To your business success

“Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility …In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have   is the ability to take on responsibility.” – Michael Korda

Striving for Business Success

Two weeks ago, we discussed the meaning and definition of success.  This week we will continue the discussion of success along with responsibility, and what you need to do to attain success in your business.

As indicated in Michael Korda’s quote at the beginning of this post, successful people always seem to have the ability to take on responsibility.  To be successful, you have to be responsible; that once you start a business, it is your responsibility to yourself, your employees and your customers to keep that business going.  You are responsible for the proper development of a business plan, correctly marketing your products, and taking care of your customers.  If you have a product or service that your customers absolutely love (and what business doesn’t have a product or service that customers love?), it is your responsibility to continue to provide those customers with those products and services that they have come to depend on.

Ultimately, if you do not feel responsible for your customers, your business will inevitably suffer.  The old adage, “the customer is king”, still holds true even in this electronic day and age.  If you alienate your customers, they will not purchase your products however good they may be, nor will your customers utilize your services.  It is your responsibility to listen to what your customers wants and needs are and then to take that knowledge and assist those same customers.

By listening well to your customers, you will learn where and how to increase the sales of your business, and subsequently make your business more successful.  But growing sales does not necessarily guarantee business success.  You are still responsible for keeping track of the additional costs involved in increased sales.  It is your responsibility to grow your business in a manner where it becomes more profitable, not less profitable.  There are some so-called business people out there that believe just because their sales are up, their business is growing and succeeding.  That may not even be close to the truth.  As a business owner, it is your responsibility to not only understand what it is you offer to your customers, but it is your responsibility to understand what it means to be profitable.

Just because sales may increase, you need keep a close watch for extra costs not associated with the increased sales.  If you are in a business that allows customers to purchase on credit, this is a huge area that can really damage your profitability.   Great, your sales are up, and your customer credit is also up.  Now, how are you planning on paying your bills if your customers have not paid their bills to you?  It is your responsibility to both yourself, and your business to understand the dynamics of the whole business.   What may also come with an increase in sales is an increase in staffing costs.  You need to be sure that the additional costs you are bringing on do not outweigh the increased sales.  You need to act responsibly with regards to increased sales because your ultimate goal is to have more money going into your bank account than out of your bank account.

It is your business responsibility to increase your business bank account month over month.  By doing that, you are insuring your business success.

If you are looking for an additional income stream to supplement what you currently have, take a look at our website, we may have something that would compliment what you are currently working on or inspire you towards new goals.

“Success is peace of mind in knowing you did your best.” – John Wooden

4 Basic Business Goals

Now that we have all survived the first month of the new year, it is time to reflect upon what we have already accomplished versus what we SAID we were going to accomplish the beginning of this new year.  Usually the first month of a new year ends up getting spent closing the financial books of your personal life and business (perhaps…) and just reviewing how successful you were or were not in the prior year.

The second month of the new year is now really when we focus on moving forward and building/developing our life and business.  Usually, prior to the new year, we make resolutions and budgets.  We promise that this new year will bring new ideas, new success and new growth.  By month 2 or 3 of the new year we can really take a hard look at where we are and whether or not we are going to come close to our end-of-year expectations.  Throughout all of this looking back and looking forward, if we do not rely on some basic life principles, we can pretty much write any meaningful success off.  If we do not utilize these 4 Basic Business Goals, perhaps we should not be in business.

We have talked in prior blogs about various types of Business Success and Goal setting.  This week we are going to review 4 Basic Business Goals and identify how these very basic goals can help you to develop and grow your business and even your personal life.

The first Basic Business goal is to do what is right, despite the consequences.  For business and even for your personal success, doing the right thing is not always easy or painless  (usually it is NEVER painless).   Doing the “right” thing for a customer may be in refunding their money when you really don’t want to.  You may feel that the customer’s reason for the return was off-base, but if you want to retain that customer for future business, if you have a return policy, you must adhere to the policy.  If you turned the tables, and you were in the customer’s place, how would you feel if the merchant did not wish to refund your money?  By doing what is right, not necessarily what you would prefer your customer should be satisfied and tell others that you did take the high-road.

Doing the “right” thing is many times like taking the road less traveled.  How frustrated have you been with customer service provided to you?  More businesses have lost the whole concept of customer service, actually many new businesses have lost the concept of treating the customer like a human being.  If you get back to basics (the Golden Rule) and treat your customers the way you would like to be treated, you will find your business growing.

As a business person you may find that you become jaded to new ideas, new concepts and new ways of doing business.  Do not lose your desire to learn or your sense of wonder at trying new things.   Keep your eyes open to new ideas and processes.  There may be a million ways to conduct business, and you do NOT know all the ways to be successful.  Always remain open to new concepts, one of them may be just the idea you didn’t know you were looking for.

