Writing Your Affiliate Home Business Plan

Here's a typical scenario: You are deciding to start a home business and suddenly everyone you know has his nose in your business, literally. What do you tell them? And how do you answer your own questions? What should you expect from the company in terms of stability, longevity, vitality, trust, income, and so forth? First the bad news: there are no guarantees. Then the good news: there is plenty of information from which to draw your own conclusions. The internet is huge, and any good company will offer free marketing tools and training.

But back to the WHY of that business plan. You're going to be starting small, slow and boy! is there a lot to learn. What's the point of actually sitting down and writing a business plan? You're not Bill Gates, this is not Microsoft, just you in your home office a few hours a week, slowly building an online business presence, not really understanding what the heck you'll be doing.

Relax and breathe. Unlike Mt. Rushmore, your plan will not be designed to withstand the weathering of the ages. You can expect it will change and bend with the flow of your real experiences, which will be totally yours, not identical to anyone else's.

What writing your plan will do is cause you to pause, think, dream, study and focus. The written document, whether it is one page or twelve, will give your business a framework to work within. The internet is vast and seemingly endless. It is easy to lose focus and drift away on a different whim or idea every day. Understanding where you are today, what tools you have to work with, what your goals are, and how you can best achieve them and measure your success, will help you stay on target and not waste what few hours you may be investing in your business at start-up.

Whenever you feel lost or confused, you can return to what you have written. When you analyze your situation and decide to make a change, rewrite that part of the plan. Understand that it's a living document, intended to grow with you and your business. Your business plan is your friend.

Getting Started with the Business Plan

First you need to study the company and its management. You need to read and learn about the products, the compensation plan and the network structure. See you next month. Just kidding.

Plan on doing SOME reading each and every work day for the next few months, if not indefinitely. Keep up with the company forum entries every day; read something in the training reports every day. Your education will continue. Plan for it.

When you are ready, open up a Notepad window and answer these questions:

What service / products does your business provide and what needs does it fill?

Who are the potential customers for your product or service and why will they purchase it from you?

How will you reach your potential customers?

Where will you get the financial resources to start your business?

Ok. Maybe your company offers many products and services. What do you want to focus on? I suggest that, at first, you focus on one or two products and / or the affiliate opportunity. In other words, keep is simple. Once you get the hang of what you're doing, you will KNOW when it's time to expand. Do only what you are comfortable with, every step of the way. This is YOUR business, it's your right and privilege to decide on your approach.

Internet marketing hinges on building trust. How will you do this?

Reaching customers means marketing. Your decision, once again. And again, the options should be in your company's training materials.

So we're talking developing a reading / study schedule. Here's a possible list, once you've read enough to make your own decisions to answer the above questions, start writing. Your writing can be lists of words and phrases, free-form brainstorming, outlines, mind maps, whatever works for you. Just write it down, and do not forget to save often. If your home office is affiliated by cats or small children, they have the tendency to press on random keyboard keys. Documents do occasionally just disappear. Saving avoids total disaster.

1. Study the products.
2. Read the training materials.
3. Read about decisions, bonuses, etc.
4. Study the marketing aids and strategies
5. Find out what free tools are available.
6. Visit the forums on a regular basis. Read everything about getting started.
7. Ask questions.

Your final written business plan will have at least four parts:

Introduction / background: history of the company and its founder, internet marketing trends, why THIS company and why NOW, and so on.

Goals: I suggest you think of what you would like to be learning in two years, but mainly focus on goals for your first year. Realistic goals can be planned based on info on the company website, in newsletters, searches on the forums, and focused questions to other affiliates.

Marketing plan: based on your answers to the first 3 questions above and your study of marketing aids and tools.

Action plans: the specifics of what you will do on a monthly, weekly, and / or daily basis for the next year.

