Tag: Starting

  • Marketing Strategy: 7 Steps to Market Segmentation

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    Market segmentation is widely defined as being a complex process consisting in two main phases:

    – identification of broad, large markets

    – segmentation of these markets in order to select the most appropriate target markets and develop Marketing mixes accordingly.

    Everyone within the Marketing world knows and speaks of segmentation yet not many truly understand its underlying mechanics, thus failure is just around the corner. What causes this? It has been documented that most marketers fail the segmentation exam and start with a narrow mind and a bunch of misconceptions such as “all teenagers are rebels”, “all elderly women buy the same cosmetics brands” and so on. There are many dimensions to be considered, and uncovering them is certainly an exercise of creativity.

    The most widely employed model of market segmentation comprises 7 steps, each of them designed to encourage the marketer to come with a creative approach.

    STEP 1: Identify and name the broad market

    You have to have figured out by this moment what broad market your business aims at. If your company is already on a market, this can be a starting point; more options are available for a new business but resources would normally be a little limited.

    The biggest challenge is to find the right balance for your business: use your experience, knowledge and common sense to estimate if the market you have just identified earlier is not too narrow or too broad for you.

    STEP 2: Identify and make an inventory of potential customers’ needs

    This step pushes the creativity challenge even farther, since it can be compared to a brainstorming session.

    What you have to figure out is what needs the consumers from the broad market identified earlier might have. The more possible needs you can come up with, the better.

    Got yourself stuck in this stage of segmentation? Try to put yourself into the shoes of your potential customers: why would they buy your product, what could possibly trigger a buying decision? Answering these questions can help you list most needs of potential customers on a given product market.

    STEP 3: Formulate narrower markets

    McCarthy and Perreault suggest forming sub-markets around what you would call your “typical customer”, then aggregate similar people into this segment, on the condition to be able to satisfy their needs using the same Marketing mix.

    Start building a column with dimensions of the major need you try to cover: this will make it easier for you to decide if a given person should be included in the first segment or you should form a new segment. Also create a list of people-related features, demographics included, for each narrow market you form – a further step will ask you to name them.

    There is no exact formula on how to form narrow markets: use your best judgement and experience. Do not avoid asking opinions even from non-Marketing professionals, as different people can have different opinions and you can usually count on at least those items most people agree on.

    STEP 4: Identify the determining dimensions

    Carefully review the list resulted form the previous step. You should have by now a list of need dimensions for each market segment: try to identify those that carry a determining power.

    Reviewing the needs and attitudes of those you included within each market segment can help you figure out the determining dimensions.

    STEP 5: Name possible segment markets

    You have identified the determining dimensions of your market segments, now review them one by one and give them an appropriate name.

    A good way of naming these markets is to rely on the most important determining dimension.

    STEP 6: Evaluate the behavior of market segments

    Once you are done naming each market segment, allow time to consider what other aspects you know about them. It is important for a marketer to understand market behavior and what triggers it. You might notice that, while most segments have similar needs, they’re still different needs: understanding the difference and acting upon it is the key to achieve success using competitive offerings.

    STEP 7: Estimate the size of each market segment

    Each segment identified, named and studied during the previous stages should finally be given an estimate size, even if, for lack of data, it is only a rough estimate.

    Estimates of market segments will come in handy later, by offering a support for sales forecasts and help plan the Marketing mix: the more data we can gather at this moment, the easier further planning and strategy will be.

    These were the steps to segment a market, briefly presented. If performed correctly and thoroughly, you should now be able to have a glimpse of how to build Marketing mixes for each market segment.

    This 7 steps approach to market segmentation is very simple and practical and works for most marketers. However, if you are curious about other methods and want to experiment, you should take a look at computer-aided techniques, such as clustering and positioning.

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    Source by Otilia Otlacan

    Views: 0

  • Enterpriship – The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Management

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    Every individual who starts, owns, or is a member of the management team of an enterprise, should strive to build sustainable advantage. Sustainable advantage is essential to value creation because cash flows become predictable and reliable over long periods of time. As a consequence, it is easier to plan for investments in new endeavors and to maintain contingency reserves for downturns.

