Business TBC

The idea behind using a social networking site as Facebook as a venue for doing business is building a user base in the form of a community who respond to you as a person or to your product. If you just turn your page into one big advertisement, you are not going to get much in the way of a response. You need to educate people about the product without coming across as a hard sell.

You want to create the impression that you are here for socializing, not business. People will come to trust you and be more likely to buy your product or service if you can do this.

Facebook has built in tools which can be used to build your business. These include:
– Social Ads
– Pages
– Beacon
– Insights
– Platform
– Polls

These tools can help you to build awareness of your brand through this social networking site and bring in potential clients. Needless to say, you are going to have to learn to use them effectively. Read on to find out how to harness these tools to build your business using social networking sites.

You can learn how to take further advantage of these features by visiting the facebook website business section.

SOCIAL ADS

Social ads have a lot of promise for building your business since they can go directly to the news feeds of your Facebook friends. Anyone who is on your friends list will be able to get the word about your business right on their profile page.

This is also a very easy way of target marketing. You can control exactly who sees your ads – and target marketing is the way to get sales.

FACEBOOK PAGES

You can make a Face book page for a business, just as you would for yourself. This allows people to interact with and even become friends with your business. It is a great way to make a lot of people aware of your product and your brand who would not otherwise.

You know when someone becomes friends with your business on Facebook that you have a potential client; at the very least, they have shown some interest. People can interact with your business as they would with any of their other social networking site friends – they can leave comments and generally enhance the experience of a visit to your page.

You can use this social networking site to your best advantage by adding features that will appeal to your target market and fit in with the brand image you are aiming to create. Quizzes, games, a Facebook group and so on.

FACEBOOK BEACON

Like social ads, Facebook Beacon gives you the ability to build your business by promoting yourself via your Facebook friends news feeds. You can set Beacon to notify all of your Facebook friends whenever you have a new product available, or any other sort of news or information you would like to disseminate amongst your Facebook friends. All you need to do is to add a little code to your Facebook page (this can be done by copy and paste, so no need to panic).

This encourages more interaction with your page, the website of your business and your company in general. This also helps get the word out about your businesses product or service.

Do not fret that you will be mercilessly spamming your Facebook friends and invading their privacy – they can opt out of these updates at any time they choose. You of course have the same ability for Facebook Beacon updates from others.

FACEBOOK INSIGHTS

If you are using facebook as a method of promoting your business you will of course want to know just who is checking out your Facebook page, clicking on your ads and joining your friends list. Facebook Insights is a tool which can give you a lot more detail on these sorts of statistics, which can help you to evaluate the efficacy of your campaign.

Armed with this information you can make the call as to whether viral marketing is working in your favor. Word of mouth is one of the best means of advertising and Facebook can facilitate it on a large scale. Facebook Insights lets you figure out what parts of your campaign are working and which are not as well as giving you valuable demographic information which will help you refine your campaign further.

FACEBOOK PLATFORM

Facebook Platform is an exciting tool for business indeed. Programmers can use this tool to build programs which will work with Facebook and add to the usefulness and fun of your Facebook page. If people like what you have on your page, they will spread the word and this build your client base.

You can add all manner of different applications to your site using this platform. Many opt for games, quizzes and other interactive features. You can have a look at the Applications page on the Facebook site to get an idea what sort of things others are using the platform for. These kinds of features can really help you build your brand image; take advantage of them.

FACEBOOK POLLS

Facebook polls can be a great way to gather demographic information from people using the site. Since you can make the poll interactive and fun to use, you’ll have no trouble gathering data. Best of all, you can target your polling.

You can make sure your polls are targeted just where you want them to be since you already have access to some data such as marital status and age of your Facebook friends. This helps you keep your polling relevant.

Do not forget about these valuable tools – they can really help out your business.

Anyone who is willing to put in just a little bit of effort can make their own applications for Facebook. You just need to learn Facebook Markup Language – there are plenty of tutorials online which can help you learn the ropes of this quickly.

Remember to have a look through what is already out there in terms of Facebook applications before you develop your own. If everyone is already using a very similar application, not too many of your fellow facebook users will be enticed by it. Do something a little different if you want to grab the attentionof people.

