A salesperson can earn more than $80,000 a year, especially a sales person who introduces prospective customers to scientific and technical products. Another perk a salesperson enjoys is the opportunity to travel. However, considering the nerve necessary to succeed at selling, these and other perks still aren’t enough to entice some people to enter the career field. A good reason for this has to do with cold calling.

Sure; it can be intimidating to pick up the telephone and call one stranger after another, highlighting product features, asking them about their greatest wants or negotiating with them, hoping to get them to invest more of their time in you as you schedule a follow-up call or in-person meeting with them. But, fears must be pushed aside.


Point is, without cold calling, bottom lines don’t elevate. Whether you’re thinking about using cold calling to stimulate sales, stop losses or boost exposure for a new product or service, you could benefit from cold calling. To improve your cold calling results:

• Create a list or database that includes contact names, telephone numbers, email addresses and two to three prominent interests contacts have.
• Outline key points you’re going to cover with respondents before you pick up the telephone.
• Stop taking ‘no’ personally. There could be a range of reasons why you hear ‘no’. For starters, people who turn down your offers may simply not be interested in the types of products or services you’re selling. You also might have caught a person at an inconvenient time (i.e. they just stepped out of the shower, their food is burning on the stove).
• Find a mentor, someone who has five or more years of experience cold calling successfully.
• Work to build rewarding relationships with people you cold call, offering them tips, free advice, three or more ways to contact you, etc.
• Set a date and time to connect with the person within the next two to three days, providing them with more details about your products and services, including how using the products and services would improve or enhance their lives. If contacts prefer not to be telephoned, ask them if you can follow-up via an email, or again with an in-person meeting.
• Highlight benefits specifically related to your products and services.
• Stay honest, even if answering a question reveals risks associated with products or services you’re cold calling to sell.
• Be straightforward.
• Ask thought provoking questions, ones that help you unearth a person’s deepest desires, wishes and dreams.
• Point out how products and services you’re cold calling to sell could help people fulfill their deepest desires, wishes and dreams.

After taking each of these and other steps, it’s important to keep in touch with respondents, again establishing a rewarding relationship with them. Listening, informing and educating, versus selling, are constant actions you should take during the entire cold calling process. The payoff could be huge.

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Sit in a boardroom with members of a senior management team and you might find that you’re starting to be looked at as the cause for a company’s failure. It seems to come with the executive turf, the need to blame someone for lack of sales, poor management decisions, high employee turnover . . . you name it.

About the only way to steer clear of these muddy waters is to keep detailed records of business discussions, meeting notes and directions you were given from senior staff. If you don’t keep clear records, you could find yourself in a very uncomfortable she said/he said debate, not what you want.


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Training seminars, clips from concerts, book readings and taped athletic competitions are just some of the types of videos uploaded and viewed at YouTube. This all happens for a very good reason. For starters, each month more than 800 million people visit YouTube, all in all this volume of traffic could potentially equate into an incredibly ripe harvest for you. YouTube also reports that “72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.” If you’ve never considered implementing YouTube promotion strategies to market your small business, perhaps it’s time you did.

More about how YouTube could improve your marketing successes

Founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, three guys who once worked for PayPal, YouTube has about 10 million channels. Channels are generally created by individual users. One way you could increase the number of YouTube views your videos receive is to give your channel a catchy name, something that grabs and holds people’s attention. You can also upload YouTube videos under existing channels. Just make sure you select a channel that won’t bury your videos.

A good way to find out which channels might be best suited for your small business videos is to spend a day or two searching for channels that publish videos that are similar to the content you plan on putting on YouTube. For example, if you’re an insurance agent, you might consider linking your videos to banking, medical or age-related (i.e. AARP) channels. Also, check out channels that have a large subscription base. In a nutshell, do a little empirical study and learning. Make note of your findings.


