Like our homes, our companies can take steps to grow to be a lot more eco-friendly. Here are a couple of steps to take to make your enterprise as green as your home.

Insulate your pipes. Did you know that insulating hot water piper reduces heat loss? Insulating with polyethylene or neoprene foam is an effortless fix which will result in energy savings.
Check into a solar hot water system. For less than $15,000, you’ll be able to lower your water heating expenses by 50%.
Change your air filters. An old filter will impede air flow which will make your heating and cooling motors work harder. Filters ought to be changed a minimum of every 3 months. In the course of the heating and cooling seasons, it’s best to change your filters more frequently (as soon as a month basis).
Check into a combined heat and power program. CHP systems simultaneously produce electrical energy and thermal energy (for instance heat or steam) from the identical fuel source. Micro-CHP can be a smaller version created for the small commercial marketplace. They run on natural gas and have a capacity of 5 megawatts along with a heat recovery rate of 20,000 BTUs.
If you have a walk in freezer, consider upgrading it. Strip curtains and automatic door closers are inexpensive and simple to install. Did you know that strip curtains alone can drop outside air infiltration by 75%? Often times, you can find utility rebates that can cover the upfront price.
Check into employing a geothermal heat pump. Heat pumps cut both costs and emissions. For instance, Phillips 66 installed a geothermal heat pump in its new Prairie Village, KS, gas station and convenience store. By connecting the coolers, freezers, and icemaker to the program, Phillips cut the overall energy use of its HVAC system 40 percent with a two-year payback.
Where you can, switch your incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs. CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs) can decrease your energy lighting usage by 75%!
Lastly, use programmable thermostats. Something as uncomplicated as making use of your thermostat to automate cooling at 72 degrees Fahrenheit and warming at 70 degrees Fahrenheit could save substantial dollars. Based on the US Department of Energy, for every degree that you turn down your thermostat for an eight hour period in the winter, there’s a correlating percentage of energy savings!

Our homes and our businesses are at the forefront of the green movement. Organic uniforms, bamboo towels, and cloth napkins will only do so much. By making tiny changes in both aspects of our lives (personal and business), we can make significant changes within the world.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Douglas_Michaels_Jr.

The business Development Strategy is used to underpin your main Business Plan and essentially it sets out a standard approach for developing new opportunities, either from within existing accounts or by proactively targeting brand new potential accounts and then working to close them.

This document highlights the key issues you should consider prior to compiling your own plan and will hopefully guide you logically through a proven framework.

The key word is ‘Strategy’, because you are creating a workable and achievable set of objectives in order to exceed your annual target.

Your Starting Point:

The key words are Who? What? Where? When? Which? Why? How?

For example:

Who – are you going to target?

What - do you want to sell them?

Where – are they located?

When – will you approach them?

Which – are the appropriate target personnel?

Why – would they want to meet with you?

How – will you reach them?

If you have conducted regular account reviews with your key accounts during the previous twelve months, you should be aware of any new opportunities that will surface during the next twelve months. You will also, when assessing what percentage of your annual target usually comes from existing accounts, need to review data over the last two or three years. (It is likely that you can apply Pareto i.e. 80% of your business will probably come from existing accounts and in fact 80% of your total revenue will come from just 20% of your customers/clients)

You will be left with a balance – i.e. “20% of my business next year will come from new opportunities” – therefore you can then begin to allocate your selling time accordingly.

Ideal Customer Profiling:

Pro-active business development demands that we create an ideal target at the front end – i.e. an Ideal Customer Profile. The essential characteristics you will need to consider are:

- Industrial Sector

- Geographical Location (Demographics)

- Size of organisations (Turnover, number of employees etc)

- Financial Trends

- Psychographics – i.e. Philosophical compatibility

Many strategic sales professionals merely profile their best existing clients and try to replicate them – there’s nothing wrong with doing this but we should always remember that we are seeking an IDEAL and we can always improve on what we already have.

‘New’ Opportunities From Within ‘Old’ Accounts:

Because it costs approximately ten times as much, to first locate and then sell to a new customer as it does an existing one (although these costs are rarely reflected in the cost of sales), it is essential that we fully develop our existing accounts working upwards, downwards and sideways, thus making the most of the (hopefully) excellent reputation we have developed already.

Most corporate accounts have several divisions, departments, sites, even country offices and you must satisfy yourself that you have exhausted every possible avenue. Don’t be afraid to ask the question “Who else should I be talking to in your organisation”?

Developing New Opportunities:

There are a number of ways in which we can target new opportunities e.g.

o Direct Mail

o Telephone Canvassing

o Researching Archived Files For Customers Who Used To Buy From Your Company

o Exhibitions

o Seminars

o User Groups

o E-Mail Campaigns

o Referrals

o Qualified Leads

o Advertising

Not all of these will be appropriate to your particular industry, but you should not be afraid to experiment – i.e. challenge the paradigm – and do not accept that just because a particular idea has not worked in the past that it will not do so in the future. (Remember when you were learning to walk – it didn’t work first time then!)

The important thing is to make an early decision in terms of what you are going to try and then build this (those) ideas into your master plan.

