For any business owner looking to attract and convert more visitors, one sure way is to utilize and implement video testimonials from satisfied customers.  When used properly, these videos will make your website more visually appealing (and sticky!).

Getting more exposure

In today’s social media society, visibility is vital to being a leader among your competitors. A few short video testimonials can draw quite a bit of attention, which often times will encourage your visitors to share your content with others on sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.  

Not only will this help increase exposure across social media networks, it will also help your search engine rankings.  This makes it easier for prospects to find your business, access your website and purchase your products and services. 

Touching individuals in different ways

A video testimonial can easily answer a customer’s questions, almost acting as a visual form of a FAQ.  This can provide both visual and audio reassurance of a company, its products, and its staff. 

For some customers, a video testimonial adds credibility to the website and adds a personal, one-on-one experience.

Linking your videos to your social media properties

Websites that also leverage social media pages for their business can reap the benefits of these videos testimonials by showcasing clips on YouTube and Facebook for a double-dose of visibility. This can be another strategy used to gain more followers and momentum online.

Displaying important information above-the-fold

Some visitors prefer quick information when they visit a web page.  Most people don’t appreciate pages of content and dozens of confusing links to navigate through. 

Video testimonials, if used properly, can summarize common questions about:

• Pricing & billing;
• Discounts;
• Warranties;
• The company’s return policy.  

Boosting credibility and putting your visitors at ease

Not only will these video testimonials serve as a visual source of information, but they also have the ability to put potential customers at ease.  If a visitor has never used your company’s product or services before, this can boost your credibility and make them feel comfortable buying into your offering or simply reaching out directly for more information. 

About the Author:   Sean Rosensteel is the Head of Business Development at Bravo Video, a web-based platform that enables businesses to easily capture video from customers, users and fans – right over the web.

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Entrepreneurs have it rough. Whoever said business owners are living the dream obviously didn’t witness the constant wrangling to create a profitable entity. First, there’s ideation followed by market research, raising capital, and then hopefully, execution. Oh, and did I mention actual operation? Within each of these stages, there are multiple tasks that must be accomplished. At nearly every step of the process, things can go painfully awry. For example, when marketing to one’s target audience, activities might include building a website, posting on forums to gain credibility, launching a social media initiative, blogging, contacting the media, direct mail, email newsletters, etc. Each element has hundreds of moving parts.
There’s little disputing the entrepreneur’s to-do list is as large as Charlie Sheen’s ego. Although it’s possible to effectively complete many of these tasks without assistance, doing so consumes an enormous amount of time. No matter how good one might be at time management, there are only 24 hours in a day. Once an hour has been spent, it can never be reclaimed. Of course, the apparent solution is to simply hire others to complete these tasks. While ideal, this is not always possible. Many entrepreneurs operate on a shoestring budget and paying someone to execute what are perceived as menial tasks makes zero sense. Others have trouble with (what’s that word? ah, yes…) delegation and lord knows only the owner could possibly complete the activity correctly.

Trying to do everything by yourself will lead to certain things being done exceptionally well, but others…not so much.
Fortunately, there’s a modern-day solution to this age-old conundrum: virtual assistants. Virtual assistants can be invaluable for small business owners. They can help with literally any aspect of business—from accounting and secretarial work, to web design and research—without being in the same room or even the same country. Often, a virtual assistant can complete their assignments while you sleep. Pam Ivey is a leading ‘virtual assistant’ expert. Her company provides coaching, training, and mentoring in effective and profitable outsourcing strategies to business owners around the globe.
A strong advocate for freeing business owners from their self-imposed, control-driven shackles, Pam believes an effective leader should concentrate on what they do best and enjoy most. Everything else can be outsourced, ignored, or completed by a capable employee. The formula for building substantial wealth and passive income requires attaining balance, allowing others to help grow your business, and focusing on generating new ideas while cultivating sales. Interestingly, by allowing others to complete tasks you’d normally devote time to, additional income and freedom can be realized.
Establishing a system for managing virtual, or in-person, assistants must be viewed as an investment. Whereas there may be a slight drop in immediate income, over the long haul, massive dividends will be realized. The end result is flexibility—something every entrepreneur desperately needs.

What Is A Virtual Assistant?  

As the name implies, a virtual assistant is someone who, for an hourly fee, helps with various aspects of business. There are three classifications to choose from:

• Generalist: A person who can complete rote tasks, such as data entry or forum posts.
• Technical: A person who can build websites, landing pages, handle product launches, etc.
• Specialist: A person who can handle management tasks and/or specialized functions, such as accounting, human resources, training, etc.

