Business, finances, forex

You nominated them and now it’s time to cast your vote to support your pick. Small Business Trends and Small Biz Technology bring you the Small Business Influencer Awards 2015. Here’s a chance to celebrate the people, businesses, and even apps that have made an impact in the small business market.

Even if you missed the nominations, you can still jump in and vote for your favorite. But you might want to hurry. There is less than a week left to vote!

To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

UnGagged LasVegas 2015
November 9, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada

Google now makes 1 to 2 algorithm adjustments each day. With change happening that fast, the best efforts on the planet won’t help you without the right knowledge of what’s working today.

Ungagged is an intimate setting limited to just a few hundred attendees. You’ll hear from some of the most respected speakers in the world in their specialties — people like Duane Forrester of Bing; Loren Baker, founder of Search Engine Journal; Ruth Carter, a lawyer who knows social media law; Kaspar Szymanski, formerly of Google; and many more.

They’ll be talking about topics like how to get PR for your startup, streamlining your content marketing, social media horror stories, how to launch a software-as-a-service (SaaS) business, how to scale your business to a multi-million dollar valuation in 12 months, SEO myths debunked, and lots more. Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends will be there and invites you to attend with our special community discount.

Discount Code
SBT (20% )

World Business Forum New York 2015
November 12, 2015, New York, New York

In 2015 the World Business Forum will present two days of powerful stories; of individuals who face shocks – both personal and organizational – and who use those shocks to achieve the extraordinary. Speakers include Sir Richard Branson, Jim Collins, a former faculty member at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Walter Isaacson, once the 14th editor of TIME magazine in 1996 and named Chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, Adam Grant, author of the New York Times bestseller Give and Take and Herminia Ibarra, Professor of Leadership and Learning and Professor of Organizational Behavior at INSEAD.

SleeterCon
November 16, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada

SleeterCon is the accounting solutions conference for professionals to learn and differentiate their practices, with in-depth education to prepare for the future.
Discount Code
CRUSHZONE50 ($50)

More Events

• An Event Apart 8
  November 2, 2015, San Francisco, California
• EventTech
  November 2, 2015, Las Vegas, Nevada
• Internet Marketing Freedom Workshop
  November 2, 2015, New York, New York
• Estate Planning Seminar
  November 2, 2015, Seattle, Washington
• Writing A Business Plan
  November 2, 2015, New York, New York
• Conversion Conference 2
  November 3, 2015, Berlin, Germany
• Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit
  November 3, 2015, Boston, Massachusetts
• Future of Work
  November 3, 2015, Boston, Massachusetts
• Get Motivated! San Antonio
  November 3, 2015, Online
• Access To Financing For Female Founders – A Women Motivating Women Power Panel
  November 3, 2015, New York, New York
• Insurance Risk North America
  November 4, 2015, New York, New York
• Nonprofit Super Summit
  November 4, 2015, West Sacramento, California
• 11/4 Kahului, HI CashFlow Game Networking
  November 4, 2015, Kahului, Hawai’i
• 11/4 Chicago, IL REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITY
  November 4, 2015, Chicago, Illinois
• 11/4 Orange, CA CashFlow Game 101 Networking
  November 4, 2015, Orange, California
• 2015 UDIA (Qld) Annual Developers Conference
  November 5, 2015, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
• The Small Business Expo Los Angeles
  November 5, 2015, Los Angeles, California
• Get Motivated! Houston
  November 5, 2015, Online
• Seminar on Enterprise Risk Management in the New World: Cyber Security, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery – How they all fit together – Chicago, IL
  November 5, 2015, Chicago, Illinois
• Scottsdale, AZ REAL ESTATE OPPORTUNITY
  November 5, 2015, Scottsdale, Arizona

More Contests

• Plastec South
  November 19, 2015, Orlando, Florida
• BIG Innovation Awards
  December 04, 2015, Online
• NASE Growth Grant Awards
  December 10, 2015, Online
• Conversion Conference Las Vegas
  May 19, 2016, Las Vegas, Nevada

This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.

Vote Photo via Shutterstock

This article, “Cast Your Vote for Your Top Small Business Influencer Pick” was first published on Small Business Trends

Source

Running a business means you have to constantly adapt. You have to adapt to new technologies, busy seasons, sales slumps, and so much more.

In this week’s Small Business Trends Community News and Information Roundup, members of the small business community shared some tips and thoughts about changes you deal with when running a business and how to adapt to them.

