Shamus Brown’s Top 5 Sales Presentation Tips

When its time to give your next sales presentation, here are my favorite tips for delivering powerful, charismatic, and engaging sales presentations.

#1 – PLANT YOUR FEET SQUARELY ON THE FLOOR

How you hold your physical body during your sales pitch communicates a tremendous amount of information about you to your audience. Studies have shown a person will unconsciously interpret approximately 55% of the meaning of your message from physiological cues in your body position, stance, and facial expressions.

Deliver your presentation from a position of confidence. Stand with your feet squarely between your shoulders. Distribute your weight evenly between your legs, and plant your feet firmly on the ground. Keep your arms relaxed at your sides, until your are ready to make a gesture.

Shifting your weight from one leg to another communicates to the audience a lack of confidence. This comes across unconsciously in that if you were to ask someone, a typical response might be “he didn’t seem like believed in his company” or “I not sure that I can trust her”.

Try both the balanced and the unbalanced speaking postures right now, and see which one makes you feel more confident and ready for your next sales presentation.

#2 – GET PUMPED UP

It is your job to lead the audience. The reason they are there to get something from you. So you must lead them where you want them to go. If you want people to get excited about your product or to feel a sense of trust towards you and your company, you must first create this emotion within yourself.

How do you do this? Simple. Do whatever it takes to get yourself excited. Jump up and down. Clap your hands. Play your favorite music loud. High five your sales partner. You can do this where you won’t be seen by the prospect (in your car, in the customer’s stairwell, bathroom or outside the building). What do you think a rock star or an actor does to warm-up before going on stage?

The idea is to begin your presentation in an absolutely great state. Do this right and the audience will follow your where you want them to go.

Special tip: Use this technique before making important phone calls so that you are “on” when you make the call.

#3 – WARM-UP THE AUDIENCE

Another thing big rock stars do before coming out on stage is they have warm-up acts. The job of a warm-up act is to get the audience in a mood will be receptive of the main act’s energy.

You can accomplish this same effect by simply playing music before you start your presentation. Many laptops have CD players these days, or you can use a boom-box. The type of music you play will depend on your audience, and the emotional state that you want to warm your audience up to. Just think about how this will set you apart from your competition’s stale PowerPoint slide show.

#4 – BEGIN WITH AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

The more rapport you have with an individual or a group, the more receptive they will be to your message. One way to build rapport with your audience is by asking questions of your audience during your first few minutes on stage.

Ask a question or two that most people can easily answer (but don’t put anyone on the spot too much). Questions such as “How far did you come to get here?” and “How long have you been working in this field?” easily get conversation going and begin creating a relationship between you and your audience.

#5 – SUSTAIN EYE CONTACT WITH INDIVIDUALS

You probably know you should do this. Now here’s why and how.

The more frequently you change the location of your focus, the more new information your brain is taking in. Your eyes are the visual sensory input system for your brain. Change focus fast enough and frequently enough, and you overload your brain to the point where you forget where you are at in the presentation. Aaaaggh!

Maintain your concentration on what you want to say next by fixing your visual focus for short periods of time. Do this by completing a thought or a sentence (whichever you find easier) while sustaining eye contact with one person. Move eye contact to a new person with each new thought or sentence.

© 1999-2004 Shamus Brown, All Rights Reserved.

Presentation Skills & Public Speaking – 10 Tips to How to Design & Prepare for a Presentation

Top 10 Tips to help you Plan and Design and Prepare for your Presentation

Next time you are faced with the daunting prospect of having to write a presentation, try out these tips from Skillstudio and you’ll be surprised at just how effective they can be at helping to design and prepare for a presentation.

