Stripped Activity a Sales Person

Step System to Make Top Google Adsense Money

2009-01-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

1. Keywords and Competition
To make money with Google Adsense it all starts here by choosing high paying Google Adsense keywords to make more money. Look for keywords that are searched for frequently, but have little competition and build web pages around these keywords. Your pages will still display the high paying Adsense ads to make you more money.

2. Good Domain Name

Register keyword rich appealing names.

3. Interesting and Unique Content

Creating unique and interesting content for your visitors so they return will make you even more money with Google Adsense .For more details visit to www.thegoogleincome.com. Your own content is best, or you can go to the article sites and use their content (as long as you abide by their rules), but add an introduction and a summary to make it unique.

4. Professional Looking Website

Many quality templates are available for you to produce Google Adsense websites. Use images sparingly to avoid distracting visitors from your content and clicking on your Adsense ads. Professional looking sites make money; don’t build a website that looks like your dog created it.

5. Optimize Pages

Well optimized pages rank well and will make good Adsense money:

— Title: Your keyword and a few extra words

— Meta Description: Use your keyword and make it appealing

— Meta Keyword Tag: Only use your keyword and one or two related keywords.

— Keyword Density: Aim for 3% - 5% keyword density

— Internal Linking: Use keywords in links

6. Adsense Placement

It’s well known that Google Adsense ads displayed at the top and middle of the page make more money than those down the side or at the bottom. Make your Google Adsense ads blend in with your page.

7. Blog

Create blogs and add links to your site and to some of your posts. Blogs that have regularly posts rank higher and get listed faster than websites (any links get spidered too). Write at least two posts a week and use Google Adsense on your blogs to make more money.

8. Google Site Map

Getting indexed fast will make you more Google Adsense money. Create a Google site map and send it to them and your site will get indexed fast. Your pages will still display the high paying Adsense ads to make you more money .For more information visit to www.yourgoogleincome.com. Few use this method of generating free traffic to make money from Google Adsense. Articles also give you quality one way links. For a new site write two to three articles a week.

10. External Links

Nothing will improve your search engine rankings more than having quality one way links to your site. Good links will also give you more traffic to make even more money from your Adsense ads.
www.google-atm-machine.com
Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

How To Get On Oprah

2009-01-14T06:47:00.000-08:00

In my 20 years in the public relations business, if I had a nickel for every time a client asked me to get them on Oprah it is safe to say that I would be a very wealthy woman at this point in my career!

Oprah is indeed the gold standard, and her show carries weight not only because of Oprah’s massive viewership, but also because they’re loyal. She brings with her tens of millions of loyal viewers who trust her so implicitly, that they buy practically any book she recommends, any product she endorses and follow her advice on just about every topic from politics and parenting to bowling and basket-weaving.

And when most PR Agencies are faced with that request, they smile and nod and tell their clients they’ll do their best, but we all know what it really takes to get on Oprah.

First, you have to understand a few basic premises:

• Oprah is NOT a Product Peddler – The Oprah Winfrey Show does not exist to “provide coverage” for your product, company or book. Her mission is to inform and entertain her viewers so that they keep tuning in, and her company can sell advertising at top dollar. The more engaged and sizeable her viewership, the more revenue she takes in.

• Her show is a true “No Spin Zone” – You can’t “spin” yourself into a guest spot on her show, because her staff scrutinizes her guests more severely than the press dissect political candidates. You can’t disguise any element of your past, and you can’t use PR techniques to make yourself look more credible or noteworthy than you actually are. Her people are media pros and will see through it.

They don’t see their roles as bookers or producers – they see themselves as caretakers of a multi-billion brand name and a television personality whose name is synonymous with credibility and trust. Protecting her show and her name is tantamount to protecting themselves and their roles in shaping a media juggernaut. You can’t fool them - either you got the goods, or you don’t.

• You don’t call her, she calls you - This is the one thing no publicist ever tells a client they hope to sign. Why? Simply because they are afraid it will make their agency or service irrelevant to the client who can sign the big check. 95 percent of Oprah’s guests are invited, and are rarely booked because a publicist made a phone call and pitched a client. It’s rare that any of her staff even make themselves available to hear pitches from publicists.

Seeing a guest similar to yourself on her show does not move you to the top of the list – If anything, seeing a competitor or guest similar to yourself on her show actually makes her less interested in you.

With that being said, a publicity campaign is absolutely critical if your eventual goal is to get on Oprah’s show. Contradictory? Not really. Here are some critical tips to give you the best shot at getting on her staff’s radar screen:

Start locally – Earlier, I mentioned that 95 percent of her guests are invited without a pitch from a publicist, but that doesn’t mean publicity wasn’t involved. Her bookers and producers find out about unique guests by reading the news. They scour the Internet and local newspaper sites, looking for unique individuals and stories from all over the country. All those national headlines you read every day about the guy whose 8-year-old saved his life by giving him CPR, or the woman whose dog dialed 911, didn’t happen in Anywhere, USA. They happened somewhere, and in that somewhere was a local TV or print reporter who found out about it and wrote about it. The foundation of any campaign to get in the national media is to prove you were at least interesting enough to make your hometown papers or TV newscasts.

Stand for Something – The mistake a lot of people make when hitting the media is to be all things to all people, to appeal to the broadest sector of the population, to cast a wide net. However, most of the people you’ll see on Oprah are not good for all time zones – they are passionate, opinionated people who hold strong views and may pick a position that cab upset some element of the viewing audience. Controversy and conflict is what drives most talk shows. Imagine how interesting Crossfire would be to watch if everyone agreed, and you’ll see my point.

Have an Impact – Just because you write a book that exposes hidden injustice in some area of society, it’s not enough to just stand behind the book. You have to be an activist, a clarion voice of passion who actively campaigns to right the wrongs you’ve exposed. Having an impact on people’s lives, and earning the news coverage in your local community, is the highest-percentage way to get on the radar screen of Oprah’s staff, if not Oprah herself.

At the end of the day, there is no magic potion you can take, no staffer or producer you can pay off, and no stunt you can pull that will get you on Oprah. But if you are truly unique, you have an impact on people’s lives and have the support of your local media, you’ve got as good a shot of being featured on Oprah’s show as any of the people she’s already put on the air.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Google AdSense Help My Affiliate Programs

2009-01-14T06:29:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for a business opportunity, affiliate programs are all the rage today. Simply typing affiliate programs into any search engine will yield a multitude of results with links to websites offering various affiliate programs, promising anything from instant riches to long time financial security
Part of the allure of affiliate programs is that unlike running a business of your own, with an affiliate business you don't have to deal with things like inventory, storage, packing, shipping, complaints, returns, phone calls, emails, checks or credit cards. In fact, your only responsibility is to direct people to your affiliate site through your affiliate link.

While not having to deal with the aforementioned things, and at the same time being able to earn commissions as high as 75% may sound alluring, and no doubt it should, the reality is more times then not like anything in life it takes time to build your affiliate business to the point where it begins to make you money. In the mean time you must deal with expenses that may stem from advertising, hosting your own website, monthly affiliate fees, etc. Anyway to offset these expenses is welcome!

Google AdSense Not only offers you this opportunity but many affiliate based businesses rely on Google AdSense for a large chunk of their monthly commissions! What Google AdSense allows you to do is to display Google ads on your website that are relevant to the content on your website without distracting from it. When people click on a Google AdSense ad that's on your website you earn a commission. The program is free to join and also offers other ways to earn additional income as we'll. You can even think of it as an additional affiliate program earning additional money for you that you would otherwise have never seen!

The fact is, most people who visit your affiliate website will not buy from you. They will simply look around and then leave. Of the ones that do end up buying they will most likely visit your website several times before making a buying decision. In fact it will take an average of 7-12 times for a person to visit your website before they do buy. That is because people want to weigh all of their options. They want to see what other business opportunities or affiliate programs are available to them by visiting other websites, and then they need time to consider which one to go with. If someone is going to visit your website and then leave without buying, wouldn't you rather that they leave by clicking on a link that you will earn a guaranteed commission on?

Do you see why Google AdSense will always be a very important part of your affiliate business? Running an affiliate business is, like anything else in life, a numbers game. Google AdSense offers you the opportunity to profit off of the numbers of people who will never buy from you, (the vast majority), as well as enable you to get additional revenue from the ones that will eventually buy from you! I assume your desire is to make as much money as you possibly can from an affiliate business of your own? If that is the case then you cannot afford, not to have Google AdSense on your affiliate website!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Is It News or Is It Spin? How to Develop a News Hook for Your News Release

2009-01-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

When pitching your story to the press, there is something important to keep in mind: if you want to get the attention of the press, you have to think like the press.

In the 20+ years I’ve been in public relations, one of the most difficult elements of the game to teach clients is that the press is not a service organization whose sole purpose is to cover what PR people pitch them. Their business model is simple; they exist to inform and entertain their readers, so they can grow their subscriber base and sell advertising against those numbers.

So, if you want to participate in the “press game” it is vital to recognize what wins the press loyal readers and increases their circulation…and then help them to do it! Step one is to get together a power-packed pitch. According to the Associated Press Stylebook the preferred term for a press release is not press release; it’s NEWS release. After all, it’s not called a press-paper – it’s called a NEWSpaper. Like it or not, public relations people don’t get to determine what the news is. Only news professionals get to do that when they choose what to write, print or air.

So, just because your company opened a new store in Cincinnati, doesn’t make it NEWS. However, there may very well be a nugget of newsworthiness that you can offer up to the press in order to get them interested in the opening of your store.

Where do you find those nuggets? Here are a few suggestions to help you mine the news gold in all your announcements:

Read Your Local Newspapers –You can’t find a news hook until you know what the news of the day actually is. And, because it changes every day, you need to stay on top of the news (or hire an agency to perform that function for you, and trust their judgment when they advise you of potential news hooks).

Determine How Your Story is Relevant – This is the lowest hanging fruit in the news hook orchard. Look for anything in your business that is relevant to news taking place in your community or nationally. If you’re opening a new bicycle shop in Los Angeles, then do some news searches to see what reporters have been writing about the area.

Say you discover that the area is economically depressed, in which case you can pitch to the press the idea that a new retailer opening there is a boost to the local economy, and that you’re willing to take a chance on success in that community. Or you may discover that bicycle ridership has increased nationally by 10 percent over the previous year, with new riders indicating they have started because they are trying to get fit. Now you can pitch the local press on the angle that your new shop is aimed at capitalizing on this national trend.

This strategy is known as “localizing” a national story, which every newspaper and TV producer loves. Because it’s a national story, they are going to report it anyway, but they’d prefer to have a local hook so they can be more relevant to the local audience.

Develop Stories That Have a Beginning, Middle and End – Make sure you tell reporters a full story. Let’s use the bicycle shop as an example. Opening a bicycle shop may not be much of a story on its own, but what’s the story behind the story? Did the owners overcome any unusual obstacles in fulfilling the dream of opening their store? Was the owner ever a competitive bicyclist? Have the owners used their knowledge of the sport or inventory to help any children’s charities or causes? Are they active in their community? Identify the story behind the story, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to find a news hook that’s relevant.

Take Action – There is a reason why so many commercial enterprises and not-for-profit charities and community organizations partner up for special events – it’s a win-win situation for everyone. It’s important for every commercial enterprise to be a good citizen and use some of their resources to help others, and it also helps to make sometimes un-newsworthy events relevant. Opening a bicycle shop isn’t a big deal, but holding a grand opening event for a local children’s charity makes the opening more relevant. If the owners use the event to help raise money and donate excess inventory to needy children, it is both a worthy venture and a genuinely heartwarming feel-good story worthy of news coverage.

Helping people should be its own reward, of course, but that’s also why newspapers and charities love these events. It not only gives editors and TV crews something joyful and happy to report, but it also enables the charities to get their messages out to the community at large. Your business improves its public image, and deservedly so, as long as the help is genuine and comes not from the pocketbook, but from the heart.

At the end of the day, most of the time you can find news hooks in even the most mundane of news releases. The key thing to remember is that the focus of the release isn’t to sell, sell, sell – it’s to convince a reporter that you have news to report and that their readers would be informed or entertained by what you have to tell them.

Think like the journalist, help them do their job, and you’ll find that your enterprise will generate more press coverage as a result.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

What Is Google Adsense, Anyways..!

2009-01-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Google Adsense is a contextual advertising program that allows advertisers and publishers to work together for a win-win outcome for all parties concerned. Through publishers or webmasters who rent space on their websites, advertisers can get "contextual" or highly relevant advertising out to web surfers who visit sites that interest them.Google will place various forms of advertising on sites, and depending upon the number of ad impressions or click throughs, an advertiser will pay a certain amount to show their advertising messages.

The Google technology is cutting-edge and was, until a few years ago, impossible to attain. However, utilizing complex Google algorithms, the spiders who are robotic readers visit various websites and calculate the number of words versus the number of times a certain keyword or phrase is present. This tells the spider and Google which types of advertising to deliver. The relevancy of the advertising is directly related to a visitor clicking on the advertiser's message.

Google maintains the network and has final say over what and how many times an ad will run. The web publisher decides how many and where the advertising will appear on their website. The advertiser pays a certain amount per click or 1000 impressions and the ad is delivered a certain number of times based on daily budget. Adsense publishers and advertisers can use a plethora of different delivery mediums including: link ads, content ads, picture ads, RSS feed ads, mobile ads and, in its beginning stages, advertising via YouTube.

In addition to the type of advertising available, the advertising can also be delivered in a wide variety of sizes from the smaller 125x125 on up to the larger 336x280 ads. The shapes range from banner, to vertical skyscraper advertising, ads for getting advertisers to use the service, a search feature that also pays and straight referral bonuses.

Recently Google has allowed users to publish advertising in a whole new way. As mentioned previously, YouTube advertising is taking Google Adsense by storm. Video is the next big medium, so it's no wonder that advertisers are following suits. Many web publishers are placing video Adsense on their websites and blogs to help grab the attention of surfers and add interest, motion and color to their website. In addition, these ads also garner the webmaster more income.

Adsense publishing is an up and down income with many variables going in to whether the webmaster has a good month or a bad one. While some websites have a large amount of traffic, others are smaller niche markets with very specific advertising being delivered. In some cases, the smaller, niche intensive websites earn more money than the larger, broad-spectrum business models, because the advertising in smaller niches has advertisers paying 10x the amount of money that others are paying.

