How To Scale Up Your Small Business In 2020

During the past 10+ years at oGoing, I have connected and networked with over 10,000 local business owners and CEOs here in Southern California. I have found these owners at various stages of their business... some are still starting out and working hard towards hitting their first $100K in annual sales; while many more have found their growth spurt and niche, and are scaling up from $250K to $1M in revenue. Then there are those who have expanded, put processes in place, and have cleared the $5M in annual revenue, and are closing in on $10M. How cool is that!

What are the four observations that I have experienced by being close to these owners and CEOs:

1. These small business owners are highly passionate about their business. They take care of their business as if it's their own baby, day in and day out!

2. Our business owners work extremely hard, perhaps too hard. They spend upwards of 60 to 80 hours a week in nurturing and growing their business.

3. These business owners need help, lots of it. Although they would love to be the superman or superwoman, they are not. Their time and resources are stretched very thin as they keep wearing multiple hats to run their business.

4. A few business owners are scaling up. They began to realize they can't do it all themselves, and have put resources and people in place where they need the most help. Their businesses are growing!

In my conversations with these owners, they all tell me that they have been promised, at one point of time or another, some awesome results by the so-called marketing companies (fly-by-night ventures). From elaborate claims such as: "we'll get your website on the first page of Google, Bing, Yahoo search engines" to "we'll get you 1,000's of customers with social media on Facebook and Instagram" to "we will generate hundreds of hot B2B leads on LinkedIn" and so on, so forth. Some have actually tried such companies, only to find out later on that these claims were just that: claims.

We at oGoing realized this early on and created the most affordable social media marketing and SEO solution for our local business owners who struggle to grow their sales, who need help with online visibility and traffic, and who don't have a big budget.

oGoing Pro is a compelling social media marketing and SEO solution for startups and growing small businesses.

1. oGoing Pro exposes your small business to quality customers online.
2. oGoing Pro grows your social media brand and boosts your SEO ranking.
3. oGoing Pro helps make new connections and engages with customers.

What's included in oGoing Pro?

1. Gain real online visibility on oGoing Business Community and LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Instagram.

2. Generate more website traffic through your verified business profile.

3. Grow your SEO ranking and get your website ranked higher on Google, Bing, Yahoo.

4. Gather at local Business Owners Roundtables and make new connections.

5. Get featured on our business community in front of 100K local, small and growing businesses.

Jorge Mora, who works in business development at KTimeHR, shared this about oGoing Pro:

"I highly recommend marketing with oGoing Pro. It is of great benefit to get maximum exposure on the oGoing website and get you connected to much of the local business community. Plus, you also get marketing across other websites. I also highly advise to post at least once a week on oGoing. Posting weekly combined with the Pro membership, will ensure your marketing dollars go far and get your network working for you.”

So you must be thinking that oGoing Pro must be very expensive. On the contrary, it's quite affordable and makes perfect sense for all small businesses!

oGoing Pro provides over $1,500+ worth of integrated online marketing and social media services for a very reasonable price of $39 monthly. Get powerful social media, SEO marketing and online marketing service that will help you scale up and blow your competition away!

Go here to learn more about oGoing Pro

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact me directly on LinkedIn. I would be happy to provide you answers!

I invite you to Go Pro with oGoing Pro!

Seven Tips To Scale Up Your Small Business In 2020 With Social Media

Step 1: Setup your social media marketing objectives and growth goals

    What does the small business want to gain from social media marketing? What is the key objective? Is it to increase qualified leads, deliver better customer service, get more business, create a great brand, obtain better reviews or gain more trust? If the business is starting out on social media, it will take a lot of effort and time to undertake multiple objectives simultaneously. Ask the marketing manager or owner what their immediate goals are! Be very specific about the social media marketing objectives.

Step 2: Determine the social media channels, and create a beautiful profile or two

It's easy to fall in the trap of creating profiles on multiple social media channels, and then forgetting about them. Just having a profile is like an empty store front. No customer would dare go there. Social media is all about engagement. Each social media channel takes at least 4 to 6 hours of management every week. A small business needs to be judicious of the time and resources, and start out with one or two social media channels. Creating a beautiful profile that exemplifies the business and gets customers excited is the first step.

Step 3: Listen and learn from the customers, partners and industry experts

Ask this question: "Who are our customers and what can we learn from what they are saying and doing?" Most of the business' customers would already be using social media. It's easy to find these customers (search for them), and see what's going on. The business also needs to think about "Who are the customers' customers?" In short, a business must take the time to learn about the customers' needs, and understand the customers' perceptions. The business owner should also learn how the partners are using social media, what the experts are saying and the industry trends.

Step 4: Make new connections with customers

It's time to connect! Once the small business has determined who the customers, prospects, partners and experts are, it should begin connecting with them. Connect slowly! It may not make sense to connect with competing customers at the same time. It's best to follow a few customers, and engage well with them. Are more connections better? Just connecting with many users without real engagement does not yield promising results. Do not get caught up in the game of buying new followers or fans for the social channels - most of the paid connections are inactive users and the business will not materially benefit from them. Quality of connections matter a lot, not the quantity.

Step 5: Promote the customers, ask customers for feedback, and provide answers to questions 

Once a small business begins listening and following the customers, the managers should share what their customers are saying. Promote the customers' updates. Respond to customers' messages. Get feedback about the products and services from the customers. Ask questions from customers about their updates and begin a conversation. Whenever possible, answer the customers' questions immediately and frequently. Engage with the customers! The more a business engages with their customers and prospects online, the better the ROI.

Step 6: Share relevant information. What would inspire and excite the customers?

Ask this question: "What do your customers want to learn from you?" Are customers seeing and treating the business as the subject matter or industry expert? Does the business have something interesting, inspiring and useful to share that will get them excited? Customers do not have the time to check your business updates, stories, product briefs and services daily. Customers have their own businesses to run. Customers want something that can help them do better business, and the job of social media managers is to provide this information. This is where the rubber meets the road. 

Step 7: Analyze and repeat 

Did the business realize the aforementioned social media goals? If the business followed through on the six success steps above, it would achieve most of the said objectives. How does one achieve all the goals? It's quite simple: Do more of what's working. Correct what's not. Be nimble! Social media is a fast-changing paradigm. It pays to be creative, and if a business has to start all over again, that's fine! The best barometer for success: Are the customers engaged?