1. There won’t be a double dip recession.  The economy is recovering, or better said for here in the rural areas – we are learning how to survive in this current economy.  We are already learning how to be more comfortable – we’re cutting hours of staff, not buying as much inventory, and purchasing what is useful and needed – not wanted.  We’ve gotten creative with our marketing and thank God for social media.  We know that business growth will be steady, it has to be – we have families to feed and dreams to pursue.
2. Health insurance rate increases will be less.  Most small businesses in my neck of the woods have a husband or wife who works a “traditional” job and carry insurance for their families.  It’s more than they can really afford, but less than if a catastrophe happened.  If the owner is over 65, the donut hole has shrunk and now they only have to really worry about high costs for 1 or 2 months instead of 3 or 4.  There are small business owners with less than 3-4 employees – and a lot of them – who carry no insurance at all.  It’s either pay your employee or pay your insurance.  (Please notice I am speaking from personal experience of owners in my neck of the woods – but I hear these things in all the small towns I go to.   I’d be very interested to hear the numbers and statistics about this.)
3. Obama will win the election.  Okay, the democrat in me says “of course he will.”  I just don’t see any serious competition from the other side – and anyone that might get elected is not concerned about small business.   Sadly, many small businesses are not hiring – they are working on getting by.  So any tax cuts to help hire are not taken advantage of here.
4. Unemployment will improve slightly.  Fortunately, Iowa’s unemployment rate is 5.7% – below the national average.  We are seeing a growth in entrepreneurial business – because people have been out of work for so long, they have to do something.  It’s also reported that more young people (20 to 35) just start their own businesses instead of fighting the rat race. We also see more work from home opportunities taking hold – Tupperware, Avon, Watkins, Melaleuca for example – all create reliable secondary income.  Often it’s enough for mom to stay home and avoid child care costs.
5. Banks still won’t lend money.  Agree with you totally here.  One nice thing in my town, we have three locally owned banks and it makes a big difference doing business with someone you REALLY know.
6. Sales will rise in most consumer sectors.  Agree here as well.  Business owners have gotten smarter and manage their inventory much better and provide value/service before it’s asked for.
7. Fuel prices will still rise.  Good Lord, it’s a circus.  In one day we’ve seen it go from 2.98 to 3.39.  Ironically, it seems higher around the driving holidays – and frankly, with these gas prices most of the holidays are ones you drive for.  Long trips over days have been reduced to day tripping. This is actually a bonus for small business – how can they meet the needs of that kind of traveler?
8. Stock market remains volatile.  Agree again.
9. Housing market will remain flat.  It’s still a buyer’s market in rural Iowa.  Unless you are buying land, and for some wild reason, we’ve seen $15,000 to $20,000 per acre.  Great news for sellers.
10. Social media sites grow, but Google+ becomes stagnant.  Social media is the new marketing.  Learning to respond to and anticipate customer’s needs and wants is critical.  If someone thinks they can shout out what they have and be taken seriously – they are in for a surprise.  Facebook is a common means of communication in rural communities; it’s the new party line.  Google + — I’ll hold my remarks.  I don’t see many of my local friends using it, but hey – it’s Google.  The chance it can be better and more useful for rural areas is a strong possibility.
11. The “Occupy” movement will expand online.  There are no secrets online.  If your company sucks, people will tell others about it.  We just had a big brewhaha over customer service at the local Dollar General.  It spread over Facebook and everyone is talking about it.  Here’s a chance for DG to make a change, we’re waiting to see if that will happen.  Also, our farmers and farm corporations are watching very closely what is happening in their arena.  They will not be ruled out.
12. “Deal of the Day” website offers will slow.  Funny, our towns are too small for those websites.  However, smart small business owners have paid attention and do offer deep discounts out of the blue for just one day – and we see it on Facebook and twitter.

Back story:

Becky McCray (featured in picture above taken by Sheila Scarborough) is writing a book with Barry Moltz called Small Town Rules.  It will be available very very soon.  Becky and I have shared the stage at several 140 Character Conferences, the original Hutch Bloggers tour found us both on it, and we’ve even shared an apartment for a week in New York.  She’s a friend, and I pay close attention to the people she follows, works with and listens to.  Barry is one of those people.  He’s on a google alert in my reader.  He’s also a really smart guy.  Now … you know the rest of the story!

