OK, that first assumes you have a real business, one that has lasted at least five years. About ninety percent of the new businesses founded go broke before their fifth anniversary, so I am excluding them here. The companies who make it past their fifth anniversary have more than just potential!
They have proven that theirs is a viable business proposition, they had the money to out last the vast majority and they know a lot more than the average about running a business. Now it’s time to really go to work - to build on what’s working.
The number one key for business success in the 21st Century is the same as it was at the beginning of recorded business history, it’s just easier to achieve now that information is more abundant than ever and high speed Internet connections make it accessible. But just because it’s available and does not mean we all take advantage of it.
Since time began those who took advantage of current information outlived those who stuck to the old ways. The saber tooth tiger today is information knowledge. Either we tame it and use its power to help us or it will eat us alive. It is really that simple.
If knowledge, technology, planning strategies, etc. are available and we do not seek it out or do not act on it, whose fault is that and why? Remember the cartoon strip Pogo? He had the answer when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” But who is us? Us, means everyone, whether we’re involved directly in the business as an owner or employee, a non-involved stakeholder, or a part of the advisory team.
When there is already more information than seems necessary it is often counterintuitive to ask for even more. In part because most of us equate new information with either new messengers bringing us more and more of what we already know (just a new take on it) or our current advisors and vendors bringing additional `new’ advice.
Yet, access to help is just a click away, available anonymously so you get the knowledge in an unbiased format. Search engines such as Google and databases like our database of over 2,000 articles for family business. I have spoken to business owners who continually use public, private, and industry databases to protect their current position and look for new and better ways of doing things. They read magazines and newsletters too, reaching out for help without even having to identify themselves.
In addition, growing numbers of your contemporaries are online and easier to reach. These are the folks who may have already found the answers you are seeking. Even if you do not know them personally, you can reach out to them. Who better to ask for help than people just like you?
I am so impressed with the lengths to which some trade associations have gone to build an online community of their members. One association, working with a committee of its members, created a technology certification program. These members who participate win with better trained employees and so do their customers and potential customers.
Recently a trade association exec (who prefers to remain anonymous for reasons that will become obvious) made an interesting observation. When I asked him about the adoption of technology by their members (a bellwether activity in most industries) he said, “10% of our members are as close to the cutting edge as their Fortune 1000 counterparts. About 20% will never adequately adopt the strategies required to compete, and will therefore go out of business. The remaining 70% are the ones we are concerned about.”
What did he mean? Seventy percent of the members wanted to take advantage of all that is available to them in order to compete, grow, and continue to succeed. The association was doing everything possible to help them. Access to ideas, vendors, techniques, and their fellow member were just the tip of the iceberg.
As a likely member of the 70% (the 20% are not reading this article) you attend industry events where members of the 10% take the platform to tell you their strategies and solutions. You make notes and think about how their ideas might apply to you. With notebook in hand you approach the front of the room only to be swept aside by others who are also eager to catch the speakers’ ear. So, you go back home and try to reconstruct these incomplete ideas for your managers and employees.
Now, you can track the speaker down get his or her email address and contact them when you have a chance to put your thoughts in order. If they are like the industry leaders I have met, they will gladly share their knowledge with you. Email makes it possible for them to respond when it is convenient for them making their answers to your questions more thoughtful.
The relationship may grow into a powerful asset in the ongoing development of your business. When I take a minute to think about it, there are several business owners who are important to me personally a couple that I have never even met that I communicate with regularly. The value of these relationships makes all of my investments in technology worthwhile and will yours too.
Being willing to ask for help is the number one key, however it is your willingness to accept it and act on it - is what will have the impact. When your organization develops an environment where everyone - the owners, managers, and employees are looking outside the company for help taking advantage of the results that makes sense to everyone is human nature.
Successful companies have always looked both inside and outside the organization for tips, techniques, and strategies to help them grow and keep their successful business. Today the velocity of information is so great that “picking up a few ideas in the exhibit hall at next winter’s annual meeting” just won’t get it.
One way to systematically connect with people who can help you meet the challenges on being a family business in the 21st.Century is to form or become part of a virtual peer group. Virtual peer groups are made up of 4-6 business owners, usually from the same industry - who meet regularly over the phone.
The phone is the key, because it allows you to select other industry leaders located across the country - which means everyone is sharing ideas and experiences without fear of tipping off their competition. Virtual peer groups are the strategic planning circles of the future - available today.
