Tool Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Business Card Printing: Affordable Marketing Tool For Your Business

Have you ever wondered what could be the best way to tell many things about your company and its products and services to your clients, business associates or clients even without uttering a single word from your mouth? A ‘business card’ can do the trick for you. It is because of this reason, more and more business houses, especially corporate houses and big business establishment find business card printing is their remedy.

There are certain details that are mentioned on these cards that make it possible for a reader to deduce certain things about the giver of this card and his organization. Usually such a card would contain among other details, few essential information such as company’s logo, website addresses if any, your designation in the company, contact telephone numbers, email addresses, to name a few.

Today’s business world is essentially governed by scientific means where everything is found in a ‘step-by-step’ method, where there isn’t any strict or stringent rules and regulations that outline a framework within which such a business card should be designed. However, recent years have shown presence of some of the above-mentioned details in a card is a customary practice. Moreover, each individual organization, company, enterprise, semi-governmental and governmental entity would have their own preferences.

For some, design of the cards is of the primary importance; whereas for others details mentioned is most crucial. Under these circumstances, getting in touch with service providers who have been into this job of meeting customers’ preferences done with ease seems to be one of the most prudent moves. Moreover, these service providers make sure contents of your business card meets your preferences and requirements. Moreover, where it doesn’t meets, they are widely believed to suggest you with amicable business solutions.

It is a modern practice to woo your customers with adequate information about your products and services. In a typical normal course of your business day, you may feel a need to make use of various means of achieving your sole aim to win your customers. Many resort to distributing leaflets to capture imagination of their prospective buyers. This has led to an increased demand for leaflet printing as an effective and economically viable mode of advertising.

It is considered cost-effective by most mainly because unlike a flyer, which is printed on costlier papers and has many sides to it, a typical leaflet is a folded paper that contains essential details in it. It has found its immense use for reason varying from using it in sales and marketing campaigns to an effective means for public announcement purposes. Realizing its effectiveness, more and more politicians had started to make use of it for or political campaign rallies as well. It is the reason with plumbers, nightclubs, restaurants, doctors, estate agents, who too have benefitted from its wide use

Advertising As A Tool Of Communication

Advertising is a form of mass communication with the public. It is usually one sided i.e. from the company to the buyer/potential user of the product. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade the potential customers to purchase or consume more of a particular brand of product/services. As rightly defined by Bovee, “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.”

Advertising an important tool of communication is use to promote commercial goods and services, it can also be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues such as AIDS, Don’t drink and drive, Polio, Save water, electricity, animals and trees etc. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest – it is much too powerful tool to use solely for commercial purposes.” – Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.

Advertising is most effective with products that can be differentiated from similar products based on consumer accepted quality difference. Tom Egelhoff has classified advertising in 6 types, i.e. for company image, name brands, advertising service instead of a product, business-to-business advertising, co-op advertising and public service advertising. Television, Radio, Cinema, Magazine, Journal, Newspaper, Video Game, Internet, Billboard, Transit Cards, Sandwich Board, Skywriting are the different mediums used to deliver the message. The companies choose the method according to the cost, budget, target audiences and their response. However, word of mouth advertising/ personal recommendations is an unpaid form of advertising which can provide good exposure at minimum cost.

Various new forms of advertising are growing rapidly. One of them is Social Networking Advertising. It’s an online advertising with a focus on social networking sites and use of the internet/ World Wide Web in order to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. The other is E-Mail advertising; E-Mail Marketing is often known as “opt-in-email advertising” to distinguish it from spam. “I believe ‘credibility’ is one of the biggest issues yet to be addressed by Internet advertisers. Everyone has their eye on ‘privacy’ as a critical concern, but credibility will be far more enabling or disabling to website profitability. A company can have a web presence and, unless the brand name is familiar, consumers have no way of knowing whether it’s a big company, a small company, an honest company, or a single scoundrel. I may be worried about my personal data being disclosed in violation of my privacy, but I’m far more concerned about whether or not the person or company with whom I’m dealing is reputable. Can I believe their claims? Will I have a recourse if something is wrong with the merchandise? Credibility no longer is strictly a brick-and-morter issue. I can’t judge someone by their place of business, when I conduct that business on the Internet. I can’t grasp a hand and look into their eyes to judge their veracity. Credibility is a huge issue.” – Jef Richard.

