SaleHoo – Learn to Use the Dropshipping Method For Gaining Profits

It is normal for a business to have or face different kinds of problems and issues whether you are starting it or while it is on the run. Some of the facets a business struggles with especially for the starters are the lack of money investment for establishing it. The biggest challenge for a business while it is on the run is how to keep its momentum to keep it strong and be consistent with the services they are rendering.

Business men and women have found out that SaleHoo can overcome these kinds of issues. They have used SaleHoo to alleviate all the problems and conquer every challenge a business can face. So what role does SaleHoo plays to unravel these problems?

It is very important for a business to gain profits for the products they are selling. Maximizing the profits for a business can be done by selling the items with the most demands. Selling these products in a short time frame would give the seller a huge profit. If the seller is promoting some kind of products that are not in demand as well as hard to sell then the business will not gain profit.

Entrepreneurs have discovered that by selling products online there is more possibility of gaining profits more. One of the methods business person used is the dropshipping. In this way, they could sell items without even buying it from the company. They will just sell it through online and once the client purchased an item the seller will just forward the order information to the dropshipper. The dropshipper will then be doing the delivery as well as the packaging of these products.

Also, since it is an online business, different people from different parts and places in the world can see their products. By providing good photos of the products and relevant information, customers will more likely to buy it. And with the use of the power of technology, this way the customers will have a convenient way of buying the goods. Using the dropshipping technique, you can promote products as many as you can and customers will be enticed to buy more from you.

Forex Trading Profits – A Manual Trading Strategy That Works

It is possible to take up Forex as a full time profession. In fact, it is the only home-based business anyone can set up from home with as little as 1500 USD. You will need USD 500 to set yourself up with a laptop and internet connection and 1000 USD to deposit in your forex personal ECN account. In 20 days you will be making more than USD 200 per day with this strategy, but it takes time and patience.

Good charting software that comes with the popular MT4 trading platform that almost every broker offers free along with a trading account is the only tool one needs. Added to this is the knowledge of trading strategies and risk management and one is all set to set up the perfect home based business without any overheads at all.

It is possible to make as much, or as little (whichever way you look at it), as 200 USD per day trading forex with a 1000 USD account.

I’ll let you in on a little secret forex trading strategy of mine:

Trade a 0.5 percent of your deposit in PIP value. This means that one pip should be equal to 0.5 percent of your deposit. So if your deposit is USD 1000, your exposure per pip should be USD 5.

This will leave you with 160 pips to play around with. The chances of the market moving 100 pips in the wrong direction are scarce if you have an eye on the screen while the trade is open.

A good strategy will give you ample warning that the market is going to move further and you can opt out. I suggest you keep a stop loss of 120 pips, believe me you will never need it if you follow this strategy.

Observe a monthly chart. Mark out the highest point and the lowest point the pair reached over a period of 3 months. Observe the most common price the currency pair kept returning to and draw a line through that point. That is your entry point. Go long with 0.2 lots at that point and go short at the same point with 0.2 lots. Your per-pip value will be USD 2 in each trade.

With 160 pips to play around with you don’t have to worry about the margin call. The market will move in both direction and return to the same entry point at some time or the other. You must set up alerts on the MT4 for 10 pips above and 12 pips below the entry price. When the alert sounds, exit the trade.

If the market moves away in either direction you will still make a profitable trade. It will be a matter of time before the market returns to the entry point.

With a 0.2 lot trade and take profit point at 10 pips, you stand to gain 20 USD per trade. You will get at least 4 opportunities to trade in a day. That will make you USD 80 per day. With a consistent trading strategy you will make 1600 USD in 20 days. Use it to increase your per-pip value.

This is one strategy that has worked for me over the last 2 years. Why, should it not work for you? The only thing that could be a problem here is that you need patience and have to be in front of your terminal every day. It will also pay if you increase your deposit and reduce your trade percentage. The lower the better because then you will have more pips to play around with if the market moves against the trade. Remember, the market will return to the entry point, you just have to wait it out without fearing a margin call.

Small Business Owners: Your Leadership Style Can Increase ‘Profits’

Covid-19 pandemic has forced a lot of business closures. Government leaders are issuing stay-at-home orders and the government is reopening in phases, which has limited customers sizes to 25%, 50% and 75% for the health safety of our community. How can you lead in constant changing environment? How do you motivate employees and simultaneously look for the next product to keep the doors open? How do you change your management style to be an effective leader in such a uncertain future and ‘doing more with less’ employees.

Leadership

I suggest send out a survey of what qualities they want to see in a CEO (then pledge to do everything you can to live up to these expectations)

Leaders need to provide coaching, because no one ever got to be the best without the constructive feedback, probing questions and active teaching. Be honest and positive in all communication messaging.

Search for opportunities to improve

  • What’s new?
  • What’s next?
  • What’s better? And not just for yourself but also for those around you.
  • Find a significant purpose for addressing your challenging and most difficult assignments.

Who you are and what your values are (then you give voice to those values)

Leader must affirm the shared values of the group.

Inspire a shared vision

  • Envision the future by imagining, exciting and enabling possibilities
  • Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations
    • Imagine the possibilities
    • Find a common purpose

Leaders who focus on the future attract followers more readily

  • Read trends
  • Listening to Podcasts
  • Watching documentaries

People regard most favorably those leaders who regularly talk about the ‘why’ of work and not just the ‘what’ of work

People who are leaders want to do something significant, accomplish something that no one else has yet to achieved.

Motivating Employees

  • Cross Training Employees about each other roles/responsibilities
  • Mentoring
  • ‘how can I help you?’… walking around 30 minutes a week
  • Delegating responsibilities
  • Brown Bag lunches (training)
  • Praise and Work for work above normal day activities

Sending them to seminars

Have them to do presentations

Quarterly Corporate Town hall Meetings (teleconference)

Weekly recognition of outstanding performers

  • Email
  • Walking around
  • Must be based on ‘visible’ performance (daily if outstanding)
    • Monthly meeting (recognize your performers)

Social Media interaction with customers

  • Do you have a scalable website (WordPress)
  • Do you have LinkedIn profiles about employees and products
  • Engaging with customer markets about current happenings
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Reddit
    • Twitter
    • Weibo (china)

Finally, some business owners will make the necessary changes to keep afloat and some will drown. Navigating in rough waters, takes a team effort, innovations and commitment to ride it out!!!!

