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SURVIVAL TIPS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

You may be in Mail Order, Direct Mail, or you may be a local merchant with 150 employees; whichever, however or whatever - you've got to know how to keep your business alive during economic recessions. Anytime the cash flow in a business, large or small, starts to tighten up, the money management of that business has to be run as a "tight ship."Some of the things you can and should do include protecting yourself from expenditures made on sudden impulse. We've all bought merchandise or services we really didn't need simply because we were in the mood, or perhaps in response to the flamboyancy of the advertising or the persuasiveness of the salesperson. Then we sort of "wake up" a couple of days later and find that we've committed hundreds of dollars of business funds for an item or service that's not essential to the success of our own business, when really pressing items had been waiting for those dollars.If you are incorporated, you can eliminate these "impulse purchases chases" by including in your by-laws a clause that states: "All purchasing decisions over (a certain amount) are contingent upon approval by the board of directors." This will force you to consider any "impulse purchases" of considerable cost, and may even be a reminder in the case of smaller purchases.If your business is a partnership, you can state, when faced with a buying decision, that all purchases are contingent upon the approval of a third party. In reality, the third party can be your partner, one of your department heads, or even one of your suppliers.If your business is a sole proprietorship, you don't have much to worry about really, because as an individual you have three days to think about your purchase, and then to nullify that purchase if you think you don't really need it or can't afford it.While you may think you cannot afford it, be sure that you don't "short-change" your self on professional services. This would apply especially during a time of emergency. Anytime you commit yourself and move ahead without completely investigating all the angles, and preparing yourself for all the contingencies that may arise, you're skating on thin ice. Regardless of the costs involved, it always pays off in the long run to seek out the advice of experienced professionals before embarking on a plan that could ruin you.As an example, an experienced business consultant can fill you in on the 1244 stock advantages. Getting eligibility for the 1244 stock category is a very simple process, but one with tremendous benefits to your business.The 1244 status encourages investors to put equity capital into your business because in the event of a loss, amounts up to the entire sum of the investment can be written off in the current year. Without the "1244" classification, any losses would have to be spread over several years, and this, of course, would greatly lessen the attractiveness of your company's stock. Any business owner who has not filed the 1244 corporation has in effect cut himself off from 90 percent of his prospective investors.Particularly when sales are down, you must be "hard-nosed" with people trying to sell you luxuries for your business. When business is booming, you undoubtedly will allow sales people to show you new models of equipment or a new line of supplies; but when your business is down, skip the entertaining frills and concentrate on the basics. Great care must be taken however, to maintain courtesy and allow these sellers to consider you a friend and call back at another time.Your company's books should reflect your way of thinking, and whoever maintains them should generate information according to your policies. Thus, you should hire an outside accountant or accounting firm to figure your return on your investment, as wellas the turnover on your accounts receivable and inventory. Such an audit or survey should focus in depth on any or every item within your financial statement that merits special attention. In this way, you'll probably uncover any potential financial problems before they become readily apparent, and certainly before they could get out of hand.Many small companies set up advisory boards of outside professional people. These are sometimes known as Power Circles and once in place, the business always benefits, especially in times of short operating capital. Such an advisory board or power circle should include an attorney, a certified public accountant, civic club leaders, owners or managers of businesses similar to yours, and retired executives. Setting up such an advisory board of directors is really quite easy, because most people you ask will be honored to serve.Once your board is set up, you should meet about once a month and present material for review. Each meeting should be a discussion of your business problems and an input from your advisors relative to possible solutions. These members of your board of advisors should offer you advice as well as alternatives, and provide you with objectivity. No formal decisions need to be made either at your board meeting, or as a result of them, but you should be able to gain a great deal from the suggestions you hear.You will find that most of your customers have the money to pay at least some of what they owe you immediately. To keep them current, and the number of accounts receivable in your files to a minimum, you should call them on the phone and ask for some kind of explanation why they're falling behind. If you develop such a habit as part of your operating procedure, you'll find your invoices will magically be drawn to the front of their piles of bills to pay. While maintaining a courteous attitude, don't be hesitant, or too much of a "nice guy" when it comes to collecting money.Something else that's a very good