6 Brilliant Startup Tips That Will Help Women Entrepreneurs Succeed

There was a time when people considered even the idea of a woman running a business to be a joke. But these days, the number of women-owned businesses is actually growing twice as quickly as other startups.

Photo by Bench Accounting

More women than ever have taken control and are making the move to start and launch their own businesses. Sure, it is not easy for women to make their way in the startup world. But it is no longer deemed impossible. With great passion, the right mindset and durable support systems, women can go on to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

Nonetheless, it is no secret that female entrepreneurs face some difficult challenges when launching their businesses. This is especially true when they do so in fields dominated by men. They struggle to find other women with whom to engage in business deals. And there is also a lack of female role models.

Furthermore, women who run their own startups also have to deal with the perceptions of others. Often their peers and friends consider their work to be a side project or a hobby instead of a serious business venture. This state of affairs can be incredibly frustrating and often discouraging for aspiring female entrepreneurs.

Here are some top startup tips that can help women overcome these challenges.

1. Find your passion

Bear in mind that you will have to devote long hours to your business. It is therefore a good idea for you to choose an industry that you are passionate about, and not one you simply like.

When you are passionate about something, your enthusiasm will show. And your belief in what you are doing and your energy will translate to your employees and customers, thereby sparking their enthusiasm about your business.

2. Align your business with your personal goals

Are you interested in building a full-time business? Or are you just looking for a way to work part-time in order to supplement the family income? What is your goal? Money or freedom? Or maybe both?

There is no rule in any book that says you have to work round the clock when you are running a business. It is up to you to launch a business or opt for a business style that is in accordance with your personal and business goals.

3. Keep your work and home life separate

One of the most common mistakes that female entrepreneurs end up making is not striking a balance between their home and work lives. They don’t realize that this imbalance reduces their chances of success.

Therefore, it is important for you to set aside time for your work and personal lives. Ensure that each is getting the attention it deserves. You need to establish standard office hours and make it a priority to stick to them unless there is an emergency.

Likewise, you should work just during office hours and not send emails or accept calls after hours. Your clients and customers are going to conform to your schedule only when you also follow it. This means that you shouldn’t contact anyone after hours if you want them to follow your rules.

You should also have a separate work area, whether it is at home or outside, and you should shut the door after your hours are over.

4. Learn to use technology

Technology has pervaded all aspects of our lives, and your business is no different. With the widespread use of technology, it has become increasingly difficult to keep home and work life separate. The enticement of an incoming message is enough to keep you distracted.

You might not be able to concentrate on what you are doing, such as spending time with a loved one or doing a project. Check your emails only at certain times of the day, or let them wait till morning. Use auto-responders for phone calls or let calls go to voicemail after hours.

5. Make great connections

Working alone can be difficult, so the connections and contacts you form are going to be invaluable because they can help you navigate the business world. But your contacts are valuable not merely for your business.  Through them, you can also form a support group where you can share your ideas, along with your frustrations and goals.

Networking is important in any industry, especially when working in real estate. In order to create a successful real estate business or any other business of a similar kind, you need to have some resourceful contacts.

6. Define your brand clearly

Always remember that it is essential for your brand to have a clear definition. What is your brand and what does it stand for?

Make sure that everything you do conforms to your brand, whether your logo design, color scheme, presentations, correspondence, company mission, culture, or customer service packaging. Don’t make the mistake of deviating from your brand. Your clients will remember you through your message and consistency.

These are some excellent startup tips that can be immensely useful for female entrepreneurs. Through this advice, women will be able to make their dreams of launching their businesses come true.

The post 6 Brilliant Startup Tips That Will Help Women Entrepreneurs Succeed appeared first on Growmap.

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6 Brilliant Startup Tips That Will Help Women Entrepreneurs Succeed

7 Ways Pinterest Can Help You Build Qualified Leads

In the past several years, Pinterest has become one of the most influential and popular social media websites on the Internet.

That influence has certainly gotten the attention of marketers, who are exploring new ways to use Pinterest for commercial purposes.

Pinterest is a social network that lets users share, curate, and discover visual images and videos on their own or other “pinboards.” Users can create pinboards based on their own interests or according to a common theme, such as a product niche or an area of expertise.

Pinterest members can upload images from their computers. They can also pin content they find online using the Pinterest “bookmarklet,” the “Pin It” button, or simply a URL.

