There are several ways to get your store’s space working for you. The first is your store’s actual building or room. Think of what you can do to make your store’s inner shell more inviting. For instance, if the walls are white and your lighting consists solely of florescent bulbs, then think of using some warm-colored paint along with bulbs that are less stark. The less your store looks like a warehouse, the better! And, use the theme of your products to your advantage. If you sell toys , then get whimsical in your decorations – maybe a blue ceiling with painted clouds, big, framed pictures of close-up toy pictures on the walls, etc. Get creative in your surroundings – they are meant to delight your customers!

Next, it’s important to group your products logically and display them together. If you sell both inflatable boats and electric pumps, then they should be displayed near each other – otherwise you could be missing out on an obvious up-sell sale.

Once you have your product groupings figured out, it’s time to display them using tables, shelves, furniture, etc. The key is to get as many of your most intriguing items between waist to eye level. Even the most charming of products will go unnoticed if they’re sitting on a bottom shelf – save that space for additional stock. First, lay out your display furniture (you may want to use paper cut-outs until you get the arrangement figured out) to get just the right flow – making sure that aisles are wide and that the arrangement gives customers a natural walking path through your store. Now it’s time to arrange your products. Newest arrivals should always be in the most eye-catching of spaces – that way repeat customers will see that your store is always changing. The way your products are displayed will depend on the type of store you have. If you sell decorations for the home, you might want your displays to mimic rooms of a house. If you sell children’s products, you may want to have products both in and out of the box, as parents typically like to read all the product information that the manufacturer prints on the retail packaging as well as see and test the product up close.

Another important point to remember is that whether or not you’re continually getting in new merchandise, it’s always good to change things up once in a while. Move products around, change displays, etc. Give customers a reason to keep coming back – changing the inside scenery gives the impression that new products are always coming in and that there’s always something new to see. Some examples to consider:

* Seasonal or holiday-themed displays
* Displays for upcoming special events (i.e. the Super Bowl, the Oscars, or even local events)
* New product lines, brands, or designers

Creativity and attractiveness are the keys when designing your retail displays . If you have an artistic flair, then this is your time to have fun and boost your sales at the same time!

Think about it. What would give you more confidence in a company – an advertisement with the company telling you how great they are? Or customers who have used them, telling you how great they are? The customers, right? It makes sense. When a company puts the words together to talk about themselves, you expect them to only say good things.

A customer, on the other hand, has gone through the experience of working with the company and then has said something good about it. Knowing someone else has gone through the experience and it has gone well holds a lot more weight for a potential customer.

Now the question becomes ‘How do you get customers to say good things about you to the masses?’ Chances are, your customers are already saying good things about you. They may compliment you in person after a transaction, or maybe they send a thank you card or e-mail.

You are getting these comments. You just haven’t thought to use them to your favor – yet.

Instead of just saying thank you to the compliments and having that warm fuzzy feeling inside, you need to use these comments to get new customers in the door. The way to do that is to publish testimonials in your marketing and advertising material.

Before you pull out those thank you notes and post them all over town, you need to know there is a delicate balance to using testimonials.

Unfortunately, many companies are inundating the market with testimonials. To make matters worse, many of them have even used testimonials that are not real, but are the creation of copywriters. This makes many people leery of testimonials.

Countering this perception takes a little work.

The Real Thing

You need to make sure your testimonials are ‘real’. This does not just mean they need to be real people who have given you these testimonials, but they need to seem real to your potential customers.

First, you need to talk to the person who offered the testimonial and ask if you can use their words and likeness in your advertising. This should not be a problem, as the people who give you testimonials are happy customers and are usually thrilled that you appreciate what they had to say.

The extra step here is that you want to be able to use their picture. Once you put a picture with that quote, they become a more ‘real’ satisfied customer in the eyes of those looking at your marketing materials.

You should also try to use the customer’s full name, if they don’t mind, in connection with their quote.

