Looking to grow your business? Most small business owners are. So here are the 7 trends which are hot in 2012.
Consider each carefully and even if you do only 1 or 2 you’ll still be way ahead of where you are now. So let’s get cranking.
A few of my favorites:
1. Social media – set an end goal before you begin and put a time limit on how long you (or your trusted employee) will spend toward this goal each day.
Social media can be a massive time suck when done incorrectly or haphazardly.
2. The Cloud – the ubiquitous cloud has lots of advantages. You don’t have to worry about maintaining and securing your own on-site servers. Also their experts keep your site and customer data live and accessible at all times.
So that worry’s out the window. Since it’s off your plate that part of your mind share is free to focus on growth and customers.
3. Mobile
This one’s a bit more complex because it’s new and has to be done right. Spamming rules are very strict. So consult me or another expert in mobile before dipping your toe in the water.
It’s very profitable when done correctly and will only be more profitable in the future. It’s how you insure the survival of your business going forward. Think future proofing.
From USA Today:
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So here are the seven trends happening now that you can’t afford to ignore:
1. The cloud. Although social media and mobile get more buzz, the great change-maker for small business comes from the cloud.
Using Internet-based applications to run your business rather than locating those applications on your servers or hard drives sounds pretty dull, doesn’t it?
But going to the cloud is transformative. Suddenly, you don’t have the headaches (and costs) of middle-of-the-night “my server’s down” problems, you gain powerful functionality, you can spend more of your time on your business and less on your infrastructure, and you can access your applications and data from virtually anywhere.
The cloud’s addictive, especially for small businesses. Once you move one or two key functions — like your customer contact management, email marketing and document storage — to the cloud, you’ll want more. I do.
2. Social media. Social media is hot right now, and small companies are entranced with the idea of it.
But they’re also a bit mystified. Social media offers the possibility of inexpensive ways to reach and interact with customers, but it seems like it takes up a lot of time with a very uncertain return on that investment.
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