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Monday, December 21, 2015

2. Extending the Network: Avoid the Echo Chamber

Everyone tells you in business school, or when you’restarting a new business, that your network matters.
 "It would be a mistake to assume that the business you manage today will look the
same tomorrow.”

One of the habits I’ve tried to cultivate as I get closer to my 10-year anniversary with my current firm is to identify new conferences on topics less familiar to me and a few degrees removed from my area of expertise.
By attending these, I continue to develop new contacts and create the opportunity for new mental connections. New ideas emerge when you step out of your comfort
zone and expose yourself to new people and new ways of thinking about the world.
It may be as simple as signing up for a Meetup you wouldn’t ordinarily attend. From meditation meetings to Big Data gatherings, you could discover a new side hustle or passion

3. Stakeholder Engagement:
Facilitating Innovation

Managing a small business can sometimes be overwhelming; it often feels like a very insular
experience. Somewhere along the way you may hit a wall and find yourself unable to generate new ideas or concepts. When that happens, it can be incredibly useful to facilitate an idea-generating workshop with a variety of stakeholders.

At our firm, we run a ventures program to solicit concepts for game-changing technologies for cities
and communities. The ventures program is intended to harvest ideas which have commercial potential within design and engineering. The most promising ideas are given funding to explore market and intellectual property potential, and to develop business plans.

One of the important steps in the ventures process is engaging multiple technical experts to explore the potential in a concept. Let’s say the concept was for a new gravity base for a wind turbine. We might invite an ecologist to comment on the environmental impact, a materials expert to weigh in on the ideal type of concrete and an economist to provide insight on the business potential of the concept. From that discussion, we’re able to decide whether to put the idea forward for future investment. Similarly, no matter what industry your business involved in, it’s likely that there
are experts within your inner circle or your extended network that could help you test out new product/ service concepts or business ideas.

The quality of the vetting process is a direct result of the quality of the participants invited into the room. As a business owner, don’t be afraid to reach out to the people inside of your business or within your wider network to gather the best ideas when you are tackling important business challenges. By involving your networks, you will inspire their commitment to
the initiative and they will likely be interested to receive updates and progress reports.
While it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the future, there are tactical ways to help improve your odds.

By adopting these three techniques (and with some luck!) you can be in a better position to anticipate
and act on future market opportunities—but only if you make an effort to see them.
by Francesca Birks

Sunday, December 20, 2015

12 Essential Tips to Finding the Best Outsourcing Company

The very foundation of outsourcing means getting someone to handle your work, a partner in business. Ideally the outsourcing consultant or company should have a similar vision as yours and solid work ethics.

Success in business would depend greatly on finding the right outsourcing company and for this you must:
  • Determine clearly what your core business competencies are. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
  • Clearly define your goals, future business plans.
  • Create an outsourcing proposal that outlines your objectives as well as needs. State clearly the details of the project, expectations, timelines, as well as budgets.
  • Do in depth research on outsourcing companies to find out which ones will satisfy your needs. Alternately one can hire a consultant to carry out the search.
  • Search for an organization that can source many talents. Flexibility in operations is crucial.
  • Interview at least 3-4 organizations. Check out their referrals and projects completed. Be sure to meet key personnel to gauge their competencies. And check out their technological expertise.
  • Do a cost effectiveness study as also how the selected company will fulfill your needs. Whether their infrastructure and training will be in synchrony with yours. Systems must be compatible. The costing should address impact of increased flexibility, difference in productive and time management, which is the time taken to reach the market and its effect on competition.
  • Study thoroughly the non-financial costs as well as advantages of outsourcing.
  • Check with local chambers of commerce like the California chamber of commerce at www.calchamber.com or other associations that focus on human resource like the Sacramento Area Human Resources Association at www.sahra.org.
  • Before making a final choice check whether the outsourcing company or vendor is trustworthy, find out what kind of security measures they use, check the company's reputation in the market; determine in no uncertain terms whether they have the right qualifications.
  • Seek answers to: are they an established and financially sound company; what is their customer service philosophy; what is their service record; who are their current clients; is their estimate transparent or are there any loop holes; are they limited or can they expand along with your growth; is there an implementation plan; what about disaster recovery mechanisms; can they deliver?
  • Check whether communications will be smooth and trouble free and if there are any cultural differences between you and the vendor. If yes will you be able to bridge the difference.
The cornerstones of a good and ideal outsource is a company that will enhance your performance; partner you in growth by infusing talent and technology; will share your visions; and contribute positively.

