Style of Business - Page 14

Small Business App Productivity Alert: HanDbase

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This is one app that is truly a “go to for all types of business tasks” app with tons of functionality and practical use rolled into it. It has been used by many for patient tracking and development, project management, time and billing, and field surveys for those laying down the perfect structure and development. This is basically THE database app to have, with many variations and excellent features in its arsenal. We’ve heard that simply running reports on this baby is a process that can take you to the next level in productivity standalone.

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Marketer’s Slice of Hand-held Heaven: the Lumen Pocket Projector

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This is one gadget that takes up so little space in carry on you won’t even know it’s there; but when you pull it out in the conference room to project your pitch, you sure will. It connects to smartphones, tablets, video players and cameras, and has input options for 1080p and 1080i, making it a high def powerhouse. You have the ability to project very digitally sharp images on up to 80” diagonal screens, and really wow the audience. Years ago when the device itself to project was so much larger, it started many potentially great product demos on the wrong foot, and this professional gadget will wow any client or provide great entertainment for you while on the road.

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Exquisite Carry on Luggage Experience: the Alpha 2 by Tumi

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Alpha2_duffel This large wheeled split duffel is absolutely a product of this high end brand’s commitment to making the best better. This brand features complimentary monogramming, an immaculately sleek appearance, and superior craftsmanship. The damage proof handle system, stellar custom design and accessible shape appeal to any traveler. Whether it’s the beach, slopes, or business jaunt to the next city over, the Alpha 2 is one fine choice for the taking. It’s always nice to know you’ll arrive with your goods intact and looking top notch to boot.

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The Globe Trotting Traveler’s Business musts: Tumi Ultra Slim Adapter Kit

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The ten adapter tips that come with this little entourage are what really pack a punch. When you are on the go in Singapore, New York, Hong Kong or Athens, the 120v AC adapter with the air connector cable will keep all your accessories purring and ready. The real selling point in this kit is all of the tips included, so you aren’t without anything you need to get through your haul through the time zones. There’s nothing quite like reaching your destination and being drained or on empty, and this array of prongs and prolific electronic juice will prevent you from the chronic “arrival without enough charge” meltdown.

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Cashing in on Your God Given Talents; Making A Lifestyle of What You Love

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Itching to do what really makes you tick

There are a lot of people out there who know by all means what they want to do with their life when they are very young children. The question asked to many of what they really want to be when they grow up resonates with us forever, and we may change our minds many times along the way. Some people think that athletes have it really easy, and are jealous of their success. But if you participated in a rigorous training session with a high paid athlete, you could change your tune. They absolutely love what they do, but their dedication level is staggering. When many people are young, they may feel they have a knack to be a doctor, or a scientist, or teacher. But along the way you can encounter obstacles, difficulties these days with student loans, and the world can move right underneath your feet. For better or for worse, it can show you not only your priorities, but the things you really love to do most and you may have to face questions of how much you are willing to sacrifice.

What level of compromise do you accept?

One statement that has been said in the marketing realm before is that “everyone is just crabs pulling each other down, and a few crabs or squids get out of the bucket and do something big”. This was in relation to writing a book, starting a profitable company, or finding a way to escape the rat race. Think of this modern day scenario: a couple has a child, mortgage, and other bills, and decides to start a tax preparation business. They engage fully in the venture, and are able to pay their expenses and continue a happy life together. But they realize that crunching the numbers, dealing with the quarterly filings, and occasional abusive client is making them miserable. It’s a very hard rut to be stuck in, because the need to pay monthly expenses is dire, but they are not really doing their life’s work, or their calling. Many record store owners went through a tough time when media became more digital, having to lose the storefronts and space that they loved, but were able to reinvent themselves in the online world.

The steps to optimizing your gifts in the long run

One commenter on a marketing blog stated that “Just liking or enjoying something isn’t enough to commit to the true passion level”. We see a lot of people involved in fitness, running, rock climbing, and novelists really have to persevere to get themselves to the finish line. What they define as happiness and success is what governs them; the number of hours put in does not have to burn you out. To really optimize your gift and how you want it to work for you, the hurdles in your way may make you squeamish, but a true talent will get you through the hardest of times. Forming an alliance with other marketers or niche products is a great first step, as well as keeping up to date with your passion by articles and more market research.

