Profit Now and Smile Later

January Theme: The 5 Priorities of Business:

Principles - Prepare/Plan - Product - People - Profit.

Profit Now and Smile Later

As a kid, I can remember on vacations riding in the car behind my Dad and actually saying "Are we there yet, Dad?" His answer was to teach me to read maps and estimate miles-to-destination using my thumb as a measuring tool comparing its length to the legend. I knew how many "thumbs" it was to Lansing, Michigan and about how long it took to go a "thumb". In business, it is helpful to know when we are "there". If we are "here" now and what to be "there", in my book, the strongest benchmark is profit. And without profit, a business will not survive!  Pricing right is one of the keys to creating profit. When selling a product, it is critical to know the cost of goods sold and the overhead. Overhead is all the costs to keep the business in operation even when when there are no sales (horrors) and in a service business this will be all costs. After you have all these estimates, you can now project profit. Don't make the mistake of thinking if we want 20% profit on a job or item, you multiply the total cost by 20% and add that to your price. This will give you a 17% profit not 20%. Sound strange? Well, it is just a little algebra. Here are the common multipliers to get your price with the proper profit percentage and use as a "rule of thumb" for profit. Yes, the decimals do make a difference. Multiplier for 10% profit is 1.11. Costs time l.ll = Price with 10% Profit! Multiplier for 15% profit is 1.18. Multiplier for 20% profit is 1.25. Multiplier for 25% profit is 1.33. Multiplier for 30% profit is 1.43. So, how many thumbs do you need to go to get "there"? Linda Lucas Fayerweather www.ChangingLanes.biz 419-897-0528 linda@changinglanes.biz Consider working with a coach or a MasterMind Team to make 2012 the year of your dreams!

Share the Profit

You have carefully hand-picked your staff, taken care to groom and train them and your rapport with them couldn't be better. So, with the knowledge that more and more companies are hiring, the question on your mind may be whether or not your precious staff will stick around or bolt to what they feel may be bigger opportunities.    If you want to reward your staff, while at the same time retain them for years to come, you may want to consider employee retention bonuses combined with profit sharing. Design a profit sharing contract. If your company hits all of the targets you have set for the year, give your staff their bonus, half in cash, half in a retention account. Each year your company hits the target you again, pay out half, put the other half in their account. After five years your staff member can earn the first years bonus along with any bonus earned for the present year. If your staff member chooses to walk away after a few years, wish them luck and send them on their way. Pay out only the required years they have earned. Your contract can stipulate how much that employee walks away with. Here is an example of a staff member making $35000 annually showing raises.     This is just one of the many options that give you and your staff member a sense of security in an ever-changing market. Need help to figure out what kind of bonus works best? Contact your favorite Business Coaches at Changing Lanes! Tiffiny Fayerweather tiffiny.fayerweather@ChangingLanes.com