CREATING APPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS

With just a little bit of programming know how, anybody can make and distribute their own applications. You’ll be doing this to build your business and it can make a big difference. Applications can really draw in people and keep them on your site. Games are especially popular and can build your brand while keeping users engaged and entertained.

You would be unwise to neglect the use of these applications available to you through Facebook. They can help get the word out about your business – and that is why you made a Facebook page for your business in the first place, no?

You will also be building a sense of community amongst all of these potential customers which will help you get sales.

Here are a few tips for getting the best results from your applications:

1) Make it relevant
In marketing, relevancy is everything. If your potential customers can not get into it, or if it is unclear how the application ties into your product or service, rethink your application.

2) Privacy policy
Even if they are on facebook to socialize, people still want their privacy to be respected. This is why there are friend lists and groups, to which one must be invited. Privacy is a natural human desire and Facebook facilitates this while still allowing for socialization. Remember to respect the privacy of users and retain that trust you have worked so hard to build with them.

3) Free distribution
Once your application is finished and ready to go, you will distribute it. You can do this by listing it on the site along with all of the other Facebook applications and then invite others to install it. If your facebook friends like your application, they will spread the word.

My website … epic fails 2014

Start up machine tools, machine shop, woodworking, wood machinery equipment business loans, capital, financing, leasing with credit problems is still available in these economic times.

This article is going to discuss what is machine tools, machine shop, woodworking, wood machinery equipment leasing/financing, what are its benefits, leasing plans and how it relates to the start up business.

Additionally, we will show you lending requirements below for start up loans

Leasing is a form of renting but with a buyout clause at the end of the lease to take title to whatever we are leasing. The requirements to get into the lease may be as low as first and last payment and as much as 25%. Each situation is different and this offers the start up and seasoned business a way to invest very little monies into the business. Additionally, all other monies can be used for operating expenses such as marketing and other key areas. Leasing is not a new form of financing but could be a lending solution to the start up business.

The benefits of leasing may result in off-balance sheet financing reporting, tax incentives and conserving cash flow and preserving lines of credit for working capital purposes. Many leasing requirements may only require the initial outlay of first and last rental payment. Most leases finance 100% of the cost of the equipment such as soft costs which include shipping, software, training and installation. Additionally, leasing lets you regularly upgrade your equipment, eliminating your utilization of old, outdated equipment and reducing repair options.

Some of the leasing plans available to the lessee are $1.00, 10% or 20% purchase options as well as Trac Leases and FMV lease buyouts. Additionally, some lenders offer seasonal payments, deferred payments for ninety days, declining payments and half payments for a specified time period. It is important that the lessee understands all these different lease plans available as well as the buyout clauses. The lessee has many options to consider in negotiating his lease. He must understand each lender’s requirements and see if it fits within the realm of the lessee’s requirements.

Some lenders will accept the start up business whereas others will not wanto lend to this group. They consider that their risk capital can be invested in other types of portfolios that can be better served. Many lenders require full documentation which includes a couple of years of personal income tax returns, a personal financial statement, and other underwriters requirements. However, in the past couple of years, there is a select group of lenders out there require an application only program. These lenders have their own computer scoring model and eliminate the necessary additional paperwork of other lenders.

These application only programs are usually restricted to the seasoned business, however there are a few out in the industry which will work with the start up business as well. The amounts of the application only program run as high as $150,000 for the seasoned business and $10,000 for the start up. Additionally, the lender will lease the qualified asset probably from 36-60 months and many won’t finance any equipment and commercial vehicles over ten years old.

It is important to understand the lease terms, the rate factor the lender is charging and the buyout clauses in the lease to take title. If you anticipate paying off the lease early, you should consult your lender to ascertain there is no prepayments for a early payoff. The last thing to understand that the lessee is going to guarantee the lease.

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1) Recap of Start Up Business Loan, Financing Programs Up to $40,000**********Conventional Financing, Bad Credit

0-2 Years Time In Business, Story Book Lender, Credit is Run but isnt Credit Driven, High Cash balances help a lot for approval
For New Business Start-Ups: (terms 12-30 months) Up To $40,000

1. Completed Credit Application
2. Personal Credit Report from all Principals
3. Last Years Personal Tax Return
4. Evidence of an Alternate Source of Income*********
5. Personal Financial Statement on All Owners
6. Evidence of a Business Bank Account (this may not be open yet)

If a Business has been open for a few months, please retrieve bank statements
Lease Terms are Up To 36 Months10% Buyout Clause

2 ) Second Start up Lending Program.
If you have good credit for other start up financing, minimum credit score 650 or higher, the down payment for conventional financing may be any from 10 to 30% down. Industries include owner operators for semi, day cabs and dump trucks. Other industries such manufacturing, construction, medical, transportation may also be eligible. Paperwork requirements are basically the same as above.

