Archive for the ‘Grow Your Business’ Category

How to Choose and Purchase a Franchise

November 17th, 2011 webkriti

If the idea of starting a brand new business in this economy is more than a little daunting, perhaps you’d prefer to enter into an established franchise as a way to get a leg up and give yourself a better chance at success in your business endeavor.  But with all the opportunities out there for franchising across a wide variety of industries, you might not have the vaguest clue what type of franchise you’re looking for.  So you need to think about what you’re good at, what you want, and how you can get it.  Here are a few tips to help you answer those questions.

  1. Get smart.  A good place to start is with yourself, and your own expertise and interests will certainly play a role in the franchise you ultimately decide to purchase.  If you have a background in food service management, for example, you might be well placed to purchase a chain restaurant.  If, on the other hand, you’ve spent the last several years working in a mail room, perhaps a FedEx franchise is more up your alley.  The point is, you shouldn’t go into an industry that you have no knowledge of or you could be asking for trouble.
  2. Consider industries.  Although your experience is probably particular to one industry or another, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to limit yourself.  If you’re interested in something that you have absolutely no background in, there are two ways you can go.  You can either spend some time familiarizing yourself with the field that fascinates you or you can partner up with someone who has the experience you need (and learn as you go).  Both propositions could be risky, but nobody ever got ahead in business by playing it safe, so there’s no reason to restrict yourself unduly.
  3. Look for growth potential.  Even franchises that seem to be productive could be suffering setbacks in this economy.  Just look at major brands like Starbucks, Blockbuster, and Lowe’s, all of which have had to close stores and slow growth over the last few years (although actually, only Blockbuster franchises).

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Five Opportunities to Earn a Passive Income

November 15th, 2011 admin

It is every American’s dream to earn a steady living by doing as little work as possible. While it may seem like the executives and managers of the corporate landscape are getting by with a minimal amount of activity, their roles as schmoozers and sycophants is enough to make any average workingman cringe. If you are fed up with the daily grind or don’t want to deal with people on a regular basis, you might want to look into ways to make an income passively:

Car Wash

As seen on an episode of King of the Hill, earning a passive income at a car wash is one of the easiest ways to start your passive income career. All you need to do is purchase a lot, build your infrastructure, and wait for the people to come in. You will make lots of money when it doesn’t rain or people need to get snow sludge off of their vehicles.

Vending Machines

Schools, office buildings, movie theaters, and every other institution rely on handy vending machines in order to provide concessions to patrons. You are not limited to soda and Fritos in your vending business. You can purchase machines that serve ice cream, mixed candy, and even hot beverages.

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Modern SEO Strategies Every Online Business Owner Should Practice

November 14th, 2011 admin

With nearly every business realizing that they need to be on the web, gaining high online visibility has never been harder. Over the last two years, SEO has changed dramatically with the rise of social media and mobile browsing, and sites that aren’t trying to stay ahead of current SEO trends will surely find themselves with a non-ranking site. However, there are a few modern SEO practices that every site owner should utilize if they want to have a successful site:

Think Local

Google local completely dominates the top results pages. If your website is also tied to a storefront, then you need to make sure that your address is going to register on Google Places. In addition to making sure that your address is correct, you also need to make sure that you are listed under categories that match your products and services so that when someone types in “lawyer” or “coffee” your business pops up.

Be Sociable

Having a website for your business is incredibly important, but so is also having a Twitter account and Facebook page. If you are serious about your website’s online visibility, then you need to have it linked to social media, as these types of sites are becoming the go to places for online researchers.

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Ways to Get More Walk-in Traffic for Your Business

November 8th, 2011 webkriti


Even if you’re in a great location with tons of foot-traffic, you may find that you have trouble getting passers-by to stop in and check out your store.  And if you’re in a location that doesn’t get much traffic of any variety, you’ll be even worse off.  While you could spend a ton of money putting up billboards and purchasing ads on TV and radio, there are better ways to get a buzz going so that people seek out your store.  Here are just a few ways to go about increasing your walk-ins.

