The following article provides a high-level summary of some key eCommerce law issues online business operators face in running a website or other eCommerce business. Conducting business online or maintaining a website may subject companies and individuals to unforeseen legal liabilities. The following is a brief survey of 12 key eCommerce law issues to consider:1. Internet Business & eCommerce A good starting point is analyzing a company’s online presence and auditing their procedures to determine how to grow their brand and online influence. As part of this, the company’s agreements and websites should comply with the myriad of laws and regulations affecting websites and online businesses, such as COPPA.2. Domain Name AcquisitionDomains are often the key to an online business, but can present a number of problems. Domain name issues include securing a domain name initially, as well as protecting domain names from adverse parties that attempt to trade off the goodwill associated with the company’s brand. Sometimes, the company needs defense, retrieval, and protection of domain names on the Internet.3. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) ComplianceCompanies operating websites, particularly where third-party content may be uploaded directly, should consider adopting agreements and procedures to shield themselves against claims of liability and copyright infringement. This procedure is sometimes referred to as a “copyright policy” or “DMCA takedown” procedure. Compliance with the DMCA can provide the online operator with a safe harbor from liability.4. Online PrivacyOnline privacy continues to become a bigger issue. With the spread of mobile devices, tablets, and apps, privacy issues are becoming more complex. Companies should consider composing or updating their privacy policies as well as adopting internal security protocols aimed at protecting the online privacy of customers and website users.5. Social Media LawWhile a powerful vehicle to build brand strength and interact with customers, social media can create a number of legal issues for online businesses. A social media policy provided to employees as well as guidelines can be effective steps to reduce risk. A few key areas to consider are employment related use of social media, confidentiality, sponsorship, and branding guidelines.6. Privacy PoliciesPrivacy policies should not be copied from online templates or rival companies. They should be drafted comprehensively to address unique issues of a specific online business and to accommodate future growth. Whether a company looks to collect analytics or more personalized information, the company should focus on its specific business needs and risk factors. Privacy policies should be updated as a business evolves.7. Terms of Use AgreementsTerms of Use (TOU) agreements can limit liability for companies that maintain an Internet presence. These agreements should be optimized to address a company’s specific business and should not be simply cut and pasted from the Internet. What works for one company may not work for another company.8. eCommerce AgreementseCommerce agreements come in many forms such as licensing, advertising agreements, and payment processor agreements. eCommerce agreements should be drafted to address the primary legal risks involved in a particular eCommerce contract or business transaction.9. Online Sweepstakes & GamesOnline sweepstakes, contests, and games create a number of legal pitfalls. Depending on the sweepstake, contest, or game, compliance with the laws of all 50 states as well as the federal government may be required. Registration in specific states may also be required. Online businesses may benefit from guidance as to whether a particular new initiative is considered a sweepstake, contest, or game.10. Domain TheftRecovering hijacked domains can often be difficult and time-consuming. Typically, avoiding domain theft in the first place is much easier than attempting to recover a stolen domain. While difficult, it is possible to recover a hijacked domain.11. Website AgreementsWebsite agreements can be customized to limit legal liability and reduce risks of disputes by analyzing an online business’s intellectual property portfolio, business processes, and brand objectives. Website agreements can be used for mobile applications in addition to websites.12. Impersonation and Username SquattingImpersonation and username squatting can occur when a third party registers a social media account using someone else’s identity. This can result in harmful posts and information being published in social media. Username squatting can also prevent a trademark or brand owner from controlling their trademark. Typically, registering usernames in advance is the best strategy to avoid impersonation or username squatting.While the above identifies a number of eCommerce and internet law issues affecting website and online business operators, an in-depth analysis may be required. For more information, you may want to contact an eCommerce attorney.Disclaimer – As with any discussion of legal topics, this article is intended to be educational only, and is not a substitute for legal advice, nor does it provide legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship with the reader. Please seek legal counsel before making any decisions. Also, please note that this article will likely not be updated, so the law and circumstances may have changed by the time you have read this article.
