1) People think they are experts.

Many people tell me that they know how to hold a meeting. Actually, all they do is host a party. They invite guests, provide treats, and preside over a conversation. People talk. People eat. And nothing happens. Or, if they somehow manage to reach an agreement, no one implements it.

> What to do: Learn how to lead a real meeting. Schedule a workshop or buy a book. When results really matter, hire a facilitator. Recognize that there are modern tools that help people make methodical progress toward results. These tools are practical and easy to use. Of course, you have to know what they are in order to use them. Call me (714-528-1300) for details.

2) People think they are inspiring.

Many people believe that long-winded announcements impress others. Actually, it’s the opposite. A long lecture quickly becomes a boring (and sometimes offensive) harangue. Why? Most employees want an active role in contributing to the business, and thus listening to a speech feels like a waste of time.

> What to do: Design meetings that give the attendees opportunities to contribute. Plan questions that direct thinking toward the results that you want. Use activities that help people make decisions. Distribute announcements in letters, memos, or E-mails. Or, if you must use a meeting, keep announcements brief (less than a few minutes).

3) People think others agree with them.

Many people rely on nods, smiles, and eye contact to measure acceptance. Actually, most employees will do anything to appease a boss. And if the boss seems to be upset, the employees will become even more agreeable. Then, once the meeting ends, the employees will do one of three things: 1) forget the lecture, 2) ignore the message, or 3) sabotage the idea.

> What to do: Conduct meetings by a process that everyone considers to be fair. Use consensus to reach agreements and make decisions. People will accept decisions that they helped make.

4) People think others are clairvoyant.

Many people call meetings without an agenda expecting that everyone will arrive sharing their vision for what needs to be done. Actually, everyone brings their private hopes, fears, and vision to the meeting. Without a clear agenda, the result is something between chitchat and chaos, depending upon the complexity of the issue.

Note: A vague agenda, such as a list of topics, is almost as useless as no agenda.

> What to do: Write out your goal for the meeting. Then prepare an agenda that is so complete someone else could use it to run the meeting without you. Specify each step and provide a time budget. Send the agenda at least a day before the meeting so that the attendees can use it to prepare. Call key participants before the meeting to check if they have questions or want to talk about the agenda.

5) People think meetings are necessary.

Many people respond to every emergency, surprise, or twitch by calling a meeting. Actually, a meeting is a special (and expensive) process. It should be used only to obtain results that require the efforts of a group of people working as a team. A meeting is NOT a universal cure for everything. Meetings held for the wrong reasons, waste everyone’s time.

> What to do: Challenge every meeting for its ability to earn a profit for your business. That is, make sure the value of the results is greater than the cost of holding a meeting. If any other activity can accomplish the same result, use that other activity.

5 Hidden Traps in Meetings is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

Home-based business owners don’t normally wake up one day and say, “Yep. I’m quitting my job today and starting a home-based business.” There is usually a period of time for contemplation, exploration, making the decision, creating a plan, and then starting to execute steps within the plan to achieve the final goal.

The process can take anywhere from several months to several years before an employee is in a position to walk away from her job to begin life as a full-time entrepreneur.

Being financially responsible is critical to not only home-based business success, but to create the financial cushion required to transition from being an employee to a full-time entrepreneur.

Understanding your current financial position is mandatory and doesn’t have to take more than an hour of your time if you follow the five basic steps below.

1. Calculate how much money you currently have sitting in bank accounts, investments, registered retirement savings plans, GIC’s, real estate, etc. If you were to leave your job today, would there be any form of payout (ie. sick plan credit, pension plan contributions, unused holidays, anniversary pay, etc.)?

2. Determine how much you earn on a monthly basis either through employment, child support payments, rental properties, dividends, your existing home-based business, etc.

3. Record your monthly household expenses. Some examples to get you started are:

- mortgage/rent
- property tax/house and mortgage insurance
- utilities (heat/water/hydro)
- phone/cable/satellite/Internet
- yard maintenance/snow removal
- groceries and household supplies
- vehicle fuel, insurance and maintenance costs
- medical
- child care
- personal care (hair/nails/clothing)
- entertainment (movies/sports/books/plays)
- club memberships, publications, etc.

4. List your monthly business expenses, for example:

- Internet
- phone (separate business line)
- autoresponder
- shopping cart
- long distance
- bank fees
- office supplies
- tools
- web hosting
- marketing
- advertising
- part-time help
- coaching services
- shipping/postage, etc.