Interview the companies. After you select one discuss in detail the contractual terms. Be sure to protect your own interests well. It takes trust, collaboration, communication, and chemistry to make an outsourcing successful. Author Bio
Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for www.1888Discuss.com/outsourcing, the premier REVENUE SHARING discussion forum for Outsourcing Forum including topics on general outsourcing, best outsourcing tips, HR outsourcing, sales outsourcing and more. He also freelances for the premier Outsourcing Directory Site www.1888Outsourceservices.com
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10 Reasons To Submit Your Articles To Ezines Directory

Getting your product or service delivered to your targeted audience is one of the most important success factor in internet based business. There are many technique to deliver your content to your targetted audence. Submit good articles to high traffic ezine directory is one of the technique which is relatively simple and affordable for build up your online business. Below are lists the benefits.

1. You'll brand your web site, business and yourself by submitting articles to e-zines. You could include your name, business name, your credentials, web site address and e-mail address in your resource box.

2. You will become known as an expert on the topics you write about. This will give you and your business extra credibility which will help you compete against your competition.

3. Your article might also be placed on the publisher's home page. If they publish each issue on their home page this will give you some extra exposure.

4. You might get extra exposure if the e-zine publisher archives their e-zine on their site. People might want to read the back issues before they make the decision to subscribe.

5. You will get free advertising. This will allow you to spend your profits on other forms of advertising. You could buy advertisements in other e-zines that don't publish your articles.

6. You might get extra income from people wanting to hire you to write other articles, books, or even ask to speak at seminars. This is a great way to multiply your income.

7. You could allow e-zine publishers to publish your articles in their free e-books. Since people give them away, your advertising could multiply all over the internet.

8. You will get your article published all over the web when you submit it to an e-zine publisher that has a free content directory on their web site. They'll allow their visitors to republish your article.

9. You'll gain people's trust. If they read your article and like it, they won't be as hesitant to buy your
product or service. You will then be able to increase your profits.

10. You could get your article guaranteed to run in an e-zine. You could agree to run one of their articles in your e-zine if, in exchange, they run yours in their e-zine. It's a win/win situation.

The above list is a great start if you are thinking of starting a business on internet. It is relatively simple and very affordable.

Author Bio
Hendry Chang (the8online team) - team of enthusiast internet entrepreneurs. For more about internet business tips and ideas, please visit us at http://www.the8online.com/index.html
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Link building for effective search engine optimization

When you begin the task of acquiring quality and relevant backlinks to your website there are many factors that can increase or decrease your search engine rankings. This article outlines the difference between good and bad backlinks.

A quality backlink pointing to your site should be in the same category and relevant in content to your website. The page where your link is located should be indexed by Google and the page should also have a Google page rank. The webpage where your link is located should also contain no more than 30 other out-going links to other websites. Link pages with more than 30 out-going links are less relevant to the search engines. Having your link posted on this type of webpage can affect your search engine rankings in a negative way. Other excellent techniques of acquiring backlinks are directory submissions, posting articles, blogs and forums.

For directory submissions select the proper directory category and take a look at how many other websites are contained in the category where your link would be posted, if you can manage to get on the first or second page of the listings, this is a quality backlink. Also look at the Google page rank of the landing page for your link. If the page has a Google page rank this is also a quality backlink.

Stay within your category, relevant content is very important to the search engines. Write an article preferably relevant in content to your website and submit the article to high quality article directories. Blogs are an excellent way to get quality one-way backlinks, Blog sites also receive tons of traffic, which in turn give your site more exposure. Posting your link on forum pages is also an efficient method of aquiring backlinks instantly.

Backlinks to avoid would be a zero page ranked webpage, especially if the home page has a zero page rank. Links posted within framed webpages which will also steal your traffic. Especially avoid link farms, webpages which contain more than 100 unrelated outgoing links, This type of link page is frowned upon by many major search engines. Avoid Webpages with mirror sites containing the exact same content with a different URL, also pages that utilize redirects and URL cloaking. Never post your link on a webpage that contains a "no follow" or "no index" robots meta tag within the source code. Dynamic websites with question marks in the URL should be avoided because they are not always indexed by the search engines.

