Business Opportunities Weblog

May 19, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 1 Comment

photo credit: Raúl A.

The economics of news are changing, as the web forces prices down. What’s the future of the newspaper? I don’t know, but it’s almost like the early days of radio again. Back then, everyone wondered how it was possible to make money from radio, because with the right equipment anyone could just pluck it from the air.

Hundreds of companies were founded and dozens of business models were tried, including a pay for use model, but ultimately most failed. In the end, it was the detergent company Proctor and Gamble who saved radio. They came up with the idea of sponsoring dramatic serials. With that, the soap opera, and mass market advertising, was born.

The moral of this is simple: eventually, someone will figure out a way to make money with online news and the newspapers of tomorrow. It will take some time and plenty of businesses with unsustainable business models will fail, but a successful method will emerge. That’s the nature of capitalism.

In Advertising | 1 Comment

May 19, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

MSNBC:

[Janis] McKellar — who was joined in Studio 1A by her husband, Brent — was expecting her fourth child in November 2007 when she first set about finding a better way to bathe a baby than the standard tubs she had been using. What she discovered not only filled her requirements — it filled up her basement, too

She found the Tummy Tub, an infant’s bath that looks like a see-through cross between a bucket and a flowerpot. Invented in the Netherlands, it holds an infant in the fetal position, just like in mommy’s tummy.

Strangely enough, she found that this trendy infant-care product was not sold in the United States.

“They’ve been used in Europe since 1996,” McKellar told TODAY. “They’re used in most countries around the world. The United States is one of the last countries to hear about the Tummy Tub.”

McKellar found the product by doing an online search for baby bathtubs. She bought hers from a dealer in Canada. She liked it so much, she decided to get more to give to friends with infants and as gifts at baby showers. But the Canadian source went out of business and she found herself forced to buy 20 at a time from the manufacturer in Germany.

If she was going to have to buy that many, she decided, she’d buy a lot and become the sole distributor in the United States. That’s how her basement came to be filled with Tummy Tubs and other infant-care products.

Photo from Bathed With Love

In Babies, Mompreneur, News | 0 Comments

May 19, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

Fast Company:

The day before India’s Lok Sabha elections, the country’s election commission made a new Web site live to provide election results in real-time. The commisson overbuilt the site, so it thought, readying it for almost 3,000 hits per second–that’s 80.6 billion hits in a single 8-hour day.

The six-day voting process was supposed to culminate on Saturday, May 16, but the servers were crashing, and updating stopped. TV channels and newspapers that had been counting on the site’s accuracy were flailing. The servers, which live at India’s National Informatics Centre, couldn’t be fixed until early Sunday morning. The final hit-count: 8.64 trillion hits in just eight hours, far more than top-visited sites like Google, that gets only 5,300 visits per second, or 460 million per day.

Photo by kaunjeetega.in.

Editor’s note: I include this post as a demonstration of the power of the Internet.

In Election, Internet, World | 3 Comments

May 19, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

digtriad.com:

The recipe for Sue Catherine’s greatest kitchen invention included aggravation and necessity.

“I would get so frustrated because lunches wouldn’t fit, and so I thought, ‘Why not, I’ll just start making my own,’” she said.

Catherine created the CaddySac in 2007. She based it on size on the size water bottles and plastic containers that wouldn’t fit in a traditional lunch box.

When her three kids took the bags to school, they came home with requests.

“My kids came home and they told me that friends and mothers and teachers all asked where they got it,” she said.

Catherine turned her mudroom into a workshop, then expanded into the garden shed behind her house.

She and her sister-in-law became business partners.

She set up an office at the Nussbaum Center for Entrepreneurship, where she receives assistance with marketing and graphics.

By the fall of 2007, the production was too much for Catherine to handle alone.

“I couldn’t keep up with the volume, but I also knew that a real professional company was going to have much better quality than I would,” she said.

Catherine turned to manufacturers. She worked with two different places, but soon the volume grew and so did the need to find a manufacturer that could handle the load.

She insisted the work stay local.

“To go so far away, I just wouldn’t like it and i would feel better about employing USA or North Carolinians.”

Now, all CaddySac products are produced by Fuller Specialty Company in Burlington.

“This helps to bring back our numbers and be able to bring products back and our niche markets are really sort of our key right now to us keeping busy,” said Mark Fuller, owner of the company.