5. Identify your outstanding liabilities such as:

- credit card balances
- personal loans
- lines of credit, etc.

When you calculate your earnings and revenue on an annual basis and deduct your personal and business expenses. How much do you have remaining at the end of the year? Can a portion of this be put aside to build your financial cushion?

If your current business revenue isn’t enough to cover your business and personal expenses and if you were to quit work today, how long would you be able to survive on your other revenue sources or savings and assets, taking into account your monthly expenses?

Have you considered all unexpected expenditures that could arise in the next year or two?

Is your car running on its last two cylinders?
Has your furnace almost reached its life expectancy?
Is your vacuum cleaner starting to growl at you?
Is your partner’s job secure or do you foresee unstable times ahead?

This exercise is by no means intended to scare or discourage. Financial stability is an area that needs to be addressed so you can keep your feet firmly planted and plans realistic as you build your home-based business.

Understanding where you are and what potentially lies ahead will help you make sound financial decisions as you plan your future.

After completing these five steps, you may realize your dream to break free of your job might take a year longer than expected, or you may learn that in order to move forward at a quicker pace, you may have to bring in a partner or investor, or learn to leverage your time, money and effort more efficiently to expedite progress.

Perhaps seeking professional guidance on reducing debt and managing finances is in order?

No matter what results you generate, don’t let them shake your spirit. Knowing exactly where you are financially will help you make informed, practical decisions so you can create your ideal future.

To increase your level of success at home-based business, make sure you have a financial advisor and accountant as part of your success team.

2006 Laurie Hayes – The HBB Source

5 Easy Steps to Determine Your Financial Status So You Can Break Free of Your Job Sooner is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

Once the business gets going no doubt economic and industry variables change which affect the business. Each partners perception of the direction the business should go changes as well. There are constant decisions with regards to the mixture of product and service offerings the decision to get into another line of business or get out of one. Should the focus be on a higher volume, lower profit margin business model or vice versa? What about a shift to a more capital intensive model. If the business becomes a success, many times potential investors creep in, whether an angel investor or venture capitalist. Both partners need to agree on the investment proposal.

What if one of the partners acquires an asset for the business whether its land, a building, a small data center, a thousand servers, or to complicate things further contributes an intellectual asset of some sort. When the company is going to be sold, what is the value of the partners contributed asset? Who is supposed to value it? This can become an insurmountable hurdle. Most buyers know not to value any one piece near what its worth by itself.

When its time to sell the company, the financial situation of each partner has no doubt changed since the company was founded. The consideration for the company could be all cash, all stock or a combination of cash and stock. The tax implications of each of the three scenarios are different for each partner. I have seen the process of divesting a company go up in smoke too many times because the partners didnt agree on the proposed deal. They spent years growing the business then totally disagree about when to sell, who to sell to, and/or how much to sell it for.

Business is about return on equity, not all for one and one for all. My suggestion one ship, one captain.

The Cons of a 50/50 Equity Business Partnership. is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

My first job as an intensive care nurse in a major medical center prepared me for business success. Subsequent jobs reinforced those early messages. I invite you to look closely at your own nursing career and discover the lessons that will help you succeed as a legal nurse consultant.

Success Lesson 1 Find Your Passion and Turn It into a Business
As much as I loved my work with critically ill patients and their families, my inner voice told me I wouldn’t be working in a hospital forever. As a young nurse, the vision of myself working in the ICU at age 40, 50 or 60 just wouldn’t come into focus.

With only 6 years of nursing experience, I left the hospital and started my legal nurse consultant business. From there, I listened to my inner voice and reconnected with my first passion teaching. At age 8, I spent hours every day teaching an imaginary class. Today I am privileged to teach, coach and mentor nurses to live their career dreams. I turned my passion into a business, and since then I haven’t worked a single day.

Listen to your inner voice, and you will find your passion. Many nurses have reconnected to their passion through legal nurse consulting, a choice unknown to them before they took my program.

Success Lesson 2 You Have the Power to Take Control of Your Career Destiny

Patients heal faster when they take control of their health and practice healthy habits. Even the smallest positive action can give a patient a sense of control and empower the healing process.