    Building sustainable advantage requires proficiency in the disciplines of entrepreneurship, leadership, and management. Collectively, these three disciplines embrace “enterpriship.”

    Enterpriship is both an art and a science. Art is an occupation that requires both knowledge and skills; science is method for systematizing knowledge. Through both knowledge and skills, enterpriship provides a systematized approach to building sustainable enterprises by employing the techniques of entrepreneurship, leadership, and management.

    Entrepreneurship is a competency for starting, developing, and assuming risk for an enterprise. Leadership is a competency for aspiring, inspiring, and motivating others. Management is a competency for directing and controlling events and activities – management as a “team” has the authority and responsibility for the enterprise.

    Being proficient in all three competencies requires experience. Entrepreneurs may lack the leadership and management competencies, leaders may lack entrepreneurial and management competencies, and managers may lack the entrepreneurial and leadership competencies to build a sustainable enterprise.

    Upwardly mobile entrepreneurs have to demonstrate to investors that they can build large markets. Lifestyle business enterprise owners, such as dry cleaners, hairdressers, professional service providers, restaurateurs, and retailers, are responsible for everything in their businesses. Executives and managers in larger enterprises are under constant pressure from investors to generate quality earnings on an ongoing basis.

    The enterprise depends upon the use of all three enterpriship competencies as do the employees, customers, suppliers and investors.

    When entrepreneurs start enterprises, they tend to focus on the benefits and features of their products and/or services. Intrapreneurs, who are agents of change in established enterprises, tend to do the same thing. However, focusing on products and/or services alone is insufficient for building sustainable advantage over time.

    Without people there is nothing in business. Processes must be effective and efficient at delivering quality products and/or services conveniently. If an enterprise can’t deliver, a competitor will.

    Hence, the management team collectively must be proficient in entrepreneurial, leadership, and managerial roles that dictate successful people-oriented, process-oriented, and product and/or service capabilities.

    The entrepreneurial role is both process-oriented and product-oriented, through which innovative ideas are transformed into value at every stage of an enterprise’s development.

    The leadership role is people-oriented, through which direction is set that others will follow to achieve results – equally applicable to top-level executives, team leaders within functions, or anywhere in between.

    The managerial role is process-oriented, through which resources (time, materials, and supplies) are applied to activities to achieve results.

    These three roles embrace the planning and policy development, deployment and execution, and performance measurement activities of the enterprise. Deployment means positioning the resources of the enterprise in the best markets for its products and/or services. Execution means getting things done through people and processes effectively and efficiently.

    Unless the management team employs these three enterpriship competencies collectively to address people, process, and product and/or service capabilities, the enterprise will be unable to build sustainable advantage over time, and will ultimately decline, and maybe fail.

    If the management team can systematize building sustainable advantage through the effective and efficient use of people and processes, then there more time to spend on developing the benefits and features of products and/or services. Enterpriship provides the approach…

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    Source by Nigel Brooks

    Views: 1

  • Traditional Chinese Medicine: Acupuncture Points and Charts

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    What Are the Acupuncture Points?

    The English translation of ‘acupuncture points’ is not very accurate. Acupuncture is one of the many healing methods used in traditional Chinese Medicine. It inserts fine needles into the sensitive points on the body to stimulate Jingluos (meridians) to cure diseases. These sensitive points are called ‘Shuxue’ or ‘Xuewei’ in Chinese Medicine, meaning ‘the transmitting points’. However, this name has been so widely used, there is no point to change it now for our discussion.

