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Circuit City Stores, Inc. Provides Update - Yahoo! Finance 2 0 Votes

Proquest Solutions introduces "Netsuite For Business" program of India to SAP customers

Proquest Solutions introduces "Business By Netsuite" program to Indian SAP Customers Helping Large SAP Customers Cut Costs by 50% or More Across Core Levels of Their Businesses Pune, Maharashtra, IND, 2009-01-12 10:00:00 (IndiaPRwire.com) Downloads Proquest Solutions Pvt Ltd, India-s first and the leading on-demand solution provider, today announced that the company will offer NetSuite-s Business ByNetSuite program to SAP R/3 customers in India. Business ByNetSuite targets those SAP R/3 customers who are eager to address expanding business software needs without having to increase their capital investment in SAP and incur more fees on top of what may be the highest maintenance fees ever levied by a major vendor in the enterprise software market. Business ByNetSuite guarantees SAP R/3 customers at least 50% lower for a comparable number of user seats, including their current annual maintenance and support agreement when they switch to an annual NetSuite subscription. Business ByNetSuite enables SAP R/3 customers to deploy the complete NetSuite enterprise resource planning (ERP) offering at a subsidiary or departmental level as an SAP replacement, or as the top choice for a brand new implementation. NetSuite can easily complement a customer's broader SAP investment, and its ability to help companies manage core business operations in a single on-demand business software system can deliver a huge advantage over current SAP division-level deployments in terms of cost savings and overall productivity gains. "In this tough economy where every rupee spent is questioned by management, one sure way to lower the overall total cost of ownership for SAP customers would be to embrace NetSuite-s Business ByNetSuite program as a complementary, division-level solution," said Biswas Nair, Managing Director Proquest Solutions. "We are confident that we can save SAP R/3 customers money and offer them access to a modern, on-demand software suite specifically designed to meet their needs" "India is a strategic market for NetSuite and we believe that Indian corporations can benefit from our on-demand business management software suite," said Matthew Rickard, Sales Manager Asia for NetSuite. Program Details The Business ByNetSuite program is available now and open to all SAP R/3 customers in good standing. The 50% cost savings is applied based on what an SAP R/3 customer is currently paying for annual maintenance and support. NetSuite guarantees an annual subscription price of 50% lower for a comparable number of user seats, including support. To expedite SAP replacements, Proquest Solutions has developed a special SAP Migration Program, which includes a set of services and third-party tools designed to help ease the migration for SAP customers making the switch. The program offers professional services time that can be applied to various implementation tasks such as business process mapping, configuration, data migration, end-user training and deployment assistance. - End - About Proquest Solutions Proquest Solutions is a specialized IT product and business services company, providing leading edge IT solutions to its customers in the Indian and Asia Pacific regions. Proquest Solutions was an early pioneer in enterprise software-as-a-service applications in India and is a leading Solution Partner for NetSuite. Its professionals bring rich experience in IT product and business services models to consulting engagements and count Hindustan Unilever Ltd, Novartis, APL Limited, Stryker, Patni Computers, Nielsoft, NIIT Ltd, SKS Microfinance, Serum Institute, Kalpataru Power and many others as customers. Founded in 2003, Proquest Solutions is privately held and headquartered in Pune, India. For more details please visit www.proquestsolutions.com Browse all Proquest Solutions Pvt Ltd press release » | Subscribe to daily press alerts via email » For more information, Please contact: Biswas Nair Managing Director Proquest Solutions Pvt Ltd Phone: +91 20 25635380 Fax: +91 20 25635383 You can also visit www.proquestsolutions.com for more information.

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator's Companion

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator-s Companion Posted by March 26, 2009 This comprehensive administrator s reference delivers the details you need to successfully deploy, manage, and support Windows Small Business Server 2008. The authors, experts in Microsoft operating systems and server technologies, provide easy-to-follow procedures, practical workarounds, and key troubleshooting tactics. Delve into system features and capabilities and get hands-on insights for completing everyday tasks, including implementing messaging and collaboration, Internet access, database administration, security, faxing, support for line-of-business applications, and end-to-end network administration. This single volume covers all Small Business Server 2008 components, including Windows Server(r) 2008, Windows SharePoint(r) Services 3 technologies, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 technologies, Microsoft SQL Server(r) 2008, Windows(r) Update Services 3.0, Web Server technologies, Windows Live OneCare for Server, and remote administration services. The book also includes timesaving tools and scripts and a complete eBook on the CD. Uploading for USA, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherland, Greece, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Austria,Russia, Polish & Ukraine Click here to Download OR Rapidshare for all Click here to Download

