Author: Bella E. Hussain

Creating A Google+ Business Page

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain


Just when you thought you had a handle on promoting your business with social media, Google throws a wrench in your marketing plans by creating its own social media platform – Google+. Despite all the buzz about Google+ overtaking Facebook as the king of social media websites, Google+ really hasn’t caught on yet, especially in my neck of the woods, southern Maine. I recently logged in and it was a bit of a lonely experience. My stream consisted of mostly celebrities like Maria Bartiromo, and Gary Vaynerchuk and, so far, there hasn’t been a lot of interest to join Google+ from my friends, family or business acquaintances. That isn’t to say that Google+ is a failure. It takes time to build a social network and I believe that since Google+ has some great features, it will be relevant in the future.

Why You Should Create a Google+ Page?

The Early Bird Gets The Worm – As Gary Vaynerchuk (the leading social media expert) would tell you, it’s always a good idea to jump on the bandwagon early, making this the perfect opportunity to promote your business using a social media platform that will likely be extremely popular down the road. Joining early will eventually give you an advantage over your competition, as you will already be familiar with the ins and outs of it by the time Google+ becomes popular.

Search Engine Optimization

If for no other reason, join Google+ for your website. Google is still by far the most popular search engine and it understandably gives a lot of importance to links from its own products. Creating a Google+ page gives you one more high-powered link pointing to your site!

The +1 Button

In my opinion, the most exciting feature in Google+ is the +1 button. You may have already noticed this browsing the web. It allows you to share websites you like publicly with others. Whenever you click the +1 icon on a website, your friends on Google+ will see it that you have recommended it. This is another tool that positively affects your website’s search engine ranking.

Starting Your Google+ Business Page

Go to and click on the big blue button “Create Your Google+ Page”. If you are not already a Google+ member, you will be redirected to the main page where you can join. You will need a Google account to sign-up, and if you already use any of Google’s many products such as Gmail, YouTube or Adwords, then you’re covered.

Choose the category that best describes your business and then fill out some basic information about your company.

Next, fill out your tagline, which is essentially one to four keywords that you would use to reference your type of organization and choose an image to use for your Google+ profile.

Subsequently you have the opportunity to share your new page with your Google+ circles, assuming you have some.

Click “Finish” and that’s it, you’re done!
Promoting Your Google+ Page
Make sure to add the +1 button and a link to your Google+ page on your website.

Add your Google+ link on all your other social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook.…

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A Manager Guide to Business Intelligence

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Business Intelligence
Once you’ve decided your business needs a business intelligence solution, one of the first things you’re going to have to do is procure a tool to actually allow you to implement that solution. Many companies go to venders and they get lots of presentations, although this approach can be productive in giving you a good general knowledge of business intelligence, many businesses find they can get confused and end up focusing on the specifications and applications of the tools they are looking at rather than the over all results and benefits these tools can provide for their business.

Many organizations have large IT departments which have many of the skills required to do business intelligence, but because you’re mixing raw data with high business requirements, IT departments can sometimes struggle to deliver the solutions. Good resources and good people are needed to implement business intelligence in order to have a good knowledge of the technology. Not only do they have to know the business, the tools and the data, but as it’s quite fragmented so they need to know everything from databases to data mining, performance tuning, business intelligence tools development and then presentation layout, how to format good information so people can make better decisions.

It can be very hard to advise on the first type of data an organisation should look at as this will vary depending on the organisation and what your requirements and needs are. As a very general rule of thumb, the finance area is a good place to start, as the data quality in finance is normally very good, it’s well understood and it’s easily accessible. It may also have a lot of your master data, including customer data, your products and the internal organisational structure of your staff. You’ve then got sales information, which again is a fairly easy area to analyse but it adds more value now because you’ve got more customer and contractual information, you’ve got pipe lines and you’ve got activity in your CRM system. Then you may have a separate sales system which may be combined with finance, and you’ve got your operational systems, which are normally more time based like supply chain management and can be more challenging to analyse. To get real value across the enterprise and bring all that information together is where the longer term challenge comes in, you start looking at profitability and what operational activities are taking place and the costs associated by them to what sales revenue you’re generating to what revenue you’re booking and recognising in finance to get customer product profitability.

