Some people are born with the innate ability to lead and to lead well. Others may have to work harder to find it, but that ability does lie within each individual. It just may take work for some people to find it and bring it out. Born leaders by nature have more self-confidence and higher self-esteem. To bring out leadership qualities in yourself, first you must build confidence in your own abilities.

If you want to take on a leadership role for the first time, it is best to start small. Volunteer to lead a small group on a project at work, for example. Or choose to head a committee at your child’s school. Often the first step to becoming a good leader is to get over the fear of being in charge. As the leader, people will look to you for answers. Even if you are not one hundred percent sure of what the answers are, you have to give off a certain amount of confidence in order to gain the trust of the group.

It is best to volunteer to head a project in an area in which you have some experience or expertise. Imagine that your child’s school wants to run a used book sale in order to raise money to build a new library. Also imagine that you work at a popular bookstore. You know all about selling books, so chairing this project is a perfect fit for you. Despite the fact that you may not have ever led a committee before, you are still bringing powerful knowledge. Your knowledge in the field should give you confidence that you can best lead this group to raise the funds successfully.

Realizing that you have the skills necessary to lead the group is the first step. Second, is volunteering to lead the group and sharing the information that makes you qualified. Again, exuding confidence is crucial at this point because no one will follow a leader who does not seem to know what he or she is talking about or doing. There is a difference, however, between confidence and arrogance. It is one thing to show that you are confident in your ability to run a successful program but you should still maintain a degree of humbleness. It is perfectly acceptable, and even preferable, to say that you believe you could do a good job leading the project, but that you will require the help of the other committee members and that you will value their input and ideas as well.

A good leader always takes into account the strengths and weaknesses of the committee members and ensures that everyone working on a particular project feels an amount of ownership and accountability for the project. To be an effective leader, you not only need to have the confidence in yourself but also in those on your team. You need to know when to delegate and which jobs you really should do yourself because of your expertise. In the case of the used book sale, you would want to use your bookstore experience to design the lay-out of the sale or possibly to price the books. But you may want to delegate the task of creating flyers and advertising to someone on the committee who has that kind of expertise.

But how exactly do we achieve perfect customer care and more to the point, what exactly is it? Well to start with, employees need to be able know exactly how to handle any type of call or any situation that involves interacting with customers confidently and efficiently. But how do you keep customer service and interaction at the front of employees minds every day? How can you constantly improve upon your customer service?

Customers will judge every business that they come into contact with by what they see on the outside because they usually won’t know much, if anything about the way in which the business operates. If the customer service and front of house operations all run smoothly and efficiently, then customers will assume that the rest of the business operations follow suit.

Pay particular attention to the telephone manner of employees. All phone calls must be dealt with in a uniform, professional manner as if not, the customers will assume that the rest of the business is run in a similar sort of way and will most likely go somewhere else where they feel more assured that the treatment they’re getting is professional. Perfect customer treatment is paramount in order to create and maintain a smooth, professional business model. Every person that comes into contact with your business should receive the same level of treatment every time.

We’ve all received bad customer service at some point, it tends to stick in the memory when we get messed around and more to the point, and did you ever go back to that place? I doubt it. We will all remember receiving good customer service as well. Ensure that your customers remember you for the right reasons.

Until recently, large corporations dominated the outsourcing landscape, often engaging the services of major players like IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Accenture (NYSE: ACN) for information technology projects.

What is new is that small to mid-sized companies are beginning to recognize the value of outsourcing, not only for technology services, but also for business processes. Researchers at Gartner Group predict that 80 percent of U.S. companies will have engaged in high-level outsourcing discussions by 2004, with the greatest interest in applications and business process outsourcing. Also of increasing interest and demand is the use of offshore delivery centers in an outsourcing strategy.

Often used interchangeably with “offshoring,” the term “outsourcing” has much broader-reaching implications. Whereas offshoring typically refers to hiring supplemental manpower (usually from countries like India) on a per-head-count hourly rate, the practice of outsourcing exceeds this staff augmentation mentality. Today’s sophisticated outsourcing paradigm embraces a global delivery model, risk management/governance contingencies, and long-term service level agreements (SLAs) that span both technology and business process services.

