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Featured Titles
IDN1:
Franchising Pointers for Small Business (rtf
html
text)
IDN2:
The Changing Personality of Small Business (rtf
html
text)
All Available Titles:
(Obtain this list
by downloading the Column Master Index above)
SBC-1. Playing to the Tough
Audience
How to tell your family you
want to be in business…A realistic look at communicating your vision to your
family. How to address their concerns
and gain their support. Download
format: rtf
html
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SBC-2. Values are your Business
Owning your own business
can mean being true to yourself. The
values-driven entrepreneur – combining personal goals and a career. Is it for you? Key considerations to guide you as you begin your journey.
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SBC-3. Creating a Real Business Plan for
Your Business
A guide to creating a
sound business plan. A description of
the five areas that should be covered, along with helpful hints.
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SBC-4. When is it Wise to Incorporate?
What is an “incorporated”
company? The benefits and drawbacks
of incorporating, as well as points to consider when making the decision.
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SBC-5. Should Your Business be Home-Based?
A look at issues to
consider when planning a home-based business. Is it right for you and your business?
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SBC-6. Networking for Fun and Profit
Who can use
networking. Building your networking
function and designing your networking strategy.
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SBC-7. A Word to the Wise about
Partnerships
Is a partnership right for
you? What to consider when creating a
partnership and drafting a partnership agreement.
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SBC-8. Inventors Can Protect Their Product
Ideas
What is intellectual
property? How to register ownership,
file for patent or copyright, purchase the patent, and protect it.
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text
SBC-9. Making Employees Owners: A Trend in the New Millennium
What a small business
should know regarding the benefits and drawbacks when considering selling
ownership to it’s employees.
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text
SBC-10. Stress
Busters for Entrepreneurs
The 10 steps the
entrepreneur can take to alleviate business stress and get the magic back
again.
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text
SBC-11. Market Research the Key to Success
Market research is the key
to success or failure. What every
entrepreneur should know about the marketplace.
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SBC-12. Seeking the Market Niche
What characteristics the
would-be entrepreneur should be looking for when developing a client base for
their product.
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SBC-13. Vacation Tips for the Home-based
Entrepreneur
How to recognize the
symptoms of “Vacation-phobia.” Steps
the family can take to cure their vacation-phobic.
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text
SBC-14. Women Entrepreneurs Make the Grade
The success rate of women in
small business compared to men – the strategies that make them successful.
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SBC-15. Scoping Out the Competition
What are the signs of a
highly competitive market? How the
small business entrepreneur can choose a market niche they are able to
handle.
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SBC-16. The Secrets to Finding a Business
Opportunity
Learn how to find a viable
business opportunity by getting statistics and plotting the business cycle to
find the stage of growth of that opportunity. Know when to jump in and when to walk away.
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SBC-17. Successful Selling
Included are successful
selling techniques as well as interesting selling links in the Internet.
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text
SBC-18. Time-Management for Home-Based
Businesses
Time-management is the
most critical issue facing the home-based entrepreneur. Included are techniques to contribute to a
successful home-based business.
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text
SBC-19. When Bigger Isn’t Necessarily Better
What is the “big Business”
philosophy? The micro-marketers
recipe for success over the big business philosophy.
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text
SBC-20. The Challenge of Marketing
Services: Making it Real
(The First of a Three-Part
Series)
The selling of services –
the intangible product. Basic rules
to follow to make it easier on yourself and the consumer.
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text
SBC-21. The Challenge of Marketing
Services: Timing is Everything
(The Second of a
Three-Part Series)
The bane of the consumer
is the line-up. Helpful hints on how
to reduce line-ups and speed up the service.
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text
SBC-22. The Challenge of Marketing
Services: Impression Management
(The Last of a Three-Part
Series)
The importance of the
service provider making a good impression on the customer.
Keeping what the customer
sees (front) separate from what the staff sees (back).
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text
SBC-23. Planning For Succession
What to do with your
business should you retire or pass away.
How to select your successor.
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text
SBC-24. The Saga of Banks: Seeking Financing for Small Business
Discusses what the banks
are looking for when financing a small business. Suggestions on how to prepare yourself for meeting with a bank.
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text
SBC-25. Creative Networking
What is networking? Lists the rules of etiquette for
networking.
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text
SBC-26. Seeking Advice From Others
Discusses the four key
areas that require assessment should you have an invention to market.
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text
SBC-27. Planning for Year Two
The five key areas that
the entrepreneur should evaluate after the first year of business to help
ensure long-term growth and success.
