Business is Negotiation !

Business is negotiation, but negotiations is not something that related only to business. Negotiation is a thing that humans always do all the time :), for example negotiation for deciding time to meet, place to go, where to talk, and etc. Negotiation is a compromise to settle an argument or issue between minimum two parties to benefit ourselves.

Why do you negotiate?. If your reason is for beating your opposition party then you must prepare with many persuasive tactics, because you may not end up with maximum benefits. If your reason is for reaching agreement with your opposition party then you must be much more friendly to your opposition and finding ways to reach agreement that brings an outcome which you will both benefit highly.

Divergent interests between parties are exist. But, that doesn't mean that you must negotiate with many people or many parties. Often you just have to use authority instead of negotiation. Many business matters are solved in a form of business contracts. If you have good contracts then just implement it, you don't have to negotiate anymore :).

Forbidden Things in Causal Marketing

As posted before, Causal marketing is a magnificent way of marketing. It combines getting profit and building relationship with markets in one package. In implementing this kind of marketing in my thought there are forbidden things that shall never did by every marketers. Those things are:
1. DO NOT try to manipulate your customers
Please please please do not try to manipulate customers by supporting causes inconsistently just because each kind of customers give attention to different causes. In supporting a cause please never let your customers down. Choose a cause carefully and support it consistently so that your brand in the future will be correlated with the success in supporting it.
2. DO NOT counteract a negative perception of reality
In reality there are some products that are perceived negative by customers, such as tobacco. Don't try to counteract a negative perception of tobacco with some causal marketing programs because that would be useless and that would increase protests and rejections from customers that perceive tobacco as negative and toxic products.
3. DO NOT hide the truth
Just inform whatever the truth is :), tell the customers whatever the programs have done to support the cause and the results.
4. DO NOT forget to follow through
Support the cause consistently and build relationship with stakeholders :)

Causal Marketing, It's not Corporate Social Responsibility

Causal marketing is a kind of marketing that used to promote products or services and cause together for benefit for community and corporation. Enterprises often use this kind of marketing to build long-term relationship between company and their markets and at the same time getting profits from sold products :). Famous pioneer in causal marketing is American Express. American Express charged 1 cent per card usage for restoring Statue of Liberty, and the result is beside the statue was restored American Express also had 45% growth of new cards and card usage was increase 28%.

In the other side Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a form of company self-regulation integrated into its business model. CSR functions as mechanism whereby company monitor and ensure their adherence to ethical standards, law, and norms. By integrating CSR into business model, corporation encourages community growth and development and eliminating practices that harm the public environment. CSR policies shall not implemented for getting profits, but sometimes people in many corporations don't understand it, they think by implementing CSR then corporation will get increase in its profit directly, in fact corporation may be getting increase in its profit in the longer terms because of corporation's image increase and many other business entities would like to cooperate with corporation that cares and implements CSR.

Causal marketing programs' results are direct to profit, but CSR policies' results are indirect to profit. Causal marketing programs also can increase product's brand equity, CSR too. Because of the nature of causal marketing programs that getting profit and increase relationship with markets in the same time then as marketer i love causal marketing more than CSR!

Forex Currency Pairs and Spread

As many people know, there are foreign exchange currency pairs, the most popular ones are: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, EUR/JPY, USD/CHF, EUR/GBP. EUR=Euro, USD=US Dollar, GBP=Great Britain Poundsterling, JPY=Japan Yen, CHF=Swiss Franc. Volatility of each forex pairs are different, some pairs are more volatile than others. Forex pairs that are more volatile than others are better to use in trades, because traders make profit from the up and down movement of the currencies.

Normally, forex traders trade currencies of the major role players in the world economy because that players (countries) affect global economy. Other reason is the spread of forex pairs of major role players is much lower than less popular pairs. What is spread? spread is the difference between asking and bid price, that's why when you involve in forex trading there will be difference between currency actual rate and what you pay for getting it. That's the way forex broker get their profit. For example actual currency rate of 1 EUR is 1.275 USD, and the spread of EUR/USD is 2 pips, then you can buy 1 EUR for 1.277 USD. So, you must win 2 pips before you get break even :). If you choose less popular pairs then you must win lot more pips before you get break even, for example the spread of EUR/ZAR is 270 pips, then you must win 270 pips before you get break even, it's difficult aye :).

How to Market Home Made Products ?

In Indonesia there are many starting entrepreneurs that start their own business in their home. I received a lot of questions from my friends that started their business in home about how to market their home products. There are many kind of products in this kind of business, such as foods, handicrafts, beverages, furnitures, and even software!. Hmm, so let's talk from general to specific concepts 'bout how to market home made products.

First, producers shall know 'bout their target customers, what product do they like? (product preferences such as color, package, features, and other product's attributes) , when they prefer to consume/purchase that product?, where they often to buy that kind of product, and etc (5W 1H;)). After that producers can design and develop products that suitable with what market wants, and then try to sell it through ways that match with customers' purchase activities.

The most common home made products in Indonesia are dry or half-baked foods, such as cake, snack, and etc. So i want to highlight home made dry foods :). How to market those foods? piece of cake, the most profitable way is offering it to enterprises/corporations, just come to each corporation and get to know who is in charge of canteen/cafetaria in that corporation and offer your products to him/her, of course ask him/her politely 'bout the procedures and try to negotiate some terms that you feel so difficult to be achieved ;). Don't forget offer your products to big supply chain stores such as Carrefour, Giant, Hypermart, Indomaret, Alfamart, and etc too :).