Business Ideas and Updates

WELCOME TO BUSINESS IDEAS AND UPDATES

In our travels in the business and management world, we find some articles, ideas, tips, strategies, insights, and other items that we want to put together here on this page in no particular order. As we find them, we'll add them for the purusal of our business acquaintances and any others. We suggest contact with discretion as we offer no assurance of worth or character. Here's to lots of good thinking and a sensible approach to all business or personal dealings. Let us hear your ideas... Direct2.

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Do you believe these blurbs? If so, visit and work with them, we give you the links. But, mostly we want to share tips that will work in a lot of business settings and situations. We encourage a careful, professional approach to business dealings and a caring and responsible effort at helping customers and associates. See more of our views on our Notes and secrets pages.

BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Easy-to-Remember Marketing
(offered by Kevin Nunley*)

One of the most important parts of marketing--and probably the hardest is getting people to remember what you've advertised. Even some big multi-million dollar TV ad campaigns have come up short when viewers couldn't remember the company or the product. Here's a very simple way to help people remember your marketing.
Start by simplifying your marketing message down to a short line you could fit on a bumper sticker. Three to five words is plenty. Choose your short statement carefully. First tell people who you are. Relate the most important or exciting benefit your product or service brings to customers. Your short marketing statement could be "Computers at Half Price!" or "Reliable Childcare for Less." Use your short, easy-to-remember sentence prominently in all your marketing. In our busy world where we are constantly bombarded by advertising, simple and direct marketing sells. Tell them who you are and tout your biggest benefit.

*Kevin supplies marketing advice and copy writing and provides a free marketing report. Read other of his marketing articles at DrNunleyNews

FEATURE ARTICLE

Four Elements Of Success

Know your market and its potential. Be alert to trends and changes occurring with the purchasing public. Stay up to date on what's hot and what's not! Some people wait to see what is happening and let others get to the forefront before they decide to get in. Then, its too late. Fad and fashion, what will endure and what won't are unpredicatable. Depending on good sources of information and getting a good clear picture of success possibilities for products and services is essential. Sometimes reliance on experienced pros in the field is a good idea. AND, get lucky with research and development to produce the right service or product.

Know your margins, or go broke! Have you ever wondered why some people know nothing about marketing, yet their business makes money? Well, wonder no more because it all has to do with margins. When your margins are high (like information books and software) you can screw up big time with your marketing and still make a decent profit. A good sell:cost margin is 4:1 or better with 6 to 8:1 more desirable. Figuring these margins sometimes requires a little math sense and profit can be more assured with a little accounting help. The product oriented business person is encouraged to develop lots of back-end products and up-sells or to feature some type of a consumable/repeat product. And, we have some good ideas on these.

Make the result from the produce or service immediate and easy. Notice that the Lottery is sold as almost an immediate financial gain. Diet pils and programs herald weight loss in days; headache powders, stomach antacids, etc., guarantee relief within seconds. Software products and services, are high margin and they boast a quick plug and play answer to your needs. On the net, they can be downloaded and almost instantly available.

Emphasize solving a problem rather than preventing one. It's easier to sell a book on how to ERASE debt, than a book on how to PREVENT getting into debt. People are more interested in how to lose weight after they have gained it, rather than how to prevent weight gain. They are interested in toning up existing flab over keeping it from developing in the first place. Our society and government spends billions of dollars on trying to find a cure for diseases and illness, but spends a much smaller amount on preventing these problems. It's much easier to sell someone a car or house alarm AFTER they have been robbed, rather than before.

The best example to show how these ideas might fit together is to talk about a product we all know of. Marketing it included all four of the described essentials. This product sells faster than it's being made and its projected rate of growth, world wide, for the next 12 months is over 500%! It's the drug Viagra, the anti-impotence pill.

By doing a quick analysis we can better understand the components of the success of this "miracle" discovery. First, a huge market exists since most men want better sex or have some real or perceived sexual dysfunction. Second, the margins for this product are outstanding: pennies to produce yet sold for $30-$150 per pill (as high as $300 a pill in some countries!). To top it off, it's a consumable product....which means repeat sales. Third, a highly valued gain is immediate and super easy. Take a pill, wait 30 minutes, instant gratification! It's well know that the more immediate a desired response, the more likely that response will be desired in the future so the product reinforces itself. For the fourth point, it solves a problem rather than preventing one. It would not have the same success if it only prevented impotency instead of creating its opposite. And, there's a bonus. Not only is the market world wide for men, but since it well affects many women, there is an enhanced indirect need for the product and its effect for women.

It doesn't have to be big pharmaceutical company that produces a product that contains all four essential success elements. But just make sure that for your next project, product, or service you try consider these points. Try to find a way to solve problems rather than preventing them, create immediate and easy solutions, keep your margins high, and make sure you'll find a suitable market before proceeding too far. Don't try to build iceboxes for Eskimos or sell liquor at an AA convention! Follow our simple checklist for success and your product might sell almost a well as Viagra!

*Sam Robbins, the producer of the Robbins Report, is an advertising and telecommunications consultant. His WEBsite specializes in free information on home business startups and expansions. Visit him at CashFlow or get a free newsletter subscription by sending E-mail to FlowMarket)

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