On-Line Marketing Strategies
These days an internet marketing strategy plays a vital role in the overall marketing plan of any small business. Getting your website viewed is important for any size business - large or small.
Remember: You can't put up a terrific web site on-line and �hope� that people will just arrive. You have to let your prospects know, IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, that your web site is there. This HAS to be part of any Internet Marketing Strategy you develop. This is actually a basic marketing principle. Unless you have something as needed and wanted as the original and authentic Fountain of Youth, your customers are not going to look for you; you have to look for them.
There is a lot of hullabaloo about promoting your web site. In fact, building traffic to your web site is the subject of thousands of web sites, e-zines, books, courses and seminars. Using the web to promote your site, however, still assumes that your customers are surfers. Even though you may be an avid internet user, there is a large percentage of our population that are not as savvy with the internet as we would like them to be.
So, what do you do about this large percentage of the population who are not internet adept? They will only find out about you through traditional marketing and public relations media. This is particularly true if you serve a fairly local market. Fortunately these are the easiest and cheapest prospects for you to reach off-line.
Off-Line Marketing Strategies
Off-Line Internet Marketing Strategies are still alive. I recently read a statistic of the US Postal Service that stated that consumers spend an average of 25 minutes with Direct Mail and 30 minutes with catalogs. (There are more facts in the Mail Moment series of free white papers form the USPS.) Yes, they may go through their mail like Speed Racer and cull through the mail they want and the mail they don�t want at record velocity; but those that catch their eye and grab their attention, they actually read and spend time doing so.
You need to tap into that market and utilize that statistic. Become part of that pile of mail that your prospective consumer spends time reading. Direct Mail should be a pivotal point of your on-line marketing strategy. You need to ensure that you have a direct mail marketing campaign to drive traffic to your web site.
Other Marketing Avenues
Below is a small list of some of the ways to make your web site known (this list was taken directly from the Traffic Building Volume of Ken Evoy's brilliant book, Make Your Site Sell!):
� TV, print and other advertising
� Stationary and business cards
� Catalogs, fliers, billboards, blimps, etc.
� Direct mail (prominently on every document)
� Telemarketing (make it part of the script)
� News releases to targeted media.
The main principle, to which you can add all your imagination, is:
AN INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGY INCLUDES ANY AND ALL MEANS OF GETTING YOUR WEB SITE KNOWN AND VISITED BY TARGETED PROSPECTS.
Unless you have a high budget, the TV, radio, classified ad route is not recommended but if you do run ads, be sure to mention your web site everywhere. Make it part of your Internet Marketing Strategy.
Another guiding principle is that your off-line internet marketing activities should make it easy for your prospect to go straight to your site. One of the best ways to market your website off-line is direct mail postcards.
What�s So Great About Postcards?
If your prospect sees your website on a billboard as she's driving home, she probably won't look you up when she gets to the office the next day.
This is not the only medium that has problems like this. Newspapers are bulky, radio has to spell it out and with billboards most people are driving at the time. On the other hand, if your prospect is sitting at her computer and a postcard comes in the mail announcing your web site, she can just turn around and type in your URL and she's at your web site.
Now, if someone is in the office reading a trade journal and comes across an article about you in the magazine, it's not difficult for him to copy your URL into his browser and pay your site a visit. If they are not in the office, there will be a lag time in logging into your web site. Also a percentage of those journal readers may not write the web address down or even remember to check out your site.
I don�t mean to say that those other avenues won�t drive traffic to your site, but it will take numerous impressions and repetition to get them to remember your address.
On the other hand, direct mail postcards are generally received at the home or office where a computer is present, and if received somewhere else they are small enough to keep with you until you can get to a computer. This way, your prospective customer will be able to take the postcard right over to their desk top computer, type in your address and go right to your site. Brilliant!
I have seen the greatest success in off-line web site promotion with direct mail, and specifically direct mail postcards. The most successful people on the internet market with Direct Mail to drive traffic to their site. The virtual world is just that � virtual. It really is not the real world so if you want your virtual business to be creditable in the real world, apply real world principles. Direct Mail Postcard Marketing will give you the credibility that you seek and will drive copious amounts of traffic to your web site. Ah, nirvana!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Building Your Online Store
The Internet is great at leveling the field for businesses. Where else can you put up a site and immediately compete with huge companies on an international basis?
What It Is
E-commerce, clearly termed as web commerce, basically means selling of merchandise or services over the Internet with electronic transactions and also through a secure network. E-com is not merely buying and selling or providing services but it is also a method of advertising and marketing through an electronic system as well. E-com also means facilitating the progress of commercial transactions electronically. Right now e-com is a well-established technology in all major countries. In most cases internet marketing requires you to have your own E-commerce store for maximum return.
Requirements of an E-commerce Store
Building an online store is not an easy job. Software is required that can manage customers as well as their needs. E-commerce software should be able to handle inventory, shipping and handling costs, taxes, dispatching and payment processing of client's orders. You may encounter many options when setting out to build an e- commerce store. Before choosing any of them it is important to have a clear view of your requirements. Technical requirements might include coupons, tracking systems, customer login options or any number of other things. Other requirements include what type of impression you want to provide to your valuable clients.
Study the Sales and Marketing Cycle to Determine Your Needs
Before you opt for any of solutions for building e commerce store, study the basic model of e commerce that represents the entire sales and marketing cycle. The first building block of this cycle is audience in which you define what type of customers you will target. Second are commodities, in which you characterize the types of products you will put on the market. Third is customer support where you will answer the questions and offer solutions to clients' or potential clients' problems. Next are advertising, marketing and endorsement where a business promotes the products or services. Then there is transaction processing, the most important technical phase of the cycle, which will handle orders, taxes, payment processing and order delivery. Transactions may be automatic or manual. In manual processing you have to enter credit card information manually through an offline terminal. In the case of automatic processing a client's order form will be setup with a program that processes and charges the credit card for you. After that there are post-deal services regarding how you provide solutions and services after the sale. Last but not least is brand name with which you will create a distinctive business image to correspond with customers. Nobody is going to pay attention to your online store unless something catches their eye.
Research Your Options
Once you have defined your needs, you can then begin researching your options. There are two basic paths you may follow when building an e-commerce store - either buy ready made software or build a custom system with components and parts according to your requirements and budgets.
Flexibility
Some business firms offer gifts and well placed impulse products for better marketing approaches. This requires an e-com solution to be flexible enough to allow various give-aways, coupons and promotions. Also, if your product comes in a variety of models or styles, with different options and different prices then you must communicate these factors and portray them distinctively in your online store. A true businessperson will certainly follow the patterns of his or her usual clients as well as those who directly visit the site. Web statistic tracking tools can be a great help to this end.
Ease of Use
Some e commerce stores are very easy to use and require only a few minutes to learn while others are more complex with so many features that they can be overwhelming. Being able to see a demonstration of software before buying it is a great help to determining ease of use.
Scalability
Being able to grow with your company is very important. If you choose a very simple solution now, then require a more robust solution down the road, you will lose time converting your store. If the URL structure of your store is not consistent, you can also lose search engine rankings by changing e commerce solutions. Therefore, it is important to choose an e commerce solution that can grow with you. For example, some stores owners may not want coupons in the beginning but then down the road decide it is a good idea. Some stores may also have limits on number of products, inventory control and tracking that down the road will be very important.
Security
Of utmost importance to online stores is transaction security. The priority for any business firm should be secure transactions. Thanks to Netscape for introducing SSL (secure socket layer), data can be protected by online store owners. SSL is an encryption technology that encrypts a message and the receiver decrypts it by using RSA security. To enable SSL on your web server you need a digital ID (a form of identification that will recognize you). Many web hosts provide SSL installation for anywhere from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks per year.
Overall, you want flexibility, ease of use, security and scalability in your store. Research your options before you make a final choice, and whenever possible, get a free trial of your solution before you buy.
What It Is
E-commerce, clearly termed as web commerce, basically means selling of merchandise or services over the Internet with electronic transactions and also through a secure network. E-com is not merely buying and selling or providing services but it is also a method of advertising and marketing through an electronic system as well. E-com also means facilitating the progress of commercial transactions electronically. Right now e-com is a well-established technology in all major countries. In most cases internet marketing requires you to have your own E-commerce store for maximum return.
Requirements of an E-commerce Store
Building an online store is not an easy job. Software is required that can manage customers as well as their needs. E-commerce software should be able to handle inventory, shipping and handling costs, taxes, dispatching and payment processing of client's orders. You may encounter many options when setting out to build an e- commerce store. Before choosing any of them it is important to have a clear view of your requirements. Technical requirements might include coupons, tracking systems, customer login options or any number of other things. Other requirements include what type of impression you want to provide to your valuable clients.
Study the Sales and Marketing Cycle to Determine Your Needs
Before you opt for any of solutions for building e commerce store, study the basic model of e commerce that represents the entire sales and marketing cycle. The first building block of this cycle is audience in which you define what type of customers you will target. Second are commodities, in which you characterize the types of products you will put on the market. Third is customer support where you will answer the questions and offer solutions to clients' or potential clients' problems. Next are advertising, marketing and endorsement where a business promotes the products or services. Then there is transaction processing, the most important technical phase of the cycle, which will handle orders, taxes, payment processing and order delivery. Transactions may be automatic or manual. In manual processing you have to enter credit card information manually through an offline terminal. In the case of automatic processing a client's order form will be setup with a program that processes and charges the credit card for you. After that there are post-deal services regarding how you provide solutions and services after the sale. Last but not least is brand name with which you will create a distinctive business image to correspond with customers. Nobody is going to pay attention to your online store unless something catches their eye.
Research Your Options
Once you have defined your needs, you can then begin researching your options. There are two basic paths you may follow when building an e-commerce store - either buy ready made software or build a custom system with components and parts according to your requirements and budgets.
Flexibility
Some business firms offer gifts and well placed impulse products for better marketing approaches. This requires an e-com solution to be flexible enough to allow various give-aways, coupons and promotions. Also, if your product comes in a variety of models or styles, with different options and different prices then you must communicate these factors and portray them distinctively in your online store. A true businessperson will certainly follow the patterns of his or her usual clients as well as those who directly visit the site. Web statistic tracking tools can be a great help to this end.
Ease of Use
Some e commerce stores are very easy to use and require only a few minutes to learn while others are more complex with so many features that they can be overwhelming. Being able to see a demonstration of software before buying it is a great help to determining ease of use.
Scalability
Being able to grow with your company is very important. If you choose a very simple solution now, then require a more robust solution down the road, you will lose time converting your store. If the URL structure of your store is not consistent, you can also lose search engine rankings by changing e commerce solutions. Therefore, it is important to choose an e commerce solution that can grow with you. For example, some stores owners may not want coupons in the beginning but then down the road decide it is a good idea. Some stores may also have limits on number of products, inventory control and tracking that down the road will be very important.
Security
Of utmost importance to online stores is transaction security. The priority for any business firm should be secure transactions. Thanks to Netscape for introducing SSL (secure socket layer), data can be protected by online store owners. SSL is an encryption technology that encrypts a message and the receiver decrypts it by using RSA security. To enable SSL on your web server you need a digital ID (a form of identification that will recognize you). Many web hosts provide SSL installation for anywhere from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks per year.
Overall, you want flexibility, ease of use, security and scalability in your store. Research your options before you make a final choice, and whenever possible, get a free trial of your solution before you buy.
Seven Tools Every Writer Needs
Writing for some people is the toughest job you can ever ask them to do yet given the right write tools and circumstances anyone can actually write high quality articles with a little bit of work and practice. There are in fact seven tools every writer actually needs regardless of whether they are writing a novel, a science document, a University assignment, a web article or journal for the local paper. Without these tools you will find it very difficult to succeed.
Tool #1 - Book and Pencil
The Book and Pencil is one of the most important tools you will ever use. I carry a book and pencil where ever I go so that I do not miss out on the ideas I have, words that I have heard and the visuals in front of me. The key advantage of the book and pencil is that when you see something or have a good idea, you write it down so you do not forget.
For example, while I was in bed last night I was thinking about a new article that I could write. This article in fact because I wanted to help new writers. The first thing I did was to jot down the title in my book and then the seven tools I believe every writer should have.
I actually have two books I use for writing, a little A6 size pad that fits in my wallet and another journal size A4 book for writing more detailed information. Whenever you a walking around a shopping centre or out to dinner, use the little A6 wallet book to write down words you hear and phrases you see so that you can use those in your writing. Often people you come across from other states or countries will use different phrases to say the same thing, and often those phrases can be sexier than your own and may inspire more readers to read your material.
Tool #2 - Dictionary
No writer can survive without a dictionary. I still have my Macquarie dictionary I got when I was in Grade 2 which is some �(a slight pause here to realise one has gotten old) � 30 plus years ago. However, if you are just starting out there are lots of really cool online dictionaries out there for free now. Alternatively, I also recommend visiting a book fair held by Charity Groups. In Australia, Lifeline holds a book fair every year and you can actually buy bags of books for a dollar and very often they will have a couple of thousand dictionaries there for just $1 which is really cheap.
So, why do we need a dictionary? Actually for two reasons, the first is to make sure we spell the words correctly and for all the techno geeks who say, but the computer can do that, let me inform you, not all words in the electronic dictionaries are correct and there are lots of words that do not exist. The second reason, and this is the most important reason, the dictionary will tell you the meaning of the word, which helps ensure the word you are using is the right one for the context of your article.
Tool #3 - Thesaurus
This is one of the most awesome tools for writers. A thesaurus allows you to look up a word and to find a better word to use than the one you used. So here is a really good exercise. I have used my thesaurus to locate more appropriate words for that previous sentence so here is the result �
The Thesaurus allows you to hunt for those words that are more appropriate and improve the sound of the language in your article.
You will notice that I substituted the word "better" for "improve" and rewrote the statement using words that were descriptive to outline what you were trying to achieve like "hunt", "more appropriate" and "sound of the language". When you are writing the thesaurus can be a fantastic and fun tool to help you dramatically improve the language of your documents or articles.
Tool #4 - Digital Recorder
As a writer the digital recorder has become a mainstay of our industry. The digital recorder allows you to simply speak into the recorder and record parts of your article without having to laboriously (notice the use of the descriptive term � my thesaurus is working overtime today) write it down. One thing you might want to consider is purchasing a PDA that includes a digital recorder and the ability to write down notes and take phone calls so that you are not carrying a million and one devices. The new PDA's I have bought for my team actually have software that is voice activated so that when they have an idea or want to add to a previous message you can do so without having to press any buttons.
Probably the most common profession that uses the digital recorder is the legal profession. My lawyer uses one every single time I go into a meeting to tape his notes and letters I am going to receive and get charged a fortune for.
Tool #5 - A Good Library Of Books
Look the number ONE tool every good writer needs is their own library of books. A good writer will also be a good reader and the more you read the better your writing will become. I now have in-excess of 10,000 books in my collection and growing. My library of books range from fiction to non-fiction, research journals, magazines and much much more and I am building an even bigger video selection as well.
Why?
Well the more exposure you have to the various writing techniques and languages by the citizens of the world and the more refined your own technique will become. Further to that you need to gain a solid understanding of what technique is appropriate for the medium and the audience you are writing for. For example, the style of writing I use for articulating articles for the web will be of a more relaxed nature and more personal than for a document I might be producing for a corporate organisation. To be a really great writer you must be able to be flexible in the style you use dependant on the type of document or article you are writing.
Great writers are not born, they create themselves through practice. When I was at school, even through to high school I was a terrible writer but as I have practiced more and more (with the help of my mum), my writing has improved 100,000 percent and I know the more I write the better I am getting at structuring the article and making it flow and the faster I can write.
