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Write a Business Plan for Success

By implementing known variables and parameters in business management, programmers were able to create a process flowchart that accommodates information such as product nature, target users, market factors, financial requirements, etc. to be organized into a business plan. Ultimately however, there is a limit to these automated processes. The human touch really needs to be added in order to make a business plan reliable.

What are the things you need to include in a sound business plan?

To begin with you should have a solid vision for your business or company. Your business plan needs to states the fundamental purpose of your existence and what you want to achieve, or what are your long-term goals. A vision is a statement qualifying the future direction of your business, summarizing the key purpose, ethics and direction of your business in a short descriptive written piece. Next you should look at where your business profile is. This document defines your business in detail, what it does, what it offers, how your business plans to do things. This profile should include a description of the market segment you have identified as your main focus or target.

Following on from these initial strategic documents you will then need to build your business marketing plan. The marketing plan outlines a scenario of how products will move from the production point to the end user. This plan should also seek to expand the business market identifying unique and valuable prospects for selling and developing the business products and services. The business participants are the next important feature in the business plan. Include a basic rundown of participants qualifications and unique competencies of your staff, including you, their different functions, as well as their individual position descriptions.

Finally implement a judgment of economic environment into your business planning. This will outline and describe the nature of the economic environment in which your business will be operating, and should include elements such as regulation policies, taxes, population, natural resources, data flow, etc. Along with this do a brief cash flow assessment. Knowing the projected capital requirements, cash flow and expected revenues for a given period, normally one year ensure that you can monitor your business progress. Creating simulated scenarios, each with its own cash flow assessment, will ensure that you have provided contingencies if something goes wrong as the business proceeds.

How to begin preparing a business plan

o Draft a basic concept about the business.

o Do a feasibility study and gather data related to the specifics identified in concept of the business.

o Refine the business concept using the data collected in the feasibility study.

o Further specify the business concept. Answer every What, Why, Where, When, Who and How question that may arise about your concept.

o Polish your plan. It should float valuable insights and bring focus to the objectives you have set on the business. All important information should be incorporated in the plans outline

o Verify your plan with sample plans. There are many sample plans downloadable from the internet. Comparing it with an automated business plan of the same nature of business would be useful to check its comprehensiveness.

Finally, do not underestimate the value of business planning, as the saying goes most people do not plan to fail they fail to plan. Even if you have all the leeway in the world available and plenty of startup capital, a business that relies on gut feeling and so called sixth sense alone risks failure, and is unlike to be a business that is running optimally.

Deep Arora is an Internet marketer with over 7 years of online experience and he teaches internet marketing from his blog at http://www.HowIDid.com. Check out his blog for some amazing techniques today.

Strategic Alliances: Laser Focus Your Niche to Increase Profits

Many budding Internet business people and entrepreneurs think that the best way to establish a successful business is to sell to a wide potential market. They may be afraid to pursue a smaller niche market business at the risk of limiting themselves and turning away potential clients by not offering a wide enough variety of products and services. But this philosophy actually runs counter to what a niche-based business is all about. With a market of specialized products and services, there is less risk. You can get your feet wet if you are new in the Internet business by gaining expertise in one product area, rather than trying to spread yourself too thin with little experience.

Occupying a niche means that you won’t be competing with many similar businesses solely on price. As a new start-up business, trying to compete with large, established businesses, you may not have the capital to do so via price competition, or savvy of experience to compete via a sleek marketing machine. A niche market product is a great way for newcomers to Internet business to get a start, but there are a couple of integral strategies that accompany appealing to a niche market.

Benefits of a Niche Market Business

A business that sells to a niche market offers products and services that are specialized and often customized to a client’s particular requirements. Because you will be selling products and services with a unique set of qualities, you are often able to charge more, as there is less competition in your field. You distinguish yourself by offering a product or service that almost nobody else does.

Offering a niche product will sometimes make it difficult to market your company. If you are so specialized, how do you get the word out about what it is you do? In niche marketing, establishing a collaborative relationship with your contemporaries in similar but not identical industries is an important aspect of a strategic marketing plan.

Strategic Alliances and Niche Markets

In small business, it is important to get to know your contemporaries, as well as your competitors. You may be trying to gain the same business that your competitors are, but occasionally, they may be out of a product and send a customer your way, and vice versa. This is less likely if you have a corner of a small, niche market, but it’s still a possibility and good relationship practice for your business to stay in good standing with competitors and contemporaries.

Strategic alliances are an important aspect of niche marketing because these relationships will help raise awareness for your products and services. A strategic alliance is a business relationship you enter into with a company who has a tangential relationship to your own business, but is not a direct competitor. For example, if I own a company that rents designer wedding dresses, it makes sense for me to form a business alliance with a photographer and/or caterer since they are both, at least partially, in the wedding business as well.

Strategic marketing alliances are particularly important as they relate to niche businesses. Niche businesses operate largely by word of mouth, and if that word of mouth suggestion comes from another professional in a related industry or field, it will lend credibility to your own business. Small businesses partnering together will help ensure a future where niche markets and small companies continue to be a success.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic Collaboration Marketing consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges. christian@synertegic.com
http://christianfea.com

Attracting New Clients Quickly Through Strategic Alliances

Customer relationships are one of the most important aspects of marketing your business. In business, principally with Internet businesses and marketing, it is particularly important to form strategic alliances to help build your customer relationship base and expand these important customer relationships.

The Internet has allowed a number of niche market businesses to flourish, and a large percentage of Internet businesses offer specialty products and services. These small businesses often sell just one or a few particular items, or a small range of items in one particular category. Once you have reached a number of customers, if you sell only one product or offer one particular service, it may not be the type of thing than necessitates repeat business. And although now you have a customer base, your base may not need a regular refill of the product you offer, which is inherently limiting to your business.

The Importance of Strategic Alliances

Many small businesses are in a similar situation: you’ve obtained initial business, but because your product or services don’t require a large amount of renewal or repeat business, you must constantly work on gaining new business. This can be a stressful prospect, and is why strategic partnerships are so important.

The key to forming a good strategic alliance is not to partner with a direct competitor, but to partner with someone in a tangentially related field. Forming a strategic partnership and collaborating to market your services will ensure your survival.

How do I form a Strategic Alliance?

Let’s say, for instance, that your business rents wedding gowns. Except for an unfortunate percentage of the population, this is not a business where you will expect a lot of immediate repeat business. Marketing and word of mouth are vital to your survival.

You will not want to attempt to partner with other gown rental companies that will decrease business for both of you, unless you offer very different styles and designers. What you will want to do is contact a photographer, catering service, or wedding planner to embark on a partnership that will serve both of you, and enhance business for both parties.

For example, if you form a strategic alliance with a photographer, you can refer your clients to his services and vice-versa. Not everyone uses a wedding planner, and if you are putting together a wedding for yourself, you may contact a wedding photographer before you or your fiance decide upon a dress. Because wedding dresses can be prohibitively expensive and it is a dress that (in theory) will be worn only once, many people now opt to rent a wedding dress.

If for instance you’ve decided upon a photographer, to whom you mention in the course of your discussions and negotiations that you are considering renting a dress for the wedding, he can refer you to his strategic alliance partner, the wedding gown rental company that he knows. This also obviously works in the reverse, if you are assisting a client who has not yet secured a photographer, you will mention your strategic alliance partner.

Strategic alliances and collaborative partnerships are an essential marketing strategy for promoting your online business. It is an established method in most types of businesses worldwide, and lends particularly well to Internet marketing. Strategic alliances will not require a lot of time to maintain, yet are a very important way to ensure the growth and survival of your business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A strategic Collaboration Marketing consulting firm empowering business owners to discover and implement Integration, Alliance, and Joint Venture marketing tactics to solve specific business challenges. christian@synertegic.com
http://christianfea.com

Corporate Branding Services And Positioning Your Company Right

Are you having trouble getting a committee in your company to create a branding strategy for you? Do you find it a complicated task to come up with effective branding tactics? Does your existing branding campaign fall short of your expectations? Are you at a loss on what to do next?

Why not consider getting corporate branding services? There are many consultants and firms offering such services for companies like yours that are in a quandary on the right approach of their corporate branding predicament.

Corporate branding services can provide your company with a comprehensive strategy to get your company name across the market, with the right image that you desire it to project. The strategy would include coming up with advertisements and promotions that are in line with the desired corporate image. Intangibles are important here. Concepts on goodwill, trust and reliability are driven hard at.

With corporate branding, one is more concerned on the image of the company, its name and culture. Unlike product branding wherein the company allows its products to have a life of its own, corporate branding would want to be known as a company offering quality products, excellent customer service and high-integrity business transactions. With corporate branding, the company may also want to be known for their activities in answering the call of social responsibility on the local communities they are operating in - portraying responsible citizenship.

Many branding consultant firms offer corporate branding services. Below are just a few of these where you can get information with regards to your companys branding needs.

Image Design

This company makes use of a workshop that will explore the existing situation your company is in now, makes you understand your market better and makes you realize as well, what your company needs to do to be the brand name of choice in the industry you are in.

Brand Identity Guru, Inc.