3) If you dont qualify for the start up programs above, we have many off lease and repo financing programs that start as low as 550 for minimum credit scores, financing up to $100,000, Down payments as low as $1,000

Happy hunting for your machine tools, machine shop, woodworking, wood machinery equipment acquisition and its start up financing and business loan programs

Working Capital is an area of business that requires solutions that revolve around timing. Timing is everything when it comes to the fundamental problem of managing and solving the cash flow conundrum!Let’s examine some of those solutions using the example of a company trying to grow… which is what it’s all about is it not?!

This is when what we could call your ‘ cash flow cycle ‘ needs to be both understood… and addressed. That’s because the concept of timing has just kicked in … your have produced your goods or provided your services and a specific amount of time has lapsed as you now generate revenues via invoicing… and wait for payment. It’s no secret that that whole cycle varies between each company and industry. But whether your cycle is 30 days or 120 days the effects of that timing require certain activities to be financed.

The timing around this cycle, as well as the solutions that your bring to bear makes or breaks your overall liquidity and solvency – aka ‘ Survival’!Example of the need to finance that cycle are should be quite clear – your firm must buy supplies or inventory, at the same time taking on payables. Wages and salaries must be covered and then you’re in the waiting game when it comes to delivery and acceptance of your goods and services, as well as final payment from your clients based on your credit terms. It’s therefore no secret to the business owner to see that using our example it can easily take those 30-120 days for a dollar to in effect flow through your company.

Again… it’s ‘ timing’!When you look at your balance sheet you see that the ratios of current assets and liabilities have also changed dramatically. You’re unfortunately less liquid and this can only be solved by financing the shortages you have carried. Of course your customer could pre pay you in advance for orders, or pay you ‘ cash on delivery ‘ but that’s not the perfect world we dream about.Financing business cash flow is all about monetizing and managing your assets.

Solutions in Canada include:

Receivable financing
Commercial bank lines of credit
Asset based lines of credit
Sale lease backs
Tax credit monetization
Purchase Order and Supply Chain financing

Utilize one or a combination of solutions to manage the ‘ patterns’ of financing that your business needs. Seek out and speak to a trusted, credible and experienced Canadian business financing advisor who can assist your with putting together a solution that addresses the timing of cash flows and capital in your business.

Software application development has only been around since the late 1970s. Compared to other industries and professions the software industry is still very young. Ever since organizations began to use computers to support their business tasks, the people who create and maintain those “systems” have become more and more sophisticated and specialized. This specialization is necessary because as computer systems become more and more complex, no one person can know how to do everything.

One of the “specialties” to arise is the Business Analyst. A Business Analyst is a person who acts as a liaison between business people who have a business problem and technology people who know how to create solutions. Although some organizations have used this title in non-IT areas of the business, it is an appropriate description for the role that functions as the bridge between people in business and IT. The use of the word “Business” is a constant reminder that any application software developed by an organization should further improve its business operations, either by increasing revenue, reducing costs, or increasing service level to the customers.

History of the Business Analyst Role

In the 1980s when the software development life cycle was well accepted as a necessary step, people doing this work typically came from a technical background and were working in the IT organization. They understood the software development process and often had programming experience. They used textual requirements along with ANSI flowcharts, dataflow diagrams, database diagrams, and prototypes. The biggest complaint about software development was the length of time required to develop a system that didn’t always meet the business needs. Business people had become accustomed to sophisticated software and wanted it better and faster.

In response to the demand for speed, a class of development tools referred to as CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) were invented. These tools were designed to capture requirements and use them to manage a software development project from beginning to end. They required a strict adherence to a methodology, involved a long learning curve, and often alienated the business community from the development process due to the unfamiliar symbols used in the diagrams.

