Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Appointment Setting - What No One Ever Told You

The first person, the visitor sees is the receptionist. The receptionist duty is to make sure the client has a pleasant visit to the office. The following are a few things the receptionist can do to guarantee a second visit from the client:

She will give him the status report by telling him if he is early, late, or will need to wait five minutes or more past his appointment. You can make the visitor comfortable while he is waiting for his appointment, by offering him a seat in the receptionist area and some refreshments such as coffee, tea, or sodas. Some receptionist areas are equipped with a television to watch while waiting. If the visitor has a coat, you may ask to hang it up for him. Make certain there are current magazines for him to read in the receptionist area or waiting room.

In case of an emergency and the meeting is going to be delayed, the receptionist should apologize to the visitor and ask him to reschedule the appointment. Never keep a visitor waiting more than five minutes. If the visitor arrives early, come out and greet him and accept his apology. If the visitor arrives late, you should also accept his apology.

When seeing the visitor out, you may walk him back to the front office or to the receptionist area and exchange a few pleasantries as you say good-bye. Do not chat at length, but let him know in a polite manner that you have to go back to work.

In case no one ever told you, most people return to the establishment that gave them good service, treated them well and made them feel comfortable. Many people will spend money at places where the price of the service or product is reasonable, the environment is pleasant , they offer quality service, congenial atmosphere, and the staff always makes them feel good. Don't you like visiting an office where the staff is friendly, and they make you fell like part of the family? For this and other reasons, many people keep the same doctor, dentist and hair dresser for years.

Are you interested in my online courses to start a business?

To the new and experienced entrepreneurs, getting help with your small business is very crucial to your success. Getting the right help will cause you to avoid costly mistakes, and it can also help you to save a lot of time, money and energy. You will need to get the right help to form the legal structure of the business, financial, management, procurement/certification, marketing, pricing products, preparing a business plan, and more. If you are a business owner who is wondering if you can take your business to new heights, contact Dr. Waters at tina.waters@waienterprises.com

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Unique Business Opportunities

If looking for unique business opportunities, many people are turning to businesses online. While there are plenty of opportunities to make money via the Internet in today's growing global marketplace, you should not rule out the possibilities of offline business opportunities.

Offline business opportunities are just as vast and endless as those available to you on the Internet. Be sure to do plenty of research in the area of interest and expertise that you looking into to include these types of unique business opportunities as well. Perhaps you are an avid gardener and your talent is creating a beautiful well-landscaped garden. Maybe you'd be better at managing your own actual storefront offering tax and accounting services.

Whatever avenue you choose, there is still power and endless income potential in offline business opportunities. In fact, they may work particularly well for your industry. If you don't already have a particular area of interest in mind, take the time to do thorough research into all business opportunities available to you, whether online or offline.

This is not to say that once you've decided on one of the many unique business opportunities available to you, that you cannot forget the about the Internet. Even with offline business opportunities, keep in mind that a website offering unique content and information in your area is an excellent way to market your skills and products and create further revenue. There are also many other ways you can market your business via the Internet.

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Monday, June 11, 2007

Freight Brokering - Stuck in the Middle

First, the freight broker is never legally liable for damaged cargo or missing pieces unless they assume this by contract or if they are negligent in their operations. So, what does he or she do when these problems arise (and they will at one time or another)?

The broker should be ready to talk to the receiver, the shipper and the carrier when these problems arise. But it's up to the shipper to file a claim should they decide to. The shipper often times assesses a dollar amount of damage and then deducts it from what they owe the broker. And the broker then turns around and deducts it from the motor carrier.

This is not the right way to do it. But this is the way many shippers choose to do it. And the broker has no control over how the shipper wants to handle this.

Second, there are all kinds of issues that may arise when there is damaged cargo or missing pieces. These issues are usually strictly between the shipper and carrier.

The carrier normally assumes full liability for any damage or missing pieces. But what happens if the carrier says the damage occurred before loading. What happens when there is concealed damage that wasn't apparent during unloading? What happens if the carrier is not allowed to observe the loading? How is he to know what the count is that he picked up? What if, what if, what if.

There may be a lot of what ifs. But the fortunate thing for brokers is - these issues are between the shipper and carrier. The broker should only play a small, intermediary role when dealing with these problems.

That's not to say that all shippers understand this. They may want the freight broker to assume responsibility for clearing things up. But this is not correct. It is the broker's responsibility to know where the broker stands in the midst of these problems. Otherwise, a shipper may intimidate the broker either out of ignorance of the law or just sheer ignorance.

