One obvious reason that some companies do not use an effective business process modeling tool is that of costs. Many of these systems are simply too expensive for many smaller companies to implement. Another reason is that often these types of tools are somewhat difficult to operate or implement and can be very confusing to those who are using them.

Even so, the importance of having information about your clients and their companies is paramount to improving your overall sales and improving your relationships with each and every one of your clients.

So what can be done about this?

There are newer systems in place today that can help smaller companies (as well as larger ones) to gather the important information that they need in order to better serve their buying clients. The very best of these tools are written by individuals who have real-life experience in this field and are willing to share that expertise with you. When it comes to business process modeling tools, experience does count, and it should count a lot for those seeking viable and reliable systems.

One such system that was written by a master in this field is Jack Howe’s “30 Minutes to Prepare for the C-Suite Meeting.” This comprehensive eBook edition is filled with the kind of real-life techniques and methods that you are looking for. Rather than concentrating on theory and conjecture, Howe has complied a working system that when implemented can help boost your overall sales by allowing your sales team to anticipate your buyer’s most important questions and objections. When your team is forearmed with the information that the buyer wants to hear, when they are prepared before they even enter the buyer’s office, their sales results will improve dramatically. In many cases, by being so prepared in advance, the buyer will automatically propel your team member to trusted advisor status, and that means more sales in both the long run and the short run.

The key to this amazing material is in the research that your team will do before they even attempt to prepare a sales presentation. Why plan a presentation if you are not sure what they client wants and needs to hear about? Yet, that is exactly what many sales teams do day in and day out. Would it not be better to have your client’s needs in mind when you sit down to draw up your presentation, making sure you cover those issues that he or she is most likely to ask about? Of course it is.

What I am referring to is Business Systems

From the beginning of modern capitalism in our society, the most successful companies were those that developed a system, or group of systems, to complete their tasks and meet the needs of their customers. Take Henry Ford and the Ford Company, for example. Mr Ford obviously realized the power of developing and implementing a system that saw his Model T Ford produced quicker and more efficiently as his company grew. His never-ending approach to finding a simpler and more effective method of completing a task pioneered the way for many major corporations, and helped Ford stay competitive in the motor vehicle business.

But, most people in business don’t make cars. In fact, they most likely sell clothes, books, time (through a job), commodity goods, intellect (through consulting), and so on. But, what particular business systems could possibly put into practice that will see their organisation become more proficient, easier to manage and produce better results for their customers?

A system can be defined as methods, organisation, or considered principles of procedure (Oxford Dictionary). And throughout your daily activities, there are certain tasks that you do every day or often enough that you have a certain way of doing them.

So, what types of activities could you systemize or create “considered principles of procedure” for, that will enable your organisation to be more efficient?

Emails - there are most likely a number of emails that arrive in your inbox daily or weekly, that you can create a system for processing them. Set up rules or commands in your email processor that automatically places emails from specific people into topic-related folders. For example, email newsletters into the folder for that email newsletter. As the emails arrive, they will be filtered through this system, and your inbox will not be overly cluttered with emails from many different topics.

Staff training – Do you have a specific approach to how you train new staff? Is it documented the steps that you take to educate the new staff member about your business, its goals, the OH&S discussion? Even if you don’t have staff yet, imagine what you must put into a system for when you do. Make a list of all the steps in the staff training process – almost like a checklist. This alone will help you to train your staff in a systematic way that leaves little to no room for forgetting an important part of their induction.

Inventory management - Inventory control and management is a large part of many organisations. There have been numerous software packages created that assist companies in managing their physical stock. If you have large stock levels, then consider investing in these established software systems for the business. If not, then spend some time breaking down those typical steps that are taken in the stock control, stock ordering and quality control procedures. When is the stock checked for minim quantity levels? What is the minimum order of stock for each item? Is there a procedure that checks the stock when it arrives from the manufacturer, ensuring a minimal loss of damaged goods, and ultimately upset customers? A good way to start this is to also make a list of those things that need to be managed and monitored on a regular basis.

