Search This Blog

Followers

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Is It Possible To Secure Your Retirement Income From An Online Business?

Where did all the years go? When you get to a certain age this is the repeated question that keeps ringing on your mind. Mostly retirement knocks on doors before most folks are ready for it. That means a lot of money worries for those who are retired or close to retiring. It is only natural that you would want to make the most of the time you still have remaining but how practical is that when you have not put away anything near what would be enough to give you a decent living?


Let’s be candid and realistic here. If you are saving $50 a month what are the odds that your retirement savings will be anywhere near enough to cover the fulfilling retirement you crave? The cost of just about everything continues to rise all the time and we are not even talking about cheap vacations somewhere and the quality of life that you truly deserve.


It is happening all the time, folks are retiring only to be hit by the realization that their income is a mere 30 per cent of what it used to be. Not to mention the fact that the savings they put aside would never last more than 10 short years living their pre-retirement lifestyle. And with costs spiraling dangerously out of control it becomes clear that the money will last an even shorter time as the years roll on.


Let’s face it, retirement can be really scary these days and with good reason. So what are you going to do about it apart from complaining all the time? What would your options be?


Door-to-door Sales To Exhaustion And Oblivion?
Maybe you have always considered door to door sales. Perhaps over the years you have even read and drank in plenty of those amazing stories about people who have made fortunes and ended up building empires selling vacuum cleaners door to door. Perhaps that could work out for you and give you the retirement you deserve? Really?


But hold on a minute. Door to door sales isn’t for everybody. The constant rejection alone could easily kill you early. Besides does door-to-door sales still work? Do people still pay complete strangers selling them stuff on their door-step? Even if it does still work, how many doors would you have to knock on just to sell one car? Even if you are really the optimistic type the harsh reality is that things are certainly not the way they used to be and it would be impossible for anybody to force back the hands of time.


I have thought long and hard over all these issues and the nagging problems those of us 45 years and older face every day as we ponder a pretty uncertain and extremely scary future.


I also have to admit that I have tried out a lot of things before I arrived at the perfect solution to the nagging problem of how one can increase their retirement income.


Door-to-door Selling Versus The Internet
Let’s face it, as humorous as knocking on doors at your age may sound the truth is that for you to increase your retirement income you will need to find something to sell and you need a simple viable way to sell it. Something that will generate a pretty good income. Well, there’s the World Wide Web. Fortunately you can knock on a lot more doors from the comfort of your home and using email. Actually more doors in the millions. And this can be done without all the humiliation and rejection that comes with cold calling on people and persuading them to buy stuff. In fact with the web you really don’t need to sell anything. All you have to do is present the right information to the right people using tools like permission based email marketing.


There is really no comparison between going from door to door and getting the internet to work for you if you want to sell anything. That is the new reality that may be a little difficult for older folk to appreciate.


You Need A System That Works
Out of all the amazing discoveries of recent years there is really nothing like the World Wide Web. Admittedly there are many folks who have failed in their online businesses. But there are also many others who have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. What’s the real difference between the two? It is really quite simple. All it comes down to is finding a system that works. Or finding somebody who can hold your hand through the entire process and show you exactly what you need to do. You really do not need to re-invent the wheel here. You just need to find something that works and then you do it.


This may not be that easy to accomplish with all the hype littering the World Wide Web. How do you recognize a genuine opportunity to make money online? How do you avoid being scammed and wasting your valuable time?


Actually it just got a lot easier for you. I am old school just like you and I have extensively tested and tried many online money making opportunities. And with all my skepticism I have found that it works. In fact it works marvelously. Especially if you follow a system where you select a niche you know a lot about and then harvest email addresses and use your email list to make money. That’s why I can say without hesitation that this is the way to secure and guarantee your retirement income so that you live a great life where you will never again need to worry about money.

Monday, February 23, 2015

5 Reasons You Need A Website That You've Never Heard About

It is true that there are quite a number of businesses out there that are doing quite well without a website. Others may have a website but it is hardly visited with only a handful of hits every day. You wouldn’t therefore blame them for believing that a website is of little use to them.


So you may be thinking to yourself that your business does not really need a professionally designed website. Actually here are 5 solid reasons why you are wrong.


1. You Can Be Sure Somebody Will Google You
What will happen when somebody is in urgent need of some information or even wants to buy from you and they use their favourite search engine to key in your company name? Or even worse still, somebody needs to check you out and find out more before committing themselves to a buying decision? Chances are that when they do not find you, they will assume you are a hoax or do not exist. In any case even if they think otherwise they are unlikely to want to do any business with you.



