Marketing online requires you to understand what works and don’t work online. For a start, there are very few website designers with an understanding of online marketing. The mistake many entrepreneurs make is to delude themselves that they only need to spend a lot of money on the website design and away they go, customers will come flooding in. Is this what you think as well? I dare say you would have learnt the truth by now. Before you start falling in love with your website, please make sure you are clear about:

1. Who your market is and what they want as solution to their problems- check your business plan
2. Who your market is and what they want and need as solution to their problems- check your business plan
3. What benefit your services and products offer the target market in solving their problems- check your business plan
4. How does your target market search for the answers to their problems on search engines such as Google and Yahoo – in short what keyword phrases are they using to search for solutions and this must be provable not what you think they are using. There are tools you can use to find this very quickly.

Armed with these answers, your next task is to ensure your website is set up with the relevant key word phrases in your domain (e.g. pet-sitters-help.co.uk for a pet-sitting business) and sales letters. You also need to ensure that you take steps to promote your website to relevant directories with a high page ranking using SEO service provides that offer services in directory submission, article submission, social bookmarks, social media, link exchange and video directory submission. All of these various submissions have their dos and don’ts and it is important you understand how to do this yourself without breaking your bank accounts and/or get one of our SEO experts of BSS Online Marketing to assist you achieve your goals without breaking your bank accounts.
Now, here is the deal, never use a SEO service provider who is not recommended by a third party. Remember, the quickest way to go out of business is to run out of money. If you spend all your capital on marketing that don’t generate positive returns for you, I am sure you know what will be the outcome to your business.

A great business is one with great products and services that are well supported by an effective marketing system. If you truly want your business to grow the two areas you must never undermine is ideas generation and development, as well as marketing and sales. Get yourself educated in these areas and you will be good to go.

Marketing as you know need not be reduced to online marketing. It should be both online and offline. The rules governing effective online marketing is only partly explained here as we are only looking at strategies for traffic generation and sales conversion. However, you must also be aware that driving traffic to your site does not necessarily mean you will generate sales. Sales are a function of:
1. The products and services on offer and how well they are presented online to address the needs and wants of your market – specifically offering them benefits that are deemed valuable.
2. The prices of your services and products compared to competitors- and this includes shipping costs and other costs incurred by the prospects.
3. The professionalism and accessibility of your services and products. In short, can the prospects reach someone in your customer services department or reception easily on the phone or by e-mail? It is for this reason we partner with a number of organisations to offer you virtual office and phone services at competitive prices.
4. How confident and trustworthy your business appears to the prospects and much more. Using a PO Box as a business address is a No, No. Asking for payment online by Western Union and refusing to take payment by credit card or PayPal is a sure recipe for lose the trust of your prospects and customers.

So when you are looking at traffic generation and sales conversion, don’t forget to review all other aspects of the marketing equation.

For more information about reliable tools and systems you can plug into your business toolkit contact Sheila Elliott at 0845 226 4315

Generating ideas is one thing, developing ideas is quite another. Everyone can come up with ideas to start a business, but not everyone can come up with smart ways to organise these ideas towards a definite cause that will provide solutions to a given set of societal problems. In the book ‘Think and Grow Rich’, author Napoleon Hill reiterate that the ability to organise specialised knowledge and direct it towards a given market to provide unique solutions to a problem is power in action. Power is the ability to effect chantge and get results that is for the highest good of all parties concern.

If you are starting your business and have ideas but struggle with developing these ideas, you will do well to get help from a coach like myself because it will make the difference between launching a lame duck business that will suck money out of your bank account and launching a proper business that will put money into your bank account. You will be surprise how many businesses under perform due to lack of expertise in organising their ideas.

