Hayden Panettiere and Wladimir Klitschko Expecting First Child

By Laura Seaman

Hayden Panettiere is pregnant! Panettiere and fiancé Wladimir Klitscko are expecting their first child, a source tells UsMagazine.com . The couple has been engaged for a year, and have been dating on and off since 2009. “I’ve lived a very big life, and I don’t feel my age, and I feel like I was born to be a mother,” said Panettiere. “Motherhood is the most beautiful, exciting thing, and there’s nothing that I feel like I can’t accomplish while having children in my life.”

How does your relationship change when you have a child?

Cupid’s Advice:

Having a baby is a huge step in any relationship. You and your partner are going from being a couple to being parents. You’re responsible for another life, and that baby won’t be a baby forever. It’s a lifetime responsibility, and you have to be ready for the changes that come with it:

1. There’s less alone time and more family time. When you have a child, you need to know where they are and what they’re doing 24/7. With such a demanding new role, it’s no wonder that you and your partner will have less time alone with each other. Learn to take advantage of your time together and make the most of family time.

Related: Hayden Panettiere Supports Beau Wladimir klitschko at Boxing Championchip

2. Work should take a back seat for a while. As committed as you are to your job, but have to be even more committed to your family. You can’t expect one person to do all the work, so even if you’re the breadwinner for you family, you need to make sure you do your part and spend time with your new baby.

Related: 10 Date Ideas for Married Couples with Kids

3. Watch your health and habits. There’s a chance that some of your previous habits weren’t child friendly. For example, smoking in the house or around the baby is a big no-no. Maybe you’re a bit of a slob, and you leave things around the house. There’s a chance some of those things might not be good for the baby to find. Just make sure you’ve adjusted your life to fit the new addition to your family.

What are some other ways your relationship changes when you have a child? Share your thoughts below.

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Jumping Into the Deep End: Why Negative User Reviews Are a Good Thing

Fact: People are five times more likely to post a user review when they are upset. This means that the Internet is full of negative reviews, and some of your most important traffic and shares often go towards those Debbie Downers. And it’s not just on Yelp! or TripAdvisor anymore. Your small graphic design or mechanics’ shop is up for scrutiny too. So why should you put yourself out there? And how do you respond? Have no fear, we’re here to offer you a guide on how to respond to negative reviews.

Should I just skip having user reviews altogether?

Well, you do have a point there. If you don’t participate, they can’t hate. But there are always going to be independent user review sites (like us) that you cannot control. And simply choosing not to participate in a volatile online world — from social media to opinion and review pages — leaves a suspicious hole in your messaging. Plus because just because you want to ignore it (la la la, I’m not listening…) doesn’t mean it’s going to go away.

Plus, if you don’t have a negative review once in awhile, folks will start to think your business or your reviews aren’t legit.

We say put your neck out there and you might be surprised how you can avoid digital execution.

7 Reasons to Respond to a Negative User Review

1. Fixes the problem


2. Makes the customer happy


3. Maybe so happy they turn into brand ambassadors


4. Publicly shows you have conscientious customer support


5. Gains leads by showing how great that customer support is


6. Nips things in the bud before they get out of control

And don’t just go and put your neck out there is not only participating in potentially nasty forums, but it’s also about having a social media presence. No matter what your biz is, your customers are on social media. In fact, like good little lemmings, 55 percent of all clients are scoping you out of social media before pulling out that credit card.

And don’t just sniff at socials because of their potentially negative repercussions or because you so you don’t have time. Companies that actively use Twitter double their leads, plus each Tweet counts as a sort of backlink. Just like in independent user reviews, you should respond to both the positive and negative. And (unless you’ve a pottymouth on your hands) don’t delete negative reviews! It’ll make you look like your company is trying to hide something. Plus, you’ll just tick them off into posting even more negative comments on even more sources.