If successfully implemented, business intelligence solutions should go on indefinitely. If you give out more information to the business, and you make better decisions the business should evolve, which means you will then want different information, and be looking at different things to make the business go even further. However, in reality an open ended solution wouldn’t be feasible, so an average time frame would be three months to deliver the first information to business users.

With the progression of technology and computers getting faster more and more data is being produced, which in turn means there’s a tendency to get more value from analyzing that data. Speed of thought data analysis and visualisation techniques are evolving all the time this means, unfortunately analyzing the data produced from business intelligence is one area most companies fail at, because most people are going to be too busy actually doing their jobs rather than analyzing the influx of data they’re receiving. Business intelligence can actually get the system to do some of the analysis for you, with predictive analytics and data mining the computer can take some of the rules and the logic a human would use to do data analysis and actually analyse it for you and just alert you to the exceptions.

Another area business intelligence is heading towards is capturing more and more through unstructured mechanisms, for example you may have a blog on a website or a complaint management system online, or emails coming from customers through your service centre and all that data is textually based and has some value in it but is not structured, business intelligence can take that data, give it structure and put it along side your other structured data, which then gives that communication additional value and can contribute towards making your data more profitable for your organisation.…

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To Build Profitable Customer Relationship

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Profitable Customer Relationship

It is a challenging time for most business leaders today. Leaders are demanding their company’s grow and so marketers are continually focused on driving their products and services into the hands of new customers. Unfortunately this intense focus on attracting new customers has taken attention away from established or past customers. It is measurably more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain an existing customer. So why do so many companies focus their efforts and their dollars solely on new customers? It is because every organization is committed to growth and growth is associated with building new business. However, in order to maintain continuous profitability, companies must establish and maintain profitable relationships with all of their customers (past, current and future). Business leaders must do four things to have profitable customer relationship.

1. You must continuously be attracting (profitable) new customers in the industry sectors that you have identified in your strategic plan.
2. You must actively retain your (profitable) current customers and re-establish relationships with past customers.
3. You must customize your product and service offerings to better meet your customer’s expectations and needs.
4. Your employees must be continuously trained and rewarded for delivering exceptional customer service.

New Customers

The industry sectors that you have identified for growth in your strategic plan must be implemented throughout your company. Your sales team must have their commission structure designed to reflect (and reward) closed sales in the industries you have committed to pursue. When you are marketing and selling to your new marketplace you need to make sure that the products and services you offer are profitable. In other words, you must conduct a customer profitability analysis at the beginning of the sale, and periodically during the sales cycle. Too many companies focus their marketing dollars on their customers that are the largest revenue generator. Remember profits are revenue minus costs, so you need to make sure all of your customer relationships are producing the results you initially projected.

Current and Past Customers

You worked hard to attract new customers to your business and know you need to continue to work to establish and strengthen the relationship you created. The more you know about your customer’s organization, their buying habits and patterns, their growth plans and their operations, the more successful you will be in designing your relationship programs to meet their needs. The goal is to be so familiar and become so indispensable to your customers that your company is the only one they consider when purchasing products and services.

So many companies offer special pricing, bundled package offers or incentives to attract new customers, while completely ignoring their current customers. If you want to keep your customers from switching to your competitors (to take advantage of their “new customer discounts”) you need to create loyalty (recognization/appreciation) programs, and referral discounts and/or incentives. If you value your customers, then reward them for their continued confidence in your company’s product and services. You might also consider instituting a “frequent user” program. The more business a customer does with your company-they can receive either a discount on future work (or purchases) or a free service.

Reach out to your customers on a regular basis to provide helpful information such as case studies, success stories, testimonials, and new product/service launches. Invite your customers to give you feedback on their needs/wants. The more inclusive you are with your customers, the more they will value the relationship with your company.

Customize your programs. Technology has offered us a myriad of communication vehicles for reaching our target audiences. Technology is a tool to support customer service not to replace it. Always give your customers the option to talk with a human being. I know that having trained customer service specialists can add costs to the bottom line, but think how much business you lose, by not having someone available to visit with your customers when they need help, have questions or have a complaint that needs to be resolved.

