The Centre Stage

Digeus System Optimizer suite

2010-09-10T03:25:00.000-07:00

Social Media Tools

2009-07-09T00:58:00.001-07:00

--Internal collaboration tools are much less mature than external social media tools.
--The "inside/outside" dichotomy is false. What if an internal person asks for a contact you're connected with on LinkedIn? Many situations link internal and external social networking in unexpected ways.
--Social networking is all about bringing more people into the conversation. But certain business conversations can't be public.
--All employees should sign an online use agreement to govern their online behavior and how it relates to your company.
--Social networks turn individuals into marketers for your company, but it can be very difficult to control the messages they send.
--You can use unique TinyURLs for links in social networking posts and use those URLs to track who has the most influence.
--The rules of appropriate social networking behavior change based on the audience. --There is no inference of confidentiality on public networks.
--The social networking presence of a job candidate can be a plus or minus, depending on how they're perceived.
--There are businesses out there to help companies leverage social networking.
--It's important to use business intelligence to analyze what's being said about your company, now and over time.
--There are many companies
--SkeltLab, Radian6, TechRigy, Sisomo, RightNow and others
--that can help you find conversations about your company, aggregate them, evaluate the positive/negative aspects and help you respond to them.

Social Networking functional applications strengths and weaknesses.

2009-07-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

Blogs, for example, are fast and simple to create, easily findable via RSS, and can promote ongoing conversations with readers. On the other hand, they're unorganized, hard to keep up over time and easily spammed.

Microblogs like Twitter (or business versions like Yammer) are useful for quick customer support, a bit of marketing, listening to customers and link sharing, Byrne says. But Byrne challenged the conventional wisdom, saying Twitter is not good for having a discussion. He likened Twitter discussions to trying to have a long-distance conversation at a crowded football game from one section to another while shouting over everyone else's conversations.

Wikis, meanwhile, offer extraordinary power; make it possible for everyone to read, edit and review postings; and facilitate bottom-up communications. But wikis also are hard to organize, offer limited display/navigation options, and may require some training to maximize their value. In addition, wikis lack a controlling voice, making them dependent on the wisdom of crowds. That's why Byrne suggests designating a wiki gardener or steward to help keep things clear and on track.

And don't forget the old-school choice: discussion forums. Often disparaged in comparison to fancy new alternatives, forums remain popular and powerful. They're perfect for "many-to-many communications," Byrne says, and can be structured hierarchically. But while forums are a great solution for Q&A sessions, they're not well suited for multiple people trying to edit the same text.

Public networks like Facebook and LinkedIn can be used for marketing, recruitment, prospecting and brand enhancement. But you don't own the network or the content, Byrne points out, and companies must accept that fact to be successful.
There's not one best choice, Byrne says. The point is to find the right fit for your particular application, budget, location, etc. In addition, you can use multiple tools for a single purpose or multiple purposes.

Innovate Our Way Out Of Recession

2009-07-08T01:38:00.000-07:00

Whether it's a faster way to move data, a cheaper way to power a car or a cleaner way to sweep up dust bunnies, the right innovation can deliver huge profits to an organization. But given today's fast-paced global marketplace and limited resources for research and development, companies often struggle simply to survive, let alone innovate.

Yet the same forces that have flattened our world may also yield new directions for the future of innovation. During a recent conference at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation, academics and business leaders argued that, rather than going back to the drawing board, companies should go outside their walls and tap into "innovation networks."

An "innovation network" is a web of people, institutions or companies outside of a firm that helps it solve problems or come up with new ideas. While organizations have formed alliances and strategic partnerships for hundreds of years, experts say this web of connections is becoming increasingly important today.

Despite their importance, alliances between companies only succeed about 40% of the time, said Wharton management professor Harbir Singh, a conference organizer and Mack Center co-director. "Why is the success rate not higher?" Singh asked. "How do we improve performance above 40%?"

Health & Safety Advise

2009-07-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

If you think health and safety isn’t important in your company, think again. The Department of Labour is clamping down and doing more workplace inspections.

A lot of companies aren’t too worried about implementing health and safety in their workplace. On the one hand, management doesn’t want to spend money to implement health and safety. On the other, companies that do have health and safety policies, can’t get their employees to follow the procedures.Most people only realise the problem when an accident happens.

They get a visit from the Department of Labour, the employer gets laid with criminal charges and the business is shut down – which can cost some companies millions!Only then do they ask why procedures were not in place or followed correctly. Only then do they start to see how important health and safety is. By then, its too late.

• Recognise safety hazards without leaving your desk
• Implement effective safety procedures and regulations
• Prevent accidents before they happen
• Make sure you pass your health and safety inspection with flying colours
• Plus, save you thousands, maybe millions, of rand.

New profit heights for your business

2009-07-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

You need to strike a balance between encouraging innovation and pursuing projects that are going to be profitable. Now's not the time for high risk or stray projects. The trick is to not stifle new ideas. Show your appreciation for any effort that's made to improve the business.

Those you can't focus on now, you may be able to revisit in more prosperous times.Empower your team - give them an entrepreneurial license - but keep a tight reign on the approval of projects. You can do this successully by appointing a task team for each initiative you decide to pursue. This will also ensure projects actually happen, once approved.Here's what each project team should consist of:

* The product/project champion: This person is often the "inventor" or originator of the idea. He'll ensure there aren't any unecessary delays. But he may not see faults in his "baby", he'll more likely have a blinkered approach to the project. He'll actively lead the team especially in the initial phases.* The enabler: This is someone who can get things done, cut red tape and barge through inaction and lethargy - for the entire project duration. Enablers tend to badger the other members.

* The devil's advocate: He keeps the team's feet on the ground and plays 'what if...' Devil's advocates look for potential problems.* The gatekeeper: He is the arbiter who ensures "fair play" and keeps the other members to the rules. This is so doable. Even if you're running a tight ship as most of us are.

So get started today. Get your team excited about being heard. Encourage them to keep their ears to the ground for ideas that can transform your business.

Lack of Focus can Fail you

2009-07-08T01:27:00.000-07:00

Your chances of success are magnified exponentially if you have the ability to focus. Yet, focus is the trait most leaders struggle with.

It’s like watching a movie on TV. If you give it your undivided attention, you’ll be able to follow the plot, understand the characters, and ultimately enjoy the film. If, on the other hand, you keep jumping up to talk to your pals on the phone, cook a meal, or do your filing, you’re likely to miss some important things that are happening on screen.
And it's likely that once you’ve lost track of what’s going on, you’ll reach for the remote and watch something else instead.

It’s not that the film wasn’t good. It might have been a real blockbuster. But if you don’t focus, you’ll lose the plot and then lose interest.
The same is true in business.

If you force yourself to focus on the important projects and goals that will get you and your team to the next level, you'll see an amazing change to your productivity. You'll even be able to reduce the number of hours you work - with better results.

5 ways to get new customers

2009-07-08T01:23:00.000-07:00

1. External lists: You can reach tens of thousands of extra potential customers by send your message out to an external list that you pay to send a message to. But it’s important to remember that you are shelling out money for this so your costs will go up. Therefore you need to be sure that what you send to a list you’ve paid for has already been proven to generate customers. A good way to search for lists is to type: “list broker” into Google.

2. External Websites: This is the same concept as external lists but with regard to websites. You might find for example a great website that gets tons of traffic but doesn’t actually keep a list of potential customers. If this is the case you could ask if you could buy space on the website to advertise your product or service.

