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If you own a small business, chances are you realize what a competitive environment it is in which to market your products or services. The same tools that make marketing so cost-efficient for your business, such as social media or business websites, are likely being utilized by each and every one of your competitors. That makes it difficult to be heard, which is why you have to avoid mistakes once you finally do get someone’s attention. Email marketing is another one of those cost-effective measures by which you can grab the attention of potential clients or customers. It might seem easy enough, to just tell people a little bit about what you have to offer and include some kind of sales pitch. But there are pitfalls to this approach, mistakes that you might not even realize you’re making that will result in your email list dwindling because of the ranks who decide to unsubscribe. One common mistake is to not get those emails addresses validated, so make sure you check out experts in that field like the folks at Email Ready who can walk you through the process. As for the content, here are some things to avoid. Watch That Grammar: It might seem like an obvious thing, and yet the number of business emails that are sent out with glaring grammatical errors would likely surprise you. And if one of yours gets sent out to a massive list of recipients with some of those errors, your potential clients and customers might consider you to be unprofessional and therefore not worthy of your time. Find someone, whether it’s a professional editor or a local English teacher, who can take a read-through and make sure that everything is grammatically sound. Strike the Right Tone: There is a balance that needs to be struck when you’re sending out a business email. On the one hand, you want to project a little looseness to your recipients, so that they’re not bored stiff by your little pitch. By the same token, too much of that might make you seem like you’re not a serious business partner. Aim for a little levity or informality in the beginning of the email, just enough to disarm the reader. Once it comes to your pitch though, try to dispense with that looseness and concentrate on the particulars of the pitch and why it’s a great deal. Write To Your Audience : A common mistake made in any marketing effort is when someone tells too much about their product or service and forgets to address why these things are needed by the people to whom they’re pitching. A sales pitch should be as much about the potential buyer as it is the seller. So try to put yourself in the shoes of the businesses receiving the email.What would they want to hear? Why is what you’re selling right for them? Answer those questions first and foremost. Conclusion: Watch out for these little snafus when you’re composing your next business email. Your bottom line will thank you for it.

Octl 5, 2017 These days everyone starts a business and runs a business website to be financially independent. Making money is, although, a tough task but a powerful way to make money online. For a beginner, the number of visitors is the most important factor in deriving good sales. The more the customers, the better your website ranks, sales, page views, etc. Some tips to convert the traffic on the website into sales are: 1.The speed of response to web inquiries will have the biggest impact on your success. Using the modern and accurate technological ways to rule out delay in the process and to immediately alert your staff members in real time via email, text messages, alerts, etc. is an option to promote sales. 2.It takes time to build contacts with the website leads, and so it is important and necessary on the part of the company to take multiple attempts and help accomplishing the leads into sales. Also maintaining these contacts for further operations and future deals in the business is also required. 3.It’s important to have an eye on those aspects which play a vital role for a website. Ensuring that the website is working well and carrying out functions accurately and is easy to access and use comes under the important aspects. Also a company should try sticking to its basic aim. That way, it is able to concentrate on the other aspects for increasing customers. 4.Include a contact number on your website home page to allow customers to a quick access regarding their queries and their purchase status. It leaves a good impression of the company’s website and has a positive influence on the customers overall. 5.Including an Opt-in form on homepage proves to be helpful. It ensures an enhanced conversion rate. Once the visitor is satisfied with your products and services offered, they would be willing to fill in their details, which can be proved helpful while contacting them in the future and informing them about new offers and hence to convert them into a customer. 6.Putting in videos which are interactive and speak to the audience makes them feel more involved and convinces them about the quality of the products and services offered by the company. It also helps in building trust within the customers. 7.Having an About Us page on your website motivates the customer to invest their time and trust in the company. The page makes the business even more reliable by providing a background and the functions and the aims of the company. This not only catches the interests of the customers but also inspires them. The company is more in the need of having customers and clients than the customers are in the need of the company, so it becomes important to realize their significance in the functioning and their role in increasing sales of the company and work towards their betterment. Trying to influence and inspire the already existing customers is considered to be a better option rather than making new customers. Already existing customers have a prevailing built in trust and no extra efforts need to be put in to convince them.