Like Catherine’s business, his is home-grown too. Fuller’s grandmother started the company in her home in 1944.

Logo from Caddysac

In Handmade, Innovation, Mompreneur, News | 0 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

# Small Biz Survival: Idea: Small town concierge service http://bit.ly/Rujqd

# What People Trying To Make Money Online Blogging Don’t Get – ShoeMoney http://bit.ly/Z6NO3

# It doesn’t hurt to ask – Actually, it does. In the wrong way, without preparation or without permission. http://bit.ly/lsXy4

# Tips for coping when your startup is out of cash | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist http://bit.ly/VARHZ

# Murder Scene Mop Up Company Advanced Bio-Treatment: A Business Built On Gore http://bit.ly/FVrRD

# When Twitter met food trucks http://bit.ly/ZX5CZ
via @AlVinKoay

# A profitable rainforest http://bit.ly/Nookn

To get realtime updates, follow danec on Twitter.

In Twitter | 0 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

ZDNet:

Wolfram/Alpha has launched, but after a few searches it’s an open question whether the search engine can break out of a narrow niche for select users. For many searches Wolfram/Alpha just “isn’t sure what to do with your input.”

“Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing..”

Overall, Wolfram/Alpha reads like an encyclopedia. It’s handy at times, but the big question is whether the search engine can break out of niche-ville. Sure, geeks like the presentation and it Wolfram/Alpha can be handy for deep dives, but the average person will want some sort of results every time. In that regard, Wolfram/Alpha may be a disappointment.

And a lot of searches just don’t work well. A search on Wilmington Blue Rocks, a minor league team I used to cover way back when, gives me nothing. But if I want history on Wilmington or Delaware or the color Blue I’m set.

Photo by Wolfram/Alpha.

In Internet, Search, Strategy | 3 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Channel 9 WCPO.com:

When mom Shannon Bambara was laid off…instead of applying to dozens of companies for work, she decided to become her own company.

Shannon became a direct seller with Silpada Designs, a jewelry manufacturer. She peddles the company’s products at house parties…then takes a cut of the proceeds.

Shannon says”an average Silpada party retails about $950, which means I take home 30% of that, which would be around $285. And typically that’s only in a two hour period.”

Now shannon says she’s “sold” on direct selling. And she’s not alone.

Screenshot from Silpada Designs

In Direct Sales, Mompreneur, News, Trends | 0 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

NCTimes.com:

Politicians try to stimulate the economy by throwing cash at it.

San Marcos businessman Adrian Pelkus starts stimulating at the source: the ideas of fledgling entrepreneurs.

Pelkus is president of the San Diego Inventors Forum, a group that helps people develop their ideas and get them to market. In short, the forum helps turn inventors into entrepreneurs —- and employers.

“We motivate people by bringing in successful inventors, and we educate them by every month having another topic that’s relevant to becoming an entrepreneur,” Pelkus said.

“People stand up and say, I need a designer, I need a patent attorney, or I need a manufacturer,” Pelkus said. “And we hook them right up in the room.”

Members also get plugged into an extensive network of local organizations that help new businesses grow and get funding, such as Connect, San Diego Venture Forum and the San Diego Tech Coast Angels.

Pelkus is part of this network. He’s an entrepreneur-in-residence at Connect, a nonprofit that encourages technology-based entrepreneurship.

There are about 100 entrepreneurs-in-residence at Connect, who evaluate the potential of companies and serve as mentors to their executives.

Photo by NCTimes.com.

In Creativity, Invention, Mentor | 1 Comment

May 18, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

telegraphjournal.com:

Being a hockey mom, however, she was curious about a new hockey development company in the Saint John area that was profiled in this column last December called Ozone Hockey.

When she Googled the company name, however, she stumbled across a website that piqued her interest. The website was about a new process that uses ozone gas to rapidly oxidize odour-producing bacteria from sports gear.

Flecknell knew only too well the smell that comes from used hockey gear. Her daughter used to play and her 17-year-old son still does, this year for the Saint John Phoenix Flames in the midget C division.

When she read about this ozone-using system, she thought it might be a side business for her family.

“To be honest, it’s the smell that got me interested,” said Flecknell, who opened Sani Clean in January. “You’re at the rink and all the kids are coming out of the dressing room and all the parents are like, ‘Oh, the smell.’ ”

Flecknell got her system from a Quebec company. Sports gear is placed inside the machine, which is then filled with ozone. The gas rapidly oxidizes the odour-producing bacteria, safely deodorizing and disinfecting the gear, before safely converting back into oxygen. The gear is then fogged with tea tree oil to attack any remaining bacteria.

