BizMark Tech: Small Business for Beginners

How do you stand out? What sets you apart from the rest? How is your business getting noticed?

Look, up in the sky, it’s…it’s….is that Mickey Mouse?

If you’re in Walt Disney World, you may happen to catch a glimpse of cloud shaped Mickey Mouse heads. In fact, pretty soon, you may start seeing other corporate logos in the sky, in cloud shaped forms.

In an interesting story, Francisco Guerra has created a way to float shaped clouds, up to 4 feet in size. Walt Disney World will be trying it out with some Mickey heads. What’s next?

Clever marketing is one thing people look for. Creative new ways to capture your attention and get their brand out there is golden.

What do you think about this new idea?

That’s what people want to know. They don’t care about the fancy new equipment you have, they don’t care that you’ve been in business for 80 years, and they don’t care if it’s your birthday next week.

It’s a simple lesson. People want to know how your business will benefit THEM.

Listing your great features is all and well, but the focus is on the customer. They want to know how your business or service will benefit them.

Lesson #1: Always list your benefits before your features.
Lesson #2: Omit needless words. Don’t take 200 words to say what you could say in 50. Get to the point!

Now, ask yourself, what benefits can you offer your customers?

I was flying home from Florida this past Sunday, and as the flight attendant made her way around with the beverage cart, something interesting happened…

I got sprayed with soda, as she opened a can and it started shooting out soda.

The flight attendant was completely unaware that three passengers were sprayed. She was so focused on the one person she saw it happen to, she didn’t ask anyone else if they needed a napkin or cloth, or if they’d gotten wet.

Both my sister and I got sprayed as well. The flight attendant focused on the aisle seat person, and didn’t even consider others may have gotten sprayed.

Now, my sister and I are laid back people, so we could do one of two things…say, excuse me, do you have a napkin, I got sprayed as well. We also could have just wiped up the splatter with what we had handy, which is what we did. We didn’t make a scene (it was obviously an accident), we just cleaned up quietly and simply. It wasn’t a huge deal, it was an accident, and while I got sprayed in the face, it didn’t get in my eyes or anything! I was at the window seat!

The lesson here is that, just because you see it happen to one person, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen to three people.

If you’re so focused on that person, that’s fine. You could also make a small statement to others, “Did anyone else get wet? Does anybody else need a napkin?”

It’s a simple story, but one that you can apply to your business. How’s your peripheral vision when it comes to your business? Can you only see one thing at a time, or are you looking at the full picture?

Continuing education and training is something that will always hold value to your business. Whether it’s learning new management tactics, learning more about potential growth in new areas, or getting your employers certified with training programs.

One program you may be interested in learning more about is over at QuickCert.com. IT certification is well worth the investment of time. You can get a list of available courses at their website, along with checking out their courses for free. They have a special pricing contact form, so make sure you fill it out to see what good deals you can get for employee training.

You’ll find MCSE Training, MOS, Vista, MCTS and more. Check out their full menu at their site.

They offer self-study courses, which are instructor led. What this means is that the course is solid, strong and the employee can follow at their own pace. With hands on exercises, students apply what they learn, which makes that learning stick.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is, they guarantee you’ll pass, or they’ll give you your money back! That’s confidence, but when you have a good product, it’s easy! If you’d like to learn more about the available IT certification programs, check out QuickCert.com.

It’s all perspective baby, let’s take a peek…

You’re 16 or 17 and you decide you want to be a lawyer, because you’ll make some big bucks. You’re now in practice, but you don’t love what you do. Would it be crazy to change careers after all that time?

Ask yourself something: as a 30 or 40 year old person, if you needed advice on a career, would you consult with a 17 year old? Of course not, but that’s what you did in a sense. As a teenager, you decided your career. It’s okay to change your mind. Imagine that!

Just because it’s what you chose to do when you were younger doesn’t mean your stuck doing it for the rest of your life. If you’re 40, and you decide to become a teacher, you get some more schooling behind you, and you’ve now got a 20 year career in front of you.

Don’t do it just because…do it because you love to, or want to! It’s your life, and you only get one go at life. Change can be scary, but it can also be extremely rewarding!

You’re creating a website or blog for your company, and now you’re stuck for material to write about. Where do you turn? There are article directories on the web that offer you free content for your site.

One site which does it a little differently lets you subscribe to an actual feed of articles. You can either choose a general feed, or a more topic specific feed. One you add in the feed, fresh content is automatically generated on your site! Now you have fresh, relevant content, and you can get back to the business of your business!

If you’d like to see a sample of the article quality, here’s one on a Video Graphics Adapter to get you started. Go check this article out, and see for yourself that using feeds, and articles for your site can help you keep good quality content fresh on your own site.

While there are many article directories on the net, the article above I used for a sample is from www.Web-Articles.info. This particular site has over 1300 articles to choose from, so you’re sure to find something you can use!

You can’t force someone to be loyal to your business. It doesn’t work that way!
What you can do, is let them know you value them as a client. Let them know that you appreciate their business, and that you have vested interest in them. If a client or customer feels that they are important or appreciated, they will be returning over and over again.

Not only that, but word of mouth will bring you future possible clients!

Let me give you an example; my trainer has gone out of her way to do something that helps me. She’s shown me that she values me as a client, and that she wants not just my business, but my health to improve from our work together. Going that extra mile means I’m going to stay there, because when someone feels valued, it gives them good feelings.

In return, I’m spreading the word that this is a trainer who truly cares about her clients. She isn’t just in it for the money. While her business prospers, she shows a genuine interest in her clients.

Take that extra step to let your customers know they are important to your business, and they’ll become loyal customers too.

Send handwritten thank you notes, offer something extra, or ask them how they are doing, and actually LISTEN to their response, letting them know you heard what they said.

It seems so simple…that’s because it is.

Most companies are in business to make money; almost every business I know is. Sure there may be one or two out there with other goals, but at the end of the day, businesses want to succeed and that means making money.

One surefire guaranteed way to increase sales is by working with qualified leads. It saves you time and effort when you have a list of qualified sales clients led to you. How do you go about getting sales leads? You find a company that does lead generation work. Don’t find just any company, find a company that cares about quality. You can’t rely on big lists that waste your time, you need up to date, qualified lead lists.

Who do you turn to? Lead Dogs is a great place to start. Microsoft, Orbitz and Adobe trust their business with Lead Dogs. That speaks volumes to me; what about you? These are large, successful companies that are blazing trails. If they trust Lead Dogs, maybe I can too!

I went out to lunch with my sister on Friday. The host who seated us wanted to be anywhere but at work that day; it was obvious.

In fact, when we sat down we said, “There’s someone thrilled with their job.” Seriously, could they have been any more unhappy, annoyed to be at work, and showing all their customers?

Yikes, they are representing their company, and our first impression of the new restaurant we tried hadn’t started out so great. Here we are, giving a new business (maybe yours) a try, and the first experience we have is someone basically throwing menus at a table, not being pleasant, and seemingly almost pissed off that they have to seat people.

What if that was your business? Yeah, I’d be upset too!

If people can’t represent your company as you’d like them to, you don’t want them working for you! He’s not doing that restaurant any favors. Bad day or not, problems in his life or not, if he can’t be professional enough to put it aside, and be pleasant to customers, he doesn’t need to work there.

How are your employees representing you?