How to Improve Sales Technique: Learn from God

I've had for quite some time a copy of the book "God is a Salesman: Learn from the Master" by Mark Stevens, but I never had the interest to read it. Maybe it's my strict Catholic upbringing that I don't want God to be portrayed as a salesman, or maybe it's because of the cheesy intro "Through the deep thought, spirituality, and philosophy that form the basic tenets of my life." Okaaay!

But after the initial trepidation, I found that it is actually a useful book. Cheesy, but nonetheless, insightful and useful. You just have to make sure that you don't consider religious significance and focus on the business implications. This is, afterall, not a book trying to prove the existence of God.

As the author writes:

According to the book, here are some of the things we can learn from God:

• God treats us all as family: "We must view selling as a way of building and maintaining faith in one another .... When practiced by The Master's standards, sales is the connection that fuses an enterprise to people, helps to shape the company's offerings to meet customers' evolving needs, and nurtures its growth over time."
• God shares His vision: "God never sells a product or a service. God holds out an ideal, a standard to achieve, and most important, something to achieve. Great salespeople learn from this and emulate it."
• God makes guarantees: "When you sell something to someone, you can be unequivocal about what that product or service will deliver. And this has exceptional power."

It seems hard to think that we can be anywhere like God even in selling. But the tips the author gives are sound and practical. There's actually no new selling tips that other books on sales haven't mentioned before, except, for associating the sales tips to God.

Cost Effective Online Marketing Methods

One of the interesting data in the Shop.org/Forrester Research's report "State of Online Retailing 2007" is the most cost effective online marketing method.

Per the study, the amount of dollars online spent by an online retailer to get an order based on various methods are as follows:

• Email (to customer list) = $6.53
• Affiliate program = $17.47
• Paid search = $26.75
• Banner ads = $71.89

Yet the average retailer (I surmise, average LARGE retailer) only spends about 10% of their marketing budgets or $311,196 on email, compared to $1.8 million spending on banners.

Check your own marketing effectiveness, and how much you spend to get one order from that marketing method -- and allocate more resources on the most cost effective method for you

Avoiding the Common Excuses of Startup Entrepreneurs

Starting a business can be scary, exciting and daunting at the same time. That's why it's not uncommon to find those thinking of starting a business frozen in fear and making excuses:

• "Is this business really going to work?" That's why you need to do research first before starting the business. It is important to check if there is a demand for this business and that people will actually want to pay to get it. And more importantly, you need to know when to stop if after several attempts you find that it is not really going to work.


• "Do I really have a million dollar idea?" You need to believe in your product or service. Because if you yourself can't believe in the huge potential of your business, you will not be able to successfully pitch your business to investors, potential backers, and even customers.


• "I don't have the money!" There are entrepreneurs who had nothing, but persisted and found ways to jumpstart their businesses and ended up succeeding. You can live paycheck to paycheck now, but if you believe in your business idea and not afraid to ask others for help, you might be able to make it.


• "I don't know what to do!" You didn't know how to drive before, but you learned. You didn't know how to use your smartphone before, but you learned. As long as you are willing to learn and know how to rise from your mistakes, you can do it.


• "I don't have the time." If you want to do something, you can find the time. You can always create the time for the things you want to do. If starting this business is important to you, then you need to make the time to do it.

How to Use Web 2.0 to Get More Traffic for Your Website

YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Digg, Wikipedia are but some of the collaboration-focused websites that have changed the Internet. Called Web 2.0, these sites include social networking, social bookmarking, social tagging, wikis, among others.

The question now is: how can you tap these Web 2.0 websites to boost traffic of your site and increase your reach? Here are six suggestions:

1. Make a list of Web 2.0 sites you want to tap. Depending on the type of content you have, prioritize sites that you think would work well for your content. Use Seth Godin's Web 2.0 Traffic Watch List http://www.statsaholic.com/sethgodin to determine which sites may be able to give you a bang for your buck.

If you have videos, for example, YouTube and similar video sharing sites will work best. If you like to engage in community building, make a profile in MySpace or Facebook.

