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Sunday, June 22, 2014

How To Get People To "Like" Your Business On Facebook


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As the world of consumers progresses, it is important for (in fact, it is downright necessary for) businesses to progress and adapt to the changes in the business landscape if they want to remain competitive, and these days, one of the biggest ways by which businesses must adapt it in the use of social media; most businesses these days have cottoned onto the fact that they need to have a Facebook page in order to remain visible in the social media stratosphere, but one thing that remains a mystery to many of these companies is exactly what they should do in order to get people to "like" their Facebook page.

The first thing you should be aware of, in your efforts to get people to like your Facebook page, is that people will need to know that your Facebook page exists in the first place; make sure you devote space in your store to letting people know you have a Facebook page, and to encouraging them to visit the Facebook page and like it.

When someone visits a Facebook page that belongs to a company, they are unlikely to like the page (or to ever visit the page again) if the page has nothing on it but information about the business; do your best to drop the formality as much as you can on your Facebook page, making it fun and interactive instead of simply an “about as” for your business.

Another great way to use your company's Facebook page (and to get people to visit your Facebook page frequently) is to use this page as a way by which you can let people know about deals and promotions you are running; you can even run contests on your Facebook page, giving away something free to the people who are visiting at that moment!

As you begin to get creative with the way in which you use your Facebook page, you will find that you are getting greater results from the Facebook page itself – so follow these tips, and add a few creative ideas of your own, and watch as your Facebook page begins to grow!

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Tips For Having A Successful Trade Show Presence


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You are going to be participating in a trade show; now, you just need to accomplish the simple task of knowing everything you need to know in order to be successful. At first, this might seem overwhelming; but actuall, it's all quite simple. If you understand this basic element of trade show success, you will have a valuable and enjoyable experience.

What is this one thing anyone at a trade show needs to know in order to be successful? It is quite simple, really: In a trade show, no matter what you are selling, you are actually selling YOU. That's right - you're selling yourself, so it is important that you know exactly how to do this.

Before you even arrive at the trade show, the act of selling yourself begins. Make sure your confidence is up; make sure you are dressed in a manner that invites the confidence of others. Don't look sloppy, or people will assume that your business is sloppy. Double-check everything, and make sure that you will be making the impression you wish to make.

Remember when you arrive at the trade show that people need to buy you before they will buy your product. Everyone is someone; this is important to remember, because this is the case whether the person looks like someone or not. Look approachable, like you want to talk, and keep that smile on your face at all times. Treat every person as though they might be your next big client or customer, because you never know who that next one will be.

When you are talking to people, make sure you remain engaged. Keep smiling while you talk to hem; maintain eye contact; make sure they feel like you care about them and what they are saying. As you talk to them, bring the conversation to areas of common ground. People feel more comfortable when they are on ground they are familiar with, and you can do this by leading the conversation toward common points of interest.

Lastly, remember that you represent the entire company to every eye at the trade show. You will be on your way to success by keeping this thought in mind and treating people accordingly.

Although the trade show might seem daunting, all you have to do is remember that it is actually all about the people, and that to the people it is all about you. Give them something that makes them feel comfortable with and confident in you, and they will feel comfortable with and confident in your business.

Friday, June 20, 2014

How To Make Your Customers Feel Important


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If you are a business owner, it will be easy for you to look at your customers as nothing more than dollar signs, but while it is true that the primary function of your customers - as far as your business is concerned - is to bring in money for you, it is also true that your customers are unlikely to remain your customers (and are unlikely to keep bringing you those dollars!) if you do not treat them valuably.

Most business owners know that, generally speaking, ninety per cent of a company's business will come from ten per cent of its customers (in other words - there is nothing more valuable to a company than its loyal customers!), and this is exactly why it is so important that you treat your customers as if they are more important to you than the simple value of their money; as you are find ways to make your customers feel valued, you will create more and more loyal customers, and this will bring more and more money your way.

One of the best ways to make your customers feel important is to make them feel like you care about them; if you have a storefront, one of the best ways to do this is to start learning the names of your customers so that you can greet them by name when they enter your store - and you will also want to chat with them whenever they are in the mood to chat, as this will allow you to get to know more about them, and will give you things that you can ask them each time they come shopping at your store.

