Why Google Apps are the Right Choice for Your Business
When you’re looking to move your business to the cloud, it’s important to investigate all of the service options. Chances are, Google Apps is one of the first ones you’ll look into, and here’s why Google’s cloud computing service is the right choice for your business.
More Tools, Less Cost, Less Hassle
With features like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Sites, Google Apps offers your business the most tools for the lowest cost and least amount of hassle. And unlike other cloud service providers, like Office 365, whose services function best in conjunction with products installed locally on the desktop, Google Apps is hosted entirely in the web browser. This means that your employees’ can access their Google Apps accounts, and all the information they store on it, on any device from any location – which means the office can be anywhere they are.
Gmail for Google Apps Users
Gmail, Google’s email system that many people already use in their personal life, is also the email system for Google Apps users. With Gmail’s 25GB of storage, which is 50 times the industry average, your employees can stop worrying about email quotas. Gmail makes email simple and organized with threaded emails, which group emails with the same subject together, Google-powered search, to effortlessly find past discussions, and IM and video chat directly in the server.
Google Docs
Users can stop worrying about forgetting to add attachments to emails or how to send files that are too large to attach thanks to the sharing capabilities of Google Docs. Google Docs allows users to create files such as documents, presentations, and spreadsheets and make these files as public or private as desired. Shared files enable multiple users to simultaneously edit the same file from any location, leave comments for others, and track revision history to view what changes were made and when. The Google Docs tool takes collaboration within your business and with clients to an entirely new level.
Google Sites
Google Sites is also a key function of Google Apps that enhances your business’ communication and collaboration capabilities. With Google Sites, users can create intranets or websites for a specific group of people. These sites provide users with a central location to store relevant information, as they can use the site to share files, calendars, tasks, deadlines, and much more.
Google Apps for Business are Cost Effective
In addition to improving your business’ communication and collaboration, Google Apps for Business saves you money. Because Google Apps is hosted 100% by Google and runs without any additional hardware or software, your business will cut down significantly on IT costs. The Google Apps for Business platform runs at $50/user/year, putting the service ahead of competitive cloud service providers.
Google also understands that time is important to businesses of all sizes, so with Google Apps’ 99.9% uptime guarantee, you never have to worry about losing time to system crashes again. You can also stop worrying about the security of your business’ valuable information, as Google Apps for Business is verified in a third-party SAS70 Type II audit, which protects the privacy of all information stored on Google Apps.
The cost-efficient and easy-to-use services of Google Apps for Business are sure to improve your business’ daily functions, making this service the best choice for your company.
About the Author: This blog post is brought to you by Cloud Sherpas. Cloud Sherpas is a leading Google Apps cloud service provider. As a Google Apps Authorized Reseller and Google Enterprise partner, we have migrated over one million users across all major industries from legacy, on-premise messaging systems to Google Apps, helping organizations adopt cloud computing to innovate and dramatically reduce their IT expenses. Get to know our company by checking out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/cloudsherpas.
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3 Great Ways to Make Money Online with Videos
Everyone knows that movie producers make a lot of money, but how do you make money if you don’t have any connections yet? Or even a portfolio or professional experience?
After years of experience marketing online videos, I have some great ways for making money online with your videos.
1. Using videos to generate affiliate revenue
Google has monopolized YouTube overlay advertisements but you can still add windows with ads to your own videos. User-created text box overlays can’t contain links but you can put links in your video’s description.
So, put an affiliate link into your video’s description and use your overlays to tell users to check out the links in your description. You’ll get paid each click, sale, or lead (depending on whether it’s PPC or PPA) you generate.If you have a video about, say,clothing, you can have an affiliate link to an online jeans catalog and get paid for everybody who clicks your link and signs up for the catalog newsletter.
2. Placing ads into YouTube videos
Advertisers using official ads on YouTube have two choices: Overlayed text ads and pre-rolled ads, but advertisers have serious concerns with both.
YouTube text ads block out the video so they’re seen as an annoyance by users and they get X’d out a lot. The only way to put a creative ad on YouTube via official advertising is to get an ad that appears before a video (a pre-roll ad), and those aren’t cheap.
That’s why some companies will pay you to put ads directly into your YouTube videos if your channel has a lot of fairly targetable viewers.These PPM ads will stay in your video forever since they’re part of the same video file. The ads can either be banners that run on top of the screen or be video commercials at the very start of (or actually anywhere in) your YouTube video.
3. Making Money Online via Crowdsourced Video Websites
Crowdsourced video websites pay to make ads, webcasts, and other types of videos, all from home. It works by following the crowdsource model: A company requests a video on a crowdsourced video website and you submit a video and get paid if the company uses it. The rates vary but Playkast pays $50. It’s that easy.
The crowdsource model is great for new film creators(such as college film students or recent out-of-work grads) because you can do it from home without having any professional connections. It’s a great opportunity to get paid to do build your portfolio, and make connections, and earn money making film.
Some of these tips are more or less universal but others only work in specific situations and for specific people. You’re not likely to get advertisers to buy banner ads in your videos if your channel has a wide audience, like males aged 14 to 65. On the other hand,anybody can sign up with Playkast and get paid to make videos online.
About the Author: I am a professional blogger working for Playkast and a variety of other companies.
Photo Credit: pheezy
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Is There Ever a Bad Time To Start a Business?
Do you dream about starting a business, but don’t know if it is the right time? Are you concerned that the economic recovery still has a long way to go, so now might not be the right moment? Are you letting fear stop you from following your dream of owning a business?
Starting a business is something that can be done, no matter the economic climate. You may have to adjust your plan, but if you are savvy enough, you can find the customers your new business needs.
