The economy is struggling, but sales and valuations of small companies are up, according to the latest data.
It's time to spruce up the window displays and organize your accounting records: Despite the economic downtown, sales of small businesses are starting to boom.
Business marketplace BizBuySell's latest quarterly Insight Report on nationwide sales trends shows a 48% jump in the number of businesses listed on its network that sold during the first half of 2008, compared to the year-earlier period. A total of 3,894 businesses found buyers, up from 2,640 in the first half of 2007.
Listing rose in tandem: BizBuySell.com had 41,674 active listings on its site in 2008's second quarter, up from 29,468 during the same period last year, a 41% increase. Most promisingly for business owners, the prices buyers are paying have also increased. The median sale price for businesses tracked by BizBuySell was $200,000 in this year's second quarter, up from $186,000 during the same period last year.
BizBuySell, the largest nationwide marketplace for buying and selling small companies, compiles its sales data from closed-transaction reports sent in by brokers. For-sale-by-owner deals closed directly are not included in the totals.
Read the full article
Thursday, September 25, 2008
AARP's Best Employers for Workers Over 50
The AARP “Best Employers for Workers Over 50” is an annual recognition program that awards companies and organizations whose best practices and policies for addressing the issues affecting our aging labor force create roadmaps for the workplaces of tomorrow.
1. Cornell University
Cornell University ranks number one among AARP’s Best Employers for Workers Over 50 in 2008. From numerous programs and perks to foster professional development and work-life balance, employees can pick those tailored to their specific needs. In response to employee and retiree feedback, Cornell University offers a special program called Opportunities for Healthy Aging.
Age of Workforce: Forty-three percent of Cornell’s employees are 50+. The average tenure of employees age 50+ is 15.5 years.
2. Scripps Health
One of AARP’s top-10 Best Employers for Workers Over 50 in 2008, Scripps Health places a high value on experience, with a goal to retain and recruit internal talent. The Scripps Alumni Network maintains relationships with former employees and retirees and serves as a foundation to recruit back to the organization. The network has a membership of more than 800.
Read the full article
1. Cornell University
Cornell University ranks number one among AARP’s Best Employers for Workers Over 50 in 2008. From numerous programs and perks to foster professional development and work-life balance, employees can pick those tailored to their specific needs. In response to employee and retiree feedback, Cornell University offers a special program called Opportunities for Healthy Aging.
Age of Workforce: Forty-three percent of Cornell’s employees are 50+. The average tenure of employees age 50+ is 15.5 years.
2. Scripps Health
One of AARP’s top-10 Best Employers for Workers Over 50 in 2008, Scripps Health places a high value on experience, with a goal to retain and recruit internal talent. The Scripps Alumni Network maintains relationships with former employees and retirees and serves as a foundation to recruit back to the organization. The network has a membership of more than 800.
Read the full article
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
How to Choose a Good Domain Name For Your Website
By Georgi Jivankin
If you have your own business or you are planning to start one, it's essential to have a memorable domain for branding it. In this article I'll give you some tips for choosing a good domain name for your business website.
Be creative. A good domain name consists of easy to remember words. Don't try to think of complicated or long names, because they will simply get out of your visitor's heads when they close your website. Use general vocabulary and avoid technical or complex words.
Be unique. Select your domain name properly so it won't interfere with your competitors in your niche or business. Do not use common names such as brands, companies or products in your domain. Avoid abbreviations, unless they are something very familiar for the average Internet user or consumer.
Be smart. Think like a marketer and see which words will be best for your SEO optimization and PPC advertising. Usually the search engines love the domain names containing dashes or underlines, but you should avoid them, because it's not comfortable for your users to type long domain names and also they are not suitable for mouth-to-mouth advertisement.
One of the mistakes many marketers and business owners do is to use misspellings in their names. Do not use them, because you simply do not look professional. For example, do not use "4yu" or "4u" instead of the original "foryou". Yes, it's easier to type "4u" instead of "for you", but you will confuse your customers and while they are trying to access your website, they may land on a competitor's website instead. And last but not least, do not use numbers or other symbols in your domain name. It's not generally accepted in the Internet to use digits or other symbols in the domain names, so it's better not to use them unless you have a good reason to do so.
If you have your own business or you are planning to start one, it's essential to have a memorable domain for branding it. In this article I'll give you some tips for choosing a good domain name for your business website.
Be creative. A good domain name consists of easy to remember words. Don't try to think of complicated or long names, because they will simply get out of your visitor's heads when they close your website. Use general vocabulary and avoid technical or complex words.
