Starting Off Successfully With an Online Home Based Business
Tip 1: Discover your "Why". Before you even sit down at your computer and hack away at a plan and mockup, you need to first figure out WHY you want to have an online business. Your "WHY" is unique to you and should be as specific as possible. Saying something like, "To make more money," is not a strong enough "Why". Your "Why" should take an emotional stronghold on you and really make you want to go the distance that's required to succeed in your online business. "I want to be debt free by December 31st" is a stronger "Why" and sets a specific date much like a goal. "I don't want to ever worry about being fired again," is another example of a specific "Why".Tip 2: Make a place in your home to work. Along that line, let people in your family know that when you're in your place of business that you are "at work". This is part of taking your home business serious. By working at home, it's all too easy to sit in front of the television with a laptop and not do a thing because you're more tuned into the latest celebrity

Passing On Credit Card Processing Costs
I recently spoke with a retail merchant who told me that she was not too concerned about the fees that we assess. While I was detailing all relevant rates, she asked me a very interesting question: “How much do you think that I should charge my customers to make up for my credit card processing costs?” She added, “I would like to charge a surcharge.”I had an instant flashback to the time I placed a food order with a pizzeria. When I walked into the restaurant, the aroma whetted my appetite. Immersed in the beckoning scent, I barely heard the cashier when he told me that the bill was “$24.95.” Upon seeing my credit card, however, the cashier rang up “$26.50.” At the risk of appearing frugal, I did not question this action – only taking notice that it was blatantly unfair. Apparently, the restaurant owner decided to charge a surcharge when customers presented credit cards although I’m not certain how the cashier came up with a surcharge of $1.55. (What would have been the surcharge if my bill were $100 or more?)Sharing this experience with the

Software Project Management in Today's Business World
As a practicing project manager I felt that I could provide some good tools, useful information and cool links related to this field. This page is for project managers and the purpose is to share information on software development project management topics. My scope on this page is to provide general, as well as, specific project information and software to assist anyone who is working to establish consistent software project leadership.Moreover, I hope to provide some assistance in building professionalism. The current literature still says even with all the training going on and attention to managing projects there is still a rather large error or failure rate in software projects. If your career path is in project management you have a legacy problem and even more reason to read and apply the things that work. My favorite book on this stuff is by Harold Kerzner and is Project Management A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling. I had the good fortune to attend PMI certification training with Dr Kerzner as the instructor.the ‘population’ of their equipment, the more they sell of consumable hygiene products – the major profit opportunity for their business.

The salesforce of 50 specialist equipment consultants and key account executives is divided into eight geographical regions, each managed by an area manager under the control a national sales manager. In the course of many years’ experience in direct marketing Newco have explored most techniques of combining brand-building with lead generation, to support their salesforce and large distributor network.

Direct mail has long represented a sizeable proportion of their advertising and promotion budget; and they are now confident of their ability to generate leads very cost-effectively. Maintaining a high level of salesforce productivity remains an essential ingredient in staying at the top of the hygiene market.

Nevertheless, about two years ago, Newco began seriously to question the role of sales lead generation in their marketing mix. The basic problem was that they had become too good at generating leads. The overall cost per lead was fine, but this was not being matched by a correspondingly economical cost per sale. Indeed, cost per sale was initially rising due, it has been assumed, to poor feedback of results by the salesforce. Dissatisfaction with the lead generation came to a head when senior sales management began to re-structure the salesforce and to devolve greater accountability to sales managers at area or first line level. Sales managers complained that the influx of leads was actually reducing sales force productivity. Their careful work-plans to maximise the time salespeople spent face-to-face with prospective customers on which their high performance depended were being disrupted by the sheer quantity and often random geography of the enquiries demanding their attention.

At the same time leads were accounting for an unduly high proportion of total new business. The other two main sources of the Newco’s sales consultant’s new business were:

• Sales created from his own prospecting (self generated)

• Repeat and extension business sales from existing accounts

Unchecked, undue reliance on leads generated by the marketing department would leave the salesforce vulnerable to the vagaries of the market and take control away from the salesperson.

Finally, Newco’s excellent sales training programme notwithstanding, lead-dependence could also impede the development of salespeople into the account portfolio managers the company needed as the salesforce moved more and more into national and major account selling.

To restore the balance between self-generated and lead-generated sales, Newco set about creating a situation where leads would result in a net increase in sales productivity: if the maximum benefit was to be derived from Newco’s direct marketing activities, they had to be integrated with the sales management.

What was required, in short, was a flexible and dynamic database, geographically structured to the individual sales territories and regularly updated as the customer base grew.

Both the salesforce and the marketing department would contribute input. On the salesforce side there was the traditional problem. Each consultant would keep prospect records in his own unique filing system. When he was promoted or left the company, there was little organised prospect data to hand over to a successor who had, time-consumingly, to build up an entirely new prospect bank. Clearly, a method was needed of recording prospect data centrally.

In addition, the rapid success of the national accounts function required a database to accept a great deal of account information, e.g. subsidiary companies

the role of sales lead generation in their marketing mix. The basic problem was that they had become too good at generating leads. The overall cost per lead was fine, but this was not being matched by a correspondingly economical cost per sale. Indeed, cost per sale was initially rising due, it has been assumed, to poor feedback of results by the salesforce. Dissatisfaction with the lead generation came to a head when senior sales management began to re-structure the salesforce and to devolve greater accountability to sales managers at area or first line level. Sales managers complained that the influx of leads was actually reducing sales force productivity. Their careful work-plans to maximise the time salespeople spent face-to-face with prospective customers on which their high performance depended were being disrupted by the sheer quantity and often random geography of the enquiries demanding their attention.

