HOW BUSINESS PLANNING IS EFFECTIVE

In every step you take, in every move you make, you fall if you don’t have direction. If you are blind by the road you wanted to follow, you will lead to nowhere. You are safe if you have plan beforehand where to go. That’s business. If you want to succeed you have an effective business plan.

If you plan to have new business, think twice. Widen your understanding and ask yourself, “Am I prepared and ready to take a lift?” Business plan is the lifeblood of successful business. It indicates summary of your direction from start to finish. It is a detailed record of your possible action. This will be the basis for your decision to continue or not to continue. 

It gives you the idea what things to prepare, what aspect of your plan you wanted to strengthen, where your weaknesses are, so that there’s no loopholes once you start the business. Have a list of your goals and objectives as your guide for proper supervision and control.

If you prepare a business plan, look the different angles what you believe will affect the feasibility of your initiative. Indicate in your summary the first step to be taken until everything is in order. Remember, your summary should be comprehensive, complete, detailed, well-prepared and in sound structure.

The first step you have to consider should be workable. It should be profitable to generate enough revenues that can handle all your operational expenses and still leave considerable profits.

If your line of business is department store, selling consumer goods and other product lines on the shelf. You have to be meticulous in handling inventories, stocking and hiring salesperson. Gather all necessary data for your line of business. Consider if the product to expose to the buying public is saleable and the basic commodities mostly patronize by consumers. A saleable product line is important because this is where your profits originate.

 Your new business plan should include summary of marketing analysis. It will indicate your would-be customers. It also indicates the competitions around the area nearer to your establishment. It also indicates the scope of your market size and growth rate you are expecting during the initial phase of your operation.

It is important that you will devise marketing strategies for the business to be profitable. Include the importance of good financial planning. It will indicate the volume of sales, the investment capital, cash flow and profits once you start the ball rolling. Part of your management team should be thoroughly trained, well-experience and has enough knowledge in store management.

Start evaluating your business success. Include sales figures and marketing goals. Advertising is good medium of increasing sales to put the business in the limelight.

Be specific in your action, the time frame to start the business, the preparation to undertake and expectation ahead. Don’t let the stone unturn. Every little details  of it should be considered and thoroughly analyzed.

If your business plan is thoroughly and completely prepared, it is easy to start the project because you already have the direction that will lead and guide you as you go along.

If you believe advertisement is costly, find another means, maybe through promotional offer on some items that does not entail too much cost but yet effective to invite customers to the store. The purpose is still the same, communicating to the public as an integral part of your selling strategy.

Once you started the business:

-If there is close competition with your store, consider gathering information about your competitor, everything that you believe a threat to your business existence. This will give you time to counter its negative effect and to recover from possible losses.

-Check their initiated marketing strategy. You may learn a lesson and do the same at your advantage. Check why customers patronize the same product you sold. Check if the price of the commodity is less than what you offered. Evaluate if lowering the price can still not affect its profitability. Check if the promotional offer is the result of their increased sales.

-Good source of information is helpful to make better marketing strategy. It enables you to understand the pulse of the buying public. It enables you to increase your customer’s database.

-Giving promotional offer can expand your competitive advantage against your competitor especially if the product you are selling was not on the list of your competitor. With good marketing strategy, you can respond to marketing needs to reach your marketing objectives.

As entrepreneur, focus your attention to the general structure of your operation. If something goes wrong along the line, be ready to initiate plan B to handle unexpected setback. It is better if you personally supervise the business so that any hindrances can immediately be attended to lessen the damage to minimum level.

STAINS OF IMPERFECTION

It was said no man is perfect in everything, a little spot of stain always has on it. Even how we tried to fix what is lacking but the inefficiency persisted. But imperfection can be corrected if we are willing to make things in right direction by diligently not doing the same mistake twice.

By allowing imperfection will lower your self-esteem instead of boosting it. Error was committed because of the failure to differentiate between right and wrong. We always assumed that what we plan and act is the right one. The quality of our action depends on the character of our thoughts. We can't always believed we are 100% sure. There's always hitch on the middle.

Even those people able to reached the top have experience failure before. The success of their business is not offered in the silver platter. They sacrificed, strike hard to bring its belief in right direction. Their determination, hard work and endurance played key role the kind of character they have to pursue what is right on their mind. Failure is a weakness but it can be enhance to become a success, if we are willing not to give up.