Wayne Messick’s web site contains hundreds of articles full of actionable strategies. If you are a business owner who wants to maximize your company’s potential, here is how we helping thousands of others achieve success in virtual B2B Peer Groups.
It seems like we all learn better in groups. In school, from kindergarten to graduate school, you worked on projects in teams or groups. You always seemed to learn more from your peers than when you listened to an instructor droning on about a particular subject.
What we all learn talking with and listening to our peers can provide amazing insights. And if these peer groups meet regularly we can really leverage our business strengths. Conducting ongoing conversations with our peers really works.
If you are the owner, successor, or manager of a business you know that what you’re doing is rewarding.
However it can also be an overwhelming and often isolating experience.
This is particularly true in small to mid-size businesses: Owners can become more and more isolated with every new challenge, lacking an impartial and confidential place to frankly discuss the issues and concerns of his or her company.
One of the best ways to handle that isolation is through peer groups.
Whether meeting via teleconference or in person, peer groups provide business leaders and managers with an opportunity to honestly and openly discuss their goals, while helping other people solve their problems in the process.
Peer groups provide a safe, supportive environment in which peers can share ideas, voice concerns and challenges, and receive ongoing support to keep on track to meet goals. You get more out of discussing someone else’s issue in a constructive manner than you do talking about your own. And the other members feel the same - creating the ideal collaborative environment for growth.
Many times, in the world of family businesses, secrecy is so much a part of the business history that those at the top of the company rarely look outside the company for advice. Or, perhaps they are seen as leaders in their industry or their associations– they may feel it would be inappropriate or disadvantageous to seek advice from their peers within the industry.
A peer group made up of business owners from across the country, in a variety of industries with a variety of backgrounds, allows businesspeople to share concerns and get feedback from ideas that they would be unable or unwilling to discuss with people in their own industry. That atmosphere, with its strict confidentiality, allows members to air their challenges in a different way and get advice from others on a number of issues.
Since group members are developing their own businesses in different ways, with different goals and timeframes, a peer group is often able to provide members with cutting edge business strategies from people across the country or around the corner - people experiencing the same things differently.
Effectiveness development for business people is a never-ending story. I believe the best way to achieve effectiveness is through an ongoing strategic conversation with peers.
Whether these discussions are organized and moderated, or simply an ad hoc meeting of the minds, it is the ongoing nature of these peer discussions that allows them to deal with learning in a systematic way, putting out fires as they arise while developing future strategies for business growth.
As a peer group participant and facilitator, I can attest first hand to their effectiveness as a business development and problem-solving tool. It is the development of these long-term supportive relationships that is critical to the process: Knowledge and strategy are, in the final analysis, not nearly as important as the relationships between people enthusiastically supporting one another. That support is truly what makes peer groups so incredibly powerful.
There are essentially 2 ways of learning. One way is by practicing and getting feedback, or by acting, and then and measuring the success or failure of the act.
The other is by talking about ideas, digesting them, and thinking them through in an ongoing conversation. Discussion illuminates. In a peer group environment, it creates a common understanding of different concepts through the different perspectives each of us brings to the table.
Everyone helps everyone else gain a better understanding. We help each other figure out where we are right now, where we want to go in the future, create action plans, and then we hold each other accountable for our goal setting through continual review, discussing what’s working and what’s not, analyzing roadblocks, and more. Its an ongoing process of helping one another, and gaining the insight necessary to help ourselves.
The objective of a peer group is to create a comfortable environment where participants can share strategies and thoughts, as well as to discuss their frustrations, in a non-competitive atmosphere.
That non-competitive atmosphere may include people in the same industry but from different geographic locations, or a mix of people from a variety of industries. Peer groups aren’t about networking, and they are non-commercial by nature. Participating in a peer group is like being a part of and receiving ongoing assistance from — a board of advisors and therapists.
Corporations call them focus groups. And they are. For businesspeople though, peer review teams offer the counsel of selected advisors- other business owners like themselves. Each has an appropriate point of view, skill sets and objectivity that clear our otherwise murky projections of favorable results and how to get them.
Anyone who has been around the boards of directors in family businesses and small- to mid-sized companies knows that, generally speaking, board members are insiders and they have their own agenda. The boards aren’t always interested in providing or even in a position to provide regular, step-by-step instructions.