One simple step you can take to develop your business idea is to step back and look at the broad market and start thinking outside the box about all the different ways the problem can be solved before coming up with your solutions. Avoid falling in love with any particular solution because to do so will leave you expose to making the wrong choice due to biasness. Think about how you can combine different independent solutions into one single solution to come up with a unique product. In one of my audio CDs titled ‘Creative Mind’, I covered some of the tools you can use to address this issue. Those of you in the paid coaching programme can access the audio and workbook in the membership resource page. Combination is a technique whereby you look at different services you can combine to form a unique product. I was with a client last week seriously in need of assistance in this area. She has been running a small fashion and accessory boutique for the last twelve months that is struggling to make sales. The business offers:
1. Ladies bags
2. Ladies shoes
3. Jewelleries- necklace, brace lace, earrings,
4. Body and facial cream
5. Lipsticks, nail polish
6. Hair dressing
7. Textile
8. Ladies dresses
9. Menes shirt
10. Perfumes
All the products are sold individually to the end users. No packaging for the gift market is done to capitalise on the opportunities of special celebrations throughout the year such as Valentine’s day, Mothers day, Easter holiday, May bank holiday, Fathers day, August bank holiday, Back to school, Christmas, New Year, special birthdays – 21st, 18th, 40th , 50th , 60th , 70th , 80th etc.
The poor organisation of the ideas of this business alongside, weak marketing plan and strategies have resulted in poor financial outcomes for the business. Why did the owner not see what was so obvious to others. Her internal conditioning (thought patterns are an obvious suspect). Until she dissolves limiting thought patterns and access new and empowering beliefs and thoughts she will be operating below her capacity. She will continue to blame everyone except when all this time the answers lied within her. If this story sounds familiar contact me for more information.

Well, you need finance to start your business, you have no savings of your own and you need other peoples money to start your own business. Does this sound familiar? Join the club. Why should a third party take you serious? I am serious, why should they hand over their cash to you. It never ceases to amaze me when entrepreneurs dont think about these issues before approaching funders or investors. I meet countless numbers of entrepreneurs who need finance but yet are unwilling to take actions to boost their success rate. Perhaps you are one of the exception. It is with this in mind I want to share yet another three top tips on how to raise funding for your business.

Tip No 1

Make sure that you present yourself well, when you meet with investors and lenders. The way you dress and speak matters. Every step of the way you are being observed. Your presentation must be compelling. This is why we provide training seminars in financing your business to help you develop the right knowledge base so that you give yourself the added advantage when you are faced with potential investors and lenders.

Tip No 2

Think correctly and positively. Your mental life is one you have to take control over. One of the secret of success is the ability to take control of your mind and direct it to what you want to see happen in your life. If you want to raise finance, you can’t be talking about defeat and doubting your ability to do so successfully. I covered this aspect of “Mind Power” in my book “My Business Is My Business- Learn How to Earn a Fortune” and I have produced audio CDs on the subject of the power of the mind. Remember, you have something to offer the investor or lenders. Investors and lenders of money make their money through your ideas. They sell money for interest or dividend to those with great ideas that will generate profits. So the relationship is two ways. All you have to demonstrate is that your deal will help them realise their dreams. They have to see it clearly and so it is up to you to show them how it will work. Stay clear from fuzzy language and terminology that will only serve to distract from raising finance when faced with the opportunity to do so. Do not use jargons familiar in your industry but not outside your industry.

Tip No 3
Solicit the support of experts. You do not want to be “Jack of all trade and master of none”. Remember, the money you pay for expert services is not an expense; it is an investment in your business. Change your perception of money. This is one of the causes of success. Successful people always pay for good advice. The opposite is equally true for people who repeatedly fail in business and life generally.

OK, I rest my case. If you think you will get your hands on other peoples money to invest in your business without incorporating these tips, I will be glad to hear from you. However, it is more than likely you wont and so i would like to encourage you all to take decisive actions to improve your capacity to raise finance.

Regards
Sheila Elliott

I hesitate to blog on this topic today but I think I should. I really want to share my own experience with you when I started my business. Believe it or not, even with all my qualifications and experience in business management issues, I did find the issue of marketing daunting when I started for a variety of reasons. Firstly, I have no track record in business and many prospects will ask for testimonials and trade reference.

Secondly, my role from being a finance employee to becoming a business owner was a significant change because I was responsible for my own income and dare I say my salary. Where do I start? Will people take me seriously? What if no one buys from me…………..? These were all the questions I silently asked myself. It is funny, because the truth is, I experienced a mixture of excitement and anxiety all at the same time.