We are well into the information age and you cannot single-handedly change the behavior patterns of your prospective clients and customers. The reality is that they visit websites daily looking for all kinds of data and information. In other words if you do not have a professionally designed website, you are losing money.


2. The Competition Has A Website
You do not want your competition to have an edge or unfair advantage over you, do you? But that is precisely the position if you choose not have an online presence when virtually all your competitors do. You can be certain that they will have a much better image in the eyes of the buying public than somebody who does not exist online. They will always end up taking away a lot of business from you.



3. Customer Service Is A Good Enough Reason To Have A Website
Admittedly there are business owners who are sure that their products or services cannot be sold online. However sales of your product is not the only reason to have a strong online presence. Improving your customer service is usually even more important than making a sale today. This will enhance your image and position you as a company that cares about its’ customers. A website can be used very effectively to deliver customer service. For instance you can provide important information like trouble-shooting tips or even something as basic as your customer service hotline. You can also make it possible for customers to download user manuals or guides. It is also worth remembering that your website will always be open 24/7 and 365 days a year, unlike your customer service centre or office.



4. A Very Cheap But Effective Way To Advertise
Advertising is a pretty expensive undertaking these days. A website offers many exciting options for entrepreneurs to advertise for free and very effectively too. Having customers find your products by entering the relevant keyword phrases in a search engine will deliver hot prospects some of whom will be ready to make a purchase right away. All you need to do is a little SEO (search engine optimization) work on your website. You can be sure that going into the trouble and expense of seeking web design services and setting up your site is an investment that will always pay back fast.



5. A Key Profit Centre
Your website can be more than a simple catalogue or brochure. You can upgrade it and create an online shop enabling your customers to select products and pay for them online. And before you know it, you will have an important new profit centre raking in additional revenues for you even as you continue selling your products and services in other ways.



Conclusion
You will need great web design services to create a professional looking website that will deliver all these benefits and much more. You will also require search engine optimization work done on your site once it is up and running. Done properly it will enable your business to rank highly for keywords relevant to what you are offering. Ultimately this will deliver paying customers to you. Why would anybody want to pass up the numerous opportunities available when you have a website?

A Promotional Video Can Effectively Promote Your Business Virally

Kumekucha Small Business Special


Who can deny the fact that the World Wide Web has completely revolutionized and changed video marketing forever? Specifically the second most popular search engine in the whole world called Youtube.


Chances are that you may have heard of video clips that have gone viral and single handedly driven the marketing of some previously unknown product. Or have come across other creative clips that have instantly lifted an old product to new levels of awareness in the market.


Of great interest to corporate video production is the fact that it is now possible using powerful online tools like Youtube to create the equivalent of your own prime time TV channel that has the advantage of having no geographical boundaries or even limited reach. Where the airtime you will enjoy will not be reigned in by the limitations of some advertising budget.


Perhaps the biggest mystery in all this is why corporates are yet to fully wake up to taking as much advantage as they should of this highly potent online distribution channel. Or why most have not fully appreciated what corporate video production can do for them. How do you explain why people in business are so slow in embracing this amazing tax deductable and effective medium to reach and educate potential clients?


Perhaps what has been missing all along for most folks who would have loved to use video marketing to get the word out are a creative team they can trust that would be able to effectively translate their message into a captivating and engrossing slick video or two.


This is not as serious a problem as you think. If you cannot find the right video crew to promote your business you can do it yourself. There is plenty of useful information online that will help you deliver a professionally made promotional video for your business.

Just remember to be super creative and focus on the problems people face that your product or service can resolve.

Read all the simple steps you need to take at;

YouTube Marketing Made Easy - Promote Your Business With YouTube

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Best Rotary Hammers On Sale


To fully understand what you should expect from the best rotary hammers on sale it is prudent to start by examining the difference these drills have when compared to hammer drills.


How Do The Best Rotary Hammers On Sale Differ With Hammer Drills?
The essence of most drills is that they are equipped with a special clutch that enables them to both spin the drill bit while also punching it in and out. The essence of a hammer drill is that the force is usually quite small but because the hammering action is extremely rapid it is able to do its’ job and break up concrete. The difference with rotary hammers is that they use a piston mechanism which makes them much produce a much more powerful force.


The bottom line is that the best rotary hammers on sale can drill much bigger holes much faster than hammer drills. When you have an especially hard surface or need a work horse of a drill then a rotary hammer would be your best choice for the job.
Key Features In The Best Rotary Hammers on Sale



One of the key features that the best rotary hammers on sale will usually have is a gearbox filled with oil. This is important because it makes them much more durable despite the shocks, vibrations and large forces that it has to withstand as it drills through concrete and other hard surfaces.