I learned this lesson time and again as I struggled to gain control of my own nursing career. Each time I refused to give in to the frustrations of working within the healthcare system and took a positive step on my own, I felt better. With every step I grew, I thrived and I came up with new ideas to further my sense of control and satisfaction.

The same is true about your career. You have the power to practice the healthy habits essential to take control of your career destiny. Educate yourself about the steps to achieving career health, including new career options like legal nurse consulting. Then take action on those steps. You really can take control of your career destiny.

Success Lesson 3 Don’t Give in to Fear

As a nurse, I frequently treated patients who had the same progressive disease, yet experienced dramatically different outcomes. We all have known patients who lived years after their predicted demise and other patients who should have lived but didn’t because they gave up or didn’t want to live. The fact that so many elderly patients die within months of losing a spouse is a solid example of the mind-body connection. In almost every case, the patients who died too soon had given in to fear.

There’s also a mind-business connection that will influence the health of your business. When I give in to fear, I become the biggest obstacle to my success. That was true when I started my business 19 years ago. That is true today.

Fear will paralyze you instantly. Practice mind control and exercise your mind daily for positive thinking. Shake off your lack of confidence and negative thinking. Don’t wait for an MI to stop inhaling the toxic smoke of fear. Don’t let fear be the reason you don’t live your career dreams. Always remember the mind-set of the patients who live and the patients who die.

Success Lesson 4 Nurses Can Do Anything

As nurses most of us have brought patients back to life. We all can recall at least one miracle story a case where, with our help, a patient survived against all odds.

Whenever I face a business crisis, I remind myself, “I’m a nurse and nurses can do anything.” I’ve repeated this same message for 19 years, and it has helped me overcome every obstacle.

If you can heal sick patients and handle life-threatening emergencies as easily as you make your bed in the morning, you really can do anything especially something as straightforward as starting a business.

Success Lesson 5 You Can’t Climb Mount Everest without Practicing on the Foothills

I had to have extensive education and training just to qualify for my first nursing job. All the lessons from that job helped prepare me for the next. Each successive nursing position required new and different skills necessitating more training and education.

The same applies to owning a business. Today I handle things easily and successfully that seemed impossible 19 years ago. But that’s because I’ve been in training for what I do now ever since I became a nurse.

If you’re frustrated with your nursing career, don’t feel like you’ve thrown your life away. No experience or job is a waste. Everything you have done has trained you to move up to the next level. Above all, don’t let the fact that you’re not trained to climb Mount Everest stop you from pursuing your dreams of becoming an independent legal nurse consultant. Your nursing training and experience was the first step. Start the next step of your training today, and you will make that climb to start your successful legal nurse consultant business.

Success Lesson 6 The Nursing Process Is Your Friend

When I left clinical nursing, I thought I could set aside the “nursing process” forever. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Business requires that same process of assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. Every project I take on requires me to assess the possibilities and needs, diagnose the problems, plan how to achieve my goals, implement the plan and evaluate my results.

Your nursing jobs have prepared you well. You can apply the nursing process to any business situation and challenge. You will thank your nursing instructors for this one. Every time you review a medical-related case, interview with an attorney or face a challenge in running your business, you will rely on the process they taught you.

Success Lesson 7 Act Quickly and Decisively

As an ICU nurse, I learned that seconds made a difference in patient outcome. That’s true for nurses in any specialty. I rarely had lots of time to ponder or brood over a clinical decision.

I have applied the same principles of acting quickly and decisively in business, too. Am I always correct? No. Do I make mistakes? Yes. Yet because of my nursing experience, I’m never paralyzed into inaction and I’ve been able to make the most of numerous opportunities I would have missed without acting quickly.

Don’t miss your chance to succeed. Learn to act quickly and decisively, and you will grow your legal nurse consultant business.

Success Lesson 8 What You Focus on Is Where You Achieve Results

In nursing I was often overwhelmed by short staffing, heavy caseloads and lack of support from hospital administration. I soon learned to triage and focus on what I needed to do to heal patients in this less-than-ideal environment. Nursing taught me that where I focus my time is where I achieve results.

That skill comes in handy in business. It’s as important to triage and prioritize your actions in business as it is when working with patients. Every day I’m confronted with dozens of challenges, five things that must be done at once, and 20 new creative ideas for my business, but I rarely panic. The organizational and multi-tasking skills I learned as a nurse have served me well.