Global Economy and Small Business - What sparked my mind to complete

I woke up this morning with my mind in overdrive. Scattered thoughts trying to become some sort of cohesive ball of direction. The world is a big place, but every day through the power of the web and connection tools it gets a bit smaller. I have Friends in countries I-ve never visited before. If business takes me to any major city in the US I can find someone to have dinner with or at least get a recommendation on where to eat. I-ve also been thinking about how I would like to see The Advance Guard take on some more smaller brands as well as at least one global campaign in the future. I-d really like to show just how powerful a well planned and executed marketing program can be for a smaller brand. I-d also love to take an over arching campaign and then execute it on a global scale or multi-country scale to see how different parts of the world react. Many small businesses forget that they can leverage the same tools as the big guys. I won-t go so far as to call social media Hamburger Helper, but it does allow anyone to take what they are already doing with marketing and PR and spread it even further. The problem as always is time and money. That doesn-t change no matter what size company you are. But, smaller businesses have less red tape and are more open to thinking outside of the box most times. It is sort of fun to ponder the global economy and the small business owner at the same time. Granted, this early in the morning, with barely a cup of coffee in me it stretches the mind in all sorts of weird ways. I told you it was all over the place and yet in some way all works and plays nice together. I-m sure I-ll be noodling over it all day. Writing it down actually helps me focus. What did you wake up thinking about today? « Dylan-s Soda Fountain Experiment

A blog as a tool for Business

Herrmann alone is veering way off-topic here, for a post about using blogs to develop new legal business. Bexis prefers to stick to drug and device law, so he played no role in drafting this post. A surprising number of folks have asked us whether blogging is a useful business development tool for lawyers. Here are our (well, Herrmann's) two cents worth on that topic. First, discount much of what you hear on this subject. People who create or host blogs for a living are self-interested: They swear that blogging generates business, and they'll never be convinced otherwise. Second, take our comments for what they're worth: It's not as though we've done an empirical analysis of blogs and legal business. We're just speaking from our own experience and the logical implications of what we've seen. Here's the necessary background: We'd call our blog relatively successful. We've attracted some attention in the blogosphere; we have several hundred subscribers (by Google e-mail group); we've received a few awards from blog-watchers; and we typically receive a few tens of thousands of page views per month. That's good, but not great. Widely read blogs receive tens of thousands of page views each day; we're not in that league. (And we never will be; a blog about drug and device law will never be of interest even to most lawyers, let alone to the public at large. We didn't launch this little experiment with the idea that we'd soon conquer The Huffington Post or the Drudge Report.) In our little niche, however, we're pretty well known. To the extent that a blog of this type can generate business, we would have expected that to have happened during the two years we've been at this. It really has not. Here's a completely honest description of what we've seen on the business development front. (Note that we're excluding all non-business reaction to the blog. The blog has caused us to be quoted in the legal and popular press, generated speaking and writing engagements, and the like. We're talking here only about new retentions that we can attribute directly to the blog.) First, existing clients occasionally read blog posts and then retain us to think harder about some subject on which we've posted. Second, litigants searching for amici curiae in their cases occasionally stumble across the blog and ask us to provide either paid or pro bono amicus help. Third, folks who it makes no sense for us to represent -- potential product liability plaintiffs, or tiny companies on the periphery of the pharmaceutical products world -- sometimes call, but those fish are either inedible or too small to fry, so we toss them back. That's about it for business attracted by the blog. We have not been retained by any entirely new clients asking for help on substantial new matters. On the whole, then, we'd say that blogging has not been a tremendously successful business development tool. (Not to worry. We write this blog for many reasons other than business development; our lack of results on the business development front won't cause us to close up shop. Exhaustion may, but lack of new business won't.) What's our speculation about legal blogs as business development tools? First, blogs are the new-age equivalent of billboards or ads on television or in the Yellow Pages. Blogs effectively reach a mass audience, but they don't effectively target the general counsel or heads of litigation of Fortune 500 companies. We suspect that, if we were "Yellow Pages" lawyers rather than "tall building" lawyers -- if any guy on the street were a potential client -- this blog would have generated a great deal of business by now. But that's not our target "market," and a legal blog is a relatively ineffective way of developing business from sophisticated corporate clients. Think about it this way: If we bloggged about "personal bankruptcy," then any person who searched on-line for a bankruptcy lawyer might find and retain us. But if we blogged about "Fortune 500 bankruptcies," it's far less likely that the general counsel of some huge, but struggling, corporation would read our blog and be convinced by our posts that he or she should retain us. If we blogged about how to draft contracts efficiently for small businesses, we might attract small business clients. But if we blogged about "international M&A transactions valued in excess of $5 billion," we'd be less likely to succeed. In-house lawyers at sophisticated companies have many ways to select counsel, and going on-line to find bloggers ain't high on that list. Blogs are probably great business development tools for solo practitioners. Blogging might generate business for small or medium-sized law firms, which are generally happy to accept, for example, a role as local counsel. And blogs might generate business for lawyers at large firms who routinely handle smaller matters. But we're beginning to suspect that blogs are a relatively ineffective business development tool to attract large matters to large law firms. We're leaving open the possibility that blogging may be an effective business development tool over time, when used in conjunction with other tools. Thus: Giving one talk is unlikely to generate business; giving one talk a month for five years is more likely to work. Writing one article is unlikely to generate business; writing one article a year for twenty years is more likely to work. Blogging for a couple of years (by itself) may not generate business; blogging over time, while also giving talks, writing articles, and never dining alone, may be more effective. But it's awfully hard to run a controlled experiment of that hypothesis. What's our advice? Same as it's always been: Blog for pleasure; blog to stay abreast of your field of law; blog to influence the public debate; blog to raise both your firm's and your personal profile in a your legal niche. But, if you're a big-firm lawyer who typically handles large litigation or corporate matters, don't blog for profit. For lawyers in practices such as ours, there are other, more effective marketing tools. (Now we'll kick back and watch this post get slaughtered (for heresy) in the blogosphere, while we return to drug and device law.)

