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Loss of Jobs in America Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003How Secure Is Your Job? Laura Barcella Friday, April 7, 2006American Jobs: Going, Going... Jane Birnbaum 2005Companies in India celebrate "loss of American jobs" Mike Crane December 2004Costly Trade With China Millions of U.S. jobs displaced Robert E. Scott
October 9, 2007Immigration Is Hurting The U.S. Worker Steven A. Camarota Spring 2007Outsourcing Not the Culprit in Manufacturing Job Loss Wes Iversen
December 9th, 2003
Welcome to Cindy McAseys advanced web conferencing and online training technologies. Discover the Web Conferencing and Online Training System thats just like setting accross the kitchen table. Automated Professional Online Training System. Hundreds of thousands of marketers turn to VereConference every year to accelerate the building of their mlm and affiliate organizations.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Taking Twitter to the Next Level
OK, so you’ve got your twitter account up and cooking, you’re using 3rd party apps to filter and aggregate search (I use tweetdeck) and you’ve got a tweeting routing down pat, now what?
Now it’s time to take a much deeper look into the social web and start looking deeper into conversation themes, discovering who’s influencing what, who’s saying what and how often, and what’s trending around a topic. There is a new breed of search engine forming around the “now search” that is plugging into social sites like twitter as well as blogs and social networks.
Below are three newish real-time search engines that allow you to take a deep look as what’s going right now.
OneRiot - this is essentially a bookmarking site for twitter. Users share tweets that contain URLs to web pages and this site keeps track and returns search results based on topics. This is a really great way to discover some new sites related to subjects and you can interact with the twitter shares right from the site by replying to or retweeting good stuff you find.
Topsy - lots of stats when you search including the a collection of authors by volume for each topic you are trending. Really like this to find people who are very active around a topic or who are your best retweeters.
crowdeye - currently a twitter only search engine it gives you results from tweets and retweets including graphs and charts.
Cindy McAsey Barefoot in the Garden
888.272.6701 ext #1
KEYWORDS: Marketing Strategies, Social Marketing, Cindy McAsey
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach6 Steps to Make your Brand on Twitter
Building your brand on Twitter is an important part of your success on Twitter. It is imperative that you not only build a targeted following, but more importantly that you create a conversation with or at a minimum provide your followers with useful information.
In this post, I am not going to go over the basics such as filling out your Twitter profile and uploading an avatar. Instead lets focus on you and your twitter brand to succeed.
Be Proactive
Many tweeps commonly have questions or problems they need help with. This is your opportunity to step in and come to the rescue by answering their question or atleast referring them to a source that may help them. By helping them, you not only solve their issue, you help establish credibility and identity among the Twitter community.
It is an even better opportunity to help someone out by offering your product or service to resolve their problem. Not only can this produce a targeted lead, but it can result in a sale.If you are not proactive in your niche or area of business, chances are someone else will come along and be proactive. They will establish the credibility among the community, build the dedicated following, while you are trying to play catch up. You don’t want that, do you?
Share What’s Happening/Be Newsworthy
If you are typically digging up the newest social media marketing trends or other industry topics, why not share them with your followers? This sort of falls into the proactive step listed above. However, providing your followers with newsworthy information, you will establish credibility of being “in the know”.
Make sure what you are sharing is important and interesting. If you are trying to share something lame, chances are no one will care and you will probably lose some credibility among your followers. If you don’t have anything unique to share, this is a great opportunity to retweet something that was tweeted to you and will strengthen your relationship of whom you retweeted.
Create a Targeted Following
What good is it to have a bunch of followers if they are not interested in what you have to say? Not much. This is why it is imperative to build a targeted following with people interested in your business or service. Chances are it will be easier to be proactive and newsworthy with them. I've found the twitter advanced search feature very useful especially for local business. http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Engage Your Followers
Not only should you be proactive and newsworthy with your followers, you need to engage with them on a more personal level. By this I mean you should take the time to respond to DM’s and @replies when you can. While it can be somewhat time consuming, ignoring followers trying to interact with you is not a great idea. Isn’t your goal to build a brand and relationship with your followers? I suggest you build relationships with those followers who ARE interested in what you have to say.
Brand Your Twitter Page
Pimping out your Twitter page is a good idea. A tricked out page not only is eye catching, but it helps to set you apart from everyone else. It shows you are actually real (not a bot) as well as an opportunity to provide your Twitter visitors with more information about you or your business.
Monitor Your Brand
Now that you are on your way to taking over the world with your brand, it is important to monitor it. Twitter makes this easy via the Twitter Search. Simply type in your business or username, then add the RSS feed to your favorite reader.(I use tweetdeck for this) Should your name get discussed (both positively and negatively) you will be aware of the conversations taking place. You can then step in to participate, both for damage control or to thank someone for their positive remarks. I would not advise ignoring negative feedback, it could severely damage your reputation if left un-attended.
In a Nutshell
So here is the quick checklist:
Be Proactive
Be Newsworthy
Create a Targeted Following
Engage Your Followers
Brand Your Twitter Page
Monitor Your Brand
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
There are several MLM companies and distributors who say they are not MLM, but in fact when you look at the pay plan their true identity is revealed. MLM (multi-level marketing) is direct selling which involves a product or service. True multi-level marketing involves selling a product or service that is worthwhile both to the distributor and to the purchaser. When a distributor builds an organization of other distributors a percentage of the profits go to the upline (distributor) who sponsored no matter how many levels up.
Some MLM compensation plans are profitable by just reselling the products. Just reselling the products is also known as affiliate programs. Affiliate programs online are a dime a dozen. Most affiliate programs only pay out 1 level. You sell a product or service and you get a commission from the sale of the product. Also gaining in popularity are 2 and 3 tier affiliate programs. In these programs you get a small commission on your second and third level sales to. The main difference between an MLM and affiliate is the level of pay out. If the pay out goes down many levels it is considered MLM. A true affiliate program will pay out only a couple of levels down.
The first years of MLM revolved around recruiting your friends and family to purchase your products and join in. This type of marketing is also known as the warm market. Your friends and family trust you and want you to succeed so they buy into your program. The warm market method though had it downfalls, that being you run out of family and friends.
The 3-foot rule came along in the multilevel marketing arena. This notion was that you were to prospect everyone within three feet of you and sell your product whether you knew them or not. Fortunately this practice is not taught in MLM tips or techniques today.
In the 1980's and 90's newspaper advertising became pretty popular. Most of the ads were placed in the sales section in the classified ads. This form of recruiting new distributors was soon shut down by government regulations. The government contended that they were fake job ads. Today you may see MLM distributors advertise in highly targeted magazines although this type of advertising can be quite expensive.
Today, the Internet has revolutionized multilevel and affiliate marketing. Location is no longer an issue, you can advertise and sell globally if your company allows. However due to the Internet there are tons of get rich quick schemes. Additionally, there are pages upon pages of training sites and materials teaching how to build your business in MLM. I suggest that you thoroughly review each training program before purchasing.
To be successful in multilevel or affiliate marketing, you must use your product or service and have confidence in the benefits. Confidence in your product or service will show in your sales & recruitment of new members.
MLM and affiliate marketing has evolved across the Internet and I'm living proof it will provide a good stable income if you believe in your product and yourself. MLM is not a get rich quick scheme, it is an honest noble profession and a great work at home opportunity either part time or full time. When considering a multilevel or affiliate marketing business, take the steps to research the company, understand the compensation plan, and USE the product or service.
All too often people are convinced into joining a multi-level marketing company based on hype and the get rich quick schemes they promote. There are many MLM companies advertised on the Internet that promote themselves as a true multi-level marketing company but in reality, they are some illegal pyramid scheme. These get rich quick schemes usually offer no real or worthy product/service.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Imagine you are at a social networking event, such as a chamber mixer event. It's a large room of people from all different walks of life. Some of these people are dressed in business suits, some in party dresses, some in overalls like they just came in from doing chores. Who would you tend to network with?
Now imagine all of these people in this room dressed exactly the same, like they are in uniform or something. Do you think you would migrate to the same folks? Even though everyone is dressed exactly the same I bet if you really studied this group you could still tell alot about these people by the way the shape or health of their body, their hair, skin, hands and nails.
With this analogy in mind take a look into some of the groups of different social networks. In twitter it's very simple to put together a quick group of people by searching on a trending topic or keyword at http://search.twitter.com. When your profile show up in a group, how does it look compared to others the group? Does it fit? Do you think folks would migrate to you and want to connect?
Now let's go a little deeper into your profile and look at your profile picture. Is it portraying the image that best fits who you are? Is it a picture others would migrate towards? Next what site are you linking to. I don't know about you but to link directly to a lead capture page that's asking you to optin is a complete turn off to me. You should like to a site where folks can learn more about you, and maybe have an optional optin or to suscribe to your RSS feed.
One thing I really like about twitter, it's very transparent. With a quick look of someone's profile you can see if they are really using their account to network or promote. You can generally tell if they are using automated services to grow their friends and followers. If someone has over 10,000 friends/followers but has under 1000 updates it throws up a red flag for me.
If you have read the book "Tribes" by Seth Godin you will appreciate his recent talk at TED.
Why tribes, not money or factories, will change the world.
Seth Godin argues the Internet has ended mass marketing and revived a human social unit from the distant past: tribes. Founded on shared ideas and values, tribes give ordinary people the power to lead and make big change.
I've got a question for you... does your profile look like a leader (of a tribe) in Social Networking?
For instance... if you are in the fitness business. Does your profile picture attract a "tribe" of folks intrested in fitness?
I honestly hope this gives you a different perspective on exactly what your current "image" in the social networks is attracting and who you decide to add to your social network. (tribe)
Cindy McAsey Barefoot in the Garden
888.272.6701 Ext 1
A New Simple way to post to Blogger via your phone.
Last month Google released a less complicated way of linking up your phone with one or more of your Blogger blogs. It put the settings to post to a specific blog through your phone or e-mail next to each blog's title inside of the dashboard using small and simple icons. And as of today the change is now live to everyone.
This video showcases exactly how it's done with an iphone.
Now there is really no excuse for not keeping your blogger blog up to date.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
If you keep presenting to more prospects and you're not seeing the results you want, obviously something is wrong. Ever hear the old saying that a fool is someone who does the same thing over and over and expects different results?
The skill you need to master is communication - the ability to effectively present your business. But, there's something else to communication. You're not just trying to "make things clear". That's only a part of effective communication. You're attempting to teach someone what you know about your business - a bit more difficult.
Why is this more difficult? Let me explain:
Your prospect, before you've even had a chance to talk to them, probably has been exposed to M.L.M. Chances are they've heard some negative comments about the industry. You know: pyramid scheme, won't work for me, I don't want to be a salesperson, and on and on.
Thing is, if you allow those preconceived notions to go untouched, your prospect will never join your organization - period. Moving from one prospect to another... or... thinking that "it's a numbers game and you just need to get in front of more people", is a mistake.
Getting in front of more people is the solution when you're able to convert prospects into distributors - but not when you can't get anyone to join your downline!
All you're doing is speeding up your failure. So what's the solution? You must learn how to communicate effectively. So effectively that is causes people to react to what your message. This skill is critical to wealth building in network marketing.
Effective communication builds answers to objections into the initial communication. You'll eliminate the prospect's objections before they express them to you. Effective communication virtually eliminates objections and gets people thinking "your way".
Now, some people feel like this is manipulative. They feel everyone is entitled to their opinion and you have no right to "talk them out of it". They have a point. I agree everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Effective communication doesn't discount someone's thoughts. And, I can appreciate how someone may believe you're being manipulative if you're answering objections before they come up.
But I have a different perspective. I truly believe I'm helping someone with their life. I believe when I communicate effectively I have the best interest in mind for the person I'm communicating with. I never enter a conversation with the intent to "get the better end of the stick".
In front of a prospect, I always feel confident because I know I'm helping them.
I enter the conversation thinking I can improve their life. How? With a greater sense of achievement... an improved financial condition... and the feeling of fulfillment once they've reached their ideal position in life.
Plus, I know M.L.M is not what all those rumors say it is. Therefore, I'm helping someone see the truth. Most importantly, I feel like I'm doing a disservice if I don't communicate effectively.
What I mean is, I feel I'm truly helping people, I owe it to them to help them overcome any obstacle they have to joining my business. Comming from a teaching and training backgroud in the non-profit world puts me in the mindset of knowing deep in my heart I know I can make their life better than it is now. I brought the same mentality to network marketing.
You should too. You should know in your soul that you're helping someone.
If someone was in a burning house and you went in to save them and they were scared to leave through all the flames, wouldn't you do everything in your power to overcome their fear and get them out? It's this mentality you must bring to your communication skills. You must learn how to effectively communicate so you can help people escape their quiet desperation.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Customer Service is so important to the health and wealth in your business.
No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice.
Harvey Mackay, tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.
He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey .
He handed my friend a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.' Taken aback, Harvey read the card.
It said: Wally's Mission Statement:To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.
This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean! As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.' My friend said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.'
Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.'As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'
And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.
'Tell me, Wally,' my amazed friend asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?'
Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.
He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It . Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining!
Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.''
'That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'
'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said. 'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.'
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting.
Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
How about you?
Smile, and the whole world smiles with you... The ball is in our hands! A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up... let
us do good to all people.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
I had someone ask me the benefits of a Gold Veretekk System today and thought gosh I don't think I've posted that exact information anywhere online so here it is. Many times in our little social network call Veretekk we quitely use it to promote and grow our businesses and just expect if someone is interested they will become a free silver member, become part of our close knit community, and as they access our many weekly free online training will understand. It's really tough to list all of the benefits of a gold Veretekk system, cause there are many hidden benefits but I'm gonna try Ok?
Just look at the SEO tools and features that are included with ONE Veretekk Gold System
Lead Generation: With scores of unique Traffic Portals, you are assured of attaining the best, unique, exclusive lead data. Your exclusive leads mean they are looking forward to your call. Or, you can easily transfer individual, groups or all your leads to other Veretekk subscribers that are in your downline. This can virtually create a tsunami of downline success never attainable before.
All data, traffic and search engine rankings for each Traffic Portal is fully verified and verifiable. Never wonder if your ads are pulling, if your email is effective, if your data is accurate. The systems fully account for every action you take inside the system or on other sites, you control the reports.
Traffic Initiation: Once you activate the full portfolio of marketing and promotion tools for each portal, the traffic and leads start rolling in. Just push a few buttons and your on your way. That easy!
Link Integration: Easily link up to 10 other sites, promotional services, banner exchanges, etc. with a few pull down menus and a couple of buttons to push. One of the scores of systems that pour traffic and leads into your system with every conceivable marketing and advertising system on the Internet. All of your portals are fully integration automated.
Custom Configuration: Each one of your Traffic Portals has it's own unique domain name. You can also edit the Title, Meta tags, Hidden copy and text, links, photos and look of each one of your portals. You can also setup each portal to have a different set of sequential autoresponders that start mailing when the lead verifies their email address. This system fully integrates with Inetekk's Veretap systems too. This means, Veretap subscribers can automatically choose to have their leads automatically enrolled into Veretap's tap root automated recruiting systems.
Just a glance at the full Gold System in action with 42 fully configurable lead capture pages to promote your business online. Will make some peoples head spin.
Imagine the search engine positions on Google that you, or your business could achieve in purchasing a gold Veretekk System! Veretekk stands for quality in SEO tools, training and all the necessary elements that you need to become successful with any MLM business that you may be attempting to market on Google.
You will NEVER have to buy ebooks, software programs, traffic, leads or any of the things that you now waste your money on.
Another HUGE benefit with a Veretekk Gold system you also get Veremail Gold!
Veremail Gold firmly surpasses the best emailing systems on the market with one very important benefit none of the others have:
3rd party verification validation and MAPs endorsement.
Other systems have come and gone, but only Veremail has stood the test time (online since 1996). Why? Simple - Veremail continues to be the world's only double opt-in, fully verified and verifiable, online bulk emailing system. The system is 100% spam free, allowing Internet marketers a legal, ethical, and responsible means for conducting their business online. Better yet, with Veremail you have no liability risk since all incoming and outgoing email flows through our massive email server farm - not your ISP. The system is packed with valuable features and functionality to both explode your business and let you monitor detailed statistical results - all delivered to you for a small fraction of the cost of other email systems.
It's taken over a decade to develop and refine Veremail into the behemoth you see before you today. Veremail is endorsed by World Wide Scam as the only legitimate online email marketing system. State and Federal lobbyists for responsible permission based marketing and anti-spam efforts cite Veremail as the example the rest of the industry should follow. Spam is a huge problem in the world today. It costs people money, wastes productivity, raises the cost of various services for consumers, and is just plain annoying. They say you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. Veremail is the solution.
Veremail is very easy to use. The links to the left allow you to navigate through the features and functions available. These out outlined briefly below:
1) Redirect Page
When someone clicks on the verification email you can send them to any website you want, avoiding the Veretekk pitch. You still have the option to send the verified prospect to your many Market Centers but you can also send them direct to your own website, blog, a Traffic Portal of your choice or an affiliate site. The choice is yours!
2) Enter Contacts
At its most basic level you can use Veremail to manually verify a contact by entering their information and submitting it to the system. A verification email will be sent to the contact and once they either respond to the email or click on the verification link contained in it, they will be immediately verified as a contact and added to your database. This feature is especially useful for when someone gives you a business card and you want to add them to your email database.
3) My Contacts
Here you can review and update the contact information for all of the contacts you entered into the system that have verified. You also have the ability to assign them to a Veremail Group. These groups are then available in your Veretekk system Bully Pulpit and Premium Leads so that you can organize your contacts however you see fit and send out email campaigns to any group you like.
4) Create Groups
You have the ability to create an unlimited number of Groups in Veremail. Each group is listed separately in your Veretekk Bully Pulpit so that you can send out specialized emails to each one. You can use these groups to divide and organize the contacts that you manually enter and verify through the system. However, the real reason for having groups is that the system will automatically generate HTML code that you can copy and paste into your own web sites in order to offer a signup form for your visitors to subscribe to your mailing list. The code used for each group is a little different. These transportable signup forms that allow you to add Veremail subscription systems on any web site you have access to. That means you can produce dozens of specifically targeted subscription forms each feeding into a different group. Veremail Gold is the only system of it's kind, giving you the ultimate multi ported opportunity service on the planet.
5) My Groups
This is where you manage your Veremail groups. Check the signups for the Veremail form code and update them. Gives you access to change the redirect pages and autoresponders as well as deleting old groups that you don't use.
6) Upload Email List
This is one of the most powerful features of Veremail Gold - and a major differentiator from all other systems. You can upload as many as 300,000 emails per month for verification in order to build large compliment verified email lists. Compare that to the closest competitor's limit to 2,500 per month... and they don't even have verification. (Many have gone out of business because of this in recent years. Good riddance!)
Email lists are widely available throughout the Internet. They cost anywhere from $30 to $100's each. A word of warning: You usually get what you pay for! Choose a responsible source. Veremail Gold includes a sizeable portfolio of professionally written verification sizzle letters, designed to target your markets for significant results. Each letter also utilizes Veremail Gold customization. This means your letters can be targeted and customized, yet stay compliment with all the anti-spam policies. When you upload an email list a verification email is sent to each contact to entice them to verify (by responding to the email or clicking the verification link found in it) and allowing you to send them email. Those that verify will be available for your to email to through your Veretekk Bully Pulpit as a email list group.
But, that's not all! The most powerful aspect of the email list upload process is the statistical tracking. This functionality hasn't even been conceived anywhere else! When you upload your email list the Veremail Analysis Engine will scrutinize each individual email address to determine how many of them are unique or duplicates, how many are new contacts (as compared to those you may already have verified in your database), as well as compare each email to our known spam email list and system blacklists.
7) My Email Lists
As your Veremail campaign executes and the verification emails go out, you'll get even more detailed stats to see not just how many people have verified, but also how many people simply opened the email and how many email addresses were bad (the email bounced). Having this detailed statistical data available allows you to really see how good the email list was and effectiveness of your subject titles. If you buy a list from a reputable source and it turns out to be junk, you'll have the data to go back and demand a refund! Most importantly, this information will allow you to know when you have found a good email list source. No more guessing... With this kind of knowledge, you can make educated corrections to your campaigns, allowing you to fine tune your campaign and that produces greater results. And that folks, is called marketing!
8) Unverified Leads
Finally, this feature is a spill over bonus for Veremail Gold users. Throughout the Veretekk system there are literally 100,000's of leads each day that don't respond to a verification email sent out from one of the many traffic portals that subscribers promote. These unverified leads are funneled to Veremail Gold subscribers in a round robin type fashion. Much like uploading an email list, you can select a verification letter and have it sent out to these unverified leads as a final chance for them to verify. Many of these email addresses are undeliverable, but some are real and will actually verify. (For example, their email box might have been full when the initial verification letter was sent to them.) It doesn't matter how it happens, when someone responds to your email or clicks the verification link inside it, they will be added to your database as a Veremail Capture lead. These leads show up in your Veretekk Bully Pulpit as "Veremail" leads.
If you compare the alternatives, you will discover that there really isn't any. Veremail Gold was built by the Gurus who needed a system that would give them a large sphere of influence - but also be easy-to-use, duplicatable, and spam-proof. No other system comes close. If you are marketing on the Internet, then you know several fundamental issues. Self regulation to prevent spamming isn't working, self proclaimed anti spam zealots are gaining tremendous power without any accountability or recourse. If this situation isn't reversed we may well wind up with an Internet being run by a bunch of self appointed Mid Century Land Barons in a culture over run by spam thugs who think nothing of kicking your door in and stuffing their scams and pornography in your face and rubbing it in. There is a solution and your looking at it.
Enjoy the power and ease that Veremail Gold brings to you.
I used and continue to use the veremail system to build marketing campaigns and funnel systems.
As a Platinum Control Panel System owner in Veretekk I also get people asking me what are the benefits of hooking my Gold Veretekk System to a Platinum Control Panel System. Here are a few I can think of right off the top of my head...
The benefits of having your gold Veretekk system set for you and connected to a PCP.
1. It takes about 6 hours once you know what you are doing to configure and link all of the gold portals by hand.. been there done it not fun!
2. When you are connected to a PCP (Platinum Control Panel) your RSS feeds go out to 20 blogger drones giving you lots of SEO power. I also have the ability to give you word press files already configured to place on your website with your gold system RSS feed configured in it.
3. Your gold system will get back links from other gold systems hooked in my PCP. Currently I have 42 other gold systems hooked in my PCP.
4. Your gold system when hooked in a PCP also connects you with other PCP owners RSS feeds giving you even more back linking power.
5. Through my PCP you have the ability to build web pages and send them to me to host on any or all of your gold system web sites. ... for instance is hosted on my gold "cindy" system Veretekk affiliate site. Again this gives you access to all of the seasoned Veretekk domains to host your content on. This is a VERY powerful benefit.
6. You have and inside connection with an advanced user and trainer in the Veretekk system. Someone who will guide you through all aspects of Veretekk. This alone is very powerful.
1. Have a customized landing page, which takes the prospective customer to the exact product, or service page for which they are searching.
2. To have a cost effective online marketing strategy there needs to be enough people searching for your product or service.
For example, if someone is searching for a particular type of phone, your ad should feature that particular type of phone. The more specific you are and the less searching the perspective customer has to do once they get to your web page, the more likely they are to contact you, buy your product, or take the action you want them to take.
You will need to research which search terms or keywords are searched on more frequently than other search terms so that you can make sure that you have the largest audience possible. You can do this using Google's keyword tool. Doing just this small amount of market research can make the difference between success or failure of your online business venture.
For example, if you're selling Phone dialiers and there's only ten people a day in your area searching for Phone dialiers, you are not going to be very successful. If however, there are 100,000 people a day searching for a Phone dialiers and you only have two competitors who also sell Phone dialiers, then there is room for you in that market.
Below are some useful features of Google's keyword tool:
1. You can enter various phrases describing your businesses products or services into the search box. The tool will give you results on different phrases and synonyms matching your description. It will also tell you which search terms produce the largest amount of traffic on a monthly basis.
2. If you are targeting the entire United States then the monthly traffic column per keyword is very accurate. If you are targeting a particular state within the United States then you would need to divide that number by the percentage of population in that state.
3. Google's keyword tool also has a column that indicates the average cost per click for each search term. This can be helpful for forecasting how much to price your product or service. For example, if you are selling something for $10.00 and it costs you $10.00 to get enough people to your website before anyone buys your product then you need to rethink your pricing model. If however, your product sells for $20.00 and it only costs you $5.00 in advertising before someone buys your product, then you have a cost effective marketing campaign.
Cindy McAsey Barefoot in the Garden
888.272.6701
Learn more about Cindy McAsey and why she does what she does at www.cindymcasey.com
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Do you spend a portion of you day working on mindset? I've discovered in when you own your own business you must continually work on your mindset. If you don't your business will generally suffer. If you take 10 to 30 seconds a day and read the message below until it becomes a part of every day. It will get your mindset right to build and succeed in what ever you set out to do in life.
I believe and have for many, many years that we win with inspired people not with long "to do lists" or with systems. This doesn't mean systems and "to do lists" aren't important and useful, far from it. But if there is a secret to business or life it is that inspired people are those who will work hard, build strong and deep, and build themselves a future that is very difficult to describe.
Read the following and sit back and think about it.
Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right,
Forget the ones who don't,
And believe that everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance,
Take it.
If it changes your life,
Let it.
Nobody said that it'd be easy,
They just promised it would be worth it.
Author Unknown
I use sayings like this to keep my mindset in check everyday. There are many books written on how important the mindset is to business. As part of our franchise business you have access to all of my franchise business techinques and tips.
Align Yourself with the Right Business at the Right Time
This channel is dedicated to many different marketing strategies. I feel so strongly about this company and the real opportunites associated by aligning yourself with our team and this company, I decided it was time you at least have this information to educate yourself.
There are many ways to grow a Shaklee Distributor Business as a Marketing Strategies Coach I make it a point to be tuned into marketing strategies for growing the business online and offline.
Duplication is something has been taught in the MLM industry for years, in my eyes this is why so many people fail. None of us come from the same mold, we all have things we like to do and things we hate doing. On our team we use a 7 step process that is designed to fit you, teaching you to delegate out things you are not good at or don't like doing, and focusing on your strengths to build your business foundation.
Sometimes when I look at the "Smoke, Mirrors and all the "Just join our program and you will be rich by tomorrow" it's no wonder many people looking for honest business opportunities get taken. It's human nature to be sucked into the lie's and promises of "it's easy anyone can do it." I just want you to know while building a business may be simple if the right steps are taken, not everyone will do it.
Let me ask you, are you they type of person who will follow through and actually do what it takes to be successful in business? If you are and you liked what you heard on this video we need to talk!
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
If you have been online long at all you probably know this... but a study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project says most popular Web activity for Americans is email, followed closely by searching. The two lessons you should take from these findings are:
1. It makes sense to do email marketing, and
2. It makes sense to do search engine marketing.
After all, both online channels are perfect ways to meet customers in their natural online habitats. But there’s a way to make your search marketing and your email work even better. How? Use them together. Here are three suggestions as to how to do it.
1. Use Search Marketing to Make Your Email Smarter
To get a strong response to your email blasts, you need to use just the right words and just the right message. This will make your customers want to read your email and respond to it. A good place to start looking for the right kind of language is in your Sponsored Search campaigns:
• Use your best-performing search keywords within your email subject line and body copy.
• Use your best-performing search creatives as the core of your email subject lines.
• Use your best-converting search landing pages as the model for your email body and your email landing pages.
Think about it: If certain words, messages and concepts drive searchers to convert via search, then those same words, messages and concepts should resonate with similarly minded shoppers within email. So it follows that if you want to learn how to sell to your email customers, you should ask your search customers.