For a message to be effective keep it short, simple, crisp and easy to absorb. It is essential to translate the products/services offer into meaningful customer benefit by advertising and to build awareness and generate response. REMEMBER: – THE AIDA MODEL -ATTENTION, INTEREST, DESIRE AND ACTION.

In the modern scenario, most of the companies outsource their advertising activities to an advertising/ad agency which is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising and sometimes also performs other forms of promotion like public relations, publicity and sales promotion for its client. Departments of the advertising agency includes: – The Creative Department (who creates an actual advertisement), Account Service (who is responsible for co-ordinating the creative team, the client, media and the production staff), Creative Service Production (here the employees are the people who have contacts with the suppliers of various creative media), Other department and Personnel. (like public relations). As said by David Ogilvy once that the relationship between a manufacturer and his advertising agency is almost as intimate as the relationship between a patient and his doctor. Make sure that you can life happily with your prospective client before you accept his account.

Thus, I would conclude by the famous words of Bruce Barton (1955), “Advertising is of the very essence of democracy. An election goes on every minute of the business day across the counters of hundreds of thousands of stores and shops where the customers state their preferences and determine which manufacturer and which product shall be the leader today, and which shall lead tomorrow.”

Choosemyrewards: The New Chase Credit Card Rewards Management Tool

In previous articles, I have discussed travel, cashback, interest-savings, and merchandise rewards programs. These rewards specific cards are geared towards people who are grounded in which type of rewards they would like to earn.

For those who are indecisive or those having different rewards interests at different times of the year, should take an interest in the Chase choosemyrewards program. There are two different flagship cards involved in this program, the Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa and the Chase Flexible Rewards Visa. Both cards offer 0% APR’s for 1 year, and low APR’s thereafter. Statistics show however, that the approval rate for the Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa is higher.

Let’s take a minute to explain the choosemyrewards program. Like any other rewards program, there is a point system for both cards. You receive one point for every dollar spent on purchases with each card. When these points are accumulated, you then have the option of redeeming them for a variety of goods or cash. Here is what distinguishes these two cards from all other programs. At any time, you may login to the choosemyrewards page on the Chase server to elect which type of rewards you would like to receive. Choices include merchandise, restaurant gift certificates, retail gift certificates, travel rewards, and with the Chase Cash Plus Rewards Visa up to 5% cashback on purchases.

Many other rewards programs make it very difficult for the consumer to redeem rewards, let alone choose them. Typically, you would have to call up the company, wait on hold to get in touch with the proper customer service representitive, and then listen to them give you your list of options before ultimately processing your decision. With the choosemyrewards program this is not the case. In the mail with your new Chase card, you will receive a login pin number and the web address where you may access your rewards account. After entering your pin number, you may view your points accrued and a list of all rewards options. You may then scroll through the list of options and choose the rewards you would like to receive.

It only gets better. Let’s say you logout of your account after you choose your rewards and realize that maybe you didn’t really want that gift certificate to Home Depot that you signed up for. Instead you’d like a gift certificate to your favorite restaurant. All you have to do is simply log back in and switch your reward redemption. This is a very simple and painless process and gives you, the consumer much more control.

Many people save their points until the end of the year, because they never expire, and redeem their points to give gift certificates as holiday presents. Others take a trip to a warm place during the winter. Others just simply trump in on a cashback award in the form of a check. Whatever your interest are, or if they change, enrolling in the choosemyrewards program will make your rewards management more user-friendly and thus, much easier.

Why Litigation Is Nothing More Than A Business Tool – 26 Unbreakable Rules of Litigation!

From Bill Gates at the end of the last century to John D. Rockefeller at the end of the previous century; from Rick Scott, founder of Columbia Health Care, to AT&T: from Richard Branson and British Airlines to Dan Peña and The Financial Times; from government, banking, insurance and every other facet of world commerce – to grow geometrically and stay around, litigation must be (prudently) used and mastered.

