Archive for June, 2009

Don’t Ignore Legal Obligations Of The CAN-SPAM Act

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:23 pm  
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Most small business owners are not aware that they or an employee may be breaking the law regarding spam. The advice that follows is intended to help you avoid any financial or legal consequences.

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law and became effective January 1, 2004. As a small business owner, you need to be aware of your obligations under this law to avoid serious problems that could cost you time and money. The law is very specific about the content you must provide in any commercial email advertising piece. Not surprisingly, many of us are victims of daily assaults with unsolicited junk mail from very obscure sources. What these spammers are doing is illegal. Taking time to complain is impractical for many small entrepreneurs, so in most cases we just delete the junk, and go about our business.

On the other hand as a small business owner you are in a different position when sending email to customers. Your credibility is at risk because you are not obscure, and may be easily identified for criminal prosecution or law suits. Understand your obligations and what you can or cannot do. In the US, the FTC, Federal Trade Commission, is the government entity for establishing and monitoring compliance with this law. Their rules are very specific as follows:

Requirements for Commercial Emailers

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them. The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site. A “transactional or relationship message” – email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship – may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.

FTC Facts for Business

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, is authorized to enforce the CAN-SPAM Act. CANSPAM also gives the Department of Justice (DOJ) the authority to enforce its criminal sanctions. Other federal and state agencies can enforce the law against organizations under their jurisdiction, and companies that provide Internet access may sue violators, as well. What the Law Requires Here’s a rundown of the law’s main provisions:

- It bans false or misleading header information. Your email’s “From,” “To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person who initiated the email.
- It prohibits deceptive subject lines. The subject line cannot mislead the recipient about the contents or subject matter of the message.
- It requires that your email give recipients an opt-out method. You must provide a return email address or another Internet based response mechanism that allows a recipient to ask you not to send future email messages to that email address, and you must honor the requests. You may create a “menu” of choices to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to end any commercial messages from the sender. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it’s illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.
- It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender’s valid physical postal address. Your message must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the recipient can opt out of receiving more commercial email from you. It also must include your valid physical postal address.

Penalties May Be Severe

Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000. Deceptive commercial email also is subject to laws banning false or misleading advertising. Additional fines are provided for commercial emailers who not only violate the rules described above, but also:

- “harvest” email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email
- generate email addresses using a “dictionary attack” – combining names, letters, or numbers into multiple permutations
- use scripts or other automated ways to register for multiple email or user accounts to send commercial email
- relay emails through a computer or network without permission – for example, by taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without authorization.

Department of Justice Facts for Business

The law allows the DOJ to seek criminal penalties, including imprisonment, for commercial emailers who do – or conspire to:
- use another computer without authorization and send commercial email from or through it
- use a computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial email messages to deceive or mislead recipients or an Internet access service about the origin of the message
- falsify header information in multiple email messages and initiate the transmission of such messages
- register for multiple email accounts or domain names using information that falsifies the identity of the actual registrant
- falsely represent themselves as owners of multiple Internet Protocol addresses that are used to send commercial email messages.

Conclusion

Fines up to $11,000 per violation should get your attention. Review your commercial email policies, and revise as necessary to make sure you include the 3 most frequently omitted features: identify advertising, your physical address, and an opt-out provision. Continue your review to confirm compliance with all requirements. Finally, visit the official FTC web site for information on additional rules and press releases that may have occurred since this report was written.

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Why Do Startups And Small Companies Need To Attend Trade Shows?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pm  
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Many people who are running a one man show businesses or even a small business believe that exhibiting at a tradeshow is out of their league because of financial considerations, because the large companies have large marketing departments with large budgets, because a tradeshow booth is not affordable, because they just don’t have the vision on how to design a booth, how to transport and assemble one, how to work a tradeshow, etc.

Except for the budgetary considerations of actually renting space on the tradeshow floor, everything else is untrue. In this article, I will show you why are tradeshows so important. I am writing this from my own experience, as someone who worked on designing trade show booths, actually set up trade show displays, worked the tradeshow floors as an exhibitor and as a visitor.

