Top 4 Features of an Excellent Web Hosting Provider

Choosing the perfect web host is half the job of going online, whether it is for business or personal use. As the web host will determine your success in accessibility through the World Wide Web, looking for the most reliable, trusted, user-friendly and convenient provider is an imperative. With the bunch of Internet hosting services being offered to start-up professional and amateur websites, this search is certainly not an easy task.

1. Reliability

Availability says it all. Online presence standardizes the reliability and worth of websites from visitors’ point of view. The percentage of public accessibility per year and the uptime of a system should be near perfect to be considered highly reliable. Many web hosts vary in this area which makes it one good factor in choosing the provider to sign up with. After all, the quintessence of being online is being reachable 27/7, 365 days a year.

2. Trust

The list for web hosting service providers goes on and on, each entry having its own advantages over the others. However, no matter how ambitious specifications are, the name (brand) of the host is still highly regarded as it is tantamount to experience and reliability itself. Promised features may be too impressive to pass on, but the question is still whether the high level of service will last even after payment. Brand is established by clients, not by hype.

3. User-Friendliness

Over 150 millions blogs are in existence as of February 2011. Although considered personal or amateur websites, a significant number of these blogs operates under web hosts, which makes bloggers an important market segment. Add to it the majority of cut from online advertisements belonging to blogs. Hence, it is important that web hosting be user-friendly for the huge clientele belonging to bloggers and individual, amateur accounts.

4. Convenience

Service providers strive to outwit competitors by offering something better and upgrading the services of others. Unlimited features, excellent customer service, real value for money and innovations are just few of the factors to keep in mind when choosing the provider.

Top 10 Tips for Family Business Succession Planning

Family business succession is a crucial part of passing the responsibilities to the younger generation while avoiding decrease in revenue resulting from losing clients, ineffective new management styles and defective cash flow structuring. On this matter, it is a must to follow 10 important things that we enumerated in the top 10 tips for family business succession planning.

Check out the important tips that made our list.

For the soon-to-be predecessor:

1. Identify your successor.

It’s the most obvious and most important entry in the top 10 tips for family business succession planning. Unfortunately, many business owners still miss the point. It is not enough for you to designate a COO (as in “Child of the Owner”) as your successor. You need to ensure that all the right qualities are seen in your successor and he/she is 100% ready for bigger responsibilities and challenges ahead. If you think your son or family member is not ready, have someone do the actual management for a while, while your permanent successor takes only the title concurrent to training.

2. Appreciate your workers.

Great bosses have great workers and designation is always important in establishing bond between the upper and lower arms of the business. Designating the business management is inevitable and while some of your employees may not welcome the idea, it is still going to happen sooner or later. To keep getting their support for the new management, acknowledge their contributions and assure them that all the changes, if there are some, are for the good of the business and the workers.

3. Have everything legally settled.

This will not happen without trust. All paper works should be finished before the official succession to avoid confusion and suspicion among your partners, investors and clients. You do not want others to see the succession as a just-for-show thing as this will lead to distrust. This tip regarding legal matter is just worthy to be part of our top 10 tips for family business succession planning.

4. Talk with your family.

Many siblings may want to take over the top position as it is also tantamount to power, and most likely, money. Misunderstandings within families are normal, but if this will cause the downfall of your business, then it demands urgent attention and solution.

5. Succession doesn't mean end of responsibilities.

Retirees deserve a big break and a grand vacation after the years of keeping the family business thriving. After all, they are working for a better life. However, taking a permanent break from management does not necessarily mean cutting the connection. The insights of experienced businessmen are priceless. They may come in handy should the need arise, so better keep the lines open.

6. Start Early.

It is inevitable to have a family business succession. It is better to start mentoring your kids about the business and introducing them to the industry you are in earlier than expected. Passion for business is not learned; it is developed through the years of exposure.

7. Know when to retire.

Retiring out of whim is no different from resigning without a new job. The future is vague and financial management is at the brink of falling apart. Do not be hasty and retire when there is a worthy successor.

