Starting a business for the very first time is incredibly difficult today. Market trends and service demands are extremely hard to predict in the modern marketplace, but if you have a specific state in mind, or even better a specific area of an individual state, then there are hints and tips that can help to get you started. For example, when finding out how to start a business in California, you may want to take a look at the tips below. They will give you an idea of where to start and what to think about.

The California Market

When you start a business in California, you may find it incredibly difficult to come up with an idea that works. The state, like any other, can be tough for new small businesses to break if they do not have a clear product or service on offer. That is to say that you have to ensure that your product fulfills a specific need. In order to determine whether or not it does this, you will have to perform extensive research.

You should research the product or service you are offering in relation to the reach in the local community and that community’s demand for it. It is wise to research the population of the state in general and then several areas in order to start a business in California. You can do so through government agencies and business agencies because they will be able to tell you exactly what kind of businesses occupy certain areas. The demand for certain services is present in some areas but not in others. For example, it may be that one area does not have a lifestyle coach but in other areas there may be one for every fifty people. The demographics of the area is important as well as the volume of business in your chosen industry, so get to know the area very well.

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Mark Cuban is undoubtedly the ultimate billionaire entrepreneur. At the age of 24 he was working as a bartender in Dallas, Texas but today he is one of the most prolific billionaires in the world purely and simply because of his portfolio of business ventures and investments. With a personal fortune of $2.8 billion, Cuban has undoubtedly traveled the rocky road to success and moved beyond it. His sheer hard work and fantastic business knowledge and instinct have reaped high rewards.

Humble Beginnings

Mark Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 31, 1958. His family was working class and had little cash to spare when he was growing up. As such, Cuban had to pay for anything he wanted that was not a necessity. This led to his first foray in business at the age of 12. He loved basketball and wanted a new pair of shoes to play in. As a result, he had to sell garbage bags to earn a little cash. Throughout school the entrepreneur worked job after job to be able to afford to go to college, including bartending, party promotion, and buying and selling stamps. He was certainly resourceful if nothing else.

Mark Cuban was a gifted student and enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh after his junior year, although he transferred to play basketball at Indiana University. He graduated with a degree in business administration in 1981. After moving to Dallas, the entrepreneur worked behind a bar and as a Your Business Software salesperson before starting his own business. MicroSolutions did well, gaining large clients like Perot Systems. In fact, that business earned him his first millions when he sold it in 1990 for $6 million.

Millionaire To Billionaire

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There were over 25 million small businesses in the United States in 2006, thus making this sector one of the largest in the country. Hundreds of thousands of people start their own businesses every year in various states but one of the most popular areas for new business is Florida. Starting a business in Florida is no easy task these days. There are so many services available in the state that it is difficult to find a niche, but there are also many other factors that may constrict you. The tips below should help you to find your own niche and start a business in Florida.

Useful Hints And Tips

When you are looking to start a business in Florida, you need to take as many of the following tips on board before you start. You may be in for a tough time when you first set up a business, but the information outlined below will help you:

• Firstly, find business centers, business agencies, and government sponsored advisory services that can help you. There are many of these around, but many small business owners do not make the most of their experience. When starting a business in Florida, they will be an invaluable source of legal information, financial information and also demographic information. As such, they will give you as much background as you need before you start the business itself.
• You will also need a good business idea, and a lot of time and effort should go into researching the possible business options and ideas that you may like to turn into a viable business.

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Today, McDonald’s is synonymous with fast food throughout the world. No matter where you go on your travels, you are likely to find a McDonald’s restaurant somewhere nearby. It is one of the biggest global brands in the world alongside Coca Cola and it may be hard to believe that it was the work of one man that made it so. Ray Kroc was the extraordinary entrepreneur that turned one restaurant into a global franchise.

Through The World Wars

Given his humble beginnings, it may be difficult to see how Ray Kroc turned himself into entrepreneur extraordinaire. Born on October 5, 1902, Kroc did not even begin to amass his fortune until after the close of World War II. He had taken part in both World Wars and had failed to adapt to any of the trades he attempted to forge a career in between them. He had been a travelling salesman, a pianist and an ambulance driver and failed at all three. However, not to be disheartened and believing that his big break was out there, Kroc persisted in trying various jobs until he found his niche.

