BUSINESS BLOG

When you decide to buy a franchise, you're giving your business a major head start in so many ways. By trading on an established name, you slash your advertising costs. Because the franchisor wants you to succeed, you have access to everything that they've learned in years of doing business to help you choose your site, develop your staff, design your store - in fact, in every aspect of starting up your own business. A franchise business opportunity gives you your best shot at succeeding in owning your own business - if you choose the best franchise opportunity for you. The start-up costs are part of the arguments against buying into a franchise business opportunity. Other cons include the monthly payments to the main franchisor of the business as well as marketing costs. If you want to use the corporate headquarters clever marketing campaigns, you have to pay for the privilege. Then there are the restrictions on suppliers and such. Usually the corporate headquarters of your ...

You cannot fail when you give more than 100 percent. In whatever endeavour you are doing, always give more than one hundred percent. You will find that whenever you do this, your rewards will always be far greater than the extra effort you expended. Some people refer to this success concept as going the extra mile. What it means is that you need to give people more than they expect. If you are working in your business and want to see it grow, the surest way to achieve it is by giving more. Customers are impressed when they discover a business that is innovative and gives them more than what they expected. Look for better and more efficient ways to do things. For example, make it easy to order from your site. Reduce the number of clicks to get to relevant information about your product or the order form. Don't be afraid of giving information for free. This is a crucial step in the online world to building credibility and trust. A free report or a sample (or extract) from your in...

We all make mistakes in business. The important issue is that we learn from them and apply the lessons in both our online and off-line business activities. One of my most costly mistakes happened about twelve years ago in the off-line business world. However, the lessons I learnt are just as applicable online as they are off-line. Having established a small mail order business part-time, I decided to expand the business using direct mail techniques. I had read all the books and attended a course and it seemed like the best approach to achieve my goals. After approaching various mailing list providers, I decided I had found the perfect list to reach my target market. Pricing was obtained from the list owner and he was happy to provide me with small quantities of names initially so that I could test his list. These tests were successful enough for me to decide to undertake two large mail campaigns one after the other. I was very confident that I would be receiving countless orders an...

"I only have a small business, I don't need a budget." "I don't have enough money to budget." For many small business owners, the word "budget" is something for the bigger company - maybe they'll have one when their business "grows up." What is a Budget? The simple explanation is a budget is a plan for how you will manage all financial resources and all expenses for your business. The basic equation that you want to demonstrate in a budget is as follows: (estimated )Sales minus (estimated) Expenses = Profit (or loss) How to create a Budget If this is your first time to work on a budget for your small business, you might work from the perspective of having to list cost of goods or services plus all of your operating expenses to start the process. How much does it take to operate your phone line? What is the cost of other utilities? How about the cost of a company vehicle, or what is the cost of transportation if you're using your...

If you're a small independent business owner it could serve you well to take a birds eye view of your entire money making process for your business. 1. Looking at this year's activity and make sure you've identified your most profitable customer - profile the characteristics that help you identify similar customers in the marketplace so that you develop your message specifically to target the customers with the characteristics you've identified as those of your most profitable customer. In my promotional products business I want relational customers vs. transactional customers. All of my marketing and sales efforts are designed to attract the client that is looking for a trustworthy, reliable promotional products distributor with great ideas. The customer that wants a cheap transaction with no loyalty on either side of the table is probably not my customer and I'm not offended when they don't want to buy from me. As I've been doing business over the last...

When building a new business, you're under immense pressure. You have so much to do and expectations are high, both from yourself and from the people around you. This means that you need to set goals to track your progress, maintain your motivation and keep yourself accountable. But doing so can be risky. This is because if your goals are too big, they can crush you under the weight of unrealistic expectations. And this may defeat the purpose of having a goal to begin with. However, like many things in life, there's a trick to this. And not all goals are equal. The secret lies in setting a goal that will motivate versus one which will defeat you. Are you in this position? One where you keep agonizing over what you have done and if you have achieved enough? Are you struggling to maintain your entrepreneurial momentum? Setting the Right Goals Setting goals is important in maintaining entrepreneurial momentum. But setting the wrong goals and having the wrong vision can lead to dem...

The idea of a successful home based business can be your reality after you've determined that you have these qualities: 1) The ability to work alone 2) The ability to generate lots of ideas 3) And the patience to learn After you've done your research on how to start your own home based business, you should be ready to be a home based business owner. Here are 5 kinds of home based business ideas worth thinking about: 1) Open your own home based business as a bodywork/massage therapist: Check out the yellow pages and find out where you can learn to do massages. Sign-up and take the course, and then set up shop in some small corner in your home. You can make customers come by appointment only. The better you are, the higher the pay. 2) Desktop publishing home based business: Have you done the companys posters, banners and streamers? Do you love making business cards and newsletters on your computer? Put a sign out and announce that youre open for business. 3) Computer tutor ho...

When you start your program to purchase your "ideal" company, you quickly realize that your ultimate success will depend on two primary skill sets: 1) Your ability to FIND viable companies that are for sale, and 2) Your ability to effectively qualify the potential acquisition investment once found. This article is about only step one, how to creatively find viable companies and one's that are able to be purchased. Assuming you have clearly defined your business purchase criteria and you have decided to pursue only companies that are "officially" for sale, versus attempting to find and contact company owners who might be willing to sell, you will need to explore as many ways as you can to find companies for sale as possible. As a business buyer you want to use the best means possible to position yourself to get the first shot at your most promising acquisition candidates and to do such in as cost effective means as possible. Often the more "creative" yo...