Spark & Hustle: Launch and Grow Your Small Business Now
Tory Johnson
This book had some of the same information as the multitude of other books I read, so I just took some tips throughout it randomly rather than fully covering a lot of the same topics I already had.
Take a look at your product or service and know what makes it different, then use that to your advantage. In most cases, you need feedback to successfully start a new business. Reach out to a small group of people who you know that might be in your target market. Let them know you want their honest opinion and ask valuable questions. These questions might include:
What do you/don’t you like about this product or service?
Is there something that could be added or removed to make it work better for you?
What is the most you would expect to pay for it?
Who else would use it?
If you didn’t buy this particular product or service, what would you buy (or what do you buy now) in its place?
Who would you recommend this product or service to?
Who do you think could benefit from this product or service?
While we have already started our business, some of these questions could still be valuable to ask in our annual surveys that we put out to make sure we are on track.
Bare-Bones Business Checklist
-Clarify your personal motivation for success
-Write a one-page business plan
-List the products or services you’ll offer
-Choose your business name
-Get a business license, if required in your area
-Build a website
-Initiate social media profiles on key platforms:
facebook.com
twitter.com
tumblr.com
linkedin.com
googleplus.com
pinterest.com
Instagram.com
Youtube.com
-Write a basic branding statement
-Create a logo or visual identity
-Print business cards
-Get a professional headshot and (if applicable) images of your products
-Create a specific marketing plan (which tools will you use and when?)
-Develop a sales strategy
-Make a top 50 list of ideal clients or customers to pursue
-Produce necessary sales materials
-Design a simple time-tracking worksheet
-Think through pricing justification
-Determine how you’ll measure results
No matter what kind of business you have, you must be able to explain clearly and succinctly what you do. If you have difficulty explaining it, anyone you’re talking to will have difficulty understanding it. Nailing the business in once sentence is key. Our sentence is:
To nail your target market, consider three questions: Who specifically wants or needs my product or service, will they pay for it—and how much will they pay, and where are they?
You can use the following questions to better know your market, and in turn better anticipate its needs, deliver marketing messages to drive sales at the right time, and grow your customer base. Where do they live? Where do they work? Where do they shop? Who is in their family and how do they influence purchasing decisions? How do they spend their time? What do they talk about? What do they hope for? What are their problems? What do you know about their experiences with other companies offering a similar solution? What makes them tick? What ticks them off?
It’s also important to know your numbers: how much it costs you to do business, how to price so that you’re positioned to make a profit, and how much you must generate to hit your desired profit. Become committed to keeping numbers top of mind, from your annual sales goal to whether or not you’re on track for the quarter.
The first number to determine is how much money you’d like to make in the next twelve months. Is your goal to create a $10,000 side business, or to replace your $40,000 salary? No matter whether your number is high or low, it should be three things: realistic, rational, and a bit of a stretch. It is possible to go from zero to a million in just a year, but if you have never run a business and are starting with very little money, that number isn’t very realistic. Your magic number should be based on something tangible, like your former salary, cost of a new car, or dream vacation. If your realistic and rational number is $50,000 a year to pay your bills, maybe add a 20% boost to it to bring your magic number to $60,000. Write down your magic number, then move on to the next step: calculating how much money you’ll have to add to your magic number to reach your financial goal.
It is important to think about what kinds of costs you will incur to generate the kind of paycheck you are looking for. This is the cost of doing business, your expenses. A common mistake is underestimating your costs. Get in the habit of planning for every dollar you spend in order to make your business successful. Write down every expense you have. Some common expenses that are sometimes forgotten when making your budget are: travel expenses (including gas, tolls, and parking), meals or drinks with current or prospective clients, magazine subscriptions, bank fees, postage, printing, sales tax, and miscellaneous supplies. One method of tracking expenses is by categorizing them in the following way:
“A” Expenses are the hard cost of delivering your product or service, also known as the cost of goods sold, e.g., buying flour to make cookies.
“B” Expenses are the time spent, which is tracked on paper much like a lawyer registers time and a dieter journals food intake.
“C” Expenses are often overlooked and includes the little things such as purchasing samples, parking, shipping and client drinks and dinners.
“D” Expenses are the fixed overhead inclusing salaries, rent, insurance, and others.
If you look at all of these expenses, you should have a better handle on your real costs and be able to price accordingly so that you cover your costs and make a profit.
