Posts Tagged ‘sales’
How To Create and Market Your own E-Book
The Internet presents an amazing opportunity foranyone who knows how to research and write.
There’s masses of free information on the Web – allyou have to do is gather it together and package it,and you have an E-Book that people will pay for.
“But if there’s so much free information on the Web,why would anyone pay for my E-Book?”, you may bewondering.
The answer? Convenience!
They’d rather buy your E-Book and save themselves thehours, days and weeks that you spent researching itand putting it all together.
——————————STEP 1: Writing Your E-Book——————————
Pick a Topic. It could be ‘How to accept Credit Cardson the Web without having a Merchant Account’. Or itcould be ‘25 Free Resources For Getting More Traffic’,or it could be about Cooking, Gardening, Dog Breeding,etc.
Write down the Title of your E-Book in the center of ablank page and circle it. If you can’t think of atitle yet, just write down the subject that yourE-Book will be about (e.g. Dog Breeding).
Then jot down 8 or 10 Basic Ordering Ideas (BOIs) in aradius around your E-Book title or concept.
If you’re having trouble coming up with BOIs, hold inyour mind the title or concept of your E-Book and thenask yourself these questions: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, HOWand WHEN.
Now connect the Basic Ordering Ideas to the E-Booktitle with outward-pointing arrows, like the spokes ofa wheel.
Under each BOI, draw a vertical line and against thatline, jot down the sub-ideas that belong under thatBasic Ordering Idea.
Now turn your Mind Map into an outline. Take the BasicOrdering Ideas from your Mind Map and order them, 1 to10 (or 1 to 8, 1 to 12 etc); These are your Chapterheadings. Now take the sub-ideas and write them downunder each BOI; these are your Chapter sections.
I recommend you write the text of your E-Book as asingle Microsoft Word document. This allows you to geta feel for the overall structure of your E-Book, andit also makes spell-checking much easier.
——————————STEP 2: Creating Your E-Book——————————
Now divide your Word document into single pages; thesewill become the HTML pages of your E-Book.
There are well over a dozen different E-Book compilerson the market.
Here are two compilers that are free:
- SbookBuilder:http://www.jansfreeware.com/jftools.htm#sbookbuilder
- eBookIt:http://www.cottagemicro.com/ebooks/
However, if you want to make a good impression withyour customers, I highly recommend that you use acommercial E-Book compiler.
Here is a list of commercial E-Book compilers:
- Activ EBook Compiler:http://www.ebookcompiler.com
- Document Publisher:http://www.fuguesoftware.com
- EBook Pro Compiler:http://www.ebookpro.com
- E-Book Publishing Wizard:http://www.successarsenal.com/
- EbookPaper:http://www.ebookpaper.com
- E-Publisher Gold:http://www.ebook-software.com
- ePublish Now:http://www.ebookgraphics.com
- FlipBrowser V. 1.0:http://www.flipbrowser.com
- ExeBook:http://www.exebook.com
- HTML2EXE:http://www.html2exe.com
- HyperMaker HTML 2000:http://www.bersoft.com
- Illuminatus v4.51:http://www.digitalworkshop.co.uk
- Infinite Ink:http://www.infiniteink.com
- NeoBook V. 4.0:http://www.neosoftware.com
- WebCompiler:http://www.webcompiler.com
- WebExe 1.3:http://www.aw-soft.com/webexe.html
- WinEbook:http://superwin.com/
—————————— STEP 3: Formatting Your E-Book——————————
There are many sites that offer ready-made E-Booktemplates, some free, some you would have to pay for.
Here’s a site that offers free E-Book templates.
http://stickitsoftware.freeyellow.com/neobooktemplates/
And here are 2 sites where you can buy ready-madetemplates:
http://www.web-source.net/ebookstarter/ebooktemplates.htmhttp://www.msincome.com/Templates/covers.html
If you decide to create your own format, here aresome basic formatting tips. Your E-Book shouldcontain:
(i) an Index page that serves as the entry point toyour E-Book. It should contain a Welcome message, yourcopyright statement, and a link to the ‘Contents’ pageof your E-Book.
(ii) A ‘Contents’ page. This should be a list ofall the chapters in your E-Book, with Section titlesfor each chapter. The Chapter titles should behyper-linked to the first page in that chapter, andthe Section titles should be hyperlinked to the firstpage in that section.
