November 2008

Here’s the good thing of today’s recession - retailers are giving deep, real deep, discounts to attract customers.

This situation, in my opinion, is good for small businesses. You can start spending - of course with a eye at your budgeting - to stock office supplies, purchase office equipments and fixtures, or invest in productivity tools - which more likely than not, will be discounted these days.

Conserve your cash: Use your business credit cards - or apply for a new one

This is the time you should put your business credit cards to work.

Why spend important cash, if you have the choice to stall payment to later date? As long as you stick to your budget and pay the outstanding balance in full each billing cycle, you are ready to shop!

Need some equipments you are planning to buy at the year’s end, but you want to conserve the cash? Consider applying new business cards. However, you need to approach this with caution - again, stick to what your budget allows, otherwise you will end up paying credit cards’ high interest rates.

Doing this smartly, you can also get yourself additional perks offered by the credit card issuers, such as redeemable loyalty points, frequent flyer points, etc.

Applying for a credit card is easier at this time of the year

Credit card issuers are also shopping around for applicants, because they know this time of the year, customers spend a lot (some spends more than they should).

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Online pet store has always been big on the Net. Pet supplies, pet grooming and any other things related to pet are being offered regularly.

The market is there, the public interest is there, and the supply-demand dynamic is there.

However, just like in any other industries, pet business is packed with competition.

A niche or micro-niche in pet business: Specialty pet accessories business

To thrive, you need to go as specific as possible.

If you are planning to do pet-related business, consider entering a niche or micro-niche in pet business.

One of the niches is pet accessories.

Basically, pet accessories business is dealing with the provision of accessories and sometimes, apparel for pets.

However, to blow past your competitors away, you need to find a niche in that niche. So, in this case, you have to find a niche in the pet accessories business, to etablish a business serving the micro niche.

Pet accessories micro niche example

One of the example of micro niche in pet accessories online business is MyHollywoodPets.com - an online business offering custom dog tee and other accessories that cater pet owners that want for their pet to look like Hollywood celebrity’s pet.

The market is laser-targeted and in my opinion, aiming for such niche could guarantee your success.

Things to consider for starting niche pet accessories business

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Small businesses have to step up their game - they have to utilise every proven methods to establish their presence on the Internet. This, in return, will enhance their branding in the off line business world.

Along with the becoming-boundless offline and on line business world, small business owners need to co-op with others to make every single branding attempt a success.

Small business, online: Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing is crucial, as the search engines are your window to opportunities. Position your business site on the top 100 search results for a particular keyword - even better, on the first or second page - will drive visitors and prospects to your business.

There are several search engine marketing methods commonly used by small business owners: article marketing, directory submission, social bookmarking, press releases, site review, etc.

One of the most important methods is article marketing.

How to do article marketing for small business

Online, one of the strongest factors to drive traffic and rank high in search engines is content - content IS king.

Article marketing is basically the writing of articles related to your small business’ industry for the purpose of driving relevant traffic to your website and, eventually, your business.

Furthermore, article marketing allows your small business site to enhance its importance in the eyes of the search engines, which almost always results in a higher placement in search engine result pages.

You can do article marketing for small business by joining an article submission network.

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Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who celebrate it :)

The Thanksgiving also means the Black Friday on the next day - the first day of the Christmas season and (usually) the busiest and much anticipated shopping day of the year.

This year Thanksgiving and Black Friday means something for you and I - with this post, I’m announcing Noobpreneur.com very first contest!

Noobpreneur Thanksgiving Contest: The Prizes

As this post is published, the contest commences. The end time of the contest will be November 30th, 2008 at midnight GMT+0.

I will reward a single winner the following:

1. $100 in cash.
2. A spot on my 125×125 banner ad section on the right for a month.
3. A blog post dedicated to the winner’s blog.

Noobpreneur Thanksgiving Contest: How to enter

How to enter the Noobpreneur Thanksgiving Contest? Simple:

1. Write a review on Noobpreneur.com in your blog - 200 words minimum with a link to Noobpreneur.com
2. After the post is live, comment on this contest blog post with a link to the Noobpreneur.com review you’ve just wrote.
3. I’ll pick one winner with the most interesting review, and the winner will rake the prizes out.
4. Bookmark & subscribe to Noobpreneur.com RSS feed - Not required to enter the contest, but I thank you if you decided to do so :D

That’s it!

These are the small prints to read :)

1. Don’t forget to comment on this post, because I will decide the winner from the comments. And, make sure you have Paypal account, because I will only send the $100 through from it.
2. How do I know that I am the winner? I will write a blog post about the contest winner, and I will contact you through your blog’s contact form with the prizes detail - so make sure you have some kind of contact forms or email address on your blogs.
3. Don’t include your email or Paypal ID in your comments in this post.
4. Make sure your blog entering the contest doesn’t contain illegal or questionable content.

