Firing Someone – Does it have to be painful, for them and you?

Copyright 2006 The National Learning Institute

The need to write this article came about through the recent experience of two of my friends.  Both had been fired.  One for supposed poor performance (although she had never been counselled and at the time was in fact on sick leave) and one because the start up facility she was employed by, suddenly closed down.  Both were senior managers.  Both were loyal, hardworking employees but are now very angry and taking legal action against their former employers.  Why are they so angry?  One could say it’s because they have lost their jobs and this would be quite understandable.  However, the main action that has triggered their anger and catapulted them down the legal pathway (in both cases), was that they were informed of their dismissals by emails.  Yes, that’s right by email!  They were never given the courtesy of a face to face discussion.

Many managers, when faced with the challenge of firing someone, forget, or are unaware of the emotions that are experienced by the person being fired.  Nor are they aware of the behaviour that most often results from these emotions.  It has been well documented that the death of a loved one, a marriage or long term relationship breakup and the loss of one’s job, have an equal and similar impact on one’s emotions.  Think for a moment about the loss of one of your dear relatives or friends through death – how did you feel?  That’s exactly the same feeling that people have when they suddenly and unexpectedly lose their jobs.

The psychologists tell us that there are 5 stages that people go through in this “grief cycle” – Shock, Resistance (often manifested as anger), Acceptance (of the current situation), Exploration (of new opportunities), Commitment (to a new future).  Can any of these emotions be managed via email?

I can well recall the first time as a manager I had to fire someone.  It was for poor performance and I was scared.  I did not sleep the night before wondering what I would say and what would be her reaction.  I carried out the interview in the morning with great fear and trepidation.  I was not sure how the interview went, but was relieved when it was over and then took a break for lunch, but was unable to eat.  I did not know about the “5 stages” at the time, I only knew that I had to do the right thing by the organisation and by the employee.  I arrived back from my break to find a box of chocolates on my desk with a very nice note from the employee saying how much she appreciated my courtesy and kindness.  I guess, intuitively I must have got something right.

Now, from years of experience, I know two things about firing someone:

1. Firstly, the person at all times must maintain his or her self esteem.  This is one of the most basic and important needs that all people have (emailing someone, or even worse as I heard since starting this article, texting, sends a clear message that they are not worthy of a face to face discussion)

2. Secondly, it is vitally important to realise that all people will go through the five stages of the grief cycle (quite often at different paces) and as a manager, it is our role and responsibility to help them progress through these stages, particularly the first two that are likely to occur when they are still with us.

How do you do this?  Well, in my usual style when writing an article such as this, I did my web research.  Sad to say there was not much there.  Under “firing someone” there seemed to be a plethora of articles about the legal requirements and many about the steps to take.  For example, one article suggested the following steps:  Give warning, Document, Document, Document! Time it right, Prepare the paperwork, Don't go it alone (ensure you have someone from HR there), Ensure privacy, Be brief, Watch your tone, Seek feedback, Give a good send-off.  Few of these steps would address the 5 stages of grief.  Many could probably be done by email with the same impact and result!  If these steps were followed, I wonder what “feedback” the manager would receive – would there in fact be a “Good send-off”?

I’m not suggesting that we don’t have to address some of these.  For example, you must cover all of the documentary and legal responsibilities pertinent to your country and organisation’s requirements.  But keep in mind that the fired employee is first and foremost a person just like you with feelings and emotions that must be managed.

Here are some suggestions (assuming of course that you have fulfilled all the other requirements) for the next time that you have to fire someone:

• Before taking any action, ask yourself: “How would I feel if my boss came to me today and said – you’re fired!”  Write down a list of words that describe your feelings.

• If you were in the situation of being fired, how would you like your boss to handle it?  What would you like him/her to do and to say?  Jot down some of your thoughts.

• Now write down a list of the words that best describe your feelings about having to fire someone.  Review all the words you have scribbled down so far and pick out the two or three strongest.  Also keep in mind how you would like to be handled in similar circumstances.

• Script the start of the conversation using the two or three words you have discovered.  e.g. “This is really difficult for me.  I feel apprehensive and worried that I won’t get it right.”

