Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Management. Show all posts

Saturday, December 22, 2007

4 Signs That You May Have An Anger Problem

You may not want to admit it, but many of you already know that at least one point of your life, you have had a problem with anger. But there are many people out there who are not quite sure if they have an issue with anger. To help you find out, below are some indicators:

1. When you do get angry, you do not get over it for a long time. It may last until you explode sometimes, or the anger may even stay inside of you, to fuel the fires of your rage. If you have heard of people who “hold a grudge” then those are the ones that I am referring to here.

Do you have a tendency to hold grudges? Can you think of more than one person right now, whom you have not talked to in a long time that you are still angry with?

2. You spend most of the time feeling frustrated and irritable. You get disappointed as well as unsatisfied about almost anything in life. But with all of these negative feelings you have, you do not in fact get very angry.

Anger may be an unacceptable emotion to you, whereas frustration and irritability seem more acceptable, thus keeping you in a constant state of unfulfilled in life.

3. Another sign of anger problem is if you never get angry. You just seem to be void of experiencing that emotion. There are times when you know you should be getting angry, but the feeling just doesn't seem to come. Your anger seems very mild or watered down, and you never are able to release it.

4. Last but not least, you may have an anger problem if you tend to be very sarcastic or cynical not only about yourself, but everyone and the world around you. Your time around people is spent on judging other people and making constant “jokes” that have very negative connotations around them.

Although you try to make yourself believe that these jokes are harmless, deep inside you know that constantly putting everything down and disguising it as a joke is just a way to cover up your anger issues. For some reason you are not able to express your anger and it becomes apparent when it is “leaking” from your conversations.

What Is Anger Management?

If you are wandering where you can get help for your anger, you do not have to wander anymore. You can find help with expressing your anger and releasing it naturally when you decide to use anger management. You can find many workshops in your area that deal with this type of problem. It is normal to have these feelings of anger and that is why there are these workshops to help you with your problem.

The natural way to express your anger is to respond aggressively. This is a very natural usual way to respond to threats. It is a powerful emotion and one that you will usually have control of to some point. However there are people that cannot control their anger and that is where the anger management comes into play.

People will use their feelings of emotions to determine how they are feeling. They will naturally express their feelings and this will defiantly include anger. However, some people take their anger too far. When this happens they will hurt people around them without even knowing it. There are words that hurt people just as much as hitting them can. Sometimes when people that have too much anger in them will say nasty and hurtful things to those that they love.

There are also people that will physically hurt the people around them when they are angry. These people must seek anger management help so that they can control the way that they feel and not hurt anyone anymore. It is very important to get his help fast and effectively so that they can live happy lives. The anger management courses are there to help those that are in need and they will take the necessary procedures to make sure that they are helped.

The first step is for the person that is angry to realize they have a problem. They must want to get help for their anger so that it can be addressed in the proper way. When the person with the anger is ready, they can get help for their anger issues so that they are not hurting inside and they are not hurting the people around them. No one wants to be angry all the time and the sooner they realize this, the sooner they can get the help that is so important.

Anger management courses are usually a public service that is free. However sometimes you will see that you may have to pay for the classes. When this is the case, it is important for the person that is angry to find a way to get the help they need. There are certain instances that anger management classes can be free to those that are in desperate need of help.

There is no shame in getting anger management classes. You should not feel conscious about getting help. There is nothing wrong as along as you are willing to admit that you are having a problem and that you need to have the anger management classes to get your life under control.

Anger Management Techniques

Anger is one of the most common and destructive emotions and it afflicts our mind almost every day. We need to empower ourselves with anger management techniques so as to solve our problem of anger. Anger management techniques are easy to apply especially when anger gets over us and our physical wellbeing. It is important to know anger management techniques to help us cope with situations everyday.

What is anger? Anger is a natural human emotion and it is an adaptive nature which empowers us to "ward off" any attacks or threats to our well being.

However, it sometimes can cause us to focus on the bad qualities of an animate or inanimate object, make it unattractive and increase our desires to perform negative actions on it. But the truth is, anger is not a problem but the mismanagement of anger. Mismanaged anger and rage cause us to face conflicts and difficulties in our personal and professional relationships. Thus, we must know anger management techniques in order to cope better with it.

Anger management techniques are simple to apply but we must first recognize the anger within our mind and acknowledge that it is harmful to both our selves and others. The idea of being tolerant and patient is central in anger management techniques because it is when we lose our tolerance and patience that we begin to feel angry.

In addition, anger management techniques are really just practical methods that can be applied in our daily lives to help us reduce our anger and finally to prevent it from arising at all. They can help us because excessive anger can cause health problems, family issues, drug or alcohol abuse, financial despair, extreme fear or stress, and spiritual void. Domestic abuse, road rage, workplace violence, divorce, and addiction are just a few examples of what happens when anger is mismanaged.

To get started with applying anger management techniques, you need to admit that your anger is out-of-control is essential to tackling the problem of anger. This requires honesty, courage, and tremendous inner strength. And also requires help from others.

When in a situation that needs you to apply anger management techniques, be consciously determined to be calm and communicate and express slowly what you are feeling. Look at the positive side and try to look at the situation from another point of view. Try to relax at the same time and just think about something good to distract yourself from the overwhelming feeling of anger. In addition, you can regulate your breathing to become slow and relaxed to allow you to think and react better in the situation.

Remember that anger management techniques help you to control your anger to the best of your physical well being, social functioning and relationships! Uncontrolled anger only results in added troubles to your life and controlling your anger is a choice you can make! It is no disgrace to admit we have a problem and seek outside help.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Get More Done By Doing Less

Have you ever been so busy trying to keep up with the pace of modern life that you just can't get anything done? Do you find yourself constantly putting things off because you just don't have enough time to handle them? And what about the lack of progress that comes about as a result of never getting to the things that would make a real difference in your life?

Just from those 3 questions you have an idea of what I'm about to talk about. Or do you?

There is a general principle that most business people know about. This principle seems to apply to every area of life, not just business, and has been the cause of most successes or failures in life. The principle is called the 80/20 rule, and basically says that you will get 80% of your results from 20% of your activities.

In sales, it's the best 20% of your customers that create 80% of your wealth. In relationships, it's the first 20% of the time you know a person that reveals 80% of their personality. And in personal development, it's the final 20% of your progress that will take 80% of your time to acheive.

Huh?

Took you by surprise, did I? Yes, when you're working on developing yourself, you will get the biggest gains in the beginning - 80% of your results will come from 20% of your activities, and the final 20% of your results will come from 80% of your activities.

What's the real difference between those who are average and those who excel? Aren't the ones who excel those who spent more time developing their abilities? Aren't professionals expected to be better than average people?

There's another side to the 80/20 rule. It's that 80% of business is done by the best 20% of those in that business.

The best 20% of all drycleaners will get 80% of the drycleaning business. The best 20% of all doctors will get 80% of all money paid to doctors. The best 20% of all books account for 80% of all book sales. The best 20% of all musicians get 80% of the money spent on concert tickets and CD sales.

What's the lesson in this? Simple. If you want to get the best results from your activities, be the best in what you're doing.

But that takes work. Time. Committment to personal development. The hard stuff that no-one wants to do.

Yep, that's right. And that's why it works. Because no-one else will take the time to be the best, you will have a greater chance of succeeding because you are willing to stick to it until it pays off. You will be the one that everyone wants to go to, simply because you can do things that no-one else in your field can do, and in a way that no-one else can duplicate.