Add up every expense—plus your magic number—to determine what you must generate annually. You should also add in 10 to 20 percent in unexpected expenses, which always seem to show up. The total you get is the amount of money you must bring in to achieve your financial goal.
Some things you can consider to keep costs down are:
-Is working from home or utilizing an affordable, flexible coworking space an option right now instead of getting your own office?
-Can you barter your services in exchange for Web-design or legal help to avoid those out-of-pocket expenses?
-Can you use your Facebook or Tumblr as your company’s web presence rather than spending money to design and host a full-fledged website?
-Could you use PayPal or a mobile-payment option such as Intuit’s GoPayment to accept credit cards instead of establishing a merchant account?
-Can you sign up for an online payroll service such as SurePayroll instead of paying an accountant to prepare and submit quarterly payments on your behalf?
-Can you meet prospective clients for coffee instead of lunch?
-Could phone calls or Skype chats replace some face-to-face meetings?
-Where can you challenge yourself to cut corners without sacrificing value?
You can also look for services that help small business owners simplify their start-up expenses. eVoice and Grasshopeer are both virtual phone systems available for small businesses. eFax is another company that can cut costs down, and crow-sourcing sites such as crowdSPRING, as well as the site Fiverr, are great resources as well.
In a small business, long hours are often a given, so keep track of your time so you can determine how much you are making per hour. It may be surprising at first, but it will allow you to make smarter business decisions.
Your annual expenses + your personal magic number = your first-year gross revenue target
Number of products/services you can provide in one week × 50 weeks = _____________(annual product/service capacity)
First year gross revenue target ÷ annual product/service capacity = ____________ (average price to consider)
To help determine your perfect price, consider some of the following as well: What are people in your target market already paying for a similar existing product or service? Does your target market fall into a particular socioeconomic category, and how does that impact your calculations? Does geography impact your pricing? Can you get what you’re asking where you’re currently located? Does your price align with your brand promise?
If you’re totally unsure as of what to charge, try this simple rule as a base: charge what you would be willing to pay for it.
Use your magic number and first year goal to determine how to financially stay on track; the following two steps will help get, and keep, you in the black.
Divide your annual sales goal by 12 to come up with your monthly sales target, then break it down even further to see what you must do each week. Depending on what type of business you do, you could break it down even further and determine what you must do each day to make your money goal a reality.
Track your performance daily. Investing time to regularly update your actual numbers will allow you to determine at a quick glance whether or not you are meeting your financial goals.
Keep track of where your clients are coming from. Keep a running list of who your clients are, where they came from, and what they’re buying. Make it a habit to ask your clients how they found or heard about you; this will show you which marketing activities are most effective at attracting which customers, allow you to customize your customer outreach when introducing new products or services, and enable you to do more of what works and eliminate what doesn’t.
Johnson, like many others, also expressed the importance of being able to sum up your company in one sentence, but she also gives some tips on how to come up with that important sentence.
-Include touches of realism and optimism
Leave out jargon
-Spell out specifically what you do and for whom
-Test it on a few people; you want them to be intrigued, but not mystified
Nothing is set in stone, and as your business develops, your sentence can, too
One step further than your one sentence is your one page business plan, which contains seven components that Johnson lists and describes.
1. Your simple statement: The single sentence that clearly states what you do. You may opt to elaborate here if your work is mission-driven.
2. Your why: This is your motivation for launching your business. Why are you doing this? What’s driving you? What will keep you hustling when you’re disappointed, frustrated, or afraid? This is on the sheet to remind you why throwing in the towel isn’t an option. Whatever your why, this is the deep motivator that’s put you on the small business path, and nothing will derail your mission.
3. Your what: What you will sell or create for your customers or clients. Include the value proposition of what you offer and why what you offer is better than the existing options. Be specific and concise.
4. Your who: This is the target market you’ll sell to, serve or support. Create a picture of them, using all of the information you know to be true. Describe what they want, the problems they face or the solutions they seek, and explain what malkes them the perfect market for you.
5. Your how much: Your money plan includes how much you want to make, how much it will take to run your business, and your pricing plan. This section includes your sales goals, which should take into consideration all of your expenses and your anticipated profit.
6. Your hustle: It all boils down to how you plan to accomplish your goal. This marketing and sales strategy should be the bulk of your business plan because it will spell out exactly what you’re going to do to make your anticipated success a reality.