• The next part of your opening script will depend on the circumstances.  For example in a “lay off” situation, it might go something like; “I have been advised that I have to terminate the employment of a number of people.  I am really sad to say that your name is on that list”.  Or, for a non performance issue, it could be something like;  “We have discussed my expectations about your performance and unfortunately they are still not being met.  It now really saddens me (or whatever your feelings are) that I will have to terminate your employment”.

• Be careful.  You can only script the opening few lines, but they are important because they set the scene for the entire interview.

• It is most likely that during the remainder of the interview, the employee will travel backward and forwards between “shock” and “resistance”.  Give your reasons for the termination clearly and succinctly, but do not get into a discussion about justifying yours (or your employer’s) reasons.  Doing so will keep the employee fixed in either of the first two stages and will not help them to progress.  Only sincere listening and clear questioning (not reasoning) will help the employee progress to the acceptance stage.

One factor that is often overlooked when firing someone, is that the way it is done can have as much impact (positive or negative) on the people who remain.  They will be watching (and will invariably get a first hand report from their colleague) about how well or otherwise the process was managed.  The people who remain in the organisation, and whom I assume you want to keep, get a good look at both the manager’s and the organisation’s real people management skills when under the stress of firing someone.  They’ll most certainly ask “Could this happen to me?”

Grow Your Business By Finding Your “Hidden” Organization

Have you ever wondered what enables some entrepreneurs to exponentially grow their businesses while others go flat, or worse? Their secret lies in their ability to find and lead what I call their “hidden” organization. You may think you don’t have an organization, hidden or otherwise, especially if your business consists of a “gang of one” or there are only a few employees on staff. But the fact is that even the smallest businesses have an organization, and your success or failure is determined by your ability to find it and then lead it in a way that gives you more of the results you want.

This may be a totally new concept to consider. It’s easy to think of giant corporations as having organizations. These are the “internal stakeholders” consisting of employees, departments and committees on the payroll. However, large companies are realizing that independent consultants, suppliers, outsource providers, alliance partners, customers and other “external stakeholders” also play a critical role in their organization’s ability to achieve high performance results.

Just as your business is part of your customers’ external organization, it also has external stakeholders of its own that make up your hidden organization. The better you become at recognizing and leveraging the power of these many relationships, the more likely it is that you’ll survive unexpected twists and turns in the economy, minimize problems, and take your business to the next level of growth.

Who makes up your hidden organization?

It can be challenging to identify the many stakeholders who impact your business. While some of these relationships are obvious, it’s easy to overlook and underestimate the impact of others. However, if you think of an external stakeholder as any person, group or organization that has a stake (whether they recognize it or not) in the success of your business, your organization includes, but is not limited to:

•Customers
•Suppliers
•Outsource providers (payroll services, virtual assistants, etc.)
•Advisors (attorneys, accountants, bankers, business coaches, consultants, etc.)
•Alliance partners
•Subcontractors
•Competitors
•Business and trade associations to which you belong
•Advisory boards

When you uncover the wide variety of support, knowledge, skills, capabilities, and resources that are available through your stakeholders, you can offer services and products in ways that you may never have considered before. For example, a specialty-clothing designer with one store location teamed up with an online distributor so that she now runs a global business, reaching customers around the world. Even competitors have found that there are a number of ways to benefit through limited collaborations. The possibilities for growth are there if you look for them.

While large companies have organizational charts that map out functions of departments and roles of employees, you can also create your own “organizational chart” to map out how external stakeholders fill essential functions and roles that are essential for conducting business. For instance, your accountant, attorney, and insurance agent are important parts of your “executive team.” Your organization also includes your customers, along with the alliance partners, outsource providers, and sub-contractors who may work with you to deliver products and services.

As you continue to identify stakeholders, be sure to update your organization chart on a regular basis. Depending upon, your own goals, customers’ objectives and needs, new technology and shifts in the economy, some stakeholders will take on increased importance while others play a less important role for a period of time.