    Acupuncture points are the responsive points or sensitive points on the meridians and other parts of the body. They are the special locations where energy is transmitted between the inner structures and the surface of the body. These spots can reflect disease or unhealthy conditions by giving forth painful sensations when touched or pressed. These points are (but not limited to) where the therapists apply treatments. When the body is deficient of positive energy, negative or harmful energy will be able to invade the body through these spots, causing illness. Stimulating the related points can boost and mobilize the positive energy, balance Yin/Yang energy and cure the disease. There are three types of points:

    1. 14-main-meridian points

    2. Extraordinary points

    3.’Yes’ points.

    The 14-main-meridian points are the spots on the 12 main meridians plus the spots on the governor and conception vessels. Each spot has a unique name and a fixed location. They are the main acupuncture points. The extraordinary points are the points that have names and fixed locations. These locations are not on a particular meridian. ‘Yes’ points are also called pain points, but they don’t have names or fixed locations. They are the sensitive points related to the diseases. The ‘yes ‘name came from a story. When treating a patient, the doctor pressed a spot unintentionally, and the patient uttered ‘oh yes’.

    There are approximately 360 acupuncture points in total on the human body. With so many tiny points to remember, one can easily be intimidated. As a matter of fact, for self -healing and caring purposes, we don’t have to memorize all these points. We only need to remember roughly 20 most used and effective points. If you need to use more points, just look for them using the meridian and acupuncture point charts. Each point has a unique and meaningful name, which gives some key information about this particular point, such as main function, usage, location, or other. In English, the English spelling of the Chinese names are directly used. For people who don’t understand Chinese, it is hard to comprehend the significance of each name and, therefore hard to remember all the foreign sounding names.The format of the international symbols for acupuncture points is fairly easy. Since most of the points belong to one specific meridian (Jing), it only makes sense that their symbols are associated with those meridians. You can take two abbreviation letters of that meridian’s name and number all the points along the way, from the starting point to the end point. For example: the name of the Xue-hai point means ‘the sea of blood’ in Chinese and can be used for blood-related issues. Its English symbol is SP10, because it belongs to the spleen meridian and is the 10thpoint from the start.

    How to Find an Acupuncture Point?

    When considering an acupuncture point as a tiny point, it might be really difficult to find it. However, if you think of it as a small precise area, it becomes quite easy. To locate a subject on a 2D plane, you need 2 coordinates. To locate an sensitive point, we use a reference point and a distance. The reference point is a known location on the body, such as ‘the tip of the nose’, ‘the highest point of the ankle bone’ etc. The distance is measured by your own hand. The unit is ‘cun’. The width of your thumb at the mid joint is one ‘cun’, the width of middle three fingers at the mid joints is two ‘cun’, the width of the four fingers (without the thumb) at mid joints is three ‘cun’. How do you know if you have found the right point? When you press on it, if you feel kind of sore and sense a little pain (acute pain means you are not well somewhere), then you are on the right spot. Every main meridian has a primary point. That is the point where the primary energy of this meridian originates. Stimulating this point is one of the most effective ways to boost the positive energy found in this meridian.

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    Source by Wendy Q Wang

    Views: 1

  • How To Start Marketing Your Business

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    To new business owners, starting a business is often its own reward. They are thrilled to be able to be their own bosses, and to successfully get a business up and running. Often they are happy just to keep the dream alive.

    But every business needs to grow. That doesn’t mean you have to reach out to a larger market – it means working toward increasing your share of the one you are targeting. This will keep your business healthy enough to survive obstacles such as tough economic times.

    In order to keep moving forward, we need to market our businesses constantly. We need to dedicate a certain percentage of our resources to building our brand and reaching our target market. Here are some simple things you can do to help your business grow.

    Have a clear picture of your target market.

    Find out what types of people use the products and services you provide and respond to your business philosophies. If you’re not marketing to the right people, all will be lost.

    Research, research, research.

    Determine how to best reach your target market and what they expect out of your offerings. Study your competition carefully, and make note of what they’re doing right and wrong.

    Choose your marketing channels wisely.

    If your target market rarely reads, there’s no point in advertising in a magazine. Use what you’ve learned about them to find the best possible outlets for your message, and focus your marketing efforts there.

