Home Based Business - Mobile Cold Laser and Microbrasion Skin Treatments in Calgary Alberta

Balanced Beauty is able to offer their clients something other laser centers can't - the convenience of in home laser treatments. Their mobile cold laser system provides a safe and comfortable alternative to help heal skin afflictions from acne to wrinkles. Looking younger with clear skin is one of many benefits of Balanced Beauty's mobile cold laser and microbrasion services.

Indy has built a business that has brought her the freedom of a home based business and provided for her and her son. She trains others who want to become cold laser technicians and has big dreams for her business. She travels around Calgary and surrounding area bringing her equipment to those who want the time saving convenience of in home cold laser treatments.

Working Long Hours - A Week 'til The Phone Book Goes to Print

This week is what my office calls Open Season and all leads are now open to anyone to call, which means I get to make a lot more cold calls everyday. I've been hung up on, yelled at and yet, I've met some interesting small business people who want to expand their client base. Even though I make appointments doesn't mean someone will be there when I get there. I get stood up all the time, most re book but with the price of gas and the traffic it can wear on you.

With the book close just a week away I have literally 1000s of numbers to call and hopefully I will meet with 3-4 business people a day. I don't have time to rebook appointments because there are business people out there who want to advertise in the phone book but don't know how affordable it is. These are the types of business people I'm hoping to find during this last kick at the bucket.

Cold calling and being stood up aside, outside sales is a fun career, how much you get out of it depends solely on how much you put in. So far I've been putting in 10-13 hour days and I'm getting very disorganized because there isn't time to ensure I stay caught up on paperwork. My numbers are now reflecting my hard work and my kids are showing signs of rebellion.

I do like the flexability and the freedom it provides you, it's like running your own business, but you have someone to ensure you make quotas so you stay profitable. However, It is a grind because every morning you start at 0 trying to make as many calls and book as many appointments as you can. It's easy to get frustrated and want to quit but that's when you truly fail.

I have found that as long as I'm not comparing my luck to other's luck and I put my head down and work I can keep the green eyed monster at bay. Some reps will get more breaks from management and some will get more help but persevering despite that is an accomplishment in itself.

A Billboard to Remember - Creative Billboard Made You Look

Billboards are very expensive and yet can you remember all the billboards you saw today on your daily commute? Creative Ads have to be interesting and different to make an impact. I saw this billboard and had to take a second, third and forth look. What makes it so cool is I couldn't figure out what the guy was doing because he wasn't moving.

He is putting up a simple black and white message nothing more right? Well he never moved because he's not real, he's a mannequin dressed up as a worker setting up a billboard.

Should You Cut Back on Advertising During a Slow Economy?

Home Based Business - A Mobile Esthetician in Calgary Alberta

I met with a wonderful home based business woman today that has a mobile esthetician service in Calgary Alberta. She provides her clients with in home service for enhanced nails, manicures, pedicures, waxing, and eyebrow extensions.

She has organized her Honda to be a spa on wheels for individuals and groups who want a spa experience in the convenience of their homes. Spa parties are lots of fun for a girls night and she has partnered with mobile massage therapy businesses to provide a full spa event.

This business has enabled her to be home with her 3 year old and gives her freedom to work outside the home. Her schedule is hers to book and she has large goals for this venture. She teaches other women who want to be estheticians and they work with her until they are able to strike out on their own as a Charismatic Carolyn Mobile Esthetician business.

She may be small now but with her passion and ideas the sky's the limit.

To find a business in Canada.
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Links:
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Can Your Business Survive a Recession?
6 Tips for Businesses to Survive a Recession.

Tracking Where Your Clients Find You is Just as Important as Tracking Where the Heard about You

Tracking where clients hear about your business is common practice for many business owners who want to manage their limited resources more effectively. What many forget to track is where the customer found their contact information. Isn't that the same thing? No it's not. They may have heard about your company or service from a friend, an advertisement or an article but they got your contact information from somewhere else.

Creative advertising is the type that raises awareness and is very expensive. If you want to be top of mind in your customer and prospects mind then you need to continually get your name in front of them one way or another. Newsletters, magazine advertising, community newsletter advertising, direct mail, TV and Radio are all ways of getting your brand in front of the marketplace.

You will need to ensure a few things are present in all your creative advertising:
1. Picture - Images of your Product being used should and invoke the viewer to desire it
2. Creativity - Must stand out and make the viewer to want to pay attention
3. Slogan - Must be catchy and memorable
4. Participation - It needs to inspire the viewer to participate
5. Brand - This is your Logo, Image and marketplace's perception of your product
6. Location - Where can they go for more information or to try it out.

Creative Ads are located in mediums that are not kept, they are located in places people are looking for something else, mostly entertainment. The purpose is repetitive images to keep your product in the minds of the marketplace, whether they want it or not at that moment.

Why does McDonalds and Coke, both leaders in their industries, spend millions of dollars on advertising? To keep their products in the minds of the consumer so when the consumer is thirsty or hungry they will first think Coke or McDonalds. Coke is Cola and McDonald's is fast food. Be the product of your industry through creative advertising.

By asking your customers where they heard about your product you can allocate funds in a focused and cost effective way gaining the most return on your investment. Think you're too small for creative advertising - you're not, you just need to figure out where your customers are and find the most cost effective way to get your image there.

