How To Save Money

You could definitely say that saving money is your best defense against bankruptcy. It prevents you from possible financial loss and gives you the opportunity to actually earn more money. How? By expanding your finances and enabling you to create a money-generating business that will help you earn extra.

Your ability to earn money is not limited by the walls of basic employment. Yes, you can start up your own business, use it for loan purposes and earn interest on them while being used, among other possibilities.

But keep the basics in mind: Saving is the key! Spend less money than you earn and keep something for future use and for unforeseen circumstances.

How to effectively maximize your financial resources? How to manage your money by developing correct habits and outlook suitable for your goals?

Wants and Needs - Only buy items if you need them. You need things that are vital for your existence. Without them you are categorically considered poor or deprived. What are those basic things? Food, shelter, clothing and transportation for example. In our modern world, things like a car and a phone are a necessary part of a busy working person. But a $50,000 luxus vehicle is not vital for your existance, I am sure you get the point. If you don't need a luxus vehicle, why should you need the latest model of a cell phone? Keep in mind that the latest releases are not practical. Trying to be always 'up to date' will cost you a lot of money which you could spent much more wisely.

Less Is Better - Extravagance yes, but very rarely, unless your profession is being a king/queen. A little affluence in terms of the food we eat or the clothes we wear is sometimes nice, but be sure to reserve it for special occasions and only for cases when you have some excess left in your household budget.

Spend Less; Save More - Don't spend more than what you earn. It is a bad habit which is often the root of financial downfall. Reserve a certain percentage of your earnings to go into your savings accounts while spending the rest for your day-to-day expenses. Unexpected costs can always come up - the visitation of your relatives or a house party to name something - so you need to make sure that those situations won't get you in financial troubles. Always keep enough reserves.
Simon Rohde

Making Extra Money Doing Something You Enjoy

Sometimes it just feel like the bills and expenses are in charge of your life. Do you ever feel like your just getting by and living paycheck to paycheck? Living this way can be very frustrating at times. We don't want to spend our whole lives slaving away at some job of which we have no care for. Most of us want some time for relaxation, to spend some precious times with our families and the ones we love. While we need to make enough money to be able to deal with the expenses of life, its good to have some sort of middle ground. Fortunately there are plenty of ways to make extra money from home doing something more to your liking.

There are numerous ways of getting income from home, even though most of us don't put it into consideration. You don't have to get a part time job at your local fast food place just to get by. You could earn that extra money without having the hassle of dealing with rude customers or a obnoxious boss. You need only check into the many opportunities available online. The web has made it possible for tons of people from around the globe to start their own business. Think about it. There is literally everything you can think of online. You can make extra income by providing a service or product related to what you are passionate about. Whether it be fixing cars, decorating, cooking or even coin collecting. The possibilities are endless. Millions and millions of people get online daily in search of everything under the sun.

Ever seen one of those info-mercials where they have a few random people give their stories about the great amount of income they are getting from home? You've probably wondered whether these people were for real and if so, what their key to success was. The World Wide Web has made it increasingly possible for these creative thinkers to be able to make extra money doing something they enjoy. You would be greatly surprised at the kind of business and success stories that are coming from people who have taken time to invest in what the internet has to bring. There are countless of ways of creating income online. Instead of worrying about dragging yourself day in day out to that job, you owe it to yourself to at least look into the infinite possibilities of creating extra income online
Emmanuel St Cyr

The Top Ten Resolutions for New Year

The Top Ten Resolutions for Your Possible New Year

Recommended New Year's Resolutions
Hey, this one’s from my heart and just for you. Make this year your best year yet. You’re in charge of that, you know. These New Year's resolutions will leave you refreshed, revitalized and recharged on a daily basis.

Be good to yourself this year. Promise that you will:

Do something you love to do, and that you do best, every single day.

These were the first three:

Do I know what is expected of me at work?
Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
People who could answer these questions affirmatively were more likely to be happy and productive. Get passionate about your work! Do something you do best every day!

Do something just for you every single day. As a manager or business professional, you can get caught up in doing for others during every minute of your work day. If you have family members who occupy the off-work hours, this problem is compounded. Resolve to set time aside for yourself every day to exercise, relax, reflect, cook a gourmet dinner, eat ice cream, write in a journal, garden, walk your pet or do any other activity that takes your fancy. Just make sure the activity is different than what you already do all day long. You will feel as if you have a life.

Give yourself credit and a pat on the back when you deserve it. In the Gallup study cited earlier, this question defined the most productive workplaces. People who had received praise or recognition for their work in the past seven days were more happy and productive. In this era of empowered employees and broad spans of managerial control, you are less likely to have frequent interaction with your boss. Thus, it is important that you recognize yourself for excellent efforts. One way to do this is to keep a file of positive notes, thank you letters and reminders of successful ventures. I call mine, “Neat Things.” Stop to assess success after each project you complete.