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text
SBC-28. Building Relationships: The Evolution of Marketing
A brief history of
marketing with the focus on database and one-to-one marketing in today’s
business environment.
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text
SBC-29. Evaluating the Performance of Staff
The importance of
performance evaluations. How to use
the job description as performance goals to enhance the company and the
workforce.
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text
SBC-30. Parenting and the Home-Based Business
Issues that should be
carefully considered before entering into the obligation of a home-based
business.
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text
SBC-31. Young Entrepreneurs Make a Difference
A profile of young entrepreneurs
– Generation X – college and high schools students.
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text
SBC-32. Choosing the Right Product
Looks at the three
different approaches to the market place and discusses which is the most
effective.
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text
SBC-33. The Toll-Free Advantage
Discusses the use of
toll-free numbers and call centres for everything from customer service to
sales.
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text
SBC-34. Finding the Right Opportunity
How to select the right
kind of business for you. Taking
inventory of what you have to offer a business as well as what the business
has to offer you.
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text
SBC-35. Franchising is Here to Stay
A brief history of the
franchise, as well as how it fits into today’s world and will it have
continued future growth.
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text
SBC-36. Broadcast Advertising for Small
Business
Information you need to
know when buying media advertising.
Tips on how to stretch your dollar when advertising on television or
radio.
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text
SBC-37. Keeping the Spirit Alive in Small
Business
The effects of isolation
on self-employed individuals. How to
get out of the office and fulfill your personal and business needs.
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text
SBC-38. Be Sure to Inform, Not to Mislead
Pitfalls to avoid when
planning promotional strategies. How
to avoid creating ill will for your business.
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text
SBC-39. Keeping the Joy in Your Business
What to do when the new
becomes old and tired. Three causes
of business angst and how to overcome them.
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text
SBC-40. Equal but Different: Management Styles of Male and Female Business Owners
Understanding the two
management styles – what works best now and what will work best in the
future.
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text
SBC-41. Seven Deadly Sins that can Kill Your
Business
The seven most common
reasons businesses fail and how to avoid them.
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text
SBC-42. Are Venture Capitalists Right for
Your Business?
What is a venture
capitalist? What they are looking for
and what you need to know before approaching a venture capitalist.
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text
SBC-43. Finding the Right Bait
The importance of the
benefits statement when attempting to sell your product.
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text
SBC-44. Consumer Trends You Need to Know
A look at four major
trends that are changing the way businesses market their products and
services.
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text
SBC-45. The New Generation Gap Leads to a
Potpourri of Marketing Opportunities
A look at the different
generations of today’s consumers.
What they are buying and how they are buying it.
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text
SBC-46. Increasing Revenue the Easy Way
The importance of the
share-of-customer marketing strategy – cross-selling to existing customers.
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text
SBC-47. Benchmarking the Path to Success
What is benchmarking? How to use benchmarking as part of your
strategic process to give you the competitive edge.
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text
SBC-48. It Takes Spirit
The entrepreneurial spirit
– what does it mean?
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text
SBC-49. Writing Direct Mail Letters that Work
Advice on what to do to
have a highly effective direct mail campaign.
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text
SBC-50. The Social Stigma of Being an
Entrepreneur
The necessity of the
entrepreneur having a social life away form the business environment.
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text
SBC-51. Canadian Women Capitalize on Export
Opportunities
Results of a Canadian
study of export development by female-owned businesses.
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text
SBC-52. Anyone Can be a Millionaire
Concentrating on the selling
process to make your company grow.
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text
SBC-53. Learning to Share: Building the Team
A diversified management
team is a tremendous advantage.
Issues to consider when building your team.
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text
SBC-54. What is a Unique Selling Proposition?
How to use the USP to
increase sales and help you manage your business more effectively.
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text
SBC-55. Big or Small? What Does Your Future Hold?
The pros and cons of
either launching a big company or starting a small business.
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text
SBC-56. Ideas are the Easy Part
How to get the idea out of
your head and into the marketplace.
What you need to know before speaking with industry experts.
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SBC-57. Keeping Stakeholders Happy
What investors are looking
for in a new business. What you can
do to make your business venture more attractive to investors.
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SBC-58. Using the Telephone as a Business
Tool
How the telephone can work
effectively for your business in a number of ways.
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SBC-59. Let Your Children Learn About
Entrepreneurial Success
How to teach your children
the fundamentals of being an entrepreneur and have fun while doing it.