Your job as a business leader is to communicate, communicate with honesty and positivity to build trust in customers, employees and shareholders.

Truck Wash Business and Incentives for Higher Profits and Efficiency Considered

One of the most consistently growing sectors in our economy after the 2008 economic crash has been surface transportation for moving goods and services. Maybe that’s why Warren Buffet bought a railroad company or why FED EX is doing better with its ground freight than with its airfreight division currently. Although things do change over time, the trucking industry has been constantly hiring new drivers every month, about the only sector expanding throughout the economic recovery. So, maybe a good business might be one that is involved in that sector? Let’s talk about the truck washing business.

Yes, the truck washing sector is a decent business model if done correctly, I’ve been involved in on-site mobile fleet washing and fixed site truck washes in my career. The trick is to be efficient with the labor and process because, last time I checked trucks still don’t wash themselves, or drive themselves, and until Google figures that one out with autonomous self-driving trucks and fully automated truck washing systems to talk to each other via the Internet, well, we still have a good business strategy our here.

If you want your wash teams, employees and managers to run your business efficiently then you need to consider performance pay, bonuses, and incentive money. Yes, I know, Friedrich Winslow Taylor already made that abundantly clear well over 100-years ago. Now then, how much should you pay your hired help? Well, first there are minimum wage laws right? So, that ought to be a good starting point for a base pay for the washers, then pay them a bonus of the revenue over the minimum number of trucks which need to be washed based on average price charged to break even.

To do this, show them your real costs to break even. The bonus percentages are based on each hour worked and divided by each workers total hours – thus, different people get different bonus checks based on the hours they worked. Next, tell the workers that the only way in hell they are going to increase volume is by improving quality, speed (getting the divers out fast), repeats and referrals. This way they are overly nice to EVERY DRIVER and ask them to be sure to tell everyone to come in to your truck wash.

As you prune the “stand-around” lazy workers, your team will only have the best hard-working people and this will permeate what is expected of anyone new hired to replace the dogs.

What about management bonuses at truck washes?

Okay so, why not tell the manager that he gets a base pay, salary plus a bonus of the increased volume over last year’s same month volume, plus an efficiency number based on labor costs per unit. Let him know that the only way he’s going to get that done is to have the best kick-ass employees work more hours, and those who suck to take a hike and to go out and get new business, sell accounts, make calls to other companies to bring their trucks in, he’ll be more aggressive.

You need to think about the implications of all of this, and what formulas you might use to determine percentages. Remember your objectives are more efficient operations, saving costs, higher profits and more sales and volume – right? Okay, that’s the mission and that’s the goal – so use employee incentives for higher profits and greater efficiency. Please consider all this and think on it.

Think Big Start Small – SPQR – 10 Ways to Small Profits – Quick Returns

Introduction: Think as big as a Roman Emperor and start with small steps towards your own empire. The reason for a big vision is to have clarity of purpose. The reason to take baby steps is to get results quickly. The sooner you can get ‘returns’ the better. Returns may come in the form of feedback as much as from income or saved expense. There is no business that goes according to (business) plan. If you take those initial steps without having the big picture, you’ll soon be lost.

Plan for the Horizon: Be very concerned about what’s on the horizon-that’s where you’re headed, but be preoccupied with what’s on the agendaâEURothat’s what will get you there. Live your future now; if you don’t, it’ll soon be your past. The returns are going to be bigger if your plan is writ large. While planning is vital, allow yourself to grasp the unexpected-don’t avoid opportunities that pop up simply because they weren’t in the plan.

Sell Your Prototype: If that’s all you’ve got ready, sell it, at a big discount maybe. Or, even give it away (protecting your invention, of course). Getting feedback on prototypes early ensures you get the return of buy-in from others later and will ensure that you can make ‘Mark II’ better. That’s the whole idea behind software developers launching Beta versions for free. It’s the next best thing to being your own customer.

Work with Lead Users: You can collaborate with lead users, offering them special deals in return for being available for reference once your definitive product is on the market. When I started in business, I was very pleased to work from Day 1 with a company that was always being asked by others for advice. I offered more in use-value than was paid for, but the ‘return’ was generated over a long period.

Offer Service Before Products: There may be a way that you can sell a service before your product is ready. There are many services that you can perform if you have the expertise to produce products. Your knowledge will enable you to offer your time for sale more quickly than perfecting something that you have to manufacture. The fee that you earn generates the revenue that you can apply to the production process. the return may be smaller, but it’s sooner.

Stick to a Simple Range at First: You may have conceived a grand plan for your product range, but you should not wait until everything is in place before you start selling. Selling a few items will get the revenue flowing and more importantly, you’ll start getting customer feedback before you are fully committed. You can even go out and sell a spec that you fulfil once you have a signed order. This way you’ll avoid unnecessarily scrapping things that have not worked or were unacceptable to clients on a larger scale.

Test Drive Procedures: If you plan to open a restaurant to offer meals throughout the day, start by opening just for one meal only, say in the evening. Then you can use the day time for doing all the many things you need to get done before the full launch, like visiting suppliers. Your kitchen procedures that have let you down in the evening can be perfected in the closed hours the following day, without getting in the way of food preparation when you have customers waiting.

Sell Close to Home: Small clients close to home may not seem exciting and be without huge potential, but they will be easier to sell and sales costs will be lower. Getting paid is likely to be easier. If there’s a delay, you can visit the customer personally. Chasing payment long distance is always more problematic and you’ll need all the cash flow you can get to cover your operating costs. Your margins will be better short term if you can keep the cost of sales down.

