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On Blogging, Cheating, and Winning: Business Lessons From Seth Godin

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

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Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner may spend a lot of time working for his goal of helping us all invest better, but that’s just part of his ambition. Really, he wants to help us all live better, and financial security is just one piece of that.

Another piece: Introducing us to fascinating new ideas and the authors who share them. So this month, the Rule Breaker Investing podcast’s theme is “Authors in August,” and to lead off, he’s got author, entrepreneur, blogger, and marketing guru Seth Godin, whose popular nonfiction books include The Dip, Purple Cow, and Free Prize Inside.

In this segment, Godin talks about his views on why everyone should be blogging, plus why businesses and entrepreneurs should be “cheating” — though his definition of that might not be what you’d expect.

A full transcript follows the video.

David Gardner: Let’s shift now a little bit from marketing to business, just some thoughts. I think that was a nice transition right there, helping us along. Seth, your blog, I’m thinking about your blog, maybe the first popular blog that I learned about. When did you officially start Seth’s Blog, and what are your reflections on it?

Seth Godin: My recollection is, it was an email newsletter in 1990 or ’91. I had a little bit of a head start, 27 years. It didn’t reach its official current form until maybe 15 years ago.

For me, what it represents is, anyone can be a columnist now. They give Pulitzer prizes to newspaper columnists, but anyone can be one. Anyone who has something to say or share can put that into the world. If you’re not doing it, I think you’re being selfish, because there are people who want to hear from you, there are people who want to be connected by you. If you’re not showing up to do that, I feel like you’re taking things from people.

Gardner: Does blogging pay?

Godin: Pay cash money?

Gardner: Yeah.

Godin: Using a StairMaster pays, because you’re not going to have a heart attack, and that’s really expensive. I think having a blog will get you a better job in the long run, it will help you make better decisions, it will do countless things for you. But if you’re trying to run a blog on Tuesday so you make money on Wednesday, you’re going to be a lousy blogger and not a very good citizen, either.

Gardner: Seth, I want to go to a page. We’re going to stick with business here. I’m thinking of page 38 from Purple Cow, which you mentioned. Besides your book coming out this November, This is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn To See, but, you mentioned Purple Cow in addition, being a great one to start with, and I agree. On page 38, at least of my edition, you write a short chapter, I think it’s about one page, and it’s called Cheating. I’ve always loved this concept.

Cheating, for me, as an investor, I’m looking for businesses, in your words, that cheat — basically finding businesses that have some unfair competitive advantage. I’ll give two quick examples. Old Dominion Freight Lines, which is a less than truckload trucking company, and a very fine one for more than a century, basically doesn’t have any unionized workforce in an industry that’s dominated by unionized workforces. They’re cheating, in your parlance. Or, Netflix being able to bid on TV show content based on its voluminous customer data that its competitors simply lack. Netflix is cheating. And so on.

First off, I love the concept. It’s always helped me pick stocks. Second, do you have some newer examples today that you think of when you’re thinking about the good form of cheating?

Godin: What I mean by cheating is, what business is supposed to do, which is to create an asset that, when they use it, gives them leverage over everyone else. Otherwise, everyone’s in the commodity business. So, most of the people who pump oil out of the ground are pumping oil out of ground the same as everybody else. It’s a commodity. You don’t care, when you fill your car up with gas, what kind of gas you’re putting in. The goal here is to find an institution that has that asset and can put it to work.

Think about the ratchets that Amazon has been turning for the last ten years. Now, they have two or three ratchets all working in the same direction. They have a brand that people trust. They have the lowest cost of doing certain kinds of operations. They have the most efficient web services. When you add those things up, that’s an unfair advantage.

But it’s also a kind of cheating if you have permission to talk to people. If I can send an email to a million people and say, “My new book is ready,” I’m cheating. I can put my new book in front of 50 times as many people as an author who waited until the last minute before they started to build an audience. So, what my books are about is, which assets will we choose to build? Not just because we’re good humans and good citizens, but because once we build one of those assets, then we have the privilege of doing ever-better work, and we can use that asset to advance our head start.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. David Gardner owns shares of Amazon and Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon and Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Old Dominion Freight Line. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

 

[“Source-fool”]

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Internet

Qualcomm President Says No Plans to Exit Data Centre Business

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Qualcomm President Says No Plans to Exit Data Centre Business

Qualcomm has no plans to abandon its efforts to create processors for data centres, the company’s president, who oversees the chip division, said.

Qualcomm, the largest maker of chips in mobile phones, last year launched chips that use technology from Softbank Group Corp’s ARM Holdings to power the workhorse computer servers behind cloud-based services such as social networks.

Qualcomm’s push to enter the data centre market puts it in direct competition with Intel Corp, which dominates data centres and now draws half of its revenue from servers and other “data-centric” chips.

But in May, Bloomberg reported that Qualcomm was exploring whether to sell or shut down the server chip unit.

Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon told Reuters on Monday that the chipmaker is making staff reductions in the unit but intends to keep operating it, albeit with a narrower focus on large Internet companies in the United States and China.

“We are not looking at strategic options. We are not selling. We are still focused on it,” Amon told Reuters.

San Diego-based Qualcomm declined to say whether it had considered selling the server chip unit at some point in the past. The company instead pointed to an April earnings call in which Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf said Qualcomm was considering cost-cutting options in areas that are not central to Qualcomm’s business, which overwhelmingly comes from selling chips and licensing technology for mobile phones.

Amon told Reuters that the server chip business will be rolled into Qualcomm’s CDMA Technologies unit, which designs and sells mobile phone chips, to gain cost efficiencies.

Amon said the restructured server chip unit will focus on large cloud computing players. He would not name US targets, but said the company is hoping to sell to Chinese Internet giants such as Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings, and Baidu through a joint venture in China.

Large Internet companies tend to write much of their own Internal software and can customise it for Qualcomm’s chips. That means they will not struggle like smaller players to adapt off-the-shelf data centre software that is overwhelmingly written to run on Intel’s so-called x86 chips.

“It’s very clear to us that the ARM opportunity is focused on a few players where you don’t have the software x86 barrier to entry,” Amon said.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Online Marketing

Where Online Marketing Techniques Are Failing Your Business

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Where Online Marketing Techniques Are Failing Your Business

Today, consumers buy toiletries with the click of a mouse; browse desired items across the web using image-recognition software; and celebrate how they needn’t even leave the house — unless they want to: Where shoppers once visited exclusive boutiques, even the designer goods those boutiques sell can now be delivered straight to their doorstep.

Case in point: LVMH — owner of the luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Chandon and Sephora — reported $13.44 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2018 alone, thanks in large part to its online sales.

Related: Is Artificial Intelligence Replacing Your Intelligence?

