An e-commerce or online store is not that different from a traditional retail store. The same basic rules apply but on a slightly different scale. The online retail business is something similar to a mall. Every competitor is a Google-search away. This causes a small problem. It is far too easy for someone to click to your competitor to purchase based on price. So what do you do?

Qualities needed for successful online store:
Superior marketing/branding
Competitive pricing
Service and support
Unique product/service niche only your website has
Easy to manage shopping cart software.

Superior Marketing and Branding
As with mall rent or building foot traffic to a brick and mortar location, be prepared to allocate a very large budget for building website traffic. Why? On the Internet, you have the opportunity to appear as a larger business than you actually are. But you have to build traffic and trust to your website just as you would with a traditional retail store model.

Low Pricing
Competing against billion dollar companies online with price is tough. You need to maintain your margins so you can stay in business. Small retailers may choose to work only on lowest price and not worry about sweetening the deal with free shipping or other additional offers. When your product appears on sites such as Pricegrabber.com or Nextag.com, worry only about price and quantity of listings.

Service and Support
If you really want to set yourself apart on the Web, then service is the answer. Providing superior services and support for your products will speak volumes to prospective customers.
Surprisingly, people will pay more money for the same item if the company answers the phone. Have you ever bought something local from one store over the national chain because you knew the service would be worth it?

Unique Niche
Finding a unique niche is by far the best way to compete on the Internet. Why? Because you don’t have to compete with many on just price! It’s best if your store has the exclusive. The downside is you have to build awareness solo. A decent size marketing budget or a wild fire social media campaign will be required.

Social Media Niche
Provide a resource on your site that no one else is providing. A great example of this is bodybuilding.com. This site sell supplements to make money. However, a significant portion of the marketing strategy has been focused on creating a community online of people losing weight, transformations, and a experts sharing their knowledge.

Fatal Efforts
If this is your first e-commerce website then please DO NOT make these mistakes!

Avoid buying excessive inventory. Buy the absolute bare minimum or don’t have anything in stock if it only takes a day to get it. Drop ship if possible. Do not use only affiliate links. Google will not index your site.

Communication is Key
Until your website has substantial credibly, make it easy for customers to contact you. Phone, chat and email should all be supported.

Do select a niche where you are already an expert or hobbyist. Have a marketing “hook” to bring traffic: a unique social media offer, or a well-developed video to promote or a unique free sampling of your product. Do not start an e-commerce store without a business plan. Use a quality check-out vendor with verification links and logos for your website. Authorize.net and Paypal are good examples.

Trust Factors
Consumers already have trust issues with the Internet. Some of the lack of trust is education that the Web is safe. Some is due to the impersonal nature of the Internet. Only 50% of consumers feel confortable shopping online. If your e-commerce site looks cheap or not professionally built with nice graphics and design, the chances of being successful are reduced. In addition, buy extra reassurance with the BBB, SSL certificate, industry associations and Chambers of Commerce to help your customers feel safe on your site.

Build It and Customers Will Buy
This happened in the late ‘90s for a brief moment. People are not begging for new places to spend their money. Products require lots of marketing Рand marketing requires money and/or time. Social media, while still free to use does require the other half of the equation, which is time.

Online Store Options
There are several options available for creating on online store. They all have pros and cons to them. A fully customized solution will be the most expensive but will do what you need it to do. In addition, your customers will have the best possible experience.

Another option is to create a basic website and use “Buy Now” buttons from PayPal or Google Checkout. This is a cheap way to get started. People trust the PayPal and Google brands. Don’t stay with just these solutions too long. Their fee rate for every sale is expensive. Talk to your bank and web developer about other options.

The draw back is you will not have ultimate control of the customer’s online experience.

The Bottom Line
Should you create an online store? It really depends on what you have to offer your customers. If you have the right combination of services, products, and marketing then YES! You can make money at it. The appeal is there that the store works for you 24/7/365 – whether you are there or not.

Do your research, write your business plan and think it out. The Internet is here to stay and is ever evolving with new opportunities.

Manage your activities
The most successful people are often the busiest. They don’t have more time than anyone else; they just get more done without grumbling about it. In fact, many are running multiple businesses and devote time to others through projects, philanthropy and family.

