TRADE YOUR INVENTORY!  

New, Excess, Last Seasons Goods
 
Now…you can sell it all at our Annual Expo in exchange for products/services you need WITHOUT  having to spend cash! 
 
Trade American Card is Orange County’s largest trade exchange. Annually trading  millions of dollars in goods/services. All while saving hard earned cash!

Sunday,  December 13, 2009 

The Grove of Anaheim

 
10am -  3 pm

  
*Bring your inventory to sell at this one day show in exchange for trade dollars that can be used to purchase hundreds of items including: advertising, entertainment, printing, medical, dental and optometric services, accounting/bookkeeping, photography, payroll, pest control, salon & spa services, business equipment, security systems, travel, jewelry, cosmetic surgery and much more.  One-time membership required.

 For  more information visit  Orange County Resource Guide  

Small business marketing, especially in a down economy, requires a psychological aspect, as Vitaly Grinblat explains. At Welcome Express we offer an arsenal of advertising products designed for Orange County small businesses to attract new customers who are newcomers themselves. The psychology is clear – newcomers are seeking a higher percentage of solutions than those who are settled into established behavior patterns of commerce.

*What is your real goal in marketing and advertising your business?
 
Let’s look at relationships as an example. When you first meet a member of the opposite sex and you feel attracted to them, you don’t come up and after introducing yourself propose marriage, do you? There’s a process involved in creating a relationship. You first usually go on a date and get to know someone before even considering marriage. If you actually did walk up to someone you didn’t know, introduced yourself and told them that you want to skip all the steps and get married, you’ll probably never see that person again, and ruin what potentially could have been a great relationship.

It’s the same in business. Not all your prospects are ready to buy right away. Depending on what your products or services are, it may take several steps before your prospect feels comfortable enough to go ahead and do business with you.  On the other hand, there are some business that all they do is advertise to get people to know who they are and there’s no tracking mechanism for any follow up to continue the relationship building process.

That’s why direct marketing solves this problem. Using the direct marketing approach allows you to build a relationship with your prospect and give them a chance to get to see what you offer before asking them to buy. Which takes all the pressure off of you and them.

Here are the steps to successful direct marketing rollout:

1. You need to pick a specific target market. Not everyone is your prospect. In fact, the more narrow your target market is, the more likelihood of success, because you can tailor make your message to their particular needs. Dan Kennedy, of the greatest marketers in the world, calls it a perfect message to market match. [ Editor's note: Welcome Express targets the newcomer to Orange County who hasn't yet selected and made habit his or her 'chosen' merchants for doing business.]

2. Create something that you can include for free in your direct response offer. Notice I said free. Because we want the prospect to act (or respond) to your offer by calling, or going to your website, or faxing you, or walking into your store, whatever it happens to be.

This step is important, because this separates the interested prospects (leads) from the ones who have no interest. You now can continue sending information via mail or email to these people, because they’re the ones that raised their hands. Why waste your advertising dollars on people who don’t even show any interest in what you have.

3. Have a great offer with your give away. There must be a compelling reason for your prospects to act now. It must be emotionally captivating and have social proof, (testimonials). Make sure you have a strong guarantee, people love guarantees, and although if your product is good, they will not ask for a refund, but it does make them more comfortable to make the decision to buy.

The ones that don’t respond, you keep communicating with. You see the timing has to be right. They may not be ready. Money could be an issue at this moment. They may have marital problems or something else that keeps them occupied at this moment, and your offer is the last thing they’re interested, for now.  So you follow up with emails, mail, send them reminders, tips, ideas, etc… Depending on your business, this would vary, but the idea is to keep the sequence of follow up going.

4. When the prospect buys and turns into a customer, keep communicating with them, and have a back end sales strategy. In other words, have additional products and services that you could sell them later. If you don’t, your competition most definitely will.

Again depending on your product this will be different for everyone, but think of what can complement the product they purchased. If they bought carpet, they might be interested in a carpet cleaning solution, to keep it clean. They may also be in the market for furniture, drapery, and other items.

