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Local Advertising Tactics

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Local Advertising Tactics

You must know all the current legal tactics to compete with national advertising companies and other small local businesses. You will learn how to avoid or use them in your small business. You can use these tips by Jordan Sudberg to educate local business owners about this free advertising tactic and help make the internet safer for everyone. Remember, most people are honest on the internet; if you want more people to trust you check out these legal tactics. These methods may seem obvious, but they aren’t always used.

Jordan Sudberg Local Advertising Tactics

1. Argument from authority

Bloggers use this tactic. Bloggers are a popular choice for search engines. These bloggers’ rankings rise faster than other websites because they are trusted information about the topic. Bloggers can be found on any subject that interests you, but you need to find them first. You will not find a list of all the best blogs on this subject because finding one is the job. Generally, there will be 5-10 blogs that consistently top the search engines when everyone searches for a specific topic; the public has chosen these bloggers to give their opinions on any subject matter; therefore, they speak with authority on any subject.

2. Inbound links

A link to a website is an endorsement of the site. When people see someone else’s website in their sidebar, the person will naturally want to look at that person’s site for more information about that subject. People like plugging your site into their pages because it makes them appear knowledgeable and trustworthy. It is how people find more information on a particular topic even if they are not selling anything except your recommendation that they are trustworthy and have enough knowledge in that particular area to have written something on it.

3. The list of more than ten reasons

A headline that lists more than ten reasons is a powerful way to get people to click on your site. It is not a trick; in fact, it is used by almost every expert on the internet and television. Tricks seem dishonest, but this method works because it seems like most websites would be able to give you more than ten reasons to purchase their product or use their service. If they are smart, they will have exhaustive research done because most people will not buy unless they have all the details and facts from the web or television.

4. Authority of opinions

People are more likely to believe a quote from a renowned educator or expert rather than their own opinion. If you can accomplish this feat, your website will have more credibility and authority, especially if the quote is on your site as a permanent component of your article. When people search for information, they are looking for an expert opinion. They want to know they are getting the correct information to be sure they are making the right decisions in their lives.

Jordan Sudberg believes that these are all techniques that other marketers use to make their internet marketing more effective. It is not something to be scared of. There is no reason that a small business cannot make a healthy profit on the internet if they know how to implement these tactics.

6 Tips for Hiring Employees During an Economic Downturn

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After assessing your future and present recruiting goals, an AI candidate screening tool helps to find the best prospects and these six tips on how to manage the recruitment process amid an economic downturn or other employment market disruption will help you complete your task. 

1. Assess skill gaps 

A skills gap study can discover skills your workforce needs but doesn’t have. Skills gap evaluations can help you hire, train, or fund new technologies or collaborations. 

A skills gap report examines your company’s current and prospective employees. With this data, your recruitment staff may reach out to passive applicants, generate more accurate job descriptions, and hire new hires who can help you realize your long-term goals. 

2. Contact passive applicants

Do you want to hire industry experts or senior leaders from other companies? Now may be a good moment to recruit them. 

During a recession, many workers switch occupations for better pay or stability. Harvard Business Review recommends asking each leadership team member to choose three to five professionals they would want to collaborate with. Next, rate this shortlist by company appeal and decide who to call. The appropriate applicant may be waiting to be approached. Actively recruit people from this pool of potential candidates.

3. Form a workforce task force

If you’re willing to hire a lot, create a task force to find the best candidates from target industries. 

You may be able to use labor market shifts to recruit teams of active job searchers, like HP did with military veterans. After 9/11, Apple actively hired developers and engineers to launch the iPod and iPhone. 

4. Find screening aids

During hard circumstances, you may get more job applications. This may easily overwhelm recruiters. Add resources to scale hiring. 

Recruiterie helps recruiters quickly find top applicants. Our talent tests enhance your hiring process at any volume to locate the ideal applicant for every post. Machine learning rates each evaluation to create a shortlist of applicants for further screening. Recruiters can tell which target candidates are worth interviewing. 

