Business Archives

A Copernican Revolution in American Economics!

Business, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

$4 TRILLION DOLLARS! On average that’s how much the American economy grows annually. That’s, on average, how much new value is created each year by the American economy. 330 MILLION! That’s the approximate population of the USA in 2021. So, if you divide $4 trillion dollars by 330 million people, you’ll find that, on average, the American economy grows at the rate of $12,000 per person, annually.

With those figures in mind, let’s explore what happens if the Federal Reserve, through local banks, issued $12,000 worth of CAPITAL CREDIT at ZERO PERCENT INTEREST to every man woman and child in the USA, ANNUALLY? My question at this point is, has any money been spent? The answer is NO MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT! All that’s happened is that there’s been $4 trillion dollars of capital credit issued, all of which is just WAITING TO BE SPENT.

Note here that CAPITAL CREDIT is different from CONSUMER CREDIT because it can only be used to purchase wealth producing capital assets (stocks, bonds, land, buildings, machinery, patents, copyrights) that are expected to yield regular, predictable dividends to their owners.

Now suddenly, one person decides to use their capital credit to purchase $12,000 worth of blue-chip stock. At this point $12,000 HAS BEEN SPENT. But it’s INSTANTLY collateralized (secured so neither the local bank or the Fed are at risk) by the value of the rock solid, blue-chip stock that’s been purchased at zero percent interest.

In order to speed up the ownership process, the new owner is also allowed to repay this capital credit loan using PRE-TAX DOLLARS yielded by their stock. In other words, the new loan is automatically collateralized. The owner does not dig into his/her savings account. They don’t put a second mortgage on the family home. They pay the loan off using PRE-TAX, FUTURE EARNINGS/dividends. In investment circles this strategy is called “a Leveraged Buy-Out.”

On average, the loan will pay itself off (it’s self -liquidating) in 3 to 7 years. But the dividends continue to flow, creating a RESIDUAL INCOME for their owner. Multiply this scenario by 10 years and you’ll find that $120,000 has been invested on behalf of the owner by their 10th birthday. By the time they reach college age, over $200,000 will have been invested on their behalf which will provide all the residual income they’ll need to attend college, while incurring NO COLLEGE DEBT. And at retirement, the owner won’t need social security.

To repeat, not one thin dime is spent UNTIL a purchase is consummated. Once that happens the loan is instantly collateralized by the value of the wealth producing asset purchased. Then the self-liquidating loan pays itself off with pre-tax dollars in a predictable amount of time so neither the individual or the government incurs any long-term debt. And to make things even more secure, a small percentage of the purchase price is used to INSURE the entire transaction, just in case the rock solid, blue-chip stock fails to perform as expected and does not pay itself off.

The Biden/Harris Golden Opportunity…

Now if you multiply this scenario by 330 million people annually, you’ll see how the new Biden/Harris administration could lead our economy out of the WORST ECONOMIC CRISIS America has experienced since the stock market crashed in 1929. In the process they would create no government debt, and no individual debt.

Within a decade and a half this strategy, if employed, would gradually eliminate poverty and a myriad of related problems including STRUCTURAL RACISM. It would also systematically democratize the free market economy, create millions of NEW TAXPAYERS who would reduce the tax burden for Americans currently pay taxes, allow the social safety net programs to fade off into the sunset, balance the budget, and possibly even pay off the national debt.

16 Frequently Asked Questions

1. Where does the $4 Trillion dollars come from?

It comes from NEW WEALTH/ VALUE (from a naturally expanding American economy) created (on average) annually. It’s destined to happen! Someone will have access to and will benefit from this predictable, newly created wealth. The EDA suggests the many (as in we the people) should have access to the means required to participate in the ownership side of the economy – NOT just the few.

2. Won’t the EDA be inflationary?

No, it won’t. Notice this strategy does not add one dime to the projected annual growth of the American economy. It’s going to happen anyway. So, the EDA does not dilute or devalue existing currency levels. The only question is, who gets to participate and benefit? Will it be we the people (the many)? Or only the 1% (the few)?

3. Isn’t the EDA socialistic?

No, it’s not. Capitalism is all about PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. Socialism is all about PUBLIC OWNERSHIP. In that light, the EDA is all about private ownership. But it systematically counteracts concentrated wealth/power. It also democratizes our free market economy. In the process it UNDERWRITES POLITICAL DEMOCRACY.

4. Won’t the EDA increase my taxes?

No, it won’t! What it will do is create tens of millions of NEW TAXPAYERS who will in turn help current taxpayers shoulder the tax burden. This will actually REDUCE taxes for most people who currently pay taxes. It even offers the potential of PAYING OFF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

5. Let me calculate.

A family of 4 would receive $48,000 (4 X $1,200) of capital credit annually. And a family of 10 would receive $120,000 (10 X $12,000) of capital credit annually. Right? So, doesn’t the Economic Democracy Act effectively pay for a couple to create lots of kids in order to get lots of money? The short answer is that since the line of credit is non-transferable, parents have no access and do not directly benefit from it. But more importantly, research shows that as income increases childbirth frequency decreases. So, on both counts, the EDA will not encourage the overproduction of children.

6. How is Economic Democracy different from Universal Basic Income?

UBI simple and it’s relatively immediate. That’s its strength. It’s consumer oriented and it remains relatively constant in size over time. It’s also secured/collateralized by increased government debt. UBI is therefore a SHORT-TERM FIX and creates DEPENDENCE on government. In contrast the EDA is more complicated and it requires some time (5 to 7 years) before residual incomes are actually being generated. The EDA is investment oriented, which means it accumulates and grows over time. It is also backed by insured, wealth producing capital assets that collateralize/secure every transaction. By doing so it creates NO long-term debt for either consumers or government. Therefore, the EDA is a LONG-TERM FIX that must be gradually phased as it creates more people who are INDEPENDENT from government.

7. Is Economic Democracy similar to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan/ESOP?

Yes. But instead of covering just those who work for employee-owned companies and who have access to an ESOP, Economic Democracy uses the same strategy to COVER EVERYONE (regardless of age, gender, race, religion), most of whom lack the required means to participate in the (predictably profitable) ownership side of the American economy.

8. Has Economic Democracy been tested in a pilot project to see how it performs in real life?

Yes and No. The basic mechanics of this strategy have been thoroughly tested in the roughly 8000 employee-owned companies that have been created over the past 50 years. As we said in the previous question, the EDA is really just an expansion of the of the ESOP strategy that aims to give all Americans an equal opportunity to participate in and to benefit from the ownership side of the American economy where all the new wealth is being created. However, it has yet to be formally tested in a national setting.

9. What percentage is used in order to calculate an average ROI and payoff potential?

Using very conservative estimates, we chose 15% as the PRE-TAX ROI. Historically, before the recent wild swings and grossly inflated share values of today, a POST-TAX ROI ran in the neighborhood of 9 to 12%. The payback period is calculated by dividing one by the rate of return and rounding up to the nearest integer. Thus 1/.15 = 6.666 (round it up to 7 years).

10. How does Economic Democracy reduce wage slavery in the US?

By giving everyone (as opposed to a few) legitimate access to the ownership side of the US economy (where almost all the new wealth is generated) and creating residual incomes for everyone, Economic Democracy reduces the need for anyone to sell their most productive hours of the day (week, month, year, life) to an employer in exchange for a pay check.

11. How will the EDA impact the bust/boom character of America’s economy?

It effectively eliminates the imbalances that are responsible for the bust/boom dilemma.

12. Does the EDA appeal mostly to conservatives or mostly to liberals?

To be honest this is a strategy that appeals to BOTH SIDES of the isle. It appeals to the fiscally conservative Republican who wants to reign in spending and live within our means. It also appeals to the liberal Democrat who wants a level playing field where everyone has an equal opportunity. And since it systematically promotes independence from government (i.e. freedom) the only people who disapprove of the EDA are autocrats who want to control we the people.

13. Why would the mainstream media fail to inform “we the people” about such a revolutionary economic strategy?

Quite simply, the entire mainstream media (including CNN and MSNBC) is owned and controlled by the one percent. And the one percent prefers to keep “we the people” under control and in the dark about revolutionary ideas that threaten to undermine their concentrated wealthy/power. We’re allowed to see and hear what media owners allow us to see and hear. In other words, America’s mainstream media delivers little more than profitable propaganda that, in the long run, supports concentrated wealth/power.

14. Why doesn’t academia introduce this strategy to all their future economists?

To be honest, most economists have never been introduced to Economic Democracy. They can’t teach what they don’t know. But in the 21st century, academia is largely dependent on corporate funding (i.e. the one percent) for their existence. So even if they are familiar with Economic Democracy, academicians can ill afford to introduce this revolutionary strategy to future economists without risking their own employment in the process. Bureaucrats (conventionalists) hardly ever rock the boat.

15. Who’s the primary proponent of the Economic Democracy Act?

That would be the Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ.ORG), headquartered in Arlington, VA.

16. What are the three big questions that the CESJ wants to ask about any legislation that gets run through Congress?

Who owns it? Who controls it? Who benefits? In the case of the EDA, every individual person in the USA owns and controls wealth producing assets, and benefits from this strategy.

John F Kennedy warned that “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” The Economic Democracy Act represents the peaceful revolution that will help Americans avoid the inevitable violent revolution.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Rick_Osbourne/58185

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10402172

A Copernican Revolution in American Economics! Read More »

The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Great Social Media Manager

Business, Marketing, Social Media / Mahmoud Sawy

A great social media manager is, as Ron Burgundy would say: “The balls“.

It’s an undisputed fact that every business needs to be active in social media. The ever-changing demands of the modern day consumer requires brands to think fast and adapt quickly in order to stay one step ahead.

The role of a social media manager has appealed to the mass generation of socially-active internet users. It’s hard not to. Especially when some might think that you can earn big bucks from posting Facebook updates. Hardly.

Being a social media manager is kind of like being a stand-up comedian. You have to quickly understand your audience and your engagement with them is vital. In order to accomplish this, you need to know if the audience is laughing at your jokes and you need to know this in real-time. If you can do this, then you have already won the crowd.

So, how do you become a social manager? More to the point, how do you become a great social manager?

The answer will be surprising to some. Firstly, you have to want it. Second, you have to love it. Third, you have to learn it. And even if you tick all these boxes, you should ask yourself: “Am I a social person?” If the answer is no, then becoming a social media manager is probably not for you…

So let’s take a look at the stats.

LinkedIn shows 57,910 results for “social media manager”
Social media has now overtaken porn as the number 1 activity on the web
97% of all consumers search for local businesses online
71% of consumers receiving a quick brand response on social media say they would likely recommend that brand to others
93% of marketers use social media for business
In terms of difficulty of execution, nearly half (49%) of B2B marketers put social media marketing at the top, followed by content marketing (39%), SEO (26%) and mobile (25%)
77% of B2B marketers use a blog as part of their content marketing mix
On average, 25% of marketing budgets are now spent on content development, delivery and promotion
78% of small businesses attract new customers through social sites
When asked to rank their company’s social business maturity on a scale of 1 to 10, more than half of global business executives gave their company a score of 3 or below

But the statistic that is most relevant to this article is:

Just 12% of those using social marketing feel they actually use it effectively.

Being a social media manager brings with it some key benefits within a freelance setting. The most recognisable being the fact that you are your own boss. You make the decisions and answer to no one. You send the invoices and you set the policies. Heck, you could sit in your underpants all day on the computer if you wanted to.

The other is money. It is an in-demand role, but one that companies are still struggling to come to terms with. Some companies realise and understand the value social media could bring to their enterprise and are willing to invest heavily in robust social media campaigns. Being your own boss, you can decide how to set your costs and price accordingly.

Another attractive reason is the low barriers to entry. With low start-up costs and plenty of online resources (like this one!) to rapidly decrease the learning cure, anyone can launch a freelance social management business within a short space of time.

I’ll tell you my story shortly but first, let’s explore the essential skills you’ll need to become a great social media manager..

Fundamental Skills:

Marketing Knowledge

You should have a good grasp of the basic marketing principles. Some education in marketing would be beneficial, but otherwise you can find many quality resources online.

Experience

Your experience doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to life experiences. Have you managed your own social media profiles for a while? Do you know how to effectively maintain your own social accounts and understand what clients expect?

Sociable

I touched on this at the beginning of the article. If you are not a sociable person – someone who doesn’t like communicating much and isn’t very outgoing, then becoming a social media manager just isn’t for you. Sure, you can hide behind a keyword and monitor for a while, but clients will usually want to meet, speak on the phone, or have Skype sessions at some point.

