Hype in Online Business

Once upon a time when Earth did not commercialize the internet invention, someone published an ad in a national newspaper saying “Send Me and I will show you how to become a millionaire”

People from all the over the place sent their dollar bills waiting to get the secret recipe to become millionaires. A few weeks later they received the following note “Repeat what I have done and you will become a millionaire. I have just become one from the same ad you responded to”

I believe that this person has set the ground for most of today’s business ideas that we find on the internet. The idea includes all the usual hype that we read in many sales letters today:

1-A simple task that does not require much of your daily time.

2-A simple system to copy.

3-No sales

4-No phone calls

5-No sponsorships

6-Takes 30 minutes to implement.

7-You can repeat it as many times as you want

8-Start earning thousands within a couple of weeks

9-A minimum investment

As you can see that the idea and the copy did not make a single lie, yet do you think that the ones who received the note appreciated the clever business idea?

I am sure that their disappointed was great although their loss was one single dollar. Now that person was lucky since he did not want to make a business out of this idea. It was a hit and run operation.

The online business world today acknowledges the fact that such an activity is completely unacceptable. But the contradiction between what is known to be as unacceptable and what we are seeing actually happening even from some of the prominent names in the industry is very evident.

We are still seeing messages such as “Start earning immediately,” “Start cashing within a couple of weeks.” I know that many will have examples of people who actually hit gold within days of their experience, but can we actually take those experiences and make the audience expect such results for any person who ventures into online business.

Today e-mail inboxes are full of messages regarding the importance of building lists. We all know that this activity alone does not happen either over night or in a couple weeks. So how can we start suggesting to a new person that he/she should be expecting to earn money within days?

The funny thing regarding the List Building sales letters is that they are now promising that their systems would help generate massive lists within days as well.

The Mortar and Brick business world is struggling today to become customer centric organizations. Yet all they do is concentrate their resources on developing efficient processes for cost cutting purposes without any consideration to the customer. The dilemma that the offline business world is living today with regard their truthfulness in becoming customer centric organizations is manifested in the online business arena through the wish of avoiding hype.

What I cannot understand is that every single person who is involved in online business is aware of the negative bottom line effects that hype has, still they cannot avoid being involved at least partially in providing hyped promises.

Whether selling to the end user or encouraging affiliates to sell products, a hyped message will dramatically affect business continuity. Therefore, the online business today has a void for a combined offering that has both a solid product/program and realistic and hype-free promises and claims. The first to fill this void will reap huge benefits in the online marketplace.

A well established name in online business will have a better opportunity at filling this void and reaping the benefits than a new person who is still starting in this marketplace. Yet the challenge for those who are well established to change their ways from partially hyped messages to a complete hype-free environment is tremendous. Accordingly, someone who is new to the industry but committed to providing a consistent and continuous hype-free messages, might be able to surprise the well established.

I hope that this article does not come across as an accusation to prominent online business people that they are promoting hype, yet it comes as a red flag to all involved in online business who are shaping the environment and culture of this marketplace.

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Building and Using Data Aware Classes in Visual FoxPro Applications Part 1: Utilizing Visual Class Libraries for Data Access and Business Rules

Abstract: Visual Class Libraries allow you to build powerful Visual FoxPro applications and to implement powerful Object Oriented features. Because you can create your own class libraries, you will have an additional place to put code that accesses your application database by building data aware classes (classes that can ‘talk’ to your database and either return queried information, save new information or perform updates and deletes as necessary). Data Aware classes provide a powerful means to control access to your data and also reduce the amount of data access code you will have to write. This promotes code reuse (meaning that the same code can be called from more than one application module to perform the same task). The next few articles will explore the use of Data Aware Classes to build powerful Visual FoxPro Applications. This article (Part 1) will discuss how to build data aware Visual FoxPro classes for use in your pure Visual FoxPro desktop code. Other articles will explore how to access remote Visual FoxPro or Client Server and develop thin client applications.

Introduction

Visual FoxPro classes allow you to encapsulate much of your code and make functionality instantly accessible to all parts of your application. Code contained in a class can be accessible once you create an instance of that class for use in your code. This means that powerful data access functionality can now be made available by means of setting object properties and calling class methods

At first glance, the tight coupling of data and language in Visual FoxPro makes it seem that this is not necessary, after all; you can just add a table to your form’s data environment and then use the SELECT Command to make it the active alias! If you are using Visual FoxPro to build applications that access a powerful SQL Servers such as ORACLE or Ms SQL or Advantage Database Server, the process looks even more opaque being that you are dealing with a very powerful database engine both on the front-end and the back-end.

However, good software design, even for pure fox applications can benefit from encapsulation of data access, storage and processing that data aware classes bring! The main benefits are that you have an extra place to put code (not just on the Form’s Front-End or Visual FoxPro Stored Procedures and Triggers attached to the Visual FoxPro Database .dbc  file) plus the fact that the functionality to operate on one table is encapsulated in one class based on that table so you can easily amend this code without affecting the functionality of your application in a major way. Additionally, by encapsulating your code in Classes, you protect your investment in code by placing sensitive code in a secure location without having the need to replicate such code in several event procedures in different forms.

In Microsoft Visual FoxPro, classes are contained in Visual Class Library (.vcx) files or you could even dynamically create one in code using the CREATE CLASS command. You can then add these vcx files to your tool box and then drop them on a form or simply use the CREATEOBJECT command at run time to create the object and invoke its methods and properties. If you drop the class from the toolbox onto your form, you will not need to use CREATEOBJECT but will only have to call the properties and methods of the class as for example: THISFORM.Employees1.AddRecord to perform a task.

An Example of How and when to Use Data Access Classes

We have found over the years that an easy way to organize the data classes in your application is to come-out with a solid, well normalized database. In this way, you ensure that the tables that comprise your application do not contain redundant information. You can then logically represent each table with a data class that will operate on it. The fields of each table can quickly become the properties of the class, while it could have methods that add and remove records. If you had an employees table represented by an Employee custom class in a vcx file, you could have methods such as AddPerson(), RemovePerson(),FindPersons(), GetPersons(), IncreaseSalary(), CheckStatus() and so on. You could pass parameters as need be to each method as needed to enable the method complete its work. Once you had the class defined, you could call it from any form or even another class where an employee service is required.

