by Ben Johnson

Different people may have different ways of answering this question that how a perfect business website can be defined. Is it a website that is helping you make a living from home? Is it a website that is not only helping you, but also helping dozens of your employees earn bread and butter? There is no need to debate here. However, one thing is for sure that you have to have a realistic plan when you launch your website.

What do I mean by realistic plan? If you are launching your small business, then in the beginning you should focus on establishing it and making enough money to make a living. Once you achieve this, you should move on and grow your business even further. So, we can say that a perfect business website grows smoothly.

Now, there should be some characteristics of a perfect business website that will actually make it perfect and help you make a living from home or your personal office. Without powerful characteristics, your website won’t perform well.

So, let’s discuss what these characteristics are that will make your website a perfect business website:

Your Website Must Be Visually Appealing:

How will people determine your taste for quality? Well, they will check out your website and conclude whether you are a true professional or not. Your website represents you. Your website tells your audience why you should be chosen over your competitors. Your website tells your market you believe in providing quality information, products or services. However, to achieve all this, you need to have a visually appealing website.

Your Website Must Present All the Benefits Concisely:

Your market won’t buy from you if they don’t know why they should buy from you. Thus, you must write benefit-oriented content to convert visitors into customers. You should clearly discuss the benefits that your products and services offer. You should also explain what unique quality you have and why your business is perfect for them. It’s advisable to hire a professional copywriter to write your web copy, because it’s the content that converts.

Your Website Must Be User-Friendly:

Your website navigation either retains your visitors or makes them go away. If your visitors are unable to acquire the desired information easily, then they won’t waste their time on your website, they will go straight to one of your competitors. Website navigation is one of the most vital elements of successful websites. Also, it should be similar on all pages.

Your Website Must Engage Your Visitors:

Communicate with your visitors instead of providing information in dry manner. You won’t be able to engage your visitors and make them stay on your website if you don’t write compelling content. Talk to your visitors and tell them what they should do.

So…These are just some of the elements you must consider when you design your website to make it a perfect business website. Each element plays a powerful role and you can’t afford to neglect them.

Article by ben
Ben Johnson is the Alliance Manager at Logoinn, a custom logo design company. He writes about the effect of design on marketing and brand identity and helps small businesses find design solutions for effective marketing.

Image courtesy of Patrick Hoesly.

I came across several bits of news about a few cosmetic party plan companies.

Affordable Mineral Makeup has a new owner, Arlene Sherman. According to the announcement, customers will be receiving the “same great product and service.” There was no mention of whether or not the consultant opportunity will change, but the sign-up options are still available on the website.

Although I have no idea when it happened, Mineral Girlz also has “new” owners and doesn’t seem to be accepting new consultants at this time.

Again, I don’t know when it happened, but Beautiful Diva seems to be out of business – their website is gone.

In other cosmetic company news, Kay Napier is coming up on her one year anniversary as Arbonne International LLC’s CEO. Having recently emerged from bankruptcy reorganization the company is looking to build success by supporting its consultants and producing new products.

In their recent release of the “DSN Global 100″ Direct Selling News listed the top companies based on 2009 wholesale revenue. The top five companies all sell makeup. They are Avon, Alticor Inc. (Amway), Vorwerk & Co KG (JAFRA), Mary Kay and Natura Cosmeticos. There are probably more than another two dozen cosmetics companies on the list, including Arbonne International LLC and Tupperware (which owns BeautiControl).

It seems makeup continues to be a popular product for direct sales consultants and customers.

We all know that connecting with our target market is important in online business. The problem is a lot of us only use surface strategies to “connect” with our prospects. To really connect with your target market, you’ll want to dig deeper and build a stronger relationship that’s mutually beneficial.

Here are three important steps to help you do just that:

1 – Engage your audience. Once you know who your ideal customer is the next step is to really engage them. Have you noticed how some people can have many, many friends yet each friend feels as though they are the most important friend to that person? It takes a real knack to accomplish this on and offline, but if you can then you are well on your way to building a strong relationship with your audience.

One way to accomplish this online is by writing in a way that implies you are speaking to only them. Write in a friendly, clear tone appropriate for your chosen market. Share some information about yourself if necessary to let your customers know that you understand their needs and situation. A good tip is to write as though you were chatting to a good friend over coffee.

