Archive for March 2011
The Business of America by John Steel Gordon – Book Review
March 29, 2011 | 
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Perhaps John Steele Gordon is really Flash Gordon in disguise, because I always seem to read his books at lightning speed, assimilating this 260 page trade paperback in a matter of just a few days. The Business of America was just as interesting, entertaining and enlightening as the first Gordon book I read, An Empire of Wealth. Gordon possesses an amazing ability to turn a potentially mundane historical business event into a fascinating, intricate and often ironic tale which in turn made this reader wonder why teachers, professors or colleagues failed to offer similar details of such important events. Perhaps it’s just the way in which Mr. Gordon intricately weaves the details in the story that makes the reader feel as if they can understand or empathize with the entrepreneur, magnate, mogul or tycoon of the era.
The Business of America winds through the early days of business in the wilderness, past the steamboats on the Hudson, through the industrial revolution and the California gold rush to the dawn of the American automobile industry. Gordon continues through technological advances, the business of war, to a couple of guys named David and William. David and William are garage based tinkerers with $538 in capital. Their story, like many of the stories in The Business of America, is certainly worth being retold, a story about ingenuity and perseverance, partnership and opportunity. Without giving away too much detail, I think we can all agree that David Packard and William Hewlett found a way to move their modest company out of the garage.
One of my favorite stories in this business based history of America revolves around Steamboat monopolies and Captain Cornelius Vanderbilt. Surely Vanderbilt is a captain of industry; many may not realize he was also once a captain on a Steamboat. In a matter of just a few pages, Mr. Gordon takes us from monopolies to Steamboat races, reviewing the most famous steamboat race of the day between the Vanderbilt and The Oregon, with a fast but readily understood explanation of steamboat construction and race strategy along the way. The race wager was $1,000, no small sum at that time, and came as a result of a challenge from one George Law, steamboat entrepreneur, and as the last name might infer, a lawyer. Who won the race to Sing Sing and back that day? This was just another interesting, amusing and educational tale from our talented business history bard.
I would recommend The Business of America to anyone who is interested in history or business. For those of you who have yet to read a John Steele Gordon book, I can also suggest An Empire of Wealth or A Thread Across the Ocean, both excellent business history works by Mr. Gordon. Look for reviews on these books and Hamilton’s Blessing in the near future.
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Business Plan – Purpose and Objectives
A detailed description of a new or existing business, including the company’s product or service, marketing plan, financial statements and projections and management principles, require a plan to be implemented. A document that spells out a company’s expected course of action for a specified period usually includes a detailed listing and analysis of risks and uncertainties. For the small business, it should examine the proposed products, the market, the industry, the management policies, the marketing policies, production needs and financial needs. Frequently, it is used as a prospectus for potential investors and lenders.
Think of it as a production line. What’s go in the start are raw materials and unfinished assemblies. Here, the raw materials include:
-Talent and initiative from employees
-Capital -Market position
-The company’s creditworthiness
-The firm’s earning capacity
-Assessment of changes in the marketplace.
It should have four major aspects:
- Its contribution to purpose and objectives
- Its primacy among the manager’s tasks
- Its pervasiveness
- The efficiency of resulting plans.
The Contribution of Planning to Purpose and Objectives: Every plan and all its supporting plans should contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose and objectives of the enterprise.
The Primacy of Planning Manager must plan in such a way that it leads to proper organizing, staffing, leading and controlling which support the accomplishment of enterprise objectives. Planning and controlling are inseparable. Any attempt to control without a plan is meaningless, since there is no way for people to tell whether they are going where they want to go. Plans thus furnish the standards of control.
The Pervasiveness of Planning: Planning is a function of all managers, which vary with each manager’s authority and with the nature of the policies and plans assigned by superiors. If managers are not allowed to a certain degree of discretion and planning responsibility, they are not truly managers.
The Efficiency of Plans: The effectiveness of plan refers to its contribution to the purpose and objectives. Plan is efficient if it achieves its purpose at a reasonable cost, when cost is measured not only in terms of time or money or production but also in the degree of individual and group satisfaction.
Procedures: Procedures are plans that establish a required method of handling future activities. They are chronological sequences of required actions. They are guides to action rather than to thinking and they detail the exact manner in which certain activities must be accomplished.
