9 Things You Should Know About Dealing With Venture-Capital Brokers

You want to buy a new company, expand operations, acquire a business, or raise capital. You’ve decided to go for venture capital funding versus a bank loan for a multitude of reasons from the risks involved to the amount you need to carry out your plan.

Do you know as much as you’d like about gaining capital? Most people don’t. Their expertise is in their business, not in capital funding. Here are ways to protect yourself from vultures, deals you can’t afford, and the nightmares of both.

Some quick explanations:

A venture capitalist (VC) is a person, group of people, company, or group of companies with money to invest in your business.

A VC broker represents you (or possibly a VC) and arranges the parties to create a deal. This article is about working with the broker.

Since many brokers are ethical, why such a negative slant? Over two months, two of our consulting clients nearly lost their shirts dealing with brokers. One broker tried to quadruple dip on a VC deal by taking a commission, bringing in another broker (who needed a commission), taking excessive points on growth targets, and adding interest fees into a contract making the deal impossible. Had our Boston-based client signed with his current and (estimated) future numbers, his decade-old business would have perished.

Another broker wanted a client in Connecticut to sign a broker-exclusivity contract, forcing our client to pay commissions on any type of financing, regardless of whether the deal originated through the broker or not. If an SBA loan or unrelated VC came through, our client would pay $400,000 in unearned commissions.

(With each client, the broker used four or more of the nine strategies below that would be harmful to your fulfilling your capital needs.)

Every deal has its own merits and challenges. Regardless, nine general tips to consider are:

1. Don’t sign exclusivity contracts barring you from finding your own funding. A) On one hand, a broker has every right to protect his intellectual property by preventing you from bypassing him and striking a deal with one of the contacts he’s introduced you to. B) On the other hand, beware of anything preventing you from gaining funding from any other source without going through the broker.

2. Avoid long-term cancellation clauses that hold you hostage for a year or more. Sixty to ninety days is reasonable. You’ve got to be able to move on. A broker’s objective in creating a long cancellation clause is to prevent you from securing funding with the VC they’ve introduced you to while at the same time making it difficult for you to find any funding. Keep your options open and agree to 90 days giving you time to find new opportunities.

3. Prevent double dipping. A savvy broker has multiple compensation channels: initial commission, commission on additional funding you get during a 1 or 2-year term, compensation if the business is sold during specified time frame, percentage of interest on monies lent, etc. Read fine print, several deals that have passed over our desks in the past 6 months have had hidden compensation clauses that would have made any deal difficult to swallow had they had signed with the broker. (Have legal representation from an expert in VC funding.)

4. Know the type of funding you want before you start searching, and bind your broker to the specifics with a contract. Looking for a VC with an equity position who wants shares and is interested in growing the firm, or do you just want financing? Initially, the two can appear similar. In one VC deal, the company looking for funding thought they were getting an equity partner, but the VC only wanted to achieve 3.5 times their ROI in 5 years in monthly fees and interest. The final terms of the agreement: the “receiver” would get $2.9 million, but would pay back $6 million in 5 years. It was not the deal he expected.

5. Remember that VC funding is all negotiation–between you, the VC, and the broker. First, never let the broker think that you don’t have other options. If they think you’re between a rock and a hard place, you’re in trouble. Second, VCs know the financing game in and out, and often they will tell you the deal is dead and not call back for weeks just to get you hungry. Sometimes the broker is in on this strategy. You must be patient. Third, even with contracts, the broker may only secure a few deals a year to make a great living. If they’ve invested four months on the project, they want the deal as badly a you do. Then ask for concessions. Realize they might jump up and down and scream as part of their negotiations. It’s a common strategy; look past it. In every deal, conditions change, and you must remember that commissions, fees, and terms can also change.

6. Know your broker’s loyalty, and make sure it’s to you, not to the VC, or solely to the broker’s own best interests. Think of real estate. The seller’s agent’s loyalty rests with the seller: the buyer’s agent’s with the buyer. Work only with people you trust.

