#TOP 5 TIPS TO KEEP YOU MOTIVATED AND FIT THROUGH THE HOLIDAY SEASON

[whats-a-time-for-greatness]

Building a Happy Life: 10 Key Ingredients

If you ask the majority of people what their number one goal in life is, it would probably sound something like: to live a happy and productive life where I feel like I make a difference in other people's lives. Many of us are productive in our lives and we do make a difference in others lives, yet the key ingredient - happiness - seems to be missing. The following tips will help build more happiness into your life:

1) Find something to be passionate about. What drives you? What motivates you? What gives you meaning and purpose in life? If you want happiness in life you need to be able to answer these questions. Without meaning; purpose; something to be passionate about- life can become stale and boring. A stale loaf of white bread probably isn't going to make most people too happy.

2) Simplify your life. De-clutter your house and your life. If possible, take a week off from work and go through every single room in your home. Set aside bins or bags marked throw away and give away. Get rid of things that you don't use anymore or haven't worn in the past 12 months. If you have projects that you haven't completed make sure to either dispose of those projects or finish them up while you are off from work. If you can't take time off from work, set aside time each evening or weekend to go through each room.

3) Set goals that you would like to achieve. Having a goal and achieving it brings about a sense of accomplishment. Often, the sense of accomplishment or pride in a job well done brings about a certain amount of happiness in life. When we live our life without goals, we often get lost and life starts to feel bad. We get stuck and start to feel miserable and helpless. Having a purpose, a set or progression of goals helps keep us on track in life.

4) Start some traditions in your life. What made you happy as a kid? Can you build that in to your life now? When I was a kid, I loved the holidays. My mom had a ton of cookie cutters that we would pull out for each holiday season. We would make Halloween cookies, Thanksgiving cookies, Christmas cookies, Valentine cookies, you get the idea. It was a fun tradition. It is something that I do with my daughter now. It's bonding time and a chance to just be happy in the moment of baking and decorating cookies. You don't have to wait and have kids or a family to build traditions. You can plan a yearly trip with your pals to go hiking, site-seeing, or shopping. It's just something that you do each year where you can kick back and have some fun in your life.

5) Along with setting up traditions, it's important to connect with others. If all you do is work, and come home and watch television- life is going to get pretty boring pretty quickly. If you are an introvert and new to the area you live, find a non-profit that you can do some volunteer work for. If you are more social, skim the local weekly newspaper for clubs that meet. I live in the suburbs of a major city. There is every single kind of club imaginable for people to join. When I lived in a smaller area there were still ways to connect- joining a fitness group, or gym, going to a community recreation center for an art classes- there are lots of places to connect with people. All you have to do is look.

6) Do not compare yourself to your neighbor (or anyone else for that matter). Accept yourself for your uniqueness and celebrate your individuality. There are certain things in your life that you will never be able to change so stop trying. On top of that, you never really know what is going on in your neighbor's or friend's home/life. For example, you may envy how thin and fit your friend is, yet don't know that she has been struggling for years with bulimia and poor self-esteem. Or the nicest house in your neighborhood is filled with the anger and hate tied up in an ugly divorce process.

7) Be responsible for yourself. Stop waiting for the perfect mate, the perfect job, the perfect set of friends to fill your life with meaning. No one else can make you "whole" or fill your life with "meaning." Only you can do that. If you want a happy life, figure out what happiness means for you and take the steps to start building that in to your life.

8) Get enough rest. It is hard for anyone to be happy when they are walking around sleep deprived all of the time. Good quality sleep is important to our overall health. We need it to make sound decisions and to move effectively throughout our day.

9) Eat right. Along with getting quality rest, it is important to eat a healthy diet. Too much sugar and caffeine can create not only a physical crash but an emotional one too.

10) Choose to be happy. You aren't going to be happy in life if you don't decide to be. Happiness isn't going to just descend upon you 24/7. It requires making conscientious choices in your life. Just letting life happen isn't going to result in the maximum amount of happiness that you can have.

[thezodiaczone]

November Forecast for Capricorn

Let it go, let it flow! A major 12-year chapter of your life is coming to an end, Capricorn, and you’ll have the next 13 months to navigate the transition. On November 8, Jupiter, the planet of growth, luck and expansion, will shift into Sagittarius and your twelfth house of closure until December 2, 2019. This is a year to “sort the crops,” evaluating everything you’ve created since 2007 and looking at where you want (or need) to correct course.

It sounds serious, and well, this IS a pretty big deal. You’re preparing to start a whole new 12-year cycle in December 2019, when auspicious Jupiter will shift into Capricorn and put your personal goals on the fast track. Until then, you may feel a bit tired or low-key since the twelfth house rules the subconscious, and your “inner world” will be the most active realm of your life. Vivid dreams, serendipitous moments and a slower pace will become the new normal.

In other words, Capricorn, prepare to exit your comfort zone! Well, maybe not entirely because you’ll still have structured Saturn marching through your sign until 2020, making sure you stay on top of your most important goals. At least you’ll still have a tether to the material world. But don’t expect to be too anchored there! With Jupiter in your imaginative and spiritual twelfth house, the next 13 months could awaken your artistic side or help you tap into healing and esoteric abilities. The key word for the twelfth house is “surrender”—and, well, that’s not easy for any mortal to pull off (least of all a take-charge Capricorn!). But you’ll grow so much in the coming months when you stop forcing agendas and swimming upstream and allow the universe to step in to offer a little divine guidance.

The twelfth house rules all things hidden, and that includes agendas. You may find out exactly who is—and isn’t—on Team Capricorn since people’s true colors are clearly revealed by truth-teller Jupiter. With the Sun in Scorpio and your eleventh house of group activity until November 22 (and an eye-opening Scorpio new moon on November 7), you could start shifting some of your alliances this month.