At the same time leads were accounting for an unduly high proportion of total new business. The other two main sources of the Newco’s sales consultant’s new business were:

• Sales created from his own prospecting (self generated)

• Repeat and extension business sales from existing accounts

Unchecked, undue reliance on leads generated by the marketing department would leave the salesforce vulnerable to the vagaries of the market and take control away from the salesperson.

Finally, Newco’s excellent sales training programme notwithstanding, lead-dependence could also impede the development of salespeople into the account portfolio managers the company needed as the salesforce moved more and more into national and major account selling.

To restore the balance between self-generated and lead-generated sales, Newco set about creating a situation where leads would result in a net increase in sales productivity: if the maximum benefit was to be derived from Newco’s direct marketing activities, they had to be integrated with the sales management.

What was required, in short, was a flexible and dynamic database, geographically structured to the individual sales territories and regularly updated as the customer base grew.

Both the salesforce and the marketing department would contribute input. On the salesforce side there was the traditional problem. Each consultant would keep prospect records in his own unique filing system. When he was promoted or left the company, there was little organised prospect data to hand over to a successor who had, time-consumingly, to build up an entirely new prospect bank. Clearly, a method was needed of recording prospect data centrally.

In addition, the rapid success of the national accounts function required a database to accept a great deal of account information, e.g. subsidiary companies

me time leads were accounting for an unduly high proportion of total new business. The other two main sources of the Newco’s sales consultant’s new business were:

• Sales created from his own prospecting (self generated)

• Repeat and extension business sales from existing accounts

Unchecked, undue reliance on leads generated by the marketing department would leave the salesforce vulnerable to the vagaries of the market and take control away from the salesperson.

Finally, Newco’s excellent sales training programme notwithstanding, lead-dependence could also impede the development of salespeople into the account portfolio managers the company needed as the salesforce moved more and more into national and major account selling.

To restore the balance between self-generated and lead-generated sales, Newco set about creating a situation where leads would result in a net increase in sales productivity: if the maximum benefit was to be derived from Newco’s direct marketing activities, they had to be integrated with the sales management.

What was required, in short, was a flexible and dynamic database, geographically structured to the individual sales territories and regularly updated as the customer base grew.

Both the salesforce and the marketing department would contribute input. On the salesforce side there was the traditional problem. Each consultant would keep prospect records in his own unique filing system. When he was promoted or left the company, there was little organised prospect data to hand over to a successor who had, time-consumingly, to build up an entirely new prospect bank. Clearly, a method was needed of recording prospect data centrally.

In addition, the rapid success of the national accounts function required a database to accept a great deal of account information, e.g. subsidiary companies

the maximum benefit was to be derived from Newco’s direct marketing activities, they had to be integrated with the sales management.

What was required, in short, was a flexible and dynamic database, geographically structured to the individual sales territories and regularly updated as the customer base grew.

Both the salesforce and the marketing department would contribute input. On the salesforce side there was the traditional problem. Each consultant would keep prospect records in his own unique filing system. When he was promoted or left the company, there was little organised prospect data to hand over to a successor who had, time-consumingly, to build up an entirely new prospect bank. Clearly, a method was needed of recording prospect data centrally.

In addition, the rapid success of the national accounts function required a database to accept a great deal of account information, e.g. subsidiary companies and trading terms, in order to coordinate account management.

On the marketing side, there was the need to build and regularly update the unqualified lead element of the database. Most mailing lists contain little prospect information and generally age at between five and 15 per cent per annum. For Newco’s database considerably more information than name and address was required for each listed company: e.g. Telephone number, key decision maker, number of employees and existing products/brands used. This degree of detail effectively doubled the potential for decay.

Setting up the database and its management systems required a great deal of investment in specialist software. Hardware was not a problem: the company already had sophisticated computer hardware and had invested a considerable amount on computerising its internal systems. However, setting up an interactive database need not involve a huge investment in hardware or software. Some particularly effective systems have been set up using entirely manual controls. The skill lies in developing simple, logical systems which lend themselves to the gradual transfer to computerisation.

A re-evaluation of the role marketing could play in supporting the salesforce concluded:

o Mailing should be capable of distributing leads evenly across the sales territories in such quantities as to enable salespeople to plan their follow-up.

o To improve the value for money of each mailing, prospect lists should be made available for telephone follow-up (which has been proved to double the appointment rate).

o The central database (primarily a list of unqualified prospects) should be made available to sales people to coordinate their own prospecting and feed-back of data to the central file.

Newco still have some way to go to complete the new integrated system, but there has already been a general increase in sales productivity.

The strength of the system lies in its flexibility. It is capable of accepting large amounts of data from a variety of sources bought-in lists, market research, tele-sales agencies and the company’s own salespeople in order to personalise it to the specialist needs of the hygiene market.

A key benefit is the constant improvement of results from direct mail, as feedback and analysis of each mailing is used to amend the database and refine future target audience selections.

The marketing department can now provide much improved guidance to the salesforce. For example, analyses of the existing customer base by type of industry and commercial business, as well as analysis of direct mail responses, can direct sales effort into particularly responsive market sectors.

A further benefit of the central database to the sales consultant is that it can now regularly provide him with updated hard copy of customers and prospects sorted geographically. This helps the planning of sales activity to ensure efficient prospect follow-up. Fewer opportunities are lost, and the face-to-face time can be optimised.

However, the greatest benefit of this integrated approach has come from the restoration of control of the sales effort to the sales manager.

Sales managers have observed that a more balanced supply of leads, coupled with training in the techniques of appointment-making and lead qualification, has enabled salespeople to develop the important skills of self-sourcing new business and of managing existing accounts – skills that are essential to the key and national account salesman.

Internal promotions within the salesforce are at an all time high. There has also been an increase in assignments of marketing managers into the sales division and vice versa. This has resulted in