Business Week

Business Week is a magazine that is currently published under the name Bloomberg Businessweek, after a recent merger, and is a publication that is familiar to many people, having been coming to homes and businesses weekly since 1929. Bloomberg Businessweek was first published in September of 1929, just a few weeks before the stock market crashed and now, has a circulation of nearly a million, and competes with the only other major business magazine available on the market – Forbes Magazine, a bi-weekly business publication.

When BusinessWeek first began, they covered marketing and finance, labor and management, but were the first of the time to begin reporting on political issues that affected American businessmen. The magazine also published a list of executives and the pay that they receive, a tradition that started in 1950. While Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek compete for readership among businessmen and women and those interested in the financial world, BusinessWeek concentrates much more heavily on the economy than Forbes does, and in fact, published a thermometer on the cover from the 1930′s to 1961 that gauged how well the economy of the United States was doing.

BusinessWeek has had trouble itself in the recent economy due to a lack of advertising with print magazine sale revenues being cut in half. Previously $120 million to around $60 million in the last few years, and the move to the digital form hasn’t had the effect the editors had hoped either, with the current online revenues only approaching around $20 and a half million. In 2009, reports began to appear with the news that McGraw-Hill was interested in selling BusinessWeek. They hired Evercore Partners to handle the sale, and a common suggestion at the time was that they might sell the magazine for a dollar because of all the liabilities the publication had.

Bloomberg announced that it had acquired the magazine on October 13th, 2009, and while the figure was reported to be around $5 million dollars, but the actual sale price wasn’t disclosed. December 1st, 2009, the deal was closed and the name Bloomberg was added to the magazine’s cover.

Your vision for your business is strong. You know what you want to do and you know how you want to do it. Not only that, it’s working. You are successful in finding customers.

You juggle many hats. You are the manager, administrator, appointment booker, accountant, filing clerk, marketer, not to mention, the skill you’re good at, all wrapped up in one super entrepreneur!

The problem is, you didn’t envision your small business increasing your working hours per week so dramatically. You love what you do but the extra hours required for the growth and expansion of your business is a bit of a drag. But wait, are all those extra hours really required? How can you grow your business yet not increase your working hours?

RECOGNIZE THE 3 HATS

If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you will quickly begin to fill many hours of the week with diverse responsibilities as the business owner. You may have already realized that there are 3 distinct hats you are wearing:

o Manager – overseeing the administrative details of the business
o Marketer – concerned with how to bring in clients and customers
o Technician – The skill/talent you use to create products & services

The marketer is perhaps the most important hat you wear in your business because it is focused on bringing customers into the business. When you recognize the importance of marketing, you also recognize that delegation (to make room for marketing and key projects) is a must-do.

DELEGATION = BUSINESS GROWTH

Small business owners often cringe at the thought of hiring help. Mainly because of tight finances. But to grow your business, you must get help. Of all the 7-figure mentors I’ve had, none got to 7-figure status without help, and they had help long before they were at 7-figures. They delegated when they really didn’t feel like they had the money to do so.

Successful business owners recognize that delegation is “buying back your time.” When you re-gain hours in your week, you can devote that time to the important task of marketing your business and this will in turn bring in more and more customers, give you time to add products and services to your business, and the end result is business growth.

ASSESS YOUR WEEK

Take a look at your week. Where are you spending most of your time? If it’s administrative tasks, then it’s time to delegate. Here’s a list to get you thinking about what you may need to get off your plate once and for all: scheduling appointments, responding to emails, filing, office organization, document editing, following up with clients, creating flyers and brochures, accounting, and the list can go on.

If most of your week is not on the task of bringing in clients and customers, then you may be out of balance.

WHO TO DELEGATE TO

You do not have to hire a full time staff person. You may just need to discover the world of virtual assistants. I found my own assistant on elance.com. I posted the job, indicated that the job can anywhere from zero hours per week to 15+ hours per week and my assistant gets paid hourly based on the number of hours worked.

There are other sites too, like AssistU.com and guru.com where you can hire help for an hourly rate or per project. Depending on the task, I’ve paid as little as $3 per hour up to about $15 an hour. You request for help can indicate the max you are willing to pay.

