How to Create a Small Business Advertising Campaign

The great thing about a well-planned advertising campaign for a small business is that the time and effort spent in the planning stage should offset having a limited budget. I've known other business owners who have spent lots of money on ads without planning, and the results aren't pretty. The very fact that you want to have an overall plan is going to give you an advantage. In this article, I want to give you more detailed and practical tips on getting your plan accomplished.

1) First, Realize That Advertising Does Not Have to Be Expensive to Be Effective

I believe the best forms of advertising are the kinds that keep as much money in your business as possible. Jay Levinson's "Guerrilla Marketing" is a great book to start if you're brainstorming ideas on methods you can use. You may end up finding several inexpensive techniques that cost the same financially but reach more people than one expensive technique.

2) Let Word-of-Mouth Advertising Work in Your Favor

An example of this would be giving an existing customer a special deal on your product or service (with the understanding that it's a situation where you're both winning), and tell them you'll offer the same special deal to their friends if they mention your customer referred them. Even if a customer only refers one other person, send them a thank you card or small gift. This will encourage them to send more people over time because they have an incentive to do so.

3) Creating Incentives That Don't Cost You Money Upfront

Another way to generate more sales from your existing customer base is to offer incentives such as $10 off for every $100 spent. If the person was originally going to spend $75, they'll likely go ahead and spend the $100 just to get that incentive. It's still a win-win situation for both parties.

4) Partner With Other Small Businesses and Community Organizations

This can help you by spreading out expenses and can allow you to reach more people as well. For example, you'd be amazed at how inexpensive it is to sponsor a local high school sports team (along with other businesses) compared to other forms of advertising.

Additional Tip:

• Take some time to study the advertising techniques of successful small businesses in your local area. After awhile, you may notice some trends that will help you.

How to Recognize a Fake Work-at-Home Job

The idea of working at home has been growing in appeal along with the growth of the Internet, but you should be careful when it comes to work-at-home job scams. In this article, I will give you some guidelines to help you in your search.

1) Ask yourself if you are you being asked to pay for the opportunity?

There are legitimate business opportunities where you need a small amount of start-up income, but those are not jobs--you should be told from the beginning what the relationship is between you and the company.

If you're being told that it's a job and you're being asked to pay for a "list" of possible employers, it is most likely a scam. The same information you're being given is likely available for free if you take the time to research it.

2) Does the compensation seem appropriate for the job?

If you're being promised thousands of dollars a month to stuff envelopes or read e-mail, there is probably something wrong.

One growing scam involves identity theft-people are told they'll receive large sums of money for receiving packages at their home and sending them to an overseas address. What the people don't realize is that the merchandise was bought online using stolen credit card information and that their address is where it's going to be tracked.

3) Find out if the business registered with the Better Business Bureau or a similar regulatory organization. (Note: Go to their site directly--a logo on the business page alone may not be real)

One day I thought I had found a legitimate opportunity. The pay seemed reasonable and the company seemed like it would be good to work for. Then I looked them up on the Better Business Bureau's website (www.bbb.org) and found they had several lawsuits against them that were enough to make me change my mind.

Every company is going to have its issues, but it's best to check them out on non-partial sites to find out their background has a major problem.

4) Lastly, listen to your intuition.

People sometimes underestimate their ability to spot something fake. If you keep your emotions in balance-not letting yourself get overly excited or too negative-you can likely find some great opportunities if you take the time to research.

More Tips:

• Consider how your own skills and abilities can be used to do something on your own as opposed to seeking out a specific employer. There is plenty of opportunity out there if you set your mind to something.
• Realize that transitioning to working at home may be a process for you. It's better to exercise patience and do it right than try to get rich quick.

How-to Grow a Home-Baseed Business Smartly

Growing a home-based business shares many aspects of growing a traditional small business. There are however a few specific details you need to consider in deciding if the timing is right to grow and how to do it. In this article, I will address areas where you can focus your attention and draw out greater profits.

