Best 8 Tips for Marketing Consultants

1. Areas of Expertise – Establish the fields of expertise where your consulting services are acknowledged and proven leaders. Concentrate on those areas of expertise and keep drilling your success into the marketplace. Let the client’s walls resonate with your consultancy’s brilliance.

2. Innovate – Be what everyone else aspires to be. Become recognized as an innovator. Be the consulting practice that finds unique solutions or uses unique practices to create unique solutions. Innovators capture attention. Never follow, always lead.

3. Keep it Simple – Regardless of the brilliance of your solutions, do not pontificate. Be prepared to explain your products, your services and solutions in simple, easy-to-absorb language. If necessary, educate the client and let them enjoy and savor your remedies. If your solutions are complex, break them down into explainable segments.

4. Testimonials – Resource testimonials surpass all others. If you have references and testimonials from recognizable third-party universities, think-tanks or well-known institutions, put them to work in your marketing strategy. Those are the type testimonials that are unique to your practice and that is what clients want to see and hear.

5. Guarantee Results – The consultant’s guarantee will look and sound good. Be sure you can deliver. Back the guarantee with strong performance and simple language. Your word is your bond. If you can reduce absenteeism, or increase productivity or increase value, say so. Do not force a guarantee. If you issue the guarantee, put it in simple language. If your intended guarantee is burdened with contingencies, do not put it on the table.

6. Be Honest – Clients are skeptical about consulting company claims of success. Be forthright about your consultancy’s successes. Do not overstate the complexity of projects or their results. Be real. Be prepared to explain stumbling blocks, what makes projects work and factors that are destructive.

7. Show Your Hand Early – Make sure your new client-consultant relationship starts well. Give away a tip, some work samples or show a genuine willingness to make the project flow easily by extending yourself early in the project. Be easy to work with and offer free, constructive solutions to developing a working relationship. Allow the client’s staff to excel. You are setting the stage for a win-win consultancy.

8. Be First – This is another way to set your consulting services apart from the masses. Identify the item or items that your consultancy accomplished first. This is another example of the uniqueness of your services. Even if the accomplishment is small, it is a beginning. Keep track of these “first to accomplish” tasks as your practice expands.

Top 5 Signs That Your Website Does Not Produce Your Desired Outcome

Small business owners may not have the resources to invest heavily in their web presence and finding solutions to problems can be like finding a needle in a haystack. You know something’s wrong but don’t have the faintest idea how to fix it. Is it a technical issue? Are your ads not performing well? Don’t know what kind of traffic you’re getting? Website problems can fall into a myriad of categories. So if you think your website does not produce your desired outcome, a) it probably doesn’t, and b) you should read on.

1. You Aren’t Getting Traffic

You’re excited about the big, expensive job the design team just finished on your site. It looks like a million bucks! Well it’s a shame it isn’t making you a darn cent. Just because it exists doesn’t mean people know about it. Announce it to the world by submitting it to reputable directories and sharing your useful content with others on social bookmarking sites (you do have useful content, don’t you? If not, I’ll cover this later). You can even do some link exchanges — provided the sites you exchange with are reputable — just to get your site crawled early on. Further optimize it for search engines by following good SEO practices, building quality content and generating inbound links from other sites. Once you do that, you’ll need to monitor progress with web analytics software. Google Analytics is free and it has a slick interface. And we know you like pretty things seeing as how you broke the bank on your web site design.

Make Your Monthly Google AdSense Payment Bigger!

If you’re looking for high ROI, invest your own time in learning search engine marketing. Better yet hire a qualified SEO firm if you have the budget for it. Don’t settle for quick-fix promotional ideas. Build long-term exposure and a solid reputation by attaining high rankings, keeping email/newsletter lists, targeted ad placement and social media participation.

2. You Have Worthless Content

What defines worthless content? Without knowing what topic your web site covers it’s tough to say, but if you have nothing that sets you apart from your top competitors then I’d say you aren’t in good shape. If you don’t know what kind of content people are looking for on the Internet today, take a peek at what’s popular on social bookmarking sites. Observe some of the story titles on the front page of Digg.com:

“Guinness Stout Beef Stew Recipe for St. Patrick’s Day”
“In Move to Digital TV, Confusion Is in the Air”
“Kim Jong-Il Interprets Sunrise As Act Of War”
“Automatic bacon dispenser?”
“The 5 Best Obama Photomosaics on Flickr”

Words I would use to describe these topics, in order, are: seasonal, informative, satirical, comical, and trendy. This information is popular because it’s appealing in its uniqueness and is relevant to today’s market. To set yourself apart from your competition, you need to get creative. If you’re the kind of person who had trouble painting by numbers, then hire someone creative. Professional copy writers can be well worth the investment. Create free tools your customers will want to use; write funny or interesting commentary in a blog about your industry; put a new spin on a traditional product or service or offer seasonal discounts. Create a comprehensive F.A.Q. on your site that covers topics your competitors don’t.

Take the time to beef up your content. Be innovative – don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Use the top competitor in your field as a measuring stick.

3. You Have No Call-to-Action

Poor promotional language can have a sabotaging effect if visitors aren’t drawn to your conversion pages. A conversion page is any page that acts as the final step in a visitor submitting a form, making direct contact or purchasing a product online. Obscuring those pages or confusing the visitor on where to go next can make them leave your site. Internet users have a short attention span – give them a clear direction when navigating your web site.