For the soon-to-be successor:

8. Anticipate the challenges ahead.

In order to breeze into the transition period, one should be prepared to solve problems even before they come to reality. This is the trickiest tidbit among our top 10 tips for family business succession planning as it takes an experienced business owner-cum-manager to foresee the challenges in which the business is most vulnerable at.

9. Get professional help as necessary.

Among our top 10 tips for family business succession planning, this is the one that might receive more “boos” than “aha!” Not many families want third parties meddling with their family affairs, especially when it comes to money. But remember that the risk is higher in having an inexperienced business head steer the company than having third party consultants and advisers share their business acumen with you.

10.  Do no emulate the old management.

Many successors believe at first that emulating how their predecessors managed the business will keep the profit coming and the management-employee relationship working. It succeeds sometimes. But they forget that no two persons are alike and albeit the fact that styles can be copied, decisions and problems will always vary. Instead of trying hard to be someone else, just be natural and learn as much as you can in running the business. These top 10 tips for family business succession planning aim at bringing out the best in you and not bring out a world-class copycat out of you.

Attraction Marketing – The Best Way to Attract Clients

Attraction marketing system is becoming the marketing style of choice around the globe for a gamut of industries. As the term implies, it aims to attract prospective clients rather than directly sell yourself or your products. It is indeed the exact opposite of traditional marketing methods. Although it may sound unconvincing at first, especially in the internet age when everyone seems desperate to pop up an advertisement on your face even while you’re playing online games or chatting with a friend, the trend doesn’t get its figures and success stories out of nowhere. But is it for everyone?

Attraction Marketing System: Rules and Principles

To clearly separate attraction marketing system from traditional marketing and experience its guaranteed benefits, one must know how to play the cards of this MLM system the right way. Knowing how it works is not enough, but by sticking to its principles, success will surely come your way.

Here are the rules and principles to be followed in applying attraction marketing.

1. No hard selling.

Hard selling is never tantamount to “attractive” and in fact, people shun hard-selling marketing. You are not the only who gets annoyed upon receiving cold calls trying to sell you products or services you never asked for. Violating privacy online through pop-up advertisements is as much as annoying; thus, it is ineffective in attracting possible sales.

2. Create traffic.

As this system prohibits the marketer from directly approaching the target market, it is important to establish contact and relationship with customers by creating traffic back to your website or information page. Several tactics bring significant traffic such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), multimedia management and sales funnel. Remember that building relationship with customers is not enough; making them come back is what makes them assets to your business.

3. Be likable.

This is the most crucial part in succeeding with attraction marketing. If you want to keep attracting people, they should genuinely like you. Many marketers undeniably sell by force, emotional blackmailing or word tricks, but with these styles, no second-time purchase will happen. Hence, they are short-term marketing methods.

4. Have what customers want.

Playing with peoples’ “needs” will give your business narrower operation. The “wants” become more beneficial in this case since “wants” are insatiable. Having the right products or services determines if attraction marketing fits well to begin with. Luxuries and fancy products are generally classified as wants but not all of them can convince people to come back. You need to be sensitive on how prospective clients think and spend their hard-earned money.

If you have not decided on the product or service to offer yet, this is the best time to decide about it.

Why Choose Attraction Marketing System?

Attraction marketing system is new to marketers but that doesn't make it any less effective as compared to traditional marketing system. As a matter of fact, older marketing systems are already left out by modern lifestyle, and that includes maximizing internet for communication.

As different dietary supplements, beauty products, fitness contraptions and so-called improved versions of already existing products continue to flood the market, customers also continue to become more cautious. They begin to consciously reject messages (including emails, advertisements, press releases) brought about by traditional marketing and hard selling, regardless if the messages are worth reading or not.

In this regard, it is important to change a business’ strategy and start pulling customers at their own will rather than pushing them to your direction.

Attraction Marketing System vs. Traditional Marketing

While traditional marketing taught to you find people as your target market by whatever means possible, attraction marketing system lets you project yourself as someone likeable, making customers come to you in the process rather than the other way around.

Unlike traditional marketing system, attraction marketing system focuses on developing your primary assets – product, website and yourself. A good testimonial and genuine word-of-mouth are the best advertisements you can have under this principle.