For example, imagine that you needed to check the status of an employee during payroll computation to see if the employee is still a valid employee or has been released from the employment of the company! You could open the employees table, scan until you find the employee record and then check its status field! If you needed to perform this same check from the Promotions module, you would have to write the same code again! How much easier it would be to call the CheckStatus() method of the Employees custom class and you know that the code to perform this valuable service is kept in one location that you can amend at any time. One amendment is immediately reflected in all places where you used that class because VFP immediately propagates changes in the parent class code to all sub classes. The class that represents your table and works on it could be created as a non-visual class (one that displays a visual element at design time only but not at run time by basing it on the Custom Base Class). Lets imagine that you had the following table called Employee in a Visual FoxPro Database:

Field Name

Type

Width

Dec

Index

Null

EmpID

I

4

Y(P)Auto

N

EmpName

C

50

Y

EmpDept

C

10

Y

EmpStatus

C

10

Y

You can use the following SQL Statement to create the table shown above:

CREATE TABLE Employees (EmpID I NOT NULL AUTOINC NEXTVALUE 1 STEPVALUE 1 PRIMARY KEY

EmpName c(50) NULL,EmpDept c(10) NULL,EmpStatus c(10))

Of course, you could have several other tables in your Visual FoxPro database as the need may be.

The Employees Class

The Employees class will provide the data services required by your application’s form including saving information, deleting data and searching for existing information and then returning these to the form as the need may be. If a real-world application, you may have many more methods and Visual FoxPro allows you to have as many methods as need be.

You can now organize your class based on the following class diagram:

Member

Description

Member Type

Visibility

EmpID

Unique ID of each employee

Property

Public

EmpName

Name of each employee

Property

Public

EmpDept

Department to which an employee belongs

Property

Public

EmpStatus

Current Status of Employee

Property

Public

MBInfo

Constant for information icon. Default Value is 64

Property

Hidden

MBExclamation

Constant for Exclamation Point. Default Value is 48

Property

Hidden

AddEmployee()

Insert a New employee into the table

Method

Public

RemEmployee()

Delete an employee from the table

Method

Public

FindEmployee()

Search for an Return an Employee Record

Method

Public

Create the Class

If you do not yet have a Visual Class Library in your project, you can create a new library now by choosing the New button on the Classes tab of your Visual FoxPro project manager. The library that you create will have a .vcx file extension and will list on the Classes tab. Now that you have added a new visual class library, you can add a custom class to it by performing the following action:

Select the Visual Class Library to which you want to add the new Employees class on the Classes tab and then choose the New button. The New Class dialog box displays. Enter Employees on the Class Name box and then select Custom from the Based On drop down list box Choose Ok.  The Class Designer displays.

Add the Properties and Methods

Now that the Class Designer displays, you can proceed to add your properties to your class. You can add properties to your visual class by performing the following action:

Choose the New Property menu command from the Class main menu. The New Property dialog box displays so that you can begin adding properties. In the Name box, type the name of your property. For example, EmpID. In the Visibility field, select Public (which means that code in other classes or procedures can set the value of this property). If you set visibility to Hidden, only members of your class will see it. If you set the visibility to Protected, access to the member is protected. In the Default/Initial value field, initialize the value of the property. By default, .F. (False) appears in this field. If property will hold a character value, you can leave this box blank to initialize the property value to nothing. In the Description box, describe this field. This description will display on the description area in the property window to enable a user of your class understand the purpose of the class. Choose the Add button to add the class. Repeat this action to add all the properties in your class. Choose the Close button when you are done.

You can now proceed to also add methods to your class. A method is anything that your object can do. So in our case, since the class represents the employees table, it should be able to add a new record (AddEmployee()), remove an unwanted record from the table (RemEmployee()), and so on. You can add a method to your class module by performing the following action:

Choose the New Method menu command from the Class main menu. The New Method dialog box displays. In the Name field, add the name of your method e.g. AddEmployee. In the Description box, type the description of the class. This description displays at the bottom part of the Properties window, when you select the method in the properties window. Choose the Add button to add the method. In the Visibility box, choose Public. Like properties, methods could either be Public, Hidden or Protected. Repeat this procedure for all the methods you want to add. Choose the Close button when you are done adding methods.

Add Code to your methods

We can now add code to make the methods work for us.

Insert a New Record

If you have a form, you would add the control to the form. Visual FoxPro would give the control the name Employees1. Alternatively, you could create an instance of the control in code using the CreateObject function. Either way, once you have a reference to the object, you could call the AddEmployee method of the class after setting properties.  So the form could have text boxes for the relevant information to be collected and could then set properties for the controls in the Click event of a Save command button like this:

THISFORM.Employees1.EmpID = THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value

THISFORM.Employees1.EmpName = THISFORM.txtEmpName.Value

THISFORM.Employees1.EmpDept = THISFORM.txtEmpDept.Value

THISFORM.Employees1.EmpStatus = THISFORM.txtEmpStatus.Value

lAnswer = THISFORM.Employees1.Save(“Data Aware Class”)

IF NOT lAnswer

                cMsg = “Record not saved successfully!”

                MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,64,”Data Aware Class”)

                RETURN

ENDIF

THISFORM.cmdNew.Click    && Clear form for new/next record

The code behind the AddEmployee method could then look like this:

PARAMETERS cProgTitle

LOCAL lFileInUse AS Logical,cMsg AS Character

cMsg = “”

                Check to ensure that the correct data has been supplied

                IF ISBLANK(THIS.EmpName)                && Each user must have a name

                                cMsg = “Enter an employee name!”

                                MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,THIS.MBINFO,cProgTitle)

                                RETURN .F.             && Tell user you did not complete successfully

                ENDIF

                IF USED(“Employees”)

                                lFileInUse = .T.

                ELSE

                                USE Employees IN 0

                                lFileInUse = .F.