  1. Prepare Prepare Prepare – The more time you spend preparing your presentation beforehand the more confident you will be on the day.
  2. Get to know your audience. Put yourself in their shoes. What’s in it for them? What understanding do they currently have? Do they want a detail or strategic level talk from you?
  3. What’s the one key goal you want to achieve by giving this presentation? Make sure that this is clear to your audience at the beginning and end of the presentation.
  4. Split your presentation into a beginning a middle and an end. Use the middle section to develop your ideas.
  5. Remember the power of three. Wherever possible think of things in threes. eg three key points to make at the beginining, three key points to develop further in the middle and three key points to make at the end. Your middle can further expand on the three points with three additional points each. etc
  6. Brainstorm the likely questions you will be asked by your audience. Prepare answers using the Power of three.
  7. Try using a mind map to help you organise your ideas into logical chunks. The clearer your thinking is the easier it should be to understand when you are presenting.
  8. Avoid the trap of preparing for your presentation at the last possible minute. It will only mean you lose a night’s sleep – on the night before you have to present!
  9. Lead your audience through your presentation using sign-posting. Recap on what you’ve just covered and then use rhetorical questions to move onto the next section. Always summarise your main points just prior to the end of your presentation.
  10. Plan to end your presentation with a call to action, a request for a decision to be made, or whatever you believe is the most appropriate means to achieve your overall goal.

Painting Business Marketing Tips and Ideas

Marketing is an important part of running a successful painting business. No matter how good you are at doing professional paint work, it won’t help you if you don’t have a marketing strategy in place to promote and sell the services that you offer.

In this article we look at how effective painting business marketing strategies can help your company get the painting jobs that you need on a regular basis. We also off ideas and tips on putting such a marketing plan together.

Branding Strategy

Right from the start you should set out to develop a brand. Give some thoughts to how you want to shape public perceptions of your business. A great name and logo design can give your brand visual representation but there is much more to it than that. A winning brand strategy is to have the right attitude and to adopt a business philosophy that will ensure that you slowly start to develop a good reputation. Strive to become known as a reliable company that always meets and exceeds customer expectations.

Painting Niche Markets

Before you can start to develop a marketing strategy you need to know exactly what painting services you intend on selling. Depending on the size of your local market and the number of competitors you may decide to specialize in one particular area or to be a ‘jack of all trades’.

The market can basically divided into two broad areas, exterior and interior painting. Exterior or outdoor painting work is usually easier to get as people are less likely to do it themselves due to the perceived danger of getting up on ladders. The great thing about outdoor painting work is that customers are usually less demanding then they are when you are painting surfaces inside their home. With outdoor painting you do have to consider safety to a much greater extent though, particularly for multi story buildings. You don’t even have to limit yourself to house painting as all kinds of buildings need painting from time to time.

Market Research

Do some thorough market research and identify all of the opportunities that are out there in the market. You also need to try to understand who your customers are likely to be and how you can market your service to them in a way that they will respond favorably. Put together some customer profiles and chat to a few typical customers to find out more from their prospective. Get into the customers shoes and try to understand what they are looking for in a painting company.

Networking Tips

One great way to pick up some regular jobs is to approach people who you think are in a position to be able to refer customers to you. Try to make relationships with property developers, interior decorators, real estate agents, home staging companies, property management firms and others who are out there in the market. Other networking options include joining a local builders association or the Chamber of Commerce.

Look for other well established service businesses that have large lists of clients and regular communication with them. You may find cleaning companies or lawn care businesses that will promote your service to their mailing list for a fee.

It can be great to have relationships with other painting contractors. While they are competitors in some sense of the word, they can also be helpful. If you specialize in different kinds of painting or you work in different parts of town then you may just be able to refer business to each other. If you are lucky there may be times when you have more work then you can handle. Being able to pass work on to other painters that you know are reliable will be good for your customers and good for them. They may also reciprocate and send work your way.

One great place to meet people is at home improvement stores. The painting section in Home Depot can be a gold mine if you are friendly and strike up some casual conversations. You will meet other contractors there and you may even meet a customer as well.

Advertising Campaigns

The obvious way for a new business to get in touch with prospective customers is through advertising. Test a variety of methods that will put you directly in touch with your target market. For more information see our article on Painting Business Advertising.

Marketing Materials

It helps if you have some marketing materials to show to prospective customers when you meet them for a consultation. Have some brochures made up or at least take a folder along with you with pictures of some of the jobs that you have completed in the past. Testimonials from previous customers also offer the prospect the kind of reassurance and ‘social proof’ that they want before they sign the dotted line.