3. Word of Mouth: Always ask your subscribers to tell their friends about your product or service. But remember that you shouldn’t let friends sign-up their friends themselves. Why not? Because this will only result in spam. Their friend will receive your email and not knowing why could mark it as spam. Not good. You should always encourage people to ask their friends to sign-up themselves.

4. Search Engine Optimisation: SEO refers to optimising the content of your website so that when people search for information in relation to your product or service, your site will appear in the search results.

5. Pay Per Click: This is where you pay for your advert to rank highly on Google and appear in the right hand search result box. Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay a certain amount.

Smart Social Networking For Your Small Business

2009-06-11T04:22:00.000-07:00

Some techniques work and some don't. Here's a cheat sheet.

Next to mobility and cloud computing, social networking was the talk of Interop this year--especially at a conference session devoted to social software tools and a portion of the Unconference, where real SMB users talked about how to make the most of it.

External
--Branded community
--Tech support
--Reader interaction
--Partner collaboration
--Professional networking
--Hosted user blogs and blog comments (you host, but don't control, user postings)

Internal
--Project collaboration
--Enterprise collaboration
--Enterprise discussion (especially useful after a merger or acquisition)
--Information organization/filtering
--Knowledgebase management (collaboration)
--Communities of practice
--Enterprise networking (intranets and/or Facebook groups for employees); vendors include Ning and Lithium
Of course, where social networking takes place is only the first part of the puzzle.

The networking itself can take many forms:
Social Networking Functions
--Microblogs (Twitter)
--Wikis; vendors include MediaWiki (the foundation of Wikipedia), Atlassian, MindTouch and Socialtext)
--Project tracking/participation software
--Multimedia (video/audio, internal or external, including YouTube)
--Information ranking/filtering--voting
--Discussion forums
--Presence/instant messaging (IM)
--Public social networks, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing and MySpace .

The customer not is always right?.

2009-04-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

When the customer is not always right.

Customers are also not always right in the way they go about complaining. The most valid complaint can be undone by an unreasonable, abrasive bully who causes a scene and humiliates a staff member.

Yes we all know the stats that it costs more to win a new customer than to keep an existing customer, but good companies honour the obligation they have towards their staff as well. Have you ever considered how much it costs to recruit and train a replacement staff member?

getclosure! the online complaints management and customer affairs portal has pulled together this useful guide for consumers on when to complain, and how to complain in such a way that a satisfactory outcome is achieved.

WHEN YOU SHOULD COMPLAIN.

At getclosure! we believe the customer has the right to complain whenever they feel aggrieved by poor service ? here are some common sense guidelines on when to take issue with a supplier.
With the Consumer Protection Bill set to be signed into law imminently, South Africans will be among the best protected consumers in the world. It is up to each and every South African to be aware of their rights, in order to enforce them.

It is also a good idea to always read, and make sure you understand, any contract you sign. You have every right to do this, despite pushy salespeople going in for the close.
Finally if you are unsure of your rights, turn to one of the remedy providers listed on the getclosure

HOW TO COMPLAIN.

Once you have established that you do indeed have a legitimate complaint, here are a few handy hints about the best way to tackle shoddy customer service without losing your cool, and still arriving at a satisfactory outcome.

1. Raise the issue immediately ?

obviously first prize is to have your problem sorted out then and there. A free meal two weeks after the spoilt dinner with friends and family is not the same as having your incorrect order rectified on the spot..

2.Be clear on what the problem is and how you would like it to be fixed. ?

Your restaurant is a disgrace and I?ll never eat here again? is far less productive than ?I asked for my steak to be medium rare, not well done, please would you replace it??

3.Stay calm.

As frustrating as the situation may be, you are more likely to get a good response if you remain polite and assertive. Remember you are speaking to another person.

4. If the person you are talking to is unhelpful or seems unable to do anything about your request, ask to speak to someone more senior in the organisation. Businesses empower their staff to quickly rectify complaints using their own initiative

5. If you have the patience to deal with a call centre, take down the details of who you spoke to, the time of the call, and a reference number. This will make follow-ups easier.

6. If you still don?t arrive at a satisfactory outcome, or can?stand to deal with call centres, submit your complaint for free online and your complaint will get to the appropriate person in various organizations available at your disposal.

Using stumbling blocks as stepping stones

2009-03-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Everyone makes mistakes - and the busier you are, the more mistakes you will make. The only question is “How well and how effectively do you deal with the inevitable ups and downs of life?”You’ve got to learn how to benefit from your mistakes and how to remain positive in the face of adversity.

Step1. Let the light shine in.

This is achieved through the simple exercise of self-disclosure.
g troubled by things that may have happened in your past, you must be able to open up to at least one person. You have to be able to get those things off your chest. You must rid yourself of those thoughts and feelings by revealing them to someone who won’t make you feel guilty or ashamed of what has happened

Step2. Expect a lot out of life.

There are two ways to look at the world: the benevolent way and the malevolent way. People with a malevolent or negative worldview take a victim stance, seeing life as a continuous succession of problems and a process of unfairness and oppression..On the other hand, people with a benevolent or positive worldview see the world around them as filled with opportunities and possibilities. They believe that everything happens as part of a great process designed to make them successful and happy. They approach their lives, their work, and their relationships with optimism, cheerfulness, and a general attitude of positive expectations. They expect a lot, and they are seldom disappointed.

Step3• Flex your mental muscles

When you develop the skill of learning from your mistakes, you become the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move ahead. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.One of the most common ways of dealing with a mistake is to fail to accept it when it occurs. This is invariably fatal to high achievement.

Step3.Cut your losses

Statistically speaking, 70% of all the decisions we make will be wrong. That’s an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70% of the time, and some will fail less.It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. If that is the case, how can our society continue to function at all? But the fact is that our society, our families, our companies, and our relationships continue to survive and thrive because intelligent people tend to cut their losses and minimise their mistakes.It is only when people refuse to accept that they have made a bad choice or decision - and prolong the consequences by sticking to it - that a mistake becomes extremely expensive and hurtful.

Step4. Learn from your mistakes

Learning from your mistakes - using them to better yourself and improve the quality of your thinking - is an essential skill that enables you to develop the resilience to be a master of change rather than a victim of change. The person who recognises that he has made a mistake and changes direction the fastest is the one who will win in an age of increasing information, technology, and competition.By remaining fast on your feet, you will be able to out-play and out-position your competition. You will become a creator of circumstances rather than a creature of circumstances.

Put the above ideas into action.

1. Imagine that your biggest problem or challenge in life has been sent to you at this moment to help you, to teach you something valuable. What could it be?

2. Be willing to cut your losses and walk away if you have made a mistake or a bad choice. Accept that you are not perfect, that you can’t be right all the time… and then get on with your life.
3. Learn from every mistake you make. Write down every lesson it contains. Use your mistakes in the present as stepping stones to great success in the future.

Pump Up Your Income

2009-01-27T00:49:00.000-08:00

1. Invest in property.

You can make money - even in a down market - by buying properties that (a) are selling for well below their market value and (b) are in up-and-coming areas that have been untouched by the real estate "bubble". And property investing is a very passive form of income. After you've done the initial legwork of finding properties and lenders, you can sit back and let your properties appreciate. You can also collect rent, without lifting a finger.
Read this report for some tips about buying property at half-price:

2. Get a raise.

No matter how low you are on your company's food chain, you can get above-average raises. All you need to do is insert yourself into your company's profit stream. Contribute to your company's profits. Become skilled in selling, marketing, product development or profit management.

