HelloTrade News
Tips For Managing Job Stress
Job stress is something that is faced by almost all employees. Workplace stress can cause anxiety, depression and employee dissatisfaction. It can affect the productivity, emotional and physical health of the employees. Some of the main reasons that can lead to job stress are less compensation, long working hours, excessive work load, inability to match job demands, lack of career growth opportunities and unsafe workplace environment.
Employee Attrition: The most effective way to reduce employee turnover is to pay your employees appropriate salary as per the industry standards. Paying adequate compensation to your employees can reduce the churn rate. But that is not enough. It is preferable to offer periodic holidays and competitive vacations to reduce job stress. Further, for retaining employees with high aspiration levels, the management needs to adopt recognition practices. If nothing else works, a pre-poned promotion can help you to retain best talents of your company.
Ideal Workplace Facility: Employees who are provided with good workplace facilities, such as pleasant workplace environment, periodic breaks, proper ventilation and lighting, aesthetic office interiors and other amenities, usually show higher productivity. This can motivate the employees. Increased employee motivation and satisfaction can lead to higher efficiency and output.
Employee Absenteeism: It is believed that implementing authoritarian management style can result in high levels of absenteeism among the employees. Not providing employees with enough official leaves can force them to take unplanned leaves, which can result in higher absenteeism. Some employees do not care much after a certain point of time, even if you deduct their salaries. On being asked they will make an excuse that they were sick. So, management should provide employees with legitimate share of leaves. In case you are unable to provide them the deserved number of leaves, it is preferable to compensate it by providing extra incentives and rewards.
Top Three Tax-saving Instruments for Investors
An income tax is a tax that levied on the income of business organizations and individuals. Income tax can be regressive, proportional and progressive. Here are top three tax savings instruments for investors:
Public Provident Fund: PPF or Public provident fund is a long term statutory scheme regulated by the Central Government of India. Presently, the interest rate offered by government supported small savings scheme is around 8 percent, which is compounded annually. On maturity, you need not pay any tax under Section 80C. This long term scheme has a tenure of 15 years. PPF locks your liquidity for a very long period of time. In the PPF scheme you can deposit a minimum amount of Rs.500 and a maximum of Rs. 70,000. If you want to go for short term investment plans, PPF is not for you.
Unit-linked Insurance Plans: Unit linked Insurance plans or ULIPs are eligible for Section 80C tax rebate. These insurance plans provide dual benefits, including tax savings and life cover. However, if you are solely interested in life insurance, ULIP plans are not the best option for you. Recently, insurance regulating body IRDA has introduced few corrective measures by increasing the threshold limit for ULIP plans from 3 years to 5 years of lock-in period. IRDA has also mandated a minimum guarantee of ULIP plans. Policyholders can now opt for pre-mature exit without any type of penalty.
Five Year Bank Fixed Deposits: Since, the year 2006 Bank Term Deposits which are upto Rs. 1 lakh and are of over 5 years tenure are exempted as stipulated by Section 80C of Income Tax Act, 1961. The tax relaxation is applicable only to the RBI mentioned list of Scheduled Banks. Most of these tax-saving Fixed Deposits have a fixed tenure. Pre-mature withdrawal facility is not allowed.
Top Four Android Apps for Small Business Owners
There are thousands of great productivity applications available for smartphones. Some of the Android phone apps are very useful for entrepreneurs and small business owners. These useful applications can help business owners to reduce cost and manage their business in a better manner. Here are few useful Android apps, which can help business owners to operate their business and improve their productivity:
Multi Courier Tracker: Do you own a home office or a factory? Are you worried about handling and tracking multiple couriers, office parcels and administrative communication? Multi Courier Tracker application is your savior. This advanced mobile application enables you to track multiple couriers with great ease. This app currently supports six leading courier services, including Blue Dart, Aramex, Professional, First Flight, TNT and DTDC. This app is especially beneficial for business owners who buy and sell a lot of products on Flipkart, Ebay and other online portals.
VAT Calculator: This app is beneficial for those entrepreneurs who have just started out. The VAT calculator is a savior for those business owners who do not have separate accounts departments for producing VAT figures. At present, this app operates with VAT rates of India and European countries. You can adjust your application to 2012 VAT rate figures. The calculated VAT figures will be shown in rounded and two decimal values.
India Business Resource: This is a Free app, which consists of various business tools in one package. This app is a financial calculator. It can calculate income tax, property rates and EMIs on loan amount. It also serves as an informative guide about bank branches/ATMs, business updates and business news. The application also enables you to design customized visiting cards.
City Navigators: City navigator apps, such as the Meru Cab app, Meter Down app and Delhi Metro Navigator app, are useful for those business owners who have to do extensive traveling. This app provides handy information. It can help you to cut down your traveling expenses. For instance, if you are a Delhite attending a meeting in Bangalore, you may use the Bangalore Metro Navigator. This app will provide you with all the information including fares, parking fee and route maps.
Top Three Benefits of Telecommuting
Telecommuting is also known as telework. It is a type of work arrangement, which allows employees to enjoy relaxation in working location and hours. The employees need not commute daily to the central work place. He can work with the help of telecommunication links. In this type of work arrangement employees work from home, coffee shops or other locations with the help of mobile telecommunication technology. Such worker are known as nomad workers, web commuters or telecommuters.
Telecommuting eliminates the limitations due to distance. A successful telecommuting system requires a management system based on results and not on close scrutiny of employees. This type of management style is known as management by objectives in place of management by observation.
Here are few benefits of telecommuting:
Conservation of Energy: With increased energy utilization, efficient use of energy has become very important. People commute to their workplaces in buses, auto rickshaws, cars, trains and planes on a regular basis. Production, maintenance and repair of automobiles require a tremendous amount of energy. Further, a large amount of fuel resources are required to operate these vehicles. Also, employees working in an office consume office related materials and resources, such as cooling, heating and lighting of office building. Adopting telecommuting program can reduce the consumption of vehicle related resources and office related resources.