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SBC-60. Growing Your Business
How to “grow” the
customers you already have to increase your company’s revenues.
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SBC-61. The Realistic Entrepreneur
Advice to the entrepreneur
about their personal financial needs while starting up a new business.
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SBC-62. The Business of the Future: Networking
Networking – the growth
industry of the future. Joining
networking clubs and organizations.
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SBC-63. Separating Fantasy From Reality
Be realistic when you
decide to buy into a business. Advice
regarding franchising, licensing, and multi-level marketing businesses.
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text
SBC-64. Troubleshooting the Marketing Plan
Looking to the marketing
plan when there is a drop in sales or profitability to diagnose the cause and
reverse the trend.
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text
SBC-65. Deciding to Export
Discusses the three key
areas to being export-ready – capacity, attitude and risk.
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text
SBC-66. Don’t Drive Your Customers Away
Tips on how to become a
customer-oriented company as opposed to a product-oriented company.
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text
SBC-67. Educating Entrepreneurs
The changing role of the
education system – training students to become entrepreneurs.
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text
SBC-68. The Expansion Question
The challenges faced when
expanding your business to a second location.
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text
SBC-69. Start-Up Information for the New
Entrepreneur
The importance of
conducting a feasibility study in order to design an accurate business plan.
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text
SBC-70. Redefining the Small Business
Debunking myths about
small businesses and their entrepreneurial owners.
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text
SBC-71. The Millennium Shopper
Focuses on the typical customer and what they are looking for in the new millennium.
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text
SBC-72. Creating a Customer Database for the
Small Business
The database as a highly
effective tool to maximize competitive superiority and increase profits.
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text
SBC-73. Become Your Own Sales Manager
How to arrange meeting with
potential clients, make the presentation and close the sale.
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text
SBC-74. The Distribution Decision
How to get your product to
the customer while meeting their expectations at a reasonable cost.
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SBC-75. Selling Solutions
The Shifting trends in the
sales process – from the one time sale to relationship building.
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text
SBC-76. The Reluctant Entrepreneur
Thinking of becoming an
entrepreneur, but not sure if it’s right for you? Tips on places to go and who to speak with.
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text
SBC-77. Avoid Becoming Just Another “Shampoo”
How to keep your product
from becoming a commodity. What to do
if your product is a commodity.
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text
SBC-78. Fighting the Price War
Can a price war work for
your firm? Some words of caution
before going into battle.
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text
SBC-79. If You Don’t Care What the Kids
Think, Maybe You Should Think Again
The importance of asking
kids what kids want. Methods on how
to reach them.
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text
SBC-80. Tackling the Global Market
The world market looks
good from the centre of the universe.
Why the greatest growth opportunities lie beyond Canadian borders.
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text
SBC-81. Keeping Priorities Straight
Keeping a balance in your
life to allow time for family and friends as well as time for yourself.
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text
SBC-82. Keeping the Faith
Some “tricks” to help you
maintain a positive attitude in spite of what may be going on around you.
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text
SBC-83. Predicting the Future
Predicting sales
trends. How to gather information
from reliable sources and update it for your present use.
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text
SBC-84. The Need to Own a Business
Motivations for you to
have your own business, based on the theories of Abraham Maslow.
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text
SBC-85. When Less is More: Serving the Discount Market
The discount market – the
underserved market. What the discount
shopper is looking for.
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text
SBC-86. Linking Quality of Life to Business
Success
The secret to keeping
employees happy and motivated while increasing customer service, productivity
and profits.
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text
SBC-87. Turning Stakeholders into Allies
How to keep the many
parties who have an impact on your business on your side.
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text
SBC-88. Making Meetings Count
The meeting plan – how to
decrease the amount of time spent in meetings while increasing their
productivity.
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SBC-89. Don’t Let Guilt Undermine Your
Business
Guilt creates
dysfunctional stress in business.
Solutions on how to control guilt- based stress.
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text
SBC-90. Reducing your Customer’s Risk
Increases Sales
Breathe new life into your
company’s sales by offering a good risk-reducer to your customers.
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text
SBC-91. Multilevel Marketers Make a Difference
A snapshot of how multilevel marketers has had an incredible
impact on merchandising in Canada and around the world.
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text
SBC-92. Millennium-Proofing Your Business
Strategy
How to upgrade your
business plan for the new millennium.
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text
SBC-93. Canadianizing Your Business Search
Canadian franchise buyers
should beware investing in franchises that work well south of the border.