2. Use Email to Make Your Search Marketing Work Better
People who have signed up to your email lists are, without a doubt, great examples of who your target customers are. After all, they’ve explicitly asked you to keep in touch with them. So if you understand your email subscribers’ online behaviors, you can read the mind of your target market.
Think about the types of wording, messages, email body and landing pages those target customers respond to best, and you can get clues as to what types of keywords, ad copy and landing pages will best capture the attention (and conversions) of people like them as they use search.
And, of course, look at the keywords, ad copy and landing pages that drove those email sign-ups to begin with: They’ve clearly worked!
3. Bringing it Together. For this last point, allow me to provide a simple example:
Consider a shopper who’s bought a specific brand of shoes (let’s say, Nike Shoes). She’s very happy with that brand, and the next time she wants to buy a new pair of Shoes, she searches for “Nike Shoes"
That’s a Sponsored Search click that’s led to a sale—and so, arguably, that’s search spend well spent.
But here’s an even better scenario: The same shopper signs up to an Nike Shoes email list. The next time she needs a pair of shoes, she doesn’t search at all—and so she doesn’t create any search click costs for Nike. Instead, she arrives at the Nike Shoes site via the Nike email, and buys a new pair of Shoes directly from the email linking to the website.
The moral of this tale? Use Sponsored Search to acquire new customers. Then once you have those customers in your database, help them bypass the search engines by putting them on your email lists. Offer a clear “email signup” link throughout your site, and suggest that shoppers sign up to your email list as part of the checkout process.
You can invest the money you’ll save into getting even more customers via Sponsored Search.
Hands down one of the best double opt in verified email system's can be found at: http://mcasey.veremail.com
Want to dominate the Search Engines without paying to be at the top? Today may be the time to discover Veretekk! Its FREE to join and look around. Take a test drive today you will be glad you did.
For increasing your customer base and expanding your business, you can easily select any of the options available such as hiring a marketing professional, initiating ad campaigns in trade publications and many others. However, if you do not have the funds and are looking for a low-cost solution, then it's recommended that you opt for web conferences that are just as effective and in some ways even better than many of the high-cost options.
Web conferencing can definitely help you achieve your targeted goals and objectives obviously because they allow you to add that much-needed personal touch to your marketing campaigns, something that even the most highly-paid marketing consultant will find quite impossible to deliver.
Web conference's are certainly your best bet because not only will you be able to increase your sales, but will also be able to better and long-lasting relationships with your clients.
Explained below are some standard techniques that you can use for full potential of this relatively new technology, i.e. web conferencing.
Make web conferencing the main engine of your overall marketing campaign and deliver free information by conducting events at regular intervals. This way you will create an impression on your customers. However, if you do not have the skills to conduct a teleseminar event, then just bring in a guest expert who has the necessary qualifications.
In case you are targeting prospective customers, it's recommended that you organize paid web conferencing simply because people do not attach much value to anything that is offered at no cost. Also, make sure that you provide high quality content in your paid web conferences.
Keep a recording of each of your web conferences and use them as assets for attracting new customers. For example, if you want more and more people to sigh up for your email newsletter, you can offer one of these recordings as a freebie.
Select the best of your paid web conference events and offer them as digitally downloadable product, available for a price. This way you will be able to earn additional income from virtually zero investments.
Use web conferencing to provide information about the products and services that you might be selling. Make your moves with conviction, but do not oversell because that could easily have a negative impact on customers or prospects.
Web conferencing certainly holds great potential, but it would be a waste if you keep arguing about its merits and demerits. I would recommend that you give it a try at least once and see for yourself. I can bet my life's savings that you will never look back and will definitely be forced to wonder how you ever managed to do without a web conference room.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach>
Online Training: Effective Information Marketing is Key to Growing Your Customer Base
If you believe that conventional marketing tools and techniques have lost their powerful punch, then you might consider other effective options such as information marketing techniques. It develops trust and confidence with your target market by using the idea of 'giving' rather than 'getting'.
Information marketing is all about sharing valuable information (content) with your prospective customers, something that can be done in many different ways such as sharing email newsletters, MP3 recordings, youtube videos, articles, and ebooks.
The benefits of this type of "education" are endless.. it really depends how well you design and distribute your marketing materials. If you do it well enough, you start noticing some of these benefits:
Get the respect of prospective customers:
It is natural to be drawn to people who want to help you ... you accomplish this by giving what people are looking for. When you share valuable information on topics that your customers find interesting, you instantly create goodwill and respect, which in turn automatically increases your chances they will become regular customers. Just as the farmer plants the seeds watches them grow then harvests the crops, basically you too are sowing seeds then letting nature take it's own course.
Developing feelings of trust and confidence:
Most people won't trust a stranger on the street, but will trust their roommate. Well, the logic in this statement is exactly why information marketing is an effective marketing strategy. When you share information on a regular basis, your prospective customers develop a feeling of trust and confidence. This contributes to removing skepticism that they could have had about you, your website, and the offered products and services. To put it simply, your potential customers will not hesitate to do business with you if you are successful in developing the right feelings of trust and confidence.
Increasing income by reducing costs:
Since information can be used over and over again with only a few minor changes in between, it saves you time and time is money in your own business. It will continue to augment your income, even when you might be busy with other commitments.
Carving your own niche in the market:
If you tirelessly continue to share information with your prospective customers, you will soon be able to create a niche for yourself in the market, something that will place you and your business in a better position to compete successfully with other businesses.
If you are still on the fence with this online training marketing strategy.. just try it out and see for yourself. If you don't feel you have the knowledge to produce your own materials yet... then it's time for you to educate yourself first. In the wonderful internet world the education materials are waiting for you, but you must take action and take advantage of people willing to educate you or hire someone to create the materials for you.
To your business success,
Cindy Barefoot in the Garden McAsey Enterprises www.cindymcasey.com My Life's Purpose is Others' Success
May Good Fortune Be With You. May Your Guiding Light Be Strong.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Online Business Training: Are you a Twitter?
If you aren't using Twitter to grow your personal brand, business and/or strengthen your relationships with your partners or customers via Twitter, you don't know what you're missing. And you're missing a lot!
Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging platform that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which can be sent via several methods, from your cell phone, Instant Message services or several web-based and desktop platforms that are out there for Twitter.
The power of Twitter can be found in the people who follow you. People who are interested in what you are tweeting about. You can easily find yourself following thousands of people, reading their tweets and enter into conversations among multiple people at any point. And they can do the same with you!
You can use Twitter to build your personal brand and your product brand or service. Twitter has the primary benefit of developing a casual way to reinforce your brand with people and establishes you as a social personality that is connected and approachable. As Twitter grows and your influence increases, new users will be drawn towards well established Twitter personalities.
Twitter is not to be used as a place to SPAM your opportunity or product. That will result in you having NOBODY following you as those types of tweets are frowned upon and really are self serving. When tweeting, you need to bring VALUE to the Twitter world with your tweets. Engage in conversations with people. Develop connections and deepen relationships with people through your tweets. In the midst of all that, you can post a tweet on your latest blog post, the brand new product your company released, talk to your fellow marketers about the latest trend in your business, etc., etc.
The secret of your tweets with your downline business partners is that your name, products, can be exposed for all the world to see as you tweet back and forth about it. As more and more of your customers and downline members get into those tweet conversations, the more people will become curious about the passion your tweets are.
If you focus on connecting with people and are aware of the opportunities that come along in conversation to tweet about what you do or what your product can do for someone, you will experience the power of what Twitter can do for you and for your business.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
10 reasons to use Veretekk as your main Marketing Tool
1. Lead Generation: With scores of unique Traffic Portals, you are assured of attaining the best, unique, exclusive lead data. Your exclusive leads mean they are looking forward to your call. Or, you can easily transfer individual, groups or all your leads to other Veretekk subscribers that are in your downline. This can virtually create a tsunami of downline success never attainable before.
All data, traffic and search engine rankings for each Traffic Portal is fully verified and verifiable. Never wonder if your ads are pulling, if your email is effective, if your data is accurate. The systems fully account for every action you take inside the system or on other sites, you control the reports.
2. Traffic Initiation: Once you activate the full portfolio of marketing and promotion tools for each portal, the traffic and leads start rolling in. Just push a few buttons and your on your way. That easy!
3. Link Integration: Easily link up to 10 other sites, promotional services, banner exchanges, etc. with a few pull down menus and a couple of buttons to push. One of the scores of systems that pour traffic and leads into your system with every conceivable marketing and advertising system on the Internet. All of your portals are fully integration automated.
4. Custom Configuration: Each one of your Traffic Portals has it's own unique domain name. You can also edit the Title, Meta tags, Hidden copy and text, links, photos and look of each one of your portals. You can also setup each portal to have a different set of sequential autoresponders that start mailing when the lead verifies their email address. This system fully integrates with Inetekk's Veretap systems too. This means, Veretap subscribers can automatically choose to have their leads automatically enrolled into Veretap's tap root automated recruiting systems.
5. Veremail Unlimited Autoresponders: You can set up as many different sequential email sets as you want. Each email set can contain an unlimited number of emails and be configured to send them out with whatever frequency you like. One set could contain 7 emails and send them out once a day for a week. Another could contain 52 emails with them going out each week for a year. It's totally up to you!
6. Flexible Email Content: Messages can can be plain text or HTML. You can include images, style scripts, submission forms, even Flash designs if you like. Veremail supports it all.
7. Spam Free and MAPS Compliant: Veremail enjoys reputable 3rd party validation and is fully endorsed by MAPS and follows its principles for responsible email marketing. MAPS guidelines are widely recognized as the standard for defining the legitimate process to prevent email abuse. Veremail is 100% Spam free and Spam proof. Not only does this allow you to perform email marketing in an ethical manner, it protects you from the liability and litigation associated with irresponsible marketing. Attempting large email campaigns on your own through your own ISP can quickly result in large fines and even imprisonment.
8. Fully Verified & Verifiable: Veremail is the only system in the world that requires double opt-in verification for every single email address, but also provides the public (or ISPs) the ability to query the verification database in order to produce a verifiable activity log that shows exactly when an email address has interacted with the system. Opt-in requests are processed in real time by automatically capturing the date/time and the subscriber's IP address. A global blacklist function is readily available for those who wish to block additional emails.
9. AUTOMATED TOOLS: "The Hammer" that with the click of a single button will blast out 2 BILLION ads on FFA sites getting your veretekk vanity email picked up an marketed to. Your Veretekk autoresponder system in return automatically reverse markets to them for you.(YES! You heard me right, I did say 2 BILLION!)
"The Drill" is a very powerful automated link building tool that with a push of a button posts your add to different 1-family classified sites.
10. Online Community of like minded people. What can I say Veretekk is one of the best online communities for building relationships. Live online web conference training rooms for each Veretrainer gives you personal contact with small groups of people who are building an online business just like you.
Just a glance at the full Gold System in action with 42 fully configurable lead capture pages to promote your business online. Will make some peoples head spin.
I imagine your mind is starting to get a little overwhelmed. I understand when I first saw the power of Veretekk I was a little overwhelmed too. Simple signup for any, or all of these systems and start testing the powerful tools available to you.
Personally I have been teaching and training folks online how to use Veretekk to grow their business for several years. Once per week in my state of the art web conferencing room, I host advanced training sessions on marketing strategies using Veretekk. If you start with the affiliate system, you will have the advantage of learning from someone who can guide you through the Veretekk marketing mass step by step. Learn advanced marketing strategies that will empower you to success online.
You won't waist time and money looking for the perfect tool ever again to promote your business.
Have you ever thought you have the magic software program, the ebook and all the other tools that say that they can, and will, show you how to make the first page of Google? Hey, take a deep breath and know this. There is nothing, that competes with Veretekk and the Veretekkies who use this powerhouse system." I was probably just like most people learning to market online when I found Veretekk. I had spent way to much on ebooks, software, programs and tools to learn online marketing. That money leak stopped when I found Veretekk and started applying what I learned." Cindy McAsey
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
In the next few minutes you will discover a parable that so closely relates my feelings towards Veretekk its uncanny. In the short 2 minute story 2 men rescue a lion from a bad situation, take the lion in and become his guardian and family. When I found Veretekk I was looking for a method to attract business partners into my business. I had built a large customer base that gave me steady month after month income, but I knew to really take my business to the next level I needed to find others to do what I did. In a sense I felt like the lion in this video (before his guardians found him) looking for direction and a way to expand my knowledge of marketing.
When I found Veretekk, went to the trainings it was like I had a new online safe haven (playground) where I could grow, learn and expand my knowledge of online marketing. Just like guardians Tom Prendergast (CEO of Veretekk) and many trainers in the early days helped me grow into the online marketer I am today. Just like the lion in this video, even though my marketing knowledge has now expanded to teaching, training and coaching others. I will always be grateful for what Veretekk has done for me.
"You know, the reality of this situation is... these two men were this cat's parents (guardians) and the reason why THEY WERE THE ONE'S WHO RESCUED AND RAISED HIM. A guardian is that entity that cares for, teaches and raises a you." Right?
Do you need a guardian (parent) and safe haven (playground) to help guide you through marketing online?
When I found Veretekk I quit purchasing all those ebooks, programs and stuff the internet gurus sell out there to the little guy teaching marketing. Oh yea, I'm still on some of their lists... but not to purchase stuff but to watch and learn from them. Veretekk is a safe haven with tools and systems already in place. Veretekk trainers are very much like guardians.. willing to share their knowledge for freee.
Just like the lion in this video to grow and mature he needed a safe haven (playground). Hands down Mike Darling (Pres. of Veretekk) is the expert at building tools and systems (playground equipment). I feel blessed and very fortunate to be in the beta group and give input for the tools and systems Veretekk develops. I'm completely blown away by the skills and knowledge Mike has. Mike Darling has truly taken the slogan "Marketing at the Speed of Thought" and made it a reality for my business.
My hat's off to you, Thomas Prendergast and Mike Darling for being like a guardians and providing a safe haven (Veretekk) for me to grow and mature into the online marketer I've become. I will always love you!
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Online Business Training: 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 Rule is one of the most helpful of all concepts of time and life management. It
is also called the Pareto Principle after its founder, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto,
who first wrote about it in 1895. Pareto noticed that people in his society seemed to
divide naturally into what he called the "vital few," the top 20% in terms of money and
influence, and the "trivial many," the bottom 80%.
Pareto later discovered that virtually all economic activity was subject to this his Principle
as well. For example, this rule says that 20% of your activities will account for 80%
of your results. 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your
products or services will account for 80% of your profits. 20% of your tasks will account
for 80% of the value of what you do, and so on. This means that if you have a list of
ten items to do, two of those items will turn out to be worth as much or more than
the other eight items put together.
Here is an interesting discovery. Each of these tasks may take the same amount of
time to accomplish. But one or two of those tasks will contribute five or ten times the
value as any of the others. Often, one item on a list of ten things that you have to do
can be worth more than all the other nine items put together. This task is invariably the
one that you should do first.
The most valuable tasks you can do each day are often the hardest and most
complex. But the payoff and rewards for completing these tasks efficiently can be
tremendous. For this reason, you must adamantly refuse to work on tasks in the bottom
80% while you still have tasks in the top 20% left to be done. Before you begin work,
always ask yourself, "Is this task in the top 20% of my activities or in the bottom 80%?"
The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you
actually begin work on a valuable task, you seem to be naturally motivated to continue.
There is a part of your mind that loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can
really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually.
Time management is really life management, personal management. It is really taking
control over the sequence of events. Time management is control over what you do
next. And you are always free to choose the task that you will do next. Your ability to
choose between the important and the unimportant is the key determinant of your
success in life and work. Effective, productive people discipline themselves to start on
the most important task that is before them. They force themselves to eat that frog,
whatever it is. As a result, they accomplish vastly more than the average person and are
much happier as a result. This should be your way of working as well.
Make a list of all the key goals, activities, projects and responsibilities in your life today.
Which of them are, or could be, in the top 10% or 20% of tasks that represent, or could
represent, 80% or 90% of your results? Resolve today that you are going to spend more
and more of your time working in those few areas that can really make a difference in
you life and career, and less and less time on lower value activities.
Have you ever thought you have the magic software program, the ebook and all the other tools that say that they can, and will, show you how to make the first page of Google? Hey, take a deep breath and know this. There is nothing, that competes with Veretekk and the Veretekkies who use this powerhouse system. I was probably just like most people learning to market online when I found Veretekk. I had spent way to much on ebooks, software, programs and tools to learn online marketing. That money leak stopped when I found Veretekk and started applying what I learned.
Just a glance at the full Gold System in action with 42 fully configurable lead capture pages to promote your business online. Will make some peoples head spin.
I imagine your mind is starting to get a little overwhelmed. I understand when I first saw the power of Veretekk I was a little overwhelmed too. Simple signup for any, or all of these systems and start testing the powerful tools available to you.
Personally I have been teaching and training folks online how to use Veretekk to grow their business for several years. Once per week in my state of the art web conferencing room, I host advanced training sessions on marketing strategies using Veretekk. If you start with the affiliate system, you will have the advantage of learning from someone who can guide you through the Veretekk marketing mass step by step. Learn advanced marketing strategies that will empower you to success online.
You owe it to yourself, and your financial future online to take advantage of this very powerful search engine optimization tool known as Veretekk. Also, be sure to check out the Platinum Control Panel that is now in beta testing. It will really make your head spin. You add the addition of several Gold Veretekk Systems, and the ability to configure all of them from one location, now that's something to write home about.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Online Business Training: Is it time for you to get off the Fence?
If you are seriously wanting to grow your business online you will read and think about what I'm about to share with you. Keywords are K-E-Y to so many things online. Most of all search engine traffic and getting to the right people who are sincerely interested in the product or service that you're offering. One of the biggest and most common marketing mistakes that people make is to fall in love with a product and assume that everyone else will too. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG.
Here's the only rule that you'll ever need to know about successful sales and marketing... Find out what people want and give it to them.
O.K. Go back and read that again. Let this truth sink deep into the very marrow of your marketing bones. Done? When you get this, everything else is just execution. How do you find out what people are looking for online today? It's called keyword research, now if you aren't an expert in keyword research I suggest you find someone who is and either hire them or learn from them. That's what I did.
THE KEY ISN'T WHAT YOU WANT. IT'S WHAT THEY WANT.
Once you have determined what THEY want you have 2 choices. You go after them or they find you. (I prefer they find me) What's the greatest free source of these people finding you? Search engines, of course! And what do search engine and people looking for you crave most? Original content. If you're a content writer, which you absolutely should be, you're sitting on the golden egg that search engines and your prospects are looking for. Original content.
So, how do you get that content up online in the fastest and easiest way possible? Veretekk RSS feed hooked to a Platinum Control Panel (PCP). The quicker you realize this the faster you will take your business to the next level.
As most of you know I'm very picky when it comes to how a site looks. Now that I have my Veretekk RSS feeds hooked up with a PCP and going out to 20 blogger drones all with different style scripts, and I'm going crazy trying to clean up all of my RSS feeds.
Here's couple of tips I've found that may help you...
There is a difference between an RSS feed that's going out to many places and a blog that is just in one place. In order to make your RSS feed nice looking (on all the sites) you DO NOT want to have ANY font tags, or weird colors, or even pictures with colors that won't blend with most colors.
When our RSS feeds were just in a tiny little iframe on the Veretekk traffic portals it wasn't that big a deal. NOW it is.. at least to me!
I'm slowly making progress (little each day) cleaning up my RSS feeds... it's going to take some time for me to get to every post I've made. Here is what I've found that just doesn't work if you want a nice looking site that readers will want to return too. (in addition to what I mentioned above)
a. Header tags especially the larger ones (I'm removing all header tags) and just using bold tags
b. All youtube videos need to be resized down to: width="325" height="255" (at the max)
c. Pictures no bigger than 250 by 250 pixels and sized down too (the maximum would be like the videos depending on what you are trying to accomplish)
d. Always begin a RSS post with a paragraph and end it with a paragraph tag
e. No website page code.
f. Any open tags that aren't closed screws up EVERYTHING!
In summary first find out what people are looking for online, then give it to them using original content in your Veretekk RSS feed using CLEAN code. In the few short weeks our team has been using the Platinum Control Panel we have seen some amazing results in the Search Engines. I feel very blessed to have access to this powerful tool for our team called Veretekk Platinum Control Panel. My question for you is how serious are you about growing your business online?
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
I feel compelled to share with you a story that just happened to me this morning. You see I've been blogging and writing before most people even came to google and look for live online training much less ones you could interact with.
The last several days I'm been working my tail off cleaning up some of my blogging content so it looks decent on forums and on different blog sites with different style scripts. I was far from done with that task, when a phone call interrupted me. The caller on the other end asked me where I was from, and I said, " a Farm in KS". That answer generally works for most people but not for this caller. He had done a google search on my neighbor "Vince Berland" and found another post I had done talking about my neighbor!
It happens that this person was looking for someone to help him grow his business. He is very interested in consulting with me, because I have done what he is wanting to accomplish in his business. And he also was in the greyhound industry and knows Vince Berland from that industry. He hadn't gotten to the post where I explained he was my neighbor, that's why he wanted to know where I lived in KS and how I knew who Vince Berland was.
The internet works in misterious ways.
Long story short, this person will be working with me in my ineractive web conference room to learn how to target his market online and how to grow his business using the technology we have available to us today.
He did mention that he might give my neighbor a call and see how he built his business. I shared with him about residual income and how it works with MLM. What may have worked many years ago it might not work quite like that today. Times do change and on the internet it changes almost daily. I tend to call this the pulse of the internet, because with a heart beat it can change that fast.
One place you can stay up with the beat of the internet is via our live online business training. This is a personal invitation to come and sit in on one of our many weekly live online business trainings, come be a fly on the wall I don't mind. Here is a link to my event schedule that I update weekly. http://events.barefootsuccess.net
P.S. Ever have that feeling, that your life, your true work, has not yet begun? Ever feel like you're here for something more than you've yet identified? And that a billion eyes are upon you, just waiting for the prophecy to unfold? Hmmmmmm.......Well, have you also ever wanted something so badly that all your wishing, hoping and praying kept you from seeing that you had access to it all along? Precisley..
So what is a Forum? A Forum is an online community and discussion forum for Internet users. Forums are stomping grounds for millions of prospects. Forums are stomping grounds for millions of prospects. A Forum is a place to share ideas, find answers, make friends and develop partnerships. A Forum is an organic, always growing, support resource for your entire Internet marketing business.
In addition to all of this, Forums are great places to promote free business services like we offer in our Veretekk Portals OK, that's enough talking about it. The only way to benefit from Forums is to experience it for yourself. So let's get started...
I encourage you to get involved in discussions as much as possible. Spend time in there every day just browsing, reading through topics and responding to posts as desired. My goal is for you to generate as many prospects as possible to show a franchise online business to or whatever home business you are promoting.
Therefore, every step I reveal will be geared toward the fulfillment of that goal. The thing to remember now is that you are in the up-start marketing stage of your business right now. To build your prospect list online and make money, you need to spread the word about your free veretekk traffic portals to as many people as possible. That's it. Beyond participating in forums and learning from others, you can also contribute positively and constructively in them forum while posting a sig file link that points back to your site.
What is a sig file? A sig file is a link to your website placed at the end of each of your forum posts.
What's a forum post? A forum post is when you respond to a discussion in progress (also known as a thread) by typing a response and submitting it.
Most forums contain thousands of discussions in progress. When you post to a discussion in a forum, your response will be included as part of the discussion. At the end of your response, your sig file ad will appear so that everyone who reads that thread has the opportunity to see your ad (signature file). Sig file ads in forums are generally immortal. In other words, they can remain active and help produce prospects for you forever. Even when a discussion (thread) is no longer being actively posted to, it can remain in the forum archives forever. These archives are often indexed by Google and other search engines so discussions you've participated in are often found by people using the search engines.
The more you post in online forums, the more inbound links you'll get to your Veretekk Traffic Portals. The more inbound links you get, the more visitors you'll attract. The more visitors you attract, the more prospects you'll add to your list. The more prospects you add to your list, the more times people will see your business presentation. The more people you have watching your business presentation, the more people you will sponsor into your business. The more people you sponsor into your business, the more money you will make. It's really is that simple.
Remember, generating prospects online with your Veretekk Traffic Portals is a simple matter of getting links distributed all over the Internet that point back to your website. That's it!
Here's a powerful way to get started:
Some the best out there is the work at home Message Boards. Click here to visit the site and create a new forum account now by clicking on the "Register" link at the top of the page. Then follow the simple instructions provided to get your account setup. Midway through the registration process, you'll see a field for your "Signature". There is a 200 character limit. To setup your signature here, I recommend that you promote your Veretekk traffic portal.
Once you've entered your traffic portal link and name (your want people to know who you are!) in the "Signature" field, complete your registration with forum. When you click the "Register" button to complete your registration, you'll be asked to check your email and confirm your registration. Follow the instructions given and your new forum account will be set up within a few minutes. Congratulations! Your forum account has been created.
Now we need to talk about forum posting... Before you start participating in any forum online, let's discuss what participation actually means. In a nutshell, it means contribution. Within many work at home forums, there are "millions" of discussions in progress right now.
A discussion starts when someone makes an original post. Then, people start responding to that post to create a dialogue. One person might respond to the original post, another person might respond to the person who responded and someone else might respond to that person's post. A forum discussion is a great way to see many different sides of an issue because everyone gets to share their information and respond completely to a topic without being interrupted.
You should also understand that many people reply to a discussion more than once. In fact, some people stay tuned to a discussion and post replies whenever appropriate. Forum discussions can go on for days... sometimes weeks.
It's very important to realize that your post itself should NOT be an advertisement. You are participating in the forum to add value to the discussion itself. Then, like leaving your business card for people to pick up, your signature file ad will be available for everyone who is reading the discussion to click if they want to. If you post ads within the body of your post itself, your post will probably get deleted by a moderator and other forum members will not take you or the site in your signature file seriously.
The main thing to realize is to "be yourself" and contribute naturally to forum discussions.
Right now, there are THOUSANDS of work at home forum discussions in progress on nearly every subject imaginable. You can find tons of places within the forum to make sincere, meaningful posts. Just hunt around throughout the forum until you find discussions that you can relate to. Then replies to them. In fact, I encourage you to make at least 5 new posts today in a forum.
Don't force yourself to post just for the sake of posting and getting your signature file seen. If you really don't have anything meaningful to contribute to the discussion in progress, just read it and learn from other forum members. You have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. It's always best to listen first... then speak.
Put some original thought into your posts.
Be yourself.
If someone is asking a question, do some research, find the answer and post a helpful response.
If it's an opinion post, share your point of view and elaborate on it.
Never post with the single-minded attention of getting your signature file ad seen. Post consistently with the purpose of adding value to the forum. In fact, when you contribute to the forum, people will start appreciating you and some will naturally visit your site in your sig file. By the way, posting to forums is simple. First of all, if you are reading a discussion in progress, just click the "Post Reply" button. Alternatively, if you wish to start your own post, look for the "New Topic" button and click it. In each case a post editor will appear before you.
Just type your post into the field provided and when you are happy with your reply, click on the "Submit" button. Or, if you want to see what your reply will look like first, you can click the "Preview" button. After you submit your reply, your post will appear immediately (along with your sig file) in the forum for all to see.
When you've completed today's assignment, you'll have 5 more links in one of the most heavily visited websites in the world pointing back to your website. Yes, forums are consistently among the top most visited sites in the world. That's serious traffic! It's hard to find a better place to get links pointing to your site than than in forums.
In fact, I challenge you to make at least 5 posts per day in a forum for the next 25 days. Then you'll have 125 free links pointing back to your site! If you do this right and be consistent, this could be the only advertising you ever need to do! No joke.
