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Chapter 7: Communication Skills

As you already know, communication is vital to both the growth of your business and the ability for your company to sustain its growth. Communication is also important for developing trust with your business associates and with your employees. Good communication skills can help you to motivate employees, drive change, repair conflicts and become a better leader. Listening skills are extremely important for accomplishing these tasks, but there are other communication skills that all entrepreneurs need to have.

Better Ways to Communicate

While you are probably pretty good at communicating with other people, there are some better ways to communicate when it comes to running a business. These are evolutionary skills- meaning you develop them over time as a result of your experiences. Learning about some of these skills in advance will help you to incorporate them into your business life sooner.

#83- Good communication skills allow you to influence others.

The ability to influence others is vital for any entrepreneur. You will need to sell your employees your business’s principles and goals if you want them to get on board. You will have to convince investors and business partners to take a chance and support your business ideas. You will have to influence your customers through marketing and advertising. In order to get your point across and achieve your goal of influencing others you must be able to communication your ideas well through discussions and offer clear explanations of your thoughts.

#84- Learn how to manage questions well.

As a boss and a leader you will have to answer thousands of questions. Some of these questions will be simple while others will determine the success of your company. It is your job to answer these questions by making convincing arguments using the art of well-versed speaking. Your words must not only answer the question, they must also convey your meaning, desires and principles at the same time. If you take the time to learn the art, and it is an art, of managing questions well now it will have a positive impact on your career forever.

#85- Holding the audience’s attention.

All of the speaking skills in the world won’t help you to convey your point if you cannot hold the attention of your audience. Learning how to capture the attention of your listeners is vital, especially in the workplace environment. In order to master this skill you must learn how to read your audience, how to project your voice in a pleasing and attention getting manner and how to manage your speaking time. If you cannot make people pay attention to you it will be hard to get them to follow you to success.

How to Create Dialog

In addition to using your communication skills to motivate and convince others, you can also use them to capture new ideas, incentives and concepts and use them to your benefit. The best way to accomplish this is to create a dialog. This dialog can be between your managers, employees, peers, customers and even your competitors. Learning how to get a dialog going is another great communication skill that all entrepreneurs should have.

#86- Hold face to face interactions.

Getting your employees together for face to face interactions is a great way to get a dialog going and to get the creative juices flowing. Face to face interactions encourage brainstorming and the sharing of ideas in a way that e-mail and telephone conversations simply cannot.

#87- Provide avenues for your employees to communicate.

If you want to encourage dialog between your employees it is essential that you provide a way for them to do so. You need to give your employees a way to offer their suggestions and ideas.

#88- Make sure you and your management team are approachable.

All of the communication avenues you provide for your employees will be useless if they feel like they cannot approach you or the rest of your management team. Use your communication skills, your actions and your positive attitude to show your employees that they can come to you with their ideas and feedback. Your employees will come to you if you let them.

#89- Act on what you hear.

If your employees see that you are willing to put their ideas and suggestions into action they will be more likely to share them with you. Also, encouraging a dialog among your workers will help you to develop concepts and ideas you may have never considered before. These breakthrough ideas may never have come to you if you didn’t encourage dialog with your employees.

Chapter 8: Marketing

As an entrepreneur you will have master many skills, including management, communication and decision making skills. One of the most important aspects that all business owners need to understand is marketing. This will be how you sell your business to its customers and therefore will represent how you will create profits for your business. There is a lot to understand about marketing and plenty of ways to make mistakes. All successful entrepreneurs have mastered the art of marketing themselves and their company.

Creating a Marketing Plan

Companies that are successful in marketing themselves start the process by creating a detailed marketing plan. The size and scope of your business’s marketing plan will be determined by several factors, including the size of your company and how many potential customers you will attempt to reach. It is a good idea to create your marketing plan and then refer back to it on a monthly basis to ensure that you are still on track. A lot of things can change for a business as the year progresses.

#90- Your business’s marketing plan should cover one year of time.

