January 22, 2012
Business Matters
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by Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn
Starting your own small business can be a wonderful opportunity to work for yourself, to earn a better income or to replace lost income, but it is hard work and small businesses often have several obstacles in the way of their success. One of the main ones is not being taken seriously because your company is considered to be too small.
If you want to run a successful small business while landing medium-sized or even larger clients, there are several steps you can take to make your business look larger and more impressive in order to gain more credibility.
As a small business, you often can’t afford expenses such as a receptionist, professional office space, a member of staff for every job that needs to be done, and so on.
However, with a bit of foresight, you can create the impression of running an efficient business that looks larger than it really is – one that is worth dealing with. You can even accomplish this without breaking your budget once you know how.
In this guide, top marketers Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn, co-founders of Accent Marketing Group, Inc., will be showing you some of the best ways to present your small business in a more professional light, even if you are only a lone employee.
Discover the best ways to make your business look larger. Learn how to position yourself as an expert in a variety of ways designed to impress prospective customers and win you word-of-mouth recommendations and testimonials.
Discover the best and most cost-effective ways to drive traffic to your website and take advantage of both online and offline marketing opportunities. Position yourself to make the most of all the sales and business opportunities that will come your way as you build your impressive professional profile. Best of all, learn how to do this even if you only have a small budget.
In this guide, you will also get handy appendices on how to build brand recognition and how to start outsourcing effectively to grow your business even more rapidly and score the top clients that you are aiming for in your niche or industry.
Word Count=34,300
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: YOUR BUSINESS BASICS
CHAPTER 2: YOUR COMPANY MATERIALS
CHAPTER 3: YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
CHAPTER 4: DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS
CHAPTER 5: ADVERTISING YOUR BUSINESS
CHAPTER 6: SPREADING THE WORD ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS
CHAPTER 7: EFFECTIVE SALES STRATEGIES FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX 1: SMART OUTSOURCING TIPS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS
APPENDIX 2: THE KEY INGREDIENTS OF LASTING BRANDS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn are the authors of over two dozen guides in the Business Matters, Marketing Matters and Mobile Matters series. They are the co-founders of Accent Marketing Group, Inc. and love to consult for small to mid-sized start-up companies.
Buy Now: How to Make Your Small Business Look Larger Even on a Budget: Enhance Your Business Image Without Breaking the Bank (Marketing Matters)
January 19, 2012
Business Matters, Self-Help - Life and Mind Matters
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by Carolyn Stone and Evelyn Trimborn
How many times has this happened to you:
It’s getting towards the end of the interview and everything is going GREAT. Then the interviewer suddenly asks the one question that is bound to stump most people if they are not prepared.
Suddenly, your interviewer asks if you have any questions.
This can truly be the make or break moment in your interview.
How you handle this loaded interview question will be crucial to your walking away empty-handed, versus with an offer in hand.
This practical guide covers the questions you should ask at an interview to leave a favorable lasting impression upon the people interviewing you.
It also discusses how to take control of the interview in a subtle, professional way, to see if you are a good fit for the job, and even more important, if the job is right for YOU.
The new third edition of this guide also give you a list of action steps to help you polish your resume so you can gain the all-important opportunity to go on an interview.
You will also learn:
+ How volunteering can be the gateway to a new job
+ How to gain new skills without paying for educational courses
+ How to network like a pro
+ Why you might want to go back to school to enhance your skills
+ How to use your skills to earn money through self-employment
+ How to make the most of online opportunities
and much more.
You will also get:
+ Checklists for men and women regarding appropriate attire for an interview,
+ Hints and tips on how to calm your nerves on interview
+ Key items you need to bring on interview
+ Things to watch out for once you arrive at your interview;
+ A free PDF download “Finding a Job Checklist” you can use to help keep you on task with your job hunt.
Start using this guide now to put your best foot forward to try to land the great job you deserve.
