HOT CHOCOLATE
By Kathy Krassner
The latest hot "flavor" in the stationery industry is chocolate. From delicious chocolate images to rich shades of chocolate brown to luscious chocolate-scented papers, these products are seeing sales that are far from plain vanilla!
"Chocolate has become a modern classic. It has outlasted other color trends by its ability to be paired with a variety of colors, thus keeping it fresh," states Stephanie Sklar, v.p. of sales & marketing at Name Maker, Inc., which offers a "Chocolate Couture" holiday collection of giftwrap and ribbons that features hues of chocolate, red and white.
William Arthur features a chocolate-brown paper stock within its line of colored wedding invitations. "We know from working with the fashion designer Vera Wang that chocolate is their best-selling color for bridesmaids' dresses," comments Sean Tabb, director of marketing for William Arthur, Inc. "Chocolate's modernity and warmth make it extremely appealing for weddings. And, we see it being used for all four seasons. We also see it in the top three best-selling ink colors across all personalized categories - wedding, stationery, invitations."
Photographic images of chocolate candies appear on scrapbook papers in Masterpiece Studios' "Stemma" line. "We know there are a lot of chocolate lovers out there - ourselves included, so we brought that theme to the line," says Annie Escalera, marketing manager at Masterpiece Studios.
The tempting aroma of chocolate can also be found on several stationery items, including "Scent-A-Message" notecards from Rocking Chair Studio, LLC; and the new "It's a Chocolate Thing" line of scented notecards, bookmarks and pens from The Greeting Place.
"Who doesn't like the smell of chocolate?" asks Michael Rance, owner of The Greeting Place. "We chose a chocolate scent because it has such a wide appeal at the consumer level," he explains."Chocolate's scent positively stirs the emotion of desire - the desire for romance, the desire for decadent foods," asserts Frank Fabian, executive director of Rocking Chair Studio, adding, "Chocolate appeals to many women. Age doesn't really matter. In times of stress, a little chocolate - or, in this case, chocolate scent - can trigger powerful memories of less stressful times."
Fabian suggests displaying chocolate-related stationery merchandise with real chocolate items, such as a box of chocolates. Or, cocoa beans can be used to catch customers' attention.
"Chocolate is the new coffee," states Masterpiece Studios' Escalera. "It's a relatively affordable obsession, even when purchased by the piece in boutiques." And, it's a trend that shows no signs of melting anytime soon. According to Escalera, Masterpiece Studios will be introducing more chocolate-themed product in the near future, including scrap pads.
"I think chocolate is popular now because personal comfort and 'being good to oneself' is popular. It doesn't hurt that dark chocolate has gotten good health reviews also," remarks Rance of The Greeting Place. Adds Rocking Horse Studio's Fabian: "Chocolate has always been popular, but now with the media touting chocolate's health benefits, chocolate is the new 'health food' ... not really, but we like to think so." Happily, these tempting paper products are completely calorie free!
(source: Greetings Etc.)
Friday, December 07, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
The Cutest Merry Bird Dog Contest
The First 20 Photos of Dogs to be emailed to The Merry Bird at
Info@themerrybird.com
will be accepted in The Cutest Merry Bird Dog contest.
Your dogs Mug will be drawn in Pen and ink.
Contestants:
Include your name, age, address and Dogs Name, age and background.
The Winner will Win a box of 25 Note Cards with Their dogs mug in pen and ink!
All runner up dogs drawings will be featured as note cards on the Merry Bird website - for sale!
Entry deadline:
November 30, 2007
Winner to be announced in February 2008 on The Merry Bird... website: http://www.themerrybird.com/
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
From the Basement to Millions
Don't like marketing? Cynthia shares how she built her business one client at a time--and how you can, too.
By: Cynthia McKay 10/10/2007
Starting a business involves managing a thousand ideas, nurturing grandiose dreams into reality and finding clients to sustain your business. Would-be entrepreneurs are often discouraged from opening a business because they simply don't have an interest in marketing. However, when you consider the basis of any profession, each has something to sell. A physician offers her skills, an attorney, her knowledge, and the rest of us have to advertise our ability to do whatever it is we do in the most convincing way possible.
A desire to be self-employed seems simple enough until you realize you need to actually go out and find buyers for your products and services. Setting up my gift basket shop after quitting my job as an attorney sounded infinitely easier than working at the firm. I assumed I'd tell a few acquaintances about my new venture, they'd tell friends and I'd have a ready-made clientele.
Instead, my neighbors, relatives and former associates thought I'd lost my mind. Who would quit a profession like law after seven years of college? To make matters worse, I was running this operation from my basement. I had an instantaneous setup, but no credibility. I didn't have much to work with.
When I launched the business, I had to take a moment to consider what marketing really was. It occurred to me that building the business quickly would involve introducing my product to as many people as I could as soon as possible.
I started with my bank. When I opened my business checking account, I developed a rapport with the teller who told her manager, who told the vice president what I was doing. As I slowly infiltrated the bank, each individual seemed genuinely interested in purchasing gift baskets. Within two hours of being in business, Le Gourmet had an actual account.
Although I had no inventory, I at least had a client. As I confidently exited the bank, I left with the declaration that my newfound friends could expect upgrades and discounts. I ran out and purchased my inventory retail, and pulled together some attractive products to sell to the bank.
Content Continues Below
The next day, I delivered a silver tray of chocolate truffles for the employees and a thank-you basket they displayed in the lobby for a giveaway. The bank was kind enough to allow me to exhibit my brochures, which cultivated more sales over the next two days. I made no profit on my first seven dealings with this client, but the value of my new contact was immeasurable and the cost of marketing, minimal.
As more referrals came, I made enough money to scrape together a chamber membership fee. After attending an after-hours get-together that brought in no immediate transactions, I was invited to attend a chamber leads/sales group. Armed with an abundance of business cards, I met everyone in the room and walked out with 30 solid leads and two basket sales to a large Denver corporation. The leads would compile my initial mailing list.
Hoping to strike while the iron was hot, I ran back to the "office" and designed a flyer that I mailed that afternoon. I included a coupon for 20 percent off a basket purchase and an explanation of my newly launched frequent buyers club. Each purchase would earn my clients points for free deliveries and complimentary baskets. My plan was to make it very easy for patrons to buy from my company.
The conclusion I came to is that marketing can be as simple as disclosing what you do. Showing potential customers your wares or informing them of your skills doesn't necessarily have to involve terrorizing would-be buyers into making a purchase. We've all been victimized by the multi-level marketer who came on a bit strong at a party or the door-to-door salesperson who's interrupting your personal time to make the last sale of the day.
If marketing seems distasteful, you have options. Hire someone to sell on commission, offer a finder's fee, or give gifts to those who refer customers to you. No matter what your profession, you or a talented partner or employee can attend leads groups and chamber meetings to sing the company's praises. And PR agencies can give you wonderful exposure, as can an expertly designed and easy-to-navigate website.
The important thing is to let the clients know, verbally and through your actions, that you would love to have their business. Show the client the benefits of using your services. Treat the buyer like gold and keep your promises. When building your company, every client counts.
Cynthia McKay is a business growth consultant and CEO of Le Gourmet Gift Basket, a company she began as a small home based business in 1992 and has grown to 510 operating distributorships and more than $1 million in revenue.
By: Cynthia McKay 10/10/2007
Starting a business involves managing a thousand ideas, nurturing grandiose dreams into reality and finding clients to sustain your business. Would-be entrepreneurs are often discouraged from opening a business because they simply don't have an interest in marketing. However, when you consider the basis of any profession, each has something to sell. A physician offers her skills, an attorney, her knowledge, and the rest of us have to advertise our ability to do whatever it is we do in the most convincing way possible.
A desire to be self-employed seems simple enough until you realize you need to actually go out and find buyers for your products and services. Setting up my gift basket shop after quitting my job as an attorney sounded infinitely easier than working at the firm. I assumed I'd tell a few acquaintances about my new venture, they'd tell friends and I'd have a ready-made clientele.
Instead, my neighbors, relatives and former associates thought I'd lost my mind. Who would quit a profession like law after seven years of college? To make matters worse, I was running this operation from my basement. I had an instantaneous setup, but no credibility. I didn't have much to work with.
When I launched the business, I had to take a moment to consider what marketing really was. It occurred to me that building the business quickly would involve introducing my product to as many people as I could as soon as possible.
I started with my bank. When I opened my business checking account, I developed a rapport with the teller who told her manager, who told the vice president what I was doing. As I slowly infiltrated the bank, each individual seemed genuinely interested in purchasing gift baskets. Within two hours of being in business, Le Gourmet had an actual account.
Although I had no inventory, I at least had a client. As I confidently exited the bank, I left with the declaration that my newfound friends could expect upgrades and discounts. I ran out and purchased my inventory retail, and pulled together some attractive products to sell to the bank.
Content Continues Below
The next day, I delivered a silver tray of chocolate truffles for the employees and a thank-you basket they displayed in the lobby for a giveaway. The bank was kind enough to allow me to exhibit my brochures, which cultivated more sales over the next two days. I made no profit on my first seven dealings with this client, but the value of my new contact was immeasurable and the cost of marketing, minimal.
As more referrals came, I made enough money to scrape together a chamber membership fee. After attending an after-hours get-together that brought in no immediate transactions, I was invited to attend a chamber leads/sales group. Armed with an abundance of business cards, I met everyone in the room and walked out with 30 solid leads and two basket sales to a large Denver corporation. The leads would compile my initial mailing list.
Hoping to strike while the iron was hot, I ran back to the "office" and designed a flyer that I mailed that afternoon. I included a coupon for 20 percent off a basket purchase and an explanation of my newly launched frequent buyers club. Each purchase would earn my clients points for free deliveries and complimentary baskets. My plan was to make it very easy for patrons to buy from my company.
The conclusion I came to is that marketing can be as simple as disclosing what you do. Showing potential customers your wares or informing them of your skills doesn't necessarily have to involve terrorizing would-be buyers into making a purchase. We've all been victimized by the multi-level marketer who came on a bit strong at a party or the door-to-door salesperson who's interrupting your personal time to make the last sale of the day.
If marketing seems distasteful, you have options. Hire someone to sell on commission, offer a finder's fee, or give gifts to those who refer customers to you. No matter what your profession, you or a talented partner or employee can attend leads groups and chamber meetings to sing the company's praises. And PR agencies can give you wonderful exposure, as can an expertly designed and easy-to-navigate website.
The important thing is to let the clients know, verbally and through your actions, that you would love to have their business. Show the client the benefits of using your services. Treat the buyer like gold and keep your promises. When building your company, every client counts.
Cynthia McKay is a business growth consultant and CEO of Le Gourmet Gift Basket, a company she began as a small home based business in 1992 and has grown to 510 operating distributorships and more than $1 million in revenue.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Top Wedding Invitation Trends
In partnership with The Knot
Here are the latest delivery of wedding invitation ideas:
Trendsetting Stripes
Pinstripes are a hot look now, whether they're vertical, horizontal, multicolored, or in shades of your signature hue.
Our pick? An elegant script style juxtaposed with a playful pinstripe border -- the perfect blend of classic and contemporary.
Bejeweled
Embellishing your invitation with small rhinestones, tiny pearl-toned beads, or miniature Swarovski crystals makes a low-key invitation style fashionable.
Our favorite? A refined invitation sporting clean type and subtle colors that gets glam with a rhinestone buckle.
Going Bold
Though the use of color has been a wedding trend for years, white is making a comeback in an unexpected way. We're seeing bright color card stock with sleek white type.
What we found? Papers in fabulously rich purple hues with white lettering.
Wrapped Up
Stressing over whether the response card goes inside its envelope and over the direction card?
You'll be glad to know today's invitation designers are making pouches and pockets to keep your papers in order.
Our selection is a bifold invitation that keeps all of the pieces neatly tucked away. Bonus: You can introduce your wedding colors with this concept -- choose one color for the card stock, another for the type and ribbon, and a third for the envelopes.
Fabric Flowers
Nothing says wedding like flowers, especially close-to-the-real-thing ones. Check out the three-dimensional orchid that substituted for a traditional engraved floral print on white stock. Tip: For the ultimate in personalization, put your signature bloom on your invitations too.
Couture Texture
Using unique materials for your invitation is the newest idea on the market: We've seen invites stitched into fabric or burned onto wood.
The ultimate in modern style? A superchic acrylic invitation.
Vintage Patterns
Move over motifs...allover patterns are gaining popularity. Your invitation designer could create a pattern based on your gown, for instance -- a ring of rosettes, a square of lace applique, or a beaded vine.
Modern Monograms
What's the new take on the monogram? Simplify it, like on this traditional invite that pairs her first initial with his. Since you're not married until the officiant announces you as husband and wife, if you're changing your name(s), save the new monogram for the reception -- and the rest of your lives!
Photo: Mary Ellen Bartley
© 2007 The Knot Inc. All rights reserved.
-- Allison Micarelli
Here are the latest delivery of wedding invitation ideas:
Trendsetting Stripes
Pinstripes are a hot look now, whether they're vertical, horizontal, multicolored, or in shades of your signature hue.
Our pick? An elegant script style juxtaposed with a playful pinstripe border -- the perfect blend of classic and contemporary.
Bejeweled
Embellishing your invitation with small rhinestones, tiny pearl-toned beads, or miniature Swarovski crystals makes a low-key invitation style fashionable.
Our favorite? A refined invitation sporting clean type and subtle colors that gets glam with a rhinestone buckle.
Going Bold
Though the use of color has been a wedding trend for years, white is making a comeback in an unexpected way. We're seeing bright color card stock with sleek white type.
What we found? Papers in fabulously rich purple hues with white lettering.
Wrapped Up
Stressing over whether the response card goes inside its envelope and over the direction card?
You'll be glad to know today's invitation designers are making pouches and pockets to keep your papers in order.
Our selection is a bifold invitation that keeps all of the pieces neatly tucked away. Bonus: You can introduce your wedding colors with this concept -- choose one color for the card stock, another for the type and ribbon, and a third for the envelopes.
Fabric Flowers
Nothing says wedding like flowers, especially close-to-the-real-thing ones. Check out the three-dimensional orchid that substituted for a traditional engraved floral print on white stock. Tip: For the ultimate in personalization, put your signature bloom on your invitations too.
Couture Texture
Using unique materials for your invitation is the newest idea on the market: We've seen invites stitched into fabric or burned onto wood.
The ultimate in modern style? A superchic acrylic invitation.
