|
Have we misunderestimated George W Bush?
Independent, UK - 16 hours ago At home and abroad, the Bush years have seen real achievements ? and history may judge him far more kindly than his critics would have us believe History … George Bush John McCain lose Georgia to Russia OpEdNews all 272 news articles |
Archive for August, 2008
Have we misunderestimated George W Bush? – Independent
Sunday, August 31st, 2008Hillary Clinton?s New Motivation – Forbes
Sunday, August 31st, 2008 Washington Post |
Hillary Clinton?s New Motivation
Forbes, NY - Aug 31, 2008 Hillary Clinton. The Clintons, as we know, are obsessed with their historical legacies. Bill Clinton?s barnburner speech on Wednesday seemed to be motivated … Video: Clinton Says Obama's Ready CBS Soft focus Chicago Tribune AP Analysis: Clinton support helps Obama in Ark. Rocky Mountain News Sunday Herald - Los Angeles Times all 10,910 news articles |
Analysis: Clinton does her part for Obama, party – Newsday
Sunday, August 31st, 2008|
Analysis: Clinton does her part for Obama, party
Newsday, NY - 2 hours ago "What she said and what Bill Clinton said sealed it," Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Aurelia Greene (D-Bronx) reflected the next day as she waited for Obama's … AP Analysis: Clinton support helps Obama in Ark. Rocky Mountain News It?s Your Turn, John McCain New York Times With pals like Clintons . . . Boston Herald 24-7PressRelease.com (press release) - Newsweek all 595 news articles |
St. Paul Billboards: John McCain Hugging George Bush – American Chronicle
Saturday, August 30th, 2008 Telegraph.co.uk |
St. Paul Billboards: John McCain Hugging George Bush
American Chronicle, CA - 9 hours ago Democrats are welcoming John McCain and the Republicans to St. Paul with billboards depicting John McCain warmly embracing President George W. Bush. … Video: Obama Compares McCain To Bush CBS George Obama: Not 1 of 'the least of these' WorldNetDaily all 2,023 news articles |
Why Be Your Own Boss
Friday, August 29th, 2008There are many reasons to becoming your own boss, to start a business. There are also many benefits to being your own boss. Even though you may hear about many benefits, this doesn’t explain why you should be your own boss. In this article, you will discover why your why is important.
We have all heard it – why be your own boss? It gives more free time, a nest egg, etc. But, all these benefits can only benefit us in figuring out why you want to be your own boss.
You see, your needs and wants are going to create your why. And the why may seem simple, however, is a big factor in your long term success. A business is not easy on any counts; whether that business be a home business or a business in a retail complex.
There are hard times in business. We hear about all the failures, but we also hear about the successes. What was the difference that drove some to success? The answer is the why!
When you first start a business, you will find that it is not easy. It requires both a lot of time, and energy. You will need to be focused, and at some times will feel like you want to leave the business alone. It can seem like it is too much.
However, those who succeed have that why. They know why they are working to create whatever it is they want. If you started a charity, and the goal was to make a certain positive change, then your focus would be there, until completion.
This applies with your why, in your own business. Whether you are thinking of starting a home based business or simply starting a business in a retail store, in a industrial location or office space, your why matters.
So, what do you want? What do you really want out of the business you are thinking of starting? If you can think about this point, and find your answer, it will help you keep focused.
For most successful entrepreneurs, starting a business may have had an element of desire for money; however, many will have another bigger motivation for success. And this is what makes the success.
Your why, is not just a personal issue, it can be a business issue. As in the example of the charity, you may want your product to help as many people as possible. Bill Gates did this, and his why at one point was – to have a computer on every desktop. And as we can see, he strove hard, and got the result!
Q. What are some great sites to visit, that can give me the information to get started in a home business?home business opportunities | special report goal setting system | home business advice
7 Valuable Customer Service Tips That Increase Sales
Friday, August 29th, 2008Providing great customer service puts you ahead of other competing businesses. It’s what your business needs to develop a loyal customer base.