2. Know what you can get from the site. It is important to clarify your expectations right from the beginning. You may post your site URL in Yahoo Answers in the hope that you get a pagerank boost, but YA places a rel=nofollow tag on URLs so there's no gain in terms of linking. But if you provide great responses and relevant URLs, active participation in YA can give a huge traffic boost to your website.

Or Stumbleupon, where the value lies not from the SEO standpoint but from the huge number of Stumblers who happen to stumble upon your site and like it, and spread your site to others.

3. Understand the type of content suitable for the particular Web 2.0 site. Web 2.0 sites are not equally; and as such, each one has a different criteria. Check first if your content is suitable for that website. For example, Wikipedia favors more research, academic and non-profit websites compared to commercial ad-heavy websites.

4. Study the type of content that works well for that Web 2.0 site. Before creating your MySpace profile, check out other profiles especially in your sector. Be sure to read the program policies to know what you can do, and what you cannot do (e.g. can you hard sell your business on the site?). Or look at Digg.com and analyze which content gets "digged" the most compared to others.

5. Create content worthy to be talked about and linked. I am a firm believer that everything starts with content. Even if you spend 10 hours a day submitting your content to these Web 2.0 sites but if your content is crap, no one will bother to link or visit your submissions or profiles created. Create content that is very informative, unique or witty, so that others will want to link to you freely and share your content in social bookmarking or social community websites. In Digg, for example, countdown types of articles (top 30 list, top 10 tips, etc) works very well.

6. Make your website easy to share. Use tools that will make it easy to share your content and post it in Web 2.0 sites. My personal favorites are:

• AddThis http://www.addthis.com = very easy to customize, and gives you almost real time statistics on what pages on your site have been shared and where the contents have been posted
• Clearspring http://www.clearspring.com/ = a little harder to customize but their widget gives a nice look, though the stats are a little delayed

Video Contest for Small Businesses

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is sponsoring a video contest for small businesses where you create a 30-second clip that answers the question “Why does small business work for America ?” and submit the video to NFIB.

Videos will be reviewed and entries will be posted on the NFIB YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/NFIBContest where viewers can rate them. A panel of judges will use those ratings to select semifinalists and an overall winner, who will receive a $5,000 cash award and a trip for two to Washington, D.C., including a stay at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for the 2008 National Small Business Summit June 8 – 11.

Entries will be accepted up to May 15. If interested, you can read the details of the “Small Business Works for America ” contest at http://www.nfib.com/object/IO_36708.html

How to Engage Online Customers

You often hear of the advice that you need to "engage your customers." Engaged customers are more loyal, and more likely to recommend you to others.

But how exactly do you "engage the customer," especially online where you don't get a chance to personally talk to the customer and present your products unlike traditional retailing?

• Get out of the mentality that all you need to sell is to write the features and descriptions of your products. You need to communicate to them why your brand is different from your competitors.
• Understand your customers by knowing what is important to them, the language they use to communicate , their lifestyle, and what they respond to.
• Show what the customers can buy, and explain why they should buy them.
• Use testimonials, stories and photos of customers who have used your products.
• Offer additional content in your website that will provide context to the use of your products (e.g. recipes that can be cooked using your kitchen utensil products)

I discussed in LearningfromBigBoys.com one of the best examples of the use of experiential marketing on the Web today, that by the outdoor clothing company Patagonia.com.

For more information and tips on how to engage the customer, read the article "Building Customer Engagement."

Work at Home: Reshipping/Repackaging Middleman Scams

One of the rising work at home scams nowadays is what is called "repackaging or reshipping scams."

The modus operandi works like this: you may receive an unsolicited email or see a post on Craigslist or a job board telling you that you can get paid for acting as a middleman where your job is to accept goods and send them to a given address. Or you will sell items they will supply on eBay and will accept payment for them. These criminals are often based in the former Soviet bloc countries, with many coming from Russia.

Sounds easy right? More so when you hear that you can get paid around $20-$40 for every package processed and sent!

Alas, many are finding that these are but scams. Worse, there have been reports that some people get jailed for it. MSNBC.com reports that a man was nearly jailed for this "job" because he was accepting goods apparently purchased with stolen credit cards.

