While a letter can be a very powerful tool for beginning a new relationship with a key decision maker, it is limited in terms of what we can realistically expect readers to do once they have read it.

Practically speaking, unless readers have a burning need for your services, they will not pick up the phone. Thus if your call to act is limited to Give us a call today to discuss your…you will never hear from a good percentage of your readers. And that will be a setback for your business since there are likely to be lots of people who would like to learn more about you but are reasonably suspicious of leaving themselves open to a full-bore sales pitch.

However, if the call to action is for more information, you will find that a large chunk of your readers will take that next step.

That’s you can say the role of a Free Report.

This is a must

Your Free Report should build standing for you and move the probable client forward to the next step in the relationship building process. If your reader puts down the report without taking that next step, then your report hasn’t completely done its job.

What you want to do first is…

Develop an attention getting title.

• What initially makes someone want to read your report is….your title. But, most writers don’t give this the thought it deserves.
• When you send out a report your goal should be that people stop what they’re doing, and read it right then.
• When you’re developing your title focus on…results.

That’s what your readers want. That’s what they’re interested in. That’s what they’re going to read.

            Ask yourself, what result do your readers want?

• For a catchy, compelling headline, ask yourself this question; What would accomplishing the goal enable readers to do that they can’t do now?

Here is a fun example that illustrates this. Which would you rather read?

“How to automate your business” or
“How to set up your business so that it runs on autopilot while you play golf”?

Key Point: Identify what the desired result would be and include that in your title.

• . Make sure that your title suggests targeted results. By this, I mean that the more you refer your role in the title, the greater the response and interest. “Time Management for Physicians”, “Tax Tips for the Family Owned Business” can be some good examples.

The bottom line is that your title is critical.

Style

To be completely successful, a report, which makes recommendations, must ensure that the persons for whom the report is intended:

• Read it without unnecessary delay.

• Understand everything in it .

• Accept the facts, findings, conclusions and recommendations.

• Decide to take the action recommended.

It all about the style you adopt to present relevant facts accurately. It also demands that you communicate in a way that is both acceptable and intelligible to the readers.

Selectivity

Careful choice of words can enable you to convey your messages with enough clarity.

Accuracy

Everything you put in your report should be factually accurate. The facts should be capable of being verified. Moreover, your arguments should be sound and your reasoning should be logical. Nothing should be there to misinform, mislead or unfairly persuade your readers. If you do, you will be doing damage not only to yourself but also to your business. Accurate information is essential for effective communication and decision-making.

Objectivity

A report should not be an essay reflecting personal emotions and opinions. You must look at all sides of a problem with an open mind before stating your conclusions.

Make it clear that you have an open mind while writing your report. This will, in most cases, make your conclusions and recommendations more acceptable to your readers. The emphasis, therefore, should be on the factual material presented and the conclusions drawn, rather than on any personal beliefs, biases or prejudices.

Conciseness

Julius Caesar reported his visit to our shores as Veni, Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered). While none of your reports will be as short as this, you should aim to keep them concise. Ideally, a concise report is the one, which is short but still contains all the essential details.

To ensure you do not include material, which can safely be left out, you should not ask: ‘Can this information be included?’ Rather, ‘Is it necessary you should ask for this information to be included?’

Clarity and Consistency

The best way to achieve this is to allow some time to elapse between the first draft and its revision. Try to leave it over the weekend, or at least overnight. If cannot do this, at least leave it over a lunch or coffee break. It is essential to have a period of time, no matter how short, when you can think of other things. In this way, when you come back to the report, you can look at it with a degree of objectivity.

Simplicity

Usually, your report will be as simple as it can be if your writing is selective, accurate, objective, concise, clear and consistent. Do not oversimplify… for example to the point of missing out information, which the reader needs to fully understand… You should again keep your readers firmly in mind and keep asking yourself whether they will be able to follow the logic of your presentation.

Avoid Pointless Words

Some words and phrases like basically, actually, undoubtedly, each and every one ,during the course of our investigation … keep cropping up in reports. They add nothing to the message and often can be removed without changing the meaning or the tone. Try leaving them out of your writing. You will find your sentences survive, succeed and may even flourish without them.

 

 

What’s there in a plan?

