Winning today’s Battle for Business Survival

The Mission Plan: Battlefield Strategies for Crisis Management The bottom line in business these days has become both simpler and more challenging: all businesses globally are in, or will soon be in, a state of financial crisis. Destructive forces not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s have ravaged our economy. Small businesses, those with fewer than five hundred employees, not only employ about half of all U.S. workers; they comprise 99.7 percent of all employer firms, according to the Small Business Administration—some 27 million businesses. Today, a great number of those businesses find themselves in a fast changing, brutally challenging, and dangerous Darwinian struggle for survival. You need to be almost compulsively vigilant over your own cash flow and operating costs; you can’t trust people’s credit anymore. You have to be aware of the changing character of your customer, a long-reliable ally in business who now may be having problems with loans and other obligations. Listen carefully and you might pick that up. That’s why I cannot overstate in this manual the importance of what I call CCC—constant customer communication. The need for a practical, thorough survival guidebook is greater than at any time I can recall in more than 25 years of experience. In my CPA and consulting practice at my accounting firm of Nelson, Mayoka & Company, I’ve done audits and tax planning for corporations, partnerships, and individuals; worked on numerous mergers & acquisitions and IPO’s; done international tax planning for multi-billion-dollar Japanese firms listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange; served as an expert witness in court; provided CFO functions for large public and private firms. Over the years, I have worked closely on tax, audit, fraud, corporate governance, and strategic planning with businesses across an entire spectrum of sectors—from the low-voltage industry to banks. That’s one key reason why I’ve created The Essential Financial Crisis Planning Manual: Winning Today’s Battle for Business Survival. A financial mission plan requires strategic analysis of your business’s focus, direction, and short-term goals. It must be fluid, dynamic and it must embrace a commitment to change. Do the means always justify the ends? Not necessarily. This isn’t a manual about business ethics, but about above-board crisis management. It’s about being strict and maintaining sharp focus as you fight to stay in the game. Make no mistake: you don’t need to drill down too deeply to realize that the target audience for a crisis-survival manual is, virtually, all small businesses. Their owners are the people who need and want this information the most right now. The crisis management strategies presented here could just as readily apply to plumbers and sheetrock installers as they could to executives I’ve worked with in defense contracting and the garment center. My approach to crisis analysis and optimizing solutions has for years been my passion, my calling, if you will. I decided to put pen to paper and get down to the brass tacks and help business owners do the problem-solving they need to do now to keep their doors open. We’re talking about survival. Mark Mayoka, is a C.P.A. with over 25 years of diverse Strategic Business experience.He has just recently published the Financial Crisis Planning manual for the Low Voltage Industry, which has received brilliant reviews and is helping 100’s of businesses. Mark is expected to complete a manual for all small owners please visit - http://www.businesscrisismanagementgroup.com
About The Author
Mark Mayoka, is a C.P.A. with over 25 years of diverse Strategic Business experience.He has just recently published the Financial Crisis Planning manual for the Low Voltage Industry, which has received brilliant reviews and is helping 100’s of businesses. Mark is expected to complete a manual for all small owners please visit - http://www.businesscrisismanagementgroup.com

AdShip: New Parcel Alternative Offers Unparalleled Opportunities for Shippers and Advertisers

For the money-conscious individual, finding new ways to earn money will always be welcome. So wouldn’t it be nice to earn money from something that you were planning on doing already? Like shipping a package? This week marks the initial launch of AdShip (http://www.AdShip.com), a shipping alternative that combines two seemingly unlikely, yet complementary concepts: shipping with advertising. The forward-thinking ideas presented by AdShip offer myriad benefits to multiple markets. AdShip works by first offering advertisers of any size the chance to create or upload advertisements that will then be sent directly to the advertiser’s pre-designated industry and demographic. Then, individual shippers experience substantial savings by selecting an advert from the AdShip website, printing it out during the process of printing their label, and including that advert in their shipment. Package pick-up can be arranged online, or the shipper can conveniently drop it off at major carrier locations like FedEx, UPS, or USPS. The shipper saves money while the advertiser gets several sets of directly trackable exposures both through package insert inclusion of the advertisement and through online tracking and confirmation e-mails. On a grander scale, AdShip also offers benefits to volume shippers, like e-commerce websites, by matching these companies up with mutually beneficial advertisers. For instance, a health product website could open up an additional stream of revenue by being linked up with the advertisements from a vitamin or supplement company through AdShip. These AdShip-facilitated relationships benefit both parties since shippers can now receive a dollar value for every parcel shipped, while advertisers receive a minimum of three instances of exposure to a pre-designated targeted audience. Both parties win. Both parties save. “AdShip is a revolutionary idea, both for consumers and advertisers. Never before has a shipping alternative of this sort been offered, and we have put a world of work into perfecting all that goes into it,” said Patrick Blanchet, Founder and CEO for AdShip. “By offering the benefits of Pay-Per-Ship advertising, AdShip guarantees multiple amounts of directly trackable and tangible exposures for the advertisers, unlike online advertising which can easily be subject to click fraud. With advertisers always looking to stay on the current beat, AdShip can fill this niche by offering this brand new service,” he said. Regardless of whether you are an individual consumer, a large corporate account, or a brand looking to circulate a message, anyone with the desire to save in this new and efficient way can sign up and start reaping the benefits of AdShip. Senders also have the option to receive their discounts immediately, or to compile their rewards into bulk reimbursement checks

The Next MySpace?