Project Management

You don’t have to have a Prince2 certificate, but you do need to be able to manage projects and your time well. It’s typical for social media manager’s to work with multiple clients at any one time. Keeping tabs on everything is important so that it doesn’t get overwhelming.

Technological

Social media exists online. Therefore, you need to have a certain degree of computer literacy. Having good knowledge of social technology will enhance your services and ensure you are keeping up to date with the latest social trends and developments.

Interpersonal Skills:

Communication

It kind of goes without saying that if you’re going to be representing a company and engaging with their customers, then you will need to have strong communication skills.

Personality

Companies tend not to want to hire people with no personality to act on behalf of their brand. It doesn’t resonate well with them, or their audiences.

Responsiveness

I’ve touched on this a few times – social media is very fast-paced. Imagine if one of your social assignments was largely focused on customer service and you didn’t respond to customer complaints or queries for weeks. People online want rapid responses. Being able to fulfil these needs can stand your client (and you!) in good stead.

Entrepreneurial

To become a social media manager in a freelance capacity, you have to be a self-starter. You should be willing to go the extra mile and take a few financial risks along the way. If you don’t land a job that pays enough in one month, how will this affect you?

Multitasking

A great social media manager must be able to effectively carry out a wide range of tasks.

Organisation

You should always be very well organised when delivering social media management services. I use all kinds of traditional tools like calendars, white boards and task lists to keep myself organised. I also use many online organisational tools, such as: Thunderbird for accessing all my email accounts in one place, Dropbox to easily share documents with clients and bookmarks to keep track of all the websites I frequently visit.

Strategic Thinking

Being able to think campaigns through before they happen and sometimes thinking outside the box when needed, are great asset to have as a social media manager. Clients tend to want to know how you will do something before letting you do it, so being able to present a clear and concise strategy is essential.

Flexible (with travel)

Contrary to popular belief, a freelance social media manager has to leave his office sometimes! If this is a problem for you, then you should think about starting another profession. Nearly every sizeable project I undertake involves multiple meetings with the client. You should have reasonable pitching skills, as you may be required to sell your services face to face too, before being hired. You may even opt to take on in-house work.

Wider Skills:

Copywriting

Every good social media manager is a great writer. Writing forms the foundations of many aspects of online marketing, be it creating ads, writing blogs, engaging with customers, scripting sales copy or writing press releases.

Graphic Design

Pretty much all social media platforms provide the functionality to customise the interface and incorporate your own branding. If you are sharp with Photoshop (or similar design software), then you are in a good position to offer these services as part of your social media package. Similarly, creating content such as infographics, banners or images is standard practise for a social media manager.

Advertising

Every social media manager should have sound knowledge of advertising. Be it Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising or banner advertising, you should know the ins and outs of each discipline and understand how to optimise each format.

PR

Public relations is closely tied to social media marketing, in the sense that both involve managing the spread of information between a business and the public. You may start out not needing to have a deep knowledge of PR, as it is typically managed by larger brands who have an interest in persuading stakeholders, investors or the public to maintain a certain point of view.

Statistical

Everything in marketing should be measured. You should periodically measure and analyse your social marketing performance and produce reports to your clients to demonstrate your value.

SEO

Understanding how social media affects search engine optimisation will ultimately improve campaign performance. In 2012, there was an average of 5,134,000,000 searches on Google every day. If you think SEO doesn’t matter to your social activities, think again.

Traditional Marketing

Even though you generally won’t be involved in traditional marketing practises while undertaking a social media management role, you should understand how both forms of marketing affect each other and how each can be best leveraged to complement the other.

Video Editing

This will probably be the least used of your wider skills, but nevertheless it can assist you in your social marketing positions. I’ve had a few clients that required presentations or demonstration videos to be edited before being used within their social media campaigns. I’m for sure no expert, but having a reasonable level of knowledge in using Windows Movie Maker (or similar video editing software) can turn that video file straight from the camera into a beautiful, YouTube-ready video.

Even if you possess all the necessary skills to become a social media manager, there is still scope to improve your services by using different social tools and software. I’ll quickly recap on two different pieces of software I use that may help you in becoming a great social media manager:

Hootsuite: I wrote an in-depth review of Hootsuite on my blog that also includes a video tutorial which should provide all the information you will need to know about Hootsuite.
BuzzBundle: This is my favourite and most valued piece of software I’ve ever used. I use it mainly to find keywords around my content subject from across a huge range of blogs, forums and social sites and stream all this information back to me in one interface. I can then see who is discussing my topic and jump straight into the conversations to add my two cents.

What You’ll Be Expected To Do…

So, what does a social media manager actually do? As you can probably tell by now, the role of a social media manager is diverse. It’s not a case of “Well, I post updates to Facebook.” Here are a few general activities that social media managers will be expected to execute:

Strategy

You will be required to formulate campaign and platform specific strategies that meet the business objectives. You will create actions plans, content calendars, set metrics and KPIs, undertake various research activities and perform different types of analysis.

Content Creation

Content creates the foundations of any marketing campaign. How you decide to execute your campaigns will depend on the different forms of content you produce. As you would have no doubt already heard from someone, content is king. Believe them.

Community Management

Managing accounts also means managing communities. You should be the go-to person when representing brands in social domains and continually reach out and engage with your audiences. You will need to constantly strengthen social relationships in order to develop long-lasting followers.

Audience Building

Marketing to the same people over and over will not widen your scope and social reach. You should be increasing readership and your level of influence within your target audiences.

Customer Service

Many companies use social media as an instant channel for customer service. You will have to be responsive and helpful in your social activities, regularly being the first point of contact. You will be representing the brand and managing their customer perceptions.

Measurement

Every effort that consumes investment will need to be measured and analysed. I’vve previously written tutorials that demonstrate how you can set up your Google Analytics account on my blog.

Reporting

Once your efforts have been measured and analysed, your clients will want to understand how their investment has performed. This can take the form of visual aids for meetings or digital reports. Reporting is a key ingredient of any social media manager in order to prove your worth and demonstrate the value you have added to the business.

How I Became A Social Media Manager ?

I’ve been active in social media since July 2007. This was before the time of all the latest social marketing tools and software that nowadays are ingrained into all social marketers everyday life. Resources or tutorials weren’t as widely available that could help speed up the learning curve.

I did find an online course that looked pretty good in teaching me how to turn my social skills that I had been practising on my own accounts into a fully fledged business. I invested £600 on this online course to learn the basics and now that some years have passed, I can look back and say the value wasn’t all that great, but the ideas were there. It pushed me to think outside the box and motivated me to start my trajectory towards becoming a social media manager.

So before I had decided to turn my love for social media and networking into a freelance opportunity, I attended Brunel University where I completed my BSc and MSc in Business Management. It was at this time when I jumped on board with the poker boom and started playing online cash games and tournaments. Poker really helped me to develop my own time management, money management and analysis skills. I always knew I wanted to start my own business so this was a good platform to get my feet wet. Throughout my time playing poker, I was always engaged in online social discussions and even wrote a few guest posts for poker sites.

Before I knew it, I was a fully-fledged freelance social media manager…

So to kick-start my freelance social media work, I joined a bunch of freelance sites like Elance, oDesk and Freelancer. I still use some of them today.

After a few years of freelancing on small one-off projects and developing my social marketing acumen, I was hired by an online business services company to run their social media campaigns, as well as handle all their own clients social marketing campaigns. I still work with them today, which just shows the power of forging good working relationships.

I managed to attract clients in most months for the next few years and each project ended up being pretty diverse from the next. This allowed me to develop wider skills that I have since found almost a necessity in order to provide a well-rounded social media marketing service. I mentioned some of these wider skills required to become a great social media manager towards the middle of this article.

I also kept maintaining and building my own social media profiles. It’s important to practise what you preach and showcase your expertise on your own domains. My social profiles have regularly attracted clients, which keeps work coming in and builds up my networking potential.

I have been writing on my blog for a few years, but only recently updated my site. My own social activities also serve to build traffic to my sites, where I generate passive income. I like to “listen” to the social environment and engage with people who are already looking for my content. This serves well in building and strengthening connections, as well as attracting targeted traffic.

I have also been a keen guest blogger. I believe that writing articles for other relevant blogs only serves to increase your scope and exposure. Once or twice, I have had my articles featured by online magazines and publications, which was always nice.

Keeping my ears to the ground and getting myself ‘out there’ was one of the things I promised myself I would do, even though I knew the vast majority of my time would be spent in my home office. I tried to regularly meet up with business connections and clients to make sure they could match an online persona to a real life face. The vast majority of the time, I even managed to remember my business cards!

A strategy I’ve always tried to employ while freelancing is to try and turn one client into three. What I mean by that is word of mouth is the most powerful advertising there is. People do act on solid recommendations that their friends make. I found that taking as basic an approach as asking clients at the end of projects if they knew anyone who could benefit from social media marketing, worked out surprisingly well.

As social media is such a dynamic environment with start-ups booming and busting every few months, I knew that it was essential to keep up to date with social developments. Every so often, a client would ask me to set up profiles or campaigns on sites that some social media managers would have never heard of. Keeping tuned in enabled me to have at least some knowledge and experience in using these platforms, which dramatically lowered my learning curve and ultimately lead to better performing campaigns.

Around a year and a half ago, I decided to broaden by service offerings and set up a web design company with my business partner. “Thinking Forwards” was born in the summer of 2012. Websites and social media go hand-in-hand, so this enabled me to up-sell my services both ways.

So that brings me loosely to where I am now. Just to be clear; I have never used paid advertising or SEO for my own benefit while being a social media manager. My progression came solely through content marketing and guerrilla marketing tactics.

To Summarise On How I Became A Social Media Manager:

Joined freelance sites
Practised what I preached and actively maintained my own social media profiles and blogs
Kept consistently networking and building my contact lists
Continually created my own content on my own sites
Took my content straight to prospects
Proactively kept asking if people needed my assistance
Guest blogging and featured articles
Attended networking events and met up with clients and business contacts
Tried to turn one client into three
Kept up to date with new social networks and developments
Started other initiatives where social media services were complementary
Never turned down any work or networking opportunities
Worked long hours, sometimes for small rewards, to build reputation, authority and presence

I thought I would leave you with some final advice from things I have learnt from my own experiences being a social media manager.

Remember that…

Sometimes you won’t be right for a project, even if you think you are
It’s OK to work for less than your desired amount, if the benefits warrant it
You won’t win every contract, so don’t beat yourself up if you get turned down
Things change really quickly in social media, so you will have to continually adapt
You never know as much as you think you do!

Starting a career in anything takes time and effort. If you think it’s easy to become a great social media manager, then think again…

I wish you all the best in your future endeavours!

Blog: http://www.stuartjdavidson.com

Free eBook: “How To Win In Social Media” -> http://stuartjdavidson.com/how-to-win-in-social-media/

I’m a freelance digital marketer and web designer based in London, UK. I make my living online and I will teach you how you can too…

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Stuart_J_Davidson/1298568

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8132312

The Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Great Social Media Manager Read More »

Creating a Productive Work Space

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Productivity is key when it comes to your work space. No matter where you work, if your work space is not conducive to getting things done, you seem to fall more and more behind. Distractions and interruptions can wreck havoc on your schedule and you won’t accomplish anything until they are removed. How can you create a work space that allows you to be productive at all times? This can be done if you follow some simple tips when setting up your work area.

* Eliminate all distractions. This includes intercoms, cell phones, beepers and the like. Take charge and turn these items off. If you feel you need these items, designate at least a portion of the day to being technology free. These are just distractions that take away from your productivity so you need to remove them for a while. You regain control of your work area which allows you to focus on the tasks that need to be accomplished. Remember to turn them back on when this self imposed quiet period is over though.

* Turn your desk away from the door. By doing so, you will not be distracted by the hub of activity that occurs in other parts of the office. You are trained to notice motion so, when activity occurs within your visual range, you will instinctively look up. Although you may dismiss whatever caught your eye, this is still an interruption. Do this a number of times every day and you can see how productivity is reduced. Move your desk so you are facing a wall and you won’t have this problem. You also won’t be distracted by what is going on outside your office window either!

* Ensure that you clean up your work space every evening before you leave. Clutter has been proven to reduce productivity. When you enter your office in the morning to a clean desk, you will be ready to sit down and get started. The more organized you are, the easier it is to stay on track. This results in more productivity in the long run.

