Casual Articles - Business

Business Planning Overview
The successful entrepreneur is generally more inclined, once a business idea is selected, to sharpen the concept by a detailed planning process. The result of this step is a comprehensive business plan, with its major components being the marketing "mix," the strategic plan, operational and logistical structures, and the financial proposal. The purpose of the business plan is to recognize and define a business opportunity, describe how that opportunity will be seized by the management team, and to demonstrate that the business is feasible and worth the effort.The business plan is the "blueprint" for the implementation process. It focuses on the four major sub-plans: marketing; strategy; operational/logistic; and financial. While the business plan often goes through some revision, it generally represents a rather advanced stage in the planning process. The primary product or service to be offered, based on the results of the market research, should be determined. Whether the business will be a start-up, purchase of an existing business or a franchise should certainly be firm at this point. Often, a specific business location is indicated,

and on- line through Lexis-Nexis. This hardbound, three-volume set ($505) is the motherload of associations - showing detailed information on more than 23,000 local, state, national, and international associations.

Trade show lists are also great marketing tools - lists of both attendees and of exhibitors. Check out two great websites: www.tscentral.com and www.tradeshowweek.com for trade show information. The Tradeshow Week Data Book (213-965-5300; $355) is a great tool published by the editors of Tradeshow Week Magazine. Another great trade show directory is the TradeShows and Exhibits Schedule from Bill Communications (800-266-4712, 856-619-5800) - organized by industry, by location, by date, and in alphabetical order for fast look-ups.

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Direc

How Not to Improve Things Even Worse!
Wikipedia states that “Change management is a structured approach to change in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that enables the transition from a current state to a desired future state.”So, why is it that the implementation of change breaks down so often in organisations?Kurt Lewin postulated that there are 3 broad stages to change; these being:· Unfreezing (i.e. planning and preparation)· Change implementation, and· Refreezing (consolidation and refinement)The language of “freezing” is illustrative of reality in organisations. People do naturally become “frozen” into familiar patterns, environments and behaviours. Life does need to have a degree of predictability in order for us to function. However, herein lays a major challenge for a significant change.Effectively implementing organisational change is clearly a management responsibility. However, human beings throughout an organisation need to “feel” the need for change. Even an intellectual understanding that things could be done better is not enough to engage individuals in a change process. Nothing beats the proverbial WIIFM

There are two types of lists, determined by their origin: compiled lists and response lists.

Compiled lists are a common source of names and records that have been gathered, collected, and entered into a database. The names may have been acquired through public records such as vehicle owner registrations or high school teachers. Directories, such as a directory of plant maintenance engineers, are usually compiled lists. Many lists are compiled from categories in phone books across the U.S. Examples would be all the photography shops or all the luggage dealers in the United States. Or all the plumbing supply dealers.

Keep in mind that compiled information - like fish - gets old rather quickly and doesn’t age particularly well.

Response lists are data from people who have responded to an ad or who have purchased from a catalog, direct mail package, TV ad,or other offer.

With any mailing you are considering, first ask precisely what groups or what characteristics make up the perfect audience. Then try to find a list that matches these definable characteristics closely.

Good delivery percentages of your mailing piece to a specific audience can usually be found in lists of magazine subscribers. These lists are usually very targeted to their audience, and good because most publishers are extremely prompt with their name and address corrections. Call a magazine publisher and ask if their subscriber list is for sale, then ask for the name of their list broker.

There are over 10,000 magazines published so you can probably get a magazine subscription list that goes straight to your perfectly targeted buyers. If you’re not sure what magazines would be best, there are some easy-to-use periodical directories found in most reference libraries. The best directories of magazines are Burrelle’s Directory of Magazines (800-USMEDIA), Bacons (800-621-0561), SRDS (800-851- SRDS), and Oxbridge Communications Standard Periodical Directory (800-955-0231). If you can’t find the exact targeted magazine filled with the eager-to-buy-your-product subscribers you are looking for in any of these directories, the publication doesn’t exist. You can find any industry - and all the magazines that are sent to that industry - in under 10 minutes in these useful directories.

Catalog houses earn a good portion of their revenue from the sale of their lists. Call the catalog and ask for their business office, then ask who handles their list sales. Almost all catalog houses sell their lists. Catalog houses can be found in the Catalog of Catalogs from Woodbine House Publications (www.woodbinehouse.com; 800-843-7323; $28.95 PPD), and The Directory of Mail Order Catalogs from Grey House Publishing (www.greyhouse.com; 800-562-2139; $250).