12 eCommerce Legal Issues to Consider in Operating an Online Business
Easy Telecommunications Inventory
Managing telecommunications inventory for more than just a few locations has always been tedious work. Getting an accurate inventory is the first challenge. Traditionally, companies have paid technicians to visit each of their locations to tone, test and tag the different circuits. Not only is this method expensive (which runs counter to our objective of reducing the costs of telecommunications), but is becoming less and less accurate over time.With the advent of telecommunications competition, and carriers delivering a significant amount of services over T-1 lines, the ability for a technician to tone and test each line to develop an accurate telecommunications inventory is diminishing. Further, this telecommunications inventory process is disruptive. Lines have to be taken out of service and access needs to be coordinated with the building management. Frequently, the site personnel are not technical, so their ability to assist the technician in finding the variety of circuits that may be in use is limited.Fortunately, there are short-cuts that provide a significant comfort level that the inventory is captured “reasonably accurately”. Let’s face it, unless you have 50 lines coming into a location (and if you do, you should consider a more efficient service), using carrier records is a reasonable alternative. If your intention is to reduce your telecom expenses by reviewing your telecommunications inventory, what is important is what you are paying for.You can establish your telecommunications inventory fairly accurately from your billing information, and not spend anything to do it. What you then need is a system the help you keep that inventory up to date and a methodology to review the telecommunications inventory to find cost savings. Finding a web-based tool at little or no cost is the best approach to maintaining a telecommunications inventory over time. With a web-based telecom inventory, you can have individuals at each location manage their own information.
5 Best Android Tablet Finance Apps
For Android tablets, the common reason for buying them may be for entertainment and leisure. Did you know that Android tablets are also proven useful in the financial world? Android has offered so many finance apps in the market which are very much relevant and useful to your every day financial needs. Whether you want the latest finance news or you need to make monetary computations, finance-related Android apps have got it all for you. Here is a list of the five best Android finance apps in the market:1. FinanceEver wanted to have a personal financial planner but you just can’t afford to pay for one? Simply called Finance, Android has come up with a powerful app which strips you of the need to hire a personal planner. Finance is an app which is capable of providing you with the most recent updates about the stock market. The best feature of this app is that it provides you with stock quotes which are very much reliable because they are quoted real-time. This app also syncs well with your stock portfolios which are loaded in Google Finance.2. Real Estate DroidIf it is your dream to be a real-estate businessman someday or to be a licensed real estate broker, then this finance app is the best deal for you. Real Estate Droid comes with features which can, for one, search houses for sale. Once you find a catch, you can search information about its neighborhood with real-time updates. With this app, you can also check out mortgage quotes made by real lenders and compute for mortgage loans. You can always take advantage of the built-in loan calculator.3. FinancistoFinancisto is a finance app that is very much capable of doing many things. For one, it lets you add multiple types of bank accounts and even a multiple number of accounts per type. This means that you can add checking and savings accounts together into your file manager. For both types, you can add more than one account. With Financisto, you can also monitor which among your payments are recurring. Once you see the pattern, you can schedule them to make sure you don’t lag with your payments. This app can also help you create either a short-term or long-term budget.4. Karl’s Mortgage CalculatorIf Real Estate Droid is not enough for your mortgage needs, then you can always opt for a more specialized finance app, which is Karl’s Mortgage Calculator. By using this app, you can calculate how much mortgage you should be paying in the future and you can even visually see the results with its easy-to-read charts and graphs. This app can help you compute for your future payments, given the principal loan amounts, interest rate and terms. Karl’s Mortgage Calculator, however, is limited to supporting interest-only amortization and Canadian computations.5. PayPalAlmost everybody knows of PayPal now. With the PayPal Android app offered in the market, you can do all things you normally do on your PayPal account. The bonus point here is that apart from being able to pay an item, you can also help hasten its delivery process. So, if you’re dying to take hold of that most recent Victoria Secret scent, then you don’t have to wait for the normal number of shipping days just to have it. You can always make it two or three days earlier with this app. With PayPal app at your reach, you can always access your PayPal account anytime you want.
