Crisis Management

The Internet may have opened worlds for businesses and consumers, but it has also created a public relations nightmare for businesses. Forums, opinion Web sites, blogs, and anything that is publishable can smear a company's name in moments.

Remember, "Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel" presentation that described one customer's bad experience with a hotel chain? Hotels are run by humans. Humans make mistakes. It's how you handle the mistakes that can make the difference in customer service. Since the hotel's employees didn't try to help the customer overcome a bad situation, the customer lashed back and bloggers blogged it.

If the hotel is on top of its game, it would unleash its crisis management (also known as reputation management) team to salvage its reputation while it can. It's possible for a company to overcome bad PR and come out ahead as in the case of PG&E (California's Pacific Gas and Electric company).

Another strategy is to use Internet monitoring to monitor online articles regarding a company's activities to prepare for negative publicity. Some go further and monitor chat rooms, newsgroups, and online discussion forums.

It's like the story of the town gossip who spread false stories about its people. One day, he felt terrible and went to the chaplain [Rabbi, pastor, priest, or other — take your pick] to ask for forgiveness. The chaplain said,"I will forgive you, but you must do something first."

"Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the chaplain that he had done it, the chaplain said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."

The same can happen to a company without a crisis management plan in place. It's possible to survive the crisis and thrive as PG&E did. Don't expect Worldcom to pull out of its Enron-like mess. Fraud is not excusable. And Martha Stewart? She has hired a public relations strategist firm in an effort to do damage control. It'll be worth watching to see what happens in her case and how the PR firm attempts to save her reputation. Did you know there is a recall on one of her products? Adds fuel to the fire, doesn't it?

Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl's notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn't wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.

Increase Business Profits - Ten Ways

How do you increase business profits? Answer the following questions carefully, and you'll have a good start.

1. Can you increase the average sale? A restaurant with 25% profit margins might make 50% on additional sales to existing customers (less labor to bag one large order than two smaller ones). Asking "What would you like to drink with that?" works, and it's just a start.

2. What's the least expensive way to get a customer? Before you spend another thousand dollars advertising to get new customers, could you get as much business by spending a few hours contacting previous or existing customers?

3. What low risk ideas can you try? I once sent a letter to several visiting basketball teams, inviting them to visit our restaurant, and giving the coach a free meal as an incentive. The cost? Two dollars. The pay off was two busloads of customers. At that rate, you could increase your business profits even if nine out of ten ideas fail.

4. Have you tested prices? I knew a store that sold a product for a $1.05, that cost them $1.00. At a price of $1.20, it is doubtful that they'd lose half their sales, but if they did, they'd still make twice the profit. Some things even sell better at a higher price. Test.

5. Can you measure your advertising results? How do you know that you're not spending more for a customer than they're worth? Coupons, customer surveys and other methods of measurement are a must.

6. How do you know your customers are satisfied? The worst restaurant meal we ever ate went down without a comment, but we never returned to that restaurant. Maybe the owner should be talking to the customers.

7. Can you enhance the percieved value of your product? Years ago, I sold walking sticks for $10 at flea markets, and $20 at craft shows. Sometimes location alone can enhance the percieved value of a product. What else can you do?

8. What are similar businesses doing? See what your successful competitors are doing. Can you do the same?

9. What other products can you sell? There's a reason stores have candy and magazines near the checkout. Extra sales are a great way to increase business profits.

10. Can you use your customers as salesmen? Word of mouth is a start, but what other ways can you get your customers to bring their friends to you?

These were culled from a longer list. I call it "stolen business ideas," because I can't credit the original authors. I took them where I found them over the years, with grattitude, but without notes.

Steve Gillman has been studying every aspect of money for thirty years. You can find more interesting and useful information on his website; http://www.EverythingAboutMoney.info

Advertising Campaigns That Get Results

"Advertising doesn't work." I hear it from my clients all the time. One client was about to file for bankruptcy because she wasn't getting a good response to her radio ads, and the cost was killing her. But she knew her target market was listening; she knew she needed to get her name out there to generate more business. What should she do?

Owners of small businesses and professionals like yourself realize that to take your business to the next level, you need to get your products and services in front of a larger audience. You want to generate more leads, get more prospects to contact you and buy from you. Advertising is essential but how do you get more out of your advertising dollars?

