Categories
Sales & Marketing

Researcher Research Thyself

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Article Contributed by Guy Kingston
Here is a truly horrifying thought: there is actually a specialist graduate degree of Master of Marketing Research, with the post-nominal letters MMR.
Nor is this a gimmick or a cash-cow for one of those otherwise unknown “universities” that offer to send you a degree in return for your “lifetime experience” and a large fee.
No, this is a proper degree offered by over a dozen serious universities, mainly in the USA.
You wonder what sort of eager young scholar, with all the mind-broadening opportunities of a university education spread before them, would choose to dedicate one or two of the most fertile years of their life to such a narrow subject.
Of course, if anyone developed a scientific system that enabled them to predict market responses with a high degree of accuracy, it would be worth the effort. It would open the doors to success not only in business but almost every other aspect of life. The world would belong to the market researchers. Not only a year or two but a decade or two would be well spent in its study.
Indeed, some of the finest minds in academia have been attracted, both by the cross-disciplinary intellectual challenges and by the potential rewards, to the study of customer behaviour.
It is a favourite subject at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who dole out the Nobel Prizes for Economics. Several Laureates, like Professor Daniel McFadden of UC Berkeley, who won the Prize for his theories on “choice modelling”, have specialised in aspects of econometrics which, whether or not they liked to put it this way, provided a theoretical basis for market research.
There is only one drawback to all this formidable academic output: it is useless.
The test of the validity of any scientific theory is not only how well it explains the past but how well it predicts the future.
If these academic theories of consumer choice were of any use, they should be able to provide models to predict future consumer choice.
We cannot help noticing the absence of such a model in the business world.
If such a model existed, Professor McFadden and his ilk would be very wealthy. While some do indeed make a tidy sum from consultancy, it is difficult to see how their clients are better off for their services.
For the bottom line on market research is that all the greatest failures in marketing history have been preceded by intensive market research using the most advanced specialist techniques available.
This is because big failures can only come from big product launches, and big product launches can only come from big corporations, because only they can afford big products and big launches. The big corporations usually spend lavishly on market research before the launch. This is not because they really believe the market research but so that the junior executives can cover themselves with the senior executives, the marketing managers with the general managers, the management with the directors, and the board with their shareholders.
Then, if something goes wrong, everyone can say, “Well, it is not my fault – I employed the most respected market researchers, who used the very latest methods, and they told me everything was going to be fine, so how was I to know?”
This means that every big product launch has been approved by advanced market research – and since a lot of big product launches end in failure, all these failures have been endorsed by market research.
Perhaps the great problem with market research is conceptual. It puts a great deal of thought and analysis into studying consumer decisions, but consumers put very little thought or analysis into their decisions.
This is why the focus group is a bad idea: it gets potential customers to spend an hour talking about decisions they would usually make in a second. This is artificial as a method and so any conclusions it reaches will be equally artificial.
As ever, wisdom is found not in academia but in The Simpsons. When Homer’s millionaire brother asks him to design the car that average Americans like him would want to buy, Homer puts in every fantasy element he can imagine and ends up designing a monstrosity that no one would want to buy.
In fact, Homer’s car is curiously reminiscent of one that was designed in response to a great deal of market research into what the public “really wanted”… the Ford Edsel.
About the Author
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.

Categories
Online Business

Email List Management: What Happens When You Choose the WRONG Email List Management Service!

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Over the years I have worked with many solopreneurs helping them to create their online marketing systems and stay in touch with their audience via a regular ezine (or electronic newsletter). Usually they come to me having already started to build their list, and have even subscribed to an email list management service so that they can deliver their ezine on a regular basis.

But what has happened several times is that the email list management service that they’re using isn’t working as well as they hoped it would, and they’re faced with the dilemma of either muddling through with their current provider, or switching over to a different provider and risk losing a large percentage of the list they’ve worked so hard to build up in the process!

It’s a difficult decision, and it’s not always clear what you need to do for the best. I too have found myself in this situation, and ended up moving my list across to another provider who I knew would be better for the long-term growth of my business.

So, what happens when you choose the WRONG list management service?

