Business Ethics Is All About Your Character

Imagine walking up to a restaurant for an early morning breakfast and before going in, you make a decision to buy a newspaper from one of the various vending machines. However, before you can deposit your coinage, you observed the following:

Two small business owners or possibly businessmen walked up to another newspaper vending machine. One deposited the proper coins and opens the door to take his paid for newspaper. Then he asks his companion if he would like one as well? A second newspaper is removed without payment. The companion then jokes about receiving 2 newspapers for the price of one.

I personally witnessed this scenario. What I did was to take the necessary coins from my own pocketbook and deposit them into the machine. I opened the door and then closed the door without taking a newspaper. The two small business owners or executives now stared at me in disbelief.

As I approached the restaurant door, one of the businessmen opened the door, but he could not look me in the eyes. He knew he did wrong, but he thought that no one else would see. And he probably else thought that everyone else does it so why not?

Business ethics is all about character. And character is all about doing the right thing when no one else is looking.

I call this self leadership because if you cannot lead yourself well by demonstrating character when no one else is looking how can you lead others?

One of the most consistent complaints that I hear from small business owners is about the lack of work ethics such as employees who do not give an hour of work for an hour of pay. Yet, how many of their executives, supervisors and managers are doing the same thing?

Possibly, these two small business owners thought that rank had its privileges or that they had already paid their fair share? Earning a certain position does merit some additional benefits, but rank does not give permission to steal, to be disrespectful, to be unethical.

Given that our actions are open to everyone to see and hear, we in the business world must be consistently executing the right actions through our work ethics demonstrated by our self leadership skills. For failure to do so, will only cause us harm sometime down the road or the path to the restaurant door when we fail to notice who is observing our business ethics.

5 Small Business Marketing Tips

Small business marketing tips are everywhere these days and if you pay attention, even in the most unexpected places.

My partner, Greg and I attended a search engine optimization symposium presented by Search Engine Workshops in Raleigh, North Carolina. Greg lives in Montreal and I live in Toronto, so it was a great opportunity to meet and catch up on a few small projects while learning the latest SEO techniques we will employ in marketing our business.

Robin Nobles inspired us to develop creativity in our content development; Andy Beale gave us an in-depth overview of blog marketing for businesses, Dave Barry discussed dynamically delivered web pages and Michael Marshall…..well, if you want to know what Michael is up to, you will have to attend the next symposium.

John Alexander renewed our enthusiasm about keyword research with Wordtracker and gave added a few small surprises, as John always does.

However, one of the most important business lessons during the two day session wasn’t taught in the classroom and it wasn’t delivered by the usual suspects.

The first night in town, we went to a nearby restaurant for dinner. A waiter approached our table and introduced himself; “Good evening everyone, my name is Omar and I am your waiter this evening.”

Omar was taking our dinner order when we noticed that he wasn’t taking notes which caused some concern in our group. Omar told us not to worry and that after he had taken our 5 orders that he would repeat the order….of the table of 6 behind him and then he would repeat our orders, which he did, flawlessly.

The food was terrific and the service was great so the next night we decided to go back to the same restaurant. Of course, we asked to be seated in Omar’s section. Once again, Omar delivered. When the kitchen took too long to cook a meal for one of our associates, Omar provided a free cocktail, brought over some finger food and boxed the dinner for later…..no charge.

Now we were hooked. Our last night in town, we walked over to the restaurant and asked for Omar. We were disappointed to hear that there was a 60 minute wait to get into Omar’s section but if we would sit elsewhere it would only take 30 minutes.

It had been a long day so we decided to forgo Omar’s section and went to the bar to drown our sorrows in a cold beer. We asked the bartender for a food menu and ordered our drinks. I was paying for the first round, as I usually do when I am with Greg, so I asked the bartender for the bill.

“Your bill has been taken care of”, the bartender told me and pointed to a young man, carrying a tray of food, heading towards a table at the back of the restaurant. Greg and I stared at each other in disbelief and immediately went back to the headwaiter and demanded to be seated in Omar’s section.

It gets better. Our table was ready but my partner was finishing off a beer so I walked over alone to secure our booth. Before I had time to sit down, Omar arrived with a beverage in hand. “Diet coke, Mr. Byers” Omar knowingly stated. I was floored but the best was still to come.