Promotes Safety: Thousands of people die and get injured due to traffic related accidents. Several accidents occur during peak traffic hours when people are rushing to get to work. These accidents also cause a substantial amount of property loss. Implementing telecommuting program can reduce traffic rush and number of traffic related accidents.
Improves Health of Employees: Telecommuters who work from home share quality time with their family members. It reduces the stress associated with traveling back and forth to the work place. Reduced levels of stress can improve the health of the employees.
Top Five Workplace Trends of 2012
Here are top five workplace trends of 2012 to look out for:
Mobile Devices: More and more people are using their iPads, iPhones and other portable electronic devices for completing their work instead of computers and laptops issued by their companies. This trend is often known as 'bring your own device' or BYOD. Some corporations worry that how they will protect their confidential information. Further, they also worry about preventing their workers from spending too much time on social networking websites, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Telecommuting: Telecommuting is also known as telework. It is a type of work arrangement in which the workers enjoy flexibility in working hours and locations. Some of the employees work from home, while other work from coffee shops or other distant locations. These workers use mobile telecommunications technology to work from different locations. Such workers are known as web commuters or nomad workers. Several corporations are offering telecommuting to employees to provide them more flexible schedules. Sometimes it is offered to compensate for not offering bigger raises and to reduce office space expenses.
Open Office Spaces: With fewer number of employees coming into offices, business organizations are reconfiguring floor plans to dedicate more space to communal areas and less to traditional walled office spaces. Some organizations have renovated entire floors to include shared workstations and group spaces for conferences or impromptu brainstorming.
Instant Communication: Email is viewed as an inefficient means of communication, which moves at a very slow pace. It is considered very slow as compared to text messages, social networking websites and other alternatives. According to Robin Richards, chairman and CEO of TweetMyJobs, more and more employees have started communicating via texting and social networks.
Web-based Software: More and more companies are following customers by using cloud computing. They are using web based software and collaboration tools in day-to-day operations. Such applications include recruiting applications that let workers share job openings with friends on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and web based portals where employees can check their health insurance and investments.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a new concept. It is a result of the power that the Internet has given to people. This marketing technique focuses on getting found by prospects and customers. It involves bringing qualified sales leads in your sales funnel instead of reaching out to the cold targets. Inbound marketing perfectly aligns with consultative selling approach followed by small businesses.
The Internet enables your prospects to find information and seek solutions for their business issues. They will find your product before you can tell them to buy your product. Some marketing experts recognize inbound marketing as customer oriented B2B marketing. It is known as customer centric B2B marketing because it focuses on the needs, requirements and wants of the customers. It not much about what the seller wants you to purchase. Inbound marketing is based on the concept that sales is a natural result of building a solid business relationship based on understanding the problems of the customers and solving them. It starts with creating customer rapport and ends with a long lasting business relationship. It results in increased sales volume.
Let us now understand how inbounding marketing works. Internet plays an important role in making inbound marketing more accessible and affordable than outbound marketing. You can reach large target markets as well as niche target markets with the help of Internet. Small business inbound marketing efforts can be boosted with the help of effective content marketing and social media tactics. Different types of marketing tools used for implementing inbound marketing campaign are company website, company blog, relevant and quality content, social media networks and lead nurturing.
Inbound marketing requires expertise and efforts. The content used to attract warm and qualified B2B sales leads must be relevant, informative, interesting and customer oriented. It is preferable create a blog that is relevant and informative instead of a self promoting blog that is loaded with SEO terms. If you think inbound marketing is a good option to meet your marketing needs, do some research and create an effective plan to ensure success.
Top Three Tips for Written Communication
There is a saying,“the pen is mightier than the sword”. In todays, fast moving and dynamic environment having excellent written communication skills has become a necessity. Business owners have to communicate with a diverse range of people, including employees, clients, vendors, suppliers, consultants, attorneys and legislators. Entrepreneurs need to prepare impressive speeches to deliver to their employees, sales pitches to convince their clients, meeting agendas for associates, legal records, financial records and books of accounts.
It is important to possess excellent written communication skills, which can help you to stay ahead of your competitors. Here are few tips for improving your written communication skills:
Visible Impact: You will probably agree with the fact that you learn more if you view and hear information. Think of the speeches that you have listened regarding setting goals. A well known sales trainer, extraordinaire Zig Ziglar, points out in his book 'Secrets of Closing the Sale', the importance of using a writing pad while explaining your potential customers the benefits of your goods and services. Viewing something in writing makes it more believable and easy to recall. Apart from sales, written form of communication is suitable for noting down company goals and mission, industry trends and updates and work instructions. If you want to make a real impact on your listener, you need to write it down.
Maintain Records: Having a spoken employee handbook is not a great idea. An audio message may get twisted and manipulated throughout the chain of command. If you want your company's terms and policies to be followed word by word, you need to put them on paper.
Grievances: In case you ever get ripped off by a supplier and you want to get it settled, it is preferable to get it settled in writing. It is wise to have a documentation of the communication. Having everything in written form will allow you to avoid confusion in future.
Top Three Upcoming Tablets
Several reputed tablet PC manufacturers are likely to come up with tablet devices with advanced designs and features. However, considering the increased competition, these manufacturers are expected to price their products reasonably. Here are top three upcoming tablet devices:
Sony Tablet P: This advanced tablet PC will be available in India within next 10 to 15 days. The biggest USP of this device is its form factor. This advanced device features two screens measuring five inches. When folded this device give an appearance of a large smartphone. Further, the tablet features a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 mobile processor, 4 GB of internal memory, 3G and WiFi connectivity. The device operates on Android Honeycomb OS. Sony Tablet P features a 0.3 megapixel front camera and a 5 megapixel back shooter. The unique design and interface of the device enable the user to use both the screens individually and combined. The high end device is expected to be priced at Rs 36,990.