In traditional marketing where cold calling, print advertisements and pushing for sales are common practices, the success rate is dictated by the number of people who will accept all the messages you send and will be willing to make a purchase. On the contrary, attraction marketing leaves no room for resisting as there is no pushing for sales or messages in the first place, only positive publicity and brand building.

Most Effective Attraction Marketing Tactics

1. Video marketing

In order for you to create sufficient traffic back to your site, you need to build relationship to a personal level as much as possible. There is no better way to do this than by posting a video with you talking on a personal and friendly tone. Introducing yourself and story on ways that regular people can relate to makes video marketing an effective tactic, an emotionally endearing tactic at that.

2. Content and Search Engine Marketing

Making your website Google friendly will increase your chances of making it to the top of SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social networking will also keep your visibility afloat. Liking you is a good thing, but customers liking you and remembering you as well make the difference.

The 10 Commandments of Business Continuity Planning

The Philippines is the sixth most vulnerable country to climate change and one of the most vulnerable to natural hazards, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reported. The country lies at the Pacific Ring of Fire which is home to more than 75% of dormant and active volcanoes in the world. The archipelago has dozens of fault lines and more yet to be discovered by the PHILVOCS. An average of 19 storms a year are expected to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility, two of which wreaked havoc worth P19.6 billion in economic damages three years ago. Floods regularly submerge Metro Manila and with the rising sea level, both the public and private sectors do not expect it to stop anytime soon.

The Philippines is, unfortunately, located at the central point of the fork of disaster prone areas. Nonetheless, that doesn’t commensurate to economic disadvantage. Business Continuity Plan (BCP) is one effective and proven way to minimize, if not totally avoid, the damages caused by similar events. By implementing ways to continue business operation despite a catastrophic setting, losses are minimized. BCP includes disaster recovery, business recovery, contingency planning, crisis management, emergency management and everything that spells business.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The country was the most frequently hit by natural disasters in 2011, claiming more than 10% of all cases in the world. The stat is higher than the preceding year and still can get worse in 2012. Yet in a study by the Asian Disaster Reduction Center, only 27.5% of Philippine companies have existing Business Continuity Plan. Alarmingly, almost half of all businesses in the country are not even aware of it.

Being disaster conscious is good but not enough. Embracing the whole concept and adopting it as a concrete business item is the best start.

Here are the 10 commandments of a guaranteed Business Continuity Planning meant for small to large businesses.

1. Anticipate worst-case scenario                      

The key to exerting solid efforts in business continuity planning is to anticipate the worst disasters a business can face. Planning for maximum damage will give higher ground to execute the contingency plan and implement the normal operation come business rehabilitation time. Hoping for the best is closer to reality if the company is prepared for the worst.

2. Prioritize the customers

Safeguarding the interest of the customers is safeguarding the company. Customers are the very reason behind business continuity. Many vital businesses during disasters, such as banks, remittance centers, grocery stores and drugstores, are expected to offer continuous availability of information, products and services. Prioritize the customers’ needs to avoid cutting connection to the public.

Resort to manual operation if electronic transactions are unavailable. Operate from the main office if satellite branches are closed. Sell items on limited quantity if supply is insufficient. One disastrous experience can ruin a relationship developed by years of excellent customer service transactions, with the clientele. Impressing customers on untoward situations gains bigger impact and finer impression than regular advertisements, so make sure you highlight the brand’s reliability and resiliency.

3. Design your Business Continuity Plan for immediate recovery

The real success of a BCP lies on the duration of its activation: the shorter time it is used, the better. The primary target is to restore normal SOP as quickly as possible. Continuing with the operation through back-up facilities in times of disaster and minimizing the damages are secondary. BCP should be resilient, not keep you hanging.

4. Embrace Business Continuity Plan’s lifecycle

Keep in mind the stages of a reliable BCP: analysis, solution design, implementation, testing and acceptance, and maintenance. Analysis is proactively identifying all possible disasters and crises, their impacts and corresponding solutions. Solution design is formulating the most effective protocols, back-ups and fallback positions to be invoked in times of need. Through implementation, all existing critical systems and components will have duplicates. Testing and acceptance is assessing the plan’s effectiveness and how the organization understands it. Maintenance is the continuous updating of the finalized BCP.

