How to Motivate Yourself to Learn New Skills for Your Business

This is the first post in a three-part series on learning new skills to boost your business success. As small business owners and entrepreneurs, we all know the benefits of expanding our skill set. More clientele, healthier revenues, shorter hours at the office—they're on everyone's wish list right? That doesn't mean, though, we're eager to add the task of learning new skills to our daily haul of responsibilities. Bills to pay, product labels to design, employee payroll to sort out, and add to that training and education? Thanks, but no thanks. We won't sit here and simply tell you continuous…

How to Finish The Rest of The Year Strong

Wow! It seems like a minute ago we were all ringing in the New Year and then, just like that, we're past the midway mark of 2019! Someone must be messing with the space-time continuum. Today is turning into tomorrow a lot faster than it used to! This was supposed to be the big year—at least, that's what all those big goals said on paper. More clients, a more efficient workflow, better work/life balance; unfortunately, it seems some of those goals are still on paper. With the second half of the year already underway, it's easy to fall into the…

No Business is Too Boring for Video Marketing

This is the last post in a three-part series on using storytelling to market your business with video. The belief that some businesses are too boring for storytelling through video is, perhaps, one of the most insidious misconceptions about video marketing. You'd be amazed to discover just how many people think their businesses are too stuffy or humdrum for the cameras. Hey, you might actually be among those doubters! Some of us simply aren't able to perceive what we do the way others can. Interesting, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. If every film director or documentary maker…

Where to Find Stories for Video Marketing

This is the second post in a three-part series on using storytelling to market your business with video. Chiselling your brand into the consciousness of customers is probably one of your top priorities as a small business owner or entrepreneur. It's never been more crucial in today's hyper-competitive commercial environment in which shoppers increasingly look to that great oracle—the Internet—to tell them where to find what they need. In our previous blog on storytelling for business, we touched on ways to begin the process of identifying stories that will build digital bridges to your customers. This blog takes it one…

What’s Your Story?

This is the first post in a three-part series on using storytelling to market your business with video. If you're an entrepreneur, chances are the online community is a big part of your business strategy. However, connecting online with customers to develop leads and drive sales means you'll need to have a handle on your story. Finding your story and sharing it through video is a great way to stand out in a commercial environment with limited elbow room. Imagine for a moment a company offering financial services to small businesses. Sounds pretty straightforward—you need it, we've got it. Well, it's…

What Are the First Videos Your Small Business Should Make?

So, you’ve taken the plunge with video marketing. This is definitely a marketing tactic that can benefit your business. Okay, perhaps plunge is too strong a word. You’re in knee-high water, but still a bit nervous about wading in all the way. It could be there are some lingering cost concerns. Maybe you've still got niggling worries about balancing video content creation with running a business? You’re not quite sure where to start or how much you can manage at the outset. In that case, it's best to begin with something manageable. With a sea of video options from which…

A Video-Powered Website

Let’s get one thing out of the way. If you’re in business, you should have a website. Curiously, though, there are still some folks convinced they can get by simply with active social media pages. Who needs a website when there's Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, right? Wrong. Sure, social media platforms are critical elements of small business marketing today. A website, however, is a huge part of your branding and marketing infrastructure. With that said, video is an essential component of any small business website if it’s going to resonate with visitors. Informative or entertaining blogs and eye-catching photographs are…

5 Simple Steps to Start Marketing Your Business with Video

Okay, so your business is either doing well or it’s very promising. Yet, there’s a nagging suspicion that it could be doing better. You may be using social media posts and email lists in your marketing strategies to grow your customer and client base but prospects seem to have levelled off. Video marketing sounds like a great way to expand your reach and boost your revenues. There’s just one problem. You know less about video than you do about chaos theory. Notwithstanding the upward trajectory of video’s popularity, it’s an area of marketing far outside your comfort zone. Additionally, the…

Embrace the Profit-boosting Power of Video

For some entrepreneurs and small business owners, the thought of using video marketing to grow their business can be unnerving. Some people see the word video and hear “complicated and expensive”. For the otherwise confident businessperson accustomed to taking risks, video is like driving an unfamiliar road at night without lights. It’s the fear of the unknown that causes some of us to keep video marketing at arm’s length. You may be asking yourself what the heck do you know about video to justify using it as a marketing tool? Fair enough. Let’s start off with what you do know.…

5 Things You Need to Know about Do-it-Yourself Video Marketing

Let’s face it, we all want businesses that almost seem to run themselves. We want to wake up every Monday morning with new customers beating down our doors. More importantly, we want to step off the dreadmill of endless exhausting hours in a business that feels like a newborn constantly crying for attention. In short, we want a fulfilling life with the bills at our backs and the winds of prosperity in our faces. Sounds almost like a fantasy, right? It really isn’t. Now, more than ever, small business owners and entrepreneurs have a world of choice when it comes…