Managing and owning a small business can be very stimulating for the ADD adult. Many ADD entrepreneurs thrive on the fact that they can work on growing their business without all of the structure of being employed by someone else. While the structure of a 9 to 5 job might not be ideal for an ADD adult, an ADD entrepreneur should establish some structure and boundaries in order to be successful with their business opportunities and their personal lives. Here are just a couple of examples of structure and boundaries that an ADD entrepreneur should establish:

1. Keeping your personal finances and your business finances separate.

The larger your business is, the more important it is to separate your finances. Not only is it important for tax purposes, but recording all of your business transactions will give you or someone else all of the information necessary to analyze how well you are doing, and what you need to do to expand your business.

2. Set aside a regular time to pay your bills and to bill your customers.

I find that a lot of ADD entrepreneurs are more reluctant to bill their customers on a regular basis. The main reason is that they are so focused on pleasing the customer, that they don’t focus on actually getting paid for a job. In order to develop a habit, you should decide on a regular set time that you are going to focus on sending out your invoice and paying the bills.

3. Schedule time andor days each week where you not allowed to do anything related to your business.

In order to be a successful entrepreneur you need to spend a lot of time on your business. It is easy for an ADD entrepreneur to completely focus on their business and not focus on their other needs like eating properly, sleeping, physical activity, and spending time with friends and family. Without spending a little time on the other areas of your life your will burnout or breakdown.

Here are seven ways for owners of small businesses to save money on their taxes.

1. Incorporate Yourself: If you`re still a proprietor or partner of a business, it`s time to incorporate yourself. Not only will you limit your liability, but you may enjoy lower tax rates on small business income and other tax advantages as well.

2. Be Home Based: If possible, continue (or switch to) being a home based business. Not only will you keep your overhead down, but you will be able to write-off (or deduct) the business use of your home.

3. Income Split: Pay reasonable wages to your spouse and children. In this way, you can legally divert income taxed at your higher rate to your family members that are in a lower tax bracket.

4. Rearrange Your Affairs For Maximum Tax Savings: Can you make some changes to turn your hobby into a moneymaking business? Can you use that extra room in your house as a home office for your business? Can you arrange to use your car more for business purposes? Can you arrange for more of your entertainment expenses to be business related?

5. Document Your Expenses Well: Do you document your expenses well so that they would survive a tax audit? Have you kept a mileage log so that you can prove the percentage business use you claim for your vehicle? Have you kept receipts for all your entertainment expenses and listed the business purpose on the back of each receipt?

6. Be Punctual: File all returns and pay all taxes due (income, payroll, sales, et cetera) on time. This way, you avoid expensive late filing (and payment) penalties and interest.

7. Develop a Tax Planning Mindset: Some people only worry about their taxes during tax season. However, you will save a fortune in taxes, legally, if you make tax planning your year-round concern. Do you make business and personal purchases, investments, and other expenditures with tax savings in mind?

WHAT IS OUTBOUND FAX AUTOMATION FOR SMBs?

Today, most small to medium sized organizations understand outbound fax automation as the ability to send faxes with their computers using the email or internet. This is only the tip of the business productivity iceberg. Outbound fax automation is about saving time and money by eliminating manual fax creation and submission. It is the use of a computer based faxing solution in a specific manner for sending outbound faxes. All computer based fax solutions ARE NOT created equal. The selection of the best solution will depend on budget, fax volume, identified fax workflow inefficiencies and future eDocument Delivery initiatives.

For outbound faxing, the top 5 ways to increase the productivity are:

1.Automated Desktop Faxing
2.Fax Broadcasting
3.Sending Faxes using Email Distribution Groups
4.Fax-Enabling Billing and Invoicing Applications
5.Outbound Fax Management

Automated Desktop Faxing

Most office administrators or office managers are involved in the mailing or faxing of documents. These documents typically include reports, newsletters, invoices, announcements and marketing literature. The manual mailing and faxing of these types of documents is labor intensive, cost prohibitive and significantly time consuming. Automated desktop faxing eliminates printing, mailing and faxing of reports, form letters, newsletters, announcements etc by hand. Automated desktop faxing happens directly from your computer. Faxing tools are installed within your document processing applications Microsoft Word, Crystal Reports etc as well as your contact database applications (Microsoft Excel, Access, Goldmine, Maximizer, etc).

