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Grow Like You Mean It

“Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.”

Benjamin Franklin

For most small business owners, the day-to-day job duties that you have can be so overwhelming that you may think that you don’t have time to ponder, much less execute, the future success of your business. But, as some have pointed out, “failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Now that 2018 is here, it’s the perfect time to begin thinking about what kind of goals you want to achieve and a strategy to achieve them by the year’s end. Here are some suggestions to help you and your small business achieve growth in the new year.

grow

First, begin to leverage your customer base to understand how your business can improve. Your current customers are often the best tools you have to utilize as a growing business. Talk to them. Ask questions on how you can do better or offer a better product.

Secondly, it’s important to have a clear understanding what type of objectives are realistic so that you can start taking bite-sized steps to get there. If you make too much of a stretch goal, you may end up either using too many resources to achieve an unattainable target or get discouraged when you don’t meet it.

Lastly, it’s beneficial to think about what kind of resources are available to help you achieve your goals. Utilizing the support from other professionals in your community is paramount to the success of your growth strategy. At first, it may seem like a challenge, but using all available systems of support will increase the chances of obtaining your definition of success.

Announcing 94.1 The Oasis!

The Oasis 94.1

To better serve the Charlottesville Metro Area and Central Virginia, we are proud to announce our newest radio station, The Oasis 94.1, “Today’s Christian Hits!”

Pam Garrison, a Program Director, radio personality, and host on 99.7 CYK (and, most currently, The Oasis) is head of the project. Garrison, a radio veteran in the area, is thrilled to be hosting and is excited about the newest offering from Monticello Media.

Oasis

The Oasis is the region’s only local contemporary Christian radio station featuring positive hits with artists such as Casting Crowns, Crowder, Newsboys, Natalie Grant, and Mercy Me.

Contemporary Christian is currently the fastest growing format in radio and boasts the “widest audience appeal among most demographics”– and there aren’t any signs of this trend slowing.

Tune in weekdays from 3-7 pm to connect with Pam, either on your radio or stream online. For a list of upcoming events, be sure to check out our website.

Click here for a list of our radio stations.

In Support of Small Business Saturday

Local is the new black.

You, as an entrepreneur, understand the importance of investing dollars in local markets and of supporting endeavors such as Small Business Saturday. Now is a great time to be an owner of a locally-owned enterprise.

More than ever, shoppers are aware of the benefits of investing in their neighborhoods. In 2016 alone, the US small business sector was estimated to have an estimated 28 million businesses and was responsible for 54% of all domestic sales.

Between better customer service, benefits to the local economy and direct access to an expert, the opportunities for touting the benefits of local shopping are plentiful. The good news: you don’t have to work hard to encourage consumers to act upon this idea.

business owner

There are available resources and incentives to encourage entrepreneurship here in Charlottesville and in Virginia as a whole.

It is Charlottesville Business Innovation Council‘s mission to “educate, celebrate and advocate for Charlottesville’s technology community” by giving support to the high-tech businesses in the area.

Central Virginia SCORE is a resource that serves the counties of Albemarle, Culpeper, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Madison, Nelson and Orange by providing mentoring and other assistance for those looking to start a business or improve their existing business strategy.

Central Virginia’s Partnership for Economic Development offers counseling, information, and training to Central Virginia’s entrepreneurs.

BlackOwnedCville is a resource that allows you to look for goods and services sourced from local businesses owned by black residents of Charlottesville.

Finally, the City of Charlottesville’s Office of Economic Development has resources available to women and minority entrepreneurs.

Embracing the Failure

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

-Winston Churchill

You’ve filed all the paperwork, you’ve rented your shop, bought your materials, and now you’ve realized that you really don’t know what you’re doing. The truth is, so many successful people admit to a feeling of inadequacy or failure from time to time. Imposter syndrome can be a tough mental challenge to break through when just starting your own business.

From an evolutionary standpoint, those butterflies you’re feeling are evidence of a natural response to stressful stimuli. The good news is that these feelings can be harnessed and used in a productive way.

Science agrees: it’s not that business owners are naturally able to quell these bouts of real stress and fear. However, they’ve learned to let those feelings feed their ambitions. They’ve learned to operate and perform their best under stressful conditions.

Simply put, “success comes from failure.” Entrepreneurs are better able to handle these stressors because they’ve become practiced at it.

entrepreneur

“Only those that dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”

-Robert F. Kennedy

The more you become accustomed to managing these fight or flight triggers, the better you will become at allowing the fear to do what it is naturally supposed to- increase your awareness so that you will land on your feet. Look at this seemingly negative thing as a positive experience. In other words, “reframe the fear.”

Learning how to manage your time as a business owner and setting a schedule is imperative to actively maintaining key tasks and initiatives. Delegating the work that isn’t what you do best is arguably one of the most important skills that an entrepreneur can master early in the game. This will increase your confidence and free your mental energy for more important tasks.

Google Business Listing – How to and Why

In the world of online search, there has continued to be a shift to mobile.  There is also an increase of local intent in search evident in the rise of “near me” queries.  One way to improve the chances of ranking well as a local business on mobile (as well as desktop) is to make sure that your business has claimed its google business listing.  This is an important step for a local business to take early on in order to improve search visibility.

Why have a Google business listing?

Google is explicit in very few things when it comes to how to improve your site ranking.  However, they are very clear about the importance of Google My Business and how it can be used to help the customer be matched with your business based on their location.  With this in mind, it is important to make sure that all of your information is correct in the listing.  Providing your NAP, number, address and phone number is a good place to start.  Also, having an updated website and as much relevant additional information will help potential customers as well as google’s crawling bots better understand your business.

How do I get set up?

Just Google it! Google does offer great information on how to do this through their help center.  But to make it easy for busy business owners, everything you need to get started can be found right here.

What if I don’t have a physical address?

Many service based small businesses may not have a brick and mortar presence or even a public office.  Google does provide a way to still get listed by providing a service area in place of a physical address.

Tips to consider

Google is not the only place where your business can, should or may appear.  Working with an SEO expert can be helpful to make sure that you are covering the high trafficked directories that are most important for your business.  You do want to make sure that information is accurate and consistent.  Another important thing is to ask for reviews in order to grow positive, helpful and useful information to potential customers.  Make sure to keep on eye on reviews and respond quickly and professionally to any negatives.

Also, check out your competitors.  How are they setting up their listings?  What are the hours they are publishing?  Would an extra half an hour a few days of the week show your business as open when your competitor will appear to be closed?

Finding a business anytime anywhere is getting easier for consumers and in order to compete, your business should be where they are looking.

 

 

 

 

2017 Local Advertising Spend Forecast

Although Radio Advertising remains a solid part of advertising budgets in 2017, local advertising spend on online marketing is continuing to grow.  According to a new article on the RAB (Radio Advertising Burea) blog, digital spend is predicted to surpass print media by 2018.  However, radio does continue to be an important medium especially for local advertisers due to the exposure to  captive audiences during commutes as well as the growth of streaming content from desktops and smart phones.

In the article entitled “Radio’s Place in the New Local Media Advertising Marketplace”, the author states that “According to the recently published 2017 BIA/Kelsey U.S Local Advertising Forecast, which provides a five year national forecast and 12 individual media forecasts, radio does reasonably well”.  And the article summarizes by stating, “radio’s position in the local advertising marketplace continues to be solid. The growing influence of online/digital advertising opportunities will prompt radio to be flexible and be broad in the types of services that they offer and focus on new and distinct offerings that increase digital revenue opportunities.”

READ MORE HERE