Making Profit on the Internet

This week, to wrap up the series on the 5 Priorities of business, I will be talking about making profits on the Internet.  A key component to making money on the Internet is making it easy and secure for people to give you money. It is often one of the most over looked steps. First let's talk about security. The Internet has made it easy for fraud. Fraud can happen to anyone and any site. About once a month I read about some company having a breach of security. Some times worse than others but overall in most cases credit card data is stolen. For big companies it is really damaging. For smaller companies, it can be downright disastrous. Like out of business disastrous. Because of this, small companies need to be extra careful when it comes to security. I'm not going to go in to too much detail but here are some good rules to go by. Only submit and access sensitive data over a secure connection - Secure Sockets Layer {SSL} Buy a quality SSL certificate from a reputable provider. Don't buy a low level SSL certificate (40-bit, 56-bit) Buy a higher level (128-bit, 256-bit). It is an investment to protect your business. 128-bit encryption is one trillion times one trillion times stronger than 40-bit encryption. Don't ever email sensitive data. Email is about as secure as a paper bag, all you need to do is open it. When storing data always make sure it is encrypted. Don't store credit card data or other sensitive data longer than you have to. If you want to read up about further security practices check out OWASP and do searches for "Best Online Security Practices".  Security is very important and should be taken very seriously. So please take some time to learn about it and do everything you can to ensure security for your customers. Now that we have talked about security, let's talk about making it easy for users to give you money. By this I mean your checkout process. If you make it difficult for a user to checkout by creating road blocks, they are less likely to buy products from you or return to buy products. Here are some examples of road blocks. Forcing a user to login when they add a product to their shopping cart. Forcing a user to go through the whole checkout process before they know their final total (product price + tax + shipping). Making it difficult for the user to edit their shopping cart. Forcing users to say yes or no to extras, such as warranties, similar products, add-ons, etc. Forcing users to sign up for "free" services. Taking users through an extra long checkout process.   The checkout process should be four steps or less from the time you click checkout. Sign in or checkout as a guest. Enter in billing, shipping, and credit card info. If checking out as a guest, this is the time to ask if the user wants to enter in a username and password to create an account. Confirm the order. Thank you for your order screen. The payment process should be easy, too. There are many payment gateways out there. All have their advantages and disadvantages. So take some time to choose the right one that will work for your business. With services like Paypal or Google Checkout, you don't have to handle credit card information, no monthly fees but the drawback is you have to pay slightly higher rates plus a transaction fee. You have to send the user to PayPal or Google Checkout site. These type of gateways are great for low transaction sites. But they don't give off a professional image and they can add extra steps to the checkout process. There are regular merchant accounts, the fees are usually lower but there is usually a monthly fee. Merchant accounts are good if you can do a certain amount of transactions per month. Usually any where between $2500 to $5000 a month or more. The down side is you have to deal with credit card information. But it makes your business look professional and you can really make it easy for a user to checkout. You don't have to send them off to another site. There are also services that gives the illusion that your company has a merchant account but you don't have to deal with credit card information. One such service is stripe.com. The upside is you look professional and you don't have to deal with credit card information. Stripe.com does it for you. Plus its great for both low transaction and high transaction sites. The downside, the fees are a little higher, and it is just about as much front end coding as having a merchant account. Personally I like the idea of Stripe.com. It's great for any small to mid size company that wants to make the checkout process easy, give the illusion that they have a merchant account but don't want to deal with the security that comes with processing credit cards. If you want to offer even more options, even if you use stripe.com or have a merchant account you could add the option for a user to checkout via PayPal or Google Checkout. The whole point is to make the checkout process easy, friendly, and secure for a user. The easier it is for a customer to give you money the more likely they will. In these modern times if you don't accept credit cards and your sales demographic dictates that you should, then you are more than likely missing out on a lot of profits. But be smart about it, find a service that provides credit card processing that will fit your business both in cost and image. Then find a professional web designer to add credit card processing to your site (it's much cheaper to pay for a professional than it is to get sued over fraud due to lack of security). Remember with any sales and checkout process there is always room for improvement. If something isn't working, change it. It is a lot cheaper to rewrite the checkout process than to lose sales. If you can't afford to go with a full on merchant account, start with PayPal or Google Checkout. No matter what, make it easy and secure for the user! -- Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC www.liquidmechanix.com 419.297.3364

Are You Fighting Dirty?

January Theme: The 5 Priorities of Business:

Principles - Prepare/Plan - Product - People - Profit.

Are You Fighting Dirty?

This week's Priority is People. No matter what you have heard, people are still an integral part of every business. To get a product to market requires people from production to sales AND then we need people who will buy our products. People skills will be reflected in the core values of a company. For those of you that think only new exciting inventions will survive in the 21st century haven't met Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan. They are the brainparents of Method - one of the fastest growing private companies in America and they fight dirty with cleaning products . . . yawn . . . NOT . . . go to their website and start poking around. They feature their employees working hard and having fun.  Customers, too, can fight dirty with their cleaning stories and even a personal profile on the Method site. People do matter in all businesses. In Dave Ramsey's latest book (he is the Debt Snowball Guru) EntreLeadership, his first core concept is: People Matter - "your customers, team, community, vendors or even your competition - each and every person is uniquely important." Being treated with respect, dignity and having a caring heart is a hallmark of a caring company or maybe just a successful company. Linda Lucas Fayerweather www.ChangingLanes.biz 419-897-0528 linda@changinglanes.biz Consider working with a coach or a MasterMind Team to make 2012 the year of your dreams!