7. Be careful of brokers in disguise. Some mask themselves as venture capitalists and yet have no money. What’s the problem? You think you’re working with an investor whose income is contingent upon the growth and success of the deal/business; in fact, you’re working with a commissioned salesperson who hasn’t invested a cent in the venture and only stands to gain as long as he links two parties.  The only way you may ever know is when the deal is being written up and you catch the fine-print line for commission to XYZ firm.

8. Use a VC’s leverage if the broker is unreasonable. One of our clients worked with a broker whose stubbornness kept on getting in the way of the deal. Everyone was giving in a little to make the package work. Our client told the VC he couldn’t afford the deal, because the broker was not participating in the concessions. The VC (with greater financial leverage) wanted the deal enough that he negotiated a compromise with the broker, and everyone was happy.

9. Lastly, brokers, like you, are looking out for their own pockets. To combat this, try to put more emphasis on bonuses based on the long-term viability of the funding and the growth of the business rather than solely on the introduction. Incentives encourage brokers to build the most potentially successful deals.

Most brokers are ethical. They don’t want to take you to the cleaners. Their future successes rest on their reputations for making good deals. But just in case you get a vulture, you now have ways to find out early and prevent yourself from getting in a jam. And as you probably know, always consult with your attorney when entering into a relationship with a broker or investor.

Acquiring capital to fund future projects is exciting and daunting. Although common sense will guide you to avoid pitfalls and seize opportunities, you won’t know everything about this area. Therefore, gaining outside help from experts in this area is wise no matter how many times you’ve done it. After all, you’re strongest doing what you do best: leading and managing your organization.

© David and Lorrie Goldsmith

9 Key Business Startup Success Principles

If you are in the early stages of starting up a business then you may be experiencing the internal ‘fear and doubt’ dialogue that can often take place in one’s mind. The following 9 Principles will help to release some of this tension…

1. Do What You Love

Ensure that you are in a business that interests you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to be in love with the product or service that you sell; however, you must enjoy aspects of the business otherwise you won’t be motivated to give it 100% of your focus. And it will need a lot of your focus and energy, especially in the early stages!

To help determine this point, you could ask yourself the following types of questions:

* What do you really like to do (in a business sense)?

* Are you an ideas or action type of person? Or a bit of both?

* In which 20% of your talents do 80% of your results come from?

* In other words, where do your key skills lie?

It really all boils down to one question though – what are you really passionate about?

2. Niche

Another critical point which goes a long way to determining business success is your Niche. Without exception, the majority of successful business owners I know can tell you in a couple of sentences exactly what it is they love to do and why it has made them wealthy.

Without a precise understanding of your Niche your chances for success are greatly diminished. After all, it’s very difficult to hit a target which doesn’t exist or to win a game when you don’t know what it (winning) is.

Ask yourself what you are trying to achieve in this business venture:

* Do you want to make quick cash?

* Do you want to develop and grow a sustainable business?

* Are you interested in high cash-flow or developing assets? Or both?

* Do you have BIG aspirations or are you just looking to develop a hobby for some part-time cash?

Keep in mind that your Niche can always be adapted down the track if your situation or the market changes.

3. Leverage

You need to become a master of Leverage. It is one of the most powerful principles in business. Everyone who is successful in business and life uses Leverage in some way.

To use the concept of Leverage you need to continually examine how you can access other people’s skill, resources and money more effectively. Furthermore, consider less obvious assets in business such as systems, marketing and time.

Leverage is about duplicating a high-value item or skill at a lower cost.

I will explore this topic in depth in future articles; however, at this point it is important to remember the following points:

* Focus on Money-Making activities

* Delegate to others as much as possible

By doing this you will see an immediate increase in your ability to work ‘on’ your business, rather than getting stuck ‘in’ the day to day running of it.

Lateral Thinking shares an implicit relationship with Leverage…

4. Lateral Thinking

This is the concept of looking at things from a different point of view. You can increase profits significantly by doing simple things to “Add Value” in ways that others are not.