5. Remotely hire 

During a recession, many business owners think they can’t hire new workers. Remote hiring works. Remote employees are cheaper and provide a variety of expertise that may meet your needs. 

Remotely filling a position requires the correct tools. Remote interviewing tools can help you get to know prospects. To speed up onboarding, experts recommend remote reference checks and onboarding resources. 

6. Develop internal talent. 

Sourcing a post doesn’t necessarily imply recruiting externally. You can train employees for new tasks. Consider which of your current employees can be mentored to succeed in new jobs. Training is cheaper than recruiting. 

Conclusion 

Many businesses are freezing hiring due to high inflation, shifting interest rates, and other factors. This might shift labor market demand to employers. Companies that hire during recessions might emerge stronger. 

Consider strategies to increase worker resiliency while designing your recession recruitment strategy. Where do you want your firm a year or five years after a recession? This can direct your recruiting process and help you take advantage of qualified people who may be looking for work.

Benefits of Having a CMMC Consultant

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A CMMC consultant is a professional who helps organizations with their CMMC compliance. There are many benefits to having a CMMC consultant on your team. Here are just a few:

1. Expertise and guidance

A good CMMC consultant will have a wealth of experience and knowledge to share with you. They can help you navigate the complex world of CMMC and ensure that you’re taking the right steps to protect your data.

2. Save time and resources

A consultant can help you save time and resources by streamlining the CMMC process. They can help you identify which practices are most important and ensure that you’re following them correctly.

3. Peace of mind

Working with a CMMC consultant can give you peace of mind, knowing that you have someone on your side who is an expert in the field. This can be especially helpful if you’re new to CMMC or are feeling overwhelmed by the process.

4. Avoid costly mistakes

A consultant can help you avoid costly mistakes by ensuring that you’re following CMMC best practices. They can also help you spot potential problems early on, before they become costly mistakes.

5. Focus on your business

A consultant can help you focus on your business by taking care of the CMMC details. This frees up your time and energy so that you can focus on running your business.

6. Stay compliant

A consultant can help you stay compliant with CMMC by ensuring that you’re following the latest requirements. They can also help you prepare for future audits and inspections.

A Valuable Asset

A consultant can help you get the most out of CMMC by ensuring that you’re using it to its full potential. They can help you customize it to meet your specific needs and goals.

If you’re considering implementing CMMC in your organization, a consultant can be a valuable asset. They can provide you with the expertise, guidance, and support you need to ensure that you’re successful.

Ways to Keep Your Work Truck Rentals Nicer Longer

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When working with heavy duty trucks in a hands-on work environment, it can be easy for employees to not take care of the vehicles. A company or work vehicle is made to do the tough jobs, but that doesn’t mean employers should be flippant about how they’re treated and cared for.

A scratch here or a dent there may not seem like a big deal to those operating them, but to the company that pays for these rentals, a few dings and scratches can mean losing money. Of course, scratches aren’t the only things that can happen to heavy-duty work trucks. It’s common for more serious damages to occur while they’re put to work. The best thing drivers can do is to take pride in the vehicles they’re responsible for and take as good a care of them as possible. 

Just because heavy-duty trucks are more likely to sustain damage during work, it doesn’t mean all drivers are being reckless with their responsibilities. However, making sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to taking care of company vehicles can go a long way in keeping your rental trucks from sustaining too much preventable damage. Allowing preventable damage to continue is money out of the company’s pocket for repairs and fulfilling rental agreements.

Remember, these trucks aren’t yours, so you are liable to another company for the use of their products. With that in mind, let’s look into a few ways you can help avoid preventable truck damage.

Create a Policy and Make it Available to Everyone

The most effective and replicatable policies are ones that are thought through, written out, and distributed regularly. It’s not enough to give a single training on safety and truck handling and expect employees to remember everything. You need to create a physical policy that can be reviewed by employees, managers, and executives regulary.