Ray Kroc met Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California in the early 1950s. The brothers had opened their first restaurant in 1948 and business was good because the hamburger restaurant concept was relatively untried until that point. As a milkshake mixer salesman, Kroc saw a chance to put his entrepreneurial skills to the test and went into partnership with the brothers so that his sales numbers soared. When the first opportunity arose to buy the small chain they had though, he grasped it with both hands.

The McDonald’s Years

Unlike the brothers, the entrepreneur in Ray Kroc had great hopes for expansion of the trade.

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This week is part 2 of my guide on getting your marketing basics in place. Last week, we covered why it was important to know who your customers are; decide on what you actually do and know why your customers buy from you. But, there are three other things that you need to get in place before you’ll be sorted on the marketing basics. They are:

How are you different?

Time and time again I hear small businesses being asked how they’re different from their competition and then responses of “we’re cheaper”, “we give better service”, “we’ve been established longer” and so on. To be honest with you, I would expect you to offer great service, to know what you’re doing and to offer me the best rate – that to me is a given. What I really want to know is why I should use your products or services as opposed to your competitors.

Have a really good think about your ‘niche’. It’s often difficult to come up with what this is so I’d advise you to think about an area of your business that you’re really passionate about and would happily get out of bed for without pay in a morning.

My passion for instance is working with small business owners and helping them to realise that they don’t have to spend a fortune on marketing. So, what’s your passion?

Getting your literature in place

Another one of the marketing basics is having all your literature and website etc in place so that you can send it out immediately if potential customers ask for it. But, it’s really important that your business doesn’t stop while you’re putting this into place.

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When most people are asked, “Would you like to be more successful?’ they invariably answer yes.  Yet they rarely stop to consider the one thing that separates the highly successful from the rest of the world.  

Before I share the answer with you, let’s consider what success actually means.  Most people equate success with earning lots of money.  I think a better definition of success is being able to do the things you want to do when you want to do them.  Naturally,  to be successful,  you need to earn a comfortable living.  But you also need the time to devote to other important things in your life.

The one thing that separates the highly successful from the rest of the world is the highly successful have developed the habit of concentrating their time on high value tasks.  The average person, on the other hand, spends too much time on low value tasks.

So if you want more success in your life, start to develop the habit of spending your time on high value tasks.  Develop the habit of asking yourself, “Is this the most valuable use of my time right now?”  

Some high value tasks are: developing or marketing your business; spending quality time with the important relationships in your life; developing and mentoring your employees.  And of course, the most valuable thing you can possibly do is to spend time developing yourself; time invested in yourself will pay dividends for the rest of your life, and it compounds.

Here are some tips to make sure you spend your time wisely:

• Never have more than six items on your to do list.  
• Make sure those items are the most important tasks you have to do. 
• Work on them in their order of importance.   
• Work on one task at a time.   
• Understand where you gain leverage in your life or business. 
• Never let the urgent override the important.

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Debbi Fields is currently one of the best known and best loved entrepreneurs in the United States today. Not only has she introduced amazing baked goods for people of all ages to enjoy, but she has also proved that it is possible to live the American Dream in this modern day and age. Unlike other entrepreneurs of her age, Fields did not start a business while still in her teens nor did she have plans to do so. She just wanted to bake for a living. As such, she not only proves that starting with nothing and creating an empire is possible but also that anyone with drive and ambition can do it, regardless of age.

Humble Beginnings

Debbi Fields was born on September 18, 1956 in California and had a relatively normal childhood. She did well at school but soon found that her passion lay in one particular part of the school – the kitchen. She found that she loved to bake at an early age, so much so that all of her wages were spent on the ingredients that were required to make cookies! In 1969, she got a job as a ball girl in Oakland for major league baseball teams. Every penny she earned from it went into her hobby but it was not until 1977, eight years later, that the entrepreneur would start her own bakery and embark upon her journey to Mrs Fields fame.