Asus Transformer Prime TF201: This device is expected to be launched by the end of February, 2012. Like its earlier version Asus Transformer, this tablet PC features a keyboard docking station which converts the device into a laptop. The device boasts of a 10.1 inch touchscreen display and a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 mobile processor. The device will operate on Android 3.2 Honeycomb. Further, the device will be loaded with WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth. This tablet device is expected to be priced slightly higher than its predecessor (Rs 29,999).
Samsung Galaxy 7.7: Another high end tablet PC that is expected to be introduced in a couple of months is Samsung Galaxy 7.7. The tablet device will feature a 7.7 inch Super Amoled Plus display with 1280x800 pixel resolution. It will also include a dual core 1.4 GHz microprocessor supported with with Mali-400MP graphics chip. This device will operate on the Android 3.2 Honeycomb operating system. This device also includes an advanced Universal Remote Control functionality. This option will enable you to control your home entertainment systems and television through your tablet. The tablet device will support SIM calling. Further, it will feature 3 megapixel back shooter and 2 megapixel front camera. The advanced device will support WiFi and 3G connectivity. It offer a storage capacity of 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. Samsung Galaxy 7.7 is expected to be priced within a price bracket of Rs 30,000.
How to Improve Your Online Customer Service
A strong customer support system is a positive point of an online retailer. Most of the e-commerce sites are known for their mediocre and impersonal customer service practices. Very few e-retailers are known for their strong customer service, such as Zappos. The leading online clothing store is known for client care. It offers 24/7 friendly customer service.
Here are few tips for improving your online customer support system:
Assign a Personal Customer Service Executive: Assign a personal customer care executive to each customer. The customer care representative should be well equipped to address all the questions and resolve the doubts of your customers. Send all the correspondences to the customer with the name of the representative. Also, include the contact info of the representative. Your customers will be more than happy to know that you have assigned personal representatives for them.
Add a Human Touch: Many shoppers find it difficult to trust online merchants due to lack of in person interaction. Show several pictures of your products, services and staff members to win the trust of your customers. Also, provide the direct contact info of your manager in order to instill trust in the minds of your customers.
Follow Up Customers: Follow up a client when he initiates an order but does not finish it. Call him to find out if there were any issues. Your customer will appreciate your gesture. It is likely that you will convince him and make the sale.
Same Day Shipping: Most of the online retail stores have a policy of shipping the order in one or two days after placement of the order. If possible try to ship and deliver the order the same day. The speedy and unexpected delivery will be appreciated by your client.
Three Questions to Answer Before Creating Your Company Website
Internet has made it possible to dissolve geographical barriers. Businesses can now contact potential customers sitting in any part of the world. Creating and maintaining a website is much cheaper than advertising your products and services through television or print media. Promoting your products and services through Internet enables you to reach a wider audience.
However, mere creating a website is not enough. It is important to create a professional looking website, which can attract a large number of visitors. It is preferable to ask few important marketing questions while creating your company website:
How are you going to measure your ROI?
The first thing you need to do is to determine the type of website you want to create, such as educational, lead generation and sales. Next, thing you need to determine is how to evaluate your performance and measure your success. Define your success metrics and be specific. Set some targets and determine what results you expect from your website in order to consider it successful. For instance, if you are operating a sales website, determine exactly how much revenue your website needs to generate in order to meet your profit goals.
How will your site help your prospects to achieve their objectives?
Your prospects are real people. Give them a good reason to visit your website. Offer them a solution for their problem and help them to achieve their goal. Keep this in mind while designing your website. For instance, a career coaching website might include the following elements:
Offer job seekers with tips so that they get immediate benefits.
Build hopes through client success stories and positive testimonials.
Who are your competitors?
Determine who are your competitors. Review their websites from the prospective of your prospects. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Your website should be more helpful to the visitors as compared to your competitor's website. Create and post content on your website to highlight your company's strengths and USP. Make your prospects understand why they should buy from you as opposed to your competitors.
Top Three Tips for Developing Your 2012 Marketing Plan
For the owners of start up and small businesses an effective marketing plan can make all the difference. An effective marketing plan can help you to promote your products and services and generate profit returns. Developing a strong marketing plan is a daunting task. An successful marketing plan will enable you to fix an optimum marketing budget, keep a track of dollars spend on your marketing efforts and streamline your marketing efforts.
Here are few tips for developing a successful marketing plan:
Begin at the End: Be clear about your marketing goals for 2012. You can develop effective strategies and tactics to full fill your marketing objective only if you set clear marketing goals. Determine what exactly your looking for from your marketing efforts, such as expanding your market presence, attract new customers, generate more leads or explore new markets.
Learn From Your Past Experience: Review your marketing plans, efforts and ROI for the year 2011. Determine the areas where your marketing efforts were most effective. Identify the areas where your marketing efforts were not successful in achieving the desired results. This will enable you to learn from your past experiences and mistakes. Further, this will help you to develop an improved marketing plan.
Stop Doing What Does Not Work: It is very important to understand what worked and what did not worked for your company. Once you have identified the things that did not worked for your company, stop doing those things. For instance, stop paying for advertisements, which does not directly drive sales.
Top Four Trends For Online Marketers in 2012
The fast evolving world of online marketing has undergone several changes over the past few years. The year 2012 will offer a lot of options to small business owners for developing winning marketing strategies. Small business owners have to perform the daunting task of developing strategies that will yield high conversion rates and sales volume.
