The first thing I would recommend is to do some research. Sign up for some SEO newsletters, join some news groups and browse web sites like these.SEO can be very in depth and continues for the length of owning your web site. Since this is a new web site here are some things to consider before beginning the creation:

• Choose a domain that matches your products/services
• Host your web site on a reliable, host. One that does not use reseller accounts (possible SPAM issues) and doesn’t hide behind the wall of a ISP (could block search engines).
• Make your site easy to use and the navigation clean.
• When writing the code keep as many of the technical functions outside of the main page. By this I mean include the Java script in a separate file, the same for the CSS etc.
• Keep flash to a minimum and always provide a text menu where the main menu is flash or graphics
• Keep a detailed and up-to-date site map
• Register your site with Google Site Maps
• Install some tracking software so that you can see how your on going changes effect your traffic
• Be sure to manually submit your web sites to the major engines and directories
• Search out some like minded web sites to exchange links with
• Don’t do it all at once. Leave some content back so that you can continually update the site. Search Engines like to see you adding to your content on a consistent basis and so do people.

These steps won’t guarantee you success but they will help.

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Many people spend hours that turn into days that turn into weeks and even months attempting to sell things using free Click Exchanges, Pay to Click sites, Safelists, Ads, and Auto-surf sites only to end up not selling one single item for all of their effort. These sites provide their services for free in order to get you involved so that they can hopefully sell you increased features. You should follow the same strategy if you use them.

Free traffic generators can be used to generate income on the Internet, but they are not in themselves, ways to sell products or create lasting, worthwhile website traffic. These free advertising sites are only good for creating downlines and mailing lists. The Pay to Click sites, where you can earn advertising credits to be used to place your ads or, in some cases, money, should not be confused with the publisher programs from search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN that pay you when people click on ads on your website. Some people in developing nations, where $2 per day is good pay, make a worthwhile income on Pay to Click sites.

The people using free traffic generating sites and viewing your ads are people who, just like you, are trying to sell things. They are not there to buy anything, but all people buy something. In order to use free traffic exchanges effectively, you have to offer something free. The exceptions are the free ad sites and safelists where you can occasionally sell something that doesn’t cost a lot. Only the credit-based safelists are effective and your effort will far exceed your income.

Some of the free things you can offer include a free affiliate program, a free newsletter, a free book, a free contest, or even just free advice. Whatever you offer for free has to have value. In order to receive these free things, people must sign up for them and give you their email address. Once they sign up, you can offer them things that cost money via email.

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On November 19, 2005, a day after having surgery, I was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma cancer. I would compare receiving the news to going to the dentist and being numbed. However, this numbed my whole body. For 20 minutes I rushed through all kinds of thoughts and emotions – shock, anger, “why me?” questions, sadness.

After the 20 minutes, I made a big decision. I decided to live. I decided that all of the emotions and thoughts I was experiencing were not supporting me. I decided right then and there to switch my mind and all actions to that of support and complete cure. At that moment, I was cured.

On January 31, 2006 I received my 33rd and final daily radiation treatment. I am now cancer free. I did not need the doctor to declare that for me; I had already made that decision from the day of diagnosis. I had even told my doctor that at my first appointment.

My whole life I have believed in the power of the mind. The ability to create your outer life from thoughts and emotions from within are undeniable. Nothing is as powerful as your personal philosophy in life. The good news is that your personal philosophy is simply decided by you and your own free will.

In my lifetime, I have been both poor and rich. I have had both sad and happy times. I have lived through tragedies and triumphs. One thing that has never wavered has been my mental approach to whatever has come towards me. Nothing can create wealth and abundance in any segment of a person’s life more than their attitudes and thoughts.

I have seen materially rich people with great poverty of mind and I have seen people in great struggles with an attitude of abundance. Wealth and possessions can flee in an instant, but nothing or nobody can take away your mind and your choice of thought.

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Business appeared to be booming for the top companies in all sectors during 2007 if the list of mergers and acquisitions is to be believed. The number of companies bought and sold was certainly impressive, with 42 FORTUNE 1,000 corporations exchanging hands. This number of corporation buyouts had not been reached since the year 2000.

