How To Improve The Web Based Business Skills?

September 30, 2009 by  
Filed under Business

Web based businesses have always been in great demand since the time of its inception especially for the people who do business globally. Internet as we know have totally changed the way we ever communicated and with information technology running on cards since last 10 years or so, its improving day by day and bringing us the processes which are getting user friendly and more and more people are getting hooked on to Internet in their daily lives. If you are running even a small store its high time you get online because the advantages the web based businesses offer, although the initial investment may cost you dear (that is only for bigger enterprises where they have huge database) but for small enterprises, a simple looking website would do the trick.

Below are some of the simple tools which I would like to share with you, and if you are a go-getter you are surely going to win the battle with the advantages the internet based businesses offer and in the longer run they are going to pay you for your small investments (even then, your big investments you made now, will seem very small by the number of profits you had be making).

  • Nothing in this world is perfect – keep this thing in mind till the end of your tenure with the online business (I hope that doesn’t come ever). Get this misconception, off your mind, many of the people I know have spent loads of money in making their website perfect but none of them are a real rags to riches story. Chuck the idea of perfect looking website, by this, I don’t mean your website has to ugly, it should be clutter free and great content should be put up. Even the simplest of website designs have worked wonders.
  • Simple looking websites are the most popular – people often think that the more features their site would have, the more their popularity but that is untrue. Even if you have simple looking website with less features you can make your website look like a million bucks.
  • Respect your users opinion – it is after all the visitors on your site that are driving your site, respect their comments and you can even ask for their feedbacks for major changes if you wish to make in your site.
  • Give the best services and make your visitors trust you – even if you might be 100% sure of your services, the audiences will be a little hesitant. Try to make them from potential customers in to actual customers by making them realize the genuineness of the site by:
  • Adding testimonials – these are the best objects which can help your audience realize about your services. Don’t put fake ones, give away your products to people for use and let them write what they feel about it, there should not be any forcible good saying testimonials.
  • Putting badges will help your customers realize how much valued your website is and help them know better about your services, may it be some trademark policy badge or a money guarantee badge, they surely bring trust in the relationship.
  • Let your audience communicate with you, along with email address, put phone numbers and live chat options so that they can get their doubts clear regarding the product or your services.
  • You can put your personal video clip in which you describe them about yourself, your company and your products and services. It will help build trust for they personally see you.

Business Skills

Let your visitors know if your website is showcased in a local newspaper, blogs or magazines.

  • Optimize your site for bigger conversion rate – even the slightest changes to your site like the change in the color of the banner, or putting a few more buttons can help you gain more conversions. Try with new experiments with your site that can help your site earn more at the end. Given below are some of the few things you can try in your site for greater conversions:
  • Try to use different typographies that will enable users to read more clearly.
  • Keep testing different copies of your website, the main things like paragraphs and the text help increase the conversion rate.
  • Avoid different elements in your paragraph, the lesser the better that will help you get more conversions to your site.
  • Try variations with different background color of the site.
  • If you ever know anything more about conversions then you can even try using the google website optimizer, you can even take some hints from big sites like amazon who has invested millions of dollars in optimizing their conversions.

online business

The best of the best you can do to make your website popular is by doing search engine optimization, start taking smaller steps and steadily you shall reach a top most positions in blogging networks. Some of you might not simply have time to follow all the tips that I have stated above, for hurry some individuals I have one short list which you can treat as a priority for the SEO of your site:

  • Keep your URL structures clean, try avoiding characters that are not alphabets. Try to avoid underscores as well. With no option you can use a dash mark.
  • Keep your meta tag and title tag unique for each of your pages in the website, the tags should be descriptive about their functions, also try putting keywords in your title and description tags.
  • You can get lots of traffic to your site by putting google image search on the site, describing the images would make all the more appealing and will attract more visitors to your site.
    small enterprises
  • Try putting the XML sitemap on your site having all the URLs and submit them in major search engines.
  • The most important aspect of SEO is the links, the more number of sites that link to you, the higher the chance of driving traffic to your site. Create a good attractive site that will attract audience and help you get the links to your site.

Other than the above stated, there are varied other things that can help you get good traffic to your site but if you follow which I have just stated above then there is nothing more you can ask for. Today there are number of social networking sites helping you to get even more popularity and if you have your company fan page on facebook – you have more leverage by getting tweets from Twitter. There are number of things you can do to make your site popular as you want, you just need pure logical methods that will do the trick.

Readers are more than invited to share any suggestions, tips, tricks or comments, If any.

Things You Ought To Know While Starting Your Business!

