Tips For Small Businesses

In his book The Winning Attitude, John C. Maxwell, noted author and speaker tells us that attitude is:

• The “advance man” of our true selves
• Has inward roots but outward fruits
• Is our best friend or worst enemy
• Is more honest and more consistent than our words
• Is an outward look based on past experiences
• Is a think which draws people to us or repels them
• Is never content until it is expressed
• Is the librarian of our past
• Is the speaker of our present
• Is the prophet of our future

Your attitude, or your willingness to think positively, affects many people—from your family to the stranger you smile at in the grocery store. An optimist will see opportunity in difficulties, while a pessimist will see difficulty in opportunities.

You must choose which you will focus on: if you choose poorly, you will doom yourself to never achieving your goals and being successful. Count on that.

So how do you begin to think positively if you’re a natural pessimist? I don’t really believe there ARE natural pessimists, just people who have been taught how to consider the darkest side of every cloud.

You cannot change the fact that a problem exists, but you can do a lot to determine what opportunity is within that problem. Begin to see that problems are a fact of life and that your job is to find a way over, around, under, or through them—as quickly as possible. When you’re upbeat and consider how quickly a problem will be behind you, it’s easy to be optimistic.

Cynicism is another killer when it comes to attitude. It’s a cousin of pessimism—it considers everything suspect and everyone as having an ulterior motive. It never looks at someone handing you a piece of candy just to be nice, it always considers that there is a reason you’re being handed the candy and the motivation of the person who’s giving it.

Cynicism comes from having unrealistic expectations. Many people expect great and wonderful things to happen to them with little-to-no work on their parts. They expect things to fall from the sky in to their laps. When it doesn’t happen as they expect, they become suspicious of others who have achieved success and ultimately, cynical.

You must harness the power of your thoughts and words when setting your course for success. Use positive affirmations daily: remind yourself that a stumbling block is temporary and that you will overcome it; admit to yourself that you are courageous and able to move on when others cannot; agree with your vision for your life and your goals.

As you discipline yourself to do this, you will find optimism and positive thinking chasing you down the street. And who couldn’t use these two friends when we’re aiming for success?

Blogging is a concept that started in late 90s.  It used to be a way to comment an existing webpage, an opportunity for visitors and readers to react or voice out one’s opinion on the said page.  What started as a single-sentence commentary has evolved into pages of personal take on just about anything and everything under the sun.  As it continues to move forward, online advertising has tapped into the blog’s potential.  Here are 5 reasons why you should use blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

1.Blogging is simple. The simplest way to get your piece on the net is through blogging.  No skills are necessary… an average adult can read and type, or at least click a mouse.  It’s like having a virtual piece of paper and you just write your ideas, experiences, new products, and hope that the truth behind your articles comes out and entice your reader to also try your product.  If you have a PC and an Internet connection (who doesn’t?) then you can blog and advertise.

2. Blogging is authentic. In this day and age where advertising saturate our lives, we question the credibility of promoters’ claims.  However, in blogs, real people share their real-life experiences, unscathed by paid advertising.  Reading blogs about first-hand product use is like talking to people about their first-hand experience.  You definitely want to buy a tried and tested product.

3. Blogging is free. Because blogging is yet to be proven as a mainstream online advertising media, most sites see it as something to augment current marketing tools and thus offer it for free.   Any opportunity for free webtime is definitely a bonus especially to businesses that are starting up.  Needless to say, paid blog pages can generate more income for your seriously growing business.

4. Blogging builds credibility. As you get more and more into writing your experiences on a particular product or industry, your readers come to realize that they can depend on your posts for their own information needs.  As such, you become an expert on it; as a consequence, more readers visit your site and more bloggers link to your blogs.  As companies and professional organizations notice the growth of your readership base, they may soon get in touch with you for advertising on your blog page, or make you an affiliate, which pays for every referral generated from your blog site.