Use your web analytics software again to find out what pages visitors are landing on first. If your home page gets the most traffic, make sure there are clear links to your sub-topics. If inner pages are your most popular landing pages, find out if the traffic is targeted. Once you know the type of visitor and the specific page they land on, then you can start marketing your content more accurately.

The bottom line is to always make clear why, and how, visitors can buy your product. Don’t get too cute with multiple steps, options or convoluted language.
Forget Expensive PPC Advertising – There is an Alternative!

4. You’re Getting Traffic But No Sales

Are you sure the traffic is relevant? If you’re running a pay-per-click campaign, ensure your ads are geo-targeted properly and your ad text or landing pages appeal to your customers. For organic search engine placement, have you done keyword research and analysis before optimizing your content? Look at your web stats and see where your visitors are coming from. What keywords were they searching for when they landed on your site? Are the referring sites relevant to your industry or topic? How much time does the visitor spend on each page? Sales won’t come if your visitors aren’t interested in what you’re selling. This is why preliminary keyword analysis is so important to search engine marketing.

If you’re running ads, it’s always good practice to experiment with different ad campaigns. If you put all your eggs in one basket you run the risk of losing out on potential revenue. Elements of your ads that you can change are:

• ad text
• landing page
• specific network your ads are shown across
• topics on which you focus the campaign
• geo-locations targeted

Remember, it doesn’t pay to skimp on initial product/market research and analysis.

5. You’re Getting Relevant Traffic But No Sales

This problem could signal a technical error or navigation problem with your site. Make sure you thoroughly test all functionalities on various web browsers and systems. Submit test forms. Do a link check to spot possible broken links. Is your web hosting service reliable?

If you’ve ruled out technical issues as the cause then turn your attention to the content and customer base. Has your market taken a downturn? Can the lack of sales be attributed to the poor economy? Have you fallen behind your competition in product quality, selection or pricing? Does your web site’s navigation system confuse users? Your web site is the first line of contact between the business and potential customer, but it’s not the only step you need to worry about. Telephone operators or online payment systems can present their own issues.

This is moving away from web site problems but if any part of the sales process takes place away from the site, investigate those areas of your business as well.

10 Ways to Grow Your Home Business

Home based business owners who fail to plan often fall victim to their own success. Either they burn out trying to juggle everything themselves or they spend so much time and money hiring people to help them that their profits go down the drain.Fortunately, there are some ways to take your home based business to new heights without sacrificing your business’s profitability or losing your peace of mind. Follow these 10 steps to grow your home based business into the personal and professional success it was meant to be:

1. Focus on a single product or service, and then market it, sell it, promote it, do everything you can to increase sales of that one product or service. While it’s tempting to swing for the fences and try to be all things to all people, it’s often less risky and more profitable to pick a product or two that you can execute really well and just try to get on base.

2. Expand your product line to offer complementary products or services. Once you’ve hit on a product or service that customers really like, don’t miss the opportunity to bring out related items to diversify your product line. Not only does that give your customers a wider selection, but it also makes your products more appealing to retailers who typically like to stock a line of products as opposed to a single item.

3. Find ways to increase sales to your existing customers. It’s a lot cheaper than finding new ones. Even if you can’t expand your product line, you can boost revenues by selling more of your existing product or service to the clients you already have. One easy way to do this is through volume discounts. Especially if your products cost little to produce, offering your customers the chance to buy, say, two T-shirts for the price of one lets you ring up additional sales without sacrificing much profit. Another common practice is to reward loyal customers by giving them a punch card that entitles them to a free product or service for every 10 items they buy. This technique is common at hair salons, car washes and arts-and-crafts stores, but home based businesses can use it, too.

4. Hire someone to help you out-an employee, a freelancer, an intern, an independent contractor, even your kids. Not only does this free up cash flow by adjusting your expenses to the level of work you bring in, but it also enables you to cultivate a large network of talented people you probably couldn’t afford to hire full time.

5. Create a Web site to advertise your company or sell products online. Thanks to the Internet, it’s no longer necessary to open a store to reach retail customers. For marketers of specialty products like rare books, collectibles and gourmet foods, a Web-based boutique lets you reach millions of shoppers around the world without paying for rent, utilities or garbage collection.

And while creating Web sites once required a big investment and the skills of an experienced Web designer or programmer, do-it-yourself Web sites are now available for less than $30 a month with no technical knowledge required. Typically, the companies that help you register your domain name (Web address) will provide online templates you can use to build your site, host your Web pages on their server and provide you with multiple e-mail addresses as well. E-commerce capabilities can often be had for an additional charge. You can also set up low-cost Web sites through Web hosting companies and search engines.

6. Join forces with another business to promote your company. Partnering with a company in a related industry is one of the cheapest and easiest forms of marketing that you can employ. If you make spa products, for example, you may be able to convince a local health club to carry them in its store by offering a discount to its members. Likewise, you can send a free, one-day health club pass to anybody who buys your lotions and scrubs.

