Peaceful mountain streams.
Peaceful snowfalls.
Peaceful walks through the park.

Some peaceful things like these are relatively easy to find.

While others, well, they can remain more elusive:
Peaceful night’s dinner out with a toddler.
Peaceful grocery shopping with a toddler.

Peace of mind.

That last one may be the most elusive of all. And yet, the one we look the hardest for. So how in the world do you find it, especially as a business owner when you’re working so hard every day to keep your business running, and spending hours on tasks that may not be the things you’re best at?

It’s pretty simple: You hire the experts at The Get Smart Group to handle that stuff for you.

Facebook and Google advertising not really your cup of tea? No problem! We handle this for our clients everyday, helping them achieve success and meet their sales goals.

Don’t consider yourself a marketing guru? We have you covered! From graphic design and social media planning to web content creation, radio and video project management, even corporate communications consultation and more, The Get Smart Group has the resources and expertise you can depend on.

Tired of trying to chase your online reputation and boost your SEO? Let us do it for you! We consistently employ a variety of tactics for our clients to help them obtain the results they’re looking for.

Need a robust CRM to track your marketing campaigns and leads, get insights into your web traffic and generate customizable sales reports? How about one that integrates with your merchant account to help you manage online store purchases? Yeah, we do that, too.

Think of us like the peace of mind fairies, waving our magic wand, solving your marketing problems and – yes – giving you that elusive peace of mind.

Just … don’t look to us if you also have a toddler in the house. You’re on your own with that, mate. 

At The Get Smart Group, we’re all about helping you succeed. When you work with us, we build an executable plan and deliver the tools you need so you and your team can function at your absolute best. Sure, we’ll schedule your Facebook posts. But we’ll also help you attract leads, close sales, and follow up – all without breaking a sweat.

Why? Because it’s what we do. After all, “Do More” is one of our core values.

In that spirit, we wanted to tell about some free Google tools that can help you take your business to the next level. No, these aren’t related to SEO and analytics – these are straight-up business tools Google spent years researching and designing to help business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs be more effective. And Google uses these tools themselves. Give these tools a look, and put into practice what you can. We think you’ll find real value here.

Manager Feedback Survey: This survey lets your employees offer developmental feedback on your managers (or, on you). The only way to improve as a manager is to learn what your employees really think.

New Manager Training: These customizable tools are designed to help people new to management learn the necessary skills.

Career Conversation Worksheet: Having regular career conversations with your employees is helpful to them, and to you. Use this worksheet to help focus your conversation.

Job Interview Rubric: A rubric can help you assess candidates fairly and consistently, and easily compare answers. Rather than developing one yourself – just use Google’s!

Job description Checklist: Writing good job descriptions that are clear, structured, and consistent isn’t always easy. A checklist can help you make sure you include everything you need to.

This is just a sampling of the tools Google has made available. To view them all, plus tons of great content about working, managing, hiring, and innovating in today’s business environment, check out Google’s reWork blog.

Have you ever looked around your store and wondered, “Where did all this inventory come from?!?”

It’s OK. Most business owners do. (It can really sneak up on you, can’t it?)

Maybe you bought too much of something that sold well at first, but then the leftovers were moved to the back when you needed the display space for something else. Maybe the items you bought never really sold well at all. Or, maybe, you just had to make room for the next year’s models.

Either way, extra inventory sure is easy to accumulate. Getting rid of it? Well, that’s another story. But there is a solution – an inventory clearance sale can be a great way to reduce the stock on your shelves and liquidate your inventory before the end of the year.

Stop looking at the calendar – there’s plenty of time! (With our expert help, of course.)

The Get Smart Group can help you put together a one-time inventory clearance sale show that will maximize your promotion budget and drive traffic to your event so you can capture leads, boost sales, and make plenty of room for next year’s inventory.

We work with our customers to build their sales from the ground up, helping them decide on strategy and promotions. Then our team really gets to work, building custom web domains, Google display and search ads, and a targeted Facebook advertising campaign designed to reach exactly the right audience.

Custom, mobile-friendly landing pages? Yep.

Targeted social cover images? Yep.

Personalized phone number, just for your show? Yep.

Why do we do all this? To build interest and drive foot traffic to your event, so you can have a successful sale and Move. That. Inventory.

Intrigued? Contact us today.

Certain things happen this time of year. Temperatures begin to drop. Leaves fall from the trees. (Well, in most areas of the country.) Smoke rises from chimneys and the scent of woodsmoke is in the air. Our thoughts turn to the holidays (even though most of us don’t want to admit it), and winter coats come out of hibernation.

Yep. It’s show season.

Sure, for the rest of the country it’s time to think about pumpkin pie, raking leaves and cozy evenings by the fire. But for us, it’s time to help our clients drive traffic to every show they’ll attend this season, and to “wow” all those potential customers when they get there.

Lucky for us, we’ve got this in the bag.

Using proven techniques in information gathering, asset development and online strategy, The Get Smart Group focuses our talent, expertise and resources on what your business needs to achieve show success.

We work closely with you from the start to generate ideas for your show and develop all the creative. We make sure you sign off on everything before we take the campaign live, from targeted online ads to custom website landing pages and a custom phone number.

