Category Archives: business

business, sales

Outlook as your CRM Tool

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For many years I have used Outlook to manage my email and contacts. In fact it has been one of the main reasons why have I have not gone to Google mail. Outlook has some very nice features and tools that one can adjust to use for client management. In the address book it allows you to store a whole wealth of information. Set reminders, follow ups, tasks, names, companies, just about everything you can think of you might want to do as it is comes with the office package.

So when I cam across prophet software I thought it was very good idea. Building already on a strong platform they have managed to add and organise to some great tools. This is quoted from their website

“Prophet will help you

  • Streamline team communications
  • Increase productivity and customer satisfaction
  • Keep opportunities from falling through the cracks
  • Increase sales lead conversion

Unique Advantages of Prophet

  • Built into Outlook -it’s completely Integrated with Outlook and Exchange
  • Rated Easiest to Use Software in its class
  • Easy Sales Automation provides “set and forget” automated follow-up and trickle campaigns”

Taken from a recent press release Prophet explain further:

Unlike traditional CRM or sales management software, Prophet is built into Outlook, eliminating the need to manage multiple contact databases or toggle between separate applications. Built on the .NET 2.0 platform, Prophet works entirely inside Outlook and easily integrates with other critical business capabilities. As a result, Prophet turns Outlook data into the building blocks of an effective sales management solution.

An Easy & Simple Outlook CRM Software program. Try Prophet here .

business, E-Commerce, Finance, money

Novel Ideas for Saving Money

Vegas or BustI was just listening to radio four where the conversation was focusing on loan sharks. Loan sharking has increased significantly in the last six months due to the current economic crisis, as it usual does. I do have a lot sympathy for people who find themselves in difficult times. I was rather impressed by some of the ideas talked about to help people handle their finances better. In fact I think the model can be use by anyone entrepreneurs included.

The ideas that was talked about on the program was that you can loan as much as you can borrow. So if you save 6 pounds a week from now until Christmas you will have saved £150 pounds. This bank/corporation will than lend the some amount to the person over the Christmas period enabling them to cover some of the extra cost Christmas brings.

The theory is if you can encourage responsible saving you can than encouraged responsible lending. Will the Labour goverment do the same with our current debt or go over the 60/40 rule. What do you think?

business, E-Commerce, money

Expected (ROI) Return on every Marketing Dollar Spent

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Yesterday some one asked what would be the expected return on every dollar I spend on marketing. It made me think. I know that when one looks at sales you are looking at about a conversion ratio of about 15 percent. That is quite different when you are talking about sales leads. A lot of marketing is more indefinable and more about feel than any metrics one can apply to it. Still one has to make a decision. According to Derek Lowe at Courant he talks about 24 percent of medical cost is spent on Marketing. Which seems to be quite high considering that I can only tell you the name of about 4 or 5 pharmaceutical companies. Obviously this industry is doing highly expensive targeted marketing. There are some exceptions most notable Viagra.

So what should you be looking to spend on Marketing? 25 percent of your future income should it be enough?

The next question is how do you spend it?

Do you spend it on printed media, internet media, video media, corporate entertainment, or the new kid on the block social media.

What do you think?

business, Consultancy, E-Commerce, money

Domain Names What are They Worth?

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I have recently been caught in the domain name game. I wanted to buy some small domain names, ones that are easy to write like wcx.com or delight.biz. In this process I discovered a number of things about where the market is for domain names. It appears there are a number of companies and individuals who have come with the questionable idea of buying all the domain names they can within certain category. So for example Ron Jackson has brought as many as he can 3 letter and four letter domain names with .org .biz .com. So if I wanted to buy a domain name www.40c.com which is Owned by his company Internet Edge, Inc. I would have to email him and make him an offer. Which I did.

I wanted to buy delight.biz I got a very nice email back from Ron informing me that I should make an offer. So I did I offered him $100 he than replied that he would only be interested in a sum around $1500. Which made me think. What’s in a name? Some say that names can be fortuitus. I wonder for example what did ebay mean or Amazon before the dot.com era. The first is made up and the second a jungle in South America. Was it the name that made these companies successful or the product. I will leave you to decide.

Having the perfect domain does not guarantee you success or an income. If the domain name you are searching is lucky enough to have a holding page it still has a value of nil in terms of traffic or internet relevance. Google will not be directing any traffic to this domain. To gain any relevance in the search engine fields you will need to make it special create something unique and wonderful and that takes TIME and MONEY.

A couple of my clients have chosen very long domain names. On the internet I do not think it really matters. So long as you engage you visitors. If you succeed at that they will bookmark or RSS you and more importantly return. Believe me if somebody is interested by something they will insure they get it.

Web business is not about getting 200, 000 visitors who and came go. It is about achieving your goals. If your goal for example is to sell 10 web design projects than all you need is hundred of the correct visitors looking for a design company.

Post script: 1

It also interesting to note that if you have a brand and some body has taken your domain name. You can apply to www.internic.com who will send them packing if they think they are cyber squatting.

Post script: 2

With new domain names coming out all the time one should be able to find there desired name in one of the new veriants. mx.com, me, etc at 123-reg which I use.

business, Consultancy, E-Commerce, service

Understanding Spam – How it Works and who it Benefits

For the longest time I could not understand spam. I failed to see the benefits of a promised breast enlargements or a new Gold watch that is not offered on Amazon. To put it frankly I considered it a total waste of everybody’s time. Why did some yo-yo sit there comprising emails that make no sense with links that would never be clicked upon or is that the case?