Be unique. Select your domain name properly so it won't interfere with your competitors in your niche or business. Do not use common names such as brands, companies or products in your domain. Avoid abbreviations, unless they are something very familiar for the average Internet user or consumer.
Be smart. Think like a marketer and see which words will be best for your SEO optimization and PPC advertising. Usually the search engines love the domain names containing dashes or underlines, but you should avoid them, because it's not comfortable for your users to type long domain names and also they are not suitable for mouth-to-mouth advertisement.
One of the mistakes many marketers and business owners do is to use misspellings in their names. Do not use them, because you simply do not look professional. For example, do not use "4yu" or "4u" instead of the original "foryou". Yes, it's easier to type "4u" instead of "for you", but you will confuse your customers and while they are trying to access your website, they may land on a competitor's website instead. And last but not least, do not use numbers or other symbols in your domain name. It's not generally accepted in the Internet to use digits or other symbols in the domain names, so it's better not to use them unless you have a good reason to do so.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Make Great Money Part Time Buying And Selling Domain Names
By Jonathan Street
This truly is the business to get into in 2005. It's a red hot opportunity that savvy investors can make a killing on when you know how. And this article will walk you step-by-step through the money-making process.
Don't be put off by the term "investors". I'm not talking big money down here. As long as you've got a spare £5 a week then great money can be made for only half an hour of your time. Like the sound of that? Thought so.
There's a few ways you can make money buying domain names and selling them on for profit. And I mean PROFIT. You'll see why people will be scratching at your door to buy off you in just a moment.
Let's start with the basics.
All domain names are only registered for a limited amount of time.Registrars can choose to use the name for a period of between 1-10 years. After this the rights to these domain names expire and the user has to renew the name again. If they don't do this it will be placed on hold for a short time and then deleted. This means it is then availible for anyone who wants to buy it!
This Is Where You Can Cash In!
20,000 expired domain names are made availible each and every day. Some of them are very attractive and well-established names.
Example. Last year the owners of Race.com carelessly didn't renew their registration fee. It was grabbed (the term used to describe purchasing an expired name) by a savvy 'investor' for a few pounds and sold for thousands and thousands back to the old owner.
The owner was willing to pay huge sums for to the investor because he had built up qualified traffic over X amount of years and didn't want to lose all the previous custom.
Now I admit that making a sale for thousands is rare, but is certainly possible.
The likeliness is that you can buy a domain name and register it for £5-£50 and then sell it on for anything from £150 - £1000. Do this with five domain names a week, and your looking at a big sum of money for only a couple of hours work.
It's not just businesses that have carelessly let their domain name that will buy off you. It's other businesses too that will buy the name to get the old owners' traffic. It's a legitamate way of increasing your customer base.
And if the old owner and a new potential owner get into a bidding war...well..the sky really is the limit.
So there's two main reasons why people will be willing to pay YOU a couple of hundred pounds for a domain name.
a) They carelessly let the domain name expire. That means that they will pay you to get the name back to ensure that they don't lose their existing traffic that they may have built up over years and years.
B) They are a business in the same field as the one that has let the name expire and therfore will pay you to secure the exisitng custom of a rival.
Here's step-by-step how you go about this fantastically profitable part time business.
There are several sources of expired domain name information and reserach tools, some free and some that require a payment of a fee.
www.wehavethem.com supplies lists of names due to be deleted. Www.DeletedDomains.com allows you to do some searching free and more extensive searching for a $99 annual fee.You can search for names that are due to be deleted and also allows you to bid on newly deleted names that have already been grabbed by other 'investors'.
What you are looking for is an expired domain name with traffic in the last month of anything over 1500. Ensure that the site is an actual consumer site. There's no point buying a domain name if the previous site wasn't selling any goods.
If you see a site that had tens of thousands of visitors in the last month GET IT. The likeliness is that the previous owners will be itching to get their name back off of you due to its obvious success.
Also if you see a name with a large qualified traffic thats due to expire and has a high traffic volume use an automated grabbing system such as www.snapnames.com and www.pool.com. These will ensure the second they become availible you will have registered them. The cost is about $60 but only if they get the names for you. Definately worth it in my eyes.
Remember you could easily sell the name for hundreds, maybe thousands.
This truly is the business to get into in 2005. It's a red hot opportunity that savvy investors can make a killing on when you know how. And this article will walk you step-by-step through the money-making process.
