Business conferences can be exhausting. I’m not sure why- it doesn’t seem like you do anything special but maybe that is just it. What you are doing at a conference is different from your daily routine therefore it takes more effort than you think it does. How do you deal with it? You need to be up for the good sessions and to make a good impression in the networking arena. Here are some quick tips for helping you stay on top of your game during conferences.

1. Pack comfortable shoes and clothes. Your conference might have a dress code – or at least an unspoken one – but find clothing that is comfortable to wear and that makes you feel good. Shoes are a big deal because you often end up standing for long periods and some conferences are in huge venues where you have to walk forever to get to breakout sessions. For any of you who have screwed up in the shoe department you know how miserable the wrong shoes can be.
2. Select the sessions you want to attend before getting to the conference. That way you can do a little planning and even some research so you can talk articulately about the topics in networking conversations. Figure out what is going to do you the most good in your career and be sure to get to those sessions in time to get a seat. What you want may be what everyone else wants to and it is pretty disappointing to be the one who gets shut out of a popular session.
3. Stay in the convention hotel if you can. It saves you a lot of travel time and it is very convenient. You can even slip up to your room if you need a quick nap or just to put your feet up for a little while. Sometimes this can make all of the difference in your energy level.
4. Plan your day so that you get some exercise. Sometimes walking the conference center is enough but there will also be those who want to use the exercise room. Plan ahead. There will probably be lots of other like-minded people and the exercise room is liable to be crowded. Try to pick some times that are not so popular so you can get your work-out done the way you like it.
5. Don’t force yourself to attend sessions just to attend sessions. Go to the stuff that is important and let the rest go. Most conferences have very long days so pace yourself so that you will enjoy the things you do chose to attend.

If you do a little planning and follow a few of these tips your conference experience should be fun and refreshing. Can’t do anything about the quality of the speakers – you are on your own there.

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

Having lived in China for a year, I realized that to survive in China is difficult, but the most difficult thing is to make business with Chinese companies. The problem is not in law restrictions and regulations, the problem is in Chinese mentality.

There are several main opportunities to cooperate with China, such as import/export of goods, Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) or Original Design Manufacturer (ODM) or to open/buy your own factory.

This post is not aimed to explain how to establish the cooperation with Chinese companies toward that main opportunities and how to hold negotiates from the technical point of view, however it is aimed to offer advice “how to deal with Chinese mentality in business relations”.

The most practical advice for all the newcomers is to be well up in Chinese culture. However, the irony is that almost everyone knows about it, but doesn’t apply this invaluable advice. An important Chinese business element is “Guanxi”. It seems that the business world divided into two parts – the Chinese business world called “Guanxi” and the others.

“Guanxi” is translated from Chinese as rapport between two people or countries. However in modern business environment the term “guanxi” becomes a buzzword and means the network of relations among business partners which cooperate together and support one another. Notwithstanding, a Chinese partner considers support as scratching partners back keeping in mind that the partner also is scratching his or her back. And what to do?

The solution to this problem is to pay much attention to study Chinese culture and therefore to study such interesting phenomenon as “guanxi”. Without clear understanding of Chinese culture it is impossible to establish tie and mutually beneficial business relations.

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

The social networking phenomenon Twitter is so popular and so big that any business, particularly an internet based business, cannot afford to miss out on its potential as a great tool for marketing.

Twitter is a free-to-use miniature blogging network that encourages users to exchange news and views (“Tweet”) with each other using messages restricted to no more than 140 characters. Its tremendously valuable to marketers because of its capacity to target a specific audience and communicate with them in realtime. Add to this the fact that the 140-character limit ensures your messages have to be quick and focused, and they are therefore extremely suited to delivery to mobile devices, and you now begin to see Twitter as the marketers dream tool.

