At start-ups, founders often wear many hats, including that of a PR manager. The good news is that reporters and bloggers are more likely to listen to a pitch from a company founder than a PR rep. “It means something when you tell somebody, ‘I invented this product,’ ” says Leslie Haywood, founder of Charmed Life Products, a Charleston, South Carolina, maker of grilling accessories. “They want to hear your story.” By managing her own PR, Haywood has received mentions in more than 50 media outlets and appeared on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and on ABC’s Shark Tank. As she can attest, wooing the media doesn’t require a lot of money or connections, but it does take some effort. Here are some tips for handling your own PR.

1. Start small
2. Create a press list
3. Follow reporters
4. Be current
5. Look for ways to stand out
6. Follow up — but not too much
7. Don’t forget bloggers
8. Get on YouTube
9. Keep your cool
10. Show off your clips

By April Joyner
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100501/how-to-manage-your-own-pr.html

How to Manage Your Own PR is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him.

Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?

Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!

When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece.

I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

• The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.
• List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?
• List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?

Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

Do Your Potential Customers Forget About You? is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Think of banner ads as the spice in your affiliate diet. Sprinkle them around, but for a heartier helping of sales, you’ll need something more solid! Learn to give your visitors longer, more descriptive pre-sales text. Revamp your affiliate advertising using these simple steps:

1. Pull the Reader in
2. Introduce the Product
3. Explain the Product’s Significance
4. Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase

Pull the Reader in

To convince your audience that your text is worth reading, make your first sentence or two very interesting. Make a bold statement, say something seemingly ridiculous, or appeal to your prospect’s emotional side. Then, tie this grabber in with the rest of your copy.
Introduce the Product

What is the product you’re advertising? What does it do? Directly after your grabber, give a compact explanation of your product. Keep this explanation short, while still being very clear. This should still be a very short section of your text.

Explain the Product’s Significance

What will it do for me?

By writing your own copy, you can directly target your unique audience. Make the most of this opportunity! Clearly explain how your readers will benefit from this product.

No one knows your audience like you do. Suggest a variety of product uses just for them, and give examples. This is the time for details – make this section long and rich.

Tell the Reader to Make a Purchase

You’ve come so far – you’ve laid out exactly what the product is and how it will help your unique audience. Now, seal the deal – tell your readers to purchase the product! Include your affiliate link in this section.

This step may sound strange, but it’s necessary. Often, people hear about a product and are genuinely interested, but fail to actually make a purchase. A clear call to a simple action cuts down on buyer ambivalence. Don’t be pushy – just change your verb tenses to the imperative. Instead of:

“If you think that you fit this profile, you might want to think about buying this product.”

Say: “Click here to order an account today.”

Drive Sales – Use Long Copy

If you don’t feel ready to write long copy yourself, ask your affiliate program manager for help! Many companies release well-written articles by respected authors that you can reprint free of charge.

The novelty of the Web is wearing off. People online now are busy. Surfers won’t make a purchase unless you make a great case for what they’ll get out of it. And you’re not going to do that with just a banner ad.

Meat and Potatoes for Your Affiliate Diet is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to subscriber inboxes is an increasingly difficult battle in the age of spam filtering. Open and click thru response rates can be dramatically affected by as much as 20-30% due to incorrect spam filter classification.

Permission

Confirming that the people who ask for your information have actually requested to be on your list is the number one step in the battle for deliverability. You should be using a process called confirmed opt-in or verified opt-in to send a unique link to the attempted subscriber when they request information. Before adding the person to your list they must click that unique link verifying that they are indeed the same person that owns the email address and requested to subscribe.

Subscriber Addresses

When requesting website visitors to opt-in ask for their “real” or “primary” email address instead of a free email address like Yahoo or Hotmail. Free emails tend to be throw away accounts and typically have a shorter lifetime than a primary ISP address.

List Maintenance

Always promptly remove undeliverable addresses that bounce when sending email to them. An address that bounces with a permanent error 2-3 times in a 30 day period should be removed from the list. ISP’s track what percentage of your newsletters bounce and will block them if you attempt to continually deliver messages to closed subscriber mailboxes.