One of the biggest challenges that many entrepreneurs will find when they start a business is the practicalities of selling their own products and services to the target market they really want to serve. Making that first sale is important to boost your motivation to continue. Being able to sell is a skill no entrepreneur can afford to be average at. True, you may be average when you start your business but you should not be content to stay at that level, unless you want to have an average performance in your business. In my case, I had to utilise the expertise of gurus who have helped others in the field and with strong market reputation. I utilised Jay Abraham’s ‘Marketing Mastermind and 93 Extraordinary Referral Systems’ which I used and quite honestly my income grew by more than 300% in twelve months just putting some of the tools shared by Jay Abraham. It is funny when I think about it now but I remembered when I started putting the techniques learnt and seeing the results. I remembered how I unwittingly sought advice from people who are not in business on a subject they know nothing about and sure enough they guided me towards the wrong directions. Thank God, I was wise enough to recognise when to put a break on their proposals. Remember, that it does not help you in any way to get someone who is not running a business to be advising you on this subject. If they know how to market they will be in business. Marketing is not just textbook stuff, it involves your interaction with yourself and others and much more.
Here are my top tips for start-up businesses trying to get their first sales and growing their business by at least 50% over eighteen months- consider them as my top tips.

• Start spending more than 25% of your time per week on marketing activities

• Recruit and utilise the skills of associates and joint venture partners to leverage time and boost sales income

• Seek ways of understanding your existing clients needs and develop solutions for them so that you can increase the average spend per clients

• Develop a marketing system using the likes of Jay Abrahams Marketing Mastermind System and be prepared to invest the time and money to put the system in place. No business will succeed without a solid system to support its success.

• Monitor the performance of all your marketing effort and do more of what works and less of what does not work.

• Seek expert advice and never take advice from people with no track record of doing what you are doing or for that matter with poor results in the area you are trying to master.
• To find out more about tools to assist your business in effective marketing, please visit www.businessservicessupport.com/marketing-strategies

Are you wondering why many women in business or black entrepreneurs are finding it challenging to start or grow their businesses successfully?

Do you know that numerous researches have identified that women and black businesses need a far greater support in:

• Business management
• Interpersonal & leadership skills

Do you know that in spite of these findings more and more women are going into business? In fact, various researches have shown that women owned businesses are growing faster than men owned businesses. Moreover, black women in business are growing faster than any other ethnic groups in the UK and dare I say the USA. This is “Good News” and I for one I am happy I am around to see this.

The Bad News- the support available for women in business and black business owners is not always adequate and a lot more needs to be done in this area. Coaching, mentoring and flexible training solutions are far and few between when it comes to support for women in business and black businesses. True, we should be grateful for what is available and I will advocate gratitude in all things.

So, what can I do about this? Well given that I now know for a fact that only 5% of businesses are successful, whilst the remainder find themselves extinct or die a natural death with three years (if they are lucky), I have been researching what it is that the 5% of businesses do that the 95% do not do. I set out to study the best business minds and got mentored and coached by some of the top successful business owners, authors, investors and coaches. The truth is this; you cannot start a successful business without the key ingredients for business success. You need to know what these ingredients are; otherwise you run the risk of wasting your time and money and giving up in the end. This is where the coaching, mentoring, training and consultancy services you get from me is different. It is holistic and robust. It helps you build a successful business from the inside out. It saves you headache and pain and helps you to bring the best out.

Take a look at my testimonials and you will see what people say about me. There are various products you can immediately access through this site. You can also attend our workshop events, tele-seminars or opt for online or face-to-face coaching.

Products:

1. Have you got what it takes to become an entrepreneur? – Entrepreneurial Indicator Test – Learn about the qualities and characteristic of successful entrepreneurs and practical strategies for developing these qualities. You also have immediate access to a self-assessment toolkit that you can complete and assess yourself against, using the results of the assessment to put together your personal development plan.

2.  Developing the foundation for business success” is a great audio resource that will help you learn the core foundation underpinning the success of all businesses that have made fortune in monetary terms. You learn how to identify your passion, mission and vision and take steps to achieve them

3.  How to generate, develop and protect you business ideas will show you how the mind works, strategies for boosting your creativity, tools you can use to fast track your creative powers, how to protect your business ideas from intellectual property theft and more.

4. My Business Is My Business is a great book that has been endorsed by millionaires who have personally taught me what they do differently from others. Now you can learn the secret of the millionaires.

5. To fast track your business, you want to become a member of my club where you get to learn a wealth of skills to help develop yourself and your business for accelerated growth. Go to  http://www.bssleaningcenter.com

6. For personal development skills, http://www.bsslearningcenter

Minority owned businesses in the UK are on the rise with recent statistics showing women playing a significant role in the business community. In my local area (London Borough of Greenwich), one cannot help but to notice a steady increase in the number of ethnic businesses springing up on the high street and this trend is expected to continue into the future.