7. Target other markets. If you sell to teens, start marketing to college students. If you sell to working moms, maybe your product will work for stay-at-home moms with a few modifications. Another strategy is to take a retail-oriented product or service and sell it wholesale. For example, a home based catering business that specializes in cakes, pies and other tasty desserts can contact local bakeries to sell its goods on a wholesale basis. While the price you get from the bakeries will be lower (because the bakeries need to mark it up to their customers to make a profit), you’ll sell more products and generate consistent cash flow that you can bank on.

8. Find new and different ways to market your business through e-mail newsletters or by doing guest-speaking gigs or by teaching a class. Marketing your home based business doesn’t need to involve spending big money on newspaper ads, Yellow Pages listings, or TV or radio spots. Grassroots marketing techniques cost far less and are often much more effective. Most chambers of commerce and community groups are more than happy to provide a forum to a local business owner who’s willing to share his expertise at no charge. Sending out a weekly newsletter is also a great way to get your name out in front of new and potential clients. Thanks to the Internet, you can send out your newsletter via e-mail using online templates and automated delivery systems.

9. Expand to another location. That could mean renting “virtual” office space in a business center or by sharing office space with another growing business. Brad Taylor, a CPA in Springfield, New Jersey, spends most of his time at home preparing tax returns, developing tax-planning strategies and revising his clients’ QuickBooks files. But when he needs to come to New York City for a meeting, he sometimes rents space at a Manhattan business center operated by HQ Global, a national provider of temporary office space.

For a monthly fee or a la cart, business centers like these offer everything from conference rooms and receptionist services to remote-access voicemail, high-speed Internet connectivity and tech support, offering home based business owners as much or as little outside office services as they need. Taylor pays just $10 an hour to use the space and is able to bill the cost to his client. “While I still want to run my business from home, this has allowed me to pursue new opportunities and network with other professionals,” Taylor says.

10. Think about turning your business into a franchise or business opportunity. While most homebased businesses remain small, yours may have the potential to hit the big time through franchising, licensing or wholesale distribution. The key question to ask yourself is if your business can be converted into a business format that somebody else could operate (a franchise) or if you have a standardized product or service that someone could resell multiple times (a business opportunity). While you may think that expanding your business requires raising capital, hiring employees, buying equipment and leasing office or warehouse space, it’s often more profitable-and less risky-to license your product to a big corporation with manufacturing capabilities and an existing sales force to do the work for you.

10 Best Work at Home Business Startups

The internet has become a world of almost unlimited opportunity for those who are looking for ways to make an extra income. With all the problems that have arisen from the economic downturn and increased costs of living, more and more people are opting to “work at home” so that they can supplement the income from their day-jobs. Work-at-home jobs also allow people to make money in such a way that it does not mean that they have to compromise with the time that they spend with their families. This is because most internet based home businesses allow great “flexibility” when it comes to time. In fact; many people today actually prefer full-time work-at-home options to a “nine-five” job.

Listed below are the top-ten most common work-at-home jobs today (In no particular order of course);

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing is probably the most popular of the work-at-home options available today. Freelance writing is also the most “flexible” of the work-at-home options available today. To be a freelance writer all the skills/knowledge you really need is the ability to write well and a good command of the English language. Start up costs for most freelance-writing jobs are practically none – all you need is a fairly good computer and a reliable internet connection.

For more information on writing careers, visit the following sites;

www.copyblogger.com

www.writingcareer.com

www.writing-world.com

www.freelancewriting.com

www.freelancewritinggigs.com

Consulting

If you’re a professional in a specific field, why not consider starting your own consulting-services practice at home? Today, experts from several professional fields have chosen to provide their own consulting services. Such professionals range from medical professionals to legal and business professionals. You’d be surprised at how much people are willing to pay for what is essentially good advice. This is a flexible career choice that can be run entirely from the comfort of your home. Start-up costs would depend on the type of consulting services that you plan to provide. Although your business can be set-up at home, you will need a full-office set-up as well as software and other such materials related to your line of work.

Internet Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is when an individual undertakes the task of promoting a business for either a percentage in sales profits, or a fixed amount for each “lead” that is generated. According to a study published in Wikipedia; total sales generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was ?2.16 billion in the UK alone! Millions of businesses out there are ready to rely on affiliate programs that will help them to effectively market their products.

Today, internet-based affiliate marketing is a hugely popular option for most people who wish to work at home. Provided you do it right, this can be quite a lucrative venture. For more information on affiliate marketing and the best affiliate programs online, try visiting;

www.affiliatetips.com

Secretarial Services

If you’ve got a good command of the English language and good writing abilities, why not consider starting a secretarial services business? This small business can be started on a very low capital and can be run entirely from your home. All you really need to “start-up” an “online secretarial services” business is a computer, printer, phone, ream of paper and a set of business cards. You don’t even need a high end computer; all you need is one that will be able to carry out basic word-processing tasks. Your printer need not be fancy either; one that will simply allow you to get all your documents and business cards printed will do. This type of “online secretarial services business” is one that offers all the services that are offered by regular secretarial service businesses – except for the fact that all the services are provided online.

Customer Services

Thanks to the advancement of technology, today it’s possible for you to log in to a company’s system from the comfort of your own home. This is what makes it possible for many companies today to hire remote customer service agents.

Graphic Design

Graphic designing plays an important part in the business world – particularly in advertising. Even the representation of a company using logos, colors and text is an aspect of graphic design. The entertainment industry makes use of a graphic designer’s expertise when it comes to creative aspects such as visual storytelling, decoration and scenery. Other areas that find a use for graphic design in the entertainment industry include novels, comic books, magazines, blogs and programs and props that are used on-stage.