The psychology of a direct response model for small business marketing is simple, if you keep your customers’ best interests at heart and do whatever it takes to nurture those relationships, which later turn into profit centers.

*Source: Vitaly Grinblat  http://www.squidoo.com/law_of_attraction-for-abundance

Ready-Fire-Aim Marketing* – The Small Business Approach to Accelerate Your Marketing Success!
Welcome Express stands Ready, at YOUR Service to propel your OC-based small business towards its 2009 business goals! Ready-Fire-Aim!

This is the approach to achieve rapid improvements in your small business marketing results in Orange County. It’s not about incremental improvements, but rather transformational improvements.

It’s the Ready-Fire-Aim approach. I’m talking about an approach to marketing, and approach to business, and an approach to life. Enlighten your small business to the wisdom of the Ready-Fire-Aim approach. I know what you’re probably thinking. That little voice inside your head is asking, “Don’t you mean Ready-Aim-Fire?”

Lots of small business owners have a tendency to think about and maybe plan things, but then hesitate to take any action. You want to make sure you get things just right. It’s sometimes called analysis paralysis.

Take a good hard look at the people and organizations you admire for the successes they’ve accomplished. You’ll likely find they are much more willing to live by the Ready-Fire-Aim approach.

It’s like a great football team. They can’t possibly know everything that’s going to happen before they get in and play the game. They call a play they’ve designed and practiced (Ready), they run the play (Fire), and then they look to see how the other team reacts, re-huddle, and call another play that they think will be successful based on what they’re learning (Aim).

It doesn’t mean that you just go out and start acting and doing without any planning or thinking. Guess we could call that the Fire-Fire-Fire approach. That would be a mistake and most likely wouldn’t work out for your business.  But, Ready-Fire-Aim marketing can lead to is a willingness to increase the pace of your growth. Be willing to learn more and do more faster. Be willing to reach for loftier goals and accelerate the success of achieving them.

The thing is the marketing mistakes you make along the way aren’t going to kill you or drive you out of business. Everyone makes mistakes. But, the Ready-Fire-Aim person is the one who learns from the mistake, adjust and then gets ready to fire again.

Be willing to give yourself a break. You can’t know everything there is to know about marketing (or your business, or your life) before you get in the game and call a play.

Go ahead and have a big vision. It’s your vision plus your commitment that will lead you to taking the right actions.
Create a marketing plan to take you towards your vision. Don’t let uncertainty or unanswered questions hold you back. Just do the best you can based on what you know and trust that you will continue to learn and improve.

 If you’re feeling stuck in moving your marketing plan forward, then get some outside help. Maybe the Ready-Fire-Aim action you need to take is to hire a marketing coach or to join a power-marketing group. Nobody said you necessarily have to do it on your own.

Ready-Fire-Aim! Following even this simple advice will put you ahead of 90 to 95% of other small business owners in the game. Just think of what that could mean to your business and your life.

*Source: Kevin Dervin

Nine Common Small Business Mistakes and Cures*
Every small business makes mistakes in the journey to success. Stay alert to the pitfalls by planning ahead and taking steps to avoid the common mistakes.

Can You Relate To Any of These Mistakes?
1. An over-reliance on the “vision” and an underdeveloped plan to get there. Your goals are the easy part to define. Work tirelessly on a disciplined strategy toward achieving these goals.

2. Not sustaining your passion for your business through the tough times. We all have times that “test us.” This is the time to dig down deep and remember why you are in business and renew that hunger for success and passion for what you do. Remember, Thomas Edison had about 1,000 failures before finally inventing an electric bulb that worked.

3. Coasting when things are going well and becoming lax about sustaining an aggressive business model.

4. Not diversifying. You should always have new plans and look for new ways to expand on your initial offerings.

5. Not budgeting enough money for branding, advertising and marketing. Business owners frequently fail to set aside adequate funds to get the word out and look credible.