I can not tell you what your answers should be, because you have to decide how much money you have to invest. Only you can decide how many hours per day, week or month you can invest in your business. What products you feel most comfortable marketing, and who you decide to target as your customer base, are all decisions only you can make. If you get stuck and do not understand a question, do not know where to find information, or do not know how to ASK a question, contact your sponsor or someone in your upline. If they can not help you, they should be able to send you to someonewho can.

You should NEVER feel alone. Work should be FUN! ...

A Guide To Vehicle Tracking With Fleet Management Software

Maintaining and organizing fleet vehicles, field personnel or other assets is impossible without a reliable centralized system accessible at all levels of the business. Luckily these systems do exist and are referred to as fleet management software or vehicle tracking systems. There are a number of solutions available and these have been developed to handle all aspects of managing and maintaining a fleet as well as personnel and job dispatching. Each comes with a raft of features and capabilities making it difficult to choose a solution.

There are many companies providing vehicle tracking and fleet management software solutions. These fall into two types of system, online or locally installed software.

Online systems are usually a web-based or "in the cloud". They are accessed via a web interface or web browser where as a locally installed system is installed on a local computer. The pros and cons to these two systems are minimal and come down to IT infrastructure already in use by the business. If a business has an existing database to manage parts of the business then this data may need to be accessed by fleet management software and this may need a locally installed solution.

What features or capabilities make fleet management software a good investment for a business?

Centralized Data Storage

Having all information in one place is a must for organization of all aspects of a business. All good solutions enable the input and storage of vehicle information like service, MOT and road tax records. Driver records such as driving qualifications, medical requirements and endorsements can also be entered on to the system. Important vehicle and driver documents can be scanned and easily retrieved when required.

Vehicle Service Reminders, Alerts and Management

One really useful aspect of fleet management is the ability to set reminders or alerts for vehicle servicing, MOT or road tax due dates. Personnel can update the status of vehicle repairs and drivers can record any vehicle faults when completing daily checks.

Vehicle Tracking with GPS

An important feature when deciding on a fleet management solution is the ability to know where vehicles or personnel are located or where they have been. Vehicle tracking is usually achieved with the installation of a small device in the vehicle or in the case of personnel or assets a small device can be carried in a pocket or attached. Once setup it is possible to see vehicles, people and assets in real-time on maps. Knowing where all the business assets are allowed the fleet manager or transport dispatcher to assign the right asset to the correct location.

Job Assignment and Dispatch

This is a very useful feature but not all fleet management systems feature it. The ability to assign jobs via the system is a really useful function. Mobile personnel, drivers or field engineers can update the job status, upload images and signatures enabling back office staff to immediately see and inform a customer of progress. These systems can be installed on existing devices such as smart iPhones, Android and Blackberry handsets.

History Trails and Reports

When all of a business's data is stored in a centrally managed system it is easy to compile reports that can improve efficiency and even save money.

Detailed reports on individual assets such as vehicles can show total running costs for that vehicle. Vehicle tracking information can show how much fuel has been used and help to suggest cheaper alternative routes. This combined data from personnel can help a business to see where efficiencies can be achieved.

To summarize, fleet management software and vehicle tracking solutions should enhance a business and if used correctly and should improve the operating and efficiency of a business's mobile resources. The savings that can be achieved may be out-weighed by the costs of the systems but that should also be balanced against the increased productivity and the ability to offer a better service to clients.

6 Steps to Effective Customer Relationship Management

Nurture Your Customer Relationships

Simply put, customer relationship management is a way of tracking and nurturing your customer relationships throughout the customer's life-cycle, as they move from prospect to customer, to repeat-buyer. Once a customer buys from you, it is much more profitable to make efforts to keep that customer, than it is to acquire a new one, because there is now trust between you. If your customer is happy with your product, then that customer is much more likely to buy from you again in the future, much more likely than a new prospect would be. That's why customer relationship management is so crucial.

Don't badger your customers to death with every product and affiliate offer you come across, especially if the products are unrelated to the product the customer originally purchased. Email your customers ONLY when you have something good to give them, some really helpful information, or when you have a really good, high-quality offer that would interest that particular customer. For instance, don't email your Internet Marketing customer a "Free Gift Certificate" to your gift store.

