other high schoolers are doing something decidedly different with their time off: They're learning tech skills and starting new ventures to improve their own communities.One such camp, TechGirlz, begins Monday in Philadelphia. The camp, which is a collaboration with DreamIt Ventures and StartUp Corps, will give girls in 6th-8th grades a week of hands-on technology experience as well as a chance to develop business ideas under the mentorship of local entrepreneurs and developers. The goal is to get girls more interested in technology and start-ups early on to change the gender statistics in the IT industry.StartUp Corps offers its own program to develop young entrepreneurs in Philadelphia. It partners with high schools and youth programs to give ongoing mentorship for high school students. A couple times a week, 150 students report to start-up class to receive lessons and advice from mentors, all successful entrepreneurs themselves. Through the course of the program, many launch for-profit and not-for-profit enterprises with the goal of positively impacting their communities.On the other side of the country in Los Angeles, Urban Teens Exploring Technology (UrbanTxT) encourages high-school boys to use technology to improve their communities and their own economic conditions. Most of the UrbanTxT participants are from inner-city areas like South L.A. and Watts. UrbanTxT founder and Watts native Oscar Menjivar started the program, which teaches the students research and project management skills and gives them experience using Web 2.0 tools.“We found that lots of students that we talked to did not [know] what a website was, had never seen how to make a website, but they were brave enough to try,” Menjivar said in a 2008 interview when UrbanTxT opened its doors. http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/tech-camps-for-teen-entrepreneurs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29 http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/tech-camps-for-teen-entrepreneurs.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29 Thinking is great. But absolutely nothing changes until you act. http://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2012/07/08/extremely-successful-people-have-a-message-for-the-rest-of-us-get-off-your-butt/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/actiontrumpseverything/2012/07/08/extremely-successful-people-have-a-message-for-the-rest-of-us-get-off-your-butt/ Despite the political theater that will play out through the presidential election, the Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has ended the speculation about whether the law can continue to move forward. Now it's time to find ways to make it work for Ohio's businesses and citizens. http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/07/health_care_takeaways_for_smal.html http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/07/health_care_takeaways_for_smal.html We sidled up to the counter at one of our longtime favorite dives in San Francisco, Mars Bar & Restaurant, and asked the bartender if he knew who was moving in across the street. "Sure," he said. "Pinterest." As we reported Friday, the online image-sharing board had packed up its office in Palo Alto and decamped to San Francisco, an increasingly popular destination for the most innovative new companies in the heartland of tech. But where? The speculation can end: Business Insider has located Pinterest's new world headquarters. It's 808 Brannan Street in SoMa, a block away from Zynga and down the street from the future home of Airbnb. When Business Insider visited the site on Saturday, it looked like the work of moving was barely getting started.Here's where Pinterest's new headquarters is located. It's close to other startups and San Francisco's 4th & King Caltrain station. It's not the nicest neighborhood. The Hall of Justice, headquarters for the San Francisco Police Department, is the biggest local landmark. The Public Defender's office is across the street. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook. http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-new-san-francisco-office-photos-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-new-san-francisco-office-photos-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 Google launched a new campaign on Saturday supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage around the world.Dot 429 reports that the initiative, called "Legalize Love," debuted in Poland and Singapore, and "will focus on places with homophobic cultures, where anti-gay laws exist," though it will operate in every city in which Google has an office. Google has indicated its support of the issue before. In 2008, the company More on Video http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/07/google-announces-support-same-sex-marriage_n_1656680.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/07/google-announces-support-same-sex-marriage_n_1656680.html We sidled up to the counter at one of our longtime favorite dives in San Francisco, Mars Bar & Restaurant, and asked the bartender if he knew who was moving in across the street. "Sure," he said. "Pinterest." As we reported Friday, the online image-sharing board had packed up its office in Palo Alto and decamped to San Francisco, an increasingly popular destination for the most innovative new companies in the heartland of tech. But where? The speculation can end: Business Insider has located Pinterest's new world headquarters. It's 808 Brannan Street in SoMa, a block away from Zynga and down the street from the future home of Airbnb. When Business Insider visited the site on Saturday, it looked like the work of moving was barely getting started.Here's where Pinterest's new headquarters is located. It's close to other startups and San Francisco's 4th & King Caltrain station. It's not the nicest neighborhood. The Hall of Justice, headquarters for the San Francisco Police Department, is the biggest local landmark. The Public Defender's office is across the street. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook. http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-new-san-francisco-office-photos-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-new-san-francisco-office-photos-2012-7?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29 Each week at Forbes we scan our database of corporate insiders to see who got richer from the action in the stock market. Despite a gloomy jobs report on Friday, all three major indices managed to hold on to gains of at least 1% week over week. In the face of overwhelming pessimism in the popular press, the S&P 500 has now risen 3.5% since bottoming in early June. While many observers are justifiably skeptical of the bounce's potential to develop into a veritable rally, it is clear is that the bleeding has slowed in recent weeks to the benefit of insiders and investors alike. Here, a few insiders who outpaced the rising tides over the past seven days: http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2012/07/07/who-got-rich-this-week-an-upstate-new-york-winemaker-chief-yelper-levchin-and-more/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwindurgy/2012/07/07/who-got-rich-this-week-an-upstate-new-york-winemaker-chief-yelper-levchin-and-more/ originally appeared on the , where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. has become the Internet's blog darling, with more than 60 million accounts worldwide. Its users are also highly engaged and eager to interact with compelling content, so it's no wonder why major brands have flocked to the platform. As a small business owner, those facts might persuade you to quickly switch over, too. But before hopping on yet another platform, there are a few things to consider, especially if you're already running an established blog elsewhere. First of all, platform adoption depends on your initial goal: Are you looking for engagement, awareness and advocacy? How heavily would you rely on Tumblr as a business? Is it an integral