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Doing Business As A Professional

-Professionals are people who can do their job when they don’t feel like it. Amateurs are people who can’t do their job when they do feel like it.-

Ask yourself what type of business person that you are? What type of online business do you wish to run? How do you want the world to see you?

Someone who works through the hard times?

Someone who works even harder when things are going well?

Someone who adds new elements to their business even when business is booming?

Doing these things are nothing more than doing what a professional is supposed to do. You are a pro at what you do. You have to tell yourself everyday that this is not a hobby, but a profession. Treat each and everyday like that and sooner or later you will see yourself as a professional.

Look at the athletes and performs that you admire. Usually this admiration is fueled by not only their natural skills, but their behavior as well. How do they conduct business when few are paying attention? How you have heard that they are the first person at the training faculty and the last one to leave. How they study and a work harder than any one else. How they play the game the same way whether they are up by twenty points or down by twenty.

Be a professional when no one is looking. Give your best effort at all times.

Okay, that is it for now. Remember to like us on stumbleupon and add us to your Google plus. I believe that it is time to get back to work.

Doing Business is About Getting There First

Doing Business, Getting There First

-The first man to the oyster bed gets all the pearls, the next one gets nothing but shells.-

Being first in all things is not always the best policy, but usually it is. Someone was first to come up with the idea of an international auction site to be used by anyone and everyone, Ebay. There have been many copycat sites and some of them actually do a better job of it than Ebay, but because they were first and had built such a head start it will be years before their spot at number one will be challenged.

Being first at doing something leads many customers to believe that because you got there first, that you invented the niche you must be the best at it and for those who wish to compete with you it will be up to them to convince consumers otherwise.

Being first gives your business an advantage. Black Friday is just a few weeks away and look at how many businesses maneuver each year to be the first to open. The first with the biggest sales offer. First to get you into their shop or store. Even if the consumer does not buy anything that day it still gives this business the advantage of setting the price point. Best Buys or Target has set the price. The customer runs all over town checking out other sale prices, with that original price always in mind. After two or three days they are back where they started and they are making a purchase. Running an online business or online store is no different. Reach the customer first with the best deal and they will come back to you sooner or later.

To be first does not mean that you will be a success anymore than scoring the first touch down in a game does, but it does give you an advantage. Find a way to be the first one to offer your customer what they are looking for. Stores spend millions of dollars each year sending out sales circulars. They do this because it has been proven to work. They fill the pages with items from all departments in hopes that the potential customer will see something that they must have and they will have to come by their store. Once they are inside the game is on.

You can and should do the same thing. Find out who your
customers are. Build a list of them. Collect existing names and emails of those whom have done business with you in the past and then be the first one to contact them. Tell them about that item or service you have to offer. Keep doing it. Keep offering invitations for them to come into your store or visit your site and sooner or later you will see your sales increase.

Okay that is it for this post. Please remember to add us to your google plus and to tell a friend about this site. If you do nothing more than to just check out the sponsors of this site that would be a great help. They pay to keep this site going and they actually pay a little even if you only visit and glance their offers.

Thank you for stopping by. I think it is time to get back to
work.

Online Business and the Talent To Succeed

-The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You’ve got to keep working that talent. – Irving Berlin

Some time, maybe not too long ago, you discovered the you had a talent for business. You created an online business and it began to grow. It started to thrive. Things looked good for as far as the eye could see and then for some reason things began to slow down. Your online store is not making as much as it once was and you are wondering why business is not growing.

Perhaps it is in part due to the fact that when you started out you depended upon your talents and drive and somewhere along the line you stopped. Maybe you just wore down. Perhaps you allowed the routine to take over. After all if things are going well why change them. Maybe you decided to take short cuts and some of those short cuts hurt business rather than making things easier?

Maybe when you became successful you forgot about those talents and skills that got you there. Maybe you took risk and now you don’t. Maybe you were the first to try new things and now you are afraid to rock the boat that you built.

You can go on the way that you are going or you could try to recall the person that you use to be.

Try to find that person who built a business rather than the one who babysits an online store.

If you used social media to start your business go back to that and find new ways to grow it.

