Good reasons of the effectiveness of publicity

Publicity could really make an impact in marketing your business, but sometimes it is overlooked for some reasons. But no matter what, experience shows that publicity works, and it works really great.

Anatomy of PR

PR is an effective tool of marketing your business through a handful of its various components, the reasons of which are converged into a single goal, to create an image that is strong and successful. PR is a combination of strategies in channelling your message about your products and services, and publicity is just one of its many components. Publicity is created through using the powerful influence of the media.

What does a PR do?

PR introduces great opportunities for a business to grow in great proportions. That is the reason why various companies make good use of its power for marketing. The following are a few of its many uses:

It generates a number of customers
It increases the business’ capacity
It is a great tool to shave off competition
It builds your profile to make it stronger;
It gets the works done in half the cost, or no cost at all.

How does free publicity work

Free publicity definitely holds a lot greater credibility than paid advertisements, but you will have no assurance that your piece of work will even get noticed. When you submit an article, there is no way of telling whether it gets to be published or not because it is the editor’s call whose and what articles are newsworthy to be posted or printed.

You may hire a PR consultant to do your job for you in this stage. You may outsource the task of building your profile to ensure regular admission and approval of your marketing materials.

Making your media release work

Think of a significant thing about you and your business, and turn that into a statement as your standard slogan
Use impressive and unique titles
Make a one liner selling statement
Create a relevant and comprehensive content
Place nice-sounding quotes
Include important details in your media release
Do not be lengthy in your approach, keep your release in not more than one page
Create your data base
Suggest a photo session

Synchronised techniques

A successful marketing could be the result of your comprehensive marketing efforts. It is not a direct result of a single method, but rather a collaborative effect of all the other essential techniques. If everything is done according to the planned scheme, then public relations will most likely produce great results for the business. Publicity may not necessarily produce dramatic increase in sales, but it helps build the profile of a business which could be beneficial in achieving a long term goal.

Benefits of Media Releases

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Media release is a very powerful tool that you could utilise to enhance the performance and the standing of your business. It positions your business for greater attention and publicity without any required cost. Make good use of its benefits.

As long as you can provide an interesting content, one that captures the interests of the masses, the media might chase after your story for publication. The media people are always on the run looking for great story, and your job is to provide that story. When your story runs, it affords you to gain the much needed recognition to build your business name or brand until you build upon yourself a solid reputation. The following are some of the various benefits of sending media releases:

1. Recognition

When you send a media release to any media outfit and then it hits the airwaves, it will definitely enhance your chances of being recognized. It lets people know the nature of your business and how it works which in the long run will be beneficial to your business

2. Unquestionable credibility

Your story gets a greater credibility when it is embedded in both TV and print news. It makes people view it as an objective story, thus, affording it with much credibility than usual.

3. Financially viable and rewarding

It does not cost much, or it does not even cost at all. You get your publicity by capitalizing on the worth and the credibility of your story. It is very feasible indeed. In fact, in could even be financially rewarding to some.

4. Consistency and constancy

Through your media releases, you keep your clients and customers informed of your relevant activities. It sends them a message of deep connection thus gaining their loyalty in the process. You could even go a mile farther by personally letting them know about your media releases.

5. Brevity and clarity

Every time you write a media release, it helps you improve on crafting your message with the required brevity but with much needed clarity. A brief and clear message is better understood by the clients and customers which is supposedly the goal of every media release.

6. Image projection

A media release is a great avenue for you to form your image that you want to project to your clients and your customers. You should be able to communicate your vision and goals, and as to how you could impact their lives in various relevant ways.

7. Profile building

Once you start getting the right amount of attention, you also start getting recognized for your capacity and capability. You get to establish your expertise in certain fields thus giving a boost to your profile.