Oct 4, 2017 A book becomes valuable when it is enriched not only with personal experience but also professional experience. And to have such experience, one should be willing to take risks. Writing a book is in itself a big risk for people and sharing their experiences and journey and letting everyone enter and have a glance in one’s life. Not only can this, writing a good book give you and your business credibility. Also, having a credible business can also contribute to the writing of a good book. Here are some tips on how writing a book can help you build credibility: 1.Quality of writing: The higher quality writer you are, the more professional your book will be. To enhance your way of writing, one can- Practice writing every day; Read books, magazines, or newspapers daily; Critically analyze writing by others; Study grammar and style rules; Rewrite your drafts numerous times. 2. Publicize yourself: Publicizing oneself has become really important in this fast pacing age of technology. Usage of the social media and blogs to spread a word about your book, and being regularly active on it and get to know the demands of your readers in the society. Also regularly posting can help you improve your writing skills. 3.Write about what you know: What you write should be what you have personally experienced and you are sure about. That way the chances of making mistakes and the cost of researching minimizes. It is important to live and breathe your subject matter to make it more impressive and build your professional credibility. 4.Write with Authority: It’s important that you use an authoritative, yet approachable, voice in your piece of writing.. To write with authority, present thoughts easily, clearly and with confidence. Communicating clearly and effectively will go a long way in establishing your authority, but so will making sure you have something new to say. 5.Know the Facts: Provide your reader with detailed information and back that information up by using sources. But passing along erroneous information will undercut your credibility more than anything else you do. If you’re citing a scientific study, government data or other industry expert, make sure you get it right. 6.Respect Their Intelligence: The readers are looking for solid information about something they’re interested in. If false information is presented or the readers are underestimated, they might lose interest in the matter which might lead to incredibility instead of credibility. 7.Maintain Consistency: Presenting your piece of writing or the contents of your books in a consistent manner can help keep the readers interested and maintain the flow of reading, which might keep them interested and willing to know more and learn the most from your experience. In order to influence the people, one should be careful about their style of writing. So adding breaks would only portray it as a poorly written book. 8.Doing it Right: You can have the most brilliant ideas in the world, but if they’re not being communicated correctly and effectively, you’re undercutting your credibility. 9.Create a workshop or seminar and present it to people within your niche, which would help to spread a word for the book and attract more readers with common interests. Writing well is a learned skill; it isn’t the same as being a considerate, interesting, admirable person. But if you do your best to be considerate and interesting and admirable — or whatever else particularly matters to you — no doubt you will have an advantage in the writing department over the thoughtless, the dull, and the contemptible.

Many small business owners I talk to already understand that branding is essential to their business, but a surprisingly high number of them don't really know why. They recognise the link between successful businesses and strong branding, and aspire to build a brand that emulates similar success for themselves. And they understand that branding is not just a logo or how their business is perceived externally. But too few realise that successful brands have this branding at the heart of the business. So much so that in many ways you could almost substitute the word brand for business. Branding is a way of defining your business to yourself, your team and your external audiences. It could be called the business' “identity”, but only on the understanding that it embodies the core of what the business is and its values, not just what it looks and sounds like. Customers of all sorts of businesses are so savvy today that they can see through most attempts by companies to gloss, spin or charm their way to sales. The benefits that a strategically defined brand can bring are the same as when people fall in love with each other. When customers connect emotively - because they share the same values and beliefs of a brand - it leads to higher sales and better brand differentiation. It also leads to loyalty, advocacy and can even protect your price in times when competitors rely on promotional discounts to drive sales. It can also give you the ideal platform from which to extend your offering or range. Here are 10 tips for a brandable business : - 1. Start by defining your brand. 2. When building your brand, think of it as a person. 3. Consider what is driving your business. 4. Aim to build long-term relationships with your customers. 5. Speak to your customers with a consistent tone of voice. 6. Don't repeat the same message in the same way over and over again. 7. Don't try to mimic the look of chains or big brands. 8. Be innovative, bold and daring - stand for something you believe in. 9. Always consider your branding when communicating with customers. 10. The old way of stamping your logo on everything won't cut it.