ENDIF

SELECT Employees

GO TOP

IF THIS.EmpID <= 0

                APPEND BLANK  && Table automatically assigned next ID

ENDIF

REPLACE Employees.EmpName WITH THIS.EmpName

REPLACE Employees.EmpDept WITH THIS.EmpDept

REPLACE Employees.EmpStatus WITH THIS.EmpStatus

IF NOT lFileInUse   && We are the ones that opened it…close it now

                USE IN Employees

ENDIF

RETURN .T.             && Tell user you completed successfully

The code accepts one parameter – cProgTitle that can be used in the MESSAGEBOX function to display the name of the application that calls the method. This also illustrates the ability to pass parameters to your procedure just as you would have passed them to any other procedure or function. This also opens up the possibility that you could declare and use arrays to pass the information especially in network environments to reduce the amount of network traffic that you would generate each time you set or retrieved a property (but that is a subject for another day)!

After this local variables used in this method are declared and a series of IF statements will check to ensure that basic information is supplied. Of course this is a demonstration program. In a real life program, your class could contain many more methods and thus many more checks!

If our table is already opened in another work area, we can simply use it (lFileInUse) otherwise, we open it with the USE command and set the lFileInUse flag to remember to close it again later when we are existing the procedure (IF NOT lFileInUSe…). We will insert a new record is EmpID is zero (because EmpID is always automatically assigned by the system since it is an Auto Increment field). A series of REPLACE commands then save the record to your table. RETURN .T./RETURN .F. is our means of telling the user whether the procedure completed successfully or not.

Find and Return a Record

Another critical service that your class would perform would be to search the table for an existing record and then return that record to you. Once the record is returned, it could be displayed, edited and then the changes saved back to the table. Your Data Form could contain a Find button whose click event could contain the following code:

LOCAL cMsg

cMsg = “”

IF THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value = 0

                cMsg = “Enter an employee ID to find!”

                MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,64,”Data Aware Classes’)

                THISFORM.txtEmpID.SetFocus

                RETURN

ENDIF

lAnswer = THISFORM.Employees1.FindEmployee(THISFORM.txtEmpID.value,”Data Aware Classes”)

IF NOT lAnswer

                cMsg = “Employee not found or does not exist!”

                MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,64,”Data Aware Classes”

                THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value = 0

                RETURN

ENDIF

                ‘ * Display the record for editing

                THISFORM.txtEmpName.Value = THISFORM.Employees1.EmpName

                THISFORM.txtEmpDept.Value = THISFORM.Employees1.EmpDept

                THISFORM.txtEmpStatus.Value = THISFORM.Employees1.EmpStatus

Once the record is displayed as described above, you could move the cursor into any field and then make amendments to the record after which you could click the Save button to save the changes you have made. The code in the FindEmployee method of the class could then look like this:

PARAMETERS nEmpID,cProgTitle

LOCAL cMsg AS Character,lFileInUse IN Logical

IF nEmpID = 0        && No employee ID supplied…exit

                RETURN .F.             &&  Tell user you did not perform the search

ENDIF

IF USED(“Employees”)          && If file is already in use…use it

                lFileInUse  = .T.      && So we shall leave it open

ELSE

                lFileInUse = .F.       && So we shall remember to close it

ENDIF

SELECT Employees

GO TOP

LOCATE FOR Employees.EmpID = THIS.EmpID

IF NOT FOUND()    && Record not found or does not exist

                IF NOT lFileInUse   && Close the table

                                USE IN Employees

                ENDIF

                RETURN .F.

ENDIF

THIS.EmpName = Employees.EmpName

THIS.EmpDept = Employees.EmpName

THIS.EmpStatus = Employees.EmpStatus

IF NOT lFileInUse   && Cloise Table if we opened it

                USE IN Employees

ENDIF

RETURN .T.             && Tell user you did it successfully

The parameter EmpID is the value that the employee wants to search for. By making the employee supply the value to be searched for, you accept use input and then search for it. The table Employees is open if it is not already open and a LOCATE command is used to search for the record. If the record IS NOT FOUND(), the table is closed and .F. (false) is returned to the calling procedure to indicate that the employee requested could not be found otherwise, the properties of the class module are updated so these can be accessed by the calling application.

Delete a Record

Just as you can add and emend records, you could also build your class module to remove records you don’t want to keep. Your form could call the class method to perform the deletion by having code such as this:

LOCAL cMsg,lAnswer

cMsg = “”

IF THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value = 0

                cMsg = “Display an existing record and then try again!”
                MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,64,”Data Aware Classes”

                RETURN

ENDIF

lAnswer = THISFORM.Employees1.RemEmployee(THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value,”Data Aware Classes”)

IF NOT lAnswer

                cMsg = “Record was not successfully deleted!”

MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,48,”Data Aware Classes”)

THISFORM.txtEmpID.SetFocus

RETURN

ENDIF

THISFORM.cmdNew.Click

cMsg = “Record was successfully deleted!”

MESSAGEBOX(cMsg,64,”Data Aware Classes”)

The above code calls the Class module with the line lAnswer = THISFORM.Employees1.RemEmployee. This is because the Rememployee method returns a logical (True or False) to indicate whether the process completed successfully. Now the RemEmployee class can have the following code:

PARAMETERS nEmpID,cProgTitle

LOCAL cMsg, lAnswer, lFileInUse

cMsg = “”

IF nEmpID = 0        && No employee record was supplied

                RETURN .F.

ENDIF

IF USED(“Employees”)

                lFileInUse = .T.

ELSE

                USE Employees IN 0

                lFileInUse = .F.

ENDIF

SELECT Employees

GO TOP

LOCATE FOR Employees.EmpID = THIS.EmpID

IF NOT FOUND()

                IF NOT lFileInUse   && Close the file

                                USE IN Employees

                ENDIF

                RETURN .F.

ENDIF

DELETE                   && Delete the record…you will pack later

IF NOT lFileInUse

                USE IN Employees && Close file

ENDIF

RETURN .T.

