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January 10, 2009

Follow These 12 Tips To Goal Setting If You Want To Be Successful

This is what I advise my small business clients when I see them wondering aimlessly in their business just hoping to achieve the success they deserve.

You will increase your success in business and effectiveness by focusing on yearly, monthly, weekly and even daily goals. Your goals are your road map to a successful future. They will determine the direction in which you are headed and ensure that you reach your destination. Here's how to set goals:

1. Identify goals that are consistent with your values, beliefs, and life philosophies.

2. Commit your goals to paper. Don't rely on your memory. Put them in a place where you will see them often.

3. Determine your goals. Make sure they are SMART, this is:
Specific ("I want to retire with $2 million in the bank by age sixty-five" is preferable to
saying "I want to make tons of money in order to retire");
Memorable;
Agreed upon;
Realistic;
Time-based.

4. Ensure that your goals are in sync with your morals and values. If you're like most people, millions of dollars won't make you happy if you have had to exploit people in the process of making the money.

5. Prioritize your goals. Focus on those that have greater meaning to you in terms of personal beliefs. If community volunteer work is something you place a great value on, for example, find ways of avoiding overtime and give yourself time to do the community work that appeals to you more.

6. Break your goals into short-, medium-, and long-range plans. This will allow you to stay focus and in touch with your final goal.

7. Make people aware of your goals. Tell a friend, advisor, and even your worst enemy. Contract with someone who will meet with you regularly to ensure that you remain on track.

8. Ask yourself if the goal has true value for you. It could just be an excuse to avoid doing something important but unpleasant.

9. Visualize yourself achieving your goal. Your vision will give you a sense of excitement and encourage you to keep on trying. At the same time, your business goals, although important, should not become an obsession. If this happens, you will upset the equilibrium between personal life and work, resulting in physical and mental deterioration.

10. Act on your goals regularly. True success comes from taking small steps. It is unlikely that you will make immediate huge gains without an enormous amount of luck. Therefore, focus on short-term goals that will lead to the longer goal. Try to do something each day that will move you closer to your goal.

11. Review your goals regularly. For example, monthly goals should be reviewed daily to keep you focused.

12. Celebrate your achievements, no matter how small they may be.

Posted by David at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)

January 5, 2009

Why Sir Richard Branson Has Called on The UK Government To Champion Small Businesses?

Why has leading entrepreneurs like Sir Richard Branson are calling for the government to provide incentives and to get the banks to start lending to small businesses and why does the government need to be reminded that it's small to mid size businesses that will spearhead the economic recovery?

The views of leading entrepreneurs could not be clearer, the government needs to introduce tax incentives and get the banks to start lending to small businesses and the government itself to provide financing stimulus, by way of loan guarantees.

Sir Richard, chairman of Virgin Group, said the UK government had to ensure confidence returned to the markets. "This will be tough and requires co-ordinated efforts from government, the Bank of England and high street banks" he said.

Interest rates must also be kept low, Sir Richard added. "People need some breathing space and need to feel confident to spend and invest. We also must ensure the benefits of the low interest rate are passed on fully - or else this will just help the banks recover their lost profits. Small businesses also need help from government to fee up funding and lending and to reduce the regulation that ties up so many entrepreneurs".

Some entrepreneurs want the government to be more radical than the 2.5 per cent cut in VAT (sales tax). James Caan, an entrepreneur and judge on BBC's Dragon's Den, said right now we need to stimulate the economy, reduce national insurance and encourage small businesses to employ people. "If you don't do that your are forcing businesses to lay people off. You are just compounding the problem by adding to the job queues and increasing the numbers claiming unemployment benefit", he said.

To put these proposals into action, Caan calls for a "tax holiday" for start-up firms. "The government should say that start-ups should pay no income tax in their first year. Any business that starts in 2009 should be given a 12 month income tax holiday.” In addition, Caan said any new company should not have to pay national insurance for its first twelve employees. "The government should give a stimulus package to new businesses that will spearhead us back to recovery", he said.

On a positive note, Julie Meyer, chief executive of Ariadne Capital, an investment and advisory firm, said a recession offered many opportunities. She forecast an "army of entrepreneurs" emerging this year. "We will see a mass army of people who have taken their skills to the market, and the government needs to create a culture in which entrepreneurship can flourish", she said. "We will see the surge of individual capitalism. I don't know of anyone who wants to work for a corporation and more; everyone is going freelance."

FT

Posted by David at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

January 1, 2009

What Is Internet Marketing Optimization And How Can This Boost Internet Sales In An Economic Downturn?

Is your business affected by the global economic downturn? If it is, then you're not alone. The majority of small business owners have seen reduction is sales, working capital and net profits.

Faced with challenging times the emphasis should be on managing cash flow. And that should not mean cutting back on marketing and advertising.

On the contrary, unless your business continues to drive prospects to your web site and convert them into customers, chances are you'll have no business to speak of should the downturn continue through 2009. Basically, you should focus on getting more bang for your marketing and advertising pounds and dollars.

It's no secret that marketing on the internet or to be more specific, website marketing, gives you more bang for your pounds and dollars. Although many small businesses have a website, are they just brochure ware or traffic generating and converting machines?

See, website marketing is an art and a science. Internet marketing optimization should be part of your small business marketing strategy. Small business owners who have embraced the Internet have seen increase in sales and this is a fact. So how can small businesses boost internet sales?

It boils down to essentially two factors, traffic generation and traffic conversion. Traffic conversion is the methods, tools and techniques used to convert visitors once they arrive at your website into customers, including the process of developing customer relationship to extract maximum long term customer value. Traffic generation is the methods, tools and techniques used to drive visitors to your website.

Let's narrow down traffic generation. It's about optimizing your web site for the search engines (Google because it's the most popular), so it ranks high (on the first page) for the keywords (and key phrases) related to your products and/or services, hence the term, search engine optimization.

Are you still with me?

Don't be confused; internet marketing optimization and search engine optimization is basically the same thing.

Now, how do you optimize your website?

You can by simply by optimizing your website for both "on site" and "off site" factors. On site factors are covered in the answer to "how can a small boost internet sales" reply. The reply failed to discuss "off site" factors which are more important than on site factors. Optimizing your website for "off site" factors determine how much free visitors your website attract from the search engines and this depends on the popularity (as determined by Google) of your website.

How do you increase your website popularity in the eyes of search engines?

By having other websites linked to your website, or having incoming links from other sites, preferably those that are related to your niche market. There are tons of ways of getting links from website. But the quickest ways are to use the tools associated with web 2.0, namely social networks, blogging, bookmarking, video sharing sites, RSS submission or syndication and article directories. When you combine these tools, your website will experience a flood of traffic. The trick is to leverage your time by using time saving tools. For submitting your videos to video sharing sites try this free video distribution tool:

Get valuable information to help your business through the downturn and in good times,,, subscribe to "Business Questions".

I hope you found this article helpful.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)