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Rule Your Team

How to treat your employees right. . .Be the ruler. The key to a good staff/boss relationship is to treat them right by not leading with a heavy hand, but not with kid gloves either. Example 1: An employee gets a project done to meet a set deadline.   Response: Do show appreciation with praise, maybe a note or just a great job done. Do not lavish raises and rewards for just doing their job that is what the yearly review is designed to do. Limit the use of monetary gifts. . .maybe quarterly drawings for a gift card of employees who have gone above and beyond the call of duty. Check out 1001 ways to Reward Employees for more ideas. Example 2: An employee fails at a project. Do keep criticism private as a good ruler would. Do document the failure and make sure the employee had all the tools and skills to do the job. When it is discovered that skills and tools were missing, correct problem and explain to employee.  Do remember this at annual review time and access if the employee learned from the mistake. Appreciating a job well done is a sign of a good and fair leader. Having a structured reward system and annual reviews leads to less stress and more success. Tiffiny Fayerweather tiffiny.fayerweather@ChangingLanes.com    The Internet has made it very easy for us to share information, good or bad. But the main problem stems from, most people don't understand the impact of that shared information and what sort of impact it can have on a business. Let start with the bad. Let's say every day one of your employee's complains about the work they have to do. They use a Social Networking site like Facebook or Twitter to vent their frustrations. They complain about their boss, fellow employees, the owner (you), their job, their pay. Or maybe they talk about a project they are working on and how much they don't like it. To them this might seem like harmless complaining that relieves frustration but to the outside world, they just told everyone in their network how crappy they think some aspect of your business is or spilled some details about a project that shouldn't have been mentioned to the world yet. Then, like most people they don't have their profile locked down and now any one can see this information including search engines. To a search engine this is just more information to index. And unlike a person, a search engine doesn't know it shouldn't index that information, a search engine can't read the information and think, "This might hurt this company, I'm not going to index it." Just like your website, this information is on the Internet for the world to see and getting rid of it isn't easy. So when your employee posts negative comments about your their job, they are effectively bringing you business down from the inside. This is far more damaging than a customer complaining about your business because it exposes inside details about your business that are not qualified. But how can you stop this? First you must look at the source. Is the job really that horrible or is it the employee? Some times the job really is that bad. So what can be done to improve it? Most of the time I bet you will find it is the employee who is unhappy, not with the job but with their life. Because they are not happy with who they are and what they do. They breath negativity. They complain, they create drama, and in general spread discontent. In some cases they can be helped and as an employer, there are things you can do, such as training or finding ways to help them becoming happy in their job. Most of the time the sad fact is there is little you can do to help them change their ways. They need to realize that they need to change and until they do, there is no helping them. In cases like this, it is time to find a replacement. Some one who is right for the job. If you don't that negative person will bring your company down from the inside. I have seen it way to many times and I've seen companies brought to their knees over one... ONE negative employee. The next thing to do is create a fair company policy for Social Networks. One of my clients has a policy that says employees can't access any Social Networks during company time, even from their personal phone, unless they are on a break. They can't access any personal Social Networks from any company computer, period. They can't disclose any information about the business or their job, even outside of work. This is all a condition of their employment. It is a tough policy but it doesn't forbid them from using Social Networks. Just accessing their personal profiles on company time. Having this sort or policy and the right employees helps prevent internal negativity that can damage a business. On the flip side, having your employees on the Internet can be a wonderful thing and can really help business. But there needs to be policies, filters and checks in place so the proper information and the correct amount of information is put out there. Create policies that allow your employees to use the Internet to communicate with your customers but also keep your company in a good light, such as: Treat the blog or Social Network as if the customer was contacting us through our site. Don't talk about products that are not in Beta. Only share facts about the products or the company that have been labeled by the company for public knowledge. Respond to issues in a professional manor. If you use Social Networks to communicate with customers, you represent the company, not you personally. Each employee has to have a standard username unique to them that should be used on any site. All interactions done on the Internet should be logged. So you know that your employee went to this blog and answered this question for this person. Next, think about Social Networking, blogs, Forums, etc as a way to have a conversation with your customers instead of talking at your customers. Example: Blog about a product you are working on. You don't have to give exact details that will give away trade secrets. Maybe say "We are looking into improving this certain product, we have some ideas on how to make it better but we want to hear from you. Tell us what you like about the current product and tell us how to improve it." (Notice I didn't say "Tell us what you don't like"). When people respond, don't just listen, hear what they have to say. Respond to them. Then if the ideas are good, follow through. Or let's say you find a bad review about your product or business on a web site. Allow Customer Service to reach out to that person through that web site and resolve the issue. If you didn't look up "Jeff Jarvis Dell Hell", from my previous article in this series, please do. It is a prime example of bad Internet Use Policy for Business and what Hell it can bring. In the end it is also a prime example of what a good Internet Use Policy. Having a good Internet Use Policy that allows your business and employees to have a healthy Internet presence can really help your business. It allows your business to connect to your customers, can help promote your business, and can keep your business ahead of your competition. But like any business decision it should be well thought out. Remember, just because it is a policy doesn't mean it can't be changed. If it doesn't work, try some thing else. -- Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC www.liquidmechanix.com 419.297.3364

What is the Next Edsel?