A peer group, on the other hand, provides an opportunity to access a sounding board of professionals without the insider concerns that invariably influence a company board of directors. Peer groups have no hidden agendas, just people with the same or greater experience helping other people.
The value of having a mix of members in varying fields is that it provides a cross-pollination of ideas. We all tend to get locked into our own ways of thinking about problems, solutions, and challenges. Often the best solutions are very clear to people who are not bound by those old ways of thinking, or by our own ingrained opinions about how to succeed in our given industry.
Most groups “meet” twice a month for an hour and a half teleconference. And if the members are from the same general area, they usually supplement their teleconferences with a quarterly in person session. The technological developments of the digital age have made it both easy and convenient to conduct meetings at a distance. Often groups will not meet in person for the first year or so after the group is formed.
From my experience as a group member and facilitator, once we meet face to face, I believe it changes the dynamic of the group. Groups always seem to work together very effectively without ever having met, but after when the members are able to meet, the level of effectiveness increased considerably. While I do believe that people can create successful peer group relationships without ever meeting in person, being able to put a face to a voice is certainly advantageous in the development of a relationship.
I’ve taken part in thousands of conference calls and people phrase things differently, they couch their thoughts in cogent sentences before they open their mouths, they’re reluctant to cut each other off if they have a burst of an idea, and every time you hear a noise in the background, you’re wondering which member of the conference isn’t fully engaged. There’s a trust issue there.
Each group develops uniquely, but there is one element that has been crucial in my experience: Commitment. Commitment to the group and the process is an absolute requirement if the peer group is to succeed. The members must be regularly willing to give of their time and their business acumen. If there is a facilitator, group members must also be committed to the ongoing investment of their money until they are ready to take over the group’s management themselves.
These are commitments that will result in their own personal and business growth and their ability to make decisions. Whatever time, energy, and capital they invest is a direct investment in their own success.
There are as many different ways to organize a group’s agendas, as there are groups. Supporting materials like books and articles on the topic at hand can prove useful here. Sessions can be structured around a source book or around study groups. The content can be supplied or developed in a number of ways. But in addition to the content, its the free exchange of ideas that is critical.
The benefit of having specific content is that it keeps focus and prevents the process from becoming just a gab session amongst business people. A principle value of the group process is that it helps each person ideas and solutions (or potential challenges) that are not apparent to them or that they may not have experienced themselves. A peer group helps people learn from the mistakes of others for a greater likelihood of success.
So what does the most effective peer group look like? It is one composed of business owners from the same industry, but located far enough apart that they are not direct competitors. Their meetings are facilitated professionally so that 100% of the time each member spends is on their and their peers growth, not on the management and housekeeping details that assure the group’s momentum. And they meet together at least once of twice a year at their industries association events. It’s a perfect scenario!
Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizresources.com If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our web site. If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential, here are the strategies we are using to generate 3/4 of our new business.
A couple of months ago I was invited to a breakfast where Crains Magazine was honoring some exceptional small businesses located here in NYC.
Each company was represented by one of its owners, spread out across the front of the room - each prepared to tell us a little bit of “their story” - Brooklyn Industries was one of them and was well represented by its co-founder Lexy Funk.
As soon as she was introduced I realized I was sitting at the table next to her cheering section, including among others, her husband, co-founder, and fellow entrepreneur, Vahap Avsar.
I intended to speak with Lexy after the event but the line of business owners wanting to ask her advice and opinion was too long. I put my notes aside and didn’t think about Brooklyn Industries again until this past weekend.
My wife had read about the shops on Smith St.in Brooklyn and since we had not been there for at least five years, and it was a beautiful day to stroll along the side streets in this vibrant ever changing community - we thought we’d make a day of it.
BTW, for those of you who don’t live in NYC, Brooklyn is larger than you would imagine. Its 2.5 million people make it bigger than San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, and St. Louis combined. So when we go there we limit what we hope to see to a single area.
When we reached the corner of Atlantic Ave. & Smith Street I found myself standing in front of a Brooklyn Industries store - full cool of clothes and accessories some of which are now destined for nieces and nephews from Pennsylvania to California - and Lexy’s comments at the Crains breakfast resonated with me.
