First impressions are a big deal.  They are an even bigger deal when it comes to your business.  There is nothing worse than giving a bad first impression while you are representing your business.  One of the easiest ways to botch a new relationship or potential customer is to have business cards that do not reflect you or your business.  Unfortunately so many people completely disregard the importance of their business’ business cards.

But think about it, when someone hands you a business card, you look at it.  From the business card you obviously get important visible information like telephone numbers, websites, email addresses and more.  But you find out a lot more about a business from business cards than just those little facts.

The design, layout, and even the type of print material chosen will show customers, potential clients, and others little clues that will help them to understand more about your business as a whole.

Do not let your business cards make a bad first impression for you and your business.  Make for certain that your cards are not only creative, but reveal to potentials that you are professional and maybe even a little bit fun.

For some tips and pointers you can use the infographic below!

Infographics are one of the most popular forms of informational media out there right now.  Every day, infographics are featured on the pages of top websites and online magazines.  The really good ones go viral and get circulated around the Web through social sharing, which is excellent for the business behind the infographic since all of those shares lead people back to them.  Placing links in infographic embed codes is one of the easiest ways to get good backlinks — but not if your infographic is bad.

Only the good infographics make it.  So, what makes an infographic suitable for a particular business?  What makes one bad?  There are a lot of mistakes that can be made when delving into the world of graphical media, and art is probably the least of them.  Today, we’ll look at an (exceptionally well designed, I should add) infographic about good and bad infographics, and why the wrong one can ruin your business.

Business infographics can be bad

Now that we’re two months into a whole new year, the economy is still stale and gas prices are surging to an all time high in the United States, but that shouldn’t stop small businesses from taking advantage of every boon and opportunity they can.  Today, we’re featuring a story about Megan Gilbreath, an entrepreneur in an upscale retirement community in the South, who, rather than letting the economy sink her business dreams, found ways around the obstacles to keeping her head above water.  It took a lot of creativity and a little willingness to go out on a limb, but her small business is thriving where many have folded in recent months.  What’s Megan’s secret?

“My business started out as a dream my husband and I had to open an artsy cafe, one that would totally outshine the chain stores like Starbucks due to our local style and appreciation for more than just selling coffee,” Gilbreath said.

Before opening The Beanhouse Cafe, she was working two jobs in the hospitality industry.  As a waitress in a gourmet beer bar at night, and during the morning and afternoon she cooked at a friend’s deli.  She loved both jobs, but the whole while had bigger things in mind.

Meanwhile, her husband Bill worked in acquisitions for a marketing firm, and really enjoyed his work as well.  After eight years in marketing, he’d learned a lot about branding, promotion, and sales.

“It was natural to put our skills together,” Bill said.  ”I wasn’t as enthusiastic as Megan at first.  She had to work on me for about a year before I started to believe in her concept, but once we decided to dive in, things moved quickly.”

The concept:  a cafe featuring local entertainment, deli fare for breakfast and lunch, and evening “meeting parties” where local business women and men could bring clients for after hours gourmet coffees, teas, and mixed drinks in an atmosphere that was swanky and professional.  It caught on slowly, but soon became a favorite spot among locals, the retired and the young alike.

Diversifying your original business plan can often lengthen the life of an idea that seems hampered by too much specificity in the business plan.  So what advice do Megan and Bill have for you?

“Don’t be afraid to evolve with the market conditions, and don’t consider your original idea as anything more than a guide for your company’s direction.  Be willing to make turns in the road, and the ride won’t be so bumpy.”

Many business like Megan’s and online businesses like www.aspenstoragecenters.com are experiencing remarkable growth despite the economy. Hopefully, this continues.

In a desperate bid to recover from the economic conditions that have plagued the US and the world since 2008, and to not only recover, but also expand, businesses have big plans for digital marketing in 2012.  Inbound marketing now plays the biggest role in attracting and keeping loyal customers.  What we mean by inbound marketing is the kind that happens when people who already want what you are offering “discover” your business through social media and Web searches, as well as word of mouth or “likes” from people they associate with who share the same interest.

Digital spending is predicted to rise as companies invest more time, money, and talent in laying the groundwork for better inbound marketing.  A lot of budgetary planning is expected to go towards promotion of company social media pages and sites, as well as SEO and pay per click advertising campaigns.  Will your business be ready to reap the rewards of budgeting more for digital marketing when the economy begins to snap back, or will you be left behind like a few traditional mainstay retailers (think Sears and Kmart) who have all but lost their branding and have done practically nothing on the digital marketing front to stop their losses?  Let’s see what the smart businesses have planned:

News is important and mission critical in the business world, and what better place to get reliable business news than from the BBC?  Industry polls indicate that BBC is a leader in worldwide news for start ups and business ventures, surprisingly in the United States as well as abroad, even though the majority of readers of business news articles published by BBC are Europeans.