2007 was a huge year for mergers and acquisitions around the world. In the US alone, it was the single biggest year since the turn of the millennium, suggesting that many corporations actually faced tougher competition from their rivals than they were able to cope with or, alternatively and much more likely, that they faced financial difficulties as consumer spending begin to falter in line with the American economy and the credit crunch took hold. These factors probably lowered the selling price of the individual corporations that were the subjects of mergers and acquisitions but would have also made them vulnerable to corporate takeovers by larger and more dominant companies within the individual industries.

The majority of mergers took place in the sector of finance, healthcare, technology and energy, with the latter two attracting higher average selling prices for individual businesses. Mergers and acquisitions also took place in the utilities, capital goods, consumer staples, basic materials and consumer cyclicals sectors but the levels of the final buyout prices were nowhere near the level of those in the former sectors. However, in terms of the number of mergers and acquisitions, it was the consumer cyclicals sector that saw the majority of the action!

The top 10 mergers and acquisitions are listed below for ease of reference. Out of the ten, there were only two acquired by private equity buyers. The rest were the acquisition of corporate takeovers. They are listed in order, from the highest to lowest:

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Businesses, meaning corporations or partnerships, have two options in filing for bankruptcy:  Chapter 7 and Chapter 11.   (Individual self-employment businesses can also potentially file under Chapter 13)  Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 is designed for businesses that seek to remain operating and wish to “reorganize” their debts.    Depending on how the corporation is structured, how the debts are allocated, the value of all assets–both tangible and intangible–a plan can be proposed that repays anywhere from zero to 100% to unsecured creditors.

Chapter 11 also provides the ability to break leases and contracts, and enter into new ones more favorable to the business.  This can be particularly helpful if the lease for the premises on which the business operates is burdensome and causing profits to suffer.

Chapter 11 is, however, very involved and expensive.  In order to keep expenses down (as much as possible) and promote successful reorganization, it is important to seek professional counsel as early as possible to allow sufficient time for pre-filing planning and structuring.

Chapter 7

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Thoreau once said, “Things don’t change, people do.” If things are to happen, you must make them happen. Good people and businesses always make things happen. Let’s look at the essential rules of making things happen.

       
Rule 1 – Always have a CEO attitude – You must start by taking responsibility for all things both good and bad. Accept that your company signs your check and you fill in the numbers. Your own personal philosophy, which is determined strictly by choice and your own free will, determines your first step in success or failure. 

Rule 2 – Every business operates two businesses: People and Marketing. If you are great with people but don’t have people to speak to, you fail. Marketing has become essential to all sales people.

Rule 3 – Lead generation equals dollar creation – The more leads you generate the more money you earn. How do you create leads? Develop a marketing web – Draw a small circle on a piece of paper and put the name of your company in the middle. (Your company, not the one that signs your check). Now draw lines in different directions that look like spokes coming out of the circle. Label each spoke as a source of leads. (Example: walk-ins, incoming sales calls, referrals, repeats, be-backs, service, networking, prospecting etc.) Notice that each spoke can have multiple spokes that sprout from it.

Rule 4 – Add value first – The perception of price is always in relation to the value perceived. Perception is reality for your customers. What do they perceive to be the value in your offer, product, you, or the business? To create value you must TLC – think like a customer – and then take action.

Rule 5 – Give HFG – hope for gain. People always want something better than what they have. It’s human nature.

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Are you the CEO of your company? If you’re a sales person, and you answered no to this question, think again. To be successful you must have a CEO mentality. All successful sales people view themselves as a business within a business. Never forget that the company you work for writes and signs your check, but you fill in the numbers. Always take responsibility for everything. You are the CEO. What does a CEO do?First of all, a CEO designs a marketing strategy. How do you get your business? Walk-ins, in-bound phone calls, repeats, prospecting, networking, referrals, bebacks, affiliate marketing programs, database mining, database swapping, niche marketing, seminars, websites, email responses with auto responders and sequential auto responders. Do you have at least one strategy for utilizing each one of these? Many people may not even know what many of these items are. The bad news is that you are way behind the top businesses in the world, but you can catch up and even pass the most productive sales people with dedicated strategy and smart actions.
 
Top sales people gain and maintain their results through many avenues beyond walk-in traffic. When you are new, you spend 80 percent of your time gaining new customers and 20 percent maintaining them. As each month goes by, your goal will be to reverse the time used to 80 percent maintaining current customers and 20 percent gaining new ones. To do this, you must develop a marketing web with multiple streams of lead generation. Lead generation = dollar creation.