    Give your advertising a chance.

    Studies show that consumers require repeated exposure to a product before they will even consider buying. So don’t be surprised if one ad run doesn’t bring spectacular results. If you’ve done your homework and found a viable way to reach your market, run the ad at least two more times before you evaluate the results.

    Take advantage of free publicity.

    Sending out press releases and finding other ways to attract the media will give you high-quality exposure, and it won’t eat into your budget.

    Keep track of the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

    If what you’re doing is working, you should be generating more revenue. Use some of that revenue to do more marketing. If it isn’t working, make adjustments and try again.

    Sometimes you’ll have to take a step back with your marketing plans. But that’s not a sign you’ve failed. It’s a sign that you’re a smart marketer. Sometimes the market changes, and it’s up to us to monitor those changes and adjust our marketing plans accordingly. No successful company markets the same way forever. By evolving with our target market, we can make our marketing work better.

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    Source by Jon Allo

    Views: 0

  • Homosexual Dating – Truth and Connection

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    Homosexual dating has become much more widespread and accepted in Western culture, allowing both gays and lesbians the chance to reach out to one another beyond that of closed doors. Now there are many ways you can have a rewarding homosexual dating experience, so don’t be afraid to get out there and explore all of the potential relationships you can create at a wonderful same-sex communities.

    Homosexuality is a form of love that needs not to be judged or explained, because it is just another example of how when you love someone it doesn’t matter what colour their skin is, how old they are, or even what sex they are. True love knows no boundaries, has no discriminations and only wishes to be shared with another who returns the same emotions.

    Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with this idea of love, and due to this fact, many homosexuals, regardless if they are male or female, are made to feel alienated, which can often lead to feelings of depression or loneliness. There is no reason why you should let these feelings overcome you, or let other opinions of those you care about, such as family members or friends, negatively influence your life when it comes to finding love, relationships, and homosexual dating.

    Homosexual dating is about finding someone who feels the same way you do, enjoys spending time with you, treats you with respect and makes you feel like an equal. It is about being apart of a relationship with mutual understanding, which has the potential to forge a strong connection between both you and your partner.

    Like any dating experience, there will be certain setbacks and struggles that you may face during homosexual dating. This is only natural, simply because in order for you to connect with someone, it is important that you feel comfortable with them.

    As a gay or lesbian, you should not feel that you need to grab any opportunity that comes your way. There is no harm in starting as friends and working slowly into the relationship to discover how much you have in common. As long as you are honest with your feelings, you should have no problem finding a partner.

    Homosexual dating is how you can establish an amazing connection with someone who understands you, and loves you for who you are with no questions asked. Even though you will meet some people who are destined to give you a hard time with your sexual preference, all you can do is trust your own judgments, be true to yourself, and give your love and time to those who deserve it.

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    Source by Frank Duru

    Views: 0

  • The Renegade Network Marketer is Attraction Marketing

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    In case you have not read the eBook by Ann Sieg called The Renegade Network Marketer, be sure to get your copy here. By reading this book you will learn new concepts on how to build your Network Marketing business or any business the smart way in this digital age.

    Inside Sieg’s book she targets a distinct group of people that are discouraged that their Network Marketing business is not going as planned. Every single day this group searches the internet for solutions and the Renegade Network Marketer provides the answers. Ann has exposed the upline sponsors for the ever tiring methods and myths that they are teaching to new recruits. If you have grown weary of hitting on or have just plain run out of friends and family this system is perfect.

    The Renegade Network Marketing eBook is full of valuable and practical information on how to prospect, market, and sell, specifically in the Network Marketing industry by using the internet. Even if you don’t belong to a Network Marketing Business, you can still purchase The Renegade Marketing System eBook and still make money as an affiliate.

    A new doorway has been opened by The Renegade Network Marketer which is leading the way to working smarter in attracting targeted prospects into your network marketing funnel. You will learn how to how to qualify prospects, position yourself as an expert and how to make your internet marketing efforts count. In order to keep you ahead of the trend in professional network marketing, there is ongoing continuous training. Whether you are just starting out or you just want the know how to grow your business this marketing concept is flawless.

