10 Crucial Errors to Avoid for Startup Businesses

1. Not having a Solid Business Plan – It’s true that many startups don’t even end up following through on their original plan, but having a business plan in place at least gives you a sense of direction and focus. With plenty of distractions abounding, it’s essential to have a solid set of objectives to […]

  • 1. Not having a Solid Business Plan – It’s true that many startups don’t even end up following through on their original plan, but having a business plan in place at least gives you a sense of direction and focus. With plenty of distractions abounding, it’s essential to have a solid set of objectives to build on and tweak as inevitable changes come into play. build on and tweak as inevitable changes come into play.

  • 2. Not Paying for Expertise – You can’t possibly do everything. Not only do you not have the time, but in some departments you lack the experience or the knowhow to pull it off. Admit to yourself that some tasks are better left to a pro and hire one.

  • 3. Not Listening to Customers – How well do you know your demographic? Invest the time to find out who they are and why they are buying your product or service. Concentrate your focus on these reasons and market accordingly.

  • 4. Not Preparing Loved Ones for the Impending Madness – Have you made your family and friends aware yet that they will have to share you with your new venture? Letting them know ahead of time will not only decrease their resentment, but also benefit you in the form of their love and support. A happy you will make better decisions in the long run.

  • 5. Overspending – New startups are typically on a tight budget. Carefully evaluate your needs vs your wants and try to stick to the absolute essentials while you’re still in the startup phase.

  • 6. Underspending – See #2!

  • 7. Launching too Soon or too Slow – There’s a delicate balance here. Launch too early and you may not be fully set up to handle the rapid growth that could ensue. Launch too late and you risk a competitor stepping in to cover your market. Staying organized, methodical and aware will help get your launch timing just right.

  • 8. Entertaining too Many Opinions – They’ve all heard you’re starting a new business and everyone thinks they alone hold the answers to your success. Be deeply discriminating of whose advice you take to heart.

  • 9. Arrogance – Not a trait of a true leader. Stay humble and focused on building a meaningful product, business or service.

  • 10. Avoiding New Technology – Embracing the new technology of today is essential to a successful startup business. Hire a company such as W3 Business Minds to set you up with new technology that matches your needs and helps bring your ideas to life.
Contact us for more information on how we can be an asset to your new startup business.

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Spread the Word: 4 Ways to Enhance Your Online Presence

Launching your small business is a dream transformed to reality, but along with entrepreneurship comes the harsh realities of struggle from gaining leads, closing sales, and being on a tight budget. Not only do you need to establish loyal customers, but you need to save money in the process. One of the most affordable and […]

Launching your small business is a dream transformed to reality, but along with entrepreneurship comes the harsh realities of struggle from gaining leads, closing sales, and being on a tight budget. Not only do you need to establish loyal customers, but you need to save money in the process. One of the most affordable and effective marketing strategies of today revolves around your online presence as it puts your product in front of a larger audience and helps build your brand. If enhancing your online presence is something you have yet to engage in, here are four ways to start!

  • 1.) Level Up Your Website

    Having an intriguing design, easy navigation, and layered landing pages are just the beginning of creating a website people want to come back to. A perfect way to keep customers interested includes going beyond the basics and keeping them in the loop by establishing a blog on your site and filling it with fresh, relevant content. Another essential feature is to include a call to action which invites customers to join an email list, where you’ll provide them with exclusive details on promotions and new releases.

  • 2.) Leverage Social Media

    Looking at Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, it’s hard not to notice how the world’s leading companies and organizations are dominating the social media world. With billions of people checking their news feeds daily, using social media platforms increases your business recognition and inbound traffic, creates better customer experiences as well as increases your search engine optimization.

  • 3.) Engage in SEO

    Although your presence is existent, it’s easy to go unnoticed if you’re not taking advantage of filters and keywords. When creating content, use specific keywords that are relevant to your business in aspects such as headlines, taglines, hashtags, and throughout content as well as adding links to previous blog posts you’ve published. Also, most social media pages allow you to filter your content in a way so it specifically reaches out to your target audience. By engaging in these tactics, you increase your rank in search engines so when someone is looking for a business of your expertise, they’re more likely to find you before your competitors.

