There is nothing mystic, nothing mysterious in the applied method of the really resourceful men in this day of great successes, of marvelous achievements in business enterprise. Contact the customer a few days before the bill is due to remind them it needs paying, and then ring them the day …

The real rate of interest is the compensation a lender theoretically would require to make a risk-free loan in an inflation-free environment. Small business isn't the only game in town; in some cases, it isn't even the best option available. Sometimes the government really does want to help. Depreciation is …

Tell people pleasantly that you are a new bidder for their patronage. If your plan indicates that the business idea isn t sound, by all means look for errors. Management is its own area of expertise, distinct in many ways from the activity being managed. But remember there is always …

Social media and Facebook pages should also have a lot written about your company and your product. Then, several weeks later, because you didn't have enough time to properly supervise or train him, you discover he's not doing the job the way you want it done. If you offer consulting …

When you have performed a few tricks, your climax should be a shrewd advertisement which can be worked into the last performance. Even then, each concept will stand on its own merits. A board of advisors is a less-formal entity. The developer or managing partner should get a working or …

If you've ever participated in a bake sale, been paid for a musical performance, or operated a baby-sitting, painting, or lawn-mowing service, you've been involved in a small business. For instance, say your mission statement says that you intend to produce the best-in-the-world example of your product no matter what …

This creates too much capacity for the total work available in any marketplace, which causes a downward price pressure and a very competitive work environment. The bottom line: The best time to start a business is when the timing is right for you and your niche. This is stupid! From …

Learn all about the position next above you. Is that what you want? A local auto mechanic could hold clinics for their customers every quarter on how to keep cars running in tip-top shape. Think of close friends.

A lazy person's guide to Marketing

In this case, even though the margins will be smaller than they would if you were buying larger quantities, you will still make a profit on each sale. Every employee on your project team needs to know what they're responsible for and when they're successful. Equity is the value of …

Bottom-up models often generate alternatives that top-down models cannot, but can also be chaotic and inefficient. Extrinsic motivation derives from anticipation of external reaction, including praise, recognition, money (positive motivators), or punishment (negative motivator). The part of the plan where you describe your financial needs can be considered your opening …

Brands that continue to target the middle of the market with a mid-priced product without giving a specific and compelling reason to buy it usually end up losing a lot of customers to niche competitors. When you find men working, work with them. They would limit absolutely the amount of …

Do not trust the work to your friend, relative, or clerk. But you can also offer your expertise, distribution channels, location, contacts, customer base, sales force, engineering talent, management skills, excess line of credit, financial strength, or banking connections. If you are having trouble getting funding for your venture under …

Then, several weeks later, because you didn't have enough time to properly supervise or train him, you discover he's not doing the job the way you want it done. But free has long been central to marketing: free admission before 7 p.m.; buy two get one free; children eat …

Therefore, to be able to determine what they would find valuable enough to give you their money for, you first need to know them well, because you ll need to think from their perspective. Let not the smallest thing be done in a slipshod way. Then start planning how to …

They aim for the middle and compete with everyone else who is also trying to do everything for everybody. This allows customers to chart your course. An individual manager and the wider management of a particular company are likely to have only limited knowledge of how these external resources are …

After all, who thought they needed an iPod or an iPad until they saw them and fell in love with them and realised they really did? This is unusual, but it does happen it s when the reader stops you and says, You don t have to tell me anymore …

This business model is built around the value of being part of a community. Bankers tend to be more formal than venture capitalists and more concerned with financial strength than with exciting concepts and impressive resumes. If you find a department that does not pay, change methods or your goods …

To build a strong company, you need excellent people. Of course, you don t have to use specific business plan software to write your plan. If you were thinking about becoming a partner in a firm, you d no doubt be very concerned with the responsibilities you would have, the …

Start a training ladder to track your employees' progress. Of course, the timepiece would be a very cheap one, but many a parent will trade with you for the sake of getting a watch for his child. Some companies even extend the events they include and measure the indirect costs …

If you want to make an impact, make your pitch engaging. Perhaps you ve always wanted to be your own boss, but have never started your own business due to a lack of time, money, or even ideas. Men will trade most where they can do best. These investments are …

. Business is not easy! Why are online courses better than consulting? A credit check will look at their financial position and see whether they have failed to pay others in the past, among other things.

If the barriers are low, you have more opportunity to get into the game

What adjectives would you like people to use to describe you, your company, and your product? They have no desire to own secondhand equipment or your house. However, should you want to the guidance of a software program, you ll want to find one that meets your computer capabilities, has …

Your team members need to know where they stand in order to meet your goals and expectations. No man with common ability and industry who puts the half or even the quarter of these ideas into practice can possibly fail. Newspapers boom themselves in like manner by publishing their enormous …

In fact, when confronted with the kind of growth projection required to interest a venture capitalist, a banker may be turned off. Your deeds have lasting impact, not your stuff, power, position, or busy schedule. Or you can make people your top priority. If you can get people talking about …

Following the above lines, and adding thereto good health and steady habits, you cannot fail to be promoted and to rise to the highest position of responsibility, if not even to actual partnership in the firm. They can also help you meet long-term goals. In a struggling economy, more highly …

They take what comes in the door and compete against too many cheap competitors who don't know how to make a profit. Shoot for a specific return on equity and on your sales efforts, marketing, advertising, customers, services, products, time, and energy. But how do you build a different, more …

To master an infinite number of small things is to prepare yourself to master great things. If you decide to start your own business, you'll quickly discover what every successful entrepreneur before you has discovered: You have a finite amount of time and energy. When visiting or contacting customers, always …

Here's how. And don't discount the value of your own opinions and thoughts, because they count for a lot. It s definite, comprehensive, and clear. You can't rely on someone else to care about your finances as much as you do.

