iReview

*This post is written for davincivirtual.com*

Ever wish that you have an office full of well trained staffs who would impress your clients, a warm receptionist to answer the call and a decent meeting room instead of your usual meeting place at fast food joint or coffee shop? Perhaps it’s about time you consider renting virtual office space for your business.

With the virtual office, you can drop the home address on your business card and have the suite number to make it look more professional. You can get other services as well from mailing to pickup service, and not to forget great customer service to answer every potential clients. Now you don’t have to worry about missing any important call while you are on the road, or fighting the distraction of noisy children at home (especially for WAHM).

With Davinci virtual office, you can get a live person as your virtual assistant who will screen and forward the business call. By doing this, your client will never realize the difference that you are actually running the business at home or on the road. When the need arises, you can have access to conference rooms and other services.

Of course by having this virtual office, you can save a lot in terms of not having to pay for the staffs salary, HR issues and training. In a way, by having someone to take care of the menial tasks like answering calls and entertaining queries from clients, you can focus more on your business which in return will increase your productivity and work effectiveness.

From another point of view, having this kind of virtual office means not having to commute and drive through the hassle of traffic jam every day. You might only have to go to the meeting room once in a while to meet client and discuss the business proposal. The rest of the time can be spent working from the comfort of home with your laptop and WiFi connection. Imagine the hours you can save and more brilliant ideas you can come out with, not having to worry about small details in office that are so distracting.

If you are running a business and have credit card payment facility, you must be very familiar with terms like credit card processing and merchant account.

Merchant account is the very first step in accepting credit and debit cards like Visa/MasterCard and American Express as some form of payment for your products or services. With company like Merchant Advisors, you will get many benefits when you sign up for their merchant account such as great low rates, prompt payment of merchant funds within 48 hours, no equipment purchase required and a reliable 24/7 customer service for free.

Their merchant services credit card processing has no long term contracts. You are allowed to process month to month and cancel anytime unlike other merchant accounts that require you to sign an agreement for a minimum of 3 years.

Plus with their credit card processing service, you will get free terminal replacement program for life which is normally charged at $15/month. As a new business owner, they understand that it’s not easy for you to spend $700 to set up to accept credit cards and checks, therefore this is a good bargain for you to gain more profit from credit transactions.

If you are still on the look out for merchant account for your restaurant or retail business, check out their 30 day free trial and free merchant account programs.

*This post is written for LeadDogs.com*

If you are running a business you should be concern about lead generation that could be turned into sales and generate revenue. If nobody is interested in your product or service or they never even heard about it, you can’t expect the money to be pouring in, right?

To get people to know your products and services means marketing it in every way effective - direct mail, Internet marketing, telemarketing. Of course there are ways to boost the marketing results. Some of them like if you have a good offer like free CD, discounted rate, make sure you place the offers at prominent places on the flyers, the campaign pamphlets, or on the front page of your website. Put your phone number and website address so that people who are interested will have the option to contact you and get more info about the services or products.

If possible, personalize all aspect of your direct marketing campaign. Get to know your marketing target audience and make them feel that you are talking to them about the products directly.

Or if you need help from the professional, check out company like LeadDogs.com. Since 1994, companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Shell and Orbitz have outsourced to The Lead Dogs to generate, manage and nurture sales leads that turn into revenue.

Whenever I go out for shopping or dining, I always check whether the shops or the retail stores do accept credit cards. Not that I love to spend my credit limit, it’s a matter of convenience to shop and pay with plastics. I usually buy a lot of things from different stores and with all the shopping bags hanging, I find it very hard to take out every little change and dollars in the wallet and later put in all back. But with card, it’s very convenient to just hold out the card, swipe and sign. And one thing I noticed that whenever a retail store accepts credit card as a form of payment, the customers usually will spend more than what they initially intend to do which in return will be good for the business..heh!

So if you have a store, or maybe an online business, consider having a merchant account so that you can accept credit card. The initial cost might be a little overwhelming but in the long run it will do good for your business. Imagine if you have a restaurant, yet you only accept cash (which I encountered during my last dining trip), majority of your clients especially those who are planning to have a party or company farewell dinner at your restaurant for example will find it very hard to pay all by cash.

On the other hand for those running online business, accepting credit cards for online purchase would require a secure server to process the payment. As online business is considered as high risk therefore you can expect to pay more for credit card processing compared to those with low risk - whereby they can swipe their customers’ credit cards through a card swipe machine like for stores and shops can, get the customers to sign and lower the risk of chargeback and fraud. Nevertheless having the ability to process credit card payment for those with online business will ensure more visibility in the market and a higher volume of sales for your business.

People say that America is the land of opportunities and dreams. I’ve heard and read many stories about people who try their very best to migrate to US and bring their family along. The easiest way for a foreigner to get a visa is through marriage. For those who don’t know there is Fiance visa that has the approval time from 3 months to 6 months or longer. Of course the US citizen has to file petition for such visa.

