Making Money From Man’s Ailments

We often aspire to be in the best shape possible most of the time but there are days when our body’s defenses go down and we succumb to sickness. There are different reasons why a man gets sick and there are various treatments and managements too depending on the causative agent or the nature of the disease. Not all treatment promises a cure, though. Others offer palliative treatment that helps manages the symptom without necessarily curing the disease.

The pharmaceutical industry has long since been making lots of money whenever people get sick. From supplements for disease prevention to antibiotics and expensive outpatient or in-hospital medications, you have to spend more to get better. And that is actually not including the costs of doctor’s visit among others. It’s the reason why the pharmaceutical business is booming whether they are selling branded or generic medicines. People get sick often now because of our sedentary lifestyle, poor food choices, lack of exercise, and polluted environment, so healthcare shouldn’t be ignored for long.

A silent war between health insurers and drug manufacturers has given a hint into what is drives up the cost of your medical bill. Drugs make up 40 per cent of the majority of Kenyans medical costs and has been growing by the day, pushing up the cost of healthcare. Insurers, suffering losses claim that drug makers have been pushing doctors to prescribe originator brands which sell at a cost that is three times that of its generic counterpart.
They are also claim that the originator brands are behind studies that are out to paint generic drugs as inferior, counterfeited and ineffective. “When a drug manufacturer discovers a new drug they are given a patent, after 10 years other manufacturers are allowed to develop their own versions called generic drugs which have the same efficacy, quality and safety standards as the branded drugs,” a source from the insurance sector who did not want to be named so as not to jeopardise company relations in the sector told Financial Standard.

(Via: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/article/2001239891/why-doctors-want-to-sell-to-you-that-expensive-medicine)

Medicines aren’t cheap either especially the branded ones from innovator companies. But once their patent expires, others can make their own version of the formula and sell it at a cheaper price. Unfortunately, you can’t always tell if a certain company adheres to high-quality standards when making these generic drugs. While other times, doctor push for a certain brand because of connections with pharma companies that makes you doubt whether the drug prescribed is indeed the best choice for you.

One of the most critical concerns facing the global health fraternity today is the escalating burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR develops as result of microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites becoming immune to antimicrobial drugs such as antibiotics. These microorganisms are commonly known as superbugs.

Over the past decades, antimicrobial agents have been revolutionary in alleviating communicable diseases across the world. However, when the medicines at one’s disposal become ineffective, the prospects for treatment become grim. While antibiotic resistance is a global hazard to public health, India, the largest consumer of antibiotics in the world, is notoriously seen as the epicentre of this threat.

Infections galore

Last year, India attracted unwelcome limelight when a 70-year-old woman from the US died after contracting a superbug during a two-year residence in the country. Doctors in the US say the patient was infected with a multidrug-resistant organism known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) which is immune to all available antibiotics. In the recent past, India has witnessed many large outbreaks of emerging infections and most of them were of zoonotic origin (diseases transmitted from animals to humans). While exact figures are hard to come by, WHO’s Global Burden of Disease report of 2004 suggests a 15-times greater burden of infectious diseases per person in India than in the UK. According to the calculations based on World Bank data and the Global Burden of Disease report of 1990, the crude infectious disease mortality rate in India today is 416.75 per 100,000 persons, which is twice the rate prevailing in the US.

(Via: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/antibiotic-resistance-is-emerging-as-a-major-killer/article9684997.ece)

Another problem that involves medicines is drug resistance, which is becoming far too common now that people abuse the use of antibiotics or take one even without a prescription. While we may think of doctors as getting rich from the drugs they prescribe us every time we get sick, it is still better to get their expert advice to make sure we take the right one for whatever medical issue we have. Healthcare is crucial to staying healthy and living a long life, which is the goal of most of us. We need medicines (the right ones) to help us stay healthy and fight off infections and diseases before it does lasting damage.