I will, as briefly as I can, memorialize the salient points of using litigation as a business tool.

Now before I start, I want it on the record, some 50% of my 30-year track record of litigation has had nothing to do with winning money, i.e., many lawsuits have been over principle, some were to right a heinous wrong such as slanderous remarks made about me; and some were because an entity just needed a good comeuppance and nobody else would carry the flag into battle.

I, like Don Quixote, have fought many a windmill.

As you’ve heard me speak and write about, when building your ‘Dream Team,’ you want Big Five accountants and a large national or international firm of lawyers – the best representation you can’t afford!

Unlike the success-oriented fees I coach you to use when facilitating transactions, no law firm will litigate initially on this basis.

Perhaps if your case is especially strong, they will do it on a contingency basis. Unfortunately, you will be using, from time-to-time, litigation as a positioning tool and your case may not be something you can seriously leverage.

A year or two ago, being left with a pig-in-a-poke, I had to litigate a case having specious facts at best to support my desired outcome. Fortunately, our (my) apparent lust for litigation was stronger than their desire to fight a hard fight, so a reasonably good settlement was finally arrived at.

Of course, during this process my good lawyers counseled us, advising our case needed to be much stronger, etc. Even with great lawyers, it is their job to tell you the downside risks. Again, what happens is you are often scared from pursuing your case.

Good lawyers win so-so lawsuits. Great lawyers can win lawsuits in which you have little or no chance to win.

Three of my favorite litigators over the years are Steve Susman and Cyrus Marter IV of Susman Godfrey in Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle and Tim Harris of Charleston Revich & Williams in Los Angeles. All three have dug me out of some pretty big black holes.

I’ve dealt with them 10 and 20 years respectively. They are worth every penny they charge!

Our judicial system works, but we grow up being afraid of it. It’s way out of our comfort zone so we preclude ourselves from benefitting from it. Normally the cost associated with it keeps us from using it.

In fact, I’m currently embroiled in litigation where the ancillary players to the litigation have rights which are being severely violated. A large group of people could bring great pressure to bear, but they’re afraid because of previous bad experiences. They could get what they deserve but aren’t pursuing their best interests.

There are lawyers who take on cases for humanitarian reasons, if the case warrants, in business as well, i.e., big major corporations taking advantage of the system because of their size alone.

Why do you want to initiate the lawsuit so you are the plaintiff? As the plaintiff, you pick where and when the lawsuit is fought and probably ultimately adjudicated.

This can be a huge advantage. And secondly, the plaintiff is allowed two closing arguments, meaning you (your lawyer) gets to address the judge and/or jury once and then again after the defendants’ closing argument. This can also be very important.

26 Unbreakable Rules of Litigation

#1 CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES

#2 CHOOSE THE VENUE

#3 BE THE PLAINTIFF

#4 HAVE THE BEST REPRESENTATION

#5 LISTEN TO YOUR HEART

#6 DON’T LISTEN TO YOUR SICK STOMACH WHEN YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

#7 DON’T LISTEN TO RELATIVES, FRIENDS, ET AL

#8 LISTEN TO EXPERIENCED LITIGANTS – LIKE ME!

#9 GENERALLY SPEAKING, DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE COST (THIS IS VERY HARD!)

#10 BIG LAWSUITS ARE BETTER THAN SMALL ONES

#11 ELECT JURY TRIALS, AS OPPOSED TO A JUDGE ONLY

#12 PREPARATION (YOURS) IS EVERYTHING – KNOW THE FACTS

#13 PRACTICE DEPOSITIONS AND TRIALS

#14 IF YOU ARE THINKING OF A BETTER STRATEGY, GET A NEW LAWYER (NOT TRUE IN MY CASE)

#15 NEVER GIVE UP

#16 DON’T BE INTIMIDATED BY THE PROCESS

#17 USE MOCK TRIALS (PRETEND TRIALS YOU DO IN FRONT OF A HIRED JURY)