WORD COUNT=8,150
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
SYNOPSIS
INTRODUCTION
TOP QUESTIONS TO ASK ON YOUR JOB INTERVIEW
STEPS TO READY YOURSELF FOR INTERVIEW SUCCESS
+UPDATE YOUR RESUME TO SHOW OFF YOUR SKILLS
+TAKE AN INVENTORY OF YOUR PERSONAL AND SOCIAL SKILLS
+UTILIZE TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS FOR FINDING WORK
+EXPLORE ONLINE EMPLOYMENT
+ACCESS ONLINE NETWORKING TO FIND A JOB
+USE VOLUNTEERING AS A MEANS OF FINDING A JOB
+CHANGING YOUR MINDSET IN ORDER TO FIND WORK MORE EASILY
+FOLLOW UP ON ANY LEADS PROMPTLY
+TAKE ADVANTAGE OF YOUR TIME OFF
CONCLUSION
FINDING A JOB ACTION STEPS LIST (With link to download free PDF as well)
APPENDIX: Interview Preparation Checklists
+Men’s Interview Clothing Checklist
+Hints and Tips for Men
+Other Key Items for Everyone to Bring
+Hints and Tips for All Candidates
+Women’s Interview Clothing Checklist
+Hints and Tips for Women
FREE NEWSLETTER AND GUIDES OFFER
——————————
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Evelyn Trimborn and Carolyn Stone are the authors of over 50 self-help books relating to finance, health and self-improvement. They are frequent contributors to a variety of websites, including InsiderSecretsCorp.com.
Buy Now: Questions You Need to Ask on Your Next Job Interview (Business Basics)
January 18, 2012
Business Matters, Marketing Matters
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**LEARN HOW TO BRAND YOUR SMALL BUSINESS LIKE A PRO AND POSITION YOUR COMPANY AS A LEADING ONE IN YOUR NICHE**
Raising people’s awareness of your small business has never been easier thanks to the many tools now available online, which can help you spread the word about all of your products and services to your niche audience.
However, it can also be time-consuming, and even the most experienced business owners can find the task of creating an impressive online presence to be a daunting prospect.
In this guide, the authors give you a clear action blueprint to help you raise your profile online in order to increase leads, sales and profits.
They discuss:
+creating a search-engine friendly website
+how to make your site a traffic magnet
+how to publish quality content regularly
+how to create a range of products and services quickly and easily that will sell well and add to your reputation as an expert in your niche.
They also discuss:
+the best ways to network online to position yourself as a leader in your industry
+how to use public relations to your best advantage
+the most effective ways to promote your business.
This guide also offers you a variety of strategies on how to integrate all these tactics to ensure that you are making the most of your time and effort to build brand awareness for your business.
A handy series of appendices covers certain tactics step by step, including:
+how to get your website indexed quickly by the search engines;
+how to get yourself listed in local search engine directories;
+how to use a paid forum posting service;
+how to create loyal customers who will become ambassadors for your brand; +how to create professional presentations that will raise your profile and have your audience eager to do business with you;
and much more.
You will also learn how to write your own effective press releases, and the top strategies for making your content go viral on the Internet. You will get more traffic and prospective customers, who will start to become aware of your brand and see for themselves all that you have to offer.
If you’ve been struggling to build your brand and establish a professional presence online, this guide can save you time and effort and help you grow your audience to meet all of your business goals.
Word Count=19,950
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: WHY RAISE YOUR PROFILE?
CHAPTER 2: HOW PUBLISHING CAN RAISE THE PROFILE OF YOUR BUSINESS
CHAPTER 3: CREATING HIGH-QUALITY FREE AND PAID PRODUCTS
- CONTENT PUBLISHING QUESTIONNAIRE
CHAPTER 4: NETWORKING WITH OTHERS
CHAPTER 5: BOOST YOUR PROFESSIONAL PROFILE WITH PUBLICITY
CHAPTER 6: BOOSTING YOUR PROFESSIONAL PROFILE IN AN INTEGRATED WAY
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX 1: HOW TO GET YOUR WEBSITE INDEXED QUICKLY
APPENDIX 2: HOW TO GET YOUR SMALL BUSINESS LISTED ON LOCAL SEARCH ENGINE SITES
APPENDIX 3: RAISE YOUR PROFILE WITH A PAID FORUM POSTING SERVICE
APPENDIX 4: HOW TO CREATE MARKETING MESSAGES THAT WILL STICK
APPENDIX 5: HOW TO RAISE YOUR PROFESSIONAL PROFILE ON LINKEDIN
APPENDIX 6: HOW TO MAKE GOOD PRESENTATIONS TO PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS AND INVESTORS
APPENDIX 7: HOW TO WIN REPEAT CUSTOMERS
APPENDIX 8: HOW TO FIND BUSINESS NETWORKING GROUPS ONLINE AND OFFLINE
APPENDIX 9: HOW TO HANDLE PUBLIC RELATIONS
APPENDIX 10: TOP TIPS FOR WRITING A PRESS RELEASE
APPENDIX 11: TOP VIRAL MARKETING TACTICS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Joan Mullally is a top Internet marketer and publisher whose commonsense solutions help small businesses establish a presence on the Internet successfully.
