Carrying Someone Else's Business Cards With You

Your 2016 years earning plan: STEP -BY-STEP

If you are in business, you understand all the reasons why it is wise to carry your business cards with you everywhere. When you are out, you never know who you will meet; furthermore, when you meet someone, you never really know who they are, and you never really know who they might know. With a stack of business cards at the ready, you are always prepared to pass one along to someone who might prove to be a future client or customer. But even though the prudence of carrying around your own business cards is well-known and widely-accepted, far fewer businessmen and businesswomen ever consider the prudence of carrying around business cards that belong to other people. The practice of carrying around business cards that belong to others can be extremely beneficial; here are a couple reasons why.

Conversations with strangers are golden opportunities; as a businessperson, you understand this. Each opportunity for conversation with a stranger might be the opportunity that will open brand new doors for you. But a stranger is likely to be turned off right away if they think you are striking up conversation with them just to sell them something. People are protective of their money, and they don't want you to squeeze some out of them just because they were friendly to you! But if you are equipped with others' business cards, you have a full arsenal of safe conversation starters. Say you overhear someone in a restaurant talking about how they need a plumber. If you have your favorite plumber's card ready in your stack of others' business cards, you can enter into their conversation. "Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing you say you need a plumber; I happen to know a great plumber - he's worked on our house, and we've been thrilled with him!" You have now entered their conversation without trying to sell them anything at all. Eventually, the conversation is sure to circle back around to you, and to what you do.

People are also inclined to remember someone who helped them out without receiving anything in return. You are sure to unload one of your own business cards once the conversation comes back around to you. This person is sure to remember you next time they need a product or service like yours, and you will have a new client or customer on your plate!

Carrying others' business cards might seem like nothing more than a small step, but it could just be the "small step" that turns into your next big thing.

A Look At Keys To Successful Search Engine Optimization

Your 2016 years earning plan: STEP -BY-STEP

If you want to be successful online - either with your small business, or simply with your affiliate marketing efforts, one thing you are going to make sure you understand is search engine optimization, as this will be a big part of bringing the traffic to your site you will need in order to be successful. One problem with SEO, however, is that many people fail to grasp exactly what it means - and because of this, they fail to take the right approach!

The first thing you need to realize is that you should be creating content on a regular basis in order to get the most out of SEO. When you create content regularly, you will keep search engines coming back to your site, and will keep giving them pages to index and rank.

It will also be important that you know what your keywords are, in order for you to achieve success online. Too many people try to run a website without ever doing proper keyword research, or even knowing what their keywords are, and this is a big contributing factor to their ultimate failure!

When it comes to using keywords effectively, it will also be important that you hone in on the keywords within your content, as well as in your tags; lots of people think to focus on their meta tags and whatnot - when it comes to keywords - but forget that their content should focus on these keywords just as much as anything else!

And finally, you need to understand that backlinks are definitely key when it comes to SEO; if you have lots of quality sites linking to your site, you will be in great shape - and if you have no quality sites linking to your site, you will have a hard time succeeding!

As you keep working on your website, be sure to keep these things in mind, and you will find that you are moving closer and closer to those top search engine rankings you desire, and to the money that comes with them!

Tips For Coming Up With Creative Ways To Drive Your Business Forward

Your 2016 years earning plan: STEP -BY-STEP

Within the world of business, one thing you will quickly realize is that you are always competing with others - whether this competition is direct or indirect, and whether this competition is visible or invisible - and if you are not constantly moving forward in your business, you are likely falling behind your competitors; because of this, it is important that every business owner knows the steps they can take in order to make sure they are always driving their business forward.

Setting goals for your business that seem outlandish is one of the best ways to drive your business forward; too many businesses set their sights too low - coming up with goals that they know they can achieve, and then striving to barely achieve them - but when you set goals at the beginning of each year that seem as though they are outlandish, you will put yourself in a position where you are searching for ways to accomplish these goals - as outlandish as they may have seemed to be!

In addition to always assessing where you feel your business stands, you should also get in the habit of regularly collecting input from those who work for you; after all, those who work for you will have the best understanding of how things are going out there in the field, and you can use this input and information to adjust your approach to each thing you are doing with your business.

And having others who are spreading the word about your business for you is one of the best ways to drive your business forward; the best way to accomplish this nowadays, of course is through the Internet - using your website, your blog, your facebook page, and your Twitter to recruit loyal customers who will help you to notify others of all the things you are doing as a business.

By taking these steps to always drive your business forward, you will ensure constant forward movement - which will put you in a place where you are staying ahead of your competitors, instead of falling behind!