14Aug



With the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 phone, a discount may be hard to find. Everyone would like to know how to get a BlackBerry Torch 9800 discount.

The Internet is flooded with offers for coupons and discounts that seem too good to be true. So, where can you really get a discount on the latest BlackBerry? There is absolutely no reason to pay more than you have to. Save money on one of the hottest selling cell phones on the market with your BlackBerry Torch 9800 discount.

BlackBerry and At&T are well respected companies, so quality and service are not an issue. There is just no comparison for the features that are included with this phone.

For instance, did you know the new BlackBerry 9800 has a touchscreen and an optical track-pad? But wait, that is not even the best features, it also has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. BlackBerry has really outdone themselves, it is truly a unique smart-phone design. With up to 5.8 hours of talk time, you will not have to worry about always having your charger everywhere you go. And if you do not talk very much, it has up to 18 days of stand-by time. It’s hard to believe they packed this all in to something that only weighs a little over 4 ozs. If you are a social media butterfly, then this phone is perfect for you. The new BlackBerry Torch 9800 has a new updated operating system featuring a new browser that makes is easy to be that free flying social media butterfly! There are really just sooo… many features that make the BlackBerry Torch worth getting, (especially if you can get it at a discount.)

If you really want a discount on the new BlackBerry 9800, you need to understand how to get the best deal from Amazon.

Amazon occasionally runs discounts that can save you money. You just need to know where to look.

8Nov



There are many ways of improving Cash Flow for a business and we have given you a few ideas to do just that.

To help you see how these ideas can help your business it would be worth while doing some cash flow projections. Cash forecasts can be used as a management tool to identify critical costs areas of the business and how these impact the future cash-health of the business.

For example – you might like to experiment with introducing Factoring or Invoice discounting to improve the flow of cash from your customers whilst you are in expansion mode – Just because a business is making a profit it might still fail if the profits are not turned into cash – Remember ‘Cash is King’ in business!

You may have heard of the term ‘Over Trading’ – Over trading is where a business is making good sales and turnover but that it is not able to keep up with the payments to suppliers simply because their customers are late in paying the company. The obvious way to correct this is to make sure that your payment terms to your suppliers are more generous than those given to your customers. Alternatively, the introduction of Factoring will help.

Having a Cash Flow Management tool to hand will help you to explore the effect these ideas will have on your business:

1. Increase sales and in particular those involving cash payment or payment by either standing order or direct debit.

2. Reduce your direct and indirect costs and overhead expenses.

3. Consider increasing your prices and especially to your slow payers.

4. Review the payment performances of customers and be more selective when granting credit – start using a credit report company to check the credit worthiness of potential customers.

5. Consider up-front deposits or multiple stage payments – approach a loan company to advance the money to you and offer credit terms to customers.

6. Reduce the amount of credit given to customers and change your payments terms – i.e. reduce the time allow for customers to pay.

7. Introduce factoring or invoice discounting to accelerate receipts from sales.

8. Make sure that your sales invoices are raised as soon as the work has been completed.

9. Offer early payment discounts and consider introducing late payment charges or fees.

10. Generate regular reports on receivable ratios and aging or your customer balances and use more pro-active collection techniques – involve your sales team and make sure that any commissions are only paid where customers pay the company.

11. Consider the 80/20 rule with regards to your customer list and product lines – make sure you know where your profits are coming from. You might well find that 80% of your profits are coming from 20% of your customers or 80% of your profits from 20% of your product lines – if either of these are true consider not dealing with the 80% of customers and cancel the 80% of non profitable product lines. Be careful when do this, as it might be that certain products are reliant on others, in which case they may be ‘Loss-Leaders’.

12. Take a look at how you pay your suppliers – ask for extended credit terms. Get new quotes from other suppliers and re-negotiate prices of supplies.

13. Try to reduce your stock levels (inventory levels) and improve control over work-in-progress – make sure that you are billing work in progress on a regular basis and keep write-offs under review.

14. Sell off or return obsolete/excess stock (inventory).

15. Defer or re-stage all capital expenditure.

Planning these changes and which ones work best for your business can be done using cash flow planning software.

3Nov



What is the ultimate, final, or fundamental internet marketing plan for small businesses…if such there be.

