Taking a look at the calendar we can barely tell that holiday season is fast approaching. Every day turns out to be an exciting day for we can no longer wait for the time that we will be together with our family and extend our warm greetings to the people around us. And for our relatives distant from us we send them greeting cards and holiday postcards to greet them and let them know that they are remembered.

Given the value of postcards they are not only greeting cards that can be sent to express warm greetings to our families, friends and relatives they can also be used for business purposes.

Now what can holiday postcards do with your business?

1.Holiday postcards can serve as a valuable marketing tool of thanking clients and business associates. With the holiday season you can change the tone of your marketing by means of adding designs that portrays the marks of the holiday season. Perk up your cards and turn them out to be something unique and worth remembering.

2.Holiday postcards can contribute to develop and enhance your relationship among your business associates and clients. By simply distributing the cards during the holidays you are able to thank your clients. With this simple material distributed your clients can feel the importance of having them for your business.

3.The designs that you add to your postcard prints will serve to break through the noise and confusion while capturing top of the mind awareness.

4.Utilizing the holiday postcards for your business you are able to hit two birds in one stone. In which you are able to thank your clients and on the other hand still campaign and market your products and services.

5.Lastly, holiday postcards can bring great sales and sufficient profits. Gaining the confidence of your clients will yield to turn the heads of your recipients and turn them out to be potential clients. With this you can totally make an assurance that you gain and express your heartfelt thanks to your clients.

With the valuable contributions that holiday postcards can do with your business, it is just high time to print these greeting cards and distribute them to your clients.

Our creativity and artistry in designing the cards can help to come up with a compelling postcard prints. Given that they don’t only serve as a simple gift for our distant relatives, yet they can also be an effective tool for business.

The true value of the postcards is not only seen as a marketing material or a gift that we can share, yet it values on how we are able to remember our love ones and business partners in this holiday season.

Marketing is the secret ingredient why trade show exhibits become successful. Without an effective marketing strategy, a trade show exhibit would not be able to put on the market its products and services. It’s the marketing that leads your business to the gateway of success. In view of that, it is necessary to make sure that you are doing the right thing in marketing your trade show. Avoid the mistakes that some trade show exhibitors are experiencing. And one way to steer clear of these mistakes is to have a well-planned marketing strategy. Here are some things to consider on how your trade show exhibit will become a smash hit.

Why are you exhibiting?
The first thing that you have to consider when attending a trade show is the purpose. Ask yourself what is the reason why you are exhibiting. Establish your main objective why you’re attending the trade show. When you have settled on the objective, you can now focus on the marketing message of your trade show booth. The message of your booth should be matching to the objective of the trade show. Choose only one objective for your trade show exhibit and focus on that one. Your marketing efforts should only be concentrated on a single objective.

What show is suitable for you?
Do some basic research on the trade shows that are available. Choose the show that goes well with your objective. See to it that the show that you’ve chosen is composed of the right audience for your company products or services. Also consider if the show is cost effective for your business. Does it give good reason for your trade show expense? When it justifies your expenses and matches your objective, then definitely you must attend that show.

How much will you spend?
It is important to set the budget that your company is willing to expend for the trade show. When you have already set the budget, you should allocate the budget properly. Write down your expenditures for future assessment. Keep details of all your expenses.

How will you grab the attention of the attendees?
Make a booth that is organized and simple. The booth should have clear texts and simple graphics. A simple booth is certain to get your message across your target audience. Don’t make the booth too flashy for it may confuse the visitors.

What you should do to attract customers?
To attract the attendees to visit your booth, you need to give them an inducement. Aside from making the booth clear and simple, you also need some promotional materials to be handed to the visitors. Provide some giveaways to entice the attendees to go to see your booth and make a purchase of your products or services.

Advertising is a type of business which helps to draw the
attention of the public to goods or products, services and
propagate the business strategy through a variety of media.
One can say it is an overall promotional strategy including
not only the poduct, services but also deals with the
publicity, public response, personal sellings etc. Advertising
is a very powerful tool that can navigate the business to its
harbour provided that it should focus on what you want, where
to get and a strong dose of imagination and creativity and what
to do with it once you get it.