In other words, don’t just start uploading YouTube videos. Do your homework. Get a good grasp for what’s trending in your industry. This process might take you several days or a week or longer. At the end of your study, you should know what balance of comedy/humor, stats, interviews with industry leaders, news commentary and tips/advice will best grow your YouTube business channel.

Here are some other actions you could take to promote your business using YouTube videos:

• Provide newsworthy or trending content in your videos.
• Add content visitors could only find if they visited your YouTube channel (i.e. clips from a conference your business sponsors).
• Feature  your YouTube channel in newsletters, press releases, direct mailings, your website, etc.
• Create YouTube badges using YouTubeAPIs. Add these badges to your websites and blogs.
• Make it easy for YouTube visitors to embed and share your videos. Add feature videos you make about your business to your website, blogs and digital newsletters.
• Build themes around your videos, so people looking for certain types of videos can easily find you.
• Register to have your best videos included in YouTube promoted videos
• Add your YouTube videos/channel to search engines.
• Include the right keywords/phrases in your video titles and descriptions.
• Ask your friends, employees and supporters to share your videos with people in their circles.
• Publish links to your YouTube videos/channel at social media networks (i.e. Facebook, Twitter).

To establish relationships with prospective customers, you’re going to have to let people see you or your team members. You’re going to have to help people to feel as if they are getting to know you, can trust you. For these reasons, if you create your own small business YouTube videos, make sure you record yourself or staff in well lit areas. Eliminate background noise. Look into the camera and speak naturally. Let your personality shine to engage viewers. Be authentic.

Creating YouTube marketing videos

Should you want to include screenshots of computer pages in your YouTube videos, there are tools like Jango and Snipping Tool that you could use for free to capture the screenshots. All you have to do is capture the screenshot you want, save it to your computer then upload it onto documents you plan on including in your videos. Movie makers are other tools you can use to create YouTube videos. Additionally, if you have a digital camera, even a small handheld digital camera that fits in your pocket, you can start recording yourself, outdoor scenes, etc. to use in your small business YouTube videos.

After you upload your small business videos, get busy marketing and promoting them. Share your videos with your followers at social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Post links to your videos at your small business blog and at your official small business website.

Encourage your staff to do the same. Also encourage your staff to leave comments about your YouTube videos at your small business channel. These steps could help improve your YouTube views. To keep your small business channel subscribers coming back, searching for new videos you upload, try to record and upload one or more new videos a week or a month.

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True. Blog content can increase your small business’ search engine ranking, pulling in hundreds and thousands of visitors who might not otherwise learn about your business. The right blog content could also turn visitors into paying customers. The rewards can be great; but the content has to be developed and used in the right way.

Start to develop blog content that drives customer sales
Highlight freebies that you’re giving away to people who read all the to the end of your blog article. Do this at the start of the article. To build your marketing database, add a form that requires readers to provide their name and email address, to the bottom of articles attached to giveaways.

As a tip, freebies alone won’t draw in repeat readers. You have to show readers how to do something, entertain, inspire or motivate people who visit your blog. For example, you could offer your insights on a current trending news piece (this could work especially well if you’re considered as an expert in the field the news piece focuses on).


You could also add unique motivational or inspirational quotes to your blog. Add a new quote every day and you could see a spike in the numbers of repeat visitors to your blog fairly quickly. If you decide to add “how to” pieces to your blog, think about including images that illustrate the steps you’re directing readers to take, as little compliments “how to” blog content like clear illustrations.

Feature interviews with industry leaders, announcements about popular upcoming events and humorous articles or comedy pieces that are related to the field your small business operates in are other types of blog content that could attract large numbers of potential customers. It’s important to note that these and other steps take time and commitment. In fact, some blog owners who have gone on to earn hundreds or thousands of dollars a month off their blog sites have said that it wasn’t until the second or third year after starting a blog that they began to earn a profit.

Some of these blog content writing pros also have several blogs that they market and promote. They also start niche blog sites. For example, they might only write free blog content about jazz artists, history and songs or interior design. It can be a good decision as niche blog content writing can make it easier for online ad firms like Google Adsense to know which ads work best on certain blog sites. This, in turn, can increase the amount of money blog owners receive from their blogs.