Realigning your vision of your organization so it includes these and other external stakeholders will enable you to think about new ways to reach your customers, expand your capabilities, and discover new opportunities for increased revenue and profitability.

Leading and managing your hidden organization
Now that you’ve discovered your hidden organization, the next challenge is to lead and manage it so that you are achieving your growth objectives.

Clients often tell me that unexpected and persistent problems seem to come out of nowhere (this is what I call “strategic gridlock”). However, when we look back, it’s possible to trace the source of problems to one or more common but mistaken assumptions that we all make about our organizations, based upon our individual perceptions of reality.

As you lead and manage your hidden organization, here are three questions to ask yourself on a regular basis to begin to uncover assumptions, avoid gridlock, and grow your business:

• What is the uniqueness of each stakeholder? Just as no two people are alike; no two stakeholders are alike. Yet it’s easy to adopt an approach to dealing with others that doesn’t allow for these variations. This can lead to persistent problems, especially if their values and practices are different from yours. Understanding the uniqueness of each stakeholder will help everyone get the most out of each relationship.

• Are my stakeholders capable of doing what I want? Since external stakeholders have other priorities outside of yours, unexpected changes in direction can easily happen. Consistent communication with your external stakeholders minimizes the risk of being blindsided by these issues, and allows you to make contingency plans. It also alerts you to developments that could result in new opportunities for your growth.

• Are my stakeholders willing to do what I want? External stakeholders don’t always share your objectives or sense of urgency. The more that you understand how they perceive your objectives and what their needs are in relationship to yours, the more likely it is that you can head off conflicts, improve decision making, and negotiate solutions that represent a “win” for everyone.

To fully meet organizational challenges and lead your organization to high performance results, it’s essential to know not only who your stakeholders are, but also what issues they face and the impact those issues may have on you. When you seek out the perceptions of your stakeholders on a regular basis, you’ll be able to address any potential challenges from a position of organizational reality, not individual assumption.

Discover the power of your hidden organization

Many entrepreneurs, especially those who are used to working as “gangs of one”, overlook and underestimate the many ways that they can leverage and grow their businesses by working in collaboration with their external stakeholders. .

Once you recognize that you are the architect of your own organization, the issues of leading and managing organizations of all sizes are the same; the same organizational principles apply to mega-corporations as well as to solo entrepreneurs, because even the very smallest businesses have “hidden” organizations within them.

Harnessing the power of your hidden organization will help you to discover untapped opportunities, avoid organizational jams, and grow to new heights of success.

Has the time come for a reconditioned forklift fleet?

Every industry has its accepted truths. These are the things that everybody knows - the obvious answers. The problem is that yesterday's truths may be out of date, and things that appear to be common sense on the surface may be a lot more complicated when you look a little deeper. When the question is a potentially expensive one like the purchase and maintenance of your forklift fleet, it's a good idea to examine both possibilities. The industry is changing, and old truths should be re-examined. In addition, your options have grown, and the old easy answers may no longer be the best solutions.

<b>The single Manufacturer Fallacy</b>

Most operations that run a large fleet of forklifts select a primary new truck manufacturer (for example, Toyota or Hyster for pneumatic/cushion trucks, Crown or Raymond for electrics). It's more convenient, dealing with a single company when arranging purchase or lease agreements, but that is not the primary consideration. The big issue is maintenance.

Full service leases are supposed to cover maintenance costs up front. Ideally, they allow you to plan maintenance schedules and costs, and then forget about it for the duration of the lease. There are two problems with this pretty picture. For one thing, most full service leases do not cover repair costs on the failure of components that are out of factory warranty, or on the failure of wear items such as brakes, etc. You can never be absolutely certain what maintenance costs will be.

On the face of it, this is an additional argument for selecting a single supplier, since it means that you will only have to stock one set of parts and train your people on one machine (or at least machines from a single manufacturer). True, this will save you a little, but at what cost?

Not all forklift manufacturers are good at everything that a forklift does in your operation. There are just too many variables. Electrics are quiet, inexpensive and nonpolluting, but of limited range. In some narrow aisle warehouse applications, turning radius can become a major consideration. In extreme cases, turret trucks may be required.

