Notice that some businesses, though they may have a good and potentially saleable product, do not seem to know how to make really good sales. They limit themselves to traditional methods which would probably earn them some decent revenue, but it does not fully maximize the marketability of their product.

They find themselves a good spot in a mall where foot traffic is heaviest, display their wares on glass shelves alongside a long row of other products and sit it out through the day. Yes, it may be hard to believe but there are still those who do not take advantage of what the internet can do for their businesses. If you tap into this sector of businesses, they can be an excellent potential source of income.

Lack of motivation or knowledge are probably the main factors that keep them from exploring other avenues of selling, particularly on the internet. These business owners will most likely be receptive if you offer to take their offline product online yourself. Your role is to open their eyes to the vast potential market on the internet and convince them to make you their sales agent online.

You need to identify first which products among the many will most likely sell well on the Web. Almost anything of value can be sold on the internet but to really make money taking an offline product online, choose your products well. Think unique, one-of-a-kind or hard-to-find products which are of good quality.

If you go for common items such as bags, jackets and apparel, go for unique styles and designs. Personalized items too can attract a lot of views from online shoppers. Do your research. Surf through the internet for the most common items sold online but take a step further and take note of what is not yet being sold online and start from there.

If you seriously consider making money taking an offline product online, take time to really shop around.  Go to trade fairs and bazaars where you see products that are not normally found in malls and department stores. Visit specialty shops and look for unique, hard-to-find but usable merchandise. As you go around, take note of how these stores market their products and check if they are already present online.

Build up your list of potential products to sell and eliminate as you go along. Trim it down to the most unique, beautiful and possibly most saleable items. It is best to start with a few items first to see how well it goes.

Do a simple market study before offering to sell a product.

This study must show the target customers, market size and the market demand for such a product.

The data must help convince the supplier that selling online is a good move or that it is what they need to do to give their sales a boost. Your positive opinion or gut feel about a product is a good input but it will not suffice when negotiating with its suppliers. Focus the discussion on the additional revenue that an online presence can bring them.

Discuss how the selling arrangement will be handled. Be open to suggestions. The best scheme to make money taking an offline product online is to sell on a commission basis. This is convenient and most importantly, almost risk-free for both parties.

You can take the profile and pictures of the products, display and promote them in your website and get a commission for every sale you make. Orders are taken through your website and you in turn, process the purchase directly with your supplier.

Some suppliers may offer you to sell on a consignment basis or supply you with items that can be returned if unsold after a fixed period. Such an arrangement is convenient and cuts down on the shipping costs since you do not need to transact and ship each and every time you receive an order.  However, keeping and maintaining the goods on consignment will definitely require more of your time.

Choose the selling arrangement that best suits you.

As in any other business, diligence, passion and creativity are required to make money taking an offline product online. Remember that with the ease of searching and shopping online compared to actual mall-shopping, competition can be tougher. So always begin by choosing a product well and you will definitely be on your way to earning big bucks.

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Sharon McCarley is a freelance writer & researcher for the popular “Teach Me How To Make Money” blog. For more creative ideas and ways to make money, whether you’re looking to earn money online or offline, or to get in touch with Sharon, check out www.TeachMeHowToMakeMoney.com now.
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Start with your desk. Depending on the type of work you do, generally the only necessary things for this space are a computer, phone, pad of paper and some writing utensils that can be stored in a cup. Everything else can be tucked away in a drawer, or organized in some type of architectural casework. When tucking things away, think about where each item is placed logically. For example, put all miscellaneous office supplies, like staples, paper clips, etc, in one place. Then, put printer paper and extra ink in one place, and so on. This will make your life much easier. A clutter free desk is much less stressful.

With the digital world that we live in, there is no real reason to keep many paper documents. If you are concerned about your computer crashing, there are external hard drives that can be purchased that are used to back up important documents. If that type of file protection is still not enough for you, try using two of these devices, or some type of cloud service. Any important documents can be scanned and saved on your computer, thus eliminating the need for an abundance of paper files. For paperwork or magazines that are important enough to you that keeping physical copies is necessary, make a special place for these in a cupboard. Organize them by industry such as automotive or restaurant if relevant, or maybe by function, such as financial documents and blank forms. Color coding could also work in this scenario.

When you have your office organized and clutter-free, maintaining a to-do list of everything you are currently working on may further increase efficiency. Rank them in order of importance and tackle the tasks one at a time. As each task is completed, put away anything you were using that is no longer needed in order to keep your office space organized.