Trade associations are usually an excellent source of mailing lists. Better associations always list the industry’s major players. Local associations like the Chamber of Commerce in your area are usually good for local business names. You can select by business size, number of employees, SIC code (the government’s industry classification of each business), or any of a multitude of other selection parameters. Two great sources for finding associations are reference books from Columbia Books, Inc. (888-265-0600; www.columbiabooks.com) publishers of the State and Regional Associations Directory ($79) and The National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States ($99). Mailing lists of the associations are $100/M and are available on labels or disk.

Association lists and data are also available in the Encyclopedia of Associations by The Gale Group (800-877-GALE) on disk, CD, and on- line through Lexis-Nexis. This hardbound, three-volume set ($505) is the motherload of associations - showing detailed information on more than 23,000 local, state, national, and international associations.

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Direct

How to Profit from Your Expertise (Part 1 of 2)
Are you looking for a natural way to market your professional services? What if you could exponentially multiply the number of motivated, pre-qualified prospects you reach in a fraction of the time that networking and referrals require?Now what if you could be the person in a crowed room with whom everyone wants to talk about your services? And no, they don’t want to sell you something…they want to buy what you’ve got.Too good to be true? Not if you know how to leverage the knowledge you get paid for every day as a professional service provider. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, sharing what you know is the #1 fastest way to attract more clients.Hands-down, the two best ways to do this are by writing articles and giving talks.In this month’s e-newsletter, I’ll give you detailed guidelines for packaging your knowledge that really work. Next month, we’ll cover where to look for knowledge-sharing opportunities and how to make them happen.STEP 1: Get InspiredIf you’ve been reading this e-newsletter since at least February, you may recall that issue was all about how to get started with using your expertise

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Direc

Case Study; Motivating Owner Operated Franchisees in a Franchise Company
Motivating individual franchisees in a franchise Company is very difficult work especially when these franchisees are all or operators and participate in the day-to-day operations other businesses. Having been founder of a franchise Company we always use creative ways to set the tone and motivating our franchisee team members during regional and annual meetings.Below is an excerpt from a regional team meeting speech, which I gave to one of our Midwest franchise group;“Your personal business goals can be achieved with lots of hard work on your part and still stay within our main System wide sales goal by letting us know which way you want to grow in your territory. If you are in a cold climate and want to change your market mix to include more of one type of washing than another, then tell us so we do not inadvertently over sell in your area services that are not on your top priority list.If you provide me this set of goals by the January 17 with your royalty payment, I will reduce the payment by $50.00 per page up to $350.00. You may submit more pages if you wish to help us understand your needs better. To help us best i

rrelle’s Directory of Magazines (800-USMEDIA), Bacons (800-621-0561), SRDS (800-851- SRDS), and Oxbridge Communications Standard Periodical Directory (800-955-0231). If you can’t find the exact targeted magazine filled with the eager-to-buy-your-product subscribers you are looking for in any of these directories, the publication doesn’t exist. You can find any industry - and all the magazines that are sent to that industry - in under 10 minutes in these useful directories.

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Direc

Car Wash Fundraisers; To Vacuum or Not to Vacuum - That is the Question
If you are doing a car wash fundraiser for a youth group, baseball team or even a high school band then you will want to wash as many cars as possible during the car wash fundraiser Saturday. To increase the number of cars washed and to keep the flow of cars that are washed moving through the line it makes sense to only offer simple services.This means you should offer a car wash and dry with special attention to the Windows. It is not wise to offer vacuuming of cars that come through the car wash fundraiser. This is because you will need many people to bring their shop vacs from home and many may not work when they're done, as the filters will be clogged or they will be used and abused.Additionally the chances of getting a minivan, which literally takes 30 minutes to vacuum because it has not been cleaned out for three years is inevitable. After personally doing hundreds of car wash fundraisers myself I have noted that each time a nonprofit group tried to vacuum cars they either held up the line or many people were not satisfied with the vacuum job.If you can't please customers by doing an excellent vacuum job then you're

800-562-2139; $250).

