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UFB Newsletter Issue #060 Happy Thanksgiving!
November 22, 2006

The Key To Family Business Success
ISSN 15465640


Understanding Family Business brings you articles and tips from Family Business Experts who understand family values and business systems.

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Understanding Family Business




November 22, 2006 Issue #060

For our US readers, Happy Thanksgiving! We hope you enjoy a break from work and have a safe holiday.

We have been reviewing our online marketing strategy and plan some exciting changes.

At that time, the debate was about whether or not, or how, to go about doing business online. So we decided to focus on the startup issues for those who needed help and guidance.

Now, most businesses have made the decision to do business online - in some manner or other. And with varying degrees of success.

We are going to gradually discontinue "Starting Online Business", since "starting" is no longer so important.

In its place, we are adding an exciting new section to "Family Business Experts.com" and here in "Understanding Family Business".

We'll focus on the tools and ideas that family [and other!] businesses need to succeed online. Whether you just have an "electronic brochure" or have found entirely new markets, your web presence needs to be effective.

We'll help!

While we are building this section on the site, we'll show you here in Understanding Family Business some ways to use the Internet to gather competitive intelligence [sometimes known as "Spying"!]. It has long been an axiom of military and business strategy that one should know one's opponent / competitors.

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Here's an article that we had been asked to write for another publication.

Building Consensus

Building consensus about how the business should be operated, now and into the future, is one of the most difficult problems confronting family businesses.

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Don't forget one of the most popular features of our web site is our initiative called Family Business Profiles.

Our Family Business Blog [Blog is short for "web log"] mini-journal will keep you updated about site changes and other family business matters. Check it out regularly on the site from the NavBar button. Better still, subscribe to the blog using the RSS feed information on any of our pages, such as

Understanding Family Business.

And remember to Take our fr*ee assessment on the 29 Leadership Practices...




Family eBusiness

Competitive Intelligence [aka Spying!]

It used to cost a lot of money to have a "clipping service" or Public Relations firm go through newspapers, trade journals etc. and extract information about one's competitors.

Now it costs nothing, and it's automated so it's really fast.

Google is a huge search engine / database. Their Google Alerts is a robot - a program - that reads the news services, web pages and other blogs. Tell it the terms you want it to look for and it will search the Internet daily, gather information on those terms, and e-mail it directly to you.

Have it search for your company name and products. Have it search for your competitor's names and products.

Create your own Google Alerts.




That's it for this issue. If you have any comments, or if there are any topics you'd like to see covered, please let us know.

Comments, requested topics, blog messages...!



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