  1. Hold promotional events.  Everyone loves a good spectacle, so try to think of events you could hold to get your name out to the public and people coming in.  You might want to get neighboring businesses to hold a block party (complete with DJ and food trucks, for example) so that costs are defrayed and everyone can benefit from increased foot traffic.  Or you might go into the community to host benefits for charitableor environmental causes, which stand to improve your brand image enormously.  The sky is the limit on this one.
  2. Follow up with contacts.  Most events will yield contact information for customers that are interested in learning more about your business.  You may even secure contacts online through your website.  But if you fail to follow up with them, offering not only information but also incentives to get them in the store, you have no one to blame but yourself for a poor turnout during business hours.
  3. Host sales and giveaways.  This is old-school, but it still works because everyone loves to save money and get stuff for free.    Of course, you’ll have to do some advertising so people know what you’re up to, but you may get loyal patrons bringing in new friends as well as random people off the street coming to check you out.
  4. Butter up the media.  Free advertising isn’t easy to secure, but you can get the media to plug you in a number of ways.  The easiest, of course, is by sending them samples (read: freebies) to try out and review.  This works for talk-show hosts, radio personalities, and of course, bloggers.  Plus, you’ll find out pretty quickly who you want to send more stuff to and which outlets are not worth the effort.  From there you may be able to determine which plugs are delivering the most walk-in customers.
  5. Use online resources.  Store signs posted around town may catch the attention of a few customers here and there, but you can dramatically increase your walk-ins by using a number of resources on the worldwide web.  Your website is a great way to increase exposure and reach new customers across the globe (especially if you have an online store), but in order to appeal to locals and visitors, you need to give them incentive to come in.  You should set up accounts with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare (just to name a few) and encourage visitors to your website to friend and follow you.  Then offer exclusive discounts, coupons, or freebies to those who drop in and cite your social media as the reason.

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Efficiently Moving Office

October 13th, 2011 webkriti

Moving office is a decision that is taken at the highest level of an organization. There are several reasons for shifting from one place to another when it involves so much extra work and inconvenience all round. The most common reason being want of adequate space in existing premises and requirement for better facilities necessitated by a modernization of office. It may also be related to locating the office near the company factory, government department or other companies with whom the organization will have to deal with on a regular basis.

Whatever be the reason, the moving process has to be done in a planned and effective manner causing minimum dislocation of the regular office work when the actual shifting is being performed. Losing one or two working days cannot be avoided.

There are several ways to perform the shifting work. As a measure of economy many companies may decide to use their own staff and hired labor to do the work. This may be time consuming and may create some animosity among the staff. Several companies specialize in the job of packing and moving, and the best possible way to get the moving done is to engage them to perform the work.

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Social Media Goals For Small Businesses

September 13th, 2011 admin

For any small business, staying current on the best ways to promote yourself is key, and social media has proven itself a powerful tool for smaller companies to compete against other agencies with a greater workforce and extensive resources. Social media, if used properly, can save you the millions that larger companies spend in self promotion. It should be said though that simply using social media platforms like

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is enough. Just like with anything, you have to approach is thoughtfully. There are three main goals that you should consider before jumping on the social media bandwagon:

Brand Awareness

It takes businesses, large and small, years to build up their brand’s image. This goes far beyond a product or services. Your brand is how consumers and clients view you. In a way, it’s like the face of your company. You don’t want to start a social media approach before you consider how it will affect your image, whether it’s on or offline. You social media links should be a gateway that makes people aware of, and leads them to, your current site. You don’t want to make a flashy show or take a gimmicky approach to your business’s social profiles.

Customer Retention

As a general rule, you don’t want to do anything that will risk losing existing clients.

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What I Learned From a Hot Dog Stand

September 8th, 2011 admin

While sitting around my apartment during my last semester in college, probably playing video games, the thought of leaving college with no job or money prospects suddenly popped into my head. My parents had been supporting me the past three and a half years and after I graduated, I wanted a bit of a nest-egg so I didn’t have to rely on them while pursuing my career (I now work as a financial analyst at a large investment firm).

I noticed how every time I left a concert in my home city, there would be a guy outside selling hot dogs to hungry concert attendees. Then I envisioned myself peddling hot dogs on the street to hungry college kids and making some money off of it. Here are some of the things I learned from my small business experience:

Low Food Cost, Low Physical Cost, High Profit Margin

My hot dog cart journey started online where I purchased a hot dog mini-cart steamer for under 300 dollars. I didn’t want to be known as the guy who sold a shoddy product. I decided to go to Sam’s Club to purchase a bunch of Hebrew National all beef franks, and gourmet poppy seed hot dog buns and store them in my freezer.