Evelyn Trimborn is a freelance journalist on a wide variety of how-to subjects and is a popular contributor to blogs on small business and Internet marketing topics.
More of their in-depth work on mastering marketing can be found at Accent Marketing Group Inc., AccentMarketingGroupInc.com, where they offer their expertise to a variety of clients eager to take advantage of all the business and marketing opportunities the Internet offers.
BUY NOW:
How to Raise Your Professional Profile Online: Strategies to Build Brand Awareness for Your Small Business (Marketing Matters)
January 12, 2012
Business Matters, Small Business Startup
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Beginning a new business can be one of the most exciting periods of your life. You will have all sorts of ideas and dreams about how much of a success your new business will be. Before you start following all of your flights of fancy, however, give yourself a reality check and think about your business budgeting.
If you have a good household budget in place, then you will know exactly how important a tool a budget can be. If on the other hand you are a ‘boom and bust’ kind of person when it comes to managing your money, you need to get a budget in place for your business before you ever flip the ‘Open’ sign.
You need to be realistic about how much you have to spend and how much things will cost. For instance, rent, electricity, phone, computer leasing and so on are fixed costs that have to be met every month. How much do you have in start up capital that can pay for these expenses until you have a steady income?
If you have no start-up capital and are trying to ‘bootstrap’ your company to success, you will still need to know what things cost and set any money aside to cover them. If there is anything left over after your fixed costs, then you can re-invest at least a portion of it back into the business. You will also have to set money aside for quarterly taxes and a savings fund for future opportunities and any emergencies that might arise. Then and only then will you be able to pay yourself.
A budget can help your business in several ways:
* Avoid overspending on products; this would eventually lead to you going out of business, or even bankruptcy
* Help when negotiating loans with the bank or other lending institution; they will want to see compelling financials if they are ever to take you seriously
* Balance expenses against income
* Get an accurate up-to-the-minute picture of how healthy your business is financially
* Help to evaluate and set the unit price for products and services—too many new business owners price themselves too high, and right out of the market. Others price themselves too low and get ‘locked in’ to that price with their customers. As they get busier, they are then frozen in terms of income and it can be difficult to raise your rates and still retain your clients.
* Know start-up costs for your business –know what everything costs. Also be realistic about how long things can take to be completed. When in doubt, overestimate, rather than underestimate and then be unpleasantly surprised.
* Know your monthly operating expenses –you should memorize this number. If things are not going well by the middle of the month, take steps to get back on target to earn more by the end of it or else you could be seriously off-budget and need to borrow from your savings to sustain the business. If you have no savings, you will be in trouble.
No one likes the word budget. It is like the word diet. It suggests deprivation and misery. But it does not have to be that way. Just look at your business budget as part of your overall business plan. It is an essential tool for business success in the same way that a hammer is essential for a carpenter or builder and a computer is for an Internet business owner or writer.
Your budget should be a snapshot of what you need to take care of each month to be in business, and stay in business, and keep yourself out of the bankruptcy court. 80% of new businesses will fail within 5 years. Why? Because their owners fail to have realistic expectations or budget accordingly.
Don’t let your business become part of that grim statistic. You work too hard to allow yourself to fail. Keep on track with a business budget, and watch your business grow through your careful money management.
