Tag: business owner

How to Respond to Bogus Online Customer Reviews : Guest Blog – Cliff Ennico

Thanks to the Internet, we can find out with a click of a button if anyone has had a bad experience with a product, a service, a small business or a local professional. A number of websites have sprouted up to provide a forum for online reviews. Some, like Angie’s List (www.angieslist.com), charge users a small fee in order to weed out bogus reviews. Most of these sites, however, including Amazon.com and Yelp.com (www.yelp.com) are free, which encourages anonymous postings. While most of these postings are valid and genuine, there’s a temptation for people with an “axe to grind” to post false reviews knowing they cannot be tracked down.

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5 Tips to Build a Celebrity Brand

The dictionary defines a celebrity as someone with fame — renown. In the past achieving celebrity status was enjoyed only by people who soared to the top in fields such as acting, national sports, politics and journalism. People whose faces, names and voices appeared regularly in our homes on television, in newspapers and magazines and on radio.

Traditional media coverage is no longer necessarily needed to build celebrity status. With the advent of technology and social media almost anyone can become a recognized expert — mini-celebrity — in their field. Yes, that means even you can propel yourself to stardom and fame. But it takes hard work, dedication and most of all patience.

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Put Your Kids to Work in Your Small Biz

The heat has been brutal so far this summer in many parts of the country. Too hot for the kiddos to play outside. In my community, the swimming pools even closed. Many parents told me their children were going stir crazy — anxious to find something to do with their time.

Even under normal weather circumstance, the summer months often create challenges for small business owners. How do you balance the conflicting demands of running your business and spending time with your children. Many who are working tirelessly to build their businesses, feel guilty and conflicted over the lack of time they have to spend with their children. So let me ask: Why not let them work with you this summer? You get to spend time with them. The children get valuable experience. And there may be tax advantages as well.

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Guest Blog: The Value of Your Work

At the height of his playing career in 1958, Stan Musial at the age of 38 signed a one-year $100,000 contract. It was the highest salary in the history of the National League. Recently Albert Pujols signed a 10-year $254 Million contract. It is the second biggest contract in Major League Baseball history. At the age of 38, he will earn $25.4 Million.

So what do these two contracts tell us? Is Albert Pujols two-hundred-and-fifty times more valuable than Stan Musial? Is his batting average two-hundred-and-fifty times higher than Musial’s? How about his average number of home runs or average number of hits? Did the Cardinals under Albert win two-hundred-and-fifty times more often than under Stan? Obviously not.

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