Don't be put off by the term "investors". I'm not talking big money down here. As long as you've got a spare £5 a week then great money can be made for only half an hour of your time. Like the sound of that? Thought so.
There's a few ways you can make money buying domain names and selling them on for profit. And I mean PROFIT. You'll see why people will be scratching at your door to buy off you in just a moment.
Let's start with the basics.
All domain names are only registered for a limited amount of time.Registrars can choose to use the name for a period of between 1-10 years. After this the rights to these domain names expire and the user has to renew the name again. If they don't do this it will be placed on hold for a short time and then deleted. This means it is then availible for anyone who wants to buy it!
This Is Where You Can Cash In!
20,000 expired domain names are made availible each and every day. Some of them are very attractive and well-established names.
Example. Last year the owners of Race.com carelessly didn't renew their registration fee. It was grabbed (the term used to describe purchasing an expired name) by a savvy 'investor' for a few pounds and sold for thousands and thousands back to the old owner.
The owner was willing to pay huge sums for to the investor because he had built up qualified traffic over X amount of years and didn't want to lose all the previous custom.
Now I admit that making a sale for thousands is rare, but is certainly possible.
The likeliness is that you can buy a domain name and register it for £5-£50 and then sell it on for anything from £150 - £1000. Do this with five domain names a week, and your looking at a big sum of money for only a couple of hours work.
It's not just businesses that have carelessly let their domain name that will buy off you. It's other businesses too that will buy the name to get the old owners' traffic. It's a legitamate way of increasing your customer base.
And if the old owner and a new potential owner get into a bidding war...well..the sky really is the limit.
So there's two main reasons why people will be willing to pay YOU a couple of hundred pounds for a domain name.
a) They carelessly let the domain name expire. That means that they will pay you to get the name back to ensure that they don't lose their existing traffic that they may have built up over years and years.
B) They are a business in the same field as the one that has let the name expire and therfore will pay you to secure the exisitng custom of a rival.
Here's step-by-step how you go about this fantastically profitable part time business.
There are several sources of expired domain name information and reserach tools, some free and some that require a payment of a fee.
www.wehavethem.com supplies lists of names due to be deleted. Www.DeletedDomains.com allows you to do some searching free and more extensive searching for a $99 annual fee.You can search for names that are due to be deleted and also allows you to bid on newly deleted names that have already been grabbed by other 'investors'.
What you are looking for is an expired domain name with traffic in the last month of anything over 1500. Ensure that the site is an actual consumer site. There's no point buying a domain name if the previous site wasn't selling any goods.
If you see a site that had tens of thousands of visitors in the last month GET IT. The likeliness is that the previous owners will be itching to get their name back off of you due to its obvious success.
Also if you see a name with a large qualified traffic thats due to expire and has a high traffic volume use an automated grabbing system such as www.snapnames.com and www.pool.com. These will ensure the second they become availible you will have registered them. The cost is about $60 but only if they get the names for you. Definately worth it in my eyes.
Remember you could easily sell the name for hundreds, maybe thousands.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Things need to be avoided for Affiliate Marketing
Although anyone can start an affiliate marketing business but not everyone can achieve success in affiliate marketing. What is the reason? Well, there are 10 of them, actually. There are 10 affiliate mistakes that deter people from succeeding in affiliate marketing business. To avoid all these mistakes, you first need to study them and understand them thoroughly.
1. Believing that visitors would only click on their affiliate links. Although the task of an affiliate is only restricted to pre-selling, pre-selling isn’t just limited to displaying the affiliate links. It also entails enticing visitors to click on them by listing out the benefits of the affiliate products, giving positive recommendations by writing reviews to encourage readers to check out the products.
2. Promoting too many affiliate programs at the same time. If an affiliate markets 8 affiliate programs at the same time, he or she will have 8 affiliate marketing campaigns to handle. Most probably, the affiliate will find difficult to manage all his campaigns and unable to concentrate on each one of his or her affiliate programs in this situation and ends up losing money.
You should begin with one affiliate program; choose a program that you are passionate about. Then put your best effort to market the product. Test different marketing strategies to see which one works best. Once you are making a steady commission with the product, then maybe you can look for second affiliate product to sell.