As IT teams struggled to learn to use CASE tools, PCs (personal computers) began to appear in large numbers on desktops around the organization. Suddenly anyone could be a computer programmer, designer and user. IT teams were still perfecting their management of a central mainframe computer and then suddenly had hundreds of independent computers to manage. Client-server technologies emerged as an advanced alternative to the traditional “green screen,” keyboard-based software.

The impact on the software development process was devastating. Methodologies and classic approaches to development had to be revised to support the new distributed systems technology and the increased sophistication of the computer user prompted the number of software requests to skyrocket.

Many business areas got tired of waiting for a large, slow moving IT department to rollout yet another cumbersome application. They began learning to do things for themselves, or hiring consultants, often called Business Analysts, who would report directly to them, to help with automation needs. This caused even more problems for IT which was suddenly asked to support software that they had not written or approved. Small independent databases were created everywhere with inconsistent, and often, unprotected data. During this time, the internal Business Analyst role was minimized and as a result many systems did not solve the right business problem causing an increase in maintenance expenses and rework.

New methodologies and approaches were developed to respond to the changes, RAD (rapid application development), JAD (joint application development), and OO (object oriented) tools and methods were developed.

As we began the new millennium, the Internet emerged as the new technology and IT was again faced with a tremendous change. Once again, more sophisticated users, anxious to take advantage of new technology, often looked outside of their own organizations for the automation they craved. The business side of the organization started driving the technology as never before and in a large percentage of organizations began staffing the Business Analyst role from within the operational units instead of from IT. We now have Marketing Directors, Accountants, Attorneys, and Payroll Clerks performing the role of the Business Analyst.

In addition, the quality movement that had started in the 70s with TQM, came into focus again as companies looked for ways to lower their cost of missed requirements as they expanded globally. The ISO (International Standards Organization) set quality standards that must be adhered to when doing international business. Carnegie Mellon created a software development quality standard CMM (Capability Maturity Model). Additionally, Six Sigma provided a disciplined, data-driven quality approach to process improvement aimed at the near elimination of defects from every product, process, and transaction. Each of these quality efforts required more facts and rigor during requirements gathering and analysis which highlighted the need for more skilled Business Analysts familiar with the business, IT, and quality best practices.

Future of the Business Analyst Role

Today we see Business Analysts coming from both the IT and business areas. In the best situations, the Business Analyst today has a combination of IT and business skills. Each organization has unique titles for these individuals and the structure of Business Analyst groups is as varied as the companies themselves. However, there is a core set of tasks that most Business Analysts are doing regardless of their background or their industry.

The Business Analyst role becomes more critical as project teams become more geographically dispersed.
Outsourcing and globalization of large corporations have been the driving factors for much of this change recently. When the IT development role no longer resides inside our organizations, it becomes necessary to accurately and completely define the requirements in more detail than ever before. A consistent structured approach, while nice to have in the past, is required to be successful in the new environment. Most organizations will maintain the Business Analyst role as an “inhouse” function. As a result, more IT staff are being trained as Business Analysts.

The Business Analyst role will continue to shift its focus from “Software” to “Business System.”
Most Business Analysts today are focused on software development and maintenance, but the skills of the Business Analyst can be utilized on a larger scale. An excellent Business Analyst can study a business area and make recommendations about procedural changes, personnel changes, and policy changes in addition to recommending software. The Business Analyst can help improve the business system not just the business software.

The Business Analyst role will continue to evolve as business dictates.
Future productivity increases will be achieved through re-usability of requirements. Requirements Management will become another key skill in the expanding role of the Business Analyst as organizations mature in their understanding of this critical expertise. The Business Analyst is often described as an “Agent of Change.” Having a detailed understanding of the organization’s key initiatives, a Business Analyst can lead the way to influence people to adapt to major changes that benefit the organization and its business goals. The role of a Business Analyst is an exciting and secure career choice as U.S. companies continue to drive the global economy.

Training for the Business Analyst

The skill set needed for a successful Business Analyst is diverse and can range from communication skills to data modeling. A Business Analyst’s educational and professional background may vary as well–some possess an IT background while others come from the business stakeholder area.