This company will conduct sophisticated research methods and come up with recommendations specific to your companys case. They believe that corporate branding is more than corporate identity, and rightly so - as the latter refers merely to the company name, logo and design - while the former includes corporate identity and more. Corporate branding includes the relationship with your customers, media, community and even your company staff. It involves much more and Brand Identity Guru, Inc. provides the corporate branding services to address these.

Establish Your Corporate Name

With the right corporate branding services, your company will be able to project a good name to its customers. Your company name will then become synonymous with quality products, efficient services, honest business transactions, and responsible citizenship.

While it is a fact that it may take a while, and even years for these to take root, and establish your name in the industry as having such attributes - at least your company can start early, and stay on the right track to making a name for itself.

For more articles and information or to view a selection of career articles and information and corporate articles and information visit Articles.net.au - Your source for free Articles, Information and Website Content.

Introduction to Business Ethics

Is it possible for an individual with strong moral values to make ethically questionable decisions in a business setting? What affects a person’s inclination to make either ethical or unethical decisions in a business organization? Although the answers to that question are not entirely clear, there appear to be three general sets of factors that influence the standards of behavior in an organization; individual factors, social factors and opportunity.

Several individual factors influence the level of ethical behavior in an organization. An individual’s knowledge level regarding an issue can help to determine ethical behavior. A decision maker with a greater amount of knowledge regarding an object or situation may take steps to avoid ethical problems, whereas a less-informed person may unknowingly take action that leads to an ethical conflict. One’s moral values and central, value-related attitudes clearly influence his or her business behavior. Most people join organizations to accomplish personal goals. The types of personal goals an individual aspires to and the manner in which these goals are pursued have significant impact on that individual’s behavior in an organization.

A person’s behavior in the workplace is, to some degree, determined by cultural norms, and these social factors vary from one culture to another. For example, in some countries it is acceptable and ethical for customs agents to receive gratuities for performing ordinary, legal tasks that are a part of jobs, whereas in other countries these practices would be viewed as unethical and perhaps illegal. The actions and decisions of coworkers is another social factor believed to shape a person’s sense of business ethics. For example, if your coworkers make long-distance telephone calls on company time and at company expense, you might view that behavior as acceptable and ethical because everyone does it. Significant others are persons to whom someone is emotionally attached-spouses, friends, and relatives, for instance. Their moral values and attitudes can also affect an employee’s perception of what is ethical and unethical in the workplace.

Opportunity refers to the amount of freedom an organization gives an employee to behave ethically if he or she makes that choice. In some organizations, certain company policies and procedures reduce the opportunity to be unethical. For example, at some fast-food restaurants, one person takes your order and receives your payment and another person fills the order. This procedure reduces the opportunity to be unethical because the person handling the money is not dispensing the product, and the person giving out the product is not handling the money. The existence of an ethical code and the importance management places on this code are other determinants of opportunity. The degree of enforcement of company policies, procedures, and ethical codes is a major force affecting opportunity. When violations are dealt with consistently and firmly, the opportunity to be unethical is reduced.

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Employment, Education, and Finance

Starting An Affiliate Program

The following paragraphs summarize the work of affiliate programs experts who are completely familiar with all the aspects of affiliate programs. Heed their advice to avoid any affiliate programs surprises.

Employ some form of exclusivity in your product launch in order to develop curiosity. For instance, announce that you will only allow a total of 25 affiliates to join your program and all those who do will receive some sort of benefits. Consider making affiliates fill out an application to join. Believe it or not, this will actually create curiosity.

Expensive products always make better affiliate products, especially if you are looking to attract the big players in your industry. They would much rather sell 100 products that bring in a $500 commission than 1,000 products that bring in a $50 commission or 10,000 products that bring in a measly $5 commission.

If you’re planning to coordinate a massive launch with affiliates, always also plan to purchase professional graphic headers and ecovers, too. If your sales page doesn’t look professional, you will immediately lose a lot of potential affiliates. Like you, they want to earn a decent return from their efforts; and they also want to associate with good products, not amateur ones.

Always keep the 20/80 principle in mind. Twenty percent of your affiliates will more than likely make at least 80 percent of the sales. This is why it is so important to cultivate relationships and focus on providing potential big sellers with benefits they need. At the same time, don’t ignore the rest of the 80%; they are making sales for you, too.

Most of this information comes straight from the affiliate programs pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.

Make it extremely easy for your biggest partners to participate. If a potential partner will have to spend 10 hours in order to make money with your offer and only 30 minutes with another assuming all other things are equal, there’s a good chance they’ll simply go with that other product. You would more than likely do the same exact thing.

Providing useful marketing materials is one of the most important parts of affiliate marketing. If your affiliates do not have good pre-made advertisements including solo ads, classified ads, and pay per click advertisements, they may not be able to effectively market your product, especially if they haven’t purchased it.

Hire an experienced affiliate recruitment manager to coordinate your launch. You could offer to give this manager 25% of your profits or you could increase the amount he/she earns on a tiered basis to give him/her the incentive to find more affiliates and to bring in more profits, so that he/she will also earn more.

Just because a person doesn’t own an established business does not mean they cannot be a powerful affiliate. Of course, if you want them to be effective, you will have to work harder to make sure they know how to promote a product and make sales. For people like this, you may want to offer some type of training course.

Now might be a good time to write down the main points covered above. The act of putting it down on paper will help you remember what’s important about affiliate programs.

Gaetane has thoroughly researched the Internet to locate the best High Income Business Opportunities that will enable you to start making money from your own home.
http://4instant-online-business.com
http://www.ideas-from.us/affiliate-programs/starting-an-affiliate-program.html

How To Build An Opt-in List

Before revealing the secrets of the trades, here are myths and fallacies that need to be cleared before one indulges into building an opt-in list. These marketing misconceptions could pose so much of an obstacle towards your profitting well from your business.

Not a lot of people use email

Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods nowadays simply because virtually almost all people use email. Check on those email fields or blanks required to be filled up on various forms needed in processing different transactions. A person without an email address is tantamount to a person without an online home, which is one big shameful truth for this generation.

Email marketing campaigns can offend a lot of people

The not-so secret way to surmount this dilemma is through permission-based advertising. There’s no harm in trying after asking for permission.

It’s stupid to send email to all the people

The key to this predicament is to have a very discerning eye on who to email and who to not email. Better look for some metrics on how to know which group of people would give you high ROI or return on investment.

The Real Deal with Building Opt-in List

After clearing the fog regarding email marketing myths, here’s how one can benefit from employing the power of email marketing campaigns - building an opt-in list.

However, building an opt-in list is not a piece of cake particularly for the uninitiated. Here is a roundown of tips on how to succeed in this kind of marketing endeavor.

1. Strategic Collection of Data

Know which information from your audiences will help you in lowering expenses and/or make sales flourish. Devise a tactic to make people voluntarily provide you with the information necessary to create higher conversion.

Overload of data is not good. Ask only for opt-in, with their full name and email addresses. Make sure that the profiles that you gather are updated to aid in improving the relevance, timeliness and satisfaction from each deal you make.

2. Good Implementation

Old adage says it all - ‘action speaks louder than words’. This easily translates to the difficulty one has to undergo during the execution of his or her email marketing efforts. It’s a good thing that various methods, often low-cost, abound to hasten and facilitate the building up of one’s opt-in database.

Tracking your email marketing results can pose great hardship, too. Technology and relevant sources should be employed in making this aspect of your marketing a lot manageable. Your high traffic groups of opt-ins with the greatest result should be taken noted of.

The following are the most widely used methods to leverage channels without overspending:

1. Make use of websites.

It is an excellent tool for data collation and providing you with relevant info regarding your email offers. Use forms that solicit your visitor’s email address and consent.

2. Make use of print ads, brochures, TV, radio and direct mail.

These are the more popular ways of marketing aiming to lead traffic to one’s site. You may want to ask for signups for email services. Make your website more visible through these media. Offering free electronic newsletters and or rewards program can do well in making it easy to win the nod of your audiences, too.

3. Maximize your sales force.

Customer service associates can help a lot in making you benefit more from your email correspondence. Sales people with proper education on how to aid you in this endeavor can very well contribute to higher ROI. Techniques like offering account updates and special programs through email can easily land you those lists of valuable visitors.

4. Don’t make your point of sale pointless.

Forms for signup located at cash registers and other high-traffic and highly visible spots can be very excellent venues for your business to collect email addresses. Notification of upcoming sales through their email addresses and names can coax them to supply you with the information you need.

5. Conferences or trade shows can work, too.

Giveaway offers or entries on sweepstakes are great for opt-in to volunteer their contact details.

These tactics should be applied with adequate caution and should focus on earning the trust of your opt-in list instead of simply collating data for your sole own benefit. Always make sure that the forms that you will use and other methods that you will employ will not necessitate too much fuss to subscribe. This is for people to not be annoyed during the process of data supplication.

With that bunch of information, who can ever go wrong with the feat of building an opt-in list?

Gaetane has thoroughly researched the Internet to locate the best High Income Business Opportunities that will enable you to start making money from your own home.
http://4instant-online-business.com

Learn How To Create A Sitemap

A sitemap of a website is similar to the table of contents of a book. Sitemaps are important because it guides web surfers to the particular part of the website they have a point of interest in. With it they would save time following links and get right to the point instead.

