When presenting your work before, team member or costumer your communication and your presentation skill are the two most important aspects of your presentation. It is crucial that you know what you are going to present and make sure you are prepared.
How to improve your presentations…..
Be prepared
The most important point when presenting is to be prepared. Preparation helps you to feel confident because you will know what you are talking about and are aware of the reason why you are making some key points. For many people the presentation part may not be so difficult because they know what they are going to say and have practiced this, however they don’t prepare themselves when it comes to answering tough questions and therefore they hesitate to find suitable answers. Therefore when you are preparing make sure you have a basic outline of what you may say to people when they ask you questions.
Know what you are presenting
When preparing the firstly ask yourself: What are you going to say and why do you want the audience attention? Firstly you need to be clear of what exactly you are presenting and then make the message clear to your audience and find possible ways to make your message memorable.
Know your audience
You need to know who will be listening to you and how much knowledge they would have about what you are presenting. More importantly it would be a good idea if you knew what their interest and concerns are, otherwise it is nothing but a waste of time when presenting your work to someone that may not even be interested. By gaining good knowledge about your audience then you should also know what kind of presentation they would like, whether it should be quick to the point, well detailed or even precise.
Practice
Many individuals make the mistake of nt practicing what they are going to present. It must be noted this is a mistake that many people make at first. By practicing your presentation you become more comfortable with what you are going to say, therefore when you are actually presenting you work you are able to focus on the audience and understand their response, rather than concentrating what you are going to say next. Remember when you present don’t talk as if you have memorized all your words because then you will just sound as if your are reading a book to your audience, you want to sound natural.
Present
Make sure you are prepared and arrive early to make sure that everything is set up, as you wanted it to and if it is not you have enough time to make these changes. Before you presentation if possible talk to people that will be in your audience, this will help you to feel more confident around them. When you are presenting don’t forget to make eye contact, this is allows the audience to know that it is them you are talking to and not yourself.
You have a great idea and want to start a new business or you may just want to expand your small business and take it to the next level. One of the major obstacles to this is not having the finance to do so. Therefore I will give you some tips on how to raise finance.
1. When negotiating for money make sure you take is serious and think about everything carefully. The same planning and thought as making a sale should go into it.
2. Make sure you know how much you want to raise as it can be very difficult to go and ask for more and that is not advised.
3. Think of overdrafts for the short term because usually you need to pay it back usually 12 months. If you want to raise long term finance you may have to sell shares, that’s if you have a company. You could also ask for long-term loan from the bank.
4. Usually you are expected to invest as much as an outside investor or maybe half. You may find that if an outside investor invests a lot more then you in the business you will end up losing control.
5. Talk and plan with your family before you go and secure loans on your house or give personal guarantees; while the reward may be great you do not want to put your family’s main assets at risk.
6. While you can use banks to raise money there are a number of other ways you could use to raise money, such as; private individuals and companies, fiends and family, local authorities and venture capitalists.
Once you have a business idea and you want to go ahead with it, a business plan is the next step before you do anything else. It is the business plan that will lead you to the next steps.
The general idea about a business plan is that it’s something the bank forces you to do if you are requesting a loan or on the other hand you are trying to persuade investors to invest in your business. However if you do think like that then you should probably stop because a business plan is actually necessary for you no matter how you plan to finance your business.
The main reason of writing a business plan when you have a business idea is to test if that actual idea is viable in the first place. Writing a business plan will essentially also help you to work out if your business idea has a chance of becoming into a successful and profitable business.
By writing a business plan you are required to research about your idea to get all the necessary information that will turn your idea into a successful enterprise. If after the research and after you finish your business plan it turns out that your idea doesn’t work then dump the idea and think of something else. All that has happened is that you have lost time but also learned from it.
On the other hand if you decide to go ahead without a plan and your business fails then you would have lost a lot of valuable resources because you may have failed due to the fact that there could have been thing you didn’t know but could have known.
You probably want to get on with your idea straight away and think you know everything but it always helps to be patient and invest some time and energy into writing a good business plan that will help you avoid failure. Remember "failure to plan is planning to fail".
Ok I am not how many of you have thought about this but video advertising is something many large businesses pay a lot of money for. As a small business owner you probably never thought about it because of its high costs. However the internet has broken these barriers and has enabled everyone and this includes Small Businesses to advertise through a video to their customers.
The great thing about this advertising method is that it’s free, as you probably guessed it I mean uploading a video of your business on video websites like youtube.com. Making a video and uploading is pretty easy and fast. Some videos on youtube.com get millions of views from people world wide and a lot of them are nothing special if you watch them.
Ok to put this into prospective youtube.com gets over 100 000 million hits a day and getting some of those visitors to view your business video will only do your business good. Upload your video on other video websites like Metacafe as well, don´t just limit yourself to youtube.com. So go ahead and give it a try.
I liked the video below from youtube, try and spend a few minutes viewing it because it is pretty informative.
Offering your services online also means that you have more options then ever when it comes to payment and it’s always an advantage to have as many payment options as possible.
Even a study by CyberSource Corp. stated that generally websites that offer a wide variety of payment options other than just the usual credit card option had a sales conversion rate of 12 higher then those offering one payment option additionally to credit cards to the credit card option.
So the more online payment options you offer the more online payments you will receive, different people like different options for their own personal reasons. It may be that some people view some payment options safer then others.
