​1. Define your target audience: Knowing who your target audience is will help you tailor your marketing efforts to their needs and preferences. Develop a buyer persona and research their demographics, behaviors, and pain points.

2. Develop a unique value proposition: Differentiate yourself from your competitors by developing a unique value proposition that highlights what makes your business unique and the value you offer to your customers.

3. Build a strong brand: Your brand is how your customers perceive your business. Develop a strong brand that resonates with your target audience and communicates your values and messaging.

4. Create a marketing plan: Develop a marketing plan that outlines your marketing goals, tactics, and budget. Consider both traditional and digital marketing channels that align with your target audience.

5. Leverage social media: Social media is a powerful tool to connect with potential customers and build brand awareness. Choose the social media platforms that are most relevant to your target audience and create engaging content that resonates with them.

6. Invest in content marketing: Content marketing can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and drive traffic to your website. Develop valuable and informative content that aligns with your target audience's needs and interests.

7. Leverage customer testimonials: Customer testimonials are a powerful tool to build trust and credibility with potential customers. Use customer testimonials in your marketing efforts to showcase the value you offer.

8. Analyze your results: Continuously analyze your marketing efforts to understand what is working and what needs to be adjusted. Use data to inform your marketing decisions and optimize your campaigns for the best results.

Remember that marketing is an ongoing process, and it takes time and effort to see results. Stay focused on your goals and continually refine your marketing efforts to connect with potential customers and grow your business.

​Article by: Vernel Trainor

Are you hoping to tackle 2023 taxes like a champ? Small-business tax software can minimize tax season stress while maximizing your tax return. Our top tax software for small businesses is TurboTax, Intuit's popular tax-filing software, but it's not the only option. Check out Business.org’s picks for the year’s best tax software options below.

The best tax software for small business in 2023

• TurboTax
  : Best overall
• FreeTaxUSA
  : Best budget option
• eFile.com
  : Best for small business
• Liberty Tax
  : Best for beginners
• H&R Block
  : Best for complex businesses

                            Compare the best small business tax software

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Get to where you really want to be while embracing the journey and the inevitable ups and downs along the way.

By Kristel Bauer
December 24, 2022
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.We all have experienced that inner critic holding us back. That voice telling us that we aren't good enough, that we will fail and that we should give up.
This is a normal part of being human. But as you enter into a new year, you don't need to let those fears stop you. You can become your own biggest advocate. You can reframe your internal voice to one that supports you and a bigger vision for your career and your life.
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By Vonage
Here are four ways to begin to harness a growth mindset to support you in getting to where you really want to be while embracing the journey and the inevitable ups and downs along the way.
1. Get clear on what matters to youLife can get busy, and at times you may find yourself just going through the motions, being disconnected from the bigger picture and your personal mission. When was the last time that you reflected on where you are at in your life and whether you are on a path that is fulfilling to you? Give yourself permission to check in with yourself and make it a priority to do this on a regular basis. Ask yourself: What are the most important things to you? Look at how you are spending your time. Are you making the moments in your life high-quality moments? Once you get clear on these things, you will know where to focus your time and energy for maximum happiness and fulfillment.
Related: If You Want to Succeed, Fix Your Mindset
2. Create habits that fuel your happiness and successSometimes your everyday patterns and habits can be fueling a disempowering mindset and stress. Something as simple as grabbing your phone right after you wake up to check your messages and notifications can be setting you up for being in a reactive and stressed state throughout the day. Powering through your workday without taking breaks. Lack of exposure to sunlight and the outdoors. Poor eating habits and minimal movement. These are all things that could be taking a toll on your mind and body. The good news is that once you have an awareness of your personal habits and patterns, you can then choose to take a new approach. You aren't stuck with behaviors that don't serve you. By building awareness and then making small changes you can set yourself up for feeling your best at home and at work. What is a new healthy behavior that you are excited about that you can start today?
Related: Understanding The Growth Mindset
3. Try reframingYour mind is a very powerful tool that can support or hinder your success and happiness. There are always multiple ways to perceive and interpret events and experiences in your life and multiple ways to respond to what life presents to you. When you embrace a growth mindset, you are choosing to view challenges as opportunities for growth. You are looking at things with a sense of curiosity and newness. I like to ask myself the question, how can I view this in a way that is empowering for me? So instead of fueling a limiting belief like, I'm not good enough, you could reframe this to I'm still learning and I am proud of the progress I have made so far. Embracing a growth mindset also takes self-compassion so remember to be kind to yourself along the way and show yourself the love and grace that you deserve and need.
4. Set approachable goals and celebrate the everyday winsSetting large goals is great but they do require time, persistence and patience. Without daily motivation and encouragement, it can be challenging to stick with them for the long haul. This is one reason why setting smaller and more approachable goals on a daily basis can help set you up for success. With these bite-sized goals, you will move step by step closer to your bigger vision for your life. And, enjoying the journey and giving yourself the positive reinforcement you need to feel your best and stay motivated.

