Red and Clean

Taking Charge and Getting Results: The Choice is YoursA very successful entrepreneur in the direct sales industry, I have found there are two kinds of people in the world, those who would like success and those who are serious about success. There really is no in between. Think about it. Everyone wants success in their life; they want to make more money, have more time, have less stress and really make their mark in the world. The people who actually do it are the people who will not accept any alternatives.For most people, it is easier to blame circumstance, adversity, their childhood, lack of status, job, boss, family, spouse, etc. etc. for their results. For some, the source of blame is luck. “If only I were luckier”, they cry again and again, always playing victim to some unseen force. Those who have massive success, however, have decided to take full control over their lives and to be personally responsible for their results. Yes, I said, personally responsible - for the good and the bad. They recognize their errors and mistakes and revel in the glory of their wins and accomplishments.You see, it can not be one or the other. The key to taking control of your destiny and your results is to become a person of responsibility. Meaning, you recognize in your life that you are responsible, and have always been responsible, for the outcome. In doing so, there is a tremendous amount of freedom and peace. Not only do you realize that in being responsible are you in control, but you are no longer victim to circumstance, other people or chance. You have the opportunity to create your results. Win or lose, it is completely up to you.Napolean Hill, author of Thank and Grow Rich, ingeniously stated, “Every adversity, every failure and every headache carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or a greater Benefit.” Accepting full responsibility for our results allows us to become creative, dynamic and focused on exactly what we want, not what we don’t want. We recognize success in our failures, learn from our mistakes and move proactively on. The person who is personally responsible is solution-focused and empowered.Consider this example. Two people both start restaurants in the same town (Owner A & Owner B). They specialize in the same type of cuisine, have equally beneficial locations and the same amount of business/restaurant experience.After 6 months of business, Owner A & Owner B both find themselves at a crossroads. Business has not been as successful as they had hoped and both are facing dire financial situations. They contact you, a professional business consultant who specializes in assisting business owners grow and develop their businesses into thriving enterprises.Owner A spends most of the meeting complaining about the stingy customers, the lack of traffic, the vendors he uses, the quality of his staff. You here is openly criticize one of his wait staff. You can feel the stress in the air and the staff seem frustrated and nervous. Owner A goes on and on about the tragedy of his business and tells you he plans to file for bankruptcy in two months if you don’t help him. You ask Owner A for his proposed solution and he puts it on you, asking if you can save his business. He begins complaining about your fees and is almost accusing in his tone and demeanorOwner B spends most of his time praising his staff and customers. The wait staff is friendly and smiling and everyone is eager to be at the establishment. The owner tells you he recognized that, while he has a great establishment, he will require improvement to grow. He tells you he should have hired a marketing consultant in the beginning but thought he could do it on his own. He recognizes that to grow his business, he will have to bring more customers into the door and have their experience be so great they will want to come back as repeat customers. He shares his ideas with you and asks for your input, letting you know that he is committed to creating a great dining experience and a flourishing business. He also recognizes that your fees must indicate your value and the value you will provide to him. He is happy to see you are proud of your work and feel deserving of your fees and he knows this indicates your professionalism and experience.After 12 months, who do you believe would still be in business and who, as a business consultant, would you be eager to assist? Obviously Owner B. Owner B realizes he has made some mistakes and he has taken full responsibility for them. By doing so, he has recognized where he can improve and has asked for your assistance for guidance and direction, rather than seeing you as the lifesaver that will keep him from drowning.Taking control of our results is a direct result of accepting responsibility. There is power in knowing what we achieve, or don’t achieve, is a direct result of the actions we take. In this is there is freedom and the reality that we can truly achieve whatever it is we focus on. As Napolean Hill said in Think and Grow Rich, “Anything the mind of a man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.” The choice is yours.

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Commerce and technology, combined as a one package ? this is what online credit cards are. With the advent of internet, the knowledge and communication barriers were broken. Also, with internet, came the concept of e-shops or virtual shops that existed only on the internet. You could shop at these shops by making use of their online credit card payment-acceptance ability. Once the online credit card payments were verified and approved, the goods got delivered to your door. This is what we call convenience at its best.With more and more e-shops getting setup everyday, online credit card usage is becoming even more popular. The possibility of receiving online credit card payments has given a totally new dimension to shopping. Now, you can not only shop from the comfort of your home, you can even get discounts on these products. This is really amazing. No need to bother about the weather, no need to worry about the traffic jams or any other thing. Just go to an e-shop, select a product, make use of their online credit card payment-acceptance facility to make the payment and be ready to receive the goods at your doorstep.With online credit card processing facility, starting a business (an online business) has become just unbelievably easy.However, there is nothing without pitfalls. One of the pitfalls of online credit card usage is the possibility of online credit card fraud. This online credit card fraud can happen in two ways. The first one is related to the company, on whose website you made online credit card payment for purchase of goods; this company itself could be fraudulent i.e. it could take the online credit card payment from you but not deliver the goods to you. Moreover, they could use the details of your credit card (received through the filling up of online credit card payment form by you) for fraudulent purposes. The second type of fraud is committed by fraudsters who use various softwares/devices to capture the details of online credit card payments (as you enter them on the online credit card payment form of a website). These softwares are popularly known as spyware and these fraudsters as online spies. The spyware works by capturing keystrokes or taking screenshots of whatever you do on your computer and then passes it on to the spy. However, there are anti-spyware softwares available which can be used to counter such spyware.So, the advent of online credit card usage facility is a boon to us. However, you must exercise caution when making online credit card payments e.g. don?t access your bank accounts or make online credit card payments from internet cafes (unless you are absolutely sure about the credentials of the internet caf?).

