I keep thinking the economy is improving, but I’m not really seeing it yet for my small business. How about you? How’s biz?

HI  @kathybernard and  @annfurnivall   

It’s funny to a certain extent – when the SEO is not busy, the graphics work explodes.  When the graphics work slows down I get a website build or two.

It has all seemed to even out fairly well.  I never did see a big dip.  Content writing picks up after a website build as we blast out those presentations – people see what we do and want that (something similar).

The SEO and website builds pay the best and graphics work takes more customers to make up any slack in the other services.  

Copywriting and content writing fill in holes all the time around other things too.


I think I’m lucky as I’ve been around the web as long as it has existed so have seen what people need by way of “coming trends” that I could pick up on and learn or enhance my skills before they (whatever trend) actually became the buzz.

Eileen

@annfurnivall – Ann, I know what you mean about business being busy, but free-flowing money is still hard to come by. Everybody is still being very careful about spending.

All we do is take in money and pay vendors – before the recession we had zero debt but acquired way too much debt while trying to stay in business thus paying down a high debt load while trying to expand inventory has become a high wire act.
@Rich Brooks We fired our second and last affiliate program 2 weeks ago because the CPA was high and affiliate customers were couponers with low website return rates and low LTVs.  (affiliate program fraud notwithstanding). We replaced the spend with http://www.windsorcircle.com/ (mailchimp is our ESP) to deploy in 1 -2 weeks allowing us to focus on re-targeting our existing customer database – stay tuned

BTW Wall Street is an anomaly – as long as Bernake keeps pumping money into the bond market keeping interest rates artificially low – people have no place else to go but the stock market. I was at a Chase branch today – 1 year CD 1/4 of 1 percent on a 1 year $1000 CD – meanwhile our USPS & FedEx rates have jumped 5% in 6 months – it’s getting wearisome 

Plenty of work. Hard getting money in.

People are talking more business which I hope is sign that they soon will do more business. A lot of people are still looking for schemes to get services for free and the internet encourages and validates that thinking to some extent.

The sales cycle is longer than ever, but may be promising in the end.

Overall, I think the worst of the crash is over. 

I’m most excited about the new business opportunities that have emerged since 2008.

From the sound of it, most of you are seeing some uptick in business (or at least the glimmer of hope of an uptick in business) … that’s good news. I hope it keeps coming for all of you and me too! 

Eileen, @supereb, your phone conversation with the lady looking for the get rich quick online delusions is scary funny. It reminds me of when I was working on a computer at the library one day and the guy next to me says, “Excuse me, can you tell me which button I push to apply for all of the jobs in town?” I wish it was that easy!