Advertising magnifies the visibility of its goods and services,
driving the intellectual traffic to the company's websites
acquiring every knowledge of the goods and business strategy.
While advertising it should be kept in mind that the advertising
objectives must be clear and the placement of the both the
online and offline advertisements is also very important.
Advertising on websites will be the best place. Explore for the
trade specific websites, top search engine for attracting more
audience. Design your message to appeal to the audience. It
should convey the advertising desire to be achieved. Be
creative and arrange all you superfine imagination to launch
your product which will deferentiate it from others and prudently
place in the proper site to draw the attention of a few but the
sea of public. Add more depth and meaning to your advertisement
with rich media and use animated messages. While launching
your products be careful while choosing advertising medium.

Advertising is one of the potent tool capable of igniting
spark among the audiences. Advertising also justifies its
presence or existence when used for the benefit of the public.
A well managed and effeciently executedadvertising campaing
can fuel the dimension of your business tremendously.

Business cards printing are an enormous printing service that produces compelling business greeting card prints. As a valuable tool, you can also use business card prints for the holiday season. You can market your products and at the same time express a warm greeting to your recipients.

The Holiday season is the time where most businesses take the opportunity to thank their clients for their never ending support and patronization of the products and services they have. Simply distributing a business card prints to their clients they can make their clients feel that they are also part of your business success.

Mainly in order to successfully achieve the desired need to have a business card prints and in order to be prepared of the holiday season you can seek for business cards printing jobs and services.

What are the capabilities that business cards printing services do for you?

1.They can help you conceptualize with good designs.

The business card printing service can help you conceptualize with good designs that will match with your marketing plan. Since you are about to come up with a holiday business card prints, your chosen printer can give you an idea what designs will be appropriate for your target market. The expert graphic designers that comprise the printing company you had chosen will help you come up with designs that will be best for your business.

2.They can provide you with high quality printing equipments and materials.

The equipments and machineries used are of high quality and made from the top notch printing technologies. These equipments, printing machineries and printing presses will efficiently work to produce quality prints.

3.They can provide custom printing services.

The custom printing service allows every customer to personalize their business card prints. Through custom printing of business cards you can choose for a design that will make your recipients feel the holiday spirit. The custom print you put to your cards will aid to warm their hearts and feel how thankful they are.

4.Provide accurate text contents about your companies detail

Since business cards are your business front liners they must contain an exact detail about location. The business cards you distribute must have detailed information regarding your companies’ name, address, telephone numbers and e-mail address. The details that you have for your business cards can help to lead your business back to you.

In today’s holiday season, use business card to simply express your warm greetings and thanks for your customers never ending support. Be prepared and armed to provide your clients with holiday business card prints.

Get Rich Quick Scams Revealed
Read this article before you consider paying for a "get rich quick" program.
From: Xoftspy Scan

Everybody would love to make lots of money quickly, working from home, and only doing a few hours of work per week. I've spent the past two years trying to find a great way of doing this. Only over the course of the past few months have I found any "get rich quick" programs worth buying. I've been trying to make money online for a long time. I had a few small websites, but they never made much more than a few hundred per month. It was easy money and didn't require much work on my part, but I knew there were people out there doing better than I was and I knew I could do as well as them.
Now, I've seen a lot of "get rich quick" programs. Most of these people make claims about earning $2000/day with Google or something similarly insane. Almost all of these people are complete liars. Even if they were making $2000/day with Google AdSense, it'd be because they had high- traffic websites with a lot of quality content. I'd know, because in one whole month, I never even made half of what they promised I'd make daily with their programs. Maybe you've already been scammed by one of these fraudsters. Anyway, I finally got sick of what was being offered.
I decided I'd look through the all of the "get rich quick" programs I could find and see if there were any that were actually legitimate. I found that there were owners selling their programs for well over $100, but the information in them could be found almost anywhere online for free. Additionally, they all contained out-of-date information, had no e-mail support, no money back guarantees, and broken links in the downloads section.
In conclusion, almost all of the programs I found were completely useless. The owners knew it, but they couldn't care less about their customers since they didn't offer refund policies! Amazingly, while looking through all of the programs, I actually did find a few legitimate programs. They were run by ordinary people like you and me, and they had found some great methods of making money from their home by doing very little work.
I spent some time working with those programs, and my income is now ten times what it used to be. These programs provided a large amount of great information on how to make extra money on your computer doing very little work. Numerous customers had provided great feedback and reviews for their products. Many of them have started to make money just days after buying!
Their programs have excellent prices, and the authors have a group of paid staff who are dedicating to helping you or providing assistance if you need any. I must say I was amazed! If you do decide to purchase any of the programs listed below, I recommend you join quickly. Most of the owners tell me they are getting an overwhelming number of sales and plan on raising prices in the near future, so order while prices are still low!
To Your Online Success,
Xoftspy Scan