* Focus on one task at a time. Multi-tasking is not helpful as recent studies have shown. Do one thing until it is complete and then move on to the next item. You will find that it tasks you less time to complete jobs which results in overall increased productivity.

By following these simple steps, your productivity will increase and you will notice. Others will also and you may just be promoted or receive a pay raise. Although many say they prefer to work with distractions, most don’t handle these interruptions well. Try these steps and you will see a difference in no time at all.

From Author: Thanks for reading my article about societyM. Hope you like this.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/S.M._Navid_Iqbal/944595

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6285344

Creating a Productive Work Space Read More »

Deciding on an Office or Co-Working Space for Your Small Business

Business, Marketing / Mahmoud Sawy

Comparing Co-Working to Office Space and Deciding what is Right for You

Co-working spaces are the newest trend among small business owners and entrepreneurs. These spaces give professionals the ability to go somewhere besides their home to get work done and often include other amenities such as audio/video equipment, office equipment, meeting spaces, reserved desks, internet access, and sometimes an office kitchen area. While this may seem like a great arrangement, it is important to consider all aspects before deciding on co-working space for your small business.

Co-Working Spaces Provide a Professional Environment

Some small business owners and entrepreneurs find it very difficult to work from home – in many cases things such as television, pets, and children can be very distracting. Although working from home, or in a local coffee shop or library, is usually free of charge, these spaces often do not lend themselves to being very productive environments. While co-working spaces do have an expense attached to them, they are often have a much more professional atmosphere, which many people find more productive.

It is important to remember that co-working spaces often do not have private offices for each person renting in the space. In most cases, there will be desks arranged throughout one larger room with other smaller, private spaces available such as meeting rooms or boardrooms. Make sure to keep this in mind when considering a co-working space – while the environment will be more professional than your living room, you will likely not get the same kind of privacy as a traditional office space.

Co-Working Spaces can Provide Networking Opportunities

Chances are, if you choose to join a co-working space, you will be meeting clients and business partners in that space, meaning they will also be exposed to the other professionals sharing this workspace. Before signing up to join a co-working organization, ask what other types of businesses or professionals will be sharing the area with you – see if there is any potential for networking or partnerships as well as seeing if those businesses are in direct competition for your customers or clients.

There is a Cost for Joining a Co-Working Organization

Just like there is a cost to rent an office space, there is also a cost to become a part of a co-working space. Depending on what type of organization you choose to work with, it could either be a prepayment for a set amount of time or monthly installments much like paying rent. While the cost of joining a co-working organization is important, you should also take other costs into consideration, including a possibly longer commute or having to eat out more often since you will not be at home.

In the end, only you as the business owner or entrepreneur can make the decision about whether or not a co-working space is right for you and/or your business. Will being in a professional environment make you more productive? Will exposing your clients to other businesses bring up issues with competition? Is it more cost effective to invest your time and money into acquiring your own office space? All of these are important questions to ask before making the move to join a co-working organization.

Stacy O’Quinn is a work from home professional that helps other aspiring entrepreneurs develop and launch their own small business projects. If you would like to learn more about Stacy and learn about the opportunities he has available for aspiring business owners, please click here.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Stacy_OQuinn/964904

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9096244

Deciding on an Office or Co-Working Space for Your Small Business Read More »

Co-Working Spaces in New York City

Business, Marketing / Mahmoud Sawy

The co-working craze is sweeping the nation like nobody’s business. Budding entrepreneurs no longer have to work within the confines of their local coffee shops. So it comes as no surprise that in the City That Never Sleeps there are co-working facilities with amazing amenities popping up all over the place.

Entrepreneurs providing Internships in New York City no longer have to stress about finding the money in their budget to rent office space at astronomical prices. They now have the option of choosing a co-working facility that meets the needs of their growing business. Here are some of the top co-working facilities in New York City:

New Work City

New Work City is a different kind of co-working space. Its motto is to expand the notion of co-working and promote its facility as a true community. Their mission statement says that they exist to make it easier for people who can work anywhere to lead better, happier, more independent lives. It was born as a result of the collective efforts and shared needs of a community of like-minded people. The facility is located at 394 Broadway, and shares a space with Greenspaces, an eco-focused workspace community, while they are in the process of building a new dedicated space. Because it exists to serve the needs of a community, New Work City is a flexible working environment. There is no application process involved, and the community is home to a variety of different entrepreneurs including writers, designers, hackers, artists, and students.

New Work City also offers event space for meetings, seminars, and networking socials. Members have the option of utilizing classroom-style setups for seminars and meetings. Price for renting the space varies, but NWC offers the facility free of charge if the space is being used for a free Meetup event that reinforces the mission of community based incentives and company growth. Each group is allowed to host one event per month for 3 months, with the opportunity to continue if the program deems successful.

Hive at 55

The Hive at 55 offers a comfortable environment that is affordable to New Yorkers looking for a bargain. There is a community of like-minded individuals who believe in collaboration and sharing resources. Members at the Hive will have a desk where they can set up their laptops and other necessities, as well as access to three private conference rooms, a lounge, a kitchen with coffee and tea, hi-speed wireless and wired internet, a printer/scanner/copier/fax machine, and lockers for storage. Members have the option to use Hive as their primary mailing address. Another plus is the ability to expand your use of the space in case you decide you want an intern to begin co-working with you.

The Hive hosts informative workshops, seminars, and Meetups every week, and monthly lunches and happy hours for their members. The conference room can be set up as a roundtable or classroom, and the main space is great for large groups such as Meetup events and other social networking events.

In Good Company

In order to balance the needs of women entrepreneurs, In Good Company was started as a means to provide a support system for women varied interests. The co-working facility encourages an atmosphere for motivation and shared growth, Founded by women entrepreneurs Amy Abrams and Adelaide Lancaster, In Good Company strives to provide an atmosphere where women entrepreneurs can establish connections that will enable them to develop successful businesses that meet their own personal and professional goals. The two have recently co-authored a book titled The Big Enough Company, which explores how to grow your enterprise on your own terms.

As a member of In Good Company, you will have access to a shared co-working space, as well as dedicated desks and private offices. There is also virtual office set up available, and a variety of meeting and conference room space. As an extra incentive, members are invited to take part on all of the company’s events free of charge.

Co-working spaces are popping up all across the country and New York City is no exception. There are dozens of more great co-working in New York, all providing tremendous benefits to small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Urban Interns is an online job marketplace that connects high-growth companies with talented candidates looking for internships, part-time jobs, freelance work and contract positions. Visit them at [http://www.urbaninterns.com].

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Loren_Porat/797479

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6441387

Co-Working Spaces in New York City Read More »

How to provide Superior Customer Service

Business, Marketing / Mahmoud Sawy

As many of you know, I have made it my mission to change the world’s view point of customer service. Too many people today have just accepted the fact that no matter where they go, they will receive less than acceptable customer service. THAT’S NOT ACCEPTABLE!

When we work so hard for the money we have, why spend it at a business establishment (no matter what type of business) that provides you less than superior customer service? Does it really make sense to hand your money over that way? Still not clear… okay, let me present this to you in another way. You go to a restaurant and ask for a steak. The waitress brings you out a piece of chicken. You shrug your shoulders and say, “okay, that’s fine.” Furthermore, you eat the chicken and still leave the waitress a tip…would you really accept that? No, of course not! But that is the type of unacceptable customer service we are receiving in other places of business and just nodding our heads, and saying okay! STOP THE MADNESS PEOPLE!

For all you customers out there (which means everyone), it is time to reclaim your God given right to receive Great Customer Service. It’s called Free Will people, and I’m going to use my free will to change the world’s view on customer service. One of the ways I plan on doing this is by refusing to do business anywhere that I receive poor customer service. Are you willing to help me in this mission? All you have to do is this: stop doing business in places that don’t appreciate your business. And, let them know that you are no longer going to do business there and why. Sometimes business owners or managers do not know there is a problem until you let them know, so make sure you tell them. Once we start changing our views on what we accept as customer service, the businesses will adapt to start pleasing us better. It makes sense, doesn’t it!

As for all of you employees and employers out there, there are certain steps you can take to make sure your customers receive the best customer service around. And, when you start providing that type of customer service, your customers will keep coming back for more. In fact, if you provide them with the best service they can get anywhere and with a little flair, they will come back more often because they can’t get enough of it.

So, what are the steps? Follow these certain steps to assure your customers will be coming back for more: (I have broken this down into two stages. One for employers and one for employees please read both!)

Employers

Provide training to your employees on how to treat your customers. If you are unsure of how this should be done, please visit my blog at what-customer-service.blogspot.com and email me and I will set up a training class for you. Think of it this way… what do your customers’ expect to get from your business. This is obviously different for every business and also depends on the type of business you have. But put yourself in your customer’s shoes…If you were the customer, what would you expect to see in terms of customer service? Once you have clearly defined that, you can then train the employees on how to provide it.
Set the standards high for your employees and make sure they stick to it. However, don’t just use this as a tool to “write up” or “fire” your employees. Let me be clear… if you have an employee who you need to fire then by all means do so. But I don’t believe in the type of management that only uses negative reinforcement. I believe that you should also use positive reinforcement with your employees as well. In fact, you’ll find that the more positive reinforcement you use, the more you’ll get out of your employees. Don’t use fear management. It breeds negativity and bad morale and eventually your customers can feel and sense it. This will only further lead to poor customer service.
Having Mystery shops of your business is a great way to find out how your employees are doing. Now, having said this again I go back to my last point, do not use this as a fear management tactic. I have worked for a business that did this and believe me it only breeds negativity and poor morale and again only leads to poor customer service because the customers sense the tension with your employee. Now, if you do not know what mystery shopping is, let me clear it up for you. Mystery shopping is where you have someone pose as a customer or potential customer to see what kind of customer experience they receive when they come to your business. Again, the standards that are in place all depend on your type of business and what you have trained your employees to provide to the customer. Obviously if you haven’t trained them yet, do not do this until you have. Now, mystery shopping can be done in several ways. You can hire a company to do this for you. You provide the company with the criteria that your employees should meet and what you want the mystery customer to do and say. Then, they will hire a mystery shopper to come in posing as the customer and the mystery shopper will report back to the company you hired on how your employee did with full details on each of the criteria and an overall grade. The company then gives you the details on the mystery shop. It is a great way to test your customer’s overall experience and further train your employees. Now, a few things I recommend. Do not tell your employees that you are doing this. If they know, they will be nervous and treat your customers differently. It is more natural if you just have them doing what they always do to grade the normal customer experience. Once you have received the feed back, use it as a training tool for not just that employee but all of them so everyone is on the same level. And reward the employee for a job well done. If you don’t want to hire a company to do the mystery shopping, you can ask a friend or family member to pose as the customer and grade the experience. Or, survey your customers on how well they thought their overall experience was, what they liked about it, what they didn’t like about it, and what they thought you could do differently!
Lastly, and I can’t stress this enough, the only way to provide great customer service is to have a customer service standard, have a plan on how your employees will deliver your standards, and test the standards. Also, pay your employees what they deserve and provide them rewards for going the extra mile. If your employees are making minimum wage and not getting any incentive to “go the extra mile”, then you won’t get anything extra from them and neither will your customers. Your employees are the face of your business. The service your business receives comes directly from your employees, so make sure your employees are getting a fair deal.

Employees

First of all, when you are working with customers, no matter what your occupation, think of it this way…How would you want to be treated if you were that client?
If you are unhappy about your current job, don’t take it out on the customer. Remember, it is not their fault that you are unhappy with your job and it’s not their fault that you’re in the situation you are in, whatever it may be. Again, remember, what would you expect if you were the customer?
When talking with a client, first of all, smile! Say Hello, how can I help you? If you are not behind a counter of some kind, shake their hand, introduce yourself and ask their name. Then, ask them how you can be of assistance.
If your employer has a standard for customer service, make sure you know what it is and abide by it. And, at the end of the year, when you get your annual review, make sure you remind your boss in writing how you met that standard and ask that it be added to your annual review.
If you work in a store of some kind, like a grocery store, department store, etc…why do you ignore customers as they walk by you? Why do you try to run them over as you are wandering around the store? When you go into a store do you expect to be run over, run down, or ignored? And when you are, does it bother you? Here’s my point – it should not matter where you work, you should never ignore a customer walking past and you are never more important than a customer. This is a valuable lesson to learn. No matter who you are or where you work, you have to learn to appreciate your customers! Think of it this way – not only that you could be that customer getting the poor service but more importantly, if it wasn’t for that customer, you wouldn’t have a job! Remember that the next time you ignore a customer.