Go for Low-hanging Fruit: You must plan on the big or complex sales that are going to give you the best margin eventually, but grabbing easily accessed sales, the ripe fruit, that is right near by will help you on your way, while bigger ones mature. The big return on these quickly-made sales is that the feedback-and-product-modification process can be accelerated. Little incremental improvements will soon add up.

Have Staff On Call: Of course you want to hire the people that you think you’ll need for the operation of your business, but if you take staff on to the payroll, you need to be sure that you can pay them on an ongoing and regular basis. Maybe you should be thinking about creative ways that you can get round that level of commitment. You can recruit staff on call. What work can you contract out? Can you pay by the hour-worked or are part-timers possible? Only undertake work that is absolutely essential. The return you’ll get from delaying recruitment is keeping cash in the business at the early high-risk stage.

Don’t Go for Broke: There are some startup businesses, like in hi-tech, where you may have to commit big sums of money up-front before you can sell a thing. But most startups work best if you work with as little money as possible. If you’re hungry, you’ll find ways of getting that vital revenue instead of capital. There are many entrepreneurs who have wasted vital time doing the rounds of investors when they could have been on the road selling goods. In any event, you’ll be better at attracting funding if you have a track record to back you claims.

Marketing Strategies: Increasing Your Business Profits

The main objective of every business is to grow and keep on profiting. Besides, what kind of entrepreneur would want to see their businesses fail? Although business has its risks, you, as an entrepreneur should know that you need to take risks in order for your business to flourish.

However, you also would never want to take too much risk on your business. This is why in all kinds of businesses, you always plan, plan and plan some more before you make a move.

As an entrepreneur you should have a written guideline for you to start your business’s marketing strategy. The guidelines are used by your business to judge your business’s actions accordingly.

A good marketing strategy should have the following goals in order to create a good marketing plan:

– Competitor

– Description of key clients

– Reasons why your product is unique

– Distribution channels

– Price strategy

– Research and development

– Expenses

– Marketing segments the company will compete in

With all of these included in your marketing strategy, you can be sure that you can really pave the road to success for your business.

Think of marketing strategy as a compass where it will guide your business to the right path. Having this kind of “compass” will make it clearer for you on what actions to take if you encounter an obstacle in your business’s path.

Decision-making is also the key in every business. With a marketing strategy, you will find that it will be easier for you to make a decision when it comes to leading your company to success. It will also help you prevent making the wrong decision.

Another advantage that a marketing strategy can provide is that you can set specific goals for your company. Whether it’s a short-term goal or a long-term goal, a marketing strategy will make it easier for you to set goals that can affect the way you run your business.

Depending on the situation, you can try different types of marketing strategies that will tailor your business’s needs. Here are some examples of the different types of marketing strategy:

– Market dominance strategy – This kind of strategy is used by companies to take control of a particular business.

– Innovation strategy – This strategy deals with the company’s rate of new product development and also innovation.

– Growth strategy – This marketing strategy is formulated to make the company grow.

– Warfare based strategies – A business competition is always there. And, sometimes your company needs to be aggressive to attack the competition or defensive to protect your company from losing profit.

These are some of the strategies that you can use in order to maximize business profit and minimize loss. Sometimes, it will be necessary for you to change your marketing strategy to cope up with the changes in the business world, such as new competitions, new technology or falling client numbers and profits.

So, depending on the situation, you should always plan on what kind of marketing strategy you should use for the benefit of the company. Running a business isn’t always smooth. There will be times that your business will be in danger of losing money or have decreased profit. Because of the ever-changing situation in the business world, you need to think of a marketing strategy to minimize risk and maximize profit.

Marketing Plan To Copy – A Marplan Is Like A Map To Your Profits

Have you asked a Marketing Agency to quote you for drawing up a Marketing Plan recently? If, like me, you own a small business, then it is hard to justify spending the £600 a day I was asked for here in Britain. I have to watch my bottom line like a hawk, especially in the difficult-trading-conditions we seem to be in. But here is a dilemma! A Marketing Plan is a really essential tool that will show a small business owner where their business is and map out where it needs to go. It is vital in today’s competitive environment that even small business should have one.

When you overdraft or financing facilities come up for renewal and your bank manager has to justify lending the bank’s money to your business, think how much easier it would be to convince him to continue backing you with a plan laid out in neat systematic form.

It is probably the case that far too many small companies don’t have a Marketing Plan, or the owner has it locked in his head. A place of storage that is really difficult to access when you need to show it to the potential investor or the bank manager. And inevitably this event usually occurs when you are really busy and committing your plan to paper, or computer file, is added pressure that you really could do with out. I run a small retail business – an independent bookshop and a Collectables gift business on the Internet.

Recently I studied for, and obtained, the UK’s Chartered Institute of Marketing’s “Professional Diploma in Marketing” by doing a convergent learning course on the net and in four intensive workshop days in my local town. It brought home to me that what we did in our own business was fine up to a point. As the course was very practical, with the chance to use any organisation of the student’s choice in the assignments that we had to submit, I ended up formally setting down the Marketing Plan on paper, that had been up there in my head for no one to see!

So what is a Marketing Plan for?

Well, its purpose is to lay down, direct and co-ordinate all your marketing activities and events. Think of it as a map. With a map it is easier to get some place. With a marketing plan it is easier to get the business to where you want it to head. This is, hopefully, to huge profits!

Perhaps you are the owner or director of a company seeking backing or further investment? Well a good marketing plan can be really important in attracting new investment or better bank facilities.

Perhaps you need help in making choices regarding which parts of the market to focus on and how to compete in that target market (Marketing Strategy)?

Often the mere process of preparing a marketing plan will help you to develop a successful marketing strategy through the discipline and process that you go through.

A good marketing plan will describe all the marketing actions to be carried out within a specific time period. It will contain details of your company, its products or services, its marketing objectives and strategies and information on how to measure the results of the marketing activities.

It might help if I give you a framework of basic elements that a Marketing Plan should include.

Basic Elements of a Marketing Plan

So what do you need?

1.Executive Summary – introduces and explains the major features and recommendations to executives (or your bank manager).