Prices vary depending on skill. On the low end, overseas assistants can be hired for as little as $2.50 per hour. Native English speakers with high-qualifications or specialized skills can range from $20 to upwards of $100 per hour. Unlike a salaried employee, however, this represents the net cost for hiring. As with an independent contractor, substantial savings are realized given that state and federal taxes, bonuses, medical coverage, communication, and/or transportation expenses do not have to be paid for a virtual assistant.
And, while there is a known correlation between price and quality, one is often surprised at how good a $2.50/hour employee can actually be. With clear direction, they are more than capable of handling numerous tasks, especially data entry, networking (simply provide a form letter) and research.

When To Use A Virtual Assistant

Can now be any clearer? As business owners, it is certainly tempting to do everything. As discussed, for most, money is tight and paying even $100/week for a virtual assistant can seem overwhelming. After all, not only are you paying funds you could readily use yourself, you’re also constantly managing someone else. Who needs it?
On the surface, both are legitimate concerns. However, the pain is temporary. It’s important to realize that there will never be a perfect time to hire and train someone to complete tasks that have become second nature. Therefore, it’s better to bite the bullet now. The sooner you call in the cavalry, the faster you can reap the benefits.

How To Best Leverage A Virtual Assistant

Hiring someone to execute monotonous and repetitive tasks is the perfect way to enter the world of virtual assistants. For first-time users, identifying exactly what to outsource and what to keep in-house, can be confusing. Pam recommends beginning your utilization of virtual assistants for the following activities:

• Technology: Business owners should concentrate on growth. Period. This requires focusing on front-end elements, such as ideation, management, marketing and promotion. Back-end details such as programming, bill paying, web design, and database management are ideal activities for a virtual assistant to handle. Each activity can be tied to specific performance milestones. This is an imperative element of the outsourcing equation.
• Email Management: As your business develops, your inbox will grow with it. Having a virtual assistant handle email can be a fantastic idea. Of course, there are numerous emails you’ll need to handle personally. However, it’s fairly simple for a VA to sort through your inbox, answer frequently asked questions via template response messages you provide, delete spam, and categorize/flag emails that require your attention. After completion, you can then address what’s necessary.
• Customer Service: Though a bit labor intensive, training virtual assistants to handle customer service can be a worthwhile endeavor. As business blossoms, providing customers with the opportunity to have their questions answered at virtually any time becomes mandatory. This is clearly one area where you don’t want to cut costs as poor customer service can have dramatic, negative implications. Creating scripts and providing responses to FAQs will be a necessary—but valuable—investment of time. And, while you may hesitate to turn the reigns over to someone else, keep in mind that medium and large corporations have used telemarketing firms to handle inbound inquiries and customer service-related issues for decades. It’s time for small business owners to join the ranks.
• Bookkeeping: Keeping the books current, paying invoices, reconciling statements, and billing customers is a tedious, yet essential requirement of every business. Further, there’s maintaining records, submitting quarterly and annual reports, and filing state and federal income tax returns. None of this is fun…all of it is mandatory. These necessary evils are often outsourced to high-priced accountants or bookkeeping services to handle. Some of these activities should certainly be reviewed by a licensed professional, but a virtual assistant can handle much of the work involved for a fraction of the cost. This in turn, provides freedom for you to focus on more pressing concerns.

As your comfort level grows with allowing others to complete everyday activities, you can add further responsibilities. Eventually, this may include cultivating sales, human resources, and literally any element of operating a business. Step one is getting started. From there, anything is possible.

Managing Your Virtual Assistant

As with managing any assistant, attention to detail is required. Pam offers four proven strategies for making sure your VA is not only completing assigned tasks as directed, but also doing so in a timely manner:

• Create a cloud-based workgroup. Cloud systems allow employees across the world to access to the same worksheets, calendar, and timeline for project completion. Requiring your assistant to consistently update documents empowers you to stay current on work completed.

• Set weekly meetings to talk face-to-face. While communicating via email is acceptable, video conferencing is preferred. The medium allows you to forge a closer connection with your assistant and develop a relationship that moves beyond the impersonal nature of email. Too often people develop “overly strong fingers,” saying things via a keyboard that they’d never say when looking you in the eye (even if it’s via a camera lens). A minimum of two half-hour meetings should be held each week. Skype and Oovoo are two proven tools that make communicating face-to-face simple.

• ·Set, and maintain, a specific schedule for project completion. Holding to a specific schedule ensures that tasks are being completed in timely fashion and allows for monitoring of day-to-day activities. A virtual time clock provides an easy-to-use mechanism for tracking hours. While not a perfect system, it enables you to compare results versus hours paid. Virtual Time Clock at RedCort.com/timeclock is one of the best. Staying ahead of potential issues is an important component of working effectively with an assistant. Consistent updates allow you to keep an eye on progress.

• Periodically throw a split-finger fastball. Every now and again ask your assistant to complete a unique task—ideally one that requires additional information from you such as a hidden domain or password-protected account. After providing details, at some point in the near future, redirect the domain or change the password. If the assistant is really busting his rump on your behalf, he’ll immediately contact you to say he can no longer gain access. If more than a day or two passes, odds are good he’s not fully engaged with the project.