NOW GET TO WORK!
Dozens of prospects could be just 1 post away. Once you find a discussion you want to contribute to, just follow these simple steps:
Click on the title of the discussion or topic.
Once the topic opens, read it. If you find one that you want to respond to, click on the "Post Reply" button near the top or the bottom of the discussion:
A new page will open up with a post editor that will allow you to say exactly what you want to say. You can even add bold, italics, smiley faces, etc. to your reply. Just type your reply into the box provided.
After typing your reply, you can click the "Preview" button to see what it will look like when posted.
When you're happy with your reply, click the "Submit Reply" button and your reply will be posted immediately.
Now, wash, rinse, repeat this process... at least 5 times today and every day for the next 30 days!!!
Remember to listen more than you speak. Don't feel obligated to post just for the sake of posting. Post when you have something meaningful to add to the discussion in progress. Do this and you'll be on the path to success!
Remember, it's not about advertising. It's mainly about discussion and contribution. As you contribute in a natural way to the forum discussions in progress, your sig file will work for you automatically. In fact, the more valuable your posts are to other people in the discussion, the more effective your signature file ads will become!
Don't ever go to any other forum on the Internet with the intention of just advertising your business. That's the wrong attitude to have and it won't get you anywhere! Instead, go into the forum with the singular purpose of adding real value and simply let your sig file ads show up naturally. This will pay you "BIG" dividends
Think about it...
You have everything you need on this page to build a thriving Internet business simply by getting online and talking with other people in the forums. Don't let this information slip through your fingers without making a plan and committing to take action. How much time will you invest in yourself to participate in forum discussions each and every day? 30 minutes?, 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours?... 8 hours?! The more you contribute, the faster your income will grow. The choice is yours.Do you want more forums to get involved in? After all, differentiation is the key.
What I mean by that is that it will serve you to be different from other Veretekkies who only follow the tip to get involved in the work at home forums... Fact is, there are thousands of forums to get involved with on the Internet that can help YOU learn a lot about people and the Internet as well as promote your site for freee.
One thing to keep in mind is that all forums have different rules about using signature files. Remember how I said to listen more than you speak and don't just post "me too" type posts to get your signature file seen? When this happens, forum moderators tend to get upset (I can understand why!...) and block members from posting. The main lesson to learn from this is not to abuse forums in this way so we can all continue to benefit from this powerful free marketing technique.
One way to find other forums you can start contributing to would be to do a Google search (or whatever search engine you prefer) for forums related to issues that relate to your target market. Most importantly, create accounts with those forums you find and have an interest with, setup sig files and start contributing on a regular basis to the forums you like best! There are forums just about everything.
There are forum sites for every interest... Get involved with forums, get involved with forums, get involved with forums, GET INVOLVED WITH FORUMS.
In case I haven't made the message clear enough yet. I'm telling you that you should get involved with forums and always have a sig file intact that links back to your stuff. This is a marketing strategy that can bring you a never-ending stream of free traffic and prospects interested in the freee stuff we offer in the Veretekk traffic portals and training on marketing we do in Veretekk.
23. Online Training: Lessons we can learn from a Mule A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies CoachLessons we can learn from a Mule.
Sometimes I see life from a different perspective. We had this incident happen on our farm a few days ago. My husband decided it was time to do some mowing in our pasture where we keep our mules.
Mules are very smart protective animals, even though they were on the other side of the pasture as soon as we started opening the gate they were right there in the way. We decided it was best just to remove them into another pen. As we opened up the gate to the pasture and started to pull the tractor in to mow the pen, my husband discovered he had a flat tire on the tractor. He lost his temper and was ranting and raving about the flat tire. One of the mules (Tale) was watching everything that was happening.
When it was time to take the mules back to the pasture, this time it was Tale's turn to rant and rave. Here is the key he didn't start his rant until my husband who was still boiling about the flat tire entered the holding pen. I was just pulling the halter on the other mule ( Josie) as this happened. Not only was I unable to get the halter on, I had to climb the fence to keep from getting stepped on. As usual I had just flimsy flip flops on.(my mistake) After my husband and Tale went round and round ranting a few minutes, I got brave and jumped back in and haltered Josie and handed her to my husband and took Tales halter out of his hands. Immediately Tale calmed down and let me walk right up and halter him.
After we placed the mules back in the pasture and my husband calmed down he was able to walk right up to Tale put his arm around his neck without any problem. Sometimes I wonder who is training who. The mules have taught us patience no doubt.
We all loose our tempers from time to time. I know it happened to me yesterday when I discovered someone had put an RSS feed with bad html code into Veretekk's mega blog screwing up every ones feed on that site. I was pissed to say the least, many have worked very hard on delivering good clean content and to have one person post and screw everything up is frustrating to say the least. Luckily several other Platinum Control users stayed calm found the problem and got it fixed. Butch Hamilton even did a training recording and posted it on the spot so it wouldn't happen again.
Moral of this article nothing can be accomplished when you are mad and upset, be greatful for the calm cool and collected who step up to the plate to help you out. Yes sometimes it gets others to react and do what it takes to resolve the problem, but quicker you can just get over it and move on the better.
In life there are no mistakes only lessons and they are repeated till they are learned. Lessons make us who we are. On my who is page at www.cindymcasey.com I write about many business lesson's I've learned over the years.
Every year in the customer side of my business we experience the dog days of summer for a few weeks. This summer I'm using these dog days as an opportunity to really focus on our team SEO campaign. A few years ago I buckled down and did an SEO campaign the hard way and it took about 6 to 8 weeks to hit the top of google for my keywords. Since then I have participated on a few team SEO campaigns what a difference that makes, when everybody is working as a team! I don't remember exactly how long it took to get noticed in the Search Engines but it didn't take long.
I have learned when working as a team you must focus on what is best for the team and it's members first. In the Veretekk platinum control panel you have 2 links that can be configured to what ever links you choose. At first glimpse I thought our team site RSS feed should be one link, but decided on my capture page forwarding to a rotator and our team forum instead.
Let me explain...
I know that people buy from people and they don't care how much you know till they know how much you care. Hopefully that makes sense to you. Bottom line to really have success online you need to promote yourself not the products or the company your represent. It's all about you, that's one reason social networking is working so well that many brick and mortar companies are hiring marketing people just to do social marketing for them.
So here's what we are doing on my SEO team, when someone decides to optin from my capture page they are directed to a rotator where each team members site is rotated in. This makes a huge benefit for the SEO team member. The SEO team member can take advantage of the years of experience I have online and the brand/image I've worked diligently on to create. I and the SEO team member will be working with the newest person getting them going. It's a win win situation for everyone. Over time each SEO team member will be taught to create their own brand/image online and branch off with a Veretekk Platinum Control Panel for their team.
This is has been my vision, now it's a plan that's taken action. How about you? Do you have a vision for your business? One great trait of leadership is having a vision. Have you ever heard the saying "You must stand for something or you'll fall for everything". I see this happening lots with online businesses. As a leader, you must first have a strong vision then learn to communicate your vision to the your team.
Here's how you do that...
Learn to paint a picture with words. Speak it. Write it. Draw it. Touch it. Whatever methods you can use to create a picture. Just do it, as they say. "A picture is worth a thousand words."
Ask a few of your team members to tell you in their own words about your vision. How close is it to what you thought they understood? Is your team on the same page as you?
As you work, your vision should be on your mind everyday. You should re-evaluate it occasionally so it stays current with the pulse of the Internet. Remember your team must be just as involved as you are with change. How about you does your team communicate daily and/or have weekly web conferences keeping everyone in the loop? Our team does.
A few weeks ago I shared with you my formula for success. Here it is again: Skills + Strategies + Testing + Fine Tuning Based on Results = Online Success, Now during dog days of summer is the perfect time to expand your skills and create your vision of running your own successful business.
Sometimes I feel so fortunate to have the knowledge to teach and train marketers how to grow a successful online business. Just this morning I was blessed with a couple of testimonials. I think one thing that sets apart my online business is I constantly sit back and ask myself what can I do to help grow your business. Then I ask myself what is best for them. There have been several times when I finish the conversation and wonder by helping what did I gain. I have to admit many times I don't have an answer, but deep inside I know if I can help enough people get what they want somehow it will come back around.
Here is a couple of those greatful testimonies that makes online business training worthwhile.
Thanks to you, it has helped me realize that I need to find out FIRST what people are looking for and then guide them to the tool that speaks their language. Gratefully~ Lisa
Thank you for your concern. Yes, I got my order and I have never found a product like yours anywhere. It cleans my windows without streaking, which no other product that I have tried has done. Even Windex isn't streakless like they claim......I have used this product on everything proving it, and it hasn't failed me. I even cleaned my storm door while the sun was shining on it, and it never looked cleaner. I am very satified with it. Thanks to my daughter, who give me some of hers to try, I am a loyal customer for sure.
Joann Stephens
In fact, it's testimonies like these that make online business so special. You should also
know that most people in this Industry are unattractive. Why? Because they say, "Join me! Join me! Join me!" Just look at all
the magazine ads, the Internet, your email, the postcards in your mailbox. They're all the same. Nothing differentiates them.
Relationships are as close to a 'sure thing' as you'll find. So what I teach is, don't
promote a product or a company. Promote who YOU are.
Our franchise online business system helps you find good prospects, build a relationship, and help them get the training they need to be successful. I hope your starting to see something different here with how we treat people and teach people!
Now the clock is ticking every second you hesitate potential team members are slipping in ahead of you. Today might be the day to check out what all this fuss is about. http://www.afranchiseonline.com
26. Online Training: The Key to making Progress in Business Success Through online training and web conferencing I come across many people that offer great words of wisdom for home businesses. A Dad of a very experienced sky instructor shared this very important fact. He said his son has been teaching young kids how to snow ski in Colorado for the past 7 years.
This young ski instructor told his dad he has discovered why some kids don't make much progress in developing skills while skiing. He said there is one factor above all else that prevents them from developing like the other kids seem to develop.
The kids who don't develop their skills are afraid of falling. Their goal while skiing is, "I don't want to fall." The kids who develop very quickly are the ones who are not afraid of falling. They try the techniques that are being taught, they ski hard and of course fall at times because everything is new. The more they keep working hard at the techniques, the more they fall. The more they fall, the better they become and of course fall less frequent.
That is the formula for online business success too!
The building of a good, strong, profitable, fun online business isn't any different. The people who have a fear of failing because they have never done it before, and do not attempt to do the work, will not make progress in building their business.
The people who forge ahead, fight their way through the learning curve, work hard at leaning the business even though they experience many setbacks, or failures, are the people we will hear about that are growing, enjoying the process of building because they have developed the skills necessary for building an online business.
Everyone has a choice. Fear stops progress, being willing to fail while learning creates skills which of course turns into online business success. It's a choice! Something to think about.
Online training for home business is skill that is developed by working your way through the learning curve. For people who who are looking for a successful business path to follow a franchise online is a good option. First you must have the confidence to stop fear in it's path. Next you should find someone who has been there done that to make your path to online business success shorter. Did you know the average time to go from zero to a millionaire is 23 years. With a mentor, 4 years.
The simple step by step process is at http://afranchiseonline.com. Learn to build with teamwork and synergy, by placing people in a streamline under others. With a franchise online the longer you hesitate others are joining a head of you, so this isn't something you should put off. The clock is ticking...
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies CoachThe Power of Newspaper Ads
Sometimes we get so caught up on online marketing that we overlook one of the oldest most powerful forms of advertising. Good old fashion newspaper classifieds. Wether we want to admit it or not, there will always be a percentage of the population that will still go to the newspaper when looking for something. I still glance at the newspaper just to keep with the pulse of today's offline world. Since the invention of the printing press business owners have been using this method as an effective build businesses.
Newspaper advertising is a very cost effective way to market your business if done correctly. How does it work? Newspaper ads work by getting your message in front of people who are looking, and newspaper ads let you reach more people than you can normally reach by other methods. It also allows you to reach different geographic areas with ease.
What results does this form of advertising produce? Typically 20 to 25 prospects (people requesting more information by filling out my form at barfootboss.biz) for the average daily newspaper per week. Typically 10 to 20 prospects for the average weekly community newspaper. Your numbers may be different depending on what you are promoting.
Ads in the newspaper can be very effective. If placing an ad in the local paper, I recommend the classified section and running it for 3 days only first starting on Sunday or Monday only to see if it generates results. If it doesn't, don't keep running it. I also recommend testing the "business opportunity" section of the paper. Many times this section is a graveyard for advertising, but sometimes it can surprise you and turn out to be a gold mine. You will never know until you test it.
I have also found that weekly community newspapers that are delivered to peoples homes (such as a country newspaper or neighborhood newspaper) tend to produce very good results and sometimes more than daily newspapers. Never run an ad and commit to running it for numerous days on the first run. Any time you run an new ad, always run it one time only and see if it generates any responses. Only after proving itself should you run it more often.
Many newspapers work diligently in keeping any type of "business opportunity" ad out of the employment section. However, there is a simple way in getting your ad placed in the employment section if you run against any obstacles. The key to successful advertising is testing. Try one ad and measure its results. Then modify the ad or use different one to see if it increases results.
I use an online newspaper classified ad service called NationWideClassifieds. I have found they have better prices than if contact I newspapers individually, plus it's easier to keep track of your ads.
If many of my marketing methods seem like a foreign language to you, consider taking your business to the next level with some private coaching. I know when made up my mind that no matter what I was going to build a strong viable business that's what I did. Did you know the average time to go from zero to a millionaire is 23 years. With a mentor it's 4 years.
The clock is ticking,
Cindy Barefoot in the Garden 888-272-6701 www.cindymcasey.com My Life's Purpose is Others' Success
May Good Fortune Be With You. May Your Guiding Light Be Strong.
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
When facing what you feel are huge obstacles it sometimes helps to know what others are facing to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Last night a tornado that stormed through Kansas just missed our farm. Our neighbors weren't so lucky... local shelters have been set up... my sis the nurse is working overtime.. 1 confirmed dead and many homes and businesses are completely gone. Kind of makes you stop and think about what's really important. There is only one thing we know for sure is one day we will die, none of us knows when that will be we just know it will happen.
In life we are always going to have obstacles that we must overcome so we can achive what we truly want. Last night was another one of those obstacles that many neighbors must deal with. It's how we react to obstacles that will either make or break us.
Obstacles are not walls meant to stop you, they are doors that lead to progress.
In my business last week I stretched my brain to the max on html code. Html code has been a huge obstacle for me. This morning my html obstacle seems like a tiny bump in the road. It was my brains creative way of telling me what must be dealt with to achieve my goals.
I'm not going to write a long message to explain what is very clear. Everyone, everywhere, doing everything and anything, faces obstacles. No person is immune from obstacles. Don't think for a minute that the successful people you hear about in all walks of life (including online gurus) haven't had obstacles to overcome.
What's my point? Face your obstacles. Be determined to figure it out. Learn from them. Work hard at it and it will free you to walk through the door to experience the success you desire.
It's simple, but not easy. Obstacles small and large will always be a part of life and those people who accept this, work at overcoming them, and keep a positive outlook on their future will be the people who continually move forward and enjoy building their online success empire.
29. Online Training How NOT to Social Network and more... This morning it came very apparent to me it was time to focus on educating new marketers on social marketing. I've seen several newbie marketers trying to market with out even creating a profile picture. It's really sad to see this happen. These people are following many, have very few followers and many updates. The updates are touting their business not them. Why would someone want to follow when they don't even have a profile picture or blog where people can learn more about what makes them tick.
If you saw yourself in that last paragraph here are a few social marketing tips for you...
1. Get a social networking (myspace, facebook etc..) account. Tell your story of your life and how got into your business. Do not promote your business, but do tell your story. Big difference. After you have set an account up, type in the search bar what ever your target market is. For instance if you target market (keyword) is "pets" and you are searching at "myspace" make sure on the drop down box that you click on "myspace". There are 187,000 results! There is a huge market there.
But this is only the start. Then go to (in myspace it's) "Groups" and in the search box on that page (near the bottom) type in "Pets". 114 groups waiting for you to play with them. Did you know that the "Cats Rock" group has over 50,000 members? And the "Cat Lovers" group has nearly 20,000! This is just in Myspace... there are lots of social networking sites on the Internet. Social marketing is like no cost "Worlds of Fun" playground for Internet marketers!
Now I'm sure some newbie social marketers will tell you "Myspace doesn't work!"...they are right. If you do not know how to add value to any market, your marketing efforts will not work. However, after doing some research and finding the right keyword for your target market I think you will agree this is a great way to market. Now you must learn to market by attracting them. That takes some skill.
2. Open a Youtube Account. Get a $30.00 webcam or a VereConference Room for recording. Make some videos talking about your "keyword". Tell your story about your life and how you got into your business. Do not promote your business tell your story.
3. Spend a few weeks participating in social networking communities.
4. Get a business coach or mentor. Did you know the average time to go from zero to a millionaire is 23 years. With a mentor.... 4 years.
Get a mentor. It pays to have one. I didn't say get a buddy. I said get a mentor who has already done what you are trying to do. Make sure they can give you undivided attention. This will cost you...it will be worth it.
5. Have fun! Live your success right now. If you can see nothing but success...it has no choice but to manifest. This is Universal Law.
30. Web Conference: Veretekk Beta Platimum Control Panel Just in case you missed the Veretekk State of the Week update last night I've recorded the whole session for you. This is one of those don't miss sessions. Mike Darling the master programer showed us a glimpse of the power of our new PCP. (Platimum Control Panel)
If you understand marketing online and SEO at all better put your seat belt on cause this is pretty powerful.
Now if you just listened to this and think this all sounds good, but...
A. you don't have a team of people to use the system with (or not in SEO business)
B. just don't have the funds to get your own PCP system
C. think it sounds great but don't yet understand how it works
WE NEED TO TALK! Call me 888-272-6701
I'm all about helping out the little guy online. If you are comfortable writing content, know your target market then this process will be pretty simple for you.
If you are completely new to online marketing, this process will take a little more time but can still be very effective for you once you learn a few simple skills.
Either way as an advanced trainer in Veretekk and a seasoned online marketer, I do have the ability to make a difference in your ability to successfully market online. Are you going to keep struggling online, buying into every program and ebook out there on online marketing or are you ready for some REAL help?
Lets talk and see what will work best for YOUR business.
In the MLM world it's been a well known fact that many of the old school marketers started purchasing leads after they ran out of friends and family. We in Veretekk know there are much better and less expensive ways to attract people into our business. We have classes about reverse marketing and of course "Veretekk" is the master automated reverse marketing machine.
I'm seeing a new wave on the horizon for the MLM world. The CEO of my primary company has been urging distributors to use social networking as a way to grow business for a few years now. I personally told myself I didn't have time for all that social stuff. I would rather attract people into my business via the search engines, blogging, and networking via reverse marketing techniques we use in Veretekk. Little did I know I've been in social networking group all along it's called VERETEKK!
Veretekk is great place to develop many online skills and learn marketing strategies. Social networking is both a skill and a marketing strategy. Remember the formula I use for online success? Skills + Strategies + Testing + Fine Tuning Based on Results = Online Success
Do me a favor and don't jump into the deep end of "testing" social networking before you learn the proper skills and strategies. Go into online social networking communities like a professional business person you are, not someone who is poking around and testing the waters. I consider our Veretekk network like the safe haven for networking, kind of like the baby pool. You come to training develop relationships and we will guide you in the right direction. (also tell ya NO & STOP if needed)
This week I stretched my brain to the max with html code and setting up a marketing funnel into Veretekk. That code stuff will get me every time. I know as an online business owner I need to understand and keep trying to master it, so I keep doing it.
My question for you... Are you ready to have your brain stretched a little on art of social networking? If so, you need to do what it takes to make to my training room this Tuesday morning. You know that new wave on the horizon I was talking about? I'm going to give you a glimpse of it on Tuesday. Guaranteed to bring out some ah ha moments and stretch some brains.
32. Online Training and Inneractive Web Conferencing News One nice thing about social networkworking is you are in the pulse of the Internet marketers, you know what they are thinking, predicting, and talking to other marketers about. When the death of SEO talk came across on twitter it sure made me stop and take a look. As you probably know I've been marketing full time online for 6 years now. I built a large customer base by making my presence known in the search engines. Anytime I see or hear about something that might change the way I do business I take note and research the validity of it.
Don't get me wrong here, the Internet pulse is changing rapidly towards social networks and many of the things I'm seeing will take people away from the search engines in time making them not as important. BUT I don't see in the horizon moving completely away from SEO as a part bringing people to our businesses.
Facts you should know about marketing trends:
For the longest time many Internet gurus totally made their income from their list. Most of these gurus made fortunes with e-mail marketing only. And even though the spam filters make it harder and harder to deliver good content via e-mail some marketers still earn their living this way. When I started marketing online their was already a trend in place of a few e-mail's not getting delivered, that has gotten worse over the years, BUT e-mail marketing hasn't totally died. Now you just need a bigger list and provide what readers want so they look for your stuff. The days of blasting out your opportunity with out building the relationship are gone. E-mail opt in site
Not long after I started marketing online I started using web conferencing to communicate. I've never been a person who hosts teleconferences. If I host a conference it's in a web conference room. This probably why I saw a good fit when I was asked to become the head trainer and master distributor for VereConference. Even though I've never been much for teleconferencing the mainstream Internet pulse still uses teleconferences. I think we who use web conferencing are ahead of the bell curve on this one and in time the mainstream group will catch on. In the mobile society we live in I personally don't think teleconferencing will ever completely die, because we can hop on a conference from anywhere via cell phone. There is a reason I record my training as mp3 recordings. I know to capture and keep the mobile society I must have training they can access from anywhere. Link to my podcasts.
Now the buzz about death of SEO. The buzz got started from Pat O'Bryan his site is called Portable Empire. He has a Internet TV show at www.portableempire.tv. O'Bryan promotes his stuff through social networking and yes he is in my network on Facebook
and Twitter. In his message about the death of SEO he talks about the growing popularity of Adobe Air, social networks and the future of Internet users using these interfaces instead of going to the SE's to find what they want. Yes I can see this trend happening to, but I don't think mainstream Internet users will adapt to this anytime soon.
Here is my reasoning for my statement.. "SEO marketing will still be an effective way to grow your business." Yes it's important to watch the trends and take advantage of new trends as they come across the horizon. Daily I get calls from customers ordering product that don't even have an e-mail address. They had someone look up on the Internet to find my number to order the product they read about, saw on TV, or have used for up to 52 years. Do you think these people or their circle of friends will be plugging into the new pulse of these Internet tools? (don't think so)
Just as it's important to develop multiple streams of income to grow your business, it's equally important to have multiple marketing strategies. (reach out methods) As a marketing strategies coach I'm tuned into the pulse of the Internet but also know what has worked for years and continues to work for some. Marketing isn't a one size fits all and anyone who tells you to market this product or service it must be done a certain way don't believe them. I'm sure you've heard the buzz words "duplicate" and "delegate" that's all they are... buzz words. YOU must decide what is right for your business.
I don't know if you've had a chance to check out http://www.afranchiseonline.com or not, but this is one way you can get some direction and start earning a living online.
The clock is ticking...
33. VereConference Web Conferencing Basic Features Recording Today I finally decided to do a short recording that could be loaded on to youtube so you can see some basic features of VereConference first hand, before you get your own free room.
I've avoided doing my own training recording because when I talk to a recording I don't like what I hear. I do much better in a live situation training, but those recordings are way too long! So here it is a short 5 minute recording that will show the basic features of VereConference.
34. Online Training: Is Social Networking for you? As a Marketing Strategies Coach I'm always testing different platforms of marketing. I've been hanging out in the social media networks for a some time now. I've come to the conclusion if you understand social networks it can be a powerful marketing strategy. My focus has been on facebook and twitter for the majority of my test, however I do have a presence on several networks also.
Instead of re-inventing the wheel and documenting all of my testing I've been doing, I've decided to link you over to an excellent and very through web strategist. Jeremiah Owyang. He has done many in depth case studies mostly focusing for the corporate environment. His content is excellent. Here is a link to his stuff; http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/
I gained a huge respect for him on his latest post, because he was willing to share on twitter what some might consider his competitors names. Be sure to check out his web strategy vault, it will help you get to the information you are seeking quickly.
By the way, I made contact with Jeremiah through twitter. By far Twitter has been my favorite social networking site, there are many others. Here are the top social network movers and shakers. Think of the Internet as a huge ocean and there are many good places to do business, we don't all need to flock to the same place.
After learning more about social networking and how it works, you should go into it with focus on what you want in return. Who is your target market? Focus on networking with those type of people. Through my testing I've found several marketers who have more than one social network account they do this because they have more than one target market. Social networking isn't a one size fit all deal.
In my primary business I have 2 very different target markets. The 1st one is customers, these are people who just love what we market. The 2nd one is people who want to build a business. I keep the databases separate. I very seldom send the same messages out to both groups. Each of these groups do business with me because I'm giving them what they want or need. In some instances these databases inter-twine but for the most part they are separate.
Do you have 2 or more target markets in your business? You will need to decide which one you want to focus on first. One big mistake many marketers make is trying to focus on too many targets at once. I've seen is happen way too much, they end up not being successful at anything. Yes I truly believe in multiple streams of income but focus on one at a time, once you have one going with success, then start another knowing you will still have to put a little effort to keep the first income stream going.
Cindy McAsey
Marketing Strategies Coach
35. Web Conferencing the way to really learn online Marketing Today I had a business associate call and talk about visiting me while she passes through Kansas next month. As our conversation progressed she asked if I would sit down with her while she is visiting and teach her some online marketing strategies. As a long time trainer of online marketing strategies I've always used web conferencing to train.
I shared with her that even my own sister who lives only 3 miles down the road from me doesn't come to my house to learn online marketing strategies. I really think you should learn in a real working environment. Our working environment is online so this is the logical place to learn online marketing strategies. If you relate this to learning to ride a horse. You can watch all the video's, read books about horse riding but sooner or later you need to get in the saddle and just do it!
Do you have a team that you would like to share your marketing strategies with? Especially online marketing stragegies? What a better place to teach but in the environment where the student will be doing it. The more I use web conferencing the more I realize I would hate to try to do a conference without it.
Yes there are still many people who teach from tele-conferences, but I'm convienced that they just haven't been educated themselves. It's just like doing anything for the first time there is always a fear of the unknown, or I think especially for a trainer they don't want to show they're weak points. Everyone when they first start web conferencing are a little unsure. The more you do it the better you get. Just like riding a horse... if you ride day after day you become pretty good.
Isn't it time to take the plunge and start web conferencing?
Forget about me for a minute. Let's talk about you.
If you could master certain communication skills, what would they be? What would you like to do? How does this sound: Being the person that people love to talk to. Being able to talk to anybody, grab their attention and keep it as long as you want.
In preparation for communicating on the phone people usually spend time perfecting their "scripts" and trying to get other people interested in them. Some people never worry about their script because there's a sure-fire way to create interest. It works almost every time. For example, my introduction varies (I hate "canned" scripts), but it usually goes something like this:
"Hi this is Cindy McAsey, I help people who want to earn a living in their own business like I do. I continully test new marketing strategies and fine tune my training based on results I get" That's it. Then I quickly switch the conversation topic to something that other people are always interested in: Themselves. People would rather talk about what they do than listen to you talk about what you do.
After a brief sentence about yourself (15 seconds or less), shift the topic by asking: "And what do you do?" This gets them talking. Sometimes that is the only question you need to ask. If you happen to find someone that loves what they do you've just created a conversation. But that doesn't happen all the time. So next ask: "How did you get into that?" or, if they obviously don't care for their job ask "What career would you like to move into?" Then shut up, and listen. Really listen. Pay attention to their tone of voice. Wait until they get excited about something. An aspect of their job or business. Their clients. Their coworkers. A success story. Something.
