Archive for April, 2008

Networking Tips from the Networker’s Networker

Monday, April 7th, 2008

By Glenn Ebersole One of the best compliments related to networking that I ever received was when a highly respected chief executive introduced me to speak as The Networkers’ Networker. Networking is a very powerful marketing tool and one that can be very positive and valuable if done properly and very costly if done improperly or not at all. In thinking about what tips to share with you, I decided to think back over my own personal experiences and what has worked well for me and myclients. What I have developed is called my MVP (Most Valuable Professional) Networking Tips. Here they are. MVP NETWORKING TIPS 1. Always develop a plan that has a strategy and clear goals. 2. Always carry plenty of business cards with you at all times. 3. Prepare and practice a great 10 second introduction. 4. Prepare and practice a 30 second advertisement as a follow-up to your introduction. Brand yourself! 5. Be yourself and be genuine. And always remember your manners. 6. Ask Who do you know? 7. Listen and hear what people are saying to you. Engage in quality conversations. Take notes on the back of business cards you receive. 8. Always offer something first to help others when networking. Then take something second to help you or your clients. 9. Build relationships and find ways to connect your contacts with your network. 10. Follow up! Keep in touch by calling, emailing, writing, etc. And send handwritten notes and thank yous to really stand out and differentiate yourself from others. Do you believe you could be a more effective networker? Do you believe you could benefit by using the MVP networking tips? Glenn Ebersole, Jr. is a multi-faceted professional, who is recognized as a visionary, guide and facilitator in the fields of business coaching, marketing, public relations, management, strategic planning and engineering. Glenn is the Founder and Chief Executive of two Lancaster, PA based consulting practices: The Renaissance Group, a creative marketing, public relations, strategic planning and business development consulting firm and J. G. Ebersole Associates, an independent professional engineering, marketing, and management consulting firm. He is a Certified Facilitator and serves as a business coach and a strategic planning facilitator and consultant to a diverse list of clients. Glenn is also the author of a monthly newsletter, Glenns Guiding Lines Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach and has published more than 250 articles on business. To find out more about the benefits & rewards of effectively working with a strategic thinking business coach, please contact Glenn Ebersole through his web site at http://www.businesscoach4u.com or jgecoach@aol.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Glenn_Ebersole http://EzineArticles.com/?Networking-Tips-from-the-Networkers-Networker&id=509304 order phentermine phentermine online prescriptions phentermine on line prescription phentermine out prescription