Sales process - if you are involved in selling in any way, then you most likely have an approach that works for you already. However, what if there are 4 sales people all selling the same product, and all selling it totally differently? Of course, a human being’s personality must be allowed to shine through, but there are going to be specific tasks that every sales person must carry out to maintain the image of the company. Write these tasks down. Spell out exactly what the staff member must do, say, wear, act like, and so on, so that every customer can come to expect the same level of service and approach from each member of your sales team. Create a system that they earn, rather than hoping they will make sales in their own way using their own methods.

The reality is you are already operating a number of systems in your organisation. These are sometimes referred to as habits. The way you manage your files, phone calls and even how you make your tea or coffee are all systems. However, to be truly successful in a business, you need to record and officially structure these systems so that the organisation continues to function without your presence – for example, when you are on holiday.

Then, all your hard work and effort in creating a business that your customers have grown to depend on will not be wasted. Others can continue doing exactly the same thing, in exactly the same way, for many more years to come.

One of the major challenges that you will face when you work in the comforts of your home while taking care of your children is to get the full cooperation of your family. Building an Internet business at home and working at home, you will need the full cooperation of the entire family. If you have children, you must let them understand that you are working and that you are not available to play with them all the time. Even though having you at home and not being able to play with you all the time may be difficult for your young children to understand in the beginning, they will soon get used to the idea that you are working at home and cannot be disturbed during specific times of the day.

Building an Internet business at home is a huge undertaking that would need your time and concentration. There are a lot of factors that you will need to think about when you are considering building an Internet business at home. First, you will need to set up your own systems. Building an Internet business at home is just like setting up a regular business where you will need to put systems in place so that you can work more professionally. If you are putting up an e-store, the first thing that you will need to set up is your purchasing systems. Although you may not be obligated to keep inventories of the goods you are selling, you must have ready access to the products in case somebody will place an order online.

Aside from the purchasing system, you will need to set up a system on how your clients can obtain orders and pay for their orders. There are a lot of turnkey software that you can use for obtaining orders and receiving payments from clients so you will not really have many problems in this area. Just make sure that you get one that is reliable software so that you will not have any difficulty tracing your sales.

In addition, you will need to set up is your delivery system. Your client will judge your services by the competence of your delivery system so make sure that you get an excellent courier as partner. If you are planning of catering to clientele all over the world, you should set up a very reliable delivery system so that you will not end up losing some goods along the way.

This almost happened to me. My dream of having my own home base business was almost a distant memory until I was forced to make one of the BIGGEST decisions of my life and that was to get a Mentor.

I’m not saying you have to go out and get a mentor, I’m just sharing with you what I did in order to make my dream a reality.

And my mentor wasn’t just any mentor either, he was and still is the #1 Business Coach in North America who showed me and thousands of others what we were doing wrong and what we needed to do to make it right.

This was an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life and think about everyday.

Who was my mentor your probably wondering?

Well… his name is Raymond Aaron, and he is the founder of the Monthly Mentor – http://www.monthlymentor.com

This man changed my life forever with his principles.

So with that said, what I’m about to share with you he taught me and is a simple system that will only take you a few minutes to do.

These few minutes will determine the right home base business for you, whether it’s online or offline, so YOU don’t fall victim to failure like many home base business start-ups do.

So… with that said, in these next few paragraphs I’m going to show you how to pick the right business for you to start by using a simple little system I was shown that takes only a few minutes to do.

Believe me, this will not be as stressful as you think.

The first step…

Step #1. Get a pen/pencil and note pad.

This is the easy step. All you have to do Right Now is get a pen/pencil and note pad to write on for the next step coming up.

Do you have your pen/pencil and note pad yet?

Step #2. Write down your TOP 10.

This is where your going to have to use your brain a little bit because this TOP 10 list your about to write down are the TOP 10 home base businesses you would like to start-up based on your interests and passions.

Please… take a few minutes to do this. There’s no need to rush.

Step #3. Get rid of five of your TOP 10.