2 – Know their motivation. People are motivated by different things. When you do your market research an important point to focus on is what motivates your target prospect to act – in other words to buy something. Some people are motivated by social status, others want to feel good about themselves while others simply want to feel part of something.

By knowing the motivation trigger of your target market, you’ll know how to communicate in a way that gets better results. You can also cater your products and services to help your ideal prospect resolve their problems. A win/win situation for all involved.

3 – Take a “real” approach. Online people do business with people they like and feel a connection with. You can accomplish this by taking a personal and “real” stand with everything you do. If you’re a small business say so. Let people know a little about you, your business, why you started it and so on. If you have a family then it’s fine to say so too. In other words, be “real.”

People will appreciate that you are a real person and not just some entity flowing in cyberspace. Connect with your customers in a similar way you would with a neighbour or friend. This is one of the best ways to build a strong connection with your audience. Of course, you’ll want to make sure you do this in a professional manner but with a little practice getting the balance right isn’t difficult.

Connecting with your target audience means better profits, long-term customers and the satisfaction of running a business which helps people. It’s really worth taking the time to do this right from the beginning and you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

And if you’re looking for a great tool to help make building a website that helps you connect with your market effortlessly, try the Internet Based Family Easy Website Builder. It includes online support and full training to help you build a profitable website from the ground up – no technical or previous experience required!

How often have you read about a product and service and thought, “I would never buy/use that because it sounds so complicated”? Now imagine if within this same article, the author was trying to recruit you to sell their product or service. You’d be flipping the page, or moving to another web site in a heartbeat.

You know your business – and you’re extremely good at what you do. Yet that can sometimes work against you when you’re trying to recruit people. Why? Because their perception of what’s involved is that – quite simply – it’s too involved! When you add to that the lack of face-to-face contact that occurs with methods such as article marketing, blog posts, or social media, there’s even more focus on what you say.

Step back for a minute and go over what you do when you recruit face-to-face, and determine what must change with your approach when only written communication is involved for recruiting.

To help your thinking process, ask yourself these questions:

• Am I being overly enthusiastic about the product/service? There’s a difference between having true passion for what you do and being overly zealous. Passion speaks from your heart and is more than simply words on a page. To show this passion, make positive statements consistently throughout the article about your product/service. Write something such as “I am so grateful that I found this opportunity since I can now stay home with my daughter full-time.” That’s far more effective than writing, “This is such a great company to be associated with.”
• Do I give specific details about the benefits for what I’m offering? Remove the words great, fabulous, amazing, etc. from your article vocabulary. Now, write about what this opportunity can really do for the reader. For example, instead of writing, “the money you make is amazing,” switch this around to become, “The money I’ve earned has allowed me to take a vacation to Europe that included a private tour of Windsor Castle.”
• Can I deliver on what I promise? Potential “recruits” will have some hesitation – especially when their first exposure to you and the opportunity is via an article. Therefore, when they contact you via email after reading your article, your inclination might be to offer help to keep the process moving (and the interest up). However, the definition of “help” can be on opposite ends of the spectrum. Nip this in the bud before it happens. Inside your article, explain – in detail – just what you offer in the way of help. Even better, share why the training you deliver is, hands down, better than what the next person does!

Recruiting can be a very stressful thing: there is pressure to expand your down line, increase your sales, etc. Add to that, the fact that you are making your pitch using articles as your marketing tool. Switch up your thinking and view this article as a more passive way to help someone else realize the same dream you once had: to be successful doing something that delivers a return of tremendous satisfaction coupled with financial reward.

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This article is available for reprint through EzineArticles.com

By Jimmy D. Brown, InfoProfitShare.com

What if there was a magic bottle that you could rub and a traffic genie would pop out to beckon to your every internet marketing command?

After the initial shock wore off, you’d be quite happy to have it in your possession, right?

Well, in a manner of speaking, such a genie exists. She exists in the form of an “affiliate manager”.

An “affiliate manager” is someone who oversees the operations of an affiliate program in exchange for compensation.

And, out of all the traffic “tools” on the market, the affiliate manager is the one that you should be using daily in your business if you own your own product.