Instead schedule a response with a social media marketing app. Here at GetApp, we use a combination of Oktopost and Hootsuite to keep up to date on what folks are saying about us and to well-time our responses, cross-platform shares and the like. And while I’m all for staying disconnected on the weekend, I love the Hootsuite mobile app because I can give mentions a quick look-through a couple times a day just so I can make sure there are no fires to put out publicly.

10 Golden Tricks for Responding to a Negative Review

“Great customer service comes down to responsiveness, which manifests itself in many different ways. Responsiveness not only means responding to a customer’s question or need quickly, but also solving it completely and anticipating follow-up questions or needs. The customer should know they can rely on you to value their time and, even if you can’t answer their issue in one conversation, they know you’ll get back to them with a resolution.” It seemed like a great idea to kick off this list with these insightful words from Kelly Lorenz, director of marketing programs at the ITSM tool Samanage, which focuses on IT Service Desk and Asset Management.

And here are those ten tricks to help you being awesome and responsive:

1. Take a deep breathe.


2. Remember it’s not just the angry client who is reading it.


3. Create an account to respond to wherever it is as human from the company.


4. Admit “It was our bad.” (Just don’t get defensive!)


5. Offer a fix.


6. Publicly post the fix because:
   
   A. It’ll prevent in the future
   
   B. Will respond to other clients who haven’t asked the question yet.


7. Reply as quickly as possible.


8. And then try to move the conversation offline.


9. Mind your manners and say thank you!


10. Again, don’t delete it!

Our low, mobile-induced attention span has humankind becoming more and more impatient, but it’s assumed across the board that you will be quicker to respond and to respond accurately. You really need to respond to each and every negative review. And fast.

**Don’t focus on apologizing so much as focus on finding and explaining a solution.**

Whenever possible, in the public forum show that you are addressing the problem and maybe even share the solution with the world, but then go ahead and try to steer the conversation offline. You want to look responsive, but you don’t want to go airing your dirty laundry.

75% of Negativity: Customer Support

On GetApp.com, we have nearly 4,000 independent user reviews. About eight percent of those are negative — considering that statistic of how much more motivated dissatisfied customers are, we’re quite happy with that. But alas, we do have a sad statistic: we find that a whopping 75 percent of all the negative user reviews are regarding customer support. This is a twinge ironic since a huge number of cloud-based business apps are customer service and help desk apps.

Of course, while only eight percent of our reviews are negative, that doesn’t mean our clients don’t have high churn. According to our friends at HappyFox Help Desk, “96 percent of unhappy customers don’t complain, however 91 percent of those will simply leave and never come back.” Then how do you know if your clients are unhappy? Through tracking and constantly evaluating your customer success reps.

And what do you look for? We asked Eric Harrington, co-founder of TeamSupport Help Desk Software What is the key to great customer service? It’s simple: “Knowing your customer and their needs, excellent team communication.” So where are you and your team getting stuck behind the eight ball in bad customer support.

Don’t have a whole ecosystem where you need a full-on customer support software to respond to customer requests? Maybe you should try a simpler app that just gets you barebones responses from your clients like Engagor Customer Engagement and Insights Software which can be as simple as asking McDonald’s customers to rate their experience with a Happy, a Mediocre or Sad Face. You can monitor overall feeling for any given day, week or month, and then give something away to boost their moods or ask them to share with their friends when there’s a trend of satisfaction.

Satisfied Customer? Ask ‘em for a response

Yes, we cannot suggest enough, you should never delete a bad review. But if you feel you have full satisfied your client, by asking: “Are you fully satisfied? Do you have anything else I can help you with?” then you can ask them: “Would you mind terribly either removing your comment, or, even better, add to it and talk about your experience?” Sometimes, you’re going to have issues. Even better than getting them to delete, is taking the opportunity for them to retract their comments and showing that you are a company dedicated to customer service and working through problems together with your clients.