It might seem obvious to everyone reading the title of this post. Of course we know that not everyone is a prospect or a potential customer. One would never guess that is common knowledge based on emails and phone calls I receive. I reflect on the emails and calls, astounded, thinking, “Why do they possibly think I might be interested in a conversation or that I could even be a prospect for their solutions?” Recently, I was speaking with the top sales executive of a very large firm. He was relatively new to the organization and was very frustrated. We were talking about prospecting and growing the qualified pipeline. I asked him what I thought was a relatively harmless question, “Who are your target customers–both from a market, enterprise, and persona point of view?” It was almost as if I had lit a fuse on a bomb. He exploded, saying, “They seem to think everyone is. They aren’t even checking to see if the person they are meeting with even fogs a mirror. They are calling on anyone and everyone.” He thought his situation was unique, I tried comforting him saying, “The good news is you are not unique, the bad news is it’s a huge time and productivity drain, not to mention the adverse impact on your company’s reputation and brand.” Not everyone is a customer or a prospect. We produce the greatest results when we focus on our target markets or sweet spots. These are organizations and individuals who have the problems we are the best in the world at solving. We may find people or organizations that have problems, but that are out of our sweet spot, we are wasting our time. They may be someone’s customer or prospect, but they aren’t ours and any time invested is wasted. It’s such a simple concept to improving our effectiveness and our hit rates. Focusing exclusively on customers in our sweet spot produces the best results. This problem becomes worse as pipelines and funnels get lean. When sales people don’t have enough qualified opportunities in their pipelines, they tend to cast a wider net—going outside the sweet spot, relaxing qualification criteria. Wishful thinking drives too many bad opportunities into pipelines, creating a devastating impact on pipeline quality and win rates. While it’s counterintuitive, when we are having trouble with our pipelines, we need to narrow our focus within the sweet spot and tighten our qualification criteria. Even when we are exclusively focused on our sweet spots, not everyone in that sweet spot is a customer or prospect now. 100% of them should be interested in our offerings at some point, but it may not be until next year or even five years from now. Our prospecting should help us identify those that can and should be prospects now and we should put the rest to the side for nurturing. Sales becomes so much easier once we acknowledge that not everyone is our customer or prospect. We become much more productive when we narrow our focus to those that are or can be.

Oct 1, 2017 An effective survey will help you to understand and develop your organisation’s culture to deliver strategic and long term performance. Here’s 5 ways to look into : 1.Clarity of vision : A recent report found that 42% of employees knews there organisation’s vision ,mission and cultural values. If employees are working without any real understanding of these elements , it is likely people will be pulling in a different direction and not working together towards a collective vision. 2.Innovation : Innovation is essential if you want to stay ahead of the curve in your industry . They could provide creative solutions for new ways of working which will improve customer satisfaction and increase income. 3.Learning and Development : Offering development opportunities is an important element of employee engagement. It motivates existing employee and helps employers to create an effective progression pipeline. 4.Employee well being : Happy healthy staff are more engaged and productive and employers benefit from reduced absenteeism. 5.Communication : Providing transparent information and giving employees a voice are two keys enablers of employee engagement.