1.1 Introduction – a brief description of your organisation, its products and or services.

The context and objectives of the plan should be described and a description of what your business activities are. You should include current revenues, customers and your market position. You can also blow your own trumpet here! Note your accomplishments and successes to date.

If it is a new market entry or entirely new markets you are going for, then here is the place to describe any experience, training or competencies that your company has.

1.2 Vision, Mission Statement and Objectives

Mission statements focus on the long-range purpose of your marketing plan.

“To educate entertain and enlighten our clients so that they become more successful Marketers.”

Company objectives should be more specific and oriented towards action.

“We will deliver a balanced range of Marketing Solution Publications to the U.K. and Europe through mail order and Internet.”

1.3 Team description

Who will deliver the plan? What are the resources and structure of the team who will do so?

Management skills and capabilities. List any Marketing knowledge, sales skills, copy-writing ability, etc.

Agencies – Include any Marketing consultants, PR agencies you are using.

If there are any gaps honestly point them out and do a Training Needs Analysis.

1.4 Main marketing objectives

You need only give a brief statement of these here to close the Executive summary.

2.1 Current market conditions

What are the trends in your market?

What are the dynamics facing businesses such as yours?

Who are your target customers?

What competition do you face?

2.2 Market trends:

You should describe the macroeconomic trends that directly affect the target market that your marketing plan is aimed at.

This is where the PEST Framework is useful to include. (Sometimes referred to as PESTEL, SLEPT or PESTE) the components are:

Political

Economic

Social

Technological

Environment

Legal

2.3 Target market

It goes without saying that you should be aiming all your marketing efforts precisely at a target market or you are heading for a disaster.

All good marketing planning should follow from a very detailed segmentation of the market.

Size? Is it growing, staying the same, or shrinking?

Customer characteristics e.g. age, sex, income level, location, marital status, number of children etc.

Habits, patterns and values of target customer.

What are their wants, needs and desires?

What are their buying habits? – How do they spend their disposable income and when do they buy and how do they buy? How many times and when?

2.4 Competition analysis

In the micro environment analysis of a Marketing Audit you will hopefully have identified your present and potential competitors. What are their key products / services? How do they differentiate them selves? You should briefly explain the actions that you will take to oppose or overcome your competitor’s offerings.

I highly recommend you use Professor Michael Porter’s Five Forces Model for this and the four other threats he identifies. Space does not allow me to go into detail here although I have written a more comprehensive report in which I include a diagram of the Five Forces Model available from my own website.

2.5 Issues analysis

You should briefly list such key external issues as government legislation affecting your business, or new technological development that impinges on your product.

3.1 SWOT analysis

Strengths

Weakness

Opportunities

Threats

A major component of any marketing plan is the SWOT analysis. Strengths and weaknesses are born of internal elements while opportunities and threats come from outside.

When opportunities and threats are recognised they can then be examined from the point of view of your product strengths and weaknesses.

What could we change or improve about our product to make it easier for the customer?

What are our customers’ wants and desires? – We may possibly find new opportunities by thinking about such questions.

It is worth remembering that a threat can also be an opportunity to you, while a strength may also be a weakness depending on your point of view!

A business offering a vast selection of products may see this as one of their strengths. But for the customer, confused by the bewildering array of options as they try to find what they need, sees it as a weakness.

4. Positioning Strategy

Decide how you want your clients to perceive you in your marketplace.

Lowest price?

Best service?

Highest quality?

This is all part of the differentiation process.

5. Differentiation

You want to ‘stand out from the crowd’ so you need to make some decisions on segmentation and the positioning of your business. Combine this with your competitive analysis and you should be able to differentiate yourself from the competition.

6. Key messages

Thinking about differentiation should also help you to decide on your ‘Key messages’. Be warned that it usually takes time for these to make an impact, to ‘sink in’, as it were. This means it is important to keep repeating your consistent messages throughout any marketing campaigns.

7. The Marketing Mix

The 4 P’s.P is for:

Product – List your companies products and services. Include their key features. Is there something unique about them? If you are launching a new product or service include it here.

Price – There are many ways to set a price, some more scientific than others are! Remember that pricing is an integral part of the marketing strategy. Ask yourself is the customer willing to pay the price proposed and will it give you any profit? Some prices may be set on a cost-plus basis – adding a profit on to the costs of producing the goods or services. A better way is the ‘market-based’ price because it takes into account what your competitors are charging.

Place – where do you sell? Direct, through an intermediary? Bricks and mortar or virtual outlet?

Promotion – what activities are you going to use to create awareness of your product or service to generate sales? This is also referred to as Marketing Communications and includes direct selling, corporate events, brochures, web-sites, advertising. You should be warned that many inexperienced marketers think that the promotional plan is the entire marketing plan. It is, as you can see, but one component of the marketing plan.

7a. Integration of Promotional activity

Have you got a consistent look and feel to all your marketing mix? It is wise to make sure all your communications, brand positioning, propositions, messages, etc are derived from a single brand position so it is not confusing to the consumer by being fragmented. Also are there cross selling opportunities for you to exploit?

Only 4 Ps? – Funny, I thought I heard there were 7!

Before leaving the marketing mix I need to tell you about the Extended mix, which adds People, Process and Physical evidence to Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

If you are a service, or a not-for-profit organisation, then the extra three Ps are most important for you. But don’t just assume that because you are not, that they don’t apply!

People oriented organisations have to consider how their personnel make the marketing activities more, or less, effective when dealing face to face (or on the phone) with their public.

Process makes it easy for you to deal with the organisation. If it is a charity, for example, today people expect to be able to go on-line, set up direct-debits, pay by card and not just put money in the street collectors tin.

Physical evidence is expected to result from paying for a service or donating to a charity. You expect to see some physical evidence of the use your money has been put to.

8. Marketing Budget

You need a detailed budget for the next year showing the budgeted costs for each of your promotional items.

9. Measurement

Results and feed back must be gathered each month and compared with the marketing plan. When they are going astray you need to take corrective action.