Sitemaps are also where search engines look at if somebody is looking for a particular keyword or phrase. If you have a site map, you can most likely be searched.

Creating a sitemap, now with software technology surging in, is relatively easier than before. You need not be a programming guru to be one. All need is a notepad, a program editor, and some patience. Here’s how you do it:

Create the listing on a notepad.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be a notepad. Any word processing program will do. First off, make sure to type in all the parts and pieces of your website. Include all pages and all links you have. Create it as if you listing the contents of your book. Make a draft first. You’re sure no to miss something out this way.

Create a new page for your sitemap.
You can insert the sitemap on your website on one of its pages or you can create an entirely different page for it. Using your notepad, incorporate all tags necessary to it to make another webpage. Open up your website creator program and tag your sitemap using it. If you have created your website on your own, this will be easy for you.

Create a link for the sitemap.
You won’t be able to view the sitemap if you won’t put a link for it, of course. Create the link on the front page of your website so that visitors can view it right away and be directed appropriately.

Check your work.
It is important to validate the functionality of the links you created on the sitemap. Test each and every one in there and if you get an error, be sure to fix it accurately. Run through every single page to make sure that all are accounted for.

Upload your work.
Place the sitemap now on your live browser and double check it. It should function as smoothly as the dry run. Error should be minimal at this stage since you already have verified it locally.

The steps provided herewith is the manual way of creating a sitemap. These days, if you search hard enough on the web, you will find online programs that will do all these work for you. All you have to do it type in the URL or the link of your website and they will create the sitemap with click of a button.

Of course that method is generic. All of you who have created their sitemap that way will have an end product that is all the same, plus there’s that possibility that something else will be inserted in there too. Then again, the process is less taxing and way, way simpler.

But if you want a more personalized output, and you are pretty good with computers and programming yourself, better make one of your own. And since you made your website anyway, creating sitemap is just like creating any other page on the website. Other than you’ll know for sure the links are accurate, you can organize the links the way you prefer it to be. Major parts of the site are emphasized compared to less significant. This is important especially if you are selling products or offering services online.

Sitemap is vital to a website. People search the web a lot for something. If your website has what that particular person is looking for, and your sitemap reports it, then you have a new customer looking at your items. Not only that, they will see some other things up for sale that they might be interested in as well.

Sitemaps, be it generated by a program automatically or you made it yourself, presents the same purpose. That is to lead your visitors to where they’re likely headed, and for you to be seen on the World Wide Web through search spiders. So with these, make sure your website has a sitemap of its own, lest make one.

Gaetane has thoroughly researched the Internet to locate the best High Income Business Opportunities that will enable you to start making money from your own home.
http://4instant-online-business.com

The Number One Key for Business Success in the 21st Century

OK, that first assumes you have a real business, one that has lasted at least five years. About ninety percent of the new businesses founded go broke before their fifth anniversary, so I am excluding them here. The companies who make it past their fifth anniversary have more than just potential!

They have proven that theirs is a viable business proposition, they had the money to out last the vast majority and they know a lot more than the average about running a business. Now it’s time to really go to work - to build on what’s working.

The number one key for business success in the 21st Century is the same as it was at the beginning of recorded business history, it’s just easier to achieve now that information is more abundant than ever and high speed Internet connections make it accessible. But just because it’s available and does not mean we all take advantage of it.

Since time began those who took advantage of current information outlived those who stuck to the old ways. The saber tooth tiger today is information knowledge. Either we tame it and use its power to help us or it will eat us alive. It is really that simple.

If knowledge, technology, planning strategies, etc. are available and we do not seek it out or do not act on it, whose fault is that and why? Remember the cartoon strip Pogo? He had the answer when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” But who is us? Us, means everyone, whether we’re involved directly in the business as an owner or employee, a non-involved stakeholder, or a part of the advisory team.

When there is already more information than seems necessary it is often counterintuitive to ask for even more. In part because most of us equate new information with either new messengers bringing us more and more of what we already know (just a new take on it) or our current advisors and vendors bringing additional `new’ advice.

Yet, access to help is just a click away, available anonymously so you get the knowledge in an unbiased format. Search engines such as Google and databases like our database of over 2,000 articles for family business. I have spoken to business owners who continually use public, private, and industry databases to protect their current position and look for new and better ways of doing things. They read magazines and newsletters too, reaching out for help without even having to identify themselves.

In addition, growing numbers of your contemporaries are online and easier to reach. These are the folks who may have already found the answers you are seeking. Even if you do not know them personally, you can reach out to them. Who better to ask for help than people just like you?

I am so impressed with the lengths to which some trade associations have gone to build an online community of their members. One association, working with a committee of its members, created a technology certification program. These members who participate win with better trained employees and so do their customers and potential customers.

Recently a trade association exec (who prefers to remain anonymous for reasons that will become obvious) made an interesting observation. When I asked him about the adoption of technology by their members (a bellwether activity in most industries) he said, “10% of our members are as close to the cutting edge as their Fortune 1000 counterparts. About 20% will never adequately adopt the strategies required to compete, and will therefore go out of business. The remaining 70% are the ones we are concerned about.”

What did he mean? Seventy percent of the members wanted to take advantage of all that is available to them in order to compete, grow, and continue to succeed. The association was doing everything possible to help them. Access to ideas, vendors, techniques, and their fellow member were just the tip of the iceberg.

As a likely member of the 70% (the 20% are not reading this article) you attend industry events where members of the 10% take the platform to tell you their strategies and solutions. You make notes and think about how their ideas might apply to you. With notebook in hand you approach the front of the room only to be swept aside by others who are also eager to catch the speakers’ ear. So, you go back home and try to reconstruct these incomplete ideas for your managers and employees.

Now, you can track the speaker down get his or her email address and contact them when you have a chance to put your thoughts in order. If they are like the industry leaders I have met, they will gladly share their knowledge with you. Email makes it possible for them to respond when it is convenient for them making their answers to your questions more thoughtful.

The relationship may grow into a powerful asset in the ongoing development of your business. When I take a minute to think about it, there are several business owners who are important to me personally a couple that I have never even met that I communicate with regularly. The value of these relationships makes all of my investments in technology worthwhile and will yours too.

Being willing to ask for help is the number one key, however it is your willingness to accept it and act on it - is what will have the impact. When your organization develops an environment where everyone - the owners, managers, and employees are looking outside the company for help taking advantage of the results that makes sense to everyone is human nature.

Successful companies have always looked both inside and outside the organization for tips, techniques, and strategies to help them grow and keep their successful business. Today the velocity of information is so great that “picking up a few ideas in the exhibit hall at next winter’s annual meeting” just won’t get it.

One way to systematically connect with people who can help you meet the challenges on being a family business in the 21st.Century is to form or become part of a virtual peer group. Virtual peer groups are made up of 4-6 business owners, usually from the same industry - who meet regularly over the phone.

The phone is the key, because it allows you to select other industry leaders located across the country - which means everyone is sharing ideas and experiences without fear of tipping off their competition. Virtual peer groups are the strategic planning circles of the future - available today.

Wayne Messick’s web site contains hundreds of articles full of actionable strategies. If you are a business owner who wants to maximize your company’s potential, here is how we helping thousands of others achieve success in virtual B2B Peer Groups.

Brooklyn Industries, a Family Business With Style!

A couple of months ago I was invited to a breakfast where Crains Magazine was honoring some exceptional small businesses located here in NYC.

Each company was represented by one of its owners, spread out across the front of the room - each prepared to tell us a little bit of “their story” - Brooklyn Industries was one of them and was well represented by its co-founder Lexy Funk.

As soon as she was introduced I realized I was sitting at the table next to her cheering section, including among others, her husband, co-founder, and fellow entrepreneur, Vahap Avsar.

I intended to speak with Lexy after the event but the line of business owners wanting to ask her advice and opinion was too long. I put my notes aside and didn’t think about Brooklyn Industries again until this past weekend.

My wife had read about the shops on Smith St.in Brooklyn and since we had not been there for at least five years, and it was a beautiful day to stroll along the side streets in this vibrant ever changing community - we thought we’d make a day of it.

BTW, for those of you who don’t live in NYC, Brooklyn is larger than you would imagine. Its 2.5 million people make it bigger than San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and St. Louis combined. So when we go there we limit what we hope to see to a single area.

When we reached the corner of Atlantic Ave. & Smith Street I found myself standing in front of a Brooklyn Industries store - full cool of clothes and accessories some of which are now destined for nieces and nephews from Pennsylvania to California - and Lexy’s comments at the Crains breakfast resonated with me.

Like many entrepreneurs she and her husband, starting the business in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with a single idea for turning their art into handbags, had expanded from the original concept of the business founded in the mid 90’s to one that in 2001 required a radical makeover. For business owners this sort of thing is usually forced on them, by the economy, the bank, etc. Otherwise they keep on doing what they are doing until the money runs out.

In their case it was the economic slowdown in 2001 that cause them to take action. They got out of the things that we not working well enough to be part of the solution, and had become part of the problem. They got out of everything except the retail business.