When you start your legal nurse consultant business, you will not receive any extra hours in the day. In fact, the days will feel shorter. Even the general public knows that working conditions for RNs are worse than ever. Your ability to focus on what’s really important under these conditions is the perfect preparation for your successful legal nurse consultant practice.

Success Lesson 9 This Is Just Business, It’s Not Breast Cancer

Ministering to patients and family members helped me put life with all its problems and challenges into perspective. Today when I overreact to a problem or feel I’m in crisis, I think of sick and dying patients. I think, “Now fighting for your life is a REAL problem.”

In business I’ve had lots of ups and downs. When the down moments come, I remind myself, “This is business not breast cancer.” This helps me focus positively on solving the problem rather than embarking on a pity party. I’ve thrown plenty of those “parties”, and they never helped me solve a single business problem.

As you grow your legal nurse consultant business, it helps to ask “So what if this month is not as successful as I planned?” or “So what if my best attorney-client retires?” and to remember its just business, not breast cancer.

Success Lesson 10 Illness Can Wake You Up

As a nurse I treated many patients who only began to live after they almost died. We’ve all had patients who said they are glad they got sick, because while they were well, they weren’t living the life they wanted. The health crisis forced them to wake up, reassess their lives, decide what was truly important to them, and go for it.

Not every day is a healthy business day. Some days I wake up to a disease challenge in my business. Surprisingly, it’s the business ills and mistakes that often awaken me to creative ways of injecting my business with new life.

If your career is facing a health crisis, this is your opportunity to wake up and change things for the better. Legal nurse consulting is one way to restore the health of your career.

Success Lesson 11 Business Is Personal

Even though technical skills are vital for an ICU nurse, the relationships with patients and their families were what mattered most to me. Those relationships paid off one day when I made a mistake. Because of our relationship, the patient requested that I continue being his nurse despite my error.

Legal nurse consulting is a service business where you will apply the same relationship principles you learned in nursing to your attorney-clients and prospects. Provide quality service and excellent work product that no other legal nurse consultant can replicate, and soon you’ll feel like you’re in a short-staffing situation all over again.

Success Lesson 12 Healthy Patients Take Care of Themselves

We’ve all worked with healthy and unhealthy patients and we’ve seen the effects of poor health habits on the human body. The health of a pregnant woman is often dramatically reflected in the health of her offspring.

To run a successful company you must enjoy an optimal state of health. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself. I love my business, but I love myself more. After all, without a healthy me, I couldn’t muster the energy to give 110% to my clients and employees every day.

Every lesson I learned from nursing, I apply to my business today. You’ve already learned similar lessons yourself. You don’t need another hospital job to help you succeed in business. Take a moment to revel in all nursing has taught you. These lessons will multiply your success when you transfer them to your new legal nurse consulting practice.

12 Things Nursing Taught Me About Owning a Business is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

The legal system runs on information. Any law suit or court case involves a veritable sea of documentation ranging from witness statements to affidavits to any documents that can be applied as evidence. And the legal system demands impeccable documentation with accuracy, security, integrity, speed and efficiency. The management of this rigorous process is known as litigation support.

Litigation support can be defined as any operation involving human and mechanical systems to process information for use by attorneys or expert consultants in preparation for a lawsuit or a trial. And in these high-tech times it’s an especially demanding task.

Nowadays, a major part of such documentation is likely to be in electronic form and stored on a computer system. The retrieval and authentication of such digital documents is a field in itself and one of vital importance in a successful legal undertaking.

What’s more, paper documents also have to be scanned and stored in digital format. This allows easy access to concerned parties. It’s a process that demands impeccable organisation and supervision. Documents have to be tagged and indexed and stored in document management centers in a way that they’re instantly retrievable.

Clearly people working in this field have to skilled in both technology and law. And generally employees in firm that offer litigation support services are qualified paralegals.

The challenges of dealing with digital media are many. For one thing, there tends to be large volumes of such data and each document may have many copies or exist in several versions. Also electronic data is much more volatile than hard copy. So it requires special handling. What’s more the data may be concealed or encrypted which demands special expertise.

Other than procedures such as the scanning, imaging, and indexing of documents, litigation support firms also provide such sophisticated activities as electronic discovery and computer forensics. These are essentially the same procedure – the retrieval of data from computer systems for a specific purpose. The difference is just in the reason for the retrieval; electronic discovery is for general purposes, while the term computer forensics is generally used when the retrieved information is for use in a law suit or in a court of law.