Business Advertisement
Business advertisement brings profits in sales. The key goal of such advertising is to convince the potential buyers to purchase manufactured goods and services. There are various avenues through which the customers get information about the true marketable products and services. These are television, radio, newspaper, magazine and recently online advertisement. The truly marketable product brand has now brought forth a novel integrated tactic that proves rewarding. The maintaining and cultivating the strategy by using the right tools at the right moment and in the right place is extremely necessary. The actual aim of the advertisement is to make people aware of products and services accessible under the brand name rather than selling the product.Significance of AdvertisementProduct publishing plays an important role in creating brand awareness among the general public. The potential buyers are persuaded to reach out for the products. In addition, the satisfied buyers make verbal publicity among the neighbors, friends and relatives. This leads to the increase of profits of companies by increasing its revenue. The expenses of advertisement in turn get good height in earnings. The popular modes of publishing goods and services are newspapers, pamphlets, brochures, magazines, journals and books.Advertising in print media is comparatively cheaper than availing through electronic media. By using this, one can cover a wide range of audiences belong to different age groups. For example, if a brand name is advertised on television the brand would get access to every home and offices, and also in other public places. With time, advertising on the internet is getting more popular. The internet is the most workable platform available till date not only in case of an advertisement, but in case of sharing new and creating universal awareness by sending them to every corner of the world.What Advertising Agencies Do?Many of the firms advertise their products to the potential buyers through their own advertising department. But, others depend upon some advertising agencies for promoting their brands and services. Organizations pay to these agencies for promoting their brand name. They are always there for recommending, and making the most of your advertisement costs of promoting your brand name on the right place.Advertising, therefore, is proper promotion of the products, not selling of items. It helps to give proper information about the brand. On the other hand, it facilitates general people know about the products and to buy the advertised brands more consciously. So, advertising is the link between company and their customers. Advertising not only gives the proper awareness of the products but also offers a nice introduction of the company. Attractive advertisements create demand in the public mind that in turn boost sales of the brand.Online AdvertisingOnline publishing of products and services promote the products in the best way as it is not limited by time and space. The different kinds of advertising sites are available for promoting products. We can select them based on our needs. The different kinds of methods available are Pay Per Click, banner ads, text ads, intext adds, link ads, flash ads, slider adds, hovering adds, pop up ads, pop in to add etc. You can take up as per wish. Online advertising is very specific to the audience. The advertisers use keywords or phrases in their online ads that are employed by the potential buyers in order to search for the products and services. More is, the online ads are region specific also. Banner advertising is a popular form of online advertising. Advertiser can advertise their banner by coming to an arrangement with online companies and publish their banner. It is more cost effective than other forms of advertising. There is just one time start up cost of creating a website. There are no associated costs like postage, storage, repeated design fee etc.A study by Google confirms that nearly 30% of internet-users read newspaper and they are likely to go online to research at least one product that they find in a newspaper. Internet advertising when combine with newspaper advertising can help advertisers to reach to targeted audiences. Whatever may be the media, without advertisement, business owners experience a much harder time to orient the business field in their support.
Making Taxes Easy for Small Business
Many economic scholars see small businesses, to be the largest contributor to economic growth and employment creation on the planet. The ratio of small business, to big business in different countries varies. It is predicted that small business as a collective, will eclipse big business as a force in the economic landscape in future years. Be that as it may, fact remains that small business, is crucial to every countries economic development.Limited research however, has been conducted on a variety of issues affecting small business. The global small business failure rate remains high, at an unacceptable rate of 80%(some say 95%), within the first year of formation. Common concerns about small business are confined to only cash flow problems, and under capitalization. Whilst these two, are major culprits in business failures, they not the only factors. Weak marketing, skills shortages, bad management, capacity are other factors, contributing to business failure. Taxes can also be added to the list as a cause of business failure.Since many start-up businesses cannot afford to procure the services of a tax consultant/ advisor, they eventually fall foul of the taxation requirements of their respective tax authorities.
A small business is treated no different from a huge multinational corporation in many tax regimes around the globe. This treatment comes with its own set of problems. The one being the failure of the small business. Tax authorities, vigorously pursue errant taxpayers, be they big or small. In fact, it can be proven that harsher enforcement by tax authorities are reserved for small businesses!Governments have yet to honestly acknowledge the role of small business and stop paying only lip service to its promotion. The current tax system for small business, in most countries will have to be revisited. No one is suggesting that tax authorities should grant small businesses “special treatment” forever. Just a breather, so as to enable them to grow at a faster pace.To accommodate a small business and its growth, whilst being fair, a concept known as “thresholds tax”, can be implemented for small business. It is in place for individuals, and also known as progressive taxation. Simply put, it means, the more someone earns, the more they taxed. Many countries levy a fixed percentage tax on “profits” of businesses, big or small. This tax is not fair, and fairness is a prerequisite for a good tax system. Even the slightly different tax regime for “Small Business Corporations”, in most countries still does not address the problem.The controversial “profit” in business accounting, especially small business has not been thoroughly researched by tax lawmakers. Profit does not always equate to positive cash flow.
The working capital factors tied into profit, results in severe cash flow setbacks for small business. It is therefore unfair to tax the small business on profit, like the bigger companies, since bigger businesses finance their profits and/ or working capital via many methods, internal and external. These avenues are not available to smaller businesses.Herewith some suggestions on making taxes easy for small business.
Give small business a tax holiday of about two years after start-up.
Simplify tax legislation.
Tax small business only on “cash generated by operations”, up to a certain threshold.
Profit less working capital (debtors and inventory on hand) plus depreciation equals cash generated by operations, which in turn becomes taxable income.
Exempt small business from employee; value added or general sales tax up to certain thresholds. (Already in place in some countries).
Taxable income thresholds could be, 0 to $200 000; $201 000 to $500 000(for small business), depending on the definition of a small business in the respective country.