Here is a list of top four online marketing trends that small business owners should consider while creating their marketing plans for 2012:
Deals and Rewards: The year 2012 will be a year of bargain hunting. Customers have several price-checking tools available. Smart marketers are planning to attract shoppers with attractive deals. This strategy can help you to earn profits by generating repeat sales. Also, it is preferable to offer substantial price reductions or other attractive incentives when buyers use mobile devices to purchase your products.
Mobile Pull Marketing: This type of marketing strategy provides consumers a means to interact with your advertising through mobile devices. This will help you to pull your consumers closer to the buying decision. It is preferable to combine traditional advertising with a solid call to action.
Mobile Push Marketing: This type of marketing strategy includes sending promotional text messages and voice calls to prospects and customers. However, sending promotional messages in bulk can be expensive for small business owners. Small business owners on tight marketing budget can opt for email marketing. Emails are less expensive. Further, you can include unlimited content in an email.
Three-Screen Marketing: Apart from attracting people in front of television through your advertisements, also consider two other screens smartphones and tablets. Along with television, it is preferable to involve one of these screens in your promotional efforts. You may use emails, social media tools and online videos to promote your products on tablet PCs.
Different Types of Business Ownerships
A business organization is also known as an enterprise or firm. A business organization is involved in the trade of products and services on a commercial scale. Business organizations are predominant in capitalist economies. This type of organizations are formed with an objective of generating profit to increase the wealth of the owners. Business organizations may also be government owned or not-for-profit organization.
There are several forms of business ownership. In this article we have discussed about two of the most common type of business ownerships:
Sole Proprietorship: This is one of the most common and simplest form of business ownerships. In this type of business entity there is a single owner who funds and runs the business organization. In sole proprietorship there is no legal distinction between your business and you. Setting up and starting this type of business entity is relatively easy. It does not require you to full fill any legal formality. So, you need to spent much on legal procedures. You also need not disclose your finances publicly. Since, there are no shareholders, the owner keeps all the profit. No sharing of profit is required. However, this type of business entity calls for personal liability. In case you go bankrupt, creditors can claim for your personal property, such as house, car and land.
Partnerships: Partnership is another common type of business ownership. In this type of ownership the individuals partner with each other to own and operate the organization. A partnership business organization gives you access to bigger pool of funds, skills and other important resources. All the partners contribute funds, share profits, losses and responsibilities. Further, they have an equal say in the decision making process. However, if one of the partners make a fatal business mistake, without your knowledge, all the partners have to face the consequences. Before entering into a partnership business organization, it is important that you trust your potential business partners. It is preferable to enter into a legal agreement before entering into partnership.
Tips for Influencing People for Sales Success
Several home based businesses, such as Tupperware and Avon became successful because people were buying products from their friends and acquaintances. Also, it has been observed that friendly and outgoing individuals are usually better at selling things. According to social psychologists, one can influence people's buying decision by becoming likable and using few simple persuasion tactics.
Here are few tips for influencing people for sales success:
Make Your Customers Feel Important: One of the most effective tools for sales success is to make your prospects feel important. This technique can influence your prospects emotionally. All of us want to feel important. Further, every individual likes praises and hates criticism. Criticism makes a person feel like a loser and appreciation makes him feel valued. Here are few tips for making your clients feel valued and important:
Show genuine interest in your prospective and existing clients.
Always remember the names of your clients.
Talk in the terms of the interest of your prospects.
Show genuine respect for the opinion of your clients.
Appreciate them sincerely.
Listen More and Talk Less: It is preferable to be a good listener. You become a good listener and let your prospective clients do all the talking. Let him talk about his needs, requirements and problems. Try to look at things from his prospective and understand his view point.
Social Proof: It is another effective technique, which can help you to convince people to buy your product. People often tend to imitate the behavior of others to determine their own course of action. Human beings tend to follow the crowd, especially the leaders, when they are not certain about what to do. Position your products or services as something valued by experts. Find experts who think highly about your products or services. For instance, if you are launching a new line of bags, introduce your product to the experts. Then collect their comments and testimonials, share them with your prospects to persuade them.
Top Five Tips for Women Entrepreneurs
According to the National Association for Women Business Owners, women owned businesses account for nearly 40% of all privately held businesses. Women owned enterprises employ more than 13 million employees and generate nearly $1.9 trillion in sales. However, most of these firms (97%) generate revenues below the million dollar mark.
Having clear business goals can help you to map out events and achieve success in business and life. It can help you to focus in a better manner and increase your chance for success. It empowers you and gives you momentum to become more successful. Momentum plays an important part for women achieving their business goals. It motivates them to keep moving towards their ultimate business goals.
Here are few tips for setting business goals and preparing strategies to achieve them:
Set Your Goals: To begin the process of achieving your business goals, you must plan out where you want to reach ultimately. You can do this by identifying your business objectives and setting your business goals. Your goals should be clear and specific. Further, they should be time bound and realistic.
Pursue Your Goals Actively: Think about the specific actions you need to take to achieve your business goals. Utilize your resources and skills to the fullest. Evaluate all the possible avenues that you can take to attain your business goals. Be proactive instead of being passive.
Create Goal Achieving Plans: Create a step by step plan for achieving your business objectives. The more detailed and specific plan you create, the better are your chances for successfully attaining your business goals.
Make a Daily To-Do List: Preparing a To-Do List on a regular basis can help you to organize your day. The list should include the things, which you need to do daily in order to achieve your business goals. At the beginning of every business day determine what you need to accomplish. Focus and direct your energies towards accomplishing those tasks.
Evaluate Your Progress: Evaluate your progress on a regular basis. Check how far you have reached? Also, check weather you have met your expectations? How to move more efficiently towards your business goals.