In the Code above, the calling procedure passes the employee ID of the record to be removed to the RemEmployee method of the class. The method checks for and opens the table if need be and then uses a LOCATE command to check to see if the record already exists. If it does, it will delete the record and return .T. (True) else it will return .F. (False).

Clearing the Screen

You could add a New button to your form to clear off the current record from the window. This Click even of this button is also called from the Save and Delete command buttons. The click even of this button could simply contain the following code:

THISFORM.txtEmpID.Value = 0

THISFORM.txtEmpName.Value = “”

THISFORM.txtEmpDept.Value = “”

THISFORM.txtEmpStatus.Value = “”

Closing your form

When you have finished working with the forms in your application, you must close the window. The Click even of the Close button could contain the following code:

THISFORM.RELEASE

Using your class

Once you have built up your class, you can use it to render the services for which it has been built. The availability of the class will allow you to encapsulate business rules and data processing operations. To use the class you have just built, create a form and add four text boxes to the forms names txtEmpID, txtEmpName, txtEmpDept and txtEmpStatus. You can then add four command buttons and name them cmdClose, cmdSave,  cmdRemove and cmdFind. The code to be contained in the click events of all these buttons has been described in the paragraphs above. Simply copy and paste the code for the appropriate events and then run the form.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated that Visual Class Libraries provide an additional place for you to put code even for pure Fox (that is applications accessing a Visual FoxPro database) applications. The form you have created and your application functionality could have been constructed in so many different ways. For examples, if you are used to data-bound forms that allow users to issue APPENDS or that provide Next/Previous buttons as navigation aids and so on, this could also be done. Part 2 of this aricle will demonstrate techniques that you can use to implement Set based data access in your visual FoxPro desktop applications and how these will aid database availability in high-performance pure fox applications.

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Technorati Tags: Access, Applications, Aware, Building, Business, Class, Classes, Data, FoxPro, Libraries, Part, Rules, Using, Utilizing, Visual

9 Benefits of Gmail Cloud Computing for Your Business

Deploying Google’s Gmail for my internet marketing business has allowed minimal and secure IT administration of my 8 websites (28+ email accounts). Supporting a mixed operating environment which includes Microsoft, Ubuntu and MacOS, multiple browsers, and document file formats from Microsoft Office, Open Office is made possible and easier with an in-the-cloud computing environment like Gmail.

So why would you consider cloud computing like Google Mail for your business, especially an SME (small medium enterprise)?

In a two words – security and compliance. E-mail security, web security and message compliance are the underlying benefits to solid business reasons to have your mail and office documents served through Gmail.

Compliance to Security and Retention Requirements

Whether your organization is 1 person or thousands of people in size, you are faced with accounting, legal and government regulations and standards that dictate acceptable levels of IT security and records retention for all electronic files and e-mails. Gmail can help ensure compliancy plus provide you with real business benefits in streamlining your document and email management. Deploying Google Mail is just smart business. Some benefits include:

1) Organizing and Filing (Archiving) your email the anyway you want it.

Google uses labeling as a way to file and organize your emails. You can tag an email with multiple labels. For example, an email from your accountant with tax information could be label as “Corporate Taxes”, “Accountant”, “IRS”, “Revenue Canada”. Gone is the restriction of having to choose only one file folder to which you move an email.

2) Keeping Email conversations or threads linked together.

Appearing like cascading file folders, emails on the same topic (subject) will be kept together in your inbox or to the multiple archived labels you have assigned. No searching for the email trail or thread of emails about a particular subject. They are visually represented like a group of stacked file folders.

3) A free unlimited storage repository for all your email and messages forever!
At 7 gigabytes per gmail user account and growing as of August 2008, the Google mail tagline is ‘ you’ll never need to delete another message’.

Takin’ Care of Business, instead of computer or IT Administration

Reducing the time spent on administration of your computer storage, security, backup and recovery allows you to spend more time building your business. Manage all your email accounts entirely from within one or two Gmail addresses. Once set-up, Gmail offers this low administration environment.

4) No Mail is downloaded or stored on your server, desktop, laptop or PDA. This eliminates any stress or administration angst associated with:

- searching for emails stored and scattered across multiple client devices – some emails on your PC , some on your laptop, some on your PDA

- scheduling backups of your email, contact list and documents

- recovery (and loss) of email & documents due to client device loss, failure or theft
– expanding storage capacity due to continuing email and document growth and retention
– remote or mobile access for all your email, attachments and documents

- managing, consolidating and keeping intact multiple email addresses and personalities
– off-site backup of select files for SOHO or Small Businesses

Document creation, management and simple online collaboration

5) Use Gmail online Office Suite to create, manage, store your business documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Read and write Microsoft Office formatted documents as well as all the open document variants. Securely stored at Google, eliminate HDD file storage and backup. No more MS Office licensing fees to Microsoft.

6) Store images and pictures using Picasa Web Albums. Manage your images on your PC using FREE Picasa Software – crop, adjust, special effects.

7) online chat and messaging integrated, stored and managed just like your email.

Reducing the complex e-mail security threats to your corporate data

Google yet again has an very intelligent SPAM filter that checks each message content and therefore does not arbitrarily blacklist the email address, just the specific email due to content. No emails are downloaded to your PC or an office application; therefore, no waste of bandwidth or risk of infected emails on your hard drive.

9) Google’s anti-virus checking is also performed away from your computer. All attachments are checked at the Google server for viruses and, if infected, flagged/moved to SPAM right away. No infected e-mail ever arrives on your computer’s hard drive.

Traditional server or computer-based email systems download ALL your email, passing it through a spam/anti-virus filter on your computer. This is a waste of bandwidth usage (downloading spam email) and, even worse, exposes you to the additional risk of having spam and virus-infested e-mails get closer to your data files on your computer hard drives?

So why you need to seriously consider using Google Mail for all your office needs?

- Complete office mobility – via any browser, access to your email, documents, images, chat

- Access anywhere, anytime through any browser

- No backups required of email, office documents or contacts

- Manage multiple user profiles and email accounts in one convenient place

- Includes Anti-Spam and Anti-virus checking away from your PC, Laptop or Server

- Gmail Free Unlimited file space

- Next to No Mail Administration.

