http://www.businessadvicepro.com/ Business Advice Pro en ©2007 Business Advice Pro http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Learn-to-take-control-of-your-mind--52.html business thinking Do you remember the last time when you really needed to do something, but you just couldn't because you were constantly thinking of something else? Remember? I do. There are ways to fix that. And no, I'm not going to talk about the waves in the air or about some other mambo-jambo. And I'm not even g... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Day-planning-how-amp--why--51.html business and profit Some of us plan some of us don't some of us succeed and some of us won't. (.anon [me-no-poet]) Well, no, planning and succeeding definitely don't have a IF/THEN relationship, at least not necessarily. But depending on who you are, how you function, why you function, what's your environment li... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/All-eggs-in-one-basket--50.html business thinking We have all heard the saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" but how many of us actually act on that saying? Without a doubt it's a smart idea not to depend on one certain thing too much. Like me an my online magazine - I got steady and pretty nice traffic from Google & Google News. In Ju... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Believe-in-yourself---and-no-its-not-lame--49.html business thinking Without a doubt I have talked about this topic, directly or indirectly, before. Most likely the idea has been on those pages a lot. But that's because it's important. It IS part of the business. It DOES influence whether you will be successful or not. How do you create self-confidence? There's no... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/Sponsored-Post-Outsource-your-work-and-get-done-more--48.html people management Outsourcing has become more and more popular among successful businesses because it helps you to get more done and you don't have to worry about finding the people to work for you yourself. I'm myself more of a self-doer and I can honestly say that this has, in big part, slowed down the growth i... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Do-you-know-what-your-advantages-are--46.html marketing Knowing the advantages will get you ahead, you knew that, right? Whatever your company is about, whatever your products do, usually there are at least something that your product does better than your competitors. Yesterday I needed some glue to fix a tiny piece of by boots. I went to the shop an... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/The-Secret-There-is-NO-secret--45.html business thinking I think many of you have heard about or seen the movie The Secret. I agree that there's a few good points in it, but overally...huh, oh well. Here's what I have to say about it - The Secret - there is no secret. There's only one main thing you should think about. Do you believe in yourself? Do y... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Thoughts-on-motivation-negative-influences-and---44.html business thinking Criticism is something that often disturbs us the most. In some cases we could also call it negative influences. People, who don't believe in you, people who say you will never get anywhere. Get over it. Don't pay attention to them. Rather, if someone is very negative towards your ideas, use it to m... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/The-River-amp--Stephen-King-value-points--43.html people management Often, different spots in the same business have different values. Eg take a river – it's always the same river, but the value varies in different locations, locations like ford, bridges, and nice beaches. Or take producing books – the publishing agency without Stephen King is not that good. Stephen... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Change-Huh--42.html business thinking The funny thing about change is that it's our greatest ally for accomplishment, still most of us resist change. Some of us are explicitly running away from change. When you have been doing something the same way for days, months, years, decades and then feel like doing something completely different... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Advertising-with-style--41.html marketing We all have seen very stylish and great looking ads, ads that are interesting to watch and that win awards. But do they sell? Do they make you remember the product they are promoting or do you remember the great ad but you don't remember for what it was? I have really seen a lot of great ads but whe... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Doubble-up-on-your-money-not-enough--40.html business and profit When you think of doubling up your money then it doesn't really sound like anything special, right? Especially if you consider you have something like 5000 EUROs (or dollars for that matter). Let's say you have 5000 and you are capable of turning it into 10 000 in a month. Generally speaking, t... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Selling-something-that-doesnt-exist-yet--39.html marketing Entrepreneurs spend days, weeks, months in order to come up with new products which, very often, might not even sell. But what if you could see its selling power before you create the product? This would mean you don't spend the time nor money to create products or services that won't sell. In a... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Failures-are-good-as-long-as--38.html business thinking Failures are good. Mistakes you have made, bad decisions, failures are there to teach you something, teach you what does not work, what you should not do in the future. And if you really do learn from your mistakes, then how the hell can they be bad, they gave you a lesson and you learned from them.... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Keep-the-consumer-attached--37.html business and profit Before making the first purchase, the consumer has the power, but when making the second buy, the company has the power – because the buyer is involved with the product he bought from the company and now needs to buy add-ons from the same company. Eg phone companies – you buy internet, but now you a... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Keeping-your-goals-in-mind--36.html business thinking I must warn you, what follows, was totally unacceptable for me for years. Mainly for one reason, I didn't understand why. It's writing down your goals with specific deadlines, writing down your goals like you have already achieved it all. And then rewriting them twice a day, or even if not rewriting... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/What-if-you-were-your-client--35.html business thinking This is another good WHAT IF questions to ask from yourself. You have a business, you have ideas how to make your business successful, you have your own problems, you have your clients to worry about. But forget about it all for a moment. Put yoursel in your client's shoes. Imagine you're your cl... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/What-if-you-only-had-a-year-to-live--34.html business thinking Imagine you only have one year to live. Each of us would act differently on this event. Most likely the first day or two we would be sort of depressed and spend the time thinking. But what follows is important... It doesn't matter whether it's one week, one month or one year, each of us would mak... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/Your-job-is-people--33.html people management Get your employees talk about the company they are working with – your company. Now this is already a thought on marketing but I thought I'd bring it out here as well. And note – I deliberately said “working with” not “working for”. Make your own conclusions. If your employees don't talk about you, ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Business-mindset--32.html business thinking Firstly, I think both you and I are tired of people saying you need think right, you need to be positive, you need to believe in things, blah blah blah. Always the same old story. Why can't anyone tell you something worthwhile? Something you could actually use? Well, until a short time ago I felt th... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Life-work-and-everything-else--31.html business thinking Many of you have noticed my recent inactivity in posting. Not to worry, this blog isn't dead, neither is going to be dead and it's not even the problem of not having enough to write about. There is, there's lots of ideas, knowledge and advice to be shared. The reason for my recent inactivity is some... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/The-game-of-probabilities--30.html business and profit While this is mainly a business blog, I discovered one fine post from my old blog about investing and I thought I'd share it with you. At the time of publishing this post I felt it might be good idea to talk about the game of probabilities and stock markets (well, I still do). I have no intention to... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/creativity/What-about-fresh-perspective--29.html creativity What's the highly unusual way you'd never expect anyone to advertise something with? Never stop looking for a fresh a perspective. To open up your creativity you need to start asking the right questions. Good question is a question for which you don't know an answer for, where you need to be creativ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Feeding-the-journalists--28.html marketing I'm usually working in cafeterias. Why? Well, like I have mentioned in my previous posts, that's where I feel I'm most motivated to work and have the least distractions. Today, after registering in a driving school (yes, have postponed it for years, enough is enough), I went to a cafeteria again (we... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/Hire-the-right-people--27.html people management I would say there's 4 phases in everyone's life. And more, I would say there's 4 phases in all areas of everyone's lives. The first is knowing everything – this is where you're really stupid and you think you know everything. The second is knowing nothing. That's when you have realized there's reall... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Why-sharing-your-know-how-does-not-hurt-you--26.html business and profit It's not uncommon that when someone learns about something new, he or she is not willing to share his or her knowledge. If everyone knew about it and acted on it, it would be too common knowledge, strategy or whatever else to actually work anymore. And you wouldn't have an edge anymore. Because now ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/What-can-you-learn-from-movies--25.html marketing I bet you've seen some movie where the guy playing the main role gets into some serious trouble. Now to get out of it he makes a phone call to everyone involved, he calls them all to invite them to the same place at the same time ... on different reasons course. And then the series of events start r... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/What-problems-does-your-product-solve--24.html marketing Many of us already have products that we want to market. When it's usual that you find a problem and then create a product to solve this problem, you could easily do it the other way around as well. Imagine you have a product but you're not sure yet how to promote it. What's different about your ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/creativity/How-would-you-solve-a-problem-if-money-was-no-obstacle--23.html creativity We often tend to tell ourselves that „if only we had” that much money or possibilities, oh then we could own the world and do the things the way we want to. Well, sometimes money is not an obstacle, even if you don't have it, your mind is. I'm sure you have some sort of defined problem to take fr... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/What-can-we-learn-from-con-artists--22.html marketing Marketing your new ventures might be a difficult task. But in order to make something successful you need to find all the possible ways of getting the most of your efforts. That's where some lessons from con artists might come handy. I was just watching a documentary about a swedish...I think he ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Quality-surveys-huh-the-bad-and-the-nasty--21.html business and profit In order to get feedback about your services or products you often ask people to fill in different kind of long and nasty surveys. Surveys nobody really feels like filling because they are so long and boring. And by the end of the day you might have a handful on answers but nothing useful. There's a... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/In-search-of-motivation--20.html business thinking In order to become and stay successful, motivation is one of the most important thing. Because if you're not motivated enough, you stop working, start working on useless things or just start killing time. In order to stay motivated you need to keep the big picture in mind. I know how easy it is ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Why-is-summer-the-best-time-to-launch-a-new-project--19.html marketing Many business experts claim that summer is not a very good time for coming out with a new project. While partly they might be right, it's far from the full truth. Let me explain. Why summer might not be so good? People are taking a rest during the summer; different people working in various indu... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Client-is-the-KING-and-you-are-a-shoe--16.html business and profit Everyone knows the expression but not many people act on it. To start with, you may be the boss of a large organization, you may be the project manager, you may be the one doing the actual communications with clients and potential clients. But what you really are is a shoe. And in order for anyone t... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Different-ways-of-making-profit--15.html business and profit Every company is different, but often the same theories can be applied to them. The most general one that is used is simple – you have a product and you sell it. But if that's all you do, you are not taking advantage of the tremendous potential you'd have if you'd do something more. #1 Lets imag... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Why-do-so-many-businesses-fail--14.html business and profit There's always a great number of reasons for that. Many are very obvious and practical ones. But there's one main thing you should think about – do you even want to succeed? Many people, even if just unconciously, don't want to succeed. Sounds weird? Yes. But think about it for a second. Why people ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Long-term-plan-is-an-illusion--13.html business thinking Now, I have never been fond of long planning. I mean planning ahead, too far ahead. And there's a good reason for that. While certain people claim they can predict the world – eg financial analysts, business advisors and so on, the world is not predictable. Think of the biggest stock market cras... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Risking-what-you-cant-afford-to-lose--12.html business thinking The lower the risk, the lower the possible outcome. The old saying that you should only bet what you can afford to lose is wrong. Unless what you can afford to lose is something big, maybe 100% of your fortune? Okay, that's usually too much but I hope you get the idea. The thing is that usually ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Technorati-test-post--11.html business thinking Don't mind guys, just making the technorati test - Technorati Profile Cheers Siim... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/Learn-to-appreciate-failure--10.html people management Many business owners do not appreciate failure. But the problem with this approach is that there can be no failure only if you do what you have always done or what others have always done and what you know that works; sometimes somehow anyhow. And this means that you will never try nor let your ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/people-management/Keep-your-employees-creative-amp--happy--9.html people management It's not very difficult to get new people with know-how to work with you, all you need is a great project and a great sales pitch. But it gets more difficult when you already have the people – now you need to keep them going, keep them motivated and let them have a lot of fun on the way. People... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/creativity/Getting-creative--8.html creativity Creativity in its self-being is basically problem solving. And in order to solve a problem, you must define a problem that you need to solve. The worst enemy to creativity is your current knowledge. You think you know and thus you keep trying and coming up with ideas based on what you know. Let ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/marketing/Would-you-buy-what-you-sell--7.html marketing Marketing your company or product right can do wonderful things to your business. But only if done right. Not all advertising is good. All advertising do not increase sales. Good advertising can increase sales 20 times, however, bad advertising that costs millions can make people buy less than no ad... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/q-and-a/Business-Q-amp--A-section-open--6.html q and a If you have a question that relates to the topics of this blog then feel free to send me your questions (address can be found when you turn your eyes to the right side of this site now). I try to answer everything within couple of days. Or if you don't have any questions, feel free to look around th... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-and-profit/Hmm-growth--5.html business and profit There's different ways to look at growth. Potentially more profit, more problems; 1 point growth means 1 point more profit means one point more problems and work. Or is it? While that's how the general theory could look like, it actually isn't the full truth. By making new products with the old mach... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Expose-yourself-to-risk-amp--worry--4.html business thinking Everyone wants to win big, in business in life, in sports or whatever else. However, most people want to win without betting. Without risking. We don't want to take any big risks, whether neccessary or unneccessary. Life is a gamble, you know it. And in order to win, you need to place bets. Most of ... http://www.businessadvicepro.com/business-thinking/Open-your-mind-to-new-business-opportunities--1.html business thinking You are doing good. You have made the first step towards changing your life. Don't get me wrong here – reading this blog will not change your life. Only you can do that. But it will definitely give you lots to think about and hopefully, after going through it all couple of times you will manage to c...