January Theme: The 5 Priorities of Business:

Principles - Prepare/Plan - Product - People - Profit.

Your Product on the Internet

Remember, we at Changing Lanes refer use "Product" to represent anything you sell to a customer. When you start to look at our services as products, those products become tangible instead of an ever changing entity that can cause you to fall down the rat-hole of customization but that is a topic for another day. So just remember when we say "Product" we also mean "Service". The wonderful thing about the Internet is that your business is open to the world. Any one from anywhere can buy your product. The choices of products and the amount are simply amazing. Just take a moment and search for some every day products on Google, Amazon or eBay. As a consumer, you are no longer limited to the stores in your area. You can buy products from around the world, from Germany to Japan. But what about demand for your product? With a brick and mortar store demand for your product is limited to the population in your area. Let's say you sell Widgets at $10 each and you have a shop in Toledo, as of 2010 the Toledo metropolitan area population is roughly 651,000. If you could sell your widgets to 10% of the population here or have repeatable sales for the year that equal that, that's 65,100 widgets sold at $10 each for a total of $651,000. That would be quite the accomplishment and not very realistic at all. On the Internet you are not limited to your area. In the USA alone there are roughly 307,745,538 people. If you could get .1% of the USA to buy your product, that is roughly 307,745 people at a tune of $3,077,450. Granted not everyone has access to a computer nor do they buy stuff online but the point I'm trying to make is you now have a potential market of 307,745,538 instead of 651,000 - just a difference between a local shop and the internet. What it really comes down to is the product you sell, where you sell it, and how you sell it. The product itself has to fit the market demand. The quality and price of the product should meet the demand of the market. Don't over promise and under-deliver. It is better to deliver a product above your customers' expectations. If you are not sure what a customer wants, try beta testing. It will help you work out the bugs and will save your business the embarrassment of a faulty product. Where you sell your product is important too. You can create an online store but you don't have to be limited to that store. There are big online stores that allow you to sell your product through them. Such as Amazon.com or Buy.com. You could even put your products up on eBay under their eBay Stores. Now instead of one place that your item can be bought, it can be found in many places. How you sell your product can be broken down into two parts. The marketing part and the sales part. Create a solid marketing plan that uses the Internet to its advantage. Learn about what to do and what not to do with Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking, Affiliate Programs, Guerrilla Market, Blogs, Forums, Ads, etc. Stay away from spamming and Dark Patterns (Deception). Don't just market your product. Market your knowledge. The actual process of selling your product should be easy, secure, and have quality information about your product. Don't put up road blocks. Nothing is worse than forcing a user to do something, such as hunting for information or how to actually checkout. Even something as simple as creating an account before adding an item to their shopping cart can turn customers away. A user should be able to navigate your site easily, be able to find items, all the information about that item and add it to their shopping cart in a very user friendly way. They should be able to edit their cart, change the options of your product (if they can) from the cart, change the quantity, get shipping and tax rates, enter coupons, be able to click back to the product, all before they are forced to enter payment information. Make it easy, make it simple, make it safe. If you are finding that your customers are still having trouble, the best part of the Internet and your web site is that if something doesn't work the way you want it to work on your site, you can always change it (so long as the code can be accessed), you can always try something else. There is always another option, another way to sell your product. Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC www.liquidmechanix.com 419.297.3364

What is the Next Edsel?

When I was young, I was visiting my Aunt and Uncle's farm and wandered down the lane to the woods and found an old car. It was an Edsel, rusty, but still looked like it could be driven. I sat in the front, played with the knobs, pushed the transmission buttons on the dash and then pushed the cigarette lighter in; when I pulled it out, it was hot. . .so I touched it!   I toughed it up, and just tried to ignore the blister. At dinner that night, Uncle Clarence, an Oldsmobile engineer, noticed and asked how I'd come to be burned. I hemmed and hawed and he guessed what I'd done. He took me to the kitchen, dressed it and then laughed saying, "Obviously they made that cigarette lighter too well at the factory." It was decades before I realized what he was saying. When you build a product, you want it to last it's useful life. So thinking about your customers, sometimes, especially with services, what is the life? Is it destined to become an heirloom? Will it be repurposed? Does it need to be done again - think oil change, taxes, haircuts? The sweater I'm wearing today is 26 years old and I still like it. Did I get my money's worth? Well, yes. Could it be replaced? Yes. Do I remember the company name? Absolutely!   I've bought other products from that company, but never anything that lasted as long because of the fabric, style and colors. Also, the actual clothing line, they discontinued - no more sweaters. It is a fine line between quality and obsolesce. Growing your customers means knowing how you will provide quality to them over the life of your relationship. Knowing your product cycle and customer expectations is key!  Did the demise of Edsel come from spending too much on quality for a product that the world wasn't ready for yet? According to Jan Deutsch, the Edsel author it was "The wrong car at the wrong time". Linda Lucas Fayerweather www.ChangingLanes.biz 419-897-0528 linda@changinglanes.biz Consider working with a coach or a MasterMind Team to make 2012 the year of your dreams!