If you want to start a new business, you need to remember that it is a process rather than a phase. You need to go through several key stages during the process. The first key stage is building on the idea, where you work on the start up material. This begins with exploring the business possibilities to gain a firm footing. The second key stage includes the development of the business plan and the methods through which you can launch a successful venture. Once you are done with the business plan, you need to focus on the launch time, along with the issues that can make a difference to the effort in the long run. The outcome of careful planning and a methodical approach is success guaranteed. Any new venture requires a lot of patience during the teething phase, to benefit during infancy and grow into a business to reckon with.

If you have started your business and no matter how much money, time and energy you invest, there are no results, then it is an indication that somewhere you are making mistakes and this is common with first timers. In order to be successful as an entrepreneur, you need to tackle these common, yet serious mistakes and get yourself and your business back on track. Listed below are some of the mistakes and the ways to avoid them. With careful consideration and implementation of the stated facts, the business is certain to flourish. Not doing so will lead you to certain failure.

Do you own a business and need ideas on how to market your products or services to your customers? Well, the one thing that every business owner needs to know is that in order to survive, you need customers willing to spend their hard earned money for your products or services. While you always want your products or services to meet the needs of the customers, this becomes more significant in a sluggish economy because purchases construed as "luxuries" decline.

If you and your business partners schedule 40 minutes every month to discuss your answers, you can start to develop products and services that lead your market, you will begin to anticipate what your customers want tomorrow and your business will cope better with what the outside world throws at you. More importantly you will be much more able to customise your products and services to the specific needs of your niche market and demonstrate not only that you understand them, but that you care. You should be able to keep up with market changes and try to anticipate them beforehand because it keeps you a step ahead of the average consumer.

At each exploratory step in your market, as you target your sales, you will gain a better return by focusing your marketing effort on the customers who most benefit from what you want to sell.

In the large ocean of competitors they market with, most business owners don't know how to promote their business.Below are the top five ways to market your business on and/or offline and be ahead of your competition.

1. Get a Web site

This is the ultimate lazy way. Put up a Web site, or get someone to do it for you. Then forget about it. You won’t hear much for around six months, but once you get listed on the search engines, you'll start getting business.

You can help the process along, by promoting your site, and by updating it regularly, but once it's up, and you're listed on the search engines, you can be as lazy as you like.

2. Make three phone calls a day

How long does it take to make three phone calls? You could probably make them in ten minutes.Who will you call? Potential clients, suppliers, people who are in the same business you're in --- it doesn’t matter who you call. The idea is that you're shaking the trees. Once you start communicating, you'll move your business along.

3. Contact one client a day

Call, email or fax one client a day. You're not touting for business, you're just touching base. This person has done you the kindness of doing business with you in the past. Call and find how he or she is.If you're a writer, this means send out one letter, query or proposal a day, every week day to your previous clients: that is, editors who've bought from you in the past.f you're just starting out as a writer, then send one query a day to a market you'd like to sell to.

4. Give something away

"Free" is an incentive. And it works. What can you give people to remind them that you're still in business, and that you're good at what you do?Give away something that's useful, whether it's a pen, a T shirt, a bookmark --- or an hour of your time to mentor a beginner.

Before starting that great new website for your small business, consider your expectations carefully. Most entrepreneurs with their first website lack the experience to know what is truly required to be successful online. Website failure may be defined as anything from total catastrophe to simply results less than expectations. Each can occur even if you have a gorgeous well-designed site.

Don't expect search engine success with high traffic and added revenue instantly. It is rare.

Here's the short list of what you need if your goal is website traffic and new customers. These facts have been overlooked or misunderstood by many of my small business clients, and in most cases the errors of omission are due to inexperience.

1. You need a trusted site with name, address and phone number, not just a PO Box.
2. You need to be online 6-12 months or longer to achieve search engine ranking.
3. You need a large site with 10-20 or more pages of quality content for credibility.

Discuss your needs with your site designer. It should not be a cousin, uncle, or friend who happens to have software to make websites. A truly successful site takes more... much more. Professional help may be more cost effective than you realize. Some service providers will try to take advantage just because you are in business. I regularly save clients more than they pay me for designs by helping them shop for economical service providers for their domain and hosting.