Testimonials with Impact

Next, make sure the testimonial is going to have an impact. You need to make sure that what is said in the testimonial has a positive impact that calls potential customers to action.

The first part of this is giving potential customers a feeling that the solution to their problem is in coming to your company. Testimonials that talk about having a problem and that your company solved it will help bring this image to life in their mind.

Additionally, a testimonial that says ‘I saved a lot’, doesn’t get someone’s attention as much as one that says ‘I saved $125 over what I would have paid somewhere else’. There is nothing wrong with asking your satisfied customers for a testimonial and asking them to be specific and include numbers, if they can, when it comes to savings.

While your job may well be to serve your customers, there is nothing wrong with letting them serve you a little as well. Happy customers and positive customer testimonials can be a pathway to new customers coming through your doors.

Upsell – This technique works beautifully with items that need refills or batteries, or ones that can use a warranty, however, it can be used with most any products or services. An upsell is an item that goes with the product or service the customer is interested in. For instance, for an electronic toy that takes batteries, use batteries as an upsell item. For a vacuum, offer vacuum bags and perhaps an extended warranty as well. If your selling an item, like socks, that doesn’t need anything additional, then offer a discount for a multiple purchase: "Buy 3 pairs and get the 4th pair free".

Email marketing – Another way to entice your customers to buy more is to get them to visit your website more frequently. And, one of the best ways to do that is by keeping your website in their minds by emailing them specials, coupons or newsletters. Websites like JCrew.com and Babystyle.com use their email lists to significantly boost website traffic and sales – and you can too! Once you get the hang of email marketing you can continue to grow your list and send out special emails weekly, monthly or quarterly (FYI, both J.Crew and Babystyle tend to use their email lists on a weekly basis – even more around major shopping holidays).

Think of the each of the items that you sell in your store and what other items can be used as cross-sell or upsell items. You might find that now is a good opportunity to expand your product line with more items that compliment your existing products. Even web hosting sites like Yahoo! are offering free cross-sell applications in order to help websites increase their revenue. Once you get the hang of it you’ll see the true power of marketing and how simple ideas can really add up to big profits!

It is important for every company owner to understand how their company is perceived by customers around the world, and to make the changes needed to make sure that every customer gets just what he or she needs.

In order to see the company from the customer perspective, it is important to think like the customer, and to understand what customers are looking for when they visit a website. Most first time visitors to a business-related website are looking for information, and it is important that those potential customers be able to find the information they need quickly and easily.

It is important for the website to quickly tell the visitor just what the company does and how it can serve their needs. When creating the website and tweaking it to serve those needs it is important to keep in mind that most website visitors will not remain on the website for very long if they do not find what they need. For most website visitors the amount of time they will spend at a particular website is only about 5 to 10 seconds, so it is important to make the pitch quickly and concisely.

After the attention of the visitor has been captured, it is important to make the most of that attention by providing the customer a fast and easy way to gather more information and to find contact information. Creating an opt-in list is a simple, inexpensive and easy way to accomplish that goal. In order to get customers to opt-in it is important to provide compelling content and useful information, and again this requires seeing the site from the perspective of the customer.

In this article, I’m going to tell you about 5 more ways to achieve that all important PowerSeller status – this time by focusing on customer service. Your customers are how you make sales, and no matter how pretty your pictures are, or how well written your titles and descriptions are – if your customer service skills aren’t up to par, you’ll still lose sales.

1. Customer Service

This cannot be stressed enough. Nothing irritates a buyer more than sending a query about an item to a seller and not getting a response for several days. This delay could even result in the buyer deciding not to buy your item at all. Customer Service is absolutely key to obtaining and keeping a perfect, or near perfect, feedback rating. On eBay, feedback is a Seller’s only way of assuring a buyer that they are trustworthy and respected. Second only to quality Photos – your Feedback rating is also critical to becoming a successful PowerSeller – so make sure to dedicate enough time and focus every day to your quality of Customer Service.