Message Format

Usage of HTML messages to allow for text formatting, multiple columns, images, and brand recognition is growing in popularity and is widely supported by most email client software. Most spam is also HTML formatted and thus differentiating between requested email and spam HTML messages can be difficult. A 2004 study by AWeber .com shows that plain text messages are undeliverable 1.15% of the time and HTML only messages were undeliverable 2.3%. If sending HTML it is important to always send a plain text alternative message, also called text/HTML multi-part mime format.

Content

Many ISP’s filter based on the content that appears within the message text.

Website URL:
Research potential newsletter advertisers before allowing them to place ads in your newsletter issues. If they have used their website URL to send spam, just having their URL appear in your newsletter could cause the entire message to be filtered.

Words/phrases:
Choose your language carefully when crafting messages. Avoid hot button topics often found in spam such as medication, mortgages, making money, and pornography. If you do need to use words that might be filtered, don’t attempt to obfuscate words with extra characters or odd spelling, you’ll just make your messages appear more spam like.

Images:
Avoid creating messages that are entirely images. Use images sparingly, if at all. Commonly used open rate tracking technology uses images to calculate opens. You may choose to disable open rate tracking to avoid being filtered based on image content.

Attachments:
With viruses running rampant and spreading thru the usage of malicious email attachments many users are wary of attached documents. It’s often better to link to files via a website URL to reduce recipient fear of attachments and reduce the overall message size.

CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance. The two most important rules include having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.
Reputation

Reputation services are often used by large ISP’s as a way to vet email senders regarding their email practices and policies. Businesses listed with these services are then given less stringent filtering or no filtering at all. Several reputation services are:

• http://www.isipp.com/iadb.php
• http://www.bondedsender.com
• http://www.habeas.com

Relationships & Whitelisting

Contact with major ISP’s and email providers is essential in letting them know about your requested subscriber email. Many large providers such as AOL and Yahoo have specific whitelisting programs and postmaster website areas to ensure your email is delivered as long as you meet their policies and procedures in handling your opt-in list.

Email deliverability is about ensuring requested opt-in email is delivered to the intended recipient. While no single tip will enable you to get 100% of your email delivered each one utilized as a group can go a long way to reaching that goal.

Email Deliverability Tips is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Barbara Corcoran
Founder, the Corcoran Group, one of Manhattan’s leading real estate firms
Bad times are the best times to move your business forward, especially if you are a small business. The big guys are back on their haunches, waiting things out. If you are willing to stick your neck out, this is when your energy and creativity can outmaneuver the big companies. This is your opportunity.

Robert Shiller
Yale economist who correctly called the bubbles in real estate and tech stocks
People in America invest mostly in America, but if you were on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you wouldn’t have all your investments here. You would think, “Maybe there are other opportunities on the other side of the world.”

Joline Godfrey
CEO of Independent Means, which teaches financial literacy to families and children
Raise your children to make a job, not just take a job. If they don’t know how to create a plan, they’ll always be beholden to someone else.

Burton Malkiel
Author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” which showed the folly of trying to beat the market
Best advice I can give: The first section of my new book with Charlie Ellis, “The Elements of Investing,” is titled “It All Starts With Saving.” If you don’t put money aside now, you won’t have money later on.

Lynn Truong
Co-founder, Wise Bread personal-finance blog
Good money management is a lifestyle. If you surround yourself with people who share the same values, you’re more likely to stay on track.

Jack Bogle
Vanguard Group founder, who popularized investing through index funds
Best advice I can give: There is much that is worrisome in our economy. That’s why your bond position should be commensurate with your age. In my case that means I have more than 80% in bonds. Someone in their fifties should consider 50%.

The value of the bond position is not just that it provides you some protection in a down market — it does, of course. But its value is that it keeps you from making behavioral errors such as selling stocks during a panic.

Liz Ann Sonders
Chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab; chairs the firm’s investment strategy council
One thing I see with our clients and individual investors is an aversion to risk, and a favoring of fixed-income funds and Treasuries. In the past 20 years, we’ve been in an environment that’s been good to bonds relative to stocks. But it’s rare for that to happen over an extended period — and the last two times it happened, the subsequent five-year period favored stocks.

Barry Ritholtz
CEO of FusionIQ and author of “Bailout Nation,” which lays out the roots of the credit crisis
Best advice I can give: Always remember that price is the most important aspect of an investment. Today we keep hearing people talk about “toxic paper” on bank balance sheets. Well, it’s toxic to the banks because they paid 100¢ on the dollar for it. To somebody who gets to buy it at 30¢ or 40¢ on the dollar, it’s not toxic at all. So there is no such thing as a toxic asset. There’s no such thing as a damaged property. There is only a bad price.