A talent like music is so deeply layered, with first steps to maximize your gifts wondering if you want to stay solo, collaborate, do original music, or just covers. With multiple social media outlets your passion may have to run high to cover your content across all of them, and stay fresh. The content and product kings right now definitely cover the culinary and travel adventure world quite well; However there is a lot of room left in the cooking field. As a marketer I really loved the segment in the film “Up in the Air” that talks about your true passion. George Clooney is laying off a worker from an office job, and asks him what his true passion was years ago before the pressure of paying bills seeped in. He admits that he would love to run a restaurant, and Clooney gently talks him into it.

One Final note

If talking to people and reaching out is your strength, an extra bravo to you! Go to all the local trade shows, business meetings, and partner-ups you can find locally, for you will stand out. Don’t be eager about the bottom line and exactly what is at stake, just be yourself and form powerful friendships with others in business. When you reach out and do a favor for someone else locally or nationally, they will be eager to see exactly what your passions are and what drove you into your business; and someday the favor could come back in the form of much higher reach or success.

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The Success of Alive Shoes and How You Can Incorporate Their Strategies

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The brand and what users love about it

For years, brands like Vans have had “design your own” fortes and features, and have come close to what Alive is succeeding at right now. The model in question is a low-cut blue leather top shoe named after a French woman in her twenties who thought that a bare-bones approach and a young-looking product were going to appeal to users who also loved to try their hand at the design process from the comfort of their laptop. She sold 15 pairs in less than two weeks by using Facebook, flyers, and personal emails to her contacts convincing them it was a great product and spreading the quirky vibe of organic influence she wanted to cultivate. The fact that there are over two million design elements and 30 colors to choose from appealed to users right away, and customers loved being able to even choose their packaging. Having customers create their brand page was a step towards not just getting your pair, but having a share in post-design revenue.

Quality of craft and crew

Artisans in Italy have been known forever as experts, and true craftsfolk that have given us brands like Aldo, Santoni, and Gucci. Thought of as luxurious and post-Renaissance cultivators, This was a top-notch region to pick the people that would create the wares of the new brand. Kenneth Cole designed iconic pieces to wear like the leather Oxford, the Upscale Loafer, and their wingtip having an incredibly rich flair and luster; and Alive was well directed in choosing “The boot” of creativity as their construction base. When users joined and saw that they could design pretty much an entire shoe collection in just a few days, it became evident that anyone who had the desire to create could do so without too much of a headache. Having the means in place to produce the visual design, ship out the finished product once enough users wanted it, and provide good customer service moved Alive up the ladder in Beta stages as well. If a new user just wants their shoe, only having 7 pre-orders is reasonable, as soon as your creative flair kicks in and you get others who embrace your design.


Modeling your idea after Alive’s voracity

It could be said that not every single business model involves a design of your template, and some are for straight profit and subscribership results. But a few very dynamic ideas come across to the marketer from Alive’s success. One was having a very user-friendly dashboard that you could log in and see information about your design while it was in process. The developers already had fixed prices for the shoes, which helped alleviate dissatisfaction among customers who may not understand the discrepancies in the worldwide market. As soon as a project was ready, you could still revert to a draft to fix it, a key element in making all of the users happy for a long time. Payment is by Paypal or Bank check, and a complete sales campaign is easy to achieve, after 7 units. In their haste to be cautious, other startups in this same genre created a lot of hoops to jump through in the design approval process, shutting some beginners out in their efforts to be streamlined.

One of the biggest faults of current-day businesses is their ability to adapt to what a customer wants. With the fear of the bottom line and revenue driving every move, many business models quickly become inept by not allowing the final step to happen, or the creation of the merchandise. Especially in the publishing realm, copyright, and true user property were scrutinized and several design-your-own template models failed. The simplicity of the premium account was also a plus for Alive, as with the purchase of one, you bypass the other campaign rules. With partners like the Dutch Shoe Academy and Startupbootcamp, the brand is a stimulating portal to even use as a model in a marketing class or teaching medium. It is not a surprise that users love the interface, medium, and message; and a lot can be learned from Alive’s innovative design and follow-through of the product.

For more information visit Aliveshoes.com

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REMOTE: Office Not Required; Fostering Team Work + Productivity

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remote_book Another great business resource from the Founders of 37Signals, Remote: Office Not Required offers sound advice and strategies for utilizing the skills of remote workers. With an increase in freelance and consulting opportunities (mainly due to the Internet), this book highlights how remote work encourages unity and how to get the best quality work out of your team. More importantly, it offers ideas on how companies and business owners can wedge into the practice of hiring remote.

While it may be impossible for some industries to implement the practice, industries like design + coding, marketing, business + finance, advertising, music + film, healthcare and fitness can certainly benefit  (some already are) from hiring talented individuals not located in their immediate area. The thought of lower overhead and less distractions are well worth a second thought, especially when you find the right talent.

