Have you ever tried organizing an event? There are so many things to do and get right, just in order to hold a successful event. The biggest problem of all is managing attendance registration. How do you get people to register to and pay for the event? Do you do it in a manual process, sending out forms and asking them to make payments and returning their event registration forms?

I know how painful arranging an event is and how confusing it can be to also try and organize and keep track of the delegates registrations. It's a full time job until the event registration date is past and then the job of reconciling your accounts to see who paid and who did not. It's enough to have you chasing your tail in square circles.

So what should you do? How can you make the event registration process, quick, easy and simple to manage? How can you streamline the process and free up our time so that you have more time to focus on the mountain of other things that need your attention when organizing an event?

Excerpt from On Target: The Book on Marketing Plans by Tim Berry and Doug Wilson

Click the link above to download the online book in PDF.

Public Relations involves a variety of programs designed to maintain or enhance a company's image and the products and services it offers. Successful implementation of an effective public relations strategy can be a critical component to a marketing plan.

A public relations (PR) strategy may play a key role in an organization's promotional strategy. A planned approach to leveraging public relations opportunities can be just as important as advertising and sales promotions. Public relations is one of the most effective methods to communicate and relate to the market. It is powerful and, once things are in motion, it is the most cost effective of all promotional activities. In some cases, it is free.

The success of well executed PR plans can be seen through several organizations that have made it a central focus of their promotional strategy. Paul Newman's Salad Dressing, The Body Shop, and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream have positioned their organizations through effective PR strategies. Intel, Sprint and Microsoft have leveraged public relations to introduce and promote new products and services.

Excerpt from On Target: The Book on Marketing Plans by Tim Berry and Doug Wilson

Click the link above to download the online book in PDF.

Every marketing plan has to fit the needs and situation. Even so, there are standard components you just can't do without. A marketing plan should always have a situation analysis, marketing strategy, sales forecast, and expense budget.

• Situation Analysis: Normally this will include a market analysis, a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and a competitive analysis. The market analysis will include market forecast, segmentation, customer information, and market needs analysis.
• Marketing Strategy: This should include at least a mission statement, objectives, and focused strategy including market segment focus and product positioning.
• Sales Forecast: This would include enough detail to track sales month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual analysis. Normally a plan will also include specific sales by product, by region or market segment, by channels, by manager responsibilities, and other elements. The forecast alone is a bare minimum.
• Expense Budget: This ought to include enough detail to track expenses month by month and follow up on plan-vs.-actual analysis. Normally a plan will also include specific sales tactics, programs, management responsibilities, promotion, and other elements. The expense budget is a bare minimum.

Are They Enough?

These minimum requirements above are not the ideal, just the minimum. In most cases you'll begin a marketing plan with an Executive Summary, and you'll also follow those essentials just described with a review of organizational impact, risks and contingencies, and pending issues.

Include a Specific Action Plan

You should also remember that planning is about the results, not the plan itself. A marketing plan must be measured by the results it produces. The implementation of your plan is much more important than its brilliant ideas or massive market research. You can influence implementation by building a plan full of specific, measurable and concrete plans that can be tracked and followed up. Plan-vs.-actual analysis is critical to the eventual results, and you should build it into your plan.

Not everyone who starts and runs a business begins with a business plan, but it certainly helps to have one. If you are seeking funding from a venture capitalist, you will certainly need a comprehensive business plan that is well thought out and demonstrates sound business reasoning.

If you are approaching a banker for a loan for a start-up business, your loan officer may suggest a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan, which will require a business plan. If you have an existing business and are approaching a bank for capital to expand the business, they often will not require a business plan, but they may look more favorably on your application if you have one.

Reasons for writing a business plan include:

• Support a loan application
• Raise equity funding
• Define objectives and describe programs to achieve those objectives
• Create a regular business review and course correction process
• Define a new business
• Define agreements between partners
• Set a value on a business for sale or legal purposes
• Evaluate a new product line, promotion, or expansion

Business planning is about results. For every business plan, you need to make the contents of your plan match your purpose. Don't accept a standard outline just because it's there.

In the United States business market there is a standardization about business plans. You can find dozens of books on the subject, about as many Web sites, two or three serious software products, and courses in hundreds of business schools, night schools, and community colleges. Although there are many variations on the theme, a lot of it still falls into the same standard.

Often you may hear about what a business plan consists of. While including the necessary items is very important, you also want to make sure you don't commit any of the following common business plan mistakes:

Putting it off

Don't wait to write a plan until you absolutely have to. Too many businesses make business plans only when they have no choice in the matter. Unless the bank or the investors want a plan, there is no plan.