Another tip is to ask your customers how they found you so that you can monitor what parts of your communications plan are working. Note this and include this in your measurements.

10. Milestones

It is a good idea to announce in the plan some marketing milestones you will strive to achieve. When you pass them celebrate!

So there it is a step by step process to create yourself a professional Marketing plan.

How To Prepare A Business Plan That Guarantees Big Profits

It is always said “If you Fail to Plan, you Plan to Fail”

Success in business comes as a result of planning. You have to have a detailed, written plan that shows what the ultimate goal is, the reason for the goal, and each milestone that must be passed in order to reach your goal.

A business plan is written definition of, and operational plan for achieving your goal. You need a complete but success tool in order to define your basic product, income objectives and specific operating procedures. YOU HAVE TO HAVE A BUSINESS PLAN to attract investors, obtain financing and hold onto the confidence of your creditors, particularly in times of cash flow shortages–in this instance, the amount of money you have on hand compared with the expenses that must be met.

Aside from an overall directional policy for the production, sales effort and profit goals of your product–your basic “travel guide” to business success–the most important purpose your business plan will serve, will be the basis or foundation of any financial proposals you submit. Many entrepreneurs are under the mistaken impression that a business plan is the same as a financial proposal, or that a financial proposal constitutes a business plan. This is just a misunderstanding of the uses of these two separate and different business success aids.

The business plan is a long range “map” to guide your business to the goal you’ve set for it. The plan details the what, why, where, how and when, of your business–the success planning of your company.

Your financial proposal is a request for money based upon your business plan–your business history and objectives.

Understand the differences. They are closely related, but they are not interchangeable.

Writing and putting together a “winning” business plan takes study, research and time, so don’t try to do it all in just one or two days.

The easiest way to start with a loose leaf notebook, plenty of paper, pencils, pencil sharpener, and several erasers. Once you get your mind “in gear” and begin thinking about your business plan, “10,000 thoughts and ideas per minute” will begin racing through your mind…So, it’s a good idea when you aren’t actually working on your business plan, to carry a pocket notebook and jot down those business ideas as they come to you–ideas for sales promotion, recruiting distributors, and any other thoughts on how to operate and/or build your business.

Later, when you’re actually working on your business plan, you can take out this “idea notebook” evaluate your ideas, rework them, refine them, and integrate them into the overall “big picture” of your business plan.

The best business plans for even the smallest businesses run 25 to 30 pages or more, so you’ll need to “title” each page and arrange the different aspects of your business plan into “chapters.” The format should pretty much run as follows:

Title Page Statement of Purpose Table of Contents Business Description Market Analysis Competition Business Location Management Current Financial Records Explanation of Plans For Growth Projected Profit & Loss/Operating Figures Explanation of Financing for Growth Documentation Summary of Business & Outlook for The Future Listing of Business & personal References

This is a logical organization of the information every business plan should cover. I’ll explain each of these chapters titles in greater detail, but first, let me elaborate upon the reasons for proper organization of your business plan.

Having a set of “questions to answer” about your business forces you to take an objective and critical look at your ideas. Putting it all down on paper allows you to change, erase and refine everything to function in the manner of a smoothly oiled machine. You’ll be able to spot weakness and strengthen them before they develop into major problems. Overall, you’ll be developing an operating manual for your business–a valuable tool which will keep your business on track, and guide you in the profitable management of your business.

Because it’s your idea, and your business, it’s very important that YOU do the planning. This is YOUR business plan, so YOU develop it, and put it all down on paper just the way YOU want it to read. Seek out the advice of other people; talk with, listen to, and observe, other people running similar businesses; enlist the advice of your accountant and attorney–but at the bottom line, don’t ever forget it has to be YOUR BUSINESS PLAN!

Remember too, that statistics show the greatest causes of business failure to be poor management and lack of planning–without a plan by which to operate, no one can manage; and without a direction in which to aim its efforts, no business can attain any real success.

On the very first page, which is the title page, put down the name of your business-ABC ACTION–with your business address underneath. Now, skip a couple of lines, and write it all in capital letters: PRINCIPAL OWNER–followed by your name if you’re the principal owner. On your finished report, you would want to center this information on the page, with the words “principal owner” off-set to the left about five spaces.

Examples: ABC ACTION 1234 SW 5th Ave. Anywhere, USA 00000

PRINCIPAL OWNER: Your Name

That’s all you’ll have on this page except the page number -1-

Following your title page is the page for your statement purpose. This should be a simple statement of your primary business function, such as: We are a service business engaged in the business of selling business success manuals and other information by mail.

The title of the page should be in all capital letters across the top of the page, centered on your final draft–skip a few lines and write the statement of purpose. This should be direct, clear and short–never more than (2) sentences in length.

Then you should skip a few lines, and from the left hand margin of the paper, write out a sub-heading in all capital letters, such as: EXPLANATION OF PURPOSE.

From, and within this sub-heading you can briefly explain your statement of purpose, such as: Our surveys have found most entrepreneurs to be “sadly” lacking in basic information that will enable them to achieve success. This market is estimated at more than a 100 million persons, with at least half of these people actively “searching” for sources that provide the kind of information they want, and need.

With our business, advertising and publishing experience, it is our goal to capture at least half of this market of information seekers, with our publication. MONEY MAKING MAGIC! Our market research indicates we can achieve this goal and realize a profit of $1,000,000 per year within the next 5 years…

The above example is generally the way you should write your “explanation of purpose,” and in subtle definition, why you need an explanation. Point to remember: Keep it short. Very few business purpose explanations justify more than a half page long.

Next comes your table of contents page. Don’t really worry about this until you’ve got the entire plan completed and ready for final typing. It’s a good idea though, to list the subject (chapter titles) as I have, and then check off each one as you complete that part of your plan.

By having a list of the points you want to cover, you’ll also be able to skip around and work on each phase of your business plan as an idea or the interest in organizing that particular phase, stimulates you. In other words, you won’t have to make your thinking or your planning conform to the chronological order of the “chapters” of your business plan–another reason for the loose leaf notebook.

