5 Strategies That Will Boost Your Business Productivity Today! - Part 2

Growing your own small business can be one of the most exciting journeys you could ever embark upon!

But it's important that you continuously implement new and fresh ways to generate sales and improve your profitability in order to stay ahead of the market!

Here are the next 5 Strategies to help you propel your business to new heights of success!

1. Develop your own Loyalty Program

If you have a look in my wallet, I have a Jesters Pies Card, a Subway Card and a Video Ezy card - all of which entitle me to something for nothing once I have made enough purchases!

Some people will call me cheap...I just think it makes sense! If I'm going to buy something anyway...why not go somewhere that rewards me for my loyalty?

If people have to buy your type of product or service from somewhere, why not make it more attractive for them to buy from you?

Create your own loyalty program and create regular, satisfied customers who get rewarded for giving you their business!

2. Collect email addresses from your clients (with their permission!)

The most cost effective form of marketing today is via email and if you haven't already started collecting your client's email addresses then start today. You may wonder how that could possibly help you grow your business, but let me give you an example.

I recently heard of a Hairdresser who started collecting email addresses from her clients each time they came to have their hair cut - with the promise that she would keep them informed of any specials that she might be offering.

Now, when she looks at the next week's bookings - if there are lots of spare appointments she fires out an email to all of her clients offering a special for 'Next Week Only!' - and bingo! She has a full week of appointments.

She's happy and her clients are made to feel even more special that they've picked up a reward for their loyalty!

3. Create your own monthly newsletter

Every business has something interesting to share with their clients and I'm sure yours is no exception! Once again, by using your email addresses, you can provide a very low cost service to your clients, and give you an excuse to keep in touch with them every month.

If you're an accountant, then why not provide financial tips relating to the time of year. Eg GST info, Tax Tips etc.

If you are a mechanic, what about some tips for keeping your engine running smoothly. Eg Checking the oil and water, tyre pressure etc.

Maybe you're a Lawnmowing contractor...what about suggestions for keeping your grass green and lush according to the different seasons.

Of course each month you can also offer 'specials' to your loyal clients to bring in extra profits during the quieter times. In the meantime, you're building a stronger relationship with your existing clients.

4. When was the last time you raised your prices?

Here's an instant way to increase your profits!

Are you underselling your services? Have you checked what your competitors are charging recently?

By adding some of the value added services that I've already addressed in the previous questions, you can probably also add some increases to your pricing without too much drama from your clients.

If you have an excellent product or service, don't become the discount king or queen...become the Exceptional Service Provider.

People don't mind paying for good quality service...because there is so little of it around!

If you mow a fifty lawns a week at $16 each, are people really going to mind if you increased your price to $17? Or what about even $20 - but each month you left them with a special report about how to care for some aspect of their lawn or garden for that month of the year - or maybe even threw some fertilizer on their grass! (They'll need to get you back even sooner if their grass grows better!)

You just added an additional $50 - $150 to your weekly profits - for very little extra work!

Think creatively!!

5. Develop your own Board of Directors

You probably know of other successful business operators in totally different fields from you, and their ideas could also be of benefit to your business.

Why not create your own Board of Directors. Offer to take them out to lunch as a group every two months and brainstorm for ideas on what they would do if they were running your business.

You may pick up two or three new ideas which is not a bad return on your investment of lunch!

Successful people love to share their ideas, so become a sponge and learn as much as you can!

Start applying these principles to your business today, and watch your profits grow!

5 Simple Steps To Improve Your Internet Business Productivity

In the world of online business ventures, it is very easy to get sidetracked and lose focus of your ultimate professional goals, especially if you are working from home. With the advancement of Facebook, Twitter, Skype and other social media, the opportunities for distractions and interruptions are increasing more and more every day. Here are a few tips that can aid in raising your internet business productivity.

1. Clean Off Your DESK

Keep your workspace free of clutter, and your mind will follow. Try to only handle one piece of paper or document once. Pick it up, handle the given task, then file or THROW it away. This saves time, keeps you organized, and ensures that nothing is forgotten.

2. Clear Your Mind

There is a reason that high school teachers do not allow cell phones in class. Students cannot pay attention if they are constantly texting or emailing their friends, and neither can you. Turn the Television off. Put the cell phone in the desk drawer. Turn off your Skype. And go to work.

3. Organize Your Day

Social Media is definitely a very valuable commodity, and can be of tremendous benefit to your internet business productivity. But set aside a block of time each day to utilize these services, rather than checking your Facebook every 3 minutes, or tweeting every half hour. Know your target audience, and communicate only at the most opportune times to catch them using these types of marketing techniques.