Yet another advantage you would be looking for from the best rotary hammers on sale is that it can do more than just its’ main function which is drilling through concrete. It is actually possible to switch off the rotary action so that you only use the percussive force. There are a wide range of tasks that can be comfortable accomplished in this way.


Making The Best Rotary Hammers On Sale Easier To Use
Manufacturers of the best rotary hammers on sale have continuously worked on making their tools safer and more comfortable to use for the operator. They have continuously introduced new technology in their drill machines to do this. For example there is the Active Torque control (ATC) first introduced by Hilti which disengages the motor from the drive when the bit is rotating excessively. Another well known manufacturer in this industry, DeWALT also has a similar safety feature which they call CTC (Complete Torque Control).


Conclusion
Its’ many additional features as well as its’ sheer brute force makes the best rotary hammers on sale a favorite for many.

Friday, February 20, 2015

How To Manage Your Workflow

Many people were brought up to believe that hard work would always get them ahead every time without fail. However the truth is that if you do not manage your workflow there is a likelihood that your hard work will end up killing you and I mean that literally as well.


You may even have heard people whining about how the harder they work the more behind they get. The reality is that modern living has way too many interruptions that are fairly new. The cell phone for instance. Or the email notification that loudly announces any email that lands in your inbox. Then there is working at home which is rapidly gaining in popularity. All pretty cool stuff perhaps but certainly un-cool when it comes to managing your workflow. As much as we appreciate all these novelties of modern living that make life so much more convenient, the truth is that they come at a much higher price than most folks realize. For instance they have introduced a whole new load of complications and interruptions that are certain to considerably slow down the workflow of even the most efficient.


How about some powerful ideas and techniques to help you manage your workflow better? So that you work smarter and get a lot more done in half the time.


Interruptions Are Killers



Never kid yourself that you will be able to manage your workflow without getting rid of interruptions. It will never happen. And so you will need to be very ruthless about clamping down on any and all interruptions to your all important workflow. How ruthless should you be? I hear you asking. Well how about ensuring clients do not call you during the day with the only exception being scheduled calls or emergencies? Now most folks may not agree with such a seemingly radical step but just stop, take a deep breath and think about it for a moment. You are in the middle of something that seems to be going quite well and suddenly the almighty client calls. All your attention and train of thought has to shift to them. And even long after you hang up chances are that you will be still thinking about the call. You can guess what amount of good that will do to the task that was interrupted. Multiply that just by a few times during your work day and you have a disaster of monumental magnitude in the making. And the real reason why you are always swamped in work that you never seem to get done.


It is true that there are those of your clients who may want to strongly resist the very idea of not being able to call you when they feel like it. But let’s face it, if you are already drowning in work what is the point of keeping and gaining new clients when you are destined to always deliver shoddy work spiced by constant interruptions?


Bulking Tasks Is A Greater Time Saver Than You Realize



You must have heard it said so many times before that you are on the verge of getting sick reading it here yet again. But hold on a sec before you skip this entire paragraph. You getting sick all over your desk will not change the fact that grouping similar tasks together and getting them all done at the same time will revolutionize your workflow.


Schedule all your email responses for a certain time of the day. Then do the same with your phone calls, routine tasks, meetings and everything else that you need to do that can be categorized and then step back and see for yourself the huge difference that it will always make.


So what happens to your great multi-tasking skills that you have always prided yourself for? Actually multi-tasking has always been overrated. It may actually work quite well for a mother taking care of a bunch of rowdy kids in the house. But it certainly doesn’t fly when you want to find focus and build routine into your workflow.


Delegate, But Do It Only To The Highly Skilled



Reality checks are inevitable in this life. That is as long as you remain human. We have to admit that everybody ends up with those tasks on their to-do list that they absolutely dread or abhor. Stuff that they will always keep putting off or skirting around. These are also the tasks that you may not be particularly good at. This is where you need to delegate. Delegation will introduce the new headache of supervision which can prove to be a nightmare to some. So do yourself a favor and minimize supervision by hiring and delegating only to the highly skilled and nobody else. You can then use the considerable time saved to do more of what you enjoy doing and are most effective at. This in turn will increase efficiency so much so that you should have no problem raising the extra revenue required to pay the extra hands.


You Must Carefully Prioritize Your To-Do List



A key part of prioritizing the tasks on your list for the day is to recognize the fact that there are certain items you cannot embark on until you have completed others first. Randomness in reducing the pile on your desk can be a great time waster and will just end up making your workload even more overwhelming. Before you tie your shoe laces you need to put on your shoes first. Tie your shoe laces first and you will need to untie them later so that you can put on your shoes first. Essentially this means that you will tie your shoe laces twice instead of once. That’s how frustration and time wasting dominates your workload.


