Top7 or 10 Tips

Do you own a small business and want to make it an absolute success?

Then you’ve come to the right place!

You see, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many fellow small business owners and I’ve been able to help them make millions of dollars in increased revenue in my time with them.

Over that time I’ve found that most small business owners are usually missing some of the most fundamental things in their business.

Here are just 7 fundamental things that will make your offline business an absolute success…

Tip #1 - ‘Indirect’ Marketing – Now before you roll your eyes and scream, “Oh gosh not another one!” Hear me out. First of all your marketing is not just your flyers, ads or sales pieces, but rather things like adding copy to the back of your business cards, the presentation of your products, how your employees speak to your customers, how your busin...

Small and medium businesses tend to use information technnology for what they percieve as being absolute necessities. That's not a bad approach but it can cause you to miss opportunities to grow your business and save money Without a budget that will support a chief technology office or experienced director of I.T. how do you know what you really need? We're here to help!

1. A reliable backup of your data

While it may seem obvious to most of the small and medium businesses we visit this is just not the case. Just having a tape drive and backup software is not enough. You should test your backup on at least a monthly basis. It doesn't need to be a complete restore all of the time, just pick out a few files and see if your I.T. staff can restore them. If you use outside consultants it's worth the money to have them come in and test your backup on a quarterly basis. It should...

Creating A Winning Business Culture is the most important action any manager or business owner can take. Here's 10 ways how to do it right...

1. Great Environment

Have the place you work comfortable, with all resources in place. You have to get this right first, before expecting a great culture.

2. Be Very Clear

Through having a set of standards you state clearly and a process for identifying to people exactly what is expected of them, there will be no surprises. People will have their goals and targets. It will be easy for them to understand and deliver.

3. Encourage Sharing

Through your own modelling, you can help all of your people to work closely together in a generous and supportive way. Be the 'shining beacon' in this.

4. Be a Champion

Shout your loudest for how proud you are of your people as ind...

Currently companies are investing significant amounts of investment in distributed, mobile and remote workers the aim of reducing operating costs. This article details 7 proven ways to realise significant returns on these investment.

1. Introduce benchmarks to assess/measure performance
It is key before undertaking any business organisational change is to understand exactly what the objective of the exercise is and to set targets so that progress towards the objectives can be understood and measured. You should establish 'savings targets' a soon as possible, both for improvements in team efficiency, reduction of staff costs and cost of accommodation. During the course of, and after, the implementation you should regularly monitor actuals against estimates to ensure that savings are actually as anticipated.
2. Standardise your implementation strategy...

Intercultural Communication Tips

Working across cultures is a new experience for many people. Intercultural communication can be a dynamic and creative affair but occasionally due to the inability to interpret people correctly it can be a challenge. Building an understanding of other people’s cultures, their communication styles and behaviors can go a long way in improving relationships and being more successful in an intercultural environment.

Even without trawling through lots of books, articles or even taking part in an intercultural communication workshop it is possible to implement some basic principles to help improve one’s intercultural communication skills. The following intercultural communication tips are provided to help people working in international and multicultural environments get some basic insight into dealing more effectively with people and...

Over the past month I have been reflecting on the topic of organisational management. I am surprised by the number of organisations that survive perhaps through the benefit of their size or monopolistic position even though they exhibit some of the very worst management traits I've experienced.

Some corporations like Enron, HIH and WorldCom do fall by the wayside, whilst others continue on in mediocrity. Organisations that are shaken up by a leader with a true vision for the organisation inevitably experience a degree of pain that could have been avoided had previous leaders not exhibited one of the following top ten management failures.

Misdirected goals: Leaders sometimes espouse a mantra about what to do because it is fashionable without actually collecting and analysing data and then developing goals based on real information.

Corporate history i...

1. Stay focused - Stick to basic, do what you do best, make sure that you know what your goal is. Your goal should guide your actions.

2. Complete the business plan preparation before taking any action. Well plenned business saves a lot of money and frustration.

3. Conduct a comprehensive market analysis that includes products, services, costs, prices, distribution, advertising and quality.