As soon as the taxable income exceeds $ 500 000, a higher progressive rate applies.
Taxes on “cash” income could also fall away at this level.
My suggestions are in no way exhaustive. More substantive research is needed. If we accept that we live in a global village, taxes will also have to be harmonized and standardized, between the different countries. What International Accounting Standards have done for accounting; can be suggested for taxation also.
Leveraging Today’s Business Loan For Tomorrows Business Growth
A business loan is an effective financing tool that allows most entrepreneurs to leverage their resources to help start a business. However, after a company is already established a business might need to consider additional outside funding. Businesses often require extra capital when it becomes necessary to expand to larger offices, increase the number of retail outlets, or increase storage capacity. Starting a business as an entrepreneur in a competitive market is an exciting and difficult venture.Keeping that business alive through expansion is an even more difficult proposition. Careful consideration of current and future potential cash flows should be analyzed, so not to over leverage the core reason behind obtaining a business loan is essential. And therefore introducing new capital into the equation requires some serious attention to both current budgeting and future income and expenditures.Many times it’s common for businesses to require outside cash to expand their operations and profit potential. One of the classic examples is a business that started in someone’s garage and grew to the point where expansion was impossible without a major change of venue. In such cases, the company might lack true equity because of its small size and verifiable office space, so a traditional business loan might be difficult to obtain. Commercial loans may require equity that a small business in someone’s garage wouldn’t normally possess. In such cases, unsecured loans, a co-signer, or an extraordinary history of earnings would provide strong support on the loan application.When deciding whether the time is right to expand and apply for private lending or the different types of SBA loans, serious financial analysis is necessary. In addition, determining whether the business is strong enough to expand and has all of its vital pieces intact can play an important part in the success and implementation of this influx of capital.For example, an increase in new orders and a strong profit margin might appear to be the work of a strong company, but are all the support systems where they need to be to guarantee the expansion plan’s success? Is the company prepared to increase administrative staff and spend more on overhead after securing the business loan funds? Estimating the business’s expenses after expansion is an important step to ensure the right loan amount is chosen and that the company can expand in a fiscally savvy manner.It’s also important to figure out whether expansion into a new space is warranted or whether looking into small loans for less costly growth might be advisable. Perhaps a fledgling company might benefit from smaller, strategic spending rather than immediate expansion into a new space.For example, a company without a solid web presence could invest business loan resources in a dedicated server and information technology professional to handle the company’s network. A new business might also consider enhancing a marketing program or purchasing additional materials to accommodate an increase in sales or an expected holiday rush.Additionally, it’s important for businesses to consider that there isn’t just a single type of business loan or that loans of all types may be used for an incredibly wide variety of improvements, expansions, and development efforts. For example, government loans like the ones through the Small Business Administration come in a variety of types. Banks may offer general SBA loans, available under the 7(a) Loan Program, or a company might look at the CDC/504 loan if the time has come to purchase major equipment or conduct real estate transactions for expansion and construction.The lesson any entrepreneur should take from an investigation of loan types is that the process of obtaining new funding isn’t difficult. However, the planning of what type of funding to obtain, as well as the way that funding will be used, will impact the future health of the business. Making the decision to expand requires good timing and smart budgeting. And by proper planning, obtaining a business loan may provide the funding necessary to construct new offices, add personnel, and reach new customers.
Has There Ever Been A Better Time To Start An Online Business?
With the economy on the rise and unemployment at its lowest for a number of years, together with the fact that online sales are growing significantly year on year, the answer would seem to be No. There has never been a better time to start an online business!Having said that, there is talk of economic growth starting to stall in certain parts of the world, so what’s the answer? Well the reality is that there will never be the perfect time to start a business whether it is online or offline and if you are waiting for everything to be just right, you will be old and grey and still waiting.Online business is certainly the growth sector at present and looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. It is also a viable addition to the marketing channels for many offline businesses.In a recent study carried out by the Centre for Retail Research, which looked at eight European countries and the USA, it was estimated that combined online sales for 2014 would be in excess of $518 billion (€379 billion). Which is an increase of 18.1% over the previous year. As far as Europe is concerned online sales are strongest in the UK, France and Germany, who together account for 81.3% of purchases.In terms of online sales as a percentage of retail sales, the UK currently tops the league table with 13.5%, followed closely by the USA on 11.6% and Germany on 9.7%.This impressive growth has been fuelled by the increase in mobile shopping using smartphones and tablets, which in 2013 accounted 8.3% of online sales in Europe and 13.8% in the US. These are final transaction figures, browsing numbers are considerably higher. After all it is worth remembering that the world carries the Internet around with them in their pockets and bags nowadays, making browsing and buying online ever easier.With a market of this size and projected growth rate, it’s almost goes without saying that online business is here to stay for the foreseeable future and offers an unrivalled opportunity for those who are either looking to start a business or to expand an existing enterprise.Of course this does not mean that everyone who decides to start an online business will be successful. There are record numbers of start-ups and closures in this arena. For those who make it though, the rewards can be staggering.So how can you ensure that you are one of the winners rather than the losers? Well a good place to start is by following some of the tried and tested rules of business. Your chances of success both online and off are greatly improved if you choose a business sector in which you have previous experience.However if you choose to venture into an area outside your range of knowledge, make sure that you get good advice on how to proceed. Again the success rate is greatly enhanced if you are advised and mentored by someone who has been there, done it and knows what works and what doesn’t.
