photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³

So you have made the first step and decided to start your own business, congratulations! Now you need to know what it takes to run your own business, resources, who to hire, how to market, and all of the other avenues that need to be explored. For now, I will give you some basic steps on starting your own business which should get your plan into motion.

1. Know your customer. NYTimes recently stated that your customer is your number one priority, and this I would have to agree. They are your bread and butter, they are what will make your business bring in profits or not. Focus on a specific group in your area, people who may have the most stress or hardship in their lives at the moment, these people will be more willing to bet on new ideas as they don’t really have anything to loose.
2. Know the market. This is very key, you need to drown yourself in the current market and know everything you can about what is going on right now. The newest trends, the trends that are expected to grow and go far in the future, who is investing in what type of market and more.
3. Do research on your start-up costs. Know what your ball park figures are going to be, what you will need to have down, your monthly loan payments, any equipment purchases, hiring employees, utilities, taxes and stock to name a few.

Once you’re satisfied with the business plan, the next step is to test it. This means answering the question: Do customers really want to buy what you intend to sell? It’s a brutal question, but you need to be realistic. One idea is to talk to potential customers, but avoid your friends; instead, identify a list of likely customers and call them.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: kristafurry

So you have decided to take the step out of your 9-5 job and become an entrepreneur. First, congratulations on your new venture. Second, there are some things about being an entrepreneur that you should know and realize what you are about to get yourself into.

Being an entrepreneur means loving day in and day out what you have chosen to do whether times are going great for your business or if they are going horrible for your business. It is by no means an easy way out of your 9-5 job.

You have to know your customers inside and out. Know who to target, where they are, what they need, what they want and expect from your company and most importantly…how to sell them on it all.

If you have just started this new business of yours, you may not be in a position quite yet to start hiring a whole staff of people, but you still should have someone other than yourself to rely on, someone that you can pass little tasks over to or pass tasks that you are not quite an expert at to. This is where a VA (virtual assistant) would come in handy.

Work/Life Balance: Some entrepreneurs believe you can’t find success unless you’re working long hours each and every day. This burns you out. Don’t work longer, work smarter. Finding time to step away from the office helps keep your entrepreneurial mind focused and sharp, not to mention well rested.

For the complete guide to what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, visit Understanding Marketing.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Dawn Endico

If you’re thinking about starting your own business, then you really should be thinking about what business books you need to be checking out of the library or buying on amazon.com. Famous business men such as Donald Trump and Warren Buffet have both said that reading business books are key to your future as a business person. Below is a short list of the best business books to read as listed on Young Entrepreneur.

• The Practice Of Management by Peter F. Drucker.
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials) by Robert Cialdini PhD.
• 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management by Hyrum Smith.
• How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Always keep in mind what you were told in school “knowledge is power”, and one of the best ways to obtain a lot of knowledge in your spare time is by reading everything you can get your hands on.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

The reason why you first embarked on this journey is because you think it will benefit your business and bring you returns. The biggest mistake you can make in social media marketing is failure to measure these returns. We have seen how to measure social media ROI but what are some of the common mistakes that people make when measuring social media performance?

• Failure to have a clear goal in mind. If you don’t know where it is you expect to go in social media, then how are you ever even going to measure your success? As stated on Penn Olson.
• Not measuring your total number of clicks received. When you count the number of clicks your site receives then you ultimately know how many people are interested in your site and products.
• Not paying attention to search results. Measuring search results is key for your social media. This lets you know if people are talking about your business and products. If this information does not come up often or at all in search results then you probably need to work a little more on your presence.

How many of your followers are reading your tweets? How many are clicking on the links you shared? How many are making actions on your website? Did you ask these questions when you look at your growing follower base? Getting more followers is one thing, converting them into sales leads is an entire different story.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

There are probably a million websites on the web that tout solutions for marketing and promoting your business online. When you are getting started it can be very difficult to know who the true professionals are and it can take months to figure out where the high quality information is located.

Below are five great sites I recently found on Small Biz Survival that will help you figure out the small biz social media that often leaves us frustrated.

• Copy Blogger.
• Duct Tape Marketing.
• Chris Brogan.
• Pro Blogger.
• Seth Godin.