There is also a family based petition which means that the foreign spouse who get married to the US citizen can apply for the other family members to come to US. If you are not sure how all this immigration rules and petition work, make sure you consult a reliable immigration attorney to help.

For example, this Root Law Group (1-888-Root-Law) is a full service Spanish & Russian speaking immigration law firm located in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Bernardino, Ventura County, and the San Fernando Valley that offers free consultations.

Apart from family-based petition, they also handle employment-based petition for employers who would like to get foreign professional workers to come to US for work. They have enjoyed great reputation so far with tremendous success in their visa applications, employment-based and family-based petitions.

Good luck and may you get to chase the dream in the land of opportunities soon!

I have been doing home business for 3 years now. Many times I have been asked by the students who come to my craft classes and clients interested to quit their daily job, how they could start a home business of their own. Many times these ladies are so into being a WAHM and have their own SOHO.

My answer would be you have to know what kind of person you actually are before you commit yourself to being a home business owner.

I found one article that kind of helpful for those starting out a home business. This is very important for those thinking and weighing the possibilities of quiting their daily job and start the business. I point this out because not all business will be successful and many times people feel upset and lose hope when their first attempt do not work out.

Check out this article: Starting a Home Business and do the checklist to find out whether you are cut for home business.

And if you are really into it, I wish you all the very best of luck in your foray to business world.

I’m sure for all car owners out there, you must have taken your car for service at least once out of your auto life time (unless you have someone else to take the burden out of your driving hand..hehe).

I am a driver myself and find it such a chore to get my car for service and everything. What I know every time my mileage is up for the next service, it’s going to create a big hole in my monthly budget.

The auto parts will cost a certain amount and the labor cost is not that cheap either. Sometimes I think those mechanics make more than I do per month looking from the number of cars going in and out from the repair shop. Wouldn’t it be great if I know how to service my own car and simply buy the auto parts online?

Check out this website, DriveWire.com that sells discount auto parts and accessories. With more than 2 million items on their shelves, the OEM and Genuine parts are sold at a 40-50% discount. Plus if you are in the US, the ground shipping is free.

Since most of their products come from manufacturers from around the world, the pricing online are updated on weekly basis. This pricing is done to meet the change in the value of the US dollar. So I think it’s quite fun to constantly check the revised pricing in case I need to buy parts like Eibach Springs which for me is not urgent but would be cool for my car. Who knows with the the valuation of the dollar I could save some money to pay for more replacement parts and accessories..haha!

I wonder when will I get the chance to buy BMW part..wink!

Ever since I started blogging, I have received many emails and comments from women out there who ask how to start a business to get income while staying at home.

Some of them are currently working full time and would like to have the chance to stay at home yet still get income. One or two even asked me whether this is what I really want in life, to stay at home and manage my home based business. One person even asked me whether she could really survive if she starts a business.

My answer would be I don’t know. For me, not everyone is cut out to run a business. And running a home based business is not as easy as you might think, either. And no person could guarantee you that it will work or not. Just like any life decision, getting in a relationship, being married, grow a family, no one knows what lies ahead but we strive to make the best out of the situation.

Same goes with business. I found one article on Are You Geared for a Home-Based Business? Try to see whether you have what it takes to be a home based business owner then later you can email or leave a comment in my blog, OK!

If you are starting a small business of your own, you might wonder whether it’s really important for you to brand your business.

If you ask me, I personally feel that the branding process is crucial. I know some people who start a business with the hope to earn more income without any plan to grow the business further.

But wouldn’t it nice if someday your side income business would lead to high-end products or excellent services that bring long term effective result to the world.

I was reading a lot of business articles today and found a good article titled Should You Brand Yourself or Your Business?

I think what the author is trying to say that it’s OK to brand yourself first if you are the owner of the business, but sooner or later you need to build a brand for the business as whole.

Another article titled How Strong Is Your Brand? explains this more clearly. You need to develop a personal brand and employer brand because both type of brands are crucial in a business.

A brand is more than a promise or reputation. It can uphold or break what you are trying to build and achieve.

Do you know in business, if everyone who buy things online and offline give a little bit of data everytime they go shopping, it would be a heaven for marketers. They can make prediction on what type of items you would buy if they ever launch any new products.

It’s like they know you more than your spouse or the next door shopkeeper know your taste. Check out this article which I found to be really interesting. It’s like playing psychiatrist..haha! Let’s read how these people try to Google you out.

For example, if you like to listen to Catch Me If You Can, by Coldplay you would love to buy a Motorola Q smartphone. Have you realized that whenever you browse and buy any book online, later at the bottom of the site it will recommend you something else which unbelievably suits your taste of books.

That’s my friend is the power of recommender algorithm. Now what kind of things are you?