Lowongan Kerja: Lowongan Kerja di LANGSUNG MILENIUM GOLDEN SECURITY

Golden Panthera is a Jakarta based corporate finance firm engaged both in principal investments and corporate advisory .Our portfolio consists of several companies in energy, trading, shipping and services. We are building a team of professionals with extensive experience in transactions as well as building businesses Corporate Finance VP - Bachelor Degree from top tier overseas schools or University Indonesia or Institute of Technology Bandung is required, preferably with a master degree - Min 5 years experience in Corporate Finance and M & A - Strong numeracy and reasoning skills, together with an understanding of accounting and financial concepts, are essential to succeed in the role - Proven analytical, computer and interpersonal skills, along with the ability to report and communicate at all levels within an organization Finance Analyst - Bachelor degree from top tier schools or University Indonesia or Institute of Technology Bandung is required, preferably in Finance or Industrial Engineering Baca kelanjutannya disini. Sebarkan Artikel Ini ke Teman: Jan 12, 2009 Penulis: | Disimpan dalam: Lowongan Kerja Posting terkait:

Using Twitter to enhance your small business

How to wisdom from across the Internet - want to know how to do something? You may find the solution here. If you like posts on this blog then you can get regular updates emailed to you or subscribe to the RSS feeds.   « How to manage MySQL easily on your PC How to become a better writer using Twitter » How to use Twitter to improve your small business --> Given the reach and strength of Twitter, as a small business entrepreneur you should know how to improve your business using Twitter. It-s highly unlikely that you haven-t heard of Twitter, but in case you haven-t it is one of the fastest growing social networking websites in the world. Using Twitter, you can use text messages to people who decide to follow you. Basically it-s a microblogging platform that let-s people communicate to multiple people at the same time. Anyway, you can find millions of web pages and blog posts explaining what Twitter does, in this post I-m going to assume that you know Twitter and are eager to use to improve your business. As you know, you can quickly disseminate short messages "” maximum 140 words "” to all the people who are following you. You can not only follow people, you can also follow topics being discussed by your followers, and by people you are following. There are various online tools and utilities that help you manage Twitter trends and conversations. Some of the prevalent Twitter tools are: You can read about more Twitter tools that can help you improve your small business in this blog post.

How Your Addiction to Entrepreneurship Can Make or Break Your Success

If you read my previous post about startup addiction, here is a book I recommend you to read about how you can use your addiction to help you success, instead of failing you. Addictive Entrepreneurship, written by Allan J. Katz, is about discovering how your addictive way of thinking can be the main reason behind your failures in your business, and how to revert it into a propeller for you to achieve your success. Reading through the book, the reality strikes me - My past business failures are due to not identifying my addiction that comes in the form of perfectionism. In the book, Allan wrote, "When addictive thinking takes over, you begin to question your own decision-making process. Doubt sets in and all the years of experience and education seem to vanish, allowing you to question whether you should be working for yourself in the first place." All I can say is this: OUCH! Why "Addictive Entrepreneurship" can change your personal and business life That-s what happened (and still happening) to me - I love business ideas and I am keen to start up businesses according to them, in an almost impulsive way. However, my perfectionist side starts to question my decision - I start to question my very own decision making, just like what Allan wrote in his book. What worse, my perfectionism makes me work 18 hours a day, driven by my guilt feelings of not trying hard enough to succeed. I need help badly! The results are devastating - I-m losing my motivation in pursuing the startups and starting to find ways to get rid of them! Logically, I have to tweak the businesses until they are working as they should. I have this perseverance and resilience, but my addictive thinking defeats my positive traits. Allan J. Katz - a direct response copywriter and marketing strategist, a former President of the Direct Marketing Association of Memphis, and an adjunct professor at the University of Memphis Continuing Education Program - explained, through his experience, that what I should do to "˜cure- my entrepreneurial mind-s addiction is to identify my "˜push-button- or "˜trigger- to all negativity, and try to control it and revert it into a positive success-driving force. I am personally benefiting from Allan J. Katz- book. If you are really want to know that you are an addict in entrepreneurship, in any forms, I highly recommend you to read Allan J. Katz book, "Addictive Entrepreneurship." If you would like to learn more, I recommend you to visit Allan J. Katz- Addictive Entrepreneurship website to learn more about what-s inside the book. Ivan Widjaya Controlling my entrepreneurial addiction Image by . About the Author Ivan Widjaya is the Owner/Editor of Noobpreneur.com. He is a web property investor, blogger and web property maker, and currently managing and running websites and blogs on various topic under the brand name of My Web Estate. Visit Noobpreneur's profile and other posts.