Here are some of the reasons why it is important to attend and exhibit at trade shows, even if you are just starting your business or running a small company:

1. Get competitive intelligence

As an entrepreneur running a small company, it is very hard to get competitive intelligence, that is knowledge on how do you compare to your competitors, how do they do things, what makes them more successful that you or less successful than you. Don’t forget to put some focus on the less successful scenario also, because you also want to have a list of all the mistakes others make, so you can avoid them.

At a trade show, the easiest possible thing you can do is gather hands-on competitive intelligence. It really does not get more hands-on than that, as you have your competition at the tip of your finger. On the surface, they all seem to be extremely confident through their sales pitches and the flashiness of their marketing gimmicks, but they are in a tremendously vulnerable position, as they are giving everything they got and are also worried about *their* competition, which believe it or not… is you!

Take advantage of this incredible position. The best thing to do is to walk the trade show at the very beginning – that is, before everybody gets to know everybody among exhibitors – and ask questions, ask many, many questions.

Here are some of the things you can get from a simple walk around the exhibit hall:

- A four pound synopsis of your market that you can review at your leisure, from the comfort of your couch that most likely includes a sackful (literally) of literature on suppliers and distributors in your very targeted and unique field, the trade press.

- New market concepts.

- You can also have yourself put on mailing lists, participate in market surveys and earn complimentary subscriptions to a handful of journals.

- More coffee mugs, promotional mints, candy, pens, laminated business cards and free golf balls than you’ll ever need.

2. Learn about what your competition thinks about your product or service

Again, this is something to be done at the very beginning of a trade show and works best in larger exhibiting halls.

Introduce yourself as someone else, interested in the product or service offered by you and your competitors. This is a perfect time for you to use your flirting techniques. Get creative, remember you have nothing to lose, you’re in control and the ball is in your court.

Get a complete review of your competitor’s product line. You can then ask what they think of your company’s products and services. Since they don’t know who you really are, they’ll tell you what they really think. It’s actually quite enlightening to hear what your competition really says about you to prospects, remember you are acting as one of their prospects.

This is competitive research as its grittiest and the trade show floor is the best place for it. Studies show that companies are more eager to open up and talk about their competition at a trade show than in any other environment (sure you could just call, but you will not get the same effect).

At this point, if you are still reading this, you are probably wondering why, in the name of everything rational, I am talking about spying on your competition instead of the obvious reasons why trade shows exist, which is promoting a product or a service? Well, analysts and trade show gurus say that investigating the competition is what these shows are really about.

3. Meet your buyers

Show your product or service to people who are hyper-qualified as buyers. Why? Well, because these are the people who have gone through the trouble of attending the show and are really interested in your type of business. You also get to meet current and potential customers and get real feedback and a feel for how is your product or service perceived, how it is really performing and what you can do to make it better, that is, more appealing and more useful for your customers.

4. Meet the press

Meet with people from your industry’s trade press. They always attend those events and you will probably never get a better chance to speak one-on-one with the top editorial staff.

You also have a great opportunity to connect with distributors, with wholesalers, with brokers and others in your distribution channel.

5. Sell

You can also sell your product or service, right there, on the spot. Just make sure you have everything you need to do so in place.

Plan ahead and allow for the opportunity for serious business. Most people who come to your booth will be tire-kickers. They’ll grab a handful of pistachios, check out your promotional pens (or USB memory drives loaded with your marketing multimedia presentations – hint, hint), cherry pick your printed materials and move on to the next booth. But every once in a while, you’ll bag a live one. Know how and where you’ll talk to this person at length. Will it be a spot in the rear of the booth, a nearby conference room, a table in the concession area, a later meeting at your company suite? Folks, trust me on this, a wishy-washy “we’ll get back to you” attitude will lose the sale. You have to be prepared, if they see you are not ready to close the transaction right there, on the spot (even if in this day and age the trend continues to move away from on-the-spot order writing on trade show floors), they’ll leave.

