I have read a lot of product reviews over the years. I also offer product reviews for the products we sell, as well as use them on blogs and articles to help people with buying choices. It did occur to me that sometimes people can be skewed towards buying or not buying something because of the way the product review is written. When I sat down to look at some factors that I take for granted, I was compelled to put this article together. I hope you find it helpful. It is slanted towards the woodworking industry, particularly routers and router tables. I think you will find that the mindset or theme will work for any type of product.

When reading a review right off the bat I think of these main areas of the person that is leaving the review. These are the main areas in which we will discuss.

• Shipping
• Expectations
• Experience/Inexperience
• Customer Service
• Emotion
• Assembly
• Use period
• Manufacture or Vendor Mindset

Shipping

This is the first subject that usually gets a lot of comments on. Let me begin with this statement. “I really understand the shipping process” I have worked in this industry at one time and I have seen every aspect from a package getting from point A to point B. If there is one thing that is a constant in the universe it is this, shipping companies damage boxes. There is no way around it, and sooner or later it will happen to you. Manufacturers design their packaging around the fact that it is rough world when your package gets picked up and on to your destination. You have to consider the sort facility and the way things get handled. Speed is the ultimate theme and shippers go by how many packages they sort out each night. Being careful is a goal but not always the golden rule. So when an item comes damaged, most vendors jump through hoops to help you replace the item or fix the problem. It is a headache, and if they can design a box to relieve that headache, they most certainly will because it reduces their replacement costs. So any comments on shipping damage really need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Experience/Inexperience

This is a sensitive area, since it is closely tied to emotion. I will try to tread lightly, but I will be blunt in some areas in order for the reader to get the most out of this content. When it comes to power tools, some people just do not have any experience and some have extensive experience. It is hard to figure out who is who when you are reading a review. To be honest, some people have no business owning a power tool, yet they go to great lengths in leaving some scathing reviews. Others have a perfectionist type of view that can give you some great insight about the product. Some are Engineer types that can go into great detail and offer design changes that they think would make the product better. So how do you approach this problem? I think the best way to evaluate it is by simply knowing the fact that there are different levels of experience out there and everyone is entitled to their opinion. You just never really know who you are talking too when reading a review or getting advice from someone, you just have to use your gut feeling.

Expectations

Some reviews are written in sense of an expectation of that product that has either been met or not. If you expected a product to be of a certain design or quality and it is not, your expectations have not been met. Most people draw from this and use it in their review. Another avenue of this thought is that people write about their experience based on using the item right away. Perhaps the tool met their expectation right away but then they quickly grew out of it or moved on in their skill level. The media also has tremendous influence on what our expectations are for products. Most of the time this is based on mass appeal and it’s designed to do one thing and one thing only and that is to sell you the product. Just because someone says they are an expert does not necessarily mean it is true.

Customer Service

Customer service is often commented on but it has some bearing in some instances. For example if you are speaking directly to the manufacture themselves, then customer service can be influential. If you are speaking to a distributor of a product, then how they handle your service situation is up to them and only reflects on their company, website or business, not necessarily the product. This can skew some reviews. Of course good customer service can always be a positive factor, it is really the product you are reviewing not your buying experience. Someone should make a service about that!

Emotion

I choose to add this section because I have seen overtones of this that leak into reviews. Emotion is powerful and sometimes it is hard to shake a pre conceived concept. That concept is from the old “mail order” days when the industry was brand new. Most “mail order” companies sold junk and it was all about conversion ratios and quotas. Today most companies and vendors realize that Internet sales are a huge part of their business and a great way to reach out to customers from all over the world. So here is a concept that I and most good companies embrace. The sooner customers and the general public figure it out the better. (This is the blunt part I was talking about)

Companies want and need to take care of their customers for a very good reason. If you become a customer once, there is a good chance that you will buy from us again. If you buy from us again, you reduce the cost of acquiring a new customer and that improves the amount of money a company makes. Bottom line: if you are my customer, I want you to buy from me over and over again. This is how we stay alive.

I have no interest in making you mad, or delivering a poor product, that would be stupid and go against the business plan. If you are happy, then my life is easy. If you are mad, my day sucks. I like stress free days, so it is in my best interest in doing a good job so that you come back.

Assembly

I thought it was worth mentioning that assembly can be part of the product review formula. Let’s face it, there is a new problem alive and well today and it is most irritating. That problem is the lack of good clear and concise directions. Remember when software use to come with a book on how to use it? Now day’s vendors think it is ok to be vague. I am not sure who thought this was a way to save money or not, but it is irritating. I think directions are an influence but not always the deciding factor. It is worth noting that not everyone is good at the obvious. (Blunt I know) but I am amazed at how often that putting Tab A into Slot B eludes some people.

Manufacture Mindset

Product companies have a mindset of selling product and making goals. Part of the goals is keeping replacement costs down by good design and good techniques. It is just about as simple as that. Some Brands are better at it than others; those are the ones that last in the industry. Look for manufacturers that embrace this concept by developing their authority. Most good companies really enjoy happy customers.

I hope this has helped you with interpreting customer reviews. It was intended in teaching you how to write one, but more of an education of how people write them for the world to see. The one thing about the Internet, comments stay forever and reputations are made and broken over time. Getting a good assessment of a product can sometimes be harder than you thought.

Related posts:

• Importing Your Product from Abroad
• Five Steps To Create Your Software Product With Outsourcing
• Taking Pride in Your Product Line

by Tim Bryce

“Manage more, supervise less.”
- Bryce’s Law

When I got into the work force back in the mid-1970’s it seemed
everyone dressed in a suit and tie, drank black coffee, smoked
their brains out, and worked their butts off. Today, golf shirts
have replaced suits, herbal tea and bottled water have replaced
coffee, nobody is allowed to smoke, and rarely does anyone work
beyond 5:00pm. More importantly, we used to care about the work we
produced; there was a sense of craftsmanship, regardless of the job.

My Brother-in-law in Cincinnati conducted me on a tour of his company’s
machine-tool shop years ago and showed me how he could take a block of
aluminum and convert it into a high-precision machine tool. It was a
pleasure to watch him work, as it is to watch anyone who knows
what they are doing, be it a waitress, a programmer, a laborer or
a clerk.

Quality and service used to be considered paramount in this
country. If it wasn’t just right, you were expected to do it over
again until you got it right. We cared about what we produced
because it was a reflection of our personal character and
integrity. But somewhere along the line we lost our way and
craftsmanship has fallen by the wayside. Why? Probably because
we no longer care.

In today’s litigious society, employees are acutely aware that it is
difficult to be fired due to poor performance. They know they will
still get paid and receive benefits, regardless of the amount of effort
they put forth. Consequently, there is little to encourage people
to perform better. Money isn’t a motivating factor anymore. People
now expect bonuses, raises and other perks to be paid out regardless
of how well they perform during the year.