A physical copy is also a great tool for disputes, miscommunication, and learning. If ever an employee claims they didn’t know a policy or that it doesn’t exist, you can pul out the company-wide policy with clearly written out guidelines. You can’t argue with that.

Not only do these policies explain safety rules, they can also outline the rules of who can drive the work vehicles and when. Make sure to clearly explain how many people can be in the vehicle, who can drive the vehicle, and how to operate it safely and correctly. All the rules you’ve compiled from years of experience working with rental trucks – put them in your policy! Experience is the best way to know what’s important and relevant to the safe operation and treatment of vehicles.

Don’t Just Tell Everyone What the Policy Is. Enforce It.

Just because you create a policy, document it, and train your employees does not mean anything is going to change. Those employees have been doing the same wrong thing for so long ren’t going to bother changing their ways without some sort of consequence or follow-through on the company’s part.

This policy has to become part of the company itself and be an integral part of the culture for a difference to be made. So here are some things you can do to get the message across:

  • Make sure everyone, especially those who operate the vehicles, a hard copyof the policy to take home with them.
  • Go ahead an hold that training to walk everyone through the policy and what it will look like in day-to-day operations.
  • Hold a separate training for supervisors to make sure they know how to implement and enforce these changes within their individual teams.

A message is only as good as the incentive or consequence attached to it. With that in mind, consider creating an incentive or reward system that recognizes those employees who embody the new policy and are trying to make a change. They will be more likely to keep the vehicles safe and damage-free if there is a positive incentive attached to it.

Take a Look at Driver Responsibilities to See If Current Policy is to Blame

It’s easy to immediately blame the employee for allowing damages to occur while working, but you never know if a pre-existing company policy is at fault. This could manifest in the form of unrealistic expectations for employees. It’s hard to prevent work-truck damage when there’s a time limit for employees to complete a task. Evealute those limits and see if they allow enough time to safely operate the vehicle. Review your policies and change them if they don’t allow for safe handling of vehicles.

Remember That New Policies Take Time To Show Results

After all the time spent creating new policies, training employees, and instructing managers on the new policies, it’s natuaral to want to see immediate results. That’s not always realistic. Mistakes will be made. Steps will be missed. Although this is okay, don’t be lax. Make sure to give constructive feedback to your employees so that these new policies more easily become second nature. Your hard work will definitely pay off in the end. Less preventable work truck damage and more money saved for the company.

Check the Conditions of Your Vehicles Regularly

Preventative maintenance is another way to avoid preventable damages to your work vehicles. Keeping vehicle maintenance up-to-date will help you save money and extend the life of your rentals. If more major issues are found early on, they will be easier to fix and therefore prevent injusry or serious damage to employees and property. Being on top of things is always better than waiting for something bad to happen. 

The more you care for your heavy duty truck rentals, the more they’ll take care of your and your workers. Prioritie safety, maintenance, and respectful vehicle handling today to get better results in the future.

What You Need To Know About The Rising Auto Insurance Rates

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First car prices started to increase, then inflation started pushing up the price of food and basic essentials. Now, it seems like auto insurance quotes and home insurance rates are poised to skyrocket as well. Today, we’re going to take a look at what’s driving these increases and how experts believe these increases will play out over the near future.

The prices of almost everything seem to be going up, and this is due, in large part, to inflation. For those of you who need a quick refresher on what that is, inflation is broadly defined as a decrease in the purchasing power of money, which manifests as an increase in the price of goods and services in the economy. This can be caused by lax monetary policies, the supply of money growing too large relative to the size of the economy, pressures on supply or demand, etc. Long story short, though, as inflation rises, so too does the cost of living.

How has that been affecting auto insurance rates? In the United States, rates have risen an average of nearly five percent, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, who looked at data for some 63 million auto policy holders across the nation. Depending on where you live, you may have seen specific changes that were more severe or less severe.

In Massachusetts, for example, there was actually an average decrease of rates of less than a percent. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, drivers experienced a whopping average rate increase of fourteen percent. According to some experts, these high-end increases are even greater than those experienced across the medical and healthcare sectors.