In describing your business, it’s best to begin where your statement purpose leaves off. Describe your product, the production process, who has responsibility for what, and most importantly, what makes your product or service unique–what gives it an edge in your market. You can briefly summarize your business beginnings, present position and potential for future success, as well.

Next, describe the buyers you’re trying to reach–why they need and want or will buy your product–and the results of any tests or surveys you may have conducted. Once you’ve defined your market, go on to explain how you intend to reach that market–how you’ll these prospects to your product or service and induce them to buy. You might want to break this chapter down into sections such as..publicity and promotions, advertising plans, direct sales force, and dealer/distributor programs. Each section would then be an outline of your plans and policies.

Moving into the next chapter on competition, identify who your competitors are–their weakness and strong points–explain how you intend to capitalize on those weaknesses and match or better the strong points. Talk to as many of your “indirect” competitors as possible–those operating in different cities and states.

One of the easiest ways of gathering a lot of useful information about your competitors is by developing a series of survey questions and sending these questionnaires out to each of them. Later on, you might want to compile the answers to these questionnaires into some form of directory or report on this type of business.

It’s also advisable to contact the trade associations and publications serving your proposed type of business. For information on trade associations and specific trade publications, visit your public library, and after explaining what you want ask for the librarian’s help.

The chapter on management should be an elaboration on the people operating the business. Those people that actually run the business, their job, titles, duties, responsibilities and background resume’s. It’s important that you “paint” a strong picture of your top management people because the people coming to work for you or investing in your business, will be “investing in these people” as much as your product ideas. Individual tenacity, mature judgement under fire, and innovative problem-solving have “won over” more people than all the AAA Credit Ratings and astronomical sales figures put together.

People becoming involved with any new venture want to know that the person in charge–the guy running the business knows what he’s doing, will not lose his cool when problems arise, and has what it takes to make money for all of them> After showing the “muscle” of this person, go on to outline the other key positions within your business; who the persons are you’ve selected to handle those jobs and the sources as well as availability of any help you might need.

If you’ve been in business of any kind scale, the next chapter is a picture of your financial status–a review of your operating costs and income from the business to date. Generally, this is a listing of your profit & loss statements for the six months, plus copies of your business income tax records for each of the previous three years the business has been an entity.

The chapter on the explanation of your plans for the future growth of your business is just that–an explanation of how you plan to keep your business growing–a detailed guide of what you’re going to do, and how you’re going to increase your profits. These plans should show your goals for the coming year, two years, and three years. By breaking your objectives down into annual milestones, your plan will be accepted as more realistic and be more understandable as a part of your ultimate success.

Following this explanation, you’ll need to itemize the projected cost and income figures of your three year plan. I’ll take a lot of research, an undoubtedly a good deal of erasing, but it’s very important that you list these figures based upon thorough investigation. You may have to adjust some of your plans downward, but once you’ve got these two chapters on paper, your whole business plan will fall into line and begin to make sense. You’ll have a precise “map” of where you’re headed, how much it’s going to cost, when you can expect to start making money, and how much.

Now that you know where you’re going, how much it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to be before you begin to recoup your investment, you’re ready to talk about how and where you’re going to get the money to finance your journey. Unless you’re independently wealthy, you’ll want to use this chapter to list the possibilities and alternatives. Make a list of friends you can approach, and perhaps induce to put up some money as silent partners. Make a list of those people you might be able to sell as stockholders in your company–in many cases you can sell up to $300,000 worth of stock on a “private issue” basis without filing papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Check with a corporate or tax attorney in your area for more details. Make a list of relatives and friends that might help you with an outright loan to furnish money for the development of your business.

Then search out and make a list of venture capital organizations. Visit the Small Business Administration office in your area–pick up the loan application papers they have–read them, study them, and even fill them out on a preliminary basis–and finally, check the costs, determine which business publications would be best to advertise in, if you were to advertise for a partner or investor, and write an ad you’d want to use if you did decide to advertise for monetary help.

With listing of all the options available to your needs, all that’s left is the arranging of these options in the order you would want to use them when the time come to ask for money. When you’re researching these money sources, you’ll save time by noting the “contact” deal with when you want money, and whenever possible, by developing a working relationship with these people.

If your documentation section, you should have a credit report on yourself. Use the Yellow Pages or check at the credit department in your bank for the nearest credit reporting office. When you get your credit report, look it over and take whatever steps are necessary to eliminate any negative comments. Once these have been taken care of, ask for a revised copy of your report and include a copy of that in your business plan.

If you own any patents or copyrights, include copies of these. Any licenses to use someone else’s patent or copyright should also be included. If you own the distribution, wholesale or exclusive sales rights to a product, include copies of this documentation. You should also include copies of any leases, special agreements or other legal papers that might be pertinent to your business.

In conclusion, write out a brief, overall summary of your business- when the business was started, the purpose of the business, what makes your business different, how you’re going to gain a profitable share of the market, and your expected success during the coming 5 years..

The last page of your business plan is a “courtesy page” listing the names, addresses and phone numbers of personal and business references–persons who have known you closely for the past five years or longer–and companies or firms you’ve had business or credit dealings with during the past five years.

And, that’s it–your complete business plan. Before you send it out for formal typing, read it over once a day for a week or ten days. Take care of any changes or corrections, and then have it reviewed by an attorney and then, an accountant. It would also be a good idea to have it reviewed by a business consultant serving the business community to which your business will be related. After these reviews, and any last-minute changes you want to make, I’ll be ready for formal typing.

Type and print the entire plan on ordinary white bond paper. Make sure you proof-read it against the original. Check for any corrections and typographical errors–then one more time–read it through for clarity and the perfection you want of it.

Now you’re ready to have it printed and published for whatever use you have planned for it–distribution amongst your partners or stockholders as the business plan for putting together a winning financial proposal, or as a business operating manual.

Take it to a quality printer in your area, and have three copies printed. Don’t settle for photo-copying..Have it printed!

