Downsized & Can’t Find Work - Earn Money While Looking for Your Next Job

Posted on November 30th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , , , , , ,

Have you recently been downsized?

Have you discovered that it is very hard to find a new job in this recessionary economy?

Current Situation

If so, you have lots of company. Since December 2007, the official beginning of this recession, more than 5.7 million jobs disappeared during this recession. According to the Associated Press (AP), after the May 8th release of the April, 2009 unemployment numbers:

  • 13.7 million people were out of work in April, 2009, and that was the largest number since 1948
  • 539,000 jobs were lost in the month of April alone
  • 8.9% unemployment (the highest since September, 1983), but if people who’ve been laid off and just given up or taken part-time work, are included, that number jumps to 15.9% unemployment - the highest since 1994

If you’ve been unemployed for over a month, you may be feeling frustrated, or maybe even a little overwhelmed as you see the pages of the calendar turn, with still no job on the horizon. I’m betting that you’re also worried about some long term issues (e.g., college education, retirement) as well as this immediate crisis.

There are basically three choices in this situation:

  1. Freak out
  2. Continue doing what you’ve always been doing (the same things that haven’t yet found you a new job), or
  3. Try something new

Option 1: Freak Out

The first option, panic, is entirely counter-productive, and should be avoided at all costs. A little fear is a good thing - it can help us focus and energize us for fight or flight. Panic, unlike fear, debilitates us and degrades our ability to respond to the crises we face.

Option 2: Keep Doing What You’ve Been Doing

If doing what you have been doing had been successful for you, you wouldn’t be reading this article right now. If you don’t change what you’re doing, you can only expect to get more of what you already have.

I don’t know about you and your industry, but people in my industry - good people - have been unemployed for more than six months, unable to find a comparable job to the one they left; or even, any job at all. Despite doing all the “right things” (e.g, answering help wanted ads and sending out resumes), what have they got to show for all that effort? Zero.

This economy is tough; my friends aren’t even getting preliminary callbacks about jobs.

Option 3: Try Something New

The third option - do something different - seems to be the only realistic solution. With so many choices on the table, it is very hard to know where to start?

Do something different: start a home business .

  • Never worry about being laid off again.
  • Let this be the last time that you have to forfeit quality time with your family by bringing work home, working weekends, or having to travel way more than you’d like.

You can become your own boss! Start a home based business!

A superb starting place for collecting all the necessary knowledge about internet marketing that you’ll need is to sign up for the Online Success for Beginners classes.

Home-based businesses account for approximately 7 billion annually and provides many tax benefits, more control over your time, your work, and your income. If you apply the Law of Large Numbers to your personal situation, like insurance companies do, you’d minimize the current recessionary risks. Insurers mitigate their risk of loss by spreading that risk across thousands, or even millions, of customers.

Starting an onlne business will help you mitigate the risks of this recession by spreading them across multiple customers, regions and even countries. Thus, you would also be increasing the stability of your new revenue streams and increasing the likelihood of ensuring your family’s financial security.while building a life of your dreams

Coach Your Team to Success

Posted on November 30th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , , , , ,

Many people in affiliate programs seem to think that once the sale is made, their work is done. Remember, as an Affiliate, your success is dependent upon your downline’s success. The initial sale is not the end of your involvement, rather it is the beginning of a longer process of coaching and team-building.

People joining affiliate programs tend to have big goals, but sometimes they fail anyway.

Reasons Why People Fail to Become Successful Affiliates:

There are three main reasons why people fail to adapt to change, especially technological change:

  1. Lack of Skills
  2. Lack of Knowledge
  3. Fear

Adopt the “Coach” Role & Mindset:

If you adopt the mindset of a “Coach,” you can dramatically improve your Downline’s performance along all three lines.

When someone joins an affiliate program there is generally a fairly big learning curve to overcome - new product(s) such as the just-released MaxPro System, new technology, and virtual relationships, all of which are especially problematic if your new recruit is a novice in the world of internet marketing (or marketing in general). Internet marketing, like any industry, has its own set of jargon, and the affiliate program will have its own set of tools and techniques to master.

All of this takes time and can be very frustrating to new recruits, if left to their own devices. If you allow your new recruits to become overly frustrated, they are likely to drop out and never become productive team members.

Wouldn’t you be a lot better off to spend a little time with your new Downline members helping them to get off to a good start. Take the initiative to help your recruits learn about your products, technical support and other resources available to them.