July 29, 2009 by  
Filed under Leadership Skills

starting your businessBusinesses are developed with some planning in mind, when you see big businesses around you, not all probably started as you did it, some might have stumbled along the way, some might have got ready built empire and yet some might have worked really hard to achieve their targets or make money. In business, everything works on trust worthiness, if you are worth of any rewards you are going to get them in no time than expected. There were hell lots of mistakes I made in my first few business assignments; but those have not stopped me from being where I stand today. You can well imagine how it feels when starting your own business unit. I was a little nervous and little excited, it’s a mix of enthusiasm and willingness that you are going to put in your business. Today I am going to share few things that you, as a young entrepreneur should keep in mind before heading out on a road to success:

  1. The first and foremost I had like to advice you is to pick a real intelligent name for your company, I have seen many an instances where I started with my business that didn’t really work because of the faulty, stupid names I had put as. Your company’s name should necessarily conjoin the business you are doing, forgetting what looks well or bad. Your company name should match with the service that you are providing but at the same time remember not to keep some lengthy names which people wouldn’t be able to remember.
  2. Some of my close pals, I have noticed they mostly went for an “A”, to start the business with, the reason being that they would be listed first in whatever the listings, it is a good practice from business’s point of view but make sure they carry weight and people would know what exactly you are into. Sometimes, people do make mistakes in keeping stupid names and they carry on with the same identity for years, later they make this big mistake of changing their company names after years of being realized as the earlier stupid name, it is best to make something good out of bad, already people know you as some company so rather live with it than going through all the process of building a new brand value in market.
  3. Don’t forget to hire a good law firm for doing all business legal proceedings, even if you get a good well known law firm there are chances you might as well find some best lawyers who will do your work relating to corporate tax, litigation, income tax returns, etc. remember, lawyers work for you and not the company they are working for, so its best to tie up with some well known company who will give you the best lawyers as per your requirements.
  4. There were times, when I had faced bad situation because of these stupid lawyers, the proceedings were delayed in some cases, some were too lazy doing the tasks at quicker pace, etc. I wanted someone who is active and treat my business as his own so the best advice I got from someone, my guru, is to look out for good law firm. The law firms have to carry their reputation, so in no doubt they are going to give you the best they have.
  5. This is one of the advices I keep giving to everyone I come across, to hire some big company even if that costs you a little more but go for professionalism and ethic based lawyers.
  6. In new enterprises, you don’t necessarily be having a huge staff to represent your company. It is only the work that you do is going to count and so you make money accordingly, there were some idiotic mistakes I did while hiring people for some of my first few companies, the companies that didn’t really made to A lists and I feel, it is the workers who make a company and not the company who makes them, so get the best professional people working for you. Some faults I made were:
    1. Don’t hire a person in your company, just because he was a super master in his earlier job or earned varied certificates in previous job. He might be an expert in the earlier job but not the current job so think over his qualifications, his capabilities and what things he can do for company as a person.
    2. Some people feel, hiring more employees will solve their problems, it is not the case, in fact, you can save lots of money by cutting down on the salaries of employees by doing some work on your own. Go and sell it yourself, this way you will get the real experience of the market and get to know people personally.
    3. Other than employee salaries, there are lots of other expenses incurred to run a company, these costing includes, computer maintenance, electricity bills, employee insurance, office space, etc. so manage your finances well.
    4. You might feel great about someone working for you from seven seas, but it is not really a good idea as there are chances of misleading and you don’t really know the efficiency of the person or if he/she has done the work, in such cases, you can make use of varied software to keep track about the work time and break time.
  7. If you are in yesteryears, following old sayings, mind you, you are not going to be always successful, old habits help but not always, stick by the motto, “be faster and getting things done”. I remember the times when I started out with my first few set of companies, it was all a total mess all because of my fault. As your very first venture, you will nurture your new baby business with all the finest possible inputs you can, if you had been feeling the same all this while, don’t worry as these are the symptoms of anxiety every new entrepreneur will face. Instead of taking logical steps which are good for business, you kind of move towards emotional needs of the company so I advice you to take quick steps in whatever decisions you need to take, if you don’t change it now you will be forced to change or take steps in future.
  8. If you are a go getter then you cannot forget to put all the inputs, what it takes to build a successful business network by successful networking you can conquer all odds in life whether you are new or old to business, whether you are making money or loss in business, whether you are located in the same continent or farthest of locations. When you have perfect networking connections, you are at it and you have already won the half, the match.
  9. Success follows Network, if you network well in business terms, you are bound to get good business proposals, and no one likes to do business with someone who is not aligned in the group of networks. So be there always at a position where people will pick you, make sure to attend all the industrial networking events next time.
  10. In business circles, I have often noticed how people treat someone who has given them huge businesses as someone who is GOD like, I really cannot digest this fact that how can someone treat someone as God when everything has been achieved due to his own hard work and determination. When I started with my business, I used to take advice from the people who were already successful in particular field, but sooner I noticed, those advices were not quite working for my business and instead of making profits I made huge loses, this was the time I realized that if I want to run my business I will have to think on my own and proceed by taking major decisions on my own. What I am trying to portray here is, that take advices from people but look over pros and cons before accepting those advices in your business.
  11. No matter how much ever successful you may be in your business, you should always be ready to take new inputs from your followers. You might never know when you get some of the best fabulous ideas to run your business, it may come in any form through suggestions, from partners, from business colleagues, etc. when you are running a partnership business, having a partner is a bliss as your partner would always be there to stop you when something might seem un-adjustable.
  12. No one is perfect, unless you make a mistake you are not going to learn something new so making mistakes are good to the extent that you don’t keep repeating them. If at all you happen to make mistakes, your partner will help you sort out things through different perceptions. Over and above, having a business partner helps you to come out of adversity. You never know in what form the help may come through, your partner may be an expert in the field you are finding difficult so its best to take advice from them.
  13. If you are new to business, don’t fear if something doesn’t work as per your planning. New entrepreneurs often fall under this dilemma of facing the failure, unless you try on something, you will never know of being successful in any particular business endeavors. I have had few instances in my life where I was really fearful of taking on some new business challenge, but after a while I got used to overcoming it and being successful. If you are not sure of taking up something, don’t fear, take it up and blow it away, the worst that can happen is your failure, that failure is not going to eat you up but rather make you steady along the way.