Like many entrepreneurs she and her husband, starting the business in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with a single idea for turning their art into handbags, had expanded from the original concept of the business founded in the mid 90’s to one that in 2001 required a radical makeover. For business owners this sort of thing is usually forced on them, by the economy, the bank, etc. Otherwise they keep on doing what they are doing until the money runs out.
In their case it was the economic slowdown in 2001 that cause them to take action. They got out of the things that we not working well enough to be part of the solution, and had become part of the problem. They got out of everything except the retail business.
“That was the turning point,” said Lexy. “We were doing too many things.” And she was right, for them retailing provided direct access and input from their customers, daily cash flow, and control of all elements of merchandising and display.
They know their customers, they know their markets, and they can make decisions based on the most granular feedback possible, the people who walk in the door of their stores. The store at Atlantic Ave. & Smith St. is only one of their five stores in Brooklyn, one in the SOHO neighborhood in Manhattan and a few more on the way. They are looking at revenues of 7.2 million dollars this year and more in the next few years as the new Manhattan stores gain traction.
Success in the 21st century requires more than having a good idea or even a good product competitively priced. It requires leadership. Not the kind of leadership you read about in books, even though that’s important, it’s the kind of leadership that causes everyone from the storeroom to the board room to embrace the mission of the organization.
When everyone knows they are being treated fairly and sense that their input in important to the company’s success, they will train one another, support one another, and pitch in to help one another and the company without being asked.
Sustained success is also a function of strategic management. In fact more than anything else management has always determined which of the companies with good ideas, good products, good locations, and good leaders - survive and succeed. No matter how much your employees like you, sometimes unpopular decisions must be made. In the case of Brooklyn Industries, Lexy’s background was as an artist, Vahap a former photographer. So while they had ideal credentials for creating trendy clothes and accessories, business management was a new animal to them.
While they devoured stacks of business management books and periodicals such as the Harvard Business Review, they have received their real management education from the support network they have built around them and from their customers.
It will be interesting to follow the progress of Brooklyn Industries over the next few years. When leadership is in place and management strategies are being continually tweaked and fine tuned the result is the creation and maintenance of an ever evolving strategic planning process.
Strategic planning for the months and years ahead does not need to be complicated. It does not require consultants and analysts. In fact most successful privately held and family owned businesses do strategic planning with only a little help from their friends.
They seek out people they respect in business, people they are not in direct competition with, and people whose opinions and experience are relevant to theirs. They then mutually commit to meeting together on a regular basis to discuss issues of critical importance to each of them.
The resulting advisory group of supporters whose experiences parallel those they are having or are likely to have created a dynamic team, available every day in every one and committed to one another.
Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizresources.com If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our web site. If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential, here are the strategies we are using to generate 3/4 of our new business.
Can I assume everyone knows what a business to business peer group is? Maybe you’ve heard of them called Mastermind Groups instead. In either case the principles are those of Napoleon Hill and his colleagues that have been in use since the early part of the last century.
In a nutshell it is a small group of people meeting regularly, using the power of small group dynamics that foster creativity and accountability - to realize their full potential. When people who respect each other commit to being accountable as part of a small group, amazingly powerful things become possible.
Napoleon Hill coined the concept, although I am quite sure it had been around forever, of the “mastermind alliance” in his powerful book “Think And Grow Rich” because he believed from his own experience that a group of like-minded, achievement oriented individuals could dramatically leverage each other’s success.
So, for well over 75 years the mastermind process has proven itself as a valuable resource for people of every walk of life and every profession. If you read Napoleon Hill’s book you will see some famous names, such as Andrew Carnegie who were part of his first mastermind alliance.
Each of the members of his group were business people - so in fact we can say with certainty that he was the founder of the B2B Peer Group process.
In case you are not familiar with the makeup of traditional peer groups (aka mastermind groups) I will describe them.
Some mastermind groups are put together by an organizer, someone whose job it is to bring together strangers, based on some criteria or another, and make groups out of them. Typically the people who become members of each group did not know each other beforehand. It was all arranged by the organizer.
The individuals pay their fees and the organizer sets up and perhaps manages the meetings for some prescribed period of time, after which the members either signup for another period, or they ask to be put in another group or the yare disillusioned and drop out altogether.
These groups can be successful, but it is more by luck than by design. Napoleon Hill was convinced that the success of the mastermind alliance had more to do with the relationships between and among the members than the agenda or other mechanics.