5. Blogging builds your market. Unless you are a Hollywood star, chances are, only your Mom reads your posts.  Mom has a lot of friends, so she lets her friends know how interesting your blog site is.  But you need not depend on Mom to increase your readership base.  Look into the following ways to build your market through blogging:

-By using your e-mail. Today, blogging is overcoming the e-mail’s popularity in quickly and effectively reaching and expanding a market.  In this age of speed and quick access, logging in and downloading e-mail is simply taking longer than clicking into a blog site.  Let them explore your site by using a short e-mail message as teaser to your blog site.  If your e-mail is on an entirely different subject, use your e-mail signature to give a link to the site.

-By using subscription. An easy way to get your readers e-mail is to give them an opportunity to subscribe to your blogsite.  Keep some exclusive information for your subscribers to entice readers to subscribe and give their e-mail address.  Just be responsible in using their e-mail address, as the last thing you want is a comment on your blog that you are a spammer.

-By understanding your readers. Conduct a simple survey for your readers to understand their profile and advertising preferences.  Ask consumers to give you feedback on a post, an ad link, or a trial that you shared.  In this way, it is like interviewing your readers without the commitment and intrusion of a face-to-face interview.

-By joining a blog network –A network of blogs maybe a collection of blog sites that share the same industry, interest, readership base, payment mode, etc.  Consumers find credibility and convenience in clicking one link to several real bloggers about a single subject.  Clearly, more bloggers are better than one.

-By using RSS. RSS is the fastest growing technology on the Internet today.  As such, having RSS feeds to your blog is definitely another means of generating awareness for your readership base.  Having a variety of feeds can add interest to your blog site.

Give your business a boost by effectively using blogging as an Internet marketing tool.

There are times when simply thinking positively won’t move you past your fear and anxiety. There are times when simply plodding it out is the thing you must do.

The Evangelical speaker Joyce Meyer says, “If you’re afraid to do it, just DO IT AFRAID.” No one will blame you for being fearful—what you will be blamed for is letting that fear immobilize you. So no matter what it takes, keep moving.

Fear is much like a quagmire—it slurps at our feet and if we stand still long enough, it begins to suck us down. It’s hard to get out of, but it is possible.

If you’re stuck in fear as you shoot for success, there are several ways out:

• Fiirst, consider the source. Where did the fear come from? Have you been dwelling on the difficulties instead of the opportunities? Have you been listening to those who are cynics and pessimists, instead of coaching yourself with positive words and people? If so, MOVE ON. GET AWAY from people and situations that drag you down.

• Second, take your checklist and note what you HAVE accomplished. Look at your list of goals and the baby steps you’re taking to get there, and on a separate sheet of paper (or a separate document in your computer), begin to list everything you have accomplished. This will begin to empower you to move on and leave the fear behind.

• Third, take stock of your talents and skills. Fear often tells us that we “don’t have what it takes…” Show fear as the liar it is: list your skills, all your positive attributes. Then look at the problem again, after you have a new appreciation for your God-given talents and abilities.

• Fourth, don’t underestimate the power of prayer. Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, there is an amazing power that comes from releasing your fear to a God Who loves you and is looking out for you. Don’t bottle the fear up—let it go. You don’t need it anyhow!

• Finally, remember this acronym when facing fear:
  • F= False
  • E= Evidence
  • A=Appearing
  • R=Real

For that’s really what fear is—it is an unrealistic look (false look) at something and attempting to make you believe it (appearing to be real).

Once you know these things, you’ll be able to move past your fear and on to the next step you need to be successful!

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills back.

With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is why article writing, submissions and publications are also getting popular.

There are already many tools that people can use to make the process of distributing their articles more easily. Though this is invaluable in getting the contents more exposure, which is only half of the story.

Let us take a look first at the common mistakes that some people make before submitting their contents to article directories:

1. Confusing the reason to promote the articles with the reason to write them.
In article writing, there are three key benefits why you are promoting them; branding, lead generation and promotion, which are all part of your optimization efforts.
But there is only one reason why you write an article, and that is to inform your audience. If the article is not focused on this primary and most important purpose, it will fail to achieve the three promotion benefits because no one will be interested in reading them.
You need to figure out first how to get people to read what is in your article, then make them click on your resource box. You can achieve this by producing better contents.
2. Failing to maximize the promotional opportunities of article marketing.
You may know already that your articles can help you generate additional links back to your site. But do you know that you can get more visitors and better search engine results from that same articles?
Mention keywords at strategic places. Just be sure not to overdo them. Some are even using anchor texts which is also an effective method. But it is important to know that majority of the directories are not able to support this.

