I have a network of blogs, and am an avid blogger. When I’m looking for a directory to list in, two things I try to take note of is the directory rankings. I was over at AliveDirectory.com, a pay to be listed blog directory, and they have a PR of 6. Their Alexa ranking is a little over 16,000. When you’re looking for good quality links back to your blog, finding a good PR page is a bonus. Alive Directory is a blog directory with different options available to you. You can choose to pay for a yearly link, or you can choose a permanent link. You can choose a lower based price if you place a reciprocal link on your own blog back to them.

They have a large selection of categories to choose from, so whether you have a small business blog like I do, or a blog on art, people, computers, entertainment, or any category, you can find a fit! Check out AliveDirectory.com, and get listed!

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What exactly do you do? Do you sell shoes, or do you sell women’s shoes? Do you sell electronics, or do you sell cameras? Maybe you focus on digital cameras, either way you’ve narrowed down your focus.

If you had to describe your business in one sentence to someone who had never heard of it, could you? Or would you have to ramble on to cover all the different things you do? If you can describe your business in one brief sentence, you have focus.

Focus is the spotlight of your business, and when it comes to marketing your business, knowing where and how to market it can all come down to your focus. If you sell baby clothing, you’re not going to spend your time marketing to the fishing crowd, even though they may be married with children of their own. You’re going to target people who are LOOKING for baby clothing. Looking is the keyword, because a lot of your marketing effort isn’t going out to reach people, but helping them find you! While we want to reach out to clients, we also want them looking for us. Make yourself visible, when somebody would search for you. If you were a new parent, where would you be searching for baby clothes?

If you were a client looking for travel information, where would you look? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and you may find new avenues to be found in.

I got an email this week from one of the local spas and it offered me a great discount for a last minute appointment. They had some cancellations, and if I called them, I could save 30% off or a service, if I was flexible! What a great deal, but even better, what a great way for a company to stay in contact with their customers. My spa uses email contact marketing to let me know about specials, new services or products, and they do it all with their own personal branding.

If you’re a company, and you’re looking for an inexpensive way to stay in contact with your clients or customers, then you’ll want to look to ViperMailer.com, an Email Marketing Service. You can create a personalized message for your clients for up to 1,000 clients under $20.00 a month. A quick and easy user base lets you create your own personalized newsletter and email marketing form. You are creating brand loyalty and recognition, keeping in contact with your customers, and will build better business with a professional mailer. Imagine you just start offering gift certificates; what a great way to get the word out to all your customers in a quick, easy and graphical way! Now, each of your customers is aware of your new product, and all it took you was a couple minutes to create the mailer.

If you’re a larger business, ViperMailer.com has a package for you too. You pay based on how many people you want to stay in contact with. It’s an easy way that’s affordable for any business. They have over 70 templates to choose from, and even offer a free trial for up to 20 contacts. Try it out and see how easy it is to stay in touch with your client base.

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Here’s the latest offerings on eBay. If you’re looking for a new laptop, you can check out the deals here.

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Do you have to micro manage every aspect of your employees, or do they know what is expected of them? Have they been properly trained, or were things busy, so they were expected to jump in and figure out a lot of stuff on their own?

Many employees are never fully and properly trained. Management then gets upset with an employee when they don’t do it a certain way. What type of emphasis are you placing on training in your business. Do you have a format you follow, criteria written down so you know they learn certain things? Do you just do it as you go?

Like most things, when you have a clear path, a written agenda, you can be sure each employee will get full and proper training, and in return do things the same way. We can’t expect employees “to just know”, if we don’t guide them with our standards, expectations and encouragement.

While you can’t mold everyone’s work ethic, you can be sure you’ve given them a clear outline of what is expected of them. If you haven’t, you need to relook at your training program. Do you have one? If not, this is a good time to start. Write down what you expect of your employees, what you want them to understand, learn and what each job entails. Not only will you have better employees, you’ll have better employee relationships because they know you took the time to train them right, and you want them to succeed.

[tags]employees, business, new hires, training, employment, biz [/tags]

What is a mission statement?

