Bob Molluro ⋅ Wilmington , DE Benchmark Consulting Services ltd. ⋅ 30 years experience

I would recommend two books. Abundance and Bold by Peter Diamantis. Sign up for the newsletter at Singularity University. Go to youtube and watch anything by Ray Kruzweil who is considered by Bill Gates to be the best technology forecaster in the world. I would agree having followed Ray for at least five years. Lastly go to www.tedtalks.com to hear some of the most enlightening presentations anywhere.

Peter Carruth ⋅ Sacramento , CA Strato Communications, Inc - Former USAF ⋅ 15 years experience

Great Question - but.. like anything else.... Depends.

My firm has seven core tech areas we provide. I am on training calls two days a week to attempt to stay up.

Question is very general.. Please clarify.

Pete

Brian Richardson ⋅ Columbus , IN U.S. Army, Sergeant ⋅ 8 years served

Chance,
Like Ashutosh suggested, it depends on your industry. That being said, subscribe to popular/trusted blogs that pertain to your industry and/or your customers.

Read books that address the pain points of your product or service. Hang out where your colleagues and customers hang out. Is it in forums, Facebook, Linkedin etc. Get to know their language, troubles and successes.

You mentioned a pretty wide range of professions (barbers, real estate, accounting). They will likely have very different needs. But since contact with customers, in any profession, is key,,,keeping in touch with them is huge.

Having a web presence is one significant way you will do that. Building a website and using social media effectively is important. Don't feel you have to be on every social media outlet available. You need to be able to manage those outlets or they become old and stale...thus unappealing to customers.

www.hubspot.com is a good marketing site. There is a lot of free info and some paid services. You can check out some general articles at www.VetLaunched.com/blog and some books on the books tab.

If I can be of further help, feel free to message me here or thru my site.

Brian Richardson
www.VetLaunched.com

Ashutosh Mehta ⋅ Edison , NJ ⋅ 16 years experience

Hi Chance,

Good question. Mostly it depends on type of the business and your customer base.

For marketing, web site is basic necessity irrespective of local or global business. There are many tools available like WordPress which can help you build a web site without any technical help. You can check a course of building website without programming on Youtube, www.Udemy.com etc. To start with, one can have a Facebook page for a business too. In either case, there should be someone to respond to customer questions in timely manner.

Mobile app is also recommended and helps you stand out of group of competitors.

One should have mobile based payment option like Square which can be connected with your phone to swip a card for payment.

Also, business should be listed in many place like local business list (somethign like Angie's list) and just yesterday Amazon has introduced Amazon Services (http://services.amazon.com/selling-services/benefits.htm?ld=AZUSVAS-globalfooter) which will be great tool to list your service.

Ashutosh