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Why You Should Be on Facebook

September 8th, 2011 admin

If your business isn’t already on Facebook, then there is a good chance you aren’t doing so well. Since Ford’s exclusive Facebook release of its 2010 Explorer, having a Facebook profile has become imperative for companies wishing to experience success. Think about it. When was the last time that you were able to watch a commercial or listen to a radio ad without a Facebook page being mentioned?

Most likely, you won’t be able to remember.

Just because you can’t hire professional SEO services to manage your social networking sites, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have accounts on them. Great reasons to have a Facebook page include:

Larger Market

There is only so far that a traditional marketing campaign will go when trying to reach new clients. With a Facebook page, you have access to a much larger client base allowing you the option to gain a new customer base.

Free Advertising

There is no fee to set up a Facebook page. Say what? Thousands of new potential clients to reach without having to pay a dime to reach them? Exactly. While you can pay for ad space, just having a Facebook profile can be great, free advertisement in itself.

Product Launches

Want to create a buzz about any new products or services you are about to offer?

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Best Resources For Online Success

August 29th, 2011 admin

The web is the fastest growing part of the private sector and many companies are switching up their approach to do more of their business online. This is for many reasons due to the increase in exposure to a larger market that needs very little infrastructure costs.

Online sales and services are a great addition to any business model, and even if you’re a blog or organization, this is the most effective way to get the word out. But it’s important to realize that it takes far more than just starting a site and hoping that everything will work itself out. Though it’s more cost effective to use web services, there are still resources that you need to be using in order to ensure the success of your online venture:

Reputation management

Reputation management for many people is a largely unfamiliar term and leads many to ask, “What is Reputation Management?” What you might not realize is that many businesses already use these services as a way to increase their online profile and control the way consumers and clients see them.

The web is a large place and many people have a lot to say about your site or service.

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No Isn’t Failure, It’s An Opportunity

August 27th, 2011 webkriti

Successful sales is all about people and their relationships. If you can build and nurture good, solid relationships with the people you sell to, your services and/or products will always be in demand.

Everyone likes to say yes, both in their business lives and in their personal lives too; but saying yes mustn’t mean just acquiescing to someone else’s desires or demands, just to please them, or to make life easier. Sometimes you have to say no, but not in a negative way. But how you may ask, can “NO” not be negative?

The one thing that people value above all other things is honesty. Saying things just to please the other person is a recipe for disaster. The fact of the matter is that others are reliant on what you say, and what you do, in as much as they will then make decisions and promises based on what you have told them. If what you have conveyed to them turns out to be untrue, their own strategy going forward will crumble because it was based on an untruth.

The fact of the matter is that too many people feel that saying no is unpalatable because they fear it is not what their clients want to hear. But successful sales is all about managing your clients’ expectations.

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Three Personal Reasons Why Business Valuation is a Professional Necessity

August 2nd, 2011 admin

When we think of business appraisals we usually conjure up thoughts of heated negotiations or ingenious mergers. While these are the more advertised reasons why getting a valuation is a good business policy, there are motives that transcend the capitalistic benefits. The reason we don’t think about them is because we don’t want to. But there are several life events that are sure to happen to anybody that make a valuation a smart choice for small business owners.

Audit

If the IRS shows up at your door demanding proof of all your expenses going back several years, they’re sure to poke their noses around your business as well. Nobody likes an audit and many people live in fear of them. By having an annual business appraisal performed on your enterprise you reduce the aggravations of an audit and increase the likelihood of evading the taxman’s attempt to unfairly fine you.

Divorce

In the unfortunate event that your marriage comes to an end, a business appraisal can be an incredibly useful weapon during divorce proceedings. Proving without a doubt the extent of your business’s worth, prevents the opposing party from arguing for an unfair share.

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Innovative Ways To Promote Your Travel Company

July 26th, 2011 webkriti

The internet is a huge place now, and for a business to ignore it is potential suicide. From 2005 to 2010 the amount of web pages doubled, and it’s predicted that by 2015 it will be 8 times what it is now. It can represent a huge market, far bigger than any footfall you would get to a shop, so your online presence needs to be attractive in order to convert customers. However, many markets now have become saturated, with thousands of companies vying for the same spots. This has been taken advantage of with the ever changing ‘art’ of SEO, where eventually it comes down to who has the most money and therefore can afford the most online marketing. It is also not helped by the dominance of Google, making the page 1, number 1 spot the most highly fought over and leaving the others out of the game. You therefore need to look to innovative marketing strategies in order to get noticed. Technology today is helping companies achieve this, so here are some of the most creative travel marketing schemes i’ve found.

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