Month: February 2012

Categories
Operations

Effective Power Sources Can Make A Huge Difference In Retail Outlets

The retail industry is one of the biggest industries in the world. Whether it is selling pans, toys, clothes or anything else imaginable, the retail industry makes huge amounts of money in every country. There are hundreds of different jobs in retail areas, from marketing to HR and everything in between. Billions of people are employed in the retail industry and it is always busy, even in an economic downturn. If you own a retail business, no matter how big or small it is, there are lots of things you can do to try and beat competitors and gain more sales. This is particularly important in economic slowdowns as businesses battle it out to survive. One important thing that every retail business must try and do is manage their power effectively.

Striking window displays that attract the attention of passers-by can have a huge impact on the sales of a business, particularly in a high street with a lot of footfall. When people have a lot of shops to choose from it is important to make sure that they choose yours. Lighting at the top of a display will show what products you have on offer in your window and make people want to come into your shop. When lighting a window display, customers should not be able to see cables as this looks unsightly and will make the shop appear unprofessional. A rubber cable tidy will keep cables together safely and can be taped to the floor out of the way so customers cannot see it. A white cable tidy could also be used if the shop has a white wall or windowsill as customers will not be able to see the cable tidy when they look through the window.

A power distribution rack may also be beneficial to help a retail outlet look tidy. Most shops now use an electronic till and a computer to manage sales and the company website. The computer and the till are usually on or under the sales desk and loose, tangled cables will make the shop look untidy and unprofessional. If the owner uses a power distribution rack, all the electronic appliances, including the till, the computer and the phone, can be plugged into one place behind the desk. A cable tidy can then be used to keep these cables safe and out of the view of the customer.

In retail, little things that make the shop look better can make a huge difference. A shop will look more professional if it is free from cables and its power is managed effectively. This will help a shop remain competitive in a cut throat environment.

Categories
Human Resource

How To Use Social Media To Your Advantage In The Job Market

In recent years, the reference-checking landscape has changed dramatically for prospective employers and job seekers alike. The advent of social media sites like LinkedIn and Facebook allow prospective employers to quickly research reference data on a prospective candidate, says professional reference checking company Allison & Taylor.

This is a boon from the hiring manager/recruiter perspective, as vast personal and professional networks can be accessed – the membership of LinkedIn alone exceeds 135 million members. Social media opens up the candidate pool; estimates suggest that a significant majority of hiring managers recruited through social networks in 2011- and that this trend will continue.

In addition, many hiring managers use social media such using as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook (in addition to general Google searches) to check a potential candidate’s background. An employer can type in the candidate’s name, previous employers and dates of employment and might well come up with the names of a wide variety of current and former associates. What’s more, prospective employers can access the information on these sites even before a candidate is interviewed in person.

What are the ramifications for you, the job seeker? For one, a prospective employer might be able to access former references who are not those you would normally provide as references. Simply offering up the name of your former Human Resources representative, or of your immediate supervisor, might not be sufficient if an employer is able to utilize social media tools to access the names of your second-level supervisors or other key associates.

This being the case, what steps should you take now to ensure that your social media data isn’t used against you?

Consider these five proactive steps to manage your references in the Internet Age:

1. Take the time to research yourself online prior to beginning your interview process. (One example: “Google” yourself.) The odds are very high that your application, resume and credentials will be reviewed by prospective employers for inaccuracies – better that you identify them first, if they exist.

2. Consider expanding your reference list to prospective employers beyond simply an HR contact or supervisor. Associates like a supportive second-level supervisor or a matrix manager(s) can be key advocates in your behalf and might be more supportive than traditional references like immediate supervisors.

3. Find out what your references will say about you prior to beginning the interview process. Use a third-party reference verification firm to find out what references at your most recent places of employment (in particular) will actually say about you. Increasing the scope of your reference search (to second-level supervisors, etc.) may identify additional favorable references in senior positions whose names you may wish to invoke during the interview process.

4. When negative references are identified during a third-party search, consider taking remedial action intended to discourage such references from ever offering similar negative input to your future employers. Tools such as Cease & Desist letters have proven extremely effective in neutralizing future negative input from unfavorable references.