3. Start your own business.

This is possibly THE BEST way to supercharge your income. Create an Internet-driven business based on something you're interested in and/or already know something about, and you could wind up making six (or even
seven) figures in a few short years.
.

Before you Choose your Stock,Think Minerals and Technology.

2008-12-30T01:30:00.001-08:00

Let's face it. With the market dropping hundreds of points daily right now you not only need ways to protect your money -- but a big way to bounce back..Don't fall for it. If you need the safety and liquidity of a money market, go for a money market account. Beware of any "cash" account that offers significantly higher yields. It's either charging rock-bottom fees or taking on extra risk that leaves your account open to failure.Here's how dividends can make you a fortune.

Let's rewind to 1950, put $1,000 in your hand and let you choose between two solid stocks to invest in for the next five decades. Your option is to invest in Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) or International Business Machines, better known today as IBM.

Over the next 53 years Standard Oil earned a compound average of 14.42% while IBM garnered just 13.83% -- a difference of just 0.59 percentage points. I'll give you some added info. Oil stocks went from 20% to 5% of the overall market value between 1950 and 2000, while technology stocks soared from 3% to nearly 18%.In spite of the soaring market value of tech stocks and the seemingly paltry difference between earnings -- Standard Oil was not only the better investment you actually come out an astounding $300,000 ahead!

How can this happen? By reinvesting your dividends. You see, in the scenario above, IBM's share price actually grew more than three percentage points a year over Standard Oil's, but because Standard Oil had a higher annual dividend return -- 5.19% vs. 2.18% -- you end up with $300,000 more in cold, hard cash

Personal affairs through a Trust

2008-04-03T05:29:00.000-07:00

Reason number 1 ? protect your assets from creditors.

When you run your affairs in your own name you expose all your assets to the mercy of creditors. So if you ever get into financial trouble you could end up losing everything but the shirt off your back! One of the main benefits of a trust is that you are able to separate yourself from your assets, thus providing protection of those assets from creditors in the event of you ever being sued. With the correct estate planning you are even able to protect your business assets from creditors as well.

Reason 2 - You don`t pay executor`s fees with a trust.

Your estate and ultimately your family will pay 3.5% plus VAT or 3.99% of the gross value of your estate away in executor`s fees. But if you manage your estate through a trust, NO executor`s fees are payable. It doesn`t seem like much but listen to this example to get an idea of what 3.99% of the gross value of your estate could amount to.

Work out your own current scenario by taking the value of your gross estate today and multiplying it by 4 and then multiplying that amount by 3.99%. This will work out the kind of saving you would benefit from if your assets were owned by a trust and you died in 12 years time.

The third reason is the state won`t freeze your assets.

When a person dies their estate is immediately frozen and it takes on average two years to wind up an estate. This means that your family has very little access to your assets on your death, potentially causing huge problems for your loved ones. But in a trust, the assets are not frozen, so your family will be able to access your estate immediately.

Reason number 4: you get absolute security in the event of a disability.

If you were in a coma and could not continue to manage your own affairs a curator would need to be appointed by the high court. This would cost thousands of rands even the curatorship is not contested. In a trust all that would happen is that you would be relapsed as a trustee and your affairs would carry on as normal. So your family and business will always remain financially secure, even in difficult or unfortunate times.

Reason 5: You could save 20% in donations tax

You will pay donations tax at a rate of 20% on any donation in excess of R100,000 per annum or R200,000 in the case of married couples. However, with a trust, no donations tax is payable on any capital or income passed to a beneficiary of the trust.
So for example: Let`s assume that you wanted to give R500,000 to one of your children. In your private capacity you would pay R60,000 in donations tax while through a trust you would not have to pay any donations tax.

The 6th Reason is you won`t pay any estate duty with a trust

One of the main disadvantages of running your personal affairs in your own name is that estate duty is paid on the future growth of your assets. But with a trust, no estate duty is payable.
So for example: You pay estate duty at a rate of 20% on net assets in excess of R3 500,000. So if your net estate was worth R5,500,000 and you died leaving your entire estate to your children they would pay an estate duty fee of R400,000. If these assets were in a trust NO estate duty is payable.

And lastly -
You are able to regulate your ex spouse`s maintenance with a trust
A main disadvantage in case of a divorce is the fact that if maintenance is paid for a child to an ex-spouse, the ex-spouse would have a capital claim against your estate for all future maintenance at the time of your death.

The Science of The Stock Market

2008-04-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

The first one you need to look at is the Dividend yield.

A dividend is the money paid on each share from the company`s net profits. Small companies often don`t pay dividends ? they plough their profits back into growing their business. But if a large company doesn`t increase its dividend or cuts it, you can bet it needs the money simply to survive. As the share price falls though, the dividend yield (dividend compared against share price) will rise. This could make the stock a relative bargain.

The second and most important ratio is the Earnings per Share or E.P.S.

It represents a company`s post-tax profits divided by the total number of shares in issue. Generally, an E.P.S. higher than the cash flow per share (shown on the cash-flow statement in the company`s annual report) indicates a company with strong value. A steadily rising E.P.S. indicates financial health and growth.

The next ratio is the Dividend Cover.
This tells you whether a company can afford to pay its shareholders their dividend or not. Divide the E.P.S. by the dividend announced by the company. The result should be 1 or higher. If it`s less than 1, avoid it. The firm hasn`t got the cash to pay its dividend and is digging into cash reserves.

The fourth ratio is the Price-Earnings Ratio or P.E.

It`s calculated by dividing the share price by the earnings per share. If you`re investing for the mid to long term, look for shares with a low P.E. compared with other firms in its sector. If you want a fast profit though, you could buy a stock with a high P.E. Although these shares are overvalued, the price will have upwards momentum. Investors who move quickly can make money. But you must sell the stock before it rebounds.

The next one is the Price/sales ratio or P.S.R.

Use this ratio for new companies with fast growth, but no profits yet. Divide last year`s sales figure by the market value of a firm. Buy if a stock has a low P.S.R. compared to others within its sector ? especially if it`s less than one. For market leaders, the P.S.R. will be around 3 or 4.

The final ratio is the Return on capital employed or R.O.C.E.

This measures management performance. The R.O.C.E. is calculated as profits before tax and interest on loan repayments, divided by capital employed. In sectors like retail, the share price will increase if there is a rising R.O.C.E. A company can improve its R.O.C.E. by buying back shares from the stock market. This can also improve its share price. Buybacks are a definite buy signal for you ? but you have to buy as soon as the buyback is announced to get the maximum financial gain.

A stock may appear good value on the basis of one ratio, but poor value on another. Use a number of ratios in analysing a stock and look for consistency before selecting the stock you will invest in.
You must always remember though, the stock market is unpredictable because of the market sentiment factor, so there are times when shares drop in value without any warning, you must be prepared for this too. But stick to a successful picking strategy and you could build a safety barrier for your investments.

Blogs and E-letters

2008-04-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

Both (a.k.a. e-zines or e-mail newsletters) are ideal marketing tools for small-business owners. They give you two inexpensive ways to communicate with your customers, give them useful advice, and reveal your latest products and services.
But though they have the same purpose, they are very different.

First, let’s define our terms.

