Marketing Tips - Start with An Outline

Marketing is often segmented into four distinct sets of activity. The four P's - Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement or distribution. Article Marketing Strategies can play a significant role in at least two of these activities and should be incorporated into every Internet Marketing Campaign.

Writing and submitting articles strategically to various Sites is of tremendous value in both Promotion and Placement.

With this is mind, what's the best way to write these promotional articles?

We've done it through junior high, it expanded longer through high school, then on college it became chapters. No matter how many times a person have done it, writing articles has proven to be a task many has continuously avoided. Now at a time when writing articles could help your job or work, facing the job at hand can be still faced with unfriendly behavior.

While there are a great number of people who do not have the same attitude in article writing as others, there are still those who would rather walk in piping hot coals than do some article writing. What set people apart from other towards article writing is that they are prepared and has some methods and procedures in writing articles.

One of the methods you can use to prepare yourself when tasked to write in article is creating an outline first. Creating an outline for all your articles makes you prepared. You have an idea of what to do first and make a plan for your succeeding steps. Being prepared makes the job easier and faster. Being organized will allow for disorientation to be shunned away.

An outline can act as the design or blueprint for your article. This will guide you in creating the introduction, body and conclusion of your article. Here in this point, you can write down some of the ideas and sentences that you feel will look good in your article. This could be some of the focal point that could help make your article creative, interesting and appealing to a reader.

A carefully planned and fully prepared project would guarantee and ensure a problem and worry free procedure that can virtually go without any hassles. Creating an outline for all your articles will get you ready and breeze through writing an article in no time at all. Here I will provide you with some tips and guidelines in how to create an outline for all of your articles.

Did you know?

* Writing and submitting articles strategically to various Sites is of tremendous value in both Promotion and Placement.

* Promotion includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company.

* Placement or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer - the channel by which a product or service is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc.

Do some brainstorming and jot down your brilliant ideas first. Think of some ways to attract the interest of your reader. Designate a time frame where you can write down all the ideas that you can use for your articles. By this time you should have done all your research and information searching. Review and reread your ideas and notes, gain mastery and sufficient familiarity with your topic so that writing them down later own would be easy for you.

The next step is to discover your sub topic and sub titles. As you would provide a first sentence for your article, one that would immediately grab the attention of your reader, you would need some as well for your sub topics. To be concise, you would need to get all the facts that will support and go against your point.

These are the frames or skeleton of your article, now its time to add the flesh and the meat of your article. You will need to connect all your paragraphs and sub topics. This will form the body of your Article. While the introduction will usher in the ideas of your paragraph, you will need a conclusion. The conclusion will wrap up your points and drive in what you are saying in your article.

The outline for your article would also require you to write a draft first. This may take more than one attempt but remember that it is called a draft for a reason. Your outline shall be perfected as each draft is written and this draft is meant for your eyes only so there's no reason to feel ashamed. As you go on, you will clearly see the bigger picture and write an article that will perfectly suit what is demanded of it.

Reread and reread what you have written down. Always refer to your outline so that you won't drift away from what you had first written down. Its not hard to be caught in the moment and get lost in your writing frenzy. Your outline will help you keep in track. All those hours spent in outlining your article will not go to waste. This will serve as your guide in writing articles. Trust and rely on your outline because this will prove to be a very helpful tool in writing all of your articles.

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About the Author: Michael Saunders has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He edits a site on Article Directories and another on Site Promotion Strategies.

Age proves no limit for maritime inventor

Network Marketing - Lifetime Residual Income

What is network marketing?

Many of you might be asking yourself a question: what is network marketing? To describe what it is, it is necessary to describe what in includes. First of all, you are building a marketing network to promote some product or service. You will be creating a network marketing strategy, which will define how marketing network is created and what are the activities you will do to build the marketing network.

It is the most profitable to do the network marketing online. Internet allows you to build a larger marketing network that you will be able to use more effectively. The network marketing strategy still needs to be created for the online marketing network. You should study the available network marketing tip or tips before you write your network marketing strategy.

Network marketing tip: where to find.

You should look online to find network marketing tip or tips. It is a good ides to study someone else's network marketing strategy and see if there are any network marketing tip or tips that can be derived from there. Also look at the companies that already built their marketing network, whether it is an online marketing network or regular marketing network. Each network marketing tip will be useful for you when you are creating your own network marketing strategy.

The most popular products generally speaking are highly consumable thereby creating the need for ongoing purchasing or refills. If someone likes a particular product they normally will continue top buy and especially if it can be done easily and preferably online.

Marketing network: what's next?

After you have created your network marketing strategy, you can start building your marketing network by collecting prospective clients' contact information and informing your marketing network clients about your products or services. Remember each network marketing tip that you found as it will definitely help you.
At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68

The End Of News As We Know It

When my father was drafted during World War II and dumped in Belgium just in time for the Battle of the Bulge, my mother and his first two kids (I wasn’t a glimmer in his eye yet) waited days for even a trickle of news about the war… and waited months for letters from Pop himself.

The news came in painfully slow trickles. First rumors, then snatches of broadcast bulletins on the radio, then a newspaper story that may or not have been accurate… and in none of this was even a prayer for specific news from or about Pop.

That kind of no-news existence is just hard to imagine now. Online, I can watch stories develop just by refreshing my Google homepage — really hot news is updated constantly, within minutes of dramatic fresh input.

