Control Small Business Costs

A business plan is a necessity for obtaining business startup loans and funding for your business. Without one, most banks and investors will not even consider providing you with business startup loans or other funding for your new business. But a business plan provides more than just the opportunity to receive funding. Properly done it is also a blueprint for you to map out your future success in a written plan that you can stick to.

A business plan for the sole purpose of receiving a small business startup loan must contain several components. The first few pages include the Executive Summary and the Table of Contents. After this is the company description. This is one of the most important sections of a business plan. Your company description will give potential investors a short history of your small business along with the future you are planning for it. It describes plans you might have to expand your business. For purposes of getting small business startup loans, this is one of the sections that loan providers and investors are most interested in.

In the company description, you will want to avoid mentioning that your business is a startup business. Startup businesses are considered very risky investments by most investors. As an alternative, outline details of what you have contributed to the industry that you are currently in or plan on entering. Without sounding arrogant, mention some details or things that you have changed or something you have done differently than others in your market that has proved to be successful. Also, discuss how your business has grown in recent months or years and don’t be shy about your predicted growth. Your excitement and passion regarding your new business needs to be seen in the writing of your business plan to help increase your chances of getting a business startup loan.

One of the last parts of a well-written business plan, but certainly not the least important, is your marketing plan analysis. This is an explanation of your demographics using facts and figures and a study done about your new, potential customers and clients. This section also explains your advertising plans, especially your target market and how you intend to reach them. This section must show that you have done extensive research, appropriate with your market to ensure that your product or service has a large demand. In order to obtain small business startup loans, you will also need to include a sound financial plan, including pro-forma financial statements for your new business.

With the worries and frustrations of starting a small business, small business costs are generally the biggest worry. Thankfully, in today’s society entrepreneurs can obtain business startup loans and other forms of capital to carry them through the slow times and help them finance their small business. The professional and most effective way to acquire a small business loan will be to create a well-written, though out business plan. Without a plan, most investors and banks will not give your business a second look.

The Customer Experience is All Marketing

If you think about it, service (including everything from wait times, cleanliness and safety) is marketing.  Anything where you are interacting with a customer is marketing, because that customer has a choice about using your services again based on his/her experience.  So, I thought I would write a brief post about a recent trip to the car wash.

There is a car wash near my house but I will never go there again.  I now drive an extra 15 minutes to a different one.  I think of things I can do near that car wash and drive there. Why?  Because of my three previous experiences.  The first time I went to this car wash there were very few people there.  Everyone was nice.  It was a clean place.  They had a nice waiting area where you could watch TV or read.  It took 25 minutes to wash my car!  In my mind, I am thinking how can it possibly take this long, there is no one here.

I visited the car wash a second time, weeks later with about 30 minutes until I needed to leave … I thought plenty of time.  At 28 minutes, I see my car finally come out of the wash and start lining up to be cleaned inside.  I had to go outside, get my keys and come back later to clean the inside.

On the third visit (which was actually a return from the second visit) it took 45 minutes to wash and clean my car … seriously?  That is ridiculous.

So, they have lost my business because those are unacceptable times to expect someone to wait for a simple car wash.

You can take this logic and apply it to a web site.  If your site is ugly, doesn’t work right, hard to read or has long load times, you may lose customers before you have a chance to interact.

You can read more about marketing ideas, my internet marketing system and how I use social media strategy and web marketing expertise to create, implement and manage your online marketing and presence, on my local internet marketing experts web site.

 

Marketing Your Business Online

I found this great information on the Internet about marketing your business with article marketing.  Here is the information I took from the article:

Article Marketing Secrets:

1. Article marketing is a long-term online marketing strategy.

If you want a significant ROI from article marketing as a traffic creation strategy, then you must write and submit articles on a monthly basis. Every article published on the Web is an agent selling for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Therefore you want to increase the number of agents selling and promoting your books, products and services online.

The more publicity and exposure you have online, the more money you will make.

2. Choose ONLY the best websites, ezines and article directories that accept article submissions. Why waste your time submitting articles to websites with:

Little website traffic

Little credibility

No reader interest in what you have to offer

By carefully selecting ONLY the best websites, ezines and article directories we helped:

Internet Marketing Extraordinaire Yanik Silver reach over 300,000 targeted prospects in just 1 week.

Lesley Mattos, Founder of Adesso Albums, triple her website traffic

Dr. Karen Sherman and Dr. Vicki Rackner gain worldwide exposure and build a publishing platform for their books.

Promote Dr. Mark Hyman’s book to the top of the New York Times Best-Sellers List

3. Do NOT use article submission software.

Here’s what we discovered:

The software was not automatic in any way, shape or form. You still have to go to each site, register for each site and confirm your registration.  Then after confirming your registration, you have to go back to the website and put in your username and password.

Each site has different requirements. There’s no way software can automatically take care of each site’s different requirements.

The article submission software kept freezing my computer. So, I had to take extra time to shut down and reboot my computer. It took me longer to submit articles using the software than when I submit articles myself without the article submission software.

Most importantly, article submission software doesn’t allow you to submit articles to the top websites like About.com. You could only submit articles to article directories, which will only get you links. But, you will NOT get more publicity, more prospects and more profits this way!

To learn different marketing ideas, visit Go Now Business.