A blog is a website that you can create yourself using Web-based software. Blogs tend to have a personal flavour and speak in the distinct voice of the blogger. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. Unlike a traditional, static website, the content or information posted on a blog is up-to-the-minute, frequently updated (although it doesn’t have to be), and displayed in reverse chronological order, the most recent posting first. Also, readers can contribute their comments, turning the blog into an online conversation.
An e-letter is basically an electronic newsletter that you send out regularly via e-mail to a list of people who have given you permission to do so. The content of an e-letter is more evergreen. It can be anything from news about you and your business to tips that demonstrate your expertise. When you use an e-mail marketing service or software, it’s also very easy to design and send.
The main difference between the two is this: You "push" an e-letter to your list so you control the contact, while a blog is a "pull." Readers have to go there on their own, so you have a lot less (or no) control over the contact. The quality of the readers is different too. E-letter readers went out of their way to sign up, so you can consider them a lead for your marketing messages. They’ve essentially raised their hands and asked you to keep in touch. Blog readers, on the other hand, are information hounds, so they may not be as responsive.

Let’s compare.

A blog is easier to set up - but not by much. It literally takes 10 minutes to create, and you don’t need any technical expertise. However, you have less freedom with the layout due to the limitations of most blog publishing software (especially the most popular and free ones, like blogger.com and typepad.com). With an e-letter, on the other hand, it takes a bit more time to create the prototype and template, whether in text or html. But once that’s done, you just type the text for each issue into that template and send it out.
It takes more time to write an e-letter. Most small-business owners take time to write and edit their e-letters, as they should. Because you’re pushing your e-letter to people, asking them to read what you’ve written, it has to be well-thought-out, concise, and to the point. On the other hand, since a blog tends to be made up of snippets of ideas posted frequently (sometimes several times a day), bloggers don’t labour over their text.

Plus, a blog is less formal, because it’s like a conversation. That means "you can speak in your everyday voice, which is (hopefully) friendly and approachable." So says Colleen Wainwright, a.k.a. The Communicatrix, a graphic designer who blogs. "On a blog, the expectations are much lower for both grammar and formality. Also, you can combine personal and professional elements in your blog; how much of each depends on what you’re comfortable with and what your prospective clientele will be comfortable reading. You can write about anything (and many people do), but if you’re using it to promote your business, it will be most effective if you focus and use the blog to establish your credibility within that narrow niche."

My e-letter goes out weekly, and between the writing, editing, and layout, I spend approximately one hour on each issue. My blogging takes a half-hour on a Sunday morning. That’s when I draft and schedule my three posts for the week. Each one is usually no longer than a paragraph or two with a couple of links. At least one post is simply a link to an article I like, plus a little intro from me about why I think it’s relevant. If your e-letter goes out more frequently - like Early to Rise - the time you spend on it expands by leaps and bounds.
It takes more time to maintain a blog. For most people, creating fresh content several times a week, or even weekly, requires a certain mindset. It isn’t even that it takes so much time to create the material. (Blog posts are mostly very short pieces accompanied by a link.) What takes time is getting into the groove of blogging - and that involves much more than posting to your own blog. It includes visiting other people’s blogs, reading their posts, and commenting on them. It’s not difficult. It just takes time and practice to get into that mode. E-letters, on the other hand, don’t carry the same expectation of freshness, so there is a lot less pressure to produce. You send it out when you like - daily, twice-weekly, monthly, or even occasionally.

A blog attracts more Web traffic. Even if no one ever reads your blog, posting it regularly can be a tremendous boon to your search engine rankings because search engines love fresh content. Any website with new content will come up earlier in search engine rankings than a site that hasn’t been changed in months (or years). Meanwhile, the traffic an e-letter drives to your website consists of those who already know you, not new prospects and leads.
An e-letter makes more sales. Some people make money by displaying ads on their blogs - but if you want to sell products or services, an e-letter is more effective. Why? Because with an e-letter you "push" (send) your offer to your prospects, then watch while they click and, hopefully, buy. Because a blog is a "pull," there’s no way to measure or track sales. On a blog, you show how much you know. You shouldn’t expect to "get work" from your blog, but it will be good for driving traffic to your website. And once you get people to your website, they can sign up for your e-letter… which will allow you to sell to them directly.

Both inspire trust in the visitor. Inspiring trust depends more on the tone you take than the format. If you’ve spent time composing your e-letter, it will show, and that certainly inspires trust. A blog, with its rapid-fire and often impassioned comments, can convey a sense of impulsiveness, which rarely inspires trust. Trust is important on the Internet (a very anonymous medium), because unless people trust you, they’re not going to buy from you.
If you don’t already have a website to promote your business, a blog is a good first step in that direction. It provides a way for people to find you online without your spending a lot of money or time working with a Web designer or learning Web design software. In fact, some people use a blog as their one and only Web presence.

If you already have a website and are ready to branch out with an e-letter or a blog, which one should you start with? That depends on your goal. If your goal is to generate revenue from a known group of prospects, an e-letter is the right choice. If you are less focused on revenue-generation and are looking instead to position yourself as an expert and make it easier for new prospects to find you online, a blog is better.
If both goals make sense in your business plan, by all means do both. Blogs and e-letters work beautifully hand-in-hand.
Here’s how we do that at Marketing Mentor: I want to be able to reach out to my qualified prospects on a regular basis, to keep reminding them who I am and what I have to offer. I don’t want to wait for them to come back to my website or have time to read my blog. I want to be in their inboxes, rather than on their browsers.

3 Steps to Starting A Business

2008-03-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Step 1. Identify something that people want and will pay for.

One of the most common stumbling blocks for aspiring entrepreneurs is deciding on a product or service to market. The primary consideration is to choose something that people will buy. And the easiest way to do that is to go with something that other people are already selling successfully.
Ideally, that will be something you love and/or know a lot about. For instance, if you’re an accountant, you could create and sell programmes about how people can prepare their taxes, how they can make a household budget, and how they can find hidden tax deductions. Or, if you’ve always loved animals, you could sell pet toys, treats, and accessories.
If you have trouble coming up with a likely product or service based on your own interests and/or expertise, choose a relatively simple service that’s in high demand. A house cleaning service, for example, or bookkeeping, lawn mowing, resume writing, or house painting. The possibilities are almost endless.

Step 2. Find a way to supply it.

This step just requires a bit of business common sense. If you’re selling a service, you would either supply the service yourself or hire someone else to do it (or help you). If, for example, you’ve decided to go into the moving business, you don’t have to be capable of handling furniture yourself. Simply hire a few people who can do heavy lifting and either buy or rent a truck.

If you’re selling a product, you would ideally seek out suppliers that can provide you with merchandise at a low enough price for you to be able to make a profit. But that usually means buying in volume - which may not work for you when you’re just starting out. Let’s say you’d like to sell bookshelves. In this case, it might make more sense for you to get your business going by buying the lumber and building the shelves yourself (or hiring someone to build them for you).

Step 3. Sell it to the people who want it.

I’m a big believer in direct marketing for small start-up businesses. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to get your marketing message to prospective customers via e-mail, regular mail, ads in local papers, or even flyers distributed door to door.
Let’s say you want to start a housekeeping service. You’d identify a few affluent neighbourhoods where the homeowners could, presumably, afford maids. Then you’d target them with either flyers or small mailers.

Or suppose you want to start a business where you take people on charter fishing boat trips. You’ll be marketing primarily to tourists, so you’d work on getting yourself listed in local tourist guides and maybe advertise on a few bus benches in your city’s hotel district. If you decide to go after locals too, you could contact local fishing clubs and see if you can rent their membership lists to do a mailing. You might also make a deal with local bait shops to distribute your flyers.

Obviously, starting and running a successful business requires time, energy, and effort. Still, when you break down the process, it’s just those three simple steps.

2008-03-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

7 reasons why you need to own a Trust.