A case in point is the "Mesothelioma" niche. There are tons of websites up with advertising and content related to the asbestos cancer, Mesothelioma. This is because one click on an ad for a lawyer who specializes in Mesothelioma cases would give the webmaster $4-$5.00 per click while others were paying 10 cents per click. While that is no longer the case, Mesothelioma does still get a pretty hefty cost per click.

Adsense provides many tools for their web publishers and advertisers to use in order to maximize their earning potential. Google also provides a full training school for serious business concerns looking to become certified in Google Adwords promotion. While this program is for the big guns, the little guns are just as welcome to work through the program and it is completely free with both video and text printouts.

To gauge how the Adsense earning are going, and to figure out trends and track which sites are doing better than others monetarily, many web publishers will not only use their Adsense publisher's ID, but also add a Google Adsense channel to each of the ads that they generate. In this way, they can keep up with which sites are doing well and which are not and make adjustments accordingly.

Webmasters who are looking to earn more revenue from Google Adsense are now, more than ever, able to get web visitors who are targeted and ready to visit, read and possibly click through to products and services that are niche specific and delivered by t

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Five Positive ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings

2009-01-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format has the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates.Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as adsense text, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

Did you find this article useful? For more useful tips & hints, Points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques & insights pertaining to Google Ad sense, Do please browse for more information at our website :-

If possible, you should use catchy tricks to get your ads clicked on. The more the ads look like actual content on your page, the more they will get clicked on. For instance, if you have a directory of listings on your site, you would want to make the font and colors the same, so that the Google ads actually looked like part of the directory listing. A good way to integrate the ads into content is again to use the same fonts and same colors, and to place the ads in the middle of the pages content.

The more you can integrate the ads into your pages in a way that looks like it is part of the content, as opposed to ads on the pages, the more clicks you will receive. You definitely need to match your ad fonts and font colors to your pages fonts and font colors. Retain the same look and feel of your website wherever possible. If you are making the ads part of the content or part of a directory listing, choose not to use a border around the ads. This customization can all be done through the Google AdSense control panel when you login to your Google account.

If you can not make the ads appear as part of the actual content, you have to determine where your visitors attention is focused on your pages, and place the ads in that general area where they can be seen. Again, you want to match the look and feel of your website, but in this instance, you should probably use a border around the ads.

The truth about AdSense placement is that you should place the ads where they will be the most visible to your visitors. You want the ad blocks to look like they belong on your pages, but at the same time, you want them to draw attention as well, so that your visitors will click on them. Furthermore, if you can include the ads as part of the content itself, you will find that you are getting a higher number of clicks almost overnight!

You have probably heard that putting your AdSense ads in certain spots on a page increases clicks. This is not necessarily true. Although some places generally are hotter than others, the ads need to be located where they will get the most clicks. Depending on the content on your pages, the layout of your pages, and your visitor’s attention, this will vary from website to website, and from web page to web page.

This brings us to another fact that you need to know. Placing the ads in a particular spot on one page is no indication that the ads should be placed in the same place on a different page on your website. Again, think about how you can integrate the ads into your content, and where your visitor’s attention will be focused. This will vary from page to page in many cases.

Just remember that there are many factors to consider when determining the truth about AdSense placement for your pages. What works well for one website may not work for another. What works well for one website page may not work well for all pages on that website. Experts are great for a lot of things, but when it comes to placement of AdSense ads on your website, you have to be your own expert!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Affiliate Marketing Tips

2009-01-11T06:43:00.000-08:00

If you’re looking for affiliate marketing tips, you are likely just beginning to get involved in the online advertising field. In this brief article, we’ll go over some affiliate marketing advice that can help your site get more hits, and more successfully direct customers to your sponsor.
The first thing to remember is that most of your hits are going to come from search engines, and so optimizing your site to attract viewers from search engines and increase your “rank” (how early your page appears in the search engine’s index) is a great way to multiply your incoming hits.

The best way to optimize your website is by what’s called “white hat” optimization. This type of optimization makes sure your website conforms to search engine guidelines, and is full of useful content that users actually want to see. This can be articles related to common search key phrases (such as in an article directory), or media like videos and games (though search engines usually have a hard time indexing things like Java applets). Anyone giving you affiliate marketing tips will tell you to keep your website white hat.

Black hat optimization is any form of code or website content that attempts to fool either the user or the search engine, and comes in various forms. Cloaking is a common technique that makes a search engine view a different version of your page than users do, and hidden text and off screen text can make your website attract users using certain key phrases that may not be relevant. However, search engines highly frown upon black hat optimization and will frequently ban sites they find using it. One of the most important affiliate marketing tips you can remember is to avoid black hat web site optimization.

Remember to keep your website useful to the user, and to not plug your sponsor’s site the entire way through your content. You can direct the user in the form of reviews or a small spiel at the end of a blog entry, but having lots and lots of embedded links will make your site read more like an advertisement than actual content. Keeping these simple affiliate marketing tips in mind can make a huge difference in how much performance you get from your site. Simple ways to optimize your website for search engines combined with a good amount of content that doesn’t obviously advertise is the key to successful marketing.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Reciprocal Links and Google Adsense

2009-01-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

Put simply, when two people have their own websites, and they mutually agree to place links on each others websites, on a reciprocal basis, so as to direct the search engines and, consequently, traffic from one to the other, we say we have reciprocal links.

In practice, however, the exercise is not all that simple. A lot of effort and time and sometimes money may have to be spent. When the Internet was young in promoting web-based businesses, establishing reciprocal links between websites with related business interests was quite common and profitable. For more details go to www.guardadsense.com. Over time, two things changed the scenario for reciprocal links. The advent of Google as a search engine with its novel concept of ranking web pages was a major development that affected reciprocal links in the long run.

The more the number of one-way inbound links to your website page, the better the page ranking by the search engine. In pursuit of better ranked pages, people started offering outbound links to other websites in order to attract inbound links by way of reciprocity, and this without rhyme or reason.
The other thing that happened was that a lot of unscrupulous webmasters and evil-minded people started taking undue advantage of the rush for reciprocal links with the aim of improving the ranking of their pages and making a quick buck.

Some of them used devious techniques to make your reciprocal link appear to be an outbound one to the search engine, depriving you of your advantage of getting back a link to your page. A situation arose in which search engines started downgrading the pages that demonstrated artificial or unnatural linking patterns.

Will increasing the number of reciprocal links help improve the ranking of your website pages, in this background? On the contrary, search engines tend to penalize websites with too many page-links to unrelated sites because the search engines do not hold any value in such links. Your search engine page rank will take a nose dive.

But our title question is not fully answered yet. If you qualify the type of reciprocal links by dedicating a small number of such links to websites that have relevance, in that they augment one another’s traffic, then reciprocal links become worthy of the effort involved in designing proper web pages with enhanced focus on the exact purpose of your website.
Do not indulge in having outbound links to questionable sites. For more details login to www.googleadsense-empire.com. Do not deal with any automated network-links that are not subject to any editor-discretion. Reject linking services that offer you either incentives or guarantees to provide an unlimited or large number of reciprocal links to sites to which you have no reason to get connected. Avoid such other pitfalls and your effort in having reciprocal links will surely pay dividends.

Search engines and webmasters will not object to links that end up in effecting end-user benefits making them entirely worth the effort, if you are willing to spend it.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

10 Things You Can Do Today to Boost The Effectiveness of Your Marketing Program (Part 1, 1-5)

2009-01-10T23:28:00.000-08:00

It is human nature to try and improve upon the conditions around us, and as humans we are hardwired to be curious and to strive to improve our lot in life in ways large and small.For organizations, there have been many theories expounded over the years about quality improvement, continuous improvement, conscious improvement and a slew of others - clearly getting better at what you do as an organization is a key component to success.

If you think of your outreach marketing program as the volume control for the information reaching prospective members or customers, it would be a simple impulse to turn up that switch when you needed more members, or wanted to launch a new program - improving your communication quality, focusing the message, boosting the frequency and breadth of the media carrying it to increase sales or membership in one simple motion.

Unfortunately it's not really that simple. However, there are lots of small things you can do to increase the effectiveness of your outreach marketing - some of them as easy and inexpensive as turning up that volume control. Some may seem obvious, but in aggregate, they should boost response, increase participation, build membership and loyalty, and increase retention in your organization.

1) Get To Know Your Audience
Primary research among membership-based organizations is more rare than most would care to admit, and good research into your members' preferences, needs and desires can really provide you with a good, solid foundation for basing creative and strategic decisions going forward. The more you know about your members and prospective members, the more your marketing messages will resonate, the more likely your offers will be found relevant to their lives, and the more value they will find in the programs designed for their benefit. Phone research, in the form of in-depth interviews with members, either individuals or representatives of organizations, can provide eye-opening insights that can drive your strategic marketing efforts in a new and more effective direction. There are several highly reputable research organizations and consultants that can help guide you through the process to be sure you get accurate, actionable results.

TO DO: From your in-house database, select 20 members, and 20 prospects, with a good selection of large and small (trade only), or for professional societies, a good mix of member types. Call the list using a short 1-page, 5-question script devised to elicit in-depth responses, not one word answers. Use questions that rank priorities as often as feasible, so you have some quantitative data as well as general, anecdotal information. Note the differences between members and prospects - that gap is where to focus your efforts.

2) Refine and Use Your "House" List for Direct Mail
Your member database is the heart of your organization. Is it healthy? Is there plaque build-up of bad information, outdated addresses, prospects that have no relevance to your offers, or need of your services? Is it unwieldy to use, complex to navigate, cumbersome to work with? Is it structured the way your organization works so that it mirrors your efforts, or does it fight you every step of the way? Do you find that it takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to extract what should be simple requests for subsets or quick lists like committees or sub-groups? If the answer is "Yes" to any of these questions, it's time to evaluate your database software, structure and use in light of how your organization uses and needs access to data.

If you can't easily extract and manipulate your own in-house data, it will be extremely difficult to compare it to prospect data so you can make intelligent selections for focused, targeted, personalized mailings. Bad data does more damage than good data used ineffectively, especially in membership-based organizations where every member needs to be treated like gold, let alone executive committees, board members, special-interest groups that need some extra attention.

TO DO: Select a random list of 40 members from your database, however your normal procedures allow you to do that. If it takes longer than about an hour, you need to develop new processes at a minimum, and at worst you need to revamp your entire database, starting with new software and converting the data, after you clean it up and verify each piece. One quick way to do this is with a database dump postcard. Craft a postcard that explains what you're trying to do - clean your data. Ask the members to update the info on the label on the front in spaces on the back if need be and mail it back to you. The first 200 that return the card will receive a small gift as a "Thank You". You should receive less than 2% bad addresses. If not, time to do a major overhaul of your data.

3) Re-Evaluate Your Benefits and Offers - Are They Still Relevant?
The question running through any prospect's mind when they think about membership is "What's in it for me?" If the benefits of membership are not delineated in crystal clear fashion in your prospecting and membership materials, you've lost before it ever gets opened.

Presenting a compelling reason to join and stay a member has everything to do with knowing the audience and crafting benefits statements that resonate with that audience. They should be strongly worded, clearly written and explained, and demonstrated as a benefit that solves a known and widely understood "problem" within the homogenous group.

If you're the Paint and Stain Manufacturers Association, and your biggest issue of concern for members is EPA regulatory compliance, one of your benefits should be something like "Close monitoring and strong, regular member input on all regulatory and legislative issues that could negatively impact manufacturers of all types of paints and stains." While that activity ultimately benefits non-members as well, the key is "member input" - they get direct access to legislators, through correspondence and website access, etc. Direct benefit - strong statement.

TO DO: Using the data gathered in item Number One, trot out your membership selling brochure and verify that the benefits of membership there still match up with the recently gathered data surrounding member needs and desires. If they don't, it might be time to re-evaluate the use of that piece of collateral.

4) Review Your Media List - And Use It To Raise Your Profile
Trade media should be the marketer's best friend. Good relationships with publishers and editors of various magazines, newsletters, websites, and blogs that serve your industry, including your own publications, is essential to crafting a cohesive view of your organization and branding the organization accurately and effectively. Strong relationships with those key individuals allow you to:

* Craft and release your statements at leisure
* Gives you early warning of other's perceptions of the organization from a neutral source
* Can tip you off to impending PR crisis
* Gives you heads up when there are going to be controversial stories written that involve your organization
* Allows them to readily contact you to get your point of view before it's published

. . . in short, it keeps the media fair and reasonable, and allows you better access to your audience, which consists of both members and prospects.

TO DO: Review your media list, and call the Managing Editor, and the Publisher, of the top 10 publications, websites or blogs covering your industry. Ask some simple questions about how your organization is performing based on what they've heard from their advertisers and readers.

Let them know that you've got some exciting new initiatives coming in the near future and you'd like to get their take on them before you launch them, since you value their opinion so highly. Not only will this reconnect you to them with the call itself, but give them something to gossip about and talk to the others about, speculating about your next move. Suddenly, you may notice that your next press release will get a lot more attention than it might have otherwise.

5) Show How Exciting Your Meeting Is, Not How Great The City Is
Meetings as a function have changed and evolved significantly, especially in the last few years, as travel has been curtailed for budgetary and security reasons. Your meeting marketing must show compelling reasons for your members to:

* work their way out of the office for a few days
* go through the trauma that is today's airport security
* get set up for three days of meeting, greeting and eating
* reverse the travel home,
* foot the entire bill themselves for the airfare, hotel, meals, seminars and the rest.

That needs to be some pretty convincing marketing. The meeting must look like they'll be at a grave disadvantage if they miss it, by presenting unequivocal benefits for attendees, tangible benefits that you can clearly see the advantage in receiving. That fact that it's in Cleveland, or Orlando, or Seattle, or wherever, is of minimal benefit, unless you live near the convention hotel in those cities. For the other 90+ percent of your members, it poses no compelling reason to attend.

As hotels become more homogenous and hotel brands are imposed more rigidly on individual locations and select properties, there is even less to differentiate the location for the meeting attendee - when one looks much like another, there's not even any benefit to the hotel choice, let alone city destination. At the end of the day, attendees will have seen a ball room or two, a generic restaurant, possibly the parking garage and their generic room. If not their hometown, it may as well be anywhere - unless you make it a special, memorable experience.

