From harvardbusiness
1. Call to action. The number one thing that separates a memo, report, or PowerPoint from A Tale of Two Cities is a call to action. A novel is to be enjoyed. Business writing is intended to get the audience to do something: invest in a popcorn factory, fill out a kidney donor form, or flee the building in an orderly manner.

Questions to ask: Does my email ask the reader to do anything? If not, why am I sending it?

2. Say it up front. M. Night Shyamalan is paid to surprise folks. We are paid to not surprise our boss. Whatever the purpose of your missive, say it in the first line. Mystery and story are great ways to entertain and teach, so unless you’re looking for a job doing that, spit out why you’re writing up front.

Questions to ask: Can the reader tell from the subject line and first sentence what I’m writing about without going further? If not, why are you insisting that they guess? Continue Reading »

Another Inspirational move to start your day. Credit goes to Ted Chung for this great Master piece.

If you’re going to be ahead of the game in a new and growing small business, networking is for you. Developing relationships with others in your field is vitally important. Good networking takes a lot of creativity and hard work, but it’s as important as any other investment you’ve made in your business and the key to your success.

Online and offline networking differ significantly. Depending on your business, you’ll want to focus your attention on the one most conducive to gaining new and keeping your present clients or customers. The business world travels on relationships and a business successful in nurturing them will be successful.

Few businesses thrive in a vaccuum. Relationships with fellow business owners can provide fresh insights, leads, and a little comic relief when it’s needed. You can begin network online by searching for trade and business association websites, blogs, and other sites frequented by business owners and your potential customers. Look for those online sites that you’re interested in and assume that others wearing your shoes would travel to the same spots. Get involved. Use the chat rooms and other online opportunities such as contributing information and articles, question and answer forums, and sponsorship, to touch base with others and find common ground. Our society has accepted the validity of online relationships and friendships between people who never actually meet in person are common. Continue Reading »

Inspirational move to kick start your thoughts. Credit goes to Ted Chung for this absolutely beautiful movie

The economy may be in trouble, but this doesn’t mean E-Commerce owners have to close up shop. Instead, such owners should consider using free shipping incentives to lure shoppers into buying one’s products. With the holidays upon us, free shopping can help an e-commerce owner in business and happy as a clam. 

So, why should you offer free shopping? Well, now only is it becoming the norm for many US retailers, but recent surveys have touted that nearly 75% of all shoppers said they were more likely to purchase items from a shop if free shopping was an offered benefit. Nowadays, to get a customer to purchase items online, it needs to not only be an easy as pie experience, but the price needs to be right or people will run to other websites or to other stores. Thus, free shipping keeps the price down for the customer and could end up building up a customer’s loyalty to a E-Commerce owner. Continue Reading »

People are able to subscribe to newsletter to be informed of new product range or new services that are offered by the online company via the internet. A good newsletter basically should contain the title or heading, introduction and remaining paragraphs that catches the attention of the reader. If possible, add logos or other relevant graphics and images to make it more attractive and to stand out from the rest. After all, you want your readers to remember the contents stated in it, hence it is a wise decision to make the banners, logos and accompanying graphics attractive to capture the memory. Continue Reading »

Internet marketing is a very quick, efficient way to make money online. This type of business has many benefits, including being able to start with no out of pocket expenses. This part alone is a huge benefit in itself. 

There are countless opportunities online to make money, but most of them have start up costs. When you are first starting out, money is usually scarce, plus there is the worry of being scammed, too. Being able to start internet marketing with out any start up costs, makes it a very do-able opportunity. 

For those of you that are unfamiliar with internet marketing, let me explain it a little. I usually compare it a little to a car salesman. A car salesman sells someone’s cars for them in trade of a percentage of the total sale. When the customer comes and purchases a car, he will get paid. Internet marketing is the same type of concept, but the product could be anything, not just a car. Continue Reading »