Archive for December, 2008

Condi Rice: America Will Thank George W. Bush – AOL News Newsbloggers

Monday, December 29th, 2008
Condi Rice: America Will Thank George W. Bush
AOL News Newsbloggers, VA - 19 hours ago
And while it is true that the Bush years were marked by incredible challenges, the ultimate verdict on whether the administration rose to meet them,

2008 top stories No. 3: Bill Clinton visits Marion – McDowell News

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

FOXNews
2008 top stories No. 3: Bill Clinton visits Marion
McDowell News, NC - 4 hours ago
Some of the thousands of local folks who endured the heat and sun to bear witness to history in the making when Bill Clinton came to town.
The wrong role for Bill Clinton International Herald Tribune
Obama, Hillary Clinton Share ?Most Admired? Billing Gallup.com
Here?s Your ?08 Comedy Stimulus Package: New York Times
Huffington Post - Dallas Morning News
all 278 news articles

First Steps to Forming a Strategic Alliance: Identifying Your Target Market

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

If you have an Internet business, particularly a small one, forging partnerships with companies in related markets is an important marketing strategy to raise awareness for your business and to expand your own client base.

This may sound like a fantastic idea, but how do you go about building these partnerships? It seems so daunting . . . if you’re just a small niche market business, how can you help anyone else and why would they want to partner with you?

These are valid questions and concerns, but forging a strategic alliance isn’t as difficult as it may initially appear to be. The Internet is full of small, niche market businesses, so it is not a far-fetched idea to think that a company of a similar size to yours would welcome an alliance with you, and that you’d be able to help one another.

Getting Started

The first step towards embarking upon a strategic marketing alliance is to select a company who is not a direct competitor of yours, that wouldn’t serve either one of you very well, but to choose a company whose interests run similar to your own, without being a direct competitor.

Initially, figuring out what these businesses might be is to assess your own target market. You must know whom your business appeals to before you can embark on deciding who might be interested in a similar client base.

You first must ask yourself a few simple questions:

- What is the average age of your clients?

- What are their occupations?

- What is their income range?

- What other interests do they have?

- What are some other products or services that are compatible with mine?

If you don’t have immediate answers to these questions, it is time to create a market survey to get the answers you need, or to simply inventory your client roster and compile some basic data. The occupation and income range may not be relevant information to your business, if you deal in luxury goods, but it will of course matter if you deal in refrigerators or stoves, or something that everyone at some point needs to purchase where income is a less telling metric. Questions 1, 4 and 5 may be the most helpful in targeting potential partners for smaller Internet businesses.

The Next Step

Once you have identified your target market, and a product or service that may be a good accompaniment to yours, what do you do next?

Let’s say for instance, that your company rents designer wedding gowns. The occupation and income, as stated above, are less important considerations than questions 1 and 5. It naturally follows that someone in need of a wedding dress may also be in need of a caterer, photographer or wedding planner. In this instance, question number 5 is the most important consideration, but the age of your clients may also be important. Will a young couple prefer a young photographer? Will an older couple prefer an older more established photographer? Perhaps.

In this case, your next step will be to contact some photographers, caterers and wedding planers to propose a referral agreement, or even to exchange mailing lists and client lists. It is also important to seek alliances with a variety of companies in terms of age, and establishment: some clients will distinctly want an experienced photographer, while some will be willing to take a chance on a newer professional.

Forming a strategic alliance can be an integral part to the marketing and ultimate success of your business. The first step is to know your client base, so you can target and appropriate partner. Don’t be intimidated by approaching companies with which to forge an alliance, ideally this is a partnership – something from which both parties will benefit equally.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing
firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by
creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
Join his JV Wealth e-zine at http://www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report/

Relationship Marketing: How to Increase Qualified Leads by Using the Purchase-Readiness Survey

Sunday, December 28th, 2008

The Internet marketplace is growing increasingly competitive and difficult to navigate. The response rates from customer inquiries are trending downward and the process of driving new leads is becoming more expensive. Therefore, it is critical to incorporate a relationship marketing strategy into your businesses marketing plan to help maximize the power of each and every client lead with which you are presented. Simply put, not taking advantage of customer prospects that you have so diligently laid the groundwork to pursue is tantamount to handing these clients to your competition.

