practical tips to buy an used car

While buying a used car you should take into account many factors. Here I am listing some important factors you should consider while buying a used car.
1. Type of vehicle - sedan or hatch back or mini van or SUV. You have to decide on this from your personal choices, family size, parking area available, ease of handling etc.
2. Budget - is next big aspect. Based on your budget you can decide upon your model choices, company choices, make quality, with or without luxury extra fittings.
3. Check service records of the car. A good car should be one that is maintained very well periodically. A quick go through a cars service record will give you an idea of "how well it is maintained".
4. Odometer fraud - check this thoroughly.
5. Perform a CarFax check. It will cost you 30 dollars but still worth it. Do perform this check only on the car that you zero in. There is no need to perform a Carfax check on all cars you consider. Just do it for the one you plan to buy. A CarFax report will include service records, accident cases reported (if any) etc. You need to obtain VIN (vehicle identification number) for this.
6. Financing your car is next aspect. You need to have an idea about the budget and what you can afford. Try to buy with ready cash if possible and finance only if necessary. Also as a rule of thumb keep in mind, don't commit any EMI more than 20% of your monthly income.
7. Give a final check with an auto mechanic. You may not know many technical aspects of a vehicle. So you better consult a third party auto mechanic and consider an opinion from him before you buy. Always make sure the auto mechanic is your well wisher.
8. To save time searching for a used car, use Internet and online services.
9. Always apply a little "bargaining pressure" to get good deals from your dealer. There is no point in over doing this, dealers usually offer competitive prices. But still try for a bargain.
10. Check the condition of vehicle thoroughly before you decide to make a deal. As I told you before, seek a professional help for this purpose. If you can't find a professional, at least find a friend/relative who is really good with mechanism of cars and has got enough practical insights.
11. There's more than one way to buy a used car - 1) from private owner directly 2) through dealership agencies 3) other methods such as government disposals. I recommend second option because they are always accountable for their vehicles - just like we buy a new branded car from a dealer. Another advantage is some dealers offer value added services and for more you are more likely to get a good bargain from a dealer rather than from an individual
12. How to determine your car is priced right is the next important question. Well this is a little trickier one - there are no predefined rules or guidelines to determine exact price of a used car. It depends highly on the make year say 2000 model or 2001 model, reliability, popularity, demand and supply, single used or owned by more than one, kilometers used, ever got into an accident or not, the list is typically endless.

Build An Iconic Web Brand

Do you have an obligation to be good, and by good, I mean good at your job? Do you have a responsibility not just to be professional and do what you do on time and on budget but also to be creative, thought provoking, and stimulating in the way that you do it?

Myth-Making As A Branding Strategy

The reason I ask the question is I recently read a comment on a business blog posted by a self-proclaimed advertising expert that justified the notion that schlock advertising works. I don't know about you but I find the idea disturbing. Sometimes ads work and sometimes they don't. There are lots of reasons why advertising fails and in many cases it has more to do with implementation rather than conception. And yes we all know that schlock advertising like negative political ad campaigns work in the short-term, but ultimately the tactic leads to audience disillusionment and frustration, which is why we talk to our clients about marketing not advertising.

Marketing Is About Building A Legend

Marketing requires you to take the long-view; it's an approach that demands a company to stake out a position and build a personality that customers can rely on to be consistent and ethical both in offering and in execution. Marketing is about building a legend, an iconic brand that explains who you are, what you do, and why anyone should care. Marketing is about psychological persuasion in order to improve the wellbeing of your audience. Marketing is about transformation, it communicates a brand story that acts as a metaphor that defines your identity, which in turn helps customers define and express themselves.

Beware Junk Research

A reliance on market research that tells you what people said as oppose to what they think is of little or no value. Even research that tells you what people did, doesn't tell you what they will do when presented with an unknown option. Even opinion polls on soon to be released products are of little use: without some commitment of value those opinions won't tell you how people will respond when they have to reach into their wallets to make a decision. Sure there's good research, mostly available to big corporations produced by the social scientists, psychologists and university professors who study human behavior. Most of the rest of it is hindsight justification for whatever happens to be trendy or in-vogue at the time.

Market Leaders Are Proactive

Research that asks people what they want is useless, how can they know if they want something if it hasn't been put on the market yet. Marketing is about defining your audience's need not reacting to what your competitor has already established. By definition that kind of approach will leave you as an also-ran, never a market leader.