So the organizer based mastermind group process is fatally flawed from the beginning. The groups that work are the ones where, luckily for them, the individuals connected with one another and stuck it out long enough to create the relationships that make real accountability possible.
Another type of group, often referred to as CEO Peer Groups, are organized by professional facilitators with the meetings held at the facilitators office. In many ways they are the same as the typical organizer focused groups mentioned above. But in important ways they differ.
In this type of peer group the organizers are highly successful professionals already, who want to work with clients in a group setting, who have taken specific training in group facilitation and have purchased a license or franchise from a company with extensive resources for the individuals who will be the members of the various peer groups.
Being a member of one of these CEO peer groups will require and investment of more than $1,000 per month and the commitment of considerable time for meetings etc. Their principle benefits are the face to face meetings with the highly trained facilitator and other successful business owners (the fee structure guarantees that) are offset by the necessity of a “horizontal” group structure.
By “horizontal” group structure I mean that since the group’s organizer has purchased a franchise for a specific geographic location and since no group would ever have two business owners in the same industry - who would want to be in a group with a direct competitor anyway, the possibility of learning from your actual peers is eliminated.
Historically business owners, everyone for that matter, gets the most actionable advice and help from other business owners in their industry. Anyone who tells you that’s not true is trying to sell you something. Of course we all pick up ideas at Rotary Club and Chamber of Commerce meetings. When we do we have to filter them through our experience to determine whether or not we think they’ll work in our industry.
The 21st.Century B2B Peer Group eliminates this blind spot. These groups are organized “vertically” with everyone being in the same industry, just at different stages of development and in different parts of the country.
What does the 21st.Century B2B Peer Group look like? They operate 24/7/365, they defeat time and distance, they eliminate 90% of the cost associated with traditional mastermind groups, and they leverage the power of people with whom it was previously impossible to regularly collaborate.
I believe they are what Napoleon Hill and his colleagues would have created if it had been possible to do so at that time.
They take place over the phone and incorporate private Internet discussion boards, so time and distance are no longer an issue. Think about the money you’d save by not having to carve 3-4 hours twice a month out of your work day? And for those of you who live in rural areas the time commitment for a traditional peer group is even greater. Using the 21st. Century Peer Group model the ‘dead time’ is eliminated.
Wouldn’t it be great to have the ear of the leading members of your industry? You and they are facing the same issues every day, you speak the same industry lingo, and have shared experiences. Ideas presented based on their experiences are directly relevant to you and vice versa.
Even if the industry leader’s business is located half way across the country, instead of seeing them once or twice a year at the association meetings, you can be collaborating with them twice a month as part of your 21st. Century Peer Group.
In my personal experience nothing is more powerful in business than thoughtful, regular, strategic input from your peers, I know that for me it has made all the difference.
Whenever people ask me whether or not I recommend that they consider joining a peer group, a mastermind group of their peers, I always tell them if they are committed to realizing their full potential, a peer group is the most effective vehicle around.
Hey, if it worked for Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie, who can argue with its power?
Wayne Messick is the publisher of www.iBizResources.com If you are a business advisor wanting to maximize your potential,here are strategies we are using to generate record revenues..If you are a business owner wanting to leverage what you are already doing right visit the Peer Groups area of our website.
Once there was a time in business when you could experience a change and then return to a period of relative stability. Nowadays, changes occur constantly - one on top of another. We need to acknowledge change and realize that change is a continuous journey - a way of life rather than a one-time event that can be lived through.
With considerable momentum and continuity building in an organization, it definitely can be said that nothing is ever absolutely certain (other than possibly death and taxes).
These changes and challenges that are encountered can at times bring added strain to business organizations. What is not always clear to us is how much more trouble we would be in for organizations failed to change. Often times people can have a funny way of hanging on to old habits.
In particular, we are often unwilling to quit doing what we can do well, even if it is no longer valuable to our customers. It is easy for people to get stuck in the thinking that got them to where they are today, even though that thinking cannot be used to get them where they need to be tomorrow.
It is important that we continue to break through the traditional thinking and avoid any prevailing mindsets, such as the thinking: it has always been done this way. We need to continually focus our efforts beyond our business-as-usual thinking. As progress calls for each of us to change, we need to remember that constant change is a way of life in business today. Together, people need to simultaneously manage the present and plan the future.