Success stories such as LVMH’s explain why brands are pouring resources into social media, artificial intelligence and other digital experiences. But, despite this quest by companies to adopt the latest and greatest digital tools, any observer (like me) has to wonder: Are brands losing sight of the value of stellar in-person experiences?

I for one believe that offline touchpoints will always be necessary. Take, real estate, for example; it’s the industry my company Agentology operates in. According to The National Association of Realtors (NAR), 90 percent of home buyers and sellers start their search online. Additionally, Zillow’s new Instant Offers platform allows sellers to receive and accept cash offers from investors for their homes online without using a human agent.

However, real estate transactions typically don’t end online. Zillow executive Errol Samuelson recently told Inman that although around 33 percent of the sellers who asked for an Instant Offer did go on to sell their home online, 90 percent decided to list with an agent rather than accept an institutional investor’s cash offer.

The message? There’s something to be said for face-to-face interactions, and you would be wise to reinvest in them.

The shortcomings of online marketing

The internet certainly drives sales, but it also has its limits. For one thing, thanks to the spread of such much-talked-about concepts as fake news, and the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, consumers’ mistrust of information they find online has increased, according to a study by the marketing agency Performics and Medill School of Journalism.

Meeting with customers in person, on the other hand, goes a long way in building trust and loyalty. It enables deeper conversations that just can’t happen online. It allows you to better explain market conditions and understand your customers’ most pressing concerns and unmet needs. While friendliness can certainly be conveyed online, nothing can replace a warm handshake or a personalized introduction.

In my industry, if you communicate with customers only online, you risk the chance that they’ll find another agent: Consider that 72 percent of buyers work with the first agent they’re able to meet in person, according to NAR. Another finding: Maritz Global Events discovered that prospects are twice as likely to become customers of a company after meeting its representative in person.

Try these tactics to build a strong offline presence that drives sales:

1. Let your hair down. A recent Gartner study found that 89 percent of businesses surveyed compete almost entirely on customer experience alone. When you meet potential customers in person, therefore, it’s critical to make them feel at ease; so ditch the idea of high-pressure sales meetings. Instead, build relationships over a cup of coffee or a bite to eat.

Hosting social gatherings at least once a quarter can set you apart from the competition. Bell Helicopter, for example, held a great customer appreciation event a few years ago that included live music, food and photo ops with Disney characters. You don’t need to pull out all the stops; any type of social meetup is an opportunity to build customer relationships in a stress-free way.

2. Become fluent in reading body language. Body language is one of the most important components of human interaction. According to research from UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian, more than half of our messages are conveyed through body language.

Body language cues can provide you a wealth of information on other people’s thoughts and feelings — if you know how to read them. For instance, if a guest crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows, it may indicate that she’s not open to what you’re saying. On the other hand, if she mirrors your own body language (e.g., she leans her head in the same direction as you), that could indicate that she trusts you.

Related: 3 Simple Body Language Tips to Turbocharge Your Selling

Additionally, pay attention to what your own body language conveys. Amy Cuddy gave a great TED Talk about how body language affects decision-making. Her research indicated that people are more inclined to take a risk when the person presenting the idea assumes a high-power posture.

3. Get creative with your nudges. Most companies rely on email to follow up after a sales meeting, but don’t underestimate the impact of an offline follow-up. A personalized thank-you note or postcard, for instance, can go a long way in establishing an emotional connection with your customers. Research from the Harvard Business Review showed that emotionally connected customers in one study were 52 percent more valuable than those who were just highly satisfied.

Bottom line? Don’t expect the initial in-person meeting to do all the work for you. No matter how well you connect with a prospect during a meeting, if you fail to stay top of mind by employing strategic follow-ups, you’ll quickly lose your prospect’s interest.

To put this in context: In a matter of decades, the internet has transformed the way brands and consumers interact. But that doesn’t mean that tried-and-true techniques are no longer effective. Augment your sales and marketing strategies with offline initiatives, and you’ll reap the rewards of lifelong customer loyalty.

[“Source-entrepreneur”]

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Blogging

10 Important Reasons to Work Seriously On Your Small Business Blog

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

10 Important Reasons to Work Seriously On Your Small Business Blog

How the heck do they do it?

You know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about those successful small business entrepreneurs who get tons of business and engagement online.

Sure, they hustle just as much as you do. They attend the same networking events. But there’s a difference.

They seem to have much more business than you do. They’re closing more deals. They’re generating more leads through their website.

So what’s the difference between you and them?

They’re probably blogging. They’re probably using their small business blog to build an online audience that is engaged with their brand.

If you’re a small business entrepreneur or solopreneur, you have probably heard of content marketing, right? No doubt you’ve heard of the importance of creating valuable content for your website. But maybe you haven’t taken that first step yet.

A small business blog is one of the most-used and effective content marketing tools at your disposal. Simply put, if you’re not blogging, you’re leaving money on the table.

Here’s some stats for you:

  • Marketers that use blogs get 67 percent more leads than those who don’t.
  • 81 percent of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs.
  • Companies that blog have 97 percent more inbound links.
  • 61 percent of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.
  • 60 percent of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you need to consider how you’re connecting with your audience. Since you might not have the huge marketing budget of a mega-corporation, you will have to use other means to build and connect with your audience.

One of the best ways to do this is by blogging. It’s been shown to be highly effective at generating quality leads for your business.

Many business owners overlook the potential rewards that blogging can provide. But you’re a savvy entrepreneur, so you’re not going to make this mistake, are you?

This post is going to give you ten benefits that a small business blog can provide for your business. When you read through this post, you will learn various ways you can use your blog to generate more business, earn more credibility and make it easier for prospects to find you online.

Why You Should Have a Small Business Blog

1. Market Research

Having a blog with many articles allows you to more effectively understand what your audience really wants. From the back end of your site, you can spy on what pages people are viewing the most, and this gives you an idea of where their interest lies. When you know what types of content perform the best, you know what types of content to continue to create.

Also, you can use your blog to request feedback from your audience. If you have an engaged following, it’s very likely that they will be happy to answer the questions you have.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As you probably know, there’s not much of a point to having a killer website if nobody can find it. One of the biggest keys to getting more traffic is making sure that people will find your site when they use search engines. As a  matter of fact, search engines are the no. 1 driver of traffic to content websites! SEO is something that you can’t ignore if you want to have a viable online presence.

The more relevant content you have on your website, the more likely it will be that you will rank for certain keywords. This is where a small business blog comes in. Consistently publishing high-quality content on your blog will do wonders for your search engine optimization efforts.

When you produce useful content, Google’s algorithms will rank your site higher. Over time, your site will make its way to the front page of search results. Not only that, but when people read high-quality content, they’re more likely to link back to it. Earning quality backlinks from other high-authority blogs will do wonders for your SEO efforts.