An overly cluttered and disorganized work environment is not conducive to productivity. Invest a little time and effort into making a system of organization that works for you. Following these simple guidelines will make this task easier. In the long run, you will be less stressed, able to find what you need quicker and will be more efficient with completing tasks.

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In addition to telephone answering services (acting as a virtual receptionist) A virtual office service can supply you with a virtual office address to maintain anonymity or to help maintain a work-at-home business. Instead of picking up mail at this address, A virtual office service can forward your mail to any location or even hold your mail for a period of time.

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Call now to speak with one of our experts about the services that will suit you best. We are confident that once you use A virtual office service you will never look elsewhere for your personal assistant and telephone answering needs. Contact us now and A virtual office service can create a personalized package designed to meet your specific needs and give you an estimate of the costs. Call now to see how you can benefit from A virtual office service telephone answering services and other office services. We even offer a 14-day free trial and will give you 10% off your first free months of using the service as a way of thinking you for giving us a try.

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It’s what we call relationship building my friends. Building or establishing an online base of customers/consumers is no different than building a customer base of people offline.

http://www.freetoberich.com/5iphon

Let me put it this way. If you own a shop and have about 10 customers that always come in and you always ask them how they are, find out how you can help, give an honest opinion about the merchandise and products that you are selling, send them email or text messages when new stock or special offers arise, and so on and so forth.

Will not those 10 customers be inclined to keep buying from you? They become basically your friends and begin to open up to you more and even give you feedback on your services and products without you even asking because it reaches a point and time where they feel that the shop is almost like theirs. You get where am going with this?

On the other hand you could  have a situation where you have about 2000 customers and when each and every single one of them come into the shop you look at them with the attitude of “You buy or you get out, it’s that simple!”. Tell me. How many of those customers would keep coming back to the shop? They know the shop, at present they are customers BUT for how long?

You probably are thinking what I’m thinking. They will go first chance that they get, because honestly we are all people and human beings and want to be treated with courtesy and respect.

Now when it comes to building an online list it’s the same thing you have to build a relationship with them. 1^st of all you have to have a list of course.

Now list building can be a lot of stress and hassle but imagine….what if you could get people to build your list for you at the same time get paid for doing it??

Would this not be something that would be of interest to you? There are many many ways to building a list and one way that I have found that builds me a list the fastest is by getting others to build a list for me.

Do not have time to write all about it now as that is another topic on its own and could get me writing a whole journal but if you want to find out more on the most powerful and most effective way that people are using to build their list in the world of internet marketing today I suggest you visit the link below.

http://www.freetoberich.com/5iphon

As always thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read my short little article. I do hope that you really enjoyed it.

If you’ve been in business for any time at all, you have some success stories. You have some people that have had some really good results from working with you, no matter what it is that you do.

You have had some really great accomplishments in your business by working with people. So what I’d encourage you to do is to make a list – create a file of those success stories – people that have had a really good result or really good outcome from working with you.

If they are life changing results, then of course definitely use those kinds of stories. But you can also have really impactful success stories that aren’t world changing type of things.

Maybe nobody got fit with you and went out and ran a marathon. Maybe they just got fit and were living a healthier, more energetic and inspired life.

It doesn’t have to be mountain top, peak of the mountain success story.

It doesn’t have to be those gold medal moments type of a thing.

So make a list of those type of success stories, whether they are big, whether they are small and keep those handy – not only for you to keep you motivated and inspired about what you are doing.

But to be able to use those to talk to other people about what kind of results people have gotten from working with you.

And we’re not looking for only the results, but what is really powerful are the results of those results.

Maybe you’re a weight loss coach, and you worked with someone and you had really good results and maybe she ended up losing 35 pounds in two and a half months or something like that.

And you were really excited about that. And of course she was really excited about that!

And she is living a healthier, more energetic, more inspired life, and she is just feeling healthier and fitter. She doesn’t see herself as an overweight person anymore; she doesn’t even see herself as a formerly overweight person anymore.

Her whole identity has changed to the point where she feels like she is a healthy and fit individual and that’s her new identity – that’s her persona!

Well that’s the results and that’s great.

But what are the results of those results?

Maybe she was feeling so great and so inspired and feeling so good about herself, and her self confidence had risen to the point where she got inspired to go take a salsa dancing class.

She took the salsa class and of course she was good at it and it was fun, but …

She ended up meeting the love of her life type of a thing, so they ended up getting married two weeks ago.

