Dodo Loves Marketing

These markets operate over weekends and public holidays and offer a wide and very general range of merchandise — in fact everything from clothes and curios, inexpensive goods from the East and India, food, jewellery and music - as well as hand made crafts. ..more

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The Internet

Although it is still relatively new in the craft world, another option for mail order selling is having a website through which you can sell over the Internet.

It is not without teething problems, particularly when it comes to money transactions. A craft business owner suggests using your website to display your products with price lists and colour charts. But to do the actual orders via email or fax. ..more

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Working creatively with wrought iron could be a means to starting a lucrative home-based business in your area. Projects could include: table and chairs; fire screens; wall-mounted pot-plant holders; brackets; candlesticks; name- signs for business premises and private homes; lanterns; door knockers; gates and gardenware; wind vanes; boot scrapers; toasting forks; magazine racks, and lamps. You could also accept commissions for larger items. Designs may be simple or you could specialize in fancy scroll work. ..more

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Jewellery making can be practised at different levels, involving varying degrees of skill, more or less sophisticated equipment, and materials ranging from pebbles and shells found on the beach to alloys and precious metals like gold and silver. ..more

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Duration of the interview

How long a given interview lasts is, of course, very largely determined by inherent factors. The time devoted to an interview should be sufficient to ..more

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Today you will seldom find home-based entrepreneurs struggling on their own to meet deadlines. Help, whether in the form of people or equipment, makes life easier. Many people contract or employ others to help them on a part-time, full-time or as-needed basis. Another way is to invest in a personal computer or word-processor, photocopier, or fax machine. ..more

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Now to sell to a shop

Make a list of all the shops that would be likely to stock your product. Because you’ve done your market research, you should be able to accurately pin point who to go to. The range of areas you sell in can be quite wide. ..more

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If your product is easily and inexpensively produced, supplying a retail shop can be a very good option. ..more

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Ulm secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one has to do.

So! You’ve decided to quit your job, or you’ve been retrenched or you’ve retired and now you’re going to work from home. ..more

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Test your range

No large manufacturer of consumer goods ever invests in a product without testing it first. You must do the same. Show it around. Compare it to products already available. Get feedback from people whose opinions you trust. ..more

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Just to whet your appetite here are a few of the vast number of craft choices and possibilities: ..more

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This differs from the weekend, outdoor, craft market in that it is an indoor shop that is basically a co-op for crafts and is open all week. These markets are becoming very popular. For crafters, it means that their work is constantly on display. Likewise, the consumer is delighted to have easy access to exclusive and unusual handmade articles. These markets are becoming increasingly popular particularly with tourists. ..more

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Supplying raw materials vary, from providing very specific products for a niche market or product to providing a wider range of supplies.

Ways of operating this business are:

• from home, particularly if you’re teaching
• a mail order business
• a retail shop.

Research the market well and imaginatively — and take the opportunity to be inventive. Look at what is being produced and then look at the component parts that make up that article. ..more

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They’ve got these separate silos of authority and creativity, but no one talks across the boundaries,” a consultant called in by one of America’s largest food manufacturers tells me. “People who handle one brand won’t cooperate with people who manage another, let alone try to innovate new products or marketing approaches together. But to stay competitive, they’ve got to create teams that transcend these boundaries: ..more

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A friend who manages a team of software engineers in Silicon Valley tells me, “With a single phone call, any of the people I work with could get a job across town for twenty thousand dollars more a year. But they don’t.” Why?

“I keep it fun.” ..more

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Weblike connectivity is the secret of success in many industries where people spend less of their careers in a single organization and more in short-lived, high-intensity relationships. Entertainment is certainly one such field. But this pattern, some predict, will come to typify many or most fields in the years to come. ..more

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Survey of American employers reveals that more than half the people who work for them lack the motivation to keep learning and improving in their job. Four in ten are not able to work cooperatively with fellow employees, and just 19 percent of those applying for entry-level jobs have enough self-discipline in their work habits. ..more

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CEO at a subsidiary of a South American conglomerate was promoted to another position, leaving six top managers vying to succeed him. The six fell into a competition that undermined their unity as a management team. The conglomerate called in a consultant to sort out the strengths and weaknesses of the six and thus help them come to a decision. ..more

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Emotional competence is particularly central to leadership, a role whose essence is getting others to do their jobs more effectively. Interpersonal ineptitude in leaders lowers everyone’s performance: It wastes time, creates acrimony, corrodes motivation and commitment, builds hostility and apathy. A leader’s strengths or weaknesses in emotional competence can be measured in the gain or loss to the organization of the fullest talents of those they manage. ..more

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Focus on trivial issues

Sometimes the owner becomes so engrossed in tiny details or an irrelevant issue, that important issues are ignored or glossed-over. For example, the owner may spend days reading through computer magazines simply to choose a personal computer. The problem often occurs when the business is experiencing some kind of difficulty and the owner finds it uncomfortable to think about the difficult problems and resorts to solving a few easy ones. It is a way of escaping from troubling concerns while at the same time feeling that useful work is being done. ..more

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