3. Customer Engagement

Engagement is immensely important for any online business. It’s not enough to just create great content. You also need to interact with your audience as much as you can. You can’t have any success by just talking at your audience. You need to have ongoing conversations with them. It will help you know your audience better. It will help your audience know you better.

That’s what you want.

If you enable comments on your small business blog, you can discuss topics and get feedback directly. This can tell you a lot about your customer base. Not only that. It shows your audience that you are interested in interacting with them. This will increase loyalty and help you form a deeper connection with your audience.

4. Communicating Your Mission

One of the most important components of effective branding is purpose. Connecting with your audience means embracing a unique brand perspective that can give your audience something they can connect with on an emotional level.

This is where blogging comes in.

Your blog is a place where you can communicate your brand purpose. This is important because establishing a strong brand is an important part of encouraging customer loyalty. When you communicate a brand purpose that goes beyond what you sell, it helps you stand out from your competition.

For example, if you are a business that sells vegan meat substitutes, you can express your brand’s purpose by posting animal welfare material on your site. This shows your audience that your company is focused on something more than just making money.

5. Communicating With Customers

If there’s something going on with your service — for example, there will be a planned outage or lack of availability — you don’t have to keep your clients in the dark. Having a centralized place to post announcements is extremely important because people don’t always read their email.

6. You Can Offer Promotional Material

A small business blog is also a great place to offer occasional promotions. If you already have an engaged audience that consumes your content, they will be able to see what discounts or promotions you are offering. It’s a great way to keep your customer base informed.

Sure, you can spread your coupons around Facebook, but it’s better to get into the habit of compelling your audience to visit you at your own site, especially if it’s an ecommerce site. Keep them coming back for more by posting your promotions on your blog.

Here’s a caveat: you don’t want to overdo this. While blogs can be great for offering promotions, it shouldn’t be used solely for this purpose. Most of your content should focus on offering informational value to your readers. If you only post promotional content, your audience will not continue to visit your blog.

7. Showing Your Human Side

People want to know that there are actual human beings behind the business that they buy from. Post some personal stories and talk to your customers through your blog.

This is an opportunity for you to let your personality shine through. When you’re writing blog posts, don’t smack your reader in the head with a bunch of “corporatespeak.” Nobody wants to read that. No really, they don’t!

It’s much better to write in an informal style that people can relate to. When it comes to blogging, it’s not just about what you say, it’s about how you say it.

8. You Can Become a Source of Value

The key to effective blogging is providing value. Nobody is going to read your content unless they get something out of it, right?

If you want to build influence, you have to be valuable. You can do this by providing helpful information to your readers through your blog.

Arjun Reddy, the founder of Super Baby, builds credibility with his website’s “resources” section by giving actionable tips to his visitors.

“Our visitors are parents who are looking for fun ways to help their children become smarter. The advice we give in our resources section is designed to provide helpful parenting tips for our readers.”

The reason Reddy is enjoying success is because he’s providing value up front. When you do this, you show your potential clients that you are valuable to them. That’s why content marketing works. When you’re creating content, you should be asking yourself what your reader is going to get out of that particular piece of content. Each piece of content should be designed to inform, educate, or entertain. If possible, you should do all three!

9. Networking!

When you have built an audience and gained some notoriety, it can attract other entrepreneurs to you. For an entrepreneur, networking is important, isn’t it?

If you’re able to grow your readership effectively, you will gain more credibility. This will attract other influencers in your niche. You never know who might be paying attention right?

This could lead to other opportunities for your business. You might be able to take advantage of the key relationships that you form through your small business blog.

10. Building Credibility

Having a small business blog gives you a presence in your niche. A blog is a record of quality value and experience that you are bringing to your audience. This will give you instant “street cred” when someone finds your content.

Lissette Palencia, CEO of Sleeping Angels has built a steady stream of clientele by using her blog to provide valuable information to her website’s visitors.

“As you can guess, when you run a nanny agency, your clients are parents who are concerned about the safety of their children. They want to do the research first. When they visit our website, they find tons of valuable information that helps them make the right decision for their family. Not only does it inform them, it makes them more comfortable with doing business us.”

This is essential for your business. Your blog is a tool that you can use to establish credibility in the minds of your potential clients. Prospects will read your content and gain value from it. Then, they will become far more willing to buy from you because you have already given them a significant benefit through your blog.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing. If you’re looking to expand your online presence, you need to be creating high-quality content on a consistent basis. A blog is one of the best ways to do this.

These are just a few reasons to keep a blog if you’re an entrepreneur, but there are much more. Just remember that anything that can bring value to your audience is something that you should consider adding to your business.

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

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Online Marketing

Savvy Socializing And Mighty Marketing: Your Online Business Boost

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Savvy Socializing and Mighty Marketing: Your Online Business Boost

If you’re running an online business you’re already one step ahead of many entrepreneurs out there. Online businesses come with many advantages, including more flexibility, twenty four hour access and automatic access to the power of social media marketing.Smaller online businesses are given more power by operating via the internet, as the playing field is levelled out against the bigger competitors. With the correct marketing techniques your small business has just as much of a chance of thriving as a well-known brand. It’s all about online networking, keywords and expert help. Watch your online business shoot to the top of the search engine and improve your sales dramatically.

Ticking Traffic

Take full advantage of the services offered to you from social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Get yourself into their adverts and strategically placed pages in order to reach out to your chosen demographic instantly. Clever placements on advertisements is one way to direct the online traffic to your website. You also need to allow clients to navigate organically to your webpage via search engine results. This can be done by creating a truly unique and clever website full of unique content which will intrigue your audience. Keep track of your online traffic using tools such as Google analytics to see how your different techniques are working.

Room For Improvement

The world of online marketing can be a daunting place, so don’t be afraid to seek out help if you need it. Get in touch with a reputable digital marketing agency, who can help you to get your business back on track. They will be able to provide you with the tailored advice you need to market your business effectively. From domain name assistance, email marketing advice and social media help; they will have the answers to all of your unanswered questions.

Strong Socializing

Social media has truly catapulted many business from completely unknown to a full trusted brand. By having a strong social media presence you will have the power to connect with your target audience and build connections with them. Start by creating all of the social media accounts which are available to you and are relevant to your business. If you’re running a photography business it would make total sense to be highly active on platforms such as Instagram and Flickr. Make sure you’re creating fresh content on a regular basis to keep your followers coming back for more. Use promotional offers to entice them into joining forces with you and speak to them directly using persuasive language. Also, don’t forget to make the most of effective hashtags which will lead potential clients towards your website.

There is no one size fits all technique which will instantly hand you millions of followers overnight. Like every good thing in life, it will take time. Just remember to stick with your vision and don’t give up if you don’t see instant results. Make sure you’re networking and interacting with your clients by getting your name out there on as many online platforms as you can. You will eventually see a huge improvement in your online sales and visitors if you stick with consistent online strategy.