Omar took our dinner order in his customary respectful fashion. He returned with our meals and placed a glass of red wine in front of me.
“I thought you might enjoy a glass of Pinot Noir with your steak, Mr. Byers”, Omar stated matter of factly.

OK, all of the business marketing services offered by Omar can be explained:

- The memory thing; a learned technique.

- Remembering the diet coke, well, I had a diet coke all 3 nights.

- Addressing me by name, I paid with my credit card, as I usually do when I am with Greg.

- The Pinot Noir, I had a glass of Pinot Noir on the very first visit to the restaurant two days earlier.

- Buying a round for the boys; priceless!

5 Small Business Marketing Tips We Can Learn from Omar

1. Differentiate Yourself – We’ve all seen waiters take orders by memory but how many engage the table a challenge?

2. Get Personal Fast – In 5 minutes, Omar addressed every person in our booth individually by name.

3. Know Your Client – take the time and effort it had to take Omar to understand and deliver uch personalized service to your customers. Learning the small details about your client’s business can make all the difference.

4. React Quickly To Control Damage – Instead of complaining about how our colleague’s meal was late, we found ourselves once again marveling over Omar’s handling of the situation.

5. It Ain’t Over Till it’s Over – Omar saw us with food menus in hand, ready to order dinner at the bar when he paid for our drinks.
Never stop selling.

Free Home Business Tips

Did you know it was possible to start a home business on the Internet today for free? Free isn’t always better, but in this article we want to give you several tips that will help you be successful if you do choose to start a free home business.

First of all target a market where people have a need for the product and are spending money in it. If you are unsure what that is go spend some time over at Google Trends and look at what is going on in the marketplace today.

You can also just take a look around you on TV, in the newspaper, or on the radio and see what people are talking about. This may give you some ideas on businesses to target.

You will find that there are many ways to make money on the Internet for free. The product is extremely important and many people do not have a product when they first get started.

One way you can start an Internet business for free is to join affiliate marketing programs. There are merchants that will let you sell their products for them and they will provide everything you need to be successful.

This will include products, your own marketing materials such as a website, and processing orders. You get paid to sell the products on your website and then you earn a commission according to the affiliate agreement provided by the merchant.

You’ve established your market in step one and now you want to be sure and join affiliate programs that offer quality products. One thing you can do is purchase the products to learn more about them. If you purchase products and become an affiliate for products that you have an interest in you stand a better chance to be successful.

Therefore only try to promote products online at you have first hand experience for. Although you will have some cost in purchasing the product you can sell it online for free and various including starting a blog of your own.

WordPress and Blogger.com will let you set a blog up for free and you can use these to write product reviews and to sell your affiliate products on.

As you can see there are several things you can do for free to get the process started with your own home business. By putting the emphasis on the product, and targeting markets were people are spending money, you stand an excellent chance of being successful.

Marketing Your Small Business Online Or Offline

Marketing Your Small Business Online Or Offline – Why Marketing Should Become Part of Your Routine

Marketing will become the area that will make the difference between success and mediocrity, no matter what field you are in. The definition of marketing is simply the process of telling other people what you do so that they have an opportunity to do business with you.

It used to be that you only marketed for your business when times were slow. Small businesses, both online and off, would wait until they had very little business and then employ marketing techniques to attract more prospects and clients.

Those days are long gone. Now it is best to make this a part of your daily work schedule and to learn as much as possible about online techniques and methods.

There are so many ways to let people know who you are and what you do. Article marketing is one of the best, but it takes some time to start working. You write a three hundred word article that discusses an aspect of your business. Submit that article to the free directories and it will circulate all over the internet.

Internet radio is another good way to use online marketing. Have someone interview you for thirty minutes to give you a chance to tell the world about your business. That recording can then be sent out as a podcast or given out as a link on your blog or website. This is a completely free service.

Blogging is probably one of the very best ways that you can market yourself and your business. Every time you make a post to your blog you give people another opportunity to find out more about you and what you do. Blogging also allows clients and prospects to make comments, bringing them in and involving them in the conversation.

Think of marketing as part of your daily routine and you will have as much business as you want, without having to think about it.

