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Business Opportunities and Ideas is proud to host the Carnival of Small Business Issues. The Carnival is published weekly and includes posts that offer solutions to the challenges faced by small businesses.
The posts in this carnival have been submitted by the bloggers involved in the small business community. This weeks entries are:
Business Ideas
Bad Ideas by Mike Buckley of Mine Your Own Business. Some great advice on dealing with bad business ideas.
Brainstorming Motivation for Your Employees by Michelle Cramer of GreatFX Business Cards. Michelle explains how to motivate your team to come up with new business ideas.
Sales and Marketing
Discover The Benefit Of Customer Service by John W. Furst of E-Biz Booster Blog. Customer service shouldn’t need to be discovered, but the reality is that most businesses fall short.
How to Use Article Marketing the Right Way by Gley Yahya of Work At Home Start Up Guide. An explanation of how to use article marketing to promote yourself as an expert.
Dealing with voicemail, 10 tips for outwitting the electronic sales prevention machine by Gavin Ingham. Cold calling can be challenging, but Gavin Ingham makes it easier by telling us how to get past the electronic gatekeep.
Are You Giving Your Clients What They Really Want? by Heather Juma of Girls Who Network Diary. Great advice on making the most of your clients.
The Reality of Multi Level Marketing by David Kam of MarketingDeviant.com. David explain why MLM is not all its made up to be.
With Chinese Quality Suspect, Revenge Can Be a Dessert Best Enjoyed Cold! by Andy Birol. I strongly disagree with Andy, selling FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt) is a sign of a weak business in my opinion, but I agree with this statement “small business who cannot be the low cost provider, what can you do to leverage the quality, safety, and reliability of your products”.
Giving Is the Beginning of Receiving by Steven Lohrenz. Giving can be a great way to begin a relationship with your customers.
Networking
Networking with Business Cards by Josh Anstey. I don’t fully agree with Josh and will rarely give out my business card at networking events, if there’s a need to keep in touch I’ll take their details and initiate the contact.
What to Do When Net Working is Not Working by Liz Fuller presents of More Than WE Know.
Operations
Are You Losing Money by Doing Your Own Work? by Kathleen Gage of Street Smarts Marketing. Kathleen tells us that “According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), the average small business owner spends up to 40% of his or her time on routine administrative tasks.” Ouch that’s a lot of non productive time!
Staff
Work-Life Balance 2.0 and Small Business by Stefan Töpfer of The Small Business Blog. Advice on finding Work Life Balance 2.0.
Business Education
SME – Should you get an MBA by Wilson NG of Reflections of a BizDrivenLife. His opinion of the relevance of an MBA to small businesses matches mine; it’s not essential but it will help.
Misc
3 Characteristics of Winners by Terry Dean of Internet Business Coaching.
That’s it for this edition. Of you would like to submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Small Business Issues using the carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.
The previous issue was hosted by E-Biz Booster Blog and the next issue will be hosted by Atlantic Canada’s Small Business Blog. If you’d like to offer to host the blog in future please read the hosting guidelines.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Job well done. You picked some great articles. I wrote down 3 “things” that I can apply in my business immediately. And of course thanks for including my post.
No problem, thanks for your article I enjoyed it.
I followed Steven Lohrenz’ lead as described in his great article about giving – I stumbled this site and left comments on articles of sites that were new to me.
As always, there’s a great collection of articles in this carnival – thanks for including mine.
Thanks for adding my blog post to the carnival.
I take your thoughts of business cards on board. Just out of interest, I was wondering why you don’t like to give your business card out at events?
Keep up the great blog.
Josh
Josh,
It’s just that in my experience many small business owners fail to follow up on conversations at networking events (and don’t keep the business cards they are given). So if I want to keep in touch I make sure I have their details, then I can make sure we do follow up.
Hi John,
Yes, that is a very valid point.
I suppose what is important is a ‘business card exchange’ so that you both have eachothers business cards. This then provides you with the details and allows you to do the follow up.
I think it also depends on the goals of the person at the event. Very often, people are not there to network at all, or are unfamiliar with it.
Thank you for the interest in my post.
Cheers,
Josh
[...] And last but never least is the Carnival of Small Business Issues hosted this week at Business Opportunities and Ideas This week John W. Furst of E-Biz Booster Blog reminds us of what business is all about – serving our customers,  in his article Discover The Benefit Of Customer Service .  [...]