Have you been disappointed by your advertising campaigns?

I felt the same way about my family's VCR. I paid good money for it (though probably not nearly as much as most people pay for advertising) and as far as I was concerned I could never get it to work the way I wanted it to. I spent way too much time fiddling with it and I still couldn't get it to record a TV show or a movie reliably when I was away. After a while I stopped trying to use its record function.

Sound familiar?

Compared to programming a VCR, creating a successful advertising campaign is simple. Note the operative word here is "successful". It's easy to put together an advertising campaign, but creating one that helps you make more than you spend should be the objective. The following seven elements are what separate a successful advertising campaign from one that just costs you money.

Elements of A Successful Advertising Campaign

1. Choose the media that will reach your target market. It sounds obvious, but make sure your target audience will see and/or hear your ad. Select a publication or radio or cable station that your target audience reads or tunes to. If you're advertising on the web, your keyword selection is critical here.

2. Write ad copy that your prospects will want to read. Your prospects' primary interest is in what your product or service will do for them, not what it actually is. Which would you be more likely to read, a headline that reads, "Accounting Services" or one that reads, "How to Avoid Overpaying Your Taxes"?

3. Have others establish your credibility. If space allows, include testimonials in your ad verifying the outstanding results your products and services generate.

4. Motivate prospects to contact you Include a limited-time offer or something for free — a report, appraisal or bonus product — to prompt your prospects to take action.

5. Tell prospects what you want them to do and how to do it. This is your "call to action". Tell them to call you, visit your web site, send you an email, fill in the reply card, etc.

6. Follow up your offer with the information prospects need to make a purchase. Too many people make the mistake at this point in the sales process of launching into a s.ales pitch. Whether your prospect is on the phone with you or is visiting your web site, help them clarify the problem or concern they have and detail the solution you provide. Then remind them what action you want them to take.

7. Continue to educate your prospects and clients. Stay in touch with likely prospects by contacting them at least every month. Get the conversation going by discussing a common problem. Give your prospects a quick tip they can use and, of course, mention the solutions you provide.

A successful advertising campaign will include all seven of the above elements, not just one or two. When you put all these elements in place, your advertising will generate more leads and sales and you’ll see a good return on your advertising dollars.

By the way, the client who came to me on the verge of bankruptcy is now back on solid financial ground. Once she understood how to write her advertising copy and manage her advertising campaigns, her radio advertising started to bring in a steady stream of new business.

2005 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.

The author, Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive the Free Marketing Strategy eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com

How To Uncover Your Passion For Ultimate Success - Part 2!

My belief is that when you do something you really enjoy doing and you find a way to help others while doing it, making money is just a natural end result.

However, if you are not yet as confident of the above beliefs as I am, you can always check to see if there's a demand for the subject you chose in part one before you go any further.

Just go to www.yahoo.com and do a search for whatever it is you've decided to do. Let's say that we decided to sell recipes and cookbooks. In which case, we would run a search for words such as: recipes, recipe book, cookbook, cooking, etc. If you don't find any sites dealing with recipes and cooking and you'd rather not take a chance pursuing that, you can move on to the next choice on your list. If you do find many sites about them, you have established that people are in fact interested in recipes and cookbooks.

The reason I picked Yahoo to search on is this: getting a good listing on Yahoo is not easy. It can also get very expensive. That means, if there are companies who have gone through the trouble of getting good listings on Yahoo, they have probably done so for very good reasons. In other words, there is money to be made with recipes and cookbooks.

You can also run a search on www.amazon.com for recipe books and/or even step into your local Barnes & Noble bookstore to check out their front shelves.

While we're on the subject of 'doing what you love,' let me take this opportunity to share something else of importance.

Most new marketers tend to start by selling marketing products. And while there is still money to be made in marketing products, it's not like it used to be. These days, the competition in the marketing field is fierce and I don't see it letting up anytime soon.

You will have a much easier time succeeding with non-marketing products. In other words, "niche marketing" - doing what you love, what you enjoy, what you have a passion for.

Let me also point out that I've made more money with special-interest 'niche' products than with all of my other marketing products combined! And I have quite a few marketing products out there. I hope that gives you some idea of the importance of pursuing a market that you have a love, passion or interest for, instead of going after something that seems to be making other people money.