Forensic investigations could involve recovering hidden, damaged or corrupted files. Or perhaps decrypting password-protected or encrypted files, as well as recovering emails, chat data and other forms of online communication.

The range of crimes that might require these services is extremely wide ranging. Some examples are copyright infringement, money laundering, blackmail or corruption. In fact any crime in which relevant information is stored on a computer system. And in this day and age that could mean virtually anything.

The legal system depends on accurate and documented information in order to function so it’s essential to have professionals take charge of this task. More and more data is now in digital form, to it’s essential for litigation support firms to be able to deal with this. And with data security becoming increasingly important in this wired world, the field of computer forensics is one that has to develop accordingly.

A Peek Into The World Of Hi-Tech Litigation Support is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

In-Demand Skills for Success

1. BASIC SKILLS Reading, writing and arithmetic! Believe it or not, a good portion of high school graduates (and some college grads) do not read at an 8th grade level and cannot do multiplication in their head. Employers are seeking employees who can read well, can write coherently, and who can calculate mathematics in a business environment (fractions, percentages, etc.) Add to that the modern basic skills of keyboarding skill, basic computer knowledge, and ability to use most computerized tools (e.g. fax machine, basic word processing program, etc.) to round out the basic skill sets needed for employment success.

2. PERSONAL SKILLS Can a potential employee speak well? Can he/she answer questions of customers in a positive, informative manner? Can the prospect provide good customer service? While not everyone has an outgoing sales’ personality, successful employees can communicate in a non-confrontational, positive manner with their coworkers, team members, subordinates, management, and customers. Being able to work well with others is a vital skill for success in all jobs.

3. JOB ATTAINMENT Job search is a process that requires a great deal of dedication and attention to be conducted successfully. It follows the old principal that many veteran programmers refer to as GIGO Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you put lousy effort in, you will receive lousy results. Employers are seeking employees who know how to present themselves in a positive manner and who display enthusiasm and knowledge about the companies they approach. Not only do candidates get evaluated on their skills and experience, but also on how they are approaching the job search. Enthusiastic candidates with fewer skills have an even chance of getting the job as dull candidates with better skills.

4. JOB SURVIVAL Now there’s a hot topic in this period of layoffs. Who gets the ax and who doesn’t is often a matter of numbers, but it is also often a matter of performance. Employees who have consistently demonstrated their worth, taken initiative, and made themselves a valuable asset to the company have lower incidences of being downsized than employees who put forth mediocre or average effort in their jobs. Surviving within a company through layoffs or moving up the career ladder is a success skill that is learned and is consciously cultivated among successful professionals.

5. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT As all high tech and engineering pros know it’s learn or burn in today’s work environment. Attaining new skills, applying new concepts, updating established skills is an absolute necessity to succeed in today’s work force. The successful individual is constantly attending seminars, taking classes, attaining training on new products or releases, and otherwise learning new skills that will keep them marketable in their careers. Successful people are lifelong learners. Employers are looking for people who have the training necessary to fulfill their needs.

6. CAREER DEVELOPMENT Career Development differs from Professional Development. Professional Development is learning while Career Development is a planning and goal setting process. Successful individuals design a career plan with written goals for short term and long term. They lay out the steps needed to move their careers from Point A to Point B within Time Frame C and plan how they are going to achieve those steps. Successful people have someone to whom they are accountable for their progress and who will monitor their success in achieving their goals. Employers are seeking individuals who (believe it or not) wish to commit to the company for a long period of time. Good career progression is a high selling point of candidates to prospective employers.

How do you measure up? Do you have the 6 In-Demand Skills for Success? Feel like you need some help? Give us a call!

6 Factors Of Career Success is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

Even the biggest brands use exhibitions because they afford customers un-matched levels of product interaction. This is the reason why expos are very popular in the computer games industry for instance, as many of the leading players relish the opportunity for first go on the latest computer games.

Whatever your business, the interaction levels at an exhibition can really enhance your promotional campaign. On a most simple level, visitors at an exhibition will be more likely to interact with your brand on a visual level, as long as your exhibition stands are well equipped and well designed of course.

Quality stands are very important, and you might say that an exhibition stand is only as good as the sum of its parts. Only with the right components and PVC banners will your exhibition stand live up to its potential to perform at an exhibition.