Vintage Patterns
Move over motifs...allover patterns are gaining popularity. Your invitation designer could create a pattern based on your gown, for instance -- a ring of rosettes, a square of lace applique, or a beaded vine.
Modern Monograms
What's the new take on the monogram? Simplify it, like on this traditional invite that pairs her first initial with his. Since you're not married until the officiant announces you as husband and wife, if you're changing your name(s), save the new monogram for the reception -- and the rest of your lives!
Photo: Mary Ellen Bartley
© 2007 The Knot Inc. All rights reserved.
-- Allison Micarelli
Monday, September 24, 2007
Why Small Business Fail and What You Can Do to Avoid the Statistics
Henry Pellerin
It's a well known fact that the failure rate for small businesses is extremely high. We have heard the statistics, but what are the reasons? More importantly, what can small business owners do to avoid becoming one of those dreaded statistics? In this report, the statistics for business survival rates will be dissected. We will also discuss the top three reasons why businesses fail and provide recommendations for what you can do to turn your business around and become a long-term success. Business Failure Statistics Although small business failure rate is initially very high, the chance for small business success greatly increases after the five year mark. According to a report in the May 5, 2004 issue of USA Today, the failure rate of small businesses is as follows: First year: 85% These statistics are, of course, reflective of small businesses in general. There is market and industry specific information available that can provide more detail for your particular business sector. Nonetheless, it can be deduced that no matter what industry you are in, there is a high failure rate, and generally speaking, the top three issues or reasons for small business failure are relatively consistent. Top Three Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail Almost every study or report indicates the main reason for small business failure is improper planning and expectations. When we dig deeper into these reports, there are three critical areas of planning that are often overlooked or underestimated:
1. Financial requirements to get the business started.
2. Generating/developing business and revenue.
3. Managing and controlling growth. The small business owners who are able to figure out how to accomplish and overcome the challenges that accompany those three critical areas will typically enjoy a long, fruitful business life. The variable is figuring out how to do it. Most small business owners are very proficient at the product they supply or service they deliver. It is rare that a small business fails because the owner does not understand what they are doing. So how can businesses take the variable out of the equation to increase their chances for success? Let's examine each reason in more detail. Financial Requirements: Misjudgment of the financial requirements of a business is the number one reason for small business failure. Why? Because sales are typically overestimated and expenses are typically underestimated. To properly estimate business expenses, here is a list of steps you can take to avoid this pitfall: 1. Seek advice from a small business accounting firm. These companies are in the business of evaluating expenses and will be able to help you accurately estimate your business expenditures. 2. Talk to other business owners and ask for advice. Even in different industries the initial headaches of starting a business are very similar. We recommend trying out the forum in the SalespreneurEDGE.com as a great resource to exchange ideas with other small business owners. 3. Utilize associations, i.e. local Chambers, Industry Associations, etc.
4. If you chose not to seek any advice and want to just do it on your own, list out every expense you think you will have and increase it by 50%. It is much better to overestimate expenses than to underestimate them.
5. Plan on hiring / outsourcing assistance, i.e., executive assistant, accountant, etc. One mistake that is often made is planning on doing everything yourself. It is easy to get caught up in activities that don't produce revenue, so don't let that happen to you. Stick with your core competency (your product or service) and outsource the rest. In the long run you will save dollars and many hours of revenue producing time. Once you have all of your costs determined for the first year, figure out how much revenue you need to generate to make a profit.
Generating / Developing Business and Revenue:
When a new business is started it is an exciting time, and small business owners have a tendency to be overly optimistic in the area of generating sales. Many have the attitude, “Build it and they will come.” It takes a lot of effort to build up a consistent flow of incoming business. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as placing an ad or putting up a sign. Consumers typically want to purchase from other businesses they know and trust. This is why referral sales are so effective. There are a lot of strategies and processes a small business owner can incorporate to be successful at generating business and revenue.
Here are a few to get you started on the right path toward securing ongoing revenue streams:
1. Identify centers of influence. Look for “connectors” or fellow business owners that have an existing client base filled with people who would be ideal prospects for your business. Once you have identified those centers of influence, meet with them and develop a strategic alliance or referral program. You may not have a client base of your own to share, but you could offer other things, such as a low cost seminar that would add value to their existing clients. You would be surprised at the number of people who are both interested and willing to develop a strategic alliance. However, pick and choose these people carefully so you have access to potential customers.
2. Mine and cultivate existing clients. How often do you evaluate customers you have served in the past? Do you have a new product or service? Is it time for your customers to renew or upgrade? It is surprising how many people ignore their old customers and continually only focus on getting new customers. On average, between 25 and 50 percent of a small business' database is full of opportunities. If you don't get the business and service your customers, someone else eventually will.
3. Understand your customer's needs and be solution oriented. The key to understanding a customer's needs is to ask questions and find out what their problems are. Once you clearly understand the problems and how they are impacting them, i.e., loss of work, increased overhead, increased costs, etc., explain how your product or service provides a solution to their problem.
4. Have a strong and compelling reason why a customer should do business with you. Offering the best service and price are not strong enough reasons. Every competitor in your space will tout these as their reasons and you want to differentiate yourself from your competition. Additionally, today's marketplace buyers and consumers are more educated than ever, and they need tangible reasons. Strong validators include a high ROI (return on investment), case studies with successful clients, customer testimonials, etc. Managing and Controlling Growth: The third most popular cause for small business failure is managing growth. When a business is in a growth or expansion mode, some get caught in a vicious cycle of replacing old customers with new customers. The scenario is that growing companies get so busy they cannot handle the increased workload, and disgruntled customers leave. When this happens you are canceling out any new business and working twice as hard, reaping little to no growth. Just as important is managing business during a downturn in the market. It is extremely important to rein in expenses and control growth; otherwise, the extra expenses and overhead will drain the life (cash flow) out of the company. Once you have identified your immediate cyclical needs, you should also create a plan for your growth. Take some time to write down your short term and long terms goals. Short terms goals would be those that you would like to meet within the current business year. Then, write down goals for growth for a three, five, seven and ten year outlook. Once you have these goals written down, create a plan to meet each of these goals.
Make sure the following factors are addressed for each goal:
1. Customer to revenue ratio - make sure you can meet financial obligations of growth with the number of customers you need. You will also need to determine how much revenue you will need from each customer to reach this goal.
2. Short term financial needs - as you grow your business, whether it is by introducing a new product line, acquiring another business or adding more staff, you will have some short term capital needs. Determine how you are going to reach these needs. Can you solve them by increasing business or do you need a helping hand with some short term financing? If you need to go the route of financing, make sure you have a plan to pay it back. You want to avoid incurring ongoing debt if it is at all possible.
3. Spend wisely - if you have a good growth plan you will know when you will need extra cash flow and you can prepare for it. Take simple steps like not giving raises or bonuses during a time when you need cash flow. Make sure your inventory is stocked and your vendors are paid up to date. Rein in extras and decrease your operational burn for a short period and you will see how the extra cash flow can help fund your company's growth. Overall it is important to keep the big picture in mind. By tracking and planning for your growth it will be easy to see where you are going and not get lost in the day to day burdens of growing your business. It is easy for the small business owner to get overwhelmed and panicked about incurring debt and experiencing growing pains. Keeping your eye on the prize will allow you to systematically take steps toward controlled growth.
Article Source :http://www.bestmanagementarticles.comhttp://small-business-management.bestmanagementarticles.com
About the Author :
With over the 15 years of sales training and sales management experience, Henry Pellerin, SalespreneurEDGE™'s founder, realized there was a fundamental problem in the world of traditional sales training. So we took our sales training experience, in-house sales experience and developed useful processes that are flexible and can meet the specific objectives of our client organizations. Learn more here: http://www.salespreneurEDGE.com
It's a well known fact that the failure rate for small businesses is extremely high. We have heard the statistics, but what are the reasons? More importantly, what can small business owners do to avoid becoming one of those dreaded statistics? In this report, the statistics for business survival rates will be dissected. We will also discuss the top three reasons why businesses fail and provide recommendations for what you can do to turn your business around and become a long-term success. Business Failure Statistics Although small business failure rate is initially very high, the chance for small business success greatly increases after the five year mark. According to a report in the May 5, 2004 issue of USA Today, the failure rate of small businesses is as follows: First year: 85% These statistics are, of course, reflective of small businesses in general. There is market and industry specific information available that can provide more detail for your particular business sector. Nonetheless, it can be deduced that no matter what industry you are in, there is a high failure rate, and generally speaking, the top three issues or reasons for small business failure are relatively consistent. Top Three Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail Almost every study or report indicates the main reason for small business failure is improper planning and expectations. When we dig deeper into these reports, there are three critical areas of planning that are often overlooked or underestimated:
1. Financial requirements to get the business started.
2. Generating/developing business and revenue.
3. Managing and controlling growth. The small business owners who are able to figure out how to accomplish and overcome the challenges that accompany those three critical areas will typically enjoy a long, fruitful business life. The variable is figuring out how to do it. Most small business owners are very proficient at the product they supply or service they deliver. It is rare that a small business fails because the owner does not understand what they are doing. So how can businesses take the variable out of the equation to increase their chances for success? Let's examine each reason in more detail. Financial Requirements: Misjudgment of the financial requirements of a business is the number one reason for small business failure. Why? Because sales are typically overestimated and expenses are typically underestimated. To properly estimate business expenses, here is a list of steps you can take to avoid this pitfall: 1. Seek advice from a small business accounting firm. These companies are in the business of evaluating expenses and will be able to help you accurately estimate your business expenditures. 2. Talk to other business owners and ask for advice. Even in different industries the initial headaches of starting a business are very similar. We recommend trying out the forum in the SalespreneurEDGE.com as a great resource to exchange ideas with other small business owners. 3. Utilize associations, i.e. local Chambers, Industry Associations, etc.
4. If you chose not to seek any advice and want to just do it on your own, list out every expense you think you will have and increase it by 50%. It is much better to overestimate expenses than to underestimate them.
5. Plan on hiring / outsourcing assistance, i.e., executive assistant, accountant, etc. One mistake that is often made is planning on doing everything yourself. It is easy to get caught up in activities that don't produce revenue, so don't let that happen to you. Stick with your core competency (your product or service) and outsource the rest. In the long run you will save dollars and many hours of revenue producing time. Once you have all of your costs determined for the first year, figure out how much revenue you need to generate to make a profit.
Generating / Developing Business and Revenue:
When a new business is started it is an exciting time, and small business owners have a tendency to be overly optimistic in the area of generating sales. Many have the attitude, “Build it and they will come.” It takes a lot of effort to build up a consistent flow of incoming business. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as placing an ad or putting up a sign. Consumers typically want to purchase from other businesses they know and trust. This is why referral sales are so effective. There are a lot of strategies and processes a small business owner can incorporate to be successful at generating business and revenue.
Here are a few to get you started on the right path toward securing ongoing revenue streams:
1. Identify centers of influence. Look for “connectors” or fellow business owners that have an existing client base filled with people who would be ideal prospects for your business. Once you have identified those centers of influence, meet with them and develop a strategic alliance or referral program. You may not have a client base of your own to share, but you could offer other things, such as a low cost seminar that would add value to their existing clients. You would be surprised at the number of people who are both interested and willing to develop a strategic alliance. However, pick and choose these people carefully so you have access to potential customers.
2. Mine and cultivate existing clients. How often do you evaluate customers you have served in the past? Do you have a new product or service? Is it time for your customers to renew or upgrade? It is surprising how many people ignore their old customers and continually only focus on getting new customers. On average, between 25 and 50 percent of a small business' database is full of opportunities. If you don't get the business and service your customers, someone else eventually will.
3. Understand your customer's needs and be solution oriented. The key to understanding a customer's needs is to ask questions and find out what their problems are. Once you clearly understand the problems and how they are impacting them, i.e., loss of work, increased overhead, increased costs, etc., explain how your product or service provides a solution to their problem.
4. Have a strong and compelling reason why a customer should do business with you. Offering the best service and price are not strong enough reasons. Every competitor in your space will tout these as their reasons and you want to differentiate yourself from your competition. Additionally, today's marketplace buyers and consumers are more educated than ever, and they need tangible reasons. Strong validators include a high ROI (return on investment), case studies with successful clients, customer testimonials, etc. Managing and Controlling Growth: The third most popular cause for small business failure is managing growth. When a business is in a growth or expansion mode, some get caught in a vicious cycle of replacing old customers with new customers. The scenario is that growing companies get so busy they cannot handle the increased workload, and disgruntled customers leave. When this happens you are canceling out any new business and working twice as hard, reaping little to no growth. Just as important is managing business during a downturn in the market. It is extremely important to rein in expenses and control growth; otherwise, the extra expenses and overhead will drain the life (cash flow) out of the company. Once you have identified your immediate cyclical needs, you should also create a plan for your growth. Take some time to write down your short term and long terms goals. Short terms goals would be those that you would like to meet within the current business year. Then, write down goals for growth for a three, five, seven and ten year outlook. Once you have these goals written down, create a plan to meet each of these goals.
Make sure the following factors are addressed for each goal:
1. Customer to revenue ratio - make sure you can meet financial obligations of growth with the number of customers you need. You will also need to determine how much revenue you will need from each customer to reach this goal.
2. Short term financial needs - as you grow your business, whether it is by introducing a new product line, acquiring another business or adding more staff, you will have some short term capital needs. Determine how you are going to reach these needs. Can you solve them by increasing business or do you need a helping hand with some short term financing? If you need to go the route of financing, make sure you have a plan to pay it back. You want to avoid incurring ongoing debt if it is at all possible.
3. Spend wisely - if you have a good growth plan you will know when you will need extra cash flow and you can prepare for it. Take simple steps like not giving raises or bonuses during a time when you need cash flow. Make sure your inventory is stocked and your vendors are paid up to date. Rein in extras and decrease your operational burn for a short period and you will see how the extra cash flow can help fund your company's growth. Overall it is important to keep the big picture in mind. By tracking and planning for your growth it will be easy to see where you are going and not get lost in the day to day burdens of growing your business. It is easy for the small business owner to get overwhelmed and panicked about incurring debt and experiencing growing pains. Keeping your eye on the prize will allow you to systematically take steps toward controlled growth.