Entrepreneur.com is credited for this article 

Let's look at six ways to protect your small business from inflation and ensure it remains profitable.

Inflation continues to skyrocket, and from May 2021 to May 2022, the Consumer Price Index(CPI) rose 8.6%. That's the most significant increase the United States has experienced since 1981. But it's not just the U.S. dealing with rising inflation — 60% of advanced economies are also dealing with it.

For many small business owners, raising their prices is the natural reaction to inflation. And while this strategy may be necessary in some cases, it can also cause you to lose customers, especially if you do it too quickly. Let's look at six ways to protect your business from inflation and ensure it remains profitable.
Related: 4 Ways Startups Can Beat Inflation

1. Reduce expensesOne of the easiest ways for small businesses to deal with inflation is by cutting their expensesas much as possible. In particular, take a look at your monthly service contracts to see if there's anything you can do without.
For instance, are you paying for a co-working space you no longer use? If so, you can probably cut that expense. Of course, there will be necessary subscriptions that you can't afford to let go of. For those contracts, you can either negotiate the price with the vendor or see if you can find a less expensive alternative.

2. Prioritize cash flowCash flow is always crucial for small businesses, and a lack of cash is the number one reason most businesses fail. Consistent cash flow helps your business run more smoothly by allowing you to pay your vendors and invest in new opportunities.
And yet, cash flow is an area many businesses struggle with. To improve cash flow, look for ways to encourage your clients to pay your business faster. You'll want to be flexible, of course, because they're also feeling the crunch of inflation.
You might also consider offering discounts to customers who pay their invoices early. And for larger products or services, you could start requesting an upfront deposit.
Related: Here's How Small Businesses Can Survive the Post-Pandemic Economy

3. Lower your supply chain riskYour company's supply chain can be negatively impacted when prices go up. One survey found that nearly half of small businesses have been affected by supply chain issues.
Companies that provide in-person services to customers are most at risk, like contractors. However, businesses are worried about supply chain issues leading to financial uncertainty across all industries.
Here are some of the biggest issues you may run into:

• Increased material costs
  
• Material shortages and delays
  
• Increased shipping costs
  

The best way to lower your supply chain risk is by diversifying across multiple vendors. If you're overly reliant on one vendor, you'll have fewer options when it comes to price increases. But by diversifying, you have the opportunity to look for alternative products and materials.

4. Automate what you canAnother way to deal with inflation is by leveraging technology to automate as many repetitive tasks and processes as possible. Leveraging technology doesn't have to be complicated — there are numerous apps available to help you manage things like bookkeeping, customer management and marketing.
By leveraging technology, you can accomplish more in your business while spending less, freeing up your and your employees' time to focus on higher-level problems.

5. Focus on employee retentionYou're not the only one feeling the effects of inflation. Your employees are feeling it, too, as they pay more for everyday items. But as inflation rises, your employees may also expect their salaries to rise.

A Payscale survey found that 44% of companies are losing employees due to pay. Your employees will likely expect you to match — if not exceed — the cost of inflation.
If you can't afford an across-the-board pay increase, there are other ways you can help ease the financial burden of your employees. For instance, letting employees work remotely could cut down on commuting costs. You could also offer stipends for things like child care, tuition or home insurance.
It's crucial to talk to your employees about their expectations regarding pay proactively. Ask how inflation is impacting their lives and what kind of salary range or benefits package would improve things.
Related: 4 Smart Business Strategies for Dealing With Inflation

6. Consider opening a line of creditIf you want your business to continue to grow and stay innovative, you will have to continue to invest in your business, and one of the best ways to do this while still preserving cash flow is by taking out a small business line of credit.
A line of credit can help your business meet its working capital needs, offer payroll increases to your employees and invest in your company's future. The benefit of taking out a line of credit is that you can draw money as you need it and only repay what you actually spend, allowing you to stay one step ahead of the latest challenge.
As you can see from the tips listed above, raising your prices is not the only way to protect your small business from inflation. These methods will not only give your small business more security against inflation, they can also ensure that it remains profitable.

By Joseph Camberato August 11, 2022
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. 