And creating a rewards program, or a frequent shopper program, can be surprisingly effective; create an email list (or a special section on your website) for "members," and give these members special coupons, and even notify them early of special deals and promotions that they can take advantage of.

There is a whole lot more involved in running a successful business than just providing a good product or service - and as soon as you start making your customers feel important, you will be one step closer to this "so much more," and to the success that it brings.

How To Start A Successful Snow Cone Business


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With summertime here, you have probably started driving by lots of snow cone places - and if you are a savvy businessperson, you have probably noticed that some of these places are consistently swarming with people, and have probably at least considered starting one such business of your own. However, before you actually start a snow cone business, it is also important for you to recognize and acknowledge the fact that for every incessantly busy snow cone place you see, you also drive by at least one other snow cone place that has no customers at all - which, of course, brings up the pure and simple truth that there are some core secrets to starting a successful snow cone business.

One of your biggest factors for success will be location - but your snow cone place cannot just be in a place where a lot of people will see it; your snow cone place will also have to be in a place where people can easily turn into it, park, and head back out, all without any inconvenience!

Once you have picked a location (the parking lot of a shopping plaza is always a great place to think about), you should also realize that you will need to make "good snow cones"; as any high schooler can tell you, "good snow cones" mean that you will need to have lots of different flavors, and each snow cone should have a more-than-generous amount of flavoring!

Finally, creating name recognition and brand loyalty will be immensely important, and since high school students are the ones most likely to visit your snow cone stand, you should market aggressively at their schools, stirring up the idea that your snow cone place is not only a good place for a snow cone, but is also a cool hangout spot!

By following these steps, it should be easy for you to create a loyal following of high school students - and of course, this means that you should have no problem creating lines at your snow cone place, which will continue to bring in more and more customers!

Thursday, June 19, 2014

Tips For Making Money By Shopping At Garage Sales


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You begin to realize that opportunities to make money exist in great abundance, as soon as you get in the habit of looking for these opportunities. And selling used items online is certainly at the top of the list when it comes to big, easy, profitable ways to make a bit of extra money. And while you might not have piles of useful used items laying around your own house, you can usually find great stuff for sale by others! As you begin to visit garage sales and yard sales, you will find that lots of people sell useful items for "get rid of it" prices - items you can sell for more on eBay!

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When it comes to shopping at garage sales to make some extra money, the first key is to start with a small-scale operation. Your eBay seller rating is important, so if you start out selling a lot of little items, you will be able to build a solid eBay seller rating early on. The best way to approach the start of your foray into eBay is to start with a small, one-time investment for shopping at garage sales, and this investment will eventually pay you back, and you can use the profits to buy more stuff. Start with about $50, buying lots of smaller items; you can double or triple this money, pay your investment back to yourself, and then use only this money for your garage sale shopping from that point forward!

Once your investments begin to pay off, and you have a reservoir of extra money and a seller rating that is solid, you can begin to branch into some higher-priced items. The biggest key here is research; just because you might think something will sell for a high price does not mean it will! Learn to be proactive instead of reactive in your garage sale shopping, knowing what you are looking for before you head out there!

Finding items that others want and making these items available for auction is really all there is to making money on eBay. And once you become more and more of a pro at finding items people will want, your small investment will start to seriously grow.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Hiring Dependable Employees


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Hiring dependable employees will be one of the most important aspects of maintaining success as a business, regardless of whether you own a small business or are in charge of hiring for a much larger organization; of course, “hiring dependable employees” can often be far more difficult than it sounds. The necessary process for hiring dependable employees will vary slightly from situation to situation, as each business is certainly its own unique animal, but if you follow these tips, you will be on the right path to making sure the employees you hire will be dependable and worth keeping around for a long period of time.

When interviewing a prospective employee, many people make the mistake of focusing on their past employment history and on their credentials, but while these things are already listed in the prospective employee's resume, one thing you can really only get a good feel for in person is the employee's character; focus on character as much as possible in your interview, devising questions that will help you to get a good feel for what the interviewee's character is like.

Another thing that will be helpful is that you do a background check on the people you are interviewing; some companies choose to skip this step because of the cost of doing a background check on so many different people, but this is an important step in the hiring process, and it is well worth the money you will spend.