Clearly, even those with less skill than the top 20% will get results from what they do. The top 20% only get 80% of the pie, which leaves another 20% of the pie to be shared by the lower 80%.

In business, those with less ability will still make sales and get customers. But for every customer a business in the lower 80% gets, a business in the top 20% will get 16.

Some people will argue that the top 20% of businesses got that way because they had money behind them, investors who were willing to pay for the businesses advertising, payroll, and inventory. Let's think about this for a moment. What did those investors see in this particular business that they didn't see in another business that they chose NOT to invest in?

Let's say you have $10,000,000 to invest, and 2 potential business partners come to you asking for your help in getting their business off the ground. Which business are you most likely to invest in? The one that looks like it will be the most successful, right? And how would you determine that? Most likely by the level of skills of the person involved in that business.

The best 20% of business partners get 80% of the investment capital out there.

Let's move away from business examples for a moment and take a look at a personal example. Relationships.

Why are some couples happier than others? Although there are a wide variety of factors that come into play here; things like common interests, compatible personalities, and degrees of attractiveness; the bottom line in most happy relationships is that the people involved have developed their skills in communicating and cooperation.

Those with the best relationship skills tend to have the best relationships. And I'm sure that if we were to calculate the percentages, the familiar 80/20 rule would show itself again.

For the most part, everyone knows this: the better you are in what you do, the better the results you will get from your activities. But here's the thing that most people miss: when you're that good at what you do, you can do less and still get the same results as before.

Why spend 40 hours a week earning a living when you can spend 5 hours and earn the same amount of money?

Why spend months working out a problem in a relationship when you can have the problem worked out in a day and be back to enjoying your partner's company again?

Why spend your whole life trying to get noticed by the people who matter in your life, when you can spend a few months developing the right skills and have the recognition you deserve within the year?

Yes, personal development takes time, energy, and committment. But the rewards are more than worth the effort.

3 Important Areas Of Your Life To Get Organized Immediately

Do you start and finish every day as if you had no control of your time? Does everything in life seem to run together like a big blur? If you answered yes to these questions then you may want to start investing time management techniques into your schedule. It has been said that time management, properly set up as daily goals, can dramatically improve the quality of life and increase the amount of work that gets done.

One of the key components of time management is organizing all of the compartments that exist in your life. By taking on the task of one component at a time, you can start today to get your life in an orderly fashion and take back control of both your time and your schedule.

The easiest way to start organizing your life is by merging items that can be merged and trashing the things that are simply taking up space. Remember that another habit of people with good time management skills is to take on one task at a time, with focus, until that task is finished and before moving on with the next one. The same holds true when it comes to merging and purging your life's “compartments”. So where should you start first?

Below are a few tips that can help you with organizing for better time management:

1. Organizing your travel information: Create a file holder that is designated to hold all material that is related to travel. This material may include hotel information and air fares, a list of your frequent flier miles, personal and family passports, contact numbers for local taxi services, and all previous vacation traveling files. You can also keep such information on your computer hard drive so that you can print out travel details for upcoming business or personal trips.

2. Organizing important service-type information: You can do the same type of file storage for your key service providers such as your vehicle records, personal banking records, business banking records, insurance receipts, credit card information, etc. In most cases it does not take much time at all to purge this paperwork. And if it all sounds like a lot of work to do, then fear not, because once you are finished, your time efficiency will rise to new heights for all future file organizing.

3. Organizing your car: One very important area in our life that is often overlooked when it comes to time management and organization is our car. The inside of our vehicles, especially if we are always on the go, can literally become a black hole of important papers, files, and notes. We tend to store our most important items in the glove compartment and while this is ok, what is not ok is all of the other junk that goes in there with it. Clear out the clutter, merge existing paperwork, and purge anything that does not need to be there.

Return To Center

Everywhere we see the speed of life increasing, almost daily it seems.

The age of instant gratification has done a number on our schedules. It started with business people wanting to provide better service by being more available for customer requests. Longer hours, faxes, pagers, cell phones, mobile computers, and more have become commonplace in the push to be better than the next guy.

Of course, everyone feels the effects of this, as family members are no longer as available to our families as they are to their jobs. Now virtually everyone carries a cell phone in order to maintain contact with the important people in their lives. One more thing that has to be taken care of right now.

And then there are the expectations we have about our place within society. It looks like everyone else is succeeding except us. We have to keep up, buy the new toys, wear 'better' clothes, drive a 'hot' car, and so on. We just wouldn't feel right not being a part of the 'in crowd'. Take out a loan if you don't have the cash. Put it on plastic and work harder.

But look at where that is taking us. Spending more money just creates the need to work longer hours. Which in turn creates the feeling of being more stressed and less capable of handling the tasks that are before us.

There comes a time when you just have to realize that you can't do everything you want to do. There just isn't enough time to do all of it, so you have to choose. What do you let go of to make room in your day for the rest?

Do you really have to give up something? Couldn't you just figure out a way to work 'smarter'?

Working smarter is great, but is based on one basic idea. You don't have to do everything. You only have to do the more important tasks and let the rest go. It's the old 80-20 rule. 80% of the results you want can be obtained with only 20% of the effort. And the last 20% of the results you want will take 80% of the effort.

Eventually it boils down to what are the most important things in life.

Is it really important to be popular with the in crowd? Is it important to outperform everyone else in the department? Do your customers really need you 24/7? Or is it important to spend time with your family, your friends, and your self?

Some of the happiest people I've ever known were those with very simple lives. Yes, some of us would be extremely bored living simple lives, but that is only until we learn just where the satisfaction these people are getting is coming from.

When life is simple, you have time to do all sorts of things you don't have time for now. And one of those things that we don't have time for now is to return to our spiritual center.

For many of us, returning to our spiritual center sounds like one of those things that should mean a lot, but we don't really understand the significance of it. It's like sex, or love. Until you experience it, no-one can explain it to you.

And it really is like sex, and also like love. There is an experience of being enfolded within something greater than anything else you've ever experienced. Returning to your spiritual center is like receiving a big hug from God, which sparks an emotional reaction that completely overwhelms your senses. It is the ultimate 'high'. One good hit and you're flying for hours. But unlike drugs, returning to your spiritual center doesn't have any physical side-effects.

How often should you return to your spiritual center? The simple answer is "Every day". At least once a day, you would benefit tremendously from contact with your spiritual source. Your health would improve, your outlook on life would improve, and your ability to reach your goals would improve.

A more complex answer would be "Once". In all sincerity, if you were able to stay spiritually centered, you would be able to do much more with less effort. This is difficult to do, and requires much training.

But whether you are able to stay spiritually centered or not, returning to center will improve every aspect of your life. And the more you return to center, the more you will benefit in many, many ways.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Ebay Ebook Success Tips: New Years Resolutions!

I hope you all had a good break during the holidays and are now ready to get back to work. Now many of you may have set yourselves New Years Resolutions. If you haven't I can think of a few good ones for potential ebook sellers:

1) Register as a seller on eBay:- If you have been putting it off for ages now is the ideal time to register. Why? Because now not only will you have the usually things that you have been meaning to get rid of for some time, but you may also have unwanted Christmas gifts. I really cannot emphasise enough, the need to register on eBay to sell as soon as possible. Selling on eBay takes a while to master, and like many other things, practice makes perfect. The sooner you register, the sooner you can get good at it, and you will also be one step closer to starting a business on eBay. If you really do not have any physical items around the house that you wish to sell then why not try selling an ebook? You can get resellable ebooks free or very cheap from a variety of websites and newsletter. Listings start at just 15p so you can experiment with selling for an incredibly small investment.