The library of books will be a great source for research as it will allow you to see how different writers structure their sentences, the sort of words they use how they describe experiences and use descriptive words like adjectives in their sentences. When you are building your library, do not get caught into the trap of buying just brand new books and to be honest that is an expensive way to start. Like I said before, visit places like the Book Charity Fairs and second hand book dealers and often you will find bags of books for just $1. I recently went to a Lifeline Book Fair and we bought bags of books for $1. The more extensive the library of books you have, with styles from the past and the present, the more effective, fantastic and outstanding your writing will become.
Tool #6 - Quality Music
Everybody has heard of writers block and I am not really sure there is such a thing, but some days I do find it harder to write then others. However, one way I overcome this problem is by listening to music that will help entice the creative element of my brain. The music I have found that is really good for this is baroque music which is played at 60 beats a minute.
Briefly, research shows that baroque music at 60 beats per minute causes your brain to produce more alpha [calmness] waves. This happens on both left and right sides of your brain.
This simply means that you calm down and relax, in a way similar to when you whistle a happy tune, or when you daydream. This "alpha" state of mind is ideal for learning, creativity, or just relaxing. It is used in schools all over Australia. A quote from the teacher of a remedial class here in Australia: "It seems to slow them down so they can think."
I have seen corporate trainers improve the effectiveness of training sessions dramatically by playing Baroque Music during a session and the creativity really comes to the forefront. A colleague uses the music as background for his memory training seminars and swears by it because recall and creativity are improved.
Tool #7 - A Good Computer
Nobody in the world today can seriously survive a writing career without a good computer. If you are going to be writing professionally for a media house, newspaper or magazine, you will need a good computer as they will not accept your copy without it being in electronic form. Gone are the days where a writer would produce their manuscript in hand written form and send it to their editor. Those days are well and truly over.
On your computer you will require a few pieces of software to make your computer worthwhile. The first thing you will need is an Internet connection, without it you will not be able to email your copy and as I said all media houses, newspapers and magazines today require their writers or journalists to produce electronic copy. You will also need a good word processing software application. If you can afford it, I strongly recommend Microsoft Word 2003 simply because of the quality of the spell checker and built in Thesaurus. I also recommend this version as you can now use the speech recognition software in the application to dictate your article into the computer. Many years ago you had to actually buy third party applications, like Dragon Speak.
The last thing as a writer you will need is a good printer. Do not scrimp on printers, because as a writer you will probably find it is easier to review you work printed out, so buying a cheap printer will normally cost you 3 times as much as a slightly more expensive printer. I recommend to all my clients to buy a laser printer over an ink jet when you are writing as a laser copy is less likely to smudge when you write notes on the copy.
To finish off, writing can really be a really fun and exciting career or simply something to do in your days off, but having the right tools will certainly make life a lot easier for you. Here are the seven tools every writer must have:
Tool #1 - Book and Pencil
Tool #2 - Dictionary
Tool #3 - Thesaurus
Tool #4 - Digital Recorder
Tool #5 - A Good Library Of Books
Tool #6 - Quality Music
Tool #7 - A Good Computer
Tool #1 - Book and Pencil
The Book and Pencil is one of the most important tools you will ever use. I carry a book and pencil where ever I go so that I do not miss out on the ideas I have, words that I have heard and the visuals in front of me. The key advantage of the book and pencil is that when you see something or have a good idea, you write it down so you do not forget.
For example, while I was in bed last night I was thinking about a new article that I could write. This article in fact because I wanted to help new writers. The first thing I did was to jot down the title in my book and then the seven tools I believe every writer should have.
I actually have two books I use for writing, a little A6 size pad that fits in my wallet and another journal size A4 book for writing more detailed information. Whenever you a walking around a shopping centre or out to dinner, use the little A6 wallet book to write down words you hear and phrases you see so that you can use those in your writing. Often people you come across from other states or countries will use different phrases to say the same thing, and often those phrases can be sexier than your own and may inspire more readers to read your material.
Tool #2 - Dictionary
No writer can survive without a dictionary. I still have my Macquarie dictionary I got when I was in Grade 2 which is some �(a slight pause here to realise one has gotten old) � 30 plus years ago. However, if you are just starting out there are lots of really cool online dictionaries out there for free now. Alternatively, I also recommend visiting a book fair held by Charity Groups. In Australia, Lifeline holds a book fair every year and you can actually buy bags of books for a dollar and very often they will have a couple of thousand dictionaries there for just $1 which is really cheap.
So, why do we need a dictionary? Actually for two reasons, the first is to make sure we spell the words correctly and for all the techno geeks who say, but the computer can do that, let me inform you, not all words in the electronic dictionaries are correct and there are lots of words that do not exist. The second reason, and this is the most important reason, the dictionary will tell you the meaning of the word, which helps ensure the word you are using is the right one for the context of your article.
Tool #3 - Thesaurus
This is one of the most awesome tools for writers. A thesaurus allows you to look up a word and to find a better word to use than the one you used. So here is a really good exercise. I have used my thesaurus to locate more appropriate words for that previous sentence so here is the result �
The Thesaurus allows you to hunt for those words that are more appropriate and improve the sound of the language in your article.
You will notice that I substituted the word "better" for "improve" and rewrote the statement using words that were descriptive to outline what you were trying to achieve like "hunt", "more appropriate" and "sound of the language". When you are writing the thesaurus can be a fantastic and fun tool to help you dramatically improve the language of your documents or articles.
Tool #4 - Digital Recorder
As a writer the digital recorder has become a mainstay of our industry. The digital recorder allows you to simply speak into the recorder and record parts of your article without having to laboriously (notice the use of the descriptive term � my thesaurus is working overtime today) write it down. One thing you might want to consider is purchasing a PDA that includes a digital recorder and the ability to write down notes and take phone calls so that you are not carrying a million and one devices. The new PDA's I have bought for my team actually have software that is voice activated so that when they have an idea or want to add to a previous message you can do so without having to press any buttons.
Probably the most common profession that uses the digital recorder is the legal profession. My lawyer uses one every single time I go into a meeting to tape his notes and letters I am going to receive and get charged a fortune for.
Tool #5 - A Good Library Of Books
Look the number ONE tool every good writer needs is their own library of books. A good writer will also be a good reader and the more you read the better your writing will become. I now have in-excess of 10,000 books in my collection and growing. My library of books range from fiction to non-fiction, research journals, magazines and much much more and I am building an even bigger video selection as well.
Why?
Well the more exposure you have to the various writing techniques and languages by the citizens of the world and the more refined your own technique will become. Further to that you need to gain a solid understanding of what technique is appropriate for the medium and the audience you are writing for. For example, the style of writing I use for articulating articles for the web will be of a more relaxed nature and more personal than for a document I might be producing for a corporate organisation. To be a really great writer you must be able to be flexible in the style you use dependant on the type of document or article you are writing.
Great writers are not born, they create themselves through practice. When I was at school, even through to high school I was a terrible writer but as I have practiced more and more (with the help of my mum), my writing has improved 100,000 percent and I know the more I write the better I am getting at structuring the article and making it flow and the faster I can write.
The library of books will be a great source for research as it will allow you to see how different writers structure their sentences, the sort of words they use how they describe experiences and use descriptive words like adjectives in their sentences. When you are building your library, do not get caught into the trap of buying just brand new books and to be honest that is an expensive way to start. Like I said before, visit places like the Book Charity Fairs and second hand book dealers and often you will find bags of books for just $1. I recently went to a Lifeline Book Fair and we bought bags of books for $1. The more extensive the library of books you have, with styles from the past and the present, the more effective, fantastic and outstanding your writing will become.
Tool #6 - Quality Music
Everybody has heard of writers block and I am not really sure there is such a thing, but some days I do find it harder to write then others. However, one way I overcome this problem is by listening to music that will help entice the creative element of my brain. The music I have found that is really good for this is baroque music which is played at 60 beats a minute.
Briefly, research shows that baroque music at 60 beats per minute causes your brain to produce more alpha [calmness] waves. This happens on both left and right sides of your brain.
This simply means that you calm down and relax, in a way similar to when you whistle a happy tune, or when you daydream. This "alpha" state of mind is ideal for learning, creativity, or just relaxing. It is used in schools all over Australia. A quote from the teacher of a remedial class here in Australia: "It seems to slow them down so they can think."
I have seen corporate trainers improve the effectiveness of training sessions dramatically by playing Baroque Music during a session and the creativity really comes to the forefront. A colleague uses the music as background for his memory training seminars and swears by it because recall and creativity are improved.
Tool #7 - A Good Computer
Nobody in the world today can seriously survive a writing career without a good computer. If you are going to be writing professionally for a media house, newspaper or magazine, you will need a good computer as they will not accept your copy without it being in electronic form. Gone are the days where a writer would produce their manuscript in hand written form and send it to their editor. Those days are well and truly over.
On your computer you will require a few pieces of software to make your computer worthwhile. The first thing you will need is an Internet connection, without it you will not be able to email your copy and as I said all media houses, newspapers and magazines today require their writers or journalists to produce electronic copy. You will also need a good word processing software application. If you can afford it, I strongly recommend Microsoft Word 2003 simply because of the quality of the spell checker and built in Thesaurus. I also recommend this version as you can now use the speech recognition software in the application to dictate your article into the computer. Many years ago you had to actually buy third party applications, like Dragon Speak.
The last thing as a writer you will need is a good printer. Do not scrimp on printers, because as a writer you will probably find it is easier to review you work printed out, so buying a cheap printer will normally cost you 3 times as much as a slightly more expensive printer. I recommend to all my clients to buy a laser printer over an ink jet when you are writing as a laser copy is less likely to smudge when you write notes on the copy.
To finish off, writing can really be a really fun and exciting career or simply something to do in your days off, but having the right tools will certainly make life a lot easier for you. Here are the seven tools every writer must have:
Tool #1 - Book and Pencil
Tool #2 - Dictionary
Tool #3 - Thesaurus
Tool #4 - Digital Recorder
Tool #5 - A Good Library Of Books
Tool #6 - Quality Music
Tool #7 - A Good Computer
Fight for your Self-Worth!
Self-Worth; this is a word that is so much easier to say, and spell then it is to feel!
Why do so many women feel that they have no self-worth?
How did they lose it?
Is it because of the way the world has portrayed the perfect woman today?
Is it because someone took it from them?
Is that the void some fill by over eating?
Did their partner breach a trust?
Did their partner fall into the grips of the world of pornography?
Does their partner demean them with insults about how they look?
Did their partner continuously admire other women?
Did they grow up being ridiculed by a family member?
Have they been suffering from a controlling illness?
Were they bullied and criticized through their school years?
Were they sexually abused as a child?
Were they laughed at in a moment of vulnerability?
Were they ever raped?
All of these experiences definitely play a part in pouring a woman's self-worth right down the drain. The people causing these kind of negative actions are totally responsible for tearing down a woman's worth. To tear down a persons self-worth is one of the cruelest ways to treat a human being. It is a no win situation for that person. They cannot fight back. They are being attacked with a blindfold on. You have succeeded in humiliating them, and you have won that battle. Well, that's not a real brag story, because anyone can win against innocence. The true win is when the battle turns around. The true win is when the person who has lost their self-worth, stands up and takes that control back.
For those of you that have been through this battle and are struggling to just get up on an elbow, or feel empty inside and so alone that you wonder why you even get up in the morning, you can beat this!
Listen to me! You are not responsible for falling, or losing the battle. But you are TOTALLY responsible for getting back up. Yes that's right, it is you that has to pull it together. I know, it's a joke to even think about it, but you need to go back as far back as you can and find a place where in your mind that will make you smile. If you cannot, then try to think of someone that you know that is hurting more deeply that yourself and use that knowledge as your motivation. Go there in your mind. Use that thought to give you a reason to get up and pull yourself together. Your self-worth is worth fighting for. You are as strong as your greatest strength. You will always be stronger than your greatest weaknesses. Those weaknesses will never win against your strengths.
You have been hurt and raped of one of your most sacred emotions, self-worth. Now you want it back, so take it back. It is right there inside of you. You just have buried it under all your dirty laundry, so to speak. You can go on feeling empty if you want. Noone will care, not for long anyway. You can continue to use drugs, alcohol, or even food to fill that empty lonely void inside of you. You can miss out on life because you are forgetting to fight and it is so much easier to fall into the pity pit. You can spend the rest of every second worrying that if you even try to gain back some of your self-worth, you will fail and feel even more lonely. Well, you might just fail the first try, the second and the third. You may even feel that it's hopeless. If you give into that feeling, then you are letting yourself down. You have now become responsible for losing your chance at regaining your self-worth. You are allowing whatever it was that tore you apart in the first place to take control of your everything. You are allowing a memory to defeat you. There is no person there now; it's just a thought. A memory that you are allowing to ruin what little time you have on this earth. Why are you doing that? You know you can stop it. You know how! I have repeated myself so many times and I will continue to repeat this. -HABITS- positive habits of thinking. You must reconstruct your thought patterns to think WIN..not to think LOSE! You must make a new commitment to yourself, one that you can reach out and touch!
I understand the strength of negative thinking, and I have felt its power many, many times. To the point that I could hardly feel myself breathe. That was when I knew that I, and only I could stop it. It was inside of me. It was not standing beside me or next to me or behind me. It was ME! Inside of you, is where you must look and dig for the real you. Not the you that has been scarred and hurt, but the you that can smile and laugh and appreciate all the good things in life. There still are many good things if you will just open your positive side and allow them to reach you. The more positive thoughts that you fill yourself with, the less negative thoughts can survive. Also you must be honest with what your bad habits are and where they are taking you. Identify with them and how they are bringing you down, instead of up. These are bad habits that you have allowed to run your life. Now, as you have invited them in, you will simply un-invite them. Additionally, say no to abusing Drugs, Alcohol and yes FOOD!
In order to strengthen the mental you, you must also strengthen the physical you. I don`t mean be a body builder or an Olympic athlete. I just mean a healthier you, a you that you want to be!
Remember whatever it was that brought you down in yourself is in the past. If you continue to allow the pain to live inside of you, you will suffer. The past is over and there is no suffering on your part that will erase it. So get on with life. Search deep inside of you and bring back who you are. Bring back the person you can smile at in the mirror. Bring back the person you talk to all the time. Bring back the person that you were meant to be. Bring back you, and then you will have your self-worth back!
*********************************
I am goodness.
I am all my goodness.
Even when I feel I am less,
I am always more!
David Viscott
Dorothy Lafrinere
Owner/Operator
Website- http://www.womensselfesteem.com
Weblog- http://www.justblogme.com/Dorothy
Forum- http://womenselfesteem.proboards29.com
email- dorothy@womensselfesteem.com
Why do so many women feel that they have no self-worth?
How did they lose it?
Is it because of the way the world has portrayed the perfect woman today?
Is it because someone took it from them?
Is that the void some fill by over eating?
Did their partner breach a trust?
Did their partner fall into the grips of the world of pornography?
Does their partner demean them with insults about how they look?
Did their partner continuously admire other women?
Did they grow up being ridiculed by a family member?
Have they been suffering from a controlling illness?
Were they bullied and criticized through their school years?
Were they sexually abused as a child?
Were they laughed at in a moment of vulnerability?
Were they ever raped?
All of these experiences definitely play a part in pouring a woman's self-worth right down the drain. The people causing these kind of negative actions are totally responsible for tearing down a woman's worth. To tear down a persons self-worth is one of the cruelest ways to treat a human being. It is a no win situation for that person. They cannot fight back. They are being attacked with a blindfold on. You have succeeded in humiliating them, and you have won that battle. Well, that's not a real brag story, because anyone can win against innocence. The true win is when the battle turns around. The true win is when the person who has lost their self-worth, stands up and takes that control back.
For those of you that have been through this battle and are struggling to just get up on an elbow, or feel empty inside and so alone that you wonder why you even get up in the morning, you can beat this!
