Small Business Blog

Archive for the ‘Business Books’ Category

We all know a Weasel. You know, that person that threatens to take down your organization by using every sleazy tactic in the book to advance their careers regardless of how it effects others. Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by entrepreneur Tim O’Leary takes a refreshing look at the different personalities we encounter and how to handle them.

The premise of the book is that essentially everyone fits into one of four personality groups – Warrior, Worker, Whiner, or Weasel. O’Leary defines each as the following:

Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win!

Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors.

Whiners, who get through life by complaining about everything they do, who profess negativism and dissatisfaction wherever they go, and blaming others for their own shortcomings.

Weasels, who lurk everywhere and threaten your career and life-goals through their own deception and insecurity and who spread these feelings quickly throughout the organization.

The book is designed to help you recognize what group you fit into, give you the necessary tools to get to the group you want to be in, and learn how to effectively deal with people in each group. The book really does a great job of forcing you to truthfully analyze yourself. O’Leary warns you that you might not like what you find, but also is quick to point reinforce that you are in control and that you can make the changes in your life to fit into the group that you desire.

Even more interesting (and fun) is visualizing the people you know and placing them into their appropriate categories. We have all encountered a Whiner or Weasel and it helps to know what makes them tick and how to effectively deal with them so that they don’t negatively impact your life. O’Leary uses the analogy to the common cold – you can’t completely eliminate Weasels from your life but you can take precautions to limit the frequency in which they enter your life and the damage that they do while they’re a part of it.

O’Leary uses a mixes light-hearted humor with a fiercely intense attitude to combine a business book and a self-help book in an exciting fashion. One chapter might focus on a self-analysis, the next might be about personal stories from O’Leary’s experiences, and the next about management. The book is well over 200 pages but reads at the speed of a book that’s half that. I often found myself reading several chapters in a sitting, which is a testament to the writers’ ability to hold readers interest. If there’s a downside (and it’s not much of one), it’s that O’Leary is so brutally honest that it may rub some people wrong, especially those who fall into the Whiner and Weasel groups.

Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by Tim O’Leary is a must read for every entrepreneur, business owner, manager, and worker wishing to learn more about themselves, take advantage of their best traits, and protect themselves from those who could sabotage their career.

Did you know there are about 1.5 million books in print at any one time in the United States alone? Furthermore, there are over 195,000 new titles published each year in this country.

Many aspiring authors feel their book would be lost in the sea of books already in print? May I be honest? That feeling is correct if you don’t target your potential book readers well.

To write your book to stand out in a crowd, you must write it for a targeted audience interested in your book’s topic. Identifying a (niche) targeted audience is really hot in the marketing world right now and rightly so.

Simply put, to target a niche market or audience in your book’s topic area: Identify a problem/solution and research your competition. Then develop a different approach. With all the books in the world on your topic, it’s not enough to know the solution. You must present the solution in a different way than existing books do.

Develop a way of making your book different. You need a different viewpoint, a niche, or a different spin on perhaps the same information. Examine the problem again. Look at the solution your book solves with the goal of coming up with a way to present your knowledge differently than existing books.

Here are several ways you can do this:

1. Market Segment. You can develop a niche by focusing on an occupation, sex, or age group, i.e. Lose 14 Pounds in 2 Weeks: A Guide for the New 30 at 40, Lose Weight Safely Before, During and After Pregnancy.

2. Experience Group. You could write a book for people experiencing the same thing at the same time. For example, Fit at Forty: A Exercise Guide for the New 30 at 40 or Newbie Mothers Eating Healthy.

3. Broadening Market. Consider appealing to a broader market: Lose 14 Pounds in 14 Days: A Guide for Working Class Men & Women.

4. Focus. Attack a big problem by emphasizing a particular tool or technique that you have experience with. For example, show how heart attack survivors can lose 14 pounds in 2 weeks by eating only fish, white meats and walking 10 miles a day.

5. Program. I love this one. Base your solution on the way you solve a large problem by breaking it into steps, i.e. Write Your Best Book Now: A 7 Step Program for book writing.

6. Expertise. Base your niche on your market’s previous experience with a topic, for example, “The Last Business Book You’ll Ever Need!”