“It’s a dry sanitizing process so the gear is ready to go in 20 minutes,” she said.

Photo by borman818

In Mompreneur, News, Sports, Success | 0 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

The Flint Journal:

Thomas Beaubien’s bright idea has snagged him a spot on a national television talk show.

It all started when the 10-year-old got tired of holding a flashlight so that his dad could see while working on his car — so he designed The Glove Light.

And now Bonnie Hunt wants to hear all about it.

The actress-turned-talk-show-host has invited the St. John Vianney fifth-grader to California for a segment on young inventors. Thomas will tell Hunt about his invention — a glove with five fingertip LED lights that can be used to help anything from barbecue cooking to electrical work at night.

The show’s staff found the Flint boy after he showcased his idea at the Young Inventors Fair at Kettering University and was interviewed by different media.

And the glove has already come in handy.

“We lost our power for over 12 hours and the first thing he did was go and get his glove light,” said Thomas’ father, Tom Beaubien.

Photo by The Flint Journal.

In Invention, Kids, Television | 2 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 4 Comments

Inc.:

Entrepreneurs think the recession is making them better business owners, and, according to a recent report, they’re beginning to feel cautiously optimistic.

The American Express Open small business monitor surveyed 727 owners of firms with fewer than 100 employees and found 77 percent think managing through the last few months has made them better at managing their businesses.

According to Alice Bredin, a small business advisor to American Express Open, gloomy economic circumstances have forced entrepreneurs to perform at their highest possible level, giving them more confidence as they face new challenges.

Entrepreneurs think the recession is making them better business owners, and, according to a recent report, they’re beginning to feel cautiously optimistic.

The American Express Open small business monitor surveyed 727 owners of firms with fewer than 100 employees and found 77 percent think managing through the last few months has made them better at managing their businesses.

According to Alice Bredin, a small business advisor to American Express Open, gloomy economic circumstances have forced entrepreneurs to perform at their highest possible level, giving them more confidence as they face new challenges.

Photo by biewoef.

In Economy, Entrepreneurship | 4 Comments

May 18, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Inc.:

The use of computers and e-mail is ubiquitous among all white collar workers, but a recent study suggests that there’s a generational gap between how younger and older employees use the Internet at work.

According to a survey conducted among 450 people by online information firm LexisNexis, Generation Y workers (those under 30) spend significantly more time online and juggle more activities than their Baby Boomer coworkers (those over 45).

In general, employees reported cramming 15.9 hours worth of activity, ranging from returning email to surfing the web, into one 8-hour workday–proof that everyone multitasks. By age group, however, boomers reported significantly less multitasking, logging only 10.3 hours of activity, while Generation Y clocked 22.9 hours.

But younger workers aren’t spending all that time working. Gen Y employees spend almost twice as much time as older workers on social networking sites, news sites, and blogs.

Sixty-two percent of under-30 workers access social networking sites from the office and 39 percent report playing online games, compared in both cases to only 14 percent of boomers.

Photo by svilen001.

In Computers, Internet | 1 Comment

May 16, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 2 Comments

photo credit: Medmoiselle T

In todays economy it is definitely tough times for business’ everywhere especially small business’. So how do you go about keeping your customers from having to share your burden of increasing fees from say your vendor’s, bank’s, credit card machine companies and more?

Entrepreneur.com suggests that at some point it may be inevitable to add fees that will reach down to your clients, if this is the case, make it known to your customer’s what the fees are and why they are being added to merchandise.

Make sure you explain that you are just not increasing the price of an item just to make more money, explain that it comes higher from you and in order for you to stay in business and continue to serve them, it is necessary for you to increase your price.

Have a good explanation for your customers as to why you’re doing it. Most customers are feeling the same pain in the marketplace with the increasing cost of food and energy, and I think they’ll be sympathetic.

How do you handle your increases in fees?

In Advice, Costs, Fees | 2 Comments

May 16, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 2 Comments

photo credit: Arturo de Albornoz

While we may not be actually flat broke, we all still are looking for the cheapest and most effective way’s to market our business. This being said, there are actually free way’s to market your business, that’s right, absolutely free!

