Category: How-To Guides

EdithYeung.com: The true definition of networking is building relationship & rapport with new friends while being yourself anywhere anytime. Here is my 7 Rules of Networking Made Easy:
1) Ask questions. The truth is everyone loves to talk about themselves. When I say ask questions, I don’t mean what is your name or what do you do for living types of questions. I meant real questions that bring up the past, the feeling, the experience and passion out of your new friends. Vice versa, when someone ask you: ‘How are you?’ Don’t just say I am fine then stop there. Speak with sincerity and put some context to your fineness. For Example: I am doing great because I just closed a BIG deal in San Francisco.
2) Offer help – You can always add values to someone’s life anytime anywhere. Offering help doesn’t mean you have to spend hours of research and work overnight to make things happen. Send your new friends a thank you note with information you think they might be interested such as an intriguing article, shocking news or fun facts that could benefit them.
3) Business Cards. Always bring and offer your business cards. This does show your professionalism and you always seem prepared. If those who work for yourself; design a unique business card that make you stand out.
4) Write things down. After a good conversation, ask for their business card immediately and jot down how you can help. If the person didn’t bring their business card, ask for their contact anyway and write things down on your notebook.
5) Set goal and practice. Set goal to meet someone new person every week. Networking does take work. The more you practice the more you will get better.
6) Follow Up – If you promise someone that you will send them info. Do it within the next 24 hours.
7) Be yourself at all time. You cannot pretend to be an angel at a cocktail party and become a bitch at Starbucks yelling at the barista. You never know who is behind you waiting in line.
The 7 Rules of Networking Made Easy [EdithYeung.com]

BusinessKnowHow: The good news and bad news about marketing is that price and results are not necessarily connected. You can pay the same price for poor results as you would for great results.
The difference is based on what you put into your marketing before you implement.
By planning your marketing well, you can put more quality into it and therefore, get better results out of it. Here is an easy and effective method to plan your marketing so you can see better results from your marketing without spending more money.
1) Understand your strengths. People buy from you because you do something for them no one else does. Understand this and you’ve taken the first step to better marketing.
2) Identify your customers (your target market). To promote your business you should focus on people who value what you do. Your strengths (or competitive advantages) will help you focus on who will most value your service or product.
3) Create a meaningful message. The key in successful marketing is to deliver the right message to the right people as often as your budget will allow. So, you need a message that tells your target market why they should do business with you. Your message should reflect your strengths because those are what you do best. And, your message should be in terms that your target market is interested in.
4) Deliver your message as often as your budget allows. Now you have to find and purchase the appropriate delivery vehicles (or media) for your marketing messages. Unless your budget is unlimited, you need to choose delivery vehicles that focus your message.
Four Easy Steps to Getting More Customers [BusinessKnowHow]

BusinessKnowHow.com: Positive relationships are the key to success in business. What if we’ve already burned bridges with the people we’ve done business with in the past? Is it too late to make peace? Or, how do we prevent burning bridges with the people we’re doing business with now?
Below are a few strategies that I use to prevent burning bridges and to nurture positive relationships with my clients:
– Always treat your customers like dear and valued friends. Do the nice things for them that you’d do for your best friend or a family member.
– If your customer has a problem, rectify it as soon as possible. Communicate with them always. Let them know exactly how you intend to handle the problem, and when you’ll be in contact with them next.
– Always try to conduct yourself nobly and professionally in the end, as well as in the beginning of a relationship with your customer.
– If the business/customer relationship doesn’t work out, attempt to salvage whatever good and goodwill are still left in the relationship. Just because it didn’t work out with them, doesn’t mean they wouldn’t refer others to you…as long as you treat them with respect.
– Despite any differences of opinion, work hard to be honest and positive. Always be noble, respectful and genuine.
Positive Relationships Are The Key to Business Success [businessknowhow]

Are you an entrepreneur seeking to start or grow your existing business? Then you definitely want to take advantage of these exclusive training segments from educators like Brian Tracy, Dr. Joe Vitale, Dan Poynter and Bob Doyle; over 4 hours of detailed online video training. This is your “Business Success Scholarship”, compliments of Northstar Thinktank.
Northstar Thinktank is an exclusive team of World-Class Business Experts who have made millions operating successful companies. They’ve also guided the success of more than 2,500 companies who have turned to our team for one-on-one expertise.
The Northstar Thinktank Business Success Scholarship is available free here at http://scholarship.northstarthinktank.com

Inspired Business Growth: Do you own a business that depends on local customers? Most brick-and-mortar businesses do very little online advertising or promotion, thinking that investing in internet marketing would be a waste of time for such a small geographic area.
Think again. Local online advertising can mean big business. Unless your business is the first thing that comes to mind for every person in your local community, keep in mind that approximately 60% of customers use the internet to research products or services online before they make a purchase (according to DoubleClick). And if you need a plumber, you would likely search for “plumber Naperville IL” – in fact, an estimated 30% of ALL internet searches have a local intent.
The various local advertising options you have:
Paid Search Engine Marketing – With PPC (Pay Per Click) search engine marketing, you can target your ads to only appear in a certain zip code. This way you can ensure that your ads are only being seen by the right potential customers.
Online Local Directories – Free options mentions in the above referenced article included the extremely popular MerchantCircle.com(USA), TouchLocal (UK) and Local.com as well as Google Local, Local.Yahoo.com, and Craigslist.
Local Online Media Planning and Buying – There are several very large websites that draw visitors that search for local information, and have the capability of geo-tergeting their ads to your region or zip code. National sites include Weather.com, Zillow.com, and CitySearch.com.
How to Market Your Small Local Business Online [Inspired Business Growth]