Whether your business is a traditional brick and mortar business or an Internet business being innovative can increase your profit potential in a major way. How is this so?

Let me explain.

While there are certain business rules that should be followed, and certain trends that are worth following, most of the "rules" are more general guidelines than they are rules set in stone. So how do you know when it’s okay to be innovative and when you should stick to the more traditional rules of business or what is really a rule and what’s not? Let’s take a look at some of the rules of business and some of the guidelines.

Rules:

· Customer satisfaction is essential to success – This is absolutely true no matter what type of business you have. Unsatisfied customers will spread the word about your business as fast, if not faster than satisfied customers will. Before you know it your business will be suffering immensely.

· Free websites and e-mail addresses are not professional – Not only do customers find free websites and e-mail addresses to be questionable, but so do other business professionals. To be taken seriously as a business person you need to have a paid domain with a corresponding e-mail address.

· Knowledge of your products or services is essential to success – To be successful in business you must know the products or services you’re selling. This is not to say you must be an expert, though it wouldn’t hurt, but you must have solid knowledge of what you’re selling. This correlates to customer satisfaction.

Guidelines

· Don’t mix niches – While this can be good advice, there’s more than one way I can see that mixing niches can be not only innovative but successful. I’m not going to give my personal input here, but I can tell you that mixing niches has the potential to be very successful if done right.

· Don’t use busy patterns on your website – Now this has, at times, irritated me on some websites. However, if used sparingly and tactfully it can be a very effective means of drawing attention to a particular space on your website that may have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Without going on and on I’m sure you get the idea. While I wouldn’t suggest going off on a tangent and employing a brand new, never tried marketing method as your only means of marketing, I’d say you should give something new and unheard of a try every now and again.

You may just be pleasantly surprised!

Resell Rights are at the top of many people’s lists of profitable, easy-to-sell products.  For those of you not familiar with what Resell Rights are, allow me to take a moment to go over the basics.

Resell Rights, also known as Resale Rights, are special rights that may be granted to a person by means of a legal transaction between the seller (person who currently owns the rights to sell a particular product) and the buyer (person who is obtaining the rights to sell the product).

By way of this transaction the legal right to sell the product is transferred from one person to another, giving the buyer legal Resell Rights to the product.

There are several different types of Resell Rights a person may obtain for a product.  Each different type of Resell Rights allows the owner a different degree of ability to make a profit from the product.

Let’s take a moment to look at some of the different types of Resell Rights available.

· Basic Resell Rights – allows you to resell a particular product to your customers, however, your customers do not have any rights whatsoever to resell the product to anyone else.  This type of Resell Rights allows you to keep 100% of the profit made from each sale.

· Private Label Rights – probably the most attractive, versatile type of Resell Rights available.

This type of rights allows you to alter the product in any manner you choose such as renaming the product, putting your own name on the product, rewriting part, or all, of the product, reselling the product and/or its Resell Rights to others, and so on.

· Royalty Rights – requires you to pay the franchisor or author of the product a percentage of each sale of the product you make, most common with physical products such as books sold in bookstores.

· Master Resell Rights – gives you the rights to resell a product along with its Basic Resell Rights.  Master Resell Rights also allow for your customers to in turn resell the product to their own customers.

This type of Resell Rights also allows for the Master Resell Rights to be sold in combination with the product itself.

On the other hand, it can be very stressful if you’re having a difficult time managing your business from home.

One of the biggest pitfalls many people face when trying to manage their business from home is distractions.  It’s far too easy to take that personal phone call and chat away the hour or invite your friend in when they pop over and spend the afternoon catching up.

The idea that you have no boss looking over your shoulder or checking your time card can make the temptation to slack off too great to resist for some people.  Here are a couple tips on how to successfully manage your home-based business.

First you must be firm with friends and family.  You need to make them understand that even though your business is at home, you’re still working.

Explaining to them that your business is no different than any brick-and-mortar business with the exception of the fact that it’s at your home should get the point across.

However, if you have young children this may be a bit more difficult for them to understand.

Next, set a work schedule for yourself.  This will help you keep from overworking yourself and also allow for you to spend time with family and friends, too.

You can also provide your schedule to family and friends to help them avoid distracting you while you’re working.