Skipping a stage or interrupting the cycle will cause even an intricately done BCP to fall apart.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

5. Identify the company’s critical components

Classify components into two—physical and system. Physical components are necessary equipment, facilities and manpower to go on with business operation without interruption. What hardware should be duplicated? What positions are vital to the core function of the organization?

System components are the running systems and databases that guarantee availability of information, internally and externally. Where can the data be stored? What are the systems holding the operation together?

The next step…

6. Set a disaster recovery site with an assigned disaster recovery team

Plan where the critical components should be duplicated, to what extent the disaster recovery site operates, how much system backing-up and access should be done and who should man the site. This is the most expensive (and sometimes, unconvincing to the management) stage, but investing on this is more practical than losing money from a day’s lost operation. Think of it as an investment and not as a cost.

Setting a disaster recovery site and team need not be new. Systems and programs are licensed and often allow duplicates. IT staff and skeletal force personnel are the same as the existing employees. The location and actual facility are meant for core functions so they can be less elaborate than the normal set-up.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The team is essentially composed of the finest staff in the company. These are the people with the highest skills. However, note that the implementation of the team’s extra rights is for limited time only. They may be accessing the company’s final back-up. A problem that will occur here may be irreversible and can cause permanent damage.

7. Document all procedures

Documentation is backing-up critical business operation procedures to be used by the assigned disaster recovery team. Temporary disorientation is common during the onset and aftermath of disasters. Having a reference to consult is always handy especially when members of the disaster recovery team are not available themselves. The new facility should also be mapped out.

8. Conduct disaster recovery testing and training

To detect design flaws, a company-wide examination and technical testing, at least bi-annually or annually, are advised. Employee training in crisis response, survival techniques and contingency procedures will elicit proper workflow under adverse conditions. Explaining the expected impacts and downtime will also prepare them for what may come. Reacting to man-made and natural calamities is better if they know what to expect and are mentally prepared.

Tapping an external group with proven expertise in Business Continuity Planning is recommended in this regard. Specialized training programs for emergency response and their subsequent evaluations are designed and interpreted more effectively by experts.

9. Complement your Business Continuity Plan with Communication Plan

A BCP’s activation revolves around employees; thus, a comprehensive Communication Plan is an imperative. It consists of protocols for coordination across the whole company, escalation procedures and processes to mobilize all resources. The organizational flow may be disrupted during dire situation; a Communication Plan will pull it together

10. Partner with the expert

Not all businesses have existing BCP or are even capable of coming up with an infallible one. Admitting inefficiency in that department and doing something about it is self-assurance and avoidance of future meltdown. Choosing a trusted partner to seek help from is of utmost importance in creating reliable BCP and giving the company quick resiliency.

One of the emerging entities in Business Continuity Planning is Black Pearl Consultancy under Business Profiles Incorporated, one of the country’s premier security groups. With specialization in security and risk management, risk mitigation, disaster recovery and specialized training programs, a partner like Black Pearl Consultancy is sure to work with any business synergistically to deliver the most suitable Business Continuity Plan.

Business interruption is the direct opposite of business continuity. In the Philippines, where no business continuity certifying agencies and mandatory compliance are available, partnering with an expert is a great help in facing disastrous situations and setting the bar high.

A day of downtime results to millions of lost revenue. A few more days can lead to loss of customers, which in turn can cause closure of business. The crippling effects of disasters may not be totally avoided even by the biggest corporations in the world. Natural calamities are unrelenting and can be greater than any technology can handle. The least businesses can do is to prepare for the worst and keep a well-designed BCP to minimize the looming damages.

Competition during disasters is dictated by resiliency and business continuity. The first to bounce back wins. A great business gives no excuse for business interruption, so be prepared as soon as now.

An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. ###

 The roughly edited version of this article was published in Malaya Business Insight on May 10, 2010

(James Henry Abrina is an editor, writer and business development professional. Click here to visit the EzineArticles page of the author for more quality articles.)