Learn to Analyze Your Website’s Heat Maps

(ClickTale)

Heat maps can help you gain some valuable insights into how customers are using your website. They can show you where customers focus their attention and where they click most often. To learn more about heat maps and how to use them for your business, check out the advice by Merav Keren.

Create a Winning Holiday Marketing Strategy

(Allin1Social)

The upcoming holiday season means big opportunities for many small businesses. But you need to be ready to capitalize on those opportunities by creating a winning holiday marketing strategy. Emma Koitola shares some tips for doing so.

Keep Up with These Changes to LinkedIn Groups

(Jonny Ross Consultancy)

If you use LinkedIn groups, you may have noticed some changes recently. Jonny Ross explains five of the recent changes to LinkedIn groups and how they could impact your business. BizSugar members also share their input.

Attract the Best Seasonal Retail Employees

(Noobpreneur)

If you own a retail store, then you’re likely gearing up for your busiest time of year. That also probably means that you’ll need to hire some seasonal employees to help with the extra customers. To attract the best seasonal retail employees, read these tips from Chad Stewart.

Create Videos to Increase Audience Reach Online

(Zimana Web Analytics Blog)

Video marketing is a relatively new facet of online media. And as such, many brands don’t know where to start with it. But there are plenty of different ways you can use video to increase your reach online, as Pierre DeBois explains. You can also see discussion about the post over on BizSugar.

Get Social With Your Small Biz Marketing

(Grasshopper)

Marketing with social media means more than just posting product links or new blog posts. There are plenty of different ways to use social in your small business marketing, and plenty of benefits that go along with it. Taylor Tomita discusses the subject.

Generate Repeat Business Through Quality and Service

(SmallBizDaily)

There are so many tips and tricks out there for bringing customers to your business and keeping them. But sometimes the best way to do that is just by offering the best possible products and services to your customers. Dan Byers discusses generating repeat business through quality and service.

Read These Top Entrepreneur Blogs

(Project Be Best)

If you want to be the best entrepreneur you can, you need to learn from the best. Plenty of entrepreneurs share their expertise through blogs. And Roberto Zanon rounded up 59 of the best entrepreneurial blogs. BizSugar members also share their thoughts.

Read the Best of Internet Marketing

(Matthew Woodward)

It’s also important to keep up with news, trends and expert input, like what’s shared by Matthew Woodward. You can learn a lot by seeing what other business owners and professionals have to say about Internet marketing.

Implement a Strategic Marketing Process

(StuartJDavidson)

Marketing isn’t something you can just leave to chance. Having a strategic marketing process in place can help you stay on top of these activities and achieve better results. Stuart J. Davidson discusses more about marketing processes. And BizSugar members also share their thoughts.

You can help make these community roundup posts even better! Share your favorite small business content by sending it to sbtips@gmail.com or sharing it with the BizSugar community. You could see it in an upcoming post.

Adapting Photo via Shutterstock

This article, “Adapt to Business Changes with These Community Tips” was first published on Small Business Trends

Source

WHEN the third Greek bail-out was outlined in principle on July 13th after an extraordinarily fraught summit of euro-zone leaders, between €10 billion ($11 billion) and €25 billion out of the total sum of up to €86 billion of help was set aside for bank recapitalisation. Greek banks had been undermined for over half a year as deposits drained out of them, on worries about a possible exit from the euro once Syriza, a radical left party, won the election held in January 2015, culminating in their closure for three weeks in late June and July. They had been further hurt by the harm done to the economy and thus to their loans arising from Syriza’s ill-judged attempt to outbluff its official creditors. Even so, the notion that they would need as much as €25 billion to offset the damage and put them on a sound footing appeared unduly pessimistic.

However, just how much they actually required would not be known until the European Central Bank (ECB), since late 2014 the supervisor of the four big Greek banks—Alpha, Eurobank, National Bank of Greece and Piraeus—that dominate the economy, conducted a probe into their books together with a stress test examining how they would be affected if the economy turned even sourer than expected in 2015-17. Today the ECB has published the results. They reveal that the extra capital that will be needed is considerably less than…Continue reading

Egyptian officials reported that there are no survivors among the 224 people on board the Russian airplane, which crashed in the Sinai Peninsula on Saturday.

The Airbus A-321 operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia was conducting a scheduled charter flight between the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and Saint Petersburg when it crashed shortly after take-off.

There were 217 passengers on board including 17 children and seven crew members.

According to Egyptian sources, 214 of the passengers were Russian citizens and three were Ukrainian.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared November 1 a national day of mourning and expressed condolences to the families of the victims.

