Sustainable business: Be economically driven

This is a guest post by Alia Haley

Many of the business leaders realize the fact that depending merely on advertisements alone cannot suffice for the brand building process. This is why new-age content focused sites like this utilizes affiliate marketing instead so you can create a drop shipping business from scratch and have success on it. However, entrepreneurs do not put much efforts of building the business brand which can sustain in difficult times of business, this is the reason why use digital signage should be a part of every business’s advertisement strategy. Therefore sustainable business is a new idea in the world of business, although it’s gaining popularity slowly and steadily in business circles. Still people find it an abstract or some call it a theoretical thing in business practices. The reason behind this story is because most of the businesses solely depend upon the external factors of brand building. The fact is efforts should be put forward in emphasizing upon the internal brand integration and activation process then only a proper sustainability for business is possible.

Sustainability is the last factor to follow: Generally what you will find in business today is the strategies for sustainability and marketing generally is considered the last choice for businessmen. This is, by the standards of YEAH! Local SEO, called a shotgun approach, wherein the businessmen think about the marketing somewhere after six months and then counts on factors like the sustainability in his or her business. The entrepreneurs at times misunderstand this idea and end up embarking with a plan wherein they try things like charity and community relation drives. However, sustainable business is neither the charity thing nor the marketing plan. It is basically the ideas to generate revenue in a consistent way. The entrepreneurs often misunderstand this idea and end up trying something weird and frustrating.

Ways of developing sustainable business: When you as a businessman want to have a sustainable business, you need to start doing it by inviting key players all across the unique value chain of your enterprise. Then you are required to identify and find opportunities to carry out business operations in such a way that you effectively use all the resources in the business creatively. When you have key players at such stages in a value chain you find out opportunities to design and implement plan for better sustainable business. Hence at the end of the day you get cost effective and creative strategies and remain economically driven. Speaking of business, checkout this service for central air conditioning unit replacement warranty.

Enhancing and developing the management system: The idea of sustainable business is still at nascent stage; however, it is gearing up in number of business places. At such point of time the entrepreneurs should incorporate this aspect at the policy level of the company or business. This will help implement it in a right way adopting this idea in their core principle of the business. For this you do not have to reinvent things, rather it comes through a couple of things like with cultural orientation, procedures, extensive refinements to systems procedures and practices.

In order to sustain in the business world and remain economically driven, it’s important that the businesses implement this idea the best. Though this still seems to be in its initial stages, however, things are changing with changing times. Certainly for every business implementing the sustainable business ideas would be different. Smaller ones would have some different idea than the bigger ones; however, with factors like perseverance, ingenuity and cooperation the desired result can be achieved. On a related note, if you are looking to start a business but worry about capital, know that you can avail of new loans for bad credit online. These agencies offer fast cash for individuals with negative or zero ratings, giving them a chance to redeem themselves financially and get started with earning.


About the author: Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology and luxury. Beside this she is fond of travelling. Recently she bought two Invicta Watches for herself. These days she is busy in writing an article on alternative energy sources.

Make Money: Even with no product and no website

This is a guest post by Alia Haley

Marketing techniques may not be your preferred tools and having your own website may seem too taxing but it is one of the best options. And you are not interested in selling a product you do not like! On many occasions, you have ample time (even if you already have a job) to spend constructively for handsome earnings. But resource crunch, lack of desired qualification, improper guideline, etc. pose a restriction in progressing in the desired path. There are many ways which can help you earn reasonably. If you can really browse hard and spend some quality time, you can find multiple opportunities, check this out for More Info.

There are various entities which pay you for what you do for them, irrespective of your marketing or professional skill. However, be prudent to verify the credibility of any individual/organization before joining hands with it. To make your job a little easier, here is an overview of certain options.

Blog

You can start your own blog easily and without spending anything. One such location is Blogger. No special skill, like web architecture or designing, is needed. Simply have your blog set up within minutes. But here, traffic is vital. Affiliate links help add to your income. You get paid for clicks on your advertisements. You need to choose an appealing subject. Write creatively to attract attention and take help from your friends. Another option once you get started is to have an adwords management services to help you build your network and make more money on each ad.