Heck, I can see minutes-old footage of events on YouTube, and read real-time blogs from every corner of the English-speaking world.

The delivery, consumption, and digesting of news has done changed in radical ways.

We all knew the Web was gonna morph our reality into something new… but even a year or so ago, most prognosticators believed we had some inkling of what the brave new world might look like.

Forget about it, now. All bets are off, all predictions inoperable.

No one knows what’s in store.

Least of all the news organizations we call “mainstream media”.

The fate of newspapers is interesting to me… both because I grew up loving my daily dose of whatever local rag served the town I was living in… and because the culture of the news junkie was well-defined. (And I have been a news junkie since I was old enough to read.)

We knew what was going on in the world, and we read enough varied takes on events to form an independent opinion.

It’s one thing to embrace the world and enjoy adventures… but it’s another thing to seek to also “know” the world while you plow through the decades.

Like the guys selling horse-drawn buggies 100 years ago, refusing to realize the exploding market share the automobile was gobbling up… mainstream newspapers have been slow to give the Internet credibility for news disperal.

I think local papers will survive in some form (probably mostly online, though)… because communities need a central clearing house for local news.

But it’s gonna be a painful transition. Because newspapers are owned by techno-phobes who regard online existence as some unknowable alien universe… and they just cannot, for the life of them, figure out how to make it profitable.

Please. The shake-out will produce a good alternative to the daily tree-killing newspaper… but not until the old diehard newsmen wander away, and news-dispensing organizations learn how to incorporate what entrepreneurs already know about making money online. (Right now, most newspapers see their online versions as “newspapers without paper”… but the old model of selling classifieds and department store inserts for profit don’t work online. The guy selling his 1998 Honda Accord is now on eBay and Craigslist, and the department stores that are surviving have gotten hip to email blasts and list building. Oops.)

The local paper here in Reno actually has a pretty damn good Website — and I now go there first when I need accurate weather news (important when you live in the bosom of the Sierras in winter), and also whenever I see a fresh plume of smoke wafting up from the valley floor, or hear sirens close by. (Every once in a while, I’ll sip my nightly beer while watching traffic cams around the city — real-time views of mostly routine intersections, with the occasion reward of getting to watch a three-car pile-up as it happens. Voyeur heaven.)

However, no one knows exactly what the newspaper will look like in the very near future.

This matters to marketers, very much. As the affiliate world grows ever more incestuous, and competition for pay-per-click gets nasty (not to mention the gruesome, unpredictable and never-ending rule-changes by the Google Gods), the “old” ways of reaching prospects (by finding out where the eyeballs gather) will start to look attractive again.

Soon, too.

I know of several top marketers who aren’t using PPC at all anymore. They use banner ads on sites that attract the kind of prospect they desire, as well as Hartunian-style PR releases and the cultivation of “go to guy” status in online communities that thrive on — yes — breaking news.

So it’s probably time for savvy entrepreneurs to start paying closer attention to where people-with-money are going for decent-length visits and multiple page-views. (Not ADD surfers bouncing off sites like a pinball.) (You young-uns know what a pinball game is, right? They still have those, down at the arcade? Jeez, I haven’t played a game that wasn’t virtual in years…)

Anyway…

One of the strongest players in the “new” news game was also one of the first on the scene. I don’t think much of Drudge, the man (his radio show is incoherent, and his obsession with Walter Winchell is creepy)… but his newsy “bulletin board” site, www.drudgereport.com, has ruled the roost for years.

With the same college-dorm quickie design format he pioneered in the late 90s. It looks awful. But it gets the hits.

As a news junkie, I visit Drudge everyday… mostly to get the right-wing spin on developing stories. I’m an independent who likes to watch the wingnut fights… I get my left-wing spin from www.huffingtonpost.com, and then check the somewhat middle-of-the-road Wall Street Journal subscription site (one publication that seems to have discovered how to be profitable online), the MSN daily e-mag Slate.com, and then a bunch of newspapers across the world.

But Drudge is always the first stop.

He doesn’t write ANYTHING for the site… except to rehash the headlines of certain stories he’s pitching. He has a staff who combs the world’s media centers for print and broadcast news, and offers up simple links to those sites.

That’s it. He’s a bulletin board.

And yet he has earned frontpage stories in the Washington Post and New York Times, and been called “the future of journalism”. Why? Because, as simple as his site is, he gets something like 15million visits a day. While the Post sells 5 million tree-killing newspapers a day, and pretty much has no clue how many people really read its Website.

So it’s more likely that mainstream media will begin to look more like Drudge, than the other way around.

Never visited the site?

This is why I’m writing about it: I don’t care if you visit it, or if you like it or hate it.

As a marketer, you’ve GOT to pay attention to the way it’s morphing the Zeitgeist of our culture.

You can get links to the top stories there… and when, for example, Hurricane Katrina hit, you could read what local Louisiana media outlets (both print and broadcast) were saying. And compare that with linked stories from the Los Angeles Times and the International Herald-Tribune.

If you went to the Washingtom Post site, all you’d get was their reporter’s version, and maybe another view from the AP wire service.

But Drudge covers “newsy” stories almost reluctantly. Like most of the talking-head cable TV shows, he really got a boost from the OJ Simpson trial, the Monica-all-the-time-Lewinski scandal, and the never-ending trials and tribulations of the current political fiascos.