So there you are! You have come across a great business opportunity and have decided to get started. You are excited, and if possible, you want to start from tomorrow. But wait! You are driving too fast, and may be heading for a crash! 

Without a proper business plan, your ride may be as rough as a runaway roller-coaster, that is heading for a free-fall.
Just as a building project needs a blue print plan; your business also needs a plan…even if it is a small business.

The importance of a well laid out business plan cannot be stressed much, before you really dig into it..

“How do I plan and set targets, if I don’t have the faintest of hint what I am going to get out of it and within what timeframe?”..is what you may ask.

Right you are. But your business, should have a proper groundwork to start with. Drawing up a plan is a must to convert the potential of a business into success..
Remember, in any business nothing will happen overnight but you can be rest assured that the businesses that begins with a plan reach their goals quicker than the others.
A proper plan will even make your potential investors feel comfortable about your Company before they invest.

To define it, a Business Plan is the foundation, or rather a springboard, towards the establishment and growth of a new business. It is also an essential tool for companies who intend to raise capital by floating shares. You need to design and prepare such plan professionally that caters the need of investors.

The best plan is the one that reflects your business through the investor’s eye and answers all the concerns of a potential investor.

Reasons for a business plan

Let me tell you that the reasons for compiling a plan will vary from situation to situation:

·          If it is a new business you need a plan to clearly evaluate every aspect of the business and show how it will succeed.

·          If you are acquiring an existing set up you will need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the business to determine whether it’s within your capacity to make it a success, and draw your plan accordingly.

·          If you are already into a running venture and need extra finance for its expansion, your plan should be tailor-made for your potential investors.

·          If you are applying for one of the many grants available, get your plan in that way.

Some tips

·         Plan your business in your own style, in a way, that meets your needs as well as of your customers.

·         The entire business plan should have your ideas in the focus.

·         When you compile a business plan it should have a

ü  Cover page,

ü  A list of contents,

ü  Background information,

ü  Descriptions and range of the products, and services being offered, the market plan, the managerial hierarchy, business operations, financial plan, and then…

ü  A well-written conclusion.

Hope, you got the catch…the intention of your business plan should ideally point at the strategies, goals, and resources of your business.

Look before you leap

·      Even a football team is not taken into a game without a “game plan”, though it’s only a game. So when you venture out into something as important to its future existence as an e-business initiative, a clear-cut “game plan” or strategy is very very vital. But, recent surveys show that almost 60 percent of the enterprises doing e-business do not have a clearly articulated and well-documented e-business plan.

·         Here, a business plan need not have to be elaborate, just well thought out. If you remember what the Cheshire cat told Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are going, it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

·         Your e-business strategy is your road map to a successful implementation of your project. Just hosting of a site is not enough; it must be strategically positioned in order to make your investment pay off. If you don’t do it right, someone else will… that’s how business goes.

E-Business is a lot more than a web site

·         It’s not very uncommon for companies to mix up their corporate websites as their e-business strategy. The web site should be thought of as an enabling technology and not a business plan in itself.

·         You must have visited the web site of a company that you have always respected, and found it disappointing and your experience there left a lot to be desired. A poorly thought-out web site can quickly turn off customers that have taken years to attract and nurture. So why do so many companies pay so little attention to getting it right? Think it through…it’s all because, a proper plan was lacking, while the website was being developed.

To be there, from here

·         No need to panic, it is time you do your business and think about your possible e-business strategies. If your customers and suppliers are in the development stages of e-business application systems, you cannot be left in the dark when they are themselves looking for compatible customers and suppliers. This is the time you plan, instead of when you are required to take your business elsewhere. By beginning the strategic planning early, you can plan to implement systems in smaller more manageable paths. Smaller & manageable steps also ensure more flexibility & adjustability to newer technologies and ideas.

·         To remain in the race you need to decide upon the ways and means of purchases and sales of your products and services in an online environment. You might as well begin the business planning process right now, before it is an emergency.

·         So, to start out a successful e-business initiative, first make it sure that your project tallies with your long-range business plans and goals… and you have a business to run. 

·         Yes, you can always seek help. But remember, before you hire a wizard to develop a whiz-bang web site, you need the direction, which can be rendered only by a well thought out e-business strategy.

