Technotip.org - Part 22

10 Nuggets of Gold To Improve Your Business

If you are just starting out with your business, whether its offline or online; it’s very difficult to get clients in the early days. You may be “the best” in the world in your business, but its of no use until the world knows that you are the best. You need to be in front of your audience. You need to start at some point, and the starting itself will seem to be difficult, in this competitive market. And one who quits at this point, is gone forever! A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. – Thomas A. Edison

You may be in offline business like insurance company, insurance agent, home loan agent etc OR you may be into online businesses like blogging, domain/hosting reseller, WordPress service, theme customization, logo designing, Business card designing, ebook cover designing, custom application development etc.

Follow these nuggets of Gold, and you will be more nearer to your clients than ever before:

1. Do proper research
You may think something as a break-through-idea, but it may not have enough market. If YOU think its a great idea and implement it, and not enough people are interested in it, then it would be waste of money and time. Instead, do proper market research before investing and implementing something.
Tip: The best way is to conduct some surveys. Before starting a service or before creating a product, conduct a survey on your blog. Give away some thing(may be an ebook) for free for completion of the survey. This way you can easily get feedback from real people and can get some insight about the market.

2. Collect data
Its also important to collect all the data related to your niche. You may want to collect data like, competitors price, competitors market share, features of their service or product etc. By doing this exercise, you can get important information which may turn key for the success of your business.
You can know what lacks in your competitors service/product, are they over charging, are they missing to target a group of target audience, by analyzing all these things you can fill the gap and attract more customers your way.

3. Concentrate on big players
If you market everyone on earth for your product, then its utter waste of time and money. Instead, market to people who are already looking for what you have. Also make sure that you target people who spend a lot of money on purchasing the type of product/service which you are selling.
Ex: If you are selling printer cartridge, then look for people who purchase the cartridge often. If there were 1000 customers, then collect the data about those who are purchasing the cartridge most often. After making a list of most frequent buyers, try to sell your stuffs to them. In most of the cases, it is 20% of the people who are buying 80% of the times. So, you can give them free samples and offer them some discounts. This way, you can easily get clients in your early days and make more profits instantly than those who have been in the business before you.

4. Advertise. Have a dedicated sales team
You can get coupon codes from almost all the advertising companies like Google Adword, Chitika, Bidvertiser etc. So you can grab one and start with advertising about your service/product. Also try to have a dedicated sales team. Its crucial to get clients for any business. So a dedicated sales team will surly help maximize your business.
This is the idea of affiliate system, wherein affiliates bring you clients and get a chunk of fee for getting you the business.

5. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel
Innovation is key for the success of any modern day business. But this doesn’t mean you try to do everything in a different way.
There are many people who have succeeded in their business, if you want to succeed too, then collect proper data and see what they did in order to succeed, then follow the steps and in most case, you will succeed too. I don’t mean that, you need to copy someone else’s steps, but just know that re-inventing the wheel will take a lot of time and if you try to re-invent the wheel, you will not have enough time to innovate in the area of your companies expertise. Market requirements(needs) change within the wink of our eyes, so we need to be flexible, agile and quick in our approach.

“Nature is neutral; if you do the same things that other successful people have done, you will inevitably enjoy the same success they have.”
– Brian Tracy

6. Apply changes gradually. Don’t hurry up in implementing changes all at once
If you want to bring some new ideas/changes inside your company, then make sure you test this idea/change on a small group. Do not adapt the entire company to the new idea/change immediately. Apply it on a smaller group, if it works, then expand. In this process, don’t forget to keep collecting the data and measuring the improvements.

7. Stand out from the crowd
These days people have multiple choices to select from. So you need to educate them about your product/service and tell them what’s different about your service/product than that of your competitors. Customers do not care what new features your product has or how famous it is, what they should be informed is, what problem of the user does it solve more efficiently than their competitors product.

8. Patience
Often times it is not about building a product for your customer that costs more. But its when you realize that the product you developed is not what your customer wanted!
In most cases, your clients will not have a clear picture of what they want. You need to be patient and educate them and make them realize what exactly they want. Patience is the key of smart business man. If you hurry up, you will screw up at some point. So its better to handle clients with patience.

9. Customer Support
95% to 99% of the time a client can find the same kind of(or even better) product or service you are offering, so there isn’t a point in telling them to buy from you because you have it. If a person has bought something from you previously, then its easy to sell such a person again, if you have quality product and good customer support.
How often have you experienced bad customer support from companies and have left dealing with them. If you sold something to a person, then its not the end. Its actually the beginning. If he is satisfied with your product or service, he will come back to you for more product or service. Even if you don’t have any other product to sell, make sure to treat your old customers properly. Treat them like your companies asset. This way, they will be happy to bring in more customers for you, for no commission!