As with other business endeavors and marketing strategies, to earn significant profits off blog content writing, it’s important to be flexible. For instance, some blog articles might prove grab readers’ attention, while other blog posts seem to be merely an exercise in writing. By using tools like Google Keywords, you could find phrases and words to include in your blog content, phrases and keywords that millions of people conduct online searches with.

Generating customer sales via blog sites that rank high in search engines
Other steps you could take while promoting a blog include adding social media share buttons to each blog posts. By making RSS blog feeds available to readers, you could gain subscribers, readers who will be alerted when you publish new articles at your blog.

Slide shows are also becoming more popular at some websites. I’m not a fan of slide shows because they generally take awhile to load. I also prefer to read articles on a single page. However, it might be worth it to test drive two or more slide shows at blog sites you own to see how readers react to the slides.

Ways to measure the success of your blog content include running Google Analytics and monitoring how many visitors enter your website through your blog. Also, measure the numbers of people who click onto your order page after having read a blog posts. If you add a comments section to your blog posts, you can also engage readers more deeply, encouraging them to feel that they are a key part of your blog’s success. As a tip, if you do add a comments section to your blog, set up spam blockers as more than a few people only visit blogs to add spam links.

One last tip I want to leave with you regarding blog content involves page ads. These are great tools to use to grab reader interest. For example, you can publish a clickable image (one that leads readers to an order page) of one of your popular products on your blog’s sidebar, gaining more interest for the product.

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If you built a shop or website, wouldn’t a few customers find your without you having to pay for advertising or without you having to market the shop or website? Common sense tells me that they would. However, to attract enough customers so you can pay rent, you’ve got to get folks talking.


Think you can pull that off on your own? You know what?  I think you can!  The rub is whether or not you really have the time (oh, time) to market and develop your products or services, not mention finding the time to enrich relationships you have with existing customers.

If your a solo-preneur, you’re doing it all. You’re finding a way.  (One day, I hope solo-preneurs receive the spotlight they deserve!!)

However, as your business continues to grow (and especially if it really takes off!), time may become somewhat of a rare commodity. Keep your eyes open to working with experienced marketers. They just might help you get over some tough sales slumps. They also might help take your business to new, lofty levels.

Fifteen year olds who work while they’re still in high school can start building their resumes early. They can also reap other rewards. For example, they can develop job skills, learn how to build rapport with colleagues and acquire customer service skills. Federal laws prohibit 15-year-olds from working more than three hours when school is in session. The most teens can work when school is out is eight hours a day. State laws regarding the types of jobs 15-year-olds can work and the hours they’re allowed to work may vary from federal laws.


Retail

Fifteen year olds can work in retail. Examples of retail businesses are clothing stores, restaurants and grocery stores. While working for these employers, federal laws permit the teens to perform functions like operating cash registers, stocking goods on shelves, cleaning kitchen and/or store surfaces, answering customer questions and cleaning floors. However, 15-year-olds cannot load or unload supplies onto or off of trucks. They also cannot bake, cook over open flames or operate power driven equipment. State laws around retail and other types of jobs 15-year-olds can work may vary.

Blogger

It almost goes without saying that teens could start earning money after they create and market the type of blog that demands the attention of their peers.  Generally, all that’s needed is a reliable computer, the passion to connect with others and a keen eye for what’s trending in areas the teen is most interested in. It’s relatively easy to set up a blog, from a technical aspect. Tools like Word Press and Bravenet are fairly intuitive and easy to follow in regards to actually building a blog site. After the site is built, teens have to develop the right content, writing that engages thousands, perhaps millions, of readers. If their blogs take off, advertisers could come calling, asking to place ads on their site. Teens who establish the right pay ad rates could earn hundreds of dollars a month off their blog.