When your competitors lose business because of poor customer service and their lost customers become your first time customers, it’s your customer service that will keep your new customers coming back. It will cause your business to rise above its competition.
The following tips will help you to satisfy your customers better, get more repeat business and realize higher profits. Use them to increase your sales and create a business that you can be proud of.
1. Have a strong customer service policy in place.
First of all, create a strategy for interacting with your customers that focuses on providing great customer service. Make it part of what your business is all about.
If you make customer service your top priority, your employees will know that excellent customer service is expected of them. They’ll provide better customer service and you’ll have more satisfied customers and repeat business.
Without a clear cut strategy, your employees may come up with their own ideas about what customers want and how they should be treated. Letting this happen is very dangerous to your profits. It can cause your competition to take customers away from you.
2. Hire the right people.
Employees should treat customers with respect and courtesy. They should make it easy for people to want to do business with you and not eliminate your chances of your customers buying from you again.
Pre-employment tests can help you to determine whether the person you’re considering will be an asset. Will she cause you to lose money? Is she the right person for the job? These tests put the odds in your favor. Your hiring decisions can become a lot easier.
3. Listen and act on complaints.
Not taking complaints seriously will cause the same negative situations to happen again. You’ll lose business when your other customers have the same problem.
Instead of shrugging off complaints, use them to make your business more profitable and to offer better service. Complaints, when taken seriously, can make your service, policies and systems for dealing with your customers better. They can add to your bottom line.
4. Survey your customers.
Surveys provide an anonymous way for your customers to give you feedback. They make it easy for you to find out if your business is satisfying your customers or not satisfying them.
People can be brutally honest, so it’s wise to have very thick skin, when using this strategy. Also as in the previous tip, use any negative feedback that you receive to better your business.
Surveys also give you the opportunity to find out what you’re doing right. Compliments about your service, how you treat your customers or how you resolve issues show that you’re hitting your target. You have proof that you’re doing a great job.
5. Get questions answered quickly.
You can cut down on the time you spend answering questions by email and phone by having a detailed FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on your site and by using FAQ management software.
Live customer support software can also help you to provide excellent customer service. You can answer your customer questions and pre sale questions, right on your site, and increase your sales by getting questions answered faster than your competition.
If you choose to use software to help you fill your customer service needs, know that you still need to provide superior customer support by email. Questions need to be answered within 24 hours. Problems need to be addressed and overcome.
The same holds true when providing phone support. Questions and problems need to be handled in an efficient manner. Don’t keep customers waiting for long periods of time or make it difficult to talk to a “real person.”
6. Provide ongoing training.
Training can bring your customer service from where it is to where you would like it to be.
Whether your employees work in a call center or face to face with your customers, they still need to provide better service than your competitors. Your goal is repeat business not one time business. Training your employees can help you to achieve this goal.
You can train your employees in house, through seminars, or by using an outside firm. Whatever you choose, involve your employees by gaining they’re feedback. You’ll get better results by letting them know that their opinions and ideas matter.
7. Treat your customer service team with respect.
It is difficult for employees to treat customers well when they are treated poorly. Your working environment needs to be one of mutual respect. When this is the case, it is much easier to provide excellent customer service.
Basically, you want your employees to be treated the way you would want to be treated if you were the employee. You also want your customers to be treated the way you would want to be treated if you were a customer.
Accomplishing both of these things and using the other tips that you’ve been provided will help you to provide great customer service and increase your sales. You’ll be able to surpass your expectations for your business. You’ll be able to put yourself above your competition.
Digital Coach, Robin Matuk addresses the needs of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to maximize the use of the Internet to build, manage, and grow their businesses. Check out her website My Digital Coach and her blog Creating with Impact.
7 Reasons to Write Articles to Promote Your Business
Friday, August 29th, 2008Article marketing can be a great addition to the marketing techniques that you are already using and have found to be profitable. With little cost to you, you can gain more traffic and sales by employing this proven method of self promotion.