7. Your measure: How will you measure success? Often times, business revenue is the best way (but not always). Remember this is not a hobby or a charitable venture; you’re running a business. What are the monthly, quarterly or annual benchmarks that you’ll use to determine whether or not you’re on track?
Another important component to have is your mission statement. The mission statement defines the scope of your work and the impact that it can have on customers or the community you serve. You can feature your mission statement on your website so that visitors understand what you’re about. You can also share it with partners, collaborators and vendors. Internally the mission statement serves to focus you and your staff to ensure that you take action only on those items that are important and well suited for your organization’s area of interest. Answer these simple questions to help create your statement: What is the purpose of your company (why do you exist)? What business are you in (one word)? List the top three values or differentiators that make your company unique. These are benefits for the buyer. Some starters for a mission statement are “X’s mission is to provide…” “X is committed to…” “The goal of X is to…” “The vision of X is to…” “X is dedicated to…” or “X is a…”
Johnson talks about creating a product that your business can sell. I came up with the idea of creating cleaning “baskets” that we could put together and offer to our clients; we would like to have a solid plan ready to go by August, and launch the baskets at the beginning of 2015. In order to get this idea off the ground, we need to….
This isn’t really a money-making idea, but another idea we would like to try is a supply swap between clients. We have noticed that some clients have old cleaning supplies that they no longer use (they switched brands, found a product that worked better for them, etc.) that are just sitting in their cabinets, taking up space and going to waste.
Getting your market to listen can be a challenge because of the multitude of commercials, billboards, and just general advertising that people are bombarded with every day. In order to get your company noticed, your marketing should be real, original, solicitous, and smart. Muscle marketing ideas are endless. Think about promoting your business to your desired target without spending money.
-Market by e-mail; Constant Contact has a suite of products to help with this.
-Establish profitable collaborations and promotional partnerships; think about complementary businesses that would promote your services if you promote theirs.
-Write expert articles to share with other websites.
-Get involved in community service that’s relevant to your business
-Ask a satisfied customer for referrals
Using an e-mail newsletter to market isn’t as simple as just sending out e-mails: the recipients must open, read and respond to them to make the process worthwhile. Some tips to help with this are:
-A snappy subject line: if the subject line doesn’t grab someone’s attention, they will delete the e-mail. Constant Contact allows you to send out an e-mail with two different subject lines to see which has the higher opening rate, and you should Google the list of 100 words that trigger spam filters so you can avoid using those.
-Make it from you: people are more willing to open an e-mail from a person than from a business.
-Make it top-heavy: put the best content at the top of your newsletter. Catch your readers early and they will keep reading as long as you offer them useful, informative content they consider valuable.
-Make it a conversation: don’t just preach or sell excessively.
-Include relevant content: as well as content from you, you can also provide links to articles or blog posts that relate to your business.
-Be dependable: send your newsletter on a regular schedule; people will learn to expect it and will look for it if you do it well.
-Be patient: Your newsletter won’t produce results overnight. It will take time to build you rlist and get readers to respond to what you offer.
A book or ebook can open more doors for your business.
Referrals are the best way to grow your business. A referral will cost you far less time and money than it would take to find a new client. Sometimes, you need to ask your clients or customers for referrals—but make sure it is at the right time, and in the right way. Ask for referrals when your clients or customers are happy with you and your product, or when they are complimenting the service they received. Instead of just asking a client if they know anyone who would be interested in your product or services, try to narrow it down a little so they aren’t so overwhelmed. If they have children, ask if there are any other parents in their child’s class, et c. It is also important to send some type of thank you for a referral, and the more creative and personal, the better.
I think it would be beneficial if we redesigned the website to sell Jean’s experience in cleaning, her personal motivation, and to get people’s emails.
Social media dos:
-Be genuine and honest
-Share your expertise
-Invite and answer questions on topics where you can help
-Find common interests on hot topics
-Promote people and businesses you support
-Provide personal experiences that relate to your audience
-Celebrate the accomplishments of your fans, followers, and clients
Social media don’ts
-Sell excessively
-Over-share personal problems or complain
-Delve into hot-button political issues
-Post offensive content
-Argue publicly with your followers
-Trash your competitors
-Skip weekends since Saturday afternoon is an especially popular time for sharing on some social sites
Common pitfalls for new business owners
-Not getting your employer ID number
-Not reporting new hires to the state labor department
-Misclassifying workers
-Not understanding employee deductions and tax responsibilities
Johnson, Tory. Spark & Hustle: Launch and Grow Your Small Business Now. New York: Berkley, 2012. Print.