Okay, now it’s time to make some cuts. This is where you have to really think about the 10 home base business start-ups you have written down infront of you.

Look at them good and hard.

Now it’s time to get rid of the five you would MOST likely not want to start.

Pick wisely.

Step #4. Now get rid of two more.

It’s now time to break it down your list even more by getting rid of two more of the five home base business start-ups you have listed infront of you on your note pad.

Remember what we are trying to do here. We’re trying to figure out the best home base business for YOU.

After this step you should only be looking at three home base business start-ups that you REALLY want to start.

Step #5. Your FINAL decision.

Now it’s time for your FINAL decision.

It all comes down to this last step so make sure you make the right choice for it is the one you’re go run with to make your entrepreneurial dreams come true.

Of the three you have left on the note pad infront of you choose the ONE that you know you would excel at and are passionate about doing Day In and Day Out.

This is a BIG decision.

Take a few minutes to REALLY think this through… okay.

Go for a walk if you have to or even sleep on it and decide in the morning.

It’s up to you.

That’s all there is to it.

I know it seems simple from reading this article, and it is if you know how to simplify the process and not make it more difficult then it really has to be.

People always seem to take the hard route at these kinds of decisions(I was one of them) when it really doesn’t have to be, so if you haven’t already done so, go through the five steps above and give them a try so you don’t fall victim to becoming one of those home base business failures, and become one of those home base business “Successes” doing what it is you are most passionate about and love doing everyday.

If your spouse or significant other is against your business, then you are missing a huge portion of the business support system you need to sustain yourself. Running a small business is a family affair. Whether your family thinks they are involved or not, they are. They truly are the largest source of support your business will get.

Impact of Negativity

If your family is negative about your business then this influence will almost wipe out any other business support systems you have in place. It’s going to be tough for the next couple of months while you get your business off the ground. A strong, positive, encouraging business support system will sustain you through the lows and temper you through the highs.

Negativity, on the other hand, will kill your business faster than anything else. If you are hearing all day that you’re no good, you’re business is crappy, you’re ruining your life, blah blah blah blah, you will go down a black hole with the rest of the business support systems you so carefully put in place.

The Bottom Line on Business Support Systems

You need to have positive business support systems and the main source of this support is your family. If your family is not going to be supportive then the circumstances are not optimal for your launch. Despite all the other business support systems you may have in place, your family trumps them all. Think seriously about where your family rates in your business support system and then decide if now is really the right time to start your business.

The more knowledgeable the employee the stronger partnership between boss and employee, the better everything runs like a well oiled machine. Businesses are increasingly focusing on knowledge as an asset for survival in a competitive world. Good learning management systems are required if you want your business to be successful. A learning management system gives the stability for a businesses online learning environment by allowing the management, delivery and tracking of different types of learning for employees, stakeholders and customers. A strong learning management system should incorporate with other departments, such as human resources, accounting and e-commerce, so administrative and supervisory tasks can be streamlined and automated and the overall cost and impact of education can be tracked and evaluated. Choosing or having a learning management system designed specifically with your business prospects can be one of the best decisions you can make for you and your employees.

Many companies are starting to realize that by using a learning management system directly in software form, allows their employees to learn better business while they are on the job. This holds down the cost of online classes, or paying an instructor to come in and teach them. The developers of learning management system software are committed to continued learning, development, and knowledge. Knowledge and expertise are a powerful edge in today’s harsh business climate. Usually, Learning Management Software isn’t typically for companies with only a handful of employees.

Most companies that implement learning management systems are medium-to-large-sized organizations with many users of the system with diverse learning and e-learning activities. However, smaller businesses are everywhere; the need to make learning management systems for smaller businesses is in great demand. The owners of small businesses realize that even though they are not huge companies, their employees can still learn valuable business techniques that will help their businesses. Learning management systems can be a powerful tool that will deliver the information needed and manage all training, education, and certification (if needed). Companies large and small must be able to distribute, manage, and assess, an educational program that can be integrated within their own systems in an efficient, and low-cost manner.

