Actual for You - Internet and Businesses Online

Creating A Marketing Budget
The Marketing Budget – Where To StartAs a new business, there is precious little historical information that can be used to guide the creation of a marketing budget. As a default, many companies will use industry standards as guides (very typically, the "average" will be somewhere between 2% and 5% of gross sales). Unfortunately, as with any industry standard, it does not represent the unique needs or strategies of any individual company. Relying on a "formula" to determine the marketing budget will rarely be the best approach, as every business has marketing needs and costs that vary widely from other companies. While there are no simple rules for determining what you should spend on marketing your business. Here are some guidelines for developing your annual marketing budget.What Goes into Your Budget? Before any budgets can be created, there has to be a marketing plan in place. Without an overarching goal and strategy, there is no sense in talking how much it will cost to achieve what has not been defined. The cost in time and energy to create the marketing plan will pay for itself if it focuses your efforts and ensures you spend only on the programs that benefit your business. Too many times small businesses work without a plan and needlessly spend

ime with crashes and problems, as it saves. The Internet can be a premier time waster by doing things wrong. Build the wrong type of website and you’ve wasted a lot of time and effort.

The objective here is to:

Observe what seems to be working for similar businesses and meet other online entrepreneurs that “are doing it.” Visit business forums and read questions and answers by others. After a short time, you’ll know the real players that know what they are doing. They are active, helpful, and a wealth of information. People of this caliber often have books and courses they offer. The beauty of dealing with these people online is their “performance based” approach.

Remember Frank M we referred earlier in this article? He paid upfront, like most of us have and received little or no value for his expense and effort. He didn’t know how to “test the waters” of his providers. Online it’s a different process to get to know your service providers. There ARE ways. I suggested to him to locate consultants and service providers that have strong track records of quality and fair pricing.

Some service providers require upfront deposits and others are solely performance based, meaning they deliver on their promises first and then get paid. Often the best approach for both parties, a win-win scenario, can be a reasonable deposit and draws based on progress. This way each party feels protected. This arrangement is workable when a client is dealing with a professional they are sure is honest and will deliver the quality and product in time as promise

A Primer on Getting a Franchise Business
So... you are thinking about either starting your/a new business from scratch, or possibly upgrading an existing business to take advantage of the benefit side of franchising such as possibly better advertising opportunities, better supply of goods for sale, name recognition.. any or all of the above.The attractions and benefits of the better known and reliable franchises are many.But as is true in the laws of physics where it states "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction", so it is true of franchising, and to know if it (Franchising) is for you, you must understand these basic tradeoffs.Franchising in a way is like a middle ground between being totally self employed and being an employee. You have many freedoms but as a franchisee, you have many, many rules to go by. The whole heart of franchising is STANDARDIZATION. And in fact, it’s what you are paying for.One of the first things you have to ask yourself.. even before the money question is: "Is this for me?" and a key part of that is some self introspection: Can I willingly trust and take orders and direction? Do I HAVE to be the guiding and creative light in my business? If you can't answer this in the affirmative, then Franchising is probably NOT for you. To be a successful franch

This series of articles takes a different slant than the usual targeting of aspiring entrepreneurs. Here we focus on existing business owners that believe the Internet is important to their future success, but they just can’t seem to get started embracing it as an effective marketing tool. Since this is a series of articles we will need to lay a little ground work here. This introduction may seem a bit lengthy but it’s necessary to be sure we are on the same page and the message is clear. Then we’ll get to the main course and cut to the chase!

There are countless of experienced business persons knowledgeable in brick and mortar offline business operation, but don’t really have a clue as to what the Internet can really do for their business or how to do it. Yet, they see its overwhelming impact on business worldwide and realize they had better embrace this new technology or risk falling behind the competition. This article series is dedicated to YOU! Even if you are a beginner, the practical information here can be of great benefit to you.

Yesterday, I had a call from Frank M. in St Petersburg, FL. He is a very intelligent person that built a strong website around a niche product. The presentation is professional and he’s been at it for several years with unsatisfactory results. He’s paid good money after bad for “consultants” that have made grandiose promises of Internet marketing magic, claiming they have the best Opt-in mailing lists, miraculous software guaranteed to eliminate all the work of running an online marketing business, or even to place his domain name at the top of Yahoo or Google. All were a waste of his resources.