If you have a list of contacts and customers find new ways to exploit that list. Try email marketing. Dollar for dollar it is an investment that returns over ten to one. There are ways to improve your business that you have never even considered.

Please remember to stumble us on stumbleupon and add us to your google plus. Thank you and good luck with your business.

Online Business Plans

Online Business Plans

Your business plans have not gone exactly as you thought and you are at a loss what to do next. There will be days like this. Days when your online business plan is not the smoothly running machine that you thought that it would be. Days when plans that you knew would come off without a hitch have fallen apart and dark clouds are forming.

Let them form.

Allow yourself to take a few minutes or even as much as an hour or two to allow the rain to fall. To allow yourself to feel bad about how things are going. Then get back up. Dust yourself off and find a new approach to what ever problem has come up.

How do you do this?

The answer to that is largely up to you. I can suggest some things, but no one can do it for you. My advice is to check out the competition and see what they are up to. If they are thriving and you are not then investigate why. If their business is doing better than yours then you need to ask some question. Do this, but do not dwell on the bad day that you are having. Your goal has to be to put this day behind you.

Cheer yourself up by looking at new ways to grow you business. Find new ways to interact with your customer base. It will not be easy to start something new. It will be difficult at first, but all things are difficult at first. I promise you that over time you will get better at it.

Again I will suggest expanding your business with email marketing. If you can build a list of existing customers and keep in contact with them then you are going to make more money in the long run. Think about it this way. Who is the best possible customer? Those whom have already purchased a product or a service from you already. If you have provided a good product or a great service then you have a customer ready to return. We all return to stores that we are comfortable in. We all eat at those restaurants that have provided quality services in the past.

To better insure that you do not have another truly bad day at the office then I would suggest getting to know your existing customers better.

Okay, that is it for today. Remember to stumble us on stumble upon and to add us to your google plus.

Learning Equals Better Earning

Learning Equals Better Earning
-I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.- Winston Churchill

-The most important thing I’ve learned since becoming CEO is context. It’s how your company fits in with the world and how you respond to it.-
Jeffrey Immelt

If we are lucky we are learning something new every single day. I was a child when I first heard the saying, there are things that you never knew that you never knew. That saying made me asked the obvious follow-up question.

Why?

The answer was simple. Because like most people, especially children, you think that you know everything so you stop asking questions. The smartest person in the room is not the person who sits back with their arms folded, nice crease in their pants, smug look on their face. Their universe is fixed. In their minds their knowledge rivals God’s and there is no point is discussing it. These people will never learn, never grow and never change. They may succeed in the short-term, but when called upon to adapt to new situations they will be lost.

Then there are the ones who look to tomorrow to act. Trust in the voice of all those who say it can not be done. It must not be attempt. Trying is not nearly as good as dreaming. These are the people who believe in destiny. Everything will work out for me because it is meant to be. We know these people. We see them everyday. Perhaps we work with people like this or live with people like this. There is only one word for these people. Fools. As long as they appear to be learning they equate this to learning. As long as they appear to be successful they equate this to actual success. You could spend a life time telling them about sacrifice and hard work and perseverance. All that you will get is a foolish look in response or worst the uttering of their favorite phrase, “Shut up.” Their goal will always be to end discussion, to end debate and to end the learning process.

If you have read this far then we can be confident that you are not either one of them. You want to learn. You sometimes feel the burning need to learn new things. You run an online business and there are so many areas where you may be losing business due to a lack of knowledge in a certain area. Perhaps you have not learned enough about social media and how it can aid your business. How you can use it to grow your business. Maybe you have not taken the time to learn more about list building or basic email marketing.

You run an online store, but you have never looked into selling digital goods or using affiliate marketing to add an extra income stream. The things that you do not know that you didn’t know are costing you money. Today would be a good day to change this. Please allow me to help you were I can.

Love Your Online Store

Do You Love Your Business?

-The important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember, the greatest failure is to not try. Once you find something you love to do, be the best at doing it. – Debbi Fields

-“It is more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy.”-

It is more fun to be the one who creates their own destiny rather than being the one who is controlled by it. As long as you run your online store your way you are in control. You will be the one who determines how your online store is run.

