The Jeffrey And Tracey Info Emporium

There is an intense amount of competition in the e-commerce world. Your success depends on a lot of things like your ranking on search engines, your prices, and your product selection, but it also depends on how you treat your customers. In bricks and mortar retail when people have a bad experience they tell friends and family and their friends and family tell more people, and that can hurt your companies reputation.

Those same things apply to the internet. If someone shops at your store and has a bad experience they will share that with other people they know and that could destroy your companies reputation. The best things to do to avoid getting a bad reputation is to keep your customers happy by shipping items quickly, having real time inventories so that customers can know immediately when an item is out of stock. Also make sure you have contact information listed on your website so that people can email or call with questions or concerns. Also make sure you ship all your items with a tracking number.

Overall just do everything you can do to make a customer happy. If they are happy they will be customers for a long time. They will also tell friends about your company leading to more customers for your company as time goes on.

Andre Bias is the owner of http://www.kidfriendlyentertainment.com, an online source for top notch DVD’s for children 10 years old and younger.

Lead fraud is possibly the largest obstacle to successful lead gathering via Affiliate marketing on the internet. Finding pre-qualified leads online can be either very successful or very frustrating depending on how you set up your program to deal with fraud.

Gathering leads through an Affiliate program can be a very successful venture if you find the right Affiliates. Names and contact details of people who have an active interest in your product increases conversion rates for offline sales and hopefully increases your bottom line. That benefit may, however, be adversely affected if the time you spend sifting through rubbish leads becomes too great. But there are a few things you can do.

Choosing Affiliates

As with all Affiliate programs, you will need to choose your Affiliates wisely at the beginning to have a fraud-free campaign. This means manually vetting Affiliate applications to join your program. Look at other sites your Affiliates have gathered leads for and ask for references if you think it is warranted. Remember also that seeking legal redress against fraudulant Affiliates is much easier to do in your home country, or countries with a similar, enforceable legal systems. Be sure that you know all of the contact details of your Affiliates so if something goes wrong you can contact them quickly.

Monitoring Your Lead Campaign

You will need to monitor your campaign manually, especially at the beginning to ensure you are receiving quality leads. Look at the leads you are receiving - if they all exhibit similar properties then you could have a problem. Things to watch out for include similar spelling mistakes on each lead (which would indicate one person is filling out the lead many times) and identical IP addresses (which could also indicate that one person is filling out the lead form several times or getting friends and relatives to do it). You will need to keep doing this manually until you are happy with your Affiliates and the quality of leads they are sending through.

With just a few hours of diligence at the beginning when you are setting up your lead campaign you can avoid days of frustration. The bulk of lead fraud is preventable - it just takes a little planning.

Rob Wood is a professional Affiliate fraud investigator. He runs a site over at eFraudster on click fraud and general affiliate fraud prevention.

http://eFraudster.com

Your client’s feedback can be the difference between improving your business and
losing it right away; knowing where you succeed and where you fail after a sale is
critical to growing your business and achieving perfection in your field. The best
way to get that feedback is by sending surveys to your clients asking questions like:

• How has our product/service worked for you?
• In what ways do you think we can improve our product/service?
• In which areas do you think we could improve our communication
  with you?
• From one to ten, how many points would you will give us for
  “listening to the customer”?
• Have you found difficulties reaching someone in our company?
• Would you recommend us to your friends?
• Can you shortly describe your experience with us?

Deeply analyze the answers you get from your clients. Those answers are gold for
you and your company, because they provide valuable opinions from your clients
you won’t be able to have otherwise. It may sound crazy, but we often don’t make
suggestions if people don’t ask us first, and when they do, a feeling of importance
may make us invest the proper time to give the most detailed, sincere suggestions
we can think of.