Tips on How you can Ensure the Sale of your Business

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As a business owner, you may have the mindset of starting a business that will be profitable for you in the long run. Some business owners though, prefer to start a business with the possibility of selling it in the future. There is nothing really wrong with this type of mindset, but you just need to remember that there is no generic formula when it comes to this. As a business owner with this type of mindset, you must need to know a few things in order for this venture to come out successful.

Putting up a business for sale might sound easy enough like starting it up and then putting up a ‘for sale’ sign then expecting potential buyers to come knocking at your door and offer you a big wad of cash. If it was that easy, then everyone else would have done it. Honestly, it takes more than that to sell your business; it also involves a lot of planning and patience.

Here are some tips on how to make that business more sellable.

Don’t Start a Business that’s only Set for Short-Term Hauls

Starting a business with only the notion of making short-term, quick money is a no-no. This business strategy of quick expansion and then quick selling often exhibits weak business fundamentals as sustainability is often disregarded. Always keep in mind that business buyers will always look at strategic reasons to acquire your business. No business buyer wants to get something that goes stale given a few months or years.

Don’t Start a Business that’s Highly Dependent on Your Skills

Business buyers often look at the stability of the process instead of dependability on key personnel. You can get a higher premium if you have documented processes that are not dependent on certain skills of personnel; like yourself, for example. Having a ‘plug-and-play’ type of business makes it even more attractive to a buyer. To ensure salability of your business, make sure that it will still operate even though you’ve already walked away from it.

Take your Time

Like what was mentioned above, selling a business requires patience. It may take years to make sure that your business has as much of the factors that potential buyers are looking for. Some of these factors include sustainability, protected intellectual properties, profitable client contracts, patented processes or technology, and solid infrastructures. You cannot get these things in your business overnight. Moreover, these are the goals that each business, whether it will be for sale or not, tries to attain.

Involve a Broker or an Investment Banker

Even though selling your own business is doable, you might want to let the brokers handle the negotiations. These negotiations can be distracting, tiresome, and even emotionally draining. With these distractions in play, it will be easy to lose focus of running your business. Losing your focus would then equate to a struggling business. As an end result, a struggling business is not very attractive to potential business buyers. Given their expertise, brokers can handle the negotiations well for you and can even give you more favorable terms from the potential buyers.

Always Get Multiple Bidders

In selling your business, always make sure to get different bidders. These bidders, depending on their interest in your business, would likely wage a bidding war against each other. If this is the case, you would always be the winner as you can get a higher final price for the business.

Funding your Business without a Loan from a Bank

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Most of the time, applying for a small business from banks require a collateral; and this has been proven quite a challenge to small business owners. Due to a lot of requirements, most small business owners have already factored out getting loans from banks. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that you cannot find other creative ways in funding your business. Here are some things to try, and their pros and cons, in order to get that additional funding for your business.

The Factoring Method

The factoring method allows you to sell your business’ accounts receivable to a third party entity in exchange for immediate cash. Factoring can be quite expensive though. With mark-ups of up to fifteen percent, factoring might work for expansion; but this method might not be best for a company that’s downsizing or losing money.

Use your IRA or 401(k)

You can also consider borrowing money from your retirement funds. First thing you might want to consider in doing this is taking a sixty-day interest-free loan from your 401(k); there are also no fees involved if the loan was paid back on the time specified. One important thing to take note of though is that these funds are for your retirement. It is usually risky and might even be devastating to lose this money in business.

Try to Secure a Government Grant

Government grants require extensive research at the local, state, and federal government levels. One important consideration though is that these grants are very technical in nature. Moreover, they usually require some very strict reporting in the progress of the research being conducted.

Get a P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Loan

You can find some online organizations that offer peer-to-peer loans. These peer-to-peer loan companies have people who you don’t know offer you to loan money from them. Your possible loan amount depends on your credit score, the economy, the period of the loan, and your business’ story. On the other hand, peer-to-peer loans are hard to acquire and the interest is quite high.

