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How President’s Day Can Benefit Your Business

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Presidents’ Day is supposed to celebrate two of the United States’ greatest leaders, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but that’s not what usually happens on the Presdient’s Day holiday.

What comes to mind when you think of Presidents Day?

Its car sales, mattress discounts or furniture bargains. Retailers use the February weekend to move inventory by dropping prices on their available stock. Find out how your small business can stake a claim to the Presidents Day Weekend Sale.

1.      Partner with Retailers

If you sell clothes, cars, mattresses, furniture, or appliances, please stop reading here. Any other business can angle in on the President’s Day sales by teaming up with the aforementioned businesses. Some ideas:

  • Business Cash Advance… partner with merchants and retailers to provide them with the necessary working capital so that they can clear out their inventory by dropping prices and making Presidents Day a blockbuster sales weekend.
  • Search Marketing… retail businesses need your help creating President’s Day-themed pay per click marketing, SEO and more.
  • Call Centers… could help retailers with anwering service calls and inquiries from potential customers regarding Presidents Day sale, hours of operations, available product discounts, returns etc.

2.      Develop a New Product or Promotion with a Presidents Day Spin

Don’t have a remotely presidential product or service? Create one! One clothing boutique owner held a President’s Day sale on everything red, white and blue in the store. A hotel drummed up February business with the ad copy: “Give her the first lady treatment she’s really been wanting… get the presidential suite.”  Tell a Presidents marketing story on your e-commerce website or physical storefront and you’ll find ways to divert those Presidents Day sale dollars to less traditional products and services.

3.      Celebrate Presidents Day Weekend with a “buy one get one free” special

The central message of President’s Day happens to coincide with a time-honored marketing strategy for clearing out inventory: “buy one get one free”. With the on going recession, now might be the time to offer a “buy one get one free” deal for your product or service: anyone can fall in love with  “2-for-1” low prices during this deep recession.

4. Presdient Obama’s Memorabilia lets supporters make the most out of their bragging rights.

With first African American President in the White House, President Obama fans will wear the victory on their sleeves –and coffee mug, license plate, or anything else that can be stamped with President Obama’s picture for 2010 and beyond. Don’t feel restricted by whether or not an item has anything to do with President Obama. In fact, the more unconventional it is for an item to carry President Obama’s picture, the more in demand it might be.

In the words of President Shirley, “this Presidents Day, it is appropriate to remember history and to consider why America celebrates the lives of its first and 16th presidents, considered by many scholars to be the two greatest we have ever had.” Follow these creative Presidents Day strategies and let your celebration of the country’s Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln blossom into positive cash flows.

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Posted in Business Cash Advance | 17 Comments »

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Entrepreneurs Threat From China

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Many executives and small business entrepreneurs are of the opinion that China is growing into a major threat. IT services, Energy and Manufacturing industries are particularly concerned about the unfair competition due to China’s undervalued currency that has been artificially pegged to the US dollar to help prop Chinese exports to US and Europe. A G-7 meeting in Canada will most likely be a forum for discussing remedies for global currency imbalances, with a focus on the yuan. But can outsiders really do anything to influence China’s exchange rate?

China has also made signifcant changes in its education system. English language has become part of their core syllabus and students are much more fluent in English than a few years back. Add to it the advantages of subsidized government infrastructure, low cost labor, friendly taxation rules, and qualified young talent – China is most definitely a competition to take seriously for outsourcing services such as payroll, call centers, medical billing, answering services, etc.

Products and equipment are being manufactured in China and sold at lower costs than the cost of raw materials to manufacture in the US or Europe. Mining equipment, toy supplies, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment, and a slew of other products are manufactured on Chinese soil and exported all over the world to US, Europe and Asia. Recently, China just became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world overtaking Japan and Korea.

At the same time, China’s purchasing power has increased over the years, and in the global marketplace that is good news for all businesses as China becomes a consumer market for US companies and businesses to sell their products an services. However, can the rest of the world simply afford to wait for Beijing to make the decision to revalue the yuan and open its markets?

 America’s economy has been driven by its entrepreneurial spirit. Let there be no mistake, it is the spirit of its entrepreneurs and the infrastructure that made US an economic super power and juggernaut for the past century. However, the American entrepreneurial spirit is driven by freedom of expression, value creation and the betterment of our lives while Chinese entrepreneurs work within a social framework that includes an element of government control and lack of self expression. We just recently witnessed Google’s commercial retreat from China highliting that freedom of speech and privacy has limits in China. The US State Department has had talks with the Chinese Ambassador in Washington regarding the troubling issues related to cyberattacks on Google and that a “blanket denial” by China on the issue would not be helpful with regards to the broader aspects of US-China relationship.

However, the Google-China spat is unlikely to have any adverse impact on US’ broader relationships with Beijing…It is far more stable than it has been in some time. There are a range of issues where the countries have disagreements. But, there were many facets to the US-China relationship and a cross-cultural understanding could create healthy co-opetition which could help speed up a global economic recovery.