Strive to learn something new every single day. It is easy to get bogged down in the same old, same old. Read an article; discuss a new approach with a colleague; research what other organizations are doing on the Web. The opportunities for learning are multiplying every day in this information age.

Make professional contacts and network. Look up colleagues with whom you have lost touch. Make sure you attend at least one professional meeting each month. You will benefit from the friendships and relationships you develop from active participation. It is not enough to “join.” You need to participate to reap the rewards from professional collaboration. Read Dig the Well Before You’re Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You’ll Ever Need by Harvey McKay, the king of networking. When you dig past the surface glitz, there are terrific ideas in this book.

My first five recommendations for positive, life-enhancing New Year's resolutions will make your year. This second five recommended New Year's resolutions will seal your success.

Practice professional courage by stepping out of your comfort zone. You know when you are in your comfort zone. An issue occurs. You hear yourself making up excuses in your mind about “why” you don’t need to speak, or “why” taking a stand on an issue will get you “in trouble.” Just once, when you find yourself in this situation, state what you are really thinking. After the shock wears off, your coworkers will admire you. It is so important that organization members provide honest feedback and participate in needed conflict to improve your products or services for customers.

Once you have begun breaking through your own self-imposed barriers, you will find that stating your mind gets easier and easier.

Why? Because you will find you survived the experience. In fact, your career may thrive as a result of you leaving your comfortable home. Most people who practice professional courage, expected the worst, but found they were rewarded for their new stance. If you find yourself getting beaten up instead, perhaps it’s time to look for different employment. After all, wouldn’t you really rather work where you can safely speak your mind?

Listen more than you talk. The old adage about one mouth and two ears is generally true. As a manager, you spend much of your time in problem-solving activities and efforts. Plan this year, to listen to all that your coworkers are saying; they may want a sounding board, not advice or problem solving. You may find you don’t have to take the monkeys on your back. Your listening may empower them to solve their own problems. When they feel completely heard out and listened to, they are more likely to move from “stuck” to action. In Stephen Covey’s words, seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Use a planner and track your life goals, your daily engagements and your to do list. Using the planner allows you to empty much of the daily detail from your mind. This gives your mind room for more important thinking! I purchased a PDA/cellphone and have enjoyed the convenience of daily task items rolling electronically to the next day. Whether the paper versions or the hand held computers work best for you, tracking your daily activities against your most important goals is critical. You do want to ensure you accomplish your most important priorities. Right?

Read voraciously to continue to learn and grow. I aim to read a couple of business books a month plus periodicals, online journals and the Wall Street Journal. I don’t always reach that goal, but it’s always there for me. Try to read widely and broadly. Get out of the business books once in awhile to see how other subjects enhance your point of view.

Take up a new hobby or activity this year. Maybe this is the year you begin your collection. My husband recently renewed his interest in amateur radio. (Unfortunately, he tells me we don’t have enough antennas - BIG antennas!) I have started to write a cooking website. If something has always intrigued you and piqued your interest, resolve to take the first steps in participating this year. You’ll add a new dimension to your world.

Take yourself a little less seriously. As we strive for business success, we can get bogged down in serious deliberation, advising and problem solving. Take time to laugh. Take time to smell cookies and bread baking. Smile when you hear stories about what all of your crazy employees are doing; you don’t need to be the “mom” or “dad” all the time. Enjoy them for all their little quirks and differences. (Okay, I lied. For those of you who counted, there are actually eleven resolutions here, and I can’t bear to give up any of the earlier ones! Is this an example of "get a life?")

With warm regards, and great best wishes for your success, I wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous, outstanding new year as you adopt these New Year's resolutions and more of your own.
Susan M. Heathfield.

Easy Residual Income

2 Simple 'Big Ideas' For Earning Residual Income

The term easy residual income is actually a misnomer of sorts. Fact is, to have a residual income, you first need a regular income that supersedes your regular expenses. Only then can you save, invest or put in that 'extra' into an investment or business that creates the passive, recurring income that you're looking for.

Here are 2 simple 'Big Ideas' to start you up in that direction:

BIG IDEA #1

If you have a salary income, keep some money aside from each paycheck and put it into an equity mutual fund. Over time, this will start generating compounded returns, which will become your additional source of income.


People say you get better returns from stock markets, which is true. But then, unless you know what you're doing, you're safer with a mutual fund as it's a common pool of investor money and not just your own.


Investing in a mutual fund is a much better 'hands-off' way to make money than taking on the risk of speculative trades on the stock markets.

BIG IDEA #2

Set aside weekends to learn a skill or hobby and develop it over a few weeks into a small scale vocation.


Look at your local or regional market. Identify a niche that isn't being serviced and analyze your USP as a part of it. Everyone has unexplored skills that, with a little effort, can easily be turned into a part-time home-based business.


