Cash Flow is King
Levi Guerra sat down with Loralee Burton from Insight Chartered Accountants and talked about the importance of cash flow, and setting up your systems and people for success!
Levi: You took me on, and you kind of became my business mom and told me what I needed to do. You got me on the right path.
Loralee: As a new business owner I think some of the most important conversations you have is with a Lawyer, and with an Accountant. A lot of mistakes new business owners make is bringing on new partners or shareholders even if they haven't known them for very long. They really don't understand if they are going to get along once the stress comes along. I always say to work with someone for five years. If after that time you get along, then you can consider bringing them on as a partner.
Levi: The truth is that partners, if they are the right partners, are one of the best ways to grow your business. Having good partners is how you get to that next step.
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Know Your Role
Levi Guerra sat down with Audrina Steciw from Decor out the Door and discussed the importance of the research and planning stage of entrepreneurship and knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.
Levi: So this is technically your first entrepreneurial journey?
Audrina: It's my first large business. When my babies were little, I had a small cloth diaper business utilizing Ecommerce. I've also always had an entrepreneurial spirit. I was the lemonade stand kid. I reinvented Mcdonald's as a business, even though it already existed. I was always planning on making it big and doing something.
Audrina: I sometimes think "Oh gosh, I could have been an entrepreneur 10-15 years earlier." But, then I wouldn't have the skill set that I have now.
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Freelance Photography Entrepreneur
Hear the inspiring story of how Jeff Hinman of Jeff Hinman Photography went from tradesman to entrepreneur in many different facets.
Levi: What got you onto the entrepreneurial path?
Jeff: I really didn't want to go back to work. I started realizing that I had been coasting for about a year. I was just chasing a paycheque. I wasn't actually being fulfilled and inspired, and I wasn't happy, so I said F this! I knew I wanted to be a photographer, but I had never really touched a camera.
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Creating a Positive Work Environment
Levi Guerra sits down with Greg Flom, dealer principal of Westwind Honda to talk about what it takes to build a positive work environment on a big scale. As well as the hardships of starting a dealership and how be apart of the 1% of dealerships that make it.
Levi: You have really good leadership abilities. You care about the people you are surrounded with. How do you manage a good work culture?
Greg: We have a great staff. I know everyone's stories, families, and that sort of thing. I talk to every employee, every morning. If something is wrong, or there is an issue, my staff knows they can come and talk to me about it.
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Something Bigger Than Just Money
Levi Guerra sits down with Cole Hamilton of Hammer Auto Detailing. Together they explore the rewards of passionate pursuits and delve into effective business strategies that will drive long-term success. Their conversation touches on why asking meaningful questions is key to achieving goals!
Levi: What motivated you to become an entrepreneur and get into the business?
Cole: It probably started when I was in high school. Grade 10 or 11. I was sitting in class and realized the stuff I was learning in school wasn't what I wanted to do forever. I read a couple of books. A big one was Rich dad poor dad. It was what got me thinking "let's not just work for money".
Levi: I hope what you are doing inspires other young people to try something new. The younger you are, the easier it is to take a risk.
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SEO Tips for 2023: What You Need to Know
Search engine optimization (SEO) is constantly evolving, and what was once the best practice may now be outdated. It's important to stay up to date on the latest SEO trends so that your website can remain competitive and continue to rank highly on search engine results pages. With that in mind, here are some top SEO tips for 2023.
Voice Search Optimization
Voice search has been rapidly growing in popularity as technology advances and more people use voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. As a result, it's becoming increasingly important to optimize your website for voice search. This means making sure that you use long-tail keywords—keywords that are longer phrases rather than single words—in your content since that is how people generally phrase their requests when using voice search. You should also include natural language in your content so it reads more conversationally since this makes it easier for voice assistants to interpret and make sense of what you're saying.
User Experience Matters
User experience (UX) is an increasingly important factor when it comes to SEO rankings these days. Google looks at how users interact with websites—for example, whether they click through multiple pages or bounce back quickly after reaching a page—to determine which sites are providing a good user experience and which aren't. To ensure that your site provides an optimal user experience, you should focus on improving site speed, optimizing page layouts for mobile devices, adding visuals such as images or videos to break up large blocks of text, ensuring navigation is straightforward and easy to understand, etc.
keywords
Use relevant keywords throughout your website's content and meta tags. Use tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to research the best keywords for your website.