In other words, continually look at your business and ask yourself questions such as:

* How can we do, what we do, better?
* What do our clients want that they are not getting currently?
* Could we use affiliate marketing to grow our business?
* Do we currently use the internet to effectively market our business?
* Could we join forces with another business to cross-promote our products?
* Could we use our knowledge to create another product?

What I am suggesting here is to take some time out to brainstorm ideas around your business. This is a difficult for most small business owners to achieve because they see this as wasted and unproductive time – nothing could be further from the truth…

Some of the most successful companies in the world allow themselves and their employees lateral thinking time – Google and 3M immediately come to mind. Many of Google’s most successful products have originated from this process.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you have to take 1 day a week (as Google does) to undertake this process – they have high operating margins and therefore significant leverage. However, I would encourage you to consider ‘opening you mind’ for at least couple of hours each week to explore further opportunities.

I am sure that you will find it a valuable and profitable experience if you stick to it!

5. Testing

If you can start your business with a clear idea of how you are going to monitor your systems, resources and assets then you will be well ahead of the pack. When most business owners are confronted with questions about their average transaction value, sales conversion ratios, enquiry and lead generation rates – they come up with varying excuses or reasons as to why they don’t know or have this vital information.

DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE!!

You need to be able to calculate your ROI (Return on Investment) for everything that you do on a regular basis.

To do this develop a set of KPI (Key Performance Indicators) that are appropriate for your business – don’t go overboard – just focus on the information that you need. Remember that 80% of your results come from 20% of your activities! The key is to discover the 20% and keep improving them…

The other benefit of testing is that it encourages us to recognise mistakes and move on – this is a vital part of the growth process. Without action, mistakes and growth we stagnate and/or wither at the vine!

6. Efficiency

Hard work doesn’t guarantee success or profits – look at how wealth is apportioned in the world and this soon becomes apparent – 80% of the wealth is controlled by less than 10% of the population.

Personally, it took a long time for this penny to drop! The first business I owned was really just a job in disguise. I was caught in a trap that confronts many small business owners – working IN the business, rather than ON the business.

This is a critical distinction…

If significant profits and growth are what you desire, then it is critical that you become efficient and develop systems that will allow your business to work for you and not the other way around.

There is one key concept to remember when implementing anything…

7. Lag

Lag is the concept that you ‘reap what you sew’. In other words, if you follow the principles suggested here and persist – you will succeed!

However, your business life is going to provide you with numerous challenges and obstacles to overcome. The biggest difference between successful people and the rest is that successful people look at upsets as a chance to grow and learn rather than as failure.

When confronted by a setback, rather than giving into fear and quitting you must continue to persist. Why? Because if your principles are sound, all you have to do is keep adjusting your methodology until you have a formula for success.

You will have a much greater chance of success in business if you keep the principle of Lag in the back of your mind, stay focused and never give up!

8. Timing

Timing is an essential aspect of business ownership. It also shares a close bond with decision-making and action-taking. If you continually use Lateral Thinking and Testing then you will certainly discover further opportunities. The key to successfully implementing and taking advantage of these opportunities is Timing.

As the old sayings go:

If you wait too long, you may miss the boat… (e.g. someone else capitalizes)

If you jump right in you may get your fingers burnt… (e.g. misjudged market enthusiasm)

You need to find a middle ground when it comes to Timing, because it is very difficult to time things perfectly. Combine focused analysis, gut feeling, enthusiasm and decision making together and you will be well on the way to mastering Timing and the next Principle…

9. Action

Successful business owners are Masters of Action. They know that Action always beats inaction. They understand that it is better to try, make a mistake, refine and re-implement than to do nothing at all. That’s because in business:

INACTION = A SLOW DEATH

Unsuccessful business owners are Masters of Excuses. Fear provides them with an endless stream of seemingly logical reasons why they shouldn’t act.