7. Goal. Organize your existing information around benefits of achieving the goal: Free Again, Healthy Again!

8. Affinity. Perhaps you have a relationship with a high visibility organization that has benefited from your ideas. You can reframe your knowledge by leveraging off your association: The Bank of America Financial Program or the Southern Methodist University Weight Loss Program.

You might notice in each one of the above examples of the same market, the contents of the book would probably be the same! The books would contain the same basic ideas, suggestions, tips, etc. For example, all the books about diets would probably stress the importance of eating right, choosing the right foods in right portions and daily exercise. Yet, each book presents a different viewpoint targeting a different market.

Be bold; have no fear about approaching the same subject as existing books. Focus in on your unique ideas and viewpoint. Remember, according to the writer of Ecclesiastes, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

Even, Bernice Fitz Gibbon said, “Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were only thought up only little more than a century ago.” So start today; make your book different, make it count and make it yours. Write your significant book to stand out in the crowd and sell.

If you are a book author who wants potential readers to find you on the internet, you want to be as visible as possible in places that those readers might be. And in almost every social media place that you sign up for – such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – you are given the opportunity to write a profile about yourself.

What should these profiles say to effectively attract potential readers?

Twitter Has Only 160 Characters for Your Bio Info

Let’s start with Twitter with 160 characters max for your bio. Obviously you are going to put that you are a book author (perhaps fiction or nonfiction) and presumably you will have a book website URL for the “more info URL” field in your profile. What else are you going to say in those 160 characters? That depends.

Do you have a business besides being a book author? If so, you may want to put info about that business in your bio. Or is there a particular hook about your book that you want to get across in your bio? Perhaps your book is a novel based on a true story.

Your goal in the brief Twitter bio is to make yourself interesting enough (although all true) that people can find “connections” to you and want to follow you.

This means that you must not leave this bio blank. If you want people to follow you on Twitter, you have to be willing to share about yourself.

And remember that you can change this info easily. For example, if your book wins an award, you should consider changing your Twitter bio to reflect that award. Revisit your bio every couple of months to ensure that it presents the most up-to-date version of yourself.

Facebook Has Much More Space for Bio Info

Now let’s move on to Facebook, which has a longer bio section under info on your profile page with the ability to include as many of your own website URLs as you want.

Now here’s the often-overlooked extra of Facebook:

You can have a very brief bio section under your photo that people can see when visiting your wall page as well as your info page. This is a golden opportunity to get the most important points across in a very short space. Because, honestly, how many people are going to read all those long entries on your info page? (And for the long entries, do use lists instead of long, dense paragraphs.)

Take advantage of this brief, easy-to-read bio with the info you most want to share with your Facebook friends. Note that this may not necessarily be the same as the info you choose to share with your Twitter followers, even though in both cases you want to emphasize that you are a book author. And, again, update this brief Facebook bio every couple of months.

LinkedIn Has Its Own Peculiarities

Now for the third social networking site – LinkedIn. This site gives you a very brief space to put a few words under your photo along with the opportunity to provide a brief summary of your business. Book authors should take advantage of both places to convey their most important information. Then the rest of the profile info on LinkedIn is more job and career-oriented.

There is one important “trick.” LinkedIn only allows three website links. But don’t click on “My Company” or “My Website” or “My Blog” before putting in the links. Click on “Other” in each case. Then to the right of “Other” put descriptive words such as “Book Blog” or “Book Site.” You want potential readers to know they can find out about your book(s) at your sites.

As with your other social media profiles, revisit your LinkedIn profile info every so often to ensure that the info is up to date.

In conclusion, don’t make the mistake of thinking that these profiles are unimportant and thus you dash off writing the info. These profiles provide the information that helps make you interesting to potential readers. Spend as much time writing and revising these social media profiles as you would spend writing and revising any paragraph or page in your novel or nonfiction book.

Q: I am considering starting an ebusiness using affiliate programs, but there is so much hype out there I can’t figure out which programs would work best for me. Everybody claims their program is best. I’d really appreciate some guidance here.

A: Affiliate programs can be an excellent way to start an ebusiness. Before we dive into the specifics, let me explain how an affiliate program works.

An affiliate program simply means that you sign on as an affiliate marketer for someone else’s product. It’s your job to market the product, send the company customers, and get a cut each time a sale is made from your efforts. Affiliate program commissions can range from as little as 2% for high ticket items up to 50% for eBooks and informational type products.