If you absolutely love marketing and showing others how to market, then by all means sell marketing products. Otherwise, stick with what you enjoy and love, and become the king (or queen) of that niche!

Discover how to turn your hobby, special interest, or expertise into a niche market worth over $12,000 a month in your spare time. Visit: http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/nichemarketing.html.

How To Uncover Your Passion For Ultimate Success - Part 1!

Once you have prepared your body and mind for success, it's time for the next step and to choose the right target to shoot for. The more clear you are on what you're shooting for, the better your chances will be of hitting the mark.

I would lock myself in my room and take the phone off the hook...or even better, find a place away from your normal environment, a quiet peaceful place, preferably around nature - in the woods or a nice park, etc.

Once I'm there, I would take a few moments to relax and soak it all in. Get your mind to a calm, comfortable, relaxed state. Then, I would start by making a list of all the things I enjoy doing, all of my interests and hobbies, all of my passions. Since we're starting from scratch, we might as well pick a subject/business that we would enjoy doing, right?

I would spend at least a good few hours on really getting this information out of myself. Think of what your ideal jobs or careers are. What have you enjoyed doing in the past? What did you enjoy a lot as a kid? What are the things that really make you come alive? Add everything to the list. Don't worry about how you're going to make money doing those things yet. Just put together as thorough a list as you can.

See...you want to do what you enjoy, what you love.

Pick the kind of lifestyle you want first - then build the business around that!

Only after your list is done, should you think of turning those hobbies/interests/passions into a business. Pick the top 5 choices out of your list and think of how you can help others by doing them. For example, if you really enjoy cooking and that was one of your top 5 choices, you can now start thinking of ways to turn that into a business.

You could, for example, share your recipes with others, teach them to cook like you, or you could even cook for them. Personally, I love selling information. So, I would probably decide to sell an informational product, say a book of recipes, a 'learn-to-cook' type of manual, or something along those lines.

My belief is that when you do something you really enjoy doing and you find a way to help others while doing it, making money is just a natural end result.

(Feel free to use this article online and in your email newsletters as long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. The by-line and resource box must remain in the article all links must be active hyperlinks.)

Discover how to turn your hobby, special interest, or expertise into a niche market worth over $12,000 a month in your spare time. Visit: http://www.asuccesfullhomebusiness4u.com/nichemarketing.html.

Making Money By Outsourcing

So you are thinking to yourself "how can I expand my operation, do more business and make more money?". If you are thinking this right now and are in the web design or webhosting fields then Outsourcing might be for you. Now this is not to say that other companies or businesses can't do outsourcing work. The reasons I give web design and webhosting as examples is they are sort of related. You can't have a site up without hosting in return you really don't need hosting unless you have a site up.

Now you may be thinking what steps do you need to get started on expanding via outsourcing. Well the very first thing for you to do is to see if you have a good clients base where you are:

-Unable to keep up with the work.

-Unable to do the work yourself(in the case you run a website that gets alot of request but have no knowledge in website design).

-Can do website and graphic works but you have no clue about programming.

Anyone of these situations can leave you looking to outsource your business. Especially when you design websites but can not code them in anything but html(which your clients might need it coded in php and mysql). Not being able to offer your clients a complete solution may cause them to go another developer. Which in turn can cause you to lose projects in the $X,XXX range.

Now that you have decided to turn to outsourcing, you need to find a reliable team of developers. Whether they are website designers, programmers or both. You will need to know that they can do the work, are reliable and trustworthy. Make sure when you do this search that you follow these simple rules and check on some things. Such as:

-Make sure you can contact them multiple ways and that they will contact you back in a reasonable amount of time.

-Get samples of their work.

-Ask for references.

-Get their rates.

-Find out their years of experience.

-Make sure they are willing to sign a contract.

-Find out how much work they can handle, what languages they program in, as well as their team size.

-It is all right to give them a deposit but limit it to 25-50% and don't pay anymore until the project is complete. If you want to break it down into milestones you can, but do it in either 10% or 20% increments. Make sure the milestones are set out in the contract.

These things will protect you.

The next thing you are going to want to do before taking on any projects is start with a test project. This will allow you to try out your new team as well as see what type of markup on projects you will get. This will definitely show you what problems if any you might face with the new team. It will also show you if there is a significant enough markup for you to make it worth your time to outsource.