Currently, some jobs are taking on totally new dimensions…making new demands…calling for new work habits. We need to be willing to alter our mindsets as well as our techniques. Rather than continuing with the same old job behaviors that worked well enough in the past, we must learn new routines and make the necessary shift in our mindset so that our thinking is aligned with our new company mission and the new realities of the present work world.
We all need to focus our efforts on doing the right things for our customers. A key mistake can be ignoring how priorities and customer expectations have changed. We can be focused on doing things right, but we really are failing to do the right things. What can we offer our customers that they will value and be unable to get from anyone else?
We need to have an intense and unwavering commitment to making a difference in the business’ of our customers. It is important that we look at change as an opportunity…and use it!
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Contractor and Home Builder shows are becoming extremely popular among folks who are looking to build their home or are even just slightly considering having one custom-built themselves. Some of them are also, perhaps, looking for considering already built property and are there to view some of the services of home builders and/or contractors for whatever revisions and renovations they may wish to make.
As a real estate agent looking for leads, this is obviously a goldmine of potential customers for you. But how are you going to take full advantage of this opportunity?
First, affiliate yourself with the most reputable contractors or home builders in the show. These individuals will come into the show with greater strength than others, and most likely, customers are more likely to flock to their booth or area than others. Make sure these contractors are referring the traffic back to you. You may also opt to set-up a booth where interested parties may gather further information on real estate. Not only will this allow you to communicate with potential clients, you are also getting the opportunity to collect information on them that may be valuable to your future contracts.
Don’t underestimate the contact that you can make in a contractor or home builder show. Unlike street signs or promotional brochures given out in random commercial spaces, the people crowding to these shows are more than likely to be very much interested in the services you offer, and are simply choosing among various alternatives. Moreover, because of this interactivity, you are able to communicate better your vision and your comparative advantage over the next best thing. It gives you more space to convince a potential lead to avail of your services, or simply give you information so that they’d receive supplementary brochures and catalogues from your company.
Make sure that you have your card ready. Your customer may be sold on the idea of hiring your services, but without your card, how will they be reminded of the impression you made on them. Moreover, how will they know where to get in touch? Always have it in handy while you make your remarkable sales pitch and you’re sure to get solid leads yourself.
While your potential customers are roaming around these shows, they are going to want to compare and contrast various offers made to them. Some of them would want to finalize decisions at home, while others would want to make those decisions on the spot. For on-the-spot decision-makers, a promotional handout or brochure featuring the attractive qualities of the real estate you are offering may actually help them compare your offer to the next best thing. A creative brochure capitalizing on the assets of the real estate will allow for you to stand out in the midst of competition.
For those who may wish to ponder on acquiring your service for a longer time, brochures will give you the sort of recall and accessibility you want. Again, the featuring of attractive qualities will reinforce the positive impression you already made on them. Moreover, an effective brochure will keep your customers well within the scope of your sales pitch they’d be looking at the same product you are selling and seeing the same benefits you highlighted in your pitch over and over.
Contractor and home builder shows, like all other shows, offer kits and giveaways for their visitors to take home. Want to give your potential leads further information on your brand of real estate and what you can offer? Include your brochure and information sheets in the show’s giveaway packages. Make sure to include your contact details, and don’t be afraid to offer brochures and catalogues the moment they get in touch with you or answer a questionnaire. While your customer may view this as a freebie in the show, you are in fact getting very valuable information you can use to generate more real estate leads.
The important thing to remember is this: make sure that you are prominently featured in the show, or if not, getting at least the equivalent amount of traffic if you were prominently featured in the show. With more people flocking to you for information, you have more opportunities to give them information on how they can get in touch with you, ask for their information for you to send them supplementary material on your company, and get in touch with the people who are most interested in availing your service. When it comes to these home builder and contractor shows, don’t be afraid to aggressively market yourself to your target population.
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People are oping for investing in real estate over the uncertainties of the stock market. Many real estate investors are new to this market and often make mistakes leading to losses. They need to plan strategies for investing in real estate. People invest in real estate to sell at a later stage for a handsome profit. For this they need to have a marketing strategy in place.
Buy At Bargain Prices
Many real estate investors have entered the business because they saw someone else do the same, and make a lot of money. This is a big mistake, as it may not always work out for you. Since you will be selling your property later, you need to make bargain purchases, where you pay only around 80% of the current market value. This is not easy, but it is possible.