Listen to me! You are not responsible for falling, or losing the battle. But you are TOTALLY responsible for getting back up. Yes that's right, it is you that has to pull it together. I know, it's a joke to even think about it, but you need to go back as far back as you can and find a place where in your mind that will make you smile. If you cannot, then try to think of someone that you know that is hurting more deeply that yourself and use that knowledge as your motivation. Go there in your mind. Use that thought to give you a reason to get up and pull yourself together. Your self-worth is worth fighting for. You are as strong as your greatest strength. You will always be stronger than your greatest weaknesses. Those weaknesses will never win against your strengths.
You have been hurt and raped of one of your most sacred emotions, self-worth. Now you want it back, so take it back. It is right there inside of you. You just have buried it under all your dirty laundry, so to speak. You can go on feeling empty if you want. Noone will care, not for long anyway. You can continue to use drugs, alcohol, or even food to fill that empty lonely void inside of you. You can miss out on life because you are forgetting to fight and it is so much easier to fall into the pity pit. You can spend the rest of every second worrying that if you even try to gain back some of your self-worth, you will fail and feel even more lonely. Well, you might just fail the first try, the second and the third. You may even feel that it's hopeless. If you give into that feeling, then you are letting yourself down. You have now become responsible for losing your chance at regaining your self-worth. You are allowing whatever it was that tore you apart in the first place to take control of your everything. You are allowing a memory to defeat you. There is no person there now; it's just a thought. A memory that you are allowing to ruin what little time you have on this earth. Why are you doing that? You know you can stop it. You know how! I have repeated myself so many times and I will continue to repeat this. -HABITS- positive habits of thinking. You must reconstruct your thought patterns to think WIN..not to think LOSE! You must make a new commitment to yourself, one that you can reach out and touch!
I understand the strength of negative thinking, and I have felt its power many, many times. To the point that I could hardly feel myself breathe. That was when I knew that I, and only I could stop it. It was inside of me. It was not standing beside me or next to me or behind me. It was ME! Inside of you, is where you must look and dig for the real you. Not the you that has been scarred and hurt, but the you that can smile and laugh and appreciate all the good things in life. There still are many good things if you will just open your positive side and allow them to reach you. The more positive thoughts that you fill yourself with, the less negative thoughts can survive. Also you must be honest with what your bad habits are and where they are taking you. Identify with them and how they are bringing you down, instead of up. These are bad habits that you have allowed to run your life. Now, as you have invited them in, you will simply un-invite them. Additionally, say no to abusing Drugs, Alcohol and yes FOOD!
In order to strengthen the mental you, you must also strengthen the physical you. I don`t mean be a body builder or an Olympic athlete. I just mean a healthier you, a you that you want to be!
Remember whatever it was that brought you down in yourself is in the past. If you continue to allow the pain to live inside of you, you will suffer. The past is over and there is no suffering on your part that will erase it. So get on with life. Search deep inside of you and bring back who you are. Bring back the person you can smile at in the mirror. Bring back the person you talk to all the time. Bring back the person that you were meant to be. Bring back you, and then you will have your self-worth back!
*********************************
I am goodness.
I am all my goodness.
Even when I feel I am less,
I am always more!
David Viscott
Dorothy Lafrinere
Owner/Operator
Website- http://www.womensselfesteem.com
Weblog- http://www.justblogme.com/Dorothy
Forum- http://womenselfesteem.proboards29.com
email- dorothy@womensselfesteem.com
The Book Writer's Guide To Self-Publishing
Self-publishing has become common practice for many writers who want accolades of having a book published, no matter who publishes it. Writers choose self-publishing for various reasons. Many writers desire the freedom and business aspects of publishing work independently. A self-published writer is one who is in control of every aspect of their published work. The publishing industry defines self-publishing as authors publishing their own books or other media, instead of with a third-party publisher. Today's technology has increased the pool of self-publishers, but it still represents only a small percentage of the publishing industry in terms of sales. The proliferation of media channels, such as blogging, video, and audio content, has contributed to the increase in self-publishers.
THE BUSINESS OF SELF-PUBLISHING
The business of self-publishing books and other media is different from any other business. The absence of a traditional publisher makes self-publishing unique. The author of the content takes on the role of the traditional publisher. The author controls the editorial content, arranges for printing, markets the material, and distributes the material to consumers and retailers. Self-publishers publish their books in printed form, or choose print-on-demand with no inventory. Many self-published authors decide to subsidize their work rather than making money from it. Digital printing technology has evolved self-publishing into digital photo book printing. Self-publishers are able to get individually printed photo books from firms like Apple's iPhoto, FotoInsight, Snapfish, and Printing-1.
THE MOTIVES OF SELF-PUBLISHING
Many writers have varied motives to self-publish. One common reason is the writer's work is not of interest to the commercial publisher, and otherwise not marketable. Another common reason is the writer prefers to retain complete editorial control over content. Many writers are unwilling to compromise editing of their work, and some writers prefer to have their work presented �as is.� Literary agents and book agents may deny publishing a book because the author is unknown and does not have a substantial resume. Self-publishing may also be an alternative for writers who have written material on a popular topic but the topic is only interesting in a small geographic area. Literary agents and book agents may also deny publication because the book addresses an obscure topic in which few people are interested. Writers of controversial works may also choose to self-publish, as many traditional publishers refuse to work with controversial writings. Some authors choose self-publishing because they want a larger royalty from retail sales.
IS SELF-PUBLISHING A SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS?
Self-publishing is not a shortcut to having a printed book. Depending on what your goals are, it may or may not be a direction you would like to take. In the hard copy world, self-publishing is costly. Getting a book into print costs more money than many writers want to spend. This is why the Internet is a blessing -- it's free. You can either start up a free website of your own and post your novel, or pay a small monthly sum and sell your writing online. If you can write well enough to catch someone's attention, your readers may be willing to pay for a download of your book. By self-publishing online, you avoid the normal book publishing costs and still get exposure. Who knows, you may be lucky and grab the attention of a publishing guru who thinks you could make a lot of money from your self-published book.
Whatever your reason is for self-publishing, you should know that self-publishing requires extensive work. Self-publishing involves a long list of tasks, which include prepublication and publication. Prepublication includes editing or obtaining editing for the manuscript, proofreading, establishing yourself as a legal retail business, and obtaining an ISBN �Cataloging in Publication� number.
The publication process involves formatting the manuscript, providing front matter and back matter, and providing cover art for the front and back covers and the spine of the book. Self-publishers must also obtain printing quotes, determine how to deliver the manuscript to the printer, and pay for printing and delivery of finished books.
Publishing a book online is easier than publishing in the world of hard copy. The result is not as glorified, but it is a step towards success in the published realm. The more experience you can get writing, the better writer you will be.
THE BUSINESS OF SELF-PUBLISHING
The business of self-publishing books and other media is different from any other business. The absence of a traditional publisher makes self-publishing unique. The author of the content takes on the role of the traditional publisher. The author controls the editorial content, arranges for printing, markets the material, and distributes the material to consumers and retailers. Self-publishers publish their books in printed form, or choose print-on-demand with no inventory. Many self-published authors decide to subsidize their work rather than making money from it. Digital printing technology has evolved self-publishing into digital photo book printing. Self-publishers are able to get individually printed photo books from firms like Apple's iPhoto, FotoInsight, Snapfish, and Printing-1.
THE MOTIVES OF SELF-PUBLISHING
Many writers have varied motives to self-publish. One common reason is the writer's work is not of interest to the commercial publisher, and otherwise not marketable. Another common reason is the writer prefers to retain complete editorial control over content. Many writers are unwilling to compromise editing of their work, and some writers prefer to have their work presented �as is.� Literary agents and book agents may deny publishing a book because the author is unknown and does not have a substantial resume. Self-publishing may also be an alternative for writers who have written material on a popular topic but the topic is only interesting in a small geographic area. Literary agents and book agents may also deny publication because the book addresses an obscure topic in which few people are interested. Writers of controversial works may also choose to self-publish, as many traditional publishers refuse to work with controversial writings. Some authors choose self-publishing because they want a larger royalty from retail sales.
IS SELF-PUBLISHING A SHORTCUT TO SUCCESS?
Self-publishing is not a shortcut to having a printed book. Depending on what your goals are, it may or may not be a direction you would like to take. In the hard copy world, self-publishing is costly. Getting a book into print costs more money than many writers want to spend. This is why the Internet is a blessing -- it's free. You can either start up a free website of your own and post your novel, or pay a small monthly sum and sell your writing online. If you can write well enough to catch someone's attention, your readers may be willing to pay for a download of your book. By self-publishing online, you avoid the normal book publishing costs and still get exposure. Who knows, you may be lucky and grab the attention of a publishing guru who thinks you could make a lot of money from your self-published book.
Whatever your reason is for self-publishing, you should know that self-publishing requires extensive work. Self-publishing involves a long list of tasks, which include prepublication and publication. Prepublication includes editing or obtaining editing for the manuscript, proofreading, establishing yourself as a legal retail business, and obtaining an ISBN �Cataloging in Publication� number.
The publication process involves formatting the manuscript, providing front matter and back matter, and providing cover art for the front and back covers and the spine of the book. Self-publishers must also obtain printing quotes, determine how to deliver the manuscript to the printer, and pay for printing and delivery of finished books.
Publishing a book online is easier than publishing in the world of hard copy. The result is not as glorified, but it is a step towards success in the published realm. The more experience you can get writing, the better writer you will be.
Blogging: What You Need To Know About Defamation
Currently there are over 30 million blogs on the internet and thousands more being created each week. Assuming ownership of one blog per person, that�s a minimum of 30 million people slinging around their personal opinions on all that exists under the sun. This is a good thing. The free exchange of thoughts and ideas is what prevents the world from becoming a stagnant pool of dictatorship with the appropriate green scum floating on top.
However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, �With great power comes great responsibility�. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.
In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.
Since I�m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. �The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.� Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.
So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees� retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor�s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?
Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.
Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren�t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.
Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who�s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.
Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person�s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person�s use of the service.
Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don�t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you�re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend�s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.
1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible. If a reasonable person can visit your hometown and quickly identify the �mealy-mouth cow� you blogged about online, you might want to do some editing.
2. Make use of a disclaimer. Kevin S Brady has an excellent one on his website. Even something as basic as �By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners� may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).
3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no reasonable person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable. Be careful though, this type of writing takes a certain je sais quoi, and could easily backfire on you. Have a reasonable person proofread your entry to make sure it passes the believability test.
4. Watch your language. Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject. Statements like, �That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap� makes it sound as though you are stating a fact when in all actuality you are making a personal judgment about the toy. Something like �I think that Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap� or �That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy fell apart after the first use� are safe bets. At least as far as the law is concerned.
5. And last but definitely not least, don�t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days? Really. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that. �Cause chances are, it�s not to protect the public.
Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.
However, to steal a line from the movie Spiderman, �With great power comes great responsibility�. Blogging has become a way for the voice of the people to be heard. We must be careful, though, not to abuse our power through thoughtless acts that hurt the credibility of bloggers and blogging. One place that continues to be our Achilles heel is when good posts go bad.
In the United States, libel and slander are the two categories of defamation. In many states, courts have begun treating them the same as the only difference between the two is that libel is a false written statement about a person, place or thing that harms his/her/its reputation while slander is the verbal act of the same offense. Whether blogged on the internet or whispered offline to your mother, the common denominator is that what is said is false.
Since I�m psychic, I already know what you are thinking. �The First Amendment of the US Constitution protects me. As long as it is the truth, I can say whatever I want.� Well, sort of. As crazy as it sounds, truth is not the silver bullet defense for every case of libel or slander. A judge may require that besides being true the information relayed is in the public interest to know.
So reporting that the CEO of a major corporation had been caught pilfering money from the employees� retirement fund would probably get dismissed from civil court whereas telling the world that your neighbor has smelly feet could get you into more trouble than you want. Even if it were true, why would it be in the public interest to know that your neighbor�s feet could clear out Yankee Stadium?
Now, the First Amendment does protect your right to an opinion. If you think that the Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap, you are certainly free to tell anyone within earshot as long as you make it clear that it is your opinion on the subject. Likewise, if a person puts forth a negative sentiment with regards to their experience with you and it is clear to any reasonable person that it is their opinion, your legal recourse against them is severely limited.
Parody and satire are also protected. If they weren�t, Saturday Night Live and South Park would have never made it past the first episode. And criticism of a public performance such as a symphony, a play and even a book is protected under the Fair Criticism and Comment clause.
Now the internet contributes some interesting layers of complication to the whole blogging shebang. Instead of being contained in a localized area, libel has the potential to cross international borders and not every country handles these cases the same. One of the major problems courts around the world are having to deal with is the one of jurisdiction. If I live in the US and I libel someone who lives in the UK where exactly does the case take place and who�s laws do we go by? Several cases have set a scary precedent that leans towards being able to sue anywhere around the world for libel published on the internet.
Then there is the issue of third party liability. Say you are a responsible blogger who is careful about her posts to avoid a troublesome libel accusation. One of your readers posts a libelous statement on your blog. Can you be held responsible for that person�s actions? Well, so far the law has only made provisions for internet service providers stating that they cannot be held responsible for how their customers use their services (as it pertains to defamation). Likewise, blog service providers such as Google and Six Apart would likely be immune to any lawsuits arising out of a person�s use of the service.
Whether or not you would be held responsible may come down to if you moderate your comments. If you allow comments to be posted automatically, you may be protected under Section 230 of the US Code (for US Citizens). It may be a different story, however, if you approve comments before posting them. It could be argued that your posting of the comments equates your agreement to them. To date, no one has shown up in court to argue this, hence the fact that we are kind of forced to make it up as we go along.
Defamation is a tricky issue and one that needs to be tread carefully if one is to avoid landing in court. Here are a few tips to help keep you out of trouble. Note: I am not an attorney. I don�t even get to play one on television. If you and your blog deal with some highly controversial issues or you�re just not sure how much trouble you would get into if you published that post about your best friend�s boyfriend, I recommend getting in touch with a lawyer to get the best advice.
1. Change the names. By far the easiest thing you can do is to change or to avoid using the name of the person you are talking about and to strip away as much identifying information as possible. If a reasonable person can visit your hometown and quickly identify the �mealy-mouth cow� you blogged about online, you might want to do some editing.
2. Make use of a disclaimer. Kevin S Brady has an excellent one on his website. Even something as basic as �By making use of this blog site, you agree that the opinions expressed are the property and responsibility of their respective owners� may provide some defense in the event of a lawsuit. (Check with a real attorney please).
3. Consider writing your rant as a parody or satire. Extreme exaggerations that no reasonable person would believe are not considered defamation because, quite frankly, they are unbelievable. Be careful though, this type of writing takes a certain je sais quoi, and could easily backfire on you. Have a reasonable person proofread your entry to make sure it passes the believability test.
4. Watch your language. Be sure to use wording that makes it clear that this is your opinion about the subject. Statements like, �That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap� makes it sound as though you are stating a fact when in all actuality you are making a personal judgment about the toy. Something like �I think that Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy is a piece of crap� or �That Mr. Squiggly Toddler Toy fell apart after the first use� are safe bets. At least as far as the law is concerned.
5. And last but definitely not least, don�t tell false tales. Now this may seem like common sense but how common is common sense these days? Really. If you feel the need to resort to lying about a person, you may want to seek professional help in examining why you want to do that. �Cause chances are, it�s not to protect the public.
Blogging is a great way to meet people and stay current in the world and doing so responsibly will only make the experience better. Stay safe, stay sane and most of have fun.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Are Articles the Secret to Niche Marketing?