The fact of the matter is that customer service is ignored or takes second place to growing a business and increasing profitability. When in fact, great customer service will do just that, grow your business and make it more profitable.

If you survey a room of 50 people, 94% of the people in the room would tell you that they have not received good customer service lately. Furthermore, they would tell you that they have received extremely poor service recently, more than they wish to recall.

I believe that together, we can change the way we are treated as customers and the way we treat customers. If we all work together to change the view point of everyone, then maybe we can bring back the days in which customers were respected and could recall more examples of “Great Customer Service” rather than poor customer service.

Please feel free to email me. In order to email me, you must visit my blog at what-customer-service.blogspot.com and then find my email link. I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments not only about this article but examples of customer service you have received lately. Thank you in advance for assisting me in my mission.

Amy Rodgers is an independent writer who writes to help people and for the pure joy of writing. She has also made it her mission to change the world’s view on customer service. For more customer service information, visit her blog at what-customer-service.blogspot.com. For more articles writen by this author, visit her article site at Amy’s Articles [http://www.amysarticles.com/].

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/A_Rodgers/70648

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/569906

How to provide Superior Customer Service Read More »

Customer Service Improves Sales

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Henry Ford said ‘The only foundation of real business is service’. In many companies, the customer service function sits outside of the sales channel as it is seen in some way inferior to sales. Yet customer service is integral to sales success. Without good customer service there will be no repeat sales, and repeat sales are the most profitable revenue any company can generate.

The selling process is not complete merely because the customer has stated that he or she will buy your products or services. Throughout the entire selling process, the maintenance of goodwill is important, but even more so after the purchase. Regardless of your customer’s previous feeling towards your company, the experience they have after they have bought will have a significant impact on future sales. Customer service doesn’t complete the sale; it reignites the sales cycle. A worthwhile maxim to adopt is: ‘a customer cannot be regarded as satisfied until we get their next order.’

Whilst customer service represents the last element in many standard sales processes it could also be argued that it is the first element in a recurring sales process. Ask yourself:

Did I ensure that the agreements reached with the customer actually happened?
Did I attempt to up-sell?
Did I ask for a referral?
What records are kept and maintained?
What feedback did I get about how the customer benefited from my product/ service?
How could customer service be improved?

Why Is Customer Service Important?

There are a number of empirical studies on the value of customer service and the effect of repeat business on the bottom line. Frederick Reicheld and Earl Sasser said that ‘if companies knew how much it really costs to lose a customer, they would be able to make accurate evaluations of investments designed to retain customers’. They found that customers become more profitable over time as increased sales; reduced costs of distribution; referrals; and the opportunity to up-sell all add to the bottom line.

Heskett, Sasser, and Scheslinger collaborated on a training programme to assist managers in understanding the lifetime value of customers and in addition advised on the importance of developing a culture whereby employees are engaged to contribute to the value chain. They postulated that employee satisfaction leads to service value which produces customer satisfaction and which in turn results in profits and growth. It is hardly surprising that happen employees produce happy customers.

What is Customer Service?

Is it just about smiling and being nice to customers? It’s a good place to start but it can’t just be about that.

It is generally accepted that it is very difficult to deliver high standards of customer service. Some say we have not been educated for it – it is not our tradition. This observation is often justified by stating that since late Victorian and early Edwardian times fewer and fewer people have worked in ‘service’. What was a major employment sector in those days has now dwindled to almost nothing.

While this has happened, employment has increased in manufacturing, sales, administration, information technology, and social sciences. Through the years ‘working in service’ came to be regarded as a dead end job that nobody wanted and would only take as a last resort. As a result, the label ‘service’ has almost fallen into disrepute, and many people see giving service as something beneath them that lesser mortals do.

However, the truth is that everybody likes and appreciates good service.

Difference between Good & Poor Service

An often quoted but unattributed statistic is that where people have been asked the question – ‘what would you say was the main difference between somewhere where you received good service and somewhere you received poor service’ – in 70 percent of cases the response has been – ‘the attitude and behaviour of the person delivering the service’. Whether true or not, it seems probable that if we receive poor service from somewhere we are unlikely to buy from that source again.

It is therefore reasonable to assume that good customer service does not involve the quality of the product (unless you have advertised a product as being something it is not) but the quality of the people delivering the product or service, and the experience the customer has of buying your product or service.

It is also reasonable to assume that you yourself know the difference between good and poor service and can put yourself in the customer’s shoes when buying your product or service.

It should be relatively easy to establish a list of thing you have purchased in the last couple of months and determine whether the experience you had of buying was good, bad or indifferent. Obviously a lot of buying and selling these days happens without the interaction of people (e.g. buying on the web) and for the purposes of this exercise perhaps you should record those activities separately. Although it might appear simple, an appraisal of your own experience, coupled with putting yourself in the customer’s shoes should provide you with a wealth of information regarding the difference between good and poor service.

Analysing Good Customer Service

Ask the customer

A simple yet highly effective way of establishing the quality of your customer service is to ask the customer. Attached is an example of a customer service questionnaire used in a car distributor showroom (customer service questionnaire).

Standards

You might check out the set of customer service standards as determined by the Institute of Customer Service. In 2007 they conducted some research into what they believe customers wanted. The top ten responses were as follows:

Overall quality of the products/ service
Friendliness of staff
Handling of problems and complaints
Speed of service
Helpfulness of staff
Handling enquiries
Being treated as a valued customer
Competence of staff
Ease of doing business
Being kept informed

Management

In 2004 the Institute of Leadership published the results of a survey with staff regarding the reasons for poor customer service. The top four reasons given were:

60% of staff believe that the main contributing factor contributing to poor customer service was bad line management
45% claim that their relationship with their line manager impacted significantly on the service they provide to the customer
60% felt they were not praised enough for good customer service, and
10% said they never receive any praise for a job well done

Definition

I have defined customer service as being:

A set of business behaviours which seek to provide superior service to existing and prospective customers; build customer loyalty and repeat business; and influence the acquisition of new customers.

The Follow-up of a Sale

A major life insurance company revealed that in nearly 60% of all life insurance lapses, the policy terminated after the second premium payment. The same company pointed out that after a policyholder makes four premium payments, lapses are negligible. The significance of these statistics is that customers must remain convinced that their buying decisions were correct or repeat purchases are likely to stop. You, through the final step in the selling process – the follow up – can influence the satisfaction your customers derive from their purchases.

Consider one of your customers whose purchases have been poor during the past year and are not likely to increase significantly in the future. Also assume that you have one highly profitable account whose purchases amount to nearly 25% of the total volume of your business. What sort of follow-up and service should you provide to each? Naturally the larger, more profitable account would probably receive greater attention on your part.

For all customers, you should analyse how extensive your follow-up should be. For most accounts, an occasional email, letter or telephone call should suffice. For more active customers you might need to make in-person calls every week or so. Customers who have made or are likely to make large purchases at some time in the future certainly deserve the best personal service you can provide.

Many salespeople are fond of quoting the Pareto Principle in regard to sales, saying that around 80% of their customers provide them with only about 20% of the total sales volume in their territories. Conversely, about 80% of total sales volume comes from only 20% of their customers.

Your principal responsibility as a salesperson is to sell products or services profitably. This should be your rule of thumb when servicing accounts. Your time is limited, but time spent with customers is often an investment in greater sales and future profits. Even accounts that are semi-active or lacking in potential might become high volume purchasers if service and follow-up activities can improve their attitudes toward you and your company.

Follow-up activities vary substantially by industry and product. At one extreme, it is unlikely that a Scout selling raffle tickets house to house during his annual fundraising will make any follow-up calls during the year. On the other hand, a retail merchant buying household products for re-sale may require regular assistance from their supplier such as inventory maintenance, merchandise displays, and co-operative advertising programmes that can be part of the follow-up. Even the Scout group will need to deliver the prizes and should publish a list of winners.

Ideas for Follow-up

Thank you communication

You are far more likely to get repeat orders if you develop an amicable relationship with your customers. Any activity that helps to cement this relationship, from a simple ‘thank you’ to hand delivering a substantial order, can benefit both you and your customer. A simple goodwill builder, but one far too frequently overlooked, is sending a thank you letter, card, or email soon after a sales call has been made.

You can develop a few formats and then modify to suit each specific customer and specific occasions such as moving to new premises, or even more personal such as birthdays or recovering from accident/illness. The cost and the time expended are minimal compared to the goodwill that a ‘thank you’ can create.

After-Sales Service & Assistance

Even if the product is not delivered in person, a telephone call or an in-person visit may enable you to help your customer with the proper use of your products. Customers who do not know how to use a purchase may blame you or the product for their frustrations and problems. Besides instructing your customers on the proper use of your products, you may also be able to point out additional uses for the items. Sometimes there may be minor repairs or adjustments resulting from faulty installation that you can correct or arrange service for. In some cases, you may create goodwill just by checking with customers to make certain that their orders were fulfilled and delivered as directed on purchase orders. You might find some of these suggestions regarding follow-up activities useful:

Make a follow-up ‘goodwill building’ visit to your customers within a week after delivery of the product to make certain that the order was fulfilled properly.
Make certain that the product is satisfactory and is being used properly.
Offer suggestions to the customer on ways to make more effective or additional use of the product.
Use the follow-up visit as an opportunity to obtain new prospects i.e. ask for referrals.
Handle any complaints or misunderstandings as soon as possible and with a positive and courteous attitude.

When you make in-person follow up visits, be sure they are not ‘waste-of-time calls’. Before making the call, ask yourself ‘How is my customer likely to benefit from this call? What do I want to achieve?’

Personal delivery

In some instances, you might be able to develop more satisfied customers by delivering your product in person. For example, life insurance agents frequently deliver policies in-person as soon as the contract is prepared and returned from head office. Five major reasons for this type of in-person delivery are:

To review the features of the policy
To reassure the client that a wise purchase was made
To remind the client when the next premium is due in order to make the sale stay solid
To promote the sale of additional life insurance in the future
To solicit referred leads.

There is a double reason for after-sale selling. Firstly, the existing buyer is, and always has been, a great referral source. Secondly, some sort of professional friendship is developed which can be a future useful testimonial to a new prospective customer.

Goodwill

Goodwill is a factor related to customer attitudes and sentiments toward you and your company. The loss of goodwill is, in effect, the loss of sales. Goodwill building is not automatic. It requires a deliberate, conscientious, and sincere concern about customer interests and needs over extended periods of time. Virtually every step in the selling process has an influence on goodwill.

Goodwill is not concrete – you cannot put your finger on it or measure it accurately in currency. Nevertheless, goodwill is of significant value since it helps the salesperson in making initial and repeat sales. Furthermore, customers with favourable attitudes towards your company and its products are also excellent sources of referral business.

Keeping Customers Satisfied and Staying Competitive

Getting a prospect to place an order and become a customer is long and arduous. Although the search for prospects to turn into new customers never stops, you should also never stop building good relationships with your present customers. They deserve your follow-up so that they will receive the products or services ordered. A commitment to service is required to keep your present customers buying from you. It is service that builds goodwill. In competitive markets it is not products that are different; it is the after sales service provided that makes the difference.

The Importance of Developing Enthusiastic Customers

Enthusiastic customers are one of your best sources of prospects because they are excited about what they buy and want to share that excitement with others. Because of our natural reserve, that is not something we do lightly, so we always take notice if a colleague or friend speaks highly of a company.

If you deliver what customers want at a fair price, without any problems, they are should be satisfied. Although that is better than being dissatisfied, you need more than this to ensure keeping the customer and increasing sales. You have to develop customer enthusiasm about your products and services. You must deliver more than the customer expects. This breeds enthusiasm, which produces a climate that ensures loyalty and increased sales and recommendations to others. Here are some suggestions for producing and maintaining enthusiastic customers:

Keep in touch: check after delivery to see that things are going well. Check again later and ask for leads on new prospects.
Handle any complaints promptly: problems are inevitable. Do not ignore them. They grow with neglect. Do more than the customer expects in satisfying the complaint.
Be a friend: think of the customer as a friend and do things for them accordingly. Send birthday cards or postcards while you are on holidays. Congratulate him or her on awards or advancement.
Give praise when it is due: look for things for which you can give legitimate praise: something the firm has done awards, increased earnings, and a big order. Congratulate the customer personally for awards, election to an office, and honours. Customers appreciate attention too.
Send prospects to your customers: if your customers are in business, send leads or refer prospects to them. It is human nature to respond in kind to anyone who does us a favour.