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

A few weeks ago I have written about the ?Key Factors of a successful home business?. A lady has reacted to this article and she has mentioned some important aspects, e.g. ?Is the product a category creator?? I want dwell on this question. What could ?category creator? mean?From the Creative Idea?A category creator can be interpreted as a creative business idea. It has to be something new that is unique. The marketing science knows the term of ?Unique Selling Proposition?. It?s different from other offers on the market. Even a product of the everydays life can be reformulated and market in an unparalled way.?To the Innovation ManagementPeter F. Drucker, the grand old man of the management science, has created the term of innovation management. He has passed away recently and it is appropiate to honor him. He has written that a new idea or a new product is only an innovation, if it succeeds on the market. The home business industry grows daily. Thousands of people start a new home business every day. Many among them join already existing business fields. Many newcomers begin with an already made turn-key website and try to promote it. Thousands of online home businesses are abandoned because they have not satisfied their owners. New ideas are needed. The online home business world has seen a lot of trends. Online business malls have been sold. Niche Marketing has been promoted. Now we see a ?get-paid-to? wave. ?Get paid to surf? and ?get paid to read? websites are mushrooming. New varities of this kind of website appear and they are called ?get paid to play games? or ?it pays to learn?. Internet entrepreneurs try to make money by launching and promoting new kind of sites that attract masses of customers. How To Get to the Top? The radio news has reported recently about a successful website. This website has achieved the top listing at the Google Search Engine. It has got a mass of traffic, customers and sales. What are the website owners doing? They just offer a subscription for socks. People can subscribe for a steady and regular supply of new socks. A common product is market successfully in a new way that meets many people?s need. The Time Has To Be RipeA lucky timing of the launching of a new product or service is also necessery. The time has to be ripe for the new business idea. If this is the case, a product sells itselfs.

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

There are 54 factors that affect the price of a closely-held business. The following is a look at the top 10 of these factors that have the biggest influence the selling price of any business:Number 10: Industry OutlookIf the outlook for the industry is bright, the price goes up. Buyers look hard at the outlook for a company’s gross margins, future growth projections, international economic factors, etc.Number 9: Depth of Management and of the Sales TeamIf an owner wears all of the hats, including generating most of the sales, the price will go down. A strong and experienced management team to operate the business is key value driver.Number 8: Customer BaseIf a company has limited customer concentration with no single customer representing more that 5-10% of revenues the price goes up. If the customer base is made up of ?blue chip? companies, the price goes up too.Number 7: A Good Story to TellTelling a company’s story is critical in helping the buyer recognize the full value of a business. When this in-depth marketing ?package? of the business is combined with many years of merger and acquisition experience on the part of the broker/intermediary, the price of the business definitely goes up. A quality business broker/intermediary will prepare an extensive confidential offering memorandum that describes the business operation, the marketing and sales programs, its organizational structure, its facilities and equipment, its financial performance, and provides a financial analysis including a believable 5 year financial forecast.Number 6: Stage of Industry ConsolidationIf a company’s industry is experiencing consolidating with the big companies getting bigger through acquisition, prices for smaller companies will rise.Number 5: Company Track RecordIf a company can show a track record of consistently growing profits and sales, buyers will pay more.Number 4: Type of BusinessA manufacturing company with a proprietary product will sell for more than a job-shop manufacturer. A distributor that adds value by offering installation, repair, and/or engineering/design will sell for more money than a non-value-added distributor. A service company with a special expertise will sell for more than a similar service company without this expertise.Number 3: Revenue SizeThe larger a company’s revenues, generally the higher the price. A business with $25 million of annual sales will sell for more than a company with $5 million in sales.Number 2: Market PositionA company that dominates its market or has a unique niche in the market will sell for a premium over other companies that do not dominate their markets.And now, the single most important factor influencing the price of the business, clearly is?Number 1: Having Multiple Buyers!When there are multiple buyers bidding on a business, the price of the business will exceed the price paid for a business that is sold without competitive bids. We see the price escalation caused by multiple bidders all the time. It does not matter whether the business is priced at $4 million, $8 million, or $150 million; the key to maximizing value is creating a selling environment where competitive market forces work for a company rather than against it.

