Best Business Deals!

I’ve never really known much about the Grateful Dead. I mean, I’ve heard of them (who hasn’t heard of Jerry Garcia) but I never really understood the whole Grateful Dead phenomenon. And phenomenon only begins to describe the Grateful Dead.

I bought this book because of my passion for PR and my passion for doing things differently. Also, I love Hubspot and I’ve recently read David Meerman Scott’s New Rules book. If you are in PR, or if you just want to market your business differently, you need to get yourself a copy of this book. Here are just a couple of the lessons that I learned.

1. Don’t do things just because everyone else is- Challenge the status quo. Traditionally, bands would record albums and tour trying to promote their album’s. The Grateful Dead turned this model on its head and made it about the concerts. They even let fans record the concerts. Can you turn your industry’s standard business model upside down and stand out from the pack?

2. Drive passionate loyalty from existing customers- The Grateful Dead announced tours and sold tickets to their existing fans first. You need to create passionate loyalty from your existing customers and then they will vouch for you in the search for new customers.

3. Cut out the middleman- The Grateful Dead sold tickets through their own ticketing outlet meaning that they got to keep a large chunk of the profits whilst also keeping prices down for fans. You need to reach out to your own fans directly so that you can keep your profits whilst saving your customers money.
These are only a couple of the tips that are mentioned in the book. You really need to get yourself a copy.

Get it through Book Depository and take advantage of their great pricing and free delivery.

Click here to go to their site.

Why wouldn’t you- it’s free. It only costs you time. Obcously you need a plan and to stick to it. You need to be able to measure your return on investment. You don’t want to waste time and money if you don’t know how you can track your results.

Social media should be a part of an Integrated Marketing Campaign- You need to combine social media with offline, traditional activities- press releases, events, sponsorships etc.

2-way engagement- Social media is about 2 way engagement. It is about input, participation and conversation. Interact with your audience.

If it hadn’t been for my personal trainer that I started with 6 months ago, I wouldn’t be here at the gym on a Saturday morning sitting on the exercise bike writing this article in an email on my smart phone. I’d still be in bed- justifying my sleep in by saying that I work hard all week. Now I jump out of bed and I have more energy then ever before.

Now, I could keep espousing the benefits of regular exercise but that is not the point of this article. As the title suggests I am looking to draw some analogies between what happens with my PT and what happen in business.

Repetition is important if you increase the intensity and speed-My Personal Trainer and I often go through the same routine of exercises but it is not always the same. I may do card exercises faster or at intervals. I’ll lift heavier weights to build more muscle. This is how I see results. I’ve been a member of gyms before without a personal trainer and not seen results. you can’t keep repeating things when you aren’t getting positive results.

The same thing can be said of work. The definition of insanity, according to Einstein is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Some tasks need to be done. There is nothing that you can do about that but you should look at ways that you can tweak these tasks in order to finish them faster or see better results.

Variety is good. Shake things up a bit but make sure to always keep your goals in mind- my personal trainer and I do have regular routines that we go through but we don’t do them every week. Sometimes we change it up a bit but my personal trainer always makes sure the exercises she suggests will help me achieve my goals.

From a work perspective I am going to suggest that you look at ways that you can mix things up a bit. This could be as simple as throwing an event to keep your staff motivated or changing up your marketing strategy to try and reach a new target audience. You just need to make sure everything you do is in order to achieve your business goals. If an activity doesn’t work towards a goal then you are just procrastinating.

Accountability is key- my personal trainer and i have set goals for me to achieve and we measure progress every few weeks to see if I am reaching these goals. This means that I am at the gym on a Saturday morning making sure I achieve these goals.

I highly recommend that you look at getting an accountability partner for your business. Discuss your goals with them and meet regularly so you can discuss results.

I recently went to a seminar given by Craig Reardon of the E-Team on the 10 commandments of ruining your business online. Here are some of the notes that I took that may be of interest to you.