Just as the market definition and scope for outsourcing services has evolved over the past decade, so too has the purchasing audience. Historically, IT executives have been the primary buyers of outsourcing services, largely due to the technology intensive nature of early outsourcing arrangements. While the CIO’s role is still integral to the decision-making process, financial and business-line executives and CEOs are now driving the need for more business process-focused outsourcing solutions and therefore have emerged as a new buyer.

Mid-sized professional services firms like Kanbay International Inc. (www.kanbay.com/ that specialize in a particular market niche (e.g. financial services) are in a strong position to reach today’s newer, middle-tier market with global application management and business process outsourcing solutions. Kanbay engages a number of innovative strategies to differentiate itself and educate this vertical market on the value of outsourcing.

“The rise of the outsourced economy is creating a new set of management challenges — and opportunities. While the industry’s top players have created the demand for global outsourced solutions, more mid-tier companies are getting into the game. This has opened up a viable market for managed solutions providers to serve this customer segment,” said Shiraz Patel, president of Kanbay Managed Solutions Inc.

How to find clients

Patel leads the Kanbay subsidiary that provides financial services clients with global delivery options and a mature governance model for application management outsourcing (AMO) and business process outsourcing (BPO). He offers the following advice to IT services/software and professional service firms looking to enter the outsourcing market. Kanbay has successfully employed a number of these venues in its own marketing approach:

1. Seek objective analyst opinions. Meet at least quarterly with industry analysts such as Gartner, Aberdeen and IDC, who cover outsourcing industry and managed solutions companies. Schedule in-person visits to brief these groups on your firm’s history, client experience and vision. Likewise, analysts can help validate your marketing approach, serving as third-party, unbiased advisers that in turn educate potential customers, partners and investors.

Many analysts host conferences and publish newsletters and special reports on outsourcing topics in which you can participate.

2. Participate in industry/educational forums. Outsourcing conferences enable companies like Kanbay to showcase their clients’ success stories and achievements. This interactive, peer-to-peer format allows business prospects in a similar industry to address common challenges, learn by example, and to meet the outsourcing partners behind customer achievements.

3. Host seminars and Webinars. In a market saturated with hundreds of seminar offerings, companies like Kanbay have the most success with brief (two hours or less), highly targeted programs that demonstrate solutions geared to business challenges within a specific industry. Webinars are also attractive to sponsors and clients alike because they are cost-effective, require no travel and contain similar content to live seminars.

4. Leverage the media. The media is a powerful and influential source for educating potential customers on outsourcing trends and solutions. Consider contributing to publications that feature customer case studies, quote industry experts and publish opinion articles authored by outsourcing company experts.

5. Evaluate your partnership strategy. Many smaller and mid-sized firms are attracted to the deep expertise and capabilities of the large outsourcing companies, yet often find their services cost-prohibitive. When targeting this market segment, companies like Kanbay offer a blended model for the financial services industry, engaging with clients and managing risk-similar to larger outsourcers with whom Kanbay partners — but at competitive rates.

There are several types of companies that trade on the penny stock market. These include companies that no longer trade over $1 on the NASDAQ. These companies will include those that have fallen from grace due to scandal. These are very dangerous stocks to trade in because you stand to lose a lot of money if the company does not rebound.

Other companies that are traded in the penny stock market are new start up companies. These companies may be looking for money to expand their business and start out trading on the OTC as a penny stock. These are probably your best bet to trade in.

The first thing you should do is plenty of research about investing in penny stocks. Learn the terminology and learn how to read the pink sheets. Be very careful of the penny stocks that you choose to invest in. Read manual’s such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s to get accurate current financial information on the companies that you are investing in.

The penny stock market is a hot target for fraud. You must know how to recognize fraud to avoid losing your investment and then some. The warning signs of fraud include:

- High pressure sales techniques. Investment in a good legitimate company is a long term process. It is not going to skyrocket overnight. You should have a few weeks to decide if a stock is right for you. If anyone tries to pressure you by saying otherwise, walk away.