Content Quality
Quality content will always be key when it comes to SEO rankings. Content needs to be well-written, informative and useful if you want readers to stick around; if they're confronted with poorly written or off-topic content they won't bother clicking through even if they initially found your site via a keyword search. Additionally, quality content helps build trust with customers because it shows that you're knowledgeable about the topic at hand and care about providing helpful information; this can help boost customer loyalty over time.
Optimize your images
Use descriptive, relevant file names for images and optimize them for the web with appropriate resolution and size. And don't forget to write alt text!
Focus on Local SEO
Local SEO is important for businesses that rely on customers in a specific geographical area. Make sure your business is listed on Google My Business and other local directories, and include your city and state in your website's title tags and meta descriptions.
As you can see from these tips alone, there's a lot involved in optimizing your website for SEO success in 2023. By following these tips, you will be well on your way to improving your website's search engine rankings in 2023. Remember that SEO is an ongoing process and it requires time, patience, and consistent effort to see the results.
Stumbling into Entrepreneurship
Levi: What got you into being an entrepreneur?
Kristie: I don't think I really knew what I was getting into. I was ready for a career change. I had worked in providing support to people with disabilities, which is what I went to school for. Real Estate just seemed like a great fit. In my mind, there wasn't any room for failure, I was just going to do it!
Levi: Was there something in the industry that made you think: "I can help people here"?
Kristie: I would say there are two parts to that. I would say leadership and taking charge is how I've always been. I had previous leadership roles already. The other part of that is courage.
Levi: Any final thoughts, tips, or tricks that you'd like to pass on to anybody listening?
Kristie: Be brave. Be willing to pivot. In business, in life, if you aren't happy, just change it!
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Perserverance and Preservation
Levi: You have 7 other people working with you. How did you build your team out? What were some of the struggles and successes?
Justin: Over the 2 years, we've definitely made some mistakes. Short-term thinking I guess is the way to put it. We brought people onto the team who had an idea of what this business should be because of previous experience. Now, we have people who have goals to do well in the future, and we want to do well with them. We want our employees to be part of the team as a partner.
Levi: As someone that has gone down the gauntlet of E-comm, what did you find was the best way to attract customers?
Justin: When I first started that business, I kind of did it Guerilla style. I would go on Facebook and join "How to build truck" groups, and I would make a post there. Every day I had a process where in the morning, I would post in 50 groups.
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Coverage, Care, and Cooperation
Levi: What gets you excited to get up in the morning and hit the road running?
Allan: I am a big people-pleaser type of person. I like to be able to solve problems for people.
Levi: What's the biggest misconception some businesses might have about group benefits?
Allan: Often new entrepreneurs and employers are surprised at how affordable it can be. There are lots of different options for startups.
Allan: Coverage for industries can vary a lot. In your creative industry, you may not be worried about pulling your rotator cuff because you were lifting something heavy. For other businesses, that is a consideration. They have to look at "How do we keep our people healthy?".
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A Case Study in Lead Generation for HVAC Companies
Lead generation plays a critical role in the success of any business, and this is especially true for service industries such as HVAC. In order to grow their customer base, companies must have systems in place to constantly collect new leads and devise strategies to convert them into real, paying customers. But with so many methods available, it can be difficult to know which lead generation tactics are most effective. To illustrate this point, let’s look at a case study of an HVAC company that was able to expand its customer base by employing a social media ad strategy.
The HVAC Company and Strategy
An HVAC business in Alberta was servicing Lethbridge and area with novel products that were more of “wants” rather than “needs”, such as garage heaters or endless hot water tanks. With the winter months approaching, this HVAC company wanted to focus on selling their garage heaters. We met with them and determined the best course of action would be an inspiration-based ad campaign on Facebook which would appeal to people’s pain points and inspire them to take action on the ad. This set them down the sales funnel, and on the way to becoming leads.
The Results from Social Media
The next step was to create the social media campaign, targeting homeowners on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Within three weeks of collecting potential customers, we delivered 34 leads. 12 more than our monthly target of 22. The leads closed at an 88% closing rate, and the ad strategy was so successful we were awarded Western Canada’s Most Innovative Digital Marketing Agency for 2022.
Strategies to Grow Your HVAC Business
There are numerous ways that a business can implement lead generation strategies in order to increase its customer base and grow its business overall. By identifying the situation and leveraging online channels such as Google, social media, email marketing, or many others, companies like this are able to reach out beyond their existing customer base in order to find new leads that can help take their business even further. If you own an HVAC business and want to increase your customer base then you should give us a call (403) 942-1131. We will help you create a custom ad campaign that will deliver customers to your HVAC business, similar to what was done here!