To get the most efficient vehicle for every job, you would have to determine the features and characteristics required for that job, and then buy the necessary number of trucks from the manufacturer who makes the best forklift with those features and characteristics - and then repeat the process for every job in your operation. A multi-location facility could easily end up with four or five different makes of lift truck. Is this the making of a maintenance nightmare? Not necessarily.

Remember, you are still only using one brand of fork lift for a given task, and because you have selected the brand with the best performance for that function, your maintenance for that brand is likely to go down. The periodic service requirements are the same, and component failure is less likely to occur if the vehicle is better designed for that specific application.

Keeping a larger inventory of parts may cost a little more to begin with, but maintaining that inventory over time should result in no significant additional expense. As for training, it may be possible to specialize there as well. For example, instead of training two people on maintenance for a single brand, you might train each of them on one of the brands in use - for little or no additional expense.

<b>New vs. Refurbished</b>

Another accepted truth that may no longer be true is that refurbished forklift trucks, while less expensive than new ones, are less reliable and therefore not a good investment.

With the ever-increasing costs of capital equipment, refurbishing used lift trucks has finally become big business. Only a few years ago, the market for reconditioned forklifts wasn't big enough to justify the expense of setting up an assembly line to tear down, inspect and re-assemble a vehicle with enough quality control to insure reliable operation in heavy use conditions.

The term refurbished means different things to different people. Before you even consider this option, make certain that the unit has been disassembled to the bare frame, sandblasted, painted and rebuilt. Even the engines should be completely broken down, refurbished and repainted to work and look like new. Purchasing used forklifts can be risky, but buying quality refurbished ones doesn't have to be.

For years, third parties have been refurbishing trucks for small users who could not afford new units. They had to do it by themselves to insure quality, and the number of quality refurbished trucks on the market was extremely limited. That is no longer true. The market for renewed trucks has grown to the point where there are now factory reconditioned forklifts available at perhaps one third the cost of new trucks. Not only that, but they are available in quantities that should be attractive to a fleet user.


The quantities are there, and the price is certainly attractive, but what are you really getting when you buy a refurbished forklift truck? Is this where you can find yourself in a maintenance nightmare? Again, not necessarily.

Renewed vehicles have had some run time, a kind of shakedown cruise after which the weak components are replaced. The result is a more reliable unit. Obviously, a refurbished truck has less of its reliable service life left than a new one, but consider the following scenario. You purchase a refurbished unit at one third the cost of a new one. You have already skipped the first wave of high maintenance cost that occurs during the run-in phase. You maintain it regularly and retire it perhaps a year earlier than you would a new unit, thus avoiding the last stage of high maintenance as it nears the end of its useful life. You have saved considerably in terms of capital investment, and your maintenance costs may actually go down as well.

<b>Name Brands</b>

There is one last accepted truth I would like to address related to the issue of maintaining a fleet of forklift trucks - brand name versus off-brand parts. It seems obvious that an operation running a particular brand of forklifts will be safest stocking spare parts from that manufacturer, even if they do cost a little more. Fortunately, that isn't always true.

Many of my friends and customers in the manufacturing business are up in arms over China because they have become such a tough competitor in recent years. However, the same pricing that creates this frustration with China as a competitor can be helpful to forklift buyers. Factories in China that have produced parts for other name brand trucks for years are now starting to sell direct in the United States at significantly reduced prices over name brands.

Notice that these are often the same people that made the brand name parts. The parts are not less expensive because of lower quality. They are less expensive because of the distribution strategy. There is no dealer taking a percentage off the top. There is no forklift manufacturer using overpriced spare parts as a profit center in order to lower prices on new trucks and in order to lock in brand loyalty.

With these lower prices for spare parts, there is less reason to fear the possibility of higher maintenance costs with a multi-manufacturer and/or refurbished fleet of forklift trucks. More than ever before, it is possible to put together a fleet based on the only questions that should really matter: what do forklifts really do in your operation, and which forklifts - new or refurbished - can most effectively and economically do the job(s)?