In the world of business, the management are always expecting their employees to seek and strive for excellence. Excellence is the lifeblood of the company. Without it, the life of the company will go down. It doesn't last long because excellence is also include increase productivity that will turn into higher margin of profit.

Make imperfection as a challenge. Don't worry about committing mistakes in many occasions. It is a normal thing being human prone to many errors because of the shortsightedness our intelligence.

If the way we think has its own limit, we can't explore more to make a balance between what is right or wrong. The mind search point of disadvantage of our action because of the limited function of the mind. But it will not an excuse for us not to look for better ways to minimize the impact of the errors.

We should not decide a certain thing in haste. Weighing the benefits against the disadvantage is one way of curving mistakes. Looking into different perspective before deciding has greater chance of minimizing stain of imperfection. To include members of the family in any major decision will help to balance its effect. Even the most influential man in business needs the advice of others before making his final decision to avoid damaging impact to the business and organization as well, the employees and its productivity.

The father is the head of the family where major decisions originated. But the father is still vulnerable to commit mistakes even how he wanted to avoid. But if he decide in consultation with his wife and children about the effectiveness of a certain decision will help to minimize the risk of failure. As the saying goes, two minds is better than one except if you can assure that what you decided is a perfect one without any stain of imperfection. But I'm sure you are not sure also.

Open your mind with many best options. Select what is best for certain circumstances. With the best advices you will receive, you can be assured that you can reduce the risk of errors. Remember, every decision you make is a faith between life and death. Any failure will bring misery, pain, stress and anxiety affecting the family or organization in every way.

Control your imperfection to have a better life to lead.

WHAT A GOOD LEADER SHOULD BE IN MY EYES

There is not much leader you can trust. Finding good leader is not an easy task. Most of the leader we have today talked too much for people’s welfare but they are only talking to their hidden agenda to enrich themselves at the expense of people’s taxes. They are good in defending their personal interest but not good enough in giving better services in people’s behalf. They talked too much rhetoric promising all heavens but no earth.

A good leader is people-oriented not money-oriented. The motto is “people first, interest second.”

There are many requirements for a leader to possess. A good leader should have enough strength in his character. During difficult times, he should be in the front line to know how to make things in order, expedite better decision and never give up until the problem is solved. His strength should be solid and strong in character.

He should be more understanding and considerate to the shortcomings of his people. He should guide them to make the right decision to their own advantage. He is willing to listen to views of other people. They may have better ideas very helpful which he did not have at the moment. If found it possible, he will support them to build their confidence and personal enrichment.

He should be firm in his decision and not deviates easily from what he plans to do. He should always carry-on his purpose of what he believe the right thing to do for the benefit of his followers. He should disregard any personal ambition and focus himself to the need of his people.

He should have enough humility to accept any responsibility of any error in judgment in case there is failure of an endeavor. He should give recognition to any of his followers that excels in his performance in the job he handled. He should be willing to work hand in hand with his followers for the accomplishment of certain activity they will pursue.

He should give power to convince rather than power to order. Convincing will mean something to them for their willingness to help. Ordering will alienate them as it is a sign of imposing authority they can’t question.

He should inspire people to do something of importance not only for people’s benefit but also to uplift their own spirit.

If there is conflict between his followers, he should interfere for the settlement of the issue. He should not leave the situation hanging. Early settlement of dispute will bring harmony to better relationship among his followers.

His courage should be unlimited to face all the difficulties without letting it go unsolved and undecided. He should impart to his followers any triumph of his accomplishment that such is not without their support. He should have enough intelligence to face the challenge, integrity to build up trust among his people and courage to face the storm.

He should have selfless dedication for the fulfillment of the task given to him without too much doubt of his capability being a good leader. He should have high value of leadership to inspire his followers to do the same and to lift their weakening spirit to do without him.

He will not stop performing his obligation to his followers even in the midst of some defeat. He will try again and again until something will come to their benefits.

He should focus himself to specific goal and accomplish what is necessary before going to another activity in mind.

He should have enough patience to handle his flock. He should be fair in his relationship with his subordinate without favoring anyone because of influence that may cloud his judgment.

He should welcome constructive criticism for the betterment of his function and the perfection of decision-making ability that he did not see.