Make your meeting memorable with solid content, outstanding speakers that really know your industry and are exciting to listen to, and after hours activities that really showcase the destination, its history and culture. Focusing on the destination in your marketing materials is a crutch, is not effective, and can easily be avoided with some creativity, some teamwork with your meetings department and committee interaction in the planning stages.

TO DO: Pull out the collateral and registration materials used to promote the last five meetings you hosted for members - examine them under the cold light of day, and see if you used any of the destination crutches to create "excitement". Examine the program as a hard-working, time-starved, cash-strapped member might, and see if you'd attend this meeting if it were up to you to pay for it. Show them to your neighbor, and ask them "if the meeting were intended for their industry, would they pay to attend?" If not, time to re-examine your meetings goals and the approach you use to market them.

The above tips touch on many different aspects of non-profit and organizational marketing programs, but they are by no means complete or inclusive. They should at least be recognizable within your organization in some form, and will hopefully get the wheels spinning as you relate each to how you currently market the organization, and how some of them might fit into your current plan.

Some are free or inexpensive to implement, other require a greater investment in time, money and energy but pay off significant dividends in the longer term in increased member participation, boosted meeting attendance, bigger member rolls, more active committees, greater visibility for your organization and increased operational efficiency going forward. Anything you can do to increase visibility, build awareness, encourage members to join, participate and stay members is worth investigating.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Is AdSense Ready Receives Highest Rating?

2009-01-10T06:25:00.000-08:00

Review Place recently awarded a five-star rating to AdSense Ready, a collection of 150 search engine optimized websites designed to attract internet traffic to the user's websites - and their AdSense ads.

ï¿½We are happy to receive this recognition from Review Place,ï¿½ said Craig Rowe, a spokesperson for AdSense Ready to know more go to www.instant-adsense-dollars.comï¿½We know how competitive the AdSense websites market is. AdSense Ready enables our customers to gain a major advantage over the rest of the competition, so they can focus on making money instead of making content.ï¿½

AdSense Ready provides customers with a collection of 150 ready-to-use websites, perfect for attracting search engine traffic and generating AdSense revenue. Whereas other AdSense tools still require the user to find and/or create their own content, the makers of AdSense Ready have already done all the work! All the user needs to do is plug the files into their own domains, and they have an instant AdSense jackpot. AdSense Ready comes equipped with all of the little extras necessary to make the websites appear as unique content: downloadable and easy-to-install files, simple customization of the sites as desired, custom H1 tags, title tags, and keywords for every page, and RSS feeds that fool the search engines into thinking the content is unique while disguising the link to an external site.

ï¿½Nothing is faster than AdSense Ready!ï¿½ said Andy West, the Press Relations representative for Review Place. ï¿½With this product, all you have to do is download the website files, and then upload them to your own domains. If you have an AdSense account already, you know how much time it takes to produce unique content. AdSense Ready enables AdSense users to completely avoid this tedious task, which has earned the product a top rating from our reviewers.ï¿½

One of the leading consumer-driven online communities, Review Place provides reviews on thousands of products and services. Review Place categories include home based businesses, employment services, relationship advice and many more. The site is dedicated to saving you time and money by providing quality information on the issues that impact your life for more details you can login to www.guardadsense.com.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Which Marketing Channel Do You Use?

2009-01-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

There are so many marketing channels you can choose from, whether it is online or offline. What marketing channel do you use? What works for you?Are you looking for more ways to market your business and get the word out about your products and/or services? This article will show you several marketing channels you can choose from, and find out which ones work the best for you. Sometimes, you just have to plan to use a particular marketing channel and then put your all into it. Over time, the results will show you which ones to stick with.

Marketing communications have been around since businesses have. It is just a method to get your potential customers and clients interested in your business, to get to know your business name, products, mission, services, etc. Marketing is a way to get your potential customers and clients to walk through that door or click on your website. From there, it is all about sales. However, you can also choose several marketing methods that are inside your store or on your website.

Direct marketing is extremely important. There are several different ways to direct market. According to Wikipedia, direct marketing is used when measurable leads, sales, or traffic (retail or web) are the objective. A direct marketing effort is undertaken to generate a specific response -- which can be tracked and measured.

There are many channels to choose from when using direct marketing, including the following:

- Newspapers
- Magazines
- TV
- Mail
- Email
- Websites
- Radio
- Billboard

Direct marketing is basically when you are advertising to a certain group of potential customers and you ask them to call you, visit your website, or come into your store. That is the first step in making a sale.

Direct mail marketing can be done two different ways. One, for example, if you want to advertise locally, you could send out postcards, flyers, etc. to every resident in your area or town. If you want to target your existing customers or potential customers you can send the mail to all of them.

Email marketing can be a little tricky because of all of the spam programs out there, and people getting ultimately frustrated about potential spam messages. However, you can use email marketing in a safe and possibly effective way. You can use opt-in emails to send out messages to market your business, and it has been very successful for many web businesses.

No matter what form of marketing you choose to use, make sure you first weigh the pros and cons of each one. One of the biggest cons can be the cost. Is it worth choosing a certain direct marketing method for the cost? The pros can be your increase in sales, website hits and more. You will also need a way to track every direct marketing method you choose so you can see which ones are doing what. Once you find a marketing plan that works for you, you will be on your way to direct marketing success!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Google Adsense Technology

2009-01-08T23:23:00.000-08:00

Google Adsense is a contextual advertising program that allows advertisers and publishers to work together for a win-win outcome for all parties concerned. Through publishers or webmasters who rent space on their websites, advertisers can get "contextual" or highly relevant advertising out to web surfers who visit sites that interest them. Google will place various forms of advertising on sites, and depending upon the number of ad impressions or click through, an advertiser will pay a certain amount to show their advertising messages.

The Google technology is cutting-edge and was, until a few years ago, impossible to attain. However, utilizing complex Google algorithms, the spiders who are robotic readers visit various websites and calculate the number of words versus the number of times a certain keyword or phrase is present. For more details go to www.googleatmcash.com. This tells the spider and Google which types of advertising to deliver. The relevancy of the advertising is directly related to a visitor clicking on the advertiser's message.

In addition to the type of advertising available, the advertising can also be delivered in a wide variety of sizes from the smaller 125x125 on up to the larger 336x280 ads. The shapes range from banner, to vertical skyscraper advertising, ads for getting advertisers to use the service, a search feature that also pays and straight referral bonuses.

Recently Google has allowed users to publish advertising in a whole new way. As mentioned previously, You Tube advertising is taking Google Adsense by storm. Video is the next big medium, so it's no wonder that advertisers are following suits. Many web publishers are placing video Adsense on their websites and blogs to help grab the attention of surfers and add interest, motion and color to their website. In addition, these ads also garner the webmaster more income.

Adsense publishing is an up and down income with many variables going in to whether the webmaster has a good month or a bad one. While some websites have a large amount of traffic, others are smaller niche markets with very specific advertising being delivered. In some cases, the smaller, niche intensive websites earn more money than the larger, broad-spectrum business models, because the advertising in smaller niches has advertisers paying 10x the amount of money that others are paying.

Adsense provides many tools for their web publishers and advertisers to use in order to maximize their earning potential. Google also provides a full training school for serious business concerns looking to become certified in Google Adwords promotion. To know more about it login to www.youradsenseprofits.com. While this program is for the big guns, the little guns are just as welcome to work through the program and it is completely free with both video and text printouts.

To gauge how the Adsense earning are going, and to figure out trends and track which sites are doing better than others monetarily, many web publishers will not only use their Adsense publisher's ID, but also add a Google Adsense channel to each of the ads that they generate. In this way, they can keep up with which sites are doing well and which are not and make adjustments accordingly.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Ingersoll-Rand China Select Knowlesys Web Data Mining System for Marketing Department Collect Industry News, Reports, Company Financial Data

2009-01-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

SHENZHEN, CHINA - Mar 8, 2007 Knowlesys has been selected for web data mining again, this time by Ingersoll-Rand China. The web information extraction giant is taking charge of the marketing department’s data collection, and will be covering industry news, reports, and company financial data. In this brief article, we’ll take a look at how Knowlesys operates, what web crawling is and how it works, as well as their new crawler: the KWDMS.
Most data collection agencies operate through web crawlers. Before moving on, we’ll take a quick look at what web crawlers are and how they work. A crawler, also often called a robot, spider, or ant, is a piece of code designed to hop around the web, accessing sites and gathering information as the user desires. They are fully automated, independent programs that can gather and compile information into indices to be more easily read, or even turned into spreadsheets and graphs. Knowlesys works in much the same way, by sending out these spiders to locate, recover, and compile information for their clients.

So why hire someone to surf the web for you? There are over ten billion web pages, with about one million more being created each day. Imagine how much time it would take a single person to read every word and access every link on every web page created every day. It simply isn’t possible. Therefore, hire a company to do it. Better yet, hire a company with an automated information retrieval and compiling system to do it. Knowlesys offers its clients an easy, affordable way to get information on anything from competitors’ prices and product information to lead generation and client profiling.

Knowlesys’s secret weapon is the KWDMS – the Knowlesys Web Data Mining System. This powerful program is designed to be able to handle any number of functions, from web site indexing for search engines to data collection to web site maintenance. Search engine indexing works by having spiders jump across accessible links. Data collection has the user enter what type of information and which sites they want scraped, and spiders can maintain a web site by accessing and viewing images and links, then repairing broken ones. The Knowlesys Web Data Mining System has become wildly popular with a range of companies, and is one of the most powerful automated information retrieval programs available today.

About Knowlesys Software
Knowlesys is a leading provider of Web Data Integration solutions based in ShenZhen, China. Available in both on-premise and on-demand packages, Knowlesys Web Data Extraction products can help the user extract, aggregate, transform and syndicate unstructured data on the web from multiple web sources, including sites with complex JavaScript and AJAX. Using Knowlesys’ software and services, The time on data collection can be reduced to days or hours rather than months or weeks. Knowlesys customers include small businesses and large corporate customers in the fortune 1000 for example the world’s leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce companies.
For more information please visit http://www.knowlesys.com .
Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Alibaba.com selects Knowlesys Web Data Mining System

2009-01-06T23:24:00.000-08:00

SHENZHEN, CHINA - Aug 5, 2008 Knowlesys today announced that alibaba.com has chosen Knowlesys, a web data collection firm, as their web data mining system provider.They will be providing data mining for the marketing department, collecting various types of listings including products, companies, and advertisements. Knowlesys employs a specific crawling system that offers extraction of unstructured web data into a structured database, thus allowing clients to more easily create spreadsheets and graphs of the desired information. The benefits are obvious. In this age of abundant information at our fingertips nobody has time enough to sift through the billions of web pages available for the information they need. Why not hire someone else to do it? Better yet, why not hire someone else with an automated program to do it?

Let’s take a brief look at what a web crawler is. A web crawler, also known as a web spider or web robot, is a package of code sent out by data collection agencies like Knowlesys designed to browse the web in a systematic manner, accessing pages or types of pages as specified by the user. They can be used for a great number of functions, including but not limited to data collection (they can look up specific fields like e-mail addresses and phone numbers, and types of data like text or video files), web site maintenance (by accessing and viewing links and images, and fixing broken ones), and are used by search engines to access, index, and rank pages as search results.

What does Knowlesys have that their competition doesn’t? They’ve got the KWDMS, the Knowlesys Web Data Mining System. This software was developed over file years, and is one of the most powerful web information extraction systems available today. It boasts a stratified structure, a loosely coupled module design, and is comprised of multiple subsystems. If that jargon didn’t make any sense to you, just trust us when we say that it packs a punch.

The Knowlesys Web Data Mining System is capable of extracting data from several different types of websites. It can extract field data from semi-structured and non-structured sites, but also picks up information like e-mails and profile information as it goes. It logs multimedia files, text, URLs, and much more. It then compiles this information to a database to be used however the client desires, be it for marketing, research, or personal use.

About Knowlesys Software
Knowlesys is a leading provider of Web Data Integration solutions based in ShenZhen, China. Available in both on-premise and on-demand packages, Knowlesys Web Data Extraction products can help the user extract, aggregate, transform and syndicate unstructured data on the web from multiple web sources, including sites with complex JavaScript and AJAX. Using Knowlesys’ software and services, The time on data collection can be reduced to days or hours rather than months or weeks. Knowlesys customers include small businesses and large corporate customers in the fortune 1000 for example the world’s leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce companies

For more information please visit http://www.knowlesys.com.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Google Adsense -Use Adsense , affiliate marketing, pay per lead ads & more to Make Money!

2009-01-06T23:22:00.000-08:00

If you are subscribed to lots of Internet Marketing lists like me, Iï¿½m sure youï¿½ve seen the dramatic rise Adsense and search engine marketing tools. The overwhelming majority of the population has no clue what Google Adsenseis and doesn't understand that Google and the site owner make money when they click on an ad. When you start using Word press to build your Adsense websites, youï¿½ll soon discover what I mean.

1) A fraudulent website is set up and participates in programs like Google's Adsense program. An alternative to Adsense ads is to go into some pay-per-lead programs. This strategy, coupled with careful tracking of ad performance, will guarantee that you are making serious amounts of money with Google Adsense. For more results visit us at www.guardadsense.com. Google supplies excellent resources on The Dos and The Don'ts of Adsense as well as very comprehensive tutorials on how to set up and use Adsense.

The first Google Adsense tool you need to check out is your Google Adsense channels. "Explode Your Google Adsense and Affiliate Commissions through Niche Blog Content Sitesï¿½ Did you notice the last two words within the quotations. Housewives, retirees, mom and dads, and others that have never made a dime on the internet have created full-time incomes by simply placing Google Adsense ads on their web sites or blog. Use Adsense, affiliate marketing, pay per lead ads, & more to generate revenue.

With affiliate ads, as opposed to, say, Google Adsense, income depends on your readers actually purchasing the product. While you use Adsense codes on your pages, it is very important to review terms and conditions of Google Adsense program. Once I clicked on a link for more information - it all goes back to that single click, I was bombarded by the "make a fortune", "generate massive traffic", "explode your Adsense revenue", "capture high paying keywords", and the rest of the "unlimited profit from Adsense" brigade. Com/Made for Adsense (CS Monitor Article) That article made it appear that the entire Adsense program was a huge underground economy, when in fact that program made it truly viable for legitimate publishers of niche content to do very well for themselves for the first time.

