Dodo Loves Marketing

As much as you can possibly put away. This is a simple answer but true. Every sacrifice made now will prevent a greater one later. We have already looked at the value of money and can see that it will be impossible to have too much. No one knows what the future holds so it is necessary to do the best you can. Doing nothing will lead to hardship while doing anything will help. ..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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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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Ten major reasons why new businesses fail

Cash flow problems

This is the single most common cause of new business failure. Many businesses, even profitable ones, fail because they run out of cash — they go insolvent. Insolvency occurs when a firm is unable to meet its obligations such as salaries, creditors, interest payments and expenses. It is caused by cash flowing out of the business faster than it comes in. Although a firm can sometimes survive a period of insolvency by delaying the payment of its obligations, it is liable to be sued by its creditors or employees (or have its electricity or telephone cut off) at any time. ..more

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After taking out an estimate of the value of the property, how many years‘ purchase of the pre-tax profits does the balance of the price represent? Many small businesses sell on around one to one-and-a half years‘ purchase of the profits, though the figure tends to be higher in the south of England.

If you are paying £54,000 for a business which is earning pre-tax profits of £18,000, you are buying it on three years‘ purchase. This is equivalent to a return on your money of 33¹/₃ per cent before tax. If it costs you 17 per cent to borrow the money, a 33¹/₃ per cent return is as low as it is sensible to accept. Businesses often sell at, say, one-anda-half years‘ purchase, a return of 66²/₃ per cent, but because this ignores your salary it is not a true return. ..more

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LEVEL 2: CLASHES

The central message is designed to help us manage differences in good relationships. Clashes happen in good relationships.

Despite our best efforts, Annoyances sometimes accumulate and grow into Clashes. How do we know when the line has been crossed? Indications are:

• Repeated arguments about the same issue, perhaps spread over days or weeks.
• Arguing over an increasing number of issues.
• Feeling less co-operative toward the Other.
• Feeling less trusting of the Other’s honest good will toward us.
• Remaining angry at the Other for a longer period, perhaps hours or days.
• Beginning to privately question the value of the relationship. ..more

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The activities of your implementation project won’t always happen in the way or at the time that you plan them to. The way to counteract the difficulties that arise from these diversions from your plan lies in the way that you create and use your implementation project monitoring and control system. When created and used with care, this system will identify the project’s drifts and divergences and provide you with what you need to put your project back ‘on line’. ..more

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In a process-orientated company, many of these new performance indicators used in benchmarking and elsewhere are non-financial. That is, they will focus management’s attention upon the truly critical areas of performance — i.e. those that drive profitability and align the business unit with its strategic goals. In the case of marketing logistics, we might expect to see metrics that capture such things as customer satisfaction, flexibility and employee commitment. Management meetings should therefore begin their agenda not with the financial review — that will come later — but with a review of non-financial performance indicators. These will necessarily differ between organisations, but may include: ..more

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Whilst there can be no argument that long-term, sustained profit has to be the goal of any commercial organisation, there is a growing realisation that if profit is the end, then we should spend more time examining the means whereby it is achieved. So many management boards begin their weekly meetings with a review of the financial position — in other words, before anything else is discussed revenues will be examined and costs detailed at some length. Ratios, production efficiencies — these are the currency by which the business is measured and therefore controlled. ..more

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About a quarter of American’s $7.385 trillion in personal consumption expenditures is spent on their homes. Spending on the four walls that shelter us topped $1.145 trillion in 2002, and spending on household operations, which includes all home furnishings, cleaning products, stationery and writing supplies, utility expenditures, and domestic services was $748.3 billion. Housing expenditures are rising faster than spending on household operations, as rock-bottom mortgage rates have encouraged more Americans to either buy into the housing market for the first time or trade up to larger, more expensive homes. ..more

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Everyone has talents—recurring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior that can be applied productively. Simply put, everyone can probably do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people. However, each person is not necessarily in a position to use her talents. Even though she might initially have been selected for her talents, after a couple of reshuffles and lateral moves, she may now be miscast.