What can you do if you have not completed any paint jobs yet or don’t have any suitable photos? One great tip is to purchase stock photography from an online retailer. Featuring pictures of beautiful paint jobs in your brochure or on your website is not fraudulent if you don’t make false claims about the depicted work being your own.

Fine Tune your Sales Process

To be a huge success in the painting business you do have to have someone on your team who is able to go out there and sell your services. There are many different sales strategies and techniques and they all have varying levels of success depending on the sales person and the prospect. Learn about some of the different approaches, test them out and then find out what works for you.

Don’t be intimidated by the idea that you have to sell. Sometimes if you just be yourself, stay positive and guide the customer through a pleasant conversation about how you can help them, that’s all it takes.

Try to up-sell customers on additional painting work. Once they have agreed to hire you to paint a certain area you can also start suggesting other areas of their house or property that could do with some paint work.

Ideas on Customer Service

In the painting business you have to be a good communicator as well as a good painter. It is necessary to take the time to understand every customers unique requirements. Always give them the best standard of service and make sure that they have open lines of communication with you. This should start right from the moment they get in contact with you to enquire about your services. Try to have someone answering your phone calls in person and if this is not possible then make sure that you return calls as soon as possible.

Marketing to Existing Customers

Once you have a customer and have completed some work on their home, that doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship with them. Build up a client list with notes about each property that you have painted. You can then contact them from time to time and offer to do any other painting work that they require.

There are many great guide books available online that will offer you additional ideas and strategies for your painting business marketing. If you study marketing in general you will find that most concepts relate to the painting industry and can be applied in your business.

Integrative Business Planning – 10 Tips On Common Pitfalls To Avoid

Business Planning, whether at the start-up of a new venture or during its growth, requires an integrative approach. It is important that all crucial aspects are addressed and balanced. The following tips show some of the common pitfalls that should be avoided in the business planning process:

  1. Certain aspects of a detailed and integrated business plan are ignored. A typical example would be market research. This is often due to the cost and time involved, lack of know-how or ignorance of the importance thereof.
  2. The different aspects of the business are not match. It is for instance important that there is a good fit between the team and the opportunity.
  3. Over-optimistic projections are used. Sales and market share projections are quite often not realistic.
  4. Assumptions are not tested and adjusted where necessary. An example would be where it is assumed that $x of marketing will result in $y of sales.
  5. Not enough time is allowed for the business planning process. The importance of proper planning is often negated in favour of execution.
  6. The reverse of tip number 5 also occurs regularly. Especially new entrepreneurs tend to fall in the trap of over-planning and almost seeing the business plan as an end in itself. A fine balance should exist between planning and execution.
  7. The use of resources is underestimated. More people, time and materials are normally needed than anticipated. This cause budgets of capital and cashflow to be insufficient with potential grave consequences.
  8. Critical obstacles and even fatal risks are ignored. It is important to work through and resolve any potential problems and not to turn a blind eye.
  9. Measurable and achievable goals and mileposts are not set.
  10. A big problem, of adhering to the requirements of integrated business planning, is that entrepreneurs often have preconceived ideas that they don’t budge from. This can be due to a lack of knowledge combined with specific personality profiles. It is extremely important to be flexible, acknowledge when you are wrong and to get assistance when needed.

Copyright© 2008 – Wim Venter

5 Tips To Writing A Good Business Plan

Starting up a business is an exciting time, but writing a business plan can seem daunting initially. However, being able to write a good business plan is an essential skill to have for any entrepreneur or new business looking to increase their chance of survival.

1) Identify your audience. A good business plan should be written from the prospective of the audience. First, you need to decide on the purpose the plan. Are you trying to persuade an investor to take on your project or communicate the future plans for the company? The purpose of the business plan will affect the style and content so make sure you are clear on this before beginning. A good business plan needs to be tailored to the specific requirements of the target audience in order to be engaging.

