When starting a brand new business often the focus is not on your branding, but rather on how and what you are going to do to create the millions you dream about while working at the McDonalds drive through.  Being excited about your new business is normal and all you want to do is get out there and make some money, but before you can do that you need to create yourself a beingness!

Be Do Have

These three words are commonplace and we use them regularly but they have a certain importance in this universe that we don’t always realise and take for granted.  We all know about Have and usually want more of it, and we all know about Do and we wish we could do less of it, and Be  is something you used to play when you were a kid.  ”I want to be a fireman” or “I want to be policeman” and yes some said: “I want to be a politician”.  The fact is that in order to reach the most desirable of the 3 (Have) we need to apply the other 2 first.  Think about it this way, a pilot isn’t just a guy who walks into an airport and starts up a plane.  A surgeon isn’t just the bum on the corner doing a bit of moonlighting.  They decided to be those things at some time in their life.  They then followed it up with a whole bunch of DOING, and eventually they had all the things associated with the beingness.

Now this whole concept applies to your business too.  In order to have a large client base and lots of money in the bank the business must first set out to BE that successful business.  A large part of creating it’s beingness is in its branding and name.  Without a proper name and branding you will not succeed in the Do and Have parts.

Start with your goals and aspirations

Before you should even consider starting your business you need to layout your goals and aspirations.  This needs to be simple and to the point of what you want to achieve like, “Have a furniture business that creates R20000 profit p/m.” And you shouldn’t just conceptualize it, you need to WRITE IT DOWN!  Writing it down means putting it out there in the physical universe.  No idea that stayed stuck in someone’s head grew to be anything more than an idea.  Once your goals are in place you can plan on how you are going to achieve them.  You then have a finish line to strive towards, and when you reach it you create a new goal.

Choose a  name that explains your “BE”

Before you simply rush off to register your business name you need to think about whether the name you had in mind really reflects your beingness.  If your company is a plumbing service then you would obviously consider names that are relevant to plumbing like “The Drain Surgeon” or “Pipe Down” etc. If you can’t make it obvious what your company is all about in the name then you should try to do so in your slogan or the logo itself.  Again in doing this your business is not just an idea but you are putting it out there in a way that everyone knows and understands it.

Get an expert to design your logo

Of course you could already have a clear picture of what you want in your mind, so if you do sketch it or write it down.  If you are not sure how to put it all together, don’t worry about it, that’s the designer’s job.  Don’t worry about your ability to draw it, just draw it.  Any input from your side is better than none.  A good designer will make you complete an artwork sheet in any case that forces you to give your ideas and vision to the designer, so he is not just working in the dark.  Get examples if you can.  Don’t get someone who has never designed a logo before to design your logo.  It’s not going to look good!  Don’t be cheap on this, remember that is is crucial to the very first part of BE DO HAVE. If you don’t do this properly you are going to struggle to make a success of your business in the future.

A good logo leads to a great website

So finally you have your gorgeous, funky logo design and now you want to put it out there on your website…JUST GO FOR IT!  If your logo is ALL THAT and more it will be really hard for the web designer to mess up your site.  Why?  Because the logo gives him all the info he needs in order to create a design that matches and compliments it.  Of course you should be dealing with a web professional, but the chances are slim that you are going to be extremely unhappy with their work, or ask them to redo the design 6 times.  It’s all about laying foundations and covering the basics properly.

Looks are everything

The reason I started writing this post was to convey this message.  You cant go fooling yourself in the thought that people don’t care what your site or logo looks like, as long as you provide good service.  The world simply doesn’t work that way.  If you want to get new customers you need to look good.  If you want to get that job you need to dress up! If you want to get that girl you need to shave!  It’s as simple as that!

Here are some of the features it boasts:

• One Click – Auto install of the theme. No technical knowledge required
• Five detailed color schemes
• Fully customizable front page and many widget ready areas across all the pages/posts.
• Excellent Support
• PSD File Included with multiple use license
• Multi level drop down menu
• Custom page templates such as archives, full width page, sitemap, contact page etc.
• Custom built, dynamic widgets that you can use multiple times.
• Standard wordpress Blog & Pages
• Gravatar Support & Threaded Comments
• Built-in Ad Monetization
• Widget Ready with custom widgets
• Valid, Cross browser compatible

The other thing that impresses me is it’s affordable price.  Kind of wish we built something like this.

Do you agree? Is Search Plus Your World bad for the Internet?  Please let us know by commenting below.

It seems that ever since I got back from holiday(which was way too short), all the buzz in the web news was either about or implicating Social Media.  Everyone seems to be coming out with some new product to help you gauge or manage your social cloud.  Even SEOMOZ added Social Reporting to their pro package, just recently.  They seem to have decided to only target Twitter and Facebook.  One thing is for sure, if you are going to be doing or creating anything related to social, you better not leave out Google+.  All this controversy is good for Google+, even if people are criticizing them left right and centre.  Any publicity is good publicity, and they know this.  Remember how much press Facebook got because of it’s privacy issues and hack attacks.  You don’t see their numbers dwindling!

NOW is the perfect time to jump on the band wagon and get your business geared to benefit from this Social Era.  In fact Data X-Ware in partnership with eMarketing Solutions plan on riding this wave until our boards hit the sand and we do a face-plant on the beach!  But more about that a little later.

But perhaps Microsoft should be more concerned with their total market share than who is on their latest version.  Note a 5.4% decline in just one year!

In Fact even Firefox seems to be losing ground, while Chrome is the only browser that is still showing significant growth. Proving once again that Google rules the Internet.

Data X Ware utilizes a Software as a Service business model and to best serve this we use web application technology. This gives our customers access to their application solutions any where in the world. The SaaS model and web technology together allows us to continually evolve our solutions giving our customers instant access to those enhancements without lengthy release cycles.

The technology we use behind the scenes is a combination of best of breed open source solutions giving us control and flexibility down to the lowest layers of the technology.

Data X Ware uses various frameworks that has been designed and developed by us to assist in the quick and efficient building of solutions. With these frameworks we are continually pushing the envelope of system design and implementation.

2012 is going to be a year of a great new beginning, filled with exciting new projects and developments.

To read a little more about Data X Ware you can visit http://www.dataxware.co.za