7 Steps to Starting a Successful Online Business From Scratch
IntroductionProviding instant value to very many people online has never been easier than it is today. This has also been compounded by social media platforms which have literally introduced us to new kingdoms almost overnight. The result, many millionaires being made every day. You have probably heard of the terms ‘new money’, ‘new rich’, ‘digital economy’ etc. As an example, when I really started understanding the power of Instagram, I was blown away. In 5 minutes, just by putting up 1 engaging post with entrepreneurial speak and targeted hashtags, I was able to converse instantly with other entrepreneurs in 3 different continents!But how do you and I become self-sufficient in starting a profitable online business in the first place?We must first understand the requirements and then get the right education. Self-sufficient to me means my skills for being profitable online are future-proof. Think about all-weather paint… or an all-weather road. Plan to play a big game. It is also necessary to think expansively as Robert Kiyosaki puts it.That said, here are 7 steps that I discovered to ensure sustainable business success online. Excited?! OK. Let us get into it.7 Steps To Starting A Profitable Online Business1. Passion & ClarityWe must be driven by passion. We need to know WHY we want to start the online business in the first place. As for me, I am extremely passionate about freedom and choice. I really needed a way to make money without having to report to a job that required me to work inside a brain numbing routine. I was in between boarding schools for 10 years when I was growing up and that was enough for me to find out I didn’t do routines very well. Then I started my work life and realised how much control I DID NOT have about what I wanted to DO. Become very clear about what is driving you towards starting a business online.2. GoalsThe online space can compare to a noisy street marketplace; lots of people, all wanting to be seen and heard.Define your goals clearly i.e. passive income, time freedom, geographical freedom or even one of my personal favourites, financial freedom. Then go in and start creating a business with those clear goals in mind.3. Re – Think What You Know About Being OnlineBeing profitable online can create a lot of freedom but it’s not an instant success. There’s a lot of learning and re-skilling that needs to happen. For me, this was a lot more like learning a new ‘language’. I knew the Internet very casually. It was a place to spend my free time browsing music videos, posting random Facebook posts and watching news that I did not need to know about. I had to change my beliefs and the mindset that was driving whatever I thought I knew about being online. Every time I saw an ad I thought it was a scam. Sure enough, there are a lot of scams out there but we live in a society where ‘good’ and ‘bad’ must exist in the same space. The mindset that is driving you to the online space must be one that sees the vast opportunity that exists on that platform. A chance for you to create a life that up to this point was only a dream.4. Focus On Providing ValuePeople buy from people they think they know, like and trust. As much as it is tempting to think that people are online waiting to be told what they need or don’t need, most people are online looking to solve real problems, and sometimes very painful ones.If you can understand this fact, then your focus must be genuine interest in wanting to help people, a lot of people. This focus becomes your guide for providing high-quality solutions that will fix their problems and reduce or eliminate their ‘pain’.5. Master The Art Of Marketing With All Your HeartFind a way to reach as many people as you can who have big problems that need to be fixed with your proven high-quality product or service on the Internet. With so many options available today, creativity is key. Pick 2 marketing strategies, for example, Facebook and email marketing that you have the patience to run with for the long haul. Don’t stop until you have mastered these 2 strategies.Think about Amazon today. They started with selling books. In fact, selling books is formally their core business! Think about that for a minute. That said, today Amazon sells everything under the sun. Why? Because today they are in the business of fixing peoples’ everyday problems using the Internet.6. Power Of BeliefHave the belief that it’s possible for you. Before I started online, all I had ever sold was personal electronics I wanted to dispose of using the ebays and gumtrees. However, I had heard about people making millions of dollars online… But then came the day I was contemplating my first online business. I had to face my own self-doubt. I needed to answer the following question very honestly:Eddie, “DO YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE YOU CAN MAKE MONEY ONLINE?”If you are reading this today, this will be without a doubt the most important question you will ever ask yourself as an online entrepreneur.It is impossible to achieve before we believe. When the hard times visit, this is the only one thing that will push this ‘unwanted’ guest out the front door! I had to believe I could make it online and that it would change how I lived, worked and played period.7. Mentorship and Master Mind GroupsYou have heard the saying, “we become what we think about all day”. Thoughts make us act in a certain way, which then brings a certain type of results in our lives. To be successful we must think in a certain way and act in a certain way so that we can get the results we want. With that in mind, we must spend a lot of time with people who want the same results and those who have already created these results.The people who have already created the results then become your mentors. If I was going to create a lifestyle of freedom and choice using an online business, I needed to spend time with people who had already created one. I also needed to have mentors as part of this process. So that is exactly what I did. It really is that simple.Final ThoughtIn the end, all we really want is a better more fulfilling life experience, right? Money is good, very good indeed because it creates choice. Oh, how beautiful that word is! choice. With Money being a non-issue, we can freely choose any experience we want and go for it. When money is not an issue, I can choose to have a bucket of chicken at a local KFC (my personal favourite delicacy) or have a plate of honey glazed chicken dinner served at The Hilton, where service is absolutely top notch. In both cases, I get to have my favourite food, chicken but the experience is Worlds apart right?So go ahead & take action every day and make the decision to keep going until you get there. It is impossible to fail if giving up is not on your cards.
