Periodically I put up information about online opportunities and affiliate programs because there is a growing population of people that make a good living from various online activities.

As small business owners, it is always good to find alternate sources of income, especially when we can tie it in to our core business.

Inbox Dollars is one of the programs that I came across recently. It is a legitimate company and they even did a piece about the company on Good Morning America….

You be the judge …. click the banner to get more info…. it’s free …. and family friendly!

Regus collated the insight supplied by 15,000 respondents from its 1 million-strong business contact database.

Summary of survey (download) include:

- Social networks are now actively used by between half and three quarters of companies worldwide for various networking functions

- 40% of businesses globally have found new customers via social networks.

- Over a quarter (27%) devotes marketing dollars to social networking activity to both acquire and retain customers.

- Keeping in contact with business contacts is the main use of social networks (58%) followed by getting together with special interest groups (54%), discovering useful business intelligence (54%) and organizing, managing and connecting with customer groups (51%).

- Surprisingly under a quarter of professionals (22%) have used business social networks to find a new job

“With 55% of online Americans registered on Facebook, any reservations towards using social networking for business purposes seem misplaced. This survey indicates that organizations who have not yet ventured into the world of social networking may be missing out on sizeable business opportunities,” said Sande Golgart, vice president for Regus.

“This is particularly the case in the Netherlands (48%), India (52%), Mexico (50%) and Spain (50%), where the highest level of new customer acquisition via social networking was reported.”

I don’t post much affiliate or marketing things here but I just thought this was an awesome concept. It’s free so any one can give it a try and there is really nothing to lose!

Business owners and entrepreneurs want to participate to get some insight into team building strategies and extend their networking “circle”

This is an interesting spin on things!
You actually build your team prior to choosing a business opportunity!
May seem backward, but it makes sense. If you can get a team together and on ‘one accord’, you can ‘plug-in’ a business opportunity and approach it with force!

Of course, you would not get involved with any business, but the team approach increases your chances of greater success with any business!

Check out the video… Join Free and be a part of something educational and interesting!

JOIN NOW FREE

• Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.   Daniel Webster

• Long-range planning works best in the short term.  Doug Evelyn

• Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.  Dwight Eisenhower

• Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.  Norman Schwarzkopf

• I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going.  Richard Branson

• The entrepreneur is our visionary, the creator in each of us. We’re born with that quality and it defines our lives as we respond to what we see, hear, feel, and experience. It is developed, nurtured, and given space to flourish or is squelched, thwarted, without air or stimulation, and dies.  Michael Gerber

• I’ve always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it’s important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective.  Carlos Slim Helu
  

I made VBS Insight a do-follow blog because I wanted to provide a place for people to put their links and get their back-link count up. I expected that my spam would increase and it did!

I am just here to give a quick notice

VBS Insight will continue to be ‘do-follow’ but I am starting to be a lot more strict on the comments.

All I ask is that your comment be related to the post in some manner and it make sense! I get comments that you can clearly tell where not written for the post and just don’t make any sense at all. I get comments with nothing but links. I get comments that some one has copied and pasted into multiple posts.

Please continue to post with your links, but if you don’t want to be deleted and want your comment to actually be posted; make it related to the post and make it sensible!

Thanks

Learn to Keep People Dependent on You

To maintain your independence you must always be needed and wanted.  Make people depend on you for their happiness and prosperity and you have nothing to fear.  Never teach them enough so that they can do without you.

For small business owners, this is how you stay in business and thrive. Make your customers feel like they ‘need’ your product or service. If your customers come to depend on your products and services, chances are they will be return customers.

I attended a business seminar some years ago and out of everything the speakers said, one thing stood out. This guy sold personal-care items and he said that consumable, personal-care items are an ‘endless money source’. He went on to explain that consumables were great items to sell because people don’t want to go without them! They will purchase in surplus and will purchase more when the supplies starts to get low!

People act this way because the they develop a dependency (real or imagined) or certain things. Think about it … how long would you go without toothpaste or soap? How about food? Not very long!

Make your customers feel that you are the ONLY source. Through your superior customer  service, your unique service or product, your availability or ability; you want your customers to NEED what your selling!

For most people, money makes the world go round and business bears that money. Businessmen will perhaps do anything just to achieve the ultimate goal of having a business, and that is to earn income. Net profit or income, financially, means a surplus of sales or revenues after deducting costs and expenses. Whether you are engage in profession, occupation, work or trade, you are in business and you speak income. When you earn an income you suffer taxes, the worst nightmare for every income earners. Income tax is your punishment of doing well in business. This sounds ridiculous but this is the reality, you pay when you earn.

Because tax is legislative, noncompliance to this would results to criminal penalties. Income tax has already made billions of liars around the world. Some governments imposed taxes which are already too much and burden the flow of business. Others make tax laws that are already beyond the ability of taxpayers. However, these facts must not result in a lack of business ethics when it comes to how you conduct your business.

Ethics in business rarely exists nowadays. Perhaps it is because for most people, profit will come without the need of business ethics. This, I don’t agree. The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos, which means “character,” and from the Latin word mores, which means “customs.” According to the encyclopedia ethics is the branch of philosophy that defines what is good for the individual and for society and establishes the nature of obligations, or duties, that people owe themselves and one another. Maybe ethics is not needed to earn profit if you define profit or income as money. But deeply speaking, business is not just for money. Yes it is definitely for profit, but profit is not just financial profit. We need profit that will not just sustain our pocket or our stomach. Significantly, we also need profits that will feed our hearts and soul. Considering that we are great businessmen, we should extend our minds to this principle. We need business ethics to earn these high valued profits. We must be concerned to the virtue of our character and to the common good.

Your business is not just for the survival of your life on Earth but it can also be your road to the survival of your soul. If you’re in business and had a company, you can help your employees by providing them enough salaries and other benefits that will make their lives better. You can be honest and pay your exact tax for the government who will eventually use it for your country’s development. (Assuming your government is straight and not corrupt) But don’t mind them, be honest even others are not. We are talking here your soul survival and not theirs. You can also serve your customers by providing them their needs and giving them convenience. Customer care is so important for your customers as also important for your business to earn public trust and loyalty. If you build infrastructures for your company you contribute to the development of your place in terms of buildings and infrastructures. When you got ethics in business you practice fair business competition. Fair business competition is a challenge for every business to improve the qualities of their products and services, and the end benefits are to the consumers.

Doing business with clean conscience is doing business with good night sleeps. It is also doing business with gladness of your heart and soul. Gratitude will come to you and you will become a stress free businessman if you do business with ethics. These and other spiritual profits will straightly come to you and the good thing on this is you are not taxed on this kind of profits. As an extraordinary businessman, you do not only set your long-term goals for 10 years or for a life time. You must also consider eternity and set goals to achieve profits that will benefit your soul. You need profits that last forever, profits that will give us everlasting life and happiness, and profits that will earn us the key to heaven. These profits will benefits us in the short run, midterm run, long run and eternal run, as God is great from the beginning and unto the never-ending.

Do business and believe in God. Building our business in God’s place is like building it in rocks which are in great foundations. Let us be kind and grateful to our employees as they are our best assets. Let’s give them bread and they will give us a ham sandwich. Let us have huge care to our customers as they are our best revenue generators. Let’s give them good price, high quality products and best services and they will give us their respect and loyalty. Let us be fair to our competitors as they are our great motivators. Let us give them fair game and they will give us the true meaning of winning. Let us be thankful to our Father Almighty God as He is our greatest business partner. Let’s serve Him and He will give us joy and peace of mind.