Business World Info

Online business directory gives an opportunity to business-owners to be accessible to a large number of prospective clients. They inform users about their business in an organized and in an interactive way. It is very easy to submit a business in an online directory. All you need to do is provide relevant information and attributes of your business using the step-by-step process on the business listing website.

An online business directory has surpassed the value and usefulness of print directories such as printed yellow pages books as they boast being more up to date, having greater convenience and include advanced search features. Today, people live in a fast paced world and seek instant gratification. So, if they want to find a business, the thought of searching in a big print directory often does not even cross their mind. They will simply make use of their PC or their smart-phone and search online to find a business. This is occurring more and more. This is because it is easy to search online using search engines and online directories. For instance, if a person is looking for a particular cafe or a place to eating in his neighborhood, he just needs to enter the name and location of the place. The search results will give him all the information he needs about the place. It will take just a few minutes to get the relevant information. Plus you can get a map – very important when you are out and about. You just can’t do this as effectively using a traditional prinyed directory.

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When you are involved in direct sales, keeping in touch with your customers is an excellent way to ensure that they will book parties with you and purchase your products on an ongoing basis. The Internet provides those who run direct sales businesses very simple and convenient ways to stay in touch with their client base. So just what are some ways that you can use the technology of the Internet to keep in touch with your customers?

Blogs
You can start a blog to keep in touch with your customers. A blog is basically an online journal and a great place to inform people of your business. With your blog, you can include informative articles relating to whatever product you maybe selling, keep your customers informed of product specials that both your company and you personally are offering and allow them to make comments about your posts should they have any questions. Blogger.com is a popular place for many to start blogs. No need to spend money as it is free.

Forums
You could start your own online forum to communicate with your customers. It is really quite simple to start your own message board. You can start different forums to deal with customer questions on specific products, customer complaint issues, product specials and even a forum where you can chat with your customers about any topic. Forums encourage interaction and provide an archive so others can review previous conversations.

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Positioning your offerings to play a more central role is the heart of this article. Most organizations have defined their role in serving customers and beneficiaries in a much too narrow way. That’s like an airline only offering to sell vacation travelers a one-way ticket.

Here’s an example: One of my students wanted to develop a breakthrough solution for flying relief supplies in war-ravaged and drought-stricken areas. He initially focused on flight safety, on-time arrival at the landing strips, and other flight-related measurements. I pointed out to him that what he was focusing on didn’t make any difference if the food, medicines, and supplies didn’t rapidly get to the people who most needed them.

Responding to that observation, the student chose instead to see his job as supervising a system for delivering the supplies to those who needed them. This focus meant coordinating with those who trucked and carried the food from the airstrips and being sure that distribution methods were effective in refugee camps and other disaster relief areas. With that shift in focus, food and medicine began arriving sooner and in greater quantities for those who had the greatest need.

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As a consultant, I am used to potential clients evaluating our services in terms of the size and frequency of the benefits they are seeking for their organization. Such an examination is usually done through reference checking with our past and current clients who have had similar issues. Once satisfied that we can help them with their specific issue, an engagement almost always follows.

I quickly learned, however, that clients were using us for what I perceived to be the wrong services. What clients thought were their most pressing issues were usually not their biggest opportunities.

Why? Clients didn’t know what their biggest opportunities were, but they were experts in identifying their biggest headaches. They were looking for Excedrin when there was a way to live a pampered life instead where there would be few headaches.

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Let’s face it. Women do most of the buying for families. Yet the average woman is totally occupied between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and almost as busy on the weekends. When do businesses think that busy women will be able to buy what they want to sell?

In December 2007, most retailers in the United States once again saw their unit volumes drop during the busy Christmas season. I predict that trend will continue as women shift their browsing and buying to those who make life more convenient.

Many organizations will expand their offerings to new types of customers and stakeholders, but fail to appreciate that those expanded offerings require a shift in when the offerings are available. In some cases, new types of customers need to be accommodated who aren’t being sought but could be attracted to earn a good profit.

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You can learn a lot by watching customers use your offerings and asking them about what you see them do. One business leader was amazed to watch her customers remove the decorations on her cakes and substitute their own. From that experience she learned to provide undecorated as well as decorated cakes.

Many leaders want to grow their customer or beneficiary base. While almost all strive in this direction, few succeed as much as they would like.

The approach that many take is to advertise more, offer special price breaks, and send mail to potential users. Those are all expensive and are easily offset by the efforts of competitors.

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Many for-profit manufacturers and service providers concentrate only on influencing their own prices and costs. In the process they ignore or are insensitive to what customers and end users pay to use these offerings. While this narrow viewpoint may be profitable, much more profit is missed because demand is dampened due to soaring costs incurred by customer and end users.

For example, my banker called to suggest that I open a new personal checking account. These accounts are free. I didn’t really need this checking account, but my interest was piqued when he told us I would receive a free BlackBerry portable digital assistant (PDA). I didn’t need a BlackBerry PDA, but figured that I could sell it on eBay and make a profit to put into my new checking account.

After signing up for a checking account, I learned that I would only receive a BlackBerry PDA if I subscribed to a service costing $720 for a year. Suddenly, I had a checking account and a “free” certificate for a PDA I didn’t want to spend $720 to use. The bank had wasted its time and money on me, and I had a checking account I didn’t need.

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A friend of mine wanted to advance his marketing career, but he felt frustrated. He was in charge of marketing for one of the lowest volume and unprofitable products in his company, Dream Whip. It was a powdered mix that could be turned into a whipped topping for desserts. Cool Whip was also made by his company, and that product was killing Dream Whip. What to do?

He headed for the company’s kitchen and asked the professionals there to find recipes that could use Dream Whip. One brilliant woman discovered that if you added Dream Whip to a cake mix you got a much higher and lighter cake which looked terrific.

By marketing that new recipe, my friend began a successful career that led to ultimately heading one of the largest food companies in the world. What can similar innovations in usage do for you?

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Most salespeople are encouraged to add more customers. They often receive commissions based on the volume they deliver. Change those commissions to reflect customer profitability, and you’ll see quite a change in which customers your salespeople go after.

Unless you support those sales efforts with the right offerings and marketing, however, you won’t make as much progress as you might. What should you do?

You want to grow. So you direct the salespeople to make calls twice as frequently on their accounts. Not much happens.

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Have you ever needed to pick up your laundry but had no time to do so? It can get pretty frustrating wearing dirty clothes while you wait for a chance to pick up the clean ones.

One dry cleaner in our area provided a great solution by putting in a self-service kiosk where you could drop off or pick up your laundry 24 hours a day. It’s quite impressive and saves lots of embarrassment.

Such a business model innovation can make a business much more profitable by extending the hours you can assist your customers without adding much cost.

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