Remember that is not only about the links back to your site. Part of doing well in your article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work. Better search engine results also are great benefits.
But these things do not put much money in your pocket. There are other factors that can turn your article marketing efforts into an opportunity that can boost your earnings. Not just increase the number of visitors to your site.
Start out with a plan and see to it that your article will serve the function that you intended it to have.

3. Publishing content that does not help your readers.
Maybe in the process of writing articles, you are thinking that all that is you wanted is links back to your site. And any visitors it can generate are fine.

Guess what? Not all article banks and directories are going to accept your content automatically. Oftentimes, they have some guidelines and specifications on the articles that they are accepting.
You can double the number of sites you can submit to by writing articles that the directories want to share with other people. All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight.

Write the articles that publishers want in their publications if you want your article marketing to work the most effective way for you. This also means you have to obey the standard guidelines, spell checks, researching on a good topic and even hiring a writer to produce a good content on your behalf.
In the end, it is all really a matter of choice on your part. You can start getting a little exposure from increased links back but on a very basic level. Or enjoy massive exposure from a little extra time making quality contents.

It will be your choice. You may not be aware of the fact that an article submitted on directories is not meant to have the same level of exposure as highly-targeted content ones geared on a narrow group of people.
Learn the difference between these two and it will surely help you know what kinds of articles to write and to submit.

Your website is a direct representation of your business and should be created in a way that accurately reflects that. If you are a fun, whimsical company that caters to individual orders, then make your site fun and playful. If you are a company that focuses on the corporate orders, you will need a site that is professional and informative.

Important aspects of a successful site:

- Make sure your address and telephone number are easily located. People like to know whom they are ordering from and that if there is a problem, they can get in touch with you.

- Studes show that customers will not wait long for a site to load.  They will quickly move to the next website that Google tells them to. Customers are shopping online to make it quick and easy. They should be able to find what they need right away.

- Make it easy for customers to get around (or navigate) your site.  They should not be confused or lost on your site.

- Create a site with a simple, light colored background. Studies show that customers are more receptive and willing to stay on sites that are light colored.

- When it comes to your product pictures, it is important that they are clear and professional looking.

- Keep the ordering process easy!! Make sure that your shopping cart is easy to navigate and that there is no way to misunderstand the ordering process.

Good public relations (PR) can alter individual perception and lead to changed behaviors among key outside customers. And that can help business, non-profit and association managers achieve their managerial objectives.

It all happens when you do something positive about the behaviors of those important external audiences of yours that most affect your operation. In particular when you persuade those key outside folks to your way of thinking, then help move them to take actions that allow your department, division or subsidiary to succeed.

I believe the key to good PR is this reality. People act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

In other words, your public relations effort must involve more than special events, brochures and news releases if you really want to get your money's worth.

The payoff can make your day: membership applications on the rise; customers starting to make repeat purchases; fresh proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; community leaders beginning to seek you out; welcome bounces in show room visits; prospects starting to do business with you; higher employee retention rates, capital givers or specifying sources beginning to look your way, and even politicians and legislators starting to view you as a key member of the business, non-profit or association communities.

But who among your PR team really understands the blueprint outlined above and shows commitment to its implementation, starting with key audience perception monitoring? Luckily, your PR people are already in the perception and behavior business, so they should be of real use for this initial opinion monitoring project.

Be certain that your public relations people really accept why it's SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Make sure they believe that perceptions almost always result in behaviors that can help or hurt your operation.

Talk it over with them, especially your game plan for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Questions along these lines: how much do you know about our organization? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the interchange? Are you familiar with our services or products and employees? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

Because it can run into real money using professional survey firms to do the opinion monitoring work, you may wish to use those PR folks of yours in that capacity since they're already in the perception and persuasion business. But, whether it's your people or a survey firm asking the questions, the objective remains the same: identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors.

