Schlagwort-Archive: small business

How to Create Your Future in Five Steps

Or is the future a place to which you are just going?

If people are to survive in difficult times they must hone their minds and think more effectively. The many fortunes commenced in the Great Depression of the 1920s and ’30s are probably attributable to this. Other and more recent economic downturns have seen similar successes arise.

So where will this leave you in these current economic conditions?

Your personal views of the future will change when you make your own luck and in doing so you will change your own capabilities and skills. Luck is something you make for yourself.

The challenges you will face as a small business owner and manager in the year ahead are certainly greater than you are likely to have faced so far in your own lifetime. But with these challenges come opportunities, opportunities to create your own future. The alternative is to be lead into somebody else’s future, and to accept the inevitable consequences.

Take these five steps to create your future.

1. Focus on your key customers

Can you identify your key customers? Your key customers are those customers in the market niches which provide the majority of your profits.

Compared to other customers, key customers will buy from you in larger amounts and more frequently. They do so because they believe they have developed a relationship with you based on trust, trust built upon your meeting their needs and solving the emotional, personal and business problems they may have.

So in difficult times you will seek to ensure that your competitors do not do not win these customers, preserving your relationship by nurturing and protecting them.

2. Prime Plan B

Despite fixing your attention on your key customers you could still be bought down if their business or industry is negatively affected by negative economic conditions. Just relying on those customers coming through the door may not be good enough.

The steady stream of key customers may slow right down if adverse economic conditions have a negative effect on their industry or business.

So have Plan B.

The essence of Plan B to to have already determined other markets that are either doing well, or are likely to do well, and identified the prospective clients in those markets. Secondly you should have established how you are going to secure them.

3. Master your business

Really knowing your business will assist you both look after your key customers, and understand how to develop Plan B customers.

Doing everything in its proper time with the data to support a little thought and analysis will go a long way to protect and improve your position at times such as these.

You will make better and more effective decisions if you are in possession of some facts and data.

4. Ensure your marketing is effective

Ineffective marketing is a waste of your time and money. There is just one justification for your marketing, and that is SALES. If your marketing is not achieving sales then it has cost you time and money for no return. Yet another profit leak.

The medium you use for your promotions needs to be targeted at your key customers, and not every Jill, Jack and Bill in the population. Now is not the time for a scatter gun approach.

Ensure your sales message attracts and keeps your prospective customer’s attention, and then leads him to take action.

5. Develop systems and procedures

All really excellent businesses have more than scraps of paper to thrust at new employees saying „This is how we do this“. They have good systems and procedures, properly documented, well laid out and readily available.

If you have been in business for a few years, it is highly likely that you have developed sound procedures. But it is equally likely that you haven’t documented them.

Formalizing your procedures makes sure that you less likely to be recovering mistakes.

You will develop your own future, changing both yourself and your destination in the process when you take take these five steps.

Want to find out more about creating your future, then visit Adam Gordon, Profits Leak Detective’s site to obtain a free copy of his 7 Clues to a Profit Leak for some useful tips on identifying profit leaks in your business.

Why Is SEO Important Anyhow?

I know that I spent a long time working online before I really understood what SEO was. I mean, I knew about keyword density and several other aspects of search engine optimization to help improve my ranking for my websites and my articles but I never really delved into what it was all about. I actually wasted a lot of time creating content that was probably never seen by human eyes over the years.

Yes, SEO or search engine optimization is just a way to help search engines find your content and your website. There are simple yet proven ways to help people to find the information and content that you provide.

One way to look at it is to imagine your site as a nondescript plain paper wrapped box. On the outside it looks like nothing special and when compared to other plain paper wrapped boxes or websites you have no idea what’s going on inside, right? So how do you let people and search engines know what you’re all about and what kind of information is contained inside your website or that plain old box? Yes, what we are talking about is SEO and it is the writing on the outside of that box telling everyone what your website is about.

