Up Market |
- The Best Things in Life Are Free
- How to Protect Your Trademark
- Write My Book: Ignore Spelling, Grammar, and Formatting
- 3 Simple Questions To Help Guide Your Business’s Operations
| The Best Things in Life Are Free Posted: 28 Jan 2012 09:00 AM PST We live in a time of great change – much of it obvious – with people awakening in many countries, to the peril of now-former dictators. At home, we see ever-declining satisfaction with Congress. That is not the change I'm referring to, though. Since the American Industrial Revolution, we have been trained to be employees. Climbing the corporate ladder became what many people considered to be success for over a century. But many companies were in industries that have all but disappeared in America. Steel, automobiles, electronics… the list goes on and we know the results. In the true American spirit though, entrepreneurship has been rising for the last three years. Today, Baby Boomers are starting businesses at a rapid rate, accounting for a large portion of those new start-ups. Surveys show that 48% of Boomers want to start their own business within the next 5-10 years. Many need to do it now. I find myself thinking of many things in my life as songs from the 60's and 70's, thus the title of this article, from “Money (That’s What I Want).” The cost of starting a business can be a concern. The fantastic thing about today's Internet is that so many resources are free. In the past, I started a business in the customary "Brick & Mortar" fashion. It was very time-consuming and expensive. Today, I spend essentially nothing on programs to run my business.
Within Google alone, you can have word processing, spreadsheets, file storage, web pages, even a telephone number (with voicemail) and much more. Other sites can fill out your "suite" of free tools to operate your business. I want to remove one barrier that you may think lies between you and your desire to realize your dreams. Money is not a barrier… so it can't be an excuse. While we can blame the internet for many things, we can thank it for the growing numbers of free services. The price of spreading your message has now become… FREE. The new Entrepreneurial Revolution has begun! Don't wait for somebody to ask you to join. Learn how to use the free resources on the internet, then start something. Start big or start small. Just start! Image Credit: Indrani Soemardjan
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| Posted: 28 Jan 2012 06:00 AM PST
Inc.com wants to help you make sure your trademark is properly protected. According to a recent article: “Trademarks reflect a company’s overall identity and reputation—yet businesses around the world lose millions of dollars every year from easily preventable trademark infringements.” An attorney quoted in the article offers the following:
Are you sufficiently convinced that trademark protection is a big deal? Good. Now it's time to get to work. The process of protecting your trademark requires an investment of time, energy, and money. The article offers four key tips to ensure you're covered:
A great additional reference for those just starting to think about trademarks can be found at FranchiseHelp.com. This article provides a few simple steps to select and register your trademark, the first critical steps before protecting it. Do you have a trademark? Are you actively protecting it? What tips can you add to these? Photo Credit: mag3737  |
| Write My Book: Ignore Spelling, Grammar, and Formatting Posted: 27 Jan 2012 05:00 PM PST These ideas aren't just for writers -- give them a look and see how some can play a role in how you view success.  |
| 3 Simple Questions To Help Guide Your Business’s Operations Posted: 27 Jan 2012 12:30 PM PST
That’s all good, in theory, but the world of business isn’t nearly that clear. You’re inevitably mid-stream when you have to make these decisions – it’s not like you get to start with a clean slate. Here are three simple questions that’ll help you guide your company’s operations mid-stream: 1. What are you currently doing well? (And why?) Let’s start by assessing what is working first. It’s impossible to do everything badly in business and survive long, which means that, if you’ve been at it for a while, you’re necessarily doing something well. What are those activities? Just as important as what you’re doing well is knowing why you’re doing them well. Knowing what without knowing why doesn’t give much room for constructive change. Is your marketing message really resonating with your market? Is your strategy really sound even if the execution of it isn’t great? Is your customer care remarkable? Remember, build from your strengths – assuming your strengths are relevant to the direction you’re taking your company. 2. What would you do well if you had the capacity? Nearly every organization I’ve observed -no matter the size, scope, or industry – has been over-capacity. Try as hard as you like, you can’t fit 16 units of Stuff into a 10 unit bag. Name a few key objectives that would really impact the growth and viability of your company and be honest about whether your company has enough capacity to get the job done well. What type of capacity do you need? More salespeople? More producers? More customer service reps? Better managers? Compare the potential gains of nailing those objectives against the cost of getting the right people in the right positions. While we’re on comparisons, compare what your company is currently able to do with what it might be able to do. There’s usually a pretty stark opportunity cost to not getting the capacity you need. Hint: you may not need to hire new people – it may be a matter of retraining or cross-training the people you currently have. The better your team, the better your business. 3. What are you doing that you no longer need to do? Just as creative projects inevitably have scope creep, businesses have a similar creep – it’s easy to either stagnate with activities or customers that aren’t growth-oriented or to get spread too thin. Like a good apple tree, some judicious pruning can go a long way. The easiest place to start is by looking at the oldest offers and customers you have. Are those old offers consistent with the current vision and strategy? Are those old customers really getting the best value from your company by sticking with your earlier offer? Just because that’s where you started doesn’t mean you need to stay there. Find the right fit for both you and your customers – and do it quickly. Another easy place to look is in your marketing and advertising activities. Have you tracked the return on investment of your marketing and advertising programs? Are you paying for a billboard that no one sees or a radio announcement when everyone is asleep? If your marketing venues aren’t generating leads and customers, figure out better ways to use your money and time. Get real here with the amount of time you’re spending on Social Media. If it’s bringing you business or building your brand, that’s great. If it’s not, might there be other, more effective marketing techniques? (Hint: pick up the phone or send a sincere email.) Give yourself 30 minutes to review these questions to make sure your operations are in alignment with your strategy and vision. The minimal investment of time pays huge returns in clarity and concentration of resources. Are you on a roll and want more questions to help steer your company? Check out Chrissy Scivicque’s 5 Questions for Business Owners. Photo Credit: s_falkow  |
You can operate your business with good, free resources on the internet, and be up and running in no time. That reduces the investment issues, freeing up a lot of time and money for actually running your business.
A trademark is more than a fancy little icon; it can actually give your business a significant edge over the competition.
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