You cannot wait for the perfect time, or you will always be making an excuse as to why now is not the right time. The fear will always be there, so embrace it instead of running from it. Harness your fear and direct it in a positive way to ensure you are making smart decisions and thinking before acting.
The Right Frame Of Mind
The one thing that you need to have before starting a new business is the right frame of mind – the right attitude. If you are not mentally in the game, then don’t even bother. Conceptualizing, forming, growing, and running, a business takes a lot of time and energy, and creates a lot of stress and uncertainty. If your head is not in the game, then your business is doomed to fail from the start.
A great mental attitude can trump your lack of business knowledge. You can always gain knowledge, or hire someone smarter than you, but without passion, you lack the drive to be able to have a successful business. Having the right mindset is something you need before becoming an entrepreneur. You have to believe in yourself, and you have to be willing to sacrifice a lot while you build your company.
The Right Idea
However, the right frame of mind will only get you so far. You also need to have a great concept for a business. This doesn’t mean that your idea for the perfect business has to be something that nobody has heard of before – it just needs to be unique.
While there are probably plenty of unique businesses that have yet to be thought of, you don’t have to be a pioneer in order to be a successful business owner. What you do need is to bring something original to the table. If you are going to compete with existing companies in the marketplace, you have to have your own unique selling point. What makes you different from the other guys? Why would consumers (or businesses) choose you over your competition?
Take The Bull By The Horns
You can analyze yourself to death and never take the first step to realizing your dream of being an entrepreneur. While it would be foolish to throw caution to the wind, quit your day job and devote all of your energy to starting a business, there is nothing to say that you can’t commit to moving forward as quickly as you can, under your current circumstances.
Figure out what type of business you want to start, and assuming it isn’t a totally unique concept that the world has never seen, figure out how your business is going to be able to set itself apart from the competition. Commit to yourself that you are going to actually become a business owner sometime in the foreseeable future.
Don’t procrastinate any longer thinking now isn’t the right time to move forward. You have the power to convince yourself the time is never right. You also have the power to take control and move past your fears. Working for yourself is like nothing else. Why would you want to delay this opportunity any longer?
About the Author: Marshall Davis runs Business Service Reviews, a website where small business owners and budding entrepreneurs can learn about products and services to help them become more successful. Read his blog and learn more about becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Photo Credit: milos milosevic
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How Important is SEO to Your Video Marketing Efforts?
When observing how sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, and MetaCafe are receiving tons of views on a daily basis, it becomes clear to see what a powerful marketing tool video has become. The secret is out – this medium can engage in ways others can’t touch, and consumers are gobbling it up at a rapid rate. While video marketing is no doubt effective, when it comes to using this tactic online, SEO is the key to maximizing its true potential. Here are some tips that will help you make the most of your efforts:??
Stick with the Best Practices
For the most part, getting SEO value out of your video marketing efforts is the same as when optimizing other web content. This simply means that you need to follow the best established practices of search engine optimization.
Knowing this, complementing the text areas of your video with relevant keywords should be a priority. In most cases, this will be your title, description, and tags. Because links are also critical to SEO, building links should also be a part of your strategy. Understanding that search engine optimization has the same general requirements is not only critical, but can make this process much easier.??
Find a Good Platform
As the most popular video platform in the world, YouTube is arguably the best tool to use to build your video marketing strategy around. It is also an SEO-friendly platform, which gives it a huge plus.
However, there are plenty of other options that can benefit both your optimization and marketing efforts as a whole. You have your conventional video sites, in addition to a variety of social networks, which make great options because of their popularity and traffic alone. There are also less obvious options such as eHow, HubPages, and Associated Content From Yahoo. So even though YouTube is the cream of the crop, any site with a strong presence in the world of online video could do in the right strategy.??
Post Great Videos
Want to know the secret to successful video marketing? It’s simple really – post quality video content. Sure, a great keyword and link building strategy can get you the traffic, which is what SEO is all about, but if you want conversions, quality and value should be among your top priorities. No one is going to share or recommend your videos to others if they don’t find it useful or otherwise valuable themselves. With the recent introduction of the Google +1 button and its potential impact on search engine rankings, it is starting to look like quality could become an even more important aspect of video and content in general as far as SEO is concerned.
The video era is in full effect, and if you have been thinking about jumping on the bandwagon, now would be the perfect time to jump on up. While several companies are using it as a marketing tool, others are still reluctant for one reason or another, meaning adopting it now could possibly give you a considerable edge over your competitors. Make sure your strategy accounts for SEO, and video could play a major role in your success.
About the Author: Aidan Hijleh is a freelance copywriter and serves as the Non-Profit Partnership Liaison for Benchmark Email. Aidan advocates free email marketing services to assist with the flourishing of grassroots organizations.
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Don’t Be Left Behind by Mobile Technology
When was the last time you popped out to work or went shopping, only to realise that you had forgotten to take your phone with you? All of a sudden, you feel as if you have lost something fundamental, like a body part of a life line. Without mobiles, we are suddenly cut off from friends and family, and at a complete loss with what to do with our time. These days, mobiles are the main source of contact we have with everyone around us, and forgetting it, just for the day, leaves us feeling somehow vulnerable.
In queues, we reach for a Smartphone to play a game to pass the time. We plug in headphones to listen to tunes at the gym, or message people to let them know how we are feeling. Mobile technology has become as entrenched in our everyday activities as brushing our teeth, sleeping or eating. It’s this very attachment that has heralded a new phase for businesses, transforming industries and revolutionising the way we sell, purchase, market and supply.
