Marketing and Sales Management

Sales Management  Marketing goes hand in hand with sales, as it provides a way to get the word out about your services and products, and a way to attract prospective clients. In a small business, however, the owner is often the only salesperson, marketing director, and grunt, along with everything else!   Many small businesses lack a sales strategy. Periodically, you should review your sales strategy. Here is a list of some sales activities:  identify prospects  prioritize leads    make sales calls  close sales    determine the average dollar size per sale  Sales management means keeping track of these activities and how well you have done. Just like a budget, you should be projecting these figures and comparing them to actual results, ideally on a monthly basis. If you are not meeting your targets, look for reasons. Maybe you are not getting enough face-to-face meetings with prospects and need to learn to follow through on more leads.   The lifeblood of any business is sales and sales management which is why we offer our Business Skills: Business Administration course to help you evaluate your sales strategies.   

Using Research Logs

Research Logs 101   Are you using a research log? The first step in reviewing the research you have completed to-date is to refer to your research log. Unfortunately, when many of us start our genealogy journey, keeping track of our findings is likely the last thing on our mind.    Typically, a research log is created for each family group, but depending on how you prefer to work, you may want to create one for each person. A research log can help you to quickly see what sources you have already consulted that may answer the current question related to the person/family you are researching.   Research logs are usually in a table format, allowing us to record specific pieces of information related to sources we have searched. You can use pre-printed forms/templets or create your own. At a minimum, a research log should contain the following categories: date, source, repository, objective and results.   Remember, this log not only helps you track everything you have found but also what you did not find. In some cases, such as a search for online family trees, you may want to repeat a previously-performed search since new information is published online every day.   While it may seem time-consuming, creating research logs is an important tool for your research.  Our course, Skill Building: Breaking Down Brick Walls will help, saving you precious time in the long run.     

Vital Statistics in Newspapers

Vital Statistics in Newspapers Vital records are the listings of births, marriage, and deaths recorded for a given town, county or state. The vital records that we seek are a relatively new record, in many instances not coming into existence until the 1900s. When searching for births marriages, or deaths, the first place that we look is the officially recorded records at the town, county, or state level. One of the problems with these records is that as you go from the more local governments to the state, you will quickly discover that the certificates were not recorded for many years. Newspapers can fill in gaps, either when the records were not kept or when there was limited information written in the earlier registers. Entries of birth, marriages, and deaths may offer additional information about the family. Unlike the vital records that often include only basic information an in a standard format, newspaper entries are sometimes full of information. Working in newspapers also means looking in a number of different places for the various announcements of birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial. With the United States: Newspaper Records course you will learn more about what you can discover in your research.

Financial Matters and Your Genealogy Business

Your Genealogy Business Tracking money is not just mindless busywork. It has a purpose. Keeping track of money as it flows in and out of your business is a process that is key to providing you with the necessary information on how your business is doing which leads to better decision making. Managing your financial resources will involve the following aspects of money management: accounting/bookkeeping/budgeting profit/loss cash flow tax reporting break-even analysis credit and collections For a small sole proprietorship, weekly bookkeeping and periodic budgeting can be a simple process, and many small business owners do very well using just a spreadsheet to keep their financial records. Accounting reports are useful for reporting and planning purposes. The basic financial reports useful to an owner of a small genealogy business include: Balance Sheets– This is a very basic look at your business ownership at a particular point in time, usually at the end of each month. Profit/Loss Statement– This covers a specific period of time, such as one month, one quarter, or one year. Budget– This serves as a guide for your activities. If you have ever had a month – in business or even in your personal life – when you did not know where you would get the money to pay the bills, you have an understanding of what cash flow is. In a service business such as genealogy research, cash does not always flow smoothly. Genealogy research projects can take extended periods of time, sometimes six months or more. Project Management  A significant portion of your income may come from projects that you complete for your clients. In order to be adequately paid for your work,…

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