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Are You Poised for Growth as a Home-Based Business Owner?
Whether you're fairly new as a home-based business owner or if you have been one for several years, your business growth is highly dependent on your continued personal growth and industry-relevant learning. You may have your daily functions and...
Contextual Ad Networks...The Baby Boom Is Upon Us
No, this baby boom will certainly not swamp the Social Security system (sort of a bad joke for those that live in the United States, but many other countries...most notably Japan...have an even more acute problem), but this baby boom is...
Creativity and Innovation Management – goal setting
One of the important debates in the field of creativity and innovation is the topic of goal setting. Is it positive or negative?
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be...
Leadership Development - Leadership Styles and Training
What makes a good leader?
Leadership development
Ever since we started Impact Factory, lo these many years ago,
we have struggled with the whole notion of leadership
development or leadership training. Indeed, we have resisted
writing...
Reinventing real estate, Part 2
Reinventing real estate (Part 2: How online and empowered consumers are taking charge and paying less. Demanding consumers “Internet buyers tend to be better informed on market conditions and better prepared to act on the home they want when...
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What's the difference between successful businesses and struggling businesses?
Copyright 2005 Attractioneering
Have you ever noticed how some businesses seem to do extremely
well, and go from strength to strength, whilst the majority just
seem to muddle along?
Since starting my own business I've met many small business
owners and what I've noticed is that the vast majority of them
seem to just about get by, but few reach the level of success
that they're actually capable of. Some of them end up failing
altogether, some lurch from project to project, and some do OK,
but never really achieve the success or lifestyle they
envisioned when they started their business.
On the other hand, I know a handful of extremely successful
service business owners, who are making high 6 and 7 figure
incomes every year (and rising) - and yet they don't work longer
hours, their products and services are not magnitudes better
than their competitors and they aren't geniuses!
So what is the difference between the successful businesses and
the struggling businesses?
In a word: Marketing
Whilst there can be other factors that affect the ability of a
business or practice to be successful, such as the economy,
trends, cashflow and product/service quality or innovation, the
number one difference between successful high-flying businesses
and their struggling counterparts is good marketing.
Here is the lament of one survey respondent which is typical of
the angst felt by service business owners who know they do a
good job, but who don't understand why they don't have a queue
of clients at their door:
"We know our products and services are good - we get great
feedback from those clients we've worked with - but we still
have trouble getting potential customers to buy in. Our services
offer real benefits to clients but we are not as successful as
we should be when we see what other companies offer (not as
much) and yet are still very successful."
If you offer a quality service or product that produces
great
results for your customers or clients, and yet you're still
struggling to get all the clients that you want or need, or to
charge the fees you deserve, you probably have a marketing
problem.
What do highly successful business owners do that others do not?
The first thing that they do is to realise that their primary
objective is to build their practice or client base. In the
words of Michael Gerber (who wrote The E-myth) they "work ON
their businesses, not IN their businesses". What this involves
is making the time to work on the business - in particular on
marketing and product or service development, rather than
spending all of their time handling clients, delivering services
and dealing with administration.
They also look for areas where they can gain "leverage". Simply
put, this means gaining maximum return for every hour they work.
Instead of trading hours for pounds or dollars, they find ways
to do the work once and get paid for it many times. They find
ways to market their services one to many, instead of one to one
(thus reducing marketing and sales effort and time). They
delegate those activities which take up a lot of time (but which
don't add much value in terms of moving the business forward) or
which they are not skilled in such as admin, accounting, website
maintenance and copywriting.
They also develop a success mindset, understand their strengths
and weaknesses, take risks, innovate, hang out with other
successful people and build a support network around themselves.
But above all, they learn how to market their businesses and
create a marketing system that keeps a steady stream of
prospects knocking at the door, without taking up all of their
time!
About the author:
Jane Hendry helps professionals, consultants and coaches to
create marketing systems that easily and consistently attract
their ideal clients. To get your f*ree Attraction Marketing
Starter Kit please visit http://www.attractioneers.com
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| DTI - Welcome to the DTI's Innovation Home Page |
| The DTI is working to stimulate a significant increase in innovation throughout ... It covers Living Innovation, web streaming of a series of high profile ... |
| www.dti.gov.uk |
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| Innovation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| An innovation in this light occurs whether or not the act of innovating ... A convenient definition of innovation from an organizational perspective is ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| National Innovation Website |
| The Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources has developed this website to raise awareness of the importance and benefits of innovation and ... |
| www.innovation.gov.au |
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| Innovation, creativity and brainstorming resources from ... |
| A comprehensive site designed to provide busy entrepreneurs with a focused collection of the best resources on innovation, creativity, and brainstorming. |
| www.innovationtools.com |
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| Innovation Weblog - Trends, resources, viewpoints from Chuck Frey ... |
| The Innovation Weblog - Valuable trends, resources and viewpoints in innovation, creativity and brainstorming from Chuck Frey at InnovationTools. |
| www.innovationtools.com |
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| CORDIS: Innovation Portal: Home |
| This Innovation Portal is supported by DG ENTR of the European Commission, ... European Commission adopts new Communication on Innovation: on 13 September ... |
| cordis.europa.eu |
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| CORDIS: Promotion of Innovation: Home |
| This programme stands at the cross-roads of the Community's policies on Research, Innovation and SMEs. |
| cordis.europa.eu |
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| Innovation Network... leveraging innovation, creativity and ... |
| The Innovation Network is an association of companies and employees committed to innovation. The site features some interesting articles as well as some fun ... |
| www.thinksmart.com |
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| Business Innovation : Car Reviews, Online Gaming, and Product Branding |
| If your in need of great Online Gaming material, we carry up to the minute news and reviews for all of your favorite games and gaming systems. |
| www.businessweek.com |
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| Innovation - Life, Inspired | PBS |
| Learn about fascinating innovations, explore interactive features, submit questions to our experts, investigate resources and lesson plans, and more. |
| www.pbs.org |
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| Innovation.org - Welcome |
| Impact of Innovation Saving & Improving Lives Controlling Healthcare Costs Strengthening ... Future of Innovation New Medicines in Development Next Wave of ... |
| www.innovation.org |
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| Innovation: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
| See all blog posts tagged with innovation on Technorati. |
| www.technorati.com |
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| Innovation Relay Centres - The World Largest Network for ... |
| Innovation Relay Centres giving advice on Innovation, Technology Transfer and Exploitation. Major European source for innovative technologies or new ... |
| irc.cordis.lu |
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| The Tech Museum of Innovation | Welcome |
| The Tech Museum of Innovation - Welcome! The Tech Museum inspires and educates the innovators of the future. |
| www.thetech.org |
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| Pages tagged with "innovation" on del.icio.us |
| CoDev 2007 - Co-Development for Business Growth: Open Innovation and Alternatives ... PDMA & IIR's 5th Annual Front End of Innovation ... |
| del.icio.us |
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| innovation |
| Publication highlighting the research activities of NUS. The site provides snippets of selected articles online, and provides a subscription form online. |
| www.innovationmagazine.com |
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| Canadian Innovation Centre |
| Services includes invention evaluation, technology due diligence, market research, and education programs. |
| www.innovationcentre.ca |
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| London INNOVATION :: Home |
| Maximise your business potential through innovation. Learn the secrets of successful business innovation in London. |
| www.london-innovation.org.uk |
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| Eric Von Hippel's Homepage |
| Downloadable Books. Democratizing Innovation (2005) ... The Sources of Innovation (1988). Free download of the complete book. Permission granted by Oxford ... |
| web.mit.edu |
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| Intel Innovation in Education |
| www.intel.com/education/ - 3k - Cached - Similar pages |
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