When some Webmasters set out to build their websites, they have a lot of big ideas.
They want forums, profiles, user interactivity and all the Web 2.0 features that make a website look cool and fun to visit.
Nothing wrong with having goals to build the baddest site on the planet, but it’s important to think realistically and put things into perspective.
Unless you are a skilled programmer, have a good understanding of Net marketing and possess a ton of money for promotions, then I would not suggest that a new Webmaster begin by creating an interactive Website that targets a large audience.
You can’t assume that if you build it, they will come. You have to know how to bring people to you.
And unfortunately, the average new Webmaster doesn’t know much about building traffic.
Getting ranked high in Google, having the top article on digg.com and getting thousands of visitors per day doesn’t happen just because you’ve launched a “cool” site.
Internet Marketing is a complex subject, and it’s getting more complex as the Net matures.
Start small. Target a small group of people by providing valuable information they would find interesting. Then as your site gains popularity, look into launching forums and other user interactive tools to support your audience.
Here’s an Example…
Say you love video games. While I know it would be cool to create the Net’s largest video game networking site, you have to take this in small steps.
1) Start by focusing on one video game niche (Role Playing, for example.) Build a simple site that offers reviews and the latest news on games in this niche.
2) Learn the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) and start generating traffic from people searching for these games. Your reviews are important because that content will help the search engines find your site.
3) Once you start building an audience, install a forum or a simple chat room to get your visitors talking.
4) As your audience grows, now it’s time to think about expanding and developing more advanced applications where your visitors can interact on new levels.
Useful content builds traffic, not Web applications (unless you have deep pockets for advertising.) So you might as well start out small, learn the basics of free SEO and then launch your fancy website when you have the traffic to support it.
Nothing worse than learning how to build a complex, MySpace-like site (or paying a programmer big dollars to do it) and your site goes virtually unnoticed.

Creating RSS Feeds for Your Website

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or it's sometimes referred to as Rich Site Summary. It's an XML-based content format for distributing news, headlines, content, etc. Most popular sites provide RSS feeds these days... especially news-related sites.
All you need is a feed reader and you can download the feeds from any site that offers the feeds.
Feed readers come in all shapes and sizes these days. Firefox has one built in to the browser, Google, Yahoo and Live all have a way for you to collect your favorite feeds - so the choice is up to you. BlogExpress was the first one I ever used.
You can also create feeds for your own website so your audience can subscribe to them. If done right, you can drive more traffic to your site on a regular basis.
Advantages of Creating RSS Feeds
More Traffic
For webmasters this is an excellent way to bring repeat traffic to your site. Think about it....every time a web surfer opens their RSS reader to get the headlines for all the sites they monitor, they'll also see your site's updates.
Instead of relying on them to bookmark your site and return at a later date, their RSS reader keeps your site fresh in their minds.
So when they open their reader to check the headlines for CNN, Yahoo or any other feeds they subscribe to, they'll also get the latest updates from you!
Avoid Email Spam Filters
Many webmasters are now dumping their newsletters and switching to this method of content distribution because you don't have to worry about dodging the spam filters.
I don't think that RSS will completely replace email newsletters, but I can see them definitely being used as an alternative more and more.
When you send an email newsletter more than 40-50% of the people won't even receive it due to spam filters or because of the fact it gets lost in all the junk mail your subscribers receive.
With RSS feeds, you don't have to worry about that because you're not sending an email, your simply sending out a news feed for all the readers to pick up.
Export Your RSS Feed
The cool thing about these feeds is that other people can use them as content on their site. So if you have a feed that is of particular interest to another webmaster, they can post your content on their site with a simple javascript code. This is another great traffic opportunity!
How to Create an RSS Feed
First you need to build your feeds. I would suggest using some type of software unless you like writing XML by hand. (Yuck!)
I use http://www.feedforall.com/. They have an easy-to-use feed builder that lets you create and manage all your feeds in one place.
Then once you've created your feed you have to upload the XML file to your web server. FeedForAll.com will automatically convert your feed into the XML format so you don't need to worry about additional formatting or coding.
The URL will be something like http://www.yoursite.com/yourfeed.xml. This is the link to your RSS/XML feed, and the one you'll be advertising so people can subscribe.
So any time you add a new article to your feed, that XML file is updated.
FeedForAll also has a built-in upload feature so you can upload the XML file right to your web server with their software, assuming your web host has FTP access.
Use a Blog Instead
If you don't want to buy extra software to create your RSS feed, there is another way to create one for free.
You can create a free blog at Blogger.com and the RSS feed URL is automatically generated for you. This is the easiest way to go. So every time you post to your blog, the feed is updated instantly.
WordPress is another site that offers a free blog equipped with and RSS feeds. Read about creating your own blog here.
Announcing Your Feeds on Your Website
One of the easiest ways to announce your feed on your site is to use FeedBurner.com. They provide a redirect URL (address) for your feed that your audience subscribes to.
The benefit is that if you move your blog and your RSS feed URL changes, you don't have to worry about losing your subscribers because the redirect URL they provide stays the same