Further Reading
How to Create Wealth to Grow Your Business (Business Basics)
How to Start a Successful Small Business Even If You Don’t Have Much Cash (Business Basics)
Path to More Profits: 25 Ways to Boost Your Bottom Line Today (Business Basics)
December 30, 2011
Business Matters
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Sometimes it is not what you say but how you move your body while you are saying it that can convey a whole host of hidden and perhaps contradictory messages. If you are wondering what your body language might be saying about you, here are some hints on how to hold yourself during business negotiations to make the best impression possible and not give away anything you would rather keep concealed.
What Is Body Language?
Humans are expressive people. Have you ever made a face at something before you could stop yourself? When we aren’t conscious of our actions, we can reveal far more than we know, and you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Human beings may not be able to read minds, but they can certainly read body language once they take the trouble to learn how. Knowing how to read a client’s body language can make all the difference between walking away from the negotiating table with a great contract, or empty-handed. Being aware of your own body language and stopping the tell-tale giveaways before they reveal too much can help you become a deal maker, not a deal breaker.
So, how can you read the signs as interest, annoyance, lack of truthfulness, or nervousness? Let’s look at a few of the basics.
Some Body Language Tips
You may have noticed the body language that we are about to reveal without knowing what it meant. You might also have done it yourself from time to time. Making note of these and learning how to counteract your client’s inner thoughts and emotions could help save the day and bring in that sale.
* Wide eyes
Have you ever noticed how kids look at you, with wide eyes, when you do something that interests them? If your client also has wide or widens their eyes when you talk about your products or services, then you are engaging them. Even if they act aloof and non-committal so as not to show too much eagerness, they are interested in hearing more and want to do business with you.
* Lack of eye contact
Some people are naturally shy, but generally speaking, when dealing with a client who avoids looking in your eyes, you will need to think about whether or not they have something to hide.
It might not be anything to worry about, just past history making them more cautious, or they really are shy. Whatever the reason they are not engaging with you fully, consider giving them further reassurances that can help win them over and let go of their misgivings. And if they really are up to no good, then you will soon find out because they will not go through with the deal.
Maybe they were burned by another business who promised exactly what you are promising. Go the extra mile and give them a guarantee of your service to put them at ease.
* Feet pointed away from you
When you sit down with a client, shake hands and then watch how they sit. They may begin with their body pointed to you in anticipation of something interesting you might say. If the client repositions and turns away from you, they are trying to get away. You have lost their interest in this case and they are no longer engaging with you. You can try to perk up their interest by returning to the start of the conversation, but be prepared for a no.
* Flushed ears
Have you ever felt your face getting hot in certain situations? It is usually due to embarrassment. If you’ve ever touched on a nerve or made someone feel uncomfortable, take a look at their ears. If they are red like beets, they could be anxious or trying to deceive you about something, or something you said has made them ill at ease. Take a few steps back in the conversation to when it was at its most cordial and see if you can rescue this situation.
* Sit to the right
One way to diffuse a tense situation with a right-handed person is to sit on their right. In this position the left side of the brain is stimulated, which controls relaxation and calmness. This also conveys the idea of being a ‘right-hand man,’ that is, someone who is on your side. You are positioning yourself as wanting what is good for them, not just yourself.
*Tapping or clicking a pen
This can be nervousness or just boredom. Whatever the reason, it is distracting and annoying. To diffuse the situation, go back to the point in the conversation before they started doing this and re-engage their attention.
These are just a few of the tell-tale signs that something is going on under the surface when you are negotiating with others. And while may not have full control of how you sit or what your ears look like, but by being aware of your body language, you can create a more business-like and consistent impression.
Further Reading
Questions You Need to Ask on Your Next Job Interview (Business Basics)
December 26, 2011
Business Matters, Marketing Matters
No Comments
We all know that time is money, but for an online business, your website is your storefront, particularly if you are an information publisher. In these days of spelling and grammar checkers on your computer, you should be able to produce error-free copy easily. Why then do we see so many mistakes on the Internet and in emails?
In part, it is strategic. Some business owners are actually going after misspelled keywords by putting them up themselves. In subject headers in emails, they can often do it to get attention or try to trick the spam filters.
But generally speaking, you will want to avoid resorting to such tricks unless it is clear that that is what you are up to. Otherwise, people will just think that your work is sloppy or that you don’t know any better.