Creating a Culture of Excellence in Marketing

Unsecured bonds, or debentures, are not backed by collateral. For instance, when taking on investors, whether they are family and friends, angel investors, or venture capital investors, there are securities law issues that may inhibit the way in which money may be accepted. No matter how brilliantly crafted, written, and …

The secret to making this work is to find a product or service which can command a high margin, in other words a big difference between cost price and selling price, so that it can accommodate your higher initial cost price. Suppliers want to sell only to people who can …

Impressive educational credentials among company managers provide strong reasons for an investor or other plan reader to feel good about your company. Business plans provide all the information such a company will need to find and clone its best customers. People want to know what's happening: sales, customers, profit, changes …

And when you need more products or materials in a hurry, you revert to calling your good old friend at the same supplier or distributor, getting it shipped out without taking time to get another price quote from a different supplier. Interest is the amount paid for the use of …

Ask how they are doing every day, how you can help them, and what they need to hit their targets. Most successful businesses were started by individuals who had clearly defined vision, purpose, and goals. Your deeds have lasting impact, not your stuff, power, position, or busy schedule. Now, thanks …

Make sure that your accidental opportunity is in a niche that you like. This is your real cost of ownership per hour, not including overhead and profit. Typically, the more easily accessible your products are the better it is for business. Further, because negotiations invariably require the editing of contract …

Through your vision, you should express your ideals and what you wish to accomplish on a larger scale than just within your organization. Today, everyone is looking to save time, so products and services that help people do that are valuable. Even arranging and naming computer folders and files by …

Not all links are equal. The Google determines the quality of the links by looking at the quality of traffic that the specific links are driving to your website. Building link popularity of a website is far more crucial than any other factors for SEO and positioning for top search …

Don't use hidden text or links on your website to optimize your site for search engines. Some webmasters will try to make text or links invisible to visitors but visible to search engine spiders. One way they do this is to use white text on a white background. Search engines …

Most content creators go for the big, obvious one and two keyword phrases and ignore longer search phrases. Thankfully, less competition means fewer pages in the results, making it easier for you to rank highly. By refining your keywords, you can minimize your competition drastically, as well as boost traffic …

It seems like content should be engineered for an outcome. If you just start with an article and then ask yourself how to get traction to this everywhere, that doesn't always work. Most marketers do not understand what the HTTP response codes are. It is true that meta descriptions do …

Sometimes the type of trust issue you're faced with is related to reputation or branding. Another term closely linked with SEM is PPC or pay-per-click (not to be confused with paper clips!). The individual does not evaluate brands or think about product attributes. When you read about similar or overlapping …

Recency theory notes that a consumer exhibits selective attention and focuses on personal needs and wants as he considers advertisements. Blogs can bite! No two media plans are alike. It's not that keyword text doesn't matter, but starting with a focused content strategy will help you identify audiences and topics …

If you head over to Google and search for "site:yourdomain.com" the result will show you how many pages Google actually has indexed for your site. Remember: Google wants to see that people are spending time on your website and the best way you can ensure this happens is …

Contextual link building is the quickest way to boost your site's search performance. The majority of articles found on the internet are made for the search bots. As a company, you need to take care, as Bing and Google are coming down hard on firms when writing only for the …

Assessing which keywords to go after first is a crucial second step in your keyword research. This is difficult: not everyone is good at estimating which keywords their site will be able to rank for. An ad oriented to knowledge transmits basic product information. You can't master SEO in a …

Check the hosting and registration information of any website by doing a Whois lookup. This handy tool can help you to understand whether your robots.txt file is set up correctly for all the pages that you actually want Google's spider algorithms to crawl. They create an individual page for …

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of authoritative websites used to build links to your money website(s) for the purpose of ranking higher in the Google search engine. If you're a relatively new blog & would be willing to write a blog post for the sake of getting …

When consumers believethat various brands provide the same set of attributes, brand parity results. Less competition means that you'll have a much better chance of achieving number one rankings for your chosen keyword phrase. Take advantage of these on-page SEO weaknesses as they are the easiest and least time-consuming to …

While search engines have gotten much better at identifying these spammy sites, and filtering them out of their search results, they can still pose a problem. In general, the more you know about your competitors, the better. On the way out, one person said, If you are creative, you might …

External optimization involves optimizing your content not only for search engines, but for tons of other referral sources, too. Republishing, repurposing, and distributing your content all fall within external optimization. A so-called website blocker is something that prevents search engines from accessing the site Effective marketing communications influence consumer attitudes …

Putting a Rel Author tag in all of your published posts would mean that you're putting your reputation on the line. Google can detect well-written content, and can detect poor quality content, or unoriginal text. Besides looking for established companies and Internet presences to learn from, you can also pick …