Continually Trying But Still Falling Short Of Your Business Goals?

Are you continually trying in the hope of earning the level of income you want from your Internet business activities? Is discouragement starting to creep into your thinking? Most people keep on trying in the hope of one day succeeding. However, you won’t succeed unless you address these two key factors. The first factor is "keep on trying". Some people do the same thing over and over again and never learn from the experience. It’s like continually running into a brick wall in the hope of eventually breaking through. Alternatively, they constantly join new affiliate programs or network marketing companies in the belief that this is the magic one to bring them riches. However, they never devote enough effort or attention to any one program to succeed in it. The second factor is "hope". For some people, they almost have a blind faith that they will succeed. Yet, they don’t understand what is involved in being successful. It’s almost as if they expect that one day circumstances will change and orders will flow in great abundance along with the profits. For me, the key to "trying until I succeed" is based on testing and tracking. It is like a circular process whereby an idea is implemented, the results are tracked and then evaluated, the idea is refined or modified based on what has been learnt, and the process starts all over again. If you aren’t earning what you want from your business, you have nothing to lose by applying this concept. First, look at what you are doing to promote your business. Are you using the same advertising you have always used? Do you know if it is working? Test a new headline and track the results. Test a new offer and see what happens to your sales. Only test one thing at a time so that you know what is causing any changes in your results. Once you have a good performing ad, use it as your benchmark against which all future tests are measured. The same concept can be applied to all your processes and procedures within your business. Make some changes and test whether they enable you to perform more efficiently and have more time to do the really important activities that generate revenue. Now let’s look at the second factor, "hope". I once read that genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. The same can be said of success. The 1 percent is in setting the goal and the 99 percent is working hard to achieve it. Success doesn’t just happen, it is created by sustained effort and continual learning. Hope certainly helps to sustain the effort required to succeed, but hope without effort is wasted. Success is based on many small wins that eventually lead to the big win. This understanding of what success really is helps the achievers do what needs to be done. It is applied to business through goal setting and planning. You set your goal and then determine what you need to do to achieve it. Most successful businesses utilize budgets and business plans as a formalized process of mapping out what is required to achieve the targets they have set. They then measure their results against these plans so that they know how well they are doing. This enables them to fine tune their plans to take into account new things they have learnt about their market-place and business. It also enables them to take corrective action before it is too late. To have the success you want in your business, plan how you are going to achieve it. Test the ideas you have and track the results. Use the knowledge gained to improve all aspects of your business. Be opening to learning opportunities so that you can adapt and modify your approach as circumstances change.

Computer Consulting: Diversify Your Clients

Make sure that you never get to the point that any one computer consulting client has control over you. None of them should have such supreme leverage over you that you couldn’t afford to either lose them because of something that’s either out of your control or because you want to let them go. Spread Out Your Risk Among Your Computer Consulting Clients This is all about diversifying. Think about building your client portfolio like a mutual fund portfolio. It’s very similar with marketing where you’re using a couple different vehicles to give yourself some balance and lessen the risk a little bit. If you have one particular computer consulting client that is your bread and butter, meaning that that’s the one who’s actually paying the bills, what you probably have is a part-time job. You don’t have a business. If they say jump, you really have to jump. The Magic Number of Computer Consulting Clients For a solo practitioner computer consultant, you don’t want to have a couple dozen or a couple hundred clients because it’s really hard to give tremendous service to them and be able to be as responsive to them as you need to be. The ideal number is usually 10 to 20 at the most. It should never be below 8 because then individual clients will have too much leverage on you. How Do You Find More Ideal Clients? If you find that you do have one client, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. How unique are their needs? Could you cookie cutter this and could you find other clients that are just like them? Take a long, hard look at what you’ve done for this one client. What are their biggest problems that you’ve solved? What are the biggest problems that you haven’t yet solved? Figure out where you’re going to find other businesses that are just like them. Then you won’t be caught in a losing power struggle. Copyright MMI-MMVI, Computer Consulting Blog. All Worldwide Rights Reserved. {Attention Publishers: Live hyperlink in author resource box required for copyright compliance}

