Sunday, July 22, 2007

Philip Kotler


Philip Kotler: "Philip Kotler
portrait photo of Philip Kotler

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Core Field: Marketing
The Academic

Philip Kotler is the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Kellogg was voted the 'Best Business School' for six years in Business Week's survey of U.S. business schools. It is also rated as the 'Best Business School for the Teaching of Marketing'. Professor Kotler has significantly contributed to Kellogg's success through his many years of research and teaching there.

He received his Master's Degree at the University of Chicago and his PhD Degree at MIT, both in economics. He did post-doctoral work in mathematics at Harvard University and in behavioral science at the University of Chicago.

He has received honorary doctoral degrees from the Stockholm University, University of Zurich, Athens University of Economics and Business, DePaul University, the Cracow School of Business and Economics, Groupe H.E.C. in Paris, the University of Economics and Business Administration in Vienna, Budapest University of Economic Science and Public Administration, and the Catholic University of Santo Domingo.
The Author

Professor Kotler is the author of:

* Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, the most widely"

The Three Pillars of Work From Home Business Success

By Jeannet Snow

You may dream of making good money while working from the comfort of your own home, being your own boss and going to work in your PJ’s, if you want to. And for many, this is a reality that is both lucrative and satisfying.

However, the majority of network marketing, direct sales, affiliate sales and other home business efforts do NOT succeed. Why not? After 10 years running my own business from home, “failing forward” a few times, and creating successful residual income streams, I understand the basics of how to succeed in a home business.

The three pillars of work from home success are:

1) Developing the right work habits
2) Cultivating the right mindset
3) Choosing the right program

DEVELOPING THE RIGHT WORK HABITS

Most employees are used to being told what to do and so have not developed the right discipline to keep a home business going long enough to succeed. Here are the key elements:

Treat it like a business. Treat this like a hobby and you’ll make what a hobby makes – nothing! Treat it like a business and you can make what a business can make – lots! Take this seriously if you want serious results.

Schedule Your Work. Even if it is only 1 hour a day, set aside time to work your business, and stick to a schedule. The more focused energy you can give it the faster it will grow.

Create a productive work space. Create a quiet space where you can focus for that hour or whatever time you can give. Shut the door, turn off the phone, and eliminate all distractions so you can be productive.

Stay focused. Take a look at your short and long range goals every day and make sure what you are doing is moving towards those goals. It’s no good to stay busy if you are not moving in the right direction. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by the thousand other things you might be doing.

Set aside an ad budget. Even with a 95% automated system, which I highly recommend, you still have to drive traffic to your website. You can do this with eZines, banner ads, coop advertising and many other sources. Make sure you are getting a positive return and track your results. As long as you are at least breaking even or making some money on the front end, you will be reaping the residual rewards later.

CULTIVATING THE RIGHT MINDSET

Without the right mindset, you can have the best product and all the best resources and still fail. Most folks have a self imposed income cap that limits what they feel they can make that is tied to self worth. Do you have a millionaire mind that really knows you are capable and worthy of riches? Cultivating the right mindset is key.

Stay positive. Do not let the naysayers and bozos drag you down, and there WILL be those around, perhaps even in your own family. Develop the tough skin needed to stay on course and you may even need to change friends or even separate from certain family members. Regardless of what anyone may say, know that many DO succeed and if you follow the right practices and cultivate the right skills, thoughts and attitude, you will also succeed.

Read something inspiring every day. I recommend you start with “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles. And use motivational and personal growth support systems such as Success University. See below for the links to these resources with free access to both.

Focus on the WHY. The HOW will manifest if you keep a clear focus on your WHY. Why do you want money? What will you do with it? What good would it do you? Write down your dreams and do not be afraid to dream BIG. Create a vision board with pictures of your dream house or car or relationship or whatever it is that you deeply want. Look it over daily to remind yourself where you are going and why.

Life Balance. This is one not many talk about but is critical. Success is not just about money, though that is a significant part. Nurture your relationships and friendships and health or the rest will soon not matter. A fit, healthy body will serve you with the energy levels to propel you forward in life. A health and energy tip that has worked wonders for me: drink lots of water, starting with first thing in the morning and do some form of exercise upon waking each day even if just 10 minutes of jumping or walking. This kick starts the day, giving you greater energy for all that you do.

