3 Steps to Finding More CustomersWritten by Kara Kelso
Step one: Knowing your CustomerTo find your ideal customer, you first have to know them. Other than fact your future customer wants your products, what else do you know about them? Ask yourself some of following questions: 1. What hobbies do your customers have? 2. Do they have children? 3. Do they prefer buying online or offline? 4. What are their fears/concerns? 5. What makes them happy? Step two: Finding Your Ideal Customer The next step is a piece of cake! Once you discover what your ideal customer's interests hobbies, and lifestyle is, finding them is easy part. There are TONS of message boards, groups, newsletters, and websites dedicated to specific groups of people. You can do some research to find these places on Yahoo Groups, Ezine Directories, or just by searching. Step three: Discover Your Own Interests Take a minute to realise your own hobbies and interests. Do you like to read and sell coffee or candles? Join a message board that talks about books and get to know others there. Make sure to put your business in your signature line! Use a creative ad such as "Relax with a cup of (your company's name) coffee and a good book", or "Relax with a (company name) scented candle and a good book". Try and get as creative as possible so your signature line really stands out and makes other want to click.
| | The Six Sigma Method And Design Of ExperimentsWritten by Peter Peterka
Six Sigma is becoming a proven approach for businesses and organizations to improve their performance. The spectrum of companies actively engaging in Six Sigma today is wide from industrials like Celanese, Caterpillar, GE, Honeywell, and 3M to service/retail organizations like Starwood Hotels, Sears, and Home Depot. Six Sigma has even started in financial industry with Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase initiating major deployments in past two years. Probably most exciting area is in public and healthcare sectors with success stories emerging from city government and John Hopkins Medical. So what is all this excitement about? Haven’t these quality tools been around for years? Is it just fact that people have strange names like Champion, Green Belt, Black Belt and for chosen few, Master Black Belt? Okay, if it is not names then what? Six Sigma’s success revolves around fundamental elements needed for any successful organization. Six Sigma starts with a vision of delivering products and services to customers with no defects from eyes of customers. For companies it is vital to deliver these products and services at a profit. Once organization has created their own vision of Six Sigma, business leaders need to define their organization’s objectives in numerical terms. These “high-level metrics,” often called big Y’s in Six Sigma, are foundation for identifying project y’s that Six Sigma Belts will execute projects on. With big Y’s in hand, business leaders called Six Sigma “Champions” breakdown these organizational level Y’s into smaller y’s a project leader called a Green Belt or Black Belt can work from. So what’s next, do business leaders take a hands-off management by objectives (MBO) approach of, “I don’t care how you do it as long as you get results!”? For Six Sigma organizations answer is a loud “NO.” Champions do care how projects are executed and have appointed highly trained Master Black Belts to assist and mentor project leaders in applying Six Sigma method to manage their projects. I believe this is key to Six Sigma’s success. In a past life I participated in a high-level meeting with executives from world leader in production of a product we all know. The purpose of meeting and visit was to evaluate a critical new product design. All of high-tech executives were dressed in dark Italian business suits complemented with gold and diamonds. I listened closely to each question these executives asked. I never once heard “how much?”, “when?” or even “why?” – every question was “by what method?.” Methodology is what Six Sigma is about.
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