Realistic expectations up front will help you avoid disappointment. Be prepared with an ongoing annual budget to add fresh content and features to your site. A smaller site is okay to get started. If you cannot meet the goals in the above list, your traffic and new customers must be pointed to your site with direct marketing efforts. If presenting your company online achieves a positive first impression that may be enough to begin. As your budget increases you can revise expectations as you continue to grow your online presence.

To compete online, compare your plan to what your competition is already doing. If they have full disclosure of their physical address, phone number, and contact names you need to do the same. A prospective customer comparing one site to another with trusted information will usually rule out the one with a PO Box number, or less than adequate contact information. Real and complete details provide better ranking with search engines, also. Listing your city, state or province, and country will allow search engines to localize search results.

Bonus Tip: If you work from home and offer a product or service sold without a showroom, there are options to avoid strangers disrupting your family life. Some clients get box numbers from service companies, and use that company's address as theirs except instead of box number, they call it unit number. In the USA, you cannot use a US Post Office street address and box number for your return address, even if it is revised to unit number. You will need a private company, however, the peace of mind and the benefits in credibility may be worth the modest cost.

Aging of your site is likewise important. Too many sites are here today, and gone within a year. To maintain credibility the search engines need to serve up relevant results. Until you prove to them your long term intent they will select older and more established sites for page one. Quality content added often can expedite the waiting period.

Do you renew your www domain every year? Stop. Register your website for 2-5 years to prove you are there to stay.

Finally, you need to create an authority site that adds value to the internet community. Establishing your expertise begins with valuable advice and content for your visitors. The size of your website will grow as you continue adding content. This improves the customer experience and provides a reason for them to return, or buy. Quality content added often will bring the search engines back more often, also.

Success online is more than just having a website. Realistic expectations require knowledge of how the internet and search engines work. Some people have contacted me after buying a turnkey site thinking money would roll in, and years later the website made zero revenue. You must be unique, so looking like 1000 other sites with identical content is not a solution.

In conclusion, what I have described for your ideal website is similar to what you might look for in a consultant. People are usually more comfortable when they take advice from an older and trusted authority. Provide that slant in the design of your online home, and visitors can sense you have dependable solutions. Define your niche. Set your new website goals. Get help or advice and avoid joining the long list of small business website failures.

There are three basic types of business entity from a taxation point of view. These are proprietorships, partnerships and corporations. For the greater part, it is local law that determines the type (sometimes called the form) of business enterprise.

A business entity that has only one owner and has not incorporated is called a proprietorship. A business with two or more owners that has not incorporated is a partnership. Any business can incorporate and thus become a corporation under local law, regardless of the number of owners.

The type of business entity you select for your business will have significant federal income tax consequences. Proprietorships and partnerships that have not incorporated will not pay any separate income taxes on business profits. Their profits or losses will pass through to the owners, who must declare these income / loss items on their personal income tax returns and pay tax accordingly. In general, the owners of an unincorporated business can transfer property to or from the business without this being recognized as a taxable transaction. Unincorporated businesses may have two significant disadvantages that are not directly related to taxation.

One drawback with being an unincorporated business entity is that when significant capital needs to be raised, willing outside investors could be difficult to find. The other disadvantage concerns liability. There is simply no way to escape unlimited liability; the owner of a proprietorship becomes personally liable for all the debts and liabilities of the business. If there is more than one owner, it would be preferable to have at least one of them with the personal capability to absorb unlimited liability for all claims against the business.

In an increasingly litigious society, it is best to protect oneself by placing some limitation on personal liability. This is the attraction offered by incorporation, since it provides investors limited liability from claims. The corporation has thus become a popular form of business entity. For a widely held business enterprise, incorporation will make it easier to obtain financing, because it is easier for investors to put money into the corporation through buying debt and equity securities that the corporation is authorized to issue.

However, if the business entity is a corporation, its earnings- including dividends - will be subject to federal income tax. Once the shareholders receive the dividends, they also have to pay personal income tax. In other words, the income gets taxed twice. If the corporation incurs losses, the tax benefit will remain with the corporation, but cannot be used to reduce the personal tax liabilities of the owners.

The newer form of business entity is the limited liability company (LLC). A LLC is in essence a partnership in which there is no general partner. Its owners have no personal liability for the debts of the business. Federal tax laws do not recognize the LLC as a separate type of tax entity and most are treated as partnerships for federal taxation purposes. In terms of flexibility, the LLC has an advantage over the S corporation, because their ownership requirements are less rigid and they have more flexibility in allocating profits and losses among the owners.