We’ve also become a nation content with doing small things. America
used to be known as a powerhouse that could tackle large projects,
such as building skyscrapers, designing innovative bridges and tunnels
spanning substantial bodies of water, engineering transcontinental
railroads and highway systems, conquering air and space travel, and
defending freedom not just once but in two world wars. If you really
wanted something done, you talked to the Americans and no one else. Now
we get excited over iPods, cell phones, and other electronic trinkets.

Many believe Craftsmanship is in decline due to the general apathy found
in today’s society. Maybe. I tend to believe it is due to an erosion
of our moral values. Let me give you an example. Having a child in college,
my interest was piqued recently by an article describing the pervasiveness of
cheating and plagiarism in our schools. It is not my intent to make a
political statement here but many of the students mentioned in the article
rationalized their cheating on the fact that one of our past Presidents
cheated and lied under oath, and got away with it. They figured if it is
okay for the Commander-in-Chief to act this way, it was an acceptable form
of behavior.

Arnold Toynbee, the famed English historian, observed, “Civilizations
die from suicide, not by murder.” If the moral fabric of our society
dies, our story is told as evidenced by other great civilizations that
long preceded us. Our perspective needs to be realigned: Our personal
and professional lives must be viewed as one. As Toynbee remarked,
“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.” By
doing so, we identify more closely with our work and assume a greater
pride in workmanship. We do not need to hear this from our boss, but
rather from within. As strange as it may sound, I see Craftsmanship as
being patriotic in nature; doing a good quality job is part of leading
a good and honorable life and builds on the individual’s esteem, the
company he works for, and the country he lives in.

The biggest problem though is that we have forgotten how to manage
people. The manager’s primary goal is to create the proper work
environment for employees to produce the desired work products. This
is different than a supervisory capacity that directs how each person
performs the various tasks of a job. In fact, I encourage managers to
manage more and supervise less. I cringe when I see a manager try to
“micromanage” either a Fortune 500 company or a non-profit organization.

Yes, people need to be trained in order to properly
perform their work but following this, employees should be mature
enough to supervise themselves. In the old days, management stressed
discipline, accountability, and structure; three ugly words in today’s
workplace.

Understanding Craftsmanship

Some might say craftsmanship is a simple concept that we should
intuitively know. Not true; most people today have no comprehension as
to what makes up a good craftsman; they have either forgotten or it has
simply passed them by. Craftsmanship can be found in any field of endeavor
imaginable, be it in the product sector or service industry. Craftsmanship,
therefore, is universally applicable to any line of work.

Craftsmanship is not “workmanship”, nor is it synonymous with quality,
although the three concepts are closely related. Let’s begin by
giving “Craftsmanship” a definition: “The production and delivery
of quality goods or services from highly skilled workmen.”

Quality relates to the absence of errors or defects in the finished
product or service. In other words, finished goods operate
according to their specifications (customers get precisely what
they ordered). Such products are normally durable and require minimal
maintenance. Craftsmanship produces quality products. In the absence
of craftsmen, a rigorous methodology or assembly line process is
required to produce quality goods using workers without the expertise
of craftsmen. Such processes detail “Who” is to perform “What” work,
“When”, “Where”, “Why” and “How” (5W+H), thereby assuring a quality
product or service is produced. Such is the underlying rationale of
the ISO 9000 certification as used by many companies today. The point
is, quality is not the exclusive domain of the craftsman.

Craftsmanship is also a human trait. Some might argue a computer or
industrial robot can produce quality products and are, therefore,
craftsmen. However, we must remember these devices are programmed by
human beings in accordance with the rules of the craftsman. As such,
they are an extension or tool of the craftsman.

Craftsmanship can be found in either the overall work process or
a section of it. For example, there are craftsmen who are intimate
with all facets of building furniture, such as a table, a chair or
desk, and can implement the product from start to finish. However,
as products grow in complexity, it becomes difficult to find people
suitably qualified to build them from the womb to the tomb. Consider
military weapons alone, such as the complicated ships, tanks, and
airplanes we now use, with thousands or millions of parts to
assemble. Such complexity makes it impossible for a single person
to have the expertise to build the whole product. The same is true
in the service sector where different types of expertise and
capabilities may be required. In other words, craftsmen have a
specific scope of work. The scope of work may relate to other
types of craftsmen through a chain of work dependencies, e.g.,
Craftsmen A, B and C concentrate on separate sub-assemblies which
are eventually joined into a single product.

Attributes

So, what are the attributes of a craftsman? What makes a craftsman a
craftsman? There are three basic attributes described herein:

1. Possesses the necessary knowledge and skills to perform the work.

The craftsman is an expert in his field of endeavor; so much so that
he could easily serve as an instructor in the subject matter. But the
craftsman is also smart enough to know that education is not a one
time thing, that his world and field evolve as new tools and techniques
are introduced. As such, the craftsman is a student of his profession
and is constantly looking to improve himself. This is exercised through
such things as continued education, routine certification, studying books
and trade publications, and industrial groups. The craftsman willingly
participates in trade groups, often at his own expense, in order to network
with his peers.

It is Important to note that the craftsman does not need to be told
he needs periodic training to sharpen his skills. Instead, he takes the
personal initiative to stay on top of his game. Further, the craftsman
has no problem with a periodic job review; in fact, he welcomes it for
it might bring out a weakness in a skill he needs to sharpen.

2. Attention to detail.

The craftsman understands and respects the process of building/delivering
a product or service and is acutely aware of the penalties for cutting
corners. Earlier we discussed the need for a methodology that specifies
5W+H. The craftsman is intimate with all details of his scope of work,
so much so, he could probably write the methodology himself. Further,
his intimacy of the work process means he can produce a reliable estimate
of time and costs to perform the work.

Although many of the craftsman’s tasks may be repetitive, it doesn’t
mean he easily falls into a rut. Instead, he is constantly looking
for new tools and techniques to improve the work process. As such,
he plays the role of Industrial Engineer who is normally charged
with such a task.

The craftsman’s attention to detail also means that he demonstrates
patience in his work effort. Again, wary of cutting corners, the
craftsman must possess such patience in order to produce the product
the right way.

3. Views professional life as an extension of his personal life.

The craftsman identifies with the end product which is where
pride in workmanship comes from. In his mind, the craftsman has
been charged with the responsibility of producing something, and
wanting to satisfy the customer, puts forth his best effort to
produce it. In other words, craftsmen take their work
personally. This is a difficult trait to teach particularly in
today’s society where the focus is more on financial compensation
than on the work product itself. It may sound naive, but the
craftsman believes he will be suitably compensated for
producing superior results.