Free classified ads. Do some google searching to see what kind of free classifieds you can come up with for your area. One you may want to try is craigslist, which receives a lot of volume.

Provide the best customer service you can. This is what we call “word of mouth” advertising in the long run. The better the service you provide to your existing customers, the more people they will talk to about your company.

Maximize Your Mailing List. What, don’t have a mailing list?  Start collecting customer information so you can get one!  Use this mailing list to push out information about new products or services, give a special deal to your mailing list, share information with them, etc.”, recently suggested on SmallBizBee.

What free advertising do you know of for businesses?

In Advice, Ideas, Low-cost, Marketing | 2 Comments

May 16, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 2 Comments

photo credit: The Wandering Angel

Many people are falling into entrepreneurship by total accident, meaning their job or this economy has left them no choice other then to survive on their own. But many of them are asking what businesses are the best one’s to create, especially during a recession.

Some of the best businesses are things that people already know about recently stated by Dr. Jeff Cornwall, your work experience, your passion’s and hobbies, or something that you invent that makes your life and other’s easier. Make sure this business you chose to create is one that your excited every morning to get up for, if not it will become just another job like your last job.

Make sure that the business you are going to open up also is one that is going to make enough income coming in to suit your personal needs and your family’s needs. You don’t want to be running a business that is going to cost more then it bring’s in with revenue.

Finally, don’t overlook the importance of building a business that allows room for the other things that are important in your life. The time and energy you want for your family, your friends, your church, your hobbies. All that must be factored into your planning.

In Entrepreneurs, Information, One-Person, Small Biz | 2 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

# RT @WSJSmallBiz Reinventing Magazines http://tinyurl.com/p3temj Very interesting approaches – I like T-Post (via @PhitchOC)

# Real PR has noting to do with smoke and mirrors, or selling, it’s about a good story. http://bit.ly/yXKK3 (via @AnthonyMoraPR)

# So it appears that Donald Trump is moving into MLM with his merger/purchase of Ideal Health. Anyone have any comments or insight on this?

# [Please watch this] RT @FrankGruber: finds this video to be rather inspiring as an entrepreneur: http://bit.ly/entrepreneurs (via @timgrahl)

# @DaveMalby What is http://daveshotlist.com/ ?

# 100 Awesome Business Blogs that are Better than an MBA http://bit.ly/XeomE

To get realtime updates, follow danec on Twitter.

In Twitter | 0 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: JimFenton

I received a slick, expensive, 20-page brochure in the mail the other day from Bank of America, promoting its home loans and other excellent attributes. It was thick, colorful, printed on heavy (unrecycled) paper, with only a single “impact” word on several of the pages; my favorite of these was “Confidence,” a clear case of whistling past the graveyard. My wife (a marketer) grabbed the thing, sniffed at it, and said, “My tax dollars at work.”

People today in the middle of their own financial crisis don’t want to see expensive marketing promotions in their mailbox advertising all of their wonderful attributes about their company. They consider it almost to be a slap in the face when they see these companies using their bailout money on such fancy marketing tools. Rather, what they actually want to see is some sort of a sincere message, as suggested on HarvardBusiness.

Something along the lines of an apology for the current role that the company played in any sort of distress that was caused to the person, an apology letting them know they still are appreciated and that the company is working hard to rectify any distressful situation that was caused. Those types of messages and marketing would seem worth the effort, paper and postage to mail it.

What are your thoughts on companies using their bailout money for such fancy marketing?

In Answers, Consumers, Economy, Marketing | 1 Comment

May 15, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: gwilmore

It is unfortunately true that most people reading your copy only reads the first few lines. Now this does not mean that all of your time and frustration writing the copy has gone to waste, all this means is that if those first few lines don’t grab the attention of your reader, then maybe your efforts were wasted as they will toss it aside and move on.

In the writing world it truly is correct in saying that “less is more”, meaning rather than packing your copy full of facts, stats, stories, information about your company, etc, provide the reader with less info and more interesting attention getters. Such as, you can take “save money on shipping costs when ordering chocolate bars now” and turn it into “have sinful chocolate delivered free to your door” and that has their attention immediately.

Strategic Chunking Retains Readers. Take a closer look at your pages – especially the very first paragraph. How can you condense and filter your message to attract the casual browser and convince them to stay? Try “chunking” your message and test it on your audience. You may be pleasantly surprised at how many more people stick around to keep reading!

