3 Ways To Grow Your Online Business
Do you know how you can grow your online business? Many marketers focus so much on getting new customers as if this is the only way of growing their businesses. Little do they know that it’s actually the most costly and time-consuming method of growing their businesses. Focusing on existing customers to build your business by coming up with various ways for them to buy more and more often is actually the quickest and cheapest way to grow your online business and to increase your income.That said, I would like to draw your attention on 3 proven ways of growing your online business, which include getting new customers, selling more to existing customers and selling more often to existing customers. Do you do that? Well let’s focus on one by one to throw more light on the importance of learning to grow your online business with the three methods.1. Getting new customers.As already pointed out, getting new customers to grow your online business is the hardest and time-consuming method. Persuading new customers to buy from you requires you to do a lot in terms of marketing and advertising.People do not easily buy from strangers. For you to convince them, it really takes time. You need to build your online credibility and believability through applying proven ways of presenting yourself as an expert in your field of specialization, to outcompete your competitors. This is time-consuming and is one reason why new marketers find it difficult to break through. Focusing on getting new customers without having a clear plan to maintain old ones is another reason why some marketers fail to grow their online businesses.While getting new customers is very important to grow your online business, you need also to focus on maintaining them so as not to waste the resources you invested in getting them. Learn techniques of getting new customers and maintaining them to grow your online business.2. Selling more to existing customers.It’s very easier to grow your online business with existing customers than getting new ones. This is because they already know you and know your products. Because they have already used your products, even when you introduce new products it’s easy to convince them to buy.Your responsibility now is to create various ways for them to buy more and more from you. You can do this through introducing various promotional programs that will persuade them to buy as they see the benefit of buying again from you.For instance, if you have 4 customers, who buy products equivalent to $50 each per month, you earn $2,400 from them in a year. If you work hard to get 4 extra customers within the same year, who can also spend on average $50 per month, you will earn $ 4,800 from your 8 customers (4 old & 4 new customers). But if you get 4 new customers and encourage the four old customers to spend 50% more, your revenue will jump from $ 4,800 to $ 6,000 in a year. Do you see how fast you will have grown your business by directing your energy on both old and new customers?In the example above, what you have done is to increase what your old customers buy from you by 50% and this is what is known as the TRANSACTION VALUE. Always focus on your old customers by coming up with ways of increasing their transaction value to grow your online business. Will you do that?3. Selling more often to existing customers.Growing your online business will largely depend on how often each of your customers buys from you. This is very important. You need to come up with ways to keep them coming back to buy from you.Let me illustrate this by building on the same example above. If each of the 4 old customers you have spent $50 per month, you would earn $2,400 in 12 months. But if you worked harder to encourage them to increase their transaction value by 50%, each customer would spend $75 per month and you would earn $3,600 within one year. If the 4 customers increase the number of times they purchase from you to 3 times per annum, through your promotional efforts, they would spend a total of $10,800. Can you imagine your revenue jumping from $6,000 to $10,800 as a result of focusing on the frequency each customer buys from you?In the example above, your assumed revenue has increased from $6,000 to $10,800 due to the number of times each of the 4 customers returned to buy from you. You have not got new customers but your revenue is increasing. That’s what is known as THE FREQUENCY OF PURCHASE. Grow your online business by focusing on the number of times each customer buys from you!As you work hard to grow your business, ask yourself the following questions and make sure you find the answers.I. How many customers do I have currently?ii. How much do they spend on average in one transaction?iii. How many times do they spend in a month or in a year?iv. What would happen if I increased their transaction value by 5% to 50% or even more?v. What can I do to increase their transaction value?vi. What can I do to increase their frequency of purchase?When you successfully find answers to the above questions, you will obviously find no obstacle in building a successful business. You will have known how to grow your online business. Will that help you?
Chinese Telecommunication Regulations to Trample VoIP
The Chinese government is starting to set telecommunication regulations and rules and they should not be too surprising because they are very much interested in controlling what goes on inside their nation and also what leaves. China is very much concerned with losing control of the people or having a civil war. Remember it is still a communist nation. We know that the Chinese government is very adamant about Internet censorship for various reasons.China also sees a threat with Voice IP technologies and that is voice over the Internet like Vonage. China is very concerned about this and they should not surprise anyone because they are very concerned with Internet censorship and maintaining complete control of everything that is viewed online by their people. This does pose a problem for those in the Voice IP business and it may exclude China as a market.Although the Chinese telecommunication rules and regulations have not been put into place yet they will include VoIP and other light technologies to help the Chinese government maintain control over the people and their communication systems. Some decry the new telecommunication rules and regulations, but few are surprised by them. Perhaps you might consider all this in 2006.
Straight Talk On Why Asset Based Lines Of Credit Are Alternatives To Debt Financing
Canadian business owners and financial managers continue to hear about newer forms of business financing in Canada, particularly asset based finance, and even more particularly an asset based line of credit facility.Clients always ask us the same thing, is this a form of debt financing, and exactly what is the difference between this and a Canadian chartered bank facility. Let’s examine those questions more closely.In general asset based finance is a broad term which in fact could refer to a number of things, We have the same problem with other terms such as working capital and cash flow, they seem to be ‘catch all ‘phrases for a number of types of business financing, and to make things more complicated they infer different things to different people.So let’s be clear, using asset based lines of credit jargon we are talking about a business line of credit that a Canadian chartered bank offers, and comparing it to the new kid in town, as asset based line of credit via an independent commercial finance company.When you firm originates an asset based credit facility you are in effect using the liquidity in your current assets ( typically those are receivables and inventory ) and in some cases pulling some liquidity out of fixed assets such as equipment and real estate. Yes, you can access cash flow on a revolving basis out of your equipment and land if in fact they are unencumbered.We still probably have most business owners confused a bit, because they are asking themselves right now that this seems exactly what my bank does (or that you would like them to do).So here’s the difference, asset based lenders are high specialized, they, unlike many bankers who are generalists are high focused on the actual true underlying value of your assets on an ongoing basis. By ongoing we mean daily, weekly, monthly, not long term. In the old days ( and boy do we wish the old days were here in business financing ) you met with your banker quarterly or yearly, reviewed your financials, re set the credit line, and off you went to grow, prosper and succeed.However business banking has changed in Canada and it has become more challenging to access the cash flow and working capital you need on a daily basis. Banks are regulated by provincial and federal governments around their capital bases, what they can lend on, and are subject to concentration issues. By that we mean that a bank could not choose to lend all its capital to one industry such as autos, etc.So the key differentiator in asset based lines of credit is simply that you are working with a company that is most often not regulated, and is staffed by specialist who has a strong handle on your asset base. That’s where the good news kicks in, because you can access sometimes up to 50 -100% more in revolving credit facilities because the advances against receivables, inventory (yes inventory!) and other assets are maximized to the hilt. In essence you are working with an asset based finance lender that can provide you with maximum cash flow and work with you to give you strong insights into asset turnover and help you through special situations. And remember, this is not debt financing via term loans or additional debt on your balance sheet, you are simply monetizing your liquid assets to the maximum.So there’s the main difference, and if this type of financing for your business seems to make sense speak to a trusted, credible and experienced business financing advisor to guide you through the next evolution in Canadian business financing.