For many small business startups, cost savings are important. So, I would like to share with you this Hostgator coupon in case you are considering getting a web hosting plan.

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Here’s wishing everyone a very happy new year, may 2010 bring you close to your dreams.

OK, it is Christmas time, and somehow, in the midst of all the food and beer, I am suddenly reminded of a very old dream… six pack abs.

I tell you, the truth is, I went from scrawny to pot-bellied. I have no idea what happened in between. Seriously. My friend asked me to look at this Squidoo page which talked about this.

It is interesting that there are several issues that impact this. The lens has a sharing by Mike Geary who claims to have an answer, the truth, to our quest for the elusive six pack abs today. Maybe I will try it. Let’s see how it goes…

In the early days of the Internet, avatars were the “wow” factor for many new sites. If you had a site, and it allowed users to have an avatar… wow!

Those days came and went, or so we thought. Looks like now, avatars seem to be back again. I just realised this, so I must have been buried in work all this time (yeah, all true!). So, here are TWELVE, yes, 12 sites that allow you to custom create your own avatar. I saw this and thought to share this with you guys:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/11-sites-to-create-cartoon-characters-of-yourself/

Yes, it is more than a year old. Bite me.

Friend of mine asked me to help spread the word, so here it is – the word!

The word is that Eran Katz, Memory Master who holds the Guinness Book of World Records for Best Memory Stunt will be in Singapore doing a half day seminar for students (lucky kids!) and it will help them perform better in school and enjoy studying… I guess because they spend less time studying and remembering more.

Anyway, you can read all about the seminar here: http://www.versacreations.com/84/super-student-sucess-seminar/

For those of you who don’t live in Singapore, well… I heard Eran speaks around the world, maybe he might visit you one day.

The latest trend today is to “go green”. That is good. Don’t really know if that help us avoid 2012, but well, we do what we can.

So, thought I seen it all, until I saw this – Organic Cotton BABY WIPES. I am a little too old for this, but it did bring out the giggles. I fully understand the motivation and the attraction of the idea, don’t get me wrong here. But well, baby wipes?

Used to be that Organic Marketing had a totally different meaning. Now, new term like Sustainable Marketing and Triple Bottom Line are beginning to become common. Will it every become mainstream enough that you will not need to Google it to figure out what it means? Who knows.

Will you be on this band-wagon?

How do you increase sales revenue? There are only 3 known ways to increase your business legally:

1. Get more customers
2. Increase price
3. Get existing customers to buy more

Usually, most companies focus on #1 – Get More Customers. This is intuitively the first reaction that any business person will think of. If I have more customers, I will make more money. Simple, straight-forward logic.

#2 – Increase Price seems to be the Freddy Kreuger of most busineses. No one dares to even think about it most of the time. Other times, this is entertained as a nice fantasy before getting on with the real business.

#3 – Getting existing customers to buy more is probably one of the most desired outcome for many business owners. Buy two get one free and other bundling offers is the epitome of this strategy. It is a good strategy, even though it does compromise margins, you make up for the shortfall in the bottom line by increasing the top line numbers. It could work in some cases.

The harsh reality is this – it is really hard to get more customers. It is easy to lose customers. This is food for thought. Let me ask you a question:

“Why does everyone prefer to think about how to do business the hard way?”

We have been taught that it is hard to succeed at business. So, if getting more customers is hard, then it must be the best way to improve business. There is no way that you can improve sales if you do not have customers. That is a given. However, once you are over that initial hump, do you really need to increase your customer base?

Getting existing customers to buy more is a no brainer. That will certainly increase revenue. Because they already buy from you, they KNOW that you provide a good product/service and they are willing to pay for it. They proved it once. They will do it again.

There is one sure way that we can increase price and ensure that customers buy more from us – provide a true and abundant value.

Giving more value than the customer expects is not about giving up margins. It is about buying good will. If we can learn to meet, and then exceed customer expectations, we will increase sales.

The problem is, how?

I wonder about this all the time. Is Twitter over rated or am I just uninformed?

Of course I have a Twitter. Sometimes, I Twit a little too. I might be wrong, some call it Tweet. So far as I know, the sun still rises from the East, I still love chocolates and it still makes me fat.

What then is the purpose of Twitter?