They accomplish this by learning to recognize that no one manages time, but successful people take ownership of time. They manage their activities by making room for their most important activities. They make more minutes count.

Up your effectiveness
To be more effective, emphasize priority over efficiency. We’ve all had a big project sidelined by mundane tasks. Procrastination is a big time-waster.

Avoiding important tasks drains your energy. Completing even one small task on your list helps. Completing crucial tasks and performing extraordinary work that makes you proud significantly boosts energy levels.

Quit making excuses
Have you ever wasted time complaining about not having enough time? This includes whining or bragging about how much e-mail you get.

Most professionals are in the same boat – no one is special in this regard – and the same goes for scheduling difficulties. Make these challenges better by taking control of how you respond to situations. Improve your attitude and take advantage of opportunities instead of issuing excuses and justifications.

Use one master schedule
Transfer your schedule into one place. Use the best scheduling technology for you or even put your schedule on paper in one place. Just fi gure out what works best for you. Clients and colleagues surveyed about time-management techniques yielded top results when they synchronized all schedules into one calendar.

Stop the anxiety
Quit worrying about time with a simple fix. Repeat this when needed: “I have more than enough time to do everything that is truly important to me.”

Soon enough, you’ll be saying it with conviction and will realize its power.

To get your life back on a reasonable schedule, don’t wait until tomorrow. Take control of your time challenges now by realizing you have a choice. Decide how you will manage your activities and attitude for the rest of today.
Remember: It’s never really about how much time you have; it’s about doing the things you enjoy.

We all have that next million-dollar idea. Whether it’s for your existing business, an extension of that business or an entirely new venture, you need to answer this question: “Can I make money from it?”

If I could answer that with 100-percent certainty, I‚’d be heading south for the winter. But since I’m not, I want to give you the tools to determine this for yourself.

Honest Feedback
I bet when you told business acquaintances and friends and family about your idea, they all thought it was great. If not, you are lucky to have honest friends.

When evaluating your idea, find someone who is brutally honest and who understands the idea and your industry. You want the truth; not comments designed to make you feel good. Remember: you are spending money to develop this idea, so let’s make sure it’s plausible.

Research
If your cynical friend approves, dive into some research. Google it and see what the competition might be, even if it’s a niche idea that you think no one else is pursuing.

Let’s say you‚Äôve developed a unique and innovative auction site. You need to see what the big dogs like eBay are doing. Just because you have a slick new system, that doesn’t mean people will start using your website.

You probably will face two problems: 1) People already know what they can do with ebay.com; 2) They will think you provide the same service or product regardless of what you tell them. Then they still will use eBay!

If your Internet search didn’t uncover any major websites, see if there are small ones that turn up in the depths of Google, you know, the search results on about page 50.

Are there websites that are similar to what you are trying to do? If so, ask yourself why a potential competitor website is buried in the search results. Is it poor marketing; is the idea not sellable; is the website just plain ugly? There can be a multitude of problems.

But if you look closely, you can figure it out. If the website looks like it is a failed business, call the owners. If they’ve failed and given up, they will most likely tell you why and what they should have done differently.

Can your idea make money?
You can have the greatest idea, but if you can’t make money or get the backing of a venture capitalist in hopes of making money, you had better stop now.

Getting too attached?
At this point, you are probably getting emotionally attached to your business idea. Step back and look at the facts. It’s easy to become nonobjective. It’s like your child. I get attached to projects and ideas, too.

Figuring out your revenue model
How will your Internet idea make money? If you are selling a physical product or the software as a service model, then it is fairly clear.

The Internet is a global market. You need to compete with price, service, unique product and innovative marketing. It’s easy to visit many websites to search for a cheaper price or similar product or service.

Making money from advertising
Let me be clear: you cannot get rich on advertisement powered websites! Those who do are exceedingly rare. Advertising revenues vary anywhere between a penny per click to a dollar or two if you are lucky. Depending upon your content, layout, ad effectiveness and about 100 other factors, you can range from a click from one in every 200 visitors to one in every 2,000 visitors. It’s really a guessing game.

You might think if you can get 0.01 percent of the market to visit your website, you’ll be rich! But start by doing the math. It will take a lot of visitors to just maintain your website. Now if this makes sense and you have figured in all the technology, web developers, IT specialists, marketing and legal expenses then your business may succeed.