And of course, it is also worth your time to call the interviewee's former employers; while calling the references is a fine thing to do, you can pretty well assume that they will not put down a reference if that reference will say something negative about them, but calling their former employers will give you a much better picture of what they will be like as an employee of yours.

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Tips For Increasing The Scope Of Your Blog


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Whether you are trying to promote your business through a blog, are trying to promote a creative project you are working on, or are trying to make money through the blog itself, you will want to understand the things you can do to increase the scope of your blog; after all, a few months of work on your blog will either reveal to you that a blog can be a tremendous tool or that a blog can be a big waster of time - and which of these your own blog turns out to be will depend largely upon what you are able to do to help your blog along.

When it comes to a blog, you need to realize that content is king; a lot of people spend time focusing on search engine optimization in order to get more people to their site, and they fail to realize that they will only truly optimize their traffic when they are giving visitors content that is worth their time, as such content will make it more likely that these visitors will return again, and will make it more likely that these visitors will share the site with others they know, helping to spread the word throughout their own networks.

This is not to impugn the importance of search engine optimization, of course, as no one will end up on your site to see your good content if you are not showing up in search engines; because of this, you will want to take the time to study and understand all the basics of search engine optimization, and to put these things to use as you continue to develop your website.

And one of the best things you can do if you want to stir up visitors for your site is to make sure you are active on others' websites, as it will be much easier to increase the visibility of your own website if you increase your visibility on others' websites; try to comment frequently - adding useful and insightful thoughts on pertinent blogs - as often as you can, and this will greatly increase the success of your own website.

The more time you spend focusing on increasing the scope of your blog, the more success you will have, until your blog is eventually a great tool for you, and for whatever it is you are hoping to use it for!

Tips For Using YouTube To Promote Your Business


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Anyone who owns a small business has certainly spent time cooking up marketing schemes, and has probably realized that YouTube might be a nice area to explore. And while you can certainly use YouTube to the benefit of your business, you can also use it poorly, and it can be a waste of time! Before you put in the time to launch a YouTube campaign, you need to understand some of the rules that will help the campaign go well.

One of the first things you will want to do is create your own YouTube channel, one that is specific to your business. This alone will go a long way in helping you, as people will be able to subscribe to your channel and will become more and more familiar with you.

Next, you should study first; take a look at other businesses like yours, and see who has done the best job promoting themselves on YouTube. And here's a hint: The ones that have done the best job are the ones that have the most hits on their videos! You certainly do not want to copy anything they themselves have done, but you can borrow inspiration and ideas from them as much as you would like.

You also need to keep in mind, if you want a video of yours to go viral, that you need to create something that is actually worth spreading around. The beauty of YouTube is that it enables others to do the work for you, spreading the video around; you cannot just have someone standing there and talking to the screen - you need something that catches the eye.

The best way of all to get people to help you spread the word about your company is for you to let them make the videos for you! Depending on the sort of company you have, you can run a contest where the best video gets a certain, high-priced item for free. In this way, you can spread the word about your company much more quickly than you have the ability to on your own!

For the savvy marketeer, YouTube is an absolute goldmine; once you figure out the best way to implement YouTube yourself, you can watch as your business soars!

Monday, June 16, 2014

Tips For Running A Company From Your Home


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Because of the internet, it is possible these days for people to fulfill the dream of working from home and owning their own business. But for every person who succeeds in running a business out of their home, hundreds of others fail trying to do the exact same thing! Here are a few things for you to keep in mind as you get started if you want to run a small business out of your own home.

1) What: The first step to running a successful business from your home is asking yourself what you will sell or provide, as this will help you gain your identity. A lot of people fail because, at the beginning, they try to do far too much. Instead, you should figure out what you want to specialize in selling or providing, and as you become successful with this, you can expand from there. You will also enable customers to have a concrete understanding of what you provide or sell when you yourself have a concrete understanding of what you provide or sell.

2) Where: Because the internet makes people think that they can operate everywhere, this is one that people often overlook. But remember that there are restrictions on what you can do as one person running a business, and depending on what you are selling or providing, there are restrictions on how far you can stretch yourself. You will be better able to gain traction if you take the time to gain a full understanding of where you will operate, even before you get started.