These sites offer an understandable point of view and explanation on all types of small biz social media that you could ever need information on.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: luc legay

Many business owners are looking for ways to grow their profits every year. They keep hoping there will be easier ways to see their profits go up on their charts, but sadly many of them don’t know of any easy ways to help their profits grow. Below are some tips on growing your profits easily, located recently on Entrepreneur.com.

Your number of leads on customers you contact and those who contact you regarding your business are an important key factor in your profits. The amount of those people who actually make a purchase in your store are another important key factor. Figuring out your conversion rate is rather simple. Say 4 people out of 10 purchase something in your store that day, your conversion rate would be 4 out of 10 people or 40% for the day.

Average number of transactions: The number of purchases the average customer will make over the course of a year. Again, it can be an estimate. This number will probably be larger in a retail setting than in companies that operate in a professional services industry.

Increasing the profit margin for your store is another great way to grow your profits for the year. Your profit margin is simply the percentage of each transaction that is just profit. So if you sold a sweater for $100 and your profit from that sale was $25 dollars, then your profit margin would be 25%. Many get intimidated by handling all of these numbers but with a quick course in finances, profits, and sale margin’s you will better understand what you are looking at on a daily basis.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Feeling data-stressed? Got some info-tension? You’re not alone. Recently a conference was organized by Basex to discuss, what else, information overload. Some interesting facts and ideas come from the conference:

• The cost of Information Overload to the U.S. economy is $900 billion annually, as of 2008.

• A mere 12% of the knowledge worker’s day is spent in thought or reflection.

• We spend 15% of the day searching for things and 20% in meetings.

• Information Overload is a subject everyone complains about but few actually undertake solutions.

• The impact can’t be ignored: reduced mental capacity, no time to think about things, direct loss of productive time, breakdown of organizational processes, and a diminished quality of life.

Photo by gaurav10.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: macroninja

I recently came across an article listing U.S. economic trends that had no chance of lasting forever in this economy. The article argues that the current recession and economic downturn is causing the need for realignment between our U.S. Government and private sector’s. It is no shock that with the way the economy has been that there would be some drastic changes even in thing’s we never thought would fall. Below is a short list of the 8 U.S. economic trends that couldn’t last forever.

• Home Ownership levels.
• Low energy prices.
• Trade deficit levels.
• Consumer Savings.
• Consumer spending.

For the complete list of U.S. economic trends that are falling and a description about each one, please visit Small Business Labs.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: electricnude

Below are some recession indicators that you may never have thought would be a sign that we are in a recession, but when you sit down and think about each one of them, they make a lot of sense actually.

• Movie rentals at home are up more than before.
• More people are beginning to get into farming their own fruits and vegetables.
• Online dating sites increase in volume.
• Sales on neck ties goes way up.
• Sales on mens underwear goes way down.
• McDonald’s sales goes up, most likely due to their cheap menu prices.

It goes to show that during a recession it is expected to see certain sales going up for those products that are catered more towards home bound life and sales going down for those products that are catered more towards out of home bound life, as posted on BPlans.com.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

photo credit: shaymus022

If you are in the process of opening a new business or even just in the early stage of thinking about your own start-up, then I’m sure by now you have at least realized all the many aspects that you have to consider, one being your competitors and potential competitors. I have put together some helpful suggestions below on how you can easily size up your competitors for your new start-up.

• Take a look around you and take notice of the recent trends going around, this tells you what is already out there and being sold to the customers you plan to sell to. Also obviously gives you some idea of what your competitors hold in their stores.
• Always remember to take a close look at not just the monthly growth but the annual growth as well. Yes the monthly can be a pretty picture to look at, but there may be a few months in a row down the line that are bringing in almost nothing which paints a totally different picture when looking at the annual growth, recently stated on Crowdspring.com.
• Cross reference your sources in every piece of information you gather on your competitors and the community. Think of it as getting a second and third opinion from doctors on your health, go with the one that is stated  more than once.

Challenge Your Assumptions. It would be easy to stop here. But if you’re looking for a meaningful comparison, you must challenge your assumptions.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.