    Cash flow is vital to any business and Sieg has also incorporated in her system the opportunity to make multiple streams of income. When you purchase the e-book you also gain access to a Back Office with a huge amount of information and tools to market and track your new business. Once you’ve read the book, you’re ready to get started setting up your own attraction based marketing system.

    The difference with being directly linked to Ann is that she has an incredible team and system in place. This is backed up with free membership in the Renegade System where you can put what you have read into practice right away. You’ll find many other helpful resources at The Renegade System website such as website development, copy writing and traffic generation.

    Ann has taken attraction marketing to a whole other level by teaching the principles of marketing. The ideas I got from the book suddenly opened my eyes to see network marketing business in a totally new light. The path in front of me has never look so bright. In our lifetime as network marketers we have no doubt made several attempts at making money did not go exactly as planned. Would you agree that those attempts in question had to do with the number of people that didn’t find your network marketing business as attractive as you did?

    In a nutshell, The Renegade Network Marketer eBook renders a complete Internet attraction marketing system for network marketers at a very low cost. The book comes risk free with a money back guarantee. This kind of training which is always being added could very easily cost thousands and I am sure somewhere it does. If learning the highly coveted secrets on how to attract and qualify prospects instead of chasing them down appeals to you then this eBook is for you.

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    Source by John Kellerman

    Views: 0

  • Honest Riches 3 – Wow

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    I had purchased Honest Riches 2 by Holly Mann a few years ago and was extremely satisfied with the content. The knowledge I received from it was so valuable. That when I heard about Honest Riches 3 I did not hesitate in getting my copy.

    Honest Riches is 3 is 10 books in one. They are all neatly organized and Holly does a great job at presenting the information in an easy to understand format. Even technical information such as Search engine optimization is easy to follow. That’s not to say you may have to read it more than once. But I am no longer afraid of that word and neither should you.

    SEO in not the only subject it covers. Honest Riches basically gives you a walk through on how to profit online in any category or niche starting from scratch. Holly Mann lays it all from beginning to end.

    – Planning and organization

    – How to profit with or without a website

    – Affiliate Marketing, SEO, product creation

    – Advertising methods, and step by step instructions

    as well as her own personal resources

    I have paid hundreds more in other places and barely got half of what Honest Riches covers.

    The book seems to go under the radar a little because of the lack of hype. But it will stand up against

    anything else out there.

    If you are a beginner marketer or have not been able to earn much online. This is a must tool to have

    It won’t be the only one you’ll need. But certainly one of the main ones.

    If you have been dabbling with internet marketing for a while. This is information that will definitely sharpen your skills.

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    Source by Giovanny De Jesus

    Views: 0

  • Book Review Of Millionaire Fastlane

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    Book Review of Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. Demarco

    This book is one of the best books on Entrepreneurship in which the author lays out five commandments to be on the Millionaire Fastlane. According to the author, until and unless the business complies with the five commandments, they are not destined to be successful. These commandments are:

    Commandment of Need, Entry, Control, Scale and Time (NECST).

    Commandment of Need:

    Millionaires affect lives of millions of people by adding some values to their lives and hence are millionaires. If the marketplace does not care about your product or service then it is not going to add value to the marketplace and it is a failed venture before it takes off. So, every business should first figure out if there is a need for the service or product your business is going to deliver or not.

    So, we have seen test products being sold for free to test the water. All they are doing is trying to figure out if there is any demand or not.

    People often start business with wrong reasons. They are good at something and very skilled and open a business about it. But if the marketplace does not care about it, it’s going to be a failure because marketplace is a selfish place. It does not care what you want, what you have, how good you are. All it cares about it is what is it for them. If it adds some value to their lives then they will buy it otherwise not. So, it’s a big eye opener for me and could be for so many budding entrepreneurs.