business practice, but which few business owners do is to methodically build a credit rating with their local banks. Particularly when you have a good cash flow, you should borrow $100 to $1,000 from your banks every 90 days or so. Simply borrow the money, and place it in an interest bearing account, and then pay it all back at least a month or so before it's due. By doing this, you will in crease the borrowing power of your signature, and strengthen your ability to obtain needed financing on short notice. This is a kind of business leverage that will be of great value to you if or whenever your cash position becomes less favorable.By all means, join your industry's local and national trade associations. Most of these organizations have a wealth of information available on everything from details on your competitors to average industry sales figures, new products, services, and trends.If you are given a membership certificate or wall plaque, you should display these conspicuously on you office wall. Customers like to see such "seals of approval" and feel additional confidence in your business when they see them.Still another thing often overlooked: If at all possible, you should have your spouse work in the business with you for at least three or four weeks per year. The important thing is that if for any reason you are not available to run the business, your spouse will be familiar with certain people and situations about your business. These people should include your attorney, accountant, any consultants or advisors, creditors and your major suppliers. The long-term advantages of having your spouse work four weeks per year in your business with you will greatly outweigh the short-term inconvenience. Many couples share responsibility and time entirely, which is in most cases even more desirable.Whenever you can, and as often as you need it, take advantage of whatever free business counseling is available. The Small Business Administration published many excellent booklets, checklists and brochures on quite a large variety of businesses. These publications are available through the U.S. Government Printing Office. Most local universities, and many private organizations hold seminars at minimal cost, and often without charge. You should also take advantage of the service s offered by your bank and local library.The important thing about running a small business is to know the direction in which you're heading; to know on a day-to-day basis your progress in that very direction; to be aware of what your competitors are doing and to practice good money management at all times. All this will prepare you to recognize potential problems before they arise.

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HOW TO GET FREE RADIO ADVERTISING

The greatest expense you're going to incur in conducting a successful business is your advertising.You have to advertise. Your business cannot grow and flourish unless you advertise. Advertising is the "life-blood" of any profitable business. And regardless of where or how you advertise, it's going to cost you in some form or another.Every successful business is built upon, and continues to thrive, primarily, on good advertising. The top companies in the world allocate millions of dollars annually to their advertising budgets. Of course, when starting from a garage, basement or kitchen table, you can't quite match their advertising efforts - at least not in the beginning. But there is a way you can approximate their maneuvers without actually spending their kind of money. And that's through "P.I." Advertising."P.I." stands for per inquiry. This is a kind of advertising most generally associated with broadcasting, where you pay only for the responses you get to your advertising message. It's very popular - somewhat akin to bartering - and is used by many more advertisers than most people realize. The advantages of PI Advertising are all in favor of the advertiser because with this kind of an advertising arrangement, you pay only for the results the advertising produces.To get in on this "free" advertising, start with a loose leaf notebook, and about 100 sheets of filler paper. Next, either visit your public library and start poring through the Broadcast Yearbook on radio stations in the U.S., or the Standard Rate and Data Services Directory on Spot Radio. Both these publications will give you just about all the information you could ever want about licensed stations.An easier way might be to call or visit one of your local radio stations, and ask to borrow (and take home with you) their current copy of either of these volumes. To purchase them outright will cost $50 to $75.Once you have a copy of either of these publications, select the state or states you want to work first. It's generally best to begin in your own state and work outward from there. If you have a money-making manual, you might want to start first with those states reporting the most unemployment.Use some old fashioned common sense. Who are the people most likely to be interested in your offer, and where are the largest concentrations of these people? You wouldn't attempt to sell windshield deice canisters in Florida, or suntan lotion in Minnesota during the winter months, would you?At any rate, once you've got your beginning "target" area decided upon, go through the radio listings for the cities and towns in that area, and jot down in your notebook the names of the general managers, the station call letters, and the addresses. Be sure to list the telephone numbers as well.On your first try, list only one radio station per city. Pick out the station people most interested in your product would be listening to. This can be determined by the programming description contained within the data block about the station in the Broad casting Yearbook or the SRDS Directory.Let's say that you're listed 250 