Stay Home Entrepreneur - resources for business development

Top Ten Email Marketing Hints & Tips
by Michelle Keegan, Email Marketing Diva®, Constant Contact®

If it were any hotter here in Boston, we’d melt! I hope you’re enjoying the season, whatever the temperature, where you are.

For this late summer issue of Email Marketing Hints & Tips, I have gathered the most useful, most requested and most frequently read articles from the archive and wrapped them up into one fabulous “click-fest” of an issue.

Confirm that you’re an email marketing expert, refresh your knowledge or learn something brand new that will help you dramatically improve your email marketing results! This Top Ten List of Email Marketing Hints & Tips covers practical and actionable information that every good email marketer should know.

1) Keep Your Customers with Email
Success and profitability is all about creating loyal customers and driving interest, repeat business and referrals. Are you communicating enough?

2) 10 Tips on Getting and Keeping Permission
As permission-based email marketers, we need to remain diligent in our efforts to earn and keep the permission of our subscribers to the best of our ability. Learn permission best practices in this article.

3) Your From line: benefit or barrier?
This article covers the "From" line, and what you can do to make sure your From line serves as an advantage, instead of an obstacle.

4) Your Subject line: fabulous or filtered?
Learn how to write a "Subject" line that gets your emails delivered and opened.

5) Get More Clicks With a Good Call-to- Action
Whatever action you want your recipients to take, you can make it happen more often with a good call-to-action. Learn how in this article.

6) Checklist - 25 Questions Before You Send
25 questions you should answer before you press that send button (8 of these questions address the new Can Spam Law, in particular). So, get ready to put your email campaign to the test!

7) 5 Tips to Increase Your Email Deliverability
Customer acquisition is expensive, and undeliverable emails could mean the loss of customers and prospects that you paid dearly to acquire. Learn about email bounces and how to minimize them in this article.

8) 6 Tips to Get Your Email Opened and Read
Learn how recipients really feel about your marketing emails, and get tips on increasing opens in this article.

9) The Lowdown on Email Opens - Plus 3 Tips
Most email marketers have seen a decline in open rates over the last year or so. Find out why and what you can do about it.

10) The Truth About Blacklists and How They Affect You
Email blacklists, a.k.a. blocklists, can affect your email deliverability, but they do not have as much of an impact as you may think. Learn more in this article.

There's lots more where this came from! Browse through our resources section to find the complete collection of Email Marketing Hints & Tips plus tutorials, whitepapers, statistics and more.

Michelle Keegan is the Email Marketing Diva® for Constant Contact® the leading Do-It-Yourself Email Marketing provider for small and medium-sized businesses. Michelle has over 12 years of experience in sales and marketing and has spent the last 7 years focused on best practices in email marketing for small business.

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Business Plan Sample Guide - courtesy of Ladies Who Launch

BUSINESS PLAN SAMPLE GUIDE

A business plan is one of the best tools you can create to help you reach your long term goals, not to mention a great exercise to help you determine whether your idea has viable revenue opportunities. As part of your business plan exercise, you should also consider creating a list of action steps. Underneath each category of the plan, create a list of short term, medium term and long term action steps and make sure to review them weekly and monthly for checks, changes and updates. This will keep you organized and on target.

The following are crucial components of any business plan along with questions that you should answer within each component. Depending on the product or service you are offering, certain questions may be more relevant than others. Use your best judgment.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Executive Summary appears first but is usually written last, after you have done all your research and developed the other components of the plan. In your Executive Summary, be sure to address the following issues, which you will further detail and evolve throughout the plan:

Company Description: Include company name, type of business, location and legal entity.

Mission Statement: Concisely state the company’s purpose.

Stage of Development: Include whether your company is a start up or existing business, when it was founded and how far along the product or service is in its development.

Products and Services: Describe the products and / or services you are selling.

Marketing Information: Include information about your target market and marketing and sales strategy.

Competition: Concisely describe the nature of your competition.

Competitive Advantage: Distinguish your product and / or service from the competition.

Management: Describe the experience and background of your management team.

Financials: Chart your company’s expected revenues and expenses for years 1 through 3.

Long-term goals: List your long term goals, including sales, number of employees, locations and market share.

Funds Sought and Exit Strategy: Indicate how much money you want to raise and how you perceive your investors getting their money out.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Entity, Location, Offerings: State the type of entity, location of your company and the services or products offered.