What’s driving these increases? We’ve already touched on a big one—inflation. Recently, the annual inflation rate jumped to just over nine percent—the highest it’s been since November of 1981. While vehicle and auto insurance-related costs weren’t the highest (as energy and other such commodities saw the most significant increases) inflation still hit them hard. The problem has been compounded by two recent trends: supply chain disruptions and labor shortages.

Both are part of the cascading effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused disruptions across industries. Without the critical components—like semiconductors—the price of vehicles started to creep upwards. Similarly, a lack of skilled workers has driven up the costs of vehicle assembly, vehicle repair work, et cetera. Now, as the price of vehicles goes up, and the price to repair them along with it, so too does insurance, as it needs to be able to cover these costs in the event of a collision. With the costs of medical care going up as well, it’s little wonder why auto insurance rates have also had to climb in order to compensate.

Will things stay this way? It is possible that, as inflation drops in the future, auto insurance rates will also fall in sync. Remember, though, that auto insurance prices are also based on personal rating factors—some of which you can control—so there’s still a chance that you can find reasonable rates, even though the current trend is one of increased costs.

Fighting Against Domestic Violence

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Since 2020, domestic violence has spiked.  In addition to physical violence, downloads of spyware used for cyberstalking increased.  1 in 6 women and 1 in 17 men are victims of cyberstalking.  For marginalized groups rates of abuse increased by 50% or more during the pandemic.  Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, immigration status, and disabilities all contribute to a higher risk for abuse.  Concerns about financial security and health during the pandemic increased stressors, leading to higher rates of abuse.  Additionally, lockdown restricted movement, deserted public spaces, and isolated people at home, providing increased opportunities for abuse.  Although the pandemic has exacerbated this problem, the majority of incidents go unreported. 

Many victims fear losing their partner’s support, whether it be financial, fear of losing custody of their children, or loss of immigration status.  The psychological effects of abuse also make it harder to leave.  Domestic violence can be hard to spot at the beginning, but signs like threatening violence, intentionally damaging property, embarrassing, shaming, or blaming a person for all problems are early indications of abuse.  In most cases, a friend or family member is aware of domestic violence; 19% of people know a friend or family member that has been the victim of domestic violence.  Writing down and documenting every incident you witness, including date, time, location, injuries, and circumstances is essential.  Helping raise awareness in your community and making donations to local shelters can also help those struggling with domestic violence.  Know your resources, and be available to help when it comes to domestic violence.

Domestic Violence: How You Can Help

Normalyze’s Agentless Platform Provides Cyber Security Teams With Cloud Data Security Tools, Securing Sensitive Data Across All Public Clouds

Normalyze recently secured a Series A funding round of $22.2 million, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Battery Ventures. This round brings the company’s total funding to $26.6 million to date. Lightspeed is a multi-stage VC firm focused on accelerating disruptive innovations and trends in the enterprise, consumer, and health sectors. The most recent round of funding it has received will be used to expand the engineering and DevOps teams and roll out the company’s go-to-market and sales strategies.

The Normalyze agentless platform employs several tools and analytics to provide cyber security teams with access to data discovery, data classification, risk prioritization, and actionable remediation insights. This allows security teams, CISOs, GRC professionals, and DevOps teams to view their entire cloud infrastructure. They can see in one concise place where their most essential data resides and can then prioritize the securing of that data based on risk. This way, enterprises always know that their most important data is secure.

The duo behind this exciting new venture is Silicon Valley entrepreneur Amer Deeba and Netskope founder Ravi Ithal. Both have been instrumental in gaining insight into the problems faced by enterprise cyber security teams. When Ravi Ithal approached potential investors with an idea about developing a cloud data security platform, he envisioned a comprehensive solution. It would provide a complete view of an organization’s data stores, and then prioritize the value of that data, detail who has access to that data, the associated system vulnerabilities surrounding that data, and more. 