In order to exceed your customer’s expectations you must use your technology and marketing savvy to customize your relationship with each customer. Make sure your CRM (customer relationship manager) programs are integrated with your customer contact programs and you are working with your customers to understand how and when they want to be contacted. The more you know about your individual customers and can customize your marketing and sales program to meet their needs, the stronger your customer relationships.

Social media is continuing to revolutionize they way we conduct business. Anyone can quickly research your company to discover your company’s customer satisfaction history. Your company’s reputation is one of your organization’s most valuable assets, so make sure you are doing everything possible to maintain excellent customer relations and continually build a strong reputation for …

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Strategy Selecting New Business Direction

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

New Business
You’re working out a direction for your new business and have some degree of clarity on what that will be, and how you will execute it. You believe it will be profitable, but you’re not sure whether or not you’ve put the plans together to maximize your profit. Here are a few ideas on how to examine your new business direction through the profit “lens”.

1. Is your new direction powerfully bolstered by playing to your strengths and expertise?

When you build a new business plan where you’ve clearly got the skills and experience, it automatically raises the value of your services. Starting anew, as one of a crowded field of competitors where you don’ have standout credentials, makes closing sales harder, and lowers your potential profitability.

2. Aim for a well-funded niche willing to spend for the solutions you provide.

It’s best when this niche recognizes your specific specialty as uniquely prepared to handle their needs. This will increase your profitability by making it easier and more predictable to close sales. Aim for a target market who has the money, and a willingness to spend it. Position your business so that you’ve got unique ability to solve their problems.

3. Look for a market with a “crying need”.

When working to solve crying needs you don’t have to do such hard work convincing prospects that they need your solutions. They are desperately looking for resolution. There’s intensity to their search and they want their problem solved, NOW, or even better yesterday.

4. Make yours service better, more complete than your competitors’.

Make a point of fully satisfying the client’s needs. Put together your offering to encompass all facets of the prospect’s needs. Go beyond what your competitors do. Make your service distinctive, rising above the competition. This allows you to increase your profitability.

5. Select a target market that values excellence – and deliver excellence.

Clients will pay a premium price to receive excellent results. Targeting those who value excellence will save you from working with those who are underfunded and under-motivated (and can often be a drain on the profitability of your business). Of course, they have higher expectations, but if you’re aiming for the correct target market, that should not be a problem for your business.

6. Look for ways to increase your value to clients.

Combine a product with your service. Create packages of services. Add a new expertise. Combine skills for a new offering. Examine what clients request of you. How can you add value by fulfilling client requests?

7. Let your prospects know that you have solved that same problem they suffer from.

When you have a compelling story to tell about having had the same problem your target market is looking to solve, it increases your credibility and profitability to tell it. It’s even better if you’ve come up with your solution because of your own experience. Make it plain that you want to help others who are now suffering as you once did. The whole story about how you came up with the solution and evolved it through working with clients is a moneymaker. Of course it must be sincere and genuine.

8. Ooze competence.

Competence is valuable and shows up in net profit. Present yourself as a problem solve and be one. This is a singularly attractive trait. Prepare ahead and show professionalism. We are all intensely attracted to the highly competent.

9. Keep it simple.

Everyone has such complex lives nowadays, that simplicity itself lends considerable value. Don’t make it simplistic, but do make your services easy to understand. You want prospects to be able to easily imagine working with you and to be able to fantasize about what that could be like.

When you’re taking your business in a whole new direction, take the time to examine how you can increase the potential profitability of what you are embarking on. Spend that time up front, build profit into your endeavor, and you will take home the money later.…

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Using Google Business Listing Service

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Google Business Listing Service
Any company that actively participate in the business opportunities that can be found in the online environment, are aware of the benefits related to search engine optimization. This marketing resource has been utilized by a large number of businesses, in order to expand the potential found with improving search engine results. Businesses utilize keywords in order to be recognized as high value results, in order to obtain the highest levels of recognition, pertaining to any online search. When looking to expand your opportunities that exist with the mobile environment, it is vital that a business utilize the resources that can be found with a Google business listing service.

