Digg it UP - Business

Have A Laptop, Cell Phone And A Kitchen Table - You Too Can Be A PC Repair Tech
Have you gone to tech school or been into computers all of your life and everyone calls you about their computer problems? Not sure what to do with your pc repair skills? When deciding what to do with your skills, sometimes you may lean toward opening your own PC Repair Business. What else do you need to know in order to run your business? That is what we are going to discuss in this article today.1. Do I have to pay taxes?2. How do I avoid the pitfalls of opening a new business?3. How much to invest?1. Do I have to pay taxes? The simple answer is yes. If you are planning on running this as a real business and you will be charging for the services you provide, then yes you will need to pay taxes on the money you make. There are many tax breaks available for new businesses, so make sure to talk to a tax professional, but suffice

this approach?

Sounds like a silly example, but are we doing this at all with our own marketing efforts? Don't get me wrong. I don't suggest that you just start going up to bat and swinging away. Marketing efforts do need to be thought out and planned. But don't let these two hurdles keep you from moving forward.

Take Action To Overcome The Hurdles That Keep You From Marketing Success
If you love what you do and believe in the results you can produce for your customers, then you can experience great marketing success. Be willing to get some help if the "know how" is beyond your means. It just might be the best investment you make in your business.

Don't focus on perfection, but rather the continuous pursuit of perfection. Brainstorm it, plan it, design it, write it, tweak it, and then GO FOR IT. Be willing to try it on a small test basis and potentially fail. But only if you're willing to learn from mistakes. Then improve it and try it again.

Don't settle for "good enough". If you have marketing tools that aren't consistently producing results, don't just keep using them (at least not in the format they're in). You may have to tweak again and again so you can start to

Branding Your Business
What is a brand image?Is it a logo? A slogan? A color scheme? A provided service?The simple answer is, yes, it's all of the above. But it goes beyond that. A lot of businesses have slick logos or catchy slogans, but go unnoticed. So let's take a look at each individual item and see how it fits with your overall brand image.Logos.Having a good, well recognized logo can be the only thing your business needs when it comes to brand recognition and marketing. If you make your logo the central theme of your advertising and marketing materials, people will slowly start to associate your business with that image.Some logos represent the products they sell like Red Lobster, but most don't. Think of McDonald's, BMW, Old Navy, Nintendo, Fed Ex and so on. But each one of these can be recognized anywhere in the world. My favorite example of this is Pepsi. Im

As I was preparing for a presentation recently, I was trying to figure out why small businesses have trouble marketing themselves consistently. If we know we need to be marketing, why don’t we just do it? Is it for a lack of planning or that we’re just not sure what to do or where to start?

Yes, maybe. But in trying to figure out what those hurdles are that keep us from marketing consistently; I came up with two hurdles that I think might be as big as any other for most. Like a lot of things with regards to our business, if we’re aware of the hurdles that keep us from achieving effective marketing, then we can plan and act accordingly on how we can either go around or over them.

So what are these hurdles? Well, they certainly aren't the only hurdles, but the two I keep running into time and again with many small businesses are Perfection and Fear of Failure. In fact, I'm sure they have played a part in delaying some of my own marketing including the launch of my web site and my monthly eZine. Let’s take a look at each hurdle and how we might overcome them.

Hurdling Perfection
Many of us tend to be perfectionist in the things we do. You might say... "When I put out this marketing piece, it really has to hit a home run." But because we know that perfection is really not attainable, it can be a big roadblock to effective marketing. In our quest to make our marketing PERFECT, we may never even get a GOOD marketing program in place.

Perfectionism in creating a direct mailing piece or a web site or an electronic newsletter can result in significant delays of weeks, months, or even years.

The funny thing is that most of us verbally buy into the concept of "continuous improvement". But then we often get stuck trying to endlessly improve before we ever put the idea into action. The pursuit of perfection in itself is not bad. But it can certainly result in great failure when we're unwilling to call an idea "good enough", put it out there, and then look for ways to improve it and put it out there again –- until it's perfect, or almost perfect.