Don't wait to write your plan until you think you'll have enough time. "There's not enough time for a plan," business people say. "I can't plan. I'm too busy getting things done." The busier you are, the more you need to plan. If you are always putting out fires, you should build firebreaks or a sprinkler system. You can lose the whole forest for paying too much attention to the individual burning trees.

A business plan is not a one-time document, at least it shouldn't be. Most businesses put together a business plan during their start-up phase to organize, attract partners and employees, and to try and get a loan or financial investment. This is a great use of a business plan, however far too often once the company has started up the plan isn't touched again.

Ultimately, a business plan is about results, about making your business better. If you don't think doing a business plan will improve your business, then don't do one. Planning for planning's sake is a waste of time.

Where a plan is most likely to make your business better is by allowing you to:

1. Set priorities properly.
2. Track plan vs. actual results and make course corrections.
3. Plan and manage the critical numbers that aren't intuitive: not just profit and loss, but the relationship to cash flow, balance sheet, and ratios.
4. Communicate your plan to others: partners, employees, lenders, and investors. You may have a great plan in your head, but as soon as you need to explain it to others, you need to write it down.

A common problem people encounter when writing their business plan is finding information about their business industry and competitive companies. Fortunately, in recent years the Internet has made information gathering simple and easy, but sometimes the best information is found much closer to home, with real people, in real time.

Always take a look at other businesses similar to your own, as a very good first step. If you're looking at starting a new business, you may well be starting one similar to one you already know. If you're doing a plan for an existing business, you are even more likely to know the business well. Even so, you can still learn a lot by looking at other similar businesses.

The best way to show bankers, venture capitalists, and angel investors that you are worthy of financial support is to show them a great business plan. Make sure that your plan is clear, focused and realistic. Then show them that you have the tools, talent and team to make it happen. Your business plan is like your calling card, it will get you in the door where you'll have to convince investors and loan officers that you can put your plan into action.

Once you have raised the money to start or expand your business, your plan will serve as a road map for your business. It is not a static document that you write once and put away. You will reference it often, making sure you stay focused and on track, and meet milestones. It will change and develop as your business evolves.

Working at home is the ideal of every office worker. However making the change from working in a corporate office environment, where you have interaction with fellow employees or even customers, to a home office where it is just you and the cat, can be depressing and unproductive for many people.

Isolation in the home office is just one of the problems a home worker faces. Disruption from children or friends stopping by to have tea or chat can interfere with a home workers productivity. Luckily the problems can generally be nailed down to a general lack of structure and discipline as the root cause.

The more businesslike you make your home office environment and the more you set yourself tasks by a schedule the easier it is to overcome the pitfalls. Here are some tips for you to consider.

Business Investor Network is a community web site with active online forums for small business owners and managers. Membership is open to all and basic membership is free.

On Business Investor Network you will find like-minded members dedicated to helping each other solve business problems, find new suppliers, win new customers, share experiences and practical advice.

Business Investor Network periodically publishes articles about business issues, tips on improving your business, increasing profitability and much more.

On the forum you will find boards for discussion on all business topics including:

• Marketing and Sales
• Finance
• Management
• Getting Started
• Buying and Selling
• Supply Chain
• Investor Management

Business Investor Network members create a friendly, open and inclusive community environment focused on the many challenges facing owners and managers of small businesses and start-ups.

But if you are interested only in Online Business, you should visit Web Investor Network which is solely focused on web business.

If you are wondering why we split the two; that is because web business has evolved into unique business medium which has very unique requirements and topics.

Business Investor Network has a team of active moderators that remove any undesirable content, to keep spammers away, manage the forums, and to help resolve any problems or issues that you encounter on the forum. Please help the moderators by keeping to forum rules and report anything suspicious or offensive.

We aim at all times to support members' freedom of speech, so long as the discussion on the forum remains legal and balanced by a decent bit of self-discipline! As a registered member, we kindly request that you abide by the forum Rules, which are the guideline that keep the forum productive and helpful to everyone.

Business Investor Network is part of the Enbaya Trading CC portfolio of online communities.

When looking to buy or sell a business, the services of a good business broker can be valuable. However, if you have never bought or sold a business or used the services of a business broker, knowing how to choose a business broker can be a bit of a hit and miss affair.

There are two types of business brokers. Those who are real estate agents acting as business brokers, selling property most of the time and selling the occasional business on the side and those who are full time business brokers.

When looking for a business broker you may choose the services of either an estate agent that acts as a business broker or a fully fledged business broking firm. Whichever you choose you will want to select a business broker that has listed and sold businesses in the industry or industries that interest you.

Here are a few pointers that will help you choose a good business broker for your purpose.

The benefits of buying an existing business as opposed to building a new one from scratch are many but the process is often fraught with possible pitfalls. Here are ten things to be aware of when buying a business.