Article Source :http://www.bestmanagementarticles.comhttp://small-business-management.bestmanagementarticles.com
About the Author :
With over the 15 years of sales training and sales management experience, Henry Pellerin, SalespreneurEDGE™'s founder, realized there was a fundamental problem in the world of traditional sales training. So we took our sales training experience, in-house sales experience and developed useful processes that are flexible and can meet the specific objectives of our client organizations. Learn more here: http://www.salespreneurEDGE.com
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Leverage the Six Stages of Customer Loyalty: Attract Suspects and Convert Prospects
By Jill Griffin, The Griffin Group
There's an old saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day," and neither is customer loyalty. Customers become loyal to your company and its products and services one transaction at a time. In today's digitized world of ever-expanding customer-touch tools, finding the right tool for the right loyalty-building job can get downright confusing. I find that it helps to think in terms of loyalty stages, as people evolve into your best customers. They are: suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, client and advocate.
In this three-part series, I'll give you a quick tour of these stages and the various tools and techniques a cross-section of firms are using to leverage them. In this first part, I look at the earliest stages—attracting suspects and converting prospects—before a person has even made a purchase.
Loyalty Stage 1: Attracting suspects
In today's "connected" world, ideas drive buzz when they are:
Simple
Word-of-mouth friendly
Supported by tools to facilitate customer conversation
This three-step success formula worked exceptionally well for Blendtec, a small, Utah-based maker of high-end home and commercial blenders. The fledging company needed more business, so executives brainstormed: How do we earn more market awareness on a shoe-string budget? Their answer? Online videos with a simple, word-of-mouth friendly premise: CEO Tom Dickson, dressed in white lab coat and goggles, blending up a host of everyday objects (baseballs, a Tiki Torch, Transformers, an iPod, a video camera) in a light-hearted, don't-try-this-at home presentation schtick.
‘By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget.’
How did Blendtec facilitate online awareness and conversation? By posting the video on YouTube! Within a week, the Will It Blend? videos became a YouTube hit. Uploads followed on such other sites as Revver.com and Digg.com. At the end of the first seven days, the Will It Blend? video campaign had six million views. But that's not all. Other product makers, anxious to leverage the campaign's popularity, began paying Blendtec on average $5,000 to film promotions for their firms using the Will It Blend? format. Bottom line, the videos became a revenue producer in their own right. Awareness went way up, along with sales. Blendtec reported a 43 percent sales increase for 2006.
Loyalty Stage 2: Converting Prospects
Search engines are a great source for prospecting. But, to weed out high-potential prospects from mediocre suspects, it is vital that a firm's online search campaign be as "spot on" as possible in three areas:
Whom to target
How to position your products and services
How to effectively qualify prospects.
The right way. One company that did it the right way is Citrix Systems, a U.S.-based infrastructure software maker, which, in an effort to generate better sales leads, in early 2006 began using real-time, post-click analyses (conducted by Ion Interactive) to maximize paid search campaign conversion. The campaign was designed to attract buyers to Citrix's new HIPPA-friendly (Health Insurance Portability Act) software product.
The campaign's purpose was to generate high-quality leads that Citrix Systems sales agents could follow up on. Based on post-click marketing segmentation analysis, Citrix immediately learned that more than 70 percent of search engine respondents were not in the target audience of hospital decision-makers. But even with only 30 percent of the respondents in the target audience, conversion rates still soared 525 percent, based largely on the new campaign's use of directed click paths and audience-specific messaging.
Within 10 days of launch, Citrix used RTP analyses (which looks at respondents, traffic sources and paths) to confirm Google as the best-performing search engine. By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget. The sales lead campaign launched with two test paths. Immediate real-time analysis revealed that Path A was performing significantly better than Path B. Based on real-time data, Citrix Systems crafted and launched Path C, with nearly double the results of the already- successful A path. This segmented traffic converted at a sales lead rate of 12 percent—or almost 2,500 percent better than the previous campaign, launched in 2005. All in all, the campaign recalibration was impressively achieved within the first three weeks of campaign launch.
Too much too soon. Like Citrix Systems, 247 Workplace, a Los Gatos, California, maker of office furniture, wanted to generate better sales leads. And also like Citrix, the furniture maker looked to the web to help the generation/qualification process. The 247 strategy was to make virtual salesmanship more proactive. Rather than wait for the web visitor to click on a "help" button, 247 Workplace went one step further. When the visitor logged on the web site and looked around for several minutes or clicked seven or eight pages deep into content, a service agent detected the presence and solicited a real-time dialogue through an Instant Messenger-like prompt that read, "May I help you?"
A year into this more proactive stance, the company dropped it. While some web visitors liked the prompt attention, others found it intrusive and in direct conflict with the anonymity of web browsing. So the company listened to customer feedback and wisely dropped the feature, opting, instead, for customers to make the first move at chat engagement. The lesson here is just because you can doesn't mean you should in today's connected marketplace. On the web, as in person, it's important not to be perceived as too pushy. Both online and off, prospect conversion is a delicate dance that requires a "lead and follow" balance on both sides of the sales transaction.
In Part 2, I'll look at the middle stages, the first-time customer and the repeat customer.
Jill Griffin is an internationally published business author and speaker and corporate board director of a NYSE company. Her book, Customer Loyalty, has been published in six languages. Her co-authored book, Customer Winback, earned Soundview's "Best Books" award. Since 1988, she has led Austin-based Griffin Group, serving Fortune 500 companies.
There's an old saying, "Rome wasn't built in a day," and neither is customer loyalty. Customers become loyal to your company and its products and services one transaction at a time. In today's digitized world of ever-expanding customer-touch tools, finding the right tool for the right loyalty-building job can get downright confusing. I find that it helps to think in terms of loyalty stages, as people evolve into your best customers. They are: suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, client and advocate.
In this three-part series, I'll give you a quick tour of these stages and the various tools and techniques a cross-section of firms are using to leverage them. In this first part, I look at the earliest stages—attracting suspects and converting prospects—before a person has even made a purchase.
Loyalty Stage 1: Attracting suspects
In today's "connected" world, ideas drive buzz when they are:
Simple
Word-of-mouth friendly
Supported by tools to facilitate customer conversation
This three-step success formula worked exceptionally well for Blendtec, a small, Utah-based maker of high-end home and commercial blenders. The fledging company needed more business, so executives brainstormed: How do we earn more market awareness on a shoe-string budget? Their answer? Online videos with a simple, word-of-mouth friendly premise: CEO Tom Dickson, dressed in white lab coat and goggles, blending up a host of everyday objects (baseballs, a Tiki Torch, Transformers, an iPod, a video camera) in a light-hearted, don't-try-this-at home presentation schtick.
‘By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget.’
How did Blendtec facilitate online awareness and conversation? By posting the video on YouTube! Within a week, the Will It Blend? videos became a YouTube hit. Uploads followed on such other sites as Revver.com and Digg.com. At the end of the first seven days, the Will It Blend? video campaign had six million views. But that's not all. Other product makers, anxious to leverage the campaign's popularity, began paying Blendtec on average $5,000 to film promotions for their firms using the Will It Blend? format. Bottom line, the videos became a revenue producer in their own right. Awareness went way up, along with sales. Blendtec reported a 43 percent sales increase for 2006.
Loyalty Stage 2: Converting Prospects
Search engines are a great source for prospecting. But, to weed out high-potential prospects from mediocre suspects, it is vital that a firm's online search campaign be as "spot on" as possible in three areas:
Whom to target
How to position your products and services
How to effectively qualify prospects.
The right way. One company that did it the right way is Citrix Systems, a U.S.-based infrastructure software maker, which, in an effort to generate better sales leads, in early 2006 began using real-time, post-click analyses (conducted by Ion Interactive) to maximize paid search campaign conversion. The campaign was designed to attract buyers to Citrix's new HIPPA-friendly (Health Insurance Portability Act) software product.
The campaign's purpose was to generate high-quality leads that Citrix Systems sales agents could follow up on. Based on post-click marketing segmentation analysis, Citrix immediately learned that more than 70 percent of search engine respondents were not in the target audience of hospital decision-makers. But even with only 30 percent of the respondents in the target audience, conversion rates still soared 525 percent, based largely on the new campaign's use of directed click paths and audience-specific messaging.
Within 10 days of launch, Citrix used RTP analyses (which looks at respondents, traffic sources and paths) to confirm Google as the best-performing search engine. By Week 3, the company had dropped all other search engines from its budget. The sales lead campaign launched with two test paths. Immediate real-time analysis revealed that Path A was performing significantly better than Path B. Based on real-time data, Citrix Systems crafted and launched Path C, with nearly double the results of the already- successful A path. This segmented traffic converted at a sales lead rate of 12 percent—or almost 2,500 percent better than the previous campaign, launched in 2005. All in all, the campaign recalibration was impressively achieved within the first three weeks of campaign launch.
Too much too soon. Like Citrix Systems, 247 Workplace, a Los Gatos, California, maker of office furniture, wanted to generate better sales leads. And also like Citrix, the furniture maker looked to the web to help the generation/qualification process. The 247 strategy was to make virtual salesmanship more proactive. Rather than wait for the web visitor to click on a "help" button, 247 Workplace went one step further. When the visitor logged on the web site and looked around for several minutes or clicked seven or eight pages deep into content, a service agent detected the presence and solicited a real-time dialogue through an Instant Messenger-like prompt that read, "May I help you?"
A year into this more proactive stance, the company dropped it. While some web visitors liked the prompt attention, others found it intrusive and in direct conflict with the anonymity of web browsing. So the company listened to customer feedback and wisely dropped the feature, opting, instead, for customers to make the first move at chat engagement. The lesson here is just because you can doesn't mean you should in today's connected marketplace. On the web, as in person, it's important not to be perceived as too pushy. Both online and off, prospect conversion is a delicate dance that requires a "lead and follow" balance on both sides of the sales transaction.
In Part 2, I'll look at the middle stages, the first-time customer and the repeat customer.
Jill Griffin is an internationally published business author and speaker and corporate board director of a NYSE company. Her book, Customer Loyalty, has been published in six languages. Her co-authored book, Customer Winback, earned Soundview's "Best Books" award. Since 1988, she has led Austin-based Griffin Group, serving Fortune 500 companies.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Good ol’ Emily Post! Vs. Today’s Entertainer
Pieces of 19th century etiquette, entertaining and how “to show hospitality” may be a disappearing art. Aside from charity balls and fund raisers, that intentionally offer “high end” appeal to entice guests to donate money, I find that most parties offered today are most casual and relaxed. Many people forward invitations, but few take it to the formal extent that Emily Post is so well known. Today’s society is claiming its right to a “new” etiquette. Taking on some of the old rules and imposing a few new ones brings us to today’s entertainer.
The “invitation” is still an important key of party etiquette today. Like 19th century, the task of creating what the party, gathering or dance is about comes from the first impression of the invitation. How will the guest “read” the invitation? For example, a wedding invitation is either simple or elaborate, and the party or wedding reception would follow suit. The wording of the invitation is most important because it verbally communicates what is taking place, how it is taking place and where it is taking place. Unlike 19th century invitations, today’s invitation is worded more casually and stiff talk is out of the picture. With the advent of mass media, the need to communicate in an “EXACT” worded fashion is most lax. TV, radio and the internet provide places to chat, see, hear and understand with ease.
I believe Wedding invitations still hold true to the rules of Emily’s “etiquette” and one must explore the proper wording for a specific situation, ie. Divorced parents send a joint invitation:
Amy Lee Chen
(or Mrs. David Smith, if remarried)
Stephen Robert Wong
(or Mr. Stephen Robert Wong)
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Sarah Amanda
To
Jason George Harris
Saturday, the third of November
(invitation sited from Brides Magazine Sept. 2007)
But it’s the code of behavior in today’s society that differs greatly from Emily’s time. For starters as I’ve learned from Emily, behavior dictates how the “host” will be remembered. Confident? Kind? Friendly? Fun? These traits may be important for today’s entertainer but the guest usually wants to remember whether or not they had a fun time, if the food was good food, if there was good music and were there other friendly guests there? And the “Where” is where today’s guest is most likely to show a unique behavior. Think about it, would an Emily Post entertainer be found at a dance party in NYC, her voice shouting: “I pray you’ll have a seat and a spot of tea”. Or a local bar for that matter? And if a party of today is at home with a close knit circle, those guests don’t usually ask themselves “how to address the butler”. We already know the wealthy of today aren’t the only ones throwing a party! And from what I’ve experienced, Emily may not feel so comfortable seated at the dinner table, after all not everyone wants to be rigid fork holder with a salad, dinner and desert fork to the left of the plate, or is it the right?
19th century wealth may have been the model to follow and learn from but today’s entertainer tops off all “codes” of behavior with a twist of modernity that Emily would have been appalled! I’m sure of it!
The “invitation” is still an important key of party etiquette today. Like 19th century, the task of creating what the party, gathering or dance is about comes from the first impression of the invitation. How will the guest “read” the invitation? For example, a wedding invitation is either simple or elaborate, and the party or wedding reception would follow suit. The wording of the invitation is most important because it verbally communicates what is taking place, how it is taking place and where it is taking place. Unlike 19th century invitations, today’s invitation is worded more casually and stiff talk is out of the picture. With the advent of mass media, the need to communicate in an “EXACT” worded fashion is most lax. TV, radio and the internet provide places to chat, see, hear and understand with ease.
I believe Wedding invitations still hold true to the rules of Emily’s “etiquette” and one must explore the proper wording for a specific situation, ie. Divorced parents send a joint invitation:
Amy Lee Chen
(or Mrs. David Smith, if remarried)
Stephen Robert Wong
(or Mr. Stephen Robert Wong)
request the honour of your presence
at the marriage of their daughter
Sarah Amanda
To
Jason George Harris
Saturday, the third of November
(invitation sited from Brides Magazine Sept. 2007)
But it’s the code of behavior in today’s society that differs greatly from Emily’s time. For starters as I’ve learned from Emily, behavior dictates how the “host” will be remembered. Confident? Kind? Friendly? Fun? These traits may be important for today’s entertainer but the guest usually wants to remember whether or not they had a fun time, if the food was good food, if there was good music and were there other friendly guests there? And the “Where” is where today’s guest is most likely to show a unique behavior. Think about it, would an Emily Post entertainer be found at a dance party in NYC, her voice shouting: “I pray you’ll have a seat and a spot of tea”. Or a local bar for that matter? And if a party of today is at home with a close knit circle, those guests don’t usually ask themselves “how to address the butler”. We already know the wealthy of today aren’t the only ones throwing a party! And from what I’ve experienced, Emily may not feel so comfortable seated at the dinner table, after all not everyone wants to be rigid fork holder with a salad, dinner and desert fork to the left of the plate, or is it the right?