How to Exhibit Your Company

Sunday, April 6th, 2008

By Guy Parker Introduction Exhibitions are one of the best ways to put your company and products in front of your customers and prospects in order to obtain good quality leads. They are also one of the most expensive forms of marketing and can easily over run their budget. This article will highlight some of the key points you should consider when preparing for an exhibition. Set a Target Although it may sound like jargon you should always set a target for your exhibition. If you always attend the same show year after year then look back at what you achieved previously and aim to do better. You may be launching a new product; trying to attract new customers; obtaining new leads or investigating a new market. If you cant think of a goal or your historical information shows a poor return then consider spending the money in a different way. Could you achieve the same return at a lower cost using another form of marketing? Choosing the right show Are you looking for a new market or launching a new product? Answering this question could lead you to choose entirely different events. A new market is most likely to mean a new show either in a different geographic region or in a different market category a food show instead of a chemical show for example. A new product may well be best launched to your existing customer base who attend your main industry event. There are likely to be far more opportunities for you to exhibit than there is budget to pay for them. Speak to the organisers, obtain their attendance records, see which customers visit historically and what jobs they have in their companies. Talk to your customers, competitors and industry contacts and get their views on the show. Is it growing? Is it well attended for the price? You can have the best in show stand prize but if no one is there it will not make you fell any better. Small shows can be very successful but attendance is likely to be limited, huge events may be exciting with lots of visitors but if no one can find you then they can be an expensive waste of time. Planning Start well in advance. It seems obvious but we all wait until the last moment and end up rushing the whole thing. There will be lots to do when the show is starting up so dont wait until the last moment to do the work. Most exhibition organisers will provide a manual with a check list that can be very helpful in reminding you when key actions are required. Here is a list of some other important things to consider. Budget. Make sure you have a clear budget broken down into the various categories such as; stand cost; cost of the floor space; services; equipment; graphics; show promotion and marketing; travel and shipping; hotels and subsistence and so on. This will help you spot any potential over spend and keep the costs from running away from you. Personnel. Make a personnel list well in advance and agree a timetable with those involved so they know when they are required and dont double book themselves. Hotels. Use your personnel plan to book accommodation, waiting until the week before can be expensive or mean you have to travel a long way to reach the exhibition hall. In the extreme some companies will book hotels 3 years in advance for a major trade event! Equipment. Decide what you are going to exhibit and place any production orders with time to spare. Your colleagues will not thank you for leaving them 2 weeks to make an item which normally takes 6, especially when they know you budgeted to do this event 6 months ago. If you are launching a new product make sure everyone is constantly reminded of your time table and knows what they have to have finished and by when. Shipping. Are you shipping the equipment a long way? It may need to leave a month before the exhibition start date. Decide how much you are going to ship and agree when it needs to leave with your transport people. Stand design. If you can afford a professional design company then brief them well in advance. Give them details of your exhibits and their power requirements if any. They will prepare a full design layout. With the CAD packages available now this should include 3D representations of how your stand will look. Show these to your colleagues as they may spot problems you have overlooked. Graphics and brochures. Check your stock and make sure you have all that you need and they are in good condition. Re-ordering close to the start date may be expensive or impossible for your supplier. Your Stand If you are able to choose your stand position, think about where the visitors will be coming in and out of the hall, where the main thoroughfares are and if you are in the right area of the hall or halls. Have an open stand design with at least 2 open sides if possible. Remember you want visitors, so make it easy for them to find you and to approach you when they get there. Leave space for the people! Dont pack out your stand with every product in your portfolio. Have a few key pieces backed up with graphics or computer based information on those that are not there. Graphics are meant to be attractive but also to clearly and quickly inform people walking by what it is that you do. Weve all looked at boards full of text and have walked away before were half way through reading them. Weve also looked at a stand and thought I wonder what it is theyre selling? Make sure your graphics look good and are clear and concise. Lighting your stand correctly can enhance both the graphics and exhibits but remember lights can generate a lot of heat and can make it very uncomfortable if they are too close to the stand personnel and visitors. Exhibits Less is probably more in most stand designs. Dont make things too cluttered, visitors will only be with you for a short space of time so they dont need to see everything your company offers in one visit. Use exhibits to attract people not block them out and not for your sales team to hide behind. If you have equipment that can be shown working, think about the real value that has. If all the moving parts are hidden then all it will do is generate noise and be of little value. If it is visually interesting then having a working display can be a good idea and will attract people to stop and take a look at you. Personnel Choose your team well in advance and make sure you have plenty of staff changes so that people remain fresh and enthusiastic. This does not mean pack out the stand with so many people that no customers can get through but have enough people there to cover lunch breaks and allow staff rotations. Brief your team on the goal for the show, the equipment or exhibits you wish to promote and the manner you wish to present your company. Are you going to be formal or casual? Are you hiring any specific staff for the event such as an interpreter or magician? The people on the stand say just as much about your company as the nuts and bolts of the stand itself. Make sure they know what is expected of them. Publicity Invite people to the show. Add the shows logo to your customer communications for the months running up to the show. Send out free tickets. Update your website. Offer a free gift for visitors to your stand. Do everything you can to maximise the number of visitors you receive. Dont be afraid of your competitors; use the show to differentiate yourself from them. It is not only the responsibility of the organisers to make the show a success but also the exhibitors themselves. During the Show Have a stand timetable to show everyone when they are expected to be on duty and when they are free to look around. Appoint a stand manager for each day. Have them start each day with a short stand meeting to make sure everyone is aware of the exhibits and that any issues are highlighted for the day. Finish each day with a short debriefing and discuss any interesting information that your team has gathered or areas which need attention. Ensure you have an efficient lead gathering system ready before the show and that people use it to properly note the visitors details, their point(s) of interest and their level of interest. Record all visitors, even people you know who are stopping by just to have a chat. This information will help you assess how busy the show was and how relevant the audience. If none of your existing customers are there you may be at the wrong venue unless you deliberately chose a new market. 1000 business cards after the show are useless if you dont know who wanted what so make sure each day that the leads are counted and read through to see everyone is making proper records. Keep the stand (and the personnel) tidy and clear of debris such as coffee cups, brief cases and overcoats. Dont get carried away however as customers can be intimidated by perfect displays of brochures that say dont take one Ive just spent an hour arranging them into this perfect fan motif. Dont ignore people who visit during the last hours of the event, when everyone is tired and looking forward to going home. Those prospects still looking at the very end of the exhibition are there for a reason or they would have already left to avoid the traffic. If they get to you last it may be that they still havent found the right contact and have a real lead for you. Dont be surprised if you get some of the best leads right at the very end of a show. Afterwards Follow up your leads promptly and make sure you track their level of success. Many leads tend to go cold quickly so you should have a priority system in place and make sure your team is in contact before the competition. Everyone will get back to the office and be bogged down by the accumulation of unanswered mail in their inbox so make sure they are still following up on the new leads you have just spent all of that money to win. Even if the leads go cold, keep a record of all those gathered at the show and add them to your database for future marketing communications. Keep the show report for review at the next event. By reviewing who visited last time it may help you decide if that event is worth repeating. The cost divided by the number of leads will also be a comparative measure between this and other forms of marketing. Conclusion A well run exhibition may (or may not) pay for itself in direct orders that you wouldnt have received unless you had attended. However this is not the only measure of success. An exhibition is also an excellent way to meet a high number of customers and prospects, face to face, in a short space of time. Careful planning improves the chances of success, so take the time and put in the effort well in advance because they can be expensive. This cost will only increase the later you leave your preparation. Guy Parker GAP Management Solutions Ltd0161 973 7848info@gapgb.comhttp://www.gapgb.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Guy_Parker http://EzineArticles.com/?How-to-Exhibit-Your-Company&id=177010 where to order phentermine pharmacy that sells phentermine phentermine online us buy phentermine online without prescription

