The Silent Avatar Speaks

When deciding on how to manage a business, many offer different types of tips for small business. There are tips on how to use IT, Management of your business, Document management and so forth. Let us begin by looking at just three tips from the wide variety of small business management and go over them one at a time. Our top three subjects are setting rules for your business, IT and machines in your business, and delegating tasks in your business. Each of the following tips businesses around the world sue to stay on top of their game. Setting rules in your business. Every business must have a defined set of rules to go by in order to operate most effectively. You need to decide what rules run your business and then stick to them. However, you will also need to allow some flexibility in the enforcement of those rules as there will always be new and varied situations that are not fully covered by your current set of rules. You need to have these rules in place when an infraction occurs. It is important to make sure the rules you set make sense and are fair to everyone, at the same time, you need to run your business as a business. Information technology. In small business the topic of IT or Internet Technology often becomes the topic of conversation. In today’s world it is impossible to run a business without having some form of IT for use in your company. You will need to decide how much IT you are willing to have in your office, what form it takes and what it takes to run the IT department effectively and efficiently. You want to also have a technical person to go to when the inevitable IT breakdowns do occur in order to keep interruptions to a minimum, thus keeping your business on track. Delegating Work. One of the tougher topics to handle in your business is delegating work and responsibility in your business. When you are an owner, it is hard to delegate responsibility as well as tasks, but bear in mind that these tasks which can be delegated will be able to teach employees certain business functions as well as the issue of being responsible for a part of a business. Relinquishing work to your employees makes them feel a part of the business and teaches them certain things that formal education just can’t offer. This lesson will pay dividends to both you and you your employees. There are also many other sidebars of discussion of other management tips, but these really are the three most important managements tips that any small business could and does use in order to both set themselves up and keep themselves running smoothly as a small business. Any small business regardless of what type can be helped with these tips. I'm the Silnet Avatar.. and I have spoken :-)