(iii) A link at the top of each page of your E-Bookthat says ‘Contents’ and which takes the reader backto the ‘Contents’ page.
(iv) The Chapter title at the top of each page, sothat the reader knows which Chapter they are reading.
(v) A set of links at the top of each page thatallow the reader to jump back and forth between thedifferent sections of the Chapter.
(vi) Forward and Backward arrows (hyperlinked) atthe bottom right of each page which take the readerback one page or forward one page.
——————————STEP 4: Selling Your E-Book——————————
There are basically 2 ways of selling your E-Book:either you have a merchant account and accept creditcards yourself, or you use a ‘3rd Party Credit CardProcessor’.
Here are two 3rd Party Credit Card Processors that Irecommend. Neither of these 2 companies chargesmonthly fees.
Each has advantages and disadvantages, which I havesummarized below:
———————(i) Clickbank
http://www.clickbank.com———————
- To sell your E-Book through Clickbank, you will
have to pay a one-time joining fee of $49.95
- Clickbank charges 7.5% per sale plus $1
- With Clickbank you will only be able to offer
payment via Credit Card.
- if you use Clickbank to sell your E-Book(s), you
also have a ready-made affiliate program. Clickbank
will track your affiliate sales and send out checks
every 2 weeks to your affiliates.
- Clickbank will send you an automatic email every
time you (or one of your affiliates) make a sale.
- Minimum amount before a check is issued is $5
———————(ii) Ibill (Internet Billing Company)
http://www.ibill.com/———————
- ibill does not charge a joining fee.
- ibill charges 15% per sale (more for telephone billing).
- ibill allows your customers to pay in a number of
different ways, such as online check, telephone
billing, or credit card. Many people don’t have a
credit card, so offering your customers alternative
ways of paying can significantly increase your volume
of sales.
- ibill doesn’t operate an affiliate program.
- ibill doesn’t send you an email every time you make
a sale.
- Minimum amount before a check is issued is $150
The possibilities with E-Books really are endless -you’re only limited by your own imagination.
And remember: how ever obscure you think your E-Bookconcept is, there will be a market for it. In fact,that’s the essence of ‘niche marketing’: the morenarrow your focus, the more customers you will find.
Wishing you every success!
————————————————————
Michael Southon has been writing for the Internet for over 3
years. He has shown hundreds of webmasters how to use this
simple technique to build a successful online business. Click
here to find out more: http://ezine-writer.com/
————————————————————
7 Steps To A Job-Winning Resume
A new resume can jump-start your career. Your network contacts may ask for a resume and some industries absolutely, positively demand a resume as the price of admission. When you begin thinking of your resume as a power source, the results can be astonishing.
1. Your resume is a sales tool. It is not a place for therapeutic self-disclosure or true confessions. Be honest but present your accomplishments in the most positive way.
2. Leave tricky questions (“Why did you have six jobs in ten years?” “Why are you applying for an entry position after you’ve been running the show?”) for the interview. Practice interview responses with a support group, friend or career coach.
3. If chronology works against you, opt for a sales pitch letter or use your network to get past the screeners. If you can’t avoid a resume, some experts will advise a functional resume. However, once you show up for an interview, expect to be asked for a chronological review.
4. Focus on accomplishments. “Supervised ten people on a project that finished three weeks before deadline and saved megabucks.”
If you’re over fifteen, you do not have “duties.” You have “responsibilities” and “accomplishments.” Anyway, nobody cares about what you were supposed to do. They want to know what you contributed.
5. Exploring multiple jobs? Tailor your resume to each position and each field. Show that you understand your target firm’s problems — and are uniquely equipped to solve them.
6. Do not let anyone write your resume for you. Accept suggestions and feedback but the final product should be in your own words.
7. Use your network to review the final product. Ask at least six people in your field for candid feedback. The final test: How do you feel when you read the resume? When you feel proud of your resume, and you’re eager to share it with everyone you meet, you’re ready to move.
About The Author
Cathy Goodwin, Ph.D., is an author, speaker and career/business consultant, helping midlife professionals take their First step to a Second Career. http://www.cathygoodwin.com.