Debbi Fields was a housewife when she began thinking about owning her own cookie business. At that stage, she had no knowledge of business and how to make one work. However, it was her passion for her unique recipes that spurred her on. It was this passion that helped her to convince the local bank manager in Palo Alto that her vision for a cookie shop could actually work. On paper the idea looked very much like a plan that was doomed to fail, but the entrepreneur soon proved the doubters wrong.

The Mrs Fields Chocolate Chippery

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Economists are unanimous that regardless of what governments do it will take time, a lot of time, to rebuild faith in financial institutions and rejuvenate the economy.

The sudden realization that the emperor had no clothes and magnitude of the financial crisis is only now being fully addressed.

In a knee jerk reaction management is moving to cut costs
– circling the wagons – by reducing staff and marketing budgets.  

On the surface it appears logical. 

But if you look at downturns and recessions in the past it wasn’t financial institutions or governments that led the economy back.  Recovery was developed and carried out by Silicon Valley (which is somewhat symbolic of the complete PC/CE industry).

And it will do it again as consumers and partners come to realize that the intellect, credibility and creativity reside in the technology areas; not in the world’s financial centers and most assuredly not in our seats of governmental power. 

So while paring overhead and “discretionary expenses” would seem to be relatively simple it has always had a greater or lesser degree of negative impact. 

Keep in mind that NPD recently reinforced the strength of the industry by pointing out that in downturns and upswings consumer and computer technology has consistently beat the overall market’s averages. 

Their June retail-tracking service showed a three percent dollar increase over June 2007.  This was the second consecutive month of positive news, after May’s jump of over seven percent. And this is after five straight months of flat or negative results, stretching back to December.

Before you wade into your promotional budget with a massive red pencil, consider how much should you cut from the promotional (advertising, sales support and PR) budget?

To answer this, ask yourself:

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I recently visited Greece, including Delphi—home, in ancient times, of the Delphic oracle. To produce her prophecies, the oracle chewed hallucinogenic laurel leaves and/or inhaled volcanic fumes and raved nonsense, which the attendant priests translated into ambiguous prophecy.

The oracle was a smash hit in the ancient world, not just Greece.   Potentates as far away as Rome and Egypt—and almost everyplace in-between—sent votive offerings to the oracle. 

So the oracle had great word-of-mouth marketing and PR.  And it couldn’t have been for the accuracy of her prophecies—the canny priests left them vague enough so you could interpret them any way you want.

But why was the oracle’s advice so sought after?  The magnificent mountainside setting with a view to the blue Gulf of Corinth no doubt had something to do with it.  Being there, you can readily believe that Apollo and the other gods blessed the place.

Ultimately, the oracle’s fame is a mystery.  Somehow, her legend grew and exerted an extraordinarily powerful pull among the ancients.

What has this got to do with PR today?  Something, I think.

We’re all promoting organizations and their services or products.  And presumably, your organization is doing something that helps its customers a lot more than prophetic ravings.

So, if the ancients could create a powerful legend out of nothing, can’t your organization do something similar with its substantive offerings?  Certainly, the rational elements—superior service, expertise, great functionality, good pricing, etc.—are important.  But emotional appeals are equally important, even in fields that seem pretty dry.

So, in your PR, appeal to both sides of the human psyche.  Your organization could become a legend in its own time.

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When it comes to running a successful business, marketing is essential. For a small business, marketing often seems like a daunting task – especially when it comes to marketing your business on the web.

Many times, budget-minded business owners fear that small business marketing needs to be expensive in order to be effective. Fortunately – this isn’t true. Here are five simple tips for small business owners who are looking to save dollars, while still running an effective online marketing campaign.

1.    Optimize Your Website

There are three simple steps to take so that you can be sure that your website is working for you. If you have the capability of making changes to your website yourself, then these are changes you can make on your own – however, it is often best to find a competent search engine optimization (SEO) professional to help ensure you are choosing the most effective keywords for your site.