Gmail is the perfect Mobile Office Utility for Small Medium and Enterprise businesses. Google Mail Cloud Computing environment will allow you to focus on your business operations and growth. Implementing the Gmail in-the-cloud computing model for your email security and compliance makes a whole lot of sense.

Keep your head in the clouds!

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Get Your Business Out There on a Billboard Advertisement

Billboard advertisements are probably the most cost-effective method of advertising. They are placed strategically – usually on motorways, but can also be hung off buildings – and thousands of people cannot help but see them as they drive or walk past. Generally speaking, the price of a month of billboard advertising is roughly equal to a half page colour advertisement in a newspaper, and so many more people are exposed to a billboard than to the press. Over the years this form of advertising has become a multi-million dollar industry.

When billboard advertising first became popular, the billboards were hand-painted. This was, of course, very time consuming and expensive. Over time they evolved into boards made of many layers of paper, onto which the advertisement was printed, but they did not last long because of weather conditions and they also tended to fade. Nowadays they are mostly made of vinyl, which is the perfect material for the computerised and digitally changing messages in use at present. The very latest billboards are three dimensional and may even have moving parts attached to them, such as flags, to increase interest. There are also scented billboards which emit, for example, food aromas and which direct you to a specific restaurant. Another good ploy is to have one part of your advertising message on each of succeeding billboards, thus keeping the driver’s interest over a longer period of time.

The most important factor to remember in billboard advertising is that the message should be very short as it has to be read – in most cases – as the target of such advertising drives past at quite a speed. A clever slogan, bright colours and large lettering will attract attention from afar. In fact, everything printed on an advertising billboard should be big, bright and bold. Billboards hung from buildings have the luxury of being able to have more information and to be more explicit, as pedestrians can stop to read them.

Advertising billboards are usually situated along major roadways and highways. Not only to they advertise specific products, but they highlight businesses and products in the areas one is driving toward and are therefore a crucial factor in drawing business to small and outlying towns. They are also be used on smaller roads, usually to direct customers to a specific place of business. Billboards are used within towns and cities too, which give wide coverage – just think of Times Square in New York, where there are literally hundreds of messages on all the buildings and thousands of people passing through continuously.

Advertising billboards may be rented – usually on a monthly basis – and one then has the opportunity of changing the advertisement on a regular basis. The more billboards one has printed with the same message for use in different areas, the lower the cost overall.

There may be one small downside to advertising billboards – the chance of them distracting drivers and causing accidents but, on the flip side, they definitely reduce boredom and keep drivers alert.

Poster Sites UK is an online company that will be able to help you find the perfect Billboard Advertisement to be able to help your company reach more people. For more information visit the website at http://postersitesuk.co.uk/

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Business Form Printing Services – Carbonless forms

There are different types of stationery utilized in offices during a package day, similar inborn composition pads, sticky-notes, forms, letterhead pads, printing paper and many much things. One of these items is carbonless forms which are also old widely. They worship a leisurely way to reduplicate writing without the use of carbon medium in a composer and reusable way. They normally have diametric flag and come in stacks. They are produced by using special tangible.

Carbonless forms, correspondent to element paper, creates a duplicate of papers, commonly misused without the use of a reproduce organization, laser printer and all related electrical devices. As they are commonly a twosome of cover pieces or level solon than two papers stacked one above the additional, the user exclusive needs to pen on the upmost influence piece the notion faculty accept the primary ink on the punt of each diplomat to be printed onto the next influence. This way umpteen production, prolonged and tedious jobs of writing the ornament perfect article material and prevent expensive sprightliness costs, sanctionative them to detain in the aggressive marketplace.

Carbonless forms are also legendary as NCR forms (No Element Required Forms) and the writing procedure behind these forms is middling straight using for sales orders, contracts, inventory sheets, receipts, invoices, polish forms, quotes, indication sheets, reflexion reports, copulate requests, deed slips, and many much. They are frequently produced in sets of: 2, 3, 4 and 5 parts. Hence, those who are in explore of saving some dollars, carbonless forms publication is the advisable superior to be in use. It helps abstain to the use of copy production which is messy and can movement havoc with primary documents. Additionally the use of element material is very worrisome as you have to save dynamical its item if the document is a multipage credit.

Now, many of methodicalness, and companies are using carbonless forms for a various write off operate similar invoices, receipts, purchase orders, contracts, period forms, university forms, listing sheets, sales orders, bus deal forms, restore tickets, experience sheets, trait reports, estimates, bids, convincing slips, maintenance orders, etc. Carbonless form writing is soul way of promoting your commercialism identity all over the space.

You can attract people and reorganize your organizational process at the same time with custom carbonless forms are one investment that makes sense.

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4 Red Flags That Say It’s Time to Close your Lawn Maintenance Business

Typically in my articles I look at ways of helping people save or make more money in their lawn business. This time, however, I’m going to take a look at other side of the lawn care business dream.

Here are four red flags that may reveal you need to seriously change or close down your lawn maintenance business.

1. Your Debt Is Rising

Here’s the first red flag to watch for. It’s called your debt-to-asset ratio. Lawn business owners will often times borrow money to purchase assets like lawn equipment. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if the debt is rising and is slowly increasing while your assets are barely moving, you could be on the verge of becoming over-leveraged.

What percentage should one look for? Typically the sign of trouble is a debt-to-asset ratio of about 50% or more. What you do or don’t do varies from lawn care business to lawn care business. But no matter what box we put this into, a rising debt-to-asset ratio is not a good thing.

As most know, leverage is a powerful weapon that is more like a two-edged sword. We all want to be on the right side of it.

The bottomline – the greater your leverage or debt ratios, the more debt you have to take care off which in turn drains your lawn maintenance business profitability, and the less equity you have in your business.

2. There’s a Hole In Your Financial Pocket

You’re losing money in your lawn maintenance business and the losses are growing. Depending on where you live there may be some areas in the tax code, such as the ability to depreciate assets that may actually be appreciating in value, make it possible for lawn care businesses to reduce their profit or show a loss even though the business is actually doing quite well.