* To protect your assets from creditors in the event of your insolvency, disability or divorce.
* To legally pay as little tax as possible.
* To make provision for your estate to be passed on to your beneficiaries as smoothly as possible.
* To maximise your overall profits when buying property and significantly reduce your CGT and estate duty bill.
* To avoid all inheritance tax liability.
* To create personal confidentiality.
* To safeguard against financial loss in your own business.

2008-03-12T01:12:00.000-07:00

Cash flow Rules.

Profits aren't cash; they're accounting
And accounting is a lot more creative than you think. You can't pay bills with profits. Actually profits can lull you to sleep. If you pay your bills and your customers don't, it's suddenly business hell. You can make profits without making any money.

Cash flow isn't intuitive.
Don't try to do it in your head. Making the sales doesn't necessarily mean you have the money. Incurring the expense doesn't necessarily mean you paid for it already. Inventory is usually bought and paid for and then stored until it becomes cost of sales.

Growth sucks up cash.
It's paradoxical. The best of times can be hiding the worst of times. One of the toughest years my company had was when we doubled sales and almost went broke. We were building things two months in advance and getting the money from sales six months late. Add growth to that and it can be like a Trojan horse, hiding a problem inside a solution. Yes, of course you want to grow; we all want to grow our businesses. But be careful because growth costs cash. It's a matter of working capital. The faster you grow, the more financing you need.

Business-to-business sales suck up your cash.
The simple view is that sales mean money, but when you're a business selling to another business, it's rarely that simple. You deliver the goods or services along with an invoice, and they pay the invoice later. Usually that's months later. And businesses are good customers, so you can't just throw them into collections because then they'll never buy from you again. So you wait. When you sell something to a distributor that sells it to a retailer, you typically get the money four or five months later if you're lucky.

Inventory sucks up cash.
You have to buy your product or build it before you can sell it. Even if you put the product on your shelves and wait to sell it, your suppliers expect to get paid. Here's a simple rule of thumb: Every dollar you have in inventory is a dollar you don't have in cash.

Working capital is your best survival skill.
Technically, working capital is an accounting term for what's left over when you subtract current liabilities from current assets. Practically, it's money in the bank that you use to pay your running costs and expenses and buy inventory while waiting to get paid by your business customers.

"Receivables" is a four-letter word.
(See rule 4.) The money your customers owe you is called "accounts receivable." Here's a shortcut to cash planning: Every dollar in accounts receivable is a dollar less cash.

Bankers hate surprises.
Plan ahead. You get no extra points for spontaneity when dealing with banks. If you see a growth spurt coming, a new product opportunity or a problem with customers paying, thesooner you get to the bank armed with charts and a realistic plan, the better off you'll be.

Watch these three vital metrics: "
Collection days" is a measure of how long you wait to get paid. "Inventory turnover" is a measure of how long your inventory sits on your working capital and clogs your cash flow. "Payment days" is how long you wait to pay your vendors. Always monitor these three vital signs of cash flow. Project them 12 months ahead and compare your plan to what actually happens.
If you're the exception rather than the rule, hooray for you. If all your customers pay you immediately when they buy from you, and you don't buy things before you sell them, then relax. But if you sell to businesses, keep in mind that they usually don't pay immediately.

How Billionaires Do...

2008-03-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

After 13 years on top, Bill Gates is no longer the richest man in the world. That honor now belongs to his friend and sometimes bridge partner Warren Buffett.

Riding the surging price of Berkshire Hathaway stock, Buffett has seen his fortune swell to an estimated $62 billion, up $10 billion from a year ago. Gates is now worth $58 billion and is ranked third richest in the world.

He is up $2 billion from a year ago, but would have been as rich--or richer--than Buffett, had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at the beginning of February. Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú now ranks as the world's second richest person with a net worth of $60 billion.

Buffett, whose fortune is estimated based on his stake in Berkshire Hathaway and assets he holds outside the company, refused to comment on his net worth.
The race for the title of World's Richest Man has been extremely competitive in recent months. Class A shares of Berkshire Hathaway soared 25% between the middle of July and the day we priced our list. The stock hit an all-time high of $150,000 a share in December. At that time, Buffett was worth roughly $65 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway shares closed Warren Buffett is the richest man on the planet.
Riding the surging price of Berkshire Hathaway stock, America's most beloved investor has seen his fortune swell to an estimated $62 billion, up $10 billion from a year ago. That massive pile of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who was the richest man in the world for 13 straight years.

Gates is now worth $58 billion and is ranked third in the world. He is up $2 billion from a year ago, but would have been perhaps as rich--or richer--than Buffett had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at the beginning of February.

Microsoft shares fell 15% between Jan. 31, the day before the company announced its bid for the search engine giant, and Feb. 11, the day we locked in stock prices for the 2008 World's Billionaires list. More than half of Gates' fortune is held outside of Microsoft shares.

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú is the world's second-richest man, with an estimated net worth of $60 billion. His fortune has risen $11 billion since last March.
per share on Tuesday, down 2% since the announcement last Friday that the company's net earnings fell 18% in the fourth quarter of last year.
Gates' fortune also swelled massively last fall. Shares of Microsoft jumped 30% between late October and early November to $37 a share, only to fall after the company announced its intentions to buy Yahoo! for $45 billion on Feb. 1.

Slim's fortune has doubled in the past two years. Stock in his most significant holding, telecom outfit America Movil has risen 120% since the beginning of 2006. Helú also owns stakes in Carso Global Telecom, Grupo Carso and Grupo Financiero Inbursa.
The son of a Nebraska politician, Buffett delivered newspapers as a boy. He filed his first tax return at age 13, claiming a $35 deduction for his bicycle. He moved on to study under value investing guru Benjamin Graham at Columbia University.

Buffett began buying shares in textile firm Berkshire Hathaway in 1962 and purchased a controlling stake in 1965. He began buying insurance companies and astutely investing those companies' cash reserves.
In December, the company purchased a 60% stake in the Pritzker family's manufacturing and services group, Marmon Holdings, for $4.5 billion. The privately held Marmon owns businesses across wire and cable, transportation services and industrial products.

Despite Buffett's meteoric rise, his days as the World's Richest Man are almost certainly numbered. He had long promised to give away his fortune posthumously. But in the summer of 2006 he irrevocably earmarked the majority of his Berkshire shares to charity, most going to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the time, the gift was valued at $31 billion.
However, assuming that Berkshire shares continue to rise, the final amount of the donation will far exceed that sum. Buffett gives 5% of his shares to charity every July.
In October, Buffett issued a challenge to members of the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, saying he would donate $1 million to charity if the collective group (or a significant number of them) would admit they pay less taxes, as a percentage of income, than their secretaries.

Days after issuing the challenge, Buffett appeared before Congress to encourage it to keep the estate tax. Armed with a few Forbes 400 issues, he told the hearing that "dynastic wealth, the enemy of a meritocracy, is on the rise."

DRASTIC CHANGES OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

2008-02-28T01:19:00.000-08:00

Oil-importing nations have been watching closely for decades. Oil priced at $100 and up will cut profits at airlines, railroads and trucking companies, to name a few. Putting unprecedented pressure on vital infrastructure and services...
Because just as pouring glue into a cassette deck will slow down, and eventually stop the music... pouring higher and higher priced oil into our economy will slow down, and at some point hold America in place to be squashed between history and the pavement.