When you find that "something" ask about it. Just say, "Could you tell me more about that?" Congratulations, you've just created an instant conversation and genuine interest. What if they hate their situation? Not a problem. Just say, "I understand. But what do you enjoy?" Be careful, you could have an hour-long conversation on your hands! When you master this type of introduction you'll also need to master the skill of how to get out of a conversation and move on (that's a subject for another message).
This isn't a new concept, Dale Carnegie said in his book How to Win Friends and Influence People that "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." How true.
This isn't rocket science. It might even sound simple. It is, but it isn't. The next time you have a conversation, become aware of how anxious you are to 1. talk about yourself or 2. add your own opinion. To become an effective networker you have to have the mindset "It's all about the other person".
Keep in mind, people won't always call or approach you. If someone doesn't introduce themself to you, introduce yourself to them. To get started, here's a great icebreaker that works: "Hi". After you say hi DO NOT go into your script, skip it until they ask about you. Move right into the two questions we just talked about:
1. "What do you do?" Get the other person talking about himself or herself.
2. "How did you get into that?" Or "What would you like to do?"
Here are a few alternatives (or follow-ups) to question #2: "What is your favorite part of your career?" "Is that a life long career or a stepping stone?" (If it's a stepping stone, ask "a stepping stone to what?") What do you do when you're not working?
Now you know the secret to successful communication: Get the other person to talk about themself right away. More importantly, get them to talk about something they are passionate about. Become interested in what they're saying. If there's a synergy between the two of you, keep in contact with them. Take action to improve your communication skills, by showing up for my training Tuesday. My Veretekk training is exclusive for gold Veretekk members who are serious about building their own online business success.
For people who Struggle with Writing Content for Blogfather News Feed
In the next 2 minutes you are going to learn a skill that will lead to a strategy. Remember last week I showed you the formula I use for online success? Skills + Strategies + Testing + Fine Tuning Based on Results = Online Success
Everyone starts out at a different place when they come online and start marketing. What I'm about to share with you is for the person who is absoultly terrified to put a written word down. I have found this little freee tool online that most internet marketers are going to great lengths to figure out how to best use it. When I first saw it I knew exactly the people it could help. This little tool is called twitter. I feel one huge value it will deliver is for people who are terrified to put a written word online.
In the Veretekk web conference rooms most "veretekkies" don't have a problem chating back and forth in the text chat area. I've noticed some of the same people who are good text chatters telling me in class they terrified of writing content. This is where twitter comes in for those who have a fear of starting to write content. With twitter you can only write 140 charaters and that's it. It's a mini RSS feed and even though I don't see it as a SEO tool, it does get spidered by google.
You be the judge, get a twitter account (twitter.com), then start logging your daily activities. Basically every time you post think of it as a friend asking you what you are doing? All you are doing is answering the question. After you answer this question several times a day over a couple of weeks it will become very routine for you. When you feel comfortable answering this question over and over, start paying attention to logging what you are doing in your business. Remember you only have 140 charaters to work with, soon you will have a hard time compressing your answers in only 140 charaters.
Little by little begin placing your business answers to "what are you doing" in note pad, or what I do is just write in edit plus where you aren't limited to 140 charaters. Keep writing your content in a conversation mode, but instead of just answering the question "what are you doing" start telling stories of what happened today just like you were telling your friend. As you progress with these short stories start placing this content in your blogfather feed.
The way I look at it some content is better than no content at all. In time as you develop a habit of writing about your business you will want to start to think about who you are writing this content for and what keywords they might search on to find your content. There are many Veretekk trainings weekly that talk about choosing your target market and the best keywords to optimize your blogfather news feed for. Remember all the training in the world won't help you if you are unable to act on what you learn.
I assume you are a serious marketer if you are using the Veretekk system. Take advantage of the power of Veretekk and do what it takes to ease your way into writing your own content for your news feed. No one knows your business like you do. Every business needs customers and most businesses will partner with other businesses as a way to expand. Bottom line every business needs people wether they are customers or business partners to survive.
You must understand that people don't join companies. People don't join products. People don't join compensation plans, and they don't join systems either. The KEY is PEOPLE JOIN PEOPLE. This is a relationship business. People will be drawn to you for the positive qualities they believe exist within themselves. In a similar way people will tend to push away from those qualities they fear most in themselves. This is a good thing, wouldn't you rather do business with people whom you have something in common with?
Think of marketing online like being amoung a huge sea of people, when you write your own content you will attract into your business the people who are attracted to you by what you write.
If you have a dream to run your own business and become an online success story like I did making passive income, start plugging into my trainings. My Veretekk training is exclusive for gold Veretekk members who are serious about learning my marketing strategies to build their own business success. If this is you, take inspired action, and show up. Let me show you my event schedule http://www.barefoot-in-the-garden.com
I update this weekly.
You probably already know this, but sometimes it's nice to have a reminder of what you should be doing to get results in your business. Successful Business's have been using freee press since the invention of the printing press. Just yesterday while listening to Joe Vitale's newest online video, (posted on my Barefoot Marketing Strategies Blog) it hit me it's been a few years since I've talked about the power of press releases.
Now, let me ask you a question... Can you honestly say you are using press releases to their fullest potential in your business? I decided it was time to share my top 5 reasons for writing press releases.
1. Organic Traffic
This is probably the most obvious one. If your press release is well optimized, it can be ranked in google on 2 to 3 days in the orangic listings. Generally it shows first day under the Google news and other news feeds.
2. Bloggers & Social Network Audience
Many bloggers suscribe to online press release distribution services like PRWeb. (this is a content writing hint) If your press release interests them, they might blog about it and link to your press release. If you consistantly reach out to this audience, you can get significant links, traffic and sales from this.
3. Traffic from Traditional Media
If your press release interests journalists, they will follow up with you and write a story about your business. This will most certainly lead to a burst of website traffic and sales. Did you know journalists are starting to hang out on social network sites looking for a good story? I noticed this trend in my market research of social networks.
4. Link Building
Be sure to put your important keywords linked to your revelant pages on your website. When the press release is distributed some of these links will be picked up by other news feeds.
5. Reputation Control
If someone has criticized your business, one sure way to get the criticsm off the first page of Google search results is to do mutiple press releases.
Would you like to know how I use little known online marketing secrets to maximize search engine optimization, social networking, RSS feeds, list building and more? The answer is really quite simple. I learned the right skills, developed the right strategies, and tested the strategies over and over until I found what works. Pretty simple formula, isn't it?
Skills + Strategies + Testing + Fine Tuning Based on Results = Online Success
This is precisely what I did and continue to do online that generates income 24 hours a day - 7 days a week. And you can learn to do what I do, in a fraction of time it took me. Not to mention all the time and money I invested to test everything.
That's right...
If you have a dream to run your own business and become an online success story like I did making passive income, start plugging into my trainings. My Veretekk training is exclusive for gold suscribers that are serious about learning my online and offline marketing techniques to build their own business success. If this is you, take inspired action, and show up. Here is a link to my event schedule http://www.barefoot-in-the-garden.com/eventschedule.htm I update this weekly.
Before you just jump into an MLM business you should do your homework and find out exactly how much time, effort, and money it's going to take to earn the income you desire.
Not only is the company you choose very important also the team you join will make or break your business. Does the team your thinking about joining have a simple step by step process that even the newest distributor with NO internet marketing experience follow and have success? Here is what we are using on our team www.afranchiseonline.com
By the way as you can see I didn't set up this website I'm just another smart distributor that understands the power of a simple automated system.
Ok now back to the company...Does the company have a consumable product that people use everyday and needs to re-order? Are their support materials easily accessable to use for marketing purposes. I'm not talking about company flyers guys.. I'm talking about real content that can be used for online marketing purposes.
You know there is lots of support materials for a company when they have to put up a whole web page with links to web sites and expalining who might be interested in this piticular site. Here is the NEW Support Link for our company. This handy support guide website contains both the URL, Site Description, and also explains who should use this site.
It's always a good idea when choosing an MLM business to pick a company that can stand with just the products they promote even if there weren't a business opportunity attached with it. I know distributors in my company that have built huge businesses just selling products NOT recruiting Distributors. To be honest that's where my bread and butter income comes from. It's customers not distributors.
I personally bring in lots of FREE customers, because I'm able to ride the wave of 3rd party validation and 50+ years of content about the product.
Did you happen to see the article I wrote called "I'm mailing Naked" about all the FREEE press our company is getting from 3rd party validators. You might be thinking so why is this important and what does that have to do with mailing naked. I tell it all in this article.
Unfortunatly because of the content in this article I'm not able to post it online but I can give you access to it. If you send a blank email too: barefoot@1-family.com thanks to the power of technology and Veretekk you will get the popular "I'm mailing NAKED" article along with an explaination of why I titled it the way I did.
Just in case you missed it... it's one of thos keeper articles just send a blank email to: barefoot@1-family.com and you will automatically get it. Don't worry you won't be flooded with email just once in a while get really good content on marketing strategies from me!
Let this be a white hat marketing lesson for you today. You know you are on to something big when other reps in your primary company feel they have to dogg the programs you use and decide to pay to have their information show up at the top of google in the sponsored listings.
This goes so against the founder of our company always said, "Don't knock the competition they are just doing the best they can." Long time Shaklee Distributors know this quote and I'm sure feel the same way I do. That's why I'll be taking the high road here and doing the best to teach and train other successful marketers not to fall into this kind of "dirty dogg marketing"
I'm sure the person who paid for this sponsored ad may possibly trick some of the people searching for me to sign up on their site.
I 'm confident that savy business minded people who will be searching for "cindy mcasey" might very well click making this marketer pay, but wouldn't get sucked into signing up under someone who uses such tatics.
A savy business minded person will continue to investigate and if they liked the Streamline Magic Wealth System would rather follow someone who knows how to conquer the competition by using VERETEKK. and getting freee top listings in google rather than paying to be there.
Just so everyone knows.... even if you have a Streamline Wealth System you still have to market the site. Yes I will be placing people under you. Yes the the reach out methods they teach are very effective and simple that any new marketer can learn. That's one reason I choose to use it, because it is very simple for a new marketer to get started and making money quickly.
The new marketers on my team Streamline Wealth Team will be taught advanced marketing strategies and step by step how to use Veretekk. To access and see my event schedule go to: http://events.barefootsuccess.net I update this site weekly.
To set the record straight Veretekk is the most cost and time effective automated marketing system on online. I rest my case. copywrite, signed, sealed and blogged by the one and only... Cindy McAsey - Marketing Strategies Coach
There is some greating marketing content in this video. Many of the marketing strategies I've written articles about before, but thought this content could help you in designing one of those excellent viral videos.
Just a reminder... you need to stay focused on your marketing strategies and not get too many things going at once. If video's are one of your marketing strategies then watch, take notes and learn!
What do guineas, fleas, and ticks have to do with web conference rooms?
When you live on a farm in Kansas sometimes your suroundings come through in the web conferencing recording. You will get the short story in this web conferencing recording.
I decided to save this web conference online training and load the whole file up to my server. Not that it's necessarly the best online training I've done, in fact when I re-listened to the recording I just about didn't post it.
There is time during this training that my guineas start making so much noise that I have to stop the training and close the window! If you don't mind hearing real world day to day things that happen on our farm in Kansas then this is a must listen to training.
Just so you know this recording is un-edited and everyone who was in the class text chats show so it's really pretty much like being live in web conference. In this recording I cover most of the basic features of VereConference how to use the screen casting, basic recording features, locking the room etc.
For the perfectionists watching this recording I realize I didn't have the back drop of my screen casting exactly perfect but decided to post the recording anyway. Most of you who have been to my trainings know I'm really picky about that stuff. Please overlook the imperfections to learn what this amazing web conferencing system can do for your business.
P.S. as I write this our guineas are up letting their presence be known again this morning.
Building Business Relationships 101 by Cindy McAsey Marketing Strategies Coach
One of the biggest issues keeping people from moving forward in their business is not having confidence in themself, stopping them from building new business relationships. I have a section dedicated to marketing mindset on the Barefoot Marketing Strategies Blog located in my Veretekk VereConference Room with tools and strategies to move you past the confidence barrier.
You’ve probably heard it several times the fortune is in the follow up while in many times that is true, but what do you do if you don't have anyone to talk to. Here is a common question new people ask “Where do I find people?" Once your Veretekk System is pumping out leads this isn't a problem, then the question is "What do I say to them?"I could give you all the scripts, autoresponders, and web copy but until you are confident in communicating yourself it will be difficult to build your own business relationships.
Use your appreciation of people to activate a conversation with others.
Here is an example of this: Last week while looking through Facebook groups this message jumps out at me: "WARNING SPAMMERS and ADVERTISERS:" I am deleting your crap and removing you from the group. Post this crap at your own risk as you will discover exactly why they call me 'Toe Cracker! When I saw this I just wanted to give this Toe Cracker person a high five, and proceeded to text him a message starting the conversation.
Toe Cracker replied immediately with a friendly message saying he noticed I was writing web copy and proceeded to tell me about his persuave writing skills workshop. This started a long string of friendly conversations. For the REST of this conversation listen to my FaceBook for Busines Recording in my Veretekk VereConference Room.
I share this with you to point out that people are all over the place and we can have quick conversations with them and learn lots of stuff. Then it a matter of following up. Having people to share our business with should never be an issue. We should not be asking, "Where do I find people?" But rather, "Who do I talk want to talk with next?"
When you use your appreciation of others to activate conversation you will find people with needs all over the place. Then it's just a matter of taking the next step and showing them what you have to solve their problem. Sometimes when people join us in business for what ever reason they just stop and you don't hear from them. That's when you need to treat this business relationship like a game of checkers; you move, I move, you move, I move etc. YOU quit moving.. GAME OVER!
Others are mirrors of your own self-image. You will be drawn to others for the positive qualities you believe exist within you. In a similar way you will tend to hate others who reflect back to you those qualities you fear most in yourself. You already have th answers to life's questions. All you need to do is look, listen within, and trust your intuitive powers.
44. Marketing Strategies: Trade Secrets of Testing and Tracking for Results Cindy McAsey
Marketing Strategies Coach I personally don't think of myself as a big "numbers" person, however the longer I'm online the more I realize testing and tracking is just part of running a successful online business. Tracking where the traffic is coming from on your sites will help you to know what to focus on. That's how I generally know when google has ranked my sites for a certain keyword.
Many times I've thought if I could just see the click throughs of other sites it would sure take my marketing, testing and more importantly results to the next level. Now thanks to YouTube adding some new features we can see other video's Stats! When you view a YouTube video, right underneath is a NEW "Statistics & Info" tab. Before they added these tabs when you loaded a video you could choose wether or not to show these statistics. Now for the time being, all video's by defalt are showing stats.
YouTube's new Stats Tab shows only the top 5 referring sites, but this is extremely VALUABLE information. Now you can look at any of your competitor's videos and see 'where' most of their traffic is coming from. This is a great way to find new business strategies, possible business partners or content publishers in your market that would be ideal to send traffic to YOUR videos. Another nice and very viral feature YouTube just added is a link to add the video to MySpace or Facebook.
If you aren't yet tracking stats on your business I encourage you to start a routine to check stats daily. By doing this in time you will be able to visualize what the next day will look like, what's working what isn't etc. Every traffic portal in Veretekk gives you stats, it's up to you to check em and learn from what they are telling you. If one of your marketing strategies is YouTube GO NOW and do some valuable research into your competitors'videos before they HIDE the referral data.
This morning I thought I would share a short inspirational movie will re-ignite your dreams and help you remember that anything is possible if you want it bad enough.
What is your hidden Secret? Too many people either drift through life accepting mediocrity or go full-steam ahead in the direction of other people’s dreams. They are basically following the majority.
Mark Twain once said, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it is time to pause and reflect”
The life of your dreams awaits you, irrespective of your age, race, religion, creed or color – However, there are a few things you have to do to get from Step 1 to 2 to 3 etc..
One Step at a Time...
Step 1: Stop and take time to reflect what you really want and WHY you want it. Your why has to be really strong, so strong that nothing will get in the way. Your why has to be at 100% don't move on til it is.
Step 2: Start planning. Lay out your plan as if it's just a matter of time before you get your dream.
Step 3: Work like your plan like there is no tomorrow.
Consider a success coach to help you with the process. Most great achivers do.
This morning when I checked my email I had a message from my upline asking me what I thought of this "new site". I get messages like this pretty often and I really like getting stuff like this because it keeps me "in the know", but at the same time it makes me realize what happens to many new distributors who are always looking for the next best deal too!
This site isn't anything out of the ordinary for online marketers. They utilize tools from a web conference room to record a presentation, they have a link to the company's powerpoint presentation etc. Personally I've seen better sites, but I'm sure the person marketing the website will do well because they have one of the top leaders and trainers in the company endorsing it. The title of his email to her was... A Excellent Business Building Tool.
As a marketing strategies coach here was my response to her question "what do you think?"
Subject: Re: what do you think?
Good Morning Brenda,
The site you have from Shaklee Canada is 10 times better!
I personally have the skills, tools and can teach how to build a site like this, but I'm not in the website building & selling business. I'm in the marketing "my brand" business, and use my knowledge to train, recruit, and market.
Again, this is another example of someone building a business marketing to other Shaklee people.. not that there is anything wrong with that. I would personally recommend the Shaklee Canada site for people who didn't want to learn how to build their own site and brand online. I associate with the "Shaklee" name when I can, because Shaklee has done a wonderful job of getting their "image" to the media.
Bottom line people buy from people... all the fancy pants tools in the world won't build your business for you (they may help) but it all falls back on you, your customers and the team members you recruit in the end. I have found either people come into this business already with the skills OR they need to develop the skills to succeed.
I would stick with what you already have and focus more on bringing people in than finding the next best greatest tool.
Cindy
So there you have it... sometimes you have to put the blinders on and focus on your end result not on the how's.
Some might consider this option as going out on a limb here... but I've seen relationships grow and flourish using online web conferencing. With the advancement of all the online tools we have availble today there is no reason someone couldn't go on a virtual date using interactive web conferencing.
In the Web conferenceing system you can text chat, talk, show pictures even watch a movie together. For those considering virutal dating here is some free broadband internet TV channels you can choose to watch via your interactive web conference room.
Best 16 free online TV channels for watching, real free BROADBAND TV CHANNELS:
http://www.veoh.com/ - downloadable client, allows saving video and allows watching online
http://www.channelhaven.com/ - All Indian +250 Channels here and this is news and other local indian entertainment channels like Sony TV, ZeeTV and much much more..
There you have it.. I can see cable companies an being a thing of the past. Virtual dating could be the "first date" before actually meeting in person kind of like a saftey net. I've personally seen relationships grow and flourish via web conferencing. We can call this virtual romance!
Think about it... if you are looking for a awesome communication tool and the extra saftey net, maybe it's time to take advantage of interactive web conferencing. Life is an adventure for sure...
The first thing I read when I opened up my browser this morning was about gas prices. I swear the news thrives on doom and gloom.... The online training topic of the day.. How do you look at the bulk of your day? Is it "oh I have to go to work today" or is it "I can't wait to get started and see what new adventures are a head of me today."
What if the word "work" was changed to "dance-with-life,"?
Instead of it being viewed as an alternative to fishing or a way of "paying your dues," it was seen as a chance to meet a parade of new friends, discover your own untested potentials and unpolished gifts, and open avenues for abundance to come pouring into your life?
Yea, and I bet lottery sales would plummet
I tend to look at life as a journey, an adventure and most certainly internet marketing as a big adventure where else could you sit in the middle of Kansas on a farm and have such great adventures? All the best marketing strategies in the world won't help you if you aren't thankful for being able to dance with life the way we do online.
We constantly get bombarded with business opportunities online. I personally have stuck with the same primary business product and opportunity since before I jumped into the online adventure that some miserable sole's call "work"...
One of my latest adventures has been expanding into video and what ride it has been. Here is one of my first debut videos giving you a short 3 minute overview of my primary business opportunity.
The online training moral of the story...What is your latest adventure? Do you view it as work... as in oh I have to get up and go to work today? Or is it like an adventure for you too?
Major Contest ANNOUNCEMENT! Could you use $10,000 or more?
It's BONUS TIME! Let the contest begin! You could earn up to or more than $10,000 by April 01!
Veretekk Economic Stimulus plan campaign
For the month of March we want to share the profits with one of you. What the heck does that mean? Read on, I think you will see a great contest in the making.
We want to grow Veretekk and we want you to help. So we have bench-marked the number of Gold subscribers as of March 01, 2008. All increases above that benchmark will represent a serious reward for the winner. So how do you win and what do you win. Well keep reading and I will explain.
The winner will be the Gold subscriber (NOTE: You must be a Gold subscriber to earn this bonus) that signs up the most numbers of Restored and new Gold Veretekk subscribers in your front line. Incase of a tie the rewards will be shared equally.
So to summarize it: The Gold member that has the most upgraded Gold accounts in the month of March wins.
The reward will be $20 times the total increase of Gold accounts over the benchmark. Let me illustrate it below. Lets say the benchmark is 1000 Gold subscribers as of March 01, 2008. If the number increases by:
100 you will receive $2000
200 you will receive $4000
500 you will receive $10,000
1000 you will receive $20,000
2000 you will receive $40,000
5000 you will receive $100,000 and a serious tax bill. (LOL)
Most likely the increase will be around 500 - 1000, so you can project a bonus somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. A nice bonus indeed!
Incase of a tie, the bonus will be equally shared. The money will be directly wired to your bank account April 01 after we announce the winner(s).
I personally know some of you have huge front lines of Silvers. Better get busy. We have over 50,000 subscribers. Even a modest amount of conversions in your front line could make you the winner. Set your sites high and call those Silvers.
And this is not an April fools prank. It is our way of saying thanks for three successful years as Veretekk celebrates another birthday on April 01.
The Bully Pulpit update The fix is in
We have identified the Bully Pulpit slowness/failure issue and Mike is currently building the solution. It is a legacy issue. Because we started building Veretekk 12 years ago sometimes you just don't see the bottlenecks until you are in one. Such is the case with the way we built the Bully Pulpit leads database. As it is right now the entire email_capture is in one leads table database. What this means is for each account it has to search a database that is literally exploding with millions of leads and that makes those of you with 100s of thousands of leads have loading issues.
Have no fear, Mike is here. As Mike rebuilds the database system so each Veretekk subscribers have their own leads table, it will load likity split when he is done! This will take a few weeks or so and during the process you may see certain leads disappear from your Bully Pulpit. Please note this will only be a temporary thing as the database ports over to the new system. Have faith, Mike knows what he is doing.
And we should all be thankful that Mike is one cool and very smart dude!
Thanks Mike.
Thomas Prendergast CEO Inetekk.com, Inc.
The dreaded Monkey Trap! Are you a victim?
Many of you have heard me talk about the Monkey Trap. It is a great analogy of the human condition. I had read somewhere sometime ago in National Geographic how they caught Spider Monkeys in the Jungles of South America.
Trappers exploit the greedy nature of the monkey. They hollow out a gourd and make two holes in it. One of the holes is attached to a rope and tied to a tree. The other hole is just big enough for the monkey's hand to squeeze into it. Then they put the monkeys' favorite food in the gourd and leave many of these "Monkey Traps", scattered below the monkey's favorite trees.
When the trappers come back later all the traps have Monkeys stuck to them with their hands firmly clinched inside the gourds refusing to let go even when impending doom approaches.
Oh and how much we humans behave so like these monkeys in our affairs. This applies to you. It may be spiritual, financial or physical in your regards but we all have our hands stuck one way or another.
Perhaps you refuse to let go from an unfortunate episode in your life where you made a mistake but refuse to forgive yourself. This is why you fail to set your sites too high because deep down you know you will fail. You know this because you refuse to let it go. You refuse to forgive yourself and pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move forward.
Maybe your greed refuses to let your good sense make the right business decision, so you keep at it hoping your good sense is wrong, like the marketer in a binary opportunity watching that one leg grow and grow while you fail to build that tiny leg, but keep paying astronomical monthly fees so your potential volume in that power leg won't flush.
It could be that your lack of faith blinds you to God's promise as new doors of opportunity open before you. But your fear prevents you from taking action. You are too easily convinced that taking risk exposes you to yet another failure so you never just close your eyes, let go, and jump with all your heart into anything.
I know this because I have been a victim of this trap many times in my life. Like my bad marriage, I kept with it because after all I gave my word, but really, I was petrified of having to go through a divorce, so for years I was miserable and accepted my misery instead of walking through the fear. Eventually the marriage failed anyway and I went through a terrifying divorce. But when I look back at it now, it was the best thing for me and I am better off today because of it. I lacked faith.
Having faith has always been my battle. Time and time again, God has come through when I put my fear aside and instead rely on my faith in God. Many of you who know me, will find this hard to believe but I do struggle with my faith. It is our human condition and we all struggle with this. But I have learned to face the fear and rely totally on prayer.
Today we hear of so much bad news about the economy. Oh my, the fear starts digging in. But like Franklin Roosevelt said when we faced the beginnings of WW2, that the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. In reality, we have so much opportunity ahead of us on the Internet. In my opinion, the economy is getting better for those of us on the Internet, not worse. And this fear driven media will only drive our online businesses to greater success. Experts all agree that the next 10 years will eclipse the past 30 years in Network marketing growth. I totally agree. It is like the perfect storm all coming together!
So I say to you, turn off the TV and build your future. Have faith and take hold of your life. Pray as if your life depends on it (it does) and take positive action everyday and when you see fire in your path, look up, have faith, and keep on walking, because after all, you will find your life is really all about your attitude. Let the monkey traps go, clean out your closets, and build for a new future. Set your goals to lofty places.
I have an interesting anecdote regarding setting lofty goals. You see back during my divorce my son lived with me and my daughter lived with her mother. When my daughter started 7th grade her mom told her, don't worry honey just get Cs and you will be OK. Well a year later she was failing miserably in school. The following year she lived with me and I helped her set her sites and commit to getting As instead. Guess what, she got an A a few Bs and a C. Today both my children have lofty goals in their lives and they live full lives. Will they achieve those goals, I don't know, probably. But their pursuit for their lofty goals has turned them into solid people. Their priorities are set well. They will succeed well in life.
So I say to you, set lofty goals, and take action to achieve them and never let your dreams go. And remember, to have a forgiving spirit. Success is the process, not the goal. Failures are the milestones marking your path to success when you refuse to quit. May you be richly blessed in all that you pursue!
See you this Sunday!
Thomas Prendergast CEO Inetekk.com, Inc.
Lorne Timchuck Column Tips on helping you with your Gold Veretekk™ system
Lorne Timchuk here with some tips on helping you with your gold system and your online marketing endeavors.
I have been using the system for coming on three years now and I really can't imagine anyone doing online marketing and not being part of it to further their business.
I had the pleasure of building one organization with a digital product utilizing the tools of the system that was in excess of 1000 members in a matter of a few months.
I am currently building my second business with this marketing system with a traditional product line that is literally exploding as we speak.
The training that I do is to help you set up your marketing system so that you can function like an office staff of 50 employees with just the click of a few buttons.
Now don't get me wrong and think that is all there is to it as that is not the case ..... there are hours of training to take in and what better way than in a live environment where you actually can ask questions and get them answered !!
I do training every week and the topics will vary each week as there are many areas to the system that are extremely benefical to your success with this marketing system.
Some of the areas covered are Veremail, Market Center, Sequential Mailers, Bully Pulpit, what a treat to explain this with our new feature screen casting in the conference rooms, and of course the ever so important calls to our Premium Leads.
Keep an eye on the calendar for upcoming trainings.
Lorne Timchuck
Lorne Timchuck is a well known Veretrainer and can be found training in the Veretraining Calendar.