In Advice, Creativity, Writing | 1 Comment

May 15, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 0 Comments

photo credit: adactio

Many business leaders are very worried about the stability of their company, about their ability to replace the loss of key leaders during this recession, and their worry is definitely with good reason. Many companies are not doing as well as they have in past downturns.

Marshall Goldsmith recently suggested that rather than calling it a succession plan you should think of it as and call it a succession development. This totally changes the perspective that people have right off the bat about the changes that are being set into motion, brings more optimism to the table.

Measure your companies outcomes instead of its process. This will help guide your company in it’s future efforts and some of the corrections processes as well. Remember to stay as realistic as you can in your efforts and goals that you set for your company. There is no point in spending time, energy and money planning all these goals if they are not even possible to reach.

Keep it simple. We sometimes find companies adding excessively complex assessment criteria to the succession planning process in an effort to improve the quality of the assessment. Some of these criteria are challenging even for behavioral scientists to assess, much less the average line manager. Since the planning process is only a precursor to focus the development, it doesn’t need to be perfect.

In Advice, Business Structures, Planning | 0 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 0 Comments

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

We have been seeing this trend of the government dishing out all kinds of bailout money to large corporations and now to large and small banks all over the country. We are about to see yet another bailout being handed to smaller banks in the near future.

While treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner said that most of the changing and financial shifting is already behind us, there is still some damage control that needs to be done. However, there has been a sugnificant shift in the financial crisis that is proving to look more positive everyday according to Geithner.

The new bailout or “program” already has more than 300 small banks participating in it. This new program will allow more capital assistance to smaller banks as well as an increased amount that they will be able to borrow from the program to get back on their feet.

“We need a much simpler financial oversight structure,” he said. “It’s not going to be comfortable for everybody but it’s important to do.”

What are your thoughts on these programs for the financial institutions?

In Banks, Economy, Future, Goals | 0 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 0 Comments

photo credit: marcopako 

In business big or small we can always use as many helpful features and tools to run thing’s smoother that we can find. One of googles new features that is excellent for business owners of any kind is their google voice feature. Recently talked about on FastCompany, google voice is showing so many wonderful and helpful features for your everyday business life.

You can divert your calls to any number on the fly. Say you take the original call on your cell phone, you can still have it transferred from your cell phone to the office, assistant’s cell, spouse, etc. The “call me” button is one of the coolest features that they have. You can put this “call me” button on your business website, and when clients click on the call me button it will ask for their number, then the site automatically calls you and the client at the same time and when you pick up you are connected and the client never even sees your number.

If you use a multimedia blogging platform like Tumblr or Virb, you probably embed audio in your posts all the time. Google Voice allows you to embed voicemails and recorded calls (yes, you can record calls; see below) anywhere you can embed HTML, letting you convert funny or informative messages into public posts.

How could you put google voice to good use in your business?

In Entrepreneurs, Google, Internet, Mobile | 0 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Unique products to inspire and amuse.

Shoe Earrings
The latest way to embellish your sneaks is with shoe earrings, a pair of faux diamond earrings which are meant to be worn in the top lace hole.

A TV in your sunglasses
A combination of mirrors, innovative see-through video displays, digital controls and good old-fashioned tinted glasses to simulate the feeling of watching a 60-inch monitor from nine feet away.

Cubicle Door Lock Stickers
Just stick some Cubicle Door Lock Stickers to your boring cubicle wall, and suddenly it will appear you have a door. Each set includes a few different locks, some peepholes, and even a doorbell button.

MeatCards. Print Your Business Cards On Beef Jerky With A Frickin’ Laser Beam.

Photo by emericaskate/Vuzix/ThinkGeek/MeatCards.

In Fun, Humor, Products | 1 Comment

May 15, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 2 Comments

When most people want to launch a business they will save the money, borrow from people they know, or get a loan. Christa Hastie created the Million Gumballs project instead.

Ultimately it is Christa’s goal to raise enough money to build her very own a bed and breakfast. To do that she is selling gumballs that can be personalized and will be placed on a 10′x10′x10′ cube. From business logos to sayings, and even a wedding proposal, people are able to own a little piece of this project and help an aspiring entrepreneur launch her dream business at the same time.

Tell us a little about the Million Gumballs project.