Directional advertisements are on kijiji, newspaper classifieds, and the phonebook. These ads are very different from creative ads because the information in the ad must be different. Consumers are looking at directional ads because they are looking to buy something and need to know particulars about the item and business. The desire to buy and awareness has already been met, now its time to choose where to find the item they want.

Directional ads need to have the following information:

1. Reliability - What makes your business credible and reliable?
2. Approved Brands - What brand names do you sell? Brands have already paid for the Creative Advertising and awareness, now you have to let the consumer know where to go.
3. Special Features - What features does your business provide that consumers may be looking for? Warranties, Financing, Convenience, Delivery.
4. Compelling Reason to call you for what they want, what makes you different from the competition? Why should they call you instead of the other guy?
5. Picture or Illustration of the product or service provided. Pictures get noticed and are worth a thousand words even in directional ads. In creative you are trying to gain interest by showing the product in use or it's benefit, in directional you need to show the product the consumer will be looking for.
6. Location and Contact information.

Creative ads and directional ads work together by creating awareness and desire for a product and then providing the consumer information when they need it. For example, if you have a billboard ad that has made a consumer aware of your product, when it comes time to buy it the consumer is not going to drive to your billboard, they look in directories.

This is why it is important to ask both where they heard about your business and where they found your contact information. In some cases the answer will be the same, other times they will be very different. Make sure you are listed where the consumer will look when they need you.

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Should You Cut Back on Advertising During a Down Economy?
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Edie's Framing and Design - A Picture Framing Home Based Business

Part of my wonderful job is meeting new business people and talking to them about their business then figuring out the best way to get new customers. I met with Edie Nellison, a professional picture framer, who has built a quality professional picture framing business in her home.

She showed me some beautiful pieces of needlework that she has framed and some gorgeous fall coloured Canadian Maple Leaves she framed for a client. Clients looking for high quality framing of their special artwork, pictures, and memorabilia call on her. Due to a lower overhead she is able to offer her services for less than a retail picture frame outlet.

Her website shows off lots of her wonderful work.

One of the reasons I want to introduce this home based business to you is to help you find ideas for a home based business for yourself. Do you have a home based business idea you'd like to share in the comments?



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Cold Calling - A Lesson on Saying NO Nicely - Check the Anger at the Door

A large part of my job is cold calling, and today I did learn a valuable lesson when it comes to answering a cold call.

I have a stack of business cards from women who run home based businesses, most of which utilize their residential number for business. Presently, I work for a phonebook that offers any type of business a free listing. If a business uses a residential number, a cell phone or is new then their business will not be listed and part of my job is to find these businesses and offer them a free listing. The other part is to discuss advertising and if it makes sense for their business design an ad for them.

So yes, I am calling hoping for a sale but at the same time I am not a pushy sales person, hence the large number of incomplete sales on my desk.

Anyway, the lesson I learned - One card I called on had one phone number on it and I called that number and received a very angry response. Many times I call and have the phone hung up in my ear and I dial again, but every once in awhile I get a response that gets me pissed off, today was one of those days.

Lesson: 1. Receiving cold calls is very aggravating and most people don't want to receive sales calls - so have your number where customers go to find it, ie the phone book.

Lesson 2. Always be pleasant on the phone, the person who is calling to sell you something may be a future customer. I threw out her card after the call with no intention of ever calling again, whether I need her services or not.

Lesson 3. You may not want to listen to a sales call, but they may have something you need or could help your business. Figure out what the call is about first.

Lesson 4. If you don't want someone calling your cell number for a sales call, don't put that number on your business card or any advertising. Or at the very least make sure you have a different number listed as a main number on your business card and as a cold caller, don't call secondary numbers if a main number is provided (which in this case there was only one number).

Lesson 5. Even in a city, the business world is a small place and you may run into the person who called you at a networking meeting and not know it. The person who called you will know you and already have an opinion about you and how you do business.

In many ways cold calling is annoying not only for the person receiving the call, but also for the ones making the call. You never know how the person who called could help your business, so find out first then say no.

If I Were a Store I'd Be Chapters

If I could be any store, I'd be Chapters because it has everything I love. Gifts, Stationary, Books and Coffee. Shopping is a past time and a very expensive one for many consumers and lucrative for vendors. What is it about some stores that get constant traffic and others that go out of business? In my opinion it is a lack of consumer experience, lack of marketing, and lack of advertising.

My boss told me that not advertising is like winking at a beautiful girl in the dark and he's right. Although you may have a message or an intention if you don't communicate it properly then the intended receiver will never receive the message.

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is believing that all they need to do is hang their shingle and they will come, or if they build it they will come. The second biggest mistake is spending money on the wrong advertising or marketing.

I'm always harping on business plans, got to have a plan in place that you review regularly and is flexible enough to change when needed. The most important part of that plan in my opinion is the marketing plan or how you intent to entice customers into your store.

This is why I would be a Chapters if I could be a store because they know how to entice someone into their doors, keep them there for a long period of time and inspire them to come back. A small company can compete with a Chapters if they are different and utilize many of the same ideas as Chapters. A store should have unique trendy merchandise, should evoke a feeling of belonging or comfort, should harness the concept of shopping as a past time and above all market and advertise what makes them different.

So if you could be a store what store would you be, don't forget to add why?