Just as each one of us feels vulnerable without our phone to hand, so businesses need to be aware of the potential vulnerability that they risk placing themselves under, by not catering for the mobile market. Where business owners used to rely on plain online marketing (a basic website or a monthly newsletter) to sell their wares and advertise services, now we have a wealth of new opportunities to put our products and services forward to a potential new customer base. By ensuring we stay at the forefront of mobile technology, we suddenly have access to a global customer base, enabling us to advertise our business to people across the world, day and night.
Cashing in on the mobile revolution
Businesses that don’t optimise their sites and marketing for mobile technology are at risk of being left by the wayside, as early adopters seize on the latest trends and pre-empt customer requirements by meeting needs and anticipating new ways of selling. Simple things like making sure your site is friendly for mobile browsing can open up possibilities for new sales, enabling people to make purchase quickly and easily through their smartphones simply through a few finger taps. Similarly, the rise of social networking on mobile devices mean that people are accessing social media more than ever before – providing a great opportunity for businesses to sell online without the hassle of traditional paper marketing and advertising.
How to get optimized for mobile
It isn’t as complicated as it may seem to transform your business in to a mobile-friendly platform. Simply by making a few modifications to your web site, it’s possible to open up new avenues for selling. Work with a trusted provider of social media and marketing to establish your market, and put in place a comprehensive strategy for meeting the needs of the mobile generation. Checking your site for mobile compatibility, adding in simple payment functions and blogging to ensure that your products are advertised fully through search engine optimisation are all ways to increase revenue by making your business accessible for people buying through their phones. Keep your site simple, remembering it is being browsed by people on the go, and avoid complex programming like Flash or Java, to help people access as much of your site as possible, in a streamlined way. By following a few simple rules, you’ll be up and running for mobile in no time, keeping ahead of your competitors, and generating more sales.
About the Author: Justin Butcher – online marketing executive for MSM Software, one of the UK’s leading software development companies
Photo Credit: William Hook
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Don’t Have a Facebook Business Page? 5 Reasons to Suck It Up & Create One Today!
If kids, soon-to-be-adults and millions of not-so-young adults are your future audience, then you need to have a Facebook Business Page as you need to be where your audience is. And, today, our children, teens, young adults and even older adults like my former room mates and my ex (who deny they are addicted to Facebook) can be found updating their profile, commenting and changing their status updates regularly.
The New York Times even wrote an article recently that showed kids are finding crafty ways to get around the increasing number of Facebook bans their schools are implementing. One eighth grader, who preferred not to be named, said he coached a school administrator on avoiding the ban last year. “She hated not being able to get on Facebook at work and asked for my help one day in the office,” the boy explained, more than a little sympathetic to her plight. “What could I do?”
It came as no surprise to me, and it’s speaking volumes of the need for small businesses, as much as they want to continue down that stream of FB Denial, to get on board and create a Facebook business page. It is time for them to put themselves in front of this next generation of Facebook addicts.
Need more proof?
5 Reasons Why You Must Setup a Facebook Fan Page Fast!
1) Kids, soon adults, and millions of young and not-so-young adults are your future audience and they are all there, “friending” Justin Bieber under their covers (like my daughter last night) when they should be asleep.
2) With over 600 million users and almost 50% of them on Facebook daily…. stop…. think about it….., AND over 40% of existing businesses already up and running on it, you want your business to be where your customers and potential customers are going, right? If you knew that your customers were passing by one of the huge billboards in Times Square every day and those billboards didn’t cost millions per month to be advertising there, you would want to be up there…wouldn’t you?
3) Your Facebook business page is like the huge billboard in Times Square except for the fact that it’s free. Your customers are there, their friends are there. And you can say a heck of a lot more on a FB page than you can on a billboard.
4) The search engines love a Facebook Business Page. Because a business page is a public URL and not a private one, your site will have a much easier time making it to the top of a Google search than your website. That’s unless you’ve invested a lot of $ into SEO (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
5) As mentioned earlier, your competition already has a Facebook business page, and not because they want to share about their favorite rice and beans recipe. The “like” button has become the new “link.” Many online marketers, myself included now believe that the Facebook “like” button is becoming just as significant as backlinks to a website. In other words, the more “likes” your page has, the greater the chance of it ranking high in the search engines for your specific field and keywords. So think of it as a link and encourage your customers to press it. Every time you update something on your page these customers will now see it as they have been “linked” to it.
There are so many good reasons to create one of these Facebook business pages I could blather on and on about them forever. For now, think about the math. The average Facebook page has 140 friends. When you post to Facebook, your “friends” and all their “friends” will view your post. Can you spell V-I-R-A-L? As insane as it might sound, there’s a reason why Shop Rite wants you to “like” them on Facebook.
About the Author: Suzen Pettit specializes in designing, building, marketing and maintaining optimized websites and social media profiles for busy small business owners. By using her strategic internet marketing techniques you will ensure your business is being found and that clients are seeing what YOU want them to see on the internet about you. For even more free tips, tools, strategies and resources, read her free articles at: http://www.omaginarium.com/blog/
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How to Keep your Business Free of Chargebacks
It’s a heart stopping electric shock that radiates from the heart and permeates throughout the entire body down to your toes –all due to receiving your first customer chargeback.
Chargebacks happen no matter what industry you are in – whether selling sneakers from your home built website or a multi-million dollar VoIP telecom business selling business sip phone services. It happens to everyone.
What is a Chargeback?
First, let’s discuss what a chargeback is. A chargeback is when a customer who has purchased your service or product using a credit card, contacts the credit card company and tell them your company did not provide that particular service or product as expected or claimed. They then request that the purchase amount be returned back to them.
Chargebacks are different from returns because a return is done by the vendor directly. A chargeback however, is performed between the banks. The credit card company will contact your bank which deposited the original amount and will automatically deduct that amount from your business account without any warning.