19th century wealth may have been the model to follow and learn from but today’s entertainer tops off all “codes” of behavior with a twist of modernity that Emily would have been appalled! I’m sure of it!
Author: Kristine Sheehan, Sept. 2, 2007
The Merry Bird...pen, ink and design
Thursday, August 23, 2007
PRESS RELEASE
THE MERRY BIRD’S Premier Wedding Invitation Line Flying in! September 27, 2007-
Trumbell, CT- Late September 2007
Kristine Sheehan, Owner of The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company is flying in to announce The Merry Bird’s premier bridal invitation line. Bells are ringing for The Merry Bird's new line of wedding, bachelorette and tea invitations, which are displayed on her business website located at http://www.themerrybird.com. With a distinct pen-and-ink stippled style, her formal and romantic wedding invitations offer a unique way of saying I love you, you’re invited! Any quantity of the bridal invitation line can be custom printed for the bride to be! And if the bride prefers a unique pen and ink design, Kristine will deliver a beautiful and meticulously hand drawn design especially for her.
Vendors and buyers are welcome to contact The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company at: info@themerrybird.com for samples. Contact Information: The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design Kristine Sheehan www.themerrybird.com
Company Bio:
The Merry Bird....pen, ink and design company of Trumbell, Connecticut has officially been in business since March 2006. Kristine Sheehan, the owner, began working in the design/art industry because her passion is drawing with pen and ink, painting and photography. Her company offers a line of pen and ink motifs on note cards, holiday cards and invitations. The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design is ever changing and adding more beautiful ideas to choose from, come take a peek, Fly in! http://www.themerrybird.com *********************
Trumbell, CT- Late September 2007
Kristine Sheehan, Owner of The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company is flying in to announce The Merry Bird’s premier bridal invitation line. Bells are ringing for The Merry Bird's new line of wedding, bachelorette and tea invitations, which are displayed on her business website located at http://www.themerrybird.com. With a distinct pen-and-ink stippled style, her formal and romantic wedding invitations offer a unique way of saying I love you, you’re invited! Any quantity of the bridal invitation line can be custom printed for the bride to be! And if the bride prefers a unique pen and ink design, Kristine will deliver a beautiful and meticulously hand drawn design especially for her.
Vendors and buyers are welcome to contact The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company at: info@themerrybird.com for samples. Contact Information: The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design Kristine Sheehan www.themerrybird.com
Company Bio:
The Merry Bird....pen, ink and design company of Trumbell, Connecticut has officially been in business since March 2006. Kristine Sheehan, the owner, began working in the design/art industry because her passion is drawing with pen and ink, painting and photography. Her company offers a line of pen and ink motifs on note cards, holiday cards and invitations. The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design is ever changing and adding more beautiful ideas to choose from, come take a peek, Fly in! http://www.themerrybird.com *********************
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
"Offline Advertising for Your Online Presence"
by Apryl Duncan
Online Sales Through Print Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but there's an old rule of advertising you should consider... offline. Flip through any publication. From Yellow Pages to college newspapers, these days an advertisement almost looks bare and incomplete without a Web address. These ads are designed to peak your interest. By going to the Web site, a potential customer should find complete details on the product and order information. There are three offline advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively.
Print
This category includes everything imaginable: weekly shoppers, classified ads, flyers, Yellow Pages, magazine ads, newsletters, local TV guides, coupons, billboards, hanging ads on doorknobs, company letterhead, even business cards. If there's paper involved, there's plenty of opportunity to advertise your Web site. No matter which method you choose, there are certain guidelines you can follow to turn your potential customers into online consumers. Offer special incentives for visiting your site. More information, discount coupons, blowout prices and online ordering are a good start. Just make your customers feel like they will actually gain something from checking out your Web site. People are more likely to logon to the Internet than they are to call you or request info by mail. So make your Web site URL stand out in a large font style. Most advertisers bury their URL in tiny print, making it practically impossible to read. While your telephone number, address and company name are all important, your URL should get equal consideration if not a bigger type size.
Radio
A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area's population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting.
Television
Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. If you sell sporting goods, your ad can run on SportsSouth and ESPN for the best possible prospects. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen. New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future................................................
Read her bio here
http://advertising.about.com/mbiopage.htm
Ref Link: http://advertising.about.com/od/creating/a/offlineonlinead.htm
Online Sales Through Print Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but there's an old rule of advertising you should consider... offline. Flip through any publication. From Yellow Pages to college newspapers, these days an advertisement almost looks bare and incomplete without a Web address. These ads are designed to peak your interest. By going to the Web site, a potential customer should find complete details on the product and order information. There are three offline advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively.
This category includes everything imaginable: weekly shoppers, classified ads, flyers, Yellow Pages, magazine ads, newsletters, local TV guides, coupons, billboards, hanging ads on doorknobs, company letterhead, even business cards. If there's paper involved, there's plenty of opportunity to advertise your Web site. No matter which method you choose, there are certain guidelines you can follow to turn your potential customers into online consumers. Offer special incentives for visiting your site. More information, discount coupons, blowout prices and online ordering are a good start. Just make your customers feel like they will actually gain something from checking out your Web site. People are more likely to logon to the Internet than they are to call you or request info by mail. So make your Web site URL stand out in a large font style. Most advertisers bury their URL in tiny print, making it practically impossible to read. While your telephone number, address and company name are all important, your URL should get equal consideration if not a bigger type size.
Radio
A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area's population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting.
Television
Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. If you sell sporting goods, your ad can run on SportsSouth and ESPN for the best possible prospects. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen. New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future................................................
Read her bio here
http://advertising.about.com/mbiopage.htm
Ref Link: http://advertising.about.com/od/creating/a/offlineonlinead.htm
Friday, August 03, 2007
The Green Movement
An article in a recent trade magazine brought my attention to the green movement. Everyone and anyone must know recycled products and material are absolutely necessary for the well being of the planet. The stationery industry is no stranger to this concept. Dating back to the 70’s to the early 90’s, the popular trend of printing on recycled paper was well known and is a practice that is widely used for stationery production today.
But, the millennium holds “An Inconvenient Truth”. Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth," shows us that global warming is indeed happening to our earth. With this knowledge, the green movement is even more necessary as a worldwide endeavor. Starting with all retailers and manufacturers of products, the well being of the earth must be considered well before production.
Retailers and manufactures must be an active part of the Green Movement. If everyone incorporated these suggestions in their manufacturing processes we may save the world.
Utilize recycled paper
Larger manufacturers keep tabs on packaging sizes (i.e.: General Mills took the initiative in package reduction which resulted in 500 fewer trucks on the road and 2.2 million fewer miles driven. Sited from an article by The National Retail Federation)
All companies big and small should do their part by highlighting eco-friendly products on the shelves or on websites and in catalogs.
As for The Merry Bird, I will do my best to mix the pleasures of web world efficiency and preserving the quality of personalized invitations and postal mailed cards. Recycled paper being an inevitable part of business!
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com/
But, the millennium holds “An Inconvenient Truth”. Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth," shows us that global warming is indeed happening to our earth. With this knowledge, the green movement is even more necessary as a worldwide endeavor. Starting with all retailers and manufacturers of products, the well being of the earth must be considered well before production.
Retailers and manufactures must be an active part of the Green Movement. If everyone incorporated these suggestions in their manufacturing processes we may save the world.
Utilize recycled paper
Larger manufacturers keep tabs on packaging sizes (i.e.: General Mills took the initiative in package reduction which resulted in 500 fewer trucks on the road and 2.2 million fewer miles driven. Sited from an article by The National Retail Federation)
All companies big and small should do their part by highlighting eco-friendly products on the shelves or on websites and in catalogs.
As for The Merry Bird, I will do my best to mix the pleasures of web world efficiency and preserving the quality of personalized invitations and postal mailed cards. Recycled paper being an inevitable part of business!
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com/
Friday, July 27, 2007
How successful will stationers and stationery designers be in near future?
How successful will stationers and stationery designers be in near future? Will they become stationary (spelling intended)?
This question looms over head while I take on the first steps of operating my invitation/card business here online. My objective is to attract online and offline vendors that sell boxed notes, find brides that want a special pen and ink, hand drawn invitations or sell birth announcements and other paper imprintables to individuals or shop owners. This can all be done through an online venue, which is an incredible medium for communication. The internet will allow me to reach more people than on foot. This is the upside of what I love to do.
On the other hand, what I’m finding is that the stationery industry depends on postal service, paper and the need for more trees and printing. But as the web world takes over with e-invites, “Green” sites and email thank you notes, along with the postage increase for letters and shipping, I’m wondering if I am doing this job in Vain. Will stationers become obsolete?
One shop keeper said “No way! The stationery industry depends on the sentimentality of the customer as well as the professionalism of the purpose behind the purchase”. I began to think positive again and reached deep within to ask myself a couple of questions. One: would I ever send a wedding invitation via email? And two: how do I feel when I receive a letter in the mail from a friend or relative? My answer didn’t surprise me. I would never send a wedding invitation via email ( I didn’t back then and I wouldn’t now) and I love to receive letters from friends and relatives on lovely stationery or note cards. So I beg to agree that as long as people are sentimental or long to project a tangible professional image about themselves or company, stationery designers and stationers will continue to thrive.
As a designer I know the need for technology is imminent and is impressive when it comes to the “new” tool department. We no longer need just pencil and paper, paint and canvas or clay to mold. So with this in mind I welcome technical advances while I hold onto the old school of thought that romance can be found in letters, and that sending an event invitation projects the image or theme of the day, while professionalism is evident in custom stationery.
Why think in only 2 dimensions. It’s receiving that quality note card, stationery or invitation in the mail that makes the 3 dimensional world interesting!
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com
This question looms over head while I take on the first steps of operating my invitation/card business here online. My objective is to attract online and offline vendors that sell boxed notes, find brides that want a special pen and ink, hand drawn invitations or sell birth announcements and other paper imprintables to individuals or shop owners. This can all be done through an online venue, which is an incredible medium for communication. The internet will allow me to reach more people than on foot. This is the upside of what I love to do.
On the other hand, what I’m finding is that the stationery industry depends on postal service, paper and the need for more trees and printing. But as the web world takes over with e-invites, “Green” sites and email thank you notes, along with the postage increase for letters and shipping, I’m wondering if I am doing this job in Vain. Will stationers become obsolete?
One shop keeper said “No way! The stationery industry depends on the sentimentality of the customer as well as the professionalism of the purpose behind the purchase”. I began to think positive again and reached deep within to ask myself a couple of questions. One: would I ever send a wedding invitation via email? And two: how do I feel when I receive a letter in the mail from a friend or relative? My answer didn’t surprise me. I would never send a wedding invitation via email ( I didn’t back then and I wouldn’t now) and I love to receive letters from friends and relatives on lovely stationery or note cards. So I beg to agree that as long as people are sentimental or long to project a tangible professional image about themselves or company, stationery designers and stationers will continue to thrive.
As a designer I know the need for technology is imminent and is impressive when it comes to the “new” tool department. We no longer need just pencil and paper, paint and canvas or clay to mold. So with this in mind I welcome technical advances while I hold onto the old school of thought that romance can be found in letters, and that sending an event invitation projects the image or theme of the day, while professionalism is evident in custom stationery.
Why think in only 2 dimensions. It’s receiving that quality note card, stationery or invitation in the mail that makes the 3 dimensional world interesting!
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com
Sunday, July 15, 2007
It's a Case of Memories
IT'S A CASE OF MEMORIES
Today the greeting card business is worth over 7 billion dollars in the United States alone! Can you imagine all the written, sentimental memories being held onto out there? This fact made me wonder, what the hek do people do with all the wonderful greeting cards they receive? Do they save them? File them? Box them? Throw them away?
I heard the answer with a drum role ….. The Greeting Card Case Company, a solo owned business located in Akron Ohio, knew exactly what people needed to have, to organize greetings, invitations and paper memories in one place, a greeting card case.
In a personal interview with Yeukai, sole proprietor of the GCC Company, I learned that a big plastic bag of saved cards, that were received on birthdays and other events through the years inspired the GCC Company. Last year, Yeukai created something cute and portable to store all of the cards and memories in, a greeting card case. Yeukai said, “I really believe that the cases help to protect our memories. When I read my greeting cards from the past there are all sorts of funny jokes in them and the greeting card case helped to treasure those memories efficiently”.
This patented idea immediately pushed the manufacturing process to begin and the cases are presently on the designers table overseas. The cases will be offered in different sizes and materials (leather, cloth etc.) The cases should be available this August 2007.
The GCC Company will be extending its product line and will be introducing 3 new products in 3 months. So don’t be an unorganized sentimental fool! Keep your personal greeting cards in a Case of memories. See the GCC Company at http://www.gcccompany.com/
Author/Interviewer
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com
I heard the answer with a drum role ….. The Greeting Card Case Company, a solo owned business located in Akron Ohio, knew exactly what people needed to have, to organize greetings, invitations and paper memories in one place, a greeting card case.
In a personal interview with Yeukai, sole proprietor of the GCC Company, I learned that a big plastic bag of saved cards, that were received on birthdays and other events through the years inspired the GCC Company. Last year, Yeukai created something cute and portable to store all of the cards and memories in, a greeting card case. Yeukai said, “I really believe that the cases help to protect our memories. When I read my greeting cards from the past there are all sorts of funny jokes in them and the greeting card case helped to treasure those memories efficiently”.
This patented idea immediately pushed the manufacturing process to begin and the cases are presently on the designers table overseas. The cases will be offered in different sizes and materials (leather, cloth etc.) The cases should be available this August 2007.
The GCC Company will be extending its product line and will be introducing 3 new products in 3 months. So don’t be an unorganized sentimental fool! Keep your personal greeting cards in a Case of memories. See the GCC Company at http://www.gcccompany.com/
Author/Interviewer
Kristine Sheehan
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
http://www.themerrybird.com
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
No Pain, No Gain
To make the sale, you need to do what's difficult.
By Barry Farber Entrepreneur Magazine - July 2007
Sales breakthroughs have a lot to do with your ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. In many situations, success comes from understanding
By Barry Farber Entrepreneur Magazine - July 2007
Sales breakthroughs have a lot to do with your ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. In many situations, success comes from understanding
how to turn present discomfort into future gain. Many of the actions that aren't enjoyable now--such as making cold calls or working after hours when you feel like stopping but know you need to finish--are necessary to add value to each new step you take. Here are some thoughts to keep you motivated when the going gets tough.