A graphic designer has the advantage of having a wide range of businesses or industries to choose from. These industries or businesses include, but are not limited to;

· The Advertising industry

· The Magazine publication industry

· Product packaging industry

· Web designing industry

Thanks to the internet, graphic designers today can offer their services online.

Web Design

If you’ve got knowledge of web design and computer languages such as HTML, CSS and PHP, you can consider working at home as a web designer. This can be a very lucrative venture – if you’re good enough at what at what you do. You may work for a specific company, or you may choose to freelance as a web designer.

Teaching

Today a surprisingly large number of parents are opting to get their children home schooled. This also provides qualified teachers an opportunity to work at home – thanks to the internet. It’s not only home-schooling students that you can teach however. For instance; if you’re qualified to teach English, you may also teach adults who wish to learn English as a second language. You may choose to work independently or register with a company that will get you “in touch” with clients.

Notary Signing Agent

If you’re looking for a work-at-home opportunity, do a little research online and find out if a notary signing business is right for you. Did you know that you can make a significantly good income with a notary signing business? After just a single course of training, a notary signing agent can actually earn up to $50 to $125 per transaction.

A notary public or notary signing agent is an individual who obtains and notarizes legal documents. Thus a notary signing agent has to be knowledgeable in the procedures involved in the presentation and authorization of legal documents. A notary signing agent is also known as a loan signing agent, mortgage loan closer or closing agent. To train as a notary signing agent, all you have to do is go through a notary agent training course available in your region. And if you want to be a notary signing agent you have to be prepared to invest in training yourself to be one.  For more information on notary signing agents, try visiting the following sites;

www.notarypublic.com

www.notarytrainer.com

Word Processing

Do you want a small business opportunity that will allow you to make a sizeable income without taking up too much capital, or too much of your time? If you’re a good writer and if you’ve got a good command of the English language, why not consider starting a word processing business?

A word processing business is probably the easiest one to start, what’s more; its low maintenance too! This business is also one that can be run on a very low capital. All you need to start up the business is a good computer, a printer and a reliable internet connection. Your computer and printer need not be “high end” either. A basic computer that can carry out word processing tasks and a “letter quality” printer that can churn out clearly printed documents will do just fine.

The internet and easy payment schemes such as pay-pal have considerably increased the potential for work-at-home jobs. The internet has also become an extremely indispensable entity in most households today. This means that the internet has also become an invaluable marketing tool which most business will want to make use of. This in turn means that the internet holds great potential for those who wish to make an extra income. In fact, some people actually opt to run internet-based home businesses – full time.

25 Ways to Overcome this Recession in your Business

We all know that almost all the countries have been hit by the economic slowdown. Most people confuse recession and economic slowdown. Job cuts have been on the rise. People are seeing lesser incentives and the whole world is experiencing a financial crisis. Anyway I will use the word recession throughout this article to avoid confusion. Is it so bad that we cannot recover from it in any way? I don’t think so. The main reason I believe that grows this recession is that most of us just sit and think about it alone.

Think about what you want always. Here are 25 tips to recover from recession and cut down on your costs, improve your conversions and more.

1.Do not worry or panic

Most business entrepreneurs, professionals are too much worried. There is a saying that worry is a prayer for something you do not need or what you do not wish for. Agree that the times ahead is the recession hit economy. We have to pass through those situations however reluctant we are. Take this as an opportunity given by God (If you believe in God that is) or any other supreme power you believe in, as a chance to prove your mantle. Think how you can operate successfully in these times.

2.Don’t spread negative thoughts on your share holders and employees

In most business establishments and companies, senior managers hold regular meeting with people below them in designation. These regular and irrelevant meetings are not at all motivating and will only help spread the panic among employees. At the end of the meeting, they too will have their own worries which will result in them thinking only about their problems. This will lead even small issues grow large.

3.Do not publicize your cost cutting methods

You can’t fight poverty to eradicate poverty!!! If you can see, most developed countries tried this method and failed. The solution is not to fight, but to find ways to make/raise money. Also concentrate more on making profits rather than on cutting the costs. Just do your cost cutting methods under anonymity.

4.Gain the trust of employees and share holders.

Make them understand the present economic situation. Educate them completely about the financial crisis the world is facing. You have to cultivate confidence in them. Motivate them to think about ways to accumulate more wealth. It is just not enough to have ideas and ideologies. You must also be able to implement and utilize them effectively.

5.Increase marketing tactics

Focusing on yourself, customer satisfaction, keeping finances are all important. But when coming to this recession time what you must keep in mind to strengthen or to increase with full vigor is your MARKETING efforts. Marketing is what drives customers to your business be it small or large. Who knows for sure, maybe this recession time will turn out to be the best year for your business. It is not only necessary that you derive the maximum value out of each dollar you spend but also to get the return. You learn new techniques; adopt new strategic marketing plans and so on. So get creative, increase your marketing and get the maximum out of it.

6.Get new customers to sustain your business

What makes a business a success? The customers of course!!! If you have customers you thrive, else you don’t. It is as simple as that. So what do you do to get new customers? Read how to get new customers for your business.