Knowing Your Product

I don't know about you, but I am turned off when I go into a store to buy a product and the staff cannot answer basic questions about the item in question. What good is having a product or service if your staff can't sell it? Any staff that comes in contact with customers should be prepared to answer any type of question related to your product if a customer calls or walks in. Some of the basics your staff needs to keep up to date on include: What is the price (including structure and promotions) What is the variety (colors, amount of hours, sizes, etc.) How do you use the product (is there more than one use available) What about repairs, service, and warranties Product logistics (Pick-up and delivery options, how much do you have in stock) Are there any special manufacturing processes (is it a green product, vegan friendly, no animal testing) What is the background (Who invented it, why) Having a fully informed staff not only keeps your customers from waiting for answers but also helps to sell your product or service. Tiffiny Fayerweather tiffiny.fayerweather@ChangingLanes.com

Planning & Preparing "Plans are nothing; planning is everything."  --Dwight D. Eisenhower January Theme: The 5 Priorities of Business: Principles - Prepare/Plan - Product - People - Profit. Business Planning for the C-Suite or mayby SWAT teams C-Suite is the current slang for the executive team; top managers; corporate officers; and often in a small business the Owner and Advisors. SWAT is police language for special weapons and tactics. True planning that is effective for a quarter, a year or longer needs to take into account the past, the what "ifs" of the future with collaboration between the many. This may mean that the C-Suite needs to use SWAT and put aside personalities and feelings to really prepare for the future. Starting with a SWOT analysis (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) or planning is one way to really get the juices flowing and to review where the business was, where it is and get some ideas on where it is going. Strengths and Weakness are an internal examination of a business, department or project while Opportunities and Threats are the external analysis. When working on your SWOT, remember that all businesses have SWAT; you all have special weapons and tactics. Polishing those and refining them so that a clear concise vision is delivered to the staff for activation and implementation will set the tone for a year with hope and aspirations. Knowing where you are going and developing a plan always leads to a great adventure! Start your planning with a SWOT analysis worksheet.  Linda Lucas Fayerweather www.ChangingLanes.biz 419-897-0528 linda@changinglanes.biz Consider working with a coach or a MasterMind Team to make 2012 the year of your dreams! Workshop on Planning - Northwest Ohio One Year Action Plan for Success - Planning that works for You and Your Team On Location at Bowling Green State University at Levis Commons - Begins January 11 Monday Morning Motivators Special Details below >> Details and Registration Planning for teamwork = Teams that Plan You have a goal in mind and you want to put it to action, only there is a problem of the in-between. Getting to that goal requires teamwork and planning. Often, getting a plan done will require more than just you. Part of the plan is identifying and getting the team on board or as Jim Collins would say in "Good to Great" get the right people on the bus in the right seats.  Create a team - Which of your staff would best represent your idea or goal? Use the staff members that can bring something to the table and leave the rest to their daily tasks. Plan a strategy - How do you want to get to your goal, what's your plan? Have a meeting with your new team and draw out a plan of action. Remember to also analyze your risks and weigh the pros and cons of your idea. Assign tasks - Give your team specific roles tailored to their talents, not just their positions. Fine tune - Put your team's ideas together and let everyone get a look at the big picture. You may get a few staff members that catch a few errors. Getting through the in-between works faster if you identify who will help be on your team. Happy Planning. Tiffiny Fayerweather tiffiny.fayerweather@gmail.com Planning for Business on the Internet Over the next few weeks I'll be talking about the core structure of a business broken down into the 5 P's, in order, Principles, Prepare/planning, Product, People, and Profit. If you miss one of these P's or don't give it enough time of day your business will have a difficult time succeeding.  Last week I talked about your Principles and how they translate over to the Internet. This week we will be talking about Planning, specifically Planning to do Business on the Internet.  Doing business on the Internet isn't very different from a brick and mortar store (B&M) but how you do business and how you should think about your business is very different.  Things that are similar. Store Location = Domain Name and Quality Hosting. Store Image = Website In Person/Phone Customer Service = Phone or Email Customer Service Customers leave with the product = The product is shipped to them And all of these factors need to be quality.  