“Ten secrets of mastering a major life change” mailto:subscribe@cathygoodwin.com
Contact: cathy@cathygoodwin.com 505-534-4294
Chinas New Currency Regime
The base unit for the renminbi is the yuan, which is how the Chinese currency is most commonly referred to. The official ISO abbreviation for the yuan is CNY, but it is also commonly abbreviated in the forex industry as RMB.
The yuan had been pegged at 8.28 to the dollar since 1994. While China has been openly discussing scrapping the dollar peg for several years, many traders weren’t expecting a move until later in the year.
The PBC declared that the new regime would be a managed floating exchange rate based on supply and demand in relation to a basket of currencies comprised of the U.S. dollar, euro, yen and the Korean won. The yuan s central rate against the dollar was then adjusted by just over 2% to 8.11. Keep in mind that the RMB exchange rate is quoted in dollar terms, in other words, the dollar is the base rate of this currency pair. A 2% positive revaluing of the RMB results in a 2% decline in the dollar rate versus the Chinese currency.
According to the PBC, the RMB will now be allowed to fluctuate up to 0.3% on any given trading day with the daily closing price then serving as the midpoint of the next day’s trading range. That could mean as much as a 6% move in either direction in a month. However, the PBC is very unlikely to allow for that kind of movement and has in fact already intervened in the forex market to prevent the yuan from straying too far from 8.11. With over US$700 billion in currency reserves they certainly have the power to enforce their wishes and it’s doubtful that forex speculators will be willing to test the resolve of the PBC in any meaningful way any time soon.
While the floating of the yuan, albeit tightly controlled, is a significant policy shift, the initial revaluing of the RMB is seen as largely symbolic. Chinese president Hu Jintao visits Washington in September and the modest revaluation may have succeeded in heading off a face to face showdown on China’s exchange rate policy. Critics contend that the yuan is undervalued by more than 20%, affording China an unfair trade advantage. U.S. manufacturers have demanded as much as a 40% revaluation. A more significant move than 2% is needed to truly affect the massive trade imbalance between China and the U.S., so there will undoubtedly be calls for further RMB appreciation.
So where might the renminbi be headed longer term? One year non-deliverable forward contracts in Singapore rose to RMB 7.64 before edging higher again, suggesting scope for an additional 6% of RMB gains over the next twelve months. More aggressive projections suggest potential for 7% appreciation by year end and up to 15% gains by the end of 2006. However, traders can be assured that any such projections will only be achieved if the PBC will allow it.
Given the tight constraints of the new renminbi regime it is unlikely that CFS clients will see any RMB trades in their accounts any time soon. First of all it will take several months of operation to allow traders to get a handle on how the new managed float will operate. There’s just very little transparency at this point.
While there may not be any trading opportunities in the RMB any time soon, China’s move has created opportunities elsewhere. Other Asian currencies such as the Japanese yen rebounded on the news, but quickly retraced when it became apparent that the RMB wasn’t really going anywhere. The yen is likely to remain under pressure as the dust settles, although near term losses may be a little more tentative while focus remains on China.
The biggest reaction to the policy shift by China, and likely the most sustainable, was seen in the U.S. treasury market where yields shot higher. The new exchange regime suggests that China is likely to be a less reliable buyer of U.S. treasuries as well as the dollar. Higher treasury yields will net higher mortgage rates which may prick the U.S. housing bubble, dampening home sales and the consumer spending commonly associated with the purchase of a home.
Higher corporate lending rates are likely to negatively impact stock prices and the broader U.S. economy. Ultimately we could see a resumption of the long term downtrend in the dollar. While this assessment may seem bleak in a broad sense, this is exactly why alternative investments, such as the Managed FX products of CFS, are an integral part of a diversified portfolio.
The burning question now becomes: are we better off having forced China’s hand on their currency policy? I don’t think there’s any question that the ideal is a free floating and open exchange rate, where market forces set the price and government intervention is limited. However, the pains associated with the aforementioned scenarios may be greater in the near term than any competitive advantage the U.S. might gain as a result of higher yuan.
Peter Grant has spent the majority of his career involved in the global foreign exchange (FX) market. He is the Vice President of Operations for CFS Capital Management http://www.cfscap.com and may be reached at pgrant@cfscap.com or by calling 303-940-7777.