[“Source-sustainablebusinessforum”]

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Blogging

50 Small Business Ideas for Bloggers

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

50 Blogging Business Ideas

Blogging isn’t just a way for businesses to promote their products and services. It can actually be the main concept behind a number of different businesses. If you want to start your very own blogging business, here are 50 different ideas.

Blogging Business Ideas

Freelance Blogger

If you want to get paid to blog, you can offer your services as a freelance blogger to other businesses and publications that will pay for your expertise.

Ghost Blogger

You could also offer your services as a ghost blogger, where you can essentially write content for other bloggers which they publish as their own.

Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing can be a great way for bloggers to earn income. You can start a blog in basically any niche and use affiliate links to promote products or services from other brands and earn a percentage of each sale that you send their way.

Influencer

If you’re able to build up a significant following and some influence with that following, you can work with brands to promote products or services as an influencer.

Blogger with Advertisers

You can also earn an income as a blogger by offering visual advertising opportunities on your sidebar or other parts of your blog.

Email Marketer

Bloggers also often have the ability to start a significant following with their email newsletters, which you can also use to sell various products or services.

eBook Author

50 Blogging Business Ideas - eBook Author

You can also use your writing skills to put together and publish ebooks. And you can use your blog as a way to showcase your talents for potential readers.

Infopreneur

Or you could opt to sell other types of informational products like forms or guides. And use your blog as a platform to showcase your expertise and facilitate the sale of those products.

Online Course Creator

Online courses can also be a great way for bloggers to earn money. You can use blogging as a way to build your expertise and then host your courses on your website or email list.

Product Reviewer

You can also review products from various companies on your blog in exchange for a fee.

Sponsored Post Writer

Or you could work with brands to put together sponsored posts on your blog as a way of earning an income from blogging.

Business Blogger

If you’re knowledgeable about business topics, you can start your own business blog as a way of building up your influence and expertise so you can offer business consulting, coaching or similar services.

Social Media Blogger

Similarly, you can start a blog about social media and use that as a way to market social media management or consulting services.

Event Blogger

50 Blogging Business Ideas - Event Blogger

You can also cover different events on your blog and charge a fee to promote them or even use your blog to promote your own event planning services.

Fashion Blogger

If fashion is your area of expertise, you can start a blog related to the subject and then work with fashion brands to facilitate ads or sponsored content opportunities.

Beauty Blogger

Likewise, you can work with beauty brands by starting a blog about hair, makeup or other beauty related topics.

DIY Blogger

You could also start a blog that features a lot of DIY tutorials and projects and then work with craft brands and other companies that might provide some of the supplies you use.

Recipe Blogger

Food brands can also provide opportunities for bloggers to earn an income if you start a blog that provides recipes and other food related content.

Lifestyle Blogger

You could also potentially start a blog that covers several different topic areas and call it a lifestyle blog. Then you could potentially work with brands in a variety of different industries.

Email Newsletter Writer

If you want to actually write for other companies on a freelance basis, you could also offer your services as an email marketing expert or writer.

Tech Blogger

50 Blogging Business Ideas - Tech Blogger

For those whose expertise lies in the technology industry, you could start a blog about tech and then work with brands in that niche.

Membership Site Creator

You could also earn an income by starting a blog on a specific topic and then offering a membership section of your site that people can access for a regular fee.

Industry News Site Creator

Or you could specialize in covering news related to a specific industry and market your content and marketing services to companies in that niche.

Comedy Writer

If you have a great sense of humor, you could try to channel that into a humorous blog where you could sell ad space or earn income from affiliate programs.

Giveaway Blogger

Giveaways are also incredibly popular in the blog world. So you could specialize in hosting those contests and even charging a fee for brands that want to take part.

Photography Blogger

If you’re a photographer, you can use blogging as a way to share your work so that you can gain clients. Or you  can use it as a way o  offer your own photos for sales as downloads.

Fitness Blogger

Or if you specialize in fitness, you can use blogging to earn an income and to promote your services to potential clients.

Web Design Blogger

50 Blogging Business Ideas - Web Design Blogger

Web design is another area that you can blog about as a way to bring in potential clients.

Mobile App Blogger

Or you could specialize in blogging about mobile apps and then work with mobile app companies to offer ad space, affiliate links or even offer your own app development services or apps for download.

Gaming Blogger

You can also start a blog about video games and similar topics and then work with gaming brands to earn an income.

Family Blogger

It’s also possible to start a blog about your own family or one that offers tips on family related topics and then work with brands that want to market family related products.

Education Blogger

Or you could specialize in blogging about educational topics and then work with educational institutions or companies that make educational materials.

Finance Blogger

Or you could start a blog about financial topics as a way to share your expertise and offer financial services or products.

How-to Blogger

If you start a blog that offers instructions for people on how to do anything from losing weight to learning an instrument, you could potentially turn it into a business by offering more in-depth guides for sale or working with brands that relate to your instructional posts.

Directory Site Operator

For bloggers who specialize in pretty much any subject, you could also start an income stream by having a directory section of your site where you charge businesses or individuals a listing fee.

Job Board Operator

If your blog topic relates to jobs at all, you could potentially start a job board on your blog as well and charge businesses a fee to list their openings.

Blogging Coach

For those who have a lot of experience in blogging, you could start a business as a coach for other bloggers to help them get off the ground.

Community Leader

You could also start your own community on your blog or another platform and use that as a way to monetize your blogging skills.

Industry Thought Leader

Or you could build a business as a thought leader in a specific niche or industry and use blogging as your main way of showcasing your expertise for hire as a consultant, coach or speaker.

eCommerce Blogger

If you run an ecommerce business, you can use your blog as way to promote your products on other sites or sell them  directly from your blog.

Copywriter

You could also build a business as a copywriter and use blogging as a way to show potential clients your writing skills.

Printables Seller

If you’re a skilled designer, you could showcase your design skills on your blog and then use it as a place to sell printables of your work that customers can download.

Workshop Host

You can also blog about a specific topic and then host workshops related to that topic, either in person or online, and earn an income from that.

Conference Host

Or you could set up a larger conference type event related to your blog and use that as a source of income.

Podcaster

If you want to start a podcast, you can easily use a blog site as a way to host and sum up all of your episodes so that listeners can easily access content and learn more about your podcast.

Vlogger

Likewise, you could start your own video blog and then also have your own site where you can host ads or earn income in other ways.

Blogging Tutor

If you want to help beginners learn the very basic technical or writing elements behind blogging, you could start a tutoring service.

Underwritten Post Writer

Underwritten posts are like sponsored posts, but the main content is completely your own and there’s only a small section at the bottom that includes information about your sponsor. This is another way bloggers can earn money from blogging.

Premium Content Seller

You could also have a blog where you share some content for free, but offer some other, more advanced content for a fee.