You do use head shots, right?

If you have a business, you market online, you need head shots.  Good ones.

If you can, find a local photographer and hire him/her.  If that doesn’t fit in your budget, be creative.  Approach the photography class at a local college or high school – see if someone there wants to take your pics.   Or find a new photographer just starting out.  Ask your friends.  Look on facebook and see who’s posting head shots (you’d be surprised how many there are — look at baby pics and wedding shots).

You need a portfolio of pictures to use for different occasions.

1. Email signature

2. Business card

3. marketing literature

4. in blog posts

5. on your website

6. on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

In this day of global being the new local, you need to build relationships and people want to see what you look like.   Hiring someone to take professional photos shows that you care about your appearance – and its spills over into people thinking you care about your business too.

Smile!

See all the shots on my facebook page 

80-90% of the entire year for a small retail business is earned in the months of November and January.

That’s a big deal.  It’s a huge weight to carry around as well.

So how can social media make a difference?  Please note I do call it social media, because is involves being very social and reaching out to your customers and creating relationships with them.

At least 50% of the population in the United States is on Facebook.  If you don’t have a fan page for your retail business, you are really missing out.

A few things you can do on Facebook are:

• take pictures of customers using your products (or wearing them or playing with them) – be sure to get their name and permission to use the picture – and post them on your wall.
• create an event.  Are you have a 20% sale on two items in the store this week? Make it an event.  Is new product coming and being displayed on Saturday?  Make it an event.
• team up with another retailer and create a joint project.  Shop at your store and get 10% off a slice of pizza next door!
• highlight a product in your store.  Get creative, tell a great story about it.  Show us how your customers love it and what they do with it.
• Have a contest.  Perhaps a treasure hunt in the store – hide three items well, and give clues on how to find them.
• If your staff is dressing up for the holidays (Santa hats, reindeer antlers, etc.) - take pictures!  

This time of year, the object is to get people into your store.  Give them a reason to come in.  But first, make sure they know you are there!

What are some other ideas of things retailers can do?  

Attend a conference in the Midwest – and hear what people have to say who are already using it for business.  There’s two coming up in September.  Choose one.

http://smalltown2011.140conf.com/ Hutchinson Kansas is having their second Small Town 140 Character Conference. A day filled with folks talking 10 minutes at time – and sharing how they’ve used social media and what it means for their business.  Plan a short vacation — visit the Salt Mines and the Cosmosphere.  Hutch is a great family kind of town – and you’ll never regret going.  September 20 is the date.

http://uppermidwestsmcon.org/ One week later in Mason City Iowa is the Upper Midwest Social Media Conference.  This is the first year for this conference and Mason City has affordable hotels, great food and lots of history.  There are sessions in this conference and you can choose which ones to attend.  The speakers will be announced this week.  September 26th at the Clarion Hotel.

Both conferences are under $100 to attend, and a great way to see if social media is a marketing avenue you want to pursue.

Kerri-Rod Rodemeyer Luhring

Instead of telling someone who rides a motorcycle how dangerous it is; Look twice before switching lanes, making turns, or pulling out of a drive way. Stay on your side of the road, especially in corners. Don’t follow too closely, bikes can stop faster If you care about someone who rides a motorcycle - SHARE THE ROAD

mobiletechlearning.tumblr.com

world-shaker: “58 Interesting Ways to Use an iPad in the Classroom (an open Google Doc) ”

Mashable

Do you use the custom posting feature on your Facebook Fan Page?http://on.mash.to/l1oCkt

Lu’Ella Rodemeyer

DAN ROSS is arriving in our Butler and Franklin Co. area this weekend !!!

De-stress with Herbs

www.frontiercoop.com

For physical and mental well being, it’s crucial to find ways to slow down. Herbal rituals can help soften the pace.

