The holidays can be a tough time of year for some businesses.
Let’s face it, if you are not in a retail business tied to the holidays, odds are your business dips this time of year. It’s a natural phenomenon - consumers are preoccupied and busy so they tend to put off purchases and decisions that they don’t absolutely have to make, until the first of the year.
So what can you do to drum up some business so December isn’t a total bust? Well I always say, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em! How can you take advantage of the holidays and gift giving and buying?
One suggestion is to consider selling gift certificates. Just about any type of consumer business, whether you sell products or services, can offer gift certificates.
Promote your gift certificates to your current clients and customers as a way for them to share your products or services that they know and love with a friend or family member. (This can be a great way to facilitate referrals and generate new business, too!).
Gift certificates not appropriate for your business? How about offering an end-of-year or a seasonal special? Make sure your special expires on December 31. This could be a product or service you are discontinuing or closing out. Or it could be a special holiday discount on a regular product or service.
By giving your customers a great deal, or offer they can’t normally get, you give them a reason to purchase from you now vs. waiting until after the holidays. They will appreciate the special price considering their expenses are higher than normal in December. And you win, because you make a sale when you otherwise would not have. Your profit margin may be lower, but at least it is profit!
So be creative. Think about how you can turn your product or service into a unique gift idea. A way for someone to learn the benefits of having a fitness trainer or personal coach first hand, through a gift of a few sessions. Fresh flowers every month for 6 months. $50 toward the purchase of any product or service you offer. A free consultation.
Following are three more holiday marketing ideas you may want to consider:
(1) Offer to donate a percentage of all sales in December to your favorite charity and publicize it with a press release to the media.
(2) Do a promotion giving one lucky customer the chance to win their holiday purchase for free. Select one customer at the end of December and refund them for the full price of their purchase. This will get all buyers excited and will give them an incentive to buy now. Put a maximum value on the prize if you want to protect yourself from having to refund too large of a purchase.
(3) Or just find a way to help your customers see that now is the perfect time to buy, before your prices increase in the new year (Buy Now and Save!), or before you no longer offer a particular product or service. If you don’t want to discount, offer a free gift or value-added bonus with purchase.
Once you’ve decided to make a special holiday offer to your customers. What is the best way to make them aware of this offer?
How about through your regular e-zine or e-newsletter? Along with your regular content, include a line or two about this special promotion. Include a link to the page on your web site where customers can go to take advantage of your special offer.
Don’t publish an e-zine? That’s okay, send out an email notifying your customers of your special holiday offer. Use a compelling Subject Line to get them to open the email. If you have email addresses for both current customers and prospects you may want to send out two different emails.
You could use the email to your current customers to thank them for all of their business over the past year. Or suggest that since they like your products or services so much, they may want to share them with a friend or family member by purchasing a gift. Put together a special gift package to make their shopping easy.
Don’t have email address for your customers or prospects. Here’s six more ways to quickly get the word out about your holiday promotion or special offer.
(1) Put up a poster in your retail location.
(2) Promote your holiday special on your web site home page.
(3) Telephone your best customers to tell them about your end-of-year special, reserved for only your very best customers.
(4) Run a small ad where you usually advertise, but have the ad promote your holiday special.
(5) Include a note on all of your receipts and be sure to make all of your regular December customers aware as well. You may be able to increase the amount of their purchase or get them to return later in the month to make another purchase.
(6) Create a promotional flyer and hand it out in areas your customers and prospects frequent, or find another business you can partner with (a complimentary or non-competing product or service) who might be willing to make your promotional flyers available to their customers, if you do the same for them.
(C) Copyright 2005 Debbie LaChusa, 10stepmarketing
Beat the Holiday Sales Blues With These Festive Marketing Ideas
An excellent Mother’s Day Gift Ideas
Every time a special occasion approaches such as anniversaries, birthdays, or any significant day, we start turning nervous because we know people wait for us to show how much we care about them. Obviously, it’s not all about the gifts, but a nice present always makes people very glad. Thus, now that mother’s day is close, you know that your mother have to be caressed on her special day.
Common gifts ideas for mother’s day include a tin of chocolates, clothing, jewelry accessories, etc. However, if you desire to make them be special, you can personalize them. By doing this, you can show your mamma how much you love her. Make a nice personalized Make sure to personalize the wrapping and surprise that most special person. Remember that you must order these products early to be sure to get the gift in hand before the special occasion, mother’s day.