You’ll also need to spend time helping them learn how to market in this new Web 2.0 world of internet Blogs and Social Communities, which are new to many people.

Don’t just sit around waiting for your downline to contact you for help, take the initiative and offer them help, especially at the beginning of your relationship with them. Take the initiative to help your new recruits overcome their fear and buyer’s remorse.

If you have a positive attitude and a desire to help your new recruits learn the business, you can coach coupled with proactive behaviors on your part. When you invest in your downline, they’ll repay that investment many times over.

One superb place to start for picking up all the rest of the knowledge about internet marketing that they’ll need is to have them join the Online Success for Beginners classes.

The Vimax Affiliate Program

Posted on November 30th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , , , ,

Vimax Review

I’ve been an online marketer for about four and a half years and through most of this time there’s been one program that I’ve consistantly made the most money with: The Vimax Affiliate Program.

What makes this affiliate program really stand out from the crowd The consistant conversions and the big commissions. This helps me to build up big profits while sending not that many unique visitors (and the honest fact is, it’s hard to send a lot of high quality uniques because the male enlargement market is so competitive and due to the adult subject matter.)

Another good thing about this male enhancement affiliate program is that they pay out on time, every time. They’ve never been late with my payment and they pay each and every week so there’s no waiting around for the money you’re making.

They also have a variety of different ways you can get paid your money, I prefer ePassporte because they take out the least amount of fees from the money on it’s way to my bank acount.

There are a lot of penis enlargement affiliate programs online to choose from and I’ve tried promoting most of them during my affiliate marketing career, but I’ve never found any other that makes me money as consistantly as OAInternet/Vimax does.

So how should you promote Vimax? I definitely recommend setting up at least one “Vimax Review” website which gives the positives of the product and then forwards the customer to the official sales site (with your affiliate ID of course!) You will want to set up multiple sites to give yourself the best shot at ranking in the search engines.

The next step is to to use every of the methods you can think of to get traffic to that page, whether it be article submissions, bookmarking, PPC, YouTube videos (like the one embedded at the top of this post) and web 2.0 (WordPress & Blogger for example.)

If you set up a good looking landing page and send targeted traffic to it then you will make lots of money with the Vimax program. It jsut comes down to how many unique visitors you send. The more you send, the more cash you will make. Even just one sale a day equals out to about ,000 a year.

The Best Choice For Affiliate Program

There are numerous ways to make money from the internet, and choosing the right one can be quite difficult. Perhaps affiliate marketing is one of the most popular methods to earning money from the internet. If you want to try out affiliate marketing, you may be wondering which program to choose from among so many on the net.

You don’t need special skills to do affiliate marketing. Even if you not some internet wizz kid, it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to be one. Some HTML codes and a little interest in marketing can already take you further than many people. Now, are you ready to step into the exciting world of online affiliate marketing? Here goes.

Read More About Best Online Affiliate Program Here…

ClickBank

Clickbank.com ranks among the top affiliate websites out there. It is very popular because it has high commission rates per sale, often reaching up to 75%. Clickbank.com, however, only focuses on digital products.

Let’s take a look at how the Clickbank system works. First, you need to create a Clickbank.com account, which is free. Then, with your account, you can access Clickbank Marketplace and select the products that are relevant to the content in your website. After that, you recommend these products by advertising them on your site. Each time your website generates a sale, you earns money through commission.

So all you really need is good sales pitch. By continuing to promote other products, your income will increase. In fact, if you’re really good at this, this can turn into a lucrative business. You must know that Click Bank is all about digital products.

CJ.Com

CJ or Commission Junction is another great online affiliate website. By focusing on physical products, as well as services, there are a lot that you can choose from in Commission Junction. Like Clickbank.com, opening account from this provider is free, but you will need the approval of the merchants before you get to promote their products or services in your website. This website requires merchant approval because what usually sold are high end products. They will want to make sure your web sites are professional and relevant.

Thus, if you’re trying out affiliate marketing for the first time, CJ.com isn’t really the best place to go, start with ClickBank. When you start making waves in the affiliate world, or at least when you get yourself a legitimate looking website, you can step into the big waters where CJ.com is. Just keep note that their products are usually physical products as well as services.

LinkShare.com

Linkshare is another huge affiliate marketing website, it has millions of partners including a couple of Fortune 500 companies. Merchants from these sites can get to choose to process their own payments and commissions directly to affiliates. Thus, as an affiliate, this means that you get paid directly by the merchant for any commission you make.