· Hard work now will pay off later. All the sales you've ever made did not happen overnight. They were likely accounts you worked on for long periods of time. Everything you have today was brought forth by all your past efforts. Think about what you've accomplished by doing the things you didn't want to do.
· Learn from every experience. Understand and appreciate that the upside of difficulty is that there will always be new opportunities for learning and improving your skills.
· Focus on the positives. Find something unique about each contact you encounter during the day to make something you might not enjoy enjoyable. Once I was making phone calls to new companies shortly after a snowstorm, and I found it to be a great time to make calls. You'd be surprised at how many people were in pleasant moods. On one call, I was speaking with the assistant to the vice president of sales, and she said she loved the sight of the snow outside her window. She was in a great mood and was very helpful. Following the call, I sent her a nice handwritten note about our brief talk and thanked her for her time. This won't close a sale, but it builds your chances of standing out in a positive way as you move forward with your next steps.
· Pick the difficult action over the easy one. Doing so will make you grow stronger as a person, not just as a salesperson. Call on the bigger accounts, start at the top and sell your way down and across departments, and make the calls after you're ready to go home. In the long run, this is what will separate you from the average performer.
· I'd like to share a technique I use as a metaphor for both sales and life. A good friend of mine told me that he takes cold showers every day and rarely gets sick. Right after a hot shower, he turns off all the hot water and lets the shower run down his spine and all his joints. Does it feel uncomfortable at first? Yes. Does it shock your body? Yes, but then something strange happens. After a few weeks, your body becomes warm after a few seconds of the pain. Eventually, you begin to look forward to it. What was once uncomfortable is now comfortable. There's no difference between this and making uncomfortable calls to new people or making a presentation to a large group. In the beginning, it's difficult and uncomfortable, but later it becomes easier and produces rewarding results. I've been taking cold showers for more than four years now and have not gotten sick since.
Remember this the next time you're uncomfortable working through the details of your sales cycle--and take comfort in being uncomfortable.
Barry Farber, author of The 12 Clichés of Selling, has taught thousands of individuals and corporations how to break through barriers to achieve their sales, management and personal goals.
Friday, June 29, 2007
PRESS RELEASE
June 27, 2007- Trumbell, CT
This March 2007 Kristine Sheehan, Owner of The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company, delivered Samantha her second child, a welcomed addition to the family business.
The joyous event also marks the "birth" of The Merry Bird's new line of boxed Note and Holiday Cards, which are displayed on her business website located at http://www.themerrybird.com./
With a distinct pen-and-ink stippled style, her note cards offer a unique way of saying thank you, sending invitations or spreading holiday cheer.
Twenty-five holiday cards are beautifully presented in a gold box with Merry Bird ribbon. The holiday variety themes include: Soldiers, Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, Santa’s Bag, and Holiday Bells. The new cards in the holiday line will be displayed on the website by late August 2007.
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company is flying in to announce the start of the holiday season this July 19th and 20th at the Women Business Owners (http://www.womenowners.com) very own Christmas in July sale.
Vendors and buyers are welcome to contact The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design company at: info@themerrybird.com to receive a “buyer flyer”. Your buyer flyer will allow you to view the cards and place your holiday orders.
Or, if you prefer to send one card at a time, The Merry Bird…Card Service makes it simple to choose one card and forward it to a friend. You can choose your font and a stippled motif, fill in the card service order form, and submit the order. Voilà ! Your card is in the mail. Payment is simple, just click on the appropriate PayPal button and the card is forwarded via postal mail for you.
Contact Information:
The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design
Kristine Sheehan http://www.themerrybird.com/
Company Bio:
The Merry Bird....pen, ink and design company of Trumbell, Connecticut has officially been in business since March 2006. Kristine Sheehan, the owner, began working in the design/art industry because her passion is drawing with pen and ink, painting and photography. Her company offers a line of pen and ink motifs on note cards, holiday cards and invitations. The Merry Bird…pen, ink and design is ever changing and adding more beautiful ideas to choose from, come take a peek, Fly in! http://www.themerrybird.com
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Catalogs: Low-Tech Tools for High-Tech Sales
'startupnation' June 2007
Sometimes, the key to promoting high-tech online sales is going low.
Strange as it may seem in a time when billions of dollars of commerce is taking place on the Web, old-fashioned ink-on-paper can be a very potent tool for goosing sales and cementing customer relationships.
“When Web sites started to show themselves, they replaced things like catalogs, stores, telephones, answering centers,” says Eddie Bakhash, president of AmericanPearl.com, a high-end New York-based jewelry company.
Now, Bakhash says, the world of online selling is “reaching maturity. Every site reaches a threshold where you’ve built a great site, you’re in the search engines, you’re spending money on cost-per-click advertising and your business cannot expand on the Internet anymore.”
BRIOprint.com: Catalogs Immediate online pricing for catalog printing and fast turn around. Sheetfed and heat set web printing up to 77 inches wide.
§ Printingforless.com: for catalogues, booklets, and calendars, including standard formats to choose from.
That’s the time to look back, and reconsider another time-tested promotional tool – catalogs.
Catalogs say you’re here to stay
Mario Barth saw a 12 percent increase in sales when he started circulating fliers for his online tattoo supplies business, The Tattoo Superstore.
“With all the Internet sites out there, if there is not some form of printed material supporting what you do, people think it’s not real,” says Barth, who runs four high-end tattoo studios and the online supply company from his Rochelle Park, N.J., headquarters.
A year after Barth sent a catalog to his customer base, online sales had increased by 1,045 percent. No joke.
“They felt very secure that the company is real,” says Barth, who started his site about three years before sending out the first catalog in 2004. “I send catalogs at least twice a year to my customers, and then I support it sometimes with special fliers as an insert in the catalog. People keep the catalog instead of throwing it out. When you make people interact again with your product, they start ordering again.”
When they work, they work
Not everyone shops by catalog – but those who do remember the business a lot longer, industry research has found.
Nearly 30 percent of footwear consumers said catalogs influenced their purchases more than newspaper ads, TV commercials or Internet ads, according to a study by Footwear News/NPD Group. That’s why Kassie Rempel complements her online women’s shoe boutique, SimplySoles, with seasonal catalogs.
“When I started SimplySoles, the business model was always to create dual marketing channels: the catalog and the Web site,” Rempel says. “They complement each other by reinforcing the brand. Business from the catalog is strong – 60 percent phone orders versus 40 percent Web orders. Our catalog keeps SimplySoles in the minds of our customers. We come to them, versus them just coming to us.”
AmericanPearl.com’s catalogs are half magazine, half selling tool ? or, as they’re called in publishing, “magalogs.” It’s a great way to “reinforce a message to an existing customer,” Bakhash says.
In fact, existing clients are the best audience for a catalog. Bakhash cautions fellow e-tailers to stay away from catalogs as a tool to find new buyers. They’re best, he says, for reminding customers you’re there and reawakening their desire to shop at your site.
AmericanPearl.com customers get catalogs before holidays, an anniversary or birthday. It’s a way to send a “meaningful message,” Bakhash says.
How to do it?
If you’re ready to add a catalog to your e-biz, start small, suggests jeweler Bakhash, who launched his online company in 1997 and issued his first catalog in 2001. Don’t commission a high-cost printer; buy desktop publishing software, a really good printer and do it yourself.
“With a little time and some off-the-shelf software, you can create beautiful-looking catalogs,” says Bakhash, whose company sends out 75,000 catalogs a year. “Once you measure your feedback, you can expand on that.”
Consider variable data printing – sending different catalogs to different customers based on their latest purchase (what accessories go with what they’ve already bought?). Not every marketing piece has to be the same.
Bakhash says the key to catalogs is using them as a tool for building ongoing relationships with your customers and keeping them strong – not just selling once, and leaving a pile of potential new sales on the table.
Lynne Meredith Schreiber is a freelance writer for StartupNation.
Sometimes, the key to promoting high-tech online sales is going low.
Strange as it may seem in a time when billions of dollars of commerce is taking place on the Web, old-fashioned ink-on-paper can be a very potent tool for goosing sales and cementing customer relationships.
“When Web sites started to show themselves, they replaced things like catalogs, stores, telephones, answering centers,” says Eddie Bakhash, president of AmericanPearl.com, a high-end New York-based jewelry company.
Now, Bakhash says, the world of online selling is “reaching maturity. Every site reaches a threshold where you’ve built a great site, you’re in the search engines, you’re spending money on cost-per-click advertising and your business cannot expand on the Internet anymore.”
BRIOprint.com: Catalogs Immediate online pricing for catalog printing and fast turn around. Sheetfed and heat set web printing up to 77 inches wide.
§ Printingforless.com: for catalogues, booklets, and calendars, including standard formats to choose from.
That’s the time to look back, and reconsider another time-tested promotional tool – catalogs.
Catalogs say you’re here to stay
Mario Barth saw a 12 percent increase in sales when he started circulating fliers for his online tattoo supplies business, The Tattoo Superstore.
“With all the Internet sites out there, if there is not some form of printed material supporting what you do, people think it’s not real,” says Barth, who runs four high-end tattoo studios and the online supply company from his Rochelle Park, N.J., headquarters.
A year after Barth sent a catalog to his customer base, online sales had increased by 1,045 percent. No joke.
“They felt very secure that the company is real,” says Barth, who started his site about three years before sending out the first catalog in 2004. “I send catalogs at least twice a year to my customers, and then I support it sometimes with special fliers as an insert in the catalog. People keep the catalog instead of throwing it out. When you make people interact again with your product, they start ordering again.”
When they work, they work
Not everyone shops by catalog – but those who do remember the business a lot longer, industry research has found.
Nearly 30 percent of footwear consumers said catalogs influenced their purchases more than newspaper ads, TV commercials or Internet ads, according to a study by Footwear News/NPD Group. That’s why Kassie Rempel complements her online women’s shoe boutique, SimplySoles, with seasonal catalogs.
“When I started SimplySoles, the business model was always to create dual marketing channels: the catalog and the Web site,” Rempel says. “They complement each other by reinforcing the brand. Business from the catalog is strong – 60 percent phone orders versus 40 percent Web orders. Our catalog keeps SimplySoles in the minds of our customers. We come to them, versus them just coming to us.”
AmericanPearl.com’s catalogs are half magazine, half selling tool ? or, as they’re called in publishing, “magalogs.” It’s a great way to “reinforce a message to an existing customer,” Bakhash says.
In fact, existing clients are the best audience for a catalog. Bakhash cautions fellow e-tailers to stay away from catalogs as a tool to find new buyers. They’re best, he says, for reminding customers you’re there and reawakening their desire to shop at your site.
AmericanPearl.com customers get catalogs before holidays, an anniversary or birthday. It’s a way to send a “meaningful message,” Bakhash says.
How to do it?
If you’re ready to add a catalog to your e-biz, start small, suggests jeweler Bakhash, who launched his online company in 1997 and issued his first catalog in 2001. Don’t commission a high-cost printer; buy desktop publishing software, a really good printer and do it yourself.
“With a little time and some off-the-shelf software, you can create beautiful-looking catalogs,” says Bakhash, whose company sends out 75,000 catalogs a year. “Once you measure your feedback, you can expand on that.”
Consider variable data printing – sending different catalogs to different customers based on their latest purchase (what accessories go with what they’ve already bought?). Not every marketing piece has to be the same.
Bakhash says the key to catalogs is using them as a tool for building ongoing relationships with your customers and keeping them strong – not just selling once, and leaving a pile of potential new sales on the table.
Lynne Meredith Schreiber is a freelance writer for StartupNation.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Humming Birds - Cold Snap
The stage was set by an unusually warm early spring, with no significant cold fronts during the entire month of March. As a result, although the arrival of the first migrants on the Gulf coast was normal, some birds made extraordinary speed northward with no bad weather to slow them down. In my opinion, the spring hummingbird migration is constrained by the availability of active insects, not by the blooming of flowers, and there were plenty of bugs for the earliest birds to eat. Freezing temperatures are not a direct factor in hummingbird mortality; healthy Ruby-throated tolerate nights in the teens easily, but freezing weather limits insect activity. Hummers can do without nectar, but they need bugs at least every few days or their nutrition suffers (including their tolerance for cold).
By the first week of April, a few birds had made remarkable progress, particularly into the midwest, which saw unseasonable highs in the 80s. Everyone knew a cold front was long overdue, and it was a nasty one, bringing thunderstorms, hail, sleet, and snow.
Hummingbirds do not migrate in flocks. Each bird has its own internal clock and migration schedule, probably inherited; the migration starts with just a few individuals in early March, builds over several weeks, then tapers off until it's essentially over by June. The dates on the map reflect the earliest birds, not the vast bulk of the population. Since they are spread out both geopraphically and temporally, the species limits its vulnerability to catastrophic conditions, including bad weather. This is also why you may not see any hummingbirds for weeks after the map shows sightings in your area--if a hummer passed through a yard two houses away, you probably wouldn't notice.
So, a very small percentage of the Ruby-throated population had the misfortune to be caught on the wrong side of the cold front. Will they survive? There's little research or precedent to suggest answers, but I would expect most individuals to find enough shelter and food to manage, while some others will not. There's an advantage to being first to arrive--a chance to claim the best breeding territories--but there's always a risk of outrunning the food supply. If climate change is moving toward earlier springs, these risk-taking hummers will be in the forefront of an evolutionary shift to earlier migration schedules. But climate deals with averages, over long periods of time, while weather has immediate and dramatic effects. Climate affects populations; weather affects individuals.
What can you do to help? Don't wait to hang your feeders until after you see hummingbirds. Let the map guide your timing. The standard 1:4 feeder syrup won't start to freeze unless nights drop below about 27 degrees Fahrenheit, and even a slushy feeder is better than none at all. You don't need to worry about insects or shelter, because hummers are adept at finding both on their own.
It's heartwrenching to think of hummingbirds dying from the cold, but remember only a small portion of the population is affected, and they're tougher and more resourceful than you might think. I'm more concerned about what's happened to the wildflowers on which the rest of the species will depend as they head north. The loss of flower resources might have a much harsher impact overall than the direct effects of cold weather on the leading edge of the migration. Remember that many hummingbirds never use feeders, so try to replace the freeze-damaged flowers in your garden as soon as you can.
Lanny Chambers
www.hummingbirds.net
By the first week of April, a few birds had made remarkable progress, particularly into the midwest, which saw unseasonable highs in the 80s. Everyone knew a cold front was long overdue, and it was a nasty one, bringing thunderstorms, hail, sleet, and snow.