“That was the turning point,” said Lexy. “We were doing too many things.” And she was right, for them retailing provided direct access and input from their customers, daily cash flow, and control of all elements of merchandising and display.

They know their customers, they know their markets, and they can make decisions based on the most granular feedback possible, the people who walk in the door of their stores. The store at Atlantic Ave. & Smith St. is only one of their five stores in Brooklyn, one in the SOHO neighborhood in Manhattan and a few more on the way. They are looking at revenues of 7.2 million dollars this year and more in the next few years as the new Manhattan stores gain traction.

Success in the 21st century requires more than having a good idea or even a good product competitively priced. It requires leadership. Not the kind of leadership you read about in books, even though that’s important, it’s the kind of leadership that causes everyone from the storeroom to the board room to embrace the mission of the organization.

When everyone knows they are being treated fairly and sense that their input in important to the company’s success, they will train one another, support one another, and pitch in to help one another and the company without being asked.

Sustained success is also a function of strategic management. In fact more than anything else management has always determined which of the companies with good ideas, good products, good locations, and good leaders - survive and succeed. No matter how much your employees like you, sometimes unpopular decisions must be made. In the case of Brooklyn Industries, Lexy’s background was as an artist, Vahap a former photographer. So while they had ideal credentials for creating trendy clothes and accessories, business management was a new animal to them.

While they devoured stacks of business management books and periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review, they have received their real management education from the support network they have built around them and from their customers.

It will be interesting to follow the progress of Brooklyn Industries over the next few years. When leadership is in place and management strategies are being continually tweaked and fine tuned the result is the creation and maintenance of an ever evolving strategic planning process.

Strategic planning for the months and years ahead does not need to be complicated. It does not require consultants and analysts. In fact most successful privately held and family owned businesses do strategic planning with only a little help from their friends.

They seek out people they respect in business, people they are not in direct competition with, and people whose opinions and experience are relevant to theirs. They then mutually commit to meeting together on a regular basis to discuss issues of critical importance to each of them.

The resulting advisory group of supporters whose experiences parallel those they are having or are likely to have created a dynamic team, available every day in every one and committed to one another.

Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizresources.com If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our web site. If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential, here are the strategies we are using to generate 3/4 of our new business.

Leverage The Power of Your Peers

It seems like we all learn better in groups. In school, from kindergarten to graduate school, you worked on projects in teams or groups. You always seemed to learn more from your peers than when you listened to an instructor droning on about a particular subject.

What we all learn talking with and listening to our peers can provide amazing insights. And if these peer groups meet regularly we can really leverage our business strengths. Conducting ongoing conversations with our peers really works.

If you are the owner, successor, or manager of a business you know that what you’re doing is rewarding.
However it can also be an overwhelming and often isolating experience.

This is particularly true in small to mid-size businesses: Owners can become more and more isolated with every new challenge, lacking an impartial and confidential place to frankly discuss the issues and concerns of his or her company.

One of the best ways to handle that isolation is through peer groups.

Whether meeting via teleconference or in person, peer groups provide business leaders and managers with an opportunity to honestly and openly discuss their goals, while helping other people solve their problems in the process.

Peer groups provide a safe, supportive environment in which peers can share ideas, voice concerns and challenges, and receive ongoing support to keep on track to meet goals. You get more out of discussing someone else’s issue in a constructive manner than you do talking about your own. And the other members feel the same - creating the ideal collaborative environment for growth.

Many times, in the world of family businesses, secrecy is so much a part of the business history that those at the top of the company rarely look outside the company for advice. Or, perhaps they are seen as leaders in their industry or their associations– they may feel it would be inappropriate or disadvantageous to seek advice from their peers within the industry.

A peer group made up of business owners from across the country, in a variety of industries with a variety of backgrounds, allows businesspeople to share concerns and get feedback from ideas that they would be unable or unwilling to discuss with people in their own industry. That atmosphere, with its strict confidentiality, allows members to air their challenges in a different way and get advice from others on a number of issues.

Since group members are developing their own businesses in different ways, with different goals and timeframes, a peer group is often able to provide members with cutting edge business strategies from people across the country or around the corner - people experiencing the same things differently.

Effectiveness development for business people is a never-ending story. I believe the best way to achieve effectiveness is through an ongoing strategic conversation with peers.

Whether these discussions are organized and moderated, or simply an ad hoc meeting of the minds, it is the ongoing nature of these peer discussions that allows them to deal with learning in a systematic way, putting out fires as they arise while developing future strategies for business growth.

As a peer group participant and facilitator, I can attest first hand to their effectiveness as a business development and problem-solving tool. It is the development of these long-term supportive relationships that is critical to the process: Knowledge and strategy are, in the final analysis, not nearly as important as the relationships between people enthusiastically supporting one another. That support is truly what makes peer groups so incredibly powerful.

There are essentially 2 ways of learning. One way is by practicing and getting feedback, or by acting, and then and measuring the success or failure of the act.

The other is by talking about ideas, digesting them, and thinking them through in an ongoing conversation. Discussion illuminates. In a peer group environment, it creates a common understanding of different concepts through the different perspectives each of us brings to the table.

Everyone helps everyone else gain a better understanding. We help each other figure out where we are right now, where we want to go in the future, create action plans, and then we hold each other accountable for our goal setting through continual review, discussing what’s working and what’s not, analyzing roadblocks, and more. Its an ongoing process of helping one another, and gaining the insight necessary to help ourselves.

The objective of a peer group is to create a comfortable environment where participants can share strategies and thoughts, as well as to discuss their frustrations, in a non-competitive atmosphere.

That non-competitive atmosphere may include people in the same industry but from different geographic locations, or a mix of people from a variety of industries. Peer groups aren’t about networking, and they are non-commercial by nature. Participating in a peer group is like being a part of and receiving ongoing assistance from — a board of advisors and therapists.

Corporations call them focus groups. And they are. For businesspeople though, peer review teams offer the counsel of selected advisors- other business owners like themselves. Each has an appropriate point of view, skill sets and objectivity that clear our otherwise murky projections of favorable results and how to get them.

Anyone who has been around the boards of directors in family businesses and small- to mid-sized companies knows that, generally speaking, board members are insiders and they have their own agenda. The boards aren’t always interested in providing or even in a position to provide regular, step-by-step instructions.

A peer group, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to access a sounding board of professionals without the insider concerns that invariably influence a company board of directors. Peer groups have no hidden agendas, just people with the same or greater experience helping other people.

The value of having a mix of members in varying fields is that it provides a cross-pollination of ideas. We all tend to get locked into our own ways of thinking about problems, solutions, and challenges. Often the best solutions are very clear to people who are not bound by those old ways of thinking, or by our own ingrained opinions about how to succeed in our given industry.

Most groups “meet” twice a month for an hour and a half teleconference. And if the members are from the same general area, they usually supplement their teleconferences with a quarterly in person session. The technological developments of the digital age have made it both easy and convenient to conduct meetings at a distance. Often groups will not meet in person for the first year or so after the group is formed.

From my experience as a group member and facilitator, once we meet face to face, I believe it changes the dynamic of the group. Groups always seem to work together very effectively without ever having met, but after when the members are able to meet, the level of effectiveness increased considerably. While I do believe that people can create successful peer group relationships without ever meeting in person, being able to put a face to a voice is certainly advantageous in the development of a relationship.

I’ve taken part in thousands of conference calls and people phrase things differently, they couch their thoughts in cogent sentences before they open their mouths, they’re reluctant to cut each other off if they have a burst of an idea, and every time you hear a noise in the background, you’re wondering which member of the conference isn’t fully engaged. There’s a trust issue there.

Each group develops uniquely, but there is one element that has been crucial in my experience: Commitment. Commitment to the group and the process is an absolute requirement if the peer group is to succeed. The members must be regularly willing to give of their time and their business acumen. If there is a facilitator, group members must also be committed to the ongoing investment of their money until they are ready to take over the group’s management themselves.

These are commitments that will result in their own personal and business growth and their ability to make decisions. Whatever time, energy, and capital they invest is a direct investment in their own success.

There are as many different ways to organize a group’s agendas, as there are groups. Supporting materials like books and articles on the topic at hand can prove useful here. Sessions can be structured around a source book or around study groups. The content can be supplied or developed in a number of ways. But in addition to the content, its the free exchange of ideas that is critical.

The benefit of having specific content is that it keeps focus and prevents the process from becoming just a gab session amongst business people. A principle value of the group process is that it helps each person ideas and solutions (or potential challenges) that are not apparent to them or that they may not have experienced themselves. A peer group helps people learn from the mistakes of others for a greater likelihood of success.

So what does the most effective peer group look like? It is one composed of business owners from the same industry, but located far enough apart that they are not direct competitors. Their meetings are facilitated professionally so that 100% of the time each member spends is on their and their peers growth, not on the management and housekeeping details that assure the group’s momentum. And they meet together at least once of twice a year at their industries association events. It’s a perfect scenario!

Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizresources.com If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our web site. If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential, here are the strategies we are using to generate 3/4 of our new business.

Will a B2B Peer Group Help You Grow Your Business?

