Sharina told me, by e-mail, that she is a Singaporean who lives in Hong Kong, and owns a store selling cell phones and cell phone accessories in Hongkong.

Indeed, as a management consultant, I am well aware that many businesses could not earn enough, while a great number go bankrupt. There are many studies that every year about 80% of new businesses die. Even existing enterprises collapse.

What are the reasons why businesses collapse and fail?

Well, the main reason is still the same year in and year out: lack of marketing strategies.

Sure, the market is there. People are buying products and services everyday to meet their needs and wants.

However, it is the lack of strategies or the inability of the owners of these failed businesses to sell to their target market, to their niche, that is the main cause of business failure.

I’m always saying that marketing is the most important function of business, because without a market there is no business. Thus, to make your business survive, you need marketing strategies.

To make your business grow, you need marketing strategies. To make your business profitable, you need marketing strategies.

The following are the five tested marketing strategies to help you grow your business and make it profitable.

1. What is your business? What is your business mission?  Why does your company exist? What is its reason for existence? These are the basic questions. Like in any human situation, you cannot handle any business unless you know what it is for.

Therefore, you must know why you have put up your business in the first place. This is the first step in designing marketing strategies.

2. Who are your customers? Your business is to serve your customers to generate revenue and profit.  It is important to have a niche in the market, that segment, class or groups of customers  who need your products and services, and serve them well.

In the face of competition, having a market niche is a key to business success.

3. What are your Strengths and Weaknesses? It is necessary to know your strengths, for example, quality products and services, friendly customer service, good customer relations, competitive pricing, good location. It is also important to know your weaknesses, for example, lack of funds, limited marketing knowhow, poor promotion, etc.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses can help you a lot in devising marketing strategies that work.

4. What are your Opportunities and Threats? Opportunities are those favorable factors outside of your business that can help you achieve your objectives, like increasing demand for your products and services due to increasing population, availability of funds for expansion.

Threats are those unfavorable factors outside your business that can hinder you from achieving your objectives, like intense competition, sluggish demand, economic downtown.

Knowing your opportunities and threats can help you devise marketing strategies that will maximize your opportunities and minimize your threats.

5. What will you do now? Having designed your marketing strategies, the best thing is to implement them. Take action. Your strategies are useless if you cannot implement them.

With the foregoing five basic marketing strategies as a guide, the rest is up to you on how to grow your business and make it profitable.

source of image: businessmp.com

Every business exists for their customers.

Because it is the customers who create the demand for a business’ service or product, they are considered to be the most valuable asset of a company. However, all companies will always be subject to the Complaining Customer, who is mostly the cause of a faulty service or low quality product.

Most of the time, if these encounters are not handled appropriately, loss of customers could result. This is bad. Fewer customers would logically lead to less income. You could say that this is not a desirable situation for every existing company.

Handling customer complaints is an essential aspect of running a business. Business owners should realize that positive outcome of complaints. They should realize that these complaints should give the business a renewed idea on how to serve their customers better.

Customer complaints are valuable because through it you can gather the feedback of your customers. This article will feature 5 steps in handling complaining customers. Learning these steps will increase the chances of retaining or even having a better relationship with complaining customers.

5 steps to handle customer complaints:

1. Hear to what they have to say

Complaining customers want to be heard. They want to express their frustration, so allow them. Listen first to what they have to say and let them say it. Always give room for them to burst, just listen. Their sentiments are valuable; this is where you’ll get the feedback about your services or products.

2. Apologize and Empathize

Frustrated customers want to hear your apology. Especially, if it’s the fault of your personnel or a flaw to company’s procedures, they deserve your sorry. So, say it, apologize and try to put your feet in their shoes. Empathize, tell them that you understand what they feel and you’re deeply sorry about it.

3. Offer a solution

Customers who experienced bad service or received a lemon product deserve to be well compensated. Offer a solution for the problem. It should be attainable and feasible. Promise only what you can deliver. You can also give him/her possible options of your proposed solution. Lastly, be fair always.

4. Implement the solution

Make sure the promised solution to the customer is met. You don’t want to frustrate a customer the 2nd time, so be sure to deliver what you say you will deliver. You can also monitor the status of the solution and update your customer about it from time to time. This will make your customer feel that they are valued and they will appreciate it. Always deliver the solution with a smile, be merry.

Complaining customers, even if most of the time they are irate, are assets to businesses. Handling them appropriately with a smile and a toned down voice will prevent you from losing them and even turn them from frustrated to loyal customers.