- Not knowing how the money is being spent. If a company cannot inform you of exactly what they are spending your investment money on, with documentation, then it is best to steer clear of them.

- Unauthorized transactions. Keep a close eye on your accounts and be on the lookout for securities that you did not agree to purchase. Some brokers will try to pressure you into buying the stock after it is fraudulently placed in your account.

Investing in penny stocks is a gamble. Millions of dollars are lost each year in the penny stock market. But if you do your research and really study the market, you can make a decent amount from penny stock investing. Knowledge is the whole key to success in the penny stock markets.

Steer away from funds that concentrate in only one industry or one area like energy, electronics, or gold. The investment company you pick does not have to be in the top three or four in performance each year to give you an excellent profit over 10 to 15 years.

The fund can be either a no-load, with no commission, or load, or one where a sales commission is charged. If you buy a fund with a sales charge, discounts are offered according to the amount you invest and some funds have back-end loads which you may want to check. The commission paid is substantially less than the mark-up you pay to buy insurance, a new car, a suit of clothes, or your groceries. You can also sign a letter of intent, which will allow a lower sales charge to apply to any quantity purchase made over the following 13 months.

When you purchase a mutual fund, you are hiring professional management to make decisions for you in the stock market. Most diversified funds should be treated differently from individual stocks. A stock may decline and never come back in price. That’s why the loss-cutting policy is necessary.

However, a well-selected fund run by an established management organization will, in time, almost always recover from the steep corrections that naturally occur during numerous bear markets. This is because mutual funds are broadly diversified and should participate in each recovery cycle in the American economy.

Therefore, an extraordinarily different strategy should be employed with mutual funds. Each time you get into the thick of an economic recession and the newspapers and TV tell you how terrible things are, why not add to your fund when it is off 25% to 30% from its peak price. It might even be a possible time to borrow a little money and buy more shares. If you are patient, within two or three years the shares should be up sharply in price.

Remember, you’re going to hold through many economic cycles, so why not be smart and add to your investment during each bear market? You can also reinvest your dividends and capital gains distributions and benefit from compounding over the years. When you buy your growth mutual fund, you should make up your mind at the outset that you are positively going to sit through the next three or four bear markets or economic recessions. This will give you the maximum opportunity to make really big money.

Online day trading has become popular because of its convenient nature.

First and foremost, the Internet is in full operation for twenty four hours. Some clients find the time to survey the stock market at the end of the day or before they turn in at night. Thus, there is a greater chance that you can cover a larger number of clienteles. Likewise, the Internet hosts a wide array of choices when it comes to stocks. It is then an advantage on your part since you can conveniently watch the behavior of the market wherever you may be and also purchase new stocks if you wish.

Meanwhile, it is significant that you take enough time to look into many of the considerations regarding online day trading before arriving at the decision of participating in the trend.

Here are some of the tips that you can ponder on:

Learn a variety of techniques. Before you enlist yourself as a full fledged online day trader, you should first collect as much knowledge as possible. You can take online tutorials, partake in the online forums, read newsletters, study through the cd-rom packages, or attend live seminars or webinars. Keeping yourself educated is an important ace in facing the world of the stock market.

Check out the demo account. Many of the online companies provide a demo account wherein you can practice your skills in day trading without further investing real money. In this way, you can better get to learn the ropes of the trade.

Research on the company’s profile. You will not want to risk your money for nothing in return. Better yet, take the time to study the characteristics of the company that you are to deal with. At least, you will be forewarned should anything fishy happen.

Start small. Since you will just be figuring out your future as an online day trader, it is best to employ a small amount of money for starters. If ever you lose, you will not be disappointed that much because you engaged only a small part of your wealth.

With all these pieces of information, you are more confident to face your career with online day trading.

The internet has brought a wealth of information to the average persons fingertips. With a few clicks a person can gain knowledge on a wide array of topics. The internet has also given people a chance at business plans they would otherwise never have the chance to know about.