You need to make a decision right now – will you accept as doctrine your negative internal dialogue and the nay-sayers – or will you take chances and trust your experience?

I would suggest the latter…

To take Action, it is critical that you take responsibility for your situation. If you are not where you want to be, then justifying or laying blame on others will not solve the situation – it will just add fuel to your negative mindset.

A better way to respond is to focus on ‘the gap’ – the 20% of activities in your business (or life) that will take you from where you are to where you want to be. Goal setting is one of the best ways to define the ‘gap’ and taking Action is the best way to reduce it.

CONCLUSION: The most important Principle is that you should love what you do – passion and attitude will play a large part in defining your success in business. Therefore, ensure that you find a Niche that you are comfortable with. Apply the Principles outlined here, define your own rules and goals, and you will be well on the way to creating a successful and profitable business.

8 Tips To Create A Landing Page

Introduction

You need copy for your landing page but you’re not sure where to start. First let’s clarify what we mean by a landing page. A landing page can be a page that visitors come to after clicking on a promotional banner or link. Ultimately, the landing page must convince the visitor that they should stay on your site. You may also have a goal that you want accomplished, such as:

• Signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form
• Buying a product
• Reading informational pieces

What’s going to keep them there? The structure, the language, and the visual appeal all play a part of it. Check out these tips to create a great landing page, or reinvent the one you already have.

The structure

People arrive at your site looking for answers. They scan to see if they’re in the right place and assess whether it’s going to be a quick and easy visit or a long grinding one. Your landing page is the welcome wagon inviting them in and feeding them the information they need. The structure of the page will either pull them in and encourage them to fulfill your goal, or distract and cause them to cut out of there before getting the whole picture.

The structure of the landing page in general should be matching that of the banner, ad or link they clicked on to get them there. So for example, if your PPC Ad is targeting SEO articles, your landing page should discuss exactly that. If a Victoria Secret’s Ad for lingerie shows up and you click on it, you will be transferred to a landing page with the exact image and structure of the ad.

The visuals

• Copy placement – Strategic use of copy and graphics will catch the visitor’s attention. Don’t muck up the page with large, distracting graphics. Use plenty of whitespace and place your message in the central portion of the page rather than placing information down the sides, where the focus can be lost quickly. Keep the copy short. The visitor expects a precise message, so don’t choke it up with tons of mindless prose.

• Beauty is in the eye –Use a consistent color palate. If you have advertising or banners that link visitors to your website, make sure the concept and color scheme match across the board. It’s also a great visual indicator for the visitor because they can easily identify that they’re still in the right place.

• Simplify – Remove any distracting elements like advertising banners, links, or additional blocks of information from the page and get down to the specific message.

The goal

Before you design the landing page, decide what the goal of the page will be. If you’re looking for newsletter subscribers, the goal will be to have the visitor enter their information and become a member of your mailing list.

Be a sleuth

Do your research. Keep your visitors in mind when building your landing page and tailor it to suit their needs. By narrowing your options and focusing on your visitor, you’ll stay on target.

Keep your focus

Keep the focus on you. You’ve dangled a large poster board over their head and pulled them in. Now that you’ve got them, don’t give your visitors a reason to wander.

Use a call to action

A call to action, such as ‘subscribe now’ or ‘get this offer’ reminds the visitor why they are on your website. Place them toward the top of your page. For uses that want to click, it allows them to find it easily. For those who are still deciding, it’s a great reminder.

Many sites place the consultation form or contact form directly on the landing page, which may not be such a bad idea. Again, you need glaring calls to action. Don’t add several useless links on the page that will take the visitor back to your main site; rather include the links that will get them to actually purchase your product/service.

Write like a pro

No, you don’t have to hire one to look like one. What’s the best way to come off like a professional? Create landing pages with no grammatical or spelling errors. I recently hit a website offering ‘discount holideys.’ As I clicked out of there, I pictured the four-star flea-bag motel by the swampland I might have booked if I stayed.

Reassure

People get leery when they’re asked for their personal data. If you’re asking for personal information, make sure you have a credible privacy policy to back you up.