2. Personalized Service

A buyer is a person too, with emotions and feelings. They need to feel as though they are more than just a number. Most buyers expect to be treated as just another number, so when you go the extra mile to focus especially on them, it makes them walk away with a smile on their face. Not only do you end up getting another positive feedback rating, they will end up coming back for more!

The key to effective personalized service is to create an email template that can be personalized for each buyer without taking up a great deal of time. An email template should be ready to use for when an item sells, to thank the winning bidder for bidding on your auction and provide them with the final costs and options to pay. This is typically done through eBay’s Invoice service, so your template would simply be pasted into the comments. Most of the time the only edit you need to make is to address the specific buyer by their User ID.

The next phase of personalized service comes when the buyer has paid, and once you’ve shipped the item. Always issue an email to the buyer informing them that the item has been shipped. Take this opportunity to thank them for providing you with their business, and telling them that you hope they will return in the future. You do not need to retype the entire email for every buyer – just initially write up a creative and well-written template letter, and then insert the appropriate User ID or Name, and the correct email address.

If you take a small amount of time to provide the appearance that you’ve gone that extra mile, your buyers will greatly appreciate it. Far too few sellers do it – and when they learn that you do, you will be guaranteed return customers, and your profits will soar.

3. Make a Personal Seller Profile Website or Blog

Another important way to let your buyers get to know you and your expertise is to create a personal website or blog. This doesn’t have to be anything complicated, but you should at least offer a single webpage with a short bio and outlining the sort of items you sell and why. Also include photos of yourself, your family, or pets using the same MyPhotosHub.com account as you used for the photos in your listings. This way there is no additional cost, and you can use and reuse these same photo links anywhere on the internet, including any forums or blogs that you visit.

When a buyer can see that you are a real person, and not just another faceless eBay user ID, they will feel much more comfortable giving you their hard-earned money in exchange for your product. Remember, it’s all about building relationships and trust – and ultimately helping the customer feel comfortable buying from you, not only this time, but over and over again.

4. Communication is Critical!

This can’t be stated often enough. When a buyer emails a question while the auction is listed and running, answer it as soon as you can. When a buyer asks about costs for shipping, even though you posted shipping costs on your listing, take the time to reply to them with the shipping costs to their zip code. They may be an older person who doesn’t understand how the shipping calculator works, or they simply may not have seen it. So always take the time to help people understand your listing, and you’re that much more likely to get not only one bid, but also multiple bids – and a high final price at the end of the auction.

While items are en-route to buyers, they may become nervous if there is a delay, or a storm, and will write to you with concern. Always take the time to reassure them that the item was shipped, and it is safely on its way. Add that you are certain they will love the product when they receive it. The power of suggestion is a reality, and when they receive it – they will love it!

Also, communication becomes most critical is when there are problems. An item might have broken or become damaged during shipment. You need to work with the buyer to resolve submitting insurance claims – or if you happened to have packaged the item poorly because you were in a hurry, accept the responsibility and simply issue a refund. It isn’t the end of the world – you will have made plenty of profit by this point. It will also prove to them, and to other buyers, that you are a trustworthy seller, and that you stand by your word and your products.

5. Essential Investments to Succeed as a PowerSeller

While you don’t want to be blowing too much of your profit on services that support your eBay business, there are a few services that are not only a must, but they also will save you a great deal of costs in the long-run.

You need to sign up for a full-service Paypal account (not the free version). This will cost about a 3-4% fee on every payment that is sent to you – but the increase you see to both your volume and your final sales price by offering Paypal makes up the difference and then some. Remember – for any serious eBay PowerSeller, Paypal is an absolute must.