Stocks

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The layman's finance crisis glossary The current financial crisis has thrown terminology from the business pages onto the front page of newspapers, with jargon now abounding everywhere from the watercooler to the back of a taxi. Here is a guide to many of the business terms currently cropping up regularly, as well as some of the more exotic words coined to describe some of the social effects of the credit crunch. Readers can send any terms they need explaining using the form at the bottom. AAA-rating Administration Assets Basis point Bear market Bond Bull market Capital Carry trade Capitulation Chapter 11 Collateralised debt obligation Commercial paper Commodities Correction Credit crunch Credit default swap Currency peg Dead cat bounce Deflation Derivatives Dividends Equity FTSE-100 Fundamentals Futures GDP Hedge fund Hedging Inflation Investment bank Junk bond Keynesian economics Limited liability Leveraging Libor Liquidity Loans to deposit ratio Mark-to-market Money markets Monoline insurance Mortgage-backed securities Naked short selling Nationalisation Negative equity Ponzi scheme Preference shares Prime rate Profit warning Quantitative easing Rating Recapitalisation Recession Retained earnings Rights issue Securities lending Securitisation Security Short selling Spiv Stagflation Sub-prime mortgages Swap Tier 1 capital Toxic debts Underwriters Unwind Warrants Write-down Yield spread

Telecom Launches Small Business Success Pack Wednesday, 25 March 2009, 10:36 am Press Release: Telecom New Zealand Telecom Launches Small Business Success Pack Telecom announced today two initiatives aimed at saving small businesses hundreds of dollars during the economic downturn, the Telecom Small Business Success Pack and online forum "˜Think Small-. Victoria Crone, GM Business for Telecom Retail, says that Telecom is uniquely positioned to provide support to smaller businesses. "As one of New Zealand-s biggest companies we-re passionate about supporting other kiwi businesses. SEARCH NZ JOBS Search New Zealand Business "Over the past several months we have been working with our partners to understand and track how businesses are approaching challenges the economic environment is putting in front of them. From this work, we have a clear plan of how we can support and help them through this difficult time." As a result Telecom has launched two separate initiatives, one helping our customers get the most from their telecommunications services, and the other supporting the wider small business community to share and tackle these issues. The Telecom Small Business Success Pack addresses key areas of concern for small businesses such as cost certainty cashflow management, ensuring value for money, access to tools that enable efficiency, flexibility and increased productivity. The range of offers includes: Removal of a fixed phone line early termination fees for customers suffering financial hardship, giving small businesses the benefits of contracts without the worry of paying disconnection fees if their business is forced to close, and saving an average small business $222.88. A complimentary upgrade to Business Broadband for three months on a 12 month plan including a free modem and free dedicated business helpdesk saving up to $229.99. Three months free mobile plan charges on all mobile plans on a 24 month contract saving from $89.95 to $149.85. Three months free plan charges on a BusinessTime plan (capped calling rates to fixed lines and mobiles) on a 24 month contract saving $155.85. The option for small businesses to change their billing periods to suit their business activity and help them manage their cashflow effectively All-in-one website design and hosting packages priced from $14.50 per month on a 12 month plan, including a website design tool, a domain name and a website hosting plan so small business can keep marketing themselves and making sales as advertising costs come under pressure The option for small businesses to downgrade their mobile plans after the first 12 months of their contract if their needs change at no cost Telecom is also committed to supporting the wider small business community to share challenges, ideas and solutions, so working with partners Made from New Zealand has created an online support network for small business owners called Think Small. www.thinksmall.co.nz is a forum for sharing ideas on how small businesses can make small changes to the way they do business on a day-to"“day basis. "Whether it-s taking the worry out of paying the power bill, or finding new customers when the advertising budget is gone "“ chances are it-s an issue affecting other small businesses," says Ms Crone. When visiting Think Small, small businesses can share the issues they-d like some help solving, regardless of their size, and work with other business owners to successfully resolve them. ends

Invitation: The London Business School Entrepreneurship Conference Welcome to VC Cafe. If you're new around here, you may want to subscribe to our feed and get daily updates for FREE. The economy is taking us on another downward cycle. Businesses, both large and small, are feeling the pressure of a changing world. But the question lingers - is now the right time to start a business? Where will the growth come from? Where can I find the best people? Who can help me? Where are the emerging opportunities? For the 11th year in a row, the London Business School-s Entrepreneurship Club is holding the LBSEntrepreneurship Conference. This year-s summit is appropriately themed:"Turbulent Times: How to Navigate through the Current Economy". Join London Business School faculty and students on Friday, 24 April 2009 and get answers to these and other questions from entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurship-focused organizations and members of London Business School faculty. Some of the keynote speakers include Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com, Europe's largest travel website and Andrew Owens, founder and CEO of Greenergy, UK's largest independent oil company. Other confirmed speakers include: - Anthony Clarke, Managing Director, London Business Angels - Neil Blackley, Chairman of Media Advisory Board, Apax Partners - Petteri Koponen, New Business Development - EMEA, Google (Founder of Jaiku.com) - Tim Barnes, Executive Director of UCL Advances - Alex Guest, General Manager, Zattoo UK - Clare Johnston, Founder of The Up Group - Duane Jackson, Founder & Managing Director of Kashflow - Emanuel Mond, President, Alternative Investments, Sungard - Brett Putter, Managing Partner, Emerging Technologies, The Forsyth Group - Henry Stewart, CEO, Happy - Chris Welsh, Founder & Chairman of NED - Neil Ghandi, CEO, Quickstart Global - Philippe Dufour, Founder, PrePay Technologies Tickets are limited. To register and secure your place, please visit http://econference.eventbrite.com. This is the Entrepreneurship-s Club highlight event and a chance to network with London entrepreneurs, investors and industry professionals.