2) If you have been selling on eBay for some time, consider getting an eBay shop:- At only £6 a month the benefits really are worth it. The first major benefit is the cheaper listing fees (Buy It Now Store Listing Fees start at only 5p a month). Although Store Listings don't get as much exposure as eBay Auction and Buy It Now listings, you can use a combination of the listing types to save money, and also increase sales. Other benefits include Sales Reports Plus (which incorporate eBay fees and PayPal fees to show how much you have actually made), Traffic Reports, an actual website address that you can direct your customers to: "http://stores.ebay.co.uk/yourstorename", custom shop pages, and much more. If you are trying to grow your eBay business aggressively, then you really need to consider getting an eBay shop.

3) If you have an eBay shop and sell on eBay, try to improve your business in some way:- The improvements need only be small to be effective. For example, maybe you need to update your About Me page to reflect your business more appropriately. Perhaps you could redesign your listings so that they look more professional. Or maybe you could set yourself a goal to add a new product to your inventory every month. This last goal is a particularly good one for ebook sellers as once added to your inventory, you can have an ebook there as long as you wish without having to buy new stock.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Starting an Online Home Business - Affiliate Programs Make it Easy

If you have been longing to start a home business online you may be coming across terms you've never heard before. You may also have found the opportunities available are overwhelming. Where do you begin?

AFFILIATE PROGRAMS - EASY START

Affiliate programs may be the easiest online home business to start running. Why?

With any online home business you must have a product or service to sell. First you must create this product or service and then you must be able to fill orders.

Selling your own product or service also means creating a website, learning how to write ad copy, setting up a marketing plan, being able to accept payments online and obviously doing the work. If you're selling a physical product then you will need to make or buy the item, package it and pay for shipping costs. If you provide a service than you will likely have to start by doing free jobs to build your credibility and then when you are charging for your service you are still limited by how much work you can actually handle.

THE MAGIC OF AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Affiliate programs are a great way to get started in an online home business. In fact there are even some 'Super Affiliates' who are making fabulous incomes from affiliate programs. So, what ARE affiliate programs?

Affiliate programs allow you to sell another company's service or product and make a commission on every sale or lead. You do not even need to build a website or handle the transaction. Your job is to drive traffic (customers) to your affiliate link.

An affiliate link is a special URL code that will identify customers coming to the company's site from your advertising. It will likely be the website address with a code attached to the end.

Some affiliate programs also have tiers. That means if someone who is interested in SELLING the product comes through your link and signs up you will also get a small percentage of THEIR earnings.

HOW DO I CHOOSE A PROGRAM?

You should research the popularity of some of your interests. Try to determine if people are buying that product or service online. There are many sources for finding that information including free ones such as the Overture keyword tool.

When you have found an area that is popular then type the subject along with 'affiliate program' into your search engine and see which programs have services or products for that area. You can also use an affiliate program directory.

When you have found a program that looks interesting you should read the terms of the program. Make sure that payouts are not based on a high commission earning or you may never see your money. Also try to choose programs with high commission rates. Often you will find ebooks and downloadable software has the highest rates as there is no physical product to make or ship. If you are satisfied with the terms then you need to sign up - usually a simple process.

START MARKETING

The reason affiliate programs are so great for beginners is that you only need to focus on marketing - not making - your product.

Many affiliate programs have information on how to market and give you tools such as banners, product feeds and more. You can also look for other information on marketing including writing articles, creating pay-per-click campaigns, commenting in online forums etc. As you gain experience marketing you will make adjustments to your selling and start creating a wonderful income!

Can You Really Make $10,000 A Month Online?

By : Khemal Dole
Is it really possible to make $10,000 a month working from home and running your own business online? Does it sound like a dream? Is it even possible, let alone be a dream? And how many people actually make that much anyway?

The answer is YES. You CAN make $10,000 a month working from home and running your own work at home business. And YES there are plenty of people who make that much, or even more, on the internet. But it didn't happen overnight!

It starts out just like any other business. With a lot of "elbow grease" and hard work. There's simply no short cut to it. If you think that you can wake up tomorrow and make $10,000 while you slept, then you're right. You can! But only if you won the lottery or some rich relative died and left you his or her money. That's the ONLY way you'll make a lot of money in no time. Other than that, it's all about how hard you work at your work at home business.

It's just like any other business. You can't assume that just because you do it online, some miracle will happen and the business will take off by itself. You must realize that in order for any business to succeed, be in online or offline, you've got to put in the effort.

But what are the basic guidelines you should follow if you want to make $10,000 a month? Here's how.


a) Target a niche that's lucrative.
You can't succeed if your target market is saturated, unless you're a genius. For the rest of us, we need to focus of building our work at home business around a niche that's not too big but yet not too small either. You must make sure that your niche is big enough for you to be able to sell to it and yet small enough that not too many people are targeting it. This is one place where SIZE does matter. And knowing exactly how big your niche is, is so very important.

b) Focus on one thing
Once you find your niche you need to focus on it. It's easy to get side tracked or branch off into many different streams of markets. Don't lose focus! Keep doing what you are doing and focus on ONE specific thing at a time. Make it work 100%. And even then, there's always room for improvement. Many work at home business owners fall into this "diversify or die" mode and they spread themselves too thin. Don't fall for that. Focus on one thing and do it well. There'll be a time to expand, but not until you are making a considerable monthly income. If you are making a few bucks each month, you KNOW you need to focus!

c) Test and Refine
You cannot be complacent about how you do your business. What's good today can be bad tomorrow. And you'll never know unless you test and refine your business process. Don't take someone else's advice on what's good for your business. Test it yourself! Use different website copies, headlines, calls to action, prices, bonuses etc. There are a LOT of areas you can test - so make sure you do it. And when your results are in, refine your business process. If your results are conclusive, make the change. Don't wait until it's too late. Refine your process and then keep testing it. It's a cycle. Not a movement. So repeat it often.

d) Keep doing what works.
Sometimes you'll find that there are certain aspects of your business that you've tested and found that it works well. There's no need to change it. Well then don't. Many people think that change is universal and that EVERY aspect of their business should be changed. Don't be like that. Change only those that your tests told you to change. Leave other aspects that work, well alone. If they work - don't change them.

e) Try to automate as much as possible
After a while you'll find that some of your day-to-day business chores take up most of your time and that leaves little for the rest. You always feel that you don't have enough time. Identify the aspects of your work at home business that take up most of your time and see if you can automate it to some extent. You might also be able to find tools or services that can do those tasks for you in less time or effort. If you can automate such processes and free up more of your time, you can use that time on other areas of your business that can be of more use to you.

f) Replicate your success
If you've tested, refined, tested some more, and automated as much as you can then you will begin to realize that your business is now almost running in "auto pilot" mode. And this means that you can now run the business spending less time. And the profits have not taken a hit and have actually increased. Once you begin to see that you are making a considerable amount a month, it's time to replicate your business. And that means creating a whole new business that works the same as the one you've got. Once you get more than one work at home businesses running, you will have multiple streams of income. And now you are that much closer to your $10,000 a month goal.

g) Keep Working Hard!
And finally, you simply can't find a substitute for hard work. Working hard means working smart. So as you start your multi income streams you must not let yourself slacken and lose focus. Keep a firm grip on your businesses and make sure you put in the same hard work that brought your to your $10.000 a month dream. Treat it like a business and it will treat you well - I promise you.