6. Not setting your business apart from the competition. Actively make your product or service distinct from your competition and use this distinction as part of your marketing and advertising.

7. Neglecting loyal existing customers. Word of mouth is powerful free advertising, so keep your good customers happy and content. Always try to improve customer relations. However, if a customer becomes a major distraction to your business, find a diplomatic way to let them go and move on.

8. Not being focused on efficiency. Time is money, so let others help you reach your business goals if they can do a task better and faster. If you know the best possible way to do something, teach those around you. This will free up your schedule to focus on business growth.

9. Doing things on your own, when you need help. Sometimes we let our ego cloud our judgment and we don’t realize that we would have been better off hiring an expert. While often times cost is the true inspiration for doing things on our own, there are times when doing things on our own proves to be costly.
————-
*Source: Matt Chansky  http://www.momentum18.com/common-business-mistakes.html

The economy is down. Make the most of it by reading the signs. Call it economic uncertainty. Call it a full blown recession. Call it opportunity comes-a-knocking, especially for those companies with vision, a remarkable message and the desire to grow.

When the business winds blow south and everybody gets tight with marketing, advertising and selling, what does your company do? Hunker down, cut to the bone, hope and pray you’ll ride it out? That’s your cue to step in and step up, snatching your competitors clients. Slow and steady isn’t going to win this race. Neither is short-term business think.

There is a massive amount of research to support this kind of thinking. A McGraw-Hill study of 600 companies showed that those who cut advertising during the recession of the early 80′s, saw sales increase by 19% between 1980 and 1985. Companies that continued to advertise, market and connect during the recession had sales increases of 275% during the same period. That’s right, a whooping 275% increase. Now what are you going to do?

Think about it. When your competitors decide to hide in the woodshed, it’s time for you go for the remarkable connection and win the competition. Because if you decide to hide out along with them, you’re going to suffer, right along side them. If you decide to wait it out, there is one thing you can depend on – companies that wait during the downturn, spend more money over a longer period of time just to get even.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_S_OGrady

Segment your Market -
All customers are not the same. They have different needs, preferences, and budgets. Segmenting the market into a group of similar customers can help you develop a successful marketing strategy. Trying to satisfy every customer with the same approach is not going to be effective and profitable.

Examples of ways to segment your customers:
- location
- age
- income
- education
- previous buying habits
- how they respond to different advertising promotions

Competition -
Make a list of your competitors. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are the major competitors in this market?
- How different they are in delivering their products and services?
- How do they make money?
- How much they charge and what they offer to the customers?
After you answer these questions ask yourself what they do better than you do.

Value Proposition / Unique Selling Proposition (USP) -
In order for your market approach to be successful you have to offer something different. You need to develop an effective value proposition or unique selling proposition. In your value proposition you will list your products and service features and the benefits they deliver to your customers.  Now you need to communicate your value proposition to your target market by:
- Advertising: print media, TV, radio, internet ads, search engine optimization, website marketing
- Public Relations: press releases, events
- Sales Promotion: special offerings, discounts, customer loyalty programs
- Community Involvement: sponsorship

Marketing ROI -
Key to effective marketing is measuring your promotional activities. For example, how many customers do I get from my ad in newspaper and how much did it cost me to get these customers. Now you can compare different alternatives and improve your marketing return on investment in your next promotions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ivo_Legenda

Many people are often confused with the words marketing and advertising. Marketing and advertising are two closely linked factors of an organization. The basic difference between marketing and advertising is that advertising is a key element of marketing. Marketing includes all basic functions of promotions and advertising is one of them.

Marketing:
In simple terms, marketing is a wide range of activities that a firm undertakes to place its products or services to fulfill the needs and wants of customers. Marketing is the exchange of goods between buyers and sellers in a mutually beneficial manner.

Marketing includes four controllable factors such as product, price, place and promotion. They are collectively called marketing mix. The management of a company has keen interest on these terms, because they determine the success of a firm company in market place. These parameters are designed based on the company’s resources and constraints. They even determine the acceptance of your products or services in the market.