5. Know your rights. Be aware that employers are legally prohibited from using certain social media data they may discover about you during the hiring process, (e.g. data pertaining to your race, religion, age, sex, sexual preference, etc.). Employers open themselves up to lawsuits if they base their hiring decisions on such discriminatory information.

The ever-increasing prevalence of social media is a doubled edged sword; it has opened up countless employment opportunities, but has also given prospective employers added tools to investigate your background. By recognizing this and taking proactive steps, you use social media to your advantage – and gainful new employment.

About the Author:

Allison & Taylor and its principals have been in the business of checking references for corporations and individuals since 1984. Allison & Taylor is headquartered in Rochester, Mich. For further details on services and procedures please visit http://www.allisontaylor.com/.

Categories
Sales & Marketing

Some Facts About Table Tent Printing

Table tent cards, despite the presence of other promotional tactics, are still a great and innovative manner of promoting for your business, particularly if it is a tinier business establishment. They have evolved a lot during the past decades. In addition, these print services have gotten a lot wiser than before and keep coming up with new, creative ideas for successful business promotion. To further improve your knowledge about these things, below are some of the facts that you can always keep in mind. All you have to do is to read on and understand.

1. These table tent cards have gotten so well known.

In fact, that the above stated services have increased in number over the past few years. These trade prints more often than not make it so easy for most of you to display your business to all clients without even forcing these things to all of those people.

2. Most of you get to select what type of color scheme or color them you want to use.

This truly depends on what your business, your business logo and all other details, which more often than not puts you and your business in the best position to decide on it. Most of you can even select to have either sides of these prints colored, or just the visible part. The former, of course, costs more than the latter.

3. Great and vivid colors are, for sure a great manner for promoting your business using these trade prints.

That is not to say that black and white themed alternatives are not effectual. These days, table tent printing services more often than not offer wisely planned black and white tents that can draw clients interest and attention by virtue of them being different from other prints. How good these can be differs from services to service though.

4. You are also given the alternative to select from certain standard dimensions for your trade prints.

This will more often than not depend on where you intend to place these things. For example, you can also get 4 ¼ by 4 ¼ prints or even the 6 by 4 ¼ dimensions, since these are considered as the standard ones. Of course, for a tiny additional fee, you can also order custom dimensions or even very large ones to display at events or other suitable places.

5. The type of material used for making these trade prints also matters a lot for effectual business promotions for your business establishment.

The two primary alternatives that you can more often than not find are the uncovered and the gloss. These then most of the time branch out to custom alternatives like the gloss on only the visible side, uncovered on the other, and gloss on either sides. Great business promotional tools also because these things are easy for all clients to carry around with them if they want to. If well planned, most people might also want to keep these prints on display at the comfort of their own home.

Given lots of selection that printers give, there is no way that you cannot find a table tent printing plan or template that will perfectly suits you and your business establishment. With the convenience offered by all of these services, most of you can choose and even plan your own prints for great satisfaction.

Categories
Networking

LinkedIn Marketing for B2C Companies – The Audiences on LinkedIn That Will Double Your Sales Guaranteed

During a presentation that I was giving at a small business owner’s boot camp, I was asked a very interesting question by one of the attendees:

“I am a real estate agent and I am not sure how LinkedIn can help me since it is a business to business platform and I am targeting consumers and homeowners. Should I be focusing just on Facebook which is more consumer oriented? And, if I should be on LinkedIn, how can I best utilize it to help me obtain more business and clients?”

My Answer to How Business to Consumer (B2C) Companies Can Use LinkedIn Marketing

One of the biggest advantages of using LinkedIn if you are a B2B business is being able to access targeted prospects. Now, it’s quite difficult to do that if you are a B2C company as business professionals are there for these purposes:

•    Build and cultivate profitable relationships
•    Get the information they need to develop.