Fax Broadcasting

Fax broadcasting is another form of automated outbound fax automation. It significantly reduces repetitive steps and increases the speed of delivery of documents. For many SMBs fax broadcasting is a vital part of their ongoing marketing, product announcement and customer communication strategies. With the influx of email spam and spam filters, its becoming increasingly difficult to reach your own customers. Sending a fax often eliminates this concern, because unlike email, faxes are always read and delivered when recipients are properly identified. When selecting a fax broadcasting solution ensure it is capable of performing the following steps:

1.Ability to create a highly legible faxable document.
2.Ability to create or use an existing database list from a variety of formats (CSV, TEXT, EXCEL, ACCESS, SQL,)
3.Ability to map database fields to the content of the fax document for personalization.
4.Ability to manage the entire process easily. Management includes tracking, monitoring and modification and resubmission.

Sending Faxes Using Email Distribution Lists

Fax automation is about leveraging existing technologies and resources. Sending faxes using email distribution groups allows you to use a centralized phone book or recipient list. It eliminates the need to create or maintain separate phone books. In addition, third party applications and other databases have links directly into email contacts or distribution groups. The most common locations for prospect or existing client records and detailed information are contained within a contact manager, sales application or Microsoft Outlook Contacts.

Note: Sending faxes using email distribution groups IS NOT the same as sending faxes through email. While sending faxes through email provides a central repository for most electronic communication methods, there are also several drawbacks including:

1.Sending faxes through email eliminates the real-time transaction process or benefit of sending a fax.
2.Each fax sent directly from email creates an individual email message with a [FAX] recipient type which is subsequently stored on your local machine and email server.
3.Depending on size fax recipient lists, sending faxes through email using distribution lists may significantly slow down your email server or network.
4.Addition disk space is used in sending faxes through email.

Fax Enabling Billing and Invoicing Applications

Outbound fax automation is about improving cash flow through improved accounts receivables and reduces costs. Traditionally, accounts receivable departments have manual data entry systems to which purchase orders are entered and processed. Once processed, invoices are manually printed and mailed to clients for payment. Printing, envelope stuffing and mailing of invoices is also a labor and resource intensive task. In addition, USPS mail costs 0.39 or greater for deliver and takes on average 48 hours for delivery and payment of the invoice generally occurs several days later. All of these manual processing steps and consumable costs are eliminated through outbound fax automation. Your billing and invoicing application can be fax-enabled and with a simple push of the key on your keyboard, invoices are be delivered to clients in seconds with confirmation receipts!

Outbound Fax Management

Outbound fax management helps businesses grow in several areas simultaneously. Paper intensive SMBs use outbound fax on a daily basis to market, generate and close business. It is rare that a day will go by without sending a fax. Fax management involves the management of all outbound fax transmissions. This includes the review of fax usage (by department) in terms of transmission time, delivery destinations (by area code andor recipient) and subject matter (invoice, P.O., expense report, announcement, newsletter).

Secured Loan For The Self-Employed: Ready Money For The Entrepreneurial Mind

Self- employed people consist the majority of the workforce in UK. They control a vital part of the countrys economy. A self-employed person works for himselfherself. Not joining any organization as an employee, he or she doesnt draw regular salaries. The trade or business they profess individually or by forming a small business derives the income of the self-employed people. Though, it gives an entrepreneurial gratification, and higher rate of returns than those having a salaried employment, but the payments are irregular and one often has to go without work for days or even months. The financial condition can deteriorate very fast, if a self-employed person with a shaky bank balance runs into rough weather. Secured loan for the self-employed can bail out such an aggrieved person.

Many situations can demand urgent financial inputs from self-employed persons. It could be some vital investment, or to meet some temporary cash flow crisis, to buy a car, or take that much needed vacation – it could be anything, which financially bothers the self-employed person. The most pressing problem is the urgent need of money. The major impediment, which the lenders feel while they consider lending to self-employed people is the lack of a regular income. Unlike salaried people, they do not get monthly paychecks. So, in many cases, their repayment capacity is very much subdued. The collateral clause satisfied by a secured loan for the self-employed, pacifies the average lender and he provides the loan despite a lack of regular income.