Years ago, Dick Butkus of the Chicago Bears (NFL) confounded sports
writers who could never understand why Butkus played as hard as he
did year after year for a losing football team. True, Dick loved the
game, but beyond that, the sports writers didn’t understand one thing
about the seven time All-Pro linebacker: Butkus took his job
personally. It was important to him that his opponents know that
they had been tackled by the best player; as he said, “When they
get up from the ground I want them to say ‘it must have been Butkus
that got me’.” Dick Butkus was a craftsman.

The craftsman has a burning desire to produce a superior product/service
because he sees it as a reflection of himself. As such, the lines delineating
their personal life and professional life are blurred. This is a significant
characteristic that clearly separates a craftsman from the average worker. The
craftsman’s work is his life. He does not shirk responsibility, but rather
embraces it with confidence and embosses his name on the finished product.
Conversely, making a work related mistake of any kind pains a true craftsman.

Job titles are normally inconsequential to the craftsman who is more
interested in delivering a quality product/service enjoyed by the
customer. Instead, the craftsman takes pleasure in being touted as
the best in his craft. He appreciates recognition; when someone
makes a compliment about a product, the craftsman views it as a
personal compliment. This too runs contrary to today’s corporate
world where people desperately seek recognition through simple
job titles. Want someone with an inflated ego? Give them a title.
Want something done right? Call a craftsman.

Productivity

“Dependable”, “professional”, and “resourceful” are adjectives that
aptly describe the craftsman. He is not one who fabricates excuses but,
rather, always finds a way to get the job done. The craftsman is typically
your most productive employee. He is mindful of the concept of productivity
that we have touted for years:

Productivity = Effectiveness X Efficiency

Most people fallaciously equate productivity with efficiency, which simply
gauges how fast we can perform a given task. Effectiveness, on the other hand,
validates the necessity of the task itself. There is nothing more unproductive
than to do something efficiently that should not have been done at all. An
industrial robot, for example, can efficiently perform such tasks as welding. But
if you are welding the wrong thing, then it is counterproductive. Going back to
our description of a methodology, effectiveness defines “Who/What/When/Where/Why”,
efficiency defines “How.” The craftsman is well aware of the difference
between the two and knows how to apply both. As such, the craftsman is in tune
with his work environment and corporate culture.

So how do we make craftsmen?

Not easily. Because of the human dynamics involved with the craftsman,
you will need to be a pretty intuitive manager or industrial
psychologist to make it happen. Selecting suitable candidates is the
logical first step. Devise an aptitude test to determine the candidate’s
suitability to become a craftsman. After all, “you cannot make a silk
purse from a sow’s ear.” Aside from specific knowledge and experience
in a given field (e.g., programming, woodworking, construction, accounting,
etc.), here are some other important traits to look for:

• Fertility of mind – judge his ability to learn, to adapt to changing
  conditions, and to look beyond his scope of work. Evaluate his
  professional curiosity.
• Confidence – judge how well the candidate knows himself,
  particularly how well he knows his own limitations. He
  should admit his deficiencies and not fabricate excuses.
• Dedication – judge his loyalty and determination to
  accomplish something. What is his attendance record?
  What outside clubs and organizations does he belong
  to and how active is he in them?
• Entrepreneurial spirit – judge his personal initiative.
  Is he driven to succeed (but not to the point of reckless
  abandon)? Does he have a problem with accountability?
  This says a lot about assuming responsibility.
• Attention to detail – judge his ability to focus on a subject.
  Does he have a problem with discipline or organization? A person’s
  dress, mannerisms, and speech says a lot about a person.
• Reliability – judge his ability to assume responsibility and
  carry a task through to completion.
• Resourcefulness – judge his ability to adapt to changing
  conditions and persevere to see a task through to completion.
  The candidate cannot be inflexible; he must be able to find
  solutions to solve problems.
• Socialization skills – does he work better alone or as a team
  player? His position may depend on his answer.

When you have selected suitable candidates, here are three areas to
concentrate on:

1. Develop their skills and knowledge by allowing such things as:
   participation in trade groups, outside certification and on-going
   training, subscriptions to trade journals, continued education,
   etc. Some companies even go as far as to develop an in-house
   school to teach the company’s way of doing things. If the in-house
   school is good, it will promote confidence through consistency. Even
   if people leave the company, they will recommend your company because
   they know the quality of the work produced. Supporting the education
   needs of our workers is not only smart, it is good business.
2. Teach them the need for producing quality work; they should
   become intimate with all aspects of their work process (5W+H).
   Further, instill discipline and patience in their work effort.
3. Change their attitude towards development so they become more
   focused on delivering a quality end-product. This is perhaps
   the most difficult element to teach. However, it can be realized
   by having them become intimate with the needs of the customer
   (have them visit or work with a customer for awhile – “let them
   walk in the customer’s shoes”). It may also be necessary to
   change their form of remuneration by going to a reward system
   for work produced (as opposed to guaranteed income regardless
   of what is produced). Changing the mode of financial compensation
   is highly controversial in today’s business world. But, as an
   example, can you imagine the change of attitude of today’s professional
   athletes if they were paid based on their accomplishments (e.g., runs
   or points scored, hits, rebounds, etc.) rather than having a
   guaranteed income? Their motivation and attitude towards
   their profession and team would change radically.

   Candidates must learn to respect their institution, the process
   by which they work, fellow human beings, and themselves. They must
   also learn not to be afraid to TRY; that they must put their best
   foot forward, win or lose. Bottom-line: they must learn that their
   work has meaning and worth. If they don’t enjoy their work, they
   shouldn’t be doing it.

“There are two things that I want you to make up your minds to: first,
that you are going to have a good time as long as you live – I have no
use for the sour-faced man – and next, that you are going to do
something worthwhile, that you are going to work hard and do the
things you set out to do.”
- President Theodore Roosevelt
Talk to schoolchildren in Oyster Bay, Christmas-time 1898

Certification

Teaching the elements listed above probably cannot be done in one
fell swoop. Further, companies simply don’t have the time or money to
wait for the craftsman to be produced. Instead, they must understand
the human spirit needs to be cultivated and be allowed to grow over
time. Because of this, it is strongly recommended that an in-house
certification program be devised specifying what the candidate should
know and what skills and talents he should demonstrate. This should be
divided into classes of progressive expertise; e.g., apprentice, intermediary,
and craftsman. The ancient builders in Egypt, Rome, and Greece understood
this concept and devised such classes of workmen. Other disciplines and
schools follow similar tactics (the various degrees or belts in martial
arts for example). Each degree is based on specific prerequisites to
master before moving on to the next level.

An in-house certification program has the added nuance of making
people feel special which greatly enhances their self esteem. If
they are made to feel like a vital part of the company, regardless if
their work of a large magnitude or trivial, they will strive to do
what is best for the company overall, not just themselves. Consequently,
their work adds meaning to their life.