As an example, let’s say you sign up with Amazon.com’s affiliate program. You are assigned an affiliate code which you use to promote Amazon’s books on your website. When someone clicks to purchase an Amazon product from your website, your affiliate code is included in the URL and you get a commission for the sale. Some folks have built elaborate websites that sell nothing but Amazon.com’s books, and each time they make a sale they get a piece of the pie.

At dropshipwholesale.net we are affiliates for many products that fit our entrepreneurial niche. We market mostly eBooks and software, but we do have an Amazon page for business books.

One of the most appealing aspects of affiliate programs is how quickly you can begin making money. You can literally sign up as an affiliate and begin making money in minutes. I’ve done it, I know it works.

Admittedly, I am not an affiliate program expert, so I sought out the person that many call the Ultimate Affiliate Program Authority, Rosalind Gardner.

Rosalind Gardner began making money with affiliate programs in 1997. She has since grown her affiliate business into a $400,000 a year business and is now considered the authority on the subject. Her book ‘The Super Affiliate Handbook: How to Make a Fortune Selling Other People’s Stuff Online’ has been out since March and is already considered by many to be the affiliate marketers bible.

I ordered Rosalind’s book as research for this article and I have to tell you I found it to be one of the best books on the subject I have ever read. It’s a hype-fr*e approach to what affiliate marketing is really all about and how to make it work. The book is 270 pages and leaves no stone unturned. For anyone serious about making money with affiliate programs, I highly recommend this book.

The bottom line is this: you can make a lot of money with affiliate programs, if you pick the right product and do your part to promote it. As for which programs would be best for you, I advise that you concentrate your efforts on one or two products instead of starting with a shotgun approach. Pick only top quality products that hold some personal interest you. Never pick an affiliate product just because you think you’ll make a ton of money with it.

Remember, you are starting a business. If it’s not a business that holds your interest, you won’t be in business very long.

How to Promote Your Business in the Yellow Pages:

Ask the Expert

By Fran Finley

The Expert

Our expert on Yellow Pages advertising is author, speaker, consultant, Barry Maher. You may have seen Maher on the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNBC or in the pages of USA Today, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. His book, Filling the Glass was recently honored as “[One of] The Seven Essential Popular Business Books” by Today’s Librarian magazine. Few people realize that Maher is also the author of the book, Getting the Most from Your Yellow Pages Advertising, and that he conducts Yellow Pages workshops at conventions across the country. According to TIME, “Barry Maher has helped thousands of small businesses get the most cost effective Yellow Pages advertising possible.”

Does Yellow Pages advertising really work?

Well, it certainly can work. But it’s far more likely to work if you pay attention to a few key rules.

Can’t you rely on your Yellow Pages sales rep for any help you need?

Sometimes the rep can be part of the problem. Too many Yellow Page ads are whipped up in the few minutes the rep has left after trying to sell you a bigger ad. Ask, no, insist, that your directory publishers develop an ad for you that justifies the cost. If they can’t, have the ad produced yourself.

Okay, so you need a great looking ad. What about the content?

Content is another key. The first piece of ad copy that readers see, the headline, has to be powerful enough to drag them away from all those competing ads. Never use your company name as your headline unless it really is that powerful. Unless it really is the most important selling copy in the ad.

What other copy should you include?

You have to include all the hard, factual information potential customers need to make a decision to call or drop by: be it about image, market niche, products and services, features, brand names, expertise, pricing, quality, hours, reliability, speed, location, service area, credit available, whatever it might be.

So you should use every bit of ad space you’re paying for?

Absolutely not. Your ad is competing for readability with every other ad under your heading or headings. If it’s difficult to read, it isn’t going to be read. You’ve got to refine your copy until you can provide all the information potential clients want in an ad that’s so uncluttered and inviting that reading it becomes automatic.

What about visuals, like drawings and photos?

Nothing can turn a mediocre Yellow Pages ad into a great one faster than the right illustration. If your picture isn’t worth a thousand words, find one that is.

How about ad size: is bigger better?

Unfortunately, all things being equal, bigger ads get a greater response. They also get the best placement, closest to the front of the heading. Placement can be even more important than size.

A visually appealing ad can make up for some size, especially under a heading where all the ads are on the same page or two. It’s much more difficult to compete with ads on an earlier page. That page may never be turned.