Automate Your Customer Relationship Management

Well, how do you automate customer relationship management in your e-business? You use email, and a dynamic database. You use auto-responders to stay in touch. I'm not talking about your regular auto-responders that deliver a vacation or "out of office" messages while you're away, either. I'm talking about sequential auto-responders.

Use Sequential Auto-Responders In Your e-Business

Sequential auto-responders allow you to pre-format and load a series of pre-typed messages to your prospects and customers. You benefit by not having to follow-up with these customers manually each time. Instead, your auto-responder delivers your messages on a timed interval set by you. To your customer, it looks as if you sent out each message yourself. This way, you stay in touch with your customer and not let them forget about you. When they have a need for one your products or services, your business will hopefully come to mind first and they will re-visit your site directly or by clicking a link in one of your emails, as a loyal repeat customer.

Personalize Your Messages for a Warm Feel! (Mail Merge)

Most decent auto-responders have mail-merge capabilities. This is the ability to merge personal information into your emails, like your customer's first and/or last name or their email address, etc. This personalizes your email messages even further and gives your customer some "warm and fuzzies". What's more you set all this up just one time, and any new prospects or customers will get the same message series without you having to lift a finger.

If the sequential auto-responder you're using has mail-merge capabilities, then it will automatically take that customers name and incorporate it into the email series you have set up. Usually the auto-responder service you're using will have some sort of tokens set up for this purpose. Look at the example below. Let's say your customer or prospect's name is Bob.

Hello, $firstname, - That translates into: Hello, Bob.

You could also do this with a customers email address too, like "$email". The token would be replaced with the customer's email: bob@bob.tld













Do you see the power of mail-merge?

Use Lead Capture and Subscription Boxes

For instance, you could set up a simple box on your sales or download page that asks the customer for his/her name and email address in return for some free product, or simply just to subscribe to your newsletter. If you set up a page specifically for this purpose this is called a "lead capture page". The information entered by the customer into your subscription box can be mail merged into the follow-up messages sent by your auto-responder.

Stay In Touch

Keep in contact with your prospects and customers. Set your auto-responder series to deliver your messages over an extended interval. There are several e-books and articles dedicated to this topic; however, if you want the first, most informative and still the king of auto-responder help, get "AutoResponder Magic". This e-book once sold for about $17, but you should be able to find it free many places on the 'Net. It has a plethora of information regarding auto-responders, as well as many examples you can build from.

Direct Sales Team Vs Distributor - Which is Better For an International Market?

If you're looking to expand your sales to new markets, then there's one big question you must ask: do I build a direct sales presence or use a distributor? Each method has its benefits and drawbacks, but we're going to make a strong case to use one method over the other in almost every instance.

What's the difference between direct sales and distributors?
A direct sales presence means that your company establishes, manages, and pays a sales team of one or more people in the target market.

An outside agent is any entity that will sell your product in exchange for a service fee. One example is a sales rep, who sells your product in exchange for a percentage of the sale. A distributor is similar to a rep, except they would buy product from your company and sell it directly to the end customer.

Is Direct Sales Better?
For most businesses expanding into new markets, especially international markets, hiring a distributor is a better decision-at least until there is enough return from the market to justify building a direct sales presence.

Sure, there is one major advantage to having a direct sales presence-control. Control over the day to day activities of your sales personnel is appealing to most business owners. But this control comes at a heavy price. To start, you'll need to spend the time to hire someone in that market, then train them, then equip them with sales material and management, if not office space and equipment. These costs are prohibitive for most small businesses looking to expand internationally.

And there are even more costs that we have not mentioned yet. Each market has it's own unique laws, cultures and customs that are essential to master if your company wants to establish a successful sales presence. Japan is a classic example of a marketplace with unique legal structures and business customs that, if not followed, guarantee the failure of any sales efforts. It's hard to pin down an exact monetary value to this learning, but ask yourself this: Can you afford to establish, manage, and pay a sales force in a foreign country for at least a year while they learn the routes and generate no revenue?