Marketing
Many clients think, “Build it, and they will come!” Not true. There are more than 215 million websites on the Internet. That’s a lot of noise to cut through before someone finds you online.

Look at your current business website. You market and advertise your business to get 100 or maybe a 1,000 hits a day. Now apply this idea to your business idea. You can see this is a big problem.

What is your marketing plan?
Developing your marketing plan requires a savvy, and creative marketer to develop a strategy to launch your project even before you build your idea.

Your marketing plan doesn’t need to be set in stone, but you should have a good plan. Don’t plan on producing a viral effect! That is a risky strategy, and there is no way to determine your success rate.

Ideas with a regional base
A regional website, of course, must have high relevancy to your location. If, for example, you are a local news organization, most website visitors will live within 100 miles. With that knowledge, evaluate how you will market your website locally.

It can be lucky for you that you live in Omaha where many products are tested before they are launched nationwide. Many products are tested here because of Midwest’s even blend of demographics.

If the product works in Omaha, it will most likely work everywhere else. You need to find out how much effort, money and time it will take to build a reasonable customer base. Don’t start national; start local! It makes it easier to control your website and learn from it.

Extending your brick-and-mortar business
Extending existing businesses are generally the most successful ventures. Just make sure it’s a natural extension of your business and not a spinoff into an unusual product. The best ideas usually offer a competitive edge or a valuable service to help build customer loyalty.

These ventures are more successful because you have existing customers. They already know and trust you and are more likely to buy your products.

In addition, your expectations will be more realistic, and your financial estimates will have a far less margin of error than trying to create an entirely new Internet business.

One step at a time
Many aspects of developing an Internet business are similar to developing a business plan for a brick-and-mortar venture. And many of these Internet ideas are turning things on their head as compared to traditional business structures. Don’t let this discourage you or become overwhelming. Take it one step at a time.

There are hundreds of resources on Internet business development. Make sure you take advantage of them before spending your hard-earned money.

In today’s economy, companies want to cut costs while maintaining current productivity levels with possibly fewer employees. That’s a tall task, but new technologies are allowing companies to create virtual, online working environments that are secure and easy to use while providing better performance and functionality than a traditional computing environment.

In a traditional computing environment, all employees physically come to an office to work on computers purchased, configured and managed by the company’s IT staff.

This computer management is a huge undertaking that’s necessary to keep data safe and computers running smoothly. Personalization and flexibility are sacrificed for security and performance.

The alternative is to deliver computing desktops and applications online to any computer Рanywhere, anytime Рthat remain physically separate from an end user“s computer, transforming it into just an access point or terminal.

Reduced costs
Businesses spend about $7,600 for each worker on office space, according to the Real Estate Executive Board. But if employees can work from anywhere, they don’t have to be at the office – at least not all of the time. This means less physical office space is required.

• Here are other ways virtual work environments can cut costs:
• Travel expenses are reduced, and employees will appreciate not spending as much on fuel.
• Employees can be hired from non-metropolitan areas, and they often will work for lower wages than workers in cities.
• Providing a better work-life balance to employees will increase employee satisfaction, which lowers employee turnover rates.
• Employees can use their own computers and laptops without the company purchasing one or both for every worker. Some companies provide an allowance for a computer and let employees purchase whatever they want. Increased productivity A virtual office can increase your sales and support presence by having employees distributed farther apart, allowing you to serve more customers in a larger geographic area.

Virtual offices can boost productivity in other ways:

• Collaboration tools allow far-flung employees to work together closely. In mergers and acquisitions, providing the new workforce instant access to needed data and applications can make them productive from Day One.
• Employees can customize their computers or even run Apple or Linux operating systems.
• IT departments will spend less time working on computers, freeing up time to work on more productive tasks and enabling employees to continue working instead of waiting for computers to be fixed.
• Of course, not every company can run a 100-percent virtual office. Most organizations, however, have begun adopting virtual environments for at least part of their workforces. Maybe it’s time to rethink how you deliver your applications and data.

