Entrepreneurs, marketing managers and all of those people associated with product development, sales & marketing and anything that comes close to anything to do with the customer buying the product – Beware! Your advertisements aren’t going to work any more. Am I kidding? Find out the truth!

Advertisements had a charm in those halcyon days when consumers used to flock to buy stuff. It isn’t happening any more thanks to bombardment of thousands of messages on to a rather learned, sophisticated, forum-thronging and community-opinion centric consumers. Popular media is slowly taking a back-seat and that should already get some marketing managers looking for alternative jobs and force small business entrepreneurs to think well and way out of the box.

So what works?

1.    Ensure that you have a great product that delivers value: There is no escaping this. If you thought you could just slap some product or service and go about selling it all off, it isn’t going to happen and you will crumble sooner than it takes you to make a product. Once this step is in place, good things must be happening to you immediately if you follow the next few steps well.
2.    Get people talking about it: The self-expression and the community power has now taken a firm identity of its own and Buzz-marketing, people’s opinions, corporate blogs, forums, social marketing etc have people talking about products and services all the time. Your goal should be to ensure that they speak highly of your product or service. If you make it here, half of your work is done.
3.    Pay attention to user generated content: So it isn’t casual reading and enjoying all the attention. You got to take note of whatever is being said there and work to wipe out those little bugs that might be plaguing your product or service. If you have a corporate blog, throw it open for the public to comment on it and see what they have to say.
4.    Make changes as long as god himself loves it:  Simply said, aim to be perfect and when you see that you aren’t—apologize. Make up for it. Go out of your way and don’t come back until the consumer forgives you.
5.    Repeat: Eventually, you’d see that some things work very effectively while some don’t. Perhaps you should pay attention to young adults and not old folks. Whatever it is, document it and then repeat it consistently.

See what comes of it – Success should be round the corner and it wouldn’t be because of your fancy billion dollar ad on The New York Times.

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Chances are that whether you are a business owner or you are looking to grow your business or even if you have been contemplating setting up a business – you have been thinking local. If you live in the United States, you would have thought of that country alone. But then, there is a likelihood of your product or service meeting the needs of people, globally.

So, what stopped you from thinking big? Why do you limit yourself and do business to achieve only a part of the overall potential? Why should you go global?

If you don’t, you are stupid: Sorry about being so blunt, but there can only be excuses instead of solid, proven reasons as to why you haven’t gone global yet. You are wrong if you thought that only companies with super large budgets can transcend boundaries and you can’t. You are grossly mistaken if you thought about the affordability of your product or service and you are simply letting of the opportunity without tasting the sheer potential it has got.

Markets are huge ; number of people humongous: There is a possibility that the markets that you haven’t yet thought of entering might be bristling with potential and are in fact, huge. The number of people who could buy your product or use your service is so large that you can’t even begin counting those numbers. The world is your garden, go sow in it.

The emerging markets beckon you:  Well, the biggies are already there. Scores of American, British and other European jobs have already moved there and that’s where the economic activity is teeming with life. Climatic conditions are better; it is easier to live and people work harder. Real estate is cheaper and business prospects are out-standing. Countries like India and China are fast becoming powers to reckon with and if you don’t move now, you never will.

The biggies are already there, you – the small guy – is now wanted: The very big, fortune 500 companies have all set up base all over the world. They have been around for ages. It is now the small business guy who has to lead the show. The world is looking for people like you. The market is still virgin. You are more than welcome and in fact encouraged to try.

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That’s what been keeping me busy for like 3 months now. I have been envisioning a way to come out of the cluthes of everyday work grind. I read this book called ” The 4 Hour Work Week” by Tim ferris and then landed a few assignments on elance.com  — life changed too quickly for me to comprehend what’s happening.

I am about to take  RTW tour on a backpack and shoe string budget. I guess by the end of it all, I will come back sober. So apart from my general take on business, Finance and other business related issues, Telecommuting will be a major addition to the blog.

The travel begins at the fag end of this year. I will keep the blog updated on Telecommuting and various countries that can be a potential ‘Stay Posts” on this journey to nowhere and everywhere.

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Reading is something that has something to do with success. A survey done with most self-made successful entrepreneurs had revealed that they all spend a good 2 - 3 hours simply reading up - novels, works of non-fiction, literature, magazines, newspapers, periodicals, anything. All that matters is that they read and are up-to-date with whatever it is that they are associated with. I am going to make myself yelling over the sounds of their empty heads that the importance of reading is next only to breathing.

Here are a few books you must catch up with NOW :

• Think and Grow Rich - Napolean Hill
• As a Man Thinketh - James Allen
• The IBM way - Buck Rogers
• How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
• How to Develop Self-confidence and Influence People by Public Speaking - Dale Carnegie
• Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul - Chicken Soup Series
• The Magic of Thinking Big - David. J. Schwartz
• The Art of War - Sun Tzu
• Alexander the Great - Paul Cartledge, Alexander the Great - Robin lane Fox
• The Prince - Niccolo Machiavelli

If you did come this far reading through the list - You are somewhere on your way Know any more great titles?

Update on Books :

I just stumbled on a great list compiled at Get Rich Slowly on some of the best books to be owned and a few other tips to maintain your personal library. Awesome read and I hope it helps you just as much.

