World Business Web

Have you ever met with a prospect who thought they knew everything about your product or service? But, after talking to them you discover they have been misinformed or did not know as much as they thought they knew?

With search engines like Google being such an easy place to get information for your prospects, you may find prospects who are educating themselves before talking with you. The real challenge becomes making sure the information they are researching is really good information to help them in their decision process.

Imagine for a minute you’re going to have a kidney transplant and you decide to do some research on the internet before hand. Do you take that information and tell your doctor how they should be doing the surgery, or even how you plan on buying their service? My guess is you would probably not do that, but it is just a guess.

Your doctor would probably do a good job of explaining how the procedure was going to go, what things you should be aware of, where to expect pain, why they’re doing what they are doing, etc. If you have good rapport with the doctor you will allow yourself to fall under their care, guidance, and protection.

So the ultimate question you need to ask yourself is who is the expert with your product or service? You or the prospect? Just because somebody read some information on the internet does not make them an expert. Remember that you are the expert in what you do, it’s now time for you to take charge and act like the expert.

Let me share how I go about guiding my prospects through the key areas they should be concerned about as it relates to growing their small business. There are two main areas I share with them.

The first area you want to be aware of is where can you achieve business growth. You have three opportunities to grow your business.

Growth Area #1: You can sell to more clients.

Growth Area #2: You can increase your frequency of sales to your clients.

Growth Area #3: You can increase your average sale.

The second area you want to be aware of are the four disciplines in your business to achieve growth in each of the three areas.

The first discipline is getting in front of enough new prospects.

The second discipline is converting your prospects into paying clients.

The third discipline is expanding the current client relationships you already have.

The fourth discipline is getting the right people on your team to execute the disciplines.

So after I share this information I ask my prospect the following. “Mr. Prospect, as you and I talk about growing your business, do these areas and disciplines make sense, and more importantly, are they relevant to the conversation you and I are going to have?” My experience is that after starting the conversation together like this, my prospects are in complete agreement with me.

If they are in agreement I always ask if there is anything else we should add to our conversation to make it worthwhile to them. This makes sure that any other items they may want to discuss are added to our meeting together.

There was a time where I had been instructed to ask people what they wanted to accomplish together and it almost always lead to nonsense. When I say nonsense I mean prospects said things like, “I want to find out how much it is, who else you work with, why I should buy from you, etc.”

I’m not saying these things are not important, but they never shared their real issues openly. All that other stuff is just intellectual fluff and not the real emotional goals and frustrations that drive prospects to buy.

By sharing the structure of the areas we help small businesses grow I have been able to guide prospects on the key areas that are either helping or hindering their business growth. I promise you that people want to be lead, and as small business owner it is your duty to lead them in the right direction.

Now it’s your turn. I want you to think about the areas or structure of what you do that helps your clients. How can you do something similar to what I created?

I have a client who sells furniture. We helped them define the best objectives for clients in the areas of comfort, quality, and style. By creating a basic outline you give yourself a framework to operate within. It also gives your people responsible for building business relationships great confidence, and helps you manage the process more effectively.

Your objective is to now go and brainstorm the components of structure that will help you guide your prospects. Then you can help them discover you are indeed the best fit to help them achieve their goals and overcome their frustrations.

Cash flow is one of the biggest challenges that small business owners face. One of the reasons is because usually not enough attention is paid to managing it, until a crisis hits. Small business owners are often so focused on growing their businesses and making sales that they fail to see how their operational costs are eating into their profits. Suddenly, there are bills to pay and clients haven’t paid yet; as the business owner, you have to figure out a way to get cash in fast. However, if you are diligent about managing your cash flow, you can foresee and set up contingencies for situations like that. Here are a few tips that can help you to stay ahead of the game.

Know Your Operational Costs

Right from the start you should know what it costs to run your business on a monthly basis. Certainly, there will be some variable costs that change on a monthly basis but you should still have a rough idea of what they are so you can form a budget. If you do not capture all your expenses then you are quite likely to forget about some of them. A few hundred dollars here and there can quickly add up. The easiest way to do this is to draw up a simple spreadsheet. Capture fixed expenses such as rental costs and salaries first, and then have sections for income such as stationary, telecommunications and fuel. These operational costs should form the basis of your budget. They define your break-even point of your business. Bring in less income than that and your business will be in trouble. Always know the target that you need to reach in terms of turnover.