Can I assume everyone knows what a business to business peer group is? Maybe you’ve heard of them called Mastermind Groups instead. In either case the principles are those of Napoleon Hill and his colleagues that have been in use since the early part of the last century.

In a nutshell it is a small group of people meeting regularly, using the power of small group dynamics that foster creativity and accountability - to realize their full potential. When people who respect each other commit to being accountable as part of a small group, amazingly powerful things become possible.

Napoleon Hill coined the concept, although I am quite sure it had been around forever, of the “mastermind alliance” in his powerful book “Think And Grow Rich” because he believed from his own experience that a group of like-minded, achievement oriented individuals could dramatically leverage each other’s success.

So, for well over 75 years the mastermind process has proven itself as a valuable resource for people of every walk of life and every profession. If you read Napoleon Hill’s book you will see some famous names, such as Andrew Carnegie who were part of his first mastermind alliance.

Each of the members of his group were business people - so in fact we can say with certainty that he was the founder of the B2B Peer Group process.

In case you are not familiar with the makeup of traditional peer groups (aka mastermind groups) I will describe them.

Some mastermind groups are put together by an organizer, someone whose job it is to bring together strangers, based on some criteria or another, and make groups out of them. Typically the people who become members of each group did not know each other beforehand. It was all arranged by the organizer.

The individuals pay their fees and the organizer sets up and perhaps manages the meetings for some prescribed period of time, after which the members either signup for another period, or they ask to be put in another group or the yare disillusioned and drop out altogether.

These groups can be successful, but it is more by luck than by design. Napoleon Hill was convinced that the success of the mastermind alliance had more to do with the relationships between and among the members than the agenda or other mechanics.

So the organizer based mastermind group process is fatally flawed from the beginning. The groups that work are the ones where, luckily for them, the individuals connected with one another and stuck it out long enough to create the relationships that make real accountability possible.

Another type of group, often referred to as CEO Peer Groups, are organized by professional facilitators with the meetings held at the facilitators office. In many ways they are the same as the typical organizer focused groups mentioned above. But in important ways they differ.

In this type of peer group the organizers are highly successful professionals already, who want to work with clients in a group setting, who have taken specific training in group facilitation and have purchased a license or franchise from a company with extensive resources for the individuals who will be the members of the various peer groups.

Being a member of one of these CEO peer groups will require and investment of more than $1,000 per month and the commitment of considerable time for meetings etc. Their principle benefits are the face to face meetings with the highly trained facilitator and other successful business owners (the fee structure guarantees that) are offset by the necessity of a “horizontal” group structure.

By “horizontal” group structure I mean that since the group’s organizer has purchased a franchise for a specific geographic location and since no group would ever have two business owners in the same industry - who would want to be in a group with a direct competitor anyway, the possibility of learning from your actual peers is eliminated.

Historically business owners, everyone for that matter, gets the most actionable advice and help from other business owners in their industry. Anyone who tells you that’s not true is trying to sell you something. Of course we all pick up ideas at Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce meetings. When we do we have to filter them through our experience to determine whether or not we think they’ll work in our industry.

The 21st.Century B2B Peer Group eliminates this blind spot. These groups are organized “vertically” with everyone being in the same industry, just at different stages of development and in different parts of the country.

What does the 21st.Century B2B Peer Group look like? They operate 24/7/365, they defeat time and distance, they eliminate 90% of the cost associated with traditional mastermind groups, and they leverage the power of people with whom it was previously impossible to regularly collaborate.

I believe they are what Napoleon Hill and his colleagues would have created if it had been possible to do so at that time.

They take place over the phone and incorporate private Internet discussion boards, so time and distance are no longer an issue. Think about the money you’d save by not having to carve 3-4 hours twice a month out of your work day? And for those of you who live in rural areas the time commitment for a traditional peer group is even greater. Using the 21st. Century Peer Group model the ‘dead time’ is eliminated.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the ear of the leading members of your industry? You and they are facing the same issues every day, you speak the same industry lingo, and have shared experiences. Ideas presented based on their experiences are directly relevant to you and vice versa.

Even if the industry leader’s business is located half way across the country, instead of seeing them once or twice a year at the association meetings, you can be collaborating with them twice a month as part of your 21st. Century Peer Group.

In my personal experience nothing is more powerful in business than thoughtful, regular, strategic input from your peers, I know that for me it has made all the difference.

Whenever people ask me whether or not I recommend that they consider joining a peer group, a mastermind group of their peers, I always tell them if they are committed to realizing their full potential, a peer group is the most effective vehicle around.

Hey, if it worked for Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, who can argue with its power?

Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizResources.com If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential,here are strategies we are using to generate record revenues..If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our website.

Inevitable Change is a Fact of the Business Journey

Once there was a time in business when you could experience a change and then return to a period of relative stability. Nowadays, changes occur constantly - one on top of another. We need to acknowledge change and realize that change is a continuous journey - a way of life rather than a one-time event that can be lived through.

With considerable momentum and continuity building in an organization, it definitely can be said that nothing is ever absolutely certain (other than possibly death and taxes).

These changes and challenges that are encountered can at times bring added strain to business organizations. What is not always clear to us is how much more trouble we would be in for organizations failed to change. Often times people can have a funny way of hanging on to old habits.

In particular, we are often unwilling to quit doing what we can do well, even if it is no longer valuable to our customers. It is easy for people to get stuck in the thinking that got them to where they are today, even though that thinking cannot be used to get them where they need to be tomorrow.

It is important that we continue to break through the traditional thinking and avoid any prevailing mindsets, such as the thinking: it has always been done this way. We need to continually focus our efforts beyond our business-as-usual thinking. As progress calls for each of us to change, we need to remember that constant change is a way of life in business today. Together, people need to simultaneously manage the present and plan the future.

Currently, some jobs are taking on totally new dimensions…making new demands…calling for new work habits. We need to be willing to alter our mindsets as well as our techniques. Rather than continuing with the same old job behaviors that worked well enough in the past, we must learn new routines and make the necessary shift in our mindset so that our thinking is aligned with our new company mission and the new realities of the present work world.

We all need to focus our efforts on doing the right things for our customers. A key mistake can be ignoring how priorities and customer expectations have changed. We can be focused on doing things right, but we really are failing to do the right things. What can we offer our customers that they will value and be unable to get from anyone else?

We need to have an intense and unwavering commitment to making a difference in the business’ of our customers. It is important that we look at change as an opportunity…and use it!

Pj Germain
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Smart Strategy For A Home Business

The path to profit for an online home business is usually tied closely to smart planning, smart tactics - following key steps - and a willingness to undertake the necessary action.

Creating a strategy for your home business and following it will ensure that you enjoy the journey as much as getting to your final destination.

So what is strategic business management? Very simply, it’s the process of defining the goals and objectives for your business, creating an action plan so you can reach them and then following the plan.

How do you prepare a strategic plan for your business?

1. Research. Study those who’ve developed successful online marketing strategies and identify the techniques that you believe will prove fruitful during the coming year. One year is a long time on the internet but it offers an achievable goal.

2. Develop a plan for this year. These are the specific objectives you plan to accomplish this year that will lead you closer to your long-term goals. Remember to be “SMART” when setting your annual goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-oriented). Include a list of the barriers that are stopping you from getting where you want to go. Figure out what resources you’ve already got, and what resources you need to get you past those barriers. And then create an action plan that clearly lays out how you will achieve your goals. Involve any other key persons involved in your business with this part of the planning process.

3. Have a clear vision for the business. If there were no barriers, nothing stopping you from taking your enterprise as far as you could — what would that look like?

4. Then consider your core operating values? What are your guiding principles? In other words, why are you in business and how do you do business?

5. Now create a 3 to 5 year plan. Your long-term plan is based on the broad objectives that will help you get from where you are now, to where you want to be.

6. Create a set of milestones or benchmarks. This is very important, so that you can measure your progress.

7. Share the plan with anyone else who will be involved in the process. Your annual strategy is the roadmap that will make sure everyone ends up at the same destination — but to be effective, everyone needs the same map!

8. Put the plan into action. Now that you have the roadmap, it’s time to begin the journey.

9. Check your progress. Just like any trip, you need to check the map every now and then; to be sure you’re still on the right road. If something isn’t working, the sooner you figure it out and make the necessary adjustments, the sooner you’ll be back on track.

10. Follow the same cycle next year. (Dream, Plan, Act, Check).

On a scale of one to ten, having a good business strategy rates about a fifteen!

No matter what kind of business you have — whether you sell products or a service, as the saying goes, “if you fail to plan, then you’re really planning to fail.”

Creating a strategy can mean the difference between you working 60 to 80 hours a week all year long — and then breaking even, or worse, losing money.

On the other hand, many successful entrepreneurs who have a strategy work fewer hours and make piles of money — and they usually attribute their success to having a strategic plan and following it.

Remember, the smarter you work, the luckier you’ll get!

Ivan Kelly managed a Direct Mail business with extensive mailing lists for ten years and has designed and promoted many websites. He also provides quality f’ree courses on key internet marketing subjects. A list of these f’ree courses is available at: http://www.WebStartAdvisor.com/info.html

Setting Goals that Sizzle

Do you start the year off with phenomenal intentions and suddenly find yourself facing December 31st with little to show for it? Do you have a mental wish list of things to do, places to visit, or home improvements to make that’s a mile long and getting longer? Are you feeling kind of ho hum about your career?