Use Global Crowd Funding

Very much like P2P funding, crowdfunding allows you to get people to invest in your particular organization. But unlike, P2P, crowdfunding donors do not expect to receive money back. You can, in turn, provide them with rewards of receiving your products first, or having products named after them.

Engage in Microfinancing

Microfinancing is relatively new. Microfinancing organizations provide small loans that are based on your business’ experience, marketability, and sales.

Get Financing Options from Wholesalers or Suppliers

Doing this method helps you work more closely with your supply chain to get the financing that you need to further fund your business. This method works best with a local supplier who has really shown great interest in your products or services and is willing to work with you. As a side note, always remember not to personally guarantee these types of loans.

Join Business Plan Contests

Another creative way to get your business funded is to win the money through competitions. There are numerous business plan writing competitions that are awarding a good amount of money, or funding, to the winners. Just make sure that your business writing and presentation skills are tip-top because you will be competing with the best in the country.

Find Organizations that are ‘Business Incubators’

New businesses can get money, mentorship, and other similar support from organizations that are business incubators. Business incubators usually have great track records of success on the businesses that they’re nurturing. Just be mindful that there is a lot of competition for small businesses that want to be part of these organizations.

Barter Goods or Services

You can also look at exchanging products or services instead of money. Moreover, bartering can save you money and move some unused resources. This can be done directly with another business or through barter exchange organizations. Do take note though that you only need to barter a few select products and services; bartering without cash cannot pay employees or rent.

Important Considerations in Subleasing Your Unused Office Space

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Need to relocate, but having some issues getting out of your lease? Is your business downsizing because of the current environment and you need to share some of the rent? If this is so, you might want to consider subleasing your unused space to other businesses. Engaging in a sublease agreement will definitely be a big help in your business’ cash flow. But before that, there are three important things that you need to know before doing a sublease.

First thing that you need to do is to find out if you are able to sublet. You can do this by checking your current lease agreement. Usually, there are specific clauses in the contract that do allow you to sublet; like twenty-five percent, for example. Just be mindful about the maximum allowable space that the contract allows. Subleasing more than the allowed limit allows the landlord to exercise his or her “right of recapture.” This means that the landlord can take back the unused space and have other businesses lease it directly from him or her. The commercial realty market also determines the landlord’s tendency to exercise this right. In a recent study conducted by U.S. realty market expert, Cushman and Wakefield, they have found that the office vacancy rates in major markets have decreased by around seventy-one percent within the last four years. It will also be a good idea to check with your landlord regarding options on the space that you don’t need.

Transferring out of a leased space is an entirely different deal. If you are moving out of leased space due to business decisions like cutting overhead costs, relocation, or even closing shop, your lease agreement may or may not allow you to do so. In these situations, it might always be better to have your landlord exercise his or her right to recapture the space. Doing so will avoid you the obligation of collecting rent from subtenants.

Second important consideration in doing a sublease is deciding on how much to charge. One very important consideration is that you might charge lower than your actual rent. This is because subtenants are always looking for the best bargains around. Moreover, in markets where commercial space is at a premium, charging higher than the landlord’s rent might see you splitting the lease with your landlord. It is always best to check your lease to see if there are clauses that specify any sharing of rental amount; if you plan on renting out higher than your current lease.

The last consideration is finalizing an arrangement with your tenant. If you need to have some structural changes to accommodate a tenant would, of course, merit a higher rate. Also take note that any structural changes you plan to do must always adhere to the building code. Likewise, you also need to craft a contract for the tenant. Most of the time, the contract includes the percentage of the sublease of your space. Furthermore, some contracts also can alternately offer a “seat lease.” What this means is that instead of renting space, the subtenant rents a specific work station in your office. Always make sure that the contract includes other services that you offer like inclusion of internet access, receptionist services, use of the pantry, and use office equipment, to name a few.

As a final note, you don’t really have to create a sublease on your own. You can work with real estate agents who can ensure that the facilities and services you offer conforms to your current lease and whatever provisions you have in mind work to your and your subtenants’ best interests.