If floor traffic dries up, you will have an excuse not to sell vehicles. From now on, excuses are not allowed. What is your strategy for walk-ins? Do you have a process? Does anyone besides you follow up with unsold customers? If you TO in person why not TO on the phone? Are you utilizing monthly planners or productivity software that allows you to automate your follow-up of sold and unsold customers by phone, mail and email?

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1. Leave your comfort zone:
Many people feel very comfortable and complacent in their comfort zone.  Comfort zone refers to those areas of work with which we are happiest or fastest at.  It is often observed that people bask in their previous glory and stop putting further efforts towards development. Thus, they breed a feeling of indifference within themselves and towards others around them.
 
2. Learning is a never-ending process:
This realisation could go a very long way in our process of self-development.  Let us remember that education and training is a time-bound process but this is not the case with learning.  One of the easiest ways to continue learning is to cultivate the reading habit.  This not only enriches your knowledge and skills but helps you to shape your personality and character.  Busy executives can spend travel time  by reading. It is often rightly said “A house without books is like a body without a soul”.
 
3. Attend seminars/conferences/workshops:
Many executives do so but more often than not the choice of the above depends on factors like location and comforts than on  contents.  We should study various seminar brochures and then decide on those courses which would be of greatest relevance and  value-addition to us.  We not only learn by listening to distinguished speakers but also learn by interacting with each other.  Further, the relationships so built, go a very long way in our process of self-development.  If the company cannot sponsor us for a course which we think would be useful, one should not hesitate to invest one’s own resources for self-enhancement.

4.

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If the time has come to strike out on your own you must, of course, begin with a plan for the operation of your new business.

Preliminary considerations include where you will operate the business from (your home, rental space, purchasing or building, whether or not you will need to hire employees at the outset or wait until after the business develops, how you will finance the start-up costs and continued operation of the business, and whether or not you will be solo or if you will have a coowner or co-owners.

It is of critical importance that you have sufficient cash or financing available from the outset, since one of the primary reasons for new businesses to fail is undercapitalization. A well prepared business plan to be reviewed with your financing source is essential. Once all of these preliminary considerations have been addressed, a decision must be made as to the form of business entity that your new business entity will adopt. There are several options and choices that must be considered.

• Sole Proprietorship
  Perhaps the most basic form is a sole proprietorship, which is a business that is owned by a single person. The main advantages of a sole proprietorship are that the start-up filing fees are minimal and all of the business income is reported on Schedule C of your own personal income tax return, with no separate income tax return required for the business itself. The main disadvantage is that you will be personally liable for all of the debts of the business.

• Partnership
  Yet another entity choice is a partnership. For purposes of this article, discussion is limited to general partnerships only, since limited partnerships are beyond the scope of this article. Some of the main benefits of a general partnership are lower start-up costs and no double taxation of income at both the partnership level and at the individual partners’ level.

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Strategy is the brains of branding. So to rev up your business and your own personal profile, try out these 5 strategies that professional marketers use to position their brands successfully:

1. Own an Attribute

(Think: Volvo and Safety)

Let’s say you’re in a crowded, competitive field (aren’t they all?), and you’re having trouble distinguishing your business from your key competitors.Consider adopting the Attribute positioning strategy. Look for an attribute that it’s credible for you and your business to own that someone else doesn’t own. It must be an important attribute in your industry (or one that you can make important.) Maybe your strength is accountability or your relentless drive in servicing clients. Or your product has a quality or design feature that is an advantage.Use your attribute as your organizing idea in your elevator speech and all your company’s marketing.. Make it your mantra. Use examples and stories to connect the attribute with you and your company.

2. Invent a “New Process” or “Magic Ingredient”

(Think: Google)

Creating a “new process” or having a “magic ingredient” is one of the oldest brand strategies dating back to patent medicines in the 19th century .  While it’s takes creativity, consider this strategy if you’re a consultant, doctor or an innovative professional or entrepreneur. Put the focus on how and what you do that is different and remarkable.Look at Dr. Arthur Agatston. He a new process for dieting  and branded it with a great name - The South Beach Diet.

