Business & Finance Online Expert

Archive for September, 2009

Think quick. In 10 seconds, can you list the 5 key benefits you offer your customers?

I bet you said “Yes”. But are you sure you listed benefits? If you’ll bear with me for another 10 seconds, I’d like to test out a theory on you.

Recap your answers – maybe even write them down. Now list the 5 main things your business does. In other words, what are your 5 core services? What are the 5 core features of your product?

If your first list looks anything like your second, chances are you’re mistaking features for benefits. As a result, it’s likely that your marketing materials aren’t engaging your customer. Customers don’t want to know what you can do. They want to know what you can do FOR THEM.

Don’t talk features – talk benefits.

Don’t be alarmed. You’re not alone. Most business owners and marketing managers are so close to their product or service that they have a lot of trouble distinguishing benefits from the features of their offering. Ask a web host “what are the benefits of your service?”, and you’ll likely hear something along the lines of, “we offer load-balanced server clusters.” But that’s not a benefit… that’s what they do. The benefit is superior uptime and performance.

In fact, so many people think features instead of benefits that it can work in your favour – to dramatic effect. If you can accurately identify your benefits, and convey those benefits to your market, you’ll be light-years ahead of most of your competition. You’ll be converting leads into sales while they’re still bogged down trying to promote features.

So if you’ve ever sat down to write a sales letter and wondered how you’re going to grab your reader’s attention, or you’ve ever gone ‘round in circles writing draft after draft of web copy without ever hitting the mark, now you know where you were going wrong.

The only question remaining is, how do you do it right? Advertising copywriters and website copywriters do it all the time – and most of the time, they do it with benefits. Benefits are the copywriter’s holy grail. But if you’re not a seasoned copywriter, how do you identify the benefits you offer your customers?

There are any number of ways to identify the benefits you offer. This article discusses just three:
1) Customer Research
2) Speak to Your Sales Team
3) Make it Easy for Your Customer to Get Buy-In

Many people dream of owning a vacation home. But often concerns about maintaining it, renting it out in the off-season, or even justifying the expense when it’s only to be used for a couple weeks of the year keep them from making the dream a reality. Now condo hotels, an innovative type of vacation home ownership, provide a welcome solution to all these problems.

Also known as condotels or aparthotels, condo hotels have been growing in popularity as an approach to owning a luxurious second home.

Condo hotel buyers purchase an actual condominium unit in an upscale hotel or resort. The property functions as a full-service hotel, and owners have access to all facilities, amenities and services just like hotel guests.

They receive a deed to their unit and can use their vacation home when they want. When not in residence, they can place their unit into the hotel’s rental program and share in the revenue it generates. Like most real estate investments, the owner can also sell his condo hotel unit at any time and may make a profit on its appreciated value.

Young professionals, baby boomers and seniors alike are just beginning to discover the benefits of owning a condo hotel unit. They appreciate the hassle-free nature of condo hotels as a second home in which a professional management company handles everything from property maintenance to finding hotel guests to rent the units. They also consider condo hotels a means to diversify their investments.

Condo Hotels Are Not Your Parents’ Timeshare

As hybrid properties, condo hotels differ from timeshares in a number of ways. With timeshares, buyers pay only for the right to use the property for a set amount of time each year, usually a single week. They don’t own the title to the property, and they do not receive any rent revenue for the weeks they’re not in residence.

Condo hotel owners can use their condos when they want throughout the year, within the guidelines of the individual development. They receive a percentage of any revenue their unit generates when they’re not there and the unit is rented out to hotel guests.

Wanting to buy a home in Sarasota real estate? If yes, this is the biggest decision one could ever make, so you have to be careful and alert.

Definitely, each of us want to have their very own home, so if you desire to buy one, you have to consider some factors needed in order to have the best home you want. Buying a home doesn’t mean you simply look for home and viola that’s it. There are certain things that you need to do and settle to make sure you could buy the home you want and need.

First of all, you need to apply for a mortgage in order to have the finances you need to purchase a home. Applying for a mortgage is not that easy, you need to make sure of course that you will be working with the right lender. So you need to make simple research in order to find the right lender. You have to contact few lenders and ask several important questions until you finally found the right lender that can provide you with the best loan.

If you work with a lender, you have to make sure that he/she will provide you with plenty of options and not let you focus on a particular one. You have to weigh the options given to you; understand each until you come up with the right one for your situation.

Though Life Insurance is neither an investment plan nor a savings scheme, it still plays a significant role in the financial portfolio of most individuals. The main purpose of Life Insurance is to protect the dependents of a person from financial loss in the event of his death.

Financial obligations arise out of many situations in life like when getting married or divorced, having a baby, buying a house, sending your child to college, starting a business, taking care of a parent who is aged or sick or on retirement. If a person is shouldering these responsibilities he must ensure that these obligations continue to be fulfilled even after his death. If he has a family who depends upon his earning capacity, he is a perfect candidate for life insurance. A person should consider the long term as well as the short-term financial obligations to decide whether he needs life insurance. The questions to ask are:

1.    Do you have people including family and business partners who are financially dependent upon you over a long period of time?

2.    In the event of your death, do your dependents have enough assets and resources including liquid cash to take care of all their needs and to pay off your financial debts?