Business Strategies

Analyzing Your Business

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business-keywordsEvery now and then, it is good to reflect upon the goals you set forth for your business. This should be relatively easy because the main goal (your version of success) should always be right in the forefront of your mind. Even in all the daily activity that goes into building and maintaining the growth of a business, the vision is at the very core of all that you do.

To go hand in hand with this reflection is a thorough analysis of how the internal workings of your business – your staff, your vendors, your product or service – are measuring up to the tasks that will get you where you want to be. This can be one of the most important jobs a business owner can take on periodically, especially in times when the economy is affecting most businesses.

Looking at the specific strengths and weaknesses of your business will give you a clear picture of where you need to make changes in order to achieve optimal growth and will also show you where opportunity lies. For instance, new trends in the marketplace may pose somewhat of a threat if your business is not utilizing powerful tools that are out there; but by recognizing these new tools, you can evaluate their performance and put them to use once you have proven they are effective.

Here’s what you’ve got to remember: be completely honest in your evaluation of each member of your staff and each vendor you work with, as well as the value of your product or service. Without complete honesty, this is simply a work of fiction and a waste of time. It’s never easy admitting to shortcomings of your own, let alone pointing out the shortcomings of your customer service staff or your managers. Difficult as it may be, it must be done. This is your business – your dreams – at stake.

When listing strengths of your business, you need to be somewhat stingy. This means that the strengths you list need to be above and beyond what your competitors offer. If others’ shipping times are the same as yours, then you could not list that as a strength. But if you offer some sort of a guarantee that they do not, this could be a strength.swot

When considering weaknesses, you’ve got to go through your entire organization; from individual team members to tools of the trade to your actual product or service. Are you offering what people want? Is your customer service filling orders in a timely manner and always professional on the phone? Is there specific expertise that is missing from your organization? Are all of your suppliers working well to fill the orders you provide?

As you know, the name of the game is opportunity. And for those who are truly motivated, opportunity is found everywhere. This means that you can find opportunity even in your weaknesses. For instance, the supplier who is not working out so well will lead you to search for a new supplier. Doing this just may land you into the position of getting better deals on products and increasing revenue, not to mention happy customers who get their products on time!

Analysis is a must for anyone serious about reaching their goals in business and in life. While it may be a somewhat painful process, no pain no gain!

Don’t Forget Why You Do What you Do!

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As a business owner who is striving to grow an online store, a corner store, or a large service oriented company, you have probably felt the minutes slip right through your hands as time wears on. Time; it’s your most valuable asset; and yet it is the one thing that can be the hardest to gain control over.

In all of the hustle and bustle of building a website and then creating quality content that will rank your landing page or pages, it is common to lose sight of the big picture. At the center of the big picture of your business is your why. Without that motivating factor, there will come a time when you can no longer push tworldhrough obstacles like ever changes SEO practices and marketing techniques.

When you started your business, hopefully you chose something you love. At the very least something you can maintain an interest in! Beginning in this way allows you to stay motivated throughout the process of outsourcing work or building your website and then marketing it. This inspiration that you feel when planning for the future of your business is critical in maintaining the energy it will take to build it up.

The main way that business owners stay on track is through goal setting. Writing down your business plan, mission statement and goals is highly important. Mission statements are personal and should include that dream that you wish to achieve and why. I twebbusinesshink of a mission statement as somewhat of a personal dream statement. Next comes the business plan, for without that, you may easily lose direction.

If you have a business plan but it’s stuffed in the back of your desk drawer, I suggest you pull it out and put in somewhere you can see it regularly. The same goes for your mission statement. Frame them and display them on your desk if that’s what it takes to really pay attention to them. In your business plan, you should include what work you can handle on your own, and what work would be better handled through outsourcing.

Outsourcing work to skilled SEO writers and web designers can seem a task that may be costly; but in the long run, there are some tasks that would just take you too long to complete. Therefore, outsourcing will save you money and add the bonus of growing your business faster!

