Archive for the ‘Business Strategy’ Category

Ernesto is a salesman in a company that manufactures electric generators. The list price of sale of each generator is $ 1,000. For your company, the total cost to produce and make available to the public in local sales of these generators is $ 800. The company goes to market carrying a profit of $ 200, 25%.

Ernesto this morning closed a deal with a customer, and sold a generator delivering a 10% discount on list price, which is the maximum discount you can offer your manager. The customer paid $ 900 or $ 100 less than the list price. Now the question is: Where did that $ 100? Obviously came out of the profit that your company hoped to get.

$ 100 is 10% of the final price paid by the customer, but the company is 50% of the profit!.

How much lost Ernesto?

Ernesto gets a 6% commission for each generator that sells, so you get $ 60 if the price were the list. In this sale to $ 900, your commission is $ 54. $ 6 does not seem much, but Ernesto sells an average of 40 computers per month. If I did 10% discount on half of its sales would be losing $ 180 per month in commissions, about the same as the fee pays for your car. Is not it enough, no?

Ernesto, as many vendors tend to use too often (or too early) in a negotiation the use of the lowest price you can offer, virtually transforming the price “floor” in the virtual list price.

What can we do?

1) if we recognize this trend.
A discount is a necessary to close some sales, so in many cases would be a mistake not to offer it. Of course not referring to those occasions. We are talking about the tendency to offer more times or more as needed.

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We know the history of all the failed attempts that had to move and overcome to achieve the objective. When asked in an interview how she managed to maintain their perseverance having failed 138 times, Edison replied, “I never tried it and failed. Just along the process I found 138 ways not to make the electric light bulb. The only way that I achieve my goal would be to die before it happen. “

There are two basic attitudes in this how to live one’s life. We embody the position of the actor or the spectator. The attitude of the actor is the people who have decided to be protagonists of their own existence and that every day come on stage and act in different roles to perform. They know that sometimes made their performance effectively and others that do not achieve the required results. But when it does not blame anyone, take charge, learn and produce the changes necessary to achieve their goals. Take responsibility for their lives and their destinies. Do not drift aimlessly, but are proactive, generate actions, undertake their projects and are overcoming obstacles in their path.

Facing them are the spectators, who watch, comment and criticize. Those who do not take as protagonists of their own history. Maybe I touched a special place and watch the feature from the front row, or have not been fortunate and are located in the back seat, but what they have in common is that run by looking at the work of others. They see their own responsibility for what happens or what they fail to pass. They are experts at making excuses, explanations and excuses that allow them to be justified by what happened. Often feel frustrated, stuck and unable to change their situation. Their most effective action is the complaint of life that “they lived.”

What distinguishes this form of position in the world is that people assume it is not seen as responsible for their own lives. They think that happiness is a blessing and not a conquest. They assume that the future can expect or anticipate, but never built. They believe that dreams are an illusion to evade reality and not a goal to achieve creativity and effort.

The essence of the idea of ??Design and Construction of the Future is assuming the position of actor and author of our existence, with the ability to freely decide what we do and how we live. Conceive as being active, creative and inventors of our destiny. Convert our passion and our deepest dreams in the sense of our lives, work and play while they are converted into reality.

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One of the main characteristics of these prospects is not to achieve but directly selling a product, that is, more than a letter of landing is a sales letter. The first peculiarity that has an effective sales letter or high conversion is that the visitor should give one and only one alternative.

Most people are not aware of this and what it does is send the user to a landing page that is part of a structure of blogs, where not only is presenting the offer of a product, but are given to read other things also are sent to Twitter, there are likely to subscribe to RSS, they are asked to share in Skype, you share in Facebook. In short, 50,000 calls to action, when what we really should do is send a page or a sales letter for a single action.

And that one action is either to buy or not buy. Anything else confuses the prospect, with so many possibilities are downplaying what should be a landing page.

It is advisable, when traffic is leading to a sales letter, make a single action. Anything to avoid, distract or take the person to take any action different from the one you want is something unwanted. So that should be a landing page of a single action.

Sales letters are focused on one goal, because of this, anything to stay away from that goal should simply be ignored.

Using Face book, Google, Twitter is free, we provide many tools to generate content, and we are millions that we enjoy entertainment, pass time, business, education etc.

But that time enjoyable to invest, these companies used to make a big deal with advertising, which is very good, and we hope to achieve good profits to improve the services that we use, passionate and entertaining.

Another way to gain our attention, affection, joy of some companies is to bring fun into their business, as shown in the following videos. How long do you remember? How many will have known it? The editors of blogs How many posts with these videos written? And what about social networks, forums and more.

We are where we like, we share what we love happy, and it is all free advertising, effective and durable solution for these businesses. Clearly it is setting the trend of emotional marketing.

I know people who bought the first floor “to invest”, but that is a floor that would not want to live. In this case, as the investment is made when the person has some money and security to get into a mortgage (in the case of Spain and can not be very young), it is possible that in a few years wants to move to their own home.

But as they do not want to live in the house they have bought and are paying a few years, have 3 options:

- Try to sell it to buy another
This leaves them at the mercy of the market. In the current situation, the housing market in Spain is completely stuck and you can spend months or years to sell or “bad” sell. “

- Trying to rent another house where they are at home, and rent which they do not like bought
This leaves them with a double risk. On the one hand that the owner of your rent the price rise or no longer want to rent, or that the tenant rent your house to stop and lose a few months looking for another tenant. Not to mention the risk that your tenant does not pay rent for several months.

- They will live at home reluctantly
In this situation, they are paying a monthly mortgage on a house you do not feel at ease.