As usual, be sure to Over Deliver and Under Promise to your customers.  No matter how much your customer WANTS you to perform a certian task within a certain time frame, if you KNOW you can’t produce (refer to our ) do not promise what you cannot deliver on.  Ultimately your customer will appreciate your honesty and you will have done the ‘right’ thing for your customers.  Customers are always happy when you achieve the promise of completing a task within the defined amount of time.  What customers really appreciate is when you not only do what you said you would do, but you go a little beyond what they expected and you give them more than what they asked for (but you are still providing for them what they really wanted).

The 4th Basic Business Goal is to love what you do.

“The more you love what you are doing, the more successful it will be for you.” – Jerry Gillies

If you do not love what you are doing, then you should not be doing it.  Life is too short to do something you don’t like to do.  If you love what you do, then you will never work a day in your life.

These 4 Basic Business Goals will not only help you to grow your business, but when applied to personal life, can help you to grow and improve your personal relationships also.

If you are looking for an additional income opportunity, you may want to review what we have to offer on our website.

Until next week…

4 Points to Building Success

How many times have you asked yourself why you want to be an entrepreneur?  The bigger question is, how many times have you asked yourself WHY are you struggling to be a successful Entrepreneur?  So many people are striving to be their own boss, and many are not achieving the success that they expected.   This week we are going to cover 4 points to building success.  These points are designed to help you focus your ideas and differentiate yourself from all the other entrepreneurs struggling for a dollar out there.

As we have covered in several prior posts, there are many misconceptions about how to run a successful business.  Many people believe that if they find “just the right product” it will sell itself, and their work is done.  How many people have you met who have tried to sell you on an idea that will have “products flying off your shelf”?  Did you ever try any of those items?  Did they actually “fly off the shelf”?  Odds are, you have tried many business ideas and most of them have not panned out.  Even worse, as you try different strategies to build your business, sometimes your business will suffer.  There are so many people running around promoting false beliefs, mistaken points of view and just plain bad business practices.

Many businesses don’ t succeed because they are based on those erroneous facts.  As you may have always know in your heart of hearts, one key to business success is to differentiate yourself from all the other businesses trying to sell essentially the same thing you are.

In order for your business to become successful, you need to embrace the fact that you cannot purchase opportunities, you have to create them.  If someone is offering you the next best opportunity, then obviously, you will not be the first one to market with the opportunity.  If this is such a great opportunity, why are they offering it for sale to YOU?

Ask the right questions.  Making money, and creating a successful business is not as simple as picking that one hot opportunity and riding it out to success.  If you have to ask what the next best opportunity is, you are asking the wrong question.  By asking what the next hot idea is indicates that all you want to do is to grab onto one opportunity, ride it until it is no longer producing and then jump to the next best thing.  This will not build customer loyalty, and worse, it does not support any solid business plan.  If you are constantly jumping from one ‘hot’ idea to another, there is not flow to your underlying business plan.  You are just lucky if you make money.  Nine times out of ten, your business will succeed for a little while, but it will fail in the long-term.

If you want to have a successful business, you must be a visionary, not an opportunist.  How many successful people have you met who are only in business until the next big thing comes along?  Usually those successful people are the ones who created that next big thing.  They are the ones who came up with an idea that nobody else thought about, or nobody else combined to make a success.  Odds are, these successful entrepreneurs are the ones who came up with the new idea, and didn’t “borrow” or buy the idea from someone else.  These entrepreneurs saw a need and found a way to fill that customer need.  They fill the needs better than anyone else currently in the market.

Design your business to solve a bigger problem.  Even in a business segment with a lot of competition, there is always an opportunity to provide a better solution to a common problem.   Listen to your customers, listen to what your customers say about your competition.  Look for the underlying problem that is not being addressed by either your business or your competition and go about solving THAT problem.  Look for the solution to a standardized frustration.  If there is a problem out there that most everybody just assumes you “deal with” perhaps the solution to that problem will be the next “HOT” opportunity.  By providing solutions to customer frustrations, you will not only become more successful, but will have the undying gratitude of your customers.  This alone will make you the best business opportunity in town.

Reviewing these 4 points to building success will help you to continue to grow and improve your small business.  If you are in the market for starting a small home-based business, we have several business opportunities that may work well.  If you don’t see exactly what you are interested in, please feel free to contact us with any questions you have.  If we do not have the specific opportunity, we may know exactly where you can go to find what you are looking for.