Showing a tax loss is typically not a bad sign but if your lawn maintenance business is losing money outside of this and the tax code is only bringing that loss out in the open, there’s a good chance you’re staring at another red flag.

So if your losses are growing and don’t seem to be disappearing, there will come a point in time where you have to look at your lawn care business and decide whether it’s realistic to assume you’re going to be able to come out of your losses. Can you really get over this “hump”?

3. You’re Out Of Money

You can’t seem to get any more money for your lawn care business. Everybody knows about businesses that were moving along nicely and then a loan application of some sort was turned down. Not good.

Yes, sometimes a reluctant banker may actually be helpful in letting you know that your lawn maintenance business is not as properly planned or viable as you think it is. Sometimes lenders keep borrowers out of trouble or at least, from getting themselves into deeper financial trouble. Like a splash of cold water on your face, a loan rejection can be a fast reality check for anyone who thinks his or her current problems aren’t a big deal.

4. You’re Not Smiling

You’re not smiling. If you aren’t having fun then you better look out. I believe a key to success is that you enjoy what they’re doing. If you get up in the morning and you can’t stand the thought of running your lawn maintenance business, then the truth is it’s time to take a hard look at shutting down.

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Ready To Start A Home Based Business? Whoa! 2 Red Flags That Say No

Copyright (c) 2009 Kathleen Tremblay

So, you want to start a home based business. Well, you are certainly not alone. Millions of individuals scour the internet every month searching for legitimate home based businesses with the dream of making it big and leaving their jobs. Every day, someone is thinking, “There must be a better way,” or “Please help me quit my job,” or “I want to work from home.”

Today, many people are afraid. They are fearful of their economic futures, and the term, “This Economy” is spoken everywhere, and not in a positive light. What this means is that there are a lot of people struggling to make ends meet.

Many are hoping for an economic miracle. Others have decided to start a home based business to help improve their situation.

Before you act on the impulse to start a home based business, there are a few things to consider. Let’s examine two major “red flags” indicating that you are NOT ready to venture into the world of the home based business entrepreneur – and what you can do to change the situation.

Red Flag #1: You feel desperate. You don’t make enough money. Perhaps you hate your job, and you’ll do anything to leave your current job situation. Or, you may be afraid you are about to lose your job.

Why this indicates that you are not ready: If you are feeling desperate and miserable, this is not a good time to start a home based business because you will carry that feeling of desperation into your search for a legitimate home based business opportunity. And instead of calmly weighing the pros and cons of various serious and profitable opportunities, You will be more likely to act out of desperation, falling for “get rich quick” scams – probably more than one – and spending your already hard-earned money on something that you feel will be a quick fix to your situation – that “magic bullet” that, frankly, does not exist.

How to change the situation: The first thing to do is calm yourself, and look at where the feelings of desperation come from. What can you change in your own attitude to make your job more bearable while you search for a profitable home based business? Instead of feeling angry and desperate, can you teach yourself to see the positive in your situation?

For example, if you already have a job – even if it’s not a great job – you could be thankful that you have a source of income that can help you save up for the right opportunity. You could sit yourself down and take full responsibility for where you are – after all, you made the decisions that led you to where you are now, and you can now make decisions to take another direction, if you choose. Just do it rationally, and without emotion.

Release your feelings of desperation and hate – those feelings are not who you are. You are a lot bigger than that! There are plenty of places online to learn the techniques that can help you change your own outlook. Use search terms like “self development resources” or “self development techniques,” etc.

Red Flag #2: You are broke. You have debts you cannot pay, and you think that if only you could start a home based business, that this will cure everything.

Why this indicates that you are not ready: I don’t care whether you think you’ve found the Holy Grail of home based businesses. If you are already in deep debt, you will go further into debt. Why? Because being in business for yourself costs money.

Even if you have a paying job, and just want to start something on the side to help pay your debts, if you are unable to stay current with your payments, you will not be able to get the credit or financing that you might need to get your home based business off the ground.

Running a business costs far more than the “5 to 10 hours per week” that so many business opportunities tout as being all that’s necessary to succeed. Scheduling your time commitment is only one part of the equation. You need to schedule your money commitment (aka “budget”) too.

How to change the situation: First of all, understand at the get-go that if you intend to start a home based business, you WILL need to spend money. Stop searching for “free home based business opportunities,” or “easy home based business,” and get real.You don’t get anything for nothing. Ever.

So, before you decide to jump into a home based business, decide how much you can save for your start up costs which will undoubtedly include advertising, website hosting fees, months of carrying your business before the search engines begin to recognize you, and qualified buyers begin to find and visit your website.

If you are truly passionate about starting a home based business, then you will do what it takes to pay down your debts and begin to formulate a logical plan to undertake a serious home based business venture. Until that day, you are not ready.

Depending on the type of home based business opportunity you are looking at, you can probably find others who are already active in the opportunity what type of budget is necessary to maintain the effort until you begin to earn profits.

Finally, you may be saying, “But, I really AM passionate about starting a home based business! Where can I get the money?”

This oft-asked question has a relatively simple answer – but unless you have the strength, determination, and self-discipline to do this, you won’t do it. And this is where the rubber meets the road.

Here is the answer (drum roll please): Sell your stuff. Get rid of it. Sell on eBay. Sell on CraigsList. Have a yard sale – have more than one yard sale. Just sell your stuff. Most people have far more stuff than they need. Do you REALLY need 10 pairs of shoes? How about that (Heaven forbid), that “Wii” you just had to have? How about your collection of collectible bears, NASCAR, purses, Goth skulls, or electronic do-dads?

How badly do you want to start a home based business? How badly do you want success? Sell the TV – or at least one of them (it’s a huge time waster anyway).

Sell the 4×4 SUV that you really don’t need to begin with. If you have kids, get them on board with you – kids are great dreamers and the thought of better stuff might nudge them in the right direction.

What else can you do? Stop spending needlessly. Buy your clothes from thrift stores instead of the department store for a while. One person we know plans “treasure hunting” trips to thrift stores with her kids – it has become a fun game, not a deprivation.