8 Steps To Link Love

What do you do now that you have built your website and optimized each of the pages for the search engines, but still are not getting the traffic you desire?  You answer probably lies in your link building strategy or lack thereof.

Here are vital steps to generate a great link building campaign.

1.  Submit your website to quality web directories.  Links from quality, authority web directories can give you inbound links and traffic.  There are many directories to choose from, but to get the best results you should concentrate on those quality directories with authority.

2.  Make a plan and designate time for link building.  Plan an hour or two into your schedule every day for link building until it becomes a routine, or you could also designate one day per week as your link building day.

3.  Carefully choose the websites that you link to as search engines take relevancy into account.  If a website is not relevant in some way to yours, you may want to avoid linking to it.  If you link to bad domains you may get penalized by the search engines.

4.  Find websites that are related to your niche and develop relationships with the webmaster.  Send them an email to introduce yourself and make sure they know you are a real person and not automated software.  Let them know about your website and what you are hoping to accomplish.

5.  Prepare the linking code to your website and give it out.  When you do find someone wanting to link to you make it easy for them to do so.  This way also enables you to choose the pages on your site that you want to gain additional links to.

6.  Many websites may be willing to link to yours if you have something to offer them so learn how to trade.  Maybe you can add a link to their website in exchange or swap an article.  Offer to promote their website on a forum you are a member of.  Any of these may work, but it should be customized to what you can offer of value.

7.  Write articles and submit them to article directories.  This can be a form of viral link building if your article is good enough as it is published with a link to your website in the resource box.  Any other website that republishes your article must keep the link intact.

8.  Offer a valuable tool, resource or information on your website as link bait.  It would need to be something of value to your niche market that others would want to refer and link there.

If you would like to learn more ways to generate links and build a high traffic website, there are more articles published at the Authority Directory.

8 Delegation Tips To Blast Through Barriers

Essential to the achievement of delegation is the advancement of employees’ self- esteem. The exercise of self-esteem as a motivator is a current phenomenon. In the 1930s the issue was immaterial. Back then, the concerns were money, security and survival – the very things that were in meagre supply. New distinct improvements in the satisfaction of these survival needs have begot a whole new set of drives. Employees have begun to carp about a lack of dignity and respect. With escalating turnover tolls, absenteeism and other forms of alienation and frustration, managers can no longer uphold that workers only care about taking home a paycheck.

1. Delegation empowers subordinates in the organization to grow and thereby compels you to strive for even higher in management. It afford you with more time to take on higher-priority projects.

2. Discover the talents and interests of your people thereby enabling you to delegate more wisely and effectively.

3. Never underrate a person’s capability. Delegate a bit more than what you think the person is adept at handling. Imagine them to succeed, and you will be astounded more often than not.

4. Plainly define what outcome is required, then let individuals exercise their own clever thinking to determine how to reach that objective.

5. Visibly define the bounds of authority that go with the delegated task. Can the person task other people to work with them? What are the spending limitations?

6. Do not avoid delegating something because you cannot give someone the entire project. Let the person begin with bite-sized tasks. After learning and doing that portion, they can take on larger pieces and areas of responsibility.

7. Unambiguous standards of performance will aid the person know when he is doing exactly what is expected.

8. Delegation entails accepting that the other person might make a mistake. People learn from mistakes and will be able to do subsequent projects correctly. Consider where would you be if no one had ever taken a chance on you?

Management consultants and behaviorists have shown that a salary increase is not necessarily the definitive motivator. Unless you cannot survive on your present salary, more money is often a poor incentive. In addition to earning, most people work every day to satisfy their need for challenge and predictability in their lives. Look at the army of tycoons who continue to slave every day. Precisely because their basic needs are being met, modern workers never automatically accept authoritarian and debasing styles of management.