Take a look at your product or service and know what makes it different, then use that to your advantage. In most cases, you need feedback to successfully start a new business. Reach out to a small group of people who you know that might be in your target market. Let them know you want their honest opinion and ask valuable questions. These questions might include:
What do you/don’t you like about this product or service?
Is there something that could be added or removed to make it work better for you?
What is the most you would expect to pay for it?
Who else would use it?
If you didn’t buy this particular product or service, what would you buy (or what do you buy now) in its place?
Who would you recommend this product or service to?
Who do you think could benefit from this product or service?
While we have already started our business, some of these questions could still be valuable to ask in our annual surveys that we put out to make sure we are on track.
Bare-Bones Business Checklist
-Clarify your personal motivation for success
-Write a one-page business plan
-List the products or services you’ll offer
-Choose your business name
-Get a business license, if required in your area
-Build a website
-Initiate social media profiles on key platforms:
facebook.com
twitter.com
tumblr.com
linkedin.com
googleplus.com
pinterest.com
Instagram.com
Youtube.com
-Write a basic branding statement
-Create a logo or visual identity
-Print business cards
-Get a professional headshot and (if applicable) images of your products
-Create a specific marketing plan (which tools will you use and when?)
-Develop a sales strategy
-Make a top 50 list of ideal clients or customers to pursue
-Produce necessary sales materials
-Design a simple time-tracking worksheet
-Think through pricing justification
-Determine how you’ll measure results
No matter what kind of business you have, you must be able to explain clearly and succinctly what you do. If you have difficulty explaining it, anyone you’re talking to will have difficulty understanding it. Nailing the business in once sentence is key. Our sentence is:
To nail your target market, consider three questions: Who specifically wants or needs my product or service, will they pay for it—and how much will they pay, and where are they?
You can use the following questions to better know your market, and in turn better anticipate its needs, deliver marketing messages to drive sales at the right time, and grow your customer base. Where do they live? Where do they work? Where do they shop? Who is in their family and how do they influence purchasing decisions? How do they spend their time? What do they talk about? What do they hope for? What are their problems? What do you know about their experiences with other companies offering a similar solution? What makes them tick? What ticks them off?
It’s also important to know your numbers: how much it costs you to do business, how to price so that you’re positioned to make a profit, and how much you must generate to hit your desired profit. Become committed to keeping numbers top of mind, from your annual sales goal to whether or not you’re on track for the quarter.
The first number to determine is how much money you’d like to make in the next twelve months. Is your goal to create a $10,000 side business, or to replace your $40,000 salary? No matter whether your number is high or low, it should be three things: realistic, rational, and a bit of a stretch. It is possible to go from zero to a million in just a year, but if you have never run a business and are starting with very little money, that number isn’t very realistic. Your magic number should be based on something tangible, like your former salary, cost of a new car, or dream vacation. If your realistic and rational number is $50,000 a year to pay your bills, maybe add a 20% boost to it to bring your magic number to $60,000. Write down your magic number, then move on to the next step: calculating how much money you’ll have to add to your magic number to reach your financial goal.
It is important to think about what kinds of costs you will incur to generate the kind of paycheck you are looking for. This is the cost of doing business, your expenses. A common mistake is underestimating your costs. Get in the habit of planning for every dollar you spend in order to make your business successful. Write down every expense you have. Some common expenses that are sometimes forgotten when making your budget are: travel expenses (including gas, tolls, and parking), meals or drinks with current or prospective clients, magazine subscriptions, bank fees, postage, printing, sales tax, and miscellaneous supplies. One method of tracking expenses is by categorizing them in the following way:
“A” Expenses are the hard cost of delivering your product or service, also known as the cost of goods sold, e.g., buying flour to make cookies.
“B” Expenses are the time spent, which is tracked on paper much like a lawyer registers time and a dieter journals food intake.
“C” Expenses are often overlooked and includes the little things such as purchasing samples, parking, shipping and client drinks and dinners.
“D” Expenses are the fixed overhead inclusing salaries, rent, insurance, and others.
If you look at all of these expenses, you should have a better handle on your real costs and be able to price accordingly so that you cover your costs and make a profit.
Add up every expense—plus your magic number—to determine what you must generate annually. You should also add in 10 to 20 percent in unexpected expenses, which always seem to show up. The total you get is the amount of money you must bring in to achieve your financial goal.