Ten Principles of Brand Extension
Brand extension is also known as brand stretching. It is a popular marketing strategy in which an enterprise marketing a product or service with a reputed image uses the same brand name in a separate product category. The new product is known as spin-off. Companies use this strategy to increase and leverage brand equity. In the year 1990, nearly 81% of the companies used brand extensions to launch new products and to improve sales.
Introducing a new product or service not only requires a lot of time but also requires money to spread awareness about the product, its features and benefits. Brand extension can minimize financial risk, as it uses the parent brand name to improve consumer's perception due to the core brand equity. However, there can also be significant risks of brand extension. It can cause severe damage to your existing brand image. Some brand extensions are not a viable business idea. Just because customers would accept chocolate pudding from Nestle, it does not mean that this is a viable business idea.
It is important to consider few things before implementing brand extension. Here are few basic principles of brand extensions:
It is not wise to extend a brand unless it is reputed and well-recognized. It is preferable to extend well established brands which have a good reputation among the target audience.
Brand extensions should be a logical fit with the expectations of the consumers.
The new product should have a distinctive property associated with the parent brand or product. This gives an edge to the new product.
Brand extensions that create negative image or confusion for the reputed parent brand should not be undertaken.
It is not preferable to stretch brands to too many diverse categories. This can cause dilution in long run.
Further, brand extensions that will not produce a positive synergy for the parent brand should not be undertaken.
Things to Consider Before Buying a Business
Buying an well established and successful business is a better option than starting one from a scratch. A successful business with trained employees, a wide customer base and an existing cash flow is much easier to run than operating a start-up business. However, it is important to consider few things before buying an established business, such as locations, track record, management, furniture, fixtures, equipment, inventory, number of trained employees, customer base, existing cash flow, the industry trends, competition, financial records and growth prospects.
It is preferable to carry out some research and consider the value drivers before buying a business:
Type of Business: Determine the type of business you want to buy. It is preferable to purchase a business that has some connection with types of business activities you have been involved in the past or perhaps skill sets you have developed in the past. It is not a wise decision to buy a business you know less about, no matter how profitable it looks. If you buy a business that you know little about, you will have to struggle to operate it.
Research about the History and Finances of Business: Before you seriously think about purchasing a particular business, find out as much as you can about it. Review thoroughly the copies of financial records of the business, including balance sheets, cash flow statements, accounts payable and receivable. Also, review the employee files, such as employee contracts, leases, major contracts, past lawsuits and other relevant information. This will help you to understand how the company operates and enable you to understand the potential problems. Do not feel shy to ask for information about the business. If the seller refuses to provide it, or provides misinformation, this may be signal that you should look some where else.
Closing the Deal: If you have reviewed a company and wish to purchase it, make sure you negotiate the price and settle for a fair purchase price. Hiring the services of an experienced appraiser can help. Also, decide on the terms of payment and the assets to purchase.
Different Types of Branding Techniques
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is a 'name, sign, term, design, symbol' or a combination of these intended to identify the services and products offered by a seller or group of sellers and to distinguish them from those offered by other sellers. Brand marketing is a process by which you propel your products and services in the mind of your target audience. Exploring and implementing brand marketing strategies is a great way to stream line your business model and business practices.
A good brand is invaluable asset for your company. It is important to invest time in researching, defining and creating your brand. Creating a strong brand can encourage your prospects to choose you over your competition. Creating a effective brand can help you to achieve:
Deliver your marketing message clearly
Affirm your credibility
Connect your target audience emotionally
Motivate the buyers
Improve customer loyalty
It is preferable to develop your branding campaign based on the needs and wants of your potential and existing customers. There are different types of branding techniques. It is important to choose a technique depending on your requirements. Here are four common types of branding:
Corporate Branding: Corporate branding has been around for long. This branding technique includes making promise of quality and timely delivery of services and products to customers. The objective is to attract new customers, retain existing customers by improving their loyalty.
Employer Branding: This type of branding technique includes focusing on employees in order to understand the mission, vision, goals, objectives, products and services of the company. It is developed to educate and train employees to help them to uphold the corporate brand to the customers.
Cause Branding: It includes attracting customers by associating a company and brand with a purpose or cause that prospects would find beneficial to their personal goals. This may include contribution of a portion of company's profit to charitable organizations or donations to relief funds and wildlife preservation councils.
Co-Branding: This branding technique is also known as brand partnership. In this type of branding strategy two companies form an alliance to create a marketing synergy. A single service or product is associated with more than one brand name. For instance, mini-marts associated with gas stations and Laundromats associated with family entertainment centers and bowling alleys.
How To Manage a Successful Sales Team
Sales is the life and blood of every business organization. In today's difficult economic conditions, many business organizations are trying to boost their sales operations in order to capture more market share. The sales team of an organization can make or break the organization. Having a dedicated and motivated sales force can help you to make a difference and drive success. A solid sales team, whether in-house or outsourced can put your business organization on the map. It can contribute towards exponential revenue growth and business success. According to a research conducted by experts at Harvard University, across a wide range of industries, there is a direct and consistent correlation between the organizational growth and calibre of the sales force.
In many sales organizations, 20% of the sales representatives deliver 80% of the revenues. Having a talented and motivated sales team is important for the growth and success of an organization. Sales job is a very hectic job. A sales person often tend to feel lonely and frustrated. It is important to manage your sales force properly and keep them motivated. You can motivate your sales force with the help of money, incentives (flat and car), recognition, personal development, accomplishment and appreciation.
Here are tips for effectively managing a sales team:
Avoid Rulemaking: Set your sales team free. Sale personnel usually want freedom and autonomy. Compliance does not work in their favor. Do not point out to your sales people what they cannot do. Try to remove the obstacles and support your sales force to produce results. Do not have harsh rules because your sales team will try to find ways to overcome those rules.
Become a Coach: Ask your high performers to put themselves in your place over a particular issue. Ask them what to do. Discuss with them about the problem areas and possible solutions. Let them come with a solution for whatever obstacle is at hand.