Some of the people you distance yourself from may even share your DNA. You’ll find out starting November 6, when radical changemaker Uranus takes a final four-month lap through Aries and your fourth house of home and family. From March 2011 to May 2018, the side-spinning planet shook up this foundational part of your chart, which may have brought a move, a pregnancy or shifting dynamics with relatives (especially your mother or close female kin). If you’re the type of Capricorn who carries the weight of the world on your shoulders, authentic Uranus helped you “get real” and start liberating yourself from those codependent ties.

Now you have one last round of this before Uranus makes a permanent exit from Aries on March 6, 2019, not to return again in this lifetime. Translation? Your holiday guest list might be a little thinner, but the people on it will actually be enjoyable company. Or if you do a big family gathering, you’ll make sure to keep impenetrable boundaries with the button pushers and avoid the polarizing political conversations. Pro tip: Don’t offer up Casa de Capricorn as a crash pad this year—and if you’re the one traveling, rent a hotel or Airbnb instead of staying with relatives.

On November 16, there’s a retrograde “changing of the guard” as love planet Venus ends a six-week backspin and communicator Mercury STARTS a three-week reversal. Venus has been retrograde since October 5, backing through Libra and your career zone for the past two weeks. If you’ve been at odds with colleagues or feeling out of sorts about work, that’s why. The tenth house also rules fathers and men, so this Venus cycle may have stirred up discord with an important guy in your life.

Any lingering resentments will need to be addressed as Mercury turns retrograde from November 16 to December 6, spending the bulk of its backspin in Sagittarius and your twelfth house of closure and forgiveness. Prepare those olive branches! When the Sun joins Jupiter and Mercury in Sagittarius on November 22, you’ll have a full month to work through any of these issues—and to catch up on serious rest before Capricorn season begins on December 21. Until then, take it easy because you’ll probably feel a bit foggy and emotional, and you need to be gentle with yourself.

You’ll have moment of clarity on November 23, when the year’s only Gemini full moon beams into your orderly and analytical sixth house. Your intuition that’s been running in the background will suddenly connect the dots. If you’ve been weighing a decision, today you could finally make it. The sixth house also rules health and fitness, and this one lunation falls oh-so inconveniently on Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S. But hey, there’s no rule that you have to slip into a post-turkey tryptophan food coma; or if you did that already, don’t beat yourself up—just move on. Today’s moonbeams could inspire a switch to more mindful eating and regular exercise over the holidays. Everything in moderation!

There’s plenty to enjoy about the holidays besides the food, anyway—like the company of great friends. And your social life will be on a definite upswing starting November 24, when hazy Neptune ends a five-month retrograde through Pisces and your third house of communication and community. If you’ve felt a little adrift from your most compassionate crew since June 18 or just haven’t had the time or motivation to catch up, Neptune’s direct turn will help you connect. Make space for meaningful moments over the holiday season.

One of the month’s most heart-opening days arrives on November 26, when the Sun and Jupiter make their annual meetup, this year in Sagittarius and your healing twelfth house. This could be a huge day for epiphanies, from emotional breakthroughs to a major reconciliation (forgiveness is powerful!) to finally letting yourself process a situation that caused heartbreak or grief. While that doesn’t exactly sound like FUN, it’s vital that we let blocked feelings get unstuck, especially because they can lead to stress and even disease if left unattended for too long. This powerful meetup of the life-giving Sun and generous Jupiter reminds you: Suffering is optional! So we recommend opting out and letting yourself be human—vulnerable, messy, real and loveable just the way you are.

Love & Romance

So…where is this thing going? If you’re almost afraid to ask, we can’t blame you, Capricorn. Love planet Venus is wrapping up her retrograde mid-month, a challenging cycle that’s wreaking havoc on hearts from October 5 to November 16. Venus was retrograde in Scorpio and your idealistic eleventh house until October 31 before backing into Libra and your tenth house of long-term plans for the duration.

If you’ve been “future-tripping”—i.e., obsessing over what’s next instead of enjoying the moment—then Venus retrograde has probably been extra-tough for you. Figuring out which way to go has been as clear as cauliflower soup! And since no self-respecting Capricorn likes to travel without a map, you’ll be oh-so-glad to see Venus correct course on November 16. The cosmic love goddess will remain in Libra for the rest of the month, but after that, you’re all clear to resume plotting out your world-domination-for-two master plan!

Meantime, intensifier Mars has been in Aquarius since September 10, heating up your second house of work, money and security. Mars is here until November 15, adding to the pressure to lock in something solid and possibly causing couples to fight over finances. Your hectic schedule and weighty responsibilities may also have made you short-tempered. On the upside, Mars in this posh house could have brought some sultry and sophisticated date nights!

Book yourself one of those on November 9, when Venus and Mars form their third and final trine of the year—a lovely connection that brings out everyone’s best (in spite of Venus still being retrograde). Couples who WANT to talk about the future should book the best table, open a bottle and do it in a luxe, five-star setting today. Bring some pleasure and pampering into the picture, and people will be far more amenable to hearing your requests for more consistency in the relationship, for example. (Just save the Excel spreadsheets for another day…and focus on the Egyptian cotton sheets instead.)

On November 15, Mars will move into Pisces, heating up your third house of communication for the rest of the year. Not only will the red planet add vibrancy to your social life, but single Caps could do some first-class flirting (and who knows where THAT will lead) just as the mistletoe and ambient lighting is being hung.

Key Dates

November 26: Sun-Jupiter Meetup This brilliant annual conjunction could be one the happiest or luckiest days of your year! This time, the annual summit electrifies your twelfth house of recovery, transitions and soulmates. You can almost magically heal a sore spot in your relationship by choosing to forgive and forget (or asking for forgiveness). Singles might meet someone who you feel like you’ve known for lifetimes—’cause maybe you have!

Money & Career

It ain’t over till it’s over! Go-getter Mars is in Aquarius until November 15, revving up your second house of work and money. Mars has been here since September 10, bringing demanding deadlines and duties, stressful expenses as well as money-making opportunities in increased doses. You may need to lean in just a little bit longer—while also navigating some irritating office politics thanks to Venus being retrograde in your career house until November 16. Stay focused on your work and don’t get involved! It would be tempting to unload your stress on someone, but that will only distract you from your duties.

