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In the last article in this series, we talked about some of the hardest ways that people try to build a customer base for a store. We also talked about why these methods do not normally work well. This article will give some ways of finding new customers for a retail store that can work much better.

There are many different ways to find customers for a retail store. The traditional way is to open a store and wait for people to come. If this is not bringing you as many customers as you want however, try one or more of the ideas below.

Home parties:
Home party marketing is one of the fastest growing ways of selling products today. Your products are perfect for home parties when they are unique and hard to find. Guests at a home party will see things that they can not have any other way. When people discover the benefits, history, and meaning, of the products that you offer, they can become almost irresistible.

Festivals, flea markets, street fairs, and special events:
These are some of the most popular ways to find new customers for your store. These can be difficult if you need to close your store to display at a show like this: especially because so many of these markets are held on weekends and other times that may be busiest for your store. But you can meet hundreds of new customers this way.

The secret to marketing your store this way is to keep track of the potential new customers that you meet. Even if someone does not buy from you at the festival, they can remember you later when they are ready for something. Be sure to have handouts to leave with any visitors; and try to get as many names and addresses as possible for a mailing list of your own.

The people who you already know.
Make a list of everyone who you know. You should end up with a list of at least 100 names. If you can not think of 100 names right away, don’t worry. Keep your list with you, and add names to it for the next weeks whenever you think of someone new. Almost everyone knows more than 100 people.

Contact everyone on your list to let them know what you are doing. This is a fun job, because it is fun to stay in touch with your friends. Your friends will want to know what you are doing; and will remember this when they are talking to their friends. And each of these people knows 100 other people too, so the word of mouth advertising you can get this way is huge.

If you want to find customers for a retail store, look for the right kinds of people. Instead of looking for anyone and everyone, focus your efforts on the people who will come to your store, and who will come back to you to purchase again. You will have more customers (and more money) six months from now this way, than you will if you try to present yourself to the whole world.

Wayne Kiltz is the founder and owner of Africa Imports. You can find over 100 other articles on African art, culture, and fashion, along with African proverbs,
recipes, and African business opportunities at http://www.africaimports.com

When anyone comes up with an invention, the next step is to find someone to give them the financial backing that they can’t supply themselves. To do this, they must have a tangible product for the person or company they are approaching to get a proper feel for. The idea needs to be well thought through in its practicality and monetary feasibility. The inventor needs to have done thorough, provable research to show that there is a niche in the market that this particular product would fill, that it would make a profit.

This type of negotiations have gone on since the beginning of time. Now, however, during our times of economical strain, it has become harder to get people with money to back something that may or may not work. That may or may not prove to be profitable. However, it is still possible and the occurrence of the Dragon’s Den TV programme has got many would-be budding inventors at their desks scribbling away with their plans.

The whole Dragon’s Den format comes from Japan, where it is owned by Sony. Celebrities or high profile company owners that are looking for new investment opportunities sit on a panel and have a designated amount of money in mind that they would like to sink into a new venture.

Trawled in front of them are average Joe’s who are allocated a timed slot to pitch their idea to the dragons and convince them that this is the one deal they cannot afford to miss out on. This is not for the faint hearted. The ones with the money in the Dragons Den are confident and adept at business. They know all the right questions to ask and if you’re not on top of your game and knowing it inside out they will eat you for breakfast.

Those who truly believe in their product, who have fully researched their market, who know their target customers and have the confidence to put this across simply whilst still giving the dragons something they can see or feel, will give them a much better prospect of gaining the backing that they require.

For those that enter the Dragon’s Den trembling with fear, stuttering with nerves and unsure of themselves will come across as unsure of their product. They will be chewed up and spat out in no time by the dragons themselves.

Contestants that have managed to secure finances from the Dragons Den are those that know their product well but do not appear too pushy or cocky. They pitch their idea and hopefully the product will sell itself. Once they have satisfied any doubts the dragons may have and fully sold their product to the best of their ability, then the dragons need to decide whether they want to invest or not.

Negotiations take place. If a dragon would like to invest but is unsure of the products feasibility, they can offer a reduced amount to what the contestant is asking for. While this may be difficult for the person that needs the money, reputation goes a long way and that is what the dragons bring with them, reputation and influence that might just make them successful in their venture.

So what does the dragon get from all this? Well, during negotiations, they can also bargain. The inventor will suggest a reward, usually a stake in the business venture or a cut of the profits, depending on the amount invested. The dragon will then attempt to bring this nearer what he sees as a good deal and eventually an agreement will be reached. One happy inventor, one happy dragon.