Connecting employers and employees

When you connect employers to employees, you get paid. There are several web sites which pay for networking. Payment can be at $50 and go beyond many thousand dollars. You can now get rewarded by indulging in the recruiting business without having to spend anything. Getting in touch with job seekers is quite easy these days. You may visit ReferEarns, WiseStepp and Zyoin, to name some. Broaden your networking to earn handsomely.

Resource hub

If you have expertise on a subject, exploit your skill to get paid. The web can be your resource for creating opportunities. Work on a topic to channelize its resources and create a hub. Traffic is not an issue with many good sites on the web to help. And with the help of a  marketing automation tool you get paid higher if you can work on your own. Examples are HubPages and Google Knol.

Twitter

A twitter account can also be your tool for earning. You have to work on increasing your followers. There are different revenue scales for different number of followers. There is a web site Adly which can help you earn once you have more than 100 followers. When at Adly, you need to work on an offer. You may use the Buzzom in increasing your followers.

Freelancing

There are multiple categories of freelancing jobs which can be opted for. Some like copy writing, data entry, web designing, etc. are popular choices. Payment is done mainly on the numbers of hours you work or the assignment given to you.
Becoming a freelancer may seem a bit difficult initially. But once you establish a worthy portfolio, earning opportunities increase. Some of the web sites ask the applicants to qualify a test before hiring them. The flexible work environment is worth giving a try.

Providing buyers to sellers

You can work as a vital link between the buyers and suppliers of a product. Although not common, online referral can get you paid. The dealer can set the referral fee which gets paid on execution of a transaction. You get paid when the transaction happens. Individual sites may work in their own way. There may be another online merchant willing to pay for meetings and transactions.

Gaming

Playing games can no more be a waste of time. If you have love for computer games, you may get cash rewards for playing video games online as many people do by becoming better at games as Overwatch with services from sites as Overwatchboostpros.com. You may look for opportunities in MSN Games and Gamesville.
The opportunities do not end here. You can find many more suited to your individual skill and need. However, be careful before jumping to any of the offers. Be careful and prudent in your search.

About the author: Alia Haley is a blogger who is fond of writing on tech help and most expensive gadgets. She is all into computers and in recent times she learnt a lot about software downloads and android on windows mobile. Recently she is busy in writing on Automotive Design and tattoo designs

Leads are Unproductive and a Waste of Time

Business folks put a lot of focus on leads and sales. Sales are important, that’s how you make money, but leads are usually pointless. Think about all the methods you’ve used to generate leads. They probably worked great for creating a list of random names and contact info, but how many sales did they lead you to?

Leads don’t mean sales. What you need are fans. Fans will buy whatever you put out just because it’s you. They think you are the best artist, writer, brand, blogger, leader, and software developer on the planet. Fans mean sales. When you need venture capital on your developing company, click this site for more information.

Instead of following the mantra that sales and marketing is a numbers game, try becoming valuable and visible. Instead of Always Be Closing, how about always be informative? Always be helpful? Always be real and keep it 100? (that’s “one hunnit”, for the uninitiated)

When you work to make yourself an asset instead of just an ass, people will seek you out. Instead of you asking for the sale, you may find them asking to be sold.

Never Listen To Marketers About Social Media

BrickArms Army, Attention!

There is a serious scam going on in the social media world and I’m tired of seeing people get got. Marketing has come a long way, changed a lot, and still remained the same. The problem is that the pillars of the MLM community are fooling you with a false narrative. They want you to think that you will become a marketing powerhouse in social media with thousands of customers running after you, wallets out and purses open,  by simply following the steps in their latest e-book or whatever info product they’re slinging.

Don’t get me wrong, there are marketers out there that know what they’re talking about. You can tell they know what they’re talking about because the tech world recognizes them as equals. Not only are they skilled marketers, but their circles intersect with the people who help build and promote these new media tools.

It goes back to the question of , “Can you be a social media expert without being in social media?” The answer is, “Hell No!” If you aren’t in the trenches building your community and interacting with people, you cannot claim to know how to use this stuff.

The reason these MLM and Network Marketing gurus get such huge followings on all these social networking sites is that they already had huge followings to begin with. Look at how long some of these guys (and gals) have been around. Their tribe was built a long time ago. All they’ve done is leverage that tribe. A simple call to action to their existing mailing list and they’ve suddenly got 30,000 followers on Twitter. It’s that simple…for them.