6. Generate leads

This is actually the meat of attending a trade show – creating a follow up mailing list. This is what could (and should) potentially bring return on the major investment you made by attending the trade show. Whether you just collect business cards, write names down on a piece of paper or use the more modern trade show techniques such as scanning people’s tags, you must build your mailing list and actually follow up immediately after the show is over, while your marketing effort is still fresh in people’s minds.

It really makes a good second impression if you follow up promptly, whether by just a call or sending additional literature and information. Your handling of requests for additional information will show potential clients you value their time and provide quality customer service.

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Shift Your Growth Into The Fast Lane By Engaging Your Customers

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pm  
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Do you feel like you have the “pedal to the metal,” spending all you can on advertising but still can’t get the growth of your business into the fast lane? The fact is, if your customers aren’t engaged, it may not matter how much you spend on advertising. Just like a car in neutral isn’t going anywhere (no matter how much gas you give it) until the transmission is engaged, your business isn’t going anywhere until your customers are engaged.

What does engage mean? Here are three definitions you might find in a dictionary:

1. To attract someone’s attention
2. To establish a meaningful contact
3. To move into position so as to come into operation

Combine the three of them and it provides a pretty good working definition for engaging your customers:

Attract your customers’ attention with the intent to establish a meaningful relationship and move them into position to help your business grow.

Without worrying too much right now about how to engage your customers (we’ll get to that) let me propose multiple levels of possible customer engagement as represented by this pyramid model.

At the base of the pyramid is your total available market. That is, all of the potential customers in the world. They have potential, but at least at this point no level of engagement with you or your company.

The next level derives its name from a term we have all used when asked by a sales man if we need help, “No, just looking.” The fact that we are looking means we are more engaged than the masses, but we’ve yet to make any great commitment.

Just beyond Just Looking is Just Buying. For most companies this is the height of their ambition. Get a sale, book the profit and move on to the next customer.

Above just buying is buying again. This is a level that in general assumes that the customer was pleased enough with their first purchase to be willing to come back and purchase again. I say in general, because it is possible that they have no other options and therefore they have no choice. For you as the business owner, this is a very good level. Serving a repeat customer costs less because you don’t have to pay to acquire them and they are less expensive to serve in most cases because they are already familiar with you and your operation. The more customers you can get to Buying Again , the more profitable you will be.

But there are customer engagement levels even higher than Buying Again. The first is Giving Feedback. This refers to customers that are willing to invest more of themselves in your company than just their money. They do this by making the effort to tell you how you can improve your offerings. In effect, they go beyond the typical definition of customers and become co-producers, helping to ensure that your offering is exactly what the market wants and needs. Two great things happen in the process: 1) As your offering improves so will your sales and, 2) As the customer invests their ideas in your company they will become even more loyal and move to the next level.

At the top of the pyramid is Telling Others. At this level your customers are so pleased with your offerings they can’t be stopped from telling others. They become co-promoters, a very powerful sales force willing to tell perfect strangers and best friends how wonderful your company is. As consumers in general become ever more jaded and less trusting of traditional advertising, the growth of your company will be largely dependent on how many of your customers become promoters.

Having described the model, let me hasten to add that I know it is oversimplified. Not all customers will move through each level. Some will become promoters without ever providing feedback. Some will provide feedback and then go away and never return. Despite its simplicity, I believe the model can be helpful in understanding the concept that customers can become much more valuable to a business than just the value of the purchases that they make. Consider the following:

This chart attempts to show in relative terms how much a business benefits financially from a customer at each level of possible engagement. At the far left, Just Looking, expenses associated with a customer typically exceed income from that customer. For example, you spend money on advertising and attract the attention of a customer willing to take a look. At that point you have paid out (for advertising) more money than you have brought in ($0 purchased by the customer).

For those customers that take the step and buy your offering, chances are you will cross over into positive returns. If the customer returns to buy again and again your profit from that customer will increase. Note that the slope of the line becomes steeper in the buying again phase. That is due to the fact that it is less expensive to sell to returning customers than it is acquire new customers. In fact for most businesses it costs five to ten times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell more to current customers. The obvious difference is the acquisition cost associated with attracting new customers. The less obvious reason is that a regular customer already knows how your product or service works and doesn’t require as much “hand holding” throughout the process.