He should always stay true to the trust given to him by his followers and have decent motives whatever action he carried out for people’s benefit but not on himself.

A good leader will not feel tired. He will continue with great satisfaction to inspire to do lot more with superior work and perfection of his decision.

If you can do all these then you are developing yourself to be a great leader someday.

THE BURDEN OF BEING A SUPERVISOR

In every organization, there should be a leader who will guide his employees in accordance to the issued set of rules and regulations as the framework of checks and balances for the effectiveness of the operation. The most important key personnel in an organization is the supervisor. He becomes the main channel of all communications from his subordinates up to the higher management. He oversees the health condition of his employees. He always alert of finding ways of improving their working condition. He handles conflict within the organization and solve them. He guides his subordinates to know the different levels of handling the job and exerts more effort to let them know more.

His main function is to keep close watch of his employees' performance of their corresponding duties and responsibilities. He sees to it that all things are operating effectively on certain condition. Any lapses has to be corrected by calling the attention of the erring personnel of his inability to carry-out his assigned job.

Aside from those mentioned above, he also have some administrative function of preparing and submitting the required reports for his superiors information. He issues instruction to his subordinates of any new development for their guidance. This information dissemination is important for the employees to act in accordance with the demand of the job. He has a tasks to know all government regulations and comply with the issued restrictions under specific guidelines that he should abide.

He monitors employees' responsibilities and see to it that the operational standards are meet. He is responsible in training and retraining of personnel. Any complaints arising from day to day operation, will be handled properly.

He screens, interviews all qualified candidates for hiring. For those already being hired, he trains, motivates and orient employees in improving efficiency and good performance of their work.

A periodic appraisal of employees recommended for promotion to higher position by increasing their corresponding salary. He will initiates regular training programs for the purpose of upgrading their knowledge and efficiency for greater effectiveness. He expects his employees to accomplish more by helping them to manage their time to avoid delays and missed deadlines in processing, billing, lay-outing and reporting.

He will not delegates everything to the same employee. He spreads the function among employees to develop a better skills and abilities.

Being a supervisor is not an easy task. The success of the business lies to the people selected by the higher management who are very competent and has varied skills and thorough experiences to run the business with trust and confidence otherwise it becomes a total failure.

FAILURE IN LEADERSHIP

There were many reasons why a chosen leader failed in his good management. His focus was out-of-range. His method was different and not applicable to the call of time. He was not resourceful to put everything in order.

An efficient leadership has the ability to organize and knows all the details of his function. He has a thorough knowledge to do anything as required by him. Being a leader he has the right to change plan favorable to a certain circumstances. He is willing to give attention to any emergency. If the leader has the inability to organize things in order, or leaving the problem at hand, then he showed his inefficiency.

Unwillingness to do extra function as occasion demands by not rendering a just and humble cooperation to do a certain services to help his subordinates to complete the task in a reasonable time is a failed leadership. A true leader set examples to his employees how to share an extra efforts for the benefit of all. Failure of one is a failure of many. A strong foundation of leadership can only be attain if everybody are willing to sacrifice and cooperate to hit a certain objectives.

Knowing too much without applying what he knows is not a good leadership. If he is hesitant to use his knowledge to whatever reasons for the improvement of his department is not a wise choice. He must be open-minded and willing to share whatever good ideas he has to help solve a problem at hand.

Many leaders were afraid that their position be taken by others. What they did is to limit the sharing of knowledge to avoid being in competition for higher position.

He will not give chances to others to improve their lives, position and efficiency of their function. He don't want to delegate a certain responsibility where he excelled that might be a threat to his position.

A good leader give no boundaries to support his employees to be trained more for the purpose of self-improvement. He gives attention to many things at one time. He will not take advantage to use the ability of others to enrich himself instead of earning it by his own effort, dedication and sacrifice. He is willing to increase the efficiency of others and expecting them to do more with greater result even without his aid. But a leader who limits his support is not a good leadership and bound to fail.

A good leader should be more perceptive. The scope of his ability was unlimited. He can create plans, methods and ways for his subordinates to do it efficiently and effectively. If a leader lacks an imagination to do things right is a failed leadership.

There were others who were very selfish. He wanted his subordinates to work in his behalf and get the honor to himself. Selfishness often result to resentment from subordinates and lead to misunderstanding, confusion and disagreement within the organization. Subordinates will limit their effort, cooperation and efficiency as a sign of protest to their leader who only think of himself in his favor.