Through them, you get feedback as to what they are experiencing with regards to your products or services. Knowing these will help you improve the quality of the products you deliver or the services that you offer. Always remember that your business’ existence is reliant to your customers, without them there is no business.

Author bio:

Jessica Francisco is a cheerful 25-year-old with an odd sense of fun. The least of her broad range of hobbies include swimming, hiking and listening to the music of Michael Jackson. Jessica is also one of the editors of Luke C. Roxas.

He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc., the largest technology company in the world by revenue and profit, with more than 49,000 employees and US $ 65 billion annual sales, as of 2010.

At the time of his death on October 5, 2011, Steve Jobs was widely described as a visionary, an industry pioneer, and an icon of the global consumer electronics.

Steve Jobs was also famous for his quotes on business, technology and life. I have compiled some of his most well-known business advice and words of wisdom, as follows:

Business Model

 “My model for business is The Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s kind of negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”

Focus and Simplicity

“That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

Stealing Great Ideas

“Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas. I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

Doing Something Wonderful

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”

On Loving Your Work

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

 Don’t Sit Still

“I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.”

On the Value of Time

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone’s else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma -which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

On Death and Choices in Life

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

-o0o-

*source of image: businessinsider.com

These were the questions of Marcy to me yesterday. Marcy is a start-up owner of a fast-food restaurant in a good location. She was telling me her restaurant attracts new customers everyday,  yet many customers were not coming back in a month.

Marcy’s dilemma is common. I also heard bank managers talking about signing up many new accounts in a month, yet, also losing just as many old depositors during the same month.

Why is this so? I think this is a problem of customer retention. It seems that many businesses and companies have no policy on customer retention, on how to make customers satisfied and happy and thus, making them patronize the business, again and again.

But if you look at it, customers are the heart of any business – whether a restaurant, a bank, a hardware, a hospital, etc. Without customers, there is no business.

In the face of competition, where many companies sell the same products and offer similar services, one best way to differentiate your business from that of the competitors is through customer service.

Thus, making new customers is just as important as keeping the existing ones. Existing customers, those who patronize the business, not only buy more goods and services, but also refer new business.

Customers also affect not only sales revenue and profit, but also employee morale and their performance. If the customers are satisfied and happy, the business will be stable, and the employees are more likely to stay.

This results to reducing employees’ turnover, cost of hiring new employees, training expenses and customer service mistakes by new but inexperienced employees.

It all boils down to having customer retention policy, which is also part and parcel of customer service.

 * source of image: loyaltyandcustomers.com

In fact, the principles of management – planning, organizing, leading and controlling – are applicable anywhere, anytime, and in any situation.

However, if you observe the way politicians manage the country or even the city, or the way business managers manage the companies producing shoddy products and lousy services, or how many school administrators run their schools turning out incompetent students later on, etc. you will notice that most managers became managers only by accident.

These people mentioned above, for example, are there not because of skill, talent or ability, but maybe because of something else.

For instance, politicians became the president, governor, or mayor, etc. because of vote buying during elections. Or managers and administrators appointed to be such in the corporations or in the schools by their bosses because of “whom they know” in the organization, and not of “what they know” for the job.

The results: incompetent management, causing the decay and downfall of the organizations that they manage.

Yesterday, I compiled ten (10) wise management sayings from famous authors, business executives and leaders, to highlight the importance of management and for us to learn and apply the lessons in our daily life, in business or otherwise.  These sayings are what I call management advice for everybody, as follows:

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” – Peter F. Drucker, management guru.

“Earnings can be pliable as putty when a charlatan heads the company reporting them.” – Warren Buffet, investment guru.

“His promises were, as he then was, mighty; But his performance, as he is now, nothing.” – William Shakespeare, world-famous poet and dramatist.

“It is no use saying “we are doing our best.” You have to succeed in doing what is necessary.” – Winston Churchill, British prime minister.

“The value of achievement lies in the achieving.” – Albert Einstein, world-renowned physicist.

“It is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises – but only performance is reality.” – Harold S. Geneen, business executive.

“Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.” – Lee Iacocca, business executive.

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.” – William Butler Yeats, poet.

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. “ – Henry Ford, industrialist

“It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.” – Mahatma Gandhi, Indian non-violence leader and thinker.

 Indeed, management is not knowledge but action; it’s only authority is performance, not words and promises.

 *source of image: businessinsider.com

I believe that more than anything else, management is the art and science of managing people to achieve the company’s goals and objectives. It means treating people kindly and with respect, and developing their potentials. After all, it is people who make the organization works. Without people, there is no organization.

However, it is common knowledge that many managers, from the top of the organizational ladder down below, are incompetents; some are lacking in managerial talents and skills, and even experience.

