7 Habits of Business Success

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The elusive dream of business success captures the imagination of aspiring and existing business owners everywhere. A vision of flowing profits, industry respect, thrilled customers, and a balanced life. This vision is only possible by developing habits that drive business success. Take the time to learn the 7 habits of business success.

The 7 Habits of Business Success

Habit 1. Cultivate Inner Networks: Entrepreneurs practicing the art of business success know the power of networks. They take the time to identify and build relationships with key peers, mentors, and advisors. This inner network provides support, direction, and an increased number of people to assist. Having an inner network of 5 people who have a network of 5 more, grows the network exponentially.

Habit 2. Customer Centric: Business success requires an unwavering commitment to the customer. This commitment encompasses a mindset of understanding the customers' world. Understanding the customers wants and needs provides the business with a greater opportunity to earn a loyal customer base. Focus away from business and profits, and toward what you can do to improve the life of your customers.

Habit 3. Humble Honesty: Business success requires the ability to know your strengths and weaknesses. Being open and honest about yourself and your business creates growth as an individual and as a company. Don't spend time developing weaknesses. Find help for weak areas, enabling you to focus on strengths. In the book, "Now, Discover Your Strengths", Gallup Organization reveals that building our strengths instead of fixing our weakness is the path to mastery and success. Take the time to know yourself and business.

Habit 4. Adaptability: Business success requires the ability to adapt to changing situations. Nothing ever goes as planned. The world of business is full of surprises and unforeseen events. Using the habit of adaptability allows business owners to respond to circumstances with the ability to change course and act without complete information. Being flexible allows us to respond to changes without being paralyzed with fear and uncertainty.

Habit 5. Opportunity Focused: Problems are a regular part of business life. Staff issues, customer misunderstandings, cash crunches- the list is endless. To achieve business success, look at both sides of the coin. Every problem has an opportunity. Being opportunity focused makes the game of business fun and energizing.

Habit 6. Finding A Better Way: Productivity is the cornerstone of business success. Formulate the habit of finding a better way to make your business more productive. This will create more time to focus on the critical issues that drive sales and profit. Productivity can be enhanced by technology, automation, outsourcing, and improving business processes.

Habit 7. Balanced Lifestyle Management: A business can consume an owner's time and energy. It's easy to allow the business to take control of your life. Business success requires the habit of balancing all aspects of your life. Separating time for daily business tasks, profit driven tasks, and free time is a habit that will make your business and life more enjoyable. Take the time to plan each week.

Learning and instilling new habits in your daily business life can have a dramatic effect on your level of success. Review each of the 7 habits. Choose one habit to focus on for a month or until you achieve mastery. Gradually incorporate each of the 7 habits of business success into your life and attain your business dreams.

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What Great Advertising Really Is

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Many business people have a distorted view about the distinction between sales and marketing. The common view looks something like this. "Market by advertising to get your name out there, so that people will be familiar with you when you come knocking on their door to sell your products and services".

And off they go, to promote their company with image advertising that shouts to the world how great they are.

They hope, and they pray that some how, some way, the message about their brand will stick in people's minds. Never knowing if it does, or if it doesn't. Or whether their marketing dollars are paying them back in increased sales.

Some even think that a cutesy jingle, or slogan is enough to get their phones to start ringing.

This all too common approach, is a huge waste of time, and money. Never let an advertising rep tell you any different.

Sales and Marketing are far more alike than most people realize. The sole purpose of marketing, and advertising is to make sales. Full Stop.

If you don't know how many sales dollars your advertising is really bringing in, stop advertising.

Advertising must do much more than just get your name out there. It must educate, qualify, convince, and persuade.

Great Advertising is Nothing Less Than "Salesmanship in Print!"

Think of it as a sales presentation that's geared toward accomplishing a carefully defined objective, whether that objective is the actual sale, or a step toward it.

Most successful campaigns are in fact a series of graduated commitments, leading up to a transaction. It might start with something as simple as an exchange of information. For example, the prospect's name and address, in exchange for some information about solving a problem. That's always a winning formula.