Buy foreclosure properties
Buy properties that are off the beaten path, properties that people avoid due to some adverse aspect they have.
Foreclosed properties are always bargain buys, and you may even get them cheaper than 80% of the current market value.
Upgrade The Properties
By upgrading the properties, you add market value to them. A property condemned by the board of health due to a massive roof leak, with a market value of $300,000 could be bought for, say, $200,000. You can upgrade the property by making roof repairs, which could cost about $40,000. You can make a good profit, just by making little repairs, and then selling for about $280,000, which would be below the current market value.
Upgrading does not mean cosmetic changes. Cosmetic changes will not fetch you a high price, though you may have spent a bundle on them.
Flipping
This is a very common strategy, but it is risky at times. Some real estate investors, as a form of marketing strategy, buy and hold real estate properties for a short period and then sell them at a profit. This is based on the assumption that the real estate prices will rise.
Flipping is not an easy way to make money, and you need to have enough cash flow, if you are not able to sell your property fast, or hold on to it because of adverse real estate prices. Real estate investors, who are real flippers, combine the strategies of bargain buying and upgrading the properties to make decent profits.
Real estate investors must develop a marketing strategy for their properties. Depending alone on the tenet that all property prices always go up and never come down, may not be safe, as there are times of slumps in the markets.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
Disasters can happen any time and anywhere. Chemical spillage from overturned trucks, power outages, brownouts or surges, windstorms, tornadoes and earthquakes can affect your business adversely. Prepare your employees and clients to respond to any possible disaster in advance by providing training and safety information. No business should operate without a disaster plan or back up systems. Develop risk or contingency management plans, while considering human resources, physical resources and business continuity.
Building a Plan
Keep phone lists of key employees and customers handy with copies of the same for key staff members.
Designate and provide one remote number on your office voice mail system to record messages for employees.
Have programmed call forwarding for main business lines. If you cannot get to the office, call in and reprogram the phones to ring elsewhere.
Install emergency lights that turn on in case of power outage.
Make sure the employees can leave the premises without a key and do not get locked in.
Use UL-listed surge protectors and battery back-up systems to protect sensitive equipment and help prevent computer crashes due to power blackouts.
Keep NOAA Weather Radio with a tone alert feature for early severe weather warning so protective actions can be taken.
Stock a minimum supply of goods, material or equipment for business continuity, even through disaster.
Protect valuable property and equipment with insurance.
In case of unexpected confinement at your business, keep emergency supplies like a first aid kit, tools, flashlights, food and water to tide over the crisis.
Reducing Potential Damage to Property
Prevent or reduce damage in your work area by taking a few precautions.
Bolt tall bookcases or display cases to wall studs.
Keep large objects secured on lower shelves to prevent fall and resulting injury.
Fasten breakable objects with hook and loop fasteners on stands.
Keep drawers and cabinets latched to prevent flying open and spilling contents.
Secure framed pictures and mirrors to the wall with closed screw eyes.
Install flexible connectors to appliances fuelled by natural gas.
Have shutters to close windows against severe storms or hurricanes.
Install automatic fire sprinklers.
A Business Continuation Plan
A disaster plan for your business should aim to achieve the minimum dislocation and have the business up and running with a minimum loss of time and resources. Below is a list of some suggested measures.
Appoint a second in command who has full authority to take decisions in your absence.
All members of your team should be clear about their responsibilities.
Have standbies for your main computer. Back-up copies of data should be kept at a different site. Critical paper records should be well protected.
Designate and train one staff member in each work shift as a safety coordinator. The safety coordinator should contact the owner and operator in times of emergency.
Contact your local Red Cross Chapter to teach you preparation against disaster.
Being prepared at all times for an event that cannot be predicted requires careful forethought and detailed planning. You will reap handsome dividends if you map out and implement a disaster recovery plan for your business. Do take all employees on board about the details of the plan and the various roles they are required to perform. Rehearsals or mock drills should also be carried out to test the efficacy of your plan.
David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a free weekly e-newsletter on Small Business Consulting at their web site http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.
More than many other online businesses, a home based marketing business requires continued experience and training.
There are some online home businesses, such as medical transcription, data entry, word processing and computer programming that you can start with some very basic skills and little training.