On November 15, Mars moves into Pisces and your communicative third house for the rest of the year. It will be easier to have direct, productive dialogues then (but watch for coming on too strong). A project you’ve been toiling away at might be ready to pitch or put on the market—just in time for Black Friday and holiday season sales.

The Gemini full moon on November 23 prompts you to take inventory of Team Capricorn. If you need to cut some slackers (or properly train people, if they’re not being put to full use), this is a day to start hiring, firing or implementing new systems that will help your life run more smoothly. With Jupiter now in your twelfth house of surrender and rest, you’re gonna need some extra hands, so you might as well start sharpening your delegating skills now.

Key Dates

November 19: Mars-Jupiter Square Under this square between aggro Mars and never-say-never Jupiter, you want to dig in your heels and keep fighting the “good” fight. But if you pause for a moment to observe, you’ll realize it’s only making matters worse. Work harder to find the strength to compromise. Sometimes it’s actually more effective to humble yourself and extend the olive branch.

Love Days: 24, 29 Money Days: 8, 18 Luck Days: 29, 16 Off Days: 27, 31, 13

[abatkatblogging]

Top 5 Writing Tips I Wish Someone Had Told Me

Fall is here! NaNo planning season is in swing, reading periods are opening, holiday breaks are just in sight, and much writing is being done. I’ve been feeling especially retrospective as I go through another slog through my novel draft and begin planning a brand new shiny one, so I decided to make a list for myself (and anyone engaging with their writing implements of choice) of the top 5 writing tips I wish I had been told/had to learn the hard way.

Full disclaimer, these may be some of my rules to write by, but they may not be for you. A lot of writing process and theory boils down to ‘you do you.’ But if you’re looking for a place to start, or you haven’t tried these approaches yet, give them a go and see what happens! The worst you’ll learn is that they aren’t for you, and that is still something. Also, it’s possible that someone tried to tell me these and I didn’t listen. Developing writing habits during your teen years is like that. So without further ado...

1. PLAN YOUR SHIT

Do you have a main idea sentence? A detailed outline? A list of motives? A web that spans your whole wall and looks like something out of a crime thriller? A few key concepts written down somewhere you’re trying to turn into a narrative? Awesome! That’s a plan!

One of the most infuriating misconceptions about writing (especially when it comes to long-length projects) is that you can sit at your desk and simply regurgitate a fully-formed narrative without any preparation besides making sure you have enough tea to sustain you.

Even if you are feeling your way through your story on gut alone, having an idea written down that you can physically go back to can help keep you focused and get you re-centered if you become lost.

If nothing else, it’s certainly not going to hurt.

2. NOTHING IS GOING TO COME OUT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

Seriously. No matter how many manuscripts you’ve finished. No matter how long you’ve been writing. No matter how much you may like what you’ve initially written. I know most people learn the concept of revision in grade school, and maybe I am just particularly hard-headed, but this is one I have to continue to tell myself. You cannot think your way through perfecting your book. Words have to come down. It’s going to be messy. But that’s okay! Drafting is for bringing your idea into existence, revision is for making it beautiful.

3. YOUR STORY IS NOT WRITTEN IN STONE

Unless you’re locked into an iron-clad deadline with a publisher or something equally awesome (in which case, congrats!), you are not bound to a single thing in your story. That plot point you’re still iffy about? That scene you kind of hate? The entire setting? Entire characters? Everything except the main idea? Those can be gone in an instant if you want to make that decision.

So often I sink days and days of writing into forcing a particular scene or mini-arc in my novel to work that just won’t. Nine times out of ten, it turned out that there was something fundamentally off with the scenario that didn’t further my plot or my character arcs. So I scrap the whole thing and make myself approach the problem as if it’s shiny and new. What if instead of having my monster jump scare my heroine in the first scene, I save her for the end? What if the vampire-fighting nuns are super helpful? What if we try something completely different??

The point is, if you know something doesn’t work, you don’t have to make yourself miserable trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It’s okay to circle back and start fresh.

4. YOU ARE NOT TOO GOOD FOR SAID

Dialogue tags help clarify who is speaking for the reader and convey any crucial character information to help keep the scene moving. Your amazing, scene-moving dialogue is the star of the show and they are the little props that help prop them up and keep the reader engaged in the action. And said, despite the bad rep it gets in some circles, is a strong and serviceable word that does just that. It doesn’t pull attention away from the words. It doesn’t slow down the action. It conveys who is speaking. And really, most of the time, that is all you need. Dialogue, especially good dialogue, will convey its tone on its own without fancy tags most times. Try to only use your whispers, groans, exclaims, and ejaculates for special moments when the heightened attention is necessary or when something unusual is happening that your reader needs to pay attention to in order to understand the scene. They’ll stand out more, and the rest of your dialogue will be able to stand better on its feet.

5. WRITE WHAT YOU WANT

If, for any reason, you have an idea that fills your heart with excitement but you stop yourself from doing so with any variation of “no one wants to read that,” “that doesn’t count as literature,” or “I should be writing about X instead,” stop. Stop that right now. Life is too short and writing is too difficult for you to force yourself into someone else’s idea of what your story should be. However many times it’s been done, however generic it seems on paper, however weird or ambitious or scary or silly it seems--if you want to write it, WRITE IT. Because no one is going to write that story the way you will.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s get writing.

[michaelandy101-blog]

How 6 Brands Use Instagram Live in Their Marketing Strategy

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How 6 Brands Use Instagram Live in Their Marketing Strategy

83% of Instagram users say they find new products or services by browsing the platform. So, how can you ensure your brand attracts new audiences on Instagram?

One way is with Instagram Live.

The live feature is part of Instagram Stories and allows you to stream video and engage with followers in real-time. When a user goes live, Instagram notifies their followers and highlights their profile picture in the Stories section, making it appear first in line on their followers’ feeds.