Mission Statement: Include a mission statement showing how the company distinguishes itself from the competition.

Financial Data: Provide information on specific financial data, how the company has grown to date if applicable, as well as a clear picture of ownership, equity available and any legal issues that exist.

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND TRENDS

Describe your industry: Use statistics to validate your assumptions and confirm your research.

Outline industry trends: Use statistics to validate.

State strategic opportunities that exist in your industry: This shows market opportunity. Also, here you will want to discuss “barriers to entry” or any limits that would dissuade the competition from doing what you are doing.

TARGET MARKET

Describer the size of the market: How many potential buyers of your product or service exist? How many of those potential buyers are you aiming to capture?

Describe your market demographic: What characteristics define your potential buyers? Include information about age category, income level, geographic location and lifestyle trends.

Trends and strategic opportunities: Evaluate trends that may affect your market now and in the future. Include any relevant regulatory information, as well as changes in buying habits and shifting sentiments. Identify strategic opportunities that exist as a result of such trends.

COMPETITION

List categories of competitors: Include information on direct and indirect competitors. Competition includes not only other specific companies, but also other actions that potential customers are likely to take replacing the need for your product or service.

Site specific competition: Narrow down who specifically is your competition. Include a detailed analysis to set yourself up for how you will distinguish your company.

Describer tangential or other competition: Briefly mention other competition to show your knowledge of the industry but also address why this competition is not a viable threat.

Indicate your advantages over the competition: Most important, why will customers desire to buy your product or service, given the other competition out there.

Outline barriers to entry: See Executive Summary for explanation.

Discuss strategic opportunities: See Executive Summary for explanation.

MARKETING PLAN AND SALES STRATEGY

Describe how you will make customers aware of your product or service: Include information on how you will appeal to their financial, emotional and convenience-oriented needs.

Define your company’s brand message: Include information on the product or service itself, cost factors, location factors and promotional activities. (Often these are referred to as the 4 Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

Outline methods you will use to reinforce and deliver your company’s message:

Think about design, packaging, presentation, employee dress, logo and any other ways that you can add value to your product or service that will reinforce and enhance your message.

Map out how you will secure actual sales: Include information on the tactics you will use to sell your product or service. Think about unique, cost-effective methods of achieving these goals.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Describe your team players: People are everything in a successful business. Outline who your key employees are, their backgrounds, experience, education and strengths, as well as why you think they will be instrumental in making this business succeed.

Describe other players involved in your company: Include information on consultants, advisors, directors and anyone to whom you outsource business that plays a key role in your company.

Describe management compensation: Address the following: salary, bonuses, commissions, profit sharing, equity and stock options.

THE FINANCIALS

Introduction: Describe the basic premise behind how your company will make money and why you believe there is significant revenue opportunity. Use your competition to show that similar revenue models exist. Then you will want to include the following three statements, at a minimum, to validate your statements.

Income statement: This shows whether your company is making a profit.

Cash-Flow Projection: This shows whether the company has sufficient cash to pay bills.

Balance Sheet: This shows how the company is worth a certain snapshot in time.

Research forms to include: Financial forms can be complicated and lengthy. Depending on your business, you may or may not need to include everything and the level of depth you pursue is also variable. Typically, you want to analyze from 1 to 3 years and provide potential investors and yourself with a light at the end of the tunnel—in other words, the hope of significant revenue potential.

Start with the basics and consider: What are my revenues and what are my costs associated with these revenues. Then begin to analyze what your other costs are, how much money you will need to make your business grow and the various ways you might want to structure your funds.

10 Essential Tips for Starting Entrepreneurs
by Terri Zwierzynski

Do What You LOVE: If you've chosen your business because you read that this niche was the next hot one, or because your favorite uncle (or your best friend) thinks you'd be well-suited for this business, you may as well pack up now and save yourself some time and money. If you don't love what you do, it will show...potential customers will know it and will go elsewhere. Is it possible to be successful anyway? Sure -- but it won't be easy and it won't be fun...and isn't that why you want to be in business for yourself anyway?

Instead, choose what you love. You'll know what that is when you find yourself being incredibly productive, forgetting the time passing by, and not being able to wait to get up in the morning to do more! At Solo-E we call that being juiced...but whether you call it being in the flow, or the zone, or whatever, FIND IT!