As the curve continues into the higher levels of engagement, Giving Feedback and Telling others, its slope becomes even steeper indicating that significantly higher returns are possible. Two reasons for this: 1) The additional costs required to move customers into these levels is relatively small and 2) The potential returns have a built in multiplier effect—that is, one customer’s actions can influence many other customers.

For example, feedback from one customer that helps you improve your offering not only benefits that one customer and brings them back again but benefits all your customers and increases the likelihood that they will return more often. Even more obvious, a customer who begins telling others about your business brings not only her purchases but the purchases of several new customers to your business.

In conclusion, engaged customers will help you improve your offering, they’ll actively promote your product, they will improve your bottom line, and, to a large extent, they will determine how fast your business will grow. As you consider the growth of your business, look not only at how many “Just Looking” customers you can bring in and move to “Just Buying,” but also consider how you can get your “Just Buying” customers fully engaged in your business.

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5 Simple Steps To Small Business Success On The Internet!

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:21 pm  
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For years, the website design market used to fall into three separate entities for website design and development: (i) graphics and animation studios, specializing in custom graphic design and creative animations, (ii) website marketing/promotion firms, (iii) Web programming companies specializing in database-driven website development. Nowadays, however, you get to see a fusion of these three entities in several dynamic Web Development and Promotion companies operating from any part of the globe. These web design, development and web promotion firms are virtually allrounders that cater to a diverse range of clientele, include those coming up for creative web design, web databases CRM / ERP as well as for SEO (search engine optimization) needs.

Most small business firms all over the world heavily rely on the services of such web development firms as they usually cater to small business website design by providing web based marketing methods that small companies can afford due to small budgets. Depending on the effectiveness of such web-based marketing, clients often see incredible successful results from clicks to conversion. There are some case studies which show that utilizing their marketing equation; some sites have gone from 10 leads a month to 300 leads. However, to achieve this is easier said than done. Web marketing firms that create a full plan for their clients using both the strategic and tactical methods crafted by specialists/consultants in turn are able to give small or large businesses increased sales. After all, that is the reason one can zero down on in order to be in a business, right? To have more sales and offer value. Therefore, the objective behind any web development or website promotion project is to create a unique selling proposition through your website that can set you apart from your competition so your customers should only think of doing business with you, regardless of price.

Small business firms today look forward to the professional creative website design and strategic web development and web promotion companies for the simple reason that they want their site to have the look and usability of a Fortune 500 company site without having to spend huge bucks for it. Yes, it is definitely considered a plus if the website is designed as a tactical marketing tool that aims to engage and educate their clients in turn. And most of these businesses have a concern in their minds: can their web site provide a means to gather analytical data for them to offer better service for all?

Yes, definitely they can. However, for this, optimal, effective website design strategies need to be incorporated. In a word, small business clients should be enriched with at least some of these features in order to fetch more conversions:
* Cutting-edge small business website design, tailor-made to provide broad market exposure of the products and services to potential clients.
* Highly scalable digital website designs, aimed at boosting up the growth and realization of the full perspective of the small business houses.
* Small business website design strategies including full-featured e-commerce solutions, to help these businesses deploy cost-effective, powerful e-commerce stores.
* Customized search engine optimization services, based upon individual needs and goals.

However, there are umpteen so-called ‘cheap, quick’ solution-providers, and any small business firm must think twice before taking the plunge with them. Ideally, one should always trust a professional web development firm that gathers relevant information about their clients’ business through hours of discussion, clear up ideas about the requirement, nature and goal of the clients’ business. Based on these details, experienced, skilled web designers and developers carry out extensive research to find out the best small business website solution. On the other hand, creative, innovative content writers create specific and unique content for small business website requirements, thereby enhancing business prospects. Finally, website maintenance and search engine optimization techniques that comprise scientifically proven techniques available at a competitive price are sure to give your business a boost. Flash Presentation, Multimedia Presentation, Multi-lingual website development and E-Commerce integration solutions complement these customized website solutions for brightening the online and even the offline image of small business firms.