Paul Stanton Column Host of the Home Business Radio Internet Talk Show
OK... You've decided to start a home business or perhaps add an additional stream of income to the portfolio of businesses you currently work from home. The most common mistake that many people make is choosing the wrong company to promote.
Let's face it... The last thing you need is to have put your heart and soul into building a massive downline with a network marketing company, for several months or years, only to have the company go belly-up... Out of business!
Here is the criteria I apply when choosing a network marketing company to promote:
They MUST have a good reputation and also a good (long) track-record, preferably several years.
They MUST have products or services that have true value... Something that people would buy anyway (including yourself) even if there were no pay-plan and the product cannot be overpriced just to have a pay-plan... Something that cannot be purchased elsewhere for less money.
They MUST also have a good pay-plan that is fair, makes sense, and does not have an income-cap.
And finally, they MUST pay on time.
If you will apply the above criteria when evaluating a home business opportunity, network marketing or otherwise, and stay away from the "hurry up pre-launch" deals, you will have a much better chance of success.
(Editors note: Sounds like Paul is talking about Veretekk! )
Paul Stanton
Paul Stanton is a well known Veretrainer and can be found training in the Veretraining Calendar.
Cindy McAsey Column Good Times or Depression?
Those of us in our own business good times are ahead, if you are working one of those JOB's and not striving for entrepreneurship brace yourself. This morning I get this article from Al Hergerman, I would venture to say Al has been in the MLM industry longer than anyone else in the US.(45 years) His message was so powerful I wanted to share.
Let the Good Times Roll
In today's issue of the Wall Street Journal, the headlines stated, "Sales sink, prices fall for housing!" In the story that followed, analysts forecast the slump to continue for months.
Carol and I just returned from our daily luncheon date. During our outing, we filled our Mercedes car with gas and for the first time that I can remember, we paid over $70.00 for 19 gallons of gas! When we returned to our condo here at Coronado Shores, our January bonus check was in our mailbox. It was the largest check we have received in the last four years.
We had 50 sales leaders with personal group volume in excess of 10,000 PV. Four were in excess of 20,000 PV and one with over 35,000 PV! 10,000 PV = $40,800 a year at 34%. Add in a 10% to 25% price differential and we are talking about $52,800.00 to $70,800.00 annual income from a personal group only. This does not include additional First, Second, Third and Fourth level Leadership bonuses. Considering that the median household income in the U.S. is slightly over $40,000.00 a year, we have a great money making opportunity to offer.
Now, getting back to the article, "LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL", please do not misunderstand what I am about to say. Nobody wants our country and its citizens to have difficult financial times!!! But, by all indicators, our country and many of its citizens are experiencing difficult times. Many people are losing their jobs, gasoline and other prices are rising. We are all aware of the troubled housing market. What I am saying is our industry is not affected as much as most industries are.
My first sales manager, Ken Casper, once told me, "If you really want good times in the direct sales business, you want the biggest depression this country has ever seen to occur tomorrow." Now remember, we don't want tough times for anybody! But, if they are occurring and we are not creating them, let's take advantage of this growth opportunity that our industry has to offer and go out and help as many people as we can.
Another sales manager that I had when I was selling vacuum cleaners, told the story of when he was the manager of the Duluth, Minnesota, branch in the depression years of the 1930's. Branch managers in the vacuum cleaner business like all MLM sales leaders and sales leaders to be, are constantly looking for sales people. He would run advertisements in the "help wanted" section of the Duluth newspaper. He was so overwhelmed with the responses that he would rent out the grand ballroom of the Hotel Duluth. There he would give mass presentations to recruit new sales people to sell his vacuum cleaners door to door on a straight commission basis. He would recruit dozens of people this way.
I have always found in our business, over these last 45 years, that when times were good and everybody had jobs and plenty of overtime pay, etc., etc., most people were not interested in the extra income our company had to offer. But, when their circumstances changed, their attitudes changed regarding the our opportunity. That's what I mean when I say, "LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL."
I would like to close this newsletter by commenting on this year's presidential election. Over the past 45 years, we have had presidents of our country that I have had a great amount of respect for. We have also had presidents that I have had absolutely no respect for. However, none of them made any difference in my making money or building a sales organization or just selling our products. I am sure the same thing will occur regarding this year's election. Don't worry, just keep throwing mud against the wall and perfecting your "30 minute pitch."
Next month we will give you our ideas on a record keeping system that really works. (We were supposed to share this system with you this month until we paid $70.00 for a tank of gas.) Sincerely Yours, Al
Cindy McAsey Marketing Strategies Coach
Cindy McAsey is a well known Veretrainer and can be found training in the Veretraining Calendar.
The Flood Of Testimonials Continues... Real People With Real Results!You guys rock my boat!
I must tell you I have just joined and am learning the system you have dynamite here this will definitely be my main line!
I love your business and the way you have done the tapes it is fantastic thank you so much when I have gone through the modules then i will do live training
Diana Harvey
Yep I have and still am blown away... this program is fantastic!!!
Michael Christian
My name is Corie Wallace, I've been a successful professional Sales and Marketing associate in the wholesale and retail sector for over 20 years. I was introduced to Internet Marketing less than a year ago and recommended to join veretekk as a silver to learn how to expand into the Internet Sales arena.
I attended numerous classes by John Vrouletis on link popularity and Butch Hamilton the master of SEO among just a few. They were instrumental in teaching me how to achieve top google ranking. I turned gold just prior to 2008, fully armed with the tools and knowledge that only veretekk could provide.
Today, I reached page 1 position 1 out of 33,700,00 pages on a very competitve google search term.
Thanks to veretekk I am, number 1.
My most grateful thanks to Tom and Mike,
Corie Wallace Marketing Stragety Specialist
Hello every-one, My name is Michael Christian, I went Gold three months ago; I am still an infant with this program, and I have to say, I am on it now more than ever, and can't stay away from it! It's dynamite! It has so much to learn, that the more I learn the more I AM blown Away, it is totally Incredable!!
Thank you to the Founders, and all in there time they have spent, in giving something that is Really a whole lot Worthwhile! God bless you all!
Regards Michael Christian.
Veretekk appeared in my life just as confusion was dominating all efforts in marketing. Attempts to find someone to lead me through the maze had failed (dollars not well spent). Then Veretekk happened!
Veretekk makes sense. The leaders are practical, down to earth, plain spoken people who believe in effort -- not magic. They present a system to use and tools to use and instructions to follow and people to answer questions. Regardless of your particular business, there is no need to look further than Veretekk Marketing and Lead Generation System.
Just a little investigation will show that Veretekk is the most technologically advanced Marketing and Lead Generation System on the Internet today. One of the most amazing things about this company is that they are 'available' to anyone who desires their services -- from beginner to expert. The services and tools are appropriate for any business in need of exposure.
Thank you, Veretekk, for being there.
Dorothy Allen
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! LETS PACK THE HOUSE!
To join the conference, just login to your Veretekk™ system and go to Veretraining, then just click on the Conference room link. The web conference begins at 6pm PST on Sunday.
Veretekk™ State of the System Address Sunday, March 02, 2008 6pm PST
Sincerely,
Mike Darling, President Thomas Prendergast, CEO Inetekk.com, Inc. (Veretekk™)
50. Online Training Inspirational Lesson of the Square Watermelon Lessons of the Square Watermelon
This is a great online training lesson about problem solving. If you take this lesson and apply it to your business you might be suprised at the solutions you can find.
Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than their US counterparts and therefore don’t have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it. That is how I would assume the vast majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, “How can we provide one?” It wasn’t long before they invented the square watermelon.
The solution to the problem of round watermelons wasn’t nearly as difficult to solve for those who didn’t assume the problem was impossible to begin with and simply asked how it could be done. It turns out that all you need to do is place them into a square box when they are growing and the watermelon will take on the shape of the box.
This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them. What does this have do with anything besides square watermelons? There are a few lessons that can you can take away from this story which help you in all parts of your life. Here are a few of them:
Don’t Assume: The major problem was that most people had always seen round watermelons so they automatically assumed that square watermelons were impossible before even thinking about the question. Things that you have been doing a certain way your entire life have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and you likely don’t even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it. Breaking yourself from assuming this way can greatly improve your overall life as you are constantly looking for new and better ways to do things. This was one of the most difficult things for me to do because most of the assumptions I make, I don’t even realize that I’m making them. They seem perfectly logical on the surface, so I have to constantly make an effort to question them.
Question habits: The best way to tackle these assumptions is to question your habits. If you can make an effort to question the way you do things on a consistent basis, you will find that you can continually improve the way that you live your life. Forming habits when they have been well thought out is usually a positive thing, but most of us have adopted our habits from various people and places without even thinking about them. I have changed a large number of habits that I have had after taking the time to question them and continue to do so. Some of them I have know idea where they came from while others I can trace to certain people or instances in my life. It’s a never ending process, but by doing this, you can consistently strive toward making all aspects of your life more enjoyable instead of defaulting to what you have now.
Be creative: When faced with a problem, be creative in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most people who viewed this question likely thought they were being asked how they could genetically alter water melons to grow square which would be a much more difficult process to accomplish. By looking at the question from an alternative perspective, however, the solution was quite simple. Being creative and looking at things in different ways in all portions of your live will help you find solutions to many problems where others can’t see them. I am not a creative person, but I’ve found that the more that you look at things from different perspectives, the more creative I have become. It’s a learned art and builds upon itself.
Look for a better way: The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. It’s impossible to find a better way if you are never asking the question in the first place. I try to ask if there is a better way of doing the things that I do and I constantly write down the things I wish I could do (but currently can’t) since these are usually hints about steps I need to change. Get into the habit of asking yourself, “Is there a better way I could be doing this”? and you will find there often is.
Impossibilities often aren’t: If you begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you decide to see if something is possible or not, you will find out through trial and error. Many of the lessons above are what I used to create my online income. As I’ve said many times, it’s not easy, but it’s certainly not impossible. Even for those of us that are not A-List Bloggers, creating a full time online income is quite possible as I have shown.
Take away the lessons from the square watermelons and apply them to all areas in your life (work, finances, relationships, etc) and you will find that by consistently applying them, you will constantly be improving all aspects of your life.
Barefoot Secrets Learned from the Masters in the MLM Industry
Over the past week I've had many eye opening insights come to me from top leadsrs in the MLM industry. It's almost like a missing piece of the puzzle has been solved. Now these aren't people who just say they are the grurus in the industry these are people that have been in the business a long time and with the same company a long long time.
The first person I'm going to talk about is our neighbor Vince Berland. Mr. Berland has been in Amway for about 30 years... (so the neighbors say) Where I live in KS is very rural and everybody knows what everyone else does. All I have to do is ask questions when the local neighbor comes to visit. Mr. Berland calls his Amway group "Flying Eagles" and came to Abilene when he decided to invest in the Greyhound industry. According to our neighbor who has coffee with him on a regular basis he pulls in about $30,000 a month from his Amway Business.
Mr. Berland is like most business people he doesn't have all of his income coming from one source. He also doesn't do all of this on his own. He delegates out to the experts. Most people when first getting started in MLM try to do all the work themselves and end up burining out. I'm so thankful for the internet and technology we have today, because I know it doesn't have to be that way. Our Barefoot Marketing System teaches delegation and gives the cash flow to enable the beginner in MLM start out delegating and not do all the work themselves.
Now Mr. Berland has decided to sell his mansion on the hill and build a normal size house down the road. Both of these houses are just a little over a mile away from us. The new place is going to have excotic horses. (according to the neighbor) The reason I mention this is.. Berland's have a couple of large greyhound farms already in the area. That plate is up and spinning, he has grown a very large Amway MLM organization that plate is spinning, and now he is starting the excotic horse business (another plate). Doesn't in make sense to learn from this?
The next person I want to mention is Al Hegerman. He has been a Shaklee Distributor for 40+ years. He started his business with an investment of a $2.00 bottle of all purpose H cleaner. Yesterday I received his newsletter, he made some very good points that really stuck. Mr. Hegerman's income according to our company presentations is over $3000 per day. Yes you saw that right... His monthly checks are over $100,000 per month.
Mr. Hegerman talks about a cruise he took recently. He said the all of the people with the exception of him were highly educated people doctors and lawyers etc. Mr. Hergerman has a high school education and before joining as a Shaklee distributor was a police officer. Think about it... Mr. Hegerman got his education from the school of hard knocks. He was educated very well but just in a different way. When Mr. Hegerman was asked recently how he did it. This is what he said, "All anyone has to do to achieve success in Shakle* is learn a 30 minute pitch and keep throwing mud against the wall."
The last person I want to mention is Jim Burke. If you haven't heard any of Mr. Burke's presentations this explaination might be a little hard to grasp. What Mr. Burke did is become a leader to his own organization quick. I've been in Shakle* over 11 years and didn't know who sponsored Jim Burke into the company till yesterday. Guess who it is... Al Hegerman. Yes we knew we were part of Jim Burke's organization but I didn't know Al Hegerman sponsored him. Mr. Burke has mastered very well what Mr. Hegerman taught him and is still doing it today. In fact last year Mr. Burke had the fastest growing organization in the whole company. Our group is part of the reason for his success.
Now think about this... Mr. Burke didn't go to Mr. Hegerman everytime he talked to someone about Shaklee and said you need to talk to Mr. Hegerman or listen to the call from Mr. Hegerman. Jim Burke learned real quick you must become a leader yourself for others to follow. Fact is people buy from people and they will drawn to you for the positive qualities they believe exsist within themselves. Mr. Burke learned his OWN 30 minute pitch and kept throwing mud against the wall.
There are no mistakes in life only lesson's. Do you feel you have had your share of lessons in life? Are you ready to step up to the plate and move your business forward with the correct path to follow? Learn more about me and why I do what I do visit: http://www.whoiscindymcasey.blogspot.com (private coaching available on a limited basis)
Do you see yourself as being more like Donald Trump, Warren Buffet or our neighbor Vince Berland? Check out the training over at www.barefootmarketingsystem.com that teaches delegation not duplication and gives the cash flow to make it possible for any start up business to work like a Fortune 500 company.
I just have to ask this... Have you found Veretekk yet? If you haven't you are in for a real treat. It's amazing to me when I see people who think they can come online and have instant success without rolling up their sleeves and doing the work required to success. There is so much garbage out there that will sell you on instant success and don't deliver on the promise's.
#1 Veretekk doesn't charge you one red cent to take a look and see if their marketing system tools are for you.
#2 Veretekk has many live online trainings that teach you many different ways to market online. It's up to you to choose which way or who you want to follow and learn from.
#3 Every week the Veretekk CEO gives you live updates on what is happening in the system, what's to come, and what is changing. As a gold member in Veretekk they just keep adding more and more value.
I don't know about you... but if I had a choice between some ebook or collection of CD's teaching internet marketing vs live tools that actually work and do what their suppose to do I know what I would choose.
When I look back over the years since I was first introduced to Veretekk and what I've learned from the live online trainings. I wouldn't be anywhere close to the marketer I am today without Veretekk. I've lost count how may site's I've driven to the top of the search engines using the Veretekk tools.
I've learned how to understand html code.... not and easy feat for me . Yes I could have paid someone $30 bucks a month to put audio on my site, but in Veretekk you are shown how to do it for free. The same with video.. there are companies that charge you a monthly fee to send out video emails. With the knowledge I have learned in Veretekk I don't need tools like this, because I can do it myself.
If you are serious about your business and plan to be around for the long haul Veretekk is where you should be. All I can say is get plugged into this system and stick with it and you will succeed.
Isn't it time you did youself a favor and really decided how serious you are about marketing online? Many people say they want to build a business online, but very few are really serious about doing it. So how can I tell if you are serious? By you actions. If you say you want it but you aren't doing the actions to succeed then it's not going to happen. Take the time and check out this Veretekk stuff!
Here's an exercise for you; imagine that it's possible for you to earn 10 times your current annual wage. If you're earning $25,000, imagine for a moment that it's possible for you to earn $250,000, a 1,000 percent increase.
Believe in Yourself The first reaction of most people to that exercise is to smile briefly and then to begin thinking about why it isn't possible. One man said to me, "If you knew how many years it's taken for me to get to what I'm earning today you wouldn't be suggesting that I could earn 10 times as much."
There Are No Excuses Mark Twain once wrote that there are a thousand excuses for every failure but never a good reason. The tragedy of the average American is that whereas his or her main preoccupation seems to be money, or the lack thereof, the average person has the inherent potential to earn far more than he or she is earning currently.
Can Someone Be 10x Better? Is the manager earning $250,000 per year ten times as smart as the manager earning $25,000? Ten times as experienced? Does he or she work 10 times harder? Of course not. None of these are physically or mentally possible, but there are people in every business earning many times more than others with the same average age, experience and intelligence.
I.Q. Doesn't Really Matter In fact, a few years ago in New York, a thousand men and women were selected at random and tested for I.Q. Between the one having the highest I.Q. in this sample and the one with the lowest, there was a difference of only two and a half times. But between the person earning the most, who by the way, was not the one with the highest I.Q. and the one earning the least, who was not the one with the lowest I.Q., there was a difference of 100 times in income.
Action Exercises Here are two things you can do to start increasing your income.
First, identify the highest earning, most successful people in your field and find out what it is that they are doing differently from others who aren't doing as well. Copy them every day.
Second, set a goal to double your income over the next two or three years and then figure out what you'll have to do to achieve it. Get started!
Ok this is Cindy talking here... Really think about that first action excercise. Do you have a mentor that you can follow in their footsteps. If you don't you should! I know I do and I've learned so much from my mentors. One of my mentor's is Tom Prendergast, the CEO of Veretekk. Now Tom might not be the highest earning mentor that I have, but I can honestly say that I've learned the most from him. His outlook on life and knowledge on the internet is the best.
When you are searching for a mentor you can learn from look for one that you can relate with and has a way of explaination that you understand. I truly believe that person will be different for everyone. I've taken many of the skills I've learned from Tom Prendergast and use that knowledge to teach others. I have a limited number of people that I coach and mentor on a one on one basis. Recently I've been doing some group coaching too. Since my time is limited I don't promote this online. You would need to contact me indivdually to have access to my rates.
Below is a typical message we get daily in our email inbox. I can't express enough how important it is to follow up in a timley manner with this type of prospect. You never know who or where your next business builder or customer will come from. I generally spend 1 to 2 hours in the early morning following up with these kinds of requests and I never felt it was waisting my time. In fact more times than not the person I'm responding to will become connected in my business somehow. As I was responding to this message I thought this is the perfect lesson to post online today. Here is the message with my answer.
Message: Hi my name is Erin Larson and I am in the culinary program at MATC and I am doing project in my Food purchasing Analysis class and I was wondering if you could be so kind to answer a few questions that I have. First, contact information. Secondly, the products that you sell, and lastly, forces that affect your business such as economic, political, ethical, legal and technological. If you could please email me back it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Erin Larson
My Reply: Hi Erin, I will try to answer your questions here and good luck with your school project.
1. My Contact Information Cindy McAsey 1845 Flag RD Abilene, KS 67410 888-272-6701 www.cindymcasey.com
3. Forces that effect my businessDownside Terriosts that put viruses and worms on the internet Scamers that sell something for nothing and rip people off Political- try to regulate email making the situation worse for honest marketers better for the spamers. Spamers will always find a way around the rules and squirm their way out of being caught, it would have been better if the rules and regulators would have just stayed out of it. Upside Advances in Technology- I could write pages and pages here, I feel so blessed to live in the age of the internet. More of the General population coming online No descrimation online. People from all walks of life can succeed online. It makes no difference their race, disability, age or where they live. If they have the right mindset and IQ high enough they can succeed. Legal issues help me most of the time. For some though who have been scamed into bad programs it hurts when they get shut down and loose their income stream. For me this is a good thing though, because then they are ready to be open to an honest opportunity or employment online.
Hopefully that answers most of your questions, let me know if you need help clarifying one of my answers. To learn more about me and why I do what I do visit: www.cindymcasey.com
Web Conferencing News and Online Training Schedule
Web Conferencing is catching one much like the waves of a tropical storm turning into a hurricane.
I decided to back down so to speak my online trainings for a few weeks so new people can grasp what I'm teaching. In my web conferencing room (http://www.barefoot-in-the-garden.com) I have over 50 recorded trainings that will give online marketers many aspects and ideas about marketing online. It has come to my attention that many of these recorded online trainings are too advanced for the beginner.
This Tuesday morning Sept. 11 in my Veretekk Web Conferencing room I will be covering the basic aspects of blogging using blogfather from the back office of the Veretekk Gold System. I have found this the simplest way to start creating a name online. I
In the Veretekk Gold System Blogger many steps to creating and making your blog seen online are automatically done for you. Yes you can use one of the free blogging services, but there is a learning curve to getting them set up and seen online. I think back to when I first came online if I would have known about web conferencing and Veretekk/VereConference it would have saved me thousands of dollars. To this day I'm still thankful I found web conferencing when I did.
The power of Veretekk and VereConferencing just strenghten my ability to teach others online marketing. If people are serious about being successful they should be using web conferencing as a tool to network, build relationships, and teach new business associates. Web Conferencing is truly the wave of the future.
Oh I almost forgot I will be in the VereConference Web Conferencing Room training on Monday evening (Sept 10) to walk you through how to use a web conferencing system and answer any questions you may have. Check out the VereConference Calendar out on the home page at www.bestconference.net
to obtain access to this live online training.
Wether you are just getting started on the internet or been around awhile. If you haven't started web conferencing as a way to teach training and bring in new prospects it's time to start. If you need some one to ride this web conferencing wave with. I invite you to learn more about me and why I do what I do. www.cindymcasey.com
The Power of Goals and Establishing an Action Plan
I would highly recommend everyone interested in building a business listen to the first Team Up training call in my primary company with Roger Barnett and Rich Higbee. Roger lays out some very fundamental rules of business success that he learned early in his career that have served him very well.
I just listen to the call four times in a row tonight in order to truly let it soak in what Roger was saying. I'm not one to listen to conferences over the phone, but this one caught my eye.
I am going to make some personal changes in focus based on what I heard. You can listen to the call 1-512-703-6147 (no access code required) until the call is replaced next Monday, Sept 10. After that the call will be archived on the member center. Wethner you are participating in Team Up or even if you aren't in my primary business, you can implement Roger's suggestions in your business.
These are universal business skills that applies to any one building a business.
#1 To grow you must set goals - you must know where you are going
#2 Today it's not enough to have goals just for your self you must have a team and have your whole team embrace these goals
#3 Measure you progress weekly
#4 Hold each other accountable for their part
A message from... Cindy McAsey-Marketing Strategies Coach
Exclusive New Data: What’s the Best Day & Time to Follow Up on Leads?
SUMMARY: If you think you know the best day or time to follow up on a Web-generated lead, you’re probably wrong. New research that will be revealed exclusively at MarketingSherpa’s B-to-B Demand Generation Summit next month may help rewrite the rules on when marketers should activate their sales team to get the best results.
We’re giving you a sneak peek at one marketer’s results from the study, and we guarantee that you’ll be surprised. Includes answers to: - How many hours to wait before calling - What time of day gets the best conversion rates
- Which day gets the most completed calls
Like most marketers who dread letting hot leads go cold, Steve Fitzgerald and Steve Heath of FranklinCovey rely on a telemarketing team to contact Web users who abandon online shopping carts for their time management-training workshops.
Heath, who manages the call center, tried placing follow-up calls 15-30 minutes after prospects bailed out of the online registration forms. But the results were terrible. Not only did they fail to convert leads into sales, they offended their customers.
“To get to the payment screen, you have to put in your contact info, but many customers don’t finish the process because they didn’t want to put in their credit card information. When you’re spending $299-$1,500, you typically need approval from a manager or the finance department before making that type of purchase,” said Fitzgerald, Director Public Programs.
Heath and Fitzgerald realized that an immediate follow-up call didn’t give prospects enough time to get necessary approvals, but they knew they needed to move quickly enough to make sure buyers remained motivated.
To get answers, they pored through nearly 18 months of call center data. Their analysis determined the optimum time frame for follow-up calls and what times of the day and days of the week produced the best results. From this, their team developed three strategies that have optimized their call center operations:
-> Strategy #1. Follow up on abandoned shopping cart leads within 24 hours
The first question they wanted answered was how long to wait before placing the first follow-up call. Based on the data analysis, they found:
- The highest rates of completed phone calls -- leaving a message or setting an appointment to discuss options -- and sales conversions occurred when calls were placed the day after visitors abandoned their shopping carts.
- Call production dropped off rapidly by the second day, with sales reps recording: o Four times fewer conversions o Roughly six times fewer completed contacts
As a result, Health and Fitzgerald implemented a new policy with incentives for sales reps that requires them to follow up on all abandoned shopping cart leads within 24 hours. Indeed, following up on abandoned shopping cart leads is the top priority each day. Managers review the reps' performances weekly and award bonuses if they meet the goal of calling all of those contacts within the 24-hour time frame.
-> Strategy #2. Schedule phone calls for 3-6 p.m.
Next, Heath and Fitzgerald wanted to know if certain times of the day yielded better results for follow-up calls. Analysis of the calling records revealed:
- The best conversion rates occurred between 3:30 and 4:25 in the afternoon, with conversions rapidly declining for calls placed after 4:45 p.m. Anecdotal reports from the sales team confirmed that they saw good conversion rates in the late afternoon but that very few contacts were willing to complete a transaction after 5 p.m.
- However, the rate of completed contacts gradually rose in the late afternoon, peaking between 5:15 p.m. and 5:20 p.m. So while calls made after 5 p.m. were not likely to result in a sale, it was still a good time to try to leave a message or set an appointment to follow up about workshop registration.
Based on this data, Heath and Fitzgerald replaced one full-time position on their telesales team with two part-time positions to take advantage of the high contact and conversion rates in the late afternoons. They also had full-time sales reps shift their daily schedules to concentrate the majority of their calls between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
-> Strategy #3. Focus on Friday calls for the best contact rates
A third analysis of the call center data focused on determining whether certain days of the week offered better contact rates. The answer:
- Contacts increased each day of the week, with the highest rates coming on Friday. Friday calls resulted in 241% more contacts than Monday calls.
This data surprised Heath and Fitzgerald who, like many marketers, assumed that Friday was a low-impact day for B-to-B calls with prospects already out of the office or in *weekend mode* and unlikely to speak with a telesales rep. What’s more, many of the full-time call center reps were taking Fridays off because they had already worked their quota of hours for the week.
As a result, they further shuffled the sales teams’ schedules, making sure part-time reps worked Fridays and encouraging full-time workers to take off Mondays instead of Fridays. “We recognized that Friday afternoon was an untapped goldmine, so we changed the way we scheduled our calls,” Fitzgerald says.
There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity.
Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:
1. He bought his first share of stock at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late! 2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers. 3. He still lives in the same, small 3-bedroom house in midtown Omaha,NE that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence. 4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him. 5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company. 6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.
He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: Do not lose any of your shareholder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His pastime after he gets home is to make himself some popcorn and watch television. 8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So, he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet. 9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
His advice to young people: 'Stay a way from credit cards and invest in yourself and remember: A. Money doesn't create man, but it is the man who created money. B. Live your life as simple as you are. C. Don't do what others say. Just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good. D. Don't go on brand name. Wear those things in which you feel comfortable. E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things. Spend on those who really are in need. F. After all, it's your life. Why give others the chance to rule your life?
Do you think we all can learn something from Warren Buffet. I will be talking about this post in my web conferencing online trainings over the next few weeks. Join us you will be glad you did. http://events.barefootsuccess.net
When I saw this title on Yahoo News this morning I knew it was something I wanted to share. My past job was helping people not to feel washed up and over the hill in the job market. You know it's funny since I've been marketing online I don't see people that think like this anymore. Oh I'm sure they are still out there just not where I am. I remember when I was working that job helping people 55 + get training and employment. I would interview people who were 55 and acted like they were 90.... on the other end of the spectrum I would interview people who were 90 that didn't look or act like they were 55 yet.