Photo-copying leaves a slight film on the paper, and will detract from the overall professionalism of your business plan, when presented to someone you’re trying to impress. So, after going to all this work to put together properly, go all the way and have it duplicated properly.

Next, stop by a stationery store, variety store or even a dime store, and pick up an ordinary, inexpensive bind-in theme cover for each copy of your business plan. Have the holes punched in the pages of your business report to fit these binders and then slip each copy into a binder of its own.

Now, you can relax, take a break and feel good about yourself..You have a complete and detailed business plan with which to operate a successful business of your own. A plan you can use as a basis for any financing proposal you may want to submit..And a precise road-map for the attainment of real success…

You just complete one of the important steps to fulfill of all your dreams of success.

How to Create Profits Using Viral Marketing Techniques

The Difference Among Viral, Buzz, and Word-of-Mouth

There are certain words, jargon that stands in for theory, that starts with marketing industry insiders and before you know it becomes the ‘in’ subject of books, blogs, articles, and MBA dissertations. But as jargon filters down to the less sophisticated, the meaning and ideas behind these words becomes lost. Such is the case with the current state of thinking on Buzz, Viral, and Word-of-Mouth marketing.

These terms are often used interchangeably but are they the same thing? Dave Balter and John Butman in their book, “Grapevine,’ describe Buzz as a marketing tactic aimed at generating publicity or awareness often without regard to any specific message, while Viral marketing is a means of spreading a marketing message through the use of contagious creative most often Web-video and Word-of-Mouth is the process of product story-telling. Balter’s marketing agency concentrates on creating word-of-mouth campaigns for his clients but the name of his company is BzzAgent – no wonder the confusion.

Mark Huges, author of the book ‘Buzz Marketing- Get People to Talk About Your Stuff’ points out that in order to create buzz about your company or product you must develop a marketing campaign that incorporates at least one, and preferable more, of his Six Elements of Buzz:

  1. Taboo,
  2. Unusual,
  3. Outrageous,
  4. Hilarious,
  5. Remarkable, and
  6. Secret.

It would seem that these six elements are the same elements that generate the contagious spread of information – Viral marketing. In order for something to become viral, people must talk about it, ergo word-of-mouth. But people can talk and spread the word of a video or stunt without ever generating much talk about the product. The famous, or infamous, Oprah Winfrey-General Motors audience car give-away stunt is a prime example of generating talk about a stunt without generating much talk about the product. If as Balter suggest, word-of-mouth is ‘product story-telling,’ then there is definitely a difference between Buzz and Word-of-Mouth.

So if Buzz is the tactic for drawing attention to your company; and Viral is the method of spreading the message; and Word-of-Mouth is the result; we then have a clear distinction between the three marketing terms.

The question is how can we construct a Web-based marketing campaign that uses the Buzz tactic, Viral method, and Word-of-Mouth message to produce the ultimate marketing objective: more sales and profits; and are Huges’ Six Elements of Buzz the only media attributes that deliver a marketing stir?

Solve The Marketing Mystery: Discover Means + Motive + Opportunity

We’ve all watched enough ‘Law and Orders’ on television to know that solving a mystery requires learning the means, motive and opportunity of the puzzle. For today’s marketers these elements are clear.

Motive: to attract attention, breed interest, stimulate desire, and generate action that ultimately produces increased sales and profits.

Means: the advent of relatively low cost desktop digital video tools and the creation of a new class of professional multimedia Web-video producers brings affordable multimedia creative to businesses that in the past could not afford professional video content.

Opportunity: the penetration of high-speed Internet connections plus the Web’s ability to delivery multimedia audio and video combined with the introduction of Web-video search databases by dominant Internet players like Google and YouTube create the necessary opportunity.

Why Web-Video Solves the Buzz-Viral-Word-of-Mouth Mystery

  1. The 5 Strategic Goals of Marketing
  2. The Anthropomorphization of Brands
  3. Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs
  4. The 5 Elements of Communication

The 5 Strategic Goals of Marketing

Increased sales and profits is every company’s prime motive, however, in order to achieve those goals, certain intermediate objectives must be met, especially as it concerns the Web that by its nature is a sterile, remote environment. Marketing campaigns should be constructed to provide the appropriate audiences with five essential elements:

  1. Awareness
  2. Emotional Utility
  3. Functional Utility
  4. Process Facility
  5. Confidence

Target audiences must be made aware of the company’s existence and must be made to comprehend its relevance to their needs; and market audiences must be provided with a platform to participate or get involved with the company.

A successful marketing campaign must tap into an audience’s need for emotional utility, a quality created in the audience’s collective consciousness from brand personality resulting from corporate behavior and audience experience.

The campaign must also be able to speak to the functional utility of the company’s products or services. Hard information and easily understood instructions must be made available so that customers are actually able to generate the promised benefits of the product or service.

The campaign must facilitate the process of moving potential customers easily and conveniently from awareness, to utility, to incentive, to sale. The process must be transparent and mechanisms must be put in place to accommodate customers when things go wrong.

The campaign must also create confidence in the organization’s ability to deliver the promised benefits both emotional and functional.

The Anthropomorphization of Brands

More marketers are beginning to appreciate the effect of brand personality on their relationships with customers and prospects. It is apparent that markets have a clear idea as to a brand’s personality, whether a company pays attention to it or not. And just as significantly, it is clear that companies can’t just change their television commercials or advertising agency to overcome an unwanted or undesirable personality.

Brand personality is a function of audience experience: everything from the way you respond to telephone inquiries, to users ability to comprehend packaging instructions, to your website and email inquiry response times. No amount of smiling friendly faces in advertisements will make up for the irritation of a multiple-transfer-disconnect when trying to resolve a problem over the telephone.

Companies are ultimately separate entities whose personalities are composed of a collective consumer consciousness created through experience, interpreted from a very human perspective. It is human nature to anthropomorphize non-human entities in order to better deal with them. Batra, Lehman & Singh point out in their 1993 paper that there are five significant human personality traits.