Hummingbirds do not migrate in flocks. Each bird has its own internal clock and migration schedule, probably inherited; the migration starts with just a few individuals in early March, builds over several weeks, then tapers off until it's essentially over by June. The dates on the map reflect the earliest birds, not the vast bulk of the population. Since they are spread out both geopraphically and temporally, the species limits its vulnerability to catastrophic conditions, including bad weather. This is also why you may not see any hummingbirds for weeks after the map shows sightings in your area--if a hummer passed through a yard two houses away, you probably wouldn't notice.
So, a very small percentage of the Ruby-throated population had the misfortune to be caught on the wrong side of the cold front. Will they survive? There's little research or precedent to suggest answers, but I would expect most individuals to find enough shelter and food to manage, while some others will not. There's an advantage to being first to arrive--a chance to claim the best breeding territories--but there's always a risk of outrunning the food supply. If climate change is moving toward earlier springs, these risk-taking hummers will be in the forefront of an evolutionary shift to earlier migration schedules. But climate deals with averages, over long periods of time, while weather has immediate and dramatic effects. Climate affects populations; weather affects individuals.
What can you do to help? Don't wait to hang your feeders until after you see hummingbirds. Let the map guide your timing. The standard 1:4 feeder syrup won't start to freeze unless nights drop below about 27 degrees Fahrenheit, and even a slushy feeder is better than none at all. You don't need to worry about insects or shelter, because hummers are adept at finding both on their own.
It's heartwrenching to think of hummingbirds dying from the cold, but remember only a small portion of the population is affected, and they're tougher and more resourceful than you might think. I'm more concerned about what's happened to the wildflowers on which the rest of the species will depend as they head north. The loss of flower resources might have a much harsher impact overall than the direct effects of cold weather on the leading edge of the migration. Remember that many hummingbirds never use feeders, so try to replace the freeze-damaged flowers in your garden as soon as you can.
Lanny Chambers
www.hummingbirds.net
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Basics of Local Online Advertising
Need to drive more business to your door? Use our practical guide to rev up your local web strategy.
By Amanda C. Kooser Entrepreneur Magazine - March 2007
For a downloadable checklist of the top 15 sites you need to advertise on locally, go to www.entrepreneur.com/checklists/localsites
The promise of the web has been a global one. It connects companies to telecommuters, outsourcers, far-off countries and customers around the world. But a new trend in the web is bringing it closer to home . . . and business. The “local web” is the way the internet helps connect people with places in their hometowns as well as their business and travel destinations. For local entrepreneurs, it’s about using the web to reach customers and vice versa.
We’re not here to preach the value of having a website. You already know about that. This is a look at how to use your site and the many other internet resources available to help customers find you. It’s not so much about e-commerce as it is about getting people to your door. “What we have now is a complicated world where people use many different sources of information to find local businesses. They’re using the traditional mediums that they’ve always used, but now the internet has become a very powerful--and in many cases, [the] primary--resource for people,” says Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, an Oakland, California, consulting and research firm with an emphasis on the local search marketplace.
“You need to be where your customers are, and more and more customers are on the web,” says Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of global online sales and operations at Google. Take a look out over the web. There’s no one-stop shop for marketing your local business online. People use search engines, online Yellow Pages, industry-specific directories, referral and review sites and online communities. They follow links from other businesses’ sites and click on ads while browsing. So here’s a primer to help you plan your local web strategy.
Get StartedThe first step is usually the hardest one. This initial stage requires a little patience and a lot of groundwork. Here it is: Get listed. That sounds pretty straightforward, but it actually means you have a roster of websites to visit. The three big search engines--Google, MSN and Yahoo!--should be your first destinations. Submit your site to each engine and then visit their “Local” sections and submit your company information. For example, go to http://listings.local.yahoo.com. The “Local Basic Listings” link takes you to the service. You can fill in information about your business, including hours, services, payment methods and descriptions. Once processed, your business will appear on Yahoo! Local maps and in searches that correlate to your description and category. Google works in a similar manner through its Local Business Center, and MSN partners with Citysearch to generate local information. Basic listings are free.
Ask.com recently launched AskCity for local searches, and AOL also generates its share of search traffic, so be sure to include them in your local web strategy.“You should absolutely get your content into every free directory or listing service you can,” says Sterling. “It’s important to [do this] because you don’t know where your potential customers are coming from.” Don’t overlook vertical sites that serve your particular market and that maintain business directories or listings. Local newspaper websites can be smart and affordable places to post an advertising link. Sites like Craigslist that feature a strong local component can be powerful tools. Not only do local customers browse the ads, but the ads are often indexed by search engines, providing yet another avenue for people to find you.
Look No FurtherIn a recent study by ROI Research Inc. and Performics on the offline impact of internet search, 55 percent to 65 percent of respondents said that search is at least somewhat influential in purchases they make at retail locations. That number is on the way up. Beyond retail products, more consumers are looking for local services online as well. The same goes for other businesses seeking local partners, suppliers and services.
Newspapers and physical Yellow Pages haven’t been abandoned, but they’re now pieces of a larger puzzle. A report by Borrell Associates predicts that local online advertising will grow by 31 percent to $7.7 billion and local paid search will balloon by 86 percent to $1.8 billion in 2007. If you want to be found in your hometown, you need to be found online. But being found isn’t always free.
Many businesses allocate some of their marketing budgets to search engine advertising. First Crush, a restaurant and wine bar in San Francisco, subscribes to the Google AdWords program. “We started with Google because it was such a big name,” says Shahram Bijan, owner of First Crush. “[We] reached a big audience without having to spend a lot of money.” First Crush uses 20 to 30 different keywords to trigger its ads in Google. Bijan’s goal was to drive search traffic to www.firstcrush.com, where visitors could learn more about the restaurant, its extensive wine list and event catering options, and use its online reservation system. “The great thing about the internet is people are looking for specific information,” says Bijan, 29. “You’re not just bombarding them with ads.”
Get AdvancedSearch engines aren’t the be-all and end-all of a local web strategy. Most businesses will benefit from a multi-faceted approach. Outside the top general search engines, a handful of sites have popped up with a specifically local bent.
A big trend is convergence websites, which combine local business listings and directories with search functionality and paid advertising. Citysearch, founded in 1995, is the elder statesman of this type of site. Its focus on city guides with restaurants, services and reviews has made it a must-list place for a lot of businesses, particularly those in larger cities. First Crush uses Citysearch in combination with its own website and Google AdWords. This multipronged approach helped the restaurant reach $3 million in sales in 2006, with an expected 5 percent increase for 2007.
Although Kenai, Alaska, has fewer than 10,000 residents, nearly 50 local businesses have signed up with MerchantCircle.com, a local business listings service. Tina Showalter, 43, opened the Blonde Bear Bed & Breakfast in 2005. “Our first summer, we did great with word-of-mouth advertising, and then we got involved in the internet, and it has pretty much exploded from there,” says Showalter, who runs the Blonde Bear with her husband, George, 46. They expect sales to double in 2007.
The Blonde Bear’s MerchantCircle.com site combines a business description, reviews, a blog, coupons, a map and links to other businesses listed on MerchantCircle.com. All those Kenai businesses on the site got there through word-of-mouth; Showalter estimates she’s brought 30 other businesses onboard to help build up the cross-promotional and networking benefits of the site. Look for more services like MerchantCircle.com to hit the scene as the local web market heats up.
Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
With all the avenues available for reaching customers online, it’s important to be able to determine what is working and what isn’t. “This is all about discovery, trial and error, and refinement,” says Sterling. “Be willing to try some stuff and change course if it doesn’t work.” To find out if your strategies are effective, Sterling suggests entrepreneurs simply ask how their customers learned about them. Online coupons can also be an effective way to track how many customers are visiting your website and then visiting your location.
Search engine advertising services come with analytics and reports that show you how many click-throughs and unique visitors you’re getting. These numbers can help you determine which search terms are working, which to spend more money on and which to abandon. It has been a simple equation for First Crush. “When we put up the website, we were getting about 150 to 200 unique visitors a day,” says Bijan. “After we started using Google, we’re seeing 600 to 800 unique visitors a day.”
By Amanda C. Kooser Entrepreneur Magazine - March 2007
For a downloadable checklist of the top 15 sites you need to advertise on locally, go to www.entrepreneur.com/checklists/localsites
The promise of the web has been a global one. It connects companies to telecommuters, outsourcers, far-off countries and customers around the world. But a new trend in the web is bringing it closer to home . . . and business. The “local web” is the way the internet helps connect people with places in their hometowns as well as their business and travel destinations. For local entrepreneurs, it’s about using the web to reach customers and vice versa.
We’re not here to preach the value of having a website. You already know about that. This is a look at how to use your site and the many other internet resources available to help customers find you. It’s not so much about e-commerce as it is about getting people to your door. “What we have now is a complicated world where people use many different sources of information to find local businesses. They’re using the traditional mediums that they’ve always used, but now the internet has become a very powerful--and in many cases, [the] primary--resource for people,” says Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, an Oakland, California, consulting and research firm with an emphasis on the local search marketplace.
“You need to be where your customers are, and more and more customers are on the web,” says Sheryl Sandberg, vice president of global online sales and operations at Google. Take a look out over the web. There’s no one-stop shop for marketing your local business online. People use search engines, online Yellow Pages, industry-specific directories, referral and review sites and online communities. They follow links from other businesses’ sites and click on ads while browsing. So here’s a primer to help you plan your local web strategy.
Get StartedThe first step is usually the hardest one. This initial stage requires a little patience and a lot of groundwork. Here it is: Get listed. That sounds pretty straightforward, but it actually means you have a roster of websites to visit. The three big search engines--Google, MSN and Yahoo!--should be your first destinations. Submit your site to each engine and then visit their “Local” sections and submit your company information. For example, go to http://listings.local.yahoo.com. The “Local Basic Listings” link takes you to the service. You can fill in information about your business, including hours, services, payment methods and descriptions. Once processed, your business will appear on Yahoo! Local maps and in searches that correlate to your description and category. Google works in a similar manner through its Local Business Center, and MSN partners with Citysearch to generate local information. Basic listings are free.
Ask.com recently launched AskCity for local searches, and AOL also generates its share of search traffic, so be sure to include them in your local web strategy.“You should absolutely get your content into every free directory or listing service you can,” says Sterling. “It’s important to [do this] because you don’t know where your potential customers are coming from.” Don’t overlook vertical sites that serve your particular market and that maintain business directories or listings. Local newspaper websites can be smart and affordable places to post an advertising link. Sites like Craigslist that feature a strong local component can be powerful tools. Not only do local customers browse the ads, but the ads are often indexed by search engines, providing yet another avenue for people to find you.
Look No FurtherIn a recent study by ROI Research Inc. and Performics on the offline impact of internet search, 55 percent to 65 percent of respondents said that search is at least somewhat influential in purchases they make at retail locations. That number is on the way up. Beyond retail products, more consumers are looking for local services online as well. The same goes for other businesses seeking local partners, suppliers and services.
Newspapers and physical Yellow Pages haven’t been abandoned, but they’re now pieces of a larger puzzle. A report by Borrell Associates predicts that local online advertising will grow by 31 percent to $7.7 billion and local paid search will balloon by 86 percent to $1.8 billion in 2007. If you want to be found in your hometown, you need to be found online. But being found isn’t always free.
Many businesses allocate some of their marketing budgets to search engine advertising. First Crush, a restaurant and wine bar in San Francisco, subscribes to the Google AdWords program. “We started with Google because it was such a big name,” says Shahram Bijan, owner of First Crush. “[We] reached a big audience without having to spend a lot of money.” First Crush uses 20 to 30 different keywords to trigger its ads in Google. Bijan’s goal was to drive search traffic to www.firstcrush.com, where visitors could learn more about the restaurant, its extensive wine list and event catering options, and use its online reservation system. “The great thing about the internet is people are looking for specific information,” says Bijan, 29. “You’re not just bombarding them with ads.”
Get AdvancedSearch engines aren’t the be-all and end-all of a local web strategy. Most businesses will benefit from a multi-faceted approach. Outside the top general search engines, a handful of sites have popped up with a specifically local bent.
A big trend is convergence websites, which combine local business listings and directories with search functionality and paid advertising. Citysearch, founded in 1995, is the elder statesman of this type of site. Its focus on city guides with restaurants, services and reviews has made it a must-list place for a lot of businesses, particularly those in larger cities. First Crush uses Citysearch in combination with its own website and Google AdWords. This multipronged approach helped the restaurant reach $3 million in sales in 2006, with an expected 5 percent increase for 2007.
Although Kenai, Alaska, has fewer than 10,000 residents, nearly 50 local businesses have signed up with MerchantCircle.com, a local business listings service. Tina Showalter, 43, opened the Blonde Bear Bed & Breakfast in 2005. “Our first summer, we did great with word-of-mouth advertising, and then we got involved in the internet, and it has pretty much exploded from there,” says Showalter, who runs the Blonde Bear with her husband, George, 46. They expect sales to double in 2007.
The Blonde Bear’s MerchantCircle.com site combines a business description, reviews, a blog, coupons, a map and links to other businesses listed on MerchantCircle.com. All those Kenai businesses on the site got there through word-of-mouth; Showalter estimates she’s brought 30 other businesses onboard to help build up the cross-promotional and networking benefits of the site. Look for more services like MerchantCircle.com to hit the scene as the local web market heats up.
Originally published in the March 2007 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine
With all the avenues available for reaching customers online, it’s important to be able to determine what is working and what isn’t. “This is all about discovery, trial and error, and refinement,” says Sterling. “Be willing to try some stuff and change course if it doesn’t work.” To find out if your strategies are effective, Sterling suggests entrepreneurs simply ask how their customers learned about them. Online coupons can also be an effective way to track how many customers are visiting your website and then visiting your location.
Search engine advertising services come with analytics and reports that show you how many click-throughs and unique visitors you’re getting. These numbers can help you determine which search terms are working, which to spend more money on and which to abandon. It has been a simple equation for First Crush. “When we put up the website, we were getting about 150 to 200 unique visitors a day,” says Bijan. “After we started using Google, we’re seeing 600 to 800 unique visitors a day.”
Sunday, June 03, 2007
SMALL BUSINESS: Taking care of business - and kids
JAMIE HERZLICH
jherzlich@aol.com.
May 28, 2007
If you think running a small business is hard enough now, try tossing a couple of kids into the mix - and imagine how much harder it gets.That's the daily reality for millions of home-based female business owners trying to strike a balance between work and family.