With backgrounds as diverse and broad as these it is difficult for a Business Analyst to possess all the skills necessary to perform successful business analysis. Companies are finding that individuals with a strong business analysis background are difficult to locate in the marketplace and are choosing to train their employees to become Business Analysts in consistent structured approaches. First, organizations seeking formal business analysis training should examine vendors who are considered “experts” on the field with a strong focus on business analysis approaches and methodologies. Second, you will want to examine the quality of the training vendor’s materials. This may be done by researching who wrote a vendor’s materials and how often they are updated to stay abreast of industry best practices. Third, matching the real-world experience of instructors to the needs and experience level of your organization is critical to successful training. Business analysis is an emerging profession and it is critical that the instructors that you choose have been practicing Business Analysts.

A business owner recently sent me an email inviting me to partner with him on one of his projects. I get a few requests like that a month. The venture seemed like a good one as I read his description.

I was about to have my assistant follow up until I hit this credibility-undermining flaw and guess what my response was? I was no longer interested. But I wondered if this poor guy even knew that he was undermining his own credibility. Unfortunately, too many business owners make this mistake. And you can correct it in literally 5 minutes for less than $10.

What’s the mistake you ask?

As professional as this small business owner sounded, and as interesting as his product was, I closed the door when I saw @gmail.com in his email address. It raised some doubt, not to mention what preceded the @gmail.com wasn’t exactly professional either.

The reality is free email services don’t exactly scream “success” if you know what I mean and you’d certainly want your business communication to reflect your true professionalism. When business owners use gmail, yahoo, and all those other freebie emails, here’s what may come up in the mind of the email recipient: I wonder if they’re running their business more like a hobby than a real business. I wonder if they are taking their business seriously. I wonder if they plan to be in business very long.

Sadly, none of this is probably true, as the business owner may have chosen their email service for entirely valid reasons. But it’s important to know it may raise some doubt (albeit unnecessarily so at times). And by the way, even paid email services like comcast.net and others (that you’d normally use for family communication) may also undermine your credibility. There are many reasons people choose free email services, and I personally have yahoo and gmail accounts myself. That said, you’d want to consistently project the image of an established business. Your business email is one of the first things someone sees when you communicate with them. In your email communication, you’d want to remain congruent with your business name.

If you already have a website

For those of you who have a website and are still using free email services for business communication, hey, c’mon what’s up with that? 🙂 If you already have the website, why not use the email accounts that come with your domain? If you’re avoiding checking more than one email account, remember you can have all the emails sent to wherever you want to read them (but don’t make the mistake of replying to your business emails from your free email though). If you like the features of your free service, that’s OK, you can actually redirect your business emails to the free service (behind the scenes) if you like (again, just be sure the “reply to” email is your business email when you send responses).

Now if you’re avoiding getting added to email lists, I can certainly understand that. But why not set up a separate email under your own domain name instead? An address that’s meant to be a catch-all so nothing clutters your main business email account. Like “[emailprotected]” or “[emailprotected]” Your domain typically comes with the ability to set up several email addresses. I use GreatSmallBusinessWeb.com and I have almost a dozen different email addresses under my domain name. Some of them I rarely check as they are catch-all addresses.

If you don’t have a website

If you’re just now starting a home based business (bravo!), you can hop on over to Godaddy.com and fix that email credibility problem in the next 5 minutes. But please be careful at when you’re purchasing it. Read all the screens because when you go through the purchase process, you’ll get offered all sorts of additional stuff. Feel free to say no to whatever else they’re asking you to buy until you get to the end – unless you really want to buy all that stuff of course. (that’s my insider tip ;-))

That said, you most certainly would want a website as a business owner. That, my friend, may indeed be another credibility-buster. Folks, catch up will ya? We’re almost in 2010 here. 🙂 Careful with choosing website designers, however. You don’t want a multi-thousand dollar “brochure website” that looks real pretty but doesn’t generate any money for your business.

If you don’t know what domain name to purchase

Now for those of you who don’t know what domain name to buy, I hear ya. I went through that quandary myself a couple times. So here’s the workaround. Just buy yourname.com. For example, one of my many domains is allisonbabb.com. Then you can have an email like [emailprotected] or even [emailprotected]

You can immediately use the email accounts that are included with the domain purchase (weather you have a website or not). And you can redirect all those emails to wherever you’d prefer to read them. Just be sure you don’t accidentally reply to customers from your yahoo or gmail accounts, for example, if that’s where you’ll redirecting your emails. Again, try to stay congruent with your business name in your business communication.