Flowing With The Tide

Archive for the ‘Commerce Opps’ Category

So how many distinct approaches can you come up with to stimulate more customers for your company? Have you considered utilizing telemarketing? Just by applying the proper procedures and proficiencies you could enhance your profit margins. Good guidance and aid could permit you to make the best use of all those free leads and construct solid business partnerships with many of your customers. The possible benefits are wide-ranging – so why not give cold calling a test run now? Make sure you get yourself prepared first. Choosing any old number in the telephone directory is not a good use of your time. Use a method of identifying the best business leads and chase those opportunities. Your sales team only want to telephone potential clients.

Calculate what makes a promising lead. Identify the similarities that connect those clients. Which problems are facing them? How can your business help them to overcome those issues? Insert all of this information into an organized business plan, referencing targets for your marketing teams to aim at. Everything they discuss during a telemarketing call should center on these subjects. Creating the proper telephone script is crucial. Make sure it addresses every vital piece of information about your company, as well as the services you are offering.

Naturally, it is important that your sales staff obtains the trust of potential customers within the very first call, so that your business is able to turn all of those leads into confirmed sales. Trial different approaches and record which are are likely to fail. Monitor those leads which you pursue and which clients you contact, while also tracking their requests for supplemental info. You can use this info to indicate your progress and center your attention on those which might give results within future telemarketing calls. This process may help reveal models for formulating additional possibilities. Very quickly, these ideas could see your profit expanding. You will notice your customer list broadening and the name of your company enlarging. Doing it correctly is important, however. By sticking to these tips, you’ll be able to make the most of your leads and will soon commence enjoying the benefits. To find out more, you could search on Google for, say, telemarketing campaign.

Norman Steisel, by way of his consulting work, seeks to deliver solutions to businesses across various business sectors. His foundation for providing reasoned advice and sound business approaches is his prior know how as NYC Deputy Major as well as Sanitation Commissioner, along with his investment banking experience. This broad experience allows Norman Steisel to offer unique insight to company’s looking for forward-looking ways to advance their businesses.

Norman Steisel lends a special perspective to business consulting. His consulting work benefits from his prior experience as an investment banker. In 1986, he joined the investment-banking firm Lazard Freres & Company. This was a bountiful professional expertise for him as he garnered a deeper seeing of, and knowledge in, environmental corporate and municipal project financing activities. This permits him, today, to render consulting services that can help companies that undertake the similar initiatives.

He was most recently Executive VP, Chief Operating Officer of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. He took part, as a key member of the Exchanges strategic management team, in analyzing opportunities and direct negotiations with entities interested in purchasing the exchange, which eventually sold to NASDAQ OMX. Norman Steisel was President and founder of EnEssCo Planning, Inc. from 1994 to 2003. He is a previous NYC Deputy Major. In addition, he was the city’s Sanitation Commissioner from 1979 to 1986 – the longest serving official in the 20th century.

Today all of the above and more establish the backbone of the know how that Norman Steisel extends to clients who engage his consulting services. His consulting service has a smart history behind it. He is the founder of EnEssCo Strategies, Inc. and served as their President from 1994 to 2003. EnEssCo Methods pursues green projects for governments and industry. EnEssCo has worked to develop and fulfill strategic marketing and financial plans for companies. An example is their work for a leading start-up biotech firm attempting to exploit pharmaceutical and environmental application of their proprietary technology.

Norman Steisel, with a respectable background in rendering service with merger and acquisition activities, recapitalizations, and debt issuance (in his past role as an investment banker) continues to furnish business-consulting services. His goal is to offer insight that fosters solutions to the issues public and private companies face. Norman Steisel takes the experience attained from his experiences and supplies it to businesses to help them execute programs that help them accomplish present and future growth.

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Do you even know what M-Commerce is?

Well you better learn fast. Predictions in Europe for M-Commerce, the second largest market behind Asia, are for a spend of 7.4 Billion in 2006 that’s over $8 Billion. That’s twice the predicted spend of traditional web services!

So what is M-Commerce?

It’s very simple, mobile / cell phone based sales. Usually relating to content such as games, wallpaper, ringtones etc. But there’s much more to it than that. Keep reading.

What’s the big deal?

More people own a mobile phone than a PC, they’re better integrated in to daily life. People are very comfortable using them. They are now in fact heavily relied upon, as the phone feature is only a small part of what can be perceived as a miniature multi-purpose multi-capable portable computer.

Mobile Growth

Mobile growth already outstrips all other communication channels. Half of all Americans are mobile phone subscribers. In the UK the ownership of a mobile phone is equivalent to 1.5 phones per head of population. According to research, mobile content services will be worth $121 Billion worldwide by 2008. White label distribution of ringtones, images, games and other promotions will drive up to 1/5th of the revenue generated. It’s estimated 1.5 Billion people worldwide own a mobile phone.