In the future, the companies that stay in the know will be the ones that have the learning management systems software that keeps up with employee continuing education, development, and e-learning, and any other learning activities needed. Learning management systems will be the foundation of all learning within the company, and a company that continues to learn will continue to grow, and growing is what having a profitable business is what it’s all about.

Accounting System Software

You can purchase accounting software online or at a local office supply store. These products are usually easy to set up and easy to use. They can be expensive, though prices vary depending on the software company name brand. You can search online or you can speak with a representative at the office supply store for detailed information on each product.

Handwritten Bookkeeping

The uses of books and hand written accounting have been around for centuries. You don’t have to have a fancy journal; instead you can keep track of your finances in notebooks. Keep separate notebooks per area of spending. One notebook for payments another for invoices and so on.

With either of these choices it is very important to input your financial transactions in correctly. If even a slight mistake is made it can cause large amounts of trouble due to just the tiniest miscalculation. If you find that either option leaves you feeling uncomfortable you can choose to hire an accountant. Depending on your budget allowance, will depend on this option is available for you. Do some research for yourself. Look into all three of these options and see which will make your business life easier and which option will keep your affairs in the best order. You can look up more information on home business accounting online or at your local library. There are hundreds of books and websites available to help you know and understand accounting and the system that may suit you best.

Once you know which accounting system you want to use, begin immediately. You want to make sure that past payment information is updated and that all of your spending is calculated and recorded. These records will allow you to know what is being spent, if changes can be made to save money and if you are going to reach your profit goals. Accounting systems keep your business affairs and financial happenings in order that allows you to keep all of your focus on your business and not just the money aspect of it. Once you have your accounting service up and running you will be able to look back and smile. You’ll be glad you made the accounting system choice that you did.

You can’t go to a McDonald’s franchise manager and say, “Give me this free, and I’ll make a good business out of it.” Wouldn’t that be great? It’ll never happen, but think about it: Regardless of where you set up shop, you’ll do great. Of course, that would never happen, but let’s talk about the franchise for a moment. Why does McDonald’s make money?

You have brand recognition, first and foremost. You also know what you’re going to get when you walk into a McDonald’s in any part of the United States. You know what the atmosphere will be like, what the employees will be wearing, and the taste and quality of the food. It’s a system! Systems that work, really work well and they make money for everyone.

So, let’s translate that to the Internet. You need to invest not just time, but money, too. Ask any successful person online today and he or she will tell you the same thing. But maybe you don’t want to start out with setting up your own domain, your own web site, etc. Maybe you aren’t that far along. Or, maybe you are and will recognize a good system when you see it and take advantage of what that system has to offer.

What makes online systems good? How were they set up? Who owns them? Why do they make money? How can you make money, too?

Know these things before joining any program:

1. Who owns it? Who’s in charge? What’s their record online? How long have they been in the business of Internet Marketing? Is their contact information readily available? What else has been said about them online?
2. Are the programs in their system solid? Do they have owners, who have already proven their ability to succeed so that you can succeed in their programs, too? Is their contact information readily available? What else has been said about them online?
3. Will you have the opportunity to make more money than you’re spending pretty quickly? If you really work at it, is the potential as high as the energy you’ll need to put out?
4. Is the system proven? Has it been tried and can the owner of the system guarantee that it works? Have they proven it themselves first?

Once you figure these things out… you’re halfway toward achieving your goal.

A residual income system with lots of opportunity that will help you to build a passive cash flow, one that continues to grow as time goes on, and one that produces steady growth is what you need to look for.

But remember, in _any_ of these systems, you’ll need to build a team as well as cash flow. Actually, it’s your team that will build the residual cash for you, but that’s a good thing. When you build a team–and it’s been proven that ANYONE, regardless of how much time is spent working on building a team–can attract just 3 members. It’s not very difficult, especially if you find a program where the tools for building that team are integrated right into the system.