As with any employee, attention and encouragement are required in order to bring out a VA‘s very best. A virtual assistant must be treated as an integral part of your team. If you deal with your VA fairly and express appreciation for good work, that assistant can become a tremendously valuable resource. If not, don’t be shocked if you suddenly stop receiving replies to your emails.

Virtual Value

Creating a thriving endeavor is a daunting task…there’s no doubt about it. However, by remaining open to non-traditional opportunities, you provide yourself a reasonable chance to achieve an enviable level of success. Hiring a virtual assistant, though growing in popularity, has yet to be accepted by the mainstream. But, that’s okay—effective leaders always play the game at a different speed and encourage others to catch-up.
So the next time you find yourself bogged down yet again with a repetitive task, ask yourself, “Could this be outsourced?” Quite often the answer will be yes. Ultimately, if you’re willing to recognize there may be an easier way to accomplish your objectives, you greatly increase your chances of creating a profitable entity. Just remember, the world is not against you—it’s simply waiting for you to ask for help.

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About the Author: Steve Olsher is the author of Internet Prophets: The World’s Leading Experts Reveal How to Profit Online and creator of Internet Prophets LIVE!, which takes place June 8-10, 2012 in Chicago. Featuring 29 of the world’s leading Internet, Mobile and Marketing experts such as Jay Conrad Levinson, Mike Filsaime, Mike Koenigs, Larry Winget, Marc Ostrofsky, Dan Hollings, Janet Bray Attwood, Armand Morin, and many others, Internet Prophets LIVE! provides small business owners, solopreneurs, and consultants with proven no- and low-cost guerrilla marketing strategies, tools, and tactics for cultivating leads, dramatically increasing conversion rates, and generating massive, passive income. Tickets are only $147 until May 15. For more information and to reserve one of the VERY limited number of remaining seats, please visit www.InternetProphets.com.  

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A financial planner is a professional who would put together a financial plan for you to help you achieve your financial goals. Before considering a financial planner, it would be good to examine if you really need a financial planner. As you grow older and your income increases and your list of goals become bigger, it would be prudent to engage the services of a financial planner. Even if you know the basics, it would be worthwhile to have sound advice from a professional. While the fee may appear steep, it becomes sensible when you look at the purpose for which the money is being spent.

Some planners confine their services to drawing up a financial plan without getting into execution whereas others do both. There are merits and demerits to both these approaches. Let us look at a few important features that you need to consider when you choose your financial planner.

Relevant credentials:

The plan should be made by a certified financial planner with the relevant experience and qualification to render appropriate advice. Given the plethora of people you encounter ranging from your stockbroker to your tax consultant and the friendly banker, you need to be able to distinguish a financial planner from the rest.

No obligation service:

There should be absolutely no obligation to buy any products from the planner. This will eliminate any conflict of interest that may exist as the planner will suggest products that are beneficial to you and not look at his/her commissions. Planners who charge a fee for their services are likely to provide unbiased advice compared to ones who earn their income primarily from commissions.

Ability to provide a comprehensive plan:

The plan should address all areas, ranging from your short term goals, life goals and your retirement and insurance needs.

Customised and confidential service:

The planner should meet you exclusively in a place convenient to you, to collect the required information and subsequently render personalized advice when presenting your financial plan.

Large players versus individuals:

Large firms claim to bring structured processes and systems which ensure consistency and standardization. However, as a customer if you are sure about the quality of service from smaller players, you can go ahead and engage them as quality is not dependent on size. Also, larger players may have a vested interest in pushing mutual funds and insurance products from those providers who are affiliated with them. And smaller independent financial advisors can provide more personalized service. Another big advantage with smaller players is that you engage with the same person throughout, as opposed to larger organizations where the individual may take up a bigger role. When it comes to executing a financial plan, a larger organization would score better, given the kind of access to resources that they would have.

Summary:

It is also important that the planner should be able to provide you with testimonials or show his/her track record. At the end of the day, given the important role played by a financial planner, it is worthwhile to spend time and do appropriate due diligence before engaging with a planner. You can check out the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) to locate planners.

Author Bio: Christopher is a full time blogger and part time financial counselor. He has invested his time and energy in producing quality information for ISA Rates and its subsidiary blogs. He is a passionate finance professional who wants to reach out to a large audience through web and media.

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Photo Credit:  Jerry Bunkers

By nature I’m a crummy networker. I know this might strike you as odd, coming from someone who teaches how to attract business, but this is a fact. I’m a crummy social networker, I’m a crummy Happy Hour go-er, I’m a crummy Chamber of Commerce attendee, and in general I’m a crummy schmoozer.  When given a choice I’d rather go to the small dinner party rather than to the bar, would rather be one to one coaching a client friend than stand in front of a crowd and speak; no one would ever mistake me for the “life of the party”. That would have been my ex husbands job. And I was glad he was there to take on that role as it got me off the hook. One can see how this might prove a bit problematic given my field of choice, which relies heavily on attracting clients so that I can help others do the same.