Don’t let customer support be the ball that drops

Just remember, an occasional negative review is normal — just as long as it’s surrounded by positive ones. Just take note of how they are adding up. If you notice a trend in poor customer service, that must become your number one priority, plain and simple.

And it might be time to consider tracking, automating and filtering some of your customer service with a help desk and customer support app . We know you’re busy but the one thing you don’t want to fall through the cracks is your client base.

How do YOU respond to negativity?

This is always an awkward but pretty much mandatory moment in your business. Can YOU tell us a time when you received a negative review and when you worked through it? Or maybe you failed to but learned a big lesson? Please share it with us in the comments below!

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This Captcha Alternative is a Million Times Better than Alphabet Soup

In the past, I’ve made no secret about my hatred toward captchas. They’re awkward, confusing, and half the time, absolutely impossible to solve. It’s as if the search engine wants you to fail. And even though Google seems to think I’m half spam-bot (I get at least one Google-prompted captcha per working day, which I’ll take as a compliment), I’m still not accustomed to their difficult nature.

Which is why I was super pumped to hear about a growing captcha alternative. One that lets you play games (games!) instead of muddling your way through unrecognizable letters. Just match the correct food items or play a single hole of put-put golf and you’re on your way to the next web destination. Without having to deal with retrys or angry pops up.

The Captcha Solution

Known as Are You A Human, this game ups the level of fun while eliminating frustration. (Seriously, who makes those things? The inventor of expert level crossword puzzles?) Rather than identifying and guessing, users can hop into a theme and perform a simple, yet fun, task. And bam – the captcha is unlocked.

As angry as I am every time a traditional decoder pops up, I have never been the least bit angry at playing an impromptu computer game. It’s like a midday treat.

Best of all, it’s super fast – and it works. No more guessing or wondering how in the crap to figure out the game. Just follow the instructions, have about 30 seconds of fun, and move on with life. Like what all captchas should do. Sure they’re necessary to weed out spam, and it’s true that hackers can mimic certain patterns, but why didn’t someone think of this sooner? By rotating games and requiring specific movements, only a person can actually get through. And without all the headaches.

Thanks Are you a Human for making my so life better. If I could hug you, I totally would.

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The Curriculum Vitae Is Dead. Arise The Social Vitae.

If I had a British Pound every time someone said to me “I don’t have time for social networking” or “I’m too old for that stuff”, I would be retired and living abroad by now. The harsh reality is that participating in social is not longer and option – it’s a necessity. Just the other day a friend of mine told me that her husband was made redundant after many years in the same job. He diligently updated his CV and started approaching agencies. Nothing. After several months he updated his LinkedIn profile, started networking and within weeks he was approached about a new role.

There’s a whole new world of recruitment out there and it’s time to wake up and smell the digital coffee. Just over 90% of recruiters use or plan to use social media in their recruitment efforts and 74% have actually hired through social media. Not only that, 42% of recruiters have reconsidered a candidate based on what they’ve seen via social media and only 1.5% expect the job market to get less competitive (Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey 2013). This is the reality of the situation.

Whether you like it or not, you’re running a business. A business about you. If you cannot market yourself, you will be overlooked.

Saying what your good at is no longer acceptable. You have to demonstrate it. In the same way that B2B buyers are 60% through the buying process before they engage a vendor, a head hunter is most of the way through the selection process before they pick up the phone and approach you. They’re scanning candidates (mostly on LinkedIn) and making decisions based on what they see. If you want to stand a chance in the job market in 2014 you have to clean up your online profile and get busy updating your professional vitae. This isn’t a task for when you’re looking for your next role. It’s a task you should be constantly updating.

Here are some tips:

• Your Image: Search for your name in Google. Do you come up on the first page? Great. Now check the images. This view will determine whether you need to tidy up your Facebook privacy settings or not


• Your Network: Recruiters don’t just look at your profile anymore. They look at the network you’ll potentially bring to the business. Ten years ago this only applied to sales guys – a nice golden handshake because they brought their contacts with them. This is applies to everyone now. As organisations move towards a social business model, everyone becomes an ambassador and their network is a valuable asset. Build it. Nurture it. Protect it.