Bill Gross
Managing director of Pimco and the world’s most influential bond fund manager
Best advice I can give: Most of Wall Street is focused on next month’s numbers, but by taking a long-term view on economic statistics and investment fundamentals, you stand a better chance of not getting whipsawed by the volatile economy.

Maria Bartiromo
Anchor of CNBC’s Closing Bell and author of “The 10 Laws of Enduring Success”
Best advice I can give: Darwin said it: You need to be adaptable. As it relates to your portfolio, if you regularly put money into your 401(k) or invest in mutual funds, you might have to change your strategy as the economic times change around you.

Mark Cuban
Owner of the Dallas Mavericks; sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo just before the tech bust
Best advice I can give: Unless you think you’ve done more research and have better insight on a stock than a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, why are you trading?

Liz Claman
Fox Business Network anchor and author of “The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received”
Best advice I can give: We all have to learn from our mistakes of overleveraging ourselves and acting like 5-year-olds — “I want four cookies.” You don’t need four cookies; you only need one. It’s not about what you want, it’s about what you need.

Best Money Tips Ever is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Warren Buffett
Millions of people read Buffett’s books and follow his firm, Berkshire Hathaway’s, every move. But the real secret to Buffett’s personal fortune may be his penchant for frugality. Buffett, who is worth an estimated $47 billion, eschews opulent homes and luxury items. He and his wife still live in their modest home in Omaha, Nebraska which they purchased for just $31,500 more than 50 years ago. Although he’s dined in the best restaurants around the globe, given the choice he would opt for a good burger and fries accompanied by a cold cherry Coke. When asked why he doesn’t own a yacht he responded “Most toys are just a pain in the neck.”

Carlos Slim
While most of the world is very familiar with Bill Gates, the name Carlos Slim rarely rings a bell. But it’s a name worth knowing. Slim, who is a native of Mexico, was just named the world’s richest billionaire – that’s right, richer than the uber-famous Microsoft founder. Slim is worth more than $53 billion and while he could afford the world’s most extravagant luxuries he rarely indulges. He, like Buffett, doesn’t own a yacht or plane and he has lived in the same home for over 40 years.

Ingvar Kamprad
The founder of the Swedish furniture phenomenon Ikea struck success with affordable, assemble-it-yourself furniture. For Kamprad, figuring out how to save money isn’t just for his customers, it’s a high personal value. He’s been quoted as saying “Ikea people do not drive flashy cars or stay at luxury hotels.” That goes for the founder as well. He flies coach for business and when he needs to get around town locally he either takes the bus or will head out in his 15-year-old Volvo 240 GL.

Chuck Feeney
Growing up in the wake of The Depression as an Irish-American probably has something to do with Feeney’s frugality. With a personal motto of “I set out to work hard, not get rich,” the co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers has quietly become a billionaire but even more secretively given almost all of it away through his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies. In addition to giving more than $600 million to his alma mater Cornell University, he has given billions to schools, research departments and hospitals.

Loath to spend if he doesn’t have to, Feeney beats both Buffett and Kamprad in the donation category, giving out less grants than only Ford and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundations. A frequent user of public transportation, Mr. Feeney flies economy class, buys clothes from retail stores, and does not wast money on an extensive shoes closet, stating “you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time“. He raised his children in the same way; making them work the same normal summer jobs as most teens.

Frederik Meijer
If you live in the Midwest chances are good that you shop at Meijer’s chain of grocery stores. Meijer is worth more than $5 billion and nearly half of that was amassed when everyone else was watching their net worth drop in 2009. Like Buffett he buys reasonably-priced cars and drives them until they die, and like Kamprad he chooses affordable motels when on travel for work.

The dirty little secret of some of the world’s wealthiest people is that they rarely act like it. Instead of over-the-top spending, they’re busy figuring out how to save and invest to have that much more in the future. It’s a habit you might want to consider in order to build up your own little storehouse of cash.

investopedia.com

5 Billionaires Who Live Below Their Means is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

A private-label ice cream manufacturer on the Texas Riviera—Lucky Licks—had a solid few years of sales, but its profits are rapidly melting away. The $5 million business is no Ben & Jerry’s, and the owners, a married couple named Jack and Jessie, are cash broke.