10. Relationship, Care, Understanding
All modern day businesses is standing on relationship, care and understanding. These days everybody knows marketing tactics, so they aren’t going to be your pray. If you start behaving like a sales person and start talking about your product straight away, then people will subconsciously start developing resistant behavior towards you.
Some sales people start with “how are you? how is it going today?” etc questions, wasting a lot of time and sounding somewhat robotic and as if it was a pre-scripted talks of all sales people of a particular company.

Instead, have real concern towards your customer. Care about their needs. Show genuine interest. Don’t try to sell them something that they aren’t looking for – the thing which doesn’t solve their problem. Listen to their problems. All Bad sales people talk 80% or more. A good sales person or a good business man listens 70% or more. Listening with patience builds good relationship and shows that you really care about their problem, and hence listening. Don’t try to defend or argue. Listen to their problems, needs and wants. Latter educate them about what may solve their problems and how to handle the situation. If your product or service solves their problem, then by all means tell them whole heartedly. In your presentation, talk about the things which is of concern to your customer. Don’t try to tell everything and finish off the presentation entirely which you had prepared the day before. Talk to the point and have real care towards your clients.

Its better if someone doesn’t buy from you something that they don’t want, than to buy from you and then regret. Agree ?

Remember, people want to buy, but they don’t want to be sold.

“One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising.” – Jim Rohn

Earn Money For Shopping, By Shopping!

This is a guest post by Jessy Troy. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

For many of us shopping is a bit of an addiction. With so many sales and chances to get new products online, it can become more like a mania. Of course, this means we suffer the empty checking account or high credit card bills in silence, promising ourselves that next month we will stick to budget. But what if you could shop and also make a little bit of that cash back? Yes, I am talking about making money while you shop, and without any of those mystery shopper scams.

This isn’t some kind of far off dream, and it has been proven to work again and again. This is because developers in the retail world have put increasing focus on better ways to shop online, as ecommerce becomes a regular part of the average consumer’s life. An entire industry has been created around making money as a shopping incentive to stimulate the web-based economy, and you can take advantage of that fact. Try these three tips to get you going.

Earn by Reviewing

Do you like reviewing products, or maybe just trying new products to see how they work for your own purposes? There are some sites out there that will actually pay you to write up a review about what you were already using anyway. These are not writing-specific, so don’t worry if you aren’t a world class author. They want opinions from real consumers trying real products right now.

Sadly, you have to be careful when finding these websites, as some are scams. But one good one to try is Epinions, which is a popular site approved by consumer protection agencies. They work by promoting certain products with your reviews, based on your opinions. Then, when sales are made, they distribute a percentage of that into a payment pool, which is paid out to the people who made reviews. Once you have $10 (within the U.S only) you can request to be paid. For those outside of the U.S, the amount is $100.

Sell Your Gift Cards for Cash

It has happened to all of us: you are at yet another ridiculous white elephant daytime office party and you are handed an envelope. Without even opening it you know that it will be a gift card, and almost certainly to a place you never shop at or visit. Most of those cards sit at the bottom of a drawer and are never used. But what if you could sell it to get a bit of extra cash?

There are some sites that will sell your gift card for a percentage of the price, usually between 60% and 90%. Gift Card Granny is a great example of a site that buy and sell gift cards. Ebay is another great option, as they have gift card sections where you can get up to the full price for it. Some sites also offer a way to trade yours in for a store you actually like.

Answer Questions, Get Paid

Product answering sites are becoming all the rage. The idea is a wonderfully simple one. You sign up, answer questions about products and if your answer is selected as the best you will be paid for it. Once it adds up to a certain amount you will be able to request a payout, which will be sent to an online payment third party, like PayPal.

There aren’t the many legitimate sites that work this way. So far, the best I have found is IMShopping. The only downside to this site is the amount that has to acquire before you are paid is higher than some sites, but still lower than others like Inbox Dollars. You also have to wait if you go over $40 until the next pay cycle.

Bonus!

Still want more? Try a paid survey site, such as MySurvey, or Inbox Dollars.

This is a guest post by Jessy Troy, whose online passion is collecting DIY gadgets.