Article writing has become popular recently. Search engines have changed the way they rank web sites and have begun to place a stronger value on good content. Correction: they have become better at filtering out commercial content, sales pitches, and advertising posing as content.
One incredibly good method of achieving a web presence with good content is that of article writing. Why? It provides the content that the search engines are looking for. It provides meaningful content for the individual searching the web for good information. And it provides an avenue whereby the article writer can be noticed on the web.
Where does niche marketing come in? First of all, lets define niche marketing as marketing that is designed to meet the needs of a small group of individuals (a niche), rather than the mass needs of individuals. For example, a particular type of pet owner, a particular type of web user, or a particular religious faith might be considered niche markets.
For niche markets like these, traditional forms of mass Internet marketing, such as banner ads, classifieds, and traffic generation programs, are not as effective. The mass advertising forms are much more effective, cost-wise, when promoting a product that has wide market appeal.
So what does the niche marketer do? Assuming he has a web presence, and provides a quality product or other solution to the niche customer�s needs, he can become involved in article writing. The articles would be of a particular interest to the niche customer. They would contain valuable information that the niche customer cannot find anywhere else.
Sometimes article writers will write generic articles that really don�t provide any real benefit to the reader, thinking that an article is an article. That is simply not true. Think about yourself. When you read an article, if you do not learn something new when you read the article, are you disposed to learning more about the person, company, or products represented by the article writer?
The key to writing articles for a niche market and effectively gaining web presence by doing it, is to write quality. Fill the article with useful information. Show the reader that you really are an expert in your niche. Give the reader a burning desire to want to hear more of what you have to say about their need. And the only way you can create that burning desire is to give them quality information in the first place.
Good, well-written, articles are the key to niche marketing in today�s Internet marketing environment. Write articles, submit them to the most-used article databases, and watch your web site traffic grow.
Note: You have my permission to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in its entirety, including all links. � Sean Mize 2006
One incredibly good method of achieving a web presence with good content is that of article writing. Why? It provides the content that the search engines are looking for. It provides meaningful content for the individual searching the web for good information. And it provides an avenue whereby the article writer can be noticed on the web.
Where does niche marketing come in? First of all, lets define niche marketing as marketing that is designed to meet the needs of a small group of individuals (a niche), rather than the mass needs of individuals. For example, a particular type of pet owner, a particular type of web user, or a particular religious faith might be considered niche markets.
For niche markets like these, traditional forms of mass Internet marketing, such as banner ads, classifieds, and traffic generation programs, are not as effective. The mass advertising forms are much more effective, cost-wise, when promoting a product that has wide market appeal.
So what does the niche marketer do? Assuming he has a web presence, and provides a quality product or other solution to the niche customer�s needs, he can become involved in article writing. The articles would be of a particular interest to the niche customer. They would contain valuable information that the niche customer cannot find anywhere else.
Sometimes article writers will write generic articles that really don�t provide any real benefit to the reader, thinking that an article is an article. That is simply not true. Think about yourself. When you read an article, if you do not learn something new when you read the article, are you disposed to learning more about the person, company, or products represented by the article writer?
The key to writing articles for a niche market and effectively gaining web presence by doing it, is to write quality. Fill the article with useful information. Show the reader that you really are an expert in your niche. Give the reader a burning desire to want to hear more of what you have to say about their need. And the only way you can create that burning desire is to give them quality information in the first place.
Good, well-written, articles are the key to niche marketing in today�s Internet marketing environment. Write articles, submit them to the most-used article databases, and watch your web site traffic grow.
Note: You have my permission to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in its entirety, including all links. � Sean Mize 2006
Battery Chargers
Many new portable appliances and electronic devices use rechargeable batteries. Cars, boats, and motorcycles are also equipped with rechargeable batteries. How do battery chargers differ for each type of battery? What are the different options for recharging batteries?
Auto and marine and truck batteries are 12 volt batteries. Chargers for 12 volt batteries are much more advanced than traditional versions. Battery chargers such as the Battery Minder charge batteries without overcharging which can ruin a battery. Another very useful tool for auto and marine batteries are jump starters. Many newer models are portable and can jump start up to 30 cars without having to be recharged. A great model is the PowerTank jump start equipped with a florescent light and battery tester. Solar battery chargers are available for a wide range of devices. ICP Solar chargers are great for people on the go.
Cell phones, PDAs, and other small electronic devices use different chargers than auto or marine batteries. Typical small appliance battery chargers are wall or desk mountable. They can charge batteries much quicker than conventional battery chargers. Some even pop out the battery when it is fully charged to avoid the �memory effect� that is common with NICD batteries. ICP Solar chargers are also available for small portable appliances. When charging a cell phone battery, chargers vary greatly by brand and are only compatible with the cell phone manufacturer.
Many types of batteries are rechargeable. However, choosing a battery charger varies for each type of battery. Factors include voltage, type of battery, for example, lithium, NICD or lead acid, all require a different type of battery charger because they use different technologies. How a battery is charged can greatly affect the life of a battery, so it is important to follow procedure for each type of battery for proper charging.
Auto and marine and truck batteries are 12 volt batteries. Chargers for 12 volt batteries are much more advanced than traditional versions. Battery chargers such as the Battery Minder charge batteries without overcharging which can ruin a battery. Another very useful tool for auto and marine batteries are jump starters. Many newer models are portable and can jump start up to 30 cars without having to be recharged. A great model is the PowerTank jump start equipped with a florescent light and battery tester. Solar battery chargers are available for a wide range of devices. ICP Solar chargers are great for people on the go.
Cell phones, PDAs, and other small electronic devices use different chargers than auto or marine batteries. Typical small appliance battery chargers are wall or desk mountable. They can charge batteries much quicker than conventional battery chargers. Some even pop out the battery when it is fully charged to avoid the �memory effect� that is common with NICD batteries. ICP Solar chargers are also available for small portable appliances. When charging a cell phone battery, chargers vary greatly by brand and are only compatible with the cell phone manufacturer.
Many types of batteries are rechargeable. However, choosing a battery charger varies for each type of battery. Factors include voltage, type of battery, for example, lithium, NICD or lead acid, all require a different type of battery charger because they use different technologies. How a battery is charged can greatly affect the life of a battery, so it is important to follow procedure for each type of battery for proper charging.
Advertising Your Website With Pay-Per-Click
A thriving way to help optimize your online image is to consider using the pay-per-click advertising. What pay-per-click means is that you purchase sponsored links on the pages of search engine results. Search engines are used every minute of the day, which means advertising your website with pay-per-click will greatly increase the advertising of your website.
By advertising your website with pay-per-click, you are helping to advertise your business in what is usually an inexpensive way that is growing larger and reaching more people everyday. You can also tailor your pay-per-click advertising to fit your business or company budget needs. This is a plus for those of you who are starting out on a budget and want to stay away from paying a lot for advertising that may or may not be seen. By advertising your website with pay-per-click, your ad is surely going to be seen. More advantages to advertising your website with pay-per-click include the speed of advertising, the increase in traffic to your website, and the ability to research and compare data to see what works best for your website.
There are times, however, when advertising your website with pay-per-click can prove to be costly. For example, it will cost you more to use competitive keywords than it will to use ones that are not as competitive. Finely tune your keyword strategies. You can find information on the Internet on this or you might want to consider consulting a professional. Also remember not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with one pay-per-click provider first, using ads you have tested, and then extend your campaign accordingly.
Advertising your website with pay-per-click can be a very quick, inexpensive way to get your website and business rolling. Drawbacks can always pop up, but if you educate and prepare yourself, you will be able to make the most out of advertising your website with pay-per-click.
By advertising your website with pay-per-click, you are helping to advertise your business in what is usually an inexpensive way that is growing larger and reaching more people everyday. You can also tailor your pay-per-click advertising to fit your business or company budget needs. This is a plus for those of you who are starting out on a budget and want to stay away from paying a lot for advertising that may or may not be seen. By advertising your website with pay-per-click, your ad is surely going to be seen. More advantages to advertising your website with pay-per-click include the speed of advertising, the increase in traffic to your website, and the ability to research and compare data to see what works best for your website.
There are times, however, when advertising your website with pay-per-click can prove to be costly. For example, it will cost you more to use competitive keywords than it will to use ones that are not as competitive. Finely tune your keyword strategies. You can find information on the Internet on this or you might want to consider consulting a professional. Also remember not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with one pay-per-click provider first, using ads you have tested, and then extend your campaign accordingly.
Advertising your website with pay-per-click can be a very quick, inexpensive way to get your website and business rolling. Drawbacks can always pop up, but if you educate and prepare yourself, you will be able to make the most out of advertising your website with pay-per-click.
Blogging - Why It Works So Well For SEO
Blogging is one of the most efficient ways to increase your website rankings on search sites like Google and Yahoo. Blogging refers to posting your website links to blog sites in order to increase your website rankings. Blogging work best for the SEO as it is the one of the most effective tools to make your website popular amongst the people. If your website is more famous it will generate more revenues as more and more people will visit your site.
You can follow these simple rules for SEO and your blog will definitely rank much higher in search engines. You should use your primary keyword most often in your blogs. The URL that you post on the blogs should contain a primary keyword to optimize your website. You can also use the main keyword in sub domains to get better results. In case your website is about automotive parts then you can use the keywords �Automotive Parts� in your website. Also it is necessary to use your main keyword in the title of your posts and the titles of your web pages. Also use the main keywords and key phrases in your H1 and H2 headers to make them more searchable.
Next you can use your secondary keywords in the body of your post in the blog. The more times the keywords are found in the webpage or post, the better are the chances of the search engines will be able to pick up the keywords. However it should not look like spam. You should refrain from posting the same keywords again and again in the same post as then Google will ban your site for some time and your rankings will fall drastically.
You should also use your primary and secondary as much as possible in the anchor texts for linking the text to other blog sites or other blog posts. Also make every effort to make your site easier for search engine to track. Also it is very much necessary to make your navigation bar of the whole website on every page of the website. All your previous posts should be linked to all pages so that they can be easily searchable by search engines.
You should also create back links to your website on as many blogs as possible. This is because it will help a lot in getting the rank of your website higher in the search engine pages. The more links you have created the higher will be the rank of your website on search engines. You can get back links to your website is to submit your blog and RSS feeds to as many blog search engines and blog directories as possible. Exchange your links with other blogs and network with as many people as possible on the blogs. If you find any interesting information on a blog then don�t forget to link it. The track back will become a link to your blog after some time. In the end to optimize search engine results for your website you should update your blog frequently.
You can follow these simple rules for SEO and your blog will definitely rank much higher in search engines. You should use your primary keyword most often in your blogs. The URL that you post on the blogs should contain a primary keyword to optimize your website. You can also use the main keyword in sub domains to get better results. In case your website is about automotive parts then you can use the keywords �Automotive Parts� in your website. Also it is necessary to use your main keyword in the title of your posts and the titles of your web pages. Also use the main keywords and key phrases in your H1 and H2 headers to make them more searchable.
Next you can use your secondary keywords in the body of your post in the blog. The more times the keywords are found in the webpage or post, the better are the chances of the search engines will be able to pick up the keywords. However it should not look like spam. You should refrain from posting the same keywords again and again in the same post as then Google will ban your site for some time and your rankings will fall drastically.
You should also use your primary and secondary as much as possible in the anchor texts for linking the text to other blog sites or other blog posts. Also make every effort to make your site easier for search engine to track. Also it is very much necessary to make your navigation bar of the whole website on every page of the website. All your previous posts should be linked to all pages so that they can be easily searchable by search engines.
You should also create back links to your website on as many blogs as possible. This is because it will help a lot in getting the rank of your website higher in the search engine pages. The more links you have created the higher will be the rank of your website on search engines. You can get back links to your website is to submit your blog and RSS feeds to as many blog search engines and blog directories as possible. Exchange your links with other blogs and network with as many people as possible on the blogs. If you find any interesting information on a blog then don�t forget to link it. The track back will become a link to your blog after some time. In the end to optimize search engine results for your website you should update your blog frequently.
The Death of The Link Exchange
Link Exchanges have been used since the beginning of the internet as a way of gaining popularity in the eyes of the major search engines. This used to be the best way to gain positioning in the major search engine results for your given keywords. Your company could gain ground fairly quickly by utilizing link exchanges.
Wikipedia�s Definition of a link exchange:
Link Exchange ("Reciprocal Link Exchange") is the practice of exchanging links with other websites. There are many different ways to arrange a link exchange with webmasters. The simplest way of doing it is to email another website owner and ask to do a link exchange. Also visiting webmaster discussion boards which offer a dedicated link exchange forum where webmasters can request a link exchange be it of a certain category or open to anybody.
Link exchange has been a long time practice by website owners since the beginning of the web. In the last few years (after year 2000), this practice has gained more popularity as search engines such as Google started favoring sites that had more links in the rankings. This system was very accurate at gauging the importance of a website when it first started, leading to the popularity of Google.
However according to experts, search engines no longer place a heavy emphasis on reciprocal links. Instead, the popularity or credibility of a site is now gauged by one way incoming links to that site. In addition, analysis suggests that it is very important both that the theme of an incoming be link be relevant to the page being linked to.
This definition can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_exchange
The death of the link exchange is officially here. Relevant one-way links are the most important aspect of search engine optimization since the newest algorithm changes for the major search engines. Yahoo has gone as far as denying sites admission into their search submit program for having a link exchange program, considering it spam (I have personal experience with this).
The best way to build relevant links is by utilizing these aspects of search engine optimization:
1. Directory Submissions: The all important DMOZ (www.dmoz.org) and yahoo directory (www.yahoo.com) are mandatory for any company seeking high rankings in the search engines. Be sure to search for relevant directories for your company. You can do this by searching for your major keywords in search engines with the word �directory� and will find them fairly easily.
2. Article Submissions: By writing articles that can be reprinted for free, you get free advertising and webmasters get content to deliver to their customers through an article database or e-zines. You are allowed to include a resource box at the end of your article that contains information about your company and the all important link to your website.
3. Social Book Marking: Social Book Marking is a new trend on the internet that was pioneered by sites like del.icio.us, www.furl.net, www.digg.com and many others. This is the act of book marking a site to a public (or private) favorites archive that other web users can use to find important information. You then use tags to identify your book mark for the relevant keywords. This also generates a link pointing to your site.
The link exchange has officially become useless. End your link exchanges now while you still have the chance to do so. In the near future, search engines may penalize sites that take part in link exchanges, so take advantage now and get rid of them before you lose crucial positioning in the search engine results pages.
Wikipedia�s Definition of a link exchange:
Link Exchange ("Reciprocal Link Exchange") is the practice of exchanging links with other websites. There are many different ways to arrange a link exchange with webmasters. The simplest way of doing it is to email another website owner and ask to do a link exchange. Also visiting webmaster discussion boards which offer a dedicated link exchange forum where webmasters can request a link exchange be it of a certain category or open to anybody.
Link exchange has been a long time practice by website owners since the beginning of the web. In the last few years (after year 2000), this practice has gained more popularity as search engines such as Google started favoring sites that had more links in the rankings. This system was very accurate at gauging the importance of a website when it first started, leading to the popularity of Google.
However according to experts, search engines no longer place a heavy emphasis on reciprocal links. Instead, the popularity or credibility of a site is now gauged by one way incoming links to that site. In addition, analysis suggests that it is very important both that the theme of an incoming be link be relevant to the page being linked to.
This definition can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_exchange
The death of the link exchange is officially here. Relevant one-way links are the most important aspect of search engine optimization since the newest algorithm changes for the major search engines. Yahoo has gone as far as denying sites admission into their search submit program for having a link exchange program, considering it spam (I have personal experience with this).