A Typical Business Development Plan:

You should plan out the whole year and review / revise quarterly.

o List your existing accounts and plan what activities / actions need to be completed in order to fully exhaust all opportunities. You may for instance, plan to cover more bases within the decision making unit or contact associated companies or offices. The Strategic Account Profile can be used as a prompt.

o Begin to target new accounts using business directories etc. and set targets per week / month / quarter i.e. I normally allow for eight hours per week as a minimum (Don’t forget to continually refer back to your Ideal Profile)

o Then build in what assistance you need from your marketing function – i.e. qualified leads, seminars, exhibition attendance etc.

o Finally share your plan with your manager and then commit to it.

You should also measure it against S.M.A.R.T.E.R. i.e. is it.

S.pecific

M.easurable

A.chievable

R.elevant

T.imed

E.xciting

R.ecorded

Linking With Your Commercial Plan:

I have suggested that your Business Development Strategy, would link with your Master Business Plan but logically you should also integrate it into your Commercial Kit(this is a document that outlines your monthly,quarterly and annual targets) – specifically the areas that deal with new business generation, account management and development, four tier account lists etc.

These three documents when combined should drive and guide you through the next twelve months and beyond.

Summary:

As I have said often enough “People do not fail because they planned to fail but rather because they failed to plan”

The man who knows where he wants to go is more likely to get there, he just has to decide how to get there. All plans are essentially maps and guides; the strategic element is the ‘How’.

Do be prepared to change course, flexibility is key, and don’t be afraid to experiment, look outside the square.

Copyright ? 2008 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved

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If you are looking for a web hosting package for the small business you are about to set up, then it is good news to say that there are many website hosting services available. Now, this advantage can also turn to a disadvantage because it can be quite challenging to pick a single hosting service out of the entire bunch. Practically, there are hundreds of hosting companies and since you would only be setting up a single site, you would need only a single host provider. The key is to choose a specific hosting offer that meets your exact needs but does not drain your set budget. Keep in mind that the price of the hosting package should be reasonable enough that you can maintain it over the months or years.

One option to take when choosing a web hosting service provider is to get one company to host the web space and to provide you the domain name. A person intending to have a website does not only need web space but would also need a domain name that can also be related to the business or company name. Now, there are hosting packages that include domain name registration and one can consider getting these bundles so he can have much savings.

Since, there are practically hundreds or thousands of web hosting packages available nowadays, it would be wise to first search for the top web hosting services around. The best place to start is by checking sites that are offer web hosting service reviews so you go about your hosting shopping with direction. There are review websites that can give you a summary of each hosting service features, price and customer reviews. These sites can help you a lot especially if it is your first time to choose a web hosting package.

One of the features you should look for is reliability. When choosing a web host provider for a business that either small or big, reliability is one important factor to consider. You want the service to be up 99%(or more) of the time since a web server that is down can only mean problems for you, the business owner. The only way to test a provider for reliability is by actually getting their offered package but it can also help that you first read around user testimonials and reviews so you can get an objective view of a company’s service.

It is also important to look for excellent customer support. It is realistic to say that there are down times for almost all web host services and when such problems arise, you would want to easily contact customer support so you can have them fix the issue. Choose a company that offers 24/7 customer and technical support so your site would not have to be down unnecessarily.

Of course, the web owner should also look at the website hosting package price. A person can pay the hosting service per month but, in order to have more savings, he can also opt to sign up for longer periods of time. Usually web host service packages are available in 3 months, 6 months, 12 or even 24 months.

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In the United States there are a good amount of small businesses. Most of us Americans refer to these as Mom and Pop shops. I am going to discuss how, why, and approximately how much it is to set up your small businesses with a web presence using a web site on the Internet. As a small business owner myself and an IT professional, I know first hand how important advertising is. Most small business have money budgeted for advertising. Some more than others. But one thing that small business owners overlook is the power of a lot of low cost or free advertising on the Internet.

A web site for your small business is a must, along with signing up for Google places. Signing up on Yahoo as well is a good idea. Today most of us use and have access to the Internet at home or via our smart phones. When we need something we pop open Google and search for it. For example, you need a virus removed from your laptop. You go to Google and do a search for computer repair or virus removal in your area. The search engine results are shown, and then you start making some calls from the list of businesses that are relevant.

This is a powerful way for you to receive calls to your business, and the cost is very minimal. It’s usually around $2000 to get a good website set up for you, it’s $12 a year for the domain name, and then hosting is around $60.00 per year. If you add all that up and then divide by 5 years, your total cost of advertising with your web site is $39 a month. You can’t touch that price per month for advertising with any other advertiser for 24/hr per day advertising and showing up on the worlds number one search engine.

Now just getting your web site set up isn’t the last stop. You’ll have to Search Engine Optimize (SEO for short) your site, otherwise your search engine results won’t get you the business you desire. The explanation is when you first set up your web site, it first has to be submitted to Google for indexing. After indexed, you have to use strategic methods to raise your search ranking for certain keywords. Otherwise, you will never reach the first page of results for the keyword your targeting. I suggest hiring a SEO company to do this for you. In most cases, they can do it for you in 3 months for fees ranging from $750-$1000.

If you add that fee in with the previous fees, your total cost of advertising for your website would be?$56?a month for a five year period. Obviously I’m on?using 5 years as a baseline, if you factor in?a longer period of time,?your cost will go down. It is very small price to pay to have a good chance to increase your monthly sales when done properly. With the new age of technology, and the way we use the Internet to find products and services on the Internet, it would be in your best interest to use this tool to your businesses advantage.

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http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_S._Barnes