Are you experiencing similar disappointments, money and time wasters? You likely seek what Frank wants, real information, not blue sky dreams. If you’re successful running an offline business, you don’t see the world through rose colored glasses, but know it takes a polished business plan, you are forever refining, for ongoing success.

Welcome to the real world of the Internet. The same rules apply. There just isn’t any secret formula like many so called Guru’s would like you to believe. Like any business endeavor, you must research and learn the right information that works. We call this “insider secrets.” Not because it’s mysterious, but because successful people generally don’t reveal their secrets. All industries have their specialist that have “been there done that,” and are willing to write about it. We’re not referencing “get rich quick” formulas targeting rookies and wannabe millionaires.

We mean consultants that have a proven track record of doing it themselves and testimonials from others that have done it. The real problem here is anyone can create a website and have their friends give bogus testimonials. Most of their “how to formulas” don’t work. You’ve probably already learned that lesson. Frank did.

So what’s a person to do? What approach did you use to setup your existing offline business? You researched your industry, learned all you could about it, and finally implemented your business plan. And you’re still developing it, in some cases after many years. It must change as the times change. Again, welcome to the Internet.

Let me explain. Internet technology is changing faster than most of us can keep up with. That’s confusing. We purchase some software to provide a solution for a business need. Then a new way comes out that seems much better and we upgrade losing our investment in the older version, which we may not even had time to utilize. This happens because most individuals running brick and mortar businesses can’t seem to spend the time to focus on their Internet business. Sure it’s the same business just a new marketing tool. The reality here is it takes the work and knowledge of setting up a completely new business.

We get the point. We have explained some problems facing your Internet marketing endeavor. But what are the solutions, real practical answers. We will cover the following topics in this series. We’ll break each one down over the next several articles.

What you need to get started in the right direction:

• Access to accurate important information that provides working solutions.

• Will my product or service have a chance for success on the Internet?

• Identifying important information that is true, timely, and works. Not the phony claims from individuals that supposedly “made it” but didn’t or those that had a tremendous behind the scenes advantage over competitors from the get-go. Sure, there are always the exceptions that project “If I can do it so can you.”

• Knowing what really works and what doesn’t on the Internet.

• Examples and case histories of others doing it and some insider information on how they are doing it.

• Having choices to the best solution for your specific needs.

• A plan that will take you step-by-step through the maze of software, tools, and activities necessary to make an online success of your business.

• Which current technology is best for my personal circumstances?

• How can I minimize my expenses while having the maximum benefits?

• Where can I go to get truthful answers to important business questions?

• What is different on the Internet opposed to my current marketing offline approach?

• How do I get advertising exposure if I can’t get a good search engine position?

• What advertising alternatives are available besides search engines?

• What is Affiliate Marketing? Scam or real income generator?

• Shortcuts to automating and managing a new online business

The list is endless but we will focus on getting started, teaching you how to crawl (quickly), then to walk, and finally to run. Our goal here is to open your eyes to the real value of taking your business online, a true expose and road map on Internet success. Now let’s cut to the chase!

Access to accurate important information that provides working solutions

I suggest taking some time to get acclimated to the Internet before jumping in. Remember when you first started working with a computer? There was likely a learning curve before you were effective using it. If you’re like me, the computer seems to often waste as much time with crashes and problems, as it saves. The Internet can be a premier time waster by doing things wrong. Build the wrong type of website and you’ve wasted a lot of time and effort.

The objective here is to:

When Change Is In the Wind...Heads Up!
In these days of takeovers and mergers, of downsizings and lean management, chances are that you are going to be caught in a job upheaval at least once in your career. Probably more than once!Change in the wind may come like an invigorating breeze on a hot humid night. For instance, your boss is promoted to a new job and you have to get used to reporting to someone new, who turns out to be even better. But change also can come as a spark before the forest fire, when an outside takeover of your company leads to unexpected layoffs, outsourcing, and redefinition of the company itself.But whatever the situation, once you’ve got a new job or a new boss or a new company, you must realize you have to change. That’s survival lesson number one. The worst thing you can do is cling to the old ways of doing things or to ignore what’s happening right before your eyes. To deal effectively with change, you need to pay attention to four stages of workplace transition.Stage 1. Something’s Up: What To Do Before The Change.If you’re lucky, you’ll have some advance warning and time to prepare. Sometimes you simply have the uneasy feeling that something is up. There might be lots of hushed conversations or closed-door meetings. Top management might seem especially busy and inaccessibl

his domain name at the top of Yahoo or Google. All were a waste of his resources.