3. Be the Maverick

(Think Steve Jobs and Apple)

As much as leaders are part of our mythology, so are mavericks.

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To change your life, you must get rid of old thoughts and be able to accept some new ones.  One of the greatest truths is that you create your life with your thoughts.  Your thoughts are what make things happen.  Thoughts and words have power.

Each thought in your mind is the seed for everything you do, feel, or say.  Thoughts are what create our feelings.  If you want to feel happy you need to change your thoughts.  If you are feeling depressed, angry, jealous or sad you are the one that is causing you to feel that way with your negative thoughts.

You have more control over your thoughts than over anything else in your life.  When you are able to control your thoughts you will be able to control your world.

Thoughts create everything that happens to you.  Thoughts are what produce results in your life.  You will get more of whatever you focus your thoughts on.  Whatever you think about frequently will happen in your life.

If you focus your thoughts on lack of money, worrying about a certain event or about becoming sick, that is exactly what is going to happen.  You have a great power that needs to be used in the right way.  Drop your negative thoughts today like a hot potato!

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Words are cheap. What matters is the true belief system behind your words and the actions you take because of those belief systems. Economies don’t improve, people improve. Waiting for something to happen is for losers. The most important economy is the one created between your ears.

During down markets you have to get creative to make things happen. Although you may not be able to push a new car market if it’s not there, you can niche market, create affiliations, utilize your customer base better and push a used car market. In other words, there are options for success. Standing and waiting for the world to create your economy is not a good option.

There is an old quote that says, “When you go to work on yourself and get better it’s amazing how much better your customer’s get.” The one activity that can always pay off during a down economy is individual and organizational development.

Everything boils down to the four P’s of business – people, process, product and positioning. Do you work daily on your personal development? Do you work daily to increase your knowledge and ability to sell your product? Do you work daily to increase the effectiveness of your process? Do you work daily to increase your positioning through better marketing? If you work on these things daily you will determine your sales success in good times or bad. Good times will now become the norm.

Thoreau said it best: “Things don’t change; people change.” Make a commitment to figure out why you want to do something. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. When you know why you want something, ideas of how will flow to you. Concentrate on the solution, not the problem. When you dwell on the idea of a prosperous market you create the reality of a prosperous market.

When you open the door to your belief system, you close the door of scarcity.

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My wife is from Pittsburgh, so you know what I was watching Super Bowl Sunday. Being a lifelong Bengals fan, it was painful for me to watch the game. Although the game wasn’t played well by either team, it was fun to watch the advertisements. I watched the ads not from a football fan or TV viewer’s perspective, but from a marketing perspective. My goal was to figure out if each ad was a super ad or a super waste of money.

The cost per ad in a Super Bowl time slot is reported to be somewhere between $800,000 and $2.5 million. How could one commercial be worth that much money? Can it possibly pay for itself?

I judged each ad by several criteria to determine if it was worth the money. I also judged the ads from an automobile dealer’s perspective to see if anything could be learned and be used on a smaller scale.

First, I judged whether the ad caught my attention. This can be accomplished through humor and other emotional connections. Some of the commercials grabbed you immediately and compelled you to watch while others almost forced you to lose interest from the beginning. Remember, market share of mind precedes market share.

Next, I judged if the commercials kept my attention and created interest in the product or service. Some of the commercials grabbed your attention and then got lost in their journey to reach their final destination. A simple question of “What are we trying to accomplish?” would have eliminated this problem.

Another important aspect was if the ad created a desire to either find out more about the product or service or to buy it. The biggest lesson to be learned here is that some advertising companies sell a bill of goods to their clients. The ad company gets the client all wrapped up in the creative factors, such as how funny it is or how clever the production is. However, the real reason for the advertisement is to sell something now or in the future.

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The first step in advancing the productivity of your staff in using the phones is a better understanding in the importance that the telephone can play and how it affects your business. Often a lack of the right attitude is displayed in the treatment towards the receptionist position. The receptionist is usually hired without any guidelines that would be used to hire for an important position. In your dealership do you have personality profiles, set interview questions and guidelines to hire an exceptional receptionist? Do you have a formalized training process and performance based pay? Often the receptionist is the lowest paid person in the dealership but is often the person who influences the customer first. Why not pay the receptionist a bonus based upon various criteria such as average time to answer a call, average hold time for a customer etc.