In one case, a woman was sued for selling a Russian antique jewelry box on eBay because the item never arrived after the buyer sent her several thousands of dollars for the winning bid. The middleman said that she wired the money to her Russian bosses after receiving word that the item will be sent as soon as the money is received. But no antique jewelry box came, and the Russian who hired her through a job board posting disappeared. Unfortunately for the middleman, the buyer went after her. She accepted the job because she was in desperate need of cash, and was not expecting that the "job" will end up in court.

Read the warning issued by the United States Postal Service about this reshipping scam

Remember the cardinal rule: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

How Do You Survive Starting a Business?

Starting a business is tough. More so when things are heading south and not enough income is coming in that you have to dip into your personal resources to get by.

The worst part, of course, is when your personal resources are almost depleted and you see nothing in the horizon that could change the situation. And you've got a family to support, bills to pay, and the creditors are already starting to call! Qué barbaridad!

Before you end up in this situation, you need to take a good hard look at what is wrong with your business. Look at your operations, and write down the reasons why you are not getting the revenues you need.

At this point, don't be afraid to ask for help. Financial help of course is always welcome -- and needed. But you may want to find assistance in helping you understand what is going wrong with the business, and advice you on strategies you can use to turn it around. This is when a mentor comes in.

A knowledgeable mentor -- someone who has been in business and experienced ups and downs -- can give you an objective assessment of what ails your business. Sometimes it is hard for you to see clearly the complete picture, and need a fresh pair of knowledgeable eyes to see the problems -- and more importantly, recommend how you can improve your business situation:

• Is there really no market for your product/service?
• Is there a way to restructure your debt?
• What are the problems in your cashflow?
• What are the loopholes in your marketing strategy and what strategies are not giving you the results you need?
• Is there something you can improve with regards to your price points?
• How can you improve your distribution?
• What are the bottlenecks in your product mix?
• What expense items can you cut without further jeopardizing your revenue position?

These are but some of the questions that you need to ask to help you understand the causes of your business' poor performance.

Go to your local SBDC Small Business Development Center http://www.sba.gov/sbdc/sbdcnear.html and ask for a free consultation. They can give you mentors or consultants who can guide you. Some SBDCs will require you to attend a free seminar first, while others will just ask you to send an email detailing the type of help you need before the SBDC can schedule you for a free consultation with one of their consultants.

Another way is to find another business owner you trust, and who is willing to spend the time with you to analyze your business. If you are part of a local business organization such as the Chamber of Commerce, there might be someone you can talk to who can help you understand the problem and give you some suggestions.

But more importantly, you need to accept first and foremost that something is wrong with the business (I know some who stubbornly cling to their systems and processes -- even when things are going so bad). Only by accepting that you need to change something can the positive change really come.

Reasons for Becoming an Entrepreneur

Why did you become an entrepreneur? Or if you are just planning to become one, why be an entrepreneur?

Is it because:

• You love the idea of succeeding based on your own terms?
• You love the game and challenge of entrepreneurship?
• You want to become rich?
• You want to become financially secure?
• You know you can change the world with your business?
• You like to be financially secure?
• You enjoy giving back to the community?
• You feel you can do and gain so much more on your own outside the confines of employment?
• Or is it because you have no other option at this point but try to make it on your own?

Whatever reasons you have for becoming an entrepreneur, I'd love to hear it!

How to Build a Profitable Blogging Business

Scott Fox in his new book "Internet Riches: The Simple Money-Making Secrets of Online Millionaires" gave one of the best (yet succinct) explanations on how to turn your blog into a profitable business:

By targeting a market of desirable consumers with timely and concise information that is hard to find elsewhere, it's possible to build a blog publishing business with no employees and minimal overhead, using ost effective marketing and dministrative software services and the Internet to freely distribute your commentary

The secret has always been simple: great content that offers value to its customers.

How to Find International Manufacturers

If you have a product you want manufactured, going overseas may allow you to save on costs. However, the main question is: how do you find international manufacturers?