Now that’s a success story!

But not only with the results of what happened, but incorporating the results of those results.

Now that’s what you want to keep in mind when you are thinking of your success stories, not only what are the results.

But what are the results of those results?

And you want good, high impact stories.

Start saving those up, start collecting those.

Make it a great week,

T

I work with small business owners to help them build their most successful and nourishing and fulfilling and energizing business. And I do that by helping them not only to get more clients, but by helping them get more ideal clients - clients that are nourishing to them, that are fun to work with, that remind them why they started doing what they do in the first place.

So that’s my goal and I’ve got a little “Build A Better Business” tip for you.

I would encourage you to make a list of the books that you want to read in the next year.

Now some people don’t read, but I would highly recommend that you spend a little bit of time everyday or every week reading.

And what you want to do is read books that nourish and fulfill you, that inspire you to do better work, that give you great ideas.

There’s nothing wrong with fiction or magazines or newspapers or comic books and stuff, a lot of these are… even novels are… filled with a lot of negativity, and I really believe in filling yourself with positive things and things that are motivating and inspiring.

So there’s a ton of books out there that I’ve read that have been really life changing for me, and so what I have done is I have actually created a list of the 12 books I want to read this next year.

I read voraciously and most likely I will read more than twelve, but I’ve got one planned out for each month of the next year.

Actually this was a tip that I heard from James Malinchak, and I really like it. I think it is a great idea to make a plan for the next year as to which books I’m going to read, and then I have one set out for each month that I can read and just really fill myself with positive, inspiring, motivational reading material. It doesn’t matter if it is a business book – a lot of my books that I read are business books and self help books and a lot about keeping a positive attitude and how to just live better in the world and be a more successful, whole, well rounded, spiritual, energetic being I guess.

So definitely create a list for yourself. Some of them can be books you’ve read in the past, that you found to be particularly inspiring, and some are books that you’re wanting to read.

Mix it up a little bit on your list.

If you want to, you could have a list of 52 books and read one book each week. But of course some people don’t have time for that. But if you do, if you are a voracious reader like I am, maybe you want to create a list of 52 books.

So that’s my productivity, “Build A Better Business – Have A Better Life” tip for you.

Make it a great week.

P.S. Use the comments to share with me some of your favoritest, most life-changing books!! I’m always looking for the next thing I want to read!

Every week I get to work with a lot of small business owners to help them build their most successful and energizing business so that they really enjoy what they’re doing, so that they live a great life.

And I really believe that your best business is part of a well-balanced life.

Your business is not your entire life obviously.

I don’t know if everybody gets that, but you’ve got a lot of different areas of your life and they all interrelate with each other, of course your health and wellness, your fun and recreation, your family and relationship, your spiritual life, your business, your work, your job, your school, whatever it is that you are doing…

These are all parts of a well-balanced life, and your business is just one aspect of that.

And what we want to do is to get you to your healthiest, happiest, most successful and well balanced life by coming at it from the direction of having a successful and well balanced nourishing and fulfilling business. So of course, if you are enjoying your business, and you are having fun, and you can’t wait to go to work each day, and you’re working with great people that are fun to work with, and you have great ideal clients that are energizing and fulfilling and nourishing for you, and you really enjoy what you’re doing, of course that’s going to impact your whole entire life…so that you are having a healthier, happier, more well balanced and successful life.

That’s my end goal for you, anyway. And hopefully that’s your end goal for you, too.

It’s all yours – Make it a great week,

Theresa

As you know, I work with small business owners all over the world to help them build their best business, to help them live a more inspired life by working in something that they are passionate about.  And helping them become more visible so that they can share, their gifts and talents and skills and experiences with the people that need and want their help.

I’m glad you’re here.

What I have for you today is what I guess I would call a “Build A Better Business” tip for you.

Keep a list.

Start creating a list of questions and answers - your most frequently asked questions -the ones that you get all the time about the basics, kind of the 101 of your business.

What are some of the most frequently asked questions that people have when they are starting to think about using you and your services?

For example, if you were an attorney, what are some of the most frequently asked questions that people ask when they are looking to hire an attorney?

What you have to remember is that what you are doing is your everyday life but for people that haven’t experienced that before, this may be a once in a lifetime experience. And so what are those frequently asked questions?

What are the basics, the entry-level 101, the general concept that people need to know?

What is it that they need to “get” about working with you in your business?