At the end, I would just advice you, young, hot blooded entrepreneurs to accept challenges as they come and not to make any silly mistakes that will ruin your business venture. Learn from your mistakes, don’t repeat them and do each of your business assignments as excitedly you had done the very first one and please avoid the mistakes I made.

Motivating the staff

June 15, 2009 by  
Filed under Leadership Skills

Motivation plays very important role in organization especially when the individuals are go-getters in their respective fields. Its quite a tedious task for some but for a person who knows what he should be expecting from his team or what ideally he should be getting from his team well knows how to bring that motivational power in his team. Recently as per the observation by Entrepreneur university its come to know that Howard Shore have been maintaining the track record in the work of helping organizations which can accelerate their profit and revenue whose profits exceed to over 20% annually, he has even helped executives and also the sales person to increase their personal wealth and success rate.

motivation - Motivating StaffToday in this article we are going to have some of the tips that Howard will share with us relating to motivating staff. We definitely know about today’s business environment, in any field there is so much competition, its become a necessity to stay in competition and with competition to stay ahead in life, we have to find the ways that will make our organizational resources more productive. Any organization or any company the most expensive is the human resource, we, the people who make the organization, if we stop running so will the company so we see it takes days of hard work to create the processes and varied conditions to bind with to run an organization which will motivate our staff or employees.

In my years of being an executive I have seen many a leaders or team players finding out and trying various ways which will motivate their staff, their people to make their performance at higher levels. At all stages, you are surely going to face frustration because of the levels of expectations we people have of each other or the person whom we follow. This is going to reflect the people of organizations, the way their managerial staff proceeds with actions which are of paramount importance to organizations. Motivation is not something external it has to be from within, it’s the personal desire of an individual to reach their goals which are important to organizations and individuals. Motivation is the driving force which always prompts you to take necessary actions.

Since years people have been finding ways to try deciding factors which will increase their company’s productivity, but how do one accomplish this objective, there are factors like pay scale, other fringe benefits and working conditions that play a major role in increasing the productivity of the company unless these conditions are proper the employees of the company wouldn’t be much motivated to give to their fullest capabilities. These factors are important from short term point of view, there are factors which are of long range effects, these are the recognition to your employees for the jobs well done, the growth in the company, the challenges which they face, the participation, their sense of achievement, identification of company’s vision and goals.