What your aiming at, obviously, is a PR goal that does something about the most serious distortions you discover during your key audience perception monitoring. Will it be to straighten out that dangerous misconception? Correct that gross inaccuracy? Or, stop that potentially painful rumor cold?

Of course, without the right strategy to tell you how to proceed, you won't get there at all. So keep in mind that there are just three strategic options available when it comes to doing something about perception and opinion. Change existing perception, create perception where there may be none, or reinforce it. The wrong strategy pick will taste like horseradish on your pancakes, so be sure your new strategy fits well with your new public relations goal. You wouldn't want to select "change" when the facts dictate a strategy of reinforcement.

Here, you must come up with a well-written message and send it to members of your target audience. It's always a challenge to create an actionable message that will help persuade any audience to your way of thinking.

What you want now is your strongest writers because s/he must build some very special, corrective language. Words that are not merely compelling, persuasive and believable, but clear and factual if they are to shift perception/opinion towards your point of view and lead to the behaviors you have in mind.

After your PR team has signed off on draft copy of your message, you move on to the next selection process -- the communications tactics most likely to carry your message to the attention of your target audience. There are scores that are available. From speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others. But you must be certain that the tactics you pick are known to reach folks like your audience members.

An alert: you may wish to avoid too loud a voice with this kind of message and unveil it before smaller meetings and presentations rather than using higher-profile news releases, as the credibility of any message is fragile and always at stake.

From this point forward, you'll start getting requests for progress reports, which tells you and your PR team to begin a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. You'll want to use many of the same questions used in the first benchmark session. But now, you will be on red alert for signs that the bad news perception is being altered in your direction.

It does seem fortunate that such matters usually can be accelerated simply by adding more communications tactics as well as increasing their frequencies.

The value of public relations to managers becomes clearer when you realize that the people you deal with behave like everyone else - they act upon their perceptions of the facts they hear about you and your operation. Which means you really have little choice but to deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions by doing what is necessary to reach and move those key external audiences of yours to actions you desire.

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Robert A. Kelly

Public Relations at PRcommentary.com Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding Drydock Co.; director of communi- cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University, major in public relations.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “in the zone,” particularly as it applies to athletes or others who are unflappable as they eye the goal. Sometimes you can be in the zone regarding your success and nothing gets in your way; other times you can do everything right and find that whatever can go wrong, will. Here are thoughts on building the habit of success and getting “in the zone.”

We all understand that we can choose to be happy or miserable, and that our choices will affect our lives for the better or worse. When you opt to be happy, you choose to identify with the accomplishments in life that exude who you are and who you have striven to be.

You can choose to look on the positive side, just as you can choose success. Remember, success is more than just wealth. Choose the positive side of things and you choose to remember and live your successes, not your failures.

Achieve Success by Expecting It

You must understand that the path from where you are to where you want to be is not always smooth or straight. When you hit those inevitable bumps in the road, your character, commitment, and attitude will help get you “in the zone” or at least, keep you there.

Success Breeds Success
“Mo.” That shortened word of “mo” speaks of momentum—the ability to continually succeed and build on the past successes you’ve had. Most people understand that when they have one (big or small) success, it encourages them and makes them believe they can do anything. Salespeople know it, and they strive for it.

When you’ve unlocked the key to your success (whatever that may be), you’ll find your “mo” and that nothing can get in your way.

Choosing Success

Experts Don’t Know Everything

If you have a plan that seems to go against all the conventional wisdom and yet you know in your soul that this WILL work, then follow your gut instincts. The “experts” are wrong all the time—from medical experts who predict incorrectly to future-trending experts who foretell the wrong trends and costs corporations millions.

More than 100 years ago, someone wanted to close down the US Patent office because he thought everything that could be invented had been and that no one would need to patent anything else, ever. So don’t listen to the nay sayers and “experts”—sometimes they are dead wrong!

Video marketing for small businesses is currently very 'hot'. And that will soon transform into a necessary afterthought.  Web 3.0 will dictate that for you to survive online, interactive media is a must.

This is a wave that’s been predicted for some time.

