It is important to recognize the challenge and work out a mental strategy without panicking. There are many survival kits available in the market these days. These can be books of other successful businessmen, or some other web resources. One can take help of financial advisors. Patience is the key factor. Market and economic trends change with time. So it best to move slowly and steadily till the tide and storm dies down. Any impulsive decision may just drown the business.

Its best to keep the chin up, not to think about the failures, take all employees into confidence, get strength from customer base, keep all communication channels open, have a good backup ready and never over react. A single hurried decision may trigger the ruin. It may not be time to count losses yet.

Crisis management is important both in business and as well as in life. We need to have strong character for survival and success. Only challenges can make our character and souls strong to face much tougher terrain ahead.

Image

source: StartupNation

Most search engines are programmed to do a local search and display the best optimized results on the screen. Hence, for any business enterprise being on the top in the search lists matters a lot. Net users rarely dig deeper, the more earlier visible one is the better. And how do search engines optimize and come up with lists? Well, most search engine algorithms incorporate ratings and reviews of the services as well. So, how one is rated and the number of reviews one gets can make a huge difference to where one stands in the search listings!

Online interaction and review from customers can help in connecting with more customers. Rave reviews and high ratings can boost business while negative reviews and low ratings can do much damage. Hence, it becomes very important to keep an eye on online reviews and improve upon the areas of complaints.

Good service and constant improvement has become more important in modern world. Just advertisements don’t sell the products, customer feedback and satisfaction can improve the visibility and sales as well!

source: clickZ

Much of our time in a day goes in checking and replying to emails that are sent from all over the globe. We almost always feel annoyed to see the number of Spam email making their way in to our inbox and wonder how so many legitimate ones are classified as Spam and you end up not reading them at all! However, Inbox itself can be a great tool to assist in social networking and make you social media friendly. If you haven’t added some of the add-ons and applications that make your inbox a better place, then you probably are missing out on a lot of features and utilities. It really doesn’t matter which email client you use because most of the clients can be used with this amazing add-ons that may keep you well connected and make you more social.

Xobni can be used with Outlook and helps you access extended information about those who send you emails. OutTwit is a great toolbar that lets you send new posts to Twitter if you were looking for an add-on that could revolutionalize your Outlook address book, you would certainly like Plaxo with Pulse. You could also get RSS feeds to your Outlook and that would notify you of new blog posts, if not only that. Outlook can also help you with checking other people’s calendars so that you know when to contact them but the firewalls within an organization might prevent you from doing so. TimeBridge is the best solution for such a situation.

Google’s Gmail comes packed with many cool features but add-ons are always welcome. Xoopit enables you to watch all the YouTube videos and Flickr pictures as and when you want. Better Gmail, which is a Firefox extension, comes with cool features such as attachment icons, filter assistant, label colors and many other facilities. gDisk and GetSpace allow you to use Gmail’s space to store what you need. Gmail + Google reader and Remember the Milk are other cool add ons you may want to try out.

Apple Mail isn’t far behind and Soocial lets you sync your contacts from Mac OS. httpMail Plugin for hotmail accounts, MailTags and MiniMail for better interface, RSS feeds, and ability to add gmail to Apple Mail are some of the cool ad-ons. Now some of us just love using Mozilla Thunderbird and for those of us, there is the Feed Mailer for RSS feeds, SMSClient for sms, SixSense Toolbar to locate friends, Apple Mail which makes your Thunderbird look like Apple Mail, Zindus that lets you sync your address book with Google, and Contacts Sidebar for better access to your contacts. Though all these add-ons look really good and promising, you may have to make sure you install each at a time, try and then use the ones that you really want to. Unnecessary downloads may result the client crashing. Managing your inbox may just be the right way to help yourself have a better social life online.

Image

Via: Mashable

If you were not aware, LinkedIn provides professionals a platform to exchange information, ideas and opportunities. With the help of LinkedIn you could stay informed about what is happening with your contacts or your industry. It also helps you find the right people and the knowledge, which you so badly need to achieve what you want to. A profile on LinkedIn may also help you manage and control your professional identity online. Now you might be wondering why we are talking so much about this already well-known platform.

Here is how LinkedIn could improve your situation professionally. LinkedIn helps you learn more about your employer’s work ethics and sell yourself to potential employers. It is always important to introduce oneself to new people in the industry and this forum helps you do just that. You could join groups that have potential employers waiting for someone talented to drop in. Once you are well established online, you could let people know what you like and also reconnect with old friends, colleagues and probably develop romantic relationships as well!

Being at LinkedIn will not only help you professionally but also to find out who went to which rival school and also to keep yourself occupied at the workplace. This may actually sound like advertisements but there are many such sites online. If not LinkedIn, one could always look for other such sites, which may help you to have an online presence and help you with the all-necessary networking. Any b-school for that matter would always encourage its students to not ignore the possibilities that online presence could offer. With such bright prospects, a forum or platform like the LinkedIn could do wonders to anyone professionally and also personally.