There is one pitfall to all of this; today’s “go-go” management
style fails to see how craftsmanship adds value to the company. In
fact, there were companies back in the 1980’s that shut down such
programs simply to reduce costs. As a result, quality suffered,
repeat business was lost, products were more in need of repair,
absenteeism on the job escalated, etc. Want value? How does
a loyal customer base who has confidence in your products or
services sound? And what effect would employee harmony have,
particularly if they believed in the work they were producing? It
would be mind-boggling, all because we had faith in the human
spirit to produce superior results.

A final note: craftsmanship is not a one time thing. After it has
been instilled in people, it has to be cultivated and perpetuated. If
a manager slips even for a moment, it will go right out the window and
it will take time to bring it back to life. As for me, I like to post
motivational reminders kind of like the one recently spotted in the
Hickey Freeman manufacturing facility in New York,
“Excellence is Tolerated.”

Tim Bryce is the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA)
of Palm Harbor, Florida and has 30 years of experience in the field.
He is available for training and consulting on an international basis.
He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com

Copyright © 2006 MBA. All rights reserved.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_Bryce
http://EzineArticles.com/?Craftsmanship:-the-Meaning-of-Life&id=210848

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Every once in a while you come across something pretty neat that is directly related to a new business idea.  If you are interested in the jewlry business, this company is a good opportunity to get going quickly.

To summarize what this site is about we have reviewed it and will include the details.

Details

• drop ship turnkey site
• pre loaded with 20,000 products
• $995 down and $50 per month.  Don’t let this number scare you, it really is pretty inexpensive when you consider you get the site and you do not have to hunt down any of the products.
• You get a customized logo
• Marketing tools (free data feed)
• Extensive FAQ’s section

Website Details

Your Turnkey Drop Ship Website Includes

• Clean and crisp high-resolution images with white backgrounds and image zoom functionality
• Products pre-categorized into collections for easy navigating
• Advanced search, search by price and keyword search capabilities
• ‘Email To Friend’ option on all product pages
• Mailing list with customer email addresses automatically added when orders are placed
• Email template generator to send promotional email blasts to your mailing list
• A complete shopping cart pre-integrated into your website
• Pre-optimized website with relevant meta tags ready for major search engine crawling
• Promotional messages displayed in FLASH on homepage
• ‘Last Updated’ date stamp on every page of the website
• Updated ‘Order Status’ and tracking information
• Promotional offers such as free shipping, jewelry box and certificate of authenticity

Related posts:

• The Website Misnomer, Part 2
• The Website Misnomer, Part 1
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In order to be truely interactive, we really should have put this post out long ago.  So we are doing it now with a call for comments and questions.  What kind of help do you need?  We are prepared to taylor special sections, articles, video, or what ever it takes to get your questions answered and get you moving on your way.  To help you with this please refer to the following sections and include that in your reply or comment.

E-commerce

• Product Ideas
• Store front platforms
• Building the site
• Hosting the site
• Finding products after I get selling my own
• How to produce my own product locally

Importing

• Where to find product
• More information
• Where to find a sourcing agent
• Importing and selling on Ebay
• How to deal with customs.

Blogging

• What topic to blog about
• Where to set up my site
• Costs
• How can I make money at blogging?
• Differences between services
• How fast can I start

Ebay

• How to get started
• Where to host pictures
• Paypal

Information Products

• Where to get them made
• What topics do I pick
• I can’t write, now what?

So now comes the fun part, if you have signed up for our newsletter, take it a step further and ask us a question.  You can email us directly at our email address.  We are all about helping you get going, especially in today’s economy.  It really helps your state of mind when you know you have something going and can constantly work on it.

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• What Kind of Online Business Should I Start?
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This response is to a forum that was asking about using article marketing for building links.  I figured my response was good enough to share with everyone here.

I use article marketing big time, but I do not do it in a manner like most people use it.  In fact i would say that I used to use a traditional approach of writing or buying some articles, putting a keyword phrase in the title and then making sure the right anchor text links were in the body of the article.  I would submit mine to ezine.  However I do not do it this way anymore and here is why.  The results more or less suck for my websites theme.  Chances are they suck for yours too.  I now use articles and focus on what I call a link cluster.  I pick a keyword that I want to focus on and attack it.  Lets say your doing an ecommerce site, I ask myself, what product keyword would I like to sell more of and rank for.  Then I decide that I need 7 really good articles.  I put the best one on my blog.  Then I build a combination of free blogs and web 2.0 sites that use that keyword in the url and link it around the blog, one link goes to the blog and the next link goes to the next 2.0 site.  Then I promote those sites with social bookmarks and articles (see next) to get them going.  Instead of calling it quits here, I go deep.  I add more blog posts and exhaust the topic around that keyword.  Over time this builds authority and this link cluster will be a powerful being and supply some great link juice.  Now referring to the articles I take some articles and submit them to ezine and anchor text link them to this link cluster matrix that I just created.  Most of the time the people that pick up these articles put them on crap sites that give you no real value whatsoever.  So I realize that and use them to get links instead of driving quality traffic.  If you can write a funny or controversial article, you will get more links.  Don’t be rude, just start to realize that people will read these types of articles.  I wrote one for a cooking blog and I am amazed at how many sites are still picking up this article months after  I wrote it.  This is my steriod approach to article marketing.

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• Resources for Starting an Online Business
• Resources for Starting an Online Business Starting An E-commerce Business: Baby Steps

I have some advice from you, but it tends to go a bit different than what you get on here.  Why on earth would you want to get your products into a bigger department store?  First of all, if you are new to the business, this takes some time and experience.  For example the buyers that work for these large chains have a manufacture list and can go direct to your source if they want to.  They really do not need a middle man, and I say who cares.  What you should really do is develop your own brand with these products and open a website that is niche oriented.  Niche is where the future is, niche is authority and Google and other search engines love authority.  My brother has an account with Walmart that took him 9 years to get into.  They (walmart) has beat his pricing and packaging down almost to the point of pitiful margins.  He does much better working with his distributors and through his website.  Most people think that the major department store is really the sign of victory, but it is slowly changing.  Think about it, would you rather talk to some kid at walmart about a little bit of everything or to a expert in one particular product line.  If you specialize, like in niche markets, you are the experts and people will automatically recognize that as fact.  I hope this stretches your perception a bit.

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• Start a Jewelry Website
• Become A Web Entrepreneur With Yahoo Store Builder
• Can You Become A Millionaire With A Yahoo Store?

If you are thinking about getting started with an online or home based business.  You can easily get overloaded with a ton of responses from all sorts of people in the business.  Most will say that their business is the best or most profitable.  A lot of time that is because they think its the best because it is the field they are in.  This is similar to someone saying the pizza is best from their home town just because its what they know and what they like.