Last, let’s cover communication with business associates and customers.  You’ll want to be able to keep in contact with them, but there have to be guidelines in place for them, too.

On your website you can clearly post methods of contact.  If telephone is one of them you’ll want to set reasonable hours.  If need be, get a second phone line and have the calls forwarded to your voice mail after your regular working hours.

This will prevent you from having to listen to the phone ring all evening long and help you avoid the temptation of taking that extra call that will cut into your personal time.

If you have a brick and mortar business you must ensure that you have a knowledgeable staff that can interact with them effectively; answer their questions, provide accurate information and be prompt and courteous.

If you have a web-based business you need to provide much of the same customer service functions, but virtually.  In order to do this your website must be interactive.

To create an interactive website you must provide functions on your site that allow your customer to feel like they’re getting what they want, when they want.

If they want product information they need to be able to click and receive, right then, right there.  They may also feel more at home if there’s a means by which they can communicate with your or other customers.

To do this you can create a message board or blog on your site that will allow them to virtually connect with other people with their same interests.

These types of things make a customer feel like their needs are being met and leaves them feeling more satisfied.  And a satisfied customer not only spends more money but will send potential customers your way.

Another important tool for your website is a feedback form.  This form allows customers to give you feedback directly from your site, rather than having to send it from their e-mail.

By placing the feedback form on your site you make the customer feel like their comments, concerns or complaints are important to you, and this makes them feel good about you as a business person.

Be sure to place this form in an easy-to-find location on your website.

While adding these tools to your website may seem complicated, or even pricey, they are well worth it in the long run.

Most web-hosting companies offer these tools and many more in their hosting packages.

For a few additional dollars each month you can improve your customer satisfaction rating and traffic flow greatly.

So why should you do this and how can you keep and eye on a competitor on the web?  Let’s take a moment to discuss this.

The main reason why you should keep an eye on the competition is to measure their level of success to yours.

If you don’t take the time to stay on top of how the competition is doing you may soon start losing customers to them, and getting them back can be hard to do.

You not only want to know if they make changes in their advertising methods, but you also want to stay abreast of changes in products or services, special offers, or other things of this nature that have the potential to entice your customers to visit the competition.

Now let’s talk about how to keep an eye on the competition on the web.  First you’ll want to track their ranking on the popular search engines.  Search engine ranking is a great indicator of where the traffic is going.

Second, you’ll want to regularly take time to visit their site.  This will provide you with an inside look at what products or services they’re offering and keep you abreast of any changes they make.

Last, you’ll want to sign up for their newsletters and other mailings.  This can keep you on top of special offers and upcoming changes they have planned.

Keeping an eye on the competition does take a little time, but not so much that it isn’t worth doing.

Staying abreast of what’s going on with your competition will make a major difference in how successful you are at competing with them.

More and more "brick and mortar" businesses are turning to the Internet to expand their visibility in an ever-increasingly competitive worldwide market.

You may wonder how a traditional brick and mortar business would make its debut on the web.  The answer to that question is two-part.  First it would depend on the type of business that you own.

The needs of different types of businesses can vary a great deal.  Second it would depend on what you want to get out of taking their business online.

Do you want to take your business to the Internet to increase your sales opportunities by providing ordering online, or do you want to merely increase your visibility and stick to selling in person or via phone?

Let’s cover each of these topics separately.

Depending on the type of business you have taking it to the web can involve many different things.

Perhaps you own a flower shop where you would have to not only have your available arrangements seen by customers but would also need to quote delivery times.  Another possibility is that you offer a service-based business.

In this instance you would need your site to offer enough information to get the customer’s attention, but concentrate on the customer-service aspect of providing additional information and services via e-mail and phone.

Another factor to consider when taking your business to the web is shipping of goods ordered online.  In a traditional business most customers make their purchases in person, so shipping is not a concern.

However, when selling goods online your customer could be across town, across country or around the world.  You need to be prepared to handle the shipping aspect of internet business while still offering competitive prices and maintaining your profit.

Making your business’s debut on the Internet can be very exciting and loaded with possibilities.  If done right you can see a great increase in profitability.

Just remember to have a solid plan in place before taking your business online and make sure to cover all the bases so that your internet debut goes as smoothly as possible.