IT Project Governance And Prince2 Project Management: How To Keep Major IT Investments On The Rails

In today’s fast-changing information economy, IT project governance has emerged as one of the most vital corporate responsibilities. The relentless pressure to innovate whilst simultaneously driving down costs means that organisations are increasingly ‘betting the farm’ on the successful development and deployment of new IT systems. However, the business environment now evolves so quickly that the original assumptions on which projects were based can often become fatally undermined prior to the projects’ completion. With technology at the heart of most businesses, the ability to maintain tight executive and board control over such projects throughout their lifecycle has become a deciding factor in determining which businesses thrive and which founder. In response to this challenge, Prince2 project management has emerged as the world’s leading methodology for ensuring that IT projects stay on track and deliver real value.

No large scale or business critical project should ever be managed on a standalone basis. The need to involve and secure buy-in from functions right across the organisation means that a project governance approach is essential. While project management is the key discipline within this, project governance is broader in scope and has six interlinked objectives:
1. Ensuring real business value through project and business alignment.
2. Controlling costs through centralisation.
3. Maximising resource allocation, particularly of high value resources.
4. Risk management through portfolio balancing.
5. Uniform application of best practice.
6. Organisational coherence.

IT decisions expose an organisation to significant risks – financial, operational and competitive – so it is essential that project governance be a concern for the board as a whole, rather than any one individual. The board must insist that project risks are assessed within the organisation’s strategic planning and risk management framework and ensure that the right investment and management decisions are made, so that competitive advantage can be enhanced and measurable business value delivered.

The board’s project governance responsibilities can be summarised as follows:
•    To approve product initiation, manage the project portfolio and pull the plug on any underperforming projects.
•    To make one or more non-executive board members specifically responsible for overseeing project governance. They must have independent and informed oversight of progress on all business IT projects – including attending program (or large project) board meetings.
•    To ensure clear accountability at all levels, with detailed, rigorously tested project plans based on a critical path analysis with clearly identified critical success factors, regular milestones and ‘go/no go’ checkpoints.
•    To ensure that every project proposal contains a full business case with a fully costed estimate that can stand up to independent audit, with clearly stated assumptions that can withstand rigorous analysis.
•    To manage all IT related projects as part of a portfolio.
•    To adopt and deploy a recognised project management methodology.
•    To adopt a clearly defined risk management plan at programme and project level that reflects corporate level risk treatment requirements.
•    To institute a monitoring framework to inform the board of progress and provide an early alert of divergence or slippage in any of the critical success factors.
•    To commit funding only on a phased basis.
•    To ensure that internal audit is capable and accountable directly to the board for providing regular, timely and unambiguous reports on project progress, slippage, budget, requirements specification and quality requirements. Where there is project divergence the board should not release further funds until the cause of the divergence has been fully dealt with.

In selecting a project management methodology the organisation needs to choose an approach that is appropriate to its project objectives and development environment. By far the most popular methodology is Prince2, the successor to PRINCE ('Projects in Controlled Environments'), which was developed by the UK Office of Government Commerce. While PRINCE was originally developed for IT projects, Prince2 project management has incorporated substantial feedback and is now a generic, best-practice approach for all types of projects. Since its introduction in 1989, Prince2 project management has become widely used in both the public and private sectors and is now a de facto global standard.

Prince2 project management uses a structured methodology, which means managing a project in a logical and organized way, following clearly defined steps and well-understood roles and responsibilities. It perfectly matches the requirements of a project governance regime by delivering the following attributes to any project:
•    A controlled and organised start, middle and end
•    Regular reviews of progress against plan and against the business case • Flexible decision points
•    Automatic management control of any deviations from the plan
•    The involvement of management and stakeholders at the right time and in the right place during the project
•    Good communications channels between the project, project management, and the rest of the organisation.

The effectiveness of Prince2 project management results from its four cornerstones, which define what a successfully managed project should be:

Planned: Prince2 has a series of processes that cover all of the activities needed on a project from starting up to closing down. This process-based approach provides an easily tailored and scaleable method for the management of all types of project. Each process is defined with its key inputs and outputs together with the specific objectives to be achieved and activities to be carried out.