4. Make sure you can finance the business activities according to the business plan you have prepared and a bit more for unexpected expenses.

5. Quality of your product/service should be according to the requirements and needs of your target market.

6. Monitor and control financial aspects. You can catch financial problems while they are small.

7. Define in advan...

We all know that case studies serve as a great method of educating and attracting new customers to your product or service. But don’t forget that published case studies can also attract journalists and media coverage about your company. This attraction and coverage can bring you more customers.

The following are ten tips to follow when sending out press releases associated with a new case study’s publication on your site.

1. Just the facts, ma'am - Keep the facts concise. Tell the prospective journalist or customer, why the case study is important.

2. Pitch, pitch and re-pitch - Think about doing a couple of different releases about your case study with different angles targeted at different verticals. For instance, if your product works exceedingly well in both the legal and financial arena, then come up with two releases that highlight specifically how it works we...

If you haven't heard of phishing scams yet then Google it quickly before your bank account is emptied or you can watch last weeks episode of 'Numb3rs' and watch the angry face of an FBI agent once he realizes that his account has been the victim of war-driving. Still don't feel you should get off the couch and fight back then do a search on 'spear phishing' and get an eye full of what hackers are prepared to do to businesses and soon enough consumers. With that in mind let's approach the top 7 reasons below...

1. Your credit really can't take any damage from a hacker.

2. If your credit is good enough to take severe damage from a hacker then contact me immediately before a hacker targets my account.

3. How many banks and other companies have lost personal information to this date, how many more times are we going to wait for the headlines to report yet anot...

A key issue for people setting up a business is how to build a reputation that will attract customers.

When your reputation is good enough, people will ask you to contact them.

Why is reputation so important? Because as owner-managers, we are all really short of time and we really need to make our prospecting time count. What we need is a steady trickle of enquiries and referrals that will allow us to spend time with good prospects and so maximize our selling time. A good strategy is to drive traffic to our web-site which is set up so as to maximize the amount of exposure we get and convert interest into a live enquiry using effective language that results in an easy to follow call to action.

Reputation is a complex animal. It has something to do with expertise and competence, something to do with likeability and something to do with how many people have been ...

It behooves all businesses to support the community, which supports them. It is for this reason that so many small businesses succeed when they act like community businesses and why Corporate America spends so much money on Public Relations. Here are some tips to help you business become more community active and reap the rewards of doing the right thing and participating in your community.

1.) Spend the minor dollars on advertising in Booster Club Schedules, newsletters and such.

2.) Sponsor a Little League Team and a Miss Local City Contestant.

3.) Join the Chamber of Commerce and host a Mixer.

4.) Donate Door Prizes and gift certificates to Silent Auctions.

5.) Have an executive of your company join the Rotary, Kiwanis, Optimist, Elks or other local service club.

6.) Sponsor a Fundraiser on your business property or donate use of a room for the n...

Having successfully gained some customers – how do we keep them?

This is a crucial question - companies lose half their customers in 5 years (according to the Harvard Business Review) and it costs 7-10x as much to get a new customer as to keep an old one.

The Cranfield Benchmarking study tells us that the average UK company just keeps pace with the fall-off. So we really need to pay attention to retaining those valuable customers. So apart from giving them that really good service that will build your reputation, deliver you referrals and make a friend for life – what else should you be doing?

Well the fancy name for it is customer relationship management (CRM) but for most of us this is going to mean having a customer database and a communication strategy that is going to keep reminding them of who we are and what we do. The first thing you must do is to h...

Have you ever considered hiring a business consultant to assist you in your business expansion? It often makes sense to do this if you own a small independent business, which is not associated with any dealer networks or franchise systems.

Yet you have to be careful when hiring a business consultant. Are you sure they know what they are talking about, understand the dynamics of your market or industry? If not how can you be certain you will not be wasting you money? Here are the top 7 tips to hiring a business consultant for your company.

1.) Make sure that your ego and their ego match, if they are too much of a bully it will cause endless non-productive friction.

2.) Read up on any and all previous articles and advice this consultant has put out; does it appear to be worthy advice?