Market leaders are proactive not reactive. Asking everyone's opinion on what and how to sell is weak and ineffectual and is not only reactive, it's downright regressive. Your customers can't tell you what they don't know, that's why they rely on you.

Brand Stories

Brand Stories are how companies use psychological persuasion to transform viewers into loyal customers (brand evangelists) by changing attitudes, preferences, and preconceptions. Brand stories allow the audience to vicariously transform themselves by providing a look at what could be.

Business is obsessed with technological solutions to psychological problems, one very significant reason why so many tech-based advertising tactics fail. Whether it's Ad Placement Auctions, Search Engine Optimization techniques, or QR codes, if the final destination is a peace of junk, you lose!

Mainstream media promotes techie-solutions mostly because it's easy and can be presented in a twenty-second sound bite rather than providing the underlying significance of why something really works, a process that is more complicated and takes more time. Take the Old Spice commercials that were hyped based on the technical wizardry of the creators, when the real genius of these ads was the message. Businesses run out and emulate the technique without a clear understanding of why it worked and more often than not miss the target altogether.

What's Your Big Idea?

So if technique is merely the how, what's the why, the why anyone should care? Ask yourself, and be honest, what's your big idea? Steve Jobs famously asked John Sculley, the head of PepsiCo, whether he wanted to sell sugar water for the rest of his life or change the world? What self-respecting senior executive could resist the challenge and opportunity? Are you selling today's sugar water laced with Facebook, Twitter, and whatever the next big thing is, while allowing your main online presentation channel, your website, to fall behind?

Sure there's a place for these IPO-based gimmick sites, but are you following the crowd because that's what the carpetbaggers are promoting this week, or are you a true entrepreneur with a real idea, a honest point-of-view, a fascinating story to tell, and a real product or service that will set-off the endorphins in your audience's heads when they hear about it?

What's Your Emotional Value Proposition?

The key to successful marketing is finding your Emotional Value Proposition. It's how you humanize the outdated notion of a sales-value proposition that no self-respecting marketing expert gives a hoot about. If you look at what Jobs offered Sculley, it breaks down to an opportunity to achieve 'self-actualization' the highest rung on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Jobs understood that in order to attract a high-powered, success-oriented executive he had to offer him something big, and from a psychological perspective there is nothing bigger than being all you can be.

In the case of Old Spice the message was more primal, it's about sex, a basic level ingredient on Maslow's Hierarchy. The message is clear: buy the product and you attract and satisfy women, what could be more fundamental? Everyone knows sex sells but do you understand why? Sex sells because it's essential to our survival as a species; we either propagate or we disappear like the Neanderthals. It doesn't get anymore Maslowian than that.

How To Find Your Big Idea

So if you're selling the most features, lower prices, better service, and best staff in the business you're communicating the wrong message. Your audience isn't stupid; nobody promotes the idea that they have no service and sell cheap crap that doesn't work. Nobody really cares that you Tweet, Facebook, Google, or text message your day away. What people want to know is what are you going to do to move them up the Maslowian latter. Every successful brand, product, or company is based on a big idea. What's yours?

The Top 5 Ways to Use Intuition in Business

Business intuition sounds like it might be an oxymoron - until you consider that business is about systematic problem resolution and intuition is an internal antenna, known as the quiet voice of inner wisdom, for truthful answers. It's potentially the most important - and harmonious - relationship necessary for success as an entrepreneur.

One way to use intuition in business is to know you're on track in what you're doing and what your business is doing. It's internal validation that you, and the business, are doing the right things in the moment. This can be the case even when the external evidence is seemingly contrary to what you know to be true. If you feel a strong sense of business intuition, it is directing you to hold to whatever you know or have set in motion in order to attain the desired, or new, results.

A second way that business intuition helps you is to set strategic direction that is in alignment with greater truth. No one can know what you know, with all the nuances and sources of knowledge that are accessible only to you. Having focused strategic direction that is supporting the greater truth of what you know is a critical component to your unique business success.

Third, success is a combination of key decision points, both in terms of major turning points and in the accumulated series of decisions and resulting actions on a daily basis. Using your business intuition allows you to know that you are making appropriate decisions on both levels for optimal success. (Keep in mind that true success is predicated on what you know, not necessarily what has been stated, and will affect your results - but that's a topic for another discussion!)

Fourth, your intuition will also serve to help you determine the "right" relationship matches for your business, whether business partners, associates, new hires, vendors, or whatever the possible association. By listening to your intuition, you will be able to determine who is, or is not, a good fit for working with you and/or your business.