What about a Distributor? Is a distributor better for new markets?
Distributors are a cost effective means to enter a new marketplace successfully. Here are just a few of the reasons:

• No Overhead: Unlike running your own sales team, a distributor will take care of the hiring, managing, payment, and optimization of its channel. You're just borrowing their distribution, while they handle the maintenance.
• Established Channel with Local Knowledge: A good distributor will already know all the laws and customs of the market you're entering. You do not need to reinvent the wheel-you can use someone who already has local local knowledge.
• Understanding Pricing and Purchasing Power of Market: Along with knowledge of the laws and customs comes knowledge about the most successful ways to price and market your product locally.
• Cost Effective: Since you will not be paying for the above items, distributor relationships are much more within reach of a small business trying to enter a new market.

Using a distributor has some downsides as well, but they can be minimized by building a good relationship with a distributor.

• Not your own people: You will not be able to directly manage every step of the process. While it may make you nervous to lose some control over the sales process, you can manage the risk by building a transparent relationship with your distributor with constant updates and feedback from both ends.
• Distributor has many products to represent: You may not be the distributor's top priority at any given time, and you want to be sure your product is not getting shuffled to the back of the line. Once again, a well-established relationship with constant contact will ensure that your product is getting the attention it describes.
• Not a "turn key" solution: You can not just give the distributor your products and expect success. You'll have to manage the relationship. This takes time, but it's still less costly than trying to install a direct sales team from scratch.

So what do I do next?
If you are not convinced that a distributor would be better for your organization than acquiring a direct sales team, seek help from a consultant who has experience establishing a presence in new markets. A consultant can use his or her experience to analyze your opportunity and recommend the best course of action.

Before you choose a distributor, you need to know ....
Choosing the wrong distributor will set you up for failure. The wrong distributor simply will not generate sales, and you'll have wasted at least a year finding and setting up an unprofitable relationship.

There are certain things to look for in a distributor, and they are different for every market. The best thing to do is to find a professional, one with experience in distributor relationships, and hire that professional to help you search for and identify the right distributor.

Choosing a Web Designer

Many small business owners struggle with deciding on how to make the right choice for designing their website. They search the web for help with their website and find that the choice is harder than they thought. Currently there are (literally) millions of websites who claim to be professional web designers. However, one must be careful in choosing the right person or people in which to trust their company image. In this article, I will attempt to categorize web designers into manageable groups, and teach the reader the difference between the types.

Web designers fall into four general categories: freelance amateur, freelance professional, Web Design Company, Web Development Firm.

Freelance Amateur

The majority of web designers you will come across, especially searching the Internet, are freelancers. That is, individuals who do web design but are not employed by a web design company. Some are self-employed professionals but most of these freelancers are amateur-hobbyist types. They find a copy of FrontPage™ came with their MS Office™ Suite. They discovered how fun it could be to make web pages so they started telling their friends that they could "design" web pages.

The "pros" of using an amateur is that they are very cheap. The "cons" are too numerous to mention, but I'll point out a few. They have no training; they have little knowledge of what makes a good website work; they do not understand HTML code or CSS but only FrontPage point and click; they do not understand general design and layout concepts and they have little real experience. The biggest reason they should be avoided for the serious businessperson, is that their work looks amateurish, which makes your company look amateurish. Who wants that?

Freelance Professional

A professional is often defined by simply being paid. People think that if you are paid for something, then you are professional. Maybe that's true in the Olympics, but for the business services world, you are not a professional until you are established and respected as one by your clients and peers. Freelancer professional web designers are a giant leap from the amateur in that they have established a portfolio of respectable work. They have some sort of qualified training and experience and they have credentials that can be verified by contacting references. They have a good reputation with their clients and other professionals. In general, a good freelance professional web designer can be good person to have doing your site. But they are hard to distinguish from the amateur when you are just searching the web.