AOL Continues to Push Publishing, Establishes New Business Unit

AOL-s past as a dialup company is being pushed to the background yet again, on purpose for sure. This time, the company is launching a separate business unit for its publishing products, called MediaGlow. This is where the 75 properties, many Weblogs Inc. blogs, end up, all according to a New York Times story. "Instead of having a handful of front doors, we're creating dozens if not hundreds of front doors that are more relevant to advertisers," said Bill Wilson, the AOL publishing executive who will be the president of MediaGlow. Another 30 sites will be launched this year, moving the portfolio for MediaGlow past 100 sites unless they decide to close or sell off any of the brands currently there. Maybe this is necessary, because although AOL can pride itself with an increase in pageviews at 40%, the New York Times article cites JP Morgon who estimates a 18% advertising decline in 2008. Nevertheless, this is yet another great example on how blogs provide a cost-efficient opportunity for publishing companies that want to get going online with minimal hassle.

Leveraging Small Business Customer Reviews and Testimonials Online

Referrals from happy customers have always been the best method for generating new customers. The next-best source is well-written, satisfied customer reviews and testimonials, another kind of referral. Small businesses are uniquely positioned to obtain and leverage this form of referral being so close to their customers. This brief article describes how small businesses can obtain customer reviews and testimonials, why they work so well, how and when to best motivate satisfied customers to provide them and how to leverage them on the Internet. Special pages on websites make it easy for satisfied customers to write reviews on the popular consumer review websites which receive millions of monthly visitors from prospective buyers. Consumer reviews are one key ingredient in local search ranking results on Google, Yahoo and other local search engines. Why are Customer Reviews and Testimonials so Effective? They are a powerful first step in establishing believability, credibility, and a sense of security for new customers. They help to break down natural barriers and distrust new consumers feel with an unfamiliar merchant. Any opinion coming from a third party, not the business itself, instills confidence in prospective customers and dissolves buyer skepticism. Buyers increasingly tune out the mind-boggling flood of commercial messages that present themselves everywhere all the time. On the other hand when customers with no economic interest say good things, it breaks down skepticism laying a foundation for trust. Local Business Competitive Advantage Local business is much closer to its customers and their needs than large business. Dealing directly with customers allows a smaller business to be sensitive to what is on a customer-s mind. Satisfying customers is done through direct contact not through after-the-fact standardized surveys. Obtaining great customer reviews and testimonials should be that much easier. Testimonials in Advertising You-ll never see an ad for a weight-loss product without a testimonial. Why? Because those advertisers know that people are skeptical of all ads (not just weight-loss ads) and testimonials overcome skepticism more than any other marketing tool. In every direct mail piece you send, include a one or two pages full of testimonials. This lends automatic credence to whatever offer you are sending. You can make the testimonials a part of the sales letter, but from my experience, sending loose-leaf pages of testimonials make a persuasive statement. Testimonial How-To-s Several simple methods and habits will generate well-crafted persuasive testimonials that will generate new customers naturally. Learning and practicing them should be automatic for every small business. Small business has several natural advantages over the big guys in this regard since they live closer to their customers. Delivering overwhelming good service is easier and can generate unrivaled enthusiasm. This should not be a one-time event. Collecting testimonials should be a constant pursuit, an essential part of your marketing DNA. The challenge is to leverage the enthusiasm of satisfied customers into goodwill in well-written testimonials, whether used for promotional materials or as an all-important new category of local business recommendations, review websites, or portals that now generate many millions of monthly visitors. These review websites range from restaurants, contractors, or virtually any business in any category. If you are a new business or a startup with few or no sales, let several friends try the product or service for free. If they honestly like it, ask them to give you a testimonial that you can use in your marketing. #1: Point of Sale: Try to get customer testimonials as soon as possible, even at point of sale or within the first week. Satisfied customers are most motivated during this time period. Develop a natural process for obtaining the testimonial before they leave your office or store. Ask them if they would share their happiness. Help them by putting into words the nice things already said and ask if that accurately reflects how they feels. Add, if relevant, your unique selling proposition (USP) such as over-the-top-customer service, same-day installation, low price value, or a money-back guarantee. If the customer agrees, then have the customer agree to or write the testimonial. When done, thank them. #2: Telephone/Email: Contact the customer as soon as possible after the sale, whether as a customer satisfaction follow-up or other. Make sure the customer still has the same warm feelings. Ask if he/she would be willing to share those feelings with others in the form of a testimonial. Repeat what the customer said or suggested. Suggest that, to save time, you will draft a testimonial and the customer can make any changes desired. Send the draft as an email. Ask for additional comments and get permission to use the testimonial. #3: Persuasive Testimonials: Be discriminating. Personal and specific testimonials work successfully. Focus on key benefits. Vague, even enthusiastic testimonials do not have any impact. Have your customers be specific. For instance, if you delivered your product the same day your customer purchased it, then ask your customer to include that detail, even the exact time that it arrived. If you delivered some kind of incredible act of customer service, have the customer write specifically about what you did and how it helped. Ask your customer to talk about the struggles he/she was having previous to receiving the benefits of your product or service. Most likely, the reader will have had the same or similar struggles and will empathize. This will only make your prospective customer more interested in receiving the benefits of your product or service. Have your customer state his/her relevant background. This will make the testimonial even more persuasive because the comments will be perceived to come from a credible source. People tend to believe people in positions of perceived authority. Sometimes it is difficult, but try to get a picture or even a video with the customer using your product or service. Make sure the video shows the benefits of the product or service. Pictures double the effectiveness of a testimonial and bring it to life. #4: Testimonial Mechanics: Make sure you get permission to use you customers' testimonials in your advertising. Ask them if you can not only use their name, but also the town (suburb) they live in. Addresses, even if it-s just a city name, increase the believability of the testimonial. It demonstrates that they are real people who live in the same community as your prospects. Thank them sincerely. #5: Leveraging Testimonials: It-s not enough just to receive customer testimonials. It's knowing how to use them in your marketing activities that makes the difference. The following are several ideas you can use to implement testimonials into your marketing program. Consumer reviews are equally important for search engine rankings. A good consumer review appears where it is posted and is often pulled into many of the local search engines or aggregators and, therefore, can appear in many places. It is one thing to obtain a solid testimonial and another to get motivate customers to take the time and trouble to visits local consumer review websites, register and submit a review, but there are methods to simplify the process (as discussed below). Make It Easy for Your Customers to Provide Testimonials Add any or all of the following local business consumer review websites to a newly dedicated "Local Resources" section of your website. Satisfied customers will now more easily be able to review your business on well-trafficked websites that can attract local buyers, and at no additional cost or work. It does, however, take a little time to register if customers have not used these valuable resources before, so incentivize them in a manner that is suitable to your type of business. Well Trafficked Websites & Local Business Reviews In addition, there are many industry specific consumer review websites dedicated to food, restaurants, contractors and others. Bonus: Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Are Good for Local Search Rankings What more can a local business do than get twin benefits from one activity. Consumer reviews have a favorable impact on local search rankings, not only as persuasive additions for the ultimate consumer. Some of the major local search engines spider other consumer review websites and include those reviews in its results. Higher rankings mean more traffic. More traffic should mean more happy consumers and more traffic and so it goes, steps leading directly to marketing heaven. Conclusion Testimonials are powerful tools that help to establish your credibility with buyers and higher search results with local search engines. For customers, they are as close as a business can get to high quality referrals on electronic steroids. They break down a prospect's skepticism and doubts. When customers give you a testimonial, it helps to solidify your relationship with them because they have "gone public" with their statement of support for your business. Small businesses have natural advantages in generating powerful testimonials as the businesses (and business owners) are generally close to their customer base. The Internet and the web offer many new ways to leverage your reputation by strategically placing, at key customer decision-making moments on your website, local business consumer review websites and even a resource section that lists local search engines, city-specific directories, and dedicated consumer review websites in one convenient place-your website. If you would like an email template we use to motivate satisfied customer to take action and make it easier to write a review please request an email template we use from Steven Brier is a local marketing expert from Local Internet USA, read his other post on Search Engine Journal;