Brand Positioning – Need It? Have It? How to Go About It?
All the marketing books are telling you that it is important to differentiate your brand. But it is not always clear how to do it in a way that is meaningful for your business and leads to brand sales.POSITIONING. DO I REALLY NEED IT?Positioning is all about differentiating your brand in the mind of the consumer. Positioning is creating the perceptions you want your target consumer to associate with your brand. Having a brand positioning is not an end in itself. It is just the beginning of the journey. It is the foundation on which your brand strategy, innovation, communication and brand plans and tactics are built. (The end of the journey should always be brand sales & brand growth! )POSITIONING. DO I REALLY HAVE IT?One of the very first questions I ask when I work with a brand team is about their brand positioning. It is sad to see how many use the terminology without actually understanding it clearly and, as a result, being unable to use it to drive brand growth. Examples such as “my brand positioning is premium” or “my products are made with natural ingredients” will hardly give the brand team a clear direction on what the next innovation is or how the next communication campaign will appear. If your positioning is just about fancy words and is not ACTIONABLE, your brand most surely is losing money, if not now, in the long-term. You need a clear brand positioning not because the books say so, but because you want brand growth.POSITIONING. HOW TO GO ABOUT IT?If you prefer to build your brand positioning on your own, you can use as guidance the 4 steps in positioning a brand as described by Jack Trout, the father of positioning:
1) Study your competitors and identify the attributes and / or benefits they own in the mind of the consumer
2) Assess your strengths and weaknesses (product, services, packaging, communication, distribution, customer help etc) and look for that differentiating idea.
3) Think long term: can you support your differentiating idea with facts?
4) Communicate the differentiating idea to your target consumers.From my experience with brands, a positioning that is actionable should consider as a minimum 4 elements:1. Brand’s target: clearly you want to differentiate your brand in the minds of consumers. For that to happen you have to know WHO your consumers are.Segment your market and chose your target. You can do that by using either sophisticated segmentation research or common sense. Chose the segment you want to target and try to find out as many things about them as possible (age, gender, where they live, how they live their life, what they like to eat, see, do, if they have any preferences, what their dislikes are etc). Knowing your consumers better will help you find the space in their minds and hearts that is relevant to them.2. Competitors: your brand does not exist in a silo. Consumers evaluate all the available brands and decide which one addresses their needs and shares the same values. You have to be very clear about who are your direct or indirect competitors and how consumers perceived them.Make sure you talk about consumers’ perceptions, not yours. You can quickly distinguish between what YOU believe consumers perceive and what consumers actually perceive by asking this question: “Where do I have this information from” – if it is from research, industry knowledge, consumers blogs or FACEBOOK, you know for sure that this is what the consumers think.3. Consumers’ need: as a marketer you should be able to know what needs your consumers have.Obviously, you want to address with your brand those needs that are stronger. Even if your brand has “state-of-the-art” features and benefits, if there is no need for them or consumers are indifferent to them, it might be a lottery for your brand to win in the marketplace.Here are a few of the most common needs that brands address: to be loved, to achieve something, to have fun, to be free, to stay clean, to have friends, to be accepted, to get attention, to win, to be healthy, to be beautiful. What about your brand? What kind of needs does it address?4. Brand’s benefits: this is the trickiest part of the positioning exercise. Most marketers are so attached to their brand or know it so well, that it is difficult to stay objective. Even more, valuable features are sometimes taken for granted. When you build your list of benefits, 2 pieces of advice here:- Look outside your category. For example, if you are a gifting chocolate brand, look at cosmetics or fashion. See what other brand benefits are appreciated by your target consumers and see if you have those to offer.