Do you really need that new handbag? Do you really need that piece of jewelry? Brand name versus generic? And on, and on…

If the last few paragraphs offend you, and you cannot bear to 1) part with your stuff and/or 2) stop buying more stuff in order to realize a dream, then you are not passionate about starting a serious home based business opportunity. That’s just the way it is.

But… If you felt your heart begin to pound just a little when you thought about possibilities instead of limitations, if you felt hope instead of desperation, faith instead of fear – then, my friend, you WILL find a way – not only to START a home based business, but SUCCEED.

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Features of Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003

The Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003 includes five programs integrated into one solution: Word 2003, Excel 2003, PowerPoint 2003, Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager and Publisher 2003.

Track Your Business Contact Information in One Familiar Place

Use Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager (an add-on to Outlook 2003) to manage all your contacts in one place. You can easily track information about sales opportunities, accounts and individual business contacts.

Manage Sales Leads and Opportunities

Stay on top of opportunities and maximize sales by effectively tracking leads using Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager. Create a contact page containing essential information for every business opportunity; set reminders, rules or alerts to follow up; and store other data as the customer relationship grows.

Create and Publish Impressive Sales and Marketing Materials

Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 can help you easily create compelling sales and marketing publications for print, web and email use. Promote your business with professional-quality newsletters, brochures, websites, marketing email messages, catalogues and other materials that you can create in-house.

Build Publications from a Database

Use the Catalogue Merge Wizard in Publisher 2003 to create a publication. In just a few clicks, the wizard merges images and text from another source — such as Microsoft Excel 2003 — to produce a publication. This tool also helps create catalogues, price lists, address books, directories, datasheets and other publications that get updated frequently.

Efficiently Connect with Your Customers Online

Publisher 2003 can help you create and send attractive email publications or newsletters that look great whatever email program your recipients use. Plus, you can create a web presence for your business with the new Easy Web Site Builder wizard.

Create Multimedia Presentations

Create compelling multimedia presentations with streaming audio and video using PowerPoint 2003. It offers playback controls, static and streaming audio and video formats and full-screen video presentations during slide shows. And, you can publish your presentation to the web or copy it onto a CD using the Package for CD feature.

Handle Email Messages More Efficiently

Respond to changing business conditions quickly with enhanced Outlook 2003 email capabilities. With improvements such as the larger reading area, Mail Desktop Alert, Quick Flags and Search Folders, you will spend less time reading, organizing, sifting through and responding to email messages.

Help Increase Security and Privacy While Reducing Junk Email Messages and Viruses

Increased security measures in Outlook 2003 can reduce the time spent managing your email. Take advantage of enhancements that can block incoming messages containing viruses, prevent Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) images from validating your email address and stop junk email messages cluttering your Inbox.

Access Templates, Clip Art, Training Courses and How-to Articles

Microsoft Office Online provides helpful tools and resources, including how-to articles, training, templates, clip art and product updates. These timesaving tools can help your employees increase productivity and get the most out of Office 2003 and other Microsoft Office System products.

Share Information Internally and With Business Partners

Improve communication among your employees and partners with shared workspaces created from programs in <a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.microsoft.com/india/smb/products/office-sbe/office-small-business-edition-2003-features.mspx” target=”_blank”>Microsoft Office 2003 Editions.</a> Based on Microsoft Windows Share Point Services, these collaboration websites provide a single spot where virtual teams can work together in real time to share, modify and review files.

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Generating a Wave of Business With a Grand Opening Party

A grand opening is a very exciting time.  Those who are involved in the new business can’t wait to get started and show off their hard work.  And if they have and do advertise correctly, their community will be as excited as they are for their First Day.  But how can that be done?  Advertising requires money and money requires revenue, and since our business isn’t open yet, you’re likely on a shoe-string budget.  And with the current tough economy, starting a business can feel even more risky than in years past.  The bottom line is that you cannot start your business without a grand opening party, and to do so on a reasonable budget, you need a plan!

Overall, a grand opening celebration is planned with two over-arching goals in mind: A grand opening increases your product awareness in the community, which in turn and in time will bolster traffic to your new business and reach a higher number of potential customers.  Both these things start the brand building process that is so vital for companies to thrive.

1. How to Increase Product Awareness in Your Community
Product awareness simply means getting your product in front of as many people as possible.  Conversions are simply a matter of numbers: the more people who see your product, the higher number of conversions possible.  There are very few consumers who will turn down a higher quality item, or a more assessable item.  But in order for your potential customers to take advantage of your higher quality services, products, cheaper prices, or more convenience, they first need to know about it.  In order to do this effectively, the name, logo, location, and details of your coming business need to be everywhere around town.  All this advertising should be done in an exciting, inviting way.  That might mean offering very good coupons, teaming up with neighboring business, and taking advantage of all free advertising opportunities being active in your community.

2. The Rewards: A Healthy, Successful New Business
Grand openings and all the hype surrounding them are so important because it is a time everyone is expecting, watching, and waiting to hear about what your business is and what people think.  Think of your all the energy that goes into a grand opening celebration as the beginning of a wave.  Your first day as a new business is the breaking point, crest, of that wave, and how powerful and far that waves goes provides the momentum, health, and success of the future of your business.  Converting one customer successfully can translate into a whole family, and then community.  Working the success of the initial conversion, seeing it as a pebble being dropped into water.  The ripples that go out reaching far.  But if you can drop numerous pebbles into the same body of water, their ripples try to go out in concentric circles, but in actuality they just end up crashing into each other.  What a great marketing problem to have!  One great way to start this process is to have a “sneak preview” before your official grand opening party.  Have this be a more intimate, elite, elegant affair that will have those who are not officially invited jealous that they weren’t.

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Selecting A Business Broker – Look Out For These Red Flags

Last week I got a call from a business owner who had decided to sell his business. He and his partners were beginning the beauty contest phase of selecting a firm to represent them in the sale. His partners had begun discussions with a merger and acquisition advisory firm. He had followed up with this firm prior to calling us and had questioned them on several issues. He shared his findings with me and asked my opinion. Generally I subscribe to my old IBM training and will not disparage a competitor, however, some of the answers were alarming to me so I elected not to withhold my opinions.