Lifeguard

Swimming pools and amusement parks are places where 15-year-olds can get jobs. For example, 15-year-olds can work as lifeguards at amusement park water rides, sell merchandise at amusement park stores and collect tickets so customers can get on rides. According to the United States Department of Labor, if the teens are trained and certified by the American Red Cross in aquatics they can work as lifeguards at water parks and local swimming pools. After they turn 16, they can work as lifeguards at beaches. It takes 24 to 31 hours to complete American Red Cross certification courses. Topics covered during the courses include surveillance skills, victim assistance, preventing injuries, first aid and rescue skills. 

Newspaper Company

Local newspaper companies are places where 15-year-olds may be able to land their first paying job. After getting hired by a newspaper company, the teens can deliver newspapers to area residents. They can also complete other tasks such as collecting monies due on newspaper deliver services from customers and stocking newspapers to be delivered to customers onto the backs of their bicycles or in their parents’ cars.

Entertainment Industry

If 15-year-olds have a passion for working as actors or actresses, they can get started in those careers by working for television stations, major motion picture studios or live theater production companies. For example, they can do television or movie voice overs or they can fill major or minor acting roles, starring in films and/or television series. To get started in television, major motion pictures, live theater, teens generally must get a talent agent. They can do this several ways, including by submitting videos of them performing and/or winning a talent contest. After securing a talent agent, teens generally are sent on casting calls to audition for acting and voice over rolls in front of people like casting directors. At some auditions, teens may compete for roles that dozens or more other teens are also applying for. Furthermore, to sharpen their acting skills, 15-year-olds may also have to receive training at places like acting schools and film academies.

Parent’s Business

Parents who own their own business can hire their 15-year-old children to work for them. While working for their parents, teens can perform a variety of job functions. For example, if their parents own a florist shop, teens can take customer orders and help prepare floral arrangements. Other types of family businesses teens can work at for their parents include pet stores, catering companies, insurance companies and photography studios. However, federal laws prohibit them from working dangerous jobs like mining or manufacturing. Skills teens can gain from working at these and other family businesses include administrative or typing skills, customer service and time management skills. As with each of the jobs, state laws may vary from federal laws.

Sources:

http://youthrules.dol.gov/know-the-limits/14-15.htm  (United States Department of Labor: Youth Rules)

http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/Newspaper.htm (United States Department of Labor: Youth and Labor)

http://www.redcross.org/take-a-class/program-highlights/lifeguarding (American Red Cross: Lifeguarding)

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/27/nyregion/the-business-of-young-talent.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (New York Times: The Business of Young Talent)

Few things create an equal amount of discomfort in employees and managers the way performance review deadlines do. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mid-year or year-end appraisal. Hidden in the dread is a remedy, a solution that could help organizations improve morale, increase employee engagement and enrich customer satisfaction.

Problems with performance reviews

So, why do employees and their managers dread completing performance reviews? For starters, aside from reviews, managers don’t regularly sit down with their employees to discuss areas that need improvement, offer praise for a job well done or talk about training options and career goals. This can make employees feel as if, during performance review meetings, that they are talking to someone who barely knows them. Because managers weld the power to authorize promotions and salary increases, the discussions are awkward, at best.

To reduce their discomfort (or perhaps guilt), managers may cite an “open door” policy. However, “open door” is often just a catch phrase. As Eric Jackson, founder and managing partner of Ironfire Capital LLC, shares in Forbes, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chatted with lazy bosses who use that line: ‘Oh, my people know I have an open-door policy and they can come to me to talk about anything at any time.’”

Jackson goes on to reveal that, “I would say 80% of the time in those cases, if I went to the reports and they answered me honestly, they would say that they typically don’t go to the boss because he or she is always on the phone or looks too busy.” Clearly, if managers met with employees at least once a week as well as offered employees instant feedback after they completed a project, resolved a customer’s complaint or closed a client sale, feedback provided in performance reviews wouldn’t come as a shock.

