Small Business Blog

Archive for April, 2009

Anyone who starts an internet home business idea has high hopes for success. Many feel that with just a few simple ads the business will boom and take off into a major business. However, many find that customers are actually few and far between when it comes to an internet based business idea. With the following tips you can help to market your internet home business idea and turn it into a success.

1. Brand your name and business. You can easily do this by just writing articles and submitting them to e-zines or web sites for republishing. When people see your home business idea consistently they will become more curious and eventually will click through to your offer.

2. Remember to take a little time out of your day or week to brainstorm. New ideas are usually the difference between business success and failure. The more time you spend online promoting your home business idea the more ideas that you will find. Some you might not be able to take advantage of right away because of time or money. In that case create a swap file, or but the site you find into your favorites so that you can come back to it when you are ready to put that idea into motion.

3. Model yourself after other successful businesses or people. I’m not saying out right copy them, but practice some of the same habits that have made them succeed. One idea is to look up their website in one of the major search engines and find out who they are linking to, or where they are submitting their articles, that should give you some more ieas as to where you could be linking to, or submitting articles yourself.

4. Take risks to improve your business idea’s reach. Sometimes businesses don’t want to advertise unless it’s free, sometimes you have to spend money to get results. Make sure that before you do this, you set a monthly budget and stick to it! It’s common to hear about people overspending unnecessarily and running up huge credit card bills. Maximize your advertising budget and don’t go broke like the big web sites. All you need is a small group of loyal customers to sell back end products.

5. Include emotional words in your advertisements. Use ones like love, security, relief, freedom, happy, satisfaction, fun, etc. The goal is to make your offer sound so great that the person cannot wait to recieve it. But never so great that he or she does not believe your ad, or trust you.

6. Make people feel like it’s their idea to buy, they will be less hesitant. Tell them in your ad “You’re making a smart decision for buying our product”. Tell people what they’re thinking and feeling as they read your ad. Most people will actually do it. Your statements should help sell your product.

7. Out source part of your workload. You’ll save on most employee costs. You could out source your secretarial work, accounting, marketing, etc. If writing is not your area of exptise then get an expert to write your ad copy for you. One good website to go to if you need copy that sells for your home business idea is www.guru.com.

Being a professional means being informed. That is as true for musicians and singers as it is lawyers and doctors. Reading industry trade publications is one way to keep abreast of trends and news. But to study the music business in depth there is not better resource than books. In the first of a three part series, here are reviews of three books about the music business that are must-reads. Each author explores the music business from their unique perspectives, offering readers an honest view of the industry they strive to be part of.

Donald S Pressman’s All You Need to Know about the Music Business: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century is a detailed, frequently humorous look at the business of making music. Now in its eighth edition, the book is considered a bible for anyone wanting to know the ins and outs of the music business. Pressman is a Los Angeles-based music attorney with twenty-five years experience and his clients include everyone from record label executives, singers and songwriters to film companies and publishers. He is widely recognized as one of the most influential people in the entertainment industry.

His book offers many useful tips such as how to hire agents and managers, strategies for marketing one’s music and the steps needed to legally protect intellectual property. Pressman also guides readers through complex contractual issues such as recoupment, royalties, advances, and distribution deals. Being an attorney, Pressman stresses the need to protect oneself against copyright infringement, bad record deals, and unscrupulous business managers and agents.

The most recent edition has up to the minute information on how the Internet is impacting the music business and the performers’ bottom lines. The information is just as important for industry veterans as it is newcomers. Pressman explains how video streaming services work and how royalties are computed for digital distribution services. He also covers podcasting, music downloads, streaming and webcasting.

More than just nuts and bolts of how the business works, Pressman gives readers an insider’s guide that shows how to navigate potential pitfalls and how to establish successful relationship with other music industry professionals.

Why write a book?

Books deliver instant credibility both to the author and to their message. Having an MBA or PhD is great; however, putting the word “author” in front of your name is similar to using the letters PhD. You are no longer Jay Conrad Levinson; you are “Author Jay Conrad Levinson.”

Books give you a platform to stand on. They help you to establish credibility, demonstrate thought leadership and generate leads.

On-demand book publishing can quickly and easily help companies drive sales through thought leadership. Books can share both your vision and how your products and services help customers reach that vision. You will quickly have a platform to stand-on. Your book will open doors to speaking events as well as generate new leads. Every person who buys or receives your book is a potential customer.