Building a Strong Business Relationship

When it comes to business and sales, building a strong relationship is critical. The stronger your relationship is with your customer, the more likely they will be to refer you business. Every day, make an attempt to build on the relationships you have with your customer. Don’t just say hi as they walk in and goodbye as they leave. The last thing you want to do is make your customer feel like a statistic. Let them know that their business with you is appreciated. Talk to them, strike up a non-business conversation with them. It could involve just about anything, such as the weather, sports, a movie, pets, etc. Non-business conversation puts your customer at ease and gets them talking. The more they talk to you, the more they will open up to you, opening the door for more sales opportunities. Or, you can keep it simple. For starters, get to know you customers by name, than address them by name. Say things such as, “how’s it going today?” Or “how was your weekend?” Or “is there anything I can help you with today?” Make your presence known and felt. Your customer wants to be appreciated, so take a few minutes of your time to show them that you care about them as a customer. Another way to strengthen your relationship with your customer is to keep a Rolodex handy with a list of all of your customers birthday’s, anniversaries, and special events. Keep your eyes and ears open for when customers talk about up coming events in their lives. Such as children’s birthdays and graduations. When the appropriate date approaches, send your customer a card, wether it is a holiday card, a birthday card, a graduation card, or a congratulatory card. Just send it. Your customers will appreciate the fact that you remembered them on their special day. This will only strengthen the relationship you already have with them. There are many reasons to build a strong relationship with your customer, but two of the reasons remain to be key. One main reason is that customers value and appreciate good customer service. They want the piece of mind of knowing that if something ever happened with their product or service, that they would have you to turn to as their go to person. This is extremely important because your customer will have this in mind when your competition moves in to take them away. And believe me, your competition will try to take them away. As long as you provide excellent customer service, your customer will stick with you. There is no substitute for excellent customer service. Customer service is the most important thing to a customer, even more important than fees’. The second reason building relationships are so important is because of the referral process. A customer that is treated with respect and provided excellent customer service will most assuredly refer their family and friends to you. Why wouldn’t they? Your most important asset is your customer, so build and strengthen the foundations you have with them. Buy building strong relationships, you will be building your sales. Good luck. This article may be reproduced by anyone at any time, as long as the authors name and reference links are kept in tact and active. .

Choosing A Paper Eating Monster

These days, a home shedding machine is almost a necessity. With the constant barrage of credit card offers, bills, and bank statements that hit our mailbox everyday, it is no wonder that close to 1 million people are victims of identity theft each year. Whether you live in a house or an apartment complex, there are usually several points where your trash could possibly be accessed and documents stolen. The majority of apartment complexes don’t have secure trash chutes and it can in fact be very easy for dumpster divers to gather data about the apartment dwellers. In some apartment complexes there are locked trash chutes which are great for the inhabitants because it limits access to the dumpsters to basically the maintenance map and in the trash collectors. However, shredding sensitive data is not that hard, and might make your life easier in the long run. Here are a few things to consider when choosing a home paper shredder. Durability is important: You want a machine that is strong and will blast through lots of documents without jamming and without needing repair. Some document shredders are simply too weak, and will jam if you try to shred more than a few pieces of paper at a time. Cutting method: There are several types of cuts available, ranging from plain old strip cuts (the least secure, but often adequate), to confetti cuts which cut the paper into much finer strips and also cross cut, which cuts the paper in more than one direction. For most home documents, a plain old strip cutter may be all that is needed. The idea is to prevent a dumpster diver from getting a hold of your financial information, and I'd venture to guess that few to none would be patient enough to reconstruct a strip-shredded document. You can find a reasonably priced home paper shredder on eBay, at Office Depot, or in one of many online web stores. Here are a few features and characteristics of the document shredder to consider before buying: Clearing Paper Jams: How easy is it too clear minor paper jams? It's a little like putting your hand in the garbage disposal so you want to be sure that it is reasonably easy to get the machine running again because paper jams are inevitable. Safety features: You wouldn't want a curious infant sticking his fingers in the metal teeth of the paper eating monster. Are there safety features on the home paper shredder if you have infants or small children around? You may also find yourself wanting to shred items with staples and paper clips, CDs, credit cards, ID cards, and floppy disks...Some home systems are strong enough to handle these materials in small volumes and might be worth checking into because these are items tend to accumulate around your home office. Lastly, remember that some security is better than none: If you are on a tight budget there is one last solution: A pair of sharp scissors. Visit our website for more resources about paper shredding.