Your problem may not be a lack of self-discipline or an over-booked day planner, but simply an inability to set the right targets…goals that sizzle. Walk through the following eight steps and say good-bye to chaos, overwhelm, and unfulfilled wishes.

STEP 1: Connect to Your Desire
This is the first and most critical step in creating successful goals. If you can’t answer the question, “Why is this goal important?” get ready for an uphill battle. If you are setting work-related goals that are not your choosing, ask, “How does this goal impact me? Does planning the company picnic for my boss earn me a fantastic performance review, the recognition of my peers, or the satisfaction of creating a memorable event?” Dig around and find a nugget of passion that you can relate to the goal at hand.

STEP 2: Plan Ahead
“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without a plan is a nightmare.” -Japanese proverb. Once you’ve pin-pointed an undeniable desire for this goal, develop a written plan of action. One of the most widely used methods of goal planning is the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, Time-framed. Take the time to satisfy in detail each of the criteria in writing.

STEP 3: Become Either a Visionary or a Task Master
Are you are fantastic list maker who gets easily overwhelmed by a towering to do list? Take a step back from the nitty gritty and look farther ahead. Write a vision statement by looking at the big picture. Or are you a dreamer who has trouble getting focused? Break the big goal into the tiniest possible tasks. By listing the easy-to-manage smaller steps, you will see that even baby steps help you reach your goal.

STEP 4: Make Two Promises
Make yourself accountable for both the tasks and the ultimate goal. First, make a promise to others: your family, customer, or business associates. A study showed that salesmen hit their targets consistently if their projections were made public. So promise others you will deliver. Secondly, make a promise to yourself based on the desire you identified in step #1. Write your goal with a specific deadline and post it where you are bound to see it several times a day.

STEP 5: Make It Active vs. Passive
Don’t fall prey to the “if/then” mentality: “If I win the lottery, then I’ll get in shape. If I get a new job, then I’ll be happy.” You will only succeed if you make your participation mandatory. Don’t rely on fate to save the day.

STEP 6: Cultivate Flexibility
Even though you have an outstanding goal with a task list carefully crafted down to the tiniest detail, remain open to change. Those who hold fast to a prescribed outcome are less likely to roll with the punches and often quit whenever things don’t go as planned. Remain open to a myriad of possibilities.

STEP 7: Engineer a Supportive Environment
Don’t believe that reaching any goal is necessarily born out of massive self-discipline and painful sacrifices. Consider creating the right environment to support you in your efforts. If you struggle with exercise, you might draw up a workout task calendar. However, a more supportive environment can include hiring a personal trainer or, better yet, volunteering to coach the local youth soccer team on a weekly basis.

STEP 8: Have Faith
Believe in your success. If you believe that you will fail, you will prove yourself right without even trying. Banish doubt and embrace every failure as a clue leading you one step closer to success.

Want more tips like this? Pick-up your free subscription to The Success Hot Sheet and some nifty bonuses at http://www.readytoevolve.com. Kim Nishida is the author of the innovative programs, Stop Wasting Time! and Conception to Completion, helping you realize your company’s full potential.

Making A Quick Profit On The Internet

Is it possible to make a quick profit on the internet? I hesitate about mentioning this method as it needs to be done with care, but if followed with a good understanding of the principles involved, it is certainly capable of paying well to those who know how to “play the game”.

Normally, this marketing strategy would be done in conjunction with article submission, free SEO traffic, etc, but these take time to build up. A speedier method of generating Adsense income is to use Pay Per Click (PPC).

Using a form of traffic arbitrage, low cost keywords are bid for on Google and a few of the other PPC search engines. They are directed to higher paying Adsense pages. Of course, the pages receiving the traffic need to be carefully set up so that they attract the higher paying Adsense ads.

The downside is that you have to pay for PPC traffic but it can be tested as you go and closely monitored. Google allows a budget to be set.

Several key factors in particular need to be considered at the outset:

1. High Paying Keywords.
Although you might have a burning interest in South American Parrots, that doesn’t mean the internet browsing population shares this interest - at least to the extent of being willing to click on ads which offer products and services on this topic. So be sure to check whether your interest is likely to produce Adsense ads that pay well for each click. For instance, if you are paying 5 cents per click to receive visitors and you’re receiving only, say, 10 cents per click on an adsense ad, it isn’t likely you’ll do well financially. Only a small percentage of visitors - say 5% - to your site will click on an ad.

2. Relevance.
The keywords recognized by Google as most relevant to your web page influence the selection of the ad which actually appears there. So it’s wise to choose content with high paying keywords if you wish to display high paying ads.

You also have to be sure that BOTH the ads and the content are relevant to your visitors. This is worth careful consideration. Your PPC promotion might be aimed at, say, those interested in dog training. This doesn’t means ads for dog breeding will be of interest to those visitors - they would probably be more concerned with the every day behavior of the dog. For instance, obedience training, house training, how to stop barking, fighting, digging, etc.

Essentially, you are optimizing for Adsense - choosing keywords with a fairly high level of competition - rather than for the free traffic from search engines (which usually require a lot less competition if you are to attract them), although the two work together. When bidding for keywords with PPC - in effect, buying your traffic - you’ll be choosing keywords (including synonyms and related words) that will attract the sort of traffic you’d expect to be interested in the Adsense ads that will appear on your web page. If the connection is too remote, they’ll just move on.

Your web page needs to be relevant to BOTH the visitors and the Adsense program that selects the ads that will appear. Don’t underestimate the importance of this factor.

3. Low Cost Keywords.
If you are paying the same price for keywords that you receive from the clicks on Adsense, then you are losing, not making a profit. Only about 5% of visitors can be expected to click on one of the ads on your webpage, so you will need to attract a lot of inexpensive traffic. Using Pay Per Click (PPC), such as Adwords (Google) you may be able to find related terms. For instance, instead of “dog”, have a look at “pooch”, “puppy”, or specific animals, such as “Labrador”.

As well, Google is not the only store in town. A number of other search engines exist that will charge a lot less for closely related keywords. They don’t have the same volume of traffic, but it all helps. Alternatives include FindWhat, Ah-Ha, and Brainfox for starters.

4. Tracking Advertising.
When you are using multiple sources of advertising to attract website traffic, some will prove to be more useful - profitable - than others. It’s crucial that you know which sources are working for you and which are merely costing you money. There are a number of commercial Ad Tracking services available. There are also some free scripts that are offered from time to time with the major giveaway joint ventures.

Another way of keeping track of your traffic sources is to have a separate landing page for each source. If you have good website reporting, statistics provided by your webhost will indicate which search engines are sending you traffic.

Usually, if set up without time pressures, by combining with free traffic from feeder pages (articles) average cost per visitor will be reduced, allowing room for a profit margin.

It has to be done carefully though. For instance, you have to be sure that the pages with Adsense attract high paying ads. You can’t just put up websites willy-nilly without checking ahead of time whether this is likely to happen.

Remember, if you are setting up niche websites that are optimized for the search engines, aiming for free traffic, naturally you will be looking for “undiscovered” niches that are relatively less competitive so that you can rank well with the search engines.

However, if you are using PPC, you actually WANT a fair (but not excessive) amount of competition for your keywords in the hope that the Adsense ads will pay well when visitors click on them. Much of your time will be spent searching for low cost alternative keywords and sources that you can use to drive traffic to your web pages.

Ivan Kelly managed a Direct Mail business with extensive mailing lists for ten years and has designed and promoted many websites. For more information about making money on the internet go to: Make Money

New Trends In Business

Trend watching in business has come a long way from being a trend in itself to being a full time profession. Trend watching helps companies by preparing them to adopt new trends in their field of business. Trends change quickly without limitations, but the lack of knowledge and timing about changing trends can result in disaster if a company tries to make a foray into a business whose time has not yet come. Accurate judgment about a trend’s longevity is important before taking the plunge and investing.

HOT TRENDS IN BUSINESS

How Do You Spot New And Hot Trends?

Don’t restrict yourself to music, sports or the kind of stuff targeted only to the young. A newspaper or a TV commercial will conclusively prove to you whether or not something is trendy. Just by this discussion, you can tell that getting into music retailing is trendy. Buying new cars is a trend with youth of the day.

Outsourcing Business Processes:

Outsourcing of business processes is a big trend among large corporations. Simple but labor-intensive jobs are outsourced for increased production and cheap labor. If someone is looking for opportunities in this field, he has definitely hit a goldmine! Simple things like “voice to text” data conversion, data entry, engineering processes and content development are a few hot trends.

Corporate Restructuring:

The opening of trade barriers and the advent of the WTO (World Trade Organization) has led to a shift in the corporate mindset. Downsizing and relocating are new trends today. Corporations, in their quest to survive and grow (don’t forget, growth is the mantra for survival), are also moving across borders and applying new management systems like Six Sigma for all-round quality improvement. By doing this, many companies have proven that it is indeed possible to save money and improve quality at the same time.