Avoid posting your link on a page that opens very slow or contains mostly ads and flash banners. Try not to aquire or purchase great numbers of backlinks in a short period of time, backlinks should be accumulated gradually. Also avoid webpages and directories that list their results in alphabetical order, as their database increases your link could be moved to a less relevant page with less pagerank. Quality backlinks are one of the most important factors involved in the process of acheiving high search engine ranking.
Author Bio
Article written by the CEO of www.submit-site.org
Article Source: http://www.ArticleGeek.com - Free Website Content

Future Scenario Planning: Anticipating Change

Have you ever wondered what might happen to your
business or customer base if a new technology were
introduced in your sector or new legislation were
passed? Exploring hypothetical scenarios allows
you to explore plausible future contexts, in order to
assess the challenges and opportunities presented by
those disruptions to your business. Tell-tale signs are
when the same issues begin to present themselves in
multiple scenarios.

Let’s say your business involves managing the monthly
delivery of a box of beauty products, and you live in a
state that is just beginning to explore drone usage in
a commercial capacity—how might the legalization of
drones impact your business? Will drones allow you
to be more cost-effective as a delivery service? Will
it cut down the time for deliveries and reduce human
error? On the other side, you may want to consider
your market’s response to the usage of drones. Would
it affect your customers’ perception of your brand if
they knew that their luxe beauty samples were being
delivered by an unmanned aircraft?

It would be a mistake to assume that the business
you manage today will look the same tomorrow. Many
companies have succumbed to complacency and
then not lived to see the next financial year. For more
information on scenario planning

By : Danielle and Jodie Snyder

3 Ways Any Entrepreneur Can See the Future

As an entrepreneur, you no doubt have your
hands full managing day-to-day business
and putting out immediate fires.

So what could a futurist possibly have to share that could
actually help you grow your business? And, for that matter,
what’s a futurist?
Far from the stereotype of the academic theoretician with no
grounding in reality, futurists have a surprising amount to say on
the outlook of small businesses. In my 17 years of professional
experience, 10 of which I’ve spent working in the Foresight &
Innovation team of a 12,000-strong, global, privately-owned
engineering and design organization, I’ve had the chance to apply
foresight tools in a number of different business contexts. While
it’s quite often a challenge, given the immediate responsibilities
that come with their roles, to persuade senior leadership and
staff of the importance of future planning, inevitably some
unforeseen event or conversation happens that triggers the
forward-looking exercise.
I’m not suggesting that as a business owner you need to become
certified as a futurist (because really, who has time for that?),
but here are three techniques for you to consider as you grow
your business.

Prepare for growth in
2016 by:

1. Mapping out possible
external scenarios that could
affect your business, like
new legislation.

2. Attending a conference or
networking event outside of
your industry or skill set.

1. Inviting experts outside of
your industry to brainstorm
new business ideas.


by:
Francesca Birks leads Foresight, Research + Innovation for Arup Americas
and is the editor-in-chief of their online magazine Doggerel, focused on
innovation in the built environment

What Can We Expect in 2016?

In 2015, we talked a lot about the future—thanks in part to that old time-travel movie in
the news. But for smart entrepreneurs, looking forward is a constant state of mind. Or
at least it should be. After all, anticipating future trends, future challenges and future
opportunities is what separates great companies from the ones that’ll be history by this
time next year.
Unfortunately, no one actually has a time machine. Experience counts for a lot,
however—the more you see, the more you see things repeat themselves—and that kind
of accrued foresight is invaluable to any fast-growing company.
With this in mind, to help give small businesses across the country a leg up on the new
year, we reached out to some of the savviest entrepreneurs we know, and asked them a
simple question:

In your opinion, what is the top issue that business owners
should be focused on for 2016—and why?”

What surprised us was the range of responses and viewpoints, which, collectively,
provide a pretty good snapshot of where your attention should be focused in 2016.
Here’s to a great year.

By : Rod Kurtz
Editor-at-large, OPEN Forum