You will never be able to duplicate this. There is nothing in anyone’s e-book or video series that changes that reality. You don’t have a standing army of customers. You are starting from scratch and you will have to put in the work to build your own community from the ground up. Anyone offering a magic shortcut to this end is blatantly lying you will waste a lot of time failing really slow if you buy into their crap.

Don’t believe me? Try and prove me wrong. I’ll wait…

…on second thought, I won’t. I’ve got better things to do.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

The Key to Closing the Social Media Sale

Photo of the reverse side of the Key to the Ci...
Image via Wikipedia

Recently caught a post by one of my favorite bloggers, Steven Hodson over on Winextra Shooting Bubbles (gratz on the rebrand!). He was talking about The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of SEO and Marketers and how good white hat seo link building services are. The post basically covers how marketers jump into the social media space and flail around with no clue what they’re doing, all the while claiming to be “ninjas” and “experts.”

One particular section stood out to me because it’s the same exact line of thinking I’ve formed about marketing as it relates to social media:

You know who a successful marketer is?

It’s the person who you can talk with on Twitter or Friendfeed or by email and feel like you are having an actual conversation – not the target of a sales pitch or that you are riding trapped with them on an elevator. Sure you could be talking about product or service but the moment you throw out a buzzword or two you have crossed the line from being an interesting person to talk with to being just another marketing dreck.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Steven just gave you the key to the city if you’re trying to make money using social media. As a matter of fact, this same mentality works everywhere else.

I believe that every conversation ends in a sale. Problem is, nobody likes being sold or pressured. They would rather evaluate the situation and make a decision on their own.

How do you get someone to make the decision you need them to make?

This is such basic stuff that I’m surprised so few actually get it. You have to convince a potential client or customer that your product or service will benefit them or otherwise provide value. With standard sales, you’d go through a process like:

  • Engage – make an initial pleasant connection
  • Build Rapport – small-talk to make your target feel comfortable
  • Discovery – at this point, you are trying to find out how your product will benefit this specific person
  • Close – by the time you get here, you and your target are buddies. You know exactly how your product or service fits into their life and they feel like you are doing them a huge favor.

For some reason, marketers in social media just keep trying to close the sale, skipping all the important steps necessary before that. This may still work with email marketing (maybe), but it does not work in social media. These are real people you’re talking to and if you don’t treat them as such, you will never succeed.

You have to put the work in if you want this to work for you. This means being real and genuine. Trying to be a part of the community for the purpose of making money won’t work. You have to just be a part of the community. With the web heading towards real-time, it’s all too easy to spot a fake and I or someone else will point you out. If you’re not here to provide value to the community, you may as well pack your things and move along.

Oh, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out…

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Did You Get Caught Trying to Boost Your Follower Count?

punkdTwitter is gaining popularity, attracting people of all types. They talked about Twitter on The View. George Stephanopoulos interviewed twitterviewed John McCain. P. Diddy has jumped in with both feet, keeping us updated and motivated (Let’s Go!!!). As always, with great power comes great responsibility…wait…I mean when a social service’s numbers blow up, most of them are probably just spammers and other types of marketers.

There is nothing wrong with marketing in social media. It’s a good place to establish your brand and make connections. The problems arise when the marketers start Doing It Wrong(tm). It’s almost disrespectful. Maybe I’m just sensitive.

Twitter Isn’t a Mailing List

We could go back and forth on this point all day long, but you’d still be wrong. Twitter is not your own personal mailing list. Let me restrict the parameters to make this more clear:

  • A standard network or Internet marketer sets up a mailing list attached to some kind of auto-responder.
  • The auto-responder is stuffed with a bunch of emails scheduled to fire off at specified intervals.
  • The goal here is to move your target to action without you lifting a finger.

Problem with that is, when someone subscribes to your mailing list, they usually expect this will be the case. When someone follows you on Twitter, they expect to see you updating your status. Not pitching them on your product.

The proliferation of services that will schedule tweets and shoot out automated messages to Twitter just illustrates my point here. We all know how I feel about social media automation.