• Your Skills: What do you want to be known for? What skills are your strengths? Once you know this, make sure you get into your LinkedIn profile and update the Skills section. Delete the ones you don’t want. If you don’t control this section of your LinkedIn profile it will grow organically and you’ll be endorsed for skills you may not want to be associated with


• Your Experience: It’s important to demonstrate the breadth of your experience and I don’t mean listing out the companies you have worked for. You need to demonstrate where you’ve added value, projects you’ve contributed to, people you’ve supported


• Your Personality: A blog is a great way to get your personality across. It should be authentic, personal and reflect the kind of language you would use if you met someone in person. It’s also a great opportunity to share your insights and expertise. A blog will set you apart from other candidates


• Your Reputation: Get some references on LinkedIn. Most companies these days will not give references like they used to. They just provide the standard contract employment dates. Your LinkedIn recommendations are the only place where people can get insight into how you are to work with. Recruiters are looking for cultural fit so make sure you update this section whether you like it or not

Let me know if you have any other tips to add.

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Dear Marketers, Enough with the Fluff

As a marketer, it’s no surprise that I’m inundated with content on a daily basis. I check through at least a dozen Google Alerts every morning, browse through SocialMediaToday and MarketingProfs, and receive tons of e-mails about articles I should be reading.

Recently, I’ve also had the chance to attend a few industry conferences and hear from marketing professionals, SEO experts, and branding thought-leaders. Basically, I’m inundated with content from every possible direction, both on and offline. The problem is, much of this content, as well as the guest lectures, share one common theme: they don’t actually teach you anything. I often read an article or listen to a lecture with this feeling of anticipation for the “valuable takeaway” – the part where I learn something that can actually impact my work. More often than not, I end up being disappointed and walk away with little insight or actionable suggestions that I can use to improve my approach.

The truth is, I’m tired of reading blog posts with vague advice on how to engage with audiences, write incredible content, and generate leads. There are so many of them that offer little more than sweeping generalizations about the need to connect with buyers and post daily on social media, or worse, the ones that just outline current marketing trends. Point being, I should be able to read a blog post or listen to a lecture and leave with at least one actionable tip I can implement. I’m not saying there’s no room for descriptive content or opinions, just that you want the people listening to you or reading your articles to remember you as offering something valuable and practical – and not just another fluff piece which just ends up being a waste of time.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few exceptions, websites such as Social Media Examiner and KISSMetrics often post articles with detailed advice, step-by-step action plans and tested strategies. Unfortunately, this kind of content is hard to come by. I’d prefer not to read another piece about the importance of originality in marketing, or what questions I need to be asking myself before writing. Even worse, I definitely don’t need content that’s chock full of gobbledygook which glosses over any actual solution to a problem. What I need is actual advice that I can put into action – whether it’s for e-mail campaigns, social media marketing, website content, lead generation, or blog posts.

It’s hard to continually come up with actionable tips, but your audience will appreciate you so much more for it. These types of articles usually entail a list of recommendations, with either text or visual examples under each one, to really drive the point home. Here are a few examples from my own writing that show how you can take a generic topic and turn it into something useful for your readers:

Preparing for a Marketing Conference

Gobbledygook: Implement unique and creative branding to stand out at your next event.

Actual Advice: Print customized t-shirts for team members who attend, order branded lanyards with your company’s logo, come prepared with brochures and spare business cards.

E-mail Marketing Strategies

Gobbledygook: Nurture leads with engaging e-mail campaigns that capture their attention.

Actual Advice: Use 2 or more designed call-to-action buttons instead of plain-text hyperlinks, avoid using the word “submit,” go with: register here, try us, sign up here, keep subject lines less than 50 characters, send e-mails from a personal instead of a generic company e-mail.

