The rise of non-business social networking also offers new opportunities for businesses to communicate directly with their customers, promote their products through both online advertising and viral marketing and generally increase their web presence.
This publication will give you a better understanding of how online networking including social media has evolved and how your business can use them to gain a commercial advantage. It will also provide advice on the types of events you can ‘attend’, identify some of the risks involved and outline what is considered good online etiquette. Click here

Domain names are the online equivalent of a “house or building name”. If you need to get somewhere there are several ways you identify the place. It could be via a house name e.g Swift House or via a street or post code address e.g. 27 Munchkin Avenue. Well online Domain names are a more user friendly linkage to an actual location of content on a computer on the internet. They help you easily say where you would want to go rather than using the computer ip address such as 192.168.x.x . Domain names though are not simply just a location of content they are a powerful tool for extending one’s presence online, for advertising however bottom line they are for allowing you to easily find a particular location with relevant content that has information. To find out more about domain names click here to read more.

The powerful collaboration tools and sharing capabilities found on the internet can be brought closer “home” to your internal employees to help with sharing information internally.  The information can be securely in one place and easily serachable internally or externally when employess are working remotely from the office.

To find out out more and read about the ten key points to follow before setting up and intranet. Click here.

Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that can help you developing and deliver near-perfect products and services.  Based on measuring how much the process you use deviates from one that give “near perfection” or zero defects it is a great and powerful methodology that is based on getting it right the first time, eliminating mistakes, waste and reworks. Bottom line it helps cut your costs, enhances customer satisfaction and contributes more than anything else to business success.

To find out more and read more about how a powerful breakthrough it is in helping you deliver near perfect products and services click here

1. Talk to your customers and listen even when they complain – your customers have opinions and very valuable feedback that you should not miss out on as most are all too ready to give it to you if you would only listen. The best thing about this option is it is geared to making their life easier to spend money in your store, in your business. To get things from you. After all that is why there are there in the first place. They only bother to complain if they would be remotely interested in your product or service hoping you can improve it for them so next time it is a better experience. If they couldn’t be bothered to complain then they are easily lost to your next competitor and that’s that. Create the strategy to talk to your customers and listen to what they have to say about your products, services, business and anything else for that matter. There is alot you might be able to learn from it that could make the difference in your business and put that smile in their face and your bank balance.

2. “See it from their point of view”  – “I am not interested in your widget, I am interested in what your widget does for me”. Be careful about selling your widget, product, service  thinking that is what makes the difference in getting your customers interested. No. They have a need. You have a product or service that is going to fulfil that particular need and solve the problem they have. So don’t sell widgets or products or your lovely “ironing service”….. sell the solution or benefit your service brings such as less time to do something, put your feet up and do something else while someone takes care of your ironing.”

3. Hold your side of the bargain- ok your customer has handed over their hard earned cash in return for the promise of a fast delivery or a quick and prompt service or a product just as described in the brochure. Should they get anything less. No they should not ! Hold your side of the bargain and ensure they get exactly what you promised to provide them when you sold them the service and took their money.

4. Do it right the first time – There is nothing that annoys customers more than extended transactions that take “forever” for one reason or the other. You sent the wrong product or you can and did not complete the job correctly the first time and will have to finish or come another day, inconveniencing them so that you can complete what you should have done the first time around. In exterme cases you never even finish it properly at all and they constantly forever complain that you did a half ass job. Get it right the first time and deliver the product or service you are providing completed and done as you said you would and intended to the first time. There might be that scenario that comes up everything now and then that may scupper this but it should you always aim for even with a backup plan to getting the job done once.

5. Make it easy to get what they want – I once remember going to an online shop and a famous one at that and it was so difficult to get the product they had in their store ordered. Navigation, shopping cart the whole experience was terrible and it was difficult to get what I wanted when I was shopping. Funnily I wrote them and email and said if they did not change they would be out of business very soon. They didn’t and yes they went out of business. I have come to you and want your services, your products… why are you making it difficult for me to get them. Don’t you want my money if you do make it easy for the customer to get what they want. Your services and products should be easily explained, order-able, paid for making it easy for the transaction to happen between you and the customer.