What are things that they may have misconceptions about, that they may not understand?

What are the top 5 things they need to know about working with someone in your field?

Or what do they need to know about hiring someone in your field?

Just think about that, and start keeping a list of what are the most frequently asked questions for people that are looking to hire you?

You know what they are going to be asking you?

How can you help them?

And then just work on creating some really good benefit-oriented answers to these questions.

Make it a great week,

Build your better business!

T

A “niche” is basically a specific area or activity that someone is particularly good at or knows a lot about. When I talk about it with respect to the business world, I am referring to a specific and specialized area of a larger market.

Let me simplify it – I look at your target audience as “who you help” and niche as “how you help those people with their particular and specialized needs”

For example, the service industry is a huge market, and is comprised of a ton of different smaller markets. Restaurants, salons, spas, bars, and retail stores all fall under that category. A “niche” would be found within an even smaller division that would fall under one of these kinds of subcategories.

Let’s take a spa into consideration for a minute. There are tons of different kinds of spas, and thousands of different kinds of treatments that can be done at one. Maybe you know a lot about skin, so a possible niche within this category could be a spa that focuses solely on skin treatments. Maybe you are more into aromatherapy kinds of things, so you could create your business around that. That’s the how-you-help part.

Basically, when I say that you need to find and embrace your very own “niche,” I mean that you need to come up with, and focus your business around, a very specific sector of your particular business market. It should be something that you are particularly passionate about, that you know a lot about, that really suits your talents and personality, etc. It should be something that makes you stand apart from the rest of your market and that is not too generic or overly used.

The idea is to be unique, and to be the BEST at what you do. Defining your niche should significantly aid you in doing that.

The idea of finding your niche goes hand in hand with defining your business’s target market. Your “target market” is the people who you want to aim your business and marketing efforts towards. These people are your potential clients.

We went over this a couple of weeks ago, but I want to reiterate that you DO NOT want to target everyone out there. There is a reason why it is called a T-A-R-G-E-T market. You should not throw your advertising and efforts out blindly shooting in every which direction, but aim it towards a specific group of people. It may seem counterintuitive, but it will actually aid you in gaining a larger client base. And you don’t want to be wasting what could otherwise be productive time, energy and money.

How do you go about defining your target market?

Good question!

There are definitely some great tactics out there that can help you do this.

FIRST of all, you should think about the kind of people that YOU want to work with. Yes I said YOU!!! This is one of the few times when it comes to your business that you will really be able to focus on yourself and what exactly you want. Define your absolutely ideal client, thinking about what characteristics you do and do not want in the people that you work with/for.

Do you want to work with that lady who always complains and that can never be satisfied? No? Then throw her out of your target market!! Believe it or not, you have a ton of control over the kind of people that come to you. You just need to define who those people are, what they are looking for and want, and build your business and marketing strategy in a way that caters specifically to them.

Another thing that is important to think about is who you best relate to. You are going to be much more successful when it comes to marketing your business if you can understand what it is that your potential clients want, why they want it, and how they want it. This understanding is strongest between you and people that you have an affinity for, that you can identify with, and whose conversations you can simply step into as the solution they’re looking for.

You need to KNOW your clients. You need to be able to really get into, and understand, the conversations that are going on in their heads. Although a group of people may seem like a great and profitable target market, if you can’t understand what it is that they are looking for and what they want, then they will be absolutely useless to you. In order to solve their problems, you must first know and understand them.

Ask yourself these things: What is it that they want? What are their compelling desires? What are they lying awake worrying about? What are their secret fantasies?

If you can’t begin to answer those questions, than you should probably look deeper. Ask them. Do surveys, have conversations, etc.

TRUST ME! You will be much better off if you take these things into consideration. Not only will you be more successful, but you will be much happier doing it.

And let’s face it, if you aren’t happy doing what you do, then why should anybody else be happy with it? Clients want to work with people who love what they do and who are good at it, not with people who hate their job and push through it every day.

Happy people do a much better job and are much much much more pleasant to work with. It’s a fact of life!

So think about these things when creating or re-defining your business, they are CRITICAL.

What other kinds of things have helped YOU when deciding upon a target market? I want to hear about your experiences and any ideas that you may have. Either leave a comment below or by clicking on the bubble in the upper right hand corner of the post.

Make it a great week!

Something that many people struggle with, and that if you do it wrong, has a tendency to really detract from the attractiveness of your businesses, is mastering their message. This is the message that you use in order to appeal to your potential clients and to bring them to YOU. It needs to resonate with your target audience and to address their personal needs and desires.