1) Look at your overhead costs.
When you expand, you need to consider if the rate your overhead is going to increase along with your profits. If your overhead is increasing at a higher rate than your profits in an expansion, it may be a bad move.

On the other hand, if you can do something to increase your profits while keeping your overhead nearly the same, you're putting yourself in a more stable position for growth.

There comes a certain point in home-based businesses where you may need to take it out of your home. This is a major decision, and you need to make sure your business can cash flow enough to cover rent and any additional expenses of a storefront and make a significantly greater profit. Never buy a location outright because you often have no idea if it's going to work long-term for your business.

2) Take a look at your time.
In business, the ideal situations are moves you can make where the business is taking up less of your time and still making the same amount of profit.

On-line businesses are a great example of this in that once you develop everything on the front end, they have a 24-hour a day element to them that operates regardless to what you're physically doing.

Sometimes you have more work available than you can handle, and it makes sense to bring on another person. Instead of a traditional employer-employee situation, you may want to consider working out deals where the new person gets a percentage of the profit they bring in instead of an hourly wage. This ensures you're not going to be drained by someone who doesn't work. Check with a local business attorney in your area for more information on how you can set this up. Also, never enter into legal partnership situations--most fail when two or more people have different directions they want a business to go.

3) Decide whether you want to grow in quality or quantity.
Either business model will work, but you need to decide what is the best direction for your product or service.

If you have a service-based business, consider the fact that gained experience has value. At a certain point, you should be able to charge higher rates for a higher quality performance that you provide. This will result in less customers and less hassle but with the same or greater amounts of profit.

In other cases, you may need to do more what you're already doing. Suppose you have a craft business and buy supplies in small quantities in the beginning. As you grow, you should feel more comfortable in buying more supplies in bulk. Your initial costs go down, and you'll make more profit even though you haven't changed the price of your goods.

4) Make sure you can cash flow any major changes to your business.
I've seen too many businesses go under because they become too leveraged with debt. It can be hard enough to run a business that you don't need the added stress of keeping above interest payments.

5) Lastly, consider areas where you can diversify or branch into.
Over time, you probably have learned a little about other businesses related to your own. If it makes sense, it may be a good idea to branch into those areas. Having more than one service can also make your business more stable.

How to Write Natural Dialogue in Fiction Stories

In creating novels and short stories, it can sometimes be difficult to create natural and realistic dialogue. In this article, I'll show you ways you can solve this problem.

1) The first step involves taking a look at your characters.

Keep in mind traits such as personality, where they are from, their ages, and their education. Dialogue is a tool that you can use to show these traits to your reader without directly telling them. Taking the time to do this will help you determine not only what a character might say, but how they would say it.

2) Second, mentally picture your characters interacting as if they were on a TV show or a play.

Is there anything about what they're saying to each other that seems odd or out of place? Sometimes a sentence may be correct from a grammar standpoint, but you may have to reword it for dialogue because of how people speak in reality.

3) Third, read the dialogue out loud.

This will help your pacing. If you feel like you're out of breath after a string of dialogue, you may want to shorten your sentences. Likewise, if you feel like the dialogue is too short for the situation, you can smooth it out.

4) Last, do a check of your overall story.

Do you have a lot of "he said" and "she replied" after each sentence? You can eliminate a lot of those after you've established who is talking. This makes the story as a whole flow a lot better.


More Tips

• Try paying attention to the conversations of people. You'll begin to pick up on patterns such as rapid subject changes.

• Think of ways you can show your character's personality by how much they speak and how much they listen.

• On the other extreme, you don't necessarily want your dialogue to completely reflect how people talk--especially filler words such as "um."

• Avoid phonetically spelling out accents of characters if at all possible. This can annoy your readers after a certain point. Mention the accent, but make the words themselves easy to read.

• Also avoid modern slang if you intend for the story to be longer-lasting.

Get more character development tips at The Fictional Character Development Template.