If you want to turn talent into performance, you have to position each person so that you are paying her to do what she is naturally wired to do. You have to cast her in the right role. ..more

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Purchase incidence of aromatherapy and scented household products rose sharply in 2005 to reach 49 percent, up from 42 percent of U.S. households in 2003. Consumers are turning away from candles as the primary delivery option for household scent toward other alternatives, such as potpourri, steamers, and sprays. By lighting fewer candles, they are expressing a desire for safer, more healthful alternatives for home fragrance. Concerns about indoor air pollution, open flames, burning petroleum-based waxes, and possible leaded wicks are becoming an important issue for consumers. ..more

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According to one famous futurist, “Someday in the near future I’ll be watching Ally McBeal. I like the outfit she’s wearing. So I put my hand on the TV screen and she‘ll interrupt the program and say, ‘Faith, do you like what I’m wearing?”Yeah,’ I’ll say. ‘I like your suit.’ And she‘ll say, ‘Here are the colors it comes in.’ I’ll tell Ally that I’ll take just navy or black, maybe both. And she‘ll say, ‘No you won’t, Faith. You’ve already got too many navy and black outfits in your closet right now. I think you should try red this time.’ And I’ll say okay, and the next day the red suit is delivered, in my size, to my home.” ..more

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Even if you thoughtfully examine the match between the employee and the role, you’ve still got a problem. No matter what conclusion you come to, the employee will invariably want to move up. The employee will want to be promoted. Every signal sent by the company tells him that higher is better. A larger salary, a more impressive title, more generous stock options, a roomier office with a couch and a coffee table, all this and more awaits the lucky employee on the next rung on the ladder. No wonder he wants to move up. ..more

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Here are two, of the infinite number of possible answers:

“I think it is very important to be persistent, particularly if you really believe in your ideas. We really encourage that kind of candor here. With my team, if I have a suggestion that others disagree with, I know they will expect me to keep supporting my idea until somebody comes up with a better one. In fact, it happens all the time.” ..more

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To help him prepare, ask him to write down answers to these three questions before each meeting:

A. What actions have you taken? These should be the details of his performance over the last three months. He should include scores, rankings, ratings, and timelines, if available

B.What discoveries have you made? These discoveries might be in the form of training classes he attended, ..more

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If you want to be sure of creating the best impression you might decide to hire an interior designer. Alternatively, Laura Ashley charge £500 for a styling consultation for three rooms, refundable against purchases of £500 or more. At the most basic level:

• Rooms in one neutral colour, particularly white and cream look larger than their actual size. ..more

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There are thousands of successful businesses that started on kitchen tables. Laura Ashley, for instance, started as a ‘corner of the kitchen‘ business and went on to make millions. However, just because a business starts on the kitchen table doesn’t mean it should end there. If you intend to spend ten hours a day at work, then it makes sense to give some thought and time to the environment you work in. If you plan to entertain clients, then making sure your office is presentable is even more important. ..more

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However skilled you are at the work you plan to do from home, your primary consideration in setting up your new business, must be to establish your market. Quite simply, that means finding your customers. In any business, whether you are a plumber, consultant or counsellor, you need customers to succeed. Tracking customers down — and holding on to them — is one of the most difficult challenges for any new business. If it is remotely possible, it is best not to leave your current job, if you have one, before you have at least one or two leads. ..more

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Licensing, registration and inspection

It is amazing how many businesses require some form of licensing, registration or inspection. Bed and breakfast establishments, for instance, may need to be inspected by fire officers, to be registered with the local authority, and may even need planning permission and official approval of their signs from local planning officers. That’s before they start taking on catering, in which case there is another host of rules to contend with. These rules have been set up for the public good, wisely or otherwise. But many people do not know about them. Unfortunately, ignorance is no defence and you could end up being fined heavily if, for instance, your kitchen is not up to environmental health standards for a catering business, or if you are an unregistered childminder. If you make toys which do not comply with safety standards or sell clothes without the correct labelling, you could also end up in hot water. ..more

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