2) Do your research. In order to be able to write a strong, comprehensive business plan you need to possess a sound knowledge of the market you are involved in. You need to actively conduct market research and ensure that your plan makes reference to your findings. It should include factors such as market size, the predicted growth path of said market and how you propose to gain access to it. For example, if you are planning on opening a bar then your business plan should include figures based on the local population, cost of suppliers, predictions about whether the bar industry is likely to grow or decline in the area and a review of the competitive environment.

3) Assess your competition. Understanding your competition is an essential component to understanding any business environment. Whatever the business you are looking to establish, you will always have competition in varying degrees. Perhaps you want to open a restaurant in an area that is already saturated with eateries; you then need to think about what is the unique selling point of your restaurant. Or maybe you have found a niche in the market, why is that? In order to make your business a success you should look to your competitors to see how they are managing their business or areas where they could improve. You also need to assess whether you can compete effectively with the existing businesses and how you plan to do so.

4) Attention to detail. A plan that is concise and clear reads professionally so don’t make yours too wordy. The reader needs enough detail and information to be able to make an informed decision. As with all professional documents, care must be taken to avoid spelling mistakes and use correct grammar and punctuation. A plan that makes absurd or unrealistic assumptions is of no use so stick to the facts and make sure you are making credible projections and accurate content at all times.

5) Cover all bases. Before embarking on your plan it is a good idea to undertake some research in to what a professional business plan should include. You can then use this as a check list to make sure you have covered all the relevant areas. Sections of the business plan should include information on the company, the product/service market, competition in the field, management team, marketing strategy, operations and financials.

Once you have done all this you should have a complete and detailed professional business plan. The most important thing to remember when developing the plan is to see it as a living document and include specifics regarding dates and specific responsibilities. Your plan will need constant reviews and updates and things change so expect it to be a work in process for a good stretch of time. It will all be worth it in the end, a well-written plan will help ensure that the business is fully focused on what is required to achieve the company’s goal.

Tips for Starting Your Own Casino As a Business Venture

Casinos have been around for a very long time. Some businesses have buckled with the introduction of the Internet, but casinos seem to have thrived. This is because nothing beats the environment of gambling in a casino environment, even playing in the comfort of your own home.

Therefore, opening a casino is still a profitable business and you will have the opportunity to make a lot of money. If you think that you are interested in opening your own casino, you should read ahead for some ideas and how to go about opening the business.

Plan

Before you approach anyone concerning your idea, you should have a business plan clear in your head. You should be making a portfolio of your plans, especially if you need some investors.

You could even have some ideas about whether you want to buy a property and convert it into a casino, or have a building built from scratch so it will be tailor made for your plans. Both these options are expensive, so you need to have some start-up costs.

If you are not sure what you need to know to make the business plan, then you should do some research and even take a trip to Las Vegas and have a chat with the casino owners. Tell them that you want to build a casino in your area and they might be interested in investing.

If they have any franchise programs, you should give them some considerable thought because then you will be able to use their name and their equipment. There will already be a business image in place, which you can just use. This will be a lot less work, but you will not have any design input.

Investors

When you are in the position to show your plan to the investors, you need to be passionate about the idea and you should have a model, or a 3D drawing of the casino. You have to know what you are talking about because they will see through you if you don’t and then you will have failed before your idea has even got off the ground.

It might be a good idea to have some custom playing cards made with the name of the casino and the logo on them. This will give the investors the impression that you are extremely serious about your plans. They will be very impressed that you were proactive enough to have a pack of cards made.

Permits

Once you have the investors, it is time to apply for the permits. You will need building permits and a gaming license before you have even laid a brick. Do not start building unless you have the permits because they will knock the building down.

Also, do not play any games without a license because you will be liable to prosecution for gambling without a license.

Peripherals

Once everything is in place and construction has begun, it is time to buy all the peripheral items. This includes custom made cards, poker chips, gaming tables and even the interior design.

This is the time when you should be getting excited and thinking about your brand ideas and the image that you want for the casino. If you are that excited, you might even be thinking about building your next casino.