Tags: Business Tips, Business and Management by the silent avatar
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If you're into Internet marketing then maybe you can relate to to the title of this post....( or am I just being a touch sensitive to others marking shite loads of money straight from the wallets of "newbies", and anyone else looking ... looking .... looking ... to make a quick buck? (sorry successsful online business). Let me explain... My email inbox has been (yet again) bombarded with product launch emails. If it wasn't Mike Filsaime's Traffic Fusion at $1495 (oops $1497) , it's Rich Schefren's Guided Profit System (at $2495.. oops $2497), or how about ... Look.. I'm not saying that these "systems" are not worth what they are asking for.. but either people are being crazy and digging deep into their wallets until they hit their credit card/s (Ker Ching),  or I'm just a tad disillusioned with the whole "up the ante lets rake in the money while we can game". In the space of 3 years I have seen product launches go from $97 to $497 to now $1497 and Rich's latest offering at $2497! Put your wallets away.. there is nothing that these guys can teach you that you can't find by some diligent surfing of the Internet. Yes.. It may take time, but how about putting that $2497 into a BIG advert in your metropolitan paper and see what that gets you. How about thinking strategically about where you spend your money for your online business? How can this money be best spent right at this time to move me towards where you need to go? $2497? Think about it... a shite load of PPC! Just monitor your competitors, their ads, and see if the same ad keeps coming up week after week, after week. If it does? Just duplicate it with your own branding. Look.. no one keeps paying for PPC if it isn't working. $2497? How about paying a crack SEO dude to really ramp up your site and get the traffic flooding in? $2497? Rent a Billboard for a week (or how ever long it gets you), in the most prominent spot in your city and stick your web address on it (and a "tease offer". $2497? How about outsourcing all the stuff you've never finished, never got around to, always wanted to add to your website, or have them blog like crazy for you, submit articles, research a niche? Hell for $2497 I could bring on board an outsource from from some far flung land that is prepared to work for months for me for that sort of money. $2497? How about hiring a PR dude to get you to speak at a Wealth Building Conference? (not for the faint hearted but definately doable). $2497? For that I could catch a return frlight from Australia and knock on Rich Schfren's door and bug the hell out of him day and night until he sat down with me and talked turkey. Now for all those reading who like to spend money on "Personal Development", I say "You go girl!" (or guy). I am definately an advocate for learning more of what you need to know about yourself, your self sabotaging patterns, and if you need to pay $2497 to find out what your constraints are then go for it. Hell..  wel KNOW what our constraints are TIME and MONEY. But I'll give you the link to shoot on over and sign your self up if you really want to... You can do it here: https://ssl2.strategicprofitsystem.com/gps/ For $2497 I could get a one on one with someone like Rich Schefren for .. hmmmm.. maybe an hour or two. Do you think I would pick his brains to bits.. do you think I would tell him what I want to do and then ask him "How do I get there". Do you think I would have a list of questions..take a recorder... video... do the whole shebang (and even take 'em for lunch is that's what was required?) But you know what?..... Do you really need to know what you don't know?  Or ... do you just need to know that you don't know, and get someone who to find you the information you don't know? It reminds me of a story I read once.. it was about the guy Ford.. (you know the one.. the guy who made the first car.. the "Model T"). The story goes like this... Henry Ford (congrats to those who got it right), wagered a bet with a friend that he could answer any question his friend put to him and get the answer right. The friend accepted the challenge, and up for grabs was a considerable amount of money... The friend asked him the question (insert your own wildly insane, hard as you can, bet you don't know the answer question 'cause it doesn't really matter what the question was he was asked). The point is this... Henry Ford picked up the phone, called his personal assistant, told him the question, and said get back to him with the answer. Touche! Mr Ford! Did he NEED to know the answer? No. All he needed to know was how to find the answer, and he only had to pick up the phone and he had his answer. Do you get it? You work hard for your money.. damn hard. Make it work for you, and stop making others wealthy, because now you know. PS. This post comes with a disclaimer. Rich Schefren is the only man who I have got up at 4am in the morning to join a live video seminar he was hosting. The man's a legend. However  he relies on people not to think about what else their money could buy. His list is so big, his contacts so far flung, his wealth (well.. I'll leave that alone 'cause we know he's not short of a dime) that he has at his disposal people just like Mr Ford had.  In a nutshell he has gotten rid of his constraints to building a successful business by finding out what he needs to know and then getting others to do the groundwork for him. How on earth do you think he manages to conduct workshops, teleseminars, run Strategic Profits, do product launces, and the thousand and one other things this guy does? $2497 for the Guided Profits System?  Now it's a choice not a "must have". I say.. Ease up fellas.. our wallets are not that FAT (and I'm not about to make yours fatter). Of course, if you agree or disagree you comments are always welcome :-) Sphinn

Tags: Advertising, Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Online Business, Promotion and Marketing, Web Design by the silent avatar
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No doubt taking a business online is a decision which shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s easy to get caught up in all the hype of the Internet, but the bottom line is “will you see a return on your investment”?

One of the biggest headaches can be getting traffic (aka customers) to your site, and eBay already has that covered. Here are the traffic statistics from Alexa.com

Of course there is a multitude of ways to drive traffic to your site. Most take time to do, others you can pay money for and get moving straight way. All should be monitored (especially if you are spending advertising dollars to get the customers) as to how effective they are for you.

So here are a couple of scenarios which you may want to consider… 1. Open an online shop and either hold physical stock or drop ship.

2. Sell your products for a competitive price (including postage).

3. Advertise your site using free classified, forum posts, Pay Per Click advertising, etc

or

1. Research your market on Ebay Log in and go to “Advanced Search”. Input your product (be specific). Check “Search Title and Description” and Check “Completed Listings Only”, and check “new items only” (if you sell new) - then search. This will return you a listing of SOLD items which have been listed for sale on eBay, which are more than likely products you would offer to sell. Note: Search through “all Categories”, then refine down your listings using “Narrow your results” (which is accessed by going to the left of the window) Only review the listings highlighted in green (these are sold items). Now… Start a spreadsheet or pen/paper and input the data from the sold items.
2. Enter in the following:

· Item Name ( you want to know which items are the biggest sellers)

· Sold price – (because you want to know the lowest/highest price you can sell for

· Date sold – you want to know which day/s things sell more of than other days.