source of revenue or data, or more of a place to communicate and engage? We've broken down a few advantages and setbacks to Tumblr from a brand's perspective. Are you already on Tumblr? What advice do you have for someone considering the platform? Share your tips in the comments. For any people new to the blogging world, Tumblr is advantageous because it's so user-friendly. All of the features are apparent in the dashboard, which makes it simple to navigate. You don't have to fuss around with too many clicks to get to where you want to go, and very little tweaking needs to be made if you're interested in a customized appearance. Plus, the sleek mobile app means you can update your blog on the fly. The default theme on Tumblr has more aesthetic freedom than a lot of other blogging platforms, but there are also plenty of pre-packaged themes to choose from -- many look less like a blog and more like your own website. Because most are free, Tumblr is a great platform for anyone who can't afford to hire a designer or developer. Given that people may be searching the term "Tumblr" on more than the word "blog" , it's safe to say that popularity is one major advantage for brands. Tumblr is naturally more social than most blog platforms, and its audience is highly engaged -- they will not be shy about interacting with your brand, as long as you provide them with captivating content. That being said, keep in mind that Tumblr users want to see your brand's personality. This is nice for many companies because it allows them to be more creative, but can be a challenge for others who aren't used to thinking outside of the box. If your company is interested in producing interesting content that engages users and doesn't adhere to the formality of most corporate blogs, then Tumblr is the place for you. In fact, some of the best examples of branded accounts are the ones that break the more corporate mold. For example, Tumblr has a nontraditional sense of humor, claiming to be the "browser you loved to hate." Yet, the page is still informational, and it engages the audience by pulling tweets from users who are reluctant to claim approval of the new browser. Tumblr's is categorized into several popular topics: art, tech, education, fashion and advertising, among others. Depending on what your company does, there's already a community that's been filtered. This navigates brands to the right audience, saving time and energy when you want to build a following. So, let's say you run a small advertising firm. There's an "Advertising" tag that's curated by community managers, and it's easily accessible and available for you to neatly categorize your blog to target the right audience. There's no vacuum and no mystery; viewers who are interested in advertising will come to you. The tag system is useful for brands because if used properly, their content has a chance to be showcased. Plus, if you're feeling uninspired, the tag dashboard becomes tailored to your area of interest, so you always have relevant content to pull from. Although you can sync a third-party app like Google Analytics to your Tumblr, there are no features that will reveal Tumblr-specific statistics. Through referral analytics, brands can know how many people are visiting and sharing the site outside of Tumblr, but a lot of users only interact through their dashboard. As a result, analytics don't accurately reflect the number of people who interact with your content. For example, if a post gets reblogged 200 times, there's no way to tell how many people total saw it on the dashboard the way Facebook's analytics feature can (via "reach"). You can view Tumblr "notes" ("likes," reblogs) individually, but that requires a lot of time -- especially since the two forms of activity aren't separated within each post. If Tumblr's server goes down, it is out of your hands and there's no way to help ameliorate the situation until the website comes back up. That can be scary, especially if you rely on the platform for ecommerce or to keep the business running. Once the site is back up, the functionality tends to be a little shaky, and it could remain that way for hours or even days. Over the years, Tumblr has grown from a small community of users to hosting more than 60 million blogs, and stability has been an issue time and again. In 2010, the company had a major issue with its database clusters and the for more than 14 hours as a result of this instability. Thanks to the platform's fast growth, the company has expanded its servers and support team. The site has yet to experience an outage like in 2010, but it's an important consideration for businesses. Tumblr is one of the most social blogging platforms, but there is no native commenting system. Users can message blogs, send "fan mail" or ask questions, but that is at the brand's discretion to allow, and there's no way to comment on an individual post without a third-party app. Alternatively, the brand can ask followers questions, but there's a specific post format for that. Another way to get around it is ending a post with a question mark -- on the edit page, a box will appear at the right that opens the post for commentary. In short, if you're looking for an aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly way to outreach and engage, then Tumblr is a fairly good platform for you to do so. However, if you need control of data and rely on a blog for your business to run as a whole, it might be safer to hire a professional or develop your own website. You could then use Tumblr as an additional platform and still interact with its highly engaged audience. http://news.yahoo.com/small-business-join-tumblr-160032488.html http://news.yahoo.com/small-business-join-tumblr-160032488.html SAMI is a life-sized, semi-humanoid robotic prototype built by the Criif, a research and technology research lab in Paris. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/07/07/mobile-robotics-platform-becomes-a-semi-humanoid-known-as-sami/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2012/07/07/mobile-robotics-platform-becomes-a-semi-humanoid-known-as-sami/ You can find plenty of events for small businesses and startups this summer and fall, to educate yourself and your staff, and to network with your peers. Here is our hand-picked list of conferences, seminars and events. Don’t miss out on these excellent opportunities to help you start a business, grow it and run it like a pro! * * * * * Startup Weekend Multiple Cities and Dates 2012 – see website for full list Startup Weekends are 54-hour events designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekends culminate in Sunday night demos and presentations. Participants create working startups during the event and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks. All teams hear talks by industry leaders and receive valuable feedback from local entrepreneurials. The weekend is centered around action, innovation, and education. Whether you are looking for feedback on a idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup. Spark & Hustle Tour Multiple Cities and Dates, May through August 2012 Led by Tory Johnson, the jam-packed, high-energy day enables you to experience big breakthroughs in your business and yourself. Meet great people who can help with product development and packaging; manufacturing and distribution; multiple revenue streams and collaborations; mental preparedness for monumental success; and so much more. Beyond the jam-packed sessions, this event is ideal to meet partners, collaborators and even clients! The Real World Marketing Conference: What’s Working Now? July 11, 2012, New York City At this one-of-a-kind conference, top marketing experts will provide attendees with the strategy and tactics needed to create and execute proven marketing plans to help them exceed their business goals.This half day conference will feature four breakout sessions covering all of the latest marketing initiatives you can easily implement in your business. Topics include: engagement marketing, social