There are actually to different kinds of SEO. One concerns what you do with your website and what is on the outside of that box. This is called on page search engine optimization. Different things we do with a site include header tags that we use, titles of the pages and even the name of the website is very important in your success in ranking a website well when it comes to a certain topic. How many times a certain word is included in your site also plays a key role also.

There are many on site or on page factors that tell a search engine what your website is about. While at one time it was possible to almost trick the search engines into believing that your website had more authority concerning a certain topic, the rules of the game are constantly changing and effective SEO methods need to have a balance of useful information as well as including as many of the signals as possible without making it look like you are trying to game the system.

Now, if on page SEO tells search engines what your site is about by acting as signs on your site, then there should be a way to help your site also by having factors external to your website that tell the world where your site is an what it’s about. These are off page SEO methods and they include article marketing, social bookmarking and general back-linking campaigns. These are basically signs pointing back to your site that tell search engines where you are and what your website is about also.

Again, once upon a time it was possible to game the system and trick people and search engines into believing that your site held some sort of special authority over others concerning a certain topic but without good content and natural appearing SEO, you can actually do damage to your reputation. It would be like hanging a sign that said „free beer“ pointing to your website and then not have any beer at your place. You wind up with a bunch of angry people and perhaps a black eye for your trouble.

While many of these methods are still used today, it is a very clever SEO company that knows how to make your website as natural looking as possible while still letting the world know what you’re all about. Things like natural link building and content freshness can play a big role as well as LSI keywords. As times change and people try harder to game the system, it becomes even more important to have someone that knows what they’re doing on your side when it comes to on page and off page SEO.

Go to our website to learn more about SEO and what it can do for your business. Learn how video marketing and other techniques can bring more customers to your door.

How To Properly Market Your Products From The Online

Smart people use network marketing to improve their online business. It will require some extra effort on your part. It can be difficult to know how to get started with network marketing and how to profit from it.

When you are working with network marketing, use the independent distributors that have shown wonderful leaderships skills as your mentor. This will cause you to start acting and thinking in the ways that these people would act and think, which will ultimately lead to a better success rate for you.

Don’t target your friends or family when you are network marketing, but look for new blood so as to attract fresh money into the venture. Keep in mind your network marketing goal, which is to find new customers and generate leads. When focusing on just your family and friends, you’re simply working in your inner circle, which has limits. You can have many more opportunities open up by branching out to outside prospects.

Duplicate success at every opportunity. Use your upline and leaders as role models. Determine what makes them successful, and create strategies based on what they have been doing. Imitating these people will only help you along your way to the top. Not only should we learn from our mistakes, but also from the successes of others.

Seeking out new information is key to growing a network marketing business. In order to succeed, you should spend a significant amount of time reading books about social media, network marketing and other outlets. You can learn a lot of webinars; try to attend ones hosted by network marketers that are having a lot of success, whether they’re from your company or not. Education is a wonderful resource that can help you and your customers as well.

Study and know your product very well. The passion and excitement you have about your products shows through to readers in all of the marketing materials you put together. If you believe in your product, more people are likely to sign up for your network. When you know the product, it is possible to give an accurate review of it.

You need to schedule regular meetings for your team. Your team has to work together; meeting in person will allow everyone to work together to draft their game plan and work towards mutual goals. The whole team will benefit from group meetings.

Video marketing is a good way to get people to pay attention to your campaign. For only the expense of hosting, videos let you create a marketing campaign that is rich in content.

As has been expressed in this article, many network marketing endeavors will require work and research on your part if you hope to be successful. The „doing the work“ part is especially important to your overall profits. If you integrate the above tips into your strategy, you will succeed in no time.

This author is a affiliate marketing specialist. Articles akin this can be found mlm attraction marketing. For videos go to mlm attraction marketing system

How To Spot A Genuine Home Based Business

When you take a look at ways to make money from home you will undoubtedly be flooded with promises of easy money and instant riches but there is one area which is never covered anywhere near enough and that is the legitimacy of any online business. Is it really possible to work from home with programs such as Empower Network, or is everything just a get rich quick scheme?