Even smaller businesses can benefit from a presence at an exhibition, and they are a great way to fast-track new relationships with other businesses and brand new customers. Of course how successful you are depends on the quality of your stand, and your commitment to a quality exhibition presence.

Exhibition Success Assured is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

The power of testimonials can never be underestimated. People, especially nowadays, will only purchase products or avail services which have been referred to them by people whom they know. But most of the times, this is not an option that is in the hands of the business owner, he has to do the next best thing, which is to get testimonials from his past clients.

Testimonials are living statements from past customers or clients which states that they were satisfied by the product/ service. Every business must have testimonials to be able to stand out in the ever crowded markets.

There are many benefits of having testimonials. Here are some of them.

Testimonials appease the target market

Testimonials usually lessen the doubts of the target market. There are a lot of scammers and con artists nowadays, and this has turned the market into a fearsome one. Credible testimonials provide security to the people who are eyeing at a certain product or service. The provision of testimonials gives people a much more relaxed attitude towards a product or service.

Testimonials assure quality

Aside from confirming the existence of a business and lessening doubts, testimonials provide assurance to potential customers and clients of the quality of the product or service. The fact that they took time out to be able to write testimonials about the product reflect their levels of satisfaction towards the product/service.

Testimonials give advantage

Credible testimonials provide a competitive advantage for the product/service. There are many products and services out there and one of the ways to stand out from the rest is the use of credible testimonials.

There are many types of testimonials. Testimonials are usually categorized according to the source. Here are a few examples:

a) Testimonials from satisfied customers

This is probably the most effective type of testimonial. Nothing beats a testimonial from a satisfied customer because it is a picture of what the product/service is all about.

b) Testimonials from experts

Experts can be credible sources of testimonials. If a renowned dermatologist writes a testimonial for a beauty soap, it will surely help in boosting its sales, wouldnt it?

c) Testimonials from celebrities

In a world that is run by mass media, celebrities have become powerful sources of testimonials. Today, even infomercials are infested by testimonials from celebrities.
People may think that getting testimonials from celebrities will cost a lot, but if its a real testimonial, celebrities may even waive their talent fees.

There is much more to making a testimonial an effective tool for marketing than gathering them. Good testimonials are the ones which can be compressed into a few catchy words. I lost 20 pounds in two weeks time! is an example of an eye-catching testimonial. However, one must never rephrase or edit what the client had said. How to get the right kinds of testimonials will be discussed later.

Credible testimonials should also contain the complete attributes of the people who gave them. Their titles, location and age should be included whenever possible.

Visual appeal will also be a great help in using testimonials. If the clients are willing, one must insist in taking photographs or videos for their testimonials.

So how does a business owner get started with the whole testimonial thing?

Here are some steps on how to archive testimonials.

1. Before anything else, only products/ services with outstanding quality deserve testimonials, so one must make sure that his product/service possesses exceptional quality.

2. Ask the help of your customers. One must be able to communicate to his customers his need of getting their testimonials. If they are really satisfied with the product/service, they would be more than willing to participate.

3. Interview your customers. Ask them about what they like about your product/service, why they chose your product and other questions like these.

4. Ask them if they are willing to make a written testimonial. You can offer to make the testimonial yourself based on their responses during the interview but the testimonial is still up for their approval. You might want to make the wordings catchy and let them approve the testimonials.

5. Ask them if you could record the testimonial using a tape recorder or video cam. A video testimonial is better, but of course, many people are camera-shy and this can be a limited option for most.

6. Choose the best testimonials. Use the best ones so as to maximize the benefits that your product can get from the testimonials.

Testimonials are very powerful and this is the reason why every business should have them. They provide assurance and security and reflect the real essence of a product or a service.

6 Powerful Tips to Creating Testimonials That Sell Your Products Fast is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

Well, these mistakes do exist and they are not just reserved for the rookie companies. Many working businesses, including those you might think are successful because theyve been around for 10+ years, are often still making them and are possibly losing a lot of money and/or wasting a lot of time in the process.

Although some of these big and sneaky mistakes seem aimed more at service type companies, they really do fit the bill for almost any type of industry. Ive done my best with the listings below to give examples to prove it.

Underestimating Project/Service Time- This is a big one and it pertains to service companies as well as companies that sell a product. This is a service companys bread and butter. If you dont estimate your time to perform each and every service in your repertoire, you will get burned and there is little you can do about it but bite the bullet and learn from it. The best way to estimate time is to do it once yourself or watch your best employee do the task and then throw in a little fudge factor on top of it. For product companies, time becomes an issue with logistics so be aware!