What you need is the basic facts to get started, a place to learn the basics.  When you have those basics, then you can go on and start to sift out the gems from the rocks.  There are a lot of rocks out there.  We have found a site that is a video site and it teaches you how to get started in your home based business.  It gives you the basic dynamics of what to look for and explains some very important facts.

Buy a business on Ebay?

If you think a good idea is to buy a premade or existing business for sale on Ebay, then you really need to look at this site too since they really focus on it.  There is a lot of garbage out there and if you do not know what to look for, you will get separated from your hard earned cash.  The site includes a membership and you can easily get through all the material without having to sign up for another month.  The best part is the checklist that you can take with you (print) and use a valuable reference in whatever site you choose to buy (or create).

You can find all this information plus a bunch of free stuff in their guest section.

http://www.internetbusinessnavigator.com

This one I highly recommend.

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• What Kind of Online Business Should I Start?
• What Kind of Help Do You Need?
• 7 Steps On How To Start Your Own Home Based Business

This is an excerpt from a forum post, but I do believe that it holds a nice little snippet of information, which is the name of the game.

Answer 1

“i would say , that their are so maney ” networks marketers ” that the supply is greater then the demand.”

Answer 2

“The lack of marketing due to cost can be an issue. I suggest the advertising system I am using with great results to promote my own business. It is called The Online Ad Network and you can run as many ads as you like without having to worry about spamming.  (link omitted) You can have your new advertising account up and running within minutes.

You can also build a fantastic residual income referring other advertisers!!!!  It’s simple. And it truly pays to advertise!”

Answer 3

“The main reason is that network marketing takes WORK. Most of the time people talk to their friends and family and then do not commit to finding new contacts for there product. The second reason is that the products are not products that people use or reuse daily. The product needs to be something that will stand on its own, so it can be sold at retail for a profit. The fact is that people would rather work 8 hours a day to make other people money instead of spending a few hour a day building their own business.”

My answer

In my humble opinion it is a combination of things. One being that the programs that exist are oversaturated and cheesy. They may be profitable in the very beginning but quickly fade out. There is not longetivity to their programs. I think people are drawn to “easy” or “fast” or “automated” when real business is none of these concepts. When they find out how much work it takes, they lose interest. I am more the propenent of buildlng something tangible and real, something that can be controlled, built and sold when your ready. But like I said, that is my opinion, I am sure many will disagree.

Ken

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Time management

• So when your product ships from overseas you basically do not touch them or handle them at all when you use fulfillment.  You pay a monthly fee per pallet that covers the storage and a freight charge for shipping the product out.  Most fulfillment businesses ship a lot of packages and are willing to pass some of the savings on to you.
• So basically you do not handle your product at all from the time it leaves the manufacturer to the time it arrives to the customer.  This in itself is much better for most business owners in the long run.
• You have to individually crunch your own numbers to see if it will work for you.  You also need to take into account that your product needs to be a complete unit for the fulfillment scenario to work best.  If you have to combine products or do any type of assembly, it takes away from the profit scenario and increases costs.
• Typical storage charges can be from $8 per pallet to $20 per pallet, depending on where they are stored.

Shipping costs

Another factor is shipping costs.  You do not want to pay full retail shipping to your fulfillment company that is just wrong.  A 20% discount to new customers is not unheard of with a decent volume of shipping.  If you have a fulfillment center centrally located in the country, then you can ship to either the west coast or the east cost with reasonable costs.  If your center is on either cost, you have higher costs when sending to the opposite coast.  For example, if your fulfillment is in California, and you ship to New York, then that is going to cost you more to send a box than it would to Arizona.  Having an office centrally located is a good advantage over time.

Summary

Personally I have done both types of shipping discussed in this article.  I may have switched to fulfillment sooner, had I known some of the details discussed here.  Depending on what type of ecommerce store you run, it may be necessary to use a combination of both types.  Larger operations use more than one fulfillment center to handle shipments.  Usually they have one on each coast to take advantage of the shipping cost savings.  Finding the right system for you involves a bit of homework and some brainstorming.  This is a small price to pay for not being held hostage to all the details of shipping your product to your customer.

Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment Part 1

Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment Part 2

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• Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment, Part 2
• Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment, Part 1
• Fire That Customer, a Customer Service Solution

Fulfillment

So how do you touch your items less and spend less money?  Fulfillment is a different way of looking at the physical process of moving your items and touching them less

Here is a break down of things you do NOT do, but still gets done by someone else.

• Items unloaded from ship, trucked to warehouse near port
• Shipping container stripped out (unloaded) and put on pallets
• Items labeled and shipped to your customers when ordered.

So how do you save money?  Most of the money you save is in time.  Most online business owners today get sucked into a vortex of time wasting activities, not realizing how much time they give away working “in” their businesses when they should be working “on” their businesses.  Here is a sample breakdown of how the fulfillment process can save you money.  Substitute your own money amounts into the examples.

• Unloading the truck and moving into warehouse.  Most likely a full day’s work plus hiring or employing some help.  Generally you can figure 3 people to unload the typical twenty foot container.  (the reason you need help is that typical trucking vendors allow you two hours to unload, you cannot unload this all by yourself in two hours)
• You will need a forklift and pallet jack unless you have a loading bay. (most do not)
• Items will have to be stacked in some particular order according to stock numbers to keep the inventory organized.  This can take a good chunk of time depending on what you are receiving.  Personally we remove all the items from the truck and spread them out before we move them inside.  When overseas manufacturers load your containers, they do not do it with any particular order, so things can be mixed and matched to load maximum volume into the container.
• Product may need to be reboxed or combined for final product assembly.
• Product then needs to be “picked” or selected, when the customer orders it.  The shipping label, packing invoices are printed and then it somehow makes it way to UPS or Fed Ex for shipping.  All of this takes time.  If you hire someone or employ someone, this can be many hours of their job functions.

If your are looking for Part 1 of Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment

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• Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment, Part 3
• How I learned to Source Products from Overseas

If you inventory products for your ecommerce site finding a good solution for shipping and storing your products can always be challenging.  Most warehouse the items yourself and spend lots of time “touching” your products.  So what is “touching” and how does it cost you money?

The typical scenario

You bring in goods from overseas and they get off a boat and are trucked to your location.  You (the receiver) unload and move them into a warehouse.  Generally you will spend some time inspecting your inventory and organizing it so that you can pick your items and ship in an effective manner.  Sometimes if the packaging is not complete, you many find yourself repacking or re boxing items for final shipping.  So here is how the “touching” is applied

• Unloading it off the truck, you have to do this
• Into the warehouse
• Organizing in the warehouse
• Possible repacking
• Final pick for shipment to the customer who ordered it

This is five times that the item is touched, moved, processed or handled.  If you smart, you most likely have an employee do this work, which means you pay the employee and manage the process.  Not counted here is the managing of the items coming from port and getting to your ware house that is a separate discussion.  The warehouse cost is also not included in the cost at this particular point.