1. Professional website- layout is key. You need to tell people what’s inside at the homepage. Who, what, when, where, why. Make sure that you have a call to action!
2. You need a Content Management System that allows you to change your own content.
3. Sell online- make your website a 24 hour sales person- have an ebook to sell
4. SEO is vital- Your website should be optimised for your business name, bus category and location (suburb and region) eg Strathmore and Melbourne
5. PPC – learn Google adwords. Have a basic understanding so, even if you outsource PPC, you know whether your PPC marketer knows what they are talking about or not.
6. Email marketing- personalized, use links, competitions. Tuesday-Thursday are popular days for newsletters but test to see what works for your newsletter. Make sure you have a great subject line
7. Don’t breach spam and privacy act- unsubscribe mechanism, prove authority to email, identification and contact details. Protect peoples email addresses
8. Respond in a timely manner.
9. Avoid mainstream media advertising unless you can demonstrate a positive ROI for your costs.
10. Web 2.0 and social networking can be great tools but they are only a means to an end. You cannot just ‘do’ social media and social networking.

Craig’s website is here. I recommend that you check it out if you have the chance.

http://www.theeteam.com.au

I like to consider myself an early adaptor. I am not opposed to embracing new and online tools to improve my business and improve my life. I want to share with you some of my favourite tools- tools that I use every day. These tools are useful for all business owners that want to embrace the Internet and grow their business effectively. I don’t think that there are any businesses that won’t be able to utilise most of these tools.

TweetDeck- TweetDeck is great. It allows me to access all of my social networking platforms from one great piece of software- at home, at the office and even on my mobile phone. I can immediately update my profiles (across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) and also conduct market research in real time by following what people are saying about topics of interest on Twitter. I can follow what people are saying about me, an industry I am working in and also what they are saying about their competitors.

Google Alerts- Google Alerts is great for media monitoring across news websites and across blogs. Don’t pay someone else to do it for you when you can get whatever terms you want searched and the results collated and emailed to you without having to spend a cent.

Google Analytics- I love Google Analytics as I love measuring and analysing results. Google Analytics means that you can put a little bit of HTML coding on your website and then Google will track visitors to your website and how they got there. You can easily measure the success of your marketing endeavours with Google Analytics.
Google Docs- Google Docs is like a free VPN. I can work on documents and spreadsheets and share these documents with other people so they can edit and change these documents. I can also access these documents anywhere that I am in the world. Cloud computing is the way of the future. I love my netbook and Google Docs allows me to work wherever I am- at home, at the office or in a cafe whilst travelling overseas. All I need is an Internet connection.
Facebook- Don’t get me wrong. Updates about mafia and farms or whatever give me the shits. I don’t care about your chickens or a lost little sheep. I am glad that I can turn off these updates in my Facebook news feed. Having done that, now I only see benefits from Facebook. It is an organiser, I can see what my friends and associates are up to and I can network with potential alliance partners through groups. I also have some Fan Pages for my business- I like being able to keep in touch with my customers and supporters in a way that is suitable for them. Facebook is also a great way for me to connect with people who I have met at offline networking functions and boost the relationship that we have. There is nothing wrong with sharing a little bit of my personality. I am, after all, a person who has thoughts and feelings.
My iPhone- I couldn’t live without my iPhone. I’ve tried other smart phones but the iPhone is the only one that really works for me. My iPhone means that I no longer have down time. When I am waiting for people anywhere I can check my email, update my social networking statuses and even write articles and blog posts like this one.
The web forums that I am a member of- Networking need not only happen online. I am only a member of a few online networking sites but they are a great way to foster relationships with alliance partners that I may not have normally been able to meet before the Internet was a useful tool.

Other than my iPhone, which I had to throw in there, all of the tools that I have mentioned above are free to download, participate in or sign up for. Even if you decide not to use all of them, check them out and see if they can be useful for your business.

Do yourself a favour today.

Short review- This is an interesting and engaging read that will both entertain and enlighten. You can easily feel Vanessa’s passion and it can only motivate you as the reader to try and change the world with her.

Long review- Vanessa Hall is the self-described International Ambassador for Trust. Through her company entente Pty Ltd and the entente Foundation, Vanessa is a lady on a mission and she is taking the mission to the world. She wants to enlighten people to the value of trust for their business. She is an award winning Author, Speaker and Adviser to business leaders, governments and individuals around the world.

This is an extremely insightful read for business owners. It is well laid out, using a conversational tone, real life examples and also a lot of images to help explain what Vanessa is saying.