How much would you pay to know where you succeed and where you fail in your
business? It’s priceless to have that kind of information at your disposition just by
picking up the phone or sending an email to one of your beloved clients. While
hiring a consultant or sending an employee to grab some feedback from your clients
about your product or service can be very tempting, it may not have the same
outcome as doing it yourself! (They are taking the time to answer your questions
after all; why send someone else to make them or to pick up the answers?)

Keep yourself on their minds

The easy way to sell is through your existing clients; that’s a fact. If you can keep
yourself on your client’s minds long enough every several weeks, they will keep
buying from you or they will send you some referrals for you to work withwhich is
even better.

Now, direct mail or newsletter work pretty well in that department, but there is no
replacement for client’s feedback because you will not only get first-hand
information about what you’re doing right and wrong with your business and how
you may improve those aspects, but you will also be putting yourself in your client’s
mind, and that will lead into new contracts and contacts.

Thank-you notes and gifts

Showing clients your appreciation could be an excellent way to start new business,
too! Once you get those feedbacks from your clients, it’s time to send the results
back along with a nice, hand-written thank-you note.

Your client’s time is worth every single second you can invest on this technique, and
if you get it right, you may end up doing it every six months to burst your sales with
new existing challenges.

Javier Cabrera, Founder and CEO of Emaginacin, an Argentinean web design
agency, has been working on the Internet since 1999 for companies like
Ligados.com (DialPad.com equivalent in latin america) or IP International, a VOIP
firm in Argentina.

It finally hit me this week what every single client, customer, person and patron truly
wants — and it’s not what we’re giving them. What we’re giving people is details,
lots of details. They come in the form of product specifications, a list of attributes,
qualities, claims, guarantees, and service promises. These are all great but they
don’t scratch the itch… they don’t satisfy the real craving that each person longs for
in their day to day experience.

That constant craving is for meaning.

Think about it. When we are born, we are all basically blank slates — empty
notebooks upon which nothing yet is written. As we go through life we sense this
blankness and we look to fill it in, write on it, doodle, draw, and color all over the
pages. In doing so our little book of life begins to take on the thing we want most…
meaning.

How does this affect your company, products and branding? This insight provides
an opportunity to connect with your customer on a much deeper level — an
emotional one. If understood, you can help them tell their story, strengthen their
identity and add purpose to their existence. Take coffee for example. Busy
commuters don’t drink the stuff at Starbucks because it’s convenient or cheap. They
do so because of the affiliation it brings them, the sense of belonging, ritual,
purpose, community, etc. In short it provides texture and meaning to what would
otherwise be a boring routine… driving to work.

So if that’s the case, why do we so often describe and position our products and
services in terms of their capabilities, functions and features? Does anyone really
want to buy a 6,000 pound piece of metal with wheels? Or do they want the feeling
of freedom that a road hugging convertible delivers? The strongest connection you
can make with your customer is not the tangibles you sell, but the intangibles you
instill. Build on that and you will build a loyal and profitable following.

I shared in another article how Rolex was not really in the watch business, but in the
prestige business. A quality watch demands a fair price, but the value of prestige is
much higher. If a company owns the prestige position, customers will often proudly
state how much they paid, not how much they saved. Why? Because the product
added a sense of meaning. If you’re continually being price shopped, that’s an
indication you haven’t connected with your customer on an emotional level, and
you’ve been reduced to a commodity.

In thinking about your company’s products and services, what purpose, what sense
of meaning do you deliver that you are not currently communicating with your
customers? Is there someway in which you enrich their lives, improve their
experience, give them a greater sense of who they are? If you can connect to these
emotional anchors, you will be building on bedrock. Your brand won’t be subject to
the constant cost comparisons that so often plague companies that fail to resonate
on an emotional, meaningful level.

As owner of a branding firm, I believe in enlightened marketing. I share
these insights because I believe that each of us has an innate capacity for brilliance.
And when I say “you are brilliant,” it resonates within you because it’s a truth, one
that is stronger than any adjective-filled copy. And the message is powerful
precisely because it’s meaningful.