different radio stations. It's best to list the stations you want to contact alphabetically by the city or town they're licensed to serve, with a tab separating each state. The next step is either a phone call or a letter to the station manager of each of the stations.This first contact should be in the way of introducing yourself, and inquiring if they would consider a PI Advertising campaign. You tell the station manager that you have a product you feel will sell very well in his market, and would like to test it before going ahead with a paid advertising program. You must quickly point out that your product sells for, say $5, and that during this test, you would allow him 50% of that for each response his station pulls for you. Explain that you handle everything for him: the writing of the commercials, all accounting and bookkeeping, plus any refunds or complaints thatcome in. In other words, all he has to do is schedule your commercials on his log, and give them his "best shot." When the responses come in, he counts them, and forwards them on to you for fulfillment. You make out a check for payment to him, and everybody is happy.If you've contacted him by phone, and he agrees to look over your material, tell him thank you and promise to get a complete "package" in the mail to him immediately. Then do just that. Write a short cover letter, place it on top of your "ready-to-go" PI Advertising Package, and get it in the mail to him without delay.If you're turned down, and he is not interested in "taking on" any PI Advertising, just tell him thanks, make a notation in your notebook by his name, and go on to your next call. Contacting these people by phone is by far the quickest, least expensive and most productive method of "exploring" for those stations willing to consider your PI proposal. In some cases though, circumstances will deem it to be less expensive to make this initial contact by letter or postcard.In that case, simply address your card or letter to the person you are trying to contact. Your letter should be positive in tone, straight-forward and complete. Present all the details in logical order on one page, perfectly typed on letterhead paper, and sent in a letterhead envelope. (Rubber-stamped letterheads just won't get past a first glance.) Ideally, you should include a self-addressed and stamped postcard with spaces for positive or negative check marks in answer to your questions: Will you or won't you look over my materials and consider a mutually profitable "Per Inquiry" advertising campaign on your station?Once you have an agreement from your contact at the radio station that they will look over your materials and give serious consideration for a PI program, move quickly, getting your cover letter and package off by First Class mail, perhaps even Special Delivery.What this means is that at the same time you organize your "radio station note book," you'll also want to organize your advertising package. Have it all put together and ready to mail just as soon as you have a positive response. Don't allow time for that interest in your program to cool down.You'll need a follow-up letter. Write one to fit all situations; have 250 copies printed, and then when you're ready to send out a package, all you'll have to do is fill in the business salutation and sign it. If you spoke of different arrangements or a specific matter was discussed in your initial contact, however, type a different letter incorporating comments or answers to the points discussed. This personal touch won't take long, and could pay dividends!You'll also need at least two thirty-second commercials and two sixty-second commercials. You could write these up, and have 250 copies printed and organized as a part of your PI Advertising Package.You should also have some sort of advertising contract written up, detailing everything about your program, and how everything is to be handled; how and when payment to the radio station is to be made, plus special paragraphs relative to refunds, complaints, and liabilities. All this can be very quickly written up and printed in lots of 250 or more on carbonless multi-part snap-out business forms.Finally, you should include a self-addressed and stamped postcard the radio station can use to let you know that they are going to use your PI Advertising program, when they will start running your commercials on the air, and how often, and during which time periods. Again, you simply type out the wording in the form you want to use on these "reply postcards," and have copies printed for your use in these mailings.To review this program: Your first step is the initial contact after searching through the SRDS or Broadcasting Yearbook. Actual contact with the stations is by phone or mail. When turned down, simply say thanks, and go on to the next station on your list. For those who want to know more about your proposal, you immediately get a PI Advertising Package off to them via the fastest way possible. Don't let the interest wane.Your Advertising Package should contain the following:1. Cover letter2. Sample brochure, product literature3. Thirty-second and sixty-second commercials4. PI Advertising Contract5. Self-addressed, stamped postcard for station acknowledgment and acceptance of your program.Before you ask why you need an acknowledgment postcard when you have already given them a contract, remember that everything about business changes from day to day - conditions change, people get busy, and other things come up. The station manager may sign a contract with your advertising to begin the 1st of March. The contract is signed on the 1st of January, but when March 1 rolls around, he may have forgotten, been replaced, or even decided against running your program. A lot o f paper seemingly "covering all the minute details" can be very impressive to many radio station managers, and