#18 DRESS SIMPLE AND CONSERVATIVELY IN COURT – NO JEWELRY EXCEPT A WEDDING BAND; WHITE SHIRT, PLAIN TIE AND DARK SUIT FOR MEN AND THE EQUIVALENT FOR WOMEN; SHORT GROOMED HAIR FOR MEN

#19 DON’T LOSE YOUR TEMPER IN COURT – IT’S OKAY TO CRY IF IT’S REAL

#20 HAVE YOUR SPOUSE IN THE FRONT ROW EVERY DAY. CHILDREN ALSO IF POSSIBLE. OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS IN SECOND ROW IS OKAY

#21 NO QUOTES TO THE PRESS OTHER THAN ‘WE BELIEVE IN OUR CASE AND THAT IS WHY WE WENT TO COURT’. YOUR WORDS CAN EASILY BE TURNED AROUND.

#22 WHEN YOU BREAK FOR LUNCH OR A RECESS, REMEMBER NEVER TALK IN PUBLIC ABOUT THE CASE – YOU NEVER KNOW WHO MIGHT OVERHEAR

#23 WHEN YOU FIND A LEGAL TEAM THAT WINS, STAY WITH THEM

#24 ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, NO MATTER WHAT. THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE.

#25 DURING VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITIONS AND IN COURT, LOOK AT THE CAMERA AND THE JURY. MAKE EYE CONTACT.

#26 WHEN TESTIFYING IN A DEPOSITION/TRIAL, IF YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER, SAY YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER

It’s a closed world of top litigators. Virtually all big law firms have good to super-good lawyers. All big law firms don’t have great litigators. You don’t always need a great lawyer, but sometime if you grow geometrically, you will.

Like any other project management, litigation must be managed. Unfortunately, like speech-giving, you become a great litigant by going through a learning curve.

I don’t mean you have to get involved in losing efforts (like making bad speeches so after some time you make good speeches) to get in a position to win in court. Large law firms will allow you to get ahead of the learning curve.

The Quantum Leap methodology talks ad nauseam about following your dreams. Life without dreams is like a bird with a broken wing – it can’t fly. I wrote this newsletter because sometimes you’ll need litigation to follow your dream.

Go out and kick some butt, and don’t let conventional wisdom keep you from achieving your dream.

Conventional wisdom says Don’t Litigate.

All high-performance people and the great organizations of the last one hundred years did and do litigate as I write this letter.

Don’t litigate frivolously – but don’t be afraid to either.

To Your Quantum Leap,

Daniel S. Peña, Sr.

Reduce Popular Business Communication Tool Use?

Many managers are looking for ways to improve their business communications and reduce wasted time within and outside their companies. Are the most common business communication tools of meetings and emails the real problem? According to recent studies, the number of meetings and their duration has increased but meetings often are less than 50% productive. Are we using meetings when another communication tool like email might be more effective? Email use is on the rise and this too is getting a bad reputation as overused or poorly constructed. Emails are used for internal communications and external marketing so they need to be effective. Many managers are looking for ways to reduce both meetings and emails in their companies. Is reduction the answer or is the answer using the tools correctly and more effectively?

I’ve written a book on meeting management and articles on what goes wrong in meetings, so I already know where most people need help. I wanted to confirm that others may be concerned about what may go wrong in meetings and that meetings need improvement. Since I recently wrote an on-line article titled “Minding Meeting Manners”, so I thought it might be helpful to use a popular internet search engine to measure how important the topic of “meeting etiquette” or “meeting manners” is. Using these as keyword in my search, the combined total was over 41,900 results. Just to see if there was agreement with some of my meeting improvement ideas in my articles and books, I read a few of the results which had descriptions that indicated they would provide solutions. Much of the text I read included a few of the thirteen items in my article or some of the hints in my book. However, they often listed other problem areas that were job specific. Although the item I reviewed did not yield all the same things I felt were essential, they did reinforce my belief that meetings are important and that everyone needs to better know how to take advantage f this group communication method for business purposes.