However, that doesn’t mean you should not be using LinkedIn marketing and just stick to Facebook and Twitter. Use Facebook and Twitter to build your community of prospects – but use LinkedIn marketing to attract these three audiences that can double your sales guaranteed:

1.    Media Professionals – A recent study showed that 92% of all journalists are on LinkedIn which is more than any other social networking site.  This means that you have more access to individuals who are looking to quote experts like you or publish articles regarding your industry and how you can help your prospective clients.  By reaching out to these journalists you can develop meaningful and valuable relationships as they will come to think of you as the expert in your field and ask for your information when they are putting together their next piece. This extra publicity will give you more exposure to even more prospects and enhance your credibility so prospects will want to buy from you.

2.    Referral Sources – Through LinkedIn you can build and enhance relationships with key influencers who can provide you with access to prospects you would otherwise not have known, met or done business with.  A referral source is a valuable tool because it is a third party endorsement and they can act as your sales agent as they want to give their customers and clients more value.

3.    Larger companies that offer products or services that are supplementary to yours – Smart companies are always looking to increase their revenues by giving their clients and customers more value. Think of the different companies and organizations that can add your products or services to their own at a premium price – and use LinkedIn to build relationships with the different company’s executives.

Your Next Steps…

1.    Figure out who would be the best referral sources, key influences, types of media and companies for you to connect with. For example, one of my newest LinkedIn Profile Makeover clients is a real estate agent who is an expert on short sells, foreclosures and troubled properties. Before we completed her profile, we had her brainstorm who would be the best referral sources which include:

•    Divorce attorneys – In a divorce couples often have a house to sell. Couples also have other traditional real estate assets that often have to be sold in a divorce. Plus, at least one of the parties in a divorce will need to relocate – meaning they’ll need to buy a new house.
•    Local bankruptcy attorneys who have clients who have no other choice
but to either short sell or go into foreclosure
•    Florida attorneys that represent HOA’s s so my client can help them with the rental of the property, property managementt and eventual short sell
•    Accountants who can refer clients to sell their residential or commercial properties to avoid further liability and eventual foreclosure
•    Financial planners, estate attorneys and probate attorneys who want to give homeowners relief from their unexpected financial burdens
•    Banks who want to sell their foreclosed properties in the shortest amount of time with the highest net to them

2.    Create a LinkedIn profile that is written for the referral sources and media you want to attract starting with your headline. In the headline, identify the audiences you want to connect with – and why they should want to connect with you. In your summary, explain to referral sources how you can be of value to their clients and customers and how your relationship will help them. Also, if you are trying to attract publicity, show the media that you are an expert. Use any media mentions to your advantage in your summary sections as well as having a complete media kit on your profile using the Box.net, Slideshare and Google Presentations applications. To help you create the copy you need for your LinkedIn profile, check out my Instant LinkedIn Marketing Templates at http://www.InstantLinkedInMarketingTemplates.com

3.    Stay on top of your referral sources’ and media professionals’ minds – Once you figure out who your best key influencers, referral sources and media types, start doing your research on LinkedIn and make connections. When you make a new connection, invite the referral source or media professional to your LinkedIn group where you provide tips, tools and articles. Every time you are published, featured or quoted in the media you should be announcing it to your connections and group members.  This will show them that you are a valuable resource and keep you on top of their minds.  So when a referral source has a client needing your expertise, they’ll think of you. And, when the media needs an expert to quote- they’ll come to you.

So create a strong LinkedIn profile using my Instant LinkedIn Marketing Templates, figure out who would be the best referral sources and media types and start making connections that can double your sales guaranteed.

About the Author:

LinkedIn Expert Kristina Jaramillo creates online marketplace opportunities for B2C companies and marketing executives that want to get more publicity, build relationships with key influencers and double their website traffic and sales. Now, with her free special report, you can uncover easy ways to gain more connections fast by avoiding the top 14 mistakes. Get this information for free at: http://www.Free14LinkedInMistakes.com   

Categories
Sales & Marketing

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Your Own PPC

It’s true that Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) such as Google’s “Adwords” and Microsoft’s “Bing” can be a remarkably effective, low-cost advertising solution that can almost instantly bring a flood of eager buyers to your website, if done correctly. However, it’s also true that you can take a terrible beating in a very short time if you’re not careful and don’t know what you’re doing.