 Building a Personal Library : 25 of the Best Books About Money 

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I listen to people making excuses everyday as to the fact that they weren’t able to start their own businesses and even if they had tried once, they couldn’t do much but write it off as one- of -those -things- that -happen -to -us. Among a lot of reasons, myths and laziness-induced excuses, some people still emerge as likely candidates to start their own businesses after all and probably for the second time now and if you had just been a discerning young about-to-jump-ship business junior, this is just as relevant to you as it is for anyone else.

I have figured out 5 ways to nurture your start-up effectively : …..Click here to read more

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It is so tired to be “ordinary”. It is such a pain to see all that effort going into living one’s life to see that the results are far from extra ordinary. It is almost a sin of you let your life be just as everyone else’s life is. Simply put: if you don’t have spunk and dare to do something different; you suck”

Harsh it might be, but ask this question again. Munch on a cookie and tell yourself that you are happy munching it like everyone does? Or have you started thinking already?

Businesses are started everyday without a single pointed difference in the product offerings or services provided. It’s just the same thing given to us with another name on it. How long will you last with a “me-too” product or service? Why should a consumer look at you and not your competitor if she wanted to buy?

You didn’t get that yet?

Well, ok.

You see, money comes in when products and services are sold. Money goes out when you spend towards all expenses that occur while the sale happens. What is left becomes your profit. Simple, wasn’t it?

Now, the problem here is that the consumer, who gets to choose between so many different people providing what the customer is looking for, will go where there is ‘Value’.

Now, no one has ever said that you can’t do anything new to get to that value. No one said you can’t think. No one stops you from thinking of other ways to go ahead and shake your competition up. So what stops you?

YOU stops you. You are being lazy, after all. Why think of something new when your competitor has done all the thinking and has set up a strategy which seems to be working fine? Why take the risk of doing something and that ‘something bombs?

If you need to be successful in business, you need to have the spunk. Only Intrepid entrepreneurs will make it. Not the sissies. You got to be thinking big and marking your territory even before someone spells the word.

Go get the spunk!

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What is the one single biggest investment anyone would ever make, anywhere in the world? It would be a home! A home strikes an emotional chord with many people and is probably one of those few assets which has a string emotions attached to it - not just the owners but even their families. Owning a home is like owning a few square feet of bliss; of an inexplicable sensation of freedom.

More than anything else, owning a home also gives you this possibility of dropping anchor at a set place where you would consider as a neighborhood where you would feel a sense of community — and that is an age-old human emotion which can make you experience an emotional tug of war to get you your own home.

The first step towards a dream like owning a home — for most people - is of course a mortgage. It’s like saying you will have to pay dearly for all of those big dreams you dream about. You will realize that a lot of money goes towards paying off your mortgage. However, for most people, the sheer happiness found in owning a home surpasses the pain of paying out a substantial lump sum as mortgage payments — the essence of this write-up is to ease that pain a bit.

Mortgage — very simply defined - is the loan that you take up to buy a home for yourself. Mortgages can be two types: fixed-rate mortgages and Variable rate mortgages.

The differences between both of these mortgages come about based on how each payment or Equated Monthly Installment will be influenced by the prevailing interest rates across the market in particular and the country in general. In case you are planning to invest in commercial property, apart complex as a whole (so that you can lease it out) or if you are considering dabbling with any other kind of real estate investment you could avail commercial loans which would make it easier for you.

It goes without saying that “due diligence” is a must (as it is critical, no matter what you choose to do in life) before you swoop down and make decisions. Thanks to the Internet and an abundance of information available at the drop of a hat, you could easily do all the requisite research much before you pick that call up and talk to a mortgage officer. You would do well to learn how mortgages work; the kinds of mortgages available; the prevailing interest rates; what the payments are and the elements of each payment; the principal component and the interest component; the financial institutions that provide mortgages, they history and reputation, service and support — That is enough juice to get started with your research on, isn’t it?

All of that matters because most of us have limited incomes and what we pay out must not force you to lead a life style that you don’t deserve just because you “didn’t know”. You have to know everything about the loan and the disbursing institution before you commit yourself.

Owning a home is a dream for many people and keeping a few things as mentioned above will go a long way in ensuring a hassle free transaction towards that dream.

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Do me a favor — forget whatever you knew about businesses — starting one; running it; marketing it and even selling it. Forget the fancy degrees and whatever else you did to get around to even THINK about business. Remember just one thing:

Cash In Must be More than your Cash out.

That’s the corner stone to business success. You won’t exist without it. Never.

Not just business, it will work for Investing and saving money too. So even if you are really Interested about businesses, look at your personal financial situation — if this basic tenet is not being fulfilled, you are likely to be in doldrums.  Don’t even start a business if you can’t see this happening within a set, pre-determined time. Don’t even talk about marketing plans and financial planning ; funding and systems develoment ; IT implementation and EXIM, if you don’t get that equation right.

Most businesses falter because they don’t get it. Businesses tend to rush in to fill demand. Do things that are unnecessary - scores of meetings are held to ‘talk” about situations. Well, if you want to bail out of one potential killer situation - get the cash flow management right.

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