7.Understand that this is a fight against the crisis. Infuse this thought in others as well

Make each and every employee, share holders a part of this open fight. Motivate them to give the best operating results. Make them understand that it is in these times our true potential must come out.

8.Stay away from things that fill us with negativism

What we give our brain as input is what shapes up as our thoughts. So, during this recession hit times we must be selective in what we see and what we read. Get together with people who might inspire you and at the same way stay away from people who might have a negative influence on you.

9.Try to stay away from financial talks

If you are attending any seminars or meetings, try to ensure that the outcome of the meeting/seminar increases your creativity and productive power. Try to stay away from talks which might include topics on how recession can adversely affect a business or what all business will be affected by this recession.

10.Do not run away

When I say that you must keep away from discussions relating to slowdown, I don’t mean that you must run away from it or be completely ignorant of the topic. You must have strong idea on how the recession has hit your business, how it may affect your business and how it has/will affect your business after you take methods to combat recession.

11.Think a lot about future prosperity

In this world most things are available in plenty. People are making more money and wealth than people used to make 10-20 years back. In future, 10-20 years from now people would make more money than even now. This shows that nature has what we need for prosperity. Think about that and try to make the most out of it. See how the gulf countries came up with nature’s gift, OIL?

12.Understand that in any dire situation there is an opportunity

Take the case of most companies today. Most of them might have catered to a different business when they started off. When they faced hard times they took advantage of the new opportunities by tuning their business to suit the new needs. Find such new niche markets.

13.Fix your target

When challenges and hardships come most people turn their attention from their actual goal to their day to day life. This is not the right way. During this recession it is your responsibility to uphold your mission and attain your target

14.Make your “Mission” and “Vision” clearer. Convey it to your employees.

These techniques will motivate your employees during the recession. This will also empower them and help them stay away from negative thoughts. Make posters about your mission and vision and stick them on various places in your office. Be creative with the posters; include some elements of fun and creativity in it.

15.Publish motivating articles and stories on your company newsletter/magazine

Let your employees derive inspiration after reading these stories and articles.

16.Uphold your company achievements

You heard me right. Just brag about your company achievements however small they are. When all the thoughts are related to recession and slow down, then our eyes and ears will crave for more negative news. That’s human psychology. Your brain will like to think that your business will be impacted negatively. This will indirectly reflect on your companies standings. Just go about flaunting even the minutest achievement of your company.

17.Make of core team of similar thinkers

If you are the owner or CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of any company, try building a team of people who share your same wavelength. Critical events must be discussed among this core team before it goes into implementation.

18.Improve human productivity

This is the time to provide top class training to your employees and take their morale to an all new level. Do not think the cost incurred in training your employees mentally as an overhead. Just think as an investment which will yield the best results in the future.

19.Even your managers need training

How you overcome this recession will depend on how well you think. For the same reason you must consider training your top level management staff as well. This may prove more costly and time consuming, but eventually this is what will pay off
more as the decisions which make or mar a company are usually the result of this section of your company.

20.Have a clear idea of what you want from your business as well as your life

What you think is what attracts you. If you think the recession is going to bury your company deep down, well I must say with utmost regret that it is going to happen in no other way.

21.Find a mentor or a coach

You need a mentor or a coach who sees problems and down times differently and one who motivates you. Imagine going to a gym for work out (You are running a company). You are not alone in the gym (There are lots of similar companies). You have fear of the dumb bells dropping on your chest (Recession hitting your company). Yet you want to exercise because your profession demands it. (You have a company with many employees and you want to move forward). You see people around you on whom the dumb bell fall and die (Recession hit companies going bankrupt). How dedicated will you be? How much effort will you put into each of your sets? How much concentration will be on your work out? Now imagine there is a trainer for you (A mentor or a coach) who has a vast amount of experience and he guides you. He will support you in each set of work out ensuring that even if the dumb bell slips from your arms he is there to catch you. Now how much MORE confident will you be? How much MORE dedicated will you be? You can take the service of mind parlors which offer training for CEO’s and business owners.

22.Read books that inspire you

You can read books such as The Magic of Thinking Big by David Shwartz, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Pale or The Power of The Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy.

23.Open your eyes and ears

No opportunity must pass by you without you knowing about it. Only if your thoughts and attitude is positive will you be able to recognize these opportunities and make the best use out of it.

24.Remember that for every fall there will be a rise

Don’t crumble during this crisis. Stand up till you are back on track. This is the time to think and implement tactics which will take your business to new heights.

25.Find out ways to cut cost

Research how you can provide the same quality while cutting down on production and distribution costs. Try implementing virtualization, renting virtual office, cutting down on marketing etc. Surprisingly you may not even have thought of such things yet. Take this opportunity to implement maximum ROI (Return of Investment).

Twenty Great Tools To Start A Consulting Business

With companies pushing their employees off the plank into the sea of financial and professional uncertainty, one of the best options to take control of one’s career is to start a consulting practice.  Starting a consulting practice is a good way to get back your self-esteem, which is usually very low after being left adrift, and a good way to generate revenue.

I can speak from experience.  One of the companies I ran was bought by another company and I had no immediate options.  I always hated interviewing and preferred to have more control over my life.