But, why to keep offering the same gifts you’ve given before? Sometimes it is impossible to decide how to pamper your mother and it is pretty problematic to choose the ideal gift. It depends on what of kind of style your mom has . In fact, there are a lot of gift ideas and can be tailored perfectly for your recipient. Maybe you want to surprise your mother with something luxurious and unique or maybe you want to give her something practical and helpful. That is the reason why you should invest time surfing the web and visiting online stores to find a lovely gift at a reasonable price.
A nice unique and luxurious gift for mother’s day
In case you are looking for a unique and luxurious gift, you should try to look for an original present.
Have you ever heard your mother complaining about waking up feeling like she hasn´t slept at all? Is your mother always looking for new décor accessories?
Almost all of them do. So, you should look for a new product that is both accomodating and fashionable.
Fortunately, now you can have both a comforting and luxurious adornment for the home, the Alpaca Fur Pillow Cover.
Alpaca fur has silky and smooth texture, which makes it a very comfy surface to lie on. This natural fiber is softer than cashmere, and has a rich look. It’s cushy as a pillow and it’s a decorative ornament in your bedroom or living room. Surprise your mother with a fine and gorgeous looking alpaca pillow made of the softest baby alpaca fur.
10 Home-Based Business Ideas for Work at Home Moms
Copyright 2006 Stephen Ashton
Work at home moms make up a significant portion of home-based business owners and work at home freelance professionals. While there are a lot of perks that come with working at home, the appeal for mothers is often that they’ll be able to spend more time with their children. Keeping that in mind, here is a list of ten home-based business or freelance job ideas that will allow for a flexible schedule that can be worked around family time.
Freelance Writing – Work at home moms can find numerous opportunities for freelance writers, both online and off. Because writing can generally be done at any time, it would be ideal for work at home moms who might only have time to work during occasions where their children are in school or napping. A good resource for moms interested in finding freelance writing clients is www.WritersMarket.com.
Blogging – Similar to other writing fields, blogging can be done at almost any time of day. Most blog networks that hire freelancers have posting requirements on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, but the time of day that you post is completely adaptable to your own schedule.
eBay – Starting an eBay business is a great option for work at home moms, because most products will sell on a 24-hour basis online without too much supervision. To make an eBay business even more ideal, drop shipping would remove the necessity of storing and managing inventory and making regular post office runs when you would rather spend time with your family.
Child Care – Work at home moms would be ideal for the child care field. If there’s a need in your community, some options would be setting up a home-based day care center or even an after school program for older kids. Depending on where you live, you might need special certifications or licenses, but you would have the added perk of having other children around for your own to play with and socialize with.
Graphic or Web Design – Most design work can be run as an online-only business, meaning you wouldn’t always have to run out to a client’s location for meetings. As long as you regularly answer your email throughout the day, you can concentrate your actual design work during quiet times when the kids are otherwise occupied, or even handle the design work during the evenings.
Tutoring or Lessons – Having students come to your home for tutoring sessions with their schoolwork, or even music lessons, can be easily adapted to fit your family’s typical schedule, such as your child’s nap time, or on weekends when someone else might be around to look after your kids.
Arts and Crafts – If you have any artistic ability, an arts or crafts-related business can be ideal for a work at home mom. You can design jewelry, paint, make candles, or just about any craft you can think of. There is definite potential as you can work on your craft during quiet times or in the evenings, and sell your crafts or art at shows on the weekends. Or, you can sell your products anytime with an online store that will work for you 24-7.
e-Consulting – Similarly to how you can do design work almost entirely online, you can do the same for various forms of consulting if you have the proper training. For instance, you can consult on Web content, do marketing or SEO consulting for website owners, or adapt any kind of expertise into your very own e-consulting firm. Research – Individuals and companies in just about every field have a need for someone to conduct research for them. You can do anything from genealogy research to market research by conducting surveys right from the Web.
Selling Information – Information is still a hot commodity, and these days almost anyone can set up a website. If you create a basic site, you can sell anything from ebooks to podcasts to databases of industry contacts or job listings. The possibilities are endless.
10 Ways To Generate Highly Read Article Ideas
1. Participate in chat rooms related to your targeted
audience. Watch what questions people are asking
and ask others what information they're interested in.
2. Examine what information in being broadcast on
tv, news and talk shows. That information is usually
hot topics.
3. Hang out in similar message boards. People leave
questions for information they're seeking. That is a
strong indicator of subjects to write about.
4. Survey your web site visitors or current customers.
Ask them what type of articles they would like to see
published on your web site or in your e-zine.
5. Regularly check your site's guest books. People
sometimes leave questions or comments that would
help you generate high readership articles.
6. Check online bookstore's best sellers list. They're
very good resources for finding winning topics and
ideas to write about.