When you find a program that meets all of these criteria, then test it yourself. Go all out and follow the directions as they’re laid out for you. What has already been proven to be successful will continue the pattern for you, just as with McDonald’s. You just have to follow it to the letter and work your system like a business. It is a business! It’s your business. Let it work for you.

“You need a system to succeed.”

I like to take this a step further. You not only need a “system”, but in order to get the most out of your home business opportunity, you need to have an Automated System. To take that even one step further, your Automated System must hit your prospects from EVERY angle in order to achieve the highest levels of prosperity.

Here are four techniques that if used on all of your prospects WILL increase your earnings with ANY home or internet business opportunity.

Step 1: Create a “capture” or “squeeze” page.

Even if you have no idea what this is, you have almost certainly seen a capture page and even been “captured by one. A capture page is simply a page that is set up to give some brief information about a product or service, but then requires the prospect to enter their info to get the full details. It is often a teaser or hyped up page to get the prospect to want to know more. The most effective capture pages touch on the prospects personal or financial needs compelling them to find out more by filling in their information. Once they do, you own their information for life and can continue to follow up with them or contact them about other offers of services you have no, or develop in the future. Capture pages are a MUST to start building your list that you will be able to promote any product or service. A great program that allows even the most novice person to create capture pages in minutes is Lead Page Generator.

Special note: NEVER LOSE YOUR LIST OF CAPTURED NAMES, ADDRESSES, EMAILS, ETC.

Those that are highly successful in any home business or internet opportunity have a list of thousands that they have built over the years. Any time they have a new product, service or opportunity to promote they send it out to their list first. This gives you a big head start and if your products, services and opportunities have been successful in the past, your list will follow you everywhere.

This all leads into the second technique to creating a totally automated system, email auto responders.

Step 2: Follow up with prospects via email

This is the easiest and most recognizable form of follow up. When creating a capture page, all you have to do is tie the information form into an auto responder. This can be done very easily using services such as aweber. Now, when a prospect fills in their information, you not only get to keep their information for your list, but now you can follow up with them daily, weekly, monthly without having to lift a finger. Of course, you have to write your email follow up messages ahead of time, but once you have them completed, you are following up with your prospects over and over while doing no additional work.

While email is a nice tool to make your system automated, it is far too often the ONLY tool people use. This is a huge mistake. Fact is, that email follow up and marketing is becoming far less effective due to spam laws and people filtering their email accounts.

In order to reach as many people as possible, you need to come at them from different angles.

Step 3: Follow up with a voice broadcasting system

Voice broadcasting gives you yet another method of following up with prospects. It is an awesome tool and as of late has been sort of the “new email.” Because email is getting caught by filters and spam control features, it is necessary to try and reach prospects using other methods. Outside of email, voice broadcasting is the easiest and least expensive means of following up. In addition, voice broadcasting can keep your system totally automated. You can record a simple message or series of messages, collect the prospects phone number on your capture page and then simply set up your voice broadcasting software to call them once, weekly, monthly or whatever you choose. There are lots of services to use out there. Goldcalling, voiceshot, probuilderplus, and protus are just a few.

Step 4: Postcard follow up

Direct mail is by far the most forgotten means of follow up, but often the most effective. Postcards are a terrific way to make sure that your prospects hear form you. By simply collecting their mailing info on your capture page, you have set yourself up to use an incredible tool that will definitely help increase your sales and income.

There are a couple of services that allow you to set up a direct mail campaign to work just like an email auto responder. The best service in my opinion is PostCardAutoresponder.com. You can input a prospects mailing address and set up a campaign that will send them a postcard once, twice, weekly, monthly, or whatever you choose. Just set it up once and forget it. You can contact a prospect for an entire year on autopilot . You can even create custom postcards for any business , service or opportunity.

If you use that simple 4 step plan to create an automated system for your business, you will definitely increase sales and income. Plus, you will not only have an automated system that works for you while you are doing the things you enjoy, but it will be one that contacts prospects from every angle so they are sure to get your message early and often. Remember, it is not always enough just to have a system. You need to have an automated system that you can plug each prospect into that will run itself while you focus on building your business.

