If you’re involved in any type of business where you sell products or
services, you should know that you need to sell more than one product to
be successful.  Of course, there have been exceptions, like the Pet Rock,
but those are few and far between.  You see, if you only sell one product / service, you need to find those prospective customers that want that one product. Add a second product, and you’ve opened the door to customers who want it, but not your first product.  Add a third, and you have more prospects, and so on.

You can present your products or services through separate ads or fliers,
but it’s really more efficient and professional to have a CATALOG.

Catalogs on CD are very easy to distribute, relatively inexpensive and an interesting novelty to many people (they will look at your catalog just because the presentation is different). You can use standard CD-r or a nice touch is mini CD-r.

Having a catalog will increase the orders you receive, since your customers
have more choices and you can show them everything in one mailing.

If you’re thinking of putting together even an eight page catalog, call your
local printer and ask for a price.  Get a quote on 1,000, since you’ll want
to have enough.  My best printer would charge $150, which would be 15 cents per catalog.  Then, you have the mailing cost, which would be 52 cents.
You’re now up to 67 cents per catalog.  Add in the cost of getting the name
to send the catalog to, and you could be over a dollar per catalog.  That
means over $1,000 to print and send out all your catalogs!

Worse news to come…  you won’t get rich from an eight page catalog.  If you
really intend on making it in your own business, you’d better offer at least
20 related products or services (or a combination).  That way, you can hit a
specific group of people and have a good chance of getting a decent return.
But if an eight page catalog would cost over $1,000 to print and mail, think
about a 20 page catalog!  Printing alone would be $375 or more!

You can reduce your printing and postage costs significantly by having your
catalog printed on a web press on newsprint.  The only problem with that is,
you need to print a higher quantity to make it worthwhile.  Figure on at
least 10,000. There’s an easier, less expensive way to do this…

PUT YOUR CATALOG ON A CD-ROM

See the advantages?

You can sell your products just as well with a disk catalog as with a printed one.  In fact, people will keep your catalog around longer, due to it’s uniqueness (disk catalogs are just starting to be used). So, how can you get your own high-powered order-pulling disk catalog?
Well, two ways…  you can make one yourself, or you can have an expert
put one together for you, saving you the time and effort.  I’ll explain how it’s done, and then you can make the choice.

How to Put you catolog CD-ROM

There are a multitude of ways to get, basically, the same end result. The method I will describe was chosen because it only requires tools that are free or already installed on the average PC.

What you need:

- Microsoft PowerPoint – Standard in MS Office Suite

- Auto-run software – Freeware (limited)

Retail (What you really want)

- CD Burner – Standard on most computers since the 90′s

The Steps:

1. Gather all your product / services information and your thinking cap.
2. Brain storm on the way you want your product / services catalog to look. Think of colors, fonts and backgrounds. You want to be sure your catalog reflects your products/ services, your industry and your target audience. Search the internet for PowerPoint templates (many are free!).
3. Once you decided on your template or your lay out, create a master lay slide so you don’t have to make a new lay out for each slide.
4. Create a new slide. The first slide will be your catalog cover or intro.
5. Create a new slide for each of your products. Remember to insert pictures where needed and insert the proper text.                                 Steps 4 and 5 are the most time consuming!
6. After all of your slides are completed and in order, save your presentation as a slide show executable.                                                         *At this point, the methods of making your presentation autorun are many, some more difficult than others. As entrepreneurs and business owners your time is limited and your tasks are many!!!
7. Now, close PowerPoint and open your autorun software. Take this time to put a blank CD in your CD drive. Follow your particular software’s instructions.  Most prompt you to point it to the file(s) that you want to autorun. In our case it would be the PowerPoint executable you just saved.
8. Let your software and CD burner do the rest…. You are the boss right!! :->

Finally, consider this…  you have 10,000 of your fantastic catalog printed.
You start mailing them.  All of a sudden, you discover you have to change the price of one of your products.  Or, the source for a product dries up.
Or, you want to add a new product or service.  TOO BAD!  You’re stuck with
the catalogs the way they are.  With a cd catalog, NO PROBLEM!  You make
the change on your master copy, and all subsequent catalogs are instantly
up-to-date.

Again, you will find other methods to achieve the same outcome, but this lets the software do the work for you. Design your product / services pages and let ‘er rip.

If this is still a bit beyond your comfort level, pay a couple of dollars and get a professional to do the job for you. Visions Business Services can create custom catalogs, slide shows and presentations.

