All posts by blogger

Why Android Is A Great Match For Mobile Business Users

By blogger on

The smart phone industry is expanding greatly, and business users are left wondering which smart phones best match their needs. While BlackBerry has been the historic winner, many businesspeople are starting to look much more seriously at Android as a strong contender.

What makes Android so attractive to business users? This can be broken down into a few key areas: flexibility and choice, pricing, apps and software, and business integration.

Flexibility: On the whole, Android presents a lot of flexibility for users – they can choose from a variety of phones, a variety of providers, and an app store that is not heavily regulated (unlike Apple’s App Store). Business users have differing needs depending on their industries, position, and even lifestyle, and Android makes it easier to find a smart phone that’s a perfect match.
Applications: On other mobile operating systems, applications are heavily policed. While this has some advantages in terms of reliability, it also means that one company is choosing exactly what people do and do not want on their mobile phones. It excludes small niche programs designed for specific types of business people from existing – a problem that is rectified on Android. Android’s applications are open to all software developers, which means more innovation for the business user.
Strong web browsing capabilities: Android supports Adobe Flash – a popular way of encoding web pages that the Apple iPhone does not support. In other words, Android users are able to view a number of web pages that iPhone users would not otherwise be able to. This is important when you need one quick piece of information on the go!
Prices are much more competitive: Because Android is available on many different types of phone, there’s much more room for the budget-minded businessperson to find a price that works for them.
Strong Exchange integration: Many businesses use Microsoft Exchange, though mobile support for Exchange is sometimes hit and miss. BlackBerry requires of the installation of their BES server. However, Android integrates with Exchange without any need for add-ons – perfect for easy integration into the business world!

Business Database And The Role It Plays In Expanding Your Business

By blogger on

Different databases have come up with the advancement of technology and we all have witnessed their major role in the smooth operation of a business organization. Business organizations of every type and size are now maintaining an online presence and online database have become the backbone of every business website. They have become very popular for sharing, holding and gathering information. This has clearly eliminated the need of companies to store large chunks of data on their computers as that can now be stored on the internet. Builders of web database offer a wide variance of applications that include mechanism for analyzing, managing and storing data over the internet. As the applications are powered with data analysis, data reporting and data collection, they provide you with a lot of benefits. You are also free from the fear of losing any valuable data as it is backed up on numerous servers that are located at different positions. The applications are of high quality and so your online users can access it at minimal time. As the competition in the business world is increasing, it has become necessary to maintain an online presence to survive the cut throat competition. The cyber world also offers limitless ways to promote your products and services.

Database software system is required for business firms for maintaining their data. Companies take the help of databases to keep all sorts of information in an organized manner. They not only help in storing data, but also retrieving them efficiently. They have many in built features for performing specific functions. They can provide you with unlimited storage capacity so that you can store as much data as you want. While developing such a database, many factors are taken into consideration to ensure that it is perfectly fit for your business.

An organizations web database can be accessed by remote users from any part of the world with the help of internet facility. This provides a lot of opportunities for business holders to reach to a wider audience and thus expand their business. They can also work in collaboration with other organizations.

Small Business Dashboard Design Dos And Don’ts

By blogger on

A business success dashboard is a computer based reporting application that displays your key business metrics in gorgeous colourful graphs that all but smack you in the face with startlingly practical insights about how to boost your business success.

No longer do we need to rely on black and white printed sales reports choking with numbers arranged in columns and rows. Ick! You can’t get powerful insights from looking at numbers arranged in tables – it’s scientifically proven, so don’t bother arguing! 😉

The really exciting and cool thing about business success dashboards is that they take the guesswork out of your decision making.

Dashboards put right in front of you the bare facts about show-stopping results like how well your marketing is attracting profitable leads, how easily you can convert a lead into a customer, what your customers like and don’t like, where you’re wasting time in your business and how healthy your cash flow is.

But as a small business owner or entreprenuer, you’ll only give your time to setting up your business success dashboard if it’s fun, fast and profit-building. So here are 7 dos and don’ts to make sure your dashboard is:

1. DO start with just a few business metrics, like profit, revenue, cash flow, new leads, website visitors – whatever you’re measuring and tracking now. DON’T wait until you have worked out all the measures that matter for your business: it will take forever, you’ll get bored with it and you’ll be missing profit pumping opportunities from the measures you already use.

2. DO use basic tools you already have – like Microsoft Excel – until you get into the groove of dashboarding and using your business metrics to manage your business. DON’T invest in flashy software until you know how you want your dashboard to serve you.

3. DO use simple line charts to display your measures so you can see trends over time – the trends are more important than the points. DON’T compare this month to last month, or do any other two-point comparisons like this – you never see the real trends or get any real insights this way.

4. DO include Pareto charts to dig into your data, such as to show you the 20% of marketing campaigns that bring 80% of your customers, or the 20% of sales that bring 80% of the revenue. DON’T ever use pie charts – they absolutely suck when it comes to giving you any kind of useful information from your data.

5. DO let form follow function, and only include the measures that matter to your business, and the graphs that best reveal those measures’ trends and insights. DON’T go all Picasso on it – limit your creativity to choice of colours, not to find out how many forms of bling you can build into it.

6. DO use your dashboard weekly, to look for clues about the best ways to ramp up your business results. DON’T lose the discipline of regularly tracking, testing and tuning your business – sure, the dashboard will only be one input to managing your business but it’s an essential input.