The first red flag was that this competitor required a large up-front engagement fee. I certainly have no problem with Merrill Lynch or Goldman Sachs charging their up front fees to their fortune 1000 clients. These firms are a proven commodity with a proven process. Their clients feel confident that a liquidity event will result from their work. A monthly fee is a more accommodating approach for smaller clients whose cash flow would be strained by a large up-front payment.

We have had many prospective clients approach us after unfortunate experiences with these big up-front fees. In one recent case, we were brought into a holding company who had acquired one of our sell side clients. Another division had engaged an M&A firm to sell one of their subsidiaries. After a ,000 up-front payment and over four months, not one prospect had been contacted. Another common result for clients of these up-front fee firms is a beautiful, bound, 40-page book of boilerplate compiled by a junior level analyst. Unless this is accompanied by a concerted sales and marketing effort, this book will become a very expensive coffee table book.

Think of evaluating the performance of your M&A firm like you were evaluating a salesman selling your company’s product. If you are not getting status update reports or pipeline reports indicating who has been contacted and what progress was made, you are not managing your business sales process.

Another red flag we see with these up-front fee firms is a 4 or 5-year exclusivity period. Our firm will not take an engagement unless it is exclusive, however, locking a seller in for 5 years is unconscionable. Here’s what that says to me. Some of the less honorable firms are marketing machines who target business owners with their 6 letters per year mailing campaigns. These campaigns are designed to get the business owners to their beautifully orchestrated seminars for potential business sellers. The presenters are very polished speakers. I doubt that these wonderful presenters have actually closed a business sale. Their objective is to lock up 3 or 4 businesses per seminar with a ,000 book and to put them into their growing inventory of 5-year exclusive engagements. These businesses are not actively sold, but are passively presented in mass mailers and on Internet sites. I can’t tell you the number of times we have been contacted by firms that are unfortunately the victims of this approach.

I am just getting warmed up. Let me expose, forgive my French, the biggest load of crap presented at these seminars. “We have foreign buyers.” Some unscrupulous moron in our industry discovered that this phrase was particularly alluring to unsuspecting business sellers. If your business selling price is less than million, you will not be a candidate for foreign buyers. Ask any law firm that does transactions. Check with BV Resources, the number one database of completed transactions. You will find it a rare occurrence to have foreign buyers at the small end of the market. The transaction costs are just too high to make a small purchase economically viable. The buyer will have to fly teams of people with potential language barriers, new sets of laws, new accountants and attorneys, etc.

What is the allure of these alleged foreign buyers? Are they going to pay you a huge premium over a U.S. buyer? Are they going to be duped into a poor investment decision for your benefit? Pleasssssse! If you are a smaller business, you are not a target for a foreign buyer. If you are presented with this line, run for the exits.

Another classic red flag is when a potential business seller asks to talk to references and the business broker tells his prospective client, “That’s going to be tough. They are sitting on a tropical island drinking umbrella drinks.” Come on. Our firm is in regular contact with the majority of our sellers. They are very valuable to us as references in our business development efforts. We absolutely protect them from frivolous contact, however. Our firm is contacted by over fifty potential sellers annually. We have to go pretty far down the mutual discovery process before we connect a potential client with our references. If we have not pre-qualified a prospect, we are not going to waste our references’ time. However, if the major issues on fees, qualifications, approach and chemistry have been satisfied, do not hire an M&A firm without talking to two references.

The final issue I would like to discuss, I would not call an official red flag, but maybe a “nice to have.” Have you sold any companies in my industry? Sometimes, your business is unique and there has not been much M&A activity and you will have to weigh other factors more heavily. The advantages in using business broker or merger and acquisition firm that has industry experience are that it both speeds up the sale process and it increases the likelihood of a completed transaction. An M&A firm that has your industry experience will already have their database of potential buyers established. They know the right contact person and these prospects know them and actually take their calls. This alone can reduce the sales cycle by as much as 90 days. Another big advantage of industry experience is your advisor will understand valuation multiples and deal structures unique to your industry. That can be invaluable when the buyer is attempting to grind down your selling price. Industry credibility is very important when your advisor gets the CEO of a targeted buyer on the phone and has exactly 30 seconds to establish buyer interest. It really helps if you speak his language. Our clients in information technology and healthcare have found industry specialization to be of significant value.

Our industry is misunderstood at the lower end of the market. The fortune 1000 companies would not consider a capital event without engaging an investment banking firm. Smaller companies seeking a sale need the same kind of services, but with a fee structure that is more size appropriate.

When I see a couple of firms with a powerful marketing reach engaging in practices that hurt our industry, it ticks me off. Most of the firms that service the lower end of the market are hardworking, honorable people seeking to provide excellent value. Many of these firms are members of the International Business Brokers Association, IBBA. This organization sets standards for business practices and ethical behavior. They also have established an industry certification, the CBI, Certified Business Intermediary.

So as you consider the company you want to engage to sell your business, he is what you look for:

1. No big up-front fees, but monthly fees. 2. No promises of foreign buyers for companies under million. 3. A period of exclusivity from 12 to 24 months, not 5 years. 4. A firm that actively sells your company using direct calling into targeted buyers, and not simply posting on business for sale Web Sites and mass mailings. 5. A firm that tracks and reports their sales progress to you bi-weekly with a status or pipeline report. 6. A firm that is a member of a professional association like IBBA or M&A Source or a local or regional business broker network like MBBI. 7. A firm that at the appropriate time will introduce you telephonically to two of their reference clients whose business they successfully sold. 8. A firm that has a principal that has passed their industry testing and has been issued a CBI designation. 9. An Advisory firm that has experience selling companies in your industry and understands who the targeted buyers are, the right contact, and the industry nomenclature. Finally they should understand your industry’s unique valuation metrics and deal structures.

This is the most important contractor or vendor you will ever hire for your business. Your economic future depends on the success of this engagement. Think of other major purchase decisions you have made for your company. Be every bit as rigorous in making your selection of an M&A advisor.

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