40 days Dedicated to Knowing Small Businesses

I have just started my 40 day trip around the US meeting small businesses. The objective is to meet and learn from them about their businesses. I will be in NY, LA, Miami and Atlanta during the next 40 days.

I had started off with North Brooklyn Breakfast Club where I met some wonderful small businesses. Hot potato made a demo of their iPhone app.

Today, I attended two events, first was Social Media & the Haiti Disaster. Panelists were as follows:

Moderator:

-Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and senior technology advisor, The Sunlight Foundation

Panelists:

- Ann Curry, news anchor for NBC’s Today Show
- Rob Mackey, staff writer The New York Times, The Lede blog
- Erik Parker, journalist who was in Haiti when the earthquake struck and used social networks to send images, video, tweets.
- Jason Cone, communications director, Doctors Without Borders

 

The event was good and explored various angles of journalism and social media. Ann Curry spoke about her experiences in Haiti and social media.  Back stage, Andrew Rasiej spoke about why US needs a strategic technology reserve. Overall, a very informative session. It was conducted in New York Times Building, NY.

Later today, I attended “The New Age of Social Media,” a panel discussion.

Panelists:

Mike Street – Zezza Network
Eric Hamilton – Author
Ellie Nieves – Leadership Strategies for Women, LLC
Orietta E. Ramirez – Lawyer, HR Professional & Employment Blogger

Moderator:
Anthony Quinones – CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Q Ball Media, LLC

Overall, the discussion centered around how social media can help – small business and individuals. At times, it seemed like social media got over sold. But panelists spoke about their experiences and asked the audience to focus on connecting with people behind the profiles.

That is it for the moment.

   

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SEO: A Quick Primer on the Difference Between Ecommerce and Content Sites – On Amex Open Forum

Did you know that on the Web, 4 seconds is all the time you get to capture a visitor’s attention? Find that fact astonishing? Well, read more to know how you can get the best out of those critical 4 seconds.

Gone are the times when an ice-breaker topic was “Does your company do SEO?” Now the question has become downright simple – “Which SEO are you?” This in some sense, reflects the inevitability of SEO as a part of any company’s overall marketing strategy. We as a company, realize the importance of SEO. Learning how to optimize for search engines is a long-term process, just like SEO itself. Based on our learnings,  Chaitanya recently wrote an article on AMEX Open Forum titled SEO: A Quick Primer on the Difference Between Ecommerce and Content Sites.
The article talks about the following:

1. Difference in SEO strategies for Ecommerce sites and content sites

2. Importance of good, targeted landing pages. (To know more about landing page optimization, check out this post)

3. Importance of backlinking

You can read the entire article here. Do let us know your thoughts and feedback!

P.S: Check out our Link Building page to know more about p2w2’s link building services!

   

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Budget Template for Small Businesses

I run a small business and I have this need to know that I am in control when it comes to my finances. I want to make sure my business is profitable and that my cash flows are okay and that I am going to pay my employees their salaries and pay for my bills. So I made a template for myself. I am sharing this on this blog so that others who face the same problem as I can use it.

The features I like about this is the ability to track profitability, budget and actual, as well as cash flows in one place. There’s a dashboard that gives me the profitability status as of now. I liked making it. I hope it is useful. Please drop in your suggestions and comments in the comments section. You can click on the icon below to download the Budget Template.

Download

p2w2 Budget template by p2w2.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.p2w2.com.

   

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A Guide to Virtual Assistance – Part 2

Hope you all enjoyed our first presentation on Virtual Assistance(in case you missed out on the first part of this series, check it out – here) . The next presentation in this series gives a brief overview about two major link building techniques – article submission and directory submission. Here’s a link to the second part of our series of presentations.

A Guide to Virtual Assistance – Part 2

P.S: Check out our Virtual Assistance page to know more about featured Virtual Assistants on p2w2!

   

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A good podcast on Effective Teleconferencing

We recently listened to this really cool podcast on Manager Tools which is about holding an effective teleconference. Teleconferences have become increasingly common these days, and it is as important to follow a basic degree of etiquette in teleconferences, as much as it is in a real face-to-face meeting. The cast lists 20 important points to be kept in mind while you’re in a teleconference. Here’s a gist of the podcast:

1. Treat a teleconference as you would treat a real meeting

2. Be on time – this is especially important for the leader of the meeting

3. Switch off your mobiles/PDAs/emails/IM during the conference call

4. Do not put your phone on Speaker Mode. On a similar note, never use the Mute button.

5. Stick to the agenda

6. Introduce yourself the first time you speak

7. Use technologies(such as Web Huddle, for instance) for file sharing and related tasks

8. Interrupting once in a while is okay

9. Have someone take notes during the call

… And more. By the way, watch out for Point #20 – it is a surprise, and is revealed only at the end of Part 2 of the cast

Here are the links to the two parts of the podcast:

Effective Teleconferencing – Part 1

Effective Teleconferencing – Part2

Enjoy the casts and let us know your thoughts!

Just as an additional note, we at p2w2, have  weekly tradition called the POP(Pizza Over Podcast) Show, where we listen to/watch a good podcast/video over lunch. We listened to this podcast last week, and found it pretty useful. Oh by the way, we got bored of having pizzas every time – so now though the food varies every week, the name POP Show still remains!!!

   

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