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• Ecommerce Shipping and Fulfillment, Part 3
• The 900 lb Ecommerce Gorilla

How it works

Product recovery is very similar at this point to the repo man; their job is to get the product back.  Intimidation is at there own discretion and that is more or less the beauty of the system.  If you think about it, we tend to glorify the repo man and the bounty hunter, heck we even make TV shows about these jobs and put them on legitimate well thought of networks.  When a bounty hunter brings in a man or woman, it doesn’t seem to matter if someone fell down and got a little banged up.  It’s part of the job, but not the focus.

The whole idea is to deter crime because there is now some accountability, something this country is sorely lacking.  I am not talking about a bunch of vigilantes running around chopping peoples fingers off, but there is value in persuasion.  By the way some product recovery groups specialize in international operations.  Jurisdiction and international affairs are heeded but not endorsed.  In other words, everyone who thinks they can rip you off from a foreign country is fair game.  How sick are you of the Nigerian email scams?

Contrary to popular belief Product Recovery is considered a “good guy operation” A while back there was a TV commercial that talked about how great it would be if you could tell who the good guys were.  They cemented the idea in your head by showing normal everyday vendors that were “good people” by having them wear capes.  This way you could easily identify who the good guys were.  Pretty cool idea, I wish it were that easy.  If it was Product Recovery would definitely be cape wearing contenders.

Creating jobs?

So how does this create jobs you ask?  Well their certainly is enough work out there for everyone, in fact it’s rampant.  Crime is out of control, and there are plenty of opportunities for new businesses to begin.  This creates jobs.  Every product recovery needs a good accounting department, a killer computer system a bunch of geeks (virus creation optional), large scary looking guys like Vinnie and Lou, (I can say that cause I am Italian) and a good customer service team.

When you think about the amount of crime that occurs in one city alone (think NY) and then consider all the hotbeds of activity, you have some very real potential.  So if you think this sounds stupid, look at the current and known drug cartels that are operating in the world today, they are doing the very same thing on a much higher scale.  We could go hog wild in some other examples but that would not serve this particular example well.

Summary

Funny or serious, what the world needs to do is step up.  We are so wrapped up in being civil that we are letting evil take over the world.  Self defense is part of the deal, stealing gets your hand cut off in certain countries.  We need to be civil and the owner of Product Recovery certainly needs to train his people that way, but enough is enough.  Accountability and consequences are what keep us from putting our fingers in light sockets when were children.  If you steal something, you need to know, someone is coming to get it back.

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• Fraud Pays, Part 1
• The Website Misnomer, Part 2
• The Website Misnomer, Part 1

Every year credit card theft increases.  Every year online fraud increases as well.  If you sell any type of product online, chances are pretty high that there will be some sort of fraudulent activity that you are going to have to deal with.  So why does this keep increasing?  The answer is simple, fraud pays, and people know it.  The problem is simple to figure out, people are not afraid anymore because they know the system cannot or will not handle it.

Last month a customer made a purchase on my site using a stolen credit card.  A couple of days later a real nice lady that owned the credit card called me and told me that someone stole her card.  I told her I would be happy to help her and give the police everything they needed to catch the guy.  I had the name, address, phone number and email address of the cheater.  An open and shut case, right?  Wrong, the authorities could do nothing, not because they lacked information, but because they are overloaded.  So I with my wild imagination came up with the perfect solution.

I will take the time to now warn you, this solution can be considered unethical, so if you get jammed up about that, you might want to go read some other article about something else.  My solution actually solves problems creates jobs and creates a better place to live.  You also might get a laugh out of it which is a bonus.

New Business Opportunities

The best idea of the year is called Product recovery.  Here is the theory behind it and an explanation of how it works.

Theory

Product Recovery is kind of a conglomeration of the Police, The Repo man, The Better Business Bureau and a Bounty hunter.  It also has a strong technical background (geeks) and a great accounting program.

Product Recovery might bend some rules and laws but they are highly effective in their techniques.  In some ways, not all but some, it resembles the old version of the Mafia.  I do not agree with the techniques that they employed, but you know that no one messed with them whatsoever.  For some reason everyone understands a crack in the teeth, it would seem to be the only real answer to this growing problem.  But that is not the theme, this is theory.  Here is how it works.

• Joe knucklehead uses stolen credit card on website
• Website owner ships product and afterwards finds out about the fraud, he calls Product Recovery.
• PR takes the facts and retrieves said product back from “alleged customer” using their own “collection technique”
• Website owner pays PR half the value of the item and gets his property back.

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• Monster Online Business Model That Really Pays Off
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So what’s Vendio?

Vendio is auction management software.
Why do you need it?
Well you don’t need it, but you will want it when you find out how simple it can make your life.

The old way

Go to Ebay to list your item, First you have to find a place to upload your pictures. That means you have to have a place where you can store all your pictures online and then plug that link into the Ebay listings. Next you start the listing process by filling in the template and writing all the text for your item.
You would next link those items to your pictures and fine tune the listing. If Ebay burps or you make some mistakes you could lose all your content and have to start over again. (grrrr)

The Vendio Way

Go to Vendio and sign up for free. Instead of finding a place to host your pictures, you can load them up on Vendio. They are all in one spot, its super easy to do, and you can keep everything organized. Next you want to launch an auction. You choose the auction template you like, fill in the blanks like
you did on Ebay, attach the photos and save. Now when you save it, it’s saved and you can simply copy it again if you want to run constant auctions with the same item. This gives you the ability to tweak your ad and constantly adjust. The best part is if you are running another auction it takes you about 10 seconds to launch one since all your text is prefilled in. They also have a variety of listing templates so you can give your auctions a professional look. Why not tip the scales in your favor?

Now here is the greatest part. Vendio is a database, so your items are organized by month, date, year etc. If you want to see what sold the best in March of last year, you simply look it up. If you want a bottom line figure to do your taxes, it’s all there. If you want to watch your auctions as they run and track how many people look at your auction, you can do that too. The possibilities are endless which is what makes it a great tool. You can automate your checkout for auctions and even remind people to leave you feedback. Vendio has it all and is very robust. The cost to use it is 1% of your final sale price and .10 per listing. To me it’s like having a personal manager track and organizes my activity and the 1% is always worth it. Beside’s, its tax deductible.

All the features can be seen here, this short article cannot possibly do all their features justice.

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Where to go with your Budget

Here is a quick and dirty list of what you should at least consider when building your budget.  If you are in the website/ecommerce/blogging type game already, this is a familiar list.  IF you are not, you need to do your homework and learn how to implement these.  If you don’t, you will waste your money.  These are not listed in any particular order.