Putin has ordered Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to form a commission on investigating the crash.

Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov, who will head the commission, said that the country will actively participate in the investigation of the crash.

Wreckage of the airplane, which was completely destroyed, was found in the Hasana area.

According to media reports, the black boxes and some of the bodies of the passengers have been recovered.

The exact causes of the crash have not been established yet, but live flight tracking service Flight Radar 24 said that the airplane was descending at 1500 metres per minute before it went missing.

The airplane was flying at an altitude of 9450 metres when it disappeared from radars.

A spokeswoman of the airline said that the pilot had 12 000 hours of flying experience and the airplane was fully serviced.

Source

Special effects and lights will illuminate the National Palace of Culture (NDK) in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia at 19:15 EET on Saturday evening.

The facade will be illuminated in different colours, bringing the iconic building to life and turning it into a true attraction for the inhabitants and visitors of the capital.

The aim of the impressive effects is to highlight or remind people about key events and dates, the website of NDK informs.

The special effects regime will illuminate the building in a combination of nuances depending on the occasion of the celebrated event.

The first such spectacle will take place on the eve of November 1, when the day of the leaders of the Bulgarian National Revival is celebrated.

The Bulgarian national revival or awakening was the period during which Bulgarians, who at the time were still under Ottoman rule, started to increasingly develop a national consciousness and aspirations for restoring their independent state.

Source

Steve Jobs, the movie about the late entrepreneur behind Apple, bombed at the box office in its first weekend of release. And critics’ reviews have been mixed. But the movie may be best remembered for is one scene in particular, where Jobs sheds some light on what it’s like being an entrepreneur.

The scene features a conversation between Jobs and his former Apple partner Steve Wozniak. As it turns out, Wozniak was one of the few people who actually enjoyed the film, saying that although fictional, it captured Jobs’ personality quite well. But it’s also worth noting that he was a paid consultant for the movie.

Friends and colleagues of Jobs criticized the movie for taking too many artistic liberties. Jobs’ widow has been very vocal about her dislike for the film and even reportedly tried to halt its production. Even current Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has made comments about the “opportunistic” nature of the movie and others like it.

The Steve Jobs movie, which was written by Aaron Sorkin, centers mainly around the lead up to three major Apple events.

However, it’s not just about the entrepreneurial aspect of Jobs’ life. There’s also a major story line surrounding Jobs’ refusal to acknowledge paternity of his daughter Lisa. Overall, it doesn’t paint Jobs in a very favorable light. It shows some of the worst aspects of his character without focusing much on the brilliance and drive that led him and Apple to be so successful.

Sorkin has stated that the film is fictional and not meant to be a biopic. But given that it’s based on a real person and shows some actual events that took place, some people are bound to look at it that way.

Still, the movie is not completely anti-Jobs. There is, at the very least, the one scene where Jobs speaks to Wozniak about entrepreneurship. In it, he compares entrepreneurs to orchestra conductors. You can view the scene in its entirety below:

“What do you do?” Wozniak (Seth Rogen) asks.

Jobs (Michael Fassbender) responds: “I play the orchestra. And you’re a good musician. You sit right there. You’re the best in your row.”

It doesn’t exactly depict a friendly conversation. In it, Wozniak accuses Jobs of being condescending toward him, even though he was an integral part of building Apple. But could Jobs have a point about his role at Apple? And about entrepreneurs in general, for that matter?

It’s a unique way of looking at entrepreneurship. As Wozniak notes in the scene, Jobs wasn’t an engineer, designer or coder. He wasn’t responsible for much of the actual building of Apple’s early innovative devices.

But as most entrepreneurs know, there’s so much more that goes into building a successful business than just constructing a product that works. You have to find a market for that product, build a team around it, make people want to associate with your brand, and much more.

You have to direct the members of your team to build, market and support the vision that you have for your company.

As an entrepreneur, you need to be the conductor of your business – the one who makes sure that all the different facets work together harmoniously. That’s what Steve Jobs was for Apple. At least according to his character in the Steve Jobs movie. And that’s what many other great entrepreneurs have been for their businesses, whether they’ve really looked at it that way or not.

Do you agree that great entrepreneurs are like orchestra conductors?

Image: “Steve Jobs”

This article, “The Steve Jobs Movie Casts Entrepreneurs as Orchestra Conductors” was first published on Small Business Trends

Source

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevenliev and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov expressed condolences to their Romanian and Russian counterparts over the two tragic tragic accidents, which have befell the citizens of the two countries.

