Business Information for Entrepreneurs by an Entrepreneur

Resourceful Things You Can Do With a Product That Doesn’t Sell

Sometimes business ideas sound great on paper, but can be a complete flop when placed on the market! The hard fact is that some products simply don't sell. But don't despair — just because your first few products didn't make it doesn't mean you're stuck with inventory that you can't move.

Here are a few pointers for what to do with products that don't sell:

• There are always people on the lookout for products they can sell. You could sell the rights of reproducing and selling your product to these people.
• You could offer the product free on your website. Most people like freebies, so this will ensure that many of them will visit your site, and perhaps spot another product you sell there and purchase that.
• You could make up for some part of the money you invested by selling your product on an online auction. It could even turn out to be profitable, because bidding wars often lead to people buying products at a higher price than they are actually worth.
• You can offer the product as a free incentive with some other product that you sell. This will increase the perception of its value. People always like feeling that they are getting more than they are paying for.
• Get in touch with other businesses that have a similar target market, and find out if they will offer your product free with theirs. You can get free advertising by placing your ad on your product.
• Or, you could ask them to combine your product with theirs. The two products could be sold as a package deal, and you could share the profits.
• Another idea is selling your product at wholesale rates to other businesses as a promotional offer. Businesses are always more than willing to offer products as giveaways to make their customers happy.
• People always love contests. Put your product up as an online contest that they can win. This will not only draw people to your site, but by listing it on contest directories online, you can obtain free advertising.
• If you do give away your product, let others do it. You could gain by placing your website address on the product, which will increase the traffic to your site.

By being creative with a non-selling product, you could recoup the product development costs — and get some free advertising in the deal.

How to Stay Organized in the Workplace

These days, with the busy schedules most of us have, there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to get everything done. Workdays are full of, absent employees, and other issues that crop up – all of which just seems to eat up the day, resulting in important tasks having to be put aside.

Getting organized and planning your day by prioritizing the tasks that need to be done is essential to complete assignments and projects on time. If you are a business owner, you will also have to keep track of the work schedules of your employees.

Here are a few tips that will help you to manage your time efficiently, even in a time crunch:

•  Use a calendar to keep track of assignments, projects, and employees.
• Make a list of all daily tasks, crossing them out as they get done. Not only will this help you to keep track of you day, but also if any pressing issue crops up at short notice, you can restart from the point where you were interrupted.
•  Have separate files for different tasks, and put all the relevant material in the appropriate folder. Each morning, take out what you need for the day and keep it handy. For example, if you need to give a presentation, you should have all the material in its own folder.
• Put all the names of your employees on a list, along with their skills and strengths in specific areas. When you plan a project, you can assign roles to people by quickly referring to this list.
•  Make it a point to plan meetings well ahead of time, so that they don't interrupt your daily work schedule.
•  Keep the phone numbers of every employee handy, so that they are available if an emergency comes up. Organize them in such a way so that you can locate the numbers quickly.

Efficient time and activity management are essential factors for staying organized in the workplace. This requires a certain amount of pre-planning and involves prioritizing tasks by organizing calendars and creating lists.

E – Surveys- A Powerful Online Marketing Strategy    

As a small business owner, you should understand the market before making a business or marketing plan. That said, you should be aware of the problems, needs, complaints, reviews, cost-effectiveness, quality, and the required improvements of your goods and services from your customers' point of view.

The best way to get feedback from your customers is to ask them – indirectly or directly. With the advent of the Internet, e-surveys have become one of the most cost-effective methods of conducting market research. 

Market Research Online

The Internet offers an efficient, cheap, fast and reliable means of gathering and processing marketing data. One on one emails, surveys made on websites and chat rooms are the basic modes of conducting marketing research online.  

Some of the main advantages of online market research are:

• Since it is labor-intensive to conduct offline research, online research is more cost-effective.    
• Wider research can be conducted, as there are no geographical limitations online.  
• Complete automation ensures that there is no interviewer bias involved.  
• Being an electronic medium, data entry and collection is much faster. 

 Online research can be classified into three categories: online survey research, qualitative research online and website analysis

Online survey research: This is usually conducted via emails and web pages. Data entry fields, radio buttons and check boxes are used, which enables the researcher to gather responses easily.

Qualitative research online: Participants use bulletin boards to give their input according to their convenience.

Website analysis: Observation of navigation, most frequently reviewed pages, number of clicks and the amount of time spent on each page is tracked. Analysis of the log file provides in-depth information of the web surfer's activities on web sites.

With the growth of the Internet as a medium of commerce, small business owners can make use of its speed and efficiency for conducting e-surveys accurately and effectively.