TAKE ACTION – TRY IT FOR JUST $50

Business owners often put off the task of delegating because they fear that it will be enormously expensive. So try this. Designate $50 immediately to getting help. Go to elance.com, and hire someone to check your emails or book your appointments for just one or two weeks and see what that feels like. Cap it at 2-3 hours of work.

Three hours may not seem like much but someone devoted to just one task in your business can get a lot done in 3 hours. Or just pick one task that’s been sitting around waiting for you to get to it. Delegate it and feel the relief you get.

The time you free up (both mentally and on the clock) will allow you, the business owner, to grow your business. Once you get a taste of delegation, and you see the impact on your business, I assure you that you’ll never look back. And your business will thank you.

There are many items which need your time and attention, both in your network marketing business and in your everyday life. If you take time to plan your business week for maximum impact, you’ll be able to get more done in less time with a lot less stress.

Create a Schedule

The first thing you need to do is to create a schedule for each day of the work week. Since everyone needs some free time to rest and recharge their batteries, start by blocking off some time for this in your schedule for each day. You will want to make sure that you plan adequate times for sleep, eating well, interacting with your family and other activities that form part of your daily life.

Once you have these times blocked off, you need to look at the different kinds of tasks that you need to do to work in your business and on your business.

Working “In” Your Business

Working in your business involves all the tasks necessary to generate income. For network marketers, you can include tasks such as prospecting, dealing with questions and concerns from people in your network, contacting potential joint venture partners, and the like.

If it has to do with making money, it falls into the working “in” your business category. When you are making your schedule for the week, most of the time should be spent on committees which fall within this category.

When Do You Do Your Best Work?

Since working in your business is the reason you started your network marketing venture, you’ll want to make sure you’re performing these activities at the time of day where you can focus and concentrate most clearly. For some people getting down to business first thing in the morning is the best approach, and you should block off some time before noon several times during your work week to look after these tasks.

Working “On” Your Business

Unfortunately, your network marketing business doesn’t run itself. You will need to set aside some time in your weekly schedule for administrative tasks, such as reading and responding to e-mail, cleaning up your e-mail inbox, filing and other related tasks.

If your goal is to get the maximum impact from your weekly business schedule, make sure you are scheduling the activities which will generate income during times when you are most alert. Administrative and other tasks, such as reading, evaluating, and reviewing items, are best left for times when you are not in your most focused zone.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, you will be more effective and a higher degree of productivity for your network marketing efforts by making sure you have adequate free time in your schedule. Trying to perform at a peak level without taking breaks will only lead to fatigue and eventual burnout.

LinkedIn is considered to be the most professional social networking site that even has access to the professional industry. Along with creating a LinkedIn profile for yourself, explore the LinkedIn ads for increasing the traffic on your website to promote the business. These ads are the best way to reduce the ad costs, thus increasing the profitability.

The edge LinkedIn is going to have is that they are launching their own ad network site soon, which would give a boom to all those companies and their advertising associated with LinkedIn ads. This site would be targeting the industry, company, gender, seniority, geography, and other connections. This will be much like Facebook ads in which you can direct your advertisements towards the specific demographics your target.

There is more you can do to your business with the help of LinkedIn ads:

1) Through LinkedIn ads, your online business could become the target of the most influential professionals and audiences of interest.

2) Before launching yourself, prepare an actionable and descriptive ad copy.

3) LinkedIn displays the ads in the most premium and highlighted locations which will prove very beneficial for your business as it would gain the attraction of millions of active users around.

4) Other social networks have not been able to work that well as LinkedIn ads. It offers the cost per impression of $30 which increases to $76.50. In case of text ads, the cost per impression ranges between $12 to $20.

5) Now, along with LinkedIn ads individual site, it will sign up with its existing partners like CNBC, New York Times and Business week which would give more exposure to your business.

LinkedIn ads are sure the best way to advertise and market your business, as it has the ability to capture the major target market and professionals which would be beneficial for your business by the end. And now that the LinkedIn network would have its separate site for advertisement, it would be like a jackpot for the online business holders. So just click, link and there you go in!

If you are out to attract prospective customers and develop your online presence and exposure, you owe it to yourself and the financial future of your business to learn everything you can about Internet marketing.