What I am getting at is that since you are going to be running your store then you might as well love the store that you are running. I hope that you have picked a sector that you enjoy. A business sector that you are enthusiastic about. If you have not then it will show through in everything that you do. You will get bored and from time to time do less than your very best. You will not give it your all.

Think of it this way you are in a relationship with this business. If you love this business you will treat it better. You will want to spend more time with it. It will be more of a joy and less of an effort to conduct business each day.

Ask yourself do you love the business that you are in. Do you enjoy coming to work at it each day?

If you do then I have no real advice for you. If you do not love it then I would suggest that you do one of two things. Either learn to love it or find a new line of work.

“But I have been at this for months or even years. I cannot go back to that 9 to 5 job I use to have. I have invested so much effort.”

Sure you did, but can you see yourself spending the next ten or twenty years working at this particular business? Running this store? You may think that you are too old to change, but people have changed jobs and opening new stores at all stages of their lives.

To love what you do is the heart of being a success at the business you are in. That love will translate into more effort. That love will translate in to time spent. That love will translate into making more money. If you are the best cheerleader for your business then it will have to make an impression on your customers.

Love what you do and your customers may grow to do the same.

Good luck and please take a moment to check out an offer I have selected for visitors to this site. It is free to try. The offer is for free business publications. Yes, people still actually read magazines. I picked up a magazine about blogging three years ago and here I am. I have half a dozen blogs that make money and two websites. I am just suggesting that you never know where that next new idea will come from. Someone will say something or you will read something and you are off down a road that may make you a great deal of money.

Good luck with your store and have a nice day.

Digital Supplies for Your Online Store

Supplies For Your Online Store

Did you ever think of using Digital products to supply your online store. Most of us started in the retail sector and those retail roots are hard to cut. We still think about selling in terms of physical items. Things that we can touch and package and ship.

Perhaps it is time to look at finding supplies for your online store in a whole new light. Perhaps you need to catch up with the digital revolution.

“But I don’t understand it. I do not know how it works.”

Really? You did not understand how this works, but here you are. The learning curve is not great. There are tutorials available. There are many sites and services that will provide these good. Just sign up and begin to market.

“But I don’t know how to market them. I do not know how to deliver them once they are sold.”

You do not have to and that is the cool part. You do not have to package or ship a digital product. You do not have to come into contact with it at all. You function as the retailer and the middle man. You collect payment as both and the wholesaler is the one who
delivers the digital product.

Sounds like stealing?

Sometimes on a very good day it feels like it.

Where do you get this products for your online store?

You could get some or all from a place like Clickbank.

Click bank is free to sign up to and to market their products. They do charge a fee for publishing and marketing your work, but that is another story for another day.

Or you could try a service like Payloadz. They offer eBooks, Music, and software. They allow you to sell their products and will be happy to help you sell your own items. I will be using them to sell an ebook I am finishing on the topic of online marketplaces.

Good luck with your business guys. I hope to post again soon.

Leaders Lead

Leading the Way

Some of us work alone and others work with a team or group of people. This largely depends upon the size of your business and its needs. Perhaps during only certain times of the year you will hire people to help you out.

Once you have these people what happens next?

Some will hope that they just sort of pick up a clue here and there and some how find a way to pitch in.

Others will bark orders none stop. Napoleon will have nothing on this warehouse dictators.

Some will lead by handing out list of things to do and still other will try to lead by example.

Here is some basic advice.

A leader should always be responsible. Take full responsibility for what happens on your watch. If things go well it is thanks to the group or team effort. If things go wrong for what ever reason in the end it comes down to you.

Be responsible.

Own it.

This is your chair and for better or worst people are going to blame you anyway so you might as well be a stand up guy.

Be the most enthusiastic person in the room. Hey this is your business, this is your project and if you are not its number one cheerleader who is going to be? The guy getting paid minimum wage?

A leader must be competitive. Love to compete. If you do not I suggest you learn to love it. Your energy will spread. If you are passive your workers will pick
up on that energy. While if you are competing and aggressive they will be do.

