What Cost Can You Expect to Include On Advertising in Your Small Business Plan?

One of the best advertising models that people fail to realize is the importance of “word of mouth”.  In current times, many consumers like giving a company feedback or ratings, literally or figuratively. That is why many consumers tell their friends when they find a nice new store; one that is worth visiting, or a store that they had a poor experience at.

You should never discard the power of the customers that you already have.  Not only will keeping your current customers satisfied, increase the chances of them coming back again, it also improves the chances of them recommending your business to those that they know. When working on your small business plan keep this important information in mind when reviewing your advertising costs.

Are you looking to market your business to the general public, or do you have a targeted market in mind?

Read more

Can an Online Business Opportunity start with one idea? Part 5 of 7

Are you still mystified with what an entrepreneur does in his/her everyday life?

Well, according to some people, entrepreneurs are great thinkers and so they must be spending most of their time thinking of what new things they can offer to the world. This may be true and if you’re a beginner in an Online Business Opportunity, you have to get the best marketing idea to get you started.

Entrepreneurs are generally business people. However, this is only half of who they really are. You see, entrepreneurs are also idea thinkers and deal makers. Through the available or existing circumstances, an entrepreneur can uncover new ideas and then turn them into a good deal.

Many entrepreneurs hardly ever concentrate on one business venture. The primary aim of an entrepreneur is to earn money therefore to concentrate on one business venture is rare. Seasoned entrepreneurs will try to venture into all kinds of business ideas, as long as these online opportunities provide a profit.

Some online business opportunities Read more

Is an Online Business Opportunity Right for You? Part 1 of 7

There are pros and cons to starting your own online business opportunity. On the negative side, you may experience cash-flow challenges, you will no doubt have to deal with a significant amount of risk, you will no doubt have to work longer and harder hours.

Starting an online business opportunity will not work for everyone as you need to be self-motivated, resilient, confident, a risk-taker and make sacrifices required when being self-employed.

Prior to starting an online business it is important you research the industry you want to enter. Google is a great place to start to understand the competition that is online in your chosen niche. You need to complete an exact search on keywords related to your niche, record the monthly search results which will give you the competition for that particular keyword.

This is part of a strategy used in creating a business plan for your business. A business plan will help you with the following:

• formalize your business ideas
• prepare your business for financing, if applicable
• uncover weak areas in your business strategy
• Improve your chances of success

Our IBP Strategy can help you to prepare a strong business plan which will provide you with a tool to track your success. In creating your internet business plan there are critical factors you need to pay close attention to therefore as you put together your plan for your online business opportunity, study all the facts and make sure you pay attention to what the facts are telling you, good and bad.

It is not an easy decision to start an online business just as it is not as easy to abandon a great idea that the research proves to be non-profitable. Take your research serious and in doing so, will save you many wasted hours, accept what you find and work with it.

Have a great day!

Regards,

Carl Tambeau
Founder of Pro Marketing Resource

What Are The True Characteristics of the Internet Entrepreneur?

Yesterday we spoke of the characteristics of the internet entrepreneur. After some careful consideration to yesterdays report we thought of some additional characteristics that are worth mentioning.

Entrepreneurs are people like yourself who have the right attitude and dedication. Some days being your own boss can be an uphill challenge and this challenge can last for days, weeks and even months.

Here is a question worth mentioning here – “Are you ever your own boss?” In our opinion you definitely have the say in how you run your business to some degree.

What about how your clients feel? Does it matter what they think?

Unless you don’t care about staying in business for long you need to be concerned how your clients feel so in saying that wouldn’t it make sense the ultimate boss is your client.

Internet entrepreneurs possess characteristics which are very important and for those who don’t have these characteristics will have less of a chance to succeed in the long run.

Some additional characteristics are as follows: Read more

Can You handle the pressure of an Internet Entrepreneur?

Yesterday, we gave a brief overview of business ideas for Internet entrepreneur, touching slightly on franchising for Internet Marketers.

We ended our post advertising for you to research your business ideas, especially franchising. When you are planning  to launch a business idea online or offline “research” is key.

Recently, we have been working on creating a product related to this very subject. On April 18, 2009 we will be launching our product to the public – it is called “The IBP Strategy” and is geared to be help you to systematically create your very own business plan.

Not all individuals who desire to own their own business can attain the goal, to be an internet entrepreneur. One of the most common reasons for failure is because the person did not have the right business plan. The other reason is a lack of personal dedication and commitment.

Look at it this way, Read more

What Are The Elements of a Business Plan? Part 2

Yesterday we reviewed the audience you should be keeping in mind when preparing your business plan.

Today we are going to give you a quick overview of what you need to cover in your internet business plan as a whole, we will refer to this as the business model. In any business reporting, too many times you may find yourself leaning to close to the side of analytics.

What is meant by this is even though we need to analyze a fair amount of data to create your internet business plan, you may over analyze the data which can actually distort the real meaning of the report. What you need to do is keep things simple, don’t create confusion or make things more difficult than they have to be.

Here is your internet business model in simple terms:

Your Core Business is the business which you have formed, for today’s example we are talking about the business which you have formed online – Your eCommerce Storefront and here is what that business does:

• Sells a product or service which is of value to your prospective clients.

• People need to see your site, therefore you need to get traffic to your site.

• As People visit your site, you need to bribe them with free products in order to get their contact information. Building a list of valuable contacts is imperative to most online businesses long term success.