Expert entreprenuer Catherine Harvey looks at the way TV programmes such as Dragon’s Den have helped inventors gain backing for their new products.

Often a person is led onto the path of a becoming a successful businessman by a series of fortunate events that transpire. It could be said that Richard Warren Sears stumbled upon just such a path. But once he was on that path he did everything he could to not fall off. In the end he left not just a company but a legacy. So how exactly did it all begin? Amazingly enough it started with a failed scam.

You see apparently in 1886 there had developed a fairly common scam of wholesalers shipping items to retailers in other parts of the country. But the retailer that it was shipped to would never have actually ordered the merchandise. So of course the retailer would refuse the item. Well the wholesaler who had already hiked the price above normal would then offer the items on consignment at a reduced price. He’d justify this by telling the retailer that the cost of shipping these items back would be even worse for the wholesaler. The retailer suddenly thinking he was getting a deal would then agree to the new price and accept the merchandise.

This is how Richard Sears got lucky indeed. A Chicago jeweler was trying to pull just such a scam on a retailer by the name of Edward Stegerson. But Mr. Stegerson was aware of the scam and wasn’t about to get taken. So he flatly refused to accept the order. Richard Sears though had learned of the watches and he jumped at the chance since he was able to get them on consignment. After agreeing to pay a price of $12 per watch he then turned around and began to sell them at $14 per watch. By the time he was out of watches he’d made a profit of about $5,000. And with that the R.W. Sears Watch Company was born.

By 1887 Richard Sears found it necessary to move his watch company to Chicago, Illinois. That same year he decided to hire his first employee. A watch repairman by the name of Alvah Curtis Roebuck. By 1893 it was decided that the two should become partners and Sears, Roebuck, and Co. was officially born. That was also the year that the company published its first ever catalog. Previously they had bought ad space in other catalogs of the time. Within four years of that first catalog which had only offered watches they were offering a variety of other goods. Items such as clothing, farm plows, bicycles, silverware and much more could be found inside their catalogs.

Eventually their catalog would grow to 500 pages and be offered to a number of rural customers across the United States. Long before they had department stores they had the catalog which would be eagerly awaited by many of the company’s customers. By 1906 they had opened their first catalog plant inside the original Sears Tower.

Richard Warren Sears who would amass a sizable fortune during his lifetime passed away in 1914 at the relatively young age of 50. Alvah Curtis Roebuck who for health reasons left the company for a number of years but eventually returned would live to be 84. He passed away in 1948. When asked to compare his wealth to that amassed by Richard Sears after Mr. Sears had already passed he was quoted as saying. “He’s dead, me I never felt better”.

It’s important in business that we remember our own health. You can have the wealth of a world but if you are not around to enjoy it then it means nothing. Entrepreneurs often work in stressful environments but they fail to pay attention to their health even though a look in a mirror would reveal the truth. Mr. Sears would be proud of the legacy he left but would have probably liked to have enjoyed it longer. You need to make sure you do not sacrifice your health for your business. You want to be around to enjoy your success.

Cash Miller is an experienced entrepreneur and speaker who has spent over a decade as a small business owner. His years of experience in small business cover a variety of topics. If you are looking for more small business help please check out http://www.smallbusinessdelivered.com

Many of the fastest growing businesses in today’s world rely more and more on search engines and the world wide web. Some of the most popular keywords such as “weight loss” or “travel” receive hundreds of thousands of queries per week.

Business is all about saving time, which explains why using search engines to categorize and file the world’s information digitally makes so much sense and has become so ubiquitous. The topic of this article has to do with building large websites, the kind that can command 7-figure price tags and be marketed and sold as income-generating assets.

The science of algorithms is a very profitable topic to study as many parts large and small ranging from traffic lights to financial markets are run by algorithms. However a lot of this information tends to be presented in a dry, callous way that makes the topic seem esoteric and unapproachable. This article should bridge some of the gaps between internet search engines and real-life so that you can focus less on the boring stuff and more on making money.

Allow me to humbly say that if you can master, assimilate, and act on some of the information presented here you can take a website or blog from ‘monthly-mortgage-payment territory’ to ‘vacation-home-rental territory,’ or the difference between $2,500 per month and $25K per month. It has even been reported since 2005 that major private banking firms (typically dealing with amounts of money over $500K USD) will tend to accept high-profile websites and domain names as loan collateral, proving that a website can in fact be a sellable asset.

As the number of different websites and hosting companies has greatly expanded, so too has the complexity of the search algorithms that are used to efficiently categorize those vast quantities of data in ways that are relevant and convenient. In creating advanced search algorithms many developers took a trend that comes from research paper publication and applied it en-masse to the world wide web.

