Martin Lukac asked: A well planned market strategy can be vital to the growth of your business. You make business decisions every day, mostly relying on your intuition. While you must make decisions, intuition alone may not provide you with the facts you need to achieve marketing results.A marketing strategy can help you not only define your business goals, but help you develop the activities to achieve them.You can set up your own informal marketing strategy in just a few simple steps. This strategic plan can help you in making decisions later down the road. Find some quite time to sit down with a notebook and put your thoughts on paper. It could be helpful to make a file that you will keep everything that deals with your marketing strategy. Keep all of your quick thoughts and notes in this file as well. You never know when you need to look back.The first step is to describe your company's unique selling proposition, also called your USP. This is what sets you apart from the rest of the market. What service or product do you have to offer that is unique? Why would a consumer choose your product or service over .. more »

Joshua Feinberg asked: If you've previously delivered your service B2C (Business to Consumer) and now want to switch to B2B (Business to Business), you may think that you're ready to run out there and just get some small business clients. It's not that simple. In this article, you'll learn how to define the "small" in small business computer consulting.If you focus too much on home-based businesses and micro small businesses, you'll have a tough time selling a lot of services. While "micro" small businesses (under 5-10 employees) are technically small businesses, micro small businesses may not be a good fit for your small business computer consulting company. Why not?The Five Reasons to Avoid Targeting Micro and Home Businesses1. Lots of consumer grade PC's2. Pirated software3. Reluctance for paying for services. A lot of micro small businesses want to look for volunteers to help them with their computer problems like someone's niece, brother or friend. You can't compete against free! You'll also have a tough time competing against moonlighters; these people are on someone else's payroll during the day and don't have to fund their own certifications and benefits. They can undercut your price tremendously.4. IT isn't that important to their company, so they don't .. more »

John L. Watkins asked: When I spoke at an international legal conference in Heidelberg, Germany, in May 2003, many of the international participants were generally unfamiliar with mediation. To the international participants, "alternative dispute resolution" meant primarily international arbitration. International arbitration under the auspices of organizations such as the International Chamber of Commerce is a long-established mechanism for resolving disputes. However, international arbitration, like litigation, tends to be expensive and time consuming. ?In May of 2009, I attended another international legal conference, and was pleased to learn that all of the participants knew about mediation.?I was pleased to hear that mediation is gaining traction even in countries such as Italy, which has a legal system and tradition not generally disposed to mediation.?Mediation is still in its infancy in Europe, but it is gradually gathering recognition and support. ?International companies doing business in the U.S. will almost surely want to consider mediation as a mechanism for resolving disputes that might arise while doing business in the U.S. As a general matter, the U.S. legal system is quite different than the civil law system used throughout Continental Europe. In Europe, broad discovery rights are not granted and the jury system is practically .. more »