The process of ensuring that your client leads remain engaged and interested in ultimately pursuing a relationship with you is one of the central principles of relationship marketing. There are a few fundamental tactics to use in this early stage of building client relationships, which is also sometimes referred to as the nurture phase. These tactics are a good guide to help you increase the number of actual customers you obtain from your prospecting activities.

Purchase-Readiness Survey

If you do not have or are not already using a purchase-readiness survey, it is time to incorporate this survey into your relationship marketing strategy. The purchase-readiness survey should be incorporated into all of your lead and prospect generating mechanisms. A purchase-readiness survey allows you to gather critical contact information, as well as a customer’s readiness to make a purchase. Some standard questions to consider incorporating into your survey are:

- Timeframe for considering a purchase

- The customer’s role in the decision making process

- Key qualifying questions

Finding the Right Balance of Questions

You will need to balance and be aware of a prospect’s tolerance for and willingness to share information, with your need to gather information. Nobody likes to feel invaded or pushed, so it is important to be clued into the mood of your prospect. The more information you request from a client prospect, the more time it requires of your prospect, which they may be unwilling to give. It may be that the more eager you appear to gain a prospect and make a sale, the more you will alienate this prospect. You do not want to appear desperate to land a prospect (even if you are)- most humans can smell the essence of desperation and nothing makes a person retreat faster.

Try to take cues from your potential clients: if they seem willing to talk and divulge information, it is okay to proceed with your questions and your purchase-readiness survey. But if you sense reluctance in your prospect, it is always better to scale back and give them space, and perhaps come back and approach this prospect at a different time when they may be more amenable to hearing what you have to say. You may have better luck at forging a lasting relationship at a different time. Nobody likes to feel intruded upon or pressured. Adopting a persistent but more laissez-faire attitude in your relationship marketing plan, you are likely to be more successful and have satisfied clients who are loyal to your company.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing
firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by
creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
Join his JV Wealth e-zine at http://www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report/

23 days and counting until George W Bush leaves the White House – Telegraph.co.uk

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Sydney Morning Herald
23 days and counting until George W Bush leaves the White House
Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom - Dec 27, 2008
As George W Bush prepares to leave the White House, his supporters are busy putting a positive spin on his eight years in office. Tim Shipman reports from
Mrs Bush: George did well News24
George is no failure, says Mrs Bush LIVENEWS.com.au
all 951 news articles

Start Your Own Home Business Online!

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

If you would love to be financially independent and have more time to do things in life you want to do, you can start a home business online. Home businesses do not need to be massive empires with hundreds or thousands of individuals involved. They can be, but they don’t have to be! Individuals have all classes of home businesses that they do online. From Multi-Level Marketing and network marketing to selling their own services and merchandises online. Of course when you start talking about providing services we are talking about more of an independent type of business, but nevertheless this is still categorized as a business you can do at home, on your own time, and gain profits from the gross sales you receive.

Some other things you can do as a home business worker as said above is sell your own merchandises online. This is a good idea if you already sell your products offline and want to reach a broader clientele. For the most part a lot of people that sell their products online don’t sell them offline. Or they do sell them offline but, they receive most of their clientele from people online. There are various sites you can check out if you would like to know more about having a home business. The initial thing you should do is figure out what type of business you would like to do. And since there are thousands if not millions of diverse jobs you can do at home, there are also thousands if not millions of sites you can take a look at for different “opportunities” so to speak.

I began working from home few years back after I heard about all the hype about how I could work at home, make lots of good money and not have someone constantly telling me what to do all the time like I did when I had a boss. Plus the amount of time my offline job took prohibited me to do anything in my life I needed or wanted to do. I thought this was pretty nice as well considering I was working as a Chef in a hot kitchen for 16 hour days, 7 days a week, 365 days a year on awful pay. Most of the time when you read e-books on home businesses the writer was in the identical position I was in. Unhappy, underpaid and overworked. So, if this sounds like you, then you should know there is hope!