media strategies, and content marketing. The event will conclude with a panel discussion featuring four experts that have significantly grown their businesses through successful, integrated marketing campaigns.For $10 off registration use promo code NYER10. Ultra Light Startups Investor Feedback Forum July 12, 2012, New York City The objectives of this event are: To help early stage startups refine their investor pitch To provide actionable advice and feedback for each presenting startup To provide insight on how investors evaluate startups and pitches To award prizes to the most viable startups, based on audience voting Infusionsoft Small Business Success Tour July 12, 2012, New York City August 16 – San Francisco August 24 – San Diego September 13 – Chicago September 28 – Los Angeles October 5 – Boston This series features a full day of strategies, tips and marketing best practices from the experts at Infusionsoft. You’ll receive hands-on instructions on how to develop a highly effective sales and marketing plan you can start implementing right away. You’ll learn to: Drive higher customer referral traffic tomorrow Calculate and optimize the lifetime value of your customers Create a constant flow of new customers who are ready to buy Build a healthy and responsive database Get the right message, to the right person, at the right time The Science of Inbound Marketing July 12, 2012, online Billions of pieces of data, five years of research, and tens of thousands of readers and attendees in the making, The Science of Inbound Marketing will be the paramount presentation of inbound marketing data, statistics and science. HubSpot’s Social Media Scientist Dan Zarrella and HootSuite’s VP Marketing Ben Watson will vanquish any unicorn-and-rainbows myths you may have about how inbound marketing really works and what role social plays in this ever-changing landscape. During this 60 minute webinar, you’ll learn: How to make marketing decisions based on real data Ways to leverage your channels for most visibility How to beat the competition using inbound marketing New York Launch Party July 17, 2012, NYC Small Biz New York was created by Small Business Expo and Do It In Person as a fun and informative monthly B2B networking event for New York City Small Business Owners. Not your typical monthly networking event, in addition to general meet & greet networking sessions at local bars & restaurants, each month is different ranging from cutting edge business seminars, to business owner luncheons & breakfasts, to Speed Networking & more…all leading up to the annual Small Business Expo. Sammuel Adams Brewing The American Dream Speed Coaching July 17, 2012, San Diego Business owners in the restaurant, food, beverage or hospitality business can get free advice next week from the makers of Samuel Adams beer. The event is part of a nationwide series sponsored by the brewing company. The event will kick off with a networking reception at 5:30pm. During the reception you will sign up for the consulting stations that are most relevant to your business. The program will begin at 6:00 pm with welcome remarks, after which you will have the opportunity to spend 20 minutes at the coach stations of your preference and receive personalized 1-on-1 coaching from local professionals and Sam Adams experts. Make sure to bring your questions and anything you want feedback on, such as packaging, materials, and ideas. Women’s Leadership Exchange Chicago Conference July 17, 2012, Chicago For the past 10 years WLE has been connecting women business owners throughout the country. 2012 is their 10th anniversary and WLE wants to give back to members who have helped them get to where they are today. At the WLE conference you will learn new strategies, new tactics and new resources that didn’t exist a few years ago. WLE has assembled a group of experts who are experiencing outstanding results. Join WLE in Chicago for a jam-packed day of content to drive new business and opportunities while making valuable business connections. How to Design Slides for Webinar Presentations July 17, 2012, Online Whether you’re a marketer or communicator responsible for crafting virtual content, a sales professional looking convert more customers, or a business leader who presents on a regular basis, it’s time to learn the steps to make your next Web presentation a bigger, bolder success. Attend this free seminar as Roger Courville, author of The Virtual Presenter’s Handbook, demonstrates practical idea for improving virtual presentations quickly and easily—using real slides from real people. You’ll walk away with new ideas for taking your webinars from so-so to sensational. Department of the Navy (DON) Small Business Opportunity Conference August 6-8, 2012, San Diego The DON OSBP is conducting its annual Gold Coast Small Business Opportunity Conference in San Diego, CA on 06-08 August 2012. The primary purpose of the event is to provide a forum to educate, guide and assist small businesses in working with the government primarily the Department of Defense. NDIA and NAVSUP have collaborated to bring interesting and motivating speakers that will present topics of interest with regards to working with the government. Plan on attending informative and relevant general/plenary and break-out sessions including Industry Day with five of the Navy commands. Visit over 250 industry and government exhibitors along with dozens of posters containing company information and opportunities. As with any of these events, there are also plenty of opportunities for networking. Lubbock Chamber of Commerce Governor’s Small Business Forum August 7, 2012 The Forum is designed to give small business owners essential tools to help their businesses succeed, provide jobs for Texans and strengthen the South Plains economy. The Texas Workforce Commission will present information on the many services available for small business owners, including the $2 million dollar Skills for Small Business Fund, which provides grants to community colleges that small businesses may access for employee training needs. MacTech Boot Camp August 7 – San Diego, CA September 5 – Minneapolis, MN December 5 – Miami, FL MacTech Boot Camp is a one day event for those that support the home user, and small business market held around the country. MacTech Boot Camp is a single-track, hotel based seminar that is specifically geared to serve the needs of consultants and techs wanting to serve their base better. This event is geared toward those that already support the home and SMB communities, or that want to become a consultant supporting these areas. Sage Summit 2012 August 12-14, 2012, Nashville, TN Sage Summit is the premier conference for Sage customers and partners. It’s the destination for learning better ways to leverage the software you already own and know and discovering new technologies. Plus you’ll hear what’s working for other people in your industry and gain insight on how to overcome the challenges your organization faces. One Woman National Business Conference and Expo August 17-18, 2012, Sugar Land, TX “Changing the Face of Business One Woman at a Time” is the theme of the taking place Aug. 17 and Aug. 18 at Sugar Land Marriott Town Square. The two-day conference will give business owners, entrepreneurs and corporate employees the chance to network with like-minded decision makers.The conference also features a trade show exhibiting products, services and business opportunities. Speakers will discuss industry trends and business growth strategies. Supplier diversity officers will talk about how to better serve the small business community and meet new potential suppliers.There will also be a “Youth Explosion” program for young entrepreneurs. One Woman is an annual women’s business promotion, advocacy and development forum. MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2012 October 3-5, 2012, Boston B2B Forum isn’t just another event. It’s the event for B2B marketers who don’t just follow yesterday’s best practices; they create the next