1. No flexibility.

The service you are using doesn’t offer the flexibility you need in order to grow your business. For example, you could be using a list management service that does a great job at sending out broadcasts (your ezine), but doesn’t offer autoresponders. So that means you’re either left with not having the option of adding autoresponders to your marketing toolkit (which are a solopreneur’s secret weapon!) or paying for an additional service that does offer autoresponders and then choosing to either run two different databases, or move your current list across to the new service.

2. Doesn’t grow with your business.

The service you are using only offers one type of package so as your business grows and you add new income streams, products, programs, and services, the list management service that you’re using doesn’t grow with you and you become stuck!
So, how can you avoid making the wrong decision?

By planning ahead and thinking about where you want your business to go; what products and programs you want to develop; what additional services you want to offer etc. you’ll easily be able to avoid making the wrong decision.

You’ll also need to do your research into the different email list management services that are available and see what they offer. Create a list of what you’re looking for and then make a comparison chart so you can compare each of the different services side-by-side.
So, what should you do instead?

Sit down and really plan out your business! In your planning think at least two years ahead – you don’t have to have your plan set in stone, but you do need to be clear in which direction you’re headed in order to avoid making the wrong decision.

For example:

* Do you currently just produce a newsletter, but in the future you’ll be wanting to host teleclasses? If so, you’ll want a service that allows for multiple custom web forms to be created (for participant signups), and has an autoresponder feature (so that you can automatically send out teleclass details).

* Will you be planning on offering digital products for sale via your website? If so, it would make the process a whole lot smoother if the service you used also had a shopping cart feature that you could upgrade to at a later date. That way you only need to manage one database.

* Will you be adding additional income streams, such as a membership site or other continuity program? In addition to being able to upgrade to a shopping cart, the list management service that you use would also need to be able to accept and process recurring payments.

By being clear ahead of time on exactly which direction you are going in your business and what programs, services, products, and other income streams you want to offer within the next two/three years will save you a lot of headaches further down the road. I can vouch for this both from my own experience, and my client’s too!

Believe me, it causes more headaches than you need if you choose the WRONG list management service!

Categories
Home-Based Business How-To Guides Online Business Operations Technology

Accepting Credit Cards- A Quick Guide for Business Owners

According to Forbes Magazine, businesses that don’t accept credit cards lose as much as 70% of sales to competitors who do allow this method of payment. With the number of Americans that use credit cards to make purchases increasing every day, you can’t afford to lose this many potential customers or clients. Here’s a quick and easy, real-world tested guide to accepting credit cards:
Merchant Accounts: The Basics
The merchant account is the “middle man” between a credit card account and a business’ bank account. Businesses that only process cards online usually use gateway software that collects credit card information, where retail businesses typically use credit card swipe machines. Whichever method you use, it’s necessary to have a merchant account to collect the information, verify it with the customer’s credit card provider, and make the transfer of funds from their account to yours. Merchant account providers often “bundle” the costs of online processing software into the account service costs.
Billing
Generally, merchant account providers will assess a fee for each transaction, whether a sale or a return (a “chargeback”). These fees are a portion of the transaction amount or a specified dollar amount. Many companies require monthly minimums, and will charge your business the remaining amount if this minimum is not met. Billing occurs automatically, as each “batch” of transactions is processed, typically at the close of each business day. Vendors provide reports detailing transactions, charges, and payments made at specified intervals.
Transaction Types
The fee assessed for each transaction typically depends on the way the sale or return is recorded. Swipe machines or those with signature capture devices carry the lowest risk of fraud, and thus transactions are less expensive to process. Online transaction s or those that are “keyed in” are typically more expensive, depending on the security measures taken to record the transaction. Vendors assess higher fees for “chargeback” or return transactions.
Service Contracts
Most businesses sign a service agreement that covers a specified period of time. Canceling your account before the service term expires generally carries penalties and fees, much like breaking a lease. Your per-transaction and monthly minimum rates are set when you apply for an account and sign the service agreement. The best rates are reserved for those businesses with a stable financial history and high credit card sales volume- many vendors offer “tiered” rate structures, where the per-transaction rate decreases the higher your sales volume rises. Though newer businesses just starting out might not be eligible for the best rates right away, they can negotiate for better terms as the business becomes more profitable.
Equipment and Software
Credit card processing equipment and software costs are often included in the service contract you sign with a provider. If you own or manage a retail store, chances are you’ll only need hardware, such as a swipe terminal or a signature capture device. Businesses that sell products online can puchase “gateway” software that is billed along with the merchant account service bill. Credit card terminals can be purchased, financed, or leased. It’s always a good idea to ask if there are any discounted models, or if a certain model is included with an account agreement.
Choosing an Account Provider: Where to Start
The most popular places to find a merchant services provider are through referral or using a vendor match service. You can consult businesses similar to yours in terms of size and sales volume: Ask who they use as a provider, if they are satisfied with the service they receive, and if they have any particular recommendations. A vendor search service allows you to compare several different companies, ask for quotes, and choose a vendor based on your requirements. Make sure you compare several different merchant account providers before signing a contract for services.
MerrinMuxlowPhoto.jpgMerrin Muxlow is a writer, yoga instructor, and law student based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, a company that provides resources for business owners, and is a frequent contributor to several sites and programs that offer tools for entrepreneurs, including Dell and BizEquity.

