How to avoid the top 5 mistakes most business owners make

This video shares the top 5 mistakes many small business owners make, and gives clear guidance on how to avoid them. It has very concise and helpful solutions to several common problems facing small business owners. It includes basic (but often ignored) advice, like pointing out that the owner should not be working in the business; they should be working on the business. Many of the solutions are heavily geared toward customer satisfaction and customer input, which are essential to growing any business, and crucial to successful marketing efforts. It offers many suggestions on how to further engage customers with the business.

Most of these mistakes and solutions mentioned in the video are related to the marketing of the business, since many small business owners struggle with marketing. The video gives not only solutions to common marketing mistakes, but discusses examples of how those solutions may be implemented. For example, many business owners try to do their own marketing, but marketing isn't their area of expertise, and they struggle to create an effective approach that includes multiple marketing channels. The solution is to hire a company, a vendor, or an employee who is an expert in that area, so that the business marketing endeavors are more effective and have a greater impact. 


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Tips for Helping an Angry Customer

Knowing how to treat an angry customer can have an impact on your business as it’s highly likely that you’ll have to deal with them.  Ignoring them or being intimidated by them is not going to help you or the customer and so you need to learn the necessary tactics to deal with the situation.

One of the first things that you will need to do is apologize to the customer.  This is whether or not you think you were wrong.  Doing this will make the angry customer feel as though you heard and understood them.  Be diplomatic by letting them know that you see the situation has made them angry but you are willing to work to get to the bottom of the situation.  From here on you will then need to address you customer generally without emotion.  This will help to prevent you from becoming emotionally involved and either getting upset yourself or angering the persons even more. If you do this, you are basically forcing the customer to calm down.

If the customer is still upset, you may want to ask if you did anything personally to upset the customer.  Even though you know you haven’t, asking this question should help the customer to stop and start listening to you.  The next thing you want to do is show empathy which helps to show the customer that you understand and care.   It will also help you to see the problem from the customer’s side of view.  Finally let the customer see that you appreciate their feedback.  This method works because you are responding with kindness which is something the angry customer will never expect.

click here to watch Howto Help An Angry Customer

Drawing the Line for Cost of Services Offered

There are various things that you can expect to happen in a business and those clients that want your service for free is one of them.  Knowing what to do in these circumstances can really help you to act in the heat of the moment.  It may therefore help you to consider the possible scenarios and consider what steps you would take and whether these steps would be advisable.

In the clip three different scenarios are being played out, there is a couple at an obviously high end restaurant wanting to pay a fraction of the price for their meal.  There is a lady at the hair parlor wanting to receive more service than she’s willing to pay for and finally a man at the rental store wanting to rent a video for a fraction of the cost that it is worth.  In the video, it can be clearly seen that in all cases these vendors stood their ground instead of just agreeing with the customer.  They weren’t rude, but were instead professional in letting the client know that they cannot expect to receive their services for free or less than that which is advertised.

It can be seen that in all cases, the customer is not always right.  It is important for an individual to draw the line at some point, and it would help to do this before being in the situation.  This would help a person to be confident in their action and to stand their ground.  As it can be seen, the vendors decided not to enter into negotiations with the clients.  Instead they firmly restated what is being advertised unconsciously letting the customers know that they either take the service or leave.

click here to watch Whenthe Customer is Wrong

Steve Jobs Managing Employees at Apple

In the business world you have to interact with people, whether it is the people you work with or the people you serve.  How you treat the people you work with will eventually affect the people to whom you offer your services.  The late Steve Jobs in an interview took some time to share how the famous Apple is organized. 

At Apple there are apparently no committees, instead you have individuals who are in charge of different areas.  When Steve Jobs use to sit down to have meetings with his workers he met with a team of workers instead of a committee.  This is was able to do because he trusted those whom he worked with.  He also didn’t always have the final say as he wasn’t always right and accepted that. 

While his mode of operation may not work for all businesses, there are defiantly a few pointers that all businesses could benefit from.  As he suggested, if you trust the persons you work with, it will save you the time of having to look over their shoulders at all time to see if they are both doing the job and a good job.  It would mean that you would have to choose good workers to begin with.  In addition, you have to accept that the persons with whom you work may have a contribution that is stronger and better than yours.  As the manager, this doesn’t make your say less.  It is accepting this that will make you great.

click here to watch Managementat Apple

Two Necessary Ingredients for Success

No one starts a business to fail.  Anyone starting or managing a business is hoping that it will one day rise to the top.  In order for this to happen, Steve Jobs believes that a few things are need.  In a short clip he speaks about two in particular.  These are a love for that which you are working on and the ability to identify good talent.

When managing or in the initial stages of a business or even an idea, there are going to be trying times; times when you feel like quitting or giving up.  Without a natural love for that which you are doing, you are going to quit and not see the thing to the end.  It is a natural love for that which you are working on that will allow you to stick around and still fight even when things are beginning to get crazy.