3. Believing that using a single method of marketing technique is sufficient. There are people actually think that submitting a few articles to article websites will generate the amount of traffic they expected. But this is wrong. Focusing only one marketing technique will limit the number of potential buyers you can send to your affiliate merchant’s website
4. Failing to improve the performance of your marketing campaign. Many affiliates tend to concern on checking their daily commission only and have no interest on studying and analyzing their marketing campaigns performance. When their campaigns don’t work as expected or don’t generate sales, they will fail to make corresponding adjustments because they don’t know which aspects of their campaigns need to be improved. It is essential to learn every aspect of our marketing strategies. Which marketing techniques are attracted most visitors? How many unique and returning visitors generated? How long do they stay in our website? Where they come from? These are the questions that could help us enhance the performance of our affiliate marketing business.
5. Promoting affiliate products that are lacking of demand. Some affiliate programs offer extremely high sale commission to their affiliate. But the products aren’t sellable and thus earning nothing.
6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction. The trustworthiness of a company relies on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established good relationships with their customers, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service. You will find easier to pre-selling such an affiliate product.
7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry. There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.
8. Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it. Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.
9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved. Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you’re just setting it up for failure.
10. Though that affiliate program can help you become rich fast. No, affiliate program isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme. You have to put in a lot of effort and time, and some capital before you can make money in affiliate marketing.
1. Believing that visitors would only click on their affiliate links. Although the task of an affiliate is only restricted to pre-selling, pre-selling isn’t just limited to displaying the affiliate links. It also entails enticing visitors to click on them by listing out the benefits of the affiliate products, giving positive recommendations by writing reviews to encourage readers to check out the products.
2. Promoting too many affiliate programs at the same time. If an affiliate markets 8 affiliate programs at the same time, he or she will have 8 affiliate marketing campaigns to handle. Most probably, the affiliate will find difficult to manage all his campaigns and unable to concentrate on each one of his or her affiliate programs in this situation and ends up losing money.
You should begin with one affiliate program; choose a program that you are passionate about. Then put your best effort to market the product. Test different marketing strategies to see which one works best. Once you are making a steady commission with the product, then maybe you can look for second affiliate product to sell.
3. Believing that using a single method of marketing technique is sufficient. There are people actually think that submitting a few articles to article websites will generate the amount of traffic they expected. But this is wrong. Focusing only one marketing technique will limit the number of potential buyers you can send to your affiliate merchant’s website
4. Failing to improve the performance of your marketing campaign. Many affiliates tend to concern on checking their daily commission only and have no interest on studying and analyzing their marketing campaigns performance. When their campaigns don’t work as expected or don’t generate sales, they will fail to make corresponding adjustments because they don’t know which aspects of their campaigns need to be improved. It is essential to learn every aspect of our marketing strategies. Which marketing techniques are attracted most visitors? How many unique and returning visitors generated? How long do they stay in our website? Where they come from? These are the questions that could help us enhance the performance of our affiliate marketing business.
5. Promoting affiliate products that are lacking of demand. Some affiliate programs offer extremely high sale commission to their affiliate. But the products aren’t sellable and thus earning nothing.
6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction. The trustworthiness of a company relies on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established good relationships with their customers, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service. You will find easier to pre-selling such an affiliate product.
7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry. There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.
8. Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it. Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.
9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved. Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you’re just setting it up for failure.
10. Though that affiliate program can help you become rich fast. No, affiliate program isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme. You have to put in a lot of effort and time, and some capital before you can make money in affiliate marketing.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Real work-at-home jobs
After the birth of her daughter, Carrie Opara knew she didn't want to return to her old job as a mental-health counselor. But finding legitimate work she could do at home was no small feat.
She tried a multilevel marketing plan and wound up in debt. She looked on the Internet and found plenty of scams. Finally, she heard about LiveOps, a Palo Alto, Calif., call center that hired people to work out of their own homes.
Within two years, she was earning about $2,000 a month working 30 to 35 hours a week from her home in Columbia, Md. -- about what she'd made previously as a counselor. Her shifts can be as short as 30 minutes, although she typically works five-hour blocks while her 6-year-old is in school, plus some nights and weekends when her husband, a certified public accountant, can take over child care.
Opara said she still faces the challenges familiar to every working parent: how to work enough hours, spend enough quality time with her family "and still figure out how I'm going to clean my house, make dinner and do the grocery shopping." Not having to commute or pay for child care, however, are big bonuses.
"It's fit in perfectly," Opara said, "and we also like the flexibility."
Technology is opening up new opportunities for parents and others who want to work at home. Finding and landing legitimate, profitable work still isn't easy, but here are a few venues to try:
A call center in your home
In recent years, you've heard a lot about companies routing their customer-service calls to workers overseas, but a less-noticed trend is the growth in home-based call-center workers.