  • 4.) Encourage Reviews

    Working in business, you know how important word-of-mouth marketing is. Online product and service reviews take this ageless tactic to the next level. Customers are more likely to buy a product based on someone else’s experience, so by prompting customers to leave reviews after making purchases, you enhance your business image.

In conclusion.

When it comes to getting your business out there, knowing what it takes makes all the difference. For more successful advice on launching your business, be sure to contact us!.

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$100 website vs a $10,000 website? What’s the difference?

Internet marketing is the most effective way to advertise today and will be the most effective method of advertising in the future. Any savvy business owner knows this. In order to position your company for the most conversions and the most sales, you have to develop a sales funnel website filled with all the bells […]

Internet marketing is the most effective way to advertise today and will be the most effective method of advertising in the future. Any savvy business owner knows this. In order to position your company for the most conversions and the most sales, you have to develop a sales funnel website filled with all the bells and whistles to capture and convert the internet shopper.

  • ROI is the take-away with a sales funnel website.

    These are not inexpensive websites, rather they are aggressive sales machines that work for you non-stop. Creating and launching a “salesperson” website indicates that you are serious about business and the competition you face. The website will work for you ceaselessly, through holidays and weekends to further your business ambitions.

  • Not just pretty pictures, an interactive sales tool.

    We are all aware of the “brochure-type” web site; lots of pretty pictures with little content and no reason for anyone to spend more than two seconds looking before they move on. Cheap websites are the enemy when it comes to an internet marketing campaign. The internet is filled with these types of websites, they are not good for business and are essentially, background clutter. The sales funnel web site incorporates images with pertinent and current content designed to educate and engage the shopper. When they become engaged they want more information, from you.

The sales funnel website, what is it?

The characteristics of an excellent sales website are as follows:
  • It must be well designed. Your company website must be designed enough to be pleasing to the eye. Keeping aesthetics in mind, it also has to be simple in format to allow easy reading and logical layout. The easier it is for potential customers to navigate through your website, the more likely they are to convert. Striking the balance between ease of use and eye appeal is an art.
  • Optimized for SEO. Search engine optimization is the backbone of all internet marketing campaigns. Keywords and content on your business website need to be optimally placed and structured so the web crawlers get to your page first. It goes further than that: Search engine crawl and index, page load time, building domain authority– all these concepts must be enhanced and monitored 24/7/365 to ensure that your website is the front-runner for people searching for your products online. These aspects of the dynamic sales website are complex and require experts to set up. These are “live systems” in that they constantly analyze and assess terabytes of information to best position the site for online searchers.
  • Ready for mobile yet? The use of mobile phones as P2P devices for shopping is expanding exponentially. The sales funnel website will incorporate all of the platforms and applications necessary for your website to be accessed through mobile devices effortlessly, all the while initiating a “mobile-specific” SEO designed to draw mobile searchers in.
  • Clear calls to action and contact information throughout the website. A call to action simply means a phrase or sentence that encourages the searcher to either purchase, or get more information. These calls are set up to further engage the visitor. The more accurate information you can give someone, the more likely they are to buy your product. Including contact information throughout your website is another way to ensure loyalty and enhance interest. If they get confused, you are a phone call away. That is reassuring for visitors.

In conclusion:

The business world today is fast-paced, aggressive and packed with competition. Any advantage you can take is important. Internet marketing is an essential to companies that want to stay on top. Within that marketing umbrella, the sales funnel website is the vanguard toward generating serious interest and conversions. We have only covered a small percentage of the aspects of an excellent website, there are many more. A website of the sales caliber is not a cheap outlay, but your return on investment is significant. When you are ready for more information please contact us.

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Brochure Website vs. Sales Person Website – What Really Works for You?

Your customers are hurting for more personalized care. Are you going to offer them a band-aid or a cure? You want fulfilled consumers, excellent customer service, dependable employees, and a trustworthy environment. We know that to achieve these things you’ll need to invest in at least one extraordinary sales person that caters to your customer’s […]

Your customers are hurting for more personalized care. Are you going to offer them a band-aid or a cure? You want fulfilled consumers, excellent customer service, dependable employees, and a trustworthy environment.

