The Viking Laws and Business 1000 years later
I was at a self defence seminar last weekend and spotted a poster on the wall which showed a list of the old Viking laws.
The rules were there to illustrate how the ancient values of the 8th century ’raiders and traders’ could be translated into our modern day approach to martial arts but I realised it’s also incredible how many of their laws are still relevant 1000 years later but with regards to a successful approach to business and entrepreneurship.
Naturally some have a more conceptual relationship whilst others are in fact very literal.
Here’s the list of Viking laws:
- Be brave and aggressive
- Be direct
- Grab all opportunities
- Use varying methods of attack
- Be versatile and agile
- Attack one target at a time
- Don’t plan everything in detail
- Use top quality weapons
- Be prepared
- Keep weapons in good condition
- Keep in shape
- Find good battle comrades
- Agree on important points
- Choose one chief
- Be a good merchant
- Find out what the market needs
- Don’t promise what you can’t keep
- Don’t demand overpayment
- Arrange things so that you can return
- Keep the camp in order
- Keep things tidy and organised
- Arrange enjoyable activities which strengthen the group
- Make sure everybody does useful work
- Consult all members of the group for advice
Here’s a very brief list of relvant quotes from well known names in business which immediately sprang to mind whilst reading the list:
Be direct: “Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.” – Guy Kawasaki
Use varying methods of attack: “When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough.” – Donald Trump
Be versatile and agile: “If you have a problem with confidence, hide your fear. Feeling nervous and uncertain in new situations is normal. You’ll soon adapt.” – Sir Alan Sugar
What laws apply most to your business? Do you have any quotes from well known business figures that are directly relevant?
7 Things any Business Owner Can Apply to Instantly Supercharge Profits Using The Internet…
This is a guest post by a well known and respected leader in the internet marketing scene, James Schramko.
James left his $300k per annum salary to become his own boss and now makes even more than he did in his very successful ‘real job’.
Below he shares just some of the methods he used to acheive this. Enjoy…
The Internet is changing rapidly. One of the biggest challenges you face as a business is knowing the right things to DO so that you harness all that potential and turn it into profit. I’m going to teach you stuff I’ve done, stuff that works.
Get ready to harness the leverage.
The great thing about when you have properly set up your business for the internet is that you don’t need to be there all the time. In other words, it can work for you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
When you compare that to the cost of a one-time newspaper advertisement you can see the compound effect of any energy you put towards enhancing your online presence.
Step 1 – Get a Support Desk Setup
Customer service is one of the resource intensive areas many businesses struggle with. As your business grows, so to will your support requirements. I recommend every business get a ‘helpdesk’ which can take the first line of defense for customer service. This is software you install (preferably on a separate domain name).
Your support system will automatically answer many frequently asked questions and allow you the ability to have outsourced help. Once you set up the help desk you are now ready to scale up traffic to your business.
Step 2 – Social Media Presence
Love it or hate it, you need a voice on the most popular social networks. Setup a Fan page on Facebook for your business. It has a viral effect when people join it. This can help you build a database of clients and at the same time the perfect platform to create sales buzz.
Twitter and LinkedIn are the two other major social media platforms to pay attention too. By linking your website to these social platforms you can automate broadcasts to your target market.
For an example see the how the $1billion dollar online shoe store Zappos deals with social media:
http://twitter.com/zappos 1,7 million followers!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/zappos?v=wall 53,200 fans!
You should also consider having a dynamic element to your website such as a blog. Blogs provide the client the ability to comment and more importantly, share your content easily with social sites.
Step 3 – Outsource Your Work
There’s hardly anything that you can’t ask someone else to do when it comes to the Internet. In the beginning it can be tempting to want to do everything yourself. The reality is we are not all gifted at design, graphics, publishing websites, etc.
Here are some examples of work you can have done by contractors:
You can have a content-writer who prepares and distributes content for you. You don’t have to do anything but come up with the idea. Once the content is prepared you can have them and submit that content to your website.
You can employ a graphics designer, a programmer, a web designer and a search engine optimization specialist for very low rates on a per unit basis.
It’s about finding people who are really good at what you need to have done, and have them do it. The rewards are far greater than what you’re going to pay them.
Step 4 – Create a Range of Digital Products
You don’t have to only deal in physical products or services if you don’t want to.
Adding information products such as high quality PDF reports, whitepapers, video and audio can enhance your profit with hardly any effort.
Your clients are craving ‘how to’ information and these form the perfect compliment to almost any business. You can even give some premium content away for free just to get your prospects into your database. Once they are there you can make them repeated sales offers mixed into great content.
Step 5 – Research
Not the sexiest topic, but it will make or break your business. Imagine if in the real world, you just bought a block of land, and you had this fantastic idea. So you built a building, and got all the staff and put the product out there and no-one buys it. So you go bankrupt.