The future is bright for casino owners. People enjoy going to casinos and there will be people who go to casinos every single night because they like the social atmosphere, so start thinking about membership cards and loyalty programs.

Marketing Ideas: 7 Simple Marketing Tips to Boost Your Business Now

Marketing is the life-blood of your business; yet, for many, marketing is a complex beast that they do not want to deal with. When you break it down to a simpler process, marketing can become your new favorite practices! Here are 7 marketing tips that you can use right now to boost your business:

1. Understand Your Target

No matter what business you are in, whether offline or online, you MUST know your target market. When you understand exactly who you are selling to, you know exactly where to advertise, what to say and even what to sell. Researching your target market will help you understand where they are in life right now and where they hang out which makes advertising a whole lot easier!

2. Build a Database

One of the most important aspects of online business is building a solid database by collecting information from your visitors. Building a database allows you to market to your visitors and customers over and over again for little or no extra cost. I highly recommend Aweber for your email marketing and database building needs. Most online business owners collect names and email addresses while others collect names, email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses. When making your decision about what to collect think about your marketing plans. If you will be including physical mailings then add home addresses.

3. Give Customers a Preview of Your Work

A great way to build your database is by offering visitors a preview or free offer for joining. This free offer can be a report, audio interview, video, or even a CD or DVD that you mail directly to their home. This offer gives your customers a great preview of who you are and what you can do to help them achieve their goals. Put the time and effort into helping them understand your business in a way that will benefit them.

4. Branding

Branding is a term that is often thrown around in marketing circles. Building a cohesive message from your logo to your website to your blog to your email messages to your twitter account and to the products that you sell is branding. You want your customers to hear your name and think a power word or phrase. For example, when you hear “like a rock” do you think Chevy? Or “MMM MMM Good” did you think of Campbell’s Soup? It doesn’t matter if your business doesn’t have the advertising budget like these two companies, always include your name, logo and slogan on all of your marketing materials, emails, products, etc.

5. SWOT Analysis

During my undergraduate degree at Penn State, every single project, assignment or paper that I had to complete for my advertising and marketing courses needed a SWOT analysis. What is a SWOT analysis? SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. For every client that I work with and every online business that I’ve built, I take the time to work through each one of these steps because often I uncover information and opportunities that I’ve never thought of including for my business. For Strengths, I work through the strengths or advantages that I have over my competition. For instance, I have a very strong background in the marketing and advertising area, so I know how to market my business and bring more targeted traffic to my website. For Weaknesses, I work through the weaknesses or advantages that my competition has over me. For example, when starting out, my competition has a larger market share and more individuals recognize another’s name or work over mine. For Opportunities, I prepare a list of opportunities or possibilities that I have with my business like the new markets that I can penetrate or the new products that I can offer an existing marketing because of my background. Finally for Threats, I look at environmental or outside threats to my business. For example, if you work in a medical niche, you must be aware of laws and regulations surrounding your business. Many online business owners fail to plan their businesses and often fail because they didn’t plan. A SWOT analysis allows you to carefully analyze your business or idea without spending days writing a full-fledged business plan.

6. Be Enthusiastic

Did you ever have that monotone professor in high school or college that put you to sleep every time they started talking? They never showed excitement or enthusiasm and you probably never cared for what they were teaching, right? To attract attention and customers, you need to be enthusiastic about what you sell and what you do! Your enthusiasm will transfer excitement to your products and services for your customers.

7. Be Persistent

This is probably the biggest mistakes most business owners make in marketing and advertising. Many think that marketing is the magic pill. One advertisement is going to solve all of their problems. Yet, it couldn’t be further from the truth! The average consumer needs to see a message about seven times for it to be effective and for them to take action. You can’t simply run one newsletter advertisement and expect it to explode your mailing list; many times you need to run it multiple times for it to be effective.

Marketing is truly the key to being successful in business both online and offline. It is a necessity to share your products and services with your target market. If you are on a limited budget, choose one method and make a commitment to running your advertisement at least three times then analyze your results.

