How to set up your new business
October 14, 2009 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Books, Featured Articles
Book: The Essential Business Handbook:
The Nuts and Bolts of Getting Up and Running Fast
Author: Beth Andrus
This book is a great reference book for all new small businesses. Everything you need is in easy to read chapters that are not over flowing with personal stories and information no one cares about. Andrus tells you what to do and why. Then she gives you a few resources to get it done. Don?t let the cartoon image of Andrus fool you. If you completed one item from each chapter, in less than a month you would be up and running.
Andrus writes in a simple style however she includes some very important information that people need. Every business must create a solid foundation; each brick of that foundation is covered here. All of the things you can find, however you are going to have to look several different places to get it all. Her explanation of resale number alone makes it worth it to get your book. Reading the California state government information booklet on resale numbers and how to calculate the tax is far more complicated that it should be. Andrus breaks it down with an easy to understand example.
Trademarks usually gets people stuck in the mud when starting their business. If you read Andrus chapter, you will be able to move beyond that even if you decide to go after a trademark. I also highly recommend the chapter on Cost Accounting. This is not exciting stuff when you are an entrepreneur, yet you must deal with it or pay the consequences later. She has a check list and glossary. No matter what your education level, you can enjoy this book. By enjoy the book, I mean, get the information, put it to use and get your business started. If you have a business already and are not achieving the success you want, this book can serve as a basic check up for your business.
This book is highly recommended for young or first time business owners. This book is a an L.A. 9!
How to Improve Your Existing Product Sales on Your Website
September 20, 2009 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Featured Articles, Wright Ideas
This article is for people considering a change for their products and offerings. You’ll look at 4 areas that are easily adjusted to give you more sales.
You may have a niche marketing website that just isn’t producing sales for you at the rate at which you had hoped it would. Perhaps it isn’t producing any income for you at all. One problem could be that you haven’t actually figured out that what you are selling is, in fact, a niche market product. You might need to do a little ‘tweaking’ and modify your strategies somewhat to get the site performing better. Here are a few things that you can do to improve your existing product sales.
Step #1: Bill Cosby, the famous entertainer, once said, "I don’t know what the secret of success is, but I know the secret of failure and that was trying to please everybody." He was right. You can’t please everybody and you can’t sell to everybody either. It’s possible that you may simply need to narrow you market, identify you product as a niche marketing product and advertise it accordingly.
Step #2: To improve your existing product you have likely overlooked the most obvious solution of all. You could simply ask your customers what they think. They are, after all, the end users of the product or service that you are selling. There is nobody that knows how a product can be improved better than the people who are using the product.
Step #3: Analyze the competition. Take the time and put forth the effort to look at the product or service that your competitors are offering. Identify their strengths and weaknesses. Find out what your competition cannot do, will not do or does not do well. Then set about doing those very things yourself.
Step #4: Are you selling your product at the right price? Pricing a product too low makes people think it won’t be any good, pricing too high will discourage them from buying it. Every product has a sweet spot in sales price. You need to find yours.
An Entrepreneurs Guide to Leverage
September 17, 2009 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Featured Articles, Wright Ideas
This article will explain the concept of leverage for business owners and give good guidelines on how to use it for themselves.
When I talk about leverage in this article, I am talking about leverage as to gain advantage through the use of a tool. There are specific financial terms of leverage that we could address, however this not part of this article. As business owners there are 7 different kinds of leverage you can use to make your business more profitable.
You can leverage other people’s energy. By delegation and outsourcing tasks that do not bring in money, you can focus on the tasks that do result in money. You do not have to hire an employee. You can go online and virtual assistants and technical people that you can hire online.
You can leverage someone’s success. Biography’s can be a great place to learn about other people’s lives. You will begin to see their pattern of success. You can learn from their difficulties. This is a great way to learn to save yourself time on your journey to success. You can avoid their mistakes. This is why many entrepreneurs love biographies of great people.
You can leverage other people’s contacts. You can ask your current contacts for specific introductions to other people. Keep a running list of who you want to meet; you will be surprised at who knows them. Remember the six degrees of separation is real and easily working in our digital domains.
You can leverage other people’s credibility. By having a thought leader introduce you to a particular group, you get to use some of their credibility. The group already respects this person, so since you are also respected by this person, they are more apt to accept you. Your status as an expert is greatly enhances by this strategy.
You can leverage other people’ ideas. It only takes one good idea to be super successful. It only takes one good idea, put to work to create a multi-million dollar business. One idea sparks another idea and so on. Some business ideas are like ugly babies. If you wait a while, they will grow into lovely children that pay off. If you throw them out because they are ugly at the beginning.
You can leverage other people’s knowledge, especially in a mentoring or coaching situation. What you are doing is getting accelerated learning courses for the topics you need help. With access to one on one coaching or even group coaching, you can use this knowledge that you did not have to spend formal time in a class or seminar to get.
Action items:
Get a coach or mentor
Buy a biography of a successful person and read it or listen to the audio book
Connect with someone who can lend you their credibility
Ask a colleague or mentor for an introduction to someone you need to connect with.
Get a virtual assistant or add someone to the team at least part tim