Do yourself a favor and check out the following sites for some good data as well as e-books and much more. These web sites were designed to help you have your own home business. Again, it’s probably a good idea if you figure out what you want to do in beforehand, but maybe these sites will shine a little light on you and give you some ideas:

Websites:
WorldWideNetworkAtHome
WAHM (great source for work at home moms)
BizyMoms
BBB
WorkingFromHomeGuide

Books:
The 200 Best Home Businesses: easy to start, fun to run, highly profitable by Katina Z. Jones
Start & Run A Real Home Based Business by Dan Furman
Best Home Businesses for People 50+ by Paul and Sarah Edwards
101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

And finally the sweetest thing you can read are magazines like Entrepreneur. This magazine in general offers up a lot of really spectacular selective information on subjects such as business ideas, franchises and opportunities, starting a business as well as other things like the top 100, things to do in your spare time to make money and much more. You can also travel to bookstores like Barnes & Noble, in the business section and discover few books there as well. There is so much selective information available to you both on and offline that you shouldn’t have any problem finding the best niche. The hardest thing for me was sticking to one thing because there are literally millions of ways to make money from working at home, now you just have to find your special niche! Good luck and have fun!

Before starting a Home Business, Kristi recommends visiting this site http://www.envisionfreedom.net

Why The Female Entrepreneur Needs A Success Mindset

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

As a female entrepreneur or woman in business, we’ve heard it so many times before: “success is a state of mind”. Some people would argue that success is a result of proper planning, preparation and focused action, and that viewpoint certainly holds a shred of truth – but there are also many exceptions to disprove that “rule”.

Have you ever wondered how two female entrepreneurs can attempt the same objective in the exact same way and yet only one of them succeeds with achieving her goal? How could that be? Is it sheer luck? Timing? Tenacity? More often than not, it’s a person’s mindset that determines whether they fail or succeed.

What is a mindset?

Typically a mindset refers to your predominant state of mind. It’s what you think about, focus on, and expect from your daily experiences. Think negatively, expect the worst, feel pessimistic about your options and that’s exactly what you’ll seem to attract into your life. Likewise, think positively, expect the best and focus on a successful outcome and that is the result you will get it most of the time.

But how exactly does this work? Why is a success mindset so important?

1. A success mindset boosts one’s confidence and self-belief.

A lack of belief in yourself usually comes along with a sense of powerlessness and futility, which is the exact opposite of a success mindset. Lack of confidence means you see no point in trying to be successful because it won’t happen anyway. Obviously, this negative mind-set is a recipe for failure in any endeavor.

On the other hand, having a true success mindset means you believe in yourself and your capabilities. You believe you can succeed at almost everything you try, and you’re willing to give it your best. Better still, the more you try, the more confidence and self-belief you build – until you’re virtually unstoppable!

2. A success mindset strengthens your determination.

Without a success mindset, one failure is usually enough to convince you that pursuing your goals is a waste of time. Tenacity and determination don’t exist in your world. If you don’t become an instant success on your first try, you surmise that it simply wasn’t meant to be. Unfortunately, few things worth having are obtained so easily!

A success mindset, however, strengthens your awareness that a failure is not the end of the story – it’s simply feedback or just one more way that didn’t work out the way you planned so you just need to try it a different way. In fact, a true success mindset makes it obvious that the only true failure occurs when you stop trying.

3. A success mindset encourages fruitful actions.

Have you ever found yourself wandering in around in circles because you didn’t know the best way to approach a specific goal? Perhaps you had an idea of the best course of action but you felt intimidated by some of the steps required. As a result, you may have kept sabotaging your efforts as you searched in vain for an easier or less frightening way to your goal.

With a true success mindset, you’ll always know the most effective action steps that will lead directly to your goal. You’ll also have the inner confidence and determination to pursue them – which is a sure recipe for success!

Following are a few tips to develop a success mindset:

- Go for your dreams
- Think positively
- Believe in yourself
- Believe you can do better
- Learn, grow and develop yourself
- Be willing to take chances
- Give it your all
- Expect the best in every situation
- Be willing to fail
- When you fall down, get back up and try again.

Follow the above tips to develop and maintain your success mindset and you can’t help but become successful, from the inside out. Your personal and professional world as a female entrepreneur or woman in business will embrace you.

Harness your potential as a female entrepreneur with five free gifts of over $147 at the largest online success portal for women in business. Success Coach Danette Hibberd gives you the tools to catapult your own personal and professional success at FabulousBeyondFortyClub

Ideas On How To Receive Free Traffic To Your Website

Saturday, December 27th, 2008

Setting up a company could potentially cost you a lot of money, however, did you also know that there are ways you can market your website for free? Yep it’s true! All you need is the proper mindset and a lot of eagerness to get the job done. You also must have the drive and perseverance to do hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site! Now, I won’t beat around the bush, free traffic can take quite awhile to start working, but at least you have a fighting chance with these free methods I’m going to tell you about, which is especially good if you don’t have the capital you need in order to advertise your world class website to people.