7 Ways To Stay Motivated For The Long Haul

Staying motivated for the long haul is both challenging and necessary. We live in a fast-paced society where instant gratification is the norm. We may discover that we need skills and attributes to help us stay positive and on course as we deal with the ups and downs of business. We come to learn that growing a business is a process that requires patience, flexibility, trust, and the ability to deal with uncertainty, among other things.

It is important to note that we can learn new skills and attributes to help us in our business. Entrepreneurship is no longer something someone is just “born to do” instead it is something we learn. Through practice and patience, we have the ability to change what is not working and enhance what is working so that we can successfully grow our business.

Below are 7 ways to stay motivated for the long haul:

Make/Renew your Commitment – Being committed to one’s business venture is essential to staying motivated for the long haul. When we make a commitment to ourselves and our business, we are able to move beyond fears, doubts and insecurities that in the past may have held us back. I know this to be true because I experienced it. I didn’t make a commitment to my business until I was in business for almost three years. I would fluctuate in my commitment depending upon the circumstances. When things were going good, I was committed, when they weren’t, I thought about giving up. It wasn’t until I made a written and verbal commitment to myself that I was going to give this business my all, no matter what, that I began to reap the benefits of being an entrepreneur. What I learned is that when we are most challenged is when we need to be committed the most.

Be Agile/Flexible – Combined with being committed is being agile and flexible. Bill Rancic, winner of The Apprentice reality-tv series was recently a guest on my radio show, The Entrepreneur Hour. He said, “having a business plan is important but being flexible with the plan is more important.” Bill completely revamped his marketing strategy for his cigarsaroundtheworld.com business when his original business strategy wasn’t working. He shared about how we need to leave our egos at the door and just do what needs to be done.

Develop a support network – A support network includes friends, colleagues and family who celebrate our successes and help us through our challenging times. While it is easy to call a support person to celebrate a success, it can be difficult to call and ask for help or express a difficulty. It’s at the moment when we reach out and share our challenges, or ask for help that we begin to experience relief from the problem or challenge, see solutions and recognize the value of the people who support us. The support we receive is as strong as our ability to share the good times and bad.

Stay Balanced – When we are balanced within ourselves by getting enough rest, having healthy eating habits and taking take our spiritual needs, we are better able to cope with challenges. If you find yourself becoming irritable, impatient or the like, check first within your being – mind, body and spirit to see is you are in balance. We are always better able to cope and stay motivated when we take care of our human needs.

Be Realistic –Being realistic means that we know and expect ups and downs while growing and operating our business. These ups and downs may include anything from success to disaster. Our opportunity in being realistic is to know and believe that we have the skills within us to deal with any situation, regardless of the circumstances.

Choose a positive attitude – Having a positive attitude is a choice we can make at any moment of any day. We might be dealing with a difficult situation and while our natural tendency is to feel negative, we can choose to be positive. A positive outlook and attitude is a necessity in staying motivated for the long haul.

Stay Present – When we stay present to our business and to ourselves, we stay out of fear and worry. Staying present means that we “stay in the day” in our minds. We do this by not projecting our fears into the future or worrying about something that may or may not happen. Just like worry is a habit, we can develop the habit of staying present and being free from worry. Sometimes it helps to remind ourselves that all is okay for today.

Staying motivated for the long haul is a one day at a time journey. Enjoy the ride!

7 Unusal Online Business Ideas

So you want to start an online business. You have surfed the web, read some blogs and have found that lots of people are making some decent mullah. But you are frustrated due to the lack of any new idea. Don’t worry. There are still many ideas that you can implement using a little money, lots of efforts, and some persistency.

1. Think about your hobby. What you would like to do in your spare time? May be you like to go hunting, or scuba diving. May be you want to make dolls. List some of the annoyances and inconveniences you encounter while pursuing your hobby. Search in Google to find solutions to your problems and then write a small e-book. Sell the e-book using clickbank dot com.

2. If you are an artist, crafter, or designer, check out etsy dot com. You create your own shop by signing up for free. Listing an item with photos cost 0.20 cents. The selling fee is 3.5% of the final sale price. You can accept payment through PayPal.