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Direc

Green Revolution in Africa: Merging of Indigenous Knowledge and Other Knowledge Systems Through User
IntroductionAt the Africa Leadership Awards Ceremony held in South Africa the former president of Zambia, dr. Kenneth Kaunda pleaded for a Green Revolution in Africa in order to meet hunger and poverty by working together as a people of one continent. This plea was made in the belief that “in unity there is strength” (Eze, 2006). This amongst other, demands a rethinking of how synergism can be established between the knowledge systems available in the global village and the available indigenous knowledge systems in Africa to develop appropriate knowledge and processes to address the particular problems and opportunities of this rich endowed continent. Too date, little interact has happen between indigenous knowledge production in Africa and global knowledge production.Neglecting proper integration of these two important knowledge systems may over the long term have a detrimental effect on the development efforts of Africa. In this regard Hart (2006) remarked that both forms of knowledge are evidence of dynamic processes of observation, investigation and experimentation, that both can include and adapt external innovation

Two excellent resources for investigating lists at the library are the SRDS Direct Marketing List Source™ (800-851-SRDS) and the Oxbridge Communications National Directory of Mailing Lists (800-955- 0231). We use both in our own office - they’re thorough and exceptionally easy to use. These reference tools are each about the size of the Manhattan phone book and contain nothing but list data: who owns what list, number of records in each, source of names and, list pricing. Both tools are available in major libraries.

List brokers are found in the phone book in every major city. They can be heaven, supplying incredible information, or hell, looking for that fast buck. Make sure you ask tons of questions before handing over any money. While you pay the broker, he actually works for the list owner - so take that into consideration when you ask questions and negotiate price.

A plethora of list managers of mailing lists can be found in the direct mail trade magazines such as Catalog Age & Direct Magazines: 203/ 358-9900, Target Marketing: 215/238-5300, Direct Marketing: 516/746- 6700, and DM News: 212/741-2095.

Some list brokers sell through their own catalog of mailing lists. These handy reference tools will give you an idea of just what’s out there - what kind of lists are available and counts of how many records exist in the thousands of different list categories. Want to know how many dentists there are? It’s a piece of cake: 190,168 are members of the ADA. Want to know if there is a list of picky ale drinkers? Find the list of “Ale in the Mail-Continuity Members:” 70,973 of them. Selling an accounting product? Try the list of Accounting Institute Seminar Attendees - all 78,634 of them. Looking for college professors? Did you want the 43,347 who teach English, or the 18,184 who teach history, or the 8,477 in marketing, or the 9,194 philosophy teachers, or the…

If you need additional information - like how many doctors who specialize in allergies and are the head of their practice with four or more employees can be found in Pennsylvania - call any of these catalog houses and ask them to run a count. You’ll be able to get that information in about ten minutes. Hugo Dunhill: 800/223-6454, American Business Lists: 800/555-5335, Best Mailing Lists: 800/692- 2378, CompilersPlus: 800/431-2914, and Edith Roman: 800/223-2194 to name just a few. More phone numbers can be found in my books Uncommon Marketing Techniques and How To Market A Product For Under $500!

Several companies now offer lists of every business or every person in the U.S. on CD-ROM. These products allow you to create your own list criteria and generate your own precisely targeted mailing lists. Some of the better programs make it easy and fast to use their CD-ROM products. Mailing list CDs are available from InfoUSA: 800/321-0869, and Global Business International: 407/568-5037 to name but two.

One of the best resources for lists is the Internet. There’s no getting around it now, the Internet is here to stay — you might as well get on and get used to it. It’s a great - probably the best - research tool available for almost anything, if you can filter out the crap from the good stuff. But… isn’t that the way with all research tools: you gotta figure out which is the good stuff that you can use, and which is the bad stuff that you’ve just spent the last two hours looking over and have now figured out is pretty worthless.

You’d be surprised how many of your competitors will sell your their customers’ names. If not competitors, how about asking other businesses who serve your market if you can purchase their mailing lists.

Of course, the best list of all - bar none - is your own house list of current and past customers. These are the folks that know you and trust you; they’ve experienced that great customer s

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Everybody likes to see big fat pay cheques coming in, hell some of us even deserve them from time to time but what makes a client keep handing over the readies over and over again and how can you as a lowly graphic designer among a sea of equally unidentifiable no-marks hope to secure new graphic design or website design contracts? Best read on my friends as we give you the insider knowledge to equip you in this never ending rat race to swindle your fellow man

Career counselors teach you only that they perceive is all about guidance. This article tells about the often unveiled secrets of preparing for job interviews.

How can performance appraisals be valuable if managers and employers don't understand the point? It's time to stop focusing on the past, and blaming in performance appraisals, and look to the future to improve performance. When managers look to the future the whole appraisal process becomes more useful, and much more comfortable.

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