The final step you are going to need to do is to put in place a fluent system to monitor clients, emails and your team. This will definitely help when updates are needed to be done. A project management system will allow your clients and your team to talk to each other without revealing any personnel contact information. Which will save you from having your clients stolen from you. Also make sure you monitor all contact so that you can be sure you can trust who you are doing business with.

Just remember to take outsourcing one step at a time.

Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business at http://www.logo2d.com

Why Keeping Your Business and Time Organized Will Help You Be Succesful

In any business the old saying "Time is Money" is very true. For every minute that is waisted could mean the loss of revenue or another potential client. This is seen for every business including a one or two man operation. Since the duties of the company will be either put on you totally or split between partners. Keeping your time organized will not only free you up to focus on other business related issues, which will allow you take care of more each and every day. It will also help lead you to success.

Whether you have 5 minutes or 5 hours you need to treat every minute precious. Some businesses work so efficient that it seems they can get 10 hours done in half the time. While other businesses waiste their time and are always trying to play catch up. Every time they get caught up on the work from yesterday, tomorrow they will have to get caught up on the work they had to skip from today. Which usually gets them into a catch 22 , which not only makes you or your employees have to work harder and longer hours to get everything in order. Your clients will also feel the delays that come along with this and may decide to opt-out for a business who can run their business right.

Keeping your company organized will allow you to stay on track when it comes to day to day operations. This is key for any business who has to meet deadlines and deliver products to clients. Organizing day to day operations will allow you to group activities that need to be addressed together. So if you need to pick up paper, ink for the printer and envelopes, you should be able to do this in one shot. So instead of making three trips during the week, do them all in one shot. This will not only save you time on having to go out to the store for the things you need, it will also allow you to stay in a steady progress without having to leave what you are doing to run out.

To organize yourself is actually very easy. Make a list of your day to day operations so that you can see what you need to do during the week. This will help create an outline of what you will need to do for your business and will give you a time table to run your business by. Make each day represent something for your company such as: Mondays - Go To The Store : Tuesday - Send Out Mail ect... Making a time table and tracking your time will help your business run more efficient and effective!

Anthony Jewell has over 6 Years experience in the Web & Graphics World. You can visit my business at http://www.logo2d.com

©Copyright 2005 Logo2D.com : Feel free to use this article freely but please keep in the copyright

How Starting A Part Time Internet Business Can Yield A Full Time Income

Most people spend their day traveling from home to work and back home again slogging really hard at their offices. The reason why you remain as poor as you are is that the boss takes a slice of the profits by leveraging on your work done for them. Now before you get bitter, why not start your own internet business part time and turn the tables on society and become the boss of your own business for once. This article explains how starting an internet business in your part time can allow you to make money online.

Leverage on the internet

When I market anything online, this is seen by everyone in the English speaking world online. Can you imagine the reach of online advertising today? Google the largest search engine company now became big because of advertising. By starting an internet business, you too can take part in this new global market and make money from it.

In addition, making money on the internet means that you can make money while you sleep. That’s why some internet marketers make massive amounts of money online but all this wealth is well hidden from the Forbes and Tattler International Magazines.

Leverage on systems

When people first started to market they did telemarketing and sales was dependent on the person making the phone calls and the training they did. This limits the amount of sales to the number of people who pick up calls. Today with the advent of the internet and marketing systems, I can have literally hundreds of people visiting my website and when they signup to learn more, I can leverage on automated systems to followup with them and encourage them to make a purchase.

Leverage on other people’s time

The combination of the internet, mlms and two tier affiliate programs has brought with it the unprecedented ability to make massive amounts of money by leveraging on the power of a downline or affiliate program. These basically allow you to make money whenever your affiliate or downline sells your product for you. Once you have an established system and your downline follows your success, you can then notice that the more you work, the more people follow you and the more money you make. Massive I would say as the more sales people in your team, the more money you will make.

In conclusion, the internet represents a large market for internet marketers and those intending on starting an internet business. Only if you have the determination, zeal, the right program and the right system will you be able to make money online. An internet business therefore represents the best way today to make money from your home even while you are sleeping.

Copyright © 2005-2006 Joel Teo the Coolest Guy On The Planet

Joel Teo is the successful owner of several successful internet business ventures. Click here to learn how you can start your own successful internet business today. http://www.massive-profits-online.com