So what are the Google Adsense success secrets that other successful webmasters use to make some great money with their website? Google Adsense - this is my personal favorite. Because the Adsenseï¿½ program displays advertisements that are so closely related to the website content, it is advantageous to webmasters because the advertisements are actually of interest to website visitors. Adsense will automatically generate ads related to your topic and advertise these on your site.

2) Just note, however, that while this was especially true a couple of years ago, the prevalence of garbage made-for-Adsense type of sites to try and register a domain name with keywords in have led to this factor being overused and abused. (More details are on the Adsense Decoded site here, so I will just give you a run down of the video lessons as an overview. C) Ways to make money from Adsense by Using Articles and a Viral Marketing Website Any online marketing technique that involves the use of referral marketing or viral marketing automatically has a huge chance of being a success. You can also login on to www.guardadsense.com. You should remember that you will have to churn out articles fairly regularly to keep your safe lists well fed and the traffic flowing to your Adsense sites.

This HTML code can contain the ï¿½Ignore " trade, which keeps Google Adsense from using keywords in the specific section of the website when choosing ads for you. They can use them to promote their affiliate marketing business, or they can place Google Adsense ads right into the text. You also have the option of advertising on Googleï¿½s content network which includes all Adsense publishers, clicks from the content network can normally be attained at a lower CPC (cost per click) but this generally doesnï¿½t convert into sales as well as the search network and is more likely to receive fraudulent clicks. But if the site involves you in no work (for example if it sells an e-Book or you generate Adsense income etc from it, then why remove it.
Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Google Adsense: An Excellent Way To Enhance Your Income

2009-01-06T23:19:00.000-08:00

It you're trying to make money with Google Adsense program, there are several things that you can do in order to help to maximize your profits. Many people who try to use this particular way of making money end up quitting because they are discouraged with how little they are actually making.

The fact of the matter is, if you use it in the proper way this can be an excellent way to enhance your income or to even provide you with a primary income. It all starts, however, with advertisement placement.

Far too many people place their advertisements off to the side or down low on the webpage. These are typically the ones that complain about how poorly the advertising program works.

If you are putting your ads in an out-of-the-way place, they will rarely ever get clicked on. In fact, you are almost asking people to go out of their way in order to click on your ad, something that they are never going to do.

It is better if you make sure that the ad is directly in their face, right at the top of the page or close to the top if you are going to get the kind of clicks that you need to make serious money.

Not only does the need to be near the top of the page, you need to make sure that it is designed well so that it will pull in clicks. One of the easiest ways to do this is to blend the ad into your page as if it were a part of it.

For example, if you have a simple article page with a white background, make the border and the background of the ad white as well. This will make it blend very well into the page and if you put the links directly above the article, they will pull in additional clicks.

Of course, it also depends on what kind of ad sizes you are actually using. One of the most effective of the as sizes is the large rectangle.

If you use one of these at the top of your page that blends in well, you will definitely pull a lot of clicks. What if you don't want to be quite so out there with your advertising? You can use other Adsense ads as well if you use them properly.

A good example of this is the link unit ads. You can also blend these into the page and make them look as if they were navigational links leading to various parts of your website.

You would be surprised with the number of clicks you can get by using this method as well. As far as the Adsense program is concerned, it all has to do with the number of clicks that you get. Make sure that you put these ads on all of your pages, especially in the right positions and the profits will follow.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Want To Earn Cash from Google Adsense

2009-01-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

These days a web business has many excellent tools in the battle to be competitive in their field. One of these powerful tools is the popular Google search engine. Google is successful, so obviously, Google can make your web business a success, as well. It is a fact that 90 million visitors each and every month can pay testament to this reality. Google.com is one of the largest search engines on the web right now. They have tools engaged to ensure this and they have tools to help you succeed too!

What Google does, is they take the first few lines of text and put that into the search result when someone punches in your keyword. This is how you develop page rank and popularity. There are traffic monitors available to you when you use the Google service. This is wonderful because then you know when you need to adapt your words to locate additional traffic. When dealing with Google, it is extremely important for you to make the first paragraph of your page the largest impact statement. This is what is going to be seen on the search result by the viewer. You need to guarantee that is what they see, impact! This will motivate them to peruse your site. The more views you have to your site, the higher the traffic volume; the more volume, the higher the page ranking and popularity. To know more go to www.guardadsense.com.

A good rule of thumb is have at minimum, 8% of the words you use be keywords, with approximately 300 words being used as the impact paragraph. Because this is what is going to be seen first, you have to make it count! There are what is known as spiders that constantly view sites and record content to use as indexing, however, you never know when they will by surfing your site. It is not always the case that they will index your full site on one trip to it, so you want to ensure that you optimize your pages. They will always start from the top of the page; this is why it is important to have the most impact near the top of the site. The best method of ensuring that your entire site is crawled on by the spiders is to place your site on Google Sitemaps. Automatic updating on the site indexing is one of the excellent perks that come with the Google Sitemaps.

The files saved are XML files; this is like having your very own direct link to Google, like a data cable for more details you can login to www.adsense-income-exposed.com. Generally, Adsense involves third party advertisements rotated on your web sites pages. Every time someone clicks on the site on your page and they leave yours, you get paid for the Adsense transfer. It is that simple.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Google Adsense-selling Business

2009-01-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

AdSense, on the other hand, allows publishers that they ads appear like texts only on relevant web sites that have similar target audience like their business. You must treat Google Adsense as a real business. Google Ad words/Adsense - Advertise your business on Google. Currently, there is a special offer with a number of bonuses including a whole network of associate websites, already set up and hosted for you, an absolute Adsense business and a monthly newsletter.

You need to keep creating more sites as older ones fail - or you need to be smart and use those AdSense revenues to build an enduring business. Before we begin let me point out that Google Adsense isn't a game or a get rich quick scheme it's a legitimate business, so approach it as such. People place adsense on their online family photo albums, their blogs and their business sites. Say you build your business model on creating hundreds of sites and earning big money by putting Google Adsense ads on the pages.

Ok, if you decided to have a full fledged e-commerce website for business, filled with good selection of products, jointed up with other links with more selections simply visit www.adsense-income-exposed.com …let me share with you, it is not an ideal site for Google AdSense Program. Above all these, you will need a collection of good resources to assist you in your business as an adsense publisher. Google AdSense, affiliate programs, joint ventures with other, none competing Business, as well as the sale of your own products or services has the potential to multiply your income. During the six months or so that we went through this I spoke to numerous business coaches and others who have been seduced by the hype and wasted their time optimizing their web sites for Google’s AdSense, which only served to get people they wanted to do business with to leave them for their competitors.

In other words, an continual non-stop drive to keep on building websites and treating the business as strictly one of providing workable content sites for publishing adsense. To get into the Adsense marketing business and start earning some good cash, ask yourself. For example, if you are interested in building adsense content sites, you should either find a thriving adsense publisher who is willing to help you out, or join a network of adsense publishers that can provide the help you need in order to see regular improvements in your business. For more help visit www.youradsenseprofits.com They can use them to promote their member marketing business, or they can place Google Adsense ads right into the text.

It is possible to construct a more or less viable business model around AdSense. It is possible to construct a more or less viable business model around AdSense. Nike traditional site monetization models like Google Adsense, Amazon, and a host of popular affiliate-type programs, Photo max is structured as a multi-level or network marketing business which will have many folks turning away before exploring its real potential. You need to keep creating more sites as older ones fail - or you need to be smart and use those AdSense revenues to build an enduring business.

Ok, if you decided to have a full fledged e-commerce website for business, filled with good selection of products, jointed up with other links with more selections…let me share with you, it is not an ideal site for Google AdSense Program. Above all these, you will need a compilation of good resources to assist you in your business as an adsense publisher. Google AdSense, colleague programs, joint ventures with other, none competing Business, as well as the sale of your own products or services has the potential to multiply your income.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

How A Fountain of Spit Taught Me Why Adsense Templates Don't Work!

2009-01-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

The sign on the door said AAA. This had to be it. I inched the door open and was instantly overcome by a tsunami sound wave of chanting: YES SIR! ADCENT FIXMASTER SIR! YES SIR! ADCENT FIXMASTER SIR!

Whoa! What had I gotten myself into? What was this, some kinda cult?

Alright I'll admit it. I'm an addict--an adsense junkie! But it was counseling I needed not some nutters' army! I tried to ease my way out without being noticed, but too late, the bald dude on the podium noticed me. He beckoned me forward with a flick of his hand. I approached cautiously and started up the steps but he practically shoved me back. I could see why, he couldn't have been an inch over five foot; I'd tower over him if we stood side by side--not the best situation if you're trying to be an effective commanding officer. Commanding officer--huh? I guess the atmosphere was contagious.

"NAME?" he bellowed.
"Marc Ting," I replied somewhat timidly.
"SAY WHAT?" he barked showering me with a fine mist spray of spittle.
"MARC K. TING, SIR!" I shot back. But apparently that was not good enough. He glared at me as his face chameleoned through various shades of red before settling on a beetroot hue. For a second there I thought he was about to smack me. I guess the same thought must have crossed his mind because he abruptly turned his attention to the rest of the troop.

"YOU!" he growled to some skinny pimple-faced kid who had ADDICT written all over, "NAME!"

"OTTO RHEES-PONDAR, ADCENT FIXMASTER SIR!" pimple-face shouted back with rank precision; looked like normal speech was frowned upon in this neck of the woods. The Fixmaster turned back to me. The look on his face left no doubt; I'd better get it right this time round or else. I did! But that didn't stop him from laying into me anyway.

"WE HAVE TWO KINDS OF ADSENSE ADDICTS HERE" he boomed while pacing the podium, "THOSE WHO ONCE MADE A FORTUNE FROM ADSENSE AND THE LOSERS WHO NEVER DID!" He paused to catch his breath which was okay by me; the fine mist spray of spittle had long since turned into a cascading waterfall of spit that somehow seemed to land nowhere else but my forehead. Thus for the first time in my life I was grateful for the grotesquely bushy eyebrows the powers-that-be felt compelled to bestow upon me from the moment I was born.

"Tell me son" the Fixmaster continued, "When did you first start your adsense endeavors?" I wasn't sure what was more disconcerting; the fact that he called me son or the fact that he was talking normally.

"JANUARY 2006 ADCENT FIXMASTER SIR!" I hollered back, as loud as the best of them.

"AS I THOUGHT! WE GOT OURSELVES A GEN-U-WINE ADSENSE LOSER" he spat with obvious contempt and disdain. "I BETCHA TWEAKED, FIDDLED, ADJUSTED AND TRIMMED TILL YOUR FINGERS WERE RAW TO THE BONE, BUT YOU NEVER MADE MORE THAN NICKEL AND CENTS. AIN'T THAT RIGHT LOSER?"

Evidently I no longer qualified as son anymore but I couldn't have cared less. He was right though; I never did make anything more than nickel and dimes from Google Adsense despite faithfully following every instruction from the plethora of expensive adsense courses I had bought. In fact things had gotten so bad, that at one point my girlfriend started getting jealous of the computer. Imagine that--jealous of a computer!

Anyway I suppose it must have been the sum of the past year's adsense frustrations; my girlfriend almost dumping me; not to mention being publicly berated and humiliated by a five-foot tyrant that made my eyes suddenly well up. Apparently the Fixmaster must have noticed because just like that he stopped his tirade. I guess nothing quite kills troop morale as a grown man blubbering for no apparent good reason. From that point onwards the meeting was less boot camp and more group therapy. The Fixmaster confided that he used to make a ton of money from adsense but had committed the cardinal sin of spending it just as fast as he made it! Like so many others he thought the adsense party would never end. But end it did! And when that happened he lost a heck of a lot more than just his adsense mega-revenue. He lost his wife, his kids, his expensive cars, his two houses and his identity. So he decided it was only fitting to lose the adsense guru moniker too and start a new chapter of his life. One of counseling adsense lost souls like those of us gathered at the weekly Adsense Addicts Anonymous meetings, as well as educate newbie marketers of the dangers of exploitative "adsense gurus" who made their adsense money these days by capitalizing on the newbie's lack of knowledge. Here's what he had to say:

1. So-called adsense gurus only sell their eBooks or software after Google has nullified their systems.

2. Adsense gurus did not make their money the way they tell it in their eBooks.

3. Adsense Pre-optimized templates simply cannot work because of the changes that Google made to its adsense algorithm and is continually improving upon.

4. Anybody who bought an adsense eCourse or eBook after October 2005 was doomed to fail no matter if they followed the instructions faithfully and exactly.

5. The common sense kicker: why would adsense gurus let you in on their mega-revenue generating system while it still worked!

6. Adsense gurus these days make their money by selling their bogus adsense products to the unwary.

7. If you look carefully you'll notice almost all adsense revenue screenshots are from 2005 not 2006!

Article Source: http://www.ArticleStreet.com/

Business Bricks ( Bata Stone)

2008-11-22T19:29:00.001-08:00

Realization of the fact that "Time is Money" in business activities, the dynamic decision technologies presented here, have been a necessary tool for applying to a wide range of managerial decisions successfully where time and money are directly related. In making strategic decisions under uncertainty, we all make forecasts.
We may not think that we are forecasting, but our choices will be directed by our anticipation of results of our actions or inactions. Indecision and delays are the parents of failure. This site is intended to help managers and administrators do a better job of anticipating, and hence a better job of managing uncertainty, by using effective forecasting and other predictive techniques.

Had you heard or seen bricks..?

Bricks are one of the bases to make the houseBuilding , more than fifty percent his base house is bricks.
This article,do not discuss the house instruction with bricks , but in the aspect of the business make bricks.
From the instruction made bricks , The estimate or forecast of capital of efforts,The estimate of the cost , The estimate of the profit, and The aspect of the production.
In the village cepor berbah sleman, the inhabitants who do not work In the governmentOffice or Private enterprise's office do business made bricks.

That is Site Business Bata Stone Fotograph etc

A survival guide for Sales Profesional

2008-11-22T19:28:00.000-08:00

Sales Person is very important for Distribution Organization.
If your sales People have a Profesional Job , You must be Coaching, Training etc.
That Post for Guidance Training for your Sales people.
1. SET DAILY GOALS
• Set daily goals for yourself for more efficient time management.
• Divide your goals into multi categories – like how many clients you have to meet each day or week.
• What is the minimum target you must achieve daily and weekly to fulfil your month-end goal.