Read the entire CFS Capital Newsletter ‘The Alternative’, at: http://www.cfscap.com/news.htm
Drop Shipping Increases Profits
You would like to increase your income by selling other peoples` products but you just don`t have the money to stock inventory.
On the other hand, perhaps you have lots of your own product and would like to increase your sales, but you don`t have a lot of money for advertising.
The solution to both problems may lie in drop shipping.
1. Sell Products You Don`t Own
You would like to sell a variety of products but you don`t have very much money. Don`t worry! Your customers will supply you with the necessary capital. You don`t have to stock inventory. You can drop ship orders.
For example, you receive a credit card order for a product retailing for one hundred dollars plus five dollars shipping. You now turn around and fax (or e-mail or phone) your order to your dropship supplier. You pay the fifty dollar wholesale product cost plus five dollars shipping using your own credit card.
Your dropship supplier now ships the order to your customer. With no investment in inventory, your gross profit equals fifty dollars.
2. Sell Products You Do Own
Would you like more sales of your own products? Consider drop shipping your products for other dealers.
As an example, you may have a product that sells for one hundred dollars plus shipping. Every time you sell that product yourself, you will have a sale of one hundred dollars. However, how many one hundred dollar sales can you make personally?
Now consider the situation where you offer your dealers a wholesale price of fifty dollars. You could have hundreds or thousands of persons selling for you.
It is true that each product sale now only brings you only fifty dollars in sales. However, these are sales that you wouldn`t otherwise have. What would it cost you to obtain these sales through traditional advertising channels? Would your advertising even bring you the desired results?
Keep in mind that with this drop shipping arrangement, you pay only for results. When a dealer retails your product for one hundred dollars, he is really receiving a fifty dollar profit for selling your product; you could view it as a sales commission. You receive only fifty dollars per product sale but sell way more than without drop shipping. You ship directly to the customer for your dealer.
So, whether you sell other peoples` products or your own, drop shipping can increase your sales, preserve capital, and maximize business profits.
RESOURCE BOX:
J. Stephen Pope, President of Pope Consulting Inc., has been helping clients to earn maximum business profits for over twenty-five years.
For valuable Work at Home Small Business Ideas, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/
For additional information about drop shipping, visit http://www.yenommarketinginc.com/dropship.html
Want to Work for Yourself? Those Dream Jobs Dont Just Happen, Theyre Created
While traveling in northern California last October, I happened to tune into a local newscast. The newscaster was telling his co-anchor that the speaker at that morning’s Rotary Club meeting had to cut his presentation short because he was being flown down to Disneyland to carve elaborate Halloween pumpkins for the park festivities. The newscaster wrapped up the story with the familiar quip, “Nice work if you can get it.” He got the first part right. For a creative kid-at-heart, being a professional pumpkin carver is a dream come true. It was his serendipitous “if you can get it” thinking that missed the mark. The fact is, people rarely “get” great work; they create it!
Despite all the emphasis on growth in the “job sector” I am continually amazed at just how many fascinating alternatives there are to the whole 9-to-5 schtick. And just as traditional job seekers can’t wait around for “Mr. Job” to knock on the door, people who want to do satisfying work ? and call their own shots ? need to be proactive as well. Francis Bacon defined a wise man as one who “makes more opportunities than he finds.” Here’s a couple of other wise entrepreneurs who made it by going for it.
Sports-lover Don Shoenewald was just 18 when he went to the Philadelphia Eagles management wearing a homemade Eagle costume and asking for a mascot job. They weren’t interested. Undaunted, Shoenewald kept showing up at Eagles football games. Pretty soon the fans adopted him as the unofficial (meaning, “unpaid”) mascot. Thirteen paid team mascot jobs, four mascot character creations (including ones for the New Jersey Devils and the San Jose Sharks), and 18 years later, Shoenewald started Mascot Mania, the only professional training school for mascots in the world.
Despite what your high school guidance counselor might have told you, showing up invited in a bird costume isn’t the only route to self-employment. For Dan Zawacki it all began when he was working as a sales rep for Honeywell and decided to give away 120 live lobsters as gifts to his customers. Dan was so bowled over by the response that he decided to open a small side business shipping live lobsters complete with pot, crackers, butter and bibs to crustacean-lovers from coast-to-coast. That is until his boss heard him pitching Lobster Gram, Inc. on a local radio station and promptly fired him.