Many companies have had significant success with books. Folks from IBM, BEA, Dell, and Siebel, to name a few, will tell you that books were an efficient and powerful tool they used to open doors and establish thought leadership. Mark Bauhaus, X-SVP SOA Software from Sun Microsystems has the following thoughts from a book his team put together:

“In the heat of the dot-com boom, my Sun Consulting Team wrote a book describing our collected methodology & experience in ‘dot-comming’ companys’ IT infrastructure.

The book was before its time in laying out how to bullet-proof XSP and ECommerce infrastructure for super-scale, strong security, and new world agility. ‘Dot-Com and Beyond’ was distributed worldwide and became required reading for many IT Architects and CIO’s.

Having the book in hand accelerated our sales cycle by weeks & provided instant credibility when we competed against less experienced consulting firms.”

Most of all, we had a kind of textbook to use during engagements to train our clients on best practices. I estimate that using the book for education and sales doubled our prospect stream & resulted in tens of millions of dollars in incremental business. A well-crafted book of expertise dramatically enhances credibility!”

Books lead directly to increased revenue:

• A typical consultant will make 3x in indirect revenue for every dollar they make on book sales

According to a survey1 of 200 business-book authors who have been published between 1974 and 2006, “96% said they did realize a significant positive impact on their businesses from writing a book and would recommend the practice.”

When was the last time you dumped a new book in the trash can?”

Books are better than business cards. They are:

• More powerful than white papers

• The best tchotchke you can give at a conference

• An item that makes it to the book shelf vs. the circular file

“It’s a gift. It’s a guide. It’s a chance to tell the whole story in a way that white papers only hope to achieve. It can take the time to tell the story instead of the bullet points and it’s a tchotchke that people will not throw out — a book has intrinsic value.” says Jim Sterne, President, Web

Analytics Association

It is the best marketing tool you can add to your marketing mix! Imagine having a trusted third-party (e.g. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders.com and other physical/online bookstores) supply a powerful marketing message that will get your prospects to think or to act. Books are the tool that delivers that message and the infrastructure is already setup for the trusted third-party to deliver it.

Why wait? Start writing or having your book ghost written today.

About the Author: Mitchell Levy is CEO and publisher at Quick2Publish (http://Quick2Publish.com). He’s helps thousands of individuals succeed in business and thoroughly enjoys spending the time and effort to make sure that you succeed as well.

1. Survey conducted by the Wellesley Hills Group and sent to 1,000 U.S. authors of business

books published between 1974 and 2006 and reported by Business Week: http://www.businessweek.

com/smallbiz/content/apr2006/sb20060412_511385.htm

When you have home based business you have to fill many roles in order to keep the company moving. One in particular is the role of the company accountant or bookkeeper. Many businesses use QuickBooks to handle their accounting needs as do I. The benefits of using QuickBooks are endless. Mainly the program provides an easy way to invoice your clients and keep track of your accounts.

However, there is a learning curve using QuickBooks to its full capacity. Also, you want to spend their time doing what’s most important business and that’s taking care of your customers. So if you can budget this, you will see that there are benefits outsourcing your book keeping. While I recommend that you perform the invoicing yourself, I recommend outsourcing to a book keeper for the other accounting tasks if your business budget allows.

Here are three very good reasons why you should consider outsourcing to a book keeper.

First of all it saves you time and energy. Depending on the size of your business, it could save you a few hours a week. Could you imagine having a few extra hours a week? So here’s how they save you time.

Most book keepers instruct you to keep all of your receipts and they post them for you when you send to them. While you want to view reports of your finances, you want to have the book keeper do the leg work by posting payments, receivables and organize and categorize your business according to the accounting software they use.

Most book keepers ask you to submit your materials monthly, bi monthly or quarterly. It depends on your business and the volume of transactions you have. Most work with QuickBooks and categorize all of your transactions in the software itself.

The second reason is you can focus on being the best at your trade and helping your customers. Remember you are offering a service and you need to be better than your competition. So why spend time on something that doesn’t make your business better?

For example, you know every detail of the product and service you provide to your clients. You’re considered a professional and are expected to know the latest trends in you industry. You can expect the same from the book keeper and you don’t have to learn every detail of their trade.