With more and more technology add-ons to tempt the consumer these devices are now Cameras, MP3 players, game consoles, voice notepads, picture albums, diary organiser, PDF readers etc etc.

In fact I’m writing this article on my PDA / Phone whilst sat in the sunshine in the garden. With two taps on the screen I can hook up to my home wireless network and check my emails, browse the net, update my Blog or edit and publish article submissions on one of my sites all via broadband.

We are not that far away from always on Net connections. Once this arrives it will allow anyone to do this almost wherever they are. Certainly in the major cities around the world. When this happens there will be a third Internet boom as Joe public try’s out the Net connection again that was always too shoddy to use in the past.

And what will they want? Content! ringtones, wallpaper, games, MP3’s etc

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The real money isn’t even going to be made via a Net sale. The real money will be made via SMS(Short Message Service), MMS(Multimedia Messaging System) and this ones a goldmine…Micro payments.

Recent research has shown a doubling of worldwide revenue from streaming TV and sports bulletin subscriptions. 380 million people worldwide are expected to subscribe to similar services in 2005. Including TV show bulletins particularly from ‘reality TV’ shows, News bulletins or Soap updates.

Big deal you’re not a TV network how can you make some money out of this boom?
I’ll go into that in a second but first I want to go back to those Micro payments I mentioned earlier. The real gold dust.

Micro Payment Profits

Micro payments have been around for a while here in the UK. A smaller land mass has allowed for a quicker rollout of mobile technologies here. Nationwide Network coverage is easier to achieve. I believe the first example in the US to take it mainstream was by the ‘American Idol’ show. Viewers voted for the acts on the show via their mobile phone. They where then charged a small premium for their vote on top of their networks regular SMS charge. Think of the millions of votes that the show attracted and the revenue generated.

That’s micro payments in action.

The beauty of this is that people don’t feel like they’re spending money because they don’t need to whip out their credit card, it’s an easier payment method, usually involving a simple text to a small number and the payment is small. They also trust their mobile for making payments unlike an online transaction.

Any payments made will appear on their next phone bill. People are already used to paying in this way, they’re comfortable with it. Whether it’s to vote for an act on a TV show, for a game download or to grab the latest ringtone.

What have you got that you could take micro payments for?
You should be considering how you can utilise your current website network to tap into this market. Do you offer subscriptions? Is there a service you offer that you could convert to subscriptions.

How Can You Make Some Money?

Here’s a quick example. Your newsletter. Would your subscribers be willing to pay a small premium to have your newsletter delivered directly to their mobile? Wherever they are, without the need to be sat in front of a PC. Thus bypassing the SPAM filter problem and guaranteeing they receive your valuable content. You could sell it as valuable service for your customers with added content not available on your site or via your regular newsletter.

Or offer them up to the minute breaking news in their industry, which they receive as it breaks and not when they check their email five hours later when it’s to late to take action.

Digital artists sell your wallpaper designs direct to the consumer via the mobile phone. New bands forget the record company contract sell your music via MP3’s direct to the consumer. Investment advisors get subscribers to your ‘Hot Tips’ bulletins. Store owners offer a sale bulletin service etc etc

The Future

The omnipresent Google are moving forward with major mobile initiatives. Spending vast amounts of money to stake a claim in this fledgling market. There’s the mobile version of Froogle for one and they’ve also developed mobile business listings specifically for the potentially huge ‘local search’ market. They also offer a free SMS based information service http://www.google.com/sms/ and http://www.google.co.uk/sms/

Another major company Real Networks, creators of Real media Player, recently bought Finnish mobile phone game developers Mr Goodliving for $15M. Essentially buying a back catalogue of high profile mobile games.

NTL a cable TV company here in the UK recently streamed the Grand National, the biggest race horse meet here in the UK, live to Nokia owning subscribers.

This is early days and that’s a small glimpse of the future.

The M-Commerce Market is very different from the online market in terms of what content consumers are currently paying for. The biggest revenue generators online, 70%, are porn and dating sites. A similar percentage via mobile is for games, music and video. Films, that’s another one, Nokia are now distributing Hollywood movies via memory card!

The technology specifically 3G, an always on network with transfer rates of 384kbs a second, is here and trickling into mainstream culture. These devices are in fact capable of 1920kbs. Compare that to GPRS at 56kbs. You don’t need these speeds to take advantage of this market but you should keep them in mind to realise the full potential of where mobile communication is going.