3. Start a blog. But don’t start a blog on making money. Find your niche and sign up for free at Blogger to create your blog. You need to select a name for your blog. Select the name of your blog carefully. Write down half a dozen names that tell something about your blog topic. Check out those names using the overture keyword selector tool for search popularity. Use a name that people search at least more than a thousand times every month.

4. If you decide to use the number 3 (starting a blog) method to generate incomes, sign up with ReviewMe, PayPerPost, and Chitika for writing paid reviews of other companys’ products and services. This will supplement your Google’s Adsense incomes.

5. If you are good at computer programming, write a simple online tool, e.g calculating carbon foot print of your visitors, or total body fat. You get the idea. The program should be simple to use and easy to develop. Build a website around your tool and sign up with affiliate programs for revenue generation.

6. If you frequently go on short trips or vacation, buy a good but small and high resolutions digital camera for easy carrying with you all the time. Take at least 200 pictures on each trip and put them for sale on shutterpoint dot com. There are a few other websites where you can put your photos for sale. Check them out by doing a Google search.

7. Participate in paid survey.But don’t pay to join any program for paid survey. Use Google to search for paid survey and visit a dozen paid survey websites. Review their offerings and write those down. Now search webmaster forum in Google and then sign up in a couple of webmaster forums. Ask about others experiences with paid survey companies and pick a good one.

Now you have these seven unusual ways to make money online. You will not make a ton of money overnight. But once you gain experiences in online money making opportunities, you will explore other methods to earn big bucks.

7 Types Of Sales Letters You Can Use To Improve Profit Margins

While the main objective for sales letters does not change at all – and that’s to encourage customers to avail of your products and services – there are different types of approaches you can use to make them more effective.

7 Types of Sales Letter You Can Use to Improve Profit Margins

Introductory Sales Letters – This is perhaps the most discussed about type of sales letter in the Internet. This type of sales letter introduces your company to prospective customers. Readers may or may not know about you, but either way, they’re sure not to have bought from you, and your sales letter should tell them why it’s time to change that fact. When writing this letter, keep it as brief as possible because they don’t know you well enough to believe that reading more than one page of your letter would do them any good.

Product Update Sales Letters – This is mainly for old and existing sales customers. The primary thrust of this letter is to let them know about your latest product offerings and how they compare to previous items in your product line. Usually, sales letters of this ilk offer incentives as well for customers to buy during the promotional period. Make sure you include details about the expiration date for the promo period as well as information for ordering just in case they’ve forgotten how already.

Selling Incentive Sales Letters – This type of sales letter is also for old and existing customers. Although you’re not offering them anything new to buy, you’re offering them the chance to purchase old or existing products and services for lower or better rates. There could be discounts, rebates, or other selling incentives. It could be a contest or any other promotion to encourage them to buy more and buy now.

When writing this type of letter, it’s important to make the incentive as exciting and attractive as possible. Secondly, emphasize the urgency. Selling incentives last for a brief period of time – it has to or you might go bankrupt – so make sure they understand that the clock’s ticking away!

Thank You Sales Letters – If it’s the first time for any individual to avail of your products and services, always send them a thank you letter right after completing their purchases. You don’t have to do it and they know it. But you did it all the same and customers will always appreciate your efforts. It will also make them remember your website more easily. At the end of your letter, of course, make sure that you mention what other great products and services are awaiting them in your website upon their return.

Holiday Sales Letters – Never let any important holiday in the year pass by without writing to your customers. Write to them one or two weeks before the holiday. Write the appropriate greetings then segue with explanations as to why your products or services could be a perfect gift for the celebrated holiday. If you have holiday promotional offers you definitely have to mention them in this letter.

Company Celebration Sales Letters – These sales letters establish the fact that you think of your customers as part of your family, and that’s why you include them in your celebrations. If this year marks the 60th year you are in business then make sure that you let your customers know this. Acknowledge the role they’ve played in your success and of course don’t forget to end the letter with an invitation to drop by your website in order to build stronger and longer lasting bonds. These letters also apply for any achievement, award, or recognition that has been bequeathed to your company.