The problem with the home based business industry is the industry itself. It has given itself such a bad name through nonsense schemes and scams, most believe it to be physically impossible to make a genuine income from home in this day and age.

The following steps will help you to determine whether your chosen company is as genuine as it claims to be:

1) The business should be approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

2) Home businesses are also usually members of the Direct Selling Agency.

3) Organizations such as the Better Internet Bureau will be featured on their website if they have passed their screening procedure.

4) Look at the products before you do anything with the business.

Number 4 is a very important tip. Many people are sucked into opportunities by the sheer excitement and promise of an easy life, with money generating on autopilot. Ask anyone who has become their own boss and you’ll be told it is nothing like that.

One look at the product line will tell you all you need to know about the long-term prospects you can expect from the company.

The first sign of a bad home business program is a company who provides a fairly useless or overpriced product purely as a means to keep their business legal.

You can’t sell a product which is useless. It doesn’t matter if you can possibly earn a five thousand dollar monthly income with less than a hundred people in your business if you can not even find one member, right?

There is legitimate money to be made on the internet but as with most things in life there are good and there are bad out there. Even opportunities like Empower Network, which are safe and proven, will have people calling them a ’scam‘ or saying they are impossible. The potential income within any opportunity can only be realized by your own determination to become your own boss.

About the author: Russ Howe is an established leading Empower Network member. See your free video plan here Join Empower Network today.

29Prime: Facebook Adds Malware Checkpoint

On July 9th, the government did the unthinkable and decided to shut down the Internet. At exactly 12:01AM EDT, the FBI shut down certain Internet servers. These servers were created as a safety net for infected computers that have been online for eight months. Just a little more than a year ago, malware infected thousands upon thousands of computers across the world.

In this desperate attempt known as ‚Malware Monday‘, people are frantically attempting to protect their computers from this vicious virus. Chances are, you probably did not notice the shut down because it only happened to 40,000 people in the US. According to the Internet World Statistics, an estimated 2.3 billion people use the Internet.

Recently, Facebook made the decision to do something against adware and spyware. The brand new feature enables Facebook customers to do adware and spyware scans on their own accounts. This is particularly essential for business owners who believe their pages might be jeopardized. As an entrepreneur, your social networking accounts should always be free of spam and viruses.

Facebook currently has a malware scanner that detects any suspicious activity from an account. These accounts are briefly shut down and the user must go through an account recovery process. The user must download and use the McAfee Scan and Repair. Once this process is complete, the owner of the account can access it again. Fortunately, Facebook users do not have to wait for their account to be infected in order to run the scanner. You can do so whenever you’d like!

As a business owner, you should constantly monitor and protect your social media websites. Typically, your followers will turn to these websites for up-to-date information about your company and the services you provide. If you’re not protected against viruses, you risk infecting the computer systems of your consumers. Utilize this new tool to protect yourself and your business!

Read more about social media, check out the 29Prime website!

Making Sales With Internet Marketing

Internet marketing has quickly become one of the most valuable and accessible resources for business owners both online and in the community. While larger companies have no trouble pouring thousands or even millions of dollars into an online marketing campaign, small and independent businesses often lack such expansive resources. Fortunately, there are many accessible and affordable options for even those with modest budgets.

Add an option onto your site for people to send feedback to you. The best way to make the necessary improvements to make your site the best it can be is to understand what people who visit your site want. When you know what content your visitors are looking for, you can make the necessary changes to help improve your site’s quality for all.

Keep in mind that only your target audience matters. You are probably going to get some negative responses from other people. If this keeps happening, you are marketing your products to the wrong audience. Even within your target audience, you might notice that some customers are responding better than others to certain marketing strategies. Keep track of your results and start collecting data about your target audience so you can design new strategies adapted to your customers in the future.