2. BE INNOVATIVE & FLEXIBLE
• There is no fixed approach to garnering sales. A sales profesional has to be innovative and flexible.
• Meeting your clients demands may be a daunting task, but if you can exceed their expectations, you will increase your chances of closing a deal.
• Find out what your clients want by meeting them and discussing ideas.
• This gives you a better picture of their demands, and enabling you to come up with creative ideas to meet their needs and win their favour

3 UP GRADE YOUR PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE
• It is important to have in-depth and precise knowledge of theproducts you are selling.
• If your knowledge is superficial, then your chance of closing a deal is close to zero.
• Be familiar with your competitors range of products and services will also given you a competitive edge as you will be able to help your clients make comparisons and inspire confidence in your products.

4.IMPROVE YOUR SALES KNOWLEDGE
• Upgrading your sales techniques and knowledge by attending workshop and reading related articles are ways to improve your selling skills.
• Ask your colleaques how you can improve your skiils and sales approach, learn from previous experience.

5.FOCUS ON YOUR CUSTOMER NEEDS
• Always ask your self what benefits you can offer tour customer if they choose to close a deal with you rather than with other sales agents.
• If possible, try to get the extra mile for your clients as it shows your sincerity in working with them
• Little gestures will definitly help in closing a deal.

6. GOOD SERVICE - GOES A LONG WAY
• People pay for your products/services because they believe that you will provide excellent customer service.
• Make an effort to contact your client after the sales to collect feedback on the products and services, and see if there is anything else you can do to help.
• Remember that your job as a SF doesn’t end after your client has signed the invoice.
• If your client is impressed with your product, he might even introduce more customers to you

The Benefits of a Good Attitude

2008-11-22T19:25:00.000-08:00

If someone offered you 10 million dollars (tax free and in cash) if you would consistently maintain a good attitude for the next 30 days, would you give it a try? If they defined a good attitude as acting positive, pleasant, friendly, enthusiastic and encouraging, without complaining, could you do that for 30 days and win the 10 million bucks?

I think you would do it. You would absolutely make yourself have a good attitude for a month because you would be highly motivated to win the enormous award of 10 million dollars.
Now, nobody is really going to offer you such a cash prize for a good attitude, but the payoffs for a good attitude are a reward in themselves.

Here are the real-life benefits of a consistently good attitude:

Happiness
The better your attitude the happier you will be. Happiness is not a commodity that is found by pursuit. Instead, it is a state of mind produced by a positive attitude.

Health
A good attitude is a better pain reliever than Anacin, Tylenol, Mediprin and Bayer, all put together. A positive mental attitude strengthens the body's immune system and releases a natural drug (more powerful than morphine) into the mind.

Self-confidence
A good attitude causes a person to feel good about himself and to project that feeling to others.

Great human relationships
People who feel good about themselves are not on the defensive with other people. They are open and honest and have rich, rewarding relationships.

Improved performance
Experts say that attitude accounts for 85% of all job success. People perform better in every area of their lives with a good attitude.

Help and encouragement for other people
Since attitude is highly contagious, your good attitude will automatically make you a real benefit to everyone you meet.

Increased income and other material rewards
Because your good attitude will make you very valuable to other people (your boss for instance), they, in time, will reward you with money and possessions.
With all these benefits to gain and nothing to lose but grumpiness, pain and misery, I challenge you to show a good attitude for the next 720 hours (30 days).
If you don't feel a good attitude works after trying it for 30 days, then go ahead and be as miserable as you want to be. But at least give a positive mental attitude a sincere try. If you do, you will discover the rewards are much better than 10 million dollars. Much better

Leadership

2008-11-22T19:20:00.000-08:00

Introduction
Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience. This guide will help you through that process.

To inspire your people into higher levels of teamwork, there are certain things you must be, know, and, do. These do not come naturally, but are acquired through continual work and study. The best leaders are continually working and studying to improve their leadership skills.
Before we get started, lets define leadership. Leadership is a complex process by which a person influences others to accomplish a mission, task, or objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. A person carries out this process by applying her leadership attributes (belief, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills). Although your position as a manager, supervisor, lead, etc. gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not make you a leader...it simply makes you the boss. Leadership makes people want to achieve high goals and objectives, while, on the other hand, bosses tell people to accomplish a task or objective.
Bass' (1) theory of leadership states that there are three basic ways to explain how people become leaders. The first two explain the leadership development for a small number of people.

These theories are:
Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the Trait Theory.
A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory.
People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the Transformational Leadership Theory. It is the most widely accepted theory today and the premise on which this guide is based.
When a person is deciding if he respects you as a leader, he does not think about your attributes. He observes what you do so that he can know who you really are. He uses this observation to tell if you are a honorable and trusted leader, or a self serving person who misuses her authority to look good and get promoted. Self serving leaders are not as effective because their employees only obey them, not follow them. They succeed in many areas because they present a good image to their seniors at the expense of their people.
The basis of good leadership is honorable character and selfless service to your organization. In your employees' eyes, your leadership is everything you do that effects the organization's objectives and their well being. A respected leader concentrates on what she is [be] (beliefs and character), what she knows (job, tasks, human nature), and what she does (implement, motivate, provide direction).
What makes a person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by those they respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, they must be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future.

Two Most Important Keys of Leadership

A Hay's study examined over 75 key components of employee satisfaction. They found that:
Trust and confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization.
Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to winning organizational trust and confidence:
Helping employees understand the company's overall business strategy.
Helping employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business objectives.
Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and how an employee's own division is doing - relative to strategic business objectives.
So basically, you must be trustworthy and you have to be able to communicate a vision of where you are going.

Notice how the "Principles of Leadership" in the next section closely ties in with this.
Human Relations
The six most important words: "I admit I made a mistake."
The five most important words: "You did a good job."
The four most important words: "What is your opinion."
The three most important words: "If you please."
The two most important words: "Thank you,"
The one most important word: "We"
The least most important word: "I"

Principles of Leadership

To help you be, know, and do, (2) follow these eleven principles of leadership (later sections will expand on gaining an insight into these principles and providing tools to perform them):
Know yourself and seek self-improvement. In order to know yourself, you have to understand your be, know, and do, attributes. Seeking self-improvement means continually strengthening your attributes. This can be accomplished through reading, self-study, classes, etc.
Be technically proficient. As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' jobs.
Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions. Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, they will sooner or later, do not blame others. Analyze the situation, take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.
Make sound and timely decisions. Use good problem solving, decision making, and planning tools.
Set the example. Be a good role model for you employees. They must not only hear what they are expected to do, but also see.
Know your people and look out for their well-being. Know human nature and the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.
Keep your people informed. Know how to communicate with your people, seniors, and other key people within the organization.
Develop a sense of responsibility in your people. Develop good character traits within your people that will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.
Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished. Communication is the key to this responsibility.
Train your people as a team. Although many so called leaders call their organization, department, section, etc. a team; they are not really teams...they are just a group of people doing their jobs.
Use the full capabilities of your organization. By developing a team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

Factors of leadership

The four major factors of leadership are the:
Follower - Different people require different styles of leadership. For example, a new hire requires more supervision than an experienced employee. A person with a poor attitude requires a different approach than one with a high degree of motivation. You must know your people! The fundamental starting point is having a good understanding of human nature: needs, emotions, and motivation. You must know your employees' be, know, and do attributes.
Leader - You must have a honest understanding of who you are, what you know, and what you can do. Also, note that it is the followers, not the leader who determines if a leader is successful. If a follower does not trust or lacks confidence in her leader, then she will be uninspired. To be successful you have to convince your followers, not yourself or your superiors, that you are worthy of being followed.
Communication - You lead through two-way communication. Much of it is nonverbal. For instance, when you "set the example," that communicates to your people that you would not ask them to perform anything that you would not be willing to do. What and how you communicate either builds or harms the relationship between you and your employees.
Situation - All situations are different. What you do in one leadership situation will not always work in another situation. You must use your judgment to decide the best course of action and the leadership style needed for each situation. For example, you may need to confront a employee for inappropriate behavior, but if the confrontation is too late or too early, too harsh or too weak, then the results may prove ineffective.
Various forces will affect these factors. Examples of forces are your relationship with your seniors, the skill of your people, the informal leaders within your organization, and how your company is organized.
Attributes
If you are a leader that can be trusted, then the people around you will learn to respect you. To be a good leader, there are things that you must be, know, and do. These fall under the Leadership Framework:
BE a professional. Examples: Be loyal to the organization, perform selfless service, take personal responsibility.
BE a professional who possess good character traits. Examples: Honesty, competence, candor, commitment, integrity, courage, straightforward, imagination.
KNOW the four factors of leadership - follower, leader, communication, situation.
KNOW yourself. Examples: strengths and weakness of your character, knowledge, and skills.
KNOW human nature. Examples: Human needs and emotions, and how people respond to stress.
KNOW your job. Examples: be proficient and be able to train others in their tasks.
KNOW your organization. Examples: where to go for help, its climate and culture, who the unofficial leaders are.
DO provide direction. Examples: goal setting, problem solving, decision making, planning
DO implement. Examples: communicating, coordinating, supervising, evaluating.
DO motivate. Examples: develop moral and esprit in the organization, train, coach, counsel.
Environment
Every organization has a particular work environment that dictates to a considerable degree how its leaders respond to problems and opportunities. This is brought about by a heritage of its past leaders and its present leaders. Leaders exert influence on the environment by three types of actions:

The goals and performance standards they establish.
The values they establish for the organization.
The business and people concepts they establish.

Successful organizations have good leaders who set high standards and goals across the entire spectrum such as strategies, market leadership, plans, presentations, productivity, quality, and reliability.
Values reflect the concern the organization has for its employees, customers, investors, vendors, and surrounding community. These values define the manner in how business will be conducted and what type of business the organization will engage in.
Concepts define what products or services the organization will offer and the methods and processes for conducting business.
These goals, values, and concepts make up the organization's "personality" or how the organization is observed by both outsiders and insiders. This personality defines the roles, relationships, rewards, and rites that take place.
Roles are the positions that are defined by a set of expectations about behavior of any job incumbent. Each role has a set of tasks and responsibilities that may or may not be spelled out. Roles have a powerful effect on behavior because money is paid for the performance of the role, there is prestige attached to a role, there is a sense of accomplishment or challenge, etc.
Relationships are determined by a role's tasks. Some tasks are performed alone, but most are carried out in relationship with others. The tasks will determine who the role-holder is required to interact with, how often, and towards what end. Also, the greater the interaction, the greater the liking. This in turn leads to more frequent interaction. In human behavior, its hard to like someone whom we have no contact with, and we tend to seek out those we like. People tend to do what they are rewarded for, and friendship is a powerful reward. Many tasks and behaviors that are associated with a role are brought about by these relationships. That is, new task and behaviors are expected of the present role holder because a strong relationship was developed in the past, either by that role holder or a prior role holder.

There are two distinct forces that dictate how to act within an organization: culture and climate.
Each organization has its own distinctive culture. It is a combination of the founders, past leadership, current leadership, crises, events, history, and size. This results in rites: the routines, rituals, and the "way we do things." These rites impact individual behavior on what it takes to be in good standing (the norm) and directs the appropriate behavior for each circumstance.
The climate is the feel of the organization, the individual and shared perceptions and attitudes of the organization's members. While the culture is the deeply rooted nature of the organization that is a result of long-held formal and informal systems, rules, traditions, and customs; climate is a short-term phenomenon created by the current leadership. Climate represents the beliefs about the "feel of the organization" by its members. This individual perception of the "feel of the organization" comes from what the people believe about the activities that occur in the organization. These activities influence both individual and team motivation and satisfaction.

Such activities include:

How well does the leader clarify the priorities and goals of the organization? What is expected of us?
What is the system of recognition, rewards, and punishments in the organization?
How competent are the leaders?
Are leaders free to make decision?
What will happen if I make a mistake?
Organizational climate is directly related to the leadership and management style of the leader, based on the values, attributes, skills, and actions, as well as the priorities of the leader. The ethical climate then is the "feel of the organization" about the activities that have ethical content or those aspects of the work environment that constitute ethical behavior. The ethical climate is the feel about whether we do things right; or the feel of whether we behave the way we ought to behave. The behavior (character) of the leader is the most important factor that impacts the climate.
On the other hand, culture is a long-term, complex phenomenon. Culture represents the shared expectations and self-image of the organization. The mature values that create "tradition" or the "way we do things here." Things are done differently in every organization. The collective vision and common folklore that define the institution are a reflection of culture. Individual leaders, cannot easily create or change culture because culture is a part of the organization. Culture influences the characteristics of the climate by its effect on the actions and thought processes of the leader. But, everything you do as a leader will effect the climate of the organization.

