Friday, December 30, 2011


Basics of Negotiation for Beginners

by  on December 11th, 2011

8
People learn and practice the art of negotiation from the time they are young children. For a small business, negotiation can make or break your company. Making the best deal possible is especially critical in tough economic times. By following several tips, your small business can effectively apply negotiating skills in many situations to tighten your bottom line.

Preparation

Know who you are negotiating with. This requires some background research on your part. Talk to other business associates who have worked with the person or company before. They can provide valuable insight. Understand the product or service you plan to negotiate. Use strategic psychology in dealing with them. Have pricing in mind before you begin. Consider budgeting, management directives, sales goals and other outside forces. Deal with the right person who can make business decisions so you don’t need to talk to someone else with more authority when you think you have already reached an agreement.

Strategize

Your first offer will usually set the tone for the rest of the negotiations. While you want to make an aggressive initial offer, don’t be insulting. The final goal is to arrive at some type of agreement. See if you can bring something to the table that is not necessarily monetary, such as delivery, availability, service or another intangible. You can ask for these things as well. Some negotiations will only be concerned with the bottom line, so offering intangibles may not work in every situation. Be very cautious when discussing budget limitations. Watch for nonverbal cues when negotiating. Don’t let the pressure to make a deal force you into a decision you will not be happy with later. Do not be forced into negotiating with yourself. If you make an offer, wait for a counteroffer from the other party.
Ads by Google
Negotiation Skills – Improve your negotiation skills with online classes and free tips.
NextLevelPurchasing.com/negotiation

Download Metatrader – Trade the Forex Market With MT4 Download Here
www.Alpari.co.uk

Negotiation for Buyers – Specialized Negotiation Training for Purchasing Professionals
www.careerprofessionals.com.au

Business Report – Get great ideas and insights from business intelligence gurus. Go!
www.AllAnalytics.com

Leverage

Focus on your strengths. If you are the only source with your product, you have great leverage. Consider the economic conditions and supply and demand. Use your bargaining power effectively. Steer the negotiations in the direction you hope the process goes.

Offer

Make an offer that includes all the specifics. This addresses not only financial compensation but how much work is involved, clarification regarding type of product, any incentives, warranties and service and paperwork. You can also trade a lower price for less service and use any points listed as bargaining chips. Negotiate any terms you have difficulty working with. Get everything in writing with all pertinent elements. Learn from what you have already accomplished. Make notes so you can track why you made each offer.

Win-Win

Assess the most important thing to both parties. You might care about price or delivery date; the other business might be concerned about product quality or follow-up service. Look at his priorities so you can give the other party what he needs without compromising your own position. Know what your bottom line is in each area. If you will work with this business in the future, take this into consideration during negotiations. Maintain your professional demeanor. Help the other party believe he got the best possible deal.

The Deal

Plan to finalize the deal and be prepared to compromise toward the end. Then sit back and congratulate yourself on a job well done.
8

Related Articles

Posted by at No comments:


Conducting Market Research

by  on November 22nd, 2011

13
Prior to the launch of any new product, companies engage in exhaustively thorough market research in order to gauge its probability of success. If your subjects are properly selected, you can gain valuable information that may allow you to better temper your product for the intended target audience. What are your considerations prior to starting market research?
  • Demographics of your target geographical area – are you targeting the right region?
  • Price range and profit margin – will you make enough money from each sale?
  • Intended production volume – if you intend to take a higher volume approach, do you have the facilities to back it up?
  • Age range, marital status, family – do you have a detailed sketch of your ideal customer in mind?
  • Income and Lifestyle range – how much money will your average customer make?
  • Males, females or both – which sex are you focused on?
  • Seasonal, cyclical nature of your product – is your product marketable year-round or only on certain occasions?