Here’s a brief, eye opening, wish list from consumers for future mobile phone payment abilities:-

10 Use your mobile as a key
9 Marketing communications
8 Retail checkout payments
7 Vending machine payments
6 Flight check in
5 Credit / debit cards
4 Season tickets
3 Loyalty cards
2 Parking Meter payments
1 Mobile Coupon redemption

Getting Started How do you Accept Payments?

Reverse SMS is very popular at the moment. It provides the ability for you to direct consumers to secret download links on your site whilst taking payment through a premium SMS message. Another method known as ‘WAP Push’ sends a link via SMS that automatically launches when the message is opened. You will need to set up your own WAP / SMS Gateway on your server which will require server administrator access to use both these solutions.

But there are other easier solutions a number of websites are springing up that allow you to upload your content available for download, games, video, wallpaper, MP3’s etc . A small fee is taken from each paid download by the SMS Gateway company.

I’ve compiled a list of useful links to a number of the above solutions and I’ve also thrown in a couple of links to ‘mobaphile’ websites were you will find some interesting predictions for the future development of mobile phones along with some real off the wall ideas for making money with mobiles. M-commerce resource list.

To paraphrase a strap line ‘The future’s bright the future’s mobile’.

Darren Yates is the owner of How-to-make-money-online.info a site focused on Making Money Online and Internet Marketing, listing the many and varied ways of making money online. Featuring, resources, thousands of Internet Marketing articles and useful links.

This article comes with reprint rights. You are free to reprint and distribute it as you like. All that we ask is that you do not make any changes, that this resource text is include, and that the link above is intact.

Dial one if you have your credit card handy and would like to speak to an intelligent person, in your own country, who can really help you!

I’ve recently have had some incredibly bad experiences when I have tried to phone some very well-known banks in the UK.

On the first occasion, I was trying to make an inquiry about my father’s bank account. My father is no longer able to look after his own affairs and I have power of attorney which has been registered with his bank.

I dialled the telephone number shown on the statement and my call was answered by a very friendly lady called Anna.

I asked Anna for some information about my father’s accounts. But I was told that I did not have the required authority to be able to access this information. I knew that this was wrong but Anna was convinced.

Anna suggested that I would have to visit the branch where my father’s account is held and see one of their representatives.

I explained to Anna that my father’s account is held at Dorking and I live in Stevenage.

Anna was insistent. “If you can just pop into the Dorking branch and see one of the assistants, they will be able to help you.”

I asked Anna where she was based. And she explained that she was working at a call centre in India. Little wonder then that she did not appreciate that for me to travel to my father’s branch is a journey of about 75 miles and would take approximately 2 hours each way!

My second experience came when I needed to speak to somebody at the Stevenage branch of another bank.

I had not telephoned this branch before and went to directory inquiries to get a phone number.

It soon became clear that the phone number I had been given was for a call centre in the North of England.

Although my call could have been handled quite easily over the telephone, the operator was not able to help. And once again suggested that I pop into the branch. She explained that one of the personal bankers at the branch would be able to help me.

I asked her if she could put me through to the personal banker by telephone. “No,” she said. “I can’t do that. Our personal bankers are not allowed to take telephone calls.”

What an incredible situation!

What is the point of having local branches if we cannot make a telephone call to those branches?

How can it be that the banks expect us to make visits to these branches but not to make telephone calls?

Is there something wrong with my thinking? Or have the banks got this wrong?

After discussing this with some of my colleagues we came to the conclusion that we would like to have an additional choice when we phone the banks.

We would like to hear, “Please press one if you have your credit card handy and are prepared to pay a small charge to speak to somebody at your local branch.”

And incidentally, I was helping some people just this week with their telephone communication skills. One of the ladies on the course is Indian. And I asked to how she felt about phoning a UK business that her call being received by a call centre in India.

“I just hate it!” She said. “Especially when they give a false name and try to pretend that they are based in the UK.”

Now isn’t that interesting.

Derek Williams is creator of The WOW! Awards and Chief Executive for the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Europe.

For more information about Derek Williams visit http://www.MrWow.co.uk.
For The WOW! Awards (including access to a FREE customer service newsletter) visit http://www.TheWowAwards.com

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Fraud Protection on the Short term

The bad guys that have this debit card data are not going to attack online merchants for goods that they will have to convert to cash. They have been walking straight to the ATMs for the green dollar.

The impact on merchants in the CNP world will be minimal; certainly no more than a few numbers of credit cards but probably less. I do not think the CP merchants will feel it much either. Consumers, on the other hand, are going to take a huge hit. As you probably know, credit card holder’s liability is limited to $50 under FTC regulations but I do not think there is any such limit for debit cards. The card holder is responsible for keeping the PIN private and shame on him if it gets out and he does not report the card stolen.