Phillip Davis is president and founder of Tungsten Marketing, a professional naming
and branding company, located near Asheville, North Carolina. When not naming
companies, Phil can be found on the hiking trails of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His
work can be viewed at http://PureTungsten.com

By Christine Pinella

The world’s leading Climate Change scientist warned the EU and its international partners today to rethink their targets for decreasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, claiming that we have massively underestimated the problem.

James Hansen is the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. He has called for a reduction in CO2 limits.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of CO2-the most severe in the world-needs to be reduced to at least 350ppm. The cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed”. A final version of the paper that Hansen co-authored with eight other scientists was posted today in the Archive website. No theoretical models of the Earth were used in this study. Instead, the researchers looked at the history of the Earth’s sensitivity to climate which they said gave a more accurate picture.

Studied samples from the ocean can track CO2 levels back millions of years. When the world began to glaciate in the Ice Age 35 million years ago the concentration of CO2 was 450ppm.

“If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice - that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster - a guaranteed disaster” says Hansen.

Although previous estimates claimed that at 550ppm the world would warm to 3C, it has now been proven that the estimate would be doubled at 6C.

Hansen is a prominent figure in climate change science. He was one of the first to bring the extreme issue to Congress in the 1980’s.

The fundamental reason for his revised data was what he called “slow feedback” mechanisms which are only now becoming fully understood. They amplify the rise in temperature caused by increasing the concentration of greenhouse gasses. Ice and snow reflect sunlight and when they melt the barren ground absorbs heat.

Satellite technology from the past three years has shown that Greenland and Antarctica both are losing mass at alarming rates.

The belief that the shrinking of ice sheets would take thousands of years is now being thought “implausible” by researchers like Hansen. “If we follow business as usual I can’t see how west Antarctica could survive a century. We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century”.

The new target of 350ppm may lead some to believe the bar is set unrealistically high. With the US administration struggling to keep up with international efforts, climate campaigners are having a hard time setting the goal at 450ppm.

Hansen said his findings were not a call for despair. The good news is that reserves of fossil fuels have been exaggerated and another source of energy will have to be put in place. Other measures include a moratorium on coal power stations which could reduce emissions to below 400ppm.

The imprtance of providing what a customer wants can never be underesimated when it comes to online buying and selling. Once a website has been created, it fits into two basic categories. Those are information and ecommerce sites. Both types of website have a great deal in common, one of which is to gain the maximum amount of viewers who have an interest in the information or products provided.

However, there are numerous ways in which the website owner can attract visitors, and these have to be prioritised so as to provide the maximum benefit to the end user. Firstly, the site needs to be attractive to the viewer, with a balanced blend of colour, and an appealing layout. Each section of the website should be easy to navigate from one area to another, and absolute clarity throughout the pages regarding what is being portrayed.

Having designed the site in an appealing way, the next issue is the content. Many websites fail to provide either adequate content or indeed content of the right type. Many thousands of new websites are added to the internet each month, and so the choice for internet users is enormous. It is therefore more important each day that passes, that a website offers a distinct presentation and content.

The number one priority for any ecommerce website, is the customer. If the customer is innovated by what he or she sees, and feels that the site either is, or can be, of use to them, then success can be measured by return visits aswell as time spent on the site using the information available, and making purchases. It is extremely important to provide what a customer is searching for. Otherwise, the opportunity is lost, as the next website is only a click away!

An ecommerce website can be considered as a shopfront, except that there are two major differences. One is that the shopper does not have to walk out into the cold to look at another shop, and the other is that the products cannot be physically touched. Because of this, it is most important to present the product in the most beneficial way possible, leaving no room for ambiguity regarding what the product is, how much it costs, and how they can obtain it as quickly as possible.

Providing a clear set of terms and conditions, privacy policy, returns policy where applicable, together with information on the Company presenting the website, will add to the overall positive impression that people will have.