The collateral can be the house, the car, a property, the business premises or any home equity held by the self-employed person. Since the collateral is offered, the interest rates on secured loans for the self-employed are lower than the unsecured ones. Secured loans for the self-employed can provide a large sum to the borrower provided the lender is satisfied with the value of the collateral offered. A diverse spectrum of professionals like doctors, painters, writers, mechanics, florists, beauticians, hairdressers etc. take such loans. The profession of the self-employed is not given much importance while giving a secured loan for the self-employed as long as the collateral satisfies the lender. However, the credit history of such borrowers carries a lot of weight with the lenders. Any self-employed person who offers the sufficient collateral and has a good credit record to supplement his case can get a good loan offer within the minimum possible time. Whereas, a borrower with insufficient collateral and poor credit rating is more or less doomed to get a curtailed offer with high interest rates and tougher repayment options.

The drawback of secured loans for self-employed is that if the borrower is unable to meet the repayment schedule and persistently defaults on payments, he might loose his home or the collateral to the lender permanently. So, to mitigate the occurrence of such a tragedy, the borrower should go for the minimum possible loan amount and that too after considering his repayment capacity and doing a cash-flow analysis.

Many borrowers, who take a Secured loan for the self employed, when they find that their cash inflow is not sufficient enough to repay the installments and meet their daily expenses, go for a regular employment. This is not stated to discourage any self-employment, but just to underline the fact that the borrower should do everything to repay his loan properly, else the collateral may be repossessed. As true with all types of purchases, getting the best deal on any secured loan for the self-employed also comes after a consistent scouring of various offers. Just skimming the surface of offers, and reaching at a conclusion might spring up unpleasant surprises for the borrower at later stages. Taking a secured loan for self-employed, is vital to the financial recuperation for the borrower. The funds should be used efficiently and solely to fulfill the intent. Any wasteful meandering from the desired course will inevitably make the things worse for the borrower.

Top 5 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs a Custom Website

Today, in North America, almost 70% of households have access to the Internet. It has evolved to the point where the Internet has become an integral element in the way business is conducted, and is shaping the way business will be conducted in the future. Most consumers these days research a product or service on the Internet before making their purchase. So, in this day and age, it could cost you not to have a website. Listed below are 5 reasons why you should employ an experienced web designer to construct a custom website for your small business.

Credibility & Identity Building
Like it or not, your potential customers are going to judge the quality of your products andor services based on presentation and image. Therefore, an aesthetically pleasing web site will give you and your company more credibility in the eyes of you customers or clients.

Lower Your Expenses
Why spend thousands of pounds on static traditional media such as brochures? If there was ever a change in your business, such as an expansion or additional productsservices, it would require printing all new corporate brochures. A web site is dynamic and can be changed or updated in a very cost effective manner. Best of all, your clients can access this information from anywhere in the world, without the delay of snail-mail. A properly constructed web site can also reduce the time that you and your employees spend answering redundant customer questions.

Complement Your Existing Marketing Efforts
Most people think of a web site as advertising. Unfortunately, they would be wrong – A web site is a medium which complements and enhances your existing marketing efforts. Your potential customers or clients can easily gain access to information that isn’t suitable to include in other traditional advertising mediums. In less than a decade, a web site will be just as common as having a listing in the Yellow Pages. What would your potential customers or clients think of your business if you didn’t have a web site?

Customer Service
A web site allows potential customers or clients to get to know more about your company, increasing the personal side of doing business. Your business will be open 24hrs per day, 365 days per year, and if someone has a question concerning your product or service, an answer is only an e-mail away. Some people may feel uncomfortable on the phone or in your office store, and, to these people, e-mail is their preferred method of communication.

Get a Jump on the Competition
A professionally designed web site will make your business appear larger than it actually is, and therefore challenge larger competitors. When it comes to getting listed in the search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), the longer your web site has been active, the higher ranking you will receive, and therefore more traffic will be directed to your web site. It is for this reason that you can’t afford delay this important decision any longer.

Small businesses have many challenges to stay afloat. Many budding entrepreneurs think that all they need is an idea or product, a name for their small business, and a bit of work and the product will sell itself and money will come rolling in. If you have ever run a small business – even a home based business – you will know there’s much more to it than that!

The first thing you, as a potential small business owner must always do, is research your market. Then research your competition, then the available supply for your product or service, and find your unique selling position. This alone can take weeks often months.

Once you are satisfied that there is a market for your product or service then you need to sort out your business plan and cash flow projections.