The site is like 3 completely different people sitting across from you at the family dinner table –your serious-minded friend, earnestly talking about famine, war and economic theory… trying to outtalk the gossipy aunt who has never heard a secret she isn’t eager to share and elaborate on… both vying against the weird cousin who follows all UFO conspiracies as steadfastly as he does the latest box office battles of Hollywood studios.

It’s the New York Times meets the Hollywood Reporter meets the National Enquirer.

And you know what? It’s friggin’ fascinating.

Here’s a sample of the headlines for stories Drudge had up a couple of days ago (while the Washington Post was thick with more serious news on more serious subjects):

“Probation For Man Who Had Sex With Dead Deer.”

“Private Rocket Lost Shortly After Launch.”

“Dating Site Courts Only The Good Looking.”

“McCain Warns Of Spreading Socialism.’

“Judge Pulls Gun In Florida Courtroom.”

“Dog Performs Heimlich Maneuver On Owner.”

“Wolfgang Puck Bans Foie Gras.”

“Mystery Rash Closes Ohio School.”

And yeah, I read ‘em all.

Me, a busy, busy, busy professional (and hot prospect for many online marketers) with not much spare time to surf the Net.

And I will wait two minutes for the podunk Florida news site to download the video of the probation hearing of the guy who did the nasty with a dead deer.

We’ve all got to start exploring new ways to find our target audiences online, in situations where they aren’t zipping by in a panic.

Drudge doesn’t take much advertising (not sure why), and I’m not convinced his banner ads are efficient (because they change so frequently).

Still… the ancient desire of humans to want to hear more than rumors on breaking news (and gossip) will never fade.

Just tuck this fact away somewhere as you ponder future marketing moves (and while your email delivery rates continue to slide)…

Dead deer, indeed.

John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/

Rolling Stone : Magazine

Seven Lead Generation Sins

I really just don't get it. It's just plain pathetic.

How can so many businesses be missing the boat by such a long country mile on this?

Billions of dollars in profits, flushed away!

Just because of 7 innocent, yet deadly, tactical sales and marketing errors. Its nuts!

Now before I continue, let me just say that some of you who read this might find it upsetting.

I'm going to reveal some controversial ideas here. And yes, some of them are likely to fly in the face of many of the things that you've probably read and heard, and come to believe.

But I urge you to keep an open mind.

At the very least, weigh this article without prejudice. When you're finished reading, I give you full permission to thumb your nose, and go back to doing sales and marketing the way you've always done it.

"The 7 Sins"

#1 Sales and Marketing on Separate Floors - This, my friend, is the cardinal sin.

Marketing guys sitting in an ivory tower, pontificating about company image and branding, and coming up with a bunch of award winning creative mambo that amounts to nothing more than pompous chest beating.

And everyone waxes poetic about how good the company looks, and finds an excuse for justifying the money pit with the orders that some dialing for dollars sales guys brought in against the latest "marketing promotion".

Nobody seems to notice that the marketing "campaign" is lame and useless, and that it's the sales force that is driving sales against the "promotion". And sales stay flat, because the promotion is really nothing more than another way of packaging a discount.

Meanwhile, in another part of the building, the sales force is struggling to meet their numbers, and spending 80% of their time leaving voice messages, and battling to finesse their way by gatekeepers, and showing up in lobbies unannounced because they happened to be in the area. Why? Isn't that 6 or 7 figure marketing campaign supposed to put them in front of pre-qualified prospects, with a genuine need for what their selling, so they can help them to solve problems, and close business?

FACT, a real marketing program can actually do this.

Effective marketing is just "Salesmanship in Print". Its primary goal should be to automate nothing less than the top two thirds of the sales funnel. Full Stop.

Salespeople are expensive. They should be spending their time interacting with prospects that are already pre-qualified, and pre disposed to doing business with you.

How much more profitable would your company be, if your salespeople were 5 times more productive?

#2 "Content" Websites

Maybe you've head the expression "content is king", when it comes to web sites. Allow me to debunk this popular myth for you once and for all.

Do you want to win awards with your web site, or generate leads with your web site? Do you want to make your web site a really cool place for your prospects to hang out and push buttons, or do you want them to respond to your sales message in a meaningful way that advances the sales cycle?

Forget about cluttered web pages that offer too many choices. If you want to rock your prospects world, give them one clear and compelling message at a time; one that they can focus on without distraction. Ask them to do one or two things per visit. Simple.

In my humble opinion, the best way to format the page is in the form of a letter that addresses the title of the person you're most likely to be selling to. And it should have a bold heading that clearly trumpets the benefits of reading it.

If you must have a content page, fine, but don't drive traffic to it. When generating traffic, advertise a benefit, not your company, and direct traffic to a page that deals with just that. If someone wants to come back and visit you later, they can then visit your content rich home page, and browse for what they want.

#3 Giving Away Intellectual Capital

Many businesses seem to realize at some level, that customers do value their expertise. So they publish whitepapers and ROI calculators, and reports, and make them freely available on their web site, off in the corner somewhere. They're just one more distraction on a content page that leaves the visitor wondering what they're supposed to do next. How about the back button?

All that a prospect has to do to obtain the report or the tool, or whatever it is, is to click on a link. Good Golly, Miss Molly, what a huge mistake!

I hope you're not making it.

Isn't a dose of your expertise at least worth having the customer tell you who they are?

And while they're at it, why not make it easy for them to subscribe to your newsletter, or a specialized course that you can deliver via email. Whatever you do, don't let them leave your website without introducing themselves. Good grief.

