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B-to-B Business Owners: Measure Your Marketing for Success
The best way to ensure you get stellar results from your marketing is one that is overlooked surprisingly often: measure! When you first launch a marketing program, you may have to start by measuring activities, but eventually you’ll be able to measure results. Most importantly – and this is where a lot of measurement efforts fail -- you can measure progress against your plan.Here are a few guidelines to help you get started or to assess your current measuring system: Keep

Supposed you email a question anonymously from your home account. Do you get a reply? How long does it take?

Start Your Own Businesses Ladies
When I first realized that divorce was imminent in my relationship, my first thought was, “What on earth am I going to do for money?” I'm the first to admit that I make a terrible employee. Up to that time, as a stay-at-home-mom, I’d been making my own schedule, making all of the rules with regard to when, where, why and how I was going to do what needed to be done.Against my better judgement, I entered the job search jungle, and hated it. I got a job, and quit after 3 months. When I thou

As a business owner, you are intimately familiar with your company—from the perspective of an insider with a passionate interest in the service and a personal need for the venture to succeed. But have you ever wondered how your customers see your company—and what you could learn if you could see through their eyes?

Good marketing is more than fancy literature and memorable ads. Every action is a form of communication, every verbal interaction is a type of advertisement, and every visual impression is a billboard. Do you know what you are communicating—and how it leads your customers to think of your business? Here are five tips to see your company through your customers’ eyes.

Call your public phone number. How often do you dial in to the number your customers call? Or to your 800 line? If your company has more than one phone and more than one extension, you probably dial directly to the individual you need. Put yourself in the customers’ position and call the advertised store number. How many times does the phone ring before it is answered? What is the tone of the greeting? If you get a recorded message or are put on hold, how repetitive, annoying or understandable is the recording? Can you leave a message without being cut off? If you leave your number without identifying yourself as the boss, how quickly do you get a return call?

Visit your own company web site. Sure, you know what you meant for the site to say. But if you decide to look for a specific product or service, can you find it easily without multiple clicks and dead links? Is the site easy to navigate? Is the information current? Must you scroll down to read long pages of copy? Try filling out your own interactive form. Is it easy? Supposed you email a question anonymously from your home account. Do you get a reply? How long does it take?

Become A Professional Speaker
If you’re a natural talker, you should know that talk isn’t cheap—when it comes to the speaking circuit. In fact, you can actually earn more than $100,000 by delivering motivational speeches. Professional speakers are in high demand these days, thanks to the myriad of speaking opportunities available at schools, charitable functions, and professional workshops. Community organizations, religious institutions, and other groups are constantly on the lookout for speakers for their fundraising b

nteraction is a type of advertisement, and every visual impression is a billboard. Do you know what you are communicating—and how it leads your customers to think of your business? Here are five tips to see your company through your customers’ eyes.

Business Opportunity-How To Make Money-Earn Money
There are so many business opportunities to get into these days. There are no limits because there are many new things to sell and re sell. There is always the food industry. One can sell small time as in homemade goodies being sold to mostly friends and referrals or one can go big time and open up a franchise of say McDonald's or Burger King.As for clothes, one can opt to come up with own designs and offer services to your friends and relatives and then eventually expand. If you wan to g

on, you probably dial directly to the individual you need. Put yourself in the customers’ position and call the advertised store number. How many times does the phone ring before it is answered? What is the tone of the greeting? If you get a recorded message or are put on hold, how repetitive, annoying or understandable is the recording? Can you leave a message without being cut off? If you leave your number without identifying yourself as the boss, how quickly do you get a return call?

Ten Things Not To Write In Your CV -- Part Two
This article is continued from ‘Ten Things NOT To Write In Your CV – Part One’. Your CV (Curriculum Vitae) – Resume for our American friends sells you to your prospective employer. It has to be straight and too the point. However too many CV’s contain irrelevant information. What are the ten things that you shouldn’t write in your CV?6) Don’t be all things to all peopleSome people with a broad range of experience or an eclectic background feel that this can’t be anything but good n

lf as the boss, how quickly do you get a return call?

Ten Tips To Workplace Noise Management
Have you streamlined your business with innovative equipment and progressive training, yet, efficiency eludes you? Do you cringe when you hear the words human error? Is the cash register too quiet and the standard office operating procedure chaotic and unproductive? How can you make your business run smoother and demand optimum performance from your team without becoming more stressed yourself? Stress is your company’s worst enemy. The cost in health care, mistakes on the job, troubled family li

Supposed you email a question anonymously from your home account. Do you get a reply? How long does it take?

Walk around your parking lot. Don’t park in your usual spot in the back. Park out front, where the customers park. Was it hard to find a space? Now sit in your car for a moment and look—really look—at your company’s entrance. Is there trash in the parking lot? Does the entrance need to be painted? Are there weeds around the bushes? How about your signage—is it freshly painted and well lit? Does the overall impression say thriving business—or barely scraping by?

Try to buy your own product. If you sell a product that is sometimes purchased over the phone, call in like a regular customer and try to buy one. Is the salesperson knowledgeable and helpful? Does he or she offer suggestions of complementary products or additions? Are you informed about sales and specials? Must you be put on hold? If you have multiple locations and counter staff who may not recognize you, stroll in one day and be a customer. See how long you wait for service, and how friendly the employees are.

Go talk to your front-line people. You’ve played undercover detective long enough. Now it’s time to do some “management by walking around.” Go to the people who deal directly with your customers—the sales clerks, repair staff, maintenance people and customer service reps. Talk to your telemarketing people—the ones with the headsets, not the managers—and the folks on the loading docks. Ask them what they hear from the customers—and then listen. They know if people grumble about poor service or return products that don’t work. They know about vendors who deliver late and inaccurately and thus delay customer orders. You can learn a wealth of information from the folks who see your customers every day.

If you find areas for improvement, avoid a punitive tone and explore the reasons for the problem. Approach what you learn in a positive way and ask your front-line people to help devise workable solutions that get buy-in and raise pride in the job.

Find out what you are really communicating about your company by seeing through your custo

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In this day and age it can become increasingly difficult to even get your foot in the door and get an interview; once you’ve accomplished that you will want to make sure you continue to put your best foot forward and nail the interview as well.

Do you sometimes get frustrated that others cannot see the relevance or importance of the kind of business changes you would like to make in your operation? Maybe you had great success in a previous business, developing your team, or you've done some reading and are sold on the value of doing some work on the strategy and vision of your current business. The perspective that is missing is that businesses go through states in their development; at any given state of development, paying attention to issues beyond that state is irrelevant. It's not that the concern to introduce work on key business issues is wrong in itself, only that those issues are irrelevant to the current state of the business.

Obviously, the advice process starts with a question. But who will pose the question? Is it the advisor or the one, let’s say the manager, who asks for an advice?

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