· Time sold – you want to know which time is the best sale time.

· Postage – you want to know what postage is reasonable (though you shouldn’t make money on postage – it should be flat postage fee plus an amount to cover packaging and getting to the post office).

· The seller (the best seller may have tricks you can use)

Armed with the information from Ebay you have a much better idea what people are willing to pay for the item you are going to sell. You also have a good idea what day you should be listing your items, and what time you should be listing them to get them in front of buyers, and how you should be listing them (I’ll go into that next post). If you have found that the price people are willing to pay is something that you can work with, the next step is to use this information and set up a listings on Ebay of around 30 products (they don’t all have to be individual products) and list them on the day and time that your research has turned up as being the best time to sell. Don’t list the same items one after the other. Do this for 1 month and see how sales go. While you are doing your research you can also be checking out other auction sites like oztion.com.au and do the same thing. You can also check out forums in your selected niche (let’s say you want to sell Xbox 360 video games). You can simply Google search for “Xbox forums”, join up and have a look around the forum for anyone who is talking about where they buy their games. You can also get a pretty good idea about what products they are buying. While this might sound a little tedious it will pay huge dividends and either confirm to you the project is viable, or scrap it as you can’t compete with what is already out there (and lets face it with imports from china it’s getting harder and harder to compete) Having said that… all is not lost if the price issue is looking pretty grim. If you specialise in a “niche” (and I’ll use the video games as an example, you could “specialise” in games for only Xbox or a certain type of game ie; racing car, war games, etc. If you determine you have a viable product and can sell at a price which is comparable to your competition, you are then good to go… You can either set up your own website and market traffic directly to the site or set up a full eBay store and run it as a business, or, you can keep listing products (using the research you have done), and just list single items to sell. Over to you…. As always feel free to post a comment or question for me to answer.

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Traffic Generation by the silent avatar
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I'm very grateful for the readers of my blog, and especially the comments which inspire me to give out some more useful information about webdesign and Internet marketing in general. A reader (Casey) recently posted a comment to my previous post "How to get your site visitors (NOT) doing what you want". Casey wanted some feedback (which I am happy to do), and I hope that you will relate my feedback I am giving on this website PropertyWishList.com.au to your own site in evaluating its effectiveness. You can open the site I am evaluating in another browser window to check it out as we go. The first comment I want to make is not to launch a site until you have tested the site. Testing encompasses a lot of things, not the least to make sure everything works technically. Another test should encompass what users think of the site. Now I'm not talking about you, your offsider, or your web developer. When you have been working on a site for any length of time you can become quite blind to what the site obviously needs. Find someone who fits a typical user. It could be a friend, an acquaintance, or a respected business person. You will want to go through the site and do what I am doing - evaluate it from a user perspective. Your task for them should be clear. Does our site encompass everything that you (as a user) want and need to be of benefit to use this site? (this is especially the case when your site is a "service" website). If necessary get them to fill in an online form, or ask them to just make notes and give you a call, or send them to you via email. You many even want to offer an incentive. So lets go... How do I think this site stacks up against the competition? While it might bruise some egos, send out a collective *groan*, and put you in a spin, what I about to say could have been alleviated if you had assessed the wants and needs of the users first over what your competition offers. I heard something recently (can't remember where) the saying "Never be the first one to do anything". I've pondered this good advice and now know why. When you are the first to do something you never get it right. You just set the benchmark for someone else to do it better. :-) I've used real estate sites often. In fact very often. For the past 3 years I have been trying to sell a property which I have moved on from (due to re-locating). Realestate.com.au is by far the biggest competitor (and I have used this site extensively when searching for property to buy), so first know who your competitor/s are and evaluate their website for areas which don't work or could work better. Do this from the prospective of a user and make notes. Then do it from the prospective of a developer (and take notes). [Read more →]

Tags: Business Tips, Internet Marketing, Web Design by the silent avatar
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