As the business owner, you will receive a notice in the mail stating that a chargeback occurred due to a complaint by such and such customer. You will have a narrow window of time to rebut the chargeback and the odds are not in your favor unless you have explicit solid proof that your business did indeed provide that service or product as promised.
Straightening out a chargeback issue can take months and months of valuable time and resources. Time spent trying to rectify the original issue with the customer, time spent over the phone talking to the banks and credit card companies, and time wasted on the original sale if in fact you do not get the chargeback reversed. In business, time is money and is not something to squander.
Therefore, the best way to fight chargebacks is to prevent them from happening in the first place. Here are a few general rules of thumb which will help you avoid going through such a terrible ordeal which can hurt your revenue and cause damage to your reputation.
Build a Relationship with your Customers Up Front
Customers are less likely to take negative actions against your business when they like you personally. Let’s face it, it is much easier to rant and rail or complain about a service when you don’t associate a person’s face, name or voice to your issue.
However, as a business, when you gain your customer, it is crucial in the early stages to build a strong relationship with them. For example, if you sell a service – albeit phone service or fax service or even a dry cleaning service, having a sales rep pick up the phone after the sale to follow up making certain the customer is happy is a great start to building a positive relationship.
By creating an opportunity to discover any questions or problematic issues the customer may be experiencing or feeling, you are able to put out any damaging fires that could have turned devastating.
In addition, when a customer sees your business taking a pro-active approach regarding customer service, you have shown that A) you are not a scam and B) you are sincere in delivering and following through on your promise of delivery.
As simplistic as that sounds, many consumers are very wary of purchasing anything from a company they have not dealt with before. They are taking a risk and distrust runs high – it is up to you to calm their fears.
Get Everything in Writing
With products which are shipped, you can easily prove delivery by requesting UPS or Federal Express to require a signature. However, with products which are non-tangible such as a service or a downloadable piece of software – it is harder to prove delivery. Therefore it is important to implement sales policies which require a signature or contract.
For example, if you are providing a work for hire service, such as programming, it is wise to implement a “sign off” worksheet which requires the signature of the client indicating they approve and acknowledge work was performed.
Signatures are not always easy to obtain but using fax to email services can make it much easier. Other services, such as Echo-Sign provide e-signature software which allows the client to sign and approve documents and contracts online. Echo-Sign handles these digital signatures in a way that is compliant with law and will save copies of each document signed.
When experiencing a chargeback, a credit card company will ask for proof that your product was delivered. Obtaining a legitimate signature is often the only proof you will need, depending of course on the severity of the case.
Obtaining a signature in this manner will also make it less likely a customer will request a chargeback because they know that they submitted their signature acknowledging the work.
Say What You Do and Do What You Say
This is a good principle in all aspects of our lives, but especially true with business because sometimes there are legitimate reasons for why a product was not delivered.
For example, a shipment may have gotten lost in the mail and needs to be resent. Other times as in the case of programming, clients request changes to the project scope and this prolongs the work in progress. This is why it is critical for programmers to require signatures for any work order changes which specifically state such changes can and will delay delivery. Also include a new “estimated” delivery date for the client to acknowledge in the change order form or letter.
Other examples may be due to technical issues, such as phone or internet companies that say they will install service by a certain date, but are delayed due to connectivity issues or an unforeseen backlog.
Regardless of the type of product, it is important to always come through on your promise, and to notify your customers of any changes or disruptions you might be experiencing. Consumers can be very patient as long as you are upfront, honest, and treat them the way you would want to be treated.
Dealing with chargebacks is not a pleasant experience, and every effort should be made to avoid them at all costs. Deal with them before they happen by genuinely building relationships with your clients at the beginning of the business relationship.
Cover yourself legally by taking the proper professional precautions by securing organized and clearly defined documentation of all transactions and correspondence along with signatures. And lastly, have integrity and follow through on your promises. Remember, you are always better off under promising and over delivering, rather than over promising and under delivering!
About the Author: Liz Krause has been involved in the business world for over 15 years, from telecom with a sip voip provider to running her own cooking website and working alongside her husband running a small home based business for over 10 years. She enjoys writing and enjoys sharing her experiences and hopes her insight will help others avoid some of the hardships she has experienced from her own time in business.
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Conduct Your Own PPC Audit in 6 Easy Steps
Any idea how your PPC account is performing? No? Well in 5 minutes you’ll know exactly the steps to take to make sure your PPC campaigns are profitable for your business.
1. Review Past and Present Performance
You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Conducting a solid PPC audit requires reviewing past and present performance, and we suggest you look at a minimum of 3 months worth of data before you begin. Looking at this data alone can show you where changes may be necessary. Once you are familiar with this data you can create a benchmark for the future performance of your account.
2.Review Your Goals
Take some time to step back and review:
- What is the goal of your PPC campaign?
- Are you focused on offering products, services, or both?
- What kind of conversions are you seeking? Do you want visitors to subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form, purchase a product, etc.?
It may seem obvious, but if you haven’t asked yourself these questions recently, it’s time for a review. You can’t possibly have a successful PPC campaign if you haven’t defined what “success” you are looking for in terms of goals, objectives, and specific metrics.
3. Examine Your Budget
Look at the competition, average cost-per-click, and ad position for your chosen keywords, and select a budget that seems appropriate. Different industries have different levels of competition for the industry-standard keywords (check out these top 20 most expensive keywords). Also examine your cost-per-click, CTR, and conversion rates, as these factors all will affect a budget.
4. Analyze Your Current Campaigns
Carefully examine your campaigns, ensuring you have a variety of keywords segmented into many different ad groups. Remember, one campaign ALWAYS needs multiple ad groups. More ad groups mean more specificity, and specificity is a key to a great AdWords campaign. Do your ad groups have more than one ad showing for A/B testing? Well they should. Are your ad groups as tightly constructed into niches as they can be?