The upside is, if you find a good one they are significantly cheaper than a web design company. But that is usually the only upside. If the budget limits you, then a freelancer will do for a small project. But anything seriously important should be left to a professional company.

Some downsides to using a freelance pro are that they are usually part-time, meaning they are limited in how much time they can devote to your project. They are also limited in what they can do for you. Most freelancers are specialists in one area and generalists in everything else. Some have no skills in anything except their one specialty and often you will have to find others to fill roles. In addition, freelancers are not always cheap although many of them are aspiring to create their own company; some are highly sought after and charge $100 per hour or more for their work. My advice here is, if you have that much to spend, go with a company that has a team of professionals to get the job done in a timelier manner.

Web Design Company

This is the next step beyond a freelance professional. The web design company offers the "whole show". They provide real project management and have pulled together a team of web experts to get a wider range of jobs done. A company can provide a much higher level of expertise in web design, programming, content development and more.

Such a company is usually very small, yet large enough to handle larger scale projects. Compared to the most highly qualified freelancer, a company has a diversity of talent and collaboration working for them. The end-result is usually a much higher quality product.

The only real drawbacks are on the one hand, the web design company is more expensive than a freelancer because there are many more people on the job. However, you get what you pay for rings true. On the other hand, for very large projects or long term development, web design companies may be too small and usually do not have the human recourses to accommodate that $500,000 contract. In the end, for serious business people looking for quality and professionalism and who can't afford the big firm, this is the way to go.

Web Development Firm

As the title implies, a web development firm is like any traditional company. They have a staff of office workers, they have owners and officers, and they have a team of talented professionals who are paid a good salary for their work. They often have a sales force that do inside and outside sales. The quality of their work goes without saying, as you could not be so well-established by doing shoddy work. These firms offer teams of very talented professionals who work on your project and get the job done in a timely and extremely efficient manner. Additionally, they usually cover all aspects of website development including marketing and advertising. They may have teams of specialists that they can deploy to your location and work in-house under a temporary contract. The possibilities are endless.

If price is not an issue and the highest quality work is necessary, then this is who you want to do the job. For smaller budget businesses, a quote from an established web development firm might knock you off your chair, but know that companies who have project requirements that reach hundreds of thousands of dollars know the score. Thus, the only real drawback for a web development firm is that they are usually very expensive. Then again, cost is relative and bigger companies like to work with bigger companies.

In summary, the choice is yours. I would recommend for the serious businessperson, that you budget a decent amount of dollars to properly design and execute a professional website. I would avoid the amateur and outsource to an individual or company with good experience and reasonable rates to create my web presence. If money were no object, then I would only deal with established firms and pay the big bucks to get the job done right and done well.

Nokia E90 Communicator - Companion For Globetrotting

Nokia E90 is a GSM 2100 MHZ Communicator phone which looks great and well built. The mobile has good voice quality, Bluetooth file exchange with excellent speed and fast WI-FI capabilities. The wide connectivity options are quad-band EGSM, 3G connectivity both WCDMA and HSDPA, WI-FI, Bluetooth with stereo and audio support, Infrared and USB. It has a 3.2 mega pixel camera with auto focus and flash, a FM radio, audio jack for headsets and DVD quality video recording plus an integrated GPS chipset. There is an external QVGA screen with a number keypad and a large 800 x 352 pixels internal screen with full QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard quality is good giving good tactile feedback and enables the user to type fast. The VoIP functionality in this WI-FI enabled smartphone is top notch. With all its great software and a perfect hardware design, it brings significant value to the business user in everyday work this justifies the high price. E90 introduces a new platform to its Communicator line called Series 60v3.