The best way to build relevant links is by utilizing these aspects of search engine optimization:
1. Directory Submissions: The all important DMOZ (www.dmoz.org) and yahoo directory (www.yahoo.com) are mandatory for any company seeking high rankings in the search engines. Be sure to search for relevant directories for your company. You can do this by searching for your major keywords in search engines with the word �directory� and will find them fairly easily.
2. Article Submissions: By writing articles that can be reprinted for free, you get free advertising and webmasters get content to deliver to their customers through an article database or e-zines. You are allowed to include a resource box at the end of your article that contains information about your company and the all important link to your website.
3. Social Book Marking: Social Book Marking is a new trend on the internet that was pioneered by sites like del.icio.us, www.furl.net, www.digg.com and many others. This is the act of book marking a site to a public (or private) favorites archive that other web users can use to find important information. You then use tags to identify your book mark for the relevant keywords. This also generates a link pointing to your site.
The link exchange has officially become useless. End your link exchanges now while you still have the chance to do so. In the near future, search engines may penalize sites that take part in link exchanges, so take advantage now and get rid of them before you lose crucial positioning in the search engine results pages.
How To Become A More Persuasive Writer
If you want to learn how to write so that people will not only read what you write...but also be compelled to take action based on your words, then take these steps.
You need to identify persuasive writings and examine the writing style. Think of the last time you read something which made you take action. It can be a simple headline for an ad which caught your attention or an inspiring story in the local paper.
When you identify the persuasive writings, you can can then examine it by reading actively.
It�s natural for most people to read passively. You see some text which catches your eyes and before you know it, 30 minutes have passed. At most, you get a good feeling if you�ve learned something from the text. Reading passively doesn�t build your writing skills.
Start browsing and reading things that catch and keep your attention. Study and anaylyze the text. What words are being used? What length are the sentences and paragraphs? What is the tone of the message? How does the author transition from one paragraph to the next?
What is the main point the author is trying to convey? Who is the author writing to? These are just some of the things you want to study in depth.
You want to read text from many different authors so you get a variety to examples to follow. When you approach reading actively for a while, you�ll naturally begin to write in a way which is more attractive to others but more importantly, it�s attractive to you.
If writing becomes easier for you, you will be apt to write more. As they say, the more you practice, the better you get. So the biggest stepping stone for you is to get more comfortable just writing. Once you're comfortable then you'll start writing more without hesitation.
To read more actively, write down what you�re reading. Yes, copy the words you read onto a blank sheet of paper or legal pad. This will force you to read slower and actually examine the words and sentence structure.
Persuasive writing is a skill that any marketer should perfect. Even if you outsource your copywriting, you will find that having the ability to write persuasively can win you more friends in the right places.
You need to identify persuasive writings and examine the writing style. Think of the last time you read something which made you take action. It can be a simple headline for an ad which caught your attention or an inspiring story in the local paper.
When you identify the persuasive writings, you can can then examine it by reading actively.
It�s natural for most people to read passively. You see some text which catches your eyes and before you know it, 30 minutes have passed. At most, you get a good feeling if you�ve learned something from the text. Reading passively doesn�t build your writing skills.
Start browsing and reading things that catch and keep your attention. Study and anaylyze the text. What words are being used? What length are the sentences and paragraphs? What is the tone of the message? How does the author transition from one paragraph to the next?
What is the main point the author is trying to convey? Who is the author writing to? These are just some of the things you want to study in depth.
You want to read text from many different authors so you get a variety to examples to follow. When you approach reading actively for a while, you�ll naturally begin to write in a way which is more attractive to others but more importantly, it�s attractive to you.
If writing becomes easier for you, you will be apt to write more. As they say, the more you practice, the better you get. So the biggest stepping stone for you is to get more comfortable just writing. Once you're comfortable then you'll start writing more without hesitation.
To read more actively, write down what you�re reading. Yes, copy the words you read onto a blank sheet of paper or legal pad. This will force you to read slower and actually examine the words and sentence structure.
Persuasive writing is a skill that any marketer should perfect. Even if you outsource your copywriting, you will find that having the ability to write persuasively can win you more friends in the right places.
Google Patent Application � Linking
The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:
�A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.�
The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights for those that don't speak lawyer.
Google�s Link Evaluation
It is well known that Google uses links as a significant ranking element. Although the patent application doesn�t dispute the value of linking, it does highlight the best method for pursuing a linking strategy. Simply put, consistently adding links will have a much better effect than adding links in bunches.
Google notes in the patent application that it looks at links from a historical perspective. The search engine notes the discovery date of links, the life span of the link and the speed at which a new web site obtains links. This approach reveals that Google is discounting quick link exchange strategies such as buying bulk links for your site. Instead, Google appears to consider a natural linking evolution as a sign that a site is �legitimate.�
The specifics of a good linking strategy are a bit difficult to nail down. In the patent application, Google tries to hide the evaluation method by listing factors that �might� go into evaluating links to a site. Factors that �might� be considered include:
1. The anchor text of the link.
2. The discovery date of the link.
3. The growth rate of links to your site.
4. The rate at which links to a page appear and disappear.
5. The age of links with older links carrying more value.
6. Numerous links to a new site will be looked at as spam, unless some of the links are from highly valued sites.
7. Link growth that is constant is optimal.
8. Sudden bunches of new links will be devalued as spam.
A general theme becomes clear as one reads the Google patent application. Google values sites that are in it for the long term, update regularly and consistently grow in link popularity. Taking this theme into account, it is easy to understand why the Google sandbox exists.
A steady approach is the key if you intention is to gain top rankings in Google. While the delay can be aggravating, the results are certainly worth it.
�A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.�
The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights for those that don't speak lawyer.
Google�s Link Evaluation
It is well known that Google uses links as a significant ranking element. Although the patent application doesn�t dispute the value of linking, it does highlight the best method for pursuing a linking strategy. Simply put, consistently adding links will have a much better effect than adding links in bunches.
Google notes in the patent application that it looks at links from a historical perspective. The search engine notes the discovery date of links, the life span of the link and the speed at which a new web site obtains links. This approach reveals that Google is discounting quick link exchange strategies such as buying bulk links for your site. Instead, Google appears to consider a natural linking evolution as a sign that a site is �legitimate.�
The specifics of a good linking strategy are a bit difficult to nail down. In the patent application, Google tries to hide the evaluation method by listing factors that �might� go into evaluating links to a site. Factors that �might� be considered include:
1. The anchor text of the link.
2. The discovery date of the link.
3. The growth rate of links to your site.
4. The rate at which links to a page appear and disappear.
5. The age of links with older links carrying more value.
6. Numerous links to a new site will be looked at as spam, unless some of the links are from highly valued sites.
7. Link growth that is constant is optimal.
8. Sudden bunches of new links will be devalued as spam.
A general theme becomes clear as one reads the Google patent application. Google values sites that are in it for the long term, update regularly and consistently grow in link popularity. Taking this theme into account, it is easy to understand why the Google sandbox exists.
A steady approach is the key if you intention is to gain top rankings in Google. While the delay can be aggravating, the results are certainly worth it.
Online Affiliate Program
I hope you will let me take a few minutes to tell you about some of the inherent benefits of an online affiliate program:
FIRST public relations are not as time consuming and exhausting and critical when you are involved in a online affiliate program. Basically if your page is good and you maintain it to sell the product well, that's it! No worrying about hurting feelings or stepping on toes. No exhaustion from dealing with frustrated and/or frustrating people. What more could you ask for?
SECOND you are in an online affiliate program which means that you do not have to have and in general are avoiding all of the rigmarole that comes from owning and selling a product. You don't have to have any expertise in a certain field. You don't have to worry about shipping of the product, or guarantees, or customer service�none of that junk. You also can pick things that are hot items and basically sell themselves. If it doesn't, well then you try something else, easy as that! You can sell as many or as few as you want. You have the ability to pick things that you can agree with ethically.
THIRD you are working on the internet which means that you are not in a stuffy cubicle working for a stuffy suit and wearing torturous things like ties. Rather you are sitting on the deck of your cottage (if that�s where you prefer), answering to no one (except maybe your wife), wearing silk boxers. You can get up in the morning when you want, you can go on vacation as you please, and all this for very little risk at all. There are no start up costs and it is a very profitable industry which is where most of the world is heading.
So, if you are looking for a way to make a lot of cash with all the convenience of an online income than stop, look no further, because online affiliate programs are for you! Basically they are what they say they are. Affiliate marketing is simply selling a product whose rights are owned by someone else who is willing to pay commissions for others who will market the product for them. The program is a consortium of people with said products who use (and pay) it to manage all of their affiliate sellers and record their sales and pay them. So you actually get a check from the program.
FIRST public relations are not as time consuming and exhausting and critical when you are involved in a online affiliate program. Basically if your page is good and you maintain it to sell the product well, that's it! No worrying about hurting feelings or stepping on toes. No exhaustion from dealing with frustrated and/or frustrating people. What more could you ask for?
SECOND you are in an online affiliate program which means that you do not have to have and in general are avoiding all of the rigmarole that comes from owning and selling a product. You don't have to have any expertise in a certain field. You don't have to worry about shipping of the product, or guarantees, or customer service�none of that junk. You also can pick things that are hot items and basically sell themselves. If it doesn't, well then you try something else, easy as that! You can sell as many or as few as you want. You have the ability to pick things that you can agree with ethically.
THIRD you are working on the internet which means that you are not in a stuffy cubicle working for a stuffy suit and wearing torturous things like ties. Rather you are sitting on the deck of your cottage (if that�s where you prefer), answering to no one (except maybe your wife), wearing silk boxers. You can get up in the morning when you want, you can go on vacation as you please, and all this for very little risk at all. There are no start up costs and it is a very profitable industry which is where most of the world is heading.
So, if you are looking for a way to make a lot of cash with all the convenience of an online income than stop, look no further, because online affiliate programs are for you! Basically they are what they say they are. Affiliate marketing is simply selling a product whose rights are owned by someone else who is willing to pay commissions for others who will market the product for them. The program is a consortium of people with said products who use (and pay) it to manage all of their affiliate sellers and record their sales and pay them. So you actually get a check from the program.
Conflict Mistakes
One of the questions I receive most often from my newsletter subscribers is what do I do when I've "blown it?" As one good friend said: "I forgot all the great ways I know to address a conflict. I reprimanded an employee by basically attacking her character. I did apologize, and, thankfully, she is not quitting. But things feel awkward, and I'm wondering if there's something I can do to help the situation besides apologize."
First, this person did just the right thing�she apologized, and she didn't wait too long to do it. It's important to remember that we all react occasionally in ways that we think better of later. Once you apologize, give it time. Continue to center, breathe, smile, and treat the employee with respect.
In addition, hold the vision that with time your relationship will be back on the right track. Visualize how you want the relationship to look as you continue to work together, and begin acting on that vision in your daily communication.
Think of a physical wound--it takes time to heal. While it's healing, you treat the wound gently, keep it clean, maybe smooth some cream on it to help the healing process.
It's the same with healing a relationship. Keep your communication clean, gentle, and yet honest and direct. Say hello, how's it going? Treat her as you would under normal circumstances, yet with the awareness of what did occur. You don't pretend the conflict never happened, but you don't have to abase yourself either.
Finally, remember that it's not only up to you. You have a part in this, and so does she. You cannot do her part for her; you can only do yours. If you give the employee room, she will find her way back to the strong connection that once existed.
First, this person did just the right thing�she apologized, and she didn't wait too long to do it. It's important to remember that we all react occasionally in ways that we think better of later. Once you apologize, give it time. Continue to center, breathe, smile, and treat the employee with respect.
In addition, hold the vision that with time your relationship will be back on the right track. Visualize how you want the relationship to look as you continue to work together, and begin acting on that vision in your daily communication.
Think of a physical wound--it takes time to heal. While it's healing, you treat the wound gently, keep it clean, maybe smooth some cream on it to help the healing process.
It's the same with healing a relationship. Keep your communication clean, gentle, and yet honest and direct. Say hello, how's it going? Treat her as you would under normal circumstances, yet with the awareness of what did occur. You don't pretend the conflict never happened, but you don't have to abase yourself either.
Finally, remember that it's not only up to you. You have a part in this, and so does she. You cannot do her part for her; you can only do yours. If you give the employee room, she will find her way back to the strong connection that once existed.
Plasma and LCD � What�s the Difference?
What will you see when you compare the same show on a plasma screen TV and a LCD TV? That depends mostly on where you watch it.
If you put the two television sets side by side in a room with light, chances are that you will not see a dramatic difference between the two pictures. However, if the light is turned off, the picture on the plasma TV will appear to be clearer and crisper. This sharper contrast and brightness in the plasma TV is due to more light being blocked from the background. On an LCD TV, some of the background lighting is not effectively blocked, which makes it look like weakened background color.
Another factor in the picture you see when comparing a plasma screen TV with an LCD TV is the angle at which you are viewing it. If you are head on, watching from the center of a room, you will have a more accurate comparison. When you view from an angle, plasma TVs tend to have the edge on the LCD models. The LCD models lose quality in brightness and contrast as you move away from their center. Plasma TVs, then, are great if you plan to put them in a room with a lot of seating options from various angles so more people can see a good picture.
When it comes down to making a decision between choosing a plasma screen TV or an LCD screen TV, the truth is that it is simply a matter of personal taste. Both kinds of television sets have the same approximate life span, about 25 years if the television is watched six hours a day or less. Both even pull the same amount of electricity on which to operate. At one time, this was not the case. In the beginning days of plasma TVs, those models required more power to run them. Advanced technology has evened out that issue over the past few years.
The big advantage that the plasma screen TVs have over the LCD TVs is size. Most plasma TVs are two to five inches thick. The LCD TVs are much thicker. Because of the flat, thin nature of the plasma television, the owner of a plasma TV can choose to wall mount the television. It becomes more of a piece of art than a mere entertainment accessory!
If you put the two television sets side by side in a room with light, chances are that you will not see a dramatic difference between the two pictures. However, if the light is turned off, the picture on the plasma TV will appear to be clearer and crisper. This sharper contrast and brightness in the plasma TV is due to more light being blocked from the background. On an LCD TV, some of the background lighting is not effectively blocked, which makes it look like weakened background color.
Another factor in the picture you see when comparing a plasma screen TV with an LCD TV is the angle at which you are viewing it. If you are head on, watching from the center of a room, you will have a more accurate comparison. When you view from an angle, plasma TVs tend to have the edge on the LCD models. The LCD models lose quality in brightness and contrast as you move away from their center. Plasma TVs, then, are great if you plan to put them in a room with a lot of seating options from various angles so more people can see a good picture.
When it comes down to making a decision between choosing a plasma screen TV or an LCD screen TV, the truth is that it is simply a matter of personal taste. Both kinds of television sets have the same approximate life span, about 25 years if the television is watched six hours a day or less. Both even pull the same amount of electricity on which to operate. At one time, this was not the case. In the beginning days of plasma TVs, those models required more power to run them. Advanced technology has evened out that issue over the past few years.
The big advantage that the plasma screen TVs have over the LCD TVs is size. Most plasma TVs are two to five inches thick. The LCD TVs are much thicker. Because of the flat, thin nature of the plasma television, the owner of a plasma TV can choose to wall mount the television. It becomes more of a piece of art than a mere entertainment accessory!
Affiliate Programs � A helping hand for e-businesses
An affiliate program refers to the modern, web based equivalent of an old concept. In the past businesses have paid other groups or businesses �finder�s fees� for recommending their service. Web based affiliates work on this principle.
Company A will ask that company B has an advertisement for their website (site A) included on their website, site B. So when people viewing site B see the advertisement for site A and go on it, company B earns money from company A as reward for providing them with customers.