We Miss You Sales Letters – Your customer or order tracking software can usually alert you when a long period of time has elapsed since certain customers have dropped by or purchased from your website. Make sure to send them “we miss you” sales letters to these customers as well as customized information regarding your newest products and services that you’re sure they’ll welcome based on data from their previous orders.

These may take time to write, but it’s an effort well-spent because it ensures that your customers will remember you – even when though much time has passed since their last visit – simply because you took the time to remember them as well.

7 Tips For Getting Listed In Search Engines

Getting listed in search engines is very important for internet marketers. A high search engine ranking for your website is critical if you want to generatel your own leads that will convert into signups and sales. This article discusses the keys to getting listed in search engines.

The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

1. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your home page’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your business name.

2. Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keyword. It is usually best to keep them to six words or less.

3. Your website content also plays a crucial role in getting listed in search engines. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content The text on your site must contain the most important keywords, the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.

4. Each page on your site should contain around 250 words, but if this is not desirable due to your design, shoot for at least 100 carefully chosen words. This text is essential to achieve a high page ranking.

5. To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you can to do this, the text is HTML.

6. Next are what is called meta tags. These are just simple code. They only have a small effect in getting listed in search engines.

7. Finally, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is very important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site.

Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing.

To check your link popularity, an easy and free tool to try is http://www.linkpopularity.com/

Getting listed in search engines is not all that difficult when you follow a few simple methods and use a system that creates quality links.

7 Tips For A More Spacious Home Office

The majority of entrepreneurs that work from home can remember the days when their home office was brand new. It all looked so professional with the newly bought equipment and furniture. There was very little clutter or mess. Several months later, we look around to find areas crowded with stacks of papers, disks and files from our daily work; it doesn’t look so tidy or professional anymore.

To work properly it’s not only important to have your office organized but also to have plenty of space in the office itself. Having room to work will help keep you motivated and inspired to complete your daily tasks. It helps you stay focused on what you’re doing instead of becoming annoyed at all the clutter around you. Here’s a few tips to keep your home office spacious and functional.

1. Get rid of all the clutter. Anything that doesn’t serve a purpose or is required for your day-to-day work has to go. Old memos or drafts of work past their sell by date? Get rid of them. Any paperwork that’s not needed gets sent to recycling. Simple.

2. Mounted cabinets are a great way to tidily store office items. A medium or large sized cabinet will hold more stuff and keep papers from piling up into small mountains on the floor and your desk. Having them wall mounted means your floorspace isn’t eaten up by yet more office furniture.

3. Non-work items. Look at your desk. How many of those items are actually required for your work and how many are just useless accessories that got left there over time? Get rid of the items that don’t serve a purpose.

4. Your desk shape plays a huge part here. Having a desk in the shape or a U or L will give you more room because you can sit “into” the shape of the desk giving you more room than you might imagine. Use the small drawers of the desk to store additional office supplies like pens, staplers, stamps and so forth.

5. Tidy up the wiring. If you’re using a computer and a phone there’s going to be wires hanging all over the place behind or underneath your desk. Not only does this look bad but it can be dangerous – people can trip over these things. My dog loves getting herself caught up in any loose wiring and trying to drag computer equipment off my desk.

6. How much light is in the room is also important. Good lighting will make any office appear more spacious. Always let in as much natural light as possible. In the evenings have plenty of floor or desk lamps to make sure you’re not sitting in the almost black of night while you’re trying to work.

7. Shelving can also be very handy. One or two large shelves in your home office will give you space for printers, fax machines and files. I personally keep my printer on a shelf away from the desk. Why? Because it eats up too much space and I can still reach it from where I sit.

Using any of the above tips will give you more space in your home office. That space allows you to mentally and physically breathe in that room and get the most out of each working day. You owe it to yourself and your business to do this.