The ideal amount of time to plan ahead for marketing, especially if you run a small business or a start-up business, is one year. There are a lot of things to cover in a year’s time. Your business will gain and lose employees, the market will evolve and your customer base will (hopefully) grow. This represents plenty of time and factors to consider. Once your business develops and grows you can switch to a marketing plan that covers a period of time two to three years in advance.

The process of creating your marketing plan will be the most difficult part. Actually implementing the plan will be easier than creating it. Expect the process of developing a marketing plan to take several months. The plan should be created using your field of hired experts, including people from your finance, supply, management and personal departments.

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Chapter 5: Presenting The Offer

Synopsis

The way you put together your offer makes or breaks your product launch, so you have to make it irresistible. A well put together offer will make your customers excited about what they're receiving, thrilled with the pricing, and hungry to purchase what you're marketing.

In this part of the series, we're going to demonstrate how to make that occur.

If your offer isn't potent enough to simply convert readers into purchasers, you have an issue.

This will help you make your offer more likeable and "must-have," so that your customers view it as a chance to purchase something that they don't wish to miss.

Your offer isn't simply a little description of the product or service you're marketing - it's the sum of everything they get (the stuff) and the way that the sum package is delivered to them (payment plans, data formatting, guarantees, and so forth.). And the way you present everything.

Most individuals simply say "Hey, here's my stuff, would you like to purchase it?" and wonder why they're not bringing in the sales they had anticipated. What they have to do (and what you likely need to do as well) is get incredibly adept at communicating just how great your offer is.

Chances are this isn't news to you, but if it is, here's the general breakdown of a great offer:

The thing they're purchasing. This may be a product, service or experience ... but it's the core matter that gets their attention.

Extra bonuses. It's always a great idea to pack some bonuses into your offer to make it more likeable.

Any relevant up-sells. There's forever a great chance your buyers may be interested in picking up additional relevant products/services during their buy.

The data format you're delivering everything in. Audio, video, live events, downloads, tangible products ... the works.

The structure of the buy. This may mean payment plans, payment sorts accepted, and so forth.

The guarantee you're presenting them. Make it a great one. :-)

The conditions of the offer. These are constraints like limited time, 3 per buyer, and so forth.

There may be more in an offer if you wish to make it more complicated, but this is the general framework that a typical offer holds. Now let's discuss a few easy tweaks that will make your next offer much more likeable to likely buyers.

Each offer requires a reason behind it as it builds some story into the offer, which helps them comprehend more about what they're receiving as well as legitimizes the offer in the first place. It no longer becomes an "aggressive sale" but instead something that's there for a purpose.

It may be something as simple as a holiday sale - naturally the prices are falling, it's shopping season. Or it may be the opposite, as you see in pre-launch pricing - you are able to get it at a discount if you purchase it before it formally hits the marketplace.

In offers where scarceness is at play, you might see more things as in a tangible product where the first batch is at a lower cost than it will be sold later merely because the seller wants individuals to purchase it fast and get the word out. Passing on the reasoning behind the offer takes the customers' shields down a bit as they see a reason for the deal that adds up to them - and they're comfortably involved in a story. And each little way you make them feel easier brings you closer to the sale.

And bear in mind that the reasoning doesn't have to be founded on discount pricing. You are able to have a purpose for a higher price, also - particularly if your offer involves a short-notice or rush transaction.

If your target market tends to get tense considering pricing (as in, "Geez! That's a lot!"), then it's time to utilize a technique called "normalizing" to make them get more used to the notion of purchasing your stuff.

You don't want individuals to see a big number and get sticker shock, as they immediately raise the protest that they can't pay that much, or that a dealing of that size is unthinkable. (Curiously enough, you don't have to have a high price for this - a few individuals balk even at spending $10.)

However the real issue here isn't that they can't see themselves dropping the cash - they simply can't see themselves spending the cash with you.

So you've got to make them view their spending habits to remind them that yep, they spend cash all the time.