If you are reading this, than chances are that you have already seen a need to implement some kind of time tracking system. If you are already using timesheets in your business, you should be aware that some systems are better than others, and it is worth taking the time to investigate whether the system you are using is providing you with the maximum benefit.

Businesses that bill clients for their time will need some method for keeping tabs on the jobs they work on, in many regions this is a legal requirement. While other businesses types may not see any obvious reason to implement a timesheet system, there are a lot of good reasons to consider using one.

If your business employs staff, than a timesheet system presents an excellent way of keeping track of what your human resources actually do. You may be surprised as to how much time staff spend doing work that is not related to your core business objectives. As an example, you may think that by not upgrading your computers and software this year it is going to save you money. However, your timesheets may tell you that your staffs are spending a lot of time dealing with computer-related issues that are not income generating, resulting in lower productivity than one might expect. A timesheet system is an extremely powerful tool for identifying and being able to help you quantify the costs associated with these types of issues.

If you run a project-based business, where you may bid for jobs with fixed-price quotations, implementing a time tracking system in your business can save you money. In today’s competitive business climate, there can be a thin line between getting the job or losing it to a competitor. Quote high and your competitor may beat you based on price. Quote low and you may just get the job, but lose a significant amount of money doing it. If you have experienced these types of problems in the past, than it may be time for you to consider a timesheet system. When you are formulating a new quote on a job similar to one that you have completed previously, look to your timesheet system to get an understanding of the actual length of time the job took to complete. You may be surprised to see which sub-projects are taking most of the time. Lets examine two scenarios; In the first scenario, the manager reports “we feel that project X came in on budget but we need to budget for a little more time to complete project Y in future quotations”, which is useful information that you can act upon. However, in our second scenario the business is using a timesheet system, and the manager reports “project X was completed at 23% below budget and project Y came in 279% over budget, resulting in the overall project being 160% over budget”. We will inevitably all make mistakes when we estimate the time it takes to complete a project, however the business that uses a timesheet system can quantify their mistakes, learn from them, and produce better quotes in the future.

Few would argue that a timesheet system is not an essential tool for tracking and analyzing business performance and productivity. If you have a small business with one or a few employees, and a few projects or clients, you can certainly use a manual written timesheet system to good effect. Start by creating a list of projects that you wish to categorize your time by. You may wish to further break down your projects into sub-projects, so you can get more detailed information about what has been done. Don’t forget to include projects for both internal (i.e. accounting, administration etc) and external (i.e. client job) purposes. Once you have done this, create a timesheet with spaces for putting time against each project, and a space to put the employee name and date, and distribute it to staff.

Once you have more than a few staff, or if your projects start to get more complicated, it is worth taking a look at the software packages that are available to make the process a whole lot easier. Some companies choose to start off using a spreadsheet program such as excel, but my experience with these type of systems is that they can require a lot of work and can be error prone, probably costing many times more than an inexpensive off-the-shelf timesheet software package. Most of the major time tracking software packages will have everything you need, including support for multiple staff and users on the move, central company project and client lists, and detailed reports of the work done by all of your staff. Most will also link to third party applications such as accounting and project management software. As most software applications tend to work differently, sometimes these links can be more of a hindrance than help, although at times they can also be genuinely useful. One software package called Spherical Timesheet also tracks computer based work to help staff fill in their timesheets, see http://www.sphericaltech.com for more information. In addition to automatically filling in timesheets, this software also links to major accounting and project management packages, has a number of useful reports that provides profit amounts for each and every project worked on, and can be evaluated for 30-days free. In all cases, I recommend that you download a demonstration copy of the time tracking software application that you wish to buy and try all relevant features before committing to it.

Once you have introduced your timesheet system, you will be well on your way to discovering more about your business. Timesheet systems give you information to help you make better business decisions, increase productivity, and can give you an edge over your competition. Best of all, you can make your timesheet system grow with your business, allowing you to continually fine-tune your processes to maximize the financial reward.