Thousands of small business owners already have lots of internet skills, others are just beginning, and both groups have great ambitions and ideas. So what is the common thread necessary for you and other members of either group to be successful?

It’s the willingness to dig in, realizing that at least in the beginning, money is not your only investment. You must also be prepared to invest many hours of dedicated work to getting your internet marketing plan off the ground.

Have you studied the market? Do you know what your competition is doing? Do you know what your basic objectives are? When you’re sure you can answer yes to these questions, then you’re ready to being making detailed objectives for your internet marketing plan.

First: Decide how many hits per day you want on your site and what you want readers to do when they link onto your site. Do you want them to download information? Buy an item? Do both or do something else? Make sure the answer to that question is evident to your internet visitors.

Second: Identify your marketing focus and your target audience and then determine the keywords for your marketing campaign. Remember that discovering and utilizing keywords on your website are both absolutely essential for Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It is also important that these keywords be popular everyday words which describe your product and appeal to your audience. What are you selling and to whom?

Third: Is the value of your product equivalent to the selling price? If you are selling a product are you selling it at a reasonable price? If you are selling information, look at the information from the customer’s point of view and ask yourself what the content is worth, either in future earnings or just in the importance and helpfulness of the information itself? Then set a fair price, maybe what you would pay for comparable information.

Fourth: Decide what are the best internet tools to accomplish the goals you have set for yourself, and then decide which ones to use and how to integrate them into your plan.

Fifth: Do it…whatever it takes. Set a schedule for yourself to carry out your plan as outlined above and after that – JUST DO IT!

29Oct



Writing an effective business plan is actually the first step to success for you and your business. It is the make or break point where looking at your business plan, one can grant you a loan or reject your application.

There are several key aspects of a business plan and also some do’s and don’t that you need to follow.

Do: Make sure the business plan is crystal clear, crisp, neatly organized, chronologically placed, and realistic to read.
Don’t: Never jumble information and always have one single order of events. Either go subject wise or alphabet wise in your index. Never jumble it up.

Do: Be extremely realistic with your goals, ideas and expectations.
Don’t: Do not make tall claims, and make-believe goals that are impossible to achieve. Never use words like dreams in your plan because dreams are not goals. Goals are meant to be achieved and dreams are just feel good factors.

Do: Talk about yourself and explain why you are suited for this type of business. What makes you good and why should the organization lend you money. Highlight all these factors and convince that you are the right person.
Don’t: Do not boast about your achievements, just mention them. Do not elaborate on your capabilities because that should be left for the lenders to see for themselves. If you have any previous achievements, just list them.

Do: Be confident in your speech and see that what you say is what you mean.
Don’t: Do not show them you are insecure at any given point of time and see that your tone of speech reflects that at all times.

3Oct



When you set out to start your own business, you know that you are going to have to take care of a lot of different things from paperwork to securing the money you are going to need to get started. If you are planning to secure a loan or a grant to start your business you are going to have to prepare a solid business plan. The problem with this is that a well thought out business plan can make a novel look like a comic book. In the same way that most editors do not have the time to read every manuscript that comes across their desk, investors lack the time to read every business proposal that they receive. In order to get your plan noticed you are going to need to use an executive summary template.

The executive summary is a highly condensed version of your business plan. This is your chance to present the highlights of your plan to investors in a way that they will be able to read it within a few minutes instead of taking hours to pour over the hundreds of pages of your original plan. You will have space to present your ideas in their best light, show them how you plan to spend their money and how it will help you secure a return on their investment. This summary is designed for the busy investor who simply does not have the time to read the whole plan unless he is already interested in it.

When you are looking for a template you need to make sure that the one you choose follows the most commonly accepted format. When investors start looking at these summaries, the last thing they want is to have to search all over the page to find the relevant information. You are only going to get one chance to make the kind of first impression that is going to secure the funding you need for your business. Read any instructions that come with your template carefully as they can help you to understand what it is going to take to create an eye catching executive summary.

Your summary needs to be clear and concise as the people who will be reading it do not have the time to sift through a bunch of fluff to get to the meat of your proposal. You must get the reader’s attention within the first two paragraphs or you are going to lose their attention. Once their attention starts to wander you have lost them and your summary will probably end up in the trash. You can find an executive summary template online that can be downloaded for free, in fact you can find a wealth of them and you should try several before you decide which one you should use.

Older Posts »