How Dollar Depreciation Affects Business Owners

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The decline of the purchasing power of the dollar generally had an adverse effect; in the immediate sense, for dollar purchasing countries and for businesses that uses dollar a currency in transactions. Compared to other foreign currencies, the dollar has been declining at a relatively steady rate. The purchasing power based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the exchange rate relative to other foreign currencies such as Yen and Euro had shown that there is a decline since August of 2000.

The effect of this on businesses that buy goods and source services to other countries with a relatively more stable currency is that the prices for a fixed amount of goods and services are rising. Compared to the prices back in 2000, the goods now may cost five to ten percent higher in terms of the local currency. This added cost directly translates to a five to ten percent decrease in profit.

The problem is further aggravated by the quasi-recession of the American economy. This results to companies increasing the prices to make up for losses because consumers now have less purchasing power compared to a decade ago.

The same is true for companies that sell their goods on foreign countries using dollar as currency for the prices of their goods. For every deal with a foreign buyer with a relatively stable currency, you are giving a five to ten percent discount per deal in dollar. This now poses the question of will it be safer to adopt a new currency that is more stable than the dollar.

This pricing strategy can be effectively employed; given that you have already established a price-listing catalogue in different foreign currencies. The task does not stop there, of course. You also need to have an up-to-date price listing so that the rate of fluctuation loss for each of the currency can be minimized. Furthermore, you must maintain a balance of value so that you could see if the effort of pricing in foreign currency benefits your business at all.

You must be ready to train your staff on the changes in the management of money in your accounts. Be ready for complaints and necessary adjustments if foreign buyers do not see your prices to be realistic. Also, you need to set up the payment methods and even the Local Fund Transfer system of each of the currencies that you will use. Using multi-currency software on online marketing is easy; but the LFT for each country will be tricky at first.

On the bright side, the declining purchasing power of the dollar can boost purchases from abroad. So what you lack in percentage of cost per unit is compensated by the volume of units that you will be selling to foreigners with a more stable foreign currency. This, in turn, can very well replace the loss margin by making up for profit with the increased volume. Just make sure that in the process, a five to ten percent decline would not substantiate the profit per unit. If this is the case, there will be a general capital loss for every unit sold; and that will be bad for your business.

Knowing Your Limitations In Your Business

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Often times, we are a little bit of hesitant about spending money for our business; and we should be. After all, the money that we spend is good, well-earned money. However, as business owners, it is our task to disburse our well-kept funds in order to make our business grow. A growing business is a surviving business in this cutthroat competition-driven market.

Money is not being grown on some money tree; it is being earned through hard work instead. We must be vigilant in spending our money not because we are stingy, but rather, there are things that we could avoid spending too much on with the right outlook on things.

Public relations, for example, does not need to be overly-funded. However, we stress that the advice of experts in the field will be a great help. One way of overspending in the PR field is if you are trying to sell a bad story. If you do not have a good lead or an interesting pitch to your sales call, then definitely no one will buy it. The public will rather see it as a nuisance and will just put it back in the shelf where they have stumbled upon it. So, no matter how much money you spend trying to boost your PR, if the public does not want it, the media will not even bother to look at it.

What you need here is a good lead; a great story. If you have something worthwhile, worth talking about, and worth repeating, even if you have an understaffed PR unit, the media will take it. This is because the public wants it.

Another important thing for business owners like us to remember is the fact that we have limitations. These are not just economic limitations, but social limitations as well. We must not take this as something bad or unnatural; but this is something that we should always take into consideration.

Here’s an example. Even if you do have a logistical capability and all the resources that you need to undergo long and expeditious trips, always remember that you have a family and you have a home. Those entrepreneurs that can afford long trips are those who are not attached, unmarried or just free-spirits who hunger for adventure and new knowledge.

