Business cards are your most valuable and readily accessible tools in terms of marketing yourself and your business. That is why it is only fitting to spend money on the finest and most creative laminated business cards.
Make laminated business cards for your workforce and ask them to hand the cards out to whoever they meet – friends, acquaintances, a stranger on the street…the list goes on. You should take note of the fact that anyone you and your workforce meet is a prospective client! Having this kind of mindset will take your business’s employee-client relationship to the next level.
Your business card should act as your mini-business ad. Make it very unique and interesting in terms of fonts, color, and execution of message. Incorporating the logo of your company and your company name is not enough. You should also include all pertinent details.
It is extremely important that you remember to write more than five words of description about your business. By doing so, your prospective clients can particularly remember your company and what its principal nature is about. Additionally, business card deals are two-way streets. If you provide someone with your laminated business card and request his/her card in return, you will be provided with written details of that person’s business which would help you keep him or her in mind.
Since laminated business cards are very essential and functional, always be sure that they include relevant details about your company or business, such as: your name, company name, mailing and e-mail addresses, website, telephone and fax numbers, and all other data which you consider important to your company.
Do not request laminated business cards that are glossy because if you give them out, people will not be able to scribble their remarks about you on the card. Moreover, do not create atypical, double-sized, or folding cards because they look self-centered, and there may be problems on placing them in typical size cardholders. If this is the case, people will more likely dispose of them rather than keep them. Lastly, do not create cards that are made of plastic because their edges are sharp and can cause cuts.
Most of the business cards today are tinier than usual and use smaller-type fonts. This is something that you should not conform with because the last thing you want to do is damage the eyesight of the client reading your business card.
You want these people to be able to read the contents of your card. What you need to do is keep the most important details – your name and contact number – in larger fonts than the rest of the text in the card. Also, if you’re a big spender, you might take into account using raised ink for printing and letting an expert design your business cards.
Whatever you’re planning to do with your laminated business cards, always remember that they should be attention-grabbers. Through them, your business should be noticed and more likely to be “engraved” in people’s minds.
By: David Faulkner
Archive for November, 2009
Business Reference Books – Recommended
November 28th, 2009
Information is power and as a business person you need it, all you can get. When flying aircraft in the military, they often take their aircraft to 110%, past the normal operating limits of the aircraft, they call this going to military power, and if you are in a jam, you need all you can get. If you have ever driven a fast car or fast motorcycle, you might liken this to going into redline, squeezing that extra umph out of the engine.
In business sometimes you must pull out all the stops as well, especially in times of crisis or uncertainty. This is one reason why you should have the very best reference books on your personal business bookshelf. Now then, let me recommend a few books that you might like to think about. These are reference books on my shelf:
1. “Small Business Management & Entrepreneurship” by Curtis Tate, James Cox, Frank Hoy, Vida Scarpello and W. Woodrow Stewart – 1992. There are 35 additional authors of the books case studies. The case studies are very serious in their analysis.
2. “The Handbook of Business Problem Solving” by Kenneth J. Albert, editor in chief – 1980. There are about 60 authors of this book. This book covers nearly every single aspect of Corporate Business problem solving.
3. “The SOHO Desk Reference – A Practical A to Z Guide for the Entrepreneur” by Peter H. Engel, editor 1997. There are four main editors, 7 main writers, 7 researchers and 5 advisors who put together this (SOHO) small office – home office desk reference book.
If you have these books in your library along with let’s say “The Portable MBA” reference book, I seriously doubt if you will ever have a problem finding an answer to the questions that you seek, whether you are an executive or middle manager of a corporation, a business student, a small business person or a perpetual entrepreneur.
By: Lance Winslow
Business Process Management 101
November 26th, 2009
Business corporations are now facing one of the most competitive eras ever. With globalization and technology, businesses need to identify various areas for improvement in order to stay relevant. Although increasing revenue and profits year on year are essential, rising costs and escalating customer demands have developed a need for corporations to improve internal processes, increase productivity, optimize resources and decrease expenditure, or face the consequences of being wiped out by the competition.