The S corporation, however, has several advantages over the LLC. It will be easier to convert an existing C corporation to an S corporation than to a limited liability company. As a business entity, the S corporation provides a greater level of certainty in jurisprudence than the LLC does.

In all the work you have done through the first 5 modules of “Creating your Strategic Vision”, you have devoted tremendous effort to demonstrating your Value Message. The challenge is how do you do this? It is done by asking the following questions:

1) What does your business bring to the marketplace beyond the basic industry core competencies?

2) What’s unique about your business?

3) How will you communicate this?

Before we get into addressing these questions, let’s try to understand why someone might buy from you. There are several key concepts of understanding the mind of your prospect.

For your prospect to agree to buy from you, she must go through what is called: The Pain of Change. This is a measurement of the prospects feelings and experiences associated with doing something such as decorating.

You need to relate this to the Consequences of Not Changing. This is the prospects losses they incur by not doing business with you. Perhaps it is the emotional letdown of not using your decorating skills.

When a prospect first becomes aware of your business, they believe that are doing fine without you. They also believe that if there are consequences for not doing business without you, this is acceptable. If this is true, then you do not have a prospect.

In order to begin the selling process, you must introduce the concept that there are indeed consequences associated with not doing business with your company. If there are no consequences, there is little chance of making a sale. To educate your potential prospect about the dire consequences of not doing business with you, you need to use questions to raise this awareness.

Before we get into asking these questions, let’s think about you ideal prospect. What would be the potential pain or risk if they were to do business with you? This is what was referred to before as The Pain of Change.

Here are some examples:

It’s too expensive!

I might make poor decisions.

I could end up with poor quality workmanship.

I am afraid to do custom work.

I am not convinced of your decorating ability.

I don’t trust you.

It is up to your Value Message to answer these concerns. Your prospect will work hard to convince you that you do not have a Value Message, so they can base their buying decision solely on price. If you can’t defend your Value Message then you run the risk of being judged as a commodity. It is urgent that you communicate your Value Message so you can separate your business from the competition.

There are certain core competencies that every competitor brings to the market. These competencies are things all competitors do, and are essential to be taken seriously in the marketplace.

However, if you choose to compete based upon only the core competencies that everyone else has, you insure that your business will be considered a commodity. If you only want to discuss things like product quality and price, you will be evaluated solely upon the investment required to buy what you are offering. Your uniqueness of what separates you from the competition will most likely be ignored.

The concept of the Value Message says that you must bring something unique to the market place so you can convince your prospects to go through The Pain of Change and buy from you.

Exercise:

List the 3 strengths or unique features of your business offering:

1) In House Workroom

2) Great Showroom

3) Talented Design Team

For each strength list a corresponding consequence the prospect experiences by not having as part if the offer.

1) In House Workroom-A lack of quality control and higher prices because of no middleman.

2) Great Showroom-No ability to view actual examples of work.

3) Talented Design Team-Not having treatments that you can show off.

For each consequence indicate how does it show up? Who ultimately gets the bill for not having it? Who feels the consequences the most?

1) A lack of quality control and higher prices because of no middleman, results in poorly done treatments that the consumer pays for and is stuck with.

2) No ability to view actual examples of work, results in not being able to picture your custom window treatment ahead of time, and ending up disappointed because of not meeting your expectations.

3) Not having treatments that you can show off, results in not meeting the emotional expectations of the client. This is what she values most. Remember, Decorating is Entertainment!

To review, let’s take one of the strengths and add the corresponding consequence and the result: An In House Workroom addresses the problem of poor quality control and the issue of higher prices because of no middleman. The result of not having such a service could be poorly done treatments which the consumer ultimately pays for and is stuck with.

So you are a young entrepreneur with a hot idea that you are sure that will be the next big thing. You are gung ho to start your own business but you don’t know what any of that entails.

Before you begin to spend your last dollar you need to visualize, as much you can, the steps you will need to take to get you where you would like to be. Doing this will help you understand what you want and what you don’t want and where you really need to spend your money.

Some of the questions that you will ask yourself are: What am I selling? Who is my most likely customer? How will my customer find me? How will I get my product to my customer? Which method of selling will it entail? Post card and direct mail? Stores? Wholesale? Face to face contact? Phone sales? Flyer delivery? Push Cart? What do you feel most comfortable with? What is the part of the business that you most like to do? If you are a chef and you are too shy to talk to your customers and just prefer to work your magic in the kitchen, then you will need to hire someone who a) likes people, b) genuinely likes selling and c) may even have a professional background in selling. At the very least it should be your partner or your friend who has a gift of the gab and is thrilled with your product. Once again determine how much it will cost you, before you begin.