Here are 7 ways to expand your brand : 1. Demonstrate value. Identify who your target audience is and give thought to the kinds of things they need to see to be engaged and perceive value. This means frequently posting good content that will appeal to your followers. The 80/20 rule is a useful guideline: for every five updates, post strictly value-driven content for four of them and post something business-related for the fifth. 2. Use your existing content streams. Not sure what content to post? Why not use content you have that has already proven popular on other social networks. For example, what content received the most retweets? What was shared on Facebook? As long as it is consistent with your brand message, sharing that popular content on LinkedIn can get you access to a whole new audience. 3. Don’t neglect your personal profile. Remember that, in terms of branding, your personal and business profile really are intertwined. Make sure your personal profile has a professional photo of you so that people are able to put a face to your name and so you are seen to be putting your best foot forward. Ensure that your profile is complete and that the overall message is in alignment with your company profile. 4. Create an information hub. Your company page gives you the opportunity to showcase your brand. Make sure that you include any logos and a banner image as well as a captivating description of who you are and what you do. 5. Showcase your products and services. The products tab is one of the cool features available for company pages, yet a surprising number of companies don’t use it at all. Why should a prospect choose you? Here is your opportunity to demonstrate the greatness of your products or services and it’s free! 6. Encourage colleagues/employees to connect. Your brand potentially has much wider exposure when colleagues and employees add their current position at your company to their profiles. Encouraging them to have complete and professional-looking profiles is also helpful for your brand image. 7. Participate in key groups. Identify key groups in which you want to establish yourself and your brand as an influencer. Participate in the conversations, always ensuring that you add value.

Recruiting the best candidates is critical to helping organisations reach their full potential. There are many recruitment strategies you can use to find top talent, and while it’s true that internal recruitment can be extremely effective in boosting company culture and allowing existing talent to shine, it can also be extremely restrictive as it limits the generation of fresh and creative ideas. External recruitment offers many options, and it can be very powerful when trying to hire quality candidates. Pros : Increased chances : In this increased chance, the company receives a variety and number of candidates who owns knowledge and ability to handle that job. If the company enters a selection procedure with an external recruitment then there are increased chances of finding a suitable candidate for the job. And this increased chances provides better availability of skilled and qualified employees for the company by using the external recruitment method. Fresher skill and input: When a company goes with an external recruitment method, there is a quite better possibility of finding and identifying a fresher candidate who is capable of delivering new skills and inputs for the betterment of the company. Therefore, hiring a candidate with an external recruitment makes things clear and better for the company who is in desperate need of fresher skills and inputs for the overall growth of the company. Qualified candidates : Nowadays, when a company posts an advertisement in the social media or newspaper. There is one of the common things that need to be focused on and that is well experienced and qualified candidate. And with an external recruitment advertising, the company can find a variety of qualified candidates for the post offered. And eventually, this process helps to identify the best candidates in a lot of skilled candidates. Better competition: In the external recruitment process, there will be a chance of facing a better competition in terms of hiring a new talent. Most of the time some of the company looks for the candidates who are capable of handling a certain skilled job and some of them search those candidates who are better with their risk taking ability. And this is how the company meets those two types of characteristics of candidates in the same interview process. Generation of creative ideas: Most probably when the company is in need of those candidates who can provide creative ideas for the growth of the company, then the company needs to go with an external recruitment process for the overall development of the company. Therefore, once the company understands the working nature of an external recruitment then there is a possibility that the company might select a candidate with new and better creative ideas. Lesser internal politics: In the external recruitment process, there is a very less possibility that the candidate might face internal politics of existing candidates. And these lesser internal politics avoids a number of internal issues and requests of the existing employees of the company. And once the candidate is selected, then the company can be aware of all the political and internal disputes of the company as well. Therefore, it is a process with a high potential candidate who is capable of handling any type of situations in the company. Better growth: By using an external recruitment process the company can expect growth not just for the candidate, but actually the company can expect it for itself also. When a company selects a candidate with high potential, then there a higher possibility of overall growth of the company. The employees within