This can be quite risky, but can be avoided by looking at merchant’s paying history as well as doing some research beforehand. Linkshare is the best program to choose if you don’t want to go through the ”middle-man” affiliate network and get bigger share of the commission directly from merchants.

The three companies are great for making money through the net, but they also differ in focus. So which among these affiliate marketing companies is the best? That depends on what you’re looking for, really. Each has their own strengths and drawbacks.

Read More About Best Online Affiliate Program And More!

Sign Up for my FREE Mini Course and discover The Best Affiliate Make Money Program Here!

Surety Bonds - The Basics

Posted on November 30th, 2009 in Business by iptools  Tagged

If you have a business, you definitely need to protect its interests. A surety bond is a way of doing this so choosing the correct surety bond company can be of great help. With the many different performance bond businesses to get coverage from, you might be confused with who you should work with. But, if you exercise sound judgment then you can find a bond business for the business’s needs.

The construction business is where you’ll ordinarily see performance bonds, as well as fidelity bond insurance, being utilized. It is essentially a contract made by the housing contractor, the client, and the surety company. The surety bond ensures that the contract is completed while at the same time protects the customer should the housing contractor not finish the job.

Performance bonding is taken as a part of the business owner insurance sector. The surety company’s role would be to assure the owner the contractor will complete the work according to the agreement. There may also be additional surety companies which demand a fee to back the housing contractor up.

There is a lot of risk with promising a housing contractor’s skill to complete a project. As a result, surety businesses conduct a vigorous investigation on the various facets of a contractor’s ability to complete a job. Before bonding the contractor, the surety company asks for a few references regarding the contractor’s experience and history and financial means to finish a job.

If you want to use the services of a bond company, remember to request the views of other businessmen as to which surety company to go with. From their opinions, perform an investigation on the business as well as the contractors they have bonded previously. In addition, you should look into the bonding procedure the business uses for selecting contractors.

Even more importantly, you need to be open in regards to your company prerequisites so that the surety bond business will make certain that you properly covered by lining everything up on the housing contractor’s part.

Double Sales Using Your Restaurant POS Systems - Part II

For such a long time, most retail business owners thought of their POS system as a fancy cash register. With technology moving forward at such a quick pace, many innovations have become a standard feature within the Point of Sale industry. Here are a few more:

1. Employee Scheduling. Some restaurant POS packages includes a “staff scheduling” feature. You can expect to increase efficiency and dramatically reduce overall labor costs by controlling clock-ins and clock-outs, utilizing forecasting tools and control staffing levels. This feature allows easy accessing staff schedules, shifts and multiple job positions for each employee. You can also tie in any number of security functions to multiple job position. In addition, some of the packages has a feature that allows you to post schedules to a website and even automatically email the schedule out to your staff. Keep your labor costs in check and increase employee performance by efficiently and effectively managing your time & attendance information.

2. Software Upgrade Assurance or SUA. SUA is a software maintenance program that can give a bit different kind of advantage when purchasing a POS system. It enables you to extend the usable life of your restaurant POS system and help stretch your investment. Customers who are on an SUA plan will always have the latest version of their POS software. This basically keeps their POS system new. Every time you receive a software upgrade it is as though they just bought the latest and most current POS system available in the market with the newest, most up to date features your restaurant can greatly benefit from. The most current feature set ensures that you have the best possible ROI by allowing you to take full advantage of the power the POS software offers.

Another advantage of having a SUA is that no additional software purchase is required if you’re upgrading or replacing a hardware. When hardware needs to be replaced there is a drastically reduced cost to upgrade.

The way these programs typically work is you pay a small fee per year for all these benefits. Ma customers are satisfied receiving the huge benefits of this program that helps your business reap the full return on their POS investment.

3. Proper Tip Handling. Some of the point of sale software products has a builtin tip tracking feature in their time in attendance module. Once you set an employee as a tipped employee, the system will require tip declaration prior to clock out. Servers and waiters who ring sales will have their total sales tracked. Tips collected through credit card sales are also tracked and shown on the server closeout report. Before logging out, the servers or waiters will be shown their total sales, the charge tips collected collected and then asked to declare their cash tips. This functionality will help you enforce tip regulations and manage the tracking declared tips, charge tips and hours worked for every tipped employee.