The following blog article Making Money From Man’s Ailments Find more on: BrandInfiltration.com

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/making-money-from-mans-ailments/

What You Need To Remember During Disaster Recovery

We live in an imperfect world. Amidst the beauty of nature are hidden dangers. They come and go but they are a part of our lives. From seasonal hurricanes to tornadoes and earthquakes that take everyone by surprise, we can never tell when disasters will strike nor can we avoid them 100%. And as such, disaster preparedness is a must to ensure everyone stays safe in the face of calamities.

What’s equally important is what we do in its aftermath. Disaster recovery enables everyone to pick up from where they left before disaster struck and help the community recover and rebuild their lives. There will be losses and it is expected. From human lives to crops and properties, these losses can amount to millions of dollars. With the help of disaster recovery, the community will be able to regain the losses or even start from scratch with the help of people both near and far.

The Small Business Administration is now offering economic injury disaster loans to small businesses, small ag cooperatives and nonprofit organizations in Payette and Washington counties.

“These loans are intended to assist through the disaster recovery period,” an SBA said, helping those businesses meet financial obligations “that cannot be

met as a direct result of the disaster.”

Fixed-interest rates for the loans are determined by specific formulas, with a maximum of 4 percent, the agency said, and 30 years being the maximum length of time for which the loans can be approved.

(Via: http://www.argusobserver.com/business/small-business-administration-oks-loans-for-disaster-recovery/article_25cbc7da-2d38-11e7-bce0-2ba95f051773.html)

Aside from personal losses, entrepreneurs lose more especially when physical stores or shops are likewise affected. The store itself may be damaged including goods and equipment inside. Other times, businesses face a different type of disaster. Disaster recovery means different things in our modern digital world. The best way to prepare is to formulate your own business continuity plan for the very purpose of continuing your business in the aftermath of a major disaster, whether natural or man-made.

Of course, as a business owner, it’s not just malicious attacks and incompetence you need to worry about. There are many other risks to business data and continuity. One of our clients was recently affected by a large scale fire at their physical location. Thankfully they had only recently deployed a new cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system which meant that crucially their business infrastructure was barely affected, as staff could log in to their account from any location with internet access and a device. From a disaster recovery perspective, they were covered, since all their IT “stuff” was hosted in the cloud. Here are some top tips to ensure your business continuity plans have integrity. There is no one “perfect” plan for disaster recovery. Every business is unique so ensure your plan reflects the uniqueness of the business. Consider making more than one plan. After all, there is more than one kind of threat. From natural disasters to manmade threats and cyber-attacks, each carries its own risk which might need to be considered individually. Make sure you deal with all three measures – detective, preventative and corrective. Your plan should aim to swiftly identify risks and have some mitigating steps which ought to prevent disaster – for example, keep your data off site or in the cloud; hold regular training sessions for staff; use up to date fire safety equipment (how long has it been since you recharged your fire extinguishers?)

Identify who will be responsible in the event of a disaster. Create a team of experts who are well briefed and can be quickly mobilised in the event of any kind of large scale disruption. If possible, get them to contribute to the plan. Sense check all your insurance policies. Some insurers will cover things such as business downtime but will look favourably on businesses who have mitigated the risk of downtime.

(Via: http://www.scotsman.com/business/management/emma-stewart-disaster-recovery-needs-planning-and-testing-1-4428539)

Businesses constantly worry about cyber security especially that almost everything and everyone has gone online now. Times have changed, indeed, and everyone should adapt and learn to protect themselves from the new threats in their environment. Since businesses have a lot to lose, it pays to have a disaster recovery plan for both threats from natural disasters and cyber attacks.

Come up with a disaster plan and test it. Your plan is of no use if it does not work in real life. If you find loopholes, keep on modifying it until you are confident that it can help you bounce back faster and with minimal losses. While your personal experience is the best teacher, you can likewise learn from the mistakes and experience of others, especially if your business is in the same industry. That way, you can avoid making the same mistakes and improve your disaster preparedness early on without being the sacrificial lamb.