When a prospect takes this step, they are actually qualifying themselves, persuading themselves, and giving you permission to follow up with them, all at the same time. And without any investment in personal selling.

After all, why should you waste your valuable time talking to a prospect that isn't already highly qualified, and predisposed to buying from you?

The key to profitable sales, marketing, and advertising lies in the response. Yet 90% of businesses fail to ask for, and track incremental response in their advertising. The only thing they track are sales, and then wonder why their results are so abysmal.

Why Is Incremental Response So Important?

Because it tells you what you're getting, so you can change what you're giving, until you get what you want.

The majority of people need to be exposed to your value proposition more than once, before opening their wallets anyway. Why not play an active role in the process, and track the response you get to each successive stage of commitment?

Think of a pyramid, with rows of blocks piled one on top of the other. The wider you build each row, the better your chances of getting to the top.

If all of this sounds just too simple, and you don't believe it has the power to line your pockets with all the money you want, think again.

There are millions of businesses out there that just don't get this.

Nobody knows for sure how an individual will react to a given message. But en mass, human nature is as predictable as the hands on a clock. If you broadcast a message, the collective response will consistently come back to you within an amazingly small variance. So measure your response, try things, and repeat. It's that simple.

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Get Your Website to Profit With the Best Affiliate Programs Available

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The Internet is one of the most frequently used tools for communication today. There are over millions of people who log on to the Internet every single day. Besides, with the benefits that the Internet gives, who would not want to be a part of this information superhighway.

With the Internet, you can communicate with your family and friends through emails and instant messengers, you can purchase goods and services without leaving your own home, and the Internet is one of the most promising income generating tools that everyone can use today.

In the past, you needed products or services in order to make money through the Internet. Today however, you can make money through the Internet by using affiliate programs. This program will allow you to make a substantial amount of money out of your website and is a very good home business that you would want to get in to.

First of all, you need to know what an affiliate program is and how it works in order to fully understand how you can make some money out of it. Affiliate programs is like a joint venture where you or your website becomes a partner with another website that have already developed a product or service that they are already selling in the Internet. As a partner, your job is to direct the visitors of your website to your partner website and hope that they will purchase the products or services being offered. Your website will be like the company's marketing arm, among several.

The company you plan on being affiliated to will be providing all the necessary tools that you need in order to start the affiliate program. They will be providing the links, and some companies will provide free e-books on how you can effectively earn from affiliate programs.

The best way to profit from your website through affiliate programs is by promoting your website in the Internet. The key to success in affiliate programs is targeted traffic. This is why you should think of a product or service that you would want to promote and also a product or service that you are knowledgeable about. Think about your hobby. For example, if you like fixing cars, you want an affiliate program that promotes cars, or car parts.

In your website, you will then discuss about your hobby. Make some articles and post it in article publishing websites and also in your own site. Since your affiliate program is selling cars or car parts or even car accessories, the traffic you generate in your website will have a greater chance of clicking the link or banner of your affiliate website and buy from that website. You will then earn a commission out of the sold product.

As you can see, it is very simple to earn money from affiliate programs. However, when you are just starting out in the business of affiliate programs, you have to work hard to establish your reputation as an expert in the product or service you are promoting. The best way to do this is publish your articles about a particular product frequently. This will build your reputation in the Internet and soon, you will get that targeted traffic you have been always wanting. It is also a good idea to update your website once in a while (once a week) with tips and tricks on a particular product.

The best thing about affiliate programs is that you do not have to be in front of your computer 24 hours a day 7 days a week. All you need is a few minutes of checking up in your website and also check out your earnings in your affiliate programs. Always remember to update your website frequently in order to keep your readers and keep them buying from your affiliate website.

Steven Gerber is a professional copywriter & marketing consultant. He is a protege of Dan Lok, the World’s #1 Website Conversion Expert, & in Steven’s totally biased opinion simply THE BEST. You will find the latest internet marketing techniques & tricks at: http://www.websiteconversionexpert.com.
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World's Most Unusual Moving Company

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Shawn Lyons Story

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Rabbit markets itself as an anomaly in an industry with a bad rep, capitalizing on a staff of artistic types, word-of-mouth referrals, and a Web site that posts positive customer testimonials and descriptions of extra services traditional moving companies don't usually offer.