Blog Seller

Or you could start a blog, create content, build up an audience and then sell that blog to someone who doesn’t want to start from scratch.

[“Source-smallbiztrends”]

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Online Marketing

How to choose the best digital marketing channel for your business

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Is digital marketing relevant to my business?

Would Facebook be relevant for my products and services or should I start with LinkedIn?

Will I be able to reach out to my target audience with the help of digital marketing?

As a small business owner do you often find yourself grappling with these questions? Most small business owners are confused whether digital marketing would work for their business or not. We are doing business in times when the audience is constantly glued to the Internet, especially, social media channels. You can easily find any type of information online. This trend poses a huge opportunity for businesses to reach out to their audience, quickly and effectively.In the days of traditional media, businesses used to (and until now) have a very vague idea of the type of audience they were targeting.Television and print do not provide an accurate picture of campaign reach.

A traditional media planning agency gives a rough idea of the impressions your brand would get. With offline advertising, you need a minimum budget to do any kind of advertising. You need to keep pumping in money, but measuring the results accurately is next to impossible.

With the advent and growth of digital channels, things have changed dramatically. You now have multiple advertising platforms and each of them tells you the exact number of impressions and clicks you will receive from an online advertisement.

The digital advertising of today lets you figure out the exact number of people you will reach by investing X amount of money in a campaign. That’s not all, you can start with very little investment and of course, there is no upper limit. Digital provides you with an option to choose from a variety of platforms. Before we look at some of the key digital marketing channels and whether they are relevant for your business or not, let’s understand the core audience types:

Who is my target audience?

You need to define the target audience on two levels. One is the basic level at which you need to define their age, location, profession, and interests etc. The next level puts your audience into three categories – actual consumer, the payer, and the influencer. Let’s take two examples to understand these three categories.

Now suppose you own a fast food joint like McDonald’s and you are primarily targeting nuclear families with kids. In this case, the kids are the key influencers and their parents are the payers while the whole family is the consumer.

Now let’s take another example. Suppose you are selling diabetes medicines and your primary target audience is those who are suffering from the disease typically aged 45 plus and mostly much older.In this case too, although older people are consuming your medicines they are not usually buying the medicines themselves. It is their son, daughter or caregiver who buys the medicines for them. The influencer, in this case, could be a doctor.

What you can understand from the above examples is that you could target these three types of audiences – the consumers, the influencers, and the payers. If a digital media platform allows you to reach one or more of these audience types, it is a potential medium for your organisation. Now let’s look at some of the key platforms and understand whether they will be relevant to your business.

How relevant is Facebook?

The advertising interface of Facebook is very easy and you can start running your ad campaign very quickly. You can know whether your target audience is there on Facebook or not even before you start running your campaign.

It’s a very simple process: You can start by choosing a campaign type. It would be primarily based on your campaign goals.

Let’s look at some of the options you have:

 

Facebook lets you run a variety of campaigns to help you get:

  1. Audience engagement on posts
  2. Brand awareness
  3. Traffic and conversions to your website
  4. More installations of your app

And more – as shown in the screenshot above

The next step is to choose an audience. The platform lets you choose the location, gender, profession, interests, and behavior of your target audience. Facebook’s advertising interface lets you figure out how many people you can possibly reach with your campaigns.

The platform provides you with detailed targeting options. It allows you to target people with specific behaviour like ‘early technology adoption’ and ‘frequent travellers’. So, if you run an airline business and you wish to target frequent travellers in Mumbai, the Facebook advertising platform will tell you the exact number of people you can reach with your targeting.

Let’s take another example:

You have a fashion store in Greater Kailash, Delhi and you wish to target men in the age group of 20-45 in New Delhi. Take a look at the image below:

Facebook shows that you can reach 440,000 men in the chosen age bracket and within 3 km radius of the chosen location.

Do you think advertising on Facebook can help your business?

You simply need to open the Facebook ad interface and find out whether your audience is there on the platform or not. All you need to have is a free Facebook account and a business page.

Can Search (SEO & SEM) be helpful?

Did you know? “Google processes a whopping 3.5 billion searches every day.”  [source: Internet Live Stats]

The search engine provides its users the ability to search for any information, business or services and get the right answer in less than a second. As a business owner, you can figure out whether online searchers are looking for products and services in your industry. Once you know that there is an audience for your product/service you can reach out to them through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

Search Engine Optimisation helps you to optimise your website content with some of the popular search queries on Google. SEO is an organic way to help your site rank on search results and reach out to your audience. You will need to stay updated on regular SEO Updates to stay on the top of Google search results.

Search Engine Marketing, on the other hand, allows you to run ads on specific key phrases relevant to your industry. Once you do that, your site will show up on top of the search results in the featured listings. This would help you to start getting instant clicks and conversions on your website.

Take a look at the screen-shot below to understand the difference between organic and paid search results on Google:

 

But, how would you find that out? Here are two simple steps:

  1. Create an AdWords account by adding any minimum daily budget (it could be as low as $1)
  2. Once you have created an account, you will have access to the keyword planner tool where you can find the average monthly searches of relevant keywords in the specified location as shown below.

You can keep seeing the accurate average monthly searches in your account as long as you are running your ad campaign.

You can use the keyword planner tool even without having a Google AdWords account but in that case, the tool would not give you the exact number of monthly searches. Without an AdWords account, you will only be able to see the search figure as a range and this may not solve your purpose.

So this is a simple way, to figure out whether Google is a platform to promote your business or not. Once you know that you can reach out to your audience on Google you can promote your business in the following two ways.

  1. Optimising your website for search queries and helping it to rank on the first page of Google (SEO)
  2. Running paid campaigns on Google AdWords to show up in the search results (SEM)

Take a look at the Google AdWords ad interface

The platform allows you to run ads on specific online search terms that are within your budget.

With Google AdWords, you can choose to run your campaign for as long as you like and improve its performance on the go. You can target multiple keywords and change these while running your campaign. You can get your ads to appear on top of the Google search page and start getting the desired clicks and conversions. The Google AdWords interface gives you the opportunity to target people in a specific location, speaking particular languages and using specific devices.

While you plan your campaign you know approximately how much you will be paying for each click or conversion you are going to receive. It also allows you to optimise your campaign and improve the results you are getting from it.  You can start off by running paid campaigns on Google AdWords to start getting leads and conversions quickly.

But in the long run, you would also need to create an SEO strategy to start getting organic rankings for your site. You can do this by creating quality content around some of the popular searches in your industry and building quality backlinks for your website. This approach will help you to build thought leadership and a loyal audience that follows and shares your content. A long-term SEO strategy will help you to get consistent leads and conversions for your business.

Google AdWords campaigns can give you insights about the keywords, which you should target for SEO.

Do you think SEO and SEM can help your business?