Be certain that your prospective customers will notice your ads and be able to recall the name of your business. You have to be careful when running ads. Think about your own experience on the Internet. Do you remember every ad you see? Start paying attention to ads, determine which ads catch your attention, and analyze why that is. Then take what you have learned and apply that to your own ads.

Use the social networks your target audience prefers. You should create accounts for the most popular networks such as Facebook and Twitter and ask your customers to answer surveys on their social networking habits to find out if they use any other sites. Do not waste your time creating more accounts than necessary, but keep in mind that Twitter and Facebook are not the only sites available.

Get feedback. This is one of the most important things to do, yet marketers tend to overlook it. What do customers think of your product? Ask them in a survey, or ask them to email you about their likes and dislikes of what you have to offer. Customers may not realize how important their feedback is, so offer incentives that will make them more likely to share their thoughts with you.

Do not put up posters everywhere and make billboards for your site. You want to advertise the right way to make sure that people respect what you are doing and that people can appreciate your efforts. Go onto social media sites, send out newsletters and tell your friends to spread the word about your site. These are all great ways to get people exposed to the contents on your site.

Webmasters these days take advantage of video marketing strategies to boost their traffic and site popularity. Learn how you can enhance your site’s appeal through the power of videos here: Moving Graphics, Motion Graphics Freelancer

The Internet has brought a world of products and services to consumers, just as it has expanded companies‘ access to target markets all over the globe. With so many new competitors to contend with, the successful business is the one that is able to make the most of online marketing strategies. Regardless of financial resources, marketing via the Internet is an absolute must.

The author of this post is also a renowned webmaster of: _Solar Power FreeFence Panels

If Looking For A Same Day Courier St Paul Has Options Available

Should you be in the position of needing to hire a same day courier St Paul is capable of providing you with various companies you might use. Prior to actually selecting someone however you do need to be sure they can be trusted with your items and this then means you have to look at spending a bit of time trying to do some basic research on them.

This research will let you see that your items will indeed be in safe hands as well as knowing they have a good reputation of delivering it on time. Most of the work you will need to do can be done via the internet and the best place to begin is by doing an initial search to see the names of those companies you might need to go and call upon.

It has to be said that learning about these companies does become a lot easier if they are online which means they also own a site even if it is pretty simply as you can then learn lots of very useful things about their background. The key areas to look at include the experience they do indeed have as well as confirmation they are licensed to even operate in and around the area.

By picking up this type of information you should then end up feeling more confident about possibly hiring someone but there is something else you may want to do. This is where you spend time getting a few references and there are two methods to achieve this.

The first is to look on the internet on local websites and see if people have posted any feedback about them on there. The second approach is to contact people you know well personally and find out if they have previously used any of the names you have come across and see if they would recommend you to go ahead and hire them as well due to their own positive experiences.

The only thing you then need to consider doing is asking them what they do indeed charge and always get a series of prices wherever possible to work out who is offering the best deal. Do tell them the size of the item that is to be delivered as this will then have an impact on the price they end up quoting you.

So if you are looking to use a same day courier St Paul does indeed have a number of people you might want to end up using. Just remember to learn everything you can about them and find out what they intend to charge before selecting the company you want to use.

Learn more here: same day courier St Paul

10 Bellevue and Face-to-Face Sales: A Lesson to Business Owners

If a company or individual wishes to get more business, but their budget is limited, their options are limited as well. 10 Bellevue is a marketing firm hired by other companies to perform their sales and marketing for them. More and more companies are looking to outsource their sales and marketing efforts to other companies in an effort to focus more on their core competencies. If you are just getting your business started, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this option. They will charge you for it. However, you can do what these other companies are specializing inface-to-face interactions with business prospects and existing customers.