Whilst this trend is a step in the right direction, new businesses, and to a large extent existing ones, will need to be sensitive to the challenges of building a successful business. Business support services can play a significant role in the nurturing and development stages of businesses. Equally important are opportunities for sharing best practices.

This article reveals what well known and respected business veterans say about the sources of their success. I am sure we can all learn from them.

Successful businesses take their customers’ perception about their products and services very seriously. They generally focus on quality, innovation and profitability. Under promising and over delivering is a guided principle that underpins their ethos. In addition they understand that their business is as good as the people who work for them. Consequently, cultivating a culture that values, respects and develops staff is a common strategy employed by successful businesses to gain the support and commitment of their staff. As a result, they are able to stem the cancer of high staff turnover that is prevalent in unsuccessful businesses.

It is a well-established fact that people will make or break a business and successful businesses understand this philosophy all too well. Successful businesses have retention strategies, which could take on various forms. One such strategy includes involving their staff in decision making through focus groups aimed at innovating, creating new products and encouraging a strong listening culture right across the organisation. In the final analysis, one cannot underplay the importance of strong leadership, competent managers and staff, integrity and honesty in the formula for business success.

Sheila Elliott is the managing director of Business Services Support Limited

http://www.businessservicessupport.com

email sheila@businessservicessupport.com

Many businesses purport that their greatest asset is their staff. On the other side many claim that their greatest headache is their staff. Whatever camp you belong to, be rest assured that people are vital to every business no matter what the technocrats may like us to believe. It is true that we live in the age of technological advancement and evolution with many businesses queuing to take advantage of the next automated system that comes into the market with a promised tag to streamline business processes, improve quality of services and products, deliver added value to customers and, to top it all, increase profitability for investors. Your staff are invaluable assets to your business but sadly there are very few managers that are adequately skilled to deal with staffing issues efficiently and effectively. Some even believe that staff are assets that must be controlled, until they are threatened with a resignation or strike action.

This article seeks to provide information on strategies successful managers use to get the best out of their staff. It is hoped that readers will benefit from this article and ensure their businesses improve their approach to managing staff in the future.

To start of with, you need to know that people are different in many respect and successful managers generally strive to know their people well enough to ensure they receive the necessary support to effectively undertake their jobs within the standards set by the business. Some of the differences in people include their learning styles, which can sometimes miss the radar of managers. You will be surprised to know that people take in information differently, with some learning through reading books, others through observations and reflection and others through practical hands on approach.  Equally, some people are thinkers and learn best using their auditory senses, others are more visionary and learn better through images whereas others are kinaesthetic and learn best through their emotions. In the light of all of these differences, successful managers generally provide support using mediums that are most appropriate to the learning style of their staff, as opposed to using as “One-Size-Fit-All” Approach.

Successful managers are acutely aware that it is not sufficient for their staff to know the overall objectives of the team, as well as the roles and responsibilities of individuals in the team. They take steps to communicate clearly to their staff and make time to deal with matters affecting their wellbeing. Whilst doing all of this, they simultaneously ensure that the overall objectives and goals of the business are kept well in focus.  Getting the best from staff is a balancing act between the managing the needs of the business and the needs of staff. Both needs should be given careful attention to avoid management paralysis, staff apathy and demotivation. This brings me to yet another point.

People are special types of resources in a business; they provide services to the business and must be treated with respect and value. Managers who consistently get the best out of their staff do not demean their staff and certainly avoid situations that will lead to humiliating staff.  Remember this simple formula:

“Getting the best from your staff = motivating staff + providing them with skills and knowledge required to do the job effectively”.

To motivate staff and train them effectively, a manager must know their staff well enough to ensure their proposal for performance improvement and motivation strategy is appropriate.