10 Tips to Increase Your Rates as a Freelance Writer

This is a guest post by Ahlam Yassin. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

So, I’ve been at this freelance writing business for a little over a year now. It’s been exciting, actually earning money (not yet a living) doing something I enjoy. However, my first year of freelance writing has been one stuck in the content mills. The few hundred dollars a month I made from this type of writing may have been o.k. when I was living abroad and that was the equivalent to a teacher’s salary. However, I’ve moved back to the greater New York City area, and life is expensive! Here’s what I’m doing to earn more as a freelance writer.

freelance 5 Financial Mistakes New Freelancers Make

1. Want to Earn More? Write the part.
Here’s the thing, getting trapped in the content mills can be dangerous. You can easily get comfortable writing repetitive content. If you want to earn more as a writer, you have to put your heart into it. Start a blog and showcase your best writing. Having a place where you can direct potential clients to in order to reference your work is so much better than saying; ‘I’ve written hundreds of ghostwritten articles’.

2. Breaking the Pay Raise to Existing Clients
I have a client I really enjoy writing for, and there is a lot more work in discussion. Today, I was on the phone trying to break the news that my rates will no longer be as low as he is accustomed to. Just like a dream, the international phone call was cut off! When I do get him back on the line, we’re going to talk about my rates. The time it takes to get the academic writing done, and how I would like my pay to match the quality of work I am providing. He may say, no thanks, how can I pay you X when I’ve so used to getting it for Z? If this is the case, I’m going to have to live with it, drop this client and move on. I have $1 a word aspirations buddy.

3. Find a Successful Mentor
I’ve been finding a wealth of information online from people who have actually succeeded at this writing game. Yes, these writers are my hero, and I am a sponge for the information they are putting out, for free! I can not afford their mentoring services, but I can afford the time it takes to learn everything they are teaching on their own websites and personal writing blogs. Carol Tice and Anne Wayman have been awesome inspirations.

4. Show up and Write
It’s so tempting to get caught up in the learning process; in all actuality if you want to succeed you’ll never stop learning. This is why you have to make time to actually write. This is how you want to earn a living, so don’t forget to practice. A great resource I’ve found is Angela Booth’s ebook “Write and Sell Your Own Writing”, which is free when you subscribe to her blog. She details a mechanical process to get you writing, even when you’re not in writer mode.

5. Believe in Yourself
As a writer, it may sometimes be a little hard to match the words that are typed out on the screen with the person other people see. In order to achieve great things, including higher pay, you have to believe in yourself and your ability to communicate effectively. You have a talent, have worked hard on it, and there is a market for your skills.

6. The Power of Networking
You may not consider your aunt Sally as a contact person, but don’t underestimate who aunt Sally may know! Use your friends and family as starting points to network. This will help you practice marketing yourself to a (hopefully) more sensitive audience. Let them know you’re trying to expand your business and are looking for new clients.

7. Business Cards Matter
So, when you’re done talking to aunt Sally about any prospects she may know ask if she wouldn’t mind taking a few of your business cards. Just having a business card can get you out of the content mill mindset and help you feel like a professional.

8. Don’t Hesitate
Too often, you may walk away from a potential client feeling like you didn’t quiet make the right impression. When you hesitate too often, you may be losing a valuable opportunity.

9. Open Yourself up to the Possibilities
The best things have happened to me when I’ve completely opened up to great things happening. Why not? Why shouldn’t great things happen (like excellent resources of income) happen to you? You’ll be surprised what the right mental attitude can bring you.

10. Learn to Say No
It’s tempting to fall back into the grind of the content mill if you’re having a slow week, I know, I’ve been there. However, find the power to say no. Instead of investing so much of yourself for such little pay, work on a great article to pitch to a magazine, track down prospective clients or get inspired through reading. When you’re having a slow patch, do any one of these things and have the power to say no to low paying content mills.

Ahlam Yassin is a freelance writer with a passion for personal and career development issues. You can find out more at www.prowriterinc.com. You can follow her on twitter @prowriterinc

5 Tips for Disposing of Ink & Toner Cartridges

This is a guest post by James Adams. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Ink and toner cartridges for printers inevitably wind up empty at some point. Whether it’s the first or the fiftieth time you’ve had to replace your cartridges, it’s important to know what your disposal options are. Tossing the spent cartridge in the trash may seem like the easiest way to get rid of it, but it is also the most environmentally damaging. The plastic casing will just sit in a landfill while the chemicals from the ink leech out into the ground. Fortunately, there are many other, more eco-friendly, options available.

Recycle for Charity
The saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure can be true in the case of your empty ink and toner cartridges. There are many websites and organisations that can take your old cartridges and turn them into money for charities.