- Stick to your core expertise – do not force onto the list benefits that your brand does not have, just because the consumers want them. Your company must have the capabilities to support delivering these benefits over the long-term. For example, if your product is not made with natural ingredients and therefore doesn’t give the consumers a natural, wholesome experience, do not claim it just because the trend is towards natural. There are many other trends you can tap into. Stay true to yourself and to your brand. Consumers will appreciate it.You can spend one day or a whole month to define your brand positioning – depending on how thorough you want to be. In both cases, the output should be a positioning statement. This is the positioning statement template I use when I work with my clients:For (target consumer) who want (the need), (name of brand) is (the category or frame of reference) that delivers (benefits) because only (brand name) is (reasons to believe).I hope it will help you define your brand’s positioning, clarify it or refine it.Do you have a particular positioning challenge? Let me know about it!
Addicted to Real Estate – Why I Can’t Stop and Why You Should Start
The All-Money-Down TechniqueSo how does the all-money-down technique work by purchasing a home with cash? First of all, let me repeat that I really didn’t have any cash, but I had a significant amount of equity from Terry’s home and several homes that I owned put together to give me a substantial cash down payment. Banks and mortgage companies alike will accept money from a home-equity line of credit as cash to purchase a home. At least they did in 1997 under the financial guidelines of the day. What you must remember about mortgages and lending is that the guidelines change constantly, so this technique I used in 1997 may or may not be able to be used in the future. Whether it is or isn’t able to be used again doesn’t really matter to me as I believe that there will always be a way to buy real estate with limited money down sooner or later. There will always be a technique to acquire real estate but exactly how that will be done in the future I’m not completely sure.I began purchasing homes in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia with the prices in the $30,000 to $40,000 per home price range. I would purchase a home with three bedrooms and one bathroom on the second floor with a kitchen, dining room, and living room on the first floor and a basement. What we call a row home in Philadelphia would consist of a porch out front and a backyard the width of the home. Most row homes in Philadelphia are less than twenty-two feet wide. For those of you who are not from Philadelphia and can’t picture what a Philadelphia row home looks like, I suggest you watch the movie Rocky. Twenty-two homes on each side of every block will really test your ability to be a neighbor. Things that will usually cause an argument with your Philadelphia neighbors often stem from parking, noise your children make, where you leave your trash cans, parties, and the appearance of your home.In 1998 my girlfriend and I moved in together and to the suburbs of Philadelphia called Warminster. After living on a street in Tacony, much like Rocky did, I really looked forward to having space between my home and my next-door neighbor. I told Terry not to even think about talking with the people who lived next door to us. I told her if one of them comes over with a fruitcake I am going to take it and punt it like a football right into their backyard. I believe I was suffering from Philadelphia row home syndrome. My new neighbors in Warminster turned out to be wonderful people, but it took me eighteen months before I was willing to learn that.So you just bought your row home for $35,000 in Mayfair, and after $2000 in closing costs and $5000 in repair costs, you find yourself a good tenant who wants to rent the home. After renting the home with a positive cash flow of $200 a month, you now have an outstanding debt of $42,000 on your home equity line of credit that will have to be paid off. When purchasing the home, I did not get a mortgage as I just purchased a home for cash as it is said in the business. All monies I spent on this house were spent from the home-equity line of credit.The move now is to pay off your home-equity line of credit so you can go do it again. We now go to a bank with your fixed-up property and tell the mortgage department that you want to do a cash-out refinancing of your real estate investment. It helps to explain that the neighborhood you purchase your property in should have a wider range of pricing as the neighborhood of Mayfair did in the mid-90s. The pricing of homes in Mayfair is quite unusual as you would see a $3000 difference in home values from one block to the next. This was important when doing a cash-out refinancing because it’s pretty easy for the bank to see that I just bought my property for $35,000 regardless of the fact that I did many repairs. I could justify the fact that I’ve spent more money on my home to fix it up, and by putting a tenant in, it was now a profitable piece of real estate from an investment standpoint.If I was lucky like I was many times over doing this system of purchasing homes in Mayfair and the appraiser would use homes a block or two away and come back with an appraisal of $45,000. Back then there were programs allowing an investor to purchase a home for 10 percent down or left in as equity doing a 90 percent cash out refinance giving me back roughly $40,500. Utilizing this technique allowed me to get back most of the money I put down on the property. I basically paid just $1,500 down for this new home. Why did the mortgage companies and the appraisers keep giving me the numbers I wanted? I assume because they wanted the business. I would only tell the bank I need this to come in at $45,000 or I am just keeping it financed as