I am a young 30-year-old mother of two beautiful girls, ages 2 and 4. And a wife to a wonderful husband. Like most people, we work very hard at everything in life – work, family, kids, marriage, gardening, chicken farming (4 chickens!) etc. I want to take my great work ethic and bring it to a tropical island where I’d like to start my own family focused bed and breakfast.

So in an effort to raise enough money to materialize these dreams, I am offering people the opportunity add their logo, name, birth date, or other words, numbers and phrases designed with gumballs to the surface of my giant 10′x10′x10′ cube art installation. So when people share their words, along with words from people all across the world, through gumballs, they are helping me materialize my dreams!

My husband who is a former NASA rocket scientist (helped launch the Mars Rovers from Cape Canaveral in 2003) and mechanical engineer has designed the underlying structure needed to support the 1 ton of gumballs going on this art piece. And yes, he thinks I’m crazy (in a good way)!

In the next couple weeks an interactive cube modeled after the real art piece will be available at www.milliongumballs.com – it will allow users to rotate the cube and zoom in to see what’s on each side of the cube, zooming in to see what’s printed on the gumballs purchased so far, as well as click through to view the supporter’s website (if they have one).

FUN STATISTICS

* A 10′x10′x10′ cube will ultimately have 1,058,480 gumballs covering 4 sides and the top with the bottom of the cube sitting on the ground gumball free.

* An estimated 1,000,000 gumballs will be for sold with letters/numbers/characters/logos and 58,480 gumballs will be used as blank spacers.

* A 3″ border of 5/8″ gumballs will be on each side (except the bottom of the square) for a total of 3,760 5/8″ gumballs per side and 18,800 5/8″ gumballs total

* There will be a total of 207,936 1/4″ gumballs per side and 1,039,680 1/4″ gumballs total.

* The 1/4″ gumballs weigh approximately .9 grams each, and the 5/8″ gumballs weigh approximately 1.9 grams each for a grand total of 2,063 pounds (~1 ton) of gumballs.

Continue reading Aspiring Entrepreneur Finds Her Way Through Unique Fundraising

In Fundraising, Interviews | 2 Comments

May 15, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

NFIB:

Establishing ongoing relationships with customers enhances the long-term success of most small companies.

It’s more cost-effective and a lot less stressful to serve ongoing accounts than it is to continually search for new business.

Cash flows are more stable, and increased operational efficiencies can reduce internal costs, increasing profitability.

To secure a long-term customer, sales personnel need to “look beyond the sale.” They need to form a relationship with the customer, solving all of the customer’s needs and providing ongoing value of products and services.

The basis for establishing such a relationship is to address the five key needs of every customer. These include:

• Excellence of products and services on an ongoing basis
• Competitive pricing, assuring good value
• Top quality after-sales service and warranties
• An ongoing seamless relationship between customer and sales staff
• The need for a customer to feel smart or “right” if questioning the purchasing decision

Addressing these needs and any others pertinent to specific industries should be the basis for every sales presentation.

In fact, it can be argued that during the first sales presentation to a potential customer, sales personnel should not try for a close.

Rather, they should focus exclusively on showing why their company can satisfy the five above-mentioned needs.

Photo by cobrasoft .

In Advice, Customers | 1 Comment

May 15, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

PR Newswire:

With today’s uncertain economic climate, moms across the country are seeking ways to offset the economic downturn with flexible work options. From starting their own home businesses to freelancing and telecommuting, thousands of moms — many of whom are highly educated and experienced — are jumping back into the workforce and choosing to work at home.

These moms now have a new ally and free resources to help them start and market their home businesses. Home Based Working Moms (HBWM) is a professional association and online community of parents who work at home and those who would like to. HBWM.com’s new interactive website provides a variety of tools and resources to help moms network, learn and grow in their role as a home-based working mom, including free business profiles, member directory and networking opportunities.

“We are seeing a stronger interest from moms wanting to work from home. Many of them are trying to offset lower salaries and/or higher household expenses. Others are seeking to help their family through a layoff or potential layoff. And starting a home business makes sense, as many of these moms can take their past experience or career and begin freelancing from home or start a home business. Our website aims to give them ideas, support, tools and connections to help their businesses flourish,” Lesley Spencer Pyle, HBWM Founder and President says.

The website features interactive profiles allowing members to post their profiles and business information for free. In addition, they can learn from other moms what has worked and what has not in regards to types of businesses, marketing approaches and even parenting challenges.

Logo from HBWM

In Mompreneur, PR | 0 Comments