4. Break Large Projects into Smaller Portions

No one wants to sit down at their desk on a Monday morning with an action item on your "to do list" that says 'Write 10,000 word eBook on Home Business Opportunities.' Yuck! But you can slice the task into chucks of 1500 words, or break it down into smaller bits of a couple chapters at a time. This method will help you to build momentum in your day, and to make you feel a sense of accomplishment almost immediately.

5. Schedule Yourself

If you have employees, you know how important it is to keep them on task. You expect them to meet deadlines, and those deadlines are usually tied to your daily schedule as well. If your employees are not timely in completing their assignments, who has to pick up the slack? You do! At the beginning of the week, set yourself some milestones. What tasks to you want to have completed by Tuesday at noon, by Wednesday at the close of business, and by Friday at lunch time? Then work hard to BEAT those deadlines, making a game of it along the way!

Yes, you may be able to enjoy the luxury of working while still in your pajamas, but don't lose sight of the fact that your internet business is a BUSINESS! Most of us have created this lifestyle so that we can make money and have a little extra personal freedom, too. By focusing on increasing your home business productivity, you may also reap the added bonus of increasing your personal productivity as well, spending a bit more time enjoying your friends and family, rather than being tied to your computer for countless hours every day. Isn't that why you got into this business in the first place?

Zeus Shying Away From The Spotlight?

No matter how hard he tries to hide himself from it, the spotlight will continue to shine on the Sporting Kansas City's winger all year long. Graham Zusi, a breakout all-star midfielder, isn't the attention-seeking type and in fact, he admits not being too comfortable with it either. With his rapid rise in fame and fortune, he has been compelled to deal with it. Who wouldn't?

It all started a year ago when he was finally given a chance to start in the lineup a couple of months going into the season. He then went on to become the year's MLS breakout player. It really is just another rags-to-riches type of story. He barely even clocked in 1,000 minutes and started in only nine games throughout his pro career after being drafted from Maryland in the second round as the 23rd overall pick of the 2009 Super Draft.

His impressive style, his pinpoint precision on corner kicks and his aggressive distant shots, have been the basis for Jurgen Klinsmann, coach of the USMNT (U.S. Men's National Soccer Team), to bring Zeus in the training camp.

Zusi, in only his second international game, scored the team's only goal for a 1-0 win against Panama last January. He continues to impress Klinsmann, earning four more call-ups and he has truly demonstrated that he can be a significant factor for the CONCACAF semifinals of the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

After playing in the last couple of World Cup qualifying matches, Zeus may just be the apparent heir to Landon Donovan, the team's leading career scorer. Donovan has been dealing with injuries from the MLS season. He even has not been on the USMNT since August and he has only played in eight out of 20 games under Coach Klinsmann.

Zeus' participation in the nationals didn't affect his performance within his club. In fact, it even motivated him even more by leading the MLS and the Sporting KC with 15 assists. This has earned him his spot to be among the contenders for the MVP award. And if it weren't for Chris Wondolowski, a forward for the San Jose Earthquakes, Zusi may possibly end up being the favorite for this award.

It seems as if this once timid winger has drawn strength from the spotlight. It just motivates him to work and play harder. With the field as his sanctuary, expect this "reserved" and "bashful" player to transform into a tenacious and aggressive competitor once the whistle blows.

Make Money Quick and Easy Without Google - Who to Trust - With So Many Voices Who Can Be Trusted?

Hello and welcome to my article, I just want to talk with you for a minute about making money on the internet quick and easy without Google.

When done right it can catapult the results you're getting right now. This will be a one way conversation but my hope is that you leave with value.

For years I struggled with this question. I didn't know which was up or down!

I was a bit jaded because I didn't know anyone who made money online, and the only people I seen online claiming to have made money had British accents (nothing against them obviously) so,

I was jaded; I also didn't know who to trust because every day I had tons of emails messages inside my inbox and all I wanted to know was HOW DO I MAKE MONEY ONLINE!

I did get a bit angry a couple times, until I slowed down and took a better look at my surroundings. I started deleting these emails with all the promises in the world - all saying how I can make 7,524 bucks in the next 30 days if I buy this system, etc.

We are all surrounded by this junk. Let's take a deeper look and solve this from the beginning so you won't have to experience the same pains I did.

Below are 2 sure-fire ways to stuff cash in your bank account

CPA Offers: Cost per action is one of the easiest ways to make money, the people you refer to these offers don't have to take out their credit cards, all they have to do is either fill out a form or submit an email and you get paid!, I personally know some affiliates making a killing doing this.