practices needed to move their businesses—and industries—forward. Five programming tracks covering the modern marketing mix: lead gen, content, social media, mobile, and marketing essentials. Dozens of smart sessions by professionals on the pulse of marketing trends and growth. Inc. 500 | 5000 October 3-5, 2012, Phoenix, AZ Inc. 500|5000 Conference & Awards Ceremony is the must-attend event for the nation’s leading entrepreneurs. Join your colleagues and peers for three days of unparalleled networking and learning from the leaders of America’s fastest-growing companies. This year’s speakers include Captain Mark Kelly, Commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s final mission, Guy Kawasaki, Founding Partner of Garage Technology Ventures, and Marie Tillman, Founder of the Pat Tillman Foundation. Women’s Business Conference 2012 October 4-5, 2012, Louisville, KY This year’s theme celebrates the entrepreneurial, innovative and adventurous spirit of women business owners. They are starting businesses at record rates and running these businesses on their own terms. They refuse to sit idle, waiting and watching. They have confidence and power to shake things up, take smart risks and do things differently to move forward. They are impacting positive change at every turn, speaking out on issues of public policy, lightening their environmental footprint and creating jobs that fuel the economy. They are part of something much greater than themselves—a grassroots movement of women business owners and their community of supporters all dedicated to helping one another grow, thrive, give back and leave a legacy. The New York Enterprise Report 2012 Small Business Awards October 10, 2012, New York City The New York Enterprise Report Small Business Awards is the annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of the 500,000+ small businesses throughout the tri-state area. Now in its 7th year, the Awards gala attracts more than 400 business owners and executives and is often referred to as “the networking event of the year.” Don’t miss the chance to do business with the “who’s who” of the New York small business community. Small Business Influencer Awards Gala October 17, 2012, New York City The Small Business Influencer Awards will honor the Top 100 small business influencer champions at a festive Awards Gala on the evening of October 17, 2012 at the Javits Convention Center. Last year’s event had a capacity crowd at a smaller venue. This year it will be bigger than ever — with the Awards Gala as the evening event at the New York XPO Small Business Conference. Don’t miss this exciting event! See last year’s recap. Meanwhile, be sure to nominate someone for the Small Business Influencer Awards (perhaps yourself?). Small Business Expo November 8, 2012, Los Angeles Small Business Expo is a full day networking event, trade show & conference of the year for business owners, C-Level Executives & company decision-makers. Network with other business professionals & check out the exciting exhibitor hall Establish new contacts and reconnect with old ones. Further your education by attending workshops & seminars. Learn about new products and services that will help your business grow. Interact with the movers and shakers of your industry. Discover new and innovative technologies. To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit the Small Business Events Calendar. If you are putting on a small business event or contest, and want to get the word out, please submit it through our Events & Contests Submission Form (it’s free). Only events of interest to small business people, freelancers and entrepreneurs will be included. Brought to you as a community service by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com. From Small Business TrendsSmall Business Events You Should Check Out http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/small-business-events-you-should-check-out.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/small-business-events-you-should-check-out.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 When starting up, easing your way into entrepreneurship can pay off down the road. Here are some ideas for making that transition bearable. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223918 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223918 If you assume that the “For Dummies” book line is for newbies to a given subject, think again. I’ve been living social media for years, yet I still learned a ton in Phyllis Khare’s Social Media Marketing eLearning Kit For Dummies. The book, which starts with the basics of marketing using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and geolocation services, also goes more in-depth if you’re ready for the next step of learning. Social Media Maven Phyllis Khare (@PhyllisKhare) has long been somewhat of an authority on all things social. She frequently blogs about social media for small business, and also trains business owners and speaks on the topic. In addition to this Dummies book, Khare is the co-author of Facebook Marketing All-in-One for Dummies. Brush Up Your Social Game In the book, Khare talks about building your social authority. Thought leadership. Expertise. Whatever you call it, it’s something you need if you want people to consider you an expert in your industry. She walks you through building a cohesive branded look on multiple platforms, and offers really useful tips like: Use the same name for your URLs Use the same keywords in titles and bios Use the same image on different social platforms Another useful tidbit I got from the book was on editorial calendars. “But Susan,” you say, “I’m not an editor!” If you blog, tweet or update your Facebook status, you are in a sense an editor. Khare encourages you to schedule your daily activities, such as: Specific updates on: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn Blog topics you want to cover I especially like this tip because I actually schedule all my daily tasks on my Google calendar. I find if I don’t, I’ll put off or forget to hop on social sites to brand my company. This helps you remember to do so and organizes what you’ll share: i.e. company news, promotions, contests, etc. What I Liked Best The fact that this book appeals to multiple levels of social media users is great. I read a ton of books about social media, and often they’re solely geared toward beginners. I got a lot out of the book, and the step-by-step tips made it that much more valuable to me. Also, the book comes with a CD-Rom as well as online course, so if you learn better with those methods, you have options. Who Should Read The Book If you’re new to social media, read this book. If you’re not, get off your high horse of thinking you know what there is to know, and read the book. You’ll pick up a few new skills (for me, her tip on creating YouTube playlists is one I’ll be implementing) and improve upon the ones you already have. Sometimes being on social media gets stale and this book does a fantastic job of reinvigorating your enthusiasm for social media as a marketing channel. From Small Business TrendsEven If You’re No Dummy, Phyllis Khare Has Social Media Tips for You http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/socia-media-marketing-dummies-book-review.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/socia-media-marketing-dummies-book-review.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 Allen & Co.'s annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho has a billionaire guest list. Check out which of Silicon Valley's most famous are expected to be there. Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Warren Buffett walk into a room in Idaho… It's not the start of a bad joke, just a glimpse of the guest list for Allen & Co.'s annual media conference next week in Sun Valley, Idaho, reported Bloomberg. The Lakeland, Florida-based investment bank hosts the annual high-profile conference, which also counts Google chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Apple CEO Tim Cook among expected guests. The event, now in its 19th year, is closed to the public, and the schedule is top secret. But for the last two decades, the event has served as a casual gathering for top media executives and billionaires from all industries to discuss deals. And more and more, those billionaires are Silicon Valley’s most powerful players. For example, last year, Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker met Zuckerberg, CEO of Face book, at the meeting. Soon after Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark schools. This year, tech investors Marc Andreessen and Peter Thiel are also reportedly expected to show up, in addition to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, and Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn. Another new attendee on the list is the CEO of video-game publisher Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick. Caitlin Berens writes about business innovation and entrepreneurs. Before Inc., she worked at Billboard, SELF, and Better Homes and Gardens. She attended Drake University, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. @CaitlinBerens http://www.inc.com/caitlin-berens/buffett-zuckerberg-and-the-meeting-of-billionaires.html http://www.inc.com/caitlin-berens/buffett-zuckerberg-and-the-meeting-of-billionaires.html Incubator helps nurture small business growthGreenville NewsNunamaker is one of several tenants in the business center, part of the nonprofit Mountain Lakes Business Development Corp., which aims to help entrepreneurs develop and grow their businesses. The center created by retired business executives is and more » http://www.greenvilleonline.com/needlogin?type=login&redirecturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenvilleonline.com%2Farticle%2F20120707%2FBUSINESS%2F307070011%2FIncubator-helps-nurture-small-business-growth%3Fnclick_check%3D1 http://www.greenvilleonline.com/needlogin?type=login&redirecturl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenvilleonline.com%2Farticle%2F20120707%2FBUSINESS%2F307070011%2FIncubator-helps-nurture-small-business-growth%3Fnclick_check%3D1 Joe Nocera's outstanding column (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/opinion/libors-dirty-laundry.html?_r=1&hp) about the Libor scandal and Barclays tells us four key things. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2012/07/07/putting-an-end-to-faith-based-banking/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2012/07/07/putting-an-end-to-faith-based-banking/ Approaching Approach Avoidance is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. –William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar) The Sales Blog mailbox today brings us an email titled “Anxiety.” The author requested that I tackle this subject here for him. Here is the pertinent part of his email: I’ve been doing sales for 10 years. I know my dream clients are just waiting patiently for me to call, and I’m 100% sure that what I can offer them will create tremendous value and positive change for them. But at the same time, before every call, I get terrified. I just don’t know what’s on the other end. I grew up with email and chat lines so I feel nervous sometimes being in a real time conversation with no backspace key. Honestly, I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is, but I’m not alone. It’s not just over the phone; sometimes I’ll sit outside my dream client’s door for way too long building up the courage. And if I do get it, I’ll be in and out so fast, and I can’t help but think I just got nervous and made for the exit before truly differentiating myself. Dear Anxiety, Ten years of this? Really? That’s a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering to endure for a decade! Let’s see if we can’t reframe some of this for you and free you from this nightmare of your own making. You Really Have Nothing to Fear—And Everything to Gain When I used to train salespeople to cold call, I would make them to roll play. I would have them call me, and then, in my most intimidating voice, I would yell at them and violently hang up the phone. The salespeople making the calls, and all of their peers, would always laugh out loud. They would laugh because no one ever yells at you for calling (although a few will hang up on you). They would also laugh because they recognized that no harm could come to them through the telephone. In fact, no real harm can come to you from making sales calls at all. The exercise was absurd, and the absurdity proved the point. Anxiety, you are creating a Hell in your mind that doesn’t exist out here in the real world. The things that you are telling yourself might happen aren’t really going to happen, and even if they did, absolutely no harm would come to you. Might you say something stupid and embarrass yourself? Could you say or do something to blow the deal? Sure you could. We’ve all done it. But you are paying for those crimes before you’ve committed them. You are a magician, and you were born with the ability to conjure up your own reality. Let yourself out of the Hell that you have put yourself in and instead paint a different picture in your mind. Try this. Before making a call, instead of recounting all of the things that could go wrong, recount all of the things that could go right. Remind yourself of all of the clients that you have helped and all of the times that things went way better than you expected. Make a list of your clients. Make a list of your accomplishments. Make a list of every good thing you have done. Put it in front of you. Remind yourself of who you really are. You get decide whether you go into a call in a fearful state or a confident, resourceful state. Make a better choice. Preparation Builds Confidence Let’s move on. One of the primary ways that you can build your confidence in sales (or anything else) is to prepare. People are generally uncomfortable when they don’t know how things are going to go. The good news here is that it is very likely that you get to decide how things go. You can write your cold calling scripts and dialogues. You can write language for every objection you have heard (my guess is that number is five). You can write a killer sales call opener that helps you get a commitment on how the sales call is going to go. You can also make a list of power questions to ask on each sales call. You can prepare and rehearse for most of the common situations and the most questions you hear. Seriously, rehearsal breeds confidence. You can even lean on this stuff in front of the client. You can say: “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about your account, and I made this list of questions I’d like to run through with you, if that’s okay. May I?” You won’t find many people who will object, and guess who will appear to have cared enough to prepare? Kill Your Inner Critic Anxiety, here is where it is going to get tough. If you really want the confidence that you need, you are going to have to go to war with your inner critic. Seriously, it’s a war. You are going to have to kill that dreadful little voice that you carry around in your head. You are going to have to snuff him out. You are going to have to replace you inner critic with your inner “Tony Robbins.” You are going to have to replace the voice of doubt with the voice of confidence. You are going to have to learn to believe in yourself, and you are going to have to learn how to talk to yourself to do it. The doubt and fear and scarcity that you deal with is all the result of the words that you use when you talk to yourself. When you talk to yourself, you talk to yourself about fear. Change the words you use when you talk to yourself and you change the results. What would the powerful, confident, value-creating you say? Use those words when you talk to yourself. Replace the voice of your inner critic with the confident voice that lives inside you and that you yourself have imprisoned. Take the key that you have always held in your own hands and release yourself from the