Your website and all of your promotional material are selling tools which help you create a first, and sometimes a last, impression. Therefore, try to proofread your material whenever possible, and run a spellcheck. Don’t always rely on Word to underline your errors or grammatical issues. Hit the spellcheck button and run it fully, from the top of the page to the bottom.
Then read it over again to be sure that it has not missed any grammatical errors. It can highlight what you have phrased poorly but it can’t always detect words that you have left out.
Have you ever visited a website that you wished you had clicked past? What kinds of things got on your nerves? The same features that annoyed you will also annoy your visitors if you have them on your website.
Here is a list of a few things that can cost sales by making it difficult for people to make sense of your website:
* Misspelled words in your articles
* Lots of blank white space
* Hard to read fonts
* Too many colors on a page
* Poor contrast between the color of a font and the background of the page
* A black background for your pages with white, red or other text colors
* Links that don’t work
* A poorly constructed site that is hard to navigate
* Cluttered pages with too many ‘calls to action’ as opposed to a linear order flow
* No graphics that support the information or text on the page
* Poor quality graphics or ones which are not relevant to the topic
* Lack of continuity and sense from page to page
This may seem like a lot of things to worry about for your site and each page, but the truth is that your site visitors will notice these things in a matter of seconds as they click into your website. They will have an idea of what they are looking for or need from the information that they saw in the search engine, such as the title and description of the site, or from a link to your site. If what they see when they arrive at your site is ‘off’ in some way, they will click out and look for another site that appears to meet their needs more closely.
Too many rapid clicks out of your site will result in a high bounce rate. If these visitors are coming from an important search engine like Google™, this can affect your overall quality score and how high up you can get on their search engine results pages for the keywords related to your niche or industry.
Building a great website is part art, part science, and all content. Concentrate on spelling things correctly in order to score highly for the keywords on the page. This will include your page title, page description, keywords, tags, and the name of the page itself. It will also include any media, and descriptions of the media, which are on you page. For example, you should name all of your images, audio and video files with at least one meaningful and correctly spelled keyword. The search engines spider these elements as well as websites and webpages.
If you include images on your pages, you should not only name them with keywords, you should also use ALT tags and description tags for each image. These help people who are visually impaired to ‘see’ what is on the page. The description tag is not essential, but it is a good way to give people more information about an image and add to the keyword density on your page at the same time.
Keyword density is just one of the factors taken into consideration when Google™ and the other search engines scan your page and decide how relevant it is to a word or phrase that a user has just typed into a search engine. Therefore, spelling your keywords correctly will be an important part of getting a high relevance score.
* Proofread all of your content and webpages
Don’t trust the spellcheck alone. For all of your most important pages, such as the About Us and Contact Us pages (the ‘housekeeping’ pages), go through content that you have uploaded line by line. These will be the most viewed pages on your site after your home page, so make them count.
*Check it over again in your Content Management System
If you have a spelling and grammar checker in your CMS, check it again. Also look for things like double-spaces or extra punctuation.
* Preview each page in a number of different browsers
Check your page carefully in your previewer, but remember that all browsers behave differently. Once you have uploaded the content onto your website, check its appearance online using the standard browsers, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome, to be sure that you have not left any tags open and that the page is appearing the way you would like it to.
Check for problems with alignment (center, left, right) or the number of columns on the page.
*Use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) when Possible
In terms of appearance, use CSS whenever possible to eliminate the need for a lot of tags. The cleaner the code, the faster the load time and the less chance of any errors on your page.
* Pay attention to Headlines and Subheadings
The eye of the reader will naturally be attracted to certain parts of the page. Put anything you think is the most important information at the top or near it.
Your website is the base of operations for your business if you are working online to attract customers. Your site can make or break your business in a matter of seconds. People who use the Internet have many choices of sites to visit. Sloppy layouts and grammatical errors can repel instead of attract customers.
Try to put your best foot forward and use your spellchecker in your word-processing program and in your blog interface/content management system interface if you have these tools. People should be struck by your professionalism at your site, not with the numbers of errors they can see. Also keep the needs of the reader in mind to help create a site that will be a magnet to visitors thanks to your professionalism and high-quality content.