For the average educated person one can assume there is no interest in spam. The Spam market is for the poorly educated who most probably have little or no education. It is this type of user who is the most susceptible to this type of marketing. (third world countries) Unfortunately the spammer cannot differentiate from the email address the country of origin. (maybe we should start using country domains on our emails)

Spam exists because it does achieve it objects. 17 percent of the emails sent out will be clicked upon on and presumable a slightly smaller percentage will buy the products offered.

Of course due to the low cost of this form of marketing it is very attractive marketing for certain products. I was going to write companies here but I know any western company caught associating with this would face legal proceedings.

There is millions of pound spent on anti spam software, hundreds of thousand man hours on security. Is it effective? Well yes intill we have the next round where it starts again each side trying to better the other in spam wars.

So how do we defeat Spam? Educate People so that they know better would be my choice. It might solve one or two other problems too.

For Further reading on this topic check out Bruce Schneier excellent article http://www.schneier.com/essay-143.html

Ask a Question, Relationship, Uncategorized

Banking Crisis the Reality and the Discussion

Last couple of days if would appear that we hear nothing else on the radio and TV other than the banking crisis that is happening around the world. It would seem unlike the days of old.  When things in the 21st  century happen they happen at lightening speed. In the matter of 6 months I never heard so much analysis over the current credit crunch. The more we talk about it the less real it becomes.  Just today ideas are being floated for a government managed mortgage lending. In a free society this pushes beyond the realms of reasonable.  Is all this discussion helping us? do we need someone to make a decision? What do you think?

 

It is not particular hard to understand that what goes up must come down. We can not expect to have year after year growth in housing prices. It is just not possible. Of course the problem is nobody wants to feel the pain to put it right. Least of all the current Labour party, but I suspect for a lot people there will be real hardships in this changed environment.

 

What would be your strategy?

business, Relationship

Top Networking Sites that your Business should have Presence on?

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Professional Networking Sites – In no particular order

This has been an adapated post from here: http://www.relevantlyspeaking.com/2008/2/6/social-media-marketing-essent… Thanks.

1. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a popular networking site where alumni, business associates, recent graduates and other professionals connect online.

2. Ecademy: Ecademy prides itself on “connecting business people” through its online network, blog and message-board chats, as well as its premier BlackStar membership program, which awards exclusive benefits.

3. Xing: An account with networking site Xing can “open doors to thousands of companies.” Use the professional contact manager to organize your new friends and colleagues, and take advantage of the Business Accelerator application to “find experts at the click of a button, market yourself in a professional context [and] open up new sales channels.”

4. Facebook: Facebook is no longer just for college kids who want to post their party pics. Businesses vie for advertising opportunities, event promotion and more on this social-networking site.

5. Care2: Care2 isn’t just a networking community for professionals: It’s touted as “the global network for organizations and people who Care2 make a difference.” If your business is making efforts to go green, let others know by becoming a presence on this site.

6. Gather: This networking community is made up of members who think. Browse categories concerning books, health, money, news and more to ignite discussions on politics, business and entertainment. This will help your company tap into its target audience and find out what they want.

7. WorkConnexions: Ok I am biased here, but this is a great little site for developing your business sales techniques or wanting to find out more about keeping and interacting with employees online.

8. http://friendfeed.com (http://friendfeed.com/leoc)Friend feed is one of those sites that will be very important in the coming years may be more so than Twitter because of the way it combines all your web activity in a simply effective way.

Social-Media/Social-Bookmarking Sites

(Share your favourite sites on the Web with potential clients and business partners by commenting on, uploading and ranking different newsworthy articles. You can also create a member profile that directs traffic back to your company’s Web site.)

1. Twitter: Use twitter to get the most update information in your areas of interest, or just stay in touch and see what your contacts are doing. Try my profile here http://twitter.com/LeoC

2. Digg: Digg has a huge following online because of its optimum usability. Visitors can submit and browse articles in categories like technology, business, entertainment, sports and more.

3. Del.icio.us: Social bookmark your way to better business with sites like del.icio.us, which invite users to organize and publicize interesting items through tagging and networking.

4. StumbleUpon: You’ll open your online presence up to a whole new audience just by adding the StumbleUpon toolbar to your browser and “channel surf[ing] the Web. You’ll “connect with friends and share your discoveries,” as well as “meet people that have similar interests.”

5. Technorati: If you want to increase your blog’s readership, consider registering it with Technorati, a network of blogs and writers that lists top stories in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.

6. Ning: After hanging around the same social networks for a while, you may feel inspired to create your own, where you can bring together clients, vendors, customers and co-workers in a confidential, secure corner of the Web. Ning lets users design free social networks that they can share with anyone.

7. Squidoo: According to Squidoo, “everyone’s an expert on something. Share your knowledge!” Share your industry’s secrets by answering questions and designing a profile page to help other members.

8. Furl: Make Furl “your personal Web file” by bookmarking great sites and sharing them with other users by recommending links, commenting on articles and utilizing other fantastic features.

9. Tubearoo: This video network works like other social-bookmarking sites, except that it focuses on uploaded videos. Businesses can create and upload tutorials, commentaries and interviews with industry insiders to promote their own services.

10. WikiHow: Create a how-to guide or tutorial on wikiHow to share your company’s services with the public for free.

11. YouTube: From the fashion industry to Capitol Hill, everyone has a video floating around on YouTube. Shoot a behind-the-scenes video from your company’s latest commercial or event to give customers and clients an idea of what you do each day.

12. Ma.gnolia: Share your favorite sites with friends, colleagues and clients by organizing your bookmarks with Ma.gnolia. Clients will appreciate both your Internet-savviness and your ability to stay current and organized.