Always consider placement when you’re deciding on ad size. Have your sales rep show you where the size you’re considering would fall in this year’s directory. That should give you an idea of the position, relative to the competition, you’d have next year. Sometimes going up a size and spending just a few more dollars will move you much closer to the front of the heading. Sometimes you can cut back in size without losing much in the way of position.

What about using color?

Color is eye catching. And expensive. If the money you’d be spending is approximately the same, you’re better off significantly improving the size and placement of your ad than the color.

Some areas are covered by several competing directories. Should you buy ads in all of them?

Make the sales rep prove value before you buy, especially when you’re considering a directory for the first time. If he or she can’t prove value, don’t put any real money there. Instead, try something small: perhaps even a simple in-column ad, or even just a listing. Track your response, survey your customers to discover how they discovered you. Then next year you’ll have know.

What’s the biggest Yellow Pages mistake you’ve ever encountered?

That’s got to be the attorney who found herself listed not under ATTORNEYS but under REPTILES. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that was perhaps more truth in advertising than she bargained for.

Which reminds me: Always insist on getting a proof for your display ad.

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Home businesses are the new big thing. Within the last few years more people not just moms and dads have been working from their own home offices. There are many different understandable reasons for this such as freedom to do what you want, not having a boss, financial freedom and much more. As a younger person I am often asked if I feel like I’m missing out on something by not working in an atmosphere with people. The answer? No. I did my dues for the most part. I know what it is I am and am not missing. Just like everyone else I have a story! I was a Chef for about 10 years. This is one of the hardest jobs to have if you want to actually have a personal life because the time just doesn’t allow for it! So, I decided “no more”. The first Internet based business I had was a research firm I started. It lasted for about two years and then I started to feel the pull on my personal time again. Plus it got sort of boring, ya know?

The point I’m trying to make is if you want to DO something online to make money, then do it! The multitude of positions, jobs, businesses, and opportunities is absolutely endless. You can get into things like network marketing, selling products online, selling services online, write articles, write e-books, etc. The sky is the limit in what you can do as well with how much money you can make. But with any other job, the harder you work, the more benefits you will reap in the end. I think it takes a certain sort of person to work at home. You have to have at least a small piece inside of you that is a little responsible! If you don’t, you might end up taking four hour lunches, or knocking off work early to go have a drink, or screwing around too much!

I won’t lie, I work from 700am til 1100pm sometimes. But (and there always is a but) I love what I do. So, the time doesn’t even matter to me. I have a really great friend who works at home, and I asked him one time “how much do I have to work to become successful”, his answer? He said, “It depends on you. If you want to really be rolling in the dough but not have any time for yourself you can work non stop. Or if you want to have all the personal time in the world but not have a lot of money, then work whenever you “feel” like it”. That’s good advice everyone should follow. Somehow or another I have found a balance between success and personal time. Which is terrific for me and my customers.

So instead of this just being words on a website, I’m sure you want to know some sites you can look at or some books you can read, right? Listed below, in my own opinion, are some sites you should visit as well as books you should read. Of course if you find a book you really like and it’s not on my list, who cares! Read it, love it, follow everything in the book. I don’t have the golden key or the perfect answer to your problems. Like everything else in life, figuring out how to work at home and what you should do to make money, is trial and error. Never give up! If at first you don’t succeed try try again!

Websites:

MoneyMakingMommy – This is a site geared towards moms. However, I have used it on occasion to find work at home businesses, and so can you.

HomeBizTools – As the site says, this is a great way to find different tools for a home based business. You can find things like ideas on what to start, legal dos and don’ts, business resources, scams, etc.

AllWorkAtHomeIdeas – This site includes blogs for ideas on what to start, business directory, home business portals and more

Entrepreneur – One of my favorite paper magazines can also be read online, this site will give you fantastic ideas. Plus they also usually have some sort of a list such as “top 10 franchises to start at home” along with prices, how much you can expect for profits, how many people in the city, state, country, world have started these businesses.

Books:

The 200 Best Home Businesses: easy to start, fun to run, highly profitable by Katina Z. Jones

Start & Run A Real Home Based Business by Dan Furman

Best Home Businesses for People 50+ by Paul and Sarah Edwards

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

You can also check out other sites like forums, people’s blogs, and more. Good luck in your search! I hope you find the perfect business and you have tons of success in doing what you love!