It’s no different online. A lot of people just come in and don’t have guidelines to judge things. Doing research allows you to find out whether you’re going to win or lose before you even enter the market. If you already have a website you should do this exercise to find hidden opportunities:
Get onto Google and see what’s happening right now, who’s buying and who’s selling and for how much. The whole web is driven from keywords. Keywords are the building blocks of everything. When we go to Google, we type in a keyword. What we put in, will determine what we get out. We need to know the keywords that the buyers are using, and then we need to make sure that it’s OUR STUFF that will come out.
Step 6 – Website Tune Up
Go to your website and make sure it does not say “Welcome to our website”. That is boring and ineffective. Make sure you put a compelling and related benefit instead such as: “Termites Eradicated Fast” etc…
Make sure your page title has your keyword with a benefit in it. This is the little text at the very top of the browser. If it says “home” or “Welcome” you need to slap the web designer and then get a new one!
These small tweaks will make a HUGE difference to traffic and conversions.
Step 7 – Traffic
You can’t get too much traffic. Make sure you take advantage of thre three main types of traffic. If you miss one you are losing money.
Paid traffic is important because if you can make money with free traffic, then you can make more money with paid traffic. Most internet marketers only focus on just free traffic. People get obsessed with free, but that’s really no way to run a business, is it? Consider a Google Pay Per Click campaign with the help of a professional.
Borrowed traffic is when you know someone who already has your customers and you ask them to send them to you. You can tell them that they’ve got the customers, you’ve got the product, and tell them to send over the customers. You can cross-populate things very easily. You might have heard of what’s called a “joint venture”.
Free Traffic is where you submit premium content on your site and away from your site pointing back top your site. Search engines and humans love this and they will bring many visitors to your website.
Find out about James Schramko’s Business Internet Formula course:
CLICK HERE
James Schramko
http://www.BusinessInternetFormula.com
About James Schramko
James is a leader in the Internet Marketing scene. Much of his work is undetectable on the surface hence the term “underground marketer”.
The connections and network of serious multi-millionaire Internet entrepreneurs James has built up over the last few years is astounding. He is able to access the highest level knowledge fast.
Based in Sydney, James runs his profitable business with very few team members, zero staff. The techniques he uses are often simple yet powerful. He is sharing many of these in this course.
At a glance: Web conferencing & remote training software from GoToMeeting
We have 3 main uses for web conference & remote training software:
- Team meetings because we are distributed across multiple locations
- Remote training for clients who don’t want on site training
- Technical Support for clients or cross department support
We’ve used a few (of the hundreds?) of web conf/meeting options and are finding GoToMeeting definately one of the better ones.
Quick glance features and things we like:
Best UK Web Hosting for Multiple WordPress Sites
Having tried out quite a few web hosts I think that Heart Internet are currently the best UK web hosting company for multiple WordPress sites.
Here’s a list of the main things I like about their Reseller Hosting for hosting WP sites primarily. Everything is optional and free unless stated.
The Fun Friday Roundup 21st May 2010
What we’ve done in work
- Worked on various WordPress Themes, and WordPress, Drupal and .Net CMS support.
- A hideous amount of banners in both english and spanish.
- Flash galleries with over 300 images
- Built 3 new WordPress based sites
- Literally a SEA of site updates
- Took on a WordPress developer full time
- Bugfixing Cold Fusion applications
- Started building our next in-house project (will post about it next week)
10 Best WordPress Plugins in 2010
Anytime we build a WordPress site for a client we nearly always end up installing the same plugins initially as they are typically useful on every site nowadays regardless of the goals of the site.
If you are using WordPress for your site and not using any of these plugins they are well worth checking out. I’d got as far as to say these are THE 10 essential wordpress plugins right now.
Some enable clients to manage more aspects of the site for themselves, some help them manage the site by reducing the work they have to do and others work behind the scenes to improve the site’s effectiveness.
Obviously this list is accurate at the time of writing but we will revisit it and update it if needbe throughout 2010 to keep it relevant. They are listed alphabetically as we are not ranking them. Why do people do plugin ranking lists? They are only either useful or not. Anyway…
Let’s get to it. On with the 10 best wordpress plugins in 2010:
The Fun Friday Roundup 14th May 2010
What we’ve done in work
- Configured & launched a Sharepoint intranet
- Customised a WordPress search results template
- Built a WordPress site for a new client
- Simon gave Chris the nickname of ‘GA Baracus’ and threatened to make a logo for it…
- Updating around 40 live sites for clients
- Put out 5 quotes for new website builds and redesigns
- Started upgrading sites to Drupal 6
- Built lots of presentations using PPT’s and audio files using SlideShare
- Setting up a new Support Web system in Cold Fusion
- Planning A/B website call to actions testing for a client
- Built a TON of web banners!
- Remote client training for CMS
Hit Reach understands our business exceptionally well and as we've grown they have always managed to deliver a fast and efficient service that meets our business needs. 
Izzy Wakeling
Head of Global Events
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