For us home-lovers, we should take care of our marriage, wife and kids. After all, we undergo business not to just earn money, but to provide a better future for those that we love. This is a central philosophy that we should always take into our minds and hearts as we go along doing our daily routine.

The battle of the cutthroat competition of the free market will make us stronger business owners, but we do not want yourself to be distracted by issues of domestic concerns. We should always set our priorities and goals and always take into account the scope and limitations of our abilities. In the end we will know what and what not to do.

Is a Counter-Offer Always the Best Solution?

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One time or another, a prized employee from your staff will approach you and let you know that he or she has received a better offer. Being put in that situation doesn’t necessarily equate to you losing one of your best people. In these cases, employees are coming to you to give notice; but, in one way or another, he or she will certainly be open to an offer from you that can match that new job.

Having employee retention in mind, it means that the next move is entirely up to you; and you may not have a lot of time on your hands. You can negotiate with the employee for a little more time so that you can craft a good-enough counter-offer; but usually, employees already just want to give their notice and jump ship as soon as possible. Given this situation, you might want to know what you need to do when it comes to handling situations like these. Here are a few tips that we can share.

Is coming up with a counter-offer always the best solution? The immediate answer for most of us will be ‘yes.’ The reason behind this is that we are looking at the expense of training a new employee before taking on the role of the previous one. Moreover, you will still need to consider the learning curve of the new employee to acclimatize to the new role and the company. Another consideration is that you will be short-handed during the time while you’re searching for, hiring, and training the new hire.

Unless by some chance that the employee is really someone who has special skills that your business can’t live without, the actual cost of retaining him or her may actually be more expensive in the long run. Always put into consideration that hiring and training a replacement is a one-time expense. A raise, on the other hand, gets more and more costly as time goes by. Likewise, a staff member who has been granted a counter-offer might keep on doing a job-hunt as a way to guarantee salary increases that aren’t part of your company’s regular process.

If you’re put into this dilemma, always weigh the actual costs of acquiring a new hire as compared to maintaining an employee in the long run.

Another important thing to consider are the reasons why the employee went job-hunting. You’ll be surprised that it may not be ‘about the money;’ as there are instances when employees jump-ship to a less-paying company or job. These reasons can include your company’s work environment, incompatibility with colleagues or managers, or even a perception of instability in your company. When you have these reasons in the mind of the employee; almost all of the time, a raise or better benefits won’t be the solution to these issues. Use these underlying issues as a signal that he or she is most probably not the only person feeling these insecurities. You might also want to address these issues head-on to keep the rest of your staff happy.

There’s also another reason why you need to keep your counter-offers to a very minimum. Throwing counter-offers around too much gives the impression that your company is a ‘pushover.’ This in turn, might alert your employees that they just need to give a notice to resign to automatically get a raise. Rarely employing counter-offers as a means to retain employees, will give your staff the perception that you value employees who stand out due to performance.

Cut What You Can, Without Compromising Your Business

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To be a good entrepreneur, it is basic knowledge that we must know the maintaining cost of our business. Knowing the exact amount will not suffice here; but rather, we are talking about knowing the purpose and functions of each cent that we spend as overhead cost. Likewise, in order for us to become really successful entrepreneurs, we must also know how to cut on our overhead costs without sacrificing the operations and production performance of our business. How can we do this?

It is simple. It is just matter of knowing the marginal utility of each dollar we spend in our business. Knowing each marginal value each dollar gives will give us the insight into which is the best invested to profit ratio for our firm.

To further illustrate the point, let us take into consideration a business that operates with a maximum number of employees. Most of the time, because of the diminishing value of labor, there is always a surplus of labor value that you pay without getting the optimal marginal value for it. In this case, you might want to shift into a pay per action system. Whereas, for example, a professional will be paid not in the salary system but based on the type and frequency of the services that he renders. This will cut the overhead cost for you by eliminating the unwanted labor salary costs.