You will need to make some purchases that will reduce your time and energy during shipping – this includes a decent digital shipping scale that will weigh packages up to 10 pounds. You will also want to pick up a bulk supply of inexpensive clear packing tape, a high-quality packing tape dispenser (this is a lifesaver), and rolls or sheets of bubble wrap as cheaply as you can find it. Furniture or department stores often throw away reams of the stuff…just go in and ask if you can take it off their hands.

And finally you need to sign up with an image-hosting service that is flexible, fast, and provides quality and personal customer service. It is difficult to find image hosting services that are reliable – and the last thing you need are all of the beautiful photos that you’ve taken to turn into a big red "X" just before your auctions are about to close. While you could spend $150 to $200 a year on web hosting with moderate bandwidth – a much more cost effective and efficient approach is to sign up with a service like MyPhotosHub.com. For only $6.95/mo you can host 80 MB of photos (at 80k per photo – about 1000 photos!). The service is reliable and fast – and I haven’t been able to find any other service out there that can serve up auction photos as quickly and reliably.

Turn your Free Time Into Profit

The fastest way to quickly become an eBay Powerseller, or to ramp up a slow eBay business into a powerhouse of volume and sales, is to carefully follow the steps that I’ve provided above. There is no more enjoyable way to spend spare time that most folks waste watching television…and it is wonderfully rewarding the moment you receive that first notice from eBay that due to your remarkable sales over the previous three months, you have qualified for PowerSeller status!

Good luck – and may good fortune shine upon your auctions!

eBay is constantly monitoring the volume of sales of its members. Any seller that can achieve a consistent Sales volume (at least $1000 in gross sales, or 100 items sold per month) for three consecutive months, as well as maintaining a feedback rating of 98% or better, will qualify to become a PowerSeller. These qualifications are reviewed every three months, so a long-time Seller may shift in and out of PowerSeller status depending on sales volume.

However based on those qualifications – there are two obvious secrets to becoming and remaining an eBay PowerSeller: (1) Sell high volume. (2) Keep your customers happy.

To become a PowerSeller, you do nothing except sell. eBay will invite you when they determine you meet the criteria.

Why Become a PowerSeller?

There are a number of fantastic ways that eBay rewards their PowerSellers. These include the following benefits:

- Priority eSupport, Toll Free Phone support, and even an Account Manager (for higher tier/volume sellers).
- Since Feb 20, 2008, PowerSellers enjoy up to 15% discounts on Final Value Fees.
- 5% to 25% more exposure than average sellers for those with ratings over 4.6 in the last 30 days.
- Unpaid Item Protection – crediting Listing Feature Fees when a buyer doesn’t pay.
- Personalized sales and Feedback data
- Nifty looking PowerSeller icon next to your user ID (attracting more sales!)
- Exclusive access to the PowerSeller-only discussion board.

Obviously the benefits are not only useful to save money – but those benefits will lead to a higher volume and higher sales. Essentially, becoming a PowerSeller on eBay ensures that with continuing work, you will remain a successful PowerSeller.

5 Most Effective Ways to become a Successful eBay PowerSeller

Being a successful eBay Seller demands discipline, good time management, and excellent organization. These are critical to managing all aspects of an eBay business. The general steps of eBay selling include Photography, Posting, Packaging, and Shipping. Each of these steps can consume much of your time if you are not smart and efficient in managing your time, and if you’re not smart where you invest money into those resources that will save you the most time. Some of the most critical resources into which you should invest include bulk-listing services, remote (cell phone) advanced research services, and photo management services. We will explore each of these in a moment.

1. Quality Photographs

One of the most important factors in not only whether an item sells, but also how much the item sells for, is how well the item is photographed. This means that the seller with the best camera that can take the closest, clearest photo wins. Most new digital cameras now have a "macro" feature that provides clear and focused close-up photos. If your current camera doesn’t have that feature, junk it and buy a new one. Again – I cannot emphasize enough how critical the photos are in selling your items…almost more important than the item itself! Beautiful photos sell an item. Typically 3 to 4 nice, clear, photos are just enough – 6 to 8 can be too much. Try to get as many angles of the item as possible, including a close-up of all markings or imperfections.