This week’s, or any given week’s for that matter, headlines on BBC business news feature the highlights of the glorious and the  notorious alike in all parts of the world, delivering a more global perspective on the potential impact and fallout of various business start ups, mergers, and collapses.  BBC world news and business news  currently feature economic and business editors Robert Peston and Stephanie Flanders, two popular personalities in news media in Britain.  Other personalities have held favorable positions in the past, both on BBC television and on the Web.

BBC news is frequently criticized for allege political biases across a spectrum of national and foreign interests and, like many major news outlets around the world, is often accused of attempting to manipulate world powers and influence economic and political outcomes in the favor of its alleged interests.  This is nothing new in the world of news, particularly business news, which the BBC is famous for.

Other news outlets, especially ones in America such as Fox News, CNN, NBC, and ABC, have all faced similar accusations and suspicions occasionally.  This is to be expected from any major provider of current events information, no matter what country they happen to be in.  When most people in the US seek out domestic business news, however, they tend to side with the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), where it is widely believed that a clean and unbiased commentary is most likely to be encountered.  During times of political upheaval (such as there are right now in the United States) an unbiased opinion is more valuable than the non-existent gold on which modern economies are supposedly based.  It can be increasingly difficult to find a news provider that is unattached to one or the other of America’s two dominant political parties and their respective views.

No matter what business you are in, social media is also your business.  Its impact on marketing is immense, and putting social networking to good use can help save you money on marketing costs.  There are several reasons you should be buring it up on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.  It doesn’t matter if you’re a plumber or a retailer, social networking is nothing but good for business, provided you use it the right way.  If you invest some time in the beginning instead of rushing through the process of setting up social networking tools for your company, you can get the results you hope for.  It just takes some strategy – according to Safefromthestart.org

Social media goes miles to level the playing field for businesses of all sizes.  It is the “great equalizer” of marketing, since it does not know how big a corporation or business is.  If you put in the time and effort, you can build relationships through social networking that will have a tremendous effect on how your company is perceived and how “big” people think it is.  Through a well made Twitter or Facebook account, for all the people know, your company could be every bit as important as Coca-Cola or IBM.  The slow, relationship building process enables you to increase the legitimacy of your brand over time and develop a following.  Brand recognition and customer loyalty are two significant factors in a successful marketing equation.

Social marketing is more than just tweeting constantly about your own products or services:  it is about aligning yourself with others in your field, reaching out to people and communicating with them (not just once, but on a recurring basis!  That is what a relationship is.)  You really do have to spend some time to engage others in actual relationships.  This is true in business and personal matters. There is no way to get around that, and nor should you want to.  No amount of distant, paid for marketing is going to compete with the value of a trusting relationship.  Social networks provide the medium for planting the seeds of potentially valuable relationships — but you have to become a social farmer to grow them into mature assets for your business.

Localized social networking is becoming more popular as search engine Google hones in on location based results and services.  Facebook Check-ins, another local feature of social networking, lets people hook up in certain places and causes a “stir” in a specific area.  Yelp! has been doing this for a few years now, but it is starting to catch on with the big boys Bing, Google, and Yahoo! as well as Twitter.  You can help get your business more attention by focusing on a strong local presence as well.  If you are known to be one of the foremost companies in your field in the immediate region where you are located, it adds credibility to your rankings in search engine results for the larger world as well when keyword research has been done wisely.

With the right social networking tools you can expand your global network.  After laying the groundwork for success by building a solid platform of relationships at the local level, expanding into the world market is the natural next step in organic relationship building.  The thing to remember is, no matter how small your business may be, your reach can exceed your size with the help of social media.

So you have a great idea for starting a new business: it’s something no one’s ever done before,  everyone will be receptive to it, and there’s no way it will lose money — and early adopters will be raking in the benefits (and profits) if they can just be persuaded to get on board and invest a little start up cash in your dream.  You don’t have a lot of capital for your idea right now, but given time and resources, your company could practically become the next Microsoft or Wal-Mart.

Well, I hope you are prepared to get in line.  As original as you may think your business idea is, chances are it probably isn’t.  Even a couple of thousand years ago, people were noticing that “there is nothing new under the sun,” and nothing new has happened since then.  The movers and shakers in this world are people who know how to capitalize on a really old theme and make it into something relevant in our times.  This doesn’t mean reinventing toothpaste — but it might mean finding a way to build social networking into dental hygiene.  See?