Staying motivated in your business can also be facilitated through time off. You heard right; taking time away from the desk, the office, the phone and the email can rejuvenate you and remind you why you started your own business to begin with. When growing a business, there are many important aspects to tend to; marketing is important, SEO is important, web design is important, this is true. But above all, your dream is important! It was the dream that ignited the spark that got you going, and it is the dream that will see you through. Do what it takes to keep it alive.

Working From Home Effectively

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For several years, I had hoped to earn the title “Work at Home” anything.  But the field in which I worked simply didn’t allow it.  When my time finally came to take that leap from working in an office to actually running a business from the comfort of my own home, I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn about being organized enough to stay on top of the many tasks I faced every day while still maintaining a home life.  For a long time, I felt as though I could quite get that balance of work and family to a place where I wasn’t teetering from one extreme to the other.

I have realized that I am a workaholic.  Once I was given the freedom from spending 8 hours a day in an office, I found I was working 12+ hours in the home office on most days!  This certainly doesn’t leave much time for any other activities that are necessary for a happy, healthy life.

It’s important for anyone who works remotely to take measures that will keep them from becoming a prisoner of their work.  Remember, you wanted to work from home in order to have freedom, not confinement.  It is actually beneficial for those who work away from the office to schedule breaks throughout their day.  I know that sitting at the desk from dawn until dusk can be a hard habit to break for many dedicated freelancers and entrepreneurs; but if you understand that getting away from work for just a few minutes can actually make you more productive, you may be more open to stepping away from that desk.

Those who have kids may have built in breaks throughout their day, such as transporting to and from school.  This is ideal because all you need is just a few minutes away from the task at hand in order to rejuvenate.  However, if you don’t have built in breaks, perhaps the following ideas can help you create some for yourself.

  • Make sure to start the day off right with a nice breakfast.  If the weather is nice, I like to sit on the porch.
  • Taking a mid-morning walk in nice weather can be super refreshing and increase your productivity until lunch.
  • Schedule lunch with co-workers or a friend at least once a week.  Taking this break with co-workers can allow you time to discuss updates and roundtable ideas while still getting you out of the house.  On days when you don’t have a lunch date scheduled, still take that 30 minute break and eat something!
  • If the weather doesn’t permit you to get outside, take a break in a room away from your work.
  • Allow yourself to make a non-work related phone call during the day.
  • Set up a work schedule that will keep you on track.  I have to give myself a stop time or I will work until well into the night.
  • I actually enjoy doing my household chores.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment.  I also focus much better in a clean environment.  So sometimes I will start a load of laundry before I begin a work task.  Then I take a short break to change the clothes over to the dryer.  May not be the most exciting break, but when I sit back down I find I have renewed clarity and focus towards the task at hand.

Those of us who work from a home office can easily be drawn into disorganization with our time.  We either work too much or too little.  Working too much essentially takes away from not only your productivity, but also your zest for life in general!  Take a break every single day.  Read a book; do something for yourself.  Doing so will benefit both you and your business.

StartRankingNow – Working from Home Really is a Viable Option

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With the economy leading companies to downsize, too many people are finding themselves in a situation where they do not have a 9 to 5 job to go do every day.  On the surface, losing your corporate job may seem like a stroke of bad luck; but if you look just a little deeper, you just may find that the opportunity to work from home is a very viable option.

“Work from home”.  In the past, those words could make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad for everyone; but at the very least, those words conjured up visions of stuffing envelops or making perfumed jewelry.  Bottom line, most work from home opportunities turned out to be little more than a way for companies to make money off of motivated individuals.  At one point in time, work from home opportunities meant multi-level marketing, a businesses many people just didn’t want to be a part of.

