Ten Stupid Sayings About Business
July 17, 2007
Here are ten stupid sayings about business, and by business owners. Don’t worry if you have a bad case of foot in mouth - there’s hope for you yet. Some of the dumbest sayings here are by Bill Gates and his stupid quotes didn’t stop him from becoming one of the biggest entrepreneurs of all time.
“My son is now an entrepreneur. That’s what you’re called when you don’t have a job” by Ted Turner
“I understand small business growth. I was one.” George W Bush
“Over a long weekend, I could teach my dog to be an investment banker.” Herbert Allen.
“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer.” Bill Gates.
“In a meeting the client rep told us to “think outside the box” and “make me uncomfortable”. He quit the week before the site launched. Guess we made him too uncomfortable.” A poster on www.tofslie.com/client quotes. There’s some hilarious stuff on there.
“I see little commercial potential for the Internet for at least ten years.” Bill Gates, 1994.
“I see no progress in this industry. These clocks are no faster than the ones they made a hundred years ago.” Henry Ford (whilst touring a museum).
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, Chairman - IBM.
“Marketing is what you do when your product is no good.” Edwin Land.
“If there’s a burglar in my home, maybe I send an e-mail or a text message to the police instead of making a call.” Niklas Zennstrom, co -founder of Skype speaking about the service’s lack of 911 access.
You can read more stupid sayings on business here.
Stop F…ing About: Time Management Tips for Internet Start Ups
July 16, 2007
Do you feel as though you’re working round the clock on your new Internet business but not getting anywhere? If you’re like many start ups, you probably waste a lot of time f…ing about, because you don’t have the necessary time management skills. Time management can be overwhelming for a start up business, especially if you’re trying to do everything yourself. Internet start ups can struggle even more, as there are so many distractions online Follow these time management tips, to get you on track:
- Make a list of every single job you do, from the start of the day to the finish and record how long each task takes. Don’t cheat - record everything, from posting blog comments, to surfing the Internet for research.
- At the end of the day, examine your list, and be honest. Which tasks took up most of your time? Which tasks will actually bring in more revenue to your business? How long did you spend just wasting time, because you hadn’t planned anything better to do? Which tasks could be done quicker if they were automated? How often did you check your emails?
- If you checked your emails give yourself a slap, and resolve not to check them more than two or three times a day - first thing in the morning, lunchtime, and last thing in the evening. Delete all the ones you don’t intend or need to respond to. If you find yourself answering the same questions, over and over - write automated emails to respond.
- Mark all the tasks that could have been done quicker if they were automated, and set up a system to automate them. Is there anything on your list that you could outsource to someone else? If so, do so. Content management, design, research etc can all be outsourced. Try www.getfriday.com or www.elance.com If you really can’t afford to outsource right now, do so as soon as you can. Remember, outsourcing can free up your time, allowing you more time to concentrate on work that will bring money in to your business, so it should pay for itself.
- How many things did you do that were a complete waste of time? For example - did you spend 2 hours in forums? Cut back the time you spend in forums right now - and limit yourself to once a day forum visits, for no more than 30 minutes.
- Did you reply to 100 blog posts? Stop right now. You’d be far better of reading a select few blog posts each day, and making an intelligent comment on each. Make a small list of blogs you would like to visit, and as with the forum posts, dedicate no more than 30 minutes all in one go to visiting blogs.
- What things did you do that were a total waste of time? Cut them from your daily activities right now.
- Is there an important, long term task that is overwhelming you and you feel as though you won’t finish it - eg. writing an ebook? Break the task down into small daily chunks, then allocate a set amount of time to that task each day. In the case of an ebook, you could allocate an hour to writing each day, or alternatively - set yourself a target amount of words per day.
- Make a list of what you need to do each day, on the previous evening. Make sure you do the most important tasks first, and if you find timewasters creeping in again, resolve to stamp them out.
- Finally, please don’t make the excuse that you don’t have the time to do this, and you can’t be bothered to make a list each evening. These tips will save you a heap of time. If you really want to grow a successful internet business, stop f…ing about and start managing your time effectively.