After looking up meetings, I decided to check out “email etiquette” and got over 348,000 results. I scanned the list of options in the first few pages and checked out the ones that claimed to include tips in their descriptions. Some of those I read I agreed with as relevant for professional emails and others I disagreed with because they might work for personal email but were not the correct usage for business communications. However, I found that much of the text agreed with many of the thirteen I listed in the on-line article I wrote last month titled “Encouraging Email Etiquette”. Some justified their belief in what they stated with an explanation but most did not. For people to display proper etiquette in emails, they not only need to know what is acceptable but why that should be the norm. Email is a great communication tool but only if the receiver understands what the sender is trying to say. Although I may not agree with every email etiquette item I reviewed, the number of results clearly indicates this is a valid communication concern for business professionals.

I wanted to find out if the two most popular business communication tools needed to be reduced or if they needed to be used effectively. In turning to the internet as a research tool, I’m not sure if the resulting numbers can indicate which tool people really need the most help with or which is used the most. Either way, I feel confident that the results indicate all professionals need both meeting and email communication skills to be improved for business purposes. Improvement and proper utilization is more realistically the answer to business communication problems than trying to reduce the necessary use of meetings or email.

Google Translate Serbian Tool – Should Human Translators Be Worried?

“Machine translation”. Translators shudder to hear those words! It is partly in disgust, due to a firmly-held belief that a computer will never replace a superior human translator (like us!), partly because we are scared stiff that it will! So we either vehemently deprecate machine translation, or we carefully skirt around the subject and hope, for example, that our customers won’t find out about the Serbian-English-Serbian translation tool, recently made available for free by the almighty Google (link below)!

Because the fact is that Google’s translation tool, which now provides automatic translation into English of Serbian websites and of copy-pasted blocks of Serbian text, is really surprisingly good (we will not discuss Google’s English-Serbian translation tool in this article, i.e. the reverse direction, as it is pretty awful right now)!

Rather than acting as if it didn’t exist, we think it is better to get this subject out in the open and examine its implications for the clients of translation companies and for the translation industry in general. So this will be the first in what is planned to be a series of articles looking at automatic and machine translation, both in the context of Serbian-English translation and of translation in general. In this article we will look briefly at the quality of Google’s automatic Serbian-English translation and explain why we do not think translators and translation companies working in the Serbian-English pair should be too concerned for their livelihoods right now.

An example of Google’s Serbian English translation

Let’s carry out a little experiment first. We took a paragraph of Serbian text (taken from a Serbian Wikipedia article) and pasted it into the Google Serbian-English translation tool.

A human translation from the Serbian to English would read something like this:

A translation memory is comprised of segments of text in the source language and of their translation into one or more target languages. These segments can be passages, paragraphs, sentences or phrases. Individual words are not handled by translation memories, these are dealt with by terminology bases. Research has shown that many companies using multilingual documents use translation memory-based systems.

Within a few seconds, Google Translate outputs the following translation into English:

Translation memory consists of segments of the text in the original language and their translation into one or more target languages. These segments can be passages, paragraphs, sentences or phrases. Individual words are not in the field of translation memory, but they deal with terminoloske database. Research shows that many companies have multilingual documentation systems used to translating memory.

Can you understand it? Apart from a few problems the translator had in identifying passive/active constructions and an unknown word, of course you can! It’s certainly a lot better than any Serbian-English machine translation tool we’ve tried before. If you look at what an old-style machine translation (which shall remain nameless) did to this paragraph, maybe you can begin to appreciate how good Google Translate is:

Prevodilacka store sastoji oneself off segmenata textual on izvornom jeziku too njihovog prevoda on unity whether over ciljanih jezika. Those segmenti might lie flinders,pasusi,recenice whether fraze. Pojedinacne reci did not of domenu prevodilacke memorije,vec oneself to them bave terminoloske baze. Istra%u017Eivanja pokazuju ought mnoge kompanije wo there are visejezicku dokumentaciju koriste sisteme with prevodilackom memorijom.

I beg your pardon? That was supposed to be English, in case you were wondering! And NO, we did not doctor this in any way! Also, if anyone can tell us what “flinders” are, then they know more Middle English than we do!