Break Up That Giant Into Smaller More Manageable Parts



It is impossible to master something massive and vague. But break it all down to tiny manageable parts and you will be utterly amazed at how quickly and efficiently the massive pile disappears. This is a very important part of managing your workload so that you can focus on the details of each component, one at a time, and get it done well, every time.


Conclusion



Managing and building routine into your workflow for greater efficiency is not so difficult. Once you purpose to do it and really set your mind to it, you will find that you have made great strides within a very short period of time.

See Also;
Turnaround any small business with this big secret

12 ways Email Marketing Can Boost Your Business

There is no doubt that permission based email marketing can be extremely powerful. And yet it is so easy to get started with very minimal costs and quickly end up enjoying the kind of returns that can be mind boggling. There are really plenty of benefits any business can enjoy from this amazing marketing method. Here we list 12 of them.


1. Sales Will Skyrocket
Email marketing works and done properly will always increase sales. And usually it does this rather dramatically. Actually other forms of marketing are mostly like firing shots in the dark while aiming in the general direction of your prospects. With email promotions you have already locked on to your prospects with laser precision because all the people on your list are already pre-qualified hot prospects for your product or service.

Email marketing pros usually regularly create time limits for purchases and time sensitive special offers. This usually wipes out one of the most common obstacles to sales which is procrastination flies. The result is that a vast majority of people on any list, that were previously hesitant, will end up buying right away.

Human nature is such that people will always need a reason to buy now and when you create a sense of urgency, they will have no reason to delay their purchase any further. How can you possibly fail to dramatically increase your sales using clever email marketing?


2. Top of The Mind In Customers
When a customer needs to buy he will usually end up with the brand that is at the top of his mind. Expensive prime time TV ads are designed to do just this. However email marketing will do it a lot better and at a tiny fraction of what a company would spend on a single prime time slot on Television. One of the reasons why email is much more effective is it helps the seller to build a personal relationship with their prospects through the regular useful information that they send out to them. That’s something that you cannot do with any other medium.


3. Lots of Repeat Business
Assuming that you have a useful product that satisfies the basic requirements of your customers, there is still always a high possibility that they will never buy from you again. And that’s mostly because in the extremely crowded marketplace of today they will quickly forget about you as dozens of other heavily advertised alternatives crowd you out of their minds. With email marketing that is unlikely to happen because they are regularly receiving information and updates from you. That is why you will always be guaranteed lots of repeat business.

How can you possibly go wrong with such a high customer retention rate?


4. Easy To Establish Authority
Properly executed email marketing will easily give you lots of instant credibility and authority in your industry. Thanks to the regular tips and news you will be sending out which will establish your thought leadership in your sector. That’s a very enviable and powerful position in marketing because it will automatically give you the kind of influence rights that your competitors do not have and will never get with your prospects.

Sadly a common mistake made by some email marketers is to focus on sending out sales messages with very little other useful content. Always provide useful tools and advice instead and you’ll gain all the authority you need to wipe out all competition.


5. Effective In Building Relationships With Leads
Email is a very personal communication tool. And so it is hardly surprising that well thought out email newsletters will always create deep emotional links with customers and prospects. Folks will never buy anything from strangers and will instead always opt for the familiar and the business or brand that they have already build a relationship with. Email allows a business to very effectively build a relationship with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of prospects at the same time. That is pretty powerful and the reason why email marketing remains so very effective in selling virtually anything.

Just be careful to always add value in the lives of your prospects and the results will surely exceed your wildest expectations.


6. Very Low Cost
Everybody knows that mainstream advertising is horrendously expensive. And if you want to be really effective as you face mounting competition out there you will need to spend even more. Clearly it is the preserve of Fortune 500 corporations with deep pockets. But even then it is getting less effective by the day as wary consumers bombarded with advertisements every waking hour continuously find new ways to shut out these costly messages. For example, chances are that you usually mute the sound or flip channels when there is a commercial break on your favorite TV show.

In sharp contrast blasting out messages to your multitudes of prospects costs next to nothing but continues to be very effective. Admittedly you will have to pay for your internet connection as well as the auto responder and the email marketing management services you will require. However when you factor in your returns the cost of getting each customer will come down to tiny fractions of pennies.


7. Quality Customer Database And Segmentation
The most important component in email marketing is your email list. A quality list will give you quality results and high sales every time. Good email marketing will always give you a list of prospects that are your hottest leads. With every message that you send out you will easily be able to track the results. For instance you will know how many people actually opened your email and how many clicked on each hyperlink on your email.