Take Action. Reading all this without taking action will not do much for you but if you follow these principles and take action, I guarantee you WILL succeed where others fail. Many folks online are in a constant state of overwhelm and in endless state of preparing to do something. I have spent too long in that mode myself. Yes, continue to learn as there is a lot to learn, but do not hesitate to take action as you go along. You know enough already. Now, as Nike says, JUST DO IT.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT PROGRAM

Many dive into programs with emotionally stirred dreams of riches based on a presentation from a friend or something they found online. Not many take the time to rationally evaluate an opportunity to make a really sound decision. The following may help.

The right product. First, you need a product that is in demand and that would sell even if it were NOT through a business opportunity. Too many companies are in fact selling the dream of prosperity, which is not a bad dream, but the vehicle and the product MUST stand alone. I was once involved in a travel agency program, for example, that turned out to be a money tree scheme that was shut down by the FDA. The product was not a real product and nobody was actually using it. Find something that offers real value and that would sell on it’s own.

Go digital. In my experience selling products, I have found it is much easier to sell and promote an information product or membership site. There is no inventory, no shipping, no hard product to have to store in your garage and manage manually. My early days with Amway were a logistical nightmare for this reason. Also, while many do well with health and nutritional products, most do not stay on these products, as they tend to be overpriced and when folks are not making money but spending $100’s per month, then tend to drop out.

Automated sales. Many online programs now offer each member their own website that credits all sales through that site to them. Even better, find a program that will help you build you own email list so you might market other programs to them down the road. A good autoresponder service such as Aweber is essential for automating this process. If someone does not buy right away, they will automatically get a series of messages may sell them later.

Support and Training. Find a program that will teach you how to run the business and succeed. The membership site should include all the resources you need including ad copy, banner graphics, etc. There should be 1 or 2 training calls per week you can plug into. And ideally, these should be hands on nuts and bolts training from your core group, not just the rah-rah calls that may motivate you for a while but do not really help.

Positioning. Find a relatively young company that is poised for rapid growth. There is a balance here of risk vs rewards. A brand new company will offer much greater returns if it succeeds. But many do not make it. On the other hand, a company that is more than 2 years old will not have the same ground floor opportunity for rapid growth. I recommend finding a young company that is well funded and established at least 6 months and on a clear growth trajectory.

After many false starts, I have finally found a powerful duo of programs that satisfy all the conditions above. And a riskier but potentially more lucrative ground floor opportunity. Find out more on my blog

To your success!

Labels: The Three Pillars of Work From Home Business Success

Female Entrepreneurs, Business & Babies…

By Jeannet Snow

The modern successful business woman faces a dilemma when a baby arrives on the scene especially if it is unexpected. Can they manage to juggle work and business with babies?

The great thing about modern technology is that most business tasks can now be done online and on the phone. This means that business women can keep working from the office and nearer the time of giving birth, from home, until the last few days before giving birth!

Business women on average tend to take less time off when a baby arrives on the scene compared to women in employment. It can be easier dealing with the requirements of a child and juggling work for women who are their own boss as they do not have to deal with the prejudices of their employer.

It is critical that some home help is arranged quickly otherwise both mum and child could be affected. Busy mums will not just have to take care of business as usual but also recover from the child birth experience.

For business women finding good childcare is essential if they are to continue working productively after their child is born. This does not necessarily mean that the baby has to left at a day care during the day.

It could simply mean having someone reliable coming to the family home for five or six critical hours every day. This then means that mum can focus on business completely during that time & / or just catch up with some rest.

Power naps can be very useful for mothers trying to cope with lack of sleep. Some people believe that for this to be successful you actually need to be able to fall asleep. This is not really the case as long as you get a rest for a little time during the day where you can let your mind wander without being disturbed in a calming environment.

Some women do feel guilty that they are not around to take care of all the needs of the baby. They shouldn't really as babies are more concerned about quality time than the actual numbers of hours spent. Bear in mind that most newborns sleep sixteen to twenty hours a day and do not even realise that mum is missing.

What about if they have decided to breast feed? Modern breast pumps are very good and milk can be saved for later if mum has to attend a business meeting or is unavailable. This means that it is still possible to completely breast feed whilst running a business.

In some ways the arrival of a baby can serve to motivate the mother even further to achieve more in business now that they are not just working for themselves…

Some people will argue that it is not possible to juggle a business and still rear a newborn child successfully. I tend to disagree. Nothing could serve to make an ambitious female entrepreneur unhappy and suffer from post natal depression more than an enforced period of absence from the very business that drives them.

Have you had a child and had to work or run a business before & during the first year after birth? How did you cope? What issues did you face? Share your experience here.

Labels: 5 Ways to Avoid the Biggest Bottleneck In Your Business, Babies, Female Entrepreneurs.

