Business Propulsion is a proud supporter of the HOPE Africa project, an initiative of the Rotary Club of Macquarie Park, and is actively involved with the event planning and marketing of the charity gala dinner.

Hope Africa’s vision is to build a not-for-profit youth centre in poverty stricken Otjiwarongo, Namibia – where the main inhabitants have little to no opportunity to support basic needs such as food, shelter, health and education.

The youth centre will be a place where vulnerable and underprivileged children can have a safe place to learn whilst also having access to health and recreational facilities for them and their families. The recreational facilities will get youth off the streets. Through increased access to education, skills training and recreational facilities, this project will give a sustainable social and economic empowerment to the less-privileged children and their families.

To raise funds, Macquarie Park Rotary Club and HOPE Africa’s ambassador Ian Thorpe OAM will be hosting a star-studded Gala Dinner. Taking place at Curzon Hall, NSW on September 27, the event is an opportunity to dine with the epitome of Australia’s entertainment, sporting and media industries for an evening of superb cuisine, entertainment and exciting auctions.

Some well known attendees for the evening include:
• HOPE Africa’s ambassador and Olympic Gold Medalist Ian Thorpe;
• NRL legend and sports presenter Brad Fittler;
• Journalist, author and TV presenter Jeff McMullen;
• Former RAAF pilot and aerobatic competitor, Matt Hall;
• Former Chief of the Defence Force and 2011 Australian Of The Year, Peter Cosgrove and Chief Newsreader and journalist, Peter Overton.

Please join us in supporting this cause to elevate a community of children in need, providing them with an alternative future through engagement, education and empowerment.

For more information on Hope Africa or to reserve your seats for Hope Africa, please visit www.hopeafrica.org.au.

Hope Africa is also on social media:
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/hopeafricachildren
Follow us on twitter @hopeafrica1
Follow us on LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/company/hope-africa

There are many ways to improve your online reputation. Here are a few things:

1. Keep track of everything being said about your company. To do this, you have to regularly check what is being said about your business online. You can even monitor it through notifications in your email (example: set up Google Alerts), every time there is a mention of your company, product or service.

2. Show gratitude for every positive remark from customers. Always take time to say “thank you.” Along the way, you are building a relationship with your clients.

3. Know how to handle negative comments or opinions. It is common knowledge that you cannot please everybody. There is a chance that somebody will not be satisfied with your product or service or may disagree with what you have said or posted. How are you going to handle this kind of situation? It is a must to be ethical always, don’t just right away delete their remarks but do your best to take action relating to those reviews and comments instantly. In doing so, you must thoroughly review their feedback first, for it may be right or it may be wrong. If you think, they are right, and you have made some mistakes, there is nothing wrong with making an apology (make sure than apology is written on the same page) with an assurance to correct your error and improve more your product or service. Don’t forget as well to thank them for their positive criticism that could help you improve your business. However, if you find that any of the feedback is wrong, provide facts to prove yourself and ask the owner of the blog to remove his comments. If he refuses to do so and continue with his or her annoying remarks, you may complain to their service provider and have action taken to remove the comments.

4. Ask a happy and satisfied customer to make an online review. You can either get your customer to make a review on your site or blog. Or find other trusted review sites of your industry, and request them to post on these sites also.

Always monitor and manage your online reputation, and make sure that you include this task in your standard operating procedures.

Always remember that your time and your money is at stake, and you either make it succeed or you will lose them. To avoid the latter, here are some tips to help generate new ideas before you decide to proceed any further.

1. Distinguish the kind of business you want to engage in. Is it a product or service? Most often, people tend to jump on things based on their passion. But still, you must be realistic, is there really a big need in the market for the product or service you are so passionate about?

2. Is it a short-term or long-term idea? Most people look to set forth with a long term business, but there are also some that the goal is short-term. If your idea is just to create a fad, then you must get used to the fact that it is not going to be sustainable for the long term. However, if you want to create a stable and sustainable business, be sure that you are going to build long-term product ideas.

3. Do some market research. This is the best advice for those who are planning to start a new business. Market research can give you a picture of the demand for a new or even existing product or service in the market. You can use the result in the preparation and creation of your business and marketing plan. When you do the research, you get to interview and survey your target market (this is called primary research). The other one is secondary research. The goal here is to analyze data that has already been published (which is secondary data). However, this could not give you a full picture. The information you will get may be outdated or you may miss out relevant factors needed for your business.

Research that is not well thought out and executed may result in business failure, or may give your competitors an advantage over you.