In short, it is clear that if you want to invest in real estate should not be your first home, because in this case is an expense. In addition, you must have a high percentage of the purchase money, and know that you can use the money for the mortgage monthly for each year employed more than 10% to cover increases in the index.

Investing in a business

From my point of view, this investment that I believe is more constructive for society and for yourself. Also, I think is the most you can depend on you and not external factors.

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There are many programs from which you can choose products to advise users on them and take a commission.

There are even websites with your own affiliate program. This is one of the clues to be taken into account. Do not choose products from other companies that are accessible to hundreds or thousands of people engaging in affiliate marketing. You’ll have much competition and make sure visitors interested in your product will be difficult. Yes, you can use pay per click with Ad words, for example, but Ad words is for experts. It is very hard to make money with pay per click campaign.

Learn to choose the digital products have little competition and you can check before if the products are actually sold or not.

Is not it a good choice? No ideas, no products, no services … provide advice to a job that you do only once, without necessarily buying anything (the owners of products often offer free or low cost to its members) and you can earn commissions on products for which have not invested anything in creation.

If you plan to buy a franchise and set up a shop or office in your city, we wish you luck. But you will get rich and have a relative freedom.

If your idea is to add value and use the Internet as your sales channel, this is your place. You bring the idea, you will be able to study if you are out on the market and with the tools and the methodology explained to all web resources, have the chance to be free, win big money will be an afterthought to you. In fact, but you have that mentality will not get very far.

Advantages of starting a business on the Internet:

1. without inventory, only your head: You do not need money to buy material and have it in stock. All you need is your head. Earn money for your expertise, knowledge and skills.

2. Products: You can sell products that you have created yourself, or sell other products (affiliate programs).

3. Unpacked or manipulating anything: It’s about working with products like software, eBooks and info-products. Anything that can be downloaded from the Internet. Although it is also contemplated the idea of having your own online store, physical products.

4. Instant Download: The client does not have to wait so that it reaches the product. The product is obtained in a few seconds after payment.

5. No start-up costs: You know how much could cost to start a business? “Just open the shutter? Lots of money. In contrast, an online business requires very little overhead. Your computer, internet connection, some software support (antivirus, html editors …) and little else.

6. No financial risk – you start your business with so little money that bad if not you’d be broke.

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The Government Spain needed to allay the distrust of markets in the Spanish banking sector, has decided to increase to 8% core capital (equity plus reserves) to be kept on their balance sheet entities, compared to 6% today.The Government’s financial vice president, Elena Salgado, said yesterday afternoon the new measures. “This is to restore market confidence and eliminate any doubts about the solidity of our bank.”

One of the most controversial decisions of the announced is that the Bank Restructuring Fund (FROB) may enter the capital of those institutions that do not meet the new criteria established credit. The financial vice president made an estimate of capital needs that have domestic financial institutions to meet the new standards. He estimates that the sector will need more than 20,000 million to reach 8% of core capital ratio. In September 2010, the average core capital ratio was 8.5%.

The big banks play very well with the new criteria for creditworthiness. Santander and BBVA 8.5% 8.2%, respectively. People, after the merger with Crédit Mutual, slashing 9.4%. In contrast, medium banks have more difficulties. Sabadell is at 7.8%, while Bankinter only 6.5% (6.76% at end-2010).

Another of the peculiarities of the new regulation, to be adopted by royal decree during the month of February, is that it imposes additional capital requirements to those more traditional boxes. According to Economy Minister explained, those non-listed financial groups (banks and credit unions) have no significant private investor and who have a dependency on wholesale funding markets over 20%, must have a ratio fall of core capital to be “in any case” more than 8%. Although Salgado declined to detail how much it would raise the bar for these entities, some sources suggest it could reach 10%.

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In the U.S. already started to see the spectacular sales of the company’s tablet of the block (up from 7.4 million units between October and December) as an economic indicator. And in this case as a possible indicator of U.S. economic recovery.

The words spoken by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer in the conference call with investors and analysts that followed the presentation of the company’s results were clear. “Demand for iPod for employees at the corporate level remains strong and the response to the device continues to be very significant,” said the manager.

He added that those responsible for technology companies (IOC) are incorporating the iPod to their list of electronic devices at a rapid pace. Ultimately, companies want their workers to use the iPod in their various tasks.

Similarly, Oppenheimer noted that currently, 80% of companies that are part of the Fortune 100 are developing services and applications tailored for the above tablet, over 65%, reached in the quarter that ended in September. He also noted that among the last corporations are adopting the iPod include financial institutions such as JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, as well as companies like Cardinal Health, Archer Daniels Midland, DuPont, and Sears Holdings.

Also in Spain some companies are launching projects based on the iPod. For example, Iberia will implement a system in Barajas is going to allow their employees access to all the information you need, anywhere in the airport to inform the customer.

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BNP Paribas posted a net profit of 6.293 million Euros by September, an improvement of 50% over the same period last year. In the first nine months of the year the turnover Gallo’s largest bank by market capitalization reached 33,560 million Euros, 11.4% more, while the resources allocated to credit risk provisioning fell by 43.7% to the 3,640 million.

BNP CEO Baudouin Prot, expressed his satisfaction with the accounts of the institution and highlighted the results achieved in the retail banking division, while it maintained the “hard” business results of corporate and investment banking.

The French company said that the integration of Fortis assets have allowed the bank noted synergies in the first nine months of the year amounting to 292 million Euros, in addition to the 120 million recorded as early as 2009, of which more than half correspond to the division of corporate and investment banking.

Also, BNP Paribas said that in the coming quarters recorded additional synergies expected amount of 200 million Euros, allowing the body to accumulate aggregate synergies of 612 million six months ahead of schedule.