The sales people also need training on the understanding of the importance of both inbound and outbound sales calls and how this can affect their incomes. A sales person can sit around all day waiting for someone to come in, but they can take incoming sales calls and treat them like they are not important. The average dealership will spend a fortune on advertising to get people to call and come in but not pay attention to what is happening when the customers call or come in. Call a competitor or call your own dealership and mystery shop a few times and ask yourself if you are impressed with the results.

Let’s talk about a few things to improve the importance of sales performance in utilizing the phone. First of all, the dealership needs a formal call tracking process. Many dealerships know their floor traffic but not their phone traffic. Why? This sends the wrong message. You must quantify to qualify, meaning you must know where you are at to understand where you would like to go. Have the receptionist use a call tracking sheet that they are trained to use.

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Many times people say they don’t like to negotiate; yet, they still shop around and never pay full MSRP. Most people act in their own best interest. And most people who say they don’t like negotiating, actually still want to.

There are three things you should always listen to in this business:
1. What people say.
2. What people are trying to say.
3. What they really mean.

Often, what people are saying is they ‘hate’ to negotiate. What people are trying to say is they could do without the way auto dealers negotiate and what they really mean is they don’t want to make a mistake.

When people say they don’t like to negotiate, they are trying to say they don’t like the feelings of manipulation that occur when auto dealers overuse the ‘higher authority principle’ of negotiating. In other words, they dislike an improperly used desk system. You can still use a desk system, but you can decrease the back and forth, and keep the customer from feeling manipulated.

The first step is to have a written process that everyone understands. The second step is to make the process the same for each manager and each deal every time. The third step is to train your sales people how to negotiate, handle objections and assist the buyer to finalize a buying decision.

A written, detailed negotiating process that all sales people and managers understand is essential. Many dealerships seem to operate by the seat of their pants when dealing with the negotiating process. All proposals should be started in the same fashion. Although each deal can vary differently as you begin to negotiate, they should all start the same way to eliminate emotional, bad decisions. Having a precise, written and clearly understood process can eliminate different managers from working proposals in completely different directions that confuse sales people.

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Atlanta CPA on How LLC’s Can Convert To An S Corporation Saving Owners Big Dollars

LLC’s came in vogue approximately fifteen years ago when the state of Georgia enacted legislation allowing LLC’s (Limited Liability Company’s) to be established. Although the LLC does allow for some greater flexibility and ease of operation it often results in a higher tax obligation that might not have been incurred if the business was an S Corporation.

Tax law treats all the earned income from an LLC as being subject to both FICA & Medicaid taxes whereas an S Corporation has to pay those taxes reflected on W-2’s. For tax purposes, the law allows an S Corporation to legally convert to being an S Corporation as long as all active employee/owners pay themselves a fair and reasonable salary. This number is best determined by the facts, position, and profit of a business and the truest test of this calculation is what a business owner would have to pay someone else to perform their position.

All businesses are unique and therefore all saving opportunities are different. But even the smallest of businesses with the smallest of profits may save approximately $6,000 by converting from an LLC to an S Corporation. Already this year, we completed this process for an LLC saving them $25,274 of FICA/Medicaid taxes.

There are only four rules to qualify for being an S Corporation.  You must:

- Have a December 31st year-end.

- Have less than 100 shareholders.

- Have shareholders who are U.S. citizens or resident aliens.

- Have only one class of stock.

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Among the different ways of incorporating your business – C corporations, S corporations, and Limited Liability Corporations – there are practical reasons for choosing a given method, such as the number of shareholders or liability considerations. For many small business who are considering incorporating in Georgia, the tax advantage of the S corporation should not be overlooked.

Tax Advantages of S Corporations

As a LLC, LLP, partnership or sole proprietorship, you are subject to the 15.3% Self Employment/FICA tax on all of your net earnings. The S corporation, on the other hand, pays you a deductible salary (which is subject to FICA), and then the profits flow through your personal return via a Schedule K-1. This K-1 income allows for permanent deferral of the FICA tax. The S corporation allows small business owners to legally save taxes as long as they pay a fair and reasonable salary to themselves.
Please take a look at the following comparison. It shows the tax effects on a single year’s income for a LLC, LLP, partnership, or sole proprietor vs. a C corporation, and compares it to a subchapter S corporation. Due to the way C corporations are exposed to double taxation, the payments are spread out over two years, which is not the case for partnerships or S corporations.