Controlled: Prince2 project management divides a project into manageable stages, enabling efficient control of resources and regular progress monitoring throughout. The various roles and responsibilities for managing a project are fully described and are adaptable to suit the size and complexity of the project, and the skills of the organisation.

Results-driven: Project planning using Prince2 is product-based, which means the project plans are actually focused on delivering results and are not simply about planning when the various activities on the project will be done.

Measured: Any project using Prince2 is driven by the business case, which describes the organisation’s justification, commitment and rationale for the deliverables or outcome. The business case is regularly reviewed during the project to ensure the business objectives, which often change during the lifecycle of the project, are still being met.

There are clear reasons why Prince2 project management has become the world’s leading methodology. In addition to its best practice approach for the management of all project types, around 800 people per week take Prince2 project management examinations, with all training is carried out by accredited organisations. It is widely used and popular in both public and private sectors, and can easily be tailored to all varieties of projects in many different markets and businesses. For any organization that is serious about managing its IT investment, Prince2 project management is the natural choice.

Renegade eBay Strategy - Feedback

Let's talk about feedback. We all know that feedback is an essential component of eBay, in fact it's probably a large part of why the company has been so successful. In marketing terms we might refer to feedback as social proof. I'll explain what I mean. We all make decisions based on what others do, yes we are influenced by others to an extraordinary degree.

If someone tells us that they enjoyed a great meal or watched a really good movie, chances are that we'll do the same, based on their recommendation. That's social proof.

The principle works on eBay too. When we read the feedback comments left by buyers and sellers we take note. If those comments are predominantly positive then we naturally trust the person behind that account.

So not only is feedback an essential aspect of eBay that virtually all buyers and sellers devote significant amount of time to reading, it is one that deserves more attention than you give it now.

For most sellers, leaving feedback is a few rushed words, fairly generic, and posted without much thought. The renegade seller on the other hand realizes that there is an opportunity to make more of this important aspect of eBay.

Firstly, don't leave feedback to chance. Rather than letting buyers write the first thing that comes into their heads, prompt them a little. How can you do that without seeming impolite or demanding?

Send out an e-mail around the time you expect them to have received their item, and politely ask them not to leave feedback until they are 100% satisfied. If there's something that needs to be fixed, tell them you want to do that. Let them know that you live for happy customers!

Next, guide them as to what to write. Suggest to them that your customers are delighted because of the fast shipping, friendly service, fair mailing costs, quality of items, and any other benefits you can think of. This is an NLP technique that plants the thought in their mind, so that when they come to leave you feedback, you've already told them what to mention! Is this deceiving customers? No, not if you genuinely do deliver these benefits. You are simply helping to remind them.

Another important renegade feedback strategy is to include a marketing message in the feedback YOU leave. For example, instead of the usual, "Great transaction, recommended eBayer etc etc" that most buyers and sellers default to, use the space to further promote your items.You might say, "Thanks from BobMillsPosters.com -- eBay's #1 Collectable Poster Store."

In the above example, notice that the feedback message points people back to a domain name, which would be either the eBay store or your own website. Also, notice that the first letter of each word is capitalized -- an effective marketing technique to make the wording stand out.

Remember, feedback comments stay on an account for a very long time, so use that precious 'real estate' wisely.

Rent To Own Homes

Are you someone who wants to own a home someday? Who does not? But what is holding you back? For most of us the answer is finance. If you have a bad credit record, it is unlikely that you will get a house loan to buy your dream house.

For most of us the only way to start living in our dream house depends on factors such as, having good credit, making a large down payment, and going through a landlord, but all that is history now with the introductions of the rent to own home facility. Now as a buyer you can lease the home of your choice for a few years before taking the big leap and finally buying the piece of real estate.

Both buyers and sellers alike can benefit from a rent to own transaction.  Nowadays it is really hard to find a buyer who has all the factors running in his or her favor, such as having good credit, or the ability to make a large down payment, but the rent to own home makes it easier for people with fewer resources to get a chance to buy their dream homes.