A firm adopts certain methods to communicate with the target audience. These methods are collectively called as Marketing communications (Promotion Decisions). A mix of marketing communication includes:
1. Advertising
2. Sales Promotion
3. Personal Selling
4. Direct Marketing and Sponsorship
5. Publicity and Public relations

Advertising:

Advertising is the basic form of promotion decision. It is the most effective mass communication method. Advertising is a paid form of communication by an identified sponsor. It conveys non- personal, public messages with non-personal presentation of features to both existing as well as potential customers.

Advertising is the presentation of an idea, product, place or a person to induce the attention of customers. It is a part of the communication strategy, which communicates the firm’s offerings with the target group. Target customers get the ideas of products through advertisements published in newspapers, direct mail, billboards, radio, internet and television.

Advertising also addresses key decisions of placing ads and determining their frequencies on various forms of media. Advertising is the most expensive communication as well as promotional method. The cost of placing advertisements varies according to the selection of the media. For instance, advertising on television and internet are highly expensive.

In short, advertising is a small part of marketing, but is one of the key marketing functions. On the other hand, marketing refers to all the processes that facilitate deals between buyers and sellers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christopher_Clarke

You probably know why going green is good for the planet, but did you know that it is good for your small business too? I’ll outline the three major ways that running an environmentally friendly business will translate to a better bottom line.

1.) Ecoefficiency Means Cost Savings The first major change you’ll see when you go green is that your expenses will shrink as your carbon footprint does. A company that has an environmentally aware mindset will use less resources to get the same work done, and that sort of efficiency can slash expenditures. Using compact florescent lightbulbs, for example, will greatly reduce your electric bill. Keeping in mind the toll paper products has on our rainforests will move you to cut down on unnecessary shipping materials, which also means you spend less. The lesson here is that you should use less, for the environment and for your bank account.

2.) Green Pride!

When you nurture a workplace environment that is concerned with the health of its community and the planet, you and your employees know that you are working for something more than just a pay check. That sort of sense of purpose makes the work your employees do feel important, and it is! When people are motivated by socially conscious and just goals, they are going to work harder and be happier while they do it. It has been shown that environmentally benign companies have reduced rates of absenteeism, increased job satisfaction, and commitment to the company’s mission. A proud employee is a productive one!

3.) Customer Good Will

One of the major advantages that very small businesses need to leverage if they want to regain a prominent place in the American marketplace is a sense of belonging to the community. Faceless behemoths like Wal*Mart are disliked by so many is because it is obvious how little they care for the places they operate. You and your business can stand out if you make an effort to make things better, and going green is a vital part of that. When you use recycled materials, call your customers’ attention to it. Promote green discounts for people who bring their own reusable shopping bags. Use locally grown, organic produce (not only are these better for the planet, but they are better for the people eating them too!). The possibilities are endless, so get creative. Go green and your community will thank you with increased business.

Peter Grantaire is a small business owner and blogger who writes about the challenges that small businesses face, as well as the joy of contributing to your community through your work.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Grantaire

For a list of “green businesses” in Orange County, click here

As more people become aware of the need to conserve natural resources and keep our environment clean, recycling old computers has become incredibly popular. But what is computer recycling, exactly? Why is it so important? And where can one take a computer to be recycled?

What is Computer Recycling?
Computer recycling is the process of extracting valuable secondary raw materials from obsolete computers. The EPA estimates that 30 to 40 million personal computers are ready for recycling each year. But because of the source material used to make them, simply throwing away your old computer can be dangerous and harmful to the environment. Depending on their age, computers can contain such toxic materials as lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, and radioactive isotopes. They also contain valuable materials worth recovering, such as gold, tin, aluminum, iron, silicon, copper, and an array of different plastics.