I mentioned this in our last positioning post, but in order to come up with a really great business message, you need to get into the conversation in the heads of the individuals that make up your target market.

You need to know what it is that they need and are looking for, and to appeal to those wants and needs. It should be personal and unique.

In order to be as helpful as you can to them, and in order to create a message that really resonates with them, you need to think about what is going on in their head throughout the whole process. For example, say you are a real-estate agent that focuses on downsizing seniors.

Maybe they have just lost their spouse and can no longer stand the thought of living in a home that is filled with so many memories. Maybe it is a senior couple whose kids have grown up and moved out, and they feel that it’s too big of a house for them and they don’t need all the extra work to keep it maintained. You need to think about WHY they may be choosing to downsize.

Once you have considered the WHY, you need to think about what comes along with it. So, with our downsizing seniors, when they’re thinking about moving into a smaller, easier-to-maintain place, they’re probably going to have to get rid of some of their stuff. What can you do to help your client’s with the process?

Something else to consider – How might they be feeling about leaving the home that they have lived in for so many years? They may be disheartened to think about losing their connection, their touchstone to all those family memories, in the home and the neighborhood where their babies grew up. Because they have such an emotional bond with the place.

Maybe they are worried that they will have no idea how to go about selling and buying a house since the market has obviously changed drastically since they bought the place.

Maybe they don’t have anyone to help them move, and have no idea who to turn to.

It’s all so overwhelming, and can even be terrifying for some.

Think about this: When anybody is doing anything, there is a reason for it. By figuring out what that reason may be and by being sensitive to it, you can better appeal to potential customers in your specialty field.

Thinking about their worries and concerns allows you to address them beforehand, thereby preparing yourself to have all of the necessary things in place already when they come to you.

By tapping into the conversation within your potential client’s heads, you can position yourself as the person best suited to meet their wants and needs. It allows you to better relate to them.

People like to feel understood, and it is comforting when the person you go to seems relatable and accommodating. You need to keep all of these things in mind when creating your message.

This also ties into the last two mistakes that we went over before. Your message needs to set you apart from the crowd. It needs to show you and your business are different than the others. It should be presented in a unique and creative way that will catch the attention of you prospective clients.

But most importantly, it should position you as the obvious choice. It would make much more sense for a senior couple who is downsizing to go to someone who specializes in such things then to some generic agent who is just looking to move as many people in and out of houses as quickly as possible without taking their special needs into consideration.

Let me give you two examples, and then I want YOU to decide which would be the obvious choice for this situation.

Real-estate agent number one’s message: “Hi. My name is Joe Schmo, and I have an incredibly high sell rate. I would love to help YOU sell your house as quickly as possible, too!”

Real-estate agent number two’s message: “Is your house too big now that your kids have all moved out? Has the maintenance just become too much? My name is Joe Schmo, and I’m the downsizing senior specialist. I can help you to sell your home and to get settled into a new place that’s a better fit for you. I can make the entire process easy and as stress-free as possible, and I will work WITH you to make sure that your every question is answered and that every concern is addressed. You are not alone. I’m here to help you.”

Which one would be the obvious choice? If you don’t say the second, then we really need to talk! : )

Nobody wants to feel as though they are just a means through which someone else can make money. That makes them feel devalued and like you just don’t care. By tapping into what is going on in their minds, you can avoid that, and show them that you care about them as individuals.

They won’t mind the expense, because they will feel that it’s worth it for the specialized and genuine care that they get from you. In short, you will resonate with them, and they’ll be tickled that they chose you.

As I’ve said before, positioning is not the simplest thing in the world. There are a lot of things to be considered, and there is no one quick fix that will suddenly make your business boom.

However, that being said, all of the mistakes we have talked about are relatively easy to avoid. Being aware of them is the first step in avoiding them. They definitely take some time to work through, and a heck of a lot of thought, but the time and effort is well worth it in the end.

I will be going into further detail with respect to some of the most important things that you can do in order to position yourself in a way that sets you apart and that will ensure you greater overall success.

If you have any questions or there is anything in particular that you would like me to write about, LET ME KNOW, and I will do my best to answer your questions or point you to someone who can.

I’m excited to move into the topics of positioning, branding and defining yourself as different from all of the others out there because this is MY passion. It is MY specialty, and I can’t wait to share it with YOU!

Until next week…

Make it Great!