Some things you can consider to keep costs down are:
-Is working from home or utilizing an affordable, flexible coworking space an option right now instead of getting your own office?
-Can you barter your services in exchange for Web-design or legal help to avoid those out-of-pocket expenses?
-Can you use your Facebook or Tumblr as your company’s web presence rather than spending money to design and host a full-fledged website?
-Could you use PayPal or a mobile-payment option such as Intuit’s GoPayment to accept credit cards instead of establishing a merchant account?
-Can you sign up for an online payroll service such as SurePayroll instead of paying an accountant to prepare and submit quarterly payments on your behalf?
-Can you meet prospective clients for coffee instead of lunch?
-Could phone calls or Skype chats replace some face-to-face meetings?
-Where can you challenge yourself to cut corners without sacrificing value?
You can also look for services that help small business owners simplify their start-up expenses. eVoice and Grasshopeer are both virtual phone systems available for small businesses. eFax is another company that can cut costs down, and crow-sourcing sites such as crowdSPRING, as well as the site Fiverr, are great resources as well.
In a small business, long hours are often a given, so keep track of your time so you can determine how much you are making per hour. It may be surprising at first, but it will allow you to make smarter business decisions.
Your annual expenses + your personal magic number = your first-year gross revenue target
Number of products/services you can provide in one week × 50 weeks = _____________(annual product/service capacity)
First year gross revenue target ÷ annual product/service capacity = ____________ (average price to consider)
To help determine your perfect price, consider some of the following as well: What are people in your target market already paying for a similar existing product or service? Does your target market fall into a particular socioeconomic category, and how does that impact your calculations? Does geography impact your pricing? Can you get what you’re asking where you’re currently located? Does your price align with your brand promise?
If you’re totally unsure as of what to charge, try this simple rule as a base: charge what you would be willing to pay for it.
Use your magic number and first year goal to determine how to financially stay on track; the following two steps will help get, and keep, you in the black.
Divide your annual sales goal by 12 to come up with your monthly sales target, then break it down even further to see what you must do each week. Depending on what type of business you do, you could break it down even further and determine what you must do each day to make your money goal a reality.
Track your performance daily. Investing time to regularly update your actual numbers will allow you to determine at a quick glance whether or not you are meeting your financial goals.
Keep track of where your clients are coming from. Keep a running list of who your clients are, where they came from, and what they’re buying. Make it a habit to ask your clients how they found or heard about you; this will show you which marketing activities are most effective at attracting which customers, allow you to customize your customer outreach when introducing new products or services, and enable you to do more of what works and eliminate what doesn’t.
Johnson, like many others, also expressed the importance of being able to sum up your company in one sentence, but she also gives some tips on how to come up with that important sentence.
-Include touches of realism and optimism
Leave out jargon
-Spell out specifically what you do and for whom
-Test it on a few people; you want them to be intrigued, but not mystified
Nothing is set in stone, and as your business develops, your sentence can, too
One step further than your one sentence is your one page business plan, which contains seven components that Johnson lists and describes.
1. Your simple statement: The single sentence that clearly states what you do. You may opt to elaborate here if your work is mission-driven.
2. Your why: This is your motivation for launching your business. Why are you doing this? What’s driving you? What will keep you hustling when you’re disappointed, frustrated, or afraid? This is on the sheet to remind you why throwing in the towel isn’t an option. Whatever your why, this is the deep motivator that’s put you on the small business path, and nothing will derail your mission.
3. Your what: What you will sell or create for your customers or clients. Include the value proposition of what you offer and why what you offer is better than the existing options. Be specific and concise.
4. Your who: This is the target market you’ll sell to, serve or support. Create a picture of them, using all of the information you know to be true. Describe what they want, the problems they face or the solutions they seek, and explain what malkes them the perfect market for you.
5. Your how much: Your money plan includes how much you want to make, how much it will take to run your business, and your pricing plan. This section includes your sales goals, which should take into consideration all of your expenses and your anticipated profit.
6. Your hustle: It all boils down to how you plan to accomplish your goal. This marketing and sales strategy should be the bulk of your business plan because it will spell out exactly what you’re going to do to make your anticipated success a reality.
7. Your measure: How will you measure success? Often times, business revenue is the best way (but not always). Remember this is not a hobby or a charitable venture; you’re running a business. What are the monthly, quarterly or annual benchmarks that you’ll use to determine whether or not you’re on track?