the organization also broaden their capacity and may try to match with the new talent. Therefore, external recruitment holds on to the objective where it handles the selection procedure sorting by finding a skilled and qualified candidate for the position offered. Competitive spirit: When employees are recruited through external recruitment, there whirls a competitive spirit in the organization amongst the employees. They present themselves to be competitive with full enthusiasm to work and match with the new employees. A healthy competition takes place between the internal and external employees and employees become efficient and trained. Cons : A limited understanding about the company: When a candidate is selected from an external recruitment process, there is a possibility that the candidate might have less chance of understanding the environment of the company. And this lesser understanding can make a big difference in the future activities of the company. Therefore, there is some sort of issues with an external process which needs to be rectified for a better understanding of the company environment. Higher risk: There is a possibility that the candidate selected for the post is not worthy of the position offered and he/she can take advantage of their position in the company. This type of risk is very much common in an external recruitment process as most of the candidates applied for the job is total strangers to the company. And that is why it is considered as one of the higher risk processes of recruitment. Time consuming: The main disadvantages of external recruitment is that it is time consuming as most of the companies post an advertisement of their company recruitment drive, then there is a quite possible chance of receiving a higher number applicants for the post and the recruiter need to be very careful with their decision of selecting the best candidate for each round selection process. And these different rounds of selection take a bit longer than the internal recruitment process as it involves a number of processes. High costs: As most part of the external recruitment process mainly deals with complete new candidates then the company need to come up with a pay scale for that candidate which should value his/her skill and ability. This can turn things a bit costly for the company as they are in need of new ideas and to get such new and creative ideas from the potential candidate. The company needs to provide him/her the best possible deal to refuse. With all these aspects, the company needs to provide intense training for the candidates. Screening large number of candidates consumes more money. Internal disputes with existing employees: When a company considers a fresh candidate for the higher post than the existing candidates, then there is a higher possibility that the company existing employees might show some sort of internal dispute among the officials of the company. This kind of internal dispute can lead things into a completely different level. And eventually, the company can fall on their back with such differences of opinions. Issues of Maladjustment: There are a number of possible ways where the new employee recruited may not adjust to the new environment. They also would not adjust with the new employees in the organization. When such scenarios take place, they have to leave the organization or the management should take initiatives to replace them. By this way, the management may lose good employees and need to hunt for another. Agencies are not trusted: By recruiting candidates through external recruitment, recruitment agencies play the role where they do not have adequate knowledge about the culture of the organization and their intrinsic qualities. They also do not care much about the key requirements of the post. Invites unsuitable applicants: External advertising methods are something that happens in large scale through print media and hence a large number of applicants who are not fit for the job post are drawn in. There are number of unsuitable candidates who line up for low level job positions.

Sep 28, 2017 A blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group that is written in an informal or conversational style. Small business owners can use blogs to their advantage in some of these ways: 1.To get online traffic: small business that struggle to get more hits on their website or social media platforms can use blogs to attract the attention of the online community. If your blog attracts readers then people are likely to visit your other public profiles and website. 2.Feedback: small businesses do not have much capital to spend on developing a customer care or feedback channel. Through a blog you can reach out to consumers and ask them to share their feedback. 3.Launchpad: you can use your business blog to release vouchers, discounts and coupons. You can attach hyperlinks in your blog that would lead the user straight to your website. This would increase hits on your blog as well as website. 4.Cheap advertising: use your blog to its potential as a public platform. You can put up interactive, unique advertisements on the blog be it GIF, MP4 or images, internet allows you to unleash your creativity. Unlike other forms of media, advertising on your blog is very cheap and easy. 5.Know your customers: through your blog you can conduct online polls, surveys and ask for suggestions from your customers. This would help you know who your customers are and what they want which can help you develop future ventures and marketing strategies. 6.Developing an online image: be it a person or a business everything is online these days, through a business blog you can develop an image of your company online and through that credibility and reputation. A positive online mage adds to your reputation digitally and in the real world too.