Just think, if a potential customer got your flyer in the mail, would a good portion of them call you and express an interest? Would they just throw the flyer away, along with all of the other ‚junk mail?‘ What are you doing that is different than your competition? Are you hopping on Photoshop to make a cool looking piece of marketing collateral? I would guarantee that your competitors are as well. 10 Bellevue is hired by giants of their industries to talk to customers. So, you should be able to do that for your company as well.

Most small businesses struggle the first five years. Most of them don’t make it. Do you want to be one of those statistics, or would you like to give everything that you’ve got into your business and see it flourish? At the end of the day, again, it doesn’t matter if you currently have more customers than you can handle, or you are just starting your business. A personal approach WILL give you the competitive edge. You’ll retain customers longer, and gain customers quicker. 10 Bellevue specializes in this and that’s all they do. Companies pay them good money to do it. Employees at 10 Bellevue don’t even work for those companies directly, yet they are motivated enough to go see people. Shouldn’t you be as motivated to expand your own business?

10 Bellevue states on their website that most channels of marketing and communication are being bogged down by the numbers of companies just trying to get their name out there and hopefully convert some views and clicks online to actual sales. Why would you want to be the same as your competition? I guarantee that even if you don’t have the coolest looking website or online presence, and you go out and meet your customers, like 10 Bellevue, you will see an increase in sales and customer retention. Getting your name out there is never good enough. At the end of the day your profits are directly controlled by your quality of service or products, and customers purchasing those products. Then, returning customers will help drive those profits. Customers need a reason to try out your services or products. Who better to give them a reason than you? I’m sure you can do a much better job at explaining your services than those flyers that you have been sending out.

The employees of 10 Bellevue didn’t create the brands that they are representing. They didn’t come up with the packaging. They simply do the sales for other companies. Why are they so compelled to do so?

The reason that 10 Bellevue employees are so motivated is because they have an opportunity to help expand the company and run a sales office of their own. That sounds pretty cool to me and I can imagine that I would be inclined to do so myself if I didn’t have a company of my own. I go out and meet customers and potential customers on a weekly basis. If I find myself wasting time on social media sites, I just go out and drum up some new business. It’s really not that hard. You have your own business, or your job is to create more business. So, be like Nike and ‚Just do it.‘

For some great lessons on sales and marketing be sure to check out http://10bellevue.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/10-bellevue/ to get some awesome information on 10 Bellevue

Stop Losing Fitness Clients: Tips for Professionals

As a fitness professional, you know how upsetting it is to see clients coming and going from your gym. It is bad for your business, but it is also bad for their health. Customers who leave gyms are often leaving more than just a fitness program. They are leaving their own health behind.

But there are some great tips you can put into practice to lower the rate of drop out in your fitness business. One of these tips has to do with measuring results. Sometimes clients leave because they do not feel like they are making any progress in their fitness goals. The solution? Be sure you do frequent measuring in your gym. Measurement tracking will give your clients solid proof that they are doing well.

Another reason customers may stop coming is because they do not have enough time to work out. The solution to this problem is simple. Just offer shorter sessions. If one hour is too long, offer thirty minutes sessions. This way, you can serve even the busiest customers.

Are your programs too hard for some of your clients? If a client cannot complete a full workout or can’t keep up with your demands, she may give up and stop coming. If this is the case with some of your clients, you may need to create some custom workout programs for them. Be sure you are catering to all fitness levels.

Motivation may be an issue for some of your disappearing clients. The best way to remedy this is to make sure they know what benefits they are getting from exercise! Educate them on the many ways they are helping themselves by working out. Sometimes they just need more information.

If you will seriously consider these tips in your fitness business, you can say goodbye to chronic, revolving-door clients for good. As you start meeting their needs, you will see your bottom line increase!

Author Vito La Fata is a fitness business professional who can help you keep keep clients coming back to your fitness business. Visit his website for more information on the fitness industry.