Now is a good time to start your own business because companies still need professionals with a variety of skills, but can’t afford to hire full-time people.  You don’t need many tools to start your own practice, especially with software, the Internet, hardware and online services available.  Here are the essentials:

Microsoft Office 2007: You can store your contacts, send your e-mails, make presentations, design Web sites, create newsletters, create financial spreadsheets and send Word documents.

QuickBooks or Peachtree First Accounting: You need to keep track of your income and expenses.  Both products are very good.  I prefer Peachtree because I find it more intuitive, which is ironic since the maker of QuickBooks is called Intuit.  For those not comfortable with accounting software, you can easily do the same functions by using Microsoft Excel.

Tax Planning: Here, Intuit’s Turbo Tax for Home and Business is the best product on the market.  Intuit totally nailed it with this product.  It is the easiest piece of software I have ever used and I can’t believe how they can improve it each year.  You can do your federal and state taxes using this software.  If you use QuickBooks, you can download your information directly into Turbo Tax. The software also allows you to plan for the following year’s taxes.

Marketing Material: There is a variety of inexpensive software packages such as Business Card Designs and MyBusiness Cards.  The software typically costs less than $30 and usually comes with business card, brochure and other types of templates.  You can also go online and get up to 200 free business cards with basic designs from www.freebusinesscardprinter

Business Plan: You have to develop a road map for your business.  There are a few products you should look at, such as Business Plan Pro and Bplans.com.

PDF Converter: If you are e-mailing contracts and other documents you don’t want altered, you want to purchase something like Nuance’s PDF Converter 5 Professional.

Tracking Receipts

Business Cards: There is no question: The best product on the market is NeatDesk by The Neat Company, a Philadelphia-based entrepreneurial company. This product is a digital filing system that allows you to scan receipts, business cards and documents.  The device takes up a small amount of space on your desk and connects with QuickBooks, Turbo Tax and Excel.  This is really a must-have product because of the diversity of tactics it performs.

Traditional Telephone: The best buy for the money is Vonage.  You get unlimited calls nationally and to some countries abroad for less than $30 a month.  One of the things I like about Vonage is that it forwards my calls to my e-mail, which allows me to listen to the calls on my computer and my BlackBerry.  You can try to use Skype, but I have still found it to be inconsistent and not appropriate for business use.

Mobile Phone: Everyone has a mobile phone, but as a business tool, I still prefer the BlackBerry, which allows you to collect and send e-mail.  This falls under the category of invaluable.  I once was in a remote part of Panama and a client had a problem, and I could respond by e-mail through my BlackBerry.

Laptop: I have fallen in love with my Acer Aspire One, which is a mini-laptop that weighs less than 3 lbs and has a 1 gig of Ram and 130 gigs of hard drive.

Printer/Scanner/Fax: There are a variety of good products made by Brother, Lexmark, and Hewlett-Packard.  Any of them will do the job.  As much as we prefer not to print things out, we still need to do it when we are making presentations and providing written documents that need to be shared.

Legal Software: Get an attorney to develop your initial contracts, but if you are looking to save money, use software such as MyAttorney Home and Business by Avanquest.  There are a variety of templates that you can customize for your needs.

Binding Machine: Any business store carries a binding machine, which you need for proposals and other documents with lots of pages.

E-mail Newsletter: You need to stay in contact with prospects, clients and referral sources by sending newsletters, press releases and invitations.  The two most cost-effective services are Constant Contact and IContact.

Linked-In: There practically isn’t a business person that isn’t using www.linkedin.com to make business contacts.  I get at least one request a week to join someone’s network.

Web Site: A low-cost way to develop your own Web site and host it inexpensively is through services such as 1and1.com; but if you are looking to have someone develop a site for you, put in your request for proposal using Craigslist and watch the responses pile up.

YouTube: A good way to demonstrate your knowledge for free — you take a video camera and have someone film you for one to three minutes providing advice on your expertise.

Blog: You can set up a free blog to demonstrate your expertise by going to

www.blogger.com

Bank Account: Practically every bank provides online banking.  That said, I would suggest using a small bank that will give you more personal service and whose branch managers may be able to make introductions to potential clients.

Credit Card: If you can get a credit card, I would recommend the American Express Plum Card.  Every card comes with points, but not every card can get you an easy cash advance abroad, which I found out the hard way in Italy.

This is a great time to start a consulting practice, which will make you feel better about yourself and more secure.

Top 10 Direct Sales Companies

Direct sales companies have been with us for quite some time now. The way these have generally worked is that a direct sales associate would take their products to home based events where they would demonstrate them to attendees. So what are the most popular direct sales companies currently? This list will give you some direct sales companies to think about if you are interested in starting your own direct sales business.

1) Tupperware, first developed in 1945 had by 1946 moved to a direct sales model. This is the company who invented the party based model of direct sales as we know it. Tupperware now has nearly 2 million associates in nearly 100 countries worldwide.

2) Avon was once the California Perfume Company, back in 1886 when it began; by 1928, however, they had adopted the more familiar name of Avon. This is one of the most well known direct sales companies on Earth now, with almost 5 million representatives in 143 countries worldwide.

3) In 1963, Mary Kay Ash began Mary Kay Inc. in the interests of giving women an opportunity to improve their lives through running their own business. There are now around 1.6 representatives of the company.

4) Discovery Toys, Inc. has been in the educational toys business since 1978. This company only does business in the U.S. and Canada and uses the party model of direct sales.