In the beginning, Dan worked out of his bedroom, storing his lobsters in a used tank in his father’s garage. His first year he netted only $4,000. Ten years later, his company sells about 9,000 lobster packages a year for $99 plus shipping. All and all, not a bad tale.
If you dream of making the transition from employee to self-bosser, the first thing you need to do is belief that you can. Then, the next time you see some entrepreneur doing what they love, try thinking: “Nice work ? now, all I have to do is get it!
“Off the beaten career path” consultant, Valerie Young, abandoned her corporate cubicle to become the Dreamer in Residence at http://www.ChangingCourse.com, offering free resources to help you discover your life mission and live it. Her career change tips have been cited The Wall Street Journal, USA Today Weekend, Redbook, Entrepreneur’s Business Start Ups, and on-line at MSN, CareerBuilder, and iVillage.com. An expert on the Impostor Syndrome, she’s presented her How to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Seems to Think You Are program to thousands of people.
How to Reach Your Next Job Faster with Fewer Potholes, Roadblocks
Complacency damages your career more than lack of qualifications. The most obvious roadblock you’ll encounter on the race to find your next job is usually regrets about skills, education, and professional knowledge. However, be careful that you don’t possess an inner smugness that rests on past successes. Complacency will trick you to believe that employers will find you without any effort on your part to find them. You’ll be anesthetized to job search urgency by this false sense of security. Overconfidence costs you money and opportunities if you decide to sit back with a Jack Daniel’s and idle your time away until the phone rings. It won’t.
Job seeker loses $30,000 and top management role while waiting for “right opportunity. Rich Connell, senior consultant for R. L. Stevens & Associates Inc., a leading international career marketing firm headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, regretted a huge blunder he made during his earlier career adventures. “I lost a high level management position and $30,000 in commissions and bonuses because of job search complacency,” said Connell.
After being suddenly downsized, Connell admits several valuable months vanished while he waited for the “right” opportunity to magically appear. He didn’t take his search seriously. These tactical errors took him out of the marketplace and off the hiring radar at the critical start of his sales career. Employers didn’t know he was available. He missed a great position that was significantly more suitable and provided larger financial reward than the one he settled for because he ran out of leverage. “In retrospect, I should’ve jumped right back into the market and not wasted all that time. If only I had started my search sooner and gave it more attention. Losing $30,000 and a management fast track was an expensive teacher to learn how to conduct a successful job search,” he lamented.
Now wiser and more successful from the experience and lessons learned, Connell from his ninth-floor office overlooking Indianapolis, Indiana strongly encourages job seekers to not postpone a career transition to wait for non-existent “perfect conditions.” Don’t delay your search any longer, for any reason. Get serious and get on with it, he says.
Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains. We often in hindsight, look so long and so regretfully upon the closed doors that we don’t see the one which has opened for us. Use these ten tips to anticipate and plan your next job search move. Your foresight here will convert regrets, disappointments and fears into much needed fuel to strengthen your chances to reach your next career destination faster:
1.Develop a sense of urgency to move fast on opportunities. Measure the value of everything you do against the results you expect.
2.Recognize and exploit cycles and trends in your industry.
3.Update your knowledge continually through coursework, news and blog reading, and active participation in trade association activities.
4.Segment your targeted employers and focus on those who can benefit the most, immediately, from what you are selling.
5.Anticipate how you can differentiate your product (you) from every other similar product (your competition) in the marketplace.
6.Analyze your competition thoroughly through strategic market research; be clear about where you’re strong and they’re weak.
7.Make a list of all the reasons why an employer should hire you. Translate them into personalized solutions, organize them by priority and memorize.
8.Identify the primary objections to why an employer might not hire you and then develop bulletproof answers to those objections.
9.Refuse to let the fear of rejection hold you back. Don’t take rejection personally.
10.Never forget that whatever got you to where you are today is not enough to keep you there.
Hot career advice: Don’t let other job seekers gain tactical advantage because your paralysis of analysis or inertia derailed momentum. Anything less than total commitment to excellence becomes acceptance of mediocrity.
