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Making Time for Marketing

Most self-employed professionals feel they have no time for marketing. If you are the only one to serve the clients, manage the business, and perform all the sales and marketing functions, you really feel scarcity of time. Some Time Management techniques can guide you to defer tasks or delegate them; you can manage time for making calls, writing letters, or updating marketing materials. Have you already tried all those methods and discovered that time is still scarce”

What is your real challenge – to find more time for marketing or to MAKE time” Every day, you take part in many time-consuming activities which surely arent related to marketing. You could integrate marketing with all those things you are already doing if you could check some examples of how that can work:

1. Attending workshops or cultural events with some business contacts can help develop better relationship instead meeting one-to-one.
2. If you are planning to meet someone on lunch or coffee, add one or two persons to this get-together. This is great way to make new contacts. New invitees would appreciate the opportunity and you can have a rewarding group discussion.
3. It is good to invite someone to join you for a walk in the park or a game of tennis. Such meetings help building business contacts. You can meet some contacts in golf course where you can discuss business while doing exercise.
4. While reading an interesting article in a magazine or online, think of three people whom you could send it with a short “thought-you-would-be-interested” note. It will take only a moment, but can make a big impression on the recipient.

Sounds interesting” Get familiar with more ideas to make time for marketing, visit:

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/salesmarketing/a/marketingtime.htm

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Deciding Price Strategy For Your Product or Service

As an entrepreneur, first thing you need to decide is your price strategy. Fixing right price for your product or service is major aspect of a marketing program. Considering some basic factors may help you in taking right decision in this direction.

1. How do you plan to position your product in the market” If you are planning to market your products through a discount store, you will try to keep your prices lower than your competitors. On the other hand, if your product is an exclusive luxury item, keeping low price tag might hurt your image. The pricing must be consistent with the positioning. People strongly emphasize to the idea that you get what you pay for.
2. Do some market research to find out acceptability of your product at a particular price. Work out demand curve at various prices to assess the best price for your product or service.
3. Calculate the fixed and variable costs of your product or service. Ensure that your gross margin (price minus cost of goods) sufficiently covers your fixed overhead to get you acceptable profit margin. Many entrepreneurs under-estimate this aspect which gets them into trouble.
4. There are other areas to be examined before you decide pricing your product or service. To get detailed information on this topic visit:

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/salesmarketing/a/pricingstrategy.htm

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The New Approach to Business Development

As a smart startup entrepreneur you should minimize your time and efforts by shifting your approach to business development. During the early stages of your business planning, you come across two groups of tasks:

1. The busy work: The startup busy work means the task oriented stuff. Starting the busy work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve started the business.
2. The business work: This is the area where business development ideas are constructed and dissected. Actual business planning starts during this period,

Few things might help you plan your business development smartly.

1. Finding couple of trial client is important before you spend substantially on marketing materials. Get an impressive presentation folder with one sheet description of your business. You will have to meet 10 persons to get your first two customers. Those ten will help you figure out whether you are moving in the right direction.
2. Organizing demonstrations and presentations in your potential client meetings can help you find solutions about enhancing sale appeal of your product or service. Wisely allocate your budged on product or service development.
3. Dont avoid meeting a new client. The key to balancing busy work vs. business work is to plan as you go. Most of information that you need for business development will come from actual clients.

To get a clear picture of the direction your new business will take, focus on business development activities and resist procrastination by hiding behind busy work.

To know more on this subject, visit http://www.womenentrepreneur.com/2010/11/the-new-approach-to-business-development.html

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