One of the largest mistakes that many businesses make is found with the expectation that the online environment on mobile devices is the same online environment that can be accessed by any computer. The reality is, these are two unique environments with their own unique resources, generated by companies looking to expand business potential and consumer interest. Simply because your business is able to obtain a high standing on a search engine, as a result of your search engine optimization efforts through the internet, does not mean you will have that same standing when a search in the mobile environment is conducted. In order to achieve this goal, it is important to seek the advantages that are found with Google business listing.

Once again the lessons of search engine optimization can be implemented, when individuals are looking to maximize the potential that exists with searches, regarding mobile devices. While there may be conventional search opportunities that are involved with search engines through a mobile device, there are greater opportunities found with utilizing the various applications that are available with these devices. When a person conducts a search for a specific business, in order to get name, address, and phone number of local locations, how will mobile devices recognize your business? By taking advantage of a resource, such as a Google business listing service, you will be able to accelerate your own efforts to take advantage of this newly generated mobile environment.

While a large number of individuals have occasional access to the Internet at home or in the office, every individual has access to the mobile Internet by utilizing their mobile devices. These devices are constantly carried on them, regardless of where they go, so this environment is always available for consumers take advantage of. The sudden development of this convenient market makes it crucial that a business utilize a Google business listing, in order to incorporate this new marketing strategy into their business plans.…

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How Internet Can Boost Your Profitability

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Profitability
In recent months we have witnessed a number of high profile bankruptcies amongst high street retailers. Online shops on the internet have been blamed as the culprit. The fast growing ecommerce industry has brought stiff competition to the high street retailers, who now not only have to compete with other high street retailers but also virtual sellers from around the world, including ultra low cost suppliers from opposite end of the world such as China and India, who offer free or fast delivery to anywhere in the world.

These online sellers are taking businesses away from high street retailers because they can offer the same products to the consumers at much lower prices. They are able to do this because the cost of doing business online is so much lower. The absence of physical store and shop assistants means they can operate without expensive rents, utilities and wage costs. An online shop is accessible anywhere in the world, which gives them access to much bigger customer pools so they can better benefit from economies of scale.

Instead of treating ecommerce as the enemy, traditional retailers should embrace it and think how it can contribute to their own bottom line. The answer is simple. Anyone can set up a website and it doesn’t cost much money to do so. Once your products are online consumers outside of your local market will be able to buy them too. Just think how much bigger your potential market has become. You do not need to hire any shop assistants to attend your online shop and you do not need to pay rent. Therefore any online sales should go straight to your bottom line.

The fact that your online shop can be accessed anywhere in the world, there is plenty of room to expand your existing customer base and grow your top line. Greater sales volume means you can order more from your suppliers and negotiate for lower prices. You can utilize the greater economies of scale to lower the operating cost per order.

As you generate more and more of your orders online, which carry higher profit margins, the overall profitability margin for your business will improve. By diversifying your operation online, you have also reduced your business’s risks by protecting it against sudden shocks to your physical shop such as staff sickness, road works, riots and protests. Should something happen to your physical shop, your sales will continue online thus minimizing any adverse impact on your business.…

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How Productive is Your Business Concerns?

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Business
Why did the businesses fail to yield their expected profits? There is possibly many reasons running through your brain now, but they are based on circumstances. For instance, the enterprises could have been unsuccessful because of inflation or mismanagement of funds.

How about putting in the assumptions of fair production costs, good management skills, price stability and many other incentives, the reason is dated back to the time of starting the business. Before executing a business idea there are many influential factors that an entrepreneur has to consider;

-Honestly examining his strengths and abilities – This constitutes testing your abilities to be sure that they are purely able to take up the operations of the business. He should also check his financial abilities as well as establishing financial stands by which he will be able to start and operate his business.