So early on I realized that if I really wanted to help others expand their reach to gain new customers that I needed to lead by example. Hence I’ve developed a series of systems that have not only worked for me, but have allowed me to expand my “list” and networking reach x4 within the past 2 years.  And growing.

Here are my top 5 techniques designed to increase your exposure and expand your list of targeted clients. Try them and be consistent and disciplined with them, and I promise that within 6 months you will have increased your presence in front of an audience that looks forward to your involvement and needs your services:

1)    Attend targeted networking events

Unless you are there for strictly educational purposes, nothing says waste of time quite like attending networking events where your main audience is your competition. That is if your goal is to expand your reach and gain clients. Make sure you’re being strategic when choosing what networking events you choose to attend by choosing events and organizations that your target audience has a reason to be at. And bring cards, please dear God.

2)    Volunteer

If your target market is local, volunteering for a position in front of the attendee’s (like sign in person, list builder, event planner, marketing person, etc.) will not only keep you in the spotlight in front of your audience but will give you a handle on the audience themselves, so that you can connect later. Just make sure you’re not expected to be tied to a table for the entire event. Kind of defeats the purpose, right?

3)    Reach out to a stranger

Every day. Make a list of folks who could have a definite benefit for you and your career in the long run, and reach out even if you are scared. Out of your comfort zone? Yes, mine too, but so what? Chances are that if you word your email in a respectful way that shows your reverence and appreciation of what they’ve done to either further their own career, be a thought leader, teach you everything you know today, shown you the path to enlightenment, fill in the blank) they will be honored that you have reached out to them. Ask them a question so as to keep the conversation alive and elicit a response from them. I.e.: “ Thanks so much for what you’ve offered the world of online marketing. Without your contributions my business would be in the toilet right now. Can I ask you who your mentors were?” Make sure it’s authentic. Inauthentic just appears stalkery.

4)     Connect with social media connections.

Notice I don’t say make sure you’re all over social media. Use it to your advantage but if your target market is not tweeting, has no idea what a “Twitter” is and has no interest in ever doing that chirpy thing, don’t waste your time on Twitter! Rather make sure that your time on the social media sites that they are frequenting is being used smartly. Ask questions, be there to answer them, reach out to the aforementioned strangers named above here, using it as a forum to engage and expand. Join groups that might be looking for your knowledge, not groups of your colleagues, again unless you are there to educate yourself and search for strategic alliances. If your purpose is to connect with attorneys, find legal sites that these attorneys are on already and form relationships there by asking questions, looking for a need (read the feeds!) and be there to be an expert on that “need” with either a comment, a link to your blog or a question.  Oh, and please when connecting with folks on Linked In, I will personally come and chop off your fingers if you send the default message which says “I’d like to connect with you on Linked In. “ Come on, you can do better than that. Make it personal. This is the perfect opportunity to connect; don’t blow it.

5)    Form strategic alliances with folks in similar but not competing professions

Think about this: you a mortgage provider. Your strategic alliances, your sphere of influence, are for the most part, real estate attorneys and realtors. Create alliances to benefit both of you, by either having a link placed on each others websites, or by having the realtor send out an email from her list talking you up, endorsing you, and offering a wonderful incentive, or a new program you happen to running, by clicking into a link right in the email which will bring them directly to a landing page you’ve set up specifically for this service, with a call to action right on that page and an obvious opt-in. What if you did this with your top 10 realtors? You have now expanded your reach to include all of their lists. Think of ways you can make this up to them without getting either one of you arrested and you now have a great big new network of potential clients.

Oh, I’ve got so many more, which I’m putting together now into a big fat e -book, so stay tuned, and in the meantime, start applying these techniques consistently, on a regular basis and see what happens. That’s the only way it works. Let me know how it works out for you.

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As you go through your business week, and if you’re present on the internet, you’ve undoubtedly received lots of promotions by SEO (search engine optimization) specialists who guarantee to shift you up the search engine ranks if not get you to the top of the first page on Bing. Some are good, some terrible, and the fees for this product run from a few hundred bucks to thousands each month. If you’re a businessman or business owner with a restricted budget for specious results, at least, before hiring anybody there are several steps you can do on your own that are the first things that the experts do.

The Name is The Game

Pick your website domain name with prudence. Every site owner has keywords that they want to be discovered on, describing content, service, geographical zone, or something else that web surfers may be searching for. If possible, put your keyword in your domain name. If it’s Mexican travel tours, then Mexicantraveltours.com is an extremely SEO’d domain name. For SEO San Diego, it can be SEOSanDiego.com. You get the picture.