The Five Steps to Success:

To ensure success of your small business through a unique website presentation, it is important that you develop a five-step process for creating websites that meet your customer’s goals. Whether it is a small business firm eager to generate leads, sell online, provide information about their services, connect their vendors to their company electronically, or start an entirely new kind of service, this five-step process not only takes them from concept to completion, but also is the trademark of any Internet development company. Consulting: Every website starts with an idea. Perhaps you’ve been thinking about developing a website, or redesigning your existing site. At the consulting stage, a professional website development firm would strive to clear all doubts about the clients’ requirements. Consultation for this usually comes free in case of small to medium-sized businesses.

Website Design: After the initial consultation, the website development firm solidifies the clients’ ideas by creating a blueprint for their site by employing something they call “Strategic Design”.

Website Development: The website development project is then handled by a creator’ hive, composed of specialists who handle their own respective pieces of the site development. Remember, for successful website development, it is necessary to be handled by a versatile team of expert graphic artists, content writers, programmers, database specialists and technical personnel. This ensures that a qualified professional handles each task of the given project.

Web Hosting: Since websites are an intricate interplay of graphics, text, programming and computer resources, building your site on a rock-solid web hosting foundation is critical to its marketing success.

Website Maintenance: Once the site is available to the public, it must be maintained with the help of ongoing updates and continued development to the site so that they don’t give clients/visitors of the site a chance to complain about its quality and content.

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The Primary Cause Of Business Financing Frustration

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 10:20 pm  
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Finding proper business financing is not easy at the best of times for most small and medium sized business owners and managers.

There are a number of reasons that collectively explain why the business financing market can be so difficult to understand and navigate.

But probably the single biggest reason is the lack of useful information about how the business financing market actually works.

Business financing information and education sources predominantly come in two forms: 1) institutional education material; 2) major bank advertising.

If you’ve ever read through a educational finance text book or taken a business finance course, you already know how difficult it can be to apply the theories, principles, and strategies to a small or medium sized business scale.

From a formal educational point of view, there is very little useful information provided as to how the market place works, how to plan for financing requirements, how to manage periods of growth, decline, transition, start up, etc.

Sure academic books and courses can go through all these areas in great detail, but is the information practical, real world, something you can relate to and apply yourself as a manager or owner of a small or medium sized business?

In most cases, the answer is a resounding NO.

Most finance text books speak to big business financing dynamics that are not easily transferable to small and medium sized business scenarios.

Outside of the formal education system, the next great source of business financing information is the information provided by the major banks, which they tend to make available to you by the boat load through there broad based marketing campaigns.

Unfortunately, the information by itself seldom helps you determine if a particular institution would be able to provide you with financing, or what would be required to qualify for a loan.

The massive brand advertising campaigns run by the major banks have told us for years that these institutions will take care of all our banking needs, and that basically all we have to do is show up on their door step and they’ll take care of the rest.

Depending on whose numbers you look at, in reality major banks provide less than 30% of the financing required by small and medium sized businesses and this number is on the decline.

So, when equipped with little or no useful information, the average business owner or manager for a small or medium sized business will first approach their existing bank for financing.

After all, you just need to show up at the door step of a major bank and they will take care of your needs, especially if you are a long time customer, right?

Despite the branded messages to the contrary, major banks tend to be very selective when providing business financing to small and medium sized businesses.

So, if your bank can’t provide you with the business financing you require, what is your alternative?

The good news is that business financing sources continue to grow in numbers as more and more lenders carve out a particular piece of the market to service.

In order to take advantage of these alternatives, you need to have a solid approach in place when seeking business financing.

Here’s a short list of things to consider

>>> Develop a thorough understanding of both your personal and business assets, income, and cash flow.

Regardless of financing model, these elements will always come into play to some degree.