So earning $10,000 a month from your work at home business is indeed possible. But there are no short cuts and no silver bullets. Hard work and working SMART will get you close to that "dream" faster. And once you are there you'll find that all that hard work was well worth it!

Free Tools For Home Business Entrepreneurs

By : Chris Ellington
When resources are scarce it's important to maximize results and stretch every dollar. As home business entrepreneurs, we don't have the ad budgets of Coca-Cola and Disney, we can't afford to throw money away.

There are a number of free resources that make building and promoting your website a whole lot easier.

Web Site Design - page layout
Steve provides free web page templates which are nice looking, professional and can be used free for personal and business websites. Check out all the variations and pick a template for your site. Another way to use this is as a springboard for your own creativity. Perhaps you like an element on template 1 and the navigation of marketitemplate 7. Get some ideas for creating your own site from scratch. There are also designs you can buy for under $100 and you gain access to a number of images, clipart, sounds, fonts etc.

Web Site Design - graphics (http://www.cooltext.com)
Cool Text is a wonderful tool for creating great looking buttons and logos. It's free and the combinations of shape/color/texture/font are virtually endless. You can create professional buttons and logos with just a few mouse clicks. I use this site any time I want to "freshen up" my site or create buttons/logos for my customers.

Web Site Performance - images (http://www.gifworks.com)
Nothing slows down your page like heavy graphics. Did you know that you can dramatically reduce the file size of your graphics without compromising the look and feel of your site? That's where gifworks.com comes in. Run their free "optimization" tool on your gif images and watch as they get more and more streamlined. Your web pages will load faster. Gifworks has a paid service as well, allowing you to buy images, get custom work, etc.

Web Site Performance - code (http://validator.w3.org/)
Is your website correctly coded? This free validator from the W3 examines your html and reports missing tags, missing attributes and other errors that make your code non-standard and therefore difficult for some web browsers to serve up. With line-by-line validation, you can easily find the places in your code that will cause errors. I love this validator, it makes sure my pages work across all browsers and platforms. No more trying pages in every browser/OS configuration. When it validates here, you can be sure that it's up to W3 standards.

Web Site Promotion - blogging (http://www.blogger.com)
Blogger is Google's blogging tool. It's free, easy to set up, and gets your site indexed by search engines (all of them, not just Google) faster than you can believe. If you want to increase your search engine positioning, forget all that SEO stuff, start blogging today. In a world where "Content is King!", a blog provides you a platform to provide constantly changing, completely interesting and relevant content to your web visitors. It gives them a reason to come back, you form a relationship with them by providing good quality information, and you increase your conversion rate, resulting in more subscribers and more sales.

Web Site Promotion - marketing (http://www.articlemarketer.com)
I'm not the first person to tell you that article marketing is the number one method of driving targeted traffic to your website. Writing articles for others to publish is free advertising and you should do as much of it as you can. The problem is the dreadfully tedious process of article submission. Article Marketer took that off my plate. Their free service sends articles to over 2000 people to be published in ezines and newsletters, and they have a paid version that gets to over 30,000 people. It works - after all, you're reading this article, aren't you?

These tools are free for the asking. You can't beat the price, and your results will skyrocket as you improve the look and feel of your website and spread the word about your business.
Author Resource:- Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Simplified Selling System has been a favorite of salespeople around the world. Get your free marketing strategies at www.simplifiedselling.com.

How To Get An Avalanche Of Free Publicity For Your Home Business!

By : Duane Shinn
There are many ways you can get tons of free publicity in the form of write-ups in magazines, newspapers, and even radio and TV. And sometimes you can turn family events into human-interest stories that editors like and will publish in their magazine and newspapers.

One way is to compose a printed news release on your product or service, but include a story involving your family into the release. Write the release like a news article in a newspaper. Tell who, what, when, why, and how interested people can benefit from your product. Avoid hard selling copy --- just give the facts, and if you can weave in an interesting story in the process, all the better.

For example, I am a musician with a line of products in the music educational field. Years ago I created a giant musical staff out of plastic and turned it into a game that kids could play on the floor. In the news release about it, I told how my own kids used it, and included some dialog between them:

"That's a whole note!" exclaimed my daughter Kendra.

"Is not! It's got a stem, and whole notes don't have stems" my son Kurt corrected her.

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Oh...what's a stem, Kurt?"

"It's the line coming down from the note head, stupid."

"I am not stupid!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

Finally Mom intervened before an all-out war broke out.
But henceforth and evermore both of my kids knew the difference between a whole note and a half note.
For some reason, editors found that little story amusing, and wrote up the story pretty much as I sent it in. They also included information on how interested parents could get a "Giant Staff Game" for their own kids, and as a result we got orders from all over the states and some foreign countries from both parents and schools. It was written up in House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens, plus many music magazines and teachers' journals.

This was not just a one-time fluke, either -- over the years we received news write-ups galore in everything from the Wall Street Journal to Popular Mechanics -- all related to our product, but written in a way to make editors smile and then decide to publish the release in their publications.

Can you do the same? Think about the funny little incidents in your family life, and then think of ways you can work that into a news release about your product or service.

Five Ways to Increase Your Affiliate Sales

By : John Purdy
Most home business owners are involved with affiliate marketing. As an affiliate marketer, a combination of techniques can be used to promote your affiliate website and/or link. Here are five things you can do to help with your promotional efforts resulting in increased affiliate sales.

1. Become an "expert" on the product

The most successful affiliate marketers are "experts" on the products they promote. To become an expert, it's highly recommended that you purchase the product yourself to gain first-hand experience using it. If you cannot purchase the product, you must thoroughly research it until you become familiar and knowledgeable enough to promote it.

2. Participate in chat rooms related to the product

You can start your own chat or join an existing one. Do not try to selling initially, but during your chat, mention the product you're promoting and describe its benefits. If there is interest in your product, you can then refer them to the product through your affiliate link. The same concept holds true for forums and discussion boards.

3. Write your own affiliate program ads

Most merchants will provide pre-written ads for their affiliates to use. If you write your own ad, or make significant changes to the one that's pre-written, your ad will stand out from the others. Done properly, this will give you a great advantage over those affiliates that are using the same ad as everyone else.

4. Create a free newsletter or ezine

Submit your newsletter to the ezine directories and promote it on your website. Keep in mind that most subscribers are interested in receiving "information" that can help them. If you use your mailing list solely for selling, you will never gain credibility and will end up with a high unsubscribe rate. After you've developed a relationship and the trust of your subscribers, you can then recommend the products you are promoting

5. Create a free ebook

As part of your ebook, include an advertisement and a link to your affiliate website. The ebook can be given away free or used as an incentive to sign up for your newsletter. Submit your ebook to the ebook directories and offer it to other webmasters for inclusion on their website. The more exposure your ebook receives, the more sales you can make.

By using the techniques outlined above and always striving to become an "expert" on the products you promote, you are sure to see an increase in your affiliate sales resulting in higher commission payments.

Seven Ways to Generate Income From Your Website

By : John Purdy
If you own your own website, there are a variety of things you can do to generate extra income for yourself. To enjoy the most success for your efforts, you must take into consideration your existing website content, as well as your particular target audience. You will also want to know the approximate number of visitors you regularly receive to your website.

Once you have this information, you can decide which idea (or ideas) will apply best to you:

1. Include Google Adsense on your web pages. Google delivers text and image ads that are targeted to your site and its content. When people click on an ad, you will receive a portion of the amount paid to Google by the advertiser. On average, you can expect to receive anywhere between 2 cents to a dollar per click, depending on the keyword.