2. Reliable and High-Speed Image Hosting

This is absolutely critical to cutting down on costs. A small monthly investment will save a fortune in eBay costs. To list multiple pictures on eBay, fees are about 15 cents for each additional photo. If you want to have four additional photos on your listing, that comes to a whooping 60 cents. If you list up to 40 items in one week – that’s an additional cost of $24 a week.

A much more cost effective technique, and a well-kept secret of most PowerSellers, is using a high quality Image Hosting service such as MyPhotosHub.com . I personally prefer this particular service above any other because of the very reasonable rates. Purchasing the gold plan at under $7 a month gives you 80 MB of space and 2000 MB/month of bandwidth – more than enough space and bandwidth to handle high volume sales. This particular service even offers 360 degree spins, slide shows, and Auction Galleries – all unique features that attract buyers (and encourages sales).

3. Detailed Descriptions

When you are writing your eBay Descriptions, do not make the mistake of most beginning eBay Sellers…skimping on the description. While pictures may tell a thousand words – a well-written description is the salesman that closes the deal. You need to explain to the buyer why they cannot live without the item – how it’ll improve their d�cor, or the many uses that they will have for it in their everyday life. Be creative. You don’t need to write a book; but you should at least write a quick creative paragraph of about three to four lines that describe what the item is, the colors and size, the condition, and how and where it could be used (why the buyer can’t live without it!).

If you want a well-formatted auction, create a template in Word (or HTML) and simply edit the parts of the template that you need to for each item. This will save you a great deal of time when you are listing a high volume of items.

4. Effective Headlines

Keep in mind when you are trying to stuff as many keywords as you can into the one-line provided for the headline, that it isn’t so much the quantity of words – but the quality. You want to make sure that the specific words that buyers are looking for are placed in your headline. This is where research is critical. Before listing your item, make sure to do a "completed item" search on the item, and observe which items that have sold in the past that are most similar to yours sold for the highest price. Make note of the descriptive headline for the item, and what keywords were used. Use the same keywords and simply tailor the headline for your item.

5. Easy Payments make a Happy Seller

It may be a pain to have to swallow an average of 3% in fees for accepting Paypal payments – however the benefits far outweigh the costs. According to eBay, listings that offer Paypal are 6% more likely to sell – and typically sell for 5% more. Clearly eBay buyers prefer sellers who accept Paypal. This means having a Paypal account and accepting payment from buyers is absolutely critical if you expect to become a successful eBay PowerSeller!

It is also important to provide flexibility – so buyers who don’t have a Paypal account can still buy from you. This means accepting alternate forms of payment such as a Money Order. Some sellers don’t accept Checks, because of the possibility of check fraud; however if you make note that items will not be shipped until checks clear, then you can even safely accept personal checks without worry. Remember – the more payment options you accept, the more buyers will likely be willing to buy from you.

Internet purchasing is having the same effect on buyers and retailers alike-the enticement of not having to pay sales tax for click-and-charge buying. However, what you may not know is that some products are subject to sales tax and consumers would have the responsibility to pay it directly to their state.

The following is how to determine when sales tax is to be paid. The payment for sales tax is determined by where the buyer lives, rather than where the seller is located. Moreover, if the seller does not have a physical presence in that state, such as a store or warehouse, then sales tax is not required to be collected from the customers in that state.

For instance, a buyer purchases items from a seller located in Kansas and the buyer lives in Colorado. At this point in time, the seller does not have any warehouse or store locations in Colorado; therefore, the buyer does not have to pay state sales tax on items purchased through the seller in Kansas. However, should the seller implement a warehouse or store location anywhere in Colorado, the buyer would then be required to pay sales tax on any items purchased from the seller.