Live video can be an effective tool to highlight your business offerings and host engaging events for users to join. In fact, 82% of people prefer live video over social posts from a brand according to a survey hosted by Vimeo Livestream and New York Magazine!

But enough from me — now, I’ll let you take inspiration from those already using Instagram Live to grow their brand.

How 6 Brands Use Instagram Live

1. Global Citizen

Global Citizen is a non-profit organization with a mission to end extreme poverty by 2030. Earlier this year, the brand used Instagram Live to promote their #TogetherAtHome campaign — an effort to encourage social distancing in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

To attract viewers, Global Citizen partnered with numerous celebrities to host an at-home concert series. Below is their Instagram Live collaboration with H.E.R., a musical artist.

In this livestream, H.E.R. advocated for quarantine, performed a few songs, and responded to live comments to lift spirits during difficult times. Besides the many heart-eye emoji reactions, viewers also shared comments such as, “This song brings me so much peace.” and “Music does heal.” to express their enjoyment.

Our socially-distant world also helped to make the #TogetherAtHome campaign popular because it was able to bring people together virtually.

The takeaway for your business: Research influencers in your industry to collaborate with and host Instagram Live takeovers. By doing so, your business will likely reach new audiences who are more willing to learn about your brand. You can also interact with the viewers in real-time in the comments or have your guest share a message about your business.

Lastly, consider tying Lives to current events to make your livestreams relevant to national or global conversations. These actions will boost your brand awareness.

2. Barry’s Bootcamp

Barry’s Bootcamp is a worldwide fitness studio offering workout classes. The company has been using Instagram Live to their advantage by sharing high energy workout sessions.

The live feature works well here because it can be more engaging for viewers to follow along with a live class rather than watching a pre-recorded session. In Live, they can also see how many other viewers are tuning in and watch their reactions to the class. The instructors also offer motivational words of encouragement to keep the energy going.

For Barry’s Bootcamp, live fitness classes align with their company brand and mission while providing valuable content to fitness enthusiasts. This helps to increase their brand equity and capture future converting customers.

The takeaway for your business: Instagram Live can also be used to host live workshops from your business. Lives make it easy for users to follow along and can serve as something people look forward to in their day.

Think of Instagram Lives as a way to create a virtual community of people coming together to do something. Similarly, a wellness company may host live meditation sessions. Any activity is up for grabs as long as it supports the business vision.

3. Chipotle

Chipotle is a fast food chain serving Mexican food and the company uses Instagram Live to share tasty recipes. In the below example, Chipotle’s executive chef shares how to make margaritas for Cinco de Mayo.

In this Live, Chef Chad takes viewers step-by-step through his margarita-making process and explains his thought process behind each step. This tutorial is one that viewers can trust and learn from since it comes from a top chef at the restaurant, especially if they’re already a fan of Chipotle.

It’s also worth noting how this Instagram Live celebrates Cinco de Mayo, which naturally ties into the restaurant’s Mexican cuisine. Chipotle leveraged this holiday as a great opportunity to provide entertaining and informational content.

The takeaway for your business: Ask yourself: What can we, as a business, teach members of our audience? Depending on the answer to that question, Instagram Live could be a great place to educate your audience while responding to their feedback and questions in real-time.

From the above Chipotle example, you can also better understand how acknowledging well-known events and holidays (e.g. cultural events, sports, and awards seasons) can work in your favor for this type of marketing strategy.

4. Bon Appetit

Speaking of food, Bon Appetit is a magazine all about cooking and recipes. Recently, Bon Appetit used Instagram Live as an opportunity to host a virtual dinner party with various celebrity guests. Each guest pairing was also creatively named after courses of a meal, from appetizer to digestif. Below is a screenshot from dessert:

Throughout the series, the chefs and guests carried out relaxed and casual conversations about anything and everything (you know how it goes at a dinner party). Bon Appetit was able to create a laid-back, yet engaging atmosphere. For those watching, this could’ve been an immersive experience to feel as if they were chatting with their friends over dinner.

The takeaway for your business: Instagram Live doesn’t have to be formal. Let your guard down and show your authenticity. Bon Appetit’s Dinner Party concept is both fun and creative — brainstorm potential themes you may be able to incorporate into your livestreams to achieve the same results.

Moreover, creating a series of Lives will incentivize people to follow your account and stay tuned for new content. Also, take advantage of Instagram’s guest feature to add someone else into your brand’s conversation.

5. Chewy

If you prefer more structured programming, then look to Chewy, an online retailer for all pet essentials, for inspiration. Targeting pet owners, Chewy provides educational content on how to care for a variety of pets. An example of this is their Vet to Vet Live:

These Q&A sessions provide valuable insight from experts for pet owners. Pet parents can also input their questions in the comment section for instant expert advice. As a brand, these informational videos help Chewy establish itself not only as a place to shop, but also as a resource they can turn to for any pet-related needs.

The takeaway for your business: Using Instagram Live to conduct Q&As and interviews can provide insightful tips and advice for your audience. This educational content will be appreciated by your audience members who are eager to learn and help you increase customer loyalty. Additionally, listening to a conversation between multiple people, and watching that interaction live, can also be more enjoyable than a one-man show.

6. Origins

Origins is a cosmetics company creating products from naturally-derived ingredients. Origins aligns Instagram Live with their brand by showcasing products and hosting conversations about skincare.

As shown in the screenshot, the Origins representative presents one of their products up close to the camera. This is important because products online often only show the packaging of the product, so revealing what the product itself looks like lends potential customers a better understanding of how they might expect the product to look and feel.

The two hosts also share what they like about the products and how they use it in their day-to-day lives. Sharing their stories provokes viewers to consider how they can incorporate the product into their own routines, which ultimately pushes them closer to purchase.

The takeaway for your business: Live is the perfect place for product demos and to show customers what they can expect from your business. This can resolve any hesitations related to making a purchase. It also offers a place for experts and current users to answer any concerns about the product a prospect may have. Assess your current offerings and create a live session to discuss how the customer can use and benefit from your products.

