On a Shoestring Budget: Low-Investment and No-Investment Ways to Market Your Business

One of the biggest misconceptions for the small or mid-sized business is that you must have a multi-million dollar marketing budget to garner a strong brand awareness that brings in the customers. This is simply not true. A successful marketing campaign starts with a well-formulated marketing plan and includes implementing that plan frequently and consistently. Even in a slow economy, it's important to invest in marketing. And, if you make a commitment to getting your business' message out to your target audience, you’ll be able to take the market share from your competition.

Click HERE to read this entire article.

Am I investing my company's marketing dollars wisely?

As a business owner, you should be asking yourself this question all the time. Unfortunately, too many are just “dabbling” in marketing, hoping something will give them good results. Your marketing budget may not be the amount a large corporation can spend, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have the ability to market your product or service to your target audience in a way that gets results. It just means you have to be more knowledgeable about the strategies that do work. That requires creativity and a lot of testing and measuring.

Click HERE to read the entire article.

Change is Here to Stay

Change is never easy unless you’re responsive to change. Woodrow Wilson said, “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” That’s the way some people look at change. It’s like working out. If I work out once a year, my muscles are going to really hurt the next time I try to exercise. If I work out every day, my muscles don’t hurt as much or maybe not at all.

Our brain is the same way. If we’re changing our habits from bad to good on a daily or weekly basis, then change doesn’t hurt as much. When change is coming, it would be easy to say, “We’ve always done it this way, why change?" Whenever change is happening, people usually fall into six categories according to the book, “Developing the Leader Within You” by John Maxwell.

I summarize them here:

Innovators-They are the ones who come up with new ideas, but are usually not a manager or policy maker.

Early Adopters-They are the ones who see it first as a great idea and embrace the change.

Middle Adopters-They make up most of the crowd. They respond and react to the opinion of co-workers.

Late Adopters-They are hanging on to the end and late to endorse the change. They are the ones who say under their breath, “I’ll never accept the new guy."

Laggards-Their motto is, “Change is never good.” They are the ones who would spend more time to rally the troops against the change then to accept the change.

Wayne Bailey is a Distributor with SendOutCards. He has recognized tremendous growth in his personal and business relationships by implementing the strategies he talks about in his articles. You can email Wayne at wayne_bailey642@hotmail.com or visit: www.sendoutcards.com/waynebailey.

Creating a Motivated Team and Productive Workplace

You've selected a great team of professionals, now how do you get them to work together effectively and efficiently? One of the best ways to create a motivated and productive workplace is to invest in your team's professional training and development. When you take the initiative to show your team they are valued, they will wholeheartedly respond by working harder to bring greater success to your business.

Click this link to read how you can bring effective training and development to your business.