The Competition

Learn as much as you can about the competition’s products and services. Study how they bring their products to market, their policies, their pricing levels or strategies, the markets they serve, and their customers. Use this information to carry out a SWOT Analysis described elsewhere in this book.

List the strong selling points of your competitors and next to each list a similar or better customer benefit from your own product or service. Don’t assume that every prospect or customer of yours knows your competitors’ strong points. Emphasise your own customer benefits during the sales call. Don’t mention, or sell, your competitors.

Analyse why prospects or customers are buying from competitors and prepare a detailed plan to convince them that they should be buying from you.

Continually review and reinforce the reasons why your customers are doing business with you.

Continually strive to build a close relationship with your customers so they can be more dependent on you.

Earn the right to ask for more orders based on your commitment to service. Remember: your best customers are probably your competitors’ best prospects. Keep working to keep them satisfied and buying from you.

A competitor’s customers are loyal and satisfied because the products or services they receive fit their organisation and requirements now. These conditions can and do change so customer satisfaction is relative.

Becoming a Preferred Supplier

When competing against established suppliers, you may first have to get on the list of acceptable suppliers. To do so this you must create awareness and then an interest and desire for your products or services.

Consider sending copies of advertisements, newspaper articles, or trade journal reports in which you and/ or your company appears, to your customer. Use testimonial letters and recommendations. This will alert your customer to your acceptance by other companies in the same or similar activities.

Invite members of the customer’s firm to visit your plant, your headquarters, your offices, customer installations, or trade shows.

Suggest that their present suppliers are quoting a fair price; however, with new products and services continually being introduced, inflation, improved efficiency, higher productivity, maybe you can do better.

Ask for a copy of their bid specifications and requirements so you can prepare a proposal and quotation for their review and evaluation.

Suggest that they can determine whether or not what you have proposed will give them more value for money. Offer them:

trial orders
sample equipment
thirty day service evaluation period
money back guarantees

These are all part of what it may take for you to become an acceptable supplier. Your creativity as a sales professional will be really challenged by thinking of ways and means to become an acceptable supplier to prospects that are apparently satisfied by their present suppliers.

Complaints

‘We don’t have problems, we have opportunities.’ A cliché, but very true in the case of complaints. It has been estimated that only one in twenty customers complain when they get bad service. The vast majority just go elsewhere! Worse still, the average person tells nine people about the bad service they received. They tell everyone but you. A complaint is an opportunity in identifying ways of improving your services and hence the goodwill of your customers.

Most of us do not like criticism. Therefore, when people complain to us, whether it is face to face or not we try to defend ourselves. Even if the complaint is directed personally towards us, which it rarely is. In doing so we sometimes resort to attack, only making the situation worse.

The best way to deal with complaints is to: –

Acknowledge the complaint
Listen carefully for information
Do not defend or excuse
Empathise with the caller
Promise to put investigate it
Promise to call back is necessary and do so

All the customer wants to know is: –

That you fully understand their problem
What you are going to do about it

If you deal with people in this way, there is no reason why every communication of this kind should not result in both parties being satisfied.

This positive result is not necessarily dependent upon the issue being fully resolved it is dependent upon responsive and responsible communication.

Remember, when a customer complains, they are giving you a second chance to put it right

When the complaint is received over the telephone:

Note down the facts.
Summarise your understanding of the facts back to the customer to ensure clarity.
Phone the customer back when you said you would.
If you have not solved the problem by this time, give a progress report.

Agree a common method for handling complaints in your organisation. Include procedures for complaints that are face to face, by ‘phone and by letter/email. Draw up a complaints form. It should include:

Date and time received.
Who received it?
Department.
The details of the customer: name address, telephone number. Make sure that it meets data protection standards on keeping the information (every organisation should have this as a written procedure and ensure that everyone is aware of this).
Complaint details.
The nature of the complaint.
Action to be taken and deadline.
Sign off when dealt with, and where appropriate signature of line manager.
Build into the process a method for building customer relationships by getting in touch with the customer two weeks after the complaint has been dealt with to confirm that the complaint was dealt with satisfactorily.

Staff need to ensure that they:

Don’t take complaints personally or be defensive; this isn’t an attack on their competence.
Take responsibility and ownership on behalf of the organisation and explain to the customer that they will do their best to sort it out.
understand that bad news spreads
don’t get drawn into an argument
remain calm and professional

The rule for complaints
A complaint is a customer communicating their dissatisfaction at the service or product that we have provided, it is an important message that tells us where we are going wrong and gives us vital information about our customer’s wants, needs and expectations. You can’t buy this information!

Regaining Lost Customers

All organisations lose customers, some for very genuine reasons such as relocation or closure. Sometimes though, they go either because we do something wrong or a competitor makes a better offer. After losing a customer to a competitor ask yourself:

‘What can I do to get this customer back’?
‘What has to be done to assure myself I do not lose more customers for similar reasons’?

Prepare a list of all the things that could have gone wrong with the account. Next, set up a convenient meeting with your former customer for a frank discussion so you can clarify the position. Consider key areas such as price, delivery, proper handling of warranties or guarantees, and service calls

Say that although you’ve lost this particular piece of business, it is your intention to win it back in the future. You want to gain their support in helping you to identify what went wrong by discussing the problems. Consider the following:

Have you kept them abreast of all your new products or services?
Have you kept them abreast of important price, personnel or policy changes?
Have you visited them on a frequency appropriate for their business activity?
Have you considered all the ways of helping them improve their businesses by emphasising products and services that would help them in the marketplace?

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Frank_Salisbury/4756

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9052678

مزايا ومرافق مساحة مكتب العمل المشترك Co-Working Space

Bénéfices et facilités de l’espace de coworking

Benefits and Facilities of Co-Working Office Space

ما هي الطريقة الأكثر فعالية: تسويق الفيديو أم التسويق عبر البريد الإلكتروني؟

Quelle méthode est-elle plus efficace : le marketing vidéo ou le marketing par courriel?

Which Method Is More Effective: Video Marketing or Email Marketing?

أفضل 10 طرق لكسب المال باستخدام هاتفك المحمول

Top 10 des façons de gagner de l’argent avec votre téléphone

Top 10 Ways to Make Money From Your Phone

4 avantages de l’embauche d’un assistant virtuel

تعرف على الأربع مزايا للتعاقد مع مساعد افتراضي

4 Advantages of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

إليك أفضل خيارات الأعمال المنزلية مع هذه النصيحة

Faites les meilleurs choix d’affaires à domicile avec ces conseils

Make The Best Home Business Choices With This Advice

L’Égypte permettra aux étrangers de posséder des biens sans limites, mais avec des règles

Egypt will allow foreigners to own property with no limits, but with rules

Compétences requises pour être un bon entraîneur personnel

المهارات المطلوبة لتكون مدرباً شخصياً جيداً

Skills Required to Be a Good Personal Trainer

Customer Service Improves Sales Read More »

Benefits and Facilities of Co-Working Office Space

Business, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Locally established entrepreneurs and remote workers alike need a devoted space to play out their work. While outfitting a shared office frequently makes sense for full-time home specialists, it’s not only the work-from-home group that can profit by a pleasantly prepared office space. Regardless of whether you telecommute or require a sorted out space for paying bills, outfitting your office with alluring and utilitarian furniture is more reasonable than you may understand. Utilize these tips to make an appealing, efficient office without spending a fortune.

In the event that you keep taking the budgetary advantages of Co-working workplace, we’ll discover services commonly incorporate committed assistant groups, administrative support, and devoted IT and web infrastructure.

Picking an area is imperative and working in a region of business esteem is dependably a reward. Interesting points while choosing the correct dedicated office are what the gathering zones and shared offices resemble on the grounds that these are the territories your customers and providers will see. Making the right first impression is important.

This ascent popular is fuelled because of the facilities gave by the Co-working office environment provides and the organizations paying just according to their utilization which brings about associations running their tasks in a practical way. Co-working office incorporate gathering rooms, meeting rooms, committed assistant, administrative support, telecom benefit, completely met in-house IT foundation, web availability and significantly more.

Dedicated Co-working space offer comprehensive business bolster bundles and pay-per-utilize courses of action for meeting the workplace space and business focus necessities of an association at sensible rates. By conveying proficient, successful and cost productive office arrangements,Furnished Co-working space stretch out help to business people who are searching for any kind of office bolster.
New companies, little and medium ventures require office spaces with extravagant decorations in sparing and adaptable rent terms. Co-working space the differing need of each customer and give customized business facilities and finish office help.

Benefits of Co-working workplace:
• Located in premium business territories
• High benefit guidelines
• The decision to choose the quantity of seats, seating courses of action, framework prerequisites and different business necessities
• Fully prepared and cooled office spaces
• Flexible permit of business focuses, including administration rates, light, water and office administration
• Flexible occupant, a streamlined application process and business understanding
• State of the craftsmanship voice, Internet and information frameworks
• Calls to devoted numbers replied for customer’s benefit
• High quality, efficient building and gathering zones
• WiFi empowered collective regions (on uncommon demand)
• Meeting and preparing rooms furnished with projectors and other hardware (on exceptional demand)
• 24/7 office help (if required)

Business visionaries need to build their brand reputation and grow their organizations, consequently, outsourcing a Co-working office address is a perfect choice for them. Co-working office space picks up inclination over a customary office from various perspectives. Shared workplaces don’t possess a physical space and mitigate business visionaries from making any major money related cost and venture of time on angles, for example, rentals and related stores, information cabling and Internet availability, security, power, phone, protection and office computerization.

best workplace in Pakistan

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Julia_Martin/2576659

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9988684

Benefits and Facilities of Co-Working Office Space Read More »

Which Method Is More Effective: Video Marketing or Email Marketing?

Business, Marketing / Mahmoud Sawy

First, let us discuss what video and email marketing methods are exactly. Online Video Marketing is a technique in which you produce a video illustrating your business. These videos usually show the services and products your business has to offer. This allows customers to easily understand your business’s message through a video production. On the other hand, we have the approach of online email marketing. Email marketing is the process of promoting your business through emailing your customers new offers, services, and products. Though this technique can be very profitable, you need to already have your customer’s email address to be able to send marketing material to them. Both are great ways to reach out to your customers and encourage them to choose your services over competitors.

Marketing through videos has been around for an exceptionally long time. But with the boom of social media and other online sites, this technique has been taken to a whole other level. This popularity is well deserved as it is extremely easy for customers to digest. With just a click or scroll, customers can view vital information about what your business has to offer them. There are also many online video platforms out there on which you can market your video production. I know I have mentioned an awful lot of pros so far, but we are not seeing many cons. Well, it is hard to find any cons for video marketing as it has become the most convenient way to reach customers. Online video marketing is one of the best ways to advertise your business promotions online.

So, we discussed the online marketing technique of video sharing but what about email marketing? It is also a great way to communicate with your customers. This method allows you to contact your customers directly with new offers, services, and products. It also lets you easily send return customers deals to help them to keep your business in mind. But you will need access to the customer’s email address to be able to send them marketing emails. You have to be able to encourage customers to give you their emails, they won’t just hand them over. It can be difficult to reach new customers that have not already provided you an email for which to send marketing information to. This makes email marketing a great secondary marketing technique rather than the main tool. So, in short, email marketing is great for customers you already have and not so great for getting new customers.

Though these are both great ways to get information to your customers, one is much more effective than the other for marketing. Online video marketing is the way to go when it comes to getting what you have to offer in front of new customers. Though video marketing is the best way to reach new customers that does not mean you shouldn’t use email marketing once you’ve connected. Email marketing is a great tool to use in unison with video marketing. Let video marketing bring customers to you and email marketing keep them coming back for more.

You can watch some of my famous explainer videos created recently. Armaan Productions is a leading video production company in Canada that provides all kinds of script to screen solutions for your video production plans.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kumar_Lalit/1318248

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10397291

Which Method Is More Effective: Video Marketing or Email Marketing? Read More »

Top 10 Ways to Make Money From Your Phone

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

One best thing about using your phone to earn money is there’re many genuine customer reviews for every app, so you will get a better idea about which is worth your time and legit. Here’re some top 10 ways to make money with your phone:

1- App Bounty – Get Your Rewards

App Bounty awards you for trying out and downloading new applications. You also can make points for spreading out the word and liking them via Facebook and Twitter. Points are redeemed for Amazon gift cards and iTunes, and PS Network Points, Xbox Live, and paid apps free.