One of the most popular destinations for those looking for international manufacturers and suppliers from China is Alibaba.com. The site can connect you to any Chinese manufacturer for whatever products you want to produce. Be careful though with "phantom" suppliers who will simply take your money and run without sending you the goods you ordered (and there are plenty of these horror stories).

To protect yourself against these scammers, look for suppliers and manufacturers that participate in Alibaba's TrustPass program . Chinese suppliers and manufacturers pay to be part of this program, where they are verified by a third party service to give buyers like you the confidence to deal with the company.

Alibaba also has a Gold Supplier program . This is again another paid program where suppliers and manufacturers need to be verified, and Gold Suppliers are given TrustPass accreditation as well.

Still, entrusting the manufacturing of your product to a company half the world away without ever meeting takes a lot of faith in the inate goodness of man. So savvy inventors and businesses prefer finding manufacturers by attending international trade shows and actually talking to the representatives of the company.

If you are looking for international sourcing trade shows, check out GlobalSources.com which offers a good list of upcoming international trade shows and sourcing fairs around the globe. You can also check out their Verified Suppliers for various product categories. Other trade show listings include TSNN.com.

Another way is to use a sourcing agent. While hiring a sourcing agent makes it more expensive compared to dealing directly with the manufacturer, the agent can help you with the whole process. They will find the right manufacturers for you, and some can even help you with advice on how to set-up letters of credit, shipping concerns such as customs, duties, and brokerage.

Do a search on the Web for sourcing agents for your products. Or call your local Small Business Development Center for recommendations. Your state' Department of Commerce can also help you and may have some recommendations for you. Check out the Trade Information Center as well.

Qualities Angel Investors are Looking for in a Business

Angel investors are an important source of capital, whether you need startup capital or second stage financing for more established businesses. High net worth individuals, angel investors typically invest in high growth fields.

Compared to a venture capitalist, an angel investor generally want less control of your company and a even a slower return on investment. They have a more patient exit strategy and often driven by factors other than the bottom line (e.g. foster economic growth in the community). But don't think though that they are some kind of a saint who is willing to give away money to see you succeed. They'll give money because they want to make more money -- from you!

So what do these angel investors look for in a business? Here are some qualities angel investors are looking for when making a decision whether to invest or not in a particular business:

• High growth company: your business is likely to grow by 30-40% annually
• Revenue increases: evidence that your business can deliver continued growth over time, to provide a return on investment.
• Strong leadership and management
• Has an exit strategy: your company is likely to be bought or sold
• Ready to go to market: you have a product prototype that you can show to the angel investor (not just a product in your head), even initial partnerships and deals

As to where to find angel investors, read the article Find an Angel Investor for Your Small Business

20 Questions to Ask When Selling a Business

I previously wrote about Questions to Ask When Selling a Business and a developed it into a more comprehensive article, this time with 20 questions. I started by asking "Why are you selling your business"" to "Have you identified the right buyers for your business?" to "What will the letter of intent and terms of sale specify?" and other important questions.

Read about 20 Questions to Ask When Selling a Business

Where to Find Suppliers for Your Business

PWhether you are thinking of starting a retail or online store (or even for eBay trading), one of the critical steps is to find suppliers for your business. If you want to sell, you need to find out where you can get the items you want at a price that would allow you to earn profit.

Here are some places where you can find suppliers:

1. Trade shows. Trade shows are where manufacturers and suppliers gather looking for you -- the potential buyer. As such, the best source of finding suppliers for your business is through attending trade shows.

First determine the products you want to sell in your store, and find tradeshows and exhibits for that product line. Start with the biggest tradeshow in the industry. If you want to sell shoes, for example, the best show to attend is the World Shoe Association's Global Footwear and Accessories Marketplace http://www.wsashow.com/. For fabric sourcing, be sure to attend Sourcing at Magic participated by manufacturers, fabric and textile mills, trim & component, textile/print design studios and supply chain service providers.

To find the must-see tradeshows, check out industry directories and sites as they will often have a list of the most important tradeshows. Or you can check out at trade show directories such as TSNN.com. Note though that some tradeshows are open to the public, but there are shows that are open only to verified members of the industry. When you register, some shows require proof such as business registration, business cards, invoices demonstrating your purchase history; or if the business is yet to be started, a letter of intent from a lawyer or bank indicating your intention to start a business in the industry.