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

So you’ve made it through your first year. When you quit your job, you probably thought you’d escaped performance reviews for good, but I’ve got some bad news for you. It’s actually a really good idea to review your performance at your own company, to take a look back and see what you did wrong and what you did right.Did You Make a Profit or a Loss?The first, and most important, question to answer is this: what does your balance sheet look like? You need to honestly add up all the numbers — don’t be tempted to add on money that you think you’re a few days from getting, or take away bad purchases that proved useful in your personal life, for example. Hopefully you kept electronic records, so this shouldn’t be too much trouble.Once you know how you did, you need to look at how to do better. If you made a loss (as almost everyone does in their first year), what can you do about it? Where did the money go? If you made a profit then, well, congratulations! But you still need to think about how much of your profit to re-invest in the business, and how you can increase your profits next year. Remember that money makes money: once you’re making a profit, wise investment can make it grow exponentially.How Many Customers Did You Get?Now, take a look at your customer database. What’s the total number of people who dealt with you this year? How many is that per day, and how much did each one spend? Once you have this information, you can work out how much customers were paying you overall weekly, daily or even hourly. If it seems like a lot more than you saw, you need to ask yourself if you spent too much of their money on expenses. If it seems like hardly anything, then you’re in trouble. Sorry to be blunt, but either you need to consider raising your prices, or you’re just not doing enough marketing or working hard enough.How Many Came Back?Of course, a more important metric than the total number of customers you had last year is how many of them came back more than once. Work out what percentage of your business that was repeat business — note that this means you count someone twice if they bought from you three times overall, three times if they bought from you four, and so on.An easy way to do this is to simply take your number that says how many times a customer has dealt with you, subtract one from all of them, and then add it up. Once you know the raw amount of repeat business, you need to divide it by your total number of customers and then multiply by 100. This gives you a percentage. If your repeat business is lower than 20% or so of your total business, this is cause for concern. Are you doing enough to stay in touch with your existing customers?What Did Customer Complaints Say?I hope you kept hold of every customer complaint you got, even if you fixed it at the time. You need to take a good look over what you did right, what you did wrong and what you messed up. I know you dealt with things as they came up, but looking back over everything can help you to see the big picture. It’s all too easy to miss quite simple patterns when you’re in the thick of it day-to-day, and looking at the complaints can reveal a trend that you weren’t expecting.What Have You Learned?It can be useful to write yourself out a list of lessons at the end of the year, even if it’s things like ‘quarter-page magazine ads are just as effective as half-page ones’ or ‘make lunch later in the day so you eat it faster’. Your accumulated knowledge is valuable: you’ve paid for it in cash and in sweat, so make sure you don’t forget it. See if you can come up with a list of positive things to do next year to make your business even better!

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Many ventures are faced with the challenging task of raising venture capital. The first part of this process is finding the right venture capital firm (VC). While this may seem simple, it isn?t. There are thousands of venture capital firms in the United States alone, and going after the wrong ones is one of the most common reasons why companies fail to raise the capital they need.When seeking a venture capital firm, there are six key variables to consider: location, sector preference, stage preference, partners, portfolio and assets.Location: most venture capital firms only invest within 100 miles of their office(s). By investing close to home, the firms are able to more actively get involved with and add value to their portfolio companies.Sector preference: many venture capital firms focus on specific sectors such as healthcare, information technology (IT), wireless technologies, etc. In most cases, even if you have a great company, if you fall outside of the VC?s sector preference, they?ll pass on the opportunity.Stage preference: VCs tend to focus on different stages of ventures. For instance, some VCs prefer early stage ventures where the risk is great, but so are the potential returns. Conversely, some VCs focus on providing capital to firms to bridge capital gaps before they go public.Partners: Venture capital firms are comprised of individual partners. These partners make investment decisions and typically take a seat on each portfolio company?s Board. Partners tend to invest in what they know, so finding a partner that has past work experience in your industry is very helpful. This relevant experience allows them to more fully understand your venture?s value proposition and gives them confidence that they can add value, thus encouraging them to invest.Portfolio: Just as you should seek venture capital firms whose partners have experience in your industry, the ideal venture capital firm has portfolio companies in your field as well. Portfolio company management, since they are industry experts, often advises VCs as to whether the company in question is worthwhile. In addition, if your venture has potential synergies with a portfolio company, this significantly enhances the VCs interest in your firm.Assets: Most companies seeking venture capital for the first time will require subsequent rounds of capital. As such, it is helpful if the VC has ?deep pockets,? that is, enough cash to participate in follow-on rounds. This will save the company significant time and effort in maintaining an adequate cash balance.Finding the right venture capital firm is absolutely critical to companies seeking venture capital. Success results in the capital required and significant assistance in growing your venture. Conversely, failing to find the right firm often results in raising no capital at all and being unable to grow the venture.

Article Source: www.iSnare.com

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