I personally could relate with the older person that had a good mindset than one that didn't. Mindset is so important in life wether it's for you health or just succeeding in a business venture or job. If the right mindset is there you have many more chances of success.
I have a blog out there on yahoo 360 that the tag line reads, "It really doesn't make any difference how wealthy you are if you don't have your health to enjoy it."
Here are some steps you can take to ensure your mindset is keeping you young and healthy.
1. Become aware when you automatically default into a negative stereotype about getting old.
2. Create a roster of older people whom you admire
3. Really understand that a balanced view of aging can help you change your attitude in a way that can make a difference in the long-term quality of your life.
In baseball, it's said that you know an umpire is top-notch when you never notice his presence. If he's doing his job, he won't call attention to himself in any way. It's much the same for the writer of a press release. When the recipient of a release focuses only on its content -- and not on its creation -- the writer has succeeded. With that in mind, here's 5 Commandments of Press Releases:
1. Thou Shalt Be Professional. No goofy fonts, rainbow paper or silly gimmicks. Even lighthearted press releases represent a communication between one professional and another.
2. Thou Shalt Not Be Promotional. If you can't get enough objective distance from your company to write a press release that's not filled with hype and puffery, hire someone to write it for you.
3. Thou Shalt Not Be Boring. Even the driest subject matter allows for some sparks of creativity. People like knowing that there's a human being communicating with them, not some corporate robot.
4. Thou Shalt Think Visually. A press release is more than words -- it's a visual document that will first be assessed by how it looks.
I'm referring to more than font size or letterhead. I'm talking about the actual layout of the words. Whether received by mail, fax or e-mail, a journalist -- often unconsciously -- will make decisions about whether to read the release based on how the release is laid out. Big blocks of text and long paragraphs are daunting and uninviting. Short paragraphs and sentences make for a much more visually inviting look.
5. Thou Shalt Tell A Story. How to arrange the facts of a hard news release is pretty much cut and dried. The old "who, what, when, where and how" concepts still hold.
So many times I hear people brag about their page rank in Google. As an online trainer I think it's important for everyone to know that doesn't always show the true picture.
Although most professional search engine optimizers agree that the green PageRank display has little to do with the actual performance of a website in Google and other search engines, many webmasters still focus on websites with a high PageRank when it comes to link building and website promotion.
How to fake the PageRank of a website
The PageRank of a web page can be faked with a combination of a 301 redirect and cloaking. It works like this:
When a search engine spiders visits a web page URL, the server redirects the spider to a web page with high PageRank.
Google assigns the high PageRank to the page with the redirection because it thinks that the pages are identical.
When a human web surfer visits the web page URL, the server does not redirect the surfer. That means that the web surfer sees the web page of the faker and the Google toolbar displays the PageRank of the redirected URL:
To web surfers, it looks as if the web page has a very high PageRank although it hasn't. Note that this method doesn't increase the rankings of the page in any way. It just influences the PageRank display in Google's toolbar.
Google doesn't like cloaking at all so you risk the rankings of your website if you use the method above.
How to check if a website has a faked PageRank
If you think that a web page might have a faked PageRank then you can do the following simple check:
Search Google for "info:domain.com" (without the quotation marks, replace domain.com with the domain that you want to check).
If there are no results or if the returned URLs don't match the original URL then it's likely that the PageRank has been faked. If Google returns only one URL for the query and if the URL is the same as the checked URL then the PageRank is okay.
What about the PageRank of your own website?
The green pixels in Google's toolbar are not important. It's important that your website has high rankings for keywords that convert to sales. Website promotion is about getting leads and sales. It's not about getting green pixels.
Don't focus on the PageRank display in Google's toolbar but try to get good rankings for keywords that are relevant to your website. High rankings for relevant keywords that convert to sales are much better than having a lot of green pixels.
The duplication vs delegation debate has hit me hard the last couple of weeks. I just got back from my primary business annual convention.
Yes it is exciting some of the new things coming down the pike! They even have a patent on an additional comp plan they just added to the first one. Another thing I heard lots was duplicate, duplicate, duplicate. You know this company has been in business over 50 years and it is very successful, but I truly believe it's because of the products we have to offer NOT the way they have "taught" the field to duplicate!
I recieved this recording from one of my online business associates. It's a training that was done for the sales people who are selling the Jaguar Marketing System. "Shay" the person giving his first sales training has a great talent and as you will notice in the recording like people attract like people.
The Jaguar Marketing System has enough cash flow profit built into it that any system owner can afford to hire sales people to help them market. In the MLM industry we have been taught duplication, but really duplication doesn't work most of the time every one comes from a different mold. Some of us are more talented than others on certain tasks. What the Jag training teaches is delegation.
It's funny as I look back at the top leaders in the MLM industry I've noticed that many are teaching duplication but DOING DELEGATION. How many top leaders do you know that have an assistant do the work they don't have time or don't want to do? Those top leaders got to where they are because they were very good at a couple of tasks. Then they became the CEO of their own company and stared delegating.
Jaguar Marketing is a vehicle that allows people just starting out in this industry (or not successful yet) to learn how to become CEO's of their own business. Yes there is an upfront investment..... but then that is IT! They don't nickel and dime you to death with charging monthly for a website, team programs etc...
We have this message board in my primary company that is very much like the most forums out there. Anytime someone has something out of the norm happen in their business it is posted on this site. Well guess what... the week when most of the people in my primary business were in Nashville for our annual convention (including me) a sales person from Jag marketing contacted many of the website owners.
Keep in mind these website owners were the company newbie's (or not real dedicated yet) that got the message. They didn't know how to handle a sales person calling them other than to get upset they were being reverse marketed too. You can imagine the talk on that message board. I came back to find many messages about how Jag marketing was a scam. These people just assumed because someone called them marketing something else it was a scam. I just shook my head and was glad those people weren't in my downline!
Most of you who know me know I try my best to help others succeed. I realized a long time ago if I can help enough other people get what they want I will lead a happy fulfilling life to.
I didn't want to post this on team 21 (the message board) and open up another whole can of worms, but as a blogger I wanted to share other side of the story. As I tried to get my point across on team 21 even though we are working online it's still a relationship business and you will either be drawn to the people you come in contact with or you will be pushed away from those people who you fear most in yourself.
My question for you how many Shay's would you like to have recruiting for your business? If you are thinking like a TOP Leader in the industry... MANY!
Oh by the way... that little guy in the picture is my why! He is my grandson. Everyone in business has to have a STRONG why they are doing business, because lets face it if you why isn't at 100% you won't make it. I buiding my business to have a legacy for future generations. Much like the CEO of my primary company ( Roger Barnett) I plan to have a stable good income producing business for them to take over if they are worthy.
Ever heard of the term K.I.S.S.? it stands for keep it super simple...
Everyday I get online business people asking me to look at their company. Generally if it is someone I know and respect I'll take the time to look at what they are marketing and give my opnion. There are many types of companies out there some good and some not so good. Probably what gets under my skin the quickes is a brand new company touting to be the best thing since sliced bread. They do this big launch and swarms of distributors sign up want to get in on the next new wave and hopefully make some easy cash.
In fact I know marketers that do just that look for the up rising company jump on the band wagon fast and then when the company folds they move on to the next new deal with out batting an eye. Sometimes I wonder how these people sleep at night. It's people like that that give this industry a bad name.
Just last evening as I scanning my tracking codes I noticed one keyword phrase was creeping up many times. it was... "How much money can you make as a Shakle* Distributor." When I saw it I thought that is a good question. For me the answer is simple. If you market this company the way I do once you are established with some customers generally you check is about half of what you personal volume (PV) is for the month. It might give or take a little but if you average it out it pretty close.
This means if you Personal Volume is 3000 in a month you bonus check will run pretty close to $1500. I tell you that is a whole lot easier than figuring out percentages on everything and lots easier to explain. My question to you is.. can you say in a simple short to the point way how much someone will make as a distributor for you company?
I got this wonderful suprise testimonial in my email inbox this morning. Now most of you who know me I'm not a big fan of email just because I know so many times it gets lost in spam filters and the person actually receiving the email doesn't get it or have time to read it. I guess it's a fact of life that email is here to stay and once in a while I'm glad to read email.
Hi Cindy, We love the cleaning products for our carpet cleaning business. It is so concenstrated that I don't have to order very often. We always have done a very good job in cleaning carpets, __BUT__ with the Shakley we have made good jobs, great jobs with very happy, very satisfied customers. We almost do not have to advertise as we stay booked with jobs 2-3 wks in advance. Our best advertising has been word of mouth. People love the facts that our cleaning products are organic, bio-degradable and non-toxic. We hear from our customers all the time that their carpet" looks and smells so fresh and clean".
" Our carpets look like brand new".
Cindy, it doesn't get any better than that . Hope all wis well with you & your family. WE WILL CONTINUE TO USE YOUR PRODUCRS. THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP. BELIEVE ME, WE ARE STILL HERE.
GOD BLESS, LOU ANN
It makes my job of promoting products a lot easier when I know it has changed people's businesses and helped the health and environment at the same time. I've been very busy in my primary business ever since Oprah had a special earth day show a few months ago. To learn more about this company or other great company's to promote join me in one of my many daily training sessions. Here is my event schedule: http://events.barefootsuccess.net I update this weekly.
Sometimes lessons come to us in different ways, but earlier this week I had a lesson come to me that I'll never forget. I got threatining phone call from 2 people that I used to consider business associates. After the phone call I decided to do a google search to get in the loop as what was going on. Much to my dismay as I read throught the 6+ pages of posts was a recording of a message they had left on a answering machine much like the call I had gotten.
I was appauled and entertained by the facts that were brought to light on this forum. I don't want to sway your opinion, but I do suggest you read and article that Paulette Sherb did on this same topic http://quikonnex.com/channel/link.php?id=26075 she has a link to the forum I'm referring to.
The reason I've decided to bring your attention to this is because you still might be getting messages from one or both of these people and I want you to make an informed choice about wether to read or delete their information.
Part of selling anything is handling rejection. It's always
great when a prospect says "I'm so glad to see you. This is just
what I need!" But the law of averages says most of the people
you come in contact with won't be that enthusiastic.
There are so many ads and people trying to get us to spend
money that most of us put on a stern face any time a sales
person approaches. This doesn't mean we dislike the sales
person, just that we're getting psyched up to hold our ground.
Of course, a good sales person realizes this and works to set our
reservations at ease, helping us to relax and understand how the
sales person may be able to solve our problems.
Keep this in mind when you are selling something. It doesn't
matter if you are selling cars, telling a neighbor about your MLM
opportunity, or using email to sell yourself to a prospective
employer.
Rejection is part of the game. Realize people aren't rejecting
you personally, but the situation. In most cases they simply
aren't ready to buy at this time. No doesn't usually mean no,
but not right now. A week, month, or year from the now the
prospect who rejected your sales pitch may come looking for
you wanting to buy.
67. Hi Ticket Program Key points No purchase necessary to earn with only 1 qualifying sale
- $500 to $1000 commissions on every sale
- $500 to $1000 commissions on particular sales on every level (no limit)
- Bonus Pools
- Paid Weekly
- Established and in high demand (unlimited access to thousands of time shares)
Why I joined at the Platimum Level... To me the Platimum Level just made more sense. As a free affiliate you don't have the ability to offer it to new affiliates at no cost.. meaning you must retail the product first to qualify. That is OK but I had a business partner in another business who was wanting the membership before her trip to Palm Springs... she is saving big bucks on her trip by the way. I know she will be marketing this membership and I didn't want to pass her up to someone else. You will just have to look at the comp plan to understand what I'm talking about. The link directly to the comp plan is:http://www.barefootboss.net
68. Hi ticket Program that will sell without an opportunity attached! Most of you know I like marketing big ticket products. An experienced marketer can really do well with the new luxury travel progam membership sales though. This is a 20 year old established luxury travel membership club that has reduced its 10,000 membership price to $3,000 in order to allow for mass distribution through personal representatives. The membership you will retail is incredible and the compensation plans is like no other I have seen. I am finding it simple to tap into the billion dollar travel industry.
69. Have you had success marketing a $10 product The way I see it if you haven't had any success marketing a $10 product then you need to start there. Once you learn the art of marketing a low ticket item... that will give you the confidence to move up to higher ticket items. Really it's all in the mindset more people will purchase from you in turn giving you confidence that yes you are successful. If you start out with high ticket items and don't find success right away it can be tough on the ego.
70. Marketing High-Ticket Products Online I've done a few training classes on marketing high ticket items. It's crazy because many people think somehow it's different marketing something that costs say $5000 rather than something that costs $6.00. Really a lot is in the mindset. If you think you can you can.
What I see happen most of the time though.. if people start out marketing a high ticket item and don't have success ...it hurts their confidence BIG TIME. It's been my experience.... if internet newbie hasn't been successful marketing a low priced item on the net then have no business trying to market a high dollar item. Mindset plays such an important role when marketing online and your feelings and emotions are to important to your success to set them up for failure.
Let me explain this a little further. When you are marketing a high ticket item ($3000) your target market and customers are fewer.. because you are weeding out the people who just don't have the money for the higher priced item. On the other hand if you are marketing something for say $10.00 you will have a lot more potential buyers. Once you start to have success with a lower priced item your confidence builds and then nothing will stop you from being successful.
It all stems back to mindset...
Does your company do business to business prospecting? Have you ever considered using an outbound telemarketing company? If you are wondering if your business will be able to endure the current economic troubles, this article is exactly what you need to read. There are six tips that can help your business find success even in a bad economy.
The following six tips are ways your company can not only survive, but thrive during tough economic times. Increasing your marketing budget, using the power of leverage, focusing your efforts where they will be most effective, properly training your employees, providing excellent customer service and keeping a positive attitude are all ways to keep your business profitable in difficult economic times.
The first way for increasing profits during a recession may sound backwards, but increasing the amount of money you spend on marketing your business instead of reducing it is one thing that can help your business make a profit during a recession. Countless businesses make the mistake of considering their marketing an expense instead of an investment and wind up destroying their businesses by cutting back in this area.
The second tip is to use the power of leverage by hiring a business to business prospecting company to do outbound telemarketing for your business. This helps your team use their time more wisely.
The next tip is to focus your efforts where they will be most effective, which is spending time closing sales. When the telemarketing programs do their job effectively your team can spend the majority of their time making sales which means increased profits for you.
The fourth tip involves properly training your employees to work with the highly qualified leads they receive from these lead generation companies. Proper training will help them make the most of these leads and sales will go through the roof regardless of what is happening in the economy.
The fifth tip for business success in tough economic times is to provide excellent customer service. Getting repeat business is much more cost effective and profitable than having to constantly prospect for new business so it is vital to keep your current customers happy.
The sixth and final tip for business success in tough economic times is keeping a positive attitude. People have a tendency to create the exact amount of success they believe they will and your positive attitude will be reflected in your employees' attitudes and achievements as well as your own.
Implementing the six ways listed above can help your business to increase profits during a recession. Business to business prospecting is one area to concentrate your marketing efforts in since this will make four of the six ways happen. Then all you have to worry about are the last two ways including treating your clients to outstanding service and maintaining an optimistic outlook.
Career Step has recently partnered with HCIT Solutions to help develop the Jamaican medical transcription field within the growing global healthcare industry.
oDesk oConomy reports that freelance writing jobs, including technical writing, business writing, blog and article writing, editing, and translation services are all part of the growing demand for online jobs found on oDesk.
While we don't often think about - or even care - how the Google search engine works, it is very important for an online marketer who is using search engine optimization, or natural search marketing for their online business to understand the basic principles that drive Google.
There are three main parts to Google: Googlebot, The Indexer, and the Query Processor. Each of these three parts is crucial to online businesses, believe it or not. Let's take a deep look at each of these Google elements to see how they work.
Googlebot is the search engine spider that comes to your website and spiders your pages. It isn't an actual spider, of course.
It actually works more like a web browser by calling a server and requesting pages, and downloading them - just as you do when you open your browser, type in an URI, and then the web page loads.
Googlebot, however, is run by big number of computers and performs this task much faster than one user could on their home or work personal computer. And Googlebot doesn't know if a website exists until a URL is put into their Add URL form, or until they find a link point to that site on another web page.
When Googlebot comes to a page, they take all the links from that page, and put them in a queue for crawling, and repeat this process over and over again. Once Googlebot has found a link, and downloaded the page, it hands that page off to the Indexer.
The Indexer stores the pages in Google's Index Data base. The Index then sorts all of the pages in its data base, alphabetically, by looking at all of the keywords on the pages. The Indexer does not pay any attention to what Google calls stop words, such as is, on, or, why, how, etc. It just pays attention to more important keyword type words.
The Indexer, after Indexing pages, waits for the Google Query Processor to ask it for a list of documents. A keyword is given to the Query Processor, which in turn asks the Indexer for a list of stored websites contain that keyword.
The Indexer then supplies the Query processor with a list of the documents, and the Query processor presents the documents to the user who requested the keyphrase.
You see, each element is important to the others. It all starts with the Googlebot finding your web page link on another site, or by you going to Google and using the Add form to submit your site.
GrandCentral Phone Service as a voice of the recycled products, Google introduced at the beginning of Google Voice Services, which provides integrated voice telephone service, including all the features of GrandCentral (useful for SOHOs).
In addition, Google will also provide a voice mail features automatic text copying, as well as send and receive text messages, Google voice communications will also be recorded with the Gmail integration implementation. Users can make free calls to any number in the United States.
Like Gizmodo, according to reports, Google Voice will soon appear in the form of application at the iPhone and iPod Touch. The application will include a dial-up, and it can be set aside (from Google Voice your number), and the iPhone will make its own bilateral linking.
It can also dial-up and cell phone, and contact list to work, while sending SMS. Google Voice also includes standard features such as phone logs, voice mail and so on.
The latest model stars Netbook - X-Slim and really drive map Wind U123 has just emerged, both CULV notebook using Intel's ultra-low voltage processor, running Windows Vista Home Premium system, only 0.7 inches thick, 2.8 pounds, is the MSI Dell used to combat the Adamo's flagship product, version with high prices also reached a level of more than 1000 U.S. dollars, the minimum should have 700 U.S. dollars, this series of products will also have 11.6, 14 and 15.6-inch version, let us Figure it together!
GIGABYTE is expected at the end of the second quarter with the cottage Internet Protocol of the Company products will be delivered, and the deal will allow Gigabyte notebook sales doubled compared to 3 last year! Last year, the Gigabyte notebook sales are only 15 million units, while in 2009 this figure grew to around 50 million units.
About the Author:
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Since 2006, Matthew Bredel has built a successful online, home based business that's growth has depended largely on page 1 Google rankings and other SEO organic traffic. The SEO Exciter Series outlines many of his personal strategies in getting top search engine rankings for some of today's most competitive search engine keywords.
Leading L.A.-based computer repair service company E-Geniuses illustrates how businesses can utilize technology and telecommuting to not only survive the economic crisis but to grow in a down market.
Developed by Adam Green, 'Mr. Google Alerts', AlertRank makes it easier to track, sort, rank and analyze Google-indexed news, blog postings and social media alerts
There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines because effective search engine optimizations are now immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss that thing, you have to understand first how search engines work and a bit of know-how.
Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn't relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.
Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going to sell any type of product or service online, you have to optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire world.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website's status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business' success.
Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You'll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.
The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find your site when they do some research with those words. If you are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.
You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.
Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for your site. When writing articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of your site so that the search engines will catalog your online articles.
Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing your site's status. With that thing in mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve your site's popularity and coerce increased business through your online business.
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A survey poll that was conducted shows that 80% of Australians choose to use internet search to find local businesses while only 17% use the Yellow Pages. Dont waste thousands on a Yellow Pages ad when you can tripple your clientele at a fraction of the cost. For more info, go to Adelaide SEO.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.----Peplink, the pioneer in Internet link balancing and failover solutions, today announces the release of its Balance 20W mobile load balancing router. Peplink's innovative new product gives Internet reliability to mobile and remote locations where it is not currently possible.
These days, most everyone is familiar with an autoresponder, although many don't know why they are beneficial to businesses. If you aren't familiar with autoresponders, you would probably find yourself amazed with them. An autoresponder can help your business by automatically emailing your clients and customers with a preset message that will help to increase your sales.
An autoresponder can help your list of clients grow, even send each one of them their own personalized email message. If you choose, you can also follow up each individual email with repeated emails, varying the content whenever you wish. These programs will also allow you to keep track of conversations, and send out broadcast email messages whenever you have news or new products to offer your clients.
As research in the past has shown, personalized email from autoresponders is a great way to boost your business. When you send a personalized email to one of your clients, the autoresponder by can address him or her by their name - which always makes a customer take notice. While you could do this yourself using traditional email, it could take you a few hours if you have a long list of customers.
Autoresponders make sending personalized email a snap. All you need to do is set up your email template, then select where you like the name to go. You can add everyone in your customer list to the autoresponder, which makes sending emails a snap. Once you have everything ready to go, all you need to do is send out the emails with one simple click. Best of all, you don't have to set it up again when you need to send out broadcast messages.
Although there are some people who will buy products after one or two emails, most people require about seven or eight emails before they will purchase anything. Autoresponders can really help you there, as they will do all of the emailing for you. You dont have to keep sending manual emails or anything like that. All you need to do is set up the email address, type in your preset message, and then feel free to send it as many times as you like.
Through the use of an autoresponder you can really boost your business. If you run an Internet marketing business, this tool will prove to be invaluable. You can spend less time sending messages and more time doing what you enjoy. If you've never tried an autoresponder before, you owe it yourself to check out everything they will do for you and your business. Online businesses can get a lot of emails on a daily basis, which is where the autoresponder will really start to shine and show you just how great of an asset it really is.
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David Jessee is and experienced online marketer and knows how to make money online. Visit his make money online blogtoday for some great tips and tricks to help you increase your online income. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service
Landing a new job is hard work. Just getting through the first interview is a challenge especially for a professional who's been laid off from a position he has held for years. Media consultant Suzanne Spurgeon says, "Interview skills get rusty if you don't use them.
As world leaders gather today at the G20 summit to discuss the global financial crisis, the AA's own president, Edmund King, is reminding motorists that with rising motoring costs upon us, it has never been a better time to shed the pounds. Drivers could save over £6 billion per year by following the AA's money saving tips.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. & LOS ALTOS, Calif.----The Anti-Phishing Working Group announced today a new public education initiative to deliver free counter-crime video instruction to consumers.
Most people advertising in Adwords today don't realize that they are losing tons of customers and leads all due to the fact that they don't know the 7 Key things they must do to set up a successful adwords campaign. If you follow these 7 key steps to setting up your adwords campaign, not only will your ad show up a lot higher in Google, but you'll also pay less per click than people advertising below you! Applying these 7 Crucial Steps will increase the amount of clicks you're getting per day and at the same time decrease the amount of money you're having to spend now!
Optimize Your Campaign For Google Are all of your keywords stuffed into one or just a few adgroups? Google hates it when campaigns are like this and determines that your campaign has 0 Relevancy! I know this strategy works, so for all of my clients I make their campaigns Super Relevant by taking each individual keyword and putting it in ad adgroup all on it's own! I know, it's days worth of work, but it reduces their click cost by an incredible amount! If you don't follow crucial step #1 you're going to be slapped! This means that Google will charge you insane amounts of money for your clicks and give your ads horrible placement.
Optimize your ads for Google The structure of your ads play a huge role in determining how much you pay per click. Just like in step #1 Google is obsessed with "Relevancy". Google's idea of a perfect ad actually has the keyword that was searched on show up twice in the ad; Once in the ad title, and once in the ad text. If Google see's that your ad displaying for the keyword, "injury attorney" actually has the keyword "injury attorney" appearing in your ad title and inyour ad text then Google is going to reward your ad for being perfectly relevant to the keyword that was searched on.
Google is going to reward you in two ways, 1) by charging you less per click and 2) by giving your ad a higher ad placement! But that's not all! Who searches on the keyword "injury attorney" will be more inclined to click on your ad because the actual keyword they searched on shows up twice in your ad! That means that by optimizing your ads you get more clicks, you spend less, AND you get higher ad placement! It's a win win situation!
You might ask, "Well how will I ever have time to write a super targeted ad like that for every keyword I have? That seems impossible!" Well, if you don't have time you should make time. My company write a super targeted ad for EVERY keyword that you have! It's a huge load of work, but we've found it's definitely worth it for our clients. Stay tuned for part 2 of this article series, on "Optimizing your site for Google and Keyword Swiping".
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13. Privacy Policy - The SOHO Quest Blog Our Commitment To Your Privacy To better protect your privacy we have provided this notice explaining our online information practices, and the choices you may make about the way your information is collected and used. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use and visit this website, and how we safeguard your information. The SOHO Quest Blog will never sell your or trade your personal information to third parties.
Log Files As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files.The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider), the browser you used to visit our site, and the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.
Cookies and Web Beacons We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site.This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to use features, such as a forum. We also use third party advertisements in support of this website. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit the website, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing local ads to someone in a particular geographic area) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (based the content of the types of websites frequented). You can choose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with this website, as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.
Our Commitment To Data Security To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Our Commitment To Child Privacy Protecting the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we never collect or maintain information at our website from those we actually know are under 18, and no part of our website is structured to attract anyone under 18. Under our Terms of Service, children under 18 are not allowed to access our service.
Collection of Personal Information This information is purely used to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Importantly, IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Links to Third Party Websites We have included links on this site for your reference. We are not responsible for the privacy policies on these websites.
lterations to this Privacy Statement The content of this statement may be altered at any time.
14. SOHO Quest - New Contact Information This post provides updated contact information for this blog. If you have any questions regarding the content of The SOHO Quest Blog, about the products mentioned, or questions of any nature at all, do not hesitate to contact us at the following address.
Your feedback about this website is helpful, appreciated, and welcome.
This blog publishes reviews, informative content, tips and more with regard to working in an small office-home office environment. Navigate this blog by using the side bar links. Follow highlighted links you see throughout posts to learn about the products and services being mentioned.
This blog is intended to provide worthwhile information for those interested in working in a small office-home office.
Direct all questions to: soho.quest@gmail.com
16. Google Gets Voice Google GrandCentral has grown all up is being relaunched as Google Voice. This service will continue in beta testing with many new features. Grand Central was a start up "one-number access" telephone service that was purchased by Google soon after its debut.
This service will be styled similar to the Skype telephony business model, in that some of the calls are free, and international long distance will be offered at attractive rates way below what normal phone charges would be. As an example, calls to Canada reportedly will be one cent per minute.
This will be a great service for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and small office/home office workers, which now includes distance workers, telecommuters and digital nomads. Get in line and queue up for a free Google Voice number.
The folks over at Google are working on a new project called Google Voice. According to the Google Blog site the first beta testing will be for GrandCentral [...]
17. Depression Cooking Teaches Check out Google Trends this morning, and you will see that Great Depression Cooking tops the charts. The television news anchors are starting to own up to the fact that we are in a depression, and not just your ordinary run of the mill recession.
Imports are down 24% and the economy in the US alone shrank over 6% in just one month. If you think there is any good news in this, it probably is only the fact we need to learn to individually become self reliant again. We can't sustain an economy where the only growth is in government.
If you have already lost your job, and are scratching your head as to what you will do when the unemployment insurance runs out, you may have figured out that it probably won't be a job like you had before. We are headed back to a more mercantile style society, where we each make and trade goods and services. Do you believe you can now start your own small office-home office based on new skills found learned and linked on the Internet?
If you are on your own SOHO quest, you may want to consider investing in and learning about working online. In many ways it is a quite separate and parallel economy. Almost unrelated to what is happening in the real world sector.
