Simple Inspiration

Where do you get your inspiration to keep on keeping on? Sometimes one just needs to stop and “smell the roses” – or take some time to reflect on one’s life and business – to regain the proper perspective.

Where are you going? Is it where you initially planned to go? Can you breathe? Do you still have the same or stronger passion for your businesss as when you started it? Are you so busy that you aren’t investing your time in the proper activities to generate business and improve the bottom line? Or have you been so bottom line focused that you’ve neglected the people aspect – your employees’ as well as your clients’ well-being?

The end of one year and beginning of another is often the best time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going. Be sure to include in your evaluation a holistic view of your life along with your business. Make sure it’s not all about one thing (money or fun or time, for example). Maintain a good balance for your spirit and soul and wallet.

To enhance your meditation and reflection, you may enjoy this brief inspirational movie. * http://tinyurl.com/365Inspiration 

Make this coming year your best ever!

* Per FTC rules, you need to know that if you enjoy this free movie and choose to further puruse the site & purchase any products, I may earn a commission.

Billboards for your Business!

Have you listed your business with Google’s free Local Business listing tool yet? If you have a business location(s) and want people to find you, go now and set up your free listing at http://google.com/lbc This will help others find your business when they do a search in your area. It’s like having a free billboard on the information superhighway!

There are many other free ways to promote your business. PR or public relations can be an amazingly effective way to spread the word about your business, especially if you have an interesting and different approach to grab the media’s attention.

Lots of ideas are available free at the Publicity Hound’s link for some of her best publicity tips for 2009. Visit http://www.publicityhound.com/files/pdf/Ebook–Bestof2009PublicityHound.pdf for your free copy.

Make it a Happy New Year with your great ideas for success through publicity and promotion this year!

The Gift of Creativity

Ever been stuck in your business, trying to move past a roadblock, or stimulate new growth or product ideas? Perhaps you just need a solution to a pressing problem?

Whatever dilemna you may be facing, imagine how a team of creative experts in your business could propel you through to the next level.

My gift to you is to show you that you probably already have the solutions and ideas you need to flourish! Read on and accept this gift as proof!

Growing Great Ideas: Unleashing Creativity@Work

A business friend of mine passed on this link to a book online that’s definitely worth reading! You can read it online free, or download an excerpt of it – but only till December 25th.

Claim your gift and put it to use! Enjoy the process! And pass it on to those you love and care about.

(If you miss the deadline or want a printed copy, you can order the book on Amazon.com)

Nature of Success

Being successful means different things to different people. It can be put in many contexts, only one of which is the business and financial realm. Think about how a success attitude can and should permeate everything you do in life – and the blessings it will bring!

Success is a very personal thing, but most people would agree that true success is about being fulfilled in life. It is that feeling of deep satisfaction that starts in your soul and radiates through your being. The end result is happiness and peace of mind. Watch the 3 minute movie, “The Nature of Success” to inspire you, your family or team to reach for success personally and professionally. Just follow the link here: http://freshbizideas.blogspot.com/2009/10/nature-of-success.html   

Enjoy!

Three Tracks – Part 2

Last post I talked about the three tracks of business ideas being: Products, Services and Information.

All three tracks bring their own business model by default. Some involve more time, more effort, more expense, more customer contact, more management.

Here’s why this is important:

Selling PRODUCTS: Think of this scenario as being a salesperson earning a commission versus being a sales manager earning an override on the efforts of everyone. Making a smaller percent on a larger volume means more dollars to you. Which model do you prefer – doing it yourself, or being in charge of others? That’s really the bottom line!

SERVICE Business: If you love landscaping and get a thrill producing beautifully manicured lawns, you can make a nice living doing it. However, if you want to make a million dollars from your landscaping business, you must know that your job is to effectively manage people to perform the services for you, not to be performing the services yourself.

Let’s take this to the INFORMATION business. If you love to teach, you must teach to large numbers of people who pay you well for your expertise in order to make it to your million dollar model. Otherwise, you could become a trainer or manager to leverage other people’s talent to produce the income for you; or charge high fees for limited knowledge or hands-on coaching and training; or come up with a system to multiply your efforts automatically. If you sell information online, selling low-priced ebooks one or two at a time doesn’t generate the income that selling high-priced exclusive and valuable information to a few people does. Being a creator of a seminar that you license and train others to teach and then selling them your support materials or charging an annual fee for the privilege can generate more than you alone teaching your seminar and selling your books.

So choose your business model and be realistic about what you can expect income-wise. Know yourself and what you would be truly happy doing. Build a business around the activities you love to do – and consider hiring out the necessary jobs you don’t want to do to the experts who love to do them! Or make sure you can earn whatever you need or want with the activities you love to do on your own.

All the best as you choose your right track!

Three Tracks – Part 1

Three Tracks

Been trying to come up with a great business idea that works for you?

Before you begin, you may want to consider the 3 tracks you can go down and choose the one that fits you best. That way you’ll be more focused and will get the best results for the lifestyle and goals you have in mind.

Businesses fit into one of these areas: Products, Services, or Information. Let’s look at why this is important to think about.

1. If you start with a PRODUCT, you will deal with a tangible, physical item. You will either manufacture it yourself or get it manufactured by someone else. You will either store it yourself or have it stored for you. You will either sell it to wholesalers who retail it to others, or retail it yourself. There are a lot of considerations in offering physical products and they all will affect the pricing and the way you do business (your business model). Scaling up your business means expanding your costs associated with physical overhead, personnel, inventory, distribution, and promotion.

Bottom Line: your income depends on number of units sold and net profit per unit.

2. If you start with a SERVICE, you must have some expert experience in a needed area that the market is willing to pay for. Your considerations here are finding the market and offering the service at a reasonable price that makes sense for your time and their convenience and wallet. Scaling up your business means finding others you can train with your system and expertise in order to service more clients and then managing them to keep the job quality high. Scaling up can also mean offering service-related products to enhance what you provide and to diversify.

Bottom Line: your income depends on how many clients you can personally service, or the number of trained people you can effectively manage, as well as the number of related products (and the profit margin) you can offer your clients.

3. If you start with INFORMATION, you must have some expertise in a needed area that the market is willing to pay for. Your considerations here are identifying the market and its needs and finding the most effective way to deliver it. The more specialized the information, the higher your prices and profit margins. Scaling up can mean offering even more specialized information, presenting and packaging it different ways, as well as licensing your materials for others to disseminate. You can also offer related products, software, systems and alliances with others to increase your profits with little additional effort.

Bottom Line: your income depends on the demand for your information (including both scarcity and overload factors) and your delivery system (whether speaking, teaching, training, coaching, consulting, or turning them into physical or digital products) with both online and offline aspects to consider. Setting up systems to deliver the information without you physically there can exponentially increase your bottom line as well as leverage your time.

All three tracks bring their own business model by default. Some involve more time, more effort, more expense, more customer contact, more management.

Coming tomorrow: PART 2 – Why this is important