Ravi Ithal is the co-founder and CTO of Normalyze. He has an extensive background in enterprise and cloud security. Before Normalyze, Ravi was the cofounder and chief architect of Netskope, a leading provider of cloud-native solutions to businesses for data protection and defense against threats in the cloud. Before Netskope, Ravi was one of the founding engineers of Palo Alto Networks. Before his time at Palo Alto Networks, Ravi held engineering roles at Juniper and Cisco. 

Amer Deeba is an expert in enterprise security products and outbound communication. The co-founder and CEO at Normalyze, he is a senior go-to-market executive with extensive experience in driving both product, marketing, and sales go-to-market strategies for enterprise and cloud technologies. In his 17 years tenure at Qualys, Amer led all aspects of marketing, business development, strategic alliances, and global enterprise accounts. He also played an instrumental role in taking the company public in 2012.

“Today’s enterprises find their data scattered throughout their various cloud environments with limited visibility of where sensitive data resides. It’s a massive problem that current cloud security offerings aren’t equipped to handle,” said Amer Deeba, cofounder and CEO at Normalyze. “We built Normalyze to classify and secure sensitive data across all public clouds.”

In the last decade, there has been a rapid increase in enterprise clouds, while artificial intelligence and machine learning systems have led to an even faster increase in the amount of enterprise data that resides in the cloud. This proves challenging to security teams as discovering, classifying, and protecting data becomes more complex.

Normalyze addresses these three challenges through one easy-to-use continuous agentless platform. The platform detects the most vulnerable structured and unstructured data once it has determined the organizations cloud systems. It then determines who has access to the data and how much access they have. Normalyze also detects and identifies the microservices in use, as well as the vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that put data at risk. Security teams, CISOs, GRC experts, and DevOps teams can examine their whole cloud architecture using Normalyze. They are provided visibility regarding their most important data in one unified place where a risk priority system allows them to assess what data is most at risk. This provides organizations with a critical strategic advantage where their most critical data is always secure with fewer resources needed to do so. 

Since not all data has equal value, understanding where to concentrate their efforts given the limited resources available is critical. Unfortunately, most IT departments lack a sophisticated set of data management capabilities to determine what data lives where in the cloud. As a result, an agentless platform offers cybersecurity teams an option that is less capital intensive which helps determine where data sits without having to re-engineer application infrastructures.

The platform then combines all this data security information and presents it in a graph, connecting every component required to detect enterprise cloud data, correlate risks, and offer the information required for priority repair. Remediation efforts can be sent to a service management platform, or alternative automated steps might be implemented. To address the vulnerability, certain organizations or persons can be notified, or measures can be made to deny access.

“Our graph-powered platform is a hub that connects all data with assets, identities, accesses, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities to help security teams continuously discover sensitive information, determine attack paths and automate remediation efforts to secure it,” said Ravi Ithal, Normalyze co-founder and CTO.

“We are the only platform that is combining data with identity, access, configs, and vulnerabilities to give customers a holistic view about their cloud data security posture and help them orchestrate remediation efforts across all three clouds”.

News of the platform emerging from stealth has been met with a general atmosphere of excitement from the industry with many CISOs remarking upon its use cases. “It’s ideal that I can use the same platform as my engineers and DevOps teams, giving us the ability to visualize our cloud environments in real-time and create signatures that combine sensitive data with access details, configurations, and vulnerabilities to continuously discover attack paths and drive remediation,” said Bernard Brantley, CISO at Corelight.

Normalyze is being marketed as a freemium product allowing its benefits to reach the maximum number of enterprises, with its premium membership prices at $14,995/year. 

5 Signs You’re Outgrowing Your IT Department

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As a growing business, you may find that your IT department is no longer able to keep up with your company’s needs. Here are 5 signs that your business has outgrown its IT department:

1. You’re constantly waiting on IT support

If you find yourself constantly waiting for someone from the IT department to help you with simple tasks, it’s a sign that your current set-up isn’t working. When you outsource your IT, you’ll have access to a team of IT professionals who can help you with whatever you need, when you need it.