With online business this payment is commonly done based on the amount of times that an advertisement is clicked on by customers. When the user clicks an advertisement banner and is redirected to the advertised site, it is recorded and an agreed amount of money is given to the site hosting the advert, per click. Many sites are very open about this and will state that the following advertisements are affiliates and that to show support for their site, please click the advertisement at least once, providing them with the funds to continue running the site. The great benefit of this method is that the advertiser only pays for each actual customer referred to them, minimising money spent on ineffective advertising.
Clicking is not the only method used. Sometimes payment is by referral, the customer being more formally referred to the affiliate company by a method such as placing a box on a form suggesting that the user accepts mail from the affiliate. Also, it is common for the advertiser to pay their affiliates per sale, giving them a percentage of the sales made from the customers that they refer.
Some companies provide the affiliate connections between businesses as their sole trade. They will seek out companies that can benefit from advertising with each other and for a tariff, provide the connection.
Affiliate groups have come under fire from internet users for using �spam�. This is blanketing the web user with advertisements, through email, pop up windows etc, to get them to click the advertisements. However this is not practised by the majority of affiliate programs, who are content to simply provide a modest banner linking to the site that is paying for the advertisement, often quite helpful to customers.
Company A will ask that company B has an advertisement for their website (site A) included on their website, site B. So when people viewing site B see the advertisement for site A and go on it, company B earns money from company A as reward for providing them with customers.
With online business this payment is commonly done based on the amount of times that an advertisement is clicked on by customers. When the user clicks an advertisement banner and is redirected to the advertised site, it is recorded and an agreed amount of money is given to the site hosting the advert, per click. Many sites are very open about this and will state that the following advertisements are affiliates and that to show support for their site, please click the advertisement at least once, providing them with the funds to continue running the site. The great benefit of this method is that the advertiser only pays for each actual customer referred to them, minimising money spent on ineffective advertising.
Clicking is not the only method used. Sometimes payment is by referral, the customer being more formally referred to the affiliate company by a method such as placing a box on a form suggesting that the user accepts mail from the affiliate. Also, it is common for the advertiser to pay their affiliates per sale, giving them a percentage of the sales made from the customers that they refer.
Some companies provide the affiliate connections between businesses as their sole trade. They will seek out companies that can benefit from advertising with each other and for a tariff, provide the connection.
Affiliate groups have come under fire from internet users for using �spam�. This is blanketing the web user with advertisements, through email, pop up windows etc, to get them to click the advertisements. However this is not practised by the majority of affiliate programs, who are content to simply provide a modest banner linking to the site that is paying for the advertisement, often quite helpful to customers.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Clock Screensavers - Time Never Stops
This article is about Clock screensavers and their message to us that- Time Never Stops. On the Internet, Clock Screensavers have been newly introduced. In these screensavers, there is a background video in flash of nature and a giant Clock ticking on it. The moving hand of clock never stops and that gives us the message about life. Let us see what?
Screensavers were earlier used to protect the screens of computers. Now with latest technology, that is no more required. People still download screensavers in large quantities and enjoy watching them on the desktop. A beautiful visual of the screensaver can take us away from our daily stresses and relax our mind by showing us waterfalls, trees, rivers, ocean and clouds in the sky. Birds look equally enchanting, and if you watch a butterfly that can mesmerize you on your desktop. Screensavers with great visual are very effective in removing stress. Try them whenever you feel stressed or under tension.
Clock screensavers combine a ticking clock on a screensaver. When you look at the scenes with the clock hand-moving non-stop on the screensaver the message is very poignant. Time never stops. Since billions of years, the only thing that has always gone ahead and never turned back is time. Time always moves forward and the clock never turns back. A clock screensaver on the screen reminds us about how valuable this time is. We are all given short lives. Every second counts. Utilizing time to do something good is the best way to spend time. Use time to achieve your goals and use time to help others.
A majority of us take time for granted. We always believe that we have enough time left to do so many incomplete jobs. But that is not so. We don�t know how much time is allotted to us by nature. We don�t know when we shall go away to the great beyond. A clock screensaver tells us not to delay saying a Thank You or apologizing. Not to delay helping anyone in need. Who knows tomorrow may never come for us. This is the message of Clock screensavers.
Screensavers were earlier used to protect the screens of computers. Now with latest technology, that is no more required. People still download screensavers in large quantities and enjoy watching them on the desktop. A beautiful visual of the screensaver can take us away from our daily stresses and relax our mind by showing us waterfalls, trees, rivers, ocean and clouds in the sky. Birds look equally enchanting, and if you watch a butterfly that can mesmerize you on your desktop. Screensavers with great visual are very effective in removing stress. Try them whenever you feel stressed or under tension.
Clock screensavers combine a ticking clock on a screensaver. When you look at the scenes with the clock hand-moving non-stop on the screensaver the message is very poignant. Time never stops. Since billions of years, the only thing that has always gone ahead and never turned back is time. Time always moves forward and the clock never turns back. A clock screensaver on the screen reminds us about how valuable this time is. We are all given short lives. Every second counts. Utilizing time to do something good is the best way to spend time. Use time to achieve your goals and use time to help others.
A majority of us take time for granted. We always believe that we have enough time left to do so many incomplete jobs. But that is not so. We don�t know how much time is allotted to us by nature. We don�t know when we shall go away to the great beyond. A clock screensaver tells us not to delay saying a Thank You or apologizing. Not to delay helping anyone in need. Who knows tomorrow may never come for us. This is the message of Clock screensavers.
Using Search Engines To Connect With New Local Customers
Local Search Marketing provides you, the business owner, with the most targeted and cost effective customer acquisition opportunity.
Your customers are more and more often searching for businesses like yours on the Internet. Studies show that these customers have a serious buying intent. As a local business (online or off) you need to figure out how to cost effectively reach out to these �Local� customers and start the business relationship before your competition does.
Why should �local search marketing� be important to your business? The Kelsey research group found:
� 74% of households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally.
� Approximately 45% of local searches had a buying intent.
� The percentage of respondents who used yellow page directories decreased from 75% to 62%. (If you have a yellow page ad, it is time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.)
As local business owners you need to take action now. You need to keep your existing customers, and gain new customers, so you need to be found where they are searching. Local Search Marketing is where your future clients and customers will come from.
So where do you start?
Most likely your customers will have a default setting on their computers and this will be set to one of these sites for search; Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL. These search engines all index web pages and have some form of paid advertising referred to as Pay Per Click. This is fine if you have a website but what about many small and local businesses that have little or no web presence at all? And even if you do have a website, does it show up in the search engines above?
Okay, so what other choices have you got?
There are those folks, you know whom I am talking about, who will place you not only in a hard copy directory but also have services online. The challenge is in what the financial cost is, BIG, but hey, they have been around a long time and have deep pockets. The other issue is that they often advertise in the search engines and you will find them there BUT if you follow the link to them, you need to do your search all over again! What a pain.
There are other commercial "local search engines" and some of these are good value but many are not comprehensive. If there are only a few thousand businesses in a local directory most users will leave given the limited amount of content.
So what you need to do is use a search engine like Google and search for "local search directory", make sure you limit your search to the country you�re in. The results include Yahoo local search and a number of local directories. You should check these out and see what it takes to participate in the directories that make the first page of the Google search. By doing so, you�ll be able to get a feel for how they work and what is needed for you to get listed competitively
Your customers are more and more often searching for businesses like yours on the Internet. Studies show that these customers have a serious buying intent. As a local business (online or off) you need to figure out how to cost effectively reach out to these �Local� customers and start the business relationship before your competition does.
Why should �local search marketing� be important to your business? The Kelsey research group found:
� 74% of households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally.
� Approximately 45% of local searches had a buying intent.
� The percentage of respondents who used yellow page directories decreased from 75% to 62%. (If you have a yellow page ad, it is time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.)
As local business owners you need to take action now. You need to keep your existing customers, and gain new customers, so you need to be found where they are searching. Local Search Marketing is where your future clients and customers will come from.
So where do you start?
Most likely your customers will have a default setting on their computers and this will be set to one of these sites for search; Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL. These search engines all index web pages and have some form of paid advertising referred to as Pay Per Click. This is fine if you have a website but what about many small and local businesses that have little or no web presence at all? And even if you do have a website, does it show up in the search engines above?
Okay, so what other choices have you got?
There are those folks, you know whom I am talking about, who will place you not only in a hard copy directory but also have services online. The challenge is in what the financial cost is, BIG, but hey, they have been around a long time and have deep pockets. The other issue is that they often advertise in the search engines and you will find them there BUT if you follow the link to them, you need to do your search all over again! What a pain.
There are other commercial "local search engines" and some of these are good value but many are not comprehensive. If there are only a few thousand businesses in a local directory most users will leave given the limited amount of content.
So what you need to do is use a search engine like Google and search for "local search directory", make sure you limit your search to the country you�re in. The results include Yahoo local search and a number of local directories. You should check these out and see what it takes to participate in the directories that make the first page of the Google search. By doing so, you�ll be able to get a feel for how they work and what is needed for you to get listed competitively
Advertising Your Website With Pay-Per-Click
A thriving way to help optimize your online image is to consider using the pay-per-click advertising. What pay-per-click means is that you purchase sponsored links on the pages of search engine results. Search engines are used every minute of the day, which means advertising your website with pay-per-click will greatly increase the advertising of your website.
By advertising your website with pay-per-click, you are helping to advertise your business in what is usually an inexpensive way that is growing larger and reaching more people everyday. You can also tailor your pay-per-click advertising to fit your business or company budget needs. This is a plus for those of you who are starting out on a budget and want to stay away from paying a lot for advertising that may or may not be seen. By advertising your website with pay-per-click, your ad is surely going to be seen. More advantages to advertising your website with pay-per-click include the speed of advertising, the increase in traffic to your website, and the ability to research and compare data to see what works best for your website.
There are times, however, when advertising your website with pay-per-click can prove to be costly. For example, it will cost you more to use competitive keywords than it will to use ones that are not as competitive. Finely tune your keyword strategies. You can find information on the Internet on this or you might want to consider consulting a professional. Also remember not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with one pay-per-click provider first, using ads you have tested, and then extend your campaign accordingly.
Advertising your website with pay-per-click can be a very quick, inexpensive way to get your website and business rolling. Drawbacks can always pop up, but if you educate and prepare yourself, you will be able to make the most out of advertising your website with pay-per-click.
By advertising your website with pay-per-click, you are helping to advertise your business in what is usually an inexpensive way that is growing larger and reaching more people everyday. You can also tailor your pay-per-click advertising to fit your business or company budget needs. This is a plus for those of you who are starting out on a budget and want to stay away from paying a lot for advertising that may or may not be seen. By advertising your website with pay-per-click, your ad is surely going to be seen. More advantages to advertising your website with pay-per-click include the speed of advertising, the increase in traffic to your website, and the ability to research and compare data to see what works best for your website.
There are times, however, when advertising your website with pay-per-click can prove to be costly. For example, it will cost you more to use competitive keywords than it will to use ones that are not as competitive. Finely tune your keyword strategies. You can find information on the Internet on this or you might want to consider consulting a professional. Also remember not to bite off more than you can chew. Start with one pay-per-click provider first, using ads you have tested, and then extend your campaign accordingly.
Advertising your website with pay-per-click can be a very quick, inexpensive way to get your website and business rolling. Drawbacks can always pop up, but if you educate and prepare yourself, you will be able to make the most out of advertising your website with pay-per-click.
Online Shopping Boom Getting Bigger
As the industry of online auctions continues to boom, the level of competition among the retailers also keeps getting higher. This competition makes the online shops to be very alert and updated on what the other stores are selling to make sure that it would be their prices that would be most appealing for online consumers.
It is extremely easy to find and buy anything and everything online. The diversity of the online shopping marketplace is amazing because of its global aspect. You have endless possibilities. For the convenience of online shoppers, the number of discounts in internet stores have also been growing continuously.
There are literally thousands and thousands of online stores that continue to thrive and they all provide businesses and individuals with an electronic method of buying services and products. They provide the access to the widest variety of merchandise in the comfort of their offices or homes.
Here are some of the more popular online stores or marketplaces that truly provide great products offering and service.
1. eBay
eBay is probably the most famous online auction. Consumers are able to find all kinds of items - from books to gardening tools to appliances to clothing to baby products to electronic gadgets and even cars and real estate.
2. Amazon
This would be perhaps the second largest online store, which hosts both online stores and auctions. Although Amazon also offers the same products that eBay sells, their reputation mainly lies on the category of books and video entertainment.
3. Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is an online store, which offers a wide range of merchandise as well. However, they also offer internet services, as well as questions regarding taxes at the start of the year. This makes Wal-Mart a great place to shop and get information.
4. QxBid�
Free Online Auctions With free Store
To Reach Your Potential, Think In Terms Of Improvement
Based on John Maxwell's The Success Journey. Here are 10 Principles to becoming a dedicated self- developer. I'll be reflecting on this as I take a break this week.
1. Chose a Life of Growth -- When you sincerely dedicate yourself to continual growth, you keep moving forward. As soon as you think you can coast or rest or just maintain what you have already achieved, that is when you start sliding backwards.
2. Growing Today -- Procrastination is the death of ambition and dreams. Someday is not a day of the week. Growth is not automatic. Growth today will provide a better tomorrow. Growth is your responsibility - if you don't take that responsibility, growth will never happen.
3. Be Teachable -- "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts". John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach said this. He recognized that the greatest obstacle to growth isn't ignorance, it is knowledge. When we think we know it all, we become unteachable and can no longer grow or improve.
4. Focus on Self-Development, Not Self-Fulfillment -- Self-fulfillment is about feeling good. With self- development, feeling good is a byproduct, not a goal. Self-development is a higher calling, it's the development of your potential so that you can attain the purpose for which you were created.
5. Never Stay Satisfied with Current Accomplishments -- Thinking that you have arrived when you accomplish a goal has the same effect as believing you know it all. It takes away your desire to learn. Successful people know that wins and losses are both temporary. So no matter how successful you are today, don't get complacent. Stay hungry. Don't settle into the Comfort Zone. From success, move on to greater growth.
6. Be a Continual Learner -- To keep moving, become a perpetual learner. You'll have to carve out time for it. As Henry Ford said, "It's been my observation that most successful people get ahead during the time other people waste." Learning something every day is the essence of being a continual learner.
7. Concentrate on a Few Major Themes -- Give your time and energy only to the themes at the heart of your life. Keep your focus narrow. Where you focus your attention will depend on your purpose, how you wish to help others and what it means for you to reach your potential.
8. Develop a Plan for Growth -- The key to this life is developing a plan: Plan your work and work your plan. Earl Nightingale says "If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject." How you go about it does not matter, but do it daily.
9. Pay the Price -- Growth requires discipline. It takes time away from leisure pursuits. It costs money for materials. There's constant change and risks. And it can be lonely. But growth is always worth the price you pay because the alternative is a life of unfulfilled potential. President Theodore Roosevelt stated: "There has not yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering."
10. Find a Way to Apply What You Learn -- In some way apply what you learn every day to turn it into a habit instead of a wish. Do this for 21 days and the habit is yours. As you accumulate growth this way, you never stagnate or backslide.
1. Chose a Life of Growth -- When you sincerely dedicate yourself to continual growth, you keep moving forward. As soon as you think you can coast or rest or just maintain what you have already achieved, that is when you start sliding backwards.
2. Growing Today -- Procrastination is the death of ambition and dreams. Someday is not a day of the week. Growth is not automatic. Growth today will provide a better tomorrow. Growth is your responsibility - if you don't take that responsibility, growth will never happen.
3. Be Teachable -- "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts". John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach said this. He recognized that the greatest obstacle to growth isn't ignorance, it is knowledge. When we think we know it all, we become unteachable and can no longer grow or improve.
4. Focus on Self-Development, Not Self-Fulfillment -- Self-fulfillment is about feeling good. With self- development, feeling good is a byproduct, not a goal. Self-development is a higher calling, it's the development of your potential so that you can attain the purpose for which you were created.