This isn’t always achievable for a business. For instance, a consulting organization named Smith and Jones Consultants doesn’t lend itself to this, and key wording Smith or Jones might not be particularly useful. The domain SmithandJonesConsulting.com is fitting because the business name is included the title, so don’t omit that.

What you can do here is have an independent weblog, another great SEO technique, on a domain name using keywords. If Smith and Jones occasion to be Six Sigma specialists for suppliers, a blog called and domain-titled sixsigmaconsulting.com (if available) will get great title-driven SEO returns.

Do the Research

This is a 3-step technique:

1. Write a listing of the top 10 key phrases that illustrate your webpage (notice I said page and not website; each page keyword selection should observe this exercise, with the homepage of course for the entire business). These are 2-3 word key phrases (NEVER just one word) that illustrate what you do and what the visitor will find.
2. Visit the Google Adwords selection  tool and enter the list in, one at a time. Read what comes up. Look out for the top 5 alternate keywords that get the most monthly searches and have less competitors than what you put in as your key phrases. If what you began with is among them, skip the final step. You have a key phrase to utilize on your webpage(s).
3. Make a business decision on the most effective keyword expression between your original keyword and the five alternative phrases by how adequately it illustrates your page and material along with interest in the worldwide web amongst clients. You now have your key phrase.

Rinse and repeat

Rinse and repeat.

Anchor Tags

Anchor tags are the terms you use in your web page AND on various other sites that point to your page that are hyperlinked to get on or, if linking externally, off your site. You often see this written as click here or read more here. These hyperlinks are missing out on a useful SEO chance.

Alternatively, make the links meaningful words that are lined up with the destination landing website. If your site has to do with fantasy baseball, as opposed to writing click here in your material, say “discover more about Fantasy Baseball” with those words hyperlinked.

Keyword Placement

Write first for your reader and secondarily for search portals, HOWEVER if you select great, purposeful and detailed key phrases, they should be easy to blend into your website copy naturally. They could also be alt tags for graphic images, in video summaries, and other add-ins or widgets on the website. A leading spot for keyword explanation is in Titles, Headings and Subtitles visible on the page. Another high-SEO place is in the body copy of your starting text paragraph. Be careful to use the words effortlessly without duplicating them too many times in a synthetic way, lest you want to be put in search engine detention and possibly prohibited.

Meta Optimization

It’s incredible how many pages I have seen that lack meta tag info on the pages. Every html page should contain the following meta information behind the scenes (not directly visible on your page):

1. Title – Usually located at the top of your page source code, this appears in the top tab on a lot of browsers after your website is loaded. Make it depictive and key phrase rich in 60 characters or less.
2. Description – This is what is featured alongside your page title in search returns. You have 160 characters to present a compelling tale and include in your major key phrases. Envision writing a good Tweet and having 20 characters left after.
3. Key Phrases – Comma delimited tags in your source code solely for search engine food. Don’t put more than 10 key phrases per page or you’ll water down what your site is about in the opinion of Google, Yahoo and Bing. Many in the SEO world recommend just 3-5.

Many site development platforms like WordPress make adding these tags really effortless for non-web developers utilizing plug-ins such as the All in One SEO pack.

So go ahead and keep your money while taking control of your search engine optimization future. If you do these 5 simple things and put in the sweat equity for dollars, your website will be off to a great SEO start, providing traffic, leads and sales chances that bring the income to invest in the next phase of SEO performance.

About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms build competitive advantage in an online world of sameness.  His Smart Blog covers leadership, business communication, sales & service, online marketing and virtual business, and was recently named by Buyerzone as one of the Top 20 Business Blogs of 2011.  He is the author of Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, has been a featured expert for Inc.com with articles published in Selling Power, America Online,and Site Pro News to name a few, and blogs frequently for Rank My Website, a top San Diego SEO Services firm. 

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Photo Credit:  Iain Farrell

When it comes to ensuring the growth and development of a small or midsize business, the best way to keep the proverbial goose and golden eggs on your front is by executing certain efficacious strategies. So, whether you own a small business or just manage a department, here are ten effective strategies to ensure a long term business growth. Take a look.

1. Be goal oriented

The growth and development of any small business begins with focusing on the quality and targeted goals. A goal oriented strategy will also take you and your employees off the superfluous misalignment and goof-ups.

2. Ask your peers

Sharing and taking experience from other entrepreneurs on a regular basis will bestow you with untouched business knowledge. When you will be in a crucial business crisis, these experiences will later on take you off the ledge.

3. Take advantages of social networking tools and online media

To attract traffic and make others acquainted with your existence in the international market, make use of blogs, websites, twitter or facebook. Awash your digital market space with effective and attractive videos and blogs. This will eventually drive more companies to your business and will help you carve your niche among your target audience. Remember, promotion of your business and services is the key to success.

4. Hire effective employees

More than half of your business success is dependent on how effective your employees are. Don’t hire people that have an executive position in their former company; look for doers that could achieve targets within the provided deadlines.