How to Start a Cake Business – Some Tips and Ideas to Make a Good Start

A cake business is a great opportunity to make money with your baking and decorating skills and of course, if you love decorating or it has become one of your hobbies, it is indeed great to make money out of something that you enjoy doing. You can start by finding some tips and basics of learning how to start a cake business, learn from those who have been there and avoid mistakes in putting up your own business.

Here are some things that you might want to keep in mind in learning how to start a cake business. Considering that you already have your baking skills honed and your love for cake decorating unparalleled, then here are other things you have to keep in mind.

Start with a business plan. We tend to make plans in mind and eventually end up with so many ideas that you do not know where it would lead you, but it is important that you put your business plan in writing so you will know where to start. It will also help guide you on your business goals and in how to achieve them.

Plan your investment. Determine how much you will invest including the things and equipment you need to have. Prioritize your investment. Plan everything out from the equipment that you will need to the skills and personnel you need. You may also need to take care of some business fees too.

Of course, you should include your marketing plan as well. With the many bakery and cake business already existing, you have to come up with a unique idea or concept that would make your products sell and, of course, you have to be into the competition. Even if you are still starting, find ways to be competitive as well.

Don’t just settle with your existing skills. Find ways to upgrade and improve our baking skills as well as your cake decorating ideas. When it comes to cake designs, especially when you re dealing with wedding cakes, people are always looking for something unique and you should be able to cater to that needs of your clients.

Explore and take advantage of the internet. In learning how to start a cake business, you don’t have to focus only on putting up your physical store, you can also explore the great advantage of the internet. Put up a website and display your creations online. A lot of people are turning on to the internet to find ideas and cake designs and you can take advantage of that one too.

Start with these tips on how to start a cake business. In fact, you can start everything online if you still don’t have the resources to put up a physical store. You can make it a small home business, market it in the internet and provide delivery services. This way you will be able to start with just little investment than putting up your physical store.

Best Small Business Tips and Ideas

Deciding to start a business can be one of the most exhilarating decisions you make in your life. We are living in a world wherever everyone wants to make extra money and add to his income. Most people have achieved this by acquiring great business ideas. When one starts up a company, he must be ready to meet competition. It is important to note that you would not need to become rich or popular to succeed in business but have to think smartly. But there are a lot of moving parts and many different elements to consider.

10 basic tips essential to start a business successfully.

Tip 1: Get inspired and Love your idea

Every business begins with an idea you may have imagined of opening your own business for years, or motivation may have hit you suddenly. Nevertheless of the source, the first step of starting your own business is coming up with a business idea. And as important as your idea, you must in love with the idea.

Tip 2: Do Your Research / learn everything about the business

You’ve recognized your big idea, now it’s time to balance it with the reality. Are you truly ready to start a business? Answer the questions below and see what you need to prepare yourself for business. For a small business succeed it must fulfill a need, solve a problem or offer something the market wants.

You can identify this need in many ways by doing research, focus groups, and even trial and error.

As you search the market, some of the questions can be:

• Is there a need for your anticipated services or products?

• Who needs it? (Target Costumers)

• Are there other companies offering similar services or products right now?

• How is the competition?

• Can or how will your business fit into the market?

Tip 3: Make a Business Plan

You need a business plan in order to make your business idea a reality. If you expect to seek monetary support from an investor or financial organization, a formal written business plan is a must.

Even if you don’t need monetary support, a simple business plan can give you precision about what you hope to accomplish and how you plan to do it.

In overall, your business plan should summary your business goals and the inspiration behind them, as well as your plan for realization of your goals in terms of marketing and funding.

Tip 4: Planning Finances

Opening a small business doesn’t have to involve a lot of money, but it will involve some investment.

There are a number of methods you can fund your small business:

• With Small business grants

• By Financing

• With Small business loans

• Or Angel investors

You can also attempt to get your business off the ground by bootstrapping, using as little capital as necessary to start your business.

Tip 5: Business Structure

Your small business can be an individual ownership, a partnership, a limited liability company (LLC) or a corporation. The business structure you might choose will impact in many factors from your business name, to liability, and how you file your taxes.