Fast act bonus

For the first valid comment (with the review link, of course) I receive in this blog post, I will donate $20 to the charity of your choice!

Good luck, and happy Thanksgiving!

Ivan Widjaya
Contest noob

I’m literally thinking to put on a loudspeaker and shout some selling words to passer-by to get them enter my retail store, using the F-word.

Don’t misunderstand me - what I meant is FREE offers.

Getting customer these days is darn hard! If the F-word fails, I can probably just try to wash every customer cars free of charge to get them enter my store :)

Closing in to this year holiday season, things don’t really getting better.

You could blame the recession and global economic crisis for this, but us entrepreneurs should not point our fingers to others.

Stop looking for (lame) excuses - You’ve got to find a way to attract customers

Stop whining, start thinking.

I’ve read some articles and blog posts from the Net, and I found an article that is so simple, that we forget to do what the article suggest.

We are being busy finding innovative ways to promote our business, but we forgot the fundamentals.

How to get customers buy from you

These tips are from Entrepreneur.com, and I’ll add a thing or two from my own experience to the tips:

1. Let money talk.
   Cash, fortunately, still can attract customers pretty well to buy something from you. I regularly offer cash backs to my buying customers, but I can’t really tell whether what I’m doing is effective - perhaps adding more $$$ to my offer?
2. Make “value-added” your motto.
   Add value by bundling products and services to create a unique and hard-to-resist offer, with interesting price tag on it. This works well for me, and could be very well works perfectly for you - People always love to get more goodies.

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While most businesses tighten their budget on marketing, The UniversityDodge.com has another idea.

Small business owners often make this mistake in cost-cutting regime - they cut their marketing budget above anything else.

So wrong.

Marketing is very important to bring in many prospects, that more often than not will increase your small business exposure and revenue.

While many marketing activities can be bootstrapped and cost-cut, small business owners like to do more, often in a wrong way. Some of them cut their marketing campaign budget excessively, so that the only room for marketing is your photocopied flyers in black and white.

You need to do something different in today’s recession

Ah, recession - the credit crunch, the stock market slump, and the disappearing customers.

What’s needed is something that will attract the slightest attention of your prospects, and you are back to the game.

Not simple, indeed.

However, a radical marketing campaign can bring you more than the money spend for your advertising.

Take what the much-hyped breaking news of UniversityDodge.com’s radical promo campaign, the American way.

Why the fuss is all about?

Buy 1 Get 2 - No, not stationeries, but the all-new Dodge vehicles

Recession does show the best in people.

Rob Lambdin’s University Dodge based in Miami, Florida offer a deal that nobody can resist - Buy a Dodge, get the second one FOR FREE!

Basically, what you’ll get is a 60% off if you buy the 2008 Dodge Ram Trucks, or a 50% off if you buy 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan.

I don’t know about you, but this is one of the deals of the year - and a very smart move, if not a risky one.

Why the buy 1 get 2 Dodge deal a smart campaign

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Probably the Term of The Year in today’s business and finance world is “gaining control”.

Today’s tight credit policies and financing woes leave your business and personal financial welfare at stake.

Control your business and personal finance well, you will survive, if not thrive; Lose control of your financials leave you and your business vulnerable.

What’s your decision?

Gaining control: all coming back to the comfort of your home

I believe you and I, if asked such question, will answer “I want to gain control of my personal and business finance.”

Like most things in live, everything is coming back to your ‘home’ - Your knowledge and policy in your personal finance, including your family finance will determine the sustainability of your personal finance facing today’s tough economy.

Not only that, your personal finance policy and knowledge will eventually affect your business.

How to gain control of your finances

I insist that your financial knowledge will command your ability to gain control of your personal and business finances.

What you know will affect your budgeting, spending and investing policies for your home and business.

Financial institutions’ help

Luckily, while you are doing your part, many big financial institutions do offer you a help in managing your finances.

Take mCash Prepaid MasterCard, as an example. From the website, mcashcard.com you can learn that Mastercard offer a solution in your cash management easily. Suppose you want to gain control on your children spending habit, you can ‘enforce’ budgeting through prepaid debit cards for kids.

80/20 rules

The 80/20 rules in Pareto’s Law help you break down what’s necessary and what’s a waste in your personal and business budgeting process.

Simply eliminate the ‘waste’, and minimise the spending on what’s necessary.

What includes as wastes? In your personal finance, they might include eating out, uncontrolled credit card uses, and so on.

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