Don’t let these words scare you anymore.  With the steady advancement of the internet, there are multiple ways anyone with a little motivation and some ingenuity can break into business for themselves and be able to legitimately work from home.  Let’s take a look at ways to earn money using the power of the web:

  • Blogging – A blog, for the most part, is easy and inexpensive to start and maintain.  The most valuable investment you will make in a blog is time.  Blogs can be specific, dealing with topics from business to fitness.  They can also be very general, acting as a sort of online diary.  The main point is that a blog that is interesting will gain popularity and a following of readers.  When a blog has a large following of readers, it becomes attractive to advertisers who will “rent space” on your blog page.It may take some effort for someone who isn’t an avid blogger to learn the ins and outs of how to blog effectively and how to get your startrankingnow blog noticed.  It’s not really as simple as posting a blog and the world instantly sees it.  “If you build it, He will come” does not apply to any internet website!

    Blogging also has immense benefits for small ecommerce businesses as it provides a way of marketing your online business in a way that sets you up as an expert in your field.

  • Ecommerce – Electronic commerce is a way of doing business electronically, typically utilizing the internet as a platform from which to launch.  Most ecommerce falls under the category of e-tail, which is online retail sales of an item or niche items.Thanks to easy to use drop shipping programs, the cost and convenience of really getting your own online store up and running has become a much simpler process.  When drop shipping is implemented in a work from home ecommerce business, products are not paid for until they are purchased by your customer. This eliminates the need for a large up-front investment as well as any inventory control.  More and more people are finding the benefits of drop shipping.

These are just two options that enable people to get into a small business of their own.  If e-commerce or blogging is just not your thing, hopefully this article has given you the starting point to find how you too can work from home.

Dan Kennedy’s NO BS Books

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If you have any desire to be a success in marketing, then Dan Kennedy’s NO BS Books need to put at the top of your Must Read Books for 2009 list.  One of the key things I took away from reading his books was that absolutely no marketing material should ever leave your office without a specific call to action.  He had an example of what he called “yellow pages marketing”.  Basically the concept is that your ad in the Yellow Pages should have an offer with a call to action.  The call to action should be compelling and move Mr. Couch Potatoe to get up and visit that website, call that phone number, and best case, make that purchase!

We put our heads together and a few days after reading the books the Yellow Pages representative called us up about renewing our ad for 2009.  We quickly redid our bland bullet point ad and put in an offer for a free gift if they visit a specific url on our church website.  We did not put what the offer was as we need to have the ability to change the offer depending on the response rate.  By telling people to visit our website, it gives us another opportunity to present our offer and also gives us an opportunity to try to get their email and even possibly their address so we can follow up with a real live visit.  What is better than letting your leads come to you?

Insert Success Story Here Later 🙂

As the Stompernet Live 7 conference is coming up, it is time to make some more business cards before the trip.  Following the idea that every piece of marketing material should have an offer.. we got really creative here!  Don’t want to spoil the surprise so check back after the first weekend in March to see what we did!

Setting Goals for 2009

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As the New Year approaches it is that time to set some New Years Resolutions.  Apart from the typical New Years resolutions to lose that last 10 pounds of pregnancy baby weight, eat healthier, exercise more, spend more time with the kids (do you ever spend enough time with the kids), read more books and of course spend more time with my husband, it is also a good idea to set some goals for each of the businesses!

How to Set Goals for 2009

Start Backwards.

First step is to think about where you want to be at the end of 2009.  These goals can best be represented in dollar amounts but could also be represented in traffic, page views, rakings for keywords and so on.  Depending on how many different websites and businesses you are involved in, this might take a little work!  It is not enough to simply say that you want to make $1,000,000 in sales for 2009!  Take each of your profit generating websites or as I like to call them, “money sites”, and think about where they are at now financially and where you would like them to be at the end of the next 12 months.  Second step is to divide up the year into four quarters and to assign what goal each site or business needs to be producing each quarter in order to meet your financial goal for the year.  For example if I have a site that is producing $6K per month in sales now and I want it to go to $18K per month by the end of 2009, then for the first quarter, my goal will be to increase that from $6K per month to $9K per month.  The second quarter the goal will be $12K, third quarter $15K and by the end of the fourth quarter of the year, $18K.

Write it down.