7. Use the time of year to come up with good topics.
You could relate your content to the holiday, season,
things that happen years ago during that time, etc.
8. Join some related e-mail discussion lists. Explore
the question being asked and the subjects people are
discussing.
9. Relate your article to a current fad that's going
on in your specific industry. The topic is usually
interesting to your target audience.
10. Make a file of visitor or customer questions you
receive via e-mail or phone. Usually, others have the
same questions, but never ask.
Are You Missing Your Best Quality Improvement Ideas?
November 2005. Winter is just around the corner here in Western Michigan. The leaves are literally raining off the trees. Just this morning at breakfast as I looked into the woods and I could see a steady stream of golden brown, red and yellow leaves heading towards the earth.
Last month I talked about keeping your quality improvement changes in place—using a manual that you develop of SOP’s, standard operating procedures. By the way, if you missed that issue, you can find it on my website, and several earlier ones too.
This month I want to address starting a quality improvement project. That is, how do you decide what project to work on? What issue or process is causing the most waste, is doing the most harm, is most affecting the bottom line? Maybe you are a leader at your site and you have an idea of what is generally causing problems. For instance, you may think that patients with catheters are getting a lot of infections. Perhaps, checking patients in at your site is taking too long and creating a bottleneck. Maybe patients are complaining about having to wait too long at check in at a doctor’s office. It could be that certain departments are running short of supplies too often. There are many other possibilities. The probability is that unless you are directly involved in the contentious process, you probably are not aware of what the exact problems are and are not aware of possible solutions.
This leads us to the conclusion that in order to discover the many problems facing every organization, especially in terms of wasted effort, time and money, there has to be in place a mechanism for the problems to surface to the leaders from the front lines of the organization. There has to be a way for the leaders to hear about the problems from those who are directly involved. For instance, does anyone in your organization know what ideas the cleaning staff has for making the organization better? When I say that there has to be a way for the ideas to surface, I don’t mean that the only ones with a voice should be nursing staff and other professionals. Rather, as in the Baldrige Improvement Plans, the entire staff is involved in quality improvement.
I know of a few hospitals where the leadership—president, CFO, COO, etc.—go out several mornings every week to talk to staff at all levels and patients to see how things could be better and to get some positive feedback about what things are going well. Perhaps at your site you want to start something like this. As time goes by and as suggestions are implemented, staff will feel safer about making suggestions.
Leadership needs to make sure that staff feel safe about making suggestions, no matter what the method of suggesting changes is used. Perhaps you might want to use an anonymous survey for collecting initial suggestions. After some of the suggestions are acted upon, the staff will feel like the leaders really want good ideas and will feel safer making them known. Perhaps you might want to use a consultant in Lean Healthcare (many of these ideas I suggest come directly from Lean Healthcare) to teach the staff the principles and processes of Lean Healthcare and other tools as may seem fit. This approach will help a large organization start making many positive changes quickly, rather than using the idea of slowly spreading the means of change throughout an organization, as some prefer.
Whatever your initial process of getting the ideas percolating up in the organization, after some ideas for quality improvement recommended by the rank and file are successfully implemented and after the improvements and savings are made known in the organization, it is time to create ways to get more ideas. Perhaps you want to have regular meetings with a designated leader and representatives from several staffing areas that will bring up ideas. That means that the rest of the staff must feel comfortable about making suggestions to these team members. If your site has few employees, then perhaps it would be best to have regular staff meetings with all employees where the agenda always includes time for quality improvement ideas and for updates on ongoing projects. Whatever method you decide works best for your site, be sure that an atmosphere safety and security exists for all the staff. This may mean going so far as to guarantee that no staff will lose there position as improvements create more time to get things done.
So, once you have a steady flow of quality improvement ideas being generated by all in the organization, which ones should you act upon? Next month, I’ll address that issue. This issue I decided to concentrate on the Define step of Six Sigma’s DMAIC (define, measure, act, improve, control). Next, I will discuss the measure segment. Sometime in the future I’ll cover team dynamics too.
Have a great Thanksgiving!
Advertising Ideas To Get Your Mind Bubbling
There are a couple of truths that seem to apply to many small businesses, especially ones that are also newly established. One of them is that budgets do not allow for all ideas to be implemented. Another is that advertising is necessary. A quick look over these two statements will result in a belief that they are contradictory factors of a business if they are both true. That is unfortunately a misconception held by many new business owners. As we all know the majority of new business to not make it past their second year in business.