The following post What You Need To Remember During Disaster Recovery Find more on: BI

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/what-you-need-to-remember-during-disaster-recovery/

Getting Rich And Looking Runway Ready

We work hard to afford all the necessities of life but we also make room for a little extra to indulge in a few luxuries. Being vain isn’t necessarily a sin because we need to make an effort to look pleasing and presentable to others but it shouldn’t be the focus of our lives. It’s okay to look great as long as you’re not spending a fortune or misallocating your resources in pursuit of the aesthetics.

What’s even better is to have a business in fashion, so you make money while looking fabulous all the time. It’s a win-win solution just as long as your business clicks. A lot of fashion and retail businesses are closing these days while others close their stores only to sell online because sales are low. If you have an eye for fashion and can make trendy or classic fashion that people will love, then you’d probably make it despite the odds. (more…)

The following article Getting Rich And Looking Runway Ready is republished from https://www.brandinfiltration.com

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It’s All About The Brand

The brand is almost everything to the business. It signifies everything the business stands for and what it offers. Moreover, it is also what the consumer remembers first about your business. Hence, it is just but right to say that it is always about the brand when doing business. The brand speaks for itself so you want to ensure that your brand conveys the right message to the people and you actually deliver the results you promised.

In a world that has become so crowded, making a name for your business can make or break your business. You can only say that branding is successful when your brand becomes a household name. It simply means that all your marketing efforts paid off and people now think of your brand first instead of the competitor brand.

Everyone understands the power of branding. Branding equals recognition. And recognition engenders trust. But how do you develop a brand message that wins out in the marketplace?

It’s not easy. Great branding is not something that simply happens to a company. How a business talks about itself requires a huge amount of internal control and focus, particularly when you are dealing with not one brand but two.

Most successful businesses are known brands globally. And while their brands are already established for years, they still persist with their marketing efforts so that people don’t forget them. There is more competition to overcome these days and you can never be lax or risk losing relevance in a globally competitive market.

“Branding is 75 percent visual and 25 percent voice or action,” says Ken. Be sure to understand your audience, and make sure your imagery and taglines creatively connect with your current and prospective customers. Constantly review the voice and visual impact of every brand interaction, from your social channels to the language and colors in your call-to-action buttons.

The better the art, the photography, the concept, the illustration style, the stronger the branding impact.

The statistics bear it out. Consumers habitually go back to the companies that invest most in their branding. Even organizations that are well-known for taking an idiosyncratic approach to their brand image – think of GEICO’s shifting cast of oddball characters – carefully choreograph their apparently random moves.

The reality remains that branding is difficult to do well. Making something look simple is hard. The disarming straightforwardness of Apple’s approach design is the function of sustained internal rigor. It takes strong will and focus.

(Via: https://www.brafton.com/blog/strategy/leading-edge-the-power-of-branding-to-unify-your-message/)

Other times, you need to innovate and adapt to the changes in the market even if your branding effort has been working for years. Technology is advancing and it has a big impact on how businesses do their business today. Digital advertising is the name of the game.

Does the process of digitization call the entire brand concept into question?
Digitization changes the way in which consumers perceive and experience brands. In the past, brands engaged in rather one-sided communication with customers: brand presents information, consumer absorbs it. These days, communication goes both ways, engaging the brand, its consumers, and other consumers.

This means that product performance, service, and price have become completely transparent. Consumers are more savvy and can no longer be fooled. So brands must demonstrate a thorough level of consistency and authenticity, as well as use all media channels to communicate their values. 

Brand management needs an attitude

How can brands develop a stringent, cross-media level of communication?
The key to developing a clear, sophisticated brand and communication strategy and attitude is knowing the essence of your brand inside out. Experience tells us: Successful brands have good products, extremely successful brands have an attitude. It is essential to display this attitude consistently and across all channels, and to always be ready with a surprise or two.