2- Swagbucks – Chance to Make More Points

In Swagbucks, you will earn points like SB that is redeemed for the gift cards, sweepstake entries and coupons. This platform is accessed through a laptop or via smartphone app for Android and iPhone!

3- CheckPoints – Watch Videos

They allow you to earn money just by scanning the barcodes, watching videos, taking quizzes, searching on the internet, and completing different offers. CheckPoints is featured on the Mashable and is iPhone and Android compatible.

4- Drop – Point Shopping System

In Drop, you will make points by shopping at an individual store. You just have to connect to your credit card on their safe smartphone app, and whenever you buy in a participating retailer, you will make points.

5- Field Agent – Complete Your Task

Field Agent enables you to earn money by completing different micro tasks, right from checking the shelf availability to display compliance and checking the demo. Field Agent generally works with the brands like Target, Tyson, Hershey’s and is featured on Forbes, CNET, and New York Times.

6- Easy Shift – Time To Make Your Shits

Easy Shift is the micro-task app where you will make money just by completing some shifts. Shifts generally entail checking out prices, seeing if the product is there in stock or clicking photos of the store display. When you’ve successfully done the shift, payment is made by PayPal within 48hours of your submission.

7- Foap – Sell Photos and Earn

Foap helps you earn money just by selling the photos that you take on iPhone. Download the Foap app on your phone and start uploading your picture. When your image gets 5 positive ratings from Foap users – then your photo is published for sale.

8- Embee Mobile – Earn Gift Card

Users can install this app and earn the gift cards from the places like Domino’s Pizza, Amazon, and Dell. Outside the United States, points are traded for the mobile airtime. It is not accessible in all the cities, so you need to install and see if it works in your location.

9- Getaround – Rent Out Your Car

Getaround is the smartphone app that helps you rent your car for short time. Just list your car in their market and download this app. When you are not using the car, people can rent out and unlock the car by using an app.

10- GigWalk – Make Extra Income

GigWalk is the mobile workforce of people using their Android or iPhone to connect and earn the second paycheck when they go about their day.

All apps are not legit so you have to do your hard work and read all the reviews before you install on the phone and enter your details. People are quite cautious when it comes about trying new apps, you can visit [https://www.marketerfreedom.com] to get a detailed review of ways to make money.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Robert_Kempster/2961

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9986722

Top 10 Ways to Make Money From Your Phone Read More »

4 Advantages of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

Business, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

First of all, let us try to define what a Virtual Assistant is. For me the simplest definition of a Virtual assistant is someone who delivers administrative support to a certain client remotely. Although the most common task of a VA is any admin jobs, there are also several tasks a VA can do namely; SEO Specialist, Technical Support, Real Estate Manager and many more.

Basically an experienced Virtual Assistant can do almost any online jobs available.
But why does this type of work exist? Is it wise to hire a Virtual Assistant? What are the advantages and disadvantages in getting a VA. I have listed 4 items that I think could give you an advantage in getting a Virtual Assistant.

1. Extra time for Family

Time is something that we cannot ask for more of however we can always manage it. Whether you are a regular employee or a business entrepreneur, you always spend more than 8 hours in the office. Because of this fact, your responsibility to your family is being compromised.

Hiring a VA can greatly save your time as you have now the liberty to delegate your tasks. You then have enough time to spend to the ones that matter most your family.

2. Lessen your Business Cost

This is perfect to businessmen who are just starting up their businesses. Regardless of which field you are into, starting up even a small business can be extremely costly. Not to mention the competition you are going to face. In this digital era, making an online presence is almost a must and acquiring the needed skills can eat up your time.

Getting an SEO Specialist can greatly help your business to be noticed digitally. SEO Specialist can also save your time and money so you won’t have to enrol to any SEO school to acquire the said skill.

3. Focus more on Business Operations

Regardless of how old or how young your business is, you still have certain operations to manage or look into. Not only that, you also need to keep an eye on your finances, clients, suppliers and the like. My suggestion is to get a VA and offer online jobs.

That way you can manage your operations, finances and everything closely. This could also give you an ample time to decide on your next steps towards the success of your business.

4. Limited Software Skills not an issue

https://marslinkers.com/make-the-best-home-business-choices-with-this-advice/

Nowadays, there are a lot of new software for businesses that are introduced in the market which you don’t have any idea of manipulating to. These software have only one thing in common and that is to make your work life and operations easier.

The only challenge here is that, you don’t have the luxury of time in learning these tools. Virtual Assistant is always here to do the learning for you. Offer this as an online job to your VA and he will do the rest for you.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Leo_Juntilla/2583596

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9999760

4 Advantages of Hiring a Virtual Assistant Read More »

Make The Best Home Business Choices With This Advice

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

A lot of people think that operating a home business is something that is hard to do, but it’s actually something easy if you apply yourself and learn the information. Look at this article with a careful eye and see what information you can take and use towards your home business goals.

One of the reasons why many people decide to become involved in home business is so that they have more time to spend with their kids. However, as their business grows, they also easily find themselves in situations where their kids impede their ability to work effectively. Just because it is a home business however does not mean that a nanny, babysitter or daycare center is out of the question. Don’t ignore these resources just because of the fact that it is a home business!

Study your competition carefully. Understand their pricing and know where you fit in. Never say negative things about your competition. Have your ever noticed that malls are full of clothing stores that all manage to keep doing business? Competition brings out the best in different businesses and every business has its own unique nuances that draw different customers. Talk up your own business, your products’ features, and how they benefit your customers.

If you already have a degree in business management that is great, but you should still continue to read as much as possible. If you don’t have a degree in this, don’t worry, you will still be able to catch yourself up through self-teaching and even hands on experience. Many of the best business professionals never finished college.

Use an attention-grabbing name for your website domain. There are many different websites and you want to make sure that yours stands out from the rest. A catchy name can be the perfect thing to get traffic to your site, it will be easy for a potential customer to remember and easy for them to access.

Decide if you are going to be involved in every aspect of the business. When starting a new business, having a staff of full time employees might not be financially possible and many of those tasks have to be handled on your own. As the business grows and money flows in, you can think about hiring personnel to call customers, collect receivables and thousands of other tasks that a small business needs to get done.

You should try contacting a local radio station and making a deal with them to barter products for a small bit of airtime. They can use your products for prizes in contests or free giveaways and in turn, they can mention your business as the place where they got these products.

With all of the information you just learned you want to try to do the best of you ability to apply it towards your home business. The thing about being successful in home business is that you want to continue to expand your knowledge and apply it. You should see success in no time.

Kurt Tasche is an internet entrepreneur who writes articles on internet marketing tips, ways to make money online and personal development. You can read more articles like this on his blog at: https://www.kurttasche.com

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Kurt_A_Tasche/254929

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10518534

Make The Best Home Business Choices With This Advice Read More »

Egypt will allow foreigners to own property with no limits, but with rules

Business, Get Fresh Knowledge in English / Mahmoud Sawy

Egypt will allow foreigners to own property with no limits, but according to certain rules, announced Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Wednesday.

18.05.23 | Source: Ahram Online

In a press conference following the Cabinet’s weekly meeting in the New Administrative Capital, Madbouly reaffirmed the government’s commitment to implementing the recent decisions of the Supreme Council for Investment to attract more foreign investments to the country.

“Encouraging more foreign investments in the country will strengthen the economy,” Madbouly stressed.

The prime minister explained to reporters that the key purpose behind initiating the government’s initial public offering (IPO) programme is to tackle the current shortage of hard currency in the local market.

He added that the Egyptian pound is currently priced below its real value, adding that all recent monetary policy decisions by the government aim to address this imbalance.

Madbouly reaffirmed that Egypt has the capacity to repay all its external liabilities and to meet all its external obligations.

Article Source : https://www.egypt-business.com/web/details/2320-Egypt-will-allow-foreigners-to-own-property-with-no-limits-but-with-rules/427961

Egypt will allow foreigners to own property with no limits, but with rules Read More »

Why Prioritizing This Metric is Key to Achieving Success for Startups

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

When starting a new business, entrepreneurs are often advised to focus on growth as the key to success.

Starting a new business is an exciting but challenging journey. Entrepreneurs need to make numerous decisions about their products, services, and operations to ensure their venture is successful. One of the critical areas that startups must consider is the development of software or applications that support their operations. In recent years, software and application development have become essential for startups to succeed in their industries.

Many startups focus primarily on growth, hoping that the rapid increase in revenue will lead to success. However, this focus on growth can distract startups from a crucial metric that is key to achieving long-term success: manual testing services.

Manual testing services refer to the process of manually testing software or applications to identify bugs, errors, and other issues before they are released to the public. This is a crucial step in the development process, as it ensures that the software is functioning correctly and meets the needs of users.

Despite its importance, manual testing is often overlooked or undervalued by startups that are more focused on growth. This can be a mistake, as prioritizing manual testing services can have a significant impact on a startup’s success. Here are just a few reasons why:

Improved User Experience

In today’s digital age, user experience is everything. Consumers have high expectations when it comes to the software and applications they use, and they are quick to abandon anything that doesn’t meet those expectations. By prioritizing manual testing services, startups can ensure that their products are functioning correctly and providing a seamless user experience. This, in turn, can help to build a loyal customer base and increase the likelihood of repeat business.

Reduced Costs

While manual testing services may seem like an additional expense for startups, they can actually help to reduce costs in the long run. By identifying and fixing bugs and errors early on in the development process, startups can avoid costly mistakes that would otherwise require expensive fixes down the line. Additionally, by ensuring that their software is functioning correctly before release, startups can avoid negative feedback and damage to their reputation, which can be even costlier to fix.

Increased Efficiency

Manual testing services can also help startups to work more efficiently. By identifying issues early on, developers can make necessary fixes before they become major problems that require significant time and resources to address. This can help to streamline the development process and reduce the amount of time and money spent on fixing issues after release.

Competitive Advantage

Starting your own Business – Failures to Avoid to ensure your Future Business Success, and Research you Should do NOW if you Haven’t Already.

Finally, prioritizing manual testing services can give startups a competitive advantage in their industry. By ensuring that their software is functioning correctly and providing a seamless user experience, startups can differentiate themselves from their competitors and establish themselves as leaders in their field. This can help to attract new customers and build a strong reputation in the industry.

In conclusion, while growth is an essential metric for startups, it should not be the sole focus. Prioritizing manual testing services can have a significant impact on a startup’s success by improving user experience, reducing costs, increasing efficiency, and providing a competitive advantage. By investing in manual testing services early on in the development process, startups can set themselves up for long-term success in their industry.

To ensure the best possible results, startups should consider partnering with professional manual testing services providers to receive expert assistance in their development process. By partnering with such companies, startups can access a vast pool of experience and knowledge, as well as access to the latest testing tools and techniques, that can significantly enhance their development process. This can help startups to deliver high-quality software products and applications to their customers while saving them time and money in the long run.

Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Why Prioritizing This Metric is Key to Achieving Success for Startups Read More »

Starting your own Business – Failures to Avoid to ensure your Future Business Success, and Research you Should do NOW if you Haven’t Already.

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Every year thousands of people start a business. With more people stuck in dead end jobs and working for sub-standarpay, it always seems like the next logical step. They strike out with dreams of becoming financially independent, being paid what they’re worth, or being able to work their own hours. The sad news, according to numerous government and independent resources, the odds are stacked against these budding entrepreneurs. In reality, the odds are stacked in favor of failure as most new business start-ups fail inthree years, and many more fail before their second year. What are the problems new entrepreneurs face that cause such catastrophic results?

Biggest Reason for Business Failures – Failure to Plan.

The biggest problem seems to be lack of planning. New business owners fail to complete business or marketing plans. They get so fed up with present jobs, or life styles, they jump into self-employment ventures. They fail investigating local competition or the potential customer market and start business ventures destined for failure. They open shops and go out of business before their second year. Had they taken some time in research, they may have found the local market was too saturated or local business was already struggling to stay operational. They may have found certain barriers to entering their market that would
prevent them finding business success. However, they failed to do that research, and many didn’t formulate business or marketing plans. They lacked a road map taking them to their goals, and combined with the other reasons mentioned, is why
they failed. Without clear plans identifying individual steps to success, how can you become successful? Sadly, most all business failures failed to create road maps.