If you write a business plan most of these questions will be answered. This is a good thing to do because it keeps your goals and your plan immediately in front of you, and it show your target spending goals and earning goals. You also have to do some homework to find out if there is a similar product being marketed and how is that product being marketed and at what cost? They would be your direct competition. But just because they are competition that doesn’t mean that you can’t also succeed with your product or services. The exact opposite is most often true. If you are in the right place at the right time, and your price is right, that could be you. That is one of the keys to succeed in business.

The other is consistency. If you begin to develop a customer base, they have to be able to find you consistently; and you have to be able to deliver consistently what you promise, and you need to stay in touch with them on a consistent basis.

If you have the push-cart first on Second Ave and then on Tenth and then back on Lemoine, your customer will give up trying to find you to buy the sandwich or tostada from you. Day in and day out you have to be at that designated spot, and you have to be there in the rain, in the snow, in the hot sun and with ample product. If you get your product from some other source, you have to have a reliable distributor, if not you have to find one who is reliable and who takes your account or business as seriously as you do even if you are only placing relatively small orders. If you are consistent at delivering, and keeping in touch with your customers, and consistent at ordering pretty soon you will be placing larger and more frequent orders.

But probably in the beginning everything will be small. So act accordingly. Do not make monster orders without knowing that you will be able to sell all of the order. You don’t want to have a huge inventory in the beginning so that you can keep your cost down. Sell out most of what you got and get orders coming in before you invest in thousands of dollars of merchandise. Test everything; the products with your customers or potential customers, test ads that you run to see how many orders it pulls in, test location, test method of marketing, test small changes in wording, logos, designs etc…

According to the Small Business Administration, most small business fail because they are undercapitalized. That means they don’t have the money to jump on an opportunity for growth, or to keep their products well stocked, or spend money when it is imperative for their business. Instead of jumping head first into a new business, and losing your shirt, it might be better to plan it and put away some money for a period of time, such as six months, one year or two years for the eventually launching of your business.

You should decide upon a brand or logo and signage for your business so that you can build product recognition. Make it clear for your customer to read, get in touch with you and order or reorder.

You would be surprised at how careless people are with their signage. I have seen signs with misspelled words, incomplete phone numbers, disconnected or no phone number at all. I have seen signs with the words crammed together, or with scratch-outs, to make it unreadable, and confusing. You don’t want your potential customer walking past you because he/ or she doesn’t know what you offer. If you’re marketing, keep it simple. For an example at a quick read, “TASTY CHICKEN TOSTADAS” is more effective than Marguarita’s and Dave’s tasty extraordinary, famous, Mexican Tostadas in chicken with a fine sauce or meat in a cream sauce. You have about ten to thirty seconds to make an impact and consequently a sale with your customer.

All this planning prior to your launching is not to intimidate you but for you to know how much it will cost you, to clearly target your customer, and what marketing method will work best in getting them, and keeping them, what products do you need on hand immediately, and to plan an effective campaign that will take you to your goals of starting and of course succeeding in your business. Even though you have to do the work prior to, during, and on an on-going basis; don’t let this stop you from fulfilling your dreams of your own business.

Take some time today to envision yourself and where you want to be in one year, three years, five years or ten. If you don’t like the outcome, now is the only time you have to change your future. You can make it happen!! Take action and do it now!!!! At least start!! There is really no perfect time to start. You will not have all the elements perfectly in place but if you don’t start to take steps to accomplish your goals now, the years will come and go swiftly whether you are fulfilled or not.

Should I start my own business? At many times in a person’s life he or she will ask that very same question. The answer to that question can only be answered by you. Many times the answer is obvious. It is based on a few key things. The first is your personality. If you are determined, organized, tenacious, enthusiastic, driven, self-motivated, and a person not easily moved from your goals, and can manage things fine by yourself then perhaps you would do well as a self-employed person. You have to have a belief in yourself and your product that is unwavering.

The second is your circumstances. Many successful business owners found their way into business ownership because of a lack of employment in the area that they live. Some found an absolute need that was not being addressed and set about to fulfill that need in the neighborhood. Others found out very quickly that they don’t have the personality to work with any sort of boss. Still others do business on their own because it’s convenient to their schedule or they want or need to be at home and the need for more income.