Buyers these days prefer to go for the rent to own homes because of certain added advantages provided by this kind of a transaction. Firstly, this type of a transaction helps the buyer get a good first hand experience regarding the house, because you know the price of the house only when you start living in it.  Minor problems that are not visible from the outside, for example leaking pipelines, paint falling off etc. become more imminent when it prospective buyers start living n the house.

Secondly, for the first time real estate investor it is always a good idea not to buy a property with cash through an outright sale, rather it will be a good idea to lease it first and then buy it.

Thirdly, people who have bad credit can buy their dream homes by this process as they can repair their credits during the lease period and build up equity. Besides getting a rent to own home is almost the same as leasing to own a car where the buyer leases the car to find out more about the car and whether it meets his requirements or not, and finally he buys the car if it meets the standards.

For the sellers the rent to own home facility brings in more customers than the outright sales. There are many homeowners who have listed their properties but there is a significant lack of prospective buyers in the cash buying market, most of the investors nowadays prefer to buy houses through their rent to own homes.

Most of the sellers can benefit from the fact that  most of the times the deal does not go through and they might end up with the entire rent amount to their discretion as the rent credit is considered non refundable. Besides this lease to own home feature allows the sellers to derive the benefits of the houses a bit more before actually selling it off to someone else.

Replace Your Lost Income with a Successful Online Business

With the economy in constant turmoil, many are experiencing a financial crunch with lost jobs or at the very least, lost income due to slow business. Fortunately, you don't have to settle for less income. There are many income opportunities online to fit your schedule, business budget, and skills. Let's explore two main ways to replace lost income with online profits.

Work from Home through Online Marketing

Marketing online and helping others promote their business is a great way to get started. Thankfully, there are companies that will help you with minimal cost. You can automate your business to sell services for you while you're away or asleep. Also, you can promote products and services to your potential customers through e-mail automatically with a follow-up system.

With this type of business, the marketing company that provides the service usually charges a one-time sign-up fee or an ongoing monthly or yearly fee to help you start and operate your business. All you do is set up your home business website, and then start promoting their services or products. The business will run on autopilot to sell and provide customer service to your new clients. Usually, this type of business operates similarly to an MLM business, but may also offer products or services for sale. Many are earning 6-figure incomes with this type of set-up, but they do work hard at promotions and marketing on a day-by-day basis as with any other type of business.

Replace Income with Your Personal or Business Skills

Think of the skills you have developed over the years. Can you type, sew, cook, write, design Web pages, or conduct research? Can you make crafts, design graphics, or offer counseling in some area? The possibilities are endless. Only you know what you love doing the most and what skills you possess. These can be turned into an amazing business earning a 6-figure income once the business starts to grow.

To start a business based on your skills, determine what you will offer, how much you will need to charge, and how you will handle customer service, shipping, and so forth. Then, create your own website to promote your products or services. Make sure your website offers plenty of useful content pertaining to your products. Also, create an e-mail newsletter (or e-zine) to follow up with your visitors. This will boost your income more than any other technique. With some services, you might also offer your talents through freelance websites to find new clients.

Promotion Tools to Replace Lost Income

Once you determine the type of online business that's right for you, it's time to promote your website. Some promotion tools can help you replace income while others may only cost you more money. Methods that are costly but might not be targeted include banner ads, pop-up ads, and classified ads. These three methods can be targeted to certain types of websites, but be sure the marketing company allows you to specify the audience you'd like to reach. Otherwise, it's a waste of advertising dollars.

Promotion methods that are affordable and effective include pay-per-click search engines, e-zine advertising, and content-based ads. These can reach your target audience without breaking your wallet because you're able to select the very audience that would be interested in your products.

Full-Time or Part-Time Income Opportunities

The Internet offers many income opportunities for either full time or part time, depending on your schedule and income needs. For part time income, it's probably best to sign on with a company that can set up a business for you. This will save you much time and energy so you can focus on promotions only during your limited hours.

Many entrepreneurs start out online as part-timers, but end up quitting their day jobs once established. You can earn a great income online too by allowing others who are already successful to lead the way!