The other problem a lot of new businesses have in common is the obstacle of not thinking creatively enough.  Unless you take your business out on the edge, you will be “just another” whatever you are hoping to become.  To truly stand out, there have to be some risks involved — but not mindless ones.  The risks should come with an attached and reasonable promise for a giant leap in development, and the potential for some profit for all stakeholders.  There’s a fine line between the creative reworking of existing ideas, and the boring overworking of tired ones.  If everything is feeling a little “blah-dee-blah” lately, then you need to find a way to spice up your business ideas and give them some edginess!  Instead of launching another boring pizza restaurant, launch one with a live singing telegram with each delivery!

There are plenty of things people can do to make their businesses stand out, but it takes some thought and careful analysis of not only the competition that is involved, but also the foundations of the company itself.  Even in the current, downtrodden economic climate there is the potential for start ups to know varying degrees of success, but not without the dedication it takes to weather the storms and roll with the punches (and a broad array of other cliches as well.)  I mean, cliches are cliches for a reason:  they most perfectly say something that only has to be said one single time with perfection in order to truly resound with people.  They become the benchmarks for an entire sentiment, and through the passage of time, no better way to phrase exactly that ever comes along.  The same is true of a business:  it should become the gold standard and Choice Xtra by which all others in its class are judged, and no one should be able to come along later and do a better job of that, no matter what it is.

In the competitive world of business, the greatest resources are human resources.  As long as you remember that people are what make things happen, you will never be at a loss for energetic and helpful compatriots who are driven, like you are, to reach the goals you have in mind.

In a recent survey, a large percentage of recent college graduates reporting have stated that they are either unemployed, underemployed, or not finding any available work in the field of study for which they attended college.  Many of these graduates continue on with the same kind of work they did prior to earning degrees:  they wait tables, work in coffee shops or fast food restaurants, and even wash dishes.  These are not people who have never worked before, either.  Some 83% of students responding to the survey worked one or more jobs during college.  They know how to manage their affairs and resources, while still working hard to earn a college degree.

Some of the graduates reported getting interviews for jobs in their fields of study — but were shocked at the salaries in entry level positions, and often turned the initial job offers down.  Employers, meanwhile, report that new graduates seem to come in expecting to be hired for jobs in executive management, near the top of the ladder.  They don’t understand that it can take years to reach that level in a corporation, with or without even advanced degrees.  Often, when graduates turn down these early positions, they fail to realize they are walking on a great opportunities.

One thing an unemployed or underemployed graduate should consider is working for free for a large, well known corporation for a year or two.  Internships of this kind look very good on resumes, provide strong networking support, and often lead to truly valuable employment offers later on down the road.  There are also volunteer opportunities for ex-students that can be helpful in network building and the accumulation of potential references for job applications they can fill out later.  The idea of working for free for a while might seem impossible, but it can really lead to good things.  More college graduates should consider this before giving up on the job hunt.

“The important thing to remember,” says Richard Groening, “is that the days of the corporate head-hunters are over.  The job market is more competitive right now than it’s been in more than 30 years, and there’s no sign of it getting any better soon.  No one will come beating down your door begging you to sign on.  You’re going to have to get out there and make your own luck.”

Sandra Smith adds, “The current administration is really pushing the ‘college for all Americans’ agenda — but honestly, in this country, our job market doesn’t have sufficient jobs to support the people graduating from four-year schools as it is.  Not everyone, let’s face it, is college material.  We need to start making things again in this country.  Manufacturing.  We need to train skilled workers in technical and trade schools so that they can reasonably hope to support themselves in the world.  If we shove everyone with a government voucher through the university systems in this country, what we will have is an over-educated population, with many people not even really learning what they are going to school for.  They will be pushed through the system, handed degrees, and then disappointed when they are unable to find or keep jobs.” Also, keep in mind, you may have to take jobs that you feel over qualified, but everything needs done. Tables need waited and Direct TV Questions need answered.

So, recent grads, get out there and pound that pavement.

Let’s face it; running a business can be tough. Trying to market that business is a second job that requires as much time as running the day to day operations of your business. So, why is it that almost everything that teaches you how to market your business and get more clients and customers seems to be user hostile?

In a business world it can take a lot of planning to get your business well known. It is important to make certain that your marketing plan is designed specifically to what you need for your business. A marketing plan is a simple way to determine that you are able to give your message to the appropriate people in the appropriate way. One easy step to add to your marketing plan is to have business cards. This will put your business out in the open more and is also a way to generate new customers by having these business cards printed and hand them out to people you meet on a day to day basis or new clients so that they can call back and return your calls.