Which is Better: New or Repeat Business? (Part 2 of 2)
June 22, 2007
Which is Better: New or Repeat Business? (Part 2 of 2)
by: Paul Lemberg
Recently we asked which was more important: new customer growth or repeat business?
The answer depends on your business goals. If you want fast-paced quantum growth, you should concentrate energy on adding new customers. But if your goals are more incremental - if you envision continual year over year growth in the 10 to 20 percent range - booking repeat customer revenue is far easier than adding new customers.
(Of course, don’t lose sight of new customer acquisition; doing so entirely would doom the future of your business.)
While it is not easy to double your existing customers spending year after year, it is easy enough to 1) keep them happy and loyal, and 2) develop additional products and services for them, which they will buy if they are happy and loyal.
How can you build loyalty and garner repeat business? With two customer words: service and communication.
Enhance the customer’s service experience
Customer service is all about fixing customer problems. What kinds of problems?
Fixing things which are broken, or that don’t work as expected.
Some Lessons From Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter
June 21, 2007
Some Lessons From Warren Buffett’s Annual Letter
by: Geoff Gannon
Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders was released over the weekend. Readers will find plenty of investing lessons among the twenty-three pages. Warren began this letter as he begins each letter, by stating Berkshire’s change in per-share book value:
“Our gain in net worth during 2005 was $5.6 billion, which increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 6.4%. Over the last 41 years, (that is, since present management took over) book value has grown from $19 to $59,377, a rate of 21.5% compounded annually.”
Some may wonder why Buffett opens by announcing the change in per-share book value rather than the earnings per share number. Over long periods of time, the change in per-share book value should nicely approximate the returns to owners. You may remember that, in my analysis of Energizer Holdings, I applauded the company for reporting comprehensive income within the income statement. Although a company’s net income is often referred to as its bottom line, net income is, in fact, a (sub)component of comprehensive income. Energizer Holdings (ENR) literally reports comprehensive income as its bottom line.
How To Handle A String Of Losses
June 20, 2007
Everybody hates to lose and unfortunately no one is blessed with the ability of foresight, therefore losses are an unavoidable part of trading. When we enter a trade we will either be right, or wrong, and even if we broke-even we’d still be classed as being wrong - as nobody enters into a trade just to break-even! When unsuccessful traders encounter a string of losses they begin to engage in self-destructive patterns that help them escape the pain they are experiencing.
In this article we bring to light these self-destructive actions that can help you realize what you are doing before it takes hold of your physical health. If you find yourself already engaged in these patterns hopefully this article can help you to get you back on track as quickly as possible.
The Destructive Patterns
If you find yourself caught in a string of losses or a bad performing week/month be sure to monitor your behavior. It is during this time that you will be at your most vulnerable. You will begin to indulge in activities that at first seem harmless, but upon excessive use (or in time), begin to cause physical damage to your health.
Investors: Avoid These 5 Common Tax Mistakes
June 19, 2007
For many investors, and even some tax professionals, sorting through the complex IRS rules on investment taxes can be a nightmare. Pitfalls abound, and the penalties for even simple mistakes can be severe. As April 15 rolls around, keep the following five common tax mistakes in mind ? and help keep a little more money in your own pocket.
1. Failing To Offset Gains
Normally, when you sell an investment for a profit, you owe a tax on the gain. One way to lower that tax burden is to also sell some of your losing investments. You can then use those losses to offset your gains.
Say you own two stocks. You have a gain of $1,000 on the first stock, and a loss of $1,000 on the second. If you sell your winning stock, you will owe tax on the $1,000 gain. But if you sell both stocks, your $1,000 gain will be offset by your $1,000 loss. That’s good news from a tax standpoint, since it means you don’t have to pay any taxes on either position.
Save On A Credit Card - Transfer Your Balance
June 19, 2007
Save On A Credit Card - Transfer Your Balance
by: Peter Kenny
Saving cash on your credit card is not something that is usually at the top of your agenda, as most of us trudge from day to day with our credit cards and do not give it a second thought when we make a purchase.
This may be a good thing as you could be comfortable with your spending levels and have no worries about meeting your monthly statement. Your credit card is not giving you any problems, as to make you think about your financial position.
Though, to go to the other extreme, if you do not give your credit card a second thought, but feel that because you can at least pay the minimum payment each month, thinking that you are paying your debt, then you should start thinking about where your credit card is taking you.
No matter which of the two positions that you find yourself in, the fact of the matter is that we should all be trying to save our hard earned for ourselves and not to be handing over more than we should.
