Do you have a question for our upcoming radio show guest?

When a small business enters into negotiations with the “Big Boy” companies they don’t realize that there are dozens of traps the big players use against small business owners to win.

David Wanetick, Managing Director of IncreMental Advantage , is joining us on Small Business Trends Radio on Tuesday, July 29th at 1:30PM EST to discuss when you should decline entering into negotiations with the “Big Boys” as well as how to defeat common negotiating strategies used by the big players to win concessions from small business owners.

If you have a question for David, we’ll try to present it to him during the live show. The deadline for your questions is Monday, July 28th at noon Eastern time.

Ask away below in the comments section!

By Staci Wood | Comments (1) | Permalink

We REALLY wanted to bring you July 15th’s show, featuring Tom Szaky, Founder of TerraCycle, but unfortunatley our broadcast network, BlogTalkRadio, was experiencing a network telephone outage. Gulp! Our guest couldn’t dial in nor could our co-host, Steve Rucinski. The show’s host, Anita Campbell, stalled as long as she could but . . . some things just aren’t meant to be.

We are happy to announce that we have rescheduled Tom for an appearance on Tuesday, August 26th at 1:30PM EST. So be sure to join us and tune in!

By Staci Wood | Comments (2) | Permalink

Do you have a question for our upcoming radio show guest?

When a business is facing a crisis and has to answer to the media, there is little time to react effectively. The stress created by a crisis often limits rational thinking and can lead to costly mistakes and missteps. A crisis management plan is essential to avoid a full-scale public relations nightmare.

Glenn Ebersole, Chief Executive of the Renaissance Group, is joining us on Small Business Trends Radio on Tuesday, July 22nd at 1:30PM EST to share examples of successful responses and unsuccessful responses to crisis when dealing with the media.

If you have a question for Glenn, we’ll try to present it to him during the live show. The deadline for your questions is Monday, July 21st at noon Eastern time.

Ask away below in the comments section!

By Staci Wood | Comments (1) | Permalink

Engaging a prospect to convert into a client requires you to take a deeper look at your market by understanding the motivations that drive them to convert and the doubts that hinder the conversion process. As conversion rates linger in the low single digits, a potential for greater revenue is lost everyday.

Khalid Saleh, Co-Founder and President of Invesp Consulting, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Khalid provides basic practices and easy tips to implement on your site’s landing pages to significantly increase sales and conversions.

Here’s a sampling from the show:

• The element of trust and confidence — is the number one principle to consider. Does your customer feel secure enough to purchase from you or do they want to flee the scene? By showing security insignias and value proposition, in other words, by making your customer feel secure and by telling your customers why they should value your product and service more so than your competitions (i.e. discounts, affordable shipping, live customer service, etc.), you can greatly increase your conversion rates.

• Images and great design — really pays off. Khalid had a client that offered mobile fax services and the image on their landing page was a mountain scene, meant to depict the ability to fax from anywhere. Their conversion rate at that time was 4%. When the image was changed and depicted a man in an airport with a laptop, their conversion rate jumped to 9%.

Are you ready to begin converting your visitors into customers? You can learn more by listening to Khalid’s full interview by clicking the red and yellow player below.

Brought to you by our sponsors:

JumpUp.com and Infusionsoft.com

Listen Now:

 Optimize Your Landing Pages For Sales Conversions [30:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Staci Wood | Comments (3) | Permalink

Do you have a question for our upcoming radio show guest?

Tom Szaky, Founder of TerraCycle, is joining us on Small Business Trends Radio on Tuesday, July 15th at 1:30PM EST to discuss how he took waste such as plastic soda bottles, saved them from landfills and reused them to package his product. And what’s his product you ask? It’s organic fertilizer or worm “poo” to be exact. In addition to various other “green” products such as backpacks, lunch boxes and homework folders made from recycled Capri Sun pouches, organic cleaners and lawn care products.

If you have a question for Tom, we’ll try to present it to him during the live show. The deadline for your questions is Monday, July 14th at noon Eastern time.

Ask away below in the comments section!

By Staci Wood | Comments (3) | Permalink

By now many of you have heard of Twitter and some of you are probably twittering away as we speak. But there’s a newcomer to the social media scene by the name of Plurk. Plurk has been likened to Twitter but overall it’s a very different social media tool. One difference, in particular, is the conversational time line format which allows you the ability to start threaded conversations - or simply jump right into an already existing one.

Brian Wallace, Founder of NowSourcing, is our featured guest in this Episode of The Small Business Trends Radio. Brian is an accomplished marketer and avid blogger with a wealth of experience across an IT and marketing background. Brian explains the ins and outs, the benefits and everything you need to know to get started plurking - and get you and your brand noticed on this new microblogging sensation.

Here’s a sampling from the show:

• What is Plurk? — Plurk stands for a combination of “people” and “lurk.” Plurk allows for threaded conversations that are formatted in a time line display and Plurk allows you to create “cliques” that act as groups to follow replies and organize private conversations. Best of all, you’re not limited to a specific amount of text within a small space.

• Increase your marketing efforts — by sharing and conversing with others because those efforts will be much more successful if you participate in conversations and network with others in addition to promoting your business and your brand. Include some videos while you’re at it to make things fun and interactive because Plurk is YouTube compatible.

• How does karma work? — The more karma you receive, the higher your tier of participation. You can earn karma by receiving replies to your threads and posting replies to other threads. But be careful, Plurk recommends 30 plurks per day and also has a mute button for those plurking a bit too much.

Plurk is catching on in a big way and the site seems well scaled and stable so as to not experience downtime and crashes, which is good news for all you social butterflies out there. So are you ready to start plurking? You can learn more by listening to Brian’s full interview by clicking the red and yellow player below.

Brought to you by our sponsors:

JumpUp.com and Infusionsoft.com

Listen Now:

 Everyone's Twittering But Are You Plurking Yet? [32:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Staci Wood | Comments (3) | Permalink

Do you have a question for our upcoming radio show guest?

Khalid Saleh, Co-Founder and President of Invesp Consulting, is joining us on Small Business Trends Radio on Tuesday, July 8th at 1:30PM EST to discuss how to optimize your web site’s landing pages for sales conversions and provide basic practices and easy tips to implement on your site to significantly increase sales.

If you have a question about landing page optimization, we’ll try to present it to Khalid during the live show. The deadline for your questions is Monday, July 7th at noon Eastern time.

Ask away below in the comments section!

By Staci Wood | Comments (2) | Permalink