is. They always seemed to give me what I wanted within reason.This whole process took three to four months during which time I may have saved a few thousand dollars. Between the money I saved from my job and my investments and cash out refinancing, I had replenished most or all of my funds from my home-equity line of credit that was now almost back to zero to begin the process again. And that is exactly what I intended to do. I used this system to purchase four to six homes a year utilizing the same money to purchase home after home after home over and over again. In reality, the technique is a no-money down or little money down technique. At the time maybe I had $60,000 in available funds to use to buy homes off of my HELOC, so I would buy a home and then replenish the money. It was a terrific technique that was legal, and I could see my dream of being a real estate investor full-time coming to an eventual reality even though I wasn’t there yet.During the years from 1995 to 2002, the real estate market in Philadelphia made gradual increases of maybe 6 percent as each year went on. I began to track my net worth that was 100 percent equity, meaning I had no other forms of investments to look at when calculating my net worth. Generally speaking, the first five years of my real estate career did not go well because of the bad decisions I made purchasing buildings and the decline in the market. Furthermore, my lack of knowledge and experience in repairs made it a rough. The second five years of my real estate career that I just finished explaining didn’t make much money either. I supported myself primarily through my career as a salesman, but I could definitely see the writing on the wall that down the road real estate was going to be my full-time gig.Realty Professionals of AmericaI own an office building that has a real estate company as a tenant called Realty Professionals of America. The company has a terrific plan where a new agent receives 75 percent of the commission and the broker gets only 25 percent. If you don’t know it, this is a pretty good deal, especially for a new real estate agent. The company also offers a 5 percent sponsorship fee to the agent who sponsors them on every deal they do. If you bring an individual who is a realtor in to the company that you have sponsored, the broker will pay you a 5 percent sponsorship out of the broker’s end so that the new realtor you sponsored can still earn 75 percent commissions. In addition to the above, Realty Professionals of America offers to increase the realtor’s commission by 5 percent after achieving cumulative commission benchmarks, up to a maximum of 90 percent. Once a commission benchmark is reached, an agent’s commission rate is only decreased if commissions in the following year do not reach a lower baseline amount. I currently keep 85 percent of all my deals’ commissions; plus I receive sponsorship checks of 5 percent from the commissions that the agents I sponsored earn. If you’d like to learn more about being sponsored into Realty Professionals of America’s wonderful plan, please call me directly at 267-988-2000.Getting My Real Estate LicenseOne of the things that I did in the summer of 2005 after leaving my full-time job was to make plans to get my real estate license. Getting my real estate license was something I always wanted to do but never seemed to have the time to do it. I’m sure you’ve heard that excuse a thousand times. People always say that they’re going to do something soon as they find the time to do it, but they never seem to find the time, do they? I try not to let myself make excuses for anything. So I’ve made up my mind before I ever left my full-time job that one of the first things I would do was to get my real estate license. I enrolled in a school called the American Real Estate Institute for a two-week full-time program to obtain my license to sell real estate in the state of Pennsylvania. Two terrific guys with a world of experience taught the class, and I enjoyed the time I spent there. Immediately after completing the course at the American Real Estate Institute, I booked the next available day offered by the state to take the state exam. My teachers’ advice to take the exam immediately after the class turned out to be an excellent suggestion. I passed the exam with flying colors and have used my license many times since to buy real estate and reduce the expenses. If you are going to be a full-time real estate investor or a commercial real estate investor, then you almost have to get a license. While I know a few people who don’t believe this, I’m convinced it’s the only way.I worked on one deal at $3 million where the commission to the buyer’s real estate agent was $75,000. By the time my broker took a share, I walked with $63,000 commission on that deal alone. With the average cost per year of being a realtor running about $1200 per year, this one deal alone would’ve paid for my real estate license for fifty-three years. Not to mention all the other fringe benefits like having access to the multiple listing service offered too many realtors in this country. While there are other ways to get access to the multiple listing services or another program similar to it, a real estate license is a great way to go.Some of the negatives I hear over and over again about having your real estate license is the fact that you have to disclose that you are realtor when buying a home if you’re representing yourself. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see this as a negative at all. If you’re skilled in the art of negotiation, it’s just another hurdle that you have to deal with. I suppose you could end up in a lawsuit where a court of law could assume because you are realtor you should know all these things. I don’t spend my life worrying about the million ways I can be sued any more than I worry about getting hit by a car every time I cross the street.