Business Loan - An Effective Tool for Growth

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Tim_Kelly]Tim Kelly Every business requires financing at some point of time to expand and grow. Business loan can be availed easily provided the loan seeker is aware of its various aspects. This helps in a better planning of the loan. Before beginning a hunt for a business loan one should know the exact reason for borrowing. It is a new business you want to set up, you aspire to buy business or planning to expand the established one—reasons are many for asking a business loan. So, first you should decide on your requirements and main aim of taking loan. It would be of great benefit if the borrower keeps his business size in mind as it helps in arriving at a better decision regarding loan. If you own a small business then it would be wise to take loan against your property. Your home or business can serve the purpose of security as collateral. With the lender having the security he can safely offer a larger amount to borrower. Secured business loans are offered anywhere between 5000 to 100000 and are fairly easy. In case of secured business loan, the lender on getting adequate security readily agrees to whatever duration of repayment the borrower is at comfort. Such business loans can be availed for a period of anywhere between 3 to 25 years. On having longer repayment duration at hand, businesspersons, especially of smaller volume, do not feel the burden. Interest rate however depends also on the size of business one holds. Higher business volume will be of a big help in bargaining for lowered interest rate. Credit record of the borrower also contributes towards achieving the desired interest rate. There is an added advantage of secured business loan that it enables business in paying all previous debts, which may be of higher interest rate. Thus, it can reduce the outgo and businessperson is no longer worried about those many loans and repayments and can concentrate on new plans. At times businesspersons face sudden shortage of much needed finance. In order to meet such urgency, short term unsecured business loans are available. However, the lender will charge a high interest rate due to absence of security as collateral. In case loan is required for high investment in some projects then he can opt for long-term repayments. There is another effective way of getting loan if the businessperson is unable to offer a suitable collateral, which becomes a problem. No collateral is needed in unsecured cash advance because it is given on the basis of existing business volume, credit history and repayment potential of the borrower. These unsecured business loans, due to absence of collateral, are given usually at higher interest rate and are mostly for an urgent need. A lot depends on the loan seeker’s credit score with higher score helping in quick processing of the loan. If borrowers credit score is on a higher side, he may extract favorable lower interest rate and larger amount. You can have your credit score evaluated from any credit rating agency. A score of 620 is considered as good enough to assure the lender of the credentials of the borrower. We can say that if availed wisely business loan goes a long way in helping growth of business.Once you put property such as home or business as security before the lender, you are in a position of bargaining for a lower interest rate. Also, the borrower can have greater amount that is needed for expanding business or setting up a new one. Business loans can be availed for immediate requirements if urgency comes. Tim Kelly is an expert in finance having completed his LLM in Finance (Master of Laws in Finance) from Institute for Law and Finance at Frankfurt University.To Find Cheap Business loans,Business start up loans,Business loans uk visit [http://www.businessloans.uk.com]http://www.businessloans.uk.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_Kelly http://EzineArticles.com/?Business-Loan—An-Effective-Tool-for-Growth&id=178611 buy phentermine 30 mg buy phentermine by cod phentermine online no prescription buy phentermine with out a prescription