Once we’re up and running, we’ll help you track call leads, follow-up leads automatically using our Infusionsoft CRM or an email system, and create a custom form so you can capture leads on a tablet computer at your event.

Smooth. Easy. Slick. And no lost leads.

When the show is over, we’ll meet with you to review the results of the campaign. What worked? What could work better? Let’s talk about it, and learn from all of it to make the next campaign even better.

Then, when the trees have that first blush of green, when tulips and paperwhites are just beginning to poke through the fallen leaves still scattered on the forest floor, when the winter coats return to hibernation and the rain boots make their annual appearance, you’ll know what time it is.

That’s right. It’s pool-digging, spa-installing season. And thanks to that successful show, it’s gonna be a busy one!

Let’s face facts. Online reviews play a huge role in the way consumers make their buying decisions. Some research indicates as many as 90% (!) of consumers say positive reviews influence their purchasing choices. Plus, the user-generated content of positive reviews can really help your SEO.

You know what that means. It’s time to get off the sidelines and into the game.

Have you ever checked your online reviews? Go on. Don’t be afraid to look. Filter the view through your fingers if you have to. We’ll wait.

Take your time. Don’t mind us …

So. How was it?

If you’re lucky, they weren’t too bad but maybe offer room for improvement. But if you’re like most small business owners, your reviews are either non-existent or shockingly poor. It hurts, doesn’t it?

Walk it off. It’s time to move the ball down the field.

On your own, there are some things you can do to begin improving your online reviews today:

• Consistently providing amazing service and an amazing product is one thing, sure.
• If you get reviews – both negative and positive, you should respond honestly and openly. If the review is positive, make that enthusiastically!
• Encourage your happy customers to leave reviews for your business.
• If you can make it easy for them with an in-store kiosk, even better.

These things are all a great start, and will help. But if you really want to make a difference, there’s still plenty of time left in the half to save the game. Take the field with Get Smart Reputation and get immediate insights into your online reviews, learn how to increase the testimonials you receive, and be alerted to potential negative feedback so you can stop it before it ever hits the internet.

It’s not a Hail Mary pass. It’s how champions play the game.

When you’re looking to purchase a new product or service yourself, what is one of the first things you do? You research it. And what holds the most bearing in your decision?

Chances are, it’s the reviews left by other customers. Too many negative reviews, and you start looking for something better.

As a culture, we value the opinions of others. In fact, 82% of consumers visit a review site when they intend to buy a product (Nielsen) and 90% of consumers say a positive review influences their purchase decision (Marketing Land).

Statistics

The statistics on the negative end are also intimidating (Moz):

• Up to 22% of customers will do business elsewhere if they find one negative review article in a search engine
• Increase those negative review results to three and you may lose up to 59% of potential customers
• With four or more negative review results, up to 70% of consumers will purchase from someone else

All it takes is four customers unhappy with the product or service you provided and the motivation to plaster their grievance all over the internet, and your business can take a substantial hit.

That’s why reputation management is an essential part of any successful business — you have to stay ahead of it. It’s not just about responding to negative reviews to defend your company (in fact, that’s not a great idea, but that’s a blog post for another day). It’s just as important to be gleaning positive reviews — as many as possible — from your current, happy customers.

We have a proven method of helping you to manage your reputation online, including an automated text system to encourage reviews from your customers promptly and linking your account to all the social media platforms your business utilizes.

Request a free 30-minute marketing consultation with us to find out more about how our reputation management service can help you generate more positive reviews and, in turn, more customers.

As a business owner, you’re a jack of all trades. And we’re sure there are days when you feel like a master of none.

After all, there’s an awful lot you have to do every day. From the moment the alarm goes off in the morning until your head hits the pillow at night, you’re running. Going. Doing.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

You can ease your burden and focus on the things that truly need your attention by delegating supporting business tasks to trusted employees and skilled business partners. It’s just a matter of choosing the right staff or partner for the right job.

Wondering which tasks might be ripe for moving off your plate? Read on …

Book Keeping

Still keeping your own books? If you’re great at it, that’s fine. But if it’s burden – and if you aren’t particularly good at it – consider outsourcing. Just be sure to schedule regular check-ins so you know what’s going on.

IT Support

Computers. Ugh, right? Well, for most of us, anyway. If someone on your team is adept with updating and maintaining software, let them have this responsibility. Or, hire it out. These days, given internet security concerns and other issues, it’s vitally important to stay on top of this.

Customer Service

As the business owner there will be times when you need to step in. But there’s no reason you need to handle all customer concerns. Empower an employee who has good, natural “people skills” to take of the day-to-day stuff.

Marketing

Unless you’re running a marketing business, it’s pretty safe to say marketing isn’t your core skill.

So why are you trying to market your business?

Turn to an experienced partner you can trust. The Get Smart Group offers professional marketing guidance, analysis and support. With our relationship-based marketing approach, we focus on creating quality marketing content and collateral to help you build long-term relationships with your customers.

Let us focus on your graphic design, social media, website, campaigns and more, so you can focus on the reason you started your business in the first place.

Ready? Contact us today.