In my experience, there are two kinds of small business owners: one that knows whom their market niche is and utilize it, and another who tends to waiver or not want to "set in stone" their target market. With the latter group, I always probe for more information: Why don't you want to choose a specific target for your product/service? Time and time again, the response is the same "I don't want to limit my profits by only catering to a few." In all reality, you're not limiting any profits at al More..

Know Thy Competition

BREAK FROM HO-HUM MARKETING - IT'S TOO BORING! Once you break from ho-hum marketing, and learn to put your deeper beliefs and values into your promotion, a remarkable thing will happen: You will beat your competitors at every turn, attract precisely those clients who really need and appreciate the products or services your company provides, and have a really good time in your business. In other words - once you know what your clients really value, and how you are different from your competitors More..

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Increase Sales With Travel Incentives

Today's business environment has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, it can be a tough task to make a sale. Just being aggressive doesn't cut it any longer. Sales skills alone aren't enough to compete when so many new products and services become everyday commodities. Consumers nowadays are being smart. You've got to distinctively separate your business from the competition and lead each of your prospects and customers to think, 'I would have to be a complete idiot to do business with a More..

Customizing Booklets By Industry or By Company

Customizing booklets can be done by industry or by company. "110 Ideas for Organizing Your Travel Business Office" or "110 Ideas for Organizing Your Beauty Salon" or "110 Ways for Organizing Your Fitness Center" are examples of customizing a generic booklet about organizing your business life according to specific industries. "110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life" with a logo on the front cover from XYZ Financial Planners, with their locations on the back cover, and their company histor More..

Principles of Marketing 101

Marketing results should be measured in only one way - increased sales. Marketing should not be considered an art form. Its mere existence is not enough. Marketing is the first step to the sale. There are seven underlying principles upon which to base your marketing strategy and efforts. Follow them and your business will be a raving success. Violate them and you will fail as so many small businesses do. The seven underlying principles are Image, Differentiation, Repeat Business, Ease of Doing More..

Key Marketing Questions - Planning Your Marketing Campaign

So you started a business. How's it going? Did you think about marketing when you began planning for your business? Marketing is how you get the word out about your business. Marketing will ultimately determine if you succeed or fail. So, how can you succeed? What questions should you be asking yourself? Here are the BIG FIVE! WHO DO I WANT AS A CUSTOMER? Let's say you were trying to sell a video game. To effectively sell a video game to a fifteen year old requires an entirely different conver More..

Signage for Mobile Car Wash Vehicles

If you are in the mobile car wash business and you should be. Then you know that your clean work vehicles is your best piece of advertising. But what type of signage should you put on it? Your work vehicles will be very visible in the parking lots while you are working. It will be seen all day long as it is driven around town and when it is parked and you are working. The truck should be used as a sales tool. This brings us to the topic of signage on the van or truck. How can we sell car washes, More..

Client Attraction Technique #1: Niche Marketing

When asked "what business are you in" many business owners often identify an industry, for example, "I'm an accountant" or "I run a beauty salon " or "I own a restaurant." But claiming to be part of an industry is not what attracts customers. Customers come to you because you offer a specialty. For example, which advert are you mostly likely to respond to: Advert 1: "Established since 1985, you can be assured of a great service." Advert 2: "Experts for all small to medium sized businesses" Ad More..

Promotions for Mobile Detailers

Mobile businesses are quite unique in the way they must promote to stay in the customers mind; it takes creativity, savvy planning and a lot of listening to your customers. After years running a franchise system in 23 states with mobile detailing units everywhere. We learned quickly that professional auto detailing is more than just showing up on time, maintaining your customer base and looking sharp. Mobile detailers know you need to create promotions which are exciting. Here are a few ideas fo More..

Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips

Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone - and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people. It also goes against human nature to narrow your focus in order to grow a business. Common sense seems to tell us if we want to grow our business big, we need to appeal to more people. In reality the opposite is true. When we narrow our focus to a particular group of people we become an expert in sol More..

Up Your Income Next Week: 13 Ways to Have a Sale

Nothing gets people buying products or programs like a special promotion in your e-zine. Now, I know right now you're thinking, "I can't have a sale on my products or services. That's sooo cheesy!" Au contraire, mon frere. It's all how you position it. Here are 13 ideas to consider. Choose one that would work for your business and give it a try. IMPORTANT: You'll need to put some type of time limit on the offer to encourage folks to buy now and not later. It's also better if you explain to you More..

Sell More Online By Offering a Big Fat BONUS!

I don't know about you, but I secretly love watching infomercials. I enjoy dissecting how they sell, how they get people excited, how they entice people to take action now and pick up the phone and order something they completely don't need! As you know, these programs always offer a huge bonus or multiple bonuses for people who buy. Often the bonus is worth even more than the featured product itself. You know what I mean... they're selling you a little vegetable chopper, but they also throw in More..