Another strategy that you can employ is to cut the interest on your loaned capital. This can be done by using bank loans as capital source instead of credit cards whenever it is possible. This will cut the interest charge for credit cards because their interest rates are generally higher than bank loans, albeit readily available for short purchases.

Trying to ride with the marketing tide can also be one the things that could effectively cut your costs. This can be in the form of volunteer work for a church-based organization so that your company will have good publicity without actually paying for it. Another strategy is to ride with the popularity of the bigger players by affiliating your company with them. In doing so, just make sure that this will not compromise the identity of your company. A good publicity shot can give you the word-of-mouth boost that effectively cuts down your costs and even increases your income.

Planning ahead is also a good form of cost cutting. Buying in bulk and placing your purchase orders earlier can effectively cut your material costs. Furthermore, the other form of materials cost-cutting is by establishing a bidding system to the suppliers in the locality. In this way, these contractors will try to win your contract by deliberately lowering the price of their goods and services.

There are a lot of ways to survive in the business just by trying and playing every card that you can play; and cost cutting is definitely one of them. As a business owner, you just need to make sure that cutting your costs will not affect your quality of work. Thus, you still can deliver quality products and services to your customers.

Fortunes Can Ever Change So Quickly

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As far as business is concerned, there are two prerequisites for survival in the market: strategy and hard work. There is no such thing as constant and unchallenged supremacy. The case of the Forbes 400 proves that fortunes can change quickly and unpredictably in numerous circumstances. What made the difference for these remarkably rich people are the skills and the determination to stay in the game.

Drawing lessons from the Forbes 400, we can note the fact that very few or none of the companies in the list began as huge businesses. Steve Forbes, editor of the Forbes magazine, Chief Executive Officer of Forbes Inc., and himself an established business tycoon, stressed that these businesses started as small ventures. The owners did not inherit the businesses – they created them. They crafted the design, the working schemes, the internal dynamics, the products, and the services; among others. Forbes made it clear that in the market battleground, there is no unshaken aristocracy; there are no invulnerable competitors. The business owner has to be skilful in calling the shots of ‘making something happen.’

Next, to ‘stay in the game,’ one has to understand the true meaning of wealth. If we are in the context of businesses and the market, wealth is not simply the iconic piles of gold, jewels and money all around you. The business owner, more often than not, dismisses this ‘fairytale-ish’ or the ‘commercial ad-ish’ representation of wealth. For him or her, the focus is on the primary determinants of wealth.

This now brings us to the question, “What generates wealth?” Forbes said that it is the “value that people put on the asset.” One of the classic principles in economics tackles the factors behind every demand curve; two of which are the preferences and the price and accessibility of alternative goods. The business owner, therefore, has to possess sheer knowledge about the prevailing preferences in the market and has to learn how to manipulate variables to increase profit. “If the people suddenly don’t like what you offer or if somebody does it better, then the value disappears,” Forbes said.

Indeed, the business owner must know how to answer the crucial question. Will the product or service be preferred over other competitors? More importantly, what will give the product the edge over the other?

Now, the hardest part is the fact that the tastes or preferences of the consumers are always changing. In fact, conditions in the market are characterized by vicissitudes. Thus, there are changes in the factors that determine supply and demand. The cost of manufacturing a product or offering a service can increase dramatically; or some other powerfully decisive exogenous change can take place in the market. There can be an unexpected depreciation of machines, or even political turmoil that creates an atmosphere hostile to vibrant economic activity, among others. In the smaller scale, changes happen more quickly than they do at the macro level. Hence, the owners of small businesses are most familiar with the speed in which conditions can change, Forbes said.

The competent business owner, therefore, must know how to respond to such changes. He or she is never lax; and never assumes that favourable business conditions are eternal. Forbes shared his father’s favourite quote, “if you think you’ve arrived, you’re already shown to the door.” True enough, the businessman, if anything, knows that the market is also characterized by the survival of the fittest, and adaptation is a necessary feat.