Google Translate is perhaps not as successful with all texts as it was with this one, but it is certainly a major improvement over the above example in practically all cases! So perhaps translators should think twice before discounting machine translation from Serbian to English (and other languages, if this is anything to go by).

What makes Google Translate different?

Google’s system is a little different to previous machine translations in that it uses a statistical method to analyse existing translations from Serbian to English and applies what it has learned to the new text. Old-style systems merely use a dictionary to translate texts word-for-word by “brute force” and tend not to be very successful. However, it should be noted that Google themselves have recognised that their statistical method has now hit a wall of diminishing returns and it is unlikely that, as the technology currently stands, the standard of translation will be able to improve appreciably, and that goes not just for Serbian and English, but for all language combinations.

Death-knell for human translators?

So are we crazy to tell you all this? After all, translation companies rely on the (paid) work of human translators! What happens if all your clients go off and begin using Google Translate free of charge? Indeed, we have already seen examples of amateur translators supplying “translations from Serbian into English” that have clearly been carried out using this tool! It is only a matter of time before translation companies begin receiving “previously-translated” texts (texts that suspiciously resemble Google translations!) from clients and being asked to “just proof-read this” for a rate considerably lower than a translation from scratch would cost.

Well, we would like to talk about a few reasons why you and your clients should know about Google Translate for Serbian and English and why we think translation companies need not fear for their business:

A translation business should value transparency and seek to work within the realities of the market – it does not make long-term business sense to “hide” valuable resources like this from our clients! Besides, they will find out about it sooner or later! Rather, we should accept the reality that tools such as this bring to the translation industry – the market will always be changing and we need to be prepared to adapt, not cling to an outdated reality.
We should want our customers to use Google Translate for Serbian-English translation! After all, the vision of a translation company should be to enable their customers to communicate with other markets and cultures. So if this tool helps a client who only understands English to understand a text in Serbian, then you have surely gone some way to achieving this vision!
But the core of the issue and the reason translation companies have nothing to “fear” from Google Translate is what you have been suspecting all along: computerized, automatic translation is not going to replace professional human translation from Serbian to English (or any other language) any time soon. Or let’s phrase it as a question: would you, as the marketing manager of, say, a Serbian company wanting to do business in the West, entrust the translation of your website or of your corporate magazine into English to a machine translation tool? The simple reality is that, no, you would not.
This is not necessarily to knock automatic translation tools – they are after all a soft target for us superior human translators! They may well have their applications, and we may discuss this in another article. This is merely to say that any business that is serious about a given market, given the current quality of machine translation, will settle only for a professional, human translation of their promotional materials. After all, we said Google’s Serbian English translation was good, but it’s not THAT good! In fact it’s not nearly good enough.

Perhaps in a future article we will also take a look at some of the differences between machine translation and human translation and investigate some of the reasons why, despite the remarkable advances, and the positive things we have said about Google Translate, automatic translation software is not currently a serious choice for professional translation – from Serbian to English or in any other language combination – and why it may never be. Indeed, we have some deep concerns about possible misuses of a tool like this, in an environment where even now translation is often not taken seriously enough.

In the meantime though, check out the tool and perhaps open up a whole new world of translated Serbian web content that you could not access before! Try Google Serbian-English and English-Serbian translation here.

The Proven Benefits of Promotional Products As a Marketing Tool

Most advertising is based on repetition. No one listens to a single advertisement on TV, radio or even in print like newspapers and magazines. Business advertising is most effective when it is repeated and the same message is delivered to the target audience until it becomes subliminal. Sex sells. Humor sells. Drama sells. Endorsements sell. That is why almost all ads are created in one of those four formats. The message is usually that a product is better, will make you rich, thin or save you money. Promotional products do it more efficiently by providing your customers with something that they want and will use while constantly delivering your message.

Regardless of the size of your business, there is a promotional product that is just right for your message at an affordable price. Promotional products are a $19 billion dollar industry made up of thousands of economical items.