Finally, the book keeper is able to provide information to your CPA to file taxes or they can help you file your taxes.

If you are using Quick Books you are provided with many robust reports to help you file you taxes. The book keeper will be able to provide assistance and advisement.

Whether you use a CPA, your book keeper or yourself to file your businesses taxes the bookkeeper builds and provides the financial snapshot of your business. The bookkeeper then becomes a valuable resource to your business.

When you are always pressed for time to get your projects completed, it may be best to out source your businesses book keeping needs to save you valuable time.

There is an ongoing myth that the online digital photography business is available only to US citizens. Our photography business book explains just how anybody from Alaska to Australia can successfully start up a photography business.

First and foremost I want to say that this is not true; however, I need to add that the typical consumers of stock photography are from the US due to the large amount of Internet users as well as the high demand from advertisers and marketers for images of objects, animals, scenes and a variety of other items that are not found inside the USA.

If you do a simple Google Image search you can see the variety of subjects that are being photographed and solicited for sale. While you may see a huge variety please pay particular attention to the quality of the images as many will never be accepted by a Stock Photography site simply because the quality is poor. You may also notice which sizes are available to upload, this is important to know prior to submitting your image as you will want to make sure you have proper sizes. Beware if you are resizing your image that you may lose quality which could result in your image being rejected.

The distinction between poor quality versus high quality is not that large of a leap however simple mistakes must be corrected prior to actually submitting your image for sale. This section is discussed in great depth in the photography business book that will help you to sell only quality photos.

Ideally photos have not been edited with photo editing programs such as Photoshop. While these programs are great for resizing and cropping you will lose quality each time you open and work with the photo. The goal, therefore, is to take the perfect photo without the need for any editing.

The best thing about this opportunity is that it can be done by anyone, anywhere. All that is required is an Internet connection, a digital camera, a computer and an Internet connection. Combine quality with an interesting subject matter and soon you will be able to sit back and watch your bank account increase.

Outsourcing is a special service that unfolds the practice of handling various business related tasks in less money. It is quite beneficial for small business organizations, as it can help to save thousands of dollars. Small business bookkeeping outsourcing is meant to relieve business owners from those pressures that crop up at the time of overload of work. It is quite popular that small business owners try to handle every department on their own. On other note, keeping a trained staff to handle their bookkeeping work will accompany so many expenses. Just think that how a small business will run if it is paying so much to its staff.

Bookkeeping involves handling of the financial records, business revenue, profits and losses incurred by the company and various other expenses. At the time of tax session, if you are loaded with excess of bookkeeping work then the slight negligence can cause problems. Every single account can go wrong or the expenses and balances may not tally in this matter. At this point of time, outsourcing comes at your rescue. Outsourcing these services will not only save your time, but also money. In fact, you will be able to handle your small business with much more efficiency.

Bonus, gratitude, house allowance, conveyance changes, funds and various other things increases the expenses so much. This is not the only problem of hiring a trained staff, higher salaries is another factor to be considered. Small business bookkeeping outsourcing enables you to transfer your work to outsourcing companies. Usually, outsourcing companies carries out bookkeeping work in much less amount as compared to in-house staff. So, why not outsource the work rather than overspending. This will help you in concentrating on other profit reaping departments.

Bookkeeping outsourcing gives excellent quality work to any business. Because of the professional small business bookkeeping outsourcing staff, the work is handled with much efficiency. They are trained specially for this task only. Another thing to be noticed is that, these professionals do not handle any other department or aspect of the business like a business owner. They are able to concentrate completely on their task and this is the reason for their efficiency. If you think that the bookkeeping work is not being handled properly and there are chances of negligence, bookkeeping outsourcing will surely help you.

Outsourcing service helps you to cut down on a huge amount of expenditure. Well, these savings can also be invested in enhancing the efficiency of other departments to earn huge rewards. After all, every company in the business world is doing business to earn profits by spending less amount of money. Small business bookkeeping outsourcing is the best help that gives desired benefits to companies. This service accompanies various benefits such as performing efficiently in other areas of your business after transferring some of your work, saving maintenance cost of the accountant, the insurance benefits, general liability insurance and many more. Bookkeeping has always been a monotonous task for numerous companies. And outsourcing is like a help to the drowning person.