This is where the concepts of Business Process Management (BPM) come in. Through BPM, business processes that occur within the entire organization are analyzed and areas of improvement are identified. As all operations of all departments are interconnected to one another, company-wide functionalities are criticized so that newer and more efficient processes can be proposed. At times, even the roles of human workers are considered in this exercise, with the purpose of achieving increased productivity.
Advancements in technology have resulted in the possibility of improving business processes through automation, computers and applications. However, merely adopting technology without adapting it to current business processes could spell greater inefficiency. Alterations to process flows would need to be planned out as a combination of automated and manual functions are integrated. Therefore, the BPM methodology provides a structured approach in these circumstances.
Although it is common for corporations to want to improve existing processes for cost savings purposes, some companies may look into Business Process Management as an approach to serve new organizational needs. A new product in the making may require a new business process in order to make it cost-effective to produce. A change in organizational structure through mergers and acquisitions may require business processes from two corporations to merge into one. Seamless integration between functionalities requires mapping or even elimination of overlapping processes.
An insight into how BPM initiatives are implemented
The implementation of process changes requires systematic approaches to be adopted for a smooth transition between current processes and newer ones. In this sense, the three core phases include Planning and Analysis, Design, Implementation and Monitoring.
Planning and Analysis
The Planning stage involves fact-finding of the existing processes that are utilized within an organization, and how these processes are linked to one another. Elements such as Key Performance Indicators used to measure the effectiveness of these processes are analyzed and evaluated. The human factor involved in these processes is also taken into consideration. If documented process designs are available, they are good resources to be utilized for the planning stage.
Getting the right picture of the current processes is a crucial factor towards the success of BPM. Once the fact finding initiative is completed, flowcharts that incorporate the details of existing processes are developed. Process inputs and outputs are included in these diagrams as well as differentiation between automated process flows and manual processes.
One crucial area within the planning stage is the determination of the extent of improvements that need to be implemented. These are the goals of the BPM exercise which defines the boundaries of changes to be made. Otherwise, there would be no limit towards the extent of business process improvements required.
Design
The design phase is one of the most important stages in the context of an entire BPM initiative. This is where new process flows are conceptualized and integrated with the use of software applications and systems that will help to enhance productivity. Results from the planning and analysis stage will be utilized to develop new business processes. New process flows will be designed to indicate the end result of the BPM initiative.
Next, application customizations are another area of concern. Even though the utilization of software can help improve productivity, they need to be adapted to an organization’s requirements. For instance, a company’s organization and reporting structure defers from that of other companies. Therefore, applications deployed will need to be adapted to fit variables that are unique to the organization.
The designing stage also serves as a detailed structure of the various areas that are to be changed so that implementers will have a guide on the tasks that should be completed. In other words, this constitutes the development of the blueprint of future processes.
Implementation
The final phase in BPM is the delivery of business processes that have been planned and designed. At this stage, new business processes are created based on the definitions that have been designed. Furthermore, application development or customization to coincide with business processes is also implemented here. Once implementation has been completed, reviews must be made to ensure that deliverables match the elements that have been planned and designed. Any discrepancies should be amended according to design specifications.
Monitoring BPM excellence
Improved business processes are ineffective if they are not enforced. The management team functions to drive these initiatives, which is why they need to be equipped with the needed skills and knowledge as well as leadership and management capabilities to communicate these changes to the rest of the organization.
Apart from that, operations excellence is also another important element. Business performance based on new processes must be reviewed, with any deviance addressed appropriately. Approaches such as Six Sigma are used to measure and improve quality, aligned with the core purpose of BPM.
Actual business performance measurements are statistically drafted and compared against pre-defined key performance indicators. Differences between these numbers or percentages will then indicate performance levels and efficiency of processes implemented. Although much of these are based on performance of internal operations, but in reality many of them have an effect on customer satisfaction levels. For example, turn around time for customer deliveries or order processing are internal processes that affect customer satisfaction levels.
At the end of the day, these business processes must escalate the quality of work of employees and producing excellent products and services to customers. The responsibility for this lies in the competency of corporate management to ensure that service quality is consistently sustained. Only then will a BPM initiative be considered a true success with continuous improvement across an organization attained.
By: Peter Peterka
