The Business Pod's Blog

Since the 19th century business cards were widespread among people of all classes with a business to promote. The earliest form of business cards, known as tradecards, were used as advertising materials and as maps used to direct the public to the merchant’s store. Today business cards are among the most important marketing material that every business must have.  The business card is perhaps the best salesman that you can have. That is why it is essential that it contains much more than your name, address, and contact numbers and services. It should be designed keeping its purpose in mind – that is it being a powerful sales tool.  So let’s start with the design. If you want to create a business card that contains a photo with gradient colors you can try using a glossy finish to ensure that the cards are printed as good as they look on the screen. Or else, you can get disappointed with the print out.    Now let’s come to the strategies you can utilise in business card distribut

Have you created a core marketing message to use throughout all of your marketing efforts? I'm not talking about some catchy slogan or play on words using the name of your business or the service you provide. It's not some meaningless phrase like "we do it right" or "quality service you can trust." Anybody in business can say those things and they're really basic expectations anyway. A core marketing message clearly and concisely communicates what you're out to do and for who. It speaks to your ideal target market and gets them to respond and seek more information. So many small business owners and professional service providers never take the time to create this for their own business. Most are creating a new message with every new "marketing campaign." They're constantly trying new ideas. And each new idea becomes a new chance to try and come up with that home run message that gets the phone ringing off the hook like never be

1) Ask everyone to arrive five to ten minutes early. This gives everyone time to socialise, obtain coffee, or organise materials before the meeting. It also ensures that everyone is present at the scheduled starting time. Make this part of the agenda. 2) Discuss sensitive issues with the key participants before the meeting. Use this as an opportunity to listen and gather information on the issues. From this you will understand the different views, needs, and histories. This information can help you prepare the agenda and conduct the meeting. In addition, you may be able to facilitate solutions or strategies for solutions before the meeting. In either case, the result will be a more efficient meeting. 3) Plan small meetings that focus on a single issue. People work more effectively over short periods of time (such as 45 minutes). This also allows you to match experts with issues for more productive meetings. 4) Only invite those who can contribute to at least 50% of the items

When was the last time you had to deal with a difficult customer? It was probably and external customer but perhaps it was an internal customer, such as a member of your team, a colleague or even - your boss! I'm sure that you always want to provide exceptional service to both your internal and external customers. However, in the real world, things go wrong and mistakes are made. These "customers" will often judge your level of service based on how you respond to a mistake. Do it well and they'll probably forgive you and possibly even say positive things about your business or your abilities to other people. The important thing to realise when dealing with an upset customer, be they internal or external, is that you must deal with their feelings, then deal with their problem. Upset customers are liable to have strong feelings when you, your product or service lets them down and they'll probably want to "dump" these feeling on you. You don't deal wi

I was asked the other day what personality traits I thought were important to entrepreneurial success. I immediately gave my pre-programmed reply about passion and dedication and hard work. After taking some time later to ponder the question a little deeper, I came up with a more detailed checklist for entrepreneurial success.  This is by no means a definitive list, but I'd be willing to bet that if you don't have at least a majority of these traits, your chances of business success will be greatly diminished.  You must be self motivated. If you don't have the enthusiasm to bounce out of bed each day without your other half drenching you with cold water, the chances are you don't have the self motivation or discipline required to be an entrepreneur. Business demands that you take action based solely on your own volition. You have to do a hundred things every day that will not get done unless you make yourself do them.  You can't be afraid of hard work. I

In my mind, small talk basically consists of 3 phases: The ice breaker Get to know you better Graceful exit So let’s go ahead and briefly touch on each phase and in turn give you some concrete takeaway strategies that you can apply immediately for each. Phase 1: The Ice Breaker So you attend a networking event, you make eye contact with someone you want to meet, you approach them and introduce yourself, now what? Well having a few powerful, open-ended ice breaker questions should certainly do the trick.  For example: A tried and true ice breaker is the proverbial, “So Jeff, what do you do?”  In other words “Jeff, what business are you in?  Now people love talking about themselves and their business so the idea here is to get them started talking.  Most people also love to hear the sound of their own voice so the ice breaker question is critical and essentially sets the tone and potential for the conversation. Another good ice breaker could be, “So Jeff, what bring