The first step is to use a descriptive title for each page of your site as well as keywords and a description that allows search engines and site visitors alike to know what they will find when they visit your web page. Once that’s taken care of, make sure that you are placing keywords appropriately in the text of your web pages.

Your keywords should be specific to your products and services, and should be chosen with consideration for the terms prospective customers would use when searching with Google or Yahoo or whichever other search engine they use.

Finally, these keywords should also be used in the alt image tags as they relate to the photos and illustrations that you post to your website.

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Building and developing a website is an ongoing process, but you need a firm foundation in place to ensure your site’s success for the long-term.  Your web professional must be able to provide three critical elements that will drive your future success, and each component plays a role in the overall look, feel, functionality, and rankings with the search engines.

Here are the three important things your web professional must provide to ensure your website’s success:

Website Design
Website design is closely related to website development, and involves the overall navigation and ‘look’ of your site.  This is how your site looks to both the casual visitor and the regular user; essential design elements such as layout, color schemes and other visual attributes fall under this stage of development, and your web professional must create something that is not only attractive but also as user-friendly as possible.  Website design must also take into account search engine guidelines and WC3 compliance; if a site isn’t designed with specific attribute sin mind, you can miss out on search engine ranking opportunities and lose traffic.

Website Development
Website development involves paying attention to the features, functionality and overall usability of your site.  A feature-rich site that helps users find the information they need and encourages them to return is a success – making sure everything you implement on the site solves a problem for the end user can help you stay on track with your business goals and build a quality site in the process.

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Many business owners get stuck during the phases of website design and website promotion; how do you decide which strategy to deploy first?

At first glance, it may seem as though one project comes before the other, but the truth is you need to employ both simultaneously to keep your site on the right track.  A website that is designed for the search engines must also be promoted effectively across social media channels and other marketing avenues; if the site’s design isn’t compatible with many of today’s Web 2.0-based technologies and interfaces, you could miss out on a critical portion of the market.

The Importance of Website Design
Designing a website that is not only relevant to your market but also optimized for the search engines will lay the foundation for your success.  Successful sites on the web today are driven by social media and Web 2.0 platforms; your website must have a few fundamental elements of Web 2.0 design interwoven to the site so that components such as articles, blogs, and video can be shared easily across the major social networks.  Without these components, you could be left far behind your competition and fail to reach your target market.  In the end, this means lower levels of traffic and infrequent visitors.

A website that is both SEO-friendly and W3C compliant is another important element to keep in mind; if your site isn’t indexable by the search engines, even the most creative website promotion strategy won’t bring you steady traffic for the long-term.

The Importance of Website Promotion
Promoting your website also plays a critical role in website development; with the right strategy and well-designed site in place, you will be able to build steady traffic while increasing brand awareness of your business.

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Just a few short years ago hardly anyone knew what a blog was, but now, because they are so easy to set up and maintain, their popularity has blossomed beyond all expectations. Blogs are not just for ordinary people who wish to expound on their hobby or area of special interest. Blogs are for the smart small businessperson who understands the power of the published word online.

A blog can provide a low cost means of marketing online, a feedback mechanism for establishing your side of the story against someone spreading negative and potentially damaging things about you and your business, and a means of connecting and communicating with existing clients and potential clients. The purpose of this article is to explain these three main positive reasons why your small business needs a blog.

1. A Blog as a Marketing and Promotion Tool for Your Small Business

Small business internet marketing seems easy at first glance, but many have tried it and failed. Others have persevered, perfecting search engine optimization techniques, keyword density and linking strategies, which work for some but not always for others. They have followed the advice of every “guru,” only to be more mystified at the end of the process than when they started out. They invariably end up thinking that there has to be a better way, and there is – a blog.

The search engines love blogs. Yes, a little optimization with careful keyword placement and some back links will never go amiss, but even the complete novice knowing nothing whatsoever can enjoy good results simply by regularly maintaining a blog. All it takes is a simple strategy, perhaps focusing on a particular product line and posting just once a day, to get results that will make a difference.

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Driving traffic to your site is great, as far as it goes – but it’s not enough.  You need proven ways to convert prospects into buyers.