That's why the Advanced Energy Initiative was lainched, stating:
a national goal of replacing more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025
we're on the verge of breakthroughs in two vital areas -- how we power our homes and businesses... and how we power our cars
and a 22% increase in funding for alternative energy research
Yet, skeptics always claim alternative energies cost more -- and can't survive without heavy government subsidies.
Here's an overlooked fact: traditional energy industries are also subsidized by billions of dollars each year. There are oil depletion allowances, special treatment on coal royalties, overseas oil refinery credits, intangible drilling costs, and the list goes on.
"With America on the verge of breakthroughs in advanced energy technologies, the best way to break the addiction to foreign oil is through new technology."

The days of giving breaks to big oil companies are numbered. You see, on November 8, 2006 Democrats swept into the House and Senate poised to ignite an all-out alternative energy revolution. If you don't believe me, just check out House Energy Bill HR6!
Right now it's not hard to figure out which way the wind is blowing...
And you can bet a handful of financial power players recognize it's not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when certain alternative energy investments will take off... they see a government-funding avalanche and favorable treatment for new energy initiatives... that's why:

Wall Street's elite are RIGHT NOW betting billions on alternative energy!
According to The Economist, total investment in alternative energy last year was $63 billion, up from $49 billion the year before, and up from $30 billion the year before that. In other words, total investment in alternative energy just doubled in the last 2 years...
BusinessWeek calls alternative energy "Wall Street's new love affair."

The Wall Street Journal asked Ray Lane -- venture capital backer of Google, Amazon, and Netscape -- if this boom looked to be bigger than the Internet, or as big... "This is bigger than the Internet by an order of magnitude. Maybe two." he answered.
Just how big is that? An "order of magnitude" is an approximation of size using powers of ten. Meaning this legendary Internet investor believes the alternative energy boom will be 10 to 100 times bigger than the Internet revolution!
"The clean-energy business is turning into the next big investment boom."-- The Economist, November 24, 2006
Source: Clean Edge, Nth Power www.cleanedge.com
Another Internet pioneer, Bill Joy -- co-founder of Sun Microsystems -- is so convinced of the profit potential he says he has no doubt "we are at the point of new wealth creation."
In other words, the guys first in line for hundreds of billions during the Internet boom believe the coming alternative energy boom will be at least TEN TIMES as big.

That's why, as we speak, large investment banks are jumping on board... only rather than taking these companies public, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan "are choosing to own these alternative energy companies outright so they can keep the profits for themselves," according to BusinessWeek.
Multibillion-dollar hedge fund groups like SAC Capital Advisors and D.E. Shaw & Co. have started investing in geothermal energy, ethanol and wind power... World leading insurer American International Group is steering private equity investments into alternative energy projects...
This kind of rare potential for profits has some of the world's most successful business leaders investing hundreds of millions -- and in some cases billions -- of their own money as well.

Take a look...

Warren Buffett just invested $385 million in wind power... Bill Gates is betting on fuel additives... Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin are investing in solar... famed Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson is putting $400 million into a biofuel plant... and Jeffery Immelt, CEO of General Electric, plans to put $3 billion into alternative energy ventures by 2008...
With ten times the wealth potential of the Internet boom, it's no wonder the world's most wealthy and powerful elite are piling in!
Yet, most individual investors are still on the sideline
A recent survey by the Calvert Group found that while about 85% of investors believe there is money to be made from investing in alternative energy, only about 20% of investors have brought up the subject with a financial advisor.

Here's the upshot for you: this gap between powerful Wall Street players beginning to invest... and the vast majority of investors STILL A YEAR OR SO AWAY... creates a unique opportunity. With all the characteristics successful investors look for over and over again...
The majority of people aren't paying attention to alternative energy investments -- yet. Few people know how to capitalize on them. This gives us a window of opportunity of about 12 to 24 months before the herd catches on.

Over the next few years, we expect the 4 investments described just ahead to shoot way up in value. And our tight-knit group (more on this group in a split second) to make a Foolish pile of profits when they do...
I promise to tell you everything I can here. Then I'm going to ask you to accept a very special invitation, and I'm pretty sure you're going to like that too.
But first, that tight-knit group I just mentioned... they're called Motley Fool Rule Breakers. And they specialize in finding opportunities that could put you in on the ground floor of the BIGGEST GROWTH STORIES of the next 10 or 15 years!

This forward-looking group is headed by Motley Fool Co-founder David Gardner -- a legendary growth investor with a remarkable knack for uncovering breakthrough companies way ahead of the masses. A few of David's career picks include:

eBay in 1999... Starbucks in 1998... AOL in 1994... Amgen in 1998... and Amazon in 1997!
And more recently, David and his Rule Breakers team recommended stocks up 117%... 127%... 167%... 276%... and 295% -- all in under 3 years!
But I didn't email you to chirp about our recent success. I contacted you to show you what we're recommending next. And how it can have a dramatic effect on your personal wealth.
So if getting in early on the alternative energy boom -- what could be among the greatest investment stories ever told -- is something you might be interested in, I urge you to read on. That's because the Rule Breakers team just completed a powerful new report featuring The Motley Fool's Top 4 Alternative Energy Investments...

But first, a word of warning: the months and years ahead will NOT play out the way a lot of self-described experts are saying. So-called stock gurus, and energy pundits, and their "one amazing stock shot" approach has virtually zero chance of succeeding.
That's because we're moving into a period of dramatic opportunity where different sources of energy will be optimized to meet specific needs. It's why we spent a considerable amount of time and resources -- informed by some of the world's top CEOs, market strategists, and even a noble prize-winning economist -- putting together 4 special corresponding energy investments for the next 10 to 15 years...

INVESTMENT #1:
CLEAN COAL AND NUCLEAR...
this company owns a huge chunk of substantially growing market, is protected by close ties to government agencies, and with 2 breakthrough technologies emerging, this stock has massive upside!

INVESTMENT #2:
SOLAR...
a pure play on the soaring demand for solar power. This company has great margins, a sustainable competitive advantage, and a lit fuse with a wide-open sky waiting!

INVESTMENT #3:
RECYCLING FOSSIL FUELS... this company makes coal dust look good. Revenue is up just 14%, and earnings just jumped 69%!

INVESTMENT #4:
WIND, HYDROELECTRIC, AND FUEL CELLS...
this investment spreads our bets around in a unique way. Giving your portfolio a strong dose of only the most profitable technologies!
I can't wait to give you the full details of these 4 potential fortune makers. And I will... but you still might be wondering why 4 different investments?
As I just mentioned, we project a number of alternative energies will be used in the near future. For example, solar for portable devices. Fuel cells for telecommunications. Wind makes sense in certain places. And so does nuclear... Now consider the gold rush again for a moment. And how you would've profited from owning shares in both the Union Pacific and Wells Fargo.

Also, look for a period of creative destruction and consolidation like in the early automobile revolution... when shares in Ford Motor Co would've been a great investment and would've more than offset an investment in say, Tucker Automotive...
Or consider David Gardner's investments of the 1990s. David had the vision to buy Dell, Amazon and AOL in the early days... That's why he can't be faulted for also buying Wang Computer. You see, his mega-winners more than made up his occasional, and inevitable, losing investment.

2008-02-28T00:34:00.000-08:00

How to Create a Marketing Plan

What is a marketing plan and why is it so essential to the success of your business? Find out here, in the first section of our comprehensive guide to creating a marketing plan.
Firms that are successful in marketing invariably start with a marketing plan. Large companies have plans with hundreds of pages; small companies can get by with a half-dozen sheets. Put your marketing plan in a three-ring binder. Refer to it at least quarterly, but better yet monthly. Leave a tab for putting in monthly reports on sales/manufacturing; this will allow you to track performance as you follow the plan.