Steps to improve performance review reports and discussions

Steps managers (and employees) could take to make the performance review process smoother, less emotionally taxing, include:

• Set clear goals and deadlines at the start of the review period (by putting these goals and deadlines in writing, managers could avoid disagreements during performance appraisal meetings)
• Keep notes throughout the year on employees’ performance
• Meet with employees on a weekly basis to learn about challenges they’re experiencing, to communicate new performance objectives, etc.
• Direct employees to provide their feedback first, detailing how they met their goals (this process is often referred to as completing self-appraisals)
• Schedule face-to-face meetings to discuss feedback provided in performance appraisals
• Acknowledge extra work employees have taken on, especially if they absorbed the jobs of one or two other people after a downsizing, etc.
• Give employees time to ask questions, suggest their short and long-term career goals, talk about their concerns around upcoming changes at your organization (i.e. mergers, acquisitions, relocations)
• Follow-up with employees about key points discussed in reviews (this shows employees that their managers genuinely care about their work and their careers)

By receiving performance review training from human resource specialists, managers could discover additional steps they could take to improve their employee communications. They could also learn quicker ways to document employee performance, whether they’re using paper documents or a performance management system.

Above all, it’s crucial for managers to be honest with employees before, during and after they discuss their performance. And again, this is made easier if managers regularly communicate with their workers. It’s this honest feedback, immediate praise and acknowledgement of above average results that could improve employee morale and engagement. Furthermore, as worker satisfaction increases, communications workers have with customers may also improve.

Sources:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/206918 (Entrepreneur: How to Survive Employee Performance Appraisals)

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/the-problem-with-performance-reviews/ (New York Times: The Problem With Performance Reviews)

http://www.shrm.org/Publications/hrmagazine/EditorialContent/2012/1212/Pages/1212-performance-appraisal-training.aspx (SHRM: Train Managers, Maximize Appraisals)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/09/ten-reasons-performance-reviews-are-done-terribly/ (Forbes: 10 Biggest Mistakes Bosses Make in Performance Reviews)

“You’ll be paid $60,000 a year.” Remember the first time you were hired into a job and given your five-figure salary? It’s a good guess that the salary was appealing, quickening your heart beat and putting a wide grin on your face. It probably took months, perhaps years, for the wage to start to feel limited. Talk about motivation to spend all your efforts (i.e. project planning, time management, commuting) to help make someone else earn 20 times or more than you do.

Let enough time pass and don’t be surprised if you start thinking as if you’re underpaid, swinging the pendulum all the way from job appreciation to job denigration. Add in a demanding, impossible-to-please supervisor and you might believe you could never be compensated enough for how much energy you put into your gig.


Now that you’ve had enough of burning the midnight oil to make someone else rich, you’re going to have to look at pay differently. If you don’t, you could commit to paying out salaries your bottom line can’t afford. That’s right. You’re on the other side of the street now, in more ways than one. (Warning: Don’t be surprised if you start to understand some of your previous employers more fully.)

Hidden payroll expenses that could derail your business budget vary, depending on the type of workers you hire. That shared, basic payroll expenses that could sneak up on you include:

• Overtime payroll expenses (To keep a good handle on these costs, establish written policies that outline when workers are allowed to work overtime. For example, you could state that workers are only allowed to work overtime with written approval from their supervisor. Absent guidelines, you could spend $30,000 or more a year paying for only one workers’ overtime.)
• Bonuses (Factor in stock and cash bonuses you’re on the hook for before making job offers.)
• Federal and state unemployment insurance taxes (This varies by jurisdiction. However, depending on the size of your company, you could be responsible for paying a monthly or quarterly tax to cover unemployment costs for each worker on your payroll.)
• Social Security/Medicare taxes (Generally, only self-employed workers have to pay 100% of these costs out-of-pocket. As of 2013, the per employee Social Security tax employers were responsible for was 6.2 percent; Medicare payroll expenses were at 1.45%.)
• Taxes you’re required to pay for local and state governments, including short-term disability costs
• State Worker’s Compensation tax
• Medical insurance
• Real estate expenses (If you operate a brick and mortar business, you’re going to have to cover the costs of each workers’ telephone, office space, utilities, etc. expenses while they’re at your place of business.)