You can choose an initial business structure, and with time re-evaluate and change your structure as your business grows and needs to be changed.

Tip 6: The Business Name

The name you choose plays a role in almost every aspect of your business, so you want it to be a good one. Make sure you think through all of the possible consequences as you explore your options and select your business name.

Once you have selected a name, there is the need to check if it’s trademarked, currently in use and if stills free you will need to register it. A individual proprietor must register their business name with either their state or county clerk. Corporations, LLC, or limited corporations usually register their business name when the creation paperwork is filed.

These days you need to have a website, so please don’t forget to register your domain name once you have selected your business name. The best domains and more valuable online are the ones ending with .com.

Tip 7: Licenses and Permits

There are a range of small business licenses and permits that may apply to your situation, depending on the type of business you are starting and where you are placed. You will need to inquiry what licenses and permits apply to your business during the initial process.

Tip 8: The Business Location

Setting up your place to work is essential for the operation of your business, whether you will have a home office, a shared or private office space, or a retail location. You will need to reflect about your place, equipment, and overall setup, and make sure your business place works for the kind of business you will be doing.

Tip 9: Accounting System

One of the most essential systems for a small business is an accounting system. Your accounting system is essential in order to build and manage your budget, set your charges, conduct business with others, and file your taxes. You can set up your accounting system by your own, or hire an accountant to take away some of the work.

Tip 10: Promote Your Small Business

As soon your business is up and running, you need to start attracting customers. You’ll want to initiate with the essentials by writing a single selling offer and building a marketing plan. Explore as many small business marketing ideas as you can so you to choose how to promote your business most successfully. Completed these business start-up actions, you will have all of the most important small business bases protected, and be prepared for small business success.

15 Business Ideas to Generate Extra Income

If you want or need to start a side job because you still need to wait a little bit longer to start your own business, here are 15 suggestions for you.

1. Make money Blogging

If you enjoy writing, find a theme you’re passionate about and start a blog dedicated to covering that theme and anything else interesting you enjoy to talk about. All you need is a laptop, some time, and inspiration to consistently write. It can start as a hobby and turn into a business over time. Creating a blog is free, but if you want to look professional it can cost less than $ 12 per month.

2. Buying or selling on eBay

Thanks to internet there are more opportunities to make money than ever to buy and resell products for extra money. There are lots of people buy at a discount and resell them on eBay for profit.

3. Freelance writing

If you’re great with words, you might be capable to find some work as an online freelancer. A variety of publications need online content in the form of product, stories, service descriptions, and reports, and if you have the talent and ability, you could easily be the one to create them. Luckily, all you need is a computer and Internet connection to get started. You can start here freelancer.com

4. Social media expert

Now a day almost everyone uses Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, but did you know that many companies are willing to compensate people to support them managing their social media accounts and sometimes you can do it part-time from home. If this appeals you, to find social media jobs you can start by writing companies with a social media presence and visiting sites like Elance.com for opportunities.

5. Proofreading and editing

Do you have strong English skills and outstanding grammar? You may have chances to work as a proof-reader from home. Marketing for this can be hard; seek out those who might actually be able to use your services and advertise directly to them.

6. Virtual assistant

Many companies and individual professionals like having someone who can check and answer their email, organize task lists for them, someone who can update their calendars, and perform other administrative tasks, with minimal communication. The best of being a virtual assistant is that you can offer this service from home with a good Internet connection.

7. Website design

If you know a little bit about web design you can approach small businesses in your community, as they could use a very basic web presence to tell others about their business. These businesses usually don’t have a large budget for websites and create a great yet simple website is for you, get a bunch of clients from your local community, create sites for them, and maintains them for a small fee. You can easily get enough businesses to have a nice side business of your own with a low investment.

8. Affiliate marketing

Certain types of online businesses will pay you to promote their products and encourage sales. If you’re interested in learning more, check out affiliate marketing programs such as Click-bank, Commission Junction, and these websites are trustworthy and you can earn money by posting their products in your blog, website or Facebook. The secret of online business is all knowing targeting the right public and marketing efficiently. It can be overwhelming with all the information available online as more than 50% of the information is just a waste of time.