• Through honest, reliable customer relations you need to sell to these contacts.

• Once you sell your audience, you need to give them a reason to keep coming back so you can sell them more, or maybe a related product and/or service.

Once reading through the above process it sure sounds easy but that is the only issue with that plan – “It sounds easy”. Most people admit they have thought “How hard can that possibly be?” Many businesses have failed and continue to fail even knowing this very business model. Read more

What Are The Elements of A Business Plan?

There are varying opinions on what a good business plan should contain and what can be left as assumption.

Personally speaking what your business plan contains is directly related to the purpose of creating the plan in the first place.

Your plan of action has to be geared to your audience but you don’t need several different business plans for one company. A good idea may be to to highlight certain data, depending on your audiences needs and the purpose of the presentation. As an example for your banker it is best to have a financial plan or financial forecast of a viable business, otherwise you have nothing to back up the businesses ability to repay any debts being obtained or being reviewed. This particular form would be known as Financial Statements.

If you are making a presentation in front of “would be investors”, as you are looking to raise capital for a large project, then you will need to give investors some comfort which states the benefits outweight the risk. Investors only care about getting their money back with a decent return therefore they would be best suited to be presented on a forecast of your business projections as far as upcoming projects and the benefits of projects and/or products – how much market share the business is getting with products and services, how strong is the management team and what are their values in building the business.

Hopefully you are understanding the point to this message, so whatever you do don’t let what your business plan should look like hold you up, create your general Business Plan and then depending on your audience’s needs add to or take away where and when necessary.

Remember your reputation is on the line therefore don’t attempt to BS or fluff up what is not really there, be honest and have documentation including relevant market research to back up your theories or stats.

Regards,

Carl Tambeau
Founder of Pro Marketing Resource

Does Your Target Market Know How To Write a Business Plan? Part 4 of 4

As with any business plan, a lot of research is necessary to create an effective, successful business profile. Future projections are in part based on history within your company and/or history within your industry.

After analyzing the history of all events and important transactions, you need to understand the economic changes which are predicted for your industry. Government policy changes can have major impacts on a business, regardless of industry. The current economic slowdown is definitely affecting 2009 projections and at this point into 2010.

For the online presence using historical data of your current business to determine how to write a business plan,will not give you and accurate picture of your internet business plan.

Yesterday we walked you through some steps and helped you to understand the importance of researching your target market. It is at this point you will need to open the spreadsheet you created on the top 30 competing websites within your industry.

Using the demographics data of all the competing sites gives you a clear picture of who your audience is and it is this data that helps you to understand your target market, before you open the doors online. In your offline business it would cost you a lot of time and expense to get this type of information, if you were even fortunate to be able to have such information at all.

Most of you learn who your target market is in a general way, some of you may not care because your business is in a high traffic location.

In a high traffic location you may be more concerned about the buying habits of your customers determined by what merchandise sells best, which is in part related to fads.

Online we get to understand, for the most part, who our target market  is before business opens as online it is all about unique traffic and that traffics interests in your subject. As an example if your business is selling ballerina shoes, I believe it is safe to assume this will be more of a female audience, ages 18+.  Usually moms browse online for these types of purchases more so than the dads do. (another safe assumption)

So now let us say you are focusing all of your marketing efforts on dance forums and in this industry there are varying audiences here as dance is not just ballerina.

One of the forums you are Read more

Do You Have The Skills On How To Write a Business Plan? Part 3 of 4

Lets take a look at the heart beat of your business. In your business you need to understand what action steps you
need to put in place in order for your business to be successful.

Naturally, business planning for an existing entity will be different from that of a new entity. The structure of the
business plan will be the same, however, when it is a new business you have to be careful not to have unrealistic goals.

If your expectations are above average for your industry, then make sure you have sufficient data and really understand
how to write a business plan to support your expectations. So remember not just any business plan but a realistic
business plan.

Now is the time to take a good look at who your competition is in your industry of choice. Take the top 30 websites and
inquire on each website using a tool called Quantcast. As you will see, this f.r.e.e online tool will give you all the
statistics as to the demographics of your audience. (Your target market)

On an excel spreadsheet or open office spreadsheet, create a format to record all the data necessary on each
website’s audience. This data will Read more

Do You Need To Know How To Write a Business Plan? Part 2 of 4

There’s the million dollar question, maybe you do need to know How to Write A Business Plan and maybe it really doesn’t matter – only you can answer that question. Here’s the thing, no matter, how you feel about the very subject, it doesn’t really matter what “you” think BUT what does matter, is what “your readers” think.

If they enjoy the content you are posting and if the knowledge you share is working for them, then yes you will have followers. BUT if things aren’t being kept up to date, your content doesn’t make sense, you aren’t in it for the right reason, your business plan is not being worked, then followers “will” go elsewhere – bottom line.

How do you know if things are progressing as you would like:

You need to go back to your original plan

see what your projections were

what your intentions were

where did you expect to be at this point in time

Wait a minute – You do have a business plan? Right?

NO PLAN – so how did you record your revenue projections, your intentions, where you want to be by now. You Say – “I never thought of that”. or – “My plan was to work my butt off and see where things end up” – Great Strategy – NOT!

Come on people, you now know what makes you tick because we already covered that in the previous reports. You need to know what you will do with all of your interest and passions as well as all the research you did on your niche. By now you should know:

who your target market is

what they are buying in your niche

demographically where they are.

Ok, so you Read more

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