So, if you haven’t already opened a Twitter account, do it now and this is what you need to know:

Your Profile – How to maximise its business value

• If its not too late, keep your username short and try to choose something that ties in with your business and its products/services.
• Keep your personal profile constantly up-to-date and make sure you include your business details and visual personality.
• Write about yourself in a relaxed, friendly, one-to-one style and reveal a little bit about your personality and your interests from time-to-time.
• Add your picture to your profile. It helps viewers to make a stronger connection with you if they can see a ‘real person’ rather than imagining what the anonymous person ‘hiding’ behind a Twitter name might be like.
• Search for Tweets related to your business sector and participate in some of the conversations. Over time this will help to build up your credibility in the Twitter community as an expert in your chosen field. Eventually this will start to pull in some sales based on your online reputation but it is a long term game of patience. But hey! Tweeting is fun so just enjoy yourself as you go.
• When you are commenting on Tweets that interest you and your potential audience, make sure that you use ReTweets (RT) and replies (@…..) so that there is an online trail linking back to you.
• Make it easy for others to ReTweet your message by leaving space for someone else to include the standard ReTweet statement without having to edit down what you original wrote. This means you need to leave the number of characters in your username plus enough space for adding the ‘RT@’ message. It helps if you choose a shortish username because you have more characters available for your message.

Communicating – How to capture and keep the attention of your audience

• Asking other Twitter users for help with a problem, or help finding a piece of information, or seeking their comments on a topic is a great way to start conversations with a niche group of people and to build up ongoing relationships that could later turn in to sales.
• Refer users to other Tweeters in the interests of helping them to find what they are after. Good deeds like this are surprisingly often remembered and then repaid at a later date, so always look to help someone out if you can because you could very well be rewarded later. Whenever you see an opportunity to offer advice or assistance to someone, then do so. Not only is it in the spirit of what the Twitter community is all about but the knowledge you pass on helps position you as an expert in your field. This helps build up the credibility of your business and your products/services.
• Check your Direct Messages (DM) regularly. Inevitably there will be messages that don’t interest you but, as with your email accounts, make sure that you make time to reply to the honest, deserving ones.
• Use Hash Tags ( # ) in your Tweets to make your messages more easily found by Twitter search engines. This is like using Keywords to search for something on Google or Yahoo and makes your Tweet available to a wider audience who are interested in the subject you have tagged your message with. For example, # business finance or # Pay Per Click Advice.
• Limit your out-and-out promotional Tweets to just the occasional one. Keep a good 80% of what you Tweet concentrated on being informative, helpful and topical. This way you’ll build up integrity and trust with your fellow Tweeters which means that when they are looking to buy the sort of product/service that you offer, you’ve got a head start over your competitors for getting that sale.
• Don’t go for the heavy sell when you are Tweeting a marketing message – its obvious what you are doing and it just puts people off. Try a low key, relaxed approach that suggests a benefit to the reader of the Tweet. For example, “I’ve just added a new # business finance article to my website. See how you could save thousands on your loans ww.mybusinesswebsite.com”. See how that lessens the feeling of a heavy sell, pure marketing message?
• Getting your own posts Retweeted is all about consistently writing good value content for your followers. Done right, Retweeting succeeds in helping your followers, building your business brand, increasing your Twitter and website traffic, and makes you a key player within your Twitter niche.
• Regularly posting new Tweets helps to drive more traffic to your site. The committed Twitter users that you are trying to connect with like people that post Tweets frequently. So try to work to a fixed schedule of days and times when you post new Tweets so that you are seen to be a committed, reliable Tweeter yourself.

Make good use of Links

• Place a “Follow me on Twitter” link on your website, your blog, your Facebook page, at the foot of your emails, your business cards; everywhere that you can think of. Promote it widely because these days Twitter can be a favourite way for some people to find out about what’s new and to track down something they are looking for. So fly the Twitter flag and don’t miss out.
• Add yourself to the “We Follow Twitter” Directory so that others can find your contact details.
• Put website links in your Tweets to useful sources of information for your Followers, and not just to your own website. If your Tweets stay focused on your particular niche interest, and your website serves that same market niche, then don’t worry that your Tweets telling others about something good on another website will divert your Followers permanently away from your site.
• Keep the content of your website high on quality and value; and do the same with your Tweets. This way people will keep coming back to check the latest thing that you have talked about and therefore you will get a noticeable gradual increase in your Twitter and your website traffic.
• There is good value to be gained from tracking down and following a few top businessmen, internet marketers or your favourite entrepreneur on the BBC’s “Dragons Den” programme. There’s a couple of reasons for saying this. Firstly, it gives you some insight in to how they are using Twitter so you might pick up some useful tips along the way. And secondly, your interest in them will be seen by others and will attract some attention to what you are saying and doing. People are naturally curious and therefore they often click on the links to find out more about the Followers of the top businessman or whoever it is that you all share a common interest in.