WRITE DOWN Your Business Plan: As a small or solo business owner, you still need a business plan. Even if you aren't getting a loan! Would you invest thousands of dollars of your own money buying stock in a company that didn't have a written prospectus? (I hope not!) Then why would you spend thousands of dollars AND hours of your precious time on a business that doesn't have a written plan?

Write your plan, get it critiqued by professionals, and most important, BE READY TO CHANGE IT. This may seem counterintuitive...why bother writing it down if it's just going to change? Because writing it down makes it more clear...and helps you get to the next stage of learning and planning and revising. It's critical--67% of businesses that failed had no written business plan. Want to play the odds?

Multiply Your Expected Startup Costs by Two--or Maybe Three: When I started my business, an honors MBA grad with 15 years of solid business experience behind me, I figured I was smart enough to estimate my startup costs accurately. I knew all the things I needed and made conservative estimates and I was still WRONG! That's right, I was still off by a factor of almost three. Don't make this mistake! One of the biggest reasons small businesses fail is because of lack of capital. Give yourself the best possible start by saving or acquiring sufficient startup funds NOW. Before you start!

Make Your Market Niche as Small as Possible: Again, this is counterintuitive--shouldn't you try to appeal to as many people as possible? The paradox is that the more you try to appeal to EVERYONE, the less you will appeal to ANYONE. Let's say you are selling your house...would you rather list it with the agent who operates in 14 counties, sells both commercial and residential real estate, and sells everything from cottages to estates? Or would you pick the agent who specializes in your community, selling only houses in a well-defined price range that she knows extremely well? Ruthlessly define your niche, make it as small as possible, and stay true to it. You'll thank me later!

Do Marketing Your Way: The temptation is to choose all the marketing methods that the competition uses. To stay with tried-and-true marketing channels. To place advertisements that you know nothing about creating, or make cold calls that give you heartburn. Why? Because (all together now) "that's how it's always been done."

It's difficult to stand out among your competitors when you are doing the same kind of marketing! So instead, look to your strengths. What do you like to do? What are you good at? Then choose three marketing methods that play to those strengths. If you need ideas, check out 136 Ways to Market Your Solo Business.

Remember the Most Important Ingredient in Your Business--YOU: Business-owner: know thyself. Spend some time learning about who you are and how you are unique. Then let that uniqueness shine through in your marketing, in how you run your business, in everything you do. Don't hide your quirks--celebrate them!

Customers go to small and solo businesses primarily because they are looking for a personalized experience. They want a relationship with you as the owner of your business. If you try to come off as who you think they want, they'll smell right through that and not come back. Be who you are, and trust that who YOU are is going to be attractive to the right people.

Build Your Business by Building Relationships: Being a small or solo business owner isn't about sitting in the corner alone. Actually it can be--and that isolation is what drives many out of business and back into a "job". Build relationships to survive! Start with your colleagues--others you know who are at the same stage of business as you, or are farther along and willing to mentor you.

Next, build relationships with potential customers. Ask them what they want! Then create products and services based on their input and come back and show them what you have done. Get feedback, tweak, and maybe make your first sale. Stay in touch with your customers even after they leave you.

Last but not least, build relationships with your competitors. You might be able to do this right at the beginning, simply by asking them for their advice. Surprisingly, many ARE willing to share their secrets if you just ask. Later on, build cross-referral relationships, co-marketing alliances, and other relationships that are win-win for you, your competitors, and your customers.

Don't Accept a Customer Just For the Money: This is probably the hardest advice for new business owners to apply. Especially when there is a job, a project, a potential client, just outside your niche, that could keep your business solvent for the next six months. Don't do it! Taking on a client outside your niche inevitably results in frustration for you, dissatisfaction on the part of the client, and in the end, usually costs you more than you make. Ask any successful business owner and they'll tell you this is true!

Don't Do Everything Yourself: It's so tempting to fall into the self-deception that "it's cheaper for me to do it myself." IT"S NOT! If you aren't good at something, for instance bookkeeping, it will probably take you 2-3 times as long--time you could be spending doing things that are essential for you to be doing personally, like writing your business plan or deciding your marketing strategy. Put sufficient capital into your business up front so you CAN hire help right from the start. Your business will get off to a quicker start because you aren't distracted by time-consuming tasks that drain your energy.