(Via: http://www.ispo.com/en/markets/id_79705256/change-branding-under-armour-and-dove-set-the-bar.html)

The success of a brand is also a collective effort of everyone in the company, from the management to the front-liners; they should deliver the same brand essence and message in everything they do to ensure that the customer’s experience remains uniform and a positive one all the time. Even interactions on social media say a lot about the way your company does business and likewise has a significant impact on your brand. So, take all these things into consideration and put them into practice, so you can build the brand that fits the vision of your company and the one that will bring home the bacon.

It’s All About The Brand was first published to Brand Infiltration Blog

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/its-all-about-the-brand/

Why SEO Doesn’t Always Work

Marketing is crucial to the success of any business. It helps promote a business using organic search engine results that in turn boost a site’s traffic, ranking and eventually brand awareness among the people. It is very helpful in setting your business apart from the competition in the global marketplace that has been open for everyone all over the world.

Since its inception, SEO or search engine optimization has been effective in getting businesses recognized. Competition in the global market is tough and the goal of all businesses is to be the first thing that comes to a person’s mind when they think of a brand in their industry they are in. While not all traffic converts to a sale, there is a higher chance of people buying something or hiring your services if they frequently see your ads popping in their browser or in the social media channels they are visiting.

So, when a new digital marketing medium known as search engine optimization (SEO) became popular in the mid 2000s, marketers planned their campaigns using the same slow, careful planning process.

Traditional SEO mechanisms fit perfectly with this approach. Google, knowing that its major weakness was exploitation of its algorithms, worked tirelessly to ensure that the process of restructuring its search engine results was as mysterious and slow as possible. To this day, it takes months before teams can verify whether or not a website change had a positive or negative effect on that website’s traffic.

But that all changed in late 2015. As reported by Bloomberg, Google’s new machine learning algorithm, known as RankBrain, was rolled out, and it presented a massive change to marketers. Instead of a static set of known algorithms, RankBrain machine-learned the best weightings of those algorithms, based on each keyword search, and then fed that back into its core system to adjust itself accordingly to those new weightings. And it did this daily. That meant Google’s search results could behave differently from one keyword to the next, and what worked for one keyword, niche, brand or industry may not work for the next.

(Via: http://www.cio.com/article/3192629/marketing/how-marketers-are-fighting-back-against-googles-rankbrains-disruption-of-seo.html)

Businesses have tailored their marketing efforts according to current SEO practices but sudden changes can change the entire process and leave companies struggling to maintain their lead or advance from the competition. The main platform, which is Google, modifies their guidelines and practices according to the needs of the times and often in response to commonly reported issues or complaints.

SEO is an evergreen technique.It is often the most inexpensive way for getting leads/customers in the long run. Every business needs to consider SEO as a marketing channel. However, startups need to focus more on immediate strategies to generate revenue that can be subsequently invested in elaborate SEO techniques. Startup founders should learn basic SEO techniques, so that their websites adhere to fundamental SEO principles. Blogging is a powerful tool that should be used by startups to consistently drive organic traffic.

(Via: https://yourstory.com/2015/02/startup-seo-sense/)

Many start-ups can benefit from SEO when done right although it requires knowledge and even mastery of it to make it effective. It is but a must when doing business these days considering most brands, especially the bigger ones, have taken to the web since that is where all the action is.

It’s true: even if you’re not purposefully creating keyword-stuffed content or pages crammed with manipulative links, you might still be partaking in bad SEO.

The reason for this is that Google, the veritable God of the search engine universe, changes all the time. Over the years, Google has rolled out algorithms with names like Hummingbird, Panda, Penguin, Pigeon, and more. With such a zoo of changes, it’s easy to see how one could fall behind the times where SEO is concerned.

While Google isn’t making all these changes to drive SEOs insane, it’s not at all uncommon for SEOs and marketers to only learn the details of an algorithm update once it has already rolled out, and is actively affecting their sites.

As Google pushes for a more unified, accessible, high-quality web, the changes it makes to things like mobile-friendly rules, search ranking practices, content ranking guidelines, and more can have a dramatic and distinct impact on SEOs.