  • We know that to achieve these things you’ll need to invest in at least one extraordinary sales person that caters to your customer’s every whim! Where can you find such a sales whiz? Build it, and they will come…
  • An offline salesperson can shake your customer’s hand, can bring them coffee, and can demonstrate a product, but only during office hours. In contrast, a website can welcome your clients, demonstrate a product, and provide them with information. Don’t you want more…? Don’t you want the ultimate salesperson?

The Ideal Salesperson is:

  • Empathetic, tireless, adaptable, and dependable.
  • Builds trust and long-lasting relationships with your customers.
  • Never sleeps or calls in sick.
  • Is attractive, knowledgeable, trendy, and welcoming.
  • Will be like a Magic 8 Ball ready with answers at a moment’s notice.
That ultimate salesperson is your website. It caters to your clients and enlarges your profit margins, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its only goal in life is to help your business grow!

Let’s talk about the differences in Brochure websites vs. Sales Person websites. In other words, $100 websites vs. $10,000 websites.

A Brochure Website – Beauty but no Brains

A brochure website is usually attractive, looks professional, and provides information. If you design it yourself, you may be able to do it for $100. Now let’s talk about what it doesn’t do.
  • It does very little (if any) changing and growing over time.
  • It doesn’t educate your consumers or cultivate relationships with your buyers.
  • It’s the “create it and forget it” approach and is unable to keep up with the current market trends.
  • It does very little to increase your revenue.
  • You have to work around it instead of it working around you.
A brochure website is lazy and does the bare minimum for your business. It fails at generating leads, acquiring customers, and retaining clients. Though it may cost more up front, a salesperson website has the potential to increase your revenue exponentially while catering to your specific desires.

Contact us to get started on the path to designing your ultimate salesperson website today. We have created an e-book with ideas on how to begin. See you soon!

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$10,000?! For a website? Is a website worth that much ?

“$10,000?! For a website?” You’re astonished at first glance. Why pay so much, if anything, for a website? There are so many free or cheap hosting sites that allow you to do it yourself. But, as the old adage goes, “you get what you pay for.” The Internet is a massive entity these days. People […]

“$10,000?! For a website?” You’re astonished at first glance. Why pay so much, if anything, for a website? There are so many free or cheap hosting sites that allow you to do it yourself. But, as the old adage goes, “you get what you pay for.”

  • The Internet is a massive entity these days. People simply don’t care about cheaply made websites when there’s so much great content they could be viewing. Think about the first impression you want to make on potential customers: that you look for the easy, cheap way out (which they’ll assume applies to your products and services as well as your website), or that you care about your business, put time and effort into it, and want it to succeed?

  • Every business decision is an investment. Spending around $10,000 can seem like a lot all at once, but think about the return you’ll make by educating, engaging, and entertaining your customers with your products and services.

Business websites are divided into two categories: brochure websites and sales person websites.

  • Brochure websites attempt to capture potential clients with their “amazing” designs, but lack useful content that actually sells your product or service to a customer. These are the sites you’ll get for $100; they look good, but they stink
  • Sales person websites are just as the name implies, an online sales person. They take all the visually appealing aspects of a brochure website, but throw in so much more. Regularly updated content, convenient information regarding the products and services you offer, and the generation of unbeatable search engine traffic. These are the websites that are a bit more pricey, but the return you’ll receive on your investment is exponential.

Always remember to have a strategy before you dive into a website. Plan out exactly what you want your website to achieve. More traffic? Higher customer retention? Increased conversion rates? A sales person website will help you to acquire all of these things and more. Your content is the most important thing, followed by the design. An “eye-popping” design will do no good if you don’t fill it with equally “eye-popping” content.

Don’t be afraid to spend some extra money on a website that will function better for you in the long run. In today’s digital age, it’s crucial for businesses to have an online persona, and the best way to do so is through a sales person website.

To see how you can achieve incredible web success for your business contact us today!

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