Recycle4Charity is a US-based recycling program that collects empty ink and toner cartridges and makes a cash donation to charity per qualified cartridge. All shipping expenses are covered by prepaid shipping labels.
Recycling Appeal is based in the UK for both individuals and businesses that allows you to choose from a number of open “appeals” when recycling your cartridges. Or start an appeal of your own if the charity you wish to donate to isn’t listed.

You may also be able to recycle your ink and toner cartridges locally. Check with schools, stores, and nearby charitable organisations to find out if they have their own cartridge recycling programs.

Recycle for Cash
Ink and toner are expensive, especially for high-end laser printers and all-in-one units. Why not turn your empty cartridges into cash? Several recycling services exist that will pay you to send them your empties.

FreeRecycling.com will pay for over 150 types of ink and toner cartridges. Local pickup is free, and they also offer free shipping boxes for non-local shipments. Large shipments are accepted.
eCycle Group is a good solution for when you have multiple ink and toner cartridges to get rid of. They pay for shipping as long as you meet their minimums and offer competitive pricing on a variety of cartridge brands.

Some electronics and office supply stores offer recycling for cash, as well. The payment often comes in the form of a discount on future ink purchases or credit toward other purchases made in-store. Visit retailer websites or call local locations to find out which places in your area offer these programs.

Recycle at Work
Take a moment to think about all the waste generated at your workplace. Offices, schools, and other institutions that print a lot of documents or send a lot of mail use hundreds of ink and toner cartridges. Instead of throwing them all away when they’re no longer useful, consider starting a workplace recycling program if there isn’t one already. Gathering up used cartridges and recycling them could save an enormous amount of waste every year. Send them somewhere local or choose an online recycling program that accepts bulk shipments.

Refill & Reuse Your Cartridges
If it’s possible to refill the type of cartridges used in your printer, this can be the most economical choice. Refilling ink cartridges takes a little time, but is worth the effort. Check online for refill kits for your brand of cartridge. This can be a messy process, so before trying it for the first time, you may wish to visit websites like RefillInstructions and Printer Toner Warehouse, which offer instructions on how to safety refill a variety of cartridges. Make sure to print a test page or two once you’re done refilling to check that everything is in working order.

Return to Manufacturer
If you can’t find a viable way to recycle your empty cartridges, you may be able to return them to the manufacturer. Contact the makers of your cartridges and ask about disposal. If the company is indeed willing to take the cartridges back, make sure that they will either recycle the cartridges or reuse them. Some companies may simply dispose of used cartridges, which would defeat the purpose when trying to be environmentally conscious. But if you’re comfortable with their disposal methods, go ahead and send your empties.

It only takes a little extra effort to recycle or reuse empty inkjet and toner cartridges. This small time investment is a win-win situation, as it can have a big impact on both the environment and your budget.

This guest post was written by James Adams who analyses and writes reviews of the newest consumables for HP printers for CartridgeSave.co.uk.

“Cool, Promote it!” Orkut secret link: Get a rank badge

Its been some time since Orkut started allowing its users to advertise their business on Orkut, with ‘promote’ feature: a free tool to help you spread the news to all your orkut friends…and beyond!

At first I thought this could be a great opportunity for bloggers and marketers to explore and leverage from Orkut community. But to my dis-appointment, there are many people who are randomly creating some community message and asking to promote it! And the dis-appointing things is, these communities are not at all taken care by anyone, people just create it, promote it and forget it 🙁

So, am I saying this Orkut promote is waste of time? No. Since many Orkut users have no idea about how to set this up or what to do with this feature, its a great thing for few people who understand and have some goals to achieve from it.

Here are some points to keep in mind to write a good copy
1. First make sure whatever you are trying to promote is of use to the users.
2. Let your message be clear.
3. Don’t tell half things and ask them to click the link to read rest of your story. Everyone is busy with their life!
4. Make sure you have a call to action.
Ex: You can ask people to promote it or you may ask people to do something after seeing your ad.

How Orkut promote works:
When you first create a promotion, only your friends will be able to see your promotion. Once any of your friends click on “Cool, promote it!” button, the promotion copy will be shown to their friends.. and so on.

Secret Link!
Some months back Orkut stated showing a secret link(promo URL) in the promotion page, using which we could ask our friends and followers to promote our ad copies. But in just 24hrs time, they removed that feature. Now once again they have introduced the same feature. So just grab the links and ask your friends to promote it.

Log into your Orkut account -> Applications -> Promote -> (Promo URL)

If you are on Orkut, promote our stuffs too.