When you are running a company, a key duty is keeping everyone in your company safe. The best way to protect you and your clients and employees is knowing the background of the people you hire.
It’s always a good idea to conduct in-depth background checks, which may include several types of criminal record and noncriminal checks, based upon the type of job and the nature of your business.

Preventing theft and violence
Performing background checks on prospective employees helps decrease the risk of employee theft and violence in the workplace. In addition to creating a safer work environment, background checks increase profit margin. Employee theft and violence among U.S. companies cost $171 billion in 2008.

A custom background check
In today‚Äôs criminal background check industry, there are several types of background checks from which to choose. It’s important to understand each type of background check so you can customize the best set for your needs.
The most common types of background checks are instant criminal databases, sex offender registries, identity verification, drivers’ history reports, credit reports, Workman’s Compensation reports, and county, state and federal criminal checks.
Companies often make the mistake of performing only instant criminal checks. These searches include only about 5 percent of records nationally. Solely using instant criminal checks should be avoided, according to the National Association of Professional Background Screeners.

A thorough criminal history should include a mix of county and state court records, nationwide databases, federal criminal databases, government watch lists and identity verification. Adding noncriminal searches, such as credit reports, for those who handle cash, or drivers’ history reports, for those who drive a company vehicle, add to the depth and accuracy of your search.

Staying compliant
When determining a background screening policy, it is important to know the two major types of compliance: Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE) compliance and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
EOE compliance means establishing a policy that the same type of background checks must be run on all employees. Staying EOE compliant also means maintaining a stringent policy about which offenses disqualify a candidate for a position.
Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, it is your background screening provider’s duty to provide education and tools to help you stay compliant (most companies provide this at no charge).

Peace of mind
After determining the need for background checks, a company must review its needs with the background check provider to customize a screening procedure. Shop around to determine your options. Make sure the checks offered are accurate and verifiable.
Then it’s time to watch your company succeed be cause you know you’ve hired the best employees.

It’s no secret that internal collaboration and knowledge management are the keys to business growth and success. Accomplishing both is no small feat given the dynamic and ever-increasing demands companies face today. Plus, there’s the difficulty of implementing and enforcing processes to effectively support your interactions among employees as well as with prospects, customers and partners.

Fortunately, wikis can help. Wiki software is used to create websites that allow multiple users to create, modify and organize web page content in a collaborative manner. Wikis are perfect tools for companies that need to manage these critical relationships. Your collaboration processes and technologies must keep pace with – or, ideally, stay ahead of – changes in your market and customer base.

Wikis are easy-to-use, flexible tools that enhance existing work flow processes, rather than requiring re-engineering. As such, wikis present an opportunity to revolutionize workplace collaboration, much like e-mail has revolutionized communication.

Why wikis?
Wikis have three characteristics that make them ideal for enterprise collaboration: inherently collaborative, extremely flexible, and easy to adopt and use.

While previous technologies had one or more of these characteristics, none combined all three in a single, simple package. Their flexibility allows wikis to help “glue” various tools and platforms together. Wikis can be used for knowledge management, document management, project management, documentation, scheduling, meetings, directories and more.

Choosing wiki software
Once you’ve decided to use wikis in your enterprise, the next step is to decide whether to run your own wiki software or choose a hosted, on-demand provider. Although there are many viable wiki software options from which to choose (including free, open-source solutions), on-demand wikis are the better choice for most users and uses.

Your team can use a hosted wiki solution without help from your IT department because on-demand vendors have addressed the issues of security and reliability. Hosted wikis provide high-grade encryption, redundant data replication and full access controls. Because on-demand vendors focus solely on wiki hosting, they generally deliver better performance and reliability.

Why you need to know about wikis
Because wikis are flexible and simple to use, it’s easy to allow your users to start small, incrementally increasing their wiki usage. This allows you to enhance, rather than re-engineer, your existing workflow and processes.
Whether you’re trying to manage projects, share knowledge or simply document how your business works, wikis offer a collaboration solution people will actually use. Fortune 500 companies use wikis; why don’t you?
In case you were wondering, wiki is a Hawaiian word meaning quick or fast. So as a name for a collaborative tool, the word “wiki” says it all.