2. You’re not able to keep up with the latest technology

If your IT department is struggling to keep up with the latest technology, it’s time to outsource. When you outsource IT, you’ll have access to the latest and greatest technology, so you can stay ahead of the competition.

3. You’re paying too much for IT support

If you’re paying too much for your current IT support, it’s time to look into outsourcing. When you outsource your IT, you’ll be able to save money on support costs.

4. You’re not getting the level of support you need

If you’re not getting the level of support you need from your IT department, it’s time to consider outsourcing. When you outsource your IT, you’ll have access to a team of IT professionals who can help you with whatever you need.

5. You’re ready to scale your business

If you’re ready to scale your business, it’s time to outsource your IT. When you outsource your IT, you’ll have access to a team of IT professionals who can help you with whatever you need, so you can focus on growing your business.

Grow Your Business

Outsourcing IT can be a great way to save money and get the level of support you need to grow your business. If you’re ready to scale your business, research companies and find the right fit for your business.

7 Tips for Keeping Your Kidneys Healthy

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Your kidneys are two of the most important organs in your body. They filter your blood, removing waste and excess fluid. They also produce hormones that regulate blood pressure, red blood cell production, and calcium metabolism.

Unfortunately, kidney disease is relatively common, affecting about 1 in 7 adults in the United States. But there are things you can do to keep your kidneys healthy and reduce your risk of developing kidney disease.

Here are 7 tips for keeping your kidneys healthy.

1. Keep blood pressure under control

High blood pressure is a leading cause of kidney disease. So it’s important to keep your blood pressure under control if you want to protect your kidneys. If you have high blood pressure, your doctor may also prescribe medication to help lower it.

2. Drink plenty of fluids

Drinking six to eight glasses of water a day helps flush out toxins from your body and prevents kidney stones from forming.

3. Eat a healthy diet

A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains helps keep your kidneys healthy by maintaining a healthy blood pressure and preventing obesity.

4. Exercise regularly

Exercise helps reduce the risk of developing kidney disease by keeping your blood pressure under control and your weight down.

5. Don’t smoke

Smoking increases your risk of developing kidney disease and can damage the blood vessels in your kidneys.

6. Limit alcohol consumption

Drinking too much alcohol can also damage your kidneys and lead to kidney disease.

7. Get regular checkups

See your doctor for regular checkups and screenings, especially if you have a family history of kidney disease.

Healthy Kidneys

Keeping your kidneys healthy is important for your overall health and well-being. By following these tips, you can help keep your kidneys healthy and reduce your risk of developing kidney disease.

5 Ways to Increase Workplace Productivity

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If you are trying to find ways to increase workplace productivity, there are a number of things that you can do. By taking some simple steps, you can make sure that your employees are able to work more efficiently and effectively.

1. Make sure that employees have the right tools

In order to work effectively, employees need to have the right tools. This means providing them with the right software, the right hardware, and the right resources. By making sure that they have everything they need, you can help to increase their productivity.

2. Encourage collaboration

When employees are able to work together, they can be more productive. Collaboration can help to reduce the amount of time that is wasted on tasks that could be completed more quickly if they were working together.

3. Set clear goals

When employees know what is expected of them, they are more likely to be productive. Be sure to set clear goals and deadlines, and provide any necessary resources or training to help employees meet those expectations.

4. Provide feedback

Giving employees feedback can help to increase their productivity. Feedback allows employees to know what they are doing well and what they need to improve upon. Be sure to recognize and reward employees who go above and beyond is a great way to show that you appreciate their hard work and dedication. This can help motivate other employees to do the same.

5. Encourage breaks

While it may seem counterintuitive, encouraging employees to take breaks can actually help to increase their productivity. Regular breaks can help employees stay fresh and focused, and avoid burnout.

Increase Productivity

Try implementing these five tips to help increase workplace productivity. By taking some simple steps, you can make a big difference in the way that your employees work.