Sell Domains: Every day there are domains being sold on flippa dot com for thousands, how would you like to cash in on this?

It's sort of like buying a house and renovating it enough to make a nice profit. You can do this with domains and make a nice chunk of change with a bit of work.

This is more of a long term strategy but it can reap huge profits if done right. Make sure you build 3 to 4 of these at a time and within 6 months it's possible to sell each for 5 - 10 grand profit. Possibly even more, if you want quicker cash simply setup a membership site with some "active" members and people will flock to your offer on flippa with bids between 15,000 - 3,000. You can create many of these at a time.

Hope that gets your ideas going a bit; any one of these can make you a full time income if you're interested.

Hope you found value in this, talk again sometime soon...

Lean Concepts in Agriculture and Food Industry

I was fascinated about the concept of lean manufacturing since I first read the articles on lean manufacturing. Then when I conducted few researches on lean manufacturing I understood that lean is the path for future.

But one question continuously I asked myself is the possibility of applying lean manufacturing concepts in the field of agriculture and food industry. Agriculture is traditionally based on bulk manufacturing. Harvesting is done once a season most of the times and stocked and used later. In fact some lean thinkers say that people adopted batch processing and stocking in manufacturing as a result of the practices from agricultural thinking. Before the industrialization people with the biggest stocks of food and other supplies were considered as more stable and they were able to face challenges of nature without having to starve. People with time develop the concept of having more stocks is better. When people gradually moved to industrialization, still the concept of maintaining big safety stocks hasn't changed according to these lean thinkers.

Agriculture is an industry which requires a new way of thinking. Traditional methods have lots of wastes and inefficiencies build into them. According to some researches more than 20% of agricultural products become unusable before it reach the end consumer in some countries. This offers any lean thinker a good opportunity to explore the possibilities of implementing lean concepts in this area. Even if we can reduce this waste by half we will be reducing the number of people dying due to starvation.

Just in time manufacturing may not be possible in the field of agriculture. But the distribution, handling methods etc can be improved with the techniques like JIT and kaizen. By educating people and using simple technology waste can be reduced dramatically. Effectively connecting the manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers up to the customer is very necessary to improve the effectiveness of the process.

Dear Special Valued Customer - We Are Sending This Email to 10 Million Other Customers

How many times have you got an e-mail explaining how you are a "super valuable customer" and therefore, you get a superior discount - and lo and behold - here is a coupon to take into our store to buy more stuff so we can make more quarterly profits and shareholders equity? Isn't it interesting that these e-mails start a popping up towards the end of every month. The question I have is; am I really a valued customer if the company also sent that same, exact marketing and promotional e-mail to over 10 million other customers? Okay so now you're laughing, but let's go ahead and talk about this for second shall we?

Perhaps, this is a lot like assuming that the light turns off your refrigerator when you close the door. You know the light turns off, because if you press the button that the door automatically triggers when it's closed the light inside refrigerator goes off, so you assume you close the door that the light also goes off. However, you don't know that for sure, you just understand the laws of physics, or at least the basic law of physics, and indeed assume the light turns off. You don't know for sure that your "dear special valued customer," e-mail actually went out to 10 million other people in the exact same format, but you assume it did.

However, because I have several things that I do online, and occasionally end up with different accounts at various vendors and stores from which I buy from, I often get the exact same e-mail from the exact same company, therefore I no longer assume that they are sending the same e-mail out to everyone. I know they are, because they sent the same an e-mail to me twice, and sometimes three times.

Still, the other day something very interesting happened, I noticed the e-mail was custom tailored to the business model, and the e-mails were not exactly the same. I thought to myself this is great the computers are getting better at sizing up their customer, and figuring out what they need, and sending them more of a customized e-mail. That's a good thing, and it especially makes sense because it helps reduce spam, and only gives you the appropriate information you need or might want through targeted marketing.

Indeed, as computers get better - and as unfortunately to the chagrin of the Electronic Freedom Foundation - they take all of your data from all the social networks, and only send you exactly what you might be looking for, to the best of their ability, provided that you have put information on the Internet that is true and correct.

Personally, and probably like you, I am getting tired of certain types of spam such as male performance enhancement, or a special customized bras. Indeed, I don't have the first problem, at least not yet, being a young man, and secondly being a male, I don't need a bra, so obviously, some more work needs to be done, and maybe some of these targeted e-mails for marketing will actually help reduce the unending barrage and deluge of unwanted spam. Please consider all this and think on it.