Basics of Stock Market
June 18, 2007
Financial markets provide their participants with the most favorable conditions for purchase/sale of financial instruments they have inside. Their major functions are: guaranteeing liquidity, forming assets prices within establishing proposition and demand and decreasing of operational expenses, incurred by the participants of the market.
Financial market comprises variety of instruments, hence its functioning totally depends on instruments held. Usually it can be classified according to the type of financial instruments and according to the terms of instruments’ paying-off.
From the point of different types of instruments held the market can be divided into the one of promissory notes and the one of securities (stock market). The first one contains promissory instruments with the right for its owners to get some fixed amount of money in future and is called the market of promissory notes, while the latter binds the issuer to pay a certain amount of money according to the return received after paying-off all the promissory notes and is called stock market. There are also types of securities referring to both categories as, e.g., preference shares and converted bonds. They are also called the instruments with fixed return.
Organize Your Job Search
June 17, 2007
Organize Your Job Search
by: Brian Bowman
The job search process involves a lot of planning and attention to detail, so it’s no wonder that many people quickly feel overwhelmed and even a bit out of control. The best way to avoid this is to organize your job search so that you have a clear strategy outline and a structured schedule to keep you moving forward.
Outline your strategy
Start by creating an outline of your job search strategy. List the tactics you intend to use, and the amount of time you will devote to each tactic. A typical list might include the following:
· Network with contacts
· Search online job sites
· Search newspaper ads
Some employment experts say that less than 20% of all jobs are found through the newspaper or online, with the other 80% found through networking. Knowing this, decide how much time you are going to devote to your job search, then allocate that time accordingly.
Define the steps
Next, for each tactic create a list of the steps involved. Here is what this might look like for the “Network with contacts” tactic:
What is an Affinity Credit Card?
June 16, 2007
What is an Affinity Credit Card?
by: Jon Francis
Affinity credit cards are the fastest growing segment of the credit card market. An affinity credit card is just like a standard credit card - with one important difference. Every time you use it, you’re making a donation to your favorite charity. By making an affinity card your major credit card, you can help make substantial donations to worthwhile charities just by using your credit card as you normally would.
Most people are familiar with the idea behind credit cards rewards programs. In order to convince buyers to use their credit cards to pay for purchases instead of cash, many credit card companies offer cards with built-in rewards. Those rewards may be cash back, or free miles with airlines, or discounts at the petrol station. When you choose an affinity card, the reward is in the form of a donation to the charity represented on the face of the card.
How To Lower Your Advertising Budget And Increase Results At The Same Time At Your Self-Storage Site
June 15, 2007
How To Lower Your Advertising Budget And Increase Results At The Same Time At Your Self-Storage Site
by: Derek Naylor
So, you’ve acquired a customer, they’re paying you a monthly rental fee, referred a friend, purchased packing supplies and a lock from you and just insured their grandmother’s heirlooms and son’s baseball card collection they have stored with you
What else could we possibly ask for?
A lot. What if it cost less to acquire this fine customer? What if we were able to lower your cost of acquisition by just 10%? 20%? 50%?
Don’t laugh, it’s possible.
Most facilities have advertising dollars spread out all over the place. Some of it is working, some is not, but in most cases the facilities have no clue whether it’s working or not, and if they do, they’re not quite sure how each medium is performing.
How about knowing your cost per call and cost per acquisition for each medium? This information will not only be extremely insightful, but will help you cut your budget where it’s not performing. You can either put that money back in your pocket or re-allocate it to mediums that are performing extremely well.
How To Make Mistakes
June 14, 2007
How To Make Mistakes
by: Paul Lemberg
Promoting risk taking and eliminating fear of failure.
It would be a mistake to try to avoid all mistakes. Indeed, it would be a colossal blunder to attempt doing things right the first time, every time. In today’s light speed economy, (”new” economy and “old” economy) if you don’t fall on your face both regularly and painfully, you are likely to end up dead instead. The only people not making mistakes are ones playing their game without risk and without novelty - and I might add - without progress. If your company cannot accommodate, even reward, failure - in the long run, you cannot succeed.
Why? Doing things wrong, is the number one - perhaps the only - source of innovation. David Kelly, CEO of design firm IDEO, says, “…enlightened trial and error beats the planning of flawless intellects…The reason is simple: the best solutions to most problems are rarely the most obvious.” James Joyce said it poetically, “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” Think about it. What did you ever learn by doing something right the first time?