How to Start a Blog or Niche Website And Make Money

A business plan is critical if you want government funding
or a bank loan, but it’s just as critical if you don’t need
them. The business plan is a report on research into your
chosen business field. By completing it, you find out about
your local market, competition and potential customers, if
your industry is growing or declining, and a host of other
information needed to formulate plans for business success.
While the business plan tells if it is a wise to open your
business, a marketing plan reminds you how to make sales.
The marketing plan lists step-by-step instructions to
increase business sales. One step may build on another,
while some steps are implemented together, but regardless
how these steps work together, it is important to think
about it BEFORE opening your business doors. Without a
clear, step-by-step plan to show where you are, where you
want to be, and how you get there, then chances of realizing your dreams will be slim to nil. How can you sell products or services if you don’t know what kind of people buy them? That is just another thing business and marketing plans help you discover. Without the information, these plans help you find, you will likely fail in your new business. You can find some valuable information for writing business and marketing plans through the Kaufman Foundation’s Entreworld.org at http://www.entreworld.org/Channel/SYB.cfm. If you haven’t written these plans, then I’d suggest taking time to start them now. They will help ensure business success.

Lure of FREE Internet – I should get Information & Tools
for FREE?

With more people flocking to the internet to start a new business, many try accomplishing their self-employment dreams with little financial resources. The internet has become a place where people rely on finding information freely and for no financial investment. In the beginning, it may have started out that way, and free information was abundant, but as more businesses flocked to the net, finding free information is becoming increasingly difficult. Most people depend on search engines to find information, but the businesses learned to exploit search engine vulnerabilities to gain visitors and most times you will only find paid solutions for your information needs. Somewhere, the information IS available freely, but it is going to take time to find it, and sometimes it takes a LARGE amount of time to find it. The question becomes how quickly you want to start your business, and how much time you can spend searching for information? If you want to start quickly, then you need to realize the need to make some financial investments in your information needs. Just be sure to research the company before buying their information. It ensures their information is timely and useful. If paid information is not an option, be prepared to spend some time researching the information. There are various government resources for information searches. A good place to start is
FedStats located at http://www.fedstats.gov/ . They have a toolkit including DataFerrett. DataFerrett is a government database-search tool to find different market and demographical information compiled from census information and other government agencies.

Marketing – I Need to Know ALL About it Before I
Begin.

Another problem stems from ineffective marketing efforts. People spend time looking for marketing materials and ways to self educate about it while failing to take action doing something to try improving their exposure. If I can impart one marketing secret to you, that secret is this: marketing is somewhat a trial and error process. It involves making modifications and doing testing to gauge what is most effective for your market and products or services. Keep in mind marketing works differently for different people too. But in the end, marketing is building trust, integrity, and reputation with potential customers and getting products or
services out into the consumer’s mind. Tracking efforts is important. Without tracking, you will never know what works and what doesn’t work. Be sure to keep marketing effort lists. Include the marketing medium, company, an ad copy, dates and times it ran, and add a tracking code to each one to track the sales made from them. Lets say you run an ad in your local newspaper to gain increased sales. When running the ad, include promotional code or an extension at the end of a phone number to know where the sales are coming from. When someone calls or mails an order, make sure you collect the information from the promotional code, or ask them the phone extension they are calling. Add up the data and it tells you exactly what ads are paying off and which ads might need reworked. To determine what is working and what isn’t, take the cost of the ad divided by the number of
sales and see which one is lower. Lower cost per sale is more effective and better. Depending on your marketing budget, place numerous different ads at once and test your ads quicker to see what brings the best returns for your marketing efforts. Don’t sit there and do nothing while trying to learn everything you can about ad creation and marketing techniques. Write up a few ads and start testing them. The sooner you begin testing the sooner you learn what will work for your market. Without sales, you have no business. Without effective marketing, you have no sales, and therefore will have no business. Don’t let indecision
sink your dreams.

From Brick & Mortar to Online Business Ventures – Doing it Successfully.

The next problem seems to be businesses making the jump to the online arena. Once again, small mom and pop type shops starting on the net with limited budgets take to free hosting services to get a web site online while attempting to increase market share. When done appropriately, this idea can help boost sales, but done incorrectly, it only helps eat away at profit margins and helps ensure failure. When doing business on the internet, nothing beats having your own custom domain. You won’t get that from most free hosting services, and worse, many free hosting services place ads throughout your pages to help recoup costs of free services they provide you. In the business expenses grand scheme, domain name registration is inexpensive. Many hosting
services are also inexpensive. For as little as $10.00 and $20.00 per month, you can have a registered domain, and paid hosting, which allows more flexibility than free hosting services. When I speak of more flexibility, I talk about ability to run automated scripts and possibly sell ad space to other businesses. That’s a critical requirement for membership sites and any business owner wanting automation scripts to make business marketing easier.

Customer Composition & Continuing Education Process – Keeping Educated on Market & Consumer Trends.

Another area where most businesses fail is failure to continue learning about potential customers. Even if you develop good marketing materials, do all the planning, and continue to increase visitor volume, failure to track their demographics and trends can eventually lead to missed trends changing visitor make up, and these trends could make offerings outdated. If that happens, you will watch your sales begin to drop off and any affiliate programs you promote could start to suffer. Keep an eye on web site logs and track visitor clicks, or even better; find ways of gathering visitor data through polls and questionnaires on your web site. Ask them direct questions and watch the feedback. This information is invaluable when tailoring your ads or deciding what affiliate program products and services to promote. Find some free offers on the internet and offer links to them to any visitors taking time filling out your polls or questionnaires. Just ensure the freebies are valuable to your visitors and you will increase chances of gaining direct response information from them. Take for example a scenario where you want to offer another product or service, but that product or service will take some extensive time to implement and produce. By placing polls about the product or service features and asking visitors direct questions about their need or lack of need for it, it could help you avoid wasting time and resources on products or services that aren’t going to sell. That’s just one example of how powerful information is when it comes to your business success. Use common sense, ask questions, and keep your ears and mind open. Through direct response polls and questionnaires, you will ensure future business success.

The Know it all Complex – Refusing to Accept
Change.

Another time where businesses fail are when owners think they know everything there is to know about it. Let me tell
you something, time is never ending and always changing. Time marches on, and those choosing not to march with it get eft behind. That is what happens when you think you know it all. Time marches on leaving your business behind, and it fails. No matter if you’re in business for 25 years or are just starting out, there is ALWAYS something to learn from it. Whether it’s learning your visitors’ demographics better, learning which ads draw more attention, or learning new and creative ways to market your business, no matter how much you THINK you know, there is ALWAYS more to learn. Not only does time march on, but people change, and so does the consumer market. Failure to track these changes through online information gathering processes or paid services will surely cause your business to falter and possibly fail. Running a business is a constant learning process. Lean to
continue your adult education and you help ensure your future business stability and success.

Biting off More than you can Handle – Knowing When to say When.

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

The last reason I will mention in this article is business owners who try doing too much. You can’t be everything to everybody. You have to pick an area that maximizes your talents and downplays your weaknesses. Today, more commonly referred to as niche marketing, is where you learn to fine-tune your marketing target to increase business success and sales. Running a business requires us to wear many hats. There’s the accounting that needs to be done, marketing that always needs improvement and submission to effective advertising mediums, customer service, web site design and promotion, writing content, and the list goes on forever. One-man operations require an almost exhausting amount of time and commitment to get work done that needs done. If you don’t quickly learn your strengths and weaknesses, you soon become so overwhelmed when adding more tasks that you could suffer from shut down. Shutting down won’t accomplish anything, and your business could very easily fail. Be careful of this, as burnout is quite prevalent amongst business owners. By knowing your strengths and carefully evaluating projects before you implement them, you will know when you can still do it yourself, or if you need to think
about hiring some help.

There’s a lot of money to be made in self-employment, but only by taking steps to ensure your business’ future. Educate yourself as much as possible while not being stuck on knowing every detail before you act. It’s better to do something than sit and do nothing while your business begins to falter and fail. But by taking the proper precautions, you could save yourself from falter and possible failures before they happen. The best bet to running a successful business is doing the research, write the plans, create a credible list of information resources for future questions, and track your visitor demographics identifying your customers in as much detail as possible. Through planning for possible problems, you have the answers to fix the problems as they come up while avoiding potential business failure. Remember, failing to plan means planning to fail. Put in the time and research ensuring you know as much as you can about your business and its operations. Know how much it costs to generate a sale and know whom those sales will come from. Find out how much it takes to run a business in your market and the kind of profit you can enjoy. Knowing all this information will help ensure you have proper mishap prevention plans in place ensuring your business future success. Until next article, happy business operations and my wishes for your greater business success and growth in 2023.

Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Starting your own Business – Failures to Avoid to ensure your Future Business Success, and Research you Should do NOW if you Haven’t Already. Read More »

Beat The Competition With These Social Media Marketing Tips

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

If there is one big change in business advertising and marketing in recent years, it is social media marketing. The opportunities for utilizing social media to increase business are growing every day. The social media tips contained in this article will help your business thrive. Make it as easy as possible for your users to subscribe to your information. Used in tandem with social media marketing, the relatively age-old method of email marketing can be quite effective. Profiles in social media sites often allow you to add various buttons and an RSS feed.

You want them everywhere you can think of, your blog, email, website and anywhere else you can think of. Try to add your links to other profiles as well to encourage multiple sources of traffic for your site. You want to make it as simple as possible for potential customers to subscribe and sign up for your business’s blog. Make sure people can see the button to subscribe to your feed. This will make it easier for followers to leave their information, follow your posts and share your content with friends. Keep it in mind that people still have Internet that is slow, so if the subscribe button can load first it’s recommended to do that. When using social media marketing as a tool for your business, it is crucial that you pay attention to the content that is being posted since it represents your business.

How to Maximize Your Blog Post Reach on Social Media

Mistakes can go viral as easily as good information and quality content. While this may generate a lot of publicity for your business, oftentimes, it is not the publicity that you are seeking. Add a tag when you post on Twitter. Just add in a “#,” followed by a relevant phrase, after you put updates up on your social media accounts. Consider carefully which tags to use and which groups your target audience will most likely subscribe to. When working with social media to promote your business, it’s a great idea to offer some purchasing incentives, but you don’t want to seem overly pushy. No one wants a forced sale. Let customers know about a weekly bonus or extra discount at an expected preset time. Thus, your customer base can get discounts, but will not feel as though they have been bombarded or tricked into something. Develop an honest online presence. You should present yourself as knowledgeable in your chosen field. Never publish any material of a questionable nature. Only post relevant and appropriate videos that are entertaining. This helps generate a great profile that will create lots of profits. Social media should be used as a way to inform readers of the information and services that your company offers. For example, you can post pictures of fund-raising events and interact with your community. Make sure you record what your workers are doing through pictures and writing.

Make use of all things that convey a positive image of your company. Make certain you update your social profiles often. Social network users have become used to regular updates, and a lack of updates could drive your customers away. Aim for updating your content several times weekly. Social media is all about being social, so be ready to speak with your customers. If they have a complaint or a suggestion, open a dialogue with them. It’s common to look over a question or comment, so keep an eye out for them. Include a re-tweet option on every post to your blog. This will make it easy for visitors to share posts with their Twitter followers. This allows your followers to advertise for you without any extra monetary cost to you. Make sure you’re mindful of what you say when you’re on your social media page. You are responsible for everything you publish on these sites and the things you share could give a bad image of your business if you are not careful. In your website content, mention your social media efforts. This can be done with an article or a simple post on your Twitter account.

Thank your fans for showing an interest in your social media site. A post about the results of your social media marketing will be popular and highly-shared. Don’t think results will come right away. It takes time to create a truly winning social media campaign. You have to work on increasing your popularity by having more people follow you on Facebook and Twitter. Once this happens, you will be able to launch some serious marketing campaigns. Talk about your social media marketing campaign via your other marketing tools. When a person or business subscribes to your Twitter feed, return the favor. This helps to maintain a level of credibility with your potential customers. Doing so shows your customers that you respect them and that you don’t feel that you are superior to them. You’re more likely to keep followers by tweeting them and following them back.

Remember what has happened to you in the past. Take advantage of this guidance in order to develop a strong marketing plan and generate more profits going forward. Learn from your mistakes and keep your marketing plan up-to-date by following the latest innovations. See how your competitors are making use of social media to promote their businesses. Find out what’s working for them and what isn’t. This will help your business to thrive and can shield you from falling behind your competition. Help people online and on social media websites so you can look like an expert. If you are able to do this, you can attract consistent business. Look around online for locations where people are asking questions regarding your industry, and help them by providing quality answers. If you continue to do this, it will noticeably increase your customer base over time. If you are the owner of an RSS feed, you should always link all of your sites to it. This will allow your readers and bloggers access to the information on your social media accounts. That makes it more simple for people who know you to follow you wherever you are. It’s a good idea to include a vibrant headline in your content. Your reader makes a first impression based on your headline.