An alternative avocation is taking up the art of Depression Style Cooking.
18. SpiderWeb Will Rock the Web Whoa Baby! This blog is getting whiskers. Anyone that has followed my path will know that I now have been heavy into educating myself about Internet marketing. Thus, the reason for no posts.
But I have been busy investigating. One of the schemes is a beta program known as The SpideWeb Marketing System. If you have seen it in passing, but did not consider it...keep looking. This had the potential to be the next big monetizing scheme for the web.
Many have tried to create a self-sustained or auto-pilot system. This supposedly started out with 12 streams of income, but now has 22. I have a gut feeling you have to work it like any other business.
It still is in beta, so don't hope for much. I had numerous conversation with the owners and management team of this system about creating an inner circle training program. Alas, everyone wants something for nothing. You can generate free leads, but then you have to know what to do with them.
This is a heads up on Mark Wielgus at 45n5.com. Mark is on top of online trends, and I am here to tell you that he researches, tests, and reports on things you will come to appreciate on a daily basis. All the information in this post was gleaned from 45n5. My belief is that Mark combines some marketing savvy with geekdom knowhow. He even writes simple, but useful utility programs and then gives them away for free on the blog. Here is a recent link to one he dubs "Keyword Scrubber".
45n5.com has turned into one of the few blogs I simply must check out on a daily basis. Now Mark is committed to deciphering Affiliate Marketing as a top priority. Another project he is combining with this effort is his personal mission to produce and post a video every day in 2008.
I think with 365 videos in the planning, his little experiment is one to watch for trends, plus the techniques, tips and tricks he is bound to uncover along the way. So, if you want to make 365 videos in one year, watch this guy in 2008 and I think you will learn something.
This is not for a lack or loss of interest, but merely a necessity of time management. Regardless, my blog niche revolves around the central theme of mobility and using technology to be independent. So, you can always check back here and/or catch my more frequent updates at the Rugged Notebooks or Digital Nomads sites. My plan this year is to move to private domains.
One thing I have been doing is writing more focused posts...themed, if you will, or a series of posts on a subject of interest. Recently, this has had a major slant towards telecom, and in particular new gadgets like MagicJack and VoIP telephoney solutions like Google GrandCentral.
I am finding that being more focused on a particular subject area makes it easier and more interesting to research, test, review, and write. I think my readers appreciate it a well and it is helping in the SERPS.
If you are still blogging, drop me a line and let me know how you are getting on. There seems to have been a drop in the number of friends I met online in 2007 that have continued to blog, or scaled back like I have. -Digital Nomad
I saw this over at the BigString 2.0 website and thought it was good advice. BigString is an interesting concept in itself, which I will let you discover for yourself. These 12 items have been edited somewhat, so not to get dinged for duplicate content. There were some typos in the original text anyway. Enjoy.
1. Do not send email when you are angry. Wait until you calm down before you send that email. Feelings and thoughts can be difficult to interpret and easily misconstrued.
2. Never send a sarcastic email that could be taken out of context. Sarcasm and email do not mix. You can easily offend someone in an email without intent to do so.
3. Do not send email gossip. You never know where the email will end up. Just make a commitment to yourself not to participate in any gossip.
4. Never end significant relationships via email. Email is the equivalent of an electronic paper trail. Not good for any sour ending, whether business or personal.
5. If you don't want your boss or coworkers to see it, better not send that email from work.
6. Never put anything in writing that may come back to haunt you. A good overall policy. Not just for email.
7. Never, ever, hit ‘Reply to All’ when you just want to send an email to one individual.
8. Don’t email pictures of yourself to others. Especially, online acquaintances and complete strangers.
9. Don’t make promises or commitments via email that you cannot or will not keep.
10. When you send attachments, be sure that you have selected the correct files and documents.
11. Good advice from New York Governor Elliot Spitzer, “Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an email.â€
12. Try BigString recallable email. If you do happen to make errors...the recallable, erasable, and non-forwardable features will help to correct such mistakes.
I have had a few email exchanges with Mark, and these are a few of his cautionary thoughts by way of how he has explained the ideas behind how it should work. Most people will not succeed with this mashup concept, or any other website scripting without the underlying concept and knowledge (or experience from learning) of how to build such a niche site.
Cranking out "out of the box" and rubber stamp solutions is what everybody else is doing. Doing the same thing that everyone else is doing online will bring the same results...which happens to be not making any money online. This also happens to mirror Einstein's theory of insanity, and he was no dummy. It's also making many people wealthy for some pretty worthless online information products.
So, if you use the script out of the box, most of your money will be made from luck or successful keyword research (aka) what words and topics you use to build these niche minisites in mass production.
Now is the time to learn. Take the time to consider doing it right. - Digital Nomad
A 25 Year Old Entrepreneur Making a Living Online from Home
You probably have read about or heard of The Rich Jerk and Chis X of Day Job Killer. If not you better stop and do a Google search right now. About 2 years ago, Holly Mann, a young mother started to successfully market directly against high profile Internet marketing gurus like these guys.
Living in a foreign country with no job and few resources, Holly decided she could research, design, and deliver a kinder and gentler approach to online marketing. Evidently she found her niche selling "How-To" information, because she has become successful in a short period of time (well, a couple of years).
"Honest Riches 2" is a 95 page proven guide. Holly shows all the techniques she has used to make money online through affiliate programs starting with no website and no start-up money, then on to free websites that can easily be setup with little or no experience, including free advertising that most people don't know or think about.
Yes, it seems possible to make money online and work from home just about anywhere (Holly lives in Thailand), but don't quit your day job just yet. You need a system and you need the right tools and knowledge to be successful. Changing your career is a life altering decision.
Before taking the leap, do plenty of due diligence and adequate research for information and resources about starting an online business and becoming an online entrepreneur. This e-book is geared for beginners, but is a valuable resource for all online marketers. No "get-rich-quick" schemes here....like any real business endeavor, it involves some effort and some work. But you will learn strategies and techniques to start making money right away.
To read more about Holly Mann techniques and other online marketers, visit Thank You Holly Mann.
After many attempts at beating a dead horse, everyone involved in the Agloco fiasco can now uncross their fingers. It ain't gonna happen. Even John Chow has finally admitted defeat along with almost 30,000 signed up in his Agloco network.
Here is a partial screenshot of his last post on the subject, and here is a link to the post about the Agloco demise at TechCruch. Like John says...it shows that all those MBAs don't always muster up success, even the second time around. For posterity, watch the video on the Agloco viewbar attributes, and think about all the gurus that were on board for this.
It may sound implausible, but it is not impossible. Follow this Digital Nomad and you know that just feeding the blogs is not going to cut it anymore. Blogging should be part of your online marketing network, but not a diversion.
I have been searching heavy for the folks that are making it online and not the wannabes. One such source is 45n5.com authored by Mark Wielgus. This guy tells it straight. You have to hunt an peck to find the good stuff, and you will have to piece it together, but I think a good start is on this website.
Mark will show you how to find a niche, create a website in 10 minutes, and then shove it in the pipeline with some SEO tricks. Theoretically, there is no reason why you could not do this everyday for a month and then have 30 minisites up and running for affiliate programs in thirty days. That's if you want to have a website between you and the merchant.
I am finding that you maybe don't even need a website to market affiliate programs, but you do have to commit to spending some money for Google Adword campaigns. Better have a pad and pen ready.
There is always something to learn. Take the time to learn something new each day. - Digital Nomad American Jobs: Going, Going...
Corporations are escalating efforts to ship out jobs that pay
well and build the middle class—and now they are aiming their axes
at workers in the nation’s fast-growing white-collar sector.
The U.S. recession that began in March 2001 officially ended in
November 2001, say the National Bureau of Economic Research and
other analysts.
So why are so many workers still out of jobs?
“We’ve declared victory over the recession, and we’re still
laying off a couple hundred thousand workers a month,” says Rep.
Pete Stark (D-Calif.). “If it weren’t so painful for so many people
who are out of work, it would be hilarious. But it isn’t.”
The U.S. economy has 3.2 million fewer jobs today than it did
when President George W. Bush took office, including 2.5 million
fewer manufacturing jobs. Bush appears headed for the dubious
distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to
preside over a decline in total employment during his term in
office.
In the past three years, nearly one in five U.S. workers was laid
off from the job, according to The Disposable Worker: Living in a
Job-Loss Economy, a Rutgers University¡V University of Connecticut
report released in late July. Among workers laid off from full-time
work, roughly one-fourth were earning less than $40,000 annually,
the report finds.
In July, a total of 15 million U.S. workers were either
unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to job hunt, according
to the Labor Department.
In contrast, within a year after the official end of the last
recession in March 1991, the nation had embarked on six straight
months of solid job growth.
This time, say economists, there are crucial differences:
Companies are sending well-paying manufacturing and service jobs to
countries with few, if any, protections for workers and the
environment. And these jobs are probably not coming back.
“The movement of jobs and production overseas is handcuffing the
recovery,” according to Mark Xandi, chief economist at Economy.com,
as quoted in the New York Times.
“With NAFTA, the World Trade Organization and other trade deals
of the last decade, American corporations are now tapping into a
global supply of workers who can be trained to do everything from
design to production, maintenance to marketing,” says Jeff Faux,
economist and founding president of the Economic Policy Institute.
“And while these workers become more productive, their pay doesn’t
rise, because in many of these countries, to be a labor organizer
means you risk winding up in a ditch with a bullet in your head.”
American jobs sent out of the country aren’t likely to return
anytime soon. “As long as employers can take advantage of much lower
labor costs in other countries, there’s no compelling reason to
bring back many of these well-paying jobs,” says Ron Hira, an
engineer and assistant professor of public policy at Rochester
Institute of Technology. “Policymakers seem to be at a loss as to
what to do about this problem.”
Meanwhile, the Bush administration directs multimillion-dollar
tax cuts to the wealthy while supporting trade laws that encourage
offshore outsourcing. And even as Bush opposes unemployment
insurance extensions for some 1 million Americans who have exhausted
their benefits, his administration refuses to embrace job-creating
programs that would repair the nation’s infrastructure and help
balance devastated state budgets.
“The Bush administration doesn’t seem to care about jobs,” says
Center for Economic and Policy Research co-founder Dean Baker. “To
retain and create jobs, there have to be policy changes, and I don’t
think this administration is willing to make them.”
Manufacturing: America’s Foundation Is Crumbling
“American taxpayers...do not
want their tax dollars subsidizing the export of
their jobs.” —USWA President Leo Gerard
Manufacturing jobs traditionally have provided high wages and
good benefits that allow workers to care for their families. But 2.5
million manufacturing jobs have disappeared since President Bush
took office in early 2001.
Multinational corporations are transferring jobs to countries
where workers earn low wages and have few or no protections. And
small U.S. businesses are laying off workers or shutting their doors
because they can’t meet foreign competitors’ prices.
African American workers have been hit particularly hard. Because
of manufacturing job losses, the unemployment rate among African
Americans is rising twice as fast as it is for whites and faster
than in any downturn since the mid-1970s. “The number of jobs and
the types of jobs that have been lost has severely diminished the
standing of many blacks in the middle class,” says William Lucy,
president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and AFSCME
secretary-treasurer.
Manufacturing job loss starts the downward spiral
The loss of good manufacturing jobs has ripped apart communities
and permanently lowered living standards for families throughout the
United States, including in Rockford, Ill., 70 miles from Chicago.
The northern Illinois city is historically second only to Cleveland
as a center for machine tooling, the making of tools used in machine
manufacturing.
Machine tooling, which traditionally employs the most highly
skilled manufacturing workers including members of the Machinists
and UAW, is the bedrock of America’s manufacturing industry.
But the bedrock is crumbling. The Rockford area lost more than 20
percent of its manufacturing jobs—about 10,000—between May 2000 and
2003, according to MBG Information Services President and Economist
Charles McMillion’s analysis of Department of Labor data. General
manufacturing jobs have been among those lost in Rockford, including
jobs held by Steelworkers Local 745 members at the Goodyear tire
plant. USWA members at Goodyear now number 750, down from 1,650 in
1999, before the corporation shipped the jobs to Asia and South
America.
But most manufacturing jobs lost in Rockford have been in machine
tooling. At Greenlee/Textron, which makes drill bits and tools for
electrical contractors, about 180 Machinists now represented by IAM
Local 1553 are employed today, down from about 900 in the late
1980s. The 112-year-old crown jewel of Rockford machine
tooling—Ingersoll International—declared bankruptcy this spring and
laid off 300 employees in Rockford and 70 in Michigan, leaving only
skeleton crews of managers and a few contract workers.
“The lesson of Rockford,” says Faux, “is it disproves the free
traders’ argument that America could afford to lose manufacturing
jobs in areas like textiles and steel because we would ultimately
triumph in global competition by making the things hardest to make.
In fact, those things are machine tools—and we’re losing them.”
A loss of manufacturing jobs reverberates throughout the
community—and ultimately the nation. When manufacturing factories
aren’t being built, maintained or expanded, jobs disappear in areas
such as construction.
“Our union has about 30 percent unemployment,” says Mark Bramble,
business agent for Electrical Workers Local 364 in Rockford. “Guys
burn through their unemployment, lose all their benefits, get
divorced and then go where the grass looks greener or settle for
working as a greeter at Wal-Mart.”
A question of national security
There’s a sense of betrayal in Rockford these days. “Free trade
was sold to America with the line that it helps us export more
goods,” says Eric Anderberg, who manages his family’s 37-year-old
machine tool company, Dial Machines Inc. “But what’s happened is the
exportation of our jobs and means of production so multinational
corporations can exploit foreign labor and sell their goods back to
us.”
Today Dial employs 40 workers, down from 75 in the late 1990s. It
recently lost work to a lower-bidding Czech Republic manufacturer
that nabbed a contract making parts for a supplier of General
Electric Wind Energy Corp.
Anderberg and other Rockford employers worry that a Chinese
government-owned machine tooling company, which already has bought
two divisions of Ingersoll International, may now be poised to buy
another—one containing intellectual property, including high-level
research and design and military technology. “I cannot understand
how our government can justify not only the debasement of our
manufacturing industries but also our national security in a time of
war,” he says.
The Rockford community and U.S. national security would get a
boost from Buy America provisions House Armed Services Committee
Chair Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) added to legislation authorizing
the 2004 Pentagon budget.
Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.), who represents the Rockford area
and helped write the bill, says, “The Pentagon wouldn’t care if
everything it buys is made in China.” Joined by armsmakers such as
Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the White House says the Buy America
provisions are “burdensome, counterproductive and have the potential
to degrade U.S. military capabilities.” But the administration does
not mention jobs.
“American steelworkers are also American taxpayers, and they do
not want their tax dollars subsidizing the export of their jobs,”
says USWA President Leo Gerard.
White-Collar Jobs: America’s Growing Export
Ask anyone which sector of the U.S. economy comes to mind as the
most likely to be shipped overseas, and chances are he or she will
say manufacturing.
But though the United States lost 2.5 million manufacturing jobs
since the Bush presidency beginning in 2001, U.S. corporations now
are racing to outsource white-collar jobs—including work in computer
sciences, engineering, entertainment, financial and medical
services—to countries where workers earn far less.
Terry Antisdel was a Chicago-area engineering associate for
Lucent Technologies Inc. and its predecessor AT&T for 35 years
until his entire 42-member International Federation of Professional
and Technical Engineers Local 81 was laid off in July. He figures
his job will end up in India or China. “The words management used
were a 'less-expensive offshore site,’ ” recalls Antisdel, who
estimates Lucent will send a total of about 5,000 U.S. jobs offshore
this year. “I feel let down,” he says. “Companies used to provide
jobs for people, but now they’re just there to give money to
executives, board members and shareholders.”
In late July, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers
(WashTech), a Communications Workers of America affiliated group
that helps high-tech workers win a voice at work, released a tape of
a conference call in which IBM’s top human relations executives
discussed transferring 3 million U.S. service jobs to countries such
as China and India by 2015.
Testifying in June before a House Committee on Small Business
investigating the globalization of white-collar jobs, AFL-CIO
Department for Professional Employees President Paul Almeida said,
“If these cost-saving jobs shifts are taken to their logical
extreme, even American corporations should be wondering where their
future consumers will be located and how they will buy the goods and
services.”
A Forrester Research study predicts U.S. employers will move
about 3.3 million white-collar service jobs and $136 billion in
wages overseas in the next 15 years, up from $4 billion in 2000.
White-collar jobs going and gone
The jobs already are leaving. By the end of this year, General
Electric will have sent a total of 20,000 aircraft and medical
research and design jobs to India and China, according to Business
Week. And the Accenture consulting firm, which incorporated in
Bermuda after splitting from Enron accountant Arthur Andersen, plans
to send 5,000 accounting and software jobs to the Philippines in
2004, the magazine says.
According to WashTech, Microsoft plans to eliminate at least 800
full-time call-center jobs near Dallas and shift the work to India
and Canada in the next fiscal year. It would be the largest one-time
firing of full-time Microsoft employees in the company’s history.
WashTech says a Microsoft senior vice president recently urged
company managers to “pick something to move offshore today,” though
Microsoft publicly has repeated it will not lay off U.S. workers and
send the jobs offshore.
While the Bush administration remains silent about offshore
outsourcing, states such as New Jersey are considering corrective
measures. New Jersey legislators acted after the state outsourced
the electronic administration of welfare and food stamp benefits to
a company that then sent the jobs to India. When New Jersey citizens
called to ask about benefits, they were connected with Indian
workers who gave Americanized names.
A bill authored by state Assembly member Linda Greenstein (D)
would have required such offshore subcontractors to disclose to New
Jersey residents their employers’ true names and locations. But even
this common- sense measure had no chance in the face of massive
opposition launched by Indian and American corporate interests, such
as Verizon.
“We got a copy of an e-mail Verizon sent managers in New Jersey,
thanking them for sending 1,800 e-mails opposing the bill,” says Don
Rice, CWA’s New Jersey legislative coordinator. Activists and
legislators hope to bring the bill to a vote before the legislative
session ends this year.
U.S. security at stake
Offshore outsourcing of white-collar work also raises security
concerns. U.S. firms are sending mapping and other such work to
India, Pakistan, China, the Philippines and other countries with
lower labor costs, says John Palatiello, administrator of the
Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering
Services.
“This practice raises issues regarding access to data about the
location of¡Kcritical infrastructure by individuals in foreign
countries who have not been through any degree of security clearance
and where control of access to data simply does not exist.”
Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union address made clear the
danger of access to data by unfriendly foreign operatives: “Our
discoveries in Afghanistan confirmed our worst fears....We have
found diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water
facilities¡Ksurveillance maps of American cities and thorough
descriptions of landmarks in America.”
Activists are demanding Congress review trade and tax policies
that encourage white-collar offshore outsourcing. Without government
intervention, warns Almeida, “short-sighted corporate policy focused
on saving a few bucks in the short run will have an enormous
deleterious impact on the entire U.S. economy.”
Low-Wage Jobs: Betray America’s Workers
Laid-off U.S. workers thrust into a hostile job market
are discovering another ugly part of the American economy: low-wage
work that pays too little to keep even a small family out of
poverty.
Nearly a quarter of all U.S. workers labor in jobs that pay
little but are essential to society. Sixty percent of these workers
are female, and many are people of color. They care for nursing home
patients and clean offices at night. They prepare food, answer
call-center phones and care for our children.
These jobs generally pay less than the $8.85 hourly wage the U.S.
government says it takes to keep a family of four out of poverty.
Even so, many low-wage jobs offer only part-time hours, with few or
no benefits. And workers in low-paying but essential jobs often are
treated as disposable, quickly fired if they get sick or stay home
with a sick child.
As more good jobs leave the country, the percentage of low-wage
jobs keeps growing. By 2010, about 30 percent of working Americans
won’t be making even poverty wages, according to the U.S. Department
of Labor. A Labor Department list of the 10 occupations likely to
show the largest job growth this decade is dominated by jobs that
typically pay poorly—food preparation, customer service, office
clerking, security and food service.
This world of low-wage jobs and the workers who do them is
illuminated in The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 35
Million Americans, published on Labor Day by the New Press.
“Traditionally, there was a promise in this country that if you
worked hard, you could take care of your family,” explains author
Beth Shulman, an attorney and former United Food and Commercial
Workers vice president. “That promise has been broken¡Kand we have
built our national prosperity on their backs.”
No job is inherently low wage
Workers in low-wage jobs frequently are labeled as lacking skills
and in need of training to move into better-paying positions. But
while education is a traditional route to higher pay, Shulman
contends no job is inherently low wage. “Take autoworkers, who
had horrible jobs that became good ones because of unions and social
legislation,” she says. “The same thing must happen with currently
low-paying service- sector jobs. In Las Vegas, for example, the
housekeeper represented by the Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees
has decent wages and benefits thanks to unionization.”
Low-wage jobs tend to imprison the workers who perform them
because of what Shulman calls a “piling on” of hardships. Workers in
low-wage jobs are unlikely to have sick leave or health insurance or
make enough money to afford reliable transportation or child day
care. At the same time, they are likely to be in inflexible
situations in which being late or missing work can result in a quick
firing.
“It’s not just that you make less money in these jobs, but you
have none of the basic things many of us take for granted, such as
health insurance, time to care for a family member, adequate child
care, some kind of retirement security, even a telephone,” Shulman
says. “And this applies to one in four U.S. workers.”
Gap is growing between U.S. rich and poor
As low-wage work continues to replace jobs that pay well, the
U.S. economy increasingly resembles that of a less-developed nation,
with a wide gulf between rich and poor. Among all western
industrialized nations, the United States has the greatest income
and wage inequalities, with the best-paid 10 percent of workers
making 16.6 times the amount made by the lowest-paid 10 percent,
according to a 2003 analysis by the United Nations Development
Program. “That’s the way we’ve been moving for some time now and
continue to move,” says Heather Boushey, a Center for Economic and
Policy Research economist.
To reverse this trend, the United States needs to change the
rules of the game, according to Shulman. “For starters, we should
immediately raise the minimum hourly wage to the poverty guideline
for a family of four—$8.85 an hour versus the current $5.15 hourly
federal minimum wage—and then have automatic increases so there’s
not a big political battle every time it needs raising. Then, all
Americans should have access to affordable health care. There are a
variety of ways to do this, and we should just get it done.
“Finally, all American workers should be able to care for their
children—to have access to affordable child care, and to stay with
them when they’re sick or go to a PTA meeting without getting fired.
The consequences for the children of today’s low-wage workers are
enormous—they’re following their parents into this low-wage world.”
Companies in India celebrate "loss of American jobs"
One interesting comment that was documented in that article
was:
As Vivek Paul, Wipro VC, said after
the Presidential poll, “The elections are over and so is the
rhetoric; it will be easier for American corporations to step
out with their outsourcing plans.”
Well a little research has found some estimates from within
India about what that meant. First and foremost, it means that India
is celebrating the "loss of American jobs." Folks, that is the jobs
of friends, family or perhaps even your own.
Specifically on November 4, with time zone changes, roughly a
day after the polls close the following was published in the India
Times:
The industry is quietly celebrating
that outsourcing and loss of American jobs will not be the
hot-button issues any more.
And that is why they believe that "it will be easier for American corporations to
step out with their outsourcing plans." Does this mean
that American companies put their plans on "hold" to minimize the
impact on a close election?
But the folks in India gloat a little more:
Of the documented jobs that left the
US for other countries in January through March 2004, 23,396
went to Mexico, 8,283 to China, 3,895 to India, 4,419 to other
Asian countries, 5,511 to Latin American countries other than
Mexico and 2,933 to other countries.
A brief look at these numbers show what they call a documented
American job loss of 48,237 for the first quarter of 2004. On an
annual basis this would be 192,968 American jobs. And they expect
American companies to now - step
out - with their outsourcing plans.
Some will say that 192,968 jobs is not very many. But as you
will see in coming articles that is just what is called BPO and is
not the whole picture.
Lets look at the effect of three policies that affect American
jobs:
Outsourcing - In this article it has been shown that it is
at least close to 200,00 jobs a year for the BPO segment and
expected to increase
H1-B
visa program - allows high tech foreigners to take American
jobs here without being counted in immigration totals. Used by
many companies to train personnel for their foreign outsourcing
programs. There are roughly a million H1-B visas active today.
Legal immigration of about 1 million a year and illegal
immigration of about 3 million a year resulting in lower
American wages and increased social costs.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are paying the salaries of the
elected and appointed officials who are doing this to you. Is this
what you want to pay for? If so, why are you reading material on
this web site?
If not, you are being ignored!
It should be obvious to all that this trend can not continue
forever. Are there any signs that it is getting better:
A recent study of A T Kearney shows
that nine out of 10 chief executives wanted to outsource to
India. 25 % of the respondents wanted IT and auto component work
to be given to India, 15 % favoured China and 13 % Mexico.
That should answer that question beyond a reasonable doubt.
Interesting that 15% of the outsourcing chief executives favor Red
China! Remember these are the folks that make the big campaign
contributions that have so much influence on many of your elected
officials. How will you feel when YOUR job is sent to Red
China?
If you do not agree with these policies you are being ignored
and your elected officials are representing special interests more
than you! If you believe that this is a serious problem it is time
to get involved now. The longer you wait, the harder it will be stop
these destructive trends.
The BPO and your elected officials are doing offshore
calculus, are you?
BPO biggies do offshore calculus
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 04, 2004 02:13:09 PM]
India’s silicon valley is delighted to move out of the
limelight. The industry is quietly celebrating that
outsourcing and loss of American jobs will not be the
hot-button issues any more.
BPO bigwigs are already
computing the gains from mega-offshoring plans on hold waiting
for US presidential race to be over.
Though most of
the industry majors refuse to comment on who will safeguard
their interests better, they feel that economic benefits of
transfer of jobs to low cost destinations will now overshadow
the political rhetoric against outsourcing in the run up to
the US poll.
The US presidential election was fueling
the protests against job losses due to transfer of jobs.
“American law will remain the same and the outsourcing
will go up irrespective of who wins. Already, we see our
clients getting ready for bigger offshoring plans,’’ says head
of a leading Delhi-based BPO firm. Insiders also feel the
American clients might be more open to talk about their
outsourcing plans to low-cost destinations like India now.
Though Kerry’s tax proposals that seek to end tax
breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas could deter
fence-sitter, analysts feel they are no more than short-term
sentiment dampeners. After initially branding the shipping of
jobs to countries like India and China as a threat to the US
economy, Kerry has gone on record saying he can’t stop
outsourcing.
Clearly, what is of greater concern is
that a clear decision comes soon, irrespective of whether it
favours Bush or Kerry. Though Bush is more popular, the $ 2.6
billion BPO industry is convinced that “it will soon be
difficult to differentiate between Democrats and Republicans.
Obviously sector’s fate is closely tied up with the US
elections, with US accounting for over 70 % of India’s IT
exports. A recent study of A T Kearney shows that nine out of
10 chief executives wanted to outsource to India. 25 % of the
respondents wanted IT and auto component work to be given to
India, 15 % favoured China and 13 % Mexico.
Of the
documented jobs that left the US for other countries in
January through March 2004, 23,396 went to Mexico, 8,283 to
China, 3,895 to India, 4,419 to other Asian countries, 5,511
to Latin American countries other than Mexico and 2,933 to
other countries.