Market Research
Photo by Ramotion
These may be bewildering questions at first. However, a well-run company should have amarketing manager to coordinate appropriate market research with a marketing researcher. The researcher and the manager define the objectives to be attained through the research.
A well known acronym in the world of marketing research is “DECIDE”, which is a quick way to remember the steps of research.
  • Define the marketing problem
  • Enumerate the decision factors
  • Collect relevant information
  • Identify the best alternatives
  • Develop and implement a marketing plan
  • Evaluate the final decision
The marketing team should then develop the plan and outline the costs, to be presented to the marketing manager for approval.
Now, with an approved market research in place, it’s time to address the two main forms of market research:
Ads by Google
Solvency II White Paper – Research Insights On Solvency II Developed By Moody's Analytics.
www.moodysanalytics.com

Download Metatrader – Trade the Forex Market With MT4 Download Here
www.Alpari.co.uk

MA Social Research – A World Leading Masters Programme University of Sheffield
www.shef.ac.uk/socstudies/ppt/

SBM® Stone Crusher – Most Popular Crushing Equipment Hot Sale in B2B Trade Lead !
www.uniSBM.com
  • Qualitative research: an exploratory, limited way to gauge the needs of your target demographic, focused on a smaller group with higher detail. These include focus groups and in-depth interviews with selected individuals. An example of this would be to approach a group of surfers at the beach with your surfboard designs, to gather a small amount of high quality opinions from a dedicated group.
  • Quantitative research: surveys of much larger groups with the intent of garnering hard statistics to use for future financial plans. Examples of these are surveys conducted over the phone, by mail and on the Internet. These results tend to be of lower quality and diversity, but can be compiled quickly to formulate a larger picture of the targeted area.
Ideally, a company would employ a mix of both kinds of research to gain the best perspective on their customer base. There are many kinds of research – coolhunting, viral marketing, concept testing, demand estimation and online panels are all methods market researchers employ to garner results. The findings from the research should be compiled by your marketing team through comprehensive charts and tables to be presented to management.
Once the marketing manager presents the final results, the company should move on to the product testing phase.
The product testing phase takes place after the completion of the product manufacturing phase and before the product launch. This can be done on qualitative and quantitative bases as well, but if you intend to use large groups for quantitative tests, you should be aware of the physical constraints that were not there during the survey phase, as you must produce enough of the product for testing purposes. A simple example of this is the software beta tester, who is hired by a company to endlessly use the software in search of bugs and glitches. In this example, you would need to devote a lot of manpower and hours to clean and temper your product. If your product is something simpler, such as food, you need only serve your product and record a survey response.
Market research may sound and feel like an overwhelming, costly operation, but it can be done  on a smaller scale for home and small businesses. If you don’t have a marketing team ready to launch a research project, there are freely available reports online for a myriad of products. These can include established research for automobiles, consumer spending habits and restaurant choices, among others. You can also hire university students looking for a business school class project or a few extra dollars. This would still be considerably cheaper than hiring a professional marketing research firm.
On the other hand, if you have money to dedicate to market research but you don’t have a full marketing team, consider hiring professionally contracted services or virtual assistants to get the job done efficiently with little hassle
Posted by at No comments:


Tips for Starting a Successful Business Website

by  on November 17th, 2011

11
In this day and age, a business website is a prerequisite for even the most basic of services. It also serves as a valuable first impression to potential customers – sloppy website designs lead to negative assumptions about the professionalism of your business. Overly designed, memory-intensive flash websites filled with background music and tiny text frustrate visitors with haughty pompousness. How can you decide which approach is the best for your company? What are the steps necessary to establish a coherent, appropriate website?
Photo by dakno