One of the factors that can assist in the difficulties of establishing a new, small business is the belief that important money to sustain the business cannot be spent on advertising. The allocation of money to advertising usually has a very low priority in a small businesses budget. This is a mistake, advertising is necessary, but there are a number of ways that it can be done in a cost effective manner.
First on a businesses list should be the largest yellow pages ad they are able to afford. Although the phone book is an old form of advertising with the importance that the internet is taking on, this is still one of the first things potential clients do when looking for a business or product.
Other print advertising ideas can be done with newspaper advertising. Local papers can get your geographic region narrowed in on. This is especially important given that the majority of small business clients come from a 3 to 5 mile radius. Also, papers can be good because they frequently have specialized advertising sections, which will be read by just the people you want. Local business groups also create special advertising sections that can be a great advertising idea and cost effective too.
Other ideas might look into specialized magazine advertising, using vehicle graphics and using the billing and other mailing necessities you have to further promote upcoming events and specials. There are a lot of ways out there that offer advertising idea possibilities, but the one thing that must be adhered to is that you must do something.
Wedding Crafts Ideas for Saving Money
Weddings are a joyous occasion but can get expensive in a hurry. With wedding crafts you can insert a personal touch and hold the price down as well. Here are a few ideas for wedding crafts to add sparkle and creativity to your big day.
It is not that hard to create your own wedding veil. To make this wedding craft, you will need a length of bridal illusion in the desired length. You will also need a comb to attach it to your hair and a hat or headpiece to cover the comb. Sew large running stitches about an inch from the end of the illusion and gather it tightly. Now sew the veil to the comb. Top with hat or headpiece. As an alternative, you can decorate a wide-brimmed straw hat with silk flowers, ribbon, and pearls.
The bouquets and floral arrangements can also be personally crafted. For a simple outdoor wedding, consider wild flowers. They are free and have a charm all their own. Bouquets can be arranged in large clear vases, with a bow tied elegantly around.
Favors for the guests are particularly appropriate wedding crafts. Refrigerator magnets are a simple and well-received favor. A really nice idea is to make a magnetic picture frame and include a picture of the couple. You could cut a frame out of craft foam in one of the wedding colors, arrange over the photo, and glue all onto a cardboard backing. Place self-adhesive magnet tape on the back of the cardboard. Decorate the front of the frame with foil heart stickers and a monogram of the couple's last name.
Bows for the ends of the pews or rows make simple wedding crafts. Wide velvet ribbons are nice for fall and winter weddings, while satin is more appropriate for spring and summer weddings. Loop some flat lace in with the ribbons. In the center of the completed bow, attach some silk flowers and pearl sprays with a hot glue gun.
Perhaps you'd like to try your hand at decorating your own cake. Check the craft section of the department store for pans and gadgets of all types to help you create a cake to remember. Do remember, though, that it takes a steady hand. Be sure to practice before starting on the real cake.
Preparing for a wedding can be expensive, but with wedding crafts, you can take some of the sting out. Plan early, however, because it will take a little while to make favors for everyone and all the other little details you will want to take care of. Maybe creating wedding crafts will even relieve some of those wedding jitters. In any event, crafting your own wedding items is a way to have a personal, beautiful, and less expensive wedding.
What Are Some Basic Cake Decorating Ideas And Tips?
After you have baked the cake, and it has cooled, the next step is decorating the cake. While this can be a fun and pleasurable task, this is also the step that takes a bit of skill and patience. I hope, these tips will allow you to have more fun decorating your cake.
Let's begin with the basics. The cake decorating tips that are essential and things that you need to know before you. You will need a workplace that will afford enough room to be able to decorate your cake without being cramped. You also need to be away from disturbances and you will not need to move away from because you will be in the way of others. The first thing to know about cake decorating, is the fact that the cake must be completely cooled before you make any attempt to decorate. If the cake is still warm, you will run into many problems.
The next item is to make sure you have gathered all of the tools and ingredients for decorating your cake. Some items you will need are: a syringe or piping bag, the type and size tips you will be using, and the coupler to attach the tips to the piping bag. You will need to plan how you will decorate the cake ahead of time, so you can have all of the tools you need on hand when you begin decorating.
To begin with you need to ice, or frost the cake with royal icing, butter cream icing, or fondant icing. To start with, make sure you place a thin layer of frosting over the top to hold the crumbs together. When that is done, you will frost over that layer. It is important to make sure the icing you use is the right consistency. If the icing is too thin or too thick it will affect the end result of your cake decorating. If you are creating a decorated cake and you think your frosting is too thin, you can add a bit more confectioners sugar. Make sure you add this a little at a time as it can become too stiff if you add too much. If you feel your icing is too stiff, carefully add a bit more liquid.