Below, you’ll find 7 ways that writing articles can profit you. Find out for yourself if you would like to give article marketing a try.
1. You can increase your Page Rank.
Getting more quality links to your site will help you to increase your Page Rank. Even though there are other factors involved, when you raise your page rank you can expect to rank higher in Google and see more traffic as a result.
2. You can get traffic from the sites that publish your articles.
The top article directories, to submit your articles to, get lots of traffic to them. You and the other writers that contribute to them can benefit from the new and repeat traffic that they get on a daily basis.
The same holds true for popular blogs and ezines that publish your articles. You can get more traffic to your site by getting your articles published in them.
3. You can grow your email list.
In your resource box, you could share two or three reasons to join your newsletter and link to your sign up page with some anchor text.
You could do the same with an email course that you’ve written. Or, you could use your resource box to promote an ebook that you give away in exchange for people joining your list.
4. Your articles could rank highly in search results.
Web pages with your articles posted on them can quickly rank in the top ten in Google and other search engines for the keywords that you have chosen to put in your title.
After you finish your article submissions, you could get more traffic to your site right away.
Note that when pages with your articles on them are spidered, your site will be too. You can get your site listed without having to do any search engine submissions. You can just let your articles do the work for you.
5. You can get your site ranked higher for keywords that you choose.
You can easily optimize your article for the search engines by using anchor text in your resource box. For example, if your website is about box turtles, some anchor text you might use in your link to your site is “box turtle care” or “feeding box turtles”.
If you link to a specific page on your site using anchor text, you may be able to see a dramatic increase in how that page ranks for the keywords that you choose to put in your link.
The more relevant sites that publish your articles the better, so submit your site to as many quality article directories and announcement lists as you can.
6. You can presell your product.
Writing articles enables you to share strong benefits of using your product. Your readers can find out what your business can do for them.
For example, if you sell autoresponders, your articles could show how and why people should use your product.
If you sell herbs, your articles could show different ways to use the herbs that you sell and some of the possible benefits of taking them.
7. You can increase your credibility.
Whoever reads your articles can see first hand what you bring to the table. If your articles provide useful information in a well thought out way, more people will be interested in buying your product because they’ll see that you know what you’re talking about.
The key here is to write articles that will do justice to your knowledge on your chosen subjects. Spelling errors, faulty grammar and typos will hurt your cause. Writing articles that you can be proud of will pay off much better for you in the long run.
Digital Coach, Robin Matuk addresses the needs of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to maximize the use of the Internet to build, manage, and grow their businesses. Check out her website My Digital Coach and her blog Creating with Impact.
I Want To Accept Credit Cards For My Business, Now What?
Friday, August 29th, 2008Your Business is born. You have painstakingly organized every aspect of your new business. You make sure your marketing is in place, your website is up and running and your product is on the shelves. But, you’ve forgotten a very important part of opening your new business, opening the right merchant account so you can start accepting credit cards and other forms of electronic payments.
What is a merchant account and how does one work?
A merchant account is just that, an account, held by an acquirer that allows your business to accept credit cards. Once you accept a credit card from your customer, your equipment contacts the acquirer for an approval. Once approved, the acquirer does the transfer of funds from your customers account to your bank account. Each Card Association (Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover) charges a fixed amount to accept their cards. The acquirer handles the infrastructure needed to process your customer’s payment, and to deposit the funds into your bank account.
American consumers have an average of 9 credit cards in their wallets. This means accepting credit cards is essential to your business success. By Accepting Credit Cards:
Your sales will triple
Several studies, including one conducted by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, have shown that the average size of credit card purchases is up to three times larger than cash and check purchases. People buy more when they pay with a credit card.
Your payments are guaranteed
By making credit cards your preferred method of payment, you reduce or eliminate bounced checks and decrease the time it takes to process orders. Your payment is guaranteed up front and you can deliver your product with confidence.
Your customers want to pay with their credit card
Customers increasingly want to pay by credit card. Studies show that credit card payments will overtake cash and check payments within the next few years. Customers often get benefits for paying with credit cards such as frequent flier miles or other affinity points. Paying with a credit card also gives customers more flexibility to manage their cash flow.