2. Make money selling other people's products and services through affiliate programs. Each program you register for should provide you with an affiliate link to track your referrals. Depending on the program, you will normally be paid on a per sale basis or for each sign-up you generate.

3. Sell advertising space on your web site. You could sell banner and/or classified ads. If you want to make additional money, sell sponsor ads and place them is a special section or towards the top of your website for the most exposure.

4. If you have enough web space available on your server, you could rent web pages to other people. You could also give the web pages away for free, but include your banner or advertisement on them to generate income for yourself.

5. Charge people a fee to access a dedicated part of your website. People will pay you money for your website content if it's valuable to them. The content can be ebooks, reports, software, etc.

6. Sell your own products or services. Of course, they should be related to your target audience. You will also want the ability to securely accept credit card payments directly from your website. Other forms of payment such as PayPal, ClickBank, etc. is also preferred. Delivery of your product should be as fast as possible.

7. Publish an e-zine from your website. Have people subscribe to the e-zine right from your web site. In addition to direct sales of products or services you are promoting, you could sell classified or sponsor advertising inside your e-zine.

Each of these ideas will generate income, but if you are a new website owner, I recommend starting with Google Adsense. These ads continue to grow in popularity and are easy to customize and install on your web pages-simply copy and paste a block of HTML.

For new internet home business entrepreneurs, in addition to Google Ads, you should also consider affiliate programs. Most affiliate programs are free to join and usually offer marketing tools and resources that are readily available for your use.
Author Resource:- John Purdy is an affiliate marketer and operates his own internet home business. For access to free affiliate programs and resources on the home business industry, visit his website at: http://www.home-business-concepts.com.

Marketing Your Home Business in Just 30 Minutes a Week

By : Chris Ellington
It's all the rage. It's what everyone is talking about. It is unquestionably the most effective form of marketing available to home based business owners. It costs almost nothing, it takes about 30 minutes a week, and it makes your business stand out above the competition.

What is this thing that everyone is talking about? The buzz is about "article marketing" - the practice of providing royalty free content to websites, e-zines and newsletters.

It works like this: You write a simple article that is interesting to a particular group of people. It doesn't have to be The Great American Novel, just about 500 words on the topic of your choice. Then you submit your article all over the web to ezine publishers, newsletter editors and content-laden websites.

When they publish your article (and they almost always do) your target market reads your words, sees you as an expert (after all, you're a published author!) and they click on a link to your website that you conveniently provided at the end of the article. Viola! Instant, qualified traffic.

And it's not fleeting traffic. Your article remains out there for people to find for weeks, months, even years. As new people happen across your article, they click the link and visit your site. You have a perpetual traffic machine, driving tons of pre-qualified, open-to-an-offer, interested traffic to your site. This is better than advertising, and far less expensive.

The problem is the effort of submitting your articles to enough sites that you really make a splash. Most authors will submit their articles to 20-30 places before getting totally burned out on the submission process. It's tedious, dull, drudge work.

There are three online services that automatically submit articles for authors. Each of these services explain the intrinsic value of publishing your articles, and of course they each describe their services as best-in-class. They range from single submissions to unlimited submissions and from completely free to $299.85. Check them out and draw your own conclusions.

- - - - -http://www.SubmitYourArticle.com - - - - -

Sends out articles in three categories:
Internet marketing/online business
Self-improvement/motivation
Health and fitness.
(They promise "Business-General" and "Finance/Investment" categories soon.)

Submits articles to an undefined number of ezine publishers and 15 or more article announcement lists with over 10,000 subscribers.

Special Feature:
Offers an article management suite to retrieve, edit, or resubmit your article.

Cost:
* Bronze membership, $37.00/month, you may submit one (1) article per month
* Silver membership, $57.00/month, you may submit two (2) articles per month
* Gold membership, $75.00/month, you may submit three (3) articles per month
* Platinum membership, $90.00/month, you may submit four (4) articles per month

Submit 16 articles over four months for $360.00

- - - - - http://www.ThePhantomWriters.com - - - - -

Accepts articles in nine categories:
* Business and Marketing
* Coaching and Personal Development
* Health
* Internet
* Money Saving Tips
* Home and Family
* Pets
* Writing Related
* Christian

Submits articles to about 20,000 publishers and webmasters. Depending on how you categorize your article, it will be submitted to appropriate publishers.

Special Feature:
No limit to the number of articles that can be submitted. (Is this really a "special feature"? They seem to think so. I guess it's better than SubmitYourArticle.com's one article/month limitation)

Cost:
* One article: $49.95
* Three articles: $119.85 + $39.95 per article thereafter.

Submit 16 articles for $639.20

- - - - - http://www.ArticleMarketer.com - - - - -

Accepts articles in 364 niche categories which (for the sake of space) I won't list here.

Submits articles to over 30,000 people. Depending on how you categorize your article, it will be submitted to appropriate publishers.

Special Feature: An "auto pilot" feature where an author can submit several articles at once and have them distributed on to a custom defined schedule. (That's one of my favorite features. I just set it up for the month and don't have to think about it again. The articles are consistently distributed.)

Cost: * Free Article Distribution: goes to over 3,000 people * Best Exposure: goes out to over 30,000 people: Quarterly Membership $39.95 for as many articles as you want to send out. Annual Membership $119.95 and the best value - $299.95 Lifetime Membership

Submit 16 articles for $39.95. At only $299.95 the Lifetime Membership (with its unlimited article submission) is the financial winner in this comparison.

Summary
All three of these services seem to do a fine job submitting articles. They appear to have automated the process and articles are distributed within a few days of submission. Of course, each offers the disclaimer that your article will only get published if it's interesting.

Of the three, I prefer Article Marketer (for obvious reasons) and I have absolute proof that it works: you are currently reading this article.

Now that's what I call effective marketing!
Author Resource:- Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement internet marketing strategies to small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. Article Marketer is the most popular article submission site on the net. http://www.articlemarketer.com

Easy Steps to an Organized Home Office

With the rise in the Work from Home concept, people have become more conscious about organizing the workstation. The essence of being successful at home office is to utilize the space properly and increase the concentration power. In order to organize your home office, you need to define your work place, no matter in which corner of house you work. Try to keep all distractions at bay and keep office-related items in one place, so that you can create an effective home office. Arranging things properly can easily save your time that usually gets wasted in searching for necessary things.

You can arrange your home office with basic tools required in a large office set up. But for this you need a lot of space, office supplies, calendar, cabinets, phone connections, wastebaskets, an answering machine and a computer. However, you can organize your home office easily by organizing five main things, namely, email, voice mail, verbal requests, paper file and your own ideas. A well-organized office helps create a pleasant day.

The following steps will help you organize your home office:

. Use desk to hold files: In order to keep your work place organized you need to use a desk to hold your files, pens, papers and calculators. If you are using your dining room table as your home office, then you can arrange office-related things in one place. Many times scattered things drive people crazy because they often tend to forget where they have kept certain important paper. If that is the case with you, consider moving your office files and papers to a central location. Keeping it near your computer will be the best option, provided that is the place where you generally get most of your work done.

. Separate your personal files and papers from your office related things: Separating your personal files, magazines, kids notebooks from your business files and papers will help you manage your home office in a better way. Try to keep all your non-office things outside your home office space.

. Make a file system: Develop a file system that can help you in your home office. Analyze the best way that will enable you find important papers. Then depending upon your own convenience you can create a file system to work for you.

. Have a look at your work station: Take a look at your work station and check if you have piles of papers, mail, files and floppy discs or CDs scattered around. If yes, then arrange them separately and put aside all other unnecessary things.