The plan should cover one year. For small companies, this is often the best way to think about marketing. Things change, people leave, markets evolve, customers come and go. Later on we suggest creating a section of your plan that addresses the medium-term future--two to four years down the road. But the bulk of your plan should focus on the coming year.

You should allow yourself a couple of months to write the plan, even if it's only a few pages long. Developing the plan is the "heavy lifting" of marketing. While executing the plan has its challenges, deciding what to do and how to do it is marketing's greatest challenge. Most marketing plans kick off with the first of the year or with the opening of your fiscal year if it's different.

Who should see your plan? All the players in the company. Firms typically keep their marketing plans very, very private for one of two very different reasons: Either they're too skimpy and management would be embarrassed to have them see the light of day, or they're solid and packed with information . . . which would make them extremely valuable to the competition.
You can't do a marketing plan without getting many people involved. No matter what your size, get feedback from all parts of your company: finance, manufacturing, personnel, supply and so on--in addition to marketing itself. This is especially important because it will take all aspects of your company to make your marketing plan work. Your key people can provide realistic input on what's achievable and how your goals can be reached, and they can share any insights they have on any potential, as-yet-unrealized marketing opportunities, adding another dimension to your plan. If you're essentially a one-person management operation, you'll have to wear all your hats at one time--but at least the meetings will be short!

What's the relationship between your marketing plan and your business plan or vision statement? Your business plan spells out what your business is about--what you do and don't do, and what your ultimate goals are. It encompasses more than marketing; it can include discussions of locations, staffing, financing, strategic alliances and so on. It includes "the vision thing," the resounding words that spell out the glorious purpose of your company in stirring language. Your business plan is the U.S. Constitution of your business: If you want to do something that's outside the business plan, you need to either change your mind or change the plan. Your company's business plan provides the environment in which your marketing plan must flourish. The two documents must be consistent.
A marketing plan, on the other hand, is plump with meaning. It provides you with several major benefits. Let's review them.

Rallying point: Your marketing plan gives your troops something to rally behind. You want them to feel confident that the captain of the vessel has the charts in order, knows how to run the ship, and has a port of destination in mind. Companies often undervalue the impact of a "marketing plan" on their own people, who want to feel part of a team engaged in an exciting and complicated joint endeavor. If you want your employees to feel committed to your company, it's important to share with them your vision of where the company is headed in the years to come. People don't always understand financial projections, but they can get excited about a well-written and well-thought-out marketing plan. You should consider releasing your marketing plan--perhaps in an abridged version--companywide. Do it with some fanfare and generate some excitement for the adventures to come. Your workers will appreciate being involved.

Chart to success: We all know that plans are imperfect things. How can you possibly know what's going to happen 12 months or five years from now? Isn't putting together a marketing plan an exercise in futility . . . a waste of time better spent meeting with customers or fine-tuning production? Yes, possibly but only in the narrowest sense. If you don't plan, you're doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all. To stay with our sea captain analogy, it's better to be 5 or even 10 degrees off your destination port than to have no destination in mind at all. The point of sailing, after all, is to get somewhere, and without a marketing plan, you'll wander the seas aimlessly, sometimes finding dry land but more often than not floundering in a vast ocean. Sea captains without a chart are rarely remembered for discovering anything but the ocean floor.

Company operational instructions: Your child's first bike and your new VCR came with a set of instructions, and your company is far more complicated to put together and run than either of them. Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company's success. It's more important than a vision statement. To put together a genuine marketing plan, you have to assess your company from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way. What do you want to do with this enterprise you call the company in the coming year? Consider it a to-do list on a grand scale. It assigns specific tasks for the year.
Captured thinking: You don't allow your financial people to keep their numbers in their heads. Financial reports are the lifeblood of the numbers side of any business, no matter what size. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan. If people leave, if new people arrive, if memories falter, if events bring pressure to alter the givens, the information in the written marketing plan stays intact to remind you of what you'd agreed on.

Top-level reflection: In the daily hurly-burly of competitive business, it's hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren't directly related to the daily operations. You need to take time periodically to really think about your business--whether it's providing you and your employees with what you want, whether there aren't some innovative wrinkles you can add, whether you're getting all you can out of your products, your sales staff and your markets. Writing your marketing plan is the best time to do this high-level thinking. Some companies send their top marketing people away to a retreat. Others go to the home of a principal. Some do marketing plan development at a local motel, away from phones and fax machines, so they can devote themselves solely to thinking hard and drawing the most accurate sketches they can of the immediate future of the business.

Ideally, after writing marketing plans for a few years, you can sit back and review a series of them, year after year, and check the progress of your company. Of course, sometimes this is hard to make time for (there is that annoying real world to deal with), but it can provide an unparalleled objective view of what you've been doing with your business life over a number of years.

2008-02-22T00:40:00.000-08:00

Keeping Up with Your Business Online

Doing business online requires managing and measuring lots of moving parts. And, I always say that what doesn’t get measured gets forgotten.
So, with all the metrics you could monitor, what do you assess? In short, everything. Here’s a list of at-minimum ‘think abouts’ to get you started:

website matrix

How many unique visitors do you have?

How many should you have based on your industry?

How many page views?

How many should you have?

Who are your top three referral sources?

E-mail mailing list.

How many people are on your e-mail mailing list?

How many subscribers do others in your industry with comparable experience have?

What is the percent increase from last month?

What’s a good percentage to increase?

Website lead generation

Does your lead generation tool deliver the “lead trinity”? 1)Positions you as an expert. 2)

Qualifies the lead as a quality lead for your business. 3) Gives you permission to market to them again.
If not, what lead generation tool would?

Does your web site automatically produce leads regularly?

Product/marketing funnel.

Do you put potential clients in the position of either working with you or not?

Do you have freebies for them to sample - without signing up?

How many should you have and what topics should they cover?

Blog activity.

How many visitors does your blog have?

How many posts per week do you post on average?

What are the industry standards?

Are you meeting your blogging goals?

Online marketing.

How many original articles are you posting online?

How much time are you spending adding thought leadership content about your area of expertise?

Online sales.

How much revenue do you make solely online?

How much should you make?

Which is your most profitable product/service?

Which is your least profitable product/service?

Overall direction.

Where are you going with your business online?

By when do you need to ‘get there’?

Who can help you get there faster, easier?

What are your KPIs (key performance indicators) - measurements you can use to see if you’re on-track?

Again, this is certainly not an exhaustive list but it’s more than good enough to get you started. This may seem like a long list of things to consider. And, if you’re just starting out, your answers to these many of these questions might be “zero”. But, that’s OK. Start at the top and take a section at a time. Figure out a way to keep the information you find pertinent on your radar *at least* once per month. Maybe it’s a report. A graph. A spreadsheet. Something. Anything.

Preparing For The worst

There is no crying in baseball, and there are no "sick days" when you run your own business.
Still, there are plenty of ways entrepreneurs can get sidelined--from sudden illnesses and travel delays to pregnancy and military duty. Without a well-defined plan, those leaves of absence can pose a dangerous threat.
"If something incapacitates you, it can be the death knell of your business," says Karla Leavelle, president of Human Capital Advisors, a McLean, Va.-based consulting firm that counsels small businesses.

How do you hedge the risk of lost leadership? Business insurance doesn't help. Property and liability coverage come in handy in case a customer slips and falls in your store or gets hurt using one of your products, and business-interruption insurance covers operating losses if a hurricane reduces your building to rubble.
If you really want things to run smoothly in your absence, you need other protection in place.