How to select a merchant account
Before you contact a merchant processor, you should understand what type of merchant account you need. How you accept payment from your customers will have a great effect on the type of merchant account you need and the cost of credit card processing for your business.
Retail merchant account- a retail merchant account is for a business that is located in a commercial location that accepts payments from their customers face-2-face. You receive your customer’s credit card and swipe it on your credit card terminal or POS System. This merchant account carries the least risk, because you have the card present and you can either check signatures or the ID of your customer. This type of merchant account will carry the least cost.
“MOTO” merchant account- A “MOTO” mail order telephone order merchant account is for a business that accepts orders over the phone or through the mail. Your customer gives you their credit card information over the phone and you enter the information into your credit card terminal, a virtual terminal, or a POS System. This merchant account carries more risk than a retail merchant account because you never see the credit card presented for payment. This type of merchant account will cost more than a retail merchant account.
Ecommerce merchant account- An ecommerce merchant account is for an online business that accepts payments over the Internet through their website. A customer comes to your website, decides to make a purchase then enters their credit card information to complete the purchase. You never see the credit card therefore this merchant account carries more risk than a retail merchant account, thus costing more.
Restaurant merchant account- a restaurant merchant account is for a restaurant. You accept the payment in a face-2-face environment, minimizing risk. With a restaurant merchant account, you are also able to re-open a credit card sale to add a tip after the customer has left. You are not able to do this with a standard retail merchant account. This type of merchant account will cost less than both a “MOTO” and ecommerce merchant account.
B2B merchant account-A B2B merchant account is for businesses who sell to other businesses. These transactions may either be swiped or keyed into a credit card terminal or POS software. A business customer may have a business-purchasing card that cost more to accept than consumer credit cards. With a B2B Merchant account your equipment will need to be optimized for accepting B2B payments thus lowering your fees.
Once you have decided the type of merchant account you need, you can start shopping.
You can open a merchant account from:
An MSP: A merchant services representative is an independent sales agent for an ISO.
ISO: A registered acquirer with Visa and MasterCard, licensed to open merchant accounts for businesses.
A processor: A company that drives transactions. They operate the infrastructure (network) necessary to complete a credit card sale. The few available usually are not direct to business owner relationships. Processors usually do business through Registered ISO’s Or Banks.
For a new business, the best channel for a merchant account is through a registered ISO.
Pricing
You are more likely to get better pricing (ISO’s are more direct than an MSP, thus less channels for markups). Although, A processor is usually larger than an ISO, they usually concentrate on their business with ISO’s or Banks and will offer their best pricing to those organizations, instead of to you.
Accountability and service
ISO’s have more accountability to the card associations therefore there business practices will usually be more stable than an MSP.
ISO’s customer service will usually be better than an MSP because an MSP is busy selling product and may not have time to handle the support of your account, while an ISO has the infrastructure to handle service and support. A processor will put you through corporate channels without any real connection to your business, thus offering less personalized service, which will be vital to your new business.
When shopping for a merchant account, pay close attention to:
Processing fees/Discount rates for your transactions -The percentage of each transaction it will cost you to accept a credit card.
Transaction Fees- A per item fee for every transaction you run (a dollar amount)
Monthly Fees- May include a statement Fee, Customer Service Fee, or any other miscellaneous fee billed monthly. Annual Fees- Fees billed annually.
Batch/Settlement Fees – A Fee charged every time you batch (send your transactions to the acquirer to remit payment to your bank account) your terminal or POS System.
Maintenance Fees-Fees to update information on your account like bank account info or address changes.
Term of Contract- Term for the merchant account contract. Cancellation Fee- The cost to cancel your merchant account before and after your term of contract is up.
Customer Service Hours- What is your merchant processors customer service hours? Are they 24 hours or 9-5? If customer service is available 24 hours per day, is it an answering service or can you get access to your account information 24 hours?