Over the next few weeks, we will be giving free consultation advice to businesses that need help in financial and human resource management. If you would like to take advantage of this do send me an email. For advice and support on this subject, contact sheila@businessservicessupport.com

Sheila Elliott is an expert in business  and personal development strategies. She is the founder of Business Services Support Limited and the author of My Business Is My Business- Learn How To Earn A Fortune. For more information about are free articles visit, http://www.businessservicessupport.com and http://www.sheilaelliott.com

Some of you may be asking if it is possible for a business to be profitable and bankrupt at the same time. Well the simple answer to this question is “Yes it is”.  A business can be profitable and be cash-strapped all at the same time. In practice, there are many businesses that precariously operate in this way. Some of them are under the misguided belief that their business is financially healthy just because they are generating strong profits.  The connection between profit and cash is hardly made by such businesses until their bank informs them that their cheques can no longer  be paid due to  lack of cash.

Understanding the rudimentary principles of interpreting and evaluating financial statements accurately can help businesses identify whether their business is profitable and liquid. In reality is cash is king, whereas profit is fantasy. A business with no cash will soon become insolvent regardless of whether it is profitable or not. In this article we will explore strategies businesses can implement to ensure they generate healthy cash and profits at the same time.

The first strategy is to set up a clear policy on credit sales.  Such strategy can include approving customers’ credit lines based on their credit ratings. To do this you must have a system in place to determine customers’ credit worthiness before approving credit lines. The next stage is to determine how much credit period to extend to customers. In determining the credit period, it is always advisable to find out what the normal practice in the industry is (e.g. 15 days, 30 days or more) and what credit period you can expect from your suppliers and bankers to cushion you over this period. All too often, small businesses in particular, give very long credit periods to large businesses only to run into cash flow problems owing to its inability to make timely collections from these customers. One way to get around this problem is to stipulate the payment terms clearly on the invoice before issuing it to the customer, as well as to charge interest on outstanding invoices after the approved credit period. But remember, the policy of charging interest on outstanding invoices after the credit period must be clearly communicated before it is enforced. Failure to communicate terms in advance could result in damaging the business’ relationship with its customers. Most successful businesses operate this policy and as a business owner you can do the same.

Other strategies you can use include using factoring agents, insuring against the risks of bad debts, negotiating competitive credit terms with suppliers and giving discounts to customers for prompt payments. For advice and support on this subject, contact sheila@businessservicessupport.com

Sheila Elliott is an expert in business  and personal development strategies. She is  the founder of Business Services Support Limited and the author of My Business Is My Business- Learn How To Earn A Fortune. For more information about are free articles visit, http://www.businessservicessupport.com and http://www.sheilaelliott.com

Why do some businesses believe they have no need for a business plan until they run into financial difficulties, whilst others spend colossal sums of money preparing a business plan exclusively for their shelves. These are questions I have asked very often as I work with SMEs, who consistently fall fowl of this practice. It may appear that the benefits of business planning are not quite understood by these businesses and hopefully this article will help shed some light on the subject.

From a practical perspective, it is inconceivable to find any reliable products in the market including our homes that was developed without any planning time set aside for the determination of the design, development and implementation process. One cannot deny that the process of planning can be time consuming and tedious, particularly as the benefits of the process is not immediate and often far from sight. However, lurked within the planning process is the opportunity to discover flaws in original ideas which in return  provides opportunities to improve them?

So what are the benefits that can be derived from business planning and how can a business maximise their returns from the process. First thing first, business planning is a management tool that aids the delivery of strategic objectives. The strategic objectives set out what a business want to do and where. A business plan simply helps map the path to achieve corporate objectives. But it must be stated that just because an organisation prepares a business plan does not automatically mean it will maximise the potential benefits from the planning process.  Getting the best results from business planning demands the management of the organisation possessing the right level of skills and competencies required to deliver a business plan as well as the motivation to do so. A business plan can look great on paper but unless someone rolls up their sleeves and get on with the work to bring the plan into reality, it will ultimately die with the business.

Therefore when an organisation prepares a business plan that is supported by a competent and motivated management team, as well as a competent workforce, here are some of the gems that can materialise:

• Effective alignment of a business’ resources in  markets that draw on their strengths
• Effective development of marketing strategies born out of  critical evaluation of operating market
• Better resource planning for effective delivery of corporate goals and objectives.

For more information on this topic, contact sheila@businessservicessupport.com

Sheila Elliott is an expert in business  and personal development strategies. She is  the founder of Business Services Support Limited and the author of My Business Is My Business- Learn How To Earn A Fortune. For more information about are free articles visit, http://www.businessservicessupport.com and http://www.sheilaelliott.com