Rules: Rules are unlike procedures in that they guide action without specifying a time sequence. In fact, a procedure might be looked upon as a sequence of rules. Rule may be a part of procedure.
Programs: Programs are a complex of goals, policies, procedures, rules, task assignments, steps to be taken, resources to be employed and other elements necessary to carry out a given course of action; further supported by budgets.
Budgets: Budget is a statement of expected results expressed in numerical terms. Financial operating budget is often called a “profit plan”. This budget can be expressed in financial terms, in terms of labor- hours, units of product or machine hours or in any other numerically measurable term.
Steps in Planning: Being aware of opportunities, a manager should take a preliminary look at possible future opportunities and see them clearly and completely know where they stand in light of their strengths and weaknesses, understand what problems they wish to solve, and why and know what they expect to gain. Planning requires a realistic diagnosis of the opportunity situation.
Establishing objectives: This is to be done for the long term as well as for the short term. Objectives specify the expected results and indicate the end points of what is to be done, where the primary emphasis is to be placed and what is to be accomplished by the network of strategies, policies, procedures, rules, budgets and programs. Objectives form a hierarchy.
Developing premises: There are assumptions about the environment in which the plan is to be carried out. It is important for all managers involved in planning to agree on the premises. Forecasting is important in premising: what kind of markets will there be? What volume of sales? What prices? What products? What technical developments? What costs? What wage rates? What tax rates and policies? What new plans? How will expansion be financed? What are the long-term trends? Because the future is so complex, it would not be profitable or realistic to make assumption about every detail of the future environment of a plan.
Determining alternative courses: The more common problem is not finding alternatives but reducing the number of alternatives so that the most promising may be analyzed. The planner must usually make a preliminary examination to discover the most fruitful possibilities.
Evaluating alternative courses: From the various alternatives available proper evaluation should be done which may involve ash flow.
Selecting a course: The best alternative should be selected.
Numbering plans by budgeting Final step is giving them meaning by converting them into budgets. The overall budgets of an enterprise represent the sum total of income and expenses, with resultant profit or surplus and the budgets of major balance sheet items such as cash and capital expenditures.
How to Get Web Traffic That Will Increase Your Sales and Online Business Profitability
Contrary to what most people think, profitability for online business does not depend on the direct number of people who visit the website. What really determines the success of an online business is the value of web traffic that a particular website gets. So as you search for ways of getting traffic to your website, do not just go for ways of getting traffic but focus on those that will help you get valuable traffic or what is commonly referred to as targeted web traffic.
The task of getting this kind of traffic is both challenging and easy at the same time. Let me explain that. It is challenging because you have to know the right techniques to use and allocate them efforts. On the other hand, it is easy since once you master the techniques, the rest becomes a walk in the park. Let me take you through the top three techniques that have been proved to successfully generate targeted web traffic for many successful online businesses
1. Submitting articles to article directories
Check out the major article directories such as EzineArticles.com and you are sure to get the names of the most famous internet marketers. This tells us a lot about the potential of article marketing in generating traffic for blogs and websites.
There is actually no reason why you should not be using this highly effective traffic generation tactic since it is very simple. Article marketing simply entails writing articles and submitting them to article directories. The best article directories, if not all, allow you to include a link to your website in the author information box (otherwise known as resource box). The idea behind this tactic is to give your readership so much value that they become compelled to click on the link you provide in the resource box.
2. Participating in blogging
This is another area that has been mastered by online marketing gurus. It’s potential in generating targeted web traffic can surely not be overlooked. The best idea here would be to come up with your own blog targeting the subject of your business website, constantly make posts on it and invite people to make comments. It is a great chance to show people that you are an expert in your particular niche.
3. Online forums
Participating in relevant online forums is something close to the perfect idea. Members of online forums are people who are actually interested in a particular product. So if your product happens to be the one, all you will need to do is make your presence known through the forums, present yourself as a highly skilled individual and give your website link. Nothing will be easier than converting the people you get this way into real buyers.
There are two advantages of these three methods that I should not end this traffic guide without mentioning. One is that besides the traffic you get directly from these methods, good articles, blogs and online forums get a high page rank in search engines. This, no doubt, generates massive web traffic. Second is that you also enjoy referrals from people who like your articles, blog or forum posts.