March 26, 2009

AHAVA & THE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETITION CONGRATULATIONS AHAVA CHAMPS! YOU WENT, YOU CONQUERED - TO GOD BE THE GLORY! YOUR TEAMWORK, DEDICATION & PASSION ARE THE KEYS TO SUCCESS! STAY FOCUS AND CONTINUE TO EXCEL! AHAVA RAWKS!

Poll: How much impact from recession?

Take our poll then find out what other small-business owners are saying: How much impact is the recession having on your business? The recession is taking its toll on small businesses, according to several recent surveys. Nine out of 10 small businesses and self-employed individuals have felt some impact from current economic woes, according to the National Association for the Self Employed (click on image for a larger view). In fact, 43% say the recession that started a year ago is the worst they-ve ever experienced.More than 500 business owners participated in the unscientific online survey. More than half said their 2008 gross revenues were worse than in 2007, while 24% said they were higher and 18% said there was no change. However, 54% of respondents said their personal finances have taken a greater hit than their businesses. (Click here to see all survey results.) In a separate monthly survey, members of the National Federation of Independent Business, expressed the fourth lowest optimism score (an index based on such factors as earnings and hiring plans) in the 35-year history of the survey. Key to that pessimism was a downturn in earnings in the previous three months (click on image for larger view): "The small-business economy is weak everywhere," said William Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist. "Job creation plans were negative in all industries except non-professional services. More owners plan work force reductions than plan to increase employment in all nine census regions." Click here to see the entire report (under Small Business Economic Trends) NASE Executive Director Kristie Darien said, "The current economic slowdown is causing many challenges for micro-businesses. More small-business owners are being faced with difficult choices, such as cutting benefits and compensation for themselves or their employees." When NASE asked what actions business owners are taking to deal with the difficult economic climate, their top answers (multiple answers allowed): More economy news"¦