Finding a business opportunity online and then actually making these businesses work is not a simple process, but it is one that almost anyone can do.

The biggest hurdle in finding a business online has to do with avoiding scams. Scams are basically companies that are simply looking to take someone’s money and make them waste their time. In the end home business scams almost never pay anything and a person ends up wasting precious time and money.

Avoiding scams is a matter of doing research. Before a person seriously gets involved with business opportunities they should completely check them out. The first place to look is the Better Business Bureau.

A person can look up the business name and find out if they have had any complaints against them. Too many complaints may signal an unwise business choice. Another great research tool is using search engines. A person can type the business name plus the words ‘scam’ or ‘rip off’. This will yield any results of reported problems others have had with the business.

It is also wise for a person to become part of one on the many online websites dedicated to business opportunities and working at home. There is a lot of information and helpful people on these sites that can help a person when making a choice about business opportunities.

One of the great things about the internet and business opportunities is that a person can look into the opportunities without any pressure. Many times when a person is looking for a business opportunity they have to spend hours being talked to by some company representative regardless of if they really decide the opportunity is for them or not. With the internet a person can go to the company website and look over the business opportunities without ever having to talk to anyone unless they are truly interested. Many business opportunities in direct sales are widely available online and their websites explain the business opportunities in depth.

The internet is a great tool to use when looking for business opportunities. It allows a person to research the company and make sure it is a solid business. It allows a person to talk with others who work for the company and get real answers to their questions. The internet even allows a person to casually look for business opportunities without being haggled by representatives wanting a commission for signing them up. The internet is the one tool anyone looking for business opportunities should not ignore.

Profile on Twitter

Twitter is one of the most popular social networking platforms today, and is growing in popularity exponentially. More and more businesses are turning to Twitter to make connections with clients, other businesses and potential sales leads. The first step to successfully building your online presence via Twitter is to create a profile on Twitter. What’s the best way to create a profile that will get your business noticed on Twitter?

Firstly, what is Twitter?
Twitter is essentially a web platform where you can share 140-character snippets with the people who are interested in what you say. In order to see your 140-character updates, people must “Follow” you on Twitter. In order for you to see their updates, you must “Follow” them back. The people who follow you and read what you write are called “Followers,” and the people whose updates you can see you are said to be “Following.”

Pick a Username that Conveys You And Your Business
When you create a profile on Twitter, pick a username that conveys you and your business. If your business has a short name, such as Bike Bandit, you might select BikeBandit as your username. You can also sign up using your personal name. Select whatever makes it easy for other Twitter users to find and follow you. If you have a long business name, such as Wintergreen Hospitality Services Incorporated, you might want to use just an identifying word from your business, such as Wintergreen. Pick a short username consistent with your business, and one that your users will be able to find easily.

Keep Your Profile Consistent with Twitter
When you’re building your Twitter profile, keep it consistent with Twitter. Twitter only gives you 140 characters for your bio, so think of a few words or a phrase that summarizes your business. You can also provide a link to your website in your profile, so that gives you a chance to funnel your Twitter followers to a specific page that gives them more information about you. Think of your Twitter bio as a teaser, and point them to a page that will make them want to know more about you via your profile URL.

Using Icons and Backgrounds Effectively
You can upload a picture to represent your business on Twitter, but the size is limited. Some businesses prefer to use a logo; one that’s consistent with other branding; so it’s easy to identify the business. Many people prefer to use a personal photograph, though, because the purpose of Twitter is to connect with other people. A photograph is more humanizing, and makes you more accessible as a person.

You can also put up a background on your Twitter page that followers see when they come to your page. You can use this background for your company logo, or to show your product or important things from your company.

Building a successful Twitter profile is your first step in building a strong Twitter following for your business. Remember that people want to connect with a human, so try to humanize your profile as much as possible. Utilizing your profile effectively makes it easier for people to find you and understand what your business does. If you follow these easy tips, you’ll have a successful Twitter profile in no time!