convince them that your company is a good one to do business with.Let's say that right now you're impatient to get started with your own PI Advertising campaign. Before you "jump off the deep end," remember this: Radio station people are just as professional and dedicated as anyone else in business - even more so in some instances - so be sure you have a product or service that lends itself well to selling via the radio inquiry system.Anything can be sold, and sold easily with any method you decide upon, providing you present it from the right angle. "Hello out there! Who wants to buy a mailing list for 10 cents a thousand names?" wouldn't even be allowed on the air. However, if you have the addresses of the top 100 movie stars, and you put together an idea enabling the people to write to them direct, you might have a winner, and sell a lot of mailing lists of the stars.At the bottom line, a lot is riding on the content of your commercial - the benefits you suggest to the listener, and how easy it is for him to enjoy those benefits. For in stance, if you have a new book on how to find jobs when there aren't any jobs: You want to talk to people who are desperately searching for employment. You have to appeal to them in words that not only "perk up" their ears, but cause them to feel that whatever it is that you're offering will solve their problems. It's the product, and in the writing of the advertising message about that product are going to bring in those responses.Radio station managers are sales people, and sales people the world over will be sold on your idea if you put your selling package together properly. And if the responses come in to your first offer, you have set yourself up for an entire series of successes. Success has a "ripple effect," but you have to start on that first one. We wish you success!

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HOW TO ACHIEVE EXCELLENCE IN SALES

Most people are always striving to better themselves. It's the "American Way." For proof, check the sales figures on the number of self-improvement books sold each year. This is not a pitch for you to jump in and start selling these kinds of books, but it is an indication of people's awareness that in order to better themselves, they have to continue improving their personal selling abilities.To excel in any selling situation, you must have confidence, and confidence comes, first and foremost, from knowledge. You have to know and understand yourself and your goals. You have to recognize and accept your weaknesses as well as your special talents. This requires a kind of personal honesty that not everyone is capable of exercising.In addition to knowing yourself, you must continue learning about people. Just as with yourself, you must be caring, forgiving and laudatory with others. In any sales effort, you must accept other people as they are, not as you would like for them to be. One of the most common faults of sales people is impatience when the prospective cus tom§er is slow to understand or make a decision. The successful salesperson handles these situations the same as he would if he were asking a girl for a date, or even applying for a new job.Learning your product, making a clear presentation to qualified prospects, and closing more sales will take a lot less time once you know your own capabilities and failings, and understand and care about the prospects you are calling upon.Our society is predicated upon selling, and all of us are selling something all the time. We move up or stand still in direct relation to our sales efforts. Everyone is included, whether we're attempting to be a friend to a co-worker, a neighbor, or selling multi-million dollar real estate projects. Accepting these facts will enable you to understand that there is no such thing as a born salesman. Indeed, in selling, we all begin at the same starting line, and we all have the same finish line as the goal - a successful sale.Most assuredly, anyone can sell anything to anybody. As a qualification to this statement, let us say that some things are easier to sell than others, and some people work harder at selling than others. But regardless of what you're selling, or even how you're attempting to sell it, the odds are in your favor. If you make your presentation to enough people, you'll find a buyer. The problem with most people seems to be in making contact - getting their sales pre sentation seen by, read by, or heard by enough people. But this really shouldn't be a problem, as we'll explain later. There is a problem of impatience, but this too can be harnessed to work in the salesperson's favor.We have established that we're all salespeople in one way or another. So whether we're attempting to move up from forklift driver to warehouse manager, wait ress to hostess, salesman to sales manager or from mail order dealer to president of the largest sales organization in the world, it's vitally important that we continue learning.Getting up out of bed in the morning; doing what has to be done in order to sell more units of your product; keeping records, updating your materials; planning the direction of further sales efforts; and all the while increasing your own knowledge - all this very definitely requires a great deal of personal motivation, discipline, and energy. But then the rewards can be beyond your wildest dreams, for make no mistake about it, the selling profession is the highest paid occupation in the world!Selling is challenging. It demands the utmost of your creativity and innovative thinking. The more success you want, and the more dedicated you are to achieving your goals, the more you'll sell. Hundreds of people the world over become millionaires each month through selling. Many of them were flat broke and unable to find a "regular" job when they began their selling careers. Yet they've done it, and you can do