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There never seems to be enough time to do all the things that you need to get done. Everything and everyone seems to demand a chunk of your time and it makes it very difficult to allot the proper time to building, expanding or simply maintaining your business. Not having enough time is an issue that most entrepreneurs, business owners, or managers struggle with. Think of all the things that require your precious time; family, friends, life-events, unexpected events, etc.  Lack of time becomes an even greater issue with start-up and home-based businesses because the business owners, in many cases, still have to keep the 40-hour-a-week job; at least in the beginning. Here are a few tips on how to squeeze in a few more minutes of productive, business time.

1. Work after work

- For those of you that still have to keep the day job to keep the lights on…. this one is for you!  I have seen plenty of people that have great business ideas and great intentions, but they put no time into making the ideas reality. They come home in the evening from the day job and can’t find any energy or the will to go back to work!  Working after work is unavoidable for any one wanting to be successful at building a business. We all get tired and home seems to have a way of presenting so many ‘better’ things to do. You must fight the urge to get home and stop working for the day. If you can’ t resist the urge of home, it may be best to find a place that you can go for about an hour before you get home… for most, the later in the evening it gets, the harder it is to get started on a project.

2. Identify tasks that can be completed while ‘doing’ something else

- There are times that I just need to brainstorm on an idea, write some notes, and do some reading. These are all activities that I can fit in while I am ‘doing’ something else. Think of the time spent sitting in traffic or sitting on your living room couch ‘spending time with the family’ ; these are perfect times to write a few notes or do some light reading. At the barbershop or hair stylist…. perfect time to be a little productive… if nothing more than organizing your thoughts.

3. Make minor schedule changes to allow more time for your business

- How often have you canceled the lunch date because a friend called you with something you wanted to do?  Ever decide to miss an appointment (doctor, dentists, stylist,etc.) to hang out at home?  Use that same mind set when dealing with getting things done for your business.  You will and have changed your schedule for much lesser things. Next time you cancel an appointment or reschedule, use your newly freed time to get something done for your business. I will even take it a step further; next time you have an appointment or event, defer and put in some time on your business.

4. Delegate

-This can be tricky for the small business owner, but a little creativity goes a long way. Because small businesses, generally, have a small number of employees or none, it is a bit more difficult to find people that know enough about your business or that you are comfortable enough with letting them perform some of your tasks for you. Consider this; many tasks that you need to perform do not require business-specific knowledge! Do you have a friend that can type really well…. maybe get them to type that proposal for you. Know some one that does graphics…. need a logo… you see where I’m going.

word of caution: Don’t abuse people.  Show your appreciation for the help people give and if you get some one to do extra or are readily available to help you …. pay them a little something!

5. Invest in and fully utilize your personal tech

-You have iPods and MP3 players….. ever think of getting some of your ‘reading’ done while doing your yard work or washing clothes. There are tons of audio books and industry podcast that you can load on to your portable audio devices.

-Use your cell phone’s internet connection for something other than directions, shopping and chatting. Do some of your internet marketing or follow up on all the emails in your inbox.  Did you know that your iPhone and many smart phones have applications that allow you to read ebooks?

And don’t forget… the age old voice recorder! Still great for documenting ideas. Just think, how many great ideas are lost because they were not documented.

-The laptop is a priceless business tool that is very under-utilized. Even without an internet connect, it is a work horse.  Some tools become so common place that we take for granted the power. Take a minute, one day and explore some of the software you have on your computer. Take a look at some of the capabilities, of some of the most common applications (like MS Word, Adobe Acrobat). Don’t be fooled… you don’t need the newest laptop (or desktop) to have enough power to do more than you will ever want to do. Keep this fact in mind when purchasing computers. A small business budget can be very tight but, you can find great deals on refurbished computers.

Get connected. A laptop is a great tool by itself, but when you connect to the internet, it becomes exponentially greater. The internet is often taken for granted as well. We get caught up with shopping, socializing and email, we forget the amount of information that is available on countless topics.  To add to that, it is a great place to market and conduct your business.

-Make it fun. There are interesting tech gadgets that help with all kinds of things from keeping your coffee warm to scanning a line of text from a document.

Understand, all work and no play is no way to live, but if you want to achieve financial independence and hopefully, a more secure financial future you have to be willing to make some adjustments and be creative to make the time to handle your business tasks.