  1. The Big Five Human Personality Traits:
  2. Extroversion/Introversion,
  3. Agreeableness,
  4. Consciousness,
  5. Emotional Stability, and
  6. Culture.

Jennifer Aaker in her ‘Journal of Marketing Research’ article, Dimensions of brand personality, relates the Big Five Human Personality Traits to the Big Five Brand Personality Traits.

  1. Big Five Brand Personality Traits:
  2. Sincerity,
  3. Excitement,
  4. Competence,
  5. Sophistication,
  6. Ruggedness.

When companies build a website or implement any marketing initiative there are consequences in the market collective; managing those consequences is critical to not just developing a brand personality but managing and fostering it to meet your ultimate marketing motive; generating more sales and profits.

Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs as it relates to Marketing

Abraham Maslow, who was the chairman of the psychology department at Brandeis University in the early 1950’s, developed a theory for the hierarchy of human needs. Before his death in 1970 he revised his theory by extending the hierarchy to include higher value components.

The bottom of the pyramid starts with our physiological needs: the need to maintain physical well-being and self-preservation; as you move up the pyramid the needs become more socio-cultural: the need to be accepted in society; while at the top of the list the needs become more abstract and intellectual as they relate to self-identity and the need to communicate that identity to others.

Maslow’s Extended Hierarchy of Needs

  1. Physiological Needs

    Water, food, sleep, warmth, health, exercise, sex.

  2. Safety & Security Needs

    Physical safety, economic security, comfort, peace, freedom from threats.

  3. Social Needs

    Peer acceptance, group membership, love, and association with successful groups.

  4. Self-esteem Needs

    Association with importance projects, recognition of strength, intelligence, prestige and status.

  5. Self-actualization Needs

    Need to take on challenging projects, opportunities for innovation and creativity, learning at a high level.

  6. Cognitive Needs

    Need to acquire knowledge and to understand that knowledge.

  7. Aesthetic Needs

    Need for beauty balance, structure.

As marketers, Maslow provides us with a blueprint for developing a brand personality that can effectively deliver a compelling, comprehensible, effective marketing message. Decide which of Maslow’s needs your company satisfies and then construct a marketing plan that delivers both the personality and message that speaks to those needs.

We are lucky to live in the age of the Internet, for even the smallest of companies has the opportunity to communicate its brand personality and marketing message using the most effective communication environment ever invented, The Web.

The 5 Elements of Communication

To effectively take advantage of the Web’s ability to communicate, you must understand the five elements of communication:

  1. The Environment: the Web is a sterile environment that needs to be humanized in order to effectively deliver your brand personality and marketing message.
  2. The Message: the Web is an information-infotainment environment where compelling, informative, memorable content is paramount.
  3. The Messenger: the Web is a one-to-one communication system compared to traditional broadcast and print communication that is a one-to-many system.
  4. The Audience: the Web is a place where visitors choose to visit you, do not short change them with second-rate information, poorly delivered in unimaginative, ascetically challenged presentations.
  5. The Process: the Web’s multimedia audio and video
  6. capabilities combined with the penetration of high-speed access makes for the perfect system to deliver brand personality and needs related marketing messages that humanize your website, speak directly to your audience on a one-to-one basis, and inform, enlighten and entertain your audience in a compelling, memorable manner.

Conclusion

There has always been an ongoing business battle between those responsible for technology services and those responsible for marketing services. The Internet may be a great technological achievement, and it no doubt can be used to provide extremely useful technological solutions, but at its core and from its earliest pre-Web days, it was always a way to connect and communicate information and ideas, and isn’t that the essence of marketing?

The need for businesses to create awareness (Buzz), to spread that awareness throughout the marketplace (Viral), and to involve an audience in the spread of needs fulfillment (Word-of-Mouth) is achieved by taking advantage of the Web’s multimedia communication capabilities. In short, the Web is a communication tool that can be used by marketers to speak with a human voice and human face directly to your attentive publics on a personal, human, one-to-one basis in order to achieve the prime business motive: more sales and profits.

Top Network Marketing Tools That Can Boost Your Business and Profits

Toolbox

Having the latest and greatest network marketing tools is key to your success. If you are just beginning to build your own home based business you’ll need to find out about the tools your business needs. Keep reading and I’ll share some top network marketing tips with you.

Networking

As the cornerstone to your new business will be networking, both with leads and fellow entrepreneurs, finding the best network marketing tools you can use to expand your contact list is very important. Be willing to learn about new technologies and utilize them with your networking endeavors.

5 Network Marketing Tips

1. Self Replicating Websites – Most network marketing businesses offer this MLM tool. Basically it is a site owned and operated by the leaders in your business that allows you to create a site within the main site. These can go a long way in introducing you as well as your business.

2. Information Presentation – Along with developing an inspiring and effect presentation for potential recruits, have a brochure or pamphlet printed that you can leave with them or mail to them after your meeting. Also put together a flip book that contains more information on your company, plans and products.

3. Email – One thing I tell each of my new recruits is clean out your email account and keep it that way. Always keep your contacts list up to date and never let your inbox get filled up. 5 open emails in my inbox means there are 5 things I need to take action on. This is a very useful tool for self discipline and avoiding procrastination.

4. Skype – Many of us today use Skype for our telecommunication needs. It’s an excellent way to hold team meetings, network will fellow entrepreneurs and is a free method of speaking to people all over the world. Use the record feature to keep a copy of conversations, business meetings or negotiations. (As a courtesy, always notify the other parties if the chat will be recorded.)

5. Campaigns – Schedule regular campaigns in the most effective marketing tools. Creating video content and uploading it to YouTube or Google is an excellent way to increase your web presence. Article marketing campaigns and newsletters are also very powerful internet marketing strategies.

Succeeding in Network Marketing

While each of these generic but powerful network marketing tools can greatly improve your chances for success, finding the best business system to work within is the single most important element. If your MLM tools haven’t been working for you it might be time to look into a new approach to networking market. There are options out there if you’re interested in increasing your chance of success.

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