Think about it… You hold your employees accountable. You hold your vendors accountable. You hold your children accountable. But do you truly hold your advertising accountable? For most, advertising success is determined by feedback from friends and family. You know what I mean. At Sunday Dinner Aunt Mable says she saw your new TV commercial. You think… Hey if my 80 year old aunt saw it, there must be thousands of others who are seeing it… or not.

The average adult is hit by more than 30,000 unique advertising and marketing messages a day. What used to require a prospect to hear or see your message a minimum of three times to have effective impact, now requires an advertising frequency of eight or nine times to accomplish the same results.

To achieve eight or nine impressions in any form of media, you had better have a deep wallet, correct? The answer is a resounding… Yes! But who can afford a $20,000 investment just to achieve that kind of frequency? For every dollar you spend on advertising, your worst case scenario is to break even, but how do you know if your advertising works?

Now there is a technique that can not only make your advertising accountable, but also your employees and managers. It is as simple as 11 digits. It’s unique phone numbers! Something as simple as using a separate phone number for every place where you are advertising can make a big difference in advertising accountability. Radio gets a number, TV a different number, Direct Mail, Newspaper etc… In fact there is one customer of ours who uses 11 different numbers to track his advertising dollars.

These unique numbers roll over to your current number. It is seamless to the caller. All they know is that they are calling the number you have in your advertising. In your offi ce, the phone rings as usual. The difference is that you will know where your calls are coming from by media, by geography, by caller. In fact, some systems like “Valpak Call Tracking” can give you real-time access to these statistics online and even record each call digitally, so you can hear how your calls are being handled. For many companies using a service like this, advertising accountability doubles as a very serious training tool.

Using unique phone numbers or even tracking services will make a major difference in a number of areas within your business. Ever miss a call after hours? This system will eliminate that, because now you will see the missed call, and you will have a name and phone number to call the prospect back, even if they didn’t leave a message. It also reduces errors in your existing marketing tracking. So when someone tells you they saw your billboard, but they are calling you from the number you had on the radio, you will know the real story, especially since you are not running any billboards currently, or ever in the past.

Bottom line is you learn very quickly which of your advertising vehicles are working and which vehicles are not. This service literally takes the gambling aspect out of your marketing and advertising decisions. And yes, the number below is a unique number, issued specifi cally for my article in this publication. When my phone rings from the number below, I’ll know you called because you read my article and not because you saw my billboard. Call me to learn more.

Disconnected Usage Disorder (DUD) is a debilitating corporate dysfunction similar to multiple personality disorder in individuals. It’s the corporate version of Sybil or, more recently, Tara on the United States of Tara, Showtime’s comedic drama. For business, symptoms include weak sales and non-productive employees. Recently, we were exposed to a case of DUD while attending a sales seminar conducted by two business consultants. The two pitched their consulting services to a group of senior executives from several different companies. The salesmen were articulate, engaging and presented a compelling story of increased revenues and profits. In general, they were the embodiment of the success aspired to by all the attendees. At the conclusion of the presentation, their pitch became a DUD.

The flimsy business cards they presented to the attendees could be found in any office supply store, ten blank cards to a sheet. The brochures didn’t match their presentation, in quality or content. And – when we pulled up their website – another DUD appeared. Tara was off her meds when she built this website. Inconsistency is one of the quickest ways to raise doubts in the mind of your prospects. They need reassurance, not conflicting messages. Your core message should not change based upon media or audience. An integrated marketing approach addresses all prospect touch points, consistently. The impressions you make must be uniform across:

1. Print and electronic advertising or promotion;
2. Out-of-home advertising (e.g., outdoor and transit);
3. Trade shows and corporate events;
4. Corporate websites;
5. Prospect and client communication by customer service;
6. Sales presentations and proposals;
7. Collateral material including stationery, business cards and brochures;
8. Public relations.

One of the best ways to ensure communication consistency and avoid a DUD is to have a single internal individual or an external agency responsible for message development and delivery. As communications steward, this individual or agency should play a major role in supervising all communication programs. In addition to ensuring a more consistent message, having a single party responsible reduces the likelihood of nonproductive turf battles thereby increasing the efficiency (and efficacy) of the total effort. In developing your integrated communications strategy, the first step is to know thyself. What is your corporate personality? What promises, implicit and explicit, are you making to your prospects? Then, eliminate the DUDs.