The Communicator

The wide range of communication options of Nokia E90 makes it a true Communicator. Email has the support of SMTP and POP protocols and push mail options, instant messaging and a text-to-speech reader.
It includes a 3.2 mega pixel camera with auto focus and flash and a secondary camera for video calling. Its software capabilities are very impressive especially the document editor QuickOffice that handles MS Office documents, zip files and PGF files very well. The Personal Information Management tools with provision for adding more applications. Data and media clips up to 2 MB can be stored on MicroSD cards.

The Companion

It can be described as a tiny hand held computer rather than a mobile phone with a talk time of 5 hours and a 14 days standby though it can be shortened by the use of 3G, Bluetooth etc. The in-built GPS function performances things beyond basic location based services, as the addition of "Nokia Maps" application with the free Satellite navigation package as a value added feature. This most feature packed device has very few compromises and works as a phone as well as a multimedia computer and an efficient companion.

10 Advantages Of Field Data Collection With Mobile Devices

Field Data Collection can be a very difficult and time-consuming process. Collecting field data manually requires a great supply of money, materials, staff and other resources. With such an investment comes the great responsibility of collecting the right data in the short amount of time, as the data collected on the field affects the productivity of the company.

All thanks to the ever-evolving technology, with the help of mobile devices seems to be the only solution to the challenges faced by the field data collection teams. This not only replaces the age-old obsolete Pen-Paper method of data collection but also provides new ways of utilizing the time of the workforce available on the field. The field data collection app is built suitable for all devices be it data collection app for Android or be it data collection app for iOS.

The mobile device based tools have been established in almost all developed as well as developing countries. It is but obvious that the companies which adopt this online method prosper more than the ones who are still stuck in the age-old methodologies.

Let's take a look at the advantages to executives and workers who have specialization in this area.

1. Supercharged Productivity













Mobile forms based platforms allow systematic and efficient organization of the data collected thanks to its real-time indicators. This allows a lot of time to be saved in collecting data and reporting it back to the head office. All the employee has to do is simply fill the form on his/her mobile device and submit them instantly for analysis.

2. Never Lose Data













Data, mostly old data is always required to verify or sometimes even to compare with the new data allowing a company to set new benchmarks and define long-term goals. The data collected on the mobile form is saved directly to the cloud. This helps in enabling the user to access the data whenever and wherever the user wants without the fear of ever losing the data.

3. Allows Collection Of Rich Data













Collection of just numbers and text is just like some other methods. But the collection of rich data is now possible all because of mobile data collection forms. Rich data includes things like images, location, audio, video and also scanning a barcode. This enables one to determine authenticities of the collected product or information.

4. Huge Cost Savings













Saving idle time and resources lead to the savings of huge amounts of money. Mobile forms do the same thing and cut costs in the processes like transportation or even cutting the use of paper and many more such things. As it also saves data to the cloud the losses occurring due to loss of data is also eliminated.

5. Works Even Offline













Mobile forms can be filled both online and in offline mode. This works very well as there are a lot of areas in the world which still do not have mobile network coverage. All the worker needs to do is fill in the form and save it to upload later whenever the device gets internet access.

6. Comparing With Other Data













It is very easy to compare data on field apps rather than comparing it manually. Data collected on the App can be easily compared with the already existing data. This allows the management to take important decisions that can further add to the productivity of the company in near future.

7. High Service Quality













Mobile forms do the evaluation of work in a faster and efficient way with great accuracy, This adds to the satisfaction of both the service provider and the customer.

8. Workflow Automation













Zero or minimum human interference minimizes the time required to do work and also eliminates errors made by humans. The workflow is made smooth as it is being automated and hence follow every step as set by the form builder at the start and is followed again and again without the actual involvement of the user.

9. Accelerated Process













Instant email of collected data is sent to the customers, colleagues, and partners instantly. The dispatch feature allows to assign jobs quickly and handle approvals with mobile workflows.

10. The Ease Of Use













Perhaps the best advantage of field data collection is its Ease of use. Mobile forms are prepared easily using drag and drop method on their websites. These data collection mobile forms are then distributed on the mobile devices of the field worker to fill up and provide necessary details.