Another point to consider is collateral or working capital. How are you going to supply yourself? For an example if you are making bread you need to buy the ingredients each day. Sell your bread and buy more flour, eggs etc. Do it over the next day. Where do you get the first dollar to make the first loaf of bread to sell? If you don’t have capital then you need a source for a loan or credit. Many successful business owners have gotten their first loan from a family relative or friend.

The successful business person also has at least one person who says “you can do this.” Who are the people in your life who encourage you? If you’re a parent it could be your child, spouse or partner. It could be your parent even if your parent has passed away and you still hear a word of encouragement in your heart. Who motivates and encourages you when you feel like giving up?

You have to be tough to have your own business. You conduct your business whether you feel up to it or not. If you have to deliver goods, you do it in all the extreme weather conditions, or if you or your child is sick or your truck broke down. You have to get your goods to the buyer or you don’t earn your money. No money no rent paid.

Lastly you have to determine what you are good at. What is the need that you want to fulfill? Who will buy from you? How will you get it to your customer? Where do you set up your work place? Where do you get some money to begin to turn your idea into a business? There are a lot of businesses that don’t require a lot of investment. For an example if you’re good at sewing, you only need your sewing kit and a place that your customers can come to have their clothes altered. You can expand your services as more customers are asking for more things to be done. If you want to sell information on-line you need a website, e-mail account and other people informational products to sell or your own. Most of your money will be in the advertising of your website and that product.

So if you still think you should be in business for yourself, “Why do I want to go into business? What do I like to do? What do I have to offer? Is there a need for it? Can I sustain myself? Do I have someone who encourages me? Do I have the toughness to see it through? If all the answers are yes, you should follow your dream and open your own business. Remember slow and steady wins the race.

Network Marketing is not for everyone. It takes discipline, tenacity, a positive attitude, a thick skin, the ability to learn and self motivation. In addition to that you need to focus on helping people, and you need a vision. In short, everything a business owner needs.

Discipline
Someone who does not have the discipline to sit down, make himself goals, write an action plan to go with the goals, making himself take action and keep doing it, will not make it for long in Network Marketing. In fact, 95% of Network Marketers fail in their first year. Get your self discipline sorted, and you will have a good start in your Network Marketing Career.

The ability to learn
You will be surprised to learn that some adults do not have the ability to learn. They just go through the motions. When you teach them something, they hear what they want to hear, and not what you tell them. Make sure you listen carefully to training classes. Make notes of what you learn, and repeat it back to yourself or your partner to make sure you understand it. Formulate questions for your trainer so he/she will know where and why you are struggling and so they can help you.

Tenacity
Also known as determination or “stick-to-ativeness.” Network Marketing takes time to build. Also, many people start and quit. Your ability to see it through past the five year mark will determine your success.

A thick skin
For the above reasons and because you are going to get many “no’s” you need to develop a thick skin. You need to learn to focus on helping people, and when you do that successfully, you will not see the “no’s” as a rejection, but you will see at as the other person’s loss. This is a big difference in perspective.

A positive attitude
In order to develop a thick skin, you need a positive attitude. In fact, attitude is the number one reason people are successful. Show me 10 people who are successful, and I will prove to you that the one thing they have in common is a positive attitude. You just cannot be successful without it.

Self motivation
When the going gets tough, a positive attitude will help you to motivate yourself. It will help you to find reasons to keep going, to help others. Motivating yourself goes back to your goals. If you have a string reason why you want to succeed, you will make sure you do. So find your why, and hang onto that. Let it be constantly with you by making it visual in some way, and when you feel like quitting, look at it.

Your Vision
Your vision is where you see yourself and your business in the future. Write out your vision and your business plan. Yes, even Network Marketers need a business plan. It will help you make that action plan and write your goals and your vision on paper.

If you work on the above areas and you determine where you can improve and you work on those areas where you can improve, you will learn to develop the skills you don’t have and you will become a leader. This is why it is important to go to training and to find Network Marketing specific training online and with your network. In this way you will develop and grow into the person you want to be.

In Australia in 1860, two men, Burke and Wills, led an expedition as ambitious as the Lewis and Clark expedition in North America. But this one ended in tragedy.

After weeks of exploration, the main expedition arrived back at the base camp only to find that it was deserted. There was a sign carved on a tree that read “DIG 3FT NW”. The sign meant that they should dig three feet northwest from the tree to find the provisions that were buried there.