Second step is to write down your goals in the most visual way possible so that they will always be in front of you for the next 12 months.  My new best friend are the huge white sticky post its.  Take one of the huge post its, write the name of the business at the top and then write down the financial goals for each quarter.  Stick this huge post it in your home or work office or somewhere where you will see it every single day.  You could write your goals in a business journal or in a file in your computer but I find it best if you actually print out your goals and then post them up somewhere you can look at them everyday of 2009.

Break it down.

Next step is to write out what needs to be accomplished to be able to reach your goals.  Don’t hold back here.  On the same huge post it that you have the goals written down on for 2009, write out all the steps you need to accomplish to be able to reach your goals.  Maybe that is add live chat to your website.  Maybe start a newsletter list.  Maybe blog 2 times per week.  Write down all of your ideas and be as specific as possible.  As you achieve and accomplish each of these tasks you can cross them off of your list.  As you think of more you can also add them to your list.  The most important thing is to keep pushing towards your goals.  Many times we have great ideas but they never get implemented as we are too busy with the day to day activities.  Having the goals or steps we need to accomplish written down in a highly visual place will help us to always stay focused to the bigger picture. Some tasks can be outsourced.  I even have a list of things I want to learn how to do for 2009.  Family goals can be written down as well as personal and spiritual goals.  Don’t just write down: Read 12 books.  Write down the names of the 12 books.  If you don’t know which books you want to read, keep adding to the list as you have books recommeded to you.

Plan it out.

Next step is to make a serious attempt to plan out how you will implement the steps to achieve your goals in 2009.  As you look at all of the steps you need to accomplish to reach your goals, it is time to plan out the calendar year of exactly when you will be focusing on and accomplishing each of the steps.  This can also be accomplished with a huge post it.  Write down the first date of each week for 2009 and write out next to it what you will be focusing on for that week.  Take into consideration holidays, family vacations, and so on.  You will soon find that the year 2009 is quickly becoming filled!  A saying we learned in college was “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.  Take time to plan and you will soon find that as the months pass you will be accomplishing much more than in years past.

Keep Track

Last step is to create one final chart where you can record your progress.  Again, a huge post it comes in real handy here.  You don’t have to be fancy here.  Fancy takes time. A simple chart where you can record the monthly progress of each of your businesses with each of your goals.  You want to be able to quickly look and see if your efforts have been working.  You don’t want to get to the end of 2009 and realize that you worked the whole year but the strategy was not as effective financially as you hoped!  Keep track of what works and focus on the most profitable strategies first.  If something is not working, don’t wait six months to change direction.

Now go set some goals!

(PS next year I will be selling huge Post Its!)

Power of Audio on Your Website

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This week we had an amazing visit from a pastor in a small town.  As many of you know my husband pastors a church in Puebla, Mexico.  About three years ago he began to add downloadable audio preachings to the church website, http://www.iglesiacristianabautista.com.  Little did we fully understand the impact that one site was going to have on the lives of hundreds of people. If you have any type of informational website and don’t have audio, read the following summary of how one simple addition to your website can have a tremendous effect.

A pastor had been pastoring for over 20 years in a small town in Mexico and had 30 people attending his church.  The small town he pastors in does not have internet access or most of today’s modern conveniences.  About three years ago while visiting another town and searching the internet for some information, he stumbled upon the website www.iglesiacristianabautista.com.  He found that the website contained many preachings about soulwinning, evangelism, and how to build your church.  He began to download the preachings to his MP3 player and take them back to his church so that the rest of the church congregation could listen to the preachings.  The church members had a great desire to reach others for Christ but did not know exactly how to do it.  After listening to the preachings about soulwinning, the church members and teens of the church began to go out and reach people in their community.  Every time the pastor visited the larger town he downloaded more preachings and brought them back to his church so they could continue to listen to them.  They finally heard about a soulwinning conference that was going to be held in Pastor Kevin Wynne’s church in Mexico City.  The pastor attended the conference and met a pastor and friend of ours, Pastor Victor Castillo in Texcoco, Mexico.