A good practice to follow is to maintain a personal net worth statement and update it at least quarterly so that when you do need to access this information you don’t have to dig through stock certificates, pension statements, life insurance policies, etc., to come up with a current value for the assets you own and the debts you owe.

Your knowledge of your own business financials is also an indication of your ability to manage your business.

>>> Monitor and manage your personal and business credit.

Small and medium sized business financing is focused on both personal and business credit histories.

Regular reviews of both personal and business credit reports from the credit reporting agencies are important to avoid errors and credit practices that can severly damage your borrowing power.

>>> Develop your marketing position.

Yes, seeking business financing is a marketing exercise.

When applying for business financing, you are marketing your business to lending sources.

In order for them to seriously consider your application, they need to know what’s in it for them.

What will they make as a return?

What is the risk of you not paying the money back?

What are the business risks and how do you intend to manage them?

When will they get their money back?

How will you secure the loan, and so on.

>>> Research Lending Sources

Your goal when seeking business financing is to locate the amount of capital you require to accomplish a specific purpose from a financing source that meets your business needs.

Again, there are lots of business financing sources. But there is also lots of variation in the types of business applications each one can consider.

Broad based lenders reply on credit history and net worth. As you get more specific in terms of financing application and industry, lender applications become more narrow and can be harder to locate.

Financing consulants and business loan brokers can be an excellent source of information.

>>> Qualify The Lender

Before you make a formal application, find out if the lender has the programs and lending track record to meet your specific needs.

Too often, only the lender does any amount of qualification. Both sides should get comfortable with what each can offer the other before proceeding with a formal application process.

>>> Compare your options

Depending on the scenario, there can be several financing strategies that could work for your business.

Make sure you take the time to compare before making a decision. The extra time spent could save you considerable time and money in the long run.

>>> Start Today

Regardless of what your business financing needs are right now, you should regularly invest time in staying on top of your business’s financials and researching financing sources that fit your industry and potential future applications.

When the time comes to acquire additional capital, your proactive efforts can make all the difference in getting the capital you require, when you need it, for terms that are acceptable to your business.

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What Your Traffic’s Telling You – 4 Things Web Analytics Can Teach You

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 9:03 pm  
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Brick-and-mortar stores often change displays, move goods around, and put impulse items beside checkouts. The reason behind these changes is they’re analyzing customer traffic and studying behavioral patterns to understand how consumers shop. As an online retailer, you need to study your customer traffic as well, in order to increase sales.

Listen: Your Customers Are Talking
There are a number of web traffic analytics companies, such as http://OneStat.com and http://StatCounter.com, that analyze your customers’ shopping patterns. They follow your customers’ clicks to and through your web pages and provide you with valuable info on how your customers experience your web site:

1. You see which keywords bring you, not only the most hits, but also the highest conversion rates.
People often find the generic words they use bring them a great deal of traffic, but that traffic averages a shorter stay on the site. The longer visitors spend on your site, the more likely they are to buy something. Analyzing that data allows you to see which keywords are effective for you.

2. You see the average amount of time users spend on your site.
Due to latent conversion, this is a good indicator of how business will be in the coming months. If your users are taking their time, looking at things carefully, that tells you they’re really interested and will likely come back to complete the transaction.

3. You see if your traffic’s leaving as soon as they hit your landing page.
If they are, you know you have a problem. As soon as users get there, you want to reinforce to them they’re in the right place. Says John Marshall, founder and CEO of http://ClickTracks.com, “Make sure the keyword the user clicked is associated with, and strongly connected to the copy in that landing page, and throughout the experience. Just paying attention to that could probably get you a 20% to 50% improvement in your conversion rate.”

4. You see where people are exiting your site.
This is especially important when you have customers leaving in the middle of checkout. If you see a high rate of users, with full shopping carts, leaving on a particular page, you can pinpoint what’s costing you sales:

• If they’re exiting on the page where you explain shipping costs, you might see your shipping appears higher than your competitors’.

• If they’re leaving halfway through filling out the buyer’s information, you might consider that your buyer questionnaire is too long.