Tools that will help you

• Track down your target audience using the Twitter search tools. Think about likely keywords people would be using (see the bulletpoint about Hash Tags) and look for niche groups and forums to join.
• Look out for breaking news stories about your industry or the business sector you trade in. Participate in the conversations and give your own clear opinion. Supporters of your views are likely to check out your profile and perhaps make later contact with you, independent of the news story that first connected you.
• If you are not sure about some of the jargon associated with Twitter then look it up on the Twitter Dictionary at Webopedia.com
• When you want to include a website link in your Tweet it is really helpful to reduce the length of the website page URL. Save characters in your Tweet by using a URL Redirection Service (“URL Shrinker”) such as TinyURL, Cligs or Bit.ly. Typically these will replace a very long web page URL with a short 20 character code which directs a user to the desired web page when it is clicked on in your Tweet.
• An added benefit of using a URL Shrinker service is that you can get tracking information about each of your coded Tweets which is incredibly valuable to you in showing you which Tweets were popular and which were not. Use this information to help shape your marketing strategies and your future Twitter messages.
• A handy tool for maintaining a regular flow of Tweets is available at FutureTweets.com This works rather like an autoresponder because you can prepare a batch of messages for future publication and then set up the software to deliver them at the dates and times of your choice.
• When you’ve started to gather Followers who are making enquiries about your products/services it helps to be able to send them pictures via Twitter. To do this set up a TwitPic account at twitpic.com and upload your photos to it for easy publication on Twitter.
• There’s a useful gadget for finding out who you are following that isn’t following you back. It’s called Tweepler and you can get it at tweepler.com Again, this is something that will aid you with your marketing plans so take a look and make use of it.
• Remember, there’s new stuff and gadgets coming out all the time for Twitter, so keep your eyes open, follow the news and look into the latest technology releases and social networking trends as they arise.

There will inevitably be more developments to come which will help you even more with your strategy of using Twitter for marketing, so take advantage of everything you’ve learnt on this factsheet and keep it going for the long term in order to achieve success for your business. Happy Tweeting!

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

Consider this as the real priority:  “Job 1 is to create the environment where the customer wants to do business with you”.  Why?  Because if you don’t create that environment based on Relationship, Trust, and Comfort, your chances of hitting revenue targets will be compromised at best.

Many complain that the telecom/wireless industries have become commoditized, and that our products and services are simply commodities … easy to believe in today’s competitive market and tough economy.  The problem remains one of understanding our tendency to forget that in fact we as salespeople are our number one product … People don’t do business with a particular company.  They do business with you.  In truth, when you lose sight of the importance of you in the sale, and focus only on products and services, it’s not so much that these things are really commodities, it’s more likely that you in practice have commoditized the customer!

“Successful selling is not product push, it’s relationship pull.”

We must establish relationships first, and “earn the right” to recommend our products and services as they apply to our customers’  needs and wants.  We must set ourselves apart as true professionals by exercising a consultative approach in our customer dialogue.  They want to feel that we really care about them and their challenges more than we do about selling our product … that we are in fact their partner with a legitimate and sincere focus on them.  This is where you start to separate value from price.