Appreciate Them: With the top performing sales personnel, money is not always the main driver. Give a pat on the back of the high performers. Appreciate, give recognition and respect to those who perform really well.
Reasons to Use Google+ to Market Your Business
Google+ or G+ or Google Plus is a social networking website operated by Google Inc. The website was launched on June 28, 2011. It was in a field testing mode in its initial phase. The website was opened to everyone aging 18 years or above on September 20, 2011. The social networking site integrates social services, such as Google Buzz and Google Profiles. It introduced new services as Hangouts, Sparks and Circles. Google+ is also available on mobile devices.
According to New York Times, Google+ is Google's biggest attempt to compete with rival social networking site Facebook, which has over 800 million users. Google+ is Google's fourth attempt to enter the social media world, following the Google Friend Connect, Google Buzz and Orkut. On December 27, 2011, it was found that Google+ had surpassed an estimated user base of 62 million. Further, the website was adding nearly 625,000 new users regularly.
Several small business owners are suffering from social media fatigue. The introduction of Google+ left many small business owners wondering, if there are some good reasons to add another social media platform to their already full social media plates. Here are few reasons to use Google+ to promote your business:
Connect With Your Target Audience: Creating your company's profile on Google+ can help you to hit your target audience. Google+ has made it possible to target specific audiences that has been out of reach for majority of the small businesses. It allows you to assign followers to Circles. Also, it enables you to provide tailored messages to specific users.
It Gives New Meaning to +1: The +1 button is often compared to the 'Like' and 'Share' buttons of Facebook. However, the +1 button is a combination of both the functions. The Google +1 button enables you to invite everyone you know to join your network. It allows you to tag content and share content with Google+ Circles. It also allows you to offer recommendations that show up in Google search results.
Simple to Use: One of the major differences of Google+ from other social media sites is simplicity of its interface. The winning combination of white space and functionality trademark of Google and Google+ is no exception. Google+ simplifies the social media experience, by creating an uncluttered screen.
Tips For Using Email Marketing To Boost Your Business
Every entrepreneur understands the importance of building long term professional relationships with clients. The success of a business venture depends on timing. The optimum time for a business to sell a service or product to a customer is when he needs it the most. However, knowing the perfect time for all your customers is next to impossible. Email marketing can help you to know the exact time when your customers are ready to buy. If you are willing to increase your business pipeline, email marketing is one of the best tools in your marketing tool box.
Here are few tips for using email marketing to improve your profit returns:
Be Customized: Businesses have to put in a lot of efforts to attract new customers and convince them to purchase their products and offerings. Do not waste your efforts by having a same approach for every prospect. Every prospect is different from each other. Erase the principle of one-size-fits all from your email marketing campaign. Have a customized approach for every prospect. Make your prospects feel that you are talking directly them and only to them. Do not just have a single format for email newsletter. Send customized email newsletters to meet the specific requirements of your prospects.
Be Choosy: Choose the right content for your email marketing campaign, which can help you to spark an interesting conversation. Interesting conversation can sometimes lead to conversions. Choose your content wisely, strive to add value and avoid spamming.
Be Strategic: Most of the successful email marketers set long term goals and develop strategic plans for attaining those goals. Align your email marketing strategy with your overall marketing strategy. This will help you stay on track.
Be Tactical: The success of email marketing depends largely on tactics.
It is important to know which tactics inspire your prospective customers to opt-in and remain engaged. Try to identify the tactics to which your target audience responds to and the ones which turn them off.
Benefits of Telemarketing
Telemarketing is also known as telesales. It is a direct marketing technique in which a sales representative solicits prospects to purchase products or services. The salesperson convinces the potential customers either over the phone or through a web conferencing or face to face meeting appointment scheduled during the call. Telemarketing is one of the most effective tools, which can help your business to grow.
Telemarketing has several advantages. It can help you to generate qualified leads, increased number of appointments, reduced cost per sale, increased customer base, maximum phone productivity, increased closure rate, increased sales volume and improved profit generation. Telemarketing has four subcategories:
Lead generation: Gathering information and details of prospects.
Sales: Using persuasion to sell services or products.
Outbound Calling: In outbound calling preexisting and prospective customers are contacted directly.
Inbound Calling: This marketing technique includes reception of incoming request for information and orders. Demand is usually created by publicity and advertising.
Telemarketing technique is widely used by charitable organizations, political parties, alumni associations and marketing research companies. It can be used to understand the intricacies of the market, market acceptance of a particular service, product, brand or company. Here are few benefits of conducting a telemarketing campaign:
Attract New Customers: Cold calling gives an opportunity to open a dialogue with new and undiscovered individuals. Telemarketing is a direct method of identifying those people who does not know about you. You can inform such people about your products, services, brand and company. This can help you to create brand awareness. Also, it can help you to establish long lasting professional relationships with your customers.
Collection of Key Customer and Marketplace Data: If you have a particular list of prospects, your telemarketing efforts can help you to fill in the missing areas in your database with key information. This information can help you to focus on future sales and marketing efforts. For instance, if you are selling toothpaste, you can generate data regarding demand and usage rate of your product and your competitor's product.
Basics of Internet Marketing
Internet marketing is a also known as online marketing, website marketing, web marketing and web based marketing. The term Internet marketing refers to marketing strategies used to promote products and services via Internet. The main objectives of Internet marketing are:
Communicating a company's marketing message to its customers.
Conducting research and collecting the details (needs, wants, demographics and preferences) of prospect and existing customers.
Selling products and services over the Internet.
Using effective Internet marketing techniques can help you to generate qualified leads, increase sales volume and improve your profit returns. Some of the effective Internet marketing techniques are creating an attractive website, search engine optimization, article submissions, creating backlinks, copywriting, blog commenting, forum postings, bookmarking and social media marketing.