Here are 7 tips to get back into work mode.

1. Get into the right mindset, think vacation as a reward for your hard work. Think that your recent vacation was your reward for your long and tenuous work and now that you are to jump-start on working again, set a goal for another vacation reward on a specific date.  Make it as your motivation.

2. Feel productive. Get a feel of what it was like being so productive and not wasting a single moment of the day doing nonsense and procrastinating. Make your time count.

3. Pick up a task and start working. Sit on your desk and take a few quick breaths. Clean up a little and organize your desk. Start with checking your organizer. Start right there and then; pick up what is needed to be accomplished for the day and don’t forget to note down what must be done on the next coming day/s. Check your e-mails.

4. Take it easy. Though you have already picked-up a task and have started working does not mean than you have to go all out working on your first day. Don’t get so loaded; take time for a little chat and a cup of coffee with your colleagues.

5. Let the holiday spirit subside gradually. Don’t rush and stress yourself, allow at least 2 days to get back into the swing of things, Let the holiday spirit subside naturally.

6. Plan a simple evening event at home with your family. Have at least something to look forward to when you get home from the office, a sumptuous dinner with your family, a cup of coffee and a little chit-chat at the veranda or family room after meals. Stay away from doing loads of house chores; you are still on the mode of coping up your energy and preparing yourself for the next days in the office.

7. After all the days work, walk out and close the door and leave all your working problems behind. There is still tomorrow for the work left undone.

Here are things a blogger should give importance when writing content:

1. Topic - You should have a clear idea of the topic you want to share or discuss. It should be something you are passionate about or your subject of excellence. For business, it may be a mix of your subject of expertise and of topics on business and development. You may also consider issues frequently asked by your customers.

2. Content - First and foremost, your content must be original. Your writing is considered “unique” when it is original, meaning you have to speak your own mind in a creative and interesting way. Start with attention grabbing lines. It is also good to remember to make sure that your content is informative and valuable.

3. Title - The title must be considered as a little advertisement of your work. It must have attention-grabbing lines and there must be a few words that will describe the main topic. It should draw interest to readers to read more, getting the feeling that as they go through reading, they will get to solve the problems and needs that they might have.

4. Keywords - It used to be ‘litter the content with keywords’. But nowadays it is more important to ensure your article is adding value to your readers and easy to read. This will then help your blog to be easily found by search engines.

5. Images - Visuals add spice to blogs. It enhances your page. However, you must be careful in grabbing and uploading photos you get from sites like google etc. You might be violating copyrights if you have not gotten express permission. If you are good in photography, it is advisable that you take and upload your own photos.

The reason why we need to maximise our existing clients is still to earn and grow revenues. But aside from earning revenue, maximising sales from existing customers will lessen our cost as we all know that finding a new one is quite expensive and time consuming. Another thing is that, building the trust and relationship with a new client is a lot more difficult compared to having the existing one return for repeat business. You can also easily ask for recommendations and referrals for a new client from your existing customers.

We have to create and develop our customers’ loyalty. How can it be done? There are many ways to achieve this, and to list some:

1. Develop/Improve our product and service. We should be competitive with the kind of product and service we offer. We must see to it that we have better products and service than those of our competitors.

2. Keep in constant contact with your clients. Always be updated of their requirements and needs, by asking and surveying them.

3. Maintain excellent customer service. Ensure that we review our contact points with the customer, and constantly thrive to provide a ‘WOW’ experience at every step.

4. Offer a better deal of your goods/services. You can reward your customer’s with value added add ons, as a way to get them to sign up for you for a longer period.

The test of your success in handling your business is not measured only on how many prospects you have dealt with and closed business transactions, but it can also be mirrored on how many customers keep coming back to you. A good business owner must know how to maximise sales from his current customer group while obtaining new ones; these two must work hand in hand in order to gain profit, and none of these two should be neglected.

Facebook has now launched its latest SEO, the graph search, wherein users will be able to find people, photos, places and things of their interest.

This SEO is said to very useful for businesses, so let’s look a little deeper.

Facebook pages that are publicly available will be automatically shown in relevant searches within the Graph Search tool. If a user has “liked” any webpage, photos  or page news feed, all these will be part of the searchable data that, and will be available when a user submits a search query. It is important then that businesses will see to it that their profile and information are updated.

How the graph search works:

1. The search bar will give top search suggestions for your query.
2. These search suggestions will bring the searcher to a unique results page. Information that has been shared by your business and the connections of the person searching are some factors for the search results.
3. Sometimes, search suggestions can trigger web searches.
4. Pages and applications can continue using sponsored results.

4 tips to optimise your page for graph search:

1. Business Profile – It must be specific and correct especially the page name spelling, category, vanity URL and information in the “About” section.
2. Upload photos and tag all of them – Add locations, time and tag your business.
3. Public Data – It is better to put no restrictions in the settings particularly on the age group and country restrictions. Data must be in public.
4. Place Pages – Your location or your local place page must be updated too so it can be easily searched

Facebook graph search will affect your business in a way that getting your page coming up in search results, will mean that your business get more views and visibility. Here are a few more factors that are important with graph search:

1. Likes

• Businesses with a wide fan base will turn out on top in search phrases, this is because search results are determined by facebook’s robust database.

2. Interactions and Engagement

• Graph search makes interactions like check-ins more important. This interaction with followers can help the business go higher in the search results as through interaction your business page and information will be shared by them.

3. Invest in your page

• You may promote your page through deals and advertisements being offered by the site sponsor to increase your search potential compared with your competitors.

Watch this space as we continue to monitor the effectiveness and rate of acceptance of Facebook’s Graph Search.

Review of the Revamped MySpace

It’s back! For the third time, Myspace has come back with a new design, new features, a completely fresh start. Now, Myspace has revamped its whole look and is concentrating on giving users access to millions of songs and music videos. It’s almost as if it’s an online portfolio for entertainers worldwide. When you sign up, you are asked to categorise yourself whether you are a musician, photographer, filmmaker, curator, designer/creative, entertainer, DJ/producer, brand, venue, writer, promoter, comedian or fan.

How It Works:

It’s sort of like Facebook or Twitter. When people browse through your profile, they will see your pictures, your playlists and the music you listen to. Unlike Facebook, it won’t show your updates on what you are currently up to, instead, it is more music-oriented.

Your news feed, on the other hand, will show videos, music and photos that your friends like.

Pros:

It’s free. Enough said.

Easy sign up. You can sign up easily using your Facebook or Twitter account or even your old MySpace account.

Access to millions of songs. You can access different artists’ profiles, see what like-minded connections are listening to, and discover new songs.

Very nice design. The colors are easy on the eyes and the photo resolution is good. If you type anywhere on the screen, the whole screen becomes a search screen which will display the search results. It looks pretty cool.

Cons

Is it a social network? Is it a photo-sharing site? Is it a video site like Youtube? The new MySpace is trying to incorporate all of these things into one. It might work, or it might not. The problem with this set up is, most people are already existing subscribers to these social media sites. If you’re into connecting with your friends, Facebook is there. If you want videos, you have YouTube. If you want music, you have Spotify or other similar sites. Some people simply don’t have the time to add another social media site into their lives and be active in it.

The Verdict

Backed by Justin Timberlake, the new Myspace (this time with a small S) has a lot of potential. They are currently working on giving subscribers a mobile app. Since a lot of people are using their mobile phones to browse the internet, they should include this feature real soon. All in all, I think Myspace’s future is very promising as a music network.

Another icon of personal development has been lost as Zig Ziglar slipped away.

He was one of the most influential motivational speakers and authors over the past few generations.

Ziglar was known for his seminars and for inspiring a lot of people by the positive messages that he sent out.

He spread short stories with quotes that became a way for a lot of people to uplift their morals.

Zig Ziglar has written more than 25 self-help books and countless audiotapes that has impacted millions of lives.

His advices on personal development and lessons on life made him a very well-respected icon and a lot of people looked up to him.

After suffering a devastating fall down a flight of stairs in 2007, Ziglar suffered a brain injury and had short term memory problems.

He still continued to travel the world to spread his messages with the help of his daughter. After a short bout of pneumonia, he passed away on November 28th this year at a hospital in Dallas.

This is just a short tribute to a true legend.

Some of his most famous quotes are:

• “If you can dream it, then you can achieve it.”
• “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” – this, along with a few other authors such as Bob Burg (Go-Givers) has been a core foundation in how we approach not just our business, but also what we do in life. By temporarily suspending your own self-interest and focusing on adding value to the other person, you will receive back multiple folds over time.
• “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
• “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.” – great advice to remember for all the entrepreneurs and business owners who’ve had to suffer multiple hard knocks, and know that you just have to keep getting up each time

Thanks Zig and I’m sure your legacy will continue to live on for a long time.

Ziglar is survived by his wife Jean and his children Tom, Julie and Cindy.