Professional Business Network

In the more than 30 years Ive been involved with business planning, Ive seen styles and fashion of plans change a lot, but the fundamentals remain fairly constant. To help you craft a plan that hits all the right notes, heres a list of some of the more common business planning mistakes you should avoid:

1. Dont put off writing a plan. Dont wait until you have enough time, dont wait until you have the right people, and definitely dont wait until theres an urgent reason you suddenly need a plan. Instead, just do it now. Recognize that you need a business plan and that your first step is to prepare your first plan. Get a draft up and running and then continue updating it to keep it current with your business. Of course, youll soon realize that your plan may never be done, but the important thing is, youre planning.

You should always be planning your business.

2.

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Whatever CRM system you choose, implementing it correctly is essential to the success of the CRM project. To implement it correctly, you need an effective project methodology. This will minimise the risks and costs associated with CRM initiatives and achieve high return on investment by providing maximum user adoption.

So what is a CRM project?

A CRM project is a distinct series of tasks and activities that produce a set of tangible outcomes within clearly specified constraints of time, quality and cost.

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South Africa faces rising risks to its inflation outlook due to commodity prices, and inflation may move to the upper end of the 3% to 6% target range sooner than expected, Reserve Bank Governor Gill Marcus said.

In a speech posted on the Bank’s website, Marcus said rising global and domestic prices were likely to pose a challenge to monetary policy in the coming months. She reiterated that the likelihood of further loosening was limited.

“While inflation appears to be under control, there are increasing risks to the outlook posed by rising global commodity prices, particularly food and oil prices,” Marcus said.

“Should food and oil prices impact on domestic inflation by more than is currently expected, we may see inflation moving towards the upper end of the target range sooner than expected.”

The Reserve Bank left its key repo rate unchanged at 5,5% in January and signalled the possible end of a 650 basis point easing cycle that began in December 2008. Read Full Post…

When I’m giving speeches to groups of small business owners or working with them to build their own marketing systems, I tell them everything we do in business is marketing; from how we answer our phones, to our billing, to how we treat future and existing customers. Marketing is about more than attracting new customers to do business with us – it s about keeping, nurturing, and “wowing” the ones we have so they buy from us again and again and rant and rave about our company to everyone they know.

I had some customer experiences lately that I thought I’d share and see what you all think….

I recently moved into a new apartment. It’s one of those large apartment communities with an onsite office and a team of people to assist tenants and run the property. Here’s what m

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48 days to the work you love is the subheading of Dream Job by Dan Miller. Does the author actually deliver on his promises? Well, it is really up to the reader to determine the final outcome. Of course, the reader may not know how to attain such a result which is why help is sought. Those hoping for such quality guidance will venture towards Dream Job by Dan Miller. Does Miller provide a solid work that helps the reader achieve insight into actionable steps to land a much desired job?

Yes, this CD (or MP3) series does have a lot of fantastic tips on procuring a great job through an insightful step by step process that injects some much needed common sense into the equation. If you want to succeed with landing a new job, Dan Miller shows you some of the things you need to do to attain the desired outcome.

In some ways, the value of this 6 CD set would be its ability to point out the things you need to avoid doing in order to boost your success potential.

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Most of the readers who visit MyWifeQuitHerJob.com fall into opposite extremes when it comes to their online business goals. Either they want to go all out, create their own products or import their goods from Asia for maximum profit or they want to start an online store as a side business using the most “passive” methods available.

The prospect of making money passively without requiring much work is extremely attractive which is why many readers fall into the latter category.

In other words, they want to be able to make money with as little active effort as possible. The

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You’ve no doubt heard the hype that a blog is the way to for marketing (along with its good friend social media). And it’s true that blogs are excellent marketing channels for many online businesses. But is that true for online stores? Are blogs worth it? Can they boost sales?

They can indeed. Here are five ways a blog can boost sales for your ecommerce store.

1. Search engine optimization to get found

Shopping carts have become much more savvy about SEO in recent years, but blog SEO is outstanding. If you’re using WordPress for your blog with a couple choice plugins and the right theme framework, your blog’s SEO will be killer.

In a product page, you can’t have a headline that’s the exact wording of a question your customer might have. But you eas

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