Categories
Entrepreneurship

The Other Side Of Marketing

The%20Other%20Side%20Of%20Marketing.jpg
Here is a truly horrifying thought: there is actually a specialist graduate degree of Master of Marketing Research, with the post-nominal letters MMR.
Nor is this a gimmick or a cash-cow for one of those otherwise unknown “universities” that offer to send you a degree in return for your “lifetime experience” and a large fee.
No, this is a proper degree offered by over a dozen serious universities, mainly in the USA.
You wonder what sort of eager young scholar, with all the mind-broadening opportunities of a university education spread before them, would choose to dedicate one or two of the most fertile years of their life to such a narrow subject.
Of course, if anyone developed a scientific system that enabled them to predict market responses with a high degree of accuracy, it would be worth the effort. It would open the doors to success not only in business but almost every other aspect of life. The world would belong to the market researchers. Not only a year or two but a decade or two would be well spent in its study.
Indeed, some of the finest minds in academia have been attracted, both by the cross-disciplinary intellectual challenges and by the potential rewards, to the study of customer behaviour.
It is a favourite subject at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, who dole out the Nobel Prizes for Economics. Several Laureates, like Professor Daniel McFadden of UC Berkeley, who won the Prize for his theories on “choice modelling”, have specialised in aspects of econometrics which, whether or not they liked to put it this way, provided a theoretical basis for market research.
There is only one drawback to all this formidable academic output: it is useless.
The test of the validity of any scientific theory is not only how well it explains the past but how well it predicts the future.
If these academic theories of consumer choice were of any use, they should be able to provide models to predict future consumer choice.
We cannot help noticing the absence of such a model in the business world.
If such a model existed, Professor McFadden and his ilk would be very wealthy. While some do indeed make a tidy sum from consultancy, it is difficult to see how their clients are better off for their services.
For the bottom line on market research is that all the greatest failures in marketing history have been preceded by intensive market research using the most advanced specialist techniques available.
This is because big failures can only come from big product launches, and big product launches can only come from big corporations, because only they can afford big products and big launches. The big corporations usually spend lavishly on market research before the launch. This is not because they really believe the market research but so that the junior executives can cover themselves with the senior executives, the marketing managers with the general managers, the management with the directors, and the board with their shareholders.
Then, if something goes wrong, everyone can say, “Well, it is not my fault – I employed the most respected market researchers, who used the very latest methods, and they told me everything was going to be fine, so how was I to know?”
This means that every big product launch has been approved by advanced market research – and since a lot of big product launches end in failure, all these failures have been endorsed by market research.
Perhaps the great problem with market research is conceptual. It puts a great deal of thought and analysis into studying consumer decisions, but consumers put very little thought or analysis into their decisions.
This is why the focus group is a bad idea: it gets potential customers to spend an hour talking about decisions they would usually make in a second. This is artificial as a method and so any conclusions it reaches will be equally artificial.
As ever, wisdom is found not in academia but in The Simpsons. When Homer’s millionaire brother asks him to design the car that average Americans like him would want to buy, Homer puts in every fantasy element he can imagine and ends up designing a monstrosity that no one would want to buy.
In fact, Homer’s car is curiously reminiscent of one that was designed in response to a great deal of market research into what the public “really wanted”… the Ford Edsel.
About the Author:
Guy Kingston produces and presents the Mind Your Own Business podcast, offering free business advice to entrepreneurs and business owners. As well as audio podcasts there are more articles like this, compelling videos and a must-read blog. All at www.myobpod.com or you can network and join in discussions on the MYOB Facebook group.