5 Preparation Tips For A Successful Home Business

By Jeannet Snow

Many people mistakenly believe that all home businesses will hit the ground running. Just like any other company or store, a home business requires the same things from an owner: capital investment, time, effort, diligence, interest, and so forth. More importantly, if you’re not willing to make the necessary adjustments and changes, it’s very unlikely that your home business will succeed.

5 Preparation Tips for a Successful Home Business

Are you truly committed to attaining success for your home business? If so, be prepared to make the following changes.

The main appeal of home businesses to most people is its personalized touch. Most products of home businesses are either handcrafted or homemade. These products are the result of a labor of love rather than machines. It’s what drives their prices up, and if you’re not ready to do the same for your home business – you’re going to find it very hard to market your products anywhere.

In relation to that, home businesses must be unique. You need to dedicate a good amount of your time prior to opening up your home business in thinking of any way that would distinguish your home business from all others.

Flexibility is one of the key advantages of home businesses over its bigger rivals, and your home business has to show their ability to become flexible as well. There are various ways that a home business could be flexible where a large company wouldn’t be able to. Your home business could focus on one or multiple ways, depending on your preferences and capabilities.

It could be flexible with its payment method. Since a home business is almost always small in size, you have the opportunity to build a solid relationship with your suppliers, partners, and clients.

The strong foundation of trust between both of you allows for uncommon payment methods. Whereas any company would never dream of sending the goods first before receiving payment – you could afford to do that because you personally know your clients.

Customizing options are also a must for almost all home businesses. With bigger rivals, designs of their products are rarely customizable since they are already pre-made. Home businesses, however, can’t afford to have large stocks in inventory. Most of their products are sold on a by-order basis, but they compensate with the waiting period by allowing clients to customize certain features like the color and design of their product. This may seem like a small thing, but it truly means a lot to clients!

Home businesses more often than not find success in the Internet. It’s through the Internet that they’re able to get much needed exposure and have the chance to stand on equal ground with older and bigger rivals. It’s there that they’re able to expand in size and number.

If you want your home business to succeed, you must be willing to invest in learning how things work in the Internet. You must understand how search engine optimization (SEO) works and use it when creating your own website.

Last but not the least, always remember that home businesses start with you: at its first stages of operation, it’s important that you personally oversee your home business. Hiring help is okay, but delegating everything to them is not. The time for delegating will soon come – you don’t have to worry about that – but for now, it’s your own blood and sweat that’s going to make your home business progress.

Labels: 5 Preparation Tips For A Successful Home Business

Outstanding Managers Know How To Delight Their Staff – Do You?

By Jeannet Snow
The success of an organisation does not solely depend on management but on the work of its staff as well. An employee that enjoys his or her position and feels rewarded by their efforts will ultimately be the most successful in their careers and the most beneficial to the company.

There is nothing like being around happy, satisfied staff that bring their optimism and productivity to the organisation. These are the employees who are the most attentive to the needs of the customer and strive to go that extra mile to be the most helpful.

A positive attitude is contagious and can change the attitude of every staff member around. However, just as a positive mindset is easily spread, so is a negative one. If a member of the team is unhappy, watch out! His or her negative attitude can become infectious - contaminating fellow co-workers and customers alike.

Pessimistic employees can breed an atmosphere of low morale which equals decreased productivity, employee turnover, and unproductive time spent gossiping and complaining among co-workers.

In order to combat negativity in the workplace, it is essential that employees experience ongoing motivation from management to perform their work to the best of their abilities. Regular contact with employees is necessary to show that you care about their contributions.

Another way to beat low morale is to develop an employee satisfaction survey. This is an easy, anonymous way for employees to voice their concerns and problems without being identified. Issues that are brought up from the survey can be addressed during an organisational meeting.

Extra ways that an employer can construct an environment that motivates employees include:

~Staff lunches
~Holiday celebrations
~Employee of the month
~Continuing education programs

An organisation that recognises that its employees are valuable and deserve to receive a certain amount of praise and recognition will benefit from increased productivity and employee satisfaction and retention, which in turn, will positively affect customer satisfaction. Otherwise, the expense of training each new employee so that they may excel in some OTHER organisation is foolish, time-consuming and expensive.

Management with the "easy-come-easy-go" mentality creates conflict, confusion and quite a bit of turnover in the workplace. Nothing positive can be gained by treating employees in such a manner. It's no wonder that some employees treat their positions as a 9-to-5 job.