Online marketers are continuously trying to devise innovative marketing strategies in the hopes of attracting new visitors to their websites and making more sales. Here are few effective Internet marketing components:
Creating a Website: Online sites are equivalent to mail order catalogs or offline brochures. They are an effective means for establishing business identity. An attractive website consisting of text, graphics, images, audio and video elements can serve as an effective tool for conveying your company's marketing message online. It can help you to inform your potential and existing customers about the features and benefits of your company's products and services.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): SEM includes marketing an online site through search engines. A website can be marketed by improving its natural ranking with the help of SEO, buying pay-for-inclusion (PFI) listings in website directories and purchasing pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements.
Email marketing: Email marketing is equivalent to direct mail marketing. It is a great way of distributing information about your product or services or collecting feedback from customers about your product or service through Email. The Email addresses of your prospects and existing customers may be collected or bought. You may opt for regular distribution of newsletters. Also, you can send mass mails related to latest offers and discounts on your company's products and services.
Banner Advertising: It includes placement of advertisements on a website for free.
Top Six Elements of an Effective Sales Campaign
An effective sales campaign can help you to improve your sales volume exponentially. Here are some of the important elements of an effective sales campaign:
Sales Leads: Sales leads refer to names and contact details collected by advertising, direct mail, public relations, networking, trade shows, referrals, acquired lists and business directories. A consistent flow of leads can help you to generate more sales and profit returns.
Introductory Letters: Sending introductory letters will help you to break the ice and prepare your potential customers for your call. You should include in your letter how you got the name of the person. Also, describe some of the benefits of your service and product, explain how your products and services have helped your customers and close with a promise to call.
Cold Calls: Cold calls form one of the most important components of a sales campaign. These are unscheduled calls made to prospects. They can help you to set appointments with qualifying prospects. Also, you should state the benefits of your products and services briefly. Try to understand the needs and wants of your prospects.
Literature: Sales literatures are usually mailed to those customers who request for information. Send the most appropriate and relevant material. Highlight the most important sections of the literature. Also, include a personal note with the literature.
Appointments: Setting appointments can facilitate face-to-face meetings and sales presentations. After you meet your prospect in person, ask questions and listen to the answers of your prospects carefully. Try to explain them how your product can offer a solution for their problems.
Follow-ups: Follow-ups can help you to confirm progress and clarify issues. Send a note as soon as possible after every phone call or meeting. Thank your prospects for their valuable time, review whatever you discussed during the meeting and determine your next step.
Top Seven Qualities of a Great Sales Manager
A sales manager's job is no more restricted to paper management and organization of interest list. Today, a sales manager needs to encourage his sales team and keep it motivated and focused. He is accountable for his team's performance. He needs to master the sales process, win the trust of the buyers and build a great rapport with them. He should be consistent at collecting sales leads, prospecting and follow-up. He should set short term and long term goals for his team. Also, he should provide his team with tools to attain these goals.
Great sales managers usually share some common qualities and characteristics, which help them to become a great leader and manager. Here are seven attributes of a successful sales manager:
Passion: This is one of the top attributes found in successful sales managers. This one is a inborn quality and cannot be taught. Without passion for sales, it is impossible to motivate and lead a sales team.
Integrity: Integrity combined with passion form an important quality for a sales manager. Integrity is important for sales success.
Positive attitude: Having a positive attitude can help you to go miles. It can help you to keep going even in adverse conditions.
Leadership: Leadership is more important than management for a sales manager. Having a strong leadership quality can help you to inspire and motivate your sales staff. Organization and technical skills are important for becoming a great leader, but a true leader should be able to drive emotions.
Sense of commitment: Talent is of no use without a sense of commitment. A committed and loyal manager will surely identify a way to overcome adversity.
Tolerance: A sales manager should be patient. He should be have a high tolerance level. No one can grow without making mistakes. Give your sales staff a chance to make mistakes and learn from them.
Introspective: Successful sales manager should ask questions about their management style. They should be willing to listen to feedback of their subordinates and supervisors.
Different Types of Sales Promotion Tools
Using effective sales promotion tools can help you to increase your sales volume. It is preferable to use customized sales promotion tools depending on the marketing and selling techniques being used, such as Internet based marketing, direct mail advertising, telemarketing, door-to-door sales, retail sales and trade shows. Also, it is important to choose a sales promotion tool depending on your long term sales targets, goals and objectives. Also, consider how much will the promotion cost? how long will it last?
Here are few commonly used sales promotion tools:
Free Samples: Distributing free samples is an effective way to introduce a new product and generate demand for it. Remember the free samples should be small. However, they should be large enough to provide adequate experience of your product to your prospects. Distribute these samples to the representatives of your target audience. In case you are at a trade show or exhibition with limited supply of samples, tell prospects that your product is in high demand.
Coupons and Discounts: Discounts or coupons are either delivered in person, published in magazines and newspapers or distributed by mail. Coupons and discounts attract customers and encourage them to purchase within a specific period. It is preferable to include an image of your product or service in the coupon, along with the expiration date and discount rate.
Money Back Offers: You may offer money-back schemes to your customers. Explain properly the terms & conditions and eligibility criteria for the refund to them.
Mystery Rewards: Raffles for prizes or scratch and win cards are some effective sales promotional tools. However, offer these rewards only after the client has agreed to buy your service or product.
Pens and Magnets: Customers usually like to receive free gifts, such as sticky notes, magnets and pens. Distribute these promotional items with your company's name and phone number imprinted on them. Customers will think of your products or services whenever they use these items.