So far, Rabbit's bare-bones sales and marketing strategy—except for maintaining its site, the company spends no money on advertising—is working. Rabbit's founder, former itinerant writer Shawn Lyons, who started the moving company in 2004 for $1,500—the cost of a 1981 Dodge Ram cargo van—estimates revenues will be around $300,000 in 2006. This is up one-third from a year ago. "Originally, I was just going to do the 'man with a van' thing and have time to write," Lyons says.

But about nine months into helping friends move their furniture in his spare time, Lyons decided he was onto something because demand kept increasing. So he pursued the licensing and insurance required by New York City and State and started to build Rabbit into more than just a traditional moving company, carving out a niche with young urban dwellers.

Today Rabbit, apart from making residential and commercial moves within the New York metro area and renting storage space, also offers massages ($80 per hour) and feng shui ($200). Clients normally take advantage of these extras after the move. Moving prices range from $100 an hour to a flat $1,500 for a complicated, labor-intensive move that includes packing.

Toby MacPhearson, a 31-year-old information-technology worker in Manhattan, paid Rabbit about $650 to move from the neighborhood of Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen, and is glad he took advantage of the feng shui service. "I was mostly in it for the practical aspect: It helped me reduce my stress by helping me set up the apartment in a logical manner," says MacPhearson, who has since referred two friends to Rabbit.

Still, Rabbit is a tiny presence in an industry that generates approximately $7 billion a year in revenues and employs an estimated 450,000 workers. David Sparkman, a spokesperson for the American Moving and Storage Assn. (AMSA), an industry advocacy group with 3,400 members, estimates that there are 5,000 to 6,000 mostly small, family-owned moving companies, with just a handful of large van lines.

With so much competition out there, concentrating on a unique group of customers has helped Rabbit establish a strong reputation. Apart from Rabbit's positive plugs in its Web site's testimonials section, sites like Apartmenttherapy.com and Brooklynian.com include posts such as: "Rabbit Movers are awesome. I've used them and passed them on to friends as highly highly recommended."

That seal of approval lends multiple benefits to Rabbit. "The notion of community in an urban setting leads to positive word of mouth, customer loyalty, and branding, and it seems like Rabbit has all of those," says Heidi Neck, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College.

Those who hire Rabbit to help them move shouldn't expect stereotypical movers. "Most of our guys are artists or in some creative field; they're just a really creative bunch," says Lyons, who counts chefs, painters, musicians, and writers ranging in age from 23 to 43 as his employees. "We're trying to move away from the perception of movers being supermacho creeps. Movers kind of have a bad rep in New York, and for good reason. There are a lot of scams, so we try to combat that," he says.

Aside from wanting to work with people whom he liked on a personal level, Lyons says it was easier to communicate the tone he's trying to create for the company to people who already intuitively understood it through their own experience. Trying to nurture friendly interactions with clients further sets Rabbit apart from the competition.

Since good employees are the key to creating a good moving experience, Rabbit pays fair wages across the board. Lyons says most of his movers make between $13 and $15 an hour, while many other companies pay workers under the table or at minimum wage. Keeping morale up, he says, is a necessity when your primary selling point is alleviating stress for the customer.

Also atypical of a moving company: Rabbit's community of young movers and customers is forming around the Brooklyn art scene. Lyons studied literature and writing at Temple University in Philadelphia and wanted to have his career fit with his creative background. So he recently bought and renovated a space in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood (Dumbo stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge), where he now rents space for artists to display their work.

Not directly related to Rabbit's moving business but intimately connected with its people and its style, the studio will host exhibitions at this year's Dumbo Arts Festival, and some of the artists will be Rabbit's own movers. Lyons says most of the people he expects to attend the exhibition are former customers who asked to be added to the Rabbit mailing list.