When the couple started the business more than 10 years ago it was their dream to sell a homemade product they loved and believed in. That enthusiastic approach is a good start for any company, but it has nothing to do with whether a business fails or succeeds. That’s a mistake thousands of business owners make: They think having a passion or a dream is the only recipe for success. But they’re missing key ingredients, like financial controls and a disciplined plan for profit.

Because Lucky Licks’ product is good, sales are good. The husband-and-wife team are meticulous when it comes to quality control. They take pride in what they do every step of the way, from using the finest ingredients to making sure the product is fresh. Although their top-line sales are in the millions, they are still losing money. Why? Because they didn’t want to face the day-to-day financial realities that go into making a profit.

Complete article on businessweek.com

Denial About Financials Leads to Failure is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

reliable-web-hostings.com

As an undergraduate at Cornell University, Lyle Small annoyed his housemates by spending days on end painting their Ping-Pong table in rainbow shades of ink. He brewed chemicals to create inks that changed hue when exposed to light and heat.

“I got obsessed,” says Small, now 41. “I thought all printing inks should change color.”

Two decades later his passion is paying dividends. Small’s Colorado Springs company, Chromatic Technologies Inc. (CTI), is booming while rivals in the ink industry are cutting back. Music distributors, foodmakers and the beer giant MillerCoors are using Small’s color-changing ink to make their packaging stand out. CTI landed 120 new customers in 2008. Small expects sales to double this year, to $10 million.

Thanks to CTI’s ink, the mountains on Coors Light cans turn blue when the beer reaches optimal drinking temperature (roughly 43°-50°F). Coors (TAP, Fortune 500) already used color-changing ink on paper labels for bottles, but the brewer had struggled to find a contractor that could create the same effect on cans. “CTI is the only one that delivered,” says Ray Toms, a MillerCoors scientist who worked on the project. MillerCoors signed a two-year contract to buy all of its ink for cans from CTI. The beer company will account for 40% of Small’s revenue this year.

The deal took persistence. When CTI first approached Coors in 2001, Small couldn’t guarantee that the ink would work in high-volume production. Coors printed 20 million cans of Coors Light every day; any downtime would be costly. So Small arranged painstaking tests in canning factories in eight countries. Three years later he was ready to ink a deal.

The brewer’s faith has paid off. Amid flat beer industry sales, Coors Light saw 3% growth this year. The color-changing artwork is prominently featured in the company’s TV ads.

cnn.com

Behind Coors’ color-changing beer cans is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

reliable-web-hostings.com

The new symbols, called GS1 DataBars, can store more data than traditional bar codes, promising new ways for stores to monitor inventory and for customers to save money.

One use of the symbols will be in sophisticated coupon offers that combine deals on multiple products, said Jackie Broberg, who leads coupon control management at General Mills in Minneapolis. A single coupon, for example, could offer discounts on three separate items like eggs, bacon and biscuits, all in one transaction.

The next use of DataBars at the supermarket will probably be for goods bought at the delicatessen counter, and for fresh meats and poultry, said Stephen Arens, director, industry development, at GS1 US in Lawrenceville, N.J. GS1 US is the trade organization working to move the DataBar standard forward in the United States. A poultry DataBar, for example, might contain not only the price and product category, but also a sell-by date. If a consumer chose an outdated package, the label would alert the cashier at checkout.

In the future, coupon bar codes will probably be read less from strips of paper, and more from cellphones that people hold out for scanning by the cashier.

Samplesaint Inc., a mobile marketing company in Chicago, for example, has developed technology that lets supermarket scanners pick up the image of a coupon bar code directly from the display on a cellphone. In Samplesaint’s system, coupons are sent directly to consumers’ cellphones by text message. The coupon’s bar code is small enough to fit on the screen of any mobile phone, said Walid Johnson, director of research and development.

nytimes.com

The Bar Code Is Taking a Leap Forward is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The James Dyson Awards, a sprawling event that garners thousands of entries from design students the world over, is a pretty phenomenal wellspring of ideas–the short list runs into the hundreds. Treehugger points us to one concept we hadn’t seen: A collapsible milk jug that makes the milk last longer.