You can simply create an account on Google AdWords and analyse the search terms in your industry to figure that out.

Would LinkedIn be helpful to my business?

Are you running a B2B business?

The good news for you is that LinkedIn is a vibrant platform for some serious professional networking and you can leverage it to promote your business. It is a 500 million plus strong community and growing!

LinkedIn is an amazing platform to build a brand and get conversions for your B2B business. Actually, LinkedIn is valuable for a lot of B2C categories as well today.

The platform provides an extremely simple ad interface. It provides you with very detailed targeting options so you can reach out to your specific audience. You can start your advertising campaign on LinkedIn by availing this free Rs 2500 ad credits. The platform gives you the option to pay for clicks or pay for impressions.

Take a look at some of the choices you have got:

The section shown in the image above can help you find out whether LinkedIn is the right platform for your business or not. LinkedIn allows you to target people with specific skills from predefined industries.

All you need is a LinkedIn account and a business page to understand if it’s the right place to promote your business.

Would YouTube be a good fit?

Video ads are an effective way to get your audience to engage with your brand. The YouTube advertising platform helps you to target your audience on the basis of their location, demographics, interests, and devices.

Do you think YouTube advertising can work for you?

It is easy to find out. You just need a free YouTube account and a channel. Once you start creating your ad and see if your audience is there or not. The platform will give you the estimated number of people you can reach out to with your campaign.

While running ads on YouTube, you have the option of paying per video view while you can set a weekly budget for your campaign. You will typically be charged $0.10 – $0.30 for each video view.

You can use Google AdWords to set up your YouTube campaign and get detailed reporting and analytics as well. The platform allows you to optimize your campaigns and improve the outcomes.

Here are some of the types of ads you can run on YouTube:

  1. Video discovery ads
  2. In-Stream ads

Video discovery ads are those that are shown as videos to YouTube searchers.

In-stream ads are shown within the videos that the viewers are watching.

Here are some of the key metrics that you can track with YouTube ads:

  1. Partial views
  2. Completed views
  3. Clicks
  4. Channel subscriptions from the ad
  5. Views from users sharing the content

YouTube provides you with a great opportunity to reach out to your target audience and showcase the USP of your business.

Another way to check if a channel such as YouTube is relevant or not is by searching for keywords related to your product and service. Observe the Ads, which are shown, and consumption of relevant videos. If you see multiple advertisers or a high volume of consumption (i.e. no of views) of the videos, you will know that YouTube is relevant to target your audience.

Apply the same principle to check the validity of other content marketing channels such as SlideShare or Quora.

Can remarketing add value to my business?

Remarketing is an advertising technique that helps you to target those people who have shown interest in your business.

Recently I was searching for a professional microphone on Amazon. I did not buy the microphone but for the next few days, I could see the ad for the same microphone from Amazon in my inbox, in my Facebook newsfeed and on the sites I was visiting.

Has this happened to you?

This is exactly how remarketing works. It can help you to reach out to people who are interested in buying your products and services. You can create customised messages and discount offers for those who are aware of your business. Remarketing helps you to catch your prospects when they are at the bottom of the buying funnel and actually convert.

It’s very easy to run a remarketing campaign on some of these popular platforms:

  1. Google
  2. Facebook
  3. Twitter
  4. Instagram
  5. YouTube
  6. LinkedIn

Remarketing helps you to target people who visited a particular page or pages of your site.

Do you think remarketing campaigns can be helpful for your business?

If you have a large number of daily visitors on your website, then running a remarketing campaign will surely help your business.  You can create a free Google Analytics account to find out more about the number and type of visitors you are getting on your site. It will help you to know whether remarketing is the right option for your business or not.

Which digital marketing platform will help my business?

While kicking off your digital marketing efforts you need to know whether a particular platform is suitable for your business or not. Start with these simple questions:

  1. Is your target audience (influencers, consumers, payers) there on the platform?
  2. Are your competitors promoting their business using the platform?
  3. What are the results (engagement, views, subscribers, followers) your competitors are getting from that specific platform?

If answer (s) to the above questions is a yes then you can start using the platform to promote your business.  In the beginning, you can start with one platform and then as your budget grows you can expand.  If you have a good amount of traffic on your site, then you can use remarketing on a platform that’s relevant to your business.

You can always start with a few campaigns on a preferred platform and analyse the results before trying something different.

Conclusion

Digital marketing provides you with the means to communicate directly with your audience while getting them to convert. The channel allows you start with a very small budget and scale up as you go. With digital marketing, you can run and manage campaigns quickly and track their results in real time. Whatever be your business type, you can analyse whether a platform will work for your business or not.

Moreover, you can get measurable and live results for each of your campaigns. Besides that, you can choose from different platforms to suit your business and audience requirements.

So, what are you waiting for?

You can start promoting your business with digital marketing right away!

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

Are you an early stage energy startup? The Shell E4 programme is scouting for entrepreneurs, startups with innovative business models, technology ideas and products with a potential to impact the future of energy. Last date to apply is November 17. Click here to register now!

SmartFifty, India’s largest startup contest, is scouting for 50 solutions to transform India. So if you’ve got an idea that is sustainable, motivating, affordable, responsible, or transformational, head over to here by IIM Calcutta to discover how you can make the most of this opportunity.

[“Source-yourstory”]

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Online Marketing

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Online Marketing Strategy

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

As we live through the digital age, most of the population in the world uses the internet through some device or the other. As more and more people are getting active on the internet, it becomes a highly potential marketplace where not only the products can be bought or sold, but can also be marketed to the various potential customers, who would be interested to buy the product. To market your product or service effectively it is essential, that you follow a proper strategy. When companies plan an online marketing strategy it often occurs in two stages. The first stage is during which a digital plan is created which maps out the various goals and strategies you need to achieve and implement. The second plan is when digital media is inserted into the marketing strategy. If you do not have a proper strategy given below are few of the various problems you might encounter.

1. Lack of Direction

Companies without an online or digital marketing strategy are unable to identify or highlight clearly their strategic goals. It is important for companies to know their strategic goals to gain new customers and maintain the existing ones. Without goals your company is totally directionless and all you marketing strategies will be put to waste.

2. You Will Be Unaware Of Your Online Market Share

If you do not have an online marketing strategy, it is highly likely that you will be unaware of the potential it has. To know your own standing and identify your online customers you have to follow an online marketing strategy. Knowing your online market share is a good indicator of how your marketing techniques are performing in the market.

3. Competitors gain market share

Digital market is the latest of all marketing techniques and it is a must for all businesses to opt for it. If you do not market your products or services online, it is highly likely that your competitors will gain an upper hand and also gain more market share and attracting new customers through online marketing.