You receive a welcome/landing page graphic design, basic information added to your page, upload of pictures to an album or two (you provide the pictures) and a request of our fans to take a look at your page and like you.  Deb will also show you a few tips to help you build traffic and conversation on your page.  Here’s a few Debworks has done:

140 conference Des Moines

Hampton Franklin County

Cabin Cove Bed and Breakfast

Pure Bred Pups

We’re enjoying meeting and working with small businesses and helping them grow their businesses.  We charge $100 to create an image and start your Facebook Fan Page.

Here’s just a few Facebook stats:

71% of United States web audience is on Facebook.

48% of young Americans get their news on Facebook.

The 35 plus age group represents more than 30% of the entire database.

If your business is not on Facebook, you are losing out a new method of marketing and advertising.  Why not contact Debworks (deb@debworks.com or 641-580-0103) and have a conversation?

Last night we talked about Facebook versus Blog for businesses.  I think it was a draw.

Today I went into my twitter mention stream and took a look at the people who responded to me personally last night.  I spent about 10 minutes checking out their profiles and wandering over to their websites.  On my journey I found www.thesocialpath.com I love a good business blog with helpful tools – and this is just that. One post talked about creating your own photostrip for facebook. If someone goes to your profile, there are now apparently random photos of you and/or yours across the top.

Aha! They are not random!  The last five pictures you tagged of yourself appear there.  I immediately went to photoshop, doctored up a few photos (added my website on them) and then uploaded to a facebook album and tagged them.  Go ahead, try it yourself!

Here’s the result:

Tonight I have a Creating Facebook Fan Pages class I’m teaching at Hampton NIACC.  Facebook is pretty good at updating their information and my old PowerPoint presentation from 6 months ago needed updating.  Off I went to Google to do a little research.

One of the most exciting things I love that is relatively new (at least to me) are infographics.  Different people are just great at taking statistics and creating an interesting visual with it.  Mashable.com, coolinfographics.com, hubspot.com are just a few of those.  Merlene Paynter was having a great conversation about listening (or not listening) to podcasts.  Here’s a response she sent to me on Facebook.

Merlene Paynter Deb – I’m definitely more visual – I prefer text (books, etc.) above all else but images/video is next and audio is dead last for me. It’s funny though, my daughter (21 now) is opposite. She’d rather a prof stand up and bla bla bla all day than having to read. She finds she absorbs audio information really easily but written information is a lot harder for her – taking her at least 3x as long to absorb. My sons (16) just seems to absorb information thru osmosis LOL

So it’s important to learn how people like to learn!  I’ve updated my presentation, and have attempted to appeal to most learning styles.

Classes are listed here: www.facebook.com/HamptonNIACC

And always, Mashable you rock!

Create lists.  One for friends, one for fan pages, one for locals, one for social media people, one for news ….. you get the idea.  Here’s how:

Go to Friends (on the left side) and click.

Edit friends.

Create a list.

Create more if you want.

Then when you roll your mouse over the area just right of your friends name, the Edit List option pops up.  Click on it and choose the list you want them to belong to.

Okay — now you have all your friends in a list of some sort.  What can you do with that information?

Click on the home page, Find the Most Recent tab and click on the arrow — here’s all of your lists.  I have a list for locals — so when I want to see only what local people are doing, I choose it.  There are all the people who live near me talking about what they are doing!  I also have a list for Fan Pages — so I can check out what the brands I follow are up to.  I have a list for Melaleuca customers – so I can see what they are up too.

The possibilities are endless.  How do you use lists?

It’s holiday time where I live.

There’s the play – and small towns require everyone to come out for the play.  Some act in it.  Some promote it.  Some attend it.  Some read about it.  All enjoy it.

It’s at this time of year that there is plenty of opportunity to promote your business.

Are you talking about what’s going on in town?  Have you sponsored an event?  Is your child in the play?  Is your church going on an outing?

Get out in the neighborhood. Meet people.  Visit the stores.  Talk about yourself.

Give people a chance to get to know you.  We want to do business with people we know, like and trust.

Holidays are a great time to achieve that first step.  Let people get to know you.