Marketing Your Business Negatively, Be Very Careful!

I have had several experiences lately with people being very aggressive or negative by email and email newsletters.  By aggressive, I mean downright rude and not necessarily directly to me, but the effect on their business (negatively) can be astounding.  Here is where I come down on this issue:

E-Mail Aggression

I recently had an e-mail aggressor. Someone, who I know personally and professionally, decided that she wanted something she wasn’t getting and she wanted it for free.  Now, it could be that she was told she deserved it or it could be that she needed it and money is tight (knowing the situation, I vote for the latter) but a really rude email came to me demanding services for free on something she thought she deserved and wasn’t included in her contract.  What was most interesting about this is that I offered it more than once and even suggested she take the offer for this particular item, but she didn’t want to pay for it and declined the product multiple times (all by email, of which I have record).

The point isn’t about the situation, but more the aggressive and rude tone of the initial email.  To everyone out there, let me remind you of a few things to consider before sending an email:

1.  Would you say what you just wrote in your email in person?  Or would you tone it down and sugar coat it a little?  Because, relationships are an art and even if you are mad, you kill more flies with honey than with vinegar.

2.  What are your chances of getting what you want based on the tone and words in your email?  If you like to vent by email, kind of like drunk dialing, maybe you should call the person on the phone so that you can control your urge to say things you shouldn’t.

3.  Are you burning your bridges with this email?  Are you making the person angry?  Will you need this person in the future?  Does this person control something important to you?  Do you know this person or is this person in your circle of influence?

If you are mad or angry … write the email, read it and delete it.  Then wait a day and call the person or start your email again.  It will save you a lot of heartache later – especially in business.

E-Newsletters As A Way To Dis

I have stopped reading an e-newsletter recently.   This is something I receive every few weeks (along with other business colleagues) and find the newsletter in bad taste.  The person who writes the newsletter disses on people, talks down, makes fun of others and makes totally unnecessary comments.  I have come to realize that this is the person’s life.  It is how this person lives his life.  It is how he does business and the people attracted to him accept and tolerate but I do not … I don’t see any reason to look for the bad in people, in fact I do the opposite.

I look for the best of someone and I really don’t appreciate all the negativity, so I stopped reading it, plain and simple.

But that isn’t the story … I was talking to a business colleague and we were talking about something unrelated.  Suddenly the conversation turned and he expressed shock at the overall rudeness of this particular newsletter and it got me to thinking.

Maybe this person thinks he is being funny, smart, witty and possibly using the newsletter to elevate herself … but what he is doing is hurting his business online – plain and simple.  Be very careful when you decide it is appropriate to throw rocks. Especially in the glass house of the internet.

Business Ideas For Women

There are many advantages for women if they go in for work at home jobs. The main advantage is that they come to know how business is normally done, learn the tactics of marketing, and also get to know how to communicate with people effectively. This experience may be counted in the future if they decide to step into the corporate world. For instance, if a small business women entrepreneur decides to do a job in a company, the experience that she gets when operating her own home based business can be used for this job position. Moreover, home based businesses also allow women to have the freedom to work whenever and however they desire.

Some Home Based Business Ideas for Women

Writing

If you have strong written communication skills, you can use it to write and earn money. There are several options available when it comes to writing. Writing for the web is a very good alternative that a majority of women are opting for. You can get into many writing fields such as article writing, content writing, freelance writing, resume writing, etc. This is a very good platform for you to express your views and also obtain knowledge of various things.

Catering

There is no doubt that women are experts in cooking. Along with cooking for the home, you can start a small catering business. You would simply need some extra cooking material and an effective marketing strategy. Initially, you would need to give free samples of the food that you can make. As people come to know about the food’s taste and quality, you can start charging, but at lower rates as compared to other established caterers. Once you start getting contracts and catering orders, you can even choose to increase your business by hiring cooks and assistants. Keep less specialties until you are well settled with your catering business. Remember, in this business, goodwill is a very important factor.

Yoga Teaching

You also have a very good option of starting a yoga teaching school, as many people do yoga to remain fit. You may need to undergo special training and a certification course for becoming a yoga teacher. After you become a certified yoga trainer, you can distribute handbills and brochures, or even advertise on the Internet. You can earn a respectable amount by teaching yoga to people.

Wedding Planning

This is a good choice for women who love planning, decorating, coordinating and making arrangements for weddings. If you have the knowledge of where to get the best wedding dress from, which is the best caterer in town, and which is the least expensive florist, then you are perfect for this job. If you want to become a wedding planner, you require strong social skills, as you need to interact with all kinds of people. You might earn a considerable amount if you are all set in the wedding planning business.

Patio and Gardening Designing

If you have a wide understanding of plants, gardens, patio decoration, and many similar things; you may choose to assist people in decorating their house gardens and patios. You would not find many people owning such a kind of business. This can be a reason for making your own identity as a gardening and patio designer. Moreover, you do not even need to complete any kind of formal training or course.

Interior Decorating

Some women are extremely good at decorating their house, keeping it clean, and making required modifications, so that their house looks neat, attractive, and well organized. If you wish, you can undergo the interior decoration training. You can offer you services to clients who need to decorate their house interiors in an attractive manner.

For more business ideas, visit us here.