Assemble Your Support Team: Start with the people who will help you do the things you aren't good at. Some examples: bookkeeper, marketing writer, web designer. Then add the people who give you professional business advice: a lawyer, an accountant, a business coach. Finally, include the people who support you personally: your family, friends, and colleagues.

Don't forget to be part of other's support teams, too. Share your expertise at Solo-E, start a networking group where business owners support each other, share a referral with a colleague. Solo Entrepreneurs supporting other Solo Entrepreneurs is what will make us all successful!

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Find more articles like this at www.Solo-E.com Keeping Solo Entrepreneurs Juiced in Business and in Life. Our team of Solo Entrepreneurs are comprised of small business experts who support others in finding business success with the flexibility and freedom to have a life, too. Network with other freelancers, self-employed and Solo Entrepreneurs in our forums, enjoy our articles and newsletter, and find other online training opportunities.

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Terri Zwierzynski may be contacted at http://www.TerriZ.com is a business coach to small business owners and Solo Entrepreneurs. She is also the co-owner and founder of Solo-E.com. Terri is an MBA honors graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in addition to a bachelor's degree and master's degree in Electrical Engineering. Terri has been coaching for over 10 years in a variety of settings, including 6 years as a senior-level coach and consultant for a major telecommunications equipment supplier, where she guided business leaders in strategic planning, decision-making, building profitable business cases and managing business change. She opened her own practice in 2001.

Mom underpaid in all her jobs - Daily News, Tuesday 3 May 2005

By Brent Hopkins, Staff Writer

The most important job in the world has awful hours, no vacation and no days off, and it should command compensation on par with a chief executive. Yeah, moms need a pay raise.

In a regular job, working 100-hour weeks and juggling duties of an array of workers - driver, nurse, personal chef and more - would bring in a generous pay package and lavish benefits.

The figure: $131,471 a year, according to a study released Monday by Salary.com.

That's the value of a stay-at-home mom whose work spans seven job titles and requires 60 hours of overtime each week.

Sure, she gets one holiday each year - Mother's Day is Sunday - but even that's on a weekend when most regular workers are off.

"I have a friend who runs a multinational corporation who called me to say she worked from 7 a.m. to midnight," mused Karin Levitas, an Encino mother bringing up two daughters. "I'm like, great, you got paid, you did your job. I'm on duty all the time with this barely controlled chaos."

Of course, there is job satisfaction rarely found in a 9-to-5 gig. And Levitas is a typical mom who loves what she does more than anything.

There's no such thing as an average day, says Levitas, who traded a career as a professional dancer and screenwriter to help her husband raise 5-year-old Aria and 16-month-old Elaiya. She makes breakfast, makes lunch, takes Aria to school, drives Elaiya to her doctor's appointments, does the grocery shopping and then comes home to do the laundry.

"We figured 100 hours, but you're always on call, even when you're sleeping," said Dan Malachowski, a spokesman for Salary.com.

"Moms get no benefits, no pension, no 401(k) like the other jobs. You don't even get a break - or at least not for several years. Maybe with this data, they can negotiate some sort of a raise out of their husbands." The Needham, Mass.-based compensation research company's study found that the average mom blends the talents of a teacher, driver, housekeeper, cook, chief executive officer, nurse and maintenance worker. But those don't even begin to cover the scope of an average mother's day, said Joyce Green, who left her job as a coordinator of volunteers to take care of her 5-year-old son, Jonah, and 2-year-old son, Toby. "You say you're just a mom because you don't get paid," she said as Toby tried his best to escape the shopping cart that separated him from a row of refrigerated cheese. "But it shapes his future. I'm the one who structures his life, who makes sure he grows up right."

She runs the household while her husband is at work. Then they share parenting duties in the evening. Unlike a corporate executive, she has no assistant who does the dirty work. Her shopping trip didn't last long because of the three loads of laundry awaiting washing, drying and folding at home. And it's not as if any of that vanishes for moms who work outside the home. They might pull a paycheck for their daytime job, but they have to balance that with the kids, the shopping, the chores and everything else.

"When you're working, you feel guilty and want to spend more time with your child. When you're with your child, you start thinking: I should be earning more money; I need to work on my career," said Jill Campbell, an Encino-based psychologist who juggles private practice with ownership of a parenting school, How to Baby, and motherhood.