When your site is primed for search engine optimization (SEO), you get tons of traffic coming to you for free.  Great, right?  But many small business owners make the mistake of just concentrating on traffic and search engine optimization. They get the traffic, but it doesn’t convert into buyers. What good is a ton of traffic coming to your site, if it doesn’t improve your sales?

You’ve ultimately got to look at your bottom line. If you’re spending tons of cash, hours of your time and all your energy on driving traffic to your site with SEO, but not making sure it converts into buying customers, you’re just chasing your tail.

Remember, you’re not after “clicks” – you’re after sales! Here are 3 basics that you MUST ensure happen on your site in order to convert visitors into customers and increase your sales:

Craft an Effective Message.
First, you need an effective sales message that grabs your surfer by the mouse, turns them upside down, and shakes their credit cards out of their pockets! Recent studies have demonstrated that you’ve got less than 8 seconds to capture the typical Internet surfer’s attention.

Address desires directly. Tell your story right up front – what does your company offer? What sets you apart from your competitors? Make sure this information is prominently displayed on your home page.

The key to converting your visitors is to find out what they want – and the easiest way to find that out is simply to ask them.

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E-mail marketing is a tremendously valuable tool for small and large companies that do business online. However, some companies find that there are a number of challenges that get in the way of their e-mail marketing campaigns.

In part, this is because many of your customers and prospects take advantage of Spam filters that have been built into their e-mail software. These Spam filters scan each message received for keywords that are often associated with scams or unsolicited marketing, and often direct any mail deemed questionable into a Spam, bulk or junk folder rather than the recipient’s inbox.

Just as many e-mail programs have Spam filters, many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) block some e-mail messages. An ISP-content filter may be set to block all mail that is addressed to more than a certain number of recipients. Similarly, ISP blocks can occur for messages that contain images, excessive links, as well as words and phrases that are frequently used by spammers.

If too many of your company’s e-mails are identified as Spam or deemed to be unsolicited, you may find your IP address – the address from which you send e-mail – on a blacklist. When your IP address is blacklisted, many of the e-mail marketing messages that you send will be returned to you undelivered.

Similarly, some ISPs have Greylists. Greylisting happens based on the way that the server sending the e-mail behaves rather than the content of the messages themselves. When your messages are greylisted, e-mails that you send will be bounced back; the e-mail will need to be re-sent. Though servers can be configured to re-send the e-mail automatically, if the server responds too quickly or too slowly, your e-mail marketing message may be identified as Spam.

In response to Blacklists and Greylists, many e-mail users are being asked by their ISPs to create e-mail Whitelists.

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Choosing effective small business keywords can be an intimidating task.  Everyone knows that going to search for anything on a major search engine like Google can often return thousands of results.  But does that mean defeat for your local small business?  No!

There are a lot of things that can be done to get your local Web site noticed by your local customer base.  Five of those techniques are invaluable in guiding you to success.

1. Use Phrases
Phrases can make a world of a difference in what can be found through search engines.  Type in any single word and you’re bound to find literally thousands of results.  Type in specific phrases and the results not only drastically decrease, but they become much more relevant.

For instance, a search on Google for “renovation” can bring back over 32 million listings.  However, a listing for “bathroom renovation” can return less than 200,000.  A search for “software” can return more than a billion results.  A search for “custom accounting software” gets barely twenty-five thousand.

Many times people know what it is they’re looking for and can get fairly specific with their searches.  However, if your local small business site isn’t geared to take advantage of that, it will either be lost in millions of listings or excluded from your customer’s more specific searches altogether.

2.

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Because of the ability to specifically target your unique prospects based on interest as well as geography, the ability to tightly control your ad spend and to precisely measure results, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is probably the greatest breakthrough to come along in advertising since the launch of television.  And, because of those same benefits, it’s much more affordable for the small to mid-size business owner to leverage for their business (as compared with television and many other advertising alternatives).

That being said, PPC is not as easy as it seems at first glance. Business owners looking to launch their first campaign will quickly discover how easily they can spend hundreds – and even thousands – of dollars in wasted efforts while they learn to navigate the PPC waters.