9. Become a business or life coach

If you are a good speaker and passionate about the business world and able to inspire and encourage others in a unique way, you could marketing your services as a business or even a life coach. Take your passion and expertise to the next level giving advice and suggest actionable steps people can take to progress their professional and private lives.

10. Start a resume writing service

If you’re excellent at writing remarkable resumes that in the end result in people getting the job, contemplate advertising those services. Most of your work will spin around writing, editing, designing, and proofreading, so you will only need few supplies outside of your computer and basic software to get started.

11. App Developer

Web app development is the creation of application programs that reside on remote servers and are delivered to the user’s device over the Internet. Now a day you can do apps with software’s you don’t really need to be a weirdo to do it, you can be an app developer for Facebook for instance and of course you can do it part-time and home based.

12. Business Consultant

If you are high organized and skilled being a good problem solver this job is for you. Companies bring Business Consultant to identify their problems, provide solutions and optimize companies. The only investments are your skills.

13. Data Entry Service

Many companies and online businesses require some type of manual information tracking, creating a vast amount of data entry work. Although there are many work-at-home scams related with data entry work, there are a lot of genuine chances available for genuine data entry businesses. If you are an excellent typist with an eye for detail, a data entry business is a great idea for you.

14. Freelance Writer

If you have the skill to write and inform people in a certain area, you can write small books or guides and sell them online, the biggest books platform is Amazon.com, where you can display your books for free and when they are sold, you will receive a percentage from the selling. Payments are made every month depending on your sales. Investment is only your time to write and imagination.

15. Internet Researcher

The Internet provides a vast amount of information. If you can quickly and efficiently navigate through that wealth of information, and essentially find a needle in a haystack, you can create a very successful business as an Internet researcher. Search for this kind of job online or about a company which is looking for this of service.

I give you only a glimpse what you could do, and these are just a few ideas, but many ideas were left behind.

First of all I advise you to think what you like to do as a hobby or in your free time, why don’t you make profit from what you are doing already?

You have the world as your disposal, but for a business to work out the first thing from all things is, it doesn’t matter what you intent to do, but you have to love it. If you love what you do it doesn’t feel like a job, you will be doing it with joy and this way you will be successful.

There are some side business opportunities that have grown more common in the past few years. And thanks to internet you have much more opportunities, ideas and help to develop your business.

5 Public Relations Tips For Home-Based Business Owners

No matter what you read in textbooks, online or hear from anyone else, you need to realise that traditional mainstream media advertising doesn’t work. I mean, it can work if you have millions of dollars worth of advertising budget, but for most businesses it is not an effective tool.

Public relations techniques become the best option for home-based business owners, especially when you consider the possibilities presented from using both online and offline techniques.

The purpose of this article is to share with home-based business owners 5 tips that you can utilise relatively quickly.

Learn to write a basic press release- The press release follows a basic template that almost any business owner will be able to fulfill. You need to learn to write a basic press release so that every time your business does something newsworthy you can send off a press release to try and get some media coverage.

Start a blog and utilise social media- I definitely think that you cannot overlook mainstream media coverage but you should also start your own blog, set up a Facebook page and set up a Twitter account so you can reach out to your audience directly without having to worry about your message being mediated.

Join an online networking forum- You should also look at joining an online networking forum. There are plenty of online groups that you can join and there is bound to be one that is related to you your niche. You should join one or more of these forums in order to build your reputation as a respectable business owner.

Referral marketing is the best way to grow your business- Going out and getting a sale can be tough. It is much better to make referral marketing a large part of your business plan. You need to aim to get as much as possible of your business through referrals. My personal preference would be for 100% of business through referrals.

Credibility is more important than visibility- As a home-based business owner credibility is much more important than visibility. It is now much more about what you say and what others say about you then how many times people see your name.

The old rules of advertising no longer apply. You need to make sure that you utilise the PR tips that I mentioned above so that you can grow your business effectively in this new economy. Otherwise you will find that you are doomed to failure.

Exit mobile version