Define Your Payment Dates

Try not to have all your expenses payable at the same time of the month. Most landlords require that you pay the rent up front yet many insurance companies, for example, will allow you to schedule your debit orders for the 10th or 15th of the month. What this does is spread the load of your payments throughout the month. Instead of having to make sure that you have a lump sum of cash available at the end of every month, you need only a portion of your expenses to be covered then and have some more time to get in the balance of your cash before the next batch is payable. It may initially seem like a mission to split up the payment dates but it can make a huge difference to your cash flow.

Be Strict with Your Debtors

This is a trap that too many business owners fall into. They do not want to offend customers and potentially lose out on their business so they bend over backwards to accommodate them and let them get away with paying late on a regular basis. Large companies often use this tactic to help balance their cash flows. The longer they can stave off paying a small business, the greater benefit to them. You don’t have to be aggressive when chasing payments. From the outset with clients, make sure that you clearly communicate your payment terms. Ideally, small businesses should operate on a cash-on-delivery basis but in many industries, this is not possible. Try to have as short a period as possible for payment. Ideally, it should be seven or 14 days. At the outset, it should never be more than 30 days. If it is seven days then clearly state this on your invoice and when you make delivery. If after the eighth day you have still not received payment, make a phone call to find out if it has been processed. If it has but doesn’t yet reflect in your account, let your client know that you will call to confirm as soon as it does. This is a polite way of letting them know that you watch and manage your cash flow closely and that they cannot get away with delaying payments.

Make Sure You Have a Wide Customer Base

Many small businesses start with just one or two major clients. While this is great initially, think of what will happen if that big client delays payment or doesn’t pay at all. How will that affect your cash flow? It is much better to have lots of smaller amounts of cash consistently coming into your business than to depend on one or two large payments every month. To have large clients is great but make sure you can break even without their payments. That way, you will always have a strong cash flow.

Below is a list of some of the businesses that we believe would be most profitable to create today, taking into account the present.

Small Business Consulting

Every day you create hundreds of new small businesses, most of whom have trained entrepreneurs with the necessary experience to tackle any difficulties that may mean creating and managing a business.

So a good idea for a profitable business could be the creation of a consultancy focused exclusively on small business.

This consultancy would cover topics such as business formation, marketing, advertising, human resources, accounting, finance and Internet sales.

To create this business, we can begin installing a small office at home, and start our promotion creating a website where we could provide free advice for small queries and, thus, engage the customer to then hire our services to major consultations.

Being able to start this business at home and start promoting it online, make our business into more profitable business and low investment.

Health Food Restaurant

More and more people with an obsessive quest to stay healthy and feel good, and increasingly are creating the awareness that to achieve this, one major factor is the consumption of healthy foods.

As today is giving a tendency for the consumption of healthy snacks, and against junk food or highly processed.

So a good profitable business idea could be to create a restaurant or store that offers this kind of light and healthy food.

This light and healthy food need not be a dietary or vegetarian, but what you are looking lunches today is healthier, yet tasty.

An example of this type of healthy food while tasty could be the Japanese, which seems to be becoming more popular.

Fitness

Similar to the search that is given today by staying healthy, it is the quest to achieve a sexy body and in good physical condition.

As a business idea to meet this demand would be the creation of a gym. For which we should have a large room, which must be conditioned with weight machines and cardio equipment for spinning, aerobics, etc.

Spa

Similarly, and given the quest to maintain a good health and ensure precise fit, too, increasingly people are looking for physical beauty and relaxation.

As a business idea that meets this demand would be the creation of a spa, where toast body and facial treatments and relaxation therapies or services or massage.

Virtual store

The market of Internet users in Latin America is growing at a rapid pace, more and more are increasing the number of web surfers, and increasingly are becoming common Internet shopping.

As a good business idea would be to create a virtual store.

The number of people shopping online is increasing; however, there is still some distrust to use this medium for shopping.