The provisions were there, the signs were there, but Burk and Wills did not understand what the signs meant and so they died a horrible death from thirst and starvation.

In business, entrepreneurs are like explorers. Lewis and Clark were successful. They survived. Burk and Wills were not. They died. Who do you want to be like?

This same tragedy gets repeated with businesses today. The way to survive it there, but business owners fail to read the signs. Those signs are called key performance indicators, or KPI’s. If you are not measuring you are not managing. Make sure that you are measuring right things the right way. For example, if a customer is worth $10,000 a year and average lifecycle is 5 years, then they are worth $50,000. So if it costs $1,000 to get a new customer and $200 per year to retain them it is a great deal. There are several KPI’s here. Cost of acquiring a customer, cost of keeping the customer, sales value of the customer per year, lifecycle of the customer. And notice that it costs 5 times to win a new customer verses keeping a customer.

What are the activities that must take place in the marketing and sales cycle that can be measured? Advertising cost, number of responses to advertising, appointments set, requests for quotation, number of sales, sales revenue. These are all opportunities to measure what is going on in your process. Develop meaningful targets at each stage in the process and compare them to your current performance. If your people are not meeting these KPI’s you need to find out why. These are signs that your business needs improvement.

You have an advantage that Burk and Wills never did. They did not have someone that they could ask to help them understand what the signs meant. You do. There are coaches that you can ask for help. The signs are there, and KPI’s can be set up so you can measure right things the right way, and avoid the equivalent fate of Burk and Wills.

Keith Center is an accredited associate of the Institute for Independent Business and certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach. Over the past 30 years he has done work for small and large organizations such as Toyota, IBM, GE Capital, Fujitsu, International Harvester, and Digital. Growing sales volume, a liaison between corporate and university research, raising over $16M in funding for one organization.

1. Market and Product Research

Before you set about finding a wholesaler for a certain product the first thing I would always advise people to do is to re-evaluate their choice in product. I´m sure you´ll agree what a waste of time it would be if you were to spend countless hours researching for suppliers of a certain product, to then find that either the product or the marketplace you intend to sell it through isn´t a viable venture.

So before you start searching for the wholesaler, make sure you have chosen a viable product and have a number of marketplaces to facilitate the sales.

2. Product Choice

Your search for wholesale products will ultimately depend on what product you are chasing to find at a wholesale price. Choosing the highly competitive products such as (iPods, Games Consoles, ect) will almost certainly cost you time and potentially money before you find a trustworthy supplier. So before you decide to go out looking for a wholesaler, thoroughly consider the product you are attempting to find and in turn profit from.

Think outside of the box, think away from the competitive markets, think niche!

3. Find Good Supply Sources

Finding a good wholesale supply isn´t an easy task, especially for certain products. Spending a few hours on the major search engines might throw up some decent opportunities but don´t underestimate the power of a good wholesale directory. One thing you will learn pretty quick in the wholesale business is there isn´t a shortage of people claiming to be able to offer you wholesale suppliers. The market is currently saturated with directories, sourcing agents, and websites promising low prices and easy money making opportunities.

Try and avoid paying for suppliers until you are really stumped for opportunities. (Even then, paid services may not offer you anything viable.) Browsing free directories like this, wholesale forums, and of course search engines can often be a very affluent area to pick up wholesale suppliers.

Remember, product choice is often key to finding profitable opportunities!

4. Patience

Patience is a virtue when it comes to finding suppliers. Normally if you put the work in, you certainly reap the rewards. To a degree I would agree with this statement, but when finding suppliers it´s about where you look rather than how long you look for. A quick search engine input or forum/directory sweep can often lead you onto a decent wholesaler in minutes. Looking through your local paper or trader magazine can also lead you on to suppliers located on and offline.

In my experience, its often those people who are searching for unrealistic prices that spend their eternity searching for wholesale product sources.

5. Have a little faith

I often get emails from individuals exhausted claiming they have no where left to look for a wholesale supplier. I know I keep saying it but I make no apology for doing so; The product is key! - I'm inclined to tell you to just forget the most popular products and concentrate on something less competitive. Sure, there is money to be made in these areas but your chances of succeeding while you are a small business are next to none, after all, who wants to work for 1-5% return on their investment?
The wholesale industry often gets bad press when it comes to risking your money, 8 out of 10 times this is due to the unrealistic product people are chasing!

Good Luck!