March 27, 2008
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Are you just starting out in business? Are you wondering what IOVC and the “O” of IOVC technology means? You heard about office process improvement, business process improvement, business process management, workflow management and you wonder what these IOVC technologies can do for improving your business operation?
IOVC technologies can cut your business costs sharply. Business process improvements that address your office processes have demonstrated many business benefits for a long time now. This set of IOVC technologies has been primarily associated with large corporate business but no more. Small and medium business can benefit from an office process improvement or BPI/BPM tool. If you need to ring more profit from an existing business operation then you owe it to yourself to make yourself profitable with the many readily available business process improvement technologies.
In this series examining the “O” of IOVC (internet, office, voip and crm) technologies, the office improvement or business process improvement movement has many tools and products available to help the business owner improve their business operation. To sort out the complexity of business process improvement, business process management, technology and application support we need to answer a few key questions such as:
What is your BPI, BPM process?
What is your potential problem?
What do you need to learn about your business?
What is the business process improvement process?
What is the best way to train you and your team?
What benefits can you expect?
What are the next steps?
What is your BPI, BPM process? Those new to business process improvement and business process management need to understand just what is a business processes. The office or business process is really your normal office workflow that you and your team use daily. Within that workflow are people, process, products and projects. Supporting and or enabling these components are your software applications and supporting technologies that allow you to perform the business functions.
What is your potential problem? The complexity that occurs after your business has been operating for a while means your business processes by their nature become complex, disjointed and out of sync. The ability to manage your processes and keep your processes operating at peak efficiency is what’s needed to keep your business healthy. Viewed from a top down perspective, it is your end-to-end business process or business workflow that drives your business.
What do you need to learn about your business? With that understanding your team needs to define your business process and unearth the perceived business problem. Yes you have to make the problem real on paper. The team needs to define what tools are used when identifying your business processes.
What is the Business Process Improvement process? The team would document the existing business process by developing beginning to end process maps. They would identify which steps in your process add value. Then the team would identify the steps that cause pain and detract from the efficiency of the process. Then the team works to eliminate those business steps that fail to add value. Once all is documented, the team transitions from identifying and knowing what steps to improve, the team would collectively be able to understand and discuss what to do when the identified solution conflicts with business policy or a current external process and still make it functional within your organization.
Enter Business Process Management phrase - Then the business improvement solution is implemented and becomes operational. To ensure continued success, the group proceeds to manage the business process using a selected business process management tool. This requires the complete understanding of current routines, future goals and the gaps in between. Once the process is operational, the process becomes a business process management procedure.
What is the best way to train you and your team? Since your personnel work daily to complete specific business processes using technology that you have within in your business, they should become intimately involved with learning about managing your business processes especially since they are a part of them everyday. For BPI assessments to be effective, the best way to learn is in a situational manner which enables you to identify and manage your specific business processes. You may even consider having customized courses that can be defined to target your specific situation.
What are the expected benefits? The benefits of a business process improvement and management assessment is that your business will be able to continuously strive for a more effective business process and therefore you will gain improved efficiency. The resulting office process improvements enable many other products and services to operate more efficiently. Working with a team and understanding the issues associated with your end to end business operation can help you define the gaps in your business and remove the daily problems and disconnects with your vendors. This can come from keeping your business processes in sync with the proper support of your technology and your people. The gains can sometimes approach a 50 percent or more gain in efficiency.
In today’s business environment, we continuously strive for a more effective business process operation and a firm with actual hands on experience can help you learn and apply these strategies. That is because business process improvement and business process management have become essential tools to just about any organization.
In summary, with proper people, education and learning in a situational environment, one can first identify the process, then analyze the process and move on to improving and monitoring the process. The complexity and payback of business process improvements are many because one improvement can lead to many more and sometimes it’s a simple fix and other times a lot more complex. The details require more explanation then we can provide here, however you owe it to yourself to investigate this area of IOVC technologies further and profit from these capabilities.
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March 26, 2008
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Business Owner Burnout (BOB) is the most common reason for business owners to consider selling their businesses. Most owners do not have their businesses ready to sell when burnout has finally taken its toll. And business owners who do succumb to BOB usually take a significant financial loss.
