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The first step in the process of creating the marketing plan was to identify the goals of the research. Goal identification took up ten percent of the overall project time i.e. two weeks. This was done in two steps i.e. clarifying the overall ones and the specific ones. In order to do this, it was necessary to examine the mandate of the project. Besides this, it was necessary to examine the mission statement of the organization because it gave a clear indication of the limits which the project could accomplish. (Herron, 2003) After an examination of the mission statement, it was then essential to look at some of the key issues that needed to be changed in order to improve the current situation within the organization. This was done by looking at the epidemiological repercussions of the current scenario.
In other words, the overall goals were determined by examining some of the problems or negatives that arose out of a lack of the project’s advantages. The goals also had to be made in accordance with the marketing approaches that would later be used to achieve those goals. For instance, business policies within the organization were one example. Secondly, advocacy would also form an important of this plan and so would mobilization. All these items were taken into consideration while identifying goals of the project. The most central part of the goal creation process was identification of the target audiences. These were divided into two categories i.e. the internal audience and external audience. It was crucial to collaborate with the internal audience in order to ask them whether they could carry out the goal of the project. It was also necessary to ask this internal audience what they thought about the situation at present within the organization and also what they thought needed to get done. By collaborating with the internal tem, it was possible to create goals that were indeed relevant to the major players within the organization. Examples of members of the internal audience included employees, other project members, board members and major decision makers within the organization. (Capko, 2004) External audience members were also consulted in the process of goal creation.
This entailed asking them about their take on the issue and whether they would actually perform the proposal’s suggestions. Care was taken to be specific about the major requirements. The goal setting process was done within a specified timeline. Since this would govern the overall direction which the marketing plan could take, then it took up ten percent of the entire project making time. It was also the first process involved in creating the marketing plan. The second process was conducting an audience analysis for the marketing plan. The timeline for this process was a period of three weeks. Audience analysis was important in clarifying those individuals who had already accessed the proposals in the marketing plan and those who had not. Market research formed a crucial part of this phase of the marketing plan. First of all, the available materials on the subject matter were sought. Additionally, it was important to look at similar projects conducted by other organizations. Here, some in-house databases were consulted. The data bases specified issues such postal codes, consumer habits among others. Demographic data was also essential in understanding the type of audiences for the plan. Interviews and focus group information conducted by other researchers were useful resources here. In the second step, it was crucial to inform the media because they would be some of the major outlets for the marketing plan.

At first glance you might think credit building counselors are only for a business that is in trouble and needs to suddenly be building business credit. While that scenario could be true, businesses that help establish business credit are usually right in the trenches with new startups from the beginning. The reasoning is that most of the initial steps you make in building business credit are more labor intensive to do after the fact than to do them right the first time.

Just having credit in your corporate business name does not insure that your timely payments are recorded where they do the most good. Unlike personal credit reports, business transaction don’t always show up when they are good and new credit inquiries or credit shopping is not a black mark for business credit seekers. Also any business credit that requires your personal guarantee is next to worthless when trying to use it for building business credit. However there are exceptions to that rule.

Do you have the time and knowledge to known when and how to obtain personally secured credit and then change options to convert to a business credit card without personal guarantee. Chances are you’re busy running your business and don’t have time to spend on paperwork from numerous financial institutions and banks to obtain business credit cards without personal guarantee. There are also many other credit building tools that have excellent results you might not even be aware of.

The larger the amount of cash money you need to extract with these methods is in direct proportion to your contacts and expertise in the credit field. And you’re not in the credit field, your business is selling widgets and that leaves little time to play in the credit sandbox with that crowd. Research, select and choose a corporate credit counseling firm with the personal credit contacts and industry experience that will help you most.

Businesses that do not have account receivables can use a technique that is similar to factoring to acquire quick cash advances to help their cash flow needs also. What I mean is that a merchant with a monthly amount of credit card transactions can use the number of monthly credit card transactions in place of the monthly account receivables to get quick cash advance loans.

Factoring is a cash flow technique where factoring companies purchase a percentage of a business’s account receivable at a discount in exchange for quick cash advance loans. The factoring company collects the account receivable from the buyer to satisfy the quick cash advance loan. Hence the loan usually is not paid back by the business. The amount collected from the account receivable is kept by the factoring company as payment for the loan.

In like manner, some merchant account companies will provide quick cash advance loans to merchants whose monthly credit card transactions total in the thousands of dollars. When the merchant account provider company receives credit card purchase funds from the buyers, the loan equivalent funds collected is used to satisfy the quick cash advance loan. Hence the loan usually is not paid back by the business. The quick cash advance loan equivalent amount collected from credit card transactions is kept by the merchant services provider company as payment for the quick cash advance loan. The excess credit card collections– amount greater than the quick cash advance loan amount– is processed normally.

I needed to make some big changes in order to fix my cash flow situation and feel more financially secure. I started by changing the terms of my payment policy. A good friend of mine at the time was working for a company called Alliance Payment Technologies. She opened my eyes to something called an Automatic Clearing House. After doing a little research, I realized that this was exactly the solution I was looking for in order to minimize my accounts receivables, without having to go down the dreaded road of accepting credit cards. So what, you ask, is an Automatic Clearing House? In plain English, according to Google, an Automatic Clearing House is a secure, private electronic payment transfer systems that connects all US financial institutions.

Using an Automatic Clearing House helped me to make the changes I needed to stop having large Accounts Receivable balances. So how did they do this exactly? Companies like NetDeposit who specializes in Accounts Receivable Truncation, Direct Deposit, Electronic Check Conversion, Web Check and my favorite Recurring Billing. The Recurring Billing enabled me to have my flat fee monthly recurring projects taken out of my client’s bank account automatically on a monthly basis – no invoicing and no waiting. I also changed how we handled our onsite bookkeeping clients by setting a weekly minimum based on an estimated number of hours worked that would be taken out of the client’s bank account on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. On top of all of this, I also changed my billing to be monthly in order to reflect adjustment bills from if we had gone over/under the minimums in the month for onsite clients set up as recurring. Even though I had changed my billing to be done on a monthly basis instead of biweekly, with this new automatic payment system in place, my receivables would be minimal.

This turned out to be exactly the solution that I had been looking for to solve all my collection and cash flow problems. It made a dramatic impact on my cash flow situation and minimized my collections almost completely. It enabled me to be able to budget and manage my cash flow issues on a more regular basis. So if you have ever found yourself in the position of feeling strapped for cash while you’re waiting on your clients to finally get around to paying you for the services you have rendered, this may be exactly what you’re looking for. In this tough economy especially, you may want to consider minimizing your accounts receivables by using an Automatic Clearing House to collect your fees for you.

As a small business owner you need to be able to invest wisely and profitably. Now you can get investment advice from many places but it is vital that you use your limited assets wisely. Therefore you need to find the best advice you can, coming from industry leaders rather than investment advisers who are basically in a small business just like you are. If this advice comes from a company with no vested interest i.e. you are not paying them and secondly it is a company that you can actually earn money with while you get advice from them, then you are really in a place you want to be in.

As a business owner you should also always be looking at learning new ways to market to your client base. To do this you need to train yourself to do so .Using a top of the line training company with cutting edge systems will benefit you in any business venture you choose and is pretty much a must when you are dealing with competition in today’s marketplace.

In summary small business owners face a hard task each and every day. It is and always will be a battle to survive , especially as the economic conditions worldwide worsen by the day .if you can bomb proof your business by find in a way to earn a second residual income how would that make you feel . I know when I found such a way my life became much less stressful and much more enjoyable.