The designer–who has to remain anonymous for now, since the contest isn’t over–points out that plastic milk jugs basically foment milk spoilage, because they trap air in the container. And that’s what the concept, Fresh, fixes. As the milk level gets lower, you collapse the container bit by bit, to prevent undue air exposure. The designer claims that experiments show that the milk lasts a week longer as a result.

A product like this could be a huge boon to other countries: To save plastic, Canada and parts of Europe require offer milk sold in plastic bags, which the users take home dump into permanent containers. And that, apparently, makes the milk go bad even faster than it would in a plastic container.

fastcompany.com

Collapsable Milk Jug Makes Milk Last Longer is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

reliable-web-hostings.com

Eleven-year-old Levi Stinson is Shallowater’s youngest entrepreneur. He sells flavored ice treats in the summer, and he works just about every day from noon until 4 p.m. His business is in Shallowater, and it’s called Shallow-Ice.

Stinson says he makes a profit, “Sometimes I make $60 a day, sometimes $30.”

newschannel10.com

11-year-old entrepreneur uses his business skills in Shallowater is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The shiitake mushroom wasn’t grown in the U.S. until the late 1970′s. Before that they were imported as dehydrated mushrooms from China. But we found out some people in the Chippewa Valley are now making money, by growing their own shiitake mushrooms.

Deidra Barrickman has been growing the full flavored mushroom for 12 years on a small plot of land east of Eau Claire. She says what started out as a hobby — has grown into much more.

She says her patch has grown over the years, “This is probably around 800 or 900 logs we have now.”

The process starts in the winter when new logs used to grow the mushrooms are cut down. Then several dozen holes are drilled in the logs and shiitake spores are injected. She says, “As you can see, they’re kind of labor intensive.”

After that she says the logs have to stay well hydrated throughout the summer — creating a mini tropical forest. She says, “The shiitake is native to the jungles of Asia. So they do like heat and humidity — when we like being in the air conditioning — they’re growing fast.”

The more hot and humid it is — the more mushrooms Deidra can sell at the farmers market. She says last week she sold between 35 and 40 pounds at $10 per pound.

weau.com

What it takes to make money, growing mushrooms is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Four years after the more than 50 levees and floodwalls gave way during Hurricane Katrina, business owners are rebuilding New Orleans’ economic lifelines in a spirited environment flowing with creativity, community, mentorship and collaboration. Dozens of support organizations and incentives are contributing to the uprising with evidence of real results: The April unemployment rate for the New Orleans metro area was 5.3 percent, compared to the nation’s 8.9 percent.

“While known for its creative roots, New Orleans is fast becoming a business mecca as well, drawing innovative companies in everything from digital media to film, fashion, technology and more to find their place in the city,” says Amy Cosper, VP/Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur. “Business owners are brimming with invention and entrepreneurial energy after the clearing away of previously embedded industry and practices.”

To watch a video with local business owners discussing how entrepreneurs are leading the economic recovery, visit www.entrepreneur.com/neworleans.

prnewswire.com

New Entrepreneurial Culture Taking Hold in New Orleans is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Give them plenty of advice, direction and support.
While they are still in their learning phase, it is important to ensure they are given constructive criticism to help them fulfill tasks in the future to a better quality, but praise is also very important to maintain self-esteem and boost confidence levels. With this, give extra, specific and almost gratuitous details of the task in hand but without sounding patronising.

Have a read up on Herzberg’s two-factor/hygiene theory and put yourself in the mindset of the new employee.

Read all five here.

Five things for employers to consider when hiring students is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

For frequent users of social networking sites, finding a FaceBook unblock services can be truly valuable. The growth of the internet has lead many companies and schools to install internet filtering software that can prevent many web surfers from gaining access to desired websites.

While users of social networking sites may find themselves frustrated at looking at a “blocked website” message on their computer screen, there are ways to bypass filtering software. Proxy services are the way to work around filtering software. Proxy services work by allowing members to sign up for a membership that provides access to a proxy server. The proxy server site is not recognized as a dangerous or malicious website and is not blocked. Once logged on, members can anonymously go to their desired website without being tracked. And good proxy services prevent hacking by encrypting both incoming and outgoing activities as long as the user is signed on to the proxy server.

jacksonnjonline.com

How to use Facebook if your company blocks it at work is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Auto sales have been absolutely clobbered–down 28% year over year–so the government, dealers, and auto makers are coming up with all sorts of inventive ways to attract business.

Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors, said the program builds on an earlier offer where customers had a choice between a $250 gas voucher or a gun voucher of the same value. An AK-47 can cost twice as much. Muller calls the initial deal an overwhelming success. He also says it generates a lot of publicity and really angers “liberals.”

Max Motors also offers more family-friendly promotions. Last Saturday, four used cars were sold for $5 each. The cars–including an 2001 Mustang and a 1998 Jeep Cherokee–went fast, and brought hundreds of customers to the lot. Max Motors sells several brands including Chevrolet, Ford and Pontiac.

businessinsider.com

Free AK-47 for every pick-up truck is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Like Scibd and SlideShare, PDFMeNot is an online PDF to Flash converter that will instantly convert any Adobe PDF document into a Macromedia Flash (SWF) movie while preserving the original layout, image graphics and formatting.

To create a PDF into flash, go to www.pdfmenot.com and either feed the PDF’s URL or upload the file itself to the PDF-to-Flash engine. Once the conversion is finished, you will get a link to view the Flash equivalent of the PDF.

And if you want to download the Flash file, go here for instructions.

A Flash PDF Viewer for Reading PDF Files without Acrobat is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

by reliable-web-hostings.com

Last week, Microsoft unleashed its brand new search engine onto the market. It’s called Bing and, contrary to what the name suggests, you do have to take it seriously. Even if you’re not planning to give up your Google search habit, you’ll still want to familiarize yourself with Bing to understand how you can help your site rank in their local search index.

To list your local business in Bing, head to the Bing Local Listing Center. From there, you’ll be able to check to see if you already have a local listing set up. If you do, you can modify it. If not, now’s the perfect time to create one.

smallbiztrends.com

Grab Your Local Listing in Bing is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

by reliable-web-hostings.com

The case puts the spotlight on Apple, whose public face as maker of the wildly successful iPhone contrasts with its reputation for a highly secretive corporate culture.

But according to a report in the influential Nanfang Daily, Sun, a 25-year-old product manager, became frantic after discovering that one of 16 prototypes of Apple’s fourth-generation N90 iPhone had gone missing. The iPhone is Apple’s hottest-selling device and the latest version is a well-kept secret.

Sun vented his growing frustration in text messages to his girlfriend and a former classmate, and tried to find the missing device, the Nanfang Daily said. But company officials from Foxconn‘s security division apparently got suspicious and raided his home.

The Yunnan native jumped from his 12th floor apartment the day after, according to the report.

The incident, which triggered an investigation from local police and within Foxconn itself, sparked a Web firestorm in China and has provoked criticism of Apple’s intensely guarded culture.

The company has previously threatened lawsuits against media and bloggers that try to publish information about its upcoming products, often arguing they obtained the information from employees who violated confidentiality agreements.

reuters.com

China suicide puts spotlight on secretive Apple culture is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

A Seattle outlet of the 16,000-store coffee behemoth is being rebranded without visible Starbucks identifiers, as 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea.

Two other stores in Starbucks’ native Seattle will follow suit, each getting its own name to make it sound more like a neighborhood hangout, less like Big Coffee, a Starbucks official told The Seattle Times on Thursday.

“The Goliath is coming at me under a new name,” said Dan Ollis, owner of Victrola Coffee Roasters, a coffee shop on 15th Avenue in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, about a block-and-a-half from the made-over Starbucks set to open next week.

chicagotribune

Stealth Starbucks: Seattle-based coffee giant opening neighborhood shops in disguise is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Users with packages to track begin by following PackageTrack on Twitter (@packagetrack), causing the free application to follow them in return. They can then direct message PackageTrack with the nickname of a package they’d like to track along with its tracking number, separated by a colon—”Red Dress: 23345631243,” for example. PackageTrack then notifies them by Twitter each time the package’s status changes, including a Google Map illustrating its route.

Launched earlier this year, PackageTrack currently tracks only UPS, USPS and FedEx packages, but it says it will be adding more carriers soon.

springwise.com

Package tracking via Twitter is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

It’s a deliberate move to tailor prices to fit local demand and inventory — right down to the individual store level, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For companies like San Francisco-based Gap, it’s helped to improve merchandise margins at its stores, including Banana Republic and Old Navy.