Here are the links to some of our promotions:
Promotion 1
Promotion 2
Promotion 3
Promotion 4
Promotion 5
Promotion 6

Orkut Badge:
Recently Orkut also introduced ranking users based on some criteria, one of which is based on the number of views of your promotion.

So, if you still care about Orkut and want some exposure and the badge!, then go ahead, grab these secret links and promote them.

By the way, I am on facebook at http://facebook.com/technotip 🙂

Note:
It may not be a promotion as beneficial as that on Facebook and Twitter, but it has got me 500 – 600 visitors to my website so far, which is not bad for a small site.

10 Ways to Save Money on Printer Cartridges

This is a guest post by James Adams. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

When the printer seems to be drinking ink instead of efficiently printing documents, there are some steps that can be taken to optimize ink usage. Older printer models use more ink than newer models so consider replacing printers that have been in use for more than three years. New models of printers allow more control over print settings. Spend some time walking through this logical series of steps to evaluate the settings and lower the consumption of ink and toner.

1. Reset the automated cleaning function – When the printer performs an automated cleaning of the print heads, ink is wasted instead of used for printing. While the process is necessary for the printer to function correctly, the frequency of these cleanings can be reset to reduce the ink consumption. Refer to the user manual for instructions. The printer that is used daily will only need the print heads cleaned weekly.

2. Use “draft” printing mode – Within the printer properties, set the default printer to print every document in “draft” mode. Documents that are going to reside in a file that is opened only occasionally can be of lesser quality. When the printed document will be presented to a customer, the print quality setting can be changed for the one print job. Since the default is set to “draft” the next document will be printed in draft mode.

3. Print in monochrome – Set the default color setting to “grayscale” or “monochrome” to use only the black ink. Black ink is much less expensive than color ink. Most text documents are entirely black and white. When draft copies are needed for a color document, the black ink can be used until the final copy is printed.

4. Choose a finer font – Some fonts consume a great deal of ink because each line is thicker. Choose a font that has very fine lines and a narrower footprint within the print line. The research to find a better default font may require the use of some ink, but the long-term benefit will be evident.

5. Use cartridge completely – Never change an ink cartridge before it is completely empty. Wait until the print quality has been directly impacted before removing the old cartridge and inserting a new one. While a little bit of ink in one cartridge may not seem like much, over time the habit of removing a cartridge with usable ink remaining will cost money.

6. Send digital pictures to print service – Printing one picture with a reduced resolution consumes an acceptable quantity of ink. When multiple high-resolution photographs are printed, an entire ink cartridge can be consumed. Save money and use the expertise of a photo printing service for printing photographs.

7. Evaluate compatible or remanufactured cartridges – Out of pocket costs may appear to be lower when choosing to use less expensive compatible ink cartridges. While some remanufactured cartridges may deliver comparable quantities of printed pages, most consumers are disappointed with the cheaper versions. Just for proof, purchase one full set of the compatible cartridges and track the number of printed pages. Then decide which printer cartridge is best for use in your printer.

8. Outsource high-volume print jobs – When a very large document is to be printed, contact the local copy shop and inquire about the cost of their services. The cost of paper, ink, and employee time will be more than working a deal with a copy center. Set a certain threshold for the number of pages that can be printed on the office printer and send all larger documents out to be printed.

9. Refill cartridges – Some printer cartridges can be refilled by a service or refilled in house to save substantial funds on ink and replacement cartridges. Toner cartridges must be refilled by a service, but this can save a great deal of money over the course of a year. Find a reputable refill service and ask if they have deals for frequent ink refills. Monitor the number of pages printed from a refilled cartridge and determine which approach is the most cost effective for printer.

10. Recycle spent cartridges – Many retailers have started to offer money-saving coupons in exchange for spend printer cartridges. Those cartridges are sold to a refill service instead of being thrown into the landfill. Use the coupon to purchase the new printer cartridge and save money on your print costs.

Print quality is important for some documents, but most of the printed pages produced are for internal use and do not require excessive use of ink. When looking for ways to save money on the ink cartridges in the printer, know what the printer is currently doing to consume ink. Familiarize yourself with the settings that can be improved. Reset one and then see how the print quality is changed. Reduce the number of automated operations the printer performs that consume ink. Evaluate business practices that consume unnecessary ink. Reward employees that come up with creative ways to reduce the amount of printed material produced each month. Choose the best practices to prevent being penny wise and pound foolish.

Also give the latest HP Photosmart Ink b110 Cartridges a try without fail, and let us know what you think in the comment section.

James works as part of the team of writers at CartridgeSave.co.uk who analyse and review Pitney Bowes supplies and printer accessories. If you would like to read more of his work, you can visit their website.