5) Home Interiors & Gifts, now celebrating its 50th anniversary in business, boasts more than 100,000 associates employing both parties and face-to-face marketing methods to sell their products,

6) Pampered Chef has been around since 1980; this is one of the newest direct sales companies. They have over 60,000 Pampered Chef consultants worldwide and use their own variation on the party plan (the Kitchen Show).

7) Also started in 1980, Arbonne International sells their skin care products via person-to-person marketing instead of the party plan method.
Peter Usborne’s Usborne Books has been around since 1973, selling high quality books for children. They employ person-to-person marketing as well as parties to market their books.

9) Creative Memories, a scrapbooking supply company, has been using the party plan method of marketing their products since 1987 and have tens of thousands of consultants all over the world.

10) Meleleuca, Inc. has been in the business of green products since 1985 and markets their tea tree oil based skin care, personal care and home products worldwide via person-to-person marketing. They are the fastest growing direct sales company in the U.S.

These direct sales companies are just ten out of the multitude of such companies out there which you can become involved with. Before signing on with any company, do some research to determine what their compensation model is, if online marketing is permissible and whether the company’s goals fit in with your own.

Doing this sort of evaluation on each company you are considering will help you to be better informed and thus make a better decision about which direct sales company is right for you.

Start A Recession-Proof Business

It’s no secret that the economy is in trouble. Professionals debate daily as to whether we are in a financial recession, or whether we are just headed in that direction. All of a sudden, we feel insecure about our jobs, our savings, and even our retirements. With so many businesses failing, it’s hard to imagine that starting a business
of your own would be a good idea. The fact is, there has never been a better time to start your own recession proof business at home.

How Can A Business Be Recession Proof?

One characteristic of a recession-proof business is that it provides a product or service that will not go out of demand. Certainly, plenty of people are having to make sacrifices on how much they spend not only on the “extras”, but also on the necessities. Finances for many of us have taught us to set up priorities on how we use our money. That means giving up unnecessary purchases but not the things we need in order to survive. If you provide a necessary product or service, you will have a recession-proof business.

It also depends on your target group for which you provide you product or service. Not everyone is in the market for the same things at the same time. Everyone’s finances aren’t affected in the same way and by having the right target group, you can recession-proof your business.

Some Advantages to Having a Home-Based Recession-Proof Business

Flexibility is always one of the most attractive features to any home-based business. For parents of young children, this could mean not having to pay for child care while getting to spend more time with your children. If a student has classes and needs to work around them, a home-based business will let them work around their own schedule without worrying about someone else’s priorities. Whatever you need to find time for, a home-based business will give you the freedom to spend your time where you need to spend it. A home-based recession-proof business will not only provide flexibility of your time, but will also provide you with financial security.

Another advantage to having a home-based recession-proof business is that you will never have to pay for the gas to drive back and forth to the office again. Many people commute long distances for their jobs and over the last couple of years, this has gotten to be a financial burden for many. When you work at home, there’s no fuel used, no wear and tear on a vehicle, and you don’t even have to go out to eat lunch!

Of course, one of the biggest advantages you will have from starting your own home-based recession proof business is not having a boss to answer to. You don’t have to worry when the economy worsens that you will go into the office one morning to have your boss tell you that he is “letting you go”. A recession-proof business is one that will give you the security to make your own decisions and to benefit from your efforts.

Technology Business Consulting Industry

Business consulting has grown quickly, with growth rates of the industry exceeding 20% in the 1980s and 1990s. As a business service, providing consulting solutions remains highly cyclical and linked to overall economic conditions. The consulting industry shrank during the 2001-2003 period, but has been experiencing slowly increasing growth since. In 2007, total global revenues for business consulting exceeded the $300 billion mark.

A number of specializations have come into existence, namely information technology consulting, human resource consulting, and others, many of which overlap, and most of which are offered by the large diversified consultancies listed below. So-called “boutique” consultancies, however, are smaller organizations specializing in one or a few of such specializations.

In the current scenario, these types of consulting firms can be divided broadly into four categories:

1. Large, diversified organizations that offer a range of services, including information technology consulting in addition to a strategy consulting practice (e.g. Accenture, Deloitte). Some very large IT service providers have moved into consultancy as well and are also developing strategy practices (e.g. Satyam)
2. Medium-sized information technology consultancies that blend boutique style with some of the same services and technologies bigger players offer their clients.
3. Large management and strategic consulting specialists that offer primarily strategy consulting but are not specialized in any specific industry
4. Boutique firms, often quite small, which have focused areas of consulting expertise in specific industries or technologies. Most of the boutiques were founded by famous business theorists. Small firms with less than ca. 50 employees are often referred to as niche consultancies. If they have a unique concept and market it successfully, they often grow out of this segment very fast or are bought by larger players interested in their know-how.
Business consulting is becoming more prevalent in non-business related fields as well.

As the need for professional and specialized advice grows, other industries such as government, quasi-government and not-for-profit agencies are turning to the same managerial principles that have helped the private sector for years. One important and recent change in the industry has been the spin-off or separation of the consulting and the accounting units of the large diversified firms. For these firms, which began business as accounting firms, management consulting was a new extension to their business. But after a number of highly publicized scandals over accounting practices, such as the Enron scandal, accountancy began divestiture of their management consulting units, to more easily comply with the tighter regulatory scrutiny that followed.