Although these are not direct payroll expenses, again, depending on the type of business you operate, you might also be responsible for uniforms, new hire training and reorganizations. Of course, there’s the costs of recruiting new employees and the expense of relocating workers to different locations if your business moves.

Each of these additional payroll expenses are added to each worker’s basic pay. It’s these payroll expenses that many employees don’t see, especially in their bi-weekly paychecks. By keeping a record of these expenses and reporting them out to workers annually, you might be able to positively impact employee morale. You can also keep your eye on all expenses related to recruiting, training and paying employees by division, level and length of service.

Baby boomers, determined to put off looking and feeling old for as long as they can, are shaping the types of products and services businesses are developing. Not only are baby boomers working out at the gym and parking further away from office buildings just so they can walk further, they’re also looking for conveniences (i.e. lowered kitchen cabinets, single level homes) to make everyday activities less straining.

Understanding baby boomers’ needs and wants could prove key to your company’s profitability. Develop products and/or services that feed the nostalgia experienced by boomers and you could also gain customer loyalty. If you sell products that were on the market in the 40s, 50, 60s or 70s, you might already be satisfying boomers.


If you’ve never tried to market to baby boomers, you could be losing millions of customer sales. Even so, all’s not lost. You could start taping into the baby boomer buying power today, by taking a few steps. For example, you could:

• Send printed brochures, catalogs and direct mail to your target audience (some boomers don’t use the Internet, ever)
• Include educational facts, etc. with marketing material (yes! boomers love to learn!)
• Highlight the benefits products/services offer to adult children and grandchildren
• Add images to websites, brochures, etc. that show boomers enjoying their favorite activities
• Play music, popular during baby boomers’ teen and young adult years, at your sales office
• Email specials, discounts and sales (Nielsen reports that 89 percent of Americans 65+ years old have an email account)
• Connect product/service discounts to a boomer’s age (movie theaters have been doing this for years)

In its March 6, 2011 “The New Target Demographic, Baby Boomers” article, CBS News reports that, “The first baby boomers are turning 65 this year, and a projected 72 million – about one fifth of the U.S. population – will be that age or older by 2030.” Tap into the nostalgia boomers have and you could provide these millions of Americans the best experiences that are tied into their favorite pastimes and emotionally charged memories. This, in turn, could make your company a business of choice amongst this large demographic.

READER PLUS:  Want to stop feeling as if you’re the only one getting older? Check out some of these comments by people who’ve shared when they realized they weren’t as young as they once were. Have a few laughs. After all, instead of getting old, you really are getting better, and you deserve the best products and services!

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Sources:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-20039772.html (CBS News: The New Target Demographic, Baby Boomers)

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/serving-massive-baby-boomer-market-000000321.html (Yahoo! Serving the Massive Baby Boomer Market)

Not enough pay, long work hours, demanding supervisor or combative colleagues — those are reasons some people submit a resignation letter at work. However, in the ever changing workplace, the reasons that people are leaving their jobs is also changing.

The humor in the below cartoon points to a growing trend in the business world, an increase in company relocation and reorganization activities. It’s no wonder employees get nervous when companies announce that they are entering an acquisition or moving a department to a different city, state or country.

By exercising a little common sense, employees can figure out that not everyone is going to make the move. This is where a caring and quality human resources team comes into play. The right human resources team can make adjusting to company changes less stressful.


Listening to concerned workers, encouraging senior management to regularly communicate with employees and providing workers with two or more (i.e. town halls, conference calls, email, confidential office meetings) ways to express their concerns about upcoming changes. These and other steps might not ease all worker concerns, but they could make future business changes easier for workers to digest.