That is why, many organizations – both profit and non-profit – collapsed and are collapsing, because the people running the organizations failed in managing.

This means the people in the organizations, especially those tasked to manage, have lost their missions and visions. Like in any other human endeavor, one cannot manage and do unless he or she knows what it is for.

These concepts of management found their application not only in business, but also in other fields of human activity. After all, the principles of management which are planning, organizing, leading and controlling, are applicable anywhere and in any organizations, business or non-business.

Talking about management, a story is told about a Buddhist monastery, once well-known and vibrant, but became a decaying organization for lack of management.

As a result, the abbot of the monastery that had fallen into decline was deeply troubled. Monks were lax in their practice, novices were leaving and lay supporters deserting to other centers.

To find solutions, the abbot traveled far to a sage and recounted his tale of woe, of how much he desired to transform his monastery to the flourishing haven it had been in days of yore.

The sage looked him in the eye and said, “The reason your monastery has languished is that the Buddha is living among you in disguise, and you have not honored Him.” The abbot hurried back to the monastery, his mind in turmoil

Buddha, the Selfless One was at his monastery! Who could He be? Brother Hua?…No, he was full of sloth. Brother Po?…No, he was too dull. But then the Tathagata was in disguise. What better disguise than sloth or dull- wittedness? He called his monks to him and revealed the sage’s words. They, too, were taken aback and looked at each other with suspicion and awe.

Which one of them was the Chosen One?

The disguise was perfect. Not knowing who He was they took to treating everyone with kindness and respect due to a Buddha.

As a result, the monastery had regain its mission and vision. The monks’  faces started shining with an inner radiance that attracted novices and then lay supporters. They started to manage again, resuscitating their organization.

In no time at all the monastery far surpassed its previous glory.

*source of image: en.wikipedia.org

That is part of an e-mail that I received yesterday from a reader in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a lady who introduced herself as Aisah Ang. Miss Ang told me she is an office employee of a trading company in Kuala Lumpur, and she wants to start her own business.

Being a business owner myself, I know for a fact that having your own business is fun and challenging. In addition, if the business is profitable, it can make you financially independent.

Moreover, having a business of your own can make you your own boss; you become the employer instead of an employee. That is why, to many people, their own business enable them to realize their dreams of having a lot of money and travel around the world.

The question of Miss Aisah Ang seems simple enough but many would-be entrepreneurs are looking for answers.

So, to start and grow your business, what resources and steps do you need to take? What are the guidelines? Actually, there are no hard and fast rules. “Different strokes for different folks”, as the saying goes. But in general, here are some of the important tips to start and grow your own business.

1. Business Plan. Before starting your business, you must have a guidepost, a blueprint for success. This is the business plan. It must be a clearly laid out plan touching in all facets of your business to provide you with the direction and guide for implementation.

Without a business plan, then you can’t get anywhere. A business plan will map out what you need to succeed and how you will achieve your goals and objectives, including your profit objective.

2. Market Niche. A good business plan must include a market study, but a market niche is important, the reason why I’m emphasizing this. Your business must have a specific target customers, with their own needs, wants, tastes and preferences.  You must know what your customers need, so that the products and services that you will offer must answer their needs. It is only when you provide customer satisfaction can your business grow and succeed.

3. Capital. How much capital do you need?  You must have money to cover capital outlay and revolving or operating funds for your day-to-day operations.

Any business requires some form of investment, and you will need to know how much you have and need, to sustain your operations before it can generate income and profit.

Some entrepreneurs believe that it would be good to start your business while you are still employed, so that you have a “fall back” position, e.g. some income to live on while you are still building your business, or a job in case your venture ends in failure.

4. Customer Relations. As mentioned earlier, providing customer satisfaction is a basic requirement, without which your business will not prosper.  The way you run your business and relate to your customers will spell the difference between success and failure. Be prepared to “go the extra mile” with your customers. Care about them and provide them with quality products and services that they need.

5. Skills, Experience, Attitudes. You must treat your business as a full time job and manage it professionally.

Having the five basic requirements as discussed above will help make your business grow. Starting a business is easy, it’s how to make it grow and profitable that is hard. But starting your business right will enable it to grow and become profitable. The rest is up to you—if you have what it takes.

*source of image: greatpinaec.com

Online marketing is a growing field, and it isn’t until now that people are seeing the potential power in a sound online marketing campaign. Most people want to take advantage of this aspect of advertising, yet many have no idea where to begin. The following topics provide a basic overview of online marketing.