In this book the reader will learn how to define trust, how people develop expectations, needs and promises and how this all comes together. From this we will be able to learn about different types of trust and also who to trust and why you should trust. Once Vanessa has helped us define trust and the models above we can learn how to implement trust in our own businesses in order to grow our businesses by using trust as a competitive advantage.

With real life examples and comments from thought leaders in their industries this book is a must have for Directors, CEO’s and business owners. It should be read by all business decision makers and implemented today.

For more information about Trust and what Vanessa Hall can teach, visit www.entente.com.au

Short Review- If you are starting a business or if you are currently struggling with your own business then you need to get yourself a copy of this book. Waring’s experiences and the other real life examples in this book should be able to help you with your own business endeavours. Do yourself a favour and get a copy today.

Long review- Gavin Waring has seen rock bottom when it comes to business. In a previous life he lost his business and lost his house to pay off creditors. From here, and learning from his mistakes Gavin has been able to turn his life around.

Gavin knew that his failure was because of a lack of business knowledge so he went out and learned everything that he could. This knowledge helped Gavin found Your Business Angels, the company that has helped hundreds of businesses Australia wide deal with debt and management issues and it has also helped Gavin in writing this book.

In How Not to Business Suicide you learn some of the following: advice on business structure, advice on financing for your business, advice on paying yourself a wage, tax advice, dealing with debtors and creditors, dealing with staff, pricing, accounting ideas and what to do if something goes wrong.

This book contains general advice and, for some this may be common knowledge, but it contains many of the basic things that all business owners need to do in order to succeed. If you are missing one of these things it may be the difference between a healthy business and a sick business.

If you want to buy a copy of How Not to Commit Business Suicide you can get it from Palmer Higgs Books at www.phbooks.com.au.

Get a Smart Phone With Skype and WiFI- I love using Skype on my Iphone as it saves me a fortune in calls when I am travelling. I can call family, friends and work colleagues from any WiFI area for free. This definitely beats paying international roaming rates.

Get an International SIM card- You will save a fortune and because it is prepaid you know exactly how much you are spending

Put your International SIM card mobile number on your business card- this will encourage people to contact you directly on this number when they cannot reach you in Australia.

I’ve reviewed a number of International SIM cards on this site. Do some research and check out which one is best for you today.

Website: http://www.lopees.com.au

Short review: If you care about the environment and your hip pocket it is definitely worth purchasing some products from the Lopees range. You won’t regret it and you quickly recoup your purchase costs in savings.

Long Review: The Lopees products are ingenious and definitely fall in to what I would describe as one of the best business deals going around. As I have mentioned above they are also environmentally friendly. They can be reused and recycled.

They come in a variety of sizes and my favourite is the document wallet. I know that I go through a lot of documents so having one that I can recycle will save me a lot of time and money.

These envelopes are of great quality with fine stitching and fine craftsmanship. I did wonder when I heard they were made in India whether the quality would be any good. It turns out that I was wrong and I had nothing to worry about.

The Lopees story is a great one and they have received great media coverage.

http://lopees.com.au/index.php/media

There are many benefits that you can experience if you start a home based business- including flexibility of working hours, the opportunity to spend more time with your family and the reduction in overhead costs whilst running your business.

If you are considering starting your own home-based business but you are not quite sure what you should do, here are some business ideas that you could consider. The three businesses that I have outlined below are online businesses. All you really need to start one of these businesses are a computer and an Internet connection.

Service Provision- When starting a home-based business online one of the most common options is to set up a service provision business. You could do things like article writing, forum posting or blog commenting amongst other options.

Affiliate Marketing- Another online home-based business opportunity that you may want to look at is affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing involves you promoting somebody else’s products on a fee for sale basis. If you pick the right product and the right promotional platform, this can be extremely profitable. I have made a substantial sum of money across a variety of affiliate marketing products.

Packaging and selling information in eBooks- The Internet is one of the great tools of the Internet Economy. People are prepared to pay for packaged information that they are interested in. If you are looking at starting your own home-based business then you could look at writing and selling your own eBooks.

If you are looking at starting your own home-based business then there are a lot of options available to you.