As an online entrepreneur, you also can exploit the unique benefits Pinterest has to offer in order to build your list of qualified leads.

Here are seven fast and simple ways to do so.

Create Your Own High-Value Pinboard

Build your sphere of influence by creating a follower base, which is the key to your long-term sustainability. Create a pinboard related to your product niche and then include high-value content. This content should be information other Pinterest users interested in your topic will find compelling.

New followers will be able to find your pins. But unlike on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, there is no way for Pinterest users to “follow” you once they find a piece of content they like. Instead, they can follow a specific board you post. Then they will receive an automated notification anytime you post anything new on that board.

That means you can create a strategy to increase followers of multiple boards devoted to a wide variety of niches.

Use Other Channels to Promote Your Pinterest Boards

One of the fastest and easiest ways to draw attention to your niche-specific Pinterest pinboard is to promote it through multiple channels. For example, you can add the Pinterest Follow button to your website. You can also promote your presence on Pinterest on your other social media accounts, including your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ pages.

You can even write about your Pinterest pages on your blog. Then invite your readers to follow a link within your content directly to your pinboard.

Be the Best Within Your Niche

One of the best aspects of Pinterest is that you can devote your pinboards to very specific niches. This ability makes it easier to make the best boards on a specific topic.

When you strive to have the best pinboard within your specific niche, you can increase your chances of attracting your ideal followers. These people are highly-targeted users who are passionate about the types of products and services you offer. You can even create resourceful boards based on the keywords you already use in the SEO strategies you employ on other platforms.

Promote Other People’s Pinterest Pages

In most businesses, promoting the competitor is generally a bad idea. But on Pinterest, doing so can actually pay off.

Start following other Pinterest users who are devoted to your niche. Then make an effort to like and comment on their pins. When people sees you interacting with their content, they are more likely to check out your content and follow your Pinterest page.

Then you can get all the benefit of their followers each time you post something those influencers find so interesting that they re-pin it to their pages.

Use the Content You Already Have

Don’t make your first step looking around for new content or creating your own original images and videos. Instead, start by posting content you already have and have used elsewhere. There might be little to no crossover between the people who follow your Pinterest page and those who follow you on social media, read your blog, or regularly visit your web page.

Showcase your existing content on your Twitter page to attract new and unique visitors to your other platforms. That way you can get more mileage out of the time and effort you’ve already put into other marketing programs.

Host a Contest

Hold a contest in which you ask users to create pinboards on their own accounts to demonstrate what they love about your products, business, brand or services. Then ask them to send you links to their pinboards so you can award the best one a prize!

Or you can re-pin those boards to your own Pinterest page and ask your page’s followers to vote on the boards and select the winner.

Put the “Pin-It” Button Everywhere You Can

Why reinvent the wheel? Pinterest already has a perfectly fine widget that you can use—namely, the “Pin-It Button.” You can post this button on your website, blog, and anywhere else that lets you post social media sharing buttons. This makes it easy for visitors to your other accounts to share your visual content or images on their own Pinterest pages.

Pinterest offers many opportunities to expose your brand to new audiences.

The post 7 Ways Pinterest Can Help You Build Qualified Leads appeared first on Growmap.

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7 Ways Pinterest Can Help You Build Qualified Leads

How PhoneBurner Can Help You Quadruple Your Productivity

A few years ago, my brother was in Northern Virginia working political campaigns. During that time, there were periods when he and his coworkers had to call as many people as possible in a short amount of time.

At one point, my brother led a “get out the vote” campaign during which a staff of 50 made around 80,000 calls over four nights. And they did so while working only a couple hours each night, as well as some extra time in the morning. (He does note that he had a very efficient team.)

The only way they were able to accomplish such a high volume of calls in such a short period of time was through using software to help them make the calls.

There are other professions in which people need to call a large number of people in as little time as possible. One of them is sales. And a solution that is streamlining how people in sales do their jobs is PhoneBurner, a power dialer that reduces delays and increases engagement. Brothers John and Paul Rydell cofounded the company, motivated by a desire to help salesmen and women do their jobs more efficiently.

Saving Precious Time

PhoneBurner eliminates valuable time you might otherwise spend looking up numbers and dialing them by hand. You also avoid wasting time leaving voicemails for every person who does not answer your calls.