(Via: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/date-guide-good-seo-content-vs-bad-seo-content/184488/)

Bad SEO is a reality and many businesses are guilty of doing bad SEO practices without them knowing. Google is stepping up their game and want to improve the overall user experience because Google searches have dramatically increased over recent years and most of which are done through mobile or tablet devices that obviously have smaller screens than your average laptop or computer. Ads are reduced because many times the screen is overwhelmed by a large number of ads that the content itself is hard to be seen.

Overall, eliminating bad SEO practices benefits both the business and the consumer although it might take some getting used to. Most importantly, Google is able to get rid of spamming sites etc. that are not conducting legit businesses and only mess things around the web.

Why SEO Doesn’t Always Work was first published on BrandInfiltration.com

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/why-seo-doesnt-always-work/

The Growth Of Digital Advertising

Otherwise known as “Internet Marketing” or “Online Marketing,” digital advertising is the preferred form of advertising of most businesses since technology is basically ingrained in our daily lives these days. Various technologies are put to good use so that people gain more brand recognition. Social media marketing is the thing these days. Meanwhile, digital advertising pertains to any promotional materials sent through a person’s mail, email, on search engines and even in the form of banner ads.

Traditional advertising has become so expensive these days that not all start-up can afford to pay for their services. After all, most people are glued to the screens of their smartphones or smart gadget so they won’t really notice those billboards plastered on either sides of the road or watch repetitive commercials on TV when they can choose to watch only the shows that they like online or even live stream for it.

Last year marked a couple of firsts for the media industry. In 2016, digital advertising became a larger business than television advertising and mobile accounted for more than half of all digital spend in the United States, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers in partnership with the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Digital advertising revenue jumped nearly 22 percent to $72.5 billion in 2016, marking eight consecutive years of record-breaking gains. According to eMarketer, TV ads brought in $71.3 billion in U.S. revenues last year. And the trend is likely to continue, with eMarketer estimating that the digital ad market will grow by 15.9 percent to $83 billion in 2017.

The sustained growth in digital ad spending is also empowering Google and Facebook to deepen their duopoly over the market. Google is on track to end 2017 with 40.7 percent of the digital ad market in the U.S., while Facebook grows to 19.7 percent.

(Via: http://www.cio.com/article/3193024/advertising/digital-advertising-surpassed-tv-ads-in-2016.html)

The habits of the people are changing. Even retail therapy isn’t what it used to be. Many outlet stores and malls are closing since fewer and fewer people go to them to actually shop. Online shopping is the growing trend these days and most people now do their shopping from the comforts of their mobile phones. No need to go to an actual shop and spend hours looking for specific clothes, shoes or knick knacks. And this isn’t just a US trend but the same issues are faced in other parts of the world too.

Immediate post-Brexit concerns don’t appear to have impacted UK ad spend, according to new figures from the Advertising Association and Warc.

UK ad spend grew to £5.8bn, a 3.9% year-on-year rise, in Q4, and this marks the highest grossing quarter since the Expenditure Report started in 1982. It also marks an upward trend following flat growth in Q3 in the immediate wake of June’s Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, for 2016 as a whole, ad spend grew 3.7%, reaching £21.4bn and marking the seventh consecutive year of market growth.

Digital formats continued to dominate, with internet ad spend up 13.4% to £10.3bn for the year. Mobile accounted for 99% of that growth, with ad spend for mobile platforms up a whopping 45.4% to £3.9bn. The report predicts mobile advertising spend will slow over the coming years (2017: +30.4% and 2018: +20.8%) as the current boom dies down.

(Via: https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/04/25/uk-ad-spend-digital/)

While conventional retail shops suffer, it has completely opened up a new opportunity for others and it is more likely going to stay than just a passing fad. With the continued advancements in technology, it is safe to assume that digital advertising will continue to dominate the world and change the economic landscape. And as more people use smart gadgets, we can likewise expect to witness more growth in mobile digital advertising to reach this growing market without breaking the bank.