it too!Remember, it's the surest way to all the wealth you could ever want. You get paid according to your own efforts, skill, and knowledge of people. If you're ready to become rich, then think seriously about selling a product or service (prefer ably something exclusively yours) - something that you "pull out of your brain;" something that you write, manufacture or produce for the benefit of other people. But failing this, the want ads are full of opportunities for ambitious sales people. You can start there, study, learn from experience, and watch for the chance that will allow you to move ahead by leaps and bounds.Here are some guidelines that will definitely improve your gross sales, and quite naturally, your gross income. I like to call them the Strategic Salesmanship Commandments. Look them over; give some thought to each of them; and adapt hose that you can to your own selling efforts.1. If the product you're selling is something your prospect can hold in his hands, get it into his hands as quickly as possible. In other words, get the prospect "into the act." Let him feel it, weigh it, admire it.2. Don't stand or sit alongside your prospect. Instead, face him while you're pointing out the important advantages of your product. This will enable you to watch his facial expressions and determine whether and when you should go for the close. In handling sales literature, hold it by the top of the page, at the proper angle, so that your prospect can read it as you're highlighting the important points. Regarding your sales literature, don't release your hold on it, because you want to control the specific parts you want the prospect to read. In other words, you want the prospect to read or see only the parts of the sales material you're telling him about at a given time.3. With prospects who won't talk with you: When you can get no feedback to your sales presentation, you must dramatize your presentation to get him involved. Stop and ask questions such as, "Now, don't you agree that this product can help you or would be of benefit to you?" After you've asked a question such as this, stop talking and wait for the prospect to answer. It's a proven fact that following such a question, the one who talks first will lose, so don't say anything until after the prospect has given you some kind of answer. Wait him out!4. Prospects who are themselves sales people, and prospects who imagine they know a lot about selling sometimes present difficult selling obstacles, especially for the novice. But believe me, these prospects can be the easiest of all to sell.Simply give your sales presentation, and instead of trying for a close, toss out a challenge such as, "I don't know, Mr. Prospect - after watching your reactions to what I've been showing and telling you about my product, I'm very doubtful as to how this product can truthfully be of benefit to you." Then wait a few seconds, just looking at him and waiting for him to say something. Then, start packing up your sales materials as if you are about toleave. In almost every instance, your "tough nut" will quickly ask you, Why? These people are generally so filled with their own importance, that they just have to prove you wrong. When they start on this tangent, they will sell themselves. The more skeptical you are relative to their ability to make your product work to their benefit, the more they'll de mand that you sell it to them. If you find that this prospect will not rise to your challenge, then go ahead with the packing of your sales materials and leave quickly. Some people are so convinced of their own importance that it is a poor use of your valuable time to attempt to con vince them.5. Remember that in selling, time is money! Therefore, you must allocate only so much time to each prospect. The prospect who asks you to call back next week, or wants to ramble on about similar products, prices or previous experiences, is costing you money. Learn to quickly get your prospect interested in, and wanting your product, and then systematically present your sales pitch through to the close, when he signs on the dotted line, and reaches for his checkbook.After the introductory call on your prospect, you should be selling products and collecting money. Any call backs should be only for reorders, or to sell him related products from your line. In other words, you can waste an introductory call on a prospect to qualify him, but you're going to be wasting money if you continue calling on him to sell him the first unit of your product. When faced with a reply such as, "Your product looks pretty good, but I'll have to give it some thought," you should quickly jump in and ask him what it is that he doesn't understand, or what specifically about your product does he feel he needs to give more thought. Let him explain, and that's when you go back into your sales presentation and make everything crystal clear for him. If he still balks, then you can either tell him that you think he's procrastinating, or that overall, you don't think the product will really benefit him, or it's purchase be to his advantage.You must spend as much time as possible calling on new prospects. Therefore, your first call should be a selling call with follow-up calls by mail or telephone (once every month or so in person) to sign him for reorders and other items from your product line.6. Review your sales presentation, your sales materials, and your prospecting efforts. Make sure you have a "door-opener" that arouses interest and "forces" a purchase the first time around. This can be a $2 interest stimulator so that you can show him your full line, or a special marked-down price on an item that everybody wants; but the important thing is to get the prospect on your "buying customer" list, and then follow up via mail or telephone with related, but more profitable products you have to offer.