The Importance of Interpersonal Communcation Skills

Interpersonal Communications is the transmission of information from one person to another and their understanding of it through the use of common language or symbols. It is a way of interacting and happens always at all times whether you want it to happen or not. However, just because you transmit a message, it does not presuppose that communication happens. Without both information and understanding on the part of the other person, communication (understanding of your message) does not occur. More..

How to Promote Yourself Or Your Company Through Award Competitions

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't receive some sort ofannouncement about an awards competition. We get so many, infact, that I have created a special place on my website where youcan learn about what opportunities are awaiting. http://www.womeninpackaging.org/ With all the awards programs out there, how many of youincorporate that into your marketing plan? Yes, I know it's a lotof work but the benefits you reap outweigh the effort invested.What can an award do for you besides making More..

Strategic Internet Marketing

I met Sue at a recent networking event. She is an author and speaker, and promotes her products by speaking at events and selling her products after the talks. Sue has a web site, whose primary purpose is to sell her products and make more people aware of her expertise. She isn't happy with the web site, though. "I have a great product, but I only had 2 sales in the last twelve months from the site. On the other hand, I can't keep enough inventory on hand for event sales! Something isn't right." More..

Distinguish Your Business From The Competition

You followed time-honored online marketing techniques to the letter: you have a great web site, the site has a high search engine rank, and you created a compelling marketing message that showcases your unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, your competitors are reading the same playbook and are implementing the same marketing strategies. The net result is that a potential customer found your web site, but also found the sites of your most savvy competitors. How can you get a marketing edge More..

Business Marketing For Consultants, Coaches, Speakers, and Trainers: How To Be Noticed and Trusted

Business marketing is essential for professional services, such as consultants, coaches, speakers and trainers. Creating trust with prospects and clients is essential. How do you do that? A Reader's Digest survey has found burns specialist Dr Fiona Wood is Australia's most trusted person, followed by singer Olivia Newton-John and Tasmanian-born Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. The survey is in its fifth year, but for the first time asked a statistically representative sample of 756 people who More..

Earning the Right To Sell With Stats - 10 Steps to Greatness

We could learn a thing or two from pro sports. Baseball players use stats to tell the story of their season and their career. Scorekeepers keep track of every at bat, every hit, every strike out, every run scored and every base stolen. Those stats are cited by commentators during the game, sports reporters after the game and they are featured on the backs of baseball cards to they tell the story of the player's career. Those of us in business could learn a thing or two from baseball players a More..

Mobile Auto Detailers and Newspaper Companies as Clientele

If you are a mobile auto detailer or mobile car wash company you might wish to think of attaining the local newspaper as a strategic client for your services. Usually newspapers have large staffs, especially daily newspapers. They do everything in house to save costs. They obviously have lots of cars to clean and this means plenty of customers. In fact as a mobile auto detailer or car washer this could be a half a days stop on your route or even a full day depending on the size or the paper. Thi More..

Off the Shelf Small Business Mapping Software

All small businesses can benefit from inexpensive off the shelf CD Rom mapping software. If you own a business you need to where your customers are coming from, where you would like to expand your sphere of influence to, where your competitors are located and how to route your delivery vehicles. We recommend the following companies and CD ROM mapping software: Rand McNally Business Map Delorma USA Map Etak Maps By printing a selection of nine maps at street level and taping them together yo More..

Off The Shelf Software for Making Business Lists

Available to all small businesses are business lists, which come on CD ROMs. This off the shelf business list software can help you in your small business. You can see what is in your marketing area and target those business customers which could be potential clients. You can also use it to make a list of all those companies which might be competitors of your. Any small business can have at their disposal on CD ROM incredible lists of industries. Here are some of the CD ROM programs we recommend More..

Digital Printing vs. Press Printing - A Comparison Guide

When it comes time to print your brand identity materials, there's one overarching question for you to consider - whether to print the resulting materials on a digital printer or traditional press. There are many differences between the two processes, some of which are outlined below. Digital Printing Less expensive - Digital printing is a direct-to-paper printing process. As a result,it often runs about one-half of the cost of press printing. Lose color accuracy - Digital printing is a four- More..

Color Part 1: Accuracy

Color is one of the most difficult parts of a design to show accurately to a client. Color perception can be affected by many factors, including: Human perception: The way each person sees color can vary, depending on the structure of theindividual's eye. This is particularly true in the range of the color blue.Colorblindness is another factor in an individual's perception of color, which can beeither very slight (and almost unnoticeable to an individual) or quite severe. Colors can also imp More..

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