In order to be successful, you are going to need persons to work with you.  No doubt you are going to want the best persons around.  These are persons who are not only able to perform, but who have the ability to be taught and taken to another level of performance.  The thing is when choosing persons you are just with them for a couple of minutes in an interview.  Hence you will need to develop the ability to quickly spot talent that can be developed and enhanced.

According to the late Steve Jobs with these elements, you should be on your way to success.

click here to watch KeyElements of Success

Blendtec Superior to the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3

So many persons sit on edge waiting for the latest smart phone to be released just to be first in line to make a purchase.  Of course no one going through all that trouble is going to consider harming the phone much less blending it.  Well Blendtec is proving to everyone that their blenders are a cut above the rest as they are able to blend any and everything.

Blendtec hosts the YouTube series ‘Will it Blend?’ and have been blending gadgets for years now.  Just about nothing is spared.  iPads have been blended, iphones, Samsung galaxies, nokias, even cubic zirconium has been blended.  In all cases, the material being blended was reduced to powder.  So far, nothing has been able to withstand the power of BlendTec blenders.  With results like these it should be obvious that these blenders would work just fine in the kitchen, and that is exactly what Blendtec is trying to let us see.

Due to the popularity developed via BlendTec YouTube series, the company’s online profile has actually improved.  Most of these videos have garnered many followers boosting the company’s profits.  This company has really benefited from putting their name out there and showing the public just what their product is able to do.  The company also markets other products and all their ‘Will it Blend?’ videos from the beginning can be found online.

click here watch iPhone5 and Galaxy S3 No Match for Blendtec

Dollar Save Club Shippers of Great Blades

The Dollar Save Club is today seemingly very successful with its many subscribers.  However, it didn’t start that way, even though it offers customers a very good deal.  Its big break came after uploading a video to YouTube that hit off with a bang almost immediately.  So big was the impact that the number of persons who visited the company’s website as a result of the video ended up crashing the website within the first hour. 

  Of course this was solved quickly.  Today, because of the success of that video they are now able to employ 24 persons full time with hopes of expanding to more products.

The video shows the founder of the company Michael Dublin walking through a warehouse and encouraging men to subscribe to his company for as a little as a dollar a month.  In return they are promised good quality razors delivered at their doors.  While he walks through he also saying and doing silly things which make the video funny and interesting to watch.  This video was successful as it had a very good concept, was short to the point and funny.  It sold the company’s product in a good way and what the company had to offer a lot of people wanted. 

It’s interesting to note that it was this video that gave him the exposure he needed.  In managing business, it is important that an individual realizes the avenues that are required to make them known to the public.  In addition, one also needs to assess their product and market it in a way that the masses will enjoy.

click here to watch No More Wasting Time To Purchase Razors at the Store

Ways to Earn Cash Online

Jobs are scarce and times are hard, but you can use the internet to make some money.  There are many benefits to doing this, like not having to physically get up, get dressed and go to work.  Actually you could even use this method if you already have a job but are looking for a way to supplement your income.

Five ways of making money online have been tested and proven and so you may want to consider one or all five.  You could make a website and not to worry even if you are not a technical person, there are ways to go around this.  One of the easiest things to do is to have a blog.  You could also make a forum, this way there would be more interaction with your audience.  Once this is in place you could now link with Google Adsense to include ads on your website to make money.

There’s also the option of gambling.  This may not be the best advice but it is an option.  However, if you do choose this option be sure to choose sites which are connected to casinos as here you’ll mostly find people playing poker with money but for the fun of it.  The popular poker website is where the pros will play.  You could also choose to gamble by betting on sports.  If none of these are working out for you, let your old stuff make money for you by selling them on eBay.  You’ll be surprised by the stuff people choose to buy.  Also consider having a YouTube account and uploading videos.  These could be tutorials or just something on an interesting topic.  Finally, you could also sell iPhone apps.  Again, even if you are not a technical person there is an easy an affordable way to have your app made.

click here to watch Proven Ways to Make Money Online

Happy Customers Are Always Good for Business

Happy customers are good for business as they normally end up being loyal customers.  Coca-Cola seemingly logged on to this when they decided to place a happiness machine on a college campus.  The machine looked like a normal vending machine but it was far from that.  As the students went to purchase their bottle of Coke other surprises would follow. 

 The surprises were not limited to anything in particular.  As a result, students were receiving free cokes, free pizza, and even oversized sandwiches.  Some even got bouquets of flowers to put a lasting smile on their face.  

The machine did serve its purpose as just about everyone that came to purchase a Coke left smiling or laughing.  What’s amazing is that the joy and happiness wasn’t just experience by the person making the purchase but also by other persons in the room.  Some of the persons watching also got some of the free gifts or just sheer joy from seeing the look and reaction of those who were receiving these gifts.  Overall it can definitely be said that the machine accomplished what it was set out to do.

This tactic played by Coca-Cola is definitely going to profit them in the future.  After having such an impact on these college students one can expect them to be loyal customers probably for the rest of their lives.  Good move Coca-Cola.  Keep the smiles and laugher going!

click here to watch Happiness Machine from CoCa-Cola