In 2014, my world flipped upside down. One month after moving from San Francisco to New York, my partner Kayla and I found out we were expecting our first child. Like so many first-time parents, I felt unprepared. I felt that my life had just stepped on a perpetual treadmill and ratcheted up the speed and incline by 2x. We weren't settled in a home, nor did I feel financially prepared to bring another human into the world. But I wanted to take a massive swing to try and improve the trajectory of our lives — and I needed it to happen in nine months!
So, I decided to go "all in." I was going to quit my job, lock myself in my room with my laptop and build a master plan that would make our family wealthy beyond our years. After a week in isolation, writing my resignation notice and crafting a handful of half-baked ideas, I had it figured out!

This. is. impossible. We needed health insurance. We needed a salary to cover our basic living expenses. And we needed one another for emotional support. So, I needed to change my perspective on what "going all in" really looked like to build the business and life that would get us there. Going all in would be a process, not a single moment in time. This is what that process looked like for my family and me.

Related: 
Is Going 'All-In' On Your New Startup Going to Cost You Your Family and Relationships?
​
Don't quit your day job When I started Disco, Kayla didn't have the best maternity plan from her employer at the time. We needed my day job to cover our basic living expenses and our health insurance, as well as to ensure that we didn't blow through ALL our savings to support an extended unpaid leave period for Kayla and our daughter, Laura.
In terms of how I split my time, I spent two hours every morning connecting with Laura before my day job started. I spent two hours in the evenings with my family to ensure we were able to connect at the end of the day. From the hours of 7:00 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., my co-founders and I worked together on the business, seven days a week. That left us five and a half to six hours of sleep before my daughter would wake up. We did this for almost eight months before we had a product in the market with real paying customers.
We didn't come from generational wealth. Knowing that it'd take at least five years to build a meaningful business, we had to be smart about how we allocated funds to get the business rolling while supporting our family. It wasn't until we were officially accepted into 500 Startups with that traction that I officially resigned from my day job. If you have adult responsibilities, keep your day job to handle those responsibilities, and use your evenings to build your rocket ship.

Related: 
When Is the Best Time to Make the Leap From Your Day Job to Entrepreneur?
Go broad to go narrowWhen we first started our company, I found myself looking for silver bullet solutions and the path of least resistance. The reality is that in the earliest stages of building your company, you may have early product usage and early revenues, but you might not know if you truly have product-market fit. When I pitched Marc Benioff my startup in 2014, I knew we had early signals in a big problem space, but I wasn't entirely sure that we had true product-market fit and ultimately came up empty-handed.
To find the idea worth going "all in" on, we needed to go broader to test a wide range of potential product concepts, quickly and inexpensively. We used tools like Webflow and Invision to mock-up product concepts to socialize with prospective customers before building anything. Once we had strong customer validation, we could go narrow to refine the product concepts that showed the most promise, and then apply engineering effort to those concepts. We'd have to repeat this process several times over the course of the six years we spent building Disco as we focused on true product-market fit.

Related: 
How Much Time Should You Devote to Starting Your Business?
Do things that aren't your startupThe first months of Disco were intense without much sleep or personal time; However, after we were accepted into 500 Startups, and I was able to transition out of my day job, I was able to regain some personal time to re-invest in myself.
Initially, I struggled with guilt, believing that I needed to fill that time with my startup but found that my productivity suffered greatly. The data in our CRM validated how I was feeling. I was generating 15% more leads — however, my customer close rate dropped by 20% when I spent more time working on the business.
So, I began to incorporate a few things into my weekly routine:

• Move your body: In the mornings, I incorporated a daily run with my daughter in her BoB stroller, which gave us more time together and helped get my Dad bod back in check.
• Take a lunch break: I worked out of my apartment complex, so I was able to break every day for lunch to spend it with Kayla and Laura.
• Get some sleep: I made sure to get at least six hours of sleep each night (or at least tried to, if Laura managed to sleep through the night!)
• Learn to cook: I learned how to cook. This helped provide more balance on the meal prep side of things every evening but also ensured I was putting good food into the Dad bod.
• Get support: I sought out therapy to find an outlet that wasn't my co-founders or Kayla to share the challenges I was feeling as a first-time parent and a first-time founder.

Going all in looks different for every founder who's taking their startup from zero to one. Building our company took a little longer than so many of the "overnight successes" you read about, but I wouldn't change anything about our journey. You're no good to your co-founders or your employees if you're not good to yourself. So, don't forget to also go all in on the people you love and yourself. You won't regret it.

By Justin Vandehey & entrepreneur.com  August 17, 2022