Posted In: Business Development by admin

Are you a newbie in home business? Are you struggling in your business ideas? Your business management? Unsure how to increase sale?

We all know business owner like yourself love to improve your business acumen via reading and taking courses. But do you have the time to attend any business courses? Do you have that spare time to read those business related books?

Technology has come into our life and become part of the most important vehicle to our success. It makes life easier in almost every ramification.

Audio books give you, the business owner, the opportunity to ’shallow’ all the business knowledge at the shortest time frame. With an audio book you can enjoy the same value of any business book when preparing to go to work in the morning, when commuting to and from work, etc.

If you are unsure where to start, here are the two best that any business person should listen to:

1. How to win friends and influence people – by Dale Carnegie

I don’t know about you, but the most important aspect of my business is PEOPLE. For almost every endeavor of life, especially business, we need people to keep the business going.

Not just the people that bring us sales, but also the people that make the sales possible. To be able to succeed at this, we all need to know “how to win friends and influence people”.

That’s why this incredible book by Dale Carnegie is a “must have” for any person in business.

With the power of the information contained in this book, you can learn, not just how to influence people so that they bring in more sales for your business, but most importantly how to win your friends and staff that help you make the sales possible.

Now in audio book format, you can enjoy this book from the comfort of your car while commuting to and from your job.

2. E-Myth Revisited

“Gerber loves to exhort people to develop powerful visions for their companies.” —Fortune

In this compact disc edition of the totally revised underground bestseller The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business — from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed— and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have listened to The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

NOTE: MICHAEL E. GERBER is the Founder and Chairman of E-Myth Worldwide, where he originated his own unique form of small business reengineering processes on behalf of his more than 25, 000 small business clients.

The two audio books above can do a lot for your business and career if you take the time to listen to them, and apply what you will learn therein to your business and career.

If you are to buy these two titles, please visit http://www.millionaudiobook.com

All the best!

Posted In: Business Development by admin

Writing a business plan is not a simple task … nor does it need to be a painful one either.

For starters, if this is your first attempt, you should look for Govt. and Non Govt. resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs ….. like your local chamber of commerce.

For online resources Linkedin is a good start. Also try advisorgarage, gobignetwork, and similar networks to find a business consultant ready for pro-bono work.

The last thing you want to do though is to buy a software for business planning purposes unless you need this business plan simply for the sake of having a business plan on the shelf.

The better approach is: you should write a rough draft of your idea and everything what you think about it. Bounce these ideas at others and gather unique perspectives, feedback and more ideas, document that too. Lay out your monthly fixed costs ( rent, wages etc) along side your variable costs and then compare it with your prospective income sources. Run this schedule for at least 24 months. Use this schedule to see how much money you can go down for before the business works. Do you walk away 5 grand down after 6 months, or do you get lumbered with a hard to sell, expensive to keep, lease? Figure out, what happens if you reduce your income. Do a break even analysis – what is the lowest level at which you can make it work. Try to write something why …. and how sure are you that you will do better than anyone else who is doing the same. If you’re the only one doing or planning to do this the chances are either the idea is not profitable …. or even you don’t know where and who is doing it? So do more research about the business and try to figure the realistic bottom line for the business. All this analysis and work above was for your use. If you still want to do it -

Then draft a business plan using the free resources like Microsoft template and many more available in the market – this draft initially should include what you have done that makes you sure this will work. This may simply be – I have a contract, I know the business, there will be more, or it may be a thorough market research, traffic counts, industry statistics and the like. Put the schedule we did in the first place, into a spreadsheet,and lay out the rest in whichever format you like.

In my opinion, this is the most economic and realistic approach to write a business plan and not an off the shelf software which will give you a me-too business plan which to me is of no use as neither am I convinced nor can I convince any investors with that kind of auto-generated plan.

A business plan has many formats but shares a common group of elements. The one you write for yourself is different from one written to secure financing, or key employees. The place to start is not “which software to use” although that will be very helpful later.

You need to tell a story, or better yet, view it as a movie screenplay. If you can fill in the four elements below, you are well on your way to starting writing one.

The Title- The description of what your core idea is has to be compelling and not “just like all the others”. Why are you different?

The Star Studded Cast- Your Customers. Who is going to give you money? Why? Why Them?

The Thrilling Action-The plot details -Money In and Money Out- financiers love this part- but in simple terms, explain the money coming in and the money going out.

The Big Finish- Answer the question Why You Will Succeed? A good crisp answer here is the capstone.

I have seen plans go forward without these key elements explained simply and clearly, but the ones who do have a better shot at accomplishing their goals.

Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications …. and author ofBroadband Nation. Michael also authors Small Business Resources Cafe with resources, tools, tips, & insights for small businesses. The Cafe is always open. So …. grab a cup of Joe & sit awhile!