While entire books have been written on the ins-and-outs of pay-per-click advertising, there are 5 common mistakes that I see business owners making when I’m asked to evaluate their pay-per-click campaign strategies.  These mistakes are easy to fix, and doing so will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your pay-per-click campaign!

The 5 most common PPC mistakes are:

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Social bookmarking sites are an extremely valuable tool for those who are looking at all of their small business marketing options. Of course, in order to fully take advantage of the results that social bookmarking sites can yield, it is important to look into social media optimization, and to understand that it is up to you to make it easy for your site visitors to bookmark your articles, news, press releases, blog posts, podcasts and images.

Of course, before you will find that you are able to take advantage of both the results of social bookmarking for directing traffic to your website and making sure that you will be looking into the appropriate social media optimization of your site, you need to have a sense of which sites are the big players and of why social bookmarking sites are important.

When you’re talking about social bookmarking sites, there are a few sites that will almost immediately come to mind. The first of these sites is Digg.com. When someone Diggs your story, your press release or blog post, they will be able to bookmark the site, include a description of what they read and to include some keywords to characterize the post. Another common social bookmarking site is Propeller – a site that is connected with the AOL network.

Perhaps the greatest advantage to social bookmarking sites is that, because they are used so frequently by so many people, they are an important part of a solid search engine optimization strategy; social bookmarking is an opportunity to get one way, incoming links to your site from websites with a high Page Rank. Add to that the importance of appropriate tagging, and what you’ll find is that the more your pages, articles and posts are bookmarked, the more likely it is for your prospects to find and visit your site.

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Creating your own small business website can be a scary thing to do. It requires some planning to get it right and make Google sit up and take notice of your site at first glance. Small business website search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the keys, but all too often, astute business people leave the creation of their websites up to a family member or a friend who happens to know something about it. This is strange, for they wouldn’t dream of letting the same people build their bricks and mortar store or office.

Of course, getting an expert who fully understands small business SEO to build your website is not likely to come cheap, but it may be the best solution if you are starting out from scratch. However, this article is aimed at those small businesses that already have a website, but are disappointed at how poorly it performs. If you’re frustrated because your website appears on page 42 of the Google search results, and no one is visiting your website, here are 7 things you can do to quickly improve your results.

1. Create an Effective Website Title Tag, Description Meta Tag, and Keywords Meta Tag

The most important part of any website page (in the eyes of the search engines) is the title tag. The title is enclosed between the opening title tag: <title> and the closing title tag: </title>. It is located in the head section of an HTML document, or web page. You should use your page’s main keyword in your title. Try to use your main keyword near the beginning of your title, and perhaps again near the end. But always strive to make your title readable, and not obviously keyword stuffed.

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The other day, I was working with a client and talking about their marketing.  All the questions that I asked, they were able to answer and I realised that they had all the marketing basics in place and they were ready to move onto the next level. That gave me an interesting thought – THEY might have the basics in place, but do I – do you?

So, I thought I’d write this two page article about the basics of marketing to see if you’ve them in place in your business – and it also makes me think about whether I’ve got them in place too.

And by the way, I’m sure everything I’ve listed below you’re already aware of. But do you really apply it to your business? I think there’s a real difference between knowing things and actually doing them – and even if you checked something when you first started your business, things might be completely different now!

So, let’s look at what the basics of marketing are:

1)      Who are your customers?

When I ask you this question can you tell me exactly who your customer is; their likes and dislikes and everything about them or is your answer “anyone” or “everyone”? The first basic of marketing is for you to be able to say in detail who your ideal customer is. You see, you can’t possibly appeal to “everyone” – they’ll always be someone who won’t be interested in what you do. So, why waste your time trying to find people who don’t want your product or service? Wouldn’t you rather find people who want your product or service and want to buy it now? If the answer is yes, who are these people? What can you tell me about them? Nothing? Well, you need to go and find out!

2)      Why people buy

Once you’ve defined who your customers are, the next step is to work out why your customers buy.

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