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Small businesses need all the help they can get to survive and their objective is to be around when the green shoots appear. Many will fail. BDO STOY HAYWARD forecasts that 40,000 will go to the wall in 2009. If that doesn-t set alarm bells ringing in the Chancellors ears, nothing will. Cash is king and without a healthy cash flow, businesses die. It-s that simple. Yet we see Lord Mandelson kicking small businesses when they-re down by refusing to cut the increase in business rates. In fact, it gets worse because he is retaining a 5% rate increase at a time when inflation is less than half that level. And that will mean that vital cash flow will slow down for many businesses. So much for the government-s fine words about helping the sector, when in truth they are making it more difficult for small businesses. Doesn-t he know that for many of them the name of the game is survival? Most small and medium sized businesses simply want to be here this time next year and the FSB is calling for a freeze on business rates this year to help them. I agree, but of the Chancellor doesn-t want to go the whole hog, the least he could do is cut the increase to the prevailing rate of inflation. That would be a common sense approach. But I fear that common sense is a quality sadly lacking in this government.

The case for a quick recovery

AMERICA'S MONEY CRISIS Breaking down Obama's tax plan More Videos 2009 financial showdown More Videos NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- There is no debate that the U.S. economy is in terrible shape at the moment. Nearly 2.6 million jobs were lost last year, with the majority of them coming in the final four months of the year. And some economists are forecasting as much as a 5% to 9% drop in economic activity during the fourth quarter, which could be the biggest drop in 50 years. But some economists are starting to believe that there could be a much stronger and quicker recovery than is now widely expected. They say that the sharp drop in production and inventories during this recession will force businesses that are now busy cutting back to quickly ramp up production once the economy starts to improve. The crisis in financial and credit markets sparked by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September caused businesses to slam the brakes on production much harder than justified by reduced demand alone, according to Joseph Carson, chief economist at AllianceBernstein. "We were producing 2 million tons of steel a week prior to Lehman. Now we're producing 880,000 a week," Carson said. "The economy has slowed, but it has not fallen by half in the last three months. This kind of significant inventory liquidation is exactly why recoveries take place." Many also believe that the significant steps being taken by the Federal Reserve and Congress to spur the economy will kick in later this year. That stimulus, coupled with low energy prices, could cause a jump in economic activity. A V-shaped recovery? This kind of recovery is known as a V-shaped recovery, because a chart of economic activity would look like the letter V: a steep decline followed by a quick and strong turn around. "Generally the sharper the recession, the sharper the recovery," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute. Achuthan said he is not yet ready to call the bottom of the current economic downturn. But he said his firm's weekly index of leading economic indicators has been ticking higher in recent weeks, suggesting that the economy may finally be close to the bottom. He added that when things start to show signs of improvement, the economy could well be helped by pent-up demand from consumers who sharply curtailed purchases in recent months. "Consumers have been on strike," he said. "They've been holding off buying things that they don't absolutely have to have." Of course, hopes for a quick turnaround are still faint. There are many economists, including staffers at the Fed, who worry that there will be, at best, a modest pick-up in activity later this year and continued job losses continuing into 2010. According to a plan released by the economic team of President-elect Obama over the weekend, the incoming administration believes the unemployment rate will continue to rise through the third quarter of this year, and top out at 8% -- even if the economic stimulus plan it is proposing passes. Or a U-shaped recovery? And some economists who believe there will be a sharp recovery aren't sure it will take place anytime soon. "We're eventually going to get a strong recovery. We just can't forecast with any degree of certainty if it will be in the second half of the year," said Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, an independent market research firm. He added that the recovery could wind up looking more like a U, i.e. the economy hovers around the bottom for awhile, than a V. Yardeni said everything will have to go right to bring any type of recovery in 2009, including quick passage of effective stimulus by Congress and an unfreezing of the credit markets. He added there is some evidence of improvement in the economy, including narrowing credit spreads and lower mortgages rates. But it may be too little, too late for a turnaround this year. "Right now there's more going wrong than going right," Yardeni said.  First Published: January 12, 2009: 3:08 PM ET Don't expect stimulus to work fast Economy could lose 2 million more jobs in 2009 Get ready for more pain ahead 2008 job losses: 2.6 million Where Obama rescue plan stands The case for doing nothing

Ares Hires Merrill Leveraged Finance Executive

Ares Management said on Wednesday that it has hired Greg Margolies, a former Merrill Lynch leveraged finance executive, as the head of the investment firm-s capital markets group. At Merrill, Mr. Margolies was a managing director and head of the securities firm-s global leveraged finance and capital commitments. He previously worked at Deutsche Bank, the Carlyle Group and Citibank. He is joining Ares just after the official closing of Merrill-s takeover by Bank of America. Based in Los Angeles, Ares is known not just as a leveraged buyout firm but as a lender, through its capital markets group and private debt operations like its Ares Capital subsidiary. The firm has about $30 billion in committed capital as of the end of 2008, it said in its statement. Go to Ares Management Press Release via Business Wire.