This strategy helps boost profits whenever items selling well in one region offset the need for deeper discounts somewhere else. Analysts say how much, when and where to slash prices can make a big difference to the bottom line.

“What works in Topeka, Kans., doesn’t work in San Francisco,” said John Long of consultancy Kurt Salmon Associates. “You can’t take the peanut butter approach that every store has the same customers and the same competitive issues. Things like pricing become a lever that retailers absolutely have to use.”

mercurynews.com

Stores offering discounts based on location is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

by www.reliable-web-hostings.com

Anyone looking for work knows the job market is tough and likely to stay that way for a long time. To help retirement-age job seekers, RetirementJobs.com has put together what it says is a carefully developed list of attractive positions outside the home and for those seeking at-home jobs.

Here are the 15 best job opportunities for older people, plus the amounts of training or education required, names of leading senior-friendly employers, and pay ranges.

1. Nursing
2. Healthcare technician
3. Healthcare administration (nonmedical)
4. Tutor, teaching assistant and aide
5. Contract and temporary professional
6. Merchandise and grocery retailing
7. Specialty retail sales
8. Accounting and finance and tax preparers
9. Banking and lending
10. Driver (car, van, light truck, bus)
11. Customer service and call center
12. Medical services
13. Virtual assistant and concierge services
14. Personal care assistance
15. Writers and editors

usnews.com

15 Top Office and Home-Based Jobs for Seniors is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

by www.reliable-web-hostings.com

That is how much the Obama Administration has distributed to 25 states under a new program designed to jumpstart the stalled construction of rental housing developments around the country. The government hopes the program, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will create thousands of jobs for contractors, engineers, architects and general construction workers, and provide affordable housing options for middle-income families.

Under the program, the 25 states that receive federal assistance will distribute that money among the developers in exchange for their unsold tax credits. That funding should help restart construction on their sites.

But don’t hold your breath in hopes of getting work – or a roof above your head – right away. The money’s journey into the right hands will take time, and most states are unlikely to see construction begin within the next six to nine months, McIlwain says. After that, these projects will take another two years on average to be completed. (That may actually be a good thing, he says, as rental prices are falling now in most parts of the country.)

Here’s a glimpse at how 10 states are planning to use the Recovery Act funds they have received so far.

10 States With Housing Jobs on the Way is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

First, are you using other companies’ trademarks? Imagine going on a major promo blitz and getting a nasty lawyer’s letter from Walla Walla, Wash., saying “Cease and desist–we were here first.” You could end up having to redo all your marketing efforts, doubling your marketing costs. Ouch!

Second, have you protected what you have? For a mere $45, you can properly copyright your website by submitting it to the U.S. Copyright Office. That’s a necessary prerequisite to filing a copyright lawsuit. But when you do that, you could be entitled to statutory damages of anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 from anyone who ignores your cease-and-desist letter.

womenentrepreneur.com

Identify your intellectual property is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

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1. Make people look good
2. Keeps promises
3. Creates an experience
4. Educates, instead of selling
5. Adds value beyond price
6. Does something talkable
7. Exceeds expectations

Focus on even one of the internal mindsets and practices above and watch how much more referable you become.

ducttapemarketing.com

What Really Generates Referrals is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Next Time Your Restaurant Service Sucks, Try This is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Fairways International LLC is a licensing and distribution company that will sign all the right documents to insure that your invention is protected from theft when you allow the company to review your idea. Its staff
and consultants are intimately familiar with the world of golf from every angle and, if they think they can market your product they’ll do all the legwork from assisting you with filing patents to getting your product on golf courses all over the world.

What does Fairways International charge you, the golf inventor? Nothing. And that’s the way it should be.

inventorspot.com

One Company Exists Just To Market Your Golf Inventions is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Brian Wiegand is no stranger to start-ups. His first business, BizFilings, launched in 1996 from his basement and later sold for $15 million to a public company. He and business partner Mark McGuire went on to start two others. The most recent was Jellyfish.com, which caught the purchasing eye of Microsoft only 18 months after its inception. The two could have stayed after the sale, but decided corporate life wasn’t for them.

Now the duo has launched their fourth online company, Alice.com, an online service in the consumer packaged goods industry. The site connects manufacturers directly to consumers, bypassing large retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target. Wiegand, Alice’s CEO, and McGuire, the company’s president and co-founder, recently explained their slightly unorthodox business model to Inc..