Leadership Models

Leadership models help us to understand what makes leaders act the way they do in certain situations. The ideal is not to lock yourself in to a type of behavior discussed in the model, but to realize that every situation calls for a different approach or behavior to be taken. Two models will be discussed, the Four Framework Approach and the Managerial Grid.
In the Four Framework Approach, Bolman and Deal (3) suggest that leaders display leadership behaviors in one of four types of frameworks: Structural, Human Resource, Political, or Symbolic. The style can either be effective or ineffective, depending upon the chosen behavior in certain situations.
Structural Framework - In an effective leadership situation the leader is a social architect whose leadership style is analysis and design. In an ineffective leadership situation the leader is a petty tyrant whose leadership style is details. Structural Leaders focus on structure, strategy, environment, implementation, experimentation, and adaptation.
Human Resource Framework - In an effective leadership situation the leader is a catalyst and servant whose leadership style is support, advocate, and empowerment. In an ineffective leadership situation the leader is a pushover, whose leadership style is abdication and fraud. Human Resource Leaders believe in people and communicate that belief; they are visible and accessible; they empower, increase participation, support, share information, and move decision making down into the organization.
Political Framework - In an effective leadership situation the leader is an advocate, whose leadership style is coalition and building. In an ineffective leadership situation the leader is a hustler, whose leadership style is manipulation. Political leaders clarify what they want and what they can get; they assess the distribution of power and interests; they build linkages to other stakeholders; use persuasion first, then use negotiation and coercion only if necessary.
Symbolic Framework - In an effective leadership situation the leader is a prophet, whose leadership style is inspiration. In an ineffective leadership situation the leader is a fanatic or fool, whose leadership style is smoke and mirrors. Symbolic leaders view organizations as a stage or theater to play certain roles and give impressions; these leaders use symbols to capture attention; they try to frame experience by providing plausible interpretations of experiences; they discover and communicate a vision.
This model suggests that leaders can be put into one of these four categories and there are times when one approach is appropriate and times when it would not be. Any one of these approaches alone would be inadequate. We should be conscious of all four approaches and not just rely on one. For example, during a major organization change, a structural leadership style may be more effective than a visionary leadership style; while during a period when strong growth is needed, the visionary approach may be better. We also need to understand ourselves as each of us tends to have a preferred approach. We need to be conscious of this at all times and be aware of the limitations of our favored approach.
The Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid (4) uses two axis. "Concern for people" is plotted using the vertical axis and "Concern for task" is along the horizontal axis. They both have a range of 1 to 9. The notion that just two dimensions can describe a managerial behavior has the attraction of simplicity. These two dimensions can be drawn as a graph or grid:

High 9
P 8
E 7
O 6
P 5
L 4
E 3
2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Low High
TASK

Most people would fall somewhere near the middle of the two axis. But, by going to the extremes, that is, people who score on the far end of the scales, we come up with four types of leaders: Authoritarian (9 on task, 1 on people), Team Leader (9 on task, 9 on people), Country Club (1 on task, 9 on people), and Impoverished (1 on task, 1 on people).
Authoritarian Leader - high task, low relationship - 9,1: People who get this rating are very much task oriented and are hard on their workers (autocratic). There is little or no allowance for cooperation or collaboration. Heavily task oriented people display these characteristics: they are very strong on schedules; they expect people to do what they are told without question or debate; when something goes wrong they tend to focus on who is to blame rather than concentrate on exactly what is wrong and how to prevent it; they are intolerant of what they see as dissent (it may just be someone's creativity) so it is difficult for their subordinates to contribute or develop.
Team Leader - high task, high relationship - 9,9: This type of leader leads by positive example. She endeavors to foster a team environment in which all team members can reach their highest potential, both as team members and as people. She encourages the team to reach team goals as effectively as possible, while also working tirelessly to strengthen the bonds among the various members. They form and lead the most productive teams.
Country Club Leader - low task, high relationship - 1,9: This leader uses predominantly reward power to maintain discipline and to encourage the team to accomplish its goals. Conversely, she is almost incapable of employing the more punitive coercive and legitimate powers. This inability results from the leaders' fear that using such powers could jeopardize her relationships with the team members.
Impoverished Leader - low task, low relationship-1,1. This person uses a "delegate and disappear" management style. Since he is not committed to either task accomplishment or maintenance; he essentially allows the team to do what ever it wishes and prefers to detach himself from the team process by allowing the team to suffer from a series of power struggles.
The most desirable place for a leader to be along the two axis at most times would be a 9 on task and a 9 on people, the Team Leader. However, do not entirely dismiss the other three. Certain situations might call for one of the other three to be used at times. For example, by playing the Impoverished Leader, you allow your team to gain self-reliance. Be an Authoritarian Leader to instill a sense of discipline in an unmotivated worker. By carefully studying the situation and the forces affecting it, you will know at what points along the axis you need to be in order to achieve the desired result.

The Process of Great Leadership

The road to great leadership (5) (common to successful leaders):
Challenge the process - First, find a process that you believe needs to be improved the most.
Inspire a shared vision - Next, share you vision in words that can be understood by your followers.
Enable others to act - Give them the tools and methods to solve the problem.
Model the way - When the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss tells others what to do...a leader shows it can be done.
Encourage the heart - Share the glory with your followers' heart, keep the pains in your heart.

References

1. Bass, Bernard, Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research, New York: Free Press, 1989. and Bass, Bernard, From Transactional to Transformational Leadership: Learning to Share the Vision, Organizational Dynamics, Winter 1990.
2. U.S. Army Handbook (1973). Military Leadership.
3. Bolman, Lee and T. Deal (1991). Reframing Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
4. Blake, Robert R. and Jane S. Mouton (1985). The Managerial Grid III: The Key to Leadership Excellence. Houston: Gulf Publishing Co.
5. James M. Kouzes & Barry Z. Posner (1987). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON ONE

2008-03-06T01:39:00.000-08:00

This is a lesson on Basic Salesmanship or, more specifically, on understanding the process of selling and buying. Most of our customers come from an installation background. They never had to make a living strictly from selling, and have probably never had any extensive sales training. Therefore, I will start with some of the most basic concepts to help you fully understand how this series of lessons all fit together logically.

Are you a salesperson?

First, who is a salesperson? The correct answer is EVERYONE! We are always presenting (selling) ourselves, our ideas or our opinions in every conversation that we have. If we are presenting our feelings, it is usually done in such a way as to solicit a desired response (e.g., happiness, empathy, sadness, compassion, etc.). We have been doing this all of our lives, and it is a natural part of our daily routine. Once this is understood, the thought of having to sell something to someone should be a little less frightening. You will notice that the word "selling" will be used very little in these lessons, compared to the word "presentation". Are they the same? The answer is "No"! The actual term is a sales presentation. The presentation starts with your first introduction to the customer, and continues until the contract has been signed. The end of a successful sales presentation is the sale.
The next step is to understand how someone buys a product or service.

How Does Someone Buy Something?

When someone buys something they are usually happy and excited about it. When you get into the basics of selling, it is very important for you to understand exactly how someone buys something. This is a lot easier than it sounds. To understand how, you simply have to ask yourself a question: How do you buy the things that you buy? I'm not talking about the necessities or impulse items, I'm talking about anything that you have ever purchased which cost you over $1,000.

Think about it.......

If you had to go to a store to buy the item, was it a professional looking building with a number of choices all on display for you to choose from, or was it a "back room" operation which had only a few items on display and needed a good cleaning?
Did the salesperson present a good appearance, and not in need a shave, a bath and some clean clothes?
Did the salesperson that you bought from know what they were talking about and answer all of your questions, or did you know more about the item than they did?
Did you buy the item because you could see (or understand) that you were getting a good quality (value) for your money, or was it simply the cheapest thing available?
Was the item under a manufacturer's warranty that would be honored, or were you "on-your-own" the minute that you received the item?
Since we are talking about an item over $1,000, I can assume that you purchased it from a professional looking facility which gave you a number of choices, and from a knowledgeable person with a professional appearance who knew what they were talking about. I will also make the assumption that because of the amount of money you were going to spend, you made sure that you would get the highest quality for your money, with a good factory warranty in case of any problems. Surprise! This is exactly the same process that your customers go through when they buy your security system.
In the above example, you probably think that I neglected to mention price as one of the factors of why you purchased the item. You are wrong, the price was covered with the question: Did you buy the item because you could see (or understand) that you were getting a good quality (value) for your money, or was it simply the cheapest thing available? Price is never based solely upon the amount of money that you think you want to spend, it is based upon the perceived value that you will get for your investment.

Let me give you an example:

You and I have a meeting in my office because you want to talk about your accounts. You only have $20.00 with you, and you have no plans of spending a penny during our meeting. During the meeting I tell you that I have an immediate need for $500, and I show you a Rolex watch that my father left to me. It has diamonds on it, and I have the original receipt which shows the purchase price was $2,500. How fast could you get $500 to purchase the watch? I would assume that you would get the money very quickly, and once you had it in your possession you probably would think that you made the deal of the century.
But, wait a minute! You did not come to buy anything, and yet you ended up buying, and to do it you had to get $480 more than you had with you. And, you are happy about it! Why? Well, in this example, it would probably be because you would get a considerable return on your investment by reselling the watch ( perceived value for your investment).
Important points:

Everyone is a salesperson

The end of a successful sales presentation is the sale.

The things that are important to you (and your potential customer) when you purchase an expensive item are:

-The environment where you purchase the item.
-The overall appearance of the salesperson.
-The knowledgeable presentation that the salesperson made.
-The quality (value) that you would get for your money, and
-The warranty if there are any problems.

Price is never based solely upon the amount of money that you think you want to spend, it is based upon the perceived value that you will get for your investment.

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON TWO

2008-03-06T01:38:00.000-08:00

In the last lesson, I gave an example of how the store where you purchased your last $1,000 item gave you confidence that it was the right place to buy the product. This was because of the way that it looked on the outside, and the layout of the interior.
You do not have a retail store for the customer to come to; however, you do have a truck which is going to be parked in front of their house for their neighbors to see. What statement is the vehicle going to make? Does it look clean and professional, with a good advertisement for your company so that the neighbors will be impressed enough to also call you for an alarm system? Does it make your customer feel like they have made the right choice because of the professional appearance? Or, does it look as if you have been using it in the demolition derby on the weekends, and your potential customer is embarrassed to have it in front of their house?
Is this really important? You bet it is! Always remember, you can never take back your first impression. You do not have to have a new vehicle that looks as if you just drove it out of the showroom, but the customer will look at it with a certain judgment. Before I expand on that, let's put in the next piece of the puzzle, which is you. (The word "you" in these lessons will refer to everyone that the potential customer will see who is representing your company.)
When your potential customer meets you for the first time, what do they see? Do you present a professional image, or do you look as if you just crawled out of an attic and forgot to clean up? This is just as important as the impression your vehicle will make, and is vital to the first thing that your customer MUST have, if the presentation is going to continue with any success: a feeling of confidence. This is the same feeling that you had when you entered the store to buy your $1,000 item. You don't know exactly what you expected to see; however, everything that you did see made you comfortable and gave you a feeling of confidence. The opposite of this is seeing something that looks out-of-place, and immediately you get these "danger signals" which make you feel as if you should immediately start looking for a way out. If your customer gets this feeling, forget the sale. Anything beyond this point is futile.

Why Does A Person Buy Something?

When you are trying to persuade a person to buy something (especially when it involves a great deal of money), is it important to understand the reason that person would buy anything? This might sound like an easy question, but remember we are exploring the very basics of salesmanship, and this is the part that most people understand the least.
Let's go back to you, and the last $1,000 item that you purchased. I want to ask you a question about it: Right after you bought it, what did you think about it? That might be hard to answer, so let me ask the question another way: Right after you bought it, how did you feel? That should be a very easy question to answer. You probably felt happy, joyful, proud, excited and very eager to use the product. Why does the second question make more sense? Because buying is an emotional experience.
A basic rule of salesmanship is that people buy with their emotions, and justify their purchase with logic. Do you remember the feeling that you had when you decided to purchase your $1,000 product? It was probably a feeling of confidence in your decision. This is the same feeling that your potential customer must have before they will agree to purchase your security system. That feeling of confidence, which leads us to another basic fundamental which has to be understood.

How Do People Get Their Feelings?

If you are going to instill a positive feeling in your potential customers, a very basic understanding of what causes feelings is necessary. First, all feelings are initiated in your brain (computer), which receives its input (data) from your senses. These are sight, sound, touch, smell and taste. These senses are at work at all times, and are sending the data which informs you of everything that is going on around you. It is an automatic process, and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.
The initial sense that occurs in any new situation is the detection of danger. If potential physical danger is detected, a number of physiological changes occur. First, your skin actual begins to tighten, which gives you a feeling that your hair is standing on end. This also strengthens the skin so that it is more resistant to cuts or abrasions. At the same time adrenaline is secreted into your system, which increases your heart rate, gives you energy, heightens your senses and acts as a coagulating agent for your blood if you are wounded. This automatic function has prepared your body for "fight and/or flight", depending on how you analyze the physical danger.
We are not putting our potential client in any physical danger when we give a sales presentation; however, this is a new situation, and all of their senses are going to be operating as normal. Since we do not involve taste, smell or touch in our presentations, everything is going to be determined on what they see and hear. The conscience mind will be listening and watching, and the subconscious mind will be analyzing the information. Most of the time the results will manifest themselves as feelings.
As a practical example of how this works, let's go back to your purchase of that $1,000 item. How did you feel:
When you drove into the parking lot and looked at the outside of the store?
When you walked into the store and looked around for the first time?
When you met the salesperson?
When you were watching the demonstration of products?
When you made your final selection, and decided to buy?
The normal feeling in a professional sales presentation is that of being in a comfortable situation. You feel at ease so that you can relax your defenses and enjoy the experience. The environment gives you confidence, and the presentation is non-threatening.
If the situation was different, you would not feel at ease because the environment is not what it should be, and you have an ignorant salesperson who is trying to high pressure you into buying what they want to sell you.
In that case your senses would give you an uncomfortable feeling, and would prepare you for fight or flight. The fight would be you telling the salesperson that you are not interested in their product, and the flight would be you getting away from this person and out of the door as soon as possible.
It is only when you get far away from this situation that you begin to get back your peaceful feelings. This has happened to all of us more times than we would like, and it will happen to our prospective customers during our presentations if we are not aware of their automatic responses and are able to maintain a comfortable feeling throughout the presentation.
Important points:
Always remember, you can never take back your first impression.
A basic rule of salesmanship is that people buy with their emotions, and justify their purchase with logic.
Your potential customer is going to have to feel that they are safe (no sense of danger) throughout the sales presentation. This sense of well being will be caused by everything that they see and hear.

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON THREE

2008-03-06T01:37:00.000-08:00

I would like to start by reviewing some of the main points which have been covered in the previous lessons. These are:
Everyone is a salesperson: you are always selling yourself, your ideas or opinions.
The things that are important to you when you purchase an expensive item are the same things that are important to your potential customer.
Always remember, you can never take back your first impression.
A basic rule of salesmanship is that people buy with their emotions, and justify their purchase with logic.
Price is never based solely upon the amount of money that you think you want to spend, it is based upon the perceived value that you will get for your investment.
Your potential customers have to feel they are safe (no sense of danger) throughout the sales presentation.
This sense of well being will be caused by everything that they see and hear.
We can now turn our attention to the sales presentation. This presentation starts with the first contact with someone representing your company, and continues until the system has been installed and the last person is walking out the door. You might ask: "Why so long, I thought the presentation was over when the contract was signed?" You are partially correct. The sales transaction is over; however, there are a lot of other factors to consider.
First, there is always the three day "right of rescission" (or buyer's remorse) law, which gives the customer a chance to re-think their decision and to change their mind.
Second, you want your customer just as excited about their new security system when you finish the installation, as they were when they signed the contract. What would stop this from happening? A number of things, such as:
Your customer has a perceived standard of quality which was derived from everything they have seen and heard up until now. Unfortunately, when your installers arrive, they looked and acted like the three stooges!; or,
Your installers look acceptable, but they hooked up three infrared detectors and are unable to get any of them to work properly; or
The system works properly, but the installers left the house a mess, etc.
The best sales representative that you will ever have is a brand new customer. They are happy and proud of their new purchase, and they want to tell people about it. (Remember how you felt when you purchased your last item over $1,000?) Unfortunately, if anything negative happens from the time the contract is signed until the installation is completed, the customers enthusiasm to spread the word may be lost.