The easiest way to do this is to equate the purchase to something they're already spending cash on. Consider all the offers you've seen in the past that accomplish this:

"For less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you are able to support a youngster in (insert country here)"

This $299 all-in-one shopping system substitutes the 3 systems you're already paying $400+ for"

"For the cost of one dinner out a month, you are able to get (insert product here)"

"For the cost of 10 minutes of consulting with me, you receive a 112-page crash program in how to sell your ebooks ..."

The bottom line here is if you are able to compare the buy you want them to make with buys they're already making, then the resistance to purchasing goes way down. So view other offers you see on a day-to-day basis and be aware of how they're normalizing the buy for you - you'll learn a great deal.

Another basic objection to buying is that the price is too elevated (but you are able to defeat a lot of that by learning to compose a sales page that's designed for high-conversion). Luckily, you can utilize price positioning to defuse this protest.

If you break the sum purchase down into payments, like the 3-pay, 6-pay or 12-pay choices you see out there. This is a simple way to handle 2 distinguishable objections:

"I couldn't possibly pay that today." - If you're marketing a $2,000 package, not everybody has that. Breaking it down to, suppose, four payments of $250 may get a lot of customers to jump on board.

"It costs a bit much." - If you were to break a $500 product into twelve payments of $50, it no longer looks like a $500 product. It looks like a $50 one - and that's a big psychological difference.

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RocketHub is a unique system, because it allows you to raise funds without worrying about whether or not you meet your goal or paying huge fees. They are a lot more friendly to smaller ventures.

Here are some facts about RocketHub:

Free to launch a project.

You keep all the funds you raise, even if you don’t meet your goal.

Fastest payouts in the industry. They pay on the first Friday after your project ends. It takes approximately 5-10 business days in most cases.

Lower fees than most other sites. 4% success fee if you reach your goal, or 8% if you don’t, plus 4% credit card processing fees.

Potential to have A&R fund your project.

Setting Goals

Setting your goal is a critical element of any crowdfunding campaign, because most sites require you to reach that goal before releasing any money to you. If you don’t meet your goal, you get nothing, and backers receive their money back.

Why do they do this?

The main reason is to ensure that only quality projects get funded. For example, if you ask for $5,000 to publish a short story, they don’t want that to get funded, because there’s no reason anyone should spend that kind of money to publish a short story.

They also want to ensure you don’t ask for more than you really need. You might need to ask for $500 to publish your short story (to hire an editor and cover artist and maybe a bit more for initial marketing), but asking for $5,000 would be completely unnecessary.

When you set your goal, figure out, in detail, how much money you think you will need. You can then add around 25% on top of that to cover any unplanned expenses and to cover success fees, processing fees, etc. If you think you need $1,000 total, you can ask for $1,250. If you think you’ll need $10,000, ask for $12,500.

Video Presentations

One of the most important things you can do to really generate interest in your project and increase your chances of meeting your funding goal is to create a really killer video presentation.

Projects with video presentations are much more likely to get fully funded than those without video, because video is interesting, engaging, and can present your project in a way that is much easier to understand than text and pictures alone.

Here are a few tips for creating an effective pitch video:

Focus on the most important elements of your project.

Keep the video between 1 and 5 minutes. People will get bored if your video is too long.

Let people know why they should invest in your project, and what you feel it means to the world to get it out there.

Try to be a little relaxed and fun. If you’re “all business”, people are less likely to be interested. If you’re friendly, more people will want to invest in you.

Use music and pictures to connect with your audience. Try to select media that really fits with your project’s theme.

Highlight the benefits you’re offering to backers, and let them know exactly what they’ll get if they fund you.

Explain that if you aren’t fully funded, you get nothing, so ask them not only to contribute, but to share your project with others!

Different platforms will have different requirements for video, however, in general:

Videos must be 500MB or less

Must be MOV, MPEG, AVI, MP4, WMV or FLV format

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Chapter 8: How to Know if you can Handle the Problem Yourself

Synopsis

If you are engaged with gaming finances and your main goal is to keep your finances safe, it is very normal that you will encounter problem towards achieving your objective. When you decided to get involved with gaming finances, it is very important that you know the proper way to handle your problem. The following are some helpful tips on how to deal with your problem especially when it comes to gaming finances.