The key here is to have a side business that you can make money off of, and easily turn into an auto-pilot business. That's the success secret of a lot of businesses worldwide -- A self-running business that puts cash in your pocket and money in your bank account, each and every month without fail.

There's a world of money solutions beyond the ones you've known or believe works. All it takes is spotting the right opportunity and grabbing a few slices of it for yourself. It's that simple to start earning an easy residual income... And if you really take action on your dreams and work on it with focused dedication, it will be an income for life.

Educational Evaluation Quality - Good Results

An adequate educational evaluation enhances instruction. Just as evaluation impacts student learning and motivation, it also influences the nature of instruction in the classroom. There has been considerable recent literature that has promoted evaluation as something that is integrated with instruction. To her, when evaluation is integrated with instruction it informs teachers about what activities and assignments will be most useful, what level of teaching is most appropriate, and how summative evaluations provide diagnostic information. For instance, during instruction activities informal, formative evaluation helps teachers know when to move on, when to ask more questions, when to give more examples, and what responses to student questions are most appropriate. Standardized test scores, when used appropriately, help teachers understand student strengths and weaknesses to target further instruction.

Good assessment is valid and considers validity as a concept that needs to be fully understood. Like reliability, there are technical terms and issues associated with validity that are essential in helping teachers and administrators make reasonable and appropriate inferences from evaluation results (e.g., types of validity evidence, validity generalization, construct underrepresentation, construct-irrelevant variance, and discriminant and convergent evidence). Both intended and unintended consequences of evaluation need to be examined with appropriate evidence that supports particular arguments or points of view. Of equal importance is getting teachers and administrators to understand their role in gathering and interpreting validity evidence.

Good evaluation is fair and ethical and there are four views of fairness: as absence of bias (e.g., offensiveness and unfair penalization), as equitable treatment, as equality in outcomes, and as opportunity to learn. It includes entire chapters on the rights and responsibilities of test takers, testing individuals of diverse linguistic backgrounds, and testing individuals with disabilities or special needs.

According to his text, there are also three additional areas characterized as also important:

- Student knowledge of learning targets and the nature of the evaluations prior to instruction (e.g., knowing what will be tested, how it will be graded, scoring criteria, anchors, exemplars, and examples of performance).
- Student prerequisite knowledge and skills, including test-taking skills.
- Avoiding stereotypes.

Evaluation that is fair, leading to valid inferences with a minimum of error, is a series of measures that show student understanding through multiple methods. A complete picture of what students understand and can do is put together in pieces comprised by different approaches to evaluation. While testing experts and testing companies stress that important decisions should not be made on the basis of a single test score, some educators at the local level, and some (many?) politicians at the state at the national level, seem determined to violate this principle. There is a need to understand the entire range of evaluation techniques and methods, with the realization that each has limitations.

Good evaluation is efficient and feasible. Teachers and school administrators have limited time and resources. Consideration must be given to the efficiency of different approaches to evaluation, balancing needs to implement methods required to provide a full understanding with the time needed to develop and implement the methods, and score results. Teacher skills and knowledge are important to consider, as well as the level of support and resources.

We may consider a lot the importance in the fact of good evaluation appropriately incorporates technology. As technology advances and teachers become more proficient in the use of technology, there will be increased opportunities for teachers and administrators to use computer-based techniques (e.g., item banks, electronic grading, computer-adapted testing, computer-based simulations), Internet resources, and more complex, detailed ways of reporting results. There is to him, however, a danger that technology will contribute to the mindless use of new resources, such as using items on-line developed by some companies without adequate evidence of reliability, validity, and fairness, and crunching numbers with software programs without sufficient thought about weighting, error, and averaging.

To summarize, what is most essential about evaluation is understanding how general, fundamental evaluation principles and ideas can be used to enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness. This will be achieved as teachers and administrators learn about conceptual and technical evaluation concepts, methods, and procedures, for both large-scale and classroom evaluations, and apply these fundamentals to instruction.
Luiz Gustavo Arruda

Top 10 Certification Exam Tips

Getting Certification is a cherished vision for every person, who desires to be recognized as a certified professional in the IT industry. Industry experts advocate going for more and more certifications these days. More the number of certifications you have, the more value you add to your organization!

Certification, undoubtedly, is one of the coveted affixes and a fundamental official recognition in the portfolio of a IT professional. It is believed that qualifying any certification exam acts as a great morale booster. This article highlights the tips to keep in mind while preparing and attempting any Certification exam.

Test Tips

1. Read Lot of Books on Certification:

Inculcate the habit to read a lot on certifications. Usually human brain tends to have extended recall of what has been read a few times.

2. Make Notes:

Ensure that you take notes of what you learn either while attending classroom sessions or reading study material.

3. Latest Industry Information:

Stay up to date with the technologies and latest happenings in the industry.