2. Trade Magazines. Suppliers and manufacturers typically advertise in magazines focusing on their industries. For example, manufacturers of scrapbook products from albums to stickers to scrapbooking tools advertise in magazines such as Creating Keepsakes or Simple Scrapbooks magazine.

Some trade magazines even publish an annual buyer's guide directory. Greetings etc., the magazine of the Greeting Card Association publishes a Buyer's Guide where you can find anywhere from manufacturer reps to distributors to manufacturers of various industry related products.

3. Online Wholesaler Resources. You can check out online wholesaler directories such as GoWholesale.com -- though watch out for scams and fake sites as there are many out there. Also check out the print magazine WebWholesaler , which is the magazine for online wholesale resources and features legitimate wholesaler resources (check out the ads, too, which are all wholesalers).

You can get more ideas on how to find suppliers for your business from my previous post "How to Find Suppliers for Your Business"

Mom Entrepreneurs: 10 Rules for Doing Business

Kim Levine , the inventor of Wuvits or those little bags that provide soothing penetrating moist heat, has written a compelling account of how she started her business and all the ups and downs she experienced.

Her book "Mommy Millionaire: How I Turned My Kitchen Table Idea into a Million Dollars and How You Can Too!" is a very good read if you want to be learn what it is really like to turn a business into a success. I like the book because it is not self-serving and not one of those "I-am-great-hear-me-roar" ode to self. Instead, you'll read about her desperation when she made a fatal mistake that led to near-bankruptcy to her efforts to revive her business, even driving 5 hours to stores selling her products so she can do an in-store demonstration in the hopes of increasing sales.

In one of the sections, she wrote about her 10 rules for doing business, and these are:

1. Don't apologize for being a mom.
2. When dealing with someone in business, always ask yourself, "What's in it for them?"
3. Pay your attorney for advice only. Most of the paperwork you can do yourself (including setting up your corporation, registering your trademarks, and even writing your own patent).
4. Find a mentor. Having someone who's "been there and done that" can really help you get through tough times and understand it's part of the territory.
5. Remember that nobody ever got rich by spending money, and understand what overcapitalization is and how to avoid it.
6. Have a story. Everybody loves a good story.
7. Create a pitch and cold-call! Nothing has been more effective for me than cold calling major accounts.
8. Realize that everything happens for a reason. Accept challenge, conquer it, and learn from it.
9. Learn the "$20,000 Rule": what it really takes to fund even the smallest business start-up.
10. Believe in yourself!

Copying Word for Word

One of my very pet peeves is seeing another site or blog copying my work word for word and claiming it as their own. Blogs especially are notorious for recyling other people's work without giving any attribution to the original writer. Lack of creativity and knowledge, lack of grey matter between the ears, lazyness or simply not knowing what to post that day -- whatever the reason, it is copyright infringement and it is not kosher.

Just today, I emailed a blogger who copied the post I did way back in July 2007 entitled "The Value of Media Mentions" without giving proper attribution to me and simply claimed it as his own. Problem for him, I specifically mentioned PowerHomeBiz.com in the post so his (mis)deed was easy to track (if you haven't signed up for Google Alert of your website name or your own name, do it now).

[SPEAKING OF MEDIA MENTIONS, PowerHomeBiz.com was mentioned in an April 1, 2008 New York Times article entitled For Entrepreneurs, It’s All About Time. NY Times also mentioned our site last October 2, 2007 ]

In terms of copyright infringement, the winner for me will always be this business consultant from Atlanta because the situation was simply so bizarre. She submitted to us for possible publication an article with her name in the byline. When I saw the article submission, I thought it most odd that the article seemed so familiar. Then I remembered that it was familiar because it was my own article! She 'fessed up, but explained that she hired a writer to write articles for her site, and that was one of the output of the hired writer. I filed a DMCA complaint with her web host, and her host gave her 24 hours to remove the content. She removed the content, and said that it was her worst mistake ever.

Be vigilant of who and how your content is being used, especially if you are in the information business.