While most of us only have good things to say about advertising on the web, it also has its drawbacks. Plagiarizing is a common issue and businesses suffer a lot as others may copy their ads. Ads are also everywhere online. You may have a hard time tracking where your ads show up. Some even complain that their ads are appearing on dubious sites without them knowing and it can actually hurt their image.

Well, I guess it is just true what they say that everything has a good and bad side to it. You can’t have it all. Its only edge is that this is the most powerful medium now and the preferred by many, so I guess we’ll just stick with it and accept its pros and cons because it works most of the time.

The Growth Of Digital Advertising is courtesy of The BI Blog

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/the-growth-of-digital-advertising/

Female Entrepreneurs In A Man’s World

We live in a man’s world. We hear it time and again. It is often the subject of many debates all over the world and the source of some conflicts too. Modern feminists are pushing for equality in all aspects of life and that includes opportunities to excel in the world of business. In our modern world, not only men excel in business. There are many female entrepreneurs who are making a name for themselves in the world these days too.

Nowadays, more women dare to stand out from the crowd and take risks that men usually take. If you look around you, the playing field is almost equal albeit there are still some forms of discrimination especially that competition is tough and people will do anything to trample the competition. But still, that doesn’t erase the fact that over 9 million women are now proud owners of American businesses and continue to grow.

Ivanka Trump, who has championed the role of women in the American workforce, is now working to increase female entrepreneurs around the world by creating a fund managed by the World Bank to support women starting their own businesses.

“The statistics and results prove that when you invest in women and girls, it benefits both developed and developing economies,” Ivanka Trump told Axios. “Women are an enormous untapped resource, critical to the growth of all countries.”

The fund, which would supply growth capital and working capital to small and medium-sized businesses, will be supported by donations form several countries. Canada, which earlier this year partnered with Ivanka Trump and President Donald Trump to create the United States Canada Council for the Advancement of Women Business Leaders-Female Entrepreneurs, is listed among the nations supporting the project.

(Via: http://www.westernjournalism.com/ivanka-trump-creating-global-fund-boost-female-entrepreneurship-worldwide/)

Working women face various challenges each day that is often unique to them. They still get bullied because of their gender and you can see that on social media at times.

Female entrepreneurs report feeling pressure to conduct business online in a traditionally feminine way, a new study suggests.

This includes maintaining social media personas that display modesty, sociality, and “an aura of decorum”—the same restrictions that often apply to women in off-line business settings.

“I doubt workers—male or female—in traditionally masculine-coded industries such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields experience these same demands,” says coauthor Brooke Duffy, assistant professor of communication at CornellUniversity.

“While it’s inspiring that we are seeing a rise in female entrepreneurship in the digital age, these business categories tend to be highly feminized. This means that gender hierarchies and inequalities in the world of work endure,” Duffy says.

Social media offers an efficient yet cost-effective way of reaching your client base and attracting new customers. There are various types of social media platforms one can use to interact with their clients. This modern online marketing approach is one of the most overused in the world today and for good reason. It does the job without spending much or overexerting yourself. And in a way, many women entrepreneurs have mastered this craft. Even the art of blogging has now become a business venture where most bloggers are women.

Often, female entrepreneurs were caught in what the researchers call a “digital double-bind.” On one hand, they participated in the traditionally masculine-coded category of entrepreneurship, where figures like Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos are often upheld as paragons of success; on the other, they were constrained by feminine stereotypes. That resulted in taking on more work and risk than men to ensure the success of their online ventures.

The entrepreneurs felt obligated to use social media to build their brands in an understated way; cultivate intimate relationships with audiences, clients, and peer networks; and share their personal lives in a professional context. These strategies adhere to gender roles that cast women as social and emotionally expressive, Duffy says. And they emphasize the social prescription that women should be modest about their achievements, she adds.