Costly Trade With China Millions of U.S. jobs displaced
Contrary to the predictions of its supporters,
China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) has
failed to reduce its trade surplus with the United States or
increase overall U.S. employment. The rise in the U.S. trade
deficit with China between 1997 and 2006 has displaced
production that could have supported 2,166,000 U.S. jobs. Most
of these jobs (1.8 million) have been lost since China entered
the WTO in 2001. Between 1997 and 2001, growing trade deficits
displaced an average of 101,000 jobs per year, or slightly
more than the total employment in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Since China entered the WTO in 2001, job losses increased to
an average of 353,000 per year—more than the total employment
in greater Akron, Ohio. Between 2001 and 2006, jobs were
displaced in every state and the District of Columbia. Nearly
three-quarters of the jobs displaced were in manufacturing
industries. Simply put, the promised benefits of trade
liberalization with China have been unfulfilled.
As a matter of policy, China tightly pegs its
currency's value to that of the dollar at a rate that
encourages a large bilateral surplus with the United States.
Maintaining this peg required the purchase of about $200
billion in U.S. Treasury Bills and other securities in 2006
alone.1 This intervention makes the yuan
artificially cheap and provides an effective subsidy on
Chinese exports; best estimates are that the rate of this
effective subsidy is roughly 40%. China also engages in
extensive suppression of labor rights; it has been estimated
that wages in China would be 47% to 85% higher in the absence
of labor repression. China has also been accused of massive
direct subsidization of export production. Finally, it
maintains strict, non-tariff barriers to imports. As a result,
China's exports to the United States of $288 billion in 2006
were six times greater than U.S.
exports to China, which were only $52 billion (Table 1). China's trade surplus was
responsible for 42.6% of the United States' total, non-oil
trade deficit. This is by far the United States' most
imbalanced trading relationship. Unless and until China
revalues (raises) the yuan and eliminates these other trade
distortions, the U.S. trade deficit and job losses will
continue to grow rapidly in the future.
Major findings of this study:
The 1.8 million jobs opportunities lost nationwide since
2001 are distributed among all 50 states and the District of
Columbia, with the biggest losers, in numeric terms:
California (-269,300), Texas (-136,900), New York
(-105,900), Illinois (-79,900), Pennsylvania (-78,200),
North Carolina (-77,200), Florida (-71,900), Ohio (-66,100),
Georgia (-60,400), and Massachusetts (-59,300) (Table 2A).
The 10 hardest-hit states, as a share of total state
employment, are: New Hampshire (-13,000, -2.1%), North
Carolina (-77,200, -2.0%), California (-269,300, -1.8%),
Massachusetts (-59,300, -1.8%), Rhode Island (-8,400,
-1.8%), South Carolina (-29,200, -1.6%), Vermont (-4,900,
-1.6%), Oregon (-25,700, -1.6%), Indiana (-45,200, -1.5%),
and Georgia (-60,400, -1.5%) (Table
2B).
China's entry into the WTO was supposed to bring
it into compliance with an enforceable, rules-based regime,
which would require that it open its markets to imports from
the United States and other nations. The United States also
negotiated a series of special safeguard measures designed to
limit the disruptive effects of surging Chinese imports on
domestic producers. However, the core of the agreement failed
to include any protections to maintain or improve labor or
environmental standards. As a result, China's entry into the
WTO has further tilted the international economic playing
field against domestic workers and firms, and in favor of
multinational companies (MNCs) from the United States and
other countries, and state- and privately-owned exporters in
China. This has increased the global "race to the bottom" in
wages and environmental quality and caused the closing of
thousands of U.S. factories, decimating employment in a wide
range of communities, states, and entire regions of the United
States.
False promises
Proponents of China's entry into the WTO
frequently claimed that it would create jobs in the United
States, increase U.S. exports, and improve the trade deficit
with China. President Clinton claimed that the agreement
allowing China into the WTO, which was negotiated during his
administration, "creates a win-win result for both countries"
(Clinton 2000, 9). He argued that exports to China "now
support hundreds of thousands of American jobs" and that
"these figures can grow substantially with the new access to
the Chinese market the WTO agreement creates" (Clinton 2000,
10). Others in the White House, such as Kenneth Liberthal, the
special advisor to the president and senior director for Asia
affairs at the National Security Council, echoed Clinton's
assessment:
Let's be clear as to why a trade deficit might
decrease in the short term. China exports far more to the
U.S. than it imports [from] the U.S….It will not grow as
much as it would have grown without this agreement and over
time clearly it will shrink with this
agreement.2
Promises about jobs and exports misrepresented the real
effects of trade on the U.S. economy: trade both creates and
destroys jobs. Increases in U.S. exports tend to create jobs
in the United States, but increases in imports tend to destroy
jobs as imports displace goods that otherwise would have been
made in the United States by domestic workers.
The impact of changes in trade on employment is
estimated here by calculating the labor content of changes in
the trade balance—the difference between exports and imports.
Each $1 billion in computer exports to China from the United
States supports American jobs. However, each $1 billion in
computer imports from China
displaces those American workers, who would have been employed
making them in the United States. On balance, the net
employment effect of trade flows depends on the growth in the
trade deficit; not just exports.
Another critically important promise made by the promoters of
liberalized U.S.-China trade was that the United States would
benefit because of increased exports to a large and growing
consumer market in China. This market, in turn, was to be
based on an expansion of the middle class that, it was
claimed, would grow rapidly due to the wealth created in China
by its entry into the WTO. However, the increase in U.S.
exports to China has been overwhelmed by the growth of U.S.
imports, as shown below.
Growing trade deficits and job losses
The U.S. trade deficit with China has
increased from $50 billion in 1997 to $235 billion in 2006, an
increase of $185 billion, as shown in Table 1. Between 1997
and 2001, prior to China's entry into the WTO, the deficit
increased $9 billion per year on average. Between 2001 and
2006, after China entered the WTO, the deficit increased $30
billion per year on average.
While it is true that exports support jobs in
the United States, it is equally true that imports displace
them. The net effect of trade flows on employment must look at
the trade balance. The employment
impacts of growing trade deficits are estimated in this paper
using an input-output model that estimates the direct and
indirect labor requirements of producing output in a given
domestic industry. The model includes 200 U.S. industries, 86
of which are in the manufacturing sector (see this paper's
methodology appendix for further details).3
The model estimates the labor that would be
required to produce a given volume of exports, and the labor
that is displaced when a given volume of imports is
substituted for domestic output.4 The job losses
presented here represent an estimate of what sectoral
employment levels would have been in the absence of growing
trade deficits.5
U.S. exports to China in 1997 supported 138,000
jobs, but U.S. imports displaced production that would have
supported 736,000 jobs, as shown in the bottom half of Table
1. Therefore, the $49 billion trade deficit in 1997 displaced
736,300 jobs in that year. Job displacement rose to 1,000,000
jobs in 2001 and 2,763,000 in 2006. Prior to China's entry
into the WTO, an average of 101,000 jobs per year were
displaced by growing trade deficits between 1997 and 2001.
After 2001, an average of 353,000 jobs per year were lost.
Growth in trade deficits with China has reduced
demand for goods produced in every region of the United States
and has led to job displacement in all 50 states and the
District of Columbia, as shown in Table 2A and Figure A.6 More than 100,000 jobs
were lost in California, Texas, and New York each. Jobs
displaced due to growing deficits with China equaled or
exceeded 2.0% of total employment in states such as North
Carolina and New Hampshire, as shown in Table 2B. An
alphabetical list of job losses by state is shown in Table 2C.
Growing trade deficits with China have clearly
reduced domestic employment in traded goods industries,
especially in the manufacturing sector, which has been hard
hit by plant closings and job losses. Workers displaced by
trade from the manufacturing sector have been shown to have
particular difficulty in securing comparable employment
elsewhere in the economy. More than one-third of workers
displaced from manufacturing drop out of the labor force
(Kletzer 2001, 101, Table D2). Average wages of those who
secured re-employment fell 11% to 13%. Trade-related job
displacement pushes many workers out of good jobs in
manufacturing and other trade-related industries, often into
lower-paying industries and frequently out of the labor
market.
Some economists have quibbled with job-loss
numbers extrapolated from trade flows, based on the
presumption that aggregate
employment levels in the United States are set by a broad
range of macroeconomic influences, not just by trade flows.
There is a grain of truth to this—the trade balance is but one
of many variables affecting aggregate job creation in the
United States.
That said, the employment impacts of trade
identified in this paper can be interpreted as the "all else
equal" effect of trade on domestic employment. The Federal
Reserve, for example, may decide to cut interest rates to make
up for job loss stemming from deteriorating trade balances (or
any other economic influence), leaving net employment
unchanged. This, however, does not change the fact that trade
deficits by themselves are a net
drain on employment.
Administration officials and other economists
have argued that the capital inflow that is the mirror-image
of trade deficits supports jobs in the United States by
keeping interest rates lower than they would be absent this
inflow. During the late 1990s, for example, these capital
inflows fought rising trade deficits to a draw in terms of
aggregate employment effects, and, through much of the 2000s
recovery, interest-sensitive industries (housing and
construction, for example) have surely expanded more than they
would have absent foreign capital inflows. While these claims
may be correct from a simple accounting standpoint, they do
not support assertions that trade flows are a useless
indicator of job loss.
First, and most simply, it is just not true that
foreign capital inflows always make up trade-induced
employment losses one-for-one. In the 2001 recession and the
jobless recovery following, growing trade deficits accompanied
aggregate job loss, even as interest rates scraped historical
bottoms. Clearly, low interest rates do not always translate
into enough growth in investment and consumption in
interest-sensitive sectors to always sterilize the impact of
growing trade deficits.
Second, the job-loss numbers identified in this
report are a good measure of just how unbalanced the U.S.
economy has become due to rising trade deficits. Tradable
goods industries have hemorrhaged jobs, while
interest-sensitive, often non-tradable, industries have seen
rapid growth. At that point in the future when trade deficits
begin to close (and this will happen—it is only a question of
when and how), the U.S. economy will need to return many of
the jobs displaced by rising trade deficits out of
non-tradable and into tradable industries. Moving millions of
workers back and forth between sectors is no mean trick, and
accomplishing it without a recession in between will be hard;
trying to do it after another couple of years of deficit
growth—and an even more lopsided U.S. economy—will be even
harder.
In short, while aggregate employment in the
United States may well not respond job-for-job with the
numbers reported in this paper on trade deficits with China,
these numbers provide insight into how much harder other
macroeconomic influences have to work to eliminate the
employment drag from these deficits, and they provide a good
(and ominous) measure of how lopsided employment growth in the
U.S. economy has become owing to the unbalanced U.S.-China
trade relationship.
Conclusion
The
growing U.S. trade deficit with China has displaced huge
numbers of jobs in the United States, and been a prime
contributor to the crisis in manufacturing employment over the
past six years. The current U.S.-China trade relationship is
bad for both countries. The United States is piling up foreign
debt, losing export capacity, and facing a more fragile
macroeconomic environment. Meanwhile, China has become
dependent on the U.S. consumer market for employment
generation, has suppressed the purchasing power of its own
middle class with a weak currency, and, most importantly, has
held hundreds of billions of hard-currency reserves in
low-yielding, risky assets, instead of investing them in
public goods that could benefit Chinese households. Its
repression of labor rights has suppressed wages, thus
subsidizing its exports and making them artificially cheap.
This relationship needs a fundamental change: addressing the
exchange rate policies and labor standards issues in the
Chinese economy are important first steps.
April 2007
The author thanks Lauren
Marra for her research assistance and Josh Bivens and Ross
Eisenbrey for comments.
This research was made
possible by generous support from the Alliance for American
Manufacturing.
Methodology
This analysis
utilizes an input-output model to estimate the relationships
between changes in trade flows and production that could
support domestic employment. The analysis covers trends in
goods trade, which is dominated by manufactures. Services
trade is not considered because of problems with the data, and
because many of the services traded involve returns to capital
and intellectual property that have little or no direct effect
on employment. In addition, goods trade dominates the nation's
international accounts.
This study uses the model developed in Rothstein
and Scott (1997a and 1997b). This approach solves four
problems that are prevalent in previous research on the
employment effects of trade. Some studies look only at the
effects of exports and ignore imports. Some studies include
re-exports (transshipments)—goods produced outside the United
States and shipped through this country to other nations—as
U.S. exports. The trade data used in many studies is usually
not adjusted for inflation. Finally, a single employment
multiplier is often applied to all industries, despite
differences in labor productivity and
utilization.7
The model used here is based on the Bureau of
Labor Statistics' employment requirements tables, which were
derived from the U.S. input-output tables that are published
by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. These tables are adjusted
to 2000 price and productivity levels (BLS 2007b), in real,
chain-weighted 2000 dollars. A base year with 2000 employment
requirements was used to estimate the employment content of
trade in all years covered in this study. This assumption was
needed to control for the effects of technology. This
technique isolates the effects of trade on employment from
pure technology effects. This model is used to estimate the
direct and indirect effects of changes in goods trade flows in
each of 200 industries. This study updates the 1987 input
employment requirements table used in earlier reports in this
series (Rothstein and Scott 1997a, 1997b).
This analysis requires four-digit, trade data
based on the North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS) (U.S. International Trade Commission 2007), deflated
with industry-specific, chain-weighted price indices (BLS
2007a), which were updated using industry-specific producer
price indexes (BLS 2007b).8 Trade data were
downloaded from the U.S. International Trade Commission (2007)
Web site in NAICS format. The data for 2006 are preliminary
estimates; this report will be updated and expanded when the
final 2006 trade data are released in June 2007. State-level
employment effects are calculated by allocating imports and
exports to the states on the basis of their share of
four-digit, industry-level employment for 2000 (U.S. Census
Bureau 2001).
The trade data were converted into
chain-weighted 2000 dollars. A domestic employment
requirements table for a particular base year was used to
estimate the employment effects of trade in each year of the
analysis, holding technology constant. The domestic employment
requirement calculates the labor required to produce all of a
given product within the United States. Thus, it reflects the
complete labor content of output, including jobs indirectly
supported in service industries. The base year of 2000 was
chosen for this study because it was an approximate mid-point
in the data covered in this study.
CPS data on employment by industry by was
collected for each of the detailed sectors in the model. These
data were used to calculate each state's share of national
employment.
References
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Employment
Projections. 2007a. Special Purpose
Files—Industry Output and Employment. Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Department of Labor. http://www.bls.gov/emp/empind2.htm.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Employment
Projections. 2007b. Special Purpose Files—
Employment Requirements. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Labor. http://stats.bls.gov/emp/empind4.htm.
Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2005. Access to
historical data for the "B" tables of the Employment Situation
News Release. http://stats.bls.gov/ces/cesbtabs.htm.
Faux, Jeff. 2007. Globalization That Works for Working
Americans. Briefing Paper #179. Washington, D.C.:
Economic Policy Institute. http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp179.html.
Ratner, David. 2006. "Appendix: Methodology and
Data Sources", in Faux, Jeff, Bruce Campbell, Carlos Salas,
and Robert Scott. 2006. Revisiting NAFTA:
Still Not Working for North America's Workers. Briefing
Paper. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp173
Rothstein, Jesse and Robert E. Scott. 1997a.
NAFTA's Casualties: Employment Effects on
Men, Women, and Minorities. Issue Brief. Washington,
D.C.: Economic Policy Institute. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issuebriefs_ib120
Rothstein, Jesse and Robert E. Scott. 1997b.
NAFTA and the States: Job Destruction is
Widespread. Issue Brief. Washington, D.C.: Economic
Policy Institute. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issuebriefs_ib119
Scott, Robert E. 2005.
U.S.—China Trade, 1989-2003: Impact on Jobs and
Industries, Nationally and State-by-State. Working
Paper # 270. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.
January. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/wp270
U.S. Census Bureau. 2001. 2000 Basic Monthly
Survey of the Current Population Survey. U.S. Department of
Commerce, U.S. Census Bureau. Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of Commerce. http://www.census.gov/cps/
1. These purchases financed about one-quarter of
the U.S. $857 billion current account deficit in 2006 (the
broadest measure of all U.S. trade and income flows). But for
these purchases, the reduced demand would have put significant
downward pressure on the U.S. dollar. A substantial
depreciation in the dollar would begin to improve the U.S.
trade deficit within a few years.
3. See Ratner (2006) for a more complete,
technical description of this model.
4. For the purposes of this report, it is
necessary to distinguish between exports produced domestically
and re-exports—which are goods produced in other countries,
imported into the United States, and then re-exported to other
countries, in this case to China. Since re-exports are not
produced domestically, their production does not support
domestic employment and they are excluded from the model used
here. See Table 1 for information about the levels of U.S.
re-exports to China in this period.
5. This model assumes that everything else is
held constant and the results are counterfactual
estimates.
6. See the methodology appendix for
computational details.
7. Other studies—see California State World
Trade Commission (1996), which finds 47,600 jobs created in
California from increased trade with Canada alone—have
allocated all employment effects to the home state of the
exporting company. This is problematic, because the
production—along with any attendant job effects—need not have
taken place in the exporter's state. If a California dealer
buys cars from Chrysler and sells them to China, these studies
will find job creation in California. However, the cars are
not made in California; so the employment effects should
instead be attributed to Michigan and other state with high
levels of auto industry production. Likewise, if the same firm
buys auto parts from China, the loss of employment will occur
in auto-industry states, not in California.
8. Industry-specific producer price indices are
unavailable for certain industries between 2005 and 2006. In
order to construct price deflators for all 200 BLS industries,
we used a combination of commodity PPIs and industry PPIs. For
instance, NAICS-based industry 3331 (which maps to BLS
industry 72) is composed of agricultural, manufacturing, and
mining machinery manufacturing. To compute a price index for
this industry, a trade-weighted average of the commodity
indices for agricultural machinery and construction machinery
was used as a proxy for the industry PPI. Industry PPIs were
used wherever available.
Outsourcing Not the Culprit in Manufacturing Job Loss
Productivity gains spawned by factory automation are driving a worldwide decline in manufacturing
jobs, even in developing nations, says researcher.
For many Americans, the word “outsourcing” conjures up images of
manufacturing job decline. But the United States is far from alone in losing
manufacturing employment, points out Dan Miklovic (shown above), vice president
and research director at GartnerG2, the business research arm of Stamford,
Conn.-based Gartner Inc. “Recent studies show that manufacturing jobs are
declining everywhere,” said Miklovic, during a Nov. 17 panel discussion on
outsourcing, part of a Global Media Summit sponsored by Rockwell Automation,
Milwaukee.
Over the past decade, U.S. manufacturing jobs have declined by more than 11
percent, Miklovic noted. But at the same time, Japan’s manufacturing employment
base has dropped by 16 percent, while the number of manufacturing jobs in
countries including Brazil have declined by some 20 percent, he pointed out.
“And one of the largest losers of manufacturing jobs has been China,” Miklovic
added. “We like to pick on China and say that all of these jobs are going to
China, but they’re losing jobs in manufacturing as well.”
The reason for the job losses? Miklovic summed it up in one word: automation.
Through automation, he said, “we are really doing a good job of improving the
productivity of people.”
Miklovic reminded media attendees at the panel session that 25 percent to 30
percent of the U.S. population was at one time involved in agricultural jobs.
But today, only 3 percent of Americans work in agriculture, yet they have turned
the United States into a net agricultural exporter, he noted. “The same thing is
now happening in manufacturing,” Miklovic said. “Through automation, through
improved productivity, we’re driving the number of jobs down on a global
basis.”
Job loss in India
Confirmation came from another panel participant, K. Muralidharan, senior
general manager for Sundram Fasteners Ltd., a major Indian automotive parts
manufacturer. In India, he said, growing use of automation is holding down
manufacturing job growth despite the large amount of outsourcing work that is
flowing to the country. “I find that outsourcing in India has actually cost jobs
in Indian industry, though in the long term, it will probably have a positive
effect on employment,” Muralidharan said.
Manufacturing employment remains at about the same level in India today as it
was during the recession of the late 1990s, according to Muralidharan. “The
Indian economy is booming now, and it is predicted that in the next five years,
the curve will only be upward. But still, the jobs and employment are not really
growing at the same pace,” said Muralidharan. “The economies of scale that have
been created due to outsourcing from developed countries have forced Indian
industry to take on automation heavily, which was not the case about 10 years
back,” he said.
GartnerG2’s Miklovic noted that the use of automation contributes to a
cyclical situation in many industries. When a U.S. manufacturer develops a new
product, for example, the company has first-mover advantage for a time. But in
the next phase, when other manufacturers enter the market, competition often
shifts to price. In response, some U.S. producers may move manufacturing
offshore to developing nations, to take advantage of lower labor costs. However,
said Miklovic, they frequently find that the level of automation and technology
available in developing nations is less than that of the United States.
This means that U.S. manufacturers who then invest in sophisticated
automation technology at home can gain the upper hand for a time over
lower-priced imports, thanks to the higher quality product allowed by the
automation, said Miklovic. But the automation technology used in the developing
nations eventually catches up, giving products produced there the advantage, he
added.
“We see this in semiconductors all the time,” Miklovic said. “Semiconductors
typically have been produced in Japan and Taiwan. But now there is a booming
semiconductor market that’s starting in China.” While the density and
sophistication of semiconductor chips produced in China cannot yet match that of
Japan and Taiwan, said Miklovic, China’s technology is moving in that
direction.
“Automation only works for a period of time,” said Miklovic. The lesson for
manufacturers is that they must continually reinvest in automation and
innovation, he said. “If you stand still, ultimately you lose.”
All programming done by Americans
Sure it cost us more to build the Inetekk technology by ourselves and outsourcing to US programmers and US software developers. The prospect of sending our work abroad was never a consideration. Primarily doing so we lose the security of proprietary development to another country were we have little if any legal control regardless of how cheap that option could be. Then quality and communications is another factor, but we are also sensitive to doing business within our culture because of the process of getting what we are looking for and having the ability to have laws in effect that protect our interest in getting just what we are paying for.
Customer support by Americans
We are constantly getting offers to do our work at deep discounts by these foreign nationals, primarily India, but we are not cheap price motivated. Even our support service is run by Americans in America. We may ad to our support from Australia, but that is because they can offer the needed time frame for that region, not a cost consideration, so we can offer 24/7 seamless support for our clientele. Plus we have many Australian and New Zealander subscribers using our services and we love their accents.
Collocation in San Jose, CA USA
When we first started building the Inetekk systems, we went from a shared server in Florida to needing our own servers. We could have co located our servers in a foreign company for 1/3rd the cost but we realized by doing so our proprietary technology and secured databases would be at risk. Not a good idea. So we contracted with a well know company in San Jose. This was expensive but a very good decision. As the Internet has grown, the necessity to keep your data well secured is of the utmost importance and again, keeping this service local has proved to be a very good decision.
Servers built in USA
As we started building our server farm, again quality and service were the key issue. We went to a local shop in San Diego and hired them to build them. The first server, unaware to us, was built from foreign parts and within weeks the server started having failure issues. From then on we have demanded that all parts be US made as best we could and we have never had issues since. Our farm now runs with US made servers like NetAps, Intel, etc.
IT services by Americans
As with any server farm and web systems, having good IT professional's is imperative, and again, we hired US IT database engineers and server engineers. Same reason as our security is key and far more important than cost. For example, to use foreign IT services cost around $10 per hour. US costs are around $150 per hour. In my humble opinion, you get what you pay for.
The bottom line is future forecasting. I subscribe to the belief that our customers deserve the very best. Not only in the quality of the service, or the best customer support, but also security and the dedication to keep Inetekk around for the long run delivering the very best.
It seems the the big corporations in the US have lost sight to this fact and are all heading for serious issues as they continue down this road to losing control of their companies to the quest for seeking the lowest prices regardless. Take the Mattel toy company for example. Not long ago all their toys were US built. Today, they have lost major market share because the toys the sell now coming from Red China are toxic and low quality. It is scandalous that our children are getting toys painted with lead paint.
Q: I've been out of work for nearly five months, and the prospect of getting
a job in my field (mechanical engineering) doesn't look good -- unless I want to
move my family across the country. I've always wanted to have my own business,
but I'm worried about the comparative lack of job security that goes with it.
What's your opinion? I'm over 50 and in good health. -- Deidre N.
A: You have a lot going for you: you've always wanted to have your own
business, you're over 50, and you have good health. Security? You don't have it
now, and you didn't have it when you got laid off. I don't think there's
anything more secure today than working for yourself. Companies will cut any
costs they have to just to stay in business, and the popular trend for the past
several years has been to cut staff -- fast. And consider this: when you work
for someone else -- big company or small -- only a few people -- your boss and
one or two more managers -- control your future security. But with your own
business, if you lose a few customers, you still have others to back you up.
I've always thought that having my own business gives me more security, not
less, than I'd have if I worked for someone else.
Another stunning fact of life: at 50, you're more likely to be more
successful at hiring yourself than trying to convince someone else to do it.
Fortune magazine once ran a cover story: "Finished at Forty," detailing the
corporate trend of hiring younger people. As one CEO put it: "Why should I hang
on to someone who's over 50? He's tired of the long hours and wants to spend
more time with his family. He probably hasn't kept up with the newest
technology. I have to pay him $75,000 a year or more, and he argues with me. I
can hire someone in his 30's and pay him $35 to $40,000. He'll work 60 to 70
hours a week without complaining, and he won't argue with me. This is a
no-brainer."
What Do YOU Want?
My best advice: do what feels right for YOU. When you're motivated and
committed to a career you really like, the money and security usually take care
of themselves. There's a big difference in putting in 50-60 hours a week into a
job you love, and one you just feel so-so about. If you don't look forward to
going to work when you get up in the morning, you're in the wrong job. Life is
too short to work at a job you don't like.
Think carefully about how you want to spend one-third to half of the rest of
your life (your waking hours). It you really think it's time to have your own
business, then write your answers to these questions. They'll also form the
foundation for a good business plan -- an absolute must if you want to
succeed.
How would you describe your business (name, location, product/service?)
How would you describe your total target market -- the customers who will be
willing to pay you for your products/services?
What industry, local, or consumer trends or needs will you react to?
How would you analyze, and then describe your competition (how many; current
prices; their strengths/weaknesses)?
What are your marketing and business goals?
What are your first-year growth problems -- and how will you solve them?
What finances will you need to start the business and keep it going until it
can stand on its own? How will you get them?
What's your operating plan for the next five years? (At least half of the new
businesses started each year fail within the first 12 months. You must plan for
a long-term business.)
What's your management plan to control and develop your basic
operation/service?
What equipment, inventory, labor, space, overhead do you need?
Talk to Your Banker
Once your business plan is ready, prepare your personal financial statement
(all your assets and liabilities). Next. prepare a projected balance sheet and
profit and loss statement for your business -- at least for the first year. Then
it's time to meet with your banker.
A good banker can advise you on the likelihood of your succeeding in getting
a loan. He or she can point you in the right direction to get additional
information. An excellent source for learning about starting your own business
is on-line: Search for "sba.gov" and you'll discover a site that has all you
need to know to write your business plan and finance your business. You'll even
have models of nearly 100 business plans to study and benefit from. The rest is
up to you -- and your energy and commitment.
Bill Repp is president of Organization Development Group, and has
extensive experience in creating and delivering programs in marketing,
communication, team building and business writing. E-mail Bill Repp at billrepp@rochester.rr.com
NOTE: All of these testimonials are recent and unedited
When you subscribe to the Sohomatic back office you will be able to meet many of these people and hear their recorded meeting talking about what this system has done for them.
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David Ogden
There are more, a lot more, but you get the picture.
It may sound implausible, but it is not impossible. Follow this Digital Nomad and you know that just feeding the blogs is not going to cut it anymore. Blogging should be part of your online marketing network, but not a diversion.
)
. Yes I could have paid someone $30 bucks a month to put audio on my site, but in 
Everyday I get online business people asking me to look at their company. Generally if it is someone I know and respect I'll take the time to look at what they are marketing and give my opnion. There are many types of companies out there some good and some not so good. Probably what gets under my skin the quickes is a brand new company touting to be the best thing since sliced bread. They do this big launch and swarms of distributors sign up want to get in on the next new wave and hopefully make some easy cash.