Targeting Prospective Clients

Gobbledygook: Connect with industry thought-leaders and prospects in online communities.

Actual Advice: Set up Google Alerts to track keywords and contact relevant authors by finding their e-mail using Rapportive, join LinkedIn Groups and post questions that people care about and follow up with replies, search for targeted conversations in Quora and recommend your product or service in the answers where relevant.

That wasn’t so hard, right? Doesn’t it feel much better to read a tip you can actually do something with rather than waste time on another pointless article? There probably isn’t a marketer out there – including myself of course, who hasn’t committed the fluff offense. There’s so much pressure to generate a constant stream of content that, sometimes, it’s difficult to offer real tips and just easier to fall back on a generalized description of a recent trend. Despite this, remember that you audience isn’t looking for just another post, and it’s much more likely they’ll remember you and share your content if you provide advice they can actually test out and put to good use.

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Focus on the “Power of One” to Transform Your Business

It’s a sure bet that you use a variety of online services. For instance, you may use something like Dropbox to share files or Google Drive. Alternatively, you might use WordPress for some of your web activity or a bespoke content management system for others. At the same time you probably write notes on paper as well as using some online system like OneNote or Evernote.

But here’s the problem. When we use a variety of systems like these our brain doesn’t really know what to do. Should you share that file using Dropbox or Google Drive? Should you write your meeting notes in a Moleskine Notebook or in Evernote? Should you start that new website in WordPress or something else?

The problem of too much choice means we keep changing our minds. It also means confusion.

If you sometimes use Dropbox to share items and sometimes Google Drive you do not subconsciously know what to do, out of habit. This means you have to make a conscious decision. That takes longer – often much longer.

It also means that you do not get to know the system as well as someone who is using it as their sole method of achieving something, whether that is blogging, sharing files, sending emails or writing notes. You have to keep learning the system each time you use it because the last time you used something else.

Use the “power of one”

The “power of one” is surprisingly quite phenomenal. If you stick to one thing – whether that is writing all your notes in a single notebook, or only using Google Drive instead of the plethora of online file sharing services, you will discover that you are more productive. This arises from better knowledge of the system and more rapid decision-making.

Imagine you take notes in different ways. You might have a notebook for meetings, an Evernote system for filing away odds and ends, as well as a set of notes for personal things in a document on Google Drive. This is not unusual. But what happens when you need to look something up to gain the details? Should you look in your notebook, on Evernote or in your Google Drive? Because you have not got everything in one place, you look in all three – wasting time and reducing psychological focus. If everything was in your Evernote system, or all on Google Drive or all in a notebook you would know exactly where to look.

The same is true for email. I know some people who claim they can separate their email into GMail for personal stuff, Outlook for business and a third system for handling marketing messages. This is wasting their time and creating subconscious psychological confusion which is hitting their productivity. What they perceive as a productive system, is actually a psychological time-waster and something that reduces their ability to think, because their mental resources end up being spent on “sorting out” their systems, and not using them.

One thing boosts productivity

Online productivity is falling. People are spending more time flitting between a variety of services, simply because there is so much choice. We do not like to feel we are missing out.

However, if you stick to just one thing – such as Dropbox for all your file sharing or Google Drive – then your subconscious knows exactly what to do. Plus as you use the system more, much of it becomes habit-forming, reducing the conscious effort you need to use the system.

The same is true for your note taking. Either use Evernote or OneNote or pen and paper for everything, but don’t mix your systems.

And when it comes to email, one system for all your messages, personal, business and marketing will actually make you more productive because of the impacts this single system has on your ability to cope.

If you want to boost your online productivity, stop using so many online services. Stick to one for each task.

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10 Ways Small Businesses Can Obtain Funding

Starting a business requires some combination of moxie and money. While moxie is something an entrepreneur innately has or doesn’t have, money can be obtained in a variety of ways. An enlightened entrepreneur will weigh his or her options to decide which avenues are best suited for the fledgling organization.