Sometimes it takes several exposures to your print persuasion before the prospect becomes comfortable enough to come forward and make personal contact. But when they do, you've got a live one!

And make no mistake. A prospect that convinces themselves that they need to talk to you by reading your problem solving story, is more than twice as likely to buy, versus one that you've cold called. Savvy?

#4 Boring and Hard To Read Copy

Some people will tell you not to use a lot words on your web site. Poppycock.

Prospects that are actively looking for what you're selling will read and read and read until they're red hot and ready to talk to you. But you have to know how to actively engage them.

If you bore them with product features, or vain puffery about your company, or just plain poorly written bafflegab loaded with techno-speak drivel, forget it.

Grab them with a benefit riddled headline, jab to the solar plexus with a trance inducing opening, and bam, down they go, straight to the meaty emotional appeals and logic of your argument.

Black type on a white background, large text that's easy to read, and plenty of white space between ideas works best. Now you're cooking.

The more you tell, the more you sell, but only if you keep them awake.

#5 No "Soft" Follow Up

Hi, it's Sally Sales, are you ready to buy yet? Is this your idea of follow up?

Don't you just love to hate this annoying little voice on the other end of the phone?

Just as with the initiation of the sales cycle, it remains critical to your odds of closing that you get the prospect to continue to be the one who initiates the lion's share of the communication.

It's a huge psychological advantage! You'll only achieve it by nurturing and caring for your prospect base with effective direct response follow up mechanisms. Things like newsletters, courseware, special reports, offers, tutorials, and the like.

When you continually spoon feed your prospects information that is genuinely useful to them, and that helps them to better understand the implications of the problem that you can help them to solve, they'll call you when they're ready.

#6 Selling "Product" Too Early

If you want to really stand out from the crowd, and turn your hopper into the horn of plenty, don't sell your product too soon.

To catch infinitely more fish, drive potential prospects to your web site, and pitch problem solving information, in return for your prospects contact information, and permission to follow up.

More than ever, your prospect is interested in your experience and expertise, as well as your product. What better way to demonstrate it, than with a well-written whitepaper?

#7 Lame Publicity

Few businesses take advantage of good publicity.

There are people out there right now searching trade magazines and publications for ideas about solving their problems. They should be reading your articles. They should be reading case studies about how your customer's reached their goals with your help. They should be exposed to your press releases, announcing the availability of your problem solving whitepapers.

Just don't make the all too common mistake of doing these things without a carefully planned out system for harvesting prospect contact info and permissions.

Smart and highly choreographed publicity is stealth marketing. It slips right under the prospects sales resistance radar.

Since childhood, society conditions us to trust and believe things that we read in the media, and to distrust paid advertisements.

So publicity is a far more effective lead generation tool than traditional advertising!

But rare is the marketer that appreciates this, or knows how to do it.

[Via Daniel Levies]

Do Sales Contests Work?

The Strange Story of the "Crackpot" Mail-Order Prophet

by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.mrfire.com

Are you having trouble selling your product or service? Are you feeling like the chaotic state of the world prevents you from succeeding? Are you wondering how you can increase your sales in the most cost effective ways? Are you feeling like your competition is breathing down your neck?

Many of my clients feel the same way. They want to succeed, to make a nice living in their business, but they feel overwhelmed, uncertain, and even despondent. They feel they have too much competition. They feel marketing doesn't work, or takes too much work. They feel people don't have enough money today to spend on what they are selling.

And that's why I think it's time to reveal the strange story of the long forgotten "crackpot" mail-order prophet.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s the average person didn't have enough money to feed themselves or their family, let alone enough extra cash to order books through the mail. Yet during those lean years one man made a fortune selling books and courses entirely by mail. His name was Frank B. Robinson. He founded "Psychiana," the world's eighth largest religion and the world's largest mail-order religion.

You may never have heard of him or his movement before today. But during the 1930s and 40s, Robinson's name traveled around the world. Millions of people read his books, studied his lessons, and practiced his methods. The press called his positive thinking, new thought religion a "media business" because Robinson advertised so heavily.

In 1928 Robinson wrote an ad for his new philosophy that began with the headline, "I TALKED WITH GOD." An advertising agency in Spokane, Washington said the ad would never work. But Frank believed in his message and trusted his hunches. He borrowed $2,500 from people he barely knew, spent most of it on printing his lessons, and invested $400 to place his ad in "Psychology Magazine."

That ad pulled 5,300 responses. Robinson ran it in numerous magazines and it always pulled a 3% to 21% response. Within a year he had a full-time job fulfilling requests for his books and lessons, soon shipping a million pieces of mail a year out of his office in Moscow, Idaho. The post office in that little town had to move into a bigger building to handle all the mail.

Robinson's ads appeared in 140 newspapers, 180 magazines, and on 60 radio stations, all at the same time. His postal bill in 1938 amounted to $16,000 and his printing bill hit $40,000. He received 60,000 pieces of mail a day, reached more than two million people, and sent his message to 67 countries---all within one year of running his first ad.

"Advertising is educating the public to who you are, where you are, and what service you have to offer," Robinson wrote. "The only man or organization who should not advertise is the one who has nothing to offer."

What can we learn from Frank B. Robinson?