The viewing public quite likely have not taken into account just how much time is spent creating a website, promoting it, ensuring it is running efficiently, aswell as customer services, accounts, staff and all of the other things that running a business entails. Neither should they be concerned with these issues, as their time is spent perusing the internet, searching for what is of interest to them. Making a customer feel relaxed, and enjoy the experience of browsing your website, is the ultimate reward.

It is always best to be clear and concise, provide good content, and an easily navigable website. However, if the site can provide goods or services that are of use, are appealing, and are value for money, then these together with a well thought out presentation, will ensure eventual success, as in any commercial business.

Paul Bryant is the Chairman of Wamee Ltd, an online classified advertising website, for buying and selling new and used items throughout the UK. The site can be seen at http://www.wamee.com.

If you’ve got a digital business that really only requires a connection to the net to do business, your concerns boil down to having a cost structure that maximizes your profit while providing you with a high quality of life. Being productive is difficult in an environment where you’re miserable. Having a high quality of life isn’t a guarantee of success, but it sure makes it easier to be productive.

The problem is that most of the really enjoyable places aren’t exactly what we’d call “low-cost” and in order to live in a nice place you’re business will have to really produce, or you’ll have to hold down a job while you try to build your internet business. At some point this juggling act gets out of hand and your business will demand enough time that you can no longer hold down a job to pay the bills. If your internet business isn’t producing enough to pay the bills, your only options are to downsize and cut expenses, burn capital in hopes that your business will produce more later on or give up on the business altogether.

Those can be hard choices. Our vote is to minimize expenses and save as much money as long as possible. The lower your burn rate the longer you last, and thus the better your chances of success.

For many people, this means trying to find a low-cost location that still provides high-quality infrastructure, and that usually means living somewhere that isn’t that desireable and doesn’t offer a very high quality of life. Sure, there are places in Kansas where they’re practically giving away houses, but who wants to live in Kansas? The people who want to live in Kansas are already there, but the state has a declining population because of all the people who are moving out. Same goes for North and South Dakota. Just think “40 degrees below zero” and you’ll get an idea why.

Most entrepreneurs agree that they are more productive in a pleasant environment.

Radically Lower Your Costs By Moving Offshore

One of the best solutions to the dilemma is to move abroad to a low-cost location with excellent infrastructure, and in this article we’ll discuss the relative advantages of Margarita Island.

Margarita is an island off the coast of Venezuela, and it’s the largest of the three islands that make up the Venezuelan State of Nueva Esparta. Margarita is the lowest-cost island in the Caribbean, but it has the added advantage of not being an independent country. If you’ve been to other Caribbean islands, you already know what we’re talking about: Island nations have to be self-supporting, and they usually do this through the mechanism of sky-high customs fees, so everything on the island is very expensive.

Margarita has excellent infrastructure, with DSL available in the major cities of the island. Margarita is also known as a “free port” which doesn’t mean that there are no customs duties, but rather that the national sales tax (14.6%) doesn’t apply there. It has an airport with direct flights to Frankfort and Toronto (but not to the US- for that you have to transfer at Caracas), so travel isn’t that difficult. It isn’t like other island locations where “you can’t get there from here- you have to go someplace else first.”

Cost Of Living On Margarita

Where Margarita Island really shines is the low cost of living. A single person or a couple can live comfortably on less than $1000 a month (if they own their own home or apartment), and that includes having a housekeeper and going out to eat at nice restaurants several times a week. The low cost of living is combined with tropical island living- you only need a single wardrobe, and formal dress is practically unheard of down here.

Housing: Housing costs are reasonable. If you’re looking for an apartment in a nice area, plan on spending somewhere between $40k and $70k for a nice 2 bedroom 2 bath (quite often you can find fully furnished apartments for sale). Rental apartments can be had for anywhere from $400.00 to $800.00 a month for really nice places: ocean view, secure building, nicely furnished, nice neighborhood. Housing in less desireable neighborhoods will run anywhere from $200.00 to $300.00 a month, but your Spanish had better be pretty good.