4. Don’t Act in Haste:

Don’t scuttle while attempting the test. Always read the question carefully before you look out for choices in hand.

5. Devote an ample amount of time:

Devote some time to ponder and think of the possibly correct answer before selecting one from the given choices.

6. Be Cautious!

Ensure that you interpret all the options correctly before selecting from available choices.

7. Follow Your Instincts:

If you get confused and can’t think of the answer with self-reliance, follow your instincts.

8. Use Common Sense:

Use your common sense while answering the questions. It will be the best deal.

9. Take Your Own Time:

Make the most of the time period for answering the test questions. Don’t’ haste.

10. Stay Informed:

Ensure that you refer to the most up-to-date and modernized versions of study materials for certification exam preparation.

Just remember these tips and you will triumph the computer Certification with distinction!

Best of Luck! Look out for more tips and tricks on website.
Vivek Sharma

Compassion

I never considered myself a particularly spiritual, or for that matter, a religious person. But I've found that in writing The Osgoode Trilogy, particularly the third, A Trial of One, that compassion has become very strong theme which runs through all three novels.

I just found this quote from Thomas Aquinas — "I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it." Surely, this must be the difference between the understanding of the head and the heart.

In the first novel in the trilogy, Conduct in Question, we have a man dubbed by the media as the "The Florist" who is a serial killer — so named because he tries to capture the easy flow of the line of the master painter, Matisse, in his carvings on his victims. He is a sadistic killer with an artistic bent.

You may feel [as I do] that the world has plenty of novels with serial killers and so, rather than detailing his rampages, I wanted to add some provocatively human touches to the character of the "Florist." More than anything else, he wants to experience the emotion of compassion.

When he speaks to his mother, who is long since dead, he says in frustration — "I know what the word compassion mean, mother, but what does it feel like?"

As the story nears its conclusion, the "Florist" gets his wish —a fleeting sense of compassion. About to murder his next victim, John, who is a truly simple soul — the church caretaker — the "Florist" is overcome with a compassionate sense and decides to spare him.

When the Florist silently stepped into the room, a strange sensation passed over him. Was this what Mother spoke of? As if disoriented, he stopped and shook his head. Was this compassion?

"It’s you!" said John, his smile radiating a sweetness the Florist had never seen before. He saw the muscles of the huge man flex; John's damp white shirt was matted to his skin. He saw the thinning but baby-fine hair, neatly combed in place. Suddenly he saw the simple man as more than an obstacle in his path. He thought that life could not have been easy for such an imbecile. He should be spared. Mother would be proud of his act of compassion.

In Final Paradox, our hero, Harry Jenkins learns that compassion means stepping into another's shoes and understanding what it feels like. Easy to say — hard to do! When Harry was eight, his father withdrew from almost all contact with his family after the death of Anna, his daughter —Harry's sister. Now, years later, while his father is in surgery for a brain aneurysm, Harry waits in the Quiet Room trying to understand how his father could have abandoned him as a child.

At the very moment of his asking, Harry gets his answer as he witnesses the following played out before him.

Harry caught his breath. An unearthly wailing came from the hallway. The door to the Quiet Room flew open. A tall, bony woman, wearing a mauve dress and yellow shawl, clung desperately to the arms of two men. One was old and hunched and the other muscular and attentive.

The florescent lighting illuminated the woman's face raw with agony.

"No! No!" As if possessed, she shook violently and her voice slid up octaves. "By the blood of Christ, no!" Clasping her hands to her ears, she began to moan, her eyes ricocheting about the room.

She screamed at the ceiling. "Why have you cursed me? He cannot be taken so soon."

Harry pressed his hands against his face. With all his heart, he wanted to pray. He had just witnessed the unholy wrenching of the spirit at the loss of a child, caused by blind hatred. As he touched the tears on his face, he began to understand. "God forgive me," he whispered. "I have known nothing! My father died along with Anna. I did nothing to help."

And that's exactly where Harry begins to understand his father and compassion — by actually experiencing his pain and loss. True, you may study compassion and quote clever sayings about it, but if you never feel another's pain and suffering in your heart and your gut, as if it were your very own, you do not know what it is.

Do you think some people are naturally more compassionate?

In A Trial of One, Harry's beloved, Natasha has her own struggles with compassion. She is forced to choose between two people she loves — Harry and her friend Sheila. Natasha recollects a conversation, years back, between her mother, Renee, and her Aunt Mila. The boss has demanded that Renee sleep with him so she can advance in the business.

"Oh, Renee! You poor kid!"

After a long silence, her mother said softly, "Once we'd done it, his eyes looked so sad and ashamed, like being him just wore him down."

Mila was aghast. "You felt sorry for him?"

"No, not really. But I can see how loneliness can make you crazy." Afterwards, we talked a bit, sitting on the bed in the motel. He was living all alone there because his wife had run off with the kids."