He believed in his product. When you don't believe in what you are trying to sell, it shows. It'll show in your lack of commitment to your marketing, in poor advertising, in poor service, or in other ways. As I mention in my book, The Seven Lost Secrets of Success, sincerity is one of the "lost secrets" to success. Robinson had sincerity. While his movement made tons of money, Robinson accepted only $9,000 a year as his salary. Whether you call him a crackpot or a savior, he believed in his product. He knew he had something people wanted. In fact, Robinson sold his religious lessons with a money-back guarantee.

He advertised relentlessly. If you don't tell people that you exist, they won't know it. The reason you aren't aware of Robinson or his movement today is because he's dead. (He died in 1948). No one is advertising his message. Without consistent and persistent advertising to educate the public, the world won't know of your business.

He tracked his results. Robinson believed in the spiritual world, but he also knew he lived on the earth plane where numbers matter. He tracked responses from his ads to know what worked and what didn't. For example, astrology magazines brought him an 18% response to his ads while national weekly papers brought 3%. Knowing that, Robinson could invest more money in larger ads in the better pulling magazines. Find out where your business comes from and focus more advertising in that area.

He continued to create products. Robinson knew once people tasted his goods, they would want more. He wrote 28 books during his short lifetime. These, along with his correspondence courses, gave him a deep product line. Your current satisfied customers will always be your goldmine. Create more for them to buy.

He remained optimistic. Despite the harsh reality of the Great Depression years, and despite competition from religious institutions that had been around for centuries, Robinson flourished. He didn't believe anyone or anything could stop him. When you have that strong of an inner conviction, nothing CAN stop you. If you think you have competition with a similar business in the same town, consider what it must have been like for Robinson to have such empires as the Catholic Church, the US government, and famous ministers and politicians trying to close him down!

Whatever you may think of Robinson or "Psychiana," you have to admit he knew how to advertise his business.

"After all, it's the results in human lives that count," he wrote in his 1941 book, The Strange Autobiography of Frank B. Robinson. "Talk is cheap."

What are you going to do now to increase your business? Remember, talk is cheap!

by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.MrFire.com

Stay at Home Mom Looking For Work Targeted by Online Thieves

Deadline Creativity

I’ve been slaving under a vicious deadline here — the actual due date is next week, but to get the gig done I have to gear up and head down that long, dark tunnel of Deadline Hell two weeks prior.

In my old life as “just” a freelancer, I would effectively cut myself off from society and friends and even fundamental hygiene (wearing the same clothes for days on end) in order to meet a deadline. My entire reputation rested on the fact I have never missed a due date for copy in my career, and delivered “A” list quality manuscripts. (This has pissed off most of my colleagues. Halbert even said it was “criminal” to have never missed a deadline, and made everyone else look bad. And, in truth, most writers occassionally miss a deadline here or there… but to my mind, part of being a professional is a hard-core dedication to keeping your promises. In essence: Be where you said you’d be, when you said you’d be there, having done what you said you’d do. Period.)

As a bachelor freelancer, I could get away with being a recluse for a week or longer. I’d just disappear.

I learned to quickly get into a groove, too — eat, sleep, dream and focus on the job at hand. There’s actually a kind of freedom in that… a luxury of forcing the world to go away, to ignore the hubub of modern life and everything else that would under other circumstances be a desireable distraction.

I’m no longer that carefree bachelor, of course, and haven’t been for years. So I’ve had to adapt, by calling up that groove quickly during whatever snatches of time I have available.

It’s a different way of working, but — again, as a professional — you just learn to get ‘er done. I still keep odd hours (went to sleep around 4 am last night), since I insist on never working tired, and nap frequently. (I also rely on my unconscious to come up with ideas and headlines while I’m asleep — a tactic I learned from David Ogilvy and have used for twenty years successfully.)

I could go and on about how I deal with deadlines… and maybe later I will, when I have more time… but for this post I just wanted to share a thought that I never consider unless I’m actually deep in Deadline Hell.

It’s this: As confident as I am that I can get the job done, at a level of quality consistent with what I’m capable of and with what the client rightly expects… I still suffer crippling bouts of doubt and anxiety during the creative process.

This used to freak me out. I’m sure it’s an emotional state close to what folks feel when they have a complete nervous breakdown… a sense of failure, of futility, of desperate panic and near-physical collapse.

Yet I find it funny, and even a bit invigorating now. The first few times I went through it — before I understood what was happening — I took it personally. I figured I was just inadequate, and a piss-poor excuse for a professional.

Then I discovered that ALL the best writers (as well as most other “creative” types) go through this identical stage during the process of crafting something new.

It’s like birth pangs. I won’t pretend to know what women actually go through during birth… but I’ve had women writers insist that at least the panic, the desperation and the physical exhaustion are the same.

Learning this calmed me down considerably. Nobody’s ever died from the angst of creating something. But — not understanding that the process was temporary and necessary – people have committed suicide because they couldn’t handle it.

So I’m telling you, as others told me: Don’t freak out. ALL writers go through a period of brain-twisting insanity while crafting good stuff under deadline pressures. (I haven’t tested this, but if you’re not going through at least some discomfort, you may not be pushing yourself hard enough. Naughty writer, cheating your client.)

It’s like exercising. I have a vicious trainer who takes great pride in concocting sadistic sessions that shoot my heart rate up to “running from Godzilla” levels… and if I didn’t undertand the process, I might avoid exercising altogether. But knowing the “no pain, no gain” rule, I have learned to just buckle down and face my lazy-ass demons and do what needs doing to stay in shape.