3) How: How is "make or break" item, as lots of people fall short by having no clue how they will operate. They might have a great product and a great idea, but if they do not know how their operation will be run, they will fail. You need to make sure you know these two "How"s even before you get started: A) How will I get the word out there, and B) How will my operation be run?

Running a business out of your home can be a dream come true; but in order for this dream to come true, you have to make sure you know the What, Where, and How!

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Using Customer Referrals to Grow Your Business


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Building a customer base for your small business is very difficult. It can be hard for you to gather new clients regardless of the methods being used. Marketing methods that are varied can be one of these techniques. Cold calling on potential consumers is another. You can even use direct mailings to potential client’s homes. Yet there is an untapped resource for many businesses. They fail to recognize the potential of the current customer referral.

The back bone of your business development plan can be customer referrals if you use them in the right way. The best advertisement for your business is your current customers who are pleased. You can drastically grow the amount of new customers your business generates if you are able to start getting referrals through you current customer base. An efficient method to do this can often be the difficult part to figure out.

By using your head you can really think of some great ways to generate referrals from your good customers. If a current customer of yours refers a new customer, you can offer a bonus or special offer to them as a reward. Both ends of this referral can receive the perk. One example would be to offer a buy one get one free coupon to the current customer and the same offer to the referred customer you signed up. This method invokes some added costs, which is really the only draw back.

Weighting the cost of new customers is something that must be done to compare. What was the amount of time you used to get this new client? How much marketing was required to bring them in? Both the time you spend and the marketing you develop cost you money. Spending money on these methods usually doesn't cost any more or less than offering a bonus for referrals. Do not forget that this referral bonus is mean to bring in a new customer, but also makes your current customer base more pleased with you.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Tips For Overlooking Bad Days At Work


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When you work at a job that is relatively stressful at times, one thing that can be especially frustrating is when you experience a bad day at work, as this can not only ruin the rest of your day at work, but can also carry over into the rest of your day even after work ends. While some people have a tendency to allow bad days at work to pull down the remainder of their days, there are others who have learned how to separate the frustration of a bad day at work from the tranquility they hope to experience throughout the rest of their day - and the great news, if you are trying to figure out how to overcome a bad day at work, is that it is really quite easy to do!

In order to overcome a bad day at work, the first thing you will want to do is put work completely out of mind during your drive (or commute) home; this can be more difficult than it sounds, of course, but when you make a concerted effort to do so - perhaps distracting yourself with music or the radio - you will soon find you are able to do this.

A lot of times, an evening at home after a long day of work consists of nothing more than some dinner and some television, but when you have experienced a bad day at work, you will want to make sure you are maximizing your evening; do something fun or memorable during the evening, and you will feel a lot better when it is time to wake up the next morning and head into work again.

And as for "waking up the next morning and heading into work again," you will want to do your best to "press the reset button" and start over as you enter into your new day. Positive results are sure to follow when you put the difficulties of the previous day out of mind and approach this new day of work as if it is going to be great!

Experts and Their Views on Internet Marketing


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The challenge of getting found online is a tough one to meet. Constant evolution is a staple of this area of business. The best idea for you to kick start your business online is to take advice from experts who have done it. Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan have written the book Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs with their internet marketing expertise. Be sure to take their advice to heart if you want to make it in the internet marketing environment.

Marketing your business in traditional ways is referred to as outbound marketing techniques. Your message is sent out to your customers with these techniques. This can be done through commercials, outbound calling, and mailers. However these methods aren’t as effective at generating business as they once were. These techniques are very well known and most consumers know how to tune them out.

Marketing is moving toward a different arena. Inbound marketing are new techniques that are being used and they are discussed in detail in this book. The customers come to your marketing willingly instead of you having to bring it to them. You won’t have a forward method of reaching them; instead you will make your marketing readily available for them to find.

This can be done in many different ways. The most popular place to go is search engines since most consumers use them in order to find products. Blogs are very popular as well since a very specific audience can be targeted. And recently social networks have entered the discussion since customers can follow your business. All of these methods are given great attention in the book.

The techniques you use to market have to change since your customer changes. Using insufficient methods of reaching your clients can cause you to fall behind. Take advice from the experts who are willing to share their ideas, like Shah and Halligan. Read their book soon so you can learn about inbound marketing and other topics.