Video should be simple and straight to the point. Not too long. Natural.  Casually dressed workers.

Videos are very cost effective.  The expense is minimal.  A hand held camcorder  works well.Upload to YouTube or Google Video, and you're good to go.  I would actually prefer to have the video on your website.

When will YOU produce your first online marketing video?

Business blog is an incredible online marketing tool that saves you thousands of dollars but provides great business opportunities in just one click. Blogs are user-friendly, customized and flexible medium for disseminating useful information for effective positioning of your products in the market.

Companies engaging in business blogging have a definite edge over its competitors.  Here are some advantages:
-     Word-of-Mouth. In a survey, there are currently 14 million blogs with 80,000 more being added each day and about 30 percent of the 50 million users are blog readers. Imagine how much gain your company will have, if your products are advertised through blogs. With Internet, information spreads so quickly especially if an impressive write-up goes with your product. Soon your blogs will be passed on to hundreds of possible customers.
-     Awareness and loyalty.  Open communication with your customers creates trust and loyalty among them. Being there to respond to their questions and comments make them all the more willing to try your products and services.
-     Feedback. Blogs is good for product research and reviews. It would be easier to improve on your products if you observe your customers’ thinking and behavioral patterns. You can also take immediate action to your customers’ concerns.
-     Community halo-effect. Bloggers are reasonable, friendly and helpful. They are more than willing to create blogosphere of comments regarding your product. The only thing you have to do is embrace and take active part in the culture and your product will surely be considered in their next stop to the supermarket.

For better marketing results, actively promote your business blogs by submitting your blogs to blog search sites and directories. Do not forget to paste in with your blogs, your URL. Be sure that your blogs contain exclusive information with value and are always updated to keep readers popping in, read up your blog, move on to the next and click on again for updates.

Blog is like a setup booth in the biggest trade show on earth everyday. Marketing possibilities are just around the corner waiting to strike your sale scales up.

The Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds are important too in conjunction with your blogs to get the best benefits. Use effective keyword phrases to generate high ranking status in the search engine traffic. In this way you have better chances of people finding your website leading to your blogs. More traffic means more potential sales.

For this to be successful, you can use RSS for news update feeds which can be read through RSS reader application. This is a very useful tool for business and internet marketers as well.

If you are already convinced with the potentials of business blogs for marketing and targeting sales increase, your company is now ready to start blogging. But first, you have to be in tune with your company’s business objectives and determine if blogging will really help you achieve your goal.

1.    Several blogs are dedicated to teaching people the do’s and don’ts of blogging, READ them! Include in your reading materials blogs that are consumer-based too to give you an idea.

2.    Setup several test blogs right away.

If your initial try out with blogs worked well, you can now start setting up your blogs.

1.    Study blog design. Blog hosting services provide pre-designed templates. But if you opt for paid blog service, you can ask your artist to design and layout your blog site to match the company’s identity and needs.

2.    Choose a topic. Its good to have a line-up of topics you want for your blogs but be sure they are in consonance with your business objectives. This would be a test of your flexibility and open-mindedness since results may be going against the set objectives.

3.    Remember the following safety measures in blogging:
-     legal issues are sometimes involved in blogging; it is safer to include disclaimers and limitations of liabilities;
-     corporate communication and legal department are responsible in educating the senior management on how blogs might affect business;
-     create blogging policies; set limits on who gets to blog and what information are allowed to be made public;
-    avoid outright marketing blog or you will shy away your readers;
-    make content updated, relevant and fresh;
-    reinforce the company’s core values; and,
-    encourage employees to use it.

4.    Start blogging and complete 20 posts before going to marketing.

5.    Begin marketing.

6.    Regularly monitor the coming ins and outs of readers and get updates. Then, measure your results.

7.    Adjust if needed. You can always play with your designs in the blog site as long as it remains to match the company’s identity.

8.    Strive to be consistent with your topic all the time.

9.    Try to have unrelated topics with general and broad appeal.

10.    Schedule updates regularly. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday would be best to update blogs.

Once you have done all these things, you can now ultimately enjoy the benefits of business blogging.