There are many such factors which matters in running a company successfully, still leaders and managers of companies keep finding ways which will motivate their employees through incentives. Some managers might think the fear factor as the best way for motivating their employees but they fail to understand that fear brings negativity and through fear they might do overtime but that will decrease their quality, commitment and also the productivity levels. The fear in employees is good motivating factor but it doesn’t work for longer run as employees develop attitude towards their work and also it doesn’t yield any good positive signs of productivity. If we count on incentive, then that might be a good positive motivating factor for employees and they will try to give their best in achieving their targets. But sometimes monetary motivation to employees may yield diminishing returns, as every time employee gets good compensation, they expect it every time and also there is disconnect and miscommunication between the employees and employer regarding the pay scale. And as time passes on, the employees start expecting more prestige, power, growth, respect and knowledge of the things which are much higher than actually what they should be getting, these are some of the things that governs their motivation internally.

Given below are some of the points or ideas that are useful for long term motivational point of view, go through them and you will find these are really useful:

  1. In the organization always carry a clear vision for your employees, the targets which they are supposed to achieve, make sure that all of your employees understand what you expect out of them and tell them that they need to contribute in achieving all the organizational goals stated.
  2. You can help employees in understanding the objectives by communicating clear and detail department wise objectives and ask them how can they help you with certain objectives of the department.
  3. If you are a manager then compliment each of your weekly reports that will encourage your employees to do more.
  4. You can also go on to develop employee retention which may be the primary objective of all the managers in the organizations and don’t forget to reward them every time they achieve their objectives.
  5. For expertise, ask your employees for suggestions or advice, they might be the best people to give you suggestions then professionals.
  6. For goal setting of your department, you can invite employees from all the level of the company and also in planning different processes which will give you good results.
  7. You can let each of your employee what you expect out of them and you can make arrangements for the things that will make them successful in their work.
  8. If you are truly a manager of your cadre then you can implement the servant leader approach which means be ready for your employees rather than they being there for you,
  9. In an organization, its really necessary to treat everyone with utter respect and dignity, no employee should be offended by anyone or anything.
  10. Be there to support your employees and back their decisions every time the need be.
  11. If your employees make any sort of mistakes then encourage them the next to learn from their mistakes and excel ahead.
  12. Listening carefully to what your employees has to say makes a lot of difference as it will avoid miscommunication and also your employees will feel the importance given and that will motivate them indirectly, also take interests in opinions or concerns by the other people in the department.
  13. You can arrange for individual meetings with your employees and help them in clarifying you’re their goals, their organizational values and also help them with assistance, if needed.
  14. Find different ways that will enrich the working conditions of your employees by giving them control over things and authority of taking decisions.
  15. Make your employees feel comfortable and at ease in the office hours.

Other than the above given points, if you feel strongly about any of other points, or want to state your views regarding the points, feel free to write your comments on the topic.

Need To Appear Professional? Try Removing Spelling Errors!

May 28, 2009 by  
Filed under Blogging, Writing skills

Spelling ErrorsI would feel safe to say that if you took the time to browse through 5 separate websites on the Internet, you would be able to locate at least one error in most, if not every single one of the sites you visited. It is literally unbelievable how many writer’s websites I have ran across over the years that claim to offer potential clients professional, knowledgeable, and unique content for a client’s business website, yet the content that was published on their own site had an endless amount of typos, grammatical and spelling errors. It can often make a person stop and wonder if the correct usage of words, question marks, and commas was completely changed during the night, and they were simply not aware of the fact.

It is not that I am picking on Freelance Writers, this just happens to be one example of Unprofessional material that I have seen, day in and day out, on an endless number of websites that I have landed on. I realize that this may sound like a petty issue to some people, but when you stop and think about the fact that I am talking about website masters that claim to offer high quality and professional work, the problem runs much deeper than mere pettiness.

Why Are Errors Found On Websites So Upsetting?

There are countless times that various individuals will end up spending a large amount of their time and effort in trying to locate a professional firm that can provide them with a specific type of service or product. However, when a slew of errors are found in the heading and in the content of the specific website they are viewing, more often than not, the person will generally begin to question just how much quality really will be provided in their services after all. If a business does not have the commitment, the time, or the consideration to make sure that their company website is published before the public in a professional manner, then why in the world would a person believe that they would take the time to provide commitment in the services they are offering?

Do Not Bother With Excuses

Ok, so not everyone on the Internet is an error proof expert with grammar or spelling, and I will be the first to tell you that I am certainly not. This is simply not a good excuse! There are a ton of people that would be more than happy to help website owners by proofreading the content they plan to place on their site. A family member or one of your buddies can be a good place to start. If this is not an option, then you could hire one of the numerous Freelance Writers that can easily be found online. There are a wide variety of sites that offer high quality content and other writing services, at very reasonable prices.

The business site that you end up publishing on the Internet has the chance of being viewed by millions of people. This is why it is very important to make a good first impression, especially if a successful site is your main goal!

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