4. Customers Will Be Less Familiar With You

As most people prefer to use the internet for information on new products and services, it is highly essential that you opt for an online marketing plan. Without it your company and your products or services will not be properly exposed to your potential customers and they would be less familiar with you. Depending on the Google analyticsmight show the huge number of website traffic, but to determine the true worth of your online marketing plan, you might need to check the number of customers to your website. Hiring a digital marketing agency help you a lot in getting those much needed customers by spreading word out.

5. Wastage Of Money And Time

Duplication of similar tasks for the same companies is an utter waste of time and even if you have sufficient resource, doing the same things aimlessly and without a strategy will yield no results. A lot of times larger companies hire more than one marketing agency to do the same task over and over again because they have not evaluated their goals or devised proper a strategy to achieve them. Duplication of data on the internet not only wastes money and time but also lowers the quality of information on the internet.

6. Optimizing

If your company has a website, you will have access to various analytics that show the performance of your marketing strategies. But if you’re working without a strategy it is many senior managers will not have the directions to review the various analytics. A strategy allows you to help get the basics right and then lets you go ahead in a planned manner so you can make use of the various analytical tools that the internet provides you with. Hence optimization is important.

It is shocking to see that so many companies are totally unaware of how an important online marketing strategy is important to increase the reach of their products and services. You can also hire financial marketing agencies to know more about the importance of marketing strategies and more about online marketing.

[“Source-tgdaily”]

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Education

Public School, Inc.: When public education turns into big business

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Image result for Public School, Inc.: When public education turns into big business

Andrew Sterling thought BASIS Tucson in Arizona was a teacher’s dream when he started working there in 2008. Class sizes at the midtown public charter school were small, teachers were experts with advanced degrees and students were bright and engaged, with few disciplinary issues.

“The kids were excellent – just amazing kids that came from seemingly a variety of backgrounds and variety of interests, quite quirky in a lot of ways,” said Sterling, who taught history and government.

Those quirky kids were the reason he later enrolled his daughter there for fifth grade. He wanted her to be surrounded by good peers. Plus, he’d get to watch her closely. But his concern was growing over the school’s changing climate.

BASIS, which started as a single Tucson charter school and grew into a network of educational facilities, began attracting national attention as an academic powerhouse with soaring test scores by the late 2000s. Riding that momentum, the company pushed to expand, adding charter and private schools nationally and internationally and multiple layers to its corporate structure.

And the pressure grew for students to score even higher to fuel that growth.

Sterling saw his students drowning in schoolwork, which increasingly focused on test results. Some students were built for it, he said. Most struggled. Many transferred out, unable to keep up.

There was a physical change, too.

In 2012, BASIS added a new custom-designed campus in the wealthy Catalina Foothills on the north side of Tucson. The school added more grades between the two campuses, and hundreds more students enrolled. By then, a new management arm of the BASIS corporation had taken over school operations.

Despite his concerns, Sterling stayed, hoping to help his struggling students. Meanwhile, BASIS kept growing.

BASIS today is perfectly poised to capitalize on growing efforts across the country to turn public education into big business. Although it is not the largest charter school network in the U.S., BASIS is one of the only to have successfully expanded into private and international operations. None of the five largest charter networks concurrently operate private schools.

BASIS expanded rapidly, mostly by leveraging its public school status to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars, ultimately paid by taxpayers, while also expanding its private school operations. And in its race to the top, critics say BASIS systematically shortchanged the students who are the most costly to educate, including those with disabilities.

Despite continued criticisms – especially regarding what some consider “cherry-picking” of students, a common complaint about some charter schools – BASIS has continued to attract parents looking for something more than a traditional public school for their children.

“We have a laser-like focus on academics,” said Peter Bezanson, CEO of BASIS.ed, the corporate arm that manages BASIS schools.

As school choice – a movement to give students access to more public education options – continues to gain momentum, companies such as BASIS are seen as the solution to public education’s ills. It brought together people from different ends of the political spectrum – former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Rev. Al Sharpton – to jointly tour the BASIS Tucson campus in 2009. BASIS is also touted as a model for public education by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey.

This phenomenon has spurred a nationwide debate.

President Donald Trump and his billionaire education secretary, Betsy DeVos, whose family are Republican megadonors, are among the biggest champions of school choice.

“I’m opposed to any parents feeling trapped or, worse yet, feeling that they can’t offer their child the education they wish they could,” DeVos said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in March. She compared school choice with consumers picking Uber or Lyft over traditional taxis.

“What they are trying to persuade the American public of is that public schools don’t belong to the public, that they’re consumer items,” saidDiane Ravitch, a former assistant education secretary under President George H.W. Bush, who once advocated for school choice herself.

Back then, Ravitch envisioned choice as schools within schools that could serve as labs for educational innovation, she said. But school choice became synonymous with big businesses, she said, and big businesses brought about legally questionable practices such as conflicts of interests, nepotism and putting their own interests above those of the public.

How BASIS got its start

As the movement to create independent and innovative public schools spread across the country, Olga Block, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, wanted a more rigorous education for her daughter.

Block decided to start her own school with the help of her American husband, Michael, a Stanford-educated economist. She would combine best of both worlds: the hands-on, slower-paced American learning environment and the rigorous European study habits Olga Block was used to back home.

“BASIS was essentially built on a mother’s love for her daughter,” said Bezanson, the BASIS.ed CEO.

The Blocks, who remain managers at BASIS.ed, declined to be interviewed.

The school opened in fall 1998, renting space at a synagogue in midtown Tucson. It was called Building Academic Success in School, or BASIS.

Today, the BASIS network runs 24 charter schools in Arizona, Texas and Washington, D.C., and seven private schools in California, New York, Virginia, and Shenzhen and Guangzhou, China. It has plans to open more schools in the U.S. and overseas in the near future.

As BASIS grew, so did its corporate structure. In 2009, Olga and Michael Block established a private limited liability company, BASIS.ed, to handle school operations. To manage the assets and equities of various private management arms that run the charter, private and international schools, the founders also established BASIS Educational Ventures.

Such complex corporate structures, also common to other large charter networks, limit risk and maximize profit, said Gary Miron, an expert in charter school finance at Western Michigan University and fellow for the National Education Policy Center.

“It’s just amazing that they are public schools,” he said, “but they are really private in so many ways.”

Reading, writing and reaping profits

Before BASIS’ multi-tiered corporate structure emerged, IRS disclosure forms showed that in 2008, Olga Block earned $197,507 as the chief executive officer of BASIS, which then had two schools and just over 1,100 students. Michael Block earned $156,362 in various roles.

That same year, the superintendent of the Tucson Unified School District, which served more than 56,000 students in more than 80 schools and programs, made just over $200,000.

Tax filings from 2007 and 2008 also show that the founders paid family for work they did for BASIS: Olga Block’s two daughters and her sister, who lives in the Czech Republic, were paid for public relations material design and accounting. Michael’s son, Robert, was paid for technology services in other years.