Further Reading
Information Marketing Success: How to Make the Most of Your Online Content for Increased Traffic and Profits (Marketing Matters)
Creating Your Personal Image Online: How to Enhance Your Career Prospects By Building an Impressive Personal Profile Online (Business Matters)
Information Marketing Success: How to Make the Most of Your Online Content for Increased Traffic and Profits (Marketing Matters)
December 3, 2011
Business Matters
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Many people long to own their own business, but don’t know how to get started. Thanks to the Internet, many people are now able to start their own business and work from home, using the assets that they already have.
If you are eager to start your own business, but think you can’t because you haven’t got a lot of spare cash, here are some ideas that can help you get started today.
1-Clean out your house, and buy garage sale or eBay items to re-sell them for a profit.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Clean out your house of any old items you no longer use or might already have replaced with a newer model. Why have it cluttering up the house when you can sell it and put that money in the bank or pay off your debts?
Spending Fridays and Saturdays snapping up bargains from garage sales and selling them at flea markets or on eBay can be very lucrative. So can buying items in bulk at wholesale prices from websites or eBay and selling them on your own site or in the Amazon Marketplace. In the past decade or so since Internet shopping has taken off, this has become a profession that provides a full-time living with part-time hours for many people.
You need to know your niche and the prices for things, and what is hot at the moment, to do really well financially. You will also need to know about packaging and shipping rules and have a good customer service mind set in order to get good reviews. The good reviews will help keep repeat customers coming back for more. If you have a particular skill set or in-depth knowledge of a certain topic, known as a niche, you can do well by providing exactly what the people in that niche are eager to buy.
2-Try landscaping.
Landscaping has become a profitable hobby or full-time living for many. If you have a way with plants and an eye for design, you can charge some good professional fees for doing some landscaping. Start with your own garden and those of as many neighbors as possible to get your portfolio going, and then you should be able to start charging competitive rates to new clients.
3-Make money from your hobby.
You can build furniture or decorative items, arts and crafts, create personalized scrapbooks, home-made gifts of all kinds, and so on. If you don’t have a hobby like this, the skills for many of them are easily learned and enjoyable as well. Sell your items at flea markets, on Etsy.com or eBay, or spread the word through friends.
4-Become an affiliate.
An affiliate sells products and services for a commission. You are probably familiar with Avon and Tupperware, in which people sell products to friends and family, host parties and so on. This is commonly referred to as direct selling, and is done in person.
You can also sell products online for a commission, in which case it is referred to as being an affiliate. There are many affiliate marketplaces in which top companies and designer brands recruit people to sell for them.
The largest marketplaces for affiliate selling are Commission Junction (cj.com), LinkShare and ShareASale. Amazon and eBay also have affiliate programs. You don’t even need a website to sell these products. Simply create your links and put them in the signature files of your emails, put at the end of any posting you create on notice board or forum, use in the comments section of a blog you read and use in your social networking area.
If you do have a website, so much the better. You can post [honest] reviews of the products you are selling, the latest hot items in your niche, and more.
Choose a niche, that is, an area of expertise, and stick to it. Study it carefully and know what people like and are genuinely interested in. For example, if you are a real movie buff, then selling DVDS is a great option. Do not do it, however, if you barely ever see a film.
Being an affiliate can be a fun and interesting way to make your own money and even start your own side business. You promote the products, and the company you are an affiliate for does the rest, taking care of all the order fulfillment, packing and shipping. The commissions may not be that high, but they are better than nothing.
You can also consider being an affiliate as an ‘instant discount’ on any products and services that you buy. For example, you shop online at Amazon anyway (and tens of millions of people do), become an Amazon Associate, then set up a second account so you can buy through your own link and get instant savings.
Being between jobs doesn’t mean you have to do without income. You might also want to supplement your income from your day job, or start moving towards the financial and personal freedom you long for by starting your own business.
There are many ways to start your own business even with little or no spare cash, if you are willing to put in the time and effort. The ideas above are just a starting point to get you thinking about all of your available options.
As an added bonus, by earning any sort of temporary income, you can start creating the kind of wealth you need to start the business of your dreams. You will also be coming into contact with people who may be able to help you find a permanent position.
