Do Business Well

The majority of people who work from home, whether they be working for giant corporations or in one-man bands, work by themselves. On the one hand, that means they are extremely efficient — no interruptions, no joking during meetings, no office politicking around the coffee machine, or gossiping in the lunch break — but it also means that homeworkers can feel terribly alone and isolated.

`I found that working six hours a day at home was worth more than eight in the office,’ says Emma Dally, now Publishing Director for The National Magazine Company. ‘There are so few interruptions that you are able to work very intensively.’ Continue Reading »

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Your first thought might be that “why businesses fail” would just be the flip side of “why businesses succeed.” While there are some similarities, there are also some significant differences.

Ingredients to Business Failure

1. Inadequate capital
2. Product or service not needed
3. Underpricing
4. Excessive overhead
5. Insufficient time commitment from owner
6. Bad luck and/or timing
7. Poor understanding of business
8. Problem location
9. Poor accounting controls
10. Internal theft

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Types of Media

1. Direct mail. Direct mail can be very effective, though you’ll be fighting hard for attention in a medium that is saturated with highly sophisticated competition. What follows are some general rules for reaching a list of known customers, whether business to business or consumer:

A. Start with the envelope. Print something intriguing on the outside that will make your target curious about the contents. One mass mailer who sends our company at least two or three mailings per week puts “personal and confidential” on the envelope. It’s amazing, but folks are actually more likely to open that envelope first. Continue Reading »

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Warning!

Before you start or buy your new business, warn your family and those closest to you about what’s going to happen to you and them.

Warn them about the sacrifices that will have to be made in the short term. Warn them about the stresses and strains that come with being your own boss. Warn them about the support they will all have to provide you as you take on the biggest challenge of your life. Continue Reading »

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The key criteria for building a Brand Identity are: appeal to prospects, relevance, the right personality for the market, user friendliness and the offer of an important benefit that is not currently being made by the competition.

A good brand is easily recognizable and its name must be easy to pronounce. Simplicity is the key to success. Consumers must remember it easily. This is what branding is all about: occupying the number one spot in a consumer’s mind to ensure repeat sales. Another important consideration is whether the brand name can be protected or not. Intellectual property must be registered as soon as possible and must be difficult to copy. Generic names are difficult to register (for example, The Coffee Place is a generic name whereas Joe’s Coffee Place is attached to a name and easier to protect). A good brand name cannot be copied easily (think Compaq, Intel, Coca-Cola and Nike). Continue Reading »

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The best benefits are those that favorably affect either people’sfeelings or their pocketbooks. Entrepreneurs who can express the market impact of their business in those terms usually have an advantage. For example, I read a local newspaper article about two women who had started a highly successful mail-order business selling clothing for overweight children. The children were thrilled with the product because of the difficulties—and the humiliation—they encountered shopping for clothes at traditional retail outlets. As one of the women observed, “What we’re really selling is dignity for these children.”

And so this company was. Sure, their clothing was of high quality and they delivered in a timely way. But the real reason for their success was they made children feel better. That pleased both the children and their parents. Continue Reading »

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Redundant military personnel, flush with cash received as termination pay for services rendered to their fatherland and anxious to make up for lost time, were roaming the streets, eagerly looking for ways to earn a good living. Not surprisingly, these people were reluctant to return to colleges or universities to complete their studies, which had been interrupted by government’s call to arms. They sought realistic ways to fast track their civilian careers instead.

But while these men and women possessed the required maturity and adequate funding to start small businesses of their own, they frequently lacked the skills they would need to survive in the hurly-burly world of business. Continue Reading »

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The 4-Ps are a useful framework for designing e-Marketing strategies — and have the benefit that they are clear and familiar to most managers. Successful e-¹Businesses bring together the elements of the marketing mix into an integrated, offer representing value to the customer. This can be illustrated, for example by outlining aspects of the 4-Ps of the marketing mix of the office supplies company Quill (www.quillcorp.com).

Place

Customers are offered the convenience of easy ordering — not just by Web but’ via many other routes, with expert personal assistance readily available by telephone. We have personally tested the service and found it fast and reliable. particular benefit is the UPS (courier service) order tracker so that custom can track the delivery status of their order.

Product

Quill offers a wide range of office and computer supplies, furniture and speciality products. The main selling point is the very wide range available from stock - almost everything imaginable for the office. This is a ‘hypermarket’ -type approach, offering customers far more choice than would be expected from most traditional suppliers.

Price

Competitive, discount prices can be offered. Low price levels are sustainable because of the e-Efficiency of the business, and also the economies of scale arise from successfully selling large volumes. Continue Reading »

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`Place’ (Convenience in the 4- Cs) means the elements of the marketing mix that marketers use to enable customers to access the benefits of a product or service. Traditionally, this has meant ‘channels of distribution‘ through (e.g.) various wholesaler and retailer combinations. Viewing from the ‘convenience for the customer‘ (4-Cs) perspective gives a more customer-orientated focus. This is a vital decision area for the e-Business for three reasons. First, relatively small local companies can widen their market and even export (e.g. Botham (www.Botham.co.uk), to be described further in Chapter 9). Second, many e- Businesses aim to gain competitive advantage by using e-Systems to de-layer the distribution chain. For example, Dell (www.dell.co.uk) supplies customers directly, rather than through distributors, wholesalers or retailers. Third, distribution is an area where some e-Businesses have been severely criticized for failing to deliver customer service (see Chapter 9 for more details).

Place elements of the marketing mix have been changing rapidly over recent decades, and these changes impact in many ways on the marketing operations of the e-Business. First, the growth of retailer power has involved major retailers taking more control of their supply chains. The involvement of wholesalers has been reduced, tending to give way to contract logistics (under retailer control). At the same time, supply chains have become more efficient, with computer network links between suppliers and retailers — many still based on EDI. Predating the Internet, EDI is based on privately owned third-party computer networks. Stock levels have been reduced using techniques such as JIT and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Control of the physical distribution, ordering, invoicing and payment systems, particularly for major retailers, is often still carried out using EDI networks such as Tradanet (www.gegxs.com/gxs/ products/product/traser). Increasingly, though, retailers such as Tesco are allowing Internet access to their suppliers for real-time electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) data. Trusted supplier partners can thus respond more quickly to changes in customer demand. Continue Reading »

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