Elimination of inconsistent or conflicting messages increases corporate credibility, strengthens your market position “and increases the likelihood of a sale. It also helps ensure that all your employees are "marching to the same tune”; and that their efforts are more coordinated and productive.

Commercial real estate is a vast arena. That’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with trusted professionals who understand and appreciate your objectives when buying, selling or leasing commercial properties.

Let’s examine the C’s of commercial real estate that are crucial to your success:

Clear communication. Construct a clear understanding of who is representing whom at the onset. If you are looking for space to lease, a building to own and occupy, or an investment property, be certain your commercial real estate professional puts your interests first.

Credit. The leading challenge in commercial real estate is financing. It is no secret that the financial world has changed dramatically in the last year. The days of 80 percent loan-to-value ratios have evaporated. Today, new loans and refinancing might have loan-to-value ratios of 65 to 75 percent. Unless you are cash flush, your credit needs to be in order. Even if your lender is your best friend, lenders have underwriting requirements to follow that are more stringent than ever.

Caution. Once upon a time, certain tenants were considered “golden;” they had rock-solid credit to back up your financing. Today, few tenants can muster long-term security levels previously valued by investors and lenders alike.

Courage. Grip your cast iron courage – the best time to buy is now! Similar to investing in the stock market, it pays to be a bull in a bear market.

Creative. Astuteness and ingenuity are keys to carving out winning deals for all parties.

Calculation. Use wise judgment and weigh risk versus reward. Understand the upside and the downside of the deal. It is ultimately your decision.

Complex. Whether you are a new or seasoned investor, commercial properties are multifaceted and require versatile aptitude about the real estate industry.

Common sense. It’s important to recognize your abilities and shortcomings. Use reason to know when to ask for help and which type of assistance to seek. Make real estate decisions based upon ration, not emotion. Solid investments are key elements to building wealth.

Care. The assistance of a responsive property management company can be worth its weight in gold, allowing you the time to move on to the next business deal or perhaps to that vacation you have been dreaming about.

Class. Choose a quality commercial real estate professional who has high integrity and is brutally honest and diligent in his or her assessments and advice.

Are you a small business owner who feels that their products or services can compete in today’s market place but are being outgunned and outmanned, by much larger competitors with much larger budgets? Then it’s time to consider practicing Guerrilla Warfare. What’s required is your time, energy and imagination – not your children’s educational fund. If cash flow is critical, read on. If unlimited, please skip all of the below.

Still here? Let’s all agree on what marketing is not before we start. It isn’t sales. Many of my small business clients confuse the two. Marketing is all activity that drops a qualified prospect into your businesses sales funnel. Sales is the function that turns that prospect into a paying customer. Not the same function, and most often, not the same individual. Clear?

True Guerrillas understand that their focus is relationships – primarily current and past customers. It is six times more costly to sell a new customer than to sell to a current or past customer. Guerrillas spend an average of 60% of their time on current, 30% on targeted prospecting, and 10% on the universe. It may seem complicated, but coaching my clients through the 7-step process below results in a clear, focused attack. Here’s how.

1. Purpose – Begin with the end in mind. What one specific action do you want your target to take when you hit him with your attack?
2. Benefits – He doesn’t care about your services, only what your services can do for him. This is where my client’s true identity is revealed – even when they are still struggling to discover.
3. Target – Exactly who wants, and needs, what you have to offer? Miss your target, and miss many bank deposits.
4. Niche – Be a leader in a smaller pond. Go narrow and deep.
5. Weapons – Guerrillas have well over 100 (strategies) to deploy.
6. Identity – Not your image. It’s genuinely honest.
7. Budget – Your plan, your calendar of attack.

Most weapons cost nothing. As most coaches will profess, it’s what happens after #7 above that’s critical – implementation. Guerrillas have a resolve that centers around commitment to their plan and the confidence to execute. Miss a step above, and both are immediately compromised.

Launching a true Guerrilla Attack is one of gearing up to handle the onslaught of additional business. My Guerrillas exercise laser-like focus on getting their target’s consent to be marketed – utilizing many weapons at all times, often in combination. In fact, I’ve subtly worked a few into this article… did you notice them? Want to learn more about the weapons I can arm you with? Just give me a call.