A Quick Overview of Tips on how to Handle your Problem with Gaming Finances

Problem solving is considered as one of the greatest skills that some of the individuals have. On the other hand, there are people who find a hard time to solve their problems especially when it comes to their gambling habits.

Make sure that you fully understand the situation and your problem

Pay attention and assess your problem as well as the actual issue that you are facing. In dealing with gaming finances, you are advised to have an open mind to make sure that everything will be perfectly solved.

Gather enough information to come up with best decision

In order to know that you can handle your problem by yourself, gathering of sufficient data and information that is associated with your problem is a must. In this way, you can be assured that you will come up with the best possible outcome that you ought to receive.

Take time

In making any decision, it requires enough time to make sure that you are making the right choice. The problem that you will encounter with gaming finances is not an easy problem for you to solve. However with enough time, nothing is impossible.

Take a little break or seek for a quiet place that is free from distractions

If you are experiencing problems with gaming finances then you must take a short break and find a certain place that is free from any distractions. In this way, you can easily think of the possible solutions that you need to consider. Hence, you will have the ability to solve your problem by yourself.

Make your Decision and stick with it

If you come up with the best possible decision, the next thing that you need to do is to stick with it. Don’t focus on the problem, instead; focus on finding the right solution. There are individuals who are too busy distressing about their problem and most of them can’t foresee the possible solution that is just around.

Most importantly, if you facing problems with gaming finances and you want to handle it by yourself, the best thing that you need to do is to think positively and avoid having negative thoughts.

Chapter 9: The Best Way to Finance Games

Synopsis

If you are a gamer, the most important thing that you need to bear in mind is the best way to finance your games. However, you have to make sure that your gaming finances are safe. It is true that playing online games will give you enjoyment, thrill and fun. But, when your main goal is to keep your finances secure and safe, here are some of the money saving tips that you need to ponder on to make sure that you will obtain your objectives.

A Comprehensive Overview to Money Saving Tips

Savings Competition

In order for you to keep your gaming finances safe as a gamer, you need to practice the savings metric. Encourage someone who has a financial pinch to save-off and the person who save the highest total of money will be declared as the winner. Just like any game that offers prizes, this kind of strategy in money saving tips can be a great help for you to finance your gaming habits in a proper way.

Consider money saving as a Game

It is a fact that saving money is considered as one of the great ways to finance your games as well as the basic needs of your family. In order to for you to come up with the best possible outcome, you are advised to convince all the members of your family to save money with the use of innovative ways and their creativity.

Make Use of Savings Thermometer

To make sure that you are obtaining your savings objective with your gaming finances, the presence of savings thermometer will help you determine the amount of money you kept as savings throughout the month. Label them in accordance with your basic needs and other finances.

The money savings tips that are mentioned above can be a great help to you and to your family on how you will properly finance your gaming habits. These suggestions are also useful when it comes to securing the needs and wants of your family.

Chapter 10: Learning to Separate these Games from Reality

Synopsis

It is a fact that online games have the ability to offer any gamer with extreme happiness, thrill, excitement and fun. Even though most of the online games that most of the gamer use to play nowadays are exciting and amusing, you must bear in mind that you still need to go back in your world. If you are one of those gamers, learning to separate these games from reality must be your top priority.

As years passed by, there are a wide variety of online games that are being introduced to billions of people all around the world. It is true that online games and gaming finances become a part of the journey and life of most people today particularly those gamers who are addicted and fanatic of certain games.

A Solid Understanding between Gaming Finances and Reality

Even though, there are a variety of advantages that you can get in playing those games that will be useful for you in facing the realm of life. However, you need to remember that no matter a certain game gives you excitement, happiness and fun, the important thing that you need to consider is to bear in mind that these are just games. When you return back to your real life, you are still an ordinary person with mission in life that you need to accomplish.

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There can be some confusion when it comes to promoting offline businesses online. Many business owners even miss the value of getting traffic online to your website, not realizing that this traffic can then be turned into foot traffic into their store.