Small businesses may appear low cost but many suck up substantial capital before they turn a profit so now, unless you are very fortunate, you must sort out how to finance your small business. Do you remortgage your house? look for investment partners? borrow from friends or family? or approach the bank? Whichever you choose you need to convince others that your small business will be profitable and they will get a return on their money.

Once finances are in place the hard work starts. You may have premises to arrange, suppliers to sort out, staff to recruit and mangage, accounts to keep, products to design or source, lawyers to consult, accountants to hire and we must not forget in all of this market and get the all important customers to look at and purchase your products.

To do that you have to advertise your small business, but where and at what cost? Don’t forget you have to provide customer support and accept returns. Then there’s waste disposal … and on and on.

Who’s paying for all of this – in simple terms you, and your friends, investors andor your bank are paying, until you are selling sufficient product or service to cover the costs – usually many months or even years away.

New small businesses rarely return a profit in the first year and frequently not for two or three years. Make sure you can finance it properly.

Is it worth doing it? That’s your decision but every year tens of thousands of people do start their own business and many are succesful and reap the rewards of all that hard work. But many also fail, and all too often it’s due to lack of preparation

If you’re about to set off on your new business venture prepare well and Good Luck. With good planning, persistence and a lot of hard work you too can build a profitable small business.

Sales Strategies for Entrepreneurs: The #1 Way To Skyrocket Your Sales This Year

Completely grasp the power of the Best Buyer Concept and you will double your sales within the next twelve months. The concept is easy to understand, yet powerful: There’s always a smaller number of ideal buyers, compared to all the possible buyers, so ideal buyers are cheaper to market to and yet bring greater rewards.

A magazine used this strategy to double sales in 15 months flat. Here’s what they did:

They took a database of 2200 advertisers and sent promo-pieces to them each month. After learning this
strategy, they did an analysis and found that 167 of those 2200 advertisers bought 95% of the advertising in their competitor’s magazine.

This concept is called “The Dream 100 Sell,” a concept where you go after your “Dream” prospects with a vengeance. This magazine sent the 167 (best buyers) a letter every two weeks and called them four times per month.

Since these were the biggest buyers, the first four months of intensive marketing and selling brought no actual reward. In the fifth month, only ONE of these Dream clients bought advertising in the magazine.

In the sixth month, 28 of the 167 largest advertisers in the country came into the magazine all at once.
And since these are the biggest advertisers, they don’t take quarter pages and fractional ads, they take full pages and full color spreads. These 28 advertisers alone, were enough to double the sales over the previous year. The magazine went from number 15 in the industry to number one in just over a year.

Lesson learned: Market to your best buyers

Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, who are my best buyers? If you sell to the business-to-consumer market, chances are, your best buyers live in the best neighborhoods.If you are a dentist, accountant, chiropractor, R.E. Broker, financial advisor, restaurant, or even a MLM professional you should consistently go after the folks who live in the best neighborhoods.

They are the wealthiest buyers who have the money and the greatest sphere of influence. If you send them an offer every single month without fail, within a year, you’ll have a great reputation among the very wealthy.

If you sell to the business-to-business market, it’s usually fairly clear that your best buyers are the biggest companies. So what are you doing, every other week, no matter what, to let these companies know who you are?

There’s no one you can’t get to as long as you constantly market to them, especially after they say they’re not interested. People will not only begin to respect your perseverance, they will actually begin to feel obligated.

This doesn’t happen right away, but even the most hard-bitten and cynical executive or prospect begins to respect you when you refuse to give up. The publication I mentioned earlier went on to double sales two more years in a row. They consistently marketed to the best buyers and much more aggressively than they did to the rest of the buyers.

A company selling to manufacturer’s used this strategy to target the 100 biggest manufacturers in the country. For the first three months no one responded to any of the calling or phoning.

But after three months executives started saying: “I just have to meet you. I’ve never had anyone continue to call me so many times after I said no.” Within 6 months they had gotten in to
see 54% of those they targeted.

The secret is to NEVER give up.

Just keep going after those companies again and again. Or if you sell to consumers, commit to sending a promotional piece every single month to those wealthy neighborhoods. Eventually, all the wealthy people in your area will know exactly who you are.

Now the question is: Who are your DREAM prospects and how committed are you to getting them as clients?

There are lots of people out there thinking about starting a small business, and tons of great ideas, but few people actually go out and do it. So many people think and think about it until all of a sudden theyre fifty-something, still with that great idea, but no business.