You see, Adwords™ and Bing™ (the dominant Pay-Per-Click platforms) are promoted as being easy to use. In a sense that’s true. You can sign up for an account and be walked through how to put up a PPC ad in a matter of a few minutes. But, I can’t tell you how many local business clients have come to me mentioning that they have spent thousands of dollars on PPC – and yet they received zero sales for their efforts. They report that money is leaving their pockets – and it’s not being replenished. They have almost given up on Pay-Per-Click Advertising.

Here Are 5 Things That Can Go Wrong When You Try to Manage Your Own Pay-Per-Click Advertising Efforts

1. You target the wrong keywords.

Some search terms can get a lot of clicks, but very few sales, because they’re too general, and there’s no buying intent. For example, you have a tire shop specializing in off-road tires, and you bid on “tires.” That term is searched on over 16,000,000 times a month, so even if your ad wasn’t very good, you could get a lot of clicks. But that searcher isn’t your prospect—he’s in the early stages of looking around, and it’s likely that all you’re going to do is pay for a very expensive click and not get a sale.

2. You under-estimate the amount of clicks you can get, and don’t set an appropriate limit on what you want to spend.

Sure, you can set a daily budget for your campaign, but that’s for all the adgroups in the campaign. You could spend your whole budget early in the day on one poorly-chosen search term, and have all your other ads not get shown at all. Or you could mistakenly set your budget at $3,000 (what you wanted to spend for the month) instead of $100, and come back a few days later to find that you spent thousands of dollars. Happens all the time—and the search engines aren’t user-friendly when that happens. They still want to get paid.

3. You have a local business, but you advertise in geographies that can’t possibly bring you any business.

If you advertise your dry-cleaning business located in central Denver in Google’s Denver “metro” area, your ads will be shown throughout northern Colorado, including places 250 miles away. That will get you some completely worthless clicks.

4. You advertise, using broad match, without properly using negative keywords, and pay for a lot of useless clicks.

For example, if you sell guns, and you don’t set “Top Gun” as a negative keyword, you’ll pay for a lot of clicks from people looking for information about the movie, not about guns.

5. You bid on a keyword, and write a good enough ad to get the click, but your landing page isn’t congruent with the ad or the keyword.

For example, you’re a signage and graphics shop, and you bid on the keyword “trade show graphics”, but when people click your ad, you send them to your home page where there are pictures of lighted building signs and vehicle “wraps”. Your visitor doesn’t see what he expected to see, so he hits the “back” button, and he’s gone.

I could write about a hundred similar errors, and probably a lot more than that.

With So Many Things That Can Go Wrong, Should You Continue to Invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising?

Pay-Per-Click is a fiendishly complex beast, capable of amazing and subtle refinements, and not at all easy to master. One of the most popular PPC manuals is over 300 pages, and that’s just the beginner’s guide. Not only that, PPC changes all the time, so it’s difficult, even for experts, to stay on top of it.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t be doing PPC. You very likely should. Done right, expert Pay-per-Click management can improve website results phenomenally. Traffic and sales increases of several hundred per cent are common—at minimal cost, leading to a very large return on investment.

You just shouldn’t do it by yourself, unless you’re willing to devote a LOT of time (and money) to learning it.
Because we’re experts in local search marketing and pay-per-click advertising, we’re able to help our clients avoid mistakes and get the kind of results they want, like:

  • One very happy reverse mortgage specialist obtained exclusive, hot leads for less than half what he was paying to buy leads that weren’t nearly as fresh, and weren’t even exclusive.
  • A physician, who was using pay-per-click advertising for years, increased his inquiries three-fold, at no increase in cost.

If you’re looking to achieve excellent results from Pay-Per-Click marketing, I urge you to consider investing in a PPC management expert who can handle all your PPC needs – because in the long run, it pays!

About the Author:

Local Search Marketing and Pay-Per Click Management expert Scott Harvey works with business owners who want to improve their website marketing , get better search engine results and capture more clicks. Now, he is offering an 82-page, step-by-step guide to better website performance, covering PPC and many other proven website marketing strategies. Grab his FREE “Make the Phone Ring” eBook now at: http://www.honestwebsitemarketing.com