1. Blog
2. Article Marketing
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Social Marketing
5. Forum Postings
6. Web 2.0 sites
7. Wiki’s
8. RSS Feeds
9. Directory Listings
10. Blog commenting

In summary I would like to leave you with some advice that is pretty much straight and to the point.  It is not meant to degrade or discourage anyone.  In fact if you are as bullheaded as I am, it may spur you on to make something happen.  When I was growing up, we had chores to do around the house.  Like any kid I tried to do as little as possible and cut corners where I could so I could go and do what I really wanted to do.  My father would say, “Why do it half as….”  Who wants to be known for that?  Anyone can do a mediocre job, why lump yourself in with that?  Since then I have added to that with these little morsels of learning.

1. Why be “just another _____” (fill in the blank)
2. Most people want to do things the easy way.
3. Being successful online is hard work and not easy.
4. If it was not hard, everyone would do it.
5. Easy, Guaranteed, Simple, Quick, “make big money”, “monster profits” and “fabulous opportunities” are terms for suckers.
6. Never put your success in someone else’s hands.
7. No one is as motivated as you are.
8. There is a time to outsource and time to do it yourself, but most of the time, you need to outsource it.
9. Try very hard not to “work in your business” “working on your business is much smarter.
10. Don’t just sit there, do it.

Looking for part one of The website Misnomer?

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The other day I had an interesting discussion with a friend about putting up a website to sell a product line that he was starting.  To make a long story short, he offered to supply me with product if I built the site and started promoting it.  Sounds good right?  It could be if the keywords had some potential, but the conversation revealed some interesting insights.

Build it

First you have to build the site, which means you have to decide on which platform you want to build it with.  Considering the fact that I already own and operate stores, I thought it might be a good idea to use the same platform that I already use.  This makes life easier, since you don’t have to learn something new (software)  Learning takes time and stops my progress.  I don’t like to be slowed down since there is more things to do in a day then there is time.  So you could build the site yourself, switch to something new, pay someone to build it for you or just throw something up as an experiment.  Either way to make a summary out of the conversation, you are going to spend about $2000 on the site, whether you hire a basic design out or you do it yourself. (Your time is worth money remember?)

What’s behind door number two?

So let’s say you spent the two grand and now you have a site, now what?  Well this is where most people get excited since their site is finished and it’s online.  However they are not making a dime because they are not promoting it.  In fact, they had no idea that they need to promote it because most website designers don’t know a thing about promotion.  They are two different specialties.  You really need a budget to make sure your website is found by your customers.  By the way, this is not easy, and anyone that tells you that it is, is a big fat liar.    So in order to do it right, since I spent $2000 of my hard earned money, I need a blog.

Blog Please

I wont get into the specifics of why, but I will say that if you are smart you will use a blog to promote your site.  So here we go again.  Do you use a free blogging platform? (Very limited)  Do you hire it out?  Do you build it yourself?  If you have someone who knows what they are doing, you can plan to spend between $300 and $500 for decent blog and design.  This is if you know who to ask and where to go.  But don’t forget the blog needs promotion too, just like the site.  The blog works for the site, but it still needs to be promoted as well.

Door Number Three

So if your math is right you have about $2300 into this project and know one including Google knows you exist.  And if you do not exist in Google, you don’t exist period.  So you need a budget, if you’re serious.  So how much do you spend?  That my friend is the golden question that begs to be answered.  Most people would say, “Pay what you can afford”.  This to me is a mistake.  The correct answer is in the form of a question.  How much do you want to dominate in the search engines for organic search results?  If you want to make it to the first page of Google or Yahoo, then this is going to take some money and a good plan.  I am not saying you have to spend a fortune, but I am trying to get you to understand that you cannot spend $100 a month and make it happen.  You would be better off taking the $2300 you invested and taking your special someone on an all inclusive cruise.  The point of this conversation is this, if you want to be a player you have to be aggressive, have a plan and make a budget.  I know people that spend 50K a month on their plan and I know some that spend $500.  Budget is a function of keywords as well.  If you are trying to rank for the word “mortgage’, get out your checkbook or buy a lot of lotto tickets, that my friend is a long row to hoe.  However if your keywords are less competitive you can spend less.  This of course leads you to the keywords conversation which is another article (sorry)

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I copied a interesting question from a forum that I go to regularly.  I feel like the answer that I gave is very helpful when people are starting to promote their sites.

The thread copy is this: How can I make sales without paying Google so much money?

One answer was given as:

Its simple to make sales without purchasing/paying for those ads but it takes plenty of research….I personally help people through my website to get free advertising and floods of traffic to their Business…The website lists only the best resources for Google,Ebay,Classifieds and more….Some sites let you place ads that run up to 360 days free…visit the site…what you need is there
http://freeadvertisingforall.weebly.com
I can also place a link for you on my site….lets do the link exchange if you are interested.

The answer given to this post is:

Well I hate to rain on anyones parade but you have to do some serious research when it comes to link exchanges. Most people have absolutly no idea how it is viewed by Google but they dive in anyway. Link exchanges used to be popular, but Google has started to discount them and will soon disregard them in the future. Most people want to do them, because they are easy, easy stuff has a gravitational pull for most. The problem is when you sign up for “instant backlinks” is that you have no idea where your links are coming from until they start showing up. Links on link farms stink, and you really need to know where your link is placed. Its called theme relevancy. If your site is about kitchen gadgets and your link is on a computer site (with no page rank or authority) guess what your link relavency is? Yes you guessed it….zippo. That is because your sites are not about the same thing. Google has a bunch of brilliant people on staff, they know how to find people that are trying to game the system. Link building is a slow process is you do it right, you have to find or create good links to point to your site. Anything that says “free” “automatic” “easy” or “turbo” should be ignored.

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By Jeff Smith

Are you wrestling with the type of business you will operate online?

You may have your goals, even have a market in mind but confused
about the online business model you can use to earn both short-term
dollars as well grow future profits?

It’s true, you have the opportunity to:

- Create Your Own Products

- License Products

- Market a service

- Earn commissions through affiliate marketing

In fact, you could combine one or more of these to reach your goals.

FIRST – GOALS BEYOND DOLLARS

In my mind, you should set some goals in your life that go beyond just
money – then figure out how much you would need to achieve to reach
those goals.

For instance, if you want to experience the freedom of giving up your
current job – that’s your goal, and to fulfill that goal, you may
want to earn 80% of current income within X months.

In my case, I wanted to replace a six-figure corporate income and
did that a couple of years ago.

If you have ever worked for a large company, you’ll appreciate it
when I say that I never wanted to be spending more time in meetings
than producing results again.

Having a reason, deep within you, gives earning your financial
goals meaning resulting in an inexplicable, often magic ability to
achieve the unimagineable.