I even enjoy the exhaustion of pushing myself physically, once I’m into it.

So, yeah, I’m unhappy right now. Right after posting this, I will drag myself back to the job at hand, and go through what must be the twelfth edit of the copy to date (with another twelve to go).

Part of me would rather slash my wrists and be done with it… but my “greater” self just laughs off the desperation.

And here’s the punchline: Because there IS a deadline, this all will soon pass.

It HAS to.

That’s why deadlines are the writer’s best friend. Without them, there would be no logical end to any gig, and I can’t even imagine allowing this panic and sense of failure to last a second longer than it has to.

The deadlines I set are reasonable, and based on my long experience of what is necessary to get the job done right. Sometimes, it can be overnight. Other times, with heavy-hitting big league clients, it’s six weeks.

But the instant the job is sent off… I’m back to my normal fun-loving, embrace-the-world self.

Creativity is a harsh mistress… but for those of us who’ve chosen her, the grief (once understood) is worth it.

Stay frosty.

John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

What To Do When Customers Complain

The ability to manage customers is one defining factor that separates your average worker from someone with management potential.

Regardless of how careful you plan to operate your business, customers will always complain. So what can you do to help meet or exceed a customers expecations?

1. Don't Lose Customers

Losing a customer is a big deal, even if you already have a million of them. Not only will all of the money you spent on advertising go to waste, but that customer will no longer buy from you. This is a double whammy - you lose out on potential future revenue and your competitors gain. Of course, the worst thing about losing a customer is that they will tell all their friends not to buy from you as well. In these situations the people that are told what happen never get to hear your side of the story. The issue of damage control during any customer complaint is therefore very important.

2. Address Concerns

An angry customer will often be rude, insulting, or even a danger to the sucess of your business. Customers that make a big deal out of things in the store can cause quite a racket, driving potential shoppers away. Other shoppers might wonder what happend that got the customer so angry to begin with and think twice about buying from you. Never talk loudly to a customer, always keep your voice calm and respectful. Make eye contact and begin with asking the customer how you can help them. This gives the customer the opportunity to tell you why they are upset.

3. Compensation

Compensation is a tricky matter as it will cost your company money. Most often than not, however, you will need to offer a complete refund. Many customers today feel that complete refunds are not good enough. For example, they may have purchased the item for you for a business of their own and due to it failing it cost them revenue, or at the very least, their time. If you like, you can offer them a voucher for !a free product or service, or increase what they have already bought to the next package up.

4. Keep It Empathetic

If you come across as authoritative the customer will be even more annoyed than when he brought the matter to your attention. Instead, sympathize with the customer and let them know that if it were up to you things would be run differently (If it IS up to you, be sure to let them know that youll at the very least look into it for them). For example, if you are out of a particular item you can let the customer know that you will have a talk with your supplier.

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Is This Contract Valid?

Process on Optimizing your Site through Keywords

There are a lot of things to analyze on your site before you start optimizing your site. Such things are your site overview, nature of business, home page, site dimension and number of pages, product/services categories, page rank and indexed pages for major search engines, link popularity, and a lot more. After that you will go to your onpage and offpage optimization.

Analyze your site and think of a generic word that best fits for your web site. Choosing the right keywords is a strategy for better search engine positioning http://www.searchengines.com/placement.html. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product. Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common -- Keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is very important. Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.

That word will act as your major keyword for your site. Then find a keyword tool that will help you generate keywords for your site. There are lots of keyword tools like http://inventory.overture.com. Type in the major keyword that you had thought of and it’ll list all related keywords that you can use. On the tool you’ll see the number of counts your keyword has been searched. Person new on search engine optimization might use the keyword with a lot of counts (I, sure did that before) immediately but SEO experts says that Do NOT use it for a start as keyword searched as many times will just give you a lot of competition and give your site less probability in regards to your visitors. So it is best to start with keywords with a little rivalry. Get some traffic with those keywords and eventually focus on the major keywords.

Examine those sites ranked from 1-10 on the keywords you chose to use in optimizing your site. Check everything about the site that is ranked highly on the search engine. Its URL, see if it is the top level webpage or it is the index page of the site as if it is not you can have a great chance to improve your index page for the target keyword and have a better placement in the SERP’s. Sites page rank. Page rank is Google’s way of giving specific value to how popular your website is. It is based on the number of links you have pointing to your website. Then check their page source, see if their actually optimizing their site for some onpage optimization factors. Factors such as title tag, check if they use the keyword on their title tag which is one of the main reasons why a site is rank well on search engine. Header tags are used to separate topics and range from h1 being very large and bold and h6 which is very small and bold, it should contain your most important keyword or keyword phrases to assist you in ranking higher on Search Engines. Image alt tags are words that will be displayed in place of your image through an older browser or when your visitors have their image turned off, insert a readable keyword phrase within the alt tags of your image and it’ll help you on your rankings. And on the main content if they use the keyword on the beginning and at the end of the page, also whether or not they’ve bolded, underlined, or italicized the keywords on that page. By continuing this process on other keywords that you’ve chose you will have an improved ranking on SERPs.

Kristine Joy Francisco, SEO for ProAdultOutsourcing, the best choice for your professional web design and other web development needs, for more information visit http://www.proadultoutsourcing.com/.