The only exception to this rule is through major retail stores who have established a separate legal subsidiary to handle internet purchases, even though they may have a physical location in a buyers’ state. Therefore, the buyer would not be subject to sales tax. This new practice of large retailers to avoid having to pay sales tax has ruffled the feathers of other smaller retailers who have websites and physical locations and whose customers must still pay sales tax.

Things get a little garbled up due to the some retailers who sell tax-free items online, yet have physical locations where customers can return items to that store. To date, this issue has not been addressed in the courts.

A consumer’s responsibility to pay state sales tax, or more commonly referred to as “use” tax, on internet purchases is largely unregulated as it would be harder for the government to collect taxes on small-ticket items. Their focus is on large ticket items where a license is required, such as cars.

There are some states that are aggressively enforcing the collection of use tax. They include: Connecticut, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, and North Carolina. Other states have not attempted it at this point due to the complexity of what would be required to collect the use tax. However, the states are aware that revenue is being lost through internet purchasing and the lack of collection of use taxes, and until the government makes it a priority to collect, the revenue will continued to be lost.

At this point the internet is considered a tax-free zone, for the most part, until Congress decides to change the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) enacted in 1998. However, with the increase in internet sales and the frustration by supporters for equal taxation for retailers, Congress may be forced to deal with this sooner rather than later.

One good marketing idea is to offer people something in return for their email address. If you have a site offering advice or a newsletter and you are trying to build up an email list for your newsletter, you can offer something such as an e-book in exchange for an email address.

You can contract with an author to write a short e-book (10-12 pages) for you, or you can buy one with the right to resell/give it away. An e-book serves 2 purposes: it gets you an email address, and you can add links in the e-book to your site or sites that you have.

The customer or prospect is happy because they get a resource to use that contains knowledge and help about something they are interested in. Obviously the e-book you give away needs to be about a subject related to your site and the products or services you offer, or there is no point. Also, the customer or prospect feels valued because you didn’t just hit them up for their email address; you offered them something in return.

Get creative…have a contest!

In order to experience growth, there are also some fresh new ideas you can try that are a little off the beaten path. For example, say you have an online business selling antique tools online. Your niche is selling tools to those individuals who want to invest in and collect antique tools. While the traffic through your site was say approximately 1,000 visitors a month, it wasn’t generating enough traffic or sales in order to make your business viable.

Subsequently, you start experimenting with different traffic-building strategies. One of the ideas you have is to hold a contest, where you give away an antique tool. To gain excitement about your products, you use antique tools to promote selling antique tools.

The contest asks each visitor to the site to register a wish list of the tools on the site in inventory, valuing from $10 to $500. Once a month, an entry is randomly selected and an item from the person’s wish list is given to them and announced online.

After the establishment of the contest, you will notice an increase in visitors to the site, and you can potentially even double your traffic in just a month or two after the contest begins. Additionally, the day after the monthly e-mail goes out to those who signed up for the contest, you will see an increase in sales for that day.

People like free stuff, and people like useful free stuff even more. Promotions, contests, and giveaways are great ideas to spice up the interest level in your website and sharpen the focus of those visitors. Make sure what you give away is related to your site and useful to your prospect or customer, and have fun!

A new way for retail websites to capture a visitor’s interest is by creating unique e-tail displays (let’s call it eCom-merchandising ). Just like a brick-and-mortar store uses eye-catching product display cases and tables to get customers to take a look, online stores can do the same with graphics, pictures, colors and fonts.

How to create effective e-tail displays for your online store

Get the homepage advantage – Your homepage is your storefront, so when visitors arrive at your website, they should be able to determine what it is you sell within ten seconds. Most web surfers don’t have the patience or desire to hunt around your site to figure it out. If it’s not obvious on the first page, then there’s a good chance your potential customers will leave and find another site that gives them the information they’re looking for. It doesn’t take much to explain your site’s offerings: a tagline under your logo, some telling pictures of your products; just be sure that when a potential customer arrives at your site, they know they’ve found the right place. Think of it this way: if you walked into a store at the mall and couldn’t tell within 5-10 seconds what they sold, you probably wouldn’t stay to find out.