Until next week…

3 More Marketing Tips for Growing Your Business

Two weeks ago we covered 3 basic marketing tips to help grow your small business.  This week we are going to review 3 more marketing tips for growing your business.  Advertising is important to continue to grow your business, but there is more to advertising than just putting an advertisement in the local paper.  You need to tell your prospective customers not only that you are in business, but you need to let them know that you are uniquely available to fulfill their needs.  That is where marketing comes into play.  Just saying you have what your customers want is not an effective way to reach your target audience.  You need to market to their needs and give them good reason to visit either your store or your website.

When you are writing a marketing piece to be included in an advertisement for your business, try to avoid directly copying other marketing headlines that you have seen before.  If you sound too much like another successful ad campaign, then odds are your target audience will mistake your ad for the one you copied.  If your marketing line is not original, people will not take the time for a second look at what you are offering.  Looking at other marketing pieces is a great idea, but copying the headline and substituting your product will probably not inspire prospective customers to visit you.

A good way to check that your marketing does not sound like all the other ads out there is to spend quality time writing your advertisement, then, before you submit it anywhere, put the ad away for a few days.  After several days, then go back and re-read what you have written and see if it still inspires you to look more closely at what your company has to offer.  Does your ad meet your prospect at the point of their need?  What is your most compelling topic?  Is there a way you can make a compelling point in your first line, so that your customer will find it almost impossible to stop reading your ad?  Incorporating some of these points into your ad, will possibly drive more business your way and help you to continue to grow your small business.

Another marketing tip is to be sure to make your marketing point right up front in your advertisement.  You do not want to force your prospective customer to read through paragraphs of your ad before they find the point of your advertisement.  The key here is to make a compelling argument in the first line of your ad that will answer SOME of your market’s questions and inspire them to WANT to read the rest of your ad.  You want to pique their interest, knowing that you already may have something that will meet their needs.  They will then continue reading to see if you will have more items that continue to meet their needs.  Get to the point, do not make your customers search for the point of your ad.  Give them enough, but not too much information.  Make them curious, don’t over-burden them with superfluous information.

Lastly, don’t leave your target market out of the conversation of your ad.  This goes back to not giving your market too much information.  You may have all the latest technical specifications or information on your product, but do not include that in your advertisement.  You do not want to sound like a textbook.  If your customers are interested in all the nitty-gritty details, point them to where that can be found, do not include it in your initial marketing piece.  If you include ALL of the details in your ad, you will most likely lose more customers than you will gain.  They may use your marketing piece as a tool to go to sleep instead of sending them to you.  Don’t discuss statistics, talk as if you are talking directly to one person, the person reading your ad.  Make them feel like you are in the room with them explaining why you will meet their needs.   This will help you build a rapport with your target market and will most likely help drive more customers to your small business.

You now have 3 more marketing tips for growing your business.  Hopefully you will be able to use some or all of these marketing tips in your next sales copy to help drive more customers to your business.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us.

If you are looking for a second income or a home based business opportunity, perhaps we have something that would interest you.  We have several business opportunities ranging from Stem Cell nutrition, to Pre-Paid Legal Services, nutritional juice drinks to, to waterless vehicle detailing.  Please feel free to ask us about some of our business opportunities, we may have something that would work well for you.

Until next week…

Improving your business (attitude)

This week’s blog is meant to be more inspirational than instructional.  Hopefully it will be both, but you never know until you read the whole thing.  Most of the blogs posted here are on how to improve your business, either on-line or as a regular store front.  Going through the motions of improving your small business is not necessarily going to allow your business to grow.  There is another aspect (other than the technical stuff) to growing your business, and that is your business attitude.

Your business attitude has a lot to do with how well your business will grow.  Granted, you may have an absolutely awesome business idea, you may have the first product to ever hit the market, and you may have an innovation that will make the world a better place to live, but if your attitude is not in the right place, odds are that your business will initially grow and then get stuck.  You will try all of the tricks that the “experts” suggest to get your business growing (like some of the tips that have been provided here in past posts) and you may eve obtain marginal improvement.  Yet with all of that work you have done, it still seems that your business is not growing enough, or is not growing at all.   It may seem like you cannot increase sales, no matter what you do.

Have you checked your business attitude lately?  Do you blame the economy for your bad business decisions?  Is it the “economy’s” fault that your business is not growing anymore?  The current economic situation could very easily be part of hwy your business has not grown, but in an economy like we currently have, there are other avenues which you can possibly take that would help to kick-start your business again.  Are you the victim of the bad economy or are you going to turn the problem around and become victorious over the economy?

Your current business success is due to a series of choices you personally made.  You may not have specifically made a choice on some of your business dealings, but as a business owner, you are responsible for those below you and the choices they may make.  If some of your employees make a bad business decision, what are you going to do to correct it?  You cannot sit back and blame everything on someone else’s bad decision.  As a business owner, the responsibility for a successful business rests solidly on your shoulders.  Even if your business partner decides to become a flake, it is your decision on how to deal with the situation.  You can either accept the current situation, leave it, or choose to change it.