4. Customer Loyalty Programs! As the business owner you would like your POS system to provide accurate information on your customer’s number of visits, frequency of visits, their buying habits, entice repeat visits and purchases using reward programs like a loyalty card, reward card or points card. You are able to do all this while managing the programs and preventing “sweet hearting” by employees. Prevent retail loss at all cost! Sweet hearting happens when an employee promises a deal to a customer so that he/she can close a sale.

Some of the restaurant POS packages come standard with a frequent diner or customer loyalty package that eases things within your business. By expertly tracking down your guests and their buying habits, you can prevent retail loss. You establish a database of customer’s information with an account number. You may use their phone numbers or whatever number system you desire to use. However, the most popular and secure method is through magnetic cards with your logo on them. These cards act as a constant reminder of your restaurant by having your logo in their wallet or purse. The software will secure the reward programs you set in place to prevent your staff from giving away food. Typically, rewards are given only to customers who frequently visits or purchases on the menu you highlighted. Establishing reward programs takes your staff out of the game and place you in total control.

As you can see, your business can be run more efficiently by using proper restaurant technology. There are many ways, methods you can use, to aid you in better business managing so you will never have to waste more of your valuable time and money.

The author is the Vice President of Customer Relations at POS-for-Restaurants.com — helping businesses use technology to be more efficient and more profitable with its 20 years of restaurant experience.

Business Liability Insurance - Coverage Every Company Has To Have

Posted on November 29th, 2009 in Business by iptools  Tagged

There will be a bunch of varying kinds of coverage a company needs to invest in and commercial liability coverage is amongst the most important. A company gets this kind of business liability insurance quotes coverage for protection against being sued. If you are a business proprietor, you are held responsible if anyone is hurt while on the company premises or while using your company’s products. The injured party may file a lawsuit to cover his or her medical bills and any time lost at work. The coverage also protects the business should a business contract go wrong and the affected party wishes to file a lawsuit for compensation.

Liability coverage can be included as part of an entire insurance bundle which also is inclusive of other property coverage. Most insurance companies allow for a discount on business general liability insurance should you choose to buy more than one type of coverage with their business. The type of insurance which your company will need depends on what type of business you’ve got and which state the business is located in.

For example, a merchandising company will probably require additional liability coverage than a product manufacturing business, which might require small business product liability insurance. This would be because every customer that walks through your door can be the source of possible legal issues. If the only individuals who spend a significant amount of time at the business are the workers, you may not need to hold as much coverage.

Check with the company’s respective region to find out what amount of coverage you are supposed to carry. Some states make filing a lawsuit very easy for the injured party to file and win a lawsuit! If your business be located in any of those regions, you will probably need to hold a larger policy.

It’s crucial the business has business liability insurance. Without it, you are at high a risk of the business folding due to a lawsuit. Speak to the business insurance broker because the broker should be able to help you decide exactly how much coverage the company needs to defend the business should the business be sued.

How to Grow From a Mini-Site Into an Empire

Posted on November 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged , , ,

Whether you a beginning a new online enterprise or adding to your already existing business with an Internet presence, the size and scope of the firts website you choose to build will be among your first decisions. A large site has its advantages, among them that it has the potential of becoming an “authority” site. However, a small site, often called a mini-site has its share of advantages, as well.

Here are a few potential reasons that you might contract for a mini-site, or even build it yourself:

1. I have heard that a mini-site has a good chance of ranking high in the search engine listings even with a small number of external links.

2. It seems logical to start on a small scale and add other mini-sites as I am ready to grow.

3. I won’t have to come up with as much content for a mini-site as I would for a large site.

4. I’ve noticed that most of the other businesses with whom I’ll be competing have small sites, and it seems to work for them.

5. It is easier and cheaper to build a mini-site.

6. My husband or wife forbids me to build a large site!

One could easily put together counter-arguments in favor of a larger site, but that’s not what we’re discussing here, is it?

The rationale of all of those six is valid. Actually, I have no idea what your spouse said or what the implied threat was for disobeying. However some of the other reasons are valid only if you do the necessary research before you begin. Number 3 is true, however, you may find that you will update the content on some of your pages periodically and perhaps even add specific landing pages if you do pay-per-click advertising campaigns. The fourth reason is niche specific, and I don’t know what niche you are in; you’re the expert on your niche, so I’ll take your word for it. If we hold all other variables constant, the fifth reason is a slam-dunk-self-evidently true.