(Via: http://www.futurity.org/female-entrepreneurs-1393432/)

The population is growing and various opportunities open up especially in the field of business. Since most women aren’t an active part of the workforce, they are an untapped resource that can help boost the economy by providing the necessary manpower required. The gender gap is still there but it is slowly ebbing away as America and the rest of the world welcome more female workers and entrepreneurs in huge numbers and for the years to come.

The following post Female Entrepreneurs In A Man’s World Find more on: BrandInfiltration.com Blog

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Are Successful Entrepreneurs Born Or Made?

There is too much to take in this world that it can overwhelm you at times. Back then, everything was simpler and people can go on with their lives without constantly checking on what a friend, former co-worker, or a distant acquaintance is doing in the absence of social media. But today, competition is tough with a population that is exploding and everyone trying to make a living.

If you want to get ahead in life, the best route is to establish your own business. You can start small and expand as you go. Unfortunately, not all businesses become successful or even profitable. Others can drive their owners to bankruptcy and even insanity. Now, the question lingers, are successful entrepreneurs born or made? Do you just get lucky or do you work hard to start a business empire? Others are torn about this issue and it has been a topic of debates for a while now.

Everyone loves a good success story. It’s the American dream, working your way up from nothing, armed only with your wits and a strong work ethic.

And for those who make it, it feels great to think you got there all on your own. I should know: I’m a millionaire, the first in my family, one of those tech entrepreneurs who built a software business and sold it for a fortune.

I didn’t inherit my wealth. I created it.

(Via: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/self-made-success-lets-kill-myth/)

We all love hearing rags to riches stories. However, it is often rare considering that billions now live on the planet. There is more opportunity but more people compete in selling things or services but it is not always as easy as it seems.

Your success as an entrepreneur is ultimately limited by you, in many cases. The Greeks called it hubris, today we might call it ego or conceit.

Are you taking the steps to acknowledge what you actually need to be doing to grow your own company or are you stuck being the "expert" who knows how to do it already?

One of the first steps in a successful journey of entrepreneurship has to be to understand who you are. Strengths, weaknesses, skills and abilities, and then to acknowledge that ultimately, every one of them will need to be replaced by others if your business is truly going to succeed.

Steve Jobs didn't build the products that Apple designed.

Ray Kroc didn't flip his own hamburgers.

So no matter how new your company is, you have to have plans to replace you - the bad as well as the good - if your business is ever going to be truly successful.

True understanding of how much of "you" there is to go around is one of the keys to building your company into an enterprise.

Do you truly love doing the actual job or would you rather manage the business? Can you effectively plot the growth of your company?

(Via: https://www.inc.com/michael-gerber/know-yourself.html)

You can tell for yourself if you have what it takes to start and grow a business. Many times entrepreneurs start young by selling stuff to family and friends. The passion to sell is there. And as you grow up and have access to more resources, you entertain the idea of starting your own business. In that case, people are born with entrepreneurial skills.

Are good entrepreneurs born or can they be made?

I believe some people have the appetite and drive to be successful entrepreneurs from a very young age – even at school they see and seize the opportunities. But others come to it by chance or through adversity, and bring different entrepreneurial competencies.

What are the qualities of a good founder?

Tenacity, resilience and a compelling vision, with the communication skills to make that contagious.

What does a successful entrepreneur need to do every day?

Juggle so many balls in the air at the one time, while retaining a strategic focus on what is really important.

(Via: https://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/isax-ireland-smart-ageing-exchange)

While you must have an interest in doing business at a young age, this interest should be coupled by honing your knowledge and skills over time, otherwise, you’ll get rusty and it won’t serve its purpose well. Delving into the business world means getting out of your comfort zone and having to deal with all sorts of people and different types of circumstances and championing all these challenges takes time and experience. So in that sense, successful entrepreneurs are made.

Entrepreneurs don’t always hit it big on their first try. It takes a series of tries before you can get your groove and for people to recognize your brand. It may be a hit or miss at first but you got to keep on trying until you reach the top.