Just like any tool, there are a lot of mis-use and abuse of Twitter. Some people think that just because you have a Twitter account, that makes you the guru of the new social web. Then there is all that spam.

Others think that they can use all these social networks to sell lots of stuff and become millionaires. Yeah, right. I am not a Twitter guru or a professional Twitterer. So, I am going to follow with great curiosity the outcome of my friend Vivienne’s foray into the world of Twitter. You can read about it from her post “Learn Twitter Secrets From A Twitter Pro”

I am not a nay-sayer. I just have a healthy skeptism. But f she does well, I am going to try it too! :)

When I am asked about online stuff, I have learned to keep my mouth shut. You see, when it comes to professional web design services, its a jungle out there. And the wild animals are precisely the people asking about it.

Mostly, managers want to have a nice web site for their products, services or company. Absolutely understandable. The real problem comes in right at that point. That is, all they know, is that they want a nice site. It is as if the words “I want a nice web site” explains it all.

Can someone please tell them, “nice” is not a definitive word.

Several years ago, I embarked on a web revamp project. I was tasked to consolidate more than 22 different urls (those www.something thingies, for those of you non techies). It was a seriously huge project as these sites have grown and taken on a life of their own over a period of several years.

There was absolutely no system to the naming of the sites. Some of them would even challenge the most imaginative person to create any sort of linkage with the company or its products and services.

Obviously, this called for the help of a professional web design company. To cut a long story short, I called for a tender submission, got a few proposals and finally awarded the job for several hundred thousand dollars to a company.

Now, this company sent an ARMY of people down. There were project managers, designers, data entry staff, programmers and a manager or two. It took us, the whole team, plus all the other in-house resources, eleven months to finish the project.

Can you imagine trying to farm out such a project to Uncle Jim’s clever neighbour?

Even simply projects sometimes require professional help.

The key to a great website, is planning. Right from the start, you need to know a lot of things. To give you an idea, you need to (not exhaustive):

• define your audience
• define the scope of the project
• define the roles and responsibilities of people maintaining it
• define your marketing objectives
• define your operational objectives
• define your look and feel guidelines (in line with your corporate look or not?)
• define your budget

You know, that last one is something many people do not do. If you have a few hundred dollars to spend, don’t imagine that you can create a powerful, versatile ecommerce site with all the bells and whistles of Amazon.com.

I mean, take a look at this set of ecommerce case study and you can see that the variety of sites that are possible is really quite wide. Just because a friend successfully installed and used an OsCommerce site does not mean that it is suitable for you and your business.

I guess what I am trying to say is, careful planning is essential for a successful web implementation. Even if you have a great idea, or your products are a natural for online sales, if you do not plan your website, you will be wasting more money re-doing your site again and again, then spending it by working with a professional partner.

How much do you want to have a freelance writing business?

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Sorry, this is so totally off-topic, but you guys really really gotta see this!

Transformer USB

One of the most interesting aspects of sales and marketing, and also the most difficult, is to get more sales. Others might say that the more difficult part of it is not to just sell, but to find loyal customers.

When you think about it, it is all true. It is hard enough trying to get a new customer, then losing them and trying to win them over a 2nd time is going to be even more difficult.

Customer loyalty is priceless. But we all need to be accountable, hence, the birth of “Total Lifetime Value” of a customer. So many concepts, so many ideas.

But I just came across a very interesting article over at the Corporate Eye – Disney’s Discount Slight of Hand that has put a new spin on a lot of these ideas.

You see, one of the bright ideas when it comes to pricing is this whole area of psychological pricing. You know, where ninety-seven cents is better price for sales conversion than ninety-nine?

An extension of this is small increases in prices of small items go un-noticed and can allow you to give big discounts on big ticket items to make the top level appeal so much stronger.

But as Susan pointed out in her excellent article, that could very well back-fire on the loyal customers. Those who know every item that is on the menu at your restaurants, those who know the names of every staff, those who know which days are “Specials” day; you cannot fool them.

So, the next time you plan your marketing, do take this into consideration.

I just saw this very interesting post over at the Versa Blog. It was talking about some sales guru who appeared to have the monopoly on great sales technique… I’m a skeptic, but if Vivienne feels it is good, then there must be something to it. Go read it at Meeting the Heart Sales Guru

Times, they are bad indeed. So I guess any boost that you can give to improve sales would be an improvement. Right?