Icing is used in different consistencies for different cake decorating techniques. When you are making roses, or any flower with upright petals, and will be piping figures on the cake, you will want to use a stiff icing or your petals may droop. To make stars, flowers with flat petals, and shell borders, you will want to use a medium consistency. A thin icing is used for writing on the cake, and thinner, more delicate work such as vines and leaves. If you add about 2 teaspoons of light corn syrup to your icing, you will find the icing will flow easier and make it more flexible.
flowers with flat petals. A thin icing mixture should be used for writing characters, and thinner, pointier shapes and styles such as leaves and vines. Add a couple of teaspoons of light corn syrup to the icing mix to make it more flexible and easier flowing.
Once the cake is iced, it is time to begin decorating. The way you hold the icing bag is important, as the direction and angle you hold the piping bag will influence the way the patterns and shapes you will create, will turn out. Thankfully there are only two positions to hold the piping bag to make certain designs.
The firs position is to hold the piping bag at a 90 degree angle, straight up from the surface of the cake. This is used for the simpler decorations that don't involve a lot of movement in making the design. The center of rosebuds, adding eyes to a character or making stars and dots. The other position involves the piping bag being held at a 45 degree angle, or holding the bag half-way between straight up and the surface of the cake.
In this position you have more flexibility to create sweeping styles, and create shapes with your piping hand. You can use this angle for flower petals, or writing on the cake. Some of the piping tips, like the tips for basket weave, petal and ruffle, have ends that are irregular. There is a right and wrong way to hold the bag when working with them.
Now that you know the basics here are a few tips to start you on your way to making a decorated cake.
- Basket Weave - Using this technique will give the sides of your cake the look of a basket. You may want to practice on a piece of waxed paper until you feel confident enough to begin on the cake. Using the basket weave tip and an icing that is of medium consistency, take turns applying a vertical stripe, following it with a horizontal stripe across the vertical. Make sure the horizontal stripes are a bit longer so the vertical stripe will fit across it. Soon you will see a basket pattern become apparent.
- Bows - This technique will make your cake look like a wrapped gift. Use a flat tip and medium icing. Hold your bag at a 45 degree angle and sweep your bag left, making half of the bow. Make the same movement to the right, making a figure 8. Hold the bag and sweep downward and out from the center of the bow, once on each side to make 2 streamers.
- Lacework - This technique is great for wedding or baby shower cakes. You should practice this technique to make sure you have good control before you use it in your cake decorating. Using thin white icing, hold the bag at nearly a 90 degree angle and very close to the surface of the cake. You will want to make a border so you will need to decide how far you want to go in from the edge and make an icing border.
Move the tip up down and around to make many similar shapes, do not touch or cross the other designs. Do this until the area is as full as you want it to be. Now you can go over the border on both sides with a thicker icing. You will be amazed at the lacework you have created.
Sexy Costume Ideas for Halloween
Summary:
Halloween is just around the corner and it is time to choose your costume. You know you want to look sexy, but what costume should you pick?
Keywords:
sexy costumes, sexy lingerie, sex, beauty, women, women's issues, lingerie, halloween, costumes, fetish, dressing up, fantasy, role playing, sexuality
Article Body:
Halloween is just around the corner and you know what that means. It’s time to figure out what you are going to wear. You know you want to look sexy, so what type of costume should you choose?
When making your choice this year, be sure to look through a large assortment of adult costumes to get a feel for what is available. Next, do some soul searching and try to determine what type of costume will match your current state of mind. Try to pick out something that compliments your mood and your costume will really shine.
Feeling a little bit rowdy? A flirtatious black biker babe costume will fit the bill nicely. Are you ready to give someone the care and attention they require? Then try on one of the many attractive sexy nurse costumes available today. Maybe you are feeling the need to dominate this season. This will not be a problem. To take charge, just slip into a sexy police officer costume and put your partner where he belongs.
For you playful, flirty types who are looking for some serious attention from the boys, a sexy schoolgirl costume is guaranteed to get you the looks you crave. And when the country girl in you is just dying to get out, grab your hat and put on a sexy cowgirl costume. Finally, for those of you feeling as pure as the driven snow, you may be in the market for an innocent angel costume.
There are so many sexy Halloween costumes available today that no matter what kind of mood you are in, there is a costume that is perfect for you. Remember, Halloween is a fun time of year and the perfect opportunity to do some role-playing that you might not otherwise be inclined to try. This is your chance to experience one of your fantasies by dressing up in a safe and accepted environment where not dressing up is the exception to the rule.