Web analytics puts you in a position to see what’s working on your web site and what isn’t. It highlights where you need to make changes, and then measures how effective those changes are.

Written by Ricco Richardson
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Things To Look For In A Serious Home Based Business Opportunity

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 8:52 pm  
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There are many reasons you might want to give up your day job in favor of a serious home based business opportunity. First of all, working from home lets you be with your family and your children, and take care of things around the house. It also allows you to be the boss of yourself, which means that you get to decide what days you take off, and what time you get to work in the morning. A serious home based business opportunity can give you all of these things, but it can also allow you the freedom of truly doing things that you love in order to make a living.

That is why it is very important to first look at the things that the serious home based business opportunity has to offer you. Where can you go once you have started? Is this business something that you are going to want to do for years and pass on to your children when your retire? Is it profitable, and it is going to be fun for you? These are the questions that you have to ask yourself before you find out if a serious home based business opportunity is right for you or not.

First of all, when you are looking to start a serious home based business opportunity, you have to take a look at where there is room for advancement. You want to be sure that the business has the ability to expand and to grow, and that you are going to be able to somewhere with it. This is very important because in everything that you do there has to be room for improvement, and room for you to go forward. The next thing that you have to look at when you are deciding whether a serious home based business opportunity is right for is whether or not the business is something that you want to do for the long term, and something that you want to pass on to your children. Remember that a home based business should be just like a regular business, it should be something that you can do for a long time and finally pass onto your children, when you are tired of doing it. So, it has to be something that can last you for the long term, and something that you don’t want to end up being sorry you started. The other thing that you have to ask yourself when you are looking for a serious home based business opportunity is whether or not it is going to be profitable. All home based businesses will have a period of time in which you have to invest some money to get it up off the ground and running, but after that the business should turn a profit. You have to be sure that you see this happening before you begin, and that you have a plan in place to make sure you make money. And last, you have to make sure that the serious home based business opportunity you choose is going to be fun for you. Part of working at home is being able to relax and enjoy your life, so make sure that your business does this for you.

Written by Ricco Richardson
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Sfi: Home Business Reality

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 7:43 pm  
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The reality of home business is that not everyone makes it. In fact I knew from my research that 95% are bound to fail. I decided I was going to look for something free. I didn’t want to waste my money if the statistics showed that more than likely I would fail. I found SFI it was free to join so I signed up.

When I joined SFI and started as a free member I was skeptical about the reality of home business. I found out that I wouldn’t make any money unless I became an EA -meaning you either have to make so much in sales every month or you buy so much every month. Even though I was skeptical about the reality of home business I decided to get my EA status the easy way and buy a $30 membership that would give me EA status every month without having to worry about it.

I was put off by this until I realized that by becoming an EA I locked in my position on the powerline and everyone who joined SFI after me would contribute to my check. The first month isn’t much but I calculated it out and within 3 months the SFI powerline will be paying for my EA status without my having to do anything. From there every penny earned on top of that is profit.

For my first month I made $10 with my powerline alone. At this pace the powerline will double every month and within three months the powerline alone will pay for the executive status. With in a year the powerline will actually be making some money, and that is just the POWERLINE which isn’t the main money maker with SFI, just a bonus.

The real money maker is your own affiliates; they hold the real money making power. The one home business reality that I have learned is that you will not get rich overnight contrary to all the ads circulating. It will take time to build and any good business needs investing of time and money. I was willing to invest some money, but not a lot. I thought $30 a month was reasonable and if I could do this for the next year I would see some real profits.

The powerline is just a bonus. The real money comes by referring your own members and if you are really terrible at this there is a co-op that you can join and they will get them for you. Now, the reality of home business with SFI is that the real way to earn money is to get your affiliates to upgrade to EA. Imagine how easy that would be if you tell them that within 3 months their upgrade will pay for itself. How cool is that?!

Whenever my own affiliates go EA they get this great powerline feature as well as getting the power of their own team earning capabilities. The reality of home business it that it takes time, but with a great company like SFI it is a reality that you can have. Start today and by this time next year you will be taking a nice fat check to the bank and patting yourself on the back.