. Keep a few minutes at the end of work: Once you organize your office neatly, keep a few minutes aside daily to keep it like that. Always arrange your workspace after completing your work. It will help you prevent from facing an all-messed up workstation.

. Give a personal touch: By bringing pictures of your kid, plants or inspirational quotes you can add a personal touch to your office. It helps to make your office look pleasant. Besides you can incorporate a different corporate decor to it, so that it looks like a proper office and not merely another part of your house.

Friday, June 1, 2007

Three Easy Ways for Newbies to Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

By : Cliff Posey
Affiliate marketing is a term used to describe an advertising agreement between a website owner, a.k.a. an affiliate, and a merchant. A strategic affiliate marketing agreement can be a very profitable online venture for both parties. The affiliate earns a commission for generating leads, clicks, and/or sales for the merchants website, and the merchant enjoys a healthy profit without having to do a great deal of work.

As you can imagine, strategic affiliate marketing is a win-win situation. Merchants get to advertise their products for free in different markets, which inevitably increases sales. The more affiliates merchants have, the better their chances of making money. This is because they can cover a larger piece of the market and do not have to rely on their website alone. Instead, they can use the websites that belong to everyone who is part of their strategic affiliate marketing program.

Affiliates also benefit because they can begin a business for free. Most affiliate marketing programs cost nothing to join, but for each purchase that is made, the affiliate makes a commission. In some cases, the commission is a flat rate, and in others, it is a percentage of the sale. The best part is that no previous experience is required. Almost anyone can be an affiliate marketer.

To become an affiliate, you must have a website that can be used to display links to merchant websites. Though the website can be simple, it should look professional. The better your website looks, the more comfortable people will feel when clicking links and taking your recommendations to purchase products from a merchant's website.

You can create almost any type of website you want. However, your web content should have something to do with the merchant's site for strategic affiliate marketing to work well. For example, you wouldn't want to advertise resume writing services on a website devoted to pet care. It simply wouldn't make sense.

If you are an affiliate marketing newbie interested in entering the business of strategic affiliate marketing, here are three simple steps to help get you started.

Step One
The first step in developing a strategic affiliate marketing campaign is to find a niche. Niche markets provide a product or service for a specific group of customers who have very specific needs. Niches are preferable to big markets because there is less competition. Your best bet will be to find a niche subject that you are interested in or passionate about. Having a fair bit of knowledge on the subject won't hurt either.

Step Two
The second step to getting started in affiliate marketing, and possibly the most important one, involves finding merchants whose products you would like to promote. You will want to find high-paying merchants and high converting products.

Before making a final decision, you will also want to consider the merchant's stance on strategic affiliate marketing. For example, do they offer affiliate support? What about marketing materials? The more support offered, the better. Support often translates into easy sales. Keep in mind, you will also want to find affiliate marketing programs that relate to your site in some way, shape, or form.

Step Three
The final step to developing a strategic affiliate marketing campaign is promotion. For some, this is the hardest part. However, if done correctly, it is possible to earn large sums of money in the affiliate marketing business.

To learn the best ways to promote your website, you must do your research and be willing to take chances on one or two marketing methods. Read everything you can on strategic affiliate marketing, advertising techniques, and website promotion. Knowledge is the key to unlocking your success as an affiliate marketer.
Author Resource:- Cliff Posey, owner of CRP Marketing, owns and operates http://webbusinesstoolsonline.com. Cliff Posey has also operated several other successful web businesses including Love Song Cards and Radio Career Consultants. The content in this article was developed from his experience in these businesses.

Mortgage Glossary of Terms

By : Darren Yates
Adverse Credit
The term used if the borrower has a poor credit history. This could include previous mortgage or loan arrears, bankruptcy or CCJ's. Other terms used to describe an adverse credit mortgage include:

Bad credit mortgage
Poor credit mortgage
Non status mortgage
Credit impaired mortgage
No credit mortgage
Low credit score mortgage

APR (Annual Percentage Rate)
The interest rate reflecting the cost of a mortgage as a yearly rate. The APR provides home buyers with the ability to compare different types of mortgages based on the annual cost of each.

Arrangement Fee
The fee you pay your Lender in return for them providing you with a mortgage. Usually paid on completion or with your application, these fees usually apply when you take out a fixed rate, discount or cashback mortgage.

AST (Assured Shorthold Tenancy)
A form of tenancy that gives the landlord the right to repossess their property after a set amount of time laid out in the tenancy agreement. New tenancies are automatically ASTs unless otherwise stated.

Assured tenancy
The landlord can charge a market rent (the current rate for similar property in that area) and take back the property under certain conditions, as set out in the Housing Acts of 1988 and 1996.

Bridging Loan/Finance
Short term loan to enable the purchase of one property before the sale of another essentially releasing funds that are required for the purchase. You should always consult a professional before considering any bridging finance as it could be a solution that is worse than the problem.

Brokers Fee
A fee charged by an intermediary or advisor for locating the most appropriate mortgage for the borrower.

Buildings insurance
Insurance you can take out when you buy a property that will cover the cost of any damage to the house and or contents..

Buy to Let
A mortgage meant for those who wish to purchase a property to rent out to others. The decision on whether you are able to repay this type of mortgage is often based up on the future rental income from the property rather than the personal income of you the borrower.

CCJ (County Court Judgment)
A judgement reached in the County Court generally realted to non payment of a loan, mortgage etc debt in general. If you pay off the debt, the CCJ will be satisfied and a note is put on your records that states this.

Chain
A housing 'chain' made up of a number of buyers and sellers, essentially the line of buyers and sellers involved in each house move.

Charge
Any right or interest, especially with a mortgage, to which a freehold or leasehold property may be held. Basically a charge is the claim the lender has on the property until the mortgage or loan is satisfied.

Completion
The term used when the seller and buyer exchange the finances required to buy a property through their respective solicitors. At exchange of contracts a deposit, usually 10%, will have been paid. At this point the buyer becomes legal owner of the property.

Conveyance
The legal process in which ownership of the property is transferred from the seller to the buyer. Generally undertaken by a solicitor, or licensed conveyancer.

Early redemption fee
If you decide that you want to sell your property or remortgage then you will be redeeming you mortgage early. Most lenders charge a penalty fee, especially during any period of a fixed, capped or discounted rate. Be sure you are clear about any potential penalties when you are about to take on a mortgage.

Equity and negative equity
The amount of value in a property that isn't covered by a mortgage - simply take the amount of the mortgage from the valuation to work out the equity. vThis is where the money you owe on the mortgage is greater than the value of your property.

Exchange of contracts
The contract is a written agreement that lays out the terms between the buyer and the seller. When both parties exchange
contracts, usually weeks before completion, the deal becomes legally binding. Often a deposit of around 10%, is paid at this stage.

Fixed Rate
A set interest rate on a mortgage fixed for a period of time. This varies from lender to lender.

Freehold
If you are the property owner outright then your property is freehold. Most houses are freehold wheres many flats are leasehold, since you are not the owner of the whole building containing the flats.

Gazumping
If you are in the process of purchasing a property and your offer has been accepted but the seller gets a better offer, before you complete, and takes it then, you've just been 'Gazumped'.

Interest Only Mortgage
A mortgage whereby the borrower is only required to pay inerest on the amount borrowed during the mortgage term. It is the borrowers responsibility to ensure that enough funds will exist (either through an investment policy or other means) to repay the full mortgage at the end of the term.