-Having complete knowledge of the product or service to be provided – Knowledge of the product would enhance confidence in the business person while explaining to his customers about it. It would also be useful in solving problems that may attack the nature of the product, such as a product becoming stale due to unfair weather conditions. An entrepreneur can gain information about the product from data sources such as business journals, internet or even opt to employ a specialist in the product production to enable him understand the product.

-Evaluating the market of the product or service – Identifying the market trends and consumer patterns of the product. The performance of the product in the market would help predict the performance of the potential business in providing the product. In addition, pay attention to the customer regards of the product. This will help decide how the product has to be produced and provided uniquely with the aim of satisfying needs of the customers.

-Identify the similar businesses that have been successful for a reasonable period of time – Taking time to assess them would give reliable knowledge of; how to run such a business venture successfully, risks involved and ways of managing those risks so as to enable the business proceed perpetually.

-Identify the skills and training required – An individual should have all the skills and experience needed in running the business. In case he lacks any of them he should strive to acquire them. These expertise would contribute to the competence of the business since it is run by a specialized technical manager.

-Assessing the Returns on Investment of the business venture – This is identifying the possible amount of profits of the particular business compared to other business opportunities encountered. In other words comparing its profitability with the other opportunities.

Performing all the above steps basing on a business idea would enable the potential entrepreneur to be assured whether the business would be viable or not viable…

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4 Easy Ways to Promote Your New Business

Posted on by Bella E. Hussain

Business
You did it. You finally started that solo business venture that you’ve always wanted. No more 9 to 5 for you. You’re on your own. A fresh start. So, now that you’ve broke free from the cubicle, and are finished with punching a time clock, you’ve got to get the word out about your venture. You’ve got to drive traffic to your business, whether it be online, or off.

So what do you do to drive this traffic, especially if you have limited startup funds? How can you get the word out effectively, without breaking your bank, and potentially putting your new business in jeopardy before it even gets off the ground? Here are 4 easy ways to inexpensively promote your business, and drive that much needed traffic to your new solo venture.

1. Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per click advertising is a great way to inexpensively promote your business. The two best places to place small ads on the search engines are Google Ads and Bing Ads (Bing Ads being less expensive, but has about 1/3rd of the search traffic). With both of these systems, you can easily place your ads using a daily or monthly budget you are comfortable with – you are in complete control of how much you spend, and on exactly where your ads are targeted. You can get the word out over the web, at a comfortable cost.

2. YouTube

Use YouTube to get the word out about your venture to the millions of searchers that hit the site every month. First, shoot or make a video presentation about your business (the content of which, I’ll leave up to you). Using effective keyword research, ‘tag’ your video with the best and most effective keywords and phrases that people are looking for. Once your video is up and running on the site, you will be getting ‘hits’, and thus, passive promotion of your business while you’re busy doing other things. This method of promotion, along with the Pay Per Click mentioned above, are very effective “set it and forget it methods” of promotion.

3. Offline Ads

Placing ads in appropriate newspapers, weeklies, periodicals, magazines, etc, does not have to break the bank. There are very reasonable sites out there that will pace your ad in a variety of locations, to wide array of readers, depending on your budget. My suggestion is to find an appropriate local area paper, and try a few different types of ads (not necessarily at the same time, of course). As one ad works more effectively to drive traffic to your business, then expand that ad’s reach by getting it published in a wider, more encompassing array of daily/weekly papers.

4. Article Marketing

As a budding entrepreneur, you may very well have an abundance of expertise in a certain area. Why not write about it? Using your specific knowledge to write articles in your area of expertise, you can accomplish two fold. You will create a library of knowledge for readers to use as a reference, which gives you yet another vehicle to use in promoting your venture. You will also have direct links to your business in the article, driving traffic directly to your venture. And again, as previously mentioned, this is another system where you can “set it and forget it”. Your only input with this method of promotion is to create more articles/content.

So, there you have it. These four simple methods of promotion can not only be low cost, but are extremely effective in enabling you to “work smarter, not harder”. Using these methods to “set it and forget it”, you can smartly set up your promotion and advertising, using a budget that is appropriate for your business, and leave yourself free to build your brand, spend more time with your friends and family, or the opportunity to expand your business, and bring it to the next level.…

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