Every time your business gives away a pen, highlighter, USB flash drive, sports bottle, drinkware, tote bag, reusable sack, back pack or similar product it will be actively used; not just once, but over and over again. Each time it is used, your message is delivered right where you want it. This is known as cost per impression – how many times your logo or message will be seen for the same investment dollar. Promotional products are far and away the undefeated sales champion by this measurement. For a low, factory direct price, you can have your logo or message imprinted, engraved or silk screened on the product of your choice. That product will generate awareness of your business, build customer loyalty and create new sales. In today’s economy, it’s the one true business building method that everyone can afford.

Whether you are a new business trying to reach and build a customer base, or an established company introducing a new line or product, connect with your customers or just want to entice new sales, promotional products are the best media. Flyers, direct mail, newspapers and other print are hit and miss tools. Usually, they wind up in the garbage without making their point. Email blasts wind up in the spam bucket. Promotional products are active, usable carriers which are appreciated, not discarded as soon as possible.

Promotional products are an investment in your business and in your future. Whether it be promotional drinkware, custom USB drives, or imprinted tote bags, these items have been proven to be the most cost-effective way to get your message out to the masses. The right promotional product couple with the right target market can be a huge driver to sales. Marketing is all about keeping your company at the top of the consumer’s mind, which promotional products do each and every time they are used.

Entrepreneur Tests – A Tool For Successful Enterprise Ownership

Introduction

You think you might be an entrepreneur. And you want to take a screening test to find out. Testing is a valuable tool which he support your focus on entrepreneurial strengths and weakness. However, this is not the complete picture. Your skills, education, and experience also provide additional tools that will help you, should you decide to start your own business. The initial step in starting ones’ own enterprise is to sincerely analyze if you’ve got the right stuff to pull it off.

The Procedure

As a first step, decide if you are suited for entrepreneurship by taking a career preference test called the Combined Strong/MBTI Entrepreneur Test. The test is self-administered online. People who are self-motivated will find this action appealing irrespective of receiving help in interpreting the results. Taking a self-administered test is evidence in of itself that you are a self-starter.

Entrepreneurial Traits

Numerous studies have established the traits of small enterprise operators over time. Studies examine traits and attributes that appear to target characteristics that typically manifest in effective owner-managers. Testing takes into consideration those qualities that appear to differentiate the business owner that starts up an enterprise from the one that works for other people.

There are many key attributes of effective entrepreneurs. Although every successful entrepreneur would not necessarily possess all the attributes, it’s likely that most of them are intrinsic in the successful business owner.

In business, the dedicated entrepreneur typically presents a sophisticated skill-set of abilities that sets him apart from ordinary managers. These one-of-a-kind attributes lead him to accomplish more than non- management personnel, and he is therefore able to find a way to do the things that must be done to keep the enterprise afloat.

Can the entrepreneur make judgments swiftly and routinely? Can he make rational choices as well as intuitive judgments in accordance with the circumstances at hand? A ‘yes’ to these questions means the individual possesses the essential entrepreneur attribute of decisiveness.

Is the business owner trustworthy? Can he effortlessly relate to others? If the reply to these questions is ‘yes’, then another essential entrepreneurial quality exists for the reason that each business transaction requires genuine interest in the needs of potential customers as a prerequisite to persuading them to buy.

How exactly does the individual respond to problems? An entrepreneur needs to have the capacity to identify difficulties early on, then to fully investigate them and apply remedies.

The Business Enterprise Plan

A strategic business plan is the vehicle through which one conducts market research. Decide which personnel to involve in the sale of your product, and validate your revenue and expense financial forecasts. It is the means by which you will lay a durable foundation to build a profitable enterprise.

Candid Talk

Start your enterprise by retaining only those personnel that are absolutely necessary to maintain basic operations. Later, you can recruit additional qualified people when the budget allows. Setting up an enterprise is superficially easy, often driven by the vision and enthusiasm of the founder. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”. A the details extend indefinitely into the future.

The formative years of business launch is often hard on loved ones life. The stress of resistance from a significant other is always challenging when balancing against the requirements of establishing a business. There may also be financial hardships during the formative years to profitability, which often can take months or even years to achieve. You may need to adapt to a reduced standard of living or put family resources in jeopardy.

