How to Market Your Small Business
There are hundreds of ways to market businesses of any size, but for a small businesses owner or entrepreneur, it may seem impossible to find which marketing strategy will work best for you. Luckily, it’s not impossible, but it does take a bit of work. Every business or product is different, but one universal rule holds true: You have to know your product, your competitors, and your customers like the back of your hand before you have any chance of successfully marketing your products or services. The most important part of being in business is making sales. All the good intentions in the world won’t pay your bills or help you realize your dreams. Yet despite how important this… Continue reading
How to Mark-up and Price Your Product
If you’re trying to decide how to price your product, or wondering how the process of marking-up an item works, read on. You’ll learn about how cost is determined, why some items sell for so much more than their cost, and how you can decide the best price to sell your product for.
It’s sometimes hard to see how items are priced. Sometimes the cost to the final buyer is much more than for the retailer that sold it. Some prices are marked up hundreds, or even thousands, of times more than they cost to the seller. How can an item bought for so little sell for so much? Is it because sellers are greedy, and want as much… Continue reading
How Your Costs Impact Your Sales
Have you ever wondered what to charge for your products? Charge too much, and nobody will buy. Charge too little, and you won’t make enough to continue selling products. But finding the sweet spot when pricing your products is hard. So how can business-people determine how to price their products or determine how much to mark them up?
Find Your Cost First, Then Your Selling Price
When deciding on a price for you product, or how much to mark something up, the most important thing is determining how much your product costs you. If you pay $10 for the supplies to make a single gift basket, you may think your selling price shouldn’t be much higher, but don’t forget;… Continue reading
Fotosizer for Small Businesses
Simple Small Portable Business
Fotosizer – Convert all your pictures for the Internet with one click.
Fotosizer is a free program, (at this time), that has saved me and thousands of other people hundreds of hours resizing pictures to load on the Internet. It is easy to set up, easy to use and best of all there is a standard and portable version.
Whether it is uploading pictures for Facebook, Picasa, sending pictures to a friend in email or uploading pictures to your website, almost everyone these days uses digital pictures in one way or another. For businesses, this tiny program can be worth a lot in time savings.
Here is something in which many people are not aware… Continue reading
Entrepreneurs And The “Too” Factor
If you are just in the beginning stages of looking for a business to start, one of the best places to look is what I call the “Too Area“. You have heard it said before, “look for a need and fill it”. So in your exploration of trying to decide on a business to get into, you want to look around and find things that are in demand, but are too difficult, too dirty, too complex, too expensive, too dangerous, too embarrassing, too fragile, too big, too small, too ugly, too impractical, too far away, too tall, too short, to smelly and the list goes on and on. Obviously there is a wide range of options when thinking… Continue reading
Business Marketing 101 – Sell The Sizzle Not The Steak!
or in other words “Your Customers Don’t Care!”
If you have been around anyone vaguely interested in marketing, you have probably heard the saying “Sell the Sizzle NOT the Steak”. Another form of this expression is “Sell the Benefits NOT the Features”. Or perhaps you have heard it put like this, “Sell People What They Want, NOT What They Need”.
Anyway you say it, it all comes down to the simple fact that people “Buy on Emotion and Justify Their Purchases Using Facts“. As a small business owner you have got to work very hard at knowing when to sell the sizzle and when to sell the steak. Trust me, you are at a great disadvantage here. This… Continue reading
The Power of a Small Business
According to the Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages at the beginning of 2011, in Missouri (where I live) small businesses that have less than 50 employees, makes up 94% of all businesses in the state. I suspect that those numbers are similar throughout the nation although I have not verified that. In any case, both state and federal governments agree that small businesses are the driving force of our economy. Contrary to popular opinion, I predict that this number will actually increase in the coming years despite the ongoing recession.
Everywhere I look people are beginning to wake up and realize that they have sold their souls for a dollar. They have given up their freedom for what… Continue reading
Do You Really Need a Business Plan?
Starting a simple small business is very much like a roller-coaster ride. It has many ups and downs, twists and turns and sometimes heart pounding excitement. It is definitely thrilling and scary at the same time. In the midst of hundreds of things to do for a new start-up, one can get lost in unnecessary tasks or even lose track of the important things. In order for start-up founders not to lose their sight on important things, it is imperative to have a business plan. Even if that business plan is on a napkin or a single sheet of paper.
Business plans are like roadmaps or blueprints. They provide start-up founders with a direction, and necessary information to form correct… Continue reading
Understanding The Difference Between Profit Margin and Markup
Writing A Simple One Page Business Plan For Startup Success
Starting a small business can be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things that you ever do, or it can turn into a huge nightmare if you let it. You greatly increase your chances of success by having a simple one page business plan created as your starting point.
There is an old saying that has proven itself over and over again and it is especially true in the business world. The saying goes like this “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. Having a simple business plan is like having a road-map, guide or cheat sheet to help you get from where you are today to where you want to be some time in the future.… Continue reading