Theres no doubt it takes a special type of person to be an entrepreneur. Its definitely not for the faint of heart. It takes desire to succeed, courage, perseverance and a great deal of will power to continue to work at it in the face of the setbacks youll inevitably have to deal with. But what else does it take to be a successful small business owner?

Of course, it takes technical skills. That goes without saying. And, you cant just be good at what you do. You need to be very good at it before you even think about starting your small business. So, assuming you have those technical skills, what else do successful entrepreneurs have in common?

I would think being decisive, self-disciplined and a self-starter have to be a couple of the top traits. If you want to own a business so you can stay in bed in the morning or you think you might not have to work forty hours a week, you might want to stick with your 9 to 5 job. The truth is, youll be working far more than forty hours a week for quite awhile, and most often with very little money to show for it.

There wont be anyone telling you what to do, how to do it and when it needs to be done (except for your clients of course, and it seems to me they often want things done now!). So, youll need to be able to make decisions, and be disciplined enough to work at it every day, no matter how discouraged you might be.

And, the fact that youre your own boss means you should be self-directing too. It also means you should be able to prioritize and plan well, meet deadlines and be able to work until the job is done, whether that takes fifteen minutes or eighteen hours a day.

How well do you deal with stress? How do you deal with uncertainty? Successful entrepreneurs need to deal with both well. Running a business is stressful at the best of times, and can be extremely stressful when things arent going well. And things are rarely certain. That big client you have that you think is so loyal could simply decide to go elsewhere for no reason thats apparent to you.

Are you able to make short term sacrifice for long term gain? It might be really tempting, for example to take the first thousand pounds your companies earns and spend it on clothes or on your house or your car, but is that necessarily the best thing for your small business? Or should you be leaving the money in the company and using it to build your business?

Along with those technical skills we talked about earlier, most entrepreneurs have to be a jack of all trades, at least from the beginning. Lets say you build the best darn widget in the country. Assuming you already leased space and have all your tools, the first thing you might want to do is find suppliers for the parts youll need to put it together. Then youll have to negotiate terms with them, so now youre a purchasing agent as well as a manufacturer.

Customers arent going to come and find you, so you have to figure out ways to let people know who you are, where you are and what you can do for them. That means you also need to know something about marketing. Youre required to keep proper records, so youre a bookkeeper too. And you’re responsible for all your small business’ financial decisions, so you’re going to have to know something about finance. Youll probably have to answer the phones and make appointments, which means youre also a secretary.

Since you probably wont possess all those skills and you probably cant afford to hire someone to do most of those jobs, youre going to have to be willing to learn new things and be able to pick them up quickly. You wont see any direct money for these jobs either. Are you willing to put in the hours it takes to learn these skills and perform them without seeing immediate results?

Finally, procrastination and owning a business dont seem to go well together. If youre the type of person who tends to put off until tomorrow what can be done today, you might not be suited to owning your own business.

Nobody is going to be the perfect entrepreneur. I doubt theres anyone who has all the personality traits weve talked about. But, you should be willing to take an honest look at yourself. You should have some of the traits Ive mentioned and you need to know how to compensate for areas where youre weak, but thats a subject for another day.

Robert Browning said “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

I think hes probably right, so what are you waiting for? The first step is making the decision. Stop just thinking about it and just do it. Dont wait for tomorrow or next week or next year. Do it today.

Undoubtedly, the internet can make the difference between a successful small business and one ignored by customers. Due to the global nature of the Internet surpassing physical frontiers between nations, and even making it unnecessary to use printed business cards when they can easily be hosted online.

Web presence can make small businesses more competitive from any angle, allowing you to understand new trends, as well as discover opportunities and problems without wasting time. A small business with Internet presence improves your opportunity to connect with a number of suppliers and customers that otherwise might not be possible in your local area.

Furthermore, traditional printed business cards including an Internet address, not only opens a new range of possibilities to succeed, but also is a way to increase your communications, showing an appealing professional appearance, no matter how big or small your business or company is actually. Magnetic business cards often create a long-lasting marketing image.

In fact, you will be surprised to see prospective clients seeking what they want through search engines. Others might check for URLs in business cards instead of browsing the printed yellow pages, because a web presence translates is synonym to having a shop or booth in every corner of the world, where every individual or small business can have the same presence as the big enterprises.