And yes the banks will almost certainly do what they can to keep their card holding customers happy, particularly if the cleaned out account can be traced to a compromised PIN by whoever it shakes out is accountable. Will that responsibility always be traceable? I do not know. But even if the banks in the end cover those losses, the cardholder has to deal with his account being cleaned out and all that goes with it.

Fraud Protection on the long term

The big concern for the merchant, on line and off, is if the consumer confidence disappear. We already have confirmation that confidence in online transactions has been falling a bit. This first debit/PIN compromise by itself is survivable, but if it turns out that it was not a one-time thing and we have all of a sudden discovered that PIN transactions are not as safe as we thought. Well, then on line merchants are in trouble and brick & mortar could be in trouble as well.

And I wonder how long the banks are able to calm down their debit card holders. When will they begin to pass the losses to the cardholders like they already pass them on to the online merchants now? It could become a matter of continued existence.

Much more information about Fraud Protection on this website. See for yourself.

The water purification salesman had been talking to us for what seemed like hours. During a lull in his monologue, I asked if he had a website.

“Yes. In fact, we are the only independent distributors of this product who does,” he proudly beamed.

“So you get a lot of leads from the website, then?” I asked.

“No, actually I don’t think we’ve gotten a single lead from it,” he replied.

“Then why do you have a website?” I wanted to know.

“To have a presence on the Internet.”

A few days later, our home inspector was giving us an update on the state of our house. We had bought it a few years earlier in winter, when snow was on the ground and on the roof, and we thought an update would be a worthwhile investment.

“Do you have a website?” I asked.

“Yes, I do. But, I don’t think a single customer found me that way.”

“Then why do you have a website?” I asked.

“To have a presence on the Internet.”

A lot of entrepreneurs and small businesses are sold on paying for a website because it is important to have a presence on the Internet. For many businesses, that is true. But what does “a presence” mean?

Would you open up a store in the corner office of the fifth floor of an office building, or would you open it up in the mall?

Would you leave the windows bare, or would you fill the windows with merchandise and open the door to make your store inviting?

Would you ignore customers when they enter the store, or would you carefully place merchandise and staff to maximize the revenue from each visit?

“A presence” is only valuable if the website serves a purpose, if it fulfills its goals. Just sitting there, somewhere in cyberspace, is not a sound business strategy. An experienced website marketing consultant can help you determine what goals, if any, are viable for your business website.

Here are a few of the goals you might want for your website:

Online pamphlet.

If you connect with customers by telephone, this is an ideal way to instantly deliver a pamphlet to them. No mailing, no delays, they can even call up your information while you are on the phone with them. This website has to look credible and be choc full of information.

Credibility booster.

If you are selling a big ticket item, particularly one that requires a good reputation, a website can help. This website should look upscale and focus on credibility-boosting content. It is ideal for speakers, consultants and other business-to-business service providers.

Lead generator

One excellent use for a website in many non-retail businesses is as lead generator. The idea is to funnel traffic (website users) into the site and lead them to take action. Such action might be to call you, to request a brochure, to request a free sample, etc. The main requirement for this is the maximum amount of targeted traffic possible, of people interested in what you have to offer.

By way of example, my marketing strategies website serves these first three goals: online pamphlet, credibility booster and lead generator.

Email Address Gatherer

This is really a form of lead generation, but it is unique in that you are not trying to sell through the website, but through an email newsletter (also called an ezine). The website is there primarily to pique interest, and the newsletter is there to build affinity and trust in order to make the sale. You need to have a newsletter set up, and you need targeted traffic.

By way of example, my personal growth website at serves this goal, attracting subscribers to my Daily Dose of Happiness.

Sell

Of course, if you sell hard goods, electronic goods or even many services, you can make the sales right online. You need some form of payment gateway and/or shopping cart, and your website needs to be able to make the sale from start to finish, which is not always easy. Of course, you also need customers in the form of targeted traffic.

By way of example, my liquid vitamins website at serves this goal.

What you want your website to achieve should dictate the look, the structure, the content, the writing style and whether or not the site is optimized for the search engines. Before investing any more money of time in your website, invest the time required to determine the goals you want your website to achieve.

Or you could be like that water salesman or my home inspector, satisfied with having “a presence”. Of course, many people go through life having “a presence” on Planet Earth, but most entrepreneurs I have met are go-getters. If “a presence” is not good enough in the real world, why settle for it in the online world?

A website should be an investment, not a cost. If your website is not working for you, or if you feel your business should have a website, determine realistic and useful goals, then set your website up to achieve them.

Maybe you don’t need a website at all. Or maybe your website could double your profits. Either way, don’t let it sit there gathering dust somewhere in cyberspace.

David Leonhardt is an effective seo consultant and a website marketing consultant..