Getting Started

In the late 1990s, most website design only required a simple knowledge of HTML andJavascript. Since then, websites have evolved greatly, and a working knowledge of Flash and HTML 5.0 are required for the most professional of websites. Most website designers use publishing software such as Adobe Dreamweaver to simplify tasks considerably. Fortunately, most publishing suites have simple templates for a basic site and may prove enough for most small businesses seeking a simple web presence. At the bare minimum, your website should consist of the following:
  • Contact information – your phone number, e-mail and address clearly visible on the first page.
  • For eCommerce sites:
    • A clearly designed product catalog, with your most current, news-worthy products on the first page. Promotions should also be clearly visible on the first page.
    • An online shopping cart system.
    • If pertinent to your products, you should add downloadable content – such as software or PDF manuals.
  • For corporate or events sites, a clear company calendar with upcoming events, which can also be synced to the iCal standard or Google Calendar.
There are also some common pitfalls to avoid.
  • Garish or common clip art – these make your website appear unprofessional and outdated. Use made from scratch graphic designs, if possible.
  • Tiny text in an attempt to create a minimalistic look. This can often be unreadable on some smaller displays.
  • Overly extravagant Flash introductions with background music. These often slow down older computers and frustrate customers who are only seeking basic information about the company. Create launch pages which give the user the option of selecting a HTML or Flash version of the site.
  • Poor frequency of updates. When a visitor to your site sees the last update occurring half a year ago, what does that say about your response time to customer issues?

Upgrading a Basic Website for the New Web

Now, with a basic foundation, your website should be spruced up further. Visitors these days expect a certain degree of interaction with the website. These are some things you can add to your website to enhance the user’s experience.
Ads by Google
Download Metatrader – Trade the Forex Market With MT4 Download Here
www.Alpari.co.uk

Business Report – Get great ideas and insights from business intelligence gurus. Go!
www.AllAnalytics.com

CFA Level 1 – Corporate finance and investments Intensive revision course
www.riskmatrix.EU

The Shingo Prize – For Operational Excellence | Jon M. Huntsman School of Business
www.shingoprize.org
  • Real-time tech support – many websites now offer Java or AJAX based web chat with tech support. Of course this means you need to have several members of your staff assigned to field these questions. These can be connected to their work stations. Some websites also offer real-time chat via Windows Messenger.
  • Social networking integration via Facebook or Twitter. These allow your company to bring your customers closer without the use of old-time mailing lists.
  • A wise use of multimedia. For example, Apple’s website uses Quicktime VR to allow the user to grab and rotate the product in any way they desire to mimic a physical shopping experience.
  • RSS feeds, to allow users to subscribe to your company’s posts or updates.

Tweaking Your Design Sensibilities

Bear in mind that websites should be designed to reflect their businesses. Hotels and restaurants should not look like electronics websites, and vice versa. If your staff lacks the artistic eye for cohesion, it may be wise to hire a contract web designer in order to achieve this. However, here are some simple tips to maintain a clean design.
  • Fonts – many websites are created with the simple Times New Roman font in garish colors over clip art backgrounds. These are ugly and discourage customers from purchasing your products. Professionally made banners and cleaner fonts such as Lucida Grande or Arial reflect well on your business.
  • Use CSS or AJAX in order to keep your site looking lean and modern; without these your website will appear clunky, loading like a 1990s website being viewed on Netscape.
  • Use cross-browser compatible standards which can be viewed on the widest assortment of browsers and operating systems. Many designers make the mistake of making fancy websites without the consideration that many customers may be using outdated browsers without Flash.

Finishing Touches

The important thing to remember about starting a business website is that design should be clear, to the point and informative. Cross-compatibility is much more important than aesthetic beauty. Each customer who can’t load your site or find the pertinent contact information is a lost customer. Here are some final things to consider.
  • Does your website have a mobile version? With the increasing adoption of smartphones, mobile-optimized websites can help widen your company’s exposure and promote a forward-thinking image.
  • Has your company launched mobile applications, as many companies have done, to allow easier, one-click access to your website and services?
  • Is your website search engine optimized? There are many articles instructing web designers in the proper way to phrase search terms to increase hits from major search engines.
  • Will your website use advertising as a means to gain revenue? If so, you can consider using Google AdSense as a free way to gain extra funds from page views and click-thrus.
These are some ideas to help you get started. In business web design, your first impression upon the customer can often be your last if your website is poorly designed, so be sensible with your approach.
11

Related Articles

About the Author

Leo Sun is long-time market follower and finance writer. He regularly contributes to theBusinessDictionary Articles and also to the InvestorGuide.com Stock of the Day analysis.

Post your Comment

Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)