In a different article I have addressed the vital nature of detailed keyword research for a mini-site. If you have followed my advice in that earlier piece (settling on a very few, closely related semantically, long-tail keywords), the first rationale is correct. If any of those terms are unclear, I suggest that you read that article prior to continuing with this one.

That leaves the second reason pertaining to starting on a small scale and adding more mini-sites within the same general niche over a period of time. Here’s how I recommend you go about that:

1. Keep that original list of keywords on your desktop-the list that you hired expert keyword researches to build or that you carefully built yourself.

2. You have already set up your first site for closely related keywords in that list that have long tails. Now look for another set of closely related keywords. Do the same competition analysis for these keywords that you conducted on the first set (as recommended in that previous article). If this set of keywords meet the same standards applied to those you used in the first site, then it’s time to begin mini-site number two.

3. Get links to this site through article marketing, directory listings and other external link building.

4. As soon as that new site is showing signs of improved search engine attention and increased traffic, continue going through the same process until you have as many sites as your keyword list dictates.

Over time you will find that you have conquered all of the viable keywords in your niche. At that point, pause in your empire building efforts, so that you can focus on testing and revising to increase your conversion rates as much as possible. You may decide to take on a new, preferably related, niche, but not until you are sure you have maximized your traffic and conversion rate.

This won’t all happen in the first month; nurturing a solid business takes time. Be patient and act wisely, and you will definitely succeed.

As an Entrepreneur You Need Self Employed Health Coverage

Posted on November 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged

Working for yourself can be absolutely amazing. You are allowed to set your own hours and you get to boss yourself around! You make your own cash and you may take a vacation whenever you want to. However, whenever you are self employed, it’s not all peaches and cream. Many people discover that it is rather hard to find health insurance for small businesses that he or she are eligible to sign up for.

An issue in locating coverage if you are self employed is you aren’t guaranteed a set wage. This will be the main reason that a lot of carriers won’t choose to protect someone that is self employed.

If you’re an entrepreneur and are needing health insurance, you must be mindful it could take some time to find an insurer. You should remember, though, that through a little work you will get medical insurance.

In the beginning of your searching, you can look at the various health care providers that are on the Internet. You can contrast plans and you may take your time when debating which carrier to use. It’s also possible to enroll and pay for the self employed health care plans via the Internet.

You may have a preference to speak directly with a provider over the phone. This means you could spend considerably longer locating self employed health coverage. Many times, you’ll need to provide the exact same information with every insurer that you speak to. Obviously this can be quite exhausting if you’re looking to obtain coverage quickly and easily.

Obtaining self employed health care coverage can be an uphill struggle at times, but it is a benefit which is so important in this day and age. If you do not carry health care coverage, you may get a large charge should you become ill. Spend a some time looking for the appropriate provider and you will be very glad that you did.

Self Employed Medical Coverage - Health Insurance For Entrepreneurs

Posted on November 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized by iptools  Tagged

People who work for their own business very often don’t carry medical insurance. It’s crucial that they are protected. The good news is, they can get a self-employed health plan with no hassle. Not only will they see that it is low-cost, but when they use his or her Internet connection, they’ll find it a quick and easy procedure.

When you own your own company, it will be a terrible situation if you get sick or get injured. Not only does the business suffer the consequences, but your family may suffer the consequences as well. As a sole proprietorship, you may still get insurance for self employed through various kinds of policies.

You can look into discount card type plans, group self employed medical policies, or consider a family policy that covers you as a sole proprietor as well as your family. In addition to the above, you’ll find health care policies are also available for individuals.

Researching the various kinds of insurance available isn’t difficult and one may get rate estimates online in just a short time by filling out some individual information. Not only can you get quotes for health coverage, but also dental, eye care, and ER services.

Make certain you understand which kind of insurance you are searching for. Some will have a discount card so you may go to whomever accepts that type of insurance, and these kinds of plans seem to be extremely reasonable. Others can be of the more typical type of medical coverage and you might need to wait to be covered due to a pre-existing condition.

Certain self employment health insurance policies may immediately cover existing conditions; others will cause you to wait a preset period of time. This is important if you’re switching health care plans, since you might be uncovered for a problem.

There are plenty of different kinds of self-employed medical coverage and it is easily researched and easy to get rate estimates via the Internet. Make sure you understand the different kinds of policies including a discount card medical plans, group health policies, and single insurance plans.

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