Any organisation can make changes for the better and help create an environment that is conducive to employee happiness. After all, the success of your business depends upon it.

The organisation with the right approach will be the one to reap the rewards of success.
Labels:Outstanding Managers Know How To Delight Their Staff.

Woman business loans: offers easy cash flow

By Jeannet Snow

To enhance the spirit of business women in the business, today business loans are offered to the woman so that they don’t get interrupted due to lack of cash. Woman business loans help the women to meet ever rising expenses in the business with easy cash flow.

Woman business loans are designed keeping in mind the basic necessities that business woman comes across in her business. No doubt, capital requirement of the business varies from the type of business i.e. higher if you are starting a new business compared to the seasoned business.

Therefore, woman business loans can be used for varied purposes like buying new machinery, furniture, patent, raw material etc. for the new business. Whereas, in seasoned business, business loan can be used for business upgradation, business expansion, recruitment or day-to day expenses etc.

While availing woman business loan, a woman must know that they can avail either secured or unsecured business loan for smooth cash flow i.e. depending upon the borrower’s financial and credit history.

The secured business loans are taken against the some collateral so that it is placed against the security. Collateral can be borrower’s land, office premises, machinery etc. Therefore, in secured business loans, borrower enjoys the larger amount at cheaper rates and for longer time frame.

On the other hand, unsecured business loans do not require any collateral though interest rate charged is relatively high compared to secured loans. The best part of unsecured business loan is that they are approved within shorter time period as no time is utilized in the collateral evaluation.

Women with adverse credit i.e. poor or bad credit like CCJ’s, IVA, defaults, bankrupts or arrear holders can also access woman business loan. However, proper and diligent repayment can even improve their credit rating.

Woman business loans are easily accessed through banks, financial companies and online lenders. So while opting for the woman business loan don’t rush in making a fast decision as you must compare and contrast the interest rates, repayment option etc for a suitable deal.

So, if you have an innovative idea in your mind for your business doesn’t worry as for you, woman business loans are designed.
Labels: Woman business loans: offers easy cash flow.

You, Too, Can Use Video in Your PowerPoint Presentation

A step-by-step guide

By Carl Fink

when you're speaking to an audience, you want them to be thinking about your message. They should be focused on you and what you're saying. You want them swept along, totally locked-in and following your flow.

It doesn't help if you have to stop in the middle of a presentation and say, "Now just a minute while I switch to a different system and play this short video."

The easiest way to avoid this is to combine all the components of your presentation into a single package. If the video is actually included in your PowerPoint presentation and stored on your laptop, that's one whole source of delay and fumbling
eliminated. You simply press the Enter (or other) key on your keyboard and the video plays.

Tools

Of course, you'll need a computer equipped with Microsoft PowerPoint to follow these instructions. The details of this article will involve PowerPoint 2003 running on Windows XP Professional. Only slight changes should be needed with other versions of PowerPoint or other operating systems.

In order to use video well with PowerPoint, you will need a video editing program. I use DeskShare's Video Edit Magic. If you use a different editor, you will have to adapt these instructions.

If the video you will be using comes on a DVD, you may need a program to "rip" the DVD video to a computer file. Video Edit Magic can read DVD video directly, so I won't be using a ripping program in my example.

How

Let's do it. Let's say that I'm going to speak about HyperPackaging at a trade show. HyperPackaging has a great corporate video, about two minutes long. I want to open with two slides, then show the video. The steps in doing that are very simple:

1. Prepare the video.
2. Embed the video into the presentation.
3. Set a "trigger" to tell PowerPoint when to play the video.
4. Package the presentation and video.

Preparing the Video

The preparation procedure will vary depending on how you get the video. If the corporate video is on videotape, I would have to "capture" the video to turn it into a file. Video Edit Magic has a built-in ability to capture video from digital cameras and players (see Figure 1), so that’s easy. If the video is on DVD, you could just copy the video files off of it and edit them. (Some other video editors will not work with DVD files.)

Once the video exists as a computer file, you will often need to edit it. During a presentation, you will generally not want to show long video segments, so you may need to chop out pieces of a longer video. For instance, if you have an instructional video on a company product, you might want to cut out a 45-second long portion to use in a presentation on the product. Long video segments can be a problem in presenting—keep the pace snappy so your audience stays focused.

You can also change other video properties, but for this example I'll assume that everything else stays the same.

Most video editors will save the final movie in several different formats. For incorporation into a PowerPoint presentation, I favor WMV (Windows Media Video). You can create high quality WMV files at very reasonable sizes, and because it’s a standard file type, almost any computer (including many non-Windows systems) should be able to play the video. That's especially important if you don't know in advance what computer you will be using.