The Sales Presentation

Please remember, this is an article on the basic concepts of selling. Your presentation will be based upon your customer's actual needs and budget; however, all presentations are basically alike because of the factors involved. These start with who you are, which includes:
The initial introduction of yourself (and/or salesperson), and
The introduction of your company, which would include showing your license from the Bureau of Security and Investigations, (for California only), and explaining the license, including the background criminal investigation. This educates the customer and establishes you as a licensed professional which starts to build confidence in you, and
A statement of what you have to offer them (why you are there, or more correctly, what's in it for them).
Is this opening sequence really important? Yes!, it is. There is a general principal that states: "Even a brand new salesperson will be able to close 1 out of 10 sales presentations." That sounds encouraging; however, the new salesperson may have to talk to 100 people before someone will let them make a presentation. Whether or not you get to make the presentation may (and often time does) depend upon the potential customer's initial evaluation of you and/or your salesperson, and this may occur during the first few seconds.
When I was in submarine school in New London, Connecticut, I joined a company that sold very expensive waterless cookware. It was a "high ticket" item, especially for military families, and the presentation took a minimum of one hour to cover all of the points (which included the close). Every part of the presentation was critical to building value.
After I got out of the navy, I spent a few years in cable television marketing, and then became the Director of Operations for the first pay movie channel in California. The years I spent in this field gave me a wealth of experience, both from training of door-to-door salesman (including taking them all in the field to show them how it is done), and the many seminars that my company sent me to. Door-to-door selling would seem like a fate worse than death to some people, but it is a fantastic experience once you master the techniques.
The first thing we had to know was how to control the impact of the first appearance. When a person came to the door, there were a number of negative factors which immediately had to be overcome:
The person who came to the door was doing something when you rang the door bell, and you disturbed them, and
Usually when you are disturbed, you try to get rid of the disturbance as quickly as possible, and
The person definitely did not get up and go to the door to buy anything.
Based upon these factors, many psychological studies have been done in order to develop successful techniques for door-to-door salespeople. These studies were very interesting and determined two very important factors (laws). If you were to get inside the residence to give your presentation:
1)You have approximately 20 seconds to introduce yourself and your company, explain why you are there (why you disturbed them), what you want to do for them and how long it will take. This basically is one statement, and it must be given in a way that is totally non-threatening; and,
2)Usually what the potential customer sees and hears in the first 10 seconds will determine if they will open the door and let you in to give your presentation.
You are not under this type of immediate scrutinization, however the same factors apply, and by understanding more of how your potential customer perceives you, the more you will be able to control that perception in a way that will be beneficial to you.

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON FOUR

2008-03-06T01:36:00.000-08:00

What is a sales presentation?

Giving a sales presentation can be compared to moving a building that is made out of stone. A foundation would have to be laid at the new location to put the building upon, and then the building would be disassembled, the stones numbered, then moved to the new location and then reassembled upon the new foundation in reverse order so that the building is the same as you started with.
You have a certain end result in your mind when you meet a perspective customer. This is usually a picture of a happy customer that feels good about their new system and is excited enough to show it to their neighbors and family. And, someone who feels very good about the investment that they have made in providing safety and peace of mind to their family. The presentation would be taking this result, and moving it from your mind to theirs.
There is an example used for sale training to demonstrate how to close a sale by asking only four questions. This example makes the assumption that an alarm salesman has been called to give an estimate. The questions are:
1) Why did you call me? - This has the potential customer tell you why they think you can do the job (establishes your credibility).
2) What do you want me to do for you? - The customer will tell you the type of security system they want (establishes their emotional need).
3) How much would you be willing pay for a system that can do what you want? - The cost the customer wants to pay will be based upon two things: First, how much credibility they place in you to do the job; and second, how much emotional satisfaction that system would bring them. The higher your credibility and their emotional need, the higher the price (value) they will put on the system.
4) When can I install your system for you? If the customer has decided you are the person for the job, the system is what they want, and the price that they are willing to pay will give you a fair profit, then the only thing left to decide is how they will pay you, and when you will do the installation.
This is a very simple example; however, these four questions establish all of the elements of a successful presentation. The only problem is that you can not ask these questions, because in most cases the potential customer does not know the answers. It is your presentation that will educate the potential customer, which will expand your credibility, and establish the emotional desire and build the value of the system. (Note: a successful presentation will build the value of the product (system) so high that when the customer is told the price, they feel it is less than they expected and is a real bargain.)
Here are the steps of a successful presentation.
1) The Introduction (laying the foundation) - This would include a history of your company, your experience, some of the accounts that you have and what you want to present to them. This has to be done in a way that puts the potential customer at ease while building credibility.
2) Establishing the need. Here you could give some statistics about crime in their city (or their neighborhood) which is available at the police department, and ask them if they personally know anyone who was burglarized or robbed. This starts building confidence in you as a representative who knows what they are talking about.
NOTE: Once this dialog is established, this is a perfect time to qualify this person to see if they are a potential customer (if this had not been done over the telephone). This can easily be done with a few questions; such as:
Do you rent or own this residence?
Would you be the one to make the decision to acquire a security system, or is there another individual that should hear the presentation, etc.
These qualification questions should be a part of this initial introduction stage. In my first year of selling, I made my best presentations to people who were not in any position to make the decision to buy anything. This was done because I forgot to qualify the person, and it resulted in a tremendous waste of time.
3) Showing the potential customer the features and benefits of your system, and making sure that they understand these points. This is where you start building value for your product (system). (NOTE: THE PRICE OF A SYSTEM IS NEVER DISCUSSED UNTIL YOU HAVE THE FINISHED PROPOSAL AND ARE READY TO CLOSE THE SALE.)
4) Survey the area that will be protected (take notes, and free-hand sketch the building), and establish the customer's main concerns (hot buttons). In each of these areas, give three or four general ideas on how the area can be protected. Also, use examples from other systems where the same type of protection was installed. This continues to build confidence (peace-of-mind).
5) Unless the potential customer has called you to come and put in a system right now, make an appointment to return at least one or two days later with your proposals. Why? Because you are a professional, and you want to take some time to consider all of the possibilities to properly protect the premises.
6) Present your proposals. Have three plans to present to your potential customer, each with a drawing showing the location and coverage of each device. The most expensive proposal should be given first, as it has the most protection (including the long range radio options). Make sure that each proposal is completely understood before going on to the next one. Note: If each device is thoroughly understood (both purpose and coverage), the potential customer will be more reluctant to delete items as the proposals get simpler and less expensive.
7) Close the sale. Once the potential customer has decided when the system that they want installed, establish the cost, manner of payment and get the contract signed.
8) Install the system.
9) Turn you new customer into a sales representative. Personally make sure that the customer is thoroughly trained on their system and is delighted with it. Offer a tangible incentive (some free monitoring, cash, gift certificates, etc.), for each of their friends or family that get a system from you.
Establishing the need (hot buttons)
It is very important at the beginning of the presentation to establish the concerns (needs) of your potential customer. These concerns are referred to as "hot buttons". These are the reasons that this person wants a security system, and will have to be addressed both in your presentation and in the close of the sale.
One of the BIGGEST mistakes that a salesman can make is to assume they know the motivation (emotional need) of their potential customers. This need is established through the most powerful tool of a salesperson: ASKING QUESTIONS!

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON FIVE

2008-03-06T01:35:00.001-08:00

Why does your potential customer want a security system?

One of the BIGGEST mistakes that a salesman can make is to assume they know the motivation (emotional need) of their potential customers. This need is established through the most powerful tool of a salesperson: ASKING QUESTIONS! If their concern is for safety for themselves, their family and/or their property, then I would proceed to the next part of the presentation. If their need is not emotional (e.g. because it is required by their insurance carrier, to lower their insurance rates, because other people in the neighborhood have one, etc.), then I would spend some time here to establish an emotional desire (remember that your customer buys with their emotions, and justifies their purchase with logic). This emotional desire could be established by any combination of the following:
For residential systems:
Adding a smoke detector for 24 hour protection for family and property, giving facts about residential fires, and/or
Adding a "Medical Emergency" zone to the system, if there are elderly or physically impaired people at the residence, and/or
Adding a "High Temperature" zone to the system, if they have a wine cellar, and/or
Adding a strobe light on the roof to clearly show the police where the alarm has been activated, etc.
For commercial systems:
Add a "Medical Emergency" zone to the system for immediate dispatch of paramedics if an employee is injured, and/or
Finding out if there is equipment vital to the continuing of their business which can also be protected (e.g. high/low temperature alarms, a/c failure alarm, high/low pressure alarm, etc.), and/or
Adding a strobe light on the roof to clearly show the police where the alarm has been activated, etc.
An emotional desire can be induced by showing the potential customer that they can get more than they thought because YOUR system will protect lives (medical alert, fire detection, etc.), special assets (wine, jewelry, guns, etc.), their business (pressure, temperature, humidity, etc.). and, get faster law enforcement response due to a strobe light guiding law enforcement officers to your location. Whatever you tell them that created (or intensified) their desire will be more "hot buttons" that will be referred to during the presentation and in the close of the presentation.
Features and Benefits
At this point of your presentation you should have been able to establish good credibility for your company and yourself. You should also know their emotional needs (hot buttons) which you will relate to throughout the presentations. The next part is to establish a high perceived value for your system, while increasing your potential customer's emotional desire for the system. This is done through the presentation of the features and benefits of having YOUR system installed and monitored. It is very important to understand the differences between features and benefits, as they serve different purposes for your potential customer.
A feature of your system is something that will build confidence and value in your system.
The benefit of that feature will build emotional desire for your system, and answer the question, "What's in it for me?"
There should be a benefit for each feature that you show, and you should make sure the potential customer COMPLETELY understands the value of the feature and why it is a benefit to them.
You can have all of the features in the world, but if the benefits to the potential customer are not understood, it will mean nothing. For example, if you were trying to sell a new Cadillac to someone, and you told them that one of the features of this model was that it had a "Northstar System", it would mean nothing until you explained the benefit of that feature, which was that the engine did not need to be tuned up until the car had been driven 100,000 miles.
What are the features and benefits of your system?
That should be an easy question for you to answer. The features of the equipment that you use are the reasons that you buy that equipment. Because of your knowledge and experience, there are reasons that you buy the brand and model of the contacts that you use for windows and doors (or you may have different types for different purposes). These reasons may be: ease of installation, more reliable (will not break due to the vibration of the door closing), sensitivity, etc. Each of these reasons is a feature of that contact, and should have a benefit for you. A simple way of looking at this is to make a "Features & Benefits" chart.
DEVICE: Door Contact
FEATURES:
Easy to InstallMore ReliableSensitivity
BENEFITS TO YOU:
Less LaborNo Service CallsMore Flexibility in the Location
BENEFITS TO THE CUSTOMER:
Faster InstallationDependabilityLess likely to flase trip if the door moves slightly due to the wind blowing
The customer is not interested in the benefit to you; only the benefit to them. And, they will only find out about the features and benefits of your system by what you show and tell them. Most people would make the assumption that the potential customer knows what a door contact is, and that is one of those fatal mistakes that cost companies a lot of business. Do you remember the first time that you saw a door contact, and someone demonstrated how it worked? You were probably fascinated how small and complex it was. Your potential customer will have the same reaction when you hand them one and show them how it works. To add more impact, also hand them one of the "old style", or one that is not reliable, and explain the differences.
They may have had some other companies bid an alarm system with door contacts, but you would probably be the only one that had enough consideration to educate the customer by letting them see and touch the contact and explain the features and benefits. This gives you more credibility as a professional, and that particular contact gives the customer confidence in you and your system (builds value). There is an old rule in selling that states: Show and tell; when you stop showing and start telling, you stop selling!
There is a reason for your buying everything that you put into your systems. Try to make up a "Features and Benefits" chart for each item, and use the "show and tell" method in your presentation.
When it comes to items that cannot be demonstrated (e.g. a keypad, communicator, motion detector, etc.), a picture is like 1000 words. One of your best sales tools is a Polaroid Camera. This allows you to SHOW the customer the actual device installed at a number of locations, and to TELL why it was installed at that location and what purpose it serves. A picture will also show the potential customer the results of your installation, which will give them confidence in your ability to install the system to their satisfaction.
(NOTE: The more features that you show the customer, the more confidence they will have in you as a professional. The more benefits that you tell them about, the more emotional desire they will have to buy your system and the perceived value of the system will increase.)
Each feature presented does not have to be a long drawn out process. The presentation of the door contact could be a simple statement like this:
"Mr. Jones, this is the contact for the door that I use in my system (hand it to the customer). You will notice how small is it is, which means that it can easily be concealed, while at the same time it is designed to withstand the constant vibration that it receives from the door opening and closing. In all of my experience, I have found this to be the most dependable contact. The last thing that you need are service calls to replace equipment that will not stand up to daily wear and tear. Right?"
The following things happened in this presentation:
The customer was involved (full attention) because the contact was handed to him.
The statement "it can easily be concealed" will start to build confidence in your installation. (Note: the customer has probably never mentioned the quality of your installation, and how well the system is concealed; however, the question will come up at some point, and if it is addressed throughout the presentation, the customer will have full confidence in your ability to install their system without having to verbalize it.)
The statement "it is designed to withstand the constant vibration that it receives from the door opening and closing" paints a picture of the kids running in and out of the house slamming the door. The customer now "sees" the system installed, and understands that there is a quality in the design needed to withstand frequent vibration.
These are good points, but does the customer really understand them? (Remember, the customer is always subconsciously asking the question: "What's in it for me?) By asking the question: "The last thing that you need are service calls to replace equipment that will not stand up to daily wear and tear. Right?", informs the customer that the quality of this product is designed to keep them from having problems (disappointments) with your system, and prevents service calls. By them answering you question, you know that this point has been made, and it is time to move on to the next one. If their answer is, "What do you mean?", then some more time should be spent on this feature. (NOTE: Never move on to the next feature until you make sure that the potential customer fully understands this feature, and the benefit to them).
When you have shown the potential customer the features and benefits of having your system installed, the next part should be the presentation of the features and benefits of CSSS, INC., as your monitoring facility. Our web site has a page for "Our Facilities" and "Our Central Station Team". These pages (or any other pages on our web site) can be printed out and included in your presentation. (NOTE: Do not just hand these pages to the potential customer and assume that it will be read and understood. You SHOW the customer the various pictures (features), TELL the customer how these are a benefit to them and ASK QUESTIONS to assure that each benefit is fully understood. This should help continue to build credibility for you, your company and your system.)

