Category Archives: Consultancy

Center of Excellence

April 27, 2008 Editor

The Isle of Man is doing well. Part of the success that we enjoy is that we have our own hospital. A hospital that costs a million pounds a day to run. For only 80,000 people it does not represent value for money. With any small community one has to build a reputation for certain skills sets. The Isle of Man has established a financial reputation in the world market. We are also working on becoming e-gaming center. But we are lagging behind at the moment. Today’s thought is how to make our hospital more cost effective so that it could become a center of excellence in a specific medical area. As certain hospitals are known for heart surgery, children etc. Maybe the Isle of Man could become an expert in the field of dermatology?

Guest Bloggers, Marketing, Traffic, Websites

How Much Time Should You Spend On Marketing?

April 23, 2008 Editor 1 Comment

As a solo-professional or small business owner, you have many responsibilities. Not only do you have to run your business and manage all the tasks associated with that, you also have to market that business. But just how should you divvy up your day? How much time should you spend on marketing? I believe you need to spend at least half of your time on marketing. In fact, as a business owner, I believe you really only have two main responsibilities:

1) Spending your time on revenue-producing activities

2) Marketing your business

Your time is valuable, so you shouldn’t waste it on mundane tasks that someone else could easily do.

You should be spending half your time generating income for your business. This might include things like servicing your clients and creating products.

The other half of your time should be spent on marketing to grow your business. That might include activities like writing articles and press releases, doing speaking engagements, writing and publishing an ezine or newsletter, advertising, relationship marketing, networking or Internet marketing. Any activity that is designed to bring you more clients or more sales.

But what about “all those other things” that have to get done?

All those administrative business tasks like paying bills, invoicing clients, going to the bank, picking up office supplies, fulfilling orders, monthly bookkeeping and clerical tasks like filing?

Or all of those household tasks like grocery shopping, cleaning your house, and doing laundry?

Find a way to delegate “all those other things”

…so you can focus your time on your top two priorities. If your time is worth $50 an hour or $150 an hour and you are spending it on $10 an hour tasks, it just doesn’t make sense.

What if you can’t afford to hire help?

I was in this boat for a long time myself. My mentors kept telling me to create a team and delegate. But I thought I couldn’t afford to. When I finally took the leap of faith and began assembling a team, my entire business and life changed.

I went from being a lone ranger doing everything in my businesses (yes, it was very tiring!) to a team that includes a bookkeeper, CPA, attorney, virtual assistant, writer, art director and production artist, media buyer, web developer, product manufacturer, fulfillment house, computer technician, real estate partners, property management company and others I’m sure I’m forgetting about right now.

No, I don’t have an office with all these people on staff.

I am still a “company of one.” These people are partners that I pay for specific services when I need them.

And I’ve enlisted the help of my family with the household tasks and hired housekeepers so I don’t have to spend my valuable work hours or my precious free time on these activities.

Yes, I still do some things I probably shouldn’t.

But the point is, over the past two years, I’ve learned to find experts and utilize their services to help me grow my business.

And even though I thought I couldn’t afford to hire a team…

Now I can’t imagine running my business (or my life) any other way. And paying for this help has never been an issue. Because the time they have freed up allows me to focus on my top two priorities, which has grown my businesses.

Your Marketing Step

Look around. Are you trying to do it all yourself? Are you running your business as a lone ranger? Are you spending time on activities that someone else could be doing?

If you are, I encourage you to step back and re-evaluate how your business is structured. And create a structure and a team that will allow you to spend your time on marketing and revenue-producing activities. And then watch your business grow!

Want to see how I spend my time? Visit my blog to find out!

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_LaChusa

Marketing, Traffic, Uncategorized, Work Connexions SMO

Who Should Publish the Company Blog?

April 18, 2008 Editor

Among the questions executives ask about social media is where should it be located? Who should launch, manage and publish the blog(s), vlog(s) and/or podcast(s)? The obvious choices are marketing, public relations, human resources or communications. However, making the right decision is both critical and complex.

To some extent, the answer lies within the internal structure of the business. Taking the org. chart into acount, to determine where social media should live, a business might ask questions such as these:

Who is most likely to understand the use of social media and then to use it in ways that benefit our customers, our employees and our business most?
Who has the time, budget and expertise to create engaging communications?
Who is least likely to use social media to market and sell products?
Who is most likely to use social media to draw customers into conversation with us; thereby, developing loyal customers, brand evangelists and new customers who appreciate our efforts to give them a voice?

These questions are the basis for the internal discussion. Whoever the business chooses to host social media, they must be excellent writers, they must be creative, they must have access to everyone within the business, they must be familiar with the customers and the communities in which the business has locations, and they must be trusted as open and honest communicators. Furthermore, they must have the courage and the ability to challenge managers and executives who want to turn social media into a bottom line tool.