Instead, PhoneBurner leaves your pre-recorded messages while you move on to calling your next contact. That, however, is just one main advantage of a software that organizes and manages all of the pertinent information you need to know regarding each of your clients.

I signed up for a free trial with PhoneBurner and found the platform user-friendly and helpful. It’s also conveniently cloud-based, so it’s not necessary to install anything to use it.

With the free trial, I received 60 minutes of calling time and was able to test out all of PhoneBurner’s basic features. I also benefited from a free webinar that helped me become more familiar with the software.

I only used up my minutes when actually dialing people. They did not count toward any of the time I spent adding contacts, creating and uploading voicemails, or configuring my settings.

Voicemail

My first step with using PhoneBurner was to record several voicemails for various groups of customers. I don’t own my own business, but I am more than a little obsessed with coffee. So I pretended I had my own coffee roasting company.

I divided my contacts into three groups: one that likes extremely dark roasts, one that likes light roasts, and one that likes expensive, rare varieties of coffee. I then created three voicemails to leave for each group.

There are two ways you can upload a voicemail to your PhoneBurner account. One option is to call the number PhoneBurner provides and then enter your PIN. You say your voicemail over the phone, and the software uploads it to your account. Simply refresh the page and then you can play back the voicemail and name it.

The other way you can save voicemails is to record your own audio file and upload it yourself. I had some difficulty with this method since the required format is MP3. I struggled to find a way of saving an MP3 file that had a good enough quality—my recording sounded very tinny. Still, because it is easy to create voicemails by using the first method, I don’t see the second as being a significant obstacle.

You can delete your voicemails at any point, as well as rearrange their order. Just don’t forget to save your changes each time you alter something.

Contacts

Add Individually

I next added contacts to my account. If you decide to add them individually, you simply click “Add Contact.” A box pops up where you can fill in the person’s information. There’s also a place where you can write any notes you have about your contacts, which is a very useful feature. For example, in my brother’s situation, it was important to have an idea of people’s party affiliations before calling them.

Because I had not yet created folders for my groups, the software automatically saved the information in the generic “Contacts” folder. Once the contacts are added, PhoneBurner displays each person’s location and the local time. This feature is advantageous since timing is important when it comes to calling people.

After adding my contacts, I created three folders and sorted my people into each one based on the type of coffee the groups would be likely to buy.

Import a List

Your other option for adding clients to your account is to import them from somewhere else. This method is obviously a lot more efficient if you have hundreds or thousands of contacts already saved in another location.

PhoneBurner can import info from a variety of locations, including Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo!, or Excel. I tested out Excel. PhoneBurner doesn’t accept XLSX files, so I simply saved my list as a CSV and had no problems uploading it.

After I added the file, PhoneBurner wanted to know what categories of information I had for each contact (phone number, location, etc.). I could add a custom field if PhoneBurner didn’t already have the option I needed. Then the information was added to my contact list in my account. The process was easy and smooth.

Another useful feature was having the option to save my categories as a template for future lists I might need to import.

Configuring Your Settings

As a new user, you’ll want to set up and customize your dial sessions before you start calling people. You can do so by going to Dial Sessions and clicking on PhoneBurner Settings.

In your settings, you can choose details such as how long you want the phone to ring before moving on to the next call or whether you want to hear the phone ringing while you call.

The Dispositions section allows you to determine the actions PhoneBurner will take when you press a button (e.g., send an email). PhoneBurner has a No Answer set of buttons, which include Busy Signal, Voicemail, etc., and a Live Answer set of buttons. You can edit and delete the buttons, as well as add your own.

How PhoneBurner Can Help You Quadruple Your Productivity

Does Influencer Marketing Help Your Business?

“Influencer marketing” isn’t new. It has been around for at least a decade in its latest form, which is “Hey, let’s get bloggers to talk about our stuff!” Lots of companies wonder if it’s the right move for their product. Let’s talk about that.

The nice folks at Skinny and Co sent me some amazing products made from raw coconut oil. Most are skin and body things like moisturizers and scrubs and the like. Some is food grade coconut oil, which I already use in my cooking so that’s cool. The products are amazing. Raw. Chemical-Free. No fillers, etc. Cold-pressed. All good stuff to have.

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Does Influencer Marketing Help Your Business?