The company also specializes in moving art for galleries. Lyons says the movers' appreciation for the work establishes a trust between them and the client. "What's really great is that they're not just movers, they're really smart guys. In a business you need things that are malleable—people who are quick and able to adjust to what you need," says Priyanka Mathew, gallery director for Gallery Arts India, one of Rabbit's clients, and a former banker at Goldman Sachs. Mathew says Rabbit has moved scores of contemporary Indian paintings and sculptures without damaging a thing.

The company also employs a design aesthetic on its Web site, trucks, and T-shirts that appeals to its target demographic of young urbanites. "I just went along with what I would want in the aesthetic of the designs, the character, and quality of the movers. So far it's working, I think," says Lyons.

Rabbit's faithful clients—Mathew included—agree that the company's got staying power. "I really think this is the way that business is going to be moving—especially small business. You have to be sound fundamentally, but to create a niche and an edge, you've got to try and differentiate yourself, and that's what Rabbit does very well," says Mathew.
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Inventor makes milestone

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Good timing has given a Sioux Falls inventor's product some national attention.

Donald Junck of Sioux Falls is being honored by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for filing the one millionth Web-based trademark application using the Patent Office's Trademark Electronic Application System.

The trademark will protect his mark "Bait Craft" and the logo of his invention, designed to keep the line leaders of fishing enthusiasts organized.

"When they called and told me, I had this long pause and felt like, 'Yeah, right,' " Junck said. "I thought it was one of my buddies playing a trick on me."

The Trademark Office flew Junck to Washington, D.C., Tuesday. Today, he will present two personalized, wooden versions of his invention to South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth and Sen. John Thune, Junck said. He will tour the White House and Capitol Hill and attend a commemoration ceremony in the USPTO's headquarters in Alexandria, Va.

Lynne Beresford, USPTO's commissioner for trademarks, said Junck's application marks an important milestone for a system that had met with some resistance from those wary of moving the application process online, prior to its November 1997 debut.

"We wanted to have a celebration around the one millionth trademark application because there was quite a bit of resistance to electronic filing," she said. "Getting to the millionth mark was very important to us."

Electronic trademark and patent applications have helped streamline the process, reduced cost for applicants and improved the accuracy of information entered into government databases, Beresford said.

After battling the cluttered contents of his tackle box, Junck said he reached a point in 1995 when he thought there had to be a better way to organize and keep fishing leaders taut.

During the following years, he would invest $30,000 of his own money into its development, buying equipment to design and make his invention, working out of his shop in his home.

He patented the product in 1997 and applied for trademark protection in November 2006.

"I had some naysayers out there," Junck said. "They'd say, 'This is stupid, this is dumb.' I would just smile at them and take it with a grain of salt."

In April, an Iowa company will begin to produce plastic versions of the Bait Craft, which will be available in different colors and sizes, Junck said. There already has been interest by retailers who would like to carry the product, he said.

Junck, a self-described "tinkerer," builds homes with his son Aaron, and credits his children and wife, Deb, for supporting him in all his creative outlets.

"Deb's really got a heart of gold," Junck said. "To deal with all the ups and downs we've had with this and with how much money we've injected into this, and not to have made a dime off it yet, she's been very supportive."

Reach reporter Matthew Gruchow at 331-2301.

Go to source.

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MONTANA CITY — Kim Waltee's not just Autumn's mom or Drew's mom any more. She's the Fish Queen.

The proprietor of 4-year-old Montana Mountain Smoked says the title earned for her lines of smoked trout and salmon fits her just fine.

"It's nice because when I call my meat guys I tell them it's the Fish Queen on the phone and they all remember who I am," Waltee said.

A former hairdresser, Waltee says she smoked fish her entire life, learning the craft from her grandfather.

"People would bring me their fish all the time," she said.

In 1993, she was looking for a career change and decided to turn her hobby into a business. She added a shop to her home, bought a commercial smoker and went to work. Today that shop has expanded twice and holds three smokers.

Montana Mountain Smoked products are never frozen after the three-day curing, smoking and packaging process is complete, which means they are fresh, she said. The salmon and halibut she uses are caught in the wild.