Written by Ricco Richardson
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Is There Money To Be Made Working At Home Online

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 6:32 pm  
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Surveys, eBay, internet marketing, affiliates, telecommuting, service and product websites; are all unique opportunities for you to make money online. If you ask the question: Is there money to be made working at home online, the answer is an unqualified yes.

Surveys offer you a chance to earn extra income, albeit, not enough to supplement an income but certainly offers you an opportunity to accrue a bit of cash. eBay is another means by which you can make money online. Perhaps you have items in your home you wish to sell, or have collected baseball cards and wish to sell them. There is definitely money to be made on eBay. They offer tutorials and guides to assist you in every facet of selling online. Internet marketing, which is probably the most popular method to obtain money today; while difficult, is nonetheless a lucrative endeavor. You may have seen ads promoting services or products by internet marketers who boast earnings well into the millions. Affiliate marketing is another area in which you can derive commissions by linking to other sites.

Telecommuting is another popular method for making money online. While companies are looking to decrease their expenditures, more and more of them are advertising work at home jobs in areas such as: data entry, typing, transcription services, customer service, virtual assistants, administrative, secretarial and many other service oriented positions. There are websites specifically devoted to work-at-home moms, for example, who offer invaluable information on how to make money working online. These sites are filled with a plethora of information designed to help moms find jobs in all areas of the corporate sector. These sites are run by women who take extraordinary care in researching companies; offering tutorials on start-up businesses; message boards; and incorporate any and all tools needed for anyone to be able to work at home and online.

Search any of the working at home online websites and you will be bombarded with links to everything from surveys; product sales; auction sites; and software tools guaranteeing monetary success. You need to research the area you are most interested in, and determine the legitimacy of the websites in question, then proceed from there. Stay away from sites who ask for a fee. You should not have to pay a dime to apply for any position.

If you are proficient in internet technology and have a product or service website, you can certainly achieve success in this field as well. There is money to be made working at home online. Begin with researching the various legitimate sites available online. While there are no guarantees, you will certainly make the necessary connections which will eventually yield results.

Written by Ricco Richardson
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Making Money – The Right Way

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 5:51 pm  
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You often hear about ways to make money online. People’s success stories of making thousands a week are posted all over the internet. There is no shortage of people who claim to be using the internet to turn profit. With all of the stories and methods floating around, you most likely have wondered if you could make money online. Whether it’s to make a little extra money on the side or a more ambitious goal of supporting yourself through online profits. There are many reasons to at least be curious about the process, but there are also many traps you can fall into.

Wasting money is something that can easily happen to someone pursuing a way to make money online. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can throw away hundreds of dollars without earning anything!

Nobody wants to invest a lot of time–and more importantly cash–into something that won’t give them any benefits. Yet, it happens to a lot of people, it may have happened to you before if you’ve ventured into this territory. It’s a very common trap to fall into for beginners. You try to promote something, spend lots of money on advertising, and nobody buys. It is extremely frustrating and a total waste.

But there’s a way to avoid the trap! The best thing that you can do is be informed. The best way to avoid wasting money is to have a better grasp on what you’re doing. First, you need to make sure you’re promoting the right product. To do this, you need to do a little research on what is in demand. What do people want/need? Once you find a strong niche, you can find a product to promote that appeals to that niche.

If you have a good product, you need to find out what keywords to target. You need something that is both highly relevant to the product, but also low in competition.

If you have all of this determined, you then need to explore as many free avenues of advertising as possible. Blogging is one highly effective way of getting the word out and you can make sure to mention your key phrase many times within your blog posts.

I would never recommend spending a dime on advertising before you learn effective marketing strategies. There are places that offer very good instruction on how to do this, and all the money you might throw away on advertising campaigns could be much better spent learning what you are doing first.

There is much advice and many strategies that can be used to avoid losing money and start making money. This article only scratches the surface of what you can learn. I recommend taking a look at my website to learn how to get started making money.

You may also be interested in seeing this additional Money Making Guide.

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