No matter which industry your business is in, all successful Lives have one theme in common — they provide valuable content for viewers that’s entertaining and/or educational.

Now that you know how other companies are marketing with Instagram Live, see the exact steps you need to start your next Live.

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[papercraneswriting]

Writing During the Holidays

Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love the lights and the warmth, spending time with my friends and family, and giving presents. But as much as I love this time of year, I also recognize that it is one of the hardest.

The holidays are an immensely stressful time for a lot of people. There are high expectations of time spent with friends and family (the bane of the introvert), presents to buy and give, food to eat and share, and money (way too much money) to spend. Some people also have the added stress and difficulty of dealing with the loss of a loved one or difficult life situation at this time, just compounding what we already see and feel.

So how do we continue to write and keep our sanity at the same time?

Here are my tips for writing during the holidays (or any other stressful times):

1. Prioritize. Put the most important things first. If that’s spending time with your family, make sure that’s the first thing on your list (or calendar). If it’s relaxing in your PJ’s and trying not to lose your mind, make sure you have the time for it. If writing is still at the top of your list, make a plan and use it. Schedule your writing time, if that works for you. And if your main priority is just getting through this tough time, then set yourself reasonable goals to keep yourself healthy and happy.

2. Set reasonable goals. I say this one a lot. Setting goals is one of the best ways to motivate yourself and accomplish what you want. My other note is to make sure those goals are reasonable. Reasonable might mean something different to everyone, but perhaps writing an entire novel in the month of December is a bit much? Tailor it to fit your needs and your priorities.

3. Allow yourself to succeed or fail without beating yourself up. I talked about this a bit during NaNo, but this is very important. Do your best to reach your goals, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t accomplish everything you intended.

4. Make time to take care of yourself. Carve out little chunks of time every day, regardless of what else is going on, to do something that will re-energize and restore you. For some, this might mean reading a fun book for ten minutes before bed. For others, maybe it’s a warm bubble bath. Just make sure you set aside the time to relax and forget about the stress around you.

5. Surround yourself with supportive people. Find those friends who build you up and encourage you and your goals and dreams. Let them spur you on. Especially if some people you must interact with this season are not the nicest or most supportive. The people around us can so greatly influence our mood and our health and attitude. Do your best to counteract the negativity you might face.

6. Keep writing. Use whatever bits of time you have. Five minutes waiting for water to boil? Write a bit. Two minutes while your friend is in the bathroom? Take some notes or brainstorm. Whatever it takes, just make sure you do something. For a lot of writers, this is one of the biggest ways to keep your sanity during stressful times. It doesn’t even have to be a work in progress. Just write something and keep exercising those muscles.

There are plenty more tips for continuing to write during stressful times:

How to Keep on Writing in the Middle of Health Problems

Dealing with Overwhelm

Discouragement

Distractions

Major Life Changes

Writing Slumps

And that’s just a few. So take stock of your holiday plans. Prioritize what’s most important to you this holiday season and make it your priority. And throughout the craziness, make sure you’re making time for yourself and your writing.

Take care of yourselves, friends. See you next week!

[entirebodyexercise]

9 Stay-Fit Training Tips For The Holidays

Don't let your physical fitness go laterally throughout the holiday season!

Every year, the last week of November represents something of an invisible cliff for also one of the most active individual, as well as for the next 6 weeks or two, our health and fitness falls at a fast lane amid an increase of holiday parties as well as celebrations up until it's time to make a resolution to start working out once more at the turn of the year. Exactly what if you dealt with right currently to not allow yourself get to that point in between Thanksgiving as well as New Year's Day? Right here are nine top ideas for preserving a strong guideline level of health and fitness through the new year-- all you require is the wish to maintain fit and also 30 to 60 minutes a day.

1. Set process goals.

As athletes, it's all-natural to setbig outcome goals for ourselves(reduce weight, set a personalbest, qualify for Boston, and so on), the difficulty with this is theend result is largely from ourcontrol. The holiday isa good time of year to focus onprocess objectives-- smaller, actionableitems you could examine offyour listing daily that will certainly assist bringyou closer to your outcomegoals. Instances include: workout for Thirty Minutes daily, do 10pushups every early morning, getto bed by 10 every night, liftweights two times a week ... the listcontinues. Concentrate on executing your procedure objectives this vacation season, and also opportunities are you'll enjoy with completion result.

2. Grab a buddy.

The holidays are a fantastic time to catchup with out-of-town pals who could be residence visiting their own households for a couple of days. What much better wayto make one of the most ofyour time togetherthan by going fora run? Or pressing one an additional via a challenging toughness training exercise? Not only could you catchup on a great deal of point sover the program of 30to 60 minutes, yet you'll likewise be doing something good for yourselves as well.

3. Establish a routine.

Running around to vacation parties, going to good friends and travelingto see family members could make it simple tofall out of rhythm, but establishinga constant regular routine tofollow can aid keep you on trackamid the chaos. Appoint a specificfocus per day of the week-- also the day of rest-- and also sculpt out30 to 60 minutes to run or exercise at the exact same time every day.No exceptions, no excuses.

4. Crank up the strength as soon as a week.

Sticking to a timetable of very structured speed workouts can be challenging at the end of the year, and lots of runners utilize that as an excuse to just log simple miles up until spring curtail around. Winter running does not have to be all slow-moving as well as monotonous. When a week, crank up the intensity of among your running exercises with a brief, rapid period session on the roadways or a development run on the treadmill. Not only will these sorts of exercises damage up the monotony of running very easy regularly, but they will additionally give your health and fitness degree a fast increase as well as establish you up to begin the new year off in far better shape compared to ever.