Of course, budget, skills, knowledge and other Internet resources determine the performance of every small business online. However, it will always be beneficial to develop your business web presence if you want to get customers from every location around the world or, as a practical alternative, you can create online business cards for you, your partners and employees.

On the Internet, you will find a number of websites offering both services, development of your web presence and creating your online business cards, ranging from low-mid prices to those unaffordable for people who are just starting a new business venture. However, you do not need a big budget to start.

There are a number of free Web hosting services that will gladly give you web space to develop your presence. If you have no idea how to create a website, they usually have facilities called online tools or web site builders, allowing you to create a nice looking page with just a small amount of information regarding your small business, products and services.

If you do not feel comfortable with those tools, there are other options for you. If you want to create only a business card that looks like real printed business cards, you can always get free or cheap web templates, coming in a variety of designs and only requiring your information to be uploaded, which will create your web presence instantly.

Sales Secrets for Entrepreneurs: Increase Profits in 12 Months Flat Through Consumer Education Programs!

You can attract far more prospects to look at your offer by providing an education than you’ll ever get by simply offering your products or services. For example: Let’s say you sell telephone systems, like Company X. Before discovering this concept, Company X would call hundreds of companies per day and ask if they were interested in talking about a new telephone system (product offer). They had four salespeople making hundreds of calls per day. They would get about 3 appointments per week.

First of all, every company that has a phone system that is five years old or older can probably benefit from a new phone system in some way. More than 15 major providers of phone systems just ten years ago are now OUT of the phone system business. Yet the companies that have these systems, as long as they are working and they can still get used parts, might not think they need a phone system.

So here’s a company making hundreds of phone calls per day asking: “Would you like to talk about maybe getting a new phone system?” Anthing wrong with this process? No– but, that’s if you don’t want to increase your profits and sales in 12 months flat.

Here are the three steps Company X used to its double sales, once they discovered the consumer education sales concept:

Step 1. The first thing they did was target bigger companies. The bigger the company, the bigger the phone system.

Step 2. The salespeople called the 2000 largest companies in their market with two simple questions: “Hi, we’re doing our annual telephone system survey. I just need to know two things: What is the model of your phone system and how old is it?”

In two days, the salespeople had a list of 508 companies with old phone systems.

Step 3. The sales representatives called on these larger companies with one offer: “We have a new educational program entitled:The nine ways you’re wasting money on your voice and data spending.” They then continued with: “We’ve been in the telephone business for ten years now and we’ve found that every company wastes money on their voice and data spending in at least nine areas. So we put together this educational program as a way to teach companies how to stop wasting money and start saving their valuable pounds. We do this as a public relations effort. If you ever need any help at all with your voice, data or telephone system needs, we want you to know about us. So this is simply us putting our best foot forward.”

This approach increased their appointment setting ten fold, from three appointments per week to 30 appointments per week. This company did 3 million the year before using this approach and put 9 million in their pipeline for the coming year in just six months of using this strategy.

What kind of a free education could YOU offer that would make your prospects want to meet with you? Or respond to your ad? Or take an interest in your direct mail approach?

Important point: Sales is about building rapport, not breaking it. When you SELL, you’re breaking rapport. No one wants to be “sold.” When you EDUCATE, you are building rapport. In fact, studies show that your credibility increases significantly when you begin all meetings with data that is of value to the prospect- start all your meetings by teaching your prospect something, or by giving them data that proves that you’ve completed your homework.

A newspaper company had fallen 40% in gross revenues and lost all of their profits. They used to call up clients and say: “Hi, we’d love to come and talk to you about advertising in our newspaper.” They were quickly shut down and shut out.

They started providing a “community educational service to help local businesses succeed, which resulted in a significant increase not just in getting in through the door see prospects, but also in sales. This client went up 100 million in sales in a single year.

If your local newspaper called you up and offered to teach you the seven things that make all businesses succeed, you’d probably find that pretty hard to turn down. They’d still have to talk you into the meeting, but it would be an easier sell than talking you into an unwanted meeting to try and pitch advertising opportunities.

Naturally, there’s more to this and the subtleties are where you succeed, but if you embrace the concept of “educational-based-marketing” you will out-market your competitors at every turn. Think about this; what makes this strategy so powerful is that it attracts buyers before they are even thinking about buying. Educational- based marketing casts a wider net, attracts more buyers at every turn and closes a higher percent of prospects if and only if the “education” you provide is of true value. This is the least expensive, most effective marketing concept you will ever use.