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at

The BPO History Of India

Since the onset of globalization in India during the early 1990s, successive Indian governments have pursued programs of economic reform committed to liberalization and privatization. Till 1994, the Indian telecom sector was under direct governmental control and the state owned units enjoyed a monopoly in the market. In 1994, the government announced a policy under which the sector was liberalized and private participation was encouraged. The New Telecom Policy of 1999 brought in further changes with the introduction of IP telephony and ended the state monopoly on international calling facilities. This brought about a drastic reduction and this heralded the golden era for the ITES/BPO industry and ushered in a slew of inbound/outbound call centres and data processing centres. Although the IT industry in India has existed since the early 1980s, it was the early and mid 1990s that saw the emergence of Outsourcing. One of the first outsourced services was medical transcription, but Outsourcing( BPO ) of business processes like data processing, billing, and customer support began towards the end of the 1990s when MNCs established who’lly owned subsidiaries which catered to the process off-shoring requirements of their parent companies. Some of the earliest players in the Indian market were American Express, GE Capital and British Airways.
The ITES or BPO industry is a young and nascent sector in India and has been in existence for a little more than five years. Despite its recent arrival on the Indian scene, the industry has grown phenomenally and has now become a very important part of the export-oriented IT software and services environment. It initially began as an activity confined to multinational companies, but today it has developed into a broad based business platform backed by leading Indian IT software and services organizations and other third party service providers. The ITES/BPO market expanded its base with the entry of Indian IT companies and the ITES market of the present day is characterized by the existence of these IT giants who are able to leverage their broad skill-sets and global clientele to offer a wide spectrum of services. The spectrum of services offered by Indian companies has evolved substantially from its humble beginnings. Today, Indian companies are offering a variety of outsourced services ranging from customer care, transcription, billing services and database marketing, to Web sales/marketing, accounting, tax processing, transaction document management, telesales/telemarketing, HR hiring and biotech research.
Looking at the success of India’s IT/software industry, the central government identified ITES/BPO as a key contributor to economic growth prioritized the attraction of FDI in this segment by establishing ‘Software Technology Parks’ and ‘Export Enterprise Zones’. Benefits like tax-holidays generally enjoyed by the software industry were also made available to the ITES/BPO sector. The National Telecom Policy (NTP) introduced in 1999 and the deregulation of the telecom industry opened up national, long distance, and international connectivity to competition. The governments of various states also provide assistance to companies to overcome the recruitment, retention, and training challenges in order to attract investments to their region. The National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) has created platforms for the dissemination of knowledge and research in the industry through its survey and conferences. NASSCOM acts as an ‘advisor, consultant and coordinating body’ for the ITES/BPO industry and liaisons between the central and state government committees and the industry. The ardent advocacy of the ITES/BPO industry has led to the inclusion of call centers in the ‘Business Auxiliary Services’ segment, thereby ensuring exemption from service tax under the Finance Bill of 2003.
These measures have led to a steady inflow of investments by large foreign companies such as Reuters, for establishing large captive ITES/BPO facilities across India. Moreover, the existing ITES/BPO operations of major multi-nationals are also being ramped up to cater to the ever increasing demand for better and speedier service. Almost all of India’s top ITES/BPO giants have announced some form of expansion and are in the process of hiring manpower to fill the additional seats. India’s competitive advantage lies in its ability to provide huge cost savings thereby enabling productivity gains and this has given India an edge in the global ITES/BPO marketplace. NASSCOM studies pinpoint the following factors as the major reasons behind India’s success in this industry

• Abundant, skilled, English-speaking manpower, which is being harnessed even by ITES hubs such as Singapore and Ireland.

• Improving telecom and other infrastructure which is at par with global standards.
• Strong quality orientation among players and their focus on measuring and monitoring quality targets.
• Fast turnaround times and the ability to offer 24×7 services based on the country’s unique geographic location that allows for leveraging time zone differences.
• Proactive and positive policy environment which encourages ITES/BPO investments and simplifies rules and procedures.