5. Never Stay Satisfied with Current Accomplishments -- Thinking that you have arrived when you accomplish a goal has the same effect as believing you know it all. It takes away your desire to learn. Successful people know that wins and losses are both temporary. So no matter how successful you are today, don't get complacent. Stay hungry. Don't settle into the Comfort Zone. From success, move on to greater growth.
6. Be a Continual Learner -- To keep moving, become a perpetual learner. You'll have to carve out time for it. As Henry Ford said, "It's been my observation that most successful people get ahead during the time other people waste." Learning something every day is the essence of being a continual learner.
7. Concentrate on a Few Major Themes -- Give your time and energy only to the themes at the heart of your life. Keep your focus narrow. Where you focus your attention will depend on your purpose, how you wish to help others and what it means for you to reach your potential.
8. Develop a Plan for Growth -- The key to this life is developing a plan: Plan your work and work your plan. Earl Nightingale says "If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject." How you go about it does not matter, but do it daily.
9. Pay the Price -- Growth requires discipline. It takes time away from leisure pursuits. It costs money for materials. There's constant change and risks. And it can be lonely. But growth is always worth the price you pay because the alternative is a life of unfulfilled potential. President Theodore Roosevelt stated: "There has not yet been a person in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering."
10. Find a Way to Apply What You Learn -- In some way apply what you learn every day to turn it into a habit instead of a wish. Do this for 21 days and the habit is yours. As you accumulate growth this way, you never stagnate or backslide.
Why Most Leadership Development Efforts Fail
George was seen as an up-and-coming leader in the organization. People the worked for him liked and respected him. And those in Senior Leadership saw his potential, so he was slated to attend the company�s leadership development workshop.
George was ecstatic! He loved the organization and wanted to move up and contribute as much as he could. He saw this opportunity as a positive step in that progression. Plus, he had some challenges in his job that he hoped he could learn how to deal with more successfully.
After he found out he was slated to attend, George didn�t hear much more about the training until about a week before it began. The email gave him all of the details and he was excited all over again. Excited, that is, until he looked at his calendar and saw how much he had to do.
Because the training meant so much to him, he was determined to be focused while he was there, so he worked hard to get his projects all caught up before he left for the workshop.
George loved the workshop! The facilitator was great, the content was helpful, and the food was even good! He was so motivated by the new ideas and the people he met. He gained in confidence as they practiced some of the things they learned. As a part of the program he built an action plan. He left the two days completely stoked about what he had learned and how he would be able to apply it.
After the Workshop
George awoke the next morning and reviewed his action plan. He was excited because he knew what he would do to be a better leader, starting today. Then, George got back to work. As he fired up his computer he checked his voice mail.
23 messages.
His heart sank a little. As he listened to the messages, taking notes when needed on his next steps, he opened up his email and found an even more depressing sight. 91 emails. A quick glance found that there was little fluff there � it wasn�t 20 serious emails and a bunch of reading or jokes, it was a solid 91 emails to read, work through, reply to and take action on.
After getting a cup of coffee, George went to say hello to his team. This took awhile because they had questions and things they wanted to talk to him about � which was only natural since he had been out-of-pocket for two days. By 9:15 he was back at his desk, ready to tackle all the messages � including the 7 new emails that had come in while he was out.
By 3:00 he had mostly forgotten about his action plan � he remembered it only when he saw it in his briefcase. He took it out and looked at it wistfully. He was still committed to working on those items, but they would have to wait, the next project meeting was all day tomorrow. . .
Reviewing the Situation
Perhaps the situation above sounds familiar to you. What is written up to the �After the Workshop� heading looks good situation: a willing learner, a well designed workshop, and a person leaving excited about his action plan. This story might be a bit too rosy � admittedly, not every one who attends training will be as excited and motivated as George, but in the end it doesn�t really matter � because a highly motivated person like George won�t get as much from this effort as he could or even wants to.
Why?
Because while most leadership development programs focus on developing a great training program, that is a small part of the overall likelihood of success. You see, training is an event, but learning (including leadership development) is a process.
We don�t learn important, complex life skills in brief instant. In an instant we can get an insight, an aha, and an inspiration. In an event we can get ideas, approaches, checklists and knowledge. But skills come to us over time � not in a one shot, one time training course (regardless of how well it is designed or how awesome the trainer is). Skills come with practice and application.
Leadership development is a process and as long as those efforts look like events, the return on those investments will never be high.
Much can be written about specific things that can be done to make the process more effective, but you can start without that list of ideas. Reread the story above. Connect it to your situation and then think of two things you can do to make your leadership development process (whether for yourself or your organization) be more successful.
George was ecstatic! He loved the organization and wanted to move up and contribute as much as he could. He saw this opportunity as a positive step in that progression. Plus, he had some challenges in his job that he hoped he could learn how to deal with more successfully.
After he found out he was slated to attend, George didn�t hear much more about the training until about a week before it began. The email gave him all of the details and he was excited all over again. Excited, that is, until he looked at his calendar and saw how much he had to do.
Because the training meant so much to him, he was determined to be focused while he was there, so he worked hard to get his projects all caught up before he left for the workshop.
George loved the workshop! The facilitator was great, the content was helpful, and the food was even good! He was so motivated by the new ideas and the people he met. He gained in confidence as they practiced some of the things they learned. As a part of the program he built an action plan. He left the two days completely stoked about what he had learned and how he would be able to apply it.
After the Workshop
George awoke the next morning and reviewed his action plan. He was excited because he knew what he would do to be a better leader, starting today. Then, George got back to work. As he fired up his computer he checked his voice mail.
23 messages.
His heart sank a little. As he listened to the messages, taking notes when needed on his next steps, he opened up his email and found an even more depressing sight. 91 emails. A quick glance found that there was little fluff there � it wasn�t 20 serious emails and a bunch of reading or jokes, it was a solid 91 emails to read, work through, reply to and take action on.
After getting a cup of coffee, George went to say hello to his team. This took awhile because they had questions and things they wanted to talk to him about � which was only natural since he had been out-of-pocket for two days. By 9:15 he was back at his desk, ready to tackle all the messages � including the 7 new emails that had come in while he was out.
By 3:00 he had mostly forgotten about his action plan � he remembered it only when he saw it in his briefcase. He took it out and looked at it wistfully. He was still committed to working on those items, but they would have to wait, the next project meeting was all day tomorrow. . .
Reviewing the Situation
Perhaps the situation above sounds familiar to you. What is written up to the �After the Workshop� heading looks good situation: a willing learner, a well designed workshop, and a person leaving excited about his action plan. This story might be a bit too rosy � admittedly, not every one who attends training will be as excited and motivated as George, but in the end it doesn�t really matter � because a highly motivated person like George won�t get as much from this effort as he could or even wants to.
Why?
Because while most leadership development programs focus on developing a great training program, that is a small part of the overall likelihood of success. You see, training is an event, but learning (including leadership development) is a process.
We don�t learn important, complex life skills in brief instant. In an instant we can get an insight, an aha, and an inspiration. In an event we can get ideas, approaches, checklists and knowledge. But skills come to us over time � not in a one shot, one time training course (regardless of how well it is designed or how awesome the trainer is). Skills come with practice and application.
Leadership development is a process and as long as those efforts look like events, the return on those investments will never be high.
Much can be written about specific things that can be done to make the process more effective, but you can start without that list of ideas. Reread the story above. Connect it to your situation and then think of two things you can do to make your leadership development process (whether for yourself or your organization) be more successful.
Not All Website Links Are Created Equal
If you've read anything in the internet marketing arena while trying to promote your website, you've no doubt come across the advice that you need to get links to your website in order for it to do well in the search engines. I'm not here to tell you otherwise, only to point out that when someone gives you advice on getting links, don't assume that any and all links are helpful or desirable. You need to learn to go after links that will give you the best results for the least amount of effort.
Years ago, in the early days of the internet, it was not uncommon for internet 'gurus' to council people to place links on FFA lists in order to get traffic. Besides these FFA lists, webmasters were encouraged to get links from classified ads, webrings, link farms and all manner of beasts like these. These links didn't help the average user find useful information faster. In fact, if anything it made it more difficult for people to find what they were looking for.
Years ago search engines were simple by todays standards. Back then you could often achieve top ranking for a particular keyword by simply repeating these keywords over and over again. Early search engines assumed that the more often a keyword was mentioned, the more likely the page was relevant to the topic. This, of course, was not true and search engine companies eventually wisened up to this tactic.
Getting a mass of links from websites that are not relevant to the topic of your website produces little return. It does produce some return on some search engines but very little for the two biggest ones, Google and Yahoo, with Google being the most sophisticated of the two engines. Based on information from a Google patent application released a while back, experts surmise that Google will track a number of factors when determining how to rate the value and authority of the link pointing to your site.
Some of these factors include the topic of the website linking to you. If it is about deer hunting and your website is selling access to a website builder, the link won't count as highly as if it came from another website promoting a website builder or a web hosting company, web hosting directory, etc...
Number of links on a page is also important especially when factoring in Google pagerank. When another website places a link to your page, it will transfer more pagerank to your website the fewer the links on their website. Depending on how much pagerank the other website has, your link may tansfer little or no pagerank back to your website if there are too many links on the page.
Placement of the link on the page is another factor to consider. Advanced search engines like Google are now trying to discount links that are obviously advertisements or paid linking. To this end, links under partner sections, on links pages, on 'partner' pages are being discounted.
So what kind of links should you get? The best kind of links are keyword rich, contextual links within the body of the web page. Links that are relevant to the context of the page are going to get more attention that links that are clearly off topic. Including your targeted keyword between the html anchor tag is also a good idea.
Years ago, in the early days of the internet, it was not uncommon for internet 'gurus' to council people to place links on FFA lists in order to get traffic. Besides these FFA lists, webmasters were encouraged to get links from classified ads, webrings, link farms and all manner of beasts like these. These links didn't help the average user find useful information faster. In fact, if anything it made it more difficult for people to find what they were looking for.
Years ago search engines were simple by todays standards. Back then you could often achieve top ranking for a particular keyword by simply repeating these keywords over and over again. Early search engines assumed that the more often a keyword was mentioned, the more likely the page was relevant to the topic. This, of course, was not true and search engine companies eventually wisened up to this tactic.
Getting a mass of links from websites that are not relevant to the topic of your website produces little return. It does produce some return on some search engines but very little for the two biggest ones, Google and Yahoo, with Google being the most sophisticated of the two engines. Based on information from a Google patent application released a while back, experts surmise that Google will track a number of factors when determining how to rate the value and authority of the link pointing to your site.
Some of these factors include the topic of the website linking to you. If it is about deer hunting and your website is selling access to a website builder, the link won't count as highly as if it came from another website promoting a website builder or a web hosting company, web hosting directory, etc...
Number of links on a page is also important especially when factoring in Google pagerank. When another website places a link to your page, it will transfer more pagerank to your website the fewer the links on their website. Depending on how much pagerank the other website has, your link may tansfer little or no pagerank back to your website if there are too many links on the page.
Placement of the link on the page is another factor to consider. Advanced search engines like Google are now trying to discount links that are obviously advertisements or paid linking. To this end, links under partner sections, on links pages, on 'partner' pages are being discounted.
So what kind of links should you get? The best kind of links are keyword rich, contextual links within the body of the web page. Links that are relevant to the context of the page are going to get more attention that links that are clearly off topic. Including your targeted keyword between the html anchor tag is also a good idea.
How the Content Can be Treated?
We live in the time of instant mass communications, where information can be transmitted by all modern means of communications such as radio, TV and internet. However, mass media in Western society should exercise some cautions on several sensitive topics and subjects such as religious beliefs of other people. Last year, one Danish paper published some cartoons that depicted and derided Prophet Mohammed. The publication produced negative reactions on the parts of several Asian and Northern African nations where urgings for the boycott of Danish goods, were heard and even ambassadress were recalled from Denmark. In spite of this reaction (or maybe just due to it), French and German newspapers decided to follow the example of Danish colleagues by republishing above mentioned cartoons. The newspapers claimed that they had legitimate right to publish whatever material they see fit and that they had depicted and laughed at religious beliefs of various people in the past.
It is a well-known fact that France Soir had been experiencing some financial problems and it was determined and was resolved to attract the attention of the public and mass media representatives around the world. Whereas French paper maintained that the cartoons were harmless and should not be regarded as offensive or derogatory, other Western European newspaper Geram Wielt stated that they regretted that Danish newspaper apologized for publishing of the cartoons. According to these newspapers there is a legitimate right in western society to criticize or laugh at all aspects of religious life, and Islam must not be an exception from the rule. One must recall what scandal such publication caused in Muslim countries and Muslim communities around the world. Such dairy companies as Arla foods lost several million dollars and even fired several workers due to the negative impact of the boycott. Some of the nations even recalled their ambassadors or closed their embassies in the Denmark.
In spite of the fact that such actions might be futile (as the Government could not exercise their control over the independent newspapers in European nations), yet some reactions in Muslim countries should be examined and the most important points of this controversial issue should be studied. In spite of the fact that Government has no power to control the editorial policy of independent newspapers in many instances there are some self �imposed restraints in the policy of independent mass media. Few of well-established and reputable newspapers would think to stoop to the level of poorly educated person who derives some perverted pleasure from provoking or offending feelings or beliefs of other people. However, those newspapers that experience either financial difficulties or the lack of readers might republish whatever they would like to in a desperate effort to get the attention of the public and international mass media, and maybe even some copywriter. That is why mild reaction or the absence of the reaction whatsoever is the best option to prevent the republishing of this type of material as they are destined mostly to bring the exact reaction that Danish cartoons brought.
It is a well-known fact that France Soir had been experiencing some financial problems and it was determined and was resolved to attract the attention of the public and mass media representatives around the world. Whereas French paper maintained that the cartoons were harmless and should not be regarded as offensive or derogatory, other Western European newspaper Geram Wielt stated that they regretted that Danish newspaper apologized for publishing of the cartoons. According to these newspapers there is a legitimate right in western society to criticize or laugh at all aspects of religious life, and Islam must not be an exception from the rule. One must recall what scandal such publication caused in Muslim countries and Muslim communities around the world. Such dairy companies as Arla foods lost several million dollars and even fired several workers due to the negative impact of the boycott. Some of the nations even recalled their ambassadors or closed their embassies in the Denmark.
In spite of the fact that such actions might be futile (as the Government could not exercise their control over the independent newspapers in European nations), yet some reactions in Muslim countries should be examined and the most important points of this controversial issue should be studied. In spite of the fact that Government has no power to control the editorial policy of independent newspapers in many instances there are some self �imposed restraints in the policy of independent mass media. Few of well-established and reputable newspapers would think to stoop to the level of poorly educated person who derives some perverted pleasure from provoking or offending feelings or beliefs of other people. However, those newspapers that experience either financial difficulties or the lack of readers might republish whatever they would like to in a desperate effort to get the attention of the public and international mass media, and maybe even some copywriter. That is why mild reaction or the absence of the reaction whatsoever is the best option to prevent the republishing of this type of material as they are destined mostly to bring the exact reaction that Danish cartoons brought.
Learning Strategies
A few basic learning strategies can help you in your carreer or business. They also can make you the person who always has something interesting to say. You CAN learn more efficiently. Just use a few of the following techniques until they become habit.
Create Anticipation and Curiosity
You learn more effectively with curiosity and anticipation working for you, but how do you create this state of mind? One way is to end each learning session with a question or two clearly in your mind. This creates the sense of anticipation and curiosity that will help you next time you study. It's like a TV show going to a commercial at an interesting moment in the program. You want to stay tuned, to see what happens next.