So our store would have to start offering products that users consider there is no risk at the time of purchase. Also, as a way to gain confidence in users, we can create a system of guarantees or seek to obtain a quality certificate.

Some products that we could have a good reception in a store are books or manuals, tech accessories, spirits, software, etc.

Technology shop

Technology advances by leaps and bounds, and the life cycle of technology products is growing shorter. A technological product fashion moves quickly whenever there is a new model.

And it’s a consumer trend, which quickly dispose of their technology products, and go running to the store in search of new model.

As a profitable business idea would be to create a store where we offer products such as phones, computers, laptops, iPods, digital cameras and other technology products and accessories.

Also, our store of technology products could be a virtual store, which would not have to invest much money, which could manage from the comfort of our home.

A common way of finding a business idea, i.e. to know what business would create, is to identify the knowledge or experience we have on a particular topic, then, thinking about a related business where we can exploit that knowledge or experience .

For example, if before we worked on a certain type of business, we might choose to create a business of similar item, or if we worked on the sale of a product, we can choose to start a business responsible for producing or marketing such product know well.

But a variant of this way of identifying a business idea is to identify a business where we can share or teach knowledge or experience we have acquired.

For example, if we have been working for years in the sales area, a business idea to us could be a business where we can share our knowledge and experience in sales, for example, can publish a book, a manual or guidelines on sales, could create a website where we write articles on sales, or could create a sales consulting firm.

If you have studied and have some experience when it comes to small business management is concerned, we may choose to create a business where we share and teach what we know, for example, we can create a website offering advice or counseling to small businesses, we can create an academy dedicated to giving lectures on topics related to small business, or we can install a consultancy dedicated to small business.

If for years have practiced a sport or discipline, we can install a small workshop at home where we offer classes in that sport or discipline, or create an academy where we teach.

In order to devise a business in which we share and teach what we know, we identify what we do best, which is the topic that dominates, or what is that about which we have enough experience.

Also, in order to create a business where we share what we have learned that we do not need an expert on the subject. We should not intimidate thinking that we are able to teach something, but we simply must focus on the desire to want to share or teach what we know.

And even as we make work our business, we may be learning more and becoming more and more experts in the field, either through teaching process itself, or by study or experience we are gaining. We can even lie in our business we are working, enrolled in a course on the subject.

And little by little, as we learn more, go to grow the business, for example, if we started with a small consulting house dedicated to the creation of small businesses, as we acquire more knowledge and experience We can rent a local office or we can cover other areas of business, and we can guide us to all sorts of businesses, not just too small.

Accepting credit cards is necessary for both off-line and online business. If you are having an online business and if you are not accepting credit cards, it means you are losing seventy percent of your business to your competitors. By not accepting credit cards, it is not only online businesses face loss, but the same applies for off line businesses too. The same figure of seventy percent is applicable for off-line business too.

According to a survey conducted, many Americans carry few amount say five or ten dollars. Almost all Americans pay their bills and shop only with their credit cards and debit cards. So if you are an individual having online or off-line business and do not accept credit card, you are sure to lose your sales. Accepting credit cards have become a necessity for increasing sales in both online and off-line business. Even the cost of product or service you sell is even less than five dollars; customers prefer to pay using their credit cards.

Many people prefer to pay using credit cards as it is not only convenient to carry with out the fear of theft but they also get reward points and incentives when they use their credit card to the maximum. So if any business, small or large, should get in to the method of accepting credit cards for increasing their annual turnover. There are many business people who give them offers or give them incentive when they use their credit cards. This make them buy most of their products or services using credit cards.

There are people who use credit cards on a compulsory basis are:

*Employees making purchases for their employers
*People who travel on company business
*People who make bulk purchases
*People who travel frequently prefer to book their tickets using credit cards

Accepting credit cards is compulsory in all sorts of business. If you do not accept credit card then you lose customers. Even very small business people are forced for accepting credit cards, in the fear of losing businesses. Even big companies, which purchase products or services for resale or for their internal use, make payments using credit cards. By not accepting credit cards, you are losing on repeated customers.

Above discussed points make clear that accepting credit cards is very important for increasing your sales, be it small or big businesses.