You can meet your goals for your business this year.
Consider these resolutions as ten steps to your success
in 2005.

1. Develop a business plan or strategic plan. You won’t get
where you’re going unless you know where you want to be and
let your employees know as well.

2. Constantly Promote Your Business. You can’t execute one
marketing effort each year and expect your business to grow.
Plan marketing efforts quarterly or even monthly and plan
time for follow through and tracking of results.

3. Create action plans for each person in your organization.
Make sure every employee knows how his or her job relates
to the company’s overall vision, and that each has
individual objectives and goals with measurable standards
and timetables.

4. Survey your employees. Sometimes the biggest employee
dissatisfactions are the easiest things to fix. Know what
changes your employees would like to make in their work
lives and do your best to increase their quality of work
life (and usually their productivity as well).

5. Survey your customers and suppliers. Maybe the way you
are doing business is costing you relationships with
suppliers and customers. Know what bugs them and make it
easy to do business with your company.

6. Set up business performance measures and get only those
key indicator reports you need to run your business. Don’t
waste your time and staff time compiling reports you never
use. Know what you need to know to run a successful
business, study those reports every month, and use them to
take action.

7. Do a human resource compliance audit and stay out of
legal trouble. Unless you have a fully staffed HR
department, you may not be aware of all of the compliance
laws regarding employees. Have an audit done by an outside
professional and prevent problems that could result in
million dollar lawsuits by unhappy ex-employees.

8. Know your top 10 customers - what more can you do for
them, where can you find more just like them. List your top
ten customers by sales volume and let everyone in your
organization know who they are. Are they in a particular
geographic region, of a particular type - what is similar
about them? Do everything you can to build on those
relationships.

9. Get a coach or mentor, or join a business support group.
Build accountability into your own personal planning by
asking others to help you turn your dreams into reality.
Enlist people who you can trust to give you objective
feedback and create deadlines for your planned successes.

10. Make a list of the year’s accomplishments and celebrate
your successes with your employees. Don’t forget to
acknowledge and celebrate each of your milestones. The best
part of creating a plan is to know when you’ve reached your
goals, allowing some time to pause and appreciate the
accomplishment, and begin to create your next set of goals.
===========================================

Jan B. King is the former President & CEO of Merritt
Publishing, a top 50 woman-owned and run business in Los
Angeles and the author of Business Plans to Game Plans: A
Practical System for Turning Strategies into Action (John
Wiley & Sons, 2004). She has helped hundreds of businesses
with her book and her ebooks, The Do-It-Yourself Business
Plan Workbook, and The Do-It-Yourself Game Plan Workbook.
See www.janbking.com for more information.
============================================

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Copyright 2004 Diane Hughes

Most US-based small businesses are getting eaten alive in
taxes! That statement has proven itself true over and over
again. However, while small business owners want to save
money, many are literally afraid of incorporating their
companies. The paperwork, the additional reports, having a
set payroll amount each month, and other visions swirl
around their heads. Those visions could be costing you a
ton!

Let me take a few minutes to explain what you need to know
about incorporating your business. While it certainly isn’t
a move every business will want to make, there are
definitely some large benefits associated with
incorporation.

MYTH
Incorporating means I can’t take money whenever I want it.

TRUTH
Yes you can! This is a MYTH that holds a lot of small
business owners back from incorporating. If you set a
payroll amount for yourself, then decide you want/need more
money, you simply write yourself another check and call it
an “owner distribution” or a “draw.”

MYTH
There’s too much paperwork involved once you incorporate. I
don’t have the time.

TRUTH
There are some additional forms you have to complete. There
are some additional taxes you have to pay. HOWEVER… read
this carefully… for the three or four extra forms and the
cost of the additional taxes, most businesses will still
save when compared to counting every dollar you make toward
personal income.

MYTH
The only good reason to incorporate is for personal
protection. The difference in taxes isn’t that much.

TRUTH
While incorporating your business will help protect you
from lawsuits and from having your personal property
seized, there are more benefits than that. The tax savings
can be quite significant.

MYTH
With the attorney’s fees, the CPA’s fees, the additional
income tax returns, and the forms I have to file quarterly,
it’s just not worth it. I won’t really save any money.

TRUTH
Every case is different; however, most small businesses
will more than make up the $1500 - $2000 it costs to
incorporate within the first six months to one year. Also,
most small businesses will save about 50% on taxes after
they incorporate. (A qualified CPA will be able to look at
your books and give you a more accurate figure.)