Read the interview at inc.com.

A Start-up Takes on Wal-Mart is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

It’s called the Global Business Plan Competition, and it’s co-sponsored by Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Sixteen teams of university students from throughout the world are competing for $250,000 in investment money for their inventions and creations.

For example, Stanford student Peter Frickman, who runs the start up Drip Tech, which is an inexpensive drip irrigation system for small farmers around the world.

One of the judges, venture capitalist Tim Draper points out that many successful companies are started in recessions.

”If you are a true entrepreneur this is the time to start a business,” said Draper. “You have to get creative because there isn’t always going to be money available.”

Other business plans include a more efficient way for companies to manage e-mail, and a way to convert rice husks into energy.

kcbs.com

Start Up Competition in Silicon Valley is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Bee all you can bee is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Amazing “Hibi no neiro” video is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Don’t worry, be crappy. Perfectionism, first of all, is an illusion. Nothing is perfect. Even worse, perfection stands in the way of revenue and truly learning what customers think because nothing is in their hands yet. When your product is “good enough” (but not “perfect”), ship it, and see what happens.

Don’t give out lofty titles. Just because a roommate was there during the drunken weekend when you came up with the idea for your company, doesn’t mean he should be CTO. Someday, you’ll need to hand out titles like director, vice-president, and chief whatever officer, so keep them in reserve. Until then refer to each other as “co-founders” and describe the area of responsibility: for example, “programming.” If your roommates aren’t cool with this, they’re doing you a favor by showing their colors now.

Don’t hire your family. The probability that your spouse or relative is the best person you can get for a job is 0%. The probability that people will hate working at company with spouses and relatives is 100%. The probability that one of you will have to go someday is also 100%. Never hire out of expediency. Always hire the best person you can get. This usually means not hiring your family unless you’re Jack or Suzy Welch.

Don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do. This is the Golden Rule of business. If you wouldn’t fill out ten fields of information and provide a credit card number for a free password, don’t expect your customers to. If you wouldn’t work on weekends stuffing envelopes, don’t expect your employees to. If you wouldn’t invest in your company, don’t expect venture capitalists to.

Read all twelve at openforum.com

A Dozen Don’ts for Entrepreneurs is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

He says, he’s so pleased with Apple, that he’s going to work exclusively with them, and will pass on the chance to work on other platforms, like Google’s Android.

“Do I want to be spending 6 months to write the game, and another 6 months making it compatible? If I had Trism available for Android, and there are 50 Android devices and every time one of them crashes (the users) contact me, do I want that?”

So if he’s not expanding to the other mobile platforms, what is Steve going to do with his newfound wealth? He says he’s actively looking to hire more people – engineers and artists specifically. While he started off on his own, he now has four more people working for him in San Francisco, working on 5 more iPhone games.

businessinsider.com

I Just Made $250K From App Store In Two Months is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Taylor is a rare winner in a world of inventors bedeviled by losers. She recently earned a much-sought-after chance to strike it rich, thanks to a demonstration she gave for the right set of eyes.

During a long day at TeleBrands‘ headquarters in this suburban office park, the competition is intense. Each inventor has but a few moments in front of Khubani to land the sale of a lifetime. On the line: the potential to leap from inventor wannabe to serious player in the $170 billion direct-response industry. A nod from TeleBrands means a negotiated share of sales through royalties that can make an inventor wealthy.

Taylor coolly demonstrates — on an assistant and on several other women, including Khubani’s wife, Poonam, — how her Clever Clip works on hair of any length or thickness. As she drove back to Baltimore, several hours after her pitch, her cellphone rang with Khubani’s thumbs-up call.

TeleBrands has a knack for finding quirky $9.99 products you never knew you needed, selling them on TV, then getting them into retail outlets, where sales can really rocket. The company is one of the biggest players in an industry that spent $2.6 billion in advertising last year. TeleBrands spent $300 million of that, the most in the industry, to air its hard-sell 30-second- to two-minute ads, estimates direct-response tracker Infomercial Monitoring Service. While most direct-response companies are privately held and don’t report earnings, TeleBrands has one of the most consistent records of hits.

usatoday.com

Inventors seek pot of gold through TeleBrands is a post from: Top Business Opportunities