This list is not an endorsement of one method over another.

1. Angel investor/Venture capitalist (Direct transfer of funds)

Most companies specialize in selling products and services to customers and not on raising capital. These companies can turn to third parties to raise money for them. Perhaps one of the most common ways a company can get off the ground is through an angel investor or a venture capitalist. An angel investor is a wealthy private investor who provides funds in exchange for company stocks and/or bonds. A venture capitalist is similar but can be an investment firm or an individual. This method is called private placement because the securities are offered and sold directly to a handful of investors.

This method is good from the company’s perspective because most of the monetary risk is assumed by the angel investor or venture capitalist, but its drawbacks are that the company splits ownership with the investor and usually owes them deference.

2. Investment banker (Indirect transfer of funds)

Another option for raising funds is to go through an investment banking firm. Often, an investment banking firm will work with other investment bankers when helping a company raise capital. They will buy all the company’s securities and then resell them to the investing public for a profit. This is a public offering. Both individual and institutional investors have the opportunity to purchase the securities. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are examples of banks that perform investment banking duties.

3. Financial intermediary (Indirect transfer of funds)

A financial intermediary is another option for raising funds. In this instance, the intermediary issues its own securities to individuals in exchange for funds that it then uses to acquire the securities of the company in need of funds. With this option, the company raises money in a more roundabout way.

4. Bank loan

This option is on the table, but it’s perhaps the least advisable method of raising capital for a business. In fact, billionaire Mark Cuban has said, “If you’re starting a business and you take out a loan, you’re a moron.” This is because by taking out a loan you assume all the risk single-handedly. If the business fails, you’re still obligated to repay the loan plus interest. If you put down an asset as collateral (like your house), you could end up losing it.

Also, the bank won’t be committed to the success of your company the same way an investor would be. So, it’s probably best to consider other options. In fact, Mark Cuban has also said you can start a business with next to no capital anyway. “Small businesses don’t fail for lack of capital,” he said. “They fail for lack of brains. They fail for lack of effort.”

5. Friends and family

You’ve probably heard that it’s not a good idea to do business with friends and family. Asking them for money to start a business isn’t the most advisable option. It might be hard to live down if the business fails, and they might expect their investment back. However, some friends and family members make good business partners, so don’t completely discount it.

6. Crowdfunding platforms

There are fundraising sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo that allow users to create campaigns for various projects where anyone can donate. Although these sites are geared more toward funding independent creative projects like films, music and books, there’s no reason they can’t be used to develop a product or service. There are some controversies surrounding these sites though. For example, it’s hard to monitor whether people actually use the money to do what they said they would, but that hasn’t stopped these sites from enabling some hugely successful campaigns.

7. Self-funded

Some of the most successful companies have been started with a shoestring budget in a garage. For example, Hewlett-Packard was started with just $538 in a garage and is today one of the biggest technology companies in the world. Other examples of companies started in garages include Microsoft, Apple, Google, Disney, Mattel and Amazon. In other cases, businesses have been started on the side by people who maintain unrelated jobs.

8. Government grants

Of all the options available for funding a business, this is perhaps the biggest shot in the dark, but there are grants available for certain types of businesses. Most government grants for small businesses are reserved for the research and development efforts of companies in the medical, scientific and environmental conservation fields. There is a lot of competition for these grants. They have strings attached. For example, detailed accounts of expenditures must be kept, thorough audits are conducted, goals must be set, approved and followed exactly.

9. Other grant-giving foundations

There are other grant-giving foundations, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation that are designed to enable projects aimed at addressing major world problems.

10. Unconventional miscellany

There are other more unconventional methods for raising capital. For example, on the TV show Shark Tank hopeful entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of potential investors. This is basically the same as the first option on this list (funding from an angel investor). Also, there are various invention conventions where inventors can show off their products in hopes of attracting attention.

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