Once you have created your video segment, it's a good idea to store it in the same directory (folder) that your presentation is stored in. Putting all the components of your presentation in one place makes it easier to find them.

Now we can include the new video segment in the presentation. Figure 2 shows Slide 3 of the presentation. To add a video segment, I just open the Insert menu and choose Movies and Sounds, then select From File. Select the movie you just created and it appears in the PowerPoint file. You are prompted to have it run either Automatically, or When Clicked. If you select Automatically, as soon as you navigate to Slide 3 in your show, the video will play. If you want to introduce the slide, choose When Clicked.

It's that easy. Most of the work in using video in presentations is in the preparation of the video. Actually adding and using the video is simple.

Additional Options

There are some fancy things you can do. For instance, you can control whether the movie loops, or have it rewind back to the beginning after playing. These Movie Options can be set by right clicking on the movie and choosing Edit Movie Object (Figure 3). One especially useful thing you can do here is mute the video’s sound. If you're going to be narrating the video yourself, you don’t want to have to talk over the built-in sound track, and muting it in advance means one less thing to remember just before your talk—muting the computer volume.

The Movie Options window is also where you can tell PowerPoint to play the movie in full screen. The full screen option is especially good if you’re going to show a longer piece of video, where the PowerPoint framing it would be distracting. For shorter pieces of video, I recommend leaving the video in a window, to maintain continuity with the rest of the presentation.
One subtle point: If you distribute handouts printed from your presentation, they will show the first frame of the movie on that slide. If that isn't the best illustration for your handouts, you may want to put a different image there, maybe from later in the video, while printing handouts. Video Edit Magic has the ability to convert individual frames into JPEG snaps, which can easily be included in a presentation.

Distribution

After you put a lot of effort into a really good presentation, you probably don't like to just use it once and put it in a folder forever. If it goes over well at one trade show, it'll probably be used at others. And maybe versions will be sent to everyone in sales to use with customers. You'd hate to have each of them have to individually hunt for the video files.

The first time I used this technique (years and several versions of PowerPoint ago), I confidently put my presentation on a disk, carried it to the remote location, started the slide show, and discovered that I didn't have the video. Insert Movie does not actually copy the video information into the PowerPoint file. What's stored in your presentation is a pointer to the location of the video file. That's great if everything is on your laptop, not so good if you’re in another city with only some of the materials for your presentation.

PowerPoint has a built-in answer. The Package for CD feature lets you combine the PowerPoint presentation itself, along with all associated sounds and movies, into a single package. Just click File, then Package for CD. (See Figure 4.) You can name the presentation, and save all the files, either directly to a CD, or to a folder. (If you like to carry presentations on your USB drive, the folder can be there.)

Now click the Options button. (See Figure 5.) You can choose to include the PowerPoint Viewer. That's a small program that lets you display your presentation on Windows computers that don't have PowerPoint installed—very useful if you'll be presenting on a borrowed system. If the presentation contains trade secrets or time-sensitive information, you can password-protect your presentation, but be aware that the encryption in PowerPoint is not especially strong. Password protecting these files is more of a way to prevent accidental viewing than industrial espionage.

For CDs, the default setting has the presentation (or presentations) play automatically. If you prefer, you can turn that off here. (Auto-play is very annoying if you're just going to be copying the files onto the computer’s hard disk. There can be a delay of up to a minute or so while the presentation loads and starts to play before you can close it and start copying.)

Once you're selected the options, click either Copy to CD or Copy to Folder, and the presentation package is created. If you Copy to CD you'll be prompted to put a CD in the CD drive.

Finally

Every experienced presenter knows this, but you should run through your presentation at least once with the final setup before doing it for an audience. If you're using sound from your computer, be sure the computer is plugged into the room's sound system as well as the
Projector—you really don't want to depend on the built-in speakers in a laptop to fill an auditorium.

And don't obsess about the technical details. One reason for using this technique is to let you relax more when you're actually speaking, and not have to worry about flipping switches and changing software. Have fun!

Using the techniques in this article, you can simplify your job by including all your presentation materials, including video, in a single package that can be carried on a single disc. The key step is editing the video in advance. By doing that, and combining everything into one presentation, you free yourself from the need to change connections and software and load DVDs or tapes while you’re in front of the audience, and to give your full attention to the most important part of your job: communicating with the audience.
carl@deskshare.com.
http://www.presentations.com/msg/content_display/pre