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The Curator: Noncompetes, LinkedIn Tips, Google+ Growth, Twitter Ad Truths, Small Business Pitfalls

Here’s our weekly link roundup of small business buzz, musings and muchness. A curation of the best small business talk around the web.

Weekend Reading: Here’s our weekly link roundup of small business buzz, musings and muchness. A curation of the best small business talk around the web.

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Two startups on why they don’t use noncompetes — and why no one needs them

Many Boston tech company founders say they’d love to operate in a world without noncompetes but for competitive reasons aren’t able to get rid of the clauses unless there’s a ban across the board. Not everyone buys that, though. We’ve seen Acquia, RunKeeper, and a few other companies partially or completely eliminate noncompetes. But there are also a number of local startups that have gone without the agreements from the beginning. (Beta Boston)

 

How to make a bigger splash with your LinkedIn profile

When LinkedIn opened up its publishing platform in February to our members, many people jumped on the opportunity right away. They were eager to make use of a powerful new tool to help define their professional profiles and share their expertise with people in their field and beyond. (PRDaily)

 

Small Business Success Doesn’t Come Without Travel

With all the new technology available today for video conferencing, interactive social media, and webinars, you may think that travel is no longer a requirement for starting a small business. You would be wrong. According to a recent industry report on travel spending, small businesses buy 37% more airline tickets than big business travelers, and spend 24% more when on the road. Yet I still see business plans and funding plans for startups that have minimal or no allocation for travel. (Business Insider)

 

How to Grow Your Google+ Fan Base to 1,000 Followers & Beyond

+Post ads on the Google Display Network have been out of beta for several months now, but the engagement ad option is still only available to advertisers with at least 1,000 followers on their pages or profiles. According to Christian Ashlock, Product Marketing Manager at Google+, the reason to limit the availability to just those accounts was to ensure that advertisers were getting the most value out of their spend. Pages with 1,000 or more followers tend to have an actively engaged audience and consistently create high quality content. (Search Engine Watch)

 

5 Childhood Rules Successful Entrepreneurs Love To Break

Most successful entrepreneurs don’t rise to the top by being part of the herd. Instead, they choose to do things a little differently. And often, that means breaking some of the rules that were engrained in most of us during childhood. Here are five childhood rules that successful entrepreneurs love to break. (Forbes)

 

The Best and Worst Things About Twitter Ads

Is your company or client active on Twitter? If so, it’s time to take a look at Twitter Ads. Twitter Ads can be an effective way to broaden your reach on Twitter and generate leads. As with any new technology, though, there are a few bugs. If you’re considering using Twitter Ads (and you should be!), here are the good and bad aspects you need to know about. (Search Engine Watch)

 

Three Key Workplace Policies that Startups Can’t Afford to Ignore

Most startups are focused on getting their business off the ground. As a result, they usually delay policy development until a later date. But here’s why it’s important to draft and implement certain policies right at the start of your business: Policies pre-empt and prevent misunderstandings between employees and employers about obligations and behavior at the workplace. More importantly, they help protect a business against lawsuits and employee disputes which could otherwise wipe out a startup before it has had a chance to take off. (Xconomy)

 

Five Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Enterprise Salespeople

While there’s a lot of talk among entrepreneurs and startups about disrupting the old tech giants like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and IBM, there’s one thing where those elephants can actually teach startups a thing or two. Namely, how to sell thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars worth of of services and products. (Forbes)

 

The Top Pitfalls for Small Business Owners

When starting and running a small business, we often learn as we go. However, some pitfalls in business can be avoided — saving time and money. (I personally don’t know any small business owner who wouldn’t benefit from more time or money!) Business owners need to learn to delegate tasks, carefully plan, create a measurable marketing strategy, develop a sales flow process, and build an online reputation that pulls people in; and all while making sure they have their finances in order. Here are the top pitfalls for small business owners.

 

Small Business Makeover: SCORE counselors study ex-teacher’s tutoring service

Patricia “Lee” Bell was teaching 10th-grade English in the 1980s when parents started asking where they could go for SAT test prep. She thought, “Why not me?” and partnered with a math teacher to tutor after school in her home and at the library. A couple of years later, in 1988, Bell rented a space in Wilton Manors and founded Individual Dimensions in Learning to provide tutoring and test preparation classes. (Miami Herald)

 

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