Your Followers Aren’t Following You

Many network marketers and “small-business” owners have purchased leads before. The selling point on these always mentions something like “pre-qualified” or “targetted.” Anything that makes you think the the people on these lists are interested in what you have.

Once you start contacting these leads, you quickly realize that these people mostly want nothing to do with you. They were probably careless with their email address, or filled out some survey where one of the questions asked them if they had an interest in making money from home. Who doesn’t want to make money from home?

There are a bunch of services popping up which allow you to build your followers list automatically. Now, anyone can have thousands of followers without investing any time in Twitter at all. All they have to do is signup or opt-in and all the other people that have signed up and opted-in follow you just as you follow them.

Am I the only one that sees a pattern here? Nobody who signs up for these follower-generation services cares what you have to say. They don’t want to buy your crap or join your business. Just like you, they’re trying to get a bunch of followers on their “list” so that they can pitch their crap.

You Just Got Punk’d

So, you’ve signed up with this service, probably given up your Twitter credentials and the whole nine, and the only connections you’re going to make are with people who want to sell you something. Not only that, guess who makes out like a bandit? The service you signed up for. They played on your greed and now they have your contact info and twitter credentials. Not only that, but I bet they will turn around and sell you out to the highest bidder.

You might as well start looking around for Ashton, cuz you have definitely been had. Is that a camera hidden in the corner there?

There are people who just don’t know any better. They just wanted a bunch of followers because that’s supposed to be the thing to do in social media. It’s supposed to increase your status and make you somebody. Well, it doesn’t and I’m sorry you were misinformed.

For you marketer-types, you need to step your game up and start doing things the right way. If you’re going to be lazy about it and try to take shortcuts, you may as well quit now. You’ll never last. Also, you won’t make any money.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Would You Still Love Me If I Post for Pay?

I have to admit that the I was turned on to blogging because I wanted to make money. I kept reading about it being a good way to market online, but it also held a special attraction for me because, well….I’m a geek. Now that I have been blogging for a few months, I realize that I would much rather blog about whatever I find interesting and the “monetary gain” part has taken a back seat. BUT…I still gotta pay the bills, right?

Enter the PayPerPost blog network. I know…you’re already groaning and rolling your eyes. PayPerPost (aka IZEA) is definitely not the most respected company in the blogging community. They don’t require you to mention the fact that a post was written for money, so this opens up a whole can of worms regarding blogger respect and credibility. Which brings us back to my original question: Would You Still Love Me If I Post for Pay?

The answer is that I’m going to do it anyway. I care about my readers and their opinions, but I have mouths to feed. I try to provide the best possible content that I can with every post that I write. I aim to educate, train, inform, and entertain. If I find avenues where I can get some up-front money to cover a topic of interest, wouldn’t I be an absolute moron not to take it? So, here are the rules:

  • I will write posts for pay
  • I will not write about things that have nothing to do with my blog
  • I will blatantly flag these posts as being paid for
  • I will make sure that these posts only serve to further the goals of this blog

I’m not just going to turn my blog into a steamy, spammy trash sludge of product reviews and blatant advertisements for the sake of earning money. Quality is very important to me and I would like to make sure it is not compromised.

From where I sit, this is a good opportunity to get paid for doing what I love. I keep seeing PayPerPost all across the blogosphere, even on blogs that don’t suck, so it’s gotta be worth something.

It’s ultimately up to you, isn’t it, my faithful reader? Do you trust me? Have my past actions shown me to be a respectable and honorable person? Do you think I would jeopardize my personal brand for a quick buck? Do you post for pay?

Feel free to respond in the comments…

Doh! You Forgot to Close!

You are having a great conversation with a prospect. You have related on many different levels. You’ve laughed, you’ve cried, you’ve discussed personal issues. You even find out that you may be related or once lived in the same neighborhood. Everything is going great. You really feel like you can help this person to succeed and that they would be an excellent addition to your team. You hang up the phone feeling good about that call. You feel as though you have accomplished something. So what’s wrong?

You Forgot To Close the Deal!

You let that person go without: adding them to your team, getting a committment from them as to when they want to join you, or even scheduling a definite callback!

What are you doing?!

This is probably one of the most common failings of many marketers and it is actually a very simple one to fix… Continue reading “Doh! You Forgot to Close!”