The key here is to not allow yourself to feel like you are a victim of circumstances beyond your control.  The only time that truly occurs is due to acts of God (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc.).  Other than that, what happens to your business and ultimately you is based on how you choose to deal with the challenge.  You need to learn to control your business and not let it control you.

If you go through the internet reading all of the tips to improve your business and do not implement even one small idea, it is not the fault of the author that the idea didn’t work.  Gathering information and then not implementing any ideas is not going to help you to grow your business.  Your business needs you to be involved and to take an active role in its growth.  You will make mistakes, we all do.  You will encounter failures, if you didn’t you would not be learning.   The difference is that each time you fail or something doesn’t work, you make notes, get up, dust yourself off, and try again with a different angle.  Your business attitude is critical for your business success.

One definition of insanity is “doing the same things every day and expecting different results”.  If you have honestly tried one way to tackle a problem and that didn’t resolve the problem, don’t expect the next day will be any different.  You need to check your attitude, and look for alternative ways to solve your business problems.  You cannot allow yourself to be a victim of the economy, bad luck, or bad employees.  If the economy is bad (you can’t change that) find something to offer people that they need for a bad economy.  If you have had bad luck, then next time, don’t base a business decision on luck, but research and do your homework before getting involved in another business.  If you have bad employees, get rid of them, do not keep them around.  There are more than enough really good people looking for a really good business opportunity.

Do not waste your time with a bad business attitude.  Focus on what you can change (even if it is changing your attitude toward your current situation) and then move forward from there.  You will be surprised at how much growth your small business will experience.

If you are looking for a home based business opportunity, check out our website.  We may have something that would peak your interest.

Until next week…

3 Tips for Increasing Your Online Sales

Many businesses now have an on-line aspect to their sales, but you may have discovered that it is very difficult to generate online sales.  Looking around the Internet today is like walking into a library and having no idea what you are looking for.  Tonight we are going to review 3 tips for increasing your online sales.

Even if you know what you are looking for, it could take you literally days to find what you want at the price you want.  Many online businesses have to compete with other businesses that offer the same or similar products.  These other competitors may be located in your state, or may be located over seas.  The question is how to attract more customers to your particular site without spending too much money.  We are going to cover 3 tips for increasing your sales online without spending mountains of money.

The first tip is to find the questions that customers are asking and are not being answered by your competition.  This may sound daunting at first, but if you know your product and know your industry, you should also know what questions your customers have regarding your particular products and services.  If you are not sure what questions may be asked regarding your industry, try going to Yahoo Answers and type in your keywords.  Study the results carefully and see if there is a particular trend in what questions are asked.  This will tell you what is not being answered.  Another place to look for questions that don’t seem to be well answered is in forums.  Watch what is being said and how many times similar questions are being asked.  A last place to look for unanswered questions is to your customers.  Ask them if they have unanswered questions regarding your products and services.

You may (and should) have the answers to the unanswered questions you discovered above.  The case may be that others in your industry do not want to answer the particular questions.  The answers may be embarrassing, or, in your competition’s mind, may give away trade secrets.  The second key tip  is for you to accurately answer the unanswered questions and be sure that your customers and potential customers can easily find these answers.  You may want to format the answers to the questions as a blog post.  Do not post all the answers at one time, you want to have your audience come back to visit your site frequently.   As you post answers to various questions, continue looking for new questions so you can keep your blog fresh.

The third tip to increase your online sales is to be sure that you have your answers posted in more than one location.  Some customers may not like to read blogs, so perhaps you would want to have a FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website that customers can conveniently access.  Also, for the blog articles you have written that answer the various questions, consider submitting those articles to as many RSS feeds as possible.  Bookmark your blog posts using Digg, Technorati and De i cious.   Submit your articles to top websites, ezines and article directories so you get a wider viewing audience.   Also be sure to include links to your articles in the various social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Myspace.

By implementing these 3 tips (noting unanswered questions, answering those same questions and then by posting those answers all around the Internet), you will find that more people will come to your site and ultimately you will increase your online sales.  People are hungry for answers to questions, but more importantly they are hungry for accurate answers to their questions.  If you are able to position your business and website as a ‘go-to’ source of information, you will develop more trust with your online customers and ultimately increase your online sales.  Good luck and enjoy your search for the unanswered questions.

If you are looking for an additional income stream, check out our website.  We may have a home-based business opportunity that suits your needs.  The opportunities noted on our website all offer great compensation plans and have a low cost of entry.  Please feel free to e-mail us with any questions you may have.

Until next week…