Medical Insurance and Medical Costs: Medical insurance for an individual will cost about $150.00 to $200.00 per month, although if you’re young and healthy you can do without and just go to the public clinic if you get sick (they’re free). Your Spanish needs to be good enough for basic communication, and if you’re hospitalized you must have someone who isn’t sick who can help care for you (the public hospitals don’t provide linens, blankets or meals). Medical costs for dental work are really cheap (typically 10% to 15% of what you’d get charged in the US), and just about any medical procedure you can imagine is available on Margarita for 15% to 20% of what you’d pay in the US. If you’ve got a young family, you’ll really see your costs drop.

• Having a baby by C-section will cost about $2500.00 (all inclusive) for a 2 day stay at a good private hospital.
• Having a baby naturally would cost about $1000.00 (all inclusive) for a 2 to 3 day stay at a good private hospital.
• Getting braces with a good orthodontist will cost about $900.00 to $1600.00, depending on how much work is required.
• Minor liposuction is a hundred dollars or so, major liposuction will go upwards of $300.00 to $600.00.
• A major cosmetic overhaul, combining liposuction with a facelift and a breast-job will be less than $3000.00.
• Chelation therapy (IV with Sodium EDTA) is about $20.00 per session.
• Basic doctor visits cost about $20.00 to see a good private physician.

Vehicle Insurance: Getting insurance for vehicles offers you two choices: Full coverage or liability only. The full coverage costs about 15% of the book value of your vehicle annually. Liability insurance costs about $130.00 annually. It doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle, they don’t care if you have a drivers license or not, and there is very little paperwork if you’re in an accident and they have to pay.

Vehicles: Used vehicles are expensive, new vehicles are cheap (compared to the US), and for lots more information read our article on buying a vehicle on Margarita. The cost of everything associated with owning a vehicle is cheap. We just had a water pump replaced, and the cost was $74.00: parts were $45.00, labor $29.00. Gasoline is about 12 cents per gallon, so get used to filling your tank with pocket change.

Food: Food costs are highly variable compared to the US, based on what you want to eat and whether you can eat the local products or whether you’re brand-loyal to an imported brand. We see our food costs hovering around 1/2 of what we spent in rural Kentucky, but we don’t buy a lot of processed food.

Entertainment: This is a highly variable expense. Going out to eat is cheap, with a 4 to 5 star restaurant costing $30.00 to $40.00 for two, including a few drinks per person. Buying a bottle of wine will adjust the price according to your tastes in wine (wine is also cheap). Dinner and coffee for 2 at a nice restaurant will cost less than $20.00, and you can eat a full meal at a lot of places for about $5.00 to $6.00. Movie tickets cost about $2.00 and going to the beach can cost anything from nothing (bring your own umbrella, drinks and food) to $20.00 to $30.00, depending on whether you rent an umbrella and chair and eat at one of the beachfront restaurants. Going to an internet cafe costs about 50 cents per hour, and sitting at the mall people watching doesn’t cost anything.

Phone: Plan on spending about $40.00 to $60.00 a month for combined home phone and cellular phone, and if your area can get DSL, you can look up the charges on CanTV’s webpage to see what you’d have to pay.

Electric: Depends on your accomodations and usage. We have friends who pay about $15.00 a month, and we’ve paid about $100.00 a month running the AC 24/7 in a large apartment. Some people bribe a power company guy to “fix” their meter so that it’s somewhat slow, and some people just hook up a wire to the power line (an illegal hookup). It’s common.

Water: Water is pumped over from the mainland, and it’s unbelievably cheap: maybe $2.00 to $5.00 per month. Garbage pickup is included in the water bill. If you have an apartment you’ll probably see this expense covered in your condo fees.