How to Use Celebrities to Skyrocket Your Business
July 15, 2007
Celebrity usage of your product or service could skyrocket your business. Of course paying for celebrity endorsement is out of reach of most small businesses, but there are ways to use celebrities to promote your business for free. Here’s a few celebrity marketing tips:
If a celebrity does visit your business by chance do let everyone know. This week, an antiques shop in a small town made the local news station and papers because Barbara Streisand visited his shop. Nobody else saw Barbara visit the shop, but I can bet it was inundated with customers this week, eager to see the local store that Barbara Streisand bought 8 items from. Now I’m not suggesting for one minute that you “invent” a visit, but would anyone really know if you did?
Offer a sample of your product or service to a celebrity. Note, many top celebrities will be inundated with free stuff, so choose your target carefully.  There are a few great websites with contact details for celebrities, so it really is possible to use the Internet to contact just about any celebritiy worth contacting.
Contact appropriate magazine editors regarding your product or service. Many of the top magazine editors have a huge celebrity status and just one recommendation from them could see you inundated with orders. If you have a unique product - do send a sample. Also, many magazines are willing to feature links to new websites, so be sure to look out for these and send them your details.
Raise money for your chosen celebrity’s favourite charity. Let them know what you are doing and ask them to present the money to the charity on your behalf. Then issue press releases, and contact newspapers, tv etc to let them know what you are doing. Obviously, you will probably not get national media coverage, but contact publications in your local area, the local area of the charity and the local area of the celebrity. Even if they refuse to present the prize, they are likely to respond to the letter thanking you for helping out the charity, and you can use that letter when contacting the media.
Celebrity photos and info are all over the Internet. Search for stories or pictures of celebs using a similar product to yours. For example, if you find a pic of Madonna wearing a similar item of jewellery to one which you sell, feature the photo in your marketing materials with the product with the caption, “As seen on Madonna.” The product does not need to be identical. For example, you may read that Oprah uses products containing Aloe Vera. If you sell a product containing Aloe Vera there is no harm in using the wording - as used by Oprah.
Try the soft sell - write a personal letter to a new and upcoming celebrity telling them how much you admire something they have done. Scour the press for something unusual - eg. they might remember you more if you refer to an article regarding their stance on a worthwhile course, rather than telling them how great they were in their first movie debut. A week or so later, follow up by sending them a sample of your product.
It may seem like hard work to put some of these ideas into practice, and they may not all work, but remember just one celeb endorsement could boost your sales more than a hundred other marketing campaigns could.
6 Tips to Keep Your Customers Coming Back
July 13, 2007
Successful small businesses stay that way because they ensure that they make their customers come back. You must ensure that you do this from day one in your business, because no matter how wonderful your product or service is, if you don’t keep in touch, they will forget all about your business.
- Don’t worry though, the average business doesn’t bother to keep in touch with customers at all, so if you follow these tips, you’ll be a step ahead of your competitors.
- Call or email your customer after the first transaction to ensure they were happy with your service. If they weren’t, this is your golden opportunity to put things right. If they were, ask them if they mind you calling them every couple of months.
- Send a thank you card and small gift after the first transaction. Barely anyone does this, and most people really do appreciate it.
- Send them regular mailings, or emails with information and offers they may be interested in. Make the letters interesting though. If all you’re doing is trying to sell, your mail is likely to go into the trash unread.
- Send them a questionnaire. Most of your customers will appreciate the fact that you find their opinion important, and you’ll be surprising what you will learn from the results. Also, a well crafted questionnaire will enable you to learn a lot about your customer, which will enable you to fulfil their needs, and therefore make more sales.
- Don’t send the usual Christmas cards. Often this is the only time of year that most companies do bother to get in touch with their customers. If you do want to send a Christmas card anyway, send it at the beginning of December, but be creative, send cards at different times of year such as Easter, Halloween, or the anniversary of their first purchase.
If you’re first starting out, and haven’t even had one customer yet, you may be thinking that these tips are not important to you, but they are, and you should put them into place from day one. Customer retention is essential to the success of your business. Think of it this way, if your first sale averages at $50, with $20 being profit, and it costs you $15 to get a new customer, you’re only making $5 profit per customer. But, with repeat business, you may easily make $500 per customer, and it still only cost you the original $15 to get that customer, plus the small amount it costs to stay in touch.
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