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON SIX

2008-03-06T01:34:00.001-08:00

Let's start by reviewing a few of the points covered in the last lesson.
A feature of your system is something that will build confidence and value in your system.
The benefit of that feature will build emotional desire for your system, and answer the question, "What's in it for me?"
There is an old rule in selling that states: Show and tell, when you stop showing and start telling, you stop selling!
The more features that you show the customer, the more confidence they will have in you as a professional. The more benefits that you tell them about, the more emotional desire they will have to buy your system and the perceived value of the system will increase.
Never move on to the next feature until you make sure that the potential customer fully understands this feature, and the benefit to them.
The next part of the presentation would be to custom design their system. This is done by examining all areas that will need to be protected (take notes, and free-hand sketch the building). This is a perfect time to listen to the potential customer to establish their main concerns (hot buttons). Look at every area of the residence or business. In each of these areas, give as many general ideas as possible on how the area can be protected. Also, use examples (or pictures) from other systems where the same type of protection was installed. Sketch the areas, and make notes. This continues to build confidence (peace-of-mind).
After you have surveyed the inside of the building, then go check the outside perimeter. Your potential customer is depending on you to be their "security specialist", and as such, there are many other things that you may be able to bring to their attention, such as:
Point out every window or door which is hidden from view from the street or the neighbors, because of plants, trees or a fence. These would be perfect points-of-entry. (NOTE: Up to now these areas may not have been a concern; however, this would give justification to have interior protection added to these areas because of their vulnerability.)
A ladder left in the back yard or beside the house (or business), which would give a burglar access to a window, the second floor or the roof.
A large tree with the limbs so close to the structure that it could be climbed and would give a burglar access to the second floor or roof.
Bricks, milk crates or other objects lying around readily available to use to break out a window or door, etc.
This service also shows that you care about their safety, and you know what you are doing. This helps to build that important "peace of mind" feeling, and will increase their confidence in you and your system.
(Nothing more will be written about the design of your alarm system. Why? Because you are the expert in this matter. I have never designed or installed one! CSSS does not compete against our customers: You install it, and we will monitor it.)
If the customer has given indications that they are ready to immediately sign a contract, then I would sit down with the customer and get the contract signed. This indication might be:
Asking you how quickly the system can be installed, or
Telling you that there is a deadline for the installation (e.g. vacation, business trip, etc.), or
Asking you if you take a credit card or check for payment.
This can happen, and if it does, the presentation should be stopped at that time. Always close the sale when the customer is ready to buy. A mistake that is often made is trying to continue to presentation past that point, and in some cases, at the end of the presentation the customer has lost their enthusiasm and wants to think about it. That is called "selling it to the customer and buying it back". The purpose of the presentation is to convince the customer to buy. When the customer is convinced, CLOSE THE SALE!
In most cases, this will not happen at this point. You may be one of many companies that were called to make a presentation. If so, I would make an appointment to return in a day or two.
It is also good to get a verbal commitment (promise) from the potential customer that they will not make any decision until you have had a chance to present your proposal. This is protection against a "high pressure" or "low-baller" salesperson from getting the sale.
PRESENTING YOUR PROPOSALS
I would recommend that you have three plans to present to your potential customer. Your proposal should be in a binder with your company logo on the front. The proposal should be done on a word processing program, and printed out on a laser printer. Each proposal should have a one-line diagram of the premises, with all detectors indicated (with their coverage). If you do not have this capability, then find a business center that has these services available. The potential customer is still judging you by what they see, and how they feel after they have seen it. You may have presented yourself as a professional who can do a quality job, but if you hand them a hand written proposal, with a freehand drawing, their confidence may diminish. Why? Because, professionalism is expected in every phase of the presentation and through to the completion of the installation. Also, if you have to leave the proposal and it is compared to others, the non-professional ones will probably be immediately eliminated because they appear to be at a lower standard than the others. The most expensive proposal should be given first, as it has the most protection (including the long range radio options). Make sure that each proposal is completely understood before going on to the next one. If each device is thoroughly understood (both purpose and coverage), the potential customer will be more reluctant to delete items as the proposals get simpler and less expensive. Make sure to relate each area covered to the customer's concerns (hot buttons)! Everything that you have done both in your presentation and system design should clearly answer the question, "What's in it for me?"

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON SEVEN

2008-03-06T01:34:00.000-08:00

CLOSING THE SALE

This is the part that most salespeople dread....asking for the money. What is the best way to do this? Sunrise!, you have already accomplished the hard part: the presentation. From your initial introduction to the prospect, to your presentation of the proposals and drawings, everything that you have done was to build desire for your system and to instill confidence in you and your company to be the one to install it. One basic rule to remember is:
IF PEOPLE WANT SOMETHING BAD ENOUGH,THEY WILL FIND A WAY TO GET IT!
Do you remember the example I used in the first Basic Salesmanship lesson? I had an immediate need for $500 and you only had $20.00 with you. I showed you a Rolex watch that my father had left to me. It had diamonds on it, and I had the original receipt which shows the purchase price was $2,500. How fast would it have taken you get $480 more to purchase the watch?
The purpose of the presentation is to educate, and to build value while doing so. At the end of your presentation, your potential customer should know that:
You are a professional, and
Your company is fully capable of installing a quality system which will meet all of their needs, and
The system is guaranteed, and will have routine scheduled maintenance, and
The system will protect their lives and property, and someone will be monitoring their system 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
If they know this, they will want the system, and the only thing left is to tell them how quickly the system can be installed and how the payment will be made. The rule here is to have as many types of payment available as possible (which includes credit cards).
If there is an objection, the first thing to do is to understand exactly what the objection is. By asking questions you can determine exactly what the objection is, and then overcome it by going back to the part of the presentation which addressed that subject. If there is an objection about something that was not covered in your presentation, then you have to address it as best as you can.
The best way to do this is to address the features and benefits that your system offers. And, later on, you can change your presentation so that it will address that situation the next time that you give it. Objections are great indicators to show the things that were left out of your presentation, or the things that were not covered properly so the customer did not understand the features or the benefits. A good salesperson will always reflect on their last sale and determine things that can be changed or added for their next presentation. In about one year of doing this, your presentation should be perfected to the point that it covers every feature and benefit of your installation and service, and includes sections that have been designed to overcome the majority of objections that you have encountered. The success for you presentation will be determined by your closing rate.
I found out the hard way how important the presentation is through experience. When I was selling waterless cookware at 19 (while in submarine school) we had a sales meeting twice a week. The motivation was terrific! However, there was one rule at the sales meetings that kept everyone sharp: the last five people that arrived had to give one of the five parts of the presentation to the rest of the salespeople (talk about a hard audience!). While you were doing your best to look and act professional, your audience would be continuously forming opinions about what the saw and heard (e.g., "you do not sound very sincere, you do not look enthusiastic, your not very sure of yourself", etc.). It was a very frightening experience at first, but it sure motivated you to learn the presentation (not only learn it, but to know it well enough to be able to deliver it with confidence and sincerity, even to your peers). By the time that I was able to do this, my closing rate had tripled!
About ten years later, I began selling motivational courses. My sales increased to a certain point, and then leveled off. I had an opportunity to meet a sales trainer who had been the best vacuum cleaner salesman in the nation. When I was alone with him, I asked him if he could give me some tips on increasing my sales. Instead of giving me the "magic phrases", he sat down and told me to give him my complete sales presentation. I was not prepared to do this, since I basically made it up as I went along. When I told him that I did not have a prepared presentation, and he told me to prepare one and learn it well enough to give it confidently and professionally at a moment's notice. After I had done this, he would listen to my presentation and give me some advice. Then he added: If you are prepared to give a complete presentation at a moment's notice, you will not have time to come to me for advice because you will be to busy making sales. When I developed a complete presentation, based upon my prior training, I was so busy selling that I never got a chance to go back to him.
When do you give up?
According to Jim Obermayer, Vice President of Sales for Inquiry Handling Service, Inc., you never give up. Jim has three sales secrets that successful salespeople try to hide. Visit Inquiry Handling Service Inc. Web Site
These are:
45% of all leads turn into a sale for someone.
Within one year 45% of all leads that you receive will turn into a sale for you or your competitor. 22%-25% will convert within the first six months.
Great salespeople follow up every sales lead until the prospect buys or dies.
Great salespeople don't give up. They call and call until the prospect answers. They visit, write and follow up until the person says that they bought another product, or they are no longer in the market (they have literally or figuratively died).
The older the lead, the less the competition.
When the lead is six months old, there is a 50% chance that the decision is still pending. At nine months you still have a 25% chance of making the sale.
Some of Jim's other facts are:
76% of the people who inquire intend to buy.
40% of the time your prospect does not call your competitor.
More than 50% of sales leads are not followed up. Some research indicates that number could be as high as 87.5%.
The odds are always with the salesperson who continues to work the prospect when others give up.

BASIC SALESMANSHIP - LESSON EIGHT

2008-03-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE INSTALLATION?

You have a signed agreement, the new security system has been installed, the customer has been taught how to properly use their new security system, you have been paid in full and now it's "Miller time". You want to go back to the office, kick back and enjoy the fact that you have a new customer and more monthly revenue coming in . . . . WRONG!
You have just successfully converted a potential client into a customer, and at this point you have more credibility with this person that you will ever have again, so you use this opportunity to make a new sales representative. A personal recommendation from this person to a trusting friend is a more powerful persuasion than anything that you could ever do on a cold call.
When I was selling waterless cookware in the Navy, I would give the new customer a book on waterless cooking recipes that was valued at $35.00, if they would give me ten names of their friends I could contact. It worked great, because these referrals were from people who had bought the product and were excited about it. Most of the time, the customer had called their friends and relatives to tell them about the product before I had a chance to call, and in the majority of the time, the prospect was waiting for my call and was anxious for a demonstration. Some of the people did not want a demonstration and were only "bothered" by a polite telephone call; however, the majority did want to see it and I was closing 6 out of 10 demonstrations. That wasn't too bad for a $35.00 investment.
WHAT DO YOU DO FOR YOUR NEW CUSTOMER?
How much is an account worth to you? If you had to pay a commission to a salesperson, you might have to pay $100.00 to $300.00+ depending on the number of openings, type of equipment, number of keypads, etc. If you gave 1 or 2 months of free monitoring to your new customer for every referral which resulted in a sale, how much would that cost you? Obviously a lot less than a commission, and the leads would have the power of being personal referrals. If you don't want to give away monitoring, how about:
Gift certificates to a store that is sure to be useful (e.g.Home Depot, Walmart, Sears, Petco, Toys-R-Us, etc.), or
A gift certificate to a very good local restaurant, or
A gift certificates to a local theater or playhouse, or
A beautiful bouquet of flowers, or a box of candy, etc.
Whatever you give, it should be something that is useful, has a good value (not token) and will state clearly that you appreciate their referral. The gift (or free monitoring) would only be given for each new system installed. THE IMPORTANCE OF THIS CAN NOT BE OVEREMPHASIZED! This sales program will produce the following results:
The leads generated will give you the best likelihood of closing a sale.
The gift will be only on systems sold and installed, and is less than a sales commission.
Your customer is going to feel appreciated, which will build up a loyalty to you and your company. This is very important with all of the competition that is trying to get your customer's business.
Does this really work? Ask yourself! How would you feel about a company that was giving you a tangible reward for your referrals?
CONTINUING THE RELATIONSHIP
When does the relationship end? Hopefully never! Companies that loan money on your accounts, have found that the average length of time that a security system is active is approximately 7 years. If your customer moves within your area during that time, you have the potential of installing their new security system, and maintaining the old one with a new customer. HOWEVER, THAT IS DEPENDANT ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU, AND HOW THEY FEEL ABOUT YOU AND YOUR COMPANY.
It is essential that every contract has a provision to physically inspect the system at least every two years. This is necessary for the backup battery replacement, and gives you a chance to re-establish the relationship with a face-to-face meeting. At this time you could also present the customer with a gift, such as:
A simple bouquet of flowers (purchased from a local grocery store), with a card from your company that says, "Thank you for your business", or
A self defense device, such as a small canister of pepper spray for each member of the family, etc.
This will show that you are not only fulfilling the obligations of your contract, but that you also appreciate their business. Remember, there is nothing different between the way that your customer does business and the way you do. You do business with people who have proven their ability to do the job (trust), and people who have shown that they appreciate you and your business, and are ready to be of service to you anytime they are needed (confidence). That is why your customer will continue to do business with you.
I hope that this series has given you a new understanding of the sales process, and how to present features and benefits. According to one of our alarm companies, "The problem is that I know what to do, I just need someone to get me off my butt to do it". I cannot do that, but as a motivation I can provide the following basic sales program:
IF YOU NEED TO MAKE 4 SALES A MONTH, AND YOU CLOSE 2 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE THAT YOU PRESENT TO, AND YOU NEED TO TALK TO 5 PEOPLE TO FIND ONE THAT YOU CAN PRESENT TO, IT WORKS LIKE THIS:
100 PEOPLE TALKED TO = 20 PRESENTATIONS = 4 SALES
DO THE MATH!, AND JUST GO OUT AND DO IT!
If you follow this program for two months, you will be amazed at what happens! You will find that you have to talk to less people to be able to make a presentation, and your closing rate will increase. Why? Experience! After you have given 40 presentations, your delivery will be more professional in your introduction and delivery, and by making more new sales, you will be more confident.
But, this only applies if you have a complete presentation, and you are able to properly point out the features (value) and benefits (desire) of your system.
One last suggestion: join a service club (e.g. Kiwanis International, Lions Club, Rotary Club, etc.). These clubs service the community, and consist of the best businesses in the city and community and often include local political leaders. Besides the good that these organizations do, it would establish you and your company with a new level of credibility and recognition, and open up a new market for referrals.