Getting Residency

Americans are hung up on the idea of doing things “by the book” but Latin America isn’t like that: in most cases there is a solution to your problem that involves paying an official to take a special interest in getting your problem solved. It’s possible to live on Margarita as a tourist, going to the airport every three months and paying someone at Immigration about $40.00 to stamp your passport with an exit and entry stamp, extending your stay another 3 months. You’re only supposed to be able to do this once, but they don’t care. You’re spending money on their island and you aren’t causing problems, so what’s the problem? You want to stay? You have money? No problem.

It’s also possible to get a permanent residency visa without too much trouble, and there are lawyers on the Island who can help “expedite” this issue for a fee. You’re paying them for their help and what they do to get you taken care of is their business. The permanent residency visa is good for 5 years and you can get a Cedula (national ID card) so you won’t have to carry your passport around with you. This makes you legal, and you won’t have to worry about your immigration status.

Permanent residency status qualifies you for citizenship after a while (the amount of time depends on when the next election is- it seems Seor Chavez has been allowing people to become citizens if they’ll vote for him). This is a great deal because Venezuela is issuing Andean Community passports that meet all the security requirements for travel in the modern world, and it’s good for visa-free travel to 56 countries, including almost all of Europe. In today’s world having a second passport is an extremely wise idea: you don’t know what the future holds.

Doing Business

The ideal situation is to sell to the US or Europe (charging US or European prices) while living in a really low-cost place area that provides a high quality of life. Margarita is perfect for a digital entrepreneur who wants to do this. The money you make will go a lot further than you’d believe, and what you don’t spend you can either save and invest or put back into your business.

Regulation of digital businesses on Margarita is non-existent. There are no licenses, permits or other issues involved. You can pretty much do what you want- and it isn’t a matter of hiding, there’s nothing to hide from. Because your status is essentially that of a tourist, you’re handled with kid-gloves: the authorities don’t want to annoy the goose that lays the golden eggs, so tourists are pretty much left alone to play and spend money.

Taxation is another interesting issue. As a US citizen, if you reside outside the US you’ve got an $86,000.00 tax exemption (your wife can also make $86,000.00), so you’ve got tax-free income between $86,000.00 and $172,000.00. Venezuela doesn’t tax you on money you make outside the country, so in effect you’ve got the best of all worlds: an extremely low cost of living, high quality of life and no taxes.

What it comes down to is having a business model that works, and having the time to do business. A business model that wouldn’t support you in the US might very well give you a lifestyle on Margarita that you couldn’t ever have in the US. If you put the time and effort into your business you might eventually see it grow into a really nice income producer. While it’s growing you’ll avoid taxes and have a really low cost of living. At such a time as your income is high enough, you can take your business anywhere in the world that has a ‘net connection.

We don’t know of any place in the US where you can have such a low cost of living and high quality of life as Margarita, and with its excellent infrastructure it’s a perfect place for a digital entrepreneur.

Copyright 2006 Bulletproof Retirement
All Rights Reserved

Brian Botta
http://bulletproofretirement.com

Communication is a remarkable occurrence. Could any business survive
without it? As owners or representatives of an enterprise, we spend countless
hours, funds and energy to be heard, to craft our messages, policies and
behavior in a way that will truly express our intent - to our customers,
prospects, suppliers, employees, shareholders, the bank, the press; in short, to
everyone who can have an impact on the health of our business.
Many will tell you communication is a 2-way street: you say your piece and
then they say theirs. I think there’s a crucial 3rd step. Watch:

1 - You craft a message and distribute it through appropriate venues -sales
people, advertising media, website, sponsored events, service statements &
policies. (This is expression)

2 - Your message is received - or maybe ‘a’ message is received; could be it’s
not the message you were delivering. (This is comprehension - or not; who
knows?)

3 - Your customers and prospects respond to what they believe they heard (not
necessarily what you intended) which might be no response at all. And this is
where they show if they ‘get’ you, if you truly communicated.