Every year, we see the number of successful women in different fields rising. And so, year after year, on this special day we feel the disparities and stereotypes are waning. Women comprise quite a large number of the population across the world, but the attention, education, opportunities and care they receive is not what they deserve. Thanks to stereotypes and restrictions, women are automatically associated with taking care of their families and doing a list of household chores. Right from being in the womb to becoming a woman, she faces so many things that make her vulnerable, but there are those who choose to break free. Too many restrictions led women to be resilient enough to break all the odds and match shoulder-to- shoulder with men in the business world. Women have always been in business. Women have been innovative in their own ways balancing their responsibilities as a mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, etc. and pursuing their hobbies or taking up initiatives that excite them . History has witnessed a list of women who went beyond the norms of patriarchal society and have left their mark in the world. Such women who fight odds, ageism, stereotypes, orthodoxies, and restrictions are my kind of women and that is why we see a large number of "momentrepreuers" today. But is this the future? Are women only going to be limited to being lipstick entrepreneurs? Don't they have equal rights as men to unleash their potential and pursue with equal passion and opportunity to what they believe? Today, when the society and businesses are still called male dominated, there are growing number of ladies who sail through the odds and set up their own businesses. Entrepreneurship is not a cakewalk. You have to be stubborn, strong-hearted, and enduring to keep your head high even when they nag at you. I firmly believe that women of tomorrow will surely break this stereotype and not be limited to pursue only the fields of fashion, art, dance, music, etc. Girls of today are being raised by their parents equally as a boy. From a very young age, they see themselves as being equal to boys. I am sure when they grow up and enter the corporate world they will want the same opportunity, pay, treatment, etc. Just an advice to all the 'women' entrepreneurs out there - make sure that whichever role you are in - in corporate life or personal life - play it well. Dare not just to dream high, but dare to achieve them too. Take whatever comes your way, after all, an entrepreneur is a risk taker.

Technological change, technological development, technological achievement, or technological progress is the overall process of invention, innovation and diffusion of technology or processes. In essence technological change is the invention of technologies (including processes) and their commercialization via research and development (producing emerging technologies), the continual improvement of technologies (in which they often become less expensive), and the diffusion of technologies throughout industry or society (which sometimes involves disruption and convergence). In short, technological change is based on both better and more technology. Modeling technological change : In its earlier days, technological change was illustrated with the 'Linear Model of Innovation', which has now been largely discarded to be replaced with a model of technological change that involves innovation at all stages of research, development, diffusion and use. When spoken about "modeling technological change" often the process of innovation is meant. This process of continuous improvement is often modeled as a curve depicting decreasing costs over time (for instance fuel cell which have become cheaper every year). TC is often modelled using a learning curve, ex.: Ct=C0 * Xt^-b TC itself is often included in other models (for instance climate change models) and was often taken as an exogenous factor. These days TC is more often included as an endogenous factor. This means that it is taken as something you can influence. It is generally accepted[by whom?] that policy can influence the speed and direction of TC (for instance more towards clean technologies). This is referred to as Induced Technological Change. Invention : The creation of something new, or a "breakthrough" technology. For example, a personal computer. Diffusion : The spread of a technology through a society or industry. The diffusion of a technology generally follows an S-shaped curve as early versions of technology are rather unsuccessful, followed by a period of successful innovation with high levels of adoption, and finally a dropping off in adoption as a technology reaches its maximum potential in a market. In the case of a personal computer, it has made way beyond homes and into business settings, such as office workstations and server machines to host websites. Technological change as a social process : Underpinning the idea of technological change as a social process is general agreement on the importance of social context and communication. According to this model, technological change is seen as a social process involving producers and adopters and others (such as government) who are profoundly affected by cultural setting, political institutions and marketing strategies. In free market economies, the maximization of profits is a powerful driver of technological change. Generally, only those technologies are developed and reach the market