Melaleuca Products Top Earner Secrets Revealed: Improve Your Melaleuca Products Profits

Melaleuca Products distributors: Do you want to know how to become a top earner?

If you seek to become a top earner, you need a promotion strategy to implement because you’ll run out of friends and family to approach.

You’ve got to learn to acquire customers and business partners the way nearly all legitimate businesses do: through marketing!

Below are 3 strategies 7-figure earners taught me I have successfully used to take my business to an entirely new level:

– Instruct People How To Succed

You’ve got to do things differently to build a Melaleuca Products on the internet. It’s not the same as building a Melaleuca Products venture offline. Usually networkers approach people who know them, such as family members and friends. These are people who already know you and respect you.

On the Internet, no one knows who you are! If you lead with your opportunity on the Internet, people will tune you out.

It’s essential you signal you are trustworthy and credible. Communicate the following:

– You’re transparent and someone they can trust

– You can help the person with their business

– You have aptitudes and abilities you can teach

Prospects on the internet follow a very particular path leading up to joining Melaleuca Products or a similar business.

– The prospect reads an article, reads an email or watches a video teaching a tactics or skill useful to growing a business

– They read more articles and watch other videos by the content producer.

– They see the person as a trusted advisor

– The prospect joins the content producer’s business

Sending emails and publishing spammy content about how awesome your network marketing company is will only annoy people. Publishing content that teaches network marketers how to grow a successful business is the only proven way to build on the Internet.

Stop leading with your Melaleuca Products opportunity. Be someone who publishes instructional content beneficial to network marketers. Position yourself as an authority through by teaching.

– Market Like A Real Business

Just like any store that advertises to bring in customers, you must market your business. Network marketers in companies such as Melaleuca Products are taught a lot about how to network, but almost nothing about how to market.

DVDs that pitch your company, replicated websites and webinars are not a comprehensive marketing strategy. These are just marketing tools, and some are not very effective. A variety of elements factor into a marketing plan:

Identify Your Target Market: Who is your target market for your Melaleuca Products opportunity? People who own businesses? Broke people who need to make money? Network marketers are a really attractive target market. Network marketers won’t waste your time with stupid questions about whether this is a scam, a pyramid, etc. They have shown a proven willingness to pull out a credit card and buy stuff for their business.

Positioning: There’s a ton of people who promote Melaleuca Products just like you do. What unique value do you provide? You must define and communicate a differentiated value proposition.

Promotion Tactics: How will you generate leads when you don’t have any more family and friends to approach about Melaleuca Products? Get trained in solid online marketing tactics that will generate leads for your business.

Follow Up Strategy: Put a strategy in place to follow up with your leads. To follow up, call your leads, and add them to an automated email follow up system.

– Take Advantage Of Twitter

Twitter is s social network that allows you to tweet, which is to post short text messages to your following. One of the Web’s most popular websites, Twitter can be a potent place to attract visitors and leads for your Melaleuca Products business.

You can build a viral tribe of followers on Twitter. With Twitter, it’s very easy to get going. Set up a Twitter account and follow a bunch of people whose updates you want to read.

Choose to follow people who are following network marketing trainers and leaders. It’s likely you’ll be following other network marketers. Lots of the people you follow on Twitter will follow you back.

Using attraction marketing on Twitter is very effective. To do this, focus your tweets on instruction that helps networkers increase their incomes. Things to tweet about:

– Basic tips to close more sales

– Inspirational quotes

– Questions for other marketers

Do not mention your Melaleuca Products opportunity on Twitter. On Twitter almost no one wants to hear about your Melaleuca Products business. Twitter’s just a place to spark some curiosity. Pull in people from Twitter to your blog, where they can consume your educational content. Feed your followers instructional content to nurture a relationship with them. Some will ask to join your Melaleuca Products business.

Eduardo Kooliantra has educated thousands of business owners how to grow businesses like Melaleuca Products. Go to his website to learn to grow your Melaleuca business.