Natasha’s compassionate nature makes choosing between Harry and Sheila so difficult for her. Hurt and angry, Sheila has betrayed Natasha who now considers her next step as she wanders the beach.

Natasha turned and walked slowly past the riot of weeds and up to the cottage. Soon she would drive back to the city. She knew Harry was her passion, the one who had awakened her to herself. But she still heard Sheila's cry — one of all humanity — because it hurts! Sheila's pain, from fear of loss, was a pain shared by the whole world. She did not reach it by reason, but she knew there was only one thing she could do — act with love, care, and compassion.

Talking about love and compassion… having to decide between two people who love her, [Harry and Sheila] Natasha must find that balance between passion and compassion. Easy to say: hard to do!
Mary E. Martin

Making Your Business Click

The lifeline of most businesses rely heavily on the amount of marketing support can be supplied. There is no doubt that marketing collateral in the form of establishing identity and brand existence are key factors in helping make businesses known. These marketing collaterals can be likened to arming the key personnel in a business such as business cards, flyers, brochures and multimedia material to be able to provide the necessary information and image that a company wants to project.

Marketing collateral does not have to be high cost in nature. Resourcefulness and innovation of the company through its current roster of personnel can help ignite and produce the necessary collaterals a business can lean on. Understandably, cost and expenses are two of the things that business owners are not too keen on hearing. But the supplement of expected outcomes from the investment of marketing collaterals through advertising and promotions will provide a better overview of what to results to expect from such programmed marketing efforts by assigned people of the company.

The hardest part of establishing a business is to spread the word that such a company and its products or services are indeed available. The success of a business lies heavily in providing the necessary information of the existence of such, the purpose of which is to try and penetrate a market properly.

To start things off, the need for proper product or service orientation should be established. Consumers will not immediately rely on mere image and word of mouth. This is the job that is tasked for most marketing executives, to build on the product and make the consumers understand the benefits and fruits that the product brings. This is best done through the use of supporting promotional materials in the form of flyers, posters, and TV commercials if costs are permitted. Making such mediums available to consumers in the easiest way possible for them to get acquainted with the product being pushed is the best way to kick off a product’s existence in the market.

After a successful product orientation towards the target market that a company has focused on, the next thing to handle is the places where the product will be available. Supermarkets, department stores, convenience stores, and specialty shops, the mode of availability will be the critical aspect since this will largely depend if the product is readily available. For sure, people will not go out of their way to exert much effort in finding where the product may be. Thus it is the task of the business personnel to make sure that all possible distribution channels are covered, with the target market class under consideration as well. While flyers and posters may be spread all throughout affiliated stores and outlets, it is still the best practice to make sure that the product itself is available in target modes of distribution.

The set price for most consumer goods and commodities today play an important role in enticing consumer demand. While this is more psychological in nature, it cannot be discounted that business executives must determine an acceptable price to jack up their sales and consumer patronization. Pricing has its share of conflicts. Low prices may carry with it low quality product tags, while higher priced goods may push customers to look for alternative products. This is why it is essential that research and development teams must prepare a good comparison of product availability before finally deciding on a set price. The price should also consider the usual costs such as the administrative and operations cost, mark-ups and other related costs for manufacturing the product. The marketing collaterals will also fall under the administrative and operations cost, usually under the advertising and promotions part.

Defining the target market area as well as the consumer class will help determine the degree of saturation in the market a business should aim for. Identifying where the target market class resides or stays in is a good way to help in trimming down the area needed for saturation. Focusing the marketing collaterals in the area where the identified consumer class is situated is a good way to establish identity in the area. This should be a good way to start in effectively covering key areas for segregation prior to aiming for a larger market share.

The attention, complaints and distribution of the product or service still lied in the hands of the people hired to do the life blood of the company. Similar to a soldier going off to war, providing the sales force with business cards, marketing portfolios and other marketing paraphernalia is the best way to make an impact. Other than motivating the sales people to bring in the sales, making sure that they have the necessary materials to show are mirror-like images of the company. They represent the company and whatever they project speaks entirely for the business venture.

11 Steps To Creating The Perfect Business Plan

What should a business plan cover?

That’s the million dollar question.

For one thing, it should offer a thorough analysis of the need for the particular product or service you are planning to offer. It also needs to talk about how you are qualified to be making such an offering to the public.

A business plan should address your strategies in terms of production and marketing, how you will be organized, any legal aspects that you must address, and what your accounting methods will be. In short, a business plan should address the following questions:

* What do I want and what am I capable of doing?
* What are the most workable ways of achieving my goals?
* What can I expect from the future?

Keep in mind that there is not one specific format that you should use, or one best way to lay out your business plan. However, there are some steps you can take to make the process go a little more smoothly; we’ve listed what we think is the easiest method, below.

Step 1: Making the Commitment – be sure that you desire to work for yourself is truly greater than you desire to work for someone else.