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Posted in Payroll Services | 4 Comments »

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Top 5 Return On Investments (ROI) For Your Business In 2010

Friday, January 15th, 2010

The recession is forcing small businesses to slash budgets and re-roganize for the new economy. Relentless focus on return on investment is the objectives for every business in 2010. Two trends that are gaining popularity are more outsourcing and a shift to online marketing and advertising. Five business ideas that will gain momentum in 2010 are:

Social media marketing

Social media has become increasingly popular with the young and the old. Social media marketing companies tap into this pool to market your business to a wide audience and create a buzz through forums and discussions. It is an explosive medium as word of mouth can spread about your business like wild fire. Vigilant businesses can enhance their customer relationships and build a customer-friendly image by monitoring and addressing any negative feedback that is posted on these websites so it does not result in bad PR.

Search engine optimization

Nothing can trump your website ranking on the first page in organic search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo!  for relevant search keywords. White Hat SEO companies  focus on building relevant traffic to your websites by researching on keywords that will convert into sales, effective link building to make sure your website is indexed by tier 1 search engines so your website can be found by users online, link baiting to attract visitors to engage with the content on your site and social bookmarkingof your website on the relevant social networking and media properties.

Pay-per-click marketing

PPC campaigns eliver results that are measurable and can provide a significant Return on Investment (ROI)  for your business if you can identify and bid on the keywords that result in conversion into qualified business leads or credit card merchant sales. Search Marketing companies make sure your ppc campaigns are more effective by placing the right bids so that you can meet your ROI objectives.

Call Centers

While businesses have been compelled to lay off staff to slash their expense budgets for 2010, work still needs to be done. By outsourcing call center services, businesses ensure trained l center professionals handle customer service calls, interact with suppliers, take orders, qualify sales leads, provide technical support and also act as an answering service, all at significantly lower overhead costs.

Medical Billing

Outsourcing Medical billing can alleviate the workload on healthcare practitioners and medical centers by solving the time consuming task of filing claims, keeping track of medical billing and code changes, collecting revenues on difficult claims so healthcare professionals can focus on their primary focus ie providing for healthcare to patients and consumers.

As more small businesses rely on outsourcing services and permanent temporary staffing to keep expenses low, we can expect the US economy to recover from the deepest recession since the great depression.

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Posted in Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

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Hot or Not in 2010?

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

Call centers are a hot commodity in 2010, helping companies retain customers and build customer loyalty so that businesses can benefit from repeat customer visits and product purchases. With fewer consumers and businesses opening up their wallets and spending in this economy outsourced call centers have become an important business strategy for both large and small business in 2010. Businesses can save big dollars by tapping into the economies of scale that outsourcing call center companies offer along with minimal upfront investment. With the pressure on margins and the economic upheaval, call centers are expected to grow in demand in 2010.

Within the call center industry, VoIP services and self-service applications are becoming an industry standard. Focus is on operational excellence, efficient use of resources, customer value and trainings to keep call center personnel updated and proficient so that they may handle demanding customers with ease. Some call centers cross-train workforce to maximize potential and flexibility.

Modern call centers offer much more than call handling. Call center services can cover order collection, handling email and chat communications, tele-messaging, sending faxes and text messages from PDAs and cell phones, and more. Promptness and efficiency are key elements of the services.

Call centers are making great strides by incorporating technology into their business practices. Depending on business needs, a business can select add-on services such as integrating the call center services with CRM applications, speech recognition to enhance customer interactions, predictive dialing to save time and costs, call routing to increase first-call resolution rates and manage call spikes and email management for better response times.

Off-shore call center outsourcing, at a time unemployment rates are breaking barriers in the US, is building up a protectionist sentiment. Off-shore call center services have also received flak lately due to language issues and low quality services. In fact, many businesses are moving their call centers back on shore to avoid losing customers. Though off-shore call center companies will still be popular because of their cost savings, they have their work cut out.

On-shore call center services are coming up at a rapid pace in rural America. Home-based call agents are also becoming popular. High speed connections and technology are making it possible for on-shore call centers to offer attractive prices to their clients and grow profitably.

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Don’t Go On Vacation Until You Have Customers under Control

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Competitive times have become even more cutthroat due to the economic recession. Small businesses, hit hardest by the recession, cannot afford to miss out on potential customer calls. The biggest barrier between small businesses and the realization of ambitious plans is restricted cash flow. Outsourced Call Centers enable small businesses to offer their customers the same services as large businesses at affordable costs.

Keep things moving forward

When a new customer calls in, you don’t want her to be greeted with an automated voice message while you’re on vacation. Answering services can keep things moving forward by completing the preliminaries and reach you on your mobile phone if it requires your urgent attention.

Big does matter

If a small business wants to grow out of its “smallness”, it has to aim higher than small customers. Small businesses trying to win contracts with big corporations need to project the image of a big business to be even considered seriously.  A call center works like round-the-clock personal secretaries for small businesses. They receive calls from customers, suppliers and partners with professional efficiency.

Offset downsizing with answering services

While many small businesses have been compelled to downsize to reduce expenses, the action should not affect the quality of operations. Trained answering service personnel receive calls, address the caller’s concerns and can connect them to you if required.

Get more time to focus on business growth

Call centers give youmore time to pursue revenue generating tasks instead of expending valuable employee hours handling routine calls. Call center ecompanies can be trained to answer typical questions, provide information, and connect customers to experts only when needed.

Answering services companies are an asset to small businesses. Business owners can leave office for long or short breaks without worrying about missed calls. Exceptional situations demand exceptional solutions.

Answering services are a convenient and affordable option for small businesses to rely on in the recessional environment.

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