Yes, social media, if done correctly, will result in return on investment in a variety of forms, including an increase in loyal customers who buy more and who talk positively about the company; an increase in the ability to produce more innovative and better products and services based on customer feedback; the ability to improve the company at every level, again based on customer feedback; and an increase in new customers as they learn about and come to trust the company.

That is the 10,000-foot view of where social media should reside and what to expect from social media. But like any strategy, before launching social media as part of your communications mix, every business should analyze the tools to understand what they do and how they may be used and how social media is and is not the right fit for your business. Using these communications tools is not to be done lightly.

My best advice is to study every detail and discuss all the pros and cons. And then if you decide social media is a good fit for your business, launch the tools internally first. Get employees from every functional area involved, and ask them to be your sounding boards. As in most things, employees know your customers best, and they will contribute incredibly good suggestions and recommendations, if you engage them and give them buy in.

For more information about Lewis Green visit him at http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com/solutions_to_grow_your_bu/

Ask a Question, business, Consultancy, work connexions

Time Management

April 17, 2008 Editor

There is nothing more true, than the expression if you want something doing give it to somebody who is busy. Busy people get more done.

Why

Because they are busy.

Allowing enough time will help project management and probably save a lot of stress. Rule of thumb. Add another 50 percent of what every time you have allocated. and you will get done with a smile on your face.

Biz News, Traffic, Websites

Writing Web Content

April 17, 2008 admin 1 Comment

The web has made all forms of communication more informal. People have forged relationships with others that they never see, through a constant stream of messages. The decreased formality of the language used was a natural progression, as more people gained access to e-mail and used it as a casual method of staying in contact with family far away.

With the rise of social media, blogs and online advertising campaigns, writing on the web has evolved into a specialised field. Vast amounts of literature have been published on the subject. It even features in university courses.

When it comes to reading on computers, most readers don’t read the full page. 79% of users scan the page for content only. Speed is another problem with reading on the web. Reading from a computer screen is 25% slower than reading from paper. As a result, writers should try to keep their web content to about 50% of the paper equivalent.

Experts can disagree on what constitutes a web writing style and what doesn’t. Most writers advocate a comfortable, conversational writing style. Your writing should be a reflection of who you are and should be similar to the way that you would speak to a friend. The use of humour is usually recommended, in tasteful amounts.

Headlines need to be instant attention grabbers. A reader skimming over a page is not likely to be attracted to a bland headline so it is important that you make yours stand out. Some experts say that you can do this be being playful or clever, while others say that you must not use clever or “cute” headings since these will pass beneath a reader’s skimming radar. Try to be as descriptive as possible while keeping it short and punchy. It always helps to use action verbs rather than flat ones. The first word is important so try not to waste it by using “The” or “In” or something equally mundane.

The body of your work should contain all of the information that you want to convey, or all the news that you want to share, using the fewest words possible. Try to keep your sentences short and concise, even if you are a natural word wanderer. Given a choice between a big, impressive sounding word that shows off your vocabulary and a short word that gets the message across, go with the short word. Paragraphs should contain one idea only. Don’t split an idea over two paragraphs either. This ensures that your paragraphs are neat and allows your writing to flow well.

Once you’ve caught the reader’s attention with your expertly written headline, you have to hold it with the content of your article or webpage. A good tactic to use is to approach the reader on a personal level. People are more likely to react to situations that they can relate to personally. This applies to all media, including web writing. People’s purchasing habits and their emotions are closely linked. It is important to try and tap into them on an emotional level so that they will be more inclined to relate to your site or product.

A strong start is important to attract attention, and a strong finish is equally important. People remember beginnings and endings, it’s the middle bits that often fade into oblivion. You need to create an ending that will leave them thinking for a long time after they’ve switched their computers off. It’s not always an easy thing to do, especially if your subject matter does not lend itself easily to exciting images and thought provoking ideas. In such instances it’s best not to yield to the temptation to write something extreme, and that appeals to your darker sense of humour, for the sake of sensationalism. No matter how well written it is, blood and gore do not make a good ending to a client’s article.

brand, Consultancy, E-Commerce, money, Personal, sales

Why I did the 360 and Monetised My Site

April 14, 2008 Editor

I am going to stick my hand in the fire and say that advertisements in blogging can offer a lot of benefits to the reader. Traditionally I came from background that has never really been effected by advertising. Is that really possible in this day and age? Well sort of, Most of my small or large purchasers are brought based on my own criteria. Now, one can argue that there is marketing and I am being indirectly marketed too but that is a conversation for another blog. Why do I think advertising adds to blogs. Well if you are writing about ideas and concepts in your blogs than there are a lot of products that can appear in blog offering their services that would bolt on nicely to the content.

For example if I write a blog about content then advertisement will appear with services for content. So the reader than gets double choice. Monetising my blog was a bit of 360 for me. My profile on the work connexions site was w3c compliant very readable but possible a bit boring. We hope with the new site to have remedied that and that business development will be enjoyable or whatever it is that you do. What are your thoughts? to advertising on your blog.

Of course if you want to skip the advertisements just RSS there is no advertisements in the feed…

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