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Business Marketing - How to Get Listed In Google in less than 3 days

How to Get Listed In Google in less than 3 days FREEFree Business Marketing SEO techniques by BusinessMarketingAgency.com Getting listed in Google in less than 3 days is quite easy and the best part is that anyone can do it without paying anything! You don’t need special business marketing skills or advanced optimization strategy to get indexed in Google.If you go to Google search box and enter: www.BusinessMarketingAgency.com you will see thousands of results, but if you type yoursite.com into it, and see that no results are returned…then you are not listed in. You need to change that because your site deserves to be in the Google index! And you will change this in only 3 days!OK, The ordinary way to get listed is by paying hundreds of dollars to some marketing agency for some fancy search engine business marketing software or adding your URL directly to the Google add form: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurlThe differences of these two methods are: that the first one will cost you a lot of money but the second one is free.However, the similarities of these two methods are:If you do any of them you won’t see your website indexed any time soon!READ THE SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION CONFIRMATION:” Please note that we do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.” This means that your website may or may not be crawled by Google in the near future, because thousands of none indexed websites are submitted every single day!OK, what we do now?We need to change our business marketing strategy! We need to make our site little different, little better from all these thousands of none indexed sites submitted to Google, so we will be noticed!OK, how we do that?Well, first we have to search for web sites similar to our site. For example, if we sell t-shirts, we have to search for sites selling t-shirts typing “t-shirts” into Google search box. The results are over 130 million associated with the keyword “t-shirts”.Second: We have to open the first fifty web sites, find their contact info and email them asking to exchange links between their and your site. You are asking this because you are in the same business selling t-shirts and both websites will benefit from the links. You have to know, by doing this you will have many refuses because your site is none indexed and they could check that! If no one accept to exchange links with you go to the next 50 sites and do the same procedure. In the reality your link exchange request will be accepted from some of the first 20 sites and if you have more than one acceptance much better! Now, when we have our “t-shirt” seller link partner we placed his link to our site and he does the same with our link to his site! The trick here is that our link partner selling t-shirts is indexed in Google, but the more important is that our partner website is ranked in the first 50 results in Google competing with over 130 millions websites relating to the keyword “t-shirt”. We can tell that his website is very powerful for Google and he is probably in the business very long time with very good feedbacks. Top results websites like our partner site are crawled by Google very often every 24, 48 or 72 hours, and when Google does next Googlebot during that time-frame it will notice your site because the link has been placed to. After all this procedure is done, just sit and relax your site will be Google indexed from 1-3 days!3 DAYS AFTERFirst step is done, you are now indexed in Google but you want more you want to get into the first page of Google; you want all customers searching for “t-shirts” to visit your site! You just want to be number 1 in Google search results!Visit http://www.businessmarketingagency.com for:How to Get Listed Number 1 in Google search results FREEFree SEO techniques by BusinessMarketingAgency.com This product was originally created by Business Marketing AgencySEO Experts http://www.businessmarketingagency.com