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text
SBC-94. Selling Over the Phone
The art of utilizing
telemarketing effectively to reach small business customers.
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text
SBC-95. The
SOHO Revolution
The
small-office-home-office market is impacting the business market with changing
demographics and dynamic sales opportunities.
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text
SBC-96. Redesigning Marketing for the
Millennium
Using the 11 “C’s” to
provide for the development of relationships with customers, resulting in
added value.
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text
SBC-97. The Changing Face of Marketing
How to compete with a
larger firm in relationship selling.
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text
SBC-98. Become a Dot-Com Entrepreneur
Building your website –
how to make your business website attractive and lucrative.
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text
SBC-99. Finding Your Way in the Chinese
Market: Canada’s New Growth Market
The Chinese language is
quickly outpacing French as Canada’s second-most spoken language – is your
firm ready to meet this new opportunity?
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text
SBC-100. Is Business in Moral Decay?
Ethics isn’t just a
problem for big business – small business also needs to be concerned.
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text
SBC-101. What it Really Means to be an Entrepreneur
What it is that motivates
the entrepreneur to become an entrepreneur.
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text
SBC-102. Expanding Your Business
Several ways to expand
your business including pitfalls to watch out for.
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text
SBC-103. To Franchise, or Not?
Business in a box – the
pros and cons of buying a franchise.
Is it right for you?
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SBC-104. Spring Cleaning
A revitalization of
yourself, your staff and your business.
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text
SBC-105. The Business Kit
Developing a sound
franchise package. What to include
and making sure it works.
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text
SBC-106. The “Y” Generation: New Opportunity for
Small Business
Selling to the “Y” Generation
– Who they are and what they are looking for.
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text
SBC-107. Matchmaking Your Way to Business Success
Specialized consultants
who work to find you qualified leads for your business. Should you use a matchmaker?
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SBC-108. Try Focusing on Customer-Share, Not
Market-Share
Increase your share of
your customer by allowing them to have a direct role in “custom-ordering” the
nature of the services they want.
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text
SBC-109. What if Price Doesn’t Matter?
The problems faced when
you make the price of your product your greatest asset.
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SBC-110. A New Trend in Distribution: The “Un” Channel
The time has come for all
companies to consider adding some direct marketing to their distribution
system.
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SBC-111. Spamming Your Way to Distress
Problems that can arise
from spamming – the act of sending unsolicited advertising email to
individuals with email accounts.
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text
SBC-112. The Email Press Release: Harnessing Publicity for Your Firm
Rules of the email press
release. The right way to get your
press release published.
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text
SBC-113. The Hi-Tech World of Instant
Gratification
A brief look at some of
the technological lingo in the retail system.
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SBC-114. A New Way of Viewing Your Market
Relationships
Relationship segmentation
is an effective means of developing a loyal customer base and enhancing
profitability.
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text
SBC-115. Deciding on a Brand Name
What’s in a brand
name? What a good brand name can do
for your company.
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SBC-116. Down But Not Out: Distribution for the Small Business
What you can do to
overcome obstacles that tie up your distribution network.
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SBC-117. Cutting Your Risk in the New Product
Market
Examples of what can go
wrong when introducing a new product.
Five areas that impact the way new customers adopt new products.
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text
SBC-118. Making Advertising Work for You
Failing to advertise can
cost you valuable market opportunities.
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SBC-119. Are We Doing a Good Job Serving the
Golden Market?
A look at some special
considerations to keep in mind when marketing to seniors.
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SBC-120. Does Legislation Really Help?
Discusses legislation and
how it affects both you and your customer.
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SBC-121. Expanding Your Small Business
Looks at the choices of
either starting a new company or restructuring your old company when
considering a new marketing opportunity.
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SBC-122. Tips for Running a Lean Business
Great ideas for keeping
costs down from start-up through to profitability in your business.
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text
SBC-123. Creating a Winning Export Strategy
The results of a government
study showing five strategic approaches for exporters.
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text
SBC-124. Starting a New Business From an Old Job
The ethical and legal
concerns about using your job to launch your new business.
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SBC-125: What Makes the Quebec Market So Special?
The French Canadian market
in Quebec presents a unique market opportunity for a creative small business
owner.
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SBC-126. Accomplishing Business and Community
Goals at the Same Time
Support of local
non-profit groups can lead to both public and private benefits.
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SBC-127. Using Direct Mail Marketing Effectively
A direct mail campaign can
be a highly effective marketing tool for your small business.
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