When you publish a research paper in the scientific community, the magnitude or significance of your work is often measured by the number of other new research papers that are published and cite yours as a resource. If other scientists in the same field are basing a new frontier of research on a handful of conclusions that are laid out in a single comprehensive body of research, your work becomes a pivotal hub of a new body of information.

When this concept is applied to websites, it translates into high Pagerank websites and sellable assets that can command price tags over $100 thousand USD. Think about it this way: The more different websites that link to your own, the more you become ‘entangled’ with them in an intricate hypertext-based exchange of information and the more those websites would suffer broken links (i.e. links that point nowhere) if your website were to be shut down. This is pretty cool because this aspect of the internet almost forces you to create mutually beneficial business deals if you want to build large amounts of wealth in this manner.

Bringing this full-circle back to search engines, the large websites that can constantly rank in the top positions have built themselves into strong pillars that support hundreds of other smaller sites (just as in the research paper comparison), and for that reason they can command price tags that equal the size of a small estate. A person who can take this information and run with it may be able to start their own business where their new official title is “Keyboard Architect” because the will only need a keyboard and a mouse to craft highly profitable mutual business deals.

Andrew Shiveley is a 19 year old full-time blogger and internet marketer who makes a living working from the iMac in his living room. He is on track to earn over $150,000 for 2008, which is *way* more money than his friends back at college are making! Andrew swears by the Digital Internet Profits Training Course and he recommends it to all of his friends. Find it at http://DigitalInternetProfits.com

Most everyone, when asked, Wouldn’t you like to have your own business?… answer automatically, Yup. But it almost never happens. The vast majority stick to their 9 to 5 day job and site eight real, genuine, actually scary reasons why they don’t start their own business. The Internet and Libraries are full of books on How To… just about any subject under the sun on starting your own business. But, dreams are easy and change is hard. The eight (8) very valid reasons why folks don’t start: (why 8? Dunno, just hit me)

1. Lack Of Security! Don’t kid yourself. There is no security outside of yourself. A Corporation is only a piece of paper. Robert T. Kiyosaki’s, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, What the Rich Teach Their Children, is a perfect example. Everyone has her or his place.

YOU make your own security under any conditions. My dad used to always say that is what makes a great horse race, a difference of opinion.

2. They Said It Couldn’t Be Done! These folks talk to the self styled experts who will take every chance they can get to put down someone else…besides that’s how these experts get their self-esteem!…so they say it can’t be done. One variation of this theme is, Well, if it is that good, then someone else has already done it!

When we invented worldwide billing within the phone itself, they said, If it’s so good, someone has already thought of it. Electronic automated cellular programming, Over the air programming, anti-fraud devices, each one we were told, Can’t be done! Now my three boys have invented a technology that eliminates credit card fraud, identity fraud. It’s fully patented and will be ready for production by the end of the year and still people will say today, Impossible!

3. Not Enough Money! This is a great one! Actually, it applies to EVERYONE and every business, if you let it. It doesn’t take a lot of money to start a business, just a valid market…meaning an active, rabid customer! Sell one widget, make $1. Rinse and repeat. double your efforts. There is never enough money. Nearly half of the INC. 500 started with less than $500! Bootstrapping is in!

4. No Time! Another great one! Always true. Time is not elastic. It’s not your time that is holding you back, but what you choose to do with the time you have! A startup business requires unusual sacrifices and requires total commitment. Find a good time management system and stick to it. Plan the next day the night before. A good rule of thumb is, Work expands to fill the time alloted for it.

5. My Family Doesn’t Support Me! Now this is a tough one. Nothing is worth losing your family for! Look at compromise such that everyone benefits. Your family has to be a team in this effort or no result is worth the effort! If you can convince any lender to go with you, you can convince your family! Give them a voice.

6. No Benefits! I’ll have to give up my benefits! (ooh, give me a break!) OK, I caved in on #4 above, but Benefits? C’mon! Each Entrepreneur makes his own benefits. That is what it is all about. End of story. Can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

7. Fear! Sooner or later each of us has at least one time they are stricken with fear. Even Elleson was in extreme fear, once, when his mom didn’t come home…a few hours late! Starting a business is no cakewalk, but fear can hone your edges. It can motivate you, keep you on the right path and keep your integrity in tact…until your backbone catches up!

Face Your fears. Walk into them. They are just imagined future events. Fear is an event lived twice, once as a fear and once in reality. Don’t allow time for both. My Dad said: Don’t die until you’re dead! You’re really OK, just dig in.