Usually a home based Internet marketing business is not one of these.
While it is not required that you have a four year degree in marketing to succeed you must have some experience in marketing your firm or that of someone else and should also have taken some classes in marketing essentials.
If you have been an internet marketing specialist for another firm or acted in a management capacity that required you to practice some advertising job tasks you are on the right path. You most likely have a good feel for what marketing is all about.
Next you need some preparatory classes. For that you can even go online, if you prefer, rather than to classroom learning.
Let us take a look at some of the preparatory courses that will train you for a home based Internet marketing business. One 55 hour course, for example, is about $99 at one online training facility I located.
Courses include tips on advertising on the Web, building client marketing strategy, developing and constructing your e-business. Also included are customer service, taking online payments, starting your online business, e-commerce influences and strategies.
Others include writing and designing great applications, keeping business costs to a minimum for yourself as well as your client. You can also learn about managing and marketing your own e-business.
Other skills are the ins and outs of data mining and real time, as well as planning client resources. This will be a strong beginning to a rounding off of your skills.
A four hour course about online advertising is the starting course for your home based Internet marketing business. Here you will get a good overview of different advertising options for your client when he or she begins to market on the Internet.
Course objectives are to train you to promote your client business on the Web, to plan their advertising, to find your customers and to compare the pros and cons of the various forms of advertising for your clients.
Making a smart marketing strategy is one of the best courses for your business. In this online class you will learn complex overview marketing tools and options for your client online business as well as your own.
You can learn techniques such as outside promotions and data mining. Specific training includes identification of effective promotion in face to face environments and descriptions of relationships between e-commerce and public relations.
Are you still with me? Good, let us keep going. In the five hour course you will also find out what the new and exciting niche marketing is all about and how it can help your client and your own home based businesses.
The E-business development course gets to basics. You will learn what a virtual corporation is, what business and marketing tasks you and your clients can and should outsource plus understanding partnership pros and cons.
You will also be made aware of some of the many problems that will come up in businesses everyday.
In this presentation I have attempted to show you how and what you may learn from good training. Learn and prosper.
James M. Lowe writes original articles about home business opportunities.
Much of the effort in beginning a home based Internet business is installing and maintaining the various technical pieces of software and equipment programs you will need to market, create, and deliver your different products or services.
While this fascinating technological side of starting a home based online business may seem tedious, highly detailed, costly and even frightening at first, please keep in mind that ultimately it should advance the quality of your life.
It should also make your work and even your home life more efficient and relaxed plus, ahem, make you money.
It might not be a good idea to invest in your technical wish list when you first start out until you understand your needs clearly. You do want to get quality products and highly focused applications and equipment to save you time and offer your clients the most workable looking marketing materials and finished products.
Another important perspective of your technical and computer purchases when you are first starting your home based Internet business is that your PC have more capacity and plenty of ports for add on peripherals as you grow and want to expand your business tools.
When you are a sole proprietor starting a tiny home based Internet business you probably will not need your own server however, as you expand, that might be easier and less costly.
A robust media center could let you control your home office video and audio functions as well as your home TV.
You could install TiVo to digitally record the TV programs you are missing while in your office. However, many cable companies offer this service through their digital boxes.
Intel has designed a PC all in one media center that lets you combine software and hardware in one PC setup that is very easy to navigate.
You can not only run your home based online business but you can also use it for starting home videos, music or Web access.
Not while you are starting you home based business, but once it is up, running and making a profit, you might want to add some great high end and tech extras to your home office and home. Net gear Storage Central SC 101 connects wirelessly to your firm network but you will see it in your Windows setup as a hard drive attachment.
From here you can now handle games, music, videos, photographs as well as your home Internet business records and documents. You can make these business records private so that you can share your new network device with your family without fear of security breaches. Another alternative is made by Iomega, a terabyte sized multimedia hub.
Backup is crucial when you are starting a home based online business. You can buy automatic back up devices or flash drives depending on the volume of your needs. If your choice is flash drives maybe it is better to look on the Web for discount buys in bulk or buy flash drives of 1 GB storage or more.
If you are working with a tower whose USB ports are on the back a flash drive hub is a useful tool. It offers four or five more USB ports and a long cord that lets you bring the hub and ports within easy reach.
James M. Lowe writes original articles about home business opportunities.