Blog: http://www.offshore-web-design.blogspot.com/

http://www.webdesignandseo.wordpress.com/
Cookies: Bite-Size Life Lessons by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Jane Dyer

Seven Out of 10 Employees Admit to Abusing Office Computers, Phones

More people are likely to engage in "risky work behavior" than ever before, according a new survey.

Nearly seven out of 10 adult office workers use their computers and other office technology for personal reasons, often ignoring employer policies that warn against doing so, new research shows.

Sixty-nine percent of office workers admit that they access the Internet at work for non-work purposes, and the same percentage use their work telephone to make and receive personal calls, according to a recent survey conducted online by Harris Interactive on behalf of Lawyers.com. In addition, 55 percent of the 1,711 respondents said that they send and receive personal e-mail on their work accounts.

Despite the routine misuse, 45 percent of office workers say they have been informed that their technology usage at work is monitored. "It's not a mystery to most employees that their bosses may be reading their work e-mails or checking out websites they visit on work computers," Alan Kopit, an attorney and legal editor for Lawyers.com, said in a statement.

The survey results show that employees are more willing to engage in what Kopit calls "risky work behavior" than ever before. Approximately three out of four, or 73 percent, of office workers are as or more likely to use the Internet for personal reasons than they were two years ago.

The percentage of office workers conducting personal business at the office is even higher among young employees. Nearly 72 percent of workers ages 18 to 24 said they check personal e-mail accounts at work (compared to 61 percent of the general population), and 77 percent are using the Internet personally (compared to 69 percent of workers overall), the survey says. Seventy-one percent of the young respondents said they maintain some sort of personal website. Personal blogs are the most popular among young workers, while 52 percent use networking accounts, such as MySpace or Facebook. Thirteen percent of workers 18 to 24 have an online dating account that they use at work, survey results show.

Experts say these percentages make young workers even more vulnerable to personal exposure at work. "We've seen instances where current or potential employers reviewed content of personal websites, and held employees accountable in different ways for what they post," Kopit said. "Young people tend to live lives very openly online, which may have unintended repercussions when it comes to their employment."

Employee violations of technology usage policies can not only hurt the productivity of businesses, but in some cases could compromise the security of their communications systems. Kopit advises employers to evaluate their current practices regarding technology and to take the necessary steps to implement systems that will ensure their business is protected.

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Bird Songs

The Most Powerful Marketing Tool Ever Created

by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.mrfire.com

"Write a book? Me? Are you kidding?"

No, I'm not. Besides being the most powerful marketing tool around, here are three reasons why you ought to consider writing a book: Fame, Fortune, and Immortality.

Fame

After I wrote The Seven Lost Secrets Of Success, people asked me to speak on success in business. Now that I've written a book on advertising, I get asked to talk and write about advertising (that's how I came to write this column). Why? The world bows to experts. Write a book and you're considered the authority on that subject.

This fame helps your business, too. Look at Harvey MacKay, author of Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Who ever heard of him -- or his envelope company -- before he wrote his block-buster?

Fortune

Book publishing is a mega-business these days. Over 1,000 titles are published every week; about 50,000 a year. Somebody is making money. Why not you?

James Fixx, author of The Complete Book Of Running, the bestseller that sent people in shorts to sweat through the streets, made over $500,000 from book sales. He made yet another $500,000 from all the speaking engagements he did as a result of being a rich and famous author. Not bad. And not too unusual. One of my clients just received a $300,000 advance for his first book. He's only 25.

Immortality

When I finished writing The Joy Of Service for Ron McCann, I looked at him and said, "Ron, do you realize we created a miracle?" He had no idea what I meant. "This book is going to live beyond us," I explained. "It will go into the world and move people. It will inspire people in ways we'll never know. That's a miracle."

Wait! There's more.

Your book also becomes a networking tool that is far more powerful than any business card. As an author, I've received business from India, Ireland, Germany, and Africa, yet I've never been to any of those countries.

Your book doesn't have to be War and Peace. My best selling "book" is Turbocharge Your Writing! -- and it's only 22 pages! The content of that winner can fit on two sides of one sheet of paper, yet the book is now in its eighth edition.

Not a writer? J. Paul Getty hired a ghostwriter. Trump and Iaccoca hired coauthors. You don't have to write the book yourself. Just don't hire a budding novelist. Hire a pro.

I recommend you self-publish your book, and then sell it direct to your current customers. Host an autograph party at your place of business. And remember to send press releases to the local media.

Being a businessperson with a book may be the most powerful marketing tool on the face of the Earth. If you don't believe me, ask the business tycoons who already have books available -- if you can get them on the phone!

by Dr. Joe Vitale
www.MrFire.com

300 by Frank Miller, Lynn Varley

Young Entrepreneur Writes How To Manual for Tray Liner Advertising

Denver, CO, March 17, 2007 --(PR.COM)-- This is a true and inspiring story of a 22 Year old Entrepreneur that transformed a regular “8 ? x 11” piece of paper into a full time advertising business. Phillip Tapia is the founder and president of Tray Display Advertising, Inc... Oct 2004, Phillip developed a new advertising concept that would not only serve as an economical value by turning trash into cash, but it would also save restaurant owners thousands of dollars a year. For the past three years, Tapia has sold ad space on tray liners and pizza box toppers in two of America’s favorite fast food restaurants, Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers and Little Caesars Pizza.