In fact, of the 3.6 million home-based businesses owned by women, 2.1 million are run with children at home, according to the Center for Women's Business Research in Washington, D.C., based on the latest 2002 Economic Census data."The mom of today is part entrepreneur, part wife, part mother and part soccer coach," says Linda Shapiro, co-founder and vice president of St. James-based Moms-for-Profit (moms-for-profit.com), an organization that assists entrepreneurial moms. "She's really juggling everything and balancing her family at the same time."
Many entrepreneurial moms start their own businesses out of financial necessity, while others do it to keep a foot in the business world - and maintain their sanity - in between The Wiggles and toddler tantrums."Whenever I'm stressed out about something out of my control, I go to work," says Debra Cohen, president of Home Remedies of NY Inc. (homeownersreferral.com), a Hewlett-based referral service that connects homeowners with contractors. Cohen, who has daughters 7 and 11 years old, started her home-based business in 1997 after leaving a job as vice president of a Spanish-language aviation magazine.
Home Remedies was formed out of "personal necessity," explains Cohen, who was having trouble finding reliable contractors after she and her husband bought a home. Guessing other homeowners might be facing the same problem, she took out a $5,000 loan against her husband's teachers retirement fund to launch the business. Her hunch was right, and she was able to pay it back within six months. The company now boasts sales in excess of $100,000, she says.Being a mom and entrepreneur is truly a "juggling act," notes Cohen, 39. She says it helps if you have some type of support system, be it a spouse, a parent or even another mom you can trade off with."Any help that you can get is great," agrees Shapiro, who started Moms-For-Profit with partner Stacey Smith in September 2005. The two, who had worked at CMP Media in Manhasset together, share the workload and serve as each other's support system."Our kids have become like siblings and they entertain each other," says Shapiro, 37, who has sons ages 4 and 6. Smith has a daughter, 2, and a son, 5. To be sure, technology has helped to make their jobs easier. "One of the best things we did was invest in laptops," Shapiro says. "It definitely made us more mobile." Her BlackBerry is a necessity.
Another great tool for mommy entrepreneurs is a daily planner, notes Amy Platt, owner of Syosset-based LIParent Source.com, which she started in October as an online resource for parents. (Platt also is a member of Moms-for-Profit.)"I write everything down,"says Platt, 32, a big fan of momAgenda planners (momagenda.com). Platt recently cut her hours at her CPA job so she could focus on her developing business. A nanny helps out with her 13-month-old daughter, and her 4-year-old son is in nursery school. Child care can be essential when you're trying to run a business, says Pat Cobe, who with Ellen Parlapiano are known as the Mompreneurs, a name they trademarked. "You don't have to have full-time child care," says Cobe, who co-authored the book "Mompreneurs: A Mother's Practical Step by Step Guide to Work at Home Success." A couple of hours a week may do, she says, and advises that if you're short on cash, try swapping child care with another mom who needs a break."You should have a backup in case you have to meet with a client or go to a meeting," Cobe says. The bottom line is you can only do so much. "You can't make this a 24/7 operation," she says.After all, even moms need time out.
Tips on tackling the motherload:
Use a time management planner with to-do lists to plan your day, prioritize your tasks and keep you on track.
Periodically review how you are spending your time. Make sure each aspect of your life is getting the attention it needs. Don't continually sacrifice time with your spouse or children to work on your business. If you are constantly overextended or overworked, decide where you need help.
Don't allow your business to consume you. You can do only so much in one day.
Don't be afraid to say no to things you don't have time for.
SOURCE: LESLEY SPENCER PYLE, PRESIDENT OF HOME-BASED WORKING MOMS IN SPRING, TEXAS
jherzlich@aol.com.
May 28, 2007
If you think running a small business is hard enough now, try tossing a couple of kids into the mix - and imagine how much harder it gets.That's the daily reality for millions of home-based female business owners trying to strike a balance between work and family.
In fact, of the 3.6 million home-based businesses owned by women, 2.1 million are run with children at home, according to the Center for Women's Business Research in Washington, D.C., based on the latest 2002 Economic Census data."The mom of today is part entrepreneur, part wife, part mother and part soccer coach," says Linda Shapiro, co-founder and vice president of St. James-based Moms-for-Profit (moms-for-profit.com), an organization that assists entrepreneurial moms. "She's really juggling everything and balancing her family at the same time."
Many entrepreneurial moms start their own businesses out of financial necessity, while others do it to keep a foot in the business world - and maintain their sanity - in between The Wiggles and toddler tantrums."Whenever I'm stressed out about something out of my control, I go to work," says Debra Cohen, president of Home Remedies of NY Inc. (homeownersreferral.com), a Hewlett-based referral service that connects homeowners with contractors. Cohen, who has daughters 7 and 11 years old, started her home-based business in 1997 after leaving a job as vice president of a Spanish-language aviation magazine.
Home Remedies was formed out of "personal necessity," explains Cohen, who was having trouble finding reliable contractors after she and her husband bought a home. Guessing other homeowners might be facing the same problem, she took out a $5,000 loan against her husband's teachers retirement fund to launch the business. Her hunch was right, and she was able to pay it back within six months. The company now boasts sales in excess of $100,000, she says.Being a mom and entrepreneur is truly a "juggling act," notes Cohen, 39. She says it helps if you have some type of support system, be it a spouse, a parent or even another mom you can trade off with."Any help that you can get is great," agrees Shapiro, who started Moms-For-Profit with partner Stacey Smith in September 2005. The two, who had worked at CMP Media in Manhasset together, share the workload and serve as each other's support system."Our kids have become like siblings and they entertain each other," says Shapiro, 37, who has sons ages 4 and 6. Smith has a daughter, 2, and a son, 5. To be sure, technology has helped to make their jobs easier. "One of the best things we did was invest in laptops," Shapiro says. "It definitely made us more mobile." Her BlackBerry is a necessity.
Another great tool for mommy entrepreneurs is a daily planner, notes Amy Platt, owner of Syosset-based LIParent Source.com, which she started in October as an online resource for parents. (Platt also is a member of Moms-for-Profit.)"I write everything down,"says Platt, 32, a big fan of momAgenda planners (momagenda.com). Platt recently cut her hours at her CPA job so she could focus on her developing business. A nanny helps out with her 13-month-old daughter, and her 4-year-old son is in nursery school. Child care can be essential when you're trying to run a business, says Pat Cobe, who with Ellen Parlapiano are known as the Mompreneurs, a name they trademarked. "You don't have to have full-time child care," says Cobe, who co-authored the book "Mompreneurs: A Mother's Practical Step by Step Guide to Work at Home Success." A couple of hours a week may do, she says, and advises that if you're short on cash, try swapping child care with another mom who needs a break."You should have a backup in case you have to meet with a client or go to a meeting," Cobe says. The bottom line is you can only do so much. "You can't make this a 24/7 operation," she says.After all, even moms need time out.
Tips on tackling the motherload:
Use a time management planner with to-do lists to plan your day, prioritize your tasks and keep you on track.
Periodically review how you are spending your time. Make sure each aspect of your life is getting the attention it needs. Don't continually sacrifice time with your spouse or children to work on your business. If you are constantly overextended or overworked, decide where you need help.
Don't allow your business to consume you. You can do only so much in one day.
Don't be afraid to say no to things you don't have time for.
SOURCE: LESLEY SPENCER PYLE, PRESIDENT OF HOME-BASED WORKING MOMS IN SPRING, TEXAS
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
10 ways to get a grip on your e-mail
Has trying to keep up with your inbox got you feeling like a hamster on a wheel, running faster and getting nowhere? Help is here!
By Anne Fisher, Fortune senior writer
May 21 2007: 3:29 PM EDT
(Fortune) -- Here is a startling bit of arithmetic: If you get and send 100 e-mails a day, that adds up to 24,000 messages annually, on which you probably spend an average of 100 workdays. If you could manage to reduce the amount of e-mail you send and receive by 20%, you'd free up 20 workdays a year to use for other things, like thinking up new ideas that could help further your career or, heck, taking a longer vacation.
So say co-authors Mike Song, Vicki Halsey, and Tim Burress in a book called The Hamster Revolution: Stop Info-Glut and Reclaim Your Life! (Berrett-Koehler, $19.95). Song and Burress are co-founders of a consulting firm, Cohesive Knowledge Solutions (www.cohesiveknowledge.com), that helps companies cut down on wasted e-mail; Halsey is vice president of applied learning at the Ken Blanchard Companies (www.kenblanchard.com). Together and separately, they've coached thousands of employees at HP, Nike, Oracle, Wells Fargo, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble, among others.
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And why do these companies care how much time people spend on e-mail? Well, time is money. Let's suppose, for instance, that dealing with your e-mail sucks up 75 days a year, and one-third of that time is thrown away on useless tasks like reading "reply to all" messages that don't concern you or figuring out how to answer long, convoluted questions. Using an average knowledge-worker salary of $30 per hour, the authors point out that the cost of 25 wasted days is about $6,000 a year per employee - or, from the company point of view, $6 million per 1,000 knowledge workers. Yikes.
So how can you cut back on the time e-mail takes up (not to mention the aggravation it can cause)? Ten suggestions that may help:
Send less. Think hard before you use the "reply to all" and "cc" features, and use group distribution lists sparingly. By targeting your e-mails, rather than spraying them, you'll be more efficient and effective.
Quit boomeranging. Send 5 e-mails and you'll get, on average, 3 responses, most of which aren't necessary. If you eliminate just 1 in 5 of your outgoing e-mails, you'll instantly shrink the incoming volume, and save time on needless back-and-forth exchanges.
Stop - then send. Before hitting the "send" button, ask yourself: Is this information timely, topical, and targeted? Will it help the recipient do his or her job better? If not, skip it.
Be polite, up to a point. Not every e-mail requires a reply, especially if it's just a routine "thanks!" The authors recommend that, with the people you e-mail (and who e-mail you) most often, you try including an acronym in the subject line like "NTN" (no thanks needed) or "NRN" (no reply needed) - a simple but effective time-saver.
Schedule live conversations. Instead of sending an e-mail that will initiate a long back-and-forth discussion, try scheduling an in-person or phone meeting instead. You'll often get a lot more done in less time.
Strengthen your subject lines. Vague subject lines confuse recipients and make e-mails hard to locate later. One-word categories, like "Request" or "Confirmation," along with relevant information like dates or times, add clarity and context to your messages.
Structure matters. Avoid sending a wall of words. Instead, start every message with a greeting of no more than 8 words. (For example: "That was an interesting meeting yesterday.") Then use the ABC method to divide your e-mail into 3 distinct sections: Action (stating your purpose), Background (presenting your key points), and Close (clarifying the next steps).
Save purposefully. Searching for an old e-mail can eat up untold amounts of time, so be picky about what you save. Ask yourself: What are the odds I'll need this information later? Could I get it just as easily from the Web or somewhere else? Is it important to what I'm working on - really? You'll save less and find more.
File smart. You might have several overlapping e-mail folders, so "Stuff from the Boss" could contain anything from a performance review to a lunch invitation. Instead, create a smaller number of folders and label them according to content (not sender or some other criterion). You'll file and find information faster.
Coach - or suffer. Alas, sending better e-mails yourself won't guarantee that others will follow your lead, unless you ask them to. "Offer your frequent senders a few really good tips," the authors write, "or suffer through their bad e-mails."
Is your inbox overflowing? What do you do to keep your e-mail under control? Post your thoughts on the Ask Annie blog.
Friday, May 18, 2007
How to grow your business when you don’t play golf.
By Cynthia Renee Frazier
There is hardly a week gone by that someone hasn’t asked me “do you play golf?” That’s because all of the buzz in today’s business environment is about the abundance of big money deals taking place with the swing of an iron on the green. Indeed Women Business Owners (WBO) who dread the thought of an early morning tee time will be pleased to discover that the buzz may be overrated. Certainly, many WBOs have taken to golf and experienced business growth. However, it is a misnomer that investing in a bag of clubs and becoming one of a foursome on the golf course means an easy sale. In fact, playing golf is like any other networking situation. You must first build relationships, and then give before you can expect to see results. What playing golf with a potential client or person of influence does is provides an opportunity to determine whether you want to exchange business. In addition, playing golf creates an environment whereby you get to demonstrate your worthiness as a business owner. Moreover, you can learn each other’s personality – how you deal with conflict, how you handle disappointment, what are your ethics, are you reliable, etc.
But what if you have no interest in learning to play golf? WBOs all over the world take advantage of B2B networking by joining organizations and membership groups to get to the next level. Just like playing golf though, don’t expect to make a sale on your first introduction. Take your time and demonstrate your value. Get to know people and let them get to know you. Build a relationship, and have a clear message of what you can do for your clients and their needs. Establish your worthiness as an expert in your field, and by all means, be prepared to assist others. Be consistent and have fun. Over time, you will find yourself at the center of referrals, sales, and phenomenal business growth.
Cynthia Renee Frazier is the Author of 101+ Proven Growth Strategies for Small Business Entrepreneurs, and proud sponsor of Walk the Walk for Financial Freedom http://www.BusinessWomensGrowthSummit.com. Visit her blog to learn more about business growth strategies. Share your growth dilemmas at http://www.EnergyTourCafe.com.
There is hardly a week gone by that someone hasn’t asked me “do you play golf?” That’s because all of the buzz in today’s business environment is about the abundance of big money deals taking place with the swing of an iron on the green. Indeed Women Business Owners (WBO) who dread the thought of an early morning tee time will be pleased to discover that the buzz may be overrated. Certainly, many WBOs have taken to golf and experienced business growth. However, it is a misnomer that investing in a bag of clubs and becoming one of a foursome on the golf course means an easy sale. In fact, playing golf is like any other networking situation. You must first build relationships, and then give before you can expect to see results. What playing golf with a potential client or person of influence does is provides an opportunity to determine whether you want to exchange business. In addition, playing golf creates an environment whereby you get to demonstrate your worthiness as a business owner. Moreover, you can learn each other’s personality – how you deal with conflict, how you handle disappointment, what are your ethics, are you reliable, etc.
But what if you have no interest in learning to play golf? WBOs all over the world take advantage of B2B networking by joining organizations and membership groups to get to the next level. Just like playing golf though, don’t expect to make a sale on your first introduction. Take your time and demonstrate your value. Get to know people and let them get to know you. Build a relationship, and have a clear message of what you can do for your clients and their needs. Establish your worthiness as an expert in your field, and by all means, be prepared to assist others. Be consistent and have fun. Over time, you will find yourself at the center of referrals, sales, and phenomenal business growth.