Responsiveness and wiliness to service your account. Ask about your merchant processors Chargeback policies and how responsive they are to you, the merchant.
Once you have gathered this information, you have the tools necessary to choose the best merchant account for your business. Merchant Accounts are not a one-size fits all service. Your business will be way ahead of the curve if you pick the right merchant account. The right merchant account will help your business grow, while the wrong merchant account will hinder your growth and cause you frustration, lost time and money. This guide is a great starting point to establishing your merchant account.
Gregory Cancryn is founder and President of Payment Transaction Systems, LLC a Registered ISO of Visa and Mastercard. Payment Transaction Systems offers credit card processing to small and medium sized business nationwide with an emphasis on Integrity, Service and Low Cost.
Real Estate Title Search: Finding the Key Data
Friday, August 29th, 2008Real estate investors know that knowledge is power because to make effective offers to sellers they need some very specific property information. Knowing the exact financial situation of the property/seller is vitally important. So what type of information do you want? How can you use it? And how do you find it?
The type of information is simple but critical:
the price and date of the last sale, the amount of each mortgage, when the mortgages were taken out, the terms of the loan(s) and what other liens encumber the property.
How can you use it?
I like to construct three offers for every property with this information. For example, knowing the equity in the property can lead to an offer where the seller would wait for some or all of his equity – for a higher price: or if the existing loan terms are favorable another offer could be buying the house subject to the existing loan; or minimal equity may lead to an offer based on a short sale acceptance by the lender…the variations are endless. But the information is pivotal to how the offers are structured. Without this data upfront, you have to create offers on the fly in front of the homeowner which is not only unprofessional but also a way to invite costly mistakes.
How do we find it?
There are three sources: the seller, the courthouse or registry that holds the documents and the internet (that provides remote access to the documents at the courthouse in many cases).
Most investors collect seller information over the phone, while this is valuable I have found that many homeowners simply do not remember their key home/loan information (and I include myself in that group) or don’t want to tell me the full story. So I don’t rely on the seller’s data but I do verify it. Initially I bought the data but that got expensive. So I began to make visits to the registry to dig for the details myself. The process involves working through the grantee and grantor (broadly buyer and seller) books and following up on all the individual book and page references. The last step which made life so much easier was to find a source of this data on line without having to pay for it on every lead.
The importance of this data being accurate will allow you to confidently structure offers before the in home visit. I have found that it boosts my confidence as I know what I can offer and what hurdles I may face so I can practice overcoming possible objections. Accurate data makes you a better more successful salesperson so make sure you have it.
John G. Kelly is an entrepreneur who has been investing since 2003. From his own experience he has created a short course on how to find out the key financial details about a property. With that data you can confidently construct strong offers that are more likely to be accepted. You can find the course here
A Guide To Marketing Your Website Online
Friday, August 29th, 2008As most of us that own websites know, back links and raw traffic are one of the most important things, especially if we are selling something. In order to receive traffic to your website you must market it! So, how do people market their websites? Is there a process you should be following? Well, by no means do I have the golden key. But I have found certain steps will help you succeed if you are willing to take them and be a little patient. Nothing happens over night, that is for sure. It could happen in less than 2 weeks or it might take 2 months, but the point you have to remember is this “if you build it, they will come.”
Seriously, if you advertise a site even just a little bit, eventually someone will see the ad where you advertised, it will pique their interest and they will visit, even if it’s just ONE person, it’s still a person, still a potential sale! There are not only certain steps you should be taking, but there are also certain “ways” to advertise your site. Your advertisement could be reaching millions of people, in fact you might have an ad out right now, and your wondering why it’s been out for 4 months but you’re not receiving a lot of traffic. Well, one reason for this might be the way you wrote your ad. The other reason might be because of where the ad is!