If you do not take pleasure in promoting your product or service, failure is a definite unwelcome option. I say this because starting a business takes determination, more determination than perhaps anything else in life. You must have a burning need to succeed and make the business enterprise work regardless of unforseen circumstances.

Count on facing hurdles. Friends and family may advise you that your plan won’t work. But don’t let negativity get in your way. Surround yourself with positive people who will support you in your efforts.

Most small enterprise failures are caused by insufficient preparation. It’s impossible to get rid of all of the risks associated with starting a small business. However, it is possible to enhance your chances of success with good planning and preparation.

Tips

The enterprise owner is usually first on the scene in the morning and last out the door at night. Operating a business can wear you down. Be ready to log extended time on the job to achieve the rewards of entrepreneurship. Some business owners feel burned out by having to shoulder the many obligations. Strong commitment to make the business enterprise be successful will assist you to make it through slow-downs, in addition to times of burnout.

You need faith along with a desire to achieve success against all odds. Becoming a successful entrepreneur is so much more than simply waxing euphoric over lots of plans or projecting a sharp business acumen. It’s about determination, ego strength and just plain tenacity. You will need self-confidence as well as a burning desire to make it no matter what obstacles present themselves. It’s essential to work tirelessly in order to nurture start-up organization and have the stamina to keep working until the business takes on a life of its own. Then, it’s essential to stay connected to daily operations.

When you have identified your individual skills and education, concentrate on your enterprise know-how. Focus on specific business information instead of general life experience. Then, judge your decision-making abilities.

After you open your doors, you’re in charge. Decisions need to be made according to what you believe. Not every one of these choices must be made immediately, but many will require immediate attention. If your standard response to problems is to give problem resolving duties to another individual, then you will likely have difficulties with operating a business.

Values and Balance

In a sense, a true entrepreneur is living a balanced life because he is living his passion.

Perhaps you’ve decided it’s time for you to make that jump. Prior to doing so, it’s a smart idea to determine if your persona and pursuits are similar to current business owners.

What various levels of commitment do we put on our business, financial, family, social and spiritual lives? This is a value decision all entrepreneurially-minded individuals should make. The first step in your assessment is to make an honest appraisal of your personal skills and education.

Reflect on your life experiences. Write down two situations where you solved a problem. Then take note of two situations where the decisions you made didn’t work so well. You’ll want to record everything you discovered from these scenarios. Use these examples of positive and negative outcomes to craft a philosophic statement about your pending business start-up.

The academic community promotes the validity of acquiring entrepreneurial skills through book learning.

Others say that you simply can’t train a person to effectively function in the real world; that interpersonal skills, marketing, advertising and basic management techniques can be cultivated. Some believe that entrepreneurs start life with a skills-set potential. Others say that people are molded by early life experiences as well as interaction with mentors.

The Truth about Business Failure

At one time, all an aspiring entrepreneur needed to make a reputation for himself was investment capital along with a unique concept or invention. Times have changed. Entrepreneurs must have the right stuff to tackle the already bloated corporate environment, and it also requires a greater charismatic voice to drown out the competition.

With that said, the failure rate of start-ups is not as conventional wisdom says it is. We have all heard that the majority of enterprises fail in the first five years. But an in-depth study in 1993 by the New Jersey Institute of Technology suggests those figures are a myth.

The analysis shows that 18% of new organizations fail in the first 8 years of business, while54% make it through more than 8 years with their original proprietors or with a change in ownership. The 28% remaining businesses voluntarily end operations without loss to owners or investors.

Conclusion

After completing the Entrepreneur Test, it is likely you will get a far better understanding of how you match up against other entrepreneurs. But testing isn’t the whole picture. Your talent, education, and expertise also assist you.

For many individuals, starting an enterprise is the fulfillment of achieving a lifetime aspiration. But disregarding small details in the formative stages can derail successful implementation of that dream.

Last, but unquestionably not least, effective entrepreneurs need to be ready to work very hard and invest many long months and years building up reputation and good will. At the end of the day, customers conduct business with an owner who is honest and trustworthy.