Prepare To Learn
When you want to learn new material, expose your mind to it as soon as possible, before you even feel "ready," or have time to study. The first stage of learning is the part where you look at new ideas and say, "huh?" Do this quickly, however, reviewing everything for a few minutes, and your unconscious mind will start "incubating" the new concepts, and finding some way to organize them.
Relate What You Know To The New Knowledge
When you sit down to study new material, relate it to what you already know. Compare and contrast things, saying to yourself, "That's like...," or "How is that different from..." Autoresponders were new to me when I started my newsletters, but the concept sunk in and motivated me when I thought, "It's like someone doing all my addressing and mailing for pennies a day." This prompted the important questions, and I was ready to learn.
Use Your Imagination
Changing your perspective is one of the great learning strategies. For example, study with the idea in mind that you will be teaching what you're learning. As you study something, imagine how you'll teach it. This is a powerful way to get a good grasp on new information.
Also imagine how you'll use what you are learning. There's so much information, and so little of it is the truly "important stuff." But by imagining how you'll use the new information, you tend to automatically focus on the things you really need to know.
Take Breaks
You can learn more by working less. The research shows that we remember best what we study first and last in a given session. So, by taking breaks, you create more "sessions," and increase the number of firsts and lasts. Move around during your breaks, as this can also keep your mind fresh.
Finding Time
What if it took no extra time to learn a new language, take a negotiating course, or study something new and interesting? Start using the dead-time in your day, the time sitting in your car, or on the bus, or in a waiting room. Almost any public library has hundreds of books on tape, and you can even instantly download books on the internet.
This is one of the most under-utilised and easiest learning strategies. If your job is 25 minutes away you spend 200 hours per year sitting in your car going to or from work. Could you learn something useful if you had four hours per week of audio instruction for a year? The only extra time it takes is a few minutes to stop by the library.
Of course, almost nothing works just by reading it. Why not scan the list above and start using one or two of these learning strategies right now?
Create Anticipation and Curiosity
You learn more effectively with curiosity and anticipation working for you, but how do you create this state of mind? One way is to end each learning session with a question or two clearly in your mind. This creates the sense of anticipation and curiosity that will help you next time you study. It's like a TV show going to a commercial at an interesting moment in the program. You want to stay tuned, to see what happens next.
Prepare To Learn
When you want to learn new material, expose your mind to it as soon as possible, before you even feel "ready," or have time to study. The first stage of learning is the part where you look at new ideas and say, "huh?" Do this quickly, however, reviewing everything for a few minutes, and your unconscious mind will start "incubating" the new concepts, and finding some way to organize them.
Relate What You Know To The New Knowledge
When you sit down to study new material, relate it to what you already know. Compare and contrast things, saying to yourself, "That's like...," or "How is that different from..." Autoresponders were new to me when I started my newsletters, but the concept sunk in and motivated me when I thought, "It's like someone doing all my addressing and mailing for pennies a day." This prompted the important questions, and I was ready to learn.
Use Your Imagination
Changing your perspective is one of the great learning strategies. For example, study with the idea in mind that you will be teaching what you're learning. As you study something, imagine how you'll teach it. This is a powerful way to get a good grasp on new information.
Also imagine how you'll use what you are learning. There's so much information, and so little of it is the truly "important stuff." But by imagining how you'll use the new information, you tend to automatically focus on the things you really need to know.
Take Breaks
You can learn more by working less. The research shows that we remember best what we study first and last in a given session. So, by taking breaks, you create more "sessions," and increase the number of firsts and lasts. Move around during your breaks, as this can also keep your mind fresh.
Finding Time
What if it took no extra time to learn a new language, take a negotiating course, or study something new and interesting? Start using the dead-time in your day, the time sitting in your car, or on the bus, or in a waiting room. Almost any public library has hundreds of books on tape, and you can even instantly download books on the internet.
This is one of the most under-utilised and easiest learning strategies. If your job is 25 minutes away you spend 200 hours per year sitting in your car going to or from work. Could you learn something useful if you had four hours per week of audio instruction for a year? The only extra time it takes is a few minutes to stop by the library.
Of course, almost nothing works just by reading it. Why not scan the list above and start using one or two of these learning strategies right now?
How I Got My Web Site To PR 5 In 3 Months
Getting a new web site page ranked and indexed are two things everyone should take into account. With all the competing web sites out there the importance of this becomes a top priorty so that you can get free traffic and thus make money online. I started my Internet home business venture some 3 months ago and I didn't have a clue as to how I would get visitors. It quickly became apparent that in order to get visitors for free that I would have to take certain steps. The following is what I did to get my site indexed and page ranked in 3 months, maybe my timing was right for the quarterly page rank by google but I did have to do some work to get there.
1. First off in order to get indexed quickly I suggest you put in a tiny classified ad at CraigsList.com, the site is a PR 8 and having a link to your site will get the search engines crawling all over yours. Make sure to only put one ad in and not to spam them because they will close your account. Also make sure to keep an eye on it, sometimes the administration cancels it or it expires.
2. Next I read an e-book call SEO Made Easy by Brad Callen(You can get a FREE copy on my web site listed below). Brad has some wonderful ideas and methods to get to the top of the search engines. I then implemented his ideas and methods.
3. Getting one way links back to your web site is key in getting Page Ranked.
a) Article submission will get you one way links and having lots of them will get your site PRed. So how do you get a link to your site? Well in each article that is submitted you are allowed to put an "About the Author Box", this is where you put your link to your site. Now some of you might find this very time consumming. Well so did I. What I did is got my articles ghost written from JustArticles.com and had them submitted to over 24,000+ publishers at Isnare.com, for about $70.00 US your can get 5 450-600 word ghost written articles from JustArticles.com and 5 distribution credits from Isnare.com which will distribute those 5 articles to the 24,000+ publishers. Now if you don't want to spend the $70.00 on the articles and distribution you CAN do it for FREE. You can of course write your own articles and get article submission software from my website for FREE. But if you do have the money I suggest you do it this way because it is very time consumming. Its very important that you don't submit more than one per week because getting too many links all at once will make the search engines unhappy. Continue to submit one per week for 3 months.
b) Submitting your web site to one way link directories is the other method I used. Again this is time consuming so I bought a piece of software that does this for me. You still have to do it by hand but all the directories are already preloaded in the software. Go here for a copy of the software I'm using: http://www.directorysubmitter.com/
It costs about $97.00 for the software but I'm sure that you will think its money well spent after you see results. If you don't have the money to do this then I guess you'll have to do it the hard way and find the directories and submit by hand.
c) Joining a well known forum is the last thing I did to get one way links to my site. You see most forums have what's called a sig file. A sig file is a perminent signature to every post you make at the forum. I put in a link to my web site and that's it. The only thing left to do is post topics or reply to ones already made. Again make sure you don't spam the forum you join, this will only get your account closed. Make sure you have a relevant topic or reply and you will have no problems.
By implementing these steps I achieved a Page Rank of 5 in 3 months, keep in mind that the search engines are always changing and finding new ways to rank pages. One thing I think will always be important is the amount of one way links back to your web site. I hope these methods will help you achieve your goals and make you money online, I know they have helped my Internet home business immensely.
1. First off in order to get indexed quickly I suggest you put in a tiny classified ad at CraigsList.com, the site is a PR 8 and having a link to your site will get the search engines crawling all over yours. Make sure to only put one ad in and not to spam them because they will close your account. Also make sure to keep an eye on it, sometimes the administration cancels it or it expires.
2. Next I read an e-book call SEO Made Easy by Brad Callen(You can get a FREE copy on my web site listed below). Brad has some wonderful ideas and methods to get to the top of the search engines. I then implemented his ideas and methods.
3. Getting one way links back to your web site is key in getting Page Ranked.
a) Article submission will get you one way links and having lots of them will get your site PRed. So how do you get a link to your site? Well in each article that is submitted you are allowed to put an "About the Author Box", this is where you put your link to your site. Now some of you might find this very time consumming. Well so did I. What I did is got my articles ghost written from JustArticles.com and had them submitted to over 24,000+ publishers at Isnare.com, for about $70.00 US your can get 5 450-600 word ghost written articles from JustArticles.com and 5 distribution credits from Isnare.com which will distribute those 5 articles to the 24,000+ publishers. Now if you don't want to spend the $70.00 on the articles and distribution you CAN do it for FREE. You can of course write your own articles and get article submission software from my website for FREE. But if you do have the money I suggest you do it this way because it is very time consumming. Its very important that you don't submit more than one per week because getting too many links all at once will make the search engines unhappy. Continue to submit one per week for 3 months.
b) Submitting your web site to one way link directories is the other method I used. Again this is time consuming so I bought a piece of software that does this for me. You still have to do it by hand but all the directories are already preloaded in the software. Go here for a copy of the software I'm using: http://www.directorysubmitter.com/
It costs about $97.00 for the software but I'm sure that you will think its money well spent after you see results. If you don't have the money to do this then I guess you'll have to do it the hard way and find the directories and submit by hand.
c) Joining a well known forum is the last thing I did to get one way links to my site. You see most forums have what's called a sig file. A sig file is a perminent signature to every post you make at the forum. I put in a link to my web site and that's it. The only thing left to do is post topics or reply to ones already made. Again make sure you don't spam the forum you join, this will only get your account closed. Make sure you have a relevant topic or reply and you will have no problems.
By implementing these steps I achieved a Page Rank of 5 in 3 months, keep in mind that the search engines are always changing and finding new ways to rank pages. One thing I think will always be important is the amount of one way links back to your web site. I hope these methods will help you achieve your goals and make you money online, I know they have helped my Internet home business immensely.
How to Make More Time for Giving
Do you have a desire to spend more time giving to others but you don't know where the time is going to come from? Have you tried several time management approaches all of which gave limited results or didn't last beyond a few weeks or days? I had the same problem and so did my friend David.
David Perdew has just written a new book called "Bad Dad: 10 Keys to Regaining Trust", is developing and teaching an online course, makes time for his family, and works a full-time job. Some students in his class have recently stated they don't know how he does it all. I recently talked with David about his "secret." It was no surprise that he has learned what I have.
You need to determine what your values and life purpose are and then spend your time doing those things that are most important to fulfilling them. Everything else should be delegated to someone else or not done at all. If giving to others is high on your list of values, you will make the time to do it more and feel great about it.
I spent the energy to determine my values and life purpose in my mid-forties. Some people might think I was going through a mid-life crisis (or man-o-pause as my friend Nick would call it). You are never too young or old to take your life purpose seriously.
The following two books were very useful to me and I highly recommend them both:
- "The Power To Be Your Best" by Todd Duncan
- "The Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren
If you don't know your life purpose at this point in your life, you need to take the time to discover it. It will be a life changing experience.
David Perdew has just written a new book called "Bad Dad: 10 Keys to Regaining Trust", is developing and teaching an online course, makes time for his family, and works a full-time job. Some students in his class have recently stated they don't know how he does it all. I recently talked with David about his "secret." It was no surprise that he has learned what I have.
You need to determine what your values and life purpose are and then spend your time doing those things that are most important to fulfilling them. Everything else should be delegated to someone else or not done at all. If giving to others is high on your list of values, you will make the time to do it more and feel great about it.
I spent the energy to determine my values and life purpose in my mid-forties. Some people might think I was going through a mid-life crisis (or man-o-pause as my friend Nick would call it). You are never too young or old to take your life purpose seriously.
The following two books were very useful to me and I highly recommend them both:
- "The Power To Be Your Best" by Todd Duncan
- "The Purpose-Driven Life" by Rick Warren
If you don't know your life purpose at this point in your life, you need to take the time to discover it. It will be a life changing experience.
Friday, July 30, 2010
The Best Kept Secret In Achieving Success
I decided to write about this topic because everybody seems to have the wrong idea
about accomplishing success. For instance, some people have got the idea that
visualization and is the way to become successful. Unfortunately, People who just
focus on visualize a channel might end up in a state official thinking instead.
However, there is a far better secret toward completion success. It�s got nothing
to do with the law of attraction, it has got nothing to do with being able to manage
your emotional states, neither does it have to do with seeking of mentors and
modeling after their successes.
So, you might be wondering what this secret really is.
Have you ever been in a position where you enjoy doing something so much you�re
willing to do it without being paid? I�m sure you think of that such situations,
and then the practical logic of it all came crashing down on you. It was a fact
that you couldn�t do this because you still needed to sustain your own livelihood.
However, think about the fact that it works in the first place. Many people forget
that in order for anyone to accomplish success, their entire being needs to be a
lined with that outcome.
What exactly is alignment? It is that state of being where you feel that everything
is going well for you and that you are mind, body, and soul in agreement to
accomplishing what you were doing. I�m sure you�ve encountered times where
something might pay you very, very well, and still you felt totally trained, totally
unhappy and possibly even dissatisfied with any resulting your competition there.
This is a time where you might say that you were misaligned perhaps. You could have
been working in the place that you were in for the wrong reasons.
How does alignment take place? Well, alignment is a process of discovering your
innermost desires and needs, and ensuring that you are able to fulfill them from a
set of capabilities and behaviors that are already a part of you. It�s a little
more difficult to explain it than it is for you to experience it. Think of the
times where you were already aligned. For instance, you had no qualms about doing a
particular thing such as a charity project. Perhaps, you are fully outlined in
helping your best friend to get out of depression. Or perhaps it was something even
simpler � helping someone cross the road. Whatever that was, is leaving behind a
certain set of clues that tells you what to make out of your own personal alignment
is. You need to be in the right place, doing the right things, and tapping on the
right skills that you presently have. Moreover, you must believe that what you�re
doing is worthwhile to you and the people around you. Like my friend John Di Lemme
likes to say, the reason why you are doing this must be bigger than who you are in
order for you to achieve any sense of fulfillment for success.
about accomplishing success. For instance, some people have got the idea that
visualization and is the way to become successful. Unfortunately, People who just
focus on visualize a channel might end up in a state official thinking instead.
However, there is a far better secret toward completion success. It�s got nothing
to do with the law of attraction, it has got nothing to do with being able to manage
your emotional states, neither does it have to do with seeking of mentors and
modeling after their successes.
So, you might be wondering what this secret really is.
Have you ever been in a position where you enjoy doing something so much you�re
willing to do it without being paid? I�m sure you think of that such situations,
and then the practical logic of it all came crashing down on you. It was a fact
that you couldn�t do this because you still needed to sustain your own livelihood.
However, think about the fact that it works in the first place. Many people forget
that in order for anyone to accomplish success, their entire being needs to be a
lined with that outcome.
What exactly is alignment? It is that state of being where you feel that everything
is going well for you and that you are mind, body, and soul in agreement to
accomplishing what you were doing. I�m sure you�ve encountered times where
something might pay you very, very well, and still you felt totally trained, totally
unhappy and possibly even dissatisfied with any resulting your competition there.
This is a time where you might say that you were misaligned perhaps. You could have
been working in the place that you were in for the wrong reasons.
How does alignment take place? Well, alignment is a process of discovering your
innermost desires and needs, and ensuring that you are able to fulfill them from a
set of capabilities and behaviors that are already a part of you. It�s a little
more difficult to explain it than it is for you to experience it. Think of the
times where you were already aligned. For instance, you had no qualms about doing a
particular thing such as a charity project. Perhaps, you are fully outlined in
helping your best friend to get out of depression. Or perhaps it was something even
simpler � helping someone cross the road. Whatever that was, is leaving behind a
certain set of clues that tells you what to make out of your own personal alignment
is. You need to be in the right place, doing the right things, and tapping on the
right skills that you presently have. Moreover, you must believe that what you�re
doing is worthwhile to you and the people around you. Like my friend John Di Lemme
likes to say, the reason why you are doing this must be bigger than who you are in
order for you to achieve any sense of fulfillment for success.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)