Unless you are an attorney, it's difficult to keep up on all the court cases that involve claims and damaged goods. And from what I understand, a court may rule one way in one part of the country and another court may rule another way. So there's no "black and white". It's all gray area.

The facts and issues involved in court cases are bad enough to follow. Then you have to try and interpret what the attorney's are saying. Attorneys, to be blunt, don't know how to write for the general public. It's just a fact – black and white. So, you have to try the best you can to understand exactly what point the attorney is making. And this isn't easy.

In the meantime, you have to live with the ambiguities the best you can. Things won't change much in the foreseeable future.

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Wednesday, June 06, 2007

The Technology Small Enterprises Need At Prices They Can Afford

The South African Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector is the new target for technology companies seeking to sell products and services. However, what does this turnaround in attitude mean for the small business owner?

In the past SMEs were seen as too small, with limited resources, requiring too much investment in time and back-up support from vendors. Also, it took too many small transactions to generate the same revenue that a large corporate or government contracts would make. So, the focus was on winning large government tenders and winning corporate clients, which brought in huge revenues once the contract was signed.

As for SMEs, it was much easier to sell them products and services that almost fit, and if the match was not so prefect, that was just too damn bad. You get what you pay for, and SMEs were seen to be paying little.

However, circumstances are changing and recently a number of ICT companies (ICT), such as Telkom, Cisco Systems, Acer and Dell have publicly stated the SME sector is a recognized growth market and they are developing ICT products and services aimed specifically to meet their needs.

African research house BMI-TechKnowledge says while SMEs accounted for 20% of technology companies' revenue in 2006, their contribution will grow to 80% by 2015. Cinderella is becoming the favored princess, but what does all this new attention mean for the small business owner?

Your needs count

Technology providers are making an effort to understand the technology needs of SMEs and what particular challenges they have to deal with to thrive.

What this means is that as a favored buyer, you are now a position to make demands, and to give your business to whoever meets those demands best. Before, you could not complain too loudly, as you knew too well your hard earned cash wouldn't be missed too much anyway.

Products that fit

No longer does the SME owner/ manager have to take the technology solution that the salesman wants to sell and make do. The focus is now on ensuring that you get what you need to deliver your products and services efficiently.

Your supplier should also make sure that your technology solutions work efficiently, without uour having to worry about the details of how it works. "The SME owner is like a conductor, who guides his orchestra to deliver beautiful music. But he does not have to fine tune the musical instruments or worry about the acoustics of the theatre," an analyst says.

There are still complaints among SMEs that large vendors "dumb down" on products that were initially intended for the corporate market, but many more entrepreneurs are developing products specifically for small business enterprises. Appropriate funding model

One of the challenges that SMEs face is cash flow – SMEs never have too much coming in, and usually there is too much going out. Many vendors now offer funding models for technology investments that do not take hamper your SMEs operations.

Some of them even go as far as to say their funding models that allow you to keep money in your pocket, which you can use for other areas of your business. Find out how they can do that and if this kind of deal will cost you more than just paying cash in the long run.

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Friday, June 01, 2007

Why Invest In A Home Business?

You can avoid all the negative things associated with going to the office everyday by investing in a home based business. As the term denotes, a home based business refers to a business venture that is based right in the comforts of your home.

Most people dream of a home based job not only because it offers them an opportunity to work at home sans the hassle of going out and traveling to work everyday but also because of it financial rewards. A home based business may be risky because one never knows what fate awaits his business venture. However, a person who has successfully established a home based business has struck gold.

A home based business affords one all the freedom to do as he pleases and to operate his business using his own style and skills. On top of that, a home based business requires little capital and low overhead. Compared to a mall-based business which requires expensive rentals, a home based business requires no rent at all and this can be a favorable factor in the success of the business.

A person starting up a home based business will usually choose a business which is already familiar to him either because he is already practically in that business or it is his hobby. In such case, it is presumed that he already has most of the equipment needed to start the business. Most homes already have telephone connections so using a telephone for your home based business would no longer be an additional expense.

If you are already equipped with computers and printers you can also use them in your home based either for printing marketing leaflets or for setting up an inventory. You can even make your computer the basis of your new home business catering to the printing and computer requirements of your neighborhood.

A home business does not only allow minimal capital but it also creates savings for the businessman. The savings can be in the form of your budget for fuel, working clothes, vehicle depreciation and time which would be otherwise expended if you work somewhere else.

If you work for someone else, you get a fixed amount every month no matter the amount of effort you exert in your work. If you own a home based business, what you will earn will depend on how industrious you are and how dedicated you are to your business. Simply said, the more effort you exert in a home based business the better your financial rewards will be.

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