Personal Standards of Professionalism

Standards of professionalism is a personal choice based on experience and understanding of its benefits. Professionalism gives the perception that you can be trusted and will be consistent in your offerings. To the future customer your value rises as there is a belief that you will follow through on implied and stated contracts.

To be a professional means that you provide high quality service every time and know when you have reached your limits. If you cannot provide this quality service then you state that specifically to give the customer options and raise your trust level. Providing options and referrals is a solid practice.

Professionals are also fair to all of their clients. They are not trying to penny pinch or manipulate others to make more money. They offer a solid service for a reasonable price. They seek to create a positive impression and solid brand image.

Professionals are also capable of keeping up with the skills needed to service their clients. They typically have the certifications and license to support their qualifications.

Professionalism is a personal choice where one decides the type of business they want and how to achieve it. They work to create long-term positive results and are consistent in their approach. .

Being professional has advantages for you and your business. As the reputation and quality of your service rises you will also find that you can draw more customers through word-of-mouth marketing, create higher percentages of return customers, as well as increase overall value of your business. Maintain your focus on your long-term goals and think about how each action and choice leads or detracts from that goal.

Marketing Your Small Business

Marketing a small business can be tricky when you don't have a marketing department or a person to guide you through the process. Small business and large businesses share some similarities but ultimately revolve around scale and market. Large businesses must reach a larger audience in order to keep their operations going while small businesses must reach the "right" audience.

Small business will use different tools such as their local newspaper, door-to-door, passing out cards, social media (i.e. Facebook), and window advertising.

Much of the success of a small business, depending on the nature of that business, will rely on social connections.

Being involved in your local community and attending the business events will help in familiarizing people with your product/services.

The key point about advertising is that it is exposure of your core value. Wherever that is possible and whenever that can happen is important. For small businesses without much of a budget much of it will rely on their capacity to make an impact without much cost.

The success of a small business doesn't only rest on an initial sale but making sure that the sales continue over and over. In a small community this is more possible but it requires positive customer and personalized experience that larger businesses will have a hard time recreating.

Revitalizing Small Towns Through Niche Strategies

Small towns across America are dying as companies pack up and leave for foreign locations taking viable jobs with them. Common complaints from local residents are that young people move away, there is no money to be made here, and amenities are lacking. Rethinking our economic strategies may help in creating a more vibrant economic restructuring of rural areas.

Without a doubt many of these towns are beautiful and offer charm for people who want to get out of the crowded cities. The problem is they don't offer solid employment and are many times too far to commute for busy professionals.

The Internet may offer some advantages in the future to create virtual jobs and help employ people in areas that offer a slower and more family oriented environment. However, this may be a few decades off and many of these towns will continue to decline.

Current approaches should focus on recreating small town cottage industries in niche markets that lead to greater overall growth. While it would be difficult for many of these towns to compete with large manufacturing centers they can create greater focus on a few products that have high market appeal.

For example, a town could focus on creating bicycles that are unique to the location and sold to a wider market. That could be something that isn't well served n the market like bikes for disabled people or bikes for long-distant travel.

Before a town can find their niche industry they will need help in understanding the world market and the many different demographics in that market. When a under-served need is found, even if it is a small market, small towns can focus on building the capacity to fulfill that need.

While niche markets can be subject to market swings which can lead to greater or lesser growth they do offer opportunities to create skill sets that can be used in other industries. Revitalizing small towns takes effort and fore-site. Policy makers should consider the merits of helping local entrepreneurs find products and services that are likely to succeed and employ local workers. Teaching them how to make it happen can go along way.

Coffee Shop Learns to Diversify their Offerings to Earn Higher Income

Small businesses sometimes struggle to make ends meet. They suffer from an inability to capitalize on their niche offerings in a way that leads to higher profit margins and sustainable operations. Much like their larger competitors, they should consider diversification of offerings or specialization into a core demographic.