Intermediary
A mortgage broker or advisor who finds the most suitable mortgage for a borrower and arranges the mortgage on their behalf.

Leasehold
If you buy a leasehold property you don't own the property rather the right to live there for a specified period of time, however much time remains on the lease. The owner of the property is called the freeholder or landlord.

Liability
This relates more to commercial mortgages. With a commercial mortgage liability for the repayment of the loan depends on the legal structure of the business:

A sole trader will be personally liable for the mortgage debt. Personal assets could be seized if the business defaults.
Partners are jointly liable for the debts of the partnership and their personal assets are at risk.
With a limited-liability partnership and a limited company, the liability falls firstly on the business rather than on the individual partners and directors. The lender may take a floating charge on business assets in general, rather than simply on the current property being purchased.
The lender may also insist on personal guarantees as a condition of granting the loan, in which case the partners and directors may be held personally liable anyway.

Life insurance
If you have a joint mortgage, life insurance can be acquired that will see the mortgage paid of should one of you pass on.

LTV (Loan to Value)
The size of the mortgage as a percentage of the value of the property i.e. A £90k mortgage on a house valued at £100k would mean an LTV of 90%.

MIG (Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee)
A one off payment made when you set up a mortgage a kind of insurance policy for the lender. This offers them protection against the value of the home falling to less than the mortgage. It is generally only charged to borrowers with a less than 10% deposit, but this can vary.

Mortgage
A loan to buy a property where the property is used as security against you paying back the loan.

Mortgagee
The company or organisation that lends you the money.

Mortgagor
The person taking out the mortgage.

Non-Status
Where a lender may not require income details from you or may accept some previous poor credit history i.e. CCJ's or previous mortgage arrears.

Payment Holiday
A period during which the borrower makes no mortgage payments.

Regulated tenancy
A legal right to live in your accommodation for a period of time. Your tenancy might be for a set period such as a year (this is known as a fixed term tenancy) or it might roll on a week-to-week or month-to-month basis (this is known as a periodic tenancy).You are a regulated tenant if you moved in before 15 January 1989, you pay rent to a private landlord and your landlord does not live in the same building as you.

Remortgage
The taking on of a second mortgage to pay off the first. The most common reasons for doing this are that another mortgage is available at a better rate or that the value of the property has gone up allowing for the opportunity to borrow more money against the property.

Right to Buy
For example, a tenant in a council owned property may purchase the property at a discount depending on length of their tenancy.

Self Certified
Generally when a borrower applies for a mortgage he or she will be asked to provide pay slips or company accounts to prove their income. If it is difficult or inconvenient for you to provide this evidence, you can choose to self-certify your income. This involves signing a declaration which states your income sources and amounts. Lenders will charge you higher rates than average and offer you a limited range of mortgages if you choose to self-certify your income, in general it's not a good idea to self-certify just to avoid some paperwork.

Stamp Duty
Tax paid by the buyer of a property set at 1% for properties over £60k, 3% for properties over £250k and 4% for properties over £500k.

Structural survey
The most wide ranging check of the structure of a property. This is carried out by professional surveyor and should uncover any defects or faults with the building.

Tenancy
A legal written agreement between a landlord and tenant that sets out the terms of the rental.

Term
The period of years over which you take the mortgage and repay it.

Term Assurance
An insurance policy designed to repay the mortgage on the death of the insured person. Level Term Assurance covers a principal sum throughout the policy term and pays out the full amount on death. Reducing Term Assurance is designed to repay the balance outstanding on a repayment type mortgage upon death. Term Assurance may also pay out early on the diagnosis of a terminal illness.

Underwriting
The process of evaluating a loan application to determine the risk involved for the lender. This involves an analysis of the borrower's creditworthiness and the quality of the property itself.

Unencumbered
Where the property is owned outright and no mortgages or loans are secured against it.

Valuation
A simple check of the property in order to find out how much it is worth and whether it is suitable to secure a mortgage against.

Valuation Fee
The fee paid by a borrower to cover the cost of the lender checking that the property is suitable security for the mortgage.

Variable Rate
A type of interest rate the lender can charge. It goes up and down and your repayments change accordingly.

Vendor
The person selling the property.
Author Resource:- Debt problems? need a loan? mortgage help? not sure in what to invest? The http://www.1stfinanceguide.com General Finance Guide may have the advice you've been searching for in our hundreds of useful articles.

Find Receptive Customers with Niche Marketing

By : Joseph Then
A great marketer may believe he or she can sell the proverbial "ice cubes to Eskimos"-and they may be right. Great sales techniques and marketing strategies can make virtually any product a winner. Someone did, after all, make a fortune by selling simple stones to the public simply by marketing them as "pet rocks." Imagine, however, just how incredibly successful a sales campaign could be if you already had an interested audience hungry for a product? This is the tantalizing scenario provided in the realm of niche marketing.

Niche marketing focuses on finding insular market segments that are not well-served by larger entities seeking to appeal to "the masses." These niches are often woefully underserved and are extremely receptive to new product offering aimed to their particular interests and needs. A talented internet marketer can make the exploitation of smaller niche markets remarkably lucrative.

Successfully marketing products to discrete niches requires the very same tools needed by traditional marketers. One must have an understanding of the market and a product to sell. The better the understanding of the niche, the more likely a marketer is to be successful. Likewise, a well-designed product is sure to be a great performer within its target niche.

It sounds easy, but there are complications. Initially, the marketer must find the right niche. This can be problematic for even the most skilled sales professionals. Knowing how to sell doesn't necessarily translate into the ability to discover and dissect hidden niche markets. That is why many internet marketers rely on services like Easy Niche Product to do the research and market exploration for them. Easy Niche Product creates ebooks and supporting materials aimed at carefully chosen niche markets. They do the work of finding the niche for the marketer.

Another complication in the niche marketing process is, of course, bringing the right product to the niche. Identifying an underserved niche is only part of the equation. In order to see maximum profit from any niche marketing endeavor, one must also have the right product to sell. This time-consuming process may be ill suited for many marketers. An ability to sell does not necessarily create an ability to make the perfect product.

6 Internet Marketing Mistakes That Restrict Your Success

By : Ann Liu
Believe or not, it is estimated that only very few people actually make huge profits online. The majority are making losses, just breaking even or making very small profits.

The failure by the majority of internet marketers is due to several factors. Following are the common mistakes that keep many internet marketers away from reaching their online business goals.

1. Inadequately Designed Websites

Your website is a crucial part in your online business. Many people do not really pay attention to it and show up a poorly designed website, which caused their online business failed.

In order to attract visitors, your website must be easy to navigate, quickly load, has a professional look with well lay out. Normally, the simple but effective websites are the best. Make sure that your visitors will enjoy browsing your website and will stay longer on the site and buy stuff from you.

2. Free Domain Hosting

Online customers tend to get the perception that you are not committed for the long term with your business if you are using a free domain hosting for your online business. Having your own, appropriately named domain can present to customer the image of an established and genuine business.

To get a proper domain hosting is not expensive, so there is no reason why you should not get one.

3. Lacking of High Quality, Helpful and Unique Web Content

Online surfers are looking for useful information. Although the primary goal of your online business' website is to sell your product or service, it is important for you to offer some valuable and useful information; and relevant tips or tools that related to your online business.

By doing this, you establish yourself as an expert in your field, at the same time, you also create credibility with your visitors, they will appreciate the things you do, the care you have for them and the expertise you offer for them.