Intellectual Property Rights:

I have chosen this not because this is new but for its longevity. It will live longer as time goes on. One of the major ways of securing your future is by protecting your property, both physical as well as intellectual. With the advent of the Internet, this trend will only get stronger.

Incubation Of Start-Ups:

Who had heard of an incubator for a business some ten years ago? Start-ups that were just armed with great ideas, no money and no experience to get their business up and running were getting the money they needed as venture capitalists arrived on the scene. They invested and incubated small businesses until they grew big enough to fly on their own. The focus was undoubtedly on technology start-ups with an orientation towards product development.

This business trend was started by many current big names. (For example: Google and Sun Microsystems).

Six Sigma For Complete Quality:

The advent of Six Sigma methodology is a sun rising on the quality management horizon. This breakthrough methodology has already saved huge amounts of money for companies and customers by removing defects in every corner of production. Many have achieved what could have not been possible without implementing Six Sigma.

Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.

The People, Process, Technology Puzzle

Today’s buzz words are People, Process, and Technology. To reach business goals, each must be addressed and each must be appropriate. So, what does that mean? And, how do the puzzle pieces fit together?

This thing called Technology

Technology consists of hardware and software. The wrong technology decision has the boomerang effect of adding stress to the process and people components. Large companies are able to throw resources, usually money, at the problem to make things work. Smaller companies don’t often have that luxury, so they have to endure the pain. The smaller the company, the more risk you take on by not making an appropriate selection.

Do you have the right cost effective hardware?
Example: Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is all the rage and in some cases may be required or mandated by others in your supply chain. But in may cases a bar code solution that you may already have could suffice.

Is your software appropriate for your organization or company?
Example: You may have chosen the name brand software solution that covers all the basic functions and works well for most companies. But perhaps you’re in a specialized industry where a more targeted solution would be most appropriate.

A look at Process
Often business look to technology to solve a process problem. Sometimes this works. Technology companies try to incorporate best practice processes into their products. Modifying your processes to work with the technology can bring about improvement of your processes.

On the other side of the coin, a thorough understanding of your current processes can help you make better technology decisions. Surely there is wisdom in lots of your processes. But like anything that has been modified and enhanced over time, it probably is less efficient than it would have been it the current / future state had been planned for in the beginning.

Is the corporate strategy clearly articulated and understood by all? This drives your organizational structure, your products, your processes and your technology.

People are Pivotal
You have the technology and you have the processes, but nothing happens unless they are utilized by people. There are lots of debates about the attainability of a return on investment for an ERP system. Reasons that ROI may seem elusive are:

3 Steps To Creating A Marketing Plan For Your Business

Every start-up venture needs a business plan, yet many entrepreneurs do not realize a marketing plan is equally vital. Unlike a business plan, the marketing plan focuses on the customers. A marketing plan includes numbers, facts and objectives, but it is not primarily numerical; it is strategic. It is your plan of action - what you will sell, to whom you will sell it and how often, at what price, and how you will get the product to the buyer. Here’s a closer look at putting together a marketing plan that works.

Step One: Define your product. The first part of the marketing plan defines your product or service and its features and benefits in detail, then shows how it is different from the competition’s. The more clearly and succinctly you describe your product in your marketing plan, the better you will communicate with your target customer.

Markets and products have become extremely fragmented. There are hundreds of special interest magazines, for example, each targeted to a very specific market segment. It’s the same with restaurants, cars and retail clothing stores, just to name a few industries. Positioning your product competitively requires an understanding of this fragmented market. Not only must you be able to describe your product, but you must also be able to describe your competitor’s product and show why yours is better.

Positioning your product involves two steps. First, analyze your product’s features and decide how they differentiate your product from its competitors. Second, decide what type of buyer is most likely to purchase your product.

Pricing and placement are critical to competitive positioning. In today’s marketing culture, pricing cannot be separated from the product. Take grocery stores, for example. The full-service supermarket is still the most popular form of grocery distribution. But today, busy families want faster service and more convenience, even if it means higher prices. As a result, convenience stores, home delivery services, personal shoppers and takeout restaurants have proliferated. At the same time, warehouse grocery retailing has also increased. Warehouse stores cater to customers who prefer low prices to convenience.

Service, distribution and price are the essential elements of the product offered by supermarket, convenience and warehouse stores. To develop a successful marketing plan, you need to analyze how these same elements fit into your business. What are you selling - convenience? quality? discount pricing? You can’t offer it all. Knowing what your customers want helps you decide what to offer.

Step Two: Describe your target customer. Developing a profile of your target customer is the second step in an effective marketing plan. You can describe customers in terms of demographics - age, sex, family composition, earnings and geographical location - as well as lifestyle. Ask the following: Are my customers conservative or innovative? Leaders or followers? Timid or aggressive? Traditional or modern? Introverted or extroverted? How often do they purchase what I offer? How much of it at a time? Are there peak buying periods or times of the year when people won’t buy my product or service?

Step Three: Create a communication strategy. Your target customer must not only know your product exists but also have a favorable impression of its benefits. Communication includes everything from logo design and advertising to public relations and promotions. Find out what your target customers read and listen to. You need to know this to get their attention. In addition to where to place your message, consider how frequently customers need to receive it.

This part of the marketing plan should spell out your promotional objectives. What do you want to achieve? Do you want people to recognize your company name? Know where you’re located? How much money can you spend to get your message across? What media are available, and which will work best? Finally, how will you evaluate the results?

Ask yourself the right questions and analyze yow answers, and you’ll come up with a marketing plan that will help you achieve your-goals.

Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant with career sales over $25,000,000. His “Top Ranked” Earn Money at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start and prosper with your own Internet Home Based Business.

BASF Makes IT Landscape Fit For The Future

BASF will continue to standardise its SAP landscape and at the same time harmonise the relevant processes involved until 2008. It will place the IT systems for the most important business processes together and realign them into a uniform SAP standard. This allows systems previously implemented locally, to adjust to the increasing global requirements. In this way, BASF can reduce the expense of its annual operational costs for this SAP system by double-digit millions. Responsible for the implementation in Europe is the IT service provider BASF IT Services, which operates these systems and consequently also knows the interfaces between the applications.

Initially at the end of 2005, the IT subsidiary of BASF created a mutual platform for the accounting and maintenance systems in the BASF plant in Ludwigshafen. So far already, BASF IT Services has transferred 4,000 old customary developments, which have been adjusted in for instance packaging goods, to the SAP standard. This restructure reduces the technical complexities and makes working with the systems much simpler.

At the request of BASF, BASF IT Services has compiled seven business systems from the logistic, accounting and maintenance sectors into finally two standard systems. These are all so-called ‘Enterprise Resource Planning Systems’ (ERP), wherein a company can organise its business processes in SAP. In the scope of this project, BASF IT Services also brings the systems up to the standard version SAP R/3 Enterprise and provides new functions for example to deal with movements of goods and order requirements.

The 15,000 SAP users in Europe are almost unaware of the change because BASF IT Services makes sure that the systems remain available at all times.

“Step by step we are moving towards providing one of the most modern and flexible IT structures in the world. We are actually now laying the foundation, which will enable the BASF AG to be able to integrate its IT systems into one ERP system,” explains Andrew Pike, Director of the BASF Competence Center Information Services. “This type of IT structure can adjust flexibly to any organisational changes made in the company.”

“Realising the company strategy, with the support of IT, is of prime importance. It creates competitive advantages. We live the strategy of BASF and help our customers to be even more successful,” says Wolfgang Erny, speaking on behalf of the Board of BASF IT Services. “Not only do we run the systems but also we work together with our customers on solutions suitable for the future. As full service IT provider, we offer complete solutions from one source, spanning consulting, conception and implementation, as well as operating the systems.”

Webbolt provides an on-demand, dynamically presented, tailored, total information solution with increasingly complex and global content. Webbolt continually updates and expands its free news in 22 key topic areas.

Insurance Deductibles and How the Changes Will Affect Health Care Professionals

First of all, let me make clear that I do not really know what will happen. I can however for sure tell you that, like the stock market, the game is fixed!!

Yes, I mean just that. You will never win. Las Vegas is a pale comparison when it comes to ripping people off. What people? You, the doctor, of course - if it is not already clears to you that the patients also get ripped off too! Now that you know that I know nothing about the game of the insurance companies and all the hula-hoop of the government, of why, how, and when to expect that you the doctor and all the patients participating in it will ever win.

Here is however what seems to be on the horizon:

People will start to think that because companies start choosing insurances with high annual deductibles, that such will be a good thing. All insurance, in the first place, is supposed to take care of huge and completely unmanageable circumstances.

So insurance was a good idea. But like most good ideas it has been perverted such as the child labor union. It was a good idea when they actually did prevent child slavery but now it makes sure that we create a young civilization that has no value until their eighteenth year or so because child labor protection forbids the young active energetic 14 year old from working and to participate and feel useful, despite the fact that just about any successful captain of industries will tell you how they contributed to their families’ survival at age 10 and younger!

You get the point!

Back to insurances. If people pay the every day cost of health care and only insure the “out of reach items” - let’s say $4,000 and above per year, then cost of insurance will go down by at least $4,000, if not more!! And yet the actual everyday health care cost per person will in most cases be less that a $1,000 per month and rarely more than $3,500 for elders.

So, in effect they would be saving money! Indeed they would.

Keep in mind that if the patient pays the doctor, there is automatically an awful lot less paperwork to administer by the doctors’ office and by the insurance. This means savings for all - the doctor, the patient, the insurance companies.

Anyhow, quite a few people in government, insurance and private economists are grinding around that topic. Economical self-evidence will, I think, get it in the direction of high deductibles a bit more every month.

This will, despite of it being a good thing, introduce opportunities and pitfalls for the individual practitioner. It is simply a change and must be dealt with accordingly. There are no pitfalls except if the individual practitioner does not start early enough in realizing that it will change the way he can attract new patients. Keep in mind those new patients with high deductibles will now be paying cash for their services and will not be bound to go where their insurance tells them to go!! Hm!!

It is a dream come true for those who know how to cater to those millions of free running patients. Patients might of course also delay some regular small treatments, because they now have to pay and thus you need to do a better job at enlightening or educating the patients, and tending to their health.

Marketing and selling is part of the patient’s education. Avoid becoming a marketing/management expert because you are a clinical expert and you perish.

Because, last but not least, there will be a shift in what services people will demand. Oh yes - there will be an emphasis on preventive care versus illness treatment.

You see, insurances have never really paid for staying healthy; they only reimburse the patients for treatment needed if sick. Don’t ask me for the rationality and how insurances get away with it. After all, it not only costs less to keep a person healthy than getting him back to health, it is also more pleasant!

Why did the public fall for this health care insurance scam when it is really a “please make me sick insurance”? And I am very literal when I say illness treatment insurance = “insurance to get sick.” Who knows, but I bet that with their high deductibles, patients will wake up and insist on wellness care - real health care; which keeps them healthy; which will include food supplements, advice on exercise, massage, chiropractic, physical therapy, simple health knowledge such as a round of 4-5 ice cold and hot showers every day keeping your blood circulation going, nutritional advice and more, much more.

This above reasoning is also heavily underlined by a decade-long trend into the natural, alternative and holistic wave of medicine, which cannot possibly be overlooked. It has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry.

People are waking up to real health care the same way as when they started seeking freedom instead of slavery. And frankly, this should scare the average doctor who does not want to use this trend to provide such services to demanding patients. With the advent of the Internet, the public gets educated faster than ever on new ways and the Drug companies will have a hell of a time keeping those vital and very workable alternatives from them!

And you the doctor better be prepared to do the following:

Realize that you first will have to market to those high deductible individuals.

Your staff better be prepared to explain the need for minor services very well or those patients will walk out without leaving you much money and probably never come back either. Realize that preventive health care will take on a whole new meaning to the patients, and the doctors. If you the doctor do not get on the bandwagon (no matter how much the AMA or FDA etc. might protest) then the MLM guy and the casual quacks will get the bulk of those $3,000 per year from hundreds of millions of people.

So, there are really no pitfalls, except not realizing and working hard and fast and early on acquiring the practice management/marketing skills to get your share.

Nobody will pass a law that you HAVE to get your share!! Oh no!! The effort by the AMA and the drug companies of putting everyone in jail who helps someone to get healthy or recover without drugs will be put to rest because people are maintaining their health or getting well.

As national negotiator Mr. Karass says:
“In life you do not get what you deserve - you get only what you negotiate!”

And then, there is this:

“If the doctor of today does not become the nutritionist of tomorrow then the nutritionist of today will be the doctor of tomorrow” - Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, New York.

Or as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, and the person whose oath most of you Doctors take, said:

“All medicine is food and all foods are medicine.”

There are many ways on how to create an advantage for you and the patients you will be seeing, and some ways will fit you better than others but the most important thing will be to look at many ways - kick them around, ask your consultants, or read books. Simply take initiative to find out, don’t be afraid of mistakes and due to this fear of mistakes sink into doing nothing until you are absolutely sure and until it has been proven to work for others. If you wait and wait and see and see then, well, you most likely will once more cry “victim!” in a few short years. Followers are sheep, - sheep get killed. Followers don’t make money and have little personal satisfaction.

Sorry but that is how it will be - in my humble opinion!

A new opportunity is on the horizon. The first few figuring out how to use it will be the winners and will eat up a bunch of the rest. But that is nothing new in that, isn’t it? Read “The Grocery Store Future of the Medical Practitioner.” Readers of this issue will have no excuse if they end up in the wrong group, the ones which get devoured by the mavericks!

Helmut Flasch is a marketing consultant who uses Un-advertising rather than the traditional advertising methods. Find out more information about his marketing strategy at Un-Advertising Info.

Understanding Business and Government Regulations

To ensure that the businesses are authentic and are discharging their social responsibilities, every government sets up rules and regulations at local, state, and federal levels. This article pertains to the businesses and government regulations in the US.

Government Rules and Regulations for Businesses
The rules vary from industry to industry due to the diversity of products and services offered by the market. Below are some of the general regulations the U.S. government observes.

Business structure: Several legal forms of organizational structure exist in the eyes of the government. These include Sole Proprietorship, Partnerships, Limited partnerships, C corporations, S corporations and Limited Liability Companies or LLC. You can make use of the services related to these through tax accountants and attorneys. Once you understand each business structure and the tax implications for each one of them, you analyze your capacity and adopt the organizational type suitable for you.

Business Name: According to The Trade Name Registration Act, if your business runs with a name other than the owner’s you need to register the alias or the fictitious name with the county. Businesses run under a corporate name and the professionals, who work under a partnership name, are exempt from this type of name registration.

Business license: A business license gives the legality to your business operations in the area the license is applicable to. If your business is situated in the city then the city office gives you the license for the city. If it is located elsewhere, the county issues you the license.

Certificate of occupancy: If you plan to take up a building for your business, you need this certificate from the city or county department.

Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights: Businesses use commercial names and symbols for products and services. These commercial names and symbols are known as trademarks. State and federal institutions regulate the use of trademarks. In the case of any new and useful discovery, the businesses involved may protect their products and services under the US patent laws. Due to the technicality of patents, an attorney or agent registered with the US Patent Office only guides you about the whole process and represents your case in the US Patent Office. Copyright basically deals with protecting the ideas and artistic works of an artist such as, a writer, a music composer, a computer programmer, painter or any other artist’s original work. Copying a copyright-protected work without permission of the owner is illegal.

Tax Structure: Employers must legally deduct federal income tax, state income tax, and Social Security Insurance from their employees’ salaries. Businesses must pay income taxes and file tax returns to both the federal and the state governments.

Business Insurance: Business insurance protects the assets of your business against losses due to fire, theft, or anything else that’s insured. Some common insurance types may include liability, property, automobile, office, and business income.
Sales Tax Number: Businesses get a sales tax number before starting and pay sales tax monthly to the state government for every tangible product they sell.

Human Resource Practices: The government issues guidelines to business houses to safeguard the interest of the companies, the employees, and the nation. The key areas for businesses to look at regarding their employees are immigration rules, the health and safety of the employees at the work place, employee compensation and salaries.

Additional Help
All this may seem overwhelming at first and there are software packages that can help you through the process of making certain your corporation is legitimate.

David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes afree weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com

Essential Components Of A Strategic Business Plan

The success of a business depends on how carefully all its activities have been planned and how well the plan has been executed. A cohesive plan helps to understand all aspects of the business and helps in the day to day operations. A business functioning without any plans will definitely not compare well with a business that operates according to a plan. Plans are essential tools for management and are vital for hassle free operations. When the business operates based on a carefully drafted and executed plan, there is little room for the management to be unpleasantly surprised. Developing a strategic plan is a necessity.

The Essential Ingredients
Defining the nature of your business and making your mission statements clear is the most important component of a business plan. Determining the ultimate purpose of your business and the goals of your business are essential ingredients for a strategic plan. Determine your firm’s philosophy. Define it clearly, so that employees consider it when they make any decision concerning the company. Set goals and develop plans to guide your business so that it will achieve the target goals within a prescribed time. Once the goals have been set, planning and execution are necessary to initiate the processes involved in accomplishing the goals. Delegate responsibility and be certain that the duties are being performed. Make sure that the target set is realistic and achievable with the resources available to the company. Make sure adequate analysis and appraisals of the overall performance of the company are done regularly. Make necessary changes to help achieve the goals.

Analyze the industry’s environment to find the position of your business within it. Analyze trends that may have an effect on your business such as the political environment, changes in consumer tastes, new technologies developing each day, and your competitors. Make use of management tools such as cash flow forecasts to help plan better and deal with any situation, ensuring constant cash flow. Use competitive analysis techniques to know your position in the industry and plan how best to utilize your advantages to achieve your target goals. Analyze your internal business administration and make sure that there are no unnecessary expenses. Finalize your plans and be certain that they will be executed carefully.

Additional Help
These are some of the essential ingredients for a strategic plan. When a capable person with good business acumen does the planning and the execution of the plan is done under this person’s supervision, the plan is sure to succeed and guide the business towards success. There are firms that offer services and products to make the process of running and managing a business easier. This includes software that helps organize the company and keep it within government standards.

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