shackles that you have used to lock away the best version of yourself. The world is waiting. Related posts:Avoidance is not a relationship building strategy Avoidance is not a relationship building strategy is a post... Irrelevance Avoidance Training (or How to Avoid Being Irrelevant) Irrelevance Avoidance Training (or How to Avoid Being Irrelevant) is... Without a Defined Outcome for Your Sales Call, You Can’t Fail Or Succeed Without a Defined Outcome for Your Sales Call, You Can’t... http://thesalesblog.com/blog/2012/07/06/approaching-approach-avoidance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fiannarino%2Fthesalesblog+%28TheSalesBlog%29 http://thesalesblog.com/blog/2012/07/06/approaching-approach-avoidance/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fiannarino%2Fthesalesblog+%28TheSalesBlog%29 Founders are one of the most begrudged players in start-up land. Here's why, and what you can do about it.One of the most challenging (and least discussed) aspects of business is the resentment that comes during negotations and dealmaking. Whether you're entering a relationship as an employee, investor, or founder, the friction of aligning two divergent perspectives to do a deal impacts people emotionally. Blood pressure rises, people can get angry, and, in the worst-case scenario, take that baggage with them.A wise man once said: "If both parties don't feel cheated, you didn't do a fair deal."While reaching an agreement often requires some work, simply reaching an agreement is typically easier than arriving at an outcome that makes everyone happy. Without very thoughtful communication from both parties and a great deal of effort, achieving perceived "fairness" on both sides is rather uncommon. Resentment can also emerge after time passes. What is fair today might not seem fair tomorrow. Having known my fair share of employees, investors, and founders, I find founders are the parties that are most often caught in the crosshairs of negative feelings. There's good reason for that. First, they often hold some of the largest individual stakes in a given company. Founders also have many partners to negotiate with--employees, investors, as well as each other.There are three types of founder resentment that seem somewhat common to me:Founders and the investors who own part of the company's equity but don't work on it day-to-day.Employees and the founders who own a larger piece of the business but put in the same hours.Founders and co-founders for different contributions to the business.There is no perfect solution to the resentment issue simply because there is no truly fair arrangement. For one thing, counter parties often define "fair" entirely differently. If you're an employee, investor, or founder, and you're feeling resentful, you're probably not alone. But it's often also a total waste of time.I recommend abandoning attempts at "fairness." The goal of negotiation--and business broadly--is not fairness. Instead, the objective is to advance the business in as reasonable a way as possible. Close the deal, move on to the next, and don't look back. Inevitably, in hindsight, your rearview mirror will frame a winding road of business decisions that seem insufficient. We all wish we could have driven in a straight line. But it's hard enough to make it to your destination, so don't bother beating yourself or others up over how you could have done it better. If all your partners--employees, investors, and founders--can enjoy the fruits of your labor when you arrive, you'll all be happier. http://www.inc.com/mark-peter-davis/founder-resentment-how-to-avoid-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fchannel%2Fstart-up+%28Inc.com%3A+Start-up%29 http://www.inc.com/mark-peter-davis/founder-resentment-how-to-avoid-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fchannel%2Fstart-up+%28Inc.com%3A+Start-up%29 Hours After Serving Obama, Ohio Restaurant Owner Dies(Second column, 1st story, link) http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hours-after-meeting-obama-ohio-restaurant-owner-dies_648200.html http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hours-after-meeting-obama-ohio-restaurant-owner-dies_648200.html Canada's National Post has created an excellent infographic illustrating the data in Save the Children's State of the World's Mothers report. Co.Exist's Ariel Schwartz dug into the report and visualization this morning. The data highlights the fact that the U.S. lags behind many other nations when it comes to the percentage of government seats held by women - an issue that has been part of the broader, voracious debate reignited in recent weeks by Anne-Marie Slaughter's "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" essay in The Atlantic. In the U.S., only 17% of government seats are held by women. Compare that to Norway, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, and even non-Scandinavian nations like Cuba, Nicaragua, South Africa, and Rwanda (Rwanda incorporates a constitutional quota system), all of which can boast that at least 40% of their government seats are held by women, according to Save the Children's data.Why do you think the percentage of government seats held by women is lower in the United States than it is in some other countries - and what can be done to change the ratio? Tell us in the comments section below - we'll update this post with your responses next week. http://www.fastcompany.com/1842212/the-thread-women-and-leadership?partner=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FastCompany http://www.fastcompany.com/1842212/the-thread-women-and-leadership?partner=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FastCompany Uni K Wax Centers undoubtedly waxed numerous eyebrows this week -- and definitely raised a few with its promotion offering half off all waxing services for girls age 15 and younger. The Florida-based franchise, which offers face and body waxing services in New York and its home state, didn’t need to flat out state that the offer includes bikini waxes. The company marketed the sale with a photo of a bikini-clad ‘tweenish girl jumping in the air and a call to celebrate freedom and independence all month. During July, the ad says, girls 15 and younger “can enjoy their first waxing experience and find it natural, safe and pleasant.” Parental signature is required, the fine print notes. Some folks found the promotion and the very idea of waxes for young teen and preteen girls inappropriate. “So this salon wants to wax girls under age 15. Um…… REALLY? FACEPALM,” reads a tweet from Washington, D.C., radio station HOT 99.5. “Appalling. This calls for a girlcott,” tweeted Janine Iamunno of Astoria, NY. Another Twitter user, Quin Acciani of New York, posted that she was “more than a little disturbed that Uni K Wax just sent me an e-mail: ‘50% off waxing services for girls under 15!’” And bourgiebynature tweeted that she is “deeply bothered by this.” While Uni K didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment Friday, the company did post a lengthy item on its blog on July 4, waxing positive about the advantages of waxing for girls and marketing the sale. “Why should we focus on all of the negative stuff when there are so many positive things that can come from getting waxed?” the company asks. From Uni K’s vantage point, waxing for preteen girls almost sounds like a parental imperative. “What many mothers don’t know is that girls are going for wax treatments younger than before, mostly for removing hair on their lower legs, upper lip and eyebrows. As parents, we all look around and see that girls are maturing at an earlier age; our daughters and granddaughters at 11 look like we did at 14 and 15," the post says. “…So it is our job as parents and mothers to guide them through the changes in their bodies.” The blog quotes Uni K founder Noemi Grupenmager, who notes that some girls develop earlier than peers and other children can be cruel. “The prevention of bullying in schools has taken center stage and waxing can be used to help. There