Another important component to have is your mission statement. The mission statement defines the scope of your work and the impact that it can have on customers or the community you serve. You can feature your mission statement on your website so that visitors understand what you’re about. You can also share it with partners, collaborators and vendors. Internally the mission statement serves to focus you and your staff to ensure that you take action only on those items that are important and well suited for your organization’s area of interest. Answer these simple questions to help create your statement: What is the purpose of your company (why do you exist)? What business are you in (one word)? List the top three values or differentiators that make your company unique. These are benefits for the buyer. Some starters for a mission statement are “X’s mission is to provide…” “X is committed to…” “The goal of X is to…” “The vision of X is to…” “X is dedicated to…” or “X is a…”
Johnson talks about creating a product that your business can sell. I came up with the idea of creating cleaning “baskets” that we could put together and offer to our clients; we would like to have a solid plan ready to go by August, and launch the baskets at the beginning of 2015. In order to get this idea off the ground, we need to….
This isn’t really a money-making idea, but another idea we would like to try is a supply swap between clients. We have noticed that some clients have old cleaning supplies that they no longer use (they switched brands, found a product that worked better for them, etc.) that are just sitting in their cabinets, taking up space and going to waste.
Getting your market to listen can be a challenge because of the multitude of commercials, billboards, and just general advertising that people are bombarded with every day. In order to get your company noticed, your marketing should be real, original, solicitous, and smart. Muscle marketing ideas are endless. Think about promoting your business to your desired target without spending money.
-Market by e-mail; Constant Contact has a suite of products to help with this.
-Establish profitable collaborations and promotional partnerships; think about complementary businesses that would promote your services if you promote theirs.
-Write expert articles to share with other websites.
-Get involved in community service that’s relevant to your business
-Ask a satisfied customer for referrals
Using an e-mail newsletter to market isn’t as simple as just sending out e-mails: the recipients must open, read and respond to them to make the process worthwhile. Some tips to help with this are:
-A snappy subject line: if the subject line doesn’t grab someone’s attention, they will delete the e-mail. Constant Contact allows you to send out an e-mail with two different subject lines to see which has the higher opening rate, and you should Google the list of 100 words that trigger spam filters so you can avoid using those.
-Make it from you: people are more willing to open an e-mail from a person than from a business.
-Make it top-heavy: put the best content at the top of your newsletter. Catch your readers early and they will keep reading as long as you offer them useful, informative content they consider valuable.
-Make it a conversation: don’t just preach or sell excessively.
-Include relevant content: as well as content from you, you can also provide links to articles or blog posts that relate to your business.
-Be dependable: send your newsletter on a regular schedule; people will learn to expect it and will look for it if you do it well.
-Be patient: Your newsletter won’t produce results overnight. It will take time to build you rlist and get readers to respond to what you offer.
A book or ebook can open more doors for your business.
Referrals are the best way to grow your business. A referral will cost you far less time and money than it would take to find a new client. Sometimes, you need to ask your clients or customers for referrals—but make sure it is at the right time, and in the right way. Ask for referrals when your clients or customers are happy with you and your product, or when they are complimenting the service they received. Instead of just asking a client if they know anyone who would be interested in your product or services, try to narrow it down a little so they aren’t so overwhelmed. If they have children, ask if there are any other parents in their child’s class, et c. It is also important to send some type of thank you for a referral, and the more creative and personal, the better.
I think it would be beneficial if we redesigned the website to sell Jean’s experience in cleaning, her personal motivation, and to get people’s emails.
Social media dos:
-Be genuine and honest
-Share your expertise
-Invite and answer questions on topics where you can help
-Find common interests on hot topics
-Promote people and businesses you support
-Provide personal experiences that relate to your audience
-Celebrate the accomplishments of your fans, followers, and clients
Social media don’ts
-Sell excessively
-Over-share personal problems or complain
-Delve into hot-button political issues
-Post offensive content
-Argue publicly with your followers
-Trash your competitors
-Skip weekends since Saturday afternoon is an especially popular time for sharing on some social sites
Common pitfalls for new business owners
-Not getting your employer ID number
-Not reporting new hires to the state labor department
-Misclassifying workers
-Not understanding employee deductions and tax responsibilities
Johnson, Tory. Spark & Hustle: Launch and Grow Your Small Business Now. New York: Berkley, 2012. Print.