The best way to do this is to start with a well designed website. Of course, it takes more than a nice looking website to get targeted traffic to your site, but that’s a good place to start. You might be attempting to create your own website or perhaps you are going to give it to the professionals - whatever you do always remember that your quality of content is critical to not only bringing traffic to your website but having them return.

Of course, that’s just the beginning. You’ll want to decide on a handful of very important keywords or keyword phrases that describe what your offline business sells or does. You will then need to make sure that you place these throughout your content. Do it strategically where you content still makes sense. You should never keyword spam, which is a common mistake, because you could get yourself banned from the search engines.

You should think about using tools like ‘how to’ videos, where you teach others how to do something. It’s great if these can revolve around what you sell. Let’s say you are a paint store. You could do a number of video on different techniques for painting, which will draw targeted traffic and then the goal is to bring them into your store where they would then buy paint.

Take some time to think about what it is you want from your website. Will customers be able to order products and services online as well as come into your offline business. Do you want to be providing your customers with helpful tips, perhaps Q&A sessions, do you want to provide pricing? Whatever it is you would like your website to focus on then make sure that is included in your content.

Bringing targeted traffic to your website is much different than just brining traffic. You want to make sure your visitors are targeted because ultimately you want them to come into your store and buy from you. There are many tools that can help you achieve this, but if you don’t have the time or the knowledge to do it correctly, it’s always a good idea to hire a professional so that you get the results you want.

How Linking Can Help Bring Targeted Traffic to Your Website

You have an offline business, you’ve paid to have your website developed by the pros and now you need to start to get targeted traffic heading your way. If you are like most business owners, you depend on your website to play a role in generating income for your business. For that to happen, you need to have targeted traffic, making its way to your website.

That can take on many forms, one of which is linking. There are two kinds of links - recipricol links and referral links, and both are good for bringing more traffic to your site.

While this might be a different form of marketing, the same principles continue to apply. Whether it’s your offline business or online business the secret to landing clients is in the ll relationships you build and getting to know people who will learn to trust you. Once they have built that trust factor they are far more likely to become your loyal customers.

Recipricol links can play a role in bringing targeted traffic to your website, but the referral links really hold the power. Recipricol links are the exchange of links. For example, Site A places your link on their site and you place Site A’s link on your site. These hold some relevance in the search engines, especially when they within your industry or relevant. That means they can help you do better in the search engines.

But even more, you are likely to get visitors that have visited the other site find their way to your site through the link. It’s a good form of advertising that has already targeted the traffic because the link clicked was on a related site. According to a recent study, more than 50 percent of Internet surfers have visited websites using a referral link.

Referral links can also be useful. They also help to bring targeted traffic to your site. Here, another site will place your link on their site. This is a one way link and so the search engines really like this and it can help you place better in the search engines.

In addition, these relevant, referral links can do a great job of bringing targeted traffic to your website. Some companies pay for clicks on referral links that are on another website. You might look at using such a program for your business.

Both recipricol and referral links play a role in helping to bring targeted traffic to your site to help bring customers to your offline business.
Learn how to Build Traffic to Your Offline Business Website

Offline businesses still need website exposure. Most recognize this and so they spend a great deal of money having their website designed only to be disappointed because they don’t get the traffic they expected. What many business owners don’t realize is that a well designed website and a good flow of traffic are not linked. Let’s look at some ways to build traffic to your site and promote your offline business.

#1 Use Every Opportunity You Can to Promote Your Website for Free Free site promotion is always welcome so never ignore it. There are tons of ways to promote your website for free. Some of most popular options include directory submissions, free classified ads, link exchanges, listing inclusions, etc. Not all the free ways there are to promote your website will work well but don’t be afraid to experiment and find what works for your site.

#2 Create a Free Product/Service One way of bringing traffic to your website is to give something away for free. This can be a simple as having good content on your site where visitors can find answers to their questions, or it can be more complex where you are giving away free products/services such as with a draw.

