A study done by Professor Dan Zakay at Tel Aviv University shows that even if people have committed to buying a product, a long wait time or a long line to buy could reverse their decision.

“When people are waiting in line, they have already committed to buying something, but because they don’t like to wait, that commitment can change,” Prof. Zakay explained to PhysOrg.com. “The value of waiting, so to speak, is worth billions of dollars. Clients are easy to lose and hard to keep, especially when customers call in to buy something.”

Customers want to feel like the company they’re waiting for feels their time is valuable. There are some clever ways to make customers feel this way; for example, at amusement parks, lines for rides should be fragmented into segments, so the line doesn’t look as long as a long, straight line might be.

To avoid losing customers, incorporate Zakay’s findings into your own business. Even letting customers know they might have to wait a bit or giving them coffee or cookies while they wait could go a long way, therefore, retaining their loyalty.

Remember, it’s not always about the product itself…customer service is a very important part of business, too.

Blogging is a new way to market a business.

If you’ve been following this business coach blog, you know blogs are gaining more and more traction as a legitimate marketing tool in the business world, as well as a legitimate news source for journalists. They are far-reaching and cheap to produce and to maintain. They’re not a substitute for traditional marketing materials like press releases and direct mail, but they do provide a way to reach a mass amount of people in a short amount of time that can be well worth your investment.

Blogging or being a guest blogger on a reputable website will increase business visibility, increase leads and add revenue. All you have to do is write a blog every few days.

If you want to set up your own blog, here are a few quick tips to get you started:

Choose a Blogging Platform: Choose an easy to use blogging platform to start writing for. WordPress and Clearspace are some good ones that are clear and easy to figure out.

Figure out Blog Ideas: Some content ideas for your blog might include industry trends, hot topic news, interviews with other industry leaders, your position on industry issues or innovations, book and article reviews, and lessons learned related to subjects that might be important to your readers. Think about what lessons you’ve learned along the way, and shed light on the complexities of running a small business.

Be a Credible Source: Remember that as soon as you put something in writing on the Internet, it’s out there for all to see. So be careful about what you write and make sure you’ve done adequate research and covered all your bases.

Learn How to Engage your Readers: Your blog’s success will depend on the number of readers you have. Increasing readers is all about motivating them to come back time and again. Make sure your blog is structured in a way that’s easy to navigate on your site. Besides useful information, a little humor never hurts. Think about linking to other blogs you enjoy reading that relate to what you’re blogging about, and establish links to monthly archives.

Happy blogging!

Well, it won’t get you instant success, but truth is, a business that consistently updates its own blog with info about the company and issues in its industry are more well-known businesses because of it.

For example, Google has a blog where it writes from time to time about ideas and concepts the site is thinking about unveiling (the latest is something called “Living Stories“), updates to its browser, Google Chrome, complete with screen shots, warnings of scams using Google’s name…the list goes on and on. When you’re as big as Google and have a lot going on, there’s a lot to blog about. Not that they need the SEO rankings, but a blog does help with SEO, and make users’ experience better by providing how-tos and useful information.

Want a lesser known example than Google? Coudal Partners, an advertising agency in Chicago, has a blog on its home page. Some people might wonder why they’d have a blog linking to interesting yet random articles and discussing various issues on the company’s home page. But not only does it make them stand out, fresh content helps their SEO ranking and the variety of creative topics their employees blog about show they get creative inspiration from just about everywhere at any place in the world (a post of theirs links to “Subway Architecture“. Cool stuff. ).

If your business starts its own blog, not only is it a great social media tool that provides networking by way of commenting on other blogs, people commenting on yours and leaving links to your/their blogs, it can also spread the word about your company by doing the following:

Increasing your site’s SEO (if you don’t know what these three letters mean, they stand for “search engine optimization”): SEO is something that is hugely important to businesses. Whenever someone searches an online engine for a keyword relating to your business, you want your business to be at the top of the page. It can be used to gain search engine traffic for given keywords or search terms. Your blog offers the opportunity to promote your Web site for hundreds or even thousands of different keywords.

Search engines particularly like promoting blogs because they offer a large amount of content that is updated and added to on a regular basis.

Easy Access to Company News and Info: However, be careful you don’t blog in press release style – if a blog is all praise for the company, it doesn’t sound genuine. Blog about company news and info that is useful and interesting, just like Coudal Partners and Google. People would always rather read genuine, high-quality content instead of filler information, too.

Expanding your Reach: A blog is a great way to find new potential customers. Write about the niche your business caters to in the market, and anything interesting within that niche, and people looking for anything related to your business could find your blog in a search. Keep in mind that updating information on the blogs and blogging regularly can keep people coming back to your blog for information and could become customers, too. Regular content is imperative to the success of any blog. This content needs to be informative, accurate, and written in a way that will appeal to your visitors.

Creating Fun and Familiarity: Faceless corporate blogs aren’t that fun to read. Why? Besides being dry and boring, they also don’t feel very inviting. Going back to our point about high-quality content, familiarity is very important with content – if the reader can’t relate to it or feels it’s just a higher up writing from a press release, the reader won’t take it to heart. Keep this in mind, and make it work for your company by designating a person (not necessarily the CEO) or a team to do the blogging. If you read Google’s blog, you’ll see that even their posts have a bit of personality to them. It’s easy to do.

All in all, a blog on your company’s site might be worth looking in to – hey, it’s good enough for Google – and it may be the extra piece your company needs to separate it from the competition.

The CEE wants to make sure that future generations are thoroughly prepared to make responsible financial decisions.

It’s a given that young people will face economic challenges and opportunities in the coming years. Perhaps spurred by the US recession, the Council for Economic Education (CEE) is committed to “empowerment and opportunity through economic and financial literacy,” it says.

An economic way of thinking is something that’s necessary in business and especially in coaching a business; you need to be able to foresee economic conditions and what economic solutions are best in each situation.

The CEE wants to make sure, however, that future generations are thoroughly prepared to make responsible financial decisions. To do this, it is focusing on developing training programs for K-12 teachers to teach their students.

Is this too early to learn about economics, supply and demand, and how to make informed financial decisions? It might be argued that it’s never too early to learn anything.

The CEE gives K-12 teachers tools they need to teach economics and finances with confidence, even if they themselves haven’t understood the subjects easily. Either way, this way the CEE is informing and educating more people – not only K-12 children, but also their teachers – and these classes and teaching tools will hopefully benefit everyone’s futures, helping everyone to make sound financial decisions later in life.