Actually you will get all the information you need to continuously segment your customers according to preferences based on their tracked behavior. This is very useful in marketing because segmentation allows you to tailor your product or service much more specifically to your individual clients which will always produce more sales and profits for your business. Compare this to all the expensive research and focus groups you would have had to set up in the bricks and mortar world. And after all the bills are paid you would extremely lucky to get half the information that is so easily and cheaply accessible in email marketing.


8. You Can Easily Track Sales For Higher Profits
Why is tracking sales so profitably important? The answer is simple. By knowing where your customers are coming from and how you got them in the first place you can dramatically improve your marketing efforts. All you will need to do is shift to what is working and abandon what is not working. You can also constantly improve on what is working for you to get even better results.

You can also create offers and tweak products so that they are better suited to customers all based on previous purchases that they have made.

Alternatively you can quickly and instantly test various key aspects of your offer like pricing. Test two different prices to see which delivers the biggest profits. Product “A” may sell less units than product “B” because it is a higher price but when you calculate your margins you could well find that product A is still much more profitable. In a few hours you will end up getting the kind of information that usually takes years of experience and trial and error to obtain.

This is one of the really magical things about email marketing. Offline and with other forms of marketing this is very difficult and in some cases impossible to achieve.


9. Very Easy To Go Global With Email
Ordinarily to go global you would need to make expensive trips abroad or gain useful contacts in each individual country you want to sell to. Email marketing easily overcomes this obstacle because you are selling directly to your consumer with no need for a middleman.

It is also cheap because there is absolutely no difference in cost between sending out a message within your own country and sending one to a remote town on the other side of the world.

Different markets will tend to have different cultures and demands. This is hardly a problem with email marketing since all you need to do is to tailor and design your offers appropriately for the different markets.

A simple test email campaign can help you understand a new market intimately without having to make a substantial investment on blind faith and limited information that you might end up regretting.

There is no doubt that marketing professionally with email is the easiest way for your business to go global. It is efficient and affordable in giving you the opportunity to reach audiences and markets you otherwise would not have been able to touch.


10. The Best Return on Investment (ROI)
According to a 2011 Direct Marketing Association study email marketing gives a return of a whooping $41 for every $1 invested.

This underlines how cost effective this marketing method can be, more so in comparison to other techniques out there. For starters email marketing is the most effective way of achieving customer retention. Everybody knows how expensive it is to acquire a new client. With email you will be able to seamlessly continue selling to the same customer again and again once they are on your list. The individual return from a single customer over many months and years is phenomenal.

And then there is the fact that ordinarily with other tools and mediums you will need to make a substantial investment before you can even attempt to measure your initial results.
It is also easy with email marketing to start small and quickly build up your investment by reinvesting part of your profits in say PPC (pay per click) ads to build your email list of prospects much quicker.


11. Time and Effort Dramatically Reduced
Once you have set up your auto responder the whole process of signing up new prospects to your list is automated. You can even create messages and schedule them for a whole year or more so that your prospects receive weekly messages without you have to lift a finger.

When you need to send out messages with the latest news it will only take only a few minutes to write it and then with a simple click of a button it will instantly reach all the people on your list even if your list has hundreds of thousands of names.

Not to mention the fact that email templates can be reused or even re-purposed with very limited additional effort on your part.

Personalization of messages increases response and yet this is easily automated using most email software packages.


12. Better Target And Higher Conversions
It is so easy in email marketing to use an individual’s contact data to adjust your messaging so that it has a much higher level of relevance. Imagine what a prospect feels knowing that the sender of the message “knows” them and their likes, dislikes and preferences? The fact that the message was simply based on information that the recipient provided will hardly erode the good feeling and high response rate that the email marketer will end up with. This will be in the form of higher click through rates, higher open rates and much higher conversions from prospects to paying customers.


When you personalize the experience in this simple way that is executed all the time in email marketing you create the illusion in the mind of the user that they are deeply cared about. What can people fail to do for folks who care about them? This is why this technique can be pretty expensive in getting customers to pay for higher priced products and services.


Conclusion
You really cannot afford to ignore the all the benefits of email marketing listed above. Nor can you continue to pretend that the sheer power of email marketing does not exist or will not be useful to you. How can you possibly pass up the chance to dramatically increase your sales and profits? Especially when all you need to do is use an email marketing management service specifically designed for SMEs that will make life so much easier for you. Place your order now and revolutionize sales and marketing at your business forever.

See also;

Writer's fascinating email marketing experiment