The advertising industry spends billions of dollars every year in attempt to influence the average consumer to purchase their product or service. According to the NRA's 2007 Restaurant Industry Forecast, Quick service restaurants are projected to register sales of $150.1 billion in 2007. According to Blumenfeld and Associates, Inc., Approximately 3 Billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. each year, and According to Bolla Wines, 66.66% of Americans order pizza for a casual evening with friends. Equipped with passion and enthusiasm, the young entrepreneur was determined to get his piece of the pie! Phillip and his father (Mike Tapia) currently distribute to 26 Wendy’s restaurants in southern Colorado along with dozens of Little Caesars Pizza locations in Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Denver Colorado. Between Wendy’s and Little Caesars pizza, the Tapia family will print and produce more than 400,000 tray liners and pizza box toppers every month. Tray Display only uses soy-based inks and prints on 100% recycled paper to ensure our tray liners and box toppers are environmentally friendly.

“The best part of Tray Display Advertising is its simplicity, when you realize that a regular piece of paper is the cause for helping so many people, it can really open your eyes to the opportunities that surround us every day,” Phillip said. Tapia built relationships with national marketing directors and brand name companies such as Crayola, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Bally Total Fitness, Pepsi Cola, Earl Schieb Auto Paint & Body Repair, Fast Fix Jewelry Repair, and Ace Cash Advance.

No space on Tapia's tray liner and pizza box Topper will go to waste, including the reverse side, when customers turn it over there is more. Tray Display Advertising features a monthly coloring contest with custom designed artwork of client’s mascots and local radio station DJ’s created by Kevin Cordtz, Tray Display’s coloring contest artist. “It’s a great feeling when presenting an award to a child and seeing their face light up after they just won the Tray Display Coloring Contest, I believe it is extremely important to support the youth of our community by encouraging children to use their creativity and imagination,” said Phillip.

The sponsoring radio station invites listeners to stop by their neighborhood Wendy’s or Little Caesars Pizza to pick up a tray liner or pizza box topper and color the contest to win great prizes. “When partnering with a radio station, not only will your company benefit, but your advertisers and your restaurant outlet will receive free advertising as well,” Phillip said. Every month, hundreds of coloring contests are turned in to Wendy’s and Little Caesars Pizza for judging. Age groups 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12 are awarded with prizes from Crayola, Pepsi Cola, Wendy’s and Little Caesars Pizza, plus each winner can get their photo taken with Caesar Man. “I like the fact that not everyone throws their tray liner or pizza box topper away anymore,” said Tapia.

Word has began to spread about Phillip’s one of a kind business, earning him featured stories in several Colorado newspapers as well as a featured story in a National publication “Home Business Magazine.” Tray Display Advertising has received hundreds of emails and phone calls from people around the world, all wanting to know how they could start their own tray liner or pizza box topper advertising business in their surrounding area. All the positive feedback motivated Phillip and the Tapia family to write a Tray Display Advertising “How to Manual.” “Now anyone in any Country, any State, or any City can download our 8 step 56 page manual at www.TrayDisplayAdvertising.com,” Phillip said. The manual will serve a case study of how a young entrepreneur took an “8 ? x 11” piece of paper and turned it into successful advertising business. Phillip’s “How to Manual” is entitled “How to Make Fast Cash Out Of Fast Food Trash.” “My goal is to teach people from all over the world on how to start up a successful tray liner and pizza box topper advertising business and sell it in some of the world’s favorite fast food establishments,” said Phillip.
Negative Keywords And PPC

All-Clean finds niche, success in Asheville

ASHEVILLE — As a software trainer, Anthony Thomas, 39, was on the road every week.

“I hardly ever saw my kids,” he said. “So I thought, ‘What can I do to get a bit more flexibility and time for my family?’”

The answer was cleaning.

Thomas started All-Clean Services three years ago. Initially, he focused on residential and commercial janitorial services, but he discovered that market was pretty saturated around here.

Then Thomas discovered his own niche: cleaning newly constructed homes and businesses just before their occupants move in.

“There’s more of a margin and less competition in construction cleaning,” said Russ Yelton, director of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College’s Business Incubator. Yelton helped Thomas research and write a business plan and stays in touch with him about his business’ development.

“He’s stuck it out, and as a result, he’s shown really remarkable success,” Yelton said.

Construction cleaning, particularly of high-end homes, turns out to be a labor-intensive job that also requires specialized knowledge, said Chuck Davis, owner of Chuck Davis Construction Inc. Davis hired Thomas to work on several of the homes he’s built over the past year.

“You can’t just come into these homes with a bottle of Mr. Clean,” Davis said. “You have to know how to clean newly-grouted tile, marble and stone. You have to know how to get rid of Sheetrock mud.”

Thomas added: “This requires lots of meticulous attention to detail and a unique kno-wledge of cleaning. My clients have high expectations.”

Thomas moved to Asheville from upstate New York when UNC Asheville hired him as assistant director of admissions. He later served as their coordinator of student retention, then worked as a software trainer for a company specializing in software for universities and colleges.

“I traded in my khakis for dirty jeans,” Thomas said. “I’m still really busy, but I have more freedom.”

He says his biggest challenge is managing employees and being flexible.

“I’m at the whim of the builders,” Thomas said. “Often, they aren’t ready for me when they thought they would be. I’ve got one contract for a new apartment complex that I signed in October that I haven’t cleaned a single unit for because they’re behind on construction.”

“But this is what I choose to do, so I take it in stride.”

Thomas also plans to become a local vendor for environmentally safe cleaning products.

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