Are Successful Entrepreneurs Born Or Made? was first seen on The BI Blog

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/are-successful-entrepreneurs-born-or-made/

A Business Is Your Ticket To The Good Life

Nobody gets rich by being just an employee. Well, there may be some exception but most employees have to do with their meager salaries. At times, the money they make isn’t enough to buy them a house, a car, a good education for their children, or even food on the table in their day-to-day. Meanwhile, most, if not all, rich people in the world are entrepreneurs. Some are born with a silver spoon and an heir or heiress to a profitable business while some start from scratch. Having a business these days is your ticket to the good life especially that opportunities are plenty and all you need to do is take the risk and act on it while the iron is hot, because if you don’t, somebody definitely will.

The majority of entrepreneurs start with a small capital. At times, they may even have to borrow money to finance their start-up business. And with any business, there is always a risk involved. Unless you are planning to franchise an existing successful corporation like Mcdonalds, 7 Eleven, Pizza Hut, KFC and many others, you have to plan everything even if you are just starting a small business. You can benefit a lot from some marketing tricks that has helped countless businesses grow and flourish over the years.

There’s nothing small about a small business. If you run one, you know this. “Small” businesses - companies with 500 employees or less – employ nearly half the U.S. workforce. They create a third of U.S. exports. They’re responsible for the lion’s share of net new jobs.

And yet, small businesses often neglect the very thing that would make them even bigger: marketing. In the WASP 2017 State of Small Business Report, we found that the smaller the company, the less budget they’ve probably allocated to promote themselves.

Part of this may be simple budget constraints; part of it may be a lack of time -- but the result is the same: businesses suffer if they neglect their marketing.

Fortunately, there may be a solution. Like most things in life, it helps to step back and get a larger perspective. Because marketing isn’t just marketing. Marketing – as in promoting your company – happens beyond ads, websites, social media or events. It happens via customer service, in how you run your workplace and in what your customers say about your business. And that’s just a partial list.

(Via: https://www.business.com/articles/brian-sutter-big-ideas-for-small-business-marketing/)

Whether you are selling foods or services, providing an excellent customer service can set you apart from the competition. And you can even benefit from the popularity of social media as it makes connecting with potential customers and even your existing customer-base easier and less expensive. It’s no longer just plain business marketing but more of online marketing. E-word of mouth ensures you reach your target market without all the hassles and your other customers act like your very own brand ambassadors without having to pay them in doing so.

Go for gratitude first, and loyalty will follow. The emotional response that is most likely to drive loyal behavior, according to Boncheck, is gratitude. By its definition, gratitude is a feeling of appreciation and an expression of that feeling through an overt and appropriate act. It is a reciprocal act by its very nature that can serve as the basis of a relationship beyond the transactional sale.

Branding expert Bardi Toto Drake, author of “The Power of Asking” has used gratitude as the core of her marketing brand. When she began to use gratitude instead of “bragging and selling” her visibility advanced many-fold she reports, landing her on national television networks, television shows and social media (which of course has advanced her selling traction as well).

Toto provides the following five mechanisms for expressing gratitude that have been most beneficial to her and that she recommends most highly to others, as follows:

1. Youtube

2. Twitter

3. Facebook Live

4. LinkedIn

5. Instagram

(Via: https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2017/04/26/how-gratitude-advances-marketing-and-business/#26154a3c7d68)

Marketing should be at the heart of each business. It alone covers all the important aspects of building, growing and maintaining your business. Marketing is an umbrella concept that deals with public relations, advertising, sales and promotions. And it makes perfect sense, right? The people need to hear about your business first from somewhere and then you have to deliver what you promised.

Happy customers will likely become repeat customers and share just how great your business is to others. Most small business has grown into bigger enterprises because business owners knew the value of their customers and didn’t make them feel any less. Each transaction should be a positive experience for everybody. Only then can you count on having a profitable business that will grow old with you and allow you and your family to live a comfortable life for the years to come.

A Business Is Your Ticket To The Good Life See more on: BrandInfiltration.com

source https://www.brandinfiltration.com/a-business-is-your-ticket-to-the-good-life/