Fast forward three years to this week.  Pastor Victor Castillo had invited the pastor from the small town to come to preach to his church in Texcoco.   As they were driving through Puebla, the pastor began to explain to Pastor Victor Castillo how his church had grown from 30 people to an astounding 120 in the last few years due to the impact of listening to the preachings from a pastor named Pastor Arturo Munoz and asked him if he knew him!  As we are good friends he called us up and a few hours later they had lunch in a local restaurant where my husband, Pastor Arturo Munoz heard this amazing story.  The pastor explained that each month he now travels to the large town close to his to download the preachings and takes them back to his church so that they can listen.  He said that all the teens in his church know my husband by name and would be very excited to be able to now see a picture of him and know that their pastor met him in person.  He also asked if my husband could please upload some new preachings as they had already listened to all of the preachings from November!  How exciting is that!

As I heard this amazing story I remembered another amazing story about a church in the country of Columbia.  While we were visiting churches for four months in 2008, we ran into some missionaries that are pastoring in Columbia.  They said that everyone in their church know us as each Sunday after their services, they log in to the site www.iglesiacristianabautista.com and watch our live streaming preaching services!  They also subscribe in readers and download the preachings to listen to throughout the week.

What a tremendous blessing it is to know that the power of God’s word is being spread throughout the world through our efforts of learning and using multimedia on the internet.  If you are pastoring a church or running a business and still don’t have audio on your website, now is the time to get started!

AVG Anti Virus Software Customer Service Nightmare

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File:AVG Similar Icon.svg - Wikimedia Commons

As many of my friends on stompernet.com have recommended using AVG anti-virus software I decided to try this over the popular but system hog Norton. For the very first day of the free 30 day trial of the AVG software, I have tried to purchase the full version to no success.  The first day I downloaded the software and filled out the form to purchase and handed over my American Express.  Two days later I got an email saying that the transaction did not go through.  Okay.  Maybe American Express did not let it go through as they are sometimes very strict about charges on the internet due to protecting their customers from fraudulent charges.  Instead of calling American Express to figure it out, I pulled out the Mastercard.  Two days later same email.  Transaction could not go through.  Maybe their system is down?  Let’s wait and try again later.  A few weeks pass and I try again this time via paypal.  No luck.  Two days later another email.  Try a fourth time.  Still no luck.  Finally I send an email explaining that I cannot purchase their software and the response I get indicates that their customer service people either can’t or don’t want to read English.  No, AVG, you are not going to find my order number as I can’t place an order!  If you are listening AVG, please fix your order processing system before I have to purchase Norton!

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Dear Nicole,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately we have been unsuccessful in searching for your
purchased AVG License Number in our customer database.

To identify your purchase, please provide us with following
information:
– Company name (if applicable):
– Registered name (individual):
– Registered e-mail address:
– Country:
– Address:
– AVG product and the number of licenses:
– Date of AVG purchase (month and year)

Where did you purchase your AVG product?

If you purchased AVG in our on-line shop, please include a copy of the
e-mail that you received from Digital River GmbH (element 5), our
processing company or provide your reference number and order number

If purchased from an AVG Authorized Reseller, please provide the name
of that Reseller.

If your AVG product is already installed, you can find and verify your
AVG License/Sales Number using the following steps:

In AVG 7.5:
Please go to the License window of the AVG Control Center (Information
-> Activate AVG).

In AVG 8.0:
Please go to the License component in AVG (Open AVG -> double-click
the License component).