If marketing has been a struggle for your business because you're not sure what works best or where to start, then you can't expect to be great at it overnight. It's going to take time. So be willing to start somewhere and learn from mistakes.

Notice the importance of the pursuit of perfection, or "continuous improvement". The opposite side of this hurdle is settling for "good enough". Sometimes marketing is treated as a one time event and even though it's dull and only yielding mediocre results, it keeps getting put out there again and again without ever trying to make it better. What would you expect to eventually happen to a business that operates this way?

Hurdling Fear of Failure
I believe the second hurdle -- Fear of Failure is closely related to the first. For most of us, the notion of facing rejection or failure is unsettling at best. And because this whole marketing thing can be an unknown or uncomfortable for us, we sure do hesitate to put something out there and not have it be good. If it fails to produce results, we may feel like we're failing in our business.

Unfortunately, one of the most common approaches to avoiding failure is to avoid taking action in the first place. Or maybe just as unsuccessfully, we spend all our time looking for that magical marketing idea that is going to end all of our client acquisition problems. I call it the "Power Ball" marketing strategy. Guess what? It's not out there -- so you might as well quit looking.

Marketing will take time and effort on your part. But, with persistence and a willingness to potentially even make a mess of it with your first attempt, you can succeed! Be willing to learn from your mistakes and get better as you go.

Do you see why I think the two hurdles are closely related? "I need perfection, and if it can't be perfect, I will have failed. And I just hate the thought of failure, so if it can't be perfect, I'm better off not even doing it."

Let’s look at this using a baseball analogy. Former Kansas City Royal and Hall of Famer, George Brett, was arguably one of the best third basemen of all time. And anyone who followed the Royals in the prime of George Brett’s career would agree that he was a great, great hitter.

What if George Brett had approached his baseball career as follows: "When I come to bat, I just hate the thought of getting an out (or worse yet, a strike out) -- Fear of Failure. But even more so I'm a Perfectionist, so when I come to bat I need to hit a home run every time. Therefore, I'm not even going to swing the bat unless I know that I can hit a home run because I sure don't want to make an out."

What do you think George Brett's chances of having the Hall of Fame career he did would have been if he had taken this approach?

You Can Succeed in a Home-Based Business
The Small Business Administration predicts nearly 95% of all businesses will close or fail within five years of their opening.In my opinion, this statistic needlessly scares budding entrepreneurs. Sure, it is important that you know the odds against you, and that you conduct due diligence before signing your name onto the dotted line of a huge loan. However, one way to reduce the cost of entering into a business, improve the chances of your financial success, and minimize the downside potential of failure, is to start a home-based business.According to a U.S. Census Bureau survey of over 16 million small business owners, 64% of businesses with receipts of less than $5,000 were home-based, compared to only 5.8% of firms with receipts of $1,000,000 or more. Additionally, 29% of all respondent firms with 1 to 4 employees operated as home-based firms in 2002, with roughl

iece, it really has to hit a home run." But because we know that perfection is really not attainable, it can be a big roadblock to effective marketing. In our quest to make our marketing PERFECT, we may never even get a GOOD marketing program in place.

Perfectionism in creating a direct mailing piece or a web site or an electronic newsletter can result in significant delays of weeks, months, or even years.

What do you think George Brett's chances of having the Hall of Fame career he did would have been if he had taken this approach?