    Commandment of Entry:

    This is the second commandment to successful business. If the barrier to entry is very easy it means millions will be doing the same thing and you will not have the ability to scale your business but rather will have to decrease the price and compete those millions. Usually war of price harms all the parties. For example if creating a website and writing a blog and generate income is your business then there is not enough barrier to entry unless you try to add something extra value to the marketplace which not anyone else has added yet. An example which the author gives few times is when he thought about starting Limo business. He found it failed both the first and second commandments. There was no need for one more limo business and barrier was very low to enter into this business.

    Commandment of Control:

    If you have no control over your business and you have given entire authority to another party, you are doomed to failure.

    Many entrepreneurs start a company and then hire a CEO or CFO to completely take control of operation or finance. They know nothing about what is going on and that is the recipe to failure. Especially when entrepreneurs do not have any basic financial knowledge like what is loan mortgage, how to calculate simple interest but hire an expert to help them make decisions. Since they themselves cannot take a second look at the decisions made by their advisers, chances are that they might screw up and entrepreneur will have to bear the loss.

    One of the examples given in the book about the benefit of controlling the business is given as the following. If you are a doctor working at a private-care facility it’s natural to think that you are on the fastlane because your magnitude (price/unit) is large and that will increase the net profit and hence wealth. But, the control of the private care facility is not held by the doctors but by the owner. So, it’s him who is on the fastlane not the doctor who depends on his intrinsic value to increase the wealth.

    Commandment of Scale:

    The author gives an example of a burger stall outside a supermarket. No matter how much the owner tries, he cannot scale his business and reach out to customers outside of the supermarket. So, this business violates the commandment of scale. But an e-store that sells some product in the internet has unlimited number of customers and hence has the capacity to scale his business to unlimited level. However, if the entrepreneur can create franchise of any burger store then he has the ability to scale and will be on the fastlane.

    The author gives an example of a quote by the billionaire Mark Cuban who said it only one business to be successful. So, it’s important that we undertake projects which can be scaled up. In baseball terms, take swing for home runs not singles. If you do decide to play singles, you have to replicate the effort many more times.

    The Fastlane wealth equation is:

    Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value

    Net Profit = Units sold * Unit Profit

    The leverage is created by the units sold. If you are selling burgers on the supermarket lot, you are limiting the leverage and hence you are on the speed limit of 15 mph road. Also, you cannot increase the price of the burger so the unit profit cannot be controlled as well.

    So, either you have to be able to reach millions of people to increase the Units Sold quantity or sell at very high price to extra wealthy clients to increase the unit profit values.

    Commandment of time:

    Time is the scarcest resource we have. Most people spend money frugally and time freely. That according to the author is exactly the wrong way to the road to wealth. Time is limited and money is abundant. Only difference between successful and unsuccessful people is the way they spend their time. The former value each moment of their life and spend it to increase their self-worth. The latter waste it on fulfilling their immediate desires like watching TV series, indulging in games etc. for long period of time etc.

    As per the author, fastlane is not an easy path but sure it should be a fast way to earn wealth.

    As a fastlaner, our goal should be to automate the travel. If you have a business which requires you to dedicate each moment of your life all the time and always have to trade time for money, it’s a job masked as a business. It’s a money tree that never grows.

    It’s normal to work more than 80 hours per week in the starting phase of a business but it’s not normal to work like that for the rest of the life which is a normal for most of the people working normal life. One of the famous quotes from the book which is often used outside as well is about how most of the people define as normal. Normal is to wake up at 6 am, fight traffic, work 8 hours or slave 8 hours Monday to Friday, save 10% and repeat for 50 years. Normal is to believe that stock market will make us rich and fastest car and bigger house will make us happy. The definition of normal is corrupted by the society and we are conditioned to believe that. In short, the author believes, normal is modern day slavery and that’s why only few have the courage and the intelligence to come out of normalcy and drive on a millionaire’s fastlane.

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    Source by Manju Pradhanang

    Views: 0