Here are some tips:
Have A Point Person
Be it the chief operating officer, outside counsel or even a trusted executive assistant, at least one person should have access to everything that keeps the place running--including passwords, bank account numbers and keys to safes. You might even consider handing over power of attorney in your absence.

Doling out that kind of trust isn't easy, but if something goes wrong while you're gone, you'll wish you had. "Owners are always scared that someone is going to steal secrets of the organization," says John Vyhnanek, a restaurant consultant in Boston. "It's a bit like walking a tightrope, but someone has to keep the business going if you can't be there."

map out the work flows in your organization.

Identify who does what and who can take over certain roles if need be. Start by having employees write out their own job descriptions and the list of activities they do on a daily basis.
"No one can duplicate the charisma of an entrepreneur," says Louis Celli, head of the Northeast Veterans Business Resource Center, which mentors military entrepreneurs. "But if the entire business is systematized, that can sustain the business until the entrepreneur returns."
Better yet, if you codify thoroughly and thoughtfully enough, you might even discover ways of making your business run more efficiently day to day.

Form Partnerships

If you own a medical, law or accounting practice, your clients simply can't wait for you to return. That's why you should draft a written agreement with a local competitor who can cover for you in the event of an emergency (and visa versa).
Hammer out the tough questions upfront, such as referral fees--both for your clients and any they might refer to your stand-in. You'll also want to make sure the fees are comparable, lest your clients blanch at getting a fatter bill than they are used to.

Go Mobile

Even if you aren't a gadget guy or gal, if you run your own business, you have to have access to critical clients and information at any moment.

2008-02-21T01:38:00.000-08:00

The art of the one-on-one presentation
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You may think you're not in the business of giving presentations. Hey, you haven't ever spoken to a group bigger than your marketing department, right?

But whether you're giving the latest financial report to your boss or chatting up an important industry contact at a party, you need to master some key skills.
The most important thing to remember is that you want to get your message across - simply, succinctly, and clearly. Don't worry about impressing your listener. Just get your information across in the best way possible. Here are five ways to do it. (And, by the way, these suggestions work for presentations to larger audiences too.)

1. Cut to the core. When you plan what you want to say, imagine having to write a headline and the first three sentences of a newspaper article on your topic. This will help you focus on your core message.

2. Edit your story down to the three most important points. Too many points and you risk either boring your listeners or emphasising your three least important points.

3. Don't be abstract. Specifics are always better. If you must use an abstraction, describe it with vivid imagery and an analogy. It's much easier for people to visualise an abstraction if you put it in a story.

4. Don't be tempted to script out everything you'll say. If your speech reads well on paper, it'll most likely sound bad. If you must write it down (to make you feel more comfortable), forget about making it "English-teacher" perfect or you could end up sounding dull and robotic.

Keep it conversational. Whether you're presenting to a room full of marketing execs or giving your one-minute "elevator" pitch to a potential partner. Avoid overly big words and stiff, formal language. Be friendly, use contractions, and treat your presentation as if you're talking with a good friend.

2008-02-21T01:36:00.000-08:00

7 Ways to Turn a Profit Online

These simple business models can help you get started, whether you want to create a Web site for your existing company or start from scratch with a new e-business.
Going online can be a great adventure--and a lot of fun--for any small business. But if you want your Web site to be more than a hobby, you need to put some thought into how to make it profitable. No matter what your business is, you should always be thinking about ways to diversify your revenue streams to boost your profits.
So to get you thinking about new strategies, I've put together a list of the seven ways you can earn income on the Web, and then I've explained how you can incorporate all of these methods to create success.
Online Profit SteamsWhether you're just beginning to develop your business model or simply analyzing an existing business, your chief focus should be on how you're going to generate income. There are seven ways to generate revenue on the Web:
· Sell your own products
· Sell your own services
· Drop ship products
· Recommend affiliate products
· Sell ad space
· Create a joint venture with like-minded businesses
· Start an affiliate program
Let me explain each of these a little further:

1. Sell your own products.

The main advantage to selling your own products is that you ultimately control how much profit you make on every sale and you therefore have the potential for the biggest profit margin. You know exactly what each product costs, and you can try out different price points to see what works the best. People appreciate good value, and removing the middleman is a great way to provide your customers with competitive prices that keep them coming back for more.

2. Sell your own services.

Whether you're a small-town dentist, a high-priced online legal consultant, a real estate agent, a tutor, a landscaper, a bed and breakfast owner, an auto-mechanic, a caterer, a fitness trainer or anything in between, you can profit from selling your service online. It's easy to get started selling a service online, but your revenue potential, in most cases, is limited. That's because, unlike someone selling a physical product that can be stored and shipped on demand, you can only provide as many services as your time allows.
When you sell a service, you're essentially selling a relationship with yourself. And this requires that you spend more time and effort establishing your credibility and developing rapport with your visitors than is typically required on a site selling a physical product. You not only need to establish the benefits of the service you're offering, you also need to establish the value of you providing this service.

3. Drop ship products.

If you want to sell products without the hassles of tracking your inventory, setting up warehouse space and maintaining a confusing shipping/receiving infrastructure, drop-shipping may be the choice for you. Drop shipping lets you sell quality, brand-name products on your site for a hefty profit, while the drop shipper takes care of fulfilling the order. They warehouse the stock, pack the orders and ship them out to your customers.

4. Recommend affiliate products.

Recommending affiliate products creates a "no-risk" partnership that allows you to promote another company's products or services on your site to earn a percentage of their sales. As one of the company's "affiliates" or promotion partners, you earn a commission each time someone you've referred to their site makes a purchase. To advertise their wares, you might post a banner on your site that links to the affiliate program's site, or you might publish an article about the company and their products in your newsletter.

5. Sell ad space.
Once your site has lots of highly targeted traffic, or a large, targeted opt-in list, you may be able to sell advertising. Advertisers are willing to buy ads when they're being directed at large numbers of their target market. Nowadays, though, advertising revenues are a lot less than they used to be, so I don't recommend you plan on making this your sole source of income. Selling ad space can be a great additional profit stream, but it's unlikely to keep your business afloat on its own.
6. Create a joint venture with like-minded businesses.

Joint ventures are all about related businesses teaming up and combining skills, products, services and resources to create new streams of income and profit. One great way to profit through joint ventures is to seek out products or services that would benefit your visitors, and then approach the companies that provide those products or services. Ask them if you can recommend their product or service on your site for a portion of the profits. Most companies will gladly agree to this arrangement--after all, there's no risk for them since they only pay you when you refer a paying customer.

7. Start an affiliate program.

With your own affiliate program, you can recruit an army of people (your affiliates) who will recommend your product on their web site for a percentage of any sale they refer. You have the power to exponentially increase your income as more and more affiliates sign up and you continue to teach your existing affiliates how to increase their commission checks (and your income).
It's one of the most powerful forms of online advertising I know. It allows you to grow your profits while keeping your business small, since you don't have to go out and spend money on salespeople and advertising. Your affiliates do the advertising for you, and you only pay them when they make a sale.
There's no reason why you can't incorporate several of these different income opportunities into your business model. The key is to focus on one, maximize revenue from it and then move on to the next.
Of course, this choice should be made with extra consideration to your budget. If, like most small-business people, you have a limited budget, you'll want to focus on revenue streams (like selling products or recommending affiliate products) that will produce results quickly.