Use career campaign foresight to continually deal with and calculate your future. By doing so you’ll fast forward to your next career pit stop and avoid most job hunting potholes and roadblocks. Remember: It’s not about where you’ve been. It’s about where you’re headed. Be alert. Look ahead.
Marta L. Driesslein is a senior management consultant for R.L. Stevens & Associates Inc. (http://www.interviewing.com), a career marketing firm and organization celebrating over 24 years of providing strategic marketing solutions for its clients’ career transitioning needs. Email inquiries and comments to publicrelations@rlstevens.com.
Set Up Winning Web Page To Be Powerful Selling Tool – 5 Ways to Help Affiliate Problems
The Internet is powerful selling tool. Never before has been easier to start a business, be able to reach out to literally millions of potential customers and make your business succeed.
Yet time has taught us that there is much more to success that simply having a website or using these tools.
A lot of money can be made from affiliate programs and the cost for getting started is generally free, however in order to promote them effectively you will need to be committed to making it work.
Most affiliate program will give us a unique URL , though these methods work ( especially ezine advertising ) they are limited to how long the ad stays visible. We can not generate long term promotion by just submitting ads using that URL.
Also, we are unable to change the company’s website that you promote . In other words , we cannot participate in banner exchange , swap links in some cases we cannot even get in the search engines.
The absolute best way to promote your affiliate program are through:
1. A website of our own. Promoting affiliate programs whether it be mlms or any other affiliate program where you are given a unique URL is limiting without a website of our very own. There are literally thousands of ways to promote if we have our own website. Therefore it is imperative that you decide how serious you are about your business and to what level you wish to take your business.
2. Get a free site and domain name.
Find an inexpensive website that already provides means for HTML coding or we could purchase we own domain name and build it from scratch. Obviously the free site is the less expensive and the domain name is the most expensive.
With our own domain we can totally spread our wings and do this right. The doors that open to us are unlimited and so will the income be.
3. One of the best ways to use the our website in this scenario is to provide a testimonial. The testimonial would be bunches of good stuff we think about company and at the end we would provide a link to company that we promote. So the reader can check it out for themselves.
4. Write your sales letter from an informative approach. In other words, make your sales letter look like it’s article full information . The slowly revolve your sales letter to ward your opportunity , then encouraging them to click through.
5. Provide quality content related to your topic to keep the visitor on your site for as long as possible, which builds trust.
Erny Setyawati is the author/Publisher of Bali Global Market Ezine that give solution for business online strategy and promotion, visit us at http://www.baliglobalmarket.com
Search… Search… Search Your Way To eBay Cash!
One of the most valuable things in life is the ability to learn a skill. One of my dad’s favorite sayings was “You can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, or you can teach a man to fish and he will never go hungry.” This can be applied to searching on eBay.
The main things I search for when I am mining Internet gold is by Product Title or Listing as it is called; but you need to remember that we always want to view Completed Auctions. It doesn’t matter if a computer is listed at $1, and there are 2 days left…that information doesn’t help us. We need cold, hard facts of what that computer sold for, how much it sold for and who bought it; and this is available to you on Completed Auctions. Many times when I search by a product and see that it is a hot seller, I will then check for the top sellers of that product. Then I check the sellers other auctions.
Very Important – Successful eBay Sellers Are Just That For A Reason! They know the tricks and techniques that get those sales. View all the items and incorporate your own ideas to make your sales successful. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Your goal is to Make Fast Cash! Clone what works, and integrate them with your own ideas. Use the following guidelines as an aid in your search:
1. When do the “hot sellers list?
2. What starting prices do they use?
3. What is the wording in their ads?
4. What is the duration of their auctions ( 3, 5 or 7 day auctions)
Eliminate trial and error. Concentrate on successful power sellers. With all of this information at your fingertips you need to realize that you don’t need to be an expert in any product you want to sell. Focus on hot, selling products and the techniques the top eBay sellers use to sell them.
Tim Gilberg is able to provide information and insight from a unique perspective – that of someone who is actually doing what others just talk about. Ebay Power Seller Platinum Status was Attained by Tim Gilberg, which is one of the highest sales levels attained selling on eBay. Tim is active on Ebay and liquidation.com as well as consulting and working with other Top ebay Power Seller’s to give you real life in use insight, not theories.Visit Tim Gilberg at his website Make Money on eBay