5. Don’t sweat the small financial loss

Of course, any sort of financial setback harshly affects the morale of the business. But, rather lamenting your failures and losing your cool over your employees, examine what went wrong. Take a scrutinized look at your forecast sales and cash flow, and work accordingly.

6. Centralize on the long run

Instead of investing all your time and resource in the shorter purposes look into the bigger picture. You would not want to have something that only comes handy and meaningful in short run. That’s why, reassure yourself that your hard earned money is working for you and is continuously renewed in the process.

7. Plan a backup door

Look beyond the certain target audience. Business which particularly manufactures products in-house can pitch in with other smaller firms, if it allows you to gain a larger order. Don’t give a second thought if you are not making expected profit as long as your business is supported with a few good market opportunities.

8. Make long-term partnership with firms that could expand in near future

To avoid any under-delivered promises, you need to research for companies that can scale with your business potential. Find out which firm holds the possibility of making it big in near future, and try to establish a healthy relationship with its employees.

9. Don’t fall in the same stream

To get an edge over your competitors, you need to do something innovative and experimental. This will rev up your sales and eventually your business development.

10. Re-analyze your business

Once you have noticed that your plan is falling into the place, don’t just sit down and relax. Rather, run with the flow and find out the next emerging possibilities for your business. After all, achieving one success doesn’t define your business prospects.

With a small business comes limited resources; therefore, effectively planning your business strategies is the only best way to ensure the growth and financial stability of your firm. Just, keep these aforementioned points in mind to persuade your small business in the line of successful companies.

About the author: Diana Maria is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology. Beside this she is fond of autos. Recently an article on Motorola DEFY plus attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on chicken pox treatment.

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Ordinarily, leadership has been defined by the appearance of followers. If followers are present, you’re a leader. Or at least that’s exactly how it’s been traditionally understood. However, if that’s the fact, if we all come to be leaders, do we all quit being leaders because we have no devotees? Is a leader a person who can “get” others to follow? Or is a leader something more?

Plenty of days I am reminded of the trials inherent in communication because of distinctions in the substance of words. Recently, in a group atmosphere, my colleague Cynthia Stewart made a statement that I took issue with about leadership.

“It is misguided to accept that we can supervise men and women. We can manage stuff, but not living, breathing people. People don’t wish to be managed, in fact, people hate to be managed. Individuals want to be led.”

Her remark, I am sure, lined up effectively with the idea that leadership is influence. People don’t choose to be put in little boxes and handled like a resource or a chore. They choose to be swayed to make independent choices about their involvement sans manipulation.

Cynthia, a quality virtuoso with years consulting in industry who developed the Lead Quality Group on LinkedIn, was really making the distinction between smothering, manipulative bosses and inspiring leaders.

“Empowering leaders, those you refer to as character-based leaders, trust and believe in persons and want to motivate and empower those below their authority to grow and become the very best they might be. It is up to character-based leaders to direct the vision and rally individuals behind it, showing them what they can gain personally and professionally in achieving it.”

Agreeing with my friend and her interpretation, I still differed with the statement. The words, lead, influence, and persuade can all seem like manipulation or compulsion to me. Yes, I know coercion means force, but when an individual learns the consequences of an action are larger than they can tolerate, they might feel “forced” to perform something.

Simon Sinek said that we only have two approaches to get people to act: encouragement or control. When encouraged, people offer drive, exhilaration, creativity, passion, commitment, loyalty and a load of other positives to any effort. When manipulated, at best (for the leader) they provide those same sentiments, at least until they realize their error. When they feel sold, manipulated or when their determination wanes, so does their effort.

Did you get in the labor force deciding to become a follower? Positional leaders demand followers. You’re not “in” the lead unless you have individuals that are also ready to follow. If every person became a leader now, where would all the followers emerge from?

Everyday, character-based leaders, those who lead from who they are, rather than from a title, freely choose to submit to the directorship of others. Those others may be in positions of leadership or they may not. Those others may simply have a better strategy, or be more qualified, but they have no “title” of influence. They’re not “in charge.”

In my repartee back and forth with Cynthia, it turns out we weren’t that far apart. In reality, we all need to lead where we can dependent on our abilities, skills, wisdom & education, and we all need to obey where we can not or choose not to lead.

To her point:

“I won’t ever be a pastor, so I look to my pastor. I won’t ever be a surgeon, an elected official, a superintendent, etc. so I bank on others for that and take their direction. I follow in many areas of my life, but I direct my life, I lead my family along with my spouse and I lead my organization.”

Well said.

We can each be character-based leaders, leading from who we happen to be. We don’t “turn into” a follower when we decide to join. We don’t alter who we are by choosing to serve someone else in order to attain a goal. The United States was formed on principles like these. We are equals, taking various roles to accomplish shared objectives. When we become leaders, on the inside, as part of our character, we don’t quit enlisting, supporting or serving. In fact, we may enlist more, support more or serve more once we welcome responsibility for our own leadership. (For more on this, see The Three Promises of Character-based Leadership.)