The bonus tip to make the smile bigger is “Delight your customer by talking it one step further” – set expectations and look for every opportunity to exceed it. A customer orders standard delivery of 4-5days look for opportunities to ship it to them in 3days for no extra charge. I remember hiring this painter for a job to do some painting on the walls of a room and I forgot to talk about the skirting boards. When the job was done he came and said its done and oh yeah also did your skirting boards for you for no extra charge. This put a big smile on my face. Taking it one further step really works well and turns that smile on your customer to one that is from ear to ear and simply eager to do business with you again.

Looking for ideas on how you can promote your business. Take a look at this list with a 101 ways that you can use. These are tried and tested methods – they all work but not necessarily all at once or for everyone. Try them to see which ones can work for you and your business.

There are four sections in which we’ve grouped similar types of business promotion:
a) “Give something away”;
b) “Do it differently”;
c) “Empower your customers”;
d) “Pay attention to reactions”.

Section A – Give Something Away

Section B – Do It Differently

Section C – Empower Your Customers

Section D – Pay Attention To Reactions

To read the publication click here

We are always looking for ways to grow our business. Below are 4 ways to grow your business and how a different approach from your accountant can make all the difference

• The First Way “To increase the number of customers…of the type you want to have”

• The Second Way “To increase the transaction frequency”

• The Third Way “To increase the transaction value (or “average” sale)”

• The Fourth Way “To increase the effectiveness of each PROCESS in your business”

To read the article in detail click here

There  are many options and challenges when thinking about how best to structure your business. This publication helps guide you through various options and things you should think about to help structure and plan your internet business.

• Building the Business Plan – what’s involved?
• Understanding where customers can come from: Demography and Segmentation
• Do you have a niche?
• Pricing is important
• How good is your marketing strategy?
• Are you in the right sector?
• Your Internet Business
• Developing your Internet Business Plan
• Getting Finance from a Bank
• What should your Business Plan show?
• Business Plan: Loan Check List – What to submit to Lenders
• Tips for a successful Web Site

To read the publication click here

We all look for success in what we do whether it is starting a business, doing well at school, marriage and we all define and measure it differently.

So what makes some people more successful than others ? how you you be sucessful at what you want to do. Well have a read of this list of 130 reasons why and see what you might learn to make you more successful.

To your success !  click here

ServiceBazaar provides a great platform that allows you to sell your services what ever they may be to others. It provides great benefits over many other platforms you may want to use and that includes directories, classified ads or job boards. You ask how well read on and find out

Directories are a way to list your company or yourself so that when people search for your business you appear in the results and they then  hopefully select you and contact you. Easy enough ! but if you are a plumber, web designer amongst a list of several thousand others how do you stand out ? oh well that’s easy in most directories you can pay a premium so that you appear on top of the results. Even so several others also pay the premium fee and so again you then compete in this new premium list to attract the customer you require. Sounds like a gamble.

Ok you also have classified directories, pages, websites. These are another way to list your business in the relevant directory and put an advert which advertises you business. Individuals also use this quite well to post jobs which people reply to to provide their services.

Well ServiceBazaar brings you the best of all the platforms and methods of posting job or advertising your services. You can post jobs you want and get people to contact you via their bids through which they provide the quotes which you can compare and select who you would like. Alternatively if you are selling your services instead of putting up adas and hope someone sees them you simply create a profile and job alert so as people post jobs you get to see them and allows you to instantly respond and contact the person via the marketplace. With many additional options for you how you post jobs or receive job alerts ServiceBazaar brings the best of the traditional directory and classified sites into one much more effective and powerful platform that allows you to post or look for jobs/suppliers/businesses or professionals.