5. Ad Copy and Landing Page Adjustments
Develop your ad copy by creating compelling and unique calls to action. Ensure that your copy stays closely relevant with your target keywords and test a variety of different ads to see which ones work best.
Once users click your ads, make sure you are sending them to relevant landing pages. Above all, you want to give users what they are looking for—don’t make them dig around for what you promised in your advertisement. If I clicked on an ad for light-up sneakers, you can bet I’ll want to see those flashy shoes front and center! Ads irrelevant for what someone is looking for will turn into a bounce, which is money you just wasted, misinforming a visitor who was looking for something specific.
Send visitors to well-constructed, tailored landing pages that are relevant to the ads they clicked. Don’t just dump them on the homepage. If your site needs serious construction, review the basics of information architecture.
6. Continue Testing!
The folks who are the most successful with their PPC campaigns are the ones who are constantly testing and improving their campaigns. Your AdWords account will never improve if you leave it on auto-pilot.
If you are feeling lazy and don’t want to do this work yourself, check out WordStream’s new free tool, the AdWords Performance Grader. It serves as a mini PPC audit, grading your campaign on key metrics such as CTR, Quality Score, Landing Page Optimization, and Ad Text Optimization, as well as other PPC best practices. The tool compares your performance to other advertisers in similar budget brackets so you get an idea of how you measure up to your competitors. It also points out where your campaign needs improvement and offers actionable tips for improvement.
You’d never set a camper car to cruise control and then go make a sandwich, and the same applies to your PPC campaign—it requires constant attention. You can take a minute to jam to a great Queen tune, or relax to some NPR easy listening for a bit, but if you just set and abandon your PPC steering wheel, you’ll never get where you want to go.
About the author: Megan Marrs is a marketing associate at WordStream, a provider of PPC software and managed services, as well as keyword software for discovering and organizing keywords for SEO and PPC.
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10 Tips for Top Negotiators
Today in business you don’t get what you ask for– you get what you negotiate. You see, everybody asks “What’s in it for me?” So for you to get what you want, you’d better expect to answer that question for the people you do business with by learning negotiation know-how.
I have had a lot of success in negotiating opportunities lately, specifically since I am not known as an expert negotiator. I have negotiated raises that were 5 times what was proposed, negotiated an executive level spot worth thousands beyond the job description with triple the job security, and bartered online services worth hundreds of thousands of projected income for my company. How did a novice like me achieve these things and learn how to negotiate in business? Here are 10 steps that I use for effective business negotiation:
1. Know What You Want … and What They Need
How basic this sounds, but how difficult to carry out. You need to know specifically what it is you want from the transaction or negotiation. Don’t wait for the other party to state their position to decide what yours is going to be. If you want a raise, how much? A commission for click-thru sales, what %? Write these things down as a wish list of all the things you do want before you begin negotiations. If not you may remember the deal and find you were persuaded into agreeing to terms for things you didn’t need at all. In order to counter effectively and find how your offer matches the other side’s needs, you first need to know what those needs are. Again, be very particular in terms of dollars, percentages, times, etc. Smart negotiators will take their specifics and read between the lines to find points not stated, emotional issues like political wins within the organization.
2. Be Patient
Lack of patience on your part can make you an amateur and kill a deal. Ed Brodow, writer of “Negotiate with Confidence”, says that your patience can be devastating to the other person if they are in a rush. The opposite is the same for you. Conceal self-imposed deadlines that reveal to your adversary that you might be subject to a timetable. “Never accept the first offer”, says Brodow. “They will be more satisfied if you reject the first offer– because when you eventually say “yes,” they will conclude that they have pushed you to your max.
3. Know Your Cut-and-Run Moment
One of the biggest problems with auctions for the buyers is that people get whipped into an enthusiastic craze during the process and bid, and eventually purchase, something at a much higher price than they would have ever considered possible. They fail to know their top bid. This can happen in negotiation too. You must know your fallback position or cut-and-run point. What’s the worst amount you will take?
4. What Battle Is Worth Fighting?
In any settlement you will need to compromise if for no other reason than to allow the other party to feel they have gotten something out of the deal. Decide in advance what are the key compromises you will not make– what’s really important to you. Don’t perish on a hill that is not worth dying on, folks. If you’re being offered a position as an executive in a company, is the monthly car lease an important enough point to be a deal breaker?
5. Match Benefits to Their Needs
For you to expect anyone to give you anything, you know you have to provide valuable benefits to him, whether in a spoken negotiation or a written pitch. Now you know what he wants, so examine your list of attributes for yourself or your company, and seek matches to the needs of your negotiating counterpart. Professional negotiators will find unfulfilled wants that the other party has that weren’t stated and point out how cutting a deal will satisfy them. For example, I recently made a deal on behalf of an online business portal with a national data provider. The firm permitted us to upload data that is normally paid for on a subscription basis in exchange for access to the expected web traffic on the site. This traffic means click-thru sales, which we even negotiated a commission on!
6. Seek Win-Win Transactions
This is a mindset that should occur for you to be successful today. There are no more winners and losers in discovering consultative sales or negotiations. There should be winners on both sides of the deal, so look for gaps that you can fill and look how the other side can fill your gaps. The truth is that every company and every individual is different with different needs and wants. Use that to your advantage. Something that has little cost to you in concession may be a major win for the people you’re dealing with. Let them have it, because the reciprocal situation applies for you. Free software is an example. Software costs little to reproduce, so for that reason the marginal costs to a software company are miniscule, but the value of a package may be immense to the right party. Everybody profits if all sides keep the needs of their opposition in mind rather than thinking about brow-beating them. Situations will surface that you never imagined possible.
