HOPSON POTTER BUSINESS

Do you have trouble getting referrals (or clients)? You may want to deploy some winning entrepreneurial strategies.

Here’s the first major strategy: go back to the basics. Have you ever properly defined your target niche? If so, maybe you’ve been watering it down, and it’s time to review whom you’re targeting with your marketing efforts. If you haven’t, it’s about time to get started.

Here are 5 factors you should consider as you define or re-define your target niche — and all of them deal with analyzing what types of clients you already serve.

Begin by thinking of your current client list or the clients you serviced this last year.  What type of clients do you most enjoy working with?  Who are they?  What is special about them and why do you enjoy working with them?

The second factor -  What types of clients are most profitable for you to service?  Not everyone is.  Some sectors of your business, and maybe even some specific product lines or service lines tend to be more profitable than others.  Aim for those.

The third factor to consider is what types of clients are easiest to service.  Which ones are the low maintenance ones?  Which ones are in and out really quick?  Which ones can you find easily and service easily?

The fourth factor is the type or types of customers you most successful in servicing.  Who do you do your best work with?  Once again, it could be a product line.  It could be a service line.  It could be the nature of the client.  It could be where they are at when they come to you.  What specific problems they have that you can solve.

The fifth factor to consider is what unique skill set, industry experience, or expertise you have that aligns you with your customers.  What’s your background?  For example, my background is small business – I started an employment agency from startup and turned it into a $ 5 million company – and that helps me figure out who my niche is.  I love working with startups.  I love working with people who have been in business for five years or less.

So think about your background.  What skills do you have?  What experience do you have to align you better with your clients?  What type of clients would that align you with?  And those clients will be your ideal target clients.  Focusing on them is another key entrepreneurial strategy.  It ensures that you’ll enjoy your work — and will get many more referrals.

PURPOSE is knowing whose you are, who you are and what you are. Knowing what you are born to do propels you to persist until the task is complete.

PURPOSE finds an open door among many closed doors.

PURPOSE conquers failure.

PURPOSE measures itself by purposeful ambitions rather than aimless accomplishments.
PURPOSE does not accept the labels of others.

PURPOSE defines itself through self-affirmation and steadfastness.

PURPOSE finds power and peace!

I call them “Aha! moments” – those brilliant epiphanies when something quite simple illustrates a profound fact about life as an entrepreneur. Well, an awesome “Aha! moment” happened during a grocery shopping trip-gone-wrong. I had decided to surprise my wife by preparing dinner. So I stopped by the store to buy bread, eggs, cheese, flour, vegetables and a few canned goods.

I also picked up chicken breasts and olive oil. But catastrophe struck my gourmet meal as I loaded the groceries into the car. An ominous crunch sound let me know I was in for a challenge. Turns out, the cans had crushed the glass bottle of olive oil; my groceries glistened in a slippery slick in my trunk. At first, the mess symbolized those moments in business when everything is going according to plan, when boom! something explodes and drowns everything around it in chaos.

But suddenly, the symbolism spun far deeper. As I began wiping the oil off the cans, cheese and veggies, an epiphany illuminated my thoughts. The thick, aromatic oil reminded me of a Sunday morning church service when our pastor explained the intricacies of transforming olives into a precious delicacy. He said that in order to produce one drop of olive oil, each tiny leaf of the olive tree is pressed separately to maintain its purity.

The leaves are ground, crushed and put through a complicated process before the oil reaches our grocery carts. In Middle Eastern nations, the process of producing olive oil is often painstakingly slow. Hours, weeks, months and sometimes years go into ensuring that it is processed to perfection.

I realized, you can’t rush perfection; pressing olive oil is a metaphor for the creation of an excellent entrepreneur. It takes many hours, days, weeks, months, and years to truly develop ourselves and our businesses into perfection. That idea takes on a spiritual depth because olive oil is an integral part of anointing in religious ceremonies. It is pure and worthy of such honor only because of what has gone into making it. It has withstood immense grinding and crushing to be used for its multiple purposes.

The same goes for us in business. Knowing our purpose enables us to submit to the process, knowing that it will produce superior products and services for our customers.

We often try to escape the grinding, but to grow, we must be pressed. The Pillsbury Dough Boy misquoted the wise men by stating, “Easy in, easy out.” The real saying goes something like, “Hard in, holy out.” Press yourself toward your purpose. You are ordained to do great business. Press on. And, keep pressing on so that you will experience an anointed, holy, miraculous outcome.

Knowing our purpose allows us the opportunity to be changed and expanded.

“Every person is born into this world to do something unique and something distinctive. And if he or she does not do it, it will never be done.” – Benjamin E. Mays, Educator

“One’s mission in life is determined by one’s actions.” – Robert S. Shumake

When you need to find employment, you have to do more than simply look in magazines, newspapers, and other publications. These places are no longer the best place to look for work, and there are numerous jobs that are being filled without ever being advertised. Therefore you need to learn new ways to generate work related leads. Networking is probably one of the best ways to determine which positions are available in your industry. When you network you make contact with associates, work colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family. It is better if many people know that you are trying to find a job. It is very important that you make these contacts although you may not even be looking for employment they may be advantageous to you in the future. There are numerous organizations and professions that have publications or websites that include postings for positions.

One of the best places to make professional contacts and network is at annual conferences. Another place that can be just as effective is you’re alumni or your college’s association if you have a degree. Calling on a company’s hiring representative cold is or even emailing them cold is another great way to find those positions that aren’t advertised. However, this can take up a lot of your time because means that you’ll have to create a list of employers, research each hiring representative, and send them a resume and a cover letter for the position that you want. Events that are help quite regularly are career and job fairs, and there are numerous businesses that send a couple of their employees to them to recruit and network with the best candidates. It requires a considerable amount of preparation to attend these events because you’ll have to research the businesses to determine which ones will send employees to them, and then create a strategy to actually get to talk to one of their representatives. That is the only way that they will remember you because these are usually extremely crowded events. Another great way to find a position is job websites on the Internet if you use them selectively and effectively. But, you need to remember that the best websites are not always the largest ones. The fact is that there have been recent studies done that have determined that there are numerous Fortune 500 companies, companies in the health care industry, and companies in the IT sector that rather than publish their employment advertisements on the larger job websites, they prefer to use corporate careers sites.

Are you tired of searching for Oil Rigs that are actually Hiring? Do you dream of having profitable and successful oil rig careers? Spare some time and read the following tips, they will help give you direction and if applied fully guarantee you an oil rig career.

First of all, Do you know what job you want? If you do not, ask yourself what kind of position you would like to seek on oil rigs? Then one must due diligent research on the chosen position! This means making a list of possible jobs that you would consider doing. Also List The requirements needed to apply for each oil rig career. After you do this, compile a list of the Average Salary each Position earns annually. After you have done these steps its relevantly easy to determine which oil rig careers you specifically want to pursue. I recommend if have no experience to choose a relevantly novice job so you may learn the business first.

Another Vital piece of information needed when deciding what oil rig careers to pursue is the demand of that position.

In order to determine this one must be due extensive research on the current openings in the oil rig industry. Now to make this step easier for you, i recommend you make a list of the Top 10 Oil Rig Employers you wish to work for, and research their current openings! Also Try and check to see if any of the Oil Rig employers you are targeting have any new developments because they will definitely be in need of employees then. This is a critical part when deciding which oil rig careers to apply for, because you do not want to apply for a flooded position or to an employer who is not hiring.