SMALL BUSINESS CEO

Twitter is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds lately. It seams like everyone is talking about Twitter. The neat thing is that everyone seems to use Twitter in their own unique way. Hundreds of Twitter applications can be found on numerous sites that offer cool tools to help you manage the way you use Twitter. If you use Twitter for marketing your small business, I sorted thru tons of apps to bring you the most helpful. Feel free to suggest other Twitter apps, for business owners, below in the comments. Twitter Toolbar - Downloading this free toolbar gives you instant access to Twitter. You can use the toolbar to access online Twitter tools, check your Twitter stats, post your updates and more. Versions are available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Twitoria - This simple application lets you quickly find out which of your followers has not been actively tweeting. Easily sort through your network of followers and purge the inactive users. Monitter - Get a live streaming view at what Twitter users in your location are saying about you or your small business. Simply insert keywords you would like to search for and the surrounding area you would liked monitored. Bubble Tweet - This unique application lets you post a short video message that pops up on your Twitter profile in a bubble shaped player. You can personally introduce yourself and/or your business to anyone who visits your profile. Twitter Gallery - A collection of free backround themes for your Twitter account. You can use the one click installation or manually install them yourself. Lots of nice designs and colors to choose from. Tweepler - Simplify the way you manage your Twitter followers. Tweepler enables you to easily sort through new followers and accept them or ignore them on one simple screen. They have made accepting followers easier by giving the Tweepler user the followers stats and last 3 tweets in one screen view. This will save you time by eliminating the need to visit each individual follower-s profiles. Twit This - Allow visitors to your blog or website to easily post Twitter messages about you or your business. Post the TwitThis button to your website or blog pages with the instructions and coding provided on their site. StockTwits - Follow and join into conversations with traders and investors. An active community of investors are sharing their views on current market conditions and recent news happenings. You can quickly see what others are saying about investments in your portfolio. HelloTxt - Update your status to several social networking sites in one simple step. You can choose from over 35 social sites to post to including Twitter. TwitterFox - This Firefox extension is one of my personal favorites. You can post Twitter updates without visiting the Twitter site each time. A small icon is added to the bottom of your Firefox status bar. The icon opens to reveal your friend-s most current updates. You can add your updates from that dialog box, even for multiple Twitter accounts. Future Tweets - Do you have something to promote on Twitter tomorrow but are afraid of forgetting to do it? With FutureTweets, you can schedule your tweet ahead of time for a specific date and time. Even schedule reoccuring tweets to post daily, monthly, even yearly. TwitPic -

Free entrepreneurship training from DTI March 25, 2009 by Roy Filed under: Announcement, Business news, Entrepreneurship, Government, business opportunity, entrepreneur, self-help, seminar, service  For those who are contemplating on becoming entrepreneurs but don-t know where to start, here-s something I got from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) website. DTI is conducting free entrepreneurship trainings. This free training is a good venue to be exposed on the know-hows of business. This is most specially timely, to those who have availed of the P15,000 loan from SSS or the P50,000 from OWWA. Though the PIA website the trainings that were conducted in the Western Visayas area where about 5,021 have already availed of the free trainings. These include housewives, OFWs, workers who are planning to get into business, ambulant vendors, and even micro, small and medium enterprises. While the report contains data from the Visayas area, further down the article says the free training is being given in every DTI provincial offices. Groups and associations (NGOs, LGUs, and cooperatives), as well as individuals, who are interested in the program needs to coordinate with the DTI office in their respective areas. Upon reading this news, I called DTI Pampanga at 045-4551413 to inquire about the program. They said it is a half-day affair, and participants would then progress to more comprehensive trainings based on the results of the half-day seminar.

Small Business Custom Logo Designs

A corporate identity is something that every business should have, and is essentially the steps a company takes to regulate how it is identified by the public. A business logo fits into the company design aspect of corporate identity and is important, as it is a visual representation of your company. A lot of entrepreneurs do not consider how important a business logo is to their company-s identity. Many logos you see evidently had little thought put into their creation, which reflects badly on the business. Poor logo design can be understand when you realize that not every entrepreneur can design their own logo, so they have to pay someone to do it, which can be an expense they don-t want to have. Paying for a custom logo design use to mean spending many thousands of dollars with a graphic design firm to design they might like. Now, any business can afford custom logo. Some would say you get what you pay for when it comes to cheap logo. If you pay very little for a custom logo, can you expect to get anything of decent quality? You absolutely can. These designs fit the requirements of the average small business owner quite well. If you are looking for the best possible logo design and corporate identity, you most likely do have to deal with a corporate identity graphic design company. For thousands of dollars they will go to great lengths to understand your business inside and out to identify what might be the best way to represent your business. Spending a small fortune for a custom logo design is out of reach for the normal entrepreneur. It is for these small businesses that an Internet custom logo design website is the ideal solution. You owe it to yourself to check out what is available on the Internet if you are in need of small business custom business logo. Many affordable logo design options are available on the Internet for the business owner.