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The Advantages and Disadvantages of Incorporating as a Subchapter S Corporation, C Corporation, Limited Liability Corporation or Partnership

When looking at what type of entity your business should be, we strive to balance the legal protection issues vs. the tax savings. Over the years, we have developed the mindset that there is no perfect election but there are ones that are better than others. The information below and the assumptions we make are based upon the fact that my clients tell me that they want to pay as few tax dollars as legally possible. Below are some very specific rules, as well as some generalities. If you are considering incorporating in Georgia, we suggest that you sit down with a tax professional to see how these guidelines relate to you.

About S Corporations

Subchapter S Corporations can have no more than one hundred shareholders and they all need to be U.S. citizens or resident aliens. This corporation type almost always has to have a calendar year as the fiscal year. S Corporation rules have been around since the 1950s and were set up to simplify the rules and regulations of being a business owner.

Liability Protection and Subchapter S Corporations

A subchapter S Corporation, like a C Corporation, affords the business owner personal liability protection from business risks. Some of the keys to maximizing that protection is to treat the corporation like one by doing all your business in the corporate name, signing all of your documents listing your corporate title, not co-mingling any personal issues/bills in the corporation, and by having your annual Board of Directors and Annual Shareholder Minutes Meeting.

Tax Advantages of S Corporations

No income taxes are paid with the corporate return.

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How can you get more and better business by turning from the idea of selling to not selling?

When ethics are a major consideration in marketing, there will be times when you have to turn down work. One of the challenges, at least at first, is getting comfortable with the idea- especially challenging if you’re a small entrepreneur just getting started, and you’re used to struggling hard for every last dollar.

But amazingly enough, in my experience, when you say no to the jobs you don’t want, you open yourself up to finding those that you do – and your business grows very nicely.

When would you need to refuse an order? Here are several situations, and they all come back to the three key attributes of the Magic Triangle – honesty, integrity, and quality:

• You don’t have the appropriate solution; someone else is better equipped to solve the client’s problem (honesty)
• There isn’t enough time to do the job well (quality)
• You could do the job, but it’s an area you’re trying to get away from (honesty—to yourself)
• The client will obviously be so high-maintenance and/or so demanding that the job isn’t worth the price you can charge (quality—of the client)
• The client asks you to engage in unethical behavior (integrity)
• The product is too shoddy and you don’t feel good about working on it (integrity/quality)
• You find the job itself morally distasteful (integrity)

As an example of that last bullet, I was developing a relationship with a local PR firm that wanted to subcontract some copywriting assignments to me. The very first job I got was so clearly wrapped up in a cause that I have spent my life working against that it actually made me ill to look at the client’s publicity fliers.

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If your company is expanding or just starting, this planning article is for you.

Know that you already have a plan. It’s in a place where it’s causing you more overwhelm and mistakes then it’s helping you. It’s time to take your plan from your head and put it in writing and I have the process for you to do just that.

This business plan process is strategic and tactical. IT NOT complete unless you take the plan you’ve created and turn your actions into results that can be monitored.

Know that the results of this simple planning system isn’t used to go after funding – if that’s what your company really needs. However, if you are seeking funding to start or expand your business and the thought of creating a 30-page plan is overwhelming, this plan is for you. AND prospective investors don’t read longer plans when you meet them; they want you to tell them something in 2-5 minutes and require something shorter and to the point, and this is a great short tool.

When you create a plan for the first time, what you’re really doing is taking what’s in your head and putting it down on paper for you to see. A very good thing, but not the whole story if you’re looking to grow your business.

Using the book, you’ll update your plan 3-4 times after meeting with those business owners who are supporting your business with their input. Done this way, the process should take you 20 or so hours to complete your plan. Then a couple of hours to create a scorecard fro your objectives and a project management system for your action plans.

Just creating a first draft will help you, no doubt about it, but it’s not the optimal. Seeing what’s in your head is important. You’ll be able to do what I did the first time I created a plan. I saw that I had great stategies and objectives - but they weren’t working for me.

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