is no reason for a young girl to feel embarrassed at PE or in the pool,” she says. So how do you see this, readers – is this a disturbing promotion worthy of a 'girlcott,' or a natural way to handle puberty and prevent bullying? http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223945 http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/223945 Walking like a human isn't just a weird narcissistic goal for robot developers--the human gait has evolved to be a very efficient way to move bipedally, and if robots are to work with and among humans, then a human-like walk is both useful and sensible. So a team at the University of Arizona has been working on robot legs that mimic as closely as possible the real thing, even replicating the tiniest up-and-down movement of human hips and feet via a network of sensors and actuators. It's said to be the most realistic human walking robot yet, although it's technically very much a prototype. Carnegie Mellon University is trying a robot out in an unusual role: A store stock checker. AndyVision, as he's called, roams a campus store and scans the nearby shelves to generate a real-time map of what stock is on sale and where it is, using a combination of barcode sensing, text recognition, and machine vision to identify objects and their positions. While its usefulness is immediate in helping track stock, the ultimate goal is to see if accurate robot store stock checking can lead to legitimate money-savings, and so AndyVision will make it off campus into "real" stores sometime later this year. At Google's I/O event alongside all the smartphone Android stuff there was a real android exhibit that's being called a world's first: A games booth where participants could fight a life-size robot. It's actually a tablet-based device called the RIC Ninja Master from RT Corporation, and "full size" means just under four feet tall. The tablet handles all the gaming and robot motion calculations, and the it's a little bit of a scam--the robot's fighting tricks come from a human player's movements which are scanned using an Xtion Pro Live sensor. The human opponent's scores are calculated from an on-body sensor. It's more a demonstration of intent rather than a tour de force of technology, but it does hint at an android gaming future you may not have imagined. Mind control bot. In a version of real-life Avatar, a robot in France has now been controlled by the thoughts of someone inside an fMRI scanner in Israel. It's a demonstration of fMRI's ability to read the intent of a human to move their muscles, but it's a powerful move toward both future robot tech and future telepresent tech. Efficient warbots. In its pursuit for robots for all sorts of military purposes, DARPA has just set out a new requirement: It's launched a new program to develop robots that are 2000% more efficient than current robots are, with a goal of creating robots that won't run out of juice at unfortunate moments, such as mid-battle. TEDbot. In what seems to be the first time it's happened, a robot has taken autonomous control of a TED presentation at TEDxFrontRange. Vigilus was developed for remote security purposes, but he seems to have carried out his speaking assignment with aplomb--even ending with an audience-teasing kicker question. Eyebot. A scientist at Georgia Tech has invented a type of piezoelectric robot actuator that can move with such finesse that it can replicate the kind of fine movements human muscles make when they accurately and delicately maneuver our eyeballs. The intention is that the muscles will first generate more intuitively accessible robot vision feeds, and, when used elsewhere in robot design, replace static non-human motors and gears for more fluid moves. We're busy building robots that move like us, twitch like us, and even think like us. But the walking legs, human-like eyes, and even the ninja robot here all share one trait that you may expect to be pretty common among robots: They're gender neutral, evidently artificial. Compare that to the robot innovation pictured here. She's called EveR-4, and she's a product of Korea's KITECH research facility. EveR-4 was recently demonstrated at the robotics pavilion at Expo 2012, and she's packed full of impressive tech: Plastic Pals reports that her inventor says her artificial tongue and 30 head-mounted actuators are a world record, enabling very human-like facial movements. That's an impressive count, but she can also talk and is designed to be a receptionist of sorts--able to make speeches and interact with people. And she's quite definitely a she, which technically makes her a gynoid. As such she joins a short list of impressive gynoid machines that includes some members of the Geminoid robot family and the amazingly life-like dancing HRP4-C. These droids are distinct from other more-male Geminoid actors and even Honda's lovable Asimo machine, who seems to have male-skewed characteristics. These latter machines are androids, and though that term has been used to distinguish robots that are generically human in shape (your C-3PO-type robot, versus your trashcan-like R2-D2 for example) it seems that we may begin to use it to describe male-like robots. We're not talking about gender stereotyping here (the dancing HRP4-C and the receptionist EveR-4 for example), nor are we talking about specifically gender-designed robots for machine-human interactions of a more intimate nature. Those are topics for a future, probably pretty fascinating edition of TWiB. What we're pointing out is that more and more robots are soon going to be interacting with us in our daily lives, and while at first they're going to be more like advanced Roombas, soon enough we'll be interacting with human-form machines. So should we design them to be male-like, female-like, or completely artificially gender-free? It may sound like a silly question, but it's not. Much research is going into how we interact with robots in an emotional way, just as simultaneously scientists are giving droids human-like walking moves, voices, thoughts, senses, and musculatures. How we interact emotionally with robots--particularly those that move like we do, and operate in our familiar environments--affects how much we trust them, which is important in medical scenarios, and even how likely we are to shoot at them in a military situation (no joke). The choice of assigning a gender in robot design will, someday, become a legal issue and probably a political one, and it's almost certainly as important as designing robots that are afraid of us, which obey us, or that can intelligently avoid hurting us if we crash into them. If we're clever, human-like robots could even act as beneficial tools in the ongoing war for gender equality in our actual human world. Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too. http://www.fastcompany.com/1842157/this-week-in-bots?partner=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FastCompany http://www.fastcompany.com/1842157/this-week-in-bots?partner=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=FastCompany Most business owners have heard the statistic that 80% of new businesses fail within the first three years. One of the biggest reasons they reportedly fail is because they lack the information and related analysis to make a good decision. You can prevent this by using free and low cost online survey tools. If you are looking collect useful customer data without hiring a professional market research firm, this review of QuestionPro is for you. I heard about QuestionPro from a marketing consultant colleague. She explained that it had all the power and capability of high-end enterprise software but at a much lower price point that a small business could afford. She liked that it was easy to use, had mobile survey capabilities (that few low-cost platforms provided) and offered ”killer reports” that impressed her clients and made her look good in front of those clients. So I took a closer look myself. Here’s some of what I found: When I got on to the QuestionPro