An explosion and fire engulfed a nightclub in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on Friday, which left 27 people dead and hundreds injured.

An airplane operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia crashed in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt shortly after take-off on Saturday, killing all 224 people on board.

Addressing Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Plevneliev said that he was deeply saddened by the news of the accident and could not find words to express the sorrow and sympathy at the tragic loss of youth lives.

The Head of State reminded that a similar incident had taken place in Bulgaria several years ago, having in mind the death of seven teenagers in a stampede, which occurred in front of a disco club in Sofia in December 2001.

Plevneliev expressed solidarity with the Romanian nation, hoping that the causes of the tragedy will be established soon.

He wished speedy recovery of the injured and assured that Bulgaria was mourning with the Romanian nation and stood together with its neighbouring country in commemorating the victims.

Addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin, Plevneliev expressed his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expressed hope that the causes of the crash will be established soon.

The president pointed out that one never could be prepared for such tragic incidents in which the lives of innocent citizens are lost.

He assured that Bulgaria joins the friendly Russian nation in its sorrow and in mourning of the victims.

Prime Minister Boyko Borisov similarly expressed condolences to Putin and his Romanian and Russian counterparts, Victor Ponta and Dmitry Medvedev.

Source

The Finance Ministry of Bulgaria reported a budget surplus of BGN 621.5 M at the end of September, which represents 0.7 % of projected GDP.

For comparison, Bulgaria had a budget deficit exceeding BGN 1.4 B at the end of September last year.

At the end of September 2015, revenues and grants surpassed BGN 24.1 B, which represented an increase of 8.7 % compared to the same period last year.

Tax proceeds exceeded BGN 18.5 B, non-tax revenues surpassed BGN 2.8 B, while grants (including EU funds) were in the excess of BGN 2.7 B.

The expenditures, including the Bulgarian contribution to the EU budget, exceeded BGN 23.5 B, which represented an increase of 2.1 % compared to the end of September 2014.

Non-interest expenditures exceeded BGN 22.2 B, interest payments and Bulgaria’s contribution to the EU budget amounted to respectively BGN 630.1 M and BGN 624.5 M.

As of September 30, the fiscal reserve amounted to BGN 10.1 B.

According to preliminary figures and estimates, the ministry expects a budget surplus of BGN 57 M at the end of October.

For comparison, Bulgaria had a budget deficit exceeding BGN 1.7 B at the end of October last year.

The ministry expects both revenues and expenditures to exceed BGN 26.5 B at the end of this year’s October.

Source

Bulgarian authorities detained 495 illegally residing foreigners and sixteen human smugglers during a large-scale joint operation of the Interior Ministry and the State Agency for Security (DANS) carried across the country.

Following the operation, actions have been taken against 525 people accused of committing crimes against the political rights of citizens.

A total of 2749 police officers from all regional departments of the interior ministry across the country participated in the operation.

During the operation, the authorities carried out checks on 2895 sites, 12 820 people and 5987 vehicles, the press service of the interior ministry informs.

In one of the cases, seven foreigners without identity documents, claiming to be Afghan citizens, were detained on Trakia motorway on Friday.

The foreigners, who admitted that they had illegally crossed into Bulgaria, have been sent off to the border.

In another case, a refrigerator truck driven by Turkish citizen attempted to enter Bulgaria at the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint.

Upon checking the refrigerator compartment of the truck, authorities found 129 foreigners without identity documents.

Among the migrants, who claim to be Syrians, are 38 men, 33 women and 58 children.

The driver of the truck was detained, while the identity of the migrants is being established in Svilengrad.

Source

The number of victims affected by the explosion and fire, which engulfed a nightclub in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on Friday, has risen.

According to the latest reports, the fire claimed the lives of 27 people, another 184 were transported to hospital for treatment, while 146 remain admitted for further treatment, AGERPRES news agency informs.

Witnesses claim that the fire started after a pyrotechnic display during a scheduled concert in the Colectiv nightclub, which ignited a flammable material in the club.

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis expressed his profound sadness with the incident and convened a meeting with Interior Minister Gabriel Oprea and State Secretary Raed Arafat to discuss the situation.

Hundreds of people have been crowding at blood transfusion centers to donate blood since the early hours of Saturday.

The exact causes of the fire have not been established yet, but specialists have arrived at the site to investigate.

The Bucharest General Prosecutor’s office has already launched an investigation into manslaughter and willful destruction.

The government will convene at an emergency meeting on Saturday to declare three days of national mourning throughout the country.

Source