Here are some of the steps you should be taking to market your website:
Write blogs – If you have a website like wordpress or drupal, write blogs about your business, service, company whatever. And, make sure you don’t just write a few lines. Make sure the content is rich in keywords, also make sure you add “tags” to your blog. All these aspects can help search engines and in turn people, pick up on your site. There’s a line we have; Content Is King! This couldn’t be more true when it comes to marketing your site people! Make it interesting. Be yourself. Be honest. Be sure to add good keywords. If the service your promoting is about automobiles, then write a blog and add words like “Honda”, “BMW”, “Cars”, “Trucks”, etc. Here’s a little tip for you, even though it seems obvious most people don’t do this. Go to your search engine and type in “Honda” you will see that it gets 218,000,000 results. So? So, that’s a popular keyword. Just to be a smart Alec, look up supercalifragilisticexpealidous and you will get about 60 results. That word isn’t very popular now is it! Use the popular keywords, but make sense when writing.
Back links – This is one of the easiest ways to receive, traffic, better PR, sales, etc. Not only is it easy, but you can get someone else to do it for you! Not only can you get someone to do it for you but its pretty quick as well! I did one or two articles for my site The Lemon Plum and in 2 weeks time it went from PR0 to PR3 (now it’s down to 2). The article doesn’t even need to be relevant to your link your promoting, which is the really nice part (I think), because you can just write about whatever you have knowledge about, slip your link in the author box and voila you have people interested. You can do this yourself, but with my personal experience this is a REAL time consuming process and in turn a pain. If you get someone else to do it for you, you can buy the article, have them submit it, and then that’s it. You don’t have to worry about anything else, except for all the traffic you will be receiving!
Search Engine Optimization – Also known as SEO. I’m really surprised how many people own sites and don’t even know what SEO is! This is a prime example of people thinking they can just set something up and they will reap all sorts of benefits from it. A website takes a lot of time and care. It’s not really one of those “set it and forget it” deals. SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. There are several ways you can optimize your site such as making sure you have your meta keywords and keywords set correctly, make your title keyword rich, make sure all your coding and content is complete, accurate and concise, etc. There are several guides online you can follow as well as certain e-books online that will allow you to follow steps to make sure your site is search engine optimized!
Search Engines – Submit your website or your program with a small description to search engines, directories, groups, etc. Make sure you pick the right categories!
Email and Forum signatures – I think one of the very first things you will learn is to be involved. You’re going to want to join some top quality forums and social networking sites. These sites can be relevant to your site, or not. It’s your choice. Place a simple signature at the end of all your email and forum signatures so every single time someone visits your profile, reads a post of yours or reads an email of yours, they will see your little ad shpeel along with your URL. Believe it or not, this catches a lot of people’s attention!
Social Networking – This is always a popular choice because it’s free. You can place ads in the classified section, send messages, comments, bulletins, place links on your profile or make an account specifically for your website, service or business. Join quality social sites like MeBudie, Moli, Myspace, Xanga, Facebook, etc. Tip; if you’re going to do this through myspace make sure you only add quality “friends.” I did a little experiment a few months ago. I made two accounts on myspace. For account A I added everyone and anyone that asked for a friend request. For account B I was picky and really looked at people’s profiles and what they were on myspace for, before adding them. Surprisingly enough I got more potential customers on account B than A. For account A it seems like I had a lot more people that were just interested in friend count, and didn’t really care what I had to say, who I was or what I was selling!
Of course this is just a few ways that you can try, and these are all online sort of steps. If you want you can do offline tactics as well. Some people have even more luck with offline promotion than offline. Others have better online than off. I think what you need to do is recognize where your service, website, product will sell. I personally like online more, simply because it seems like an easier, quicker and cheaper way to reach the masses. There are all these dozens of ways to reach people and it’s really rare that you join a car forum, and then join a social networking site like myspace and you happen to run into the same person you met on the forum. There is just a huge number of people out there online waiting to be talked to, waiting for someone to listen to them, offering a service, willing to fix your problems, wanting you to fix theirs, etc. Give the above tips a try and see if they help you out at all, which I’m almost positive they will since they worked for me! Good luck.
This author is the owner of Get Your Link on 5700+ Websites Now!