Cynthia Renee Frazier is the Author of 101+ Proven Growth Strategies for Small Business Entrepreneurs, and proud sponsor of Walk the Walk for Financial Freedom http://www.BusinessWomensGrowthSummit.com. Visit her blog to learn more about business growth strategies. Share your growth dilemmas at http://www.EnergyTourCafe.com.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
The Merry Bird....Sample Pouch
If you think anything like me, you like to know what you're getting for your money. Whether it be quality, variety, size or quantity of any item, a sample of the item always makes me feel like my future purchase is worth the the money!
Stop by www.themerrybird.com and purchase a sample pouch today! This pouch is for vendors, individual customers and anyone that wants to forward a quality card with a beautiful hand drawn motif!
Sunday, April 29, 2007
It's About Typography
Take a peek at some fun faces! Type faces that is!
Big Fonts - Sometimes “the standard” just isn’t good enough. Type designers understand that graphic communicators often want more choice of characters than the standard font set contains.
It's About Legibility - Typographic clarity comes in two flavors: legibility and readability. What’s the difference?
Scripts: A Type Of Passion - Most typefaces, however beautiful or well-drawn, add merely the subtlest nuance to the words they compose. Scripts, on the other hand, bring something dramatic to typeset copy.
TDC Medal Awarded to Type Designer Colin Brignall
Typefaces For The Web - Learn about the three rules when selecting typefaces for the web: 1) think simple; 2) big is better; 3) sans are safe.
WGL Fonts- WGL fonts contain a pan-European character set that supports Western, Central and Eastern European languages.
It's About Legibility - Typographic clarity comes in two flavors: legibility and readability. What’s the difference?
Scripts: A Type Of Passion - Most typefaces, however beautiful or well-drawn, add merely the subtlest nuance to the words they compose. Scripts, on the other hand, bring something dramatic to typeset copy.
TDC Medal Awarded to Type Designer Colin Brignall
Typefaces For The Web - Learn about the three rules when selecting typefaces for the web: 1) think simple; 2) big is better; 3) sans are safe.
WGL Fonts- WGL fonts contain a pan-European character set that supports Western, Central and Eastern European languages.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Do You Squidoo?
Squidoo Homepage http://www.squidoo.com
SO, WHAT'S A LENS? A lens is one person's view on a topic that matters to her. It's an easy-to-build, single web page that can point to blogs, favorite links, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, Google maps, eBay auctions, CafePress designs, Amazon books or music, and more. Then, when someone is looking for recommended information, fast, your lens gets him started and sends him off in the right direction. It's a place for searchers to start, not finish.Build one lens, build a hundred. It's fast, fun, and free. (And you could earn a royalty--for you or for charity). Our tens of thousands of lensmasters are getting traffic, credibility, and discoverability--their lenses are showing up in top Google results more often than not.
WHY SHOULD I BUILD A LENS? There are a few reasons to build your own lens:
• Share the knowledge: When you know a lot about something, it feels good to share. Help other people discover what you found out the hard way.
• Increase your profile: A popular lens gives credibility to the Lensmaster. A popular lens reinforces your role as an "everyday expert." And a popular lens makes you the go-to authority for those looking for help.
• Increase your traffic: Your lens points (if you want it to) to your blog and to your website. Lenses have huge credibility with search engines, so your lens can help your other sites rise to the top of Google searches.
• Earn a royalty for you, your organization, or your favorite charity. Think of the royalty as a bonus--and don't quit your dayjob yet! A single lens might not earn a lot, but if you imagine hundreds of lenses working to your favor, or fundraising for a charity, it can really start to add up.
WHO SHOULD BUILD A LENS? You should, if you...
1. ...have a Web site and you're not happy with your PageRank in Google, a lens will increase it. That's because a lens provides exactly what search engines are looking for: authoritative insight so people can find what they're looking for.
2. ...have a blog, a lens is a great way to highlight your best posts, to feature a commented version of your blogroll, and to point to the products and services that you write about, read about, enjoy, or want to see succeed. A lens will allow you and your blog to have a bigger share of the commentary and influence on your topic of choice.
3. ...are a yo-yo expert, your lens could be nothing but links to tricks. You'd rank your favorite 100 tricks and point, one by one, to the best examples of those tricks on the Web. And maybe you'd point to Infinite Illusions, the online yo-yo store.
4. ...are a nonprofit or charity (say, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) you could invite all 45,000 of your most important donors to build sites on their favorite topics. The invitation would set the default royalty cash flow to "Donate my royalties to JDRF." If each lens generated as little as $2 a day, that'd be a whole bunch of money earned for the charity. You'd also earn a bounty on every successful lensmaster you brought in.
5. ...are a newshound, a lens allows you to highlight important mainstream and non-mainstream stories for your readers. And if you go on vacation, RSS feeds can automatically update your lens with select news stories. 6. ...are a podcaster, you should definitely have a lens. It would list the details of your podcasts, point to transcripts that some fan had posted, point to your six most recent podcasts, and include the RSS for subscribing to the podcast. The lens would also have a set of links for getting started with podcasting and getting a podcast reader
7. ...are a fan, a lens lets you share your personal take on the object of your affections—without the grind of manual updates. Automatic feeds could add current sports scores and headlines, music news and iTune releases and more. 8. ...are an author, your lens could include links to all your books on Amazon. You could include links to other authors you admire. And an RSS feed from a Technorati search, showing surfers the recent blogs that have mentioned you. And links to conferences where you're speaking, and perhaps a top-ten list of the best ways to understand your writing. You could even have a box pointing to your best (and worst?) reviews.
9. ...are an entrepreneur, your lens on a popular topic could generate two or five or twenty dollars a day in clickthrough and affiliate income. Which doesn't sound like much, until you start thinking like an eBay PowerSeller and build twenty or even fifty lenses on a variety of topics. Did you know that 750,000 people make a full- or part-time living on eBay now? The same effect will probably happen with lenses
10. ... are a person (and you are), you should have a lens about...you. A lens that lists your blog and recent posts and your bio and work history and your Amazon wish list and your Flickr account and whatever you want the public to know about you. Would you hire someone if she didn't have a lens?
Article found on Ryze by T.E.A.M. Mom - Patricia
Check out these fine lenses :
www.squidoo.com/TheMerryBird
or www.squidoo.com/Sheehancarpentry
SO, WHAT'S A LENS? A lens is one person's view on a topic that matters to her. It's an easy-to-build, single web page that can point to blogs, favorite links, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, Google maps, eBay auctions, CafePress designs, Amazon books or music, and more. Then, when someone is looking for recommended information, fast, your lens gets him started and sends him off in the right direction. It's a place for searchers to start, not finish.Build one lens, build a hundred. It's fast, fun, and free. (And you could earn a royalty--for you or for charity). Our tens of thousands of lensmasters are getting traffic, credibility, and discoverability--their lenses are showing up in top Google results more often than not.
WHY SHOULD I BUILD A LENS? There are a few reasons to build your own lens:
• Share the knowledge: When you know a lot about something, it feels good to share. Help other people discover what you found out the hard way.
• Increase your profile: A popular lens gives credibility to the Lensmaster. A popular lens reinforces your role as an "everyday expert." And a popular lens makes you the go-to authority for those looking for help.
• Increase your traffic: Your lens points (if you want it to) to your blog and to your website. Lenses have huge credibility with search engines, so your lens can help your other sites rise to the top of Google searches.
• Earn a royalty for you, your organization, or your favorite charity. Think of the royalty as a bonus--and don't quit your dayjob yet! A single lens might not earn a lot, but if you imagine hundreds of lenses working to your favor, or fundraising for a charity, it can really start to add up.
WHO SHOULD BUILD A LENS? You should, if you...
1. ...have a Web site and you're not happy with your PageRank in Google, a lens will increase it. That's because a lens provides exactly what search engines are looking for: authoritative insight so people can find what they're looking for.
2. ...have a blog, a lens is a great way to highlight your best posts, to feature a commented version of your blogroll, and to point to the products and services that you write about, read about, enjoy, or want to see succeed. A lens will allow you and your blog to have a bigger share of the commentary and influence on your topic of choice.
3. ...are a yo-yo expert, your lens could be nothing but links to tricks. You'd rank your favorite 100 tricks and point, one by one, to the best examples of those tricks on the Web. And maybe you'd point to Infinite Illusions, the online yo-yo store.
4. ...are a nonprofit or charity (say, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) you could invite all 45,000 of your most important donors to build sites on their favorite topics. The invitation would set the default royalty cash flow to "Donate my royalties to JDRF." If each lens generated as little as $2 a day, that'd be a whole bunch of money earned for the charity. You'd also earn a bounty on every successful lensmaster you brought in.
5. ...are a newshound, a lens allows you to highlight important mainstream and non-mainstream stories for your readers. And if you go on vacation, RSS feeds can automatically update your lens with select news stories. 6. ...are a podcaster, you should definitely have a lens. It would list the details of your podcasts, point to transcripts that some fan had posted, point to your six most recent podcasts, and include the RSS for subscribing to the podcast. The lens would also have a set of links for getting started with podcasting and getting a podcast reader
7. ...are a fan, a lens lets you share your personal take on the object of your affections—without the grind of manual updates. Automatic feeds could add current sports scores and headlines, music news and iTune releases and more. 8. ...are an author, your lens could include links to all your books on Amazon. You could include links to other authors you admire. And an RSS feed from a Technorati search, showing surfers the recent blogs that have mentioned you. And links to conferences where you're speaking, and perhaps a top-ten list of the best ways to understand your writing. You could even have a box pointing to your best (and worst?) reviews.
9. ...are an entrepreneur, your lens on a popular topic could generate two or five or twenty dollars a day in clickthrough and affiliate income. Which doesn't sound like much, until you start thinking like an eBay PowerSeller and build twenty or even fifty lenses on a variety of topics. Did you know that 750,000 people make a full- or part-time living on eBay now? The same effect will probably happen with lenses
10. ... are a person (and you are), you should have a lens about...you. A lens that lists your blog and recent posts and your bio and work history and your Amazon wish list and your Flickr account and whatever you want the public to know about you. Would you hire someone if she didn't have a lens?
Article found on Ryze by T.E.A.M. Mom - Patricia
Check out these fine lenses :
www.squidoo.com/TheMerryBird
or www.squidoo.com/Sheehancarpentry
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Inspirational mompreneur stories
Most mompreneurs find the transition to business owner is easier when the business is based at home. Though there are many resources to help you find such franchise or business opportunities--like http://www.entrepreneur.com/franchise/ and www.entrepreneur.com/bizopportunities/index.html --be cautious when considering those opportunities. "The biggest mistake I hear moms making is jumping into a business before they've done the homework and found whether it's a good fit," says Spencer. "Or if it's an opportunity they're investing in, [they don't investigate] whether it's a scam."
When deciding what type of business to start, consider what your talents are and what you're most passionate about. Spencer notes that for work-at-home moms, any business involving the internet--from web design to an online store--can be a particularly good fit.
Olivia Mullin found the perfect fit when she started her personalized stationery and gift company in Brentwood, Tennessee. Mullin started out doing wedding calligraphy for local brides. That led to making personalized stationery she peddled to local gift shops. Her products were selling so well, Mullin brought the business she started in 1995 out of her home and into an office space after about a year and a half.
The idea for the Olivia Mullin Co. was born after she gave birth to the first of her two daughters. A registered nurse, Mullin was on-call around the clock--and she wanted to be more available to her children. "Over time, as my children were growing up, my business was growing up," says Mullin, 44. "It's like having another baby. You're with your children when they're awake, and when you put them down for a nap, you start working on that baby."
For Mullin, the key to growing her company to more than $1 million in annual sales is organizing her time, surrounding herself with talented employees and advisors, and not being too hard on herself when she's not perfect. "Nothing is done 100 percent perfectly," she says. "You have to learn to be OK with that. You're going to forget things; you're going to miss meetings. You cannot beat yourself up."
And Mullin's daughters, now 17 and 13, are being groomed for the family business. Mullin is using her business to instill a solid work ethic and the idea that "the things that are most important are the things you worked the hardest for," she says. Her oldest, for example, had a school trip, and Mullin paid half of it--with the provision that her daughter would work at the business on the weekends to earn the rest. Says Mullin, "She's going to understand what it means to spend [money] and how hard you have to work to earn it."
Hard work can also be fun, which is what Cindy Schwartz is teaching her children with Concierge Connection Inc., the Coral Springs, Florida, concierge business she started in 1997. Schwartz left her job because it was taking too much time away from her children. "I quit because I knew I would be my own boss," says Schwartz, 44. "My kids would never be without their mother on a sick day or a school holiday."
It helps that the bulk of her concierge duties involve fun things like securing tickets for clients to shows--and that her children get to rub elbows with her celebrity clientele from time to time. Schwartz notes that her son, a professional wrestling fan, got to see his favorite wrestling stars in action and even got to meet some of the big names by virtue of his mom's business. Says Schwartz, "I want them to think about things they appreciate and things they've done."
Schwartz says her priorities are what keep her business running at about a quarter of a million dollars in annual sales. The fact that her kids are always first is key. "It's like triage--when you're hitting a hot point, when you have a kid who has to be at the doctor's office by 4 o'clock and you have a client on the phone ordering tickets," says Schwartz. "You can't be late for the kid, and you [have to] take care of the client. I live on my cell phone, and I love the challenges of this [business]."
If you're in the market for a challenge, balancing a business with a family certainly qualifies. But if you plan your strategy, start slowly, enlist some help and follow your passion, you can--like these moms--grow your business while growing your family tree.
Higher Learning
You know how you feel about starting a business, but what are youngsters thinking when they see their moms working out of their homes? Jennifer Dugan's 9-year-old son grew up watching his mom run her Los Alamos, New Mexico-based business, Dugan's Travels, and he understands (and is helping his 7-year-old brother to understand) that Mom works--she just works at home. Dugan says when she's in her home office, her boys are often playing in the same room. They're occupied, but they know she's there if they need her.
For older kids, seeing the ins and outs of entrepreneurship firsthand can imbue them with an innovative spirit. Cindy Schwartz, founder of Concierge Connection Inc. in Coral Springs, Florida, has set an example of self-employment for her kids. "I don't think my kids will do traditional work," she says. "I also know I'm not the only example. My ex-husband runs his own business out of his home, and he's extremely successful. My kids know you don't have to be a doctor or lawyer--you can do something unusual. And they know that both their parents put them first."
Sited from www.entrepreneur.com
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