5. Plan ahead.

Traveling to see family members or good friends and not exactly sure when you'll be able to run or function out? Do your research study beforehand as well as extent out prominent running courses where you'll be heading, or verify that your hotel or host family has a treadmill or exercise location you can capitalize on for 30 to 60 minutes a day. Let those you're checking out (or that are visiting you) know ahead of time you're intending to exercise-- hell, even motivate them to join you! If you announce your intents beforehand, it will certainly produce the time as well as space you require, yet it will also develop an added level of responsibility to actually leave the couch!

6. Avoid temptation.

It's very easy to obtain brought away at a loaded buffet table, which is why it's vital to understand exactly what you're in for and plan in advance prior to vacation delighted hrs, Thanksgiving dinner and also the like. Avoid the lure to exaggerate it when the options before you are aplenty. While it's ALRIGHT to enable yourself to splurge on beverages and dessert every when in a while, do not enable it to become a routine habit. Visiting two celebrations on the very same night? Consume supper at the very first as well as conserve space for treat at the next. Discovering a healthy balance is the easiest way to avoid the attraction of holiday food.

7. Embrace a home, strength-training circuit.

Spending the money to join a health club towards the end of the year isn't really constantly a practical financial investment, but there's no need to disregard a when- or twice-a-week routine of practical stamina and also mobility exercises that will help boost strength, burn fat as well as prevent injuries. (Inspect out Rival As needed for a collection of training how-to toughness training as well as extending videos you can utilize to create your very own program at house. No health club-- and even weights-- called for!)

8. Cross-Train.

With the exemption of your yearly turkey trot or various other festive occasions, the holiday season is generally a slow-moving time for racing, which could be a welcome relief in between an active autumn period and the upcoming spring project. Desire to remain active as well as healthy however simply not really feeling up for a run? No problem. Thirty to 60 minutes of aerobic non operating activity, such as swimming, a spin class or bootcamp, can be a wonderful method to replace a handful of your running miles throughout the off-season as well as provide your body as well as mind a break from pounding the pavement.

9. Go easy on the alcohol.

Catching up with pals over a chilly pint or sharing a container of wine with family members from out of community is a fun means to celebrate the season, yet exceedingly imbibing over a short amount of time is among the primary factors individuals pack on unwanted extra pounds. Limit yourself to one drink at vacation events as well as have your following day's workout in mind before the fun begins.

[kennethherrerablog]

How to Build Your Travel Fund So You Can Afford That Upcoming Vacay

Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, but it’s hard to unwind when you’re constantly stressing about how you’re going to pay for it all.

Whether it’s a road trip, cruise or another much-needed getaway, now is the time to start saving up for that vacation you’ve been dreaming of for months. With a little creativity, you can bulk up your bank account and be ready to hit the road or beach in style, without going into debt to do it.

3 Strategies to Save for Your Next Vacation

Saving money is something many of us struggle with, but a dream vacation is great motivation to start stacking your coins. These three money-saving strategies will have you sipping cocktails by the beach (or hiking at a four-star mountain resort… or testing out your language skills at an international destination) in no time.

1. Open a Dedicated Vacation Bank Account

One easy way to save for a special trip is to open a dedicated vacation savings account. If you choose a high-yield savings account, your money might even grow a bit while you’re looking forward to your trip.

You can open a savings account at your local bank, but if you go with an online bank, you’ll be less likely to withdraw the money.

Set up automatic payments into the account, and, with a little restraint, leave that money there until it’s time for your trip. Bulk up your account balance by depositing any $1 bills or $5 bills that you receive as change from everyday purchases. Funnel any extra money — like a work bonus or birthday cash — into your vacation fund as well.

If you have a side gig and don’t rely on the income to cover your essential expenses, you can save that money toward your upcoming getaway, too.

2. Create a Savings Goal

If you budget for your trip in advance, you don’t have to spend time stressing over your spending while you’re on vacation.

Research the costs of your expected expenditures, such as airfare, rental cars, gas, hotel stays, meals, souvenirs, special excursions and tickets to attractions or events. After totaling those costs, you’ll have an estimation of how much you’ll need to save.

Now work backwards to reach your savings goal. Divide your estimated vacation cost by the number of months you have before taking your trip to figure out how much money to save aside each month. For example, if you’re taking a $2,400 vacation a year from now, you’d need to save $200 a month to fund your getaway.

If your vacation date isn’t set in stone, you could figure out how much you’d like to save monthly and divide your total estimated vacation cost by your monthly savings amount to figure out when you can afford to take your trip. Using the $2,400 vacation example, if you could only afford to save $150 a month, you’d have the funds for your trip 16 months from now.

3. Download Money-Saving Apps

Take advantage of technology for extra assistance with saving for vacation.

Digit is an app that links up to your checking account and automatically transfers money to your savings account. It uses an algorithm to calculate how much money users can afford to have pulled from their checking account without causing them to overdraft. You can even set a vacation savings goal within the app. 

Bonus: Penny Hoarders will get an extra $5 just for signing up. Additionally, savers will receive a 1% bonus every three months. Digit is free to use for the first 30 days, then it’s $2.99 per month afterward.

Qapital is another savings app that links to your checking account. You set savings goals and then determine how you’d like to reach those goals. You have various options for saving, like taking a certain amount out your account on a weekly basis or rounding purchases up to the nearest $5 and depositing that money into your savings. You can set up multiple savings options to fund your vacation faster.

8 Ways to Bank Extra Money for Your Trip

Strategizing how you’ll save money for your upcoming vacation is just half the battle. Making extra money or finding smart ways to free up some of your cash will get you there sooner.

Saving up for a big trip isn’t easy, but these eight ideas should help you pad that vacation savings account and have your trip already paid for before you leave home.

1. Pick Up a Side Job

Sure, you may need to work a little harder now, but think about all that relaxing fun you’ll be having on your stress-free vacation that’s already paid for.

Look for ways to earn extra money outside your regular job, whether they’re more traditional (like babysitting or waiting tables) or a bit less orthodox (like leading guided tours of craft coffee shops or getting paid to stand in line). Side jobs help bring you one step closer to affording your dream getaway.