Thanks to the Internet and better call-routing technology, more companies are finding they can outsource their order-taking, sales and problem-solving calls to home-based workers, said LiveOps board member Bill Trenchard. LiveOps not only runs an outsource operation, Trenchard said, but it also provides technology for companies that want to set up their own home-based call centers.
Read the full article
She tried a multilevel marketing plan and wound up in debt. She looked on the Internet and found plenty of scams. Finally, she heard about LiveOps, a Palo Alto, Calif., call center that hired people to work out of their own homes.
Within two years, she was earning about $2,000 a month working 30 to 35 hours a week from her home in Columbia, Md. -- about what she'd made previously as a counselor. Her shifts can be as short as 30 minutes, although she typically works five-hour blocks while her 6-year-old is in school, plus some nights and weekends when her husband, a certified public accountant, can take over child care.
Opara said she still faces the challenges familiar to every working parent: how to work enough hours, spend enough quality time with her family "and still figure out how I'm going to clean my house, make dinner and do the grocery shopping." Not having to commute or pay for child care, however, are big bonuses.
"It's fit in perfectly," Opara said, "and we also like the flexibility."
Technology is opening up new opportunities for parents and others who want to work at home. Finding and landing legitimate, profitable work still isn't easy, but here are a few venues to try:
A call center in your home
In recent years, you've heard a lot about companies routing their customer-service calls to workers overseas, but a less-noticed trend is the growth in home-based call-center workers.
Thanks to the Internet and better call-routing technology, more companies are finding they can outsource their order-taking, sales and problem-solving calls to home-based workers, said LiveOps board member Bill Trenchard. LiveOps not only runs an outsource operation, Trenchard said, but it also provides technology for companies that want to set up their own home-based call centers.
Read the full article
Friday, September 19, 2008
Legitimate Work From Home Jobs
Find Work From Home Opportunities
By Jennifer Wolf
Looking for legitimate work from home jobs can be daunting. There are so many scams out there, and frankly, many distracting "career opportunities" that don't live up to their potential. To protect the investment of your time and energy - which are extremely valuable - consider the following:
* Know your qualifications. Make a list of the unique skills and talents you have to offer. For example, if you're looking into companies that "homesource" their customer service representatives (that is, they hire individuals who can do the job out of their homes), then having a smooth, pleasant, and clear phone voice is essential!
* Know what you are looking for. In addition, make a list of the jobs you are looking for. What interests you? What are your scheduling and income needs?
* Have realistic expectations. It can take months and years to develop the credibility with a legitimate work from home company to get to the point where you're earning the equivalent of full-time work.
* Realize that you may still need child care. Working from home while taking care of your kids is extremely demanding. You may find that you need to hire sitters for at least part of the hours you'll be working from home.
* Be honest about your capabilities. Don't sign up for a work from home job that requires you to have a faster computer than you really have, or one that demands a quiet, peaceful atmosphere in the background at all times if your kids will be present during your work hours.
* Avoid jobs that require extensive, unpaid training. In general, stay away from opportunities that would require additional schooling or unrealistic amounts of unpaid training time.
* Avoid jobs that require you to spend money in order to apply. This is a sure sign of a scam!
By Jennifer Wolf
Looking for legitimate work from home jobs can be daunting. There are so many scams out there, and frankly, many distracting "career opportunities" that don't live up to their potential. To protect the investment of your time and energy - which are extremely valuable - consider the following:
* Know your qualifications. Make a list of the unique skills and talents you have to offer. For example, if you're looking into companies that "homesource" their customer service representatives (that is, they hire individuals who can do the job out of their homes), then having a smooth, pleasant, and clear phone voice is essential!
* Know what you are looking for. In addition, make a list of the jobs you are looking for. What interests you? What are your scheduling and income needs?
* Have realistic expectations. It can take months and years to develop the credibility with a legitimate work from home company to get to the point where you're earning the equivalent of full-time work.
* Realize that you may still need child care. Working from home while taking care of your kids is extremely demanding. You may find that you need to hire sitters for at least part of the hours you'll be working from home.
* Be honest about your capabilities. Don't sign up for a work from home job that requires you to have a faster computer than you really have, or one that demands a quiet, peaceful atmosphere in the background at all times if your kids will be present during your work hours.
* Avoid jobs that require extensive, unpaid training. In general, stay away from opportunities that would require additional schooling or unrealistic amounts of unpaid training time.
* Avoid jobs that require you to spend money in order to apply. This is a sure sign of a scam!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