site, I have to admit it was a tad intimidating. The site looked more like something a big company would use. Of course, they offer a free trial so I signed up. Once inside the application, I have to admit that it wasn’t the sexiest consumer site – like what you’d find on other web survey tools. This is obviously a no-nonsense site. The first thing you see is a screen where you can start a survey. I’m not sure if I like that or not. It might depend on what work style you have. If you’re the kind of person who likes to read directions before you start something, then you might be disappointed. But if you’re the type of person who clicks first and reads directions later, then you will love it. As I started to create a survey, I realized that QuestionPro actually guides you through the process as you go. The interface is fairly intuitive and you shouldn’t have any problems getting around and creating a good survey in short order. What I Liked Tons of options to create a wide, wide range of question types. I didn’t know there were that many options of survey questions! Another interesting feature was the logic function which allows you to create highly flexible surveys based on how people answer the question. The mobile feature is powerful. Each QuestionPro account comes standard with their SurveyPocket app that allows you to give and take online surveys without an Internet connection. I can see how valuable this might be. My first thought was to create a survey and install the SurveyPocket app on my iPhone and take it to conferences and networking events where I could use it as a fun way to qualify prospects love to find out what’s important to my prospects. On the mobile page, I also could see that they allow you to upload your reports to DropBox and Google Docs (now called Google Drive). This is super smart and very useful. It makes it easy to share reports with colleagues and clients. What Can Be Improved The user interface is really “techy” and not as good looking as you might find on some consumer-focused online survey tools. But what QuestionPro Lacks in looks, it makes up for in its ability to collect and generate data. There is a fairly complete help file and some video tutorials, but it’s clear that this tool is targeted to someone who has some basic knowledge of creating online surveys. A small business owner who has never done a survey might find it somewhat overwhelming. If you have made a commitment to do more market research and customer research so that you can make better decisions — then QuestionPro is a terrific tool that you can use. The 30-day free trial will give you plenty of time to create, run and analyze a survey – and if you need more time, the basic plan is only $15 per month — so it’s not a huge investment to try. Online customer service is available and I’ve found the reps to be very helpful and responsive. Overall, I believe QuestionPro is a service that a small business owner can use to discover more about their customers and prospects. From Small Business TrendsResearch Tool to Help Your Small Business Succeed: Review of QuestionPro http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/research-tool-review-of-questionpro.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/research-tool-review-of-questionpro.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SmallBusinessTrends+%28Small+Business+Trends%29 Social media is changing the sales game. An explosion in social activity has shifted the power to customers who are better informed and engaged, while working in more transparent organizations that require well-researched decision making. As a result, sales representatives need more than a good pitch -- they need to understand a customer’s business model, channel their needs and uphold their values. Sales can’t depend on marketing either, as they no longer have complete control of the brand. Customers have become engaged buyers, going beyond the company website to read blogs, follow Twitter handles, and spin up LinkedIn conversations to gain outside perspectives for purchase decis… Continue reading... More About: corporate social media, features, mashable, open forum, sales http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/sales-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/sales-social-media/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29 From device mounts to portable hard drives, these gadgets can keep you productive on your next vacation. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223942 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223942 In this video I interview Michael Hyatt, chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers and author of the hot new book called Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World.Michael shares how to grow your own platform. You’ll also discover insights behind his success and how to accelerate your business growth.Be sure to check out the takeaways below after you watch the video.Here are some of the things you’ll learn in this video:Why it’s a great time to build your platform.How businesses can control their platform and what that means to you.How you should reframe your thinking.Why you should create wow content and exceed readers’ expectations.How to get more great ideas.The benefits you gain when you give away your best content.What to do to attract more new readers.How to accelerate your growth and reach your inflection point.The key to long-term blogging success.Why podcasting can be a more intimate form of communication.Connect with Michael on Twitter @michaelhyatt, on Facebook and check out Michael’s blog focused on intentional leadership.What do you think? Do you give your best content away? What tips do you have to share about your experiences with building a platform? Please leave them below. Tweet http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-build-a-platform-and-get-noticed-in-a-noisy-world/ http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-build-a-platform-and-get-noticed-in-a-noisy-world/ Most people don't enjoy networking events, but few regret attending once they've made keen connections. Here are several insider tips to help you make the most out of networking events. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223916 http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/223916 A recent survey shows that investing in your team's health can boost your bottom line in the long run.Investing in your employees' health isn't just a smart management move; it's also good for the bottom line. A new survey from the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans makes the case that for nearly every dollar spent on wellness programs, companies save an average of $3 dollars in overall healthcare costs over time.The survey responses came from over 500 U.S. organizations, 66% of which were single employers/corporations. Of the companies surveyed, 70% offer health initiatives such as flu shots, health screenings, and weight management programs. According to the survey, about two-thirds of the companies have increased wellness budgets in the last five years--with an 83% positive return due to money saved through health care deductions, lower premiums, etc. But don't expect results right away. "ROI can be difficult to measure," Julie Stich, a senior information/research specialist at the foundation told Baseline in an interview. "Health improvements may be influenced by a combination of factors, and it takes an average of three years to see cost-saving results."The report also showed employees respond well to incentives. Most of the fitness programs implemented by the companies included an award component, such as a gift certificate or a cash prize. http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/how-healthy-employees-help-your-business.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29 http://www.inc.com/maeghan-ouimet/how-healthy-employees-help-your-business.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inc%2Fheadlines+%28Inc.com+Headlines%29