Step 2: Analyze yourself – list your strengths and weaknesses. Determine how you can build off your strengths, and improve on your weaknesses. Remember, this can be a daunting task because you may have to own up to a few shortcomings you’re not prepared to recognize!

Step 3: Choose a Product or Service – this sounds silly, but just because you think you know what business you want to be in, it doesn’t mean your idea will be a profitable one. Take a look at the feasibility of your idea.

Step 4: Research Your Market – marketing research is crucial to the success of any business, large or small. The more you know about your potential market, the greater your chances of securing the customers you want, right out of the gate, and that means making a profit.

Step 5: Forecast Your Sales Revenue – after you take a look at the market your product is best suited for, estimate the percentage of that market that you think you will reasonably be able to take over. Take in to account the number of your competitors, their size, and the amount of market they already have. It is important to be realistic during this exercise.

Step 6: Choose a Location – is your new business going to be on the web? Or will you have a retail storefront? Will you consult out of your home office? Be careful to weight both your personal preferences and what makes the most sense for the ultimate success of your business. You might like the idea of working in your pajamas every day, but if your shingle needs to be seen by the public for maximum growth potential, a home office might not be your best option.

Step 7: Develop a Marketing Plan – here you will be forced to detail you plan to gain customers, and turn a profit. Discuss possible marketing channels, price points, advertising, and sales promotion.

Step 8: Develop an Organizational Plan – what skills and talents do your new business need to not only survive, but to grow as well? If you don’t have all these traits, how are you going to get them in the door? Will you hire freelancers? Are you hoping to bring on an employee right away? If these individuals, and their skill sets, are vital to your success, do not make a plan without them!

Step 9: Decide on Your Status – sole proprietor? Partnership? You need to decide how you’re going to approach this, and investigate the legal ramifications of each situation. As a sole proprietor, you’re in control, but you’re also solely responsible. In a partnership, you share the responsibility, but you also share the decision making and the profits. What works best for your budget AND your personality?

Step 10: Address Your Accounting – if you don’t know how much money is coming in and out of your business, you will never know if you are making a profit, or if you need to make changes. Keeping track of your numbers is one of the single most important things you can do for your business. Decide on whether you will do it in house, or outsource it to a professional; if you take care of it yourself, decide on what software you will use.

Step 11: Put it All into Numbers – this may or may not be necessary for you; it depends on what type of business you are starting. When you approach a financial institution for a small business loan, they will respond better if they see all of your plans in numbers; they are, after all, in the business of numbers. So, go back through all the above steps, and assign dollar amounts to what you can; when you approach the bank, you can tell them exactly how much you need, and show them where their money will be going. You can then show them, with a number, how much of the market you are planning to corner, and your growth, by percentage, over the next X years.

That’s it – wasn’t so hard after all, was it?

How To Find Free Internet Marketing

New ecommerce businesses are caught up in SEO and web optimization. They view Google as the holy grail of making profits via the internet. Their internet marketing budget is sank into buying traffic, optimizing pages, and establishing major PayPerClick programs with the major search engines. All the work, and expense, involved in following the pack, is virtually unnecessary in today’s ecommerce world.

Marketing the Website

Submitting to search engines is only the first step toward a strong Internet Marketing campaign – it should never be the full focus. There are several ways to market a website.

- search engine optimization
- Pay Per Click
- Search Engine Submission
- Generating Inbound Links and increasing Page Rank
- Building Content
- Adding Social Networking Tools such as forums

Each one of these tools have a benefit. Recently a blog community went from PR0 – PR4, and receiving 300 000 hits a month with a budget of $50 a month. The blog community invested $20 a month in a PayPerClick program to ‘boost’ their exposure on Google and be accepted and ‘ranked’ faster.

www.communati.com submitted the website to more than 3000 search engines, free, using www.webceo.com. Despite the ‘old’ search engine hype, this should only be done once or twice a year. They embarked on an article writing, forum promoting, and encouraging members to ‘put the word out.’ The inbound link campaign increased their Page Rank to PR4 within 5 months, an incredible feat.

Next, communati added social networking features like points and a chat. The important ‘trick’ to remember is that search engines give more rank to pages inside the website, not the index or home page. Building links to the home page is becoming a waste of time. Five articles with specific topics that contain high keywords, links to the rest of the ecommerce website, and ‘hooks’, will generate more PR than links to a buy now page, the index page, or a page with heavy images and graphics.

Marketing the Blog

All websites should include a blog. Not because a blog is necessary, or because people read them. The number one reason for putting up a blog is to increase keyword density, but keep in below the 5% ‘red flag’ level. It also generates dozens of extra content pages, increases the number of ‘in house’ links which are also important to increasing page rank.

A blog can also be submitted to blog directories. The best way to submit is using a service. When an Internet Marketing manager submits a blog to a directory, they must include a backward link. When they use a service they can submit to about 1000 directories without back links. The price ranges from $200 - $500.