The BPO History Of India

• A friendly tax structure, which places the ITES/BPO industry on par with IT services companies.
Outsourcing( BPO ) to India offers significant improvements in quality and productivity for overseas companies on crucial parameters such as number of correct transactions/number of total transactions; total satisfaction factor; number of transactions/hour and average speed of answer. Surveys by NASSCOM also revealed that Indian companies are better focussed on maintaining quality and performance standards. Indian ITES/BPO companies are on an ascending curve as far as the quality standards are concerned. Organizations that have achieved ISO 9000 certification are migrating to the ISO 9000:2000 standards and companies on the CMM framework are realigning themselves to the CMMI model. Apart from investing in upgrading their CRM and ERP initiatives, many Indian ITES companies are beginning to acknowledge the COPC certifications for quality and are working towards achieving COPC licences.
Despite being a fledgling in the global ITES/BPO industry, the Indian ITES industry recorded a growth rate in excess of 50% in 2002-03. Industry experts consider this a positive indication of the times to come and a look at the ranking and the revenue and headcount statistics show the potential of the industry.The global ITES/BPO industry was valued at around US$ 773 billion during 2002 and according to estimates by the International Data Corporation worldwide, it is expected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9% during the period 2002-2006. NASSCOM lists the major indicators of the high growth potential of the ITES/BPO industry in India as the following
• During 2003-04, the ITES-BPO segment is estimated to have achieved a 54 percent growth in revenues as compared to the previous year.
• ITES exports accounted for US$ 3.6 billion in revenues, up from US$ 2.5 billion in 2002-03.
• The ITES-BPO segment also proved to be a major opportunity for job seekers, creating employment for around 74,400 additional personnel in India during 2003-04.
• The number of Indians working for this sector jumped to 245,500 by March, 2004.
• By the year 2008, the segment is expected to employ over 1.1 million Indians, according to studies conducted by NASSCOM and leading business Intelligence Company, McKinsey & Co. Market research shows that in terms of job creation, the ITES-BPO industry is growing at over 50 percent. Surveys of the Indian ITES/BPO industry in 2004 expected it to follow the trends given below:
Customer care: Customer care and support services will continue to lead in terms of revenue generation, with a turnover of around US$ 1200 million in 2003-04., up from last year’s turnover of US$810 million.
Finance: With the financial services segment moving into value added domains like insurance claims processing, financial management services and equity research, this segment is expected to clock the highest growth, with estimates of US$820 million in revenue in 2003-04, up from US$510 million in 2002-03.
HR services: HR services are also expected to grow and revenues are expected to touch US$70 million during 2003-04, thereby providing latent opportunities to the industry’s dominant players.
Payment services: This segment has also been identified as a high growth area within the industry, and is expected to generate revenues of around US$430 million for 2003-04, up from US$210 million in 2002-03.
Administration: Revenues from the administration services segment are expected to increase from US$ 310 million in 2002-03, to US$540 million during 2003-04.

Content development: The content development services segment which includes engineering and design services, digitization (GIS), animation, network management and biotech research, is expected clock a turnover of around US$520 million in 2003-04.
The availability of technically trained and skilled manpower in India is making companies across the world look at the country as a profitable base to shift their high-end support services. Companies like COLT Technology Services are considering Outsourcing( BPO ) their technical back-office support work to India. Other areas are high-end network engineering/management support. Another field which is showing immense potential is that of digital content creation and animation. Animation studios like Walt Disney, MGM and Warner Brothers are already Outsourcing( BPO ) low-end work like clean-ups, tweening and modelling to India. The availability of skilled and trained manpower and India’s ability to keep in step with the latest technological advances in the industry is prompting foreign studios to consider India as a base to shift other high-end animation work like storyboarding and developing original content for animated films ad TV series. Tele-radiology is the next segment that holds great promise, mainly due to the time zone differences and the availability of highly skilled radiologists and companies like Teleradiology Solutions have been offering their services to US and South-East Asian hospitals for the past two years. Engineering services like CAD/CAM 2D, 3D and CAE modelling and design automation are the latest additions to the ever increasing list of processes being outsourced to India.

You need to answer, Bredin says, “What is unique about your business? Why should I buy from you?” This is missing from many business sites because the owners haven’t done the strategic thinking necessary to figure that out, she says.