Categories
How-To Guides

How to Achieve Your Goals with 100% Success Every Time

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In the movie, “A League of Their Own,” the baseball coach talked to his dispirited team, saying, “Of course it’s hard. If it wasn’t hard, everybody would do it!”
That’s the way it is with success. It can be hard. But there are four sure-fire ways to achieve success at almost anything every time without failure.
4 Ways to Achieve Your Goals & Succeed Every Time Without Failure
1. Work hard.
There’s no substitute for hard work. Simply put, there “ain’t no free lunch.”
When I look at highly successful people, I think, “It’s no wonder they’re doing so well. Look at everything they’re doing.”
Could the same thing be said about you? If someone were to follow you around for a week and painstakingly record everything you did to advance your career, would that person walk away with a long list of all the things you’re doing to get ahead? Or would that person have a long list of the excuses you gave and the time you wasted?
Sometimes people fool themselves into thinking they’re putting out a 100% effort … when in reality, they’re not. For example, many people are out of work these days, and I’ve often heard them say, “I sent out 100 resumes, and I didn’t get any response. I did everything I could.”
One hundred percent effort means that you’ve exhausted every possible opportunity for reaching your goal. If you’re looking for a job, 100 percent effort would include researching individual companies you want to work for, sending these companies personalized letters, calling to follow up, calling other people in the industry, and networking.
One hundred percent effort means telling a potential boss, “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of applicants here. But I believe so strongly in my ability to meet your needs, I’ll work for you for 30 days with no pay. Let me prove to you my ability. In 30 days, evaluate my performance. If it’s not up to par, let me go. But when I prove myself to you, I expect to be given the job and paid for the 30 days of work.”
Now that’s putting in 100% effort! And that’s what you need to do to succeed in any area of life … because success is more often the result of hard work than the result of talent.
2. Practice endurance.
To many people, “endurance” is a nasty word. They would like to come by success the “easy” way. They want it to fall into their laps.
But that’s an extremely rare occurrence. 99.99% of the time, success comes AFTER you “endure” awhile. And all the greats in every field of endeavor have learned how to “endure.”
As professional tennis player Bjorn Borg noted, “My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.”
Could the same be said of you?
Or do people … secretly behind your back … say you bail out when things get a little tough? Do they say you give up way too easily or throw in the towel too quickly? Do they point out the fact that you seldom finish what you start?
If you answer “yes” to any of these latter questions, remember the words of John Quincy Adams. He noted, “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” In other words, there’s power in perseverance.
3. Keep on believing.
Believe in yourself. Believe in a power bigger than yourself. Believe in success. And believe you can be successful.
That’s what Lee Iacocca, the former chairman of the Chrysler Corporation did. When the world told him to let his debt-ridden company die, Iacocca refused. He didn’t wait for the economy to change or for a government bailout to rescue him.
Iacocca kept believing in himself, in his company, in his products, and in his workers. He pronounced, “So what do we do? Anything — something. So long as we don’t just sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”
4. Stay committed.
Everything else being equal, commitment wins every time. So fight back any feelings of discouragement that might get in your way. Don’t allow yourself to hang it up when things get rough.
If you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to remember the letters M.I.H. It stands for…Make It Happen.
As you pursue your goals, as you strive towards excellence and success, follow these four points and you’re sure to win. After all, most people don’t fail. They just give up.
About the Author:
Dr. Alan Zimmerman has taught the 12 keys to peak performance and incredible success to more than one million people. Now you can get a FREE guided tour of the 12 keys in his life-changing “JOURNEY TO THE EXTRAORDINARY” program simply by visiting: http://www.journey-to-the-extraordinary.com