There’s a lot that’s changed recently with online marketing. Most people now go straight to Google to search for something they want. The phone book is out and Google, or search traffic is in. If you are a small business owner you can benefit from the internet as a source of business. What’s even better is that you can tap into this resource for free if you have a physical business.

Google Places

Google Places lets you advertise your local business for free in the search results. When someone searches for a local business in your area, your results will come up first for many searches. This is a simple cost effective strategy you should definitely be employing in your business. With Google Places, you list your local business and Google will send you a confirmation postcard with a Google verification code on it. Once you have verified your listing with this code, Google knows you actually reside at this address, or run a business from it.

Google Places works wonders for small business owners who work from a certain location. If you’re not on it you are definitely missing out on business. Plus, your competitors could be using it which means they could be taking your potential customers. To use Google Places just do a quick search for it on Google and it will take you through the setting up process.

Bing Places

Bing also offer this same listing on their own search engine. It’s just like Google Places so not much to add here really. Simply fill out your details on the online platform and verify your listing when you receive a code in the post. When you create your listing you will have to list your business within a certain category, or two. Look through the existing categories and find the one or ones which are the best fit for your business. This is the same as Google Places. By listing in more than one category, if the platform allows, you can benefit from a number of searches within your local area.

Other Listings For Free

Yell and Yahoo also offer free listings for businesses too. Also do a ‘Google search’ for local directories and free listings and you will find a range of sites which offer free business listings in your area. In some cases even the extra links back to your website can make a difference to your ranking, even if the link itself doesn’t bring you more business.

Blogging

You may well not have the time or inclination to start a blog. However, in some business areas blogging is a good way to increase your business reach online in a fairly cost effective way. Depending on your business, and whether it opens itself to a blog, you can get some good results by targeting some keywords in your business niche, or simply writing compelling content and sharing on social media.

Keyword Research

You can use Google’s free keyword planner to search for terms which are already getting hits on the search engine. By finding long tail keywords in your business niche and writing good content for them, you stand more chance of being listed on the search engine. If you can find untapped keywords which bring in customers to your business, you can write articles which will bring in customers for free for years to come for free.

Paid Advertising

After you have exhausted the free methods of advertising, you can start looking at paid advertising methods. Many business owners try and fail with paid advertising. This is why it is worth learning properly the do’s and don’ts of paid advertising.
Pay per click advertising can make a massive impact on your business. But you should also be very careful. Make sure you start out with a small budget and get properly educated on how to create adverts and which keywords to choose. In particular look at the different types of keyword matches. Get this wrong and you can easily burn through your budget and list your advert for entirely the wrong audience.
However, paid advertising is remarkably scalable. Once you have a campaign which works you can easily increase your budget and you are in a position to pay for new customers.

Return On Investment

When I started with pay per click I didn’t understand return on investment. I ‘dipped my toe in’ and dabbled very tentatively. If I didn’t see an immediate profit, I stopped altogether. This is a mistake. Initially there is a lot of testing and measuring to do with paid advertising. After a while you get an advert which successfully brings you customers. However, knowing the return on investment from successful doing this is a game changer. If your customer goes on to purchase again and again, how much are they worth to your business over a year, or 10 years? Knowing this is a huge key to having the confidence to put money into an advertising campaign. Even if you lose money in the short term, your new customers will bring you new business over the long term. Learn the average spend from each customer over a year and then 10 years. Then decide what each customer is worth in terms of advertising. Does this change your view on what you can afford?

Paid Advertising Methods

There are various paid advertising methods available to use for small businesses online. Start with one method and become good at that before moving on to the next. Facebook advertising lets you target potential customers down to their interests, location and other variables. Pay per click advertising lets you target intent driven adverts. With pay per click you start with the keyword your visitor is looking for online. Once you have tested and measured an advertising method and you have a profitable model, you can leave it running and scale it easily. Then move on to the next one.

Even if you only use a couple of the methods suggested in this article, you can dramatically improve your business with only a small amount of effort. Once you have learned all these methods, you will know how to scale up your business and increase your profits. You can then invest in other forms of advertising, testing and measuring as you go. Whether these are on the internet or offline, using the same strategy (which lets you measure the response of a customer) means you can gradually improve all your advertising methods over the long term, increase profits and grow your business.