Top 10 Mistakes Technology Companies Make

10. Failure to register a federal copyright for company-developed software
Your company has spent months, and maybe years developing the next-big-thing. You’re out there licensing it to customers, fighting off competitors, and trying to maximize your revenues. What would you do if a customer was misusing your software? What if a competitor was copying parts of it to use in its product? There are various ways to respond to these problems, but one of the easiest to way to strengthen your claims is to register a copyright for the software with the United States Copyright Office. Registration provides you with an enhanced ability to have a court prevent infringing use of your software, and a greater amount of damages that are recoverable. The best part is that registration is relatively easy and inexpensive.
9. Licensing technology too broadly
So you’ve landed that big deal with that big customer. You’ve carefully priced the deal based upon your expectations of how the customer is going to use your technology – by a specific group within the customer’s large organization. You’re hoping that the success of this deal will lead to a greater adoption of your technology within the rest of the company, and ultimately more revenue for you. Unfortunately, you later learn that this one group is sharing your technology throughout the rest of the company, with no additional license fees to you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Why? By failing to carefully and narrowly draw up the license grant in your agreement, you’ve unwittingly granted the entire company the rights to use your technology, and you’ve left a pile of cash on the table.
8. Failure to provide detailed support and maintenance policies

Too often, once a company’s technology is ready to be licensed, determining how to support the technology becomes an afterthought. General and non-descriptive obligations like “providing telephone and email support” and “providing updates” are invitations for disagreements and missed expectations. When is phone support being offered? How quickly will you respond to problems? What is considered and update and what is a new product for which you would charge the customer separately? Many times, you need your customer to provide you with certain information about the problem before you can diagnose and fix it. Set the appropriate expectations in your support and maintenance policies and avoid these issues in the future.

7. Not contracting customers to recurring support fees

Customers want and expect that you will be there to support your product, assist with problems, and provide them updates when you add features or fix bugs. Customers also expect that you will regularly charge them for these services, so why do so many technology vendors sell a product to a customer and fail to structure regular and recurring support fees? In general, a technology vendor’s highest profit margins are realized through a support fee stream, and not in the upfront license charge.

6. Inadequate non-disclosure and non-compete agreements with employees and contractors
The technology business is one of the most competitive industries in the market. Why take a chance losing your competitive advantage by not ensuring that your intellectual property, customer lists, trade secrets, and other sensitive information are properly protected through appropriate agreements with your employees, contractors, and vendors? Finding and using some form agreement that you saw floating around on the Internet somewhere may actually make matters worse if you don’t fully understand the terms. Moreover, simple steps can be taken to ensure that anything developed by your employees is, and remains, your company’s property.

5. Giving away intellectual property ownership too liberally

Many technology companies develop customized technology for their customers, or make customized modifications to their existing technology on behalf of a particular customer. And most customers argue that if they’re paying for it, they want to own it. But giving away your company’s intellectual property in these instances can prevent you from reusing it for other customers – effectively shutting down a potential source of revenue in the future. And many times, your customers may not need to actually “own” the developments – a license right can often do the trick.

4. Using overly broad or subjective acceptance testing

It is not uncommon or unreasonable for customers to want to “kick the tires” of your technology before they pay for it. Problems arise when the customer has an unreasonable expectation of what the technology is supposed to achieve, and either want to withhold payment, or force you to provide extra services to meet that unreasonable expectation. This especially manifests itself when a customer includes acceptance testing language in a contract which is not tied to objective and realistic standards. Although it can be a laborious effort, taking the time to objectify these standards with the customer in the contract can save you significant time down the road, and get you paid faster.

3. Offering liberal source code escrow release conditions

For software developers, you know that your source code is the “crown jewels” of your business. It is the core of your technology, representing months or years of your blood, sweat, and tears. Yet many software companies are willing to give it away, for free, to their customers. How? By entering into a source code escrow agreement with a customer and allowing it to be released to them in situations where the code still holds value for you. Many customers will demand the source code be released to them if you stop supporting the software, but the intellectual property in the code may still be used in your other products or technology, effectively giving your customer the tools it needs to duplicate your technology. Creating very narrow and specific source code release conditions can minimize this impact.

2. Undervaluing technology

What is your technology worth? It’s a difficult question, and value can be measured and determined in many ways. Many new technology companies feel compelled to undercharge for their technology in an effort to break into the market. Although there is certainly some merit in that, I see vendors consistently undervaluing what their technology is worth, leaving significant revenue on the table. Understanding the impact and loss to the customer if they DON’T license your technology is the first key to pricing your product. Plus, under-pricing your product can create an impression that the technology is “cheap” – not a label that will build a positive reputation of your company in the long run.

1. Using a form license and/or services agreement that doesn’t fit your business model
Capturing exactly how you want to provide your product or services to your customer, allocating the risks, and creating each party’s obligations and rights, is not a simple or quick process. Replicating some other company’s form agreement not only exposes you to risks that you may not be aware of, but potentially violates the other company’s copyright in their agreement, and raises the risks outlined in the other points of this list. Having a customized agreement created for you that aligns with your business processes, mitigates your risks, and addresses the laws that apply in your jurisdiction for your industry is a key component in running a successful technology business.

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