Why Recycle Computers?
It is estimated that an average computer monitor may hold more than 6% lead by weight. When you discard a computer monitor or circuit board, most of that lead leeches into groundwater, or pollutes surrounding air if the monitor is incinerated. Some companies ship their outdated computer monitors and circuit boards to developing nations that have weak environmental protection regulations.

This only moves the problem. It doesn’t fix it.

Computer recycling and repair companies are the only sure way to know that your old monitor or circuit board will be properly taken care of.

Where do I Recycle Computers?
Consumer recycling is a popular option for recycling computers. Consumer recycling involves returning machines to their manufacturers, donating them to charitable organizations, or sending the separated components to environmentally responsible recyclers. There are a number of national and local organizations that help with consumer recycling. The Computer TakeBack Campaign and the Electronic TakeBack Coalition are both decentralized coalitions of organizations dedicated to minimizing so-called “e-waste” by helping people properly dispose of their old computers.

Many organizations also help connect computer donations with charitable organizations that may use them. The Donate Hardware list on the TechSoup website is a great resource for finding nonprofit and school-based recyclers in your area. They also list commercial recyclers, which are better suited for broken computers or models over five years old.

Of course, some computer companies offer take-back programs. These programs allow you to send your outdated computer back to the manufacturer where it will be repaired, refurbished, or properly disposed of. Hewlett-Packard is one company that offers such a service. To enhance their take-back program, HP also often offers a coupon good towards the purchase of a new computer or computer components. Many companies offer such benefits as a way to encourage computer recycling instead of dumping.

The best way to be sure if a nonprofit or commercial recycling organization is properly disposing of e-waste is to make sure they have signed the Basel Action Network (BAN) pledge. Among other things, the BAN pledge states that companies or charitable organizations will not allow hazardous waste to be sent to landfills, incinerators, prisons, or developing countries. These companies and organizations also pledge to support forward-thinking toxic-use reduction programs and legislation.

Luckily, getting rid of that older model doesn’t mean you have to negatively impact the environment. Look for the computer recycling program nearest you and feel good knowing you did your part to help eliminate e-waste.

~Ben Nystrom, 2009

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ben_Nystrom
 
For a list of landfills in Orange County that accept e-waste click here

In today’s world, more and more people are becoming more conscious of their environment. As a result, more businesses are adopting environmentally friendly business practices, like becoming a sustainable, green business. However, even with all the advantages of going green, there are many business owners who find it hard to adopt green practices because of the costs needed to implement changes, such as reconstruction to their daily operations and alterations to products sold to the consumers.

What many don’t realize is that the benefits of green practices far outweigh the costs. Becoming a sustainable business can save money in the long run, create happier customers, and it contributes to a healthier planet.

If you’re interested in adopting green practices, the government Web site, http://www.Business.gov, provides a guide to help businesses adopt the green practices, listed below:

Follow the environmental regulations relevant to your business. Compliance creates two effects: it protects your business from fines and legal actions from the government and it protects the environment.

Create a sound environmental management plan. Since you are now running a green business, creating an environmentally friendly and energy-efficient workplace is important to send your message across. An environmental plan will help you achieve this.

Build green and install energy-efficient air-conditioning systems, appliances, etc. You can contract with an energy professional to help you manage your project.

Buy green products. Green products are made from recycled materials, non-toxic, renewable, and recyclable. Also buy food that is locally grown and organic.

Adopt energy-efficient practices. One of the most effective steps you can take to cut costs is to save energy. You can help your employees conserve energy by providing them with energy-saving tips.

Reduce, reuse, and recycle wastes. Money can be saved by reducing waste. You can also cut costs on raw materials, office supplies, and equipment. Some of the things that you can do to reduce waste are using recycled products, eliminating excessive product packaging material, and participating in recycling programs.

Conserve water. Through conservation, you both save water and cut costs associated with buying, heating, treating, and disposing of it. Try to use water-saving equipment, and minimize discharges to sewer or wastewater.

Learn how Home at Last in OC has “gone green”.  Click Here!