And, fifth, as an internal monitor, your intuition supports you in doing more of what works and less of what doesn't. Time is the only true currency we have, and it is vital to keep focus, minimize or eliminate distractions, and continue forward momentum. Your intuition will help guide your energy and time management effectively.

One way to consider using your intuition is in a "flow chart" manner; that is, ask yes / no questions. If question A results in a yes, go this direction and a no results in that direction. If yes, then what is the next question / result with a yes/no option. And if no, is there a next question or alternative? Simply go with direct information as it presents. Continue to ask questions of your intuition to determine the full "flow" of information in order to address the business question at hand. To quote Anthony Robbins, "Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers."

By understanding the power of your personal intuition in business, you have the ability to be your own best resource of information regardless of external circumstances. Using your intuition also ensures that you are getting a complete picture of the situation and potential avenues to solution, because you are not depending on conventional, unilateral, logical means alone. To paraphrase Einstein, the problem cannot be solved by the same mind that created it. So it's time to unleash the power of using your intuitive mind for true wisdom in business... what's the one thing you know for sure about your business right now?

Brilliant Business Ideas for Entrepreneurs by Egiz Toeb

 Starting a Business takes a lot of thinking and planning. Finding an excellent business idea can be a daunting task - what with the different options of ideas you can choose from. In this article, we will explore the process of finding the right idea to start on as well as offer some of the hottest and most popular ideas. A successful business does take a great idea to begin with. However, this is not necessarily the case all the time. An original idea can either go up or down. Since it is unproven and untested yet, such an idea doesn't usually come with an established market.

Starting a Business   

       

The first step to starting your own business is to find a brilliant business idea that will make money. To find that excellent idea, you should think creatively, even out of the box, so to speak. You can start by asking yourself what interests you. You must be enthusiastic and passionate about your idea. That's why as much as possible, your business endeavor must really be in your field of interest. You can find s ideas by from your friends and family members. You can also do some research in the internet to find the hottest ideas today. Another great way to think up a new idea is to observe the latest trends. 

Which idea should you pursue? 

There are virtually no limits as to the choices of ideas for entrepreneurs. There are literally thousands of options. From pizza parlors to freelance writing, from services to products, you can definitely find a business idea perfect for an entrepreneur like you. However, which among these thousands of options are you going to stick with? As mentioned above, you should be enthusiastic and passionate about. There is an adage in entrepreneurship that goes like this: "Do what you love the money will follow." However, this formula does not guarantee instant success. Many entrepreneurs have pursued ideas that are in line with their interests with varying degrees of success and failure. 

Some Inexpensive Business Ideas for a new Entrepreneur 

Let's assume that you are just about to start your own business - a new entrepreneur so to speak. Whether you are a homemaker looking for ways to earn extra income or an unemployed trying to start a business from scratch, there are several opportunities and ideas you can tap to start a business without spending too much capital. The following ideas will not guarantee instant riches within months but they have the possibility to grow into full-time businesses in due time. 

Be a web entrepreneur - the internet offers vast potentials for earning money. From freelance work to AdSense, there is simply an abundance of ideas you can choose from. You can start by setting up your own website, no need to have technical know-how about web design, just make sure that the site looks good and it provides excellent content. Then, sign up for an affiliate program - this is where you will earn. Then, learn as much as you can about search engine marketing and promote your website. Regularly update your site with new content and just wait for the revenues to come in. It may not be much at first but over time, affiliate programs can help you earn a decent income - and you didn't spend too much except your time and your knowledge.

Be an eBay Businessman - This is the online version of the garage sale, if you have some things you don't really need, you can actually earn some money by putting those up for auction at eBay. Just make sure you stick to products that you know about. You can also start making your own products such as candles, art jewelry, and many more. You can sell these on eBay or any other internet mall site.

Try Multi-Level Marketing - Do you have the ability to persuade people to avail of products and services you offer? Do you have a wide network of friends and contacts? Do you have enough time on your hands to move around talking to people? Then you probably have a future in the world of Multi-level Marketing or MLM. This is one of the fastest growing businesses today and you can have it based right in the comfort of your own home

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These are just a few of the huge array of business opportunities you can choose from. Widen your horizons and look for more possible businesses ideas. Dig up magazines, journals, and other publications that might provide additional business ideas for entrepreneurs. Do your research on what the latest trends are. Who knows, you may find the right business idea for a new entrepreneur and strike gold