It’s all about attitude. Tthe pose you strike, the posture you assume, the perspective you choose, the behaviour you model and the temperament you display all speak volumes about your attitude.  It’s your attitude that will determine your ability to address Job 1.  Your attitude will be the number one factor in the customer’s mind in judging whether or not to buy from you.  They’ll make very quick judgement on the “Factors of Your Credibility”:

Appearance – Including clothing (dress for success), hygiene, facial expression (smile), handshake, eye contact, posture …

Knowledge – Of your customer first, products and services second

People Skills – It’s more important for the customer to feel comfortable with us as people than for us to feel comfortable with them.  How adaptable are you to the different styles/types of people you deal with?

Honesty & Integrity – Selling the right product to the right customer; doing what you say you’ll do when you say you’ll do it.

Are these fundamental things you already know?  Likely.  But it’s the basics that set us apart as people.  It’s relationship that adds value when product differentiation is often indiscernible between suppliers.  Remember, we’re not in the telecom/wireless business serving people, we’re in the people business providing wireless solutions.

George Bernard Shaw, the great Irish playwright and philosopher offered:  “The people who succeed in life and business look for the circumstances they need to do so, and when they can’t find them, they create them.”

Start to create these circumstances by continuously running a “check-up from the neck up” on attitude, personal credibility and accountability to higher standards for your number one product … you!

Make your success non-negotiable by always addressing Job 1 and above all …

Keep aiming high

By Paul McCabe – Compass Performance Solutions

A beautiful store with lots of products and no one to buy them doesn’t spell success in any business book that I’ve seen.  We’ve probably all seen and laughed at the placard:  “I have so much work to do…why do these damn customers keep getting in my way?”  The last laugh, however, is on us.  Customers are equipped with an inner signal and a green light goes off when they feel they’re being treated with respect and concern.  A red light blinks with the specter of indifference.  Green:  customers return; red: customers leave.  So, Why are customers worth so much?

What’s the price tag associated with an empty store?  Or the cost of having last week’s customer shopping at your competitor’s establishment?  Formulas exist that predict what a loyal customer might spend over the course of a ten year period.   The one-time only customer might cost your business tens of thousands of dollars.

Business games teach us how to make money.  Marketing games tell us how to attract customers.  What’s needed is a game that teaches us how to keep customers.   This article offers one and it’s called “Customers for Keeps”.

Our game begins with a couple of simple premises:

• Our business:  enriching our customers’ lives
• The measures:  revenues, returning customers, referrals

The key is not to get the goal and the measures reversed.  Too many people think we’re in the business of making money.    What’s wrong with that?  Why does it matter?  Well, if we focus on enriching customers’ lives….the queue of returning customers will contribute to the company coffers.   But if we focus on making money, we usually lose sight of the customer, the real reason we’re in business, and instead focus on ourselves which causes us to miss the target as well.

So, how do we play this game of “Customers for Keeps”?  Despite the current winter weather, venture into the future and think Spring.  Think Baseball.  Picture the baseball diamond that we’ll call The Customer Relationship Diamond.  Like that venerable sport, our objective is to advance the batter round the bases.  Central to our game and located at the pitcher’s mound is communication.  What relationship can be nurtured without dialogue and conversation?  Customers reach the  “at bat” position through advertising, word-of-mouth and memorable past experiences.  From this point on, it’s the job of the service provider to advance the runner.   First Base is “Hosting”.  Hosting a customer is the same as welcoming an honoured guest to our home:  we anticipate their needs and prepare accordingly.  We treat them with an interest that borders on the obsessive.  The astute retailer sees his establishment through the eyes of the customer and offers policies, systems, information and comforts that communicate “you’re special”.

Second base is labeled “Understanding”, oftentimes the hardest base of all to reach.  To get our customer from first base to second base, we must ask questions and listen to extract what’s in the customer’s mind and transfer it to our understanding.   Why is this important?  Consider the following: Most customers don’t know what they want…they start with a vague idea, and they look to us for assistance in helping them get clarity.  In our baseball analogy, too many players try to steal second base, usually with predictable results.  “You’re OUT!”,  screams the umpire.  What does stealing look like in our retail game?  It’s assuming that we know what the customer really wants, and we rush to “sell” him rather than help the customer through his thinking process. What questions can a service provider ask?  Questions about what they think they want, why it’s important to them, what’s driving them to make a purchase, what their issues and concerns are, what they’re currently considering, who else is affected by the purchase, what their interests are…..  There’s so much for the excellent retailer to discover if only s/he would ask.