Pro Tip

Consider opportunities related to the season. Around the winter holidays, many retailers look for seasonal workers. Leading up to the summer, you may see postings for camp counselors and lifeguards.

Working these side jobs may mean sacrificing your free time for a while, but it will help make your vacation possible.

2. Sell Your Stuff

If you’re into vacations, you know that life is about experiences, not stuff. Especially when your stuff can put cold, hard cash in your pocket.

You can sell stuff you have at home on OfferUp, Letgo or Craigslist or resell thrift-shop finds on eBay. Check your attic, too — a rare item collecting dust might sell for a fortune.

Our guide to the best times of year to sell things online will tell you what you should sell in certain months to take advantage of increased demand and possibly bring in more cash.

3. Make Your Credit Card Work for You

Consider using a credit card that accumulates airline miles for all of your regular expenditures throughout the year. Come vacation time, you could be flying for free.

Another option is to earn credit-card sign-up bonuses. Writer Steve Gillman scored hundreds of dollars in credit-card bonuses. That’s money to put toward your next road trip! (Just make sure to ask yourself these five questions before opening a new credit card for the rewards.)

You can also earn tons of frequent flier miles without signing up for a credit card by shopping online, eating out, taking surveys and other methods.

4. Cut Back on Your Monthly Food Budget

For many households — especially those with little ones or teenagers running around — food can be a huge monthly expense. Shave a little off the top and in no time, you’ll notice you’ve got some extra cash to put toward your getaway.

Save money by buying in bulk, by shopping at farmers markets or by joining a community supported agriculture — or CSA — program. Start a garden in your backyard, or save on produce by regrowing vegetables at home. Earn rebates on your groceries by taking pictures of the receipts with apps like Ibotta.

Or simply look for a few items you don’t really need, like soda and treats, and keep them out of your grocery cart while you’re saving for your vacation. Wouldn’t that ice cream taste even better if you were eating it on the beach?

5. Use Your Car to Make a Little Cash on the Side

Why not use your car for a little extra income? You could make additional money as an Uber or Lyft driver or set up a carpool and charge coworkers for rides.

If you’re flying to your destination and want to park at the airport for free, let TravelCar rent out your car to other travelers while you’re gone, and you could have a check waiting for you when you return.

If vacationing is so important to you that you’re willing to resort to drastic measures, you could ditch your car completely, like this family did (they saved $11,500).

6. Make Money With Your Home

Move a little extra money to your vacation account each month by listing space in your home on Airbnb. Even if you don’t have a dedicated room available, you can get creative with your Airbnb listing by hosting people in a tent in your backyard or letting guests crash on your couch. You could also rent out your entire home, stay with a friend or relative and split the profits with them.

And make sure to save on housing during your vacation, too, by using Airbnb or one of these other cheap accommodation options.

7. Spend Less on Your Workout

Want to get in shape for the itsy-bitsy bikini or new swim trunks you bought for that trip to the beach? Think of how much better your wallet will look if you could work out without forking over loads of cash.

Consider saving money on the cost of a gym membership with these free or cheap gym alternatives, working out at fitness stations at public parks or by following fitness-focused YouTube channels. You could even get paid to work out by teaching yoga or leading fitness boot camps.

Pro Tip

If you can’t bear to leave the gym, look for deals on discounted memberships and classes through your employer or sites like Groupon.

8. Find Deals on Outdoor Equipment

If your vacation involves costly items like skis, snowboards, kayaks, tents and more, consider buying used rental equipment, shopping at company “garage sales” and hunting in thrift stores to cut down on the cost.

Also consider buying and reselling gear at your destination. Who knows, you may even come home with a little money in your pocket.

Sarah Kuta is an education reporter in Boulder, Colo., with a penchant for weekend thrifting, furniture refurbishment and good deals. Find her on Twitter: @sarahkuta.

Senior writer Nicole Dow contributed to this article.

This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.

How to Build Your Travel Fund So You Can Afford That Upcoming Vacay published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[we-johnnygonzalez-blog]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has the best examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketing to keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[tainghekhongdaycomvn]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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[simpleseo]

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” – SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has the best examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketing to keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

[lawrenceseitz22]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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[swunlimitednj]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2Tscrp4 via SW Unlimited

[byronheeutgm]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2DvFse4

[mercedessharonwo1]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2DvFse4

[dainiaolivahm]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2DvFse4

[fairchildlingpo1]

3 Empowering Small Business Tips for Today, 2019, and a Better Future

Posted by MiriamEllis

“American business is overwhelmingly small business.” - SBE Council

Small businesses have created 61.8% of net new jobs in the US since the early 1990s. Local business is big business. Let’s celebrate this in honor of Small Business Saturday with 3 strategies that will support independent business owners this week, and in the better future that can be attained with the right efforts.

What’s Small Business Saturday?

It’s an annual shopping event sponsored by American Express on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with the primary goal of encouraging residents to patronize local merchants. The program was launched in 2010 in response to the Great Recession. By 2017, Small Business Saturday jumped to 7,200 Neighborhood Champions (individuals and groups that organize towns for the event), with 108 million reported participating consumers spending $12 billion across the country.

Those numbers are impressive, and more than that, they hold the acorn of strategy for the spreading oak of a nation in which independently grown communities set standards of living, set policy, and set us on course for a sustainable future.

Tips for small businesses today

If your community is already participating in Small Business Saturday, try these techniques to enhance your success on the big day:

1. Give an extra reason to shop with you

This can be as simple as giving customers a small discount or a small free gift with their purchase, or as far-reaching as donating part of the proceeds of the day’s sales to a worthy local cause. Give customers a reason to feel extra good that they shopped with you, especially if you can demonstrate how their purchase supports their own community. Check out our Local Business Holiday Checklist for further tips.

2. Give local media something to report

Creativity is your best asset in deciding how to make your place of business a top destination on Small Business Saturday, worthy of mentions in the local news. Live music? A treasure hunt? The best store window in town? Reach out to reporters if you’re doing something extra special to build up publicity.