Ideas for Creating Your Wedding Scrapbook

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

By Susie Cortright A wedding is one of life’s most momentous events, and that means making your wedding scrapbook can be an intimidating prospect. Here are some tips to help you get going: — Figure out the details ahead of time. Making some decisions as to the theme and color scheme of the album will save you time and money. First, you’ll need to decide whether this album will cover your entire wedding celebration - from engagement through honeymoon - or will you focus on just the wedding day itself? If you decide on the latter, you might want to choose a 6×6 or 8×8 album project for the bridal shower, bachelorette party, honeymoon, etc. Next, you’ll want to choose a color scheme. The most popular choice is to work with your wedding colors. Consider setting off these wedding colors (or other colors you choose) by pairing them with a classic black or white cardstock background. I love the look of black-on-white in wedding albums. I also love mulberry flowers, ribbons, vellum and fabric. Deep reds and pinks accents are gorgeous, too, for simple embellishments. Remember that elegance and simplicity tend to go hand in hand. The wedding scrapbooks that stand the test of time are timeless and classic. You’ll also want to look at some simple wedding scrapbook layout samples or sketches of completed albums so you can see what kind of supplies you’ll need. At the very least, you’ll want to know how many pages the finished album will be before you go to the scrapbook store. The more detailed your plan, the less money you’re likely to spend. — Go through your photos and memorabilia For me, scrapbooking is about telling the stories of our lives, so I love to work with the photographs that really tell a story. You’ll want to choose only the best and most interesting photographs for your wedding scrapbook album. (The posed portrait-type photos can be framed and sent to family members.) Store the remainder of the photos in a companion photo album. Remember, simple is elegant.It’s also a good idea to work with duplicates of your priceless wedding photos. You may find that you want to work with these photos again in the future, and you’re certain to feel more of a creative license if you know that the originals and intact and safe. Memorabilia. I tend to go easy on memorabilia…maybe keeping the majority of it in a memento box along with my companion photo album and scrapbook, because I don’t like to detract from the story of the album. Memorabilia you might want to include (either directly on the page or in a special pocket): - Wedding and shower invitations - Fabric from your dress or bridesmaid dress - Receipts - Honeymoon plane tickets - Place cards - Bridal registry - Shower gift lists - Napkins Make a simple checklist of the kinds of things you’d like to include, but trust your inner artist to take the reins and let the story unfold. — Don’t forget the journaling The most powerful journaling comes not from the 5 w’s (who, what, where, when, and why) - but from the 5 senses. Specific details are more memorable and intriguing than generalities and the best way to vividly remember your wedding day is to focus on each of your senses. What do you remember seeing, hearing, thinking, feeling, tasting? How did you feel as you were standing at the altar? How did your wedding cake taste? What was the weather like? What stands out as the visual symbol of your day? Ask the wedding party to contribute their thoughts via journaling, too. Ask for specific memories…”the most memorable part of my day was…” Coach guests and members of your bridal party to use their five senses, too. Another trick that creates more powerful journaling is to start with a blank page and write “I remember” at the top. Now, simply reflect on the day of your wedding and let your hand move across the page. If you get stuck, write “I remember” again and keep writing. Your goal is simply to keep the pen moving across the page, without crossing anything out or stopping to think too much. Aim to complete two to three pages, and you’ll be amazed by the flood of memories this technique release - even if your wedding wasn’t in the recent past. These methods can create very emotion-filled journaling, so consider keeping private journaling tucked away in journaling pockets. — Assembling the Scrapbook Start the album with a dedication page. Tell why you created the album and a few details on why your wedding was such an important day in your life. It’s a good idea, in wedding scrapbooks particularly, to avoid overly trendy design techniques. I’ve talked to more than one scrapbooker who now regrets cutting her priceless wedding photos into silhouettes or cutesy shapes. A wedding scrapbook is timeless, so - again - simple is most likely better. A simple design also tends to better draw attention to the photos and journaling - your personal love story. Your wedding scrapbook will be one of the most albums in your home. Enjoy the process of creating it! Susie Cortright is the founder of Momscape.com where you can find Scrapbook Products Coupons and Susies-Coupons.com, where she hand picks the best online coupons and products, including coupons for photo processing and photo gifts. 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