But the major things that separates B&M from an online business is on the Internet your business is open to the world where as a B&M is usually limited to an area that you can serve because of customer travel time. On the Internet your business is faceless in the terms of when a customer comes to your web site, they don't see you. They can't interact with with you. Being personable is done through your site being user friendly, presenting quality information, and your customer service. This can be a hard concept to grasp because you never see your customers, you only see I.P. addresses and orders. Your site has to do the selling for you.  In my opinion as a web developer, opening an online store is very easy these days, but making it successful is one of the hardest things. It is even harder than having a B&M. Because most people do not plan or have wild misconceptions behind selling things on the Internet. You will not automatically get a ton of business and be rich. Just because you are selling it doesn't mean someone will buy it. Just because someone else is making money off selling a Widget doesn't mean you will make money by selling the same Widget. Just because you are selling a lot now, doesn't mean it will continue to sell well. But don't give up, like any business with proper planning and being smart your business can be on it way to being successful. Here are some tips. The first and most important step is to plan how your business will function. How will you take orders? How long will it take to fulfill orders? How will you ship your products? Who is your target market? How can customers reach you? What is your policy on returns? How will you handle lost packages? Where can you ship to? Are you shipping items directly or are you using a fulfillment center? What will it cost to ship your items? How many items do you need to sell to cover my costs (web site, merchant account, hosting, employees, etc). Will the shipping rates cover the actual cost of shipping? These will help you create a solid business plan and give you realistic figures. Don't undercut yourself then try to make your money back through your shipping costs or try to make an extra buck on shipping costs. Besides a poor functioning or broken web site nothing will drive your customers away faster than high shipping costs. If you can't offer low prices and a decent shipping rate, rethink your business plan. Get an easy to remember domain name. Being clever might help. Plan and spend good money on a web site. If your site makes you look like it is fly by night company, you will be treated that way. If it is constantly down, what will your customers think about the products you sell and your customer service? If your site is broken or doesn't function very well, it shows you don't care. Don't blow off bad reviews. Don't get mad. The best thing to do is respond and resolve the issue. No matter what site the review is on. It shows that you care about your customers and they are not just a dollar sign. Don't post fake reviews or have friends/family post fake reviews about your business or products. Be unique but smart. You and countless other people are trying to do business on the Internet, what makes you special? Do your research. Research your competition. Research how other sites function/user experience. Research User Interfaces. Make ordering from your site easy, friendly, and go the extra step to make the customer's day. Stay up on the latest trends, research and figure out which ones will work for your business. Make sure you have quality information in a neat, consistent, orderly fashion. Create a quality newsletter. Find the sweet spot on send frequency. It could be once a week, or every other day, or once every two weeks. Don't use it just to spam, us it to educate first. Learn how to Guerrilla Market. Reach out to your customers, talk to them, listen to what they have to say. Become a community resource by having a blog or forum but don't use it to spam your business, use it to create an asset to help drive customers to your business. Give out knowledge. But what if you aren't selling anything on the Internet? What happens if you just want a brochure site or blog for your business's web site? Everything I talked about still matters. In short, your business plan should include a quality web site just take the selling portion out.  With proper planning and creating procedures, like with a B&M, it will help create a solid foundation for your business.  -- Jeff Mendelsohn Liquid Mechanix Studio, LLC www.liquidmechanix.com 419.297.3364

January Workshops! One Year Action Plan for Success Date: January 11, 2012 Details: One Year Action Plan for Success - Planning that works for you and your team On Location: Bowling Green State University at Levis Commons Day One - January 11 8:30-4:30 Day Two - January 25 8:30 - Noon Cost:Monday Morning Special $199  with online registration ($299 at the door) - Bring your partner for an extra $90. Registration Here Building a Thriving Business for Your Future Date: January 25, 2012 Details: Building a Thriving Business for Your Future - Learn the 7 Tips to build a business that will Thrive with or without you. On Location: Bowling Green State University Perrysburg Campus at Levis Commons Cost $69 (additional partners $20 each) January 25, Wednesday 1:30 - 5PM Registration Here

Have a profitable week.