One advantage of a blog is that it is submitted to the blog directories every time someone writes a new post. Web sites that are submitted more than 4 or 5 times a year may find themselves banned. However, a blog can ping the search engine several times a day without risk of being banned.

In turn, the blog search engines ‘ping’ the big search engines who give the ‘new’ content high page rank for the first few hours.

Marketing The Podcast

No podcast on your ecommerce website? Why? Submitting it to the podcast directories is another way to generate free exposure. The podcast only needs a few streaming or downloaded files to qualify. Podcasts can also be listed on dozens and dozens of free services, each building links to the main site, as well as increasing the exposure to the website. AmigoFish.com, Digg Podcasts , Podcast Pickle.

The most popular podcatcher software is iTunes, which is available as a free download from apple.

Promote Video

Does your product Appeal to younger people? Then load video at facebook, youtube, etc and then submit those videos. Don’t make a dry workshop or seminar style tutorial, but make it interesting. It is amazing how many younger people click in keywords, and then use the ‘search video only’ link to view relevant videos instead of reading articles.

The list continues. Submit your newsletter, forums, and chat directories. A single article can be submitted to more than 50 000 article submission ‘free content’ sites. No cost involved, except time, and the exposure will create a ripple effect sending your message farther across the web than a $100 000 SEO, traffic buying, and search engine submission campaign.

Six Steps to Focusing on Your Dreams

Have you ever heard or read that in order to achieve your dreams you have to focus on them? It certainly sounds easy enough. But if that is the case, then why do people have such a hard time doing it? Maybe it is because people do not really understand the full meaning of the word focus. Let us take a look at the definition.

Focus: To bring to into focus or make clear� focusing a camera.

To concentrate - to focus one's thoughts.

Obviously there are two parts to focusing. First you must clarify, and then you must concentrate. But how do you do this? Let me give you a couple of steps for each.

Step 1. Clarification Know your dream

You must know specifically what you want the end result to be. Do not worry about how you are going to get there. Just simply get a clear picture in your mind of what it is that you want and how it is going to feel once you have achieved your dream. If there is a car that you want, then go test-drive it. If there is a house for sale that you want, then go to an open house. Do whatever you can to make sure you have that clear picture in your head.

Step 2. Clarification Know why you want your dream

Once you have that clear picture in your head for what you want, then you need to look inside yourself and figure out why you want this particular dream. This will help you when times are dark and you need to remember the reason that you are going through what you need to in order to achieve your dream.

Step 3. Concentration See your dream

Every day, take at least five to ten minutes to close your eyes and imagine yourself as you would be having already achieved your dream. Imagine how it would feel and what would be different. Make it as real as possible. Really get to know what it will feel like once you are living your dream. Do not just imagine it, but feel it as well.

Step 4. Concentration Work towards your dream

Do something every day that will help you progress towards your dream. This can be just about anything. If you do not know where to start, then use this time to research your dream. In this day and age there is always a way to get information. If time is an issue for you, then look at how you spend it. Do you watch television? Get a video course that will help your towards your dream. Do you play video games? Use your computer to instead find information on how to achieve your dream. What kind of books are you reading? Instead of fantasies or romance novels, try reading a book about your dream. If you only spent thirty minutes each day working towards your dream, you would be amazed how far you could go.

Step 5. Concentration Be persistent and consistent

You can do every single one of the four steps above, but if you only do them once, it will make no difference. If you do them only occasionally or when you feel like it, you will make little if any progress and most likely become quickly discouraged. You must be consistent with these steps, following them daily, and you must be persistent with these steps, following them until you succeed.

Step 6. Concentration Live your dream

As you work towards your dream, you will almost always find negative people. The most common of these people are well meaning friends and family who care about you and do not want to see you fail. The only thing that they do not realize is that failure is a part of success. You will fall down as you reach for your dreams. Just realize that this is part of the journey and get back up and keep going. When friends or family make their feelings known, thank them for their concerns and let them know that you appreciate it. Then get back to making your dream a reality. The best gift you can give someone is to show by your own example that you really can live your dreams.

Follow these steps and see just how great and wondrous life can be. If you are not sure about things, then do a thirty-day test. If you truly follow these steps for thirty days, then just watch how much closer your dreams truly become. It will not be easy. No new habit is. But let me ask you then, are your dreams worth it?

Good. Then go for it. Reach for that dream!

Optimism vs. Pessimism

Some people see the glass as half empty. Others see it as half full. But is it really as simple as that? Is it possible to be a bit of both? What are the advantages and disadvantages to both? Maybe there is more to both mind-sets.

When you think about it, most people tend to be an optimist sometimes and a pessimist other times. Ironically, a lot of times things turn out how the people tend to feel about them. If a person feels like something will go well or feels optimistic about it, it usually seems to go well. The same is true of the reverse. When someone feels like something will go badly, it tends to do just that.