Top Four Android Productivity Apps
With Android devices becoming extremely popular it is time to identify ways to put your tablet PCs and smartphones to work. Here is a collection of four Android productivity apps, which can improve your productivity and give a serious boost to your work:
Note Everything: This is a note taking application for Android. This application is very simple and easy to use. This amazingly powerful application enables you to organize your notes in sub-folders and folders. Notes can be rearranged and sent to the contacts via emails and sms. The notes can be hand drawn, text-based, paint notes, voice notes or audio clips. Further, you can also use live folders on home screen.
Astrid: This application is an ultimate to-do list manager. It allows you to create task list with reminders, notes, deadlines, tags and priorities. The input is very straightforward. Further, the reminders can be set in a variety of forms. Astrid can also work in co-ordination with website Rememberthemilk.com. The app can also serve as a time-logger. It can record the time spent on each task.
Hootsuite: If you are a Twitter fan, this app is a must for you. Our busy lifestyles do not permit us to login to Twitter and post tweets a couple of times in an hour. Hootsuite allows you to schedule tweets for a day or a week. Every morning spend some time and schedule links, announcements and tweets for
rest of the day. This app can help you to look like a Twitter Ninja without much efforts.
Evernote: A brilliant business idea can hit you at any time. You could be in a meeting, at lunch or waiting in a doctor's clinic when your next big idea hits you. Evernote is an advanced app, which enables you to note down anything you want to remember, including simple to-dos and video snippets.
Tips For Closing More Sales
According to a research conducted by Dr. Herb True, a well known marketing expert, nearly 46 percent of the sales professionals ask for the order only once before giving up. Further, 24 percent of the salesmen ask twice and 14 percent ask thrice. Only 12 percent make a fourth attempt before quitting. Nearly 96 percent of sales professionals quit after making only four attempts. However, the same report suggests that 60 percent of sales take place after the fifth attempt.
Closing sales is one of the biggest challenges faced by the sales personnel. However, handling the objections of your prospects effectively, persuading the clients and explaining the benefits of your services and products to them can help you to close more sales.
Here are few useful tips, which can help you to make more sales:
Create more sales opportunities: Stay in touch with your past clients and try to retain them. Keep calling them from time to time just to say a casual Hi. You may also send thank you cards to your customers. Keep on trying to attract new customers. Never miss a single chance of getting in touch with your prospective customers. This will enable you to generate more sales leads, increase the number of sales opportunities and enjoy a lot more sales closures.
Build trust: Winning the trust of your customers is essential for a successful sale. It will enable you to enjoy high closure rates. People usually prefer buying from a shop or an individual whom they trust. You can earn the trust of the customers by making them believe that you totally understand their problems and requirements. Following some trust building actions, such as returning their calls, reaching on time, addressing their concerns, keeping your promises, can help you to earn the trust of your clients.
Handle objections: Think of the possible objections that your prospect might raise and prepare yourself in advance to handle them. Objections are rarely an absolute 'No'. Objections are usually simple doubts and queries asked by your prospective customers. Going well prepared will allow you to give convincing responses and handle the objections.
Tips for Understanding What Clients Want
Identifying and understanding needs, wants and buying behaviors of your prospects is crucial for sales success. Learning about their needs and wants can make it much easier for you to convince them to purchase your products. Moreover, knowing their needs and wants will enable you to modify and improve your products to suit their requirements.
Here are few tips for understanding mindset of your clients:
Communicate: Communication plays an important role in understanding the needs and wants of your clients. Make sure that you create a number ways in which your prospects and customers can connect with you. Meet your clients in person and ask them creative and relevant questions, such as what they want to purchase, why they are purchasing and reasons to choose between different options.
Know about your competitors: Collect information about your competitors. This will help you to learn more about your customers. Find out who all are your competitors and how are they promoting their services and products. Find out what extra benefits they are offering to the consumers in terms of prices, level of services, features, functions and product quality. Also, determine if your product is superior than your competitor's products in any respect.
Market research: Conduct market research to gather information about your clients, such as name, contact details, gender, occupation, income, budget, buying preferences, likes, dislikes and consuming behavior. You may conduct face-to face interviews, telephonic interviews, surveys and group discussions to gather such information. This can help you to predict what your customers will require in future. This will help you to forecast the future demand for your product.
Other resources: Other resources, which can help you to learn about latest market trends are magazines, newspapers, online news portals, government publications, trade reports and local business reference libraries.
Things Your Company Needs to Do on Facebook
Reports suggest that there are over 800 million active users on Facebook. More than 50% of the active users visit the site on a given day. Further, an average user has 130 friends. The site offers 900 million objects to the users for interacting, such as pages, groups, communities and event pages. Several entrepreneurs have created an account for their company on Facebook. However, most of them are not clear about how to use Facebook for promoting their business online.
Here are few things that you need to do on Facebook for promoting your company online:
Create a corporate page: A business page or corporate page is quite different from a simple profile page. It is preferable to include a custom Welcome page for the visitors rather than including a generic Facebook wall. This Welcome page should be especially designed for generating the interest of your visitors in your business. It should be interesting enough to convince the visitor to become a fan. Also, keep updating the page contents on a regular basis. Keep adding new images, testimonials and other updates related to your business.
Generate fans: Once you have created a corporate page, the next thing you need to is to build your fan base. There are several methods for increasing your fan base. One of the most effective ways for increasing your fan base is to access your existing Facebook network, including friends, acquaintances, colleagues, prospects and customers. You may add the Facebook page URL to your business cards. Keep talking about your new business page and encourage others to promote your page by word-of-mouth. You may also conduct an email campaign to your existing contact list in order to increase your fan base.
Communicate with your fans: Unlike wine, Facebook posts do not improve as time passes. Connect with your fans and communicate with them on a regular basis. Sustain the interest of your fans with a regular stream of status updates, offers, contests and other engaging activities. Also, you can share exclusive information and knowledge that will be valued by your fans.