Paid Traffic

For companies or small businesses with a decent to large budget, utilizing paid traffic platforms is the quickest way to drive traffic to your websites. Advertising platforms charge marketers a fee per click or per viewing of their ads. Because of these instant results, it is much easier for online marketers to narrow down and determine the optimal setup for these paid traffic campaigns.

For example, with the proper tools and testing, online marketers can determine which ad copies, ad placements, and images result in the best return on investment for the campaign. It’s the quick results and laser-precision that make paid traffic a desirable path. However, once you stop paying for the traffic, your sales stop as well.

Search Engine Marketing

If you don’t seem to have a large enough budget and would rather have more long-term success, search engine marketing may be just for you. By using various tactics and services, search engine optimizers can drive up your rankings on search engines like Google for relevant keywords that can possibly turn leads into sales for your online business.

The beauty about search engine marketing is this traffic is free and you can possibly rank high for particular keywords for a long time, if not forever. However, it can possibly take months or years to rank for highly competitive keywords, so constant work and waiting to get your site ranked is not for everyone.

Hiring the right search engine optimization professionals can make this much easier as you can focus more on your business. With this hands-off approach, it’s just a matter of waiting to get those high rankings. Once you have the rankings in the search engines that you desire, then you can begin optimizing your site for better sales conversions.

Social Media

The internet is heading in a more social direction, and that’s why social media marketing is all the rage right now. This, like search engine marketing, is a free traffic source that can take advantage of the large number of users gathering at online hubs. At these hubs, many people share the same interests, so advertising on these platforms can be quite powerful.

Facebook and Twitter are two prime examples of social media sites, while YouTube is also one of the top resources on the internet, as videos hosted there have the potential to go viral and reach millions of viewers.

Online marketing is still growing and is constantly changing. These are just a few of the basic elements in online advertising. If you found any of the topics above interesting, then maybe online marketing is the solution you need for your business.

The foregoing article was a guest post from David Spader. David Spader is a freelance writer and blogger who usually looks at savings account deals over at SavingsAccount.Org. His most recent review looked at the best saving account rates.

source of image: watblog.com

What business are you in?

One major cause of business failure is the inability of the owner or entrepreneur to know what business he is in. Like any human endeavor, one cannot handle a business unless he knows what it is all about and what it is for.

So, that is the basic question in any business strategy session. To be able to formulate business plans, implementation timetable, marketing strategy and profit objective, here are the following four principles to consider:

1. In any business, regardless of what your product or service is, there’s only two areas or activities that matter: Marketing and Finance.

Yes, your business is marketing, because without a market, there is no business. In providing products and services to your customers, always strive for quality products and services and go the extra mile, to earn customers’ loyalty and patronage.

In addition, your business is finance, because without the money as capital you can’t generate profit. So, there must be money for investment, investment to generate sales, revenue and profit.

2. In any business, strive for customer satisfaction.

Why customer satisfaction is important? Because your business exists for the customers. The customers are the most important people in your organization. Without the customers, you have no reason for being

3. In any business, yours is a service business. Service is part of every contract between your business and a prospect or customer. Ultimately, service affects not only how purchasers feel about your business but also their perception of the value and quality of the products you deliver.

4. In any business, good service is value added for your customer. Customers make buying decisions based on their perceptions of the product’s or service’s extra value.

This is especially true when the products or services offer similar features –as is true with cars, packaged goods, bank loans, computers, grocery items. In this case, good service is the margin of extra value that exerts a positive influence on customer behavior.

Therefore, to be successful in business – in any business for that matter, what is important is you are close to the customers, for they are the people who give you your revenue and profit.

* source of image: coachwithjeremy.com

Why customer service?

In fact, in the face of competition, customer service is a business’ first line of defense. Customer service is so vital that it can make or unmake a business. To some extent, the success or failure of a firm or a company is its customer service.

A company exists to please the customers

A company exists to please customers through products sold or services offered. Selling a product or offering a service is easy. It’s the after sales service that is hard, because many companies do not provide after sales service. In the same manner, many companies do not entertain complaints from customers – after the sales were made.

Customer service and profit

However, a company with a good or better customer service will generate profit. Why? Because customers will patronize the business. In addition, the business will be able to create a good image, a brand.

That is why a business or firm that has a good customer service will be able to differentiate itself from the other businesses or firms selling the same or similar products or offering the same or similar services.

Profit is a reward for good customer service

In the final analysis, a business exists to create a customer. Profit is a reward for providing customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the result of good customer service.

Thus, in the face of competition, only a company with a good customer service can survive, grow and becomes profitable.

*source of image: impactfactory.com