Know your customers – Learn all you can about your customers and use distinctive colors, logos and fonts that they will find appealing. The customers for a motorcycle accessories store would certainly be different from a site selling tea sets, and so should their e-tail displays. Perhaps the tea site’s e-tail display would have pink and purple colors, a Victorian-style font and pictures of best-selling tea sets. On the other hand, the motorcycle site might have an e-tail display with black and silver colors, bold fonts and photos of the newest chrome-plated or leather motorcycle accessories . It’s important that you show either your best-selling or newest products in your e-tail displays – something that new or returning customers can get excited about.

Think like a consumer – Overlap products in several product categories and be sure to take advantage of upsells by showing complementary products on the same page. Your e-tail displays should be organized, yet foolproof for disorganized minds. Remember, not everyone thinks the same way – what one person thinks is an obvious category A product, another might think of looking in category B or C. Test out your site by getting different friends or family members to search for certain products that you sell. If they weren’t able to find some on the first try, then you might want to think about re-organizing your product layout.

If you can get visitors to stay on your site longer than 46 seconds, then you’re doing better than average. However, an e-tail store’s success inevitably comes down to whether or not visitors are staying long enough to make a purchase. The key is making your site inviting enough for them to stay, and then convincing them that your products are desirable enough to buy. Design your site around your customers, their likes and their interests. You’ll find that catering to their needs has a direct effect on your bottom line.

In most businesses, including ones online, the two largest cost factors are cost of labor and cost of materials. Labor costs include wages paid, benefits such as insurance and 401K savings plans, taxes, and any other benefits that are directly tied to you and your employees.

Look at your bookkeeping records and print off every cost you have had related to labor for the last 6 months. How much is the total? Are there quarterly costs that you need to average out into a monthly amount such as bonuses or quarterly premiums? Do you see any surprises?

If you have any employees, take these labor costs both direct (e.g., wages, bonuses, etc) and indirect (e.g., health insurance premiums) and total them up per employee. You will find the amount staggering when you total it up. Employees cost money, there is no doubt of that; but many are worth the cost depending on your industry and reliance upon quality staff. You need to look at the revenue an employee generates or the costs they are saving you versus what you are paying total to have them on your staff.

Say you don’t have any employees – what do you analyze then? If you pay yourself, you need to analyze how much that is and what it is costing your company. While you won’t lay yourself off you can find some ways to make sure you are spending your time and your company’s time effectively and making the most money or saving the maximum you can in costs for your company.

If you are doing your own accounting, web content writing, marketing, writing your own e-books, and dabbling in web design, you need to consider outsourcing some of those tasks. There are many quality providers of these services that can be found online for a very reasonable price. How best is your time spent for your enterprise? That is really the question to ask yourself about your skills and that of your employees (if you have any). If you are the best at sourcing new products, then that is where you need to spend your time, not doing the books or struggling to design a new web page.

For example, let’s say you source a new product line of 50,000 widgets that cost $5 a piece. Because of your superior research and negotiation skills, you lower the cost to $4.50 per widget and you are able to sell them for the same price as before. You just added $25,000 to your bottom line!

Material costs include the cost of your raw goods or the cost to you for the products you offer. You have heard it said that one of the best business tips is to buy low and sell high. This somewhat overused anecdote couldn’t be more accurate and it is critical you buy right no matter what you are selling. This principle holds true for housing, cars, and all sorts of manufactured goods. If you can buy for the right price, you can offer a great price to your customers, who will buy a lot and be happy because you are giving them a great deal.

Spend your time on your business, not in the middle of it. You want to know what’s going on and keep track of things, but you can’t do absolutely everything involved in your growing online business. Stay big picture, make good strategic decisions, and always, always, buy low and sell high.