A mission statement represents the purpose and goal of your company, in a clear manner. You may see mission statements that says they want to meet and exceed a customer’s expectations, while keeping high integrity in their field of industry.

A mission statement may say that a company seeks to be committed to be a leader in their field, while keeping high standards. It may state that they intend to be environmental leaders, all while leading others. Each company has a different idea of what their purpose is.

It should be a short and clear representation of what they want to use as a guide.  When your company and employees stand behind your mission, you’ll come together as a team, and have a better chance of accomplishing, and following those parameters you’ve set as standards.

What is your company’s mission statement, and why did you choose it? Is it written down, so people can refer to it? Do others know what your mission statement is? If you haven’t created one yet, think about how you want to represent yourself, and try to come up with a mission statement. Write it down, and then fulfill it!

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration has resources to help you become OSHA compliant. Are you familiar with OSHA? If you’re an employer, you need to be familiar with them! You can check out their website at OSHA.gov.

You can find their index of information for Small Businesses here.

If you’re looking for publications on things like construction standards, fire protection, employee safety and other guides, you can find them here.

You’ll find a full list of topics here regarding things like asbestos, noise, teen worker safety, woodworker safety among many others. It’s a full list, so check to see what you should be familiar with for your business. I didn’t know is not an excuse. It’s your responsibility as a business owner!

You can find training centers listed here.

Are you OSHA compliant?

[tags] business, OSHA, OSHA compliant, small business, safety[/tags]

When you’re talking about business, one aspect of business you need to help grow your business is lead generation and management. Without growing your client base, you can eventually run into a wall, unless you expand your offerings. Accoona is a new company looking to help lead generation based on an exchange site. Accoona isn’t just about lead management, this is a tri-fold company that has different sectors. On top of lead generation, they also offer search options, and consumer retailing. Rather than only offering one of these options, they want to stream line the process so you can find all your needs in one place.

Founded in 2004, Accoona Corp. is all ready setting strong standards. With offices in New Jersey and China, Accoona Corp. has worldwide presence. They also have the honor of being selected one of the 50 Coolest Web sites by Time Magazine in 2006. This is a company to watch!

If you’re ready for great focused lead generation, then look at Accoona’s Exchange Place. This is a service that’s unique in offering cross industry marketing. You can choose parameters that work for your needs, and segmentation. You select what you need. This platform makes it easy with a self-service type module.

When speaking of Accoona, you can’t not mention armand rousso. He was one of the sponsors of the American Red Cross Hurrican Relief Event. He not only is an investor, but has made his presence felt in charitable ways. Within 2 years of Armand Rousso’s moving ot the United States, he’d helped raise millions of dollars for people in need. This is something that’s always great to hear!

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If you’re an employee that gets tips as part of your income, do you know the rules regarding taxes? What if you’re an employer, do you know how to calculate for tips your employee has received?

Tips need to be reported when you’ve made more than $20 in a month. Not reporting your tips is cheating on your taxes!

You have to pay taxes on your tips, because this is considered part of your income. Those tips add up, so if you’re over the limit, start adding! That includes waitresses, bartenders, spa employees, hairdressers, barbers, golf caddies, cleaning services, taxi drivers, bell hops, pizza delivery people, doormen, casino employees…and YOU if you receive tips! There are many other jobs that receive tips as part of their income, and you know who you are. Are you reporting your income properly? It doesn’t matter if you’re getting tips from customers, or from other employees where you work, it’s time to start reporting your tips!

Another important tip on tips is to keep a daily record. It’s your responsibility, and now you know!

You can find publications regarding tip reporting at the IRS. (IRS.gov)

Look into publications 531 and 1244. They’ll help you understand and keep better records.

If you don’t have your own business space, did you know there are options for you if you need to hold a meeting or confer with someone. You can rent or lease business space from BusinessSuites. They have full furnished office space in Maryland, Texas, Virginia and Nevada. You can see their full list of Commercial Office Spaces here. They even offer administrative services if you need them. Imagine not having the full overhead of a business office, and still being able to rent a conference room as you need one, on a per use basis! Now that’s clever! If you’d like to learn more about BusinessSuites, check them out at BusinessSuites.com.

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