We recommend that you use copy&paste method to enter the AVG License
Number, as described at:
http://www.avg.com/faq/?num=988

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best regards,

Antoniya Zaharieva
Customer Service
AVG Technologies

website: http://www.avg.com

———————————————————————————-

Did you know that AVG Internet Security software and its virus
detection technology have won numerous industry awards and
certifications?
If you want to find out more, please visit:
http://www.avg.com/doc/76
On Mon Dec 08 21:13:44 CET 2008, Nicole Munoz wrote:

> Full name: Nicole Munoz
> Email address:
> Company: none
>
> License number: n/a
> License type: Nothing
> Product title: Internet Security 3-pack
> Number of licenses: n/a
>
> OS: Vista
> Service pack: n/a
> Program version: 8.0
> Build version: n/a
> Virus DB version: n/a
> Area: Sales Number
> Issue: Purchase
>
> Issue description:
> I have tried to purchase the software 4 times unsuccesfully.  I tried to purchase with a Mastercard, American Express, and via paypal.  All three times I waited 2 days each and the transactions did not go through.  I just tried via paypal right now and I hope it goes through.  My trial version has expired and I want to buy the full version.  Please look into your payment processing system asap.
>
> Country: MEXICO
> Choices sequence: 0B-1B-2D-3M-4C-5ET-6EQ
>
>

I hired somebody, now what?

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I was on a private faculty call with some stompernet members yesterday and someone basically asked the question, “I hired somebody, now what?”  Since I was not the one answering the questions, I could not give my two cents… so let me take this opportunity to share my opinion!

For most business owners, we know we need to outsource.  We know we just don’t have time to do all the things we need to do. We spend lots of money on ebooks, coaching, courses that promise success.  We even complete the courses, finish reading the books, vow to do better.  The number one factor is time.  We don’t have the time to do everything we need to do.  Case in point.  I know I need to market to my email list.  I mean I have 10,000 names already! I have sent out a grand total of 3 emails in the last 5 years.  So YES I need to do that.  YES it would most likely generate some sales.  YES it would reactivate some old clients. YES it would help me to move some of the inventory sitting in the warehouse.

The power of the group. I was fortunate enough to be accepted into a super secret Beta program within stompernet.com to be able to test out the effectiveness of the new program.  I won’t share all the cool details now… I have to wait until after the launch of this new cool super secret Beta program! But basically, in one of our group phone calls I committed myself to get started on the email campaign. First week went by and I wrote the first email in the auto-responder series that I have set up with aweber.com and then I programmed the mailing list to let me know when someone new signed up.  (A former employee email address was still being notified!) I then went in, figured out which template I wanted to use and then got to work writing my first email.  I decided to write one on Parenting Tips as it was topically related to that mailing list and for a mom of five, soon to be six, writing on parenting is pretty easy! I then went out and hired two people.  One to write the emails and another to put them into the autoresponder series.  Why two?  Well I hired them both full time… one as a full time writer and the other as a full time Editor for my team of writers.  I told the Editor it was going to part of her job to take care of the email campaigns for me!  So now when we have our group coaching mastermind phone call on Monday I can say, YES I did my homework. The power of the group.  Peer pressure at it’s best!

Back to the topic.  Let’s say you found someone willing to work for your budget and you want them to be as profitable as possible.  We all know that links is one of the most important factors in improving search engine rankings.  In this case I would recommend you to purchase the software program internet business promoter and to have them to some initial analysis of your site.  Get the business version as you are a business owner correct?  And use the link section to have the software find some potential link exchange partners for you.  Then INSTEAD of doing link exchanges, have your new employee call the websites and see if any of them would be willing to place an article on their site in exchange for a link back to yours! Then have your new employee write up an okay article related to the website content of the OTHER site. Somewhere in the middle if it is relevant or in the author resource box, have your new employee add a link back to your site.  Of course the link should be with a keyword and the keyword should be the same as the title of the page you are linking to… and of course, NEVER link to your home page.  It is a waste of a good link! This is just a start of the many things you could have your new employee do… but in my opinion, a good start.  Make a goal for them to have 2 completed articles placed on other sites per week.  Within a month they should have a list of 10-15 sites that are willing to put up your articles on a monthly or weekly basis.  At that point, or even sooner, you will want to outsource the writing part and have your new employee focus on just going out and finding new partners and cultivating the realtionship you have with the current partners.  There you have it!