7. Find Workable Compromise
This goes back to a prior point. Certain things you cannot live without, but others are manageable. Know beforehand where you can be flexible and just how flexible you can be (Gumby or Plasticman?). Any time you concede on a point in one aspect, including terms of payment, it is perfectly sufficient and expected that the other party will give somewhere else. As long as you keep from flinching on your critical negotiation goals, you can find compromises that permit both sides to meet together in the middle without losing anything of real value.
8. Never Undercut Your Value
This is a basic sales mantra that I live by, and it occurs daily when people concede on price or terms without reducing the scope of service or demanding comparable concessions. If you are willing to take a hit to your pocket book in exchange for nothing, your reliability goes to zero, now and in the future. If you do it once it becomes precedent setting. Furthermore, it leads to mistrust, because you just proved you did not give your best deal from the outset. You’ve set yourself up for the proverbial spitting for distance contest, subjecting your side to future browbeating for unjustified concessions. Any time you concede anything in a negotiation, ensure that you show value becomes a little less from your side or demand additional value from their side.
9. Hold Your Own
If you offer a good proposal and you know it, stand by it! Don’t let fear, condescension from your counterparts, or chiding language make you back off from your position. Let her blow off her steam, telling you how ridiculous your argument is while proving nothing, and then re-emphasize how she wins by doing business with you. Put the ball in her court by asking her to prove there is no value in your offer. It’s easy to throw stones. It’s much more difficult to prove those airborne stones were deserving of flight. Don’t back down and you won’t fail the final exam of the negotiation.
If you cannot get a good deal, follow negotiation expert Brodow’s Law: “Always be willing to walk away.” Other deals are just over the horizon, so don’t get too attached to this one.
10. Get the Deal on Paper
You’ve got what you want and so does the other guy. “Look honey, it’s a win-win situation.” Great! Get it written down before you pat yourself on the back and get it to the other guys for sign-off. Why? First, tomorrow his memory may remember something in a different way. Second, many times negotiators occur between the leaders of organizations or people who guide the operation but have no legal background. As soon as the lawyers and analysts the agreement, you can bet that items will be questioned today that were a done deal yesterday. Oh yeah, it’s true.
The next time you’re in a situation where there is give and take, remember that a negotiation is going on, whether you call it that or not. Apply these ten little principles to your situation and watch with marvel as you get that pay increase, secure that new job, make that next sale, or get that fantastic deal. Then go out to your favorite place to eat and reward yourself with a great dinner for getting what you wanted– on you. You earned it.
About the Author: Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development and cost management consulting firm for small to mid-size enterprises, and Virtual Mastermind, an online network of Mastermind Groups for small business owners . He has made a career of leading, inspiring and raising the game of small business people. He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the Smart Shop, Amazon.com, or Barnes&Noble.com. He can be reached at kwalinskas@smartcompanygrowth.com.
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3 No Brainer (But Often Forgotten) Leadership Tips for Small Businesses
Strong leadership is important for all business owners, regardless of the size of business. However, since small business owners often have many responsibilities, effective leadership is especially important. While leadership may come easy for some, many individuals have to work hard to develop into a good leader. Fortunately, leadership can be improved upon with some hard work. Below are some tips to help you are become the best leader possible while growing a successful business.
1. Make Specific Plans
Drop your ego at the door and get to work. Don’t assume that you know everything. Having an organized plan is a smart first move. Unless a plan is in place, how can you truly budget your time effectively? Laying out procedures and identifying specific roles for each person in the business provides clarity and increased productivity for everyone involved. Since small businesses often have their employee’s working on multiple things at a time, it is important to delegate properly.
You should have both short and long-term goals that address daily, monthly and yearly aspects of running the business. Also, remember that as you business grows and changes, so too should your plans. If you’re taking a “one size fits all” approach to your business, you’re doomed to fail.
It should go without saying, but if you’re putting all this work into developing your plans, make sure you follow through with them. Too often, plans get laid out and then filed away, only to be discovered a few years later as a failed business is cleaning out its offices.
2. Keep Your Eyes on the Horizon
Thinking forward is a key characteristic of good leaders. While the day-to-day operations of the business will often consume the majority of your time, you shouldn’t lose sight of the plans you’ve outlined. The future may seem far away, but ignoring it will certainly hinder your growth. Forward-thinking can help small businesses develop longevity.
Consider creating a mission statement for the business. Such a statement is a quick reference and reminder to you and your employees of why you’re working so hard. If employees have a reason to believe in the company they work for, they’ll put out a better product with a focus on good customer relations. And speaking of customers – they’ll continue to value your business as they notice your commitment to the future. Customers want to support businesses that have a passion for what they do. Your passion is directly related to thinking forward.
3. Invest in Your Employees
While a good business starts with a passionate owner, its success depends on talented employees who will represent the business to the masses. Employees are your best resources, not only in the daily operations, but also in the promotion and growth of your company.
A good employee will be able to do his or her job with very little help from anyone. A great employee will do the job while seeking new ways to make it better and more efficient. Training your employees on proper procedures is vital. A customer’s experience will be so much better if the representative of your business appears to be competent.
There may be times when problems arise. Your relationship with your employees will determine how quickly an issue can escalate. Having an open-door policy promotes dialogue between the business owner, managers and employees. If employees are comfortable in speaking to superiors when something happens, they’ll be more likely to work through a problem rather than just blowing up.
Make sure the open door swings both ways. Seek feedback from employees and let them know that their input is valued and considered. Working together to fix problems and grow the company makes everyone invested in the business.
Following these tips will help make you a good leader while helping your small business to become successful. People want to follow good leaders, so improving upon your skills can help build your business.
