Question: I am using an older version of QuickBooks and want to upgrade to the current year. What should I do to prepare for this? Answer: First of all, back up your current QuickBooks file. Then, run your balance sheet, and profit and loss (income) statements on both the accrual and cash bases for the…
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While Pantone usually dictates the most popular colors of the year, the latest color trend seems to have been crowd-sourced. It seems that millennials are going crazy for a color subsequently dubbed “millennial pink.” This is not your mainstay pink swatch, however. It features tones of peach, blush and salmon, and consumers are flocking to it…
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A blog is one of the simplest and most useful ways to promote your business online. Consistent blogging can be worth far more than most comparable investments of your time to promote your business online. Here are five reasons you should be blogging, along with several ideas of what you can be blogging about. 1.…
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How do you respond to “no” in your business pursuits? Let me share a short story about a “no” that that I recently experienced. I found out late one afternoon that I needed to get to suburban Charlotte for a week. I immediately got online to book my favorite hotel, but the website said there…
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As the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas came to a close, and we hopped on planes and returned to normalcy, it was easy to look back and feel overwhelmed by an event that offered so much. Along with dozens of meetings and seminars, we flocked to Vegas primarily to see the latest and greatest products—and…
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Question: I have created a duplicate customer in QuickBooks that has a slightly different name. How do I combine them into one customer account? Answer: Go to “customers” > “customer center.” Highlight the customer name you want to change, right click on it and click “Edit Customer: Job.” Change the customer name to match the…
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Do your customers want the latest, trendiest, most-newsworthy promotional product? Or do they want to achieve a specific business objective? Or do they want to look like the coolest, hippest, most savvy and in-touch, worldly executive to their associates? Knowing what your clients want is the key to your success. Your value proposition should be…
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March Madness is such a magical time. I’m probably only saying that because I’m currently winning my group’s bracket challenge. Either way, we’ve got never-ending games, college rivalries and awesome mascots to hold our attention. What could be better than that? And, when you work in the world of promotional apparel, you tend to pay…
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If you had to increase your prices 20 percent tomorrow, how would your customers react? After you absorbed unflattering comments and disappointment, your customers would buy fewer products, if they bought any at all. Beyond our industry, consider what we buy every day: clothing, footwear, housewares, electronics and so on. How would you feel the…
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Let’s take a quick look at the three zones in which most people operate: comfort, growth and danger: Now, let’s take a look at how these zones apply to your sales efforts. In sales, the accounts that we are most knowledgeable about are in our comfort zone. We are comfortable with their size, and with…
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