Business Startups

Starting a new business can be a very exciting time, you are going to be your own boss, decide what and when you do things, manage the purse strings, and in fact you are in control of everything. Are you really in control of the situation though, you have to deal with everything yourself so you have to stay focused on what you want to do and why. All business startups need advice; sometimes they need advice on where to get advice, so the budding entrepreneur has to be able to listen as there is more to running a business than understanding, or loving, the subject. Like a chess game, success in small business starts with decisive and correct opening moves. And, although initial mistakes are not fatal, it takes skill, discipline and hard work to regain the advantage. When you plan to start a business you do not plan to fail but statistics show that 70% of business startups fail within the first 3 years of trading. This is for a variety of reasons but they mainly hinge around business and financial planning. Basic mistakes like starting the business with insufficient financial backing or working capital to taking too much of the profits to remunerate the owners are often the downfall of the business. A way to increase your chances of success, take the time up front to explore and evaluate your business and personal goals. This information will be useful to help you build a comprehensive and well ¬thought¬ out business plan, the blueprint for you business. Every business needs a business plan, for business startups the first part of the business plan might be where to find out how to write a business plan and what it should include. The process of developing a business plan will help you think through some important issues that you may not have considered yet. Your plan will become a valuable tool as you set out to raise money for your business, no investor will even look at you if you have not got a business plan. It should also provide milestones to gauge your success. There are a lot of agencies who can advise you on some, or all, aspects of starting a business. Some of these will charge you for their advice whilst others offer them free of charge. Business link is one of the agencies and advice is free and assistance with funding might be available in the right circumstances. They have a large database that will help you find a grant or subsidy that suits your business and let you know what makes a business eligible to receive one. Interactive tools help you identify the capital and incentive allowances that your business can claim and identifies online transactions available to your business and explains how to register and enrol. They can even help with introductions to reputable suppliers. A bad supplier speeds the downfall of a lot of business startups who really need to rely on good stock and reliable delivery dates. There are a lot of schemes that are interested in funding business startups, for example Option 2 funding offers 50% matched funding for projects to expand business. Other funding schemes are often available based on regional location and industry type. These include grants to help with business development, and they are available from a variety of sources, such as the government, the European Union, Regional Development Agencies, Business Links and some charitable organisations. So if you do not want to be a an addition to the failure statistic investigate all the funding opportunities available to you, whether you go to a commercial organisation or go for free advice from an agency such as Business Link. Be sure to listen to their advice, they have been dealing with business startups for years; this is your first time.

Business Letters: Do You Really Know What They Are?

Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett My two “writing help” Web sites receive well over two million visitors per year looking for information and templates to help them with their writing. With that many visitors I get a pretty accurate idea of exactly what people are looking for in the way of letter writing help. In fact, a significant number of people arrive at my site based on the search phrase “business letter”. Now, at first glance the term “business letter” makes sense. But, just wait a minute here! What exactly do they mean by “business letter”? Well, it turns out that they’re not sure. What it boils down to in many cases is that the person doing the search is involved in some kind of “business” (as owner or employee) and they need to write some kind of “letter” related to their business. Hence, their search phrase of “business letter”. I often get e-mails from people asking me if I have any business letter templates, or if I can write them a business letter. Invariably, I have to reply to them asking “what type of business letter, what is the specific purpose”? The fact is; “business letter” is a very general term that can mean one of many different specific letter types. Accordingly, the rest of this article is going to explain exactly what business letters are. Despite the widespread use of e-mail in commerce today, traditional business letters are still the main way that the majority of businesses officially communicate with their customers and other businesses. This is especially true when businesses want to formalize an agreement or an understanding. So far, emails are great for all of the preparatory work, but a formal business letter is still most often needed to "seal the deal". There are two overall categories of business letters: business-to-business, and business-to-customer. BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS LETTERS Most business-to-business letters are written to confirm things that have already been discussed among officials in meetings, on the telephone, or via e-mail. Can you imagine the letters that would have to go back and forth to cover all of the questions and possibilities that can be covered in a one-hour meeting, a half-hour phone call, or a few quick e-mails? The main purpose of a typical business letter is to formalize the details that were arrived at in those discussions, and to provide any additional information that was agreed upon. Over the years, certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting their business to business correspondence. The Top 10 business-to-business letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows: 1. thank you letter 2. introduction letter 3. cover letter 4. financial letter 5. marketing letter 6. sales letter 7. project letter 8. invitation letter 9. employee letter 10. congratulations letter Even though the above terms are much more specific than the general term “business letter” there are multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-business “financial letter” could be: collection letter, credit approval letter, credit refusal letter, invoice, price quotation, etc. BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER LETTERS There are many different types of business-to-customer letters. They include: sales and marketing letters, information letters, order acknowledgement letters, order status letters, collection letters, among others. As with business-to-business letters, over the years certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting letters to existing and potential customers. Of course, going in the other direction are customer-to-business letters. These include: order letters, order status inquiry letters, complaint letters, and others. Since these are customer-generated letters, there is no particular expectation that they follow any particular letter- writing standard. Typically, they are handled just like any other piece of personal correspondence. The Top 10 business-to-customer letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows: 1. cover letter 2. customer relations letter 3. financial letter 4. credit letter 5. introduction letter 6. order-status letter 7. sales letter 8. marketing letter 9. announcement letter 10. apology letter Similar to the situation with business-to-business letters covered in the previous section; even though the above business-to-customer letter types are much more specific than the general term “business letter”, there are also multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-customer “customer relations letter” could be any one of : response to a complaint, follow-up with a new customer, interrupted service notice, letter of acknowledgement, special invitation, welcome to new customers, etc. BOTTOM-LINE As you can see from the above, specifying that you are looking for a “business letter” is not very enlightening. You need to be specific and define the purpose of the letter; that is, exactly what is the letter meant to communicate? It’s important not to confuse non-business letters with business letters. For example: job application letters, cv and resume cover letters, employment and college related letters of recommendation, character references, resignation letters, etc. are NOT business letters. You might be surprised to learn that over 75% of all visitors to my main writing help Web site are searching for information on how to write just the Top 20 letters listed above. In fact, it turns out that a full 90% of the more than 1 million people that visit that site each year looking for letter writing help are looking for help with one of a list of 25 letters. That’s why all of my letter writing toolkits focus on multiple variations of about 40 specific letter types that cover over 95% of ALL letters ever written.

Business Card, Here To Stay?

For as long as I have been alive (all of 27 years) business cards have been a very popular way to solidify a contact. Printing of the cards has gotten to be more quality for less money and so everyone and their brother has a business card. When I was real young it was a phone number and maybe a fax number if the office was real up and coming on the technology scene. Now technology has taken over business to the point that it is a valid question whether or not there will be business cards in the future. Are they really necessary? Well at one time yes it was a great idea and people actually held on to a business card and used them as a contact card that they would pop in their rolodex. Now no one has a rolodex and it would take just as long to look someone up in the online yellow pages than it would to flip to the right rolodex file to look up a name and a number. So basically I think that they are out as we know them. That is not to say that they are out for good. No technology has a way of finding a way to stick around. Now we are seeing business cards in the form of mini cd-roms that not only have the name and address but also a personal introduction to the person and work of the giver as well as a overview of the company for which the donor works. This can be as simple as a pdf file or as complicated as an animated tour with interactive features. We are also seeing things like an electronic business card that can be sent to one another with wireless connections between portable digital devices. This is becoming the thing to do and the business card can automatically update a contacts list in that person’s default email software. So the little paper business card that used to be all the rage is phasing out but the concept is not dead. Rather it is taking on a life of its own with technology and ingenuity being its vitality. Who knows maybe in the not too distant future we will have holographic business cards that can be sent from the chips in our wrist that also contain all the other information that we used in our daily life including our shopping lists and bank account information.