So why is this?

Henry Ford once said, "If you think you can, or you think you can't, you are right!" Does this mean that what we think about, whether positive or negative, tends to happen? The only answer that I can really give to that is yes, but very basically. We cannot simply think things into existence, no matter how optimistic we are, if that is all we do. And when it comes down to it, that's not really optimism, but delusion.

But then is there any real difference between pessimism and optimism if, when it comes down to it, the results aren't any different? The short answer is yes, with an added but.

Pessimism will tend to lead to bad outcomes, whether it is because you just think things will turn out poorly and thus do not take any action, or because the pessimism will color your actions and choices and as a result you tend to do things that will make the result what you expected, the bad outcome.

Now where the but comes in with optimism is that the mere act of thinking either optimistically or pessimistically will for the most part produce not much difference in outcome, with perhaps a slight edge to the optimist. However, when you add positive, productive action to that optimism, this is when truly amazing things can happen. You can be as optimistic as you want that you will find a way to get the money for that new car or new house, but unless you are including the productive action that helps to push things to that end, you will never get there. The difference between only thinking optimistically and thinking optimistically while acting in a productive manner is kind of like saying to an empty fireplace "Give me warmth and then I will put some wood in you".

I once knew a woman who always said, "I would rather expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised on the rare occasion when good happens than be disappointed all the time". This pessimistic attitude of hers has brought her nothing but misery and strife, and yet she still thinks it has nothing to do with her. She does not realize that her pessimism is coloring her entire life and making the bad things she expects to happen actually happen. My response to her was always, "I would much prefer to expect the best and enjoy what life gives me than to constantly worry about how bad things are." For a long time, we had the same results. Then I realized that I needed to do my part and put positive, productive action behind my thoughts. And while I am not where I want to be yet, I have moved much closer to it and have been much happier along the way.

So I would say to you: be optimistic! Expect the best out of life! Expecting the best out of life is better than being miserably pessimistic. Above all though my optimistic friend, don't forget to do your part to not just think but also act optimistically.

The Three Pillars of Self Confidence

The search for true self confidence leads all of us in different directions. We all desire the magic pill that will instantly bring us the qualities and personality of someone with true self confidence. Confidence is not something that can be acquired simply by reading multiple self help books. It can not be acquired by taking action one day and then deciding it did not work. It certainly will not be acquired by sitting around imagining yourself with it. True self confidence will only become a fabric of you through repeated education, experience and faith.

The first pillar of self confidence is education. My first instinct to acquiring self confidence was to read books and listen to CDs about it. The next level of education started when I persistently asked those who already had it how they achieved it. I found educating myself through books, CDs and other�s personal experiences immediately gave me the foundation. The most important step in the education process was to only apply my learning to one area of my life. For example, I wanted self confidence in my profession which was sales and marketing. I read books on finding prospects and closing deals. I also asked the most successful marketing and sales professionals how they handled certain situations. Be specific when you start the learning process. We all want self confidence in all areas of our life whether it is relationships, career or physical appearance. Amazingly, once you start to educate yourself in a specific context, you will see that you can apply it to all areas of your life.

The second pillar of self confidence is experience. A more direct way to state this is take action. We have all been guilty of educating ourselves and suddenly realizing we have made a great discovery. The problem that most of us have is once we acquire the information we fail to take action on it. I will be the first to admit this. Do the action that will bring you confidence. If you are in sales and you have a problem closing deals with your prospects, ask for the sale. If you want to ask out some one on a date, simply ask for the date. Remember, the result is not what is important. In the short term, it does not matter if the person says yes or no. If you do get a yes, your self confidence will immediately get a boost. If you get a no, you will gain valuable experience that will help you the next time you ask. Failure is the most important element of experience. Read this sentence again. Those with the greatest self confidence still fail more often in their life than succeed. Accept failure as a stepping stone to unwavering self confidence. The reason is once true self confidence is attained; the mind no longer looks at results as failure but rather opportunity.

The third pillar is faith. Faith is that power that can not be measured like education and experience. Faith is an ingredient, when accepted, that will take you to higher levels not even imagined. I am not talking about blind, unprepared, careless faith. I am talking about educated, prepared and confident faith. True faith will be accomplished when you take action against your fears. You will know when you have real faith because you will thirst the knowledge, experiences and situations you once dreaded. You will no longer fear rejection, embarrassment or failure. Your faith will drive you through these fear thoughts. They will no longer be looked at as barriers but rather simple challenges that will only make you better in the long term.

Remember that all three pillars of self confidence have to be practiced and executed consistently. Faith breeds action. If you don�t believe, you will not take action. Education without experience is useless. If you do not take action, you will not learn. Work on all three pillars simultaneously in your daily life now and take the first step to true self confidence.