A temperamental leader often lead to mistrust among his subordinates. The employees always afraid that everything they did will not pass to the taste and requirements of their leader. Believing that their performance were below his expectation, they can no longer concentrate to give a good result in their work due to too much worries that any failure to do it correctly will mean a threat to their job and the possibility of losing it.

A leader of questionable character lost the trust given to him by the higher management. Lack of loyalty from subordinates will follow.

These are only parcel of the many reasons of a failed ladership. A leader who will not give importance to whatever mentioned here will not succeed. And if it fails, many jobs will be lost and many employees will be affected.

SELLING IN THE INTERNET

It is now a trend to sell something in the internet, and it is profitable. You can choose what kind of items you want to promote. But you cannot sell without a system how to do it. For those who are still new to this kind of business, you have to do a research and look for additional information so that you have the knowledge how to start and sell in the internet. It is important that you do the research to determine the viability of your online business. Check if the products are salable type. Check also the market capability of your product to hit the target. If you think the products can pass in your criteria, then go on. Let do a product enhancement and image building. If the product will be known in the internet world, then it is easy for the sales to increase.

First, you have to buy a domain. This will be the foundation before you can start what to do. There are many hosting plan with reasonable price that you can choose with attractive theme for your site and an all-out support you can get from the web host. The ready made site from reputable web host is more advisable because what was required in your business was already in a package there. You don't have to create another system which is very costly. All you have to do is supply the information for your product and the price of each, then you already have your online business.

If your business start running, make a way to increase traffic to the site. It can only be realized by means of good search engine, the lifeblood of the site. If you have many hits during the day or every day will mean your site had been recognize by many visits that is favorable to you.

Once your site become stable, make it a point to maintain a good relationship with your visitors. If through their visit they will order the products they interested, tell them all the reasonable charges so that they will know before they decide to purchase.

It is important also that your site can load information quickly. Any delay for the information to appear will make visitors lost interest to continue their search. A simple navigation link is better.

Every now and then you have to update the price of your products in case there are changes. If you can grant discounted price can help attract more visitors and they may decide to buy.

In order to know the pulse of your visitors, leave a comment page for them to give their opinion how your site is of much help to them. It is even better if you can give them free updates of your site so that they be keep inform of any changes. A repeated visitors means sales. Always give your visitors the satisfaction they need, and they will visit you again and again.

Most of the payment is done via paypal.

You also have consider the shipping costs and other requirements in sending the product abroad. Iron out all this data before shipment is made.

IT DEPENDS HOW YOUR MIND WORK

Each one of us has ambition. Some of this ambition is reachable and others are not. It depends on how your mind works. Your success will depend on you, the way your mind act and how it was used constructively. Your mind instructed you to do this things, but you have no willpower to do it. Your mind is the thinker, your body is the doer. Your mind urge you to work, but your body are lazy to follow the dictate of the mind. Your life become stagnant and cannot move forward.

The power of reasoning can improve your life. You mind give you all the choices to move forward or backward. If you desired to move on, then something will happen, either you go up or you fall down. It is your move and it is your choice. The best choice always win.

Why many people had succeeded in their corresponding career? Because they asked their mind what to do, what to accomplish and what is the objective to attain. If they executed it properly, it gives them confidence and satisfaction.

Many businessmen, started at the bottom. Before they become a good businessmen, their mind instructed them to work harder. They followed it diligently using the best strategy and good planning method, put into action and visualize the best to be successful. Their achievements were tremendous. It paid all their efforts. That's how the mind works, sometimes it work wonders.

If your mind dictated you to do more and you failed, maybe there's something wrong in your execution. Maybe you failed to understand the concept how to do to be effective. You mind become the engine to drive you to your growth.

Why do some fishermen catches more fish? Because they knew how to do it. They observed the movements of school of fish, the tide, the darkness of the night, the timing of throwing the net, and the calmness of the sea. All this observations were the basis for their decision. They listened what their mind dictated them what to do, when and how to do it. That's the power of the mind, always there to guide and protect you. If you have positive outlook and enthusiastic to realize what you are doing then you can accomplish many things. It motivates your willpower to work harder. If you take action what your mind dictated you, then you can achieve what you are dreaming.