MYTH
I’ll have to hold meetings and keep lots of records that I
don’t have time to keep.

TRUTH
Not if you register as a “closed” S-Corporation. This means
you have waived the requirement to hold all those meetings
and keep all those records.

How Do You Get Specific Details?

Contact a qualified CPA in your local area. He or she can
give you detailed information on how much it will cost to
set everything up, and - most importantly - how much you
will save in taxes.

Incorporation is not something to be afraid of. In fact, if
you’re one of the many who will save 50% off your taxes in
the next year, it’s something to go after with a vengeance!

About the Author:

Diane C. Hughes * ProBizTips.com

FREE Report: Amazingly Simple (Yet Super Powerful)
Ways To Skyrocket Your Sales And Build Your Business
Into A Tower of Profits! ==>> http://madmarketer.com/diane

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Copyright © 2004 Ari Galper
Unlock The GameT
http://www.UnlockTheGame.com

Ever since I created Unlock The GameT, one of the first
questions people always ask me is, “Does Unlock The GameT
apply to online selling?”

I’ve been holding off on answering that question because I
wanted to get enough experience under my belt with my own online
business so I could answer this from an authoritative position.

My answer is, “For the most part, yes — but with some
differences.”

Those of you who fully understand the philosophy behind Unlock
The GameT are well aware that the core of everything I teach is
based on the elimination of all sales pressure from the selling
process.

You also know that the single most powerful way of eliminating
sales pressure is through authentic language — in other words,
replacing traditional sales language with the most natural
dialogue possible, which creates almost instant trust between
two strangers.

This is exactly where online selling differs from
person-to-person “offline” selling. In selling online, you
don’t have the opportunity for that natural two-way dialogue.
People come to your site and are exposed to a one-way reading
of your message, which can feel impersonal.

Check it out for yourself. If you look at 9 out of 10 website
home pages, what do you see?

Online variations of the standard sales or cold-calling script:
“We are … and we do …”

Why is this a problem? Because these sites are offering their
solutions long before visitors can have any sense that they are
being understood, and long before they feel any sense of trust
in what they’re seeing.

Visitors come to sites because they have a problem in mind and
are looking for answers.

It’s easier than you might think to solve the problems of
one-way communication, impersonality, and lack of trust.

All you have to do is put yourself in the position of your site
visitor, articulate their specific issues or problems, and gently
offer solutions that they can choose without feeling as if they
are being “sold.”

Here are some simple ways you can warm up your site so you get
as close as you can to a natural two-way dialogue:

* Remember the “Written Word” module from the Self-Study
Program?

Beware of over-using “I” or “We” on your home page or at the
beginning of your written message.

For example, rather than immediately pushing your product as
the first thing visitors see on your home page, use language
that addresses problems you know you can solve.

State those problems, and you’ll find that your visitors are
drawn more deeply into your site.

* Create a clear path through your site that lets visitors
make their own decisions about what’s best for them.

* Give your visitors a taste of your solutions so they can
feel that you can actually solve their problems or issues.
Downloads, “test drives” and other “free samples” give
visitors the live experience of your solution and make
them feel more comfortable with it.

* Last, and maybe most importantly: I’m always surprised by
how few website owners seem to actually want to communicate
with the potential customers who visit their website.
But…have you ever gone to a site to order a product or
service and ended up calling the toll-free number instead?
Have you ever thought about why you did that?
Maybe it was because you could ask questions of the live
person who took your order, and this increased your sense
of trust.

So…make yourself available to site visitors by having a Live
Chat button on your website.

Talk directly with visitors to your site as they enter the
virtual world that you’ve created for them.

There’s nothing better than a two-way dialogue to humanize
the online experience.

I enjoy it so much when visitors click on my UnlockTheGame.com
Live Chat button, and we establish that all-important personal
connection.

Try it on your site. You’ll love talking to your website
visitors because you’ll be able to help them solve their
problems.

—————————————————————–
Ari Galper is the founder of Unlock The GameT, the only selling
program completely focused on eliminating pressure from the
sales process. His best-selling Unlock The GameT Self-Study
Program continues to make in-roads in the U.S., UK, Australia
and Canada. Visit http://www.UnlockTheGame.com to take a
Free Test Drive!