In addition to the smoked fish products, Montana Mountain Smoked makes a spread with sockeye salmon.

"We sell about 25,000 tubs a year," she said.

The business' up-and-down workload means Waltee does not have employees. Instead, she recruits family and friends to help with production for big orders.

"During the holidays I get orders for 1,500 tubs of spread at a time," she said. "My crew will kid about calling in the A team."

As mostly a one-woman show, Waltee puts in some long hours. However, the flexibly of being her own boss is worth it.

"Both my kids do sports and I can travel to their games," she said. "You can start earlier in the day, 4 a.m., and be finished by the middle of the afternoon."

Waltee once hired a sales team based in Salt Lake City but was unhappy with the results, so she does all the marketing herself. Her products are sold in Montana, several Western states and as far away as West Virginia.

"Word of mouth is probably my best advertisement, along with demos in the stores," she said.

Three years ago, she did get some marketing help in the form of a $50,000 grant from the Montana Department of Agriculture's Growth Through Ag program.

She used the money to redesign her labels and set up a Web site.

The Growth Through Agriculture program awards loans and grants for projects that add value to Montana agriculture products, said Lindra Davies, a marketing technician for the program.

"The ag business is diversifying like crazy in Montana," she said.

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Reviewing Your E-Mail Marketing Campaign

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As we start a new year, it's always helpful to take some time to slow down, look back and evaluate the year gone by. Examining the past year's e-mail marketing efforts and results can help you uncover new ways you can improve going forward.

To get started, take a moment to review the results of your e-mail campaigns from the past 12 months (this is where the reporting features of an e-mail marketing service really come in handy). Then, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What was I trying to accomplish with e-mail marketing, and did I do it? What was your goal for your e-mail marketing efforts? Did you achieve what you set out to do? Did you measure the results? Is your e-mail marketing adding significant value to your organization? Did you uncover other useful purposes for e-mail marketing? Asking these questions can help you set your goals for the upcoming year.

2. Did I grow my list, and is it better segmented? There are many great opportunities to grow a list. Looking back, how did you do? Did you collect e-mail addresses whenever you got the chance--at events, during networking, at point of sale and on your website? Does everyone in your organization ask for e-mail addresses? What can you do differently to grow your list even more this year? What about segmenting? Did you divide your list into groups so you could send more targeted e-mail campaigns? How can you further segment your list forwarding the future?

3. Did I send consistent, high-value e-mail communications? With e-mail marketing, you have a great opportunity to stay connected with your list members. Did you communicate with them as often as you intended to? Or on the flip side, did you contact them too often? What about the quality of your campaigns? Did you spend the time you needed to create compelling content that included images and well-written copy? Did you put thought into offering your list members information they'd value and find useful? (Hint: Your open and click-through rates can help you figure out their interest level.) How can you improve your communications next year?

4. Which of my e-mail campaigns got the best or worst results and why? Look at your e-mail campaigns and identify the winners and the losers. What can you learn from them? What topics were your readers most interested in or not interested in at all? What did you do (promotions, subject matter, etc.) that, judging by the response, you should do again? What day and time worked best? You can take this information and modify future campaigns based on it. Create a new e-mail marketing plan that includes what you want to do more of and what you won't do again.

5. What did I do to become a better e-mail marketer? Did you ask friends and colleagues for their input on your e-mails? Did you ask your list members for feedback and incorporate their suggestions? Did you take advantage of some of the free e-mail marketing resources available online, like webinars and articles? Did you read a book about e-mail marketing? Did you review campaigns from other companies for ideas? It might be overwhelming to think of doing all these things, but why not set a goal for this year that you'll pick one or two of these activities? You'll be glad you did.

By taking a moment to ask yourself "How did I do?" you can make positive changes to your e-mail marketing efforts that'll help you get even better results. After you answer the questions above, you'll be well on your way to having your best e-mail marketing year yet.

---

Gail F. Goodman is the"E-Mail Marketing" coach at Entrepreneur.com and is CEO ofConstant Contact, a web-based e-mail marketing service for small businesses. She's also a recognized small-business expert and speaker.

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