Why?

The bottom line is: more traffic, which results in more revenue for you.

But, specifically, there are 3 reasons why you need an affiliate manager…

1. Recruiting. Your affiliate manager can recruit new affiliates into your program for you. Instead of you spending time trying to find (and then convince!) affiliates to join your program, your “affman” can do this for you while you focus on other things.
2. Rewarding. Everyone knows that simply getting people to join your affiliate program is not enough. It takes a lot of effort to get passive affiliates to become (and stay!) active. An affiliate manager is responsible for motivating your team to remain involved in your promotions.
3. Running. Beyond getting affiliates into your program and making sure they stay active, your affiliate manager can “run” as much of your operations as you want her to. Here are just a few things my affiliate manager (props to Nicole!) does…

   * Creates training materials
   * Write follow-up mailings
   * Communicates with affiliates
   * Answer affiliate support questions
   * Monitors contests and incentive programs
   * Posts to our blog
   * Clerical stuff (creates rebrandable files, etc.)
   * Circulates content (article directories, etc.)

   I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Perhaps the best part of hiring an affiliate manager is the fact that it doesn’t have to cost you a penny in out of pocket expenses. That is, you can setup your agreement to be performance-based: you pay the affiliate manager a percentage of the overall revenue generated through her efforts … the more revenue she brings in through the affiliate program, the more she earns.

Now, the question is –

** Where do I find an affiliate manager? **

There are actually quite a few ways to find quality (emphasis needs to be on “QUALITY!”) affiliate managers for your program. Let me share just one…

One of the easiest ways to find an affiliate manager is to visit your favorite affiliate marketing (or internet marketing) forum and post a request asking for recommendations or responses for your needs.

You can do this in two ways –

1. Post a PUBLIC Request.

That is, you post a message for everyone to see, with brief details on the position you have available and that you are seeking recommendations or interest to explore further.

2. Post a PRIVATE Request.

The other option is to identify those participants at the forum who appear to have experience and/or knowledge in affiliate marketing who might be good affiliate manager material. Then, you would simply contact them privately to see if there is interest in discussing your needs.

Running your own affiliate program is a tremendous traffic generation tool, but it has a lot of parts. There are many different activities that are involved in successfully running an affiliate program, and hiring an affiliate manager to oversee your operations is a great way to free up your time to work on creating additional products and other “creative” work.

A good affiliate manager can bring in affiliates, train and motivate them, and run your operations for you. Her efforts bring in the traffic; your efforts turn the traffic into orders.

It’s the closest thing to a traffic genie in a bottle that you’ll find. Rubbing is optional. Using this strategy isn’t.

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Jimmy D. Brown is the author of Sales Army Secrets, full of meaty details on ways to find affiliate managers, how to structure your agreement with them and tasks to have them handle. Details here.

Image courtesy of Search Engine People Blog.

We all know people for whom success just seems to come easy. We might think they have a special skill or talent that makes success come easy for them. Or perhaps they’re just lucky. In reality, success is not an accident; it takes work to achieve it. But there are traits or characteristics that many successful people seem to have in common. Some of these key traits are:

1. Goal oriented. Successful people are able to look forward to their goals, even when they are hit by setbacks. They know where they going and continue to work to get there.
2. Persistence. It’s not that successful people don’t fail, it’s that they don’t give up when they fail. They keep going and keep trying until they make it.
3. Self-awareness. To be successful, you need to know what you’re good at and what your weaknesses are. That way you can exploit your positives and overcome your weaknesses.
4. Positive thinking. If we fill our minds with positive thought, we eventually start thinking more positively. Believing you are good at what you’re doing and can accomplish your goals, you’re going to try harder and longer to get them.
5. Creative thinking. In order to make yourself known, you have to do something different. That will require you to be creative – through product and service ideas, marketing, customer support, or even in how you organize your office.

You may be thinking that you don’t have most of these traits. That doesn’t mean you can’t become successful. The good news is that you can change and develop these traits in yourself. As George Sheehan (author and physician) said, “Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”

Image courtesy of dan taylor.

Summer is here and many people are looking for temporary work, including teachers, high school students, and college students. Depending on where you live, a summer job may be next to impossible to find. An alternative may be to start your own summer business offering a service. Here are some summer business ideas.