Lets look at an example in the historic city Dubuque Iowa. A small coffee shop struggles to survive selling coffee and must make a choice to draw in additional customers. They can add more coffee and food items to penetrate their core demographic or they can expand their offerings to draw in a slightly different crowd.

The owner decides that he doesn't want to be in the food business because of over concentration and regulation but decides to instead offer beer and wine. During the morning and day he has plenty of coffee drinkers but as the evening rolls on they die off and the beer/wine drinkers come in. At 9pm the coffee shop turns into a trendy lounge bar.

This is a place for the Iowa hipster. The lap top coffee drinker dots the place during the day and the socializing wine drinker takes over the evening. Their sales increased and their fledgling business draws in a different crowd. They have two routes to  by finding a connection between customers that like coffee and beer/wine drinkers that frequent lounges.

To Restrict or Not Restrict Imports?

U.S. leaders are contemplating new economic policies and there is hot discussion on restricting or not restricting foreign imports as a way of create a level playing field.  Import restrictions must be used wisely and only when necessary least they permanently damage the economy. Those times are defined by abuses in international trade and as a method of seeding American businesses.

Economies are based on competencies of labor. When workers have knowledge and skill in certain areas they have a chance to compete internationally. To gain competencies it is necessary to have companies that employ and train people in those areas. The more jobs that employ skilled labor, the more competencies grow!

A problem occurs when countries like China dump, in violation of treaties and good business practice, products on the American market. Part of their motivation is to kill off American businesses that have no way of competing with ultra low labor and materials cost.

In cases where dumping is occurring, it is helpful to restrict these imports through greater tariffs to give American businesses a chance to grow. Where there is no illegal dumping, import restrictions can be harmful because the general market forces can't be thwarted for long without wild swings of market correction.

Tariffs and restrictions are helpful in the short run to seed businesses and to limit the harm of illegal practices. They are damaging in the long run where American businesses can't compete on their own merit, don't innovate to meet challenges, and live in an artificial bubble paid for by American taxpayers. Import restrictions are a powerful tool and should be part of a larger strategic tool kit to be used for specific purposes. `

Three Simple Rules to Saving Money

There are lots of people willing to give you advice on money. Many of them have something to gain from it while others are trying to give you good advice based on experience. There are three simple rules to saving money that include 1.) spend less than you earn, 2.) understand interest/risk and 3.) . hedge your bets.

1.) Spend Less than you Earn: No matter what you make you will need to spend less than what you earn. If you made $1,000 a week and you spend $800 than you are saving $200 from that period. If you spend $1,100 than your going in debt $100.

2.) Understand Interest/Risk: The higher the risk then the higher the reward. Find investment vehicles that accumulate compounded interest over time and put your money that you saved from spending money into these accounts.

3.) Hedge Your Bets: Try and put money in various places such as your 401K, house, cash, land, Roth IRA, and anywhere else. As the mortgage crisis showed us, find a few different arenas that are not related and spread your money so you don't get caught with no money.

The Need for Researchers to Integrate Fields

Researchers often work in silos and continue to create finite focus seeking deeper and deeper explanations for problems. Over time the lens becomes narrow and the knowledge more specialized. There is a constant search to find the head of the pin and few look back to see where their knowledge aligns with other fields. Integrating fields leads to new insights that would not be possible under traditional approaches to research.

Not one explanation fits all situations making theories limited to contingent circumstances. Comparing and integrating theories helps them to be broad based and apply to other industries in a way that a single theory cannot. Together a bundle of theories is more useful and strong than a single unintegrated theory alone.

For example, psychology, sociology and economics are not different fields but different lenses focused on various perspectives of a similar phenomenon. Psychology looks at the individual, sociology at the group, and economics at financial transactions. Together they are able to provide a better explanation of purchasing behavior than what would be possible alone.

Integrating research is a changing of perception as one takes their own theories and compares and contrasts it to other theories. When it fits well with other fields then one can say their work is comprehensively thought out and supported by a wider body of knowledge. The potential application and use of the theory rises.