Commercial Mortgage and Investment Business Loan Problems

Inadequate preparation can produce disastrous commercial mortgage business loan consequences because of many potential business finance difficulties. Fortunately such an undesirable outcome can be avoided by anticipating common commercial loan problems.

With rapidly deteriorating financing for residential investment property, overcoming business loan and commercial mortgage problems is even more important. This summary provides an introduction to four critical commercial loan factors and should assist commercial borrowers to better anticipate key business financing difficulties.

It is not unusual to find that business investment lenders and business loan brokers are not as forward-looking about business financing and investing difficulties as most borrowers would expect, and I have published another article about commercial lenders to avoid. The focus here is on four typical commercial mortgage loan and SBA business loan difficulties often overlooked by commercial lenders and borrowers.

Commercial borrowers should be prepared for commercial loan scenarios that involve unexpected business financing problems. With business financing there are several key commercial mortgage problems which should be avoided. Business loan problems are more serious and prevalent than many borrowers would imagine.

Some of these commercial mortgage business loan difficulties might be unavoidable, but in most cases these business financing and SBA loan challenges can be successfully overcome. Commercial borrowers will be poised to take proper corrective action if they are aware of common commercial loan difficulties.

Avoidable Commercial Real Estate Investment Property Financing Scenario Number One: Use of secondary business financing -

Many commercial borrowers want the flexibility to use subordinated debt (a seller second or other secondary financing) in order to acquire a commercial property or business opportunity investment with a smaller down payment. Many forms of business investing will not permit a seller second or other forms of subordinated debt. With a commercial loan via non-traditional business lenders, a commercial borrower can use subordinate business financing (including seller seconds) to reduce the amount of their down payment.

Commercial Mortgage Example Number Two: Sourcing-seasoning assets and seasoning of ownership -

Some commercial lenders will require borrowers to document the source of the down payment for a purchase (sourcing). Many business lenders require borrowers to document where down payment money is coming from, often for up to 12 months in order to provide seasoning confirmation. Ownership seasoning is determined by establishing a minimum period for ownership prior to being eligible for refinancing.

Such a problem will probably not deter all borrowers. When it does apply, business borrowers should insist on a lender without seasoning and sourcing requirements.

Business Financing Example Number Three: Commercial mortgage recall terms -

Business loan recall conditions will often allow the commercial lender to force the borrower to repay their loan before the normal loan expiration. If a commercial loan agreement does not include recall terms, such a possibility is not of immediate concern to a borrower.

Commercial lenders will routinely include recall conditions in a business loan agreement. The provisions which will prompt a recall will vary and typically include annual business lender monitoring of financial statements, tax returns and credit history. Without agreed income, tax returns and credit standards, the lender can choose to require the borrower to pay off the commercial loan within a very short period of time.

Contingency Plans for Business Finance Recalls: What to do about a commercial loan recall -

To avoid an unanticipated recall scenario, commercial borrowers would be wise to consider only commercial loans which do not have recall terms. For commercial borrowers who have recall provisions in their business financing agreement, it will be equally wise to consider refinancing their business loan or commercial mortgage before a recall occurs so that refinancing is accomplished when it is most appropriate for the borrower.

When borrowers receive a business financing recall, they must quickly obtain refinancing assistance. When reviewing commercial loan choices for refinancing, borrowers should attempt to exclude potential lenders that require recall terms.

Business Loan Example Number Four: Business financing that needs a long-term commercial loan -

Is long-term investing and financing really possible for a business loan? Some business investment lenders will only offer 5 years (or less) before commercial real estate financing will expire with a balloon payment due.

There are commercial mortgage programs which can provide long-term financing, even though many lenders will only offer shorter-term options for investment business financing. Longer-term commercial real estate financing will often be the critical difference that facilitates a successful business investment because a new business loan will not be required for many years and commercial loan payments will also be reduced.

Additional Commercial Loan Problems and Solutions -

Unfortunately commercial borrowers will frequently encounter commercial mortgage business loan problems similar to those described here. To better prepare for this, an advisable approach is to explore business financing resources that will facilitate a better understanding of complex commercial loan issues. The Commercial Real Estate Loan Guide and The Working Capital Management Guide are two examples of business finance resources that will provide possible solutions for many difficult commercial financing situations.

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