Entrepreneurs- Born or Made?
Entrepreneurs are an interesting breed. They'll eat Ramen noodles and cancel the cable to have the funds they need to start their own businesses that may or may not succeed. Entrepreneurs are willing to take a pay cut just to be their own bosses. What makes us so strange?Born or Made?Entrepreneurs are born, not made. How else can you explain that constant twitch to be creating something new that we feel?Thinking back through my life, it makes sense that I was always destined to be an entrepreneur. I never saw limits for my capabilities. As a child and teenager, I was a bit stubborn, but managed to find a way to do whatever it was I was set on doing.In the workplace, I never could settle. Whether it was a micromanaging boss, bumping my head against the glass ceiling, or just tolerating the daily commute in angry traffic, I knew I was de

side of this hurdle is settling for "good enough". Sometimes marketing is treated as a one time event and even though it's dull and only yielding mediocre results, it keeps getting put out there again and again without ever trying to make it better. What would you expect to eventually happen to a business that operates this way?

What do you think George Brett's chances of having the Hall of Fame career he did would have been if he had taken this approach?

Hire People For What They Do Best
I recently flew from Seattle to Atlanta, I realized, just as we began our taxi, that it takes hundreds of support personnel to maintain a flight. I saw the woman at the check-in desk, security, pilots, luggage handlers, flight crews, air controllers, and the various staff physically on the tarmac doing whatever people do on an airport tarmac.Just as it takes hundreds of people to make a flight a reality, it takes a small army to run a business. One thing I have learned in my short-life of business, is the undisputable fact that one person can hinder the growth of a successful business.I constantly find myself doing ‘administrative’ things, such as following up on overdue accounts, staying up-to-date on taxes and marketing details, and balancing the bread and butter of my company. It is easy to get sidetracked on mundane tasks, it seems just as I get started on a proj

h persistence and a willingness to potentially even make a mess of it with your first attempt, you can succeed! Be willing to learn from your mistakes and get better as you go.

What do you think George Brett's chances of having the Hall of Fame career he did would have been if he had taken this approach?

Court Reporting 101
Court reporting is an exciting field! From the court room to the deposition suite to broadcast television, court reporters, deposition reporters, and captioners make it happen! Court reporting is the way to launch a professional career that's crucial to the legal field, challenging, and well-paid. There are literally global job opportunities awaiting you.No doubt about it -- court reporting provides a needed service in the legal community. But did you know that court reporting services also provide communications access for the hearing impaired? Think about it... people with hearing loss can now gain access to the world via the unique skills of a court reporter. You can be an independent contractor receiving a 1099 at the end of the tax year, work as a county employee for a court room, or even start your own court reporting firm. With court reporting, the possibilities for

this approach?

Hurdling "Fear of Failure" takes some courage. Courage doesn't mean you don't have fear. It means finding a way to overcome the fear in order to achieve some result. Courageous people get over worrying about feeling like a failure or looking like a fool, because they focus on achieving the ultimate result. They are passionate about what they can do for their clients, and that's what drives them.

I’m sure that someone somewhere has told you to embrace failures because it's the way to learn the path to success. My advice is to keep the failures from being catastrophic by testing. Again, I say test it out on a small basis so the taste of failure isn't so bitter in your mouth.

On the other hand, if your test works, you can always go back for MORE of the sweet taste of success.

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Why do we use experts? To predict the future. Consider a patient who is asking a physician about the future effects of a certain drug, or the investor who is asking a stock analyst about the future prices of a certain stock, or the manager who is asking a human resource manager about the future performance of a certain candidate, or the brand manager who is asking a market researcher about the future sales of a certain new product. Should we believe these experts? History tells us that accurate predictions of the future are rare. Many examples exist where the brightest and most qualified individuals failed to see the future. This series of articles presents examples from the arts (see part I), business (see part II), and science (see part III).

Do you want to turn your business into an innovation machine where process improvements, problem-solving and bold new product ideas become the norm? Create the business context structure and focus on the long-term leadership commitment and communication activities required to execute them.

As the Grants Committee Chair on the Board of an Educational Foundation that gives small grants to teachers, I have participated in two grant review sessions. There, I learned more than I could have in two years of simply writing grants. Reading grants was like interviewing candidates to invest the money we spent all year fundraising and taught me the no grant will be funded if it appears financially risky. Here are some tips on creating a budget that will attract funders, rather than scare them off.

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