7. DO get help from someone who’s really ofay with Excel and graphs, or someone who is experienced with measuring and tracking. DON’T rely on dashboard software people who can’t demonstrate skills in choosing meaningful measures and displaying them appropriately (they usually get carried away with pretty but useless guages and dials). DON’T freak out trying to do it yourself either – the difference that a business dashboard will make to your success and sanity is too valuable.

TAKE ACTION:
If the Dashboard Fairy granted you a wish to instantly dashboard 3 measures of your business success, which 3 measures would you choose? What are the 3 most important results that have the most leverage to increase your profits, and improve your work-life balance? Now set up the world’s simplest dashboard using Excel, to start tracking those measures. And finally, commit to taking at least one action to improve the results those measures reveal to you.

The Pros And Cons Of Medium And Large Business Coaching Firms

By blogger on

Business coaching is essentially about making a meaningful difference to a business by helping business owners to achieve their goals and overcome their weaknesses. It is all about polishing their skills and helping them understand their own potential. Business coaching is something that can be practically applied to any industry and at any level of employment. This growing need for business coaching is responsible for making coaching industry as big and competitive as it is today. Business coaching provides excellent career opportunities to those who believe that teaching is their forte and who have profound understanding of the sensitive business needs of diverse businesses.

While some people prefer to set up their own coaching practice, others choose to become a part of well-established boutique (medium sized coaching service providers) or a large business coaching firm, to impart their coaching skills to business communities. Just like a solo business coaching practice, medium and large business coaching firms also have their own set of pros and cons. If you are an expert business coach and are planning to provide coaching services through a medium or large business coaching firm, make sure that you quickly go through the pros and cons mentioned below:

Pros

Working with reputed business coaching firms has several benefits and can be a rewarding career prospect for many. When you work solo, there is a danger of professional isolation that may stop you from learning new skills that are required for survival in this highly competitive coaching market. However, when you work with moderate sized or large firms, you are a part of a highly motivated coaching culture and you are constantly updated about the latest developments in your field. The firm as a whole adapts to the changing demands of diverse businesses and develops new strategies to address these demands.

As a result, you will always learn new survival strategies to sustain fierce competition and stay ahead, in spite of the growing challenges. Being associated with a large organization, your market value is higher. In addition, teamwork enhances your productivity as well as creativity, contrary to solo practice where you have to rely only on your ideas and efforts. Large firms usually have a broad network and a list of influential clients providing excellent growth opportunities for deserving candidates. Clients, especially big companies prefer to hire the services of established firms, as they are usually very professional and maintain confidentiality about business information.

Cons

Some clients feel that large firms may not provide personalized services that solo coaches offer. When working for boutiques or large firms, you wont get the freedom to implement your ideas and may often have to seek prior approval from your seniors before going ahead with a business strategy. Being a part of a large team of professionals, your ideas and strategies may be replaced by those of others, leading to lack of morale and low performance. There is also a strong chance that your performance may not be noticed and you may get lost in the crowd.

How To Select The Best Residual Income Business Opportunity

By blogger on

A lot of people are actively looking for a lucrative residual income business opportunity, but they make critical mistakes. Heres how you can avoid those costly errors. The 3 key main factors to consider are:

1) the amount of monthly income generated
2) the amount of resources required to create that stream of residual income
3) the duration of the income, including whether or not the amount of income increases or decreases over time.

Most people make the error of, first, being introduced to a company and then, second, trying to see if it is a good residual income business opportunity. They fall into the proverbial trap of not being able to see the forest for the trees. They find the tree first, without knowing what kind of forest it is in. A better approach is to identify the ideal forest first, and then look for the best tree in that forest, second. Giant Sequoias are much much taller than pine trees, but you wouldnt see that if you only look in pine forests.

The kind of forest to look in for the absolute best residual income business opportunity is NOT that of the employee or the self employed. This includes traditional work-from-home businesses. In addition, some people think that network marketing is a good forest to look in, but there is so much competition in network marketing, both in selling products and in recruiting a downline, that the return on your efforts is almost guaranteed to be low. That is how micro-economics works: high competition = low margins of return. If you are looking for the absolute best residual income business opportunity, the proper forest to look in is that of the investor.

As an investor, you are able to leverage other peoples time and other peoples money, while retaining control. You dont have to sell any products or services in the midst of fierce competition. The amount of income created is directly related to the rate of return you are able to generate. You can even hire high-performing professional traders to do the active investing for you, on a pay for performance basis, so that you dont have learn how to become a full-time trader yourself. The amount of personal resources involved can be minimal, especially if you are using other peoples money. The most valuable resource is specialized knowledge, which can be learned, from the right source. And the duration of income can be multi-generational, recession proof, and increasing every year, due to the power of compounding returns.

One excellent, yet relatively unknown source for gaining the specialized knowledge, and careful guidance on how to apply it correctly, is The Financial Freedom Foundation. They are a non-profit organization dedicated to showing people how to become financially independent. With the resources they provide, you can grow your own personal forest of Giant Sequoia sized money trees with $100 dollar bills coming off of each branch, for you to use at your convenience. Theyll show you how to create up to $100K residual income within 12 months, and give you the knowledge of how to grow that to over $1M per year, within 5 to 10 years all this using other peoples time, talents, and money. That is the absolute best residual income business opportunity around. They even have a FREE REPORT that you can download from their website, to get an inside peek as to how you can do it yourself.