So, you have your purpose, now is it product, service or affiliate
marketing that will get you there?

THERE’S ONLY ONE RULE THAT COUNTS

In my case, it was a mix of products, services and affiliate
marketing, but…

It all started with the product.

I know many successful online business owners who use different
combinations of products, services and affiliate marketing.

Let’s not pretend that there is any set formula for mixing each of
these EXCEPT…leading with your own products is the single best
way to ensure you get the highest return for the least effort in
all 3 business models.

Here’s the important thing…

1. Having your own products will draw far more business options TO you
instead of you having to chase service or affiliate business.

2. Having your own product increases your credibility and perceived
value to your market (assuming your product is relevant and is good),
which allows you to get more for your services and get better
conversions on your affiliate marketing.

3. Creating or licensing a product gives you leveraged income. In
other words, you create (or license) once and it generates passive
revenue for you for months (even years) to come. My own income split
started at approx 1/3 for each of product, service and affiliate
marketing – now is much more like 65% product, 25% affiliate marketing
and 10% services (I have purposefuly limited them)

Think about it, you spend a few weeks developing your own information
product, another week or two in your launch while you continue to
build sales as long as you continue to expose it to your market.

Even your marketing can be fully automated by building your own
army of affiliates and joint venture partners. With a few months
work launching and marketing your product, you can literally sit
back and collect a check for years.

With your own book, ebook, report, course, workshop, audio or video
products out on the market, you’re business will grow fast. Of
course,
you need to make sure your product tackles a real challenge in your
market and presents you as the ultimate solution.

If you get the feeling that your business is stuck in rush hour
traffic, it’s taking far too much time and effort to squeak out an
inch of progress, then it’s time to clear a certain path toward
success by leading with your own product.

Become A High Paid Information Publising Entrepreneur Using the
System That Experts Agree, Will Put You On the Fast-Track To
Releasing and Profiting From High-Demand Infoproducts. Find it here:
http://www.infoproductcreator.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeff_Smith
http://EzineArticles.com/?Monster-Online-Business-Model-That-Really-Pays-Off&id=96641

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Progress Minded People

Someone asked me the other day why I started my own business even though I had a perfectly good career in another field.  I told him that my business allows me to make progress and my career does not.  So I thought it might be a good idea to explain how this concept works. (in my mind anyway)

There are two different types of people out there when it comes to employment, there are people who work for themselves (entrepreneurs) and there are people who work for someone else. (Employees)

Employees

So let’s start with the Employee minded person and you will see what I mean.  An employee works for someone and is quite happy doing so.  Whether the position is white collar or blue collar they start at some entry level position and begin to work their way up the corporate ladder.  At some point, if they can keep the same job, they will eventually go as far as they can go.  This could even be as radical as the president of the company, but it is still the top of the chain. (See graphic)  What happens is, that particular peak never again progresses any further.  This generally is fine for most people since they made their goal and now they can enjoy the benefits of enjoying their life and their accomplishments.  If you are in this category, I applaud you and congratulate you wholeheartedly, well done.

Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur’s brains are wired a bit different than employees.  It is not necessarily better, just different.  If you look at the graph you can see that the progress goes up, levels off for a bit and then goes up again.  Entrepreneurs need to be fed and are never really satisfied with their current status.  In this particular example there is no peak; the sky is the limit for someone in this position.  One of the reasons is that entrepreneurs are not content with making a goal and then staying there.  They simply set another goal and strive to achieve that goal again.  It can be bigger or more challenging, but it keeps their brains engaged and active.  There is always a better mousetrap.  These types of people like to control their own progress.  They like to push to make things happen and are generally unhappy when they are not making much progress.  Working for yourself is more personal since you own it.

So which are you?

I have heard some people say they are a mixture of both.  This could be partly true if you have a career and then start out to build your own business while enjoying the stability of a steady paycheck.  These people eventually quit their jobs and cross the line into a full line business man or woman.

Progressing

So how do you keep moving up the highway of learning?  I have found several useful tools that I use every week.

1. Add new products. If you are in the ecommerce field, you will find that you will always want to be adding more products.  This not only fattens up your website, but it keeps your creative juices flowing to give something to your customers that your competitors do not.
2. Brainstorm Coming up with new ideas, researching new marketing techniques or learning new skills always challenges your creativity and keeps you moving forward.  The thing I love about brainstorming with what I call the “morph” principle.  That is when you are working on an idea; it generally turns into something else that you were not thinking about.  This is where the really good money making ideas come from.
3. Outsource Outsourcing frees you up to do stuff that helps you make progress.  Making progress makes you more successful.  You would be amazed at what things you do that sap your time and keep you from being progressing.
4. Network This is very similar to outsourcing because it can give you ideas and help you become affiliated with people you might not have come into contact with.  I have met more people that I would never thought about talking to through networking.  There is always someone out there that knows more than you.
5. Plan Planning forces progress.  I do weekly planning as well as monthly planning.
6. Learn Learning a new technique or staying on top of the latest trends keeps you moving forward.  Social media is a great example of this since it really is the hottest trend on the Internet today.  There is not just one site that defines social media but hundreds of new sites.  They all have advantages and disadvantages and can all help your business.  This in itself keeps your brain engaged and working on a high level.

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Paying bills is no fun. Juggling costs for a start up business is not picnic either. If you are starting out on a shoe string, you know that it can be a challenge to pay everything on time. Again being organized is key. I do some key planning on the white board before starting the business. This can help in the lean months.

1. Set up a company bank account
2. Set up a company credit card linked to the bank account
3. Set up a credit line linked to the bank account.

Pick a bank you like and set up a separate account that has nothing to do with your home account. Most banks will be more than happy to set up the credit card at the same time as well as the line of credit if you qualify. I always try to pick a credit card that has some bonus point’s perks. Today’s marketplace is competitive. If the economy is slow, banks need to come up with ways to bring in more business.

The perks are for you. Use the card for all of your expenses and build up some points. Put every expense that relates to your business on it and watch it add up. You might as well enjoy an extra gift card or airline miles if it is available. Many of the awards are useful for your business such as gift cards to Office Depot or Staples. You can use these cards to save money on the things you need for the business anyway, or you can treat yourself for being smart.

Sometimes things come up in business that you did not plan. Occasionally you will be strapped for cash and you can use your card to take up the slack. It used to be considered evil to use a credit card to start a business or finance parts of a business. However times are changing and the use of the card in a responsible way is more accepted and encouraged.

Using line of credits in some instances is gaining more credibility as well. One of the main advantages of this and the credit card route is that you can do it on your own schedule. Banks are notorious for not giving loans to new businesses. That can make it very hard to get your business going. If you are responsible and can manage budgeting the card payments, this can give you some needed flexibility. A year or two later you have a track record as a business and you will be much more likely to get a loan.

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