4. No Privacy Policy Statement

Confidence and sense of security is very important for online transactions. It is very essential for you to have a 'privacy policy' on your online business website. Your website visitors or your customers need to know that if there are any problems with their purchase, they can get those issues addressed. A clearly written return or guarantee policies are very important.

The email system is highly abused these days, so your customers need to feel confident that you will not abuse their information that they put on your website.

5. Credit Card Processing

In order to make sales with your online business, you must make it easy and safe for your customers to complete the transactions. Credit card payment is a 'must-have' component on your website.

However, due to some illegal activities online, it is important for you to ensure that the credit card information your online business customers put on your site is safe. Because identity theft is very rife, so it is critical that you put all the necessary measures to make online transactions safe.

6. Lacking of an Auto-Responder Email System on Your Website

The best organic leads are the ones that visit your website and sign up your newsletter or join in your emailing list. If you are not capturing these visitors' email address and keep in contact with them, then you are simply losing a huge business potential. By doing this, you can offer an ezine on your website and make it very beneficial for your visitors to subscribe.

Above these six mistakes has been keeping a lot of budding internet marketers away from their "dreams of millions". Therefore, to make your online business success, you should avoid these mistakes, do certain website adjustment, and improve its performance.

Two Advertising Secrets To Improve Your Profitability

By : David Wiley
Small business owners, home based entrepreneurs and online business owners are always looking for ways to improve their marketing program. By showing an improvement in their annual marketing program, the business firm can attract new customers, show significant annual revenue (sales) increases, record attractive and higher profit margins, and record substantial improvements in their annual cash flow.

I will focus this article about one email letter that I received from Gary Bencivenga. Many marketing experts consider him to be the world's foremost direct response copywriter. His clients believed in him and invested tens of millions of dollars in scientific direct response tests.

Next, let me explain in more detail what I am talking about.

His email to me started with the question.

Which headline pulled best?

HEADLINE A: (next to photo of financial guru, Charles J. Givens):

If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle in your
life.
(caption under photo)
Charles J. Givens, the self-made $200-millionaire,
entrepreneur and best-selling financial author of all time.

HEADLINE B: (same photo and caption):

The Millionaire Maker
(subhead) Can he make YOU rich, too?

Which of these headlines absolutely smashed the other in a split-run test, outpulling it by a huge margin and becoming a profitable control for years?

Gary said rather than just tell you the winner, he would use them to teach you how to understand the two most powerful secrets in advertising today.

Once the reader of Gary's email learned the two secrets, no advertising principle you will ever read will give you more sheer power to boost your response consistently. And he said that he doubted if the reader would have ever read this anywhere, even if you have been a lifelong student of advertising.
And he went on to say that some conventional wisdom is wrong.

First, you must understand why some of what you have been taught about direct marketing is wrong, or at least outdated and incomplete.

Most of the few great books on direct response were written more than a generation ago by legends such as John Caples, David Ogilvy, Claude Hopkins and one or two others.

Their main teaching: benefits, big benefits, are the key to high response.

Makes sense. But there's a problem. These giants wrote this advice long ago when, compared with today, prospects were under-marketed. So, yes, back then, flat-out big benefits and words like FREE and NEW got people excited.

But today, Gary believed, more often than not, these same words and super-sized claims instantly trigger rejection. The problem is, words like FREE and NEW and the big-claim style of advertising they reflect, have been so overused, they have become bright red flags that instantly scream to your prospects, throw me away!

As proof, Gary said: "If I were to send you an email with the words "new" and "free," I must misspell them, or your spam filter may bounce my message.

Best proof: just ask yourself, do you get overly excited when you encounter an email or direct mail package trumpeting free or new or some fantastic claim to make you rich, change your life overnight or grow your body parts bigger than you ever dreamed?

Of course not.

You have heard such claims too many times. Your own exquisitely sensitive mental spam filter rejects all such messages instantly, as you think to yourself, YEAH, SURE.

And those two words are the two most powerful and influential words in advertising today. Yeah, sure.

They are the near-universal response of a too-busy world awash in marketing.

These two words are merciless tyrants, mass murderers of response, because they are exactly the words your harried prospects think every time they must slog through the daily, ever-rising tide of advertising claims.

Get rich quick! Yeah, sure (toss it).

Lose weight fast! Yeah, sure (toss it).

Make $1,000 a week stuffing envelopes! Yeah, sure (toss it).

Elect me and I will make the world safe, cut your taxes and give everyone universal health care. Yeah, sure.

And so on, including almost all of the big-promise messages you were taught to trumpet by the direct response scriptures.

Gary said here is A Simple Secret for Exploding Your Response.

As a result, the vast majority of B level copywriters spend most of their days dreaming up ways to pump up ever-bigger claims ... which is why their mailings are almost always beaten easily by the tiny handful of A level copywriters who know this simple secret of successful selling in an over marketed world...

And Gary said never make your claim bigger than your proof. And always join your claim and your proof at the hip in your headlines, so that you never trumpet one without the other.

There is no more powerful nor consistent way to explode your response. Surround your claims with stronger, bolder proof and watch your response soar.

And Gary went on to indicate that he was not talking just about testimonials, which do help but have become so overused themselves, they have lost some of their magic. I am talking about every method you can possibly find to bolster your proof and credibility.

One of the easiest ways to add credibility is to avoid like the measles phrases so overused, they instantly trigger the Yeah, Sure response, phrases such as get rich quick ... lose weight fast ... and, yes, become a millionaire.

Another way is to sandwich your big promise inside an IF ...THEN construction in your headline.

When you say IF (followed by a requirement your prospects have to meet), it seems to magically switch off and bypass their Yeah, Sure alarm and usher you right in their front door to sell.

Gary said: Surprisingly, it even works when you make the requirement easy to meet.

And now you know the winner, headline A:

If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee to work a financial miracle
in your life.

The promise still seems so big and hard to believe. But that is the power of the IF...THEN construction. For some reason, it seems to put the universal Yeah, Sure alarm to sleep, like punching in the alarm code when you enter your home".

The advertising secret (formula) is a reasonably easy requirement, followed by a strong promise. Think up ways to use this for your own product.

Gary said: Of course, be sure to pay off in your body copy why and how the benefit can be achieved by such an easy requirement. And if it is not extremely easy, but only moderately easy, that is even better, as it is more believable. Surprisingly, candor is gloriously effective in boosting ad response.

Anyway, test this IF...THEN idea sometime soon, measure the results, and you may be startled by how much it outpulls the typical big-promise headline most ads rely on.

Gary said: In fact, the headline above was so successful for Givens, his publishers asked him if they could adapt it for another of their products, a weight loss newsletter by Richard Simmons. Against a strong control package that had beaten off all comers, they tested this headline, keeping all other elements in the package the same:

(Next to photo of Richard Simmons)
If you've got 20 minutes a month,
I guarantee a thinner, healthier you.

It worked like a charm and handily beat the previous champ. (Notice the absence of exclamation marks, the overuse of which increases the aroma of hype and a resulting Yeah, Sure response.)

Home based entrepreneurs and online business owners are always looking for ways to improve their marketing program. By using the IF___THEN construction in your headline, you can show an improvement in your annual marketing program. This can translate into important financial benefits. Your business firm can attract new customers, show significant annual revenue (sales) increases, record attractive and higher profit margins, and record substantial improvements in their annual cash flow.

I will close my article with this question.

What are your plans to use the IF___THEN principle?
Author Resource:- David Wiley, MBA, specializes in teaching individuals the creative tools they need in order to earn a six figure income online. Go here for his free series of email letters: