idea for your business

Archive for February, 2010

Business management combines an interesting mix of theory and practice, and it is a particularly good topic for management and entrepreneurial types to study. Finding a business management style that suits your personality and the nature of your business is both important and worthy of time investment, as being self-aware and being able to identify strengths and weaknesses of various approaches will enable more effective personal development and ultimately more effective management.

While many have their own individual business management styles, these are traditionally broadly categorized into three main classes of business management approaches.

Autocratic Management

Firstly, there is what has come to be known as the autocratic approach to management, which installs more trust in the leadership as opposed to the individual staff. This involves pulling rank and leaves employees in no doubt as to whom the management is or what decisions are being made. Rather than engaging employees within the decision making process, this business management style typically concerns businesses that require direct, effective leadership to produce results, often under pressure of working in a tough environment. Upon hearing the term autocratic, many tend to visualise a dictatorial approach to management. While that is perhaps the case, it is seldom as strict as this and it is often a necessary management style, for example in the armed forces or in a high-paced trading environment, where there is no margin for deliberation and group consideration.

Democratic Management

Alternatively, there is a business management style known as the democratic style, where employees are effectively engaged in consultation before decisions are made. While some consider this to be more motivating and more enjoyable to work under, it does nevertheless have its own disadvantages. Giving employees a say may undermine the authority of the management, and may ultimately cause inefficiencies in the decision making process. It is also time intensive, and perhaps not as effective in larger organisations with thousands of employees. While of course at a board room level this kind of decision making goes on everyday, it’s one that works most effectively in slower paced business where decisions can be fully deliberated and considered.

Laissez Fair Management

An alternative to those two business management styles and the third main category is what’s known as the laissez fair management style. This is by definition a more hands-off approach to management, which puts the trust of running the business within the hands of employees themselves, and allows a greater degree of autonomy than would otherwise be the case. While this is strong in creative industries, some business people find that this style of management can lead to a fragmented approach to doing business and is less organised and perhaps less professional.

Whichever business management style you liken yourself to; there are advantages and disadvantages of that approach. What’s important is not that you recognise which of these categories you fall under, but rather that you’re aware of the improvements that can be made to make your management more effective and efficient while also improving the relationships you share with employees at all levels of the organisation.

How many friends have approached you with excitement bubbling out of every pore in their body.

“…… you’ve GOT to take a look at this online business!!!!” All you’ve got to do is get TWO people who want to earn $1000 a week! You know two people don’t you!?!? Then they get two people into their online business, and THEY get two people and it just explodes and pretty soon you don’t have to do ANYTHING and you can quit your job and do nothing!!”

Your gut instinct tells you this online business sounds unbelieveably good (you don’t know how right you are) but you sign up anyway. With that comes a monthly autoship of $100-$300, but who cares? Pretty soon you’ll be making three times that in a week!

6 months later, you’re disillusioned, your online business is severely in the red from your once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity and you’ve only signed up 6 people into your business and 5 have left as quick as they came.

Been there, done that … I’m slightly ashamed to say, except I didn’t even sign up anywhere near 6 people in my online business!!

What is opportunity? How do you recognise it? What separates reality from fake? When does that gut instinct tell you it’s real?

What most people don’t realise is that all the things they’ve been taught for their online business do work to a degree. It’s just that most of us will NEVER master the skills required to do them effectively. That is what separates real opportunity from fake opportunity, now listen carefully;

* REAL opportunity is something YOU can do.

* FAKE opportunity is something a very talented, skilled person with an amazing skillset can do … you can’t right now, or rather, not you until you’ve spent years mastering those skills.

Some of the things people try and make money through an online business are;

* writing their own ebook and selling it online.

* network marketing, travel, health, fuel, and more health…

* selling other peoples products as an affiliate marketer.

* stuffing envelopes (don’t even go there)

* selling things on ebay.

* creating a product and selling it online, eg: a boardgame etc…

* and many other minors

Here’s the other side of the online business coin;

* there are thousands of ebooks out there, great ebooks that aren’t being sold because the writer doesn’t have the marketing knowledge to do so.

* 98% of network marketers fail due to been taught a system which the companies KNOW doesn’t work, but it sounds much easier than REAL network marketing.

* 95% of affiliate sales are made by 5% of the affiliate market, a staggering 95% failure rate.

* Money from envelopes? You’re kidding right?

* A recent survey showed that over half of the 3,500 products surveyed on ebay had no bids on them at all! Only 175 items out of the 3,500 had more than 1 bid on them. Not as hot as what people make it out to be is it?

* creating physical products takes thousands of dollars in design, production costs, advertising, you have to have reasonable capital to even THINK this is a good road to travel down.

I’ve written writing ebooks, I’ve been involved in network marketing, I’ve tried being an affiliate marketer, stuffing envelopes, selling on ebay, never tried creating my own product though, knew that would be too expensive.

NONE of those online businesses worked.

Why?

Because each of those online businesses required SKILLS. Skills that take YEARS to master, and those that have mastered them become extremely wealthy. I’ve spent well over $20,000 on courses and some of the top training courses around and learnt ALOT! But what I eventually realised was the time taken to master these skills is immense!

The fact of the matter is that most people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s don’t have the TIME or the MENTAL ENERGY to sit down and learn how to write a sales letter that people just HAVE to buy off if they read it. That takes YEARS to learn and many more years to master.

Many many people are ALMOST successful, because they are good, they are brilliant, they are talented, but they just fall short. The reason why is they CANNOT get other people to do what they do in their online business. Not happening…

The vast majority of people don’t have the required skills to be successful, skills like; * knowing where and how to find the right prospects.

* writing great sales letters that make your prospects foam at the mouth to get to your product.

* designing a website that ‘draws’ a person into wanting to know more.

* setting up autoresponder emails, sequences, and timings.

* closing people on your product, knowing what to say when they say no, or are not sure it they want to buy it.

* knowing how to upload information onto websites.

* buying and registering domain names, then setting up killer websites under that specific domain.

* Writing articles, press releases, and blogging effectively.

* the expensive and ever-changing Pay Per Click Advertising.

* where do I stop?

The time taken to learn all these skills is incredible, the cost … more than a little, and the effort … huge!

People don’t know how to do ALL those things I just listed! A select few do, and they reap the golden rewards. But for joe and joette average – no way!

People are different, some people can do some things really well, others they fail at miserably. A great webdesigner is often TERRIBLE at selling things. A great salesperson has NO CLUE how to set up an autoresponder sequence. Your online business requires ALL of those skills.

What would work best for people is a system! This system would do EVERYTHING that I’ve talked about, it would free you up to just point people in the direction of it through techniques that are simple, proven and effective. This system would need to have a good track record. It would have to have statistics and conversion rates backing it up, and it would need to do everything by itself.

It would need:

* great sales letters.

* fascinating and informative websites.

* a masterful follow up system.

* a way to close people without being pushy or using cunning sales tactics.

* an easy system of attracting people to these websites and sales letters that doesn’t involve talking to people or hassling your friends and family.

That would a REAL opportunity because EVERYONE could do it, right? It’s not an opportunity that looks great but the skills required to be successful in it are incredibly difficult to master, that’s a FAKE opportunity, when something is NOT what it appears to be. Don’t be fooled…

You are keen to get ISO 9001 certificate for your business but scared of the cost involved in engaging a consultant to get the ISO documentation done. Here is good news for you . ISO documents are available for FREE. 

You need not worry about the cost of engaging a consultant to write ISO Manual, ISO Procedures and standard Forms. You can get these documents for FREE over internet. You can save thousands of Dollars on consultations. However please take note that you still need to pay for Certification Audits. You can contact any certification or Accreditation Body or Registrars in your Town and Country for a quotation. Before you call them get a copy of the ISO 9001 Manual, Procedures and Forms from the web site http://www.musa-group.com and implement.

Implementing the ISO procedures is nothing but start using the Forms and follow the procedures for each of your business process.

Typical Processes for your Businesss would be:

(1) Sales & Contracting (which may involve Receiving enquiries from customers or sales leads, Quotations and Order Confirmations)

(2) Design and Devlopment  of the Service or Product (if necessary)

(3) Purchasing (including outsourcing)

(4) Processing of Orders or manufacturing

(5) Quality Inspections, Quality Control, Monitoring of Process or Product , Inpections and Tests

(6) Controlling the Devices used for meaurement or testing or monitoring

(7) Packing, Storage, Ware housing or shipping

(8) Training , Resources Management, Equipment Maintenance

(9) Customer Satisfaction measurement, Monitoring

There are other stuff you need to learn like :

(a) What you will do if there is a defetive part or

(b) Goods are rejected by customer

(c) Customer complains

(d) Internal Quality Aduits

(e) Data Collection

(f) Analysis, Corrective actions, Preventive Actions, Continual Improvement Plan and Management Review Meeting

If you have any questions and need help you can contact the Author through email or Online Chat or Skype or Telephone.

All the best for your Quality Journey.