3. Give a reason to come back year-round

Turn a shopping moment into a teaching moment. Print up some flyers from the American Independent Business Alliance and pass them out to customers to teach them how local purchasing increases local wealth, health, and security. Take a minute or two to talk with customers who express interest. Sometimes, all it takes is a little education and kindness to shift habits. First, take a few minutes to boost your own education by reading How to Win Some Customer Back from Amazon this Holiday Season.

AMIBA has a great list of tips for Small Business Saturday success and American Express has thebest examples of how whole communities have created memorable events surrounding these campaigns. I’ve seen everything from community breakfast kickoffs in Michigan, to jazz bands in Louisiana, to Santa Claus coming to town on a riverboat in California. Working closely with participating neighboring businesses can transform your town or city into a holiday wonderland on this special day, and if your community isn’t involved yet, research this year can prepare you to rally support for an application to next year’s program.

Tips for small businesses for the new year

Unless your town is truly so small that all residents are already aware of every business located there, make 2019 the year you put the Internet to work for you and your community. Even small town businesses have news and promotions they’d like to share on the web, and don’t forget the arrival of new neighbors and travelers who need to be guided to find you. In larger cities, every resident and visitor needs help navigating the local commercial scene.

Try these tips for growth in the new year:

Dig deeply into the Buy Local movement by reading The Local SEO’s Guide to the Buy Local Phenomenon. Even if you see yourself as a merchant today, you can re-envision your role as a community advocate, improving the quality of life for your entire town.

Expand your vision of excellent customer service to include the reality that your neighbors are almost all on the Internet part of every day looking for solutions to their problems. A combination of on-and-offline customer service is your key to becoming the problem-solver that wins lucrative, loyal patrons. Read What the Local Customer Service Ecosystem Looks Like in 2019.

Not sure where to begin learning about local search marketing on the web? First, check out Moz’s free Local SEO Learning Center with articles written for the beginner to familiarize yourself with the basic concepts. Then, start following the recognized leaders in this form of marketingto keep pace with new developments and opportunities as they arise. Make a new year’s resolution to devote just 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week, to learning more about marketing your small local business. By the end of a single year, you will have become a serious force for promotion of your company and the community it serves.

Tips for an independent business future: The time is right

I’ve been working in local business marketing for about 15 years, watching not just the development of technologies, but the ebb and flow of brand and consumer habits and attitudes. What I’m observing with most interest as we close out the present year is a rising tide of localistic leanings.

On the one hand, we have some of the largest brands (Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.) losing the trust of the public in serious scandals surrounding privacy, human rights violations, and even war. On the other hand, we have small business owners uniting to revitalize their communities in wounded cities like Detroit and tiny towns like Bozeman, in the wake of the Great Recession, itself cited as a big brand product.

Where your company does business may influence your customers’ take on economics, but overall, the engrossing trend I’m seeing is towards more trust in smaller, independently owned companies. In fact, communities across the US are starting to map out futures for themselves that are as self-sustaining as possible. Earlier, I referenced small business owners undergoing a mental shift from lone merchant to community advocate, and here, I’ve mapped out a basic model for towns and cities to shift toward independence.

What most communities can’t access locally are branded products: imported big label clothing, packaged foods, electronics, cars, branded cosmetics, books. Similarly, most communities don’t have direct local access to the manufacture or mining of plastics, metals, and gases. And, very often, towns and cities lack access to agroforestry for raw lumber, fuel, natural fibers and free food. So, let’s say for now that the typical community leaves these things up to big brands so that they can still buy computers, books and stainless steel cookware from major manufacturers.

But beyond this, with the right planning, the majority of the components for a high standard of living can be created and owned locally. For example:

Even large cities can divest from big banks, putting their money into small banks and community credit unions.

Communities can create their own solar energy, power themselves, and even sell their excess product to others. Internet, water, refuse, and recycling can be locally-owned, too.

Whether in town or country, farms as small as 3 acres can feed 10,000 people in a year. Such farms can not only directly supply residents with fresh food, but can also stock independently-owned grocery stores and increasingly-popular farm-to-table restaurants. Communities are building or restoring mills to process grain and other products. Eventually, this could extend to fiber and lumber mills.

Communities in some areas are already paying for the training and presence of their own doctors. And, part of city budgets are already often earmarked for fire and first responder services.

With the right craftspeople, the necessities and luxuries of life can be produced by tailors, glass blowers, blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, masons, and others. Local or regional products can be vended directly or by independently-owned retailers. With some effort, residents can live in, sit on, wear, drink and eat from products made not far from home.

Some cities are experimenting with free community colleges and others are opening local centers for continuing higher education like TechTown which helps local businesses launch and grow.

Finally, there is the full menu of personal services like home services, elder care, beauty, and fitness that are already often independently owned and can continue to grow in a motivated community.

There are certainly some things we may rely on big brands and federal resources for, but it isn’t Amazon or the IRS who give us a friendly wave as we take our morning hike through town, making us feel acknowledged as people and improving our sense of community. For that, we have to rely on our neighbor. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s up to towns and cities to determine whether neighbors are experiencing a decent standard of living.

Reading the mood of the economy, I am seeing more and more Americans becoming open to the messages that the percentage of small businesses in a community correlates with residents’ health, that quality social interactions lessen the chances of premature death by 50%, that independent businesses recirculate almost 4x as much community wealth, and that Main Street-style city planning massively reduces pollution vs. big box stores on the outskirts of town.

Small Business Saturday doesn’t have to be a once-a-year phenomenon. Small business owners, by joining together as community advocates, have the power to make it a way of life where they live. And they have one significant advantage over most corporations, the value of which shouldn’t be underestimated: They can begin the most important conversations face-to-face with their neighbors, asking, “Who do we want to be? Where do want to live? What’s our best vision for how life could be here?”

Don’t be afraid to talk beyond transactions with your favorite customers. Listening closely, I believe you’ll discover that there’s a longing for change and that the time is right.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2DvFse4