With these 3 steps in mind, this is how I see communication working:
Expression+ Comprehension = Communication.
Without keeping track of that middle step -what they actually received and
comprehended - you may never understand what happened to step 1 and what
prompted step 3.

How can you ensure your ‘tracking service’ is on? Keep communication open to
always hear your customers. Don’t just send messages; encourage theirs, as
well. Their feedback and comments have a fundamental impact on how we run
our business, develop policies or create product. These messages, when
heard, provide the tweaking process that allows us to always respond to
changes in our marketplace.

If yours is the kind of business that has easy access to clientele - a retail
establishment, a service or medical professional, an enterprise with sales
people, or an organization with frequent membership meetings - first-hand
exposure to your customers is built into the way you do business. In this
situation, not only can you converse, one-on-one, but you can literally ’see’
how they perceive you through the body language they exhibit when in your
company. When speaking with customers, look and listen; they may be
communicating through some classic body language:

• They touch you on the arm: think this is endearing or familiar? I think it’s
insecurity - you’re just not paying attention.

• Hands on hips: they’re patronizing you or feeling judgmental; wow - you
must have committed some offense!

• Arms crossed: they’re closed off, not interested in hearing you; clearly you’ve
lost them.

• Arched eyebrows: A surprised or confused look; certainly not confident and
in control.

• Pointing a finger: Well that’s pretty clear! That’s an accusatory gesture, even
if there’s a smile on their face.

None of these are positive messages and clearly, they call for some corrective
action. Just how that can be done is a subject for another article. But, as they
say: ‘knowledge is power’. Hearing your customers in this way, knowing how
they’re responding, is a tremendous tool as you refine your product,
promotions and policies.

If you don’t have the opportunity to meet with your clientele, there are other
tools you can employ to ensure the lines are always open. Many have used
questionnaires and surveys to find out, as did former N.Y.C. Mayor Koch:
‘How’m I doing?’ was a common question from him. If you use newsletters,
birthday greetings, rewards programs or e-mailed messages, you’ve got the
beginnings of a terrific 3-way street for both contact and clarity. Remember
the 3-way street is: Expression + Comprehension = Communication.

You might use these same devices - newsletter, greetings, emailed messages,
bill stuffers and such - to invite your customers to become a member of your
R&D Team. You may already use an internal R&D team to develop product
ideas. How about incorporating the same concept among customers? It can be
accomplished easily via email or a devoted page on your website. Consider
these benefits:

1. An R&D team made up of your customers allows you to test your plans for
product, promotion, policies, pricing outside the hot-house environment of
planned research.

2. An R&D team provides you with new ideas for any of the above. Who knows
where the next great one is coming from?

3. If your R&D team knows you rely on their feedback you’re likely to get far
more candid replies than through an impersonal survey.

4. If you incorporate or reward customers’ ideas, you’ll provide them the
opportunity to express themselves, something we all long to do.

5. This creates a powerful form of loyalty, the result of which may be their
desire to promote your business; they become your de facto sales team or even
evangelists.

When you involve customers in the health of your business and they believe
you value their opinions, they take a more active interest to ensure your
success, because it represents theirs, as well. This kind of relationship is far
more powerful than the purely financial one of their cash in exchange for your
goods. The desire to contribute, to make a difference, is a powerful
motivator. Allowing this to occur for your customers, simply as a result of
hearing them, will give you access to one of your strongest and must
underused assets -knowing what your customers think.

Andrea Feinberg, M.B.A., G.C.U., is president of Coaching Insight and uses
business coaching techniques to enable clients to maximize the many
underused assets in their businesses for marketing success, visionary
leadership, effective goal setting, productive time management and enhanced
employee performance. She can be reached at 631.642.7434 or
andrea@coachinginsight.com

Why should a site visitor buy from your site and not just go directly to the merchant or vendor site? Because you provide value added services. You don’t just slap links on your site, you carefully review merchants to make certain they’re appropriate and that they remain so as both your sites change and grow. You perform affiliate auditions.