Forums -
This is one of the greatest mediums to take advantage of. Not only can you use a signature and incorporate your website link that way, but if you are selling something or have a service you can usually join up with the forums marketplace or service section; this section will actually allow you to make a thread about your business, prices, links, etc. People can then talk in your thread to you, or PM you. The point is that you are getting your website out there and that thousands of people could potentially be reading the thread. Another way to get into the forum scene is to get into some discussions with members of the forum, if they are talking about something relevant to your site, mention it nonchalantly in your discussions.

Newsletters -
Supply individuals with a catalog of your products with interesting and entertaining articles. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who sign up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your Internet site increasing your traffic.

Link Exchange -
This is pretty simple; make an agreement with a webmaster in exchanging links. He will place your link on his site and you will place your link on his for X amount of time. This means that for all the traffic that he receives YOU have a chance that they just might visit your site, and vice versa.

Article Writing -
You can either get someone to do the article for you, or do it yourself. In my opinion, if its worth it and the writer is good at what they do, hire them on and let them do all the hard work! This option works as a backlink service; when people read the article they will be interested enough to click the link in the author box, which sends them to your website! The article can either be relevant or irrelevant, it doesn’t really matter. Just make sure the article is interesting and well written!

Of course there are more methods but these are some of the best, and yes, also the freest ways to drive more traffic to your website. All it takes is a little bit of extra effort on your part and a few extra hours. Learn all you can about the methods listed above and soon enough you will have a website with a constant and consistent traffic flow without the usual costs that come with it!

Before starting a Home Business, Kristi recommends visiting this site http://www.envisionfreedom.net

George W Bush?s $300m library in danger of becoming white elephant – Times Online

Saturday, December 27th, 2008
George W Bush?s $300m library in danger of becoming white elephant
Times Online, UK - 2 hours ago
As President George W Bush eyes his legacy, his presidential library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, threatens to be a white elephant.

Giving the Unexpected to Your Customers

Friday, December 26th, 2008

In a relationship marketing platform, creating long-term relationships with customers is an integral part of a successful marketing strategy. Building strong affiliations and contacts through superior customer service is the first step towards a successful marketing platform. Just as important as building strong customer relations, is developing new ways to give the customer more than other companies are providing and more than then the customer expects.

Giving Customers Something They Can’t Get Elsewhere

If you are operating in a niche market, chances are you are already offering a product or service that’s difficult for customers to find elsewhere. In a competitive marketplace, what can you do to distinguish your business from the competition? Give your customers something that they don’t typically get from other companies.

One idea that isn’t universally implemented is free samples and discount coupons with each order. Another good idea that’s only utilized by a handful of businesses is birthday recognition. You can send your customer a birthday greeting by email or by card, offering special discounts or free samples during their birthday month. People love to get something for free even though a high percentage of people who receive the coupon never actually redeem it. The feeling of goodwill and loyalty is still planted in your customer’s mind.

Giving Your Customer the Totally Unexpected

This is somewhat similar to the above suggestions, but with a slightly different twist. Doing something for your customers that is really unexpected and out of the ordinary will set you apart from your competition.

How about a follow up email after an order to be sure that the customer is happy with their products? Instead of a free birthday coupon that the customer can redeem, how about just sending a small sample with a birthday greeting? What about automatic re-order email reminders? Reminders are popular for products like contact lenses, but how about for coffee or skin care supplies?

Thanking Potential Customers Who Don’t Make a Purchase

How about a “thank you” to customers who don’t end up buying from your site? This may sound a bit odd, but if you’ve reached out to a new client, but they haven’t made a purchase, it’s still a good idea to thank this person for their time and consideration. This is not a widespread practice. Typically we only thank people who make a purchase. The idea here is that just because this person did not buy this time doesn’t mean they never will. If they are thanked regardless, this will distinguish you from the rest and cause them to think of your company when make future purchases.

All of these strategies are suggestions and ways to help you strengthen the relationship marketing platform you are building for your business.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing
firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by
creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.
Join his JV Wealth e-zine at http://www.christianfea.com/joint-venture-wealth-report/