Our planet needs more great leaders. No, we don’t need more people in positions of authority. Rather we require more character-based leaders both in and out of positions of authority. Be a leader. Decide to make a difference. Join someone or start something on your own. You don’t need my permission.

We can only entirely be leaders when we welcome personal duty and decide to enlist of our own educated, free will.

About the Authors:

Mike is the founder and Chief Instigator of the Lead Change Group. He’s passionate about energizing motivated people to make a positive difference. Connect with Mike via his member profile, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

Cynthia Stewart is the Managing Partner of Evermore Services, a transformative leadership development firm that helps growing businesses with a focus on Quality of work and life.  Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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As with most other industries, the commerce industry had to adapt to the infiltration of the internet. As computers became more and more popular and e-commerce sites pop up like mushrooms after the rain, a new model of marketing and selling became available.

With e-stores and web sites, comparing prices became a non-issue. Long trips to other stores to find a competitive price were no longer needed as your competitors are but a click away.

So if you can’t compete on price, what can you do to thrive?

Customer Service Is More Than About Care

The answer: customer service. Why?

Because it’s one of the last “edge” you can pursue over your competitors. As a small business, you can give each customer the attention they will never get dealing with corporations.

While CEOs view customer service as a “cost”, you view them as an investment. And when they find ways to cut the cost down, you’ll be looking for ways to invest strategically.

And even in customer-service-centric industries, few people really master it. This is because customer service is an art. With that said, there ARE a few best practices for you to get started.

Here are 7 of them.

7 Ways To Deliver Superior Customer Service

1. Encourage everyone in the organization to take an active role and come up with solutions to customer service problems. Create an atmosphere where people can express their ideas without being ridiculed or embarrassed in front of their peers because remember, the best ideas to improve your customer service will probably come from the bottom.

2. Never use a script. When is the last time you hear a representative read off a script and love it? Never. You probably wanted to scream at him/her. And don’t think people can’t tell either.

Instead, train your employees in human relationships and empathy. For example, repeat the problems customers told you because repetition has been shown to make people feel understood.

Or try putting their issues on priority. The point is to go above and beyond of what is expected of you.

3. You have to pay your customer service well, but never incentivize them for “resolving issues”. Incentivizing, studies have shown, is great for monotonous task, and customer service is anything but that.

Instead, try alternatives such as recognition and personal thanks. The best representatives love what they do – and those who do it for the money won’t be able to deliver at the level you want.

4. Your customer’s expectation changes with time. Learn to adjust. What was good enough years ago, and since copied by your competitors, might not be unique enough. For example, recorded messages were once cutting edge. Today, they are just plain annoying.

Use customer surveys to see what your customers think. Better yet, ask your representatives for suggestions.

5. Check to see what the norm in your field is, and go one step further. Try to build a reputation of someone who keeps his word and his promises. It doesn’t mean you have to agree to every whim of a customer.

A great example of this is Zappos. I’m sure you’ve heard of their legendary customer service. The norm in any industry is for customer service to “resolve issues”. Zappos took it one step further: they send birthday cards during birthdays, or condolences when a customer suffers from a tragedy.

They even answer questions unrelated to them: like telling the caller where to find pizzas at 2am.

6. Develop a culture where finger pointing comes last. The first thing you have to do is make it right with the customer. Offer a compensation for the bad experience. The second thing is to examine the system: do you need to tweak it for other representatives won’t commit the same mistake?

7. Respect and appreciate your complaining customers. They can show you where your organization is lacking. Remember, if a client complains, there’s a good chance you’ll still have his business. Those who aren’t happy and don’t complain take their business somewhere else.

At the end of the day, customer service is the face of your company. Put your best people on the front. Service is the currency that keeps your company going. Invest in it.

About the Author: Andrianes Pinantoan is part of the team behind Open Colleges, an online courses provider with a great range of business management courses. When not working, he can be found with a camera on hand. You can follow him at Google+.

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In Present internet world, blogging is the most famous and in-demand cyber tool which can be easily used by anyone. Anyone can easily create blogs online by using Web 2.0 platforms which includes – WordPress, Typepad, Weebly and many more. By using these platforms, anyone can easily create blogs without any coding problem and without the tension of web designing. You just need to select the options according to your requirement and the blog is created. Now put some effort to work on further essential needs of the blog and the most important is the promotion.

Below are some of the effective solutions to promote the blog online:

Write Quality Content

Content is the building block of any blog. It creates the first impression of the blog. So write the quality content for your blog which must be useful for the blog readers. If the blog content is unique, fresh and qualitative then it also gets some benefits from Google search engine which will give great results for the blog. Most of the advertisers are interested to place their ads on those blogs having informative and quality content. Finally, this helps to increase the blog readers, hence traffic of the blog.