Not Knowing YOUR Company Numbers/Incorrectly Setting Prices- Notice I emphasized the word your. Its a common mistake to use a competitors as your pricing gauge without actually knowing why they use those numbers. Think about the nightmare you will get yourself into if you take a competitors price, cut it by 10% and then start selling. What if the competition has a bad pricing structure and is barely making money or even losing money?!?! What if your costs are more than theirs?!?! You can use competitor as a starting point but you cant base your whole strategy on it.

Different industries have their own variables as far as costs go and you need to be aware of them for your project or product pricing. What you pay for a product you are going to sell is not the only cost to have in your head when you are pricing products. How much your labor and materials cost for a service is only a piece of an hourly rate. Employees cost more than just salary and not every employee is part of your labor cost. Every company has insurance to pay for. There are tons of overhead expenditures that need to be part of your price. Oh, by the way, the big one that many people forget about in their price is the quality factor. What you include as standard services or standard product features as well as job site etiquette or in store service or warranties all need to go into your pricing. Ill get to more on why in the next segment.

Not Charging for All of Your Time & Costs- This seems like a stupid statement to some but I bet most business owners will admit that they have given away a little too much of the farm at times. Hey, there is nothing wrong with giving a little extra here and there to show you care. But either way, thats not what Im talking about here. What concerns me are those that put a lot of quality into their work or products or stores and do not cover the cost for it. As an example, say you run a service company and your competitors dont do a certain standard service that you do. You cant just undercut their price to steal a job; you need to have that cost covered in your rate and advertise the fact that it comes with the price upfront. Stores undermine themselves, for example, when they put more people on the floor for customer service but dont charge for it. These things cost you money and when your competitors dont do them it costs them less money. Put out better service and then under price them, and your competition just has to wait a little bit for you to fall on your face so they can swoop back in.

As a business owner you need to believe that you are providing your clients worthwhile wares that deserve to be paid for. If you get the chance to explain why your prices are higher, then take that opportunity and do it. If they dont like the fact that you include things that others charge extra for later or that you treat them better, then they are most likely completely price shoppers. You dont want them as regular customers anyway. Trust me.

Not Getting Paid Fast Enough- Thats right, the old cash flow issue. As long as you are actually making enough money to pay the bills, this problem can be solved, prevented or at least made to be not as bad as it could be. Heres the deal:

First off all, bill customers very promptly. It is very common for a small business to not have the procedures or systems in place to get invoices generated and out the door in a timely fashion (see the next segment for more). Again, this would seem unlikely since thats the reason why we are doing the work- to get paid. But it is very easy for the people responsible for getting this info to the billing people to be too busy to get it there or not have enough organization to give it to them the right way.

The second part to slowing down or stopping a regular cash flow crunch is to make the quickest payment deals possible with customers and the slowest possible with vendors and employees. If there is any way not to pay employees any more than twice a month, you better do it. Contractors always have an issue with this. If you must pay weekly, then tell them before they are hired that they will be getting the first week held back, essentially buying you a week. It will help, I promise.

Part three involves credit. If your company can get a credit card, then get it. This allows for certain important things to be bought (that you can afford) that might come up during a cash flow crunch. Better yet, especially if you have no choice but to deal with 45+ day customer payments, do your best to get a company line of credit. This is a must if you plan on selling to the government or doing commercial service work. These clients often have 60 to 90 day wait periods.

Failure to Have Solid Systems and Procedures in Place- Too many procedures (known as red tape) is the reason why many people start their own business in the first place. Unfortunately, having no procedures and systems in place at all is not an alternative. Depending on the type of industry, business owners must come to a happy medium or chaos and the unknown will ensue. Some basic examples where procedures or systems are needed include billing, collections, payroll, hr (interviewing, hiring, vacations, benefits, job responsibilities, etc.), manufacturing, operating equipment, maintaining equipment, inventory, sales calls/visits and logistics to name a few.

Even a one person show needs to have some admin procedures in place. This will make it easier to hire temps and subcontractors and control what they are doing for you. Without at least a watered down version of a system or procedure to do everyday work, you will be to blame for causing many major headaches as your company grows. I cant emphasize how important this is for when you bring on new employees. Im sure you heard this before, but I am also a big proponent of having an employee handbook even for one employee. Its amazing the trouble people can cause business owners just because they allow you to pay them.