If you still have a job but you are underpaid, underemployed, or both, these are just a few of the ways that you can make extra money to pay off debts, start an emergency fund, or start saving for your financial goals for the future.
Further Reading
YOUR RECESSION SURVIVAL GUIDE: How to Save Money and Even Boost Your Income in This Recession 
How to Start a Successful Small Business Even If You Don’t Have Much Cash
How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing Even Without a Website
Information Marketing Success: How to Make the Most of Your Online Content for Increased Traffic and Profits
December 2, 2011
Business Matters
No Comments
Outsourcing is one of the most powerful tools in any small business owner’s toolkit for increasing their productivity, output and eventual profits.
Most new business owners start out doing everything themselves. This allows them to keep control of all aspects of their business during the critical start-up phase and to keep costs down. Unfortunately, this control over the work and the costs can actually start to hamper them and prevent the business from growing to its full potential.
Here are some top tips on how to use outsourcing effectively for your small business.
* The Boss Does Not Need to Sweep the Floor
Most business owners get into the mindset that if they want the job done well, they have to do it themselves. This might be true, but as your business grows, you will have to decide which jobs you NEED to do for the sake of the business, and which will need to be outsourced because there will never be enough hours in the day to do everything.
It is easy to find someone to sweep the floor for minimum wage. That same person would not be likely to be the best choice to send to a high-powered meeting with potential investors. Therefore, why are you doing THEIR job, when you should be doing YOURS?
Your job as the head of the business is to grow your company to a healthy and sustainable level financially through activities which generate income. No matter what your business, there are administrative tasks that can be handed over to others. The critical thinking and real value creation is where you as the owner should be focusing your attention.
By all means start people off in the process, for example, by creating sample customer service emails that your outsourced worker can edit as needed. And do ask them to let you know of any major problems that might arise, since customer service is an important part of keeping customers loyal and establishing a good reputation for your business. But it would not be a productive use of your time to answer every CS email yourself.
* What to Outsource
The first few things to outsource are:
1. Low-level tasks that take up a lot of time
2. Things that take up a lot of your energy
3. Things that you are not very good at, annoy you, or you dislike
By easing the burden on both your time and energy, you will feel less drained and be better able to tackle the really important challenges in your business.
* When to Outsource
The real answer is as soon as you start your business, but you might not have the cash for that. However, do include it as a built-in part of your business plan. Once you have some cash coming in, go to the freelance marketplaces and fiver.com and see who you can find to lend a hand with certain tasks. You can easily get rid of the bad workers and find some reliable good ones to help you. Just remember that outsourcing should actually make you money, not cost you money.
For example, if your work is ultimately worth $50 an hour but you are spending your time on $10-an-hour tasks, you can hire 4 workers at $10 an hour and still be making a profit, but you will have reduced the value of your time. However, if you can boost the value of your time to $100 an hour because you are free to focus on what you do best, then your outsourcing will more than pay for itself and leave you plenty of profits besides.
* Outsource In All Areas of Your Life the Box
Don’t just outsource things inside your business, but in your personal life as well, to help you become more efficient. You might not like the idea of people ‘waiting on you’, but especially in this economy, think of all the people you can help earn money in gainful employment.
If your time is worth $50 an hour, then by all means pay someone $10 an hour to do your laundry, clean your house, shop for your essentials, and so on. Even if you are only paying your child or spouse, remember that there are many acceptable tax deductions once you own a business.
It might seem like an extraneous expense, but again, every extra hour you can put into your business is more money earned. More money earned means more success for you and your loved one, and more ability to help others.
*Outsourcing Online
Outsourcing online can give you access to people all around the world willing to work to earn money. In this case, you might not outsource ongoing tasks, but small projects. Logo creation, website creation, and other one-off projects can all be running in the background simultaneously while you do other work. You can also outsource ongoing tasks like attending to customer service, virtual assistant tasks and more. See how you spend your time every day and what you can safely hand over to others and free up your time to generate more revenue more rapidly thanks to outsourcing.
FURTHER READING
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR PROFITS THROUGH OUTSOURCING
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by Joan Mullally and Evelyn Trimborn