Before you join an affiliate program, roam around the company’s site, evaluating the environment, products, advice, articles, ease of use, shopping cart and customer service options. Scrutinize the images and descriptions. Buy something. Return it. Ask questions. Check your credit card bill. Then go on a search engine and see how their top three competitors stack up. Once you’ve chosen a site or two, avoiding as much duplication as possible, begin writing product reviews, and comparisons. Which home décor and linens site would you want to visit, the one that provides a rating of flannel sheets based upon the six most popular criteria, or one with a mass of links and no distinctions between the products? The latter makes buying harder, not easier and the visitor will click off, never to be seen again.

You have the advantage of knowing your audience. If you reduce the time it takes to choose, as well as the potential for your visitor to be disappointed, there’s reason for him to return. Keep up the trust by regularly reviewing your affiliate sites and the commissions they generate. Write reviews of seasonal and new products. Ask site visitors to review products they’ve bought through the site. Make it fun and people will return to see what you’ve found for them now.

Karen Kari’s articles and more information on the affiliate business can be found at:

http://www.affiliatebandit.com

http://www.advertisingcellar.com

http://www.billionfreeads.com

There are F words in business. We have seen many small businesses on the internet flourish and fulfil their dream, but sadly we have seen some flounder and fail because they had the wrong product.

To be successful in a new business:

1. Choose the right product or service.
2. Learn everything there is to know about the product or service.
3. Price it well.
4. Arrange reliable delivery.
5. Get a customer friendly website.
6. Get found at the top of search results.

In this article we discuss choosing products for the purpose of selling them on the web.

1. Consumables:

   Products that get used up and need replacing create repeat business. e.g:
   
   Razors cost little but the blades wear out and need replacing.
   
   Printers are often sold at a low price, but their cartridges always need replacing.

   Good service in delivering consumables generates repeat business.

   This applies to compatibles as well as brand-name products.

   The most successful among our websites in this group sell printer inks and toners.

2. Books, CDs, DVDs:

   If people know the item and it’s authors / producers, they won’t mind buying it on the internet, if price and delivery is competitive.

   If the item is a self-published book, CD / DVD, then people need to be able to inspect it before deciding to order it.

   The most successful among our websites in this group sell known text-books.

   The least successful offered home produced CDs

3. Artworks:

   Prints or reproductions of known artworks can sell on the internet, provided there is a money-back guarantee if the customer is not happy with the quality.

   If the item is an original by an unknown artist, then it’s very difficult to display its quality on the web to the point of persuading a customer to order it. Most people would want to personally see the actual artwork.

   The least successful in this group offered original oil paintings.

4. Brand Name Products, Parts, Accessories:

   If they are brand-name items with a manufacturer’s guarantee, then provided price and delivery is competitive, these are the basis for most successful businesses on the web, regardless what product.

   People know exactly what they are getting, and receive a guarantee.

   The most successful among our websites in this group sell computers, parts and accessories, followed by perfumes.

5. Services:

   Breaking into a service market is very difficult. Exact details of the service offered must be provided on the website.

   A service business often needs to get established and get the first few customers to provide testimonials, before business from strangers flow in.

   The usual rules of competitiveness and reliability count very much towards success in the service industry.

   The most successful of our service website clients provide wedding cars, followed by landscaping, then financial services.

Supply:

Get a binding agreement with a reliable supplier, and ensure the supplier also benefits from selling through your business.
We know one business which closed down after their overseas supplier started selling direct to their customers.

Conclusion:

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, other factors must also be present to ensure a successful business, but choosing the product is the first make or break factor in starting a business.

More information for small businesses can be found at platypus websites - www.platywebs.com.au

Ken McKay designed his first website in 1997 and, through Platypus Websites, has been building commercial websites since 1999.