"There were definitely times when I wanted to stay at home all the time, but being a stay-at-home mom is a tremendous amount of work."

Amy Rodriguez knows that very, very well. Watching her young son and daughter run around the play area at the Northridge Fashion Center marks the slowest part of the Panorama City mom's day. The joy she gets from hanging out with 4-year-old Charlie and 2-year-old Charline outweighs any salary she could earn in other work, but she smiles when she considers quaint notions such as vacations and quitting time.

"At night, you think it's done when they go to bed." She sighed with a fatigued smile. "Then it's 'Mommy, Mommy, I need some milk! Mommy, Mommy, get me something.' And pretty soon, they're up again."

Brent Hopkins, (818) 713-3738 brent.hopkins@dailynews.com

How To Find Focus And Turn Your Talent Into A Thriving Professional Business

by Kendall SummerHawk ~ courtesy of AllFreelanceWork.com

There are tons of books and articles available to help professionals start up their business, but few that give practical insights on how to nurture your business once it's out of its infancy. At some point, every self-employed professional reaches the same dilemma: how to build a strong brand and grow their business without taking on too many clients, undervaluing their expertise, or sacrificing their lifestyle.

Once your business is established, you have the opportunity to brand yourself as an expert. Start now, and it doesn't take long to begin savoring the lifestyle and freedom you always dreamed your business would deliver.

The biggest asset you have in your business is...YOU!

Your time and unique brilliance are the foundation of achieving a highly profitable, deeply rewarding professional business. Implementing the following brand and business strategies is exciting, motivating, and compelling. Once you start on the path of profiting from a great brand and your unique brilliance, you'll never go back to the old way of running your business again.

Here are five strategies to turn your talent into a highly profitable business that lets your passion run free.

Strategy #1 Know Your Unique Brilliance Your unique brilliance isn't a particular skill, like driving a car or delivering your service. It describes you when you are at your very best no matter what you are doing. It's as if the best moments of your life are encapsulated into one simple statement.

The goal is to one-by-one, ditch, delegate, or redesign every task that falls outside of your unique brilliance. You are now free to use your unique brilliance nearly 100% of the time. What's exciting is that as you hand off each task, you become more and more energized, productive, and profitable. It truly is a magic wand that once waived, delivers the freedom you always dreamed of.

Strategy #2 Know Your Brand You don't have to hire an expensive brand consultant to profit from a compelling brand strategy. What you do need is a clear, concise brand that makes you instantly known and recognizable. Brand wisdom goes beyond a logo and a tagline. A brand is the promise of an experience. Your brand must immediately evoke strong emotions and tug on the heartstrings of your choice client.

Strategy #3 Create A Championship Support Team Sure, when you first started your business, you probably did every task solo. But to reach the next level of business success and freedom means building an excellent team. For example, one client increased his revenue by a whopping 300%. How? He credits spending just $100 a month on a virtual assistant, who freed up so much of his time and energy, he was able to focus on bringing in new business. Now that is great ROI!

Strategy #4 Take Time Off Yes, you read correctly. I guarantee that as soon as you cut back to a four-day work week, your business will change for the better. You'll work smarter, make better decisions, and create new, lucrative opportunities. Working less time shines a new light on how you run your business. Plus you'll enjoy the rejuvenating benefits of increased creativity, relaxation, and fulfillment by getting plenty of R&R during the remaining three days of the week.

Strategy #5 Leverage Your Expertise Into A Compelling Package or Program Delivering 1-on-1 services is a waste of your time, talent, and profit potential! No matter what business you're in-consultant, coach, speaker, trainer, designer-there are dozens of ways you can package your service. For example, one client, a professional organizer, stopped charging by the hour, and created a package from the individual services she was already delivering. Within one week she had tripled her revenue!

(c)Kendall SummerHawk may be contacted at http://www.kendallsummerhawk.com Isn't it time you learned to market in a way that's right for you? Kendall SummerHawk, creator of the Be Yourself Marketing(tm) "Marketing Makeover Kit", specializes in working with entrepreneurs who love what they do but wish marketing would just go away. The Marketing Makeover Kit is a must if you want the freedom, confidence, inspiration, insights, and relief you need to make your business profitable without writing a marketing plan!