8. Lack Of Clear Vision! In the absence of clearly defined goals we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia and ultimately become enslaved by it.

Scott McGregor is the founder of http://www.Doppelit.com, the Entrepreneur Connection. He is considered The Consummate Entrepreneur, started companies when it was impossible and financed companies when there was no money for nearly 50 years. His mission is to show other Entrepreneurs that they CAN!

Success in home-based business consists of mindset and efficient action. Sure, you can get lucky sometimes or be in the right place at the right time, but success comes from having these critical elements coming together.

1. Clarity (why you want to do it)
Since I’ve been laid off a time or two (or four), it’s easy for me to know exactly why I have my own business from home. The bitter after taste of being “let go” — by a company that decides whether or not I provide value, how much I’m worth, how many days of vacation I deserve and how many hours I have to put in each day — is a quick reminder of why I struck out on my own in the first place.

Now, many years later, that’s part of my “why” along with the fact that my business is my vehicle to lasting wealth and freedom. I do what I do because I’m able to drop everything and go traveling with my children and husband, and I can make decisions about our lives without feeling nickeled-and-dimed at every turn. For me, that’s real success in home-based business.

So get really CLEAR about why you have your own home business. Ask yourself, what goals and vision do you have for your life? What will make it all worthwhile? Get excited and get started.

2. Determination (anything to get there)
Success in home-based business is anything but easy. The first year is especially challenging. So what will keep you going? You have to have never-ending determination to succeed and willingness to go out there again and again.

Looking back I can identify so many rough times in my business and I could give you so many good reasons I should have quit along the way. I’ve had lots and lots of failures and mediocre moments and have had things happen that would make most normal people want to throw in the towel. Plus, I could have told you about all these challenges and WHY I was going to quit, and you probably would have supported me in quitting! After all, if it had happened to you, you would have quit, too.

But here I am. I didn’t quit. I’m not quitting. It is not in my nature and it is not acceptable. Failure is not an option. I get knocked down I get up. The only way to fail is to quit and I just won’t do that.
3. Organization (how to get things done)

Real effectiveness comes from implementing structures — calendar/schedules, systems, processes — to ensure efficiency and success. I can’t tell you how many times I reinvented the wheel when I was starting my own business whether it was letters I sent out or processes I was repeating but didn’t have “systematized.”

Part of the problem was a lack of organization. The business grew quickly and I was a few steps behind trying to keep up. I also floundered with contact management for YEARS. First I used an Excel spreadsheet (yikes!) then moved Microsoft Access where I had several databases but only knew how to enter data (didn’t know how to analyze it or use it effectively for mailings).

Thankfully I now use CardScan for data and contact management so my marketing and cold calling efforts are streamlined and simplified.

My scheduling system is now organized as well. I use a time mapping system a la Julie Morgenstern , and my husband and I share a wall calendar for family scheduling. (We’re moving to the Google calendar which will probably make things even more efficient.)

Ultimately, organization of your daily processes will alleviate distractions and breakdowns and allow you to focus on making money.

4. Accountability (taking things on and being responsible for results)

I’m fortunate that early on in my business I recognized that if business was slow it was purely because of my own efforts. What I put into it I got out of it and it remains so today.

I don’t engage in talk about economic recession. I don’t blame other people and circumstances for how things are going. It’s all ME.

Which is not to beat myself up when things aren’t going as well. It’s simply an understanding I have of myself and my business. I am the catalyst for everything. If I pull back, my business pulls back. Works like that every time.

So be responsible for the way things are going. Don’t be intimidated by the competition. Know who you are and what you have to offer. Make a difference with your customers. Be a leader and play big.

5. Adventurous-ness (risk-taking, make it work somehow mentality)
Success in home-based business ain’t for sissies! Sometimes it’s tough, excruciating even, but true entrepreneurs put themselves out on a limb over and over again. It’s the inherent nature of entrepreneurship — standing in the “discomfort” of new realms of possibility.

Every time I have stepped into the unknown I have had to tell myself that somehow it will work. It always does. I just have to show up and keep going. The extraordinary happens when you push beyond the limits of the ordinary. Whenever I am comfortable, it means I’m probably not in the space of full potential.

When I feel a flutter in my chest I can tell that I’m stretching beyond my comfort zone. And that’s where the greatest successes in home-based business happen.

After multiple layoffs Kennerly launched her first business in 2001, determined to decide for herself when she would go to work each day, how much vacation she would get and how much money she would make. She now helps others recognize the entrepreneur within and launch their own home businesses. Read her personal advice and tips here.