The founders’ relatives still occupy high-level management positions in various arms of the network. At least three of Olga and Michael Block’s children are on the BASIS payroll.

Arizona law requires all public officers on political subdivisions, boards or commissions to disclose conflicts of interest. It also says public officers should refrain from voting on or participating in any contract, sale, purchase or service from a relative.

The Arizona attorney general’s office said it believes the law applies to charter school officials and board members, but referred to the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools for enforcement of the law.  The charter board said it does not keep track of conflict-of-interest disclosures.

“I think it’s fairly common for family-owned businesses to employ family members,” said Bezanson, BASIS.ed’s CEO.

BASIS.ed provides everything that’s required to run a school – from supplying teachers to buying textbooks on a contract basis, he said. The difference between BASIS.ed and the nonprofit charter holder, BASIS Schools Inc., he added, is that BASIS.ed is private, which allows it to efficiently manage schools in different states.

Once BASIS transitioned to private management in 2009, few details about its schools’ finances remained public. Filings instead show millions in lump sums for management fees and leased employees, including teachers, all addressed to Michael Block, who until 2015 was a BASIS charter board member.

For the 2014 tax year, the most recent tax filing publicly available, the nonprofit housing the network’s charter schools paid BASIS.ed $15.6 million in management fees and an additional $44.3 million for salaries and benefits. In exchange for the fees, BASIS.ed says it handles tasks such as hiring administrators and teachers and buying school supplies.

A 2016 U.S. Department of Education inspector general’s report raised the alarm about charter schools using private management, saying it limits accountability.

But Bezanson said that the structure allows BASIS to run its schools more efficiently and that the BASIS charter school expansion is “wholly separate and not commingled with anything having to do with the expansion of the international or independent schools.”

Bezanson would not provide information about executives’ salaries, saying it’s a private company.

On average, BASIS paid about $3.3 million annually per school to BASIS.ed for salaries and management between fiscal years 2008 and 2014, according to tax filings. In comparison, the average total budget for a school in the Tucson Unified School District for the 2014-15 school year was about $2.5 million.

In tax filings, the fees to BASIS.ed are listed under transactions with related parties – something the Education Department’s inspector general’s report called a red flag because it could mean weak internal controls, alongside conflicts of interest and insufficient division of duties.

As it stands, though, the Department of Education does not have an adequate way to monitor charter management companies to identify and address potential risks, the report concluded.

Big borrowers

BASIS borrowed big to grow big by leveraging its charter schools’ public status, which allows it to borrow tax-free and at lower interest rates.

The network’s charter schools are funded by state governments on a per-pupil basis, like district schools, but there is no dedicated funding for charter school buildings. So BASIS turned to the government bond market to fuel its charter school expansion.

It has borrowed so much that its charter school arm, the only BASIS subsidiary for which financial information is publicly available, had about $230 million in long-term debt at the end of fiscal year 2016, according to its consolidated financial audit submitted to the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools.

BASIS borrowed largely through industrial development authorities of municipalities in Arizona, which are government-affiliated middlemen that help secure funding for projects that benefit the people of that town, city, county or state.

It used loans through the city of Phoenix and Pima County – sometimes to pay back other loans – to build and renovate schools in Washington, D.C., and Texas, using its existing charter school facilities as collateral.

In one instance, a 2016 loan for $84 million for various capital projects across the network – about $31 million of which was used for refunding a previous loan for the D.C. campus – was secured by 14 BASIS charter schools’ state funding and facilities.

The city of Phoenix isn’t fronting the money, nor is it liable for the debt, said Bezanson, the BASIS.ed CEO. The money comes from private investors.

But taxpayers – primarily in Arizona – do pay for the costs of these loans, including transaction fees and interest, through state per-pupil funding for education.

The charter network’s buildings are not publicly owned, either – they are owned by BASIS.

“That seems illogical that we would allow them to use a share of public dollars to acquire an asset with public dollars that is then owned by this private entity,” said Bruce Baker, an education professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who specializes in charter school business practices.

At the same time, Baker said, charter schools are backed into a corner when it comes to facilities financing. Without a dedicated funding mechanism, they must seek other options.

But many of those options are the result of bad policy design and create opportunities for bad deals and bad debt, he said. Repeated borrowing and refinancing results, Baker said, in a lot of public money being sunk into transaction costs and fees.

The 2016 financial audit shows signs of what looks like financial distress for the BASIS network’s charter school arm. It ended fiscal year 2016 with negative cash flow – a deficit of nearly $23 million, according to the audit.

That distress was caused by refinancing loans for better rates and resulting prepayment penalties, said DeAnna Rowe, head of the nonprofit organization for BASIS charter schools, who previously served as executive director of the state charter school board.

Source:-salon.

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News Update

Apple, Dell Join Bid to Buy Toshiba’s Chip Business: Bain

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Apple, Dell Join Bid to Buy Toshiba's Chip Business: Bain

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Apple and Dell have joined a bid to buy Toshiba’s memory chip business
  • Last week Bain Capital made a “revised offer” for Toshiba’s chip unit
  • Toshiba earlier sued Western Digital for trying to block sales process

US tech titans Apple and Dell have joined a bid to buy Toshiba’s memory chip business, a deal seen as key to the survival of the cash-stripped Japanese industrial conglomerate, the US investor leading the consortium has said.

“Last week Bain Capital made a revised offer” for Toshiba, which “brings in a broad list of strategic partners including Apple, Dell” and others who will invest in the business, Bain Capital said in a statement obtained by AFP on Sunday.

It was the first time Apple’s name has been officially confirmed as part of the bid, although it has reportedly also been involved in rival bids for the lucrative Toshiba segment.

The announcement came after Toshiba said last week it had picked the Bain Capital-led consortium as the leading candidate to buy its prized chip business in a deal reportedly worth some $18 billion.

The development was the latest twist in a long-running saga as Toshiba agonises between three groups of suitors for its chip business.

The Bain Capital-led group also includes the state-backed Development Bank of Japan and the public-private Innovation Network Corp. of Japan as well as South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix.

However, Toshiba has stressed that it was a “non-exclusive” agreement with Bain Capital that “does not exclude the possibility of negotiations with other consortia”.

Other suitors in the frame are a group led by Western Digital, Toshiba’s US-based chip factory partner, and Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision, better known as Foxconn.

Western Digital demanded control of the memory chip business, frustrating Toshiba’s management which prompted them to turn to the Bain Capital-led group, according to reports in the local media.

Toshiba has sued Western Digital for trying to block the sales process.

In the latest statement, Bain Capital said: “We believe this proposal represents a solution that meets the needs of all stakeholders.”

The proposal “represents the best possible outcome for Toshiba by ensuring” the memory chip business’s independence, Bain Capital said.
[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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