Image

Via: MBAExplorer

Social networking and micro-blogging have always been shaping the way advertisements are placed in the virtual world. Though the Internet advertising and revenue from it has been suffering a lot lately, Twitters may not, thanks to a disabled real time tool called the ‘track’. Twitter has also been changing the way we do business and the way we communicate. The greatest thing about Twitter is the ability to track and this tracking helps us to search events as they happen and not after 2 minutes or 2 months later. The immediacy of tracking and the XMPP helps the Twitter to gain bigger audience and help advertisers more than other virtual world based platforms could. However, the Twitter has closed down maybe because of the great services it provided real time, perhaps it is unreliable. If this is the case, then micro-blogging could just be a shower, something that promises a lot but fails to deliver what it is expected to.

Via: SmallBizPod

Brainchild of ex-Google staffer Anna Patterson and her husband, Cuil claims ability to index 120 billion web pages! But Google can scan more than a trillion pages while indexing only useful ones. The hype surrounding ‘better than Google’ search engine surely helped in getting finances for the project. But all hopes dashed when it crashed within few hours after the launch! It couldn’t handle the huge traffic. Moreover, those who did get a chance to use the engine have rated it only ‘fair’ on performance.

The only area where Cuil scores is on privacy, it doesn’t store user specific searches like Google does! But this is not a persuasive factor to switch over from good old Google. Many will continue to persist in their endeavor to make something more perfect than Google. But that can only be a good enough excuse to open shops, get finances and work on programs - one cannot improve upon an almost perfect Google so easily!

source: Time

The advent of Internet has given rise to a plethora of professionals and avenues for people to make money and incomes. One of the ways to make money over the net is to write your own ebook. Though that sounds unnerving, it might actually be not so difficult and after giving it a try, you could successfully earn a lot of money. The USP of this profession would obviously be to sell your own knowledge. If you were already in a business, using your experience, expertise and knowledge to write a book would not only help you earn money but also gain revenue for your business and attract customers. Once you write an ebook, you could go ahead and sell your ebook online.

Some of the advantages of writing an ebook include low manufacturing cost if any at all, and you could sell any number of copies you want to anybody and anywhere. You do not have to worry about shipping because it is all about immediate delivery and downloads. You could also update your ebook at any give point of time if you find that necessary. All you might need to spend on is a domain name for yourself and for your website hosting account. Providing information might just be the best way to make money and a little planning will take you a long way. You may want to take a look at Make Your Knowledge Sell, an interesting ebook that could be downloaded for information on how one could possibly write an ebook and also run a profitable business.

Image
Via: BasedBusinessHomeStart

And how did Google launch this browser? In a comic book form! By doing this, the Google team has set a new bench mark for innovating business communication as well. Never before a product and its utility has been explained in such an manner. The word has already spread on the internet via this eComic book which has created much hype and excitement ahead of Chrome’s official release. Thats an intelligent advertising and marketing strategy!

Google is all about team work and innovations. Chrome surely will give a tough competition to Firefox, Microsoft explorer and other browsers. Moreover, Google has already developed sea of web applications which have been great success, so this browser will surely take browsing and internet to another level and expand new business horizons as well.

source: businessopportunitiesandideas

How many times have you organized an event and not many showed up on the day of the event? Many, perhaps. However, it isn’t a very difficult thing to invite people and also get them to be there. It also isn’t difficult to market the invite and all you need might be some amount of planning. Networking and connecting to the right people plays an important role in making your event successful. You could not only connect with those who have connections themselves, but you could also connect with participants at other events which take place before yours does.

NGOs and educational organizations are always a great bet. Sponsors themselves could help you get some crowds and giving free tickets to special groups isn’t a bad idea. Making the event free and sending out direct mails about it is really a very efficient5 thing to do. Getting the audience to participate, featuring the speakers, program development, social networking, using your own friends and of course their friends, email follow ups, reminders, early birds, and even YouTube could help you get the audience you are craving for. Unless you plan the way you are going to get people to visit your event and also use the right tactics, you may not expect the event to be successful.

Via: EdithYeung

Obama’s focus area is more to do with future of workers and worker’s benefits within the corporate sector. Right from raising national minimum wage to making employers offer a health plan or contribute money towards worker’s health cost, Obama’s future action plan ensures future and security of workers. Obama tax reform plans too are more community oriented rather than business oriented. Obama’s policies are not going down well with business houses who are trying too hard to cope up in the times of fluctuating global markets and inflation. They feel more power to employees will hamper future recruitment too.

On the other hand, McCain is extending a long rope to small businesses. Right from his proposal to grant immediate deduction on the cost of technology and equipment purchases to tax reforms and health care coverage benefits all are focussed on reducing the burden of corporates. McCain has also scored by supporting a ban on Internet taxes and cell phone taxes. McCain definitely promises more growth and profit.

US is a leader in global markets, hence US Presidential elections will have global effects. So it will be interesting to watch whether it will be a win of worker and community oriented policies or business and profit oriented policies. Once again its a world divided between workers and business owners!

source: Fastupfront