Anyway here are some of the online payment options you could offer on your site:
1) PayPal
PayPal has become known via the internet site Ebay as it is the main payment method used there. This has made millions of people worldwide of PayPal, generally it is a trusted payment option by people which is also why you should consider offering it as a payment method.
Now Paypal is a all-in-one payment solution. By using PayPal you are accepting Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express credit card payment. PayPal enables people to make use of Bank transfers and using their debit card to top their account up. The best thing about PayPal is that it’s a bit of a Pay As You Go system, what I mean is that there are no monthly fees for it nor are there any cancellation or setup fees. The amount PayPal charges depends on the your sales volume, however it is 1.9% to 2.9% plus 30 cents per transaction. For more information got to here to compare the PayPal payment solution .
2) Credit Cards
This is probably the payment method to have available if you are looking to receive payments online. It is also the payment option to have if you are going to offer only one option, (which I personally strongly don’t recommend) this would be the option to pick. Payment via Credit Cards is still the most widely used method when making payment online.
To be able to set up a credit card processing on your website you need to get an internet merchant account.
3) Debit Cards
As most people nowadays have a credit card this is definetly one of the payment methods to have as your payment option. During 2007 debit cards continued to be the most used payment method for online buyers in the UK so it would dfinatly be a mistake to ignore this fact.
4) Give Them Offline Payment Options Too
For some reason some people are unable to make payment online at all and it may be an idea to give your buyers the ability to make payment offline, so for example you could allow them to send you a cheque and only once the cheque has cleared you post the product or offer the service. The offline payment options are also relatively cheaper even though it takes longer to complete the transaction.
Communication is the most important factor for a business to be successful, therefore it can be argued that clear, effective business writing is more important than ever. For the reader to understand what you want, he or she must first understand precisely what you mean in your writing and then take action.
What many writers don’t remember while writing a business letter, is that when people read business letters the readers do not have the opportunity to interpret body language, tone of voice or signs. For that reason it is vital to be precise while writing a business letter. Once the reader has a clear understanding of what you are asking from them then they take action.
Here are some points to help reinforce good business writing:
- Be aware of what you want from your reader (e.g. buy your product, confirm a decision or advise etc)
- Avoid using long boring sentence that will loose your reader’s attention
- Sentences should be short and sharp
- Be clear about what you are writing
- Aim to use positive language rather than negative
- Use a good writing structure (This helps the reader understand you more as a person)
- Use correct punctuation
Moreover you can read some information on the software’s that can be used for business writing.
ESL Business Writing Software
This software can be useful as it analyzes your text through identifying any grammatical or spelling errors and editing and correcting.
All around the globe small businesses have been hit by the recent credit crises; if you have not already been affected then it will still come. Some analysts say that this will be a hard time for small business owners as they will find it difficult to find credit and continue their daily operations. However this is predicted to be a short term problem. While many big banks in USA and Europe go bust the ultimate affect will lead to many more small businesses going bust. The truth is harsh but it will happen. The main problem is that at this time investors and banks are scared of letting go of their money due to the uncertainty in the economy, investing in a very volatile economy is extremely risky. Furthermore as the banks go bust it means that they don’t actually have enough money to lend because investors have pulled their money out of the markets.
Unless you are selling in a very specific niche market and you do not need large amounts of credit you will be affected. Either your sales will fall as people stop spending and start saving or the bank will not give you the much needed loan. If you live in UK or the USA you probably have noticed how the banks advertisements have changed from advertising their "great" mortgage deals to advertising their "great" saving accounts. This demonstrates how the banks have anticipated the change in the economy and are preparing for a recession in the economy.
Many of the big players fall during a recession because they are too dependant on a growing economy and fail or refuse to accept that the economy will not keep growing for hundreds of years without also major falling just like major increases. Being small during a recession can also be used as a major advantage because it means you are more flexible in your operations. What I mean here is that if you see that you are unable to meet mortgage re-payments then sell off and downsize, don’t use all your savings up and then before you know it you have gone bust. Another example is that if you have two warehouses and your customer base has decreased then downsize to one warehouse.
My main point for small business owners is that do not go against the flow but with the flow. While in a booming economy you expanded in a failing economy you downsize.
For small business marketing is the lifeblood, it is important to understand that real marketing involves every aspect of your business including yourself. It is understandable that while marketing your business you want to make the most of the money you have budgeted for your advertising, therefore small business needs to plan wisely and slowly.
Spread the word
Networking is an important aspect, as it allows you to spread the word about your business. This may mean that you can join up local business groups and allow yourself to interact with different people. When you get opportunities to speak to small business groups or professional organizations then let nothing stop you from doing so.
Local Media
Take advantage of the media in the town or city you live in. This includes newspapers and magazines that are able to write profiles about businesses. Therefore make sure you contact your local newspaper pr magazine and request whether they would be interested in writing a profile about your business. Of course you must remember to be prepared for the interview and be aware of what your business has to offer.
Good offers
Make an offer that no other business has made, this may include giving a good away for free. Every costume likes the feeling of getting something for free. Foe example if your business involves sweets, then give some away to several different costumers.
Business Cards
It can be argued that business cards are the most underutilized tools for marketing your business. When creating your business card you need to know what valuable information you want on it. With a business card you can just hand it to anyone you want.
Use Internet
The internet has spread world wide, for that reason you should take advantage of it as much as you can. Thus, there is no excuse for not creating a professional website for your business. This allows people to find information about your business in their own homes. However, you must add all needed information about your business.