How can you learn to protect yourself from the ravages of “BOB” Syndrome? The first step is to begin looking at your business in a completely different light. Your business is like a wheelbarrow: If you want it to go somewhere, you have to pick it up and push. But it takes energy to push a business. Physical, emotional and economic energy may be in short supply when they are needed most. What can be done to ensure an adequate supply of these essentials when they are most needed?
The secret may be found when we ask ourselves important questions about our own businesses–long before we reach the burnout stage. For example:
March 26, 2008
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There’s a whole lot of discussion going on these days where gurus are promoting the minisite system.
There are few that recommend creating content sites with valuable information to promote your own products or affiliate products.
Such sort of discussion confuses a newbie as to how to get started. With such confusion they quit even before starting their internet business.
I was at the same place completely confused as to what to do ? Get started creating minisites or a content site.
Here are some expensive mistakes I made and how I ended up creating a profitable internet business.
The very first thing I did was created a 56 page content site in an extremely competitive niche.
The biggest mistake I made was I created this site without doing any sort of initial research.
It took me 6 months to create this content site after a whole lot of efforts.
And the result followed, I did not make a single dime.
Yes, that’s right, my mistake ended up wasting 6 months time and $1000 investment which was equivalent to a heart attack specially for a newbie who was a 21 year old college student with no job or any sort of secondary income source. I landed up into such a frustrating situation.
This opened my eyes and I started once again with a positive attitude.
I researched a niche that was in high demand. I created a one-page lead capturing minisite and tested it continuously till it pulled around 30% visitor to lead conversion ratio.
Once it did this I build a valuable database of subscribers who were interested in my niche.
Then I started promoting some affiliate programs to my list and ended up making some money.
Now what I did was researched some killer products in my niche and grabbed their resell rights. Then I packed them into a killer package and made it unique.
I started researching all profitable sites in my niche and made sure that my site was the best, above the competition.
Finally I started promoting my package to my list and it converted brilliantly. I ended up making around 0.5% conversion ratio on my package with a net profit of $100.
Now I had a killer lead generation minisite with a 30% visitor to subscriber ratio and a sales minisite with a 0.5% visitor to sales ratio with a $100 net profit.
With these numbers in hand I was confident that I had a killer money-making cash machine ready to make autopilot profits 24/7.
Now the next thing I did was created 2 content sites with killer quality articles in my niche.
I created my own articles and posted up other authors articles and ended up creating content sites worth more than 1,000 pages each, ready to get quality traffic from search engines.
So here’s how I approached my goal of a successful internet business…
1. Create and test a lead-capturing minisite in a high demand low competition niche. Create a list of interested subscribers ready to grab your product.
2. Try creating your own product or atleast grab a resell right product in your niche. Then test it till it pulls amazingly.
3. Now it’s the time to create content sites and divert the traffic from search engines to your content sites and finally to your minisites.
This kind of sales machine will surely make you killer profits.
Obviously it involves some work and efforts, but such a system in place can make you $1000s automatically even while you sleep.
Murtuza Abbas specializes in creating simple ‘Profit Pulling Minisites’.
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March 26, 2008
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You start off alone. Be it as a solo business owner or a manager looking after a part of a larger business. It gets busier, you get distracted from what you want to do, because there’s only one of you and you’ve only got one pair of hands.
So you need to find help.
Sometimes you need to find help fast, but there are things you can do to prepare.
If you think ahead and plan, many of those nightmare situations can be overcome.
By ensuring that you have a great group of people around you, there will be more to fall back on when the going gets tough - because that, as they say, when the tough really do get going.
Big challenges can be very difficult to face - and they can be fascinating and exhilarating. So here’s some thoughts on how to make the best of these times, by getting ready in advance and making it work.
1. Plan Ahead
Look out for what you might need in the future and plan to make business life far, far easier for yourself. Decide what your business will be when it’s the best it can be and focus on getting to there. think then about whether the resources are within or outside your business, which will depend on the size of it.
2. Size Doesn’t Matter
Even if you are small, tiny even, don’t think you can’t afford a specialist - it will often make sense, both in relieving stress and financially. I mean you didn’t get into your business to always do your books did you? (And if you did, maybe you want to try bookkeeping as a business!). Chris Barrow aka The Million Dollar Coach always reckons the first thing any self-respecting entrepreneur should do, is get a PA. In these days of VA’s (virtual assistants) it’s becoming a do-able option for all.
3. Look For Talent
With your mind set on what you want, look out everywhere for people who can help. If you are small business owner, that might not be for a little while, but keep your eyes open, both within your own business, your family and your acquaintances. Anyone, anywhere - be alert!
4. Build Networks
Get out there and make sure that you listen to people who might use some of the experts you need. This means that if you have to choose, you have already got testimonials up front. This makes it a lot easier. Recommendations work! Many local specialists, when they are worth their salt, get more than enough clients through recommendations rather than need to advertise.
5. Seek Recommendations
Again, it’s about keeping your eyes and ears open. You need a whiz with computer experience. By talking about it and listening hard, you may well find the help you need. Didn’t you know that your cousin Myrtle’s step-brother is learning all about HTML at college - shame on you!
6. Set Quality Standards
By being very clear about what you want from the help you get, you are much more likely to get it. You will save yourself a lot of time and probably money by getting really specific (so, dot ‘i’s and ‘t’s very carefully). It’s very interesting how what comes out of our mouths is interpreted in so many different ways than we might expect (hint - it’s always your fault, not theirs - so get over it).
7. Measure Performance
In with the standards you agree with your help, be they a member of your own team, or an external contractor, it is vital that you have a way of measuring performance on a regular basis. Keeping your requirements SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Timescaled) will make this much easier. And don’t be afraid to require penalties from external contractors if the fail to deliver.
8. Take Some Risks
Sometimes you have to wing it. So, if you take as much care as is practical, you can take a few risks with those who you have to help you. So don’t be afraid to give more responsibility to one of your team, especially if they show promise - give them the opportunity, support and your confidence and often they will deliver way beyond what you expect.
9. New Blood
If you are missing an ingredient with your internal or external help, don’t be afraid to get someone new in. It helps everyone if the right person is in the team, and there are a lot of folks out there who can do a great job. Anyone doing a poor job knows it and is not helping you at all. For outside help, if you have even a hint in your gut that it isn’t working, be tough and get it fixed - or get out - dragging bad deals on is a very bad deal for you.
10. Give Accountability
And finally, make it very, very clear who you are holding accountable for the help you hire, whether it is in your business of from outside. You have a name to an accountability and that’s that. They are where the buck stops. Internally, it can be through one-to-one meetings and milestones, externally, well, much the same although maybe a little more formally. Set them up with agreed ‘T’ - timescales and make them stick.
Being aware of the help you need well in advance, will make a big difference for you - you can focus on the aspects of business you bring value to and, while we’re on the subject of value, have fun and get a life for yourself as well.
March 26, 2008
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Boiler and machinery insurance refers to the insurance of machines. Boiler insurance is not only applicable to boilers, but any machines that generate electrical power including generators and motors. It includes the damage to the machine and the surrounding area through explosions and fire.
If you have ever tried to settle a simple insurance claim related to the breakdown or damage of a machine or equipment, you know how difficult it is to get the company to pay for additional damages like destruction of property and loss of business. This type of insurance covers not just the damage to the machine, but also other damages caused by the malfunctioning machine. These damages may include business loss and property damage. In fact, some types also cover damages to neighboring properties, and pay for setting up temporary arrangements to run the business.
Anyone who runs any kind of business that uses electrical or mechanical devices of some sort should buy this type of policy. Many people have the misconception that this is only for large factories and manufacturing units. As a small business owner, you probably do not use heavy machines, but even the smallest of businesses use equipment like air conditioners, refrigerators, ovens, and coffee machines. A malfunction in any of this equipment could cause an explosion or fire, damage to property and business loss. It will cover all these damages.
There are different types of Boiler and Machinery Insurance. Some kinds cover a specific boiler, which is recognized by year of manufacturing or number. Other policies cover electrical motors. The more extensive policies cover all kinds of machinery and equipment, as well as damage caused by equipment malfunction.
Most small business owners opt for the policy to cover the items that are not covered by other kinds of insurance policies, like property or vehicle insurance. Choose a policy that not just pays you for the damaged machine, but also helps you recover from business losses caused by the accident. This means that you should look for a policy that will help you set up a temporary business unit after an accident, pay for damages to the property and compensate for business losses.
Additional Help
If you are a small business owner who is unsure of which boiler and machinery insurance policy to opt for, you can approach a small business consultant for help. Insuring your machine is the best way to safeguard yourself from not just damage to your equipment, but also business losses.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com