Imagine that you are the lead of a pack. There is money to be made out there. It is waiting to be taken and all you have to do is hustle out there and get it.
Tell me what kind of pack is a passive go along to get along, it is all good, it is all okay type of leader, driving? A pack of doves. A pack of snails? A pack of turtles?
A pack of gum that is waiting to be chewed up by the competition and spit out.

Try to achieve something like a sense of competitive anger. Controlled anger (no yelling and screaming and
flipping over cars like the incredible Hulk), but still a kind of anger that they job is not getting done faster or better or more efficiently. This type of leader leads a pack of wolves. A pack of lions. A pack of Huns storming the gates of Rome.

“Hey, you are getting a bit carried away. I sell stationary. I sell flowers. I market ebooks. I repair dolls.”

Does not matter. All that matters is how you do it and how well you do it. Become a good leader and you will become a better business man.

Okay that is it. Remember to stumble us on Stumbleupon and add us to your google plus.

Still A Good Business Day

Still A Good Day

The worst day that you will every have as a independent business person will outshine 99 percent of the best days that you ever had while working for someone else.

Think about it. You are your own boss and most likely your only employee so at the end of this day all of the credit belongs to you. Yes, I know that when we fail we know who to blame, but even under those circumstances it is far easier to deal with your own mistakes than those of others. You know what you did wrong so you know how to correct those mistakes. It does not take a meeting. It does not take a memo. It does not take hours of finger pointing. You know how to correct it and move on. You know this during the good and the bad times. You know what is best for your business and if you do not you at least know where to go to get the help you need.

I would like to suggest some things to you that might aid your business. Most of us got into the business that we are in hoping that it would grow over time. Who starts a business and says to themselves I want to reach this certain level and stop right there. Who does not want to grow and improve and make more profit?

What I would like to suggest to some of you who are running an online business is that this may be the time to look into adding services.

If you do not have a website why not? If you are earning a living by working at one of the online marketplaces you are still an employee of someone else. Sure Ebay and Amazon will not put it that way, but they can stop you from running your business on their sites any time that they wish. That sounds like having a boss to me.

Get your own website. If you do not know how to build one or do not have the time then below is the banner for a site that can walk you through it.

Also you should think about collecting information about your customer base so that you can go back to them again and again. You will need a service to do that for you unless you have many free hours on your hands.

Thank you for reading this post. I hope that you found something of interest here. I hope that you will spend time here at my site and if possible support those who advertise here. Also please remember to add us to your google plus and stumble us on stumbleupon.

Compete to Win

Lessons from the Summer Games

A few years ago the US realized that if it did not alter its approach to certain events in the Olympics it was going to continue to lose ground to countries like China. (Yeah, losing ground to China seems to be a national theme lately.)

China saw a chance to own the medal count by dominating certain new events where they could rack up multiple medals while in these same events the US would win none. Fringe diving and gymnastics events. A few swimming events as well. It took us a while to realize this and a while longer to adjust to this. The adjustment took probably 4 years longer than it should have due to the fact that it was done as a national team adjustment rather than done by athletes on an individual basis.

What I am suggesting to you is that you are in a constant competition. You are competing with every single business that offers the same services or sells the same types of products as you. The moment you realize this and adjust to it the better. The moment that you understand the fact that you have to change and grow and adapt. That there are businesses out there that would love to see you lose this competition. Not because they hate you or want to see your family starving, it is as said in the Godfather, it’s just business.

The question for today is what are you gonna do to grow and change your business? What new services will you try to help you gain an edge over the competition? In what ever business we have chosen we are all targets to some extent. What I am suggesting is that it is always harder to hit a moving target.

It is time for you to go out and get new tools and learn new skills to compete and win. If you can not win by out working your competition find a way to out market them. If do not have the resources to out spend your competition then you can always out tech them. If you can drive more business through advertising and social media then do it. If they are better at that than you then go out a find a service that can help you win. If they have a technological edge over you then either find a way to overcome this or get some help to do this.

If you do not do this then I promise you that someone who you are not yet aware of is doing it to you.

Compete to win.

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