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Your online business requires a business plan just like a traditional business does. Part of that business plan will be putting together your operations plan. Because this is an online company, your place of operation will house only the computer equipment needed to access the internet and your company files and records.

In most cases, at least in the beginning, your online business will often be located at your residence, which will minimize your startup costs. As your business becomes established and grows, there is often no advantage to having an online business in one geographic area rather than another. There is generally no need for your business to be tied to any specific physical location as shipping can occur from anywhere in the world and e-goods change ownership online.

You will need to establish how you will produce your goods or services for your business. Producing in-house can often save money. However, sometimes that’s not an option for various reasons. You will need to outline the how's and why's of what you are doing in the production field.

For example, your website development will be done by a professional web building company that has experience in HTML and PHP, as well as building e-commerce sites. Search engine optimization will be done partially in-house and partially by a company that specializes in SEO. Building links will be outsourced.

Defining who will be responsible for the various components of your online business operations needs to be clearly defined and the cost associated with these tasks should also be included. This will help potential investors and lenders better understand and it will also constantly provide the guide for you in the running of your business.

You need to keep in mind that some terms that you refer to such as SEO or search engine optimization may not always be understood by potential lenders or investors; therefore, it is a good idea to clearly define what these things are and what their relevance is to your business success, otherwise an investor or lender could potentially see this as a waste of money, which is simply not so.

When you are defining, the operations of your business assume that those who will be reading your business will have no idea what you are doing or what your online business is about. In fact, assume that they do not understand the online business world at all. By doing so you will do a much better job of explaining and defining, what your business is about.

How to Write Your Business Plan for Your Online Business

The very first thing you are going to do when you decided to start a new business should be your business plan and that applies to both traditional and online business ventures. Your business plan is designed to outline your business strategies, how you plan to make your business a success, your marketing goals, your financial needs, and your overall blueprint to success.

It will be used by you as the business owner to stay on your business path and it will be used by potential investors and lenders to help them decide whether your business venture interests them, whether they think your business venture is a viable investment opportunity for them. For that reason alone, you should make sure you take the time to create the best business plan you can.

An online business is generally much different than a traditional business and your business plan needs to reflect that. In addition, your business plan must make sure that it details the nuances of your online business that investors may not be aware of or may not understand.

You can begin writing a business summary. If your business is strictly online then you need to break down all the components of operating an online business You need to include things like what you will offer, how will you get customers, who will run your business, where will your business be located?

Next you want to create your marketing plan that will delve into the research behind your market and include pricing, markup, advertising, building your brand, etc. Make sure the information is current and relevant.

You will also want to include all the details related to your management team and their various duties. Often with online businesses this is a minimal number of people. You’ll also include your business schedule both current and long term. This would be things like when is your site going live, will you be getting a loan? Basically, you want to outline the key growth points to give the reader a picture of where you visualize your business going.

Of course, you’ll need to cover your financial plan. Your startup capital, and whether you need to borrow some or all of it, your operating costs, your projected sales and profits in six month increments for at least a couple of years, but five is best.

Finally, you need to write your executive summary that pulls the main points into a summary that helps the reader decide if they want to learn more by reading the full report.

Covering Your Marketing Plan in Your Business Plan

Marketing is an important part of your online business success and as such, it is important that you make sure your business plan thoroughly details what your marketing plan looks like. Investors will look at this and the information will be helpful for them in making their decision, but as a business owner you will also use this information to help keep you on track and to later evaluate whether you were successful at achieving your marketing goals.

Your Marketing Plan

Your business operations will be centered around your marketing plans and the image you are striving to create. Your marketing will strive to create ‘branding’ for your company and it will focus on making you visible. Online this requires a different skill set than what would be used in a traditional business.

Your business will set standards to adhere to make your company appear credible to the consumer market to grow your business and ultimately your revenue. Let’s look at what your marketing plan needs to address.

#1 Market Analysis

You need to analyze your market before you ever open your doors since you need to know who you will be selling your products to. In addition, in almost every case, there are the same or similar products on the market and you need to analyze how you are going to grab your ‘market share.’