that promise to maximize profits for the owners of incoming producing capital. Any technologies that fail to meet this criterion even though they may satisfy very important societal needs, are not developed. Therefore, technological change is a social process strongly biased by the financial interests of capital. There are currently no well established democratic processes, such as voting on the social or environmental desirability of a new technology prior to development and marketing, that would allow average citizens to direct the course of technological change. Elements of diffusion Emphasis has been on four key elements of the technological change process: an innovative technology communicated through certain channels to members of a social system who adopt it over a period of time. These elements are derived from Everett M. Rogers Diffusion of innovations theory using a communications-type approach. Innovation Rogers proposes that there are five main attributes of innovative technologies which influence acceptance, which he calls the ACCTO criteria. These are relative Advantage, Compatibility, Complexity, Trialability, and Observability. Relative advantage may be economic or non-economic, and is the degree to which an innovation is seen as superior to prior innovations fulfilling the same needs. It is positively related to acceptance (i.e., the higher the relative advantage, the higher the adoption level, and vice versa). Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation appears consistent with existing values, past experiences, habits and needs to the potential adopter; a low level of compatibility will slow acceptance. Complexity is the degree to which an innovation appears difficult to understand and use; the more complex an innovation, the slower its acceptance. Trialability is the perceived degree to which an innovation may be tried on a limited basis, and is positively related to acceptance. Trialability can accelerate acceptance because small-scale testing reduces risk. Observability is the perceived degree to which results of innovating are visible to others and is positively related to acceptance. Communication channels Communication channels are the means by which a source conveys a message to a receiver. Information may be exchanged through two fundamentally different, yet complementary, channels of communication. Awareness is more often obtained through the mass media, while uncertainty reduction that leads to acceptance mostly results from face-to-face communication. Social system The social system provides a medium through which and boundaries within which, innovation is adopted. The structure of the social system affects technological change in several ways. Social norms, opinion leaders, change agents, government and the consequences of innovations are all involved. Also involved are cultural setting, nature of political institutions, laws, policies and administrative structures. Time Time enters into the acceptance process in many ways. The time dimension relates to the innovativeness of an individual or other adopter, which is the relative earlyness or lateness with which an innovation is adopted.

Sep 25, 2017. . Business is not concerned with a unit; it takes multiple units to function together. To make all units work as per your demands is not possible however, if you are good at the art of negotiating then majority of your demands can be met. Negotiation is a process where two or more parties with different needs and goals discuss an issue to find a mutually acceptable solution. Here are some simple and quick tips that can help you negotiate well: 1.Set upper and lower limits: when you aim to look for a mutually acceptable solution for both the parties always keep in mind what is the highest and lowest point till which you are willing to go. This would help you give direction to the discussion and prevent hasty decision making leading to losses. 2.Communicate, not confront: do not confuse negotiation with confrontation. you should remain calm, professional and patient. Don't make it personal, and avoid becoming angry, hostile or frustrated, this will hurt your reputation and weaken your contacts in the market. 3.Prepare to be flexible but remain assertive: being rigid and stubborn will render the discussion futile. Be prepared to compromise and adjust on some points, but don’t be too adjusting, remember to keep your priority points straight and assert your views. 4.Background fact check: try to find out what are the weak and strong points of the other party and what their priority is. If possible look for leverage against them but NEVER try to threaten the other party, the discussion end then and there and can turn into a criminal matter. 5.Seek advice: if required or preferably do, seek legal advice on the matter at hand. You can also ask a legal professional to be present for the discussion. This would help you make a legally sound decision and also make your side’s demands weightier. 6.Write: make sure that whatever is the settlement agreed upon, it is stated in writing. This will help clear any future disputes and ambiguities of language. It will also lend legal validity to the settlement. 7.Benefit mutually: the whole point of a negotiation is to give both parties a chance to benefit. Take care that that end result gives some benefit to both the parties. The magnitude of benefit might differ but make sure it is not unfair to either party.