Looking to give your retail space a fresh new vibe? Want to freshen up your decor - without breaking the bank?

Investing in a few cans of spray paint is one of the most affordable, effective, and easiest ways to breathe new life into your outdated racks, fixtures, and signage. Available in virtually every color and finishes designed for both indoor and outdoor applications, with a little creativity spray paint can deliver an impressive return on investment for your retail space.

Freshen Up Your Furnishings
Give your retail racks, display cases, and counter tops a fresh look with a coat of spray paint. Because today's spray paint comes in specialty formulations for everything from wood to metal and plastics, you can quickly give low-priced, ready-made furnishing a custom look.

Replace Window Coverings With Frosted Glass Spray Paint
While curtains, blinds, and drapes work well to conceal storage spaces, diffuse direct sunlight, and provide privacy for dressing rooms, they can also be tough to keep clean in a busy retail space.

Frosted glass spray paint makes it easy to reduce the transparency of any indoor glass surface in a way that's clean, modern, and attractive. This innovative spray paint product looks great on everything from glass table tops to glass storage cabinet doors, and because it still allows some light in, it's great for spaces where you want to achieve privacy without blocking out the light.

Metallic Spray Paint
If you love the look of bronze, stainless steel, or matte nickle, be sure to check out the latest in metallic spray paints. These eye-catching paints are great for adding a touch of class to everything from door hardware to light fixtures and table tops, giving you the tools you need to upgrade what you already own.

Although metallic spray paints do cost more than most spray paints, they're still a bargain when you compare the cost with buying a ready-made fixture with the same finish.

Use Stencils For A Custom Look
Remember, most types of spray paint work well with stencils, giving you a low-cost way to add your business name or logo to everything from your front door to wall clocks and chairs. You can create your own custom stencils following the directions here, or contact your local sign shop to have some professional stencils made.

If you have a small business, you probably wonder from time to time whether you need an app. After all, you already have a website. Isn't that enough?

We encourage local businesses in our community to keep up to date with technology — and for many, that now means having an app dedicated to your business. Take a look at some of the reasons to consider upgrading your tech and developing an app.

An App Keeps You Visible to Consumers
The average person now spends more than two hours a day scrolling through their mobile devices. Don't you want to be visible to all those viewers? If your app is on a user's phone, they see your logo every time they unlock and use their device.

An App Lets You Connect With Customers Via the App Stores
Apple's App Store gets millions of hits each day. So does Google Play, the app store for the Android platform. When you have your own app, your business can leverage its spot in the app stores by optimizing content to be seen there. You'll attract more downloads, send traffic to your website, and get the kind of backlinks that help boost your page on search engines.

Your Tech-Savvy Customers Would Love an App
If you market your products or services to people who are particularly tech-savvy or who spend a lot of time on their phones, then they're ready and waiting for an app from you. If they already are fans of your content on social media platforms, then an app gives them more of what they already love.

Your Competitors Already Have an App
Why give your competitors an advantage? If they have one, surely you don't want to be behind the curve, losing your customers to them?

An App Provides Better Value to Your Customers
You want your customers to be engaged with your brand. Creating an app is a great way to facilitate that engagement. Use your app to create a loyalty program that rewards app subscribers for purchases — which in turn motivates them to make more purchases. If you want to be really high-tech, let your customers pay from your app to speed up transactions.

An App Creates a Direct Marketing Channel to Your Customers
With an app, you can push notifications of special promotions, sales, and offers directly to the people who are most likely to take advantage of them. When you connect with your best customers this way, you provide real value.

For many businesses here in our region, having an app is a great way to boost customer engagement and keep your company visible to your potential customers. We encourage you to use tech to keep your brand and our entire community moving forward.

If you're like many restaurant owners who think a menu is just a list of the food that you serve, you're not alone, but you're also misguided. There's a prevailing thought that even permeates some of the best restaurants in the country that simply typing out your options for food and beverages and calling it a day will get the job done.

You may not realize that some dishes make you more money than others, and having a menu that's too extensive won't benefit you or your guests. We want to help by giving you some tips to optimize your business and make more money: Here's how to use basic psychology to improve business, using a few small changes to your menu.

1. Optimize the Number of Options

There's a psychological theory known as the "paradox of choice" in which studies have found that although people may say they want more choices, they really don't. Quite the contrary, actually. The theory states that the more choices people have, the more anxiety they feel about making a choice.

So what can you do? It's simple. Reduce the number of dishes on your menu to a selection of your showcase dishes: your best-selling items (which should also be the items with higher profit margins). Guests have a great meal without having to make a tough decision, and you make money by having to buy (and waste) fewer ingredients for dishes that don't sell.

1. Ditch the Dollar Sign
   

Although it seems obvious, the dollar sign is a clear indicator of cost when processed in the brain. Without the dollar sign, guests are less likely to think of it as a representation of the money they're about to spend, and more likely just a number meaningless out of context.

1. Take Advantage of Language

If you're running a full-service, sit-down restaurant, make your menu reflect the atmosphere. Studies have shown that customers respond to the language used on menus, so much so that in a study where the same red wine was served twice, first labeled as being from California, and then again as North Dakota, the California wine won out overwhelmingly, simply because of California's reputation as the producer of finer wines.

People are fooled by what they read and it informs the way the experience what they consume. For example, instead of using a term like "spicy mayo" for a condiment, — which sounds more like something you'd find on a fast food sandwich — consider listing it as "zesty chipotle aioli".

1. Use Photos Whenever Possible

The mind is trained to want to see something before a person orders it, so if there are pictures on the menu, those dishes will naturally be your best sellers. Put high-quality images of your showcase items on your menu, those with higher profit margins, and you'll see orders for those items increase.

We're not saying you should trick your customers, by any means. We're just saying you're missing an opportunity if your current menu is just a few pages with words on it, and that definitely won't get your guests excited to eat at your restaurant.