 

Here’s a lesson I learned from Eben Pagan, who is one of the business people who had a  big influence on me lately.

“Give your BEST stuff away. For free!” is what he says. And he explains it very interesting.
It won’t work for ANY business, I am sure, but here’s my 5 cents:

It is always a challenge to figure out what to give away free.  You do have to explore the art of giving away more for free but at the same time attract more in return.  It is an interesting mental exercise and doing business online takes the whole ‘chicken and egg’ riddle a step further.

Now you must be wondering as how “give things away for free” concept goes with the ‘you get what you pay for’ mantra.  Therefore, you must be thinking, if you are going to get something free you are about to get a lot of headaches trying to make things work.  But amazingly some of the best online services are free and they have wonderful customer service and products.  Now, let us see how they make money and sustain their businesses over time.  What is it about the web that makes giving away things for free so necessary and easy? 

The Free Line..

The idea is that there is a line, a point on your sales funnel where you distribute free value, and below the line comes all the paid-for products, moving from front to back-end.

In the world of Internet marketing the concept of the sales funnel is well known. The process of moving customers from free resources, into paid front-end products down to high margin back-end items, has made millions for many Internet entrepreneurs.

The whole of process begins with some free resources and nearly everyone online has experienced this part of the sales funnel, like a blog you read. A blog is a “free resource” that the owner offers to the world that at least in some part and the blog contributes to bringing people into his sales funnel.

So, propel readers away with free content and then sell them on your paid stuff once they trust and value you!

 

How it can help your businesses.

Moving the Free Line

If you ever talk to an Internet marketer, you will know the idea of the free line moving further and further down the sale funnel. What was previously a front end product you had to pay for becomes a free resource sitting above the free line.The argument generally put forward is that moving the free line ever further down is one of the techniques you can use to beat the competition.

If you have a well constructed sales funnel that enables you to distribute more value for free, then you can out-value others and can also offer better commissions to affiliates. This secures more traffic and customers. So, it is about extracting the highest profit from the back-end and provide the most value above the free line.

Give Away Your Best Stuff

The principle is quite simple – you must give away some of your best content in order to capture attention. Content is the force that drives traffic online, and if you give so much quality for free, more links are connected to your site, which means…. more traffic, enhanced credibility, more exposure, and  more sales !

Remember that web users expect things to be free. This is why if you intend to do anything online, you better be giving it away for free.

No copying but Innovation

You also need to know that releasing a free e-Book and replicating what others have done is not going to cut the ice. A super-duper content can still draw huge amounts of attention. An e-Book format with old resources and formats will not make a splash. This is exactly why the concept is about MOVING the free line – you need to innovative ways to provide and distribute value.

Sometimes one of the best ways to make a splatter when offering free value is to use innovative delivery methods. , like you can conduct a live web-stream of your event or release a  great video content for free as part of your launch process and break the die by asking for email addresses of the visitors.

You should not be surprised if you find membership sites, videos, audios – even physical product like home study courses, DVDs and audio CDs floating above the free line. This can be a good marketing tool to generate more and more business.

Expect the first adopters of these techniques to come from the Internet marketing industry, since this place is already saturated with free content. From there it will seep down into other industries. Imagine how you can do with this concept like the free line if none of your competitors understands it!

How Does Moving The Free Line Affect You?

If you are already in an online business then you already work on some level to provide free resources. If you don’t, you must be struggling to build up traffic. Consider what you currently offer for free and brainstorm how you can go one step further and wow your potential customers with your free content. Always remember to use unique delivery methods and always plan to offer more for free in the future.

If you haven’t yet established enough free resources then your job now is to work on building up a store of value for others. With time, your previous efforts will continue to offer value, while your current activities can move towards producing content for front-end products and eventually back-end offers.

As a blogger, your main free value is the content you publish. The next step might be to build up a free email auto responder course, with five training emails set to go out in a sequence. Free distribution of a catalogue of videos or audios can also be a smart idea to attract traffic.

So, you can see..the options are limitless. What’s important is that you realize the thrust you get of these over deliveries and expect the free line to move further down over time.

 

You can’t stay in business if you are not driving forward, breaking in new ideas and in return, asking for nothing but attention.