There are always the standard summer services including:

• Lawn mowing and landscaping – competitive pricing and professional service are the keys to success.
• Child care – many parents need babysitting or mother’s helper services for school-aged children during summer vacation.
• Car washing – consider going mobile; wash cars at owners’ homes or place of business.
• House sitting – many people go on vacation and having a house sitter adds some security in addition to keeping the plants watered.
• Pet sitting – an added house sitting service.
• Painting – indoors and out.

If you have a particular skill perhaps you can put it to use for the summer:
• Photography service – take pictures at family reunions, beach parties, and other summer parties and events.
• Tutoring – many parents look for help for their kids to catch up or get ahead during the summer.

Here are a few ideas that aren’t as common:
• Yard sale organizer – many homeowners would welcome the help to set up and run a yard sale.
• Window washer – while many people keep the inside of their windows clean, outside window washing is often a job that homeowners put off.
• Specialty cleaning services – think about specific items that could use a special cleaning like home computers and laptops, collectibles, all the framed artwork and photos hanging in the home.
• Specialty organization service – organize pantries and kitchen cabinets or collections of CDs and DVDs or books.
• Mover – many people move during the summer and need help packing and loading the truck. Or offer your services to help students move in and out of the dorms.
• Party helper – offer your services to help set up, serve guests, and clean up for summer parties.

With a little creativity and advertising you may find yourself very busy and well-paid all summer. Sometimes all it takes is finding that first job and word-of-mouth gets you booked for the rest of the summer. And if nothing else, it’s a great time to clean your own home and sell your unused items at your own yard sale or using an online auction site such as eBay.

Are you running a summer business? Leave a comment to let us know what you’re doing and how it’s going.

Image courtesy of Jolante.

Newsletters are an excellent communication and marketing tool for your direct sales business. They help you connect with customers and prospects, provide value to readers, and keep customers up-to-date on promotions and product offerings. Some direct sales companies provide newsletters either by sending them directly to customers or making them available for consultants to send. If you are using a company provided newsletter, I recommend personalizing it as much as possible to make it more of a reflection of you.
 

If your company doesn’t provide a newsletter, create your own. Here are the steps to take to create one.

Step 1. Frequency: How often do you want to publish your newsletter? Remember each issue involves a few hours of preparation including creating the content. Establish a schedule you know you can keep up with. It is always easier to add supplemental issues or increase the frequency however decreasing the frequency can give a poor impression. Monthly or quarterly is probably a good place to start.

Step 2. Content: What is your newsletter going to be about? What are you going to include in your newsletter? Some newsletters have a single article and a promotion. Others have 3-5 articles and an equal amount of promotional content. What are your articles going to be about? Will you write them or will you hire a writer? Take a look at newsletters you like and consider why you like them. Consider what types of content will add value to your readers. What questions or problems do they have?

Step 3. Email or print: How are you going to distribute your newsletter? There are benefits to both. Email is very cost effective and instantaneous. Print is nice because it gives something tangible for customers to hold onto.

Step 4. Email Service: If you’re going to email your newsletter, consider paying for an email distribution and list management service. There are many available online. They offer newsletter templates, automatically manage the list subscriptions and unsubscribes, and enable you to create newsletters in advance and schedule them for future delivery. The price for services vary however many base their prices on the number of subscribers.

Recommended Resource
AWeber Autoresponder and Newsletter Service

Step 5. Subscribe Form: If offering an email newsletter, add a signup form on your website. This not only increases traffic and visitor value, it helps build a list of contacts and customers.

Step 6. Marketing: Let people know about your newsletter. Include a link to your subscription form in all email communications, signatures, and even consider adding it to your business card, brochure, and other marketing materials.

Step 7. Graphics: Graphics are a great way to make a newsletter visually interesting. Options include adding a logo or a header to each newsletter as well as including graphics, photos, and even charts within the newsletter. Stock photo sites are a good place to get started, however it is a good idea to make sure the reprint rights are available.

Newsletters are an excellent tool for connecting with and marketing to your customers and prospects on a regular basis. To make sure your newsletter is well-received, focus on providing quality content that will keep your readers interested and subscribed.