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Great books for Marketers 2014: “Inbound Marketing; Get Found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs”

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This awesome book by Dharmesh Shah really nails down well the principle that reeling your customer IN instead of wasting so much effort putting together a message to push OUT is the way to go in this economy where technological awe is the norm. Improving your rankings in Google, getting more traffic with your own or outsourced writing, and using social media sites like Twitter and Pinterest are going to be mandatory skills forever now. The rules have changed so much that most businesses who don’t follow them will be lost trying the old fashioned, outbound methods. This book on getting found will fast forward you to productivity and show you the ropes on ways to get customers to find your products that are truly revolutionary.

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Inspiration from the presses: 10 ways to winning in 2014 from HuffPo

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Packed with great inspiration about the JOBS act, a “fearing Goliath” introspective and a “Breaking Bad” comparison, there are also a lot of short rules to live by and think about when starting or mastering a business here. Pretty inspiring copy about tightening of budgets, strategizing under the gun, and places to gain inspiration from, it’s above par for the standard list format and commands a strong work ethic and performance of the reader to succeed. The extra about digital detox and time away is also a great point to ponder in the current climate, and realize where your most important and rejuvenating time is spent.

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Creating a sense of Urgency for Your Product; making sure the Purchase is prompt

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Why the rush?

In any climate, there will always be a desire to get the customer to want to buy the product offered quickly. Your main objective as someone who is offering a product is to create urgency to purchase so the desire does not go away. One thing that cannot be stressed enough is the amount to which consumers are bombarded! You may be offering something that is of complete relevance, and even on the verge of trendy (a great attribute), but if the buyer decides to procrastinate, they may forget they were going to make the purchase altogether. If what you are offering is of true quality, there are most likely buyers out there that are ready, but are just dragging their feet.

Marketing genius Zig Zigler even said once that “no hurry” was one of the tragic downfalls (or obstacles) hindering a great product’s sales results. Once a certain window of time filters its way through the sand dial, you may be headed down the wrong path to create emotion. One statistic that is incredibly relevant as far as the online realm is that 55% of all local searches are done with intent to buy. Therefore if you are in the business of having a purchase portal or shop online, it is always a great marketing move to give incentive to the first respondents, and lay the objective out well as a reward or freebie. In this age of hurried customers, it is always going to be beneficial to have proper search engine optimization as well, to be on the first page of search engines for the 55% of those shoppers who ARE ready to buy.

Some of the best Ways to create sought-after urgency

Finding out what really ails, or pains, your prospect is of grave importance. Whether it happens through demographic research, even taking note of comments on blogs, or seeing where your competitors are taking strides, you’ll be thankful when you master this task. It seems that only in the medical provisions or health fields that you would take to this practice, but one must look deeper. Areas like grocery stores, fashion, and auto manufacturing can all benefit from finding out what ails and pains your prospect; whether it’s long lines, lack of compassion, or poor customer service. One marketing guru on his blog tells us that “If you take fifty prospects at any given time, only one of them a month is really ready to buy”. Now, that may sound extreme, but people have a lot of different avenues that their money trickles down to.

Fear of loss as a motivator can work for you, although it may not be the same as the old trick of simply stating you have “limited supplies”. This is where you may use your advertising medium to ask the prospect questions, such as if they could live without certain amenities or durable goods. Using urgency on the day your product actually launches is also of incredibly high value in the marketing realm. It can be difficult to track results without metric software (and quite a bit of luck), but there are also tier sets of urgency that work well with restaurants, vacation destinations, or even merchandise like t shirts. You can state that the first ten buyers get the product at one price, the next 15 at another price, etc.

One thing that most buyers know is that they do not want an infomercial barking at them and making the sense of urgency so dire that it deafens any other of their senses. Yes, it can be done effectively, but digital marketing and of course tactics like Pinterest campaigns with colorful infographics are more appealing with the savvy users of today. One real challenge these days can also be discerning whether or not you have done something wrong in your campaign and urgency creation, or if you are just dealing with yet another dip in buying confidence.

There are basic fundamentals such as back to school and other seasonal marketing bandwagons that occur, and it is definitely getting harder than ever to gauge where these lines overlap into just sheer luck and consumer splurging. Although the infomercials of yesterday can be a rough guideline to creating a sense of urgency, there are plenty of mediums to do so. Once you can accomplish them proficiently, you will see an immediate reward; in the form of coveted (and potentially repeat) new revenue.

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