3.) Do not be fooled by pure professionalism or titles, sure it is nice, but ar...

Hiring a lawyer means spending money. Spending money on something that does not help your bottom line or profitability. For the most part it is a cost of doing business and one, which no one wishes to spend. Some liken lawyer costs to extortion fees to protect your company against other professional parasites. Lawyers have been called sharks, parasites, mafia and even Terrorists. Nevertheless, when you need one of these _ _ _ _ you have no choice. Here are some tips to consider when hiring a business lawyer.

1.) Make sure your business lawyer is politically connected in your area.

2.) Make sure your business lawyer knows your industry specifically.

3.) Make sure your business lawyer is feared by bureaucrats and other lawyers in that sector.

4.) Make sure your business lawyer pays money to political candidates.

5.) Make sure your business lawyer is ruthles...

If you are an online article business writer then it makes sense to write articles that the most people will indeed read. The best way to do this is to carefully choose titles such as put in the title; Top 7 Tips or Top 10 Secrets. These articles will get the most traffic, as they play into the attention span of the Internet viewer who most likely wants to get the information without all the verbiage. So without further comment here are the top 7 tips to getting your online business articles in the Top 7 Tips Category.

1.) Write your article with authority

2.) Put Top 7 or Top 10 in the title

3.) Find an article online submission website which has these categories

4.) Make your articles relevant to the reader with good information

5.) Make your articles at least 250-350 words in length

6.) Be sure to specifically number each item so there is no poss...

All businesses worry about lawsuits because we live in such a ridiculous litigious society. It is truly unfortunate and yet this is what happens, business owners live in fear. You never know when an employee is going to claim they were injured at work to sue you and then go water skiing on vacation. You never know when a non-customer will stage a slip and fall injury and sue your company.

Below are some super tips to try to minimize your business from falling victim to the professional parasites of the world.

1.) Be careful in hiring employees and ask them about previous lawsuits to employers, write what they say on their application and have them sign it.

2.) Have placards on your entrances such as; Watch Your Step!

3.) Mention in casual conversation how your family members are ruthless lawyers.

4.) Act broke, never disclose how much money you are making...

If you want to win in business and increase sales then you need to increase market share and this can be done many different ways. Rather than picking only one strategy consider a multiplicity approach to your market share goals. Below are a few of the top tips in increasing market share and winning new customers.

1.) Know Thy Competition; you need to study what the competition is doing right and what they are doing wrong.

2.) Know Thy Customer; you must understand the consumer buying behavior of your customer.

3.) Consider additional market segments, which maybe untapped or have less competition and how profitable and large these are.

4.) Strategize on ways to be more efficient to lower price temporarily to increase your customer base.

5.) Sales or marketing promotion, which taps into your core customer base to increase your sales numbers.

6.) Crea...

If you own a business then surely you realize that there are so many ridiculous rules and regulations to business that it is difficult to turn a profit. These issues have caused more business failures in the United States than any other reason. Some say the number one reason of business failure is under-capitalization.

True, but the reason businesses are under-capitalized is that they under-estimate all the costs associated with all the bizarre and often laughable (cry-able) regulations. The government is the number one cause of business failure in the United States and there are hundreds of thousands of case studies, so that point cannot be debated in any forum poised at telling the truth. Here are some top tips in beating the bureaucracy game in business.

1.) Know all the rules in advance before you start.

2.) Know the all the costs in complying with all the rule...

How can you spot an expert business article writer or knowledgeable business consultant from a wannabe pretender self-proclaimed marketing guru? It is difficult to separate those with actual business experience from those who are self-promoters of nothingness. I have developed the Top 7 Tips in spotting the bogus expert business articles and uncovering those ten-gallon hat wearers who write them.

1.) Self-promoters generally sound very salesy and use multiple marketing tricks and catch phrases in each article.

2.) Wannabe marketers write articles only talking about their sales cassette tapes, secret marketing programs or books.

3.) Pretender business writers tell of irrelevant events to help guide their points of contention, which clearly have no basis to support their argument.

4.) Those with no real business experience claim their experience in marketing ...