Be concise, too, Cutler adds. “You don’t need to write a novel.”
b) A clear sense of what your company offers
“It’s incredible how many sites you visit and you’re not sure what the company offers,” Bredin says. Make it a priority on your home page to provide at least general information about your products and/or services, with links to specifics on a Products page.

Many service-oriented companies, Cutler says, are concerned about divulging too much information about their offerings, for competitive reasons. Some also feel that consumers will have no reason to contact them by phone if they get all they need from the website. “There’s a balance that needs to be reached” in giving the potential customer enough info to make a buying decision, she says. More often than not, consumers will not contact a company for the missing product information–they’ll just move on to a competitor.
c) Contact information, including a phone number and physical location
This may seem like a no-brainer, but many companies are purposely vague about their location. Some prefer to do all of their business online and see no need to publish an address or phone number. Others are home-based or they worry that giving a street address or hometown will somehow hinder them.

“This is a must, and it’s one small way of building credibility and trust” with the consumer, says Wayne Porter, co-founder of ReveNews, an online marketing publication, and former senior director of research at FaceTime, a business security solutions provider. “A phone number, a street address and even pictures go a long way toward building credibility.”

Showing a physical location, even one that no one will ever visit, comforts a customer that your business is real and legitimate, Bredin says. Provide a phone number that maps to that location, rather than just an 800 number, she advises.
d) Third-party validation
This means customer testimonials, client lists, case studies, awards and recognition you’ve received, positive news clippings and the like. Potential customers indeed want to know who you do business with, and what current customers have to say about their experiences. Such items “forge the underpinnings of trust,” Porter says.

Client lists are especially important if your customers are businesses. “If you’ve got some big-name customers, people like to see that,” Cutler says. But make sure you get approval from those you list as clients, she adds.

Porter adds that having a presence on social networking sites and blogs, especially those serving your industry, is an increasingly popular form of validation among customers. “Social networking now has strong validation,” he says.
e) Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
SSL is an encryption system that helps protect the privacy of data exchanged between a customer and a website. If you have an e-commerce site that takes credit card information, customers want to know that their sensitive data is encrypted. Get SSL if you don’t have it. If you do, let customers know that and about any other safeguards you proactively take.
f) Ease of use and navigation
If people can’t find it, they can’t buy it. Porter advises keeping sites “crisp, clean, and easy to navigate,” but also for site owners to study traffic and usage patterns to adjust their sites based on what visitors are coming for. “The ability to search a site is very important,” he says. “Businesses should study their search data to see if there are trends and what to make front and center.”
g) Clear guidance on your processes
Let customers know, step-by-step, important things such as how to order–and where to go and what to do should something happen out of the ordinary. Customers also want to know your shipping costs and procedures and how they can get status reports. (Don’t list your shipping costs and procedures after people enter their credit card information, Cutler urges.) Last but not least, customers want to know how you handle complaints and problems, return procedures and whether you have a money-back guarantee.

Your processes can be described in a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page or separate “how to order,” shipping and/or confirmation pages. Include a way customers can contact your business or fulfillment agency for more information.
h) An ability to give feedback
Encourage feedback about your products and services, your ordering process and your site in general, by providing a feedback mechanism–either feedback forms or e-mail links. Not every small business prefers to offer this, in some cases because of resource constraints. “You definitely want to look at how and what feedback to gather, and you should consider offering an incentive or perk [to the customer],” Porter says. “You might get some good stories to feature on your site or in your blog.”
i) Clear calls to action
Customers want signs or buttons in order to act, be it “Buy now” or “Sign up for our newsletter” or “Click here for more information.” But many small-business sites don’t provide calls to action or they don’t present them clearly enough, Cutler says. “This is one of the biggest things that nags me,” she says. “If you have a captive audience, this is the time to grab them!”
j) Special offers and personalization
By personalizing a sale with a special offer, incentive or coupon, small businesses can gain an edge on their bigger counterparts, Porter says. “This can be as simple as a hand-written thank-you note, free gift wrap services or a special offer for repeat business.