Let’s say our retailer passes the test and advances the runner.  Third base is about “Assisting”.  Armed with the information, insight, ideas and expectations of the customer, the retailer is now equipped to offer information and alternatives.  Consider that customers don’t want to be ‘sold something”, but they would like to be part of the process, to be involved, and to be treated to the possibilities that a knowledgeable service provider has to offer.  Ultimately, the final decision is that of the customer.  When retailers see their role as working in partnership with the client so that the best decision is arrived at, customers know they’ve found an exemplary retailer.

Does the excellent service provider stop there?  Never!  Leaving a customer at third base is a missed opportunity that may cost you the game.  How do we get the customer across the plate,  or what our game calls the  “Keeping” base.  It’s an act of proactivity where the retailer contacts the customer, sale or no sale, to check the following: where is the customer now in his decision, how is the solution working for her… The real message that’s conveyed:  the service provider cares.  A pretty powerful message.

So, that’s the game.  It’s a simple one but so often misplayed.  The rules are clear.  Focus on your customer first and foremost.  Reach the bases in sequence.  You win when your customer wins.   The penalty for poor performance: leaving a customer stranded creates an opportunity for your competition.

Customers are hard to find and they’re harder to keep.  The quality of your products isn’t enough to earn their loyalty.  But the treatment you display, before, during and after the sale, will differentiate you.  Try it and see what happens.

By Cheryl Crumb

For most of us this has meant some flavour of laptop computer. Yet I have long held that laptops are much like infants. Small in and of themselves, but by the time you gather up all the stuff you need to tote around with them they can be a burden. True, current generation laptops pack a punch that desktops of only a while back could only dream of, but unless you have a top of the line model you still have a device with more physical heft and capability than you likely need. When I hit the road I need to get email, connect to my office, deliver presentations and do basic word processing and spreadsheet operations. That is the case for most of us. And that friends, is the central case for the Netbook, and why they will grow in adoption over the coming years.

The common Netbook configuration today is a smallish and thin notebook styled device with a roughly 10 inch screen, 1GB RAM and 160GB hard drive. Decent models can be bought for under $400 loaded with some flavour of Windows 7. That is more than sufficient to run standard office software and a few specialty programs for graphics editing and some casual entertainment stuff. I have a hard time recalling when I ever really needed anything else on the road. As the whole selling point of a Netbook is size and weight advantage, they generally use accessories that are as stripped down as possible. With battery power finally reaching realistic capacities (keep in mind that WiFi is a killer) having access to AC is less of an issue than ever. The fact that they take up less desk (or lap) space is an obvious plus.

The aforementioned observation came home to me recently at a retail assignment I enjoyed. I was using a decent laptop on a fairly small desk and was constantly having to shift it around to manipulate documents and product brochures. Frankly, it was a pain in the you know where. Another chap had a Netbook that did everything I had to do and it left him virtually unencumbered. Sure, the screen was smaller, but one gets used to this very quickly. He had been a mobile sales rep for some years prior and he saw the benefits of portability and convenience. To me, the advantage was undeniable.

I travel a lot, often on aircraft for short periods of time. I can get by with a very small kit of clothing and personal effects. The difference between a laptop and a Netbook is often the difference between one or two pieces of carry on luggage, not an insignificant consideration in these days of security related restrictions. Anything I can do do the smooth my way through check in, security and egress at my destination is a bonus. A few pounds and smaller footprint is a huge advantage, especially if I have to tote around my stuff as I do my business calls. A Netbook can mean all the difference between a burden and a simple necessity.

No doubt standard laptops will continue to get thinner and lighter, at some cost. Yet for now a Netbook is the perfect solution for mobile computing for most business people (and students) who want to have sufficient computing capacity and maximum convenience for day to day operations.

You owe it to yourselves to give this option a good hard look.