About the Author: Don’t forget to invest in yourself and education like you should with your business plan. Villanova University’s online programs provide small business owners and professionals the chance to learn without having to miss work. Villanova offers leadership courses, project management courses, and other professional training programs.
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Four Bosses to Avoid Like the Plague
Bosses Day is today – October 17. If you have a great boss, let them know how much you appreciate them. Who knows, maybe they’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness enough to add a little cushion to your holiday bonus.
And if you have a terrible boss… then it sucks to be you. Few things make going to the office day-after-day and week-after-week worse than a really terrible boss. Here are a few types of bosses that you should do whatever you can to avoid.
The Narcissistic Boss 
This boss thinks that everything is about them. He or she will strive to look and act perfectly in front of their superiors, but when they aren’t putting on a show, the claws come out. These bosses will sweet talk you to your face then steal all of your best ideas and pawn them off as their own. Watch out for the extreme version of this boss – The Sociopath.
The Idiot Boss
This sad excuse for 
a boss got promoted to his or her current position because their dad owns the company or the system just failed in a terrible, terrible way. This boss not only drains your energy level, he or she brings half-ass work to the higher ups, which reflects poorly on you. Do whatever you can to get away from this dead-end boss.
The Inappropriate Boss
This boss is one of the worst because he or she makes the work place uncomfortable on a regular basis. This is the boss who calls the girls sweetheart or gives the guys a slap on the butt. Basically, he is a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. If you have this boss, don’t be afraid of the system – report them as soon as possible.
The Cruel Boss
Possibly the most demoralizing of all bosses is the one who is mean spirited for no reason. This boss gets off on making his or her employees feel small and invaluable. Don’t let your soul be crushed by a boss like this. Apply for a transfer, and in the meantime, try not to take it personally.
Your Turn…
Have you ever worked for one of these demon bosses? What nightmare boss did we leave off the list?
About the Author: Greg Buckskin is a writer and marketer for CableTV.com.
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Photo credit: TheMuuj
Small Business Outsourcing Dos and Don’ts
As your small business grows, you’ll want to start outsourcing some of your tasks so you can grow your business. The following are tips I’ve learned from starting up and growing my own small business:
Outsourcing Dos
Do Outsource Tasks You Hate
We all have those tasks we despise. Personally, I hate the marketing end of things. I love working my craft, but I hate scrounging up new work. Hire someone to do the parts of the job you find yourself procrastinating, such as:
- Marketing efforts
- Writing copy
- Accounting
- Clean up/janitorial services
- Busywork
Do Outsource Offshore
You’ll find that a lot of tasks can be outsourced to offshore contractors for a fraction of the price it’d cost you to hire someone here in the US. Make sure you don’t need the contractor’s English to be perfect, and if not, consider giving a hardworking person in another country the gig.
Do Write Up a Contract
You need to be specific in what you expect from the contractor, how much and how often you’ll pay, and what time frame you expect the work to be completed within. Get all this is writing so there’s no confusion.
Do Pay Your Contract Employees Often
Contractors are afraid of getting burned, so you’ll need to pay them often (usually weekly) if you want to keep them.
Outsourcing Don’ts
Don’t Outsource Essential Tasks
You’ll want to keep your most important tasks in house, even if you find them tedious or exhausting. This is because you have to protect yourself against a flakey contractor or unanticipated circumstances. Only outsource tasks you can recover on your own in an emergency.
Don’t Outsource to Friends or Family
While the temptation is there to keep the work in the family, you’ll find an impartial contractor to be more efficient and respectful (in most cases). Unless you’re 100% sure your friend or family member can handle the task you need covered and will do it right, outsource to a neutral party. Then you won’t be jeopardizing important relationships if the project falls through or something goes wrong.
Don’t Trust a New Contractor
Your new contractor may claim to know how to hang the moon, but you don’t really know what the contractor is capable of until you’ve worked together for a while. Start with small projects and work your way up over time for best results.
Outsourcing Tips
I hope these tips were helpful! It’s important to start outsourcing once your business grows to the point where you can no longer do everything and do it all well. Just remember to outsource carefully and wisely. None of us can do it all!
About the Author: Erinn Stam is the Managing Editor for a nursing scholarship website. She attends Wake Technical Community College and is learning about lpn grants and scholarships. She lives in Durham, NC with her lovely 4-year-old daughter and exuberant husband.
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A Sunny Spot for Small Business [INFOGRAPHIC]
There’s good news on the small business front. After several months of less-than-hopeful jobs reports and economic forecasts, small businesses were looking up in September. Employment, compensation, and hours worked have all grown since August.
Employment in small business is up. More than 50,000 jobs were added since August with growth in nearly all regions of the country.
There was good news for employees too as compensation was also up. Average compensation for hourly small business employees has risen since August.
And lastly employee work hours were up in September. This is a welcome sign for the many small business employees who have seen their hours shrink during the recession.
Take a closer look…
Click for larger image
Image by: http://www.intuit.com/
4 Lessons Learned From Mistakes of Internet Past
The speculative bubble of “dot com” era was a period of rapid growth followed by a significant decline between 1995 and 2000. Many of the companies that prospered during this brief explosion relied on venture capital and initial public offerings to cover expenses.
They valued growth over profitability which later led to significant problems. Companies soared to incredible heights on paper with little actual value, leading to numerous repercussions in the financial world. Even at the time, one didn’t need a PhD to see the problems in online businesses, Companies of today may learn from the mistakes of this time.