Spending Advertising Money Just to Say You Advertise- I would almost rather see my clients not advertise then to spend without regard to tracking the results. There is no point in a marketing campaign if you do not put things in place that allow you to measure how well the plan is working. The other wasteful part of marketing that many people make the mistake of doing, is not tracking their previously successful campaigns. Why some people think that just because a $400 dollar a month ad worked once very well for one busy season, that it will automatically work every year after that is beyond me.

Spreading Yourself Too Thin- This is a classic mistake made by every entrepreneur. The key is to figure out when you are at that wearing too many hats point and start getting some help. The solution here is to know your strengths and to be able see when you are not performing the duties that demand these skills. If you are the best sales person on the company, you cant get caught up in day-to-day operations. If you do, sales will slip and eventually you wont have any operations to worry about. Think about this to help you figure out if you are spread too thin: Did you really go into business for yourself to work 80+ hours a week?

Not Getting Help Soon Enough- Set goals to know when to hire people to take over where you are light on knowledge. Not getting help or waiting too long can kill a company. Most people who start a business do it because they are good at the technical end or the sales end. If you know the best way to make a widget, then your strength is in production and that is where your time should be spent. Hire an outside company or consultant to take care of the sales and marketing and then hire inside when you can afford someone full time. Dont be something to your company that you are not. It will only hold you back.

The three big issues people like to tackle themselves but usually are least knowledgeable about are legal issues, accounting/bookkeeping issues and daily operations issues. The odds are that these three things are your weakest link so if you dont have a partner that has the background for these subjects, then be prepared to get help as soon as possible. Its preferable that you do this before you start a business.

Although looking for these problems at any time is a good idea, the end of a year or season is an excellent business interval to make sure you are not making these errors. Take the time, or make the time, to fix these problems. If you dont know how to reverse the problems, then get some help. If you really dont have enough time to either figure out if you have these issues or know they are there and cant break away long enough to do it right, then get some help.

8 BIG Small Business Mistakes is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips

The core of every business is sales. Many of the strategies to increase sales offline are applicable online, but not all of them. On the Internet, everybody can effort to fail fast and learn from it. Better still, after years of testing and tracking what works online, people can just learn from other people’s experience and cut the learning curve tremendously.

Here are 5 of the surefire ways to increase sales:

1. Establish a sound affiliate program

If it is just another affiliate program, then don’t expect to have different results. Focus on building a sound affiliate program, with the tools and materials to support affiliates to promote a program easily. After all, affiliates work like clockwork and should be seen as a team. Provide them with the right promotion tools and they will more likely promote the program.

Give the customers an option to join the affiliate program after purchase. Satisfied customers are one of the best marketing for any business. Spread the good words through word of mouth. Best of all, they are paid just for doing that.

2. Follow-up after first purchase

The hardest task in any business is acquiring the first sale. Make sure that capturing customers’ name and email addresses are the least information gathered from a sale. With that information in hand, follow-up with existing customers, probably through an automated mechanism like timely autoresponder.

This effort has been proven to decrease refund on products and increase customers’ satisfaction. Every once in a while, mention a related product that might be of interest to the customers. Write a review and provide real results. Such promotion is extremely inexpensive, but very effective in practice. The product can be anything, including an affiliate program.

3. Use up-sell technique

Just before a customer check out to the payment gateway, prompt for optional upgrade to the better, bigger, or nicer product for a fairly steep discount, preferably not available elsewhere.

A certain number of customers will choose the option, which translates into additional sales, almost without additional effort.

4. Provide discount coupons

Coupons urge customers to come back and shop. Promotional coupons work for both advertising and some forms of joint venture. Customers love to know that they get lower price for what they buy. Coupons make it so real and tangible.

5. Cross-promote with other related products

There is no limit as to how this could be accomplished. Joint venture with other business or even competitors is feasible as long as it brings a win-win situation.

One example would be to give away sample of other product or service as part of the whole package. As long as the sample is relevant to the customer, this promotion could only be seen as an added value instead of pure advertising.

There are many other tactics to increase sales but above tips have been proven to work again and again. Choose one at a time and take action. Good luck.

5 Surefire Ways to Increase Sales is a post from: X Analisys Business Management Tips