How to Start a Blog or Niche Website And Make Money

You have to catch them quickly and grab their attention so they will continue reading the entire post. Put some real effort into good headlines. Frequently, leave friendly posts and helpful comments on the pages of fellow blogger’s sites. Remember, the key word in social media marketing is “social.” If you’re willing to be social, people are more likely to return the favour. A simple way to become more popular is by starting dialogues with others whose blogs are in the same niche as yours. This strategy can also lead to good networking benefits. Practice patience. You have to earn people’s trust in your products. This will take time. Before long, you’ll have a long list of clients. Get Facebook followers by using your email list to notify them. Perhaps you have already developed your mailing list. You should send them a link to your social media sites. This will enable existing customers easy and complete access to you. One popular social media method is to allow an experienced blogger, who writes about the same product or service you sell, to write guest posts on your blog. Either way, you can generate more traffic. If you are ever invited to guest blog somewhere else, make sure you can get a backlink out of the deal. You should also allow other bloggers to have their own backlinks as well. The followers of that blogger will be more likely to seek info about your site. There are very many ways that you can begin to incorporate social media and Instagram marketing strategy with your business. It is incredible how much social media can help you gain an online presence and find new customers. This article should help you make your business recommended.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Sylvester_Adam_Smith/2070440

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9950488

Beat The Competition With These Social Media Marketing Tips Read More »

How to Maximize Your Blog Post Reach on Social Media

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Sharing your posts in different ways on various social media platforms can help you engage with different audiences.

Social media marketing is simple. Create valuable content and then share it with as many people as possible. If you do it properly, then people will share your content and it will travel around the world. And if you’re lucky, it will become viral and this will result in millions of likes and shares.

1. Share Useful Content

If you want to expand your reach, you must write and share great blog posts, tips, and tricks that add value to your audience.

If you write content that helps your audience solve a problem they’ve been experiencing or if you create content valuable in their everyday life, they are more likely to subscribe to your blog, as well as follow you and share your post with their followers and fans.

Successful social profiles and blogs share valuable content with their readers. When posting content, always remember to be consistent. You can’t write or share one day and disappear for months. You must be consistent so that readers can remember you and visit your social media platforms to get new updates.

2. Organize Social Media Contests

Social media contests are a great way to reward loyal fans, followers, and readers who have been reading your posts for a while. You can use contests to expand your social media reach too.

Also, you can use social media contests to motivate new readers to share or follow you. It’s a quick and simple way to expand your reach as people will share fun and exciting competitions and challenges on their social profiles, giving you free publicity and more eyes on your blog.

3. Learn How to Maximize Your Marketing

Every social platform has different ways to maximize marketing. Each platform has its strengths and functionality, and the main error people make is posting the same message to every social media platform.

How to Start a Blog or Niche Website And Make Money

This is a huge mistake because every social platform is optimized differently.

For instance, on Twitter people use hashtags to expand their reach but hashtags have little use when posting on Facebook. On Facebook, images work well to grab people’s attention and expand reach. But most marketers overlook this and post tweets with hashtags and link them to their Facebook status. This doesn’t work because they’re posting the least effective type of content on Facebook.

Are you are ready to be a better blogger? Discover 21 different one-a-day tasks and activities for getting more traffic, more prospects, more customers and more sales. Download my free checklist, 21 Days To A Better Blog, at https://jonallo.com/better-blog

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jon_Allo/1079948

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10509117

How to Maximize Your Blog Post Reach on Social Media Read More »

How to Start a Blog or Niche Website And Make Money

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

In 2021, due to lockdowns and mandates, more people than ever before began to look for ways to earn money working from home. In particular, many looked at blogging as an online business. The problem though, was that many of them didn’t really know how to make money from a blog. So just how can it be done?

Keep reading and I’ll go through 3 steps that you need to take to become an online blogger.

First, you need to find the right niche to work in. You need to find a “hungry market,” people who are looking for information to read and looking for products to buy.

It also needs to be a niche that you’re interested in because you’ll be writing a lot of blog posts about it.

Once you know what you’ll be blogging about, you then need to create a blog. This is simple to do using all the blogging software available. You can even set up a blog for free through platforms such as Google’s own Blogger service. Blogger has been around for years and is used by many successful bloggers, including me.

Once you’ve set up your blog, fill it with useful content, products to sell, and onsite advertising for extra income. Some bloggers earn thousands this way, selling products online as affiliates, and earning money through PPC advertising.

Once you get enough pages set up, it’s time to market your blog to get as many visitors as possible. And if you have an email subscription box on your blog, you can stay in touch with all those who sign up.

Marketing can be paid for, or can be done for free through social media and article directories. When you’re first starting out, it’s better to use free marketing, although you can go ahead and pay for it if you want to and if you already have the funds. Personally, I’ve never paid for online advertising for any of my website and blogs. Perhaps I’m leaving money on the proverbial table by marketing this way, but my online success over the years has been good without it.

And that’s the 3 steps you need to take. Choose your niche, set up a blog, join an affiliate network to find products to promote, and market your blog in as many places as you can to get thousands visitors. Just make sure you’re marketing in the right places to get the right kind of visitors.

So what are you waiting for?

Get your own money-making blog set up and running today.

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

About the author: Ruth Barringham is a writer, author, blogger and copywriter. She’s been working online for over 20 years and in her new eBook, Build a Lucrative Niche Website – In A Month, she shows you, step-by-step how to set up your own niche site or blog, and start earning money in a month or less. Everything you need to know is crammed into this information-packed little eBook to get your blog online fast – and free. https://ruthiswriting.com/books/MCWS2.html

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Ruth_Barringham/38265

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10548270

How to Start a Blog or Niche Website And Make Money Read More »

Complete Guide to Tourism Licenses in Dubai 2023

Business, Marketing, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

Want to get a Travel Agency license in Dubai? RadiantBiz guides you about the travel agency’s license cost & Steps for opening a tourism company in Dubai.

Dubai Tourism License

Dubai is one of the most popular destinations for tourists. It is known to attract millions of tourists every year. The tourism industry helps in generating a hefty amount of revenue for the emirate and for the country as well. With the growth of the tourism industry, Dubai has become one of the most visited places in the world. This has led to the introduction and high demand for the Dubai Tourism License.

Tourism is regarded as one of the most popular business setup sectors in the UAE. It has been a center of attraction for many travelers and has established itself as the go-to tourist spot throughout the decade.

What are the types of Dubai Tourism Licenses?

There are 3 types of Tourism licenses available in Dubai-

Inbound tour operator license– This allows people to organize trips both in and outside the country
Outbound tour operator license – This allows people to organize trips within the country only and is not allowed to conduct business outside the country.
Travel Agent License – This is for those who provide services such as visit visas, tickets, etc.

What is the process for obtaining a Dubai Tourism Licence?

There are various steps that one needs to follow in order to get atravel agency license in Dubai, these are as follows-

Select the appropriate Dubai Tourism License – Select the right type of tourism license for your business setup. There are 3 types of licenses that you can choose from, these are inbound tour operator license, outbound tour operator license, and travel agent license. Choosing the license decides which services can be provided by you legally and also decides the taxes that your business will be required to pay.
Choose the jurisdiction- Choose whether you want to open a Mainland or Free Zone company. This will determine the boundaries of your business.
Having the required capital- It is necessary to have the required capital for setting up a Dubai tourism business in Dubai. This capital requirement is minimal for getting started and obtaining the business license.
Register your trade name – Select the trade name for your company and register it. Before registration, it is important to ensure that the name selected is appropriate. The names selected should be available for use. It should not be connected to god directly and should not be an abbreviation. It is also essential to ensure that the name does not translate to anything offensive in any language.
Submit the documents needed for business license issuance – Submission of documents is one of the most important steps for obtaining a business license in the UAE. The required documents include-
Duly filled application form
Copies of passport
Passport photographs
NOC from the civil aviation authority
Clean criminal records
Get the necessary approvals – Get the necessary approvals to get your license. Submit the license fees and submit the documents to the concerned authorities. Wait for the approval and obtain your tourism business license.
Open your corporate bank account– After all the approvals of the license are obtained, open your corporate bank account and get started with your business. You can choose to set up your account in a local or a global bank according to your needs and requirements. Ensure that the bank you choose offers the best results for you.

What are the benefits of getting a Dubai Tourism Licence?

Setting up a business in the UAE has numerous benefits. However, setting up in the tourism sector can provide the following benefits-

Scenic beauty
Many tourist spots
Tax Haven of the world
Business and investment opportunities
Flexible visa laws
Immense contribution to the GDP

How can RadiantBiz help in getting a Dubai Tourism Licence?

Dynamic Dubai – A whole world in one city

Establishing a travel and tourism business in Dubai is one of the most popular sectors. The growth of the tourism industry guarantees stepping stones for the success of businesses in this sector. People from all over the world visit Dubai for travel, business purposes, and other short-term visits giving the industry a wide range of target audiences. With the ever-growing demand, this place offers the best conditions for your business to flourish. Connectivity makes the region ideal for your ventures. The UAE is additionally the tax haven and investment, the business hub of the world. People from all over the globe dream of setting up their businesses here and growing it manifold.

We at RadiantBiz are determined to help you start your business in Dubai. Whether it is in the tourism sector or one of the other sectors throughout the UAE, RadiantBiz is your one-stop destination for all your business needs. Our experts work diligently to help you reach your dreams. We analyze your needs and want to come up with the best plan possible and give your business wings. We realize your goals, ambitions, and passion to bring you nothing short of the best. Book an appointment with our business setup consultants today to get started with your business today. Scale up your business with RadiantBiz.

Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

Complete Guide to Tourism Licenses in Dubai 2023 Read More »

Best website where you can learn everything for free

Business, Technical Knowledge / Mahmoud Sawy

What is Open Culture’s Mission?

Open Culture brings together high-quality cultural & educational media for the worldwide lifelong learning community. Web 2.0 has given us great amounts of intelligent audio and video. It’s all free. It’s all enriching. But it’s also scattered across the web, and not easy to find. Our whole mission is to centralize this content, curate it, and give you access to this high quality content whenever and wherever you want it. Some of our major resource collections include:

Who is Behind Open Culture?

Dan Colman founded Open Culture in 2006.

Colin Marshall hosts and produces Notebook on Cities and Culture and writes for Open Culture regularly.

Josh Jones received his PhD in English at Fordham University and is a co-founder and former managing editor of Guernica / A Magazine of Arts and Politics.

Mike Springer, a journalist living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, writes daily for Open Culture.

Ayun Halliday is a writer and actor. She is best known as the author and illustrator of the long-running zine The East Village Inky.

Eric Oberle provides very generous technical support for the site. Without him, you would be getting 404s instead of regular doses of intelligent media.

How Can I Contact Open Culture?

Feel free to drop us a line at ma**@op*********.com.

Can I Advertise on Open Culture?

Yes. You can immediately place ads on Open Culture by using Google’s Adwords platform. This will give you the ability to target the whole site or specific pages. Find directions on how to target our site here.

Do You Have a Copyright Policy?

Yes and you can find it here.

Do You Have a Privacy Policy?

Yes, read all about it here.

Can I Recommend Materials to List on Open Culture?

Yes. If you would like us to add links to relevant parts of our site, you can suggest materials/links via email and we will be happy to review them. Please read over our editorial guidelines and then let us know where you think your material should be listed, and try to provide all of the information that will help us list your material. For example, if you want us to include a link in one of our podcast directories, please look at the appropriate directory and include all of the information that we typically include in our entries.

Do The Courses Featured Here Give University Credit?

First and foremost, the MOOCs/Online courses appearing on this page sometimes offer students “statements of accomplishment” or “certificates of completion” if they successfully complete a given course. However, most traditional universities won’t give students credit for taking theses online courses, and students typically can’t use these courses as a way to satisfy requirements for a degree. It’s conceivable that some schools will give credit for these classes, but you would really need to check with the registar’s office at your institution.

Second, we should point out (in case it’s not clear) that Open Culture is not the builder/creator of these courses. Our site simply highlights MOOCs/Online Courses created by other educational ventures. You can get more information by reading our MOOC FAQ.

Best website where you can learn everything for free Read More »