The Business Pod's Blog

It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur—in the last decade, technology has leveled the playing field and propelled an entrepreneurial revolution. As an entrepreneur, you now have more access to information that enables you to make more intelligent choices more quickly. You have an advantage over big businesses in that you’re lighter, more flexible, and faster on your feet. You can target new markets more quickly, and you can turn on a dime. But being a successful entrepreneur requires that you look at the big picture and follow a plan through from beginning to end. Rieva Lesonsky, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine gives some practical guidelines that can help you when beginning your own enterprise: 1.Don’t Quit Your Day Job. Consider starting your business part-time, especially if it’s online, while you’re working and have a steady income. It usually takes six months to a year to get a business going and you don’t want your ability to make your house payment to hinge upon...

Growing your small business using Facebook can be a very rewarding experience, but it can also be challenging and frustrating.  Here are 4 tips you need to know to grow your Facebook fans and likes.  #1 Make an Offer Promotions, discounts and free stuff are all very popular on Facebook. It is a way to offer your customers something of great value and they love it! You can offer a discount to anyone that mentions you on Facebook when they shop with you. You can build your reach (likes and fans) by making it simple for your visitors to distribute your message beyond your current fan base and then make it easy to redeem whatever you have offered them (discount or gift). #2 Boost The Posts That Are Important Use ‘Boosted Posts’ to help you increase your audience reach. Enter the amount you are going to set aside for your promotion and Facebook immediately tells you how many people that reach will generate. You can target your reach so that your message is getting to the ri...

Everyone has a desire to be rich, but actually only a few get there. Why is that? Many would like to believe it’s because others are luckier than they are, and while that might be the case for the minority that win the lottery or inherit a fortune, that’s not the case for most.  Getting rich requires desire, dedication, skill, and patience. You must be ready to take a risk and weather the storm that followers. Getting rich doesn’t happen overnight, but you can make it happen. You can have that life you dream of. 1. Dream big – It begins with having a dream. Write it down, create a mind map of what your life will look like when you are wealthy. Know what it is you want and how you think you’ll get there. It’s not good enough just to have wishful thinking. Your dream needs to resemble reality and that starts with your imagination. 2. Live within your means – One of the biggest mistakes people make is to live beyond what their true means are and credit has made that possible. T...

Can you think of any memorable talk or presentation you have ever attended? It is sad to know that most of the presentations are easy to forget, especially when the main reason behind the presentation was to communicate something to you. But if you remember these four basic things, then be assured that your verbal messages will be understood and remembered for long.  Though these things may sound somewhat obvious and deceptively simple, they are of immense importance. 1.     You should understand your presentation’s purpose. 2.     Don’t confuse things; keep your message clear and exact. 3.     Be prepared well to face the audience and their questions. 4.     Don’t be monotonous; instead be vivid while giving the speech. Always be clear about what you want to achieve. It is essential that you know and understand that before you start working on your presentation or speech.  You need to know what you w...

It is quite possible to easily cope with stress if you find the right activities to help you get your mind off the problem that's bothering you. Even if having fun does not directly get rid of the source of the problem entirely, diverting your mind from it for a short period of time will calm you down and regain your composure before taking it on again. You don’t have to go on an extended vacation just to get rid of stress. In fact, you can easily have fun while in the comforts of your own home to get your mind off it. You can indulge in word or board games, sports, music and art, and many others to fill up your time with something you like to do and forget your problems to help you relax. Let Your Mind Have Some Fun Since stress is centered on your mind, then it would only be plausible to divert it into something more productive and fun. Try to delve into games that require your mind to think. Chess is a great way to stop thinking about the problem and focus more on how...

You hear others talk about inbound marketing but at this point, you aren’t quite sure where you stand on it. Most will agree that video seems to be an excellent tool to help get new leads and then to connect with those new leads, eventually transforming them into happy customers. But most marketers would also agree that doing marketing video is completely different than any other marketing technique. If you are afraid to explore marketing videos, you aren’t alone. Most of us find ourselves so scared to death after hearing others describe it as ‘tough’ or ‘too hard for beginners.’ We’re here to tell you and convince you that those are nothing but mere fallacies and that you just like anyone who has created a video before you can do this. There’s a lot of negative talk around the marketing video, but think about this; if your competition can keep you away from doing, successful videos it’s better for them. The solution is to make it sound like videos are very difficult to do and they a...

Life has a way of interfering us while we are going after our dreams. It distracts us from pursuing things that really matter and even convinces us that nothing really matters. It can attract us to adopt a defeatist attitude – lacking on enthusiasm and interest – ultimately sapping out our sense of purpose. But there are ways to stay motivated, no matter how you feel about everything around you. These are not easy, far from that, but are nevertheless very helpful in keeping yourself fired with motivation. Develop the attitude of interest . Find the thing you are most passionate about. The happiest people, they say, are those people who do the things they love the most. It is not coincidental that they are the most motivated people as well. After all, passion and motivation go hand in hand. They are closely intertwined to create a person who is full of zest about everything. Nearly every successful people are very passionate about what they do. In most cases, this very th...