1. Using IPOs and Venture Capital for Expenses
Many successful businesses such as Amazon.com, Google, and eBay survived the dot com era. Amazon and Google in particular relied on IPOs and venture capital for expenses, used the free spending strategy, and valued growth over making a profit in the first few years as their stocks soared exponentially. During this time, the founders mostly had no income. Many people profited from this speculative wealth that ultimately led to crash. Educated investors knew the crash was coming and thus profited from the companies’ growth and got out before the stock market crashed. Companies should have a plan for profitability and capital for expenses to avoid this pitfall.
2. Failure to Develop a Solid Business Plan
Businesses should develop plans that include strategies to become profitable within a short time. Investors are more astute since the ’90s’ dot com bubble, and are less likely to invest in companies when the stock prices are overvalued and the fundamentals aren’t favorable. Profitable business plans should include a strategy for marketing, sales, product development, and asset acquisition. Without both long-term and short-term strategy, businesses will fall victim to using the Internet for growth with little concern for their sustainability.
Dot-com-era business all had similar business plans essentially promoting a monopoly in each particular sector. Ultimately, this strategy would allow only one company to emerge successfully and the majority would fail. Moreover, some businesses’ ideas simply didn’t pan out. For instance, online retailers didn’t consider that huge shipping costs would deter users. Their business plans and models were not well researched and didn’t anticipate potential problems that e-commerce would bring, but just relied on the momentum of the public to propel the ideas.
Businesses with novel ideas that will change the way people interact in the world should recognize that these ideas are not developed instantaneously. Many companies have become seemingly successful overnight, but other vital events happened to prepare them for this success. Every company should recognize that not every idea will be profitable immediately.
3. Free Spending
Venture capitalists were freely giving money to business owners, and business owners were freely spending it in turn. They purchased lavish items for the business, took expensive trips, and stayed in luxury hotels. Executives were paid in stock options as opposed to cash. Many of the founders became instant millionaires after the IPO, then founded more dot com companies to repeat the cycle of empty explosive growth. Businesses need to spend prudently until they become actually, sustainably profitable.
4. Predictive Tools Not Used
Many business owners mistakenly expected the adoption of the Internet to be immediate. Current and historical data should be gathered and analyzed to avoid similar mistakes with other new technologies. Numerous tools have been developed since that time to help investors and business owners analyze the market. With these tools, business owners may better be able to identify ideas that don’t have the potential for longevity.
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These are just a few problems that occurred during the dot com era that were detrimental to companies. From the business plan designed to create monopoly to the lack of use of predictive tools for success, the dot com era was plagued with mistakes. The self-made millionaires of the time might disagree, as well as companies such as eBay, Amazon, and Google that survived the crash and continued as internet giants. They are, though, the exceptions, not the rule. In general, businesses should adhere to basic models and principles with proven success rates, even if a lucky few have managed to shoot the moon.
About the Author: Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and
history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things
instead.
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6 Signs Your Small Business is Set Up for Failure
In a day and age when the economy is not being very kind to many companies, how can your small business get its footing, especially when just starting out?
As many small business owners know, starting a new company even in the best of financial times can be challenging.
According to numbers from the Small Business Administration (SBA), seven out of 10 new employer establishments survive at least two years and 51 percent survive at least five years.
While those numbers help to dispel the long-standing belief that many small businesses fail in their first year, the facts are many do just that. Oftentimes, it comes down to simple decision making items like finances, to grow or not grow the staff, being an online fixture and so on.
Challenges Facing the Small Business Owner
In order to get a small business successfully up and running, companies need to build a positive revenue stream, advertise their business, and in many cases hire employees and more. When all is said and done, it can be quite an expensive venture.
While small business owners need to be positive in their venture, they also need to look out for the traps that await them, potentially leaving them in financial peril for years to come.
Among the 6 challenges to steer clear of are:
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1. Beginning a business for the wrong reasons – The reasons can include wanting to have a business to make a bundle of money or getting away from micromanaging managers. While those may be popular reasons, they can also lead one to disaster;
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2. Not having enough financial backing – Too many small businesses start out with good intentions, but they don’t have the financial capital that is truly necessary to make a go of it. While putting one’s business plan together, make sure that the necessary financial capital is in place, including being able to weather some tough times and/or until sales outpace expenditures;
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3. Being a poor manager – Whether the new small business is a one-person show or will involve a number of employees, it is important that solid managerial skills are in place. As many small businesses that have gone under after a short period of time can note, the way things were run could have been better. It is important for small business owners to know how they want to run things from the start, be able to adjust to issues, and know how to manage people if part of the scenario;
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4. Locating the business in the wrong area–If one’s small business is easily accessible and in a high traffic area, the odds are obviously greater for more business. Being located off the main thoroughfare, meantime, can be the death sentence for even a well-planned out business. When shopping for a locale for one’s small business, it is important to determine foot and motor traffic, where competitors may be located, any crime issues in the neighborhood and more to put the business in the best location to succeed;
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5. Growing too quickly – While success early on is great, too many small businesses try and grow too fast, leading to financial issues. As part of one’s business plan, map out the goals of the company and when growth may or may not be a possibility. Sometimes it is best to hold off on expanding the company in order to build up reserve funds, and then expand when the financial timing is better. If thinking about expanding, determine if the current workforce can handle the added work before bringing on new employees and having to factor in salaries and healthcare;
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6. No or limited online presence–In today’s electronic age, too many small businesses still do not put enough emphasis on having a strong Web site presence with which to market both their products and services. By not doing that, they lose out on the ability to interact with both current and potential customers. As more customers turn to online shopping for their needs, small businesses that are hesitant to do so stand the chance of missing out on potential revenue.
Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy; the key for small business owners is to be sure that they put themselves in the best position to succeed, something which is no small task in this day and age.
About the Author: Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects vehicle insurancewrites extensively forwww.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.
Photo Credit: Paul Keller
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