Optimize your blog

After creating a blog and also writing good content for it. Now start optimizing your blog to increase its SEO points. Do on-page optimization which will be done on the pages of the blog like keyword research, writing Meta tags which includes title headings, descriptions etc. After this perform off-page optimization on your blog. By doing SEO of the blog, your blog will become more web-visible which in turn results in gaining good search engine rankings and also drive huge traffic to the blog.

Link Building

Link Building is the process of generating relevant and quality links for your blog to increase your blog’s web visibility and to achieve improved rankings and huge traffic. Link building is the off-page optimization process which includes following techniques to build links:-

1. Blog comments – This is the great option of placing our blog’s useful links on the other’s blogs. This is the one-way link building technique in which you have to comment on any post or the site’s content where comment option is enabled. This will attract the traffic of that blog to our blog. But keep in mind to promote your blog in relevant blog or under relevant content to get maximum benefits.
2. Forums – Forum posting is another way of building one-way useful links. By registering on relevant forums, one can promote his blog by placing the blog’s URL in the profile page of the forum and also by pacing the right keyword with URL in the signature field. Then participate on various threads and get the maximum exposure of your blog which in result drives huge traffic and also improve rankings.
3. Guest Posting – By doing guest posting, one can be able to attract the traffic of other’s blog in to our blog. This is one of the great ways of building links and increasing the credibility of the blog. In guest posting, we write an article or post for another’s blog which will publish our post and give us a link at the end of the post in the author bio section.
4. Article submissions – This is also one of the very effective ways of promoting the blog. Write any article and publish it on various article sites by placing the required blog links at the end of the post.
5. Social Bookmark – Creating bookmarks is also an effective way of promoting our blog to the whole web.
6. Link Exchange – One can also exchange link of their site to any other one relevant to them. Link exchange is of 3 types – one way link exchange, two-way link exchange or reciprocal link exchange, or three way link exchange. This technique provides huge traffic and link juice to the outbound links.

So, by using these techniques one can get an effective promotion for his blog which in result gives traffic, increases credibility of the site and also improves ranking of the blog.

About the Author Roberta Smith is an Entrepreneur who designs and develops solutions for a business. She also writes as a freelancer for a number of online communities and is writing this post for http://www.tustinautocenter.com

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Surely you have heard that Google has decided to penalize sites that are overly optimized for SEO. This was in a fairly recent announcement made by Google. If you have websites that are over optimized, you might want to consider making some changes before the penalties start coming down the pike.

One of the changes you can make to your website is to the title. If your titles sound too much as if they are titled only for the purpose of SEO, you might be in trouble with Google. For example, if you have a site about designing websites and you have website design repeated in the title over and over about three times, it sounds like you are only trying to optimize your site for the specific term to rank in Google. Google might penalize a site that did this because it doesn’t sound legit. If something sounds too spammy to a normal person, then Google might give a penalty. You could instead try to make your keyword appear in your title in a natural way that would sound normal to a reader.

Another issue to work on is internal links. Sometimes SEOs would repeat a keyword throughout sidebars, inside content, and in other places like the header and footer and they would be pointing with exact match anchors to one page. Of course, the first anchor text link is the only one that passes on link juice, so it is not helpful to SEO to repeat this over and over. It is not helpful to link repeatedly to the same page using the same anchor text. To Google this just appears to be spammy, and it might result in a penalty. It is much better to mix up your anchor texts when you are linking to different pages than reuse the same anchors.

Another thing you should do to avoid getting a penalty from Google for over optimization is to avoid using footers that are chock full of links. Some use the footer to put a list of anchor links in a list like format. This is not a good use for a footer. Instead, use your footer to the types of things people are expecting to find in footers and not in a way to manipulate the search engines.

If you have sites that have content built only for the search engines, that needs to be fixed right away. Some try to get around this issue by having some content for the reader and some for the search engine. The result is that the page has a good paragraph or two with information. Then, there is a paragraph that is stuffed with keywords that make no sense to an actual reader. Yes, you guessed it. This is a good way to get a penalty from Google.

Lastly, you want to try to avoid having links from sources that are likely to have penalties. This one is slightly more difficult to control because you can’t go and take the links back that you have already gotten from these places. What you can do, however, is make sure you don’t get any more links from places that have the possibility of receiving penalties. Everyone has likely heard about how link networks got penalties recently. These networks were set up to manipulate Google